Trump makes 'remarkable admission' on his immigration policy

[0:00] Let's get to the White House this morning, CNN's Elena Treen. Is there kind of a different [0:04] atmosphere there this morning, I imagine? Oh, absolutely. And look, I thought that 60 [0:11] minutes interview was pretty fascinating. Last night, you could hear the president really [0:15] spending most of it trying to reckon with the massive losses that his party faced last week. [0:21] And look, I'll say this, John, I've had numerous, of course, conversations with some of the [0:25] president's most senior advisers over the past several days following Tuesday's midterm elections. [0:31] And they say privately they have never seen the president kind of acknowledge just how [0:37] profoundly bad things are and noting that there have been missteps that his administration has [0:44] taken. Now, I will say, of course, publicly, and you heard this last night in that 60 Minutes [0:48] interview as well, he's not personally taking blame for it. Again, publicly, I think behind the [0:53] scenes, there is a little bit of a different picture from my conversations. But he did get [0:57] close with his answer on immigration. Listen to how he put it. [1:03] Do you think immigration hurt you in the midterm? Do you think the crackdown hurt you? [1:07] I think it both helped and hurt. I think I got an A-plus for closing up the border. I get very [1:12] high marks for getting the bad ones out. But I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs [1:19] that created one violation for breaking of the law, and that was that they came into the country [1:25] illegally. So you think your deportation policy went too far? I think it was too tough. It was too [1:29] tough. I think it might be too tough, yeah. And that is a remarkable admission from President [1:35] Trump, someone who, of course, is always very defiant, doesn't like to admit when he thinks his policy [1:40] decisions might have gone too far. But he says it there on an issue I should note as well that I [1:45] remember coming in after his 2024 win, January 2025, every single person in this administration I talked [1:51] to said. They believed that immigration was his most popular issue, that they couldn't go too far. [1:57] Now, of course, they're admitting, and this comes as we've seen, that their handling of immigration [2:01] really was deeply unpopular with voters, including Latinos, many of whom said that in 2024 they voted [2:07] for the president because of his border positions. But look, how all of this comports, John, and you [2:12] brought this up, with his decision to elevate Stephen Miller to his new chief of staff to replace [2:18] Susie Wiles, does have a lot of people scratching their heads. If you're on one hand going to admit [2:23] that immigration went too far, but then on another, elevate the chief architect of it. I mean, [2:28] Stephen Miller is someone who thinks every single day about how he can get the deportation number [2:33] higher in this country. Unclear how that's going to work out. We've, of course, heard from a lot of [2:39] Democrats as well saying they don't want to work with someone like Stephen Miller on immigration, [2:44] all to say there's a lot of more changes, I think, to anticipate in the coming days. We know that [2:49] there's likely to be an impeachment vote in the House on trying to remove the defense secretary, [2:55] Pete Hegseth. And one thing as well I want to add, just to close this out, from the president's [2:59] interview yesterday was that he suggested that he doesn't really plan to chart an entirely new course [3:03] in these final two years of his presidency. He said that even he will continue to push forward [3:10] with what he believes in, even if it's not very popular with voters. So we'll have to see [3:13] what that actually looks like. So Zolan, on the one hand, you have the president saying [3:17] it was too tough, it went too far. On the other hand, he has put Stephen Miller, the person who many [3:23] accuse of having the cruelest kinds of immigration policies in place in the first place. How are [3:28] Americans supposed to understand what the message from the White House is? Well, I think it's fair to be [3:37] skeptical of the president's comments here, that his comments will translate to any sort of [3:42] substantial difference when it comes to his immigration agenda, for a couple reasons. One, [3:48] earlier this year, you might remember the federal crackdown in Minneapolis, resulting in the shooting [3:54] and killing of two American citizens. After that, President Trump is facing backlash, criticism, [4:00] even Republican allies are telling him, this doesn't look good. He comes out and says, [4:04] my