U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One to depart Haneda Airport for South Korea, in Tokyo, Japan, October 29, 2025. REUTERS Evelyn Hockstein
Follow-up interviews with Trump supporters one year later reveal a souring on the administration’s policies — and not for just one reason.
“Inflation, immigration, and Epstein are all in the mix, but there's a giant mosaic of disappointments,” reports Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell, while reviewing voters comments in a Saturday podcast.
“I would like to know when the last time anybody in Congress or anybody up in the realm there bought a loaf of bread,” ranted one former Trump voter. “I mean, they all talk about economies getting better, but even just loaf of bread, it's really not affordable anymore.”
“I see more people coming through the pantry lines than ever before, and every month it's new people, so it just tells me that there's greater need,” said another. “The economy is not good. The job market's not good. The cost of living is sky high. It's really hard to make ends meet for people and that just kind of overshadows everything else. And you couple that with healthcare costs and insurance costs and things like that and people just can't get ahead.”
A third Trump supporter complained that Trump “backtracked on” everything he promised during his campaign.
“They were his go-to's, and he's changed up. And now It's getting worse by the day, honestly,” he said.
Yet anther disgruntled Trump voter complained that the way Trump talks to people with whom he doesn't agree is “just horrible.”
“It’s probably the worst ofany of our presidents we’ve dealt with,” said the respondent. “I feel like the longer he's in office, the more we're going to plummet to not being a good community or quality country at all, period.”
Longwell told podcast guest Democratic pollster Margie Omero that Trump’s supporters appeared to be willing to tolerate his lies and obscenity, but only so long as their personal comfort was maintained.
“That sound you hear is our audience screaming at their listening devices,” Longwell said. “How could you have not known? What do you mean he sounds like a bully? Were you not there for the first part of it? … It seems that when people like the economy, which they did in Trump's first term, they're willing to forgive a lot of Trump's bad behavior. But when it's going poorly, whatever else is irritating them about Trump gets a lot more irritating.”
Omero agreed, finding voters to be more approving when they have “money in their pocket.”
Other Trump voters were infuriated by Trump’s renewed sense of secrecy over the release of the federal investigative files of convicted sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
One Trump supporter accidently called the Epstein files the “Trump files,” and remained convinced there was something in them that Trump was hiding. Yet another complained that Trump misleadingly framed himself as the “no more b------” president during his campaign.
“You're going to get the facts, he said. He started talking about like the JFK files and all this stuff. And then now that he's involved, or I don't know what it is that they're trying to hide, but it's like, ‘okay, no, no, no. No more truth,’” she said.
“Betrayal is starting to take root,” Longwell said.“… ‘Trump's our truth teller. Well, we know he lies, but he'll tell us the truth.’ And the fact that he is not, they're now like, ‘wait a minute. No, this is not who you're supposed to be for me.’”