Why Trump’s plan to slash food stamps and Medicaid could cost him crucial support

Coming from any other Republican, the request for the federal budget that President Trump submitted to Congress last week would not have been a surprise. But because Trump campaigned on a populist economic platform and not a traditional conservative one, his budget flummoxed political operatives and observers in the media.

The president proposed major reductions in spending on food stamps, health insurance for the needy and other social programs that help support the poor, rural communities that gave him a win in November. His proposals would “inevitably reach many of the lower-income and less-educated whites that have emerged as the cornerstone of the modern Republican coalition,” Ronald Brownstein wrote in the Atlantic.