Joe Rogan believes Donald Trump’s decision to take military action against Iran has undermined one of the central promises that helped him win over voters: keeping America out of prolonged foreign conflicts and prioritizing domestic issues. During a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience with Francis Foster and Konstantin Kisin, Rogan and the guests talked about Trump’s presidency.
“Part of Trump’s appeal as we all know is that he marketed himself as the outsider,” guest Francis Foster said. “I’m not part of the political system. You’re going to get a radically different presidency with me. I’m not going to be the other ones.”
Foster pointed out that one of Trump’s biggest campaign promises was to put an end to America’s involvement in endless overseas conflicts and redirect the government’s attention towards problems at home.
“One of the promises was like, no forever wars,” Rogan said. “We’re not going to go around. We’re not going to do these wars. I’m going to put America first. It’s going to prioritize American people because we’ve got real issues in this country that we need to sort out.”
However, Foster argued that the decision to take action against Iran sent a very different message to the voters who had supported that vision.
“And the problem is when you do Iran, what you say to people is it’s just more of the same,” he said. “It doesn’t matter who you vote for, you’re still going to get these types of wars.”
According to Foster, this disconnect between campaign promises and presidential decisions could leave voters increasingly disillusioned with the political system.
“And so what happens is that people then feel more and more disenfranchised that they not connected, that it doesn’t matter who they vote for, you’re undermining democracy,” Foster said.
“That’s a really dangerous place to be because once people feel that democracy doesn’t represent them, then they start disengaging,” he continued. “That power vacuum still needs to be filled. And then you have people going, well, what we actually need is a king or what we really need is to do our own thing.”
Kisin meanwhile acknowledged that Trump had delivered on at least one of his major campaign promises, pointing to his administration’s handling of the US-Mexico border.
“You came in, you closed the border cuz you got to give credit where it’s due. He’s closed the border,” Kisin said.
Rogan agreed that Trump deserved credit for that achievement but argued that the Iran decision had overshadowed it.
He stated, “It was the Iran decision that messed everything. Because even the ICE stuff, look, most people in this country don’t like the idea of a militarized police force with no identification just pulling people over. It opens up a world of problems. It sets terrible precedents. ”
This was not the first time Rogan had questioned Trump’s decision to pursue military action against Iran. The podcast host who endorsed Trump during the 2024 presidential election previously pointed to the president’s promise to avoid new wars as one of the main reasons many voters supported him.
“The thing that disappoints everybody who supported Trump before he got into office was one of his big things that everybody agreed with was no more war,” Rogan said on an earlier episode of his podcast. “Like, please, that sounds great.” please, that sounds great.”
