Trump Endorses Amnesty, Admits Deportations "Might Be Too Tough" An Hour Before Naming Their Architect Chief Of Staff
President Trump told "60 Minutes" that his deportation policy "might be too tough" and that he would "love to do something on immigration" with the Democrats about to take over Congress, in an interview taped Friday, his first since the midterms. An hour after the conversation, he replaced chief of staff Susie Wiles with Stephen Miller, the architect of that policy.
60 MINUTES REPORT: Ross Douthat interviews President Trump in his first sit-down interview since the 2026 midterm elections.
The wide-ranging conversation covered immigration and corruption, Iran and artificial intelligence, his potential successors and his own mortality. The... pic.twitter.com/rVNbgRlQhS— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) November 9, 2026
Asked by CBS correspondent Ross Douthat whether the crackdown hurt Republicans in the midterms, Trump answered: "I think it both helped and hurt. I think I got an A+ for closing up the border. 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 for breaking of the law. And that was that they came into the country illegally."
Douthat then asked: "So you think your deportation policy went too far?" "It was too tough," Trump said. "I think it might be too tough. Yeah."
He said the deal he has in mind with Democrats is "something that's actually doable": "some kind of legal status for the landscapers," and for people like a hotel maid or waitress who are suddenly "taken out of the country." "It's tough," he said. "It's a tough thing."
Trump said a group "on the sort of pretty far right" would like everybody removed, and when Douthat asked whether any of them work in his administration, he answered: "Well, there are a lot of those people." Others, he said, are "more modified on that": "get the killers out, get all the rough ones out, get the drug dealers out. But let the people that are here, and in some cases here for 10 and 15 years, work a deal for them."
Does he expect Democrats to deal? "I think so, yeah. People have already called me," Trump said, naming Texas Democrat James Talarico, whom he described as the state's new senator and said he saw on Fox News saying immigration was something he wanted to work on.
Douthat noted Trump had called him "Tallafrico" during the campaign and asked: "If it took six months of not insulting the Democrats to get a deal done, do you think you could do it?" "Very easily," Trump said.
In an interview airing Sunday on 60 Minutes, correspondent Ross Douthat asks President Trump: If it took six months of not insulting the Democrats to get an immigration deal done, do you think you could do it? pic.twitter.com/0npaHDQTdX
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) November 7, 2026
Asked whether he would fire anyone after the midterms, Trump said he would be "doing maybe a few changes." The first change came an hour after that conversation. Wiles was replaced by deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, "the architect of the president's mass deportation policy," 60 Minutes said in its report, "a move that seems to conflict with the president's professed desire to work with Democrats on immigration." As we reported, Trump named Miller the new chief of staff on Friday.
Douthat also asked whether Democrats, who will gain subpoena power, might impeach him again. "I can't imagine it," Trump said.
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