Key Moments From Donald Trump In His Oh So Friendly Conversation With Joe Rogan
In a three-hour long podcast episode posted on Friday night, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and entertainer Joe Rogan spent a lot of time agreeing with one another. While there were points in the interview where Rogan pushed back on Trumpâs claims, in total, the episodeâwith topics ranging from how the wind impacts whales to jailing Hillary Clinton to the media being corruptâheld a friendly tone.
âYou cannot be voting for Kamala,â Trump said after noting that Rogan should endorse him, a thing he hasn’t formally done. The host laughs. The two share a love for Ultimate Fighting Championship, an organization that came up several times throughout the interview. âI know you. Iâve watched you. I know you better than, you know, without speaking to you, I think I know you almost as well as your wife. I have watched you for so many years, youâre not a Kamala person.â
The interview, which was filmed in Austin, Texas, made it so Trump was late to his own rally in Traverse City, Michigan. People, per NBC News, began to leave.
Episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience, which is currently the top podcast on Spotify, typically go this long. The show, which began in 2009, has an overwhelmingly male audienceâas of last year, 81% of viewers were male, and more than half of those who tuned in were under the age of 35.
Trumpâs appearance on Roganâs show fits squarely into an election that has been, in large part, defined by a historic gendered gap in how women and men view the state of the nation, the issues at hand, and the two candidates. If current margins hold, according to the latest USA Today/Suffolk University national poll, this election will have the biggest gendered voting disparity in over four decades.
In the past, Rogan, who has 14.5 million followers on Spotify and 17.6 million on YouTube, has claimed he refused to host Trump as a guest several times. âIâve had the opportunity to have him on my show more than once. Iâve said no every time,â Rogan said in 2022.
âI donât want to help him,â he added, describing the former president as âa polarizing figureâ and âan existential threat to democracy.â
On Friday, Rogan critiqued those who say Trump threatens democracy, questioning the validity of how journalists and government officials have talked about the 2020 election. âAnyone who considers himself a legitimate objective observer of American politics, if you really want the best person to win, you would want people to not lie,” he said. “And the only reason why they got away with this lie was because they continually labeled you as this horrible threat to democracy.â
With millions of Americans already voting, and just over a week until Election Day, hereâs a snapshot of what Rogan and Trump covered on Friday:
Rogan Says Trump Has Been Attacked More Than Anyone In History
Rogan started the interview by talking about Trumpâs appearance on The View when running for president for the first time. Back then, the crowd cheered as Trump received a warm welcome on the show.
âThey all loved you,â Rogan began. âAnd then you actually started winning in the polls and then the machine started working towards youâthere’s probably no one in history that I’ve ever seen that’s been attacked the way you’ve been attacked.â
Trump responded by discussing his work on The Apprentice, later denigrating the all-female cast of The View, âI was very popular, and all those people loved me. I mean this, some of these women, they’re so, they’re so stupid.â
Election Denialism
Throughout the entire interview, Trump continued to bring up the 2020 election, reiterating his Big Lieâthat he won despite an alleged coordinated effort against him. At one point, Rogan bemoans that people always âcut offâ Trump when he talks about how he won four years agoâsomething he wouldnât do.
âI did great the second time. I did much better. I donât want to get you in any disputes, but I won that second election so easy,â Trump said. The two also discussed how supposed censorship against Trump on social media and Hunter Bidenâs laptop led to election interference.
âI won by like, I lost by likeâI didnât lose,â Trump said later. Rogan laughed again.
The host also compared questioning the election results and being labeled an election denier to questioning Covid-19 vaccinations and being branded anti-vax.
In 2022, Rogan was âcriticized for spreading what was widely seen as misinformation about the coronavirus,â the New York Times reported.
Trump Again Goes After Harrisâs Intelligence
âCan you imagine Kamala doing this show?â Trump asked.
âShe was supposed to do it, and she might do it, and I hope she does. I will talk to her like a human being,â Rogan responded.
Vice President Kamala Harris had been in talks to do a spot with Rogan, but it âdidnât pan out,â according to NBC News. Campaign spokesperson Ian Sams told MSNBC on Thursday that they âtalked with Rogan and his team about the podcast, unfortunately, it isnât going to work out right now because of the scheduling of this period of the campaign.â
Trump kept going.
âI hope she does because it would be a mess. Sheâd be laying on the floor comatose. Youâd be saying, âcall in the medics,ââ Trump said. âI think weâd have a fine conversation,â Rogan replied.
Earlier on in their discussion, Trump told Rogan, âYou know, Kamala is a very low IQ person. Sheâs a very low IQ person.â
Trump On Immigrants In Springfield, OH: âBring Them Back To Their Country.â
Rogan suggested, without evidence, that Democrats sift immigrants into swing states to sway the vote left in elections.
âBut we should just tell people what the strategy is,â Rogan began. âOne of the things thatâs been very clear is that theyâve moved a large percentage of these migrants that are coming across the border illegally, theyâve moved them to swing states. This is whatâs going on with Springfield, Ohio,â he continued, bringing up the city that has been subject to bomb threats after Trump, his running mate JD Vance, and others spread the conspiracy that Haitian migrants there were eating pets.
âIâm going to win Ohio by a lot, so thatâs not a swing state,â Trump replied. Of Springfield, he said the community has âgone from a beautiful little place to a horror showâ because of âmigrants that donât speak the language.â
âThe mayor is a nice guy,â Trump continued, âhe said, âWeâre looking for interpreters.â I said âno, youâve got to remove them and bring them back to their country.â Mostly Haitians in this case.â
Trumpâs Biggest Regret
Trump said that the regret he has from his time in office was appointing âbadâ and âdisloyalâ people like former Trump chief of staff John Kellyâwho recently said Trump fits the definition of a fascist.
âThe biggest mistake I made was I picked some people, I picked some great people you know, but you donât think about that. I picked some people who I shouldnât have picked. I picked a few people that I shouldnât have picked,â Trump said. Rogan chimed in, âNeocons?â
âYeah, neocons, or bad people, or disloyal people,â Trump continued. âYouâre reading about them a little bit today. A guy like Kelly who was a bully, a bully but a weak person.â
Being Conservative Is Punk Rock
At about two hours in, they turned to Trumpâs TikTok accountâwhich gained millions of followers in the first 24 hours of it being liveâand his unique appeal to some young people (particularly young men.)
âYoung people are rejecting a lot of this woke bullshit,â Rogan said. âYeah, they are,â Trump agreed.
âTheyâre tired of being yelled at and scolded,â Rogan continued. âTheyâre tired of these people who they think are mentally ill telling them what the moral standards of society should be today. And people are upset.â
The rebels, Rogan kept going, âare Republicans now.â Trump again agrees, saying, âyou know I never thought of it that way.â
âYou want to be a rebel, you want to be punk rock, you want to like buck the system, youâre a conservative,â Rogan argued in the video which, as of publication, has over 16 million views on YouTube.
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