In a highly anticipated interview, Donald Trump addressed a wide range of cultural and political issues in a three-hour conversation with Joe Rogan, host of one of the world’s largest podcasts, on Friday evening.
The recording took so long that Trump arrived several hours late to his rally that evening in Traverse City, Michigan. Frustrated by having to wait so long, many people left.
The Rogan interview is a continuation of Trump turning to non-traditional media outlets, including podcasts, in the weeks leading up to Election Day. Rogan also invited Vice President Kamala Harris for an interview, but her campaign was declined. Rogan’s podcast has more than 17 million YouTube subscribers.
Much of the interview, which was posted online around 10 p.m. on Friday evening, consisted of repeated comments Trump made during the campaign.
He said the war in Ukraine would never have happened if he were president, complained that moderators didn’t fact-check Vice President Kamala Harris enough during her only debate with Trump, criticized the traditional media, did things like Harris and the Democrats continue as more dangerous than foreign enemies and engaged in conspiratorial talk about stealing the 2020 election.
Rogan at one point asked Trump to provide examples of how the 2020 election was stolen, as he has long falsely claimed. Trump gave a largely incoherent response that addressed election law changes that he said did not receive proper legislative approval.
“They had to get legislative approval to do the things they did, and they didn’t get that,” Trump said, referring to changes that made it easier to vote during the height of the pandemic.
Trump, who is running for his second term in the White House and could not run for a third term if he wins, said it would be his last election “if I win.” He was noncommittal about whether he would run again if he loses.
“If I win, that will be my last election,” he said. “But I think I owe it to the country. We must hold fair elections.”
Trump has made baseless claims that the 2020 election would be a key part of the campaign’s message in the 2024 election, even as he admitted in September that he lost the race against President Joe Biden by a “whistle wound.”
Trump’s campaign rhetoric has become increasingly hostile in the final weeks of the election, with threats to, for example, jail his political opponents and strip broadcast licenses from media organizations he opposes, increasingly being used as a topic of campaign rallies.
It has led his opponents to portray Trump as having dictatorial instincts, something highlighted last week when his former chief of staff John Kelly told The New York Times that Trump meets the definition of a fascist.
“I was basically the opposite of a dictator,” Trump said Friday, defending himself. “I was a very heterosexual boy.
Trump also told Rogan that he has learned a lot about UFOs.
“There is no reason not to think that Mars and all these planets do not have life.” Rogan quickly corrected him about life on Mars.
“Mars, we’ve had probes and rovers there, and I don’t think there’s any life there,” Rogan said.
“Maybe it’s life we don’t know,” Trump responded.
Rogan at one point also appeared to try to dissuade Trump from praising Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, whom Trump has spoken fondly of in the past. Without specifics, Trump said the generals he talks to think Lee is a “genius.” At that point, Rogan asked Trump to clarify that he only meant “strategic,” which Trump agreed.
Later in the interview, Rogan seemed to foreshadow that Trump’s comment about Lee could earn him criticism.
“Donald Trump wants the South to win,” Rogan said, echoing what he thought the criticism would sound like.
Launched in 2009, “The Joe Rogan Experience” is one of the most popular podcasts in the United States, especially among young men.
The episodes, which usually last hours, feature a wide range of guests from various industries, including entertainment, sports, technology and politics.
Rogan, a former stand-up comedian and host of “Fear Factor,” has built a strong following as an unlikely political expert. But his popularity has come with years of mounting criticism – with the presenter facing accusations of spreading Covid misinformation, making racist comments and anti-Semitic remarks on his show.
Although he does not shy away from political topics, Rogan has not issued any official statements of support this election cycle.
In August, Rogan said on his podcast that he was a fan of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but later clarified in a post on X that he did not support the then-independent candidate. Kennedy Jr. later dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump.
Vice President Kamala Harris had also been in talks for an interview with Rogan, but that did not materialize. Ian Sams, a spokesperson for her campaign, told MSNBC on Thursday: “We have spoken to Rogan and his team about the podcast. Unfortunately, it is not going to happen now due to the planning of this period of the campaign.”
Trump, who is notably not known as a modest person, seemed to acknowledge the importance of his presence on Rogan’s podcast, at one point calling himself “a student of yours.”
On the environment, Trump said environmental regulation is “the greatest tool to stop growth,” and continued to attack his nemesis, the windmill, saying it has harmful effects on nature. In this case, Trump said he was concerned about the impact of wind turbines on whales.
“I want to be a whale psychiatrist,” he said. “The whales freak out when something happens to them, but they get stranded and yet they don’t talk about the environmentalists, right?”
He also continued to attack Harris personally, calling her “not smart” and viewing her as a greater threat to the nation than even foreign advisers.
“If she becomes president of the United States, I can’t believe that could happen,” Trump said. “I don’t think this country is going to make it.”
Trump has increasingly called Harris “stupid,” saying at a Thursday night rally in Las Vegas that her policies would “kill thousands of people.”
Still, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky issued a letter Friday calling on Harris to tone down the rhetoric. They argued that Trump could face a third assassination attempt as a result of heated campaign talk.
“To label a political opponent as ‘fascist’ risks inviting another potential murderer to try to rob voters of their choice before Election Day,” the two wrote.
The letter did not mention that Trump applied the term to Harris several times.
As the third hour of the interview approached, Trump said he realized he had to go to a planned rally in Michigan, which he was late for due to the length of the Rogan interview.
“I have to give a great speech,” Trump said. “And if I’m at all free tonight, I’ll blame you.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
