The president told ‘60 Minutes’ correspondent Ross Douthat that he “wouldn’t be real” if he said he’d be willing to forgive his rivals to get into heaven
President Donald Trump said he will never forgive his political “enemies,” admitting he’ll always “hate” some of them.
Trump, 80, spoke to CBS’ 60 Minutes correspondent Ross Douthat in an interview that aired on Sunday, Nov. 8, days after voters offered a sharp rebuke to the Republican Party in the midterm elections, with Democrats flipping both the Senate and the House.
Toward the end of the conversation, which covered the economy, Trump’s hardline stance on immigration and the wars in Iran and Ukraine, Douthat asked the president about the assassination attempts he has survived and what he thinks will happen when he dies.
“Well, I hope I’m missed,” Trump said. When asked what he thinks will happen to him personally, he answered, “I‘m a religious person, so in theory I go to heaven… I hope so, I don’t want to go to hell.”
Douthat, who worked as a conservative columnist at The New York Times before joining CBS, recalled watching Trump at last year’s memorial service for right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk.
He contrasted remarks on Christian forgiveness by Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, with Trump’s own words at the service: “I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them.”
Douthat acknowledged the remark was “a little bit of a joke,” but suggested that “facts come through jokes.”
President Donald Trump speaks at a midterm campaign rally at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Florida on October 30, 2026.
He then asked if Trump would be willing to forgive his rivals to get into heaven, naming former FBI director James Comey, who the Department of Justice has attempted to prosecute three times under Trump, and former House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi.
Trump replied that he “wouldn’t be real” if he said he’d forgive them to get into the afterlife. “The answer is no,” he said. “I want to be honest, no.”
“I found them to be extremely dishonest people, very bad people, very bad for our country,” he explained. “I love our country far more than I can love people like that.”
“Before the judgment throne of God?” Douthat asked, to which Trump affirmed, “Before the judgment. No, I think they were very bad people… 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.”
Douthat pushed back, telling Trump he has had “the most charmed and remarkable life of any American in my entire lifetime,” and asking, “After all that’s been given to you? Come on. Help me out here.”
He said the “easy answer” would be to say he’d forgive his political foes, but admitted, “I probably cannot do that, no, because I do hate some of my enemies and I always will.”
Trump has frequently targeted his political foes with insults. In the interview, he acknowledged calling Texas Sen.-elect James Talarico, the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in the Lone Star State in 38 years, “Talafreako,” and more generally calling Democrats “Dumocrats.”
But when Douthat asked if he could work with the Democrats for six months without insulting them, he said he could do so “very easily.”
“But you have to understand,” he added, “I’m here to help the country.”