
The Trump revolution will be podcasted
Kylie Kelce was at the top of the charts. The former field hockey coach and NFL royalty had dethroned Joe Rogan in his own domain — and his fans could not believe it.
It happened late last year: Kelce — whose marriage to former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce had pulled her into the limelight — had launched a podcast called Not Gonna Lie With Kylie Kelce , promoting it as a medium for her opinions on motherhood, sports, and, occasionally, politics.
Podcasting is a male-saturated world. While Alex Cooper's uber-successful Call Her Daddy podcast is among the few exceptions, men tend to occupy the top spots on podcasting charts. Think Joe Rogan, Theo Von, and Andrew Huberman.
So it came as a surprise, especially to Rogan's fans, when Kelce's debut in December unseated The Joe Rogan Experience from Apple's No. 1 slot, and held the top spot for 10 days on Spotify's chart. Indeed, some of Rogan's fans claimed the numbers must have been artificially inflated. Kelce, they claimed, was a nobody.
And yet the two shows would continue to trade places on Spotify for the next few weeks. Even now, though it only publishes once a week, Not Gonna Lie routinely remains in Spotify's top 10.
There are many plausible reasons for the show's breakout success: her Kelce and Taylor Swift connections, her ability to speak relatably about motherhood and femininity, the show's relatively short (45-minute) length compared to competitors. But regardless of what fuels it, her trip to the top of the charts — and the resulting disbelief, mockery, and hot takes about that success — reveal a more interesting dynamic in entertainment and news media consumption in 2025.
Podcasts have quickly become one of the main ways Americans inform themselves. While there are still traditional newscasts from news organizations, the most popular podcasts, particularly since the pandemic, are piloted by charismatic, trusted, and unpolished creators. Their content is a mix of news, political analysis, cultural commentary, and pop culture — with hosts often promising to deliver the truth or have the conversations no one else is having.
But not everyone is listening to the same thing. Americans are sorting themselves into ideological bubbles, giving these shows and their hosts the reach and influence that was once the exclusive provenance of mainstream media.
Audiences' ideological fragmentation, combined with these hosts' power, are creating different realms of truth, both via the hosts' opinions and the current events they choose to discuss for their fans. News and information is getting filtered to distinct groups of consumers in radically different ways — and there are no signs these habits are about to change.
Indeed, as the second Trump administration takes off, they're positioned to further drive American polarization, serving as the right's chief communications wing in one realm and as a way to inform and organize opposition in another.
Podcasts' role in the 2024 campaign, during which Donald Trump sat down for free-wheeling conversations with the most popular male hosts and Kamala Harris played catch-up with smaller liberal ones, demonstrated the medium's surging predominance in American life.
A little more than a decade ago, slightly more than a tenth of Americans reported listening to one in a given month. That number has since quadrupled, to nearly half of the American population over the age of 12, according to Edison Research's 'Infinite Dial' media survey in 2024.
The kinds of podcasts people are listening to have also shifted: What was once an arena dominated by public radio and establishment institutions has given way to a vast ecosystem of independent podcasters and non-news organization affiliated shows. As of 2023, less than 20 percent of the top 451 most-listened to shows are associated with mainstream news stalwarts like NPR, the New York Times, or The Ringer.
Until recently, men, millennials, and older Americans were the primary consumers of these shows; but over the last few years, Gen Zers and women are driving growth in podcasting audiences.
Weekly, or even, daily, discussions that fold in news and politics with pop culture, sports, self-help advice, and personal stories are how nearly a third of America keeps up to date with current events. In 2023, a Pew Research Center report found that about two-thirds of American podcast listeners hear news 'discussed' on their shows, even if it's not the main reason they listen.
And yet what they are hearing can be radically different depending on the host and the audiences they are cultivating. Fact and opinion often blend together in conversations that filter information, and listeners aren't necessarily better informed as a result of it.
