Joe Rogan’s praise of independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr. had Trump supporters up in arms on Thursday.
Rogan’s far-right-friendly podcast, his peddling of outlandish conspiracy theories, and his alignment with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (an unmistakably pro-Trump organization) appear to have led some Trump supporters to believe Rogan would ultimately throw his support fully behind former President Donald Trump.
The petulant kvetching from the MAGA movement channeled the widespread rage at Rogan for what apparently felt like a betrayal.
But when video surfaced of Rogan gushing over Kennedy and calling him “the only [candidate] that makes sense to me,” popular voices among the MAGA faithful were quite unhappy.
The petulant kvetching from several prominent figures in the MAGA movement channeled the widespread rage at Rogan for what apparently felt like a betrayal.
Check out some examples of the morose MAGA reactions from far-right influencer Philip Buchanan (also known as Catturd), as well as right-wing conspiracy theorists Jack Posobiec and Mike Cernovich.
Facing backlash, Rogan sent out a tweet on Friday praising Trump and claiming his remarks about Kennedy being the only candidate that makes sense weren’t really an endorsement. That doesn’t seem to have satisfied Trump, who targeted Rogan on his social media platform.
“It will be interesting to see how loudly Joe Rogan gets BOOED the next time he enters the UFC ring,” Trump posted from his Truth Social account.
Many conservatives were all-in on the idea of Kennedy’s campaign when he was running as a Democrat, because Kennedy’s campaign was initially perceived as capable of helping Trump win by peeling off voters from what was then the Biden-Harris campaign. Kennedy, who was reportedly convinced to run for president by Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and whose campaign is largely being funded by uber-rich Trump-supporter Timothy Mellon, was effectively running an ostensibly liberal campaign with MAGA DNA.
But ever since Kennedy decided to run as an independent instead — and as data show he’s likely to pull more voters from Trump than from Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming election — Republicans, including Donald Trump himself, have turned their ire on Kennedy and any MAGA-friendly figures who might back him.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.