President Donald Trump admitted his immigration policies were “too tough,” saying in an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” broadcast Sunday that mass deportations hurt him during the midterm elections.
Trump said his policies had been too harsh in deporting undocumented immigrants who had not committed crimes.
“I’m hurt because we also took people who had good jobs, which created a violation or infraction of the law, which is that they entered the country illegally,” Trump said in the interview recorded Friday.
He added that “a large group of people” think that immigrants who are “good people, working in a landscaping company or in a hotel or doing something … and, in some cases, paying taxes,” should be “allowed to stay.”
Trump highlighted immigration as one of the areas he wanted to work on with Democrats, saying yes when asked if a deal could look like creating legal status for undocumented workers.
He said, however, that people “on the far right… would like to see everyone eliminated,” saying some of them were part of his administration. Trump on Friday promoted Stephen Miller, who designed the mass deportation policy implemented since his return 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 impact of the war in Iran on economic woes.
“I think it was a bad message, maybe on my part, but I talked about it all the time,” Trump said, adding that the media didn’t cover “positive news for me. So I have to do it myself. I have to put it out there.”
Pressed by CBS News’ Ross Douthat about what the “wrong message” was, Trump said, “We couldn’t get the message across.” »
The White House has been virtually without a press secretary since the end of August, after the departure of Karoline Leavitt from 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 him if his net worth had increased by nearly $3 billion since returning to office, prompting him to initially respond, “Everyone’s, too.”
Trump’s net worth is $7 billion, according to Forbes. It says the amount has increased by $2.7 billion since he was elected in 2024 for a second term. Trump’s financial disclosure forms show he earned $1.4 billion in cryptocurrencies.
“I spend almost no time on my net worth. I don’t care. I have a lot of money, way more than I ever thought I would have. And I guess it’s gone up. I don’t even know,” Trump said. He said one of his sons “looks after the money,” adding that the two don’t 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 this story and it was about the Biden family, if I said Joe Biden co-owns a company and they have all these investments coming from the Middle East, you would say, ‘That sounds corrupt,’ right? Douthat said, asking Trump how his stake in the company was different.
“Because I don’t know,” Trump responded, adding that he didn’t know when asked whether foreign investors in the company thought they were buying influence.
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