SEATTLE – Since Donald Trump launched his war against Iran, the President has increasingly clashed with old allies like conspiracy theorists Alex Jones and Candace Owens and former Fox News hosts Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson.
Carlson this weekend called Trump a “slave” who “can’t make his own decisions” while Jones said the President was “acting like a super villain” with his threat to wipe out a civilisation. The President, for his part, branded the four “Low IQs” and “NUT JOBS”.
Yet despite growing divisions among Trump’s base over the conflict as well as the Epstein scandal, with Owens claiming “Maga is no longer committed to you”, many of his most dedicated loyalists are showing no signs of wavering in their support.
Asked how she intends to vote in November’s crucial US midterm elections, fruit farmer Barbara Kraght doesn’t skip a beat. “Oh we’re huge Trump fans. We’re happy about the war [in Iran],” says the 72-year-old Christian, speaking from the fruit stand she runs in Ferndale, 100 miles north of Seattle. “We support a lot of his policies. We want the bad criminals out of here.”
Ms Kraght admits she and her husband, Randy, were horrified over recent raids by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on migrant workers, which led to a farm near theirs losing 25 workers. “They do the jobs we can’t get white people to do, sorry to say,” she adds. “My heart bleeds for them. They’re just trying to survive up here and send money back to Mexico to feed their families.”
But asked why she still supports a President whose policies are hurting her business, Ms Kraght, who has four children and two children, responds: “We’re not in favour of the woke system and the freebie programmes.
“It’s better than the other side. Let’s just put it that way.”
Gift shop owner Cindy Tahl, 65, has a similar perspective. She’s been running a store in Chehalis, 90 miles south of Seattle, for decades and says there have been ups and downs over the years, with recent tariffs imposed by the White House hurting her business. Even so, she remains a loyal Trump supporter in a part of Washington state where voters overwhelmingly backed him in the 2024 election.
“I’m still a supporter of Trump, because I believe in what he stands for. That’s what I stand for, and I think we need it in our country,” she said.
“I love not having open borders. I, of course, want to see prices come down on oil and I think that will happen.”
Ms Tahl hopes tariffs will trigger a revival of home-grown manufacturing. “I hope we’re going to get some stuff back to the United States, get some people encouraged again to open businesses and start creating and start being who America was,” she says. “We’re not ourselves anymore.”
While Trump may take heart from comments like this, his administration is facing a series of crises, many of his own creation. A poll by the University of Massachusetts Amherst found Trump’s approval rating has dropped to 33 per cent, a new low for his second term.
A recent poll by PRRI showed that while 81 per cent of Republicans continued to hold favourable views of the President, that number had fallen from 85 per cent at the beginning of 2025.
Cindy Tahle, who owns a gift shop near Seattle, says she believes in what Trump stands for and thinks oil prices will come down (Photo: Supplied)Polls have shown Americans in general do not support the war with Iran, and while a recent Pew Research Centre survey found 69 per cent of Republicans supported the President on this issue, the same survey found that number fell to 49 per cent among Republicans aged 18‑29.
Having been promised lower costs and an avoidance of involvement in foreign wars, Americans are now seeing inflation of three per cent and a sharp increase in the price of fuel as a direct result of the war with Iran.
Criticism from former allies like Joe Kent, who resigned as Trump’s counterterrorism chief over the decision to attack Iran, and former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who said the “Republican Party needs to burn to the ground”, have further hurt the President.
Lori Cox Han, a professor of political science at Chapman University in California, believes the cracks in Trump’s base are emerging for several reasons, notably the war and its economic consequences.
“Trump is also appearing more and more tone deaf on many issues, like attacking Pope Leo or his obsession with the White House ballroom,” she said. “He is also 80 years old [in June] and the cognitive and physical decline is obvious to even his biggest supporters. He’s not popular or likeable for a majority of citizens, so Trump fatigue is setting in.”
Han added that, given Trump can’t run for president again, “the fight within the Maga-base and for Republicans for post-Trump control is already starting”.
She believes Republicans are in “much worse shape” than Democrats heading into the midterms – which could see Trump’s party lose the House and potentially the Senate.
But Raymond La Raja, one of the authors of the University of Massachusetts poll, said that while some Republicans feel Trump has failed to prioritise domestic issues – especially the cost of living – and oppose the war in Iran, most still back him.
“The base is still with him. The Maga base, the people who call themselves Maga, are still totally behind him,” he said.
La Raja said there had been a “softening” of support among independent voters who backed Trump in 2024, and Democrats are feeling increasingly energised. Were they to gain control of the House and Senate, Democrats could use their position to hold hearings over everything from the Epstein scandal to the Trump family’s business ties.
But among his Maga base, Trump remains king.
Steve Siler is another small business owner in Washington State hurt by the recent surge in petrol prices and a general increase in the cost of living. Nevertheless, the owner of Stimpy’s Sports Bar and Grill said his support for Trump remains strong.
The tariffs have hurt him, he says, but he believes that Trump put them in place to create a fairer trade environment that will eventually work in America’s favour.
Mr Siler, who hosted a day-long celebration when Trump was reelected in 2024, told The i Paper that he even supported Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran. “Somebody had to do it. He’s the only one with the moxie.”
Mr Siler claims that Trump is the only one “not owned by side interests”.
“That’s how he got my vote originally because he didn’t own a piece of this f**ked-up government,” he adds.
Does he believe that Trump is fulfilling his promise to stand up for ordinary Americans?
“Yes, absolutely,” he said. “Because nobody in Washington DC will. They’re about the almighty dollar and who they owe it to – and how they can get more.”
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