President Donald Trump’s latest “60 Minutes” interview included several striking moments, but one widely circulated clip features his thoughts on enemies, forgiveness and the afterlife.
“Let’s say you pass away, you’re entering the next life, and all you have to do to enter paradise is feel love and forgiveness for James Comey, Nancy Pelosi, anyone who you have expressed hate for over the years,” interviewer Ross Douthat said. “Do you think you can do it?”
“Well, then I wouldn’t be real, would I?” Trump replied, calling them “extremely dishonest people, very bad people, very bad for our country.”
He later added, “I probably cannot do that, no, because I do hate some of my enemies and I always will.”
The president’s response offers a rather clear window into his mindset, particularly when it comes to conflict and resentment. Ahead, therapists share what they made of the exchange and break down what holding on to hatred can do to a person.
Trump’s phrasing suggests a “fixed mindset,” experts say.
“It’s natural to have negative feelings towards people who oppose you, but the phrase ‘and I always will’ suggests a fixed high-conflict mindset,” Virginia Gilbert, a licensed marriage and family therapist and a high-conflict divorce expert, told HuffPost. “This kind of black-and-white, intractable way of ordering thoughts and perceiving the world is a key trait of high-conflict people.”
She explained that flexible thinking ― including the ability to self-reflect and look at someone else’s point of view ― is a pillar of good mental health.
“People who lack these qualities tend to drive conflict because they’re so rigid. They are always on the lookout for targets of blame and refuse to take any accountability for the problems they create. These might be perfect qualities for a mob boss, but they’re not conducive to world leaders, who need to be able to demonstrate some level of concern for people not like themselves ― and actually work with them, not against them.”
Alexandra Cromer, a licensed therapist with Thriveworks, also believes Trump’s wording suggests “a rigid mindset” and belief patterns that are not open to change or flexibility.
“Making an affirmative statement that he ‘always will’ hate some of his enemies communicates that he is not open or receptive to any change on behalf of his enemies,” she said. “It’s a guarantee that he will have a fixed mindset regardless of any personal growth in those relationships and negates the potential for positive reparations.”
The remark was unsurprising to licensed professional clinical counselor Sandra Maurer, who emphasized that a statement like this lands differently coming from the president than it would from an average person.
“He has told us that he hates his enemies since he’s been a public figure. I think most people don’t talk about their ‘enemies’ very often,” she said. “To think of the world constantly in terms of enemies and allies, winners and losers, is to live in a black-and-white world with no room for nuance, humanity, grace or growth. Which is exactly the world he lives in.”
Experts pointed out a pattern of treating feedback as a personal attack.
During the “60 Minutes” interview, Douthat pushed back, pointing out that Trump has had a remarkable life and asking whether he could find it in his heart to forgive. Gilbert called this “a great philosophical question.”
“Why doesn’t his life of abundance lead him to feel more generous towards others? This kind of stinginess and hatred would be more understandable in someone who was truly victimized, but that’s not the case here,” she said, adding that the president appears “more fixated on personal grievances than on what is needed for a safe and functioning society.”
That kind of victim mentality is striking from Trump, whose position of power over policies and actions that potentially harm people’s lives would seemingly put him more in the role of a victimizer in this dynamic.
“The truth is, someone who holds the highest title in our country is not a victim of people who have less power than him,” said somatic therapist and coach Danica Harris. “He dislikes accountability because it feels personal, but accountability is a reasonable expectation of someone who has immense impact over an entire country of people.”
Instead, he tends to take political feedback as a personal attack.
Manahil Riaz, a psychotherapist and the owner of Riaz Counseling, also saw Trump as seemingly “positioning himself as a victim” and “seeking sympathy.”
“As he’s seeking that sympathy, he is telling the viewers, ‘Hey, I’m being real. I’m being authentic,’” she said. That framing, she added, makes it harder to show any flexibility, since he’s presenting his refusal as honesty.
Harris believes the interview highlights “Trump’s commitment to himself and his own viewpoint, rather than having the internal flexibility to consider the impact he has on people who don’t align politically with him.”
That inflexible mindset leads to an all-or-nothing view of relationships.
“In his mind, anyone who tells him something he doesn’t like, challenges his beliefs or behavior is an enemy,” Maurer said. “So people either live in ally or enemy categories. In order to move to ally category, all one has to do is to start groveling, and to be demoted to enemy you have to only disagree with him, especially publicly.”
Riaz noted that there’s a term for this.
