Kevin Stitt, the outgoing Republican governor of Oklahoma, has a message for President Donald Trump: Try being nice.

“People are just kind of tired,” Stitt told POLITICO in an interview Friday morning, three days after the Republican Party suffered devastating election losses across the country and a few hours before Trump elevated Stephen Miller to be his chief of staff.

“They are just ready for something new and a change … President Trump’s policies are amazing, and he does a really good job on a lot of fronts, but the civility and then just trying to be nice to people, I think would go a long way.”

Stitt, who was until this summer chair of the National Governors Association, has been in Trump’s crosshairs before. In February, Trump lashed out at Stitt in a dispute over the annual NGA gathering at the White House, calling the Oklahoma governor a “RINO” and a “wiseguy.” The two later appeared to patch things up, after a White House sit-down in March.

Stitt is now one of several prominent Republicans calling on the president and congressional leaders to take stock of the party’s midterm losses and change course heading into 2028.

Asked on Friday if Trump had been nice to him, Stitt laughed, before replying: “I’ve always gotten along with President Trump. He’s always been good to me.”

But the term-limited governor, who has said he intends to return to the private sector next year, did not shy away from calling out the president. Stitt urged Trump to stop directing the Department of Justice to go after his political opponents — tactics the governor described as “Third World country stuff” — and use his final two years in the White House to seriously pursue bipartisan immigration reform.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

You called last year’s election results a “butt whipping” for the party. If 2025 was a butt whipping, what was 2026?

Oh man! I don’t swear, but it’s probably worse than a butt whipping. It was pretty bad. But here’s the deal: I think it didn’t go the way that we had hoped, but I just want everybody to know, it’s not the end of the world. We’re all Americans, and it really shows you that we’re not as partisan as we think. In other words, the American people can swing both directions, right? That’s a positive.

Our leadership matters, the way we conduct ourselves matters. The American people wanted something different, and I think in two years we’ll see what happens.

I think [Texas Gov. Greg] Abbott’s loss was really the most shocking to me because he’s such a good guy and has been a great governor for Texas, and I don’t think anybody saw that coming.

What happened? Why do you think the results went the way they did?

People are tired of the self-dealing that they see in politicians. They see people going to Congress and getting rich, and government contracts to big business. I think people are just really, really cranky right now. Obviously, the kitchen table issues like diesel prices are super hard on the average American, and things are costing more, and I think people are frustrated.

We’ve got to get back to talking about spending. The national debt [is] out of control. We’re spending $2 trillion. It doesn’t matter if Republicans or Democrats are in office. People don’t even talk about tax policy anymore because they think they can spend whatever they want, regardless of income, and that is driving things up.

We have got to have permitting reform done. If you think about why are gas prices so expensive, part of that you could blame on the war in Iran, but a lot of it is the lack of development of new gas processing pipelines. It takes us eight years to build things anymore, and we have so squashed the private sector from meeting the needs of Americans through over-regulation.

Do Republicans need to do a better job of messaging?

They need to do a better job of messaging. But they also need to do a better job of leading when we get there.

I think the American people are so tired of weaponizing the Department of Justice. When President [Joe] Biden, his party was raiding Mar-a-Lago, they were suing President Trump, and then Trump wins big. I wish that we wouldn’t have flipped the script and started weaponizing and going after political opponents. This is Third World country stuff. We have got to stop that.

Now, when the Democrats are in power, if they try to start impeaching Trump again and try weaponizing and investigating instead of leading, I think the American people are going to be frustrated in two years again.

How much blame do you place on President Trump for the midterm results?

President Trump is what he is… I think just over 10 years, people are just kind of tired. They’re just ready for something new and a change. President Trump’s policies are amazing, and he does a really good job on a lot of fronts. But the civility and just kind of being nice to people, I think would go a long way.

Has Trump been nice to you?

I have always gotten along with President Trump. He has always been good to me. But you know … we all know that the president, he’s a fighter, and it’s so tough to be the president because everybody’s always attacking him. But I think that just a little more decorum, and people would give him more of the benefit of the doubt.

He is talking now about potentially working across the aisle. I know you brought up permitting reform. Are there other areas where you would like to see him and the administration working with Democrats on Capitol Hill?

Immigration reform is something where I think there’s a really good opportunity. President Trump is the president that has the credibility because he secured the borders after Biden’s disaster, and literally he could be the one that could really give us some immigration policy that allows the workforce that we need.

Do you see the midterm results as a response to the administration’s immigration enforcement tactics? Was this a rejection of the way that immigration has been handled?

That may be just one part of it, but it is certainly more nuanced than that. I think it is just an overall frustration with the party that’s in charge right now, and the people are wanting something different.

If there’s violent criminals, we need them out. But there was a case in Oklahoma where the guy had been here since he was eight years old from Vietnam, and he worked for a company, the company was vouching for him … but he had a marijuana charge from 20 years ago that was expunged by the state when he was in college. But yet he’s been deported, has a wife and two kids.

That’s the kind of thing that doesn’t make sense to the average person. And that’s where people are like, “Hey, we’re all for getting violent criminals out, but this guy is chasing the American dream, contributing. He is one that we should give a workforce permit to.

Where do you think the Republican Party needs to go from here? 

The American people are looking for civility. They are looking for a statesman. They are looking for someone that is not as partisan that is saying, “Hey, we’re all Americans. Well, we can disagree better. We can disagree with one another on policy, but let’s start debating the policy, like our founders talked about.”

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