Trump

President Trump: “I think God is very proud of the job I’ve done.”

At Tuesday’s White House briefing marking the one-year anniversary of the second Trump administration, a reporter asked President Trump the following question:

“Last year, you told me that you believed that the reason you won the election is because God put you in this place so that you could save the world. Looking back [after] one year, do you feel like God is proud of the effort that you’ve [given]?”

To be clear, it was during President Trump’s second Inaugural address that he stated, “Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear. But I felt then and we believe even more so now that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again.”

President Trump didn’t quibble with the reporter’s premise, but did answer with a bit of a chuckle.

“I do actually,” he said. “I think God is very proud of the job I’ve done.” He then added, “We’re protecting a lot of people that are being killed. Christians, Jewish people, and lots of people are being protected by me that wouldn’t be protected …”

Assessment and admiration are in the eye of the beholder, of course. 

Less than 24 hours after Mr. Trump touted his track record for protecting the First Amendment rights of Americans, the Interfaith Alliance’s Reverend Paul Brandeis Raushenbush released a statement decrying “One Year of The Trump Administration’s Attacks on Faith Communities and Abuse of Religion.”

The Interfaith Alliance began in 1994 and has been a constant critic of social conservatism, regularly championing the reimagination and redefinition of biblical Christianity itself.

“This White House uses faith for power,” Reverend Raushenbush has stated. “This is all from a Christian nationalist playbook. They don’t have wide support. They have support from a very narrow slice of American Christianity which is white, Protestant, Christian nationalists who are on a quest for power.”

The Christian nationalism trope is a favorite go-to for progressives who regularly confuse patriotism with unhealthy idol worship. Hillsdale College professor Wilfred M. McClay has provided a helpful distinction and definition:

Patriotism, in the American context, is an intricate latticework of ideals, sentiments, and overlapping loyalties. Since its founding, America has often been understood as the incarnation of an idea, an abstract and aspirational claim about self-evident truths that apply to all of humanity. There is certainly some truth to this view, but to focus on it exclusively ignores the very natural and concrete aspects of American patriotism: our shared memories of our nation’s singular triumphs, sacrifices, and sufferings, as well as our unique traditions, culture, and land.

But the suggestion that President Trump and his administration are an enemy of religious freedom? In fact, Reverend Raushenbush concludes:

“The most pressing threat to religious liberty in our country today is the Trump administration itself.”

Last fall, the Trump administration laid out the “Top 100 Victories for People of Faith.”The list included:

The establishment of a White House Faith Office, the creation of “Centers for Faith” with Faith Directors or Faith Liaisons in every department and agency, the establishment of the “Religious Liberty Commission,” and the “Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias.”

Additional faith-based accomplishments highlighted:

• The Department of Justice supported religious charter schools and tax exemptions for religious groups at the U.S. Supreme Court.

• The Department of Justice found that speech from a house of worship to its congregation in connection with religious services through its usual channels of communication on matters of faith does not run afoul of the Johnson Amendment.

• The U.S. Office of Personnel Management issued guidance supporting religious accommodations and protecting religious expression in the federal workplace.

• The Department of Health and Human Service has launched multiple investigations into health care facilities that violated healthcare workers’ conscience rights.

• The Department of Veterans Affairs rescinded a Biden-era speech code that censored the sermons of military chaplains.

• The Small Business Administration eliminated a Biden-era ban on disaster relief for faith-based organizations.

President Trump issued and signed numerous executive orders designed to protect people of faith: 

• An executive order ending the weaponization of the federal government against all Americans, including people of faith. 

• An executive order restoring free speech and ending federal censorship.

• An executive order combating the debanking of Americans based on their political affiliations, religious beliefs, and lawful business activities.

God’s Word is clear we’re to pray for our leaders. Wrote Paul to Timothy: “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness” (1 Tim. 2:1-2). 

Regardless of your party or your political persuasion, please join us in praying for President Trump and all our elected leaders.

