'Anxious' farmers are already 'rethinking' support for Trump: journalist
Farmers are starting to turn on President Donald Trump, one reporter from rural Wisconsin warned Friday.
Speaking to MSNBC, The Nation's national affairs correspondent, John Nichols, said that most of the folks he grew up with were farmers or in a business related to farming.
He said that in the U.S., farmers are the largest block of individual small businesses or mid-level businesses.
"They're in a real crisis situation right now because they don't know who they can send goods to," said Nichols. "They've got their seeds in the field, but they don't know, you know, where they're going to be able to send things. They don't know where they're going to be able to sell stuff. They don't know when they might be blocked in short order with a new tariff or something else."
He noted that polls have shown that "farmers who voted for Trump are opposed to the way he is approaching tariffs. They're very, very uncomfortable."
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The trade war extends to larger manufacturing as well, he said, such as auto plants where "they're very aware of these issues."
"They may vote for someone who promises them a better deal. That's not uncommon and it's not shocking," Nichols continued. "But then they watch how that deal plays out. And I can tell you without a doubt, having been in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Belmont, Wisconsin, and over the border in Illinois, and in Iowa, and other places. Every place I go, I hear a discussion of tariffs at the level that I have never, ever heard before. And it is something that, frankly, has people nervous, anxious and, and politically kind of rethinking a lot of their choices."
MSNBC host Katy Tur noted that in the new budget bill, Republicans have cut "the social safety net to catch everybody in case the worst does come to pass."
"In order for Donald Trump to get to some, you know, euphoric future that he promises — it's just coming up around the corner. Don't worry. I don't understand that political contradiction. I don't understand how that wins you elections," she questioned.
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