On Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone discusses how the Iran war is “eroding and obliterating the connective tissue” in MAGA media
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From the March 27, 2026, edition of MS NOW's Deadline: White House
ALICIA MENENDEZ (HOST): It is interesting to me. I watched, Angelo, initially when Tim was talking about how a lot of these voters are not frequent voters. They are atypical voters. You sort of lit up because that is really who it is that we are talking about here. And I wonder if you have a sense of who they are still listening to and if there is anything this administration is offering that continues to resonate with them.
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): I think that's the part that's significant about this that kind of gets lost because it's so complicated and confusing. But the simple thing is it's not like the past. There is no singular center of gravity. There's no Rush Limbaugh-like figure, you know, or Fox & Friends kind of equivalent now. When they're not listening to Joe Rogan, they're spending their time listening to other podcasts or they're watching live streams, right? They're watching things about looksmaxxing, I know that's very fashionable these days to talk about, but there's all kinds of Kick streams about that. They're watching video game streams.
And that's the part where it matters, because the people that we're talking about in this conversation -- the Joe Rogans, the Theo Vons -- they're like a weathervane for what else is happening in that larger, not political first space. And, so, when those people are not getting Joe Rogan ripping on MAGA, their other programs, whether it be a video game streamer or somebody's talking about peptides or whatever that is, they're also complaining about the administration's vibes or even very specific things like the war, right? So, they're actually getting it reinforced in the other places that they're listening to, which in some ways is more powerful than a singular figure repeating the same thing over and over again.
And that, to me, is the part that's significant. They're not boosting other parties, other positions, other people necessarily, but they are completely right now eroding and obliterating the connective tissue that held together all of these low propensity, not political voters, the people that were on the fringes that Trump brought in and built power with, that connective tissue that held them out altogether, the other nine hours of programming that they're listening to in podcasts and streams, they're all doing some version of what we're talking about with these weathervanes today. And that's why it's significant. As you noticed, as you said at the beginning, slowly and then all at once. That, to me, is the real difference maker now than, say, a year ago. It hadn't really breached through to those other spaces. They were still very much isolated from the larger chaos and mess that Trump has affected, and that's just not what's playing out right now in those spaces.
MENENDEZ: No. Because they actually have to go to the gas pump and fill up their tank.