What Iowa Republicans are thinking after Trump’s federal indictment

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• Amna Nawaz:

  The news of former President Trump's federal indictment comes as the Republican primary field is very much still taking shape, and its potential impact on the 2024 race and Republican voters remains unclear.

  Judy Woodruff was in Des Moines, Iowa, yesterday for her America at a Crossroads reporting project to listen in on a couple of voter discussions led by conservative pollster Sarah Longwell. Since it was the day of the Trump arraignment, she made that the focus of the first of two reports on what Iowa Republicans are thinking.

  This was produced with our friends at Iowa PBS.

• Sarah Longwell, Longwell Partners:

  How many of that Donald Trump was indicted last week? Raise your hand.

  How many of you have heard that Donald Trump was indicted for a second time recently? Everybody knows. OK

• Judy Woodruff:

  From the 16 Republican voters we gathered yesterday evening, there were strong reactions to the second indictment of former President Donald Trump.

• Ramona Fiscus, Republican Voter:

  I think he's being set up.

• Woman:

  Oh, yes. Yes.

• Sarah Longwell:

  Tell me why.

• Ramona Fiscus:

  Well, it's just too arranged. Everything is just too arranged.

  And when the FBI went in and raided his property at Mar-a-Lago, how do we know what they did and what they didn't do?

• Judy Woodruff:

  We had asked pollster Sarah Longwell, who also publishes the center-right Web site The Bulwark, to assemble two panels of GOP voters in the studio of Iowa PBS.

  I observed from the control room as she asked how they're thinking about politics, policy, and current events at this moment, when candidates are already descending upon their state ahead of next year's caucuses, and as the news of the second Trump indictment had been breaking.

• Sophia Detlefsen, Republican Voter:

  It's baloney.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Sophia Detlefsen:

  I think, I mean, just why isn't Biden indicted? Just because he gave them back at an appropriate time? I mean, really? He did exactly the same thing.

• Matt Thompson, Republican Voter:

  You have a current president who is siccing all of the DOJ on a potential candidate, that's never happened.

• Sarah Longwell:

  They really feel like the country is going in the wrong direction.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Afterwards, Longwell, who has conducted hundreds of hours of sessions like these across the country, helped guide me through the discussion.

  What most struck you in these two conversations with Iowa voters who have supported Donald Trump for the last two presidential elections?

• Sarah Longwell:

  I was actually struck mainly by how much they sound like every other focus group I do with two-time Trump voters. They were very clear that the indictments actually made them want to support Trump more, which is really consistent.

  I mean, we have been asking people for several months, how are you — how does it make you feel when you hear that Trump's indicted? Does it make you want to support him more, support him less? Out of the 58 people that we have asked, 26 of them said it makes them want to support Donald Trump more. Only two said less.

  They're a little bit mixed on whether Trump is exactly the right person to be the person who comes back, but, still, after January 6, after the indictments, after everything, still a lot of support for Donald Trump.

  How many of you distrust the FBI?

• Matt Thompson:

  The three-letter agencies, the DOJ, the CIA, the FBI, I think when the country was formulated, the best of intent was to put some of these organizations or governing bodies in place. But how they're being manipulated now and they're being weaponized is the bigger concern.

• Keven Arrowsmith, Republican Voter:

  I'm kind of frustrated by it, because, on one side, it seems like were all going all out on President Trump. And, on the other side, the wheels of justice are going very slow, doesn't seem to be like equal amount of resources being devoted to looking into Hunter Biden's laptop.

• Peter Crabbs, Republican Voter:

  And what about Hillary Clinton?

  (CROSSTALK)

• Peter Crabbs:

  I mean, Hillary Clinton had all this stuff, and she was never indicted.

• Brent Bean, Republican Voter:

  You have got the DOJ, you have got the FBI reporting up to Biden. Ultimately, this goes up to Biden.

  So why wouldn't you want to take out your toughest political opponent? And this is election interference like we have never seen before, and its disguised as, Trump's a bad guy.

• Sarah Longwell:

  How many of you wanted Hillary Clinton to be indicted for her — OK. Did you think she should go to jail?

• Woman:

  Yes.

• Sarah Longwell:

  She did?

• Woman:

  Absolutely.

• Woman:

  Yes.

• Sarah Longwell:

  Because Trump at the time said that she should go to jail for mishandling classified information.

• Man:

  Yes.

• Sarah Longwell:

  Do you think he should be held to the same standard that he was setting for Hillary Clinton, or do you think that it's different for some reason?

• Nola Ryan, Republican Voter:

  I think he said that. When you understand his personality and how he words things, he said that in jest. He didn't — I think he's just trying to paint a word picture. But should she have gotten some sort of punishment? Yes. Yes, I think so.

• Matt Thompson:

  He's entitled to declassify whatever he wants to declassify. So — and other presidents that have left office have had classified documents. They were not treated the same way as Donald Trump is being treated. It is a two-tiered justice system in this country, for sure. There's no doubt about it.

