Questions about President Donald Trump’s health spiked again after he said his desire to bring peace to Ukraine and Russia is driven by the hope it will improve his chances of making it to heaven.
Trump, 79, admitted to Fox News on Tuesday that he feels he is “at the bottom of the totem pole” regarding his odds of making it to the promised land, leading many to ponder: Why is the president suddenly so hell-bent on making it to the pearly gates?
“I just want to end it,” Trump said of the Russia-Ukraine war. “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.”
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Trump has invoked religion more often in his second term, including him notably mentioning God repeatedly after announcing the U.S. bombed nuclear facilities in Iran.
“I want to just thank everybody, in particular, God,” he said in June. “I want to just say, we love you, God, and we love our great military—protect them. God bless the Middle East, God bless Israel, and God bless America.”
A growing rumor for Trump’s turn to the theological—or worry, depending on who you ask—is that the president’s health may be slipping.
The Lincoln Project, a Super PAC founded by anti-Trump Republicans, reacted to the president’s remarks about heaven on Tuesday by posting, “His health can’t be right if this is top of mind for him.”
That viral post’s comments were filled with theories that Trump’s health may secretly be in decline.
“I was thinking the same thing. He’s seemed low-energy lately,” wrote one user. “So maybe he got some bad news.”
Another wrote, “He is s--tting his pants about dying. Which tells me he’s dying.”
Kelsie Taggart, the media director at the progressive Super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, also questioned whether Trump is dealing with private health struggles.
“I feel like we should all be deeply concerned that Trump is having health crises we don’t know about,” she posted on X. “Like, dude has never been afraid of not getting into heaven before...”
Reached for comment, a White House spokesperson noted Trump has had a packed schedule as he pushes for peace between Russia and Ukraine. That included him flying 7,000 miles round-trip to and from Alaska on Friday, with Fox News interviews in transit both ways, as well as a day of meetings with European leaders on Monday.
Still, Trump has been showing his age more in the past week.
On Aug. 12, he twice said that he was traveling to Russia to meet with its president, Vladimir Putin, despite the meeting scheduled to take place in Alaska. The following day, he referred to the Russian city of St. Petersburg as “Leningrad,” a name that has been retired since 1991.
Trump then struggled to walk in a straight line just before greeting Putin on Friday, was described as appearing incredibly “tired” after the summit, and then failed to recognize Finnish President Alexander Stubb—who was seated right in front of him—at the White House on Monday.
The White House has not released any information about serious health concerns for Trump. It was announced in July that he suffers from chronic venous insufficiency, but the condition causes blood circulation issues and is not tied to cognitive decline.
