In his first sit-down interview since the midterm elections that saw Democrats retake control of both the House and Senate, President Donald Trump blamed Republicans’ poor showing on “bad messaging” — essentially not properly conveying to American voters all of the accomplishments of his second term.
But in his recounting of events, Trump repeatedly twisted the facts on the economy, immigration, gasoline prices, sanctions on Russia, crime and the reasons for the dramatic rise in his net worth during his presidency.
- Pressed on whether his business ventures posed a conflict of interest, Trump falsely claimed the dramatic increase in his net worth since being reelected was due to the stock market’s rise, and he made other false or misleading claims.
- Trump said the stock market “lost almost 2,000 points because of the Democrats'” sweeping victories in the midterms. The stock market has been volatile in the days after the election, but the Dow Jones was a little higher at the close on Nov. 9 than it was on Election Day. The S&P 500 is down slightly, less than 0.3%.
- The president said there are people on the “pretty far right that would like everybody taken out” — referring to the deportation of all immigrants in the country illegally, even if they haven’t broken the law otherwise. But deporting everyone has been Trump’s stated position for years.
- Trump claimed that he “didn’t lift diesel sanctions” on Russia. But his administration issued a temporary license in October that exempted imports of Russian diesel fuel from sanctions.
- Trump falsely claimed that he had brought gas below $2 per gallon in Iowa before the war with Iran.
- Asked about Americans’ views on the economy, particularly concerns about inflation, Trump said that “we have historically good numbers” and pivoted to talking about the stock market. Some economic metrics are indeed historically good, such as the low unemployment rate. But inflation has gone up under Trump.
- The president misrepresented the polls and final margin in the Ohio Senate race, in claiming he boosted Republican Sen. Jon Husted’s chances.
- Trump appeared to inflate the decrease in total crime in Washington, D.C., and he wrongly said that “we haven’t had a murder in a long time” in the city.
The president’s interview with Ross Douthat of CBS News’ “60 Minutes” was conducted on Nov. 6, and aired two days later.
Business Ventures and Net Worth
In one lengthy exchange, Douthat pressed Trump on his net worth skyrocketing while in office and whether his business ventures represented conflicts of interest. Trump made several false or misleading statements in response.
Stock market gains: Douthat brought up a Forbes story estimating Trump’s net worth had increased by roughly $3 billion since his reelection in 2024.
“Well, so did everyone,” Trump responded, telling Douthat he “should’ve had stock” when the journalist said “my net worth did not go up by $3 billion.”
It’s true that the stock market is higher than when Trump took office in January 2025. But that’s not the main source of the increase in his net worth.
The New York Times reported in June, based on Trump’s financial disclosure forms, that he made at least $2.2 billion that year. About $1.4 billion of that came from his family’s cryptocurrency ventures, and additional revenue came from deals licensing his name and other sources.
Trump’s investments in financial markets also increased in value, the Times reported, but that wasn’t the main reason his wealth shot up.
Presidential salary: Trump falsely asserted that he’s the only American president to forego his annual salary of $400,000 and donate it instead.
“I don’t take a salary,” he said, adding that “every other president took their salary.” At one point he said that was “supposedly” the case. “I don’t know if that’s right.”
He’s made this boast before, but it’s untrue. Presidents Herbert Hoover and John F. Kennedy, both of whom were independently wealthy, did the same, Thomas F. Schwartz, director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, wrote in 2016.
Comparison to past presidents: Historians have said Trump’s business entanglements are unprecedented. But in the “60 Minutes” interview, he claimed his situation is no different than what past presidents did.
This came in response to Douthat pressing Trump on whether his stake in World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency company he co-owns with his sons, poses a conflict of interest. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that a company linked to the government of the United Arab Emirates paid $500 million for a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial in January 2025.
“Every president has not owned a cryptocurrency company,” Douthat said.
“Well, but — but they own something, whatever crypto was at the time, okay?” Trump said. “You know, there’s crypto and before that there was oil and the — and every president has had this problem.”
