Trump predicts winning the presidency will get him into heaven

Donald Trump called on evangelical pastors to help him win the presidency this November, which he said is “maybe the only way I'm going to get to heaven.”

“For evangelicals, for the Christians, for the everybody, for everybody of religion, this will be, may be, the most important election that our country has ever had,” Trump told a “Pastors in the Pews” meeting of evangelical leaders in Orlando. “And once I get in, I will do my thing that I do very well. And I figure it is probably, maybe the only way I'm going to get to heaven. So I better do a good job.”


Trump told the assembled evangelicals that he desperately needed their help in order to win the White House in November, calling on the pastors to get out the vote in their congregation. He said he needed the help especially in swing states like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, where Trump said religious voters could swing the entire election his way.

But Trump also admitted that he is struggling in traditionally deep-red Utah, where Mormon voters aware of their church’s historical persecution have been skeptical of his occasionally intolerant message.

“I'm having a tremendous problem in Utah. Utah is a different place. Is anybody here from Utah? I didn’t think so,” Trump said, prompting laughter from the audience. “We’re having a problem. I mean because, you know, it could cost us the Supreme Court.”

The Manhattan billionaire also blamed evangelical voters for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s loss in the 2012 presidential election.

“Honestly, you did not vote for Romney. Had you voted for Romney, it would have been much closer,” he said. “You did not vote for Romney. Evangelicals, religion, did not get out and vote. And I don't know why. Whatever the reason, I'm not sure why.”

Trump spent the first half of his roughly 40-minute speech pledging to undo the Johnson Amendment, a rule that the real estate mogul said “silenced” religious leaders politically by threatening to revoke their tax exempt status. In addition to offering a political voice, Trump told the assembled pastors that with the Johnson Amendment removed, church attendance would grow.

He also pledged to appoint conservative Supreme Court justices, but did not mention other issues popular with evangelicals, like abortion or same-sex marriage.

“You have to get the people in your churches. You have to get them to go out and vote. Whether you have bus drives, do whatever you have to do,” Trump said. “You have a chance to do something that will be Earth shaking. I literally mean it. Earth shaking. You’ve got to get your people out to vote.”