S6 Ep19: What a Difference a Year Makes (with Jonathan Chait)

Summary

The Focus Group Podcast – S6 Ep19: "What a Difference a Year Makes" (with Jonathan Chait)

Date: January 10, 2026
Host: Sarah Longwell (The Bulwark)
Guest: Jonathan Chait (The Atlantic)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Sarah Longwell and her guest Jonathan Chait dig into the latest attitudes of swing voters toward Donald Trump’s second term, following focus groups with two key types of voters: disapproving 2024 Trump voters, and voters who switched from Biden to Trump in 2024. The episode centers on the dramatic changes in public perception of Trump over the past year, vivid voter frustration with the Venezuela war and economic inequality, and shifting myths about Trump as a populist billionaire. Chait and Longwell parse swing voter responses and the deeper political and policy dynamics that underpin them, with special attention to the supposed "America First" foreign policy and the realities of economic populism.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Surprises and Dynamics of Trump’s Second Term

• Escalation and Unexpected Moves

  • Venezuela War: Chait and Longwell both cite surprise at the U.S. military intervention in Venezuela, which they had not predicted despite believing a second Trump term would be turbulent.
    • Chait (03:13): “War in Venezuela…was maybe not worse than my worst expectations, but just outside of my expectations.”
    • Motives behind Venezuela intervention (anger at losing Nobel Peace Prize, oil interests, domestic political quirks) are discussed with incredulity.
  • RFK Jr. at HHS: Unexpected that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would be put in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services.
  • Tariffs and Immigration: Trump’s escalation of tariffs went beyond predictions. No surprise at his overreach on immigration.

• Dismantling Alliances and "America First" Contradictions

  • Efforts to undermine NATO and global order were expected, but the particular focus on Venezuela was not.
  • Trump's actions undercut his own "peacetime president" rhetoric and isolationist branding.

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2. Focus Group Reactions – Disapproving Trump Voters

Key Voter Sentiments (07:43–12:11)

• Polarization, Economic Discontent, and Systemic Mistrust

  • Civil discourse is dead; economic recovery feels exclusionary ("Netflix is thriving, regular people are hurting").
  • Focus on wealth concentration: “Americans have lost over $1 trillion in their wealth in the last year, while...the top 1% has gained over $10 trillion.” (08:26)
  • Trump accused of media manipulation and empowering the ultra-wealthy.

• Betrayed Expectations and Erosion of Trust

  • “Every single thing [the never Trumpers] told me is happening.” (09:22)
  • Discontent with his handling of issues like the Epstein files, open profanity, and rhetoric.
  • Former Trump supporters feel less safe, especially Jewish voters who saw Trump as bulwark against antisemitism — but now perceive increased danger.
    • “I just wanted to be safe. And I thought Trump would be able to send a message that he wasn’t going to put up with any of that nonsense. And it doesn’t feel like it’s panned out.” (11:14)

Host/Guest Analysis

• Chait finds it notable how swing voter concerns lack ideological consistency but register a general sense of decline and unease.
• Longwell highlights the "big business is thriving, regular people are screwed" narrative now attaching directly to Trump's leadership — a shift from discontent with Biden.
• Chait points out that Trump no longer bothers to even pretend to champion the working class, unlike earlier political positioning.

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3. Focus Group Reactions – 2024 Biden-to-Trump Voters

Key Voter Sentiments (21:49–25:37)

• Economic Anxiety and Social Program Cutbacks
  • Fears over job loss, stricter food stamp (SNAP) requalification, impact on children and families.
    • “I keep hearing this thing about the food stamp program...got people like nervous and scared. I think we going in the wrong direction…” (21:49)
  • Disillusionment with Trump favoring the wealthy (“galas at Mar-a-Lago…so unbelievably ostentatious”) while regular people struggle.
    • “There’s just two extremes of wealth now...stock market’s flying, the wealthy are getting wealthier, and what’s happening to the rest of us…?” (25:00)
• Growing Cynicism Towards Trump’s Motives
  • Perception that “he’s really doing things just to satisfy himself…not really looking out for the average person.” (22:29)
  • Venezuela intervention seen as caring more about "pomp and circumstance" and foreign oil than Americans.
    • “Looking at the Venezuela thing...his interests are not really on Americans at all. It seems like you’re handing out money to other countries when you should be focusing on us.” (25:37)

Host/Guest Analysis

• Longwell emphasizes the collapse of the "Trump is immune to corruption because he’s rich" myth — a foundational belief for many swing voters.
  • “That facade is falling away...part of the end of a central mythology of Trump, 100%.” (27:41)
• Chait: “He just talks about all the Democrats he wants to put in jail and he’s just completely interdirected in his public messaging.” (27:41)

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4. The Policy Void and Populist Opportunity

• Health care, Taxes, and Economic Populism

  • Both host and guest agree the core voter demand is simple economic populism: “Tax the rich. Talk about taxing the rich. Everyone should do that. You should talk about it and you should implement it.” (29:19)
  • Voters are feeling direct pain from higher health care costs and want restoration—even simple rollback of Trump cuts would be popular.
    • “We’re just going to fix all the stuff that Trump has broken. That’s our job.” — Chait (31:42)

• Universal Health Care?

  • Longwell wonders if the moment is ripe for a bigger swing at health care reform.
  • Chait is skeptical: People are risk-averse and fear losing even imperfect employer insurance; backlash likely.

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5. Venezuela War: Motivation, Reaction, and the "America First" Brand

Voter Scepticism and Disquiet (36:35–41:10)

• Mixed or Negative Reactions to Venezuela Intervention
  • Doubts about motives: Is it oil? Is it about Trump's ego (Nobel Prize envy)? Is he just after credit?
  • Scepticism that intervention helps, coupled with concern about civilian costs and U.S. priorities.
    • “I always want to know what’s the motive behind it, what’s in it for him?...he can get the credit or it relates back to him...” (39:17)
  • Some parallels to past failed interventions in Latin America: “Every time the US has gone into these countries, it has been worse for their country.” (38:28)
  • Worry over militarism: “We dropped bombs on eight different countries and he’s only been in office for a year. What’s next year…13 countries?” (39:59)
• Violation of "America First" Promises
  • Many voters thought “America First” meant not spending abroad.
  • As Longwell notes, grassroots want “our tax dollars…to go into American education…to subsidize their health care,” not war.

Chait’s Analysis

• For Trump, "America First" has always been predatory rather than isolationist, about demonstrating strength and extracting resources.

• Chait notes Trump still believes (anachronistically) that wealth comes from controlling resources—despite evidence to the contrary (resource curse).

  • “These are the iron laws that have always determined global power.” (Trump quote) (49:10)
  • Chait: “He thinks it’s a positive tendency. And the reason that most...economists…call it the resource curse…tend to fall into the hands of a kleptocratic elite…” (49:50)

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6. The "Resource Curse" and Gilded Age Imagery

• Chait delves into the idea that natural resource wealth often brings corruption and underdevelopment — and Trump’s policies mimic that.
• Trump apparently envisions a new Gilded Age, with billionaires at the center of power.
• Voter anger centers on visible, ostentatious wealth (Mar-a-Lago galas, billionaire friends) while costs for ordinary people spiral.

