← The Focus Group Podcast
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- [00:00]
Commercial Announcer
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- [00:31]
Ashley Parker
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- [00:53]
Sarah Longwell
Hello everyone and welcome to the Focus Group Podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark and this week it is clear that the war in Iran is taking a toll on the American psyche. We're about a month into this war and I think it's clear from our focus groups that there's a certain mental architecture to why Americans are so on edge and why there are polls showing Donald Trump's approval rating at 33% or 35% right now. We're going to get to that in a bit. My guest today is Ashley Parker, staff writer at the Atlantic and one of their most prolific White House reporters. Ashley, thanks for coming back. Thanks for having as much as Trump's stock is going down, not every swing voter sees the cast of characters in the Trump administration equally. There are some they think are clowns and some they like really think are adults. There's sort of a strange new respect for Marco Rubio happening. We're going to talk about both in this, but for our listeners who are not in this business, what is your life like right now, like covering this White House? Like, did the war in Iran, like up end your day to day life in terms of how you're covering the White House or just talk about you for a second reporting on this?
- [02:03]
Ashley Parker
Yes. So I mean, there's two ways to answer that. And one is if I was still at the Washington Post and at a daily newspaper, it would have absolutely 1000% upended my life in a fairly catastrophic way because, you know, there's just this relentless demand and you know, his people try to spin it as he's playing 12d chess. They are right that he that the end result is that he is unpredictable and that can be inadvertently strategic. But I think it would be a mistake to understand this is a deliberate, well thought out strategy. But what that fundamentally mentally means Is every single day you are chasing something different, right? Is he putting boots on the ground? Is he not putting boots on the ground? Why does he want regime change? Does he not want regime change? Why is he saying we've had regime change even when we haven't really had regime change? I will say, just inherently at a magazine, we are covering Trump in a more in the news way. But the nice thing, frankly, is we don't have to match every single drip and drab and sort of daily incremental development. So it's something I think about a lot. And I'm reporting on in a slight, you know, between the, like, micro and 30,000 foot, I'm probably at about like 10,000ft, kind of dipping in when it makes sense. But also I still have the freedom to peel back and do bigger pieces, which I like, which is to say my life is not quite as crazy as you might imagine.
- [03:31]
Sarah Longwell
Well, just going off what you just said, when you're like, they don't have a clear strategy. And it is up to Trump. And I always, whenever people are like, he's playing 15 dimensional chess, I'm like, no, he's eating the pieces, guys, just eating what's on the board. Are there factions in the White House around the war in Iran where some people do have a goal and other people are just winging it? How is it working in the White House right now as they're deciding this, or is it just Trump? Are we all just at Trump's whim for how this goes?
- [03:57]
Ashley Parker
I mean, there were some people in the run up to the war, certainly, who were much more clear eyed and thus much more queasy about it. I would put Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in that bucket. But I want to be clear, it wasn't like in the first term where you had people kind of throwing themselves on the train tracks to prevent this. Right. Like, she has a view, but she views her job as making sure the President gets a lot of different inputs and a lot of different information, and that once he makes the decision that he wants to make, he's able to execute it in the best possible way. There was some real notes of caution and realism from General Kane. Then you look at. And this, to me, is such a striking difference between the first term and the second term. You just look at who his defense secretary is, right? It's Pete Hegseth, whose platform is sort of enhanced lethality. And everything you've seen him say is like, I talked to a service member who told me they want more bombs and Bigger bombs. And like, boy, do I love to hear that. Right? So Trump is also getting those inputs. He's talking to people like Lindsey Graham. You know, the joke is he's never met a conflict he doesn't want to get embroiled in. And so those are the stronger inputs in the president's ear.
- [05:16]
Sarah Longwell
All right, well, I want to start the show the way we start every focus group, which is we ask same question, every group. How do you think things are going in the country? That's just how we kind of open things up. After people tell us, you know, what their hobbies are and what they do, we get to know them a little bit. But it's been really interesting to hear the answers nowadays, especially from the swing voters, which we categorize on this Show As Biden 2020, Trump 2024 voters, which is everybody you're going to hear today. So let's just play a smattering, because I would say the whole focus group was a little bit, in this case, like a, a how are things going in the country? Airing of grievances. But we're just going to start with a few of the answers to that exact question to get us started.
- [06:06]
Focus Group Participant 1
I enjoy travel. Of course, I won't be traveling anytime soon because of the lines at the airport, but I, when not traveling, I enjoy hiking as well.
- [06:18]
Focus Group Participant 2
And I know people wanted him to be strong on the border, but to bring, you know, ice in and just, you know, give them, you know, it felt like unfettered powers. These murders, I think, were way over the top. You know, now he's got him at the airports, which seems ridiculous as well.
- [06:37]
Focus Group Participant 3
We are safer at the border. That just can't be, can't be denied. But you can't really arrest all the ones that have already flooded in under the previous four years. And he's trying to overcompensate that. And now you shouldn't be coming into force masked up like you're a gang into a city when all you're supposed to do is your job there. Come in as you are, arrest who you're supposed to arrest, and leave everybody else alone. Looking at my portfolios, and I don't like them, and they're not great. I know that there's a lot of tipsy, turvy things, it seems like, even with crypto and things like that. So investment wise, I think that there's not a lot of steady, so then there's not a lot of steady growth, and then anything else kind of like can contribute to that at this Point
- [07:23]
Focus Group Participant 4
where we started from the beginning of Trump's term here, and then where we are now just almost midtermish. The economy is going down. Gas prices are super high, just like mentioned. You know, investment portfolios are down below what they've been within the last year. Food is expensive, of course. I just think the economy is on a downward spiral right now.
