How YouTube Podcasts Decided the 2024 Election

0:00The Colin and Samir Show is supported by Microsoft Copilot. This is something I thought I would never say, but can I share with you my favorite prompt? I mean, like when you say something like that, I have to say yes. Were you going to say no? No, but okay. Just let me hear it. So when I'm researching for a guest or I need to know a lot about a subject matter, I say, make me a podcast about. And when you do that, you're going to get a short blurb about that subject. And then in like two minutes, you're going to get a podcast. So check this out. Welcome to Co-Pilot Podcasts. Picture this, a guy working the front desk at a hotel, making lacrosse videos in his spare time, completely unaware that he's about to become one of the most influential voices in the creator economy.

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1:10Try it for your research. Try it for getting variations of your titles, your ideas. It's one of my favorite tools on the internet right now for our creativity. And now back to the show. In the lead up to the 2024 election, Donald Trump went on 14 podcasts that got 124 million views on YouTube. And Kamala Harris went on five podcasts that got 4 million views. Ray Chow from Vox said that every presidential election is a snapshot in time of the media landscape. And this election is being referred to all over as the podcast election. And a lot of those podcasts took place on YouTube. So what exactly is the state of the media landscape right now?

1:53That's going to be the basis for the discussion of today's episode. All right, so in this episode, we're going to break down the details of the podcast election. We're also going to talk about what that showed us about the state of YouTube. A Colin and Samir episode about politics doesn't happen often. Let's get into it. But it's happening. It's happening. Here we go. Buckle up.

2:16The past couple of months feel like they've been like really... Like a fever dream? Yeah, like really wild to watch this play out and specifically play out across YouTube. So last night I just opened a Googled spreadsheet and just wrote Trump and Kamala. And I just started filling in the blanks of what shows did they do on YouTube specifically. Like I just searched their names and tried to find. I might have missed some, but let me tell you the ones that I found. I'll start with Kamala because that was a shorter list. Okay. So the ones that I could find were Call Her Daddy. Yep. Which is a massive podcast.

2:52Heavily aimed at women. Yeah, with Alex Cooper. And there was a seven-minute clip or seven or eight-minute clip there. Not the full episode on YouTube. All the Smoke, which is Matt Barnes, a former NBA player, his show. And Steven Jackson. And Steven Jackson. The Breakfast Club with Charlemagne. The Checkup with Dr. Mike. Dr. Mike got in the mix. And Club Shay Shay with Shannon Sharp, which was the most viewed episode of Kamala sitting down with someone. At 1.6 million views. The total of those views is 4 million views across those five shows. Now, when I went over to the Trump side, I started with the Bryson DeChambeau.

3:36DeChambeau? DeChambeau. DeChambeau? Wow. Let's just say the golfer? Bryson, yeah. The Bryson video of Trump and him playing golf, which is not technically a podcast, but it's a very long video. It's an hour-long video of them hanging out and playing golf together. Yeah. And that did - What is golf but mainly conversation? That's 12 million views. Then you go down the list and you go, he went on Logan Paul's podcast, Impulsive. He went on All In. He went on Aiden Ross's stream, which when you click into that is like this crazy scene of him just sitting at a computer with a bunch of people behind him.

4:10He went on Lex Friedman. He went on Dr. Phil's show, Fill in the Blanks. Of course. which did 17 million views on YouTube. Yeah. He went on the Dave Ramsey show, which was uploaded to his personal YouTube channel, went on the Ben Shapiro show. He went on Andrew Schultz's show, Full Send with the Nelk boys. He went on Bussin with the boys. He went on the Patrick Bet-David show, Six Feet Under with Mark Calloway, a former WWE wrestler, Joe Rogan Experience, obviously, which is the most infamous one, and Theo Vaughn, which is probably the second most infamous appearance. This is 124 million views for Trump on YouTube.

4:49And the reason I clarify that is because all these shows have other distribution platforms, right? Maybe outside of Bryson's Golf Day. Like Rogan across audio platforms probably does equivalent, if not more, than what it does on YouTube. And it did 46 million views on YouTube. Yeah. So heavily male focused, but also a lot of comedians. Mm-hmm.

