MAGA Joe Rogan Keeps Flipping On Trump, When Will He Learn?

0:04As a shock to no one, Donald Trump is the most unpopular president since Nixon during Watergate, abysmally low. But I think we can do better. I think he can go even lower, pop this up. Absolute disaster for the White House. Gallup data confirms Donald Trump's disapproval has collapsed to a staggering 63%. He officially tied Richard Nixon's Watergate era for the highest disapproval in history. The Trump administration faces total rejection. And here to discuss said rejection with me is Sawyer Hackett. He is a political strategist turned content creator with more than 15 years of experience advising campaigns and political organizations.

0:47Today, you can find him on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, breaking down the biggest stories and combining cooking and politics to reach new audiences. Sawyer, welcome to iHIP News. Great to be with you, Jennifer. All right. What do you think about the disapproval rating of Donald Trump? I think we can do better. I think we can definitely do better. I think, honestly, it feels like the Iran war was really the catalyst for a lot of people coming out of the woodwork with Trump. I mean, it seems like that has kind of coupled with a story about corruption that's really actually starting to reach people for the first time.

1:21I mean, it seems like people like us have been kind of pulling our hair out for the first year of this administration, trying to figure out why voters aren't as pissed off as we are, aren't as glued into the news, paying attention to what's going on. But it does seem like the Iran war really kind of shook people about what Trump is up to, what he's doing, kind of taking his corruption on the road in the Middle East. And really, it started to bring a lot more people into the fold for Democrats, for progressives, to kind of win some of these special elections around the country. So I think people are starting to wake up, but I agree, we can definitely bring those numbers down even more.

1:59We can definitely do better, but I'm really starting to get a tad bit worried about some of the centrist slash corporate Democrats. And I want to play a video for you from former Andrew Cuomo, chief of staff, Melissa DeRosa, play the clip. No, absolutely. I mean, the Maine race really demonstrates the civil war that's happening within the Democratic Party. And there are a lot of Democrats, moderate Democrats like myself, who will not cry tears should we lose Maine. I mean, that would be a pickup to begin with. I don't know about you, Sawyer, but I'm from a state called Oklahoma. And a lot of humans, women in particular are crying a lot of tears over Susan Collins vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh.

2:48And then, of course, we know it overturned row. If you're raped in Oklahoma, you have no rights. If you're molested, you have no rights. If you have a debilitating, life-threatening situation with your pregnancy, you have zero rights. You are subhuman as a woman in the state of Oklahoma. This is so offensive to me that I'm sure she sits in a blue state somewhere and talks like this about Susan Collins, because that's the other option there is Susan Collins. So she might not be crying about it because Graham Plattner isn't all synced up with all of the pimps that she wants to prostitute the Democratic Party out to.

3:23But I can tell you in the state of Oklahoma, education is 50th because of policies just like this. I mean, this is insane. You know, Melissa DeRosa is fairly irrelevant. I mean, her opinion, I think, is pretty dismissible. I mean, this is somebody who's worked for Andrew Cuomo most of her life, and now she wants to lecture us about a candidate with baggage. I mean, it's kind of hilarious to hear that coming out of someone like her. But honestly, this is very reminiscent, I think, of a lot of the vote blue no matter who crowd, who, you know, they expect progressives and folks on the left to get in line and vote for any kind of centrist Democrat that they nominate in any given state.

4:03But then when a progressive wins in an open primary and defeats, you know, a more establishment Democrat, that they can go on Fox News and write op-eds and gripe about how they won't shed a tear when we lose this election. I mean, it's so shallow and vapid, these people. They're just after kind of protecting those contracts, protecting their connections and their access to these centrist politicians who have kind of lined their pockets over decades. But really, it's just pathetic. I mean, this is happening across the country that incumbent Democrats are losing or coming up short to progressive candidates who are running these kind of insurgent campaigns, who are not insiders, who are coming from spaces outside of politics.

4:47And they're winning these races with the help of voters. It's not with huge corporate packs or tons of insiders writing op-eds or endorsing them. These candidates are doing it the hard way. They're working hard. And then you have these centrist strategists who go on TV the next day and just kind of completely shit on the nominee in an effort to lower enthusiasm for candidates like Grant Plattner. And really, it's just to the detriment of the Democratic success in November. I mean, we have a chance in November to not just take back the House, but take the Senate. And it will be on the heels of candidates like Graham Plattner.