Presidential historians told the New York Times, however, that no other president has launched new business ventures shortly before taking office and then continued to profit from them while leading the country. They noted that other modern presidents, by contrast, had sought to minimize potential conflicts of interest by selling off stakes in businesses or placing them under independent management.
A White House spokesperson told the Times that “President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public.”
Obama-Netflix deal: In claiming that his predecessors also profited from business deals while in office, Trump said Barack Obama “got $100 million from Netflix … during his presidency.”
This is false. Barack and Michelle Obama signed a content-production deal with Netflix in 2018, more than a year after leaving the White House. (The value of the deal was not publicly announced; CNN, citing anonymous sources, reported it was a “high 8-figure deal.”)
Stock Market
Trump said the stock market has plummeted due to the Democratic victories in the midterms. The stock market has been volatile in the days after the election, but the Dow Jones was a little higher at the close on Nov. 9 than it was on Election Day. The S&P 500 is down slightly, less than 0.3%.
“The market lost almost 2,000 points because of the Democrats,” Trump said. “They got in. And the world said, ‘I don’t want to invest with these people’ because they look what happened in France, they look what happened in Italy and all over the world. And they say, ‘This is the same ideology.'”
Trump is referring to a steep drop in the stock market on the Thursday after the election. But he’s ignoring the gains on the day after the election. The market has also rebounded some since that big drop, though that largely came after “60 Minutes” conducted the interview.
The stock market has been on a bit of a roller coaster since Election Day. The day after the election, when it was clear Democrats had seized control of both the House and Senate, the Dow Jones Industrial Average — which tracks 30 of the nation’s largest companies — leapt up 3%. But then the next day, all those gains were lost, and then some, with a drop of 3.4%. Since then, the Dow Jones has risen some, and at the close of the market on Nov. 9 was about 1.2% higher than it was on Election Day.
The S&P 500, which is made up of 500 large-cap companies, followed a similarly bumpy path, gaining 1.6% the day after the election before losing 4.4% the following day. It has risen a bit since then, and closed the day on Nov. 9 less than 0.3% lower than where it was on Election Day.
“The immediate post-election rally has run its course,” David Kelly, chief global strategist and head of the global market insights strategy team for J.P. Morgan Asset Management, said in a piece posted Nov. 9. “People are now focusing on the things they were concerned about beforehand, such as the financing of the AI buildout.”
“I wouldn’t make too much of the sell-off,” Kelly said. “This is a hangover from the big post-election rally.”
Trump also boasted about the stock market’s performance since taking office for a second term, and said it has outperformed past presidents.
“We’re doing numbers that have never been done before,” Trump said. “401(k)s are at their all-time high by a lot. Under other presidents, they were a disaster. 401(k)s have made people rich. And for some reason — remember during rallies I’d say, ‘Please look at your 401(k) before you go to vote.'”
The stock market has done well under Trump. The S&P, with dividends, grew 17.78% last year. It is up 11.24% with dividends reinvested this year so far. But the performance under recent past presidents has hardly been “a disaster,” as Trump said.
The average yearly S&P 500 return, with dividends, under President Joe Biden was 15.34%. It was 16.65% during Trump’s first term, and 14.7% under President Barack Obama.
Deportation Policy
Trump said his deportation policy “might be too tough” and that he was open to discussing a bipartisan immigration bill that would grant many immigrants in the country illegally a pathway to citizenship. But he said there was a group on the “pretty far right that would like everybody taken out.”
While Trump described that as a “pretty far right” faction of the White House, Trump has on numerous occasions said his aim was to deport all immigrants living in the country illegally.
That was Trump’s policy when he ran for president the first time in 2016, saying during a Feb. 25, 2016, Republican debate, “We have at least 11 million people in this country that came in illegally. They will go out.” Trump reiterated that goal in remarks to reporters on June 22, 2019: “Everybody that came into the country illegally will be brought out of the country very legally.”
