← The Focus Group Podcast
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- [00:00]
Sarah Longwell
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- [00:29]
Amy Walter
Your way home, day or night.
- [00:32]
Sarah Longwell
VRBoCare is here 247 to help make
- [00:36]
Amy Walter
every part of your stay seamless. If anything comes up or you simply need a little guidance, support is ready whenever you reach out. From the moment you book to the
- [00:47]
Sarah Longwell
moment you head home.
- [00:48]
Trump Voter 1
We're here to help things run smoothly because a great trip starts with the right support.
- [00:54]
Sarah Longwell
And hey, a good playlist doesn't hurt either. The dichotomy used to be why don't like the mean tweets but the economy is good. Or Or I don't like Trump the person, but I like his policies. And now they don't like Trump the person or his policies at the moment. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Focus Group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark, and this week we're going to talk about Trump's base and how they'll affect the midterm elections. You know, the people that we're going to listen to today are Trump voters. Like 2020, 2024 Trump voters. But they are mad as hell at the administration and the state of the country. But it remains to be seen whether they're going to take it anymore. That's my producer. They're mad as hell, but we don't know if they're going to take it anymore. Great job, Connor. I think some recent special elections are showing a real enthusiasm gap. Marjorie Taylor Greene's old congressional districts swung 25 points toward Democrats in the just this past week, though that still wasn't enough for the Democrat to win. But that's a big swing, and if there's a blue wave in November, it may have as much to do with the sad GOP base staying home as with Democrats converting a bunch of new voters. We're going to acclimate to the political environment these sad Trump voters are living in. We're also going to explore some of the more exotic views these folks have, because by the end of the show, you might find yourself saying, I can't believe this person is Souring on the Trump administration. My guest today is Amy Walter, editor in chief of the Cook Political Report, with Amy Walter here for her seventh appearance on this show. She is the most. The guest with the most. The guest. We have the most. The OG The OJ you were my first episode. We did it.
- [02:45]
Amy Walter
Exactly. I feel very proud of that. And I'll be waiting for my Seven Timers jacket. I got a mug for five time, but you did. It's a nice mug. I just.
- [02:55]
Sarah Longwell
A nice mug. The focus groupie mug.
- [02:57]
Amy Walter
Yeah. Yeah. A vest would be nice, but I'll wait.
- [03:01]
Sarah Longwell
Okay. So you're my favorite person to talk to about everything people should know. We're like IRL friends. But you've been doing political analysis for a long time. And I just am curious broadly as we start to set the stage, because I bet you'll be back on the show before the actual midterm elections. And so it was like where we are right now. So we're still a long way away. But how do you think it compares it? Is it shaping up to, you know, 2006, 2010, 2018?
- [03:32]
Amy Walter
It feels like the political environment is as bad as those years that you just mentioned. For the party that's in the White House, the biggest difference is just that the playing field is a lot narrower. So with similar numbers in 2018, Donald Trump's party lost 40 seats in the House. To lose 40 seats in the House this time, Trump's numbers have to be even worse. I mean, decidedly worse. Because even if you put every district, if Democrats were to flip every district that Trump lost or carried by less than 10, which is a lot, 10 points is a lot. That still only gets you. They won every one of them, 27 seats. So in order to hit a number like 40, they will, Democrats would have to win in seats not necessarily like Marjorie Taylor Greene's where he won by like 25 or 30 or whatever it was, but would have to move into seats where Trump won by 10, you know, more than 10, 12, 13, 14. That's very hard to do. But where we sit today, this is, and I think I'm glad you pointed out the special elections because, look, they are special. They are not normal turnout. Democrats dominate in lower turnout elections. We know this. So we should not take this as a apples to apples comparison for what we expect to see in the fall when voters, even Republicans, will be more engaged. But what it does give us is the latest signal of how enthusiastic Democrats are and how not very interested Republicans are. And that to me is if If I were sitting over in a Republican campaign right now, that would be my number one concern is, is that, okay, we know that independents have soured on Trump, which means they're not likely to come out and vote for us. Republicans are sticking with Donald Trump in that they say they still like him, but they're not liking him enough or don't feel threatened enough to come out and vote for Republicans.
- [05:59]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. Just one quick nerd point that I think you and I are well positioned to talk about, which is your point about how much narrower the field is, is something that hopefully people will start talking about more and understand, because I do think Democrats need to understand how much the map is starting to just narrow for them in general. Like when you get to 2032 and we get they do the new census. This is why. And again, I am not plugging my book, I'm only referencing it. But the, one of the reasons that I really wanted to write it is that I can feel us moving into the normal swings of politics. Right. Donald Trump is unpopular, therefore he is likely to do, or the Democrats are very likely to do well in, in 2026. And that may very well, depending on how Trump's term goes and depending on how much damage this does to JD Vance and Marco Rubio being associated with him or other Republicans. We're in this moment of people liking to switch back like they always want something new. And so you could see that environment being favorable for Democrats, but just still in the big sort of political picture, Democrats have this, like, an enormous amount of work to do to be able to sort of sustain any political momentum besides the normal back and forth. So I don't know if you can speak to any of that.
