Even for Donald Trump, these remarks were over the top.
Speaking to a group of about 100 of his most ardent supporters in the evangelical community in the State Dining Room of the White House, Trump painted a stark picture of what losing the majority would mean for the administration’s conservative agenda, according to an audiotape of his remarks provided to The New York Times by someone who attended the event.
“They will end everything immediately,” Trump said. “When you look at antifa,” he added, a term that describes militant leftist groups, “and you look at some of these groups, these are violent people.”
The blunt warning was the latest example of Trump’s attempts to use the specter of violence at the hands of his political opponents and to fan the flames of cultural divisions in the country.
Also at the dinner, Trump repeated his debunked claim that he had gotten ‘rid of’ a law forbidding churches and charitable organizations from endorsing political candidates.
In fact, the law remains on the books, after efforts to kill it in Congress last year failed. But Trump cited this alleged accomplishment as one in a series of gains he has made for his conservative Christian supporters.
Trump urged the religious leaders to use “their newfound freedom” to campaign from the pulpit on behalf of Republicans.
“You have people that preach to almost 200 million people — 150 to, close, depending on which Sunday we are talking about, and beyond Sunday, 100, 150 million people.”