S5 Ep3: At Least He's Doing Something (with Sam Stein)

Summary

The Focus Group Podcast: Episode S5 Ep3 - "At Least He's Doing Something" with Sam Stein

Release Date: February 1, 2025

Overview

In the fifth season's third episode of The Focus Group Podcast, host Sarah Longwell engages in a comprehensive discussion with Sam Stein, Managing Editor of The Bulwark, to dissect the initial actions and public perceptions surrounding Donald Trump's second term as President. Drawing from extensive focus group data collected across the United States, Longwell and Stein explore voter sentiments, executive orders, and the broader implications of Trump's policies in his first ten days back in office.

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Trump's First Week: Actions and Reactions

The episode kicks off with an analysis of Trump's tumultuous first week. Stein describes Trump's actions as "both outrageous and expected" (02:15), highlighting a mix of familiar strategies and unprecedented disruptions. Key actions included:

• January 6th Pardons: Trump issued pardons for several defendants involved in the January 6th Capitol riot, a move that sparked significant debate.

• Federal Assistance Freeze: A controversial freeze on federal aid programs aimed at overhauling government expenditures and operations.

• Executive Orders: Multiple executive orders were signed, signaling rapid shifts in policy areas such as immigration and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).

Stein notes that Trump's approach has led to an "incredibly disruptive, deliberately chaotic and extremely active first 10 days" (02:15), setting the tone for his administration's aggressive agenda.

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Voter Sentiments and Focus Group Insights

Longwell and Stein delve into the findings from recent focus groups, emphasizing that a notable shift has occurred among certain voter demographics:

• Biden to Trump Voters: Many participants transitioned from supporting Democratic candidates like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden to embracing Trump. This group is characterized by individuals who are not ideological purists but have grown more comfortable with Trump's leadership style.

• Moderate and Independent Voters: These voters express appreciation for Trump's visible actions, such as increased enforcement of immigration laws and the federal funding freeze, even if they harbor reservations about specific policies.

A standout observation from Stein: "People are giving him a lot of credit for, like, he's doing something" (08:31), underscoring the value these voters place on visible presidential activity over nuanced policy evaluations.

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Executive Orders: DEI, Immigration, and Other Policies

A significant portion of the conversation centers on the implications of Trump's executive orders:

1. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI):

   • Rollback of DEI Programs: Trump's order to dismantle DEI initiatives within the government has stirred considerable debate. Focus group participants expressed a desire to be hired based on merit rather than diversity quotas. Notable quote from a participant: "I wanna be hired because I deserve the job. I wanna earn, you know, everything that I get" (26:27).

   • Public Reception: While some voters appreciate the emphasis on meritocracy, others are concerned about the broader societal impacts, such as reduced inclusivity in critical sectors like firefighting and law enforcement.

2. Immigration Enforcement:

   • Increased ICE Presence: The focus groups revealed strong support for stricter immigration enforcement, with participants noting visible ICE trucks in their communities as a sign of Trump taking decisive action.

   • Impact on Daily Lives: Voters reported personal and professional disruptions due to the federal funding freeze, leading to anxiety and uncertainty in sectors dependent on federal aid.

3. Recognition of Biological Sex in Documents:

   • Executive Order on Sex Recognition: Trump mandated that government documents recognize only male and female sexes, excluding gender identity considerations. This move sparked mixed reactions, with some appreciating the clarity and others concerned about inclusivity.

Stein emphasizes the potential long-term consequences of these orders: "If we're just ripping things up... when people can't access Medicaid, when veterans are getting shut off from treatment... then shit hits the road" (20:23).

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Approval Ratings and Potential Backlash

Currently, Trump's approval rating hovers just above 50%, a notable increase compared to his previous tenure where he never surpassed 42%. However, Stein warns of "overreach and eventual backlash" (20:23). While early actions have garnered support from his base, the aggressive restructuring of federal programs may lead to widespread negative repercussions as the effects become more tangible.

Key points include:

• Economic and Social Disruptions: The federal funding freeze threatens essential services and safety nets, potentially alienating working-class voters who rely on these programs.

• Public Stability vs. Administrative Chaos: While Trump is praised for taking action, the ensuing instability could erode his broader support base if essential services are severely impacted.

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Pardons of January 6th Defendants

One of the most contentious actions taken by Trump was the pardon of individuals involved in the January 6th Capitol riot. Focus group reactions were nuanced:

• General Sentiment: While polls indicate that such pardons are broadly unpopular, focus group participants showed a lack of intense emotional investment in the issue. Stein observes, "It's almost like a holiday, I think, for some liberals and Democrats. Like, January 6th, like, it's just that day" (46:31).

• Rationalization and Closure: Many voters view the pardons as closure to a past event, expressing indifference towards the pardoned individuals' actions. This detachment suggests that, despite the controversial nature of the pardons, they may not significantly impact Trump's current support.

Longwell adds, "They were like, it was bad. And they kind of were trying to rationalize how they could sort of say it was bad. But I'm not, like, motivated or moved by it" (52:50).

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Closing Thoughts

The episode concludes with reflections on the dynamic political landscape shaped by Trump's aggressive policy maneuvers and the complex voter sentiments they evoke. Stein highlights the importance of understanding the depth and nuances of voter opinions beyond surface-level polling data. As Trump continues to implement sweeping changes, the potential for both solidifying his base and triggering substantial backlash remains a pivotal theme.

Notable Quotes:

• "Both outrageous and expected." – Sam Stein (02:15)

• "People are giving him a lot of credit for, like, he's doing something." – Sam Stein (08:31)

• "If we're just ripping things up... when people can't access Medicaid, when veterans are getting shut off from treatment, then shit hits the road." – Sam Stein (20:23)

• "I wanna be hired because I deserve the job. I wanna earn, you know, everything that I get." – Focus Group Participant (26:27)

• "It was bad. And they kind of were trying to rationalize how they could sort of say it was bad. But I'm not, like, motivated or moved by it." – Sam Stein (52:50)

Conclusion

In this episode of The Focus Group Podcast, Sarah Longwell and Sam Stein provide an insightful exploration of Donald Trump's initial actions in his second term and the complex voter reactions they elicit. By leveraging detailed focus group data, they paint a nuanced picture of a politically divided America grappling with rapid policy changes and their far-reaching implications.

Transcript

[Sam Stein]

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[Sarah Longwell]

Hello everyone, and welcome to the focus group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark, and this week we're going to break down the newest Trump voters first impressions of his second term. And we are going to do it right here in our studio, which is crazy, with Sam Stein, who is sitting next to me, who is. What's your title?

[Sam Stein]

Managing editor. You gave me the title. I just want to be clear, I didn't take it.

[Sarah Longwell]

It was good.

