In small win for Democrats, the final Tax Bill will not include a Provision Allowing Churches to Endorse Political Candidates

By Heather Long

Washington ost

December 14, 2017

President Trump cut a red ribbon between stacks of paper on Dec. 14 to symbolize his administration's work cutting regulations. (The Washington Post)

In a minor win for Democrats, the final GOP tax bill will not include a repeal of the Johnson Amendment, a change that would have allowed religious institutions and all nonprofit entities organized as 501(c)3s to endorse political candidates.

President Trump had strongly advocated the repeal.

Trump promised to “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment at the National Prayer Breakfast in February. Getting rid of it has been a priority of some spiritual leaders, especially in evangelical circles that have typically leaned Republican. The tax bill that passed the House in November scrapped the Johnson Amendment entirely for all non-profits, but the Senate bill did not, setting up a difference that had to be ironed out in this final week of negotiations.

“I'm pleased to announced that Democrats successfully prevented the repeal of the Johnson Amendment from being jammed into any final Republican tax deal,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. He added that he would “continue to fight all attempts to eliminate this critical provision.”

Democrats knew they would have little leverage to influence the final Republican tax bill because it was passed entirely with GOP votes in both the House and Senate. Republicans are using a process known as reconciliation to pass the tax bill, which only requires a simple majority in both chambers. But senior Democratic leaders in the Senate had one final card to play: They could challenge any part of the tax bill not actually having to do with taxes.

It is formally known as a “Byrd Rule” challenge. The Senate parliamentarian has the final say on what parts of the bill meet the Byrd Rule and which do not. Democrats were already successful in kicking out a provision in an earlier version of the Senate tax bill that would have allowed parents to start tax-preferred college savings accounts (known as 529 plans) for fetuses.

Some Republicans expressed frustration that the Johnson Amendment "fix" wasn't allowed in the final bill.

"I'm disappointed in the decision of the parliamentarian to not allow the revised text of the Johnson Amendment into the tax reform bill," said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) "The federal government and the IRS should never have the ability, through our tax code, to limit free speech."

The Johnson Amendment has been in place since 1954 and is widely seen as a way to separate church and state in modern American life. Religious leaders are not supposed to give sermons endorsing specific candidates ahead of elections. Churches, synagogues, mosques and other nonprofit institutions are also prohibited from raising money for political candidates. If nonprofits or religious institutions want to engage in explicit support of a candidate, they have to give up their 501(c)3 tax-exempt status.

There were concerns that a repeal would create a new dark-money channel for powerful donors to quietly funnel funds to political candidates. Under the House plan, both the Clinton Foundation and Trump Foundation would be able to openly get involved in U.S. political campaigns, for example.

"Nonprofits are allowed to lobby Congress or their local elected officials, but the ambiguity of the current tax code keeps non-profits in constant fear that they might have crossed a line that no other organization has to consider," said Senator Lankford. He argued the repeal language that Republicans crafted would still have prohibited any campaign financing via non-profits.

But the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress's official scorekeeper, estimated that the repeal of the Johnson Amendment would cost the government about $2 billion as the rich donated more money to religious institutions and nonprofits and got tax write-offs for doing so.

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Opinion | Op-Ed Contributor

Leave the Johnson Amendment Alone

By ELLEN P. APRILL - DEC. 10, 2017

Credit William Widmer for The New York Times

As the House and the Senate seek agreement on tax reform, they will have to decide the fate of the so-called Johnson amendment. This provision of the Internal Revenue Code prohibits tax-exempt charities from electioneering — that is, from becoming involved in any way in a candidate’s campaign for elected office. The tax reform bill passed by the House last month loosened this prohibition to the point where it would no longer prohibit much. The Senate’s tax reform bill made no change to current law.

Evangelical churches have long objected to the strictures of the Johnson amendment. From the beginning of his candidacy, President Trump promised them that he would repeal it. In fact, as originally proposed, the House tax reform bill would have altered the Johnson amendment only for houses of worship. The House, however, quickly revised its proposal. As finally passed by the House, the provision would permit any tax-exempt charity to support or oppose a candidate as long as “the preparation and presentation of such content” occurs “in the ordinary course of the organization’s regular and customary activities” and does not result in “more than de minimis incremental expenses.”

The breadth of the House proposal is far from clear. When are activities “regular and customary”? When is an expense “de minimis” (meaning insignificant) or “incremental”? If this uncertain standard becomes law, the I.R.S. will need to give charities and potential donors guidance about the meaning of those terms. Whatever rules the I.R.S. announces, they are sure to be fraught with complication.

But no matter what the I.R.S. says, the amendment in the House bill would open the floodgates to politicking by charities. Charities today make enormous use of social media. A charity’s webpage often serves as its most important public gateway. Nothing in the House revision of the Johnson amendment forbids speeches, sermons, policy discussions or other activities that include electioneering from being posted on that webpage, streamed or tweeted. Communicating this way would cost the charity next to nothing and would probably qualify as a “de minimis” expense. In our digital era, the communicative impact of an exception for de minimis financial outlays is far more than de minimis.

The sponsors of the proposed change to the Johnson amendment may have intended to permit only brief, occasional instances of electioneering. We know that established charities, particularly churches, engage in such activity now. But the House proposal, if enacted as written, will do far more than bless current practice. Given that the I.R.S. is already suffering from too few enforcement resources, the I.R.S. may well hesitate to take action against possible violations of this de minimis limit. As a practical matter, a de minimis exception will come close to repealing the Johnson Amendment completely.

Other tax-exempt organizations (such as section 501(c)(4) welfare organizations) can already engage in electioneering to a considerable extent. The Johnson amendment does not apply to them. But it is precisely because of the Johnson amendment’s prohibition on electioneering that charities have been a sanctuary in our increasingly partisan world. Over time, permitting charities to engage directly in electoral politics will reduce the respect they have long been afforded. In the long run, it will harm the sector. That is why so many charities, including many religious organizations, have opposed any change to the Johnson amendment.

Recent Comments

Cyn

December 12, 2017

My millennial left the Catholic church in 2004. During mass, the deacon stated that anyone who voted for John Kerry was a vote for abortion...

