“I mean you know, I’m being… a little cute,” said President Donald Trump while speaking to reporters Sunday on Air Force One. “I don’t think there’s anything gonna get me in heaven, okay? I really don’t. I think I’m not, maybe, heaven-bound.”
Trump was travelling in the Middle East at the time, helping broker a deal to release Israeli hostages taken following the Oct. 2023 Hamas terrorist attack subsequent Israel-Hamas War. He told reporters on the presidential aircraft that the war there is over and that people in impacted countries are “dancing in the streets.”
His comment about heaven wasn’t in regards to this development in the Middle East. A reporter, referencing an interview the president did with Fox News around one month ago, was asking about Trump’s goal to end Russia’s ongoing illegal invasion of Ukraine.
“If I can save 7,000 people a week from being killed – I think that’s a pretty… I want to try to get to heaven if possible,” said Trump in that interview with Fox. “I’m hearing I’m not doing well – I hear I’m really at the bottom of the totem pole. But, if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons.”
According to an Oct. 10 report from the United Nations Office for the High Commissioner on Human Rights, at least 14,383 civilians have been killed since Russia began the invasion in February 2022, including 738 children, as well as 37,541 injured, including 2,318 children. While the Kyiv Independent reported that neither Mosco nor Kyiv often report official numbers of soldiers killed, a recent report indicates that more than 135,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine.
Last Friday, First Lady Melania Trump also announced that eight children displaced by the invasion had been reunited with their families with her help and assistance from Russia. She said reunification efforts will continue.
Speaking to reporters Sunday, Trump laid blame for both the Israel-Hamas war and the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the feet of former President Joe Biden and his administration. He also brought out his old claims that the 2020 election he lost against Biden was “rigged” and said that neither situation would have developed if he was in office instead. Both the Israel-Hamas war and the Russian invasion broke out during Biden’s term.
As for his quip about heaven, Trump didn’t seem too put off by his own pearly gates-free forecast. He did previously tell Fox News in another Air Force One interview following his annual physical that he has a “a good heart, a good soul.”
“I might be in heaven right now as we fly on Air Force One,” said the president. “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to make heaven. But I made life a lot better for a lot of people.”