5:24We won't be able to do that without candidates like Graham Plattner. And so really, I think this just demonstrates how irrelevant some of these centrist strategists who have kind of staffed the Democratic Party over so many years. And not to mention how dismissive it is of main voters. And their concerns, yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is who they want. This guy's worked his ass off. He's speaking to them. and going against the record of Susan Collins. But let me ask you this. We don't talk about this enough. What is a centrist, in your opinion? What is it? What does that mean? What is a moderate? What is a centrist?

6:01It's kind of become irrelevant because it used to mean, you know, it used to be tied to ideology. It used to be something that was, you know, on a breadth of different issues, you could kind of find them right in the middle of the spectrum between the polls on the left and the polls on the right. Right. Now, today, it just doesn't really it's completely hollowed out its meaning. And really, I think centrist today just means corporate corporate Democrat or corporate candidate, because really these candidates don't have any kind of through line through their ideology. They don't believe in, you know, the Democratic Party should represent this or that as much as they they think that the Democratic Party should represent their interests and the interests that have lined their pockets over many decades.

6:38And so, you know, I've had always had a hard time with the term centrist, with the term moderate, because really, they don't really make sense in our politics anymore. I mean, where does Donald Trump fall on the spectrum? Like, it makes no sense to label these people this way. But I do think for people within the Democratic coalition, this term this term is helpful to to kind of signify that it is it tends to be the more ideologically, you know, centrist candidates that that are the corporate PAC Democrats. I think that we have to start making those connections for voters within our own coalition because, you know, too often we get tricked.

7:13I mean, like you look at what's happening in Virginia right now with Abigail Spanberger. I mean, this is a person who has always been kind of a centrist candidate. You know, she gets elected kind of on a centrist message, promises all these big progressive things and pushes forward on a lot of them, and then immediately decides to stick it in the eye of the progressive movement as soon as she gets into office. To me, that's not necessarily, and it's not necessarily on ideological grounds, right? It's just to stick it to the left. It's just to punch down in an effort to appease the kind of like corporate class that has guided our politics.

7:43And so, yeah, you're right. I mean, centrist doesn't really mean much these days, but I think corporate makes more sense. As it's inherently dismissive of the left, by saying, well, I'm a moderate or I'm a centrist, then you're saying they're crazy over here and then they're also crazy here on the left. So let's talk about what these people would define as crazy on the left. And to me, it always boils down to empowering people. Zoran, per the centrist, is a radical leftist. that MFR has gone in to office, all gas, no brakes, overcome a huge deficit, is delivering for New Yorkers every single day.

8:27And I don't really see anything radical that he's doing. I mean, this is what government is supposed to do. This is an FDR who should be a champion in our party. Per the centrist, FDR was a radical leftist. So will you speak to anything that you know of on the left that is a radical position that a centrist would need to extract themselves from and separate themselves from in a pick me kind of way. It's like a risk adverse political position, in my opinion. Yeah. I mean, they're never truly picking one distinctive policy or another to separate themselves from the Democratic Party. I think it's more about the labels.

9:07They're afraid of terms like democratic socialist. They're afraid of, maybe they're afraid of a universal healthcare system, Medicare for all type system. Maybe there are specific things that they're running against. Maybe it's kind of the wokeism of LGBTQ politics or anything like that. But really, it's not connected to ideology. These are not people who are actually, you know, afraid of a leftist agenda as much as they're just afraid of leftist politics, because they themselves have not been able to defend the Democratic Party for many decades, for many years. And so I just find it, I find it more so that these people are using window dressing, right?

9:46Like they're not actually trying to go after the Democratic Party's policy agenda. They're not trying to go after leftist policies. They're trying to go after the status quo. They are status quo politicians. And anything that kind of defies that is something that they're going to be in opposition to. And I think they kind of play off the establishment media, the kind of corporate media, you know, the way that they use terms to kind of push off leftists, whether it's democratic socialist terms or universal health care, they find ways to frame these policies as extreme when really they're reactions to an extreme status quo of not taking care of people.