The Light Shines in the Darkness: When the World Storms the Church

Calling them “agitators and insurrectionists,” President Donald Trump and the Department of Justice have pledged to swiftly and fully investigate the mob that invaded Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, this past Sunday.

Founded in January 2015, the congregation meets in a church building constructed back in 1912 on Summit Hill by an Episcopal body of believers. Visit the Cities Church website and you’ll see their declared goal:

Making joyful disciples of Jesus who remember His realness in all of life.

That joy was put to the test this past Sunday morning. Incensed that a bi-vocational pastor at Cities Church also serves as Acting Field Officer Director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an angry mob stormed and disrupted Sunday’s service. Some of the agitators walked right up to the pulpit while others engaged in various combative and profane chants, even hurling insults at those worshipping — including children. There’s a video of a young child cowering during the onslaught.

Trey Turner, who serves as the executive director of the Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention, denounced the attack, calling it “an unacceptable trauma.” The service was halted and cancelled. 

“I believe we must be resolute in two areas,” Turner said in a statement. “Encouraging our churches to provide compassionate pastoral care to these (migrant) families and standing firm for the sanctity of our houses of worship.”

Sunday in Minnesota wasn’t the first time angry mobs desecrated and disrupted a service of worship, of course. 

The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan in 1963. Four young girls were killed. Nine parishioners of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, were murdered in 2015 by a white supremacist. The deadliest church shooting in American history took place in 2017 when 26 congregants were killed at Sutherland Springs church in Texas.

Pro-abortion and homosexual agitators and activists have been known to disrupt Catholic masses and other church services for decades. 

Jesus warned, “You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:22). He also said, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18). 

Those attacking Cities Church appear to be angry that a minister of the congregation has taken a sworn oath to uphold the immigration laws of the United States. In response, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X, “Attacks against law enforcement and the intimidation of Christians are being met with the full force of federal law.” 

ICE’s fatal confrontation with Renee Good has spiraled into ongoing protests in Minnesota, a state that seems to welcome its role as something of ground zero for cultural unrest. There is speculation that some of those demonstrating are being paid, the product of a concerted campaign to undermine United States immigration enforcement.

Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Seminary, is urging Christians to not miss the larger ramifications of what’s going on in Minnesota.

“The left is protesting the tactics of ICE and in a larger general sense, the tactics of the federal government, but those activists are actually opposing much more than the tactics of ICE,” he said on Tuesday’s Briefing. “In many ways, they question the legitimacy of ICE itself and frankly, the legitimacy of the US federal government’s concern when it comes to policing its own borders and even maintaining a coherent understanding of citizenship.”

The Cities Church website includes some commentary on the historic building that the protestors stormed and invaded, specifically their stained-glass windows. For centuries, stained glass has served as visual Catechism, a way to teach the Bible in images. But they’ve also been used to symbolize the light that streams through them with being divinely derived. 

We read on their site:

The sun filtered through their pigments, telling us a bit of the story of God and His great deeds for us and for our salvation. The things of earth are truly given for our good, not only to enjoy but to see anew once the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ shines in our hearts, taking away our blindness. 

But the light of His glory also shines through the things of the world and its history because they all belong to and speak of the Triune God. From inside the church, from inside the gospel, the world is irradiated with the light of God who is light, and we see it more truly from inside than those do outside.

But these windows also serve that world outside. In the long darkness of our winters, in the evenings, this summit hill is lit with the glow of our windows from the inside out. The light from within the church — God, the gospel, we who are the “light of the world” — shines through these same windows telling a bit of the story of what God has given for the life of the world. They beckon people to come and see how the Light has shone and is shining in the darkness, and to know that the darkness has not and cannot overcome it.

Agitators can storm a building, protest its minister, and even stop a worship service, but nothing will stop the march of the Gospel or block out the Light of the World, Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, we prepare for persecution and pray for the peace and safety of our Christian brothers and sisters in Minnesota and beyond.  

