By AAMER MADHANI, Related Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump stated Thursday that his relationship with faith had “changed” after a pair of failed assassination makes an attempt final yr, as he advocated at the Nationwide Prayer Breakfast on the Capitol for People to “bring God back” into their lives.
Trump joined a greater than 70-year-old Washington custom that brings collectively a bipartisan group of lawmakers for fellowship. He later spoke at a separate prayer breakfast at a Washington resort sponsored by a personal group.
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“I really believe you can’t be happy without religion, without that belief,” Trump stated on the Capitol. “Let’s bring religion back. Let’s bring God back into our lives.”
Trump mirrored on having a bullet coming inside a hair’s breadth of killing him at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, final yr, telling lawmakers and attendees, “It changed something in me, I feel.”
“I feel even stronger,” he continued. “I believed in God, but I feel, I feel much more strongly about it. Something happened.”
He drew laughs when he expressed gratitude that the episode “didn’t affect my hair.”
The president, who’s a nondenominational Christian, referred to as spiritual liberty “part of the bedrock of American life” and referred to as for shielding it with “absolute devotion.”
Trump and his administration have already clashed with spiritual leaders, together with him disagreeing with the Rev. Mariann Budde’s sermon the day after his inauguration, when she referred to as for mercy for members of the LGBTQ+ group and migrants who’re within the nation illegally.
Vice President JD Vance, who’s Catholic, has sparred with high U.S. leaders of his personal church over immigration points. And lots of clergy members throughout the nation are anxious concerning the elimination of church buildings from the sensitive-areas checklist, permitting federal officers to conduct immigration actions at locations of worship.
The Republican president made waves on the remaining prayer breakfast throughout his first time period. That yr the gathering got here the day after the Senate acquitted him in his first impeachment trial.
Trump in his remarks then threw not-so-subtle barbs at Democratic then-Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, who publicly stated she prayed for Trump, and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who had cited his religion in his resolution to vote to convict Trump.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was the primary president to attend the prayer breakfast, in February 1953, and each president since has spoken on the gathering.
Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas are the honorary co-chairs of this yr’s prayer breakfast.
In 2023, the Nationwide Prayer Breakfast cut up into two dueling occasions, the one on Capitol Hill largely attended by lawmakers and authorities officers and a bigger personal occasion for hundreds at a resort ballroom. The cut up occurred when lawmakers sought to distance themselves from the personal spiritual group that for many years had overseen the larger occasion, on account of questions on its group and the way it was funded.
In 2023 and 2024, President Joe Biden, a Democrat, spoke on the Capitol Hill occasion, and his remarks had been livestreamed to the opposite gathering.
Initially Revealed: February 6, 2025 at 9:15 AM EST
