Donald Trump sits down for highly anticipated Joe Rogan interview

Donald Trump has appeared for a highly anticipated interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, racking up millions of views.

Joe Rogan was inspired to have Donald Trump on his podcast when the former president was shot during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, claiming the “timing was perfect” after years of turning the conversation down.

Rogan’s admission came during Friday’s highly anticipated interview on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” which saw M Trump call the presidency a “very dangerous business” as the two discussed a wide range of topics.

The UFC commentator turned podcaster referred to Mr Trump’s interview with comedian Theo Von on his podcast in August followed by Sen. JD Vance’s appearance on the same show.

“Is that why you called me to do this,” the 45th president asked with a smile.

“No,” Rogan replied.

“Once they shot you I was like ‘he’s gotta come in here.’”

“It’s all about timing, it’s all about the timing. I think the timing is perfect.”

During his nearly three-hour appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience — which generated more than 350,000 views within 30 minutes of it going live — Mr Trump repeatedly referred to the role of the presidency as a dangerous position, suggesting that pundits and officials don’t want to talk about the attempts on his life.

“I do things that don’t necessarily make me so popular. I just do what’s right,” the 78-year-old Republican presidential nominee said.

“I understand what I’m doing. You make yourself a target, and it’s a very dangerous business. I never thought of that when I did it.”

Donald Trump on The Joe Rogan Experience. Picture: YouTube

Mr Trump’s stump speech in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 turned into a bloodbath that stunned the world.

Gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, opened fire on a rooftop 130 yards from where the former president was speaking, nicking him in the ear and causing pandemonium before he was killed by a Secret Service sniper.

The attack left a 50-year-old retired fire chief in the audience dead and two others severely injured.

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned 10 days later after facing bipartisan outrage over agency failures.

Just two months later, would-be assassin Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was arrested after he got within a few hundred yards of Mr Trump as he played golf at his Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida on September 15.

Mr Trump gave Rogan a glimpse of the scar he received from Crooks’ bullet.

“It zicked right there,” he said of the mark behind his right ear.

“It healed up pretty f**king good,” Rogan said.

“It’s not like some of the wrestlers, some of the UFC fighters … it was sort of like a top shot. The thing’s taken off a little bit,” Mr Trump continued.

“But it makes me a tougher guy.”

Rogan, 57, suggested the assassination attempts wouldn’t have happened if the media — and Democrats such as his rival Vice President Kamala Harris and twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton — didn’t conflate Mr Trump with Adolf Hitler.

“They love to take things out of context and distort them,” Rogan said.

The highly anticipated interview runs to nearly three hours. Picture: YouTube

Friday’s interview comes after years of Rogan shooting down multiple chances to have Mr Trump on his hit program.

“I’ve had the opportunity to have him on my show more than once, I’ve said ‘no’ every time. I don’t want to help him. I’m not interested in helping him,” Rogan said on the Lex Fridman Podcast in 2022.

“I am not a Trump supporter in any way shape or form,” he added.

Rogan has teased his attempts at securing Vice President Kamala Harris to appear on the popular show, but says she has yet to book a date.

“Can you imagine Kamala doing this show? She’d be lying on the floor,” Mr Trump quipped.

“She was supposed to be doing it and she might still, and I hope she does,” Rogan said.

“I would talk to her like a human being and try to have a conversation with her.”

Rogan believed he would have a “fine conversation” with Ms Harris, not an interview but to talk with her as a human being.

“That was my goal having her on, trying to get her to express herself,” he said

Mr Trump recorded the discussion at the comedian’s studios in Austin, Texas, just hours before it went live on The Joe Rogan Experience YouTube channel.

The interview — which is about two hours and 58 minutes long — has racked up more than five million views since it was published.

Mr Trump began the chat by discussing his “two different lives” — referring to his time as a businessman and host of The Apprentice reality TV show before his subsequent foray into politics in 2015.

“I had a very wonderful life but I wanted to do this,” the GOP nominee said, explaining how producers wanted to extend his contract on the “hot show” to stay on prime time TV.

“Somehow they put me in a poll, and I blew everybody away.”

The Joe Rogan Experience has an estimated 14.5 million followers on Spotify, Bloomberg News reported this year.

His audience is believed to be overwhelmingly male.

Mr Trump has appeared on many podcasts in the home stretch of the campaign and co-hosted a streaming conversation with X owner Elon Musk in August that the billionaire leader of Tesla and SpaceX said reached one billion viewers.

The ex-President and Ms Harris are neck and neck in most swing-state polling.

- With The NY Post