Lefty Podcast From Two Red State Moms Hits Big

Jennifer Welch and Angie “Pumps” Sullivan know what first draws people into their podcast: shock value. 

Before the two Oklahoma mothers were hosts of the hit series I’ve Had It, they were stars on the short lived Bravo reality television series Sweet Home Oklahoma and Sweet Home — which followed everything from their hijinks in Oklahoma bars to Welch’s interior design jobs. And the two look and sound the part, thick southern accents made complete by their Ann Taylor-coded outfits, sharp red lipstick, and blonde highlighted hair. But listen to one of the two weekly episodes of of I’ve Had It, and you might be surprised to hear two white women who grew up in Oklahoma open their mouths and absolutely lambast Republican conservatism, President Donald Trump, xenophobia, racism, and a complacent Democratic establishment all in one breath. 

“It is a podcast that shows opposition to the toxic positivity movement,” Welch tells Rolling Stone over a joint zoom call with Sullivan. “We talk about grievances, combining that with performative politics and just all around Trump fuckery. It’s so overwhelming living in this fascist regime. The podcast is a great way to make the news somewhat digestible and to help our community that we’ve built stay engaged.” And that old school charm combined with newer social media tricks has helped I’ve Had It stand out in a crowded political podcast field. Each of the episodes of I’ve Had It  and IHIP News — a short-form version of the show which releases three short episodes every day — record video as well as audio. Even if people don’t know Welch and Sullivan’s name, their faces may be more recognizable, since clips from both shows constantly go viral online. The hosts have 1.3 million followers on TikTok and just celebrated reaching 1 million subscribers on YouTube. 

When Welch, 51, and Sullivan, 55, launched the podcast in 2022, they generally discussed typical pop culture flare sprinkled with their own blend of Oklahoma charm and foul-mouthed grievances. They’d “had it,” so to speak, with everything from skinny momfluencers to PTA parents that can’t mind their own damn business. But when they started talking politics — something Welch and Sullivan would often discuss off-air — their audience exploded. In the three years since I’ve Had It began, Sullivan and Welch have carved out a niche place in the political podcast sphere, maintaining that Oklahoma grit all while interviewing political powerhouses like former President Barack Obama, streamer Hasan Piker, Senator Elizabeth Warren, New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, and former Vice President Kamala Harris.

“I’ve had it with white people, that triple-Trumped, that have the nerve and the audacity to walk into a Mexican restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, an Indian restaurant, go to perhaps their gay hairdresser,” Welch spit in an August episode of I’ve Had It, which quickly went viral. “I don’t think you should be able to enjoy anything but Cracker Barrel.”

Rolling Stone spoke with Sullivan and Welch about being true-blue political podcasters recording in a deep red state, their frustration with being called “mom podcasters,” and why sometimes the best answer to a stupid political situation is good shit talk. 

You guys call the podcast a way to fight back against the toxic positivity movement. What does that mean to you? 
Welch: Everybody knows when you get online right now, there is a stay at home mother that makes you feel less-than. She’s smiling and her toddlers are being cooperative. And then there’s the fitness influencer who has the body he’s like “All you have to do is just four more reps.” It’s this fairy tale that’s being pitched to us via our algorithm, that there are people that are doing what we’re trying to do much better than we are and are doing it with a smile. I say all of that is bullshit. It’s performative. That’s not what real life is like. Basically, it’s fun to shit talk. It’s a way to bond with people. And it seems like all political parties try to police that shit talking. And we’re saying absolutely not. Shit talking is healthy. It’s collaborative. It can be shit talking for good. 

You started as more of a pop culture podcast, but have since included politics in a lot of your content, even launching IHIP News, another show strictly about politics. Why the change? 
Sullivan: We’re in a unique position because we live in a red state so we see firsthand how that goes. Our perspective has credibility. White women are my number one group that I want to call out every day, all day. And because we are white women, middle aged, in a red state, we can call out the hypocrisy and the lack of empathy, because we live around it. 

Welch: I can’t help but be political. I’ve always been a die hard political junkie. My politics ooze out, even if I’m just at the tennis court with friends. I am very outspoken about my advocacy for human rights. But when two white ladies from a deeply red state started talking about politics, we experienced a lot of sexism. [People said] we shouldn’t be talking about politics, that it wasn’t a smart business move.

Do you all push back against the description of mom podcasters? What’s the reaction to those kinds of monikers? 
Welch: When I hear people on the right refer to us as mom podcasters, just from a person that believes in gender equality, it really pisses me off. Because you’ve never heard a male podcaster referred to as a dad podcaster. There are people critical of us that want to reduce our voice and use patriarchal messaging to do that. Nobody would ever call Joe Rogan a dad podcaster. Nobody would call the Pod Save America guys dad podcasters. It’s a title weaponized against us. But at the same time, we’ve become surrogate moms and aunts to people who have been bullied and oppressed by women that look like us. We give them a sense of hope. Two white women with Southern accents who look like us — people find comfort and a sense of motherhood in that. 

