Trump jokes Ukraine peace deal could help him get to heaven
The 79-year-old US president has previously said he wants to end Russia's war in Ukraine as part of his bid to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
But a day after hosting the leaders of Ukraine and several European nations at the White House, Trump said his motivations were not all earthly.
'I want to try and get to heaven if possible,' Trump told Fox News morning show 'Fox & Friends.'
'I hear 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.'
By traditional yardsticks the three-times-married, twice-impeached Trump is no saint.
The billionaire Republican has been embroiled in a number of scandals over the years and is the first president to have a criminal conviction, in his instance a hush money case involving payouts to a porn star.
But Trump has taken on an increasingly religious tone since surviving an assassination attempt last year. He said at his inauguration in January that he had been 'saved by God to make America great again.'
Boasting strong support from America's religious right, Trump has embraced the trappings of faith far more strongly in his second term in the White House.
He has notably appointed an official spiritual adviser, Paula White, who has led a number of prayer gatherings that have seen attendees lay their hands on Trump at White House events.
Trump's Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday she believed 'the president was serious' about his Ukraine comments.
'I think the president wants to get to heaven, as I hope we all do in this room,' the 27-year-old Leavitt—who herself holds prayer sessions before her briefings—told reporters. — AFP
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New Straits Times
an hour ago
- New Straits Times
Markets, Trump in delicate policy dance
UNITED States President Donald Trump has faced little opposition in his drive to rip up the global economic rule book, whether from his fellow Republicans, political opponents or institutional guard rails. The only exception has been "the market". But now even investors are holding their fire, enabling more risk to build up in the financial system. Wall Street's reaction to Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs on April 2 was so ferocious that the president did something he had rarely done: he backed down. Trillions of dollars were wiped off the value of US stocks amid a 10 per cent nosedive from April 3-4. The only two-day selloffs since the 1930s that were bigger occurred during World War 2, "Black Monday" in 1987, the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, and the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The stock market bottomed out on April 7 after Trump paused most of his country-specific tariffs. Wall Street has not looked back since, with the S&P 500 rebounding 35 per cent to a new all-time high. This episode suggests that "the market" is one of the few true checks on Trump's apparent pursuit to re-shape the US — and indeed the world — economy. The only problem is that the president has continued to pursue unorthodox policies in recent months — including challenging the independence of the Federal Reserve (Fed), firing statisticians and slapping tariffs on countries for non-economic reasons — and investors have failed to tap the brakes. The so-called "Trump put" — the idea that the president won't let the markets fall too far — is essentially a funhouse mirror version of the famous "Fed put", the long-held belief that, in the event of a crisis, the central bank will step in to restore stability. Trump seemingly did just that in April, but it was to clean up a mess of his own making. And one could argue that it was actually investors who came to the economy's rescue by putting pressure on the president to reconsider policies considered ill-advised by most economists. Trump and markets are, therefore, now in a curious dance. Investors appear to believe that markets can ultimately stop Trump from pushing the envelope too far on tariffs or other policies. But as a result, investors are not over-reacting — or reacting at all — to the latest controversies around the Bureau of Labour Statistics firing, his attacks on Fed chair Jerome Powell, his pressure on Intel's chief executive officer to resign, or the outsized tariffs slapped on Brazil and India. This, in turn, has powered the markets to new record highs, emboldening Trump to push the envelope even further. So even though the market has the power to rein in the president's economic policy excesses, it's not using it. Why hasn't the market pushed back? As the cliche goes, equity investors are paid to be optimistic. It's in their interest to keep the train hurtling along provided there aren't any immediate obstacles to derail it. There are, of course, a few pretty large hurdles on the horizon for the US economy, including the highest tariffs since the 1930s and some of the biggest budget deficits since World War 2 outside of crisis periods. But until these or other issues present an immediate economic threat, markets can choose to ignore them. By under-reacting to Trump's unorthodox policies, markets may be not only delaying the day of reckoning but amplifying the potential impact. Why? Genuine economic and geopolitical paradigm shifts are underway, and investors are not pricing in the attendant risk. Nobody knows what the ultimate impact of these shifts will be, but we do know that with greater uncertainty comes greater downside risk. Yet equity volatility is currently the lowest it has been this year, and even in the bond market — not known for its optimism — volatility is the lowest in 3½ years, while US corporate bond spreads are the tightest since 1998. Ultimately, the market is unlikely to call Trump's bluff until something truly unexpected or extreme hits. In the meantime, investors can justify this nonchalance by saying that corporate earnings growth is solid, artificial intelligence enthusiasm is high, economic growth remains decent, unemployment is low and consumers are still spending.
