How to Break the Internet (and Win Campaigns), With Alex Bruesewitz

Peter Hamby (0:05)

Welcome to The Making of a President, my new podcast for Puck about winning elections in the modern era as we head into the 2028 presidential race. My guest today is Alex Bruesewitz, the MAGA movement's social media whisperer.

Alex Just29 helped Donald Trump win back the White House in 2024 by honing the campaign's combative and boundary-pushing voice on the Internet. He shaped many of the memes and clips that flooded TikTok and Instagram during the campaign and helped bring young men into the Republican fold, while also taking a bat to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. As the CEO of X Strategies, Alex works outside the White House but still closely with Trump's team, and he remains one of the president's top liaisons to podcasters and celebrities like Joe Rogan and Nicki Minaj. Even as the president's approval ratings take a tumble. Alex has blunt opinions about politicians and how they should make content and compete for attention online. I asked him who's good at it, who's bad at it, which Democrats he's worried about heading into 2028, and which Republican candidate the MAGA internet might support after Trump leaves office.

Alex Bruesewitz, welcome to The Making of a President. How are you doing?

Alex Bruesewitz (1:25)

I'm doing great, man. Thank you for having me on and congratulations on your new show.

Peter Hamby (1:29)

Thanks, man. Thank you so much. Hey, I wanted to have you on today because you've described yourself jokingly to your mom as a professional tweeter.

I think I heard you on a podcast say, you're the president's social media guy. I'm just curious, heading into 2028, we obviously have the midterms now, I wanted your take on how you think about the internet, how Trump world thinks about the internet and what wins in the modern era across platforms. So before getting into that, I mean, you started your company X Strategies. I think you were like in your early 20s, it's been almost 10 years now. So can you just explain what your job is as it relates to the Republican MAGA ecosystem and the Trump White House?

Alex Bruesewitz (2:13)

Sure. I started my company when I was 19 in rural Wisconsin, and actually Ripon, Wisconsin.

My business partner was from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and we were both big supporters of President Donald Trump. I was retweeted by Trump for the first time when I was 17 I was sitting in study hall in high school, and I tweeted a picture of his hotel in Chicago, and I said the sign on Trump Chicago would look just as good on the White House. A few hours later, the president, then businessman, Donald Trump retweeted that post.

Peter Hamby (2:43)

Did you get a prom date out of that? That's a big deal for a high schooler.

Alex Bruesewitz (2:46)

I think I skipped prom my senior year. I was a little too cool for prom my senior year. But, you know, it was a pretty cool moment. And in that moment, he made a friend for life. A month later, I graduated high school. A month after I graduated high school, Donald Trump announced he was running for president for the first time. And so I was already a big supporter of his, a fanboy, if you will. And I spent a long time, you know, tweeting in support of him. He won in November of 16, and I started my consulting company shortly thereafter. And the whole purpose of it, what I was paying attention to was Donald Trump was bringing politics online. And I know you were early on that with your show on Snapchat, and you were an early adapter to digital campaigning.

But the president, he was really the first social media president. Obama got a lot of credit for, you know, posting on Twitter, but the president engaged on Twitter. And he was the first politician to really do so, I believe.

And because of that, I assumed that a lot of other Republican politicians were going to have to follow the president and get on to social media. And most of the Republicans back then were a bit older. And so it was like the only business that a 19-year-old with no experience could convince someone to hire them for and social media because, you know, every boomer they assume that young people know social media. So I took advantage of that moment and ended up building a pretty fun business. The whole purpose of it was to help Republicans communicate online in the age of Donald Trump. And we helped take in no-name people to virality almost overnight. People who were running for Congress became household congressional members.

And we had a lot of fun doing it. And so I've been doing it, as you mentioned, for about 10 years now.