Some Trump voters are skeptical of his opening moves to embrace fellow billionaires

MESA, Ariz. (AP) — Enrique Lopez votes sporadically but bought into Donald Trump’s vows to fight for everyday workers, helping the Republican flip Arizona last year. Then the home construction contractor watched how the billionaire president opened his second administration.

“So, the rich control the poor, I guess. They do whatever they want. They get away with it,” Lopez said after seeing Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and other tech moguls, notably Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, at Trump’s limited-seating, indoor inauguration.

The 56-year-old Lopez, a resident of the Phoenix exurb of Apache Junction, said he was also struck by the president’s lack of emphasis on housing costs or consumer interests: “I didn’t hear anything about helping people out.”

Trump insists his overall agenda will help working- and middle-class Americans — notably his executive orders intended to goose domestic energy production and, he reasons, lower consumer costs. Days into his return to power, however, reactions from some voters highlight how difficult it could be for Trump to maintain his populist appeal alongside his embrace of fellow billionaires as well as tariffs and other policies that could stoke the very inflation he criticized as a candidate.

According to AP VoteCast, voters whose total household income in 2023 was under $50,000 were split between Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, while Trump won more than half of voters whose total household income was between $50,000 and $99,999 and Harris won among voters whose household income was $100,000 or more. The median annual household income in the U.S. is about $81,000. More than half of voters without a college degree supported Trump in the 2024 election, while a similar share of voters with a college degree supported Harris.

The Associated Press spoke to a dozen voters in Arizona about Trump's inauguration and his first days in office. Some middle-class Trump voters say that much of what he has done reflects his campaign – especially his immigration crackdown and the targeting of LGBTQ-friendly policies.

“I’m happy about that,” said Lorrinda Parker, a 65-year-old retired local government worker in Arizona, who said she distrusts both major political parties and voted for Trump because she is concerned about medical treatments for trans children, the economy and what she described as a “definitely dangerous” U.S.-Mexico border.

Yet Parker expressed concerns about the company Trump keeps. The political class, she said, is a “little insular world” where power brokers are “not paying attention to the people.”

Billionaires, she said, could provide valuable input as presidential advisers. But she likened the inauguration trio to a “technocracy,” saying they represent “elitist thinking, ‘We know more because we’re so smart,’” and adding her wish that Trump keep “a tight leash” on them.

The White House did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment.

U.S. adults broadly think it is a bad thing if the president relies on billionaires for advice about government policy, according to a January AP-NORC poll. About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say this would be a “very” or “somewhat” bad thing, while only about 1 in 10 call it a very or somewhat good thing, and about 3 in 10 are neutral.

The poll found warning flags specifically for Musk, whom Trump has empowered as chairman of the advisory Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. According to the poll, about one-third of Americans have a favorable view of Musk. That is down slightly from December. Support for the special commission he’s helming is similarly low: Only about 3 in 10 U.S. adults strongly or somewhat approve of Trump's creation of DOGE. About 4 in 10 disapprove, while the rest were neutral or didn’t know enough to say. (The poll was conducted before Vivek Ramaswamy announced he would no longer be involved in the group.)

Democrats and labor-friendly activists, meanwhile, are pointing to Trump's embrace of fellow billionaires at his inauguration as they look for a message to galvanize opposition to the president.

“You can bring those Gilded Age analogies straight to the fore,” said Maurice Mitchell, who leads the progressive Working Families Party. “That image tells the story better than a thousand breathless op-eds. ... Once he got the votes and won the election, he’s pivoted in a naked and clear way.”

Mitchell compared the scene with Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos with Trump backing off since Election Day on pledges to slash consumer prices immediately and refusing to promise that his tariffs won’t feed inflation. The president over the weekend reiterated he would push to end income taxes on tips, a key campaign pledge that some Democrats embraced last year. Still, Trump also is determined to extend 2017 tax cuts tilted to corporations and the wealthiest U.S. households, Mitchell noted.

“There can’t be any doubt that Trump 2.0 is a government by, for and with billionaires,” he said.

Mary Small, who leads the strategy and organizing efforts for the progressive group Indivisible, suggested Musk seemed “like he was calling the shots” even before the inauguration by pushing House Republicans to spike a December budget deal with then-President Joe Biden. And she noted that Trump seems already to have sided with Musk over rank-in-file “MAGA supporters” with his support for H-1B visas for highly skilled immigrants.

“Musk says the quiet part out loud,” Mitchell said.

But, he added, working-class voters and advocates who are frustrated cannot simply rely on Trump's or other billionaires' missteps.

“In some ways, Trump's and MAGA’s hubris is an advantage,” he said. “We still need to fill in the other gaps and explain the positive direction we want to take the country.”