Former president Donald Trump is lashing out at religious conservatives who have declined to endorse his third presidential campaign, calling them “disloyal. The rage-filled criticism comes just days before Donald Trump hosts his first 2024 event in South Carolina, a state whose evangelical population has long played a critical role in its presidential primary.
“Nobody has ever done more for Right to Life than Donald Trump. I put three Supreme Court justices, who all voted, and they got something that they’ve been fighting for 64 years, for many, many years,’” Trump told conservative journalist David Brody in a podcast interview Monday, referring to the Supreme Court’s overturning of federal abortion rights in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision last summer.
“There’s great disloyalty in the world of politics and that’s a sign of disloyalty,” Trump said, bemoaning evangelical leaders who have turned their backs on him.
Trump’s comments were the latest in a series of bewildering remarks he’s made about one of the most critical voting blocs in a Republican primary.
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Earlier this month, the former president also criticized abortion opponents on his Truth Social platform for losing “large numbers of voters” in the 2022 midterm elections, “especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother.”
Trump’s complaints about evangelicals and abortion opponents have baffled allies and advisers who recognize the crucial role both groups play in the conservative ecosystem and their sway in presidential primaries – a dynamic the former president is seemingly well aware of.
“There’s no path to the nomination without winning the evangelical vote. Nobody knows that better than President Trump because, to the surprise of almost everyone, he won their support in 2016,” said Ralph Reed, executive director of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, who has long been close to the former president, according to CNN.
“He’s going to get a very fair hearing from voters of faith. But this will be a contested primary with a lot of pro-life candidates and all of them will get to make their case. No one should assume the evangelical vote is spoken for or foreclosed to them,” Reed added, the network reported.
Other evangelical leaders have already begun publicly distancing themselves from Trump, worried that he won’t be as electable as other Republicans against President Joe Biden.
“It’s time to turn the page. America must move on. Walk off the stage with class,” tweeted Bob Vander Plaats, president and CEO of the Family Leader.
