Here’s What 6 Voters Think of Trump’s Latest Actions

Things have not slowed down since The New York Times last talked with a panel of voters about President Trump’s first 100 days of his second term.

His tariff policies have sown further economic uncertainty — and fears of a recession. The president also called for the impeachment of a judge who sought to pause the deportation of more than 200 migrants to El Salvador. And there were deadly Israeli missile strikes on Gaza. The voters had wildly different reactions — which reflect a divided country.

Veronica McCloud, a retired teacher and Kamala Harris supporter, was trying to remain open — even agreeing that the federal government needed trimming.

Then came the bumps, that to her, struck a similar theme: drastic action without sufficient explanation.

She quickly grew frustrated with the handling of mass cuts to the federal work force and the lack of specifics about claims of government fraud and waste.

Ms. McCloud was also troubled by what she saw as Mr. Trump’s open defiance of federal deportation court orders. “I think that you should have to follow the judge’s orders. I would have to,” she said. “I think it is our civic duty.”

But her biggest fears centered on inflation and the uncertain economy, and were exacerbated in part by Mr. Trump’s new trade policies. She wasn’t sure his strategy would work in the long term and worried the country might plunge into a recession.

With a fixed retirement income, Ms. McCloud was reconsidering her spending habits. She started purchasing less expensive meats and snacks, and cooked more at home. And to save gas, she has canceled day trips to visit friends, catching up by phone instead.

She said Mr. Trump didn’t make “perfectly clear” what possible hardships the American people might face.

“People who are well off, they can handle it — but people like me are having conversations about tightening our purse strings,” she said, adding, “That’s causing anxiety.”

— Audra D. S. Burch

‘He’s not just treading water.’

Dave Abdallah, 59, from Dearborn Heights, Mich.

“I’ll put it on the current administration,” he said, noting that he believed that the White House could have demanded the Israeli government not reopen hostilities that recently killed over 400 people in Gaza.

Mr. Abdallah, a real estate agent, didn’t see why Mr. Trump couldn’t have put the same kind of pressure on Israel that he was putting on allies like Canada and Mexico with tariffs.

The war pushed Mr. Abdallah to cast his vote for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, because he did not like how President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had backed Israel. He said he would have voted for Mr. Trump but didn’t trust him to handle things better.

This week, he said, proved that he was right.

What Mr. Abdallah does like so far, albeit with reservations, is that “he’s taking action.” He added, “He’s not just treading water.”

But Mr. Abdallah doesn’t like Mr. Trump’s battles against federal court rulings, noting that flights carrying migrants to Central America were not turned around midair, defying an order. The administration said the order came too late.

“When a president, or a judge, or a senator, or a congressman or woman, feels that they are above the law or above the country, that is wrong,” he said.

Mr. Abdallah is especially worried about the effect of tariffs on the automobile industry and Michigan’s economy.

“The tariffs are just too extreme,” he said.

— Kurt Streeter

‘I’m still not on board necessarily with how he’s addressing it.’

Darlene Alfieri, 55, from Erie, Pa.

Many of the glass vases in Darlene Alfieri’s flower shop come from China, so she has known the effects of tariffs firsthand. The higher costs are “not too God-awful bad” — about a 10 percent hike — but enough that she has asked people to return unused vases so she can keep prices down.

None of this was ideal but neither was the status quo, Ms. Alfieri said, when she felt that so many other countries were taking advantage of the United States in their trade policies.

“I think the things that he’s trying to address need to be addressed,” she said of Mr. Trump’s tariffs. “I’m still not on board necessarily with how he’s addressing it, because I don’t think they’re giving out enough accurate, detailed information. I am a person who needs the details.”

Ms. Alfieri said she understood that sacrifices were needed, and she was willing to endure some short-term disruption. But she would welcome a little more communication about what the country may be in for.

“I think he’ll end up making it better, but I think it’s gonna get worse before it gets better,” she said. Maybe not worse, she clarified, but certainly the country would be different. And sometimes, she said, it’s hard to know right away whether big changes were good or bad.

