In 2015, when President Barack Obama appeared on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, it was a big event precisely because it was a one-off — an exception rather than a rule. Almost a decade later, the media landscape has changed so completely that independent podcasters with little if any journalism experience seem to have an easier time getting a sit-down with presidential candidates than major news outlets do.
Rumors have swirled of a Kamala Harris interview with Joe Rogan, the godfather of politicized “apolitical” podcasters. While Harris reportedly couldn’t make that appearance work, a Rogan sit-down with Donald Trump was confirmed this week, quickly followed by a new report that Harris will appear on football icon Shannon Sharpe’s podcast Club Shay Shay. Hard on the heels of that report came the news that Harris would also be a guest on Brené Brown’s popular relationship podcast Unlocking Us. These are all moves signaling that the role of these independent agents in the media ecosystem has become more significant than ever.
The blitz of Joe Everyman podcasts that Trump has done on the campaign trail has turned heads, from Impaulsive to Bussin’ With the Boys, as has Harris’s recent appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast and Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s appearance on the SmartLess podcast. What these podcasters have in common — besides scoring conversations with the people vying for the White House — is that they’re nonchalantly normie. As much as a “middle” still exists in America, you can find it among this lot, a good chunk of whom claim to avoid politics, even if they can’t help stumbling into political topics.
Many of them are comedians and entertainers by profession, and few of them have worked in traditional newsrooms. They don’t all claim to be particularly well-informed about any topic on offer, and many are, at best, just casually invested in learning: Witness Theo Von’s August interview with Trump, in which he brought up serious topics, mainly the opioid epidemic, but without anything substantive to say about them. The former Road Rules star wasn’t exactly equipped to push back against any of Trump’s positions.
Call Her Daddy’s host Alex Cooper did stick mainly to substantive issues during Harris’s interview, but she was apologetic about it, reminding her audiences that she typically avoids politics “because I want Call Her Daddy to be a place where everyone feels comfortable tuning in.” The apolitical stance extends to booking as well; though no podcast has yet hosted both candidates, multiple podcasters, including Cooper and Von, have stated that they have invited both candidates to come on their shows.
What, then, explains the politicians’ efforts to reach these podcast audiences? Their listener numbers, typically in the low millions, may seem small, but they’re not as small as you think. They not only rival a traditional audience of, say, 60 Minutes’ 6 million viewers, but also represent loyal listeners likely to be influenced by the podcast appearance. Still, there’s even more at work here. Let’s look at the podcasters themselves.
The podcasters
Adin Ross, streamer
How many people are tuning in? 1.5 million Kick subscribers; 2.6 million YouTube views
Who is he? Adin Ross is a notorious video game streamer. Earlier this year, out of what he indicated to Theo Von was a wish to please his sons, Trump sat down with a ring of podcasters known for covering UFC fandom. Trump has also done appearances with a range of nontraditional right-wing pundits including YouTubers and radio hosts, as has JD Vance, but the UFC circuit clearly gained him the most attention — despite very little discussion of wrestling. While all of these UFC hosts have some degree of controversy, the dubious prize for amplifying Trump most directly to the “manosphere” arguably goes to Adin Ross.
Last year, reportedly after years of flirting with being canceled, Ross was finally permanently banned from Twitch for homophobic slurs and other offensive comments. Known for hobnobbing with Andrew Tate and promoting toxic masculinity and white supremacists, Ross retreated to rival platform Kick, of which he now owns 30 percent. Though Kick is relatively niche — with 1.5 million subscribers, Ross is the platform’s biggest account — his sit-down with Trump was also cross-posted to Ross’s YouTube channel, where it’s picked up another 2.6 million views in the two months since it aired. (Ross, who’s also a fan of Elon Musk, thanked Trump for his drop-in by … gifting him a Cybertruck.)
Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast, also streaming on YouTube
How many people are tuning in? Lots of podcast listeners; 4.7 million YouTube subscribers; 6.6 million views
Who is he? A former YouTube prankster and vlogger alongside his brother Jake, Logan Paul is best known for blowing up his enormously successful career with one 2018 video in which he notoriously filmed a dead body in Japan’s Aokigahara Forest. He subsequently embarked on an impressively successful redemption arc; Impaulsive, a conversational weekly podcast and YouTube stream with Paul, his co-hosts, and guests, has arguably played the biggest role in rehabilitating his former immature image into something approaching respectability. It’s currently reportedly ranked in the top 50 podcasts across all platforms. His chat with Trump was conversational, if not particularly enlightening; the pair discussed everything from aliens (Trump thinks they might exist) to AI; the deepest issue was arguably a debate about whether Mike Tyson is too old to box.