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7. Trump’s Health and Voter Perception

Focus Group Themes (52:27–54:54)

• Both candidates’ ages are a concern, but voters see Trump’s issues as physical, not cognitive, unlike Biden.
• Rumors circulate about Trump’s health (Crohn’s disease, cancer), but voters see this as normal age-related decline; not viewed as mentally unfit.
  • “I don’t think it’s a mental thing with Trump…there is a difference…like, let’s say he got Crohn’s disease and you having, like, dementia or Alzheimer’s.” (54:04)

Chait and Longwell’s Take

• Trump’s explanations about his health and aspirin usage exemplify his odd theories (“I want nice, thin blood pouring through my heart. Does that make sense?” (55:12))
• Chait: Difficult to detect Trump’s decline because his speech and reasoning were always meandering and illogical.
• Longwell reflects that Biden’s decline is obvious because he tries to make sense; Trump simply continues rambling.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jonathan Chait on Focus Groups (02:04):
  • “Every time I hear the swing voters, I want to first kill myself and then kill them. And I’m excited for a different experience.”
• On Venezuela Motives (05:26):
  • “I’m going to war because I’m angry I didn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize.”
• Swing Voter Epiphany (12:11):
  • “The sole reason I voted for him this last time was solely because as a Jewish person, I felt unsafe...I thought Trump would be able to send a message that he wasn’t going to put up with any...nonsense. And it doesn’t feel like it’s panned out. I actually feel less safe.”
• Chait’s Shtick (27:41):
  • “He just talks about all the Democrats he wants to put in jail and he’s just completely interdirected in his public messaging.”
• Resource Curse Analysis (49:11):
  • “There’s an inverse relationship between how many resources you have and the wealth of your country. Right. But like Trump isn’t aware of this...He thinks it’s a positive tendency.”
• Host-Guest Banter on Health (55:12):
  • Chait: “They say aspirin is good for thinning out the blood, and I don’t want thick blood pouring through my heart. I want nice, thin blood pouring through my heart. Does that make sense?”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introduction and Surprises in Trump 2.0: 01:06–06:12
• Disapproving Trump Voters Respond: 07:43–12:11
• Analysis of Economic Discontent: 13:38–15:44
• Biden-to-Trump Voters Speak: 21:49–25:37
• Collapsing Trump Myths and Populist Gaps: 26:03–29:19
• Democratic Messaging and Health Care Debate: 29:19–36:13
• Venezuela Intervention — Voter Response: 36:35–41:10
• Deeper Dive: Trump’s “America First" and Resource Thinking: 45:20–50:15
• Trump’s Health and Cognition: 52:01–54:54

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Takeaways

• Growing Swing Voter Disillusionment: Once pliant or hopeful, many former Trump voters now sound distinctly alienated, citing broken promises on the economy, elitism, and foreign entanglements.
• Populist Opportunity for Democrats: Voters’ increasing focus on economic inequality opens a path for tax-the-rich rhetoric and simple reversals of unpopular Trump policies.
• Foreign Policy Fallout: Trump’s “America First” rhetoric is colliding with military interventions that even his base views as betrayals — and old justifications no longer hold sway.
• Health Concerns: Age is an issue for both Biden and Trump, but voters only see cognitive decline as disqualifying; they rationalize Trump’s many oddities as “normal.”
• Shifting Political Myths: The myth of Trump as an outsider immune to donor and oligarch influence is dissolving among critical swing constituencies.

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This summary faithfully conveys the flow, tone, and argument of the episode, providing a detailed guide for those who haven’t listened, with ample attribution and integrated timestamps.

Transcript

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[Sarah Longwell]

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Focus group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bull Work, and this week we're gonna talk about swing voters again because as you know, we've spent the last year periodically taking the pulse of these swing voters on the Trump administration. And let me tell you what a difference a year makes. The swing voters we're going to hear today are about as sour on Trump as they have been since he retook office. But the reasons why are varied and sometimes unexpected. But there's a lot less. Hey, we need to wait and see which is what we got most through 2025. And so I want to talk about the reactions to the recent developments in Venezuela. And it's not going to surprise you that what is happening right now is not the America first that some people voted for. My guest today is Jonathan Chait, staff writer at the Atlantic and favorite of mine to read, friend of the Bulwark. Jonathan, how you doing?

[Jonathan Chait]

Good and likewise to you. And I'm so excited to hear that swing voters are good. Now. I've spent years listening to the show and every time I hear the swing voters, I want to first kill myself and then kill them. And I'm excited for a different experience.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, you are in good standing with our audience. I would say that's an extremely common reaction is is anger at an extreme level at folks, especially the swing voters, because unlike the MAGA faithful, they're like, just rational enough like they've thought it through like what makes them swing voters.

[Jonathan Chait]

Exactly.

[Sarah Longwell]

They've given it more than just a tribal thought. And where they land is very frustrating to people.

[Jonathan Chait]

Yes.

[Sarah Longwell]

But first, before we listen to the voters, I want to just ask you a couple of things as an observer of politics. Because as we've expected, the second Trump administration has been a torrent of bad news, ridiculous blundering, outrages, and things that just make you go, what is happening right now? So what surprised you the Most in Trump 2.0? Because, you know, you were in our camp of like, no, it'll be really, really bad, guys, I promise you. What has surprised you so far?

[Jonathan Chait]

War in Venezuela depict the example that most readily comes to mind. I did not think that we would actually be engaging in kinetic military action overseas. That was maybe not worse than my worst expectations, but just outside of my expectations. I thought most of the authoritarian moves would happen. I thought they would throw people off health insurance, cut taxes for the wealthy, screw with public health. And to be honest, I didn't think RFK Jr. Was going to run HHS. My expectation was that he would influence it. They would get someone who had to, like, listen to all his kooky ideas and we'd be incredibly mad that, like, some faint echo of Kennedy thought was detectable on these moves by HHS, which were like, you know, 20 to 50% worse than normal HHS, but instead he's actually in charge, going full Kennedy and everything. That's pretty wild to me.

[Sarah Longwell]

So those are your two big surprises. Big surprise.

[Jonathan Chait]

Biggest surprises. I would say I could probably think of more, but those are two things that readily jump to mind. How about you?

[Sarah Longwell]

When I was sort of warning about Trump and I had my list of things that I thought he would do that was very bad, dismantling NATO or threatening NATO was always on my list. And so it doesn't surprise me that he's doing something to turn the post World War II order on its head and make the entire globe less safe. Wouldn't have necessarily picked Venezuela. I didn't realize. Trump has this very specific quirk about Venezuela that actually has to do with thinking Venezuela maybe interfered with the 2020 election, that they are the reason that he lost, and also that I don't know if it's it. Maybe he's listening to Marco Rubio more than I would have expected. It doesn't surprise me that Trump is doing a bait and switch on, we're going to be the peacetime president and we're not going to do interventionism. Like Trump is not rooted to Any of these things, like when somebody's like, hey, you get to do big Bo military stuff and just be like a regional bully for the Western Hemisphere and carve up the world between Putin and Russia. Like, as it's happening, I'm starting to be like, I guess this makes sense for Trump.