On Dec. 8, 2024, around a month after winning the presidency for the second time, Trump was asked by Kristen Welker of NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether he planned to deport everyone in the country illegally over the next four years.
“Well, I think you have to do it … you have rules, regulations, laws,” Trump said. “They came in illegally. You know the people that have been treated very unfairly are the people that have been on line for 10 years to come into the country.”
Trump has stuck by that plan since taking office for a second time.
“Those who are here illegally should either self deport using the CBP Home App or, ICE will find you and remove you,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on June 12, 2025.
In a November 2025 interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Norah O’Donnell asked, “Is it your intent to deport people who do not have a criminal record?”
Trump answered: “We have to start off with a policy, and the policy has to be you came into the country illegally, you’re going to go out.”
During his “60 Minutes” interview this week, Trump opined that his immigration policy had both “helped and hurt” the GOP in the midterm elections, and he repeated several inaccurate immigration statistics.
“I think I got an A+ for closing up the border because we had 25 million people come in through Biden over a four-year period,” Trump said, claiming that “many” were from prisons and mental institutions. “You had 11,888 murderers, most of whom, more than half of whom, committed more than one murder,” he said. “We’ve gotten most of them out.” Trump then said that “in the last 17 months … zero people came in through our southern border.”
The 25 million migrants Trump alleged to have come in illegally during Biden’s presidency is highly inflated. Trump has never provided evidence that countries emptied their prisons and mental institutions and sent them to the U.S. The 11,888 murderers claim refers to the number of noncitizens in the U.S. — including those with legal status — who had been convicted of murder but were not in ICE custody as of September 2024. Many were in prison, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
And as we have written, the Trump administration no longer temporarily releases immigrants caught at the border into the U.S. while they apply, for example, for asylum. But it’s not accurate that “zero people” have come through the border illegally. About 5,000 to 10,000 migrants have been apprehended by Border Patrol agents attempting to illegally cross into the U.S. every month of Trump’s second term. And CBP has acknowledged there have been thousands of so-called gotaways, immigrants who were detected via electronic surveillance crossing the border but who evaded apprehension.
Trump went on to say that what hurt the GOP in the midterms on immigration is that “we also took people that had good jobs, that — that created one violation, or breaking of the law, and that was that they came into the country illegally.” Trump said of his deportation policy, “I think it might be too tough.”
As we have written, in addition to increased border enforcement, the Trump administration dramatically increased interior enforcement and deportations. According to publicly available Immigration and Customs Enforcement data, the average daily population of those detained by ICE during the last three months ending in July is up 272% compared with the last three months under Biden.
And despite Trump’s repeated assurances that his administration is focused on the “worst of the worst” ICE is arresting a greater percentage of people who have neither criminal convictions nor pending criminal charges. In the last three months of the Biden administration, 6% of those arrested had neither criminal convictions nor pending charges. By contrast, over the three months ending in July, the latest data available, that figure climbed to 34%.
Lifting Diesel Sanctions
Trump denied removing fuel-related sanctions on Russia when Douthat challenged the president’s claim that “there’s been nobody that’s been tougher on Russia” than Trump.
“But just recently you lifted diesel sanctions on Russia. Like, you’ve done various things to take pressure off Russia,” Douthat said. Trump’s response was, “I didn’t lift diesel sanctions. I made it possible for Russia to give, not us, but to the world — thousands and thousands of barrels of oil, of diesel, which it needed. Didn’t do any big favor.”
But on Oct. 9, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a temporary license that exempted “all transactions … related to the sale, delivery, offloading, or importation … of diesel fuel of Russian Federation origin” that were previously prohibited by the “Russian Harmful Foreign Activities Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR part 587, or the Ukraine-/Russia-Related Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR part 589.” The license says the exemptions are in effect until April.
The same day the license was issued Trump announced a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin for Russia to release Russian diesel fuel to U.S. and global markets. Trump said the deal called for more than 300,000 metric tons to be released immediately, followed by 500,000 metric tons in November and 1 million tons “immediately thereafter.”
