Audio Excerpt - Donald Trump:

“We also have a man, Dana White, who has done some job.”

Audio Excerpt - [Crowd cheering]

Audio Excerpt - Donald Trump:

“He is a tough guy.”

Audio Excerpt - [Crowd cheering]

RUBY:

When Trump took the stage to claim victory in Palm Beach Florida. He was joined by a football team sized contingent of family and friends, including the chief executive of the UFC - Dana White.

Audio Excerpt - Dana White:

“Nobody deserves this more than him, and nobody deserves this more than his family does. He deserves this. They deserve it as a family.”

RUBY:

White - who has admitted to assaulting his wife, took the mic to thank some people he saw as crucial to delivering his friend Donald Trump the presidency.

Audio Excerpt - Dana White:

“I want to thank the Nelk Boys, Adin Ross, Theo Von, Bussin’ with the boys. And last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan.”

Audio Excerpt - [Crowd cheering]

Audio Excerpt - Dana White:

“And thank you, America. Thank you. Have a good night.”

[Theme Music Starts]

RUBY:

Trump’s appearance on podcasts like the Joe Rogan Experience were crucial to securing the support of young men across America who might not have otherwise voted.

It was a sophisticated plan based on a close read of voting trends, and a little help from Trump’s son Barron.

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

Today national political correspondent for TIME magazine Eric Cortellessa on Donald Trump and the pod bros who helped him win.

It’s Monday November 11.

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[Theme Music Ends]

RUBY:

Hi, Eric. Thank you so much for joining us on 7am.

ERIC:

You bet. Happy to be here.

RUBY:

So you were there in Florida when Trump claimed victory. Can you tell me about Dana White - the UFC boss who was there on stage with him?

ERIC:

Well he's a close personal friend of Donald Trump's. Trump likes to be surrounded by his friends who think they kind of loosen him up and help him hone his instincts and his impulses.

Audio Excerpt - Dana White:

“This is what happens when the machine comes after you. What you've seen over the last seven years. This is what it looks like. Couldn't stop him. He keeps going forward. He doesn't quit.”

ERIC:

You know, Dana White at the speech basically suggested that Donald Trump was vindicated, that his adversaries had taken all these different approaches to removing him from potentially ascending power again and failed, and that this was the culmination of a four year attempt to reclaim the White House.

Audio Excerpt - Dana White:

“He's the most resilient, hard working man I've ever met in my life. His family are incredible people. This is karma, ladies and gentlemen.”

ERIC:

And Dana White, aside from being a close friend of Trump's, was unwittingly, in a sense, central to the formation of a core campaign strategy for how they would reach what we call low propensity voters. Those are voters who aren't reliable.

RUBY:

Right, how so?

ERIC:

Well after Trump's first indictment in the New York case in April 2023, Trump was on the phone with Dana White and he was at his Mar-a-Lago club. And there was a fight upcoming that Saturday in Miami. And he basically said kind of randomly to his close aides and advisers who were with them. Why don't we go? I think those guys would love me there. And he went and he showed up and he got a raucous standing ovation, brought down the house when he walked into the arena. And while he was there, they ran into another popular podcast group, the Nelk Boys, who have a really large following of young male viewers and listeners.

And a few weeks later, Trump went on that podcast.

Audio Excerpt - Donald Trump:

“So I'm here with your friends the Nelk Boys. And they are the modern day Johnny Carson, right? I can't say Jimmy Kimmel and these losers, you know, like Jimmy Kimmel. You know, they have no ratings.”

ERIC:

It got huge audiences on Spotify and that became the germ for what would be a sustained strategy with the course of the campaign to have Trump go on these kinds of edgy bro podcasts that boast young male audiences, white, black and Latino.

And so Dana White was central to Trump and his inner orbit, recognising that this was a winning way to reach voters that their surveys and their focus group showed were the most reachable, the people who they could get in their column, who were drifting away from Joe Biden the most.

RUBY:

Okay. And so how did Trump land on who he should talk to and the way that he should engage with these podcasters?

ERIC:

Well, it's a really fascinating story. So in July, Trump, his campaign had hired this young 27 year old Republican consultant who kind of doubles as a right wing influencer online. His name is Alex Bruesewitz. And Susie Wiles, the campaign manager, knew that he was very well steeped in this world. And basically said, “Alex, you know these people, why don't you come up with a list for how we can go about this and shows the president can go on and then and then pitch them to DJT”, as they call him in Trump's inner orbit.

