President Donald Trump on Thursday elaborated on his recent comments about wanting to get to “heaven,” musing that there must be “some kind of report card up there.”
The president first broached the subject on Tuesday when he told Fox News that securing a prime spot in the afterlife was a motivation to bring an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“I just want to end it,” Trump said then. “If I can save 7,000 people a week from getting killed, that’s pretty good. I want to get to heaven if possible. I’m hearing [that] I’m not doing well. I hear I’m at the bottom of the totem pole. If I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons.”
Asked about it on Thursday by radio host Todd Starnes, Trump—who was once a Presbyterian but in 2020 identified as a “non-denominational Christian”—claimed that religion coerces people to do good.
“If you look around, I mean, people of faith—there’s a feeling they want to be good,” he said.
“You know, they get punished if they’re not good, right? If you don’t think about that, if you’re not a believer, and you believe you go nowhere, what’s the reason to be good, really?” he said.
“There has to be some kind of a report card up there someplace, you know, like, let’s go to heaven, let’s get into heaven, and it’s sort of a beautiful thing.”
“Look, religion was the backbone of our country. It’s much less so now, but it’s getting much stronger under me,” added the man who has been hawking his own line of Bibles for $59.99.
Trump then wondered how any evangelical couldn’t vote for him and complained about COVID-19 restrictions on indoor church gatherings, despite several outbreaks resulting from such events.
“They were closing churches, even if the people went outside and they were 10 feet apart. They were going in and raiding them, and, you know, treating them like prisoners, like, you know, like horrible people. And they’re great people,” the president, who was also president during the COVID lockdowns of 2020, claimed.
“They were the backbone of this country and they still are, but they were dwindling. But I’m telling you that religion’s coming back. And religion brings our country together. All religions. A lot of religions,” he said, but added that some have “a little rough philosophy there.”
He didn’t specify which.
That subject can now be up for debate at federal government offices due to an administration memo last month permitting workers to debate which religion is “correct.”
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