Joe Rogan brought up one of Barack Obama's past controversies while president as the podcast host he spoke out in condemnation of Donald Trump's recent conviction.
Trump was found guilty on May 30 of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment. The former president was accused of arranging $130,000 shortly before the 2016 election for his then-lawyer Michael Cohen to pay adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about a sexual encounter she alleges she had with the then-real estate mogul.
The money was listed in the Trump Organization's records as "legal fees," which prosecutors said was part of an unlawful attempt to influence the outcome of the 2016 race. Trump had admitted to reimbursing Cohen for the Daniels payment but denied all wrongdoing, saying the criminal trial was part of a political witch hunt aimed at derailing his White House bid. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and also denied the alleged encounter with Daniels.
After being convicted, Donald Trump said outside of the courtroom: "This was a disgrace. This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt."
During a June 5 episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Rogan told his guest, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, that he disagreed with the prosecution of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
"They're trying to stop this other guy from even running [for president] and they're exposing how corrupt the democracy is," Rogan said of the legal action taken against Trump. "They're exposing how corrupt the system is just by charging this guy with 34 felonies for paying off a lady he had sex with. Like what?"
Rogan opined that in "most situations, it would have been considered a misdemeanor, but they turned it into a felony. They trumped it up, no pun intended."
"If you have the backing of the political party it doesn't matter, especially the party that's in charge," the host said. "But what's scary is how many Democrats are willing to allow this kind of stuff to happen, and a lot of them are aware of it."
Rogan quoted an unnamed woman from a viral social media video as saying that "this is really dangerous for democracy. Nobody can justify this and nobody could say this guy should be in jail for this."
"It just doesn't make any sense, especially if you wanted to look at past presidents with the same scrutiny. I mean, there's so many instances of things that you could [look at] and this was one of the things that Obama had said.
"When Obama got into office, they were talking about George [W.] Bush and Dick Cheney being charged with war crimes and he was saying, 'We're not going to look to the past, we're going to look towards the future. We're not going to prosecute anybody.'
"Imagine if when Obama got into office, he decided to prosecute Dick Cheney and George Bush for crimes against humanity. Oh my God, you know how crazy that would be? Do you know how divided the country would be then? Well, that's the same thing kind of that is taking place now at a lesser scale, obviously, because it's not a war crime you're charging someone with.
"But you could charge Trump with war crimes, you could find some things that he did, especially with bombings, you know, and even what Obama did. Obama during the administration they dropped a drone on a U.S. citizen. No trial, no nothing."
Newsweek has contacted representatives of Obama, Trump, and Rogan via email for comment.
Former President Obama faced criticism for authorizing the 2011 drone strike that killed U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen. Critics said the strike constituted an extrajudicial killing, violating his due process, but government officials argued al-Awlaki's alleged ties to terror groups made him a legitimate war target. A drone strike also killed his 16-year-old son two weeks later.
Attorneys for Trump attacked his presidential predecessors in a court filing last October over his ongoing federal January 6 case. The Department of Justice (DOJ) charged Trump last August on four criminal counts in Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation into the former president's alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, culminating in the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Trump has claimed, without evidence, that he lost the election due to widespread voter fraud.
Trump's attorneys cited several examples of presidents evading prosecution for what some viewed as illegal acts, naming several former presidents by name.
For instance, they pointed to Obama's drone strike, former President Richard Nixon's actions in the "Saturday Night Massacre," when he asked three DOJ officials to fire Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, and when former President George W. Bush's critics accused him of lying to Congress to "induce the Iraq War" on allegedly false pretenses.
"American history teems with situations where the opposing party vigorously
contended that a sitting President acted criminally in the exercise of his official responsibilities. Yet, when the opposing party took power, none of these Presidents was ever prosecuted, until 2023," the filing read.
Elsewhere on June 5's installment of Rogan's podcast, the host said that U.S. politicians are "all crazy—that's what they don't want you to know. It's like s**** that are always talking bad about other girls who are s****."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
");jQuery(this).remove()})jQuery('.start-slider').owlCarousel({loop:!1,margin:10,nav:!0,items:1}).on('changed.owl.carousel',function(event){var currentItem=event.item.index;var totalItems=event.item.count;if(currentItem===0){jQuery('.owl-prev').addClass('disabled')}else{jQuery('.owl-prev').removeClass('disabled')}if(currentItem===totalItems-1){jQuery('.owl-next').addClass('disabled')}else{jQuery('.owl-next').removeClass('disabled')}})}})})
