Trump struggles to say ‘evangelical’ and muddles up Israel in wild, incoherent speech at Christian event

Donald Trump appeared on stage more than 90 minutes late in Nashville, Tennessee, on Thursday night, where he delivered a speech that was as wild as it was incoherent.

The Republican presidential front-runner appeared flushed and visibly exhausted as he arrived to address the National Religious Broadcasters’ (NRB) International Christian Media Convention, tripping over simple words like “evangelical” during an address littered with verbal miscues and false claims.

At various points, Mr Trump declared that he had made “Israel” the capital of Israel during his presidency (presumably confusing the decision to move its US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem), said that he planned to close down the Department of Education and praised the Capitol rioters, whom he again characterised as political prisoners and referred to as “the J6 hostages”, for their “tremendous spirit”.

He also falsely claimed that “everybody” agreed with the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade and, at one stage, appeared to confuse FBI special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into his campaign’s alleged ties to Russia in 2018 with the spurious Hunter Biden laptop affair so beloved of conspiracy-minded conservatives.

Mr Trump sought to appeal to his audience of believers by presenting himself, not altogether convincingly, as a man of faith, pushing the false narrative that Democrats are in favour of terminating unwanted infants “even after birth” and suggesting that any Christian who votes for the opposition must be “crazy”.

He also baselessly accused President Joe Biden’s administration of persecuting Roman Catholics – apparently forgetting that the president himself is a devout Catholic and regularly attends church.

Donald Trump gave