- [07:16]
Amy Walter
I think that is exactly right. And that's especially true with the Senate map. I mean, again, in 2006, when Democrats did win Ohio, and that was Sherrod Brown's first election, he knocked off a Republican incumbent then. So in 2004, George W. Bush narrowly won Ohio. Right. So he had to win in a state that Bush carried, but not by that much. Today, Sherrod Brown has to try to win back the seat that he was defeated last cycle in in a state that Trump carried by, I think, 1112 points in 2024. So that's what we're talking about. A state like Ohio, again in the old, olden days, would be gone in a wave year. Now, it's very competitive and Sherrod Brown may indeed be able to flip it, but it is not one of those, oh, boy, this should be kind of a layup for us. Even a state that on paper should be a layup, which is Maine, a state that has not ever voted for Donald Trump, is not an easy one for Democrats because of one how strong Susan Collins and her brand is, but also because, well, Democrats have kind of a mess on their hands in the primary and it's not quite as clean and crisp as, say, North Carolina. So if Democrats are to win the majority in the Senate, it has to go through states like Ohio, like Alaska, like Texas, like Iowa, all places that Trump has carried by double digits. If Democrats can't win there in a great year for Democrats. You're exactly right, Sarah. That sets up really terribly not just for what 2028, 2030 beyond could mean for Democrats for presidential, but also what it would really mean to have a Senate majority. You can't build a Senate majority just on the seven swing states. I mean, look, Democrats, where they've been successful in the era of Trump is in swing states. They have won. I think the number is 17 out of 21 since 2016. Senate races in swing, you know, purple battleground states. That's a pretty good track record. But now get outside of the purple states and there you are. That's why Democrats are in the minority.
- [09:59]
Sarah Longwell
Just to put a, like, quick fine point on this, places like Florida, places like Iowa, places like Ohio, like, there's a bunch of these places Democrats used to be competitive and often win. And like, they're all off the map for Democrats now, which means Democrats have to find other places to win. And so they'd obviously always kind of hoped they could get there in Texas or like, and it's just they're not getting there at Texas now. It's possible in a wave year we could, you know, it's P.O. i, I am, I believe it's possible t Rico can do this if the, all the conditions line up. He's got a Paxton and it's a wave and he runs a really great campaign. And you know, all the things that it's just maybe possible. It's not a, it's not an easy place for Democrats to win and they haven't proved that they can do it yet. So like, I, I, I, I. What I want is to sort of caution people against feeling too. It's not bullish because they should feel bullish on 2026. I think people just need to realize, as you led with how little ground there is to gain without opening up new parts of the map, opening up a new ability to attract like A wide swath of voters. Like, if it's just these little margins, it's by the 5 inches in front of our faces as they've been these last few elections. Like, that's not as Democrats go forward, okay? But a key part of this, a key part of how Democrats could get more successful is because Republican enthusiasm just falls through the floor. And so it was really interesting to do some groups with people who voted for Trump a bunch of times, but feel like he's doing a terrible job. Because we've been doing, on this show, we've been doing a lot of swing voters, lot of Biden to Trump voters in recent weeks, we've talked to them about the war in Iran. They do not like the war in Iran. But we wanted to see, like, okay, what about people who are firmly in the Trump coalition? So the first couple of clips you're going to hear were about Trump's address to the nation. You guys may remember this. On April 1st, that was before he threatened to destroy Iran's tire entire civilization. But it was when we all watched thinking, are we going to get information about what we're doing next? And it was a. Ended up being a pretty bizarre speech. And so we talked to these voters right after that. Let's hear what they said.
- [12:18]
Trump Voter 2
I was looking for some. Something with substance, like when we're going to be done. And instead of a checklist of who we've killed lately and comparing them that we've only had 13 service people that have died, there wasn't really a whole lot new that was kind of expecting a whole lot more. I mentioned that it was, you know, vague in terms of timelines and outcomes. And, you know, the straight of Hormuz will, like, remedy itself. But there was a complete lack of acknowledgment about what's going on to the people he's ostensibly leading, meaning US Prices, gas, everything else. There was no kind of recognition or empathy there. Without couching things in any way. I think it's a disaster. I think on every level, domestic governance, the economy, foreign policy, immigration, the social climate, they're in a terrible state. And I focus that blame directly on Trump and the administration being in this
- [13:30]
Trump Voter 3
situation where I've sold my house and I have this, like, lump of money that I have, you know, set aside to build my new house, and then we go to war in Iran and all the, like, prices just, you know, like, like there's a lot of transport that I'm, you know, arranging, you know, like, getting my campers down there or Getting, you know, concrete truck or, you know, insulation or whatever. And the prices are just going up, but my pile of money is not getting any bigger.
- [13:58]
Trump Voter 2
It's so much like a war for oil. And like the speech last night said, if we're producing all this oil and all this energy, how much skin in the game do we have? I mean, I understand we've got allies over in the Middle east, but our other allies in NATO aren't too crazy about the situation either.
- [14:16]
Trump Voter 1
The war in Iran I have a real problem with. My dad's the Marine. I just don't believe in losing American lives for something that has nothing to do with us. Right. So during the speech, I'm just like, come on, guys, let's support ourselves. I'm not America first, girl.
- [14:29]
Amy Walter
I'm sorry.
- [14:30]
Trump Voter 1
So I believe that we should support our citizens and our people first before we start handing out money to other countries. And the price of groceries makes me want to cry.
- [14:39]
Sarah Longwell
All right, so no war for oil, I guess coming from two time Trump voters, are you surprised that there's not even any equivocation or any like, attempt to say that the war in Iran is good? Like, did any. Did that strike you as interesting about this group?
