President’s admission appears at odds with the elevation of immigration hardliner
Trump admits deportation policy was ‘too tough’ despite Miller promotion
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Donald Trump said he thinks his administration was too aggressive on deportations and that he was open to an arrangement to allow some undocumented immigrants to remain in the US.
The president said, in his first major interview since his party lost control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections, that his deportation policy was part of the reason Republicans lost.
He told CBS’s ‘60 Minutes’ in an interview that aired on Sunday:
double quotation mark 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.
The president’s comments were an unusually frank acknowledgment that one of the defining policies of his second administration had become a political liability. But they were seemingly at odds with his decision on Friday to elevate Stephen Miller , the architect of his immigration crackdown, to White House chief of staff.
Trump said that he thinks he could reach an agreement with the new Democratic majority, adding:
double quotation mark We would work something out. And I think it’s something - I think that’s something that’s actually doable.
The president claimed that his policy “both helped and hurt”, since people gave him an “A+ for closing up the border” and “very high marks for getting the bad ones out”. But he admitted: “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.”
His comments come as his most controversial aide Miller was due today to start his new role as chief of staff. In a social media post, Trump called Miller, 41, “one of my most trusted advisors” and praised the outgoing Susie Wiles for doing “an outstanding job”.
On the race among Republicans to succeed him for the 2028 presidential election, Trump hinted at staying neutral. Asked whether he’d endorse a potential successor, the president said “probably, not necessarily.” “We have a tremendous bench. I have so many people that I have great relationships with,” Trump said in his CBS interview.
Trump said on Sunday that he “was only kidding” when he announced a day earlier that he had offered the job of White House press secretary to Dana White, the chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship ( UFC ). Speaking to reporters on his way back the White House from his beach club in Florida, Trump explained the premise of his joke, that if the UFC boss, who is a devoted fan of the president, took over the briefing room, flanked by six fighters, reporters “wouldn’t mess around with him so much”.
Trump will meet with Qatar’s prime minister at the White House today, according to the White House schedule, as the conflict with Iran drags on and diplomatic efforts to end it face significant obstacles. Trump is due to meet with Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, who also serves as Qatar’s foreign minister, in a closed-door meeting. Vice-president JD Vance is also scheduled to meet with the Qatari leader, according to a US official.
A US deportation flight of Iranian nationals bound for Iran by way of Pakistan was abruptly canceled Sunday morning, according to an attorney who spoke to some of the detainees slated for repatriation. At least eight Iranians were loaded onto a plane Sunday morning in Mesa, Arizona, for a deportation flight headed to the country of Georgia, then on to Pakistan, according to Ali Rahnama, an attorney with the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund who filed emergency motions on behalf of some of the Iranian detainees. The flight was canceled without explanation, he said.
