Why Trump and Harris are turning to podcasts

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Kamala Harris is within the midst of a media blitz this week, together with an interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes yesterday night and an look on The Late Present With Stephen Colbert tonight. However she can be dipping into the world of mega-popular, not straightforwardly journalistic podcasts—notably showing on the present Name Her Daddy final weekend. I spoke with my colleague Helen Lewis, who covers the podcast-sphere, about why Donald Trump and Harris are each spending time on these types of exhibits, what these interviews keep away from, and the way impartial podcasters turned main gamers in political media.

The New Mainstream

Lora Kelley: How does the worth to the viewer of a conventional press interview—one centered on the precise points and insurance policies of the race—differ from that of a life-style podcast?

Helen Lewis: Roughly talking, there are two kinds of sit-down conversations in politics: the accountability interview and the talk-show look. One focuses on pinning down candidates on their previous statements and their future guarantees; the opposite, which most podcasts fall into, tries to grasp the candidate as an individual. The latter aren’t essentially delicate choices—being charismatic and fascinating whereas making small speak or fielding deeply private questions is a ability in itself. (And I discovered Donald Trump’s look on Theo Von’s podcast, the place he talked about his elder brother’s wrestle with alcoholism, very revealing certainly.)

However solely with the accountability interviews do you get candidates pressed repeatedly on questions that they’re making an attempt to dodge. On Logan Paul’s podcast, Impaulsive, Trump was requested in regards to the transmission of fentanyl over the border, and he bought away with rambling about how “unbelievable” the German shepherds Border Patrol officers use are. On Lex Fridman’s podcast, Trump asserted that he might simply type out the disaster in Ukraine—and that was it. Who wants particulars? When Kamala Harris went on Name Her Daddy, the host, Alex Cooper, gave her an opportunity to put out her message on reproductive rights however didn’t, for instance, problem her on whether or not she helps third-trimester abortions, that are deeply divisive.

Lora: From the attitude of a political marketing campaign, are there any downsides to showing on a podcast corresponding to Name Her Daddy?

Helen: The plain criticism of Harris showing on Name Her Daddy, which has a younger, feminine viewers, is that she already has a giant lead amongst younger girls aged 18–25. You possibly can say the identical about Trump showing on podcasts which are common with younger males. However each teams include many individuals who shall be undecided about whether or not to vote in any respect.

Lora: Harris has finished some conventional press interviews throughout this marketing campaign cycle, together with her 60 Minutes interview yesterday. However are we in a brand new period through which chats with pleasant podcasters rival (and even overtake) conventional media interviews?

Helen: Effectively, fairly. An article I take into consideration so much is John Herrman’s 2015 “Entry Denied,” through which he requested why an A-lister—somebody like Kim Kardashian—would give an interview to a star journal if she had one thing to promote, as a substitute of merely placing an image on Instagram. Why cooperate with the outdated guard of media when they’re now not the gatekeepers of consideration? Herrman argued that the normal media was struggling a “lack of energy leading to a lack of entry leading to additional lack of energy.”

That dynamic has now migrated to politics. The legacy manufacturers now not have a monopoly on individuals’s consideration, and the web proper, particularly, has been extraordinarily profitable in constructing an alternate, extremely partisan media. Fox Information is now not the rightmost finish of the spectrum—past that’s Tucker Carlson’s podcast, or the Each day Wire community, or Newsmax, or Elon Musk’s X.

Now candidates have a tendency to speak to the normal media solely after they need to reset the narrative about them, as a result of different journalists nonetheless watch 60 Minutes or no matter it is perhaps. There’s nonetheless a noisiness round a giant legacy interview that you simply don’t get with, say, Name Her Daddy—even when extra individuals find yourself consuming the latter.

Lora: Are these podcasts actually doing something new, or are they largely replicating conventional media interviews with out the identical requirements and accountability?

Helen: The higher ones try for impartiality and don’t, for instance, reveal their questions upfront—however many political podcasts are wrapped in an ecosystem the place big-name company imply extra promoting income, and thus greater earnings for the hosts personally; plus, their solely hope of getting a second interview is that if the candidate feels the primary one was sympathetic. Evaluate that with 60 Minutes, which interviewed Trump so robustly in 2020 that he has requested for an apology.

I’m as responsible as anybody, however we have to cease treating these podcasts because the “various” media when they’re completely the mainstream as of late. The highest ones have audiences as huge as, if not greater than, most legacy shops. In the event that they don’t need to rent all of the editorial infrastructure that conventional journalism has (corresponding to fact-checkers, analysis assistants, and many others.), or threat being unpopular by asking tough questions, that’s on them. Joe Rogan renewed his Spotify contract for $250 million. Alex Cooper signed a take care of SiriusXM this yr value $125 million. We must always cease treating the mega-podcasts like mom-and-pop outfits competing with chain shops. They’re behemoths.

Lora: You latterly wrote about The Joe Rogan Expertise, which is the top-listened-to podcast on Spotify and arguably probably the most influential behemoth of all of them. Why haven’t the candidates gone on the present but? Who from every ticket do you assume would take advantage of sense as a visitor?

Helen: As I perceive it, Group Trump would like to get on The Joe Rogan Expertise. The 2 politicians that Rogan adores are Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who are actually each working with the Republicans, and Group Trump would hope to encourage a few of Rogan’s viewers of crunchy, COVID-skeptic libertarians to comply with them in shifting from the impartial/Democrat column to the GOP. However Rogan isn’t a full MAGA partisan like a few of his associates, and Trump lately stated that Rogan hasn’t requested him to seem.

In any case, I feel Rogan would like to speak to J. D. Vance, who may be very a lot a part of the heterodox Silicon Valley–refugee tendency that he admires. For the Democrats, Harris would possibly wrestle to chill out into the stoner-wonderment vibe of Rogan, given the tight-laced marketing campaign she’s working. Rogan and Tim Walz might most likely have a very good chat about taking pictures deer and the easiest way to barbecue.

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