Overview
- Rededicate 250, a nine-hour prayer festival on the National Mall, is scheduled for Sunday as a White House-endorsed event framed as a national rededication to God.
- House Speaker Mike Johnson, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are slated to speak, while President Trump will deliver a prerecorded message.
- Organizers and White House faith advisers describe a focus on a Judeo-Christian heritage, with a roster dominated by conservative evangelicals and only a rabbi and two Catholic clergy among non-evangelical voices.
- Event backers say some funding comes from money set aside for America’s 250th birthday, and Freedom 250, a public‑private group leading presidential programming for the semiquincentennial, is coordinating the rally as lawmakers question its finances.
- Legal scholars and religious-liberty groups say government-backed participation risks endorsing religion in violation of the Constitution, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation plans a protest in Washington.