“I’ve been told I’m at the bottom of the totem pole,” Trump said with a half-smile, reflecting on how others view his spiritual chances. “Maybe I won’t make it [to Heaven]. But if I can stop wars, if I can save lives, that may be my way in.”
The unusual remarks came just hours after a high-profile White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders. The discussions focused on charting a road map for peace in Ukraine, a conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Trump revealed that he also held direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent days, in what sources described as the “most serious diplomatic opening in years.”
A Spiritual Dimension to Politics
While Trump has often emphasized his deal-making skills and “America First” agenda, rarely has he framed his political efforts in terms of spiritual salvation. His comments seemed to blend the political with the personal, painting a picture of a leader who not only wants to secure a lasting legacy on Earth but also fears what awaits him in the afterlife.
“Peace is the greatest thing we can achieve,” Trump told the Fox hosts. “And when you’re talking about wars, when you’re talking about people dying, it’s bigger than politics. If I can stop even one of these wars, maybe God looks at me differently.”
For many, the idea of Trump publicly doubting his entry into Heaven came as a surprise. Throughout his presidency and post-presidency, Trump has frequently aligned himself with evangelical leaders, often emphasizing his support for religious liberty and conservative social causes. Yet, his statement marked a rare acknowledgment of self-doubt and vulnerability.
The Push for Peace
Trump’s remarks came against the backdrop of significant diplomatic activity. At the White House, Ukrainian President Zelensky met with Trump and European Union leaders to discuss a framework for ending hostilities. According to officials, the meeting produced what participants described as the “most substantive progress toward peace since the start of the conflict.”
Zelensky, who has been steadfast in rallying Western support for Ukraine’s defense, struck a cautiously optimistic tone. “We have seen many promises over the years,” he said. “But today, I believe there is a genuine chance to move forward, and I welcome President Trump’s engagement on this.”
Trump revealed he had also spoken directly with Putin, signaling the potential for direct U.S.-Russia talks to complement ongoing European negotiations. While details remain scarce, Trump suggested both sides were “closer than people think” to at least discussing a cease-fire.
European leaders, often skeptical of Trump’s unorthodox diplomatic style, acknowledged the momentum. French President Emmanuel Macron described the talks as “the most movement we have seen in years,” while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called them “a glimmer of hope.”
Linking Peace Abroad With Legacy at Home
For Trump, the intersection of faith, legacy, and global politics may become increasingly central as he positions himself for a potential return to the White House. His comments suggest he sees diplomacy not only as a political imperative but also as a moral and even spiritual calling.
“People talk about money, about power, about elections,” Trump said. “But when you’re talking about Heaven, that’s the real test. And stopping wars, saving lives — that’s about as big as it gets.”
Critics, however, were quick to question Trump’s sincerity. Some opponents argued that his remarks were calculated to appeal to religious voters as election season looms. Others pointed to his past rhetoric and policies, suggesting his record does not align with his newfound concern for peace.
Still, even skeptics acknowledged that Trump’s willingness to insert his spiritual anxieties into a discussion of global diplomacy was unusual for any U.S. leader, let alone one known for his brash confidence.
The Broader Implications
Political analysts noted that Trump’s comments could serve multiple purposes: signaling seriousness to international partners, reinforcing his appeal to religious conservatives, and reshaping his image as a statesman seeking peace rather than conflict.
“Trump has always been about image, legacy, and branding,” said political analyst Sarah Matthews. “Now he’s linking those to the ultimate legacy — what happens after death. It’s both strategic and deeply personal, and it sets him apart from the usual political script.”
Religious leaders, meanwhile, offered mixed reactions. Some evangelicals praised Trump’s willingness to discuss eternal matters openly, while others cautioned against politicizing faith.
“It’s rare to hear a political figure admit uncertainty about Heaven,” said Pastor Mark Robinson of Dallas. “But the sincerity will be judged by actions, not words. If President Trump is truly committed to peace, that’s something we should all welcome.”
