Of all the inner thoughts of Donald Trump we have had to learn to over the last decade — involuntarily, said thoughts being stuffed down our throats like inmates on a hunger strike being force-fed gruel by sadistic prison wardens — perhaps the one thought we could not give less of a tinned shit about is where our big wet president thinks his soul will end up after he dies.
But on Sunday night Trump was being interviewed on 60 Minutes by Ross Douthat, who probably cares about almost nothing else. In fact, he probably rolled his eyes at having to spend 48 minutes asking Trump about boring stuff like the Iran war and data centers before he got rewarded with three minutes of the sort of dorm-room musing about religion that probably made all his roommates at Harvard avoid being alone with him.
Really, what do you think Donald Trump is going to say when you ask him, “What do you think happens when you die?” Well Ross, I am always struck whenever I reread what the great Stoic Epicurus wrote in his seminal text “Letter to Menoeceus” ...
Honestly, we have to respect Trump saying he will walk backwards into hell before he forgives James Comey or Nancy Pelosi or anyone else for being mean to him. That’s real commitment. That’s “Anakin Skywalker giving in to the Dark Side” levels of commitment.
By this point, Douthat was probably wishing he was back to fumbling through awkward interviews with Abdul El-Sayed, who could probably at least coherently explain theological beliefs to him even if Ross is sure the guy is an irredeemable Muslim heathen.
Imagine it the way Trump would likely imagine it: He is standing before the gates of Heaven. Behind them, he can see angels. He can see millions of hot young women he thinks he can fuck, willingly or unwillingly, without pesky consequences like unwanted pregnancies or criminal charges. He can see a never-ending supply of well-done steaks smothered in ketchup that he can eat and eat and eat without worrying about his cholesterol. He can see arenas full of slack-jawed morons chanting his name and hanging on his every word. He can see the most beautiful golf courses ever designed. Every building has his name on it in thousand-foot-high gold letters.
Then St. Peter opens up a portal into Hell and shows Trump what waits for him there: lakes of fire, giggling demons waiting to disembowel him and feed him his own intestines over and over again for all eternity, an endless cycle of suffering and pain beyond pain. All Trump has to do to avoid this endless torture is forgive his haters for being mean and nasty to him.
And he can’t do it. He’s standing there looking from one vision to the other, and he can’t let go of his hatred. So St. Peter dropkicks him into Hell.
Though if there is anyone who thinks he can talk his way out of Hell, it would be Donald Trump. Imagine him perishing in the flames while screaming that he’s going to sue Satan very strongly for $10 billion and being very confused that his threats aren’t working.
Earlier in the interview, Douthat and Trump were talking about whether the president could work with the Democrats, if the price of it was not being an asshole to any of them:
ROSS DOUTHAT: If — if it took six months of not insulting the Democrats to get a deal done, do you think you could do it?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Very easily.
Twenty minutes later, he’s talking about how he can never forgive Democrats for what they have allegedly done to him. Douthat probably didn’t notice the contradiction, because he was too busy getting excited about having a theological debate with Trump and ignoring the certainty that he’d get deeper thoughts on religion and the afterlife from a stick of butter.
It was the same thing Trump has done for a decade, which is say whatever he needs to say to get through the next 30 seconds and immediately forgetting it. But he wants the respect of the sort of eggheads who watch 60 Minutes, so he’ll say whatever he thinks they want to hear.
For instance, immigration. Trump admitted that his immigration policies probably hurt the Republicans in last Tuesday’s elections. [YA THINK? — Ed.] It was, he said, too tough, and he should be easier on the waitresses and landscapers he’s been slapping into shackles and sending off to Ghana:
Trump’s administration has been rounding up anyone with skin a slightly darker shade than “eggshell” regardless of job status, criminal status, community standing, and anything else. He’s been doing this since the day he was sworn in. He’s turned his immigration enforcement officers loose like a pack of racist jackals with stun gloves. He couldn’t rein them in now if he wanted to. Which, let’s be honest, he really doesn’t.
The irony of Trump saying all this the same weekend that he elevated Stephen Miller to the position of chief of staff is just an extra chef’s kiss of perfection. Miller has probably already yanked Trump’s leash on immigration so hard that he almost knocked his head right off. He probably watched this interview and got mad enough to throw one of his children through the TV.
Then there was this already infamous moment, when Douthat tried to get Trump to talk about the insane wealth he and his family of criminal reprobates have accumulated in a mere 18 months. How much wealth? Trump’s net worth has gone up by about $3 billion in the last year and a half, according to Forbes. And that’s just him, we haven’t gotten into his kids yet:
Incredible. Why didn’t Douthat buy stocks? Why didn’t we buy stocks? We could all have been worth $3 billion each!
Polls have consistently indicated that corruption and affordability are two of the biggest drivers of the Democratic tsunami last week, and here’s Trump bragging that he has far more money than he ever thought he’d have thanks in large part, as Douthat notes, to his family’s scammy crypto grift. We bet any of his former fans who voted Democrat watched this and wished they could vote a couple thousand more times just as a giant “fuck you” to President Bad Brain.
The entire interview is below if you have an hour of time and a punishment fetish that would make Trump’s awaiting tortures in hell look like nap time at a preschool:
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“Where do bad folks go when they die?
They don’t go to heaven where the angels fly
Go to a lake of fire and fry
See ‘em again till the Fourth of July.”
Meat Puppets, “Lake of Fire”