In his first sit-down TV interview since the midterms, President Donald Trump said the Iran war may have hurt Republicans’ chances in the midterms even as he argued the conflict was necessary and was “right for our country.”
“I think historically this will be a very good decision,” Trump told CBS’s “60 Minutes” correspondent Ross Douthat. “Is it a good decision for today and tomorrow? Maybe not.”
Vice President JD Vance appeared to break with Trump in a post to X on Wednesday citing the Iran war as one of the main factors contributing to Republicans’ major losses on Election Day. Trump said he does not “disagree” with Vance’s analysis, but added that he would have launched the war against Iran all over again to prevent the country from having a nuclear weapon.
Some 74% of voters surveyed said the Iran war was a crucial or major factor in their vote for Congress, according to NBC News’ exit polling. With the conflict continuing and fuel prices soaring, the economy remained a top issue for voters in polling ahead of the midterms.
Trending
Trump appeared to brush off concerns about high prices and an economic downturn in the “60 Minutes” interview, saying the economic “numbers are phenomenal,” but he acknowledged that Republican losses may have been caused by “bad messaging, maybe by me.”
The prerecorded interview, released Sunday, touched on a wide array of topics including the midterms, Trump’s own net worth, the Russia-Ukraine war, AI and even UFOs. Most notably, Trump said that his deportation policy may have been “too tough,” when asked directly by Douthat about the administration’s approach.
“I think it might be too tough, yeah,” Trump said — though he said he believed the immigration crackdown both “helped and hurt” Republicans in the midterms.
Trump also said he would “love to do something on immigration” with Democrats, who will hold the majority in both chambers of Congress come January, and said he has already received calls from Democrats wanting to work on the issue.
“The deal would be we would work something out. I think that’s something that’s actually doable,” Trump said. “When you go into a hotel and you have a woman that’s worked there as a you know as a maid, as a cleaner, as a this, as a that, as a waitress, a lot of good things, great job, and all of a sudden they’re being taken out of the country. It’s tough. It’s a tough thing.”
NBC News’ exit polling found that 57% of voters believe that the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement had gone too far — though 22% of the surveyed group also believed the efforts had not gone far enough.
The White House’s “Secure the Border” website touts deporting more than 2.5 million undocumented immigrants since Trump returned to office. That number contains a mix of 605,000 individuals the administration says it deported and 1.9 million people the White House says opted to self-deport, often in fear of facing federal detention pending their removal from the country.
Author
