Donald Trump on Joe Rogan: seven new things we learned from their three-hour interview
From his relationship with Elon Musk to his physical stamina, exercise regime and what he really told Kim Jong-un, we learned a lot more than we knew about Donald J Trump.
It was Friday night in Michigan and President Trump was late.
His supporters had been waiting for over three hours when he finally arrived at his rally in Traverse City. “I am so sorry,” he told the crowd. “We got so tied up.”
Trump had been recording an interview with the king of the bros, Joe Rogan, whose show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world, with 14.5 million followers on Spotify alone. Mostly male, mostly young, Rogan’s followers look like many of Trump’s followers.
Rogan, 57, is largely libertarian and has been criticised for having increasingly controversial guests and increasingly conspiratorial views, particularly around coronavirus vaccines and the January 6 insurrection. But perhaps most of all, he is known for his lax relationship with editing. His podcasts are often three hours long, and coupled with Trump’s passion for “the weave”, the pair managed to talk for two hours and 58 minutes in the episode uploaded late on Friday.
So what, exactly, did we learn?
1. Landing in the White House
Trump’s role as president was his first political one. He talked about arriving in Washington and not knowing what to do with himself.
“I had no experience,” he said. “I was there 17 times in Washington, and I never stayed over, according to the press, which I think is probably right… So now I’m sitting there, I’m saying, ‘This place is gorgeous,’ but, you know, I don’t know anybody.”
He wasn’t a “Washington guy”, Trump said, but a “New York builder”, a fixture of Fifth Avenue and his tower that stands in the middle of it.
“I didn’t know the Washington world too well. And all of a sudden, you’re supposed to be appointing top people,” he said. As a result he “picked some people that I shouldn’t have picked”, describing them “neocons or bad people or disloyal people”.
According to research by the Brookings Institution, Trump had a turnover of 92 per cent in the executive office over his time as president, compared with President Obama’s 71 per cent and President Bush’s 63 per cent.
2. His favourite word
To Trump, 78, the word “tariff” is the most beautiful word in the dictionary. “It’s more beautiful than love, more beautiful than anything,” he said.
When asked by Rogan whether he would get rid of income taxes and replace them with tariffs — an idea he mentioned earlier in the week on Fox News — Trump said: “Why not?” He added: “In the early 1900s, they switched over stupidly to, frankly, an income tax.”
A central piece of Trump’s economic plan seems to be a tax overhaul with proposals to bin the income tax scheme. According to the Tax Foundation, Trump’s overall tax plan could add as much as $3 trillion to the country’s deficit in over a decade.
3. The Musk bromance started with a rocket
This year the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, put his money on Trump: $75 million of it. To Trump, he is “the greatest guy”.
The former president told Rogan of when he first became aware of the Tesla and SpaceX founder, watching the coverage of one of his rockets landing.
“I’m talking to this very important guy, I said, ‘Wait a minute, I’m looking at something.’ The television’s unmuted,” Trump said.
“And I see this rocket. It’s all brown from the heat, 10,000 degrees pouring down at thousands of miles an hour… And I say to this guy, this important guy, ‘Wait a minute. Let me just put you down. Hold on. I got to see this.’”
After watching it successfully land, he “forgot the guy” and called Musk instead. “Was that you?’ He said, ‘That was me.’ And I said, ‘Who else can do that?’ He said, ‘Nobody. Russia can’t do it. The United States. Nobody can do it.’”
The rest is history.
4. Rogan on election ‘fraud’
“I want to talk about 2020 because you said over and over again that you were robbed in 2020,” said Rogan, his attempt to catch the president’s attention within his weave.
In response, Trump continued to double down on his claims of election fraud in 2020, despite scant evidence.
“That election was so crooked,” he said. “They say I lost by 22,000 votes. That’s like one tenth of one per cent less than that. It’s a tiny little thing.”
Rogan seemed to concur, saying that doubting the validity of the vote count was equivalent to questioning the coronavirus vaccines. “You get labelled an election denier,” said the former martial arts fighter. “It’s like being labelled an antivaxer.”
5. Stamina
The former president also spoke about his exercise schedule, which largely takes place around a putting green.
“I was never one that could run on a treadmill,” he said. “And I can do it. You know, when passing a physical, they ask me to run on a treadmill, and then they make it steeper and steeper and steeper. And the doctors said, it was at Walter Reed, they said, ‘It’s unbelievable.’”
He could go “all day long” if he wanted. “But it’s really boring.”
6. Condos with Kim
In 2019, Trump became the first sitting US president to set foot on North Korean soil, where he said he initially got off to a rocky start with Kim Jong-un.
“I said, ‘Little Rocket Man, you’re going to burn in hell.’ And it was rough,” Trump said. “I got to know him better than anybody, anybody. And I said, ‘Do you ever do anything else? Why don’t you go take it easy and relax? Go to the beach?’ You know, kiddingly, I said, ‘You’re always building nuclear. Just relax. You don’t have to do it. Let’s build some condos.’”
7. You’re hired!
Before the White House, there was The Apprentice. Trump was the host of the first 14 seasons, fired by NBC in 2015 during his presidential run after remarks he made about Mexican immigrants.
In his interview with Rogan, however, Trump claimed that in the face of his designs on the presidency, the leadership team tried to persuade him to stick to TV instead.
“They wanted me to stay, they all came to see me, they said, “We’re going to give you a contract,” he said.
He claimed that Mark Burnett, chairman of MGM Worldwide Television Group, told him: “You’re crazy, don’t run, don’t run, nobody gives up prime time.”It was a “hot show”, he said. But Potus looked hotter.
