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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 and potential legal status, 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 many other interviews did not (like the afterlife). 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 one-on-one.
That was particularly the case as Douthat questioned Trump on allegations of 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 replied, “My sons run the company. It’s hard to say to them, ‘Don’t do anything anymore for four years because I’m president.’”
Douthat kept pressing him on whether he thought that foreign government investors in World Liberty were trying to buy influence.
Trump’s reply ultimately was that every president “has a problem,” even citing George Washington. In fact, in the extended version of the interview, Trump 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, while Trump claimed otherwise.
When sizing up the midterms, Trump acknowledged that the war in Iran had led to higher gas prices and that there’s “a great dislike, incredibly, for Israel.” But he showed little sign of accepting much of any blame, insisting that “if I was on the ballot, it would’ve been a much different situation because you saw the level of popularity and love… We had massive rallies.” At many of those rallies, he asked voters to pretend he was on the ballot.
He also blamed the press, complaining that when he comes to things like jobs numbers, “the press doesn’t cover positive news for Republicans.” (For the record, Deadline, along with many other outlets, covered Friday’s most recent labor report.)
Douthat said, “You and the media, you and our business have been in tension throughout your career. But you still won elections, right?…So why couldn’t you win this time.”
“I think it was bad messaging,” Trump 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 can use the word hate, I do hate some of my enemies.”
Douthat then replied by calling him out. “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.”