Do warring podcasters pose a problem for the political right — and for each other?

In Eugene Field’s famous poem “The Duel,” the gingham dog and the calico cat were stuffed toys that sat next to each other peaceably until the night they began fighting, “employing every tooth and claw/in the awfullest way you ever saw.”

There’s something like that happening in the world of conservative podcasting, where Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin and Candace Owens are feuding in ways that make it difficult to keep track of who’s on who’s side.

Two years ago, these podcasters were all on Edison Research’s list of the top 10 conservative podcasts, and they are still atop the charts. But instead of harnessing their collective power for common goals, some are hurling profane invectives at each other in the awfullest way you ever saw, to use Field’s language.

Here’s a sample of the recent name-calling on X:

“Emotionally unhinged, lewd, and petulant wreck” (Mark Levin on Megyn Kelly)

“ ... your moral preening, priggish lectures and holier-than-thou judgments are the reason you are losing fans and, more than that, friends, at a record rate.” (Megyn Kelly to Ben Shapiro).

“Megyn Kelly is a coward. Piers Morgan is a clickwhore.” (Ben Shapiro in a pinned post on X.)

The mudfights were being remarked upon as early as last summer. But the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the U.S. action in Iran has made the infighting more pronounced, delighting Democrats who see the meltdowns as evidence that Trump’s powerful MAGA coalition is coming apart at the seams. To them, the infighting seems a kind of mutually assured destruction that will benefit Democrats at the polls.

“The MAGA snake” has begun to eat itself, a columnist for the progressive online magazine Salon crowed last summer.

Not all supporters of Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement are involved. Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, who were also on Edison’s top 10 list, have largely stayed out of the fray, and Beck has been pleading for unity. Matt Walsh says that he has washed his hands of the “soap opera.”

Joe Rogan, who was never aligned with MAGA despite his election-eve endorsement of Trump, continues to dominate the genre, paying little attention to the podcasters beneath him in rankings (And for the record, Rogan’s podcast is considered comedy, not political.)

Although the conservatives’ bickering has spilled into public events, it’s largely online — and it’s worth remembering that only about 10% of Americans go to the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) daily, according to Pew Research Center. Fewer still use Truth Social, where Trump recently posted an endorsement of Levin.

So does the infighting between a handful of prominent podcasters really threaten the MAGA movement, or the GOP more broadly? Or are they strangely helping conservatism by bringing clarity to important issues?

Industry analysts say that conservative podcasters as a group are gaining followers, not losing them, and they are speaking to a different set of Americans than they were just 10 years ago. As such, by “employing every tooth and claw,” they may be growing more powerful. But then again, even the all-powerful Rogan may not be as powerful as assumed, when we take a granular look at the numbers.

The growth of conservative podcasts

Last year, Megyn Kelly’s show was named the best news podcast at the iHeart Radio Podcast Awards. This year’s award in that category went to The MeidasTouch Podcast, a left-leaning show that NPR has described as “anti-Trump.”

That may or may not reflect political winds, or audience disgust at Kelly’s profane attacks on Levin and others. But iHeart’s overall winner was a podcast called “Giggly Squad,” described on its YouTube channel as the hosts “(making) fun of everything, but most importantly themselves.”

The popularity of “Giggly Squad” offers a reality check for anyone inclined to believe that conservative personalities rule the podcast world as they have ruled AM talk radio. Political podcasters compete not just with each other but those in other genres, including true crime, food, history, advice and travel.

In fact, according to Edison Research at SSRS, comedy is the most popular genre, reaching twice the number of Americans in a week (about 56 million) than news/political podcasts (25 million) in an average week.

But viewership of conservative podcasts is growing, according to Signal Hill Insights, a Toronto-based company that tracks the industry. This is “a sudden and noteworthy shift from how podcast listeners have looked for years,” according to InsideRadio.com.

Paul Riismandel, president and CEO of Signal Hill Insights, said in an interview that in the early days of podcasting, the audience leaned to the left, in part because public radio was an early adopter with shows like “This American Life” and “Planet Money.” This was true as recently as 2022. In the first quarter of that year, Signal Hill’s survey of podcast listeners (done in conjunction with Triton Digital) found that 40% identified as Democrats, 24% as Republican and 19% as independent.

Three years later, 35% said they were Republican, 33% Democrat and 15% independent, a change that Riismandel says reflects the overall growth of the medium over a decade. “Podcasting was a comparatively niche medium in 2015... not necessarily reaching the grand middle,” he said.

