The Fastest Way to Heaven – Trump’s $15 Ticket

Donald Trump has a new idea for how to get to paradise: by credit card. In a mass email that his Super PAC “Never Surrender” sent out three times, it says in black and white: “Friend, I want to try and get to Heaven.” And because the road to heaven apparently has a toll, the 79-year-old is asking his supporters to chip in $15 – “to keep the wins rolling in.” It is a fundraising appeal that sounds as if he had swallowed a televangelist in Trump Tower. The president told his supporters that God had saved him during the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024 – “by the grace of the almighty God” – so that he could continue to “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” And now, he said, it was time to settle the debt. “So now I have no other choice but to answer the Call to Duty, but I can’t do it alone,” Trump writes, staging his ascension to heaven as a collective crowdfunding project.

The irony is as thick as his orange foundation: A billionaire, estimated by Forbes at $6.1 billion, is holding out the collection plate and implicitly quoting the Bible – only without the part where Jesus says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” With Trump, it sounds more as if he personally renegotiated the verse: $15 for the ticket to heaven, please in small bills. The timing is no coincidence. Trump’s email went out while the wildest rumors about his health were circulating online. His hand was said to be bruised, his ankles swollen, and his gaffes increasing. Over Labor Day, the hashtag #TrumpIsDead even trended – until the president appeared on the White House lawn on Saturday morning and went off to the golf course. “Proof of life,” one of his favorite broadcasters headlined. On X, someone joked: “If Trump’s dead, they should bury JD Vance with him like pharaohs did with their cats.”

But Trump would not be Trump if he did not monetize the moment of collective relief. “I’m still alive” became “I want to get to heaven,” and resurrection turned into a fundraising campaign. The rhetoric is as melodramatic as an American campaign ad: “I wasn’t supposed to beat Crooked Hillary in 2016 - but I did. I wasn’t supposed to survive an assassin’s bullet - but by the grace of the almighty God, I did.” The only logical conclusion: God is apparently a member of “Team MAGA” and now expects the base to open their wallets. You could almost feel sorry for him. A thrice-married president who publicly admits he is “at the bottom of the totem pole” for heaven and now wants to buy his way up with the help of his voters. Perhaps this is the most honest message of his entire career: Salvation is not free, but $15, payable via the link in the newsletter.