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Trump’s National Prayer Event Featured Speakers Who Smeared Catholicism, Islam

Speakers with documented records of anti-Catholic and anti-Muslim bigotry headlined this weekend’s event, billed as open to Americans of all faiths

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According to the HuffPost, this weekend, the Trump administration hosted a nine-hour, taxpayer-funded prayer festival on the National Mall featuring several evangelical speakers with a history of spreading dangerous, bigoted, hate-filled views.

The government-sponsored platform for Christian nationalism, funded in part with millions of dollars in public money, featured prominent voices who have openly called Islam “evil,” dismissed the Pope as a purveyor of “Marxist garbage,” and demanded that Muslims collectively answer for the acts of terrorists. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and House Speaker Mike Johnson all gave remarks at the same event this weekend.

Learn more from the HuffPost about the merger of government power and far-right religious ideology in Washington, D.C., this past weekend:

  • The nine-hour event, “Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving,” is supposed to be part of the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The event is taking place on the National Mall and will host 14 religious speakers, all but three of whom are evangelical protestants.
  • Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) will also give remarks at the event, which is funded in part with millions of dollars in taxpayer money.
  • There are no speakers from mainline Protestant or historically Black Protestant traditions. Several have a history of disparaging Muslims and Catholics, especially Pope Leo XIV.
  • Eric Metaxas is among them. A conservative radio host and author, Metaxas has gone through a long transformation from respected scholar to MAGA acolyte.
  • In March, he called Islam “incompatible with American values” and said that it is “a FACT.” Last month, he claimed Islam is “evil” and “is NOT a religion.”
  • Metaxas has also repeatedly attacked Pope Leo. Last month on social media, he dismissed the pontiff’s words as “pious blather” and “Marxist garbage,” and referred to his papacy as “leftist corruption infiltrating the church.” In March, he proposed that the pope stop saying “idiotic and incendiary things designed to virtue-signal that he hates Donald Trump.”
  • Jack Graham, the senior pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, is also slated to speak at Sunday’s festival. He’s routinely attacked Pope Leo.
  • In March, he dismissed Pope Leo’s concerns with the Iran war as “total nonsense” coming from “a false office.” Last month, Graham condemned the pope’s criticism of the war as “socialist Marxists (sic) pablum” from someone who “clearly does not read the Bible.” He also reposted other criticisms of Pope Leo for calling for co-existence between Christianity and Islam.
  • Graham has also denounced Islam. He reposted this post last month that allegedly quotes Winston Churchill calling Islam a “retrograde force.” He also claimed the “intrinsic belief of Islam is a seedbed for radicalized demonized terrorism” in a December 2015 post.
  • Evangelist Franklin Graham, a longtime Christian leader and Trump ally, will reportedly speak via a video message at the festival. He’s made damning comments about Muslims, claiming in 2017 that the “threat” of Islam is that it teaches its followers to “murder and rape.” In 2014, he demanded that all Muslims be held accountable for the crimes of Islamic terrorists.
  • Rachel Laser, the president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, scoffed at the idea that Sunday’s festival is about celebrating religious freedom.
  • “This is a government-sponsored event on public property that combines only Christian faith leaders and government officials,” Laser said in a statement. “It’s less a ‘Jubilee of Prayer’ than a ‘Jubilee of Christian Nationalism.’”
  • If Trump and his allies actually cared about honoring the country’s legacy of religious freedom, she said, they would be celebrating church-state separation as a unique American invention.
  • “Instead, they continue to threaten this foundational principle by advancing a Christian Nationalist crusade to impose one narrow version of Christianity on all Americans,” said Laser.

Read the entire article here.

Published: May 18, 2026 | Last Modified: May 20, 2026

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