- [07:52]
Focus Group Participant 3
The tariffs kind of hit us really hard in the construction industry, which kind of opened up my eyes to the rest of the state of the economy. It's kind of scary how divided we are, that we're like just bitter rivals, not as human beings, but on political sides of the spectrum to where it's kind of like a heated sports rivalry where you just, you know, taught to hate anybody that's not aligned with you nowadays. And it's just kind of destroying us from within.
- [08:18]
Focus Group Participant 1
I have a lot of people I know who have bachelor's who have been working like retail for the past couple years because of it. And I also think just the dividedness, not we can't really be friends with the other side. Just there's a lot of tension and like, depending on who you voted for and stuff.
- [08:39]
Focus Group Participant 2
So, you know, I've seen things like SNAP cuts that are really hurting poor people. So I'm concerned about that. I mean, I have a daughter who's been out of college for almost a year and can't find a job in her field. So concerned about especially entry level jobs and also concerned about, you know, of course, this war if it drags on. And you know, the stuff with ice, very concerning.
- [09:09]
Focus Group Participant 5
Lots of things are expensive right now. Like we're looking at health insurance tripling for the same services last year and that's from health, dental, vision, all the above. Even car insurance needs a cap, if you ask me. But yeah, it's pretty expensive and the pay didn't increase, but the bills did.
- [09:28]
Sarah Longwell
So that's just like a little bit of a taste. And but the one I want to focus on, because this was interesting to me, which is the first woman who said, I love to travel, but I can't right now because of what's going on at the airports, that wasn't even in the how are things going in the country part. That was in the what do you do for fun part.
- [09:44]
Ashley Parker
Right.
- [09:44]
Sarah Longwell
And she was talking about how she couldn't travel. And this to me is always something I think about with voters, which is the my life is getting 20% more annoying threshold. There's like, there's the whole economic piece which we're going to get into. There's the whole war piece which we'll get into. So on this like life is getting 20% more annoying. That was the kind of thing I saw people souring on the Biden administration about. It was like supply chains, servers at restaurants. It was like little things that were just annoying people. How do you think that's going right now in the Trump administration?
- [10:13]
Ashley Parker
Well, again, what's striking to me is Sarah, you and I, because it is our jobs and because we live in the D.C. area, we talk and we think about politics all day long. But most voters do not. Not right. They affirmatively don't want to and they don't have the time to because they're busy living their lives. And so again, what's striking is when politics enters their lives or the ramifications of political decisions enters their lives. And I think that woman, again, she wasn't asked what's driving you crazy about the Trump administration or what would you want to change. It was her hobby. And she's realizing travel is harder because of TSA lines because of a funding issue in Washington. And there was another woman in the group you didn't play. And she said this a bit later in the context of politics, but she was also talking about traveling and she was talking about these places are off limits for these political reasons. And I was going to go to South Africa, but now I can't even do that because all the connections are through the Middle East. And again, when things enter voters day to day lives, whether it's with luxury like travel or it's, you know, people saying, look, I used to go to the grocery store closest to my house, but now I get in my car and I drive to the aldi's because it's 20% cheaper and that matters. They believe that they are not being served by their political leaders and the president in power and the party in power. And we saw this acutely with Biden is going to pay the price.
- [11:41]
Focus Group Participant 1
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- [11:47]
Ashley Parker
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- [11:47]
Focus Group Participant 1
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- [11:56]
Sarah Longwell
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- [12:08]
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- [12:13]
Sarah Longwell
All right, now I want to get in the meat of the show, which is Iran. A couple weeks back, we had voters very initial reactions and we had done a show. I think I did it with Bill. But now that we are several more weeks in, we have more fleshed out reactions from folks about the war in Iran. So let's listen to that and then get into it.
- [12:34]
Focus Group Participant 1
Trump is moving so emotional. Everything is about his feelings versus what is good for our country right now. I think that he is starting wars everywhere. I love to travel overseas, but I don't even know where I can go because he threatened Panama. Something about the Panama Canal a few weeks ago. It's really kind of messing with me mentally with the different changes every day that there's something, there's something going on administration.
- [13:07]
Focus Group Participant 3
I really feel like this is just retaliation, like, oh, okay, Iran came after me in an assassination attempt. Let's go.
- [13:16]
Focus Group Participant 6
Excuse my, my slogan, but the guys by the balls here with the straight up hornets or whatever with the oil and stuff. So it's kind of scary.
- [13:25]
Focus Group Participant 4
Like, if there was a war to be fought, this one wasn't ours to jump into, you know, and it's putting our people in danger. You know, they just released TSA announcements that, you know, certain places and people could be targeted. And I just feel like it just puts a big target on our back. And our people, they raised the draft limit to 42. Now you could be 42 and get drafted into the army.
- [13:51]
Focus Group Participant 6
Throwing us in this war, you know, I feel might be Israel's war that we. Oh, Netanyahu. Something for. I don't understand. I really don't understand why we're over there. But I'm hoping that maybe these radical decisions that are going on are going to shape a better economy in the future. And that's his reasoning for doing it.
- [14:10]
Focus Group Participant 5
The understanding. It's not just about protecting Israel. You had Iran to the point where their missiles were at 60% uranium, you know, and who gave them the money to do that? Biden. So they are creating weapons of war, not just against Israel, but also I feel that he was protecting us just in case something like 911 happens again, which is why ICE was created from Homeland Security. Just a separate thing that's a whole big thing. So I feel like, was it really Israel that we were fighting, like to protect, or was it really just that, hey, we could be next. They're getting stronger, they're building more weapons, and we could possibly be next because they sit there and they say, we hate you, we're going to destroy you. You know, death to America. I don't, I take that pretty seriously.
