We spoke to Yale’s loudest Trump supporter

Karl Notturno may seem like the average Yale student, having already founded a startup and having a drinks order that the Mory’s waiters know by heart.

But one thing makes him stand out on campus: his unwavering and unapologetic support for Donald Trump.

By this point, many Yalies know Notturno because of his active presence on Overhead at Yale, but we decided to sit down with the Silliman junior and hear for ourselves why he so feverishly supports the Republican frontrunner.

Trump supporter Karl Notturno

Why do you support Trump?

Trump has been strong-armed in the media, and a lot of people don’t understand what his platform is. The thing about supporting Trump is that it’s a way of thinking, not necessarily about any specific policy that he has. Because honestly, the policies might not get enacted, which is something that at least he understands. The thought is “here’s how you approach the problem and here’s how you solve it.” If you listen to a lot of his rhetoric on the campaign trail, most of what he says is “here’s a specific problem, here’s how it was solved—or in many cases not solved, and here’s how they should’ve solved it.”

And you have, in Trump, a public servant. I don’t understand why he would be doing this for any other reason. I don’t think he needs the ego trip. I think he already has all the ego trip that he needs. He’s certainly not doing it for the money. He’s one of the few people who actually understand what a daunting task [being president] will be.

What are your views on the “establishment”?

The biggest profession on Capitol Hill is being a lawyer. They’re smart, they’re charismatic, but in many cases, they don’t think in the proper way. Honestly, that’s the biggest frustration the American people have had in the past 16 years: the fact that they’ve been represented by people who seem completely inept. That’s why we’ve seen big shifts one way or another, “Let’s take out the Republicans and put in the Democrats. Let’s take out the Democrats and put in the Tea Party.” Then there’s a light bulb moment in so many people’s minds where they realize it’s not a Republican/Democrat thing, it’s an establishment versus people who actually know what they’re doing. The establishment has a vested interest in keeping these jobs because that’s how they control people. It’s how we end up with puppets.

Marco Rubio looks like a Model UN schoolboy. I don’t think he understands what he’s talking about. The things he says are fed into his earpiece or he just memorizes them. We can’t have that right now. We need someone who personally understands how the economy and government work.

[Trump] has single-handedly taken on the Republican establishment, he’s taking it head-on, and seems to be winning even though all these people are fighting tooth and nail to keep him out.

Why do you support Trump’s economic policies?

Trump is the only person who has an actual understanding of how the economy works. At the end of the day, the other candidates don’t have a visceral understanding of the economy and what policies work. We need someone who personally understands how the economy works, how to make deals in high-pressure situations.

We can’t keep being the guy who picks up the check without any benefit. We simply can’t. We need to start thinking how we can make our country rich again. Because left or right, I think what most politicians agree on is that we want Americans to be better off. The only way you can make your people better off is at the very least not being in debt. Being $19 trillion in debt is bad for our citizens.

The poor of the world might be poor, but they’re not stupid. In many cases, these people on the ground level have had to live directly with the consequences of government regulation and really, really stupid policy making. They understand what the problems are and are trying to communicate that up to their elected leaders, but no one is listening.

The people currently making these decisions and policies are career politicians looking for their pay checks. With Trump though, you’re looking at someone worth $10 billion who could be somewhere on a beach eating caviar, but he’s saying “I might not be the best business person in the world, but I’ve clearly done something right.” Because many people who get the amount of money he got don’t turn out to be billionaires—in many cases they squander all their money. He somehow has been able to increase his legacy, to leave something good for his children. Wouldn’t it be great if we could do the same thing for the United States?

What are your thoughts on building the wall between the US and Mexico?

A lot of the logic I hear about the wall is similar to the strain of logic that would say “there is a chance that someone can pick your lock on your door, so there’s no reason to lock your doors.” That’s kind of similar logic to the arguments against the wall. If you have no restriction whatsoever, if you have no physical impasse, yeah probably a lot more people are going to come. If you don’t deport people who come into the country illegally or you give them due process and let them stay for five years and make it politically unviable for any administration to deport them, of course they’re going to come. It seems almost like common sense. The poor of the world might be poor, but they’re not stupid.

Someone in one of these really, really miserable areas can just look at the news and think “hmm do I think the U.S. is going to deport these people? No. It’s not easy—you’re risking life and limb to come into the country, but do I think that it is relatively easy to come into the country? Yes. Okay, I’m going to come.” Now imagine that you have a policy where every single illegal immigrant is deported, if we stop you at the border, you get deported. Oh, and by the way: the border is really, really hard to get over. You can, it’s possible, but it’s really hard. Yes, that will lower illegal immigration. Why? Because people look at that and say “Oh, I don’t really want to deal with that. The cost-benefit analysis gets switched.

What are your thoughts on student reactions across the country to chalk messages of “Trump 2016” being written all over their campuses?

If the kids are triggered by this, God help them when they get to the real world. I’m actually really, really sad for those kids. Their education is failing them. They’re not going to get trigger warnings.

Do you know anyone else at Yale who supports Trump? Are they vocal about it?

Yes. Someone came up to me a little while back and said “You must be the smartest Trump supporter out there”. And I replied, “No, that’s not true. I’ve talked to a lot of people smarter than me who support him, but the reason you haven’t heard of them is because they’re a lot smarter than me”. It’s fear.

Honestly, it’s not that I have nothing to lose, it’s that I want to lose it all. I think there’s a bigger culture of fear invading our culture, our college, our society, our everything. People are so scared of saying something because “Oh it’ll cost be a job in the future or I won’t be liked”. I don’t understand anyone who would want to be hired or be friends with someone who wouldn’t chose them because of political beliefs.

My general philosophy is one of self-selection: I’m going to be who I am as loudly and proudly as I can be. Why? because I want to find the people I want to meet, be around and work for. I want people who are intelligent and bright, not people who would blackball you from their social lives or employment over sincerely held political beliefs.

What response do you get from people on campus who find out you’re a Trump supporter, and a vocal one at that?

I was just talking to an international student yesterday about why I support Trump, and after I finished he said, “You haven’t swayed me, but at least you’ve given me a new perception of things”.

I was at the Buckley event today, and we had a thirty minute conversation about Trump, and the guest said “Trump’s an idiot” and I replied with “No he’s not, and here’s why”. And I ran through all the reasons, and then moved onto defending his character. I honestly think he’s one of the best people we have in this country, character-wise.