A focus group of Trump voters has delivered a savage verdict on his second term, with one branding it a “horror movie” and nine of 12 saying they regret backing him.
The dozen disillusioned voters were assembled by The New York Times for the latest installment of its “America in Focus” series. The results, which landed on Monday, come as the president’s approval ratings have collapsed to the worst point of either of his terms amid the unpopular war in Iran, surging prices, and the never-ending Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
Asked to grade President Donald Trump’s second term, not a single participant gave him an A or a B. One handed out a C, eight gave him a D, and three flunked him with an F.
“It’s turned out to be a horror movie. I was so wrong with the vote for him,” said Jose, 62, a Latino employment specialist from Florida who told moderators he no longer watches the news because it leaves him depressed. His 17-year-old daughter, Jose said, regularly asks him, “Why did you vote for him, Dad?”—adding, “That breaks my heart every time she does that.”
Several participants saved their fiercest criticism for Trump’s immigration crackdown—the policy that has come to define his second term.
Alla, 51, a white Republican portfolio manager from Alabama, said she had backed the president’s pledge to fix immigration but quickly recoiled at the execution. “How ICE was treating people. This is not the way to do it,” she said.
Franceska, 26, a mixed-race independent deckhand from Washington state, told the panel her Mexican-looking boyfriend had been pulled over by ICE agents who scrutinized his ID—convincing her the dragnet was racially targeted. Asked to sum up her feelings about the administration in a word, she chose: “Betrayed.”
Michelle, 45, a Latina Republican from Maryland, said she felt “foolish” for having stood her ground in a family of Democrats. “I looked dumb as hell believing in fairy tales and wishy-washy promises,” she said.
Pamela, 65, a white Republican small-business owner from Tennessee, went further: “I’m embarrassed for our whole country that this is what we’re dealing with daily now.”
Perhaps the most withering verdict came from Kitty, 36, an Asian independent student from Pennsylvania, who told the moderators of her vote: “It’s like, now we have a dictator.”
Asked what she wished she could tell her 2024 self at the ballot box, she said the second term had turned out “completely un-American. Completely the opposite of what you’d hope for.”
The focus group’s findings track with a brutal stretch of polling for Trump that the Beast has covered in recent weeks. An NBC News survey published on April 19 put Trump’s approval at 37 percent, the worst of his second term, while a humiliating Fox News poll released last week showed just 28 percent of voters approve of his handling of inflation.
White voters without a college degree—the heart of his 2024 winning coalition—have also turned on him, with the latest YouGov/CBS data showing him underwater with the group for the first time.
Asked by the Times what the focus group members wish they could have told themselves on the way to the polling booth in 2024, Pamela said: “Think carefully. When people show you who they are, believe them.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
