美国国家公共电台 NPR Among Trump Supporters, Conflicts Of Interest Aren't A Top Concern

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Much of the country is not impressed by President Trump 1's first weeks in office. A Gallup survey showed his approval rating at 37 percent. Even if that's a bit off, it's very low for a new president. One public concern involves the president's business conflicts of interest, but those conflicts do not trouble some of his core supporters who spoke 2 with NPR's Jim Zarroli.

JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE 3: Fifty-one-year-old Chris Kinney thinks the United States has to get more serious about fixing some of the problems it faces such as the deficit 4.

CHRIS KINNEY: I think this country really needs to be run more of a - more like a business at this point.

ZARROLI: And Kinney who was sitting in a reception area in the St. Paul Skyway in Minnesota last week says he likes the fact that President Trump promises to bring a businessman sensibility to government. As for all those people who want Trump to sell off his properties...

KINNEY: Probably a bunch of people that have never been in business, so they probably wouldn't understand he's not going to just hand everything over.

ZARROLI: Trump's business interests have been generating attention ever since his election. But those concerns haven't really registered with the president's supporters. Most polls show he has an approval rating of more than 80 percent among Republicans. Democratic political strategist Stanley Greenberg recently interviewed a group of Trump voters in Michigan.

STANLEY GREENBERG: They trust him. They know he's a businessman. They think he'll know how to get deals that are, you know, good for the country, but that he'll fight for American jobs.

ZARROLI: Greenberg says when he talked to Trump's supporters about what was on their minds, issues such as Trump's refusal to release his tax returns hardly ever came up. None of that surprises Susan Welch, professor of political science at Penn State, who has studied voter attitudes toward corruption 5. Welch says certain kinds of corruption cases such as sex scandals get a lot of attention, and they can hurt politicians. Voters tend to overlook lesser 6 offenses 7.

SUSAN WELCH: They tended to not punish candidates who were charged with campaign violations 8 or conflict of interest charges.

ZARROLI: Welch says most members of Congress who were embroiled 9 in corruption scandals actually get re-elected. She says partisanship 10 plays a big part in this. People are more likely to shrug 11 off wrongdoing by politicians from their own party. She points out that President Trump's supporters knew he was a businessman and voted for him anyway.

WELCH: They probably knew he wasn't going to do much about it given his resistance to revealing his income tax return, and they just didn't care that much because they thought he would bring about the kind of change they wanted.

ZARROLI: Former Republican congressman 12 Mickey Edwards agrees. Edwards says Democrats 13 can talk all day long about Trump's conflicts of interest. His supporters don't care.

MICKEY EDWARDS: They don't care, you know, who's staying in this hotel. They already know he's a zillionaire. Fine. OK. So let him make more zillions.

ZARROLI: Edwards who is a critic of Trump says the only thing that's going to diminish Trump's popularity is a lack of progress on the issues that are most important to his supporters.

EDWARDS: The thing that could undermine him would be that in year two or year three the jobs have not come back and the things that he promised he was going to do he didn't get done.

ZARROLI: If Trump can't make real progress fixing the economy, Edwards says, then his support will diminish. And the fact that Trump might have profited off the White House will suddenly seem a lot more relevant. Jim Zarroli, NPR News.