Trump: Winning The Presidency Will Help Me Go To Heaven

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump made an appeal to evangelicals at an August 11 campaign event, saying that their vote could be the difference between heaven and hell for him on a personal level.

“For evangelicals, for the Christians, for everybody of religion, this will be, may be, the most important election that our country has ever had,” Trump said at a “Pastors in the Pews” evangelical leader meeting in Orlando, reports Politico. “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 event’s attendees that he would undo the Johnson Amendment, which he said “silenced” religious leaders by potentially revoking their tax exempt status if they are too vocally political. Trump promised that eliminating the Johnson Amendment would increase church attendance and also allow churches to be as political as they please.

He also urged the evangelical audience to help him win over their congregations so that they turn up to vote for him in November.

“You have a chance to do something that will be Earth shaking,” Trump said. “I literally mean it. Earth shaking. You’ve got to get your people out to vote.”

He explained that he is struggling not only in swing states like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, but also in Utah, a reliably Republican-voting state.

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

Trump has particularly struggled in the largely Mormon state, and several polls show that the race between him and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is a close one, notes BuzzFeed. Clinton and Trump have both spent a fair amount of time campaigning in the state in recent weeks.

“Honestly, you did not vote for Romney,” Trump told the crowd of evangelical voters, suggesting that they might have cost 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney the presidency, according to Politico. “Had you voted for Romney, it would have been much closer. 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.”

Sources: Politico, BuzzFeed / Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr