Trump Policy Priority: Protecting Religious Freedom Abroad

Vice President Pence stood before a packed ballroom in downtown D.C. on Thursday, looking out on an audience of Orthodox priests, evangelicals, Catholics, and other Christians from all over the world. Franklin Graham, the son of the evangelist Billy Graham and head of the international charity Samaritan's Purse, had convened a world summit on the persecution of Christians. Attendee name-tags hinted at the gruesome details of their lives: Persecuted individuals in the room wore badges that read “PP.” Pence bowed his head with Graham in prayer, and made a promise: “Protecting religious freedom is a foreign-policy priority of the Trump administration.”