A Moment of Reflection
As the interview wrapped up, Trump seemed almost contemplative, a tone rarely associated with his public persona. “I don’t know if I get there,” he said softly, referring to Heaven. “But if I can stop a war, maybe that’s my ticket. Maybe that’s how I do it.”
For a man whose career has been defined by controversy, combativeness, and an unyielding confidence in his own abilities, the admission stood out. Whether a moment of genuine self-reflection or a carefully crafted message, it underscored Trump’s effort to tie his political future — and perhaps his eternal one — to the quest for peace.
An attack on a Colombian National Police helicopter and a suspected car bombing near a military air base killed at least 19 people Thursday in what Colombian authorities are describing as terrorist acts.
It’s unclear whether the events are related.
The police helicopter was attacked by a drone in the department of Antioquia as it was supporting the manual eradication of illicit crops in the area, Antioquia Gov. Andrés Julián Rendón said.
The governor posted a video that appears to show the helicopter crashing into a hill.
Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Arnulfo Sánchez said the attack was carried out by the 36th Front of the Estado Mayor Central (EMC), dissidents of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a disbanded leftist guerrilla group.
At least 13 officers were killed, according to National Police Director Carlos Fernando Triana Beltrán, who described the attack as a “terrorist act.”
Earlier, President Gustavo Petro suggested the powerful criminal syndicate Gulf Clan might be involved, noting the attack came after the seizure of 1.5 tons of cocaine in the Urabá region of Antioquia. But he later blamed the 36th Front of EMC.
On Friday, the military said it was firing artillery to try to neutralize the group that brought down the helicopter.
News of the helicopter attack came the same day as an explosion near the Marco Fidel Suárez military air base in Cali.
The blast left at least six people dead and 78 wounded, the mayor’s office said.
The Colombian Aerospace Force described it as a “terrorist attack,” saying it was perpetrated with a car bomb.
Authorities have secured the city’s entrances and exits, the mayor’s office said, and temporarily restricted the movement of trucks.
Mayor Alejandro Eder said emergency services were treating the injured. He announced a reward of 400 million pesos (just under $100,000) for anyone providing information about the attack.
So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the explosion.
In June, a series of attacks in Cali and other towns in Cauca left at least seven dead and 28 injured. At the time, the prosecutor’s office said the attacks were in response to the 2022 death of a local leader of the FARC dissidents.
Body Acne Is Normal — And Manageable
Acne affects nearly 1 in 10 people worldwide, and while it can take a toll on confidence, it’s important to remember: acne is just a condition — not a reflection of beauty. With the right care, body breakouts can be managed effectively.
Start with daily habits. Shower after sweating to wash away bacteria and oil buildup, and use gentle exfoliating scrubs to remove dead skin cells that clog pores. Choose loose, breathable clothing and keep long hair off your back to reduce friction and trapped oil. When picking skincare, look for active ingredients like salicylic acid or tea tree oil, which fight inflammation and prevent new blemishes.
Healthy living supports clear skin, too. Stay hydrated, get enough rest, and eat anti-inflammatory foods — berries, nuts, and whole grains are great choices. Avoid popping pimples, which can cause scarring and spread bacteria. If breakouts persist, a dermatologist can recommend stronger treatments or prescription options.
Most importantly, be kind to yourself. Acne is common, temporary, and treatable — but your worth isn’t measured by your skin. With patience and proper care, your body will heal, and your confidence will shine through.
It’s been a great year for pimple-popping content. TLC; Enilsa Brown/YouTube; 澄熒SPA/YouTube; Dr. Pimple Popper/Youtube
Whether you love pimple- and zit-popping videos or gag even thinking about them, you have to concede that they’ve got staying power. The trend continues to flourish online, and the genre has even expanded to mainstream TV with the premiere of Dr. Pimple Popper’s TLC series earlier this summer.
