In National Prayer Breakfast address, Trump backs Noem after Minneapolis fallout

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — President Donald Trump Feb. 5 said he will not fire Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem amid political fallout after some of her department’s controversial actions in Minneapolis.

Critics including faith leaders have questioned immigration enforcement efforts in that city, especially after the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, both 37-year-old U.S. citizens and Minneapolis residents shot and killed by federal agents Jan. 7 and 24 respectively, in separate incidents.

Rumors have circulated in Washington that Trump was considering ousting Noem from her Cabinet post as a result, but Trump appeared to dispute those rumors.

“They were saying about Kristi Noem yesterday, I did the Super Bowl interview, ‘Sir, are you going to relieve Kristi Noem from her duties?’ No. Why would I do that?” Trump said in his address at the annual National Prayer Breakfast. “We have the strongest border in the history of our country. We have the best crime numbers we’ve ever had, going back to the year 1900, that’s 125 years.”

Trump was referring to a pre-game interview with NBC News. Four major U.S. broadcasters — Fox, NBC, CBS and ABC — air the Super Bowl on a rotating schedule, and presidents often grant an interview to the network hosting the big game to air before the event.

Faith leaders including Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, have called for prayer and calm in Minneapolis amid tensions that have grown in that city following the deaths of Pretti and Good.

In his address, Trump said he was pleased to address the National Prayer Breakfast, an invitation-only event with policymakers and Christian leaders. He quipped that when aides told him he would be attending, he said, “I’ll be there. I’m afraid not to be. I need all the help I can get.”

Trump touted strikes his administration carried out in Nigeria in response to violence in that country by Islamist groups perpetuated against predominantly Christian communities, but also in some cases, moderate Muslim communities.

“We knocked the hell out of them the other day in Nigeria because they were killing Christians,” Trump said of a Christmas Day airstrike on what his administration said was an ISIS target.

“You know about that? They were killing Christians, you can’t do that. When Christians come under attack, (the militants) know they’re going to be attacked violently and viciously by President Trump. I know it’s not a nice thing to say, but that’s the way it is,” Trump said.

Trump, a Republican, also repeatedly questioned why people of faith would support his political opponents.

“I don’t know how a person of faith can vote for a Democrat, I really don’t,” Trump said. “And I know we have some here today. I don’t know why they’re here, because they certainly don’t give us their vote.”

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele also delivered remarks at the event, despite controversy over human rights conditions in his country generally but especially in a notorious prison there. The Trump administration has sent some individuals it has deported to that prison, alleging they are members of the criminal organization Tren de Aragua.

Bukele cast his controversial efforts to reduce crime in El Salvador as a spiritual battle.

“We won the spiritual war first, and that reflected in our physical world,” Bukele said.

Trump called Bukele “one of my favorite people” and “a great ally” of the U.S.

Trump also took issue with reporting about a joke he said he made in October 2025, when he told reporters on Air Force One that “I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to get me into heaven. I think I’m not maybe heaven-bound.”

“I was being funny,” Trump said in his remarks about that comment. “I was trying to be, you know, you can’t be sarcastic with them, because they write your words, and (when) people are reading, the words are much different. But I said I’m never going to make it to heaven. I just don’t think I qualify. I don’t think there’s a thing I can do.”

“I really think I probably should make it,” he continued. “I mean, I’m not a perfect candidate, but I did a hell of a lot of good for perfect people.”

Elsewhere in his comments, Trump also took aim at Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., calling him a “moron” over their recent disagreement on key funding votes. Massie has also called for the release of all files in the sex-trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, a multimillionaire financier who was found dead in prison of an apparent hanging in 2019.

For many years, the National Prayer Breakfast was organized by the International Foundation, a Christian group that also used the name the Fellowship Foundation and sometimes the nickname “The Family.”

In 2023, the event was reorganized following concerns from some lawmakers that the event was becoming too divisive after several controversial moments at the annual gathering. One such moment took place in 2013 when Dr. Ben Carson delivered remarks criticizing then-President Barack Obama’s health care policies while he was sitting nearby.

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