Could Trump Be the Antichrist?

Asking for a religious, not a political, opinion

Dear Isabel,

I get a lot of political-religious posts from family members, often about how to identify the Antichrist if he appears. It seems to me that Trump might actually be the Antichrist, and that if we elect him, we are supporting Satan, not God. Is there evidence for that belief?

Evangelical-Adjacent and Wondering

Dear Evangelical-Adjacent,

There are two important caveats before I answer. One is that the Book of Revelation, from which most speculation about the Antichrist derives (along with Daniel and 1 and 2 John), is—how can I put this—one weird-ass book. If someone living on the island of Patmos in the first century A.D. had a psychotic break and wrote down his visions, this is what they would sound like. The other is that with the right selection of verses and gift of interpretation, you can make the Bible say almost anything you want. This is the fundamental problem with literalism.

However, if one embraces literalism and analyzes the Bible and other texts devoted to identifying the Antichrist (or an Antichrist, since 2 John makes it clear that there may be many), then yes. There is considerable evidence that if one of the political figures in our world today is the/an Antichrist, it is likely to be Donald Trump.

1. The Antichrist is male. Every single reference to the Antichrist refers to him as a man or uses masculine pronouns: for example, “a man of lawlessness” (2 Thes. 2:3). So we can dismiss female politicians from the short list straightaway.

2. Speaking of which, the Antichrist is lawless, a “man of sin” (2 Thes 2:3). Whether you’re a critic or supporter of Trump, there’s no denying: he has violated countless laws. Many counts of criminal business fraud. A fraudulent university. Theft of his employees’ and contractors’ wages. I’ll keep this short, but you can look up dozens more. As for sins, it has been established beyond a doubt that he committed adultery during his marriage to Ivana, and also during his marriage to Melania–again, just for a start.

3. But followers of Jesus are deceived by him. Jesus predicted, "False messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect" (Matt. 24:24). The fact that so many evangelicals view Trump as a messianic figure doesn’t mean he isn’t an antichrist. Just the opposite: it is a warning sign.

4. The Antichrist is supremely arrogant. Paul writes, “He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.” (2 Thessalonians 2:4) Trump has explicitly said that he was chosen by God as the caretaker of His Paradise. But does he actually set himself up in God’s place? Some Christian leaders think so, because to want to be like God is to supplant God. Referring to the viral video “God Made Trump,” Pastor Joseph Brown of the Marion Avenue Baptist Church in Washington, Iowa, pointed out, “The original sin of Satan or Lucifer is not that he wanted to take over God’s position but that he wanted to be like God. There is only one god, and it’s not Trump or any other man.”

5. The servant of the Antichrist will set up his image to receive devotion (Revelation 13). Colin Smith, in Who is the Antichrist? 10 Things to Know from the Bible, warns, “The false prophet, who works alongside the Antichrist, will create an image of the Beast and compel people to worship it. ‘Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.’” Trump promotes NFTs and coins with his image on them, emphasizing that buyers will possess “really incredible artwork pertaining to [his] life”: glorified images of Trump as the Statue of Liberty, a superhero posed before Trump Tower whose eyes shoot lasers, and other such messianic figures.

6. The Antichrist will be a boastful king (Daniel 7). In Daniel 7:8, the Antichrist is portrayed as a boasting "little horn.” Trump says he knows more than anyone about dozens of subjects.

7. The Antichrist will be a descendant of the tribe of Dan. According to Brother Adso of Montier-en-Der, a10^th-century monk whose writing on the Antichrist became authoritative, he will belong to Dan, one of the twelve ancient tribes of Israel. The Tribes by Yair Davidy traces the fate of the tribes to various western countries, and concludes that the people of Dan ended up in northern Europe, including Denmark, England, Wales, and Scotland. Trump’s mother, who emigrated to the United States as a young woman, was born in Scotland, fulfilling this part of the prophecy.

Some identify the Beast with the Antichrist. This gets complicated: first, because the Beast is called the Beast, not the Antichrist; and second, because there are two Beasts. One is “the beast that ascends from the bottomless pit” or “the abyss” (Rev. 11:7), and the other is the “beast [that] rise[s] from the sea” (Rev. 13:1). However, numerous commentators down the centuries have viewed the Beast as another appearance of the Antichrist. If you do accept the common interpretation that the Beast, or both Beasts and the Dragon also mentioned in Revelation, are embodiments of the Antichrist, then there are some further similarities to Donald Trump.

7. The Beast’s incarnations are all male. The dragon: “his heads” (Rev. 12:3); the beast from the sea: “his horns” (Rev. 13:1), the beast from the abyss: “he is the eighth” (Rev. 18:11).

8. His number is 666 (Rev. 13:18). Infamously, the Trump family owns 666 Fifth Avenue, a skyscraper in New York City. The owner is not Trump himself, but his son-in-law, Jared Kushner—but after Jared bought the building, Trump made him one of his senior advisers, putting him in charge of Middle East negotiations. This seems like a strange thing to have done, given that Kushner had no government or policy experience and failed his security clearance. Trump, as president, had the power to grant security clearances over the head of the State Department, and did so for Kushner.

9. The Beast appears to be fatally wounded in the head, but the wound is healed. (Rev. 13:1-4) This miraculous recovery causes the people to worship the beast, and the dragon that gave him power.

10. The Beast “causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads.” (Revelation 13:16)

(Photo source and credit here.)

11. Those who do not have this mark or name are excluded from the marketplace. (Revelation 13:17). Trump threatened to cancel Deloitte federal contracts because one of its employees showed disloyalty to him (“Trump allies threaten Deloitte contracts after employee shares Vance chats”). He has also threatened to revoke the licenses of ABC and CBS, making it impossible for them to carry out their business.

12. The Beast is so overwhelmingly powerful that none can make war against him (Rev. 13:4). This is a claim Trump frequently makes for himself. “The October 7 attack would never have happened if I was president.” (Sky News Australia, October 7, 2024, :00) “We have a war that would have never happened if I was president, that war [between Russia and Ukraine] would have never happened.” (Piers Morgan Uncensored, Sky News Australia, April 26, 2022, 1:07) Is this assertion of quasi-magical power the Antichrist signaling to his Satan-worshipping followers, “I am here”?

I could go on, but a dozen reasons are enough to establish that if one takes Biblical revelation seriously, and applies it to the events of our day, Trump is an excellent candidate for Antichrist.

Wishing you well,

Isabel