When former President Donald Trump sat across from Dr. Phil McGraw for an interview last week, the similarities between the two reality stars were difficult to ignore.
They are both white, straight, wealthy men who loom large, both heightwise and in the zeitgeist. Both have entertained the American public for years. From 2004 to 2023, “Dr. Phil” slaked our thirst for daytime reality TV with its surly children, unfaithful spouses, and that one teen who swore she was pregnant with Jesus. From 2004 to 2015, Trump ruled America’s (fake) boardrooms as the host of “The Apprentice.”
Both McGraw and Trump rose to true mainstream prominence in TV contexts that hinged on their purported authority.
Both McGraw and Trump rose to true mainstream prominence in TV contexts that hinged on their purported authority, their shows positioning them as credentialed experts in the fields of mental health and business, respectively. They sat in judgment of others, and these judgments were crystallized in their catch phrases. And both men have positioned themselves as political thought leaders.
It’s tempting to view last week’s interview with Trump as another step in McGraw’s evolution from nonpartisan talk-show host to conservative pundit. But that is an overly simplistic understanding of his milieu. While McGraw’s current alignment with political conservatism may be jarring to some, it wasn’t exactly a sharp right turn. Under its patina of nonpartisanship, “Dr. Phil” always crackled with conservative morality.
It’s true that toward the end of its run in 2023, the show began to tackle “culture war” topics such as transgender athletes, critical race theory and abortion. Increasingly extreme guests, such as Fox News and PragerU personalities and members of controversial groups like “Moms for Liberty” popped up with more frequency to argue for their causes.
Then, McGraw launched his network Merit Street Media in 2024, in partnership with Trinity Broadcasting Network, a Christian right outlet touting itself as “a global force in Christian broadcasting.” It was on this new network that McGraw interviewed Trump for roughly an hour. While he did not explicitly endorse Trump as a candidate, it was clear where his political sympathies lay. “They need to stop this. They need to stop pursuing you,” the talk-show host told the former president, leaving no doubt how he felt about Trump’s recent felony conviction.
But even in the show’s heyday, culturally conservative values remained a backbone of the “Dr. Phil” format and messaging. He seemed particularly fixated on the mistakes made by young girls, confronting their “bad behavior” on live television and prescribing “fixes” like so-called trouble teen ranches. Dishing out puritanical public shaming, McGraw taught us that the right way to live was to have a solid nuclear family — a message solidified at the end of each episode as he clasped his wife Robin’s hand. (She famously attended every taping).
And while “Dr. Phil” may have become more overtly “political” toward the end of its run, it had long been infused with the kinds of false equivalencies that characterize contemporary conservative politics. The National Center for Men, an organization that advocates for “men’s rights,” praised its longstanding, allegedly “excellent relationship with the producers” of “Dr. Phil.”
A few months before his Trump interview, McGraw published a book co-opting the language used by many on the right: “The country is under attack by extremists at the fringes who put ideology before sanity and stoke division for their own gain. They are trying to rob America of its common sense and deny empirical truths, and we’re all suffering the consequences.” Someone else who loves to talk about how America is “under attack”? Donald Trump. McGraw has something else in common with Donald Trump: He is an excellent fit for reality TV. The reality genre’s zany participants and outrageous premises often obscure the fact that these shows are fairly conservative at their core. Just as dating shows for years hyped heterosexual, monogamous marriage as the definition of “true love,” “Dr. Phil” sold a very specific version of America every day, for two decades. Looking back, “Dr. Phil” was a pacifier for broader anxieties about cultural change, led by a straight white man with a fancy title and folksy charm. “It’s an honor to be with you,” Trump tells McGraw at the beginning of their interview. “I’ve always had great respect for you.” Of course he has. It’s almost like looking into a mirror.
Danielle J. Lindemann
Danielle J. Lindemann is professor of sociology at Lehigh University and author of "True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: 2022). 
