President Donald Trump delivered a Good Friday message from the Resolute Desk celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ while declaring that religion is experiencing a “resurgence” across the United States in his second term.

“As I have often said, to be a great nation, you must have religion, and you must have God,” Trump said.

The president framed his message with faith as a central pillar of American strength, pointing to what he described as a broader cultural shift toward religion.

The video, shared via Truth Social on Good Friday, honored the Christian faith tradition and what he claims is a renewal of religion in the United States.

TRUMP ADMIN ISSUES NEW GUIDANCE TO PROTECT RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION ACROSS FEDERAL WORKFORCE

President Trump has often recalled his Presbyterian upbringing, attending Sunday school. He has previously credited his faith to his devout Scottish mother and a “very strong” but “great-hearted” father in remarks at the 2024 National Faith Summit.

“In churches across the nation on Sunday, the pews will be fuller, younger and more faithful than they have at any time in many, many years,” Trump said. “Religion is growing again in our country for the first time in decades.“

The president has invited prayer and faith back into the public square with both an America 250 prayer initiative and the establishment of the White House Faith Office early in his second term.

TRUMP TO SPEAK AT MUSEUM OF THE BIBLE ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN EDUCATION

Trump said he’s “proud to join with Christians” during Holy Week in his address.

“This Holy Week, I’m proud to join with Christians across the country and around the world to celebrate the most glorious miracle in all of time — the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” Trump said. 

“In his life, Christ displayed true humility. In His death, He modeled true love.”

The president also invoked scripture in his address, quoting John 3:16.

TARGETED FOR THEIR FAITH OVERSEAS, PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS GET A WHITE HOUSE WELCOME UNDER TRUMP

“As it says in Gospel of John, for God so loved the world that He gave His only son, for whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life,” Trump said.

President Trump’s outspoken approach to the Christian holiday serves as a foil to his predecessor. Former President Joe Biden most recently shared a brief three-paragraph statement during his tenure to celebrate the season in 2024.

Trump has been more candid in his approach to his faith since he survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024.

“I believe that my life was saved that day in Butler for a very good reason,” he declared during his address to a joint session of Congress in 2025. “I was saved by God to make America great again. I believe that.”

The president ended his remarks by wishing everyone a blessed holiday.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

“Happy Easter to all. May God bless you. May God bless the United States of America,” Trump concluded.

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

WASHINGTON — President Trump is requesting $152 million from Congress to begin “rebuilding” the prison on Alcatraz Island for operational use, though his administration appears to have taken few steps toward advancing the project.

The request, in the president’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2027, resurrects Trump’s attention-grabbing concept of converting the crumbling site — which has stood as a piece of history for more than 60 years — into a working federal prison.

But the Bureau of Prisons on Friday said it had no new information to share about the potential project and no updates about whether assessments that the agency had said it launched last year had been completed.

A spokesperson said the bureau was “moving forward, evaluating, and formulating the actions necessary” and pointed to a May 2025 statement from bureau director William K. Marshall pledging to “vigorously pursue all avenues to support and implement the President’s agenda.”

The funding request was included in Trump’s budget proposal, which provides Congress with a look at the administration’s priorities ahead of the next fiscal year. Congress makes the ultimate funding decisions for the government.

Creating a working prison on the San Francisco Bay island would be extremely costly, the administration’s critics say, and would raise questions about its fate as a historic site that draws more than a million tourists a year.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said Friday she would attempt to block Trump’s proposal in Congress by any means possible, calling it “a stupid notion that would be nothing more than a waste of taxpayer dollars.”

“Alcatraz is a historic museum that belongs to the public, and San Franciscans will not stand for Washington turning one of our most iconic landmarks into a political prop,” she said in a statement.

The $152-million request is for only the first year of the project’s costs. How long the project could take or what the total cost could be are not clear. The budget proposal described the project as a “state-of-the-art secure prison facility.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

“It represents something very strong, very powerful, in terms of law and order,” Trump told reporters last year. “It housed the most violent criminals in the world. … It sort of represents something that’s both horrible and beautiful, strong, and miserable.”

He characterized the historic site as “rusting and rotting.”

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), vice chair of the Senate appropriations committee, said Trump would waste taxpayer money on Alcatraz “while ignoring billions of dollars in repair-backlog needs for existing” federal prisons.

The government opened the federal penitentiary on Alcatraz in 1934, hoping to use the remote island to house particularly difficult prisoners, according to the National Park Service. Its cells held infamous criminals such as Al Capone, and several unsuccessful escape attempts captured public imagination.

The prison was closed in 1963 after becoming too costly to run. A group of Native American activists occupied the land during a period between 1969 and 1971, and in 1972, Alcatraz became a national recreation area under National Park Service management. It opened to the public as a national park attraction the following year and was later designated a National Historic Landmark.

Trump, who has pushed to round up criminals and pursued plans to open new detention centers in his second term, floated the Alcatraz idea last year, saying he wanted to send “America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders” there.

He directed the Bureau of Prisons to take up the task. In July, then-Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum visited the island.

“Alcatraz could hold the worst of the worst, it could hold middle-class violent prisoners, it could hold illegal aliens,” Bondi told Fox News during the visit. “This is a terrific facility; it needs a lot of work, but no one has been known to escape from Alcatraz and survive.”

The Bureau of Prisons said at the time that no final decision had been made as to whether to use the site, but that the agency would determine whether “it makes sense operationally, legally, and financially.”

The bureau said then that was working on a cost estimate and feasibility report to present to Congress following a site assessment with the National Park Service and work by engineers and planners on potential budgets and models.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Friday opening Alcatraz would be “prohibitively expensive” for the federal government to undertake. He has previously characterized the concept as part of an attack by the Trump administration on national parks.

“Trump’s continued push to reopen it as a federal prison is a wasteful exercise in futility,” Schiff said. “He should focus on lowering the cost of living for the American people, not raising the cost of our prisons.”