BigWayne19

December 12, 2017

Church and state; church and state; church and state . keep 'em separate . . .personally, I'd like to see all religious...

Woody Packard

December 12, 2017

We, every last one of us, have an interest in supporting charitable organizations, those that contribute to the common good. When these...

Contributions to charities are deductible; contributions to PACs and section 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations are not. Because charities can have enormous influence on political campaigns with very little expense, many who wish to intervene in political campaigns will shift their contribution from PACs and social welfare organizations to charities. Currently, the House proposal operates for five years, from Jan. 1, 2019, to Dec. 31, 2023. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the revenue loss for this five-year period at $2.1 billion. This number probably underestimates the actual cost of the House’s proposed change to the Johnson amendment. Charities that make a decision to electioneer will attract large donations from donors who would like to obtain deductions and influence elections in one fell swoop.

The House proposal also encourages the establishment of new entities to take advantage of the revised rules. These newly created organizations would establish their own norms as to what is “regular and customary.” In short order, organizations would be formed precisely to take advantage of this new electioneering rule.

Under our current campaign finance regime, only dollars that have been subject to income tax can be used for electioneering. A de minimis exception for electioneering by charities will undermine this basic principle. It will harm both the law regulating charities and the law regulating campaign finance. Our country will be far poorer for such changes.

The Senate version of tax reform does not alter the Johnson amendment. Its position should prevail. During reconciliation, the House amendment to the Johnson amendment should be dropped.

Ellen P. Aprill is a professor of tax law at Loyola Law School.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/10/opinion/johnson-amendment-campaigns.html

Trump Wants to Make Churches the New Super PACs

His promise to repeal the 1954 Johnson Amendment isn’t about free speech—it’s about cash.

Mark Harris, the pastor of First Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, participated in Pulpit Freedom Sunday in 2012. John Adkisson / Reuters

Why have some religious conservatives decided to support Donald Trump for United States president? Leaders have named their reasons: He’s promised to appoint pro-life Supreme Court justices; he’s allegedly good at business. But they have also consistently cited something else, perhaps more unexpected: the tax code.

Trump has promised to repeal the so-called Johnson Amendment, a 1954 provision that prohibits tax-exempt organizations from participating in political activities. Proposed by then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson and later revised by Congress, it keeps churches and other non-profits from lobbying for specific causes, campaigning on behalf of politicians, and supporting or opposing candidates for office.

While opponents of the Johnson Amendment often frame their objections in terms of free speech, the provision’s primary impact may be financial. Right now, the IRS makes a clear distinction between non-profit groups—from charities and universities to certain private schools and houses of worship—and political organizations.

Trump’s Sunday School

If the Johnson Amendment were repealed, pastors would be able to endorse candidates from the pulpit, which they’re currently not allowed to do by law. But it’s also true that a lot more money could possibly flow into politics via donations to churches and other religious organizations. That could mean religious groups would become much more powerful political forces in American politics—and it would almost certainly tee up future court battles.

Even though religious groups are some of the most vocal opponents of the Amendment today, it was originally about something else: communism. At the time when the measure was passed, McCarthyism was at its peak, and Johnson feared that right-wing groups, parading as charities, would attack his reelection campaign. Although the rule extended to religious groups, the former Purdue University professor James D. Davidson has argued that Johnson never specifically wanted to target religious groups.

According to the Catholic University of America professor Roger Colinvaux, some critics have argued that the Amendment’s history is the best argument against it: Because it was an ad hoc measure written to satisfy one skilled legislator’s political needs, they say, it should be repealed. But, as Colinvaux wrote in 2012, this already was a long-standing issue by the time Johnson took it up—the legal limits around political activity for non-profit groups “had dogged charitable tax status from the inception of the federal-income-tax exemption for charitable organizations.”

Congress first approved a tax deduction for donations to charitable organizations in 1917, but the boundaries around those organizations’ political activities weren’t exactly clear. In a 1930 decision, Slee v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, a Second Circuit Court judge made those boundaries clearer: He ruled that the government doesn’t have an obligation to subsidize the political activity of non-profit groups; and people can write off donations to these groups, which include religious organizations, but not if the groups are engaging in “political agitation,” or lobbying. In 1934, this rule officially became part of the tax code: “No substantial part of an organization’s activities” could involve “carrying on propaganda or otherwise attempting to influence legislation.”

There were two problems with this rule. First, the word “substantial” is vague and confusing. “People found that standard difficult to meet because they couldn’t identify it—they couldn’t quantify it,” said Miriam Galston, a law professor at George Washington University. “The IRS never gave any clear or precise guidelines.” Subsequent court decisions made this standard somewhat clearer: “Substantial” is somewhere between 5 and 20 percent of an organization’s operating budget and efforts, Galston said, and factors like mission and volunteer time have to be taken into account.

The other problem was that lobbying isn’t the same as electioneering—a non-profit group like a church might not spend time and money trying to get a bill passed in Congress, but it might promote a candidate for office with flyers and buttons and speeches. The Johnson Amendment clarified that the ban extended to political activity: Non-profits, including religious groups, couldn’t support candidates for political office without losing their tax-exempt status. In 1987, Congress clarified that this means non-profits can’t oppose candidates, either.

The IRS doesn’t often go after churches.

Since 2008, a group of predominantly conservative, Protestant churches have participated in Pulpit Freedom Sunday—a day started by the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, when hundreds of pastors across the country give explicitly political sermons in protest of the IRS’s rule. The movement has been growing, and religious leaders will often mail tapes of their sermons directly to the agency to showcase their defiance.

The IRS doesn’t often go after these churches, though. Agency leaders have emphasized the importance of educating religious organizations about what is and is not legal, rather than aggressively initiating audits or trying to revoke the non-profit status of houses of worship. The agency has rarely pursued this last option; one of the most prominent recent cases was in 1995, when it denied the non-profit status of an upstate New York church that took out a full-page ad in USA Today warning Christians not to vote for Bill Clinton in 1992.

