Four Republican presidential candidates stuck to speaking about their faith and their families during a Saturday forum in western Iowa – a stark contrast from the contentious fourth GOP debate last Wednesday, when they spent much of the evening attacking one another.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Texas pastor Ryan Binkley attended the “Faith and Family with the Feenstras” event hosted by GOP Rep. Randy Feenstra of Iowa, with less than six weeks to make an impression on caucus-goers before the state’s first-in-the-nation nominating contest.
At Dordt University in Sioux Center, DeSantis appeared with his wife, Casey DeSantis, and argued that Democrats want to establish a religion of “secular leftism.”
“And they want that to be the orthodoxy so that if you as a Christian or another faith, if your faith conflicts with their agenda, they expect you to bend the knee. That is not religious liberty as our Founding Fathers understood it,” he said.
Nikki Haley reflected on the 2015 mass shooting that killed nine congregants in a historically Black church in Charleston during her tenure as governor of South Carolina, emphasizing she believes in “faith and family and country” because “I’ve lived it.”
GOP rival Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been fielding questions about his Hindu religion from voters during his campaign events, talked in-depth about his faith before the evangelical crowd and acknowledged that his religion “ends up being an elephant in the room at times at events” because “that’s not been a norm for US presidents in the past.”
When asked whether his campaign would work with the “Christian vision to advance the Kingdom of God in America,” Ramaswamy said, “I don’t think that’s the job of the US president.”
“I’m not running for pastor, I wouldn’t be qualified to be pastor, but I am running to be the commander in chief and to be president,” he added.
Texas pastor Ryan Binkley – who has barely registered in the polls in Iowa and did not qualify for the debate earlier this week – introduced himself to the audience and argued that “America needs an economic revival and a spiritual revival,” and vowed to reform health care.
Keep reading about the event here.