In the lead up to the presidential election, candidates Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have taken to appearing on podcasts to engage with potential voters.
According to Jeff Gulati, a political science professor at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass., Harris and Trump’s podcast appearances are simply another part of their larger campaign and communication strategy.
For Trump, this includes appealing to young, often politically unengaged men, who are “predisposed to support him but less likely to vote,” Gulati says. The so-called “bro vote” is why Trump’s podcast appearances have landed him in the studios of bro-legends like Joe Rogan and Theo Von. The hope being that these appearances will ingratiate Trump with these young men, enough to bring them out to the polls.
“It’s a risky strategy,” Gulati says. “It’s the same thing as his McDonald’s appearance: he’s not trying to pretend like he’s a regular guy, but that he really is the voice of the regular guy, and that he speaks for them.”
Harris, for her part, is selecting her podcast appearances much differently. Though it was rumored that she would also be on Joe Rogan, in her hunt for male voters, she has so far chosen podcasts with audiences that predominantly focus on women and young Black men.
“The Harris campaign feels like that they will win this election if they can really take advantage of this gender gap that they have,” Gulati says, emphasizing that Harris’ strategy is less risky than Trump’s. “The Harris campaign is focusing on people that they think are already engaged, [in a bid to] to get them more engaged.”
Read More: Harris Battles for the Bro Vote
Below are some of the key highlights from the major podcast appearances made by Harris and Trump.
Kamala Harris podcast appearances
Call Her Daddy
On Call Her Daddy, a podcast focused on women’s issues, mental health, sex and relationships, Harris leaned mostly into her stance on abortion. Host Alex Cooper—who refers to her listeners as the “daddy gang,” asked Harris what she felt about Trump telling women he would be their “protector.”
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“So, he who, when he was President, hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade. And they did just as he intended. And there are now 20 states with Trump abortion bans, including bans that make no exception for rape or incest,” Harris said on the podcast, which was released Oct. 6. “So this is the same guy that is now saying that?”
Harris emphasized her commitment to reproductive rights by reminding the audience that she is the first Vice President to visit an abortion-providing clinic. She also responded to Trump’s claims during their debate that doctors under the Biden Administration want to “take the life of the baby in the ninth month, and even after birth.” Harris called this a “bold face lie.”
“That is not happening anywhere in the United States. It’s so insulting to suggest that that would be happening and that women would be doing that,” she said.
All The Smoke
On Sept. 24, Harris sat down for an interview on the podcast All The Smoke, hosted by former NBA stars Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson.
One topic she spoke about was marajuana, stating that people should not be in jail for possessing the drug.
“I just think we have come to a point where we have to understand that we need to legalize it and stop criminalizing this behavior,” Harris said.
She also laid out her economic plan to the hosts, particularly to increase funding for small businesses, which includes up to $50,000 tax deductions, and address the country’s housing affordability crisis, including a $25,000 down payment assistance program for first-time homebuyers.
“I start from the perspective that the vast majority of parents want to raise their children well. They love their children, but they don’t necessarily have the resources they need,” Harris said. “And if we understand that the children of a community are the children of the community, we’ll understand that an investment in something like the first year of a child’s life benefits all of us.”
The Breakfast Club
On Oct. 15, Harris sat down with radio host Charlamagne Tha God (Lenard McKelvey) for The Breakfast Club morning radio show. Here, she focused heavily on—and posted videos from the show talking about—“delivering for Black men” through healthcare and education.
“It is an agenda that understands—by the way, because we’ve talked a lot already about criminal justice—the needs of the Black community are not just about criminal justice.”
She also went after Trump’s supposed plans to address racial gaps and biases, pointing to Project 2025, which Trump has said he has no involvement with.
“Ask Donald Trump what his plan is for Black America. Ask him,” she said. “I’ll tell you what it is…look at Project 2025.”
Donald Trump podcast appearances
The Joe Rogan Experience
In Trump’s most recent appearance, he joined Joe Rogan on his podcast. The interview, which was recorded on Oct. 25 and released the following day, ended up being close to three hours long. Trump covered a range of topics, from praising Robert E. Lee’s military strategy to speculating about life on Mars.
Read More: Joe Rogan’s Live Comedy Special Lets Netflix Have It Both Ways
Rogan allowed Trump an opportunity to discuss his 2020 election denialism, asking him to discuss how he was “robbed.”
