The Session: Trump Talks Xi, Tariffs and Aliens

Former President Donald Trump said he’d consider entirely replacing income taxes with tariffs, conceded he had botched senior staff appointments, and teased a possible revelation about extraterrestrial life during a freewheeling three-hour podcast with comedian Joe Rogan on Friday.

t was an unorthodox - and lengthy - conversation for a presidential candidate, underscoring the Republican nominee’s outreach to young male voters and quest for wave-making spectacle during the closing days of the presidential campaign. The podcast, recorded Friday during a visit to Austin, Texas, is the latest effort by Trump to broaden his electoral appeal beyond his fervent conservative base with polls showing him deadlocked with Democrat Kamala Harris.

Trump at Podcast recording

Bloomberg reports Trump opined on a number of topics, defending his populist economic agenda while offering strong praise for billionaire Elon Musk - who he labeled “out of this world” - as well as Chinese President Xi Jinping. Throughout his bid to return to the White House, Trump has teased a resumption of the tit-for-tat trade war that he waged with Xi in his first term.

The conversation stretched long enough that Trump ended up hours late for a rally in swing-state Michigan, where hundreds of supporters trickled out of the venue as temperatures dropped while waiting for him to arrive.

But Rogan, widely considered the most popular podcaster in the world — boasting 17.5 million subscribers on YouTube and 15.7 million on Spotify — offered a unique platform for the former president to reach not only a massive audience, but one full of the type of independent voters both campaigns have said could decide the election.

Harris has also sought to tap into the growing popularity of non-traditional media venues, appearing on podcasts including hit Call Her Daddy with Alex Cooper. Her campaign said scheduling difficulties kept her from appearing on Rogan’s show.

Conspiracy Theories

Rogan and Trump repeatedly delved into conspiracy talk, with Trump insisting that the 2020 election was stolen while the podcast host prodded him on if he would provide evidence to support his allegations.

Trump instead said that he believed the media had not fairly covered the material recovered from Hunter Biden’s laptop, and that pandemic changes to voting procedures were illegal.

Rogan was generally amenable to Trump’s framing of the election issue, but balked later when Trump praised the value of the polio vaccine.

Toward the end of the episode, Rogan asked the former president about the possibility of alien life.

Trump said he had done “an interview” with three or four unnamed officials who he described as “solid, beautiful people” on the issue.

“They said, ‘Sir, there’s something there,’” Trump said, without elaborating.