In general, though, “the political climate has changed in the last four or five years, where attacks on the IRS has been more frequent, more virulent, and the IRS has become extremely defensive,” Galston said. Especially with the budget cuts of the last half decade, the agency has scarce resources for enforcement of the Internal Revenue Code. “They can’t, in my view, allocate the resources in such a way that they preclude proper enforcement of the other code sections,” Galston added.

Yet even beyond purposeful protests like Pulpit Freedom Sunday, religious leaders seem to openly defy the ban on participating in political activities. The televangelist Mark Burns has openly stumped for Trump, as has Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. And at the start of the Democratic National Convention, the Decatur, Georgia, pastor Cynthia Hale prayed for Hillary Clinton to become president. Even if the IRS would not see these actions as formal violations of the law, the difference between pastors electioneering and speaking as private citizens “is a fine distinction that is easily evaded,” said Galston.

Critics of the agency, including some progressive religious groups, argue that the IRS should put more resources toward enforcing the electioneering ban. The main question, said Alan Brownstein, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, is not whether religious groups and leaders should be able to express their views—it’s whether that activity should be subsidized by the government. “Pastors can say whatever they want, as can anyone else,” he said. “The question is whether a tax-exempt institution can say whatever it wants and retain its tax-exempt status, and whether the pastor as an official can use his or her position in the tax-exempt institution to engage in electioneering.”

Although religious groups often participate in political and campaign activities in defiance of the law, only Congress could make these activities fully legal. And doing so would raise big questions about money: Would religious organizations get to keep their tax-exempt status if they were permitted to participate in campaigns and endorse candidates? More importantly, could people still make tax-deductible donations to religious organizations—effectively giving money to promote a particular candidate or campaign?

Congress could make the first change fairly easily: It could add language to the current provision adding a special exception for pastors and other religious leaders who want to talk politics from the pulpit, Galston said, although that might present constitutional challenges. It would be a little more complicated to legalize tax-deductible donations to politically active churches. As Galston pointed out, another provision of the tax code strictly bans charitable, tax-deductible contributions to organizations that engage in political activity. Moreover, all charitable organizations are forbidden from providing “private benefit” to any individual—which includes campaigning on their behalf. So Congress would have to amend those provisions as well.

It’s unlikely that a President Trump would be able to push this repeal through Congress.

The result would likely be two-fold: Social-welfare groups that currently file as 501(c)(4)s, for example, might apply to become 501(c)(3)s in order to get a better break on taxes, Galston said. Moreover, political donors might start directing more cash toward non-profits, since those donations would be tax deductible. If all of these changes were made—which seems fairly unlikely—the biggest beneficiaries would likely be the wealthy. Tax-deductible donations only benefit people who take itemized deductions; people with high incomes are significantly more likely to do so.

What’s unclear about Trump’s promise to repeal the Johnson Amendment, though, is whether he’s only intending to push a repeal of the rule for religious organizations. A broad change to the provision would likely cause minor-level chaos within the U.S. political system: There would no longer be any meaningful difference between charitable groups and lobbying organizations. The government would effectively be subsidizing the political activities of all schools, charities, churches, and scientific-research organizations. On the other hand, if Trump’s theoretical administration pushed for a repeal only for religious groups, legal challenges would almost certainly follow. “It would be a preference for religion against organizations that were not religious,” Galston said.

Realistically, it seems unlikely that a President Trump would be able to push this repeal through Congress—it would pose immense political and legal challenges for legislators, Republicans and Democrats alike. The proposal seems to serve more of a dog-whistle purpose during this 2016 presidential campaign season: It’s a signal to religious conservatives that Trump is their champion, and that he cares about religious-freedom issues. It might also be a message to rich conservatives, specifically: Here, Trump hints, might be a way to make tax-favored political donations.

For those Americans who want more, not less, religious influence on American politics, the repeal of the Johnson Amendment is the perfect campaign promise: a guarantee of increased political power, greater freedom of speech, and more control over political dollars for groups that widely feel their electoral influence slipping.

Donald Trump Vowed to Close the Gap Between Church and State

TIME Magazine

Donald Trump, 2016 Republican presidential nominee, pauses while speaking during a campaign rally at the Erie Insurance Arena in Erie, Penn., on Aug. 12, 2016.

Bloomberg via Getty Images

By Jeff Nesbit

August 15, 2016

IDEAS

Nesbit was the communications director to former Vice President Dan Quayle and is the author of Poison Tea.

With Donald Trump’s campaign losing ground among independent voters in recent weeks due to a series of well-publicized mistakes, the GOP presidential nominee has tripled down with the one base of political support that has steadfastly remained with him—white, Evangelical voters—by promising to dismantle the laws that separate church and state in America.

It is a provocative move designed to energize a key conservative demographic vital to the national Republican Party, but one that could potentially anger moderate and independent voters once it becomes more widely known.

In a startling off-the-cuff speech to a gathering of pastors in Florida last week, Trump threw away his prepared remarks and promised, over and over, to give evangelical churches the power to essentially spend unlimited sums of tax-exempt money on politics. Nearly 80% of evangelicals already support Trump. It is one of his largest supportive demographics—and one of the GOP’s most reliable voting blocs.

“I said, ‘I’m going to take this into my own hands and I’m going to figure a way that we can get you back your freedom of speech,’” Trump told the evangelical pastors. “It will be so great for the evangelicals, for the pastors, for the ministers, for the priests, for America.”

Trump promised that one of his first efforts as president would be to dismantle laws that keep Christian churches from spending tax-exempt money on political advocacy. He promised to vigorously attack a law established in the 1950s—from legislation sponsored by then-Senator Lyndon Johnson amending the U.S. tax code rules—that prevents tax-exempt organizations such as churches or educational institutions from endorsing political candidates. The ban on 501 C-3 charitable organizations from engaging in political advocacy has come to be known as the “Johnson Amendment.”

“If I get elected President, one of the early things, one of the absolute first things I’m going to do is work on totally knocking out the Johnson Amendment,” he said. “The power you have is so enormous. It’s not like you represent two percent of the country and it’s going to be difficult. You’re probably 75, 80 percent. If you want to put your full weight … I mean, can you imagine if all of your people start calling up the local congressman and the local senator?”

