What did some swing state voters think of President Trump’s primetime speech on elections?
Transcript
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Primetime addresses from the White House are rare. And on Thursday, President Trump used one to try to convince the American people that the nation’s election system is vulnerable and broken. Trump’s claims were exaggerated and mostly not new. But how did they land with voters? NPR senior political correspondent Tamara Keith checked in with some as part of her Swing Shift project.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Colleen (ph) in Pennsylvania intended to watch President Trump’s speech live, but it didn’t happen.
COLLEEN: Because I got, like, suckered into watching a Hallmark movie – Christmas in July. Can’t beat it.
KEITH: But then she saw some stuff about the speech on social media. So she looked it up on YouTube. It started with about five minutes of the president boasting about his first 18 months in office.
COLLEEN: And I was thinking, who’s he even talking about? Because I don’t see how any of that applies to most of us.
KEITH: Like all the swing-shift voters, Colleen is from a swing state and has a history of voting for candidates from both parties. NPR has agreed not to use their full names so they can speak freely about politics in these polarized times. Colleen was not persuaded by the president’s focus on the 2020 election.
COLLEEN: I don’t know. I really honestly feel like he’s nuts. Like, I don’t know. What are we – why are we living in the past with this election stuff? Buddy, you’re done. You’re not running anymore.
KEITH: Here are Michelle (ph) from Michigan and Evan (ph) from Wisconsin.
MICHELLE: Soon as I hear that 2020 election, I just tune out and think, oh, here we go again.
EVAN: I think at this point, whether there was election fraud or not, he needs to just move past it and admit it.
KEITH: As Michelle sees it, Trump is just trying to stir up chaos about elections, and she has bigger, more pressing concerns. Wally (ph) in Georgia was skeptical too.
WALLY: You could tell after about five minutes in, the only purpose of the speech was to try to front-run some doubt into the upcoming midterms that probably isn’t going to end up going his way.
KEITH: That said, he was critical of TV networks that chose not to air the speech. Jason (ph) in North Carolina thought there would be something groundbreaking but was left wondering why this warranted a primetime address.
JASON: I don’t feel like I learned anything I didn’t already know by paying attention to the news or prior news.
KEITH: John (ph) in Pennsylvania says he wishes the president had addressed the war in Iran, but he says he supports the SAVE America Act, the stalled bill Trump pushed for in his speech.
JOHN: Which should be voter identification and proof of its citizenship. I don’t think that that’s too hard.
KEITH: Quintero (ph) from Nevada agrees.
QUINTERO: We shouldn’t have to wait for a disaster before we put stronger security measures.
KEITH: Gerald (ph) in Georgia says Trump’s speech hit a home run.
GERALD: And so everything that President Trump put out is confirmation to what I was already believing.
KEITH: Taken together, the differing reactions of these swing voters speak to a political reality in this moment. When it comes to Trump, switching people’s views is hard.
Tamara Keith, NPR News.
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