Biden kicked 8,000 soldiers out of the military for refusing the COVID vaccine on religious grounds.
Now Trump's Religious Liberty Commission just handed the president the most comprehensive faith-freedom blueprint in American history.
The recommendations would give every believer in America legal weapons the Left never saw coming.
Doctors and Nurses Would Finally Get Conscience Rights Under New Commission Recommendations
The draft report from the Religious Liberty Commission – delivered to Trump in the Oval Office by Chairman Dan Patrick, the Texas Lt. Gov., and Vice Chairman Ben Carson – opens with a charge that cuts to the bone.
For years, officials at every level of government have pressured Americans into silence about their own faith, convincing them they have no right to speak or act on their beliefs in public life.
The commission spent a year holding seven hearings and interviewing more than 100 witnesses.
The witnesses who showed up weren't lobbyists or lawyers.
Healthcare workers described being forced to choose between their conscience and their career – pressured to participate in abortions, sex change procedures, and assisted suicide or lose their jobs.
The report calls on Congress to pass the Conscience Protection Act and the Conscience Protections for Medical Residents Act.
It recommends making opt-out the default for medical students on abortion training – meaning no student would be forced to participate unless they actively chose to.
Those protections would also cover physician-assisted suicide and sterilization.
The report also calls on the HHS Office for Civil Rights to get more aggressive opening investigations and on the DOJ to back strategic litigation for healthcare workers whose conscience rights get trampled.
Trump Commission Backs Full Restoration for Troops Fired Over COVID Vaccine Religious Exemptions
The section titled "America's Warfighters Deserve Better" is where it gets personal.
Career soldiers, sailors, and airmen who had given years of their lives to this country were shown the door because their faith conflicted with a bureaucratic mandate – more than 8,000 of them fired under Biden for refusing the COVID vaccine on religious grounds.
Trump signed an executive order on January 27, 2025, directing the Department of War to reinstate them.
The Religious Liberty Commission is now recommending the administration go further – continuing to restore retirement and reenlistment eligibility for every service member who lost employment, health insurance, pensions, and benefits because of their religious beliefs about the COVID vaccine.
The commission also wants a spiritual fitness guide created for the military, updated guidance on religious liberty in uniform, and religious freedom impact assessments folded into operational planning.
Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, a commission member who helped shape the report, said: "When religious liberty is threatened, all the other liberties are threatened."
Commission Recommends Repealing the Johnson Amendment After 70 Years of Silencing Churches
The report's most consequential recommendation targets the Johnson Amendment – the 1954 tax provision that strips a church's tax-exempt status if it endorses a political candidate.
Under current law, any church that endorses a political candidate risks losing its tax-exempt status.
In practice, that threat has never been applied equally.
Just last Sunday, Democrat Sen. Jon Ossoff stood at the pulpit of Beulah Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta and delivered a campaign broadside against Republican Senate candidate Mike Collins – calling him a bigot and an election denier – while the IRS said nothing.
Trump has wanted to kill this law since 2017. At the National Prayer Breakfast that year, he vowed to "totally destroy" it.
The IRS took a step in that direction in July 2025, carving out an exception for churches communicating with their own congregations – but a federal judge rejected that arrangement in March 2026.
The commission is now pushing Congress to finish the job with a full legislative repeal.
It’s constitutional case starts with a fact most Americans don't know: the phrase "wall of separation between church and state" appears nowhere in the Constitution.
It comes from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists in 1802.
"In reality," the report states, "the church and state strengthen and support one another."
The commission also wants the DOJ to issue new guidance clarifying the Establishment Clause, a religious liberty task force inside the DOJ, hotlines at the DOJ and HHS for reporting violations, and a Presidential Medal of Religious Liberty for Americans who fight back.
Trump summed up the moment at the Faith and Freedom Coalition gathering Friday: "We saved religion. It was going down."
Biden spent four years weaponizing federal agencies against believers – firing soldiers for their faith, forcing nurses to assist procedures that violated their conscience, and using the IRS to keep pastors silent.
The commission's recommendations are the clearest roadmap Trump has ever had to make sure it never happens again.
Sources:
- Derek VanBuskirk, "Trump's Religious Liberty Commission Eyes Changes To Conscience Rights For Healthcare Workers, US Military," Daily Caller, June 26, 2026.
- "President Trump's Religious Liberty Commission Delivers Historic Report Draft," U.S. Department of Justice, June 26, 2026.
- "White House Religious Liberty Commission Presents Recommendations," EWTN News, June 26, 2026.
- "Trump's Religious Liberty Commission Releases Report Challenging Church-State Separation," The Epoch Times, June 26, 2026.
- "Reinstating Service Members Discharged Under the Military's COVID-19 Vaccination Mandate," The White House, January 27, 2025.