Why Gen Z bros are ditching their MAGA hats

The young men souring on Trump over Iran and Israel, Epstein, and the economy.

The numbers are clear: President Donald Trump’s approval rating is cratering across the board, and he’s losing the most ground with groups that were key demographics to his win in 2024.

In that election, men under 30 broke for Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris by about a single point — not a lot, but a big improvement for Republicans, who have struggled with young voters. This year, Trump’s approval with that same group has collapsed. A recent CNN poll had him underwater by roughly 55 points with the same group.

We wanted to understand what’s going on, so America, Actually headed to Washington for Trump’s June 14 UFC event on the South Lawn of the White House. It was a night practically engineered for the White House to speak directly to young men (plus Trump’s own love of combat sports like UFC). My question to attendees was pretty simple: Has their age cohort really turned on Trump, or is this just noise?

What I heard — from the guys standing in line and from Jack Posobiec, the far-right activist who has spent years selling Trump to this audience — is that the softening is real. Three things kept coming up as an explanation:

Almost every person I talked to came back to prices. Trump’s election was built off the promise of cheaper gas and cheaper groceries — and the very literal receipts haven’t backed that up. As one young man put it to me: “[Trump] said he was anti-war. He said he was gonna lower prices, and........

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