Tariff bubble chart: How top pro-Trump online shows are discussing Trump's tariffs

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Study: Most Pro-Trump podcasters support Trump's tariffs but some fractures emerge

Written by Kayla Gogarty, Courtney Hagle & John Whitehouse

Research contributions from Payton Armstrong, Jack Wheatley, Jack Winstanley, Chloe Simon, Pete Tsipis, Gideon Taaffe, Ben Van Bloem, Reed McMaster & Sage Hodil

Published

In a new study of top pro-Trump online shows in the days after President Donald Trump launched his formal tariff plan, Media Matters has found some dissension as his economic policy disrupts the global economy — even as this ecosystem still overwhelmingly supports him.

Between April 2 (so-called “Liberation Day”), when tariffs were first announced, and April 8, when Trump first announced an alleged “pause” on some of the tariffs, we found that a majority of top right-leaning online shows that self-categorize as related to news and politics had mostly positive coverage of tariffs.

Among right-leaning online shows that self-categorize as nonpolitical, a full quarter of discussions also embraced the president’s deeply unpopular tariff policy.

There was some dissent, notably from Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogan, who provided mostly negative coverage of tariffs during this time frame. But none of the shows — including those with critical tariff coverage — have abandoned Trump over his economic malfeasance.

The amount of discussion on the topic of tariffs varied greatly from show to show overall (Rogan, for example, covered the tariffs sparingly in comparison to other top right-leaning shows). Many shows did not discuss the tariffs at all, and some did not upload any episodes in the studied time frame.

A Media Matters study of online shows published in March 2025 found that the most popular content in online and streaming shows is overwhelmingly right-leaning. In this new study, we examined those right-leaning podcasts -- and not the neutral or left-leaning shows -- from that prior assessment. 

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  • Toplines

    • The majority of top right-leaning online shows/figures that self-categorize as related to news and politics — 63% — had mostly positive coverage of tariffs.
      • 21% had mixed positive and negative coverage of tariffs.
      • 11% completely ignored tariffs.
      • 5% had mostly negative coverage of tariffs.
    • A plurality of top right-leaning online shows/figures that self-categorize as unrelated to news and politics — 30% — completely ignored tariffs. (These shows categorize themselves with labels such as business, comedy, education, and entertainment.)
      • 25% had mostly positive coverage of the tariffs.
      • 20% had mixed positive and negative coverage of tariffs.
      • 5% had mostly negative coverage of tariffs.
    • 17 right-leaning online shows/figures — or 44% of the top right-leaning online shows/figures overall — had mostly positive coverage of tariffs. That tally consisted of 12 news and politics shows and 5 supposedly nonpolitical shows.
    • 8 right-leaning online shows/figures — or 21% of the top right-leaning online shows/figures overall — had mixed positive and negative coverage of tariffs. That tally included 4 news and politics shows and 4 supposedly nonpolitical shows.
    • 2 right-leaning online shows/figures — or 5% of the top right-leaning online shows/figures overall — had mostly negative coverage of tariffs. That tally included 1 news and politics show and 1 supposedly nonpolitical show.

  • Tariff discussion

  • A Media Matters study of online shows published in March 2025 found that the most popular of this content (as evidenced by subscribers and followers) is overwhelmingly right-leaning. Zeroing in on the most popular of the pro-Trump right-leaning shows in that study, we have found meaningful but limited dissension on tariffs. 

  • Tariff bubble chart: How top pro-Trump online shows are discussing Trump's tariffs

    Click here for a larger version of this chart.

  • Over 43% of right-leaning online shows overall positively covered Trump’s tariffs.

  • Tariff pie chart: How top right-leaning online shows covered Trump's tariffs

    Click here for a larger version of this chart.

  • Most discussion of tariffs was in news and politics shows, comedy shows, or social and culture shows.

  • Bar chart: Top right-leaning online shows that discussed Trump’s tariffs by self-identified category

    Click here for a larger version of this chart.

  • Methodology

  • For our March 2025 study, Media Matters compiled a list of 320 online shows (podcasts, streams, and other long-form audio and video content regularly posted online) that were active in 2024, covered news and politics and/or had related guests, and had an ideological bent. We also assessed the audience size of these online shows across platforms. We categorized 191 of the shows as right-leaning and 129 as left-leaning.

    For an explanation of how we compiled online shows, identified them as covering news and politics, identified their ideological bent, and gathered data on audience size, see the methodology here.

    Of the 320 online shows, 41 right-leaning online shows had more than 2.5 million total followers and subscribers across streaming platforms (YouTube, Spotify, Rumble, Twitch, and Kick) and social media platforms that are used to amplify and promote these shows (Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok).

    For this new study, Media Matters compiled all original long-form audio and video content posted online by those 41 top right-leaning online shows from April 2 (the day Trump announced global tariffs) through April 8, 2025. Original long-form content included podcasts, streams, and other content longer than 10 minutes that was posted on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Rumble, Twitch, and Kick. If content was posted on multiple platforms (either fully or partially), we included the full version only once and removed any duplicates.

    Two of the right-leaning online shows — The Dan Bongino Show and Dear America with Graham Allen — were removed from the data set because both Bongino and Allen were replaced after joining Trump’s administration and their replacement hosts generated fewer subscribers. Four right-leaning online shows/figures had no original long-form content during the time frame — Lex Fridman, Fireside Chat with Dennis Prager, Kill Tony, and The Mikhaila Peterson Show.

    For each right-leaning online show/figure with original long-form content during the time frame, researchers independently identified a significant sample of its discussion about Trump’s tariffs by searching transcripts for the following keywords: “tariff,” “stock,” “market,” “crypto,” and “money.” For each audio/video example of content, researchers coded whether there were no relevant discussions or they reviewed discussions and coded whether the discussion was positive coverage of Trump's tariffs, negative coverage, a mix of positive and negative coverage, or provided no opinion on it. A final code was given if two researchers independently awarded it the same code. Tariff discussions that did not achieve this level of consensus were reviewed again individually by additional coders who then reconciled discrepancies.

    Overall sentiment of each online show/figure toward Trump’s tariffs — whether coverage was mostly positive, mostly negative, mixed, or not opinionated — was determined by the plurality sentiment of all the assessed discussions of Trump’s tariffs for that show/figure.