​​‘where Maggie Haberman Sits Next To Joe Rogan’: Welcome To Trump's New Media World

As Donald Trump declared victory on election night, he called up to the microphone Dana White, the UFC president who helped launch his campaign into the manosphere — connecting Trump with young, conservative-leaning male voters who hadn’t previously been targeted in such a way.

In his brief remarks, the mixed martial arts executive rattled off a list of thank-yous addressed neither to conventional GOP donors nor political operatives: the Nelk Boys, Adin Ross, Theo Von, the guys from "Bussin’ With The Boys," Joe Rogan. They were the podcasters and social media influencers who helped mobilize a new generation of Trump voters, using their platforms with hundreds of millions of viewers combined to talk to young voters about issues like illegal immigration, while making it socially acceptable to support Trump.

Their influence on Trump’s messaging strategy isn’t going away. These types of new media influencers will be a factor in the Trump White House’s broader messaging strategy, according to people close to Trump.

“Both the strategy and the press briefing room will likely look a whole lot more like the media consumption habits of the American voters of today versus the 1980s,” said a Trump official granted anonymity to discuss plans still in the works. “I could very well see a press briefing room where Maggie Haberman sits next to Joe Rogan.”

The Trump official cautioned that it’s too early to say whether formal changes will be made to the traditional briefing of the White House press corps.

But Trump and his team have reason to continue to nurture relationships with less conventional media figures. The Nelk Boys, a group of YouTube pranksters whose profile has grown over the past decade, introduced Trump to the podcast world in 2020, opening a door to a platform that would prove to be effective for Trump’s bid to reclaim the White House. Even Democratic strategists acknowledged that the long-form conversation style helped humanize Trump during the campaign and allowed voters to hear him riff on a wide variety of pop culture and lifestyle topics.

“Embracing and providing access to people that are informing millions of people has to be an important part of our overall strategy, for sure,” the Trump official said.

The Nelk Boys, who created the popular “Full Send” podcast and associated entertainment brand, spent just shy of $20 million through their voter registration initiative, Send the Vote, according to a person with knowledge of the effort, granted anonymity to discuss internal data. That included an ad buying strategy targeting 1.1 million 18- to 34-year-old men in the swing states — people who were registered to vote but never had.

Ultimately, 20 percent of the voters targeted by Send the Vote, who the group tracked had seen their ads, cast early ballots in the election, the person with knowledge told POLITICO. And 110,000 people looked up their voting sites through the Send the Vote website, out of some 2 million who visited the site. The Nelk Boys' Send the Vote initiative knocked doors at frat houses, held a tailgate at the Penn State-Wisconsin football game in October and put on a voter registration concert in Atlanta before the election with rapper Waka Flocka Flame.

Beyond Trump, JD Vance and other top surrogates appearing on popular young male-oriented podcasts, there was a flood of content from the influencers that resonated with viewers — like videos of pranks that promoted Trump and conservative policies. Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign likewise relied on left-leaning influencers to create content that would reach Gen Z-ers and millennials, and the vice president sat for some podcast interviews, notably with Alex Cooper of "Call Her Daddy," a podcast that reaches a massive audience of young women.

But the Harris team’s efforts to engage with influencers and appeal to young voters couldn’t stop the party’s bleed with the age demographic — including severe losses with young men. Democratic support from voters under 30 dropped by as much as 24 percent in Michigan, 18 percent in Pennsylvania, 15 percent in Wisconsin and 14 percent in North Carolina, according to exit polling.

“It’s not contrived, it’s not something you can make up on the fly,” Andrew Kolvet, a Republican communications consultant and the executive producer of "The Charlie Kirk Show," said of the Trump team’s successful engagement with young voters online. “You can't just put on a camo hat and have a relationship with that audience. You have to embody the values of that audience. You have to have a connection.”

The day before the election, the Nelk Boys posted a viral 30-second clip titled “Dropping illegal immigrants off at rich liberals house,” in which they approached a woman with a Harris sign in her yard, asking her if she favored undocumented migrants being allowed into the country. When she said yes, the Nelk Boys had a bus drive up in front of her house, and a group of Hispanic men got out and began walking up to her door, with the Nelk Boys telling the woman they were coming to stay with her. She closed the door on them.

“It's not like, ‘Hey, we're talking about immigration policy today. Here's why illegal immigration is bad for the economy,’” said the Trump official. “It's just, here's some fucking hilarious skit.”

Democrats, the party of Hollywood celebrities, were also courting social media influencers before Trump. President Joe Biden’s administration opened the White House to TikTok and Instagram influencers and even provided them briefings on Ukraine and the Inflation Reduction Act. And after relegating traditional media from prime press seating and interview opportunities at this summer’s Democratic National Convention to prioritize some 200 left-leaning influencers, Democrats are still grappling with the notion that Harris and other top surrogates seemingly failed to seize on opportunities to reach new voters on a show like "The Joe Rogan Experience."

"I think it’s telling that we could probably list on two hands the number of Democratic politicians that we’d feel comfortable sending on Joe Rogan,” said Jon Favreau, a former Obama communications aide, on his podcast "Pod Save America." Favreau then said the number of Democrats could likely be counted on just “one hand,” adding that he was “being generous.”

John Shahidi, a "Full Send" co-founder who also helped lead Send the Vote, said Trump’s first podcast interview with Nelk “helped open his eyes to how big and important podcasts are” for reaching the masses in the current era of media. The interview was taken down by YouTube for violating the website’s misinformation standards — with YouTube citing false comments Trump made about the 2020 election being stolen — but not before the conversation had racked up 5 million views in 24 hours.

“Bypassing traditional media, being genuine and giving a voice to the people overlooked by decades of ‘politics as usual’ was critical to his success,” Shahidi said of Trump, “and we hope to visit him in Washington, D.C., soon to celebrate his epic victory.”