5:42those were much more adversarial, right? Like traditional media, if you choose to go on certain platforms, it can be a lot more adversarial. The podcast that Kamala Harris went on and that Trump went on, it's kind of like an endorsement. It's a safe space to hopefully be yourself and appeal to an audience. So if you think about this quote that every presidential election is a snapshot in time of the media landscape, I actually think the episodes that Trump went on is more reflective of the current media landscape. And where it's moving. And where it's moving. The reason I say that is because if we look at like, what is that evolution?

6:22The obvious is the move from traditional legacy media to new media. When we look at the social media landscape of the past 10 years, you know, we've gone from this world of these platforms being user-generated content. You know, Instagram's a place where I just, anyone can post, you know, photos and videos or YouTube. People are posting interesting vlogs and it's gone from there to like established episodic shows with massive audiences. Like Theo Vaughn's show has a massive week to week audience in the millions. Yeah. So that move is significant that it's, it's playing out. Everyone knows that everyone who listens to our show knows that's happening.

7:09This moment and seeing Trump's strategy felt like this deep stamp, especially when you look at the viewership. And I think that it's not just the viewership. The next thing I did in this Excel sheet is write down total time available with each candidate on YouTube. For Trump, that was 16 hours and 53 minutes. And for Kamala, that was three hours. We're talking about like available time to click in and watch someone. Let's just talk about the creators who have the most diehard audiences, the audiences that will leave their homes to go to an event. Kaisenat, right? Streamer, live, unedited, raw for incredibly long periods of time.

7:56Podcasters, let's just talk about podcasters and primarily comedians like the shows he went on, whether it's Schultz or Theo Vaughn, long, unedited. And the draw is come see me in person. Yeah. Come to my show. It's a good point about the comedians. And like, if you, if you start a media strategy with the desired outcome, which is activate a community to go take an action, to go to the polls or to mail in a ballot, like if you start there with the, what does success look like if you nail this media strategy? And then you go backwards and you go, where are the environments where people are being activated?

8:33It's a really good point that comedy podcasts are those environments. And Kamala went on like much more traditional media outlets. She also had way less time. I don't want to sit here and say like cable and traditional doesn't play a factor in presidential media strategies. I think it actually will, and it probably will even in 2028. It's just the rounding out of it and the impact, the outsized impact, in my opinion, of the 16 hours that are available on YouTube of Donald Trump. That is an outsized impact. And if we can just play even two clips of Trump and Kamala back to back, I think it's an important thing to experience where you have Trump laughing with the guys on a couch.

9:19First time that we've been able to say is we are sitting down with Mr. President. Mr. President, thank you so much for being here. It's a very familiar environment of him on Schultz. And Alex Cooper with Call Her Daddy does an excellent job at making guests feel comfortable and making them feel, you know. But I don't know if you saw this. In the beginning of that episode, it shows that Alex brought her set to Kamala. Rebuilt it. Yeah. Where she was. And I actually think that's a really significant thing. You don't do too many long-form interviews. What made you want to do Call Her Daddy today?

9:53Well, I think you and your listeners have really got this thing right, which is one of the best ways to communicate with people is to be real. I think like those, if we just look at how they both looked and felt, traditional media makes you look and feel like very put together. It's like very elevated. It feels like a prestigious moment, right? To get to interview the president or a potential president. And in the past, I think creators have like risen to that moment. The few creators who've had the opportunity to like have a creator or have a president or a presidential candidate on their channel, it's been an elevated sort of like look and feel, and it's normally shorter.

10:36And I think Trump went the opposite way. He was like, I'm going to make it so normal for me to show up in everyone's place that they probably didn't even think I was going to show up like your small crypto podcast. I'm sorry to call that crypto podcast small because I actually don't know. It's probably one of the biggest, but like a crypto. I actually couldn't even find that. It's not in my, it's not in my data set, but like, I know what you're talking about. Or like a small crypto. Bryson, obviously a big golf channel, but like just to show up in people's places to show up in places where most audiences probably didn't think he was going to show up and to do it over and over and over again in the style that those creators actually do.

