Donald Trump Is ‘Smarter’ Than All His Critics
Van Jones, a former adviser to President Barack Obama and a current CNN political commentator, made headlines on Friday with his take on Donald Trump.
Speaking in a video shared on Chris Cillizza’s YouTube channel, Jones described the President-elect as “smarter” than his critics.
During the discussion, Cillizza posed a thought-provoking question: “How the hell did Donald Trump figure out that the mainstream media is now the fringe, and the fringe has become the mainstream?” Jones’s response sparked further debate about Trump’s unconventional approach and its impact on political norms.
Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in the recent election is widely attributed to the growing influence of right-wing alternative media. “The booming right-wing influencer ecosystem helped reelect Donald Trump,” wrote Spencer Kornhaber in The Atlantic just two days after the election in an article titled Why Democrats Are Losing the Culture War.
One standout example of Trump’s savvy use of these platforms was his nearly three-hour interview with Joe Rogan in late October. Rogan, whose podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, boasts millions of listeners, endorsed Trump just before Election Day.
While Harris also engaged with both traditional and non-traditional media during her campaign, she notably did not appear on Rogan’s show—a move some see as a missed opportunity.
“People keep asking, ‘How can Donald Trump? How can Donald Trump?’ Can we stop with that framework?” said Van Jones, a former adviser in the Obama administration, during a conversation with Chris Cillizza. “Donald Trump is not an idiot.
Let’s be clear—he’s smarter than me, you, and all of his critics. How do I know? Because he has the White House, the Senate, the House, the Supreme Court, and the popular vote.”
The GOP took control of the Senate, with 53 Republicans to 47 Democrats and the House with 220 Republicans and 215 Democrats in this year’s election. Meanwhile, as of Sunday, Trump has received 2.4 million more votes than Harris (77,168,458 to 74,749,891).
When broken down into percentages, Trump has gotten 49.9 percent of the popular vote compared to Harris’ 48.3 percent. Meanwhile, during his first term in office, Trump nominated three conservative-leaning Supreme Court justices, tilting the Court in his party’s favor.
“[Trump] has a massive media ecosystem bigger than the mainstream built around him and for him and a religious fervor in a political movement around him. And his best buddy is the richest person in the history of the world, and the most relevant Kennedy is with him,” Jones said on Friday.
The former adviser was referring to tech billionaire Elon Musk, who Trump tapped to lead his proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with biotech entrepreneur and former 2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former 2024 independent presidential candidate who Trump picked to be the new health and human services secretary,
“This guy is a phenomenon. He’s the most powerful person on Earth, maybe in our lifetime. And yet we’re still sitting here asking, ‘Who is this guy?’ We look like fools to regular people,” Jones said.
Newsweek reached out to Trump’s transition team for comment via email on Sunday afternoon.
This week, Trump was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.” During an interview for the issue, Trump was asked if he thought Kamala Harris had made any strategic missteps that cost her the election.
“I think when she wouldn’t talk to anybody, it really put a spotlight on her,” Trump said. “If she’d just gone out and done interviews… People started asking, ‘Is something wrong with her?’
Why wouldn’t they? Look at me—I’m doing this interview with you. I’d talk to anyone who asked if I had the time. I think the Joe Rogan interview, for example, went on for almost three and a half hours.”