When President Trump’s plan to repeal Obamacare fizzled, his supporters seemed to blame anyone but him.
Soon after the House of Representatives pulled its health-care bill late last month, NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro asked two Trump voters, “who do you blame for what just happened?”
“I mean, the president sold himself as a deal-maker ... We have a Republican president, a Republican Congress. Yet they couldn't close the deal. Do you blame President Trump?” Garcia-Navarro asked.
“No,” responded the Trump voter, Becky Ravenkamp. “I don't think blaming anybody is the solution. I think part of what we're seeing is that the Republicans are starting to get their wings. It's going to take them a little while to figure out how to come together and how to create policy.”
Stat News heard similar responses when its reporters fanned out across Trump Country. The president’s supporters said things like, “We just need to give President Trump time,” or “He did all he could, I think.”
In Little Rock, Arkansas, a retired nurse named Ramona Bourdo, told Reuters, "He can't wave a magic wand. I've not lost confidence in him."
And it’s not just health care. The AP found Trump voters across the country applauding his refugee ban even though it was in legal turmoil. One Trump voter in Durant, Oklahoma, where the president’s proposed budget cuts would hit especially hard, told the Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson he thinks we should “let it go and see what he can do.”