During a conversation with comedian Brian Simpson on episode #2491 of the Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan turned his attention to the Trump family’s cryptocurrency ventures, offering darkly comedic take on what he suggested amounted to a legal mechanism for self-enrichment.
The topic arose after the two discussed a special forces soldier who faced federal charges for betting on a Polymarket prediction market tied to a military operation.
Simpson noted that before the soldier’s identity was revealed, many assumed the bettor had been Don Jr. “Oh, I thought it was like Trump’s son or something,” Simpson said. “People thought it was assumed it was Don Jr.”
Rogan replied flatly, “Well, who knows what they’ve done.”
Simpson then said sarcastically, “Boy, Trump don’t leave no crumbs on the table. He’s like, I need all this bread. I’m on the way out. I still need this bread.”
Rogan then brought up the coins directly. “The coin, the Trump coin. I mean, that’s crazy. That’s crazy. It’s legal, but… The Melania coin.”
Simpson then said, “Like, bro, if you buying any celebrities coins, you deserve to lose your money.”
Rogan offered a layered response, acknowledging that some buyers enter knowingly. “These are gambling a*dicts. They’re gambling,” he said, recounting what his friend had explained. “They know. They know that it’s going to crash. No one’s under any illusion this is going to last forever. They try to get in and get out and make money while they’re doing it.”
Simpson countered that the real marks are those who do not know that. “Those are the suckers,” he said. “Those are who you’re getting money from. It’s the ones that think it.”
Rogan then outlined a hypothetical scenario, making clear he wasn’t accusing anyone directly. “You could look at it as this is an effective way to pay people off legally,” he said. “I’m not accusing anybody doing this, but I’m saying let’s say if I started a JRE coin and maybe some Middle Eastern government decided they’re going to invest $500 million in a JRE coin and then I announce the JRE coin. They put in the money to back this JRE coin. I get a substantial stake in the JRE coin. So, I get a bunch of JRE coins and then I just dump all my JRE coins and then it goes from being worth X amount of dollars to being worth almost nothing.”
When Simpson asked if that was a pump and dump scheme, Rogan confirmed: “That’s the pump and dump.”
Curious about real-world data, Rogan then asked for the price history of the Trump coin. According to information pulled up during the show, the token launched on January 17, 2025, at roughly 18 cents, surged to nearly $74 within days, and then collapsed.
“Trading started around $7 on Friday, jumped as high as $74 on Sunday,” the data showed. “800,000 wallets collectively lost around $2 billion while the Trump Organization and partners profited heavily from fees.”