Trump promised the evangelical pastors that, by abolishing the prohibition on churches spending tax-exempt money on political advocacy, it would reverse the slow, steady decline in church attendance and public attitudes toward Christian beliefs in the United States.

“And if you look what’s happened to religion, if you look at what’s happening to Christianity, and you look at the number of people going to churches—and evangelicals know this also—it’s not on this kind of a climb, it’s on this kind of a climb of slow and steady in the wrong direction,” Trump said. “A lot of it has to do with the fact that you’ve been silenced. You’ve been silenced like a child has been silenced.”

Trump told the pastors that evangelical voters would make the difference in key battleground states like Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. And if white, evangelical Christians put him in the White House, he promised to return the favor.

“You have a chance to do something that will be earth shaking,” he said. “I literally mean it: earth shaking. You got to get your people out to vote.”

Trump, whose religious background consists of childhood visits to Sunday school, also told the evangelical pastors that he was their best hope in the 2016 presidential election. He paraphrased evangelical megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, who has said the Bible has called for a strongman such as Trump in the White House—and his characterization of him to make the point.

“’Donald Trump may not be perfect, but he knows how to win. Maybe he’s not as good and maybe he’s not as perfect on the Bible,’” Trump said, quoting Jeffress. “But I did go to Sunday school for many years. I want to tell you that. Okay? He said, ‘He may not be perfect, but he’s ours.’”

Much of the media coverage of the Trump candidacy in the past few weeks has focused on mistakes (like his remark on “Second Amendment people” and Hillary Clinton). But Trump’s stunning proposal to change the 501 C-3 tax rules so that white, evangelical churches can spend money on political advocacy as an arm of the national GOP isn’t a mistake—it’s a move designed to save his presidential campaign at the expense of a time-honored principle of American democracy.

http://time.com/4452309/trumps-evangelical-voters/

Trump wants to 'destroy' Amendment key to Separation of Church and State

Feb 2nd 2017 2:50PM

By Nick Cardona for Veuer

President Trump made a move that will likely ignite a conversation about the separation of church and state.

Trump recently told religious leaders he wants to "totally destroy" a 1954 U.S. law barring churches and other religious institutions from religious activity if they want to keep tax-exempt status.

At the National Prayer Breakfast, the President spoke out against the so-called Johnson Amendment.

"I will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear and retribution," said Trump.

The Johnson Amendment bans all public charities, including churches, from campaigning for or against a certain candidate. If they do, they would lose their tax exemption status as a penalty.

Trump is trying to make good on a campaign promise he made in September when he said churches need to get their voices back.

Trump vows to end prohibition on church political activity

Jeff Mason, Roberta Rampton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Thursday vowed to free churches and other tax-exempt institutions of a 1954 U.S. law banning political activity, drawing fire from critics who accused him of rewarding his evangelical Christian supporters and turning houses of worship into political machines.

U.S. President Donald Trump is seen on a screen as he delivers remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, U.S., February 2, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

As Trump used a prayer breakfast to take aim at a long-standing statutory barrier between politics and religion called the Johnson Amendment, civil liberties and gay rights groups expressed concern that he might consider an executive order to allow government agencies and businesses to deny services to gay people in the name of religious freedom.

Trump did not reference such an order in his remarks. But he lambasted the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits tax-exempt organizations such as churches and other places of worship, charities and educational institutions from directly or indirectly participating in any political campaign in favor or against a political candidate.

“I will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution. I will do that, remember,” Trump told U.S. politicians, religious leaders and guests including Jordan’s King Abdullah at the annual National Prayer Breakfast.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Trump wanted to find ways to make sure people were not penalized for following through on their religious beliefs.

A draft executive order on “religious freedom” circulating among advocacy groups would allow government officials to deny marriage licenses to gay couples and let businesses withhold services from gay people, activists said.

The White House said it was not working on such an order.

Trump previously spoke out against the Johnson amendment during the campaign and won the support of evangelical Christian leaders including Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr.

A change in the law would require action in the Republican-led U.S. Congress, and Republican lawmakers introduced legislation that would reverse the policy.

After Trump’s remarks, Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters he has “always supported” eliminating the Johnson Amendment.

Critics including the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State expressed alarm.

“President Donald Trump and his allies in the religious right seek to turn America’s houses of worship into miniature political action committees,” said the group’s executive director, Barry Lynn.

“It would also lead some houses of worship to focus on supporting candidates in exchange for financial and other aid. That would be a disaster for both churches and politics in America,” Lynn said.

Peter Montgomery of the liberal advocacy group People For the American Way said Trump wants to pay back religious conservatives who helped get him elected “by letting them turn their churches into political machines with tax-exempt charitable dollars.”

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he attends the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, U.S., February 2, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Scrapping the Johnson Amendment has been a goal of Christian conservatives, who contend it violates free speech and religious freedom rights. The U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion and bars the government from establishing an official religion.

“We are encouraged to see that President Trump understands the very real constitutional violation posed by the Johnson Amendment and that he is committed to restoring a pastor’s right to speak freely from the pulpit without fearing government retribution,” said Erik Stanley, senior counsel for the conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom.

‘PRAY FOR ARNOLD’

Trump used the opening moments of the usually solemn prayer breakfast to deride actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, his successor on a reality TV show, for his viewership ratings.

Slideshow (7 Images)

Trump said Schwarzenegger, the Republican former governor of California, had disastrous ratings on the NBC reality TV program “Celebrity Apprentice,” which Trump previously starred in.

“They hired a big, big movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to take my place. And we know how that turned out,” Trump said. “It’s been a total disaster. ... And I want to just pray for Arnold if we can, for those ratings, OK?”

Schwarzenegger, who endorsed Ohio Governor John Kasich over Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, shot back, alluding to the controversies of Trump’s first two weeks in office.

“Hey Donald, I have a great idea,” Schwarzenegger said in a video. “Why don’t we switch jobs? You take over TV, because you’re such an expert in ratings, and I take over your job. And then people can finally sleep comfortably again.”

Spicer later called Trump’s remarks “light-hearted” and part of an “absolutely beautiful” speech.

