President Donald Trump departs after speaking about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. Alex Brandon/Pool via REUTERS
Even as the president remains a real and present danger, "the Trump era is essentially over," according to the D.C. insiders at Pod Save America, and the dim reaction to his big new event this week offers proof.
At Trump's behest, the GOP held an unprecedented midterm convention in Dallas this week, hoping to boost their chances heading into what is expected to be a bruising midterm cycle. Despite all the hype party officials made about this "Trumpapalooza" event, the chatter coming out of it ended up being extremely muted, with Pod Save America co-hosts and former Obama White House officials Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer digging into the implications.
"We're recording this Thursday night, so we don't have the Thursday night ratings, but Wednesday night, where Trump gave his two-hour speech, I think it was two and a half million people," former Obama director of speechwriting Jon Favreau detailed.
"Which is flat over what [Fox News host Sean] Hannity gets normally at the exact same time on Fox," former Obama communications director Dan Pfeiffer responded.
Favreau explained further that the reach of the convention was hobbled by places like CNN, MS NOW and the major networks opting not to cover it. Only C-SPAN and right-wing outlets like Fox, Newsmax and OANN provided coverage, which Favreau dismissed as "just kind of speaking to the choir" and failing to reach persuadable voters.
Favreau also cited the "What's Resonating" Substack newsletter, which provided data-driven insights about stories that are gaining traction online.
"Nothing," he said. "Nothing about the convention was being discussed online today at all... or breaking through."
Pfeiffer went a step further, arguing that this distinct lack of buzz was indicative of a continuing trend with Trump and his ability to command the public's attention.
"This gets to your point that just everyone can feel that the Trump era is essentially over," Pfeiffer said. "He's not gone. He's still very dangerous. He can do very, very bad things for the next few years... But his political relevance is over. He's less interesting to people. He's less frightening to people. His ability to dominate the conversation is greatly diminished. He's still talking. Fewer people are listening. Fewer people care... you could feel that through the entire convention."
Elsewhere in the episode, Favreau argued that the GOP overall was sounding "extremely old and tired" throughout the convention, with no new ideas or strategies to share.
"The Republicans are just like, here's there's nothing new there," he said. "We've been dealing with this... like, 10 years of this now, and it's like, it's glazing Trump and the Democrats are going to kill you. That's it. They don't have anything else to say about anything, and like their culture war that they sprinkle in. That is also sounding extremely old and tired, and all the lines we've heard before."