Former President Donald Trump has accused Democrats of “(persecuting) Catholics” and has harshly criticized his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, for her aggressive questioning of judicial nominees who are members of the Knights of Columbus.
In a July 26 speech at the Turning Point Action Believers Summit, Trump alleged that “someone doesn’t like Catholics in that administration,” adding that “I don’t think it’s (President Joe) Biden because I don’t think have any idea what the hell he’s doing.”
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“I don’t know how a Catholic can vote for the Democrats because they go after Catholics almost as much as they go after me,” the former president said. “How can a Catholic person vote for a Democrat with what they are doing to Catholics? I just do not get it”.
Trump headlined the event, which took place July 26-28. The summit, which featured numerous Christian speakers, focused on “empowering attendees with practical knowledge and strategies to live their faith boldly and counter prevailing ‘woke’ narratives with grace, truth and conviction, rooted in the Gospel,” according to the event website.
In his speech, Trump pledged to “stop the Biden-Harris administration’s militarization of law enforcement against Americans of faith” and “the DOJ (Department of Justice) and the FBI (Federal Bureau of Justice) will no longer be allowed to Investigations) target, persecute or corner Christians or pro-life activists and imprison them for living their religious beliefs.”
As part of its criticism of the current administration, the Trump campaign has pointed to the memorandum Richmond FBI leak from February 2023, which showed the agency investigating an alleged link between “radical traditionalist” Catholics and “the far-right white nationalist movement.” The FBI withdrew the memo immediately after it was made public. A report from April Biden’s Justice Department assured that there was no evidence of “malicious intent” in the creation of the document.
The former president’s campaign has also focused on the recent and aggressive arrests y prosecutions of the Department of Justice against activists provided who were found guilty of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. Several of the activists are Catholic. Many Republican legislators have accused the Justice Department of targeting pro-life activists while failing to adequately investigate crimes against pro-life centers that help pregnant women, which Attorney General Merrick Garland has denied.
In his speech, Trump made reference to one of the pro-life activists, Paulette Harlowa Catholic who was sentenced earlier this year to 24 months in prison for participating in a pro-life blockade of an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C.
“From the moment I win the election, I will quickly review the cases of all political prisoners who have been unjustly victims of the Biden-Harris regime so that we can get them out of prison and return them to their families, where they belong,” said the former president. . “There are a lot of them out there, and that includes Paulette Harlow, the 75-year-old woman in poor health who the Biden-Harris administration sent to prison for peacefully protesting outside a clinic.”
Trump also criticized Harris for questions she has directed toward federal judicial nominees who are members of the Knights of Columbus. He said, “The radical left ideology that Kamala supports is truly militantly hostile toward Americans of faith.”
“She viciously attacked highly qualified judicial candidates simply because they were members of the Knights of Columbus, suggesting that their Catholic faith disqualified them from serving in the federal judiciary,” Trump emphasized.
When the nomination of Brian Buescher to the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska in 2018, then-Senator Harris he asked whether he knew that “the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when (he) joined the organization” and whether he knew “that the Knights of Columbus opposed marriage equality when (he) joined the organization ”. In his response to Harris, Buescher said, “The Knights of Columbus is a Roman Catholic service organization with approximately 2 million members worldwide.”
Trump also reiterated his promise to “create a new federal task force to combat anti-Christian bias, and its mission will be to investigate all forms of unlawful discrimination, harassment and persecution against Christians in the United States.”
During the 2020 election cycle, the Trump campaign established a Catholic outreach coalition called Catholics for Trump, which was led by American Conservative Union President Matt Schlapp; former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich; and political consultant Mary Matalin.
CNA reached out to the Trump campaign to ask if a similar effort had been launched for the 2024 election, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
Trump describes himself as a non-denominational Christian. His running mate, JD Vance, is a convert to Catholicism. Biden is Catholic and Harris is bautista.
Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in CNA.
Tyler Arnold
Tyler Arnold is a reporter for the National Catholic Register. He previously worked at The Center Square and has published in various outlets, including The Associated Press, National Review, The American Conservative and The Federalist.