How Barron Trump helped his dad win the ‘bro’ vote

Donald Trump’s youngest but tallest son introduces his dad to Gen Z men through the world of online podcasts

As Donald Trump came onstage at West Palm Beach in the early hours of Wednesday America, like the world, was still trying to work out how on earth he had won so decisively.
But as he began his rambling yet imperious victory speech, two of the major clues were standing on stage with him.
One, arguably the most significant, came in the form of Mr Trump’s son Barron, unmissable at 6ft 7in tall and boasting perhaps the most striking resemblance to his father of all of the 45th – and soon to be 47th – president’s children.
As the dust settles, the role of this diffident-looking 18-year-old in the historic political comeback is gaining sharper focus.
In particular, his advice to the 78-year-old Republican on how to enter the unfamiliar terrain of online podcasts and streaming, an irreverent, hyper-masculine space obsessed with sports, fighting, pranks, gaming and cryptocurrency.
It is a world largely ignored by middle-aged, middle-class America, including most of the mainstream media.
Crucially, however, it is an environment beloved of younger men – 18 to 34, the so-called “bro vote” – a demographic with huge electoral potential for Republicans, given its widely reported Rightward drift in recent years, but one which has traditionally proven elusive at the polls.
In the words of political scientist Professor Jeff Gulati, these are often politically unengaged young men, “predisposed to support him [Trump] but less likely to vote”.
Determined not to let them slip away again, Susie Wiles, the co-chairman of Trump’s campaign, reportedly charged Alex Bruesewitz, a 27-year-old Republican consultant, with drawing up a list of potential podcaster interviews for Mr Trump.
Mr Bruesewitz duly obliged, then called the candidate, who was playing golf at the time, to present his suggestions.
“Have you talked this over with Barron?” Mr Trump interrupted, according to Time magazine. “Call Barron and see what he thinks and let me know.”
Barron advised that he was particularly fond of a character called Adin Ross and that his father should start there.
Ross is a provocateur who has built an enormous online following for his collaborations with celebrities and live streams of him playing video games such as the ultra-violent Grand Theft Auto.
He has been thrown off his preferred streaming platform of Twitch no fewer than eight times for various offences including allegedly allowing homophobic remarks on the site and accessing a pornography website during a stream.
But with an estimated 7.2 million followers, this has only boosted his prominence.
In August, Mr Trump invited Ross into his Mar-a-Lago living room, a privilege he made a point of saying he offers to very few, from where they recorded a podcast.
Despite their difference in age – “My suit is older than you,” said Mr Trump – it was a success, viewed more than 2.6 million times on YouTube alone.
From there he went on to be interviewed by a roll call of fellow podcast stars: Logan Paul, Joe Rogan, Bussin’ with the Boys, the Nelk Boys and others.
All the while he largely eschewed interviews with the traditional media.
The personalities differ dramatically but what they have in common is an informal, discursive format, an overt laddishness, a fondness for gimmicks, stunts and, in most cases, an almost supine reverence to Mr Trump and his Maga movement.
In the Ross interview, for example, the host presents Mr Trump with a series of celebrity pictures to which he must give an immediate one-word answer.
For a picture of Donald Trump, it’s “patriot”. Elon Musk: “genius”. Kanye West: “Complicated… got a good heart”. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the ultra-progressive Democrat congresswoman: “Fake. But in all fairness, she knows it.” Justin Trudeau: “They say he’s the son of Fidel Castro.”
When he invites the Nelk Boys to spend a day with him on the campaign trail, they kick back with their hero on “Trump Force One” between rallies, showing the septuagenarian phone footage of pranks they played on residents of a liberal neighbourhood in San Francisco, such as enticing neighbours to remove a Trump Vance sign from the front lawn and then dousing them in water for their trouble.
Mr Trump chuckles with approval, casually instructing an aide, “Put it on my site.”
A suit-clad product of his age, he joshes with his guests about them ruining the leather seats of his private jet with their coarse trousers.
“Goat!” one of the podcasters mouths into the camera, a look of wonder on his face. “He’s the goat.”