10:20And that's what the Democratic Party has failed to do. I completely agree with everything you just said. Joe Rogan tends to come out every two to three weeks and engages in some very Captain Obvious observations, in my opinion. And then of course, Trump will humiliate him and march his little ass back over to the White House for a humiliation ritual in the Oval while Trump is hitting REM. But listen to Rogan here on the slush fund. The New York Times in the U.S. is forever barred and precluded from examining or prosecuting Trump, his sons, and the Trump Organization's current tax filings, according to one-page document released Tuesday.

11:00That is so crazy. Imagine like somebody accused you of murder. Yeah. And it turns out you weren't guilty of that murder. And then you sue them. You go, you can never prosecute me for murder again. And then you just go straight. Who say? Yeah. And they're like, it's cool. Yeah.

11:19Sire. I mean, I think people forget that Joe Rogan is just a low information voter. And I know are not supposed to use that that phrase anymore like i know that's kind of right it's kind of like gone to the dustbin of political terms but really that's what he is i mean this is a guy who he wants to get together with his friends uh and just talk he's a yapper he wants to hear himself talk he wants to bring up whatever kind of ai slop or misinformation story that he read on the internet and talk through it uh with his buddies but really he has no intellectual curiosity he's not reading up on the news.

11:53He's not staying informed. He's just coming across whatever's on his algorithm and deciding to talk about it. But really, as much as I love talking shit about Joe Rogan, I mean, I think he embodies, I think, what a lot of voters are experiencing these days where they'll be on their feed scrolling through whatever kind of nonsense, AI slop or whatever garbage that they're taking in on their feed. And then they'll come across something that's a traditional news story, like Donald Trump is setting himself to setting up a$2 billion political slush fund to pay out his criminal allies. And they're like, their mind is boggling because it doesn't comport with what they've been reading on their feeds.

12:30And it just demonstrates to me that like, this the algorithmic ways in which we've kind of been segmented into our own little bubbles. It's evident not only in in everyday voters who are trying to kind of understand the news, but it's evident in people like Joe Rogan, who hosts one of the biggest platforms in the country for not only just media, but political media. This man had the president of the United States on his platform, has had the vice president many times. I mean, it's truly absurd that these people feel no sense of responsibility to read up the basic facts on something before they start talking about it.

13:03And I think that's what you're seeing in that reaction to the slush fund. Yeah. Do you think that this slush fund is kind of like the primer for what will eventually be an Epstein victim slush fund. And I'm not talking about the actual victims of sexual abuse. I'm talking about Trump and his friends, like Howard Letnick and others that are mentioned in the Epstein files. I'm not really sure. I mean, I think the fact that the slush fund will have zero parameters on it to ensure that we can see what happens to and see where these payments go, who are getting them, what's the oversight approval. we have no idea.

13:43So, you know, these payments could be going out to allies of Trump who have, or allies of Jeffrey Epstein who have committed crimes, who, you know, the DOJ never brought charges against, never indicted. But I also think it's for setting up, you know, a system in which he can compensate people for committing crimes on his behalf in the past, while also incentivizing people to commit crimes on his behalf in the future. I mean, this is not just a slush fund to pay out criminals for doing things. It's to say, hey, look, if you want to commit crimes in the future on my behalf, and hey, there's going to be lots of opportunities looking ahead to 2028, there's a pot of money there for you.

14:22There's something for you to compensate for you when you do commit those crimes, and I will have your back. I think the same can be said for the Epstein victims. I mean, he still has not ruled out giving a pardon to Jelaine Maxwell, for example. can you imagine if she's someone who throws her name in to apply for this slush fund once she's released? I mean, I can't imagine that all of this is going to be hidden from the public. I think there's going to be a lot of reporting. I think there's going to be a lot of leaks that come out of this. But the fact that we don't even have the ability to see where these payments are going and who's making them and who's requesting them is just absurd.

14:59And I think most voters find that insane. I agree. Okay. Trump says prediction markets must be protected. Pop this up. He says, it's critically important that the CFTC's exclusive authority over prediction markets is maintained and that they will thrive. Under my leadership, we are setting rules of the road that are the gold standard for the states. We cannot have scum. Scum is all cap logs. Like Chris Christie, Letitia James, Tim Walls, and Jamie Pritzker setting the rules. Other countries are after this new form of financial market and we want to remain at the top likewise. And even more importantly, where we are currently, the crypto, Bitcoin, et cetera, capital of the world, other countries are trying diligently to replace us in that capacity.

