Credit: Ben Shapiro
Ben Shapiro last year decried Donald Trump’s tariff talk as a negotiating tactic.
“I’m going to chalk this one up to the bull—-ing… do I take seriously the idea that, without congressional legislation, he is going to be able to levy a 20 per cent tariff on everything coming into the country? No, I don’t,” he insisted during a debate on the Free Press website just before the election. “He’s a wheeler dealer, he tends to use tariffs as a piece of leverage.”
Yet just six months later, the podcaster appears to be eating his words.
Mr Shapiro is just one of an army of content creators, alongside the likes of Joe Rogan and Barstool Sports’ founder and owner Dave Portnoy, who both helped Mr Trump appeal to millions on his path to election victory in 2024.
But some loyal soldiers of the Maga cavalry may now be losing faith in their commander-in-chief after his controversial tariff policy wiped trillions from the global economy.
Right-wing influencers who hosted the then-presidential candidate on their shows and social media channels in an attempt to boost his popularity with young voters are now questioning his economic policies and urging him to backtrack.
While some podcasters have been tight-lipped on the financial impact of the sweeping economic changes, others have described losing up to $20 million (£15.7 million) in the wake of Mr Trump’s introduction of sweeping global tariffs on what he branded “liberation day”.
Among those who have broken ranks with Maga to criticise Mr Trump’s policy is Mr Shapiro, who suggested his tariffs were “probably unconstitutional” and “pretty crazy”.
The Daily Wire co-founder, who boasts 15 million followers across YouTube and X, has been a dedicated Maga supporter who fundraised for Mr Trump’s 2024 campaign and interviewed him on his podcast in October.
But this week he used his hour-long episode of The Ben Shapiro Show to criticise Mr Trump’s economic policy and throw his weight behind Elon Musk, who has reportedly urged the president to abandon his tariffs.
“The president’s vision of international trade is, I’m sorry to say, mistaken,” Mr Shapiro said.
Supporting Mr Musk, who has in recent days dissented against the administration and called for a “free-trade zone” between the US and Europe, Mr Shapiro said: “Musk is right. Musk happens to be 100 per cent right about this.”
“Musk himself suggested that he wants a zero-tariff situation, which again, this is a good explanation for why you would do the tariff game,” Mr Shapiro said.
“I urge the president to do precisely what Musk is saying here. Go to zero with all these countries. Go to zero.”
While Mr Shapiro has not disclosed whether his own net worth has suffered with the economic downturn in the past week, he has previously hosted podcast episodes in which he discusses investing in the stock market and financial literacy.
The roiling markets saw as much as $10 trillion wiped off global stocks in three days.
One Maga influencer who has been frank about the financial implications tariffs have had on his portfolio is Dave Portnoy, who criticised Mr Trump for playing golf while he saw $20 million wiped from his net worth.
Donald Trump at Trump National Golf Club on Sunday – Alex Brandon
Mr Portnoy, who owns media firm Barstool Sports, has supported Mr Trump in the past three presidential elections and interviewed the Republican leader at the White House in 2020.
The millionaire also said he had been tapped for a role in the Department of Commerce in this administration, but declined after he was told he would have to hand the running of Barstool Sports to someone else.
Mr Portnoy has in recent days lamented the battering his net worth has taken in the wake of Mr Trump’s tariffs.
On Friday, the “bro” influencer said he had lost $7 million (£5.5 million) – which on Monday he said had ballooned to $20 million.
Credit: @donwinslow
It is not known what his current loss stands at after stock markets were buoyed on Tuesday after Mr Trump said a deal between the US and China “will happen”.
“The stock market crashes on 9/11, yes. The stock market crashed [during] Covid, yes.
“But this is a decision that one guy made that crashed the whole stock market. That’s why we’re calling it Orange Monday and not Black Monday,” Mr Portnoy said on Monday.
“I didn’t love seeing him on the golf course playing his course championship and being like, ‘I’m a very low handicap.’ I didn’t love that,” he said, referring to comments the president made on Air Force One over the weekend, after taking Friday off to attend a golf tournament and dinner in Florida.
“The stock market is getting crushed. I’ve lost 20 per cent of my net worth. And you’re out on the golf course.”
“In my mind, Donald Trump just cost me $20 million with whatever he did. Maybe don’t be on the golf course,” he said. “Because I’m curled up in a ball in bed, sweating.”
Last month, the Barstool founder also criticised the Trump administration over the Signal leak, calling for somebody to “go down” for mistakenly adding a journalist to a group chat discussing an imminent strike on Houthi rebels.
However, Mr Portnoy added: “Do I like it? No. Am I crying, ‘Woe is me, I wish I voted for Kamala?’ No. Do I wish this didn’t go down like this? Yes,” Mr Portnoy said.
One influencer who waded into the Maga-sphere during the last election to support Mr Trump also announced he had lost at least $10 million (£7.8 million) in the market downturn.
Video game streamer Adin Ross, 24, gave Mr Trump a personalised Tesla Cybertruck and a Rolex after he appeared on his channel for an 80-minute interview.
In recent livestream Mr Ross said he had lost “eight figures” following the tariffs, to which his friend DJ Akademiks replied: “You over here like, damn, Kamala, come back to me.”
Mr Ross added: “It’s bad, I’m not gonna lie to you. It’ll get better, but it’s bad, though.”
Credit: X/@ClutchRodgersss
Mr Trump was also berated by the wife of one podcaster who gave Mr Trump a platform ahead of the election over the hit to their investments following the downturn.
Mr Trump appeared on the Flagrant podcast, which is hosted by Akaash Singh and Andrew Schulz, weeks before voters went to the polls in November 2024.
In a video shared on her TikTok account earlier this month, Mr Singh’s wife Jasleen questioned whether her husband is “happy” the stock market is crashing.
“Isn’t that what you wanted, because you interviewed Trump?” she said.
In the clip Mr Singh said he did not vote for Mr Trump and they would have hosted Ms Harris had they been given the opportunity.
“I’m not talking to you,” Ms Singh said, adding: “There goes our investment portfolio, you d—.”
Even Joe Rogan, undoubtedly the most influential podcaster to host and back Mr Trump ahead of the election, has broken ranks with the Republican leader in recent weeks.
Rogan spoke to Mr Trump in a three-hour-long interview shortly before the election last year.
The podcast, which has more than 57 million views on YouTube, is viewed as a key turning point with young, male voters, a demographic which shifted towards Mr Trump in 2024.
“Why are we upset at Canada? This is stupid, this over tariffs. We got to become friends with Canada again, this is so ridiculous”, Rogan said on his show last month.
“I can’t believe there is anti-American, anti-Canadian sentiment going on. ‘It’s the dumbest f—— feud… and I don’t think they should be our 51st state.”
Credit: YouTube/ JRE Clips
The podcaster also criticised the deportation of a makeup artist to El Salvador’s mega-prison, saying it was “horrific” that “people who aren’t criminals are getting lassoed up and deported”.
World leaders are scrambling to make a deal with Mr Trump to relieve the punitive tariffs.
But if the economic slump continues, even the Republican leader’s most loyal podcast followers may begin to experience buyer’s remorse.
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