Donald Trump has claimed to have saved the world, days after backpedaling on an image framing himself as the messiah.
The president faced widespread backlash after posting an AI-generated image depicting him as Jesus on Truth Social, but he later deleted the post, claiming instead that he “thought it was me as a doctor making people better.”
Now he’s told ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl that the world would have been obliterated were it not for his leadership.
“I think you’re going to be watching an amazing two days ahead,” he said of negotiations with Iran, according to a post by Karl on X. “I really do.”
Karl said he then asked whether the war would end with Washington and Tehran reaching a deal, or whether the U.S. would decide it had done enough to knock out Iran’s capabilities and leave.
“It could end either way,” Trump said, “but I think a deal is preferable because then they can rebuild. They really do have a different regime now. No matter what, we took out the radicals. They’re gone, no longer with us.”
He added, “If I weren’t president, the world would be torn to pieces.”
According to Reuters, last week the fighting, which began on Feb. 28, had claimed the lives of 3,000 people in Iran, while American human rights organization HRANA said 3,636 people had been killed.
Meanwhile, according to the same report, Lebanon said 1,830 of its people had been killed by concurrent strikes from Israel. U.N. peacekeepers, Hezbollah fighters, Israelis, and over 100 Iraqis have also died. The U.S. has also suffered 13 fatalities and over 300 casualties, while its Gulf allies have also reported deaths.
Additionally, oil prices have skyrocketed due to Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, effectively cutting off around one-fifth of the global oil supply.
It’s not the first time Trump has claimed to have solved the world’s problems.
In August, he claimed he had “ended eight wars in just eight months,” including the conflict between Israel and Hamas, despite continued reports of deaths there.
He also claimed to have solved conflicts between Israel and Iran, Thailand and Cambodia, India and Pakistan, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Azerbaijan and Armenia, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Kosovo and Serbia.
Trump missed out on the Nobel Peace Prize last year, but its actual winner, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, gave the award to him.
“I think today is a historic day for us Venezuelans,” she said in January as the two met for the first time. It was just days after the U.S. military bombarded the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, and abducted its dictator, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores.
Trump called it “a wonderful gesture of mutual respect.” The Nobel committee said prizes were non-transferable.
Just weeks before, longtime Trump buddy and FIFA president Giovanni Infantino created a whole new soccer-adjacent peace prize to help soothe Trump’s Nobel defeat, which he had pushed hard for.
At the World Cup draw in Washington D.C. in December, Infantino awarded Trump the inaugural FIFA peace prize, telling him, “We want to see hope, we want to see unity, we want to see a future. This is what we want to see from a leader, and you definitely deserve the first FIFA peace prize.”
Meanwhile, in D.C., House Democrats are pushing to have the 25th Amendment invoked, claiming Trump has exhibited increasingly erratic behavior.
Leading House Judiciary Committee Democrat Jamie Raskin introduced the measure after Trump claimed a “whole civilization will die” if Iran didn’t give in to his demands.
He and a coalition of figures, including ex-CIA boss John Brennan, have called on Vice President JD Vance to work with the Cabinet to oust Trump, claiming he is no longer fit for office, the Guardian reports.
“Public trust in Donald Trump’s ability to meet the duties of his office has dropped to unprecedented lows as he threatens to destroy entire civilizations, unleashes chaos in the Middle East while violating congressional war powers, aggressively insults the pope of the Catholic Church, and sends out artistic renderings online likening himself to Jesus Christ,” Raskin said.
Trump clashed with Pope Leo XIV after the pontiff encouraged peace. Trump, in turn, said he was “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
