The Republican defeat in the legislative elections on November 3 has left President Donald Trump touched and exposed. He turned the vote into a referendum on himself, on his management and his worldview, and Americans gave his rivals the biggest victory since the Nixon and Watergate scandals. The week that has passed since then, full of contradictions and changes of mind, has revealed the president's doubts and the internal struggle within the conservative world. Especially in immigration matters.
Last Wednesday morning, when it was already clear that both chambers of Congress will be in the hands of the Democrats and that two years of investigations, hearings and reproaches lie ahead, Trump dedicated his first appearance to talking about the renovation works in the White House ballroom. Shortly after, the same president who had congratulated the opposition on its results, admitting that it had been a surprise, pulled the oldest trick out of his hat again: "Does anyone really believe that these 'elections' were honest?" he wrote on social media, renewing his efforts to cast doubt on the results. "How is it possible that the polls were so wrong? Some early voting was so massive that it was impossible to win, no matter how many people turned out to vote. It all comes down to the machines, which are much more important than the voter!" he added.
There is more. In the midst of all the confusion, Trump wrote over the weekend that he had offered the position of White House spokesman to his friend Dana White, CEO of the UFC, the main fighting organization, which held an evening inside the White House itself in June. Trump's legacy is so strange that no one dared to say if it was a joke or he was serious, especially after the failure last month of his last election, which lasted just four days. Speculation multiplied in Washington about the possibility that someone had put the name of another Dana White on a list of candidates, a woman who was a Pentagon spokesperson in her first term. And that the president, upon seeing him, would have thought of his friend. The peculiar joke continued when the Dana White of wrestling appeared at the White House on Monday and answered, in a joking tone, some questions, before publicly rejecting the job offer.
But without a doubt the main issue in this swing is immigration. There is a certain consensus in the US that the war in Iran, and its consequences on fuel prices, have been the main reason for the Republican defeat. Before the bombings began, the polls already showed a Democratic advantage, but it was Iran that turned a corrective into a tsunami. However, there are many more causes: blatant corruption, the persecution of political enemies, the tone of a leader who acts as an absolute monarch, waste in construction while people cannot make ends meet. And of course, immigration policy, mass deportations, the cascade of scandals associated with ICE, the main agency that detains immigrants, the death of more than 60 people in its custody since Trump returned to power. Something that has completely reversed the Hispanic vote and given the Democrats fiefdoms in which they had not placed a senator for 20, 40 or even 100 years.
"Too aggressive"
The president himself seemed to admit it a few hours after Midterms. In his first television interview, given to the CBS program 60 Minutes, Trump acknowledged that his deportation strategy had been too harsh and "that it had hurt his party electorally." "Drug traffickers should be deported," he insisted, but opening the door to some type of regularization measure that would allow many people to stay "if they are good people who work in a landscaping company, or in a hotel, or doing something, right? And in some cases, paying taxes."
The president even proposed an agreement with the Democrats, who will assume control of Congress. "I would love to do something about immigration," he said. Quickly the idea of an "amnesty" became at the center of the debate, because we are talking about potentially millions of people. A drastic change with respect to the policy of mass deportations that he had defended for 10 years and applied since his return to the White House. And something that caused an earthquake among his faithful.
For this reason, the apparent turnaround was short-lived. Just one day later, Trump backtracked and expressly ruled out any possibility of mass regularization for immigrants in an irregular situation. "There will be no amnesty," he stated flatly to White House correspondents, insisting that his immigration policy had not changed and that deportations would continue.
The rectification came after his statements caused discomfort among sectors of his own electoral base, who interpreted the negotiating opening as an abandonment of one of the main promises of the MAGA movement. Even Vice President JD Vance had publicly attacked the idea that was beginning to be discussed in the White House. Numerous congressmen, senators and conservative think tanks, as well as commentators sympathetic to the president, immediately reacted by attacking the idea of an amnesty. Something that many of them would see as a betrayal even greater than having started a war in the Middle East after promising not to do so.
"This plan would absolutely guarantee that Texas will never vote Republican again," warned radio host Anthony Cumia, for example. "More states will go permanently Democratic if amnesty is granted to undocumented immigrants. Reagan did the same and California became a Democratic state forever. Trump can do it again with Texas. Yuck!" "Someone has to tell Trump: any amnesty agreement with the Democrats will destroy the Republican Party. We voted against amnesty and for the mass deportation of all undocumented immigrants. No concessions. No exceptions," added conservative influencer Kelly McCarthy.
That Trump does not have a 180-degree turn in mind seems evident because Trump has chosen Stephen Miller, the most radical of all his advisors and the main architect of his immigration policy, both in this term and the previous one, to lead his team as the new chief of staff. A true declaration of intentions, a commitment to go to the clash in the next two years and that eliminates any trace of self-criticism. When asked if he had spoken with Miller precisely about possible changes on immigration, Trump responded no. "My policy has not changed, it is very firm," he said, adding that the main objective will continue to be to expel "the worst criminals."
Hours earlier, his Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, had already stated that although he had received calls from several Democratic congressmen and senators interested in working on other approaches to immigration policy, he was categorically opposed to any agreement that included an amnesty. "I informed the president that those calls are coming in. And the president said, 'Let's start working with them and let's meet somewhere in the middle.' That's the whole conversation," Mullin said. "Now, if we want immigration reform that allows us to look at DACA and find a way for these people to become legal permanent citizens or something similar, that will be up to Congress," Mullin said, referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, created in the Obama era and which allows undocumented immigrants who arrived as children to remain in the country. Something that Trump has actually been suggesting since at least 2018.
Worldview
It is evident that Trump is seeking to send some type of message to Democrats and Hispanics, already thinking about the 2028 elections, but without giving up the heart of his worldview. According to AP data, with a survey of 100,000 voters, approximately 6 in 10 stated that the Trump administration's actions on immigration control had gone too far. A similar percentage disapproved of the way Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was doing its job. Likewise, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted between November 6 and 9, 48% of Americans ask the new Congress to devote a lot or a lot of attention to immigration reform during its first hundred days. So something is likely to be achieved.
