Former President Donald Trump sat down with podcaster Joe Rogan in Austin, Texas, on Friday, and engaged in a friendly, free-wheeling conversation that ran just under three hours. Other than making Trump late to a rally that evening in Michigan, the appearance didn’t result in any election-altering headlines, with the two men clearly simpatico on most of the issues they discussed, which ranged from windmills to the legitimacy of the 2020 election to mixed martial arts.
The show had been hailed as a “get” for Trump, since Rogan, arguably the most popular podcaster in the U.S., has said in the past that he didn’t want him on the show and didn’t want to help him in any way. That apparently changed after the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13; Rogan said that after the shooting, he wanted Trump as a guest, but it was all in “the timing.” He also told Trump that he wants to have a similar conversation with Vice President Kamala Harris and is still hoping that she will agree, saying, “I would like to have a conversation with her.”
If you haven’t listened to the show (or watched it on YouTube), here are five exchanges that garnered media attention.
Donald Trump, whale psychiatrist?
The men talked a lot about energy, agreeing that nuclear energy has gotten a bad rap and is safer and cleaner than it has been in the past. They also agreed that some forms of “green” energy production, such as windmills, are ultimately harmful, noting that the blades can’t be recycled and often end up in landfills, and they talked about the sound’s harms to whales.
While the government says there is no evidence that offshore wind development has contributed to whale deaths, others believe that wind farms are contributing to the beaching of whales, and Trump quipped at one point, “I want to be a whale psychiatrist. It drives the whales freaking crazy if something happens with them, but they’re getting washed up, and yet the environmentalists they don’t talk about, right?”
Trump still believes he won in 2020
In response to a question about the 2020 election posed by Rogan, Trump said, “I don’t want to get you in any disputes, but I won that second election so easy.” Rogan asked him to explain why, and Trump said he’d be happy to go into detail another time, saying, “I would bring in papers that you would not believe, so many different papers. That election was so crooked, it was the most crooked election.”
Again, Rogan asked for examples. Trump responded by saying, without specifics, that “they” were supposed to be legislative approval for things, such as for voting extensions or early voting. “You don’t have to go any further than that.” He also said that Wisconsin officials “virtually admitted that the election was rigged, robbed and stolen,” claiming ballots weren’t all signed or originals. And he brought up the media’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, which The New York Post broke three weeks before the 2020 election, and argued that coverage of the story would have made a difference in the election results. Instead, it was widely reported to be part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
While Rogan tried to press Trump to be more specific, he seemed to agree with some of the former president’s points, saying of the accusations, “That’s a constant narrative that gets into people’s minds — especially low-information people that just watch the news — that you’re in collusion with Russia.” He also noted that social media companies didn’t allow people to share the Post’s story. “Those three things ... each one of them by themselves causes the result (of the election) to be different,” Trump said. Rogan agreed, saying, “It does.”
Trump shares concerns with RFK Jr. about America’s health
Although he is famously a fan of McDonald’s, Trump has teamed up with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who is among leading voices charging that Americans’ diet is making them sick, and that radical changes are necessary to improve American health. Rogan agreed, saying that the money America is sending Ukraine could be helping improve the diets of people who live in large cities and have limited access to affordable, fresh and healthful foods. Trump told Rogan that he is committed to having Kennedy be part of the administration, although he disagrees with Kennedy about some environmental issues — “He doesn’t like oil ... I love oil, I guess. ... So I said, focus on health, and you can do whatever you want, but I have to be a little bit careful with the liquid gold.”
Trump reveals his ‘biggest mistake’ to Rogan
Harris evaded Anderson Cooper’s question at a CNN town hall about what her biggest mistake, personally or professionally, was in the past four years, and Cooper said he didn’t think he’d ever heard Trump say he’d made a mistake. But Trump told Rogan what he believes his biggest mistake was during his presidency, saying, “I picked a few people I shouldn’t have picked.”
Answering questions about the early days of his presidency, Trump said that a president makes decisions that affect about 10,000 positions, but about 100 of them are the most important, like in the Treasury Department, State Department and military. It can be hard, he said, for a D.C. outsider like himself to know how to trust. (Trump said he’d only been to Washington D.C. 17 times before becoming president, and had never even spent the night.) “I had to rely on people I respected and liked, but didn’t know that well.”
Although he campaigned on “draining the swamp,” Trump said he found that “it’s dangerous to pick someone outside of a politician (for a job) because politicians have been vetted.” He also said that third-party candidacies will never work because “Pure and simple, it’s a two-party system.”
Trump is always ready to swipe at Mitt Romney
It took less than four minutes for Trump to get in a dig at Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, saying that in a poll about potential candidates a few years before the 2016 election, “I blew him away, which isn’t that hard, frankly.” He later referred to the 2012 election as “the Romney disaster.” While Romney may be under consideration for a position in a Harris administration, as some people hope, an invitation is likely not coming if there’s a second Trump administration.
Will the Rogan podcast help Trump?
As of Saturday afternoon, the show had been viewed more than 18 million times on YouTube, but it’s unclear whether the interview will have a significant effect at the ballot box. Trump was already leading Harris by 35 points among Rogan fans prior to the release of the podcast, Mediaite reported.