President Trump said his aggressive immigration policies may have hurt Republicans in the midterm election. In a "60 Minutes" interview that aired on Sunday, he admitted his deportation approach was "too tough." He noted that while he closed the border, removing people with good jobs also caused political damage.
The president was asked in a "60 Minutes" interview that aired on Sunday whether his deportation policies went too far. "I think it might be too tough," he said.
President Trump says he believes that his aggressive immigration policies may have hurt Republicans in the midterm election, acknowledging that his approach to deportations, in particular, was "too tough."
In an interview with "60 Minutes" that aired on Sunday night, Mr. Trump acknowledged that what he had considered a marquee accomplishment of his second term was also a reason that his party suffered seismic losses and Democrats took both chambers of Congress, by wide margins. Mr. Trump said he believed that making a deal on immigration with Democrats was "actually doable."
"I think it both helped and hurt," Mr. Trump said of his policies. "I think I got an A-plus 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 -- that created one violation or breaking of the law: that was that they came into the country illegally."
Asked pointedly whether he thought his deportation policy went too far, Mr. Trump replied: "I think it might be too tough, yea." He added: "That hurt me."
Mr. Trump made the admission in an in-depth interview, his first sit-down after the midterm elections, in which he also reiterated his arguments that Republicans lost for several reasons: because he was not on the ballot, "bad messaging," the war in Iran is unpopular, and voter turnout among party members was low.
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Mr. Trump's admission that immigration was a liability in the midterms was a new assessment, but came the same day that Mr. Trump announced that he would elevate Stephen Miller, the architect of his immigration agenda, to serve as his chief of staff. The interview was taped on Friday with Ross Douthat, the former New York Times columnist.
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