Trump bizarrely claims Biden will ‘take away God’ in freewheeling Fox interview
Donald Trump has claimed that Joe Biden would try to “take away God” if he wins the 2020 presidential election during a freewheeling interview ahead of the second presidential debate.
In the 50-minute interview with Fox and Friends on Tuesday, the president insisted that his Catholic Democratic rival wants to take away God from people in Texas.
“They want to take away your guns, your oil and your God. That’s what they want,” Mr Trump said. “That’s what they want.”
“That’s not for Texas. Texas is not going to be losing their guns and they’re not going to be losing their oil and they’re not going to be losing their religion or their God.”
Mr Biden is the fourth Catholic to run for president and if elected, would be only the second Catholic president in US history and first since John F Kennedy.
The Democratic nominee speaks frequently about his faith and its importance in his life. The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to The Independent’s request for comment on the remarks.
It is far from the first time that the president has made such remarks in regard to Mr Biden in attempts to court religious voters ahead of the 2020 election.
Earlier this year Mr Trump said that Mr Biden is "against the Bible", drawing an angry response from Mr Biden’s campaign spokesman Andrew Bates.
“Joe Biden’s faith is at the core of who he is; he’s lived it with dignity his entire life, and it’s been a source of strength and comfort in times of extreme hardship,” Mr Bates said at the time.
Mr Trump has previously evaded questions on his own favourite verse in the Bible and faced criticism when he used tear gas to disperse peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square, Washington to pose for a photo-op outside St John’s Church holding a Bible.
The remarks come amidst a variety of unusual comments in the freewheeling interview during which the president discussed a range of issues ahead of the upcoming election.
In one portion of the interview, Mr Trump refused to answer a question about what his favourite flavour of milkshake is.
“After a 40 minute interview and two dozen questions do you want to tell us what your favourite milkshake flavour is?”, one host asks.
“Yeah I would, and in about a year or two when everything is so perfect I’m gonna let you ask me that question and I’m gonna give you the nicest answer you know why? Because I’d love to have a question like that,” he said, declining to give a response.
“But in the meantime we’re in the middle of a battle that we have to win,” the president concluded.
The question came in response to Mr Trump’s “disappointment” that he feels never gets asked such questions in comparison to his Democratic challenger.
Mr Trump opened the interview by hammering home the ongoing controversy surrounding the unverified Hunter Biden article by The New York Times and insisted that his campaign was going “very well” while Mr Biden “implodes”.
In another part of the segment, the president responded to actress Kirstie Alley endorsing him for president by saying she has “great hair.”
Additional reporting by the Associated Press
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