In between jokes about identity politics and the taste of urine, massively popular podcaster Theo Von and his most recent show guest debated President Donald Trump’s tariff and trade policy. Would rising prices in the short term justify the supposed return of manufacturing jobs to America? Or would automation and artificial intelligence end up vaporizing those jobs as well?
“Here’s the thing with tariffs. Is the goal of tariffs…if it costs more for people to bring their products in, then they’ll build them here?” Von asked comedian Mark Normand on the April 7 episode of This Past Weekend With Theo Von.
“Yes, that’s part of it, yeah,” Normand replied. They continued:
Von: “So it’s kind of a long-term play. It’s going to take a while.”
Normand: “It’s going to be bumpy for a while, but that’s if it works. So we’ll see, but it might take 10 years.”
Von: “Right, but if we don’t try this though, then I think it’s a wrap.”
Von then recounted some memories from his stand-up tour across America: In many of the towns and smaller cities where he performed, “there’s nothing there.” No business, no industry, and abandoned downtowns. “You start to be like, nothing’s going to change. There’s nothing coming that’s going to make that different, right?”
Tariffs, it sounded, might be a way to reverse that. But don’t forget, Normand replied, “We got automation coming, we got AI coming, so jobs are going away quick, and everything’s digital now. There’s nothing manufactured here.”
Von was stumped. “That’s one of the things that people say, well, even if you bring jobs back here, those jobs are going to disappear because of AI anyway,” he said. “That’s one of the other arguments against doing the tariffs at all.”
This excerpt is one of the more sophisticated conversations related to Trump and tariffs happening in the non-hard news space of podcasting. And it’s one of many.
Trump’s tariff proposals, their partial delay, and their effect on the stock market have been a hot topic across the “manosphere” — the loose network of podcasters and influencers who market themselves particularly toward young men.
Trump news is covered differently there than it is in the mainstream — often through personal anecdotes, comedy, and banter with non-subject matter experts. But it matters.
How this manosphere reacts to Trump is a useful bellwether for the durability of the coalition that got Trump elected. These brocasters hold sway with tens of millions of Americans and were a crucial avenue for the Trump campaign to reach lower propensity and lower information voters, particularly younger men, for most of last year. They’re both a useful tool for tracking how Trump’s presidency is being received and processed by millions of people who tend not to keep tabs of political news, and as stand-ins for what subsets of the electorate might be feeling.
For now, that seems to be confusion, fear, and, for some, resilient trust in Trump: In the wake of his “Liberation Day” tariff announcement — and the subsequent delay in their implementation, the internet ecosystem of podcasters, influencers, and streamers that make up the so-called manosphere don’t seem to understand what Trump is doing, seem hesitant to endorse it, or are just remaining quiet.
In other words, they’re behaving just like the average American.
You might know some of them: Von, Joe Rogan, and Andrew Huberman. Andrew Schulz, Shawn Ryan, Dave Portnoy, and Lex Fridman. All endorsed Trump, most hosted Trump on their shows, and all were excited for his term to begin. A couple of months later, things are very different.
Some in the manosphere are becoming more critical of Trump
The manosphere doesn’t move in unison: There’s no secret meeting where they convene to forge a consensus. But broadly, their reactions so far can be divided into three categories: those critical of Trump’s tariffs, those confused by them but willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt, and those who are sidestepping the topic entirely.
The first category includes folks like conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, and podcasting king Joe Rogan. Aside from Shapiro, they don’t have deeply held ideological beliefs and seem more concerned with pocketbook consequences through the stock market.
When Rogan has talked about Trump’s trade policy, for example, the podcaster has frequently expressed confusion, fear, and concern that Trump is acting erratically and going far beyond his campaign promises — especially when it comes to tariffs on close allies.
“I’m scared of this tariff stuff because it’s radical change, and I’m scared of radical change,” Rogan said on his April 5 episode, in the week between Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement and their implementation on April 9. “Trump is used to being able to charm people. He’s very charming. But if you can’t speak his language, you’re like, ‘Fuck this orange asshole.’ You know what I mean?”
