The podcast route

1. 1

   56% to 42% for Trump among men aged 18–29; Harris won the overall youth vote 51% to 47% (AP VoteCast, CIRCLE analysis).

2. 2

   37% of Americans aged 18–29 regularly got news from influencers (Pew). The campaign went to the shows where they already were: comedy, fighting, gaming.

3. 3

   One- to three-hour conversations, then clips spread across X, TikTok and allied accounts.

4. 4

   Learnable: going where the audience already is, with long conversation and messengers it already knows.

5. 5

   Never: unchallenged false claims, rumors that dehumanize immigrants, money tied to voter registrations. To respond: get there first, with facts and trusted messengers.

Copy summary

If you're new to this, start with the fundamentals, from the vote goal to what the research says. Read the fundamentals

The strategists' voice comes from Alex Bruesewitz's interviews and from aides who spoke to Time; the Harris campaign's, from its leadership's public assessments. The rest was documented by researchers, fact-checkers, journalists and courts. This page does not link to extremist accounts.

• Alex Bruesewitz

  Republican consultant, founder of X Strategies (2017) and author of Winning the Social Media War (2022)

  Tasked by Susie Wiles in late July 2024 with drawing up the podcast list and pitching each show to Trump, often by phone. By 2025, per CJR, he was also a senior adviser to the Never Surrender PAC and ran digital for much of Trump’s political operation, including @TrumpWarRoom and @TeamTrump on X.

  Sources

• Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita

  Leadership of Trump's 2024 campaign

  Designed the strategy centered on men who vote infrequently, with pollster Tony Fabrizio and James Blair, according to Time's reconstruction.

  Sources

• Barron Trump

  The candidate's son, then 18 (according to Time and Bruesewitz)

  According to Time and Bruesewitz himself, Trump consulted him on each podcast and he suggested starting with streamer Adin Ross.

  Sources

• Jen O'Malley Dillon, Stephanie Cutter and David Plouffe

  Campaign chair, communications chief and senior adviser to Kamala Harris

  Assessed publicly, on Pod Save America, why the campaign never made it onto Rogan and what they would do differently with podcasts.

  Sources

• Pew Research Center

  Nonpartisan research center

  Measured how many Americans get news from news influencers and profiled 500 of them (2024 and 2025).

  Sources

• CIRCLE (Tufts University)

  Research center on youth civic participation

  Analyzed the 2024 youth vote by gender using AP VoteCast.

  Sources

• NYU CSMaP

  Melina Much, Kylan Rutherford, Jonathan Nagler, Joshua A. Tucker and Jason Greenfield

  Analyzed 36,659 podcast episodes from 2024 and concluded that podcasts explain only a small part of the gender gap in the youth vote.

  Sources

• Fact-checkers: CNN (Daniel Dale) and PolitiFact

  Fact-checking

  CNN counted at least 32 false claims in the Rogan interview; PolitiFact named the Springfield rumor its 2024 Lie of the Year.

  Sources

Paraphrases of strategists from both campaigns and researchers' findings. Short quotes in quotation marks. Rumors and slogans that attack groups are not reproduced.

• They summed up the campaign's thesis as "max out the men and hold the women." The target was men under 40 who vote infrequently and get their information from podcasts and social media.

  Trump aides, to Time, Time, "How Trump Won", Nov 6, 2024

• He repeated a Churchill line as a mantra: "To try to be safe everywhere is to be strong nowhere." The campaign accepted the risk of investing in people who barely care about politics.

  Chris LaCivita, campaign co-manager, Time, "How Trump Won", Nov 6, 2024

• In his view, podcasters asked better questions than many journalists; he cites the IVF discussion on Andrew Schulz's show. Influencers, he says, are celebrities who do not depend on traditional gatekeepers.

  Alex Bruesewitz, Columbia Journalism Review, "The Influencer", Apr 30, 2025

• He described podcasts as a "numbers game", because each has its own audience, and said the more people heard Trump directly, the more they liked him. He confirmed Barron had input on the strategy.

  Alex Bruesewitz, Ruthless podcast, reported by Fox News, Feb 6, 2025

The idea was not born in 2024: Trump had already gone on the Nelk Boys in 2022. But it was after Harris replaced Biden that the campaign made podcasts its main route to young men, with facts and falsehoods mixed in the same conversation, and money and rumors circulating around it.

