We have not put the same pressure on farm and hotel workers: Trump

US President Donald Trump has said his administration's mass deportation drive has not put the same pressure on farm workers and hotel staff as it has on murderers and drug dealers.

During a phone call with C-SPAN on Monday night, he was asked whether law-abiding people who pay taxes and have lived in the United States for a long time should be deported along with migrants who have committed serious offences.

Trump replied: We certainly have not put the same push on them as we have on the murderers or the drug dealers. He added that a big problem had been mental institutions being dumped into the country. In his words, some very dangerous people were released into the country.

Trump said: We have not put the same pressure, obviously. We call them the worst of the worst. We have not put the same pressure on waitresses and on farm workers, etc. Not even close.

The comments came after Trump floated the idea of working with Democrats on a deal for some immigrants who have lived illegally in the US for more than a decade, following Republicans losing majorities in both chambers of Congress in last week's midterm elections.

In a 60 Minutes interview aired on Sunday, host Ross Douthat asked whether he was open to working with Democrats on immigration as he enters the lame-duck final stretch of his presidency. Trump replied: I would love to do something on immigration.

Asked whether immigration enforcement hurt Republicans in the midterms, Trump said he believed it both helped and hurt. He praised his administration's border enforcement while acknowledging criticism over deportations of people with jobs.

Trump said: But I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs.

He said some Americans believe immigrants who entered the country illegally should be deported, while others believe longtime workers should be allowed to remain, particularly those working in landscaping or hotels and paying taxes.

Trump said: When you go into a hotel and you have a woman working there as a maid, as a cleaner, as a waitress, a lot of good things, great jobs, and all of a sudden they are being taken out of the country, it is tough. It is a tough thing. He added that people on the far-right want deportations regardless of whether the immigrant living in the country illegally is working.

In the interview, Trump signalled his willingness to work a deal for people who have been in the US illegally for 10 and 15 years. However, at a White House press briefing earlier on Monday, he said there will not be amnesty and his policy has not changed.

During the phone call, Trump was also asked whether he expects Republicans to vote against the impeachment of Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth. The House could take up Representative Thomas Massie's impeachment resolution against Hegseth as early as Tuesday. Asked what his reaction would be if some Republicans voted for it, Trump said he would be disappointed.

Asked when to expect the war on Iran to end, Trump said it depends. In his words: Maybe we could knock it out fast or we could knock it out over a short, not a long period of time. He said he is doing it this way because, in speaking with Qatar, whose prime minister was in the Oval Office today, and with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait, basically the neighbours who were attacked pretty violently, they would rather do it this way than another hit, which would be approximately five times bigger than the first hit, which basically decimated them.

Trump added that he believes Iran would like to make a deal, and we will find out whether or not that will happen.