In a statement on Saturday’s summit, Perkins said “there is a growing realization among voters that the future of our freedoms and even our identity as Americans hangs in the balance” in the November election. “There is nothing we as Americans can’t do”, Trump told a packed hotel ballroom where he was received enthusiastically.
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“As your president, I will be the biggest cheerleader for school choice you’ve ever seen”.
Trump criticized Clinton as “all talk and no action”. “The biggest of which is her judgement. It is so bad”. Trump asked rhetorically, before reminding the audience that many politicians have straight-up “abandoned” them for more progressive, secular, politically correct values.
Appearing on Thursday before a receptive crowd, Mr Trump said “one of the greatest privileges” of his campaign for the presidency had been “the time I’ve spent with the evangelical community”, boasting: “A lot of people said, ‘I wonder if Donald will get the evangelicals.’ I got the evangelicals”.
Yet Trump did not mention two issues key to social conservatives – abortion and same-sex marriage – in his almost 45-minute address.
Last year, Trump finished a distant fifth in the summit’s straw poll for presidential candidates behind Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who finished first for the third year in a row.
Vice presidential candidate Mike Pence, governor of IN, will address the summit, the 11th annual event of its kind. “And we’re going to get rid of that law so fast”.
Some people attending the conference said they were sold on Trump as the best candidate to represent their views.
Roy Wagers, a retired accountant from Commerce, Mich., said he was glad to hear Trump wanted to bring standards back to the nation. “I don’t think it’s gonna happen anytime soon”.
“I just felt real, really comfortable”, said Frances Pierce, a hairdresser from Bowling Green, Ky. Under a Trump administration, the Republican presidential nominee promised, “Our Christian heritage will be cherished, protected, defended like you have never seen before”.
Donald Trump didn’t win a majority of GOP primary votes to score the nomination.
Another attendee, Sarah Ocker, a student at Tulsa Community College in Oklahoma, said she was closer to voting for Trump after his speech.
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That Trump hasn’t quite satisfied everyone at the Values Voter Summit could be a warning sign that they’re more scared of Hillary Clinton than of a President Trump gives him some room to move.
