The Adam Mockler Show - Trump’s War BACKFIRES As Gen Z Revolts

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Click below for premium Adam Mockler content 👉 https://www.youtube.com/@adammockler/join 👉 https://adammockler.com/subscribe Adam Mockler with MeidasTouch Network reports on the growing political fallout from Trump era policies as gas prices surge amid escalating global tensions, Kristi Noem faces increasing backlash, and questions begin to emerge about the political future of Marjorie Taylor Greene as internal fractures inside the Republican Party continue to deepen. JOIN THE COMMUNITY: Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AdamMockler/ Discord: https://discord.gg/y9yzMU3Gff Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adammockler/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/adammockler.com/ Twitter: https://x.com/adammocklerr/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@adammockler Contact: [e-mail] Business inquiries: [e-mail] Adam Mockler - Mockler Media LLC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Something that's really been bothering myself, and I think a lot of young people watching this conflict breakout, is not only the contradictory answers coming from the administration on every single issue, but watching them mortgage away my generation's future by adding more and more debt, as you guys were talking about one minute ago. They pay $1 trillion per year just on the interest for our debt. We added $8 trillion throughout the Forever Wars where I was like four years old, five years old or whatever. And now we are sitting there watching them repeat the same mistakes as Lindsay Graham is for all thing at the mouth on Fox News and is they gaslight us and say that we don't actually have enough money for health care. We can't actually extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies. They say we can't invest in education or in this. But we all of the sudden have money to bomb girls schools if the girls' school is in Iran. So that bothers a lot of young people. I think that framework is very strong.

And unfortunately, it's been hijacked by the Nick Fuentes America First types. They kind of take it to an isolationist path. What does that mean? like Nick Fuentes and his America first, their cohorts will hijack the idea that we shouldn't be in forever wars to try to turn America into an isolationist country when that's not the real framework. The real framework is self-determination. The people of Ukraine should be supported because they are fighting a war where they can determine their future. I have a few different criteria. I have two criteria for funding wars. The first one is are they the good guys? And the second one is, will our funding them helped change the result of the war. So with Ukraine, I truly believe they are the good guys. For the second prong, I truly believe that us helping them or funding them will help them in this war.

The Nick Fuentes types want to regress from all of that. They want to stay super isolationist. And we just need to make sure that our language isn't hijacked when we're saying that, hey, I think we should put America first as well, but not in the way that Nick Fuentes. 100%. I think that is a really good point. Don't let that be hijacked. America first is different.

from America alone. If it's America alone, we lose our position as the world's superpower. Funding Ukraine is putting America first. Helping our allies is putting America first. But to answer your second question about Joe Rogan, I think that a lot of people who are impressionable, like Joe Rogan, I think he's very impressionable. They view Donald Trump as a change agent. And a lot of young people in my generation, through our most formative years, didn't remember

the conning he did throughout his first term. His first term, it was all just lies and cons. So then young people saw, oh, there's this orange guy who might be a change agent for the second time. I don't really remember the first time. And he ended up betraying people on affordability, on starting new wars, on every single issue. I think that Joe Rogan just liked, you know what the word I always go to is decisive. The Joe Rogan's fear, they want a leader who's decisive. For everything I dislike about Donald Trump, he is decisively dumb, but he's decisive. For everything that I adore about Kamala Harris, she was rather cautious during her campaign. So I think that was a framework that a lot of people looked at it. Except the confusing part this week is that or since the beginning of this war,

which is, you know, one and a half weeks now is that Trump seems to be indecisive. Normally he's decisive. But it's, Ali, Ali, that you're making Adam's point, like, you're, or you're making Joe Rogan's point. Because this is why Joe Rogan fans were attracted to Donald Trump. because he in their words like he does tell it like it is at least he does something at least he does and he says things that maybe are are inarticulate but he just you know he tells it to you plain you know where he stands right that's what we heard over and over again and it is true that if you sat down with comal harris there was a lot of words and connections and words on top of words and hope and synergies that you were like but what does that mean right and people were

