Americans for Ibogaine CEO W. Bryan Hubbard and podcaster Joe Rogan hug next to U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as U.S. President Donald Trump gestures in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., April 18, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard REFILE
The New Republic's Greg Sargent started off Monday with his podcast exploring the contempt President Donald Trump has for his own voters.
Speaking to colleague Perry Bacon, who has a new piece on the far-right across the world turning on Trump, Sargent describes fears of being "excommunicated" for lacking sufficient devotion, a perfect indication that the movement became a cult.
In one of his Sunday TruthSocial rants, Trump claimed, “I have among the best poll numbers I have ever had, and why shouldn’t I? ALL THE COUNTRY DOES IS WIN.”
He then pivoted to attack his MAGA critics, “I hear Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, and Candace Owens are fading fast. Their numbers are terrible. They were FAKE MAGA, and now they’ve been exposed!”
As Sargent explained, the comments perfectly capture Trump's disdain for his own movement.
"Perry, we used to joke that MAGA is whatever Trump says it is, but here he’s making that really clear. Anyone who dares to criticize him is fake MAGA," said Sargent.
Bacon called it "very explicit."
"As you said, we’ve been talking about a movement or whether MAGA is a movement or an ideology or something else, or just Donald Trump. And, you know, I’ve written and used that phrase to mean other things, but like Donald Trump is saying, what I’ve always thought, which is that MAGA is Donald Trump and will be gone the moment he’s off the scene, whenever that is," he said.
Trump's poll brag, paired with labeling his supporters "fake MAGA" for buying his empty promises, only amplifies his contempt, the pair agreed. It led Sargent to probe whether MAGA really swallows whatever Trump dishes out.
"To be fair to them, they have some evidence of that. Remember, there were polls in 2016 that showed Republicans used to pretty much be opposed to Russia. And then a lot of them started approving of Russia once Trump—they used to say, we don’t want an adulterer as president. And then they changed their mind about that," Bacon explained. "So the idea that the base is Trump supporters and the base believes whatever Trump said that day is pretty much what’s happened the last 10 years."
Sargent found it darkly amusing, recalling how Obama critics relentlessly mocked the left as an "Obama cult."
"But it’s just sort of weirdly ironic that they lobbed that criticism, and Trump is explicitly saying that I tell my voters what to think—period, end of story," he continued.
"He’s invoking the idea that he should be compared to Jesus Christ. This is something I never would have thought Republican voters would have been for before. So yes," Bacon agreed.
That is the issue Sargent said he'd like to see polls ask about, to fully understand how far MAGA is willing to compromise on its values to remain in the group. It will also determine whether MAGA can survive without him after his term is up.