- [15:06]
Focus Group Participant 2
Now. We're going to have to send ground troops at some point. You know, Trump keeps saying that we're not going to, but, you know, I don't know if I feel confident of that.
- [15:14]
Focus Group Participant 1
So I still am like a very, like, empath person. And so it's hard for me with just war in general and then also the gas prices going up because of the oil.
- [15:26]
Focus Group Participant 3
I'm all for freeing the Iranian people. I'm a veteran myself. So the part where I'm wishy washy is the, the process of how our military went about it. I don't want any more of my brothers and sisters going over there.
- [15:41]
Sarah Longwell
All right, so a couple things happening in there that I want to pull on. First of all, plenty of people do not think this is being done primarily in America's interest. Like, it doesn't have America's interest at heart. The last two decades of foreign policy, I mean, people have very little confidence that we won't be putting more troops on the ground. The connection is super obvious between this war and a $4 gallon gas that people are paying for right now. And then Trump walks a fine line with swing voters between being sort of like a tough guy and a crazy person. And he was trending more toward the latter for a lot of these voters. So, Ashley, one thing we talked about last time you were on the show was Trump caring a lot about his polls. He's always a guy who likes to talk about his polling and about just like, public sentiment, which is why he tacos, because he's like, oh, the markets are reacting bad, or, oh, everybody hates this. I'm going to change my mind. But this war seems to be kind of a deviation from that. As you're reporting, how does the public perception of the war, the negative public perception, the fact that independents are dropping, fact that these kinds of swing voters primarily don't like it and aren't with him, how is that impacting their thinking in the White House?
- [16:49]
Ashley Parker
So it depends who's thinking. We're talking about his political team. Even before, before he made the initial decision to kind of bomb Iran and launch this war, was very concerned because they understood acutely how it would hurt him politically. And Trump still cares about his polls and is still reactive to those sorts of things. But a couple of things have changed, and those are, first of all, he's not running for reelection again. He's never going to be on the ballot again. He is Not a traditional leader of his party where he doesn't, at the end of the day, really care about his party. You know, someone, someone told me, look, if he, if he cared at all about holding the Senate, he would have endorsed Senator John Cornyn in Texas already. Because his not doing so essentially means Republicans may very well still hold Texas. Right. Cornyn may win his primary, or if Paxton wins, he will, may very well easily win the general election. But Republicans are going to have to spend, you know, millions of DOL unnecessarily in those races. Right. And so Trump doesn't really care about the House. He cares a bit more about the Senate, and in theory been told he cares about having a Republican successor. But even that is complicated because as someone put it, there's a part of him that wants to believe that only he can hold this MAGA coalition together. Not J.D. vance, not Marco Rubio. And I know we'll talk about them in a second. So there's that dynamic at play. And then another dynamic is the information flow has changed a bit from the first term to now, we forget, but the first term he was on Twitter and he wasn't just sending out Twitter messages, although he was certainly doing that, but he was scrolling Twitter like a traditional Twitter user. He was not just getting the inputs of the people who called him and the people who deliberately put things on his desk, but he was getting the inputs of sort of his base and what an Ann Coulter was saying or you know, what, what a podcaster was saying. And he's not on Twitt now, he is on Truth Social, but that is sort of a one way thing. It's just sending his messages out into the world. A lot of the dissent on Iran we're hearing from some of these podcasters. Right. And you know, again, I'm not saying Trump doesn't hear anything because people do get in his ear and tell him what they want him to know. But Trump himself is not listening to Joe Rogan for multiple hours a day. He's not listening to the Nelk boys or any of these other people who are voicing some of that displeasure. And NBC had some great reporting about his team coming in and showing him videos of the cool big bombs in Iran. Right. And so there is a concern among some people who are already worried about this war that he is hearing from more heavily weighted towards one contingent.
- [19:47]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, you're getting at something that I think is so important. And I think there was a little bit of this for Biden's White House too. Like when People around the president.
- [19:55]
Ashley Parker
Yes, yeah, right.
- [19:56]
Sarah Longwell
When people around the President go out of their way to shield them from where the public actually is, it has huge deleterious effects on the decision making capabilities of the presidents. And I would say one of the things that they're doing, and this has been reported on, is that Trump got all excited about. And this is like Harry Enton did this at cnn. And I think this was, I don't, I don't endorse this as a process. They're saying the Iran war is 100% approval or 96% approval from MAGA Republicans. Okay. So they have, they have stripped from the voting pool there everybody who doesn't identify strictly in terms of Trump. And so sometimes I've seen like some discourse around this where people are, like, people think it's Trump's base that he's getting crosswise with, with the Iran war, and that's not true. It's one of those kind of pedantic things where Trump's base is sort of different from the more isolationist base of the Republican Party. A lot of those people are kind of like red pilled Joe Rogan, Theo Vaughn, like types versus. If you're maga, you say whatever Trump says goes. And so like, if Trump says, I approve of the Iran war, I'm going to go do this. Maga's like, okay, well whatever Trump says, I'm with him. It's like, yes. So they're showing him those people, but that excludes non MAGA Republicans. So people who are basically like, I think for myself, or I put the party before Trump, but then also independents, which is where he's completely cratering. And then Democrats, like, they're a sample size. The people they are sampling are self selected, preordained to be like whatever Trump says goes. That's not helpful.
