Politics
The former president is making his case to the influencers.
Donald Trump was listening intently as podcaster Lex Fridman pondered the “spiritual benefits” of psychedelic drugs.
“I recently did ayahuasca,” admitted the ex-MIT researcher turned bigtime talker. “I think we’d probably have a better world if everybody in Congress took some mushrooms.”
Trump, a lifelong and vocal teetotaler, rolled with the topic by broadly pivoting to his new policy position on cannabis. The former president signaled support this week for its legalization in Florida, where the 45th president is a resident and voter.
The hour-long interview with Fridman, one of YouTube’s top performers, was part of Trump’s new strategy to reach Gen Z voters in 2024: appearing in alternative media venues geared toward a younger, predominantly male audience. From star-studded appearances at UFC events to longform interviews with the who’s who of the podcasting universe, Trump is directly courting the votes of young American men like never before.
“This is going to be one of the greatest rounds of golf ever played,” Trump predicted as he hit the links with U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau in July, only a week before surviving an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. The pair shot a -22 combined score in a scramble format that featured Trump sinking a tough putt on the 18th hole, leaving DeChambeau giddy and stunned.
Trump’s putt was telling. The president squirmed as the ball snaked toward the hole. When it hit the cup, Trump dived away in celebration. Whatever his age, whatever his faults, Trump still has the competitor’s fire in his belly.
Indeed, some of Trump’s best moments on the 2024 campaign trail have come from these impromptu, unscripted situations. “I love Frank Sinatra,” Trump admitted while ferrying 30-year-old DeChambeau around in a golf cart at Bedminster. As the two men rumbled along the course, the former president turned the music dial to Andrea Bocelli’s “Con Te Partirò.”
“Nice and soothing, right?” Trump remarked to DeChambeau. It was the sort of honest, revealing moment that the Trump campaign is hoping will broaden its appeal among new, male voters. And the strategy appears to be working.
A recent New York Times/Siena poll found that Gen Z male voters are more likely than ever to choose Trump and his GOP. “They’re drawn to his message, his persona, the unapologetic machismo he tries to exude,” suggests Daniel A. Cox of the American Enterprise Institute.
Trump’s bravado, if nothing else, is steadily driving numbers on the internet. Fridman’s interview with Trump has already raked up nearly 4 million views in the few days since its release. Trump’s round of golf with DeChambeau has been watched more than 13 million times in less than two months.
And if the numbers from 𝕏 are to be believed, Trump’s interview in August with the platform’s CEO Elon Musk, although marred by technical difficulties, garnered more than 1 billion impressions worldwide. Even those who questioned the validity of that 1 billion number could not dispute the widespread earned coverage of Trump’s talk with Musk.
There have been other excursions on Trump’s Zoomer tour. Earlier this summer, the former president appeared on the comedian Theo Von’s podcast, during which the former MTV reality star boldly admitted he’s a recovering drug addict.
“Cocaine will turn you into a damn owl, homie,” Von explained to Trump. “You’ll be out on your porch, you’ll be your own street lamp.”
“And is that a good feeling?” Trump asked. Von shook his head in the negative.
Trump’s conversation with Von has been viewed more than 13 million times in the two weeks since it was published.
The high-profile YouTube interviews come amid a slew of buzzy media appearances that have linked the Trump campaign to a key demographic it must win significantly to have a shot in 2024. Between Kid Rock–backed walkouts with UFC chief Dana White and splashy photos with celebrity boxer Logan Paul, Trump has shown a commitment to reach a demographic he has historically struggled with—the youth.
In 2020, the Trump team wasn’t prepared for the declines it saw among America’s youngest voting bloc. In Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the dropoff was considerable. In Pennsylvania specifically, Biden cleared Trump by 20 points among young voters, while Hillary Clinton’s margin was only 9 points in 2016. In an election that came down to the wire, Trump had failed to cultivate and unleash the same memetic warfare that catapulted him into the White House in 2016.
Trump’s outreach to the Gen Z creator class marks a distinct contrast to his team’s 2020 approach when the campaign struggled to capture celebrity endorsements. In one particularly tone-deaf moment, Trump brought meme rapper Lil Pump on stage at his final Michigan rally and mistakenly referred to the tattooed musician as “Little Pimp.”
“There was a failure to connect with as many young people as we had the potential to,” an anonymous Trump ally told Politico in the aftermath of the 2020 loss.
Something had to change in 2024—and that something has been Trump’s youngest son Barron.
Trump credits his 18-year-old son and recent NYU enrollee as a “secret weapon” who has pushed the campaign to set up a string of interviews and appearances with Gen Z influencers.
“[Barron] knows so much about it,” Trump told the Daily Mail this week. “Adin Ross, you know, some people I wasn’t so familiar with. A different generation. He knows every single one of them and we’ve had tremendous success.”
In August, Trump was given a Rolex by the 23-year-old streamer Adin Ross (an acolyte of Andrew Tate), who rolled up to Mar-a-Lago in a Cybertuck wrapped with a photo of Trump surviving the July 13th assassination attempt. (Trump got to keep the Cybertruck, of course.)
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“It’s a different generation,” Trump said of his new approach. “They don’t grow up watching television the same way that we did. They grow up looking at the internet or watching a computer.”
And so it is to Trump’s credit that the 78-year-old has earnestly adapted to the rapidly shifting landscape of politics and media of this decidedly 21st-century election. As much as the big TV ad buys in the fall matter, so too does connecting with a voter base that has historically propelled Democrats to victory.
If the November election does indeed come down to merely thousands of votes, Republicans may be thanking Barron, and Trump’s offbeat talk circuit, for a narrow victory.
