“They will end everything immediately,” he said, apparently referring to Democrats. He added, again without being clear whom he was talking about: “They will overturn everything that we’ve done and they’ll do it quickly and violently. And violently. There’s violence. When you look at Antifa, and you look at some of these groups, these are violent people.”
Antifa is a term that describes some militant, leftist anti-fascist groups in the United States.
Mr. Trump bantered with the religious leaders at the dinner, noting at one point that Robert Jeffress, a Dallas evangelical pastor who once said Jewish people were going to hell, had observed that Mr. Trump “may not be the perfect human being, but he’s the greatest leader for Christianity.”
“Hopefully, I’ve proven that to be a fact,” Mr. Trump said, prompting applause, before adding, “In terms of the second part, not the first part.”
After his remarks, Mr. Trump invited several religious leaders to speak at the podium, as he often does with friendly groups. Several heaped praise upon the president, though it was not possible from the audio to identify them.
“The biggest thing I said to the president is, we are here tonight to say to you, Mr. President, and to you, First Lady Melania, and to Ivanka and to Jared, we love you and we believe in you,” the first religious leader, a man, said, referring to the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner. “You are doing amazing, amazing things.”
He added that attacks on Mr. Trump by political adversaries frustrated the pastors.
“In the meeting today, we all got down on our knees and we prayed for you because we can’t imagine the pain,” the man said. “You are human beings and when people are lying constantly, accusing constantly, attacking constantly, it hurts.”
A second minister noted that “there are a few of us people of color in the room” and noted that “many of us have taken shots and hits because we are with this president.”
The minister added: “Now we have a warrior at the helm who is willing to stand up and fight. Amen. Sir, I commend you for your courage. It is an amazing thing. So, team — let’s fight and we’ll win. God bless you.”
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