Theo Von
How many people are tuning in? A whole lot of podcast listeners; 3.2 million YouTube subscribers; 14 million views
Who is he? The most prominent of the UFC trio, Theo Von’s This Past Weekend is reportedly in the Spotify top 20, as well as among the top 10 podcasts across all platforms nationally. Von, a former MTV reality regular turned stand-up comic turned podcaster, has only gotten bigger since his interview with Trump. The event generated a massively viral clip of Trump speculating about drug use and has since racked up a non-paltry 14 million views. Von reportedly reached out to Kamala Harris for an interview as well; he’s also since interviewed Trump’s running mate JD Vance, including an extensive conversation about Vance’s family’s struggles with addiction. He also interviewed Bernie Sanders in August.
Andrew Schulz, Flagrant
How many people are tuning in? 1.77 million YouTube subscribers; 4.5 million views
Who is he? One of many standup comics-turned-podcasters on the list, Schulz is another comedian who, like fellow Trump interviewer Von, purports to be apolitical but nurses contrarian anti-woke takes. Another MTV alum, he co-hosts the Flagrant podcast with fellow comedian Akaash Singh; he also co-hosts the Brilliant Idiots podcast with Charlamagne tha God, who recently interviewed Harris.
It’s Trump’s erratic interview on Flagrant, which has garnered 4.5 million views in a week, that’s gotten much of the recent attention. Trump discussed the two recent assassination attempts made against him, implying at one point that both shooters may have been working with other people, including nefarious foreign entities like Iran. The rest of the interview mainly served as fodder for Schulz to make jokes and contributed little else substantive to the conversation. That didn’t stop Schulz from facing backlash; the Brooklyn Academy of Music promptly canceled an appearance by Schulz in response to the platforming of Donald Trump.
Charlamagne tha God and The Breakfast Club
How many people are tuning in? More than 4 million morning radio listeners in over 80 markets; IHeartRadio has over 860 livestream stations nationwide
Who is he? Among the podcasters on this list, Charlamagne tha God is arguably the one who represents traditional media, albeit of the pop culture variety. The longtime comedian first gained his following through his association with Wendy Williams and VH1. He and Schulz were regulars on MTV’s Guy Code before they joined forces on The Brilliant Idiots. Charlamagne’s real claim to fame, however, is his longtime gig as host for the syndicated New York-based morning radio show The Breakfast Club, a staple of 2010s radio that has branched into a podcast network and a YouTube channel.
The Breakfast Club, like many of the entrants on this list, clearly muddies the waters between radio show, YouTube stream, and podcast, but the show’s expanding mediums seem crucial to its longevity. The show, which was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2020, is known for featuring high-profile celebrity interviews, and Kamala Harris was no exception: She recently did a special “Audio Town Hall” with The Breakfast Club, streamed out of Detroit on the IHeart radio network and hosted by Charlamagne. Charlamagne and Harris candidly agreed that Donald Trump is a fascist — a statement you’re unlikely to hear coming from a more traditional interview platform.
Alex Cooper, Call Her Daddy podcast
How many people are tuning in? A megaton; it’s the No. 4 podcast in the US
Who is she? Per NPR, woman-centered podcast Call Her Daddy boasts an even split between Democrats and Republicans, mostly white. The rare host that’s on the cusp of Gen Z, creator Alex Cooper created her podcast with her roommate just a year after she graduated from college, whereupon it was promptly acquired by Barstool Sports and catapulted to popularity. (Cooper exited Barstool in 2021.) Though Cooper currently has all the attention for the recent Harris interview, which focused mainly on reproductive freedom and health care for women, she’s already onto a bigger catch: interviewing Taylor Swift.
Bussin’ With the Boys
How many people are tuning in? Plenty; it’s one of the most popular sports podcasts in the US with 545k subscribers and 391k views on YouTube
Who are they? Former Tennessee Titans turned besties turned podcasters, hosts Will Compton and Taylor Lewan have made a name for themselves among sports audiences with this conversational Barstool Sports podcast.
