VANITY FAIR
Joe Rogan, the controversial podcast host known to divide comedians, engaged in some spirited debate with stand-up comic Jim Gaffigan on Friday’s episode of The Joe Rogan Experience. Over the course of nearly three hours (about the length of Oppenheimer), the pair sparred over the Jan. 6 insurrection and whether Trump or Biden is more Satanic, among other topics.
Roughly an hour into Gaffigan’s episode, during which he promoted his new Prime Video special, Dark Pale, the topic of the Capitol attack arose, as it so often does when Rogan is near a microphone. “The January 6 thing is bad, but also, the intelligence agencies were involved in provoking people into the Capitol Building. That’s a fact,” Rogan said before reiterating the right-wing conspiracy theory that Jan. 6 rioter Ray Epps was working for the FBI to discredit Trump. (Epps is currently suing Fox News after former host Tucker Carlson spread this conspiracy theory.) “I don’t know if he was a fed. I know a lot of people think he was a fed,” Rogan concluded, before admitting that Donald Trump “definitely encouraged people to protest.”
Gaffigan poked holes in this theory, stating that he was “more suspicious why Trump didn’t call for backup for the Capitol police,” adding, “There’s way more conspiracy stuff against Trump than the slim likelihood that people were like, ‘Oh Trump’s a problem. Let’s just get these people that are loyal to Trump to run into the Capitol so we can arrest 300 people.’ Does that make sense?’”
Rogan held firm on his belief. “No, it doesn’t make sense,” he replied, insisting that the deployment of “agent provocateurs” is a “standard tactic,” particularly when “someone is the enemy of the intelligence agencies.” He continued, “With Trump, that’s absolutely the case. Trump set himself up against the intelligence agencies.”
Later in their conversation, Gaffigan said that while he doesn’t deny the existence of “corruption on both sides, in the end, for me personally, when people complain about Biden’s age or his cognitive decline or whatever, I’m like, ‘The alternative, to me, is not acceptable.’” Rogan then brought up “all the corruption that we know for sure happened” with Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who recently plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges stemming from paying his taxes late in 2017 and 2018.
“Joe Biden’s relationship with his son who obviously struggles with addiction—I mean, half of our friends struggle with addiction. He’s a compassionate father,” Gaffigan said, before pointing out the controversy that’s befallen Trump’s son-in-law and political adviser, Jared Kushner. “It’s very little doubt in my mind that Trump is the most corrupt,” the comedian added.
“You and I both have this same suspicion, but we’re coming from two different sides, which is fascinating,” Gaffigan continued. “I think you are more likely to think that Biden is Satan and I’m more likely to think that Trump is Satan.” Rogan argued that while he doesn’t think Biden is “evil incarnate,” he does believe that the president is “one of those people that is in charge of government and has been entrenched in that business forever.” As for Trump? He “for sure has been involved in some shady shit,” Rogan said—but that the former businessman entered his administration as an “outsider” who “knows how gross that system is.”
