President Donald Trump said Thursday that his past suggestions that he might night make it to heaven were actually in jest.
Watch the full National Prayer Breakfast, including the president’s remarks, in the video player above.
Addressing the National Prayer Breakfast, he blamed the media for writing his exact past words about the afterlife, suggesting his sense of irony didn’t come through in the reporting.
It’s a tactic Trump often uses when comments cause a stir he wasn’t expecting, trying to soften them without hinting that he might have misspoken.
“I was just having fun,” Trump said of his past comments.
He added of heaven: “I really think I probably should make it. I mean, I’m not a perfect candidate, but I did a hell of a lot of good for perfect people.”
Trump calls GOP lawmaker a ‘moron’
He was talking about Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who sometimes votes against the party.
Early in his remarks Thursday, Trump turned to the topic of legislation and said Republicans will typically rally together after some finagling — all of them, he said, except for Massie.
“No matter what we do, this moron, no matter what it is,” Trump griped.
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“We’ll get a 100% vote except for this guy named Thomas Massie. There’s something wrong with him.”
Massie, a libertarian-leaning representative, has drawn the president’s ire for saying he lacked the authority to attack Iran’s nuclear sites without congressional approval, voting against Trump’s massive tax and spending cuts bill and fighting for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Trump says he doesn’t sleep during long plane flights
Recalling a past trip to Iraq during his first term, Trump mused that he doesn’t like to sleep during long flights.
“I don’t sleep on planes. I don’t like sleeping on planes,” he told the audience at the National Prayer Breakfast.
“You know,” the president added “I like looking out the window watching for missiles and enemies, actually.”
Trump also frequently spends long flights overseas talking to advisers, posting things on his social media site and frequently heading to the press cabin to answer reporters’ questions.