Trump told Rogan his biggest mistake as president was choosing “bad people”

Todd Spangler
| Variety News Service

Donald Trump sat down with Joe Rogan for a three-hour interview for The Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Friday. The episode was released later on Friday evening.

During the wide-ranging discussion, Trump said his biggest mistake while in the White House was hiring “bad or disloyal people.” The former president also repeated baseless claims that the 2020 election was “rigged,” but when Rogan asked him if he was going to release evidence proving the election was “stolen,” Trump changed the subject. Trump’s pre-recorded interview with Rogan took place at the comedian and podcast host’s studio in Austin, Texas.

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Rogan asked Trump whether the former president made “bad choices” in appointing White House officials. Trump, while boasting about his Supreme Court nominees, admitted that “the biggest mistake I made” was that “I picked some people I shouldn’t have picked.” Rogan asked if Trump meant “neocons,” to which Trump replied, “Yes, neocons, or bad people, or disloyal people.”

In this context, Trump named two former members of his administration: John Kelly, a retired Marine general who served as Trump’s chief of staff, and John Bolton, his national security adviser. he is posing.

Kelly and Bolton are among many former Trump officials who have become sharply critical of the ex-president since serving under him. In an interview with the New York Times this week, Kelly said Trump fits the definition of a fascist and does not understand the Constitution, and confirmed previous reports that Trump has made admiring statements about Adolf Hitler.

In the interview with Rogan, Trump called Kelly a “bully but a weak man” and called him “bad” and called Bolton an “idiot.”

Rogan pressed Trump over the former president’s claims “that you were robbed in 2020” when Trump was defeated by Joe Biden in the US presidential election.

– Do you think you were robbed? Rogan asked, according to a Mediaite report. Trump said: “This election was so unfair, it was the most unfair election.” Rogan asked for some examples.

Trump responded: “Well, let’s start, let’s start with the highest and the easiest. They had to get legislative approval for what they were doing, but in many cases they didn’t get it, they didn’t get it.” “

Rogan wanted to know what kind of “legislative approval” he was talking about. Trump continued: “Like extending voting, early voting. All these different things. By law, they had to obtain legislative approval. You don’t need to go any further than this. If you look at Wisconsin, they basically admitted that the election was rigged, robbed and stolen. They did not provide access to ballots in certain locations because the ballots were not signed. They were – we could do this. We could go to a vote or a general vote.”

Rogan then asked Trump, “Are you ever going to introduce this?” Trump appeared to ignore the question and instead brought up the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, which was first reported by the New York Post shortly before the 2020 election.

The letter, signed by 51 former intelligence officials at the time the first article was published, stated that “they believed that the contents of the laptop, full of evidence of drug use, prostitution and foreign business deals, may have been part of a Russian campaign to influence the election.” The New York Times reported. However, the laptop did belong to Hunter Biden. On Rogan’s show, Trump repeated unsubstantiated GOP claims that doubts about the laptop’s authenticity somehow helped elect President Biden.

Rogan and Trump discussed a number of topics. Rogan declared that “the rebels are now Republicans” and called conservatives “punk rock” while “liberals now advocate silencing criticism. They are in favor of censorship. They talk about regulating freedom of speech. It’s nice to watch.” Trump responded: “They are going after their political opponents. They did something that is only done in third world countries.” Trump added, without providing any supporting evidence: “I could put crooked Hillary (Clinton) in jail.”

Additionally, Rogan asked Trump if he was “fully committed” to appointing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to his administration. In August, Kennedy suspended his independent presidential campaign and endorsed Trump. Trump responded: “Oh, yes, of course. But the only thing I want to be a little careful with is the environment. Because he doesn’t like oil. I love oil and gas.”

In a post on X, Rogan said the YouTube upload was temporarily suspended due to a technical issue delaying the episode’s distribution on Spotify.

“There is no problem with YouTube censoring the Trump episode,” Rogan wrote. “It was supposed to be released simultaneously on Spotify and YouTube, but there was a glitch in Spotify’s upload system, so we removed the YouTube link until it was fixed. Everything should be fine now.”