Putin and Xi vs. Trump on Immortality

Putin, Xi Jinping and Trump, arguably the three most powerful men on earth, have all made remarks recently about “eternal life”. However, one of them disagrees with the other two on what that means. Its a contrast worth examining.

Editor’s comment by Martin Harris 9/10/25

image credit: Politico

Trump sparked rumors over the past few days that the end is near. Well, look at his age, what does one expect? One gets to an age when one knows one’s time is almost up, and like the Prodigal Son, Trump surely wants to meet his maker having atoned for his past misdeeds and leave his mortal existence having performed notable deeds of the positive sort. Trump is a man of considerable ego. He would surely wish a good report in the history books and comfy seat in the hereafter?

At a recent event, when asked about the presidential Prayer initiative, Trump responded:

“We’re dealing, as you know, with all of the different, and not just evangelicals, Christians…We’re dealing with lots of different faiths, religions. And I felt for a long time that if a country doesn’t have religion, doesn’t have faith, doesn’t have God, it’s gonna be very hard to be a good country…You know, there’s no reason to be good. I want to be good because you want to prove to God so you go to that next step, right? So that’s very important to me”.

Many commentators, particularly on the political left, took this to mean Trump is preparing for death. again, why should he not at his age?

Perhaps those commentators expected Trump to follow the lead of his two Eastern counterparts. They are trump’s age group, yet neither, clearly, are ready to face their mortality or accept physical death.

In a well-publicized “hot mic” moment (likely staged and scripted) the two political strongmen discussed living to 150 or even becoming immortal:

Xi- “In the past, it used to be rare for someone to be older than 70 and these days they say that at 70 one’s still a child,”

Putin-“With the development of biotechnology, human organs can be continuously transplanted, and people can live younger and younger, and even achieve immortality,”

Xi-“Predictions are, this century, there’s a chance of also living to 150,”

Putin- “Well, yes, modern means of healing, medicine, even all kinds of surgery related to organ replacement allow humanity to hope that active life will continue differently than it does today.”

Anyone familiar with elite organ replacements and specifically China’s chilling record of live organ harvesting of political prisoners will understand that this desire to extend one’s life, absolutely comes at the expense of someone else’s life, possibly a whole retinue of lives.

So why this contrast between these world leaders? One of them clearly believes in a supreme deity and an eternal spiritual life and what that brings in terms of judgement and reward. The other two fear death and clearly hope to cheat the possibility of a “nothing” that comes with the death of the physical body and no eternal soul to survive.

This commentator thinks Trump is right. Do one’s utmost to the right thing in the time available to us and accept one’s fate. Whether or not one subscribes to an organized religion or not, a belief in a continued existence beyond our physical body certainly helps guide one’s moral focus.