[Sam Stein]

Okay, Great. Earned well.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's a great title. I love that title. Whoever gave it to you was very smart, smart person. That's right.

[Sam Stein]

Insightful, good judge of character.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, so there was a lot that went on on this first week. There was the January 6th pardons and the freeze on federal assistance, hundreds of executive orders and a bunch of bizarre and threatening moves by Trump's new political appointees. But if you're waiting for Trump's first week actions to put a dent in his poll numbers, you are probably gonna have to keep waiting because Trump is getting a muted version of the traditional presidential honeymoon period. So, guest Sam Stein, managing editor of the Bulwark.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

What'd you make of Trump's first week?

[Sam Stein]

Both outrageous and expected. Right. Like, we all sort of anticipated that he wasn't gonna come in and be anything different than he was. Right. In fact, we sort of anticipated that he would feel really emboldened because in this case, he won the popular vote. He feels vindication, he feels a thirst for revenge because of what happened between leaving the White House and returning to it. And I do think there's something to the idea, as cliche as it is, that he knows his way around Washington much more than he did in 2017. And he has all these people who are coming with have specific designs for the government. And then on top of that, you add another element, which is he's brought in all these, like, egotistical tech bros who feel like they should be, you know, given the keys to the kingdom and are great disruptors and visionaries and that, you know, the government's just such an antiquated idea and they just need to completely revamp it. So all those ingredients really have added up to an incredibly disruptive, deliberately chaotic and extremely active first 10 days. And I understand why he is getting a bump. I think, you know, people are sort of like. It's funny because in the lead up to the election, the thing that made me think that Trump was going to win and maybe I was alone in feeling that way. Well, I wasn't alone, but the main thing that made me feel that he was going was that a lot of people who I regard as sort of like ordinary, sane, common sense people in my own personal life were exhibiting a level of comfort with the idea of him coming back into office that they never would have exhibited before. Now. They weren't necessarily saying, we're going to vote for the guy, but they were, you know, curious about it. And if those people who I thought were sensible, rational minded people had that level of comfort, then I feel like that's what makes the type of honeymoon period that he's enjoying.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I think that's right. So the groups that we did this week are Biden to Trump voters, and that includes many people who voted for Hillary Clinton and then Biden and now Trump, which means they've taken a pass on, like an active pass on Trump multiple times. But, like, now they have increased comfort with him. Right, right. So, like, this is an interesting group of people to me because they're not part of a cult. They're not like, clearly not. Yeah, MAGA devotees. But they are people who've gone on a journey from kind of like, I don't know, I always voted Democrat to. Well, the media told me he was racist or, you know, I heard that he was crazy or I just couldn't imagine. But they had this sense of. But I bought into that propaganda and this time I didn't.

[Sam Stein]

Right. And it's this whole notion of like the word disruptor, which is like, you know, in normal times maybe you don't want disruption. Right. Like, I'm sort of. I like things to Be steady, you know. Now disruptor has become kind of co opted to mean like let's get shit done. And that's again, the tech, Silicon Valley lingo is disruption and you know, break shit. And I think Trump has adopted that and I think these people kind of are gravitating towards it, which is, you know, things weren't really working out or they didn't feel like they were working out, things felt really bad, stuff seemed really expensive, the world seemed on fire. Like why should we stick with the status quo? Let's go with the disruption. And that's why when you have 10 days and frankly, if we're just being honest about it, incredibly chaotic, disruptive, borderline incompetent. 10 days. But for these people, I think they're going to give him some liberties to do this stuff because they just think that he should do this type of stuff, he should disrupt Washington, you shouldn't stick with the status quo. And so he'll have a bit of a Runway.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, let's listen to this sound. Cuz it really backs up a lot of what you're saying. And it's been interesting to listen to these voters who they're seeing what Trump is doing and they are doing much less evaluating him on the quality of what he's doing or their assessment of what he's doing, and much more on the fact that he is visibly doing something that they can like see and like they know he's doing something. So let's listen. Like on Facebook, my feed is all about the borders and immigration and and then also too, I think the biggest thing was stops on all the federal. So, you know, a bunch of people have their opinions and freedom of speech, I'm all for that, but it's almost like too much like, you know, people are giving their opinions before you can really figure out what is really truly going on. So I think people are getting bad impressions and you go in and read the comments, you know, it's like, oh, they're taking away all these programs for people. And it's just a lot, you know, and so it's like you have everybody giving opinions and those are the people who are, did not vote for Trump, you know, which is fine because they're going to be very critical and people have that platform that they feel that they can be. And I just, I feel like, do the research, make your own opinion.

[Sam Stein]

I was tuning in to the, the press briefing earlier and I saw the press secretary mention that Doge and the Office of Management and Budget found that the Biden administration was about to send $37 million to the World Health Organization and $50 million to fund condoms for Gaza, apparently.

[Sarah Longwell]

So I think it was just like.

[Sam Stein]

A money laundering thing that the last administration was doing. But in terms of Trump's first week in office, I think he's pretty much telling every world leader that he's still unpredictable to not, do not mess with them, because he will come at you with some tariffs or other economic sanctions that you haven't seen before.

[Sarah Longwell]

I work in clinical research and there's a lot of NIH grants and things like that, and a lot of people are just confused. I work for a hospital, so I'm not scared about my job, but I know if I was working over there, I would be. But, yeah, we've been halted communications and it's just like, what do we do? We have no idea. The CEO has no idea. We're just, we're confused a little bit and not saying it's the right move, the wrong move, I don't know a ton. But it's definitely like something's happening. He's actually doing something. He said he was gonna do something and he's doing it.

[Sam Stein]

It's like drinking from a fire hose right now with all the news that's coming out.

[C]

So kind of just trying to pick.

[Sarah Longwell]

And choose your battles and figure out.

[Sam Stein]

What you wanna pay the most attention to is what I'm trying to do right now.

[C]

My first impressions, I think they're good because you're seeing action. I've gotten used to politicians getting in office and nothing gets done. Like, they always talk about first 90 days, first 90 days, and it's not really an effective first 90 days. I feel like his first nine days are equivalent to some politicians first 90. You're seeing the things that he said he was going to do start to get done, especially immigration. That was a big thing. I'm here in New York as well too. I've had some personal issues with migrants that were doing criminal activity that was getting out of hand. So seeing that actually ramping up from day one. Okay. As far as the federal grants and funding freeze, I mean, listen, we have to all remember Trump's a businessman. And I think that's the point about him that I always liked. And I think he's running the country like a business. So what happens if management steps into a business for the first time, shut everything down, let's see the books, let's look at everything, let's see what needs to stop being spent on and what. So I Understand that it sounds scary, the funding freeze. And I know it does, it does, like shake up a lot of industries or a lot of places. But it's something that needs to be happening. Like, I just recently had work done on my house. Right. Quick analogy. And had a plumbing issue, but I just had the walls done. So the plumber came and he ripped open the same walls I just fixed. And I walked from out the bathroom and walked. And I was like, what the hell? He's like, you want it fixed or you don't want it fixed? So you got to tear the wall down if I want to fix it. And that's kinda. I don't know if that's a great analogy to make. But yeah, no pun on the wall. I really like Trump's like, strength about.

