Bulwark Takes - Sarah Longwell: Even Trump Voters Are Worried About Tariffs

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

Sarah Longwell joins Morning Joe to break down new focus group data showing growing Trump voter dissatisfaction—especially over rising prices and tariffs.

Mc-Crispy strips are now at McDonald's. I hope you're ready for the most dippable chicken in McDonald's history. Dip it in all the sauces. Dip it in that hot sauce in your bag. Dip it in your McFlurry. Your dip is your business. Mc-Crispy strips at McDonald's. Hey everyone, I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark,

and I was on with Morning Joe this morning talking about how some Trump voters are feeling about his tariff regime and the chaos around it. You know, even Trump voters starting to get pretty worried about the tariffs. Trump was hired, as I say on Morning Joe, to lower people's prices, and that's not happening. So go enjoy the clip. So Sarah, the bulwark did a focus group with voters who went from President Biden in 2020 to President Trump in the last election. And here is some of what they had to say about the tariffs. The tariffs I don't get and it kind of concerns me a little bit, but I'm hoping it will make sense uh shortly right now it just it kind of doesn't

to me i am too a little scared about the tariffs because the stock market has plunged a few times and uh i'm glad i just bought a newer car in december because the price is all up right now so i'm still a little worried i think it's been awful I'm sorry I had to got an oil change and it's not even at a regular car dealer it cost me ten dollars more so I'm not seeing it and what I why I voted for Trump was for the prices to come down at the grocery store nothing's come down that's why I voted for Trump and they're talking about your cell phones your cars and everything is just going higher I know it might hurt for us now, but when it hurts now, it's hard to recover for someone like me. So it really hits me in the gut. Wow. And these are Trump voters once again.

Sarah, how across the board was this contention that they are disappointed in what's happening with these tariffs? Well, I don't know that it was entirely across the board. There are some voters that say, look, I'm not sure about this, but I'm willing to give it a shot or I'm willing to wait and see. I think the fundamental thing to understand, though, isn't even from this focus group. It's from the hundreds of focus groups that I did going into this election, really understanding that the number one thing that Donald Trump was hired to do by so many of these voters was lower prices. I mean, that is what put him in the White House. It is why people overlooked his myriad flaws. It goes to sort of the central offering of Donald Trump, which is that he is a businessman. This

is how these voters think of him and that he will do good things for the economy. And so to me, what is interesting is when you see a lot of this polling come out showing that Trump's overall approval rating is actually higher than his approval rating on the economy. Voters are starting to doubt that he is going to do the good things for the economy that he promised. Remember, he told people he was going to do the good things for the economy that he promised. And remember, he told people he was going to lower grocery costs on day one. And for a lot of voters that we were talking to, even though the macro economy under Joe Biden was strong, we just listened to people talk over and over again about how they were struggling with grocery prices and with housing prices and with inflation. And so right now, what you're seeing is voters really starting to say, is he going to focus on this at all?

Is he going to do something about this? Because this is the thing that impacts me personally. And so when he hasn't brought inflation down, when he hasn't brought prices down, and then on top of that, he's introducing this uncertainty into the market. And look, there's a lot of people in these groups who work for small businesses who are in the supply chains and they understand. They'll tell you if this goes through, you know, not only will it decimate my business, but also how am I supposed to plan now for what I'm going to do going forward? So a lot of uncertainty about the tariffs, even among Trump voters. Sarah Longwell, thank you so much. Her latest piece on Trump voters and tariffs is online.