- [14:56]
Amy Walter
Here's what struck me about this group. It felt like these were folks. Some of them, Sarah, were three time Trump voters.
- [15:03]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [15:05]
Amy Walter
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- [15:32]
Sarah Longwell
More power to you.
- [15:34]
Amy Walter
When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. And the reasons for voting for Trump ranged to me from, look, I'm a Republican and I wanted to vote for the guy who I thought was the businessman was going to cut my taxes, capital gains, blah, blah, blah. Then there was one woman in there who was a maha person. Right. I really liked rfk. I thought, you know, I'm against vaccines, all of this. Okay. And then you had a bunch of them who were. I just. I couldn't vote for Hillary. I couldn't vote for Kamala. I would not put them in a category of maga. I separate them in the way of. When we talk about the split on the war with Trump's base. I thought what was fascinating about this and how different it looks from, say, the Tucker Carlson split and the Marjorie Taylor Greene split, who really were basing it on, we are an America first party. This is not who we're supposed to be. And really on ideological grounds, this is where this fight is happening for these voters. It really came down to, I voted for you because I really thought you were going to bring my capital gains down or you were going to do something on the economy to fix stuff, or you just, you know, I didn't. I wasn't super excited, but it was better than what the options were in front of me, whether that was Harris or Biden or whoever. And at the end of the day, I'm not getting what I voted for. And so that, to me, you know, this is why you're seeing. I think if we had a MAGA group here, you might get some who would say, I absolutely disagree what the President's doing. I feel like I'm an America first person and this is an America First. But I think the more dangerous group of voters for Republicans right now are those who went and voted for Trump because of economic reasons and feel as if he is doing anything but focusing on economics.
- [18:09]
Sarah Longwell
At the risk of the. Our analysis getting boring, there's some other things going on, but, like, at its core, literally everything about our political environment can be explained by people who said, I couldn't vote for Biden. It was all about the economy, and I just wanted him to lower my prices. There was one guy in this group, actually. I don't know if we'll end up playing exactly him saying this, but he was like, I don't really tell people I voted for Trump because I feel like I really regret it and feel bad about it, but I just basically looked at my own finances and said, who's going to be better for him? And so I voted for him. And I just. I. There's. If there's one thing I hear over and over again from people who are not super ideological, they're just like, I think a lot of voters, right? They're just like, I'm trying to figure out who's going to be best for me, and I'm Trying to match that with my general partisan leaning because there's a framework around politics that it, you know, suits me a little better. Those are not the Trump first voters.
- [19:00]
Amy Walter
Exactly.
- [19:01]
Sarah Longwell
And, and so when you say maga, this is why it's so funny. You see some of these people do this now where they break out the polling from people who identify as MAGA and people who don't. And if you identify as maga, it's basically preordained that you will then support whatever issue follows from that, because all you care about is whatever Trump's doing. I'm going to say yes. That's just how that MAGA strain works. The rest of them. And it's not even using Normie isn't even quite right.
- [19:28]
Amy Walter
It's just there was a range, I mean, there were some who I would put into the Normie Republican category. This is who I, you know, these, this is what I consider the old school Republican. And to me, Sarah, that's like the, the 30 zillion dollar question for this cycle, which is if only MAGA shows up to vote because these other self identified Republicans or self identified Trump voters either stay home or in some cases may even choose to vote for a Democrat, how many seats does that put in play? How much more dangerous does that make Republicans hold of the Senate math? If you say, you know, instead of looking at the top line, what did Trump get in this state? But instead say, what did Trump MAGA vote in this state? Does that make sense? If you totally just go at like, what is the core of the core? You it is exactly right. No matter what Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens or all those people say, those people aren't those core of the core Trump voters are going to stick with him. The problem are these people for Republicans are these people who say, yeah, I voted for Trump because he's a businessman and he was going to help us with the economy. And I thought, you know, the way they picked Kamala Harris was it was kind of rigged and I didn't really trust her and I definitely wasn't going to vote for Hillary and Biden was blah, blah, blah. Right. Those are the people that I don't know that Democrats can necessarily win them over, although a couple of them seemed open to it. But if they stay home, that is also problematic for Republicans.
- [21:18]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. And let me just add to that because I think the way that this gets to perfect storm territory and you get like a cat 7 even with the narrower map, what happens is, is that not only do the, these types of voters Say, I'm so mad about all this, I'm either maybe voting for a Democrat or I'm not turning out. But then you have the specific MAGA component. This is always the problem for Trump's folks in the midterms, which is that they don't turn out either because Trump's not actually on the ballot. And, you know, there's a lot of those voters, right, where it's like, well, Trump can do no wrong, but the rest of these Republicans, I'm like, you know, and they're just not. And maybe, maybe they get mobilized because Trump tells them to. But I've also seen, we've saw this in, in 22, where a lot of those voters just, they don't turn out with the same numbers.
- [22:06]
Amy Walter
Right.
- [22:06]
Sarah Longwell
Because Trump's not actually on the ballot. Right. That's the dynamics where you end up with Trump on the ballot for the people who don't like him and not on the ballot for the people who love him.