- [21:38]
Ashley Parker
Right. I mean we use we and I do it too. We sort of use MAGA as a shorthand to mean people who voted for Trump. But in fact, the coalition that lifted him to victory is not all on board. The MAGA coalition whose ideology is whatever Trump says goes is on board. But that is not sufficient for electoral victory. Right. It's people who voted for Biden and then voted for Trump. It's people who based on demographics, normally trend Democratic, but went for Trump. And those are not people who on every issue just bless whatever Trump says. So sure. Is the MAGA base behind him. Yes. But again, if you care about electoral victory for your party in November, that's not good enough.
- [22:26]
Sarah Longwell
Things like that are Keeping him in this space. And you're right though, about the Truth Social thing. I actually thought about the, the Twitter input a little less. But of course that's right. Of course that's right. If you're on Truth Social, which is by the way, how any American right now gets, the only place we can get our news about what's happening in Iran is from the President on his own janky social media site. That is he owns and he is making millions of dollars on, which is in itself an insane thing that would have never happened in a different timeline. Like his inputs, if you, what you're getting is your people coming in being like, Maga loves this. And he's on Truth Social with just people who are like Trump, I worship you. And that's why I'm on your particular social media site and he's only watching Fox News. He's just increasingly isolated from the vast majority of public opinion.
- [23:12]
Ashley Parker
Right. And also my understanding is in addition to the fact that the inputs on his own social media site are going to be from the people who by and large support everything he does, as you pointed out, it's janky. Like, it's like Twitter is stunningly, devastatingly easy to scroll. Right. It is like made for dopamine hits. And to be addictive, it is, it is hard to operate Truth Social. So my understanding is he's also just scrolling it less as well. And if and when he does, the inputs are more self fulfilling.
- [23:42]
Sarah Longwell
He's siloed himself to the point of not having a breadth of awareness about how maybe the American people are feeling about this war. Although you can't escape him that it's unpopular.
- [23:53]
Ashley Parker
That's what I was going to say. The flip side and a note of caution is someone who just wrote a story about how literally everyone has Donald Trump's cell phone number, like 70 journalists and every world leader and God knows who else. Like, I don't mean to say that like he gets all manner of inputs from all manner of people who are both qualified and not qualified to give him input. So I don't want to say that doesn't mean that someone who is wildly opposed to the Iran war is not talking to him. And in the run up to it look like Tucker Carlson was at the White House multiple times for several 90 minute one on one meetings. So just let that be a note out there.
- [24:32]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, Susie Whitehouse was like, let's get Tucker in and try and talk him out of this deal. Great, great way to run a country. Okay, I want one more quick set piece on Iran. A couple of weeks ago, Scott Besant floated that we might have to put up with 50 days of higher oil prices to keep Iran from having nuclear weapons for the next 50 years. That was their formulation. He also said it could be longer than 50 days. And we checked in with how voters thought about that.
- [24:56]
Focus Group Participant 2
So let's listen that we could be sure of that. That's a good, I think that's a good trade off but I don't feel we can be sure it's only going to be 50 days. I think that's the whole problem is we don't know can we trust this administration that that's going to be true.
- [25:13]
Focus Group Participant 4
You can't just estimate what's going to go on or what's going to affect us because things like this tend to have especially it's award these things to tend to have a long term effect longer than 50 days. Yes, it might crippled them for a long time but I feel like the effects that it'll cripple our economy as well. So I just feel like you just can't estimate, oh 50 days and we'll be, this could go on for a year or two and the economy can get even worse. We can go even more in debt.
- [25:45]
Focus Group Participant 1
Wasn't it Iraq that was supposed to have all these mass weapons of mass destruction and how long were we there?
- [25:53]
Sarah Longwell
So this comes up all the time. We do. We can't play all of them. But this idea of people's living memory includes Iraq and Afghanistan. And I think a lot of times when people are making a case for war or making a case against war has to be a lot of introduction of new information and whatever. Trump is not doing the case making particularly well for why Iran or even, well, they're barely trying. It's a, it's a morass of reasons.
- [26:18]
Ashley Parker
He didn't do it in the run up at all. I mean I remember watching that State of the Union less than a week before it started and there was maybe a sentence and a half about Iran, which was just wild to me. When I watched the State of the Union I thought like, oh well, maybe my reporting's wrong, maybe we're not going to do this.
- [26:34]
Sarah Longwell
I always thought he didn't hold an Oval Office address in part because he's kind of trying to like hide it from the majority of American people. Like he knows they're not like so tuned into this stuff. And it was in the early days of the Iran war. We've had people in the focus groups who didn't know anything about it. Like they still, it just like hadn't quite penetrated. But now that it has and now that it's gone on and I think this is why you're seeing the numbers really start to dip in the last week isn't just because of gas prices, although I think that's probably the things are puncturing people's immediate life bubbles. But it's also that this has gone on for a month and the idea that it was going to be one of these bomb fast, get out, move on situations like it was in Venezuela or it was the first time we bombed Iran, people don't think that anymore. They're like, oh no, oh no, I know how this can get out of control. I know how this can turn into a decade or two in the Middle East. And so I think you're hearing a lot of pushback of how it echoes historically. Does that sound right to you?