This is not, of course, a reference to the four-legged creature but the acronym, heavily used in the world of professional fighting, “greatest of all time”.
That links to the other obvious clue as to Mr Trump’s success on stage in Florida on Wednesday: Dana White.
The chief executive of Ultimate Fighting Championship has been a long-time friend and ally of Mr Trump. He credits him with helping him to get his franchise off the ground while most of the sports entertainment establishment refused to touch it.
Invited up to the microphone to address the crowd on Wednesday, Mr White demonstrated his closeness to the podcasters and recognition of their worth to the campaign by thanking them explicitly, including “last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan”.
Rogan himself is a UFC commentator.
Meanwhile, one of the Nelk Boys can be seen wearing a UFC-branded baseball cap on Trump Force One.
Indeed, it is rare for more than half an hour to go by during Mr Trump’s podcast appearances when he doesn’t mention Mr White by name.
It’s as if, in common with his son Barron, his old friend is gently guiding him through this new world with its close links to the world of fighting.
Mr Trump’s first campaign stop after his criminal conviction was, after all, to a UFC event.
He entered the Republican National Convention to the roar of James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World”.
It is also worth remembering that UFC is the discipline that famously purports to have no rules: an apt metaphor for the podcast Manosphere in which Mr Trump appeared increasingly at ease as the campaign marched on.
Logan Paul, for example, an influencer and wrestler with whom the candidate chatted for nearly an hour, once broadcast an episode from the Aokigahara forest in Japan, a notorious suicide spot, including footage of him finding the corpse of a victim.
“Gangster!” he exclaimed with delight, as Mr Trump handed him and his co-host T-shirts emblazoned with the famous mugshot taken after his arrest.
Its slogan: “Never surrender”.
That episode alone has gathered 6.7 million views on YouTube.
There is no real journalism in any, or little evidence of Mr Trump being held to account.
But in one sense the format presents a different challenge: that of appearing at ease and normal during long, informal conversations, a prospect some politicians fear more than a set-piece grilling.
And the discussions are long: more than three hours in the case of the Joe Rogan interview, which generated 45 million views on YouTube; one hour 17 minutes in sit-down with Adin Ross.
But it seemed to suit the former president. Indeed, he seemed arguably at his best. He is never not the essential Trump of old: boastful, hyperbolic and casual with the truth.
But in these podcasts he adopts a far softer tone than on the campaign trail: mischievous, witty, generous at times.
He seems genuinely at ease, not to mention knowledgeable, discussing UFC, wrestling and the minutiae of American Football.
“He’s such a professional, not a ra-ra coach. I wonder what he’s like in real life,” Mr Trump muses, discussing a veteran Nebraskan manager, before reminding listeners that the people of the state “love me”, that he won it “by more than 20 points, or something” last time round.
Equally, he seems content to discuss the probability of aliens: “Why wouldn’t there be?” he asks Paul. “You take a look at the universe and you see all of the different planets.”
There is a sense, accurate or not, that this is what the billionaire is genuinely like in private when chatting to friends.
Steeped in the culture of these podcasts, and knowing his father intimately, Barron Trump perhaps knew instinctively it would be a success.
Nigel Farage was on Thursday in no doubt as to the significance of the young man’s role.
“Barron Trump is a very bright 18-year-old who played a big part in his father’s stunning victory,” he posted on X, beneath a picture of the pair beaming together.
The numbers speak for themselves.
Younger voters traditionally lean Democrat but Harris only won the 18 to 29-year-old vote by 11 points, a brutal drop from Biden’s 24 and Clinton’s 19.
The Rogan interview in October generated big headlines as an event in its own right, mainly because Rogan is a genuine American household name; partly, also, because he previously spoke out against Mr Trump.
By and large the other podcast appearances took place in their own ecosphere, hosted by characters who are most certainly influential but not celebrities in the proper sense.
The contrast with the Harris campaign could not have been starker, relying on endorsements from rich Hollywood stars whose lives are so far removed from those of the voters they were hoping to reach.
If they can stomach it, the party will surely pay more heed to the manosphere next time.