Conservative media turns on Trump as broken promises further fracture his base

Reporters raise their hands during a press briefing with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 10, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci

President Donald Trump is facing pushback from conservatives, some of whom are turning on him because of his unpopular war in Iran — and others because he is not fulfilling his own professed political goals.

"At a moment when the opposition seems pretty energized, it's hard to ignore that Republicans don't seem to match the urgency,” The Federalist's elections correspondent Brianna Lyman wrote on Sunday in an editorial that juxtaposed Democrats’ high turnout for the No Kings protests with Republicans’ comparatively lackadaisical attitude. While Lyman was no fan of the No Kings protests, which she characterized as “stupid,” she also blasted Trump and his fellow Republicans for lacking the aforementioned sense of “urgency.”

As one example, Lyman wrote that “the Republican-controlled Senate has failed to confirm more than 50 Trump-appointed nominees, as reported by The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd. Add in rising gas prices amid an ongoing war, and the result is a political environment where voters are likely to feel less than enthusiastic about heading to the polls.” She also focused on the president’s bill to require increased voter ID for people to cast ballots, a measure critics argue is an attempt to rig the 2026 midterm elections.

"Republicans — with a majority in both chambers of Congress — have yet to get the SAVE America Act to Trump's desk,” Lyman said. "Yet Thune has come up with excuse after excuse, talking like he wants to pass the legislation while failing to take the measures necessary to do so."

Lyman also argued, "Thune refuses to use a talking filibuster to pass the legislation, which would require no rule changes.” By contrast, Lyman seemingly could not help but acknowledge that the No Kings protests which she deplored at least energized opponents of Trump, something that his own party has failed to accomplish.

“On social media there’s no shortage of Republicans mocking the protests — and with good reason,” Lyman said. “But however stupid the message of the ‘No Kings’ protests, the left nonetheless managed to mobilize millions of people, including current and future voters.”

A more centrist conservative, The Bulwark’s managing editor Sam Stein, has also noticed a waning of enthusiasm for Trump, in his case among the swing voters who helped him win in the 2024 presidential election.

“I think the risk for Trump here is twofold,” Stein said during an appearance on MS NOW with host Katy Tur. He identified two right-leaning podcasters, Andrew Schulz and Joe Rogan, who have turned on Trump because of their opposition to his invasions of Venezuela and Iran.

“These are the podcasts that were gateways to a whole slice of the electorate that was just politically curious — not politically active — but they did get involved in 2024, and they got involved largely on behalf of Donald Trump,” Stein explained. “Andrew Schulz, Rogan, and others activated them. But the other risk is that they're now potentially turning Donald Trump into a cultural punchline — that he's an idiot, that his supporters are dorks, that he's been fooled into doing all this stuff, and that he is a failure.”

Stein added, “Donald Trump, for better or for worse, has had an incredible ability to shape perceptions of himself and the cultural relevance that he has. And to a degree, he loses that control when these people turn on him — when his own supporters turn on him. That hasn't really happened in the entirety of his political career.”

While Schulz has some way, Rogan has been America’s number one podcaster for years, and his support for Trump is widely perceived as having helped normalize the far right politician to millions of people. Yet after Trump invaded Iran, Rogan began to describe Trump supporters as feeling “betrayed.”

“Well, it just seems so insane, based on what he ran on. I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right?” Rogan said. “He ran on, ‘No more wars,’ ‘End these stupid, senseless wars,’ and then we have one that we can’t even really clearly define why we did it.”

In February Rogan also warned that Trump’s ongoing cover up of documents related to the late child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein — who was close friends with Trump from the 1980s to the 2000s — looks “terrible.”

“Who knows what f — — happens with all this Epstein files s — —,” Rogan said. “It just keeps getting crazier and crazier and crazier and deeper and deeper.”

He added, “Why would your name be redacted if you’re not a victim? Like, this is what’s crazy about all this. Like, how come you redact some people and you don’t redact other people?”

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