ST. LOUIS, Sept. 10 (UPI) — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump offered a eulogy at the funeral of pioneering conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly on Saturday, telling mourners, “a movement has lost its hero.”
Schlafly was an early leader among the religious right in the 1970s and led the conservative fight against the Equal Rights Amendment. She died Monday after a battle with cancer at age 92.
Schlafly became an early endorser of Trump, backing his candidacy shortly after he announced, something Trump noted in his remarks.
“We are here today to honor the life and legacy of a truly great American patriot,”Trump said. “A movement has lost its hero. Believe me, Phyllis was there for me when it was not at all fashionable. Trust me.”
Her last book was published last week, titled “The Conservative Case for Trump.” In it, she argues that fellow religious conservatives should support the Republican nominee.
Trump said Schlafly was a champion for the underprivileged.
“America has always been about the underdog and always been about defying the odds, the idea that so called little people or the little person that she loved so much, could beat the system, often times the rigged system, that the American grassroots is more powerful than all of the world’s the special interest put together, and that’s the way Phyllis felt.”