[Jonathan Chait]

Well, the more plausible theory, the one that the Washington Post reported out, is that he was angry at Machado for winning his Nobel Peace Prize. So he's instead of putting like the right wing pro Trump leader in who won the election, he's putting in the Communist lieutenant to Maduro, which is just so weird. And also just like, you know, I'm going to war because I'm angry I didn't get the Nobel Peace Prizes. I think I've written this before, but the Steven Wright joke, you know, a Nobel Peace Prize, I'd kill for one of those. It's sort of that.

[Sarah Longwell]

I haven't heard that joke. But that is exactly what's happening. Exactly what's happening. Okay. Well, I mean, I guess I'm surprised that he went as hard as he did on the tariffs, despite the fact that they are clearly not working.

[Jonathan Chait]

Yeah, but he went higher on those than anybody thought. Much higher than everybody expected. Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. But I guess I'm not shocked that he's been as extra on immigration as he's been like. That feels actually correct. He was telling us that he was going to do that. Okay. So we did a couple of groups for this show. First, we talked to a group of 20, 24 Trump voters who disapprove of his job performance, just to get a flavor of what it sounds like when Trump's former supporters are souring on him. So keep this in mind as you listen to the groups, and I will different differentiate them as we go. But these are people that we screened specifically for low disapproval of Trump. They voted for him, but they, they really disapprove of him. These are not just like plucked from the ether. And then there's a second group that are swing voters who are Biden to Trump voters in 2024. So they're slightly a different category. They're just people who went from Biden to Trump. And so you can put them broadly in the same category of people who are on the outer edges of liking Trump. These are not the maga, MAGA faithful, but these are, as one can imagine, when Trump is, well, these are the ones who are souring on him. And all through the last year, for people who've listened to the swing voters. Right. You hear them saying Rome wasn't built in a day. Give them some more time. Yeah, the economy's not good. I'm not happy. These groups are markedly different and I think denote a shift that is actively taking place. And so let's listen to how these sort of Trump disapprovers are feeling about the state of the country and about Trump's job performance. Performance.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 1]

Nobody can have a civil conversation anymore. Like I said, how is it that so many people have had rough years and then Netflix is doing great and purchasing Warner Brothers? How has Twitter's acquisition was a monumental failure? So why is Elon now worth over 300 billion? Right. Like, these dots don't connect at all. And in large part, it's because of the regime we're in, not to mention Venezuela in the last 48 hours. Like, things like that are, suffice it to say, not a good look.

[Sarah Longwell]

As far as the decisions that Trump is making and, you know, the rhetoric.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 2]

The misinformation, control of the media and like, the wealth that this 1% is gaining. I was looking yesterday and, you know, Americans have lost over $1 trillion in their wealth in the last year, while. While the top 1% has gained over 10 trillion. And it's like, that's not exactly what.

[Sarah Longwell]

Was supposed to be happening. There's this bifurcation where the stock market.

[Jonathan Chait]

Seems to be doing well, but people aren't.

[Sarah Longwell]

And so I think that's giving a.

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False sense of security to.

[Sarah Longwell]

If you're doing well, you think everything's.

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Great, but you don't realize it's not.

[Sarah Longwell]

Going well for the vast majority of people. North Carolina is pretty purple, so talking.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 2]

To a lot of people here over.

[Sarah Longwell]

That course of the time, we had.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 2]

A lot of political conversations.

[Sarah Longwell]

So I heard a lot of why I shouldn't vote for hims.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 2]

And that thought process was definitely in.

[Sarah Longwell]

My head at the time. But since doing so, it's almost like.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 2]

Every single thing that they told me is happening.

[Sarah Longwell]

And also, as a woman, I think.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 2]

The whole Epstein file situation really bothered me.

[Jonathan Chait]

We've had two or three chances to address Obamacare. We've never done anything. And so that was, you know, a big hang up with this last shutdown, the government thing.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 1]

And, you know, we should be able.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 3]

To come up with an answer.

[Sarah Longwell]

I worked for ICE for several years before moving on to another agency. I can tell you that there's not a single ICE officer out there who doesn't believe that immigration change needs to happen. But they're just working with what they have to work with. I don't really care for their renewal, recruitment strategies and things of that nature. But as far as getting criminals out of the industry, I'm all for that. And he's been vilified from both terms because of that. But when you also look at the numbers, he's deported less people than both.

[Jonathan Chait]

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

[Sarah Longwell]

So it's a big media show for the most part, that goes out and puts officers lives at risk, which I am not a fan of at all. But as far as getting gangs out of this country and getting criminals out here, I saw some really horrific stuff over my time working there. And I do truly believe that unless you are in the know and you know what goes on behind the scenes, dead ice and how awful some of these people are, what terrible human beings they are, you can't really understand what the real drive and cause in getting these folks out of the country and making sure they don't return. But when he specifically said, epstein, are we still talking about this guy? That was the first set, that exact point when he said that, I was like, that's not, that's not cool. Then when he's starting to curse a lot now you have all people just openly cursing like he curses, like what president should be cursing? For me, see, I'm retired here and I'm older probably than a lot of people. I don't look old, but I am very old. So I wasn't cool with that.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 1]

The sole reason I voted for him this last time was solely because as a Jewish person, I felt unsafe. And I felt the Democrats were incredibly weak in combating anti Semitism. I felt that their party had become infected with anti Semitism within its own party system. And that was incredibly scary to me. And all this other stuff didn't even matter. I just wanted to be safe. I wanted to feel safe. And I thought Trump would be able to send a message that he wasn't going to put up with any, any of that nonsense. And it doesn't feel like it's panned out. I actually feel, feel less safe. And it's a really unsettling feeling knowing that, you know, there's a war raging in the Middle east and it used to be America, we're here to help. How can we help? And everyone turned to us for that help. And now it's. It's not like that at all. You know, every single decisive conversation seems to have some sort of undertones of, you know, the Jews control the media or the Jews do this, Jews that.

[Sarah Longwell]

Jonathan, I don't know what jumped out to you about that? But I'll tell you what jumped out to me is the woman who said the never Trumpers were right, because that's all I'm ever listening for, that. The people who warned about Trump, I see that they were right. I blacked out after that. What did you take away from listening to those clips?

[Jonathan Chait]

Well, they're all over the place. Right. I mean, there's the person who's, like, thinks Trump has finally gone too far because he's engaged in profanity.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yes.