But the good thing about democracy, she felt, was that in four years, the country would get to assess matters. “We get to re-evaluate and say, ‘OK, so he’s done these things,’” she said. “‘Do we want to keep going with this?’”

— Campbell Robertson

To Perry Hunter, people have been outraged over Mr. Trump’s recent actions just because they don’t like him, and not, he felt, over whether Mr. Trump had done something unconstitutional or unnecessary.

“The division is getting stronger because those that oppose him are so emotionally invested, and anything and everything he does, they’re against it,” he said. “That probably bothers me more than anything.”

Mr. Perry, a high school teacher, argued that there appeared to him to be gray areas in what Mr. Trump was doing, pointing to the president’s recent deportation, against a judge’s orders, of about 200 people, including members accused of being in a Venezuelan gang. Mr. Hunter said that he was struggling with the fact that those who were deported were most likely not being afforded due process, and he added that the administration needed to be transparent about the details so the public could consider whether it had done something wrong.

He felt strongly that Mr. Trump shouldn’t defy judges because separation of powers was important. The president needed to “go about doing it constitutionally,” he said.

There have been moments, though, when he has felt Mr. Trump was in the right. Mr. Hunter said that, in light of pro-Palestinian protests, he had been heartened to see how the administration punished Columbia University financially. That came after the administration accused the institution of failing to protect students and faculty members “from antisemitic violence and harassment.”

He said he thought Mr. Trump’s cancellation of $400 million in federal grants and contracts to the university made sense. (On Friday, Columbia agreed to yield to many of the administration’s most substantial demands.)

“That was one of the things that had me lean towards President Trump because I don’t like discrimination,” he said.

— Juliet Macur

‘The beauty of this country is, no matter what, everybody gets a fair chance.’

Hamid Chaudhry, 53, from Reading, Pa.

In the weeks after the election, Hamid Chaudhry saw a notable jump in traffic at the farmers’ market he runs. This burst of spending seemed to reinforce his decision to vote for Mr. Trump.

But more recently foot traffic has been down and people haven’t been spending as much as they were in December and January.

“It’s a little concerning but not the doom and gloom,” Mr. Chaudhry said. He was willing to wait and see.

He believed that the United States had long been exploited by other countries’ trade practices and that it was well past time to get tough, even if that meant risking a recession. “It’s a game of chicken,” he said.

But while his faith in Mr. Trump’s fiscal management remained, so did his concerns about his approach to immigration. Though he still supported Mr. Trump generally, Mr. Chaudhry was troubled by the news that scores of immigrants had been sent to a prison in El Salvador without the opportunity to contest the accusation that they were members of the Venezuelan gang.

“The beauty of this country is, no matter what, everybody gets a fair chance,” he said.

— Campbell Robertson

The return of the dozens of Israeli hostages still held by Hamas was of primary concern for Tali Jackont, an educator in Los Angeles who was raised in Israel.

She appreciated that Mr. Trump recently hosted freed hostages at the White House and that he seemed to show a certain level of concern for them.

But she also linked Mr. Trump’s incendiary rhetoric against Hamas to how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, whom she opposes, later broke the cease-fire.

None of it was necessary, said Mr. Jackont, a longtime Democrat who voted for Mr. Trump partly in the hopes he would bring peace to the Middle East. And she felt that now the hostages were perhaps more endangered than ever.

The president had her worried about other issues, too. For example, she found troubling how Mr. Trump had blasted judges who had ruled against him.

“He’s not above the law,” she said.

But Ms. Jackont approved of his effort to streamline the federal government and felt good about his moves to upend the education system.

And the economy?

“I trust him,” she said, adding that she felt the president knew more about “the economy than any other area.”

Mr. Jackont said she could accept it if Mr. Trump’s plans led to a significant slowdown — but not for too long. She noted the economy began struggling years ago, during his first administration.

But if a recession lasted, for example, three years, she would feel differently.

“I’ll be very disappointed,” she said. “Super-disappointed. I mean, super, super, super.”

— Kurt Streeter