Podcast Host Says Donald Trump Voters Are Smart Enough to 'Choose Cruelty'

Jennifer Welch, co-host of the progressive podcast I've Had It, told listeners that the left is wrong to write off Donald Trump's supporters as stupid. She argued that many of them are smart and well informed, and that they back him knowing what they are choosing.

The remark is a warning to her own side, not a softer view of the other one. In the same breath, Welch said Trump voters "choose cruelty, they choose the death, they choose the racism, they choose the judgment." She also said she is far more forgiving of the less-informed supporters than of the educated ones.

How the Exchange on Trump Voters Started

The exchange came near the end of the episode, after Welch blamed what she called American "arrogance" for Trump's rise. Her co-host, Angie "Pumps" Sullivan, offered a theory: "the dumber you are, the more arrogant you are." Sullivan said the loudest self-styled patriots were "the dumbest."

Welch did not accept that framing. She pointed to the women she had criticized earlier in the show, the ones who see a gay hairdresser but "know they can't say openly they vote for Trump."

"There's a lot of smart people that choose the cruelty on purpose. And so it's easier for us to say, oh, only the stupid people vote for this," Welch said.

"It's more difficult for us to wrestle with the fact that people in our own communities or in our own friend groups or in our own family are actually smart enough to know better." — Jennifer Welch

"I think it's too dismissive of the cult to just wave them all off as idiots, because there's a lot of smart people that vote for this," she added.

Sullivan conceded the point: "No, you're right. You're right."

Welch then went further. "There's a lot of smart people that I know that know better. And they're the worst. Those are the worst," she said, adding that educated white voters who "know better" were the ones who brought Trump to power.

What the Data Shows About Trump Voters and Education

The record supports Welch on the narrow point. Education is one of the sharpest divides in Trump-era politics, but it does not split voters into smart and stupid camps.

In a Pew Research Center study of validated 2024 voters, Trump won 33 percent of voters with postgraduate degrees, to 65 percent for Harris. He carried voters without a college degree by 14 points, while Harris carried college graduates by 16. Validated voters are survey respondents whose turnout was confirmed in state records.

Pew's demographic profile of each coalition found that two-thirds of Trump's 2024 voters had no college degree. That still means roughly one in three had a four-year degree or more. Harris voters were about evenly split, with 48 percent holding a degree.

AP VoteCast pointed the same way. It found that about 6 in 10 Trump voters did not have a college degree, and that about 4 in 10 college-educated voters backed Trump.

Pew also found that 95 percent of Republican validated voters backed Trump and 95 percent of Democratic validated voters backed Harris.

Why Welch's Warning Matters for Democrats

Welch's case is that a party that explains away its opponents is less likely to understand why it lost to them. She delivered that argument without easing up on Trump's supporters. Earlier in the same episode she said there is "nothing on the planet that makes my blood boil more than duplicitous women" who quietly vote for Trump, and she threatened to publicly name the ones she knows.

The debate comes less than two weeks before the midterms, with Trump's standing weak. The president's approval sits at 37.8 percent, with 59.3 percent disapproving, in PolitiKool's polling average. Democrats lead the generic congressional ballot 48.9 percent to 40.5 percent in PolitiKool's polling average.

But the Democratic Party is not popular either. It is viewed favorably by 40.2 percent of Americans and unfavorably by 57.4 percent, according to PolitiKool's polling average.

What Comes Next

Welch did not say what Democrats should do with her diagnosis, or whether educated Trump voters can be won back at all. Her own answer, offered earlier in the show, was to call them out rather than court them.

Whether that approach wins over the college-educated suburban voters both parties are fighting for will be tested on November 3.