Trump records a three-hour podcast interview with Joe Rogan

In a highly anticipated interview on Friday evening, Donald Trump touched on a wide range of cultural and political topics in a three-hour conversation with Joe Rogan, host of one of the world's biggest podcasts.

The recording took so long that Trump arrived several hours late to his rally in Traverse City, Michigan that evening. Many people got frustrated at having to wait so long and left.

The Rogan interview is a continuation of Trump's turn to non-traditional media, including podcasts, in the weeks leading up to Election Day. Rogan also invited Vice President Kamala Harris for an interview, but her campaign was rejected. Rogan's podcast has more than 17 million YouTube subscribers.

Much of the interview, posted online around 10 p.m. Friday evening, rehashed much of what Trump had said during the campaign.

He said the war in Ukraine would never have happened if he had been president, complained that the moderators did not adequately vet Harris during her only debate with Trump, criticized the traditional media, and continued to portray Harris and the Democrats as more dangerous as foreign enemies and … engaged in conspiratorial talk about stealing the 2020 election.

Rogan once called on Trump to provide examples of how the 2020 election was stolen, as he has long falsely claimed. Trump gave a largely rambling response that discussed changes to election law that he said had not received proper legislative approval.

“They were supposed to get approval from the legislature for the things they did, and they didn't get it,” Trump said, pointing to changes that would have made voting easier during the height of the pandemic.

Trump, who is running for his second term in the White House and would not be able to run for a third term if he wins, said it would be his last election “if I win.” He did not say whether he would run again if he lost.

“If I win, that would be my last choice,” he said. “But I think I owe it to the country. We have to hold fair elections.”

Trump has made baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen a key part of the message of his 2024 campaign, even as he admitted in September that he narrowly lost the race to President Joe Biden.

Trump's campaign rhetoric has become increasingly hostile in the final weeks of the election, with threats to jail his political opponents and revoke broadcast licenses from media organizations he opposes becoming regular topics at campaign events.

This has led his opponents to portray Trump as someone with dictatorial instincts, which was made clear last week when his former chief of staff John Kelly told the New York Times that Trump met the definition of a fascist.

“I was actually the opposite of a dictator,” Trump defended himself on Friday. “I was a very straight guy.”

Trump also told Rogan that he learned a lot about UFOs.

“There’s no reason not to believe that Mars and all these planets don’t have life,” Trump said.

Rogan quickly corrected him about life on Mars.

“Mars, we’ve had probes and rovers there, and I don’t think there’s life there,” Rogan said.

“Maybe it’s the life we ​​don’t know,” Trump replied.

At one point, Rogan also appeared to try to stop Trump from praising Confederate General Robert E. Lee, whom Trump has spoken fondly of in the past. Without elaborating, Trump said the generals he speaks with think Lee is a “genius.” At that point, Rogan asked Trump to clarify that he only meant “strategic,” to which Trump agreed.

Later in the interview, Rogan suggested that Trump's Lee comment could lead to criticism.

“Donald Trump wants the South to win,” Rogan said, mimicking what he thought the criticism might sound like.

“The Joe Rogan Experience,” which launched in 2009, is one of the most popular podcasts in the United States, particularly among young men.

The episodes, which usually last for hours, feature a wide variety of guests from different 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 pundit. But with his popularity came years of increasing criticism – the host was accused of spreading misinformation about Covid-19, using a racial slur and making anti-Semitic comments on his show.

Although he doesn't shy away from political issues, Rogan hasn't made any official endorsements 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 later dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump.

Harris was also in talks to do an interview with Rogan, but nothing came of it. Ian Sams, a spokesman for her campaign, told MSNBC on Thursday: “We have spoken to Rogan and his team about the podcast. Unfortunately, due to the timing of this election campaign period, it will not work at the moment.”

Trump, who is not known as a humble person, appeared to acknowledge the importance of participating in Rogan's podcast, at one point referring to himself as “a student of yours.”

On the environment, Trump said environmental regulations were “the biggest stunting tool” and continued to attack his longtime nemesis, the windmill, for its harmful effects on wildlife. In this case, Trump said he was concerned about the impact of windmills on whales.

“I want to be a whale psychiatrist,” he said. “It drives the whales crazy when something happens to them, but they wash up and yet they don’t talk about the environmentalists, do they?”

He continued to personally attack Harris, calling her “not smart” and portraying her as a greater threat to the nation than even foreign adversaries.

“If she becomes president of the United States, which I cannot believe,” Trump said, “I don’t believe this country will make it.”

Trump increasingly called Harris “stupid” and said during a rally Thursday night in Las Vegas that her policies would “kill thousands of people.”

But on Friday, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky released a letter calling on Harris to tone down the rhetoric. They argued that Trump could face a third assassination attempt because of heated campaign discussions.

“Calling a political opponent a 'fascist' risks inviting another potential assassin to try to rob voters of their choice before Election Day,” they wrote.

The letter did not mention that Trump used that term on Harris on multiple occasions.

As the third hour of the interview approached, Trump said he realized he had to get to a planned rally in Michigan, to which he was late because of the length of the Rogan interview.

“I have to give a great speech,” Trump said. “And if I’m wrong tonight, I’ll blame you.”