Joe Rogan’s recent claim that he’s “been leftwing his whole life” has sparked fierce pushback from MMA analyst Luke Thomas, who argues the podcast host is attempting to rewrite his political record rather than face the consequences of his influence.
The declaration comes as a resurfaced clip shows Rogan defending Donald Trump’s notorious Access Hollywood tape, where the former president bragged about grabbing women without consent. In a previous conversation with former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich from two years ago, Rogan maintained his position that such comments amount to harmless banter between men.
Rogan said during the episode, “Well that’s the same thing as like the grab ’em by the [ ] comment. Guys talk like that, it doesn’t mean they mean it. Guys talk like that all the time for fun. It’s not… you know you could say it’s misogynist, it’s this… it’s just [ ] talking. It’s what guys do and they know that the other person doesn’t mean it, that’s why it’s funny to say.”
Blagojevich agreed with Rogan. He went on to describe how his wife challenged him when the tape first became public, questioning how he could defend Trump while raising two daughters.
Blagojevich said he reminded her of his own crude private remarks, telling her, “Before you judge somebody else, look at your own husband.”
Blagojevich himself had previously been secretly recorded discussing the possibility of appointing actress Halle Berry to Barack Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat, saying it could give him a chance to have an intimate relationship with her.
The resurfaced clip from the podcast shows Rogan laughing as Blagojevich compared Trump’s comments to his own crude remarks about Berry.
Thomas didn’t hold back in his response to Rogan’s recent leftwing assertion. Addressing a viewer question on his show, the analyst acknowledged that everyone deserves grace for evolving views and past errors.
“All of us will make mistakes. I’ve made mistakes. All of us will change opinions. I’ve changed opinions… And so, for that reason, all of us deserve grace,” he noted.
But Thomas drew a sharp line at what he sees as Rogan’s attempt to gaslight his audience. “That grace doesn’t extend to just kind of going out there and pantomiming vague left-wing ideas and then asserting that you’re leftwing,” he said.
The analyst argued that Rogan’s platform served to legitimize what he considers a harmful political movement. “You endorsed the most incompetent right-wing movement possible, Joe. You laundered the reputation of the inner circle of all of those people. You have done extraordinary harm as an influence campaigner, so to speak, to make those ideas palatable, those ideas that are ruining the lives of ordinary people in this country and well beyond.”
Thomas compared Rogan’s political positioning to UFC CEO Dana White’s strategy of claiming mixed political beliefs while consistently backing one side. “This is the same thing Dana does where Dana’s like, ‘You know, I got a few things that are left. I got a few things that are right.’ I don’t care if in your free time you wrote a sequel to the Communist Manifesto and you call all of your friends comrade and you believe in Antifa. I don’t care if what you do in the real world is materially push the most extreme political project in American life. It doesn’t matter.”
While acknowledging that Rogan may not personally harbor hostility toward marginalized groups, Thomas emphasized that personal beliefs matter less than political outcomes. “You used considerable media and personal resources to help put back into power a guy who tried to take a presidential election. This is a fact. It was grossly incompetent in every possible way, and you said, ‘Let’s do that again, but only worse.'”