exhausted and I'm not giving people were exhausted by the overcautious and carefulness of the Democratic Party. And you and I've talked about this so many times. Like Democrats don't want to run a victory lap until every kid in the country has a cupcake. And like boys and girls, not every kid's getting a cupcake. You got to take the win and move on. But now Donald Trump, he was so decisive. We're in a word salad bonanza every day. What he says is different from what Van says, which is different from what Pete Hagsett says, and then you got Caroline Levitt trying to serve it all up and turn it into a cake by 4 p.m. Just before. Here's what, here's a question I have for you. In this, because we're in primaries now, and Democrats have gone through a whole lot of hand-wringing about

being progressive versus being moderate. And it does seem to me to the point that Stephanie just made and the point that you just made, the Democrats who are most likely to succeed and who have been succeeding. It's almost beside the point where they are on the political spectrum of Democrats and more to do with the fact that they are prepared to go out there, be decisive and fight. Yes, decisive and forward-looking. For the past decade, the entire Democratic Party has been unified in our opposition to Donald Trump, which is good. We should be unified against authoritarianism, but we need a forward-looking vision for the country. So we can point to specific candidates like James Talarico, who won, not on an anti-Trump message. He is anti-Trump, but his message was forward.

It was anti-corruption. How can we take corruption out of the government and rewire it so special interest groups aren't benefiting disproportionately? I think that that forward-looking message really resonates with a lot of people, and it takes away the risk-averseness of Democrats to change up the system. Like, we were the status quo. The Democratic Party was the status quo, which is not something that you want to see. A lot of young people think that way. They look at it, and they also look at the people who are 80 to 100 years old who are still running for office and wonder about that. Yeah, I mean. Sorry, we're going to say? No, no, no, you. I was going to say, like, look at some of our leaders in Congress,

who I still have a lot of respect for, but, I mean, like Chuck Schumer doesn't resonate with a lot of people my age. So we need people like the Zoran Mamdani's or like the James Talaikos, but that doesn't mean that that works everywhere. Zoran could not win in Andy Bashir's seat. And maybe vice versa. So we need a large tent, a large tent. Yes, but the tent needs to look like people who are funny.

I know, I love it. I love it. This show got a lot better over since we should. trying to bring young people on it, Stephanie. There's no one's ever going to confuse Zora Mamdani with a Republican, ever. How vexing is it when you've got people like James Telerico that embrace faith? Or you have people like Governor West Moore who have made the central focus of their messaging about patriotism. Because sort of family values faith and being a patriot are two concepts that Republicans have successfully,

I'm going to say hijacked over the last few decades. And to watch two politicians like a Westmore or Tala Rico, take those ideas, take those ideals back and embody them in pretty extraordinary ways. How vexing is that for their Republican counterparts? It's amazing. Just to build on that, we've seated ground in a lot of topics where we didn't need to. So Obama had a really strong immigration message, like a really strong pro-America forward-looking immigration message.

Then Trump had a very strong immigration message. I would argue that Biden kind of lost it, especially around the end of his term. Biden wasn't quite articulating any immigration message that could captivate people. And due to that, Donald Trump had all this playing field to pull the country to the right. And then we can use that same framework with what you were just talking about with what issue. Well, with the affordability, with health care, all these things. Yeah. So having we actually have a quote, we have a video question that came to us yesterday from someone in Bryant Park on affordability.

Let's watch it. I feel like there's been a lot of talk about grocery prices rising recently, and I'm kind of just wondering when we can expect to see those go down and if politicians who are making these decisions that are lower and grocery prices are actually going to follow through with that promise. When was that recorded? It looks like that sweet girl went yesterday. So that poor girl just spent 12 bucks on a smoothie. So she's like, yeah, stuff's too expensive. You have to know that was recorded yesterday because this is New York. And two days ago, it was like full snow and all that kind of stuff.

I was in New York last night for CNN and they kept saying it was false spring. I never heard that before. False spring is I'm not familiar with that network. I don't know we were talking about. Okay. But either way. I think it's a great question because when you go back to Zoran Mamdani, and this is the part in which he's very much like Trump, except he's got better discipline

than Trump. He understood that for young people who live in New York City, you know, where Curtis Lewa, who was running against him was all about you're going to die in the subway. He understood that most young people in New York don't actually think a subway ride is existential, but they actually think their rent is existential. Their ability to rent something is existential, or at least existential to their ability to live in the city. Their ability to buy a house is existential. So he stuck to a message about here's what it is. But to deliver on that, lower groceries, lower bus fares and lower rent is a big, big undertaking that Zoran Mamdani had probably better be spending 18 hours a day on right now.

