It’s Holy Week, and President Donald Trump isn’t simply main the nation, he’s leaning onerous into the assumption that he’s been chosen to take action.
With renewed non secular fervor and a aptitude for providential drama, Trump has been weaving his private religion into the material of his presidency, particularly after surviving an assassination try final yr.
“I consider that my life was saved that day in Butler for an excellent purpose,” he declared throughout his deal with to a joint session of Congress final month. “I used to be saved by God to make America nice once more. I consider that.”
It’s a sentiment that’s changing into central to Trump’s second time period. On the Nationwide Prayer Breakfast in February, Trump mirrored extra personally: “It modified one thing in me, I really feel. I really feel even stronger. I believed in God, however I really feel rather more strongly about it.”
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In accordance with Trump, it wasn’t only a fortunate flip of the top — it was divine intervention. As he tells it, he regarded towards a chart at simply the best second.
“God did that. I imply, it needed to be,” he mentioned.
Even Don Jr., Trump’s loyal son and searching fanatic, chimed in.
“He informed me the possibility of lacking from that distance was like lacking a one-foot putt. There needed to be someone that saved you, and I believe I do know who it’s,” Don Jr. mentioned, “and he regarded up.”
Trump usually credit his Presbyterian upbringing for instilling his early sense of morality, and, as he tells it, his future. On the 2024 Nationwide Religion Summit, he recalled attending Sunday faculty, watching Billy Graham crusades, and being raised by a religious Scottish mom and a “very sturdy” however “great-hearted” father.
President Donald Trump stands for a prayer throughout a swearing-in ceremony within the Oval Workplace on the White Home, March 28, in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Photos)
“I used to be blessed to be raised in a churched house… and that religion lives on in my coronary heart each single day,” Trump added.
That basis, he argues, is essential not only for him personally, however for the soul of the nation.
Over the previous two years, Trump has repeatedly sounded the alarm over America’s non secular decline.
In an August 2024 sit-down with Fox Information host Laura Ingraham, he mentioned bluntly: “One of many causes that our nation has misplaced, form of, all the things — it’s misplaced a lot — is we don’t have faith to the identical extent.”
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Trump usually returns to the federal government’s position in the course of the pandemic as a flashpoint.
“Individuals weren’t even allowed to satisfy outdoors… They’d arrest everyone. They have been fascists. They have been horrible,” he mentioned. “That was a really unhealthy time for organized faith — however faith, you understand, it offers you some hope. Gee, if I’m good, I’m going to heaven.”
On the 2023 Religion and Freedom Coalition occasion, he warned, “Faith goes down by way of significance and recognition. This isn’t a query of recognition. We love God, and we need to shield ourselves. It retains you sane. It retains you trustworthy. It retains you good. It retains you type. It makes you assist different individuals. And so they’re making an attempt to take that away from you.”
President Donald Trump prays throughout an ‘Evangelicals for Trump’ coalition launch occasion in Miami, Jan. 3, 2020. (Marco Bello/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photos)
From the White Home podium to packed mega-church rallies, Trump has used his presidency to advocate for spiritual liberty as a cornerstone of his management.
“So long as I’m president, nobody goes to cease you from working towards your religion or from preaching what’s in your coronary heart,” he mentioned throughout his first time period in 2017 — and he has echoed that promise ever since.
“Religion evokes us to be higher, to be stronger, to be extra caring and giving… It’s time to put a cease to the assaults on faith,” he mentioned.
Trump’s made worldwide spiritual freedom a constant a part of his agenda, too. In a 2017 interview with Christian Broadcasting Community (CBN) host David Brody, Trump targeted on persecuted Christians.
“They’ve been horribly handled… For those who have been a Christian in Syria it was inconceivable, at the very least very robust, to get into the US… We’re going to assist them,” he mentioned.
Trump continues to hyperlink America’s founding beliefs on to religion.
“Our Declaration of Independence proclaims that our rights are bestowed on us by our Creator,” he mentioned on the 2019 Nationwide Day of Prayer dinner. “Every time we pledge allegiance to our flag, we are saying that we’re one nation below God.”
President Donald Trump prays throughout a roundtable dialogue with Latino group leaders in Miami. (Chandan Khanna/AFP by way of Getty Photos)
On the 2017 Nationwide Prayer Breakfast, he added: “Freedom is just not a present from the federal government, however that freedom is a present from God. America will thrive, so long as we proceed to think about one another and religion in God.”
Whether or not he’s recounting Sunday faculty reminiscences or a bullet that missed “the place it counts,” Trump’s messaging in 2025 is unmistakable — he believes he’s not simply main a rustic, he’s fulfilling a divine mission.
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“I take pleasure in a really nice relationship with God and a really nice relationship” with evangelical Christian voters, he informed CNN host Jake Tapper in 2016. “I dwell a really completely different life than most likely lots of people would suppose… I attempt to lead a very good life and I’ve.”
Now, almost a decade later, it’s a message that’s solely grown louder, extra private, and — in his view — extra providential.
“It may need touched [my hair],” he mentioned of the would-be murderer’s bullet. “However not the place it counts.”
In Trump’s personal phrases: “I believed in God… however now one thing occurred.”