Trump a week ago put a 120-day halt on the U.S. refugee program, barred Syrian refugees indefinitely and imposed a 90-day suspension on people from seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Trump defended his directive on Thursday as crucial to ensuring religious freedom and tolerance in America, and said he wanted to prevent a “beachhead of intolerance” from spreading in the United States. He also called terrorism a fundamental threat to religious freedom.

“The world is in trouble, but we’re going to straighten it out. OK? That’s what I do. I fix things,” Trump said.

“When you hear about the tough phone calls I‘m having, don’t worry about it,” Trump added, apparently referring to telephone conversations including one with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

“It’s time we’re going to be a little tough folks. We’re taken advantage of by every nation in the world virtually. It’s not going to happen anymore,” Trump said.

Reporting by Jeff Mason and Roberta Rampton; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Alistair Bell and Lisa Shumaker

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-trump-religion/trump-vows-to-end-prohibition-on-church-political-activity-idUSKBN15H2XI

Published on

Thursday, May 04, 2017

Common Dreams

Latest Trump Order Delivers 'Broadside to Separation of Church and State'

"It's clear that the Trump administration and Congressional leadership are using religion as a wedge to further divide the country and permit discrimination"

by Deirdre Fulton, staff writer

Flanked by conservative religious leaders and Vice President Mike Pence, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on religious liberty on Thursday. (Photo: AP)

President Donald Trump's executive order on "religious liberty," signed at the White House on Thursday, may not be quite as bad as rights groups feared when they mounted an emergency protest in the nation's capitol on Wednesday.

But, even watered down from an initial draft, the order opens the door to more dark money in politics, throws women "under the bus," and boasts the support of ultra-conservatives already emboldened by the right-wing Trump administration.

As such, it drew vows of legal action and condemnation from progressive advocacy groups across the spectrum—including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which denounced the order as "a broadside to our country's long-standing commitment to the separation of church and state" and threatened to "see Trump in court, again."

"Whether by executive order or through backroom deals, it's clear that the Trump administration and Congressional leadership are using religion as a wedge to further divide the country and permit discrimination," said ACLU executive director Anthony Romero. "We intend to file suit today."

According to initial reports, the Executive Order on Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty directs the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to exercise "maximum enforcement discretion" over the Johnson Amendment, which prevents churches and other tax-exempt religious organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates. "We are giving our churches their voices back," Trump said to conservative leaders gathered at the White House for National Prayer Day.

The order "also provides 'regulatory relief' for organizations that object on religious grounds to a provision in Obamacare that mandates employers provide certain health services, including coverage for contraception," CNN reported.

While the full text of the order had not yet been released as of Thursday afternoon, Bloomberg reporter Jennifer Jacobs posted this White House handout on Wednesday evening:

Campaign finance watchdogs cried foul over the dismantling of the Johnson Amendment, which Public Citizen's Lisa Gilbert said "could open the door to even more secret money influencing elections—this time with an added tax deduction."

"The idea of taxpayers footing the bill to enable more dark money in our already broken political system is appalling," said Gilbert, vice president of legislative affairs for the group, which said the order "threatens another 'Citizens United moment' with elections subjected to a whole new tsunami of secret and unaccountable money."

Robert Weissman, Public Citizen's president, said Thursday that his organization was "quickly reviewing the terms of the executive order, which we believe is not legally valid, and plan promptly to sue to block its implementation."

Pro-democracy group Every Voice similarly argued that the order was "a clear handout to wealthy donors who will now have the opportunity to turn churches into vehicles for influencing our elections—all while keeping their donations anonymous and tax deductible."

The group pointed to a new white paper (pdf) from the Campaign Legal Center, which explains how "totally destroying" the Johnson Amendment (as Trump said he'd do on the campaign trail) "could lead to the creation of an array of new 501(c)(3) 'super dark money groups'—groups organized as charities or religious organizations that will operate as tax-deductible vehicles for wealthy donors to secretly influence elections."

Meanwhile, the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) said it was "considering all legal options to ensure women can get the basic healthcare they need"—and was ready to "fight back in court."

"President Trump's legal action executive order discriminates against women and robs them of essential preventative care," said CRR's president and CEO Nancy Northup. "Without health coverage of contraception under [the Affordable Care Act], countless women will lose their basic right to prevent pregnancy and plan when they have children."

NARAL declared that the order "directly attacks our bodily autonomy [and] personal freedom," rolling back what it called "the single greatest advancement in [reproductive] healthcare in a GENERATION."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/05/04/latest-trump-order-delivers-broadside-separation-church-and-state

http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/sites/default/files/Johnson%20Amendment%20White%20Paper_0.pdf

July 21, 2016 9:51PM EST

Donald Trump’s RNC Speech Leaked: Vows To End Separation Of Church & State As President

Prior to taking the stage at the RNC, Donald Trump’s speech leaked online, and it contained a frightening promise. President Trump would abolish the separation of church and state! Read Trump’s leaked speech after the jump!

Donald Trump‘s full speech transcript leaked online to Politico just hours before he was set to take the stage on the last night of the Republican National Convention, July 21. In Trump’s speech, which was supposed to be given when he accepts the Republican party’s nomination, he listed several promises he would deliver during his presidency. READ TRUMP’S FULL LEAKED SPEECH HERE!

Sure, we expected him to say he’d build a wall, or stop ISIS. But end the separation of church and state? One of the things that makes America, well America? Never saw that coming! Allow Trump himself to explain in his leaked transcript:

Donald Trump's remarks according to a draft obtained by POLITICO Thursday afternoon.

Full text: Donald Trump 2016 RNC draft speech transcript

By POLITICO STAFF

07/21/2016 06:21 PM EDT

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Remarks as prepared for delivery according to a draft obtained by POLITICO Thursday afternoon.

Friends, delegates and fellow Americans: I humbly and gratefully accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.

Together, we will lead our party back to the White House, and we will lead our country back to safety, prosperity, and peace. We will be a country of generosity and warmth. But we will also be a country of law and order.

Our Convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country.

Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims.

I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th 2017, safety will be restored.

The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead.

