Podcaster Andrew Schulz gave Donald Trump street cred in the world of chronically online young men, but he’s been having second thoughts.
On a Thursday episode of his Flagrant podcast, the comedian torched the president for “doing the exact opposite” of his campaign promises.
“There’ll be people that they’ll DM me like, ‘You see what your boy’s doing? You voted for this.’ I’m like, ‘I voted for none of this,’” he said. “He’s doing the exact opposite of everything I voted for. I want him to stop the wars—he’s funding them. I want him to shrink spending, reduce the budget—he’s increasing it.”
Schulz voted for Trump last year even after laughing in his face during a 90-minute podcast that has racked up nearly 10 million views. Schulz erupted in a fit of giggles after the then-Republican candidate called himself “basically a truthful person.”
The podcaster, who commands an audience composed chiefly of young men, predicted that Trump would win by a landslide after their interview. He was gleeful after a listener declared that “Flagrant is gonna get Trump elected.”
But the recent controversies that have roiled the administration, from its aggressive deportation blitz to the Medicaid cuts in Trump’s megabill, have forced Schulz to rethink his support.
“I already expect politicians to not do most of the s-–t they say,” he said. “I don’t want to be too cynical, but now I’m getting to the point where it’s like, ‘Can they do anything?’”
Schulz speculated that part of Trump’s appeal was his divergence from the status quo.
“When you feel like the status quo will do nothing and change nothing, you have way more of a longer leash for the outsiders’ ideas than you do the status quo’s ideas,” he said. “And I think that was the idea with Trump, who’s like, ‘Maybe he will stop these wars.’ No. ‘Maybe we will see what’s up with this Epstein s–t.’ No.”
One of Schulz’s own guests warned him that this would happen.
In an April sit-down, former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg schooled Schulz and his co-hosts for believing in Trump’s promises.
“Most of the stuff he said he was actually going to do, he didn’t actually do,” Buttigieg said.
For more, listen to Andrew Schulz on The Last Laugh podcast.