It’s getting there.

About a third of the country listens to at least one podcast every week, according to Steve Goldstein, founder and CEO of the audio advisory company Amplifi Media. “It’s just now getting to mass appeal. The catalyst for that is video,” Goldstein told me.

YouTube has eclipsed Apple and Spotify as a podcast provider, meaning that podcasts are no longer something people listen to on their phones, but watch in their living rooms. (Last fall, Ashley Carman of Bloomberg reported, “viewers streamed more than 700 million hours of podcasts on their living room devices, nearly double the amount of time in the same month a year ago.”

“The term ‘podcast’ has become shorthand for personality-driven, on-demand programming, no matter how the audience chooses to consume it,” Goldstein, who teaches a course on the business of podcasting at New York University, wrote on Amplifi’s website.

As a medium, podcasting has become so important that even well-established media personalities like Sean Hannity feel compelled to enter the space. (Hannity launched a twice-weekly, longform podcast earlier this month, in addition to his established shows.)

And podcasts are attractive to politicians, as well. Barron Trump famously suggested that his father go on podcasts, contributing to Trump’s popularity among young male voters in the 2024 election.

A Signal Hill/Voxtopica poll showed that 49% of registered voters listen to podcasts weekly, compared to 37% of the general population. And a majority of podcast listeners say they trust the information they get on podcasts more than other forms of media, according to the same poll.

The top conservative podcasters

So which of the top conservative podcasts have the most reach? It’s a question that’s difficult to answer definitively, although many companies try.

The top podcast providers list their most popular shows, and while the same names show up consistently, they do so in different places and the rankings change constantly. There’s a difference between someone clicking on a show, and actually watching or listening to it all the way through; profits are sometimes tied to a combination of the two. “No single company or distribution platform dominates,” Riismandel said, and most consumers of podcasts (many of whom may opt out of data collection) use two or more platforms.

Complicating matters further, some personalities, such as Beck, still have an audience in terrestrial radio or on cable TV, as Levin does.

The top podcasts on YouTube for March 9-15 put Candace Owens in fourth place, Tucker Carlson in 17th and Megyn Kelly at 67th.

On the Spotify rankings Thursday, Carlson was No. 5; Owens, 11; Kelly, 49.

On Apple, Kelly was No. 18, Carlson was No. 21, and Owens was No. 22.

Then there’s the matter of subscribers.

On YouTube this week, Owens had 5.93 million subscribers; Carlson, 5.41 million, and Kelly, 4.19 million while Shapiro had 7.08 million and Levin, 93,000.

Yet Levin also has a show on Fox News and more followers (5 million) on X than Kelly (3.6 million). Carlson, who started his own media company when he separated from Fox, has more followers on X than any of the warring podcasters: 17.4 million.

Signal Hill Insights ranks 200 podcasts in conjunction with its partner, Triton Digital, using data from a survey of 12,000 consumers.

Right now, none of the feuding conservatives are in the top 10 (The top 3 are “The Joe Rogan Experience,” “Crime Junkie” and “The Daily”).

Carlson is No 12, Kelly 14, Shapiro 11, Owens 22, and “The Charlie Kirk Show” 24.

It’s difficult to compare these podcasters’ individual reach to that of stars on cable news networks, except for in Carlson’s case.

When Fox let him go in 2023, his show averaged 3 million views a night. He has exceeded that in some shows on YouTube (an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin two years ago has 22 million views; one with Nick Fuentes four months ago has 7 million), but some of his shows register under 1 million.

Grift or growth?

The feuding podcasters have accused each other of taking extreme and conspiratorial positions to grow their audience; others suggest, as Ashley Rindsberg did in The Free Press, that they are monetizing rage.

“A 60-second host read on The Tucker Carlson Show is listed at $45,000, with a minimum commitment of $450,000, according to the website for Red Seat Ventures, which manages Carlson’s business,” Rindsberg wrote. (Rates are not visible on the website without an account.)

To be fair, these podcasters are not running nonprofits, although journalists who cover them are interested in how much money they’re making, and how. (See Bloomberg’s analysis of conservative podcasters voicing politically tinged ads.)

It’s fair to assume, however, that they are interested in growing their audience, whether in order to charge more for ads or to win people to an ideology they honestly believe benefits the country. Both can be true at the same time.