- [27:32]
Ashley Parker
There's that and the fact that everything those voters that you just played said is correct, like the oil and the ramifications of what has already happened in Iran is not like you for flip a switch and say, okay, we're done here and suddenly gas prices the next day fall to what they were. It doesn't mean the Strait of Hormuz opens. In fact, there's every indication that it's not going to open. And, and you know, as someone put it, and again, I'm not an expert on this, but like I think you were right that Americans are very good at sacrificing and being patriotic if they believe what they're being told and a, if it's truly a finite period. But that 50 day number from all the experts and reporters who do understand this far better than I do is just apocryphal. Right. If the US Pulled out tomorrow, gas prices would not be down in 50 days. They just wouldn't. And the voters, whether they're intuiting that because they're thinking about Iraq and Afghanistan and applying it here or because they understand supply chain and oil markets, whatever the reason, they're correct not to believe. Scott Besson.
- [28:45]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, One really interesting thing that emerged from this focus group was when we asked them to name characters around the Trump administration that they either liked or disliked.
- [28:59]
Ashley Parker
Oh yeah, I love this part.
- [29:01]
Focus Group Participant 6
Let's listen to that Noem, Kristi Noem. As you see, she just got fired. Thank God she was more of a, how do I say it, a reality TV show celebrity than anything. You know, she's posting around pictures with all these ICE agent suits on, but, like, is she really in the streets and doing what these people are doing? And, you know, she. I don't think she really sees what's going on with these people's lives, and they're just being thrown out, like. And then, you know, also Pam Bondi. Who else? Cash Patel. It's like it was supposed to be America first, not Trump First. So it's like, you know, sometimes I wonder, it's like, do they have any of their own ideas? Pete Hegseth, I don't think is qualified at all for his job. You know, he's another. That's scary, the position he holds. You know, it's like he has so much power, and I don't think he just knows what he's doing with it.
- [29:54]
Focus Group Participant 2
You know, I have to mention Stephen Miller. He's pretty deplorable in my mind. I think he's the architect a lot of the extreme immigration policy. And for him to, you know, say that ICE really has no limitations, you know, ICE can't be prosecuted. I, you know, just extreme views that are very, very frightening in my mind.
- [30:17]
Focus Group Participant 3
If you read about Miller before he even became who he is now, it's his track record of the same things he says are under disguise of historical this and historical that. But there's, there's under quite a lot of underlying hatred that you can just see emanating from him. And it's kind of really hard to explain, not even trying to get personal, but if I didn't grow up in the situation I had grown up, I don't think I would see through a lot of that. But his, his America first agenda is not healthy, to put it lightly. And I agree with think a lot of what we're seeing negative is drafted by him because himself. And he's been quoted quite often saying that Trump listens to him more than anybody else.
- [31:02]
Sarah Longwell
Well, I, for one, couldn't agree more with these voters. But just remember that these are all Trump voters. Ashley, you wrote a couple months ago about Stephen Miller and said that even in Trump's inner circle, he's a dogmatic force whose ideas are too extreme for public consumption. Since you've written about it, tell us a bit about Stephen Miller's influence inside the administration. It seems to me like he's a very unappealing figure. The voters sure seem to think that. But are you surprised he isn't more of a political lightning rod?
- [31:28]
Ashley Parker
So it's interesting is I was listening to those responses, and as I'm hearing them tick through that kind of first set of names. I'm like, okay, they don't like the clowns, right? Like, the people who aren't really qualified to be there and are cosplaying their roles and doing dumb things. And then when they got to Stephen Miller, I was like, oh, one of these things is not like the other, right? And, you know, it seems like the reason they don't like Stephen Miller is because, you know, I believe in my piece, we describe stuff. Stephen Miller is sort of the pulsing ID of a president who is almost already pure id. And they understand that some of that stuff that they mentioned earlier that they don't like about ICE and the aggressive immigration enforcement from this president, that Stephen Miller is the architect of it, that's very clear to them. Stephen Miller is incredibly powerful in this administration. He acts as an accelerant to a president who is already lacking the guardrails from the first term. And people associate Stephen Miller with immigration. That's absolutely accurate. I didn't put this in my piece, but one person I talked to said, look, if Stephen Miller could choose how to spend 500% of his day, he would spend it on immigration. But the truth is, not only is he the driving force in Trump's immigration policy, but his portfolio is sort of so wide that on any major issue that he cares about and that Trump cares about, Stephen Miller has a huge hand. So tariffs. He's a big player on tariffs, on foreign policy. And this very muscular view of, you know, if you're powerful, you go take it view of foreign policy, that's Stephen Miller, I would remind you, you know, Stephen Miller and Marco Rubio were viewed as kind of the two key architects of the capture of Maduro in Venezuela. And right after that capture, Stephen Miller's wife, Katie Miller, a figure in her own right, posted a map of Greenland with the American flag plastered over the country that said next. So it's that view of muscular, not so isolationist foreign policy. It's the war against the university. Stephen Miller is a key architect there. I will say there has been some talk and some reporting by my colleagues who cover immigration that Stephen Miller is a little bit in the doghouse. There was a sense in the White House that those deaths in Minnesota by ICE agents went too far, were a political liability. You saw Trump course correcting for that. Kristi Noem is no longer the Homeland Security Secretary, but I still would not underestimate the power he holds in that orbit.
- [34:07]
Sarah Longwell
This is a personal privilege question. Stephen Miller seems like somebody Trump would hate. Like he's. He's like rat like and repellent. Every time I see him. There's nothing about him that says, boy, I'd love to have lunch with this guy or a drink with him. Trump, though, finds him an enjoyable presence.
