Trump tells Christians they won’t have to run for re-election if they support him: “We’ll fix it so well you won’t have to vote” | USA Elections

Republican candidate for re-election Donald Trump asked Christians for votes late Friday night, promising that if they help him get elected in November, they will not have to vote again because his new mandate will solve all their problems. In a late speech at the so-called Believers Summit, the former president stressed: “In four years, you will not have to vote again. We will fix it so well that you will not have to vote.” The event was organized by the conservative group Turning Point Action of Palm Beach (Florida), where he has his usual residence.

The Republican campaign refused to explain to the Reuters agency the ultimate purpose of this phrase, but it does not seem that, in its extended version, it raises many doubts: “Christians, go out and vote, just this once. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know, it will be fixed, it will be fixed, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians,” he said. “Christians, I love you. I’m Christian. I love you, go out, you have to go out and vote. You won’t have to vote again in four years, we’ll fix it so well you won’t have to vote anymore,” asked the candidate, convicted of 34 criminal offenses for taking bribes to hide an extramarital affair with a porn actress.

Although a spokesman for the campaign of Democrat Kamala Harris, his likely opponent in November, limited himself to calling his speech “strange and regressive,” the remark could raise fears of his political rivals about the threat that Republicans represent to democracy. That was one of the main lines of attack on the candidacy of Joe Biden and the program. Friday’s appeal to the most religious voters sounds somewhat like an extension of the bravado that Biden said in an interview with Fox News in December that, if elected, he would be a dictator on day one, “but only on day one,” to close the border with Mexico and expand crude oil drilling. Criticized by Democrats, Republicans said it was a joke, but the remark has fueled many Democratic speeches and, in particular, Biden’s speech when he said that his opponent should be “targeted.”

Trump’s latest speech to Christians — it’s not the first time he’s asked for their vote — coincides with the launch of the Believers for Trump Coalition’s Believers and Vote program this Friday, which aims to “interact with our communities and congregations to spread President Trump’s positive view of religious freedom and our country,” according to his campaign statement. It’s also an effort to mobilize this broad base of voters and, above all, to boost their participation in the November elections by “organizing voter registration at places of worship within key contested states, increasing participation by increasing vote by mail and motivating congregations to vote in person, especially during the two weekends before Tuesday, Nov. 5, the election date.”

If Trump wins a second term in the White House, he will only be able to remain president for four more years. The Constitution limits the country’s presidency to two terms, consecutive or not. But in May, in a speech at a meeting of the National Rifle Association, a powerful lobby that does not hide its Republican sympathies, Trump mocked the possibility of serving more than two terms as president, referring to the presidency of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, which spanned a total of 16 years. The two-term limit was added after he became president.

Trump’s statements on Friday point to the need for both parties to energize their base voters in a very close contest, especially since Harris’s candidacy has reduced in record time the significant advantage over Biden that polls had given the Republican. Trump has had the loyal support of evangelicals in the last two elections, despite the fact that this time his electoral program is almost entirely centered on two key points that appeared in the programs of 2016 and 2020: a ban on abortion—Trump defends that this is the responsibility of the states, not the federal government—and gay marriage.

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This Saturday, Trump and fellow candidate J.D. Vance are scheduled to hold a campaign event in Minnesota, a Midwestern state that hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate in 52 years.

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