Taylor Swift’s podcast appearance breaks Trump record, nearly doubling his viewership
Business News
Fortune

Taylor Swift’s podcast appearance breaks Trump record, nearly doubling his viewership

August 15, 2025
02:56 PM
3 min read
AI Enhanced
entertainmentmediamarket cyclesseasonal analysismarket

Key Takeaways

Trump appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience last October.

Article Overview

Quick insights and key information

Reading Time

3 min read

Estimated completion

Category

business news

Article classification

Published

August 15, 2025

02:56 PM

Source

Fortune

Original publisher

Key Topics
entertainmentmediamarket cyclesseasonal analysismarket

Arts & Entertainment·Taylor SwiftTaylor Swift’s podcast appearance breaks Trump record, nearly doubling his viewershipBy Chris MorrisBy Chris MorrisContributing WriterChris MorrisContributing WriterChris Morris is a contributing writer at Fortune, covering everything from general news to the game and theme park industries.SEE FULL BIO Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.Kansas City Star—Getty Images1.3 million people tuned into the first hour of Taylor Swift’s podcast appearance

That’s nearly twice as many that initially tuned into Trump’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast

Trump, who had a nine-month headstart, has more overall listeners, but Swift’s appearance is catching up quickly

Back in May, President Trump took to social media to declare Taylor Swift was “no longer ‘HOT’.” He might want to rethink that position

The pop star’s appearance on the New Heights podcast this week attracted 1.3 concurrent million viewers in its first hour

That’s just shy of twice as many people who tuned into The Joe Rogan Experience last October, when Trump was a guest

Trump’s appearance brought in 800,000 viewers in its first hour

Swift’s appearance also led to a massive boost in rs for the Travis and Jason Kelce podcast, with the total jumping from 2.85 million to 2.91 million people

The appearance was such an event that it overwhelmed YouTube

An hour and 44 minutes into the podcast, the premiere cut to black

The show’s official account on X/Twitter posted minutes later that the “will be back shortly” once nical issues were corrected

In the longer run, Trump’s appearance still has more overall views

To date, it has been watched 59 million times in the past nine months

Meanwhile, as of Friday morning, the YouTube version of the New Heights podcast had hit 15 million viewers

But Swift could catch up swiftly, though

On Thursday, Spotify said the New Heights episode, where she announced her new album and gave fans an insight into her life, was one of its most of the last year, increasing the average number of listeners by 3,000%

Trump has had something of a one-sided feud with Swift since 2020, when she endorsed Biden in the presidential race

He attempted to revive that in May and then again early August, calling the singer “woke” and claiming “Ever since I alerted the world as to what she was by saying … that I can’t stand her (HATE!)

She was booed out of the Super Bowl and became, NO LONGER HOT.” Swift has not replied to Trump’s taunts

Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world

Explore this year's list.