15:46And he goes on and on, thank you for your attention, just all this shit. And I think that Don Jr., who I refer to as dumb, The son's Dumb and Dumber. So I think Dumb is a paid advisor to Calci. So can you break down the scale of this corruption that we are seeing from the Trump administration? And then just morally, all of these betting markets, gambling is a huge addiction, much like drug addiction. So can you break all of that down for us? Yeah. And Dumb isn't just an advisor to Calci. He's also an advisor to Polymarket and his firm, 1787, is an investor in Polymarket. I mean, And this man has competitor prediction markets paying him out dividends for his work, advocating for these markets.

16:31I think one of the more undercovered elements of the Trump presidency, I think probably due to Steve Bannon's muzzle velocity strategy, has been their complete dismantling of the regulatory system to monitor these emerging markets, things like AI, things like crypto, and things like these betting markets. and it's plainly obvious why they're doing this. I mean, behind the scenes, you've seen Trump allies making billions of dollars on these markets, trading on his tariffs, trading on the Iran war, trading on what color tie he's gonna wear in a press conference. I mean, we have no insight into how these trades are being conducted, who's making them.

17:12If there's any regulator on the beat, like watching this stuff, I doubt that there is. One of the more important things about taking back Congress is that there's going to be mountains of work to do to investigate the trading around the Trump presidency. And not just the trading, right? The stuff going on with AI and crypto, too, is just as nefarious because it's just as opaque. It's just as hidden from the public. And so, you know, the level of corruption is astounding. I mean, this is a man who's made$4 billion in the first year of the presidency. That's more money than every president in history combined in terms of net worth.

17:49in just one year in office. It's truly insane. And we thought it was crazy when he was handed a$400 million jumbo jet from the Qataris. Now he's just setting up slush funds, just backing up the truck to the IRS and dumping in money into his own account. And I think this element of the regulatory system is just as corrupt as anything else that he's doing. I mean, you saw the report last week that nearly 400 trades he made in the first year, in the first quarter, sorry, of 2026, uh 750 million dollars in profits i mean the level of corruption is truly staggering again i do think people are starting to wake up to that but like we have to do a better job of telling that story because it's been happening in the background of all these other catastrophes whether it's ice you know in the streets of our communities whether it's the iran war whether his it's his tariff agenda behind the scenes the the thing he's actually competent in the thing he's actually delivering on is tons, billions of dollars into his own pockets and the pockets of his allies.

18:47Yeah. The guy who just beat Viktor Orban ran on an anti-corruption campaign with absolutely no media amplification. He went town to town and spoke about corruption. And I agree that the Democrats need to speak about corruption more. But again, we go back to the centrist issue where They're somewhat complicit in the corruption. But I also want to say that I think a Democrat needs to be bold enough to not only say we're going to investigate every single one of these things, hold everyone accountable for it, but every single thing that this guy builds, if it's an arch, if he dies, the reflecting pool blue, whatever he builds, we're tearing every bit of it down, every single bit of it down.

19:29I mean, I want to hear somebody with that kind of fight in them. I want that type of erasure from all of his efforts to put his thumbprints and fingerprints all over our country. What are your thoughts on that? Do you think that's petty or do you think that that's a real thing that Democrats should run on? I think it's absolutely a real thing Democrats should run on. And I think that there's an open platform right now for a 2028 candidate to come out and say that directly. I mean, they're going to be saying it very soon. But, you know, somebody who comes out there right now is helping set the terms for that debate.

20:03And, you know, to the AI crypto prediction market conversation, I think that like you would also like to see a 2028 candidate come out and say, hey, we're going to regulate these companies into oblivion. I mean, we're going to absolutely put guardrails on these companies and even, you know, ban them in certain respects. I think a 2028 candidate running on banning these prediction markets or reigning in crypto or AI, like you're seeing it right now in states across the country that are that are pushing these bans on data centers in their communities. I mean, there is a there is a mass organic effort to push back on these markets.