“In counseling and psychology, we call this ‘splitting,’ where we can’t just see a little bit of both. We just see things as good or bad,” she said. “Eventually, we grow up. We have more awareness. We can think outside the box. We can take perspectives.”
Cromer pointed to a tension between Trump’s answer and his stated faith, which she described as “a classic case of cognitive dissonance” ― the mental discomfort people feel when their beliefs or actions conflict with their values.
“Christianity has a foundational principle of forgiveness,” she said. “Yet we see Trump choose to engage with his personal view of self and to choose to protect his view of self rather than engage with his stated religious belief.”
Seeing people as enemies has serious implications, especially for a world leader.
“If someone has social, situational or political power over someone else, their inability to see the other person as a whole person is especially detrimental to the person in the power down position,” Harris said. “Many political leaders have and do talk about bipartisanship and a need to show up for all American people, but Trump is very clear that if people do not have allegiance with him, he is not interested in showing up for them as a leader.”
This mindset can be a protective stance that allows leaders to avoid owning their impact and to even dehumanize others. People in power can actually cause harm if they fail to address disagreements head-on.
“When a person in power thinks of people as enemies, it is often to avoid accountability and shift blame onto someone with less power,” Harris said. “If we live our life looking for the next wound or enemy, we are living very defensively, which means we aren’t likely to make decisions from a well-informed or intentional place.”
That kind of mindset and long-term hatred can take a serious toll on anyone.
“It is never healthy to stay in a place of hatred,” Maurer said. “Long-term anger needs to move into action and resolution. It doesn’t mean that we have to forgive someone or approve of their behavior, but if we stay stuck in the place of anger, there’s some research that suggests it increases risk of cardiovascular stress, anxiety and depression.”
Holding onto personal vendettas, blame or resentment toward others takes constant vigilance and effort.
“Carrying a long-term grudge requires upkeep and active dismissal of new information or healthy changes,” Cromer said, adding that this approach can lead to irritability, trust issues and even physical issues like worsened sleep, headaches and more.
Casting people as “enemies” and subjects of hate elevates their importance in your life as you get caught up in rumination.
“Hate is actually not the opposite of love ― indifference is,” said licensed mental health counselor Hannah Alderete. “To hate one’s enemies is to give them reverence. It’s to allow them to take up space in one’s mind, which will only fuel an obsessive need to think about them and take over our lives.”
That’s why it’s better to try to develop the self-awareness and emotional skills to process these kinds of feelings with nuance and move forward.
“At some point, mentally flexible people will go, ‘Enough is enough, this resentment isn’t going to change the past, and it’s spiking my blood pressure, making me irritable, keeping me up at night, preventing me from being there for people I care about,’” Gilbert said.
You don’t have to forgive someone, but there are healthier ways to cope.
The experts who spoke to HuffPost were clear that forgiveness doesn’t always have to be the goal for people navigating conflict or negative feelings toward others.
“As a complex trauma expert, I think it’s really important that survivors are not expected to forgive those who have caused them harm,” Harris said. “Survivors are often expected to forgive someone else due to external pressure, as opposed to forgiveness that may feel important to them personally. So if we are talking about survivors, I think it is OK for them to never like, or maybe even dislike or hate, the people who have caused them harm.”
“It’s OK to feel them, but make sure that you’re staying mindful of your current life and filling your life with things that are good, fulfilling and are engaging in activities that are aligned with your overall health,” Cromer said. “Being flexible in your thought patterns and mindset does not necessarily mean forgiving the other person or agreeing with their philosophies. Rather, it’s a statement of self-care that you’re choosing to create distance in those relationships but not fixate on the permanence of their role in your life as an ‘enemy.’”
Riaz emphasized that anger toward others can be normal and expected. You can even channel these feelings into art, political organizing, etc.
“Short term, there’s nothing wrong with seeing folks as enemies,” she said. “There should be a time where you hold on and you process that pain. You can go to your safe people and talk to them about how you genuinely feel like something is wrong in a situation, and they can talk you through it. And as time passes, you’re able to process and integrate and move on with your life.”
You can also set boundaries without projecting animosity toward others. Gilbert suggested looking at different tools like radical acceptance ― “accepting other people for who they are and focusing instead on what you can actually control” ― or a dialectical behavior therapy skill called wise mind, “which entails balancing strong emotions with logic to make skillful decisions.”
Remember there is also a difference between wanting justice and seeking revenge.