Funding for To The Contrary provided by: This week on To The Contrary: First, has Trump's popularity reached a turning point?

And, the impact of Trump's orders banning diversity, equity and inclusion from federal policy.

Hello, I'm Bonnie Erbé.

Welcome to To The Contrary, a discussion of news and social trend from a variety of perspectives.

Up first, Trump's popularity.

Has President Trump launched an unintentional GOP revolt against himself?

His approval ratings are at a second term low.

A new CNN poll shows his support among Non-College-Educated voters male and female, has collapsed from a 14 point lead to a nine point deficit.

This huge swing is apparently fuele by a disconnect on the economy, which he thinks is moving along quite well while thousands of U.S.

manufacturing job have evaporated since last year.

Democrats still face a narrow, difficult path to reclaim the Senate.

But their odds of taking back the House are strong.

GOP leaders are apparently skittish about the midterms.

If Republicans only hold a four point edge with blue collar voters, they risk losing key battleground state such as Ohio and North Carolina.

Joining me this week are Sa Bennett of the Amsterdam News, Linda Chavez of the Center for Equal Opportunity, Carrie Sheffield of the Independent Women's Forum, and Jessica Washington of The Intercept.

So Sam, let's start with you.

Will this warning sign turn out to be true for the upcoming midterm elections, and will Republicans lose a lot of ground?

I absolutely think so.

And I think it's a case of the straw that broke the camel's back.

Minneapolis plus ICE.

He's done.

I would be careful.

In 50 plus years of politics, one thing I've learned i that nine months is an eternity.

I agree, it's a political lifetime between now and November.

And look, I'm going to quote Joe Biden, don't compare Donald Trump to God Almighty.

Compare him to the alternative.

Democrats, their approval is in the hole by 22 points, according to Real Clear Polling.

Trump's only on the whole spread -11.

Assuming that Americans continue to feel the anger they felt about Minneapolis about what's going on with CBP and the economic indicators from tariffs remain the same, I thin Republicans are really in danger in the midterms.

Well, getting back t Jim Carvilles quote of, “It's the economy, stupid.” Now, he was talking, of course about the elections in the 90s when he worked for former President Clinton.

But if it's the economy, stupid, the economy is grea for rich people and not so great for middle and lower class people of whom therere great many more voters than among rich people.

So what does that tell us about whether it's going to hold or not?

This week, we just had a jobs report that shattered expectations.

130,000 jobs, expectations of only 55,000 jobs.

Women are jumping off the sidelines.

They're getting back into the labor force.

We're seeing the momentum, thanks to the tax bill that Trump signed into law that Congress approved.

It takes some time for these policies to take an effect, but we're going to see it just like we saw it after the 2017 tax bill.

I think that you don't remember the lessons of 2024, and that is you can tell people the economy is great as long as you want and as loudly as you want.

But if they don't feel i in their pocketbooks, it's going down to your, loss.

And I think that's the problem here.

It is working class people that Donald Trump is losing.

He's losing a lot of Hispanic voters who shifted, you know, greatly in his direction and in 2024.

And that's because the economy did great in, you know, his first term.

And they thought it would return.

And it hasn't.

And so I think the jury is out on how good this economy is.

All right.

But what you said earlier, Linda.

Linda, what you said earlier was that you thought that, it was a little too soon just to claim victory.

And of course, that is absolutely true.

On the other hand, it takes a while and a whole set of strong policies to help to maybe kickstart the economy, to turn around.

So between now and November, does, does Trump have time to turn the economy around?

That's exactly what I said.

And, Linda, I don't think you heard what I said.

I actually said I acknowledge the pain.

I acknowledge the affordability, that people are feeling the pinch.

Absolutely.

I live in Virginia.

This is wh we lost the governor's mansion.

What I'm saying now is tha it takes time to turn the ship.

The tax bill was signed into law on July 4th.

It takes some time.

Trump put in a deregulatory agenda.

He said, if you want to put in one regulation, you have to repeal ten regulations.

That takes time.

There were significant jo cuts to the federal workforce.

We are at the lowest labor force of the federal workforce since 1966.

It takes time to have the private sector absorb those workers.

I agree with you, Linda.

We can't, as Republicans, we can't ignore the pain that people are feeling.

What I'm saying i that it takes time to absorb it.

And we saw in Q3 and Q4 of 202 extraordinary economic growth, 4%, between 3 and 5%.

So I agree with you, Linda, that yes, we can't ignore it.

But at the same time, we also can't ignore the momentum and the great policies that have been enacted.

There are also a lot of other things— There are als a lot of other things going on.