- [22:18]
Amy Walter
Right. Who love him the most and the people who feel. So if you have two group, Right. So if you have the group of people who voted for him but feel disappoint, they didn't get what they bargained for, what do they do? Do they stay home? Are they open to voting for a Democrat? And then you're right. Then you have the people who showed up for Trump love Trump, but they're not affiliated with party. They don't care who controls the House and Senate. They're not going to show up for an off year election in the same way that, you know, the Obama coalition never turned out when Obama wasn't on the ticket. Right. They were like, we're all for Obama, but I don't really care about the House and the Senate.
- [22:59]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, that's right. All right, so I want to listen to why the voters disapprove of Trump because they had a lot of reasons why they disapprove. When we asked for letter grades, which we often do, he fared poorly. He would be flunking, he would be not doing. His parents would ground him. Let's listen to how people talk about why they disapprove of Trump more broadly.
- [23:22]
Trump Voter 4
I think he got screwed in 2020. It's not, that's another, you know, another topic, another conversation. And I think some of that stuff started off strong. It looked good, you know, like, initially. And then it's literally, it's like you just, you, you know, you woke up Monday morning and it's like, oh, we're, we're bombing our Iran now, you know, freaking gases, you know, pushing $5 a gallon. And you know, he's got, you know, Lindsey Graham, you know, chirping in his ear, of all people and you know, Mark Levin and all these other people. So yeah, just for me personally for 2024 and I give me the, the D rating.
- [23:59]
Trump Voter 1
I am a three time loser. I put it for him three times. I, I believed in his vision. He had like this hope that he was outside of that whole D.C. swamp and that he was actually going to drain the swamp. Like that's what I was really hopeful for. And I feel like in is such a downward turn as soon as the Epstein files came out. Which really puts this thing in my heart to think that maybe he did do something bad. Because it's like now, I mean everything is going wrong after the, even the threat of the Epstein files. And my home base is Texas and gas is almost $5 a gallon here, which is ridiculous because we make the gas and it comes from up the street. So I can only imagine what you guys are paying. And I have a 2500 dually that has carries a 41 foot RV on it. So it's really lot for me to take in.
- [24:51]
Trump Voter 2
I did hold my nose the times that I voted for him, thinking that behavior, dishonesty, volatility, that it was all just noise. But now seeing everything that's going on from who he put in his cabinet, you know, unqualified toadies and obviously what he's doing to the country and the world has made me have sort of a, a reawakening for what matters. And I can't just look at my personal self interest when I vote.
- [25:29]
Amy Walter
I was hoping we would get that
- [25:31]
Sarah Longwell
Same President in 2016 where like sounds bad, the economy was booming, paychecks were lasting longer, things were growing, and it's not the same guy. And I would agree with Adam. He put in this cabinet a lot of yes man and not people to go, what are you doing?
- [25:51]
Trump Voter 1
What?
- [25:52]
Sarah Longwell
Stop. And I think this sounds bad. He almost needs people to come back and be like, look, I like you and I respect you, but I'm going to tell you how we're going to do it on how it's going to benefit everybody.
- [26:05]
Amy Walter
In some senses, I regret my vote, but knowing what I know now, I
- [26:08]
Sarah Longwell
don't know if I necessarily would have
- [26:10]
Amy Walter
voted for Kamala instead.
- [26:12]
Sarah Longwell
So I'm kind of torn. And that's why I picked that C right in the middle ground, A grade. So we didn't spend a ton of time asking how these people are thinking about, you know, who or whether they're going to vote in the fall. Because right now at this stage, people aren't the most reliable narrators about that. Like, they'll tell you something. But I, that's, that's not going to, it's not going to stick. But I do think this is exactly what, like, stay home level despair sounds like in voters and for people who might not vote in the fall. And Amy, I gotta say, I think a lot of people, especially people listening to this podcast, might want to be screaming like, this is who he's always been. You know, this isn't a new guy. Like, when she's like, this is not the same guy. I think a lot of people are like, this is exactly the same guy. What are you talking about? If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H vac and plumbing supplies
- [27:13]
Trump Voter 2
to lighting and more.
- [27:14]
Sarah Longwell
And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock. So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. But what I am struck by is how an average voter, in the first term, when there were all the other guardrails around him, he did have a lot of people who told him no, people who tried to stop him from his worst impulses. He doesn't have that now. And so people are getting the unadulterated Trump and they're not loving it quite as much. The normal people who want to see him reined in. Why do you think, though, people are getting the sense that he's changed?
- [27:54]
Amy Walter
Sarah? I think that's part of it and I think the other piece, you know, even at his lowest points of his first term, if you asked people how they thought he was handling the economy, he would get positive ratings.
- [28:07]
Sarah Longwell
True.
- [28:07]
Amy Walter
And that there was always this, oh, I don't like the this and I don't like how he handled that. And he's impulsive and he doesn't have, you know, I, I don't like how he speaks to people and his behavior is abhorrent. But like, at the end of the day, things are going pretty well. Like, my 401k looks nice and I have a nice job and we got some extra clients on and. Right. And so I sold my house for a nice bit of money. You could do as many of these people did do in previous elections is sort of put that in a box, right? And, and, and really compartmentalize the bad stuff away. But now there's not the good stuff to overcome the bad stuff. The one thing a lot of them kept coming back to, too, and this is why, you know, I also keep thinking, well, what could Trump do to get these people back on board? One of the things that you heard throughout was I really liked the stuff he would say about dei. I do think that was good. And the, they didn't use the word woke, but you could tell that that's the kind of stuff that stuck with them over the last few campaigns. They didn't talk as much about immigration. So it really was Iran and the economy that dominated this conversation. But you could see some of the little pieces there of, boy, if he would just get back onto the economy, if he would just get off this other stuff, maybe now some of these people may never come back in this group that we listen to. But you understand why there are folks at the White House now and folks in the Republican campaign committees pulling their hair out because they keep saying, we just need you to pivot to the economy. Right? We just need you to get back. We can get these people back, but we cannot talk anymore about Iran. Just no more Greenland, no more Iran, no more Rob Reiner, no more whatever. Just, we just do the economy. We're going to do the economy. Don't worry, says the White House, we're going to pivot to that. It's all good. There's still time. It's only April, but, you know, that is getting, it's going to get harder and harder. And yes, if Iran does indeed become something that is no longer a hot crisis by the time we get into the summer and gas prices do come down, this is not going to be the drag it is on the President's approval today. But these folks really do want to see the president refocus. And that's going to be the real question.
