Donald Trump addressed conservative Evangelical voters on Friday at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference in Washington, DC, promising to be a champion of religious liberty if elected president.

“We will protect the right of churches to speak their minds on political matters free from intimidation.”

“We will restore faith to its proper mantle in our society,” Trump thundered. “That’s what we have to do and we have to do that soon, he said.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee opened his address by highlighting values he shares with the conservative Christian community. “We want to uphold the sanctity and dignity of life,” he said. He stressed that marriage and family are “the building block of happiness and success” as well as the importance of “the right of people of faith to freely practice their faith.”

The right to practice one’s faith freely includes being able to speak on politics freely from a religious perspective, Trump stressed. “We will protect the right of churches to speak their minds on political matters free from intimidation,” he promised to enthusiastic applause.

Many, if not most, of the attendees to whom LifeZette spoke were former Cruz supporters. “I was a Ted Cruz man,” said one attendee who asked not to be named due to his nonprofit work. But “Trump’s what we got and the important thing is beating Hillary [Clinton],” he said — a sentiment shared widely. “Anything to beat her,” he added.

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When Trump announced his candidacy, numerous political operatives and commentators were skeptical of the ability of a twice-divorced, irreligious billionaire and former-Democrat to appeal to socially-conservative Christian voters, with many openly doubting he could. Indeed Ted Cruz orchestrated most of his early campaign strategy on such an assumption.

But if the droves of Evangelicals who flocked to Trump throughout the primaries didn’t put that notion to rest, the eager reception Trump received on Friday certainly should — even if the audience was not composed of ardent, long-time Trump supports.

If the first third of Trump’s speech was an appeal to the Christian Right, the latter two thirds of his speech seemed to be designed to appeal to those Republicans — Christian or otherwise — still hesitant about supporting Trump in a general election. The middle of his speech featured a litany of critical issues that would fall to the Left if Clinton is elected.

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“Her judges will abolish the Second Amendment and abolish the rule of law,” Trump warned. “She will keep Obamacare in place” and “restrict religious freedom” with mandates. “She’ll put bureaucrats instead of parents in charge of kids lives” and feed “poverty and income insecurity” through her support for mass migration.

At times, Trump also seemed to be pitching to the general electorate as well as apprehensive Establishment Republicans, specifically when it came to an appeal to non-traditionally GOP enclaves. “Regulation, bureaucracy, government control and open borders have destroyed our inner cities,” said Trump. He also gave a nod to Bernie Sanders — and by extension his supporters — that even managed to elicit applause from the conservative Christian audience. “These donors own Hillary Clinton,” he said, “Bernie sanders was right about that.”

Ultimately, however, Trump’s central message was the one he’s been making since his campaign began — the message that drew unprecedented numbers of Americans to participate in the Republican primary.

“We will work together to rebuild and restore and lift up everyone — not a certain group — everyone,” he said. “We will make America great again for all Americans and we’ll do it together.”