Donald Trump shocked members of his inner circle by calmly predicting when his body would be laid to rest, a new report claims.
The 79-year-old president reportedly made the comments at Mar-a-Lago as a television screen showed Jimmy Carter’s casket inside the U.S. Capitol, telling those in the room: “You know, in ten years it will be me.”
The quote, from a person familiar with his comments, appears in “The Superman President,” a large New York Magazine profile on the president’s health and psychology.
Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told the magazine as she listened to Trump speak to reporters aboard Air Force One on his return from the World Economic Forum that she did not recall Trump making such a comment. /Chip Somodevilla/Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The episode adds a morbid twist to the way Trump and his team are talking about 2028 now.
“The specter of death sometimes looms large in conversations about 2028,” a senior White House official told New York Magazine, describing aides considering whether the president would be willing — or able — to run again in his early 80s.
Trump, meanwhile, leans toward the view that clinging to the presidency is his only way to survive.
Trump told New York Magazine that his father, Fred Trump, had a saying he would never forget: “Retirement is expiration.” It’s a phrase he’s used in interviews and friendly platforms over the years, making it clear that he views work — and now the Oval Office — as a bulwark against aging. /Bernard Gottfried/Library of Congress
Trump is already the oldest person ever elected president.
Instead of talking about slowing down, he has repeatedly teased the prospect of running again, boasting that at age 86 he could seek a third term, or even the equivalent of a fourth, even as legal experts pointed to the constitutional two-term limit.
Trump’s boasts conflict with growing unease about his health, which was first reported by The Daily Beast.
In the New York Magazine article, aides expressed concern about his bruised hands, frequent naps in public and the mysterious trip to Walter Reed’s MRI that the White House struggled to explain.
Former White House lawyer Ty Cobb warned this month that Trump’s cognitive decline was “obvious,” while prominent physician Dr. Bruce Davidson said on Beast’s podcast that the president’s daily dose of 325 milligrams of aspirin is typically reserved for stroke patients.
On January 22, during the signing ceremony of Trump’s “Peace Commission” at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a large bruise was clearly visible on the back of his left hand. /Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
In Trump circles, the result is a strange dual reality: a president who talks about death, legacy and what he will leave behind — from the $400 million East Wing ballroom to the “Trump Arch” he wants to erect across from the Lincoln Memorial — while still casting himself as a superhuman figure, capable of outdoing his younger rivals and defying time.
As one senior official told New York Magazine, the discussion of succession is as much about immortalizing Trump through his chosen heir as it is about acknowledging that he won’t live forever.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
