'Frustration': Conservative callers vent about Trump on right-wing talk radio

Even conservatives are angry about President Donald Trump’s second time in office.

This according to Angelo Carusone, President of Media Matters, who identified instances where listeners have called into right-wing talk radio to voice their frustrations with the presidency, particularly about mass firings of federal workers by the Department of Government Efficiency. He outlined the findings with Tim Miller, host of the Bulwark Podcast.

“Usually the right wing is an echo chamber… especially with Trump. But that’s not entirely the case — not from the hosts on right wing talk radio, but from the callers,” Carusone said.

“Basically what you’re saying is listening to the callers… you’ve got a couple examples of listeners who are calling in and b----ing about DOGE who are obviously conservative listeners,” Miller said.

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Carusone said many of the callers are people who lost their jobs or know people who lost their jobs. “They are appealing to these media figures to advocate in some way,” he said. “They’re giving Trump the benefit of the doubt, but they’re expressing frustration and they’re hoping that people like [Sean] Hannity, or Clay Travis, can set the record straight.”

For example, one listener called into Fox News host Sean Hannity’s show: “One of our tenants,” they said, “just recently got laid off from the USDA, and he's a stable vet, multiple deployments overseas. And yeah, the guy is without a job now, and I'm just afraid that, you know, stuff like this is going to get out there.” They added that it’s “just a little concerning that we don't let these guys, you know, fall off the wagon here and get neglected, because they've done so much for our country.”

“There’s this moment where the callers are sort of putting things out there especially about the job losses and they’re either saying it’s overly broad, it’s inconsiderate, that they’re not part of the deep state and they are hoping that these figures will appeal to them,” Carusone said.

He added that these callers did not seem to be an “astroturf” scenario where people were faking their identities. “You can kind of tell the authenticity,” he said. “They’re genuinely not trying to mess with their host. They’re really hoping that they will exercise some leadership or maybe clarify for the administration.”

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“I’m very surprised by how many calls there are,” he said later, “because, just to take a step back, these call-in shows… have millions of listeners. People are getting call-ins all the time. They’re screened. So if you’re letting some of these calls through… it’s like when somebody calls a member of Congress, they always assume that there’s a certain number that are just like that that didn’t actually call. It’s the same thing here. If you’re a radio host, if you’re a show, you’re letting some of these calls through, which means you’re getting a lot of that topic.”

Watch the video below or at this link.