On SiriusXM, Angelo Carusone describes how right-leaning podcasters are offering “their audiences hope, and the hope is in the form of Trump”
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On SiriusXM, Angelo Carusone describes how right-leaning podcasters are offering "their audiences hope, and the hope is in the form of Trump"
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From the April 17, 2025, edition of SiriusXM's The Dean Obeidallah Show
DEAN OBEIDALLAH (HOST): Do they all do a pro-Trump message? Is it a pro-MAGA message? Is it a center-right message, or is it not that defined?
ANGELO CARUSONE (GUEST): A lot of it is boiled down to a worldview of -- that aligns with -- that leads you in the direction of Trump, right? So, some of them are full Trump sycophants of toadies. So, people like Tucker are always going to be fully, I mean, he's a Trump toady, you know. And Patrick Bet-David is a little bit of a Trump toady too, but he doesn't always seem reflexively pro-Trump.
But, like, let's look at how it played out with the tariffs. You know, you have people like, you have people like, you know, Glenn Beck, Theo Von, Mike, you know, Asmongold, these guys, they were out there criticizing tariffs. They're ripping them apart. But then the wrapper was -- we call them, yeah, they're really bad, but you guys got to trust him, right? So like in a weird way, they're actually helping strengthen the relationship, say, "Well, look, it's bad." We should all -- they're building trust with their audience. They're not trying to deny reality, right? They say, "Well, yeah, this is bad, but we should trust him. He's going to come around and do this." You know, the majority of that audience was with Trump on the tariffs and still are.
You know, that -- and I think that's the part to me is the big takeaway is that what a lot of -- you add it all up and they tell slightly different iterations of their stories, but one of the big takeaways from all of it is that they offer their audiences hope, and the hope is in the form of Trump, which is that "it's going to be bad, it's going to be terrible for a while, but there's a pot of gold at the end of this. We just got to get through it."
A lot of them are not trying to say it's great and wonderful right now. They're saying, "It sucks, but it's going to get great." And that to me is where it's really disturbing because there's something very -- they're really selling hope to their audiences now, and that Trump is a embodiment of that hope. What he is doing is an embodiment of that hope.
And in the meantime, there's something more kinds of nonsense along the way that fits their story. So, you know, yes, it's not always about Trump, but it's about things related to the things that Trump is tapping into, right? So they'll complain about fertility, about male birth rates, about the attacks on white men, about our masculinity, about how you know, -- and then they'll say, look. You know, the best way to boost your masculinity is to smoke cigarettes. Take some zin. I'm not joking. It's one of the biggest fitness rages right now. It's hybrid training in the form of nicotine. You consume nicotine while you're working out. You say, you smoke cigarettes or you put a zin in.
OBEIDALLAH: Oh my god. And I still joke and react about going to Jordan because in the Middle East, they smoke, and the guy's smoking a cigarette on the treadmill because they feel the burn. How is this a joke?
CARUSONE: No. No. It's a thing, it's a totally -- it's now happening. It's a total thing right now. And this again, this goes all the way back to that small kernel when Tucker and we also made fun of him for the testicle tanning thing that he did years ago. This is now, like, all the rage. Right?
And a segment of these people that I'm talking about, you know, when they're not selling this belief in Trump or what the hope that he offers of getting things under control, they're giving these micro-moments of, well, you know, kick some nicotine It's going to be great. You know? And, honestly, think about it too. It's self-reinforcing in a way because if you are a listener and say, "Yeah, you know, I'll give it a shot." Well, of course, you're going to feel great.
You could juice yourself up full of nicotine. It feels awesome. So, like, yeah. And it's like, oh, the guy was right. We have great recommendations, load myself full of nicotine, and I feel amazing. It's like, yeah because it's awesome. Like, of course, you're going to feel amazing. And, like, that's the point. And I think and then it builds trust with their personality who then is telling you another story about, you know, okay, well, yeah, the tariffs, the egg prices are actually going down and, like, it's all -- this is the world that we live in.
And when you get Trump to get out there and say, you know, and, you know, and push these sort of this sort of this broad, bigger picture about how it's going to suck for a little while, but it's all coming around. All these people are coming up. They will then, you know, to make deals. They use that as evidence that, yes, see what we told you. We told you to stick with it.
And that to me is the overall takeaway is not the day-to-day micro-moments, but what is the story that they're selling and the story, the big story that they're selling across the spectrum is one of optimism and hope.