Katy Tur: “Donald Trump’s Voters Don’t Feel Quite As Seen As They Used To”
MS NOW host Katy Tur delivers a monologue on President Donald Trump’s voters and how their problems have not been addressed.
KATY TUR, MS NOW HOST: Good to be with you. I’m Katy Tur. I followed Donald Trump to Michigan over and over again on the campaign trail in 2015 and 2016. It was even the site of his last rally before people went to the polls back then. And it worked. Michigan voted for him in 2016. People there said, they told me they felt seen for the first time in a while by a presidential candidate, seen in a real way, which is why I wanted to start the show with that interview with that woman in Capic, Michigan, in a county, by the way, that Donald Trump has repeatedly dominated. It shows that in 2026, Donald Trump’s voters don’t feel quite as seen as they used to. Their problems have not been addressed. And the promises the president made to bring prices down, down on day one, remember, well, those promises are starting to sound hollow. In the case of Taylor, we emphasize starting because, as you heard, she’s going to hold off a little before she makes a full judgment. Taylor’s struggles, though, and the frustrations that she has are shared across the state. Detroit News and WDIV have new polling today that shows 64 percent of respondents say their household costs have gone up in the past year. More than 82 percent say most of those costs are food and groceries. And it gets worse from there. A plurality of voters give the president an F on his handling of the economy. One said he would give him a Z if he could. 32 percent, double the number that gave him an A. And now Donald Trump’s economy is demotivating his own voters, endangering crucial midterm races like the open seat that will be left behind by Democratic Senator Gary Peters, who is retiring this year. You just heard Michael Steele a moment ago say the Senate is up in the air. The Democrats could win the Senate in this environment. If prices keep dragging, there are real effects potentially for 2028 as well, as Michigan is by no means a reliably red state, even though President Trump won it back in 2024. So what is he saying to Michiganders today to turn it around? Is announcing credit card interest rate caps enough for a ban on institutional investors from buying single family homes, getting Fannie and Freddie Mac to buy back mortgage bonds? Because actually doing these things is either harder than it sounds or arguably not as effective as he’s promising. Catherine Rampell is going to join us in just a moment to explain whether any of this actually does make a dent. And Jake Sherman is here to give us the reality check on Congress, whether they will go along with these ideas. Besides the two single things that might actually help the economy, well, those are the two things that the president doesn’t appear to want to do. Back off the Fed is one of them. Maintain its independence. And the other is back off tariffs. The Supreme Court might do that for him tomorrow, might say those tariffs are unconstitutional. But all indications so far that the president will try to use some other authority to maintain those tariffs, or at least some of them.
