Trump says Democrats are ‘after Catholics,’ calls out Harris for her criticism of Knights

Former president Donald Trump speaks during a Turning Point USA Believers’ Summit conference at the Palm Beach Convention Center on July 26, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Florida. / Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 31, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Former president Donald Trump has accused Democrats of “[going] after Catholics” and sharply criticized his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, for her aggressive questioning of judicial nominees who are members of the Knights of Columbus.

In a July 26 speech at Turning Point Action’s Believers Summit, Trump alleged that “somebody doesn’t like Catholics in that administration,” adding that “I don’t think it’s [President Joe] Biden because I don’t think he has any idea what the hell he’s doing.”

“I don’t know how a Catholic can vote for the Democrats because they’re after the Catholics almost as much as they’re after me,” the former president said. “… How does a Catholic person vote for a Democrat with what they’re doing to Catholics? I just don’t get it.”

Trump headlined the event, which took place from July 26 through July 28. The summit, which included numerous Christian speakers, was focused on “empowering attendees with practical knowledge and strategies to live out their faith boldly and counteract the prevailing ‘woke’ narratives with grace, truth, and conviction, rooted in the Gospel,” according to the event’s website.

In his speech, Trump pledged to “stop the Biden-Harris administration’s weaponization of law enforcement against Americans of faith” and “no longer will the DOJ [Department of Justice] and the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] be allowed to target, persecute, or round up Christians or pro-life activists and throw them in jail for living out their religious beliefs.”

As part of its criticism of the current administration, the Trump campaign has pointed to the leaked February 2023 Richmond FBI memo, which showed the agency investigating a supposed link between “radical traditionalist” Catholics and “the far-right white nationalist movement.” The FBI retracted the memo immediately after it became public. An April report from Biden’s DOJ claimed there was no evidence of “malicious intent” in the creation of the document.

The former president’s campaign has also focused on the DOJ’s recent aggressive arrests and prosecutions of pro-life activists who were found guilty of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. Several of the activists are Catholic. Many Republican lawmakers have accused the DOJ of targeting pro-life activists while neglecting to adequately investigate crimes against pro-life pregnancy centers, which Attorney General Merrick Garland has denied.

In his speech, Trump referenced one of the pro-life activists, Paulette Harlow, a Catholic who was sentenced earlier this year to 24 months in jail for participating in a pro-life blockade of an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C. 

“From the moment I win the election, I will rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner who has been unjustly victimized by the Biden-Harris regime so we can get them out of prison and back to their families where they belong,” the former president said. “There’s many of them out there, and that includes Paulette Harlow, the 75-year-old woman in poor health who the Biden-Harris administration sent to prison for peacefully protesting outside of a clinic.”

Trump also singled out Harris for questions she has directed toward federal judicial nominees who are members of the Knights of Columbus. He said: “The radical left ideology Kamala supports is really militantly hostile toward Americans of faith.”

“She viciously attacked highly qualified judicial nominees simply because they were members of the Knights of Columbus, suggesting that their Catholic faith disqualified them from serving on the federal bench,” Trump emphasized.

When the nomination of Brian Buescher to the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska came up in 2018, then-Sen. Harris asked him whether he knew that “the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when [he] joined the organization” and whether he was aware “that the Knights of Columbus opposed marriage equality when [he] joined the organization.” In his response to Harris, Buescher said: “The Knights of Columbus is a Roman Catholic service organization with approximately 2 million members worldwide.”

Trump also reiterated his promise to “create a new federal task force on fighting anti-Christian bias, and its mission will be to investigate all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment, and persecution against Christians in America.”

During the 2020 election cycle, the Trump campaign established a coalition for Catholic outreach called Catholics for Trump, which was led by American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp, former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, and political consultant Mary Matalin. 

CNA reached out to the Trump campaign to ask whether a similar outreach effort has been launched for the 2024 election but did not receive a response by time of publication.

Trump describes himself as a nondenominational Christian. His running mate, J.D. Vance, is a convert to Catholicism. Biden is a Catholic and Harris is a Baptist.