The forensic analysis of Donald Trump’s wildly successful presidential campaign began as soon as he was declared the winner, and a popular take quickly emerged: Trump’s win could be attributed, at least in part, to all of his podcast appearances. In the lead-up to Election Day, Trump went on a slew of massively popular podcasts catering to right-leaning young male audiences. That demographic, white men ages 18 to 29, wound up voting for Trump by a 28-point margin. As it turns out, the mastermind behind this plan might have been Trump’s 18-year-old son, Barron.
Time reports that a hotshot political consultant, Alex Bruesewitz, came up with a podcast plan in July but was told by Trump to consult with Barron first. When Bruesewitz approached Trump with a list of podcasts he thought the then-candidate should appear on, he was reportedly told, “Have you talked this over with Barron?”
When Bruesewitz said no, Trump told him, “Call Barron and see what he thinks and let me know.”
The next month, Adin Ross was at Mar-a-Lago livestreaming with Trump. Ross is a popular streamer known for playing NBA 2K with celebrities, interviewing Andrew Tate (and sniffing his chair afterward), and hosting white supremacist Nick Fuentes on his stream. He was banned from Twitch in 2023 for his use of “hateful slurs or symbols” and “hateful conduct” and now streams on the platform Kick.
“My son Barron says hello. He’s a great young guy, but he’s a big fan of yours,” Trump told Ross at the start of their interview. Later, as Trump admired the size of Ross’s audience (their stream reached 580,000 viewers at its peak), he told the streamer, “Barron says, ‘Dad he’s really big,’ he said. ‘He’s also a friend of mine.’”
A few weeks later, Trump appeared on Theo Von’s This Past Weekend podcast, where he told the comedian, “Your thing is going really great. My son’s a big fan of yours.”
The podcast appearances ramped up in the weeks before the election. Trump guested on shows hosted by the Nelk Boys (a group of influencers who started off doing prank content), Patrick Bet-David, Will Compton, and Taylor Lewan from the Barstool Sports universe, and, of course, Joe Rogan. Across all of his podcast and livestream appearances, including a stop on Logan Paul’s podcast in June, Trump earned over 80 million views on YouTube alone.
Bet-David, an entrepreneur and podcast host who prides himself on offering “valuetaining” content, told the Times of London how he got involved in the Trump ecosystem. He received an email that read, “Barron wants to have dinner with you because he follows this podcast.” Bet-David, incredulous at first, confirmed the veracity of the invitation and went to dinner at Mar-a-Lago. “For an hour and a half, and we just watched Barron run dinner with stories, entertainment, everything,” Bet-David recalled.
A few months later, Trump was on Bet-David’s podcast, telling him, “My son’s right about you.”
Trump senior adviser Jason Miller acknowledged Barron’s role during an interview on Politico’s Playbook Deep Dive podcast in late October. “Barron has been very involved in selecting or recommending, I should say, a number of the podcasts that we should do,” Miller said. “Hats off to the young man. Every single recommendation he’s had has turned out to be absolute ratings gold that’s broken the internet.”
Barron isn’t the only teenage boy Trump appeared to listen to. Bo Loudon, Barron’s best friend and the son of former Women for Trump co-chair Gina Loudon, also lent his advice. Loudon appeared on Piers Morgan Uncensored in October, where the host described him as “the driving force behind Donald Trump’s podcast offensive.”
“The strategy is meeting an audience that maybe isn’t being recognized or an audience that loves Trump and they’re just not being acknowledged,” Loudon told Morgan. He also claimed to have helped engineer Trump’s Joe Rogan appearance, saying, “I definitely talked to some people about that.”
For better or worse, there was also an actual grown-up behind Trump’s podcast offensive: Dana White, the UFC CEO, is well-connected to what some people are calling the manosphere.
“Dana’s very much into this world,” Trump told Ross. “Dana’s a young guy sort of. Dana is into this world like he could be an 18-year-old or a 20-year-old. He knows more about you and the Nelk Brothers — the Nelk Boys — and he asked me to do their show. I will tell you, I got a tremendous response. You do some of these big shows, like 60 Minutes. Nobody cares.”
On Election Night, as Trump celebrated his victory onstage, he called White to the podium to give a few remarks. “I want to thank some people real quick. I want to thank the Nelk Boys, Adin Ross, Theo Von, Bussin’ With the Boys, and last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan.” Barron loomed just out of frame.
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