Yeah, and it seems like he's making progress on delivering on certain things. The reason I asked what day that was filmed is because, I mean, since this war has broken out, we've already seen a massive spike in gas prices. And due to energy prices increasing, you can reasonably assume other things will increase in price. So the economy is only getting worse. This is after Donald Trump's tariffs cost American families $1,000 in 2025. It's supposed to be like $1,300 in 2026. But you're getting $700 back.

Hopefully. I don't know if I'm doing anything. Okay, the reason what Adam is saying, I think is so crucially important, every single topic we have covered, these are meat and potatoes, life or death in some situations, issues for the American people. This morning, the president was outside the White House before he headed to Ohio and was talking about the Save Act and was sure to say, you know, we're looking to do this from a voting perspective, but we're also going to get in there. no transgender, no boys can play girls' sports, and no gender mutilation, reassignment, surgery for children, okay? These issues that are way out in the hinterland that impact the tiniest, tiniest fraction of the American people, okay?

He's going back to this culture war wedge issue. You can address culture war wedge issues when people can afford to put gas in their car to go to work, when AI hasn't wiped out their job so they can. go to work when they don't live in a town where the electric the electricity costs are jacked up so high and so the president where he he's standing outside the white house being asked questions about a war and he's taken us to a to a volleyball game in east brunswick new jersey or a trans 12 year old played in a in a in a in a club sport and then he has the goal to say the economy is a plus plus plus plus when that's clearly not how most americans feel yeah i mean he plus plus plus until you reach

the end of the driveway at Mar-a-Lago. But Adam, this is a very important point. When you're surrounded by 13 billionaires on a daily basis and have access to all the other billionaires, Stephanie and I are economics journalists. We have no beef with people making money, and we have no beef with people making lots of money. We love the fact that people come from all over the world to America because they feel like they've got to, if they can build a better mousetrap, they can get rich out of it, and we've got public markets that will fund them.

We love all of that stuff. But there is something perverse about the fact that there is no one in Donald Trump's circle at all who could have a meaningful conversation with him about gas prices or egg prices or affordability or how that actually has an impact on the average person. Even if they could, they're not willing to have an honest conversation with him about it. Yeah. And he's entirely, like he's caught in this massive bubble where he doesn't have any actual interaction with the average experience of Americans. And I think that manifests in the way that he talks about the economy every single day. I mean, he's going based off of his gut instinct and not any actual indicators. Yeah. Well, when he started talking about.

For young people who were excited about Donald Trump. Young men like you, not necessarily like young folks who were exhausted by what they considered oppressive or strangling wokeness, who didn't like the ways of the Democratic Party, didn't connect with Kamala Harris, felt like she spoke in words to. What's their lived. experience today? I had a friend who is vaguely liberal. He's largely liberal. He's like socially liberal. He grew up in a family with liberal. He called the Democratic Party suffocating like a year ago. And I think that was a good word. He felt suffocated, even though he agrees with a lot of the tenants of the

Democratic Party. Wait, here's what I want you to tell that friend that someone gave to us one day. The Democratic Party is like the HR department at work. Yeah. They are they are two things, finger waggy and risk averse. We talked about the risk ofverse earlier. But I swear, they'll wag your finger in your face. Like, did you, I had someone email me earlier and they were like, please stop calling Trump the president. Please just call him Donald Trump. I'm not going to watch your show. And I'm like, okay, you got to take a step back here for one second. But that's silly. Like, that's silly when people say, those are the same people who two weeks ago when I had the opportunity to go to lunch at the White House. People said, how dare you go to the White House? What do you mean?

How dare you go to the White House? So really, you're going to honestly cover the president how you do. He's the president. You're not going to say he's like he was elected president. And to do all of our jobs, you're going to say he's the president. I'm sorry. People used to say the same thing when I would cover Charlie Kirk. They'd say, why do you give air to Charlie Kirk? And I'd be like, listen, Charlie Kirk is in the air right now. This is like a year ago.

