President Donald Trump has said his administration's mass deportation policy may have been "too tough", in his first interview since Republicans lost control of Congress in Tuesday's midterm elections.

Speaking to CBS correspondent Ross Douthat for 60 Minutes, in an interview recorded at the White House on Friday and broadcast on Sunday night, Trump was asked whether the immigration crackdown had hurt his party at the ballot box.

"I think it both helped and hurt," he replied. "I think I got an A+ for closing up the border. I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out. But I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs."

When Douthat pressed him on whether the deportation policy had gone too far, Trump said: "Too tough." Asked to confirm, he added: "I think it might be too tough, yeah."

The president pointed to long-settled workers caught up in the enforcement drive, describing a woman who had worked for years as a maid, cleaner and waitress in a hotel before being removed from the country. "It's a tough thing," he said. He argued that the focus should be on removing violent offenders, saying: "Get the killers out. Get the rough ones out. Get the drug dealers out. But let the people that are here, and in some cases here for ten and 15 years, work a deal for them."

Trump said he would "love to do something on immigration" with the incoming Democratic majority in Congress, and suggested a deal on legal status for long-resident workers was "actually doable". He said people had already called him about it, including newly elected Democratic senators who had signalled a willingness to work with him.

The interview also touched on the tone of politics after the election. Douthat asked whether Trump could work with Democrats without insulting them, noting that he had called the incoming Democratic senator from Texas, James Talarico, "TalaFreako" during the campaign. Trump said he could, and when asked whether he could refrain from insults for six months to get a deal done, he replied: "Very easily."

The remarks sit uneasily with the president's actions since the interview was recorded. About an hour after Douthat's conversation with him, Trump replaced his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, with Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff who designed the administration's mass deportation policy. Miller's appointment as chief of staff, announced on Friday, has been read as a signal of a harder line rather than a softening, even as Trump speaks of a possible immigration deal.

Trump also told Douthat he expects to make "a few" changes to his cabinet after the midterm defeat, while saying he retains confidence in his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth. Republicans lost the House and the Senate on Tuesday, along with statewide offices in states Democrats had not won in decades, in what CBS described as an extraordinary midterm repudiation.

The interview was Trump's first sit-down since the results, and his third appearance on 60 Minutes during his second term. CBS said an extended version of the conversation would be published online later on Sunday night.