[Sam Stein]

The ICE thing and like pretty much enforcing the law. And I was just like yesterday I was gonna go to the, to the train to go somewhere and my mom said, don't forget your id. And I was thinking, oh, for work, like just to be in the meeting. She's like, no, because of ice. I was like, damn, man, that really is true. Like, Trump is really pushing. And I was like, yo, kudos to him for like, you know, wanting to help the nation, you know, get clarity and be safe.

[Sarah Longwell]

All right, so that last sound was really just scratching the surface on what we heard from these groups on the immigration front. And we are gonna do a deeper dive on that in the coming weeks. We're gonna do like a whole immigration episode. Cause there was so much content. Tell you what, I don't know if you guys are seeing them in your communities, but I'll tell you, in the focus groups we've been doing, people are seeing the ICE trucks everywhere.

[Sam Stein]

Really?

[Sarah Longwell]

And they're not delivering ice to them. They are, they have different type of ice.

[Sam Stein]

Are they? What's the general. I don't wanna get too far ahead, but what, like the general response, are they grateful that there's enforcement?

[Sarah Longwell]

They are, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it'll be in the sound next week, but it's basically them being like, so they're serious, they're really doing this and like, that's what this country needs. Yeah, they're second generation, maybe first generation. Yeah. I'm not surprised because it's in their communities, but they're very much for it. So I just wanna say Trump's approval rating right now sits just above 50%, which is wild, cuz that guy never found water over 42%. Basically, like the whole time he was there last Time. However, his approval rating is significantly higher than his favorability rating. Now, hold on. I mean, this is important where he's still sort of slightly underwater. And I think this is a matter of people being like, I don't like him.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

But I like what he's doing.

[Sam Stein]

Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

And what we're hearing in there is people giving him a lot of credit for, like, he's doing something.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah. Well, even the NIH grantee that was on there, that was, I thought, really interesting, because she's like, well, I depend on these grants. It's very disruptive to lose grant money. My industry could tank. And I'm hearing no information whatsoever, but he's got to do something. And it's like, to me, that seems insane. Right? Like, I would want some stability, especially in biomedical research. It's not just, you want immediate stability. You need, like, five, 10 years stability. And here's this guy who's just totally ripping things up, and you're like, okay. But again, it's basically seeing action. It's this idea that action is a value add and that almost like, you know, drama is a draw. And I think. I don't know how much the four years of Biden, where you just didn't see any presidential leadership at all, has fed into this idea. And this is just a big pendulum swing. I do know that as an ethos, the Trump people believe, like, they should just be omnipresent and that they should be always setting the agenda, that they should always be out there, and that helps them dictate the terms. The problem is when events supersede, and I think you're starting to see Democrats recognize that and realize that they can't just simply sit back.

[Sarah Longwell]

Are you seeing them recognize that and know that they can't sit back?

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, two instances that come to mind. I'm not saying that they're good at it, but I think it's beginning to dawn on them they have to be more active. So the first couple days of the California wildfires, there was absolutely no pushback from Gavin Newsom or Karen Bass or any of them. And then something very interesting and telling happened, which is Gavin Newsom began going on his own Twitter feed and doing instantaneous Twitter response and video response through his Twitter feed in a way that he had not done. And it's very evident. And I talked to people in California who were like, yeah, he knows he needs to be in the cycle more because they're just pounding him and he's not responding. So that was one thing. And then we're taping this on a Thursday after Trump went to the press briefing room to talk about the horrific plane crash. Trump went to the podium, sorry, the lectern, and blamed it on DEI and Pete Buttigieg for being gay. And so, you know, in normal times, everyone be like, what the hell is he talking about? Pete Buttigieg within three minutes was out there being like, this is ridiculous and outrageous. And, you know, he instantaneously responded. Now, Pete's pretty good and adept at this stuff. He happens to be one of the younger members. But then you're seeing like older members. Like Richard Blumenthal was doing, like, weird. Didn't really work. But it was at least an effort to like, do straight to camera talks about some of these nominees. So you're starting to see some recognition that they have to be more active in the news cycle. But again, I think to the point of the focus groupers, it's like they see him, they see him moving. They may not like it, they may think it's a little bit wild and risky, but they like the idea of someone taking action.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's right. I talked about this a little bit with Evan Astos when he was on, but he had interviewed me for a piece a long time ago. And one of the things I was talking about at the time that was just so evident in the focus groups was Donald Trump adjusted people's, like, nervous systems to be like, no, I'm gonna have a president who's in my face all the time. And there were people who'd be like, and I hate that. But they did get used to it, right?

[Sam Stein]

But Joe Biden's win in 2020 was premised on the ADF. I'm not gonna be in your face. Like, this is too much. You need to. So it goes both ways. But it also reminds me of last time or one of the last times I was on the show. We were talking about Kamala Harris. No one knew anything about him. And clearly that was a huge impediment for her when she became the nominee because she was just tucked away and doing nothing and she wasn't out there and any impression of her was going to be formed by her opposition. And I think one of the real lessons of her campaign was, you know, risk averse politicians are not gonna succeed in this type of media ecosystem. And her unwillingness to get out there in that month after she was the nominee really did end up harming her.

[Sarah Longwell]

I want to say that that premise of, you know, we're gonna return to normalcy, normality is actually the correct grammatical, but I'm more correcting the fact that Return to Normalcy is like, actually like a designated historical time period. That drives me crazy because it's not grammatically correct. But that's a personal problem of mine.

[Sam Stein]

No worries. This is a podcast nobody else needs.

