Trump joined a more than 70-year-old Washington tradition that brings together a bipartisan group of lawmakers for fellowship. He later spoke at a separate prayer breakfast at a Washington hotel sponsored by a private group.
“I really believe you can’t be happy without religion, without that belief," Trump said at the Capitol. “Let’s bring religion back. Let’s bring God back into our lives.”
Trump reflected on having a bullet coming within a hair's breadth of killing him at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year, telling lawmakers and attendees, “It changed something in me, I feel."
“I feel even stronger," he continued. "I believed in God, but I feel, I feel much more strongly about it. Something happened.”
He drew laughs when he expressed gratitude that the episode “didn’t affect my hair.”
The president, who's a nondenominational Christian, called religious liberty “part of the bedrock of American life” and called for protecting it with “absolute devotion.”
