Trump endorses Ten Commandments in schools, demands Evangelicals' vote

Donald Trump told a group of evangelicals they “cannot afford to sit on the sidelines” of the 2024 election, imploring them at one point to “go and vote, Christians, please!"

Trump also endorsed displaying the Ten Commandments in schools and elsewhere while speaking to a group of politically influential evangelical Christians in Washington on Saturday.

He drew cheers as he invoked a new law signed in Louisiana this week requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom.

"Has anyone read the ‘Thou shalt not steal'? I mean, has anybody read this incredible stuff? It’s just incredible," Trump said at the gathering of the Faith & Freedom Coalition.

"They don’t want it to go up. It’s a crazy world.’’

Trump a day earlier posted an endorsement of the new law on his social media network, saying: "I love the Ten Commandments in public schools, private schools, and many other places, for that matter. Read it — how can we, as a nation, go wrong???"

Asking for vote

The former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee backed the move as he seeks to galvanise his supporters on the religious right, which has fiercely backed him when he first ran for president in 2016.

That support has continued despite his conviction in the first of four criminal cases he faces, in which a jury last month found him guilty of falsifying business records for what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a hush money payment to an adult movie actress just before the 2016 election.

Trump highlighted that Saturday, saying, “We did something that was amazing,” but the issue would be left to people to decide in the states.

“Every voter has to go with your heart and do what’s right, but we also have to get elected,” he said.