Trump says people of faith achieved the 'abolition of civil rights' at the National Prayer Breakfast
At the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Donald Trump accidentally delivered one of the most unfortunate botched lines imaginable while praising the contributions of religion to American history.
"Since the founding of our nation, many of our greatest strides, from gaining our independence, to abolition of civil rights, to extending the vote for women, have been led by people of faith, and started in prayer," said Trump.
Watch below:
Trump says that some of America's greatest accomplishments, including the "abolition of civil rights," have been le… https://t.co/vUWlfnvu3f— Kyle Griffin (@Kyle Griffin) 1549551015
"Abolition of civil rights"?
In all likelihood, Trump was verbally conflating the 19th century abolition movement against slavery, with the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s that rolled back Jim Crow laws and gave African-Americans sweeping protections in public accommodation and voting.
The irony, though, is that Trump and the GOP have been engaged in an assault on civil rights for years, from fighting public accommodation for same-sex couples, to the conservatives on the Supreme Court dismantling the Voting Rights Act, to Trump reinstating a ban on transgender military service, to allowing bans on Jewish families from adopting children, to denying people from Muslim nations entrance to the country.
In that sense, we are very much seeing a slow abolition of civil rights in our country. And though that obviously is not what Trump meant to say, it does seem to be what is in his heart.
