(RNS) — President Donald Trump, speaking to a sprawling crowd at a National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Thursday (Feb. 5), returned to his personal tradition of using the bipartisan convening as an opportunity to attack his political enemies along religious lines.
“I don’t know how a person of faith can vote for a Democrat,” said Trump.
In a more than hourlong speech, the president, a self-described nondenominational Christian, highlighted faith but spent roughly as much time lauding his administration, his Cabinet and himself while heaping criticism on others. At one point, he blasted Republicans who have opposed his policies, saying of U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, “There’s something wrong with him.”
The breakfast at the Washington Hilton was one of two prayer breakfasts that took place in the capital Thursday, continuing a split that began during the COVID-19 pandemic as negative reports came out about the Fellowship Foundation, the secretive evangelical Christian group that has coordinated the event for decades. Since at least 2022, the established breakfast has been held at the Hilton and another “reset” event organized by members of Congress at the U.S. Capitol. President Joe Biden tended only to address the event at the Capitol, but last year, Trump spoke at both.
On Jan. 7 of this year, the co-chairs of the Hilton event, U.S. Reps. Jonathan L. Jackson of Illinois and Ben Cline of Virginia, announced that there would be only one breakfast, suggesting the return to a single event had come at the urging of Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson. But Sen. Roger Marshall, a nondenominational Christian and Kansas Republican, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Catholic and New York Democrat, hosted an event at the Capitol on Thursday anyway, coordinated by a separate National Prayer Breakfast Foundation created in 2023.
The more sedate Capitol e …