Many of the same podcasters credited with delivering President Donald Trump his 2024 victory, from Joe Rogan to Theo Von, are warning that broken campaign promises may have devastating consequences.
Trump won what some have called the “podcast election,” appearing on numerous platforms that appealed to young men, a group that has shifted notably rightward in recent years amid backlash to far-left cultural agendas and affordability issues.
But many of the same podcasters who persuaded these young men to support Trump are now warning his current policies in office are a betrayal to his voters or have broken with him entirely.
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Semafor wrote about this phenomenon in a recent piece headlined, “‘Baffling’: Trump’s podcaster problem runs deep,” noting that while Rogan had a friendly recent visit to the White House to further the cause of psychedelic therapy research, other issues remain in play.
“But even if the White House’s efforts to court Rogan proved successful, Trump has more work to do,” Semafor wrote. “Of the 14 longform ‘bro’ podcasts Trump appeared on during his 2024 presidential campaign, eight of the hosts have questioned or criticized the war, while just two have endorsed it.”
“Well, it just seems so insane based on what he ran on,” Rogan said in March. “I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right? He ran on ‘no more wars’ and ‘these stupid senseless wars,’ and then we have one that we can’t even really clearly define why we did it.”
Rogan also had more mixed views of ICE raids, saying he understood perspectives of those for and against the raids but ultimately defending the raids and blaming Democrats who he said had failed to secure the border in recent years.
Days after his White House visit to attend Trump’s signing of an executive order to allow medical research into psychedelics earlier this week, Rogan argued Israel is the reason America has gone to war.
“Netanyahu kept visiting the White House. You think it’s a coincidence Netanyahu keeps visiting the White House and then eventually they decide to give in and start bombing?” Rogan asked.
“You got to wonder, like, how do you get out of this? And then what does the exit look like? Do we have troops over there forever now? Do we subsidize them if we blow up their power grid and their infrastructure?”
Comedian and libertarian Dave Smith, a vocal critic of Israeli influence on American politics, denounced Trump’s decisions despite voting for him 2024.
“After ’24, this coalition came together where Donald Trump, for the first time ever, wins the popular vote, wins every single swing state and really, more remarkably, won the youth and the culture,” Smith said in an interview with Rogan last month.
“That whole coalition has been destroyed over this war,” he said. “And now he’s going to hand the country right back over to these Democrats who we’ve been fighting so hard. All for what? All for a war that Netanyahu wanted?”
During a podcast with comedian Theo Von, Smith argued Trump desperately needed to “rack up some wins, like some real clear W’s for the American people” or else the midterms would be a disaster for Republicans.
“The fundamental animating spirit of Donald Trump’s political existence, his central promise was ‘drain the swamp,’” Smith said later on in the podcast. “There’s something about covering up the Epstein thing that it’s like, ‘Oh, when it really came down to it, you didn’t want to drain the swamp. You wanted to protect them.'”
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Theo Von, who interviewed Trump in 2024 and is reportedly Barron Trump’s favorite podcaster, has repeatedly condemned the president over the Iran war.
On Monday, Von condemned Trump’s threat on Easter to wipe out Iranian civilization.
“On Easter, that’s unbelievable. You know when people are hoping for something new literally on the day when people are hoping and are believing with their hearts as much as they can and are celebrating something new, a rebirth, a resurrection, a possibility. To write that is it’s diabolical. It’s insane,” he said.
“What American is this helping besides the industrial war complex? What American, what guy who’s trying to take care of his family or a single mother who’s a nurse who’s going to work and has to get home and get to her kids’ ballgame and has to be both parents. What farmer is this helping? What regular person is this helping? I just don’t know. I don’t understand.”
Von added that Trump’s decision to start a war with Iran was ” f—ing baffling” and alleged that he was compromised by Israel.
Comedian Andrew Schulz, who also interviewed Trump during the 2024 election, said in July that people throw his vote for Trump back in his face.
“I voted for none of this. He’s doing the exact opposite of everything I’ve voted for,” Schulz said in response.
More recently, he criticized the war in Iran, saying it outrages Americans concerned about affordability.
“And then the only reason it looks like we’re in there is just because Israel needs it, and then, naturally, Americans are furious about it, right? Because we’re like, ‘How the f— does this benefit me? I can’t afford to pay for college,” Schulz said.
“I can’t buy a home. I can’t pay for health insurance. And we’re going to spend billions of dollars on a war in a country I can’t even point out on a map. How is this beneficial to me?'”
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Comedian Tim Dillon, an openly gay, anti-establishment comedian, is credited by CNN in 2025 as one of the cutting-edge comedians that “helped Trump reach young men” to the point where “Democrats want in on the joke.”
He told CNN, “You can’t go to war with straight White men for four years and then ask why they didn’t vote for you. That seems crazy. I’ve made fun of Meghan Markle a lot. I can’t then go, ‘Why don’t you think Meghan Markle is watching (my special)?’ I just think you have to pick your fights in a better way.”
In March, he blasted the war in Iran as both ill-advised and a death knell for the Trump movement, saying, “It seems pretty obvious we got hosed a little bit” by faulty intel on Iran.
“It’s pretty hard to argue that this isn’t a death knell for whatever that Trump coalition was trying to do, whatever deep state nonsense they were talking about coming on the heels of the Epstein list, which they won’t release the other half of, and then kind of getting in, getting into this war,” he said.
“You know, any idea that this was a group of people committed to any type of transparency or, it’s laughable. It’s laughable if you have any kind of brain, which many of you don’t.”
When contacted by Fox News Digital, White House spokesman Davis Ingle replied, “What matters most to the American people is having a commander in chief who takes decisive action to eliminate threats and keep them safe, which is exactly what President Trump did with the successful Operation Epic Fury.
“President Trump campaigned proudly on his promise to deny the Iranian regime the ability to develop a nuclear weapon, which is what this noble operation accomplishes,” Ingle continued.
“The president does not make these incredibly important national security decisions based on fluid opinion polls, but on the best interest of the American people.”