- [31:01]
Sarah Longwell
I think that if, if, if those conditions happened, right, the war is kind of in the rearview mirror. Gas prices have recovered. You can, you can get, you can do some vibes work there, right? The vibes won't feel as icky for Republicans, but without having a meaningful story to tell on the economy, they're not able to crawl out of the hole the way that they need to. And I guess he could pivot because you're right. I mean, if you. I listen to these voters all the time. The dichotomy used, I Don't like the mean tweets, but the economy's good. Or, or I don't like Trump the person, but I like his policies. And now they don't like Trump the person or his policies at the moment. So that's where he gets really in the sour spot for these voters.
- [31:45]
Amy Walter
Well, it's about making the pivot, I guess that's the, that's what you were saying. It's like, how can he pivot onto the stuff that those people want to hear? And what would that look like? And I do think it also gets harder, Sarah, because you think about. All right, what's been dominating news, the news coverage. All right, obviously it's Iran right now, before that, it was the DHS shutdown and TSA lines and TSA workers not getting paid. And what, what is happening there? We're going to go into the spring, ish, whatever. What, I don't know what you call this era we're in right now, late spring, with debates within the Republican Party about doing some sort of reconciliation bill. Right. Trying to get something done which is going to put the focus back on Republican infighting.
- [32:40]
Sarah Longwell
Right.
- [32:41]
Amy Walter
Yeah. House Republicans don't like this. Senate Republicans say this, the President has to get involved, but he doesn't want to get involved. Right. So the, the, the pivot piece is a lot harder to do than it looks, you know, on paper.
- [32:58]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. I guess that's what I mean is that, that just at the end of the day, even if some of these super bad conditions have now drift, you still have the affordability problem, which is the central problem. The only difference would be that right now, again, as you pointed out earlier, and this is one of my main things, the frustration of Trump, where his focus is, is a constant. They're like, I don't really care about the ballroom, but why is he focused on the ballroom instead of making things more affordable and not this? And so his focus would help, but it won't deliver, I think, tangible results for people in the next five, six months. Okay. So we also heard some Jeffrey Epstein stuff in that last clip, which it was an interesting group from the fact that Epstein came up a ton and it was like. And it was, it was really at. And it comes up a lot in groups that are dissatisfied with Trump. But this group was mad about it and talked about it, maybe more unprompted, brought it up more than a lot of other groups because they totally see this effort by Trump is to sweep the Epstein files under the rug. So let's listen to how they talked about it. I'm just at the point now where I'm like, did you bomb Iran to hide what you were up to? And if we're not going to prosecute, then I wouldn't be bombing and to divert the attention.
- [34:19]
Amy Walter
But I'm a big conspiracy theorist and the biggest one is all of the kit, the girls missing, like Madeline from Italy, like all of these places that these kids have been taken. Epstein had bases there and I'm like, huh, was she really like kidnapped? And you know, JonBenet, all of these things. And I feel like all of a sudden it came out and they can't stop the, you know, the floodgates of what's happening.
- [34:55]
Trump Voter 2
I'm not very conspiracy minded. And it was clear that Trump and a lot of powerful people across the political spectrum and business and entertainment, you know, were involved in some pretty sketchy behavior, illegal behavior, exploit, exploitative behavior. But again, I wasn't really, you know, I didn't think the worst of Trump or anyone else. That was the circles they ran in. But with the release of the files and, you know, you could look online, the dog website, you can read them, search through them, keywords. A lot is redacted, certainly, which is pretty suspicious. But it is plainly evident, if you look even superficially, that he has been involved and credibly accused of really horrible actions against women, against underage girls. It's not a speculation or my interpretation, it's there multiple FBI reports corroborating the same thing.
- [36:13]
Trump Voter 4
Obviously Trump, Trump's mentioned in the files. A lot of it is, you know, this person said this or this person said that, you know, type of stuff. It's kind of like, you know, the, the COVID up is worse than the crime, you know, you know, type of approach and everything that they've done. As she had just mentioned, like, you know, why are we still talking about this? You know, I had like this, with just my career, like this investigative like mindset and the things. If you were to take any, just one scenario that's in those files and apply that here, like locally, like to the sheriff's office, I can't even tell you the amount of resources and time and effort that would be put in to a case like that. I don't think the majority of people realize that so many of these people are representatives, are government officials. They behave the way that they do, they vote the way that they do, they act the way they do. Because when you're at that level and you have that much power, blackmail is a powerful, powerful tool.
