In a speech at the Museum of the Bible on Monday, President Donald Trump announced that his administration will soon issue new guidance about prayer in public schools, vowing to “bring back religion in America.”
At Monday’s meeting of the Religious Liberty Commission, Trump told attendees, “As President, I will always defend our nation’s glorious heritage, and we will protect the Judeo, Christian principles of our founding.”
“We have to bring back religion in America,” he continued. “Bring it back stronger than ever before.”
“Under the Trump administration, we’re defending our rights and restoring our identity as a nation under God,” he went on. “We are one nation under God, and we always will be.”
During his remarks, Trump announced that the Department of Education “will soon issue new guidance protecting the right to prayer in our public schools,” prompting cheers and applause from the audience. Students, he claimed, are “indoctrinated with anti-religious propaganda, and some are even punished for their religious beliefs.”
Trump did not provide details about the department’s upcoming guidance. Moments later, he launched into remarks villainizing transgender children.
“I made the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders — you’re going to hate this — male and female,” he said to laughter and applause.
During Trump’s speech, he also claimed, without evidence, that he had reduced crime in Washington, D.C. to “virtually nothing.” He attempted to prove this point by belittling domestic violence survivors.
“Things that take place in the home, they call crime,” the president said, implying that most of the crime that still exists in the capital is related to domestic violence. “They’ll do anything they can to find something. If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say this was a crime.”
At the commission meeting, the White House unveiled the “America Prays” initiative, which asks Americans to create prayer clubs to pray for America one hour a week. The website for America Prays recommends organizing “the time of prayer by different subjects, such as prayer for government leaders, cultural renewal, protection of freedom, families, individuals, etc.”
It suggests opening prayer meetings with “scripture about God’s sovereignty and nations,” specifically Psalm 33:12, which states, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,” and 1 Timothy 2:1-4, which urges prayers “be made for all people — for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.”
The website provides users with a collection of “historic prayers, sermons, presidential proclamations, etc.” The first prayer in the collection is a prayer delivered to colonial settlers in 1607, which the collection says is “a powerful symbol of the faith of the early settlers, whose original charter did, in fact, charge them with the dual purpose of settling the land and propagating of Christian religion to such people, as yet live in darkness.”
The Trump administration has expressed similar sentiments before. In July, the Department of Homeland Security posted the 1872 painting “American Progress” by John Gast to its social media pages, with the caption: “A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth defending.” The painting is a depiction of Manifest Destiny — the idea that God ordained white settlers to expand westward and steal Indigenous people’s land.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State condemned the America Prays initiative as part of Trump’s “Christian Nationalist agenda,” saying in a statement that the president is “using religion to promote his self-aggrandizement and political agenda, all the while perpetuating the lie that America is a Christian nation and that religion is under attack.”
Hours after Trump’s remarks at the Bible Museum, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform published records provided by the estate of accused sex trafficker and alleged serial child abuser Jeffrey Epstein. Among them was a lewd note allegedly written by Trump for Epstein’s 50th birthday.
The note features the outline of a body, presumed to be a girl or woman’s.
“We have certain things in common, Jeffrey,” the letter reads. “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
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