Republican re-election candidate Donald Trump asked Christians for their vote late on Friday, promising that if they help him get elected in November, they will not have to vote again because his new mandate will solve all their problems. In a late speech at the so-called Believers’ Summit, the former president stressed: “In four years, you will not have to vote again. We will fix it so well that you will not have to vote.” The event had been organized by the conservative group Turning Point Action of Palm Beach (Florida), where he usually resides.
The Republican campaign refused to explain to Reuters the ultimate intention of the phrase, but it does not seem that, in its expanded version, it raises many doubts: “Christians, go out and vote, just this once. You won’t have to do it again. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians,” he said. “I love you, Christians. I am a Christian. I love you, go out, you have to go out and vote. In four years you won’t have to vote again, we will fix it so well that you won’t have to vote,” said the candidate, guilty of 34 criminal offences for covering up an extramarital relationship with a porn actress with a bribe.
Although a spokesman for the campaign of Democrat Kamala Harris, his potential opponent in November, limited himself to calling his speech “strange and retrograde,” the comment may exacerbate the fears of his political rivals about the threat that the Republican represents to democracy, which was one of the main lines of attack, and of the program, of Joe Biden’s candidacy. Friday’s appeal to the most religious voters sounds to some like an extension of the bravado, uttered in an interview in December with Fox News, that if elected, he would be a dictator on day one, “but only on day one,” to close the border with Mexico and expand oil drilling. Criticized by Democrats, the Republican said it had been a joke, but the comment has fueled many Democratic speeches and, in particular, that of Biden when he said that his adversary should be “targeted.”
Trump’s latest harangue to Christians — not the first time he has asked for their vote — coincides with the launch this Friday of the Believers for Trump coalition and the Believers and Votes program, with the intention of “interacting with our religious communities and congregations to spread President Trump’s positive vision of religious freedom and our country,” according to his campaign’s statement. It is an attempt to mobilize this broad base of voters and above all to promote their participation in the November elections, “organizing voter registration in places of worship within key disputed states, increasing participation by increasing voting by mail (…) and mobilizing congregations to vote in person early, especially during the two weekends before” Tuesday, November 5, the date of the elections.
If Trump wins a second term in the White House, he can only serve four more years as president. The Constitution limits the president to two terms, consecutive or not. But in May, in a speech to a meeting of the National Rifle Association, a powerful lobby that makes no secret of its Republican sympathies, Trump joked about the possibility of serving more than two terms as president, referring to the presidency of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, which spanned a total of 16 years. The two-term limit was added after Roosevelt’s presidency.
Trump’s remarks on Friday point to the need for both parties to energize their base voters in the face of a very close race, especially since Harris’s candidacy has shortened in record time the significant lead over Biden that the Republican was given in the polls. Trump has had the loyal support of evangelicals in the last two elections despite the fact that his electoral platform this time almost tiptoes around two key points, which did appear in the 2016 and 2020 platforms: the prohibition of abortion – Trump defends that it is the responsibility of the states and not the federal government – and same-sex marriages.
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Trump and running mate JD Vance are scheduled to hold a campaign rally on Saturday in Minnesota, a Midwestern state that has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate in 52 years.
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