Carlson’s page on the website of Red Seat Ventures, acquired by Fox in 2025, calls Carlson “the most powerful voice in conservative media.”

Kelly might take issue with that designation, given Edison’s assessment of her show.

Asked how the Kelly, Carlson and Shapiro shows performed relative to each other in recent months, Edison reviewed its data for the the past eight quarters and told me: “‘The Megyn Kelly Show’ has continued to rise and is in its strongest position since launch. ‘The Tucker Carlson Show’ is a little more static, but still on average ranks higher in 2025 vs. 2024. ‘The Ben Shapiro Show’ has dropped off in 2025 after a consistent showing in the Top 25.”

In the last quarter of 2025, Edison ranked Kelly’s show 13th; Carlson’s 20th and Shapiro’s 48th.

But NewsNation host Batya Ungar-Sargon had a different take on podcasters’ power over the weekend, calling them “influencers without influence” because Carlson, Kelly and others haven’t been able to lessen support among MAGA for the president and his agenda in Iran.

Did Charlie Kirk’s death spark the podcast wars?

“People might not have realized it when he was alive, but Charlie was the glue that held the conservative movement together. His abrupt departure left a void that’s proven impossible to fill. We’re all feeling the effects,” Carlson said last year.

The tensions were obvious at a Turning Point USA gathering that month, where Shapiro and Carlson were critical of each other. Candace Owens, who became an independent podcaster after separating from The Daily Wire in 2024, has been at the center of much of the infighting, with many conservatives disavowing her accusations that Turning Point USA employees “betrayed” their boss, among other accusations.

Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh recently washed his hands of all of the drama, saying he was disgusted by it. “The conservative commentariat now spends most of its time talking to itself about itself. It is increasingly divorced from the issues that impact actual Americans,” he wrote on X.

Walsh is not alone in feeling this way.

The long-term damage being done to each podcaster’s brand is hard to assess at this point, but polling suggests the Iran-centered feuding is having little effect on MAGA voters; about 90% of MAGA Republicans support the military action, according to polling by NBC.

Still, an election looms, notes Richard Fawal, the CEO and founder of Voxtopica, a Washington, D.C.-based company that produces audio and video programming and advises organizations and individuals on podcasting. And while last year’s rifts over Candace Owens and Turning Point USA could be dismissed by some as conspiracy-fueled, true-crime entertainment, the arguments going on now are serious ones over foreign policy, he said.

“If this was last year, this would just be entertainment. But this is a midterm election year, and Republicans were already at risk. Now you’ve got podcast listeners taking sides. If a Republican nominee for something is pro-war and they’re anti-war, are they going to stay home (in an election)?” Fawal said.

While there is chatter on social media about former fans abandoning various hosts, there’s no evidence in podcast rankings that supports a measurable exodus because of the feuding. Of course, the rankings show how many are consuming the content, not whether they agree with it, or even like the podcaster. Hate-watching is a thing.

And as Riismandel told me, “Ears don’t equal influence —necessarily.”

Moreover, there is what we could call the Rogan paradox. “The Joe Rogan Experience” is widely considered the most popular podcast across all genres. And yet, Riismandel said, “he is not listened to by the majority of podcast listeners.”

“Less than a quarter of podcast listeners probably listened to Joe Rogan this month. ... It’s a lot of people, and that’s not to be trifled with, but that still means that at least 75% of podcast consumers have not listened to him in the last month. There’s a lot to unpack there. And Tucker Carlson is far less popular. And Megyn Kelly is far less popular, and Candace Owens, and The Bulwark.”

Still, Riismandel said, when considering podcast influence, there are raw numbers and there are decibels. “If there are a lot of people all saying something to you very loudly, it’s hard as a human being not to pay attention.”

“They (conservative podcasters) are making real noise,” Goldstein agreed. That’s largely because of the amplification of video clips on social media, he said, but Goldstein believes that podcasts punch above their weight culturally.

Podcasters are also speaking to a much younger audience — the median age of a podcast listener is 39, compared to the median age of a cable news viewer, which is around 70. In trading cable news for podcasting, Carlson and Kelly are “speaking to a whole new audience, a new constituency.”

Which suggests that, unlike the gingham dog and the calico cat, which ultimately destroyed each other in “The Duel,” the warring podcasters will likely survive with their wealth and influence intact — but it remains to be seen if they’ll ever share a stage again.