‘60 Minutes’ and Trump: How did it go?

Has the press ever figured out how to cover Donald Trump?

Ross Douthat’s interview of Trump on ‘60 Minutes’ has been praised in some quarters, but the credibility of the interviewee … that’s a different matter.

Ted Johnson of deadline.com wrote:

Douthat skillfully questioned Trump over a number of topics, interrupting at points and following up at others, and getting to some places of revelation that many other interviews have not (like the afterlife). Since the midterm losses, Trump has spoken to reporters and did a phone interview with Fox News, Politico and CNN, among others, but 60 Minutes showed that there is still nothing like a sit-down one-on-one. Trump often veers off into wild claims and allegations; Douthat countered him with questions and comments of common sense.

All well and good, but let’s go back to the top of Johnson’s piece:

In his first sit-down interview since his midterm drubbing, Donald Trump insisted on 60 Minutes that candidates would have done better had he been on the ballot.

He blamed voters’ dismal views of the economy on “bad messaging.”

And he ran through a number of explanations for why he made $3 billion since the start of his second term, feeding into the corruption storyline that proved to be so important at the ballot box.

Correspondent Ross Douthat, though, also got the president admitting that his deportation policy “might be too tough.”

Bill Grueskin of the Columbia Journalism Review posted this on Bluesky:

I was wondering why I’m one of the few who are unimpressed by the 60 Minutes Trump interview, and I think it’s because I’m not especially  interested in what he has to say any more.

He lies, he deflects, he dodges. Nothing he says today will have any meaning tomorrow.

It’s just boring.

Sorry!

.  .  .

He told Douthat he’d be open to an immigration deal. Moments later, he named Stephen Miller as his chief of staff! Hmm. Which one reveals his true feelings?

Then this from Rebecca Santana at The Associated Press:

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Monday that he and President Donald Trump haven’t yet discussed any concrete immigration policy changes in the aftermath of the midterm elections as the president shifts his tone on deportations and says he’s open to working with Democrats on the issue.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a conference near Washington, D.C., Mullin also said he is strongly opposed to any amnesty for people living in the U.S. illegally — long a red line for Republicans that has contributed to the intractableness of the immigration issue.

The midterms highlighted voters’ disaffection toward the administration’s hard-line immigration enforcement activities and Trump has since said not only that he could work with Democrats on immigration but also, during an interview with “60 Minutes” Sunday, said that his deportation policy was too aggressive for voters.

The conventional wisdom is, yes, of course, you have to interview Trump and report on it. But if you can’t place value on his words, if what he says today may be reversed tomorrow, what are we to make of it?

Does Ross Douthat have any doubts?