Speaker Mike Johnson will speak at President Trump’s Rededicate 250 event on the National Mall on May 17. Presented by Trump’s Freedom 250, the Christian nationalist hijack of America’s birthday, the all-day Rededicate event is set to “rededicate our country as One Nation under God.” The Freedom250.org site includes a “Pray for America” section with link to America Prays, saying “The White House is calling on Americans to pray,” offering instructions on how to pray, citing Bible Scripture. Corporate sponsors of Freedom 250 include Mastercard and United Airlines.
By Nancy Levine Stearns | April 21, 2026
President Trump’s Freedom 250 announced in a post on X yesterday that Speaker Mike Johnson will be a featured speaker at the project’s Rededicate 250 event. The Christian nationalist event is set to take place on the National Mall on May 17 for the purpose of “rededicating our country as One Nation under God.”
President Trump and his allies continue their efforts to effect Christian nationalist regime change, despite the president’s sinking approval ratings. Trump and Republicans will read passages from the Bible in a marathon reading this week. The Bible reading marathon comes as part of the president’s repair campaign after he posted an image of himself as Jesus and stoked conflict with Pope Leo XIV.
Freedom 250 is Trump’s Christian nationalist hijack of America250, the official nonprofit entity celebrating America’s birthday. The U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission was established by Congress in 2016, and nonprofit America250 is a nonpartisan initiative “working to engage every American in commemorating the 250th anniversary of our country,” says the America250 website.
Trump’s Freedom 250, which promotes Christian scripture and prayer as central to the country’s birthday celebration, is under scrutiny over fundraising tactics. A group of U.S. senators led by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has asked the White House to answer questions about donations in exchange for benefits, including access to Trump.
About Mike Johnson, Congressman Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) issued a press release in 2024: “New Congressional Report Highlights Mike Johnson’s Christian Nationalist Views: Johnson has dedicated his career to ‘undermining constitutional freedoms’ through his far right views, the report says.”
“Members of the Congressional Freethought Caucus (CFC), a collection of 20 lawmakers in Congress who seek to ‘protect the secular character of our government by adhering to the strict Constitutional principle of the separation of church and state,’ released a white paper report on Wednesday showcasing Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s (R-Louisiana) disturbing Christian nationalist views.
“The report includes insights into how Johnson has tried to integrate his far right Christian views into government and public spheres — and highlights how Johnson, a then-relatively unknown lawmaker, played an instrumental role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election in order to keep former President Donald Trump in the White House.”
“Christian nationalists, including Johnson, ‘are zeroed in on defeating democracy,’ Huffman added. ‘Violence is a feature, not a bug, of this movement and we need to take it very, very seriously.’”
In an interview with Impactivize last month, Ranking Member Huffman said:
“They’re really making a mockery of separation at church and state. And they’re seeing this 250th anniversary as an opportunity to chip away further at what Jefferson called ‘the wall of separation; — this secular firewall against religious tyranny that was one of the great things about America’s founding.”
RM Huffman added, “So if we should be celebrating anything in this 250th year, it should be that secular foundation of democracy. But instead, these religious extremists are trying to retrofit our founding story and do the opposite — do the opposite of what our founders intended.”
As for what our country’s founders intended, Garrett Epps, Professor of Practice at the University Oregon School of Law, told Impactivize in an interview:
“The one thing the framers of the Constitution did not want was a federal government in Washington telling people what they had to believe. That has been unconstitutional since the framing of the Bill of Rights. It’s just the same as if the federal government, President Trump, were to proclaim that this year we’re going to celebrate the 250th anniversary of white supremacy. I can’t go to court and make the president not say that. But what I can say is it’s a gross violation of the Constitution.”
About the language “One nation under God,” Professor Epps said, “it was added in 1954 [to the Pledge of Allegiance] after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus and some very conservative groups.”
Corporate sponsors of Freedom 250 include Mastercard (batting leadoff on the sponsors lineup today), consulting giant Deloitte, Scotts Miracle-Gro, and United Airlines, among 15 companies listed on their site.
No one from Mastercard, Deloitte, Scotts Miracle-Gro, or United Airlines has responded to inquiries. Full list of sponsors, as of today, from Freedom250.org website:
