Trump renews promise to roll back law limiting political activity by churches In a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, the president also defended his combative phone calls with foreign leaders.

President Donald Trump used his address to the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday to renew his campaign promise to undo the law that bars leaders of some tax-exempt organizations from endorsing political candidates under threat of losing that status.

During an at-times meandering speech at the annual event, Trump said he would "totally destroy" the Johnson Amendment, a portion of the tax code in place since 1954, that restricts political activity by tax-exempt churches. He said rolling back the rule would "allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution."


While the president touched on many of the themes one might expect from the event — he said he was “blessed” to have been raised in a “churched” home and cited Thomas Jefferson's assertion that freedom “is not a gift from government” but “a gift from God” — he also used the speech to offer reassurances about his relationships with foreign leaders and to take a dig at his reality-TV replacement, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In a joking manner, Trump asked attendees to “just pray for Arnold, if we can, for those ratings,” a reference to the former California governor, who took over for Trump as host of the NBC show, “The Celebrity Apprentice.” With Schwarzenegger as its star, Trump told the audience that the program has “been a total disaster” and that “the ratings went right down the tubes.”

With news reports swirling about separate, less than friendly phone calls with the leaders of Mexico and Australia, Trump also sought to assuage concerns that he might somehow damage relationships with longtime allies. In a phone call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Trump called a refugee agreement “the worst deal ever” and abruptly ended the phone call.

A day earlier, in a phone call with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, Trump reportedly threatened to send U.S. troops to deal with the “bad hombres down there” unless the Mexican government stops them itself.

Neither call, Trump said, should worry Americans much.

“The world is in trouble, but we're going to straighten it out, OK? That's what I do. I fix things. We're going to straighten it out. Believe me,” he said at the breakfast. “When you hear about the tough phone calls I'm having, don't worry about it. Just don't worry about it. They're tough. We have to be tough. It's time we're going to be a little tough, folks. We're taken advantage of by every nation in the world, virtually. It's not going to happen anymore. It's not going to happen anymore.”

Trump also heaped praise on his newly sworn-in secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, as well as Defense Secretary James Mattis, who the president referred to as “Mad Dog,” even though Mattis has expressed a distaste for the nickname. Of his secretary of defense, Trump said, “Now, there’s a reason they call him Mad Dog Mattis: never lost a battle. Always wins them, and always wins them fast.”

“We have seen unimaginable violence carried out in the name of religion, acts of wanton abuse of minorities, horrors on a scale that defy description,” Trump said. “Terrorism is a fundamental threat to religious freedom. It must be stopped and it will be stopped. It may not be pretty for a little while. It will be stopped.”

View Trump's top moments at the National Prayer Breakfast President Trump delivers remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday.

In an ironic turn, the famously ostentatious Trump, who is known for bragging about being wealthy, said, “America is a nation of believers” that too often emphasizes material wealth over spirituality.

“So easily we forget this, that the quality of our lives is not defined by our material success, but by our spiritual success. I will tell you that, and I tell you that from somebody that has had material success and knows tremendous numbers of people with great material success, the most material success,” Trump said.

“Many of those people are very, very miserable, unhappy people. And I know a lot of people without that, but they have great families, have great faith. They don't have money, at least not nearly to the extent, and they're happy. Those, to me, are the successful people, I have to tell you.”