Trump says his mass deportation policy was too harsh after midterm losses

A rare concession on deportations

Donald Trump told CBS in an interview, excerpts of which circulated on social media, that his policy of mass deportations of immigrants had been too harsh. Asked about his immigration policy by a CBS journalist, the US president replied that he thought it had been too harsh. He did not clarify whether he intends to change his approach on the issue. The remarks came only days after his party lost the midterm elections, which Democrats widely won on Tuesday, 3 November 2026.

Hispanic voters and the midterm result

Hispanic voters, who had helped return Trump to the presidency, turned against him in the midterm elections. According to the reporting, they were disappointed by unfulfilled promises to bring prices down and by the perceived indiscriminate nature of expulsions carried out by immigration police. The sources do not give figures for the shift among Hispanic voters. The articles present this shift as one factor in the Republican setback, without quantifying it.

Vance and the Miller appointment

The day after the defeat, Vice President JD Vance published a long post on X in which he attributed the Republican setback mainly to the war in Iran. In that post he said he was open to changing the enforcement practices of the campaign against illegal immigration. Among the measures he proposed was focusing enforcement more on companies that hire workers without legal status. On 6 November, two days before the CBS interview, Trump promoted his adviser Stephen Miller to White House chief of staff, a strategically important post. The articles describe Miller as a hard-right figure who played a key role in the deportation policy.

Open questions after the interview

The articles describe Trump's comments as an apparent change of position, but he did not say whether the approach itself would change. Vance's proposal to target employers is the only specific change mentioned in the sources. Neither the sources nor the excerpts provide a timetable for any changes. The material available consists of excerpts circulating on social media, so the wider context of the full interview is not reflected in the articles.