11:12he was able to become so familiar to people. I actually think Rogan's set is one of the most familiar looking sets. Totally. Right? It is just one of the most familiar looking sets. And to see him there was kind of jarring. It is kind of like, you know, back in the day, watching like your favorite sitcom and like a celebrity cameo happen. Yeah. You're like, what are they doing in the friend's coffee shop? I think Trump's strategy was like Trump Barbie. And I'll explain this. What? You know how there's like, there's Dr. Barbie and there's like jet ski Barbie. There's like every type of Barbie. And I think it was like, how many places can I insert myself?

11:47And how many versions of me can show up everywhere? Even down to the imagery of him working at a McDonald's. There's McDonald's Trump. Or doing an interview as a garbage man in the truck. Oh, there's garbage man Trump. Even the convicted felon imagery. Right? It's like, oh, there's felon Trump. And he like tweeted it out or something. Or like put it on shirts. He sold it on shirts. after he survived the assassination attempt, that photo, it was like, oh, there's like American hero Trump. That's a really interesting point. Right? That like, whether it was photos or podcast appearances, his strategy was just, I will be every Trump.

12:27The same way that he put his name over all types of buildings and companies. He was like, I do steaks, I do vodka. That's a good point. He just sprayed all over media. So if we, so the interesting thing is about like contrasting where the current landscape is, you think back to 2020, which was kind of a strange time for the election because it was during the pandemic. We go back to like 2016 and we think about would like Trump at that time when he was running or Hillary Clinton, it would have been really weird to see them on long form podcasts. I don't think I understood the power of new media until I experienced this election.

13:09Of course, on this show, we are proponents of new media and the power that it has, but I don't think I really saw it. And it always has had that in elections. You have FDR with the fireside chats, which were just very long, extended radio episodes and sessions, right, with him speaking to the country. 1960, the first televised debate, Nixon sweating. And people - You should explain that because people probably don't know that. So in 1960, they had the first televised debate and it was JFK versus Nixon. And Nixon was sweating. He looked old. JFK is tan. Good looking. Charismatic. Charismatic. And JFK wins that election.

13:49And people look back on it as like, oh, the TV debate was the tipping point for that election. And in a snapshot in time, the media landscape was television. It was like, wow, television is here. It is powerful. 2008, you have Barack Obama and now you have YouTube, which came out in 2005. And you have social media. Obama was one of the first candidates to adopt social media in such a significant way and create a movement amongst young people with social media. And also to read mean tweets on late night and to show up in a way. And he was very charismatic, a great talker. Incredibly comfortable.

14:24Yeah, super comfortable. And that is now like, you know, a requirement. Him being seen as like the cool president had to do with the media that he was a part of. Right. In comparison to John McCain, who was not taking to the media in the same way. So there has always been this thread of humanization of candidates through media. today, I think people will look back at this election in history the same way they look back on the 1960 debate with Nixon. This was the podcast election. This was the Joe Rogan episode election. I do think that's how like history books will write about it. I agree with that.

15:05And this wasn't, the podcast election also wasn't reduced to just the candidates. Yeah. And I think that's interesting, right? There was a cast of characters on each side. You know, obviously you have the VPs on each side. JD Vance went on Rogan as well. Tim Waltz played Madden with AOC on Twitch, which I thought was really kind of strange. You know, it didn't really connect. And then you had Elon Musk on the cast of characters of the Trump side that also went on Rogan. Like in a row, it was like Trump, JD, Elon. Rogan did like the full, Not that Rogan wasn't open to also Kamala and other people, but yeah, it was the full spectrum of.