“What’s happened is judges don’t want to touch it…The judges didn’t have what it took to turn over an election,” he said.
Off of the news that his former chief of staff John Kelly called him a “fascist” earlier this week, Trump also told Rogan that he made a mistake in appointing certain people.
“The biggest mistake I made was I picked some people…I picked some great people, you know, but…I picked a few people that I shouldn’t have picked. Neocons. Yeah, neocons or bad people or disloyal people,” he said.
Impaulsive
In the former President’s first major podcast in this run—prior to President Joe Biden’s historic dropout and Harris’ bid for the presidency—Trump joined former YouTube prankster and vlogger Logan Paul on his podcast Impaulsive.
The interview, which was released in June, came soon after Trump’s historic conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records, and Paul commented that Trump’s support and the donations made to his campaign had risen following the conviction.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars…and too bad it couldn’t have been done for other reasons but they viewed the case as being so corrupt and so ridiculous,” Trump said.
Trump also gifted Paul a T-shirt with his own mugshot on it.
“Our country has tremendous potential but it’s going down the tubes very, very rapidly. Nobody has ever seen anything like it, the way it’s being run so bad,” he said.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
Stand-up comedian turned podcaster Theo Von interviewed Trump for an episode which aired on Aug. 20. (Von has also since interviewed Bernie Sanders and J.D. Vance).
Here, Trump and Von mostly discussed their mutual friends in the U.F.C. world, addiction, Trump’s brother and sons, and calling lobbyists a “big problem.”
A viral moment also stemmed from the conversation in which Von and Trump discussed drug addiction, in which Von told Trump that “cocaine will turn you into a damn owl, homie.”
Flagrant
On Oct. 9, Trump was a guest on comedy podcast Flagrant, which is hosted by stand-up comedian Andrew Schulz alongside Akaash Singh, AlexxMedia, and Mark Gagnon.
The conversation began with discussion on Trump’s children, but turned to talk about the assassination attempt in early July.
“I have great respect for the Secret Service and the guys that were with me,” Trump said. “Those bullets were winging over my head. If it’d been up for another couple of seconds, I wouldn’t be here.”
He then hinted at possible foreign conspiracy theories related to the shooting incidents.
“They haven’t opened the shooters’ phones—and they had several. Why wouldn’t you open them? When you hear about foreign connections, like Iran, it makes you wonder.”
Another viral moment came after Trump said that though his opponents can “say what they want,” he has “a hard time doing it to them, because … I’m basically a truthful person, but —”
In response to the statement, Schulz began to laugh.
Six Feet Under with Mark Calaway
On Six Feet Under with Mark Calaway, also known as wrestling legend The Undertaker, Trump’s viral moment came when he discussed wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who he says called him after the assassination attempt in July.
“You know he was great. I never thought he liked me,” Trump said. “I felt badly because I think he’s a terrific guy. When I was shot—you may have heard about it—Rock called Dana White and said ‘I want to have his number. What he did is sort of incredible.’ He considered it bravery. It was very nice actually.”
He also asked Calaway many questions about the realities and logistics of wrestling.
Bussin’ with the Boys
Trump made an appearance on the football show Bussin’ With The Boys with Will Compton and Taylor Lewan.
He discussed sports, including his views on transgender people playing sports.
“They want men playing in women’s sports. I don’t think I could ever say I’m thrilled about that. I’ve seen people really hurt. In the Olympics… you saw the young Italian girl… she said ‘I just got hit by a horse. I can’t take it,’” Trump said.
Notably, in the incident he is talking about at the Olympics, the Algerian woman at the center of the gender row—gold-medal winner Imane Khelif—is not transgender and was born a biological woman.
PBD Podcast
Businessman Patrick Bet-David interviewed Trump for an episode posted on Oct. 17. The Republican presidential candidate yet again questioned Harris’ racial and ethnic identity.
“They have a woman who is Black, although you would say she’s Indian, but she is Black, but she really—a lot of people didn’t know, which is true,” Trump said, to which Bet-David responded that he “learned about it only a couple of months ago.”
He also discussed multiple foreign policy issues, particularly tensions in the Middle East and the war between Russia and Ukraine, claiming that he would put an end to the latter war while he is President-elect and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would listen to him if he wins in November.
“Had that election not been rigged and stolen, I tell you, we would have no problems anywhere in the world,” Trump claimed.
When discussing Iran, he said that he “would like to see Iran be very successful. The only thing is they can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