Though it wasn’t about sports, they scored Donald Trump’s longest interview yet; he nattered for over two hours last week, chatting about everything from politics to Elon Musk and social media. He even discussed doing all these podcasts, telling Compton and Lewan that the new crop of podcasters are “young guys and they’re very different in some cases.”
“It may have to do with all of my sons. They’re young … This is a young world … I’ve done a few of them and they’ve done well.”
Joe Rogan, The Joe Rogan Experience
How many people are tuning in: Legions; Rogan has been the most-listened-to podcast in the country for nearly a decade and currently has over 30 million subscribers between YouTube and Spotify.
Who is he? Yet another standup comic slash reality TV star turned podcaster, Rogan made it big in the podcast industry by embracing the medium early and being incredibly prolific, churning out hours of content weekly. His fans praise what they view as his down-to-earth, moderate style, but he balances that out with plenty of controversy.
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Shannon Sharpe, Club Shay Shay
How many people are tuning in? 3.6 million YouTube subscribers and lots of podcast listeners; as of 2024, it’s the No. 11 podcast in the country.
Who is he? Former Denver Bronco, NFL Hall of Famer, and veteran sports broadcaster Shannon Sharpe started Club Shay Shay in 2020 when he was still perhaps best known as a morning show host on Fox. Last year, however, he transitioned his podcast to a new network and got a new gig with ESPN, which may have helped launch Club Shay Shay into the upper echelon of the podcast industry. Despite inadvertently recently livestreaming a sexual encounter to shocked followers, Sharpe hasn’t lost his appeal: Kamala Harris will reportedly tape an interview with him to be broadcast on October 28.
Brené Brown, Unlocking Us with Brené Brown
How many people are tuning in? Plenty; it’s reportedly the No. 1 relationship podcast on Apple Podcasts.
Who is she? A noted shame researcher, Brown is the only academic in this motley podcast crew (and the only one to date whose podcast is hosted on the Vox Media network). Brown first gained widespread public attention in 2010, when her TED Talk on vulnerability went massively viral. Since then she’s published multiple bestselling books, done a Netflix special, and maintained a role as a professor — but it’s her ongoing podcast Unlocking Us that’s cemented her position as the nation’s premier relationship adviser.
Brown’s position on this list isn’t without a touch of irony. In 2022, numerous artists and entertainers blacklisted Spotify in protest against its lucrative deal with Joe Rogan, as a response to Rogan’s platforming of Covid-19 misinformation (and many other perceived sins). Among them, briefly, was Brown, who put both of the active podcasts she had on the platform at the time on hiatus, only to later unpause them and declare, “I’m not interested in canceling or silencing or censoring anyone, including Joe Rogan. This was not, nor has it ever been, framed to the public or to Spotify as ‘me or Joe.’” If, however, Harris chooses to skip Rogan and turn to Brown instead, Brown’s podcast audience, which, per the New York Times, is large and dominated by women, could be the deciding influence of the election.
Podcasts are where the people are
In a post-pandemic culture where parasocial relationships have grown more frequent and intense, podcasts have become more important than ever. They’re right in people’s ears, offering a uniquely intimate form of connection, not only to the hosts but to the events and ideas they’re platforming. They’re transforming the way audiences learn about issues of the day, keeping them engaged and (sort of) aware; the public’s love of podcasting just keeps growing, with audiences expanding, getting younger, and listening longer and more frequently. The medium, once relegated to extremely online audiences with niche interests, has gradually become more mainstream and wide-reaching; 42 percent of Americans over age 12 listened to a podcast in the last month, and that number is only going up.
Conversely, the public’s trust in media keeps plunging lower across the ideological spectrum: Less than a third of Americans say they have confidence in the accuracy of traditional news mediums, and the number of adults getting their news from actual news sources keeps declining year over year. Podcasts are able to reach audiences that have given up on traditional media, even as the line between podcasters and journalists gets blurry and the boundaries between mediums get fuzzier. The convergence of digital media with the creator economy and vice versa has created whole new submodes of influencers, from the kind that siphon and recycle other sorts of content to the kind that exist entirely as hot takes on TikTok.