- [37:20]
Sarah Longwell
I Used to be a felony prosecutor, Special Victims Unit. So my entire job was, you know, obviously it wasn't necessarily people to this level, but it was people arming children and doing all kinds of crazy, sneaky things and ways and them being able to get away with it for years. And so if these, like, common folk are committing these crimes, right, then we can probably not even begin to imagine what is actually happening on, you know, these Epstein bases and things like that.
- [37:49]
Trump Voter 2
I liken it to the scandal in the Catholic Church 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and it took a long time for a lot of these, A lot of these people to come to justice on that. I get the same feeling. And so to see that this happening in our leadership on both sides of the aisle blew me away. Watching ex President Clinton review those pictures and just shaking his head like he was reliving a memory every time he flipped a page. It's sickening and it's saddening.
- [38:18]
Trump Voter 3
It's like the kind of thing that I would never think of. So to, like, read it, like, it's gonna put something horrible into my mind that I never would have been exposed to any other way. Like, I think that, like, those people all need to be brought to justice, no matter what that means, no matter like who they are or how powerful they are or. You know, I think that a lot of this stuff that's happening now is because of the Epstein files. I think the war in Iran or the Venezuela thing, I think these things are happening as a distraction because I. That they're that bad.
- [38:50]
Sarah Longwell
The distraction stuff coming from Trump voters, because that. You hear that from Democrats constantly. But to have that coming from Trump voters was pretty notable. I also think it was telling that the main divide in the group was less about whether the fires files are being handled appropriately and more about how much personal involvement Trump had with Epstein. Like, that was the debate that was happening in the group. If you and I took a time machine back to the day after the 2024 election and said that Jeffrey Epstein's crimes would be such a big driver of dissatisfaction with the administration. Like, would that have surprised you? Have you been surprised by the shift in the environment around this issue?
- [39:29]
Amy Walter
Absolutely. So much of this comes back to what the fundamental attraction of many voters to Donald Trump has been, which is, yeah, this guy is part of the elite and all of that and was wealthy, but I don't know if truth to power is the right word, but he's gonna, he's gonna take down those know it alls. He's going to go after the elitists. He's going. He talks like regular people do. He understands the ways in which these highfalutin people have gotten away with stuff for years. And he's gonna, he's gonna bring them, you know, sort of bring them to, to heal. And yet here we are. We have all the files, we have all the, these names, we have all the horribleness that these folks were talking about that was outlined in the files. And no one gets prosecuted. How is that possible? How could you possibly be reliably committed to taking down elites and not getting one person in handcuffs? And so that's really, to me, what came through the most, is that if you're not prosecuting, there has to be a reason. What, what other reason could there be? I mean, a lot of these folks you had, a number of them were like, oh, yeah, no, I'm. I'm big into conspiracies. Right. Like, they are already open to these ideas. There was a reference to JonBenet Ramsey. Right. Like, we are. We're going to go open a lot of wormholes. But at the core of it is the idea that powerful people keep things from regular people. And look, Trump's success has long been, and I think it was successful in 2024 as well, that, look, these guys aren't going to tell you the truth. I will. And then he didn't. And that's where they feel, again, like it's not just that they're disappointed. They feel as if they had given him too much credit.
- [41:41]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, you do mention, and this is a real thing that happens now a lot in groups where oftentimes people couch what they're about to say with, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but. And then you're like, I'm probably gonna hear some conspiracy theories now. Except that now a bunch of people are just like, I am a conspiracy
- [42:00]
Amy Walter
theorist and I'm big into it.
- [42:01]
Sarah Longwell
They're like, I'm down for this stuff. I, I like thinking about how different issues hit voters, because sometimes I think there's issues that come fast and furious. People get really exercised about them, and then when they're gone, people kind of move away from them. And then there's issues that are slow to settle, but they stick.
- [42:21]
Amy Walter
That's the stickiness of this is what is really quite something and, and surprising to me. And that's what one woman said when she said that. That's what she was frustrated about was when, when he said something like, this is old news, let's move on. And she said, when you read these files and see the, the vileness that was done, how can you just move on from that? This isn't, you know, some sort of misdemeanor that we should stop talking about. So I think maybe that's why it's so sticky. Or is there something else, Sarah, like, what is keeping this stuff still top of mind?
- [42:59]
Sarah Longwell
So I think, number one, I think a lot of people were invested genuinely, like, they thought they were gonna get to take down this big elite cabal, and instead the people they thought were gonna help them do it. Art. So there's something, there's something specific about it. I also think that it is an easy entry point for people to discuss Trump's betrayal, which they feel broadly. But the Epstein files is one of the quickest things to reach for, to talk about the betrayal and the feel this is the opposite of who you were supposed to be. I can't tell you how much of as people are, they're trying to, like, figure out what it is that there's why they're so disappointed with Donald Trump. And I think for each of them, they're kind of reaching for the thing that they thought he was going to be that had stuck in their mind for the kind of person he was, one of them being great businessman who's going to fix our economy. And, and each of those things is a disappointment right now. Even, even the on immigration, where you're right, that wasn't as much in this group, although it's all over lots of other ones. And certainly when things were happening in Minneapolis, nothing came up that didn't talk about the immigration thing. The number of people who just say, well, I wanted him to close the border, but I didn't want him to go after people who've been here for 20 years. And I think the way he's doing it is extreme, is sort of that they're like, I heard him say that he was just going to deport criminals. And they're like, I believe that that's what he was saying. Now, of course, that's not what he actually said. Like, if you were really listening, but the vibes that voters picked, this guy's going to deport criminals. I'm for that. But, like, he's not going to grab a grandpa that's been here for 20 years. Why is he doing that? Why is he scaring all these people? Anyway? I think that there's a lot of betrayals that people are feeling, and Epstein is one, because I, I, I've always believed this is one of the reasons gay marriage, the trans stuff, everyone, like on the. I don't want to say that this is sex stuff because it's. It's actually worse that it's my. It's not sex stuff. It is a. It is the. The COVID up of a pedophile ring. And so it is many degrees worse than that. But people can access those topics the most quickly because it's the easiest for them to understand, like, as opposed to tax policy or whatever. Right, right, right, right. So I do want to just as we. Because we're going to close out with just a little bit more. The Epstein story kind of rhymes with some of the more exotic conspiracy theories we've heard over the years. Like Pizzagate and I want to talk. The Pizzagate has been coming back up and they talked about up Pizzagate and other conspiracy theories. Let's listen.
