60 Minutes Transcript: Donald Trump, the 2026 post-midterm elections interview

This past Tuesday, President Donald Trump's Republican Party suffered an extraordinary midterm repudiation – losing not just the House and Senate, but statewide offices in red states, from Texas to Kansas to South Carolina, that Democrats hadn't won in decades. In the past, this president has met defeat with claims of fraud and the effort to overturn the 2020 election. But when we met with him in the White House on Friday for his first sit-down interview since the midterms, we found him in a surprisingly reflective mood, and seemingly accepting of defeat. Our wide-ranging conversation covered: immigration and corruption, Iran and artificial intelligence, his potential successors and his own mortality. But we began with the election results.Ross Douthat: Two years ago, you won a big, some might say historic, victory. Just now, the Republican party in the midterms suffered a big, some might say, historic defeat.