- [34:25]
Ashley Parker
So, a couple things. I mean, it is funny, someone told me that in general, Trump like his, his preferred look, and this is not just for Stephen Miller, is not sort of like bald skinhead, they said. It's like he prefers a full head of hair, like Johnny McEntee, who was a young aid with good hair, a former athlete. But. But one thing about Stephen Miller that I remember from the first term in talking to people in the White House and was born out in my reporting, is that a lot of people, his colleagues actually like him. They think he is a good colleague. He has a very, very like, almost Sahara dry, deadpan sense of humor. And they've said that on. And in a weird way, they appreciate how dogmatic he is because in a White House known for sort of backstabbing and sneaking around. Although, again, I will say that was more the first Trump turn than the second Trump term. Sort of like, you know, where Stephen Miller stands on immigration. You may find it absolutely abhorrent, even as a Trump supporter, but you know what he wants to do and how he plans to do it. Right? There's no guesswork with him. And on issues that he doesn't care about, he could be a pretty good colleague. When he was a speechwriter and he still sees the speeches, he would give people a heads up like, hey, I know you think it's really important that Trump affirm Article 5 of NATO when he speaks at the NATO headquarters. I just wanted to let you know that not only has he crossed out that line, but he plans to threaten to withdraw if you want to try to hop in the Beast and get him to change his mind. So I think he is better liked internally by his colleagues than people might expect. And the thing he likes about him is his, you know, undying loyalty and fealty. That's always of premier importance to Trump, even though he doesn't return it in kind. And he also likes the fact that if he tells Stephen Miller to do something, he knows that Stephen Miller is going to get it done. Stephen Miller is incredibly competent. He used these four years out of power to sort of learn from the mistakes of the first term, to figure out why in the first term was my travel executive order struck down by the courts. Right. How can I write it this time so it lands. How can I think about this thing and find an obscure law from the 18th century to help ban immigrants from coming into the country. Trump likes and respects all of that.
- [36:45]
Sarah Longwell
The idea that he's liked internally, I didn't really know that. It doesn't make sense to me from a personal liking standpoint. It does make sense to me that I remember that about the first thing. Right. Cause they were all trying to scuttle Trump's ambitions. And so they were sort of. There was this, like, weird dynamic where they both wanted Trump to like them and dislike other people. They knew they could kind of turn him against people. So people did that work. But they were also trying to get Trump off certain things. Whereas I bet that Trump does like that. Stephen Miller's the guy who you say, hey, Stephen, if I want to stay for a third term, figure out how I'd do that. And Stephen's like, yes, sir. And we'll come back with, like, actual plausible, extra constitutional plans for how one could try to get that done.
- [37:27]
Ashley Parker
And I ask people, because sometimes on immigration especially, Stephen Miller is more extreme than Trump wants. And so I said, what happens if Trump decides something that Stephen Miller doesn't like? And people said, look, you always know where you stand with him. So he will very forcefully argue his case, including in front of the President. Right. He doesn't pull back. He doesn't sneak around. He will advocate, he will lobby. He will send other people in to lobby the point on his behalf. But once President Trump has made a decision, unlike a lot of other people, again, particularly in the first term, Stephen Miller is like, okay, I don't necessarily agree with it, but I'm going to execute it. And that's what he does. And if the decision goes sideways, Stephen will use that as an opportunity to come back and say, you know, here's why I think we didn't go far enough, or here's why I think we should adjust course. But. But he will loyally do what Trump wants him to do. And the President likes that.
- [38:16]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. All right, well, let's talk about another figure that's coming up a lot, because this is the guy who is viewed as the adult in the room. And I gotta tell you, I am tracking this closely because in the. In the burgeoning 2028 machinations around J.D. vance versus Marco Rubio, I have long held the view that pre Trump Republicans are non starters with Republican voters. One person is sort of emerging to change that, and that is Marco Rubio. And part of that is a lot of younger people, when you talk to them, see Marco Rubio as the adult in the room. And they have no idea about pre Trump. Marco Rubio, never met him, never heard of him. And so the guy he is now is who they know. And I'll tell you, this is another thing where I just think that meme is like politics. By meme, that meme of every. You give Marco Rubio every job, right? Where I mean, the one going around today. Yeah, everybody loves that meme. Everybody loves it. It's a bipartisan meme. Because for those of us who hate the Trump administration and think they're all clowns, you're like, there's one person that they have to give every job to because he's the only competent person. Other people love it just because it's like funny, you know, it's like a funny.
- [39:31]
Ashley Parker
It's a great meme. Yeah.
- [39:32]
Sarah Longwell
The implication is Marco Rubio is the one guy who can get things done. You have to give him all the jobs. And that is building in people's minds the sense that Marco Rubio is actually the guy. Plus they, they're like, the more they see of J.D. vance, the more they hate him. And so I would just say with voters, Marco Rubio's stock has been rising and I'm hearing it. So let's listen to what these voters said about Rubio and then I'll get your reaction on the other side.
- [39:57]
Focus Group Participant 3
Marco Rubio, I think is an amazing dude. Sometimes I think he's. Know if you ever watched like old biker shows or old shows where you always got that really nice kid that hangs out with the bad guys and doesn't realize it till it's too late. I don't mean that. That's just as an analogy. I'm not saying everybody in the cabinet is bad Marco Rubio just if anybody is left that we can see on the TV or. And you can never find him actually going against what he's saying down the road or back and forth, is Marco Rubio. Like if anybody's a family man and still a stand up politician, I just, I just feel that it's him because he also is about putting America first, which I agree with. But when you put America first, you also got to remember, you know, the other friends and family in essence that we have around the world.
