CNN —
Just days before Donald Trump hosts his first event of 2024 in South Carolina, a state whose evangelical population has long played a critical role in presidential primaries, the former president is lashing out at religious conservatives who have refused to endorse his third presidential campaign .
Trump’s comments to conservative journalist David Brody in a podcast interview Monday, in which he denounced the “disloyalty” of evangelical leaders who have withheld public support for his campaign, were the latest in a series of confusing remarks he has made about one of the most critical voting blocs in Republican primaries.
“No one has done more for the right to life than Donald Trump. I appointed three Supreme Court justices who all voted, and they got something that they’ve been fighting for for 64 years, for many, many years,” Trump told Brody, referring to the Supreme Court’s overturning of federal abortion rights in Dobbs v . Jackson’s decision The Women’s Health Organization last summer.
“There’s a lot of disloyalty in the world of politics, and that’s a sign of disloyalty,” Trump continued, bemoaning evangelical leaders who refused to support his latest campaign.
Earlier this month, Trump also criticized abortion opponents for losing “large numbers of voters” in the 2022 midterm elections, “especially those who strongly insisted that there should be no exceptions, even in the case of rape, incest or the life of the mother.” . The comments on his Truth Social platform drew sharp retorts from several prominent religious conservatives and anti-abortion activists, including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser, who, in a thinly veiled criticism of Trump, blasted Republicans who advocated a “Strauss strategy ‘ on abortion, preferring to ignore the issue rather than raise it in a critical election.
Trump echoed that sentiment in his interview with Brody, admitting he had advised 2022 GOP gubernatorial candidates Doug Mastriano of Pennsylvania and Tudor Dixon of Michigan that they would face a tougher road to victory because of their refusal to endorse exceptions to abortion restrictions, such as when the mother’s life is at risk. Both candidates ultimately lost their respective races. As CNN previously reported, Trump spent much of the midterms privately complaining to aides and allies that overturning Roe v. Wade had hurt Republicans by raising the issue and diverting attention from more benign topics like inflation and crime.
Trump’s recent complaints about evangelicals and anti-abortionists have puzzled allies and advisers who recognize the crucial role both groups play in the conservative ecosystem and their influence in presidential primaries — a dynamic the former president seems well aware of. In 2016, Trump’s main reason for choosing Mike Pence, a self-described “devout evangelical” and then governor of Indiana, as his vice president was to secure support among religious conservatives who remained deeply skeptical of his own brash brand of politics . That same mission may prove more challenging in the crowded 2024 primaries as Trump works to convince primary voters that he is both the most electable and the most committed to advancing their causes in a second administration.
“There is no path to the nomination without winning the evangelical vote.” No one knows that better than President Trump because, to almost everyone’s surprise, he won their support in 2016,” said Ralph Reed, executive director of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, who has long been close to the former president.
“He will be very justly heard by the faithful.” But it’s going to be a contested primary with a lot of pro-life candidates, and they’re all going to make their case,” Reid added. “No one should assume that the evangelical vote is being talked about or is out for him.”
Some prominent evangelical leaders have already begun to publicly distance themselves from Trump, worried that he will not be as electable as other Republicans against President Joe Biden.
“It’s time to turn the page. America must move on. Exit the stage with class,” tweeted Bob Vander Plaats, president and CEO of Family Leader.
In a November post titled “It’s Time for the GOP to Say It: Donald Trump Hurts Us, Not Helps Us,” Dr. Everett Piper, a former president of a Christian university, wrote that Trump “has hindered more than helped the long-awaited ‘red wave’ in the 2022 midterms.
Not only did Trump contribute to eroding Republican support among key demographics like suburban women, his own support among white evangelicals and white Catholic voters — two demographics he had in 2016 — has already softened during his campaign in 2020, long before he began insulting evangelical leaders for their “disloyalty.” CNN exit polls of Trump’s 2020 race against Biden show him at 56 percent among white Catholic voters nationwide, down 4 points from 2016 and also down 4 points to 76% among white evangelical voters.
One evangelical leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak freely, dismissed the importance of public support from religious leaders and said Trump’s fate will be determined by churchgoers and voters themselves.
“Evangelicals in the pews moved toward Trump faster than evangelical leaders. It wasn’t the leaders who were leading the laity,” this person told CNN, while noting that conservative Christians in their own community are divided over whether to support Trump in 2024 — with many looking for a new candidate to carry out the former president’s agenda .
Some advisers to the former president insist they are not worried about the fallout from his latest comments. Trump maintains regular contact with high-ranking evangelical leaders. Advisers say the results Trump has achieved for religious conservatives — from advancing anti-abortion policies and appointing hundreds of conservative federal judges to moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem — will provide a stark contrast once the 2024 GOP field .has taken shape and opponents have begun to attack those of Trump’s conservative bona fides.
“President Trump’s unparalleled record speaks for itself — nominating pro-life federal judges and Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, ending taxpayer-funded abortions, restoring Mexico City’s policy that protects the lives of the unborn abroad, and many other actions that protected the lives of the unborn. There has been no greater champion of the movement than President Trump,” Trump campaign spokesman Stephen Cheng said in a statement to CNN.
Others close to Trump have speculated that his decision to blame abortion opponents for the Republicans’ poor performance in 2022 had more to do with his own reluctance to acknowledge the negative impact he had on the midterm elections.
“Evangelicals put Trump in the White House and justified him by saying he would appoint conservative judges,” one former adviser told CNN. “Now he’s walking away from his one undisputed victory for them and crushing them in the process. It’s self-destructive.
In the coming months, the former president will continue to tout the accomplishments of his first term that endeared him to religious conservatives, a person familiar with the matter said. He will also maintain his contacts with prominent figures within the religious right, some of whom are anxiously waiting to see which other Republicans will run in the 2024 primaries. As Trump works to woo religious conservatives, his early statement may put it at a disadvantage to some of its potential rivals. A federal law that bars churches from participating in political campaigns could block Trump from speaking directly to evangelicals in megachurches across the country, something former Vice President Mike Pence has been doing as part of his recent book tour.
It’s unclear whether Trump will participate in the annual March for Life in Washington later this week, when one of his potential primary opponents, Pence, plans to host participants at the nearby office of his advocacy group Advancing American Freedom. Cheng did not comment on the former president’s plans.
Still, Trump’s past accomplishments may not carry the same weight in the primaries that his campaign hopes. In the days after he announced his campaign from the Mar-a-Lago ballroom, an event attended by few of his most prominent evangelical allies, the former president was urged by Dannenfelser to present a “strong national vision for life” if he a others want to be competitive in primaries. Trump did not mention any of his anti-abortion achievements during his campaign announcement speech, something Dannenfelser and others pointed out.
His reluctance thus far to support calls for a national abortion ban by conservative groups and anti-abortion activists could also become problematic in a primary against Pence or others who have supported such efforts.
“I welcome any effort to advance the cause of life in state capitols or in the nation’s capital,” Pence said last September when asked about a bill proposed by South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham that would introduce federal restrictions on abortion.
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