- [45:28]
Trump Voter 4
Somebody mentioned a conspiracy theory. You know, I heard someone a while back, you know, say it was the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth. And they said about six months. Anyone go down the adrenochrome rabbit hole,
- [45:41]
Trump Voter 3
I think back to like Pizzagate and like where people were like, oh my gosh, you believe that there's like politicians like in the basement of pizza shop. Well, it turns out it just. They had the right stuff. It was just a private island instead of a pizza shop up, you know, and. But it was like the, it was the most insane thought that, you know, people thought you were insane. If you thought any. Like all these people, you think that there's people on both sides of the aisle like, you know, doing this, you know, like involved in these activities and it's like, yeah, yeah, they actually were like. It actually wasn't that crazy.
- [46:13]
Trump Voter 4
You know, it wasn't just like John Podesta, you know, was trying to be a funny guy or, you know, we never meant making an inside joke about something like that term like, you know, Pizzagate. You know, the hot dogs, you know, the candy, you know, whatever it is. These are all grown adult men in significant positions of power, you know, speaking to one another like this. And any normal or rational or sane minded person would be like, you know, hold up here. What, what are we talking about here? What, what, what do you need 187, you know, hot dogs for? Like, it's just very, very, very, very bizarre.
- [46:56]
Trump Voter 1
Podestro's laptop had the insurance file or
- [46:59]
Sarah Longwell
whatever that was supposed to be Hillary
- [47:00]
Trump Voter 1
Clinton and her little aid on there. And like 8 out of the 12 police officers committed suicide. Swear to you, you can look it up. I, I've gone deep into that because it freaked me out.
- [47:13]
Trump Voter 2
We're not here to debate each other, but if you are reading a lot, but you know, be careful about what you're reading. There's propaganda and conspiracy theories on every side, including the eight of 12 officers committing suicide. So I'm sure there's a lot of convincing info out there.
- [47:33]
Sarah Longwell
So I wanted to play that, because I did, lest people listen to this group and think, well, these sound, you know, like very. This is why I didn't want to quite say normies. Like, no one guy had to step in and be like, what are you all talking about? Even as they were talking, I remember being like, what are these? Theory. What are, what were these? I don't even remember these. There's a whole chapter in my book called Conspiracy Land. Because when you do these focus groups, you just realize how wild the information environment is and what people are choosing to, like, ingest. That's right.
- [48:08]
Amy Walter
And some people, at least some of them, are admitting it's a conspiracy rather than, no, no, this, this is true. I believe this because this is true. I did my, I did my research. I do feel like some of it is this diffused media environment where we don't really know where anything comes from anymore. Even people who think of themselves like you and I, we spend all of our time in information space often are hearing things or reading things that may not come from good place. Right. They, yeah, we, and, or, and, or we just can't remember where we got it from. So I, I, absolutely.
- [48:47]
Sarah Longwell
It's because we scrolled by it so fast.
- [48:51]
Amy Walter
We overheard it. So all of us, doesn't matter who you are, what you do for a living, you're getting inundated with information constantly and having to sift through that is really, really challenging. And so you have to go into the, to, I think maybe like a default setting where either one you just default to, I don't believe anything until I can go verify it by 16 different sources. Or I don't believe it if it comes from this place or that place. I only believe it if it comes from this place. Or everything you receive, you believe there is underneath it all an ulterior motive.
- [49:29]
Sarah Longwell
Right.
- [49:29]
Amy Walter
And so I think that is some of the way that the human brain has to try to manage this onslaught of information that washes over us. And it's just another reminder of how challenging it is for candidates, for campaigns, for media organizations to get the truth and get facts and get information out and get it to penetrate through all of this stuff and you know, it is wide the fact that we don't have guardrails and we don't have the referees any longer. There is no. People talk to me about, well, the media. Who's the media anymore? I don't know what that means. People are forced to kind of be their own referees. And that leaves a lot of room for these sorts of conspiracy theories to bubble up. Normally when the conversation is about nefarious, nefarious stories or conspiracies. We had of course all of the Hillary Clinton and the laptop and the emails and we had the Hunter Biden laptop. It defaulted to the benefit of Donald Trump. Now it is not. And that's, that's what's different.
