10 takeaways from Trump's 60 Minutes interview

Days after Republicans faced a series of bruising midterm election losses, President Trump stood by his handling of the economy and the Iran war — but he acknowledged some "bad messaging" on economic issues and said his immigration crackdown was "too tough" at times.

In a sitdown with 60 Minutes correspondent Ross Douthat, the president also suggested some top administration officials could be on their way out. One hour later, he announced White House chief of staff Susie Wiles would depart her role and be replaced by Stephen Miller.

Here are the biggest takeaways from the interview:

Why did Republicans lose?

Republicans lost more than 40 House seats and at least seven Senate seats on Tuesday, with some races still uncalled, including in places that Mr. Trump won by double-digit margins two years ago. About 63% of midterm voters disapproved of Mr. Trump's job performance, and 44% said one reason for their vote was to express opposition to him, according to CBS News exit polling.

Asked for his analysis of the midterm losses, Mr. Trump told 60 Minutes that voters "didn't like the war" with Iran or the soaring gas prices that it triggered.

But he said he believes the primary reason for Republicans' losses was that "I was not on the ballot," an explanation he has offered several times in recent days. He suggested his pre-election endorsements and rallies "brought a lot of people … a lot closer to victory."

Ahead of Election Day, the president frequently urged his supporters to "pretend that I'm on the ballot." So, what happened?

"I think they didn't vote, really. I think they didn't vote. I think in some cases, they didn't like the candidates. And that's, you know, their prerogative," he said.

Some of the candidates were picked by the president. He endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Lone Star State's bitter GOP Senate primary, and he endorsed Sen. Darline Graham, who was appointed to fill her late brother's South Carolina Senate seat — encouraging her to run for a full term.

Mr. Trump argued that "Cornyn would have lost also."

Economic performance has been "phenomenal," but "we couldn't get the word across"

The president defended his stewardship of the economy in his 60 Minutes sitdown, which came hours after a stronger-than-expected jobs report. He said "the numbers are phenomenal."

"We're doing numbers that have never been done before. 401(k)s are at their all-time high by a lot. Under other presidents, they were a disaster. 401(k)s have made people rich," the president said. Pressed on the fact that not all Americans have large retirement accounts, Mr. Trump responded: "But a lot of people do."

But exit polling shows three-fourths of midterm voters viewed the condition of the economy as either poor or not so good — and 70% of that group voted for Democratic House candidates. Voters were especially concerned about prices of gasoline, food, utilities and healthcare, and two-thirds of voters believed that Mr. Trump's tariff policies hurt the country's economy.

Mr. Trump said the problem is that "we couldn't get the word across."

"I think it was bad messaging, maybe by me, but I would talk about it all the time. So I don't know, how much can I talk about it?" the president said. 

He predicted that Americans are "going to notice it in the next two, three, four months," arguing that his policies will lead to a resurgence of manufacturing jobs.

"I'm not looking to" escalate Iran war

The morning after the election, Vice President JD Vance argued on social media "the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone" — the broadly unpopular Iran war."

Mr. Trump said Vance told him about his plan to write that post, and he responded: "You write what you want." The president said "I don't disagree" with the vice president's diagnosis for why the Republicans lost the midterms, "other than one thing."

"The one thing he left out is — that I would say, and maybe he wouldn't say it, I don't know. I've never asked him really. But, if you had … to do again, would you do it? And that's Iran. Would you go and attack Iran?" he said.

The president said his answer to that question is an "emphatic yes," arguing Iran's conventional military has been degraded and its nuclear program has been set back.

"I think historically, this will be a very good decision. Is it a good decision for today and tomorrow? Maybe not? But … I have to go with what's right for our country," he said. "If they had a nuclear weapon during my term, I would be excoriated far worse than what's happened."

In a visit to the Oval Office later in the day, Mr. Trump reiterated his view that historians will judge the Iran war more favorably than voters. He pointed out a portrait of Ulysses S. Grant, a former president whose reputation has improved with age. 

"I mean, he was very low on the list and now he's much higher on the list," Mr. Trump said. "I think as an example — the fact that I have taken the nuclear weapon away from Iran will not be good, short-term. But long-term, I think it's going to be very important."

Since September, Iran and the U.S. have largely held off from major attacks, though the U.S. launched a set of limited defensive strikes on Iranian targets earlier this week.

Mr. Trump has suggested in recent months that the war could ramp up again after the election, but he has also frequently predicted Iran is interested in striking a deal, and Qatar is mediating a diplomatic push between the two sides. He told 60 Minutes he believes Iran is close to striking a deal, but the outcome of the election "gives them a little bit of a hope certificate."

Asked if he plans to escalate the war now that the midterms are over, the president said: "Well, I'm not looking to. I don't think there's any reason to."

On deportation policy, Trump says "I think it was too tough"

Mr. Trump's victory in 2024 was fueled in part by voters' discontent with the Biden administration's immigration policies. But this year, exit polling shows 58% think the Trump administration's actions on immigration have gone too far. In battlegrounds like Texas, many Latino voters who shifted to Mr. Trump two years ago pivoted back to Democrats due to concerns about immigration policy.

The president said immigration "both helped and hurt."

"I think I got an A+ for closing up the border," he said.

So, which immigration policies hurt him?

"For getting people out, I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out," Mr. Trump said. "But I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs, that created one violation, or breaking of the law, and that was that they came into the country illegally."