Increasingly, journalists with a proper newsroom background, like internet culture reporter Taylor Lorenz and Vox co-founder Matt Yglesias, have traded their former jobs for autonomy, independence, and loyal fan followings. Traditional reporters are also Substack influencers, while podcasts are also livestreams on Twitch and/or videos on YouTube and TikTok. All of this is causing seismic rifts and ever more unreliable journalism in a media environment in which the public already distrusts the media. As the popularity of podcasts keeps growing, these interviews with major public figures arguably add a patina of unearned prestige and importance, even as professional media outlets take hit after hit. In this messier media landscape, it’s easy to see why so many of these podcasters have so much sway with their audiences — and why politicians might want to tap into that.
That accessibility is a double-edged sword, however, since most of these podcasters lack editorial oversight. Without a journalism background, podcasters often aren’t the best people to critique or fact-check their guests, especially high-profile ones. Creators of all kinds prioritize personality and charm over journalistic rigor and information; as with the medium itself, the delineation between what matters for what reason has broken down. Still, audiences don’t often care; the bar for podcast media is lower, and audience expectations for podcasters to be “journalists” in the traditional sense are largely nonexistent. Podcasters like Von often benefit from a rough-and-ready style that allows them to contrast themselves with stodgy traditional media.
It’s not that the candidates are completely eschewing traditional media; Harris’s press parade has included a wide range of other outlets and interviewers, including legacy media, like her recent NBC News interview, as well as several that aren’t particularly politically focused, like veteran “shock jock” Sirius host Howard Stern, who endorsed her. Trump also recently did an interview with Bloomberg’s business podcast, while Tim Walz sat down for an interview with The Ezra Klein Show for the New York Times; Trump running mate JD Vance has likewise been hitting both traditional and non-traditional media hard.
Related:
- Theo Von’s interview with Trump makes more sense than you think
The podcast format (alongside its increasingly indistinguishable twin, the livestream) seems to matter more and more. Vulture noted that Trump’s combined appearances on Schulz’s and Von’s podcasts have dwarfed the paltry views Harris received for her appearance on Call Her Daddy, despite the latter show reportedly being the most popular podcast among women on Spotify. (Her appearance on The View seems to have done better, an indication that older audiences still matter.) Still, Harris’s appearance on Call Her Daddy proved controversial among her constituents, while Trump’s appearances on a broad litany of dudebro podcasts have gone relatively unremarked upon — even though the latter are arguably demonstrably influencing a generation of voters.
That lack of pushback against Trump’s interview choices may also reflect the increasingly decentralized media landscape, where “influence” is more nebulous and subjective than ever while simultaneously becoming more microtargeted and intense. A podcaster like Cooper or Von may reach a fraction of the audience of 60 Minutes, but the kinds of viewers they reach aren’t likely to be found watching the news. As Vulture’s Nick Quah observes, “We’ve long arrived at a place where Americans, now polarized beyond recognition, prefer news sources that align with their ideology, if they even consume much news at all … In those arenas, hosts don’t care about executing ‘good’ or challenging interviews in the classic journalistic sense. The interview just has to make sense to their audience.”
That also means that interviews no longer push candidates to reckon with serious, even unpleasant or difficult topics. The kinds of questions that identify a strong leader, as opposed to one who’s merely affable and interviews well, aren’t very likely to arise on a UFC podcast. But that’s also something candidates may prefer; after all, who wants to deal with hard-hitting questions from journalists when they could field softballs from everyday citizens who aren’t backed by a team of editors and fact-checkers? These interviews are easy, fun, and personable, which also might be a welcome alternative to moderated, issue-focused debates — even if they’re a disservice to voters.
That’s the unfortunate downside to all of this: No matter how you spin it, these interviews are a poor substitute for journalistic rigor, accountability, and editorial oversight. They may arguably even be a hindrance to democracy in an age where it faces multiple existential threats. We typically expect our leaders and experts to be better than the public at understanding and dealing with such enormous problems and dire realities. Yet increasingly, our leaders and experts are being replaced by self-appointed influencers with no actual expertise. The result is a bleak, livestreamed morass: Even if we’re fond of the voices reaching us through the void, we’re still all fumbling in the dark.
Update, October 25, 2:50 pm: This story, originally published October 25, has been updated with the news that Harris will appear on Brené Brown’s podcast and won’t be appearing on Rogan’s.
Source: vox.com
