Donald Trump: We’re united around values of ‘family,’ ‘religious freedom’

Editor’s note: The Deseret News invited both major-party candidates to submit op-eds speaking directly to Latter-day Saint voters. You can read Vice President Kamala Harris’ submission here. Former President Donald Trump’s campaign did not submit an op-ed. In the interest of balance and informing our audience, we are providing Trump’s remarks at a “virtual fireside” hosted by Latter-day Saints for Trump on Oct. 13, 2024, originally reported by Suzanne Bates. His remarks have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
The Constitution is hanging by a thread — literally hanging by the thread. We cannot let that go on. And the family is really the foundation of a prosperous and good society. There’s so many things that we all agree on. But I want to just say hello to the many incredible members of the Latter-day Saints community, and thank you for allowing me even to speak today, and your prayers and your support have been incredible. We’ve had tremendous relationships over the years. We’ve done a lot of great work together. We had an open phone and open Oval Office with your representatives. We very much share the same ideas. They’re God-fearing, American patriots.
We want to also get out the vote. This is very important. We have a person that is really not a good person. She’s not a good person at all. As you know, she’s got a lot of ideas that are not acceptable to you and to me and to everybody. She’s called a Marxist. She’s been a Marxist. Now she’s trying to change about 50 different promises, from everything to — you look at what she does with the fracking, with the banning of the fracking, and all of the other things, the confiscation of guns. All of the things that she’s going to do the exact opposite of.
Amazingly, she was very nasty to Biden. Amazingly, she was the running mate, and now all of a sudden, we’re running against her. Biden got 14 million votes. She got no votes. And we’re running against her. That’s a threat to democracy.
… We’re doing very well in both (Nevada and Arizona). We’ll pick up some additional support from the Latter-day Saints. We really have the same values. All of us are united around those beliefs. We believe that faith in God and our Judeo-Christian values are essential to a healthy American society. We believe in family. We believe in parental rights. We believe religious freedom is the foundation of all freedom. It is the absolute foundation of all freedom. And we believe in fair and equal justice under the Constitution, rule of law. And as you know, with the Supreme Court, we put in three justices, and all of the things we’ve done — 300 or so judges, we put into the courts, and I’ve been given great credit by a lot of people, but especially religious groups. They are very highly rated.
Kamala Harris gets, if she got four more years, she will continue this assault against our American heritage and against religion itself. And everything Mormons cherish and value will be open for her to do whatever she wants to do with it.
… She wants to make it even harder for Mormons to care for the poor and less-fortunate, which you do so well. No one actually does it actually like the Mormons. As a senator, Kamala interrogated Christian judicial nominees for their religious beliefs and suggested they were disqualified from holding the office because of the fact that they were religious. And just briefly and in concluding, I’d like to say, we will get in and make America great again, protect religious liberty and restore free speech. We will continue to appoint great judges and justices who interpret the Constitution. We will support school choice.
… I would love to have your support. It’s going to be me or her, and her is just not acceptable. She is not a competent person. She is not a person of faith. And she’ll do everything she can to hurt Mormons and to hurt everybody else. But with that, I very much appreciate the time. … I would hope that we could get almost a unanimous vote from the Mormons. If we could, it would be great, because we have to win this election. We don’t win this election, our country will never be the same.
Correction: An earlier version of this story said the Latter-day Saints for Trump virtual fireside was on Sept. 13. It was on Oct. 13.