Last Updated on September 14, 2020
President Donald Trump signaled support Monday for an offer by podcast star Joe Rogan to moderate a private, four-hour presidential debate between Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
The idea was originally broached by Rogan during a podcast with military veteran and former mixed-martial arts fighter Tim Kennedy.
“On my podcast with @joerogan he offered to moderate a debate between @JoeBiden and @realDonaldTrump. It would be four hours with no live audience. Just the two candidates, cameras, and their vision of how to move this country forward. Who wants this? #debates #Election2020,” Kennedy wrote on Twitter Sunday.
On Monday, Trump replied to the tweet with the affirmative message: “I do!”
I do! https://t.co/H9Eghnqpuy
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 14, 2020
While Trump has indicated that he is completely on board with Rogan’s proposal, the likelihood of such a debate plan coming to fruition is slim to none.
The Biden campaign has shied away from putting as much emphasis on the presidential debates as previous campaigns, and a debate with a wild-card moderator who might challenge Biden with unplanned questions would likely pose too much of a risk to be approved by the former Vice President’s management team.
Nonetheless, a debate hosted by Rogan would be a massive opportunity for both candidates to reach a broader swath of the American public.
Rogan’s podcast reaches a staggering amount of listeners, especially after the podcast host’s groundbreaking exclusive contract with streaming platform Spotify.
The 2019 episode of “the Joe Rogan Experience” podcast with radio host Alex Jones is still reportedly the most viewed podcast episode of all time:
On Feb. 27 2019, radio and TV host Alex Jones appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast for the second time. The podcast has since accumulated over 16 million views on YouTube, making it the most viewed podcast in the entire world for 2019.
The 2019 podcast – titled “Alex Jones Returns!” – amassed record-high viewership across YouTube, iTunes, joerogan.net and other platforms.
The official Joe Rogan library website released an infographic this week showing the “Alex Jones Returns!” podcast as having over 5 million more views than its closest competition, as well as being the most-liked JRE YouTube video of the year.