Podcast host and comedian Andrew Schulz appears to have soured a bit on President Donald Trump, after a groundbreaking podcast interview with the president in 2024.
Schulz admitted in an interview with the New York Times that it was ‘disheartening’ to see the president pursue the deportation of working illegal immigrants who wanted a pathway to citizenship, as he had hoped for more ‘empathy’ from him on the issue.
‘[I]t doesn’t look like has been happening. This is disheartening for me,’ he said, speaking after the enhanced ICE raids took place in Los Angeles, sparking violent rioting in the city.
Schulz revealed in the interview he wanted to address three issues when he interviewed Trump in October 2024 for his Flagrant Podcast that he co-hosts with Akaash Singh, in vitro fertilization, immigration, and foreign wars in the Middle East.
At the time, Schulz asked Trump whether he would have ‘empathy’ for illegal immigrants, noting that a lot of them were working and wanted a path to citizenship.
‘You have to start with the criminals,’ Trump replied shortly, before pivoting away from the question.
When asked about the Middle East, Schultz praised him for developing the Abraham Accords and asked the president if he would pursue more diplomacy in the region if he was reelected.
Trump referred to a biblical prophecy in the book of Revelations about the end of the world, suggesting the escalation of war in the Middle East would lead to nuclear Armageddon.
Comedian Andrew Schulz
Andrew Schulz speaks onstage
‘You know, there are great philosophers that said the world will end in the Middle East. We’re not going to let that happen. You’ve heard that expression,’ Trump said. ‘We’re not going to let that happen, okay?’
Schultz’ brash and anti-woke comedic style found a huge audience online in just a few years and he now boasts 3 million YouTube subscribers.
Trump’s interview with Schulz and his friends on the podcast made a huge splash in the comedian community as the president spoke frankly about his interview strategy that included ‘the weave.’
‘I do a thing called the weave and there are those that are fair that say this guy is so genius. And then others would say, oh, he rambled. I don’t ramble,’ he said in a clip that was widely shared on social media.
The interview, which now has 9.6 million views on YouTube, was notable for revealing Trump’s sense of humor and authenticity as he spoke about politics.
Schulz was praised by his audience for asking about questions that were relevant to them, rather than focusing on making the president look bad.
Andrew Schulz explained the aspects of Trump’s presidency he was not happy with
Andrew Schulz attends a Netflix is a Joke event
Trump’s last-minute focus on interviews with comedian podcasters was later seen as an untraditional but successful way to reach last minute deciders, particularly young men.
In the Times, Schulz confirmed he voted for Trump in the 2024 election even though he considered himself a Democrat. He cited his dissatisfaction with Biden’s presidency.
‘I voted for Trump, yeah, but my vote was more like I voted against a Democratic institution that I feel was stripping the democratic process from its constituents,’ he said. ‘I didn’t like the way things were going, and Kamala was saying, Yeah, we’re going to keep doing that.’
Schulz said that he reached out to the Harris campaign for an interview through many different channels and he claimed the campaign lied about his efforts to interview them.
‘It’s wild to blatantly lie when not only did I reach out — Charlamagne, who’s working with them, reached out. Mark Cuban, who’s a surrogate, reached out, and we reached out, and they blatantly lie,’ he said.
Schultz said he reached out to then-transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, former President Barack Obama, and even former President Bill Clinton but they all turned him down.
After the election, however, Buttigieg, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and other Democrats appeared on his podcast to talk politics, comedy, and culture.
Schulz said he would continue to ask political figures about the questions that mattered to him, not just the questions that the media wanted him to ask.
‘What I’d like to see more is people asking the questions that they are curious about themselves, instead of trying to pander to what their audience is curious about,’ he said.
