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Trump tells evangelicals gains he’s made for faith groups are ‘fragile’

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci) President Donald Trump bows his head as first lady Melania Trump says a prayer during a National Day of Prayer event in the Rose Garden of the White House, Thursday, May 2, 2019, in Washington. Trump is warning evangelicals that they stand to lose ground if another person is elected president.

Washington • President Donald Trump on Wednesday listed steps his administration had taken to bolster conservative causes and oppose abortion, warning evangelical voters that it all could change very quickly with the “wrong person” in the White House.

Trump’s remarks came in a speech kicking off a four-day faith conference that highlights top issues for evangelical voters, who are among his most loyal supporters and vital to his 2020 reelection bid.

“We’ve done things that are so good and so righteous and also so fragile,” he said. “The wrong person in office, in this office right here, can change it very quickly.”

He cited his administration’s steps to cut federal funding for fetal tissue research and boost anti-abortion efforts, among other things.

Trump addressed this year’s Faith & Freedom Coalition policy conference for the sixth time and his second as president. Trump called it the largest faith-based get-out-the-vote group in the country.

The president said that when he ran in 2016, “Americans of faith were under assault. But the shameful attempt to suppress religious believers ended the day I took the oath of office.”

Chairman Ralph Reed, a prominent GOP evangelical strategist, praised Trump for getting two Supreme Court justices confirmed and called Trump pro-Israel and “pro-life.”