15:49And then there was, there was, um, there was Mark Cuban also on Kamala's side who, who went and, uh, did a lot of the, like did Schultz did, um, all in, um, did a few other shows. Um, the, the, the flagrant guys said that, that they also reached out to Kamala. Um, Rogan talked about reaching out to Kamala. um so like the the offers were on the table but i i think the um the cast of characters was also an interesting thing the one video that i wanted to bring up on youtube that i saw was uh obama on vic blends on the haircut show which is like a really dope like cool setup but it was interesting to see it play out like the the concentric circle starting to like spread a cast of characters also everyone's takings are showing up on podcasts yeah yeah it's strange to think about from this point on, and this is not going, politics does not stop and like political media does not stop.

16:40It is all the time in America and I'm curious to see if from this point on the role that podcasts and YouTube play for the next four years leading up to the next election. Yeah, let's talk about the future. Are we going to see President Trump on podcasts from this point on? Is that going to be a major part of the strategy? Oh, I have something important to say. I'm going to show up on Rogan. I'm sure. I think that door has been bust wide open and probably. And then for Democrats, I'm sure they're thinking the same thing. Who do we have that can hang on a reality? Who gets on these shows now so that they are incredibly familiar and trusted?

17:23In four years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you think about that metric of available time and time spent over the next four years. Like who is going to win that battle over the next four years? And what are those formats going to look like? You know, I don't think it's smart for either candidate or candidates in the future, honestly, to make their own shows. I think unless it's natural to you. Like AOC gets on her Instagram and goes live all the time. Sure. And you watch it, it feels pretty natural to her. Like she's very comfortable in that role. And if that's what's comfortable for you, great.

18:03The president of the philippines also was a vlogger before he got elected continues to vlog Yeah, I think if it's not comfortable to you audiences see through it and that's the problem So let's talk about you know, there's a couple of youtube videos that I felt were extremely significant during this election that feel representative of the future um And the majority of those came from jubilee that I watched the jubilee format of You know, they did it with charlie kirk. They did it with ben shapiro. They did it with people pete budajaj And those videos are very long. And it's, you know, Pete Buttigieg versus 25 undecided voters.

18:41Charlie Kirk versus maybe Harris supporters, I think it was. It's basically like the person versus a group of, you know, adversarial or people who are against them. Yeah, it's a sort of reinvention of the sort of CNN town hall, right? Where you have the candidate up on stage. And then generally there are pre-selected questions. It doesn't feel like that at all. someone asked a question, but it's not like that at all. I know it's a reinvention of that. It doesn't feel like that. The Charlie Kirk one did 21 million views. The Pete Buttigieg one is 56 minutes long and did a couple million views in the first couple hours.

19:13Like these are really significant formats that could inform how political content moves forward. It's the next chapter in my mind, no doubt, because this was the podcast election, but none of these podcasts were adversarial. And you don't expect them to be. I don't expect Alex Cooper to all of a sudden turn into an adversarial journalist. That's not what it is. It's like an endorsement when she has Kamala Harris on. But I would have really loved to hear Kamala on Rogan and Trump on Call Her Daddy. And a lot of people also wanted to hear Rogan push back more on Trump. Yeah. Right. But it didn't happen.

19:51And I think chapter three of this is going to be formats like Surrounded from Jubilee, where a candidate is willing to put themselves in an adversarial environment for a very long, extended, uncut period of time. And we get to see how do they handle adversity from someone in their face, knowing that they're being watched. Because that is incredibly vulnerable. It's one thing to be in a room of people who agree with you and are trying to make everybody laugh and trying to convey sort of friendship by the end. It's another thing to be like, no, I am okay speaking my mind freely and being myself and being comfortable in that type of environment.

20:35I said this to you before, but I think that we, like there should be a democratic vote on the selected podcasters for the next election cycle. So we pick five or six podcasters and they're like a healthy mix, right? There's like a healthy mix of those hosts. And then the candidate, both candidates have to go on all. I think that would be really interesting. I'd love to see something like that. I'd love to see roundtables instead of debates where the candidates are sitting together and there's like a more roundtable with some really good conversationalists who can drive the conversation. And I wonder if Jubilee and this platform that they're building with these formats becomes a host in 2028 for some version of a debate.

