Tali Jackont put aside her liberal beliefs to vote for Mr. Trump, but now she worries.
After four years away from the White House, Mr. Trump seems less temperate than ever.
“Too much ego,” she said on Thursday, adding, “It feels like a tantrum of a four-year-old boy.”
Speaking from her home in the Los Angeles area, Ms. Jackont said that while she understands Mr. Trump’s desire to cut the federal work force and surround himself with loyalists, his tactics do not feel right. Too many experts will lose their jobs, she said. Mr. Trump, she believes, is making moves that make him seem one step removed from being “a type of dictator.”
Ms. Jackont is an educator, a married mother of three sons and an immigrant from Israel. She hoped that Mr. Trump could navigate issues in the Middle East better than his predecessor. But she has watched with bewilderment as he proposed the United States take over Gaza and permanently move the Palestinians living there to other countries.
“Not realistic,” she called Mr. Trump’s idea.
The president has also threatened “all hell” if every hostage is not released.
“It makes me super concerned,” she said. “It makes me feel my heart beat.” If even one of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas is killed because of such rhetoric, she added, “then it does not work for me.”
Elon Musk’s influence with the new administration, his access to federal databases, and the lack of transparency surrounding both give her pause. “It’s like airport security,” she said. “You go through the scanners, they see everything. You’re naked before them, and you don’t know what they’re going to do.”
Despite her concerns, she still has hope for Mr. Trump’s presidency. But she underscored how long she is willing to wait.
One hundred days.
“One hundred days of charity,” she said.
— Kurt Streeter