President Donald Trump claimed he is the sole force preventing the world from falling apart — just days after he faced backlash for posting an image portraying himself as Jesus.
“If I weren’t president, the world would be torn to pieces,” the 79-year-old Republican leader told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl.
His remarks come as his administration is working to negotiate a peace deal with Iran during a two-week ceasefire, which Trump announced last week after threatening to obliterate “a whole civilization”.
Trump suggested that a breakthrough could be imminent, even after the first round of talks collapsed this weekend in Pakistan.
“I think you’re going to be watching an amazing two days ahead,” he told Karl on Tuesday. “I really do.”
When asked whether the war will end with a deal or simply preserve the status quo, Trump said “it could go either way”.
“But I think a deal is preferable because then they can rebuild,” he said. “They really do have a different regime now. No matter what, we took out the radicals. They’re gone, no longer with us.”
The war, launched jointly by the U.S. and Israel in late February, has engulfed large swaths of the Middle East in violence. More than 3,000 people have been killed in Iran, the country’s government said last week, and millions have been displaced across the broader region, according to the United Nations. Thirteen U.S. service members have died, and hundreds have been wounded, the Pentagon has said.
The deadly conflict has also triggered fears of global economic upheaval as Iran — and now the U.S. — enforce blockades on the Strait of Hormuz, a vital trade route through which 20 percent of the world’s oil passes. Oil prices surged to over $100 a barrel this weekend, and gas prices are over $4 a gallon in the U.S.
Multiple recent polls indicate that a majority of Americans are opposed to the conflict. Roughly 61 percent disapprove of Trump’s handling of the war, according to a Pew Research Center survey released late last month.
In an interview with Fox News aired on Wednesday, Trump claimed that the war is “close to over”, adding, “I don’t know how much longer they can survive.”
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Trump’s comments on the conflict, and his suggestion that he alone is keeping the world from descending into chaos, came after he posted an image portraying himself as the Christian savior.
The AI-generated self-portrait, posted Sunday on Truth Social, depicts Trump wrapped in robes and healing a sick man, as beams of light emanate from his hands.
Outrage quickly followed, with a number of commentators across the political spectrum noting that the image clearly resembled Jesus. They denounced Trump’s behavior as beyond the pale and blasphemous.
“On Orthodox Easter, President Trump attacked the Pope because the Pope is rightly against Trump’s war in Iran and then he posted this picture of himself as if he is replacing Jesus,” former Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X. “completely denounce this and I’m praying against it!!!”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent, described it as “deranged” and “egomaniacal behavior”.
By Monday morning, the post had been deleted from Trump’s Truth Social feed. Speaking to reporters outside the White House later in the day, Trump defended his decision.
“I viewed that as a picture of me being a doctor,” he said. “You know, as a little fun playing the doctor and making people better. So that’s what it was viewed as. That’s what most people thought.”
He said he took the image down because he “didn’t want to have anybody be confused”. But, he blamed the “fake news” for stirring controversy.
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