Analysis of President Trump’s 2026 State of the Union Address
USA TODAY’s Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page takes a closer look at President Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address.
- President Trump invoked religion several times in his State of the Union address, including his assertion that “the destiny of the nation is written by the hand of providence.”
- The Religious Freedom Foundation criticized the comments, adding to other groups’ criticism of Trump for promoting Christian nationalism.
- Experts said that while U.S. presidents have long brought up religion and God in speeches, Trump’s rhetoric was unique and more targeted to his base.
President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address included a continued push to increase the presence of religion in American public life.
President Trump is not the first president to invoke God in his annual address.
For example, former President George W. Bush said in 2003, “The freedoms we value were not given to the world by America; they were given to us by God.” Former President Joe Biden said in 2023, “All of us, each and every one of us, are created equal in the image of God.”
Presidents across the political spectrum often end their speeches with a variation of “God bless America.” But for some religious studies experts and supporters of the separation of church and state, the language used in Trump’s Feb. 24 speech and the broader Trump administration is different.
He said there has been a recent “great renewal of religion, of faith, of Christianity, of belief in God” in the United States.
President Trump praised Erica Kirk, who attended the event, saying slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk “played a huge role in that,” adding that Kirk “was a martyr for his beliefs.”
“In memory of Charlie, we must come together to reaffirm that America is one nation under God,” President Trump said.
Later in his speech, he described the United States as a beacon to the rest of the world.
“And God knows exactly who to ask when a nation needs a miracle,” Trump said, going on to say the nation’s “destiny is written by the hand of providence.”
Such sentiments are akin to “an updated version of Manifest Destiny,” the Religious Freedom Foundation wrote in X magazine. The foundation is one of several groups to express concerns about the Trump administration’s behavior related to religion.
White House press secretary Taylor Rogers called President Trump “the greatest president for religious freedom in modern American history” in a statement to USA TODAY.
“Only anti-Trump activists would complain that the president, in his historically successful State of the Union address, touted a renewal of religious beliefs that is spreading across the country,” she said.
President Trump says religion is necessary to “have a great country”
Efforts to increase the presence of religion in public spaces have been a cornerstone of President Trump’s second term.
He created the White House Office of Faith and Neighborhood Partnerships in February 2025, replacing Biden’s White House Office of Faith and Neighborhood Partnerships.
He later established the Commission on Religious Freedom, which was sued in February by groups representing various religious traditions, alleging an illegal lack of diversity in its membership. The group is “composed almost exclusively of Christians, including one Orthodox Jewish rabbi,” according to the complaint.
President Trump also pledged to protect prayer in public schools during a Committee on Religious Freedom hearing in September, and once said in a speech that “we need religion to have a great country.”
Group accuses President Trump of promoting Christian nationalism
Many organizations have criticized such sentiments, characterizing them as inaccurate and threatening the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from establishing religion.
That includes the American Humanist Association, which said it expected “an attempt to pander to Christian nationalists” ahead of the State of the Union address.
The Rev. Paul Rauschenbusch of the Interfaith Alliance, which is involved in the lawsuit against the Religious Freedom Commission, said on the group’s Feb. 24 “State of the Union” that the Trump administration is “the most hostile to religious freedom in a generation.”
In his view, the administration has “weaponized religion for the benefit of a white Christian nationalist movement.”
About three in 10 Americans are adherents or sympathizers of Christian nationalism, the belief that the United States is or should be a Christian nation, according to data released in February by the Public Religion Research Institute.
While there were overt references to religion in Trump’s speech, there were also “smaller, more subtle” nods to Christian nationalist sentiments through some of the people and topics Trump highlighted, said Melissa Deckman, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute.
For example, President Trump criticized Minnesota’s Somali community, saying that “bribery, corruption, and illegal activity are commonplace in much of the world.”
“Importing these cultures through unrestricted immigration and open borders is bringing these problems to America, and the American people are paying the price,” Trump said.
According to a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, about two-thirds of Christian nationalist supporters and just over half of sympathizers agree that “immigrants are invading our country and displacing our cultural and ethnic background.”
Common references to religion among American presidents
Experts told USA TODAY that religious language has long existed in American politics.
For example, President Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address was “very religious,” said Daniel Konkle, a professor emeritus at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law.
Barbara Perry, professor and co-director of the Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, referred to President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address, which concluded with a call to “move forward to lead the land we love, seeking God’s blessing and help, but knowing that God’s work on this earth must be truly our own.”
President Ronald Reagan later described the United States as a “shining city on a hill” in his 1989 farewell speech. The phrase is a reference to a 1630 sermon by English Puritan John Winthrop, which itself was based on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
Perry described such examples as “religious light,” a common reference to a higher power that has been common among American presidents for many years.
But Trump’s State of the Union address was aimed at appealing to a base made up primarily of white evangelical Christians, Perry said.
Konkle said there is a “nuance” among politicians when it comes to bringing up religion. Such references can be used to “bring out the better angels in people’s personalities,” he said, or to “suggest that God is on our side, that we know what’s right, and that we’re going to use this sense of special privilege to accomplish what we want to accomplish.”
Mr. Deckman and Mr. Perry said Mr. Trump’s religious language goes beyond lip service, adding that Mr. Trump has delivered more substantive victories for white evangelicals than past presidents who supported the same base, such as conservative appointments that led to the repeal of the constitutional right to abortion.
“He’s a man of his word, like George W. Bush did, and I would say like Reagan and Jimmy Carter did, but he lives his life,” Perry said.
Breanna Frank is USA TODAY’s First Amendment reporter. please contact her bjfrank@usatoday.com.
USA TODAY’s coverage of First Amendment issues is funded by the Freedom Forum in collaboration with our journalism funding partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
