Not since he hosted The Apprentice and body slammed Vince McMahon at the WWE before his political career has President-elect Donald Trump enjoyed the degree of popularity he currently holds.
Fresh off his decisive victory in the presidential election, Trump has once again become a cultural force of power, prestige, wealth, and comedy. His status as a cultural icon has filtered down into professional and collegiate sports, in which a plethora of athletes, especially football players, have turned to mimicking his famous “YMCA” dance when celebrating touchdowns and other great plays.
The political and cultural capital that Trump holds today is nothing like he had in either of his first two runs for office and even during his first four years in office. His third campaign for the White House delivered him a broad mandate that included a popular vote victory that has largely eluded Republican candidates in the 21st century. And perhaps illustrating that point, a new CBS-YouGov poll found that approval of Trump’s transition is approaching 60%, while satisfaction with his election victory is a tick below that at 55%.
For the first time in his political career, Trump has the goodwill and support of a majority of the public. As his transition continues and Inauguration Day approaches, it will give his new administration an opportunity to communicate and connect with a public that is eager to see him succeed.
A ‘cool’ and popular president
In 2016, 2020, and arguably until he won the presidency earlier this month, the notion that supporting Trump was socially acceptable was tenuous at best. Democratic candidates and their supporters and surrogates sought to paint the leader of the Republican Party as the standard-bearer of a new fascism that would position him as the ideological and cultural heir to the worst dictators of the 20th century.
If the results of the 2024 election say anything, it is this: Trump is more popular than he has ever been, and the majority of people now believe in his political cause. It is a clear repudiation of the last eight years of anti-Trumpism and, more than anything, has elevated Trump to a cultural icon as much as a political one. It is cool to dance as he does, it is cool to watch UFC fights as he does, and it is cool to gawk at Elon Musk and SpaceX rockets as he does.
But this shift did not happen in a vacuum. Trump gained with every segment of the electorate in his sweeping 2024 victory. And there is an argument to be made that if he had not adapted to the realities of a new media environment, it would not have happened.
A new media environment
When Trump first ran for president in 2016, social media was ascendant, but cable news was still king. Throughout the entire campaign, whether it was during the primary or the general election, it was nearly impossible for a day to pass without Trump calling into a cable talk show to talk about his campaign or his rivals. At the same time, Trump turned his Twitter account into a must-follow feed. Every post he made on the platform was fodder for cable news pundits and drove news cycle after news cycle.
During his presidency, Trump used his account as a platform for policymaking and politicking. He would issue endorsements to his preferred candidates one moment and threaten North Korea the next. For Trump, it allowed him to speak publicly without the filter of a press release written by his staff or the need to schedule a press conference. As a result, each post became a news item in itself that drove high engagement on cable news and print newspapers.
But the media landscape has shifted in the four years since. The public is increasingly less engaged with traditional media and has embraced long-form discussions and interviews hosted by good-natured podcast hosts who avoid the typical adversarial style of most cable news interviews.
The most listened-to media source is a podcast hosted by Joe Rogan, a bald MMA announcer and former reality TV host who sits in his studio for three to four hours with guests from all stripes, talking about everything from immigration to UFOs and smoking marijuana. It is a popular podcast because its listeners trust Rogan to engage thoughtfully with his guests in a way that is entertaining, interesting, and personal in a way that interviews can never be.
Trump’s winning presidential campaign, with help from Barron Trump, brilliantly identified the reach that podcasts would have. It eschewed traditional media in favor of those very long-form podcasts whose followings far exceed the audiences of cable news and traditional news outlets. Trump’s interview with Rogan from the last weeks of the campaign has more than 50 million views on YouTube to date, his appearance with comedian Theo Von has more than 15 million, and his appearance with Andrew Schulz has more than 8 million views.
The podcast administration
If Trump is to have a successful presidency that is seen as successful by the people, his administration should follow the model laid out by the campaign and pursue a media and public relations strategy that rewrites the book on White House and administration communications. While that does not mean ignoring the legacy press or abandoning the usual White House press briefings, it does mean the administration should pursue a parallel strategy to ensure that the people it reached through the podcasts still hear about what the administration is doing.
One of the first appointments that Trump made to his administration was Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and Vivek Ramaswamy, a one-time rival, as the co-heads of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which is tasked with streamlining the federal government and cutting excess and unnecessary spending. But even before they start their work on Jan. 20, the two men announced they would be launching the Dogecast, a podcast designed to keep the public informed about their work.
The rest of the Trump administration-in-waiting should take note. Long-form podcasts have become a powerful medium for people to build trust with someone they will never meet. By launching a podcast together, Ramaswamy and Musk will have the ability to bring the public into the process of reviewing the government budget in a way that will help people feel as if they are a part of it. It’s a model that could be easily emulated across the government. In fact, the administration could even launch its own podcast, featuring a good conversationalist such as Ramaswamy, interviewing a rotating cast of guests that could include Trump, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, Cabinet secretaries, and other White House officials, each discussing the administration’s work and its ambitions.
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Part of the reason that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt won four consecutive terms was that he was able to connect with people on their terms. His famous fireside chats spoke directly to people in their homes, allowing him an unfiltered medium to speak to them about what his government was doing, respond to every criticism lobbied against him, and make the people feel like he was working for them.
Today, Trump won a sweeping victory and is more popular than he has ever been. But if his administration is to be successful in the court of public opinion, it needs to ensure that popularity is not squandered and that the people can see the change for which they voted. Which means Trump and his administration need to embrace a public relations strategy that meets the people where they are and avoids the filter of legacy news outlets such as CNN, NBC, CBS, and ABC. Otherwise, he will leave office in January 2029 plagued by the same unpopularity that afflicted so many other men who occupied the office of president of the United States.