6 takeaways from Donald Trump's 3-hour podcast with Joe Rogan - The Boston Globe

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

71% : Rogan was a friendly interviewer, often praising Trump.
61% : He rarely interrupted the former president, and they seemed to bond over their shared love of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, a mixed martial arts league whose matches Trump attends.
60% : He again offered praise for William McKinley, the 25th president, a Republican whose views on tariffs Trump frequently commends.
47% : That Trump opted to step off the campaign trail and spend hours in Rogan's studio in Austin, Texas -- a detour that delayed the start of his remarks at a rally Friday evening in Michigan by several hours -- was a mark of Rogan's reach and the importance of the audience he draws.
46% : "Yeah, sure," Trump said.
44% : And Rogan, a standup comedian, praised Trump for "comedic instincts" on the trail.
42% : Trump voiced casual support for the idea of eliminating the federal income tax, suggesting a return to economic policies that existed before the early 20th century.
42% : Trump asked.
38% : Rogan asked Trump, who had mentioned the notion Monday in a Fox News segment.
37% : "I want to talk about 2020 because you said over and over again that you were robbed in 2020," Rogan said, offering Trump a platform to repeat his debunked claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election and the lie that he won that year.
37% : "There's no reason not to think that Mars and all these planets don't have life," Trump said.
36% : Trump floated eliminating the income tax.
36% : "Maybe it's life that we don't know about," replied Trump, who has vowed in stump speeches to get an American astronaut to Mars.
36% : "Trump started to object to that point, but Rogan continued on with his question.
33% : "They use it as a weapon," Trump said.
32% : Rogan acknowledged that he had rethought his position on interviewing Trump after he survived an assassination attempt in July at a rally in Pennsylvania.
28% : Trump does not trust polls -- or pollsters.
28% : But Trump suggested, without evidence, that they were not just mistaken but might be fraudulent.
28% : And he turned stern as he pressed Trump over his claim that environmental regulations were used only to enrich consultants who stymie development.
26% : Even before Trump began talking about eliminating the income tax, an analysis by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that his other economic proposals could add as much as $15 trillion to the nation's debt over 10 years.Is there life on Mars?Rogan pressed Trump for government secrets on whether there is life beyond Earth.
25% : Trump told Rogan he had little regard for political polls, explaining that he believed there was "probably a lot of fraud" in them, even as he at times positively cited polls that showed him doing well with voters.
24% : "Polls have consistently shown a tight race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
23% : At one point, Rogan asked Trump to elaborate on why he thought people opposed increasing oil and gas production or fracking, "outside of the environmental concerns, which are legitimate, of course.
22% : "Trump lamented that "the judges didn't have what it took to turn over an election" and repeated a few false claims, suggested that mail-in ballots were not secure and said that Democrats had "used COVID to cheat" in 2020.
21% : Just two years ago, Rogan said he had declined to have Trump on his show, calling the former president "an existential threat to democracy."
21% : ""Sure," Trump conceded.
18% : "Rogan invited Trump to talk about his debunked claims of widespread election fraud.

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