• Sarah Longwell:

  The biggest thing is that they really don't have a lot of faith or trust in the FBI or in the Department of Justice to prosecute this fairly.

  And I hear this always from Republican groups, and you hear it from Republican elected officials too. And the conservative media really talks about this. They say they're out to get Trump. There's a two-tiered justice system.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And bringing up the Hillary Clinton…

• Sarah Longwell:

  Right.

• Judy Woodruff:

  .. .server, the classified documents, that other — that President Biden took home, for example.

• Sarah Longwell:

  Yes, which you can see, actually.

  I mean, Joe Biden, there's been a lot of classified documents that they found on his properties.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Right.

• Sarah Longwell:

  Mike Pence, they found classified on his properties, Mike Pence.

  And so, for voters, they oftentimes think, well, I don't understand. It seems like a lot of these elected officials keep taking classified documents home. And they don't always see the difference between Trump being told, hey, you have to return those documents, and then refusing to do so or lying to the FBI when he was asked.

• Judy Woodruff:

  That deep-seated distrust extended to the 2020 election results and their aftermath too.

• Sarah Longwell:

  How many of you believe Joe Biden was legitimately elected president of the United States?

  How many of you believe that the election was stolen or rigged in some way? OK, everybody.

  What about January 6? How do people feel about January 6?

• Woman:

  Setup.

• Woman:

  Yes.

• Woman:

  Setup, 100 percent setup.

  (CROSSTALK)

• Peter Crabbs:

  You go look at the videos showing the Capitol Police walking these people through the Capitol, talking, no problems whatsoever.

  And then they turn around and say, they attacked us, in essence. The videos show a whole different story than what they're saying happened.

• Mary Cirligel, Republican Voter:

  I personally don't think that, like, he was calling people to like, do — like, I watched like what he said and everything.

  And, like, I mean, he didn't say anything to me, like, in watching it, that was like, oh, yes, he's telling them to go and, like, storm the Capitol.

  (CROSSTALK)

• Mary Cirligel:

  Like, I didn't feel — I personally didn't feel like that, that what he said was so inflammatory that he was just trying to, like, tear the country apart.

• Man:

  And they are still arresting people two years since it happened.

• Kevin Arrowsmith:

  He loves this country. I can't believe that somebody that loves this country would want to cause people to fight like that. And he is against wars.

  (CROSSTALK)

• Ron McFarland, Republican Voter:

  He is not the typical politician. And his words aren't what we call polished. And he will just blurt it out.

• Sarah Longwell:

  Do people want to vote for a Republican candidate who is committed to pardoning the people from January 6?

• Man:

  Yes.

• Woman:

  Absolutely.

• Woman:

  Yes.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Returning to Trump's own legal battles, it seems very little of what comes next will sway this group.

• Sarah Longwell:

  So, let's say Trump is found guilty of these charges. He goes through the courts and they find him guilty. Raise your hand if it makes you support him more. Raise your hand if it makes you support him less.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And President Trump retained some measure of support even among those who think he likely committed a crime.

• Brian Allen, Republican Voter:

  I read the indictment, and it's plain as day that he broke the law knowingly. Whether the DOJ came after him, which I think is very plausible, and why they're ignoring Hunter Biden's laptop, I think, is a separate issue.

  But it is clear he broke the law, and I think it's time for him to go away. And I appreciated for what he did for the country during his four years. But I think that he is part of the problem.

• Judy Woodruff:

  But when asked if he would vote for Trump if he was the nominee running against Biden…

• Sarah Longwell:

  If Trump's the nominee versus Biden, what would you do?

• Brian Allen:

  I would vote for him for the third time.

• Sarah Longwell:

  You would.

• Brian Allen:

  I think that it's that significant.

• Judy Woodruff:

  So, given that and the fact that there are potentially more indictments to come against former President Trump, where are we headed?

• Sarah Longwell:

  Well, it's a little counterintuitive, but one of the things about Donald Trump, and this has been true whether its his two impeachments, or whether it is now his second indictment, there's this thing that happens that I call the rally-around-Trump effect, where Republican voters, when he — they feel like he's being attacked, they tend to support him even more.

  And so that's — it creates kind of an energy that also allows Trump to really suck up all the oxygen. We're always talking about Trump. And so, ultimately, it does tend to help him that. If he continues to get indicted, we continue to talk about Trump all the time, it's really difficult for some of these other 2024 challengers to make an affirmative case for themselves.

  You can sort of see why, from listening to the voters. They don't like when people attack Trump.

• Judy Woodruff:

  With so much yet to unfold, and more than six months to go before the Iowa caucuses, these focus groups and a consensus of polls suggest President Trump, despite his troubles, or because of them, holds on to his lead in a crowded Republican field.

  For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Judy Woodruff in Des Moines, Iowa.

• Amna Nawaz:

  And in weeks ahead, Judy will hear more from these Iowa Republican voters about the state of the country, our divisions, and what a path forward looks like. She will be visiting other states to hear from panels of Democratic voters as well.