This new breed of podcast — where the hosts primarily discuss sports, pop culture, history, or lifestyle trends and mix in some current events — creates a specific kind of intimacy and trust. Perhaps because these shows aren't setting out to be overtly political, audiences are loyal. These shows aren't your standard cable news fare — they might bring on a politician, like Trump's appearances last year, or remain apolitical. But most commonly, they blur the line between news, opinion, and analysis.
The particular charisma and presence of podcast hosts makes them particularly influential in convincing their listeners to change habits or take action. Understanding this influence explains why the podcast circuit was such a major part of the strategies Trump and his campaign pursued — and just how important they'll be for political efforts in the next four years.
That 2023 Pew study found a few practical examples of this sway. On average, more than half of listeners say a podcast has moved them to watch a movie or read a book, and about four in 10 had tried a new workout, or started a diet. And there are also signs of a core group of more loyal followers who feel comfortable spending money and time doing what these shows and their hosts suggest. At least one in 10 listeners had joined an online discussion group, donated to, volunteered for, or attended a political event or cause, and almost a third had bought something promoted on a podcast.
This influence also means that listeners expect podcasters to be telling them the truth. A huge share, 87 percent, believe that what they're hearing on these shows is 'mostly accurate.' A third say they trust this information to be more accurate than what they get from other sources.
These levels of trust are astounding, especially compared to trust in news from social media or mainstream media. And yet these kinds of shows don't necessarily have the same kind of editorial oversight or infrastructure as traditional news organizations do to fact-check and verify the claims and narratives they're spreading.
And this is where the manosphere comes in. Republicans, or Americans who lean toward the GOP, are particularly loyal and trusting of these shows. They report, at much higher rates than Democrats or Democratic leaners, that they trust podcast news more than other sources, in part because they think these shows are giving them exclusive insights they wouldn't hear anywhere else.
The most ideological and partisan listeners report that they tend to hear opinion and analysis that lines up with their preexisting views — they, in effect, shore themselves up in echo chambers in this ecosystem. When compared to moderate Republicans, twice as many conservative Republicans say they listen to political opinions that mostly match what they already think, according to Pew's 2023 survey. The same goes for liberal Democrats when compared to moderate Democrats.
This ideological sorting also happens among listeners of the most popular shows. Some 54 percent of Rogan's listeners, for example, leaned toward Trump before the presidential election, one Edison Research survey found. Only a quarter leaned toward Harris. Call Her Daddy 's listenership was a mirror image. And Pod Save America , the most popular left-leaning show, is almost exclusively for Democrats.
This development — where audiences are fiercely loyal to their chosen hosts and less exposed to others — creates an interesting dynamic. Information and political discussions get filtered into echo chambers. And it explains how the inhabitants of these different ideological realms can be surprised when they rediscover the other, as in the case for Rogan's fans at Kelce's success.
These different realms of podcasting reality don't look like they'll disappear anytime soon. Given Trump and the political right's success in the last presidential cycle, it seems more likely that American liberals and the left will keep looking for ways to replicate, or at least mimic, what their rivals have accomplished.
Which is why Not Gonna Lie 's success came at an interesting time: in looking for reasons to explain Harris's loss, Democrats and liberal thinkers identified one major contributor. Democrats had ignored the new media environment, and lost the fight for attention, particularly the influence of these podcasts and their hosts. Trump had understood this, and started early, at the suggestion of his zoomer son Barron and younger campaign aides.
Now, Democrats need to create their own, liberal version of Rogan, the theory goes. They needed their own expansive, intimate network of relatable and trustworthy podcasters and influencers. The deeper angst here was the revelation that these increasingly popular podcasts could reach so many Americans and influence their thinking — and that liberals didn't have an answer.
A realm like this exists, though it's not as expansive as those aiding the cultural right. The most obvious Rogan replicas — streamer Hasan Piker (3 million followers), the leftist Chapo Trap House network (about 150,000), the liberal Pod Save America bros (at least 1.5 million listeners per episode) — have loyal and devoted followers, but there are fewer of them, and the shows are more diffusely connected than those in the conservative manosphere, which seemed much better organized around politics in 2024.
