Trump Says He Can Work With Democrats, Just Not on Everything

Donald Trump isn't shutting the door on the other side of the aisle. The US president said Wednesday that he could cooperate with Democratic majorities in the next Congress on 'many more things than people understand' — name-checking 'financial ideas that would be mutually good.'

He made the comments in a brief interview with CNBC, drawing his own line in the sand at the same time: 'I can't work with them [on] an open border. I can't work with them on men playing in women sports and things,' he said. That leaves room, in his telling, for deals on the money side and little else.

Tariffs are the sticking point he's least willing to budge on. Asked about rolling them back, Trump argued that all 3,000 plants currently under construction would have to stop building if the levies came off. It's the same argument he's used to defend the trade barriers as an engine for domestic manufacturing.

The president also revisited the midterms, a contest Democrats won. He said previously he would accept the results of the vote, but claimed his party would have taken it 'in a landslide' had his name been on the ballot. Markets, for their part, took the day in stride: Germany's DAX jumped 2.2%, the UK's FTSE 100 climbed 4.34%, the Dow rose 3.1% and the S&P 500 added 1.62%, while gold sat flat near $4,064.

The power map in Washington is already being redrawn after the Democratic win. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries told colleagues Wednesday he will run for speaker, according to Axios congressional reporter Andrew Solender, who cited a letter from Jeffries in which he invoked Trump being sworn in at the same Capitol where he 'incited a violent mob' after the 2020 election.

Republicans are regrouping too. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise announced he will seek the Republican minority leader job, writing to House Republicans that 'last night's election was far worse than any of us expected' and vowing to 'chart our path back to the majority.' Meanwhile, Trump told reporters he isn't weighing a replacement for Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, saying he's doing a 'very good job.'