20:42and I think a 2028 candidate would be smart to get out in front of it. To the question of these kind of vanity projects that are costing billions of dollars, I absolutely think that they should make that promise. And they should make that promise that it's going to happen on day one. They're going to tear down the arch. They're going to tear down the ballroom. They're going to strike his name off of everything. And zero questions asked, done and dusted. We're not even going to put this through Congress. We're not going to talk about the funding. It's just going to disappear. Like if there's one element of Trumpism that we can recreate, it's just bulldoze over everything you want to bulldoze when it comes to Trump's legacy, because I don't think there's going to be a constituency fighting for that once he's gone.

21:17I completely agree with you. And I will go watch like I want his name. I want to watch the Trump taken off of the Kennedy Center. You can sell tickets. Yes, totally could sell tickets for it. OK, I'm going to do something absolutely horrible to you. And so I apologize from the outset. Let's talk about who you like for 28. Okay, obviously a year ago, we all would have had Gavin Newsom as kind of the point guy in the number one position. My opinion, he peaked too soon and has been a flip-flopper on some issues. And it kind of played patty cake and seeded ground to something like Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon.

21:58That was really off-putting to me. What's your take on where Gavin stands right now? I do feel like his last six to eight months have not been as strong as the first six to eight months of the Trump presidency. I think some of his kind of communications tactics were extremely successful. And I would continue to push Democrats to find creative ways to get their voice out there, to find creative ways to push back on Trump. Obviously, you can't do the exact same thing that Newsom did. But I think it's still very early. I think Newsom can recalibrate. I do think that he's made a lot of kind of weird pivots into hosting Steve Bannon on his podcast to then turning around and being the kind of anti-MAGA fighter that I think Democrats are looking for.

22:43He's kind of throwing stuff at the wall right now and seeing what sticks. I have not been even remotely swayed by any of these 2028 candidates. into being in their camp or pushing for them. I have zero front runners right now. And I think that that's a good thing. I want to hear a Democratic candidate who can articulate both a policy vision for what we want in the future, who is going to push both accountability measures for everything that's happening in this administration, both tearing down those vanity projects, holding them accountable for all of the corruption and crime that they've committed.

23:16But then also, I think that this is a real chance in 2028 to run a candidate who's got a bigger vision for, you know, ethically what this country stands for. I mean, if we have a candidate who's able to marshal kind of public support for banning gerrymandering nationwide, for getting money out of politics, for expanding the Supreme Court, doing things that will safeguard our democracy to prevent anybody like Donald Trump from ever taking office, those are the candidates that I'm interested in right now. That being said, they also have to articulate an economic vision, a populist economic vision for the country.

23:49That combination, I have not seen any candidate who is able to kind of articulate that perfectly the way I would want to. But it's still very early. I think candidates I'm liking right now, I think Ossoff has been very good at kind of articulating that corruption and accountability message. Of course, he's running in a Senate race. And so it's kind of tailored specifically to his campaign. But I think in the near future, you're going to start to see candidates pop up and giving some of these big speeches at these big forums, articulating what they're standing for. but I love the fact that I don't even have a even close to a front runner I want to be completely wooed by these candidates and right now they're not doing the wooing yet I agree as it pertains to the midterms I have this really like really bad feeling about states like Georgia states like Texas red states that like Tallarico might win Texas but they will take votes ballots trash them and cheat.

24:46And I think that these red state governors are so obsequious to Donald Trump and everything they do is for a party of one. And I'm gravely concerned that election integrity is already compromised. And further piling on, we talked about the slush fund. I think that is a signal to people who want to go rough up ballot places, polling places, that there's a financial incentive to do it. At the same time, I don't want to talk about this too much because I don't want to participate in suppressing the vote because we've always known that we have free, fair, and safe elections until the Republicans are always beating about all of these imaginary dead people that are voting and all of this stuff.

25:32How concerned are you when you get to red states that need these house seats, that need these Senate seats? I mean, do you think Greg Abbott, But do you think he's going to be good on this thing? Do you think his attorney general is going to be pure on this thing? Or do you think they're going to cook the books? You know, I would say I'm more concerned about what you're articulating than I am about, say, you know, them sending the National Guard or ICE into polling places. I think some of those kind of intimidation tactics are going to backfire. I mean, I truly think that, like, the public is ready to send a protest vote against this specific administration and Republican candidates will kind of be the proxies for that fight.