A pair of voters who backed President Donald Trump in 2024 offered starkly contrasting assessments of his second term so far.
Gerald and Wally are both Black men who live in suburban Atlanta, grew up voting for Democrats and voted for Joe Biden in 2020 before switching to Trump over Kamala Harris, and they spoke to NPR about their view of his second presidency.
"Listen, I am so pro-Trump, people just don't even understand," said Gerald, a 51-year-old married truck driver. "The dude is amazing because he's not following the script."
Gerald grades Trump's second term as an A++, but 44-year-old Wally gives him an F.
"Like, what do we have that we can hang our hat on right now?" Wally said. "We have higher gas prices."
NPR has been speaking to dozens of swing voters in swing states in hopes of determining the mood of the electorate who will play an outsize role in choosing the next president in 2028, and reporters found that Wally had soured on Trump already because of his concerns about the economy.
"Everyone's drowning, and like we just need to come up for air," Wally said. "No one's really just trying to swim to shore. We're just trying to get our head or our noses above the water."
Despite casting his vote for the twice-impeached, oft-indicted Trump out of frustration with the incremental change promised by Democrats, he did not have high expectations for his second term – and even admits to choosing maximum chaos to force the kind of change he believe the country needs.
"I feel if people get mad enough, they'll force change," Wally said. "They'll force it somehow."
On the other hand, Gerald happily cast his vote after researching and engaging in what he called "critical thinking" to challenge his own assumptions, and he said he's never backing Democrats again despite losing friends over his pro-Trump social media posts.
"To me critical thinking means, what if I'm wrong about what I've been told?" Gerald said.
However, Gerald admits that high gas prices since the start of the Iran war posed a real hardship for him and his wife, and he said they're using apps to find discounts on fuel and have cut back on dining out at restaurants – or eating at all.
"Cook, fast – I mean, me and my wife have been fasting, and there's a lot of benefits, including one of those benefits is saving money on groceries," Gerald said.
But that's a sacrifice he's willing to make, and he's not blaming the president.
"I just try to do the cutting back to do, to survive, 'til we make it through it," Gerald said. "It's like anything else. It's a season."