Grace Vaccaro, Staff Writer
In an interview with “60 Minutes,” Trump shared that he was “too tough” on deportation policies that ended up harming him in the midterms.
In the recent midterm elections, we saw a blue wave roll across the United States. Democrats took a majority in the Senate and House. States that hadn’t elected a Democrat in over 100 years — Texas, Ohio, and Kansas — turned blue. Another first was electing the first openly gay man to the Senate. Several women also made firsts; Keisha Lance Bottoms is the first Black Governor of Georgia.
After these results, Trump shares that his “too tough” approach to deportations led to this flip. Trump said that he thinks he gets “an A-plus for closing up the border” and should get “very high marks for getting the bad ones out.” While giving himself praise, he also realizes his faults, saying that he also “took people that had good jobs,” just because “they came into the country illegally.”
Trump also made many other claims about why Republicans lost the majority. One of the reasons was the unpopularity of the Iran war. Now that the Democrats have the majority, they plan to defund and end the war in Iran. Trump also believes that since he wasn’t on the ballot, many of the Republican nominees didn’t receive many votes. Another reason was that voter turnout for the Republican Party was low.
Despite Trump’s admission of too-hard immigration policies, on November 9th he hired Stephen Miller to replace Susie Wiles as White House Chief of Staff. Miller is the White House’s chief architect of its immigration crackdown — being especially aggressive in these tactics. This is a surprising decision, since it contradicts the claims Trump just made. Trump blamed Susie Wiles for the midterm loss.
On social media, Miller praised Trump, calling him the “most transformative political leader.” He also said that Trump “single-handedly saved America from those who would destroy it.” Trump hopes to make a deal with Democrats on immigration policies. This compromise could help people “who have been in the country for 10 and 15 years.” Miller has said that he has no interest in compromising with Democrats. His main goal is to rebuild the fractured MAGA coalition.
Parts of Trump’s administration disagree with what direction their party should head in. On a pro-Trump internet forum, almost 20% raised doubts about Trump’s leadership following the midterms.
Vice President JD Vance made an optimistic post on X. After looking at the data, he saw that there was average poll attendance in every state; “no state was catastrophic.” However, Vance believes that the main problem was “that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.” He believes that despite this, the Republican Party can come back and return to “saving our country.”
As the midterms have recently come to an end, it is unclear what the future holds for Trump and the Democratic controlled Congress.
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