On Thursday, Joe Rogan spent nine excruciating minutes reading one of Donald Trump's latest Truth Social tirades aloud to his millions of listeners after the president unloaded on Bill Maher in a 1,300-word post over the “Real Time” host’s assessment of his presidency.
"It's like a girl who got dumped, like, 'Fuck him, he's always a loser,'" Rogan said, mocking Trump’s response. "It's really crazy."
The world’s most influential podcaster endorsed Trump in the final days of the 2024 campaign, helping him reach millions of young men. But since then, Rogan has become a vocal critic, openly criticizing Trump’s handling of the Epstein Files, which he called “a line in the sand”; his hard-line immigration crackdown, which Rogan denounced as a “dangerous precedent” and compared to “the Gestapo”; and, most recently, Trump’s decision to drag the country into war, which he called a “giant quagmire.” And he’s hardly alone.
The so-called manosphere that helped usher Trump back into the White House on the back of casual and softball interviews in front of millions of young men, has turned against him, with some of the biggest personalities in the ecosystem now openly questioning and attacking the president they once helped elevate. Andrew Schulz, Tim Dillon, Theo Von and others have quickly become disillusioned with an administration that has betrayed the tough-guy “America First” promises that made Trump so appealing to them just two years ago.
Schulz, who hosted Trump on his “Flagrant” podcast during the 2024 campaign and later voted for him, was particularly blunt last year after the president backed off from releasing the Epstein Files. "He's doing the exact opposite of everything I've voted for," Schulz said. "I want him to stop the wars, he's funding them. I want him to shrink spending, reduce the budget, he's increasing it."
Dillon, meanwhile, has been even more critical of Trump and his supporters, openly mocking them in harsh terms, particularly after Trump launched the war Iran. In May, he slammed Trump's decision to attack Tehran as “the biggest betrayal of a political movement I've ever seen in my life.”
And it’s gotten even worse since then. On the latest episode of his show, which has drawn more than 1.2 million views on YouTube, the comedian went all-in on Trump. “The Trump administration has now become, like 100%, the We Defend Pedophiles administration,” Dillon declared. “It is the most hilarious turn from whatever the QAnon people believed, which was that Trump was like directing underground armies to get the children,” he continued, adding “the gaslighting is unbelievable.”
Dillon also lit into Trump’s supporters, which he described as a “cult,” even as Trump has “sold out” his most ardent followers. “He has sold these people out, especially the younger people behind him. It's unbelievable,” he added. “They can't comprehend how damaging the last two years have been for their lives.”
Of course, Dillon and other manosphere podcasters are comedians, not journalists or political experts, whose appeal rests on their cultural takes and deep skepticism of the establishment. But they speak to audiences like young men who have largely tuned out traditional media and, last time around, decided to throw their support behind Trump as he faced Kamala Harris. And their backing of Trump was valuable precisely because it didn't look like conventional political support. They made Trump part of the broader cultural conversation, and offered him a veneer of cool, youthful energy, while giving him access to millions of listeners who might never have watched a campaign rally or tuned into Fox News.
Now that relationship has completely soured. And Trump himself has largely abandoned the podcast strategy that helped him reach those voters in 2024. Two years ago, he sat for chummy interviews with Rogan, Schulz, Theo Von, the Nelk Boys and other popular personalities. Those appearances were a significant part of his effort to deepen his appeal with young men. But Trump has steered clear of those platforms during the midterm campaign, perhaps because those shows are no longer safe spaces after failing to deliver on his most basic promises.
And that’s not the only place where once-loyal audiences are turning their backs on Trump. As Status first reported this week, even Fox News' audience has declined sharply ahead of the midterms, an ominous development for a president whose political fortunes have long been closely tied to the right-wing network. With Trump's approval ratings cratering, the audience that has traditionally served as his most dependable media constituency appears to be tuning out, too.
But in the online manosphere, far from the daily political cycles and scrutiny of cable news, Trump has been insulated by every man-style influencers who offered an alternative to the mainstream media. Now, those influential voices are openly criticizing the man they threw their support behind, and giving their audiences permission to do the same.
Since their devastating loss in 2024, Democrats have searched for their own Joe Rogan. They've poured cash into influencer strategies and tried to figure out how to reach the young male audiences who helped power Trump's political return. The irony is that they found him. And they didn't have to recruit anyone.