[Sarah Longwell]

To engage with at all. My point to Evan was just like, yes, people would sort of say they didn't want it, but the revealed preference, I think, is that they do need some sense of constant communication to feel like somebody's talking to them. You know, listening to voters on the Democratic side, as we were doing kind of the post game, you'd be like, well, what did Joe Biden do? And everybody, like, kind of remembered that he did the vaccine rollout and then nothing else. And it was because there's not this constant communication. So this here of just. I sort of don't care what he's doing. I just want him to do things. And the fact that he's doing things, even if they're the things maybe I don't like, makes me glad to see the action, is, to me, an interesting window into the very basic human psychology.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, I gotta tell a small little nugget. Cause I wrote a piece on this right before the inauguration about how Biden's real shortcoming was not just his inability to use the bully pulpit, but his unwillingness to be forceful. And by that I mean he didn't make big demands of allies or enemies. He was a negotiator and he liked to work behind the scenes. He didn't have dramatic gestures. And I spoke with Representative Ex Representative Tom Malinowski about it, and he had this anecdote about Biden just refusing to demand that Democrats vote on his infrastructure bill. But then he had this other thing. He's like, it's a shame that he didn't make them feel pain for opposing the infrastructure bill more. He's like, if I was running the party, I would have found the districts where there was the worst traffic in the country, and I would have put up billboards being like, tired of being stuck in traffic. Blame Representative X, who voted against. Just simple ways that Trump definitely would do that just reminds people that you took action and they opposed it. And I think ultimately that was really the downfall. And really, honestly, Trump's smartest insight about politics is that you can oversaturate and get away with it.

[Sarah Longwell]

And I'll go right back. I was thinking the same thing about the crash last night after it happened. The decent human thing to do in those moments. Is just be like, this is awful, right? And there were some Democrats who I think were tempted to be like, hey, Trump did this hiring freeze. Trump's been disrupting things, maybe it's his fault. And they got sort of hounded about being bad people and like took their pull it back.

[Sam Stein]

They noted that the FAA header had been pushed out by Elon Musk, that there was a hiring freeze. They wondered, hey, you know, isn't this inappropriate? And they were just scolded hardcore. And then 10 hours later, and then.

[Sarah Longwell]

What does Trump do? So then Trump calls the cameras in, he gets in front of the lectern, he just holds a freewheeling, wheels off, idiotic press conference and blames DEI with no evidence. And the reporters are even being there saying, what evidence do you have of this? And he's like, dumb question.

[Sam Stein]

He said, common sense, common sense.

[Sarah Longwell]

You know, you listen to these voters and I just having listened to them now for five years, sometimes people are like, what's the number one thing that you've learned from listening to voters? And it's just like how little they're paying attention to any of this.

[Sam Stein]

I don't know, these people seem to be paying attention.

[Sarah Longwell]

But here's the thing. One guy knew about the 50 condoms. Yeah, he will walk around for the next four years being like, yeah, you know, they got the non control. You know they were doing condoms. You know they were doing 50 million in condoms. And you know what, it's completely false.

[Sam Stein]

Of course it's false.

[Sarah Longwell]

So here's the thing.

[Sam Stein]

But I did like that the person before him was like, people need to do the research. And this guy's like, yeah, 50 million condoms in. God.

[Sarah Longwell]

The second I hear the phrase, I learned to do my own research. I know I've got a Trump voter. Yeah, exactly, I know I've got a Trump voter. But no, it's not that they're not aware of things happening in the news. They are, but it's sort of like they catch the ephemera in this way. And so the depth of it's not protecting particularly strong. Anyway, I just wanna switch gears really quickly because so at this point in his presidency, Joe Biden was at like 54% approval rating and his disapproval was way low. So he was also getting a honeymoon period. And he was doing way better than Trump is doing now. Like Trump is sort of having a miracle high thing for him, but it's not objectively high. But it tanked in August 2021, the Afghanistan withdrawal and the COVID resurgence. And that's also when inflation sort of started to tick up. Do you think Trump's all the things we just talked about, do you think, though, it's durable for him, or do you think there's overreach and eventual backlash?

[Sam Stein]

Oh, definitely overreach and eventual backlash. I take the respondent who was talking about the plumber shutting down the house. Let's take that analogy and just extend it further. Yeah, sure. Maybe it's important to have a person go in there, rip up the walls, make sure you got the actual water under control. But what if that person goes in there, rips up the walls, but also happens to rip up all the pipes and now your house is really flooding? Like, that is essentially what will happen if this federal funding freeze does happen. And sure, I think in, like, the first couple of days, when it's abstract and it's just people warning about the possibilities of the federal funding freeze hitting, it's easier to be like, oh, people are overreacting. He's just taking action. He just needs to see the books. When people can't access Medicaid, when veterans are getting shut off from treatment, when people can't access their clinical cancer trials because the NIH is not funding them, when people are going hungry because SNAP benefits are gone, when people can't drop their kids off at Head Start programs, that's when shit hits the road. No shit hits the fan.

[Sarah Longwell]

And rubber meets the road, and rubber.

[Sam Stein]

Meets the road, and the shit hits the rubber or something. I saw there was. And again, this is all anecdotal, but There was a TikTok video of this woman who is dependent on food stamps. And she got word. I don't think she's a Trump vote or anything like that, but she got word that those food stamps were going to be cut off. I don't know if you've seen this, but the fear and emotion in her voice. She literally collapses because at the end of the month, she's totally dependent on food stamps and she needs to feed her kids. And so she goes hungry so that she can buy enough food that her kids can eat. And when she was told that those food stamps would stop, she, like, literally collapses and has like a panic attack. And it's all on TikTok. I think that stuff is palpable. I think that stuff actually does break through. And this is where the sort of upload it yourself media system really does actually matter because that stuff will get passed around. And I think one thing when you talk about overreach is that people might be listening Be like, ah, what do they care about all these Social Security programs and social safety net programs? Well, a lot of Republicans are on food stamps. A lot of Republicans are on Medicaid. In fact, Medicaid. A lot of red states are way more dependent on federal funding for Medicaid than blue states.

[Sarah Longwell]

Right.

[Sam Stein]

This will hit Trump's voters. And Trump's coalition is also based upon the idea that poor Democratic voters, working class Democratic voters, actually have come into his coalition and want him to take on the elites. And if he's seen as giving over the government to Elon Musk, who then takes out the social safety net from them, I think that's a potent line of attack against Trump that really could hurt him. I don't think it's gonna happen in 10 days, but I do think he will overreach.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. Although I will say one of the things that has been striking, I brought it up on the show before, is how much people like Elon Musk that he's listening.

[Sam Stein]

I thought his numbers were getting worse, like, the negatives were going higher.

[Sarah Longwell]

Here's. I do think it might be specifically in this cohort of people who have sort of been light, not particularly partisan Democrats, but like regular Democrats.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah. It's the Tesla drivers who actually are.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, they're. But I think there was, in these groups sort of a lot about, man, we need to innovate. And like, AI is coming. Especially you hear it from younger voters who are like, I'm glad he's listening to people like Elon, because we got to move into the future and we need people thinking about this. Yeah.

[Sam Stein]

I mean, totally cool. And let him do AI and let him do.

[Sarah Longwell]

Let him do NASA, like, awesome.

