RELIGION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump delivered a brief, uncharacteristically subdued message of faith and American values to religious leaders as a fresh crisis swirled in his White House, declaring on Thursday morning ‘we praise God for how truly blessed we are to be American.’
‘Faith is central to American life and to liberty,’ Mr. Trump said at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, a gathering of religious leaders who have become a keystone of his political base. ‘Our founders invoked the creator four times in the Declaration of Independence. Our currency declares, *In God we trust.*’…
Mr. Trump’s remarks were most notable for what he did not say. He made no mention of his recent decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a landmark shift in American policy that was extremely popular with evangelical voters and a segment of hard-line pro-Israel American Jews.
Nor did he mention the Johnson Amendment, a law that prohibits churches and other tax-exempt organizations from endorsing political candidates. Mr. Trump vowed to ‘totally destroy’ the law in his first speech to the prayer breakfast last year, drawing enthusiastic applause.”
-Mark Landler, “Subdued Prayer Breakfast Message by Trump Amid White House Turbulence,” The New York Times online, Feb. 8, 2018