Donald Trump Issues Bizarre Religious Accusation Against Joe Biden

Donald Trump has claimed that Joe Biden is "after the Catholics" in a bizarre accusation on Fox News.

The former president said Biden had "weaponized the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ)" to attack his political opponents, including Catholics.

The Context

Trump has repeatedly claimed the president, who has described himself as a practicing Catholic, persecutes Catholics, including during rallies this year.

In a video posted to Truth Social last December, he claimed the FBI and DOJ send undercover spies to churches to persecute Christians.

"Under Crooked Joe Biden, Christians and Americans of faith are being persecuted like nothing this nation has ever seen before," Trump said.

He continued: "Catholics, in particular, are being targeted and evangelicals are surely on the watch list as well. Over the past three years, the Biden administration has sent SWAT teams to arrest pro-life activists. The FBI has been caught profiling devout Catholics as possible domestic terrorists and planning to send undercover spies into Catholic churches, just like in the old days of the Soviet Union."

A leaked FBI document from February 2023 said that the bureau's Richmond, Virginia, office had warned agents of an extremist threat posed by "radical-traditionalist Catholics" (RTC), whom the bureau said was a small minority within the Catholic Church. The memo was then removed.

Trump has also long been popular with evangelical voters. In the Iowa caucuses in January, the former president received 53 percent of their vote.

What We Know

"Joe Biden is the most incompetent president we've ever had, he's the worst president we've ever had," Trump said during his Fox News interview.

"He is a true threat to democracy because he's weaponized the FBI and the DOJ to go get his political opponent and many other people; Christians, he's really after the Catholics, I don't know what's going on with the Catholics but for some reason there's something happening with the Catholics. I mean I don't know how they can possibly vote for a Democrat or for him.

"But he's weaponized government at a level that nobody's ever seen before outside of a third-world country."

Newsweek contacted Biden representatives by email to comment on this story.

Views

In an article published on progressive news website Salon in February, Nathaniel Manderson rejected the idea that Trump is a strong representative for the Christian community and said his fellow evangelical believers should reject the former president.

"If evangelical Christians really want to save this country and redeem the message of Christ—as I believe most of them do—they must begin by renouncing the Antichrist who has led them so far into darkness," the journalist and former pastor wrote.

What's Next?

Trump, the GOP frontrunner, is stepping up his campaigning ahead of Super Tuesday, when voters in 16 states and territories will vote in the Republican primaries.

Update 03/01/24 3:47 a.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional information.