It is finally time for a straightforward assessment of the state of our nation.

I will present the facts plainly and honestly. We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore.

So if you want to hear the corporate spin, the carefully-crafted lies, and the media myths the Democrats are holding their convention next week.

But here, at our convention, there will be no lies. We will honor the American people with the truth, and nothing else.

Trump speech draft leaks hours in advance

By NICK GASS

These are the facts:

Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this Administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement.

Homicides last year increased by 17% in America’s fifty largest cities. That’s the largest increase in 25 years. In our nation’s capital, killings have risen by 50 percent. They are up nearly 60% in nearby Baltimore.

In the President’s hometown of Chicago, more than 2,000 have been the victims of shootings this year alone. And more than 3,600 have been killed in the Chicago area since he took office.

The number of police officers killed in the line of duty has risen by almost 50% compared to this point last year. Nearly 180,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records, ordered deported from our country, are tonight roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens.

The number of new illegal immigrant families who have crossed the border so far this year already exceeds the entire total from 2015. They are being released by the tens of thousands into our communities with no regard for the impact on public safety or resources.

One such border-crosser was released and made his way to Nebraska. There, he ended the life of an innocent young girl named Sarah Root. She was 21 years-old, and was killed the day after graduating from college with a 4.0 Grade Point Average. Her killer was then released a second time, and he is now a fugitive from the law.

I’ve met Sarah’s beautiful family. But to this Administration, their amazing daughter was just one more American life that wasn’t worth protecting. One more child to sacrifice on the altar of open borders. What about our economy?

Again, I will tell you the plain facts that have been edited out of your nightly news and your morning newspaper: Nearly Four in 10 African-American children are living in poverty, while 58% of African American youth are not employed. 2 million more Latinos are in poverty today than when the President took his oath of office less than eight years ago. Another 14 million people have left the workforce entirely.

Household incomes are down more than $4,000 since the year 2000. Our manufacturing trade deficit has reached an all-time high – nearly $800 billion in a single year. The budget is no better.

President Obama has doubled our national debt to more than $19 trillion, and growing. Yet, what do we have to show for it? Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports are in Third World condition, and forty-three million Americans are on food stamps.

Now let us consider the state of affairs abroad.

Not only have our citizens endured domestic disaster, but they have lived through one international humiliation after another. We all remember the images of our sailors being forced to their knees by their Iranian captors at gunpoint.

This was just prior to the signing of the Iran deal, which gave back to Iran $150 billion and gave us nothing – it will go down in history as one of the worst deals ever made. Another humiliation came when president Obama drew a red line in Syria – and the whole world knew it meant nothing.

In Libya, our consulate – the symbol of American prestige around the globe – was brought down in flames. America is far less safe – and the world is far less stable – than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America’s foreign policy.

I am certain it is a decision he truly regrets. Her bad instincts and her bad judgment – something pointed out by Bernie Sanders – are what caused the disasters unfolding today. Let’s review the record. In 2009, pre-Hillary, ISIS was not even on the map.

Libya was cooperating. Egypt was peaceful. Iraq was seeing a reduction in violence. Iran was being choked by sanctions. Syria was under control. After four years of Hillary Clinton, what do we have? ISIS has spread across the region, and the world. Libya is in ruins, and our Ambassador and his staff were left helpless to die at the hands of savage killers. Egypt was turned over to the radical Muslim brotherhood, forcing the military to retake control. Iraq is in chaos.

Iran is on the path to nuclear weapons. Syria is engulfed in a civil war and a refugee crisis that now threatens the West. After fifteen years of wars in the Middle East, after trillions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost, the situation is worse than it has ever been before.

This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction and weakness.

But Hillary Clinton’s legacy does not have to be America’s legacy. The problems we face now – poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad – will last only as long as we continue relying on the same politicians who created them. A change in leadership is required to change these outcomes. Tonight, I will share with you my plan of action for America.

The most important difference between our plan and that of our opponents, is that our plan will put America First. Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo. As long as we are led by politicians who will not put America First, then we can be assured that other nations will not treat America with respect. This will all change in 2017.

The American People will come first once again. My plan will begin with safety at home – which means safe neighborhoods, secure borders, and protection from terrorism. There can be no prosperity without law and order. On the economy, I will outline reforms to add millions of new jobs and trillions in new wealth that can be used to rebuild America.

A number of these reforms that I will outline tonight will be opposed by some of our nation’s most powerful special interests. That is because these interests have rigged our political and economic system for their exclusive benefit.

Big business, elite media and major donors are lining up behind the campaign of my opponent because they know she will keep our rigged system in place. They are throwing money at her because they have total control over everything she does. She is their puppet, and they pull the strings.

That is why Hillary Clinton’s message is that things will never change. My message is that things have to change – and they have to change right now. Every day I wake up determined to deliver for the people I have met all across this nation that have been neglected, ignored, and abandoned.

I have visited the laid-off factory workers, and the communities crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals. These are the forgotten men and women of our country. People who work hard but no longer have a voice.

I AM YOUR VOICE.

I have embraced crying mothers who have lost their children because our politicians put their personal agendas before the national good. I have no patience for injustice, no tolerance for government incompetence, no sympathy for leaders who fail their citizens.

When innocent people suffer, because our political system lacks the will, or the courage, or the basic decency to enforce our laws – or worse still, has sold out to some corporate lobbyist for cash – I am not able to look the other way.

And when a Secretary of State illegally stores her emails on a private server, deletes 33,000 of them so the authorities can’t see her crime, puts our country at risk, lies about it in every different form and faces no consequence – I know that corruption has reached a level like never before.

When the FBI Director says that the Secretary of State was “extremely careless” and “negligent,” in handling our classified secrets, I also know that these terms are minor compared to what she actually did. They were just used to save her from facing justice for her terrible crimes.

In fact, her single greatest accomplishment may be committing such an egregious crime and getting away with it – especially when others have paid so dearly. When that same Secretary of State rakes in millions of dollars trading access and favors to special interests and foreign powers I know the time for action has come.

I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves. Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it. I have seen firsthand how the system is rigged against our citizens, just like it was rigged against Bernie Sanders – he never had a chance.

