‘I gotta be honest’: Jillian Michaels admits ‘a lot of Republicans’ come up to her and say they’re ‘not happy’
Jillian Michaels admitted “a lot of Republicans” come up to her and express how “unhappy” they are with President Donald Trump as she warned the party not to rely on MAGA loyalists in the midterms.
On her Keeping It Real podcast on Friday, Michaels, a fitness trainer who has more recently turned to political commentary, reacted to a recent Fox News interview with musician and Trump supporter Nicki Minaj, who insisted MAGA remains loyal to Trump despite his falling poll numbers — which he has dismissed as fake news.

“They talk about how MAGA is still very loyal to Trump, but MAGA is not a big percentage, a big percentage of the total voting pool, because it’s not the entire Republican Party,” Michaels said.
She then turned to recent polling breaking down how voters identify with parties and movements.
According to Pew Research Center data, 28% of voters identify as Republicans, 29% identify as Democrats, and 44% identify as independent or something else. Among those independents, 43% lean Republican and 47% lean towards Democrats.
Michaels also referenced a survey from University of Massachusetts Amherst that broke down Republicans and their connection to Trump’s MAGA movement.
According to the data, as of August, 37% of Republicans identify somewhat with the movement, 31% identify very much, and 32% said not at all. There was an overall drop of nine points since March in Republicans who align with MAGA.
“I gotta be honest, in talking with people, I travel a lot across the country, people come up to me in airports, in restaurants, Uber drivers, and they talk to me. I meet a lot of people who are Republicans that are not happy right now. So the point is simply don’t get confident — when they’re like, oh, MAGA strong! MAGA is not the majority. And this is why understanding what’s at stake matters,” Michaels said.
She said high costs and concerns about where the Iran war is going are the top concerns Republicans tell her about.
What Republicans should be concerned about, Michaels argued, is that right-leaning independents and Republicans who do not align with MAGA will simply skip voting altogether, wanting to avoid a vote between the “lesser of evils.”
“They may not vote Democrat, but they may not vote at all, and that’s it. That’s the nail in the coffin if that is the case,” she said.

