Trump's Common Sense Alliance

Three items from the last few days point to one conclusion.

First, 60 Minutes. President Trump sat down with CBS's Ross Douthat in his first in-depth interview since the midterms, and Douthat asked the question everybody in my business is asking: can MAGA survive without him?

"I think so," Trump said, "because MAGA is basically common sense, you know? MAGA's strong borders, good military."

He's on to something. Common sense doesn't need a candidate. It needs somebody willing to say it out loud and then deliver.

Second, immigration. Douthat asked whether the crackdown hurt him. Trump's answer was more candid than most of his critics expected. "I think I got an A+ for closing up the border. I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out." But he said he got hurt because enforcement also swept up people with good jobs whose only violation was coming in illegally. Was the deportation policy too tough? "I think it might be too tough, yeah. Ultimately, that hurt me."

Then he added: "I'd love to do something on immigration."

Brian Kilmeade made the same case on my show last week. The one issue Trump can use to bring the country together is immigration reform. Not reversal. Reform. Extended work visas for people who've been here without further criminal activity, the border kept slammed shut, and the worst of the worst deported.

Now look at who might actually sit across the table.

Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo is the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee and is poised to become its chairman. That means he'll have significant say over how ICE is funded. Asked about the new class of progressives who ran on abolishing the agency, Cuellar said: "I don't believe in defunding ICE and I think the majority of the Democrats do not believe defunding ICE, but there are serious rail guards we need put on ICE."

He also said Democrats shouldn't return to the Biden border: "We just can't open up the border and just say anybody that wants to claim asylum can come." And on Biden's record, five words: "The Biden Administration had it wrong."

Does he want a deal? "There are Democrats who are willing to work with the administration, with President Trump, but it takes two to have a deal."

That's an invitation, and the geography behind it matters. Talarico won Hidalgo County by 46 points, two years after Trump carried it with 51 percent of the vote. The border counties that moved right in 2024 snapped back left Tuesday. Cuellar's district is where that fight lives.

Third, the scoreboard. A chart from The Recount has been making the rounds, ranking presidents by midterm seats lost. The final votes are still being counted, but here is where Trump's 2026 stands: 39 House seats and seven Senate seats, 46 in all.

That's a bad night. It isn't a historic one. It ranks ninth on the list, well short of FDR in 1938 (79), Obama in 2010 (69), Truman in 1946 (68) and Clinton in 1994 (63). In House seats alone, 2026's 39 trails 2018's 41. Add the Senate, where he lost seven this time and gained two in 2018, and 2026 is the worse of the two, 46 to 39. Johnson's 48 in 1966 is only two seats away, so I won't pretend he's far behind LBJ.

Here's what the chart really says. Truman lost 68 seats and won in 1948. Clinton lost 63, worked the other side on welfare reform, and won in 1996. Obama lost 69 and was reelected. FDR lost 79 and won a third term. Reagan lost 26 in 1982 and carried 49 states two years later. Midterm losses are a message. They aren't a sentence.

So the game plan.

Veto the crazy stuff. The president has the pen, and Democrats are nowhere near the two-thirds they'd need to override. Let the Squad and the Abolish ICE class, more than a dozen progressives who were elected or reelected on that slogan, say what they like. Let a Minnesota congresswoman under federal investigation and a Michigan senator-elect who couldn't let Bret Baier finish a question do the same. Ignore them.

Go to work with the Cuellars. Keep the nation safe. Keep the border closed and the worst out. Get a real reform law codified, so it isn't an executive order the next president can erase with a signature.

Then take that record to the border counties and win them back for whoever carries this coalition in 2028. Trump praised Marco Rubio on 60 Minutes, called the GOP bench "tremendous," and said MAGA outlives him because it's common sense.

He's right. Now prove it.