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Speaking to Christian leaders in Georgia on Monday, Donald Trump said the U.S. would be better off if they were more powerful, and he promised to try to permanently remove restrictions that bar churches from keeping their tax-exempt status if they engage in blatant politicking.
The Atlanta-area event was hosted by far-right televangelist Paula White-Cain and the National Faith Advisory Board, which she launched after serving as Trump’s spiritual adviser in the White House. Mother Jones published a dispatch from the event highlighting some of the extremist faith leaders in attendance.
White-Cain has painted Trump’s opponents as part of “demonic” networks out to get him and raved about “satanic pregnancies,” and she often portrays Trump as ordained by God.
At Monday’s event, Trump praised the faith leaders in attendance, saying:
You are so important. You do such an incredible job — and you keep the country together. And the more powerful you become, the better the country is going to be. So I’m just with you all the way.
I’m sure people who’ve had to deal with the deadly abortion bans sought by conservative Christians, and the gay or trans children condemned in many far-right churches, have a different take on that.
But Trump told these Christian leaders that he would help heighten their political power. One way he said he’d do this is by trying to “permanently” do away with the so-called Johnson Amendment, a provision of the U.S. tax code aimed at preventing charity groups and churches — which receive tax-exempt status — from endorsing political candidates.
Trump told these Christian leaders that he would help heighten their political power.
Scrapping this amendment — a priority of Christian nationalist politicians, such as House Speaker Mike Johnson — would effectively allow the many Christian nationalist leaders aligned with Trump to feel unencumbered in turning their churches into more obvious MAGA propaganda machines.
As The Washington Post has noted, the Johnson Amendment “is seldom enforced by the IRS and is widely disregarded by clergy.” It also affords fairly broad latitude for faith leaders to still weigh in on political matters.
Yet the MAGA faithful want more.
Trump falsely said Monday that he “got rid” of the Johnson Amendment during his presidency, adding that “they” — the ominous “they” — “didn’t want you to speak to people.” In reality, he simply signed an executive order telling the Treasury Department to be even more lenient in its enforcement.
But it sounds like he’s now making plans to attack the Johnson Amendment more aggressively, potentially blurring the lines between church and state and empowering the extreme Christians who use the pulpit to help him.