- [40:46]
Focus Group Participant 1
I think he's relatable, seems more human than a lot of the, some of the other characters.
- [40:53]
Focus Group Participant 2
I think I know when he was in Congress, I felt like he had some kind of more populous kind of ideas that made sense. So I feel like he's More about reason and facts and more about doing kind of what's right, I feel. So, I feel yeah, he's, he's pretty respectable.
- [41:15]
Sarah Longwell
We just played it from this last group, but like this is all over the groups now. It is. One of the biggest trends that I am starting to see is the rehabilitation in Trump voters minds of Marco Rubio. Now I'll say he's a little more popular among swing voters, these swing ear types, and he is in the, in the trenches of maga. But there are rumblings that Trump is playing Marco against JD Vance, even though they seem to like each other personally and often operate as a team. And he's like wandering aloud who would be a better 2028 candidates, surveying people who come in one of his fun parlor games. Where do you think things stand in terms of how Trump is, is playing with those two?
- [41:56]
Ashley Parker
So first of all, I have to say that guy who sort of likened Rubio to someone who unwittingly like accidentally falls in with the Bloods or the Crips, you know, I just, I loved that analog. I went back and told all my colleagues like it was so enlightening. I felt like, you know, that sort of, they see him above all those other people they don't like for whatever reason. You know, it's interesting Rubio has said if J.D. vance runs, he won't run. I know we talked earlier about Trump not caring that much about the party, and that's true. But the one thing I've been told he does care about a bit with that tension of only he can be the true MAGA leader is he does want a successor, presumably a Republican president, to make sure that like the Trump Kennedy center and the Trump Arch and all these things stay and that Rubio has emerged over JD Vance as sort of the person within Trump's orbit who people think has a better chance of winning a general election. That said, for Rubio to do that a, he would have to have the fire in his belly to sort of sees it and to go up against JD Vance, who is the obvious successor just as the vice president. Right. And some people don't think he has that fire in his belly. And also one of the reasons Marco Rubio gets to do every job, per the meme, and is sort of ascending so quickly in the Trump administration is because there is the sense that like he's just a good soldier who's competent and wants to serve this president. And the minute you have political ambitions of your own, that all changes and that potentially changes the dynamic. So it's one of those things. It's like, you can be the one. Everyone would love to be the successor as long as you're not running to be the successor. But the second you start running to be the successor, no one really wants you to be the successor anymore.
- [43:48]
Sarah Longwell
Ron DeSantis knows a little bit about that.
- [43:50]
Ashley Parker
I would also argue Ron DeSantis is the case for great on paper, awkward and not great in real life.
- [43:57]
Sarah Longwell
JD Vance. There are ways in which he and DeSantis are quite different, but his trajectory with voters is quite similar in that I think even in the last, like, year and a half that they've been here in the beginning, people were like, oh, I like J.D. vance. Like, he's out there. You know, he's a good face on Trump. He's a little calmer than Trump. People do not talk like that that much anymore. Like, they are like, I don't like him. I think he's weird. Among the voters, I am hearing way more pro Rubio content than before and much less pro JD Vance. And especially with women, including MAGA women, they're just like, this guy sucks. And I kind of think it creeps me out, which is what happened with Ron DeSantis. People were like, yeah, sounds good on paper. I liked him for a while. And then, like, they got a better look at him and everyone was like, I don't like him.
- [44:44]
Ashley Parker
And there was some real buyer's remorse with JD Vance as the VP pick dirt, you know, so almost as soon as he was chosen because of the rollout. But then J.D. vance did a very good job in the vice presidential debate. And I think the One thing about J.D. vance that is a wild card is keep in mind, he rose initially to prominence with his memoir Hillbilliology, talking sort of very thoughtfully and nuanced and moderate in some ways. And you saw a glimpse of that version in the debate, and that was a very deliberate strategy by his team, was that everyone's going to expect him to come out swinging and trolling and let's show the likable, thoughtful, you know, earnest side of him. And A, does that person even exist anymore? I think is a question, and B, could he turn that on in a sort of post Trump world? I don't know.
- [45:38]
Sarah Longwell
You know, that is a good question, Ashley. I gotta tell you, I said this on on tnl, but this is the second time that JD Vance's book has come up. So I didn't read Hillbilly Elegy when it first came out. Never read it.
- [45:47]
Ashley Parker
I did read It. And then I did read it.
- [45:49]
Focus Group Participant 5
You did?
- [45:49]
Sarah Longwell
Okay, so I didn't. But I read it while I was writing my book. So in my book, which by the way, is for pre order right now, it's called how to Eat an Elephant One Voter at a Time. And it's using all these focus groups for analysis about where we're headed. But in it, I talk a lot about where I grew up, which was in central Pennsylvania, super small town geographically. I. And I was curious. Actually, the reason I picked up Hillbilly Elegy for the first time is I was like, you know, J.D. vance was from a similar type town as I was. I want to hear how he talks about it. I was blown away. That book sounds like it was written by a different human, just like a totally different guy than the one we are currently seeing. Like, to read Hillbilly Elegy right Now, knowing who J.D. vance has become is a wild ride. It's like a teleporting into the past.
- [46:37]
Ashley Parker
Yeah. It's someone who is thoughtful and nuanced and has real empathy for views in people who are not like himself. For people who are like himself that we don't really see him at least publicly exhibit anymore. I thought it was a good book.
- [46:51]
Sarah Longwell
He's not like the weird post liberal thinker that he is now in that book. Like, he's a thoughtful guy, but not in a weird Peter Thiel kind of way.
