Know Your Enemy: Did Podcasters Make Trump President?

Know Your Enemy: Did Podcasters Make Trump President?

Matt and Sam talk to Andrew Marantz about “bro” podcasts and their role in Trump’s election victory.

Know Your Enemy is a podcast about the American right co-hosted by Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell. Read more about it here. You can subscribe to, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher, and receive bonus content by supporting the podcast on Patreon.

Among the many factors credited for Donald Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race was one that, naturally, the hosts of Know Your Enemy took an interest in: podcasts. More specifically, “bro” podcasts—think Joe Rogan or Theo Von—seemed to be one reason why Trump continued to perform so well with male voters, especially gaining ground with younger, Black, and Latino men. An episode of one of these podcasts might stretch to three hours or more, and typically features meandering, casual conversations that put a premium on apparent authenticity, as well as a knack for hanging with the boys. Trump and other Republican candidates and figures on the right (such as Elon Musk, a regular on Rogan’s show) made appearing on these podcasts part of their campaign strategy, which allowed them to reach men who tend not to “follow politics” or vote in every election.

To try to understand what’s happening with bros, podcasts, Trump, and more, there was no better guest than New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz, the author of a recent investigation into the world of bro podcasts and streamers and what they might mean for both the left and the right at the start of Trump’s second term.

Sources:

Andrew Marantz, The Battle for the Bros, The New Yorker (2025)

— Is It Happening Here?, The New Yorker (2025)

— Why We Can’t Stop Arguing About Whether Trump Is a Fascist, The New Yorker (2024)

— The Post-Dirtbag Left, The New Yorker (2021)

Jonathan Allen & Amie Parnes, The inside story of Harris’ lost gamble on Joe Rogan, Beyoncé and a late Texas rally, NBC News (2025)

Jack Crosbie, Hasan Piker: A Progressive Mind in a MAGA Body, New York Times, (2025)