By the way, I'm not a Trump supporter in any way, shape, or form.
I've had the opportunity to have him on my show more than once.
I've said no.
Every time I don't wanna help him, I'm not interested in helping him.
>> Yes, that was Joe Rogan revealing that he has actually turned
down Donald Trump as a guest on his podcast multiple times.
He was being interviewed by host Lex Friedman.
Who pushed back saying that he thinks Rogan would actually,
be suited to likely have Trump on in the future.
Rogan's explanation for why he won't is telling though.
And so I want you to pay close attention to what he's saying here.
Because he reveals that he understands the power of his platform and
the responsibility that comes along with it.
>> I think you'll have them on.
>> Really, why do you think that?
>> I mean you've had a lot of people that I think,
you may otherwise be skeptical would I have a good conversation.
Which I think is your metric, you don't care about politics.
So can I have a good conversation?
And I think you had people like Kanye on for example.
And you had a great conversation with him.
>> But Kanye is an artist.
Like but Kanye doing well or
not doing well doesn't change the course of our country.
>> Yeah, but do you really bear the responsibility of the course of
our country based on a conversation.
>> I think you can revitalize and rehabilitate
someone's image in a way that is pretty shocking.
>> So let's just stop there for a second, John.
Because Rogan has had all sorts of people on his podcast who have promoted or
said all sorts of incredibly irresponsible and even dangerous things on his podcast.
But it is interesting that for Rogan Trump is his red line.
>> Look, I wish I could say I knew more about who he's had on in the past.
Like if you had told me he'd have Trump on the past,
I would not be surprised about it.
I'm not, I'm just as unsurprised that he hasn't,
I really don't care who he has on his show.
It strikes me as does he often have politicians on the show?
Any politicians like national figures?
>> Yeah, I mean when she was a politician, Tulsi Gabbard was on,
he had Bernie Sanders on, I'm sure there are other politicians, but
I'm not remembering It.
>> Okay. Yeah. Look, I think again,
he approaches like 50% of like a well-thought-out point.
He understands that bringing someone on his platform would help them by
promoting them.
And he understands that having a serious conversation with them and treating them
as serious person, bringing them on does help to rehabilitate their image.
Of course, at the same time, he's helped to by his own words rehabilitate the image
of people who are arguably as bad as Trump, who might not be politicians,
like literally elected politicians or those who are presumably gonna run for
office in the future.
But it's definitely political actors Alex Jones doesn't mainly do movie reviews.
So look again, maybe he's not thinking about this, maybe there's gaps in his
thinking, I find that pretty easy to imagine, maybe he's being disingenuous.
To be fair to him, he hasn't had Trump on and I have no doubt that
if he wanted to have Trump on he could, so I'll give him that credit.
>> So look, I don't wanna talk about this to either give him credit or
not give him credit.
I think that it's an interesting conversation because this is
the first time that he has acknowledged that he has a lot of power with this
massive platform that he's built.
And I think that's relevant given what he got a lot of criticism for
during the pandemic, which was the promotion of a drug that is not in any way
proven to work either as a prophylactic or as a treatment for coronavirus.
And that was Ivormactan.
And he continued to double down on that didn't care didn't-.
>> And vaccine skepticism [CROSSTALK] and a lot of other stuff too.
>> So for me, I mean look if I had to either decide to give him credit or
take credit away.
I think that even though he acknowledged something important that acknowledgment
makes me reflect back on some of the irresponsible stuff that he did on
his show.
And it's like, okay, why did you do that then?
Right. And then he'll argue, well, I'm just,
I'm an MMA guy and I'm a podcaster and I do comedy.
Like you shouldn't be taking medical advice from me.
>> Then why do you constantly have on people who talk about medicine and
public health crises?
>> So let's talk about that real quick because he has all sorts
of people on who of course pushed the vaccine skepticism.
You've got Robert Malone, you've got Bret Weinstein, Peter McAuliffe.
Malone worked on the MRNA technology and
has complained about not getting his credit for those contributions.
And since he's salty, he started pushing the vaccine skepticism because
of course everything in this country is about me narcissism,
who cares if people are gonna die, disgusting.
He's had Gavin Mcginnis on and
what's interesting is after he made that point during that interview
about how his show can really rehabilitate someone's reputation.
He then proceeded to rehabilitate the reputation of someone that you actually
mentioned, John.
Let's take a look.
>> Look at the way people look at Alex Jones now because Alex Jones has been on
my podcast a few times.
>> Yeah. How do they, which direction?
>> The people that have watched those podcasts?
Think he's hilarious.
And they think that he definitely up with that whole Sandy Hook thing.
But he's right more than he's wrong and he's not an evil guy.
He's had some serious bouts of alcoholism, some serious bouts of substance abuse and
they've contributed to some very poor thinking.
And if you know him on podcasts, you realize he is genuinely trying to
unearth some things that are genuinely disturbing for most people.
>> The Posner family had to move seven times because of Alex
jones's lies about Sandy Hook being a false flag operation.
Their son was gunned down in that mass shooting their son is dead.