[Jonathan Chait]

It's not my biggest concern of this of last year, but, you know, to each his own. I'm glad something has finally struck them. Like you said about swing voters, they're not people who have ideologically consistent views of the world. And some of them, in their defense, are not following politics professionally the way we do. They don't get to do it all day long. There's lots of topics I know nothing about. I would say most topics I know nothing about because I'm spending all my time reading about politics. So fair enough. I guess it's good that they're intuiting at some level that things are not going well. They have different ways of expressing that. Some of it is economic, some of it is other more amorphous things. But, like, I think people do have a sense that, like, we're not living in the golden age, and some of them were just unhappy about conditions under Biden and have realized that those things have not gotten better under Trump.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. I mean, one of the things that. That jumps out to me in part because I hear it a lot, is the people who are saying hate big companies. Like, the big businesses are getting rich, the stock market is high. And so rich people are still getting rich, but regular people, everything is worse. People are losing their jobs. And to me, that is sort of the crux, not just that they are finding their prices going up, which is what you hear from a lot of people. Like, their frustration with Biden was really around. Like, things are too expensive and they're not getting better for me. Now people are attaching the idea that it is also. Wait. But it's getting better for, for some people, it's getting better for the top 1%. And that, to me, seems kind of right in the zone of where Democrats feel comfortable playing. Right.

[Jonathan Chait]

And what's interesting is how little of an effort Trump has made to combat that. Republicans traditionally have understood that to be their weakness, and they haven't, like, leaned into it. When they go cutting taxes for rich people, they're going to do it, but they're not going to like, have those people over for tuxedo clad Gilded Age parties with gold everywhere. They're not going to, like, you know, have the inauguration just be a parade of the most famous billionaires on the planet standing next to the president as if they're partners in government. I mean, Trump sort of forgot that this is a vulnerability of the Republicans. Like, I think he was used to be more clever about this. Right. He used to really take pains to present himself as being the billionaire who was the people's president. You know, part of it was just like the way he talked and his outer borough accent, been eating in the McDonald's. But he often would just like lie about the fact that he wanted to cut taxes for the poor and raise them on the rich when he was doing the opposite. But, like, he was bothering to lie about it. He's not really bothering to lie about it. He's not bothering to put on much of a show of doing the opposite either. So I feel like that vulnerability is just sitting right out there.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. And I think that Republicans recognize it. I just think Trump doesn't care. This is one of my, when I get in arguments with some of my friends who are like, he's going to run again in 2028, and I'm like, you know, he's not governing. Actually, like a guy who cares much about getting reelected, he seems to just be throwing caution to the wind.

[Jonathan Chait]

I don't know how much down that rabbit hole we want to go go down, but I'm not. I wouldn't necessarily agree with that, but hit me. So I think there is a real pattern of things that Trump floats as jokes to put them out there. And it somehow like, detoxifies the idea and allows people to discuss it so that when he finally does it, it's less of a shock. Right. Like, Trump, Kennedy center, that was just like a joke. That was a troll. No one really thought that meant anything. And then one day it's like the words, Trump is outside the Kennedy center and it's a thing he's doing 2028, in exactly that pattern. So I feel like one day he, you know, I'm not saying it will happen, but number one, he could just do it and it would fit in with the way he's made a lot of these moves. Number two, I think he really is just politically out of touch. He made a comment recently to the Republicans in the House conferences like, what the hell is wrong with people? Like, we have the best policies ever. Why don't they understand how great we are? Right. It's not that he realizes his policies are all politically toxic and he just doesn't care. I think he doesn't realize that, like he passed a bill to throw 30 million people off their health insurance. I don't think he really gave much thought to the politics of that. I mean, I think it was driven by more ideologically right wing members of the Republican Conference who care about doing those things and are willing to pay the political cost. I don't think Trump was willing to pay the political costs. I just don't think he was aware of the political cost.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I mean, here's my pushback to that, which is if Trump was 60, I would be very worried about Trump running for a third. I don't think it's for lack of interest. Yeah, I think actuarially it's gonna be tough. I mean, Trump is already limping into 2026 health wise. I agree with you, though, about him being politically out of touch. I actually being surrounded by yes men has real consequences. Right. He is surrounded by people who are like, you're the best, you're doing great. And. And because the polling hasn't fallen off a cliff. Exactly. And because there's enough pro maga polling out there that they could put it in front of him and saying, like, sir, you're still at 92% with Republicans, you know, whatever. There's a real element of him yet not knowing how unpopular a lot of his stuff is. If he were trying to run in 2028. Yeah, I do think you would care about the political implications. And he doesn't really like, let's take Venezuela. Venezuela is just a total thumb in the eye of a piece of his coalition that came along specifically because he's out there saying, I'm going to be the peacetime president. And he did it anyway because he thinks it's fun, but it's politically toxic.

[Jonathan Chait]

But he thinks they've just got a giant pool of oil that we're going to steal and make money from. Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, that's true. And we could get into the whole thing about how that means nobody's thought about this for five seconds.

[Jonathan Chait]

Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

How are you going to get to that oil? You going to build a stable government that's going to allow you to come in there or. Or what?

[Jonathan Chait]

No, he's just going to put a gun to the head of whoever the president is and says, give us the oil or you're the next one to get extradited.

[Sarah Longwell]

Maybe we don't even know how much oil they have or what kind of shape anything is in there. And also, we were just talking about this at a different podcast. Like, it's not 30 years ago when we were desperate for oil. That's not where things are going.

[Jonathan Chait]

But that's what he thinks. And on the health thing, I have a theory about these cognitive tests. I think they keep giving him cognitive tests, and they tell him it's because he's just such a genius, they need to keep, like, finding new measures for how smart he is. That's why he keeps boasting about his cognitive tests. Like they have to come up with some reason to explain to him why they keep giving him cognitive tests. And it's because he's the most brilliant president who ever lived. And I think he believes that.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, that's really funny, because I do think it's hilarious that he doesn't seem to realize that nobody should be taking this many cognitive tests. They don't give cognitive tests to people who seem great.

[Jonathan Chait]

Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

They give you a. Cognitive tests are like, dude, might be slipping a little bit. Let's see if he could remember. Man, woman, camera, horse. You know, all at once, right?

[Jonathan Chait]

No, I mean, that's not. Like, when you're on the MIT faculty, you're not just constantly being shown pictures of a horse in a giraffe and has to identify them. That's. That's not how it works.

[Sarah Longwell]

This show is sponsored by Rocket Money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Now, you might tell yourself that you can keep a solid handle on your budget when not tracking any of it, but let me tell you, that is not true. I guarantee you, you have subscriptions you don't want, and you need to go cancel them so you have more money to buy Bulwark subscriptions, because those are the best subscriptions for your money. And a couple guys in the office were just talking about Rocket Money, and they find it super helpful that you can cancel subscriptions with just a few clicks, and that is fewer clicks than usual, because then you're just not canceling anything. And Rocket Money users have been known to save hundreds of dollars a year off their unwanted subscriptions. And decluttering your credit card statements is one of the best feelings in the world. Trust me, this is exactly the thing that I need, because I have a lot of subscriptions that I want to cancel, and not a lot of patience. Or time to do it because I need more money to buy subscriptions for my friends to the Bulwark because again, best subscription money can buy. So let rocket money help you reach your financial goals faster. [e-mail] the Focus Group that is RocketMoney.com the Focus Group. RocketMoney.com the Focus Group. All right, so we also talked to the second group was the the Biden to Trump voters. And there was a lot of the same frustrations about the state of the country and about Trump's job performance specifically. Let's listen.