56% vs 42%

Trump vs Harris among men aged 18 to 29; among women, 41% vs 58% (AP VoteCast, CIRCLE analysis)

37%

of Americans aged 18 to 29 regularly got news from news influencers in 2024 (Pew)

~50M vs ~890K

YouTube views of Trump on Rogan and of Harris on Call Her Daddy, according to figures cited by Inside Radio

32

false claims, at minimum, counted by CNN in the nearly three hours with Rogan (Oct 25, 2024)

From 2022 to 2026

1. 2022Trump goes on the Nelk Boys podcast, encouraged by Dana White. The episode passes 5 million views in 24 hours and is removed by YouTube for violating its election misinformation policy.
2. Jul 2024Musk endorses Trump after the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. With Harris replacing Biden, Susie Wiles asks Bruesewitz for a list of podcasts; Trump answers by phone, from the golf course, to check with Barron.
3. Aug–Oct 2024Trump starts with Adin Ross's stream (peak of about 600,000 viewers) and moves on to Logan Paul, Theo Von, Flagrant, Lex Fridman and others: nearly a dozen podcasts in late summer and fall.
4. Sep 6–16, 2024A false rumor about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield goes viral on X; Vance repeats it on September 9 and Trump at the debate on the 10th. The city receives at least 33 bomb threats, according to Republican Governor Mike DeWine.
5. Oct 2024Harris appears on Call Her Daddy (Oct 6), Club Shay Shay and All the Smoke; talks with Rogan never produce a date. Musk offers $47, then $100, per referred voter for America PAC's petition and $1 million a day to signers; the Justice Department warns it may be illegal (Oct 23).
6. Oct 25, 2024Nearly three hours on The Joe Rogan Experience, arranged by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, according to Bruesewitz. CNN counts at least 32 false claims.
7. Nov 4–5, 2024Rogan endorses Trump; a Philadelphia judge lets Musk's giveaway continue. Trump wins the election and carries men aged 18 to 29 (56% to 42%), while losing the overall youth vote (47% to 51%).
8. 2025The White House creates a "new media" seat in the briefing room. Rogan, Theo Von and Andrew Schulz criticize deportations and the Epstein case; in an August–September NBC poll, only 47% of men aged 18 to 29 approve of Trump.
9. Sep–Oct 2026An NYU working paper concludes that podcasts explain only a small part of the 2024 gender gap. Polls cited by the press point to a drop in Rogan's and Trump's image among young men ahead of the midterms.

Three layers

The reach did not come from the episode alone: it came from the combination of the shows, the clip machine and a network of money and amplification around them.

• The showsComedy, fighting, gaming and lifestyle podcasts and streams, with male, young and barely political audiences. Long, informal conversations, with the candidate as guest rather than interview subject.
• The clipsShort excerpts on X, TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, from campaign, ally and fan accounts. Bruesewitz tallied about 110 million views of clips from the Adin Ross stream. That is a campaign number, not audited. He told CJR he was the first to count this “secondary clip market” rather than only the official views, and took the tally to Trump the next day.
• Money and amplificationMusk and X, America PAC with payments for petitions and door-knocking, aligned influencers and accounts that spread rumors such as Springfield. This layer holds the problems documented by fact-checkers, journalists and courts.

In the United States of 2024, one in five adults and nearly four in ten people aged 18 to 29 regularly got news from influencers, and the big comedy, fighting and gaming podcasts had mostly male audiences. Harris's campaign, which replaced Biden's in July, had just over a hundred days.

Platforms

Video podcasts on YouTube and Spotify

One- to three-hour conversations with Rogan, Theo Von, Flagrant or the Nelk Boys, each with its own loyal audience. According to Edison, cited by NPR, over 70% of these shows' listeners are men and most are under 45.

Live streams (Adin Ross)

Gaming and celebrity broadcasts with a very young audience. The August 2024 interview peaked at about 600,000 concurrent viewers, according to CJR.

X

Bruesewitz ran accounts such as @TrumpWarRoom and @TeamTrump. The platform's owner, Elon Musk, endorsed Trump in July 2024 and posted over a thousand times about immigration and voter fraud, with more than 10 billion views, according to Bloomberg.

TikTok and clips

Excerpts and memes traveled far beyond the episode: one video mocking Trump's dancing had about 70 million views, according to CJR.

Fighting and male entertainment circuit

UFC president Dana White opened the door to the Nelk Boys in 2022 and suggested names to the campaign. Comedy, fighting, golf and gaming worked as an entry point, not as political media.

Traditional media

According to Time, Trump's campaign deliberately avoided most traditional interviews; Bruesewitz said press criticism even reinforced the strategy.

Local conditions

• A growing gender gap among the young: in 2024, women aged 18 to 29 voted 58% for Harris and men 56% for Trump (AP VoteCast, CIRCLE analysis).
• Low-propensity men: Trump's lead was largest among men under 40 who vote irregularly, many unhappy with the economy and with Biden's age (Time).
• News from influencers: 21% of adults and 37% of 18- to 29-year-olds regularly got news from influencers in 2024; 38% of young adults in 2025 (Pew).
• A short campaign on the Democratic side: Harris replaced Biden in July, and the campaign leadership said it could not find dates for Rogan.
• Uncapped money in independent committees: Musk gave about $277 million to Trump and allies in 2024, according to The Washington Post, and almost single-handedly funded America PAC.
• Broad free-speech protection: in the US, false claims by candidates in interviews rarely carry legal consequences; the response runs through fact-checking, platforms and voters.

