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Americas · Politics · United States Source-checked
In his first TV interview since Republicans lost control of Congress, President Donald Trump said his mass deportation policy may have been too harsh and that he could reach an immigration deal with Democrats. Days earlier he named the policy's chief architect, Stephen Miller, as his chief of staff.
President Donald Trump has said his administration’s campaign of mass deportations may have gone too far for many voters, in his first major television interview since the Republican Party suffered heavy losses in last week’s midterm elections.
Speaking to CBS’s 60 Minutes in an interview that aired on Sunday, Trump was asked about his deportation policy. ‘I think it was too tough,’ he said. ‘I think it might be too tough, yeah. And a lot of people would say that it’s great. But a lot of people think it’s too tough.’ France 24, reporting with AFP, says an excerpt had been posted by CBS on X before the full broadcast and that the interview was recorded after Tuesday’s vote.
Al Jazeera, using Anadolu and Associated Press reporting, and DW both say the Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Trump said he believes he can work with the new Democratic majority on immigration. ‘The deal would be we would work something out,’ he said, adding that it was ‘something that’s actually doable’. He did not describe what such a deal might contain.
The remarks came shortly after Trump appointed Stephen Miller, who designed the administration’s hardline deportation approach, as his chief of staff. Al Jazeera says Miller replaces Susie Wiles. France 24 describes the appointment as a sign of a ‘bare-knuckle fightback’ after the election loss. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer reacted on X by saying that putting the man responsible for the crackdown in charge of the White House was ‘not a course correction’ but ‘a promotion’.
The three outlets note that the administration’s push to detain and deport large numbers of undocumented migrants has drawn wide criticism and led to protests in several US cities. France 24 adds that Trump has won some domestic support for securing the southern border. The administration has not yet set out any change to the policy itself, so it is unclear whether the comments signal a real shift or a message aimed at voters.
What happens next will depend on how the incoming Congress approaches immigration and on whether Trump’s words are matched by changes in enforcement.
Immigration was a central issue for Trump's second term. A public admission that the policy may have been too harsh, set beside the promotion of its main architect, makes it hard to say which way enforcement and any talks with Congress will go.
We read the interview only through news reports and did not watch the full CBS broadcast. Trump gave no details of any deal and no policy change has been announced. The reports do not agree on how to describe the election result in detail, so we use only the broad point that Republicans lost ground and control of Congress.
Each link goes to the specific article or document we used. Two articles carrying the same wire report count as one source.
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