And Alex put together a list. He called Trump the next morning with another communications adviser on the campaign, Daniel Alvarez. Trump was on the golf course at the time. He said, You know, I have a list of podcasts I'd like to pitch you on. And Trump kind of cuts him off and says. Have you talked this over with Barron? And Alex says, No, sir, I haven't spoken to Barron. And Trump says, call Barron and see what he thinks and let me know. And so then Bruesewitz and Alvarez, you know, scrambled to get a hold of Barron. Barron is not the easiest person to get in touch with because Melania has always tried to shield him from the political fray. But Bruesewitz was able to get in touch with Barron, who said, You got to get him on Adin Ross, Adin Ross, who is known for doing these livestream collaborations on video games with celebrities and whatnot. And that's where they started.

Audio Excerpt - Adin Ross:

“There's a lot of people that are first time voters watching today, You know, and I, I want to make it very clear to everybody that you're a human being, you're a great human being. And I want you to basically talk to talk in this camera, talk to them and explain why it's very important as a first time voter to go out and vote and why they should vote for you.”

Audio Excerpt - Donald Trump:

“I'd love to do that. And I love having a young audience. I think you have some oldsters, too, because I also know some oldsters that are listening and watching. But it's about the American dream right now.”

ERIC:

They went on Adin Ross It got a lot of attention. 500,000 viewers at its peak as they were recording and doing it, and then millions in the in the days and weeks to come.

Audio Excerpt - Donald Trump:

“My son Barron says hello. He's a great young guy, but he's a big fan of yours.”

Audio Excerpt - Adin Ross:

“What's up, Barron? Yeah, very. Barron's awesome. He's a great kid. Amazing. He's tall, very tall.”

ERIC:

And so that set in motion the podcast strategy. From the rest of the, you know, remaining weeks of the campaign, Trump went on a marathon of podcasts like that.

Audio Excerpt - Donald Trump:

“Is cocaine a stronger up?”

Audio Excerpt - Theo Von:

“Yeah. Up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

Audio Excerpt - Donald Trump:

“So you you weigh up with cocaine more than anything else you can think of?”

Audio Excerpt - Theo Von:

“Cocaine'll turn you into a damn owl homie.”

Audio Excerpt - Unknown:

“We do our segments, we recap the NFL weekend, and then we drop our, our latest interview, which is, I mean, Donald Trump, the biggest interview we've we've ever done.”

Audio Excerpt - Unknown:

“We've we've ever had by far and one of the most polarising individuals in the world right now. It is a long time coming, obviously. Want to give you a big shout out to Dana White for making this whole entire thing happen.”

Audio Excerpt - Logal Paul:

“We had a street fight this past week.”

Audio Excerpt - Donald Trump:

“How did it all worked out.”

Audio Excerpt - Logal Paul:

“How do you think, Mr. President?”

Audio Excerpt - Donald Trump:

“I think he probably did pretty good. I've watched enough of you fight.”

ERIC:

Culminating ultimately in Joe Rogan show who has the most popular podcasts in America.

Audio Excerpt - Joe Rogan:

“But it’s like, you were making fun of Elon one time, you were doing an Elon impression, it’s great! You have comedic instincts. Like when you said to Hillary, “You’d be in jail,” that’s great timing. But it’s like, that kind of stuff was unheard of as a politician. No one had done that.”

Audio Excerpt - Donald Trump:

“It’s funny, you need at least the attitude of a comedian when you’re doing this business: This is a very dangerous business, first of all, it’s a very tough business.”

Audio Excerpt - Joe Rogan:

“It’s the most dangerous business.”

Audio Excerpt - Donald Trump:

“For a job?”

Audio Excerpt - Joe Rogan:

“Yes. I mean, other than going to war and being a firefighter or being a cop, it’s the most dangerous business.”

Audio Excerpt - Donald Trump:

“It’s the most dangerous. Being president is the most dangerous.”

Audio Excerpt - Joe Rogan:

“Especially you.”

RUBY:

Coming up after the break - the Joe Rogan effect.

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RUBY:

Eric, during the election campaign, Donald Trump appeared on several podcasts that appeal to young men. Joe Rogan’s audience is reportedly 80% male, with more than half of those men are under 35. And in the last fortnight before the election, Joe Rogan had Elon Musk on his show, he has JD Vance, and he also spoke to Donald Trump, and ultimately Rogan endorsed Donald Trump. So did this strategy work?