immigration agenda needs a softer touch, right? There was a temporary period where arrests went [4:10] down, and then they surged this summer. And then the other reason to be skeptical is Stephen Miller. [4:16] By naming Stephen Miller chief of staff, you have President Trump essentially doubling down [4:22] on the very divisive policy, that being immigration policy, that seemed to turn away so many different [4:30] voters in the midterms. Various polls and reporting have shown that various different constituency [4:36] groups feel that this immigration crackdown has gone too far. Stephen Miller is at the centerpiece [4:42] of this immigration policy. That's going back to the first term, when he had a role in divisive policies [4:49] like a travel ban on predominantly Muslim-majority countries, the separating of migrant parents from [4:55] their children, up till this year, where he really set in motion the deportation crackdown, the suspension [5:01] of various refugee programs. It's also important to know, Stephen Miller, especially as we start [5:06] talking about Congress, right, and this new Congress, you can just look to earlier this year to see Stephen [5:11] Miller's approach to potential compromising in Congress. After Minneapolis, there was talk of trying [5:18] to have these talks of restraints on ice. My reporting shows that Stephen Miller was in contact [5:24] with Republicans, basically discouraging them from reaching any sort of compromise with Democrats. [5:29] That's key to note, especially as we look forward to how this administration is now going to deal [5:34] with this new Congress. Based off of Stephen Miller, it seems like it's going to be more of a combative [5:39] approach than the type of conciliatory tone we heard from the president immediately after the midterms. [5:45] David, I want to start first with you, because also in that 60 Minutes interview, the president [5:50] told them that the administration's deportation policy was too tough, in his words. How do you [5:57] square that with his decision to now bring in Stephen Miller as his next chief of staff? [6:04] Yeah, Jessica, listen, I'm not so sure Stephen Miller was actually driving the bus on what happened [6:11] in Minnesota over the summer. I think that was kind of pushed down to the operational level, [6:17] and Christy Noman below. And I'm sure we'll see aggressive oversight on that. But listen, [6:24] I think Stephen and others wanted to go after, quote unquote, the bad hombres first. And I think [6:30] you saw that got dialed back. Stephen's a smart guy. And I think that they'll adjust it moving [6:35] forward. [6:36] Joe, do you agree with that in terms of Stephen Miller? Because I mean, he was the architect or [6:43] has been the architect of some of the more aggressive ideas, aggressive policies. [6:49] Yeah, I think it's important here to not pay much attention to what the president says, [6:54] because he's trying to manage this on both sides and pay attention to what he does. And I think [6:59] what's driving a lot of this is the president trying to show he's still the leader of the party [7:04] to demonstrate his relevance. And I think what he's trying to do is show strength. And he thinks Stephen [7:09] Miller can do that. And I think the really interesting part is not how he works with the [7:14] Democrats, but how he works with his own party. They are increasingly going to do things that cut [7:19] him out of the process. And he's going to try through whatever means, even intimidation of his [7:25] own party. He's done that in the past to continue to try to be the leader and try to be relevant. [7:31] So the fallout from the midterms are showing that J.D. Vance may not be the one for the job come [7:37] 2028. So who would it be? What are you thinking about when you decide whether or not to endorse [7:45] someone? We have a tremendous bench. I mean, I have so many people that have great relationships [7:50] with and, you know, not necessarily. Who would be on the list besides the vice president? [7:55] Well, I think Marco's great. He's doing a fantastic job. The ones they think about, [8:00] but there are many others. And I'd rather not mention their names. There's some senators that are [8:04] excellent. Group chat is back. Some senators that are excellent. Who do you [8:09] think is in that? You've been doing some reporting on this. I mean, he could be talking about Ted Cruz. [8:13] Newt Gingrich also brought up Tom Cotton as a potential possibility. But notable that the [8:19] president has not endorsed his vice, his sitting vice president. He says that it's, it's too early. [8:25] The reporting that I've been doing on this, though, is that other Republicans in the party [8:29] want to see