Two of the biggest names in President Donald Trump’s influencer orbit just floated an idea that the “send Barron” crowd has been screaming about for weeks — and they did it while laughing.
In an episode of This Past Weekend that dropped Sunday morning, Theo Von and guest Jake Paul were discussing the Roman Empire when the conversation took a sharp turn toward the Iran war, Trump, and his 20-year-old son.
Von set up the premise: Roman politicians didn’t just send citizens to war — they fought alongside them. Paul, doing what Paul does, took it further.
“I think you’re right,” Paul said. “Trump should be on the front lines.”
Von didn’t miss a beat.
“Or Barron,” he said.
The Room After the Punchline
What followed was a riff about Barron Trump’s height making him an easy target and his looks drawing enemy attention. The tone was joking. The context was not.
Three days earlier, Von had already drawn blood. The episode landed three days after Von’s appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, where he delivered a nearly three-hour broadside against the Trump administration that turned the podcaster from MAGA-adjacent ally into one of the president’s most viral critics overnight.
On Rogan’s show, Von didn’t mince words. When Rogan noted the U.S. was supposedly trying to “stop the terrorists” in Iran, Von flipped the framing entirely: “That’s crazy, though, if you’re the f—ing terrorists. If you wanna stop them, stand in front of the f—ing mirror and start there.”
He also went after the broader class of politicians and wealthy families insulated from the consequences of war. “I’m sick of rich people not putting their f—ing kids over in these wars,” Von told Rogan. “Put your f—ing honky a– kids up there. Let them go shed some f—ing blood.”
Rogan’s response was to tell Von he was “losing his f—ing marbles.”
The People Who Helped Get Him Elected
Look at who’s talking.
Jake Paul received a personal endorsement from Trump on March 11 at a Kentucky event, where the president predicted Paul would run for office. Paul took the stage at Trump’s urging and told the crowd, “What Mr. Trump has taught me is courage.”
Twenty-five days later, he’s on a podcast suggesting Trump should be dodging bullets in Iran.
Von’s proximity runs even deeper. He hosted Trump on This Past Weekend during the 2024 campaign in what became one of the most-watched political podcast interviews of the cycle. He attended Trump’s second inauguration in January 2025 alongside both Paul brothers.
Image credit: @TheoVon/YouTube
By May 2025, he was performing comedy for U.S. troops in Qatar at Al Udeid Air Base, where Trump personally thanked him on stage, telling the crowd that his son Barron was the one who told him to do Von’s show.
That same Barron is the one Von just suggested should be on the front lines.
A Coalition With Cracks Running Through It
Von and Paul aren’t the only ones. The influencer coalition that helped carry Trump back to the White House has been fracturing since Operation Epic Fury launched joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in February.
Andrew Schulz, who hosted Trump on his Flagrant podcast days before the 2024 election, has said Trump is “doing the exact opposite of everything I voted for.” Rogan has called the Iran strikes “insane” and accused the administration of using the war to bury the Epstein files. The hashtag “send Barron” trended on X in the weeks following the first strikes.
Von himself acknowledged the tension in a post on X after the Rogan episode went viral: “I was angry and kind of scared. And I wouldn’t even have the freedom of speech if all types of people braver than me hadn’t sacrificed for it.”
None of them have fully broken with Trump. None of them have walked anything back, either.
The Part Nobody’s Saying Out Loud
The Roman Empire comparison Von made wasn’t random. It was the same point antiwar voices have made for centuries — that the people who start wars should have skin in the game. The difference is that this time, the people making the argument are the same ones who handed the war-maker his microphone.
And they’re still holding it.
