Former President Donald Trump used his microphone at a top conservative conference to bash the House Jan. 6 select committee repeatedly — and noted how even CNN has stopped using the term the “big lie.”
“It’s the same people, it’s Adam Schiff, it’s same words,” he said at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference. “If you just [insert] ‘January 6,’ instead of ‘Russia, Russia, Russia.'” Schiff is a California Democrat who pushed the assertion that there was collusion “in plain sight” between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.
“It’s no coincidence that all of the same people who staged the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax are now pushing this insurrection hoax,” he added.
Of CNN, Trump celebrated reports that said the cable network’s new chief discouraged the use of the phrase “big lie” to describe the former president’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen. “They came out with a strong statement saying that they are totally, totally prohibited from using the term,” Trump said.
Trump dusted off other rhetorical greatest hits as well, such as rising crime, illegal immigration, and even 2016 Democratic presidential opponent “crooked” Hillary Clinton.
Trump also emphasized his “pro-faith,” “pro-family,” “pro-life,” and “pro-woman” platform, underscoring that “the American tradition is under assault from the radical Left.”
“This is going to be the biggest midterm in history without question. It’s going to have conservative Christians all over the place,” he said. “In America, we don’t worship government. We worship God.”
The Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center ballroom was crowded with roughly 2,400 faith-based organizations and conservative activists. It was a far larger audience than the one that gathered in the cavernous space the previous night for prayer and worship. The diverse spectators donned everything from snappy business suits to less formal Americana-themed T-shirts. Guests staying at the sprawling complex were overheard calling home to tell loved ones Trump was also on the property.
Trump’s appearance at the conference, which he seemed to savor by taking in the applause for several minutes before he started his remarks, provides alternative programming to the Jan. 6 committee’s public hearings. It supplemented sporadic statements he has issued since the panel’s opening prime-time testimony, including a 12-page response in which he claimed Democrats were simply “desperate to change the narrative of a failing nation.”
The Road to Majority conference is an annual confab focused on understanding best practices concerning how attendees can better engage and turnout value-aligned voters in elections.
Trump’s address is part of the former president’s “fervent” evangelical vote courtship since almost 40% of the electorate identifies as evangelical or what is termed “faithful Catholics,” according to Faith and Freedom Coalition Executive Director Timothy Head.
“If you want the nomination, there’s really no way around that,” he said. “Trump’s team now has been working pretty hard to adjust for the future.”
For Tommy Woods, who founded Christian Families Against Destructive Decisions two years ago, “many men who have goodwill would have caved under the pressure” with which Trump continues to contend.
“It takes his type of personality to stand the onslaught of criticism and persecution and attack that he’s had to stand under,” he said.
Reporting from The Washington Examiner.