No manual was published. What follows are the mechanics reconstructed from Bruesewitz's interviews, Time and CJR.

Three fronts

Pick the people who don't vote

The campaign focused on young men who vote little and barely consume news, accepting the risk of investing in an unstable audience instead of fighting only for classic swing voters.

Go where they already are

Non-political shows with their own audiences: comedy, fighting, gaming, lifestyle. The candidate comes in as the guest of a long, informal conversation, not as a news interviewee.

Turn the conversation into clips

Each episode yielded short excerpts for X, TikTok and YouTube, spread by campaign, ally and fan accounts far beyond the show's audience.

The cycle of an episode

From invitation to viral clip, each appearance followed a similar circuit, according to the reporting cited.

1. Map A list of shows with young male audiences, with suggestions from Dana White and from people in the target audience, such as Barron.
2. Validate Bruesewitz pitched Trump, often by phone; the family helped decide and, in Rogan's case, arrange. Before each sit-down, per CJR, he prepped the candidate by finding common ground with the host: for Adin Ross, the rapper Young Thug, a friend of the streamer.
3. Talk One to three hours, chatty tone, personal topics, humor and sport mixed with politics; little fact-checking pushback.
4. Clip Short funny or controversial excerpts posted by campaign and ally accounts.
5. Amplify Reposts by aligned influencers and, on X, by Musk; Trump himself touted the numbers.
6. Absorb criticism Fact-checks and press criticism became more conversation; Bruesewitz said negative coverage reinforced the strategy.
7. Repeat A new show every week or two, from August to November, up to the Rogan conversation in the final ten days.

And again.

Part of what Trump's campaign did is plain communication skill: going where the audience is and talking calmly and at length. Another part is what fact-checkers, courts and journalists documented as falsehood, harm and opaque money.

What applied in this case: federal and state law, court rulings and platform policies.

Payments tied to registered voters

On October 23, 2024, the Justice Department warned Musk that the $1 million prize for registered voters might violate federal law; election-law professor Rick Hasen called it clearly illegal.

Pennsylvania lottery law

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner sued Musk and America PAC on October 28, 2024, for running an illegal lottery. On November 4, Judge Angelo Foglietta let the program continue, after the lawyers argued the winners were chosen, not drawn.

Suits by participants and canvassers

Participants from Texas and Michigan sued over being misled about the giveaway; in April 2025, a Bucks County canvasser sought a class action over more than $20,000 in unpaid referral fees. America PAC said it had mailed the overwhelming majority of checks.

Wisconsin, 2025

Musk handed out $1 million checks before the state Supreme Court election; the attorney general challenged it, but the state Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Musk's preferred candidate, Brad Schimel, lost to Susan Crawford.

FARA and hidden foreign funding

In September 2024, two RT employees were charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and with money laundering, for secretly funding videos by American influencers.

Platform policies

YouTube removed the 2022 Nelk Boys episode for violating its election misinformation policy. Platforms require paid partnerships to be labeled; unlabeled paid creators break those rules.

Real, identified people only

For democratic campaigns: no fake profiles, bots, unlabeled paid creators, or money tied to voter registration.

Podcasts explain little of the result

The NYU working paper (Sep 2026) concludes that podcasts appear to explain only a small part of the gender gap in the youth vote; the economy, inflation and Biden's age weighed in, according to Time.

Harris won the youth vote

Despite his lead among young men, Trump lost 18- to 29-year-olds 47% to 51% (AP VoteCast, CIRCLE analysis).

Audience is not votes

Views measure reach, not persuasion; many counts come from the campaign. According to Edison, cited by NPR, Democrats and independents are a majority of listeners on several of these shows.

A fragile coalition

In 2025, Rogan, Theo Von and Andrew Schulz criticized deportations and the Epstein case; Schulz said "I voted for none of this." Trump's approval among men aged 18 to 29 fell to 47% (NBC, Aug–Sep 2025).

Money didn't buy everything

America PAC's paid door-knocking had problems: internal data flagged 20% to 25% of visits in Arizona and Nevada as possibly fraudulent, according to The Guardian. In Wisconsin, in 2025, Musk's millions did not elect his candidate.

The hosts have their own agenda

Podcasters are not activists: the same space that hosted Trump later hosted Democrats such as Talarico and Sanders, and Rogan said in 2025 that Trump had no evidence of fraud in 2020.

Five questions on the mechanics, the red lines and the responses. Each answer comes with an explanation.

Case study built from interviews with strategists from both campaigns, research, fact-checks, court documents and rulings, and reporting published between September 2024 and October 2026. All pages were opened and read on October 26, 2026. No source links directly to extremist content.

Updated 26 October 2026