WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump described the influx of communism as the biggest danger to the nation on Friday while delivering the keynote address at the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference.
“This is the greatest threat to our country, since its founding, in my opinion, 250 years ago,” Trump said. “It’s happening right now.”
The president cautioned the audience about communism’s insidious nature and its overarching plot to destroy religious liberty.
“They will close your churches in this country, if they go communist, and they’re trying to,” Trump said. “They will kill your people, and that’s what they’re about. They want to end religion, they have to end religion, because their ideology doesn’t work if you have strong religion.”
He made the remarks during his first return to the Washington Hilton’s International Ballroom since a foiled attempt to assassinate the president during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 25.
Founded by Ralph Reed, the Faith and Freedom Coalition event brought together lawmakers, religious leaders, and people of faith for a three-day conference in the nation’s capital.
The president received a 223-page draft report from the Religious Liberty Commission at the White House shortly after he spoke to the conference.
“As we prepare to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our founding next week, it is only appropriate that we work to strengthen this fundamental right and to, most essentially, have liberty for generations to come,” Trump said during the Oval Office ceremony. “We want religious liberty.”
The draft suggests more collaboration between church and state and explores the historical separation while encouraging building bridges rather than walls.
Other findings include suggestions to promote “know your rights” campaigns across schools, workplaces, and hospitals nationwide, along with strengthened protections in public schools and the military, among other groups and institutions.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, chairman of the commission, seconded the president’s earlier comments about the dangers of communism.
“We know what communists do around the world,” Patrick said. “They remove God. They close the churches. They punish the believers.”
This is not the first time Trump has delivered a speech strongly criticizing communism and socialism. Since his first term, he has consistently warned about their global influence.
For example, at the 2019 United Nations General Assembly, Trump warned world leaders about the “specter of socialism,” describing it as one of the most serious challenges facing nations.
Trump said in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly at the time that socialism and communism killed 100 million people in the last century, and he condemned the “brutal oppression” of people in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
Trump has also repeatedly criticized Democrats for embracing “radical socialism” in the United States. He has denounced proposals such as open borders and the Green New Deal, labeling them as extreme.
In his speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition Policy Conference, Trump said it is important to protect religious freedom amid rising persecution worldwide.
“All communist countries attack religions violently,” Trump said. “It’s part of their deal.”
He mentioned his actions to address the persecution of Christians in Nigeria.
“We recently struck Nigeria and largely ended the slaughter of great Christian populations,” he said.
According to a 2019 Pew Research Center study, nearly 85 percent of the world’s population lives in countries with high or very high restrictions on religion. China, ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, is identified as having one of the highest levels of religious restriction.
Arthur Herman, historian and author of the new book “Founder’s Fire: From 1776 to the Age of Trump,” agreed that the rise of communism is a threat to the nation.
“The growth of socialism and socialist sentiment, especially among young people in the United States today, threatens the American economy, its growth, and its global position,” Herman told The Epoch Times.
He noted that 65 million Chinese died under Mao Zedong’s efforts to establish a new “socialist” China, and that 25 to 30 million died in the former Soviet Union under communism.
“The rosy picture that the younger generation has gotten from teachers and ideologically minded mentors about communism flies in the face of history,” Herman said. “It’s also one that flies in the face of what is fundamentally the American experience and American exceptionalism.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
