All posts tagged "sarah longwell"

Wow!' MSNBC's Mika surprised after hearing Trump voters ripping his top economic policy

MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski was taken aback by the negative reactions of Donald Trump supporters who slammed his sweeping tariffs and expressed concern with the direction the economy seemed to be heading.

During his presidential campaign, Trump vowed to bring down prices for consumers "on Day One," yet the steep tariffs he imposed on the country's trade partners this month threaten to do the opposite.

Conservative pollster Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark played some of the voter reactions Monday on "Morning Joe."

One woman was heard lamenting, "It's been awful...Why I voted for Trump was for the prices to come down at the grocery store. Nothing's come down."

She added, "When it hurts now, it's hard to recover for someone like me. So, it really hits me in the gut."

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Brzezinski reacted, "Wow. And these are Trump voters once again."

"I think the fundamental thing to understand, though, isn't even from this focus group," Longwell said. "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."

Longwell said Trump's promise was why some Americans chose to overlook his "myriad flaws" to vote him into office.

"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," Longwell said.

"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," Longwell added. "Voters are starting to doubt that he is going to do the good things for the economy that he promised...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?'"

Watch the clip below via MSNBC.

'Political pathogen' of Trump 'fever' may finally be breaking: Ex-GOP lawmaker

Former Republican lawmaker Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) posited in a new Substack piece that the nearly decade-long fever pervading the GOP thanks to a "virus called Donald Trump" is finally showing signs of breaking.

Kinzinger described this insidious "political pathogen" as causing "a fever so disorienting that many cannot see his malevolence."

But Kinzinger wrote that the president's failure to shift the economy into high gear as he promised on the campaign trail has many voters wiping the scales from their eyes.

In recent days, stocks have see-sawed with news of Trump's massive tariffs on "friendly countries," and the price of eggs and other groceries have remained unaffordable for some average Americans.

Kinzinger quoted Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark, who claimed in a recent cable news appearance, "I think what we are starting to see is the very beginning of buyer’s remorse setting in.”

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"Despite his claims of a sweeping mandate, Trump was elected for one primary reason: to improve the economy," Kinzinger wrote. "Yet, just two months into his presidency, a CNN poll shows that 54% of Americans believe he’s failing at this task. Alarmed by the consequences of his policies, 61% now oppose his tariff schemes, and only 46% think he is doing a good job overall."

Kinzinger cited focus groups conducted by policy analyst Rich Thau, even "moderate" Trump voters in the Great Lakes region "see the chaos in Washington, the tumbling stock market, and persistently high prices and realize this isn’t what they signed up for."

He quoted one focus group participant who lamented, “I don’t think anyone would have voted for him if they expected to see what we’re seeing now.”

Still another participant claimed she was “almost scared to watch the news.”

And Kinzinger said Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan expressed such feelings of betrayal at Trump's musings about turning Gaza into a seaside resort that it felt like "a slap in the face."

Kinzinger concluded by suggesting that those not infected by the "virus" move beyond the "'I told you so'" gloating phase to welcoming the Trump voters to a new state of political health.

Read the Substack piece here.

'It's about to get worse': Republican warns how Trump will rip off his supporters next

Former President Donald Trump is gearing up to fleece Republican Party voters on a level like never before, longtime GOP consultant Sarah Longwell told MSNBC's Chris Hayes on Thursday.

This comes after the Republican National Committee revealed this week it's had its worst fundraising year in a decade — and the picture looks even worse for many state-level GOP committees.

"One of the things, Sarah — parties have gotten weaker over time," said Hayes. "I think RNC, if I'm not mistaken, $80 million last year? And Trump had $50 million in legal fees. I mean, those dollars, it is a fixed part. There's a certain amount of small-dollar Republican conservative donors, a certain amount of money that's gonna come flowing in. And right now $50 million in legal fees."

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"I guess it is, and it's about to get worse," said Longwell, who helped found Republican Voters Against Trump. "He's gonna be in court the entire time they're trying to raise money to run races. Donald Trump is not the only person in the Republican Party. They have Senate races. They have downballot races. There's a lot of other people who are hoping for that money."

"That's what's been so crazy to me about the Republican Party," Longwell continued. "In a healthy political environment, they would be upset with him about this, about draining resources for the betterment of the party. That's always been the thing about Donald Trump. He doesn't care about the Republican Party ... they are trying to help him and whatever they can for him only to the detriment of the party and any kind of principle or meaningful ideological places, the thing that they want to do, it's just all about Trump and they're not gonna have a platform, then I can be able to raise money for Senate candidates, they're just gonna go all in on Trump, and it's the whole Republican Party."

"Republicans have nobody to blame but themselves because they let this happen," she added. "They could've stood up 1 million different times in 1 million different ways. They chose not to, and that's why we're here."

Watch the video below or at the link.

Sarah Longwell discusses RNC's financial problemswww.youtube.com