While addressing an anti-LGBT hate group on Friday, President Donald Trump claimed religious groups would never be targeted under his administration, but his track record tells a different story.
Though it was his fourth time addressing the Family Research Council, an Evangelical organization that has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Trump became the first-ever sitting president to address the group on Friday when he spoke at its Values Voter Summit.
He spoke about religious oppression saying, “No religious group is ever targeted under my administration. It won’t happen.”
But that’s not entirely true, is it?
Trump has been advocating for “ban” and even a “registry” of Muslims in the United States since he stepped out on the campaign trail.
“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on,” Trump said at a campaign speech in 2015.
After being elected into office, Trump acted on that statement, enacting a ban on travel to the United States from nationals of six Muslim-majority countries. Trump’s travel ban has faced constant court battles.
This was hardly the only untrue claim Trump made during the speech — he also said he met with the president of the U.S. Virgin Islands, which is obviously him.
Other discriminatory behavior has defined Trump since taking office.
Trump infamously refused to condemn white supremacists following a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August that led to the death of a woman who was involved in a counter-protest of the torch-wielding, Nazi-memorabilia toting ralliers.
Instead, Trump lambasted violence “on many sides” and argued there were “some very fine people on both sides” of the protest.
More recently Trump has condemned black athletes who have chosen to kneel during the national anthem before games. The statement is meant to raise awareness to racial oppression and inequality against blacks in American, but Trump has called the action “disrespectful.”
Trump made a thinly-veiled reference to the ongoing dispute during the Values Voter Summit on Friday saying, “we respect our great American flag,” for which he received a standing ovation from the audience.
