What Trump told faith leaders after slamming AT&T's tech issues that nearly prevented massive call
"When we pass the 'one big, beautiful bill,' we'll also have a tremendous victory for school choice," Trump said on the Monday phone call, according to comments shared with Fox News Digital. "This bill is the most pro-family legislation in modern times. … It also expands the Child Tax Credit and creates brand new 'Trump Accounts' for every newborn child helping them to get a stronger life, which is what they need. Everyone should let their congregations and members of Congress know that they support the 'one big, beautiful bill.'"
Trump spoke with more than 10,000 faith leaders during his first Faith Office National Conference call of his second term. Faiths stretching from Christianity, Judaism and Islam were represented on the call, which was also joined by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, faith director of the White House Faith Office Jenny Korn and advisor to the White House Faith Office Paula White, Fox News Digital learned.
The call nearly didn't happen and was on the verge of being postponed, according to Trump's Truth Social post Monday afternoon that railed against phone company AT&T for being "unable to make their equipment work properly."
"I'm doing a major Conference Call with Faith Leaders from all over the Country, and AT&T is totally unable to make their equipment work properly," Trump wrote in his first message. "This is the second time it's happened. If the Boss of AT&T, whoever that may be, could get involved — It would be good. There are tens of thousands of people on the line!"
"I apologize for the long wait on the Faith Leaders Conference Call. AT&T ought to get its act together," he added in another post before the call carried on. "Please pass along the word to the tens of thousands of people who are there. We may have to reschedule the call, but we'll use another carrier the next time. AT&T obviously doesn't know what they're doing!"
"We've reached out to the White House and are working to quickly understand and assess the situation," AT&T said on X Monday in response to Leavitt sharing Trump's Truth Social post.
"Following up — Our initial analysis indicates the disruption was caused by an issue with the conference call platform, not our network," the company added in another X post. "Unfortunately, this caused the delay, and we are working diligently to better understand the issue so we can prevent disruptions in the future."
Trump celebrated his administration's wins protecting religious liberty, according to comments obtained by Fox News Digital of the call that included no members of the media.
"Together, we're fighting to defend religious liberty like no administration is ever done before," Trump told the thousands of faith leaders. "Starting on day one when I stopped the radical war on Christians. I pardoned the pro-life activist thrown in jail for praying in peaceful protest, and there were many of them."
"We reinstated the service members thrown out of our military over religious objections to the Biden vaccine mandates and restoring them to their former rank with full… backpay and penalties," Trump continued before also touting that he set up a "DOJ task-force to eradicate anti-Christian bias — who would ever think — but that's happening also, and it has happened, and nobody ever talks about that."
Trump's address followed the U.S. military's surprise attacks on Iran on June 22 that destroyed a trio of nuclear facilities in the country.
Dubbed "Midnight Hammer," the operation followed Israel launching preemptive strikes on Iran on June 12 after months of attempted and stalled nuclear negotiations, and subsequent heightened concern that Iran was advancing its nuclear program.
Trump celebrated to the faith leaders that the U.S. successfully ended the "12 Day War" between Israel and Iran with the strikes.
"As we restore prosperity for American families at home, we're also bringing peace and stability back to our world. Earlier this month we carried our historic strikes… against Iran's nuclear program, and we ended the 12 Day War," Trump said.
"I also stopped the conflict between Indian and Pakistan. On Friday, we signed a historic peace agreement to end the terrible conflict between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo," he added.
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