But his supporters will join our movement, because we will fix his biggest issue: trade. Millions of Democrats will join our movement because we are going to fix the system so it works for all Americans. In this cause, I am proud to have at my side the next Vice President of the United States: Governor Mike Pence of Indiana.

We will bring the same economic success to America that Mike brought to Indiana. He is a man of character and accomplishment. He is the right man for the job. The first task for our new Administration will be to liberate our citizens from the crime and terrorism and lawlessness that threatens their communities.

America was shocked to its core when our police officers in Dallas were brutally executed. In the days after Dallas, we have seen continued threats and violence against our law enforcement officials. Law officers have been shot or killed in recent days in Georgia, Missouri, Wisconsin, Kansas, Michigan and Tennessee.

On Sunday, more police were gunned down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Three were killed, and four were badly injured. An attack on law enforcement is an attack on all Americans. I have a message to every last person threatening the peace on our streets and the safety of our police: when I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order our country.

Leaked document: Trump will tell the nation, 'I am your voice'

By ELI STOKOLS and NICK GASS

I will work with, and appoint, the best prosecutors and law enforcement officials in the country to get the job done. In this race for the White House, I am the Law And Order candidate. The irresponsible rhetoric of our President, who has used the pulpit of the presidency to divide us by race and color, has made America a more dangerous environment for everyone.

This Administration has failed America’s inner cities. It’s failed them on education. It’s failed them on jobs. It’s failed them on crime. It’s failed them at every level.

When I am President, I will work to ensure that all of our kids are treated equally, and protected equally.

Every action I take, I will ask myself: does this make life better for young Americans in Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Ferguson who have as much of a right to live out their dreams as any other child America?

To make life safe in America, we must also address the growing threats we face from outside America: we are going to defeat the barbarians of ISIS. Once again, France is the victim of brutal Islamic terrorism.

Men, women and children viciously mowed down. Lives ruined. Families ripped apart. A nation in mourning.

The damage and devastation that can be inflicted by Islamic radicals has been over and over – at the World Trade Center, at an office party in San Bernardino, at the Boston Marathon, and a military recruiting center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Only weeks ago, in Orlando, Florida, 49 wonderful Americans were savagely murdered by an Islamic terrorist. This time, the terrorist targeted our LGBT community. As your President, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBT citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology. To protect us from terrorism, we need to focus on three things.

We must have the best intelligence gathering operation in the world. We must abandon the failed policy of nation building and regime change that Hillary Clinton pushed in Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria. Instead, we must work with all of our allies who share our goal of destroying ISIS and stamping out Islamic terror.

This includes working with our greatest ally in the region, the State of Israel. Lastly, we must immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism until such time as proven vetting mechanisms have been put in place.

My opponent has called for a radical 550% increase in Syrian refugees on top of existing massive refugee flows coming into our country under President Obama. She proposes this despite the fact that there’s no way to screen these refugees in order to find out who they are or where they come from. I only want to admit individuals into our country who will support our values and love our people.

Anyone who endorses violence, hatred or oppression is not welcome in our country and never will be.

Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens, especially for African-American and Latino workers. We are going to have an immigration system that works, but one that works for the American people.

On Monday, we heard from three parents whose children were killed by illegal immigrants Mary Ann Mendoza, Sabine Durden, and Jamiel Shaw. They are just three brave representatives of many thousands. Of all my travels in this country, nothing has affected me more deeply than the time I have spent with the mothers and fathers who have lost their children to violence spilling across our border.

These families have no special interests to represent them. There are no demonstrators to protest on their behalf. My opponent will never meet with them, or share in their pain. Instead, my opponent wants Sanctuary Cities. But where was sanctuary for Kate Steinle? Where was Sanctuary for the children of Mary Ann, Sabine and Jamiel? Where was sanctuary for all the other Americans who have been so brutally murdered, and who have suffered so horribly?

These wounded American families have been alone. But they are alone no longer. Tonight, this candidate and this whole nation stand in their corner to support them, to send them our love, and to pledge in their honor that we will save countless more families from suffering the same awful fate.

We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration, to stop the gangs and the violence, and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities. I have been honored to receive the endorsement of America’s Border Patrol Agents, and will work directly with them to protect the integrity of our lawful immigration system.

By ending catch-and-release on the border, we will stop the cycle of human smuggling and violence. Illegal border crossings will go down. Peace will be restored. By enforcing the rules for the millions who overstay their visas, our laws will finally receive the respect they deserve.

Tonight, I want every American whose demands for immigration security have been denied – and every politician who has denied them – to listen very closely to the words I am about to say.

On January 21st of 2017, the day after I take the oath of office, Americans will finally wake up in a country where the laws of the United States are enforced. We are going to be considerate and compassionate to everyone.

But my greatest compassion will be for our own struggling citizens. My plan is the exact opposite of the radical and dangerous immigration policy of Hillary Clinton. Americans want relief from uncontrolled immigration. Communities want relief.

Yet Hillary Clinton is proposing mass amnesty, mass immigration, and mass lawlessness. Her plan will overwhelm your schools and hospitals, further reduce your jobs and wages, and make it harder for recent immigrants to escape from poverty.

I have a different vision for our workers. It begins with a new, fair trade policy that protects our jobs and stands up to countries that cheat. It’s been a signature message of my campaign from day one, and it will be a signature feature of my presidency from the moment I take the oath of office.

I have made billions of dollars in business making deals – now I’m going to make our country rich again. I am going to turn our bad trade agreements into great ones. America has lost nearly-one third of its manufacturing jobs since 1997, following the enactment of disastrous trade deals supported by Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Remember, it was Bill Clinton who signed NAFTA, one of the worst economic deals ever made by our country.

Never again.

I am going to bring our jobs back to Ohio and to America – and I am not going to let companies move to other countries, firing their employees along the way, without consequences.

My opponent, on the other hand, has supported virtually every trade agreement that has been destroying our middle class. She supported NAFTA, and she supported China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization – another one of her husband’s colossal mistakes.

