September 25, 2015

To Woo Evangelicals, Trump Waves His Bible

And he tells them he will be “the greatest jobs president that God ever created.”

Jose Luis Magana/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


On Friday, Republican front-runner Donald Trump tried to woo evangelical voters at the Values Voter Summit, the annual gathering of social conservative voters hosted by the Family Research Council where Rick Santorum-style social conservatives are more common than New York City real estate moguls. But Trump is trying to preserve his top-of-the-polls standing, and that requires maintaining strong support among evangelicals. “Most importantly,” he said, holding up his copy of the holy book, “I brought my Bible.”

Trump made sure to cover issues important to many conservative evangelical voters. Religious freedom is one of their key talking points these days, and Trump observed, “freedom of religion, so important.” He emphasized his love of Christmas. “I love Christmas. I love Christmas,” he declared as the audience applauded, assuring them that he would bring back the phrase “Merry Christmas” if elected president. The crowd also cheered his promises to negotiate a better deal with Iran and be “the greatest jobs president that God ever created.”

Trump lost the audience, however, when he went after one of their favorites, presidential candidate Marco Rubio, who has recently climbed in the polls and who spoke to the group earlier in the day. “You have this clown, Marco Rubio,” Trump said, and the audience booed loudly. Trump persisted, chiding the Florida senator for abandoning his effort to promote comprehensive immigration reform once his poll number began to fall. “If you believe in something, you have to be true to yourself,” said Trump.

Polls show Trump leading among evangelical voters—a fact he brought up several times during his speech. But that support could be thin, especially given his personal history and his past stance in favor of abortion rights. Even though he said his favorite book is the Bible, Trump, a Presbyterian, has refused to name his favorite passage. “The Bible means a lot to me, but I don’t want to get into specifics,” he said last month. And, of course, he’s been married three times.

Trump turned down the initial invitation to the Values Voter Summit, and Tony Perkins, the head of the group hosting the event, responded with some tough words. He said Trump’s absence sent a “message to evangelicals and values voters that he wants their support, but he is not really interested in having a conversation with them.” But Friday Trump was all about praising evangelicals. “You’re special people,” he said. “And I love you all.”

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate