WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is scheduled to speak Friday at the annual meeting of Moms for Liberty, a national nonprofit that leads the effort to ban mentions of LGBTQ+ identity and structural racism from K-12 classrooms.
At a “fireside chat” in the nation’s capital, the former president will seek to win the support and enthusiasm of much of his following. The majority 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 and transgender accommodation programs have no place in schools.
However, Trump also risks alienating more moderate voters, many of whom view Moms for Liberty’s activism as too extreme to be legitimized by a presidential candidate.
A year ago, Moms for Liberty was seen by many as an emerging force in conservative politics that could play a critical role in supporting Republicans. The group’s membership had skyrocketed after its founding in 2021, fueled by parents protesting mask mandates for students and distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But in recent months, Moms for Liberty’s influence has been called into question by a series of embarrassing scandals and disappointing performances in local elections.
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 sits on the advisory committee for Project 2025, and the author of the document’s education chapter is leading a “strategy session” at the group’s meeting on Friday.
The negative perception of Moms for Liberty across the country could boost Trump’s potential exposure when he sits down with co-founder Tiffany Justice on Friday night, said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida.
“It certainly helps him mobilize his base,” Jewett said. “But will that be enough to overcome the backlash?”
Trump has not yet revealed details about what he will discuss at the meeting, but his campaign team pointed to his proposals on education, which include promoting school choice, giving parents more say and preferential funding for states and school districts that eliminate tenure requirements for teachers, financially reward good teachers and allow parents to directly elect school principals.
He also called for the dissolution of the Ministry of Education, a ban on transgender athletes from participating in girls’ sports, and the cutting of funding to any schools that spread “inappropriate racist, sexual or political content.”
“President Trump believes that students should be taught reading, writing and math in the classroom – not gender, sex and race as the Biden administration is imposing on our public school system,” said Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign.
Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris criticized Trump for his threats to disband the Department of Education. She also spoke out against efforts to restrict racism-related teaching content.
Before leaving for Washington on Friday, the Republican candidate will hold a rally in Johnstown, a western Pennsylvania city once dominated by riverfront steel mills. The city’s economy has suffered in the decades since it closed. Trump held a rally near the Johnstown airport weeks before the 2020 election and boasted, “We brought steel back and we put tariffs on steel.”
His campaign says Trump will operate the rally to promise lower energy costs and criticize Harris, pointing out that as a Democratic presidential candidate in 2019, she supported a ban on hydraulic fracking. Harris’ campaign now says she does not support a fracking ban.
Both sides have been campaigning heavily in Pennsylvania. Harris will be in Pittsburgh on Monday for Labor Day, her first joint campaign appearance with President Joe Biden since he dropped his re-election bid and endorsed her. Harris has not said much about her policy plans on tariffs and trade, but Biden has adopted Trump’s strategy, proposing tripling tariffs on Chinese steel.
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