A few weeks ago, President Trump momentarily dropped the bombast and the playground insults and the self-congratulation to muse about his eternal soul. “I want to try and get to heaven, if possible,” he said. “I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole.”
Prodded by a reporter this month to elaborate, he repeated the lament without much more explanation. “I’m being a little cute,” he said. But he went on: “I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to get me into heaven. I think I’m not maybe heaven-bound.”
Mr. Trump is hardly the first 79-year-old to dwell on what may come after he departs this mortal coil — or to wonder whether he has earned entry into the pearly gates. But it is so unlike Mr. Trump to express self-doubt that his public rumination has raised questions. What is on his mind lately that makes him fear his fate in the hereafter? What sins might he be regretting?
He has not clarified his thinking, at least not on camera, nor for that matter has he shown any public signs of repentance for scandals that he may believe hold him back from grace. And yet the president’s curious contemplation comes at a time when Mr. Trump seems to be seeking a form of immortality. If absolution is out of reach, perhaps there are more achievable ways of living beyond his natural time on this earth.
And so, the man who over a long career in business slapped his name on buildings around the world now seems intent on leaving his mark in even more grandiose fashion. He demolished the East Wing of the White House last week to make way for a vast, gilded Trumpian ballroom. He wants to erect an arch at the entrance to Washington that resembles Napoleon’s Arc de Triomphe. He is even considering having the government issue a new $1 coin with his own face on it, something no president has done in nearly a century.
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