Conservative influencers reduce Trump mentions amid growing criticism of Iran war

Conservative influencers who helped Donald Trump win the 2024 election are now talking about the president far less, new analysis shows.

Mentions of Trump’s name per hour on conservative podcasts have declined nearly 70 percent from the height of the 2024 campaign, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Several prominent media figures in Trump’s MAGA base, and even some Republican lawmakers campaigning in battleground states, have broken with the president on the unpopular and costly war in Iran.

Monthly mentions of Trump’s name on conservative podcasts have fallen 30 percent since the U.S., alongside Israel, launched strikes against Iran at the end of February, according to the nearly 70,000 hours of podcasts that the Journal analyzed using an AI tool.

GOP support for the war has been declining, with a new CNN/SSRS poll finding that 60 percent of Republicans approved of how Trump was handling the conflict, down from 73 percent in March.

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson was one of the first conservative media personalities to criticize the Iran war, calling it “absolutely disgusting and evil” in a statement to ABC News’ Jonathan Karl.

Trump raged against Carlson and other MAGA figures, including Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens and Alex Jones, in April, writing in a Truth Social post that their criticisms of the Iran war are because of their “low IQs.”

In June, Carlson told Sky News, ‘There’s no future of the MAGA movement.”

He said that he still believes in “America First” policies that have been a cornerstone of the movement, adding, “This war was the most obvious betrayal of that.”

“We didn’t go to war to protect our own interests. We went to war to serve Israel’s interests,” Carlson said.

Amid a fracturing base, MAGA influencers have been hemorrhaging viewers, according to a New York Times analysis published in late July.

Conservative podcaster Benny Johnson was gaining tens of millions of views on YouTube during Trump’s 2024 election campaign, but his views later dropped by millions, the Times reported.

In an unusual move to boost support for Republican candidates in the upcoming midterm elections, Trump held a two-day conference in Dallas earlier this month, in which he told supporters to “pretend that I’m on the ballot.”

But some Republicans in competitive races are instead choosing to distance themselves from the president and his low approval ratings.

Congresswoman Ashley Hinson, who is running for U.S. Senate in Iowa against Democrat Josh Turek, wrote on X Monday, “Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran,” adding, “The war needs to be brought to a successful and immediate end.”

Former congressman Mike Rogers, running against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed for U.S. Senate in Michigan, shared a similar message on X Monday: “The war in Iran needs to end to bring costs down. “

There’s also a tight race for U.S. Senate in Texas between the state’s Attorney General Ken Paxton, who Trump insulted for his fashion taste during the Republican midterm convention, and Democrat James Talarico.

Talarico has become the most-discussed Democrat who isn’t a former president among conservative podcasters, according to the Journal’s analysis.