The conservative podcast world that helped amplify Donald Trump before his 2024 victory is giving him less airtime than it once did amid the Iran War. A Wall Street Journal analysis found a steep decline in Trump references across right-wing political podcasts, pointing to a noticeable shift in what those programs discuss.
MAGA podcaster are turning their back on Donald Trump, claims report
The Wall Street Journal made use of an in-house AI system to examine more than 70,000 hours of audio from 147 political podcasts. Trump appeared roughly 39 times per hour across the MAGA-aligned shows during the buildup to his second White House win. By September 20, that figure had dropped to 11 mentions an hour, a 70% decline from the peak.
The change also tracks with developments surrounding the Iran war. The Journal found that conservative podcasts cut their monthly references to Trump by 30% after the United States and Israel began joint operations against Iran in late February. The shift did not appear across left-leaning podcasts, where Trump mentions stayed in the mid-30s per hour throughout the period studied.
Instead of keeping Trump at the center of their conversations, right-wing podcasts have increasingly turned toward other political figures. The Journal’s analysis found that Texas Senate candidate James Talarico became the most-discussed Democrat on those programs, apart from former presidents.
Talarico’s rise in the podcast conversation comes as he sits just ahead of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in polling. Paxton remains a Trump ally, while Talarico is seeking to become the first Democrat to win statewide office in Texas since 1994.
The numbers offer a striking contrast with the role conservative podcasts played around the 2024 election. Trump once dominated those conversations, but the Journal’s review suggests the MAGA podcast ecosystem now spends considerably less time talking about him. The analysis does not establish why individual hosts have changed their coverage, but it documents how sharply the volume of Trump discussion has fallen.
