NEW YORK (RNS) — The Rev. Tony Suárez, the vice president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference who made waves by personally endorsing Donald Trump during his 2016 run for president, said he likely will not endorse political candidates in the future.
An adviser to Trump, Suárez made the comments at the 2025 RNS symposium, “God, Government and the Algorithm: The New Rules of Belief and Power,” at Trinity Commons in New York City on Wednesday (Oct. 22). In response to a question by RNS columnist the Rev. Thomas Reese about endorsing political candidates, Suárez said, “I don’t know that I’ll endorse any more candidates after this go-round,” adding he would like to be “policy-focused” instead of “personality-driven.”
“ I’d like to talk more about concepts and ideas and policy more than ‘How dare you vote for that man?’ or ‘How dare you vote for that woman?’” said Suárez, the Tennessee-based founder of Revivalmaker Ministries.
In July, the IRS said for the first time that churches could endorse political candidates, changing interpretations of an IRS rule to align the Trump administration with conservative legal groups. But Súarez’s statement about his history of personal, as opposed to church, endorsements …