Trump arrives late for rally in Michigan after three-hour Joe Rogan podcast: NPR

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives for a campaign rally in Traverse City, Michigan, on Friday. Trump recorded the Joe Rogan Experience podcast earlier on Friday and delayed his appearance in Michigan by three hours.

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In one of the longest interviews he has given as a candidate, former President Donald Trump’s three-hour interview with podcaster Joe Rogan on Friday featured an extended version of the convoluted and sometimes fact-based rallies speeches Trump has made recently.

Trump, who made thousands of rallygoers in Traverse City, Michigan, wait an extra three hours on Friday night because of the extra time spent with Rogan, attacked Vice President Harris as someone who “couldn’t put two sentences together” in interviews and touted his own oratorical skills that regularly cover a wide variety of topics in a short period of time.

“I like to do the long weave,” Trump said on “The Joe Rogan Experience.” “But when you do weaves and you have to be very smart to do that, when you do weaves, look at this, just in this one case we are talking about small pieces….”

“I have to take this home,” Rogan interjects.

“No, no, it all comes home to the right people,” Trump continued. “Wrong people don’t come home and end up in the desert, right?”

Like his rally speeches, Trump’s conversation with Rogan touched on a wide range of topics with little connection, like an episode of The View he was on during his first campaign that featured The Apprentice, UFOs, dead whales and a historical tour involving Abraham Lincoln.

“Lincoln had, I don’t know. “I’ve never read it, I’ve heard it from people in the White House who really understand what was going on with the whole life of the White House,” he said. “But Lincoln joked that he was sort of, as golfers would say, phobic about (Confederate General) Robert E. Lee. He said, ‘I can’t beat Robert,’ because Robert E. Lee won so many battles in a row.”

He also repeated several anecdotes and arguments crucial to his presidential campaign, which are also the main elements of his speech, such as calling for lowering the corporate tax rate to 15%, imposing stiff tariffs on foreign vehicles imported into the country, and continuing to falsely claim , that fraud cost him the 2020 election.

“I won like-I lost like-I didn’t lose, but they say I lost, Joe,” Trump said, repeating the lie that he won the election. He didn’t do it.

As a side note, Trump also seemed to support getting rid of income taxes and relying solely on tariffs to fund the government, although before he fully explained what he meant and how it would work, he moved on to discuss billionaire Elon Musk and how Musk supported him in the election and joked that Rogan would not be a Harris supporter, but rather a “Khabib person,” referring to UFC star Khabib Nurmagomedov.

“Your weave is getting wider,” Rogan exclaimed.

By the end of his third presidential term, Trump had become increasingly erratic in his public appearances and abysmal in his rhetoric. On Rogan’s podcast, Trump repeated his view that there is an “enemy from within” that is worse to the country than enemies like North Korea. Trump has also used the military against domestic enemies before.

“In my opinion, we have a bigger problem with the enemy within and using that term drives them crazy,” he said. “But we have an enemy within. We have people who are really angry and who, in my opinion, really want this country to succeed.”

He also said he didn’t really “have much faith” in the polls, before gushing about his latest results and again making baseless claims that there was widespread fraud in the election.

Former President Donald Trump sends a personal message on the jumbotron, informing attendees that he will be three hours late for a campaign rally in Traverse City, Michigan, on Friday.

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When Trump finally arrived in Michigan, he looked and sounded visibly tired, repeating some of the same themes and anecdotes from his interview with Rogan hours earlier, but with much less energy and coherence.

He took the stage to the theme music of WWE wrestler The Undertaker, standing silently on stage as the ominous song played before apologizing for the delay.

“Here’s what they wanted to do: We were very tight and I thought it wouldn’t bother you too much because we’re trying to win,” he said.

He then cited polling numbers and early voter turnout, falsely claiming he was leading in all seven swing states, before attacking Harris for organizing a campaign rally in Texas that included global superstar Beyoncé.

“Do you know where she is tonight? He’s at the party,” he said. “So Israel attacks, we have a war, and she parties. At least we’re working to make America great again, and that’s what we’re doing.”