Comedian Theo Von is one of the most prominent faces of the so-called “manosphere,” the ever-present online network built on the foundation of masculinity and dominance.
But while recording an episode of his podcast last week, he was overcome with emotion.
“My father immigrated here from Nicaragua. One of my prized possessions is his immigration papers from when he came here—I have them in frame,” a visibly distraught Von said on his show This Past Weekend. “This was just f–ked up. It was f–ked up.”
Last month, the Department of Homeland Security featured Von in a video promoting the Trump administration’s contentious mass immigration plan.
“Heard you got deported, dude. Bye!” Von can be heard saying in an edited clip—something he was quick to voice displeasure with online. “Yooo DHS i didnt approve to be used in this. I know you know my address so send a check. And please take this down and please keep me out of your ‘banger’ deportation videos,” Von wrote in a now-deleted post.
Von, who did not respond to a request for comment, is one of several podcast bros credited with strengthening Donald Trump’s connection to young men by hosting him during the 2024 campaign and facilitating friendly conversations that largely avoided policy discussion (“That’s down and dirty, right?”). He and his peers draw tens of millions of listeners each week, an audience that data shows increasingly identifies as Republican.
Yet nine months later, Von is among several podcasters who appear to be distancing themselves from the Trump administration’s most hardline policies—perhaps non more prominent than Trump’s widely criticized immigration crackdown.
NBC News reported in September that just one-third of U.S. adults aged 18 to 29 approved of Trump’s handling of deportations and immigration, while 67 percent disapproved.
Meanwhile, Trump has seen his popularity sink among Americans, with 58% saying they disapprove of him in a new CBS/YouGov poll conducted earlier this month.
And that disapproval is echoed by the very voices shaping young male political culture.
Joe Rogan, who previously endorsed Trump, has slammed the administration’s “insane” immigration raids targeting ordinary laborers, despite Trump’s original campaign pledge to focus deportation efforts on the “worst of the worst.”
“I don’t think anybody would have signed up for [this],” Rogan said in July.
He’s also criticized the president’s “gaslighting” over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and, more recently, called the Trump administration’s pressure on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “crazy.”
“The companies, if they’re being pressured by the government… and if people on the right are like, ‘Yeah, go get ’em,’ oh my god, you’re crazy,” Rogan said last month. “You’re crazy for supporting this. Because this will be used on you.”
Kick streamer Adin Ross, who also interviewed Trump and encouraged fans to vote for him, told viewers he regretted ever getting involved in politics, Rolling Stone reported.
“I just don’t think I’ll ever care enough again for another politician,” he said.
Flagrant podcast host Andrew Schulz—who once gleefully celebrated a fan telling him, “Flagrant is gonna get Trump elected”—torched the president in July 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.”
While Trump hasn’t returned to the podcast circuit since his campaign, it’s clear his team recognizes the risks of losing support from the bros.
In August, senior Trump officials reportedly considered tapping megastar podcaster Joe Rogan to help contain fallout from the ongoing Epstein controversy.
In the summer, Von also hosted Vance on his show amid mounting criticism over Israel’s war in Gaza, directly telling that videos from Gaza were “the sickest thing” and that “where it gets scary is that we give, you know, we’re complicit in it because we help fund, like, military stuff.”
But as the bros begin to see things differently, others say they have little sympathy.
“You voted for all of this, you were just too biased to see the truth,” one Reddit user wrote, referring to the bros. “No one else is shocked by anything Trump is doing.”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
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