Rogan Josh: In three-hour male bonding podcast, Trump, as usual, ducks and weaves

TOI Correspondent from Washington: He rambled and waffled, he ducked and dodged, he meandered so much that even the host Joe Rogan, whose two-three hour podcasts allow for a lot of time for digressions, had to tell him, “Your weave is getting wide... You’re getting wide with this weave,” referring to Donald Trump 's claim that his rambling speeches are a complex weave of his "genius."

The MAGA supremo went on the Joe Rogan Experience -- the #1 podcast in America with 14.5 million followers on Spotify and 17.6 million on YouTube -- on Friday, ostensibly to reach out to its predominantly white male audience. Rogan, who had previously refused to entertain Trump on his show, calling him a "man-baby," “an existential threat to democracy," and suggesting he was on Adderall (medication for ADHD), he explained that he changed his mind after Trump was shot in an assassination attempt. On Friday, he invited male-bonding from the get go, laughing when Trump said, “You’re not a Kamala person, I know you,” Rogan explained that he changed his m

What followed was a genial conversation where Trump binged on his familiar list of gripes and grievances, fantastic claims, and distorted history. At one point, he claimed that his pollsters once told him that if George Washington came back from the dead with Abraham Lincoln as his vice president, the two would not be able to beat him. Another time, he claimed President Lincoln was very depressed because he lost Tad, his beloved son. Thomas "Tad" Lincoln died 6 years after Lincoln's death.

Rogan repeatedly offered time and platform for Trump to establish his claim of a stolen election in 2020, but the MAGA supremo got away with vague claims of Democrats cheating by using Covid-19 (which caused a hike in mail-in voting) asserting that mail-in ballots were not secure, and “the judges didn’t have what it took to turn over an election.” Rogan, who is himself a covid-skeptic, appeared to back Trump on the issue, saying, “You get labeled an election denier. It’s like being labeled an anti-vaxxer if you question some of the health consequences that people have from the Covid-19 shots.”

Trump also resumed his tirade against political opponents within the US, alleging they are more dangerous than North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, for whom the MAGA supremo had an unnatural affinity. “We had no problem with him.. we have a bigger problem, in my opinion, with the enemy from within,” Trump said, relishing the idea that “it drives them crazy" when he uses that term. “We have an enemy from within, we have people that are really bad people, that I really think want to make this country unsuccessful,” he repeated.

Typical of the Rogan show, he also visited an assortment of random topics, including the possibility of extra-terrestrial life. “There’s no reason not to think that Mars and all these planets don’t have life,” said Trump, whose knowledge of science, history, and geography is sketchy at best, his claims of being a "stable genius" widely received skeptically. When Rogan pointed out that Mars probes and rovers had not found any life on the most explored planet in the solar system, Trump clapped back, “Maybe it’s life that we don’t know about.”

Asked at one point whether he was serious about his recent suggestion that the US could eliminate income taxes altogether and replace them with tariffs, Trump responded, “Yeah, sure, but why not?" without providing any concrete proposals. There were no specific ideas about ending the wars in the middle-east and Ukraine either other than vague assertions that he would get it done.

The podcast logged more than 10 million views in 12 overnight hours after it went up on YouTube, as both sides -- MAGA Republicans and Democrats -- cherrypicked parts of it to show Trump as a bold, assertive leader (the MAGA perspective) or dumb (the liberal perspective). While Trump was aiming on the male demographic by going on the Rogan show, Kamala Harris was schedule to talk on with Brené Brown 's Unlocking Us, a podcast popular with women, reflecting the gender split in the 2024 elections. The Harris team has said they are still in talks with Rogan about her appearing on the podcast, and he in turn said Friday he hopes she is able to make it.