For example, Europe has kind of retaliated finally against Trump speaking, belittling their leadership, calling them all kinds of, you know, what second grader would use to insult each other and now, Switzerlan and one other European country canceled their orders for US fighter jets, which is going to take bill— just that cancellation itself will take billions out of the US economy.

Are we going to see more of that now that he's been acting so, a lot of people would say, immaturely on the economy and using sanctions— using tariffs, sorry, in a way that no president has used them in 100 years.

Is he going to feel the sting of that?

Tariffs have always been proven to be economically disastrous in the short term and long term, and that's exactly what's going to tank us.

But let's—I want to go back to what Linda said.

Absolutely.

Politic is about what people experience.

I walked into a five guys and bought a hamburger for my grandson and it was $11.

That's what people vote on.

I have children that have been saving for years to buy a larger home for their three children.

They had to get a 50 year jumbo mortgage just to be able to afford it.

So these are the things that cause people to vote and where their heart is and what their life is.

And I think that is where, where this all—this trend is going electorally.

Look at the over performance of Democrats.

It's extraordinary the over performance.

No one saw that one coming.

And I would predict that we've only just begun in that over performance.

Now let me steer us in another direction because Trump has also reversed himself on tariffs on food and other commonly purchased and often purchased by lower and middle income people food products from Europe.

If American see the price of food come down and he's actually discusse this, he brought it up himself.

If they see the if this goes into effect quickly enough and really does bring people's grocery bills down, is that going to renew popularity for him?

I don't think so.

You've got ICE and you've got Minneapolis that's going to drag him down.

And we haven't even opened the Pandora's box of the pedophilia claims around the Epstein files that are only just now being opened up.

Sam, I respect you, but this is a distraction, and it's— No, it is not a distraction.

If you have your—hold on— Voters don't care about it.

I am using language that is being used by the FBI, by the DOJ.

There's nothing libelous about it.

For us to have the highest ranking elected officer of the most powerful nation in the world implicated in this incredible, incredibl pedophilia ring is disastrous.

It's disastrous for us as a nation.

It's disastrous for Trump, and it's only just begun.

It's very important to remember that.

It's only just begun and it's taking down heads of state.

It's taking down key office holders in Europe, right now, is what it's doing.

Taking down royalty in Europe, that's for sure.

Yes.

I strongly disagree wit the use of the word implicated.

It's absolutely been rejected.

If you listen to Ms.

Giuffre who committed suicide, she said Donald Trump had nothing to do with this.

The Palm Beach police just released a report from 20 years ag saying that Donald Trump called Ghislaine Maxwell evil and said that it was good that he was, they were going after him, so.

Wait a second, Carrie, I know that Jeffrey Epstein is no longer with us, but there was a letter that came out that he wrote to the coach in Michiga who was abusing all those women, implicating Trump in exactly what that coach and what Epstein were doing.

That just came out this week.

So how can you say he' not been implicated in the case?

That was a pretty large implication.

What was the date of that letter?

Well he's been dead for a while now.

He committed suicide years ago.

But the fact is, it just was released to the public this week.

It's important the date of that letter, because folks need to know that there is evidence that Epstein was working with Democratic operatives to try to take down Donald Trump, the candidate.

That is absolutely true.

And Trump has been through hell fire from people trying to take him down.

And so the more people attack him, the better he does.

So you can keep doing this, but it's honestly going to only do Trump favors from a from a— Could I just interject here that, you know, the irony of this is that it's QAnon that is responsible for the whole Epstein controversy, the whole, you know, supposedly cabal, that he, that he ran in exposing that.

So it really came from Donald Trumps space.

I have to tell you, I'm agnostic on this.

I don't think people are going going to go into the polling booth and vote on Jeffrey Epstein.

Certainly not when they're talking about, you know, local elections, unless the person's name appeared in those files, as, for example, Commerce Secretary Lutnick did after his denying that he was ever, you know, after one very brief visit that he was ever in the same room as Jeffrey Epstein.

Turns out he took his whole family.

They went and visited the island.

And oh, by the way, Jeffrey Epstein asked Mr.

Lutnick for the bio on his nanny and, so, look, it's all very unseemly.

But the bottom line is it's going to be pocketbook.

It's going to be, you know, absolutely whether or not you feel like you were better off today than you were in 2024, I don't want to end discussion of this topic, Jessica, without asking you about what's going to happen with people of color, specifically about the reference that was deleted— but still, there's record of it out there, and I have not seen it but President Trump, using what a lot of people have referred to as racist terms about, or depicting former president Obama and Michelle Obama in very racist like cartoonish characters.

Are people of color going to forget that and forgive him?

Those images were undeniably racist For anyone who hasn't seen them, they depicted first Lady Michelle Obama and President Barack Obama as apes.

I think there is no other way to describe those images.