He continued: "Now, there is a large part of the country that think that they should be put out. And there's a large part of the country that think that they should be allowed to stay if they're good people working in a landscaping company, or working in a hotel, or doing something, right? And in some cases, paying taxes."

"So I think it was too tough," the president said of his deportation policies.

Mr. Trump's plans for the second half of his term aren't clear. On Friday, he replaced White House chief of staff Susie Wiles with Stephen Miller, a hardliner who is widely viewed as an architect of the Trump administration's immigration enforcement strategy. Last year, he pressed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to conduct at least 3,000 arrests per day.

The president said he'd "love to do something on immigration" with congressional Democrats.

"I devote almost no time to my net worth"

Mr. Trump is the wealthiest person to hold the presidency, and his wealth has grown by billions in recent years, fueled partly by his family's cryptocurrency ventures. Polls show many voters believe the president is prioritizing his personal business interests while in office.

Asked about reporting by Forbes that his net worth has soared since he returned to the White House, Mr. Trump said, "So did everyone." (Douthat noted that, unlike Mr. Trump, his net worth hasn't gone up by nearly $3 billion. The president responded, "Well, you should've had stock.")

"I devote almost no time to my net worth. I don't care," he said. "I have a lot of money, and far more than I ever thought I'd have. And I guess it's gone up. I don't even know."

He denied that he is prioritizing his own financial interests, saying his stock holdings are invested in broad indexes and his sons are in charge of his company.

"I have a company. My sons run the company. It's hard to say to them, 'Don't do anything anymore for four years because I'm president," he said.

He also said "every president has had this problem" where people leave the administration to work in private industry, and "no matter what they do, there's a conflict."

Will any administration officials be fired? Trump says he'll "be doing maybe a few changes"

Mr. Trump spoke with 60 Minutes shortly before announcing Wiles' departure. During the interview, he hinted at impending personnel changes.

Asked whether he expected to fire anyone after Republicans' midterm losses, he said: "I do, yeah. Little bit." He added that "I love my Cabinet," but "I'll … be doing maybe a few changes."

Wiles submitted her resignation Thursday night, CBS News reported.

CBS News also reported this week that Mr. Trump has asked aides whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should stay in his role. The president told 60 Minutes he has confidence in Hegseth, and pushed back against calls from Democrats to impeach the Pentagon chief.

"They want to impeach him. Very unfair," Mr. Trump said. "We had two wars, we won both. We won Venezuela, we won Iran."

Trump will "probably" endorse a successor, but "not necessarily"

With the 2028 presidential election now two years away, both Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are widely seen as possible heirs to Mr. Trump's political movement. The president has often joked about the succession guessing games.

Asked if he plans to endorse a 2028 Republican primary candidate, Mr. Trump said "probably," but "not necessarily." He said the Republicans "have a tremendous bench" and "I have so many people that I have great relationships with."

Aside from Rubio and Vance, he said "there's some senators that are excellent." 

"I may or may not get involved. I don't know," he said. "Maybe I'm better off not getting involved. I think it would play a big role if I did, because my endorsement capacity has been very strong."

Trump planning "tremendous numbers of pardons"

Mr. Trump said he plans to keep using his pardon power aggressively before leaving office.

"I don't want to have good people that are serving this country and doing a great job spending the rest of their life, like I had to do for four years, defending myself by radical left lunatics, by people that were very nasty and mean. I intend to issue tremendous numbers of pardons," he said, joking that "anybody that got within a thousand miles of the Oval Office" could get one.

The president said he doesn't expect to attempt the legally untested maneuver of pardoning himself, but "it's certainly not unreasonable."

He also said: "I pardoned the J6ers. I don't think any group's been treated more unfairly than them, and to this day, when they see me they cry."

Asked about the Jan. 6 rioters who attacked police officers, he argued that "there were some that got rough, but, you know, they were rough to them, too."

Trump on UFOs: Military pilots have "told me things that are very strange"

The president said one of the most frequent questions he gets is about what the military calls unexplained anomalous phenomena — better known as unidentified flying objects, or UFOs.

Earlier this year, Mr. Trump signed an executive order mandating the release of sensitive files on UAP sightings, leading the Pentagon to disclose photos, videos and investigative reports on what appear to be unexplained, often strange objects in the sky.

"I'm not too much of a believer, but I sat in the Oval Office, first term and a little bit second term, meeting with Air Force pilots that are really good, solid people. These are not people that you would say are conspiracy theorists. They don't even know what it means. But they're great, great pilots. Young, handsome. They have beautiful, nice flat tops. I'd like to have a haircut just like them. They look perfect, like Tom Cruise. … They're thin, you know, very thin and very everything. And … they're the real deal. And they've told me things that are very strange."

Could Trump forgive his enemies?

Toward the end of the sitdown, Douthat asked Mr. Trump — who has survived multiple assassination attempts — what he thinks will happen when he dies.

"Well, I hope I'm missed," he responded.

That wasn't exactly what Douthat meant.

"Well, I'm a religious person, so in theory, I go to heaven," the president said. "I hope so. I don't want to go to hell."

Douthat asked whether Mr. Trump could forgive his political foes in order to get into heaven.

"The answer is no. I want to be honest, no."

Pressed further, he said the "easy answer" would be to say yes, but he acknowledged: "I probably cannot do that, no, because I do hate some of my enemies and always will."