After suffering a brutal defeat this past November to President Donald Trump, former Vice President Kamala Harris received a fair deal of pushback for underperforming among young men. Looking for somewhere to place blame, some critics pointed out that Harris had failed to secure an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, who spoke with Trump about a week before the election. But new reporting from NBC News has shed some light on why Harris and Rogan’s tête-à-tête never came to fruition. According to an excerpt from the forthcoming book by reporters Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, the Harris campaign tried to secure an interview but were usurped by Rogan and his GOP allies—including tech billionaire Elon Musk. The book, “FIGHT: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” describes how Harris’ team went to great lengths to meet Rogan’s demand that the two talk at his studio, which is in Austin, Texas. Rogan was supposedly adamant that the interview would not be conducted elsewhere, so Harris’ team had to figure out how to get her to Texas without seeming “desperate” to the press. Her team ultimately decided to host a rally in Houston, another blue Texas city, to serve two purposes: to justify Harris’ presence in the historically red state under the guise of calling attention to Texas’ restrictive abortion laws, and to satisfy Rogan’s demand that they have their interview in Austin. Before the scheduled interview, Harris reportedly sent a team to Rogan’s studio while plans for the Houston rally were finalized. Harris was willing to accept Rogan’s terms, according to the book, so she authorized her team to let Rogan know when she’d be visiting the state. That’s when Rogan started to act fishy, an excerpt from the book revealed. “We could do Friday, the 25th,” [Harris’ deputy campaign manager, Rob] Flaherty reportedly told Rogan’s associates on October 18. “Wish we had known about this sooner, because he has the 25th blocked out as a personal day,” a Rogan rep allegedly responded. “What about Saturday morning?” Flaherty countered, according to the book. A terse response allegedly followed: “Only if it’s before 8:30 a.m.” The book suggests that Flaherty was mystified as to why Rogan didn’t seem eager to interview Harris. After all, Election Day was just around the corner. Days later, Harris’ campaign team realized why Rogan’s team was acting so strange: He scheduled an interview with Trump on Oct. 25, the alleged “personal day” for which Rogan’s team said he was unavailable. News of Trump and Rogan’s interview came as a shock to anyone familiar with their on-again-off-again professional relationship. While Rogan has since become rather chummy with the president, he once called Trump “an existential threat to democracy.” He also referred to Trump as a “man baby” during a 2022 episode of his podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience.” But the book purports that Rogan and Trump set aside their differences and that Musk and Dana White, CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship, convinced them to bury the hatchet and do the interview. And it paid off. Rogan and Trump’s conversation garnered nearly 40 million views on YouTube within three days.
m another contributing factor, the former illega alien Musk gave $20 million to a super PAC comparing Trump to Ginsburg on abortion Elon Musk was the sole funder of a super PAC formed less than a month before the election that focused on advertising intended to convince voters that Donald Trump ‘s stance on abortion was akin to that of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A group titled RBG PAC, formed in mid-October, received a single contribution of $20.5 million from an entity entitled “Elon Musk Revocable Trust” a week later, according to federal campaign finance reports filed this week. Because of the short timeline between the donation and Thursday’s reporting deadline, Musk’s affiliation with the group — which he did not talk about publicly — wasn’t revealed until the filings became public. In the closing weeks before the Nov. 5 election, the RBG PAC group ran a TV ad noting Trump’s statements that he would not, as president, sign a national abortion ban, with a narrator saying he “does support reasonable exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.”
Kamala should be thankful for not having an interview with Rogan. Can you imagine if she tried to answer his questions with her word salad garbage? Rogan would have called her out on her bull$hi immediately. That interview would have been devastating to her campaign..
Rogan called Trump out on his BS. Rogan gave Trump an open mic to expound in detail why the 2020 election was stolen. Trump gave a three-ish sentence word salad response and no more. Rogan let that BS ride. Rogan has no business giving political interviews ... which are well outside of his wheelhouse. The political interview "genre" requires heavy pushback on empty partisan talking points. Rogan never pushes back; that is his style.