[Biden to Trump Voter 1]

I'm getting ready to head into the ministry full time and the things that I pray for people about is really tough. You know, a lot of people lost jobs. People are struggling here and I'm sure all over the world right now. And I keep hearing this thing about the food stamp program where Donald Trump is going to I guess eventually kick in where everybody have to re qualify and all this other stuff. And so, so it's kind of got people like nervous and scared. I think we going in the wrong direction because we're not doing what he said he was going to do. I mean we're going opposite. The country is divided. It's just really tough right now and people are in hard spot.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 1]

I think there's a lot of issues with corporate greed with especially like AI it's kind of unregulated right now, causes a lot of problems. I think in particularly with our current administration. It's tough because I feel like sometimes he's really doing things just to satisfy himself and his pockets and his lobbyists pockets and not really, you know, looking out for the average person.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 2]

I'm working at a Title 1 school and so I see a lot of students and parents who are struggling and so like SNAP benefits, how they're making it almost nearly impossible for individuals to apply and those low income families, families, you know, we have those children who attend our public schools and so seeing them experience certain things, it's very difficult. It's impacting their free lunch as well. We're having to pack nightly lunches for students who don't have food at home. And so we've been doing that since the beginning of the SNAP benefits issues. And so that has really impacted and I feel like we are divided as a nation. And instead of, you know, the motto of make America great again, he's not holding his end of the bargain essentially and it's dividing us.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 3]

What happened was when Trump would go out on the campaign trail, he said a lot of things that many of us thought were promising about making America great again. And I never even realized the subsidies would be expiring at the end of Biden's term or actually at the end of this first year. So it's halfway through. But, you know, I am kind of a little bit disappointed in Trump. I really thought that he was going to look at our country more. And he never mentioned anything about the ACA when he was on the campaign trail. He never mentioned that when the subsidies expired that that was going to be the end of them. I'm surely disappointed in that. And now some of the Republicans that are in Congress are just appalling to me about how insensitive they are about this matter. And I mean, I never got a subsidy, but my rates went up like 50% for this year. I'm paying an astronomical amount of money. I have one year and two months to Medicare. But I'll tell you, if I were a little younger, I'd be forced to go back to work full time at these rates. And I'm not really too well. I have arthritis. And so it would be really hard for me to go back to a full time job now. So. So I think Trump really needs to come back to our country and really focus and not just look at some of the millionaire friends, billionaire, I should say, billionaire friends he has and how he can help them. And I have to say, all these galas that he has at Mar a Lago every other week, I mean, I've been watching them on reels. They're like so unbelievably ostentatious. And then you see the average folk really struggling right now. And so to me, there's just two extremes of wealth now. It's even more extreme than it ever was. And the stock market's flying, the wealthy are getting wealthier, and what's happening to the rest of us, I mean, my premium this year, I'll be happy to say $1,800 a month.

[Rocket Money Advertiser]

I just felt like maybe just give Trump another chance. And also this idea of making America great again, just like maybe trying to reduce prices and all these things, but I felt like even looking at the Venezuela thing and all these things, it seems like his interests are not really on Americans at all. And it seems like you're handing out money to other countries when you should be focusing on us.

[Sarah Longwell]

So people noticed the ballroom. But this idea of like, Trump is doing things for his business billionaire friends and nothing for me, that's the ball game to me in terms of how you move People away from Trump. Anything else jump out at you?

[Jonathan Chait]

That's a great observation. That is it. That is the theme. And I feel like we sort of were more on point explaining what they're saying in the second segment. After the first segment, Trump is governed as if the biggest vulnerability the Republican Party has ever had doesn't exist anymore. And he's just walked right into it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. My producer is going to be like, sarah, I specifically put in your notes. Move on quickly after the first set because he wanted to hear the two sets together because they do sort of say the same things. I got to tell you what, what is interesting, having listened to the groups over so many years, is how much people are just starting to say, you know, maybe as a billionaire, he wasn't really looking out for me because for a long time the way that they thought about Trump was, oh, he said that because he's a billionaire and a rich guy, he's not beholden to the donors. You know, he's not the way that other, both Democrats and Republicans are beholden to the donor class. Trump won't be like that because he doesn't need their money. That's why he's immune to corruption. And that facade is falling away in these clips. And I, I can't tell you how central that is to people's, the brand they've built of Donald Trump in their head. And for that to be crumbling is part of the end of a central mythology of Trump, 100%.

[Jonathan Chait]

And remember the shtick he used to give my whole life I've been greedy, greedy, greedy, and now I want to be greedy for the United States. I want you to put all that beside, I don't care about myself. He doesn't say that anymore, does he? No, he doesn't even say that. That was his best pitch. Now he just talks about all the Democrats he wants to put in jail and he's just completely interdirected in his public messaging.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. I also just wonder about it from the Democrats standpoint, they are trying to center around a message. And during the, the shutdown fight, they really did center on health care, which I think as time has gone on, that looks sort of smarter and smarter because, yes, that message coupled with the fact that people in real time are seeing their premiums go up.

[Jonathan Chait]

Yep.

[Sarah Longwell]

People know who to blame. And so I think that that was a well done move. Like, I'm glad that they shut the government down for that. Again, I think they could have raised the specter of a few other issues, but I think it is in people's minds that health care is getting more expensive and it's Republicans fault. But you know, what I hear is a real demand in the focus groups from Trump voters, from Democratic voters for a more populist economic policy. And I don't know how you define yourself exactly. Like, I don't know if you say you're sort of a centrist, I know you say you're a liberal, but like, liberal, just liberal. How would you define that in terms of if you were saying, okay, Democrats, there's all these voters with all this discontent, they're practically singing your song saying, Donald Trump is just helping the wealthiest people, he's not helping you. What do you think they need to be doing right now?

