WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said in an interview broadcast Sunday that he expects to make “maybe a few changes” to his administration after last week’s midterm elections, as Stephen Miller, his longtime adviser, takes over Monday as White House chief of staff.
Asked by 60 Minutes correspondent Ross Douthat whether he expected to fire anyone after Republicans’ losses, the president answered: “I do, yeah. Little bit.” He added: “I love my Cabinet,” but “I’ll … be doing maybe a few changes.” He did not name any officials, according to CBS News and USA Today.
The interview was recorded shortly before the president announced that Susie Wiles would leave the chief of staff’s post for his political operation and that Miller, the deputy chief of staff, would succeed her. In its announcement, the White House called Miller the 33rd White House chief of staff and said he “has served alongside President Trump since the very beginning.” The Inquisitor reported the appointment Sunday.
The president defended his record in the interview. He said the economic “numbers are phenomenal,” pointing to retirement accounts at record highs, and said the problem was that “we couldn’t get the word across.” “I think it was bad messaging, maybe by me,” he said, predicting that Americans would “notice it in the next two, three, four months” as manufacturing jobs return. The interview aired hours after what CBS News described as a stronger-than-expected jobs report.
Confidence in Hegseth
The president said he still has confidence in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whom Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., is seeking to impeach. Massie introduced articles of impeachment on Sept. 15 over the Iran war, USA Today reported.
“They want to impeach him. Very unfair,” Trump said, according to CBS News. “We had two wars, we won both. We won Venezuela, we won Iran.” Asked whether he credited Hegseth for the Venezuela operation, he said, “No. But he was a part of it.”
Hegseth has said he will fight the impeachment effort. “We don’t back down and that especially applies now,” he said in a Nov. 5 video address quoted by USA Today. “The next few months and years are critical for our department and our republic.”
Why Republicans lost, in the president’s view
Republicans lost more than 40 House seats and at least seven Senate seats on Nov. 3, with some races still uncalled, according to CBS News. The president said voters “didn’t like the war” with Iran or the gas prices that followed, but that the main reason was that “I was not on the ballot.”
He said he would make the decision to strike Iran again, calling his answer an “emphatic yes” and arguing that Iran’s conventional military had been degraded and its nuclear program set back. “I think historically, this will be a very good decision,” he said. Asked whether he planned to escalate the war now that the election is over, he said: “Well, I’m not looking to. I don’t think there’s any reason to.”
On immigration, the president said his administration gets “very high marks” for removing people with criminal records and “an A+ for closing up the border,” but that he was hurt by the removal of people with jobs whose only violation was entering the country illegally. “I think it was too tough,” he said, adding that he would “love to do something on immigration” with Democrats in Congress. U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported last month that crossings at the southwest border in fiscal 2026 were the lowest in its history.
He also said he plans to keep using the pardon power before leaving office. “I intend to issue tremendous numbers of pardons,” he said.
Dana White and the press secretary’s job
The president also said Sunday that he had been joking when he posted on Saturday that he had offered the job of White House press secretary to UFC chief executive Dana White. “I will tell you, I was only kidding,” he told reporters, describing the suggestion as “just a little fun,” Reuters reported. He said White “loves the idea” and would visit the White House on Monday, but that the meeting had been planned for other reasons.
White, speaking to reporters in London on Saturday, said he was flying to Washington. “We have a meeting on Monday, so I’m sure I’ll have more to talk about after that,” he said, according to The Hill. The White House has been without a permanent press secretary since Karoline Leavitt left in August, The Hill reported.
The changes come as Congress returns Monday for a lame-duck session facing a Dec. 11 government funding deadline before Democrats take control of both chambers in January.
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