Russia no drag on Trump voters
Inquiry hasn’t swayed USA TODAY panelists
JoAnne Musial has no particular regard for Vladimir Putin, but she does trust Donald Trump. That’s enough for her to cast a suspicious eye toward the furor over Russian interference, campaign collusion and whatever allegations may await the president she backed in 2016.
“They think Putin is playing him,” said Musial, 66, a retiree from Canadensis, Pennsylvania. “I think Trump is playing him a little bit. ... That’s the gut feeling I’ve had: Everyone’s got it all backwards.”
The loyalty of Trump’s voters has been a political strength for the presi- dent through 18 tumultuous months in the White House. Though two-thirds of those supporters said they believe Russia interfered in the 2016 election, they tended to accept declarations by the president and his team that the allegations and investigations have been overblown or misdirected – a conclusion with potentially enormous consequences down the road.
If and when special counsel Robert Mueller releases a public report, those voters are poised to take any negative findings with a grain of salt. As the in-
“They think Putin is playing him. I think Trump is playing him a little bit. ... That’s the gut feeling I’ve had: Everyone’s got it all backwards.”
JoAnne Musial Canadensis, Pennsylvania
vestigation has intensified, their predictions of how history will judge Trump’s presidency have risen.
“The longer it goes, the less faith I have it’s going to be anything but a circus act,” said Barney Clark, 51, a medical device account manager in St. Marys, Georgia.
John Karr, 75, a retiree in Federal Way, Washington, said he’s not sure Russia interfered – not that it matters to him, anyway. “No matter what happens and how many millions Mueller spends, he can’t do a damn thing about what they did or didn’t do,” he said.
Karr and others make up USA TODAY’s Trump Voter Panel, a floating focus group that provides an occasional touch point with the president’s original supporters. They tend to be suspicious about Russia’s motives; many lived through the Cold War. But they’re split between viewing Russia as an “enemy” or as a “competitor,” the word Trump uses to describe Moscow. Some voiced concern over Trump’s controversial news conference with Putin after a summit in Helsinki.
Even so, 17 of the 23 panelists who responded rated Trump’s policy toward Russia as “about right”; five said it was “not tough enough.” One was undecided. In interviews by email and phone, most said their faith remained unshaken in Trump as a leader delivering on campaign promises.
They spoke as scrutiny continues of Russia’s role in the 2016 election and what role it may have in the midterm elections three months away. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, is being prosecuted on unrelated charges of financial fraud in the first trial by the special counsel. And Facebook announced detection of a secret campaign to influence November’s election by stoking racial and other social divisions.
Almost all of these Trump supporters were willing to accept at least some of the many explanations the president and his attorney Rudy Giuliani have offered – that there was no campaign collusion with Russia, or it wasn’t a crime if there was, and anyway, everybody does it. Some panelists said any collusion was with Hillary
“I feel his heart is really in what he’s doing here. I don’t agree with everything he says – I wish at times he would keep his mouth shut – but he is what he is.”
Francis Smazal Marshfield, Wisconsin
Clinton’s campaign, not Trump’s, an assertion the president has made that’s not supported by congressional investigations and others.
On Russia and Putin, “people act surprised they meddled,” said Francis Smazal, 55, a registered nurse from Marshfield, Wisconsin. “I would be more surprised if he didn’t.” Moscow is an adversary of the United States, Smazal noted: “Russia wants to prosper and survive, like we do. Sometimes that involves taking cookies away from us.”
Two-thirds of the panelists said they didn’t believe Russian interference was a threat in the midterm elections this fall or the presidential contest in 2020.
The 25-member group was drawn from Trump voters in the USA TODAY/ Suffolk University polls. This was the seventh time they were surveyed and interviewed about the president they helped elect.
When asked why they remain so loyal to Trump, nearly all offered the same message: He’s doing what he said he would do.
“I don’t see him as a typical politician,” as someone who says what he thinks voters want to hear, Smazal said. “I feel his heart is really in what he’s doing here. I don’t agree with everything he says – I wish at times he would keep his mouth shut – but he is what he is.”
They cited his top achievements as the strong economy, the groundbreaking meeting with North Korea and the nomination of two conservative judges for the Supreme Court. His biggest disappointment or defeat was the failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act and his difficulty in pushing major legislation through Congress, panelists said. They blamed Democrats and establishment Republicans for that, not Trump.
A handful of the panelists did feel some qualms.
“I still think some of his ideas are good, but I don’t approve of the way he’s going about it, I guess,” said Pat Joliff, 61, of Rochester, Indiana. “His views aren’t bad. The person he is is disappointing me.”
Duane Gray, 65, a truck driver from Boise, Idaho, predicted history would judge Trump as only a “fair” president, or even a “failed” one.
When asked whether he approved or disapproved of the job the president is doing, Gray was undecided. Trump’s biggest achievement was “beating Hillary,” he said. And his biggest defeat or disappointment? “Kissing Putin’s (butt) so many times.”
Joliff called Russian hacking “a major thing” and wondered why Trump wasn’t taking it more seriously.
“Is he oblivious? Being deceitful? Or does he just not have a clue? I don’t know, and that’s why I’m uneasy,” she said. “I’m starting to lose trust because I don’t know what kind of person he is on those avenues. Is he being played and can’t figure it out?”
Even some of those who are uneasy about Trump’s dealings with Russia said he probably has a plan in mind.
“He is a shrewd businessman first,” said Joe Canino, 63, of Summerville, South Carolina. “Don’t think for one second he is showing Putin all his cards.”