[Jonathan Chait]

I think it's important to keep in mind that there's things that you can say and there are things you can do, and those don't always line up right. So there are things you can run on that people will like. Like price controls are actually pretty popular, right? Like Kamala Harris was saying, like, I'm going to take on the corporate price gougers and all and all this. But like, if you're actually trying to have some government office that's monitoring the price of Captain Crunch at every supermarket and making sure they're not charging too much for a box, that's just going to create shortages. That's going to make everything worse. On governing agenda stuff, I'm a pretty big believer in the abundance agenda and most of its prescriptions for unlocking wealth. I don't think that those things are going to sound great on the campaign trail. For the most part. Some of them will, but a lot of them won't, especially at any level of specificity. But actually, if you get an office and you want to do things to make things better for people, that's a lot of the stuff that you're going to have to do. So the Democratic Party is really popular. Taxing the rich, like, that's the main unifying idea. The party has all factions. People who want to tax the rich and use it to reduce the deficit, people who want to tax the rich and use it for social programs. Like, it's good politics, it's good policy. That's the tent pole. That's what we should be, taxing the rich. Talk about taxing the rich. Everyone should do that. You should talk about it and you should implement it. Health care, undo Trump's cuts to health care, Undo the Medicaid cuts, undo the ACA subsidy cuts and give people back their health insurance. That seems like a no brainer. Politics and policy that lines up as both messaging and agenda. Then it gets a little more complicated. But to me, like, that's almost enough. Just, you know, we're gonna undo all the stuff that he's broken. We're gonna unbreak it and make it work again. You know, I think Democrats, over time, they campaign in hard mode, meaning they need to not only win the election, but they need to have an ambitious agenda to change the country. Right? Like they want to measure themselves against FDR and lbj. They set the bar really high. And selling people on transformative social change is difficult. So they not only have to like, convince them the public they're better than the opponent, but they also have to convince people that their dramatic social plans are going to work, which sometimes can be done, but it's tough. And I think they should just make things easy on themselves and say, we're just going to fix all the stuff that Trump has broken. That's our job. And I think they should just let themselves do that. And I think that's enough because he's broken a lot of things and make it easy on yourselves. For one election cycle, the number one.

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[Sarah Longwell]

Let me ask you a harder question because I listen to the voters and I, I sometimes find myself almost then wanting to argue against my own positions on things like my own policies that I think are the most advantageous. There's this other part of me listens to voters and I'm like, I don't know, man. She just give people universal health care. They really just want health care that they can rely on. And he said, and like, I know all the reasons why that could decrease the standard of care that we get in the country, how expensive that is, why we are not Denmark or some of these places, why it's so different. And yet you just argued for something that is like, when your kitchen gets flooded and you've got to spend a bunch of money just to get your old kitchen back. And like, that's the worst money you ever spend.

[Jonathan Chait]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Is there not a case to be made that actually some of the big swings. And I mean, like the big. Taking a. Taking a swing at something big, that you're like, we are going to tax the rich and we are going to pay for health care for all Americans. Like, I don't know, man. I think that probably plays at this point, especially with a lot of MAGA voters.

[Jonathan Chait]

I don't think that. I think if you could pass Medicare for All, people would like it and people would be glad you did it, but I don't think you could pass Medicare for All, because I think people would be so worried about what you would do that it would be a backlash. And every time you tried in Congress, it would fail, and it would fail again. Because people don't want their health insurance taken away. And if they. They think if they lose their employer insurance and go on a public plan, it'll be worse or more expensive or both. And even if they're wrong, they think that. I don't think you can convince them they're wrong. And I don't think you can pass it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. I haven't specifically tested this. We don't ask about it a lot. Here's the one thing that I think is different now. And it's sort of a function of Obamacare, which is people's health insurance is extremely expensive. People talk about how expensive their health insurance is all the time.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 3]

Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

And they lump it in with the economy and affordability in the same breath. It is there, I think, about all the Democrats standing on stage during the Democratic primary arguing over their various shades of a plan. And I don't think that would fly with voters today. I think that's what Trump promised them, like simple solutions to big problems that he can't actually deliver on, and they went for that anyway. I don't want to get into a whole Medicaid for all. I just. When I hear these voters say over and over again, and I kind of wanted to ask somebody like you, who I know is funny, skeptical of it, as am I.

[Jonathan Chait]

But I want to test politically, not as policy.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's funny. I'm the opposite. I'm more skeptical of it as the actual policy and less skeptical of it politically now.

[Jonathan Chait]

Interesting. No, I think people are change averse and they think that if they're in something different, it's going to be worse. And because people are so insecure about health insurance or the cost and access that makes them really want to keep what they have. So when you make people nervous that they're going to lose their current arrangements in health insurance, they, that's when they form a backlash against whatever you're trying to do. And that's what Clinton found, that's what Obama found, that's what, what Kennedy found, that's what LBJ found. And that's why he only did Medicare instead of Medicare for all. He only did Medicare for old people.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I wonder if we're still living in that world. But we'll see. We'll see. You, you, you might be right. I'm going to start testing that more and more.

[Jonathan Chait]

Please do.

[Sarah Longwell]

Now, we've heard shades of unease about the regime change operation of Venezuela from the Trump disapprovers. The Biden Trump voters were more mixed on this, but these are often the kinds of people who are more squeamish about foreign entanglements. And for some, that was part of Trump's appeal. Right. There was also a bit of skepticism about Trump's motives. So let's listen to that.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 1]

Naturally, it really didn't solve anything. All you did was just remove him and like the next day they had someone else to replace him. And really, I mean, if you combat in drugs and stuff like that, everybody know Venezuela is not the one supplying the drugs. They may be a pipeline against get it here, but they're not the ones that's actually going it and creating it, processing it. And if you wanted to, you know, combat it, then destroy their factories, destroy their fields.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 2]

Honestly, I don't think their president is a person worthy of a respectful arrest. Like, he doesn't deserve the knocking on the door, hey, you did something bad. Come with us. He's clearly a dictator of sorts. The people of Venezuela have made that very clear. There's actually overwhelming, overwhelming happiness and joy that he's gone or the potential to be gone. And I think, yeah, ideally there wouldn't be war and we wouldn't have to capture people or kill people. But that's not how the world works.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 3]

Because I know a lot about the history of Venezuela and what horrors I've heard from the kids that I've had in school. I feel as though it was about time they got rid of Meaduro. He's not actually the president. He was never formally elected. And so I think it was terrific they got him out. And it reminds me of the time when they took Saddam Hussein out the way they did him as well. They just went. They found him in a hole, they took him out. Having said that, my question really is, what is the motivation of why Trump went in Now? He says, obviously, about the drug situation. And I have heard that while they don't deal fentanyl out of Venezuela, they supply the cocaine that they mix with the fentanyl to create a much more toxic substance in our country. And so that's one of the reasons why Trump said he went in. Now, do I believe that's the reason? Not necessarily. I believe it is more to do with the oil. I don't know where this is all going to take us long term.

[Rocket Money Advertiser]

Also, the Venezuela thing, I just felt like, you know, looking back at history, kind of, why are we going into South America and doing all these things and wondering why we have all these people immigrating to the United States where we're responsible for all these things. And that should not be one of the things that we should be doing. I mean, obviously, you know, we have a dictator and all that stuff. Yes, get rid of the dictator, but let the country try to figure things out. And this has happened in El Salvador, this has happened in Guatemala, Chile and everything else. And every time the US has gone into these countries, it has been worse for their country. So I just feel like Trump is following the same path that all these other presidents have been doing in the past, and nothing good has come out of it, really.