He said the goal of the deal with Russia was to lower U.S. diesel prices, which had increased because of the Iran war — although some energy experts and analysts said the amount of diesel to be released would likely have little impact on fuel markets and prices.
Trump also signed an executive order on Oct. 16 that waived sanctions and tariffs that were included in the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026. The executive order says: “I am hereby waiving the application of such sanctions, restrictions, and duties provided for in the Graham Act. I have submitted to the Congress a certification that the issuance of such a waiver at this time is in the national interests of the United States.”
The Graham Act, which Trump signed into law in September, targeted Russia’s economy by placing sanctions on its government and certain individuals and entities, as well as imposing new tariffs on certain countries that import Russian crude oil, other petroleum products and natural gas. Provisions in the Graham Act had been scheduled to go into effect on Oct. 18, 30 days after the legislation became law.
Scott R. Anderson, a senior editor at Lawfare and general counsel of the Lawfare Institute, noted in an Oct. 15 piece that focusing the temporary Treasury license on diesel fuel, which he said would not be included in the Graham Act’s definition of crude oil, “allows the Trump administration to argue that it is not urging countries to act contrary to the letter of those Graham act provisions it is required to implement.” He said, “Whether Trump’s actions are consistent with the spirit of that law, however, presents a much harder question.”
Gasoline Prices
In explaining the midterm result, Trump pointed to the Iran war driving gasoline prices higher. But he misrepresented how low gas prices had been before the war.
“They didn’t like the fact that gasoline went up, because I had it down at a low,” Trump said. “In Iowa, it was $1.85 a gallon, $1.85 a gallon. And when you look at $1.85 and you go up to three-and-a-half, four dollars — still lower than Biden, lower than Obama — but the war was blamed for that.”
It’s true that gas prices have spiked since the U.S. began airstrikes on Iran in late February. But they weren’t as low as Trump claimed before the war.
The average cost of a gallon of regular gasoline in the Midwest was $2.68 the week ending February 23, just before the war’s start, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which tracks gas prices by region. The lowest it has gone during Trump’s second term is $2.59, in the week ending Jan. 5.
The EIA doesn’t report data for Iowa specifically. But according to data provided to us by AAA, the cheapest average price for a gallon of gas in Iowa during Trump’s second term so far was $2.32 per gallon on Jan. 5, and it was $2.64 on Feb. 28, the day the U.S. began airstrikes on Iran. (A spokesperson for AAA noted that since gas stations set their own prices, they can’t rule out that some gas station, somewhere in Iowa, could have been selling gas for $1.85.)
Trump also claimed gas prices today are “still lower than” those under Presidents Biden and Obama. The cost per gallon nationally averaged $4 the week ending Nov. 9, and has ranged from $3.78 to $4.50 since early April, according to the EIA.
That’s still cheaper than the peak under Biden — which crested at around $5 in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — though gas prices subsequently came down, averaging $3.30 per gallon during Biden’s final year in office.
Prices under Obama ranged from a high of $3.97 per gallon in May 2011 to a low of $1.72 in February 2016, according to the EIA, and averaged $2.14 in his final year in office.
We asked the White House where the $1.85 figure comes from and didn’t get a response. Last year, Trump falsely claimed gas was below $2 a gallon, based on the price of an unfinished gasoline product that’s blended with other substances to produce finished gasoline. As we wrote at the time, that price doesn’t reflect what drivers pay at the pump.
Economic Numbers
When Douthat asked the president about polls showing that Americans are “unhappy with this economy,” specifically “cost of living, inflation,” Trump responded that “we have historically good numbers.” He added, “We have the highest stock market in history.”
Some economic metrics are good, by historical standards, such as the unemployment rate, and the stock market has performed well (see the section in this article on the stock market). But Trump sidestepped the mention of inflation. We’ll go through the numbers.
Job numbers. In the interview, Trump highlighted the October jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which showed 165,000 jobs created, “very good job numbers,” as Douthat said. The unemployment rate dipped down just 0.1 percentage points last month, to 4.1%. That’s below the median rate for all months since 1948, which is 5.4%. But it’s a touch higher than the 4.0% unemployment rate in January 2025 when Trump took office.