Taxpayer Money Should Never Go to Planned Parenthood For Any Reason Ever

It might surprise you to learn that the Trump administration has restored millions of dollars in funding to pro-abortion groups, including Planned Parenthood.

Last spring, federal monies designated for the “Title X Family Planning Program” had been frozen — a move widely celebrated by pro-life advocates. The federal program, which dates to 1970, is a welfare subsidy that ostensibly offers “family planning services” to low-income individuals. Groups who facilitate these offerings include the abortion giant Planned Parenthood.

Advocates for the program claim that the federal funds provide critical services for the poor — birth control, sexually transmitted disease testing, cancer screenings, etc. 

Yet, dollars are fungible, and the prospect of providing any amount of money, let alone tens of millions of dollars, to groups that champion and celebrate the slaughter of innocent lives is deeply disturbing and objectionable.

When Trump administration officials froze the money last year, they suggested the groups were in possible violation of numerous laws, including servicing illegal aliens and engaging “in widespread practices across hiring, operations, and patient treatment that unavoidably employ race in a negative manner.”

Not surprisingly, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association demanding that grants worth upwards of $65.8 million be restored to Planned Parenthood and the other groups earmarked for the funds. 

According to the lawsuit, the dollars were set to be distributed to 865 service sites thatare treating 842,000 individuals.

The lawsuit was dropped after the funding was restored, apparently in December. Administration officials have not responded to requests to explain their decision. But Clare Coleman, who heads up the National Family Planning group that championed the legal action, claimed officials were guilty of “illegally” withholding “vital family planning funds.”

At the core of the problem is a broken system that can tie the hands of government officials who may want to stop feeding the abortion machine but seem helpless in stopping it. 

Kristan Hawkins, who serves as president of Students for Life, is calling on the government to “debar” Planned Parenthood. Basically, through legislation and policies they would ban the abortion behemoth from contracting with the federal government. 

“Planned Parenthood needs a full DOGE experience, of evaluating them for fraud and for all the allegations of failure to report sex crimes or operating a racist work environment, to name only a few of the charges recently made,” Hawkins said.

Another tactic that could slow and stop any federal monies from going to such groups would be to reinstate “The Protect Life Rule” which was enacted during President Trump’s first term.

As drafted and enforced, it required any organization that received Title X funds not to provide abortions or refer patients for abortion. The Biden administration rescinded the rule in 2021.

President Trump ignited a firestorm earlier this month when he urged Republicans “to be a little flexible on Hyde” — an amendment that bans taxpayer dollars from funding abortion itself. At issue is Congress attempting to extend ObamaCare subsidies. A bill recently passed by the House didn’t include the Hyde protections. Its fate in the Senate remains uncertain. 

It’s a good thing when principled pro-lifers push back on legislators and a president otherwise friendly in so many ways to the pro-life cause. With the reversal of Roe in 2022, abortion remains a hot button issue at both the federal and state level. Some may have grown weary of the battle, but the fate of innocent lives remains at stake every single day. 

When it comes to our resolve concerning the defense of babies in the womb, the words of the 17th century German theologian Rupertus Meldenius comes to mind:

“In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”

The sanctity of life may be debated in a political realm, but it is a moral principle.

Just ahead of the annual “National March for Life,” please join us in praying that administration officials will either reinstate “The Protect Life Rule” or once and for all defund Planned Parenthood and stop the flow of taxpayer dollars to any group even remotely associated with abortion.

Proposed Executive Order Would Protect Parental Rights

A pro-family, pro-child coalition urged the Trump administration this week to issue an executive order protecting parental rights and the religious freedom of Christian parents and foster parents.

The proposed order, which the coalition workshopped with the White House Domestic Policy Council on Wednesday, would:

  • Explicitly affirm parents’ constitutional right to raise their children according to their religious beliefs.
  • Repeal federal foster care rules preventing or obstructing people who affirm biological sex from becoming foster parents.
  • Prohibit organizations from using federal funds to remove children from parents who do not affirm same-sex attraction or sexual identity confusion.
  • Remove federal funding from organizations which help children conceal sexual identity confusion from their parents.

