WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is scheduled to speak Friday at the annual meeting of Moms for Liberty, a national nonprofit that has led efforts to keep mention of LGBTQ+ identity and structural racism out of elementary school classrooms.
In a “fireside chat” in the nation’s capital, the former president will seek to garner support and enthusiasm among much of his base. Most of the group’s more than 130,000 members are conservatives who agree with him that parents should have more say in public education and that racial equity programs and transgender accommodations should not belong in schools.
Yet Trump also risks alienating more moderate voters, many of whom see Moms for Liberty’s activism as too extreme for a presidential candidate to legitimize.
A year ago, Moms for Liberty was seen by many as an emerging power player in conservative politics that could be central to supporting the Republican ticket. The group’s membership had skyrocketed since its launch in 2021, with parents protesting the mandatory masking of students and remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But over the past several months, a series of embarrassing scandals and subpar performances during local elections have called Moms for Liberty’s influence into question.
The group has also expressed support for Project 2025, a detailed and controversial playbook for the next conservative presidency that Trump has repeatedly distanced himself from.
Moms for Liberty serves on Project 2025’s advisory board, and the author of the documentary’s education chapter will teach a “strategy session” at the group’s meeting on Friday.
Negative perceptions of Moms for Liberty across the country could increase Trump’s potential liability when he sits down with co-founder Tiffany Justice on Friday night, said University of Central Florida political science professor Aubrey Jewett.
“It will definitely help him build his base,” Jewett said. “But is that enough to beat the backlash?”
Trump hasn’t given details on what he plans to discuss at the meeting, but his campaign pointed to his education proposals, which include promoting school choice, giving parents more say in education and providing funding to states and school districts that eliminate teacher tenure. financially reward good teachers and give parents the opportunity to directly elect the school principal.
He has also called for the Department of Education to be abolished, transgender athletes to be banned from girls’ sports and funding to be cut from any school that promotes “inappropriate racial, sexual or political content”.
“President Trump believes that students should be taught reading, writing and math in the classroom — not sex, gender and race, the way the Biden administration is pushing our public school system,” Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
The Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, has criticized Trump for his threats to dismantle the Department of Education. He has also opposed efforts to restrict classroom content related to race.
Before he heads to Washington on Friday, the Republican nominee will hold a rally in Johnstown, a western Pennsylvania town once dominated by riverside steel mills. Its economy has suffered in the decades since their closure. Trump staged a rally near the Johnstown airport weeks before the 2020 election, boasting: “We brought back steel and we put tariffs on steel.”
His campaign says Trump will use the rally to promise lower energy costs and criticize Harris, noting that he supported a ban on hydraulic fracturing as the Democratic presidential nominee in 2019. Harris’ campaign now says he does not support a fracking ban.
Both parties have campaigned heavily in Pennsylvania. Harris will be in Pittsburgh on Labor Day Monday, appearing alongside President Joe Biden for the first time since he dropped his re-election bid and endorsed him. Harris hasn’t said much about his policy plans on tariffs and trade, but Biden has taken a page from Trump’s playbook and proposed tripling tariffs on Chinese steel.
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