The job growth over Trump’s 21 months in office has been sluggish overall. October’s solid numbers came after slower growth in September, and the country has experienced a net loss of jobs in six months under Trump’s second term. The 1,025,000 jobs created so far lag behind the 2,613,000 jobs created over the prior 21 months.
Later in the interview, Trump said, “We have more jobs created than ever before in history,” a version of his talking point that “more Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country.” While the latter version is correct, the statistic is largely meaningless. The total number of people employed typically goes up as the population also grows, unless the country is in a recession.
Gross domestic product. Economists’ preferred measure for the economy is real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product, which has been steady under Trump, particularly this year. Real GDP growth was 2.3% in 2025. For the first three quarters of this year, the economy grew at an annualized rate of 2.5%, 2.2% and 3.4%, according to estimates from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. For context, dating back to the Reagan administration, real economic growth has exceeded 3% annually 17 times.
Inflation. The president didn’t talk about inflation, which has become worse under his term. In the 12 months before Trump took office, the Consumer Price Index, the most commonly cited measure of inflation, rose 3.0%, according to BLS. The 12-month increase was 3.7% in September, the most recent annualized figure.
The Federal Reserve is aiming for inflation of 2% a year, using its preferred metric, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Index. That, too, shows an increase under Trump. The 12-month increase was 3.6% in September, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Ohio Senate Race
Trump misrepresented both the polls and the final margin in the Ohio Senate race to claim that he nearly helped Republican Sen. Jon Husted to an improbable comeback victory.
“I also brought a lot of people to — a lot closer to victory,” Trump said of the midterm results. “If you look at Ohio, he was, Jon Husted was a good guy, but he was 15 down. He ended up losing by a point, maybe less than a point. It was — he almost won.”
Polls did not show Husted down 15 points. Democrat Sherrod Brown consistently led in the polls in the run-up to Election Day, but his lead was much narrower. Polling averages from election-analysis sites like FiftyPlusOne, Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin and Decision Desk HQ show Brown’s lead topping out at around 5 to 8 points in the months ahead of the election, and narrowing to 2 to 3 points by Election Day.
Trump is also wrong about how close the final result was. According to the Associated Press, as of Nov. 10, Brown was leading by a comfortable 4.8 percentage points (50%-45.2%) with 98% of the vote counted.
D.C. Crime
Trump also appeared to greatly exaggerate the decrease in crime in the nation’s capital.
“The crime rate in Washington, D.C., is down 89%,” he said. “It’s the safest, and when I was here it was a killing field, three murders a week. Now we haven’t had a murder in a long time.”
We don’t know the source of Trump’s crime rate claim or the time frame he may be using. We asked the White House several questions about the president’s statements in the interview, and we haven’t received a response.
It’s true that crime overall has declined in Washington, D.C., in the past two years, mirroring a nationwide trend.
The Metropolitan Police Department publishes a “District Crime Data at a Glance” page that includes statistics on crime incidents rather than crime rates. The data as of Nov. 10 show overall crime dropping 11% in D.C. so far in 2026, compared with the same period in 2025. The decrease in violent crime in that period was 12%, and the decrease in homicides — which dropped from 119 to 88 — was 26%. Assaults with a deadly weapon, which was the only violent crime category that saw an increase, went up by 40%.
Total crime in D.C. so far in 2026 is down more than 35% when compared with all of 2024, the year prior to Trump taking office. A similar comparison shows that violent crime is down more than 29% and homicides are down almost 53%. Assaults with a deadly weapon are still higher in 2026, up more than 9% from the 2024 total.
In addition, Trump’s claim that “we haven’t had a murder in a long time” in D.C. is wrong, according to other city government data that show nine homicides in the last 30 days. The 88 homicides this year as of Nov. 10 are close to two homicides a week.
FactCheck.org Undergraduate Fellow Angela Lin contributed to this article.
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