These four recommendations would prevent federal and state governments from unconstitutionally withholding adoption and foster care licenses from Christians or taking children with sexual identity confusion away from loving, Christian parents.

States like Colorado, Massachusetts, Vermont, Oregon, Washington and California require prospective foster parents to affirm a child’s same-sex attraction and sexual identity confusion.

In 2024, the Department of Health and Human Services released regulations giving progressive, “gender affirming” foster care placement organizations privileged status over biology-affirming ones.

Policies like these prevent people like Jessica Bates, Bryan and Rebecca Gantt, Brian and Katy Wuoti and Mike and Kitty Burkes from fostering or adopting some of the estimated 400,000 children in the U.S. foster care system.

Parents in many states can also lose custody of their children for failure to affirm their same-sex attraction or sexual identity confusion.

The Indiana Department of Child Services took custody of Mary and Jeremy Cox’s 16-year-old son after the couple refused to affirm his “transgender identity.” A court eventually found the Cox’s had not abused their son — but the state never gave him back.

He remained in the department’s care to receive treatment for an eating disorder which had worsened while he was away from home.

The Coxes are just one of innumerable heartbreaking examples of state agencies taking children from loving parents who affirm biological. Erin Friday, one of the coalition leaders who met with the White House on Wednesday, says the number of families in this situation far exceeds most people’s expectations.

“The public is unaware that children are being kidnapped by child protective services and family judges because these cases are usually sealed or there are confidentiality laws that prevent parents from going public,” she told The Daily Signal.

Christian parents need not have their child taken to suffer under child protective agencies’ scrutiny.

Erin Lee received an unexpected visit from the Colorado Department of Human Services after she tried to hold her daughter’s public school accountable for secretly teaching gender ideology.

“We managed to evade losing our children that day, but I’ve met many parents who weren’t so lucky,” Lee, who eventually saved her daughter from damaging sexual identity confusion, told the Daily Wire.

She continued:

I also had a six-year-old and an infant at the time and I shudder to think that I could have lost all three of my kids for being a good parent, for being unwilling to lie to my daughter and send her down a path of self-hatred and destruction.

Laws and policies penalizing Christian parents and prospective foster parents for questioning “gender affirming care” are increasingly ludicrous given the mounting evidence proving sex-rejecting procedures harm minors.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ own, peer-reviewed report found “transgender” medical interventions — including puberty blockers, wrong-sex hormones and surgeries — pose “significant, long term and too often ignored” harms to children.

It’s about time America’s foster care systems reflect reality.

Additional Articles and Resources

Wait No More

Wait No More Suitcase Bundle

When Government is Hostile to Christian Foster Parents

President Trump to Sign Executive Order Strengthening Foster Care

Christians Banned as Fathers to the Fatherless

Christian Families Are Not Second-Class Foster Parents

‘Art Club’ Documentary—One Family’s Escape from Gender Ideology, and the Bigger Trend Sweeping the Nation

Radical Colorado ‘Transgender’ Bill Threatens Parents’ Rights and Free Speech

Riley Gaines Asks For Colorado Parents to Help Save Girls’ Sports and Defend Parental Rights

Court Frees Christian Mom to Adopt, Stops Oregon’s Gender Ideology Adoption Mandate

Indiana Family Loses Custody of Son Over Religious Beliefs; Supreme Court Won’t Hear Case

Thank You, Senator Scott, For Leading Charge to Stand Up for Parents and Children in Foster Care

Massachusetts DCF Denied a Catholic Couple’s Foster Care License — Now, They’re Being Sued for Religious Discrimination

Court Upholds Trump Ban on ‘Transgender’ Service Members

A federal appeals court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to enforce its prohibition on transgender-identified individuals from serving in the military.

