Last night, Donald Trump dined with Religious Right leaders as he prepared to sign an executive order weakening contraception coverage requirements for health insurance plans and directing the IRS to exempt houses of worship from enforcement of a law prohibiting a wide variety of tax-exempt entities from openly engaging in electoral politics.

Trump met in the Oval Office with Texas pastor Robert Jeffress, whose extremism is so intense that even Mitt Romney publicly condemned him during his presidential bid.



As we’ve previously reported, Jeffress is a vocally anti-gay, anti-Catholic and anti-Mormon preacher:

At the dinner, Jeffress said that the people in the room are going to be “your most loyal” and “enthusiastic supporters, and we thank God every day that you’re the president of the United States.”

Other Religious Right notables at the White House event included James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family; Jim Garlow, a California pastor who was one of the chief organizers behind Proposition 8; Ralph Reed, the head of the Faith and Freedom Coalition; televangelist Paula White; author Eric Metaxas; pastor Ramiro Pena; Richard Land; Samuel Rodriguez; and Billy Graham’s son Franklin Graham.