[Sam Stein]

Let him do actually what he's supposed to do, which is digital and technological upkeep in the federal government. Like, we have antiquated systems.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. Not upkeep. That is where they're on paper systems.

[Sam Stein]

Still, it's clearly necessary, and I welcome his involvement in that. Like, the US Government technology is antiquated and horrible. I think it gets a little bit dicier when Elon is going into OMB and being like, let's fire all these people, or at least give them buyouts that may or may not happen. And I think again, back to the airline crash. If shit starts happening beyond just airline crashes, a train derailment, or we have a avian flu outbreak. Right. And you start taking people, health inspectors, food inspectors, people who are studying these diseases away, and then something bad happens. It doesn't take much to connect the dots. It doesn't.

[Sarah Longwell]

Negative personal consequences will be the thing.

[Sam Stein]

Events matter. Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

People will have to experience negative personal consequences. Things that are mind changing. And there's actually been reports about the freeze. The White House didn't know about it because they're trying to distance themselves politically from it because Trump doesn't like to do politically unpopular things.

[Sam Stein]

There were some interesting leaks in there. It was like Stephen Miller was really upset because someone at omb, potentially Elon, was involved in and didn't get clearance. Like, oh, they're already fighting each other.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, yeah, that's right. There's gonna be a lot of that.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

All right, so now I wanna zero in on a few of Trump's other executive orders that were kind of big deals in the last 10 days. One of them rolled back DEI programs throughout the government and while they weren't clear on the ins and outs of what that was gonna mean, it was pretty clear that this order hit a nerve. Like they like. Oh, nerve.

[Sam Stein]

They liked it.

[Sarah Longwell]

No, they liked it. Now they liked it. Let's listen, try to see like, see.

[C]

Things from other perspectives. But that was just me being a black man. Like I don't want like to be hired just because I'm black. I wanna get hired because I deserve the job. I wanna earn, you know, everything that I get, I don't wanna hand out. But at the same time I can understand why, you know, in certain, like career fields or certain industries, you know, there might be a need for more inclusion of, of diversity, but I'm not for including that diversity at the risk of having quality workers, you know what I mean? So I don't know, I just try to see all perspectives of things, you know, I'm glad I'm not the one making the decision.

[Sarah Longwell]

So I'm a 6 foot tall, 160 pound woman trying to be, you know, carried down by a four foot tall lady. I want the big guy throwing me over the shoulder and grabbing my cat on the way down. Thank you. We need to have oversight anywhere when you have bias going into hiring.

[Sam Stein]

Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

So if you're going to be biased.

[C]

Towards a race or something, that, that shouldn't exist. But when we're talking about government places.

[Sarah Longwell]

Like fire department, when we're talking about.

[C]

Things that are, are there to save lives, right. You want the best of the best, right? I want the best firefighter of all the firefighters.

[Sam Stein]

I want the top ones.

[C]

If I'm going to be safe, say.

[Sarah Longwell]

I get caught in a fire and whatnot.

[C]

I know there's A big issue with.

[Sarah Longwell]

This, with the California fires, but if.

[C]

Somebody'S coming up and being like, they.

[Sarah Longwell]

Can'T get me out of the house.

[C]

And then I just die because they had to make that decision.

[Sarah Longwell]

I work for a company that does a lot in dei and for better.

[Sam Stein]

Or worse, and I think there is going to be a lot of talk.

[Sarah Longwell]

About that in the future. It doesn't seem like it'll impact my.

[Sam Stein]

Company a whole lot right now, but, you know, the language adjustments and all.

[Sarah Longwell]

The things that they've done, all the.

[Sam Stein]

The government websites and that's all the.

[Sarah Longwell]

Visual stuff, but there's a lot of repercussions that are going to happen.

[Sam Stein]

I see the point and I see the fact that having all these DEI wordage and things is making it more restrictive almost.

[Sarah Longwell]

So that guy's company somehow works in dei, but he does not like dei. And I'll tell you what, in the focus groups with swing voters, independent voters, obviously the right leaning voters, DEI woke trans stuff. And we're gonna get to some of that a little later in the show, but people are down on it. And so Ezra Klein said this thing that I think I agree with so hard, which is that Trump won the culture war by a much higher margin than he won the election. And I think that is very right. And I think there's a reason that Trump jumped in front of cameras to blame literally this crash that is horrible, horrific, and that nobody has any idea what the cause of was yet, and blamed it on DEI because he believes DEI is so wildly unpopular that if he does that, you get people immediately being like, I wonder if those pilots were women, or I wonder if they were black or gay or some other thing where they were not qualified. Because you hear people in there saying, good diversity, and I want people to get hired and everything. But also, like, if you're a firefighter or you're a cop or you're something, you know, Pete Hegseth, this was like the central thesis of his standards thing. Even though he's grossly unqualified, this is something Americans seem like they're done with the DEI stuff. Is that your sense?

[Sam Stein]

Oh, yeah, like 100%. It's almost a bit jarring how quickly that pendulum has swung in this direction where it's hard to even see an affirmative defense of DEI coming from a major politician. Hakeem Jeffries was out there saying that it is sort of the DNA Democrats to believe in the importance of diversity. But there's not really anyone actively saying, no, we should keep DEI programs It is a huge political loser right now. And it's a great, inconvenient scapegoat for Trump to blame any single problem. And look, I think you look at his slate of nominees for cabinet positions, I don't think people would say they are there on merit unless the merit is that they are good on Fox News. Some of them are very good on Fox News. So we should call this what it is. It's fake anger with dei. It's not about pro merit. And of course, a lot of it is racism. And I think we should call that what it is and be very clear about it. But that doesn't take away from the reality, which is that he ran effectively against it. He really tapped into a pool of voters, predominantly, not exclusively young white men, who believe that their circumstances in life are poor, and they're poor because they've been passed over for the sake of diversity. And that he harnessed that and was able to effectively use it to win election. And so, no, I mean, I was not shocked at all by those responses.

[Sarah Longwell]

I'll say two things jumped out at me. One, and this is also not unusual, that group is predominantly black and brown. Like this focus group.

[Sam Stein]

It's the same thing as those Hispanic voters, second generation immigrant voters who are like, yeah, kick them out. I made it on my own. And there's a little bit of lack of self awareness in those responses. But, like, if you are here and you feel like you've had to claw your way up, you're not gonna look kindly upon people who you think don't have to go through the same hurdles that you did.

[Sarah Longwell]

I've just heard this from a lot of voters, especially black voters, who say, I do not want people to hire me because of my skin.

[Sam Stein]

Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's not that I don't think there's racism, but I'm saying I wanna be hired for my skills and not for this. And so I just hear that specific pushback to DEI all the time, which I think is actually breaking through. And one of the reasons Democrats are loathe to defend it is actually while they hear the defenses from maybe the people who lead some of the affinity groups and say they represent these constituents. If you listen to voters, they're just like, I don't want this, I don't like this.