She supported the job killing trade deal with South Korea. She has supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP will not only destroy our manufacturing, but it will make America subject to the rulings of foreign governments. I pledge to never sign any trade agreement that hurts our workers, or that diminishes our freedom and independence. Instead, I will make individual deals with individual countries.

No longer will we enter into these massive deals, with many countries, that are thousands of pages long – and which no one from our country even reads or understands. We are going to enforce all trade violations, including through the use of taxes and tariffs, against any country that cheats.

This includes stopping China’s outrageous theft of intellectual property, along with their illegal product dumping, and their devastating currency manipulation. Our horrible trade agreements with China and many others, will be totally renegotiated. That includes renegotiating NAFTA to get a much better deal for America – and we’ll walk away if we don’t get the deal that we want. We are going to start building and making things again.

Next comes the reform of our tax laws, regulations and energy rules. While Hillary Clinton plans a massive tax increase, I have proposed the largest tax reduction of any candidate who has declared for the presidential race this year – Democrat or Republican. Middle-income Americans will experience profound relief, and taxes will be simplified for everyone.

America is one of the highest-taxed nations in the world. Reducing taxes will cause new companies and new jobs to come roaring back into our country. Then we are going to deal with the issue of regulation, one of the greatest job-killers of them all. Excessive regulation is costing our country as much as $2 trillion a year, and we will end it. We are going to lift the restrictions on the production of American energy. This will produce more than $20 trillion in job creating economic activity over the next four decades.

My opponent, on the other hand, wants to put the great miners and steel workers of our country out of work – that will never happen when I am President. With these new economic policies, trillions of dollars will start flowing into our country.

This new wealth will improve the quality of life for all Americans – We will build the roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, and the railways of tomorrow. This, in turn, will create millions more jobs. We will rescue kids from failing schools by helping their parents send them to a safe school of their choice.

My opponent would rather protect education bureaucrats than serve American children. We will repeal and replace disastrous Obamacare. You will be able to choose your own doctor again. And we will fix TSA at the airports! We will completely rebuild our depleted military, and the countries that we protect, at a massive loss, will be asked to pay their fair share.

We will take care of our great Veterans like they have never been taken care of before. My opponent dismissed the VA scandal as being not widespread – one more sign of how out of touch she really is. We are going to ask every Department Head in government to provide a list of wasteful spending projects that we can eliminate in my first 100 days. The politicians have talked about it, I’m going to do it. We are also going to appoint justices to the United States Supreme Court who will uphold our laws and our Constitution.

The replacement for Justice Scalia will be a person of similar views and principles. This will be one of the most important issues decided by this election. My opponent wants to essentially abolish the 2nd amendment. I, on the other hand, received the early and strong endorsement of the National Rifle Association and will protect the right of all Americans to keep their families safe.

At this moment, I would like to thank the evangelical community who have been so good to me and so supportive. You have so much to contribute to our politics, yet our laws prevent you from speaking your minds from your own pulpits.

An amendment, pushed by Lyndon Johnson, many years ago, threatens religious institutions with a loss of their tax-exempt status if they openly advocate their political views.

I am going to work very hard to repeal that language and protect free speech for all Americans. We can accomplish these great things, and so much else – all we need to do is start believing in ourselves and in our country again. It is time to show the whole world that America Is Back – bigger, and better and stronger than ever before.

In this journey, I'm so lucky to have at my side my wife Melania and my wonderful children, Don, Ivanka, Eric, Tiffany, and Barron: you will always be my greatest source of pride and joy. My Dad, Fred Trump, was the smartest and hardest working man I ever knew. I wonder sometimes what he’d say if he were here to see this tonight.

It’s because of him that I learned, from my youngest age, to respect the dignity of work and the dignity of working people. He was a guy most comfortable in the company of bricklayers, carpenters, and electricians and I have a lot of that in me also. Then there’s my mother, Mary. She was strong, but also warm and fair-minded. She was a truly great mother. She was also one of the most honest and charitable people I have ever known, and a great judge of character.

To my sisters Mary Anne and Elizabeth, my brother Robert and my late brother Fred, I will always give you my love you are most special to me. I have loved my life in business.

But now, my sole and exclusive mission is to go to work for our country – to go to work for all of you. It’s time to deliver a victory for the American people. But to do that, we must break free from the petty politics of the past.

America is a nation of believers, dreamers, and strivers that is being led by a group of censors, critics, and cynics.

Remember: all of the people telling you that you can’t have the country you want, are the same people telling you that I wouldn’t be standing here tonight. No longer can we rely on those elites in media, and politics, who will say anything to keep a rigged system in place.

Instead, we must choose to Believe In America. History is watching us now.

It’s waiting to see if we will rise to the occasion, and if we will show the whole world that America is still free and independent and strong.

My opponent asks her supporters to recite a three-word loyalty pledge. It reads: “I’m With Her”. I choose to recite a different pledge.

My pledge reads: “I’M WITH YOU – THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.”

I am your voice.

So to every parent who dreams for their child, and every child who dreams for their future, I say these words to you tonight: I’m With You, and I will fight for you, and I will win for you.

To all Americans tonight, in all our cities and towns, I make this promise: We Will Make America Strong Again.

We Will Make America Proud Again.

We Will Make America Safe Again.

And We Will Make America Great Again.

THANK YOU.

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/full-transcript-donald-trump-nomination-acceptance-speech-at-rnc-225974

“At this moment, I would like to thank the evangelical community who have been so good to me and so supportive. You have so much to contribute to our politics, yet our laws prevent you from speaking your minds from your own pulpits.

An amendment, pushed by Lyndon Johnson, many years ago, threatens religious institutions with a loss of their tax-exempt status if they openly advocate their political views.

Donald Trump's RNC Speech Leaked: Vows to End Separation of Church & State As President

Description: Donald Trump No Separation Church State

AP Images

Samantha Wilson

News Writer/Reporter

Prior to taking the stage at the RNC, Donald Trump’s speech leaked online, and it contained a frightening promise. President Trump would abolish the Separation of Church and State! Read Trump’s leaked speech after the jump!

READ TRUMP’S FULL LEAKED SPEECH HERE!