President Donald Trump conceded that his immigration policies were “too tough,” saying in an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday that mass deportations hurt him during the midterm elections.
Trump said his policies had been overly harsh in removing undocumented immigrants who hadn’t committed crimes.
“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,” Trump said in the interview, which was recorded Friday.
He added that “a large group of people” think immigrants who are “good people, working in a landscaping company or working in a hotel or doing something … and, in some cases, paying taxes,” should be “allowed to stay.”
Trump pointed to immigration as one of the areas in which he wanted to work with Democrats, saying yes when he was asked whether a deal could look like the creation of legal status for undocumented workers.
He said, however, that people “on the sort of pretty far right … would like everybody taken out,” saying some of them were in his administration. Trump on Friday promoted Stephen Miller, who conceived of the mass deportation policy enacted since Trump returned to office, to White House chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles.
Trump also blamed “bad messaging” for Republicans’ crushing midterm losses last week and downplayed the Iran war’s impact on economic woes.
“I think it was bad messaging, maybe by me, but I would talk about it all the time,” Trump said, adding that the media did not cover “positive news for me. So I have to do it myself. I have to get it out there.”
Pressed by CBS News’ Ross Douthat about what the “bad message” was, Trump said, “We couldn’t get the word across.”
The White House has mostly been without a press secretary since late August, after Karoline Leavitt left the administration. Katie Zacharia briefly replaced Leavitt, but she left after just five days.
Trump also commented on his business dealings in the interview when Douthat asked about his net worth’s having increased by nearly $3 billion since he returned to office, prompting him to initially say, “So did everyone’s.”
Trump’s net worth is $7 billion, according to Forbes. It reported that the amount went up by $2.7 billion since he was elected in 2024 for a second term. Trump’s financial disclosure forms show he has made $1.4 billion in cryptocurrency earnings.
“I devote almost no time to my net worth. I don’t care. I have a lot of money, and far more than I ever thought I’d have. And I guess it’s gone up. I don’t even know,” Trump said. He added that one of his sons “watches over money,” adding that the two do not discuss finances.
Trump’s sons founded a cryptocurrency company, World Liberty Financial, two years ago. Trump himself is a co-owner, and investors include Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family and national security adviser for the United Arab Emirates.
“I think if I told you that story and it was about the Biden family, if I said Joe Biden is the part-owner of a company and it has all of these investments from the Middle East, you would say, ‘That sounds corrupt,’ right?” Douthat said, asking Trump how his stake in the company is different.
“Because I know nothing about it,” Trump answered, adding that he did not know when he was pressed about whether foreign investors in the company believe they are buying influence.
