MAN IN THE MILLER

Trump Makes Embarrassing Admission After Midterm Catastrophe

The president made the concession just hours before promoting Stephen Miller.

Donald Trump is on a collision course with Stephen Miller after admitting his new top aide’s hardline immigration policy was “too tough.”

The president made the extraordinary concession that he’d like to soften his position on mass deportation, which he admitted had hurt him at the ballot box, in a CBS 60 Minutes interview. His sit-down with CBS’s Ross Douthat was recorded on Friday, three days after Republicans lost control of both chambers of Congress in a devastating midterm defeat.

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However, Trump’s remarks aired Sunday, the day after he appointed Miller, 41, the architect of the deportation campaign, to take over on Monday as his White House chief of staff—raising accusations that the two positions were incompatible.

Prompted by a question from Douthat about what one thing he wanted to work on with the incoming Democratic majority, Trump appeared to shock the CBS correspondent when he replied: “I’d love to do something on immigration.”

He admitted that the immigration policy, which was designed and overseen by Miller, had targeted people with established jobs whose only offense was entering the country illegally. He pointed to landscaping businesses and hotel workers, as well as immigrants who paid taxes.

Asked whether his deportation agenda had gone too far, Trump conceded that removing such law-abiding workers from the country had been unpopular. “I think it might be too tough, yeah,” he said, adding, “I think ultimately—that hurt me.”

In the interview, which has horrified Trump’s MAGA base over fears of an amnesty, the president suggested that undocumented immigrants who had spent years working and paying taxes should potentially be allowed to remain in the country.

He suggested an agreement could be struck for such people who had lived in the country for 10 or 15 years, potentially allowing them to remain while continuing to deport serious criminals.

Saying he wanted to negotiate with Democrats, who will take control of Congress in January, Trump claimed they had “already called me” about a potential immigration compromise. He added that he was confident he could reach an agreement with the party that had just delivered him a humiliating electoral defeat, but provided no further detail on what that might look like.

Trump accepted that even by suggesting a softening of immigration policy, he was opening up a bitter ideological divide within his own administration, describing a faction on the “pretty far right” that wanted everybody deported, regardless of circumstance. “Do any of those people work in your administration?” Douthat asked. “Yes,” Trump replied.

He did not name Miller, but his replacement for Susie Wiles as chief of staff has been the administration’s most prominent advocate of mass deportations and aggressive immigration enforcement.

Trump’s comments sparked anger among MAGA supporters who interpreted his suggestion of an immigration compromise as a potential amnesty.

Right-wing commentator Nick Sortor wrote: “NO AMNESTY. Not now, not EVER. EVERY SINGLE ONE must GO.” MAGA former West Virginia lawmaker Derrick Evans joined the backlash, posting, “He might as well have said the word amnesty. I have no words for this.”

Their fury pushed the White House’s official Rapid Response account into a damage-limitation exercise, in which it insisted “the word ‘amnesty’ was never even said in this entire exchange.”

Trump’s admission is a remarkable reversal for a president whose second term has been dominated by a brutal immigration crackdown that has brought death, bloodshed and widespread public anger to American streets.

Federal agents swept through American cities, arresting thousands of immigrants, including those with no convictions, while splitting up families and provoking furious demonstrations.

Miller has been instrumental in directing that campaign, including pushing ICE to pursue 3,000 arrests a day, joining daily calls about deportation numbers, and berating staff for not deporting enough people.

But the visible street enforcement reached boiling point in Minneapolis in January, when federal immigration officers shot dead two American citizens.

Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother, was killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross on Jan. 7, and three weeks later Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old VA ICU nurse, was fatally shot by Border Patrol officers during another protest.

The killings led to protests and a backlash inside the agencies responsible for the crackdown, with some agents privately expressing anger over Pretti’s killing and wanting the operation abandoned.

Miller personally inflamed the controversy after Pretti’s killing, describing the nurse as a “domestic terrorist” and “would-be assassin” on social media, despite Reuters-verified footage showing Pretti holding a cellphone rather than a gun immediately before federal agents tackled him. Miller subsequently acknowledged that the agents might not have followed official procedures.

The human misery has extended into American prisons, with Human Rights Watch documenting 52 deaths in ICE detention during the first 500 days of Trump’s second presidency, a horrifying statistic that the Daily Beast has chronicled.

The political damage became clear on Election Day, with 58 percent of voters surveyed believing Trump’s immigration enforcement had gone too far, according to CBS News. Republicans also suffered significant losses in heavily Latino areas that had supported Trump in 2024.

Despite this, former Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem was mocked last Wednesday after claiming the first year had been “too successful.”

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There is also little indication that the administration is preparing to change course. Officials inside ICE and DHS have received no orders to reduce enforcement following the midterms, according to CBS News. The network reported that ICE had been instructed before the election to target approximately 19,000 arrests a week.

DHS said Sunday that its agents would not be “backing away or slowing down,” while White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis insisted the administration remained committed to deporting immigrants it considered threats to public safety.

Trump’s apparent change of heart has drawn immediate criticism from Democrats, who said it was not compatible with Miller’s elevation. “That’s not a course correction. That’s a promotion,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer wrote on X, condemning Trump’s decision to put Miller in charge despite his admission.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and DHS for comment.

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