Byron Donalds Slams ‘Hate Group’ Smear Campaign Against Moms For Liberty In Fiery Speech

U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) rejected the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate group” designation of Moms For Liberty during the group’s annual summit in Philadelphia.

Donalds joined several GOP presidential candidates, including former President Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in addressing the four-day summit. “My mom was a Mom for Liberty, she just wasn’t organized yet. I’m not here without her sacrifice,” he said.

Moms For Liberty was founded in Florida in 2021 with the goal of combating COVID restrictions in education, including remote learning/lockdown policies, mandatory masking and vaccine mandates. Hundreds of chapters have since been formed across the nation as the group has expanded its efforts to fight against leftist social ideology on race, gender and sexuality in the classroom.

As a result, the group has become the target of an intense smear campaign, with left-wing activist groups and politicians citing the SPLC’s bogus definition in branding the parental rights organization as a “hate group” on par with the Nazi party and Klu Klux Klan. Hundreds of far-left activists have descended on Philadelphia to protest the summit, including several who were bussed in from other states.

“Stand firm in front of the press because they don’t even know what they’re talking about anyway,” Donalds said of the smear campaign against the group.

He then took direct aim at the protesters outside before introducing former President Trump. “The people yelling outside, and the bureaucrats and school districts all across the country, they oppose you because they believe, truly, that the kids belong to them,” the Florida congressman stated. “There’s some guy that ran for governor in Virginia, and he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory because he was a fool and told people that their kids belonged to the state and not to their parents,” he continued, referencing the election of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin.

Donalds then introduced President Trump, who received a standing ovation and chants of “we want Trump.”

“The radical left is even slandering Moms For Liberty as a hate group… you’re a hate group! You hate your children you hate everybody,” Trump said jokingly, drawing laughs. “Can you imagine? Moms For Liberty – hate group. I’m telling you these people are sick.”

“But Moms For Liberty is no hate group. You are joyful warriors you are fierce, fierce patriots,” he continued. “You’re not the threat to America, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to America. Joe Biden and the Democrat communists are the threat to America.”