After learning of his sweep of the elections, Donald Trump came out to give a celebratory speech in which he had a special message for the media, whom he referred to as “enemy territory.” He mocked the defeat of the old media and praised Vice President-elect J.D. Vance’s willingness to move into the opposite camp and confront journalists from the mainstream media. If that wasn’t enough, he then asked Dana White to give his speech, and the UFC CEO wasted no time in thanking Joe Rogan for the major hand he had in helping Trump sweep the election.

After all, Rogan became the main supporter of the new president’s team in the final days before the election. He invited Donald Trump to his podcast, and the episode became a massive hit. And if that wasn’t enough, in the final stretch of the contest, he explicitly asked for a vote for Trump. But do you know that the situation could’ve been much different had he succumbed to the peer pressure by Dana White back in 2017? Well, that was the time when the UFC boss asked Joe Rogan to bring Donald Trump to the show for the first time.

In a recent edition of the Joe Rogan Experience, the UFC commentator sat down with Theo Von. During the chat, Rogan dropped the major reveal that Dana White had been pushing him to bring Donald Trump to his podcast since 2017. In fact, it was actually the UFC boss who made it all happen. Rogan said, “Dana White made the Trump thing happen for sure. He was trying to get me to have Trump on in, like, 2017. Bro, he would call me up. He called me up, ‘Joe, listen, the president wants to do your podcast.'”

However, Joe Rogan was aware of the public heat on Donald Trump, so he tried to avoid being a part of any controversy surrounding the president back then by refusing Dana White‘s request. He said on JRE #2226, “You know, and back then I was like, I don’t want to be a part of this. Too many people were angry, too many people pi–ed off. I was like, I don’t need to.” But the recent election surely changed his mind since he noticed the blatant representation of Donald Trump by the media. “And I didn’t pay attention to it enough. I didn’t pay attention to, um, the way they were misrepresenting things that he had said enough.”

Throughout this campaign, the UFC commentator interviewed the likes of J.D. Vance and Elon Musk. However, he also offered to interview Democrat Representative Kamala Harris, but the conditions put forth by the candidate’s team (to do it outside the studio, and only for an hour) seemed unacceptable to Rogan. And after seeing the election result, it seems like Harris should’ve actually traveled to Texas.

Why Joe Rogan was a key factor for both candidates

Joe Rogan is truly the kingpin of the podcasting realm, with more than 18.3 million subscribers for which he earns around 100,000 dollars per episode. He often brings high-profile guests to his show and always manages to get the person out of character. So it was no surprise that when he brought Donald Trump for a three-hour chat, he gained over 400,000 new subscribers through the overwhelming love of the Republican supporters.

The UFC commentator was a key factor in this election since, according to a survey by YouGov, 81 percent of Joe Rogan’s listeners are males, with more than 50 percent of them being under 35 years old. It was a key demographic for Kamala Harris to target since Trump already enjoyed the majority of their support. However, Harris decided to pay more significance to Alex Cooper’s ‘Call Her Daddy’, a show that caters to the young female demographic instead.

This lack of exposure to the target demographic surely made her lose votes, as the final nail in the coffin came with the much-anticipated appearance of Donald Trump on the Joe Rogan Experience. The show earned over 20 million views in just 20 hours. So fans were invested in seeing their candidates become a part of the show that’s known for bringing out their candidness. But what do you think? Did Rogan actually play a major part in the election? Let us know in the comments.