- [50:47]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, I talk about the grammar of hidden knowledge, which is just a thing that is like all over the groups, which is the idea that there is, is a cabal kind of controlling things that, and there's something that is hidden. Things are rigged. You're trying to uncover something. And that's what happens when both institutional trust is gone. That's not just the media, but it's, you know, somebody brought up the Catholic Church. But this is one of the reasons that the Epstein stuff is so potent in my mind is that guy, what he said was what is the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth? And he said six months I've heard that before. People sort of say that in groups. It's a, it's a funny thing because the Epstein saga is proof to a lot of these guys. Like what you're saying is like, yeah, Pizzagate wasn't quite right. They weren't right that it was in this basement of Comet Ping Pong, which by the way great, great pizza place in D.C. great place if you have kids too play ping pong. But it's not happening there. But it did happen. Now to be fair, most of the right wing conspiracies about this though also included like Hillary Clinton and like the skin of babies. And I can't even remember about all of the insane. I, what I, what is interesting is that these guys are kind of circling around something which is like, oh no, our guys were the bad guys or who are like the Trump was with Epstein. I think that that's part of the again when I talk about it settling is I do think that people are starting to, as it comes and floods in, they're not immediately willing to reject Trump on it. But as it is settled with people, they're like, I don't know what else to make of this, other than he was part of this somehow. And so. But that to them makes it seem like, well, see, see this conspiracy theories, they might not be exactly right on all the details, but they are directionally correct, which makes every subsequent conspiracy seem more legitimate. One last thing here. I have long warned that the MAGA establishment, sort of the JD Vances of the world, are gonna have a hard time keeping people like this engaged and in the tent in a post Trump world, as you like. Look out ahead. How do you think that the right grapples with a coalition that's so disengaged and mistrustful and doesn't even trust maga?
- [52:59]
Amy Walter
That's a very, very good question. And at one point, the moderator asked these participants how they felt about J.D. vance. What was interesting, a number of them, what they liked about him was they mentioned hillbilly elegy and sort of his backstory. And so they kind of liked going, think back to this idea of all American boy grew up having a hard life. He can relate to regular people. One woman said, oh, I don't like Trump, I don't like maga, but I really like Usha.
- [53:30]
Sarah Longwell
Right?
- [53:30]
Amy Walter
It was all about she. She is the reason. His wife is the whole reason that I would support him. So in that sense, he does have something of an identity outside of maga.
- [53:41]
Trump Voter 1
Right.
- [53:41]
Amy Walter
He was this guy who grew up, up in Appalachia. The, you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps piece attracts them. At the same time, there is a weariness and a wariness of what the Republican Party has become or what it will be or what even what it is right now that gives them a pause, you know, so this is. I mean, look, it makes a lot of sense, Sarah, that this is a group of people who have soured on Donald Trump. So they're not going to be like, yeah, let's go get his vice president and put them. Put him in office, or let's go take Marco Rubio, his current Secretary of state, who's overseeing the thing in Iran that we don't like. So we're getting them at a time where they would be least likely to be supportive of somebody that comes from the Trump administration. But I do think overall, the what. What we're coming to see is the challenge of keeping together the coalition that elected Donald Trump even as he's president. Right. He's having a hard time as president keeping that coalition together. Now, imagine coming from that administration and trying to get those people to come out and vote for you. Right? Trying to get Back the young men. Voters who we know polls are showing have continued to give the Trump administration low marks. Latino voters giving him low marks, Independents, we know that those numbers are terrible right now for Trump. So getting those people which was the key to 2024, but also keeping the folks who are pure MAGA, who are all about Donald Trump and may not be sold on whoever is the person who supposedly is the next Donald Trump or the one who's gonna wear the MAGA crown. That is a tough thing to pull off.
- [55:45]
Sarah Longwell
I'll just close by saying the reason I felt like I needed to write a book right now is that I think there is a historic element or a historic opportunity, a generational opportunity to reset the way politics is not from a, like, we're in a new world of information and all of these things. But to me, the dynamic of Trump being able to singularly hold this coalition together and him being gone in some way probably still around whatever. But the Republican Party having to deal with the fact that Trump has spent. Will have spent more than a decade teaching their voters to hate the party and only love him, is just. If the Democrats could just figure out how to get there in a few places, they could figure out how to make sure people felt like Democrats would keep them safe where they had sort of a hey, we're then this isn't about being more moderate or more progressive. It is about Democrats feeling like they have a, a propulsive direction. They know what they stand for. They are, they are pushing popular issues. They're focused on the. And working class. Again, the extent to which the thing that we started with, the challenge of the map, the way that that could be seized in this moment when Republicans, just these kinds of voters are super disenchanted with the party and the Trump people who are just there for Trump now aren't interested because Trump's not there. That whole thing could collapse. Like there's a world in which. And it's not, not even a crazy world world. There was a real chance that that coalition collapses and a lot of people up for grabs. Question is, can you go grab them? And that's going to be the challenge for Democrats. And that's what I tried to, to deal with in the book. All right, Amy Walter, thank you so much for joining us for the seventh time.
- [57:40]
Amy Walter
Enjoyed it as always. Thank you for the invite, Sarah.
- [57:44]
Sarah Longwell
Thanks to all of you for listening to the focus group podcast. Remember to rate and review us on Apple podcasts. Subscribe to The Bulwark on YouTube. Become a Bulwark plus member at The Bulwark. Com. We'll see you guys next week. And Amy will be back before this cycle is over. See you guys.