Even among a long list of wacky Donald Trump moments, this clip was a head-turner: The former president. ask His interviewer asked a series of questions about his cocaine use. “It’s dirty and dirty, isn’t it?” Trump asked Theo Vaughan, who interview He for his YouTube podcast on August 20, This past weekend.
The clip went viral almost immediately, not only because it’s rare to hear a presidential candidate discuss drug use so openly, but because Trump, for once, seemed genuinely interested in a conversation that wasn’t about himself. It’s a strange “…who?” Moment for those unfamiliar with Vaughn, a mulleted stand-up comedian turned podcaster in the style of Joe Rogan. Digital media responded with a series of Theo Vaughn explainers, trying to explain what the relatively unremarkable comic might have gotten Trump’s attention.
But really, there’s not that much to explain—at least not about Vaughn himself. The shift in internet culture that brought him his platform, though, is a bit more interesting.
Vaughan — his full name is Theodor von Kurnatowski — is like a one-size-fits-all commentator whose personal political beliefs seem anodyne enough to make him palatable to people across the political spectrum; Interviewed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) just the previous week. With Trump, Vaughn mostly stuck to the personal (mutual friends in the UFC world, Kid Rock’s brother’s golf swing, moderation, how good Trump’s sons are at hunting) (they briefly discussed health care reform but mostly talked about how much they hate lobbyists). The interview’s big viral conversation about cocaine came when Vaughn tried in vain to talk Trump into policy on the opioid epidemic. The next chat about doing drugs was Trump redirecting the topic, but it was much more in line with Vaughn’s typical podcast conversation, which usually steers away from more provocative topics and toward topics like Brawling drunk mall Santas.
A veteran of the early 2000s reality TV industry The fear factor Once host Rogan thrived, Vonn first made her mark as a young contestant on MTV’s reality travel competition show. rules of the road. He later gained acclaim in shows like Comic Contest Last Comic Standing And Reality bites backHolds her own against other comedians like Amy Schumer and Tiffany Haddish In the early days of comedians becoming podcasters and vloggers, Vaughan became popular as a guest on other standup shows, though his own show, launched in 2016, took off and grew to a current audience of nearly 3 million subscribers.
The interview, which the pair said was organized by UFC CEO Dana White, was apparently part of a recent series of drop-ins by UFC-affiliated podcasters, including Vaughn, Adin Ross and Logan Paul. Yet there’s more here than just appealing to Trump’s love of wrestling. In his newsletter, author Max Read coined the term “Dipsheet Outreach” to describe the kind of everyman tour that Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, have embarked on. Reed’s thesis is that Vaughan, along with other podcasts, vlogs and livestreams that Trump has appeared on, attracts a certain kind of Trump-loving demographic. As he puts it, these are “guys who like the ‘cocky,’ trollish, hedonistic, attention-seeking personality.”
Vaughn skillfully brands himself as a relatable, down-to-earth type, essentially a Southern boy in what he describes as the rural, poor side of Covington, Louisiana. He’s more interested in people than in their politics, so we can think of Vaughn as more or less on the healthy end of the troll-magnet spectrum. That may be truer than the other men on Trump’s list, but he has had his moments.
Most notably, his 2015 appearance Bartcast Includes one with Bart Kreischer extended segment Where Vaughan repeatedly drops the n-word — the hard ‘r’. Vaughn used his in an anecdote where he claimed that black kids in his neighborhood used the term ironically, which he was simply conveying to his audience. He then proceeds with Kreischer, spending several minutes explaining why his use of the n-word in this context is actually okay. That’s not the only time he and Kreischer defend the inexplicable; Last year, he has joined Kreischer’s show Two bears, one cave to perform the same kind of performative justification—this time blackface for white men.
Although hard to hear, these conversations may set Vaughn apart from some of his peers in comedy — he doesn’t think one should be able to say the N-word because of free speech; He thinks he can say it personally, because he somehow earned it. As for blackface, he doesn’t think it should “count” when it’s donated by an otherwise marginalized person, because that person also earned it somehow. It is, in America, a whole kind of people.
It’s exactly the kind of content that Vaughan’s demographic likes and the kind of antagonism that Trump himself likes and gravitates toward. While much of Vaughn’s recent material is raunchy, it’s not insignificant that his popularity was built on this type of vibe.
Vaughn is older than both Ross and Paul, which carries a more direct appeal to Gen Z. But Vaughan’s own persona, though less alluring and ironic, has its own broad appeal; Much like country mega-star Morgan Wallen, he is often self-deprecating and self-deprecating, both as a way to display kinship and as a way to sidestep any moral objections to his tunes. Like Wallen, he’s already an admittedly imperfect narrator and commentator, so how can you hate him?
His stand-up comedy also weaponizes this strategy. A one point During a 2012 Comedy Central special, he paused mid-sentence to admonish people who were laughing at the “wrong” part of a joke about black people. “It’s not a joke, people who are laughing, it’s racism,” he says, in the middle of a string of jokes full of racist inferences. The admonition serves as both a diversion and a defense.
Of course, many comedians believe that the cause of comedy itself makes it an unassailable high ground that justifies the performance of outlandish and offensive material, and similarly lament the rise of fanciful “wook skalds” who criticize comedy aimed at the weak and marginalized. Unlike other similar comics — Shane Gillis comes to mind — who have doubled down on their offensive material in recent years, Vaughan avoids falling back on this rhetoric and mostly seems to avoid the conversation altogether. He’s eager to push buttons, but he’s not so eager to point out the consequences he might face for pushing them. Much like Rogan, while he aligns with Trump on vibes and his jokes often allow trolls and racists to laugh for all the wrong reasons, his own politics seem much more middle-of-the-road. In comedy, this effectively makes him mediocre.
Trump’s appearance on Vaughn’s show, then, just a week after Sanders’, says something about the breadth and potential of these so-called dipshits among his listeners. Two major figures from both sides of the political spectrum have chosen to appear in an ex rules of the road’s video podcast is a surprisingly kind consequence of a modern internet culture that makes comedians influential and podcasters pundits. Who will ultimately win their hearts — and votes — remains the question.