The Star
an hour ago
- The Star
U.S. Senator Sanders favors Trump plan to take stake in Intel, others
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) listens as U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer testifies before a Senate Finance Committee hearing on U.S. President Donald Trump's trade policy, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 8, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt/File Photo WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Liberal U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on Wednesday threw his support behind President Donald Trump's plan to convert U.S. grants to chipmakers, including $10.9 billion for Intel, into government stakes in the companies. "If microchip companies make a profit from the generous grants they receive from the federal government, the taxpayers of America have a right to a reasonable return on that investment," Sanders, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, said in a statement to Reuters. The awards were part of the 2022 Chips and Science Act, which sought to lure chip production away from Asia and boost American domestic semiconductor output with $39 billion in subsidies. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is looking into the government taking equity stakes in Intel and other chipmakers in exchange for the grants, sources told Reuters on Tuesday. Much of the funding for companies such as Micron , Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and Samsung has not been dispersed. (Reporting by Alexandra Alper)
Malay Mail
4 hours ago
- Malay Mail
AI fakes cloud Ukraine peace push with Trump-Putin memes
WASHINGTON, Aug 20 — From a fake image of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin dancing in the snow with a polar bear to a fabricated photo of European leaders waiting somberly outside the Oval Office, AI-enabled disinformation has clouded the diplomatic push to end the war in Ukraine. The online fakery — dubbed widely as AI slop — underscores how easily artificial intelligence tools can flood the internet with false and satirical content around major global events. These creations also highlight the challenge of policing bogus content as tech platforms offer creators monetisation incentives for viral posts. In hundreds of online posts mocking European leaders as powerless mediators snubbed by Trump, one such image purported to show French President Emmanuel Macron and other top officials waiting somberly in a White House corridor with their heads bowed. 'This is utter humiliation of these corrupt scumbags. Absolutely beautiful,' said one post on X from a conservative political commentator that AFP has previously fact-checked for spreading misinformation about Ukraine. Such posts — in multiple languages including Greek, German and French — gained traction as European leaders joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House Monday for talks with Trump following the US president's summit with Putin in Alaska. Red carpet brawl AFP fact-checkers identified visual inconsistencies that indicate the image including Macron was AI-generated. Some of the individuals depicted in the image also do not match those seen in official photographs from the high-stakes meeting. Macron and other European leaders represented a group of Ukraine's allies known as the 'Coalition of the Willing' for White House consultations. But multiple pro-Kremlin sources sharing the AI-generated image ridiculed them as the 'coalition of those in waiting.' The image was also amplified by sites operated by the Pravda network, a well-resourced Moscow-based operation known to circulate pro-Russian narratives globally, the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard said in a report. The falsehood was an illustration of how 'pro-Kremlin sources often seize on high-profile meetings involving European leaders to spread false claims,' NewsGuard said. In other viral posts, an AI-generated clip purported to show Trump and Putin skidding down snow-covered slopes, eating ice-cream beside a snowman, and waltzing with a polar bear to country music. And in another AI video, Trump and Putin were depicted brawling on a red carpet leading from an airplane staircase, trading punches and kicks as secret service agents idle in the background. The tongue-in-cheek posts offer a window into a social media landscape increasingly filled with AI-generated memes, videos and images competing for attention with — and sometimes drowning out — authentic content. As tech platforms scale back content moderation, AI videos spread rapidly, muddying the waters around serious diplomatic efforts to end the three-year war in Ukraine. Trump on Tuesday ruled out sending American troops to back up any Ukraine peace deal but suggested air support instead, as European nations began hashing out security guarantees ahead of a potential Russia summit. — AFP
