Independent Voters On Panel Regret Supporting Trump

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[07:30:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: The pulse of the people, next.



CAMEROTA: We are now just 22 days away from the midterm elections, so we thought it would be a good time to get the pulse of the people.

I recently sat down with the all-important Independent voters -- the ones you are about to meet. Five of whom voted for Donald Trump, say they are now very disappointed in him and very motivated to vote against Republicans for all the issues they think President Trump is getting wrong.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: You all are the all-important Independent voters that so many people are watching for the midterms.

Anthony, how are you feeling?

ANTHONY MILES, INDEPENDENT VOTER, REGRETS VOTING FOR TRUMP: Afraid.

CAMEROTA: Of what?

MILES: A dictator in the White House.

CAMEROTA: And what --

MILES: He has no empathy for anything. He will never admit when he makes a mistake.

CAMEROTA: What were you imagining when you voted for President Trump?

MILES: He said the system is rigged and he said he was going to be a new sheriff in town, and all he's done is surrounded himself with crooks. How many people have been indicted that were in close cahoots with him?

And there, in front of the world stage, he looks at Putin and puts his arm around him and says this is my buddy.

SYDNEY COHAN, INDEPENDENT VOTER, CHANGING PARTY AFFILIATION TO DEMOCRATIC, REGRETS VOTING FOR TRUMP: The divisiveness in this country right now and the rhetoric coming from the president is a daily exhausting thing.

I worry that the dictator -- the wannabe dictator in the White House will make it where we don't even have any more elections.

I mean, he will -- he is like siding with Vladimir Putin. He -- Kim Jong Un is now having love letters written to Donald Trump.

[07:35:09] RAHUL BLOKHRA, INDEPENDENT VOTER, REGRETS VOTING FOR TRUMP: When I voted for Trump, I was looking for change. I was looking for maybe the non-political person coming in and the businessman bringing his -- you know, his expertise, his skills into leadership.

He's not very focused. He's not very sincere to whatever he decides to do.

Things changed fast. For example, there's with Putin and with Russia, right? There's a comment that we're hearing from Trump and then we are seeing all these sanctions being imposed as well.

So I'm not so sure who's running the country right now and I'm not so sure -- also very sure as to which direction we are going.

CAMEROTA: Stephanie, why are you feeling energized as you approach the midterms?

STEPHANIE MARTIN, CONSIDERING CHANGING PARTY AFFILIATION TO INDEPENDENT, REGRETS VOTING FOR TRUMP: I think I'm more feeling embarrassed as a lifelong Republican. I guess I would consider myself, you know, part of the religious right and now, the values that I see coming from the White House just don't mesh up with what I believe.

CAMEROTA: Can you pinpoint a moment that you changed from being a President Trump supporter to feeling embarrassed?

MARTIN: Boy --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Which one?

MILES: Which card do you want -- which card?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Which one, yes.

MARTIN: You know, even listening to his -- the inauguration speech just kind of --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very dark.

MARTIN: -- was dark and antagonistic. And there has not seemed to be any effort to unite the country. It's always us against someone or these people against someone else.

CAMEROTA: You know what's so interesting is that we always hear "it's the economy, stupid." None of you are mentioning that and the economy is going well. The unemployment rate is at a historic low. The stock market is at a historic high.

But that's not what any of you are focused on. Why not?

DALE MUNHOLLAND, CHANGED PARTY AFFILIATION FROM REPUBLICAN TO INDEPENDENT: The economy reacts slowly to anything that happens, so I would say a lot of what is taking place now is a result of Barack Obama.

NANCY CELENTANO, REGRETS VOTING FOR TRUMP: I'm not even thinking about that. I'm thinking about what he's done to our country. Our country was supposed to be a country for the people and -- you know, by the people for the people, and I don't see that it's that way anymore.

And we're supposed to let people come in, like the immigrants. And what really broke my heart was when I saw those children being torn away from their parents.

MILES: Is this the America that I grew up in? I don't think so.

COHAN: It's not.

CELENTANO: No, it isn't.

CAMEROTA: So, character issues -- is it fair to say for all of you -- has superseded the -- even the issues that you voted on? Is that what you're saying?

COHAN: Of course.

BLOKHRA: Fair enough.

COHAN: I'm mortified every day. What happened with Christine Ford, the accusers that accused Donald Trump, the way that they say they're all lying -- every day, I'm just speechless. I really am just speechless.

CAMEROTA: How many of you are affected by the Brett Kavanaugh hearings? How many of you have really been affected by what you've heard? Go ahead.

BLOKHRA: Really, just the fact that he had to go through this, I think it's wrong.

CAMEROTA: So you believe the women?

BLOKHRA: I do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Correct.

MUNHOLLAND: The hypocrisy is astounding to me. If they were -- a lot of these people are the same people who were railing against Clinton and wanted Clinton to be impeached for what he did. And now, they are supporting Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh for essentially the same thing.

COHAN: Exactly.

CAMEROTA: And so, now the president calls the women who have come forward a hoax -- a Democratic hoax. What do you make of that language?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not surprising.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's shameful.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shameful.

COHAN: He's a hoax if you ask me.

I'm a victim of rape and to hear this woman sit in front and under oath swear and tell her story about what happened to her, only to have grown men laugh at her, mock her, I just -- I just don't know where the bottom is anymore.

MUNHOLLAND: I've been a lifelong Republican since the day I turned 18.

I think these midterms are really important because the Republicans, I'm very sad to say, have become very, very spineless, they've become cowardly, and they're just extraordinarily unwilling to stand up to Donald Trump and his bizarreness. I mean, it's a circus of bizarreness that takes place daily in the -- in the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: So, it was just fascinating for me to listen to them because they all want to send a message with their vote in the midterms.

They all -- five of them voted for President Trump. One of them was a lifelong Republican, as you heard, and all of them feel very motivated to go to the polls to send a message because they're not happy with what they're seeing.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It's really interesting to me that five of the six -- and we can't say that enough -- five of the six of them did vote for President Trump when a lot of these character things, it's not as if they were not mentioned in the campaign.

CAMEROTA: I asked them about that and they said that they thought that that was during the campaign, they thought he was going to change, they thought he was going to rise to the occasion, they thought he would be more presidential. They thought he would put all of that aside.

You know, they made their choices and -- I mean, I think you hear how honest they are on national T.V. with what their regrets are.

[07:40:01] BERMAN: In terms of how Democratic strategists will target these people, it doesn't seem to me that they will focus on those character issues that many of those people found so offensive.

What they will focus on is something one of the gentlemen said at the beginning, which is corruption. That is a word that historically has mattered to Independents as much, if not more, than anything. And both parties know that if you hit that "c" word -- the corruption word -- that you can sometimes sway those Independent voters.

So if they're sensitive to that and then they see that, that could be a problem not just now but going forward for the president.

CAMEROTA: Tomorrow, we have them back and they talk about why they feel so motivated to change their party affiliation. You've heard some of them have been Republicans their whole lives and because of President Trump, they are changing their party affiliation. So they'll talk about what drove them to do that.