Former President Trump gave a virtual address to a conservative Christian advocacy group that supports the abolition of abortion on Monday, telling members that if he is re-elected, the group will “come back like no other.”
Trump delivered a roughly two-minute recorded video message to the Danbury Institute’s Life and Liberty Forum, which features speakers from evangelical preachers and Christian leaders. He did not mention abortion in his address to the group, but vowed to protect “innocent life” if re-elected.
“These are difficult times for our country and your jobs are so important. None of us can sit on the sidelines,” said Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for November’s presidential election. “Now is the time for all of us to come together and stand up for our values and our freedoms. We can’t vote for a Democrat.”
President Biden has frequently spoken about his Catholic faith, while Trump has argued that Democrats are “against religion.”
“We must protect religious freedom, we must protect free speech, we must protect innocent lives, we must protect the heritage and traditions that made America the greatest nation in the history of the world, but as you all know, we are now a nation in decline,” Trump told the group.
“I know you live these values every day, and I hope that over the next four years, we will stand side by side to uphold them,” he continued. “Now it’s your time, because you are going to come back like no other group.”
Trump’s virtual appearance at the Danbury National Museum of Science generated headlines because the institute has taken hard-line stances on certain issues.
groupExplains itselfThe group claims to be “committed to truth and virtue in a world that accepts the absurd as normal and ridicules what was taken for granted a decade ago.” On its website, the group likens abortion to “the sacrifice of a child on the altar of the self” and maintains that marriage is “a special, lifelong union between one man and one woman, and sexual intimacy should find expression only within this marriage relationship.”
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly credited his appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices with ending Roe v. Wade, but he has not taken a position on federal restrictions on abortion, saying states should decide how to handle it through laws or votes.
Trump also argues that Republicans must consider the political impact of their messaging on abortion.
“While we must follow our hearts on this issue, we must also remember that we must win this election in order to restore our culture and, indeed, to support our country, which is currently in very sad decline,” Trump said in a video statement on abortion in April. “Our country needs help. We need unity. We need all of us working closely together.”
Democrats have repeatedly linked President Trump to restrictive abortion policies enacted in conservative states such as Texas and Florida, highlighting stories of women who were denied access to proper health care as a result.
The Biden campaign is seeking to draw a sharp contrast between President Trump’s record on abortion and the Biden administration, which has taken steps to protect access to abortion procedures and abortion pills since the end of Roe.
“If you want to know who Trump will be running for in a second term, look no further than who he’s spending his time talking to: anti-abortion extremists who call abortion ‘child sacrifice’ and want to ‘eliminate’ abortion ‘total’,” Biden campaign spokeswoman Sarafina Chitica said Monday in response to Trump’s remarks.
“A second term for Trump is sure to bring even stricter abortion bans with no exceptions, punish women who seek necessary care, and criminalize doctors who provide it,” Chitika added. “Women can and will stop Trump by re-electing President Biden and Vice President Harris in November.”
