Trump pledges fealty to religious values, "Merry Christmas"

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump assured a high-profile gathering of Christian conservatives today his administration will defend religious organizations, promising a return to traditional American values while again subtly stoking the fire he helped ignite over NFL players kneeling during the national anthem.

"How times have changed, but you know what, now they are changing back again, just remember that," Trump told the cheering crowd.

Trump, the first sitting president to address the Values Voter Summit, ticked off the promises he's fulfilled to evangelical Christians and other conservatives, pledging to turn back the clock in what he described as a nation that has drifted away from its religious roots.

He bemoaned the use of the phrase "Happy Holidays" as a secular seasonal greeting and vowed to return "Merry Christmas" to the national discourse.

He noted, as Christian conservatives often do, there are four references to the "creator" in the Declaration of Independence, saying that "religious liberty is enshrined" in the nation's founding documents.

"I pledged that in a Trump administration, our nation's religious heritage would be cherished, protected and defended like you have never seen before," Trump said. "Above all else in America, we don't worship government. We worship God."