[Sam Stein]

Right, I get it. And I think that's why Trump was able to make really strong interims with black men.

[Sarah Longwell]

I agree. And the other thing that jumped out at me is several people used fire. Firemen as why firemen. I Think. Cause they're in California.

[Sam Stein]

Okay, got it.

[Sarah Longwell]

And I think because of the fires and I think because just like the.

[Sam Stein]

Crash, Trump blamed DEI.

[Sarah Longwell]

Trump blamed DEI.

[Sam Stein]

I'm not an expert, but it did seem like 80 per mile, 100 per mile winds in a bone dry climate because it hadn't rained in like 10 months. Probably was more significant than like the random lesbian fire.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yes. But yeah, yeah, but they went hard.

[Sam Stein]

On the like and they're going to.

[Sarah Longwell]

Lesbians did this.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah. They're going to keep doing it until it, you know, they can wring every last drop out of it. I mean, it raises obvious questions. Like for instance, after today, if Trump believes that DEI was responsible for the FAA's fuck up, like, should we not fly? Want to make sure there's no DEI before I get on a plane?

[Sarah Longwell]

I got to tell you, I was flying with someone not that long ago and the plane was having an issue. It was like there was a fuel leak and so we had to like deplane.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, de. Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

And it was like the person was like, did you notice it's an all woman crane.

[Sam Stein]

Oh, come on.

[Sarah Longwell]

I was like, good. They noticed that the fuel line was leaking so we didn't fly on the plane. They seem good.

[Sam Stein]

We're in a bad place.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay. So another Trump executive order that had voters talking that they seemed aware of was the one recognizing male and female as the two sexes, especially in government documents and like ordering the government to refer to people only by their biological sexes and not their gender identity. And I want to play what these voters thought about that. Like, I can't really defend the whole thousand gender thing.

[Sam Stein]

I mean, it did become ridiculous after a while. Like, if you want to be trans female or trans male, whatever, do what you want. It's not hurting me in any way, shape or form. Just don't push those agendas onto other people, especially kids who don't need to.

[Sarah Longwell]

Be hearing that they have bigger, bigger.

[Sam Stein]

Things to worry about, like getting good grades and making friends and doing their.

[Sarah Longwell]

Homework on time and not having to.

[Sam Stein]

Worry about, hey, there's non binary, there's.

[Sarah Longwell]

Whatever hell else there is. Like it's at the end of the.

[Sam Stein]

Day, like, I don't want to get into like health, but you either have male genitalia or you have female genitalia. If you see yourself as another gender, whatever. I mean, at the end of the day, God gave you what genitalia you had.

[Sarah Longwell]

When my daughter was in the fifth grade, they had this whole conversation about what your pronouns are. And so like I was routinely like scolded for not respecting my daughter's pronouns as they themselves. And I'm like, that's not something that's going to happen in this house. I gave birth to a daughter. It says it on her birth certificate. She's a girl. Show me her chromosomes. Where she's an XYY or a YYX or whatever. There is a DNA structure of people who are literally transgendered. It is a medical term. However, what we know to be and have labeled accordingly as transgendered isn't a medical transgender. It's an identity thing. And you know what? This is the same girl who wanted to be Spider man three years before that. So she doesn't have the capability of deciding what she wants for breakfast, let alone adding a penis.

[C]

I don't know how many of this group have children, but it's like an issue that I didn't even address. But having to explain to my 12 year old daughter the, the litany of sexes or I don't even know what to call. I'm confused. That's the thing. I'm used to being able to answer questions of my kid and, and like daddy knows everything. So when she asks questions about the genders and all of that and I'm just like, actually mother, you know, I.

[Sarah Longwell]

I have two children and they're teaching me things about that.

[C]

It's something from my, my daughter. It was something from school. She told me that a child in her class is transitioning. And I was like, what does that mean? And I never asked my daughter questions to actually ask, like, what do you mean? But she's transitioning, like transitioning grades. She's like, no, she's transitioning. No, she said they are transitioning. So really confused me. And I was just like, so talking about it. I was like, you know, it was a question asked to me. I asked her back questions and then two minutes into the conversation I was like, wish this didn't even come up because it's just so much, and that's how I was raised, that there's two sexes, male and female. So, you know, see why I would vote for a president. That's what he does, he's doing. I get it. It's a hard thing to explain to children. And I don't want to say. Yeah, it's just hard to explain children.

[Sarah Longwell]

Go ahead. Do you have an immediate reaction?

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, I do. Just dawned on me that these reactions, if you could have gone back 25 years, it would have been about kids coming out as gay in their class, right? It would have been parents freaking out that the classroom culture had allowed kids to be more comfortable with the idea of being gay. And I'm not saying that it's the same exact thing. It's just sort of the potency of a parent who is viscerally worried about his or her child's sexual identity is remarkable. And I think it will drive these types of reactions and responses. You know, I get where Trump was coming in from a political perspective on this because those people are like, speaking from a position of deep fear about what's happening now. Trump, of course, dramatically exaggerates everything and says, like, there's like gender affirming surgeries happening in schools and like, he's gotta stop it because you go in as a boy, you come out as a girl and no, no one knows. And that's obviously not the case.

[Sarah Longwell]

No. If that happens, you've got the wrong kid. Yeah.

[Sam Stein]

Or the wrong school.

[Sarah Longwell]

You took the wrong kid home.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah. I just couldn't help but think about when I was growing up and the conversations being around, why are kids turning gay in school and things like that. And culture evolves. Right. The kids who are in our school system now are going to be much more open to the idea of transgenderism and they will be more politically potent and active in 20, 30 years. But we're just not there yet, I guess so.

[Sarah Longwell]

I graduated college in 2002. Gay marriage happens in the first state in 2005. In that period of time, like, I'm sort of coming out. And so I listened to people of good faith, I feel like, talk about that issue. And then I worked on sort of persuading people on the issue over those years around don't ask, don't tell, and around marriage. And one of the things that I found to be a very authentic and inoffensive reaction was sort of what this guy's doing, which is like, like the confusion.

[Sam Stein]

Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

Like, they don't get it. They're not expressing actual, like, hostility. And I actually hear this in a lot of the groups where they're like. And a bunch of people said this in this group, it was like, you want to be trans, be trans. But it really does seem to be this thing about. And I identify with this to some degree about how you talk about it with young kids, because I do think they're starting to talk about this stuff with kids of ages where it is like, absolutely not appropriate. And I also just wish, rather than us maybe getting so invested on like one area of this thing that we really just Taught kids like, hey man, we're all different. We're part of this beautiful tapestry of humanity. Be decent to each other, understand each other's differences. Like you can teach the broader themes without being like, let me teach you your pronouns.