All of which suggests there's room to grow on the left.
Podcasters themselves are trying to innovate to win these audiences. With declining interest in traditional formats of political and hard news, they're experimenting with different formats: livestreams, pushing video content, and developing even more close relationships with audiences. Young people, in particular, are hungry for this kind of content and analysis, especially on YouTube, Rachel Janfaza, a Gen Z political consultant and writer, told me. The Google-owned video platform is now the leading podcast hosting service, driven in large part by young people's demand for video-first content. Many of the most popular podcasts in America now record and stream directly on the platform.
'We'll see more movement there in terms of shows adding video components to podcasts, and that could be an area that explodes in the coming months, because [creators are seeing] ... young people love to keep YouTube streams on in the background, or YouTube shows on in the background while [doing other things],' she said.
This makes Kelce's position, along with other liberal and female hosts like Cooper of Call Her Daddy , all the more interesting to watch in the coming years. There are large and growing audiences out there for them to take advantage of — particularly young, female, and liberal. So when Kelce revealed her politics 'aggressively' lean left, and that she hoped to interview former first lady Michelle Obama or Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in the future, some wondered if they'd found their answer to the right.
'That Kylie Kelce could end up being 'the left's Joe Rogan' is going to really fuck with some of the (ahem, male) pundits' heads,' the head of one Democratic PAC posted on X.
Based on her first six episodes, it doesn't seem like Kelce is trying to aggressively move down that lane. She's not diving into analysis of the end of the Biden presidency or the Trump term so far. She's instead talking with guests about the struggles of motherhood, the costs of child care, the struggle of raising young boys, and the future of TikTok. And that might be the whole point. She's not saying anything groundbreaking — yet. But she's saying something , feeding demand and cultivating an audience that will come to trust her when she wants to say something big .
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Charles Woodson Faces Tom Brady Again, Now as Browns Owner
The Super Bowl isn't just a game—it's a giant convention, a who's who of football money, where the members of the sport's ownership class rub shoulders and make deals. During the run-up to last year's event in Las Vegas, Cipriani, the upscale Italian eatery at the Wynn Plaza, served as the backdrop for one such meeting, featuring one of the game's most accomplished players and an NFL power couple. Hall of Famer Charles Woodson dined with Cleveland Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam, along with their daughter-heir Whitney and her husband JW Johnson. For nearly two hours, the Haslams and the Fox broadcaster discussed an array of topics, from football and team operations to Woodson's humble upbringing in Fremont, Ohio. Woodson, named Ohio's Mr. Football in 1994 after a stellar career at Ross High School, told the Haslams that even in his wildest dreams, he could never imagine being an owner of his hometown NFL team—the same storied franchise that drove him to become a pro football player. Advertisement More from Woodson left Las Vegas optimistic about the conversation. However, he still had no real indication that the Haslams would offer to sell him a stake in the Browns and let him become the franchise's first outside minority partner in their family ownership group. 'It could've gone either way from there,' Woodson said in a phone interview. 'It was a great meeting, at least I felt like it, but you never know how someone is feeling on the other side. From there, I didn't know anything.' The interest was, in fact, mutual. Woodson and the Haslams sat down again for another meeting near Woodson's home in Orlando, Fla., during NFL owners' meetings a month later. The family eventually invited him out to Browns headquarters in Berea to tour the team's facilities and training grounds and meet with team executives and staffers. Woodson soon received a formal offer to join the ownership group, a minority deal approved by NFL owners last month. He reportedly paid $5 million for his .01% stake. Advertisement 'I'm from a working-class community, so ownership was never part of my [previous football] conversations,' Woodson, a nine-time NFL Pro Bowler who retired in 2015, said. 