Donald Trump’s highly anticipated interview with Joe Rogan has taken the internet by storm, racking up tens of millions of views on YouTube within the first 48 hours since going live.
Not only is the sit-down podcast a far cry from the standard media interviews we are used to from presidential candidates, but the full three-hour episode has shown an “unedited” interview with Trump that has sparked widespread praise from viewers.
Newsweek has reached out Donald Trump and Joe Rogan for comment.
Joe Rogan’s Donald Trump Interview Makes Huge Splash
Trump’s appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, the world’s biggest podcast, has viewing figures and engagement that traditional news networks can only dream of. It has been viewed more than 33 million times on YouTube, has been liked 1.7 million times and received over 400,000 comments.
That is just one part of Rogan’s podcast audience, with the episode also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. These platforms do not display listenership data for individual episodes but Rogan’s podcast has previously been estimated to have 11 million Spotify listeners per episode.
The numbers far outstrip Trump’s previous podcast appearances in the 2024 campaign, including his appearance on This Past Weekend with Theo Von, which has been viewed 14 million times on YouTube.
Carmen Mandato and Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
The episode also was viewed more times than all the prime-time news broadcasts for all the major cable and network television stations combined.
According to AdWeek, which cited Nielsen data, in the week starting September 23, 2024, ABC News received an average of 7.4 million viewers per broadcast, NBC 5.9 million, and CBS 4.6 million.
AdWeek also recorded the Nielsen ratings for the major cable networks’ news broadcasts in September. Fox News received an average of 2.5 million viewers for its prime-time news broadcast, MSNBC 1.4 million, and CNN 853,000.
The combined primetime viewership of the six networks would therefore total 22.65 million viewers per broadcast.
Viewers Praise ‘Unedited’ Trump
The most-liked comments on the YouTube video are from listeners praising the format for showing a long-form, unedited conversation with the presidential candidate, rather than the short sound bites commonly shown by traditional news outlets and social media.
User @catoftruth1044 commented “podcasts are officially more important than traditional media now” on the video. The comment got more than 300,000 likes.
Another user, @CB-wy2jq, wrote: “Unedited/uncensored interviews should be required of all candidates for political office.” The comment received more than 140,000 likes.
The comment “3 hours unedited… this is what we should expect for journalism,” by user @littlemeowrighty received 51,000 likes.
Rogan’s biggest ever episode on YouTube, his September 2018 interview with tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has endorsed Trump in his 2024 presidential bid, has been viewed more than 68 million times, more than either of the 2024 presidential debates and more than the 2024 Super Bowl.
In the show, the Tesla, SpaceX, and X owner famously smoked marijuana and drank whiskey with the host.
Kamala Harris’ campaign has confirmed that the vice president will not be sitting for an interview with Rogan before the election, citing scheduling difficulties.
Americans Increasingly Get Their News From YouTube
A Pew Research study from September 2020 found that 26 percent of Americans get news from YouTube.
While only 13 percent of the people who said they get news from YouTube said the site was their primary news source, 59 percent said it was still an important way to keep up.
The survey was conducted between January 6 and January 20, 2020, and surveyed 12,638 American adults.
