President Trump said he “cannot” forgive his enemies and never will—even if refusing to do so keeps him out of Heaven.
During a hypothetical posed by correspondent Ross Douthat in a “60 Minutes” interview Sunday, the commander in chief said he would rather remain in purgatory than forgive those he considers his foes.
Douthat first asked Trump whether he believed he would go to Heaven when he died.
“I hope so,” Trump replied solemnly. “I don’t want to go to hell.”
The interviewer then turned to remarks Trump made at the funeral of Charlie Kirk, a right-wing political activist who was killed.
Douthat referred to Trump’s half-joking comment at the memorial that he “hates” his opponents and does not want the best for them—a view that contrasted with Kirk’s widow Erika’s call for forgiveness.
He then presented Trump with an afterlife hypothetical.
“[A]ll you have to do to enter paradise is feel love and forgiveness for [former FBI director] James Comey, [former Speaker of the House] Nancy Pelosi, anyone who you have expressed hate for over the years. Do you think you can do it?” he asked.
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Trump described the people named as “extremely dishonest,” “very bad” and harmful to the country. Douthat then asked whether the answer was “no.”
“The answer is no,” Trump said. “I want to be honest.”
When Douthat emphasized that, under the hypothetical, Trump would be withholding forgiveness from those who had wronged him before “the judgment throne of God,” the president stood by his answer.
“Before the judgment, no. I think they were very bad people,” he said.
“I do hate some of my enemies. I think they’ve been terrible. Look what they’ve put me through, the weaponization. I got indicted. I got impeached,” Trump told Douthat.
Douthat later asked how someone with “the most charmed and remarkable life of any American in my lifetime” could still be unable to forgive his enemies.
Trump, however, showed no hesitation.
“I probably cannot do that, no, because I do hate some of my enemies and I always will,” he said.