ERIC:

Well, from what we've seen thus far, Trump did much better with those voters than he did in the previous go around. I mean, he made strides with young voters overall in all age brackets, 18 to 44. Latino men, black men. I mean, the campaign strategy was really to max out the men and hold the women as a top aide to president, former President Trump and President elect Trump now told me. And so, you know, the podcast strategy was a way of reaching these viewers. I mean, they found in their data analysis that the voters who were most susceptible to changing their mind one way or the other, because the the reality that they had, determined was just glaring, was that people America has a deeply entrenched views of Donald Trump. You know, they love them. They hate them, whatever.

But the voters who were not reliable voters, but who prefer him to first Biden, then Harris, were the sort of young male demographic, this young male group. And they said they're not super politically engaged. They don't follow traditional media. They engage and they interact with news and politics through these sort of non-linear, unconventional sorts of media. And that podcasts were most efficacious way to reach them. And as far as what we can tell from the data so far, they did an effective job at getting those votes that they determined they needed to to win the election.

RUBY:

And Eric, Joe Rogan has a long history of making offensive comments. Adin Ross is friends with Andrew Tate who has been charged with sex trafficking and rape. So, was there a risk here that Trump would turn some voters off while chasing the young men who love these guys?

ERIC:

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, there's a certain segment of the American polity that views a lot of these podcast hosts is quite misogynistic. They're they're laddish. Right. These are sort of these testosterone laced bull sessions, if you will. But I think what Trump really tapped into was a kind of tyrannical imposition of political correctness in America, that they felt that there was a censoriousness overtaking American society and that what they like would Trump would go on to these podcasts with people who speak in a kind of natural vernacular. They speak like the common man and women, and that Trump had a kind of cultural fluency where he could he could relate in this level.

A sort of initial analysis of the way American voters responded to Trump on the podcast circuit was that he was authentic, he was natural, and that, you know, if there was a controversy based on something he said, then they could just sort of derided as, look, you know, the progressive media is castigating him again because he talks like normal people. I mean, and that was kind of, I think, a big sense of what he was tapping into and what was a major cultural grievance at this moment in time as voters were making their mind up.

RUBY:

And while doing that, presumably Trump and his team had to make sure that they didn't lose women voters or too many women voters. So how did they thread the needle on that?

ERIC:

That was a tough one. And I think Trump and his top lieutenants knew it at the outset because this was the first presidential election post Dobbs After the Supreme Court that was, you know, tilted heavily by three of Donald Trump's appointments, you know, took away a constitutional right to abortion. I think their idea on abortion was to thread the needle of saying, we're just going to leave this to the states. This is a states rights issue, and we're not going to weigh in on any kind of national federal restrictions.

Now, when I interviewed Trump in April, I mean, I asked him some very pointed questions about the functional outcome of that policy stance. And I sort of asked him one point. Do you think states should be able to monitor women's pregnancies to know whether they've gotten an abortion after the ban? And he basically said that states can do what they want. And so basically, states could have an abortion policy in any which direction and that it would be under their prerogative. And so at some point, that was insufficient.

His top lieutenants decided and then Trump in October came out and said that he would veto a national abortion ban. I think the other big thing that they tried to do was make the election about the economy, immigration and crime as much as they could, because those were the issues where you could tap into the anxieties of well-to-do suburban women who were the most willing to vote for Trump in this cycle per the data. And so far, from what we've seen, it did. It did turn out that way.

RUBY:

Eric, thank you so much for your time.

ERIC:

Thank you. Great to be with you.

[Theme Music Starts]

RUBY:

Also in the news today,

Qatar has withdrawn from being a mediator between Israel and Hamas, citing a refusal by both sides to negotiate in good faith.

Hamas’s political office has been based in Qatar’s capital Doha since 2012. And the country has played a key role in trying to broker a deal between the two sides since October 7 last year.

A diplomatic source told news wire AFP that the Qataris have informed the US government that they would be ready to re-engage when “both sides demonstrate a sincere willingness to return to the negotiating table”.

And, President Joe Biden is preparing to host president-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office this week, a tradition not kept by Trump when he refused to accept the results of the 2020 election.

President-elect Trump has been working on building his team in recent days, ahead of being inaugurated on January 20.

In this first major move since his victory speech, Trump picked campaign co-chair Susie Wiles to be his chief of staff. She will be the first woman ever to hold the role.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See you tomorrow.

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