All year long, we here at INSIDER have been combing through the ongoing influx of popping content, looking for the very best cyst, blackhead, and lipoma videos.
Here’s a list (in no particular order) of 2018’s best, grossest, and most breathtaking pimple pops.
No list of pimple-popping videos would be complete without content from the genre’s reigning queen: California dermatologist, YouTuber, and TV star Sandra Lee, aka Dr. Pimple Popper. And what better way to start this list than to highlight one of Lee’s most beloved videos of 2018?
Read more: How to know if a pimple is safe to pop or if you should just leave it alone
One of her most popular pops of the year, with 8.6 million views, is a video posted back in January. It features a dilated pore of winer, which is essentially a giant blackhead clogging a single, super-stretched-out pore. Skip ahead to the one-minute mark for the first big squeeze.
There’s something about advanced pimple age that makes a pop ultra compelling. To know that a clogged pore hasn’t been touched in years, or even decades, makes the removal of the gunk inside it all the more satisfying.
So it’s no wonder that more than 2.4 million people watched this video featuring dozens of 50-year-old blackheads clustered around a man’s eye. It was posted in March by India-based dermatologist and cosmetologist Lalit Kasana, who used a simple technique — two Q-tips and gentle pressure — for the 14-minute extraction session. Can’t get enough? There’s another video dedicated to the blackheads around the patient’s other eye.
Every once in a while a great DIY popping video rivals the offerings of the YouTube pros. This video, posted to Reddit’s /r/popping community in April, is one such example.
It shows a woman peeling a total of 16 pore strips off of her boyfriend’s back, dredging up hundreds of blackheads in the process. INSIDER interviewed Kevin Andrew, the man pictured in the video, who said his doctor said the clogged pores were due to sun exposure. Dermatologists call these types of blackheads solar comedones.
澄熒SPA’s YouTube channel, owned by a spa in Taiwan, is a hidden treasure in the popping world. It has just 153,500 subscribers (compare that to Dr. Pimple Popper’s 4.7 million) but often features the internet’s most jaw-dropping inside-the-ear blackheads.
Read more: Dr. Pimple Popper released a 7-minute compilation video with only ear blackheads
This year’s 澄熒SPA videos haven’t disappointed. One video posted in July shows an ear blackhead that spans two separate pores. It’s excruciatingly slow going at first as the technician prods the skin with a pair of tweezers, but the payoff at the three-minute mark is worth the wait.
With 5.2 million views as of this writing, this video is from January is among Dr. Pimple Popper’s most watched of the year. But it’s not about pimples at all.
Instead, it highlights calcinosis cutis, calcium deposits in the skin that manifest as small, covered bumps. The patient in this video happens to have hundreds of them, all located on his scrotum.
The bumps are painless and benign, according to a paper published in 2017 in the Journal of Medical Case Reports. But Lee’s video reminds viewers that even technically harmless growths can have real, negative impacts on a patient’s life. (Lee told INSIDER in June that she’s always tried to deliver this message in her videos.)
Watch Lee squeeze and remove the bumps below, and you’ll see exactly why she called this patient “extremely brave.”
If you love relaxing popping sessions, you’ll love following aesthetician Enilsa Brown. You won’t find gushing blood or flying pus on her YouTube channel, but you will find dozens of lengthy videos in which Brown ever so gently cleans out clogged pores, explaining each step of the process in her soothing voice.
This acne-extraction video from January has drawn 7.9 million views, making it Brown’s second most popular video ever. The pimple she pops at the five-minute mark is one to remember.
What was perhaps the year’s biggest popping news came in February when Lee announced that she would be starring in her very own TV series on TLC, aptly titled “Dr. Pimple Popper.”
Read more: Dr. Pimple Popper’s TLC series was just renewed for another season — here are the best moments from the show so far
The show follows Lee as she treats patients with skin conditions even more dramatic than the ones seen on her YouTube channel. The premiere, on July 11, started with “the biggest” lipoma Lee has ever removed. But the second episode featured a truly unforgettable cyst, filled with gunk that looked a lot like cottage cheese.
