The observation that President Donald Trump’s economic policies will hurt his base has been so widely repeated this year that even Trump himself seems to agree with it. Tucker Carlson raised the issue in an interview with the president on Wednesday night, noting that “a Bloomberg analysis shows that counties that voted for you, middle-class and working-class counties, would do far less well under the [proposed health care] bill than counties that voted for Hillary.” Trump responded, “Oh, I know that,” adding that “these are going to be negotiated.”

This literally happened...

Tucker Carlson: "The counties who voted for you will do far worse under your plan"

Donald Trump: "Oh, I know..." pic.twitter.com/tsG96kybxe — William LeGate (@williamlegate) March 16, 2017

The harsh austerity budget the Trump administration put forward on Thursday, with its cuts to programs like Meals on Wheels and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, only confirmed these criticisms. “Trump campaigned as a champion of rural America and small and midsize Rust Belt cities, but ... his budget brings the hammer down on the very people who put him in office,” Mother Jones’s Tim Murphy wrote, listing the many ways in which Trump’s policies will hurt people in rural America, the Upper Midwest, and West Virginia. On CNN, Van Jones said Trump’s budget “drops a bomb financially and economically on his own supporters.”

Behind these observations lies the hope, largely implied, that Trump’s supporters will abandon him over this betrayal. The New York Times’ Charles Blow, citing analysis showing that the people who “stand to lose the most” from the Republican health care reforms are Trump’s own voters, argued, “The many lies Trump told ... have only compounded his flaws and his betrayals. But now, the bill is coming due. A price must soon be paid for these deceptions.”

Will Trump’s voters in fact feel betrayed by his economic policies? There’s good reason to think not. Trump’s plutocratic tendencies have been startling clear in the early stages of his presidency (given his cabinet of billionaires and push for tax cuts for the rich) but haven’t affected his standing with his supporters. Trump’s approval ratings have been remarkably stable since the first week of his presidency, hovering at 43 percent. This is low for a new president, but suggests that the people who voted for Trump are mostly sticking with him.

Reporting on Trump voters supports this theory. Trump supporters at his Nashville rally on Wednesday told The Washington Post that they trust the president on health care. Charla McComic, a 52-year-old former first grade teacher, said that a steep drop in her recently unemployed son’s health-insurance premium was a “blessing from God,” and she credited Trump. In fact, an Obamacare subsidy was to thank for it.