Trump touts Dobbs decision to cheers at Faith & Freedom

On the first anniversary of the Dobbs abortion ruling, Donald Trump leaned into his self-proclaimed title as the “most pro-life president ever” to raucous applause from a packed ballroom of evangelical Christian activists.

“We terminated Roe v. Wade,” Trump said at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual conference Saturday, touting his appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices. “Every child born and unborn is a sacred gift from God.”

Trump, who has expressed some discomfort with more restrictive abortion laws popping up across the country, didn’t say he would back a 15-week national abortion ban advocated by Sen. Lindsey Graham, an ally of the former president. He did say there is a vital role for the federal government in “protecting unborn life,” promising that “we’ll get something done.”

This year’s conference highlights the challenge the 2024 Republican field faces a year after the overturning of Roe, a decision that galvanized the Democratic Party just months before a midterm election. Democrats have seized on GOP talks of a national ban, while some Republicans have cautioned against its potential to turn away general election voters.

But in the first major gathering of 2024 presidential contenders with the former president in attendance, one thing was clear: Trump still has a stronghold on evangelical voters.

He was the event’s main attraction, receiving an enthusiastic welcome for nearly the full length of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” when he walked on stage. His winding speech went on for an hour and a half, peppered with chants of “USA” and “We love Trump” from the crowd, while his GOP rivals were tied to strict five to 15-minute time limits. At one point, as the crowd erupted into cheering and applause, Trump turned to Ralph Reed, the founder and chair of Faith & Freedom, asking if his 2024 rivals also received this kind of response.

The speech also offered a preview of what Americans will continue to hear from the former president as he vies for a second chance to hold the nation’s highest office. He went well beyond abortion, touching on a number of his base-rallying greatest hits from the border to transgender issues to election security. He once again aired grievances about the 2020 election he lost but continues to claim was “rigged.” His speech touched on foreign policy, but he didn’t focus particularly on current events in Russia.

He also talked at length about his indictment on charges connected to his handling of classified national security records, painting it as political persecution.

He’s probably “the only president who’s been indicted and my numbers went up,” Trump joked.

“Every time the radical left Democrats, Marxists, Communists, fascists, indict me I consider it a great badge of courage. I am being indicted for you, and I believe the you is the more than 200 million who love our country,” Trump said.

A woman seated in the crowd shook her head as Trump spoke about the indictment, saying “Just so terrible. It’s ridiculous.” The man to her right nodded.

They were hard to spot in the cheering crowd, but not everyone in attendance was a diehard Trump fan. Bill Moher, a Republican running for Virginia’s 7th District, said he was most impressed by Vivek Ramaswamy over the last two days. He likes Trump, but he said he wishes he could be more policy-focused and disciplined in his messaging.

“I think the DAs who are charging him — I think they’re going to get him reelected. And I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing,” Moher said.

“If he goes back to the policies, gets himself a better team of people around him, then it might be a really good thing. But I wish to God he would talk with a positive message. Because Make America Great Again says that America is not great today. And America is pretty goddamn great today,” he added.

Another woman, Darla Williams, held up her phone to record bits and pieces of Trump’s speech. She traveled from Georgia for the conference and to hear the former president speak.

Williams, a Trump supporter, said she has no issue squaring her faith with any criticism of Trump’s morals. She said while the former president has some flaws, he’s a “genuine Christian at heart” and delivered to his supporters on abortion issues.

“He said he would do it, and he did it. That’s one thing I like. You get a lot of people who will say things but with him, when he says he’ll do it, he does it,” she said.

Williams said she doesn’t believe Trump should promise to support a national 15-week abortion ban, warning that it could only hurt him. She said she’s heard enough from Trump on the issue that she knows where he stands, and what he would do if he were to become president again.

Zachary Scherer, 20, who traveled from Pittsburgh as part of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, agreed, simply saying “it’s too early” in the race. Wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat, he said he believes that life begins at conception and is in favor of a national ban. But he doesn’t think Trump should go there yet.

“Right now his popularity is very high after the indictment and all of the news lately, he’s starting to draw a lot more Hispanic votes and a lot more minority votes,” Scherer said. “I think if he makes too many extreme or radical motions or speeches, he could potentially lose those voters that he gained.”