a robust presidential primary. They think that there is a deep bench in the Republican [8:35] party right now, including, you know, including voters, voters who are supportive of vice president [8:40] J.D. Vance. Within the next. Do they look at what happened with Biden and Kamala Harris and say, [8:44] nope, we want more conversation. We don't want it to be the vice president. There's some of that. [8:49] There's some of a concern about an anointment here after, after that. But when you bring up [8:54] former vice president Kamala Harris, there's also some concern about how does a sitting vice [8:58] president differentiate himself or distance himself from the president? We saw Vance start to try to do [9:04] that a little bit last week on the issue of Iran. But generally speaking, Adi, there are some [9:11] Republicans who were saying right now, look, it should not be someone in the administration at [9:15] all. That's not J.D. Vance. That's not Marco Rubio, that the brand right now is the Republican [9:21] brand or the Trump brand is a little bit tarnished and MAGA has shattered at this point. So is there [9:27] somebody else out there? But then we come back to the beginning, which is, if not them, then who? [9:30] Well, it's also, is the brand tarnished or is Trump the brand and Trump is tarnished? Meaning [9:36] you're actually perfectly fine if you're J.D. Vance and people have short memories to think [9:41] you can come back around. Well, the problem with J.D. Vance is that he's really just written [9:46] Donald Trump's coattails, right? This is not someone that had a robust record in his very [9:51] short tenure of Senate, right? When you think about J.D. Vance's career, he's in venture capital. [9:56] He makes a name for himself as a big never-Trumper who was on CNN and then just immediately reversed [10:01] course and is, you know, went all in on like the slot on the sloppilism, right? The problem [10:06] is that Vance has chosen. Sloppilism? Yeah. Sloppy populism that panders to the worst [10:12] instincts, you know, of, you know, we can have it all style economic policy. But does it matter [10:19] if you, for instance, J.D. Vance arguably didn't help Vivek Ramaswamy close on Ohio, right? [10:24] I don't know, maybe more good than that one. Yeah. I mean, I'm trying, like, people don't [10:30] look back at that, donors or whoever, and say, this guy doesn't got it, right? Like, [10:35] I mean, the name recognition kind of can't be beat. Right. I mean, again, there's a reason [10:39] why sitting vice presidents almost always run for the nomination because they have an inherent [10:43] advantage that no other candidate running will have. But again, you're also, you know, [10:47] as we just talked about, you're tied to your guy. There's no exit ramp from Donald Trump. [10:51] Other Republicans are going to try to create some distance now. You're the vice president. [10:55] Whatever he does, you're going to get the credit or the blame for. We've seen that time and time [10:58] again. Except Vance is shiving Trump from the front, right? Like very publicly, that 600 word [11:05] essay or whatever you want to call it on Twitter, where he blames the president's Iran war that the [11:11] president continues to defend on the grounds of Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. So here Trump was asked [11:15] this question on 60 Minutes, like, hey, did you say this statement? And here's how he replied. [11:22] The only thing I wish he would have said there, if he felt it, and you'd have to ask him about that. [11:28] But if you had it to do again, would you do it? You know, he's part of a decision-making process. [11:32] And my answer is an emphatic yes, because you can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. I think [11:37] historically, this will be a very good decision. He didn't say J.D. Vance had nothing to do with that. [11:42] Well, and a few days before, when we were at the ballroom construction site, I was there the day [11:48] with him after the midterm elections. He was asked about this issue, and he indicated that Vance [11:54] wasn't for the war. Like, we knew how he felt about it. You know, he wasn't surprised about this. [11:59] I have been told that the president knew about this statement, that Vance told the White House about [12:05] this. But they didn't know what it was going to say. The White House was blindsided by the content. [12:09] Issue this statement. Also, the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., very close friend [12:15] of the vice president's, and one of the people who helped get him into the vice presidency was [12:19] putting 100, 100, 100 on top of Vance's statement on social media. So he was elevating it as well.