Trump Says His Deportation Crackdown Was "Too Tough" After Midterm Losses

President Donald Trump said his administration's immigration crackdown was "too tough" and hurt Republicans in the midterm elections, in an interview with CBS's 60 Minutes that aired on Sunday evening. It was his first sit down interview since Democrats won majorities in Congress in the November 3 elections. The interview, with correspondent Ross Douthat, was recorded on Friday.

"It was too tough"

Trump said immigration "both helped and hurt" his party. "I think I got an A plus for closing up the border," he said. "For getting people out, I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out. But I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs, that created one violation, or breaking of the law, and that was that they came into the country illegally."

Asked whether the deportation policy had gone too far, he said: "It was too tough. I think it might be too tough." He pointed to immigrants who have lived in the United States for ten years or more without committing serious crimes, and to workers taken out of jobs in hotels and other businesses.

Open to a deal with Democrats

Trump said he would "love to do something on immigration" with the Democrats who will control Congress from January, and called a deal "something that's actually doable." He gave no details of what an agreement would include. People reported that he answered yes when he was asked whether a deal could include legal status for undocumented workers, and he spoke of working something out for people who have been in the country for ten or fifteen years.

The remarks match what voters told pollsters on election day. A survey of more than 100,000 voters by the Associated Press found that about six in ten said the administration's immigration enforcement had gone too far. Election day polling ranked immigration third among voter concerns, behind the economy and the state of democracy, and a swing of Latino voters toward Democrats in states including Texas helped seal the Democratic majorities.

Trump took no personal blame for the losses. He named the war in Iran and bad messaging as the main causes, and said Republican candidates had not been able to turn his popularity into votes in their own races. The tone was a sharp change from his appearance on the same programme a year ago, when he insisted the immigration raids had not gone far enough.

No slowdown, officials say

His own administration gave no sign of a policy change on Sunday. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told the BBC that ICE is "NOT backing away or slowing down." A White House spokeswoman said the administration would not slow its efforts to arrest and deport people it describes as criminal illegal aliens.

The concession also landed days after a personnel change that points the other way. On Friday, Trump named Stephen Miller, widely described as the architect of the hardline immigration policy, to replace Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff starting on Monday. CNN reported that it is not clear whether Trump plans any change to the immigration agenda itself.

In the rest of the interview, Trump hedged on whether he will endorse Vice President JD Vance as his successor. "Probably. Not necessarily," he said, adding: "Maybe I'm better off not getting involved." He praised Secretary of State Marco Rubio, said he expected a few changes to his cabinet, pushed back on questions about his family's business dealings, and, asked whether he could forgive his political enemies, said he hates some of them and always will.