In the episode, a patient named Ronen seeks out Lee’s help with a painful cyst on his leg that’s been growing for decades. As soon as Lee slices into it, a waterfall of dead, wet skin cells bursts forth. The cyst’s volume is astonishing.
A complete video of the pop isn’t available on social media, but you can see a sneak peek below, and the entire episode is available to stream on TLC’s website. This one is well worth taking the time to watch.
This Dr. Pimple Popper video from November is titled “A Pilar Cyst for the Books.” That’s not an overstatement.
The featured patient has massive pilar cyst, which is a type of benign growth that almost always occurs on the scalp.
Skip ahead to 1:53 and you’ll see the cyst’s wall peeking through Lee’s incision in the skin. In that moment, it looks like a creepy, cloudy, zombie-esque eyeball. (On her Instagram page, Lee compared the growth to the one-eyed character Mike Wazowski from the movie “Monsters, Inc.”) The rest of the pop is just as captivating. Don’t miss the minor explosion of cyst gunk near the 4:03 mark.
This video from June starts with Lee popping some tiny blackheads on a patient’s nose. Then the patient reveals that she has another blackhead hiding behind her ear.
That surprise blackhead does not disappoint: It comes out in one piece and is far larger than it seems at first glance. Watch it starting at the four-minute mark below:
This video was discovered by members of /r/popping. It’s from 2017, but it was reshared on the subreddit in February and August, and it’s among the subreddit’s most upvoted cyst videos of the year.
Read more: This deeply gross Dr. Pimple Popper video will remind you why you shouldn’t squeeze cysts at home
The pop comes courtesy of an Instagram account called Dr. Zit Zapper, which appears to be run by California dermatologist Steven Hodgkin, though it isn’t verified. The video features a cheek cyst that explodes throughout the popping procedure. One Reddit commenter called it “everything I’ve ever asked for in a pimple pop.”
Right Cheek Cyst #pimple #pimplepopper #squeeze #pimplepopping #instagood #chunky
A post shared by Dr ZitZapper (@drzitzapper) on Nov 20, 2017 at 4:27pm PST
The food metaphors continue with this stellar cyst pop, first posted to YouTube in July. Fair warning: There’s a lot of blood before the big payoff, when Lee squeezes the growth and the contents come out in one long, flat ribbon. (“It’s almost like a lasagna noodle,” Lee remarks during the video.)
Watch the whole thing if you can stomach the bleeding, or skip to 8:19 for the actual pop.
This video, also uploaded in November, shows a cyst that’s so pressurized it squirts some of its contents onto Lee’s scrubs as soon as she gives it a gentle squeeze. The eruption itself happens at the 1:48 mark. Don’t worry if you blink and miss it: There’s a slow-motion replay afterward.
Skip ahead to the 3:25 mark to watch Lee gently tug out the surprisingly massive cyst sac. You’ll see why one YouTube commenter called the entire saga “gleefully repulsive.”
Pops don’t need to be explosive and dramatic to be good. In fact, aesthetician Josefa Reina has amassed more than 400,000 YouTube subscribers by sharing popping videos that are just the opposite of dramatic. Her channel is a treasure trove of long, soothing popping sessions set to classical music. In this 12-minute video, uploaded in May, Reina gently extracts several milia, small cysts containing keratin that manifest as “pearly white” bumps under the skin, according to DermNet NZ.
Read more: How to pop a pimple without destroying your skin
They’re harmless and don’t need to be treated, but patients may opt to have them removed anyway. Lucky for popping fans, this patient did.
This 8 1/2-minute video from Kasana shows the juicy removal of whiteheads and blackheads all over a patient’s face. Though tiny, these pops are still satisfying. Fair warning: things get a little bloody around the 3:50 mark, but Kasana cleans it up fast.