War-Fuelled Divorce: How Right-Wing Podcasters Flipped Stance Against Trump

Podcaster Joe Rogan proclaimed to million of his followers in 2024 that then US Presidential nominee Donald Trump was a force that the political establishment did not know how to handle. Six weeks of the Iran war has flipped his stance. He now opines that Trump, who ran his second Presidential campaign on the promise of ending "senseless wars" is now part of a conflict that is leaving Americans feeling "betrayed".

Rogan is joined by several others from his field, who have soured on Trump, when they were vocal supporters during his campaign. Right-wing commentator and former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, on his podcast ranked among US's most popular conservative programs, has also criticised the Trump administration's support for Israel. He described the military action as "absolutely disgusting and evil."

Once heavily courted by Trump, Andrew Schulz said in a July epsiode of his "Flagrant" podcast that Trump did the "exact opposite" of everything he voted for. He specified the US President's failure to quickly end wars in Europe and the Middle East. Another soundbyte from one of his podcasts mentions him as saying, "If I wanted to vote for somebody that was going to keep the Epstein files under wrap...that was going to extend the foreign wars and going to increase the budget, I would have voted for Kamala (Harris)."

In a podcast that garnerd a million views, prominent stand-up comedian and podcaster Theo Von later called Israel's attacks on Gaza a "genocide". Later, while hosting Vice President JD Vance, he called visuals emerging from Gaza "the sickest thing" and blamed Washington for being complicit because "we help fund, like, military stuff". "Sometimes it feels like we look out for the interest of Israel before we look out for the interest of America," Von added.

Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Candace Owens, who released an episode this week titled "Donald Trump Has Betrayed America", logged more than two million views on YouTube.

Immigration, Epstein And IVF

On his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, the biggest podcast in the United States by most metrics, he even compared US immigration raids to Gestapo operations. "Are we really going to be the Gestapo? 'Where's your papers?' Is that what we've come to?" he said during the January episode with Republican Rand Paul, after 37-year-old Renee Good was shot by ICE agents in Minneapolis.

"If you want compassionate people to be on board with you, you can't deport gay hairdressers seeking asylum - that's f*****g crazy - and then throw them in an El Salvador prison," Rogan also said last March.

Von slammed the use of his photo in US Department of Homeland Security messaging in September without his consent. In a later deleted post, he wrote on X, "Yooo DHS i didnt approve to be used in this. I know you know my address so send a check. And please take this down and please keep me out of your 'banger' deportation videos. When it comes to immigration my thoughts and heart are alot more nuanced than this video allows. Bye!"

Schulz also took a swipe at Trump over several podcasts on issues ranging from handling of the Jefferey Epstein files to the IVF mandates.

Why Do Podcasts Matter?

Ahead of his 2024 Presidential campaign, Trump and his team were seen engaging proactively on podcasts. The aim was to leverage the power of what is informally called the 'manosphere' - as podcasts are dominated by male speakers, but also heard by some women audiences.

According to the Pew Research Center, around a third of Americans now get some news from podcasts. The Joe Rogan Experience is consistently cited as one of America's most popular podcasts - about 80 per cent of listeners are male and roughly half are aged 18 to 34.

The wavering views come ahead of the crucial mid-term elections in November.