[Biden to Trump Voter 1]

I always want to know what's the motive behind it, what's in it for him? And that's just the way I feel. I feel like if it's not something in it for him, then I really don't think he really care about it that much. Much. If it's something that he can get pumping circumstance out of, or he can get the credit or it relates back to him, like Venezuela, something that he always can get credit for because he's a very selfish person. I don't really believe that he does things out of the goodness of his heart. I think it when he does something, he wants always to take the credit. He want everything to kind of fall back to him. And so whenever something happened or he. He do something I always wonder in my mind, what's in it for him.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 1]

I was just reading a news story yesterday, and since Trump been in office, we dropped bombs on eight different countries and he's only been in office for a year. So I mean, what's next year? 12 countries, 13 countries? I mean, what, we just gonna start dropping bombs on everyone? What if they start dropping bombs on us? I mean, I'm pretty sure that some of these countries feel like that we're bullying them. Innocent people are getting killed when these bombs are dropping. So I mean, that's creating terrorist sales and stuff all over the world that hates America.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 2]

And I feel like we're putting all of these soldiers and they're coming back with PTSD and like long term health, and he's putting all of these individuals in the front line and he's just, you know, kicking back. And so when, when I voted for him, that wasn't what I had envisioned, what I had in mind. I was thinking of somebody who was like a strong leader who made these promises. And so now we're spending like, you know, all of this requires billions of dollars in, in defense. And so we're spending that, but yet we can't focus on the education here, the healthcare, and so the infrastructure here is just like, it's, it's mayhem and. But yet we're now bombing these other countries.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, so you just wrote a piece about how the move into Venezuela and Trump's stated desire to control the oil is part of his, like, consistent historical ethos. But I'm also really interested in how you think America first ism is gonna react to the Venezuela move. I mean, obviously we rushed to grab some focus groups where we asked about Venezuela because we wanted the early reactions. And I, it's gonna matter kind of what happens next to some degree. Are we mired there? Is it just a snatch job and we move on, you know, whatever. But, but what do you think the future is now based on what's happening in Venezuela?

[Jonathan Chait]

I mean, for the most part, as Trump said, MAGA is whatever I say it is.

[Sarah Longwell]

Sure.

[Jonathan Chait]

So at some level, it's pointless to treat the ideology as if it's separate from whatever Donald Trump is saying at any given moment. Trump has always defined America first to mean he does not believe in positive sum interactions with other countries. He believes it's a complete zero sum world. And the role of the United States is to be a predatory power that preys upon the weak and uses our strength to enrich ourselves as if we were the mob boss. Except for our fellow mob bosses, Russia and China were a bunch of grocers that were extorting. He was basically prevented from carrying out this agenda during his first term. But like many things he could do in his first term, he's found ways to to get them done in the second. Now, different people have had different ideas about what America first meant. Some of them interpreted as more non interventionist or even isolationist ways. But I think it's pretty obvious that was never how Trump thought of things.

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[Sarah Longwell]

Well, let me tell you how the voters thought about it and why. The Venezuela thing I think is pretty against what people thought Trump was going to do. Yeah, and it's not because they had any inkling of Trump's real foreign policy. It's because their interpretation of America first is we are going to stop spending money on things that don't directly redound to the benefit of Americans. Meaning they want our tax dollars. They don't want it to go to Ukraine. They don't want it to go to Israel. They don't want it to go to Venezuela. They want the money to go into American education. They want the money to go into their pockets. They want it to subsidize their health care. And this is where Marjorie Taylor Greene's break with Trump is. Marjorie Taylor Greene having the people's understanding of what America first was supposed to be, or the way that they interpreted it, which is not how Trump and even some of Trump's most fervent supporters. I think the way they think about it, which is not so much America first, but like, America dominates.

[Jonathan Chait]

Right?

[Sarah Longwell]

We're going to be the biggest, toughest guys on the block, which by the way, is very distinct from what neoconservatism was. Because, like the idea of we would like the world to be more democratic.

[Jonathan Chait]

Right. Trump wants it to be less democratic.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Trump wants it to be less democratic. What do you think the effects on public opinion? Because then there's also the like, bad. Do people really care about foreign policy at all, though? How do you think the American people are going to feel about Venezuela?

[Jonathan Chait]

It really depends almost entirely on what happens if they just walk away now and say, we got Maduro out and as long as it's a communist who isn't Maduro running the place, we're fine. This will be forgotten, I think, by the voters. I think it's going to matter for America's reputation globally and especially regionally. It's going to freak people out in the Western Hemisphere and other countries, but I don't think it's going to leave an imprint on public opinion if that's what he does. But Trump really, I think, truly believes that we can take money out of Venezuela, that this is a money making operation for us. But he also seems to realize that we have to put money in there to get the oil out. And if that's what he really does, we're going to end up seeking a lot of money into this country and we're not going to get anything out. Certainly not in this term, probably not ever. But certainly in the short run, it's going to be a money losing operation. And then it'll be another example of Trump sending money overseas and not getting anything back, just like the bailout of Argentina, which was a highly unpopular move with his base. So it seems to me like there's potential downside, but at best it'll be a wash.

[Sarah Longwell]

This is where Trump, he is mired in a way of thinking of 30 years ago, where he's like locked in time, where, like, his brain is just like, tariffs are the right thing and looting other countries for oil. Like, those were two things that Trump himself, as a guy, for as long as you can go back and find him, he's been enormously consistent on those two things. And both of them make no economic sense. Like right now he keeps telling people you're getting rich from the tariffs, right? Like, no, we're not. Like, they don't think that. And this is like the same thing here. Where he's like, no, you're going to get rich from the oil 30 years.

[Jonathan Chait]

Ago, like 300 years ago or like a thousand years ago. I mean like if you wanted to get rich a thousand years ago, like the greatest example would be like Chinggis Khan, right? Like Genghis Khan is like, we are going to get a bunch of guys on horseback with bows and arrows and we're just going to go ride across the Asian step and we're going to steal everybody's stuff, we're going to burn down their cities, they don't give it to us. And we're just going to just like take all their wealth. And it worked for the Mongols really, really well, right? Because you couldn't create wealth. Like there was no general increase in productivity in humanity for like centuries on end. The only way to get wealthy was to take a fixed pool of wealth from other people. But since the industrial revolution, there have been massive increases in productivity that have been able to create wealth in positive some ways by creating well functioning societies, rule of law, investing in social services, increasing the productivity of your human capital. People have the ability to create wealth, which is why the countries that have gotten wealthy over the last couple generations are not the ones that have the most natural resources. This is what I wrote about in my piece, right? Like Japan, Israel, the Asian tigers, they did not get rich because they have natural resources, but because they designed well functioning institutions in their countries that allowed them to create wealth. He does not believe in this. He does not understand it. He still thinks the way you get wealthy is to have a bunch of natural resources or to steal it from other countries. I quoted two lines from his speech, but I think they're really worth listening to because this is the core of his domestic and international belief system. The future will be determined by the ability to protect commerce and territory and resources that are core to national security. These are the iron laws that have always determined global power.