'But I feel like I deserve the opportunity for what I was able to give to the game. In some ways, I feel like this is the game repaying me back, and I'm thankful for that.' Woodson isn't the only Fox employee to be an NFL limited partner; Tom Brady, Woodson's friend and former Michigan teammate, officially bought into the Raiders last year. Woodson and Brady are tied together in NFL history through the infamous 'Tuck Rule' game in 2001, but the two remain close more than 20 years later. He says the former New England Patriots quarterback reached out to him to send a note of congratulations last month. The two will fight for bragging rights when the Raiders host the Browns on Nov. 23. 'Here's two guys who came into the University of Michigan together in 1995, and here we are [30] years later and now we're both NFL owners,' said Woodson, who won a national championship and Heisman Trophy with the Wolverines. 'How about that? We're co-workers and opponents again.' Woodson, 48, is the latest former pro athlete to join an NFL ownership group. His purchase highlights the league's push to diversify ownership. The last few years have featured a swath of diverse leaders joining the league as limited partners, from former Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes (Atlanta Falcons) to a trio of former Toronto sports stars in Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady and Jozy Altidore (Buffalo Bills). Advertisement Both of those deals were orchestrated by Shepherd Park Sports CEO Derrick Heggans. The former NFL attorney with close ties to league owners also played an integral role in Woodson connecting with the Haslam family. The former All-Pro defensive back's entree into the Browns ownership started with a phone call a couple years ago from former Arizona Cardinals star Larry Fitzgerald, who plays golf alongside Woodson every year at the American Century Championship celebrity tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nev. Fitzgerald, a savvy investor who once owned a stake in the NBA's Phoenix Suns, asked Woodson if he'd ever considered team ownership. If so, he said he should meet with Heggans. Soon after, Heggans and Woodson were discussing possible cap table openings, including with the Las Vegas Raiders, the franchise for which he played 11 of his 18 NFL seasons. Heggans ultimately convinced Jimmy and Dee Haslam to consider Woodson, given his football championship pedigree and deep roots in the Buckeye state. 'He's a favorite son of Ohio,' Heggans remembers telling Jimmy Haslam. 'Once you're that, you're always that. … Ohio is proud of Charles Woodson and would love to welcome him back home. He becomes your secret weapon.' As a part team owner, Woodson, like Brady, will be subjected to the league's broadcast restrictions—he will be barred from production meetings with owners and players, and he will not be able to enter other teams' facilities. He says it's not a problem due to his studio analyst pregame role on FOX NFL Kickoff. Advertisement '[Brady's] job is much different than mine,' Woodson said. '[Brady] has to have much more of a touchpoint with each team that's playing each week where he's the analyst. He's more intimate with that process, so he's got a lot of restrictions on him and what knowledge he's privy to.' Woodson says his job 'is a different animal.' Being a limited partner in an NFL team may also impact Woodson's other ventures. He owns a liquor company (Woodson Whiskey) and wine company (Intercept Wines), and reports have stated he will have drop the 'Woodson' name from his whiskey venture, since the NFL's alcohol policy states no team owner can use their name, image and likeness for promotional purposes. Woodson says he hopes his new ownership position will be beneficial for his brands from an awareness standpoint even if that means potentially changing the way he promotes his businesses. The Super Bowl champion has ambitions of marrying his former and current ventures, hoping to make his wine company a leaguewide NFL partner, like California-based Barefoot Wine. Advertisement Woodson, nonetheless, is pumped to be part of the Browns' organization. He looks to contribute in a variety of ways, including with on-field matters, he says, if head coach Kevin Stefanski and the front office are interested in his perspective. When he's not handling his Fox analyst duties or elevating his businesses, he's spending time as a defensive coach for his son's high school football team (Lake Nona) in Orlando, Fla. But now he can also add owner to his lengthy football resume. It's a dream come true for the kid from Fremont. 'It's incredible news,' he said. 'Incredible.' Best of Sign up for Sportico's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

CNN
33 minutes ago
- CNN
Aaron Rodgers says continuing to play football was ‘best for my soul' as he reveals he's now married
