Joe Rogan was not impressed by the estimated seven million Americans who came out for the “No Kings” protests, calling them more than “funded” efforts to make Donald Trump look bad.
“They think Donald Trump is behaving like a king… because he ran on a platform and was elected and won every swing state and the popular vote. And then once he got in, he did exactly what he said he was going to do,” Rogan whined on the latest episode of his podcast.
“He let them protest!” he continued. “He didn’t send the troops to stop the protest. In fact, he congratulated them on doing a great job, and then he said, ‘I’m still your president,’” he added, praising how “hilarious” Trump’s Truth Social reaction was to the protests.
The post he referenced is fake, however, per Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., who pasted a screengrab of the message to Instagram: “A HUGE THANK YOU to all the No Kings protesters yesterday! I was very concerned a king was trying to take my place, but thanks to your tireless efforts, I AM STILL YOUR PRESIDENT, great job all!”
“It’s not real, but it should be. I might have to make a phone call,” the president’s son wrote in his caption.
Rogan missed that memo as he defended Trump on his show Wednesday. It wouldn’t be the first time the host fell for fake things on the internet. In September, he was roasted online for believing an obviously fake AI video of Tim Walz.
Still, Rogan insisted that the nationwide No Kings protests are a large-scale conspiracy against the president. While legitimate protest is all well and good, he said, “The problem is if you’re organizing a protest and paying people to protest, and if there’s documentation that the metadata from the cell phones are the same from protest to protest, and that they’re traveling on buses that are paid for with tax dollars—like, hold on. What are you really doing?”
The host did not offer listeners said “documentation” during the episode but instead just echoed MAGA conspiracies about supposed shadowy figures behind the mass protest movement.
Funding the movements, which reportedly had seven million people participate across 2,700 rallies across the country, would have been quite an expensive task. In his real remarks about the events, Trump called the protests “very small, very ineffective.” He also said protestors were “whacked out” and insisted he is “not a king at all.”
Rather than deny the numbers, Rogan took a different approach Wednesday as he argued his conspiracy theory. “This isn’t really an organic protest,” he said, claiming anti-Trump entities “funneled money through an NGO and now you’re hiring people to show up and wave signs.” He added, “This is what they did during the Kamala Harris campaign.”
He didn’t offer evidence for the Harris claim either, but there are credible reports that Trump has paid participants to show up for his events—at least in 2015, when The Hollywood Reporter obtained a casting email offering payment to audience members who show up for his presidential campaign announcement. He and his administration have been accused of similar moves throughout the years.
Rogan insisted Wednesday, however, that for Harris’ audiences, “It became a job but it gave the illusion.” Comparing it to the No Kings protests, he concluded, “That’s deceptive. That’s deception and that should not be legal.”
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