Trump names immigration architect Stephen Miller as chief of staff

Schumer says Trump’s answer is a promotion, not a change of course

President Donald Trump named Stephen Miller, whom the Associated Press identified as the principal architect of his immigration agenda, as chief of staff shortly after recording a “60 Minutes” interview on Friday. In the interview, aired Sunday, Trump said his administration’s deportation policy may have been too harsh and that he could work with Democrats on some kind of immigration agreement. It was Trump’s first national-level interview since Republicans lost control of both chambers of Congress in the legislative elections.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer responded on social media after the interview aired. Schumer said Trump had said his immigration campaign went too far and argued that the solution appeared to be putting the man responsible for the policy in charge of the White House. He called that a promotion rather than a change of course.

Trump maintained that his deportation policy was part of the reason Republicans lost. He said an agreement with the new Democratic majority would resolve something and could actually be done, but gave no details about how such an agreement would work.

The administration’s immigration enforcement operations were a prominent feature of Trump’s return to the White House, with large operations in different cities that increased the number of arrests. Two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, died at the hands of federal immigration agents.

Democrats have said oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security is a priority for the new Congress. Trump said people in the country without legal authorization who he described as assassins and drug traffickers must be deported. He left open the possibility of an agreement allowing others to stay if they were good people who worked for a landscaping company or a hotel or did something, and in some cases paid taxes.

In a separate part of the interview, Trump discussed the 2028 presidential race and said he could stay on the sidelines, maintaining a neutral posture among Republicans seeking to succeed him. Asked whether he would endorse a possible successor, Trump said he would probably endorse one, though he was not certain. He said there was a large pool of people with whom he had excellent relationships.

Asked about possible candidates besides Vice President JD Vance, Trump mentioned only Secretary of State Marco Rubio, saying he thought Rubio was great. Trump said there were many other people he preferred not to name and that some senators were excellent, adding that he knew them all and liked them well. He said he may get involved in the race or may not, that he did not know, and that he may be better off staying out.

During the legislative elections, Democrats tried to make Trump’s personal wealth a campaign issue. Around half of voters nationally said government corruption was “crucial” to their vote for Congress, according to the AP Voter Poll.

Asked how his net worth rose by $3 billion since his return to the White House, Trump said he paid almost no attention to it and that it did not matter to him. He said his children handle the family business, that he had a lot of money and much more than he ever thought he would, and that he supposed it had gone up but did not even know. Asked whether foreign investors in his company, of which his children are co-owners, were trying to buy influence, Trump said he did not know and added that every president has that problem.

The Associated Press reported that Trump survived an assassination attempt during his 2024 campaign and had attacked his political adversaries. Asked whether he could forgive his enemies, he said it would be easy to answer yes but added that he probably could not because he genuinely hates some of his enemies and always will.

The immigration remarks arrived with Democrats naming oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security a priority, and with Trump leaving the terms of any deal unspecified. His decision to install the architect of his immigration agenda as chief of staff put the policy’s chief author in charge of the White House.