[Sarah Longwell]

Iron laws.

[Jonathan Chait]

That's how he thinks you get powerful and rich by taking and controlling resources from other countries. It's insane. It's totally wrong. It's so clearly wrong that economists have a phrase to describe it. It's called the resource curse. The resource curse describes the tendency of resource wealthy countries to be poor. There's an inverse relationship between how many resources you have and the wealth of your country. Right. But like Trump isn't aware of this inverse tendency. He thinks it's a positive tendency. And the reason that most of these economists, there's a lot of different theories because it's an important phenomenon. But the most common explanation for the resource curse is that when you have all these natural resources, they tend to fall into the hands of a kleptocratic elite that resists the creation of strong institutions in the rule of law so they can hold on to their wealth. And these bad institutions actually make it harder for the country to go rich because it's just controlled by a clack of wealthy people who want to control its resources.

[Sarah Longwell]

Which is what happened in Venezuela.

[Jonathan Chait]

That's what happened in Venezuela, right? It's like, do you understand that Venezuela isn't rich? But if you also think about it, that's what Trump is trying to do here in the United States. So I don't think if Trump is aware of this dynamic, he would think of it as a resource blessing that having all these resources allows your tiny clock of wealthy people to control the economic and political system and to destroy the rule of law, destroy the institutions of modern governance that allow countries to thrive, but enable the small group of people to become fantastically wealthy. That's what he's doing in the United States, and that's projection of his forces. Foreign policy ends well as well.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, that's super interesting.

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[Sarah Longwell]

I want to close on some news that the Wall Street Journal broke over the break that Trump has had a bunch of bruising on his hand because of a high dose of aspirin. And partially thanks to that story and his attempts to slather makeup that's kind of the wrong color on his hand. There's been a lot more chatter about his health recently. Like, that is just coming up more. So we asked these Biden to Trump voters about Trump's health and ability to do the job relative to Biden. So let's listen to that.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 2]

It's concerning that both of them were their age when they are presidents. Like, like I said earlier, ideally I would have had a whole new cast of characters, but I don't think that they're comparable. I think Trump, they've reported that he literally doesn't sleep right. Like, he's constantly working. I know, you know, there's been mockery about his diet and things like that. And at the end of the day, I don't know how much of that is our problem. But Biden, it was getting to the point where it wasn't even concerning and mockery.

[Sarah Longwell]

Confused.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 2]

I don't see that as much with Trump. I see more of, like, the physical conditions, which I don't know if we can really discriminate against his physical conditions if they're not affecting his mental health. I wouldn't say they're comparable, but I would say, yeah, it would be nice to not have someone in their 80s as our president, considering you have no clue where you'll be in four years.

[Biden to Trump Voter 1]

And those big bruises are for a reason. But my understanding he has Crohn's disease and some type of cancer and something else. But of course, he's the president, so they're going to keep that hidden until he's out of office, and then you're going to see all these plethora of ports like they did with Joe Biden and all, and it's gonna tell what's going on. But we know that as you get older, things happen naturally and then other things happen as well. So, yeah, his health is very declining.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 3]

I don't think it's a mental thing with Trump as far as a mental decline. I think it's very possible that he's taking a lot of aspirin. I take prednisone, and I've got a bruise on my hand, which is horrible because your skin thins out and it's just you get a lot of bruising. I have arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis. I don't think that's his condition, but I do believe he takes aspirin. And I think maybe because of his age, it could be a little bit as hard.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 1]

When you're that age, health Problems is to be expected. I mean, that's just part of life. But there is a difference in between, like, let's say he got Crohn's disease and you having, like, dementia or Alzheimer's, you know, like a mental disease or problem, as opposed to, you know, just something, you know, like cancer.

[Trump Disapproving Voter 2]

I will say that they haven't, like, publicly acknowledged exactly, like, what it is that it's just been very general statements about his, like, certain conditions that he has, but nothing has been stated specifically. So I'm sure he has some medical issues because of his age, and that's expected just like anybody. But I don't think he has any cognitive issues either. So he is overly aggressive, but I don't think that impacts his ability to run an office.

[Sarah Longwell]

So Trump's always been crazy, but voters don't really see him mentally slipping the way that they felt like Joe Biden was. Now, to be fair, I did four years of Joe Biden focus groups, and so what these voters will say in three years, I don't know. But do you think Trump is mentally slipping?

[Jonathan Chait]

Well, you know, the Wall Street Journal asked him about this aspirin situation, why he's using more aspirin than the doctors say. And I think his explanation just speaks for itself. He said, they say aspirin is good for thinning out the blood, and I don't want thick blood pouring through my heart. I want nice, thin blood pouring through my heart. Does that make sense? And I personally have no questions about this. This makes perfect sense. Thin blood, thin body. If you have thick blood, you're probably going to get fat. Everyone knows this.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's like when he said, I don't exercise because I need to store my energy.

[Jonathan Chait]

Store the better.

[Sarah Longwell]

We have a finite amount of energy. You're just throwing out the energy.

[Jonathan Chait]

Exactly.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. It is a real problem when trying to demarcate decline in Trump because you're like, I don't know what to do with this lunatic.

[Jonathan Chait]

I mean, one of the reasons why Biden's decline was so evident is that, like, he always tries to make sense. Right. Like, so if he's going in a sentence and he's saying, like, this doesn't make sense, he'll just pause until he could say something that can make sense.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Chait]

Then that might be a while. But, like, with Trump, he'll just keep going, and he always has just kept going. So you really can't tell.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. And I don't dispute what you said earlier. In fact, I know it's true that how he Jokes to normalize things. This is sort of going back to the what he run in 2028. I feel less sure about the 2028 thing, the real designs on that because of what I think is real decline. How?

[Rocket Money Advertiser]

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[Jonathan Chait]

I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

[Sarah Longwell]

I just, I put that as like a lower percentage. However, like, the invasion of Greenland is something where I would have said maybe a year ago, like, yeah, that's not a real thing we do. That's like one of those weird things Trump says to where I'm now, like, I don't know, is there a 30% chance, like a 50% chance that we are actually going to invade Greenland? I'm much more. Bullish is the wrong word because that sounds like I would like it, but I am much more bullish on that idea that he would do that now after Venezuela.

[Jonathan Chait]

I mean, look, it pretty much the first term was story after story. Like Donald Trump has this insane idea and we had to talk him out of it, right? That's pretty much every day you'd read a story in the media about that. And the second term has just been every one of those ideas is now policy one by one. So pretty much any crazy thing he says, you now have to kind of assume there's a good chance it's going to happen if it's in any way within his power to do.

[Sarah Longwell]

And this is on that incredibly optimistic note. Jonathan Chait, thank you for joining us. Thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of the focus group podcast. Remember to rate and review us on Apple podcasts and subscribe to The Bulwark on YouTube. Become a Bulwark plus member. Listen to the Secret Pod with me and JBL over@the bulwark.com and we will see you next week.