President Donald Trump mocked Joe Rogan for being “liberal” at a recent White House event, but the popular podcaster played down suggestions from some online that there has been a growing rift between the pair.
“He joked about it,” Rogan said during an episode of his podcast that aired Tuesday. “He called me a liberal during the whole thing.”
“He’s very liberal,” Rogan said, imitating the president’s voice.
During the event on Saturday, touting the administration’s efforts to speed review for therapeutic psychedelics, Trump needled Rogan, in what may have been a dig over the host’s recent criticisms of the Iran war.
“We all respect Joe,” Trump said. “He’s a little bit more liberal than I am. That’s OK. I have a lot of friends that are liberal, but Joe is an amazing guy.”
Rogan, speaking on his podcast, said the friendly tone extended to an exchange between the two at a UFC fight earlier this month. The pair were seen having an animated conversation during a handshake, in what some commentators thought was an argument.
The podcaster said the conversation actually involved the two men talking about the psychedelics effort, which Rogan said he lobbied the White House to pursue, beginning with a text to the president.
“Literally, he sees me at the UFC the next day, shakes my hand, and says it’s done,” Rogan said on his podcast. “That’s what he was saying. I said, ‘Thank you, sir.’ It wasn’t like he was mad at me at all. It was the opposite.”
The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.
Rogan, while close to the president, hasn’t been afraid to criticize the administration, a rarity in a larger media ecosystem where figures with ties to the right rarely speak out against the president.
Rogan has called the Iran war an “insane” choice that made “a lot of people feel betrayed.”
The podcaster has alleged the administration sees the war as a welcome distraction from the Epstein files saga.
“Look, the Epstein files come out — we go to war with Iran. It’s a good way to get people to stop talking about certain things,” Rogan said on an episode this month.
Rogan hasn’t been alone in his criticism.
Other popular figures in right-wing media like Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and Candace Owens have all slammed the war effort.
But Rogan’s closeness with the president appears to have spared him from White House anger.
The others have been subject to angry posts online from the president in recent days.