- [47:00]
Ashley Parker
Like, yeah, he was also in that book, which was interesting, you know, kind of an outsider, but actually who was. Was struggling, but succeeding in mastering a lot of these insider places like Yale Law School. Right. And there's moments that stay with me. I think that, you know, calling, I think his now wife frantically from a recruiting dinner with McKinsey, asking, which fork do I use? Which again, relatable. Right? Or almost spitting out the first time he has Perrier because, you know, it tastes like disgusting water. Like fair, you know, but it's sort of like. Like he figures it out and he masters these worlds. And his journey to figuring it out, I think again, is. Is so relatable, so understandable. And then he can kind of move within these two worlds, which is not the version you hear from him anymore.
- [47:47]
Sarah Longwell
This is why I started reading it. And this is because I was trying to explain to voters. People always ask me, like, one of the number one questions I get is, how do you listen to these voters? How does it not make you crazy? Or when people are like, oh, all Trump voters are racist, or all Trump voters are hungry for authoritarianism And I'm like, no, they're not. And, and how do I know? Because I grew up with them. But I also went to private school. Later in life, my parents were like, we were poor and then we were not poor. And so, like, I did, I also had this two worlds thing that I felt like, gave me tools to listen to voter cross section of voters and be able to sort of see where they were coming from. And that two worlds thing I knew was part of what he did, and so I wanted to see that. But it's funny how what Trump seems to have done to him. Right? Like, I feel like when you listen to a lot of people or you do have that two worlds thing, part of what it develops in you is a sense of empathy for people's origins and the culture that they were raised in and how that shapes their political views, shapes the information environment they're in. Whereas somehow he's decided in his later in life that, like, he seems to hate people. That empathy part, that thing where, like, I can, I can sort of code switch with people, it no longer feels earnest and rooted in an interest in people. It feels like it's rooted in ambition for himself. And now, and I'll tell you, I think voters smell that.
- [49:10]
Ashley Parker
I was just going to say that. You haven't played them. I don't know if you're going to, but when the voters were talking about J.D. vance, you know, that's what comes through to them. Whether that's accurate or not, that is every single Voter's takeaway about J.D. vance in this moment.
- [49:25]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, we're saving those clips for a J.D. vance specific episode.
- [49:28]
Ashley Parker
That'll be good.
- [49:29]
Sarah Longwell
That is the through line with voters as they start to sour on him. But for you, we're all done. This is the end. This is the end of the podcast. And Ashley Parker, thank you so much for joining us. And thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of the focus group podcast. We're going to be back next week. Remember to rate and review us on Apple podcasts. Subscribe to the Bulwark on YouTube, subscribe to the Bull Work plus and go buy my book, how to Eat an Elephant. One voter a time. Ashley, you have anything you want to plug?
- [49:55]
Ashley Parker
Oh, I could plug my husband's book. Sure. It's now in paperback. His name is Mike Bender. It is called Frankly, We Did Win this. The Inside Story of How Trump Lost. It is a Trump campaign book from 2020. But the thing I will say about it, which I think dovetails nicely with Sarah's book, which I am 1000% going to buy and pre order and read in part because every time I do your podcast and every time I call you, it's just such a privilege to watch these focus groups and to hear your insights from them because it is just so fascinating and it's a perspective. I don't have the time to every single day travel the country. So I love that. But one thing his book does is in addition to this great inside scoopy campaign reporting, he has these little vignettes of these front row Joes, these Trump voters, and understands them in the way that we're talking about, with sort of empathy and nuance. And for anyone who thinks all Trump voters are racist or crave authoritarianism, you know, this book, like Sarah's book, I imagine, shows you that that could not be further from the truth.
- [50:59]
Sarah Longwell
I understand why people want to assign voters that way. It helps you orient the world in a certain way. Right? Like these are bad people with bad motives.
- [51:09]
Ashley Parker
Simplistic and easy.
- [51:10]
Sarah Longwell
But when you realize that actually so many of these voters voted for Trump because they are panicked about their economic conditions and they were just like, I know he's a bad guy, but, like, I'm, I'm, I feel desperate about this. Like, you can unlock empathy for that, number one. Number two, you can see a strategy out. Like, the reason I wanted to write the book is to say, hey, Democrats, how do we take Trumpism out, root and branch? One, focus on people's material concerns relentlessly, day in and day out. Because that is what is driving most people. And people, it's like, oh, it's the economy, stupid. I've heard that analysis. That's not so fun. I'm like, like, you know what? I want to tattoo it on your faces. I want to, I want. Every day you look in the mirror, you see it's the economy, stupid. Because for Hispanics, Hispanics who have abandoned Trump now, why did they vote for him? It's not because there's a permanent coalition change. It's because Hispanics were like, I think this guy as a businessman will do better things for the economy. Okay? Now, why do they have that impression? Because they had a parasocial relationship with him. Because he was on TV as a fake businessman for forever, like, very unique circumstances. And I do think he can uniquely hold a coalition together in ways that other Republicans are going to have a really hard time doing. And so I think Democrats have a unique opportunity to take Trump's failures and project forward into a, into a, A new political reality for people, but they have to seize it. Everybody's got to get the fire in their belly for what comes next and they got to build. So anyway, sorry. That's why I wrote the book, because
- [52:40]
Ashley Parker
I feel very strongly buy her book.
- [52:43]
Sarah Longwell
All right. Ashley Parker, thanks so much for being on the show. Guys. You thank Will. See you later. See ya,
- [53:12]
Focus Group Participant 3
Sam.