After months of speculation, Aaron Rodgers finally signed a deal to become the Pittsburgh Steelers starting quarterback last week and set up another fascinating chapter in his Hall of Fame career. The 41-year-old inked a one-year, $13.6 million dollar contract with the Steelers in an attempt to bring Super Bowl success back to a franchise which has gone 16 years without a Vince Lombardi Trophy and 14 years since their last appearance in the season-ending game; coincidentally, it was Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers who beat the Steelers in their last Super Bowl appearance in 2011. On his first day of mandatory minicamp in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, Rodgers said that despite being the oldest quarterback in the league, he's still playing because it's what he wants to do. 'For my ego, I don't need it to keep playing,' Rodgers told reporters. 'A lot of decisions that I've made over my career and life from strictly the ego – even if they turn out well – are always unfulfilling. 'But the decisions made from the soul are usually pretty fulfilling. So this was a decision that was best for my soul. I felt like being here with coach (Mike Tomlin) and the guys they got here and the opportunity here was best for me. I'm excited to be here.' Rodgers' signing saga divided many given the length of time it took – most notably, Steelers legend Terry Bradshaw said he didn't want the former Packers and New York Jets star anywhere near the team – but with the four-time NFL MVP at the helm, the Steelers look a formidable outfit. He is coming off two disappointing seasons with the Jets, including one which was lost to a torn Achilles tendon just four plays into his first year with the franchise. Although he failed to have the success his signing was meant to bring to Gang Green, Rodgers still showed glimpses of producing like a top-level quarterback last year. Now, he joins up with Tomlin and an offense led by wide receiver DK Metcalf, who joined in the offseason. Before Rodgers' signing, videos on social media showed the pair working out in California. Rodgers – who also revealed on Tuesday that he got married this offseason – was complimentary of Metcalf after his first day of practice with the team, but highlighted head coach Tomlin as the main reason he decided to join. 'I've gone against him over the years. The way that the conversations went between him and I, whenever it was in March or April and the last Sunday when I called him was some of the coolest conversations I had in the game,' he said. 'So he's a big reason of why I'm here and I'm excited to play for him.' While Steelers fans might be excited at the prospect of Rodgers playing in the Steel City, other members of the NFL are enthusiastic about it for a different reason. Myles Garrett – who plays for the Steelers' AFC North rivals, the Cleveland Browns – was asked about Rodgers' addition to the division on Tuesday and his answer was unequivocal. 'What do I think about it? I think it's a good opportunity to put him in the graveyard,' Garrett told reporters. Garrett, the 2023 Defensive Player of the Year, is famous for his extravagant Halloween decorations. He has decorated the front yard of his house as a graveyard filled with tombstones adorned with the names of every quarterback he has sacked over his career. In 2021, Garrett wore a Grim Reaper-style costume with a cloak emblazoned with the names of the quarterbacks he'd sacked. Garrett's first opportunity to add Rodgers to that list comes in Week 6 as the Browns travel to Pittsburgh before Cleveland hosts the Steelers in Week 17.


CBS News
43 minutes ago
- CBS News
Aaron Rodgers reveals he got married but Steeler QB's wife remains a mystery
Aaron Rodgers revealed on Tuesday that he recently got married — but the identity of his new wife remains a mystery. The four-time NFL MVP quarterback and Super Bowl champion said Tuesday after his first practice with the Pittsburgh Steelers that he got married "a couple months ago." Rodgers was spotted wearing a ring on his left ring finger in a photo the Steelers shared after the 41-year-old signed a one-year deal to join the team for the 2025 season. When asked if the ring was an indication he was married, Rodgers replied, "Yeah, it's a wedding ring." He wore the ring on Tuesday while participating in drills with his new team. Rodgers has revealed little about his bride. During an appearance on "The Pat McAfee Show" in December, he mentioned he was dating a woman named Brittani, saying "she doesn't have social media," but offered no other details. In another appearance on "The Pat McAfee Show" in April, Rodgers again confirmed he was "in a serious relationship," but it isn't clear whether Brittani is the woman Rodgers married during the 2025 offseason. His previous dating history includes long-term relationships with race car driver Danica Patrick and actors Olivia Munn and Shailene Woodley.