Donald Trump's wide-ranging interview with Time magazine's Eric Cortellessa was a cautionary tale about cutting loose an infamously unmoored candidate with a print reporter, who also published a transcript and fact check of the conversation.
The interview hit on a series of topics that suggest that Trump's second-term agenda would greatly deviate from what voters actually want. The progressive consortium Navigator Research combed through the interview to find hot-button topics on which Trump's agenda is wildly out of step with public sentiment.
Among the many policies that Trump discussed and sometimes dodged were the termination of Roe v. Wade (of which he is extraordinarily proud), a national abortion ban (which he repeatedly refused to say he would veto), and pardoning Jan. 6 rioters (he would "absolutely" consider pardoning them all).
In May 2023, Navigator polled the idea of Trump pardoning most of the Jan. 6 rioters, which he had recently said he would do at the time.
Among all voters, 51% said it "raises major doubts" about him leading the Republican Party, while 35% said it did not raise doubts, and 15% said it raised minor doubts. Here is a breakdown along party lines:
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Democrats: 80% have major doubts and 11% have no doubts
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Independents: 45% have major doubts and 34% have no doubts
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Republicans: 19% have major doubts and 62% have no doubts
In the Time interview, Cortellessa pressed Trump on whether he would veto a national abortion ban, and Trump declined to commit one way or the other.
Navigator polled support for a federal abortion ban in January. It was not popular, with 66% opposed to it and a meager 27% in support. Even Republican voters were split on the matter. Here's the partisan breakdown:
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Democrats: 85% are opposed and 12% support
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Independents: 68% are opposed and 19% support
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Republicans: 45% are opposed and 47% support.
Trump also claimed his share of credit for appointing several Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe.
"Every legal scholar, Democrat, Republican, and other wanted that issue back at the states," Trump said, advancing one of his oft repeated lies.
Legal scholars aside, a Navigator survey in January found that 58% of voters believe that the overturning of Roe has been "bad for the country," with just 30% saying it's been good.
Among those opposed to the reversal of Roe were 62% independents, 31% Republicans, and an overwhelming 80% Democrats.
Trump didn't specifically talk about extending his 2017 tax cuts (which overwhelmingly benefited wealthy Americans), but Cortellessa writes that it’s one of two bills that "Trump’s team is eyeing" as an early priority for his administration.
In March, Navigator outlined for voters the impact of Trump's tax cuts and what an extension would mean.
"The tax law that Republicans in Congress passed in 2017 benefited the wealthy and corporations, with them receiving 83% of the benefits … extending the tax cuts would add $3.5 trillion to the deficit, give wealthy foreign investors a tax break of over $24 billion in just one year, and allow 55 large corporations to pay zero dollars in federal income taxes,” Navigator reported. “After more information, do you favor or oppose Congress making this tax law permanent?"
Perhaps not surprisingly, once voters understood the broad outlines of who would benefit from an extension and what it would cost, they largely rejected it.
Overall, 65% were opposed to an extension with just 25% in favor. Independents opposed it 60% to 27%, and even 38% of Republicans said they were in opposition.
The polling suggested that, while tax cuts are often enticing to voters, educating the public on Trump's tax cuts might turn voters against them. It's an education campaign that President Joe Biden is already embarking on.
The first-term agenda Trump laid out during the interview was nothing short of an anti-democratic horror show. The policies Trump supports poll poorly on their face, but they could become even more toxic if the Biden campaign puts the time and effort into highlighting and contextualizing them, as the Navigator polling shows.
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. entered the 2024 presidential race as an independent, many feared (and the MAGA faithful cheered) that he would siphon off important swing-state Democrats and independents from President Biden. That doesn’t seem to be so true anymore. In fact, the opposite may be true—and Donald Trump is hopping mad about it.
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