Mike Pence has told a prayer rally in Washington DC that Donald Trump is a "champion for people of faith, for life, and religious liberty". 

The Vice President spoke to tens of thousands of Christians in front of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday during Franklin Graham's Washington Prayer March ahead of the 2020 presidential elections in November. 

Pence said the US was a "nation of believers" who, since the country's founding, "have gone to prayer in challenging times."

"George Washington prayed for the leaders and the people of our states what he called an earnest prayer that God would hold them and our states in his holy protection," he said.

"Abraham Lincoln said during his time in the White House, 'I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.'"

He said "I'm praying for you" were the "sweetest words" he and the President hear from ordinary Americans.

"And we hear them a lot," he said as he asked people to pray for people in public office, including members of Congress and Supreme Court justices. 

He also asked them to pray for everyone "struggling with loss and with serious illness" during the pandemic, as well as doctors and nurses. 

"If His people who are called by His name will humble themselves and pray ... He'll do like He's always done, through much more challenging times in the life of this nation, you'll hear from Heaven and He'll heal this land, this one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all," he said.