This past Friday, former president Donald J. Trump appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
Everyone was talking about it. Indeed, the X post announcing that Trump would do the show had been liked almost 300,000 times (and viewed more than 10 million times) in less than 24 hours.
You may not think of him that way, but Rogan is arguably America’s most important, widely followed and influential media figure.
Not one of the country’s primetime cable news show hosts. Not the editor of The New York Times.
Those types have been falling further down that list for years. Taking their places are the often-uninitiated hosts of America’s most popular podcasts.
Don’t believe me? Ask yourself: Why else would Donald Trump have joined comedians Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh on their “Flagrant” podcast earlier this month?
Why did Kamala Harris bother appearing on Alex Cooper’s popular podcast, “Call Her Daddy”? Why on earth would J.D. Vance agree to spend an hour being grilled on The New York Times’ “The Interview,” or two hours chatting with comedian Theo Von on “This Past Weekend”?
Continue reading the entire piece here at the New York Post
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Rafael Mangual is the Nick Ohnell Fellow and head of research for the Policing and Public Safety Initiative at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. He is also the author of Criminal (In)Justice: What the Push for Decarceration and Depolicing Gets Wrong and Who It Hurts Most.
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