Former President Donald Trump is adding evangelical Christians to his list of “disloyal” onetime supporters.
With his low-energy presidential campaign stuck in neutral, Trump blasted megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress and other Christian conservatives for so far failing to endorse his comeback bid for the White House.
“That’s a sign of disloyalty. There’s a great disloyalty in the world of politics and that’s a sign of disloyalty,” Trump told David Brody, host of the Water Cooler show.
The former president suggested that Christian conservatives should have quickly gotten on board after he announced his campaign in November, especially since he strongly backed their anti-abortion agenda during his presidency.
“Nobody has ever done more for right to life than Donald Trump,” he said.
It’s not the first time Trump has leveled the loaded “disloyalty” charge at onetime supporters. He has said Jewish Americans owe him their support because he sided with Israel and moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
Trump also said evangelical voters failed to mobilize strongly enough to support the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade that made abortion legal.
He said the lackluster support for the decision cleared the field for pro-choice Democrats to make political hay out of the issue.
“A lot of them didn’t fight or weren’t really around to fight, and it did energize the Democrats,” he said.
Jeffress is considered one of the most influential conservative megachurch pastors who strongly backed Trump in 2016 and again in his losing 2020 reelection battle.
But like other Republican base voters, evangelicals apparently want to see who will jump into the 2024 race before throwing in their lot with Trump.
Polls show the divisive Trump trailing President Joe Biden in a potential rematch even though the president is himself dogged by low approval ratings.
Trump is still unquestionably the most powerful figure in the GOP but some polls also show Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis could prove a strong challenger. Former Vice President Mike Pence is also hugely popular among fellow evangelicals.
Trump shrugged off the possibility of a pitched primary battle against DeSantis, suggesting he hasn’t even begun his trademark scorched-earth political campaign.
“We’ll handle that the way I handle things,” Trump said.
