Media

MSNBC host: Trump supporters ‘vote pretty selfishly’

by Joe Concha - 08/30/18 5:11 PM ET

MSNBC hosts linked President Trump’s approval rating with people who vote based on “what’s going to give me more money in my pockets” on Thursday.

MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle also said “a lot of people vote pretty selfishly” when it comes to supporting Trump.

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“While we could find or do find the president’s constant lying or lawlessness or reprehensible behavior morally unacceptable, a lot of people vote pretty selfishly, and they say, ‘What’s going to give me more money in my pockets?’ ” Ruhle said in opening a segment with billionaire Tom Steyer.

“Or what’s going to make abortion illegal, or what’s going to make sure that my Second Amendment rights stay the same, and clearly, that adds up to enough people that the president still has [the support of] something akin to 40 percent of the electorate in polls,” added co-anchor Ali Velshi.

Trump is currently sitting at 43.3 percent in the RealClearPolitics average of major polls, a 6.2 point rise since December of 2017, before the GOP tax bill was passed. In a breakdown of respondents, his approval among Republicans is consistently high and consistently low among Democrats.

Steyer, though, pointed to enthusiasm he’s seeing in voters opposing Trump that’s helping to increase Democratic turnout in elections. He dismissed Trump’s approval rating as “constant but at a low level.”

“What we are seeing is great passion,” he said before pointing to Florida’s recent election. “And Florida is a perfect example, Stephanie. A 70 percent increase in Democratic turnout last Tuesday. What that says is, people are deeply upset with this administration, deeply upset with their policies, and deeply upset with their lawlessness.”

Steyer, 61, is a former hedge fund manager from San Francisco that has since become one of the most active Democratic donors in the country.

Tags Donald Trump MSNBC Trump voters