Trump says he would fight Iran again to prevent a nuclear weapon
President Trump said his administration had recently threatened an unnamed official at an AI company with jail time after the official was reported to be doing something bad with artificial intelligence. Speaking with “60 Minutes” correspondent Ross Douthat in an interview aired Sunday, Trump also said he expected to make “maybe a few” cabinet changes and defended the war with Iran, saying the United States cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. It was the president’s first sit-down interview since Republicans’ midterm election losses.
Trump said the United States could manage the potential risks from artificial intelligence but that he was not willing to cede ground to China in the race to develop the technology. “I don’t mind guardrails. But I don’t wanna put us in a deep second position,” Trump said. “We’re leading, number one. And China has no guardrails, by the way.”
The president said his administration had called the unnamed official “very strongly.” “We had a situation where somebody was reported to us to be doing something bad with AI,” Trump said. “We called them very strongly and said, ‘Get ready to go to jail. Please give your wife a kiss good night.’” Trump declined to name the company or the individual.
Trump said he expected to make changes to his cabinet — “I’ll be doin’ maybe a few changes,” he said — and added, “I don’t wanna mention who.” Trump said he had confidence in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has come under criticism from lawmakers of both parties for his role in advocating for the war with Iran.
Trump also addressed the political fallout from the war with Iran. After Vice President JD Vance released a public statement on social media blaming the Iran war for Republican losses, Trump told reporters Sunday that “a lot of people didn’t like his comments.” Trump has said he agreed with the notion that the war hurt Republicans politically. In the interview, though, Trump said he wished Vance had addressed whether the war was necessary. “The only thing I wish you would’ve said there, if he felt it, and you’d have to ask him about that, but if you had it to do again, would you do it?…And my answer is an emphatic yes because you can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.
At the end of the interview, Douthat asked Trump what happens when he dies. Trump said he hoped to go to heaven. Pressing further, Douthat asked whether Trump would be willing to forgive his political enemies, including former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to get to heaven. “I want to be honest, no,” Trump said. “I probably cannot do that, no, because I do hate some of my enemies, and I always will.”
Trump left his role in the 2028 presidential race uncertain. He suggested the Republican field was wide open and said he might not endorse a successor to his MAGA movement. When Douthat told him he assumed Trump would endorse a presidential candidate in two years, Trump replied, “Probably. Not necessarily.” Trump said Republicans will have a “tremendous bench” of candidates and that many of them are people with whom he has great relationships. Asked who would be on his list in addition to Vice President JD Vance, widely seen as a potential 2028 candidate, Trump mentioned Secretary of State Marco Rubio and said Republican senators were expected to run. “I know ’em all, I like ’em a lot,” Trump said. “So I may or may not get involved. I don’t know. Maybe I’m better off not getting involved.”
Trump also discussed immigration, acknowledging that his administration’s hard-line immigration policies may have hurt Republicans in Tuesday’s midterm elections. He said he received an “A+” for securing the border while his administration’s pursuit of mass deportations may have been “too tough.” “For getting people out, I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out,” Trump said. He described concern about workers including hotel maids, cleaners and waitresses who were being removed from the country: “When you go into a hotel and you have a woman that’s worked there as—you know, as a maid, as a cleaner, as a this, as a that, as a waitress, a lotta good things, great job—and all of a sudden, they’re being taken outta the country, it’s tough.” Trump suggested that immigration was an area where he could work with newly empowered Democrats, saying such a deal would be “something that’s actually doable.”
Douthat pressed Trump on the increase in his net worth since he returned to the White House. “I devote almost no time to my net worth. I don’t care,” Trump said. Trump said he had made a large amount of money before becoming president.
The correspondent pointed to the Trump family’s co-ownership of World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency company that counts an Abu Dhabi royal as a major shareholder. “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 asked. Trump responded that he knows nothing about his family’s investments. Asked why he would not walk away from companies with foreign investments to avoid allegations of corruption, Trump replied that his sons run the company and that “It’s hard to say to them, ‘Don’t do anything anymore for four years because I’m president.’”
Several questions from the interview remained open. Trump did not name the cabinet members he might replace, saying, “I’ll be doin’ maybe a few changes” and “I don’t wanna mention who.” He did not commit to endorsing a candidate in 2028, and he declined to name the AI company or the official his administration threatened with jail time.