Comments made by Donald Trump during a “60 Minutes” interview aired on Sunday night could presage a battle of wills in the White House with his new chief of staff.
Trump’s surprising admission that his deportation push may have been too harsh sets him up for a “collision course” with Stephen Miller, the hard-liner who built the policy, according to The PunchUp’s Tim Latchem.
The president made the remarks to Ross Douthat in an interview taped Friday, just three days after voters handed control of Congress to Democrats. Pressed on whether his deportation campaign had overreached, Trump didn’t argue.
“I think it might be too tough, yeah,” he said. “I think ultimately—that hurt me.”
As Latchem notes, Trump went further, conceding that the crackdown had caught up hotel workers, landscapers and immigrants who paid taxes and whose only violation was crossing the border illegally. He suggested "a possible compromise" in which longtime undocumented residents, those who have lived and worked in the U.S. for 10 or 15 years, could stay, while serious criminals would still be deported.
Trump said he was "open" to working with the incoming Democratic majority and claimed Democrats had “already called me” about a deal, though he didn’t elaborate.
According to the PunchUp report, for much of Trump's MAGA base, that sounded like amnesty, and they were furious.
“NO AMNESTY. Not now, not EVER. EVERY SINGLE ONE must GO,” right-wing commentator Nick Sortor wrote. Derrick Evans, a former West Virginia lawmaker, posted, “He might as well have said the word amnesty. I have no words for this.”
Evans later added, "I’m the highest ranking elected Republican to be arrested and thrown in prison for peacefully protesting on January 6th. I say that to say, if was in Congress I would personally file Articles of Impeachment against any President who even mentions amnesty, including Trump. Amnesty is treason as far as I’m concerned."
The White House quickly went into damage control, according to the report. Its Rapid Response X account insisted that “the word ‘amnesty’ was never even said in this entire exchange.”
Latchem wrote, "Trump’s admission is remarkable considering his second term has been dominated by a brutal immigration crackdown that brought death, bloodshed and public anger to American streets."
