Donald Trump Tells Joe Rogan the ‘Biggest Mistake’ of His Presidency Was Picking ‘Bad,’ ‘Disloyal People’

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

In the wide-ranging discussion, Trump said his biggest mistake during his time in the White House was hiring “bad people, or disloyal people.” The former president also repeated unsubstantiated 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.

Rogan asked Trump whether the ex-president had made “bad choices” in appointing White House officials. Trump, after boasting about his Supreme Court nominees, acknowledged that “the biggest mistake I made” was “I picked some people that I shouldn’t have picked.” Rogan asked if Trump was referring to “neocons,” to which Trump replied, “Yeah, neocons, or bad people, or disloyal people.”

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In this context, Trump named two former members of his administration: John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general who had been Trump’s chief of staff, and John Bolton, his national security adviser — both of whom have been sharply critical of Trump and the dangers he poses. Kelly and Bolton are among the many former Trump officials who have become highly critical of the ex-president since serving under him. In an interview with the New York Times this week, Kelly said Trump met the definition of a fascist and had no understanding of the Constitution — and confirmed previous reports that Trump made admiring statements about Adolf Hitler.

In the interview with Rogan, Trump called Kelly “a bully but a weak person” and said he’s “bad,” while he disparaged Bolton as “an idiot.”

Rogan pressed Trump about the former president’s assertions “that you were robbed in 2020,” when Trump was defeated by Joe Biden in the U.S. presidential election.

“How do you think you were robbed?” Rogan queried, per Mediaite’s recap of the exchange. Trump said, “That election was so crooked, it was the most crooked election.” Rogan asked for some examples. Trump replied, “Well, let’s start, let’s start at the top and the easy ones. They were supposed to get legislative approval to do the things they did, and they didn’t get it in many cases, they didn’t get it.” Rogan wanted to know what “legislative approval” he was talking about. Trump continued: “Like for extensions of the voting, for voting earlier. All these different things. By law, they had to get legislative approvals. You don’t have to go any further than that. If you take a look at Wisconsin, they virtually admitted that the election was rigged, robbed, and stolen. They wouldn’t give access in certain areas to the ballots because the ballots weren’t signed. They weren’t originals. They were — we could go into this stuff. We could go into the ballots, or we could go into the overall.”

Rogan then asked Trump, “Are you gonna present this ever?” Trump seemingly ignored the question and instead brought up the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, which was first reported by the New York Post just before the 2020 election. A letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials at the time of the initial story’s publication said “they believed that the contents of the laptop — full of evidence of drug use, prostitution and foreign business deals — could be part of a Russian campaign aimed at influencing the election,” the New York Times reported. However, the laptop was indeed Hunter Biden’s. On Rogan’s show, Trump repeated unsubstantiated GOP claims that the doubts sowed about the laptop’s authenticity somehow helped President Biden’s election.

Rogan and Trump vibed on a number of topics. Rogan claimed that “The rebels are Republicans now” and called conservatives “punk rock,” while “The liberals are now pro-silencing criticism. They are pro-censorship. They talk about regulating free speech. It’s bananas to watch.” Trump responded, “They come after their political opponents. They did something that’s only done in third-world countries.” Trump added, without offering any supporting evidence, “I could have put crooked Hillary [Clinton] in jail.”

In addition, Rogan asked Trump if he is “completely committed” to appointing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to his administration. In August, Kennedy suspended his independent presidential campaign and endorsed Trump. Trump responded, “Oh, I completely am. But the only thing I want to be a little careful about with him is the environmental. Because he doesn’t like oil. I love oil and gas.”

The full episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” with Trump is available on YouTube and Spotify.

In a post on X, Rogan said the YouTube upload was temporarily suspended after a technical problem delayed the episode’s distribution on Spotify. “There is no issue with YouTube censoring the trump episode,” Rogan wrote. “It was just supposed to go live on both Spotify and YouTube at the same time and there was a glitch in Spotify’s upload system and so we delisted the YouTube link until it’s fixed. It should be fine now.”