Since getting his start in 1995 as Drew Pinsky’s right-hand man on Loveline, Adam has not paused for breath; in the 30 years since, he has accumulated one of the densest resumes in modern comedy.
Alongside his long-time friend Jimmy Kimmel, he created and hosted the wildly Man Show for Comedy Central. After leaving, the two would work together on multiple projects, including the cult puppet show Crank Yankers, and the underground prank-masterpiece Windy City Heat. Later, Adam would appear in No Safe Spaces alongside Dennis Prager, and would create, star and write his own animated comedy for the Daily Wire, Mr Birchum. Still, this only scratches the surface of his innumerable credits.
In 2006, he founded the pioneering Adam Carolla Show, - a podcast widely credited with codifying the format and, at one time, boasting the most monthly downloads of any in the world, and that he continues to host 20 years on.
Why did we invite him on?
This America trip has been, predictably, dominated by a single hurdle looming in the windshield: the mid-terms. Adam is our first interview on the other side of those elections. This was deliberate; after all, who better to assess the outcome?
Since joining us for the first time in the weeks following Trump’s second election, Adam has become one of our favourite recurring guests; his irreverent, bullsh*t-free style has been something we have long appreciated and are always happy to host. We knew what a pleasure it would be to hear the man weigh up the news in his trademark style, as well as consider the future of the American political status quo.
What did we talk about?
The USA has spoken, and they’ve handed the House and the Senate to the Democrats. It’d long been predicted, but it’s now inarguable - the next two years of American politics are going to look markedly different from the previous two.
How did that happen? How did Trump and his party squander the staggering comeback they secured in 2024? There were analysts at the time suggesting the Democrats wouldn’t have their hands on the levers of power for a decade, but the levers have been surrendered back in just two hours. Why?
Least ignorable is the Iran War. Where does Adam stand?
”With foreign wars, I can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t. We’ve had a long history of bombing the wrong people or spending too much time in places we shouldn’t have been. But it would be nice if Iran was no longer Iran.”
Vanishingly few commentators are defending the war at any level. While Adam’s support is hesitant and small, he puts himself in a very slim percentage class. Still, he stresses that, though he can’t fully-throated support the war as it is, he endorses it in theory; his is an ethical argument.
”I’m not really defending Trump; let’s remove him from the occasion. You voted for a guy, and he did something that was necessary but unpopular. Would you rather him risk that popularity to do the right thing? If this was a movie, that would be the heroic figure standing up for what they know is right. You could spin it that way, or you could say he’s an idiot that squandered the Republican victory. If we’re not sure whether we needed the war, that flattering story doesn’t work.”
To Adam, all this war talk is missing the real point: “It’s the economy, stupid.” If Americans weren’t feeling the bite of this war at the fuel pump, at the grocery store till, or when they treat themselves to lunch, they could forgive a foreign conflict. Even one they don’t understand. Unfortunately, there’s no hiding the costs of war, and regular people are covering them.
”It’s the economy more than the war. I think if prices were down in the grocery store, people would continue to vote Republican. Nothing really affects the human being like looking their bills. Cutting spending, increasing spending… that’s all kind of distant to people. It’s the price of everything that really got them …. And I guess you can’t really separate those things.”
This war is only one of Trump’s “failures”, if popularity is the metric you favour. The unsightly ICE raids, America’s ongoing and strengthening alliance with the increasingly disliked Israel, his perceived inability to end the Russia-Ukraine war, and ambivalence to the rise of AI. Put it together, and his party’s defeat is no surprise. Especially given what his opponent can promise.