In a 2-1 decision, a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled a lower court had afforded “insufficient deference” to the secretary of war to enforce strict medical standards on service members.

The decision stays Biden-nominated Judge Ana C. Reyes’s March 18 preliminary injunction that had placed the Pentagon’s policy on ice after several transgender-identifying service members filed a lawsuit to prevent the policy’s enforcement.

Judge Reyes is the “first openly LGBT” person to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and “is a longtime Democrat Party donor,” The Federalist reports.

Judge Gregory Katsas, a Trump nominee, authored the Court of Appeals’ decision and explained the Hegseth Policy “is likely constitutional because it reflects a considered judgement of military leaders and furthers legitimate military interests.”

“The government identifies several legitimate military interests that the Hegseth Policy advances,” Judge Katsas continued. “Chief among them is military readiness. … Secretary Hegseth had before him evidence that treatments for gender dysphoria would limit deployability and may not be effective. … His predecessors unanimously agreed that these concerns are serious ones.”

In May, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed a separate preliminary injunction in a related case that had prohibited the Pentagon from disqualifying transgender-identified individuals from military service. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson had dissented from the Court’s decision.

Judge Katsas cited the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling as a further reason for staying Judge Reyes’ preliminary injunction.

“The Supreme Court has already held that the government is likely to succeed on its contention that the Hegseth Policy does not violate equal protection,” Judge Katsas wrote.

Judge Neomi Rao, also a nominee of President Trump, joined the Court of Appeals’ majority opinion. Judge Cornelia Pillard, a nominee of former President Barack Obama, dissented.

Just one week after taking office for the second time, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order, Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness, that made it the policy of the U.S. government to “establish high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity.”

The order properly explained,

This policy is inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria. This policy is also inconsistent with shifting pronoun usage or use of pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex.

The Pentagon then issued a directive on February 26 disqualifying individuals with a current diagnosis, or exhibiting symptoms, of gender dysphoria from military service. The directive also stipulates:

  • All service members will only serve in accordance with their sex.
  • Pronoun usage within the military must reflect service members’ sex.
  • Sleeping, changing and bathing facilities will be designated based on biological sex.
  • The Department of Defense will not pay for transgender medical interventions.

The directive reversed two previous presidential policies, implemented by the Obama and Biden administrations, that had relaxed the military’s policy of prohibiting “individuals with gender dysphoria, a medical condition associated with clinically significant distress,” from serving in the military.

Between 2015 and 2024, the U.S. Department of Defense spent over $52 million providing transgender medical interventions to active-duty service members.

Following the Court of Appeals’ ruling, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth posted a meme depicting his foot kicking “Woke Culture” and “DEI Military” out the front door of the Department of War.

“This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department. To rip out the politics,” Secretary Hegseth told hundreds of our nation’s top military leaders in a speech in September.

“No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction or gender delusions. No more debris.”

Now, two of our nation’s highest courts have upheld one of the administration’s initiatives to restore a “warrior ethos” to the military and end the “woke” at the Department of War.

Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver issued a statement after the Court of Appeals’ ruling, saying, “The D.C. Court of Appeals ruling affirms that the Equal Protection Clause does not require the armed forces to disregard its legitimate medical standards that are essential for mission success.”

“The ‘Hegseth Policy’ is grounded in objective medical criteria and the natural differences between the sexes to ensure that every servicemember is fully prepared — physically and mentally — to meet the challenges of defending our nation.”

The Daily Citizen will keep you updated of any important developments in this case.

The case isTalbott v. United States.

Related articles and resources:

Hegseth: No More ‘Woke’ At Department of War

Supreme Court Lets Trump’s ‘Transgender Military Ban’ Take Effect

SecDef Hegseth: Military Reinstating 8,700 Wrongly Discharged Servicemembers

Biden-Appointed Judge Blocks Trump Ban on ‘Transgender’ Service Members

Pentagon Ends Paid Travel Expenses and Time Off for Abortions

Photo from Getty Images.