President Donald Trump really wants to know if he’s ever going to see those Pearly Gates.
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Though Trump is regarded as “anointed by God” by some of his supporters, the 79-year-old president has admitted recently he’s not so sure if he’s good enough to get into heaven.
In August, he confessed to Fox News he wasn’t too optimistic about making it to kingdom come, though he said that his chances might improve if he’s able to end the war in Ukraine.
“But if I can save 7,000 people a week from being killed, I think that’s a pretty ... I want to try and get to heaven, if possible,” Trump said. “I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons.”
That same week, he talked about there being “some kind of a report card up there someplace.” (Letter grading or “good job” stickers?)
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Previously, Trump had mused that, without a belief in heaven, he wonders why anyone would even be moral to begin with. “If you don’t have heaven, you almost say, ‘What’s the reason? Why do I have to be good?’” he wondered during the interview on Fox & Friends last year.
Earlier this month, Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked the president on board Air Force One as he headed to Israel if he thought his plan for peace between Israel and Hamas would bolster his chances of getting in.

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“I’m being a little cute. I don’t think there’s anything going to get me in heaven, OK? I really don’t,” Trump replied.

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“I think I’m not maybe heaven-bound,” he said, perhaps a bit wistfully. “I may be in heaven right now as we fly in Air Force One. I’m not sure I’m gonna be able to make heaven, but I’ve made life a lot better for a lot of people.”
It would be nice to think the president is newly into theological studies ― a late-in-life interest in Augustine of Hippo, for instance, or the works of Reinhold Niebuhr ― but Trump’s interest seems more me-based than anything: Am I, Donald J. Trump, getting into heaven? What’s my cosmic scoreboard looking like up there?, as if it were a round of golf.
In any case, it’s incredibly odd to have access to a sitting president’s stream of conscious thoughts about heaven. Since his fixation on heaven seems ongoing, we asked experts ― Christian-based therapists and psychologists who specialize in death anxiety ― to analyze what a focus on the hereafter might reveal.
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1. Thoughts about the afterlife tend to crop up in later life.
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At 79, President Trump is getting up there. “You know, there’s a certain point at which you don’t want to hear ‘Happy Birthday,’” he said when he turned 78. “You just want to pretend the day doesn’t exist.”
While a person can begin thinking about heaven at any point in their life span, it’s often brought up when you’re forced to contemplate your age, said Cynthia Shaw, a New York-based psychologist specializing in existential confrontation, loneliness, and selfhood.
“Birthdays, anniversaries, milestones, and major life events often bring up moments of reflection for us as humans,” she said. “We may begin to question: What have we accomplished in life up until this point? And are we satisfied with the life we have led thus far?”
In other words, when you’re approaching 80, you’re not just concerned about the big UFC fight birthday party you plan to throw on the White House lawn, you’re also concerned about legacy and what you’re leaving behind.
2. He might be experiencing some "death anxiety."
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Death anxiety, also known as thanatophobia, is the fear or worry surrounding one’s own mortality. Concerns like Trump’s reflect a common psychological pattern for those grappling with such anxiety, according to Rachel Menzies, a psychologist and author of Mortals: How the Fear of Death Shaped Human Society.
“The idea that goodness or achievement can somehow protect us from the finality of death is believed by many,” she said. “It’s often a way of managing the uncomfortable truth that mortality is outside our control, by turning it into something we can earn, influence, or negotiate.”
3. Charlie Kirk’s death might be weighing on him, too.
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The subject also might be on his mind after the death of political pundit and ally Charlie Kirk last month. While posthumously awarding Kirk with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in October, Trump naturally brought up heaven once more.
“[Kirk] now rests in heaven, and he’s gonna make heaven,” he said. “I said I’m not sure I’m gonna make it. But he’s gonna make it.”
According to Gabrielle Ferrara, a therapist at the Lukin Center for Psychotherapy, we often feel anxiety about our own mortality after losing someone.
“We might be faced with coming to terms with our own mortality, or our own potential for getting sick and passing away,” she wrote on the center’s blog. “And it’s the uncertainty surrounding the situation that can be very anxiety-inducing.”