The Memo: Trump’s mixed signals give way to a doubling down after midterms defeat

This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. End of dialog window. President Trump has been sending conflicting signals as he grapples with the comprehensive defeat suffered by his Republican Party in the midterm elections. But a day or two of ambiguity seems to be giving way to a doubling down of his usual, hypercombative approach. Trump acknowledged in a CBS “60 Minutes” interview broadcast on Sunday that some of his immigration enforcement actions had been seen as “too tough.” But he has promoted the chief architect of those policies, Stephen Miller, to be his new White House chief of staff. And at a hastily arranged media briefing at the White House late on Monday afternoon, Trump seemed to walk back his apparent admission of excessive enforcement. “We have a very strong deportation policy,” Trump insisted. “My policy hasn’t changed.” In the “60 Minutes” interview, Trump claimed he could curb his penchant for insulting Democrats to work with them. But moments later, he said he would never forgive foes like former FBI Director James Comey and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “I do hate some of my enemies, and I always will,” he said. On the global stage, it’s not at all clear what Trump is planning as his next steps in the war on Iran. His remarks on this at the Monday afternoon briefing were, once again, inexact. Meanwhile, after initially saying that he accepted the results of the elections, the president began ventilating unsupported allegations of malfeasance on Monday, writing on social media, “Does anybody really believe that this ‘Election’ was honest. How could the Polls be so wrong???” To critics of the president, it’s quite plain what is going on. They see him as merely paying brief lip service to the idea that he might be conciliatory, when his intention is to pursue rigidly hard-line policies. “It’s just so telling once again that Trump has never actually cared about the Republican Party,” said Olivia Troye, an aide to then-Vice President Mike Pence during the first Trump administration who has become a vigorous critic of the president. “It’s very striking that his takeaway is to double down on an agenda that is clearly unpopular with the American people, especially as is signaled by putting Stephen Miller at the helm.” Trump loyalists see things entirely differently. They contend that Trump is preparing for battle with a Democratic Congress that has already telegraphed its intention to go after the president and his allies. Joe DiGenova, the former U. S. attorney for the District of Columbia who recently resigned from his role investigating a supposed “grand conspiracy” against Trump, said he continues to support the president “wholeheartedly.” “I think Stephen Miller is a very bright guy, very smart, and any president should have the chief of staff that he wants. This is clearly the chief of staff that the president wants,” DiGenova said. DiGenova placed the blame for the GOP’s midterm defeat on two factors — a GOP Congress that he said had been unwilling to pass legislation that the MAGA base wanted, including the SAVE America Act, and a misplaced confidence that negotiations with Iran could reach a satisfactory conclusion. But he also contended the choices now facing Trump — between sticking with his agenda and accommodating himself to life with a Democratic Congress — were not mutually exclusive. “I think you go full-bore ahead while trimming your sails,” he said. “He is not going to be dealing with a Republican Congress, so he doesn’t have any choice. He will be a veto president for the next two years.” Democrats, fresh off their victory, want to press their gains — including in the area of accountability. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the incoming chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote simply “lawyer up” on social media on election night. On the topic of the Miller appointment, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N. Y.) — who is likely soon to become Speaker — told reporters Monday, “Stephen Miller is a stone-cold racist. His track record speaks for itself, and I’ve got zero interest in working with that kind of individual.” Few Republicans have publicly criticized the appointment of Miller, but one exception came from Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.). “I think that the decision to elect Stephen Miller is a mistake. He’s not liked out here in the Midwest by people, they don’t like his tone,” Stutzman told CNN’s “Inside Politics” on Sunday. Others in the broader Republican world are, at least for the moment, taking a philosophical view, basically accepting that Trump is Trump, and always will be. “He’s 80 years old, and that isn’t when people generally reinvent themselves,” GOP strategist Alex Conant drily noted. Conant contended that the midterm loss couldn’t be pinned on one factor, so a remedy was not necessarily easy to come by. “When you lose by that magnitude, there are lots of things that contribute to it,” Conant said, “This was a referendum on Donald Trump, and he is not very popular right now. It’s a reflection that inflation is still too high, there is an unpopular war [and] corruption showed up as a concern in the exit polls. I think people with agendas tried to make the election about their one thing, but the truth is, it was many things.” For some Republicans, the best approach right now seems to be to batten down the hatches and hope that Democrats overreach. Republican strategist Brad Blakeman, whose brother Bruce lost his gubernatorial bid in New York to incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), noted there was a whole range of adverse factors for the GOP that “took its toll.” But, Blakeman insisted, “the Democrats have not got the lesson the American people delivered. It’s not division, it’s not getting even — it’s governing. And I haven’t heard, yet, anybody speaking to governing.” The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.