What I will say is, I think for most black Americans, their views of Donald Trump were pretty baked in.

Their views of him as anti-black, dating back all the way to his time in real estate, I think are very baked in.

So what I think we won't see is any more movement, likely, of African Americans, particularly African American men, towards Donald Trump.

But I don't know if it changes the calculus too much.

What I am curious abou is how it changes the calculus for white voters, and for Latino and Hispanic voters as well.

Does the anti-Black racism being that explicit change how they view Donald Trump?

That's kind of what I'm looking for, because I think for most black Americans, those feelings were pretty baked in.

All right.

Let us know what you think.

Follow me on X @BonnieErbe.

From elections to DEI policies.

What will be the impact of President Trump's executive orders dismantling federal diversity equity and inclusion programs?

A survey found last year, they caused a chilling effect with 79% of women expecting fewer leadership opportunities.

Many are now job hugging.

That is, staying i stagnant roles because they fear new employers may feel free to act on their biases.

McKinsey's yearly wome in the workplace report showed an end to the growth of women in corporate C-suites, and black female unemployment recently spiked nearly 1.5% as diversity related leadership roles were cut.

But a new Office of Personnel Management report argues the effects of the cuts are positive.

It claims government efficiency has improved thanks to anti-DEI policies.

So Jessica, again, let's get back to this.

We talked about DEI and how most people of color are feeling about that which is not positive that he's getting rid of it in the federal government and trying to get rid of it in other places, too.

But, what will the impact be on not just African-Americans, but Latinos and Asian Americans, etc.?

The project of equality is not over.

We have not reached a place in which we have figured out how to successfully combat racism, sexism, all of these other isms that prevent people from moving forward.

And so the impact for black people for people of color, for women, is that we will see fewer opportunities fewer of these barrier breaking programs, fewer of these you know, incentives to actually allow women and people of colo to reach their full potential.

And so that's a loss for those people.

But it's also a loss for companies who are losing out on this talent because of gender, because of race.

And that's the rea tragedy, both for these people and for our corporations and for our world.

Could I just offer a different point of view?

And this is where I have spent my entire career, is in this space.

I am a huge critic of DEI.

It sounds perfectly anodyne, you know, diversity, equity and inclusion.

That sounds great.

But the problem is the policies themselves are policies that try to essentially steer the outcome.

So you're not guaranteeing equal opportunity.

You're trying to guarantee equal results.

I also spent 25 years in the corporate space.

I was a director at Fortune 500 companies over a 25 year period.

And by the way, my company and I was the chair of the governance committee, had almost half of the board members, female.

Now, we didn't do that with DEI.

We did it by going out casting a wider net, making sure that we included people.

But at the end of the day, we always chose somebody who could add value to the company becaus of their particular expertise.

And we got terrific people.

And the problem with some of these policies, and we saw i certainly in college admissions, you could admit somebody with lower grades and test scores, but you can't guarantee they're going to graduate.

And what my Cente for Equal Opportunity did over the last 30 years is to do studies, follow the numbers.

And what we found is that students who were admitte with substantially lower grades and test scores, which black and Latino students were at our most prestigious universities, ended up not completing their degrees.

And that has very bad consequences.

Carrie, your thoughts.

Are— do you think if he gets a lot of support from corporations, which we've already seen some support for eliminating DEI, certainly among companies tha aren't particularly—aren't seen as particularly women friendly like defense contractors.

Is that going to impact his chances for picking up seats in the House and Senate rather than losing them in the midterms?

I completely agree with everything Linda said.

I think this should be shared widely.

Because when you're talking about employment, it's so important we have the rule of law under the Constitution.

Everyone is treated equally.

You don't get treated wors or better because of your race or your gender.

And Donald Trump believes tha and his policies reflect that.

And that's what he did to the federal workforce.

I have great sympathy and empathy for folks who were laid off in the federal government.

Again, we've had the lowest level right no of federal workers since 1966.

That created some pain in my state here in Virginia, wher a lot of people were laid off.

But the answer to that pain is to not then go and hir people based on race and gender.

It's to help equip them.

It's to help, you know help people lift themselves up.

And I say this as someon whose parents were on welfare, we were homeless My brother was born in a tent.

I say this as someone with compassion in my heart, that the American dream is alive and well.

And as a woman, I was able to get a full scholarship to Harvard because of my merit and my test scores.

And I worked really hard.

So there is a way to achieve in this country.

And I would also say for anyone who is facing discrimination, make sure to document it, make sure that you bring the rule of law to your favor, and get justice.

I'm just wondering, you got, you know, a scholarship to Harvard, which, of course, is one of the most desirable things in education these days.

Would you have gotten it if you were of color?

