Liberal Icons of the Press Like Michelle Obama, Dylan Mulvaney Struggle for Audiences as Trump Dominates the National Discourse

As President Trump and Republicans in Congress work to reshape the federal government, the press and entertainment field is shifting, and one-time liberal icons are seeing significant declines in their influence and audiences.Two liberal icons have seen their newest ventures launch this week with lackluster performances despite substantial hype and promotion surrounding them. The transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney’s newly released memoir “Paper Doll: Notes From a Late Bloomer,” has so far failed to make much of a splash, debuting on Amazon’s best-seller list at #818 despite television appearances on popular shows such as “The View” and others.Former First Lady Michelle Obama’s newly launched podcast “IMO,” a collaboration with her basketball executive brother, debuted this week as the 23rd most popular in America. While Spotify’s list does not disclose listener data, the ranking appears to support speculation that the former first lady has lost some of her pop culture star power.According to YouTube, Mrs. Obama’s interview with actress Issa Rae in the first episode garnered 18,000 viewers as of Thursday morning. By contrast, a recent interview podcaster Joe Rogan did with venture capitalist Jacques Vallée, posted around the same time as Mrs. Obama’s video, received 816,000 views. A recent interview with Elon Musk by Mr. Rogan received about 12 million views. The apparent lack of interest in her podcast appears to be a rare flop for Mrs. Obama. She has written two best sellers, and her film company, Higher Ground, produced “American Factory,” which won the Oscar for best documentary in 2020. In the podcast space overall, liberal commentators seem to be a little bit more competitive. According to Spotify, the liberal show “The MeidasTouch Podcast” is the third most popular podcast in all categories in America, while Governor Newsom’s new “This is Gavin Newsom” is the fifth most popular. As it has for years, Mr. Rogan’s “The Joe Rogan Experience” remains the No. 1 most popular podcast in America. Meanwhile, conservative commentators Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, and Candace Owens made it into the top 15 most popular podcasts, and Megyn Kelly and Ben Shapiro rank higher than Ms. Maddow’s show on Spotify’s list of “news” podcasts. While the podcast world is fairly competitive, ratings at the two left-leaning cable news networks, CNN and MSNBC, have declined significantly since the 2024 election. CNN announced 200 layoffs in January. The network insisted the cuts were “not a cost-saving exercise,” but are part of an effort to invest more in its digital operations as its owner Warner Bros. Discovery is making a $70 million investment in the network. However, the job cuts came as the network saw its ratings plummet, drawing just 1.8 million viewers for its coverage of Mr. Trump’s inauguration compared to 8 million for President Biden’s. In February, CNN averaged 553,000 viewers during the primetime hours and 433,000 during the daytime. Those numbers represented an increase from January, but its primetime audience is now down 3 percent compared to 2024 and its total day audience is down 10 percent. Liberal MSNBC’s numbers were higher, with an average of 1.126 million average viewers during the primetime hours and 638,000 during the daytime. The primetime viewership is up 54 percent compared to January, and 26 percent during the daytime. However, it is still down 16 percent from its 2024 primetime audience and down 25 percent during the daytime. That drop comes as its most popular host, Rachel Maddow, who reportedly makes $25 million a year, has lost roughly a quarter of her audience. From the beginning of 2024 until the election, Ms. Maddow averaged 2.3 million viewers. From the election until March 7, her audience dropped by 22 percent to 1.8 million viewers. Another popular MSNBC host, Nicolle Wallace, averaged 1.6 million viewers from the beginning of 2024 until the election. However, since the start of 2025, she has averaged 1.1 million viewers, down 25 percent from the same time last year. In sharp contrast to the liberal networks, Fox News averaged 3.091 million viewers in primetime and 1.999 million total day viewers in February. And in a first, ratings during the primetime evening hours for Fox News surpassed even the traditional broadcast networks during the week beginning March 3.

Liberal Icons of the Press Like Michelle Obama, Dylan Mulvaney Struggle for Audiences as Trump Dominates the National Discourse

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