WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump returned triumphant on Friday to a key gathering of social conservatives, boasting that he has stocked the courts to their liking, cut funding for abortions and made it safe again to invoke God in the public space.

"We are stopping cold the attacks on Judeo-Christian values," he said, adding, "Guess what, we're saying Merry Christmas again."

Trump last spoke to the Values Voter Summit 13 months ago — two months before Election Day, at a time when he was still viewed as a long shot. Many prayed for his victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

He was the first president to address the gathering, and attendees basked in their political muscle.

"All over America, there were people praying and fasting. ... He gets how important you are," said Michele Bachmann, the former Minnesota congresswoman and tea party leader who's also a board member of the Family Research Council, which hosts the summit.

Trump boasted of steps to protect religious liberty, including an executive order erasing the "Johnson Amendment" — legislation that in 1954 put tax exemptions at risk if a church or other tax-exempt entity endorsed a candidate. Pastors had bristled for decades under what they viewed as a gag rule.

He also reinstated the Mexico City policy, which bars U.S. funding for groups that provide abortion counseling overseas.

"If I did have a schedule, I would say we are substantially ahead of schedule," he said. "I pledged that in a Trump administration our nation's religious heritage would be cherished, protected and defended like you have never seen before. That's what's happening."

The Family Research Council, a socially conservative Washington-based group that opposes gay rights and abortion, hosts the summit each year.

For GOP presidential hopefuls, the event is a mandatory stop. Trump ran a distant fifth place in a candidate straw poll at the summit two years ago, months before he began dispatching Sen. Ted Cruz and other rivals for the GOP nod with help from evangelical Christians — much to the surprise of Cruz and others.

He returned in September 2016 as the GOP nominee. That was a few weeks before the infamous Access Hollywood tape surfaced — a recording of the future commander in chief boasting that he routinely grabbed women by the genitalia, kissed them without consent, and had tried unsuccessfully to sleep with a married woman.

Last week, on the anniversary of that revelation, Trump again shrugged off his coarse language: "That's locker room [talk]," he said.

He'd spoken openly about the size of his genitalia during the primaries. Not so long before the 2016 race, he'd supported abortion rights and gay marriage. He'd been twice divorced.

But by the time he'd won the GOP nomination, he had embraced a social conservative platform. And — with Democrat Hillary Clinton as the alternative — many conservative Christians enthusiastically embraced him.

"Our media culture often mocks and demeans people of faith," he said at his 2016 summit appearance, distancing himself from politicians who typically shun people of faith. "Hillary Clinton — you can forget about her."

Among the top promises he has delivered on: the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Without explicitly reminding the crowd of his crusade against NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to protest racism and police brutality, he brought the crowd to its feet.

"We respect our great American flag," he said.

Noting that America's founders routinely invoked God, he struck a combative stance against cultural forces that resist open displays of religiosity in the public square.

"How times have changed. But you know what, they're changing back again," he said.

Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway later echoed the gratitude her boss expressed for the support of evangelical Christians.

"He understands what it's like to be under siege, and I know you do, as well," she said.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, warmed up the crowd by recalling that the last time Trump spoke at the summit, two months before Election Day, polls showed little chance for him to win.

"We said it would be worth it for just one thing. If we could get a conservative on the Supreme Court like Neil Gorsuch, it would have been worth it, and indeed we have done it. Don't you think [Gorsuch] is better than Supreme Court Justice Bill Clinton?" Meadows said. "Somehow we as people of faith knew that God still reigns over the affairs of nations."

He pointed to roughly 150 other judicial nominations from Trump, judges who will protect religious freedom and "make sure that we turn back this country to its roots."

He lauded Trump for standing firmly by Israel, in a major pivot from the Obama administration.

Thirteen months ago, Meadows said, "We had one choice, and that choice was Donald J. Trump."

And he has not been a disappointment, he said.

"This is our moment," said Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, opening the conference in a hotel ballroom set with around 1,000 seats, an hour before Trump took the stage.

"We have like-minded swamp drainers from around the world," he said, invoking Trump's vow to "drain the swamp" by stripping power in Washington from corporate interests, lobbyists and others. Critics say the president has a highly selective stance on corruption, citing the lobbyists and foreign dignitaries who frequent his luxury hotel near the White House, and other Trump family investments around the world that he has not divested.

In a bit of theater intended to reinforce the swamp imagery, Perkins wore camouflage overalls. Emblazoned across his chest: the Cabela's logo.

That's one of the sporting goods stores that has gotten attention for selling bump stocks — the devices used by the Las Vegas killer to allow automatic-rate firing with ordinary rifles.