And to add insult to injury, Alex Jones lied about them called them crisis actors.
And then his lunatic audience proceeded to threaten the lives of
the parents who lost their son.
>> That's true. But he only-.
He only did that for many years.
>> Many years.
>> And in the words of Joe Rogan, but what do you mean?
But like, is it possible that a broadcaster can do?
Let's pretend that that's the only bad thing that Alex Jones has done.
Is it possible that maybe that one bad thing is too bad?
Then at that point you can't rehabilitate him.
And it isn't he thinks that every other shooting up and up to and
including the shootings of this week were false flags.
He still tells his audience that they're false flags.
He still tells them that politicians are literally inhabited by satan.
Like this week, if you just took what he said in his show this week it would be
enough that you should write this person off.
But no, he's just funny, he's not actively trying to destroy people's lives and
inculcate xenophobia and racism and bigotry and anti-Semitism and all that.
And like I cannot imagine that Joe Rogan does not know this.
>> Joe Rogan's unwavering loyalty to Alex Jones blows my mind.
It really does.
Especially since I don't listen, there are plenty of people in this
country who are struggling with addiction issues and alcoholism.
They don't go around directing hatred and
death threats toward people whose Children were slaughtered in a mass shooting.
Just saying I could be, maybe I'm being a little unhinged here by mentioning that,
directing violence towards people whose Children
were slaughtered is unacceptable under any circumstance.
Even if someone is struggling with alcoholism, so
rehabilitating Alex jones's reputation.
Not here for it.
But the other thing I wanna just quickly mention is,
yeah, I mean, look, Joe Rogan will turn on his own beliefs.
His well-established talked about beliefs on his podcast to defend Alex Jones.
He caught feelings when I called Alex Jones a fat f.
He caught feelings over that.
He did and I asked him about it.
I was like, you don't think fat-shaming is even a thing you think
fat-shaming is totally fine.
But for some reason when I called Alex Jones that,
which by the way he is, I might let's call a spade a spade.
He caught feelings.
Because you can fat-shame everyone else, but don't fat shame his buddy, Alex Jones.
Okay, anyway, listen, he understands the power he has with this platform,
yet he is super irresponsible with it on a regular basis.
Now he's decided to surround himself with all sorts of right-wing lunatics and
conspiracy theorists.
But the other thing I wanna just quickly mention is that he could
actually use his platform, he could interview whoever he wants.
I don't have a problem with that interview, whoever you want.
But if you're gonna interview someone who's a controversial figure,
just know what you're talking about.
And just be informed enough to challenge what they're saying when they're
bs in your audience.
So like a good example of him handling a guest perfectly was Dave Rubin.
He had Dave Rubin on.
Dave Rubin made a fool out of himself because Rogan was informed
enough to counter Dave Rubin's idiocy when it came to the US Postal
service when it came to building code regulations.
And it was great to see because he dismantled Dave Rubin's idiotic arguments
in real-time love to see It was interesting.
So he can interview whoever he wants.
The problem that I have is that he seems to allow his loyalty for
some of the worst people in this country to like cloud his better judgment.
And I'm not, okay with that.
>> Yeah, it's annoying again,, I would love for, first of all,
let me be clear to never hear about him again in my life.
But more importantly, if he just wants to have a chat show where he smokes weed and
talks to people.
And clearly, he just wants to hear something interesting.
That's what he wants, he wants to have on a brain scientist or an MMA guy or
whatever and he wants to hear something interesting.
He's not interested in knowing enough about it.
To know if this is a reputable person if this is a serious person if it is
responsible to expose my audience to this person and I doubt he cares.
I doubt even if he had the capacity to be prepared for all of his interviews,
he wouldn't want to because his goal is not to learn and
better understand all these topics.
It's to hear something cool and then largely forget about it and
move on with his life.
He's not coming out of all these conversations with a dramatically changed
worldview.
He'll talk to someone a month later who tells him the exact opposite thing and
that'll be cool and interesting and all of that is fine.
And if everybody who was a fan of him just accepted that that's what they were
getting, I would be fine with it.
The thing that bothers me is when people think that their fandom means something
that it doesn't, If you're a fan of Joe Rogan, that's fine.
If you're a fan of Jordan Peterson, that's fine.
But what you're a fan of is not curiosity and intellectual like rigor and
that's not what you want, that's that's branding, that's all that is.
They have branded these people as being for guys who are more curious and
interested in the world.
Know guys that are curious and interested in the world, can go to the goddamn
library and they can read a book about basically anything if they want to.
They can talk to these people, you are specifically going to a person who's gonna
give you a really chopped down, easy-to-understand version of this.
Is that really gonna challenge anything that you already believe and
all of that is fine?
Just be honest with yourself about it.
>> Yeah, well, they won't be.
So looking forward to whatever comes in 2024 during that election process,
it's gonna be great.
Don't worry,
Gavin Newsom who has destroyed California is considering running in 2024.
Which is really looking forward to that.
>> He probably won't make it on the show either though.
If I had to guess