You guys are very open about this aspect of the way you look being in contrast to what you actually believe. But as people who grew up in the South, how did you get political views so divergent from your neighbors?
Sullivan: I was raised by two people that still snort Fox News every single day. Had a super religious, evangelical upbringing, registered Republican immediately. It wasn’t till I got to college and I started kind of thinking for myself that I changed politically. I had to do some reconciliation with the faith that I’d been brought up with and what reality is — really delve into the dissonance and the lack of critical thinking and the ability to deny everything and just put on the perfect surface person that I was thought I was supposed to be. Having been one of those bad guys that doesn’t show empathy for people, having been so callous to other people’s needs, it just grosses me out so bad. And I can see it in others because I’ve been it. So that really drives me to call it out. 

Welch: I probably have one of the more bizarre upbringings in the Bible Belt than anybody. I was raised by two atheists. We never went to a church service unless it was a wedding or a funeral. I have had this experience of being raised in the so religious suburbs of Oklahoma City. Like the people that you saw with their hands raised praising at the Charlie Kirk funeral, those are the people I went to high school with. That was [Sullivan] when I first met her. 

Sullivan: [laughing] I never raised my hands!

Welch: I went to college and found comfort and companionship with gay men, because they had had to fight the same system that I had to fight, and they just had more grit. They had been persecuted by the same people that told me and my mother and my father and my siblings that we were all going to burn in hell. Having never been indoctrinated, and then living around a bunch of people that have been indoctrinated was a very weird upbringing, and it drove me into a very left, very grounded, very fact based person. 

With these two very distinct childhoods, Angie do you ever find yourself tailoring any of your messaging to other moms or women in red states who might have your kind of background? 
Sullivan: We try to be really, really honest about struggles and failures, but I don’t sit and think, “Okay, we’re going to tailor this to this group.” I have a lot of people that have come to me and said, “I had the exact same experience growing up” or very similar. So it’s become a byproduct, but it wasn’t a set mission. 

Welch: What’s so crazy about our audience is that the first time we went on tour, our first stop was Atlanta. We had a meet and greet line, and we were, both of us, shocked at how young a lot of our listeners were. The diversity In the group and the sense of belonging and advocacy was a really beautiful unintended consequence of what happens when you believe in something, when you don’t try to make a pick me podcast.

What do you mean when you say pick me podcast? 
Welch: Like “I want everybody to like me.” When you just stand on business and stand on conviction and then see who comes, it’s crazy. Contrary to what you’d expect, our data behind the scenes shows a pretty even 50/50 split between male and female listeners. We have Gen Z, we have millennials, we have Gen Xers, and we have boomers, and we have a gay audience, and much to my delight, we have built a really big Black audience. And as somebody who has grown up in privileged white circles and has heard the racism that is just part of everyday language around white people, to know that we’re making a difference calling that out is what I’m most proud of. When we first went viral a couple years ago on Black Twitter, a lot of the comments were just hilarious. My favorite was “Wait a minute, before I fuck with these ladies, where were they on Jan. 6?” We never went out of our way to recruit any specific audience, but it’s been such a delight to see the people that now have a sense of community in our podcast.That common ground tells me we’re doing something right. 

Many of your viral clips lambast Republicans over their stances on everything from immigration to MAGA. But you also are very quick to call out Democrats to inefficiency and silence, something left leaning podcasts have been hesitant to do during the second Trump administration. Why is that important to you? 
Welch: If you are just a shill, you’re going to have no credibility. If I were to just go with the party line, in my opinion, it’s so inauthentic and intellectually false to do that. We have to realize what created this vacuum for MAGA to exist. It’s because Trump seemed authentic to people. Cory Booker is a prime example I talk about a lot. So much of what he says I like and he is a very passionate speaker. He just did an all nighter on the Senate floor. And then a month later, he’s playing peekaboo in the photo shoot with Benjamin Netanyahu. That is so heartbreaking, that you can have moral clarity here, and then when it gets to Palestinian kids, he can’t speak up for them? For these Democratic establishment candidates to treat us like we’re [uneducated], is so insidious. I hope every single one of them gets primaried. I grew up around MAGA Republicans. I get these people. I know what hypocrites they are. But the Democratic leadership right now — that’s a heartbreaker. 

Sullivan: This makes me want to go hard in the paint for anybody who’s a fighter right now. Zohran [Mamdani] I’m in on. I want somebody that stands up, calls out by hypocrisy, with credibility and actually is like, “Fuck no, we’re not going to let you do this” and actually has a plan. Just strongly worded letters are not meeting the moment, in my opinion.

You all recently had streamer Hasan Piker as a guest on the pod. Who are some of your other dream collabs? 
Sullivan: I would die to have Dolly Parton on, but I don’t think that would ever happen. I would love to know how she’s navigated fame and advocacy for decades and decades and decades. That would be my one.

Welch: We have been so fortunate. We’ve had Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, I mean, everything to exceed all of our wildest imaginations. Cory Booker, even though I don’t like him very much right now. Elizabeth Warren, who’s from Oklahoma, left me a voicemail the other day congratulating us on our 1 million YouTube subscribers. There’s one person that I want who I know will never come on. He’s always been number one on my list. Larry David. I’m his biggest fan on the planet. I’ve watched every episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm at least four times. I have a framed picture on my desk of Larry David. And when my sons come to my office, they say, “Why do you have a picture of Larry David on your desk and not of me?” And I’m like, “Because Larry doesn’t need anything from me.”