I don’t think the Rogan interview would have made much of a difference honestly. I think bringing in RFK AND doing Rogan would have potentially been a big swing that could have paid off but it also would have maybe suppressed the base too and made her look desperate. Honestly this past election was probably decided shortly after the mid terms and the only thing that could have elected a Democrat was an open primary where an outsider essentially ran against both parties. The fact is we have a country that is constantly being told how bad liberals are and they have to do this thing where they vote in a Trump or Bush and then feel the pain from touching the hot stove then act later on like they never voted for anyone out of shame. I can say that cause I was one of those idiots that voted for W because after the Clinton years the electorate was told how bad Democrats were for too long and decided that it was cool again to vote for Republicans…. Than we paid the price for being idiots and voting for a party that wants nothing to do with actually helping the people and cares only about corruption and power. Americans aren’t that complicated. Easy group of people to manipulate and a bunch of sheep led by Pigs.
I feel like I’m in a community college western civ or government class and you’re a 24 year old professor, fresh out of UT.
When it comes to America I think it’s best to not overthink it. So yeah summarizing who we are and how we vote like that makes more sense than trying to parse through cross tabs on Selzer polls. Sometimes it’s just about what is “cool” at times and for whatever reason during the Biden years the sheep were told over and over that Dems were lame and Trump is this cool guy who loves MMA and doesn’t GAF by the Pigs who jammed that message down your throats. Plurality of Sheep went along with it and jumped off the cliff, touched the hot stove, pet the leopard etc etc. Pigs on the front row of the inauguration laughing their way to the bank after watching the Sheep do the dumbest thing they could possibly do simply because they told them that the worst human being alive was kind of cool because of MMA and whatnot. The end.
The left has turned hard against rogaine since COVID and nearly cost him multimillion dollar contracts when they wanted Spotify to cancel him. It's for that reason it'd be a big deal for Kamala to score a win without home court. His audience distrusts the groupthink Kamala put down and later whitewashed during her campaign. Calling foul over his backend schemes is sour grapes and a bigger flaw of Dems assuming they can do more of the same and win 2028 by shaking down a couple million more votes. The economy was a big factor in why Americans gave Trump full control over the government but wishing for great timing doesn't really win hearts and minds nor does it inspire confidence the hearts and minds are working within Dem leadership
Sure but even if you are focusing on the economy being the main driver (despite the data the system sucks dry the middle class in favor of the rich and powerful etc.) it still defies logic because it’s painfully obvious that Trump/corruption/autocracy is going to be even more painful for the economic hardships of being a middle class worker bee. At least subconsciously everyone has to know that at some level right?? Unless there is evidence I have yet to see of corrupt autocracies producing thriving economic conditions for the working class. So why did the American voters do it?? Why the impulse to self destruct when it’s unnecessary?? It’s like trading CP3 and all our draft picks for Westbrook when we had the MVP, almost won a title, and seemingly years left to run it back. We are quite simple but also highly conflicted people us Americans. Maybe we are just programmed to self destruct I dunno. Kamala Harris was no FDR or Lincoln yes, but it was a no-brainer from a logical standpoint to continue on as what was the wealthiest country with some of the best living standards in the world throughout humanities existence. But because she has a cackle our electorate decided to vote for the criminal who was openly promising a corrupt autocracy when in human history we’ve seen corrupt autocracy after corrupt autocracy not really work out for societies. ugh….
Joe Rogan is king of media It’s obvious since all the legacy media is getting waxed like a hairy Brazilian @AroundTheWorld @Os Trigonum @Salvy Kamala can’t do one hour interviews I told suckers here the new media has taken over their beloved cable networks this only confirms it
When it comes to America I think it’s best to not overthink it. It's gonna be hard to move past denial and into acceptance with Donny flooding the zone. Instead of reading the doomscroll bait all media peddles for clicks, I suggest filtering for more introspective analyses. If you're not a big reader that can be engaged with a 30 min read, put that link into a meat grinder and follow up in the bigger details like a pro college student. Not claiming you'll turn out to be a big ol ray of sunshine like me but it'll be less of a load on anxieties you can't control, such as a diminished opinion of your fellow man.
