Former President Donald Trump relied on evangelicals during a speech on Saturday, where he called the U.S. a “beloved nation” that is “teetering on the edge of tyranny.”
Speaking at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to the Majority Police Conference, Trump depicted his 2024 presidential campaign as a “righteous crusade.”
“For seven years, you and I have been fighting side-by-side to rescue our country from evil and from the sinister forces who hate it,” he told the crowd. “I believe they hate it, and I believe they actually want to destroy it.”
“Together, we’re warriors in a righteous crusade to stop the arsonists, the atheists, globalists and the Marxists — and that’s what they are — and we will restore our Republic as one nation under God with liberty and justice for all” he added.
The former president also made reference to his criminal indictment a few weeks ago, which alleges he deliberately attempted to prevent federal agents from obtaining confidential documents that were discovered at his Mar-a-Lago residence last year.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all 37 charges pertaining to that indictment. He also invoked the Presidential Records Act and drew comparisons between his treatment and that of President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and even former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger.
Elsewhere in his speech, Trump touted his indictment as a “great badge of courage” to further rally his base.
“Every time the radical left Democrats, Marxist, communists and fascists indict me, I consider it a great badge of courage,” he said “I’m being indicted for you, and I believe the you is more than 200 million people that love our country.”
He also incorrectly claimed that a president “has the absolute right to take them, he has the absolute right to keep them or he can give them back to [National Archives and Records Administration] if he wants and talks to them like we were doing and he can do that if he wants.”
The three-day event featured a mostly pro-Trump crowd and gave attendees the opportunity to see all of the leading candidates for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination in one place for the first time.