They have both chambers of Congress. They have the presidency. I'm not platforming Joe Rogan by covering what he's saying. I do not like him to say that. So just take a step back. If I put myself in the shoes of a young dude who weren't super political, like if I were apolitical and I were looking at both sides, I would find the Democrats to be effing annoying.

I would honestly think they were annoying. And now we're getting better at that. we're getting way better at being personable and real. But Zoran Mamdani's success with young people is clearly mapped on to the way Donald Trump had success with young people. They ran as change agents who broke the system. And I think a lot of conservatives missed that. When they say like how could all of these young socialists vote for Zoron? It's not even that.

Why is their confetti falling right now? That is wild. You know what? We do that for winning guests. When guests give good answers, they get back. When they give bad answers, the floor drops out and then they're off, they're off. But at this point that, Adam, I want you to elaborate on it, what people would say to you when you covered Charlie Kirk. Like, why are you giving a maritime? You're giving a maritime because that young man had enormous influence over millions and millions of people. When in the last election, I was doing a show once and I was talking about how I have a young white male son who,

is eligible to vote. And he doesn't feel like the Democratic Party includes him or speaks to him. And I had a guest on TV who very angrily almost wanted to walk off and say, I will not answer your son. I do not, I am not defined by the patriarchy. He will not change my view. You're right. I'm not asking you to give my son a party and I'm not asking you to feel bad for him. But if Democrats want to win, you got to try to get every freaking vote that's out there. Yeah, it's like we've become so inclusive, we'd circle back to becoming exclusive to certain groups. And I hate, I hate being like the guy that's like, oh, okay, here's the reality of it. When I talk about a lot of this stuff, I'm like, listen, my mom is somebody who is an I.O psychologist and she studied, she got her PhD. She studied

women in the workplace. Women have a very hard time in America, a very hard time in the workplace compared to men due to small things. Like my mom was saying that I wore a blazer on TV twice in a row. and she was like, if a woman tried to do that, tried to wear a repeat outfit, they would be at her throat. So it's very different. But just because that is true and just because we're calling this out

does not mean that we have to like exclude men or shush men or tell them to shut up or whatever. I think that there's a reality where we can be inclusive, we can have a message that everybody resonates with without pushing people away to go back to the Charlie Kirk piece really quickly. Look at Ali and I smiling. It's like we want to adopt you. I'm a little kid.

That's what, yeah, that's really quickly though with the Charlie Kirk thing. When I started doing this when I was 21 years old. It was going to Trump rallies. I grew up in Indiana and I drove to Iowa for my first ever Trump rally during the caucus. I went to IU for one year, then to Paul for one year. Then I dropped out of college, actually, because I'm building this media company. Kind of like Charlie Kirk. You're doing it, brother. You're doing it. But really quickly, I went to these Trump rallies and my first ever Trump rally, I was kind of nervous. I was 21. I had no platform. I was interviewing these supporters. And I went in with

the thesis that Trump supporters are very winnable. Like, these are human beings who just want to have conversations with someone on the other side. One of my most viral clips is a Trump supporter saying, let's stop funding Ukraine and put America first. And I said, but funding Ukraine is putting America first. We're protecting an ally. It's helping our economy and our military. And we're stopping Vladimir Putin in his tracks.

And this guy by the end of the clip went, wait a minute, I never had it explained to me like that. Kind of like the woman that we played earlier that was just genuinely asking. So when I see comments or say, don't reach out to MAGA, don't reach out to the 78 million people, 78 million Americans who are probably just a third of all eligible voting Americans.