Since then, he’s not really commented on Trump, save to say he understands the nostalgia for American manufacturing.
Shapiro, too, was critical of Trump’s broad approach before he announced a rollback of tariffs on other countries. On his YouTube show last Monday, Shapiro called tariffs a “really problematic” tool to try to increase domestic production and wealth-building. “The idea that this is inherently good and makes the American economy strong is wrongheaded … It’s untrue. The idea that it is going to result in massive re-shoring of manufacturing is also untrue.” He’s since toned back his criticism — endorsing confrontation with China, but criticizing the bluntness of a tariff-fueled trade war.
Meanwhile, Portnoy has more obviously seesawed from saying Trump “crashed the whole stock market” on “Orange Monday” to calling him the “best president ever” toward the end of the week. Still, he clarified on CNN this week that he “was never some crazy MAGA guy.”
Aside from his personal concerns over the stock market, he did explain on his show that a tumultuous market would have downstream effects on small businesses, prices, and unemployment. It matched the sentiment another major influencer, Mr. Beast, expressed as tariffs were being announced: “We’ll figure it out. I feel for small businesses though. Could really be a nail in the coffin for them.”
There’s also genuine confusion among brocasters about how much to trust Trump
A second type of manosphere creator is confused about what the point of tariffs is and just what Trump’s rationale is for leading the country into trade wars. They aren’t necessarily opposed or enthusiastic about tariffs, reducing trade deficits, or recreating manufacturing jobs — they just want a better sense of Trump’s thinking and to be reassured that the guy they supported hasn’t lost all connection to reality.
This category includes Von, who only releases an episode a week, as he expressed in his conversation with Normand. It includes the comedian Andrew Schulz, who had Trump defender Chamath Palihapitiya from the All-In podcast spend an hour and a half explaining why reciprocal tariffs were a good idea, how America has supposedly been saddled with unfair trade deals, and why universal tariffs were the only way to reorder the global order (only for Trump to walk it back the next day).
A similar thing happened on entrepreneur Patrick Bet-David’s podcast and on the Nelk Boys’ Full Send podcast hosted by Kyle Forgeard: Both had Trump defenders (sycophantic commentator Benny Johnson for the former, Sean Hannity for the latter) on to try to make sense of Trump’s thinking. Both hosts remained Trump-friendly, but don’t seem sold on tariffs, even after the White House’s attempts to spin Trump’s delay.
Others are avoiding tariff talk at all
Finally, there’s a score of other commentators who either endorsed or hosted Trump who have yet to weigh in at all. Their silence is a bit perplexing, given that many of them claim to be focused on current events and trending topics.
Hosts like Andrew Huberman, Lex Fridman, and Jake and Logan Paul have not addressed the tariffs or stock market shocks on their shows. Some have released episodes featuring interviews with guests who probably wouldn’t be inclined to discuss economics, talking instead about mental and physical health, foreign policy and war, homeschooling, or conspiracy theories.
What these podcasters say, ask, and think matters
These commentators reach and represent a new Republican constituency: those Americans who don’t tend to follow the news, who aren’t the most politically aware or engaged, or who consume information passively, through non-news programs.
Tracking how they are responding to Trump’s economic agenda gives us an insight into what the political ramifications of that agenda might be. And they give us a temperature check of the new groups that joined the Republican coalition in November.
Their consumers and followers are very different from the kind of people who are reading and processing developments through mainstream and traditional media: New York Times and Washington Post readers, for example, are probably already turned off by Trump and opposed to his tariff plans. Joe Rogan, Barstool Sports, and Theo Von listeners are probably more likely to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. But if the hosts that they trust and listen to for multiple hours every week start to break with the president, that distance might cause these listeners to second-guess Trump or look for more information on what he’s doing. And that could lead to longer-term defection or disillusionment — with time still left until midterm elections.