[Sam Stein]

Right, exactly. And I think they're frightened in the responses. They're frightened that they don't understand what this means. They're unfamiliar with what transitioning is. They fear that their kids are being indoctrinated and, you know, they have no sense of what an actual transition entails and that they're going to lose control of their own family and that society is pushing this on them when they don't want it. And I think anytime that that's the case, you're going to have people really clam up and get anxious and you can tell it in their voices. And this is sort of like the Archie Bunker ism of Trump. Right. He's like, it shouldn't be this way. It wasn't always this way. Why can't we just go back to being normal? And people kind of feel that way too, where it's like society's changing way too rapidly for them and they don't like it. And the family unit and the family structure is changing in ways that they don't like. Their kids are not, you know, outside playing sports, they're on their screens, their kids are not getting good food. This is the Maha stuff. The kids are not getting good food like they did. They're not being taught self reliance like they were. They're being indoctrinated with cultural leftism and transgenderism and it's all kind of falling apart culturally and at the familial unit. And here's a guy who says, enough of that, let's restore what we had. And in a kind of weird irony, he's the one who is promising them stability. Yeah, right. He's saying, I'll be the disruptor to give you stability. And they're willing to pay the price for this huge disruption so long as they have stability on the sort of micro level.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. Give you a half baked thesis around overreach and backlash. Because it's just on this topic still, I think that there has been overreach on sort of DEI and gender politics that goes to things like everybody having their pronouns and their emails or things like that where people are like, what are we doing here? Like, what is happening? And I think that that overreach has led to this backlash. And I'm concerned where the people are like hateful and looking for ways to just attack trans people. That part is extremely disgusting and is on one part of the spectrum. There's the other part of the spectrum that I feel like is kind of human, where people are like, be however you want, but, like, telling me I've gotta include my pronoun, or I've gotta, like, my fifth grader's gonna get told that, like, they're gonna identify as they them, and I'm the bad guy for not saying that. I feel like that's a different thing and that those people feel overreached and they are doing things that they feel like are corrective. But I don't necessarily think that this group, like, I didn't hear them hating on trans people. Trump is bringing out the worst, is my point. Like, he's trying to stoke the worst thing, where some of this stuff is just more, like, human and muddled. Yeah.

[Sam Stein]

And I think the line is, like, sort of in a weirdly libertarian way. It's like, just, if you can, let me do what I want to do. Yeah, right. I don't want you to impose anything on my family where I have to choose a pronoun. Right. Because you're offended by it. If I don't want to, I don't want to. You know, I want to be able to, like, talk to my kid the way I want to talk to my kid. I want to make choices with my kid and not hand that over to the school. That's one thing. But to sort of actively demonize and pick on trans people, to say, oh, the black and female FAA agent up in the, you know, Reagan airport was responsible for the crash with no evidence. That's another thing. And to your point about backlash and such, two things that stood out this week were, I think it was the Department of Defense is like, getting rid of recognizing Juneteenth as a holiday.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Sam Stein]

And I thought that was kind of ironic because it was Trump who actually established Juneteenth as a federal holiday. He did so. And then he, of course, had to remove that rally, which was lying on Juneteenth during the COVID year, because it was disrespectful. So it was like, yeah, that's the pendulum swinging back. The other thing was, it was an online conversation, but it's very illustrative to me, which was that pepfar, the program that George W. Bush started to fight AIDS in Africa, which has been a massive success, saved, you know, tens of millions of lives to hundreds for a relatively small cost. Unobjectively good. Anyways, there was questions because of the federal funding freeze. For a brief period of time, it was stopped because they were stopping every bit of foreign aid and programmatic funding. Like, the online discourse was like, oh, thank God. But then there was people who were like, why should we be spending this money curing AIDS in Africa? They're not Americans. And it's like, I have to believe, or at least I want to believe, that enough people are decent to say, you know what? We're the richest country in the world. It's a pittance of foreign aid, and we're actually doing good across Africa. Not only is it a morally righteous thing to do, but it will rebound on us in terms of how the continent and our relationship and how they treat us. I have to believe people will ultimately say, no, the backlash against pepfar is bad. And in fact, we've gone too far in the pendulum.

[Sarah Longwell]

So this is sort of the point that I was getting to, which is just that I think that Trump is getting to live on the good side of the backlash right now. But as he promotes the nastier side, the grosser side, the side that this people, they want their kids not being talked about trans stuff when they're young, but they don't want, like, hateful shit. Like, I mean, some people do. They're like, oh, are they rounding up grandpa? Like, sorry, man, like, I heard that in the group. But I also think that there are enough people where if Trump overreaches, people are just like, well, what are we gonna do? And I'm like, well, you've gotta show people stuff that they don't like and say, yeah, Trump's doing, like, he's failing you. He's betraying you. It's his fault that there are these personal consequences. And also, isn't he a horrible person? Isn't it too much? But I'll just say on the AIDS thing, this America first mentality, the AIDS thing is Ukraine is Israel. It is people saying, there is a massive strain now around. We need to take care of our own first. Man, do you hear that?

[Sam Stein]

I can understand why you hear it, but I wonder if you, like, chisel down to the specifics. Like, maybe they're not supportive of sending money to Ukraine because it doesn't, you know, just get a deal done so that we can, like, get out of there. Maybe they think, you know, some foreign aid is bad, but the idea of, like, here's like, a small sum of money relatively to, like, make sure people don't die. I have to imagine that if you. It just sort of explain that and Lay down in those simplistic terms that people be like, all right, I'm comfortable with that, because otherwise people will die. Right? Like, oh, man, maybe I'm too.

[Sarah Longwell]

You should listen to voters.

[Sam Stein]

I gotta listen to my voters.

[Sarah Longwell]

All right. Speaking of depressing things that voters think to close, I wanna get into the most egregious of the actions that we heard about this week, which was Trump's pardon of the January 6th.

[Sam Stein]

I was waiting for that.

[Sarah Longwell]

Defendants, so prepare to be disappointed. Let's listen.

[Sam Stein]

Oh, no, that's a hard one. Like, in one hand, I don't care about it because it's not really important in terms of changing the outcome of what's going on in America. But on the other hand, it just was bad optics, honestly. And that's something I don't think Trump could have ever won. He could have never won that situation. And the people that were there and since the way the situation happened, they actually boiled into physical turmoil. It was only one way that would have been seen. And now that's just like. I don't know. That's almost like a holiday, I think, for, like, some liberals and Democrats. Like, January 6th, like, it's just that day. Like, those two words.

[C]

I think that it was because of the fact that he probably feels like he incited it, and I'm sorry, it's.