I received it because it was a journalism scholarship because I had been the youngest editorial writer on the editorial board of a national newspaper, The Washington Times.

I had been a founding reporter at Politico when Politico was founded.

I covered Congress, including the rollout of Medicare Part D at age 22.

So to me, I believe it was based on my qualifications and my merit, my GPA as an undergrad and on my test scores, both my S.A.T.

score and my GRE scores.

So one could argue maybe I didn't deserve it.

I think that I was very qualified for it.

And again, it was based on I believe it was based on merit.

And that's what Trump is doing.

He's returning excellence into the federal workforce.

Excellence, not anything else.

I have to vehemently disagree on that one.

My husband, who was Mexican, got in—was a brilliant, you know, brilliant man.

Was accepted to Yal only because there was a former Latino who would go out into neighborhood across the southwest and recruit high performing students to apply to Yale.

If that individual hadn't done that, these students wouldn't have even known that option was available to them.

I think the point of DEI is thi If you look at the statistics, look at the numbers, we do not have women in corporate boardrooms.

We do not have women in uppe leadership in corporate America.

We do not have women in electoral representation.

Though that number has improved.

So DEI is a very effective way to put everyone on notice, we're watching.

We want to see more women.

We want to see more Latinos.

We want to see this.

Is it a issue on which people will vote, the way the economy is clearly an issue on which people will vote?

Sam.

I don't think so, honestly.

I think that it's really—I would agree with Linda on this one.

It's about affordability.

It's about your life.

You know, when I would run for office, when I ran for Congress, when I ran for mayor, I was always advised, it's what's happening around you.

The voter, what is happening?

What is their life experience?

Right.

But I think if we care about where our nation is going, if we care about the long term economics you know, health of our nation, we need to include everybody, in this, this contract we have and I think DEI is extremely important that we use all the talent that we have.

One problem we're having in the DEI conversation is that we can't agree on what we're talking about.

So I think there's a group of people who believe that DEI means exclusively, we're talking about quotas, that we're going to have, you know, we have to have a black person.

And that's what we're, you know—or a woman or that' what we're talking about here.

But what you're talking about is really the idea of casting a wider net of going out into communities, saying, hey, this is an additional value of ours, that having a boardroom that has women in it, that has people of color that's something we want to add, we see is a value to the company as opposed to just saying, let's look at our network.

That, you're right, would just continue to reproduc the same, you know, boys room, boys club, you know and an exclusively white space.

So I think that I don't know, to me that just is a really important part of the conversation, that what we're talking about here is multiple different ways in which we can incorporate race, we can incorporate gender into how we're doing hiring.

Was the push for DEI— diversity, equity, inclusion, I hate initials— so strong that companies felt like they were being arm twisted into doing this?

Like if they didn't do it, they were going to get some kind of sanctions from the public, from the government?

Absolutely.

And I can tell you, because I was there in the boardroom particularly in 2020 after the, after Mr.

Floyd was murdered, you saw a huge push on these numbers.

Again, thankfully, because I was in charge of the governance committee, and we had a terrific record.

You know, it, we didn't feel it as much, but some of the rating agencies for stocks actually take into account the number of people that you have, who are persons of color and female.

And so, yes, it absolutely was.

And you know, Sam, your husband, I think, was probably an exceptional man.

And that is exactly what you want to do.

You want to go out and find those exceptional people.

What you don't want to d is to go out and find somebody and say, you're going to get in under much lower standards.

And if you're interested in disadvantaged people, then take a look at income.

Don't have it based on color.

Yeah I—absolutely.

I remember being lectured about my white privilege by some of my nonwhite classmates at Harvard, and I was just like, by white privilege, do you mean having running water every day?

Because I don't know what that feels like.

If white privilege means not having your brother who's schizophrenic sexually assault you, I don't know what that feels like.

So, yeah, I agree socioeconomics can be hidden in things like race.

And I think that it's honestly very racist to judge someone just because they are white.

On the other hand, this administration is taking discussions of slavery out of museums I live near the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Thats right.

exhibit near Cambridge, Maryland.

Thats right.

They're downplaying.

They're acting as if this was some—the Underground Railroad showed some sort of extraordinary cooperation between whites and blacks.

No, that' not exactly what it was about.

It was abolitionist.

It was trying to help people escape from the horrendous system of slavery.

So I'm not willing to give Trum high marks on all of this area.

Colleges do take into account things like a student being firs generation, living in poverty.

When you have the personal statements, a lot of that is for getting in some of those adversities that we face.

So it is interesting to me that we can acknowledge that people experience adversity based on income.

And that is something which I agree, that is something that colleges can take into account, but we can't have any recognition for the adversity that people face due to their race.

That's it for this edition of To The Contrary.

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