Transcript: MAGA Voters Wreck Trump in Focus Group: “Nothing But Lies”

As Trump voters savage him in a new focus group, a political theorist explains why a broader-than-usual coalition against corruption and authoritarianism now appears plausible.

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the October 13 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.

Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.

Donald Trump’s alarm about the midterms is growing. He just unleashed a long rant about how he will now import diesel from Russia, a desperate bid to defuse prices as an issue. Meanwhile, new reporting shows Republicans in a deep panic about House seats in blood-red territory. And a new focus group of Trump voters shows they’re strongly rejecting one of his most brazenly authoritarian moves: his taxpayer-funded ads lionizing himself in bizarre dictatorial terms.

So is Trump cratering so badly that it’s opening the way for a broader coalition than we thought against corruption and authoritarianism, one that includes right-leaning voters? We’re talking about all of it with political theorist Paul Crider, who argued for just such a coalition in a piece for The UnPopulist. Paul, good to have you on.

Paul Crider: Nice to be here. Thanks.

Sargent: So Trump’s been running this ad that was originally taxpayer-funded. Here’s a snippet.

Donald Trump (voiceover): With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists, and fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all.

Sargent: Paul, that’s textbook totalitarian propaganda, isn’t it?

Crider: Yeah, absolutely. This is Trump standing in front of the American public on the airwaves as a strongman, kind of an “I am the state” sort of dictator. He’s talking about communists and Marxists and fascists.

These are all people that the Republican side thinks are enemies of the state. They’re the enemies within. You know, he’s talking about liberating America as if America is under invasion. All of this is just textbook fascism.

Sargent: So Sarah Longwell of the Bulwark held a focus group of Trump voters in Florida who now disapprove of him. These are the people he really needs to recapture. They were absolutely revolted by the ad.

Dina, a 53-year-old, called Trump “power-hungry.”

Bob, a 65-year-old, called Trump a “narcissist.”

Eddie from Miami said Trump is the one who’s emulating “communist countries and communist leaders.”

And a 63--year-old named Paul called it “nothing but lies,” adding: “I need some Pepto-Bismol.”

What do you make of that one?

Crider: I like the Pepto-Bismol comment. So these voters that Longwell was talking to, these are voters who voted for Trump in 2024. And they’re souring on him now for whatever reason. This is just how the focus group was selected. So these are people who are at least open to voting for Republicans again, and they’re clearly not interested in doing that now.

And they’re now talking about Trump, who they voted for just two years ago, in terms that you might see in Liberal Currents or something like that. They sound like liberals. You wouldn’t think that these are voices that voted for Trump two years prior. They’re using the language of dictators, you know—power, hunger, all of this stuff—comparing him to the very communist regimes that Trump claims to be opposed to.

Sargent: Yeah, and what strikes me about this as well is that in the kind of limited understanding of this election that sort of fills our punditry, it’s all the economy, it’s all prices. Maybe it’s the war, but only to the degree that it’s affecting gas prices. And maybe it’s tariffs, but only to the degree that it’s affecting prices, right?

But here you hear these voters reacting to something different. What you’d call their anti-totalitarian instincts have been triggered. I think that might be the........

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