Washington DC - Donald Trump recently did an event with the conservative group Moms for Liberty, but some critics say the choice to do so may have been more of a liability than a help to his campaign.

On Friday night, Trump gave a live "fireside chat" during the group's Joyful Warriors summit, where he insisted that he was "for parental rights all the way" and voiced his support for their efforts to dismantle the US Department of Education.

Trump railed against transgender athletes in women's sports, repeating his false assertion that Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif is trans and bizarrely claiming that schools are forcing children to undergo gender reassignment surgeries.

"Think of it – Your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation," Trump said.

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"The school decides what's going to happen with your child, and you know many of these [children] 15 years later say, 'What the hell happened? Who did this to me?'"

He also tied his critique of the US education system to immigration.

"Our country is being poisoned," he explained. "And your schools and your children are suffering greatly because they're going into the classrooms and taking disease, and they don't even speak English!"

The Republican presidential candidate vowed to pull funding from schools that push "inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content" and fight all other forms of "wokeness" if he manages to win re-election.

Moms for Liberty is a conservative nonprofit formed in 2021 by a small group of Florida school board moms, which has since grown to over 130,000 members nationwide.

The group now spends millions every presidential election cycle to support candidates with strong conservative agendas.

While Trump may have thought that speaking at the group's annual summit – as he did last year – would serve to help grow his support with suburban women, a demographic he has struggled with over the years, some critics argue it may have done the opposite.

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For starters, the group is made up of conservative women, a population that already overwhelmingly supports him.

Trump's appearance did nothing to advance his support with women outside of that group, to whom the culture war ideas are not very popular, and some may oppose his association with the group due to its reputation.

A number of scandals surrounding Moms for Liberty have harmed their public image, and in 2023, things became worse when the Southern Poverty Law Center deemed the group "extremist" and "anti-government."

But the most damning criticism is that Moms for Liberty is cosponsored by The Heritage Foundation, the group that wrote Project 2025 – a hyper conservative blueprint for a second Trump term.

Trump has aggressively tried to distance himself from Project 2025, even though one of its co-authors was caught on hidden camera video admitting that Trump had "blessed" their efforts.