Howard Stern Explains Why Trump Turned On Him

Following former President Donald Trump's recent criticisms of Howard Stern, the radio show host responded on Monday by mocking Trump's need to comment on his statements.

While Stern's content has recently become more outspokenly political and has included criticisms of Trump's actions as president, the dispute began after Stern went viral after he declared himself "woke" while calling out the right wing's derogatory use of the word. In response, Trump posted on Saturday to his social media platform, Truth Social, calling Stern "weak, pathetic, and disloyal."

In direct response, Stern called out Trump's comments on "The Howard Stern Show" on Monday as he was very confused over why Trump would be talking about him in the first place, seemingly mocking Trump for involving himself.

"My thought was—What? Imagine you got to be the 45th president of the United States and you're sitting and writing about Howard Stern [and] whether he's woke. You know, all of a sudden Trump saw me being discussed on all his conservative media things and he got charged up. And I'm disloyal? I stole the excitement for a minute or two," Stern said.

In reference to being called woke by critics last week, Stern countered by saying "I kind of take that as a compliment, that I'm woke...if woke means I can't get behind Trump, which is what I think it means, or that I support people who want to be transgender or I'm for the vaccine, dude, call me woke as you f****** want."

While addressing Trump's recent remarks, Stern continued to expand on his comments on being woke, which he said sparked the former president's interest as they were picked up by conservative media.

Stern explained that to him woke means not being mad at Bud Light for partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, getting the COVID vaccine, and supporting gay rights along with programs like Social Security and Medicaid.

"I don't know what woke exactly means. But I guess the opposite of woke to me is asleep and I think I'm awake," Stern said.

Although Trump has appeared on Stern's show over 20 times since the 1990s, Trump stated in his post on Saturday that Stern has since gone woke, and as a result "his influence is gone, and without that, he's got nothing."

Newsweek has reached out to Stern and Trump for additional comment.