Donald Trump’s ’60 Minutes’ Interview Was A Mixture Of Denial, Reflection And Contradiction Following Midterm Drubbing

In his first sit down interview since his midterm drubbing, Donald Trump insisted on 60 Minutes that candidates would have done better had he been on the ballot.

He blamed voters’ dismal views of the economy on “bad messaging.”

And he ran through a number of explanations for why he made $3 billion since the start of his second term, feeding into the corruption storyline that proved to be so important at the ballot box.

Correspondent Ross Douthat, though, also got the president admitting that his deportation policy “might be too tough.”

Since the election wipeout, Trump has seemingly veered from being at his own kind of peace with the results and striking notes of defiance. He congratulated Democrats on election night, but also has reposted some election conspiracy theories.

Just an hour after the 60 Minutes sit down on Friday morning, in which he talked about working with Democrats on immigration reform, he then went ahead named Stephen Miller, the architect of his deportation crackdown, as his chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles.

Douthat skillfully questioned Trump over a number of topics, interrupting at points and following up at others, and getting to some places that other interviews did not. Since the midterm losses, Trump has spoken to reporters and did a phone interview with CNN, but 60 Minutes showed that there is still nothing like a sit down interview.

That was particularly the case as Douthat questioned Trump on corruption, in particular with Trump’s stake in World Liberty Financial.

“So your son manages or helps manage a cryptocurrency company called World Liberty Financial….You are co-owner of that company.”

“That’s correct,” Trump responded.

Douthat replied, “This company is also partially owned by investors connected to the government of the United Arab Emirates. I think if I told you that story and it was about the Biden family, if I said Joe Biden is the part owner of a company and it has all of these investments from the Middle East, you would say, ‘That sounds corrupt,’ right.”

Douthat then added, “Why is this different?”

Trump said, “I’m gonna tell you why. Because I know nothing about it.”

But Douthat noted that Trump “could just walk away from that and then you would not be accused of corruption.”

Trump tried to insist that he isn’t responsible, because his sons ran the company, yet Douthat kept pressing him on wheher he thought foreign governments were trying to buy influence.

Trump’s replay was that every president “has a problem.” In the extended version of the interview, he cited Barack Obama’s deal with Netflix and that he “got $100 million to make a movie.”

“What Obama did after his presidency was different,” Douthat said.

The final questions of the interview had to do with whether Trump thought he would get to heaven and whether he could forgive his enemies.

“The answer is no. I want to be honest, no,” Trump said.

“Before the judgment throne of God?” Douthat said.

Trump said, “Before the judgment. No, I think they were very bad people and– I dislike, I can use the word hate, I do hate some of my enemies.”

Douthat replied, “Mr. President. You have had the most charmed and remarkable life of any American in my entire lifetime, and you are telling me that before the judgment throne of God you couldn’t find it in your heart to forgive some of your enemies? After all that’s been given to you? Come on. Help me out here.”

Trump said he could not. “I probably cannot do that, no, because I do hate some of my enemies and I always will.”