Yeah. Like I have so many friends. That is the beauty and the magic of you. And the answer is to go to that rally, to speak to that neighbor, to pause and not. People who want us to be divided, we have to realize they're bad actors. They don't want democracy to thrive, right? They want us this way. If you ignore this idea that they,

there are silos and break through them and go to that rally. Well, by the way, lots of people, Ali and I both gone to Trump rallies. Lots of people go to Trump rallies because it's a social event. They happen in rural parts of the country where there's not necessarily a movie theater or a state fair or a concert or a sporting event that you could afford a ticket to. But you can go to a Trump rally and you can be in community. You know, I was,

is exactly what you're doing. It's to be in community and speak to people. Last July, July 4th, it was July 4th when we had the, the Army parade, Donald Trump's birthday parade. I went to cover that. And it was, you're penned in. Once you get in, you're locked in with everybody else who was there. I had far more people take selfies with me and say, thanks for coming. Like, thanks for at least being here and talking. And I had, like you said, Adam, I had really good conversations with people, many of whom said to me, I don't think we were

on the same, you know, we're on the same page politically, but thanks for being here and, you know, realizing that, hey, once you get past your partisan politics, there's an entire life that you share. the same air and we drink the same water. I do think there's much more room than than a lot of people allow for. I want to build on this. In fact, to a point I made before Adam joined us, there is a difference between listening to a set of facts

and forming an opinion and having an ideological bias. Go. No, sorry, I did not mean to cut you off. I was going to say there's also a big difference between the internet and reality. And that's exactly what I found with all these rallies. When you're online, everybody's at each other's next.

Everybody's wanting to take the other person down. I have people saying crazy stuff to me online. And then anytime I talk to someone in person, it's like the sweetest uncle or aunt from a different reality. It's like if my aunt ended up being Republican instead of liberal. And they always, I think it's my baby face. I disarm them really quickly because they're always like, oh, I love having this conversation with you.

And then from there, I pull them over to liberal side. And I say, you're with us now or whatever. But the reality is- But it's not about your politics. You're speaking to them because you're coming from a place of decency and compassion. And if we are not decent, we are nothing. And a lot of people, unfortunately, in my audience would say that these conversations are pointless or a waste of time. I will always push back against that. This country was founded on conversation in the same exact way, disagreement.

Now, I think that Donald Trump has sort of co-opted any political decency in this country. And that's why I get where they're coming from. They don't want Donald Trump's style of politics to be interacted with or whatever. But I think that many of our fellow Americans can be chatted with. I know they can because we have pride. strangers are friends we have not met yet. take the time to have an open mind and an open heart. I think there's one more thing we want to do before we go.

Ali, I'm going to let you lead it. Adam, did you see this McDonald's CEO trying the Archburger? I saw memes about it, but show you. I saw it before the meme. I saw it when he actually just posted it and did it. And I thought to myself, I don't know much about social media or memes. I'm very bad at it, but this is going to become a meme. But I will say I do think that McDonald's is delicious.

So the Arch is a big, big burger. It's a giant burger. It's bigger than a big Mac. It's two quarter pounders and extra stuff. And he takes this like delicate little bite of it. And it definitely seems like a guy who's never eaten at McDonald's ever. Let's play it. Let's say, here we go first.

Holy cow. God, that is a big burger. All right. The moment of truth. That is so good. That's a big bite for a big arch. Allie, I want to see you recreate that next week. I want to see you recreate the video next week.

Other than the fact that I'm gluten intolerance, so I'll have to replace a bun, but it was, I love that. And I, like, I credit to the guy. I think he was being genuinely who he is. I don't think he's McDonald's all that much, but, but it was a fun little thing. And it's all memes everywhere now. Every CEO of every burger place and everybody on Instagram.

Look at Adam. The point of what we had, the point of social media or the success that exists on social media is authenticity. And that right there is the opposite of that. It's like when Trump thinks his tariffs are doing way more than they actually are. And then it's just actually a small little. It's like, what are we even doing here? Yes.

That's a funny. Didn't that sort of war between other CEOs and they started taking bites of their sandwiches? Everybody, every CEO of every burger chain is now doing something like this. And all of them, whether they like it or not, look like they actually like or eat their burgers on a regular basis. Although, you know, they're all like slim guys who definitely, because they say, oh, I eat this for lunch every day. It's like, no, you definitely don't eat that double burger. I love the free market. The free market, baby.

I love the free market. You taking a small bite of their burgers. Sounds great. Adam, it is great to have you here. Thank you. You just ended our show saying you love free markets. There are no two hosts that you could say that to that would be happier than young Ali Bell, she and I.

Adam, thank you for joining us. And for you who joined us today.