Trump Offers Democrats Talks on Immigration and Taxes Three Days After Midterm Losses

President Donald Trump used a Friday evening appearance at Kennedy Space Center to pitch a giant air show. He also reached across the aisle for the first time since Republicans lost control of both chambers of Congress in the Nov. 3 midterms.

Asked by reporters which Democratic initiatives he might support, Trump said: "I think a lot. I mean, I said before, immigration's one, tax cuts, or maybe certain things having to do with taxes to make it more convenient and better. A lot of economic development initiatives we can do. I think we can do a lot of things together."

That was the full extent of it. Trump named no bill, set no meetings and gave no timeline.

He said newly elected officials had expressed interest in working with his administration on issues in their states. He mentioned Texas and South Carolina but named no one.

The Kennedy Space Center pitch

Trump spoke at the Up Summit, an invitation-only transportation conference founded in 2017, held at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. He was joined by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and Artemis astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Jeremy Hansen.

His main announcement was a plan to turn the former space shuttle landing facility into a 1,900-acre venue for aviation and space demonstrations. Trump said it would draw hundreds of thousands of visitors a year and generate billions of dollars in economic activity.

He said the goal is an event "bigger and better, grander" than the Paris Air Show, and predicted the U.S. would host the world's largest air show within two years. No cost, funding source or construction schedule was given.

Trump also repeated his goal of returning American astronauts to the moon before his term ends and establishing a permanent presence there. He said NASA would launch a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars within two years. He added that astronauts would eventually go to Mars.

Trump also confirmed continuing diplomatic contacts with Iran. The U.S. war with Iran is now in its ninth month.

The midterm fallout

Republicans lost the House and the Senate. Florida held for the GOP while Democrats won seats across much of the country.

The reasons are disputed. Analysts cited by the Associated Press say voters may have punished Trump's record, especially on the economy, more than the "America First" ideas themselves.

Alice Weidel, co-leader of Germany's Alternative for Germany party, put the blame elsewhere. "Trump had promised his voters he would not pursue an interventionist foreign policy," she told the German outlet T-online on Wednesday. "This broken campaign promise has now come back to haunt the Republicans."

Weidel acknowledged that the president's party usually loses seats in a midterm. She called the scale of this defeat "remarkable" and attributed it mainly to the "devastating consequences of the Iran war."

That is a notable thing to hear from a politician Trump's circle has courted. Vice President J.D. Vance met Weidel in February 2025, days before Germany's election. After the AfD's state-election win in September, Trump said the party "finally got tired of the absolutely horrible immigration rules and regulations."

Europe's populist right after the vote

The U.S. result lands in a European political climate already hostile to incumbent populists. Since April, voters ousted Hungary's Viktor Orbán after 16 years, and Serbia's Aleksandar Vučić conceded defeat to a student-led protest movement. Brazilian voters also blocked the Bolsonaro family's return.

The Associated Press counts at least eight national setbacks for nationalist, anti-immigration forces in roughly 18 months. They include Romania, the Netherlands, Portugal, Hungary, Sweden, Serbia, Brazil and now the United States. In Portugal, moderate Socialist António José Seguro beat hard-right André Ventura by two to one.

Not everyone reads that as a collapse. Gilles Ivaldi, a political scientist at Sciences Po, says that in France "the far right still has the wind in its sails." Populist candidates have also won presidencies in Poland, Chile and Colombia since mid-2025.

Marine Le Pen is the front-runner in France's presidential election, six months away. Her party has never governed France, which analysts say could help her as voters punish incumbents elsewhere.

Péter Krekó of Budapest's Political Capital Institute says that "when cracks in power become more visible, this can trigger a cascade effect."

What comes next

The outgoing Congress still has a lame-duck session, during which it can act on pending legislation and presidential nominations. The new Congress takes office in January.

In France, the country's highest court aims to rule on Le Pen's appeal of her embezzlement conviction by early April, weeks before the first round. If it upholds the conviction, she could campaign wearing an electronic tag. She could also be barred from running.