WASHINGTON — A White House official who deals directly with faith issues says President Donald Trump’s recent statements suggesting he may not make it to Heaven are an example of his humility.
Jenny Korn, the director of the White House Faith Office, addressed the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference at the Museum of the Bible on Tuesday. Korn, who also served in the first Trump administration and the George W. Bush administration, used her remarks to vouch for Trump’s character as a man of faith.
“I have the honor of knowing him now for almost 10 years,” she said. “I’ve been in the Oval Office with the cameras and without the cameras. And I want to let you know that those pictures that you see of the president praying in the Oval Office with many pastors around him, it’s real.”
Korn insisted that “On camera or off camera, the president welcomes hands-on and welcomes prayer.” She added, “It’s in his heart, and this is who he is.”
“There’s been prayer in the Oval Office, in the Roosevelt Room, in the East Room, in the Residence, on the grounds, in every part of the White House inside and out,” she said.
Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, the president suggested that he’s “maybe not Heaven-bound.”
“I’m not sure I’m going to be able to make Heaven,” Trump said.
Korn said that Trump’s comments are not a cause for concern.
“The president has his own language, and I look at it, and I know his language, it was humility,” she said.
In August, Trump made public comments that questioned whether ending the Russia-Ukraine war could help him get to Heaven, prompting debate among Christian leaders about the path to salvation.
Korn assured that Trump has accepted Jesus Christ as his “Lord and Savior.” While Trump “uses some colorful language” and “might not speak like a Sunday School teacher,” Korn stressed that the president “sure likes to hire them.”
Korn has worked under Trump during both his terms in office and on his 2016 election campaign. She was the deputy director of the White House Office of Public Liaison all four years of his first term. During Trump’s initial campaign, Korn led coalition engagement efforts with several minority and faith communities.
“I never really understood what spiritual warfare was until I worked for President Trump,” she said. “I would walk into the White House, and I could feel this very dark cloud above me, but there was this space in between my head and that dark cloud, and it was your prayers. It was God. It was Jesus.”
“I was able to do my job because of you and all of the millions of people that were praying for us to do our jobs that first term,” she added.
She contends that the faith advisors in the president’s inner circle continued their efforts during the four-year hiatus between Trump’s first and second terms.
Korn said she went to Mar-a-Lago with Pentecostal televangelist Paula White-Cain, Trump’s longtime pastor and spiritual advisor, to present him with the idea of establishing the White House Faith Office, which he established in February with her and White-Cain at the helm.
“He opened it, he read it and he’s like ‘I love this.’ He started writing notes of things that he would add to the plan. He didn’t have to call an advisor; he didn’t have to ask anyone else. He just said yes.”
“[This is] the very first time that there has ever been a White House Faith Office in the West Wing as a direct report to the president of the United States,” she stressed.
“Inside the White House, we have six employees for a brand new office, but we also have a faith director in every department and agency who are looking out for people of faith in those departments and those issues.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
