I am writing this report from the Marriott Marquis in New York City, where I have been in meetings with Donald Trump and more than 1,000 religious leaders. There were household names like Franklin Graham, who opened the meeting with an incredibly moving prayer. Others present included Dr. James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Dr. Ben Carson, Penny Nance and Jerry Falwell, Jr.

There was a smaller, private meeting before the main event, which I attended. Here are a few key points that stood out to me:

• Trump vowed to rebuild our military, saying it would be far more expensive if we failed to do so because weakness invites war.

• Trump took a number of questions about major religious liberty issues in the news. He consistently referred to his list of judges, which has been widely praised by leading conservative organizations. Trump noted that the courts were the key to addressing virtually all of the religious liberty concerns raised by the attendees.

• Trump also brought up the 1954 Johnson Amendment to the tax code, which restricts what pastors can and cannot say on certain political issues. Trump said he would work to repeal the Johnson Amendment so that religious leaders would no longer be afraid to speak up.

• Trump expressed 100% support for Israel, and said he would rebalance our Middle East policy on his first day in office.

• Addressing concerns about his proposal to restrict Muslim immigration, Trump reiterated the need to be certain that our immigration policies are not putting Americans at risk.

Campaign Update

It is an understatement to say this campaign has been like no other in recent memory. It continues to be and will likely remain so until Election Day. With that in mind, here’s a brief update on some recent headlines.

• In a column published yesterday at USA Today, I noted the left’s increasing appetite for violence, with some even justifying violence at political events.

On a related note, an illegal immigrant from England was arrested Saturday in Las Vegas. Michael Steven Sandford drove four hours to attend a Trump rally. While there, he attempted to grab a police officer’s gun. Thankfully, he was tackled and escorted out of the room.

Sandford has reportedly confessed to the Secret Service that he “had been planning to attempt to kill Trump for about a year,” even going to a gun range for target practice.

Will anyone on the left justifying hateful violence against Trump’s supporters accept any responsibility for Sandford’s actions?

• Corey Lewandowski was fired [Monday] as Donald Trump’s campaign manager. The maverick political operative who successfully engineered Trump’s primary victory reportedly clashed with family members and more seasoned hands brought in to assist with the general election campaign. Faced with disappointing fundraising reports and a deluge of negative press, Trump evidently felt a change was needed.

• Polling continues to show a close race in November. A new national CNN poll finds Hillary Clinton leading Trump by five points — 47% to 42%. Twenty-two percent of voters are still undecided.

Meanwhile, polling in key battleground states finds Clinton leading in Florida, while the candidates are tied in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The Senate & The Second Amendment

In response to the terrorist attack in Orlando, liberal senators hijacked the Senate floor last week and demanded a series of votes on gun control measures. [Monday] night they got their votes. I won’t bother going into the substance of the four debated measures as none received the required threshold of 60 votes to pass.

The left’s insistence on treating Orlando as an issue of “gun violence” is a total distraction. We should be attacking the terrorists, not the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans.

But so long as the left continues to assault your rights, let me arm you with some facts:

• The term “assault weapon” is a manufactured phrase of the left intended to scare people. No one walks into a gun store and says, “I want to buy an assault weapon.”

• It has been, generally speaking, illegal to purchase a machine gun or fully automatic weapon in this country since the 1930s. Laws regulating automatic weapons were further tightened in the 1980s. The “assault weapons” left-wing politicians are referring to are, in fact, semi-automatic weapons. They fire one bullet each time the trigger is pulled, just like every handgun in America.

• According to FBI statistics, more people are physically beaten to death each year than are killed with rifles, including “assault weapons.”

• The real culprit in “gun violence” — another manufactured phrase of the left — is, of course, the criminal. But handguns, not so-called “assault weapons,” are used in the vast majority of shootings. According to the Congressional Research Service, “assault weapons” were used in just 27% of mass shootings from 1999 to 2013.