Donald Trump will confirm the value of religious freedom at a meeting with Latino evangelicals, according to Sam Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.
Appearing on Fox News'
"Fox & Friends" program Tuesday, Rodriguez said Evangelical voters can support Trump because "he speaks truth to power."
"I've had issues with aspects of the rhetoric," Rodriguez added, pointing out that Trump is "not politically correct" and he hopes the presumptive GOP nominee will attempt to reach out to the Latino community.
"I would love [for] him to build a bridge. He needs to say, 'Look, Latinos are wonderful, God-fearing, hard-working Americans,'" Rodriguez said.
Legal immigration is a vital need in that community and he called for deporting drug traffickers, but without separating children who were born in the U.S. and their parents who aren't in the U.S. legally.
"There has to be a better way," Rodriguez said, and he is personally in favor of Trump's U.S.-Mexico border wall plan, using a physical wall or using technology to track border crossers.
"If we could read the license plate in Afghanistan from a thousand miles away, we can detect 100 people crossing the Rio Grande with backpacks."
Rodriguez called on Trump to confirm to the Hispanic community that the real estate mogul is focused on advancing their needs.
Trump is set to attend the Hispanic leadership conference with around 900 evangelical and conservative leaders.
"It's an amazing gathering. Diverse," Rodriguez said. "We have the charismatics. These are not just 1,000 random pastors. [These are] the most influential evangelical pastors in America gathering together to listen to Donald Trump affirm the value of religious freedom and the family."
Motivating evangelicals to vote is of primary importance, Rodriguez said, and he believes 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney failed to win the presidency because of it.
"There was angst in the community," Rodriguez said. "The lack of evangelical support for Mitt Romney resulted in the reality today" and he believed Romney's Mormon faith led to some dissension in the Republican ranks.
"There was a theological component that was the elephant in the room," he added.
Religious liberty is a key issue that he hopes Trump addresses and "without a doubt, the Judeo-Christian value system of America is under assault like never before. It's secular totalitarianism," Rodriguez said.
In May 2016, Rodriguez didn't know what to think about Trump, according an interview with the
Los Angeles Times.
"Donald Trump is jeopardizing the very future of our churches," Rodriguez said, according to the LA Times. His community faced a difficult choice between Republicans and Democrats.
"We have a problem with the donkey, and we have a problem with the elephant," he said, referring to the animal symbols for the Democratic and Republican parties.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.