[Sarah Longwell]

Not funny, but telling them to storm the Capitol, and then they sort of.

[C]

Just follow suit, kind of like puppets, really. And I don't look at it like a racial thing.

[Sarah Longwell]

I think that it was just from.

[C]

Him thinking logically that they've already done.

[Sarah Longwell]

The time for whatever they did or they've been punished enough type of thing, because he also pardoned Kwame Kilpatrick, who.

[C]

Was the mayor here in Detroit that did all that stuff. I don't think that he looks at.

[Sarah Longwell]

It from a racial standpoint at all.

[C]

It's more like a logical thing. And so I don't feel one way or the other about it, because it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Doesn'T affect anything that I have going on.

[Sam Stein]

From what I understand, Trump did request, I believe, from the mayor of D.C. to have the National Guard troops deployed, and they denied his request. From what I understand, that was exposed to be true. And I found that very damning as somebody getting into security, getting ready to start my training for Homeland Security. Like, that's a clear threat, even with his assassination attempts, our clear conflict of interest, I would say. And also with them having supposedly FBI agents or informants, undercover assets, will say in the field on that day. And they not actually addressing this specific number. That is a direct conflict of interest if I've ever heard one. And I'm not that intelligent of a person to put that together.

[Sarah Longwell]

Sometimes people take what he says, and a lot of it has to do with the media. I mean, he pardoned them because, you know, he probably did feel guilty. That wasn't his intention. It's just like I said earlier, he's just direct with his words. And, you know, a lot of people might feed into what he's saying and made their own assumptions at what he was trying to say.

[C]

I'm not going to get into whether what they did was right or wrong. I don't think that that was the way to carry out protest in this country. I mean, there's ways that you post to it. So they might have went a little, a lot past boundaries, but I believe it was done on, you know, on his behalf. So I understand him pardoning. I think some of the sentences was a little harsh in comparison to, like, you know, if you look back at some of these individuals, like, with no criminal history and what they got sentenced to, it's like, okay, but it was expected. Feel like it was expected. Kind of like, all right, yeah, he's going to pardon those individuals. Like, they did that on his behalf.

[Sarah Longwell]

Kind of they did something bad. I think they should have a punishment of some sort, like just on the record, hey, don't storm government buildings. But I do agree some of those punishments were too harsh and they were used to make a point. And, yeah, those should have been reduced. I'm not sure it should have been a complete, like, clean slate, Personally, just because we don't want everyone storming everywhere all the time, Especially deep down, they thought they were doing it correctly. And that is the truth. And as mentioned, that's how America was formed, is we have to take our rights into our own hands sometimes. But I just personally think, like, it's very clear they did something that they probably shouldn't have done and maybe just a slap on the wrist or something. Not just a complete, hey, you're good.

[Sam Stein]

I could be a little bit more lenient if it was something similar, like trespassing, but if it's like assault and stuff like that, then, yeah, they need to be held accountable for that. But at the same time, a few months earlier, I spent the summer 2020 trying to stay out of the cities because of the unrest. So it's kind of a double standard there as well.

[Sarah Longwell]

All right, okay. So here's why I love focus groups more than polling. So we've seen a bunch of polls that show us that pardoning the January 6th defendants are unpopular. People don't like it. I bet if you gave these guys a poll and said, do you think Trump should pardon the January 6th people? They would say, no, the complete pardons. But do they care?

[Sam Stein]

No, they don't care.

[Sarah Longwell]

And that's why when people are like, well, something's so unpopular, it misses intensity. Because everybody here had either a what about. I mean, what about Black Lives Matter? I've been hearing that about January 6th from the jump in every group, or they had a, like, well, he felt bad things were too harsh, like, they had all their reasons.

[Sam Stein]

So I agree that there's nuance to their takes about January 6th, and it's interesting to hear it. And I totally agree, especially about the issue of intensity. And to me, it's just sort of simple. It's like something happened four years ago. These people at the time probably were repulsed by it or at least thought it was bad, but they're not going to, like, get super moving, motivated about it because it no longer is a direct matter or materially significant matter to them. The idea of, oh, it's an attack on our democratic institutions, that's sort of vague for them.

[Sarah Longwell]

You heard somebody say in there, like, doesn't affect my life, it doesn't affect their lives.

[Sam Stein]

And frankly, Trump won again. And that to them is like, oh, democracy survived. We've moved on. And I can imagine to them his pardoning of these people is 2 degree closure. Right? It's like, okay, that chapter is done. Let's stop looking at it. That's why I find it, like, interesting that Democrats were trying to make a big stink out of this, as they should. It's an important issue when the more interesting and potent issue for them is obviously going to be how is Trump's actions with the federal funding freeze or any others, These executive orders affecting daily. People in their daily lives talk more about the price of eggs and the inability to, like, grasp what's happening with avian flu, less about political pardons and what happened on January 6th. I know it's, like, hard to hear for people who care about democracy and democratic institutions, but I just think the responses show that these people are not motivated by this issue.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I think that's right, for better or worse.

[Sam Stein]

But I don't think it's funny because you said, prepare to be disappointed. I wasn't totally disappointed. Like, these people clearly sense that something was wrong. They weren't like, yeah, hell, yeah, you should have done that. They're like, it was bad. And they kind of were trying to rationalize how they could sort of say it was bad. But I'm not, like, motivated or moved by it. But they clearly thought it was bad and evidently, like, they knew that he shouldn't have done it in a blanket form. So I was not totally surprised by what they said. It made kind of sense to me in a way.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. I guess I would just say when you say closure. Yeah, that sounds right to me. Like, I do wonder. Yeah.

[Sam Stein]

Enough of all that.

[Sarah Longwell]

People are ready to look forward. Do you think Democrats should look forward?

[Sam Stein]

Well, of course they should. I don't know if they're capable of doing it. They like relitigating stuff. And, you know, frankly, Trump never looks forward. Like, Trump brings this stuff up all the time.

[Sarah Longwell]

True.

[Sam Stein]

And so, you know, Trump and his people have the benefit of both accusing Democrats of looking backwards and they themselves never getting over the past. But I do think, like, the idea that January 6th is this great fault line. Politically, it is. And yet in the years ahead, it cannot be like we have moved past it.

[Sarah Longwell]

All right, Sam Stein, managing editor of the Borg, thanks so much for joining us.

[Sam Stein]

It's been a pleasure. I love the studio. The studio.

[Sarah Longwell]

We should do it more often. And thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of the focus group podcast. We'll be back next week, but in the meantime, please raise and review us on Apple podcasts and subscribe to The Bulwark on YouTube and become a Bulwark plus member at thebull work.com. we will see you next week. Bye.