Donald Trump spoke at an evangelical Christian rally in Orlando last week, on the two month anniversary of the mass shooting at the LGBTQ nightclub Pulse.
The event, called “Rediscovering God In America,” was sponsored by the antigay American Renewal Project, whose stated goal is to “mobilize conservative Christian viewers and inspire right-wing pastors to run for elected office.” Marco Rubio also appeared at the event.
The leader of the organization, David Lane, has made repeated antigay statements, such as claiming the United States “deserves judgment” for such offenses as gay people praying at Obama’s inauguration.
Trump talked up his wins in the primaries with evangelical voters, while also looking to assure them that he is their best option between Clinton and himself. He has also tried convincing the LGBTQ community of the same, which is clearly in opposition.
“I hate to tell you, folks,” Trump said, “you got two choices. You got two choices. You’ve got two choices, and one choice, you’re not going for that choice. So I feel confident. I feel confident.”
What an endorsement of himself: I know you hate Hillary Clinton and will come crawling to me, so I’m not too worried. Boy oh boy, won’t that inspire them to run out to the polls in November!
Trump bemoaned religious leaders not being able to give endorsements out of fear of losing their tax exempt status.
“We’re gonna get your voice back. We’re gonna get it back,” he said.
Trump also repeated inflammatory and over the top rhetoric about Obama and Clinton being “the founders of Isis.”
“I made the statement before that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, these are the founders of Isis. These are the founders of Isis. Because of bad judgments,” he said. “These are the founders. And some (have said), ‘Well, that’s not very nice.’ Nice? If they said it about me it’d be fine. If I say something about them it’s terrible.”
“I said they get the Most Valuable Player Award. Isis is going to prevent them with the Most Valuable Player Award, you know, like in high school,” Trump continued, calling them “bad people, with bad judgement, and at the top we have an incompetent leader.”
Shockingly, Trump didn’t mention the shooting at Pulse, nor his promise to protect LBGTQ people at this rally like he did during his speech at the RNC, which was heavy on the sky-is-falling rhetoric.
In fact, Trump did not mention the LGBTQ community at all.
He did talk up his “big heart,” however.
“I have almost as big a heart as almost anybody in this room. We have some pretty good people. I know one person in particular. I don’t know, I think he’s actually a better person than I am, but that’s okay. But he knows I can do this stuff better, meaning open it up for you folks,” he said.
He encouraged the religious leaders to get “their people” out to vote.
“If you get everybody out to vote…we will win, and you will see things happen for the evangelicals. You will see things happen that you won’t believe, and most important for religion you’re gonna see things happen. For religion. All religions,” Trump said, adding that “once I win I will do my thing that I do very well.”
“It’s probably, mainly the only way that I will get to heaven, so I better do a good job,” he said, concluding his speech.
Watch Trump’s speech below.
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