President Donald Trump boasted on Thursday that he may have flouted the separation of church and state by putting his faith office directly in the West Wing of the White House, a departure from past administrations.
“You know they work right out of the White House,” Trump said of the White House Faith Office during a Rose Garden event commemorating the National Day of Prayer. “They say ‘separation between church and state,’ they told me. I said, ‘All right, let’s forget about that for one time.’”
“We said, ‘Really, separation?’” Trump continued. “I don’t know. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I’m not sure. But whether there’s separation or not, you guys are in the White House, where you should be.”
Trump, who received a strong proportion of the evangelical vote, has promised to root out anti-Christian bias. On Thursday, he established a Religious Liberty Commission tasked with protecting religious liberties and touted his administration’s efforts to stand “up against religious persecution around the world.”
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“I signed an executive order to combat antisemitism, it’s a big thing,” Trump said. “And I set up a DOJ task force … to eradicate anti-Christian bias. You haven’t heard that, but there’s anti-Christian bias also.”
Trump said the Religious Liberty Commission would be led by Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Ben Carson, secretary of Housing and Urban Development during Trump’s first term. It’s tasked with producing a report on “current threats to religious liberty, and strategies to preserve and enhance protections for future generations” as well as recommending executive actions.
“Thank you for establishing what I think will be one of the most important presidential commissions in history; it will be one of your great legacies,” Patrick said. “There’s never been a president who says, ‘Yes, I love Jesus, but I love people of all faiths,’ as Dr. Phil said. You have a heart for every American.”
Trump’s remarks come as the Supreme Court hears arguments in a case that could reshape the status quo of church and state separation in the United States. At oral arguments in the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond case on Wednesday, conservative justices signaled an openness to allowing a Catholic school to receive public funds.
While prior presidents from both parties have also had faith offices, Trump’s faith office is the first of any administration to be housed in the West Wing.
“People of faith have never been allowed in the White House,” Trump said. “We’ll probably be sued tomorrow, because they’re going to say ‘separation of church and state, can’t do that,’ right?”
He said he expected Attorney General Pam Bondi to “win that suit” were it to be brought.
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Mark Alfred is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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