Michael Knowles

You know, it's kind of interesting.

You remember Selina Zito had that famous phrase about Trump, take him seriously but not literally, which I think remains the single best description of how to actually treat the president.

Yep.

When you think about that, I think there's a case to be made that Marco Rubio takes the president seriously and JD Vance takes him literally.

What I mean by this is that if you look at how the vice president sort of interprets the way that Trump ran in 2024, he interprets the way that Trump ran as he was the Joe Rogan candidate, right?

He was the guy who was going on Theo Vaughn and Joe Rogan.

And so if you just sort of be the guy who goes on Theo Vaughn or Joe Rogan, that's the sort of swing vote that you need to appeal to is Theo Vaughn and Joe Rogan.

The point that I've made, including to people on the vice president's staff, is that I do not actually think that that is an accurate depiction of where politics is going to be in 28.

I would be shocked if Joe Rogan votes Republican in 2028.

I'd be shocked if Theo Vaughn votes Republican in 2028.

You can already see them creating gaps between themselves and the administration in order to move away and back toward, quote unquote, the middle or back toward the other side, because they realize that in the polls,

you know, the popularity of the administration isn't exactly soaring right now.

And so trying to program into that, you're not going to be able to outbid a Democrat when it comes to being anti-Israel.

You're not going to be able to outbid a Democrat when it comes to being, you know, big government oriented and anti-capitalist and anti-business.

You're not going to be able to outbid them on any of that.

And if the only thing you have is transgenderism, granted, that's a powerful issue for a lot of the podcast bros.

But this is where, you know, Michael, to go back to sort of the broader podcast point, not having to do with, you know, any specific personality.

The reality is that we called the last election the podcast election for a reason.

These people, their voices do matter.

And pretending they don't matter is, of course, I think whistling past the graveyard.