21:21I think this new media and the trend here will lead to a political environment where we do not feel like we have chosen establishment politicians running. Yeah. Right? Because both sides, like I've said this to you, they weren't comfortable with these politicians who ended up getting organic support. Republicans were not super excited about Donald Trump in the beginning because he had this organic support that was out of their control and out of their system. Sure. They didn't like when Bernie Sanders started getting a lot of organic support. When Bernie went on Rogan, and he essentially got like a Rogan endorsement because it was out of their control and not necessarily the candidate they wanted or thought was best or could get the most funding, whatever it was.

22:04But new media does not care about that stuff. Yeah. And it's clearly impacting voting habits. So we're moving to a place where whoever is the most popular, whoever is the most familiar and liked can potentially be the nominee. I think it was really interesting to see that celebrity endorsements didn't really play a factor or didn't feel significant. Do you agree with that? Yeah, I agree with that. You know, when you get a Taylor Swift Instagram post, does it have the same impact that maybe it used to have? I think it's continuously, like, you know, Taylor Swift is very influential, very popular.

22:44Like, you just can't argue with that. But it does just generally feel representative of the traditional kind of just buttoned up celebrity versus the messy raw. It's almost the old form of new media. Like Theo Vaughn talking to J.D. Vance and Trump about hard drugs was a wild clip to go. But it felt, you know, and Theo's pushing it because he's a comedian. but those like at scale, like the willingness to be in those uncontrolled environments feel so different from the, the, the, you know, traditional media landscape. And I think one thing that we might see in the future, the question is, can traditional media create environments similar to podcasts and similar to these uncontrolled feeling environments?

23:29A good case study, Pat McAfee, Pat McAfee on ESPN feels a lot more like that feels pretty risky that ESPN was like, let's pick up this program. So in four years, do some of these traditional networks actually pick up some of these shows and distribute them on traditional cable networks where it's like, I don't know, it sounds crazy, but do any of these exist in that environment? My assumption would be that it's way too risky because these are publicly traded companies. Yeah. But so is Disney and ESPN. That's true. And Pat McAfee is like a pretty, he's a pretty wild card on air. I think one of the craziest clips that will go down in history from this election is Dana White thanking the Nelk boys, Aiden Ross, Theo Vaughn, and Joe Rogan.

24:25Yeah, that felt surreal. That felt surreal. that was a bizarre moment of of american politics that solidified that this was where media is this is where culture is and this is where politics is yeah and it was wild not just because they are creators but they are controversial creators right this is not you're not you're like run-of-the-mill creator sure they are incredibly controversial. And a lot of people probably know who they are. Yeah. You know, like millions and millions of people know who they are. Sure. Millions and millions of people. Our parents don't know who they are. Yeah. All right.

25:06So what can we learn from all this? I think, you know, the first, the first thought is that raw, unedited vulnerability and authenticity is where we currently are and probably where we'll be for a while. Meaning the current is unedited. Where you look at what happens on traditional media, it feels very proper. It feels very controlled. It feels very produced. And because of that, we're having an opposite reaction to saying, hey, show me what's really happening. Long-form podcasts show that. It's hard in a three hour time window to act or be fake or to feel overproduced because three hours is just too long.

25:54Like you're Trump sitting in that chair for three hours is wild. Yeah. And I think Kamala on call her daddy is, is a great example of it. Um, I think she just did too little and, and, and few and far between. Um, but long form conversation is, is nice because it's unedited Twitch, again, is where we're seeing the most culturally relevant people. But that raw vulnerability, the messiness, the mess-ups, the clearing your throat, all that is - I think it's a requirement. As audiences have seen too much at this point, they've consumed too much to sit through something where they feel like it is hyper-curated, hyper-edited.

26:33Social media already went through that phase. And this is like a backlash to that, right? Yeah. Yeah. Social media was extremely hyper curated at one point. Like the Instagramification of social media happened. And this is a reaction. The same way that television went through soap operas, reality TV, like we are now evolving. Time spent is one of the most important metrics currently. Like time spent with someone online. I really think that's why Twitch is producing the most culturally relevant creators. Live streamers are the most culturally relevant because you can spend eight hours a day with them.