Podcast host Joe Rogan this week threw cold water on speculation of a pending indictment of former President Trump.
“They’re talking about arresting him for paying a girl to stop talking about them having sex. I thought that was a good deal. I thought it’s a good deal,” Rogan said on an episode of his podcast this week. “You pay someone — Didn’t Clinton do that? … John Edwards got in trouble for doing that, but he didn’t go to jail. I don’t believe he went to jail.”
An AP fact check earlier this week found comparisons circulating on social media between Trump and Clinton’s so-called hush money payments to be misleading. Clinton’s $850,000 payment to Paula Jones in 1998 settled a civil lawsuit, with the AP noting the payment was public and legal, and the funds did not come from the government, nor did they amount to a campaign contribution.
Trump is reportedly facing an indictment from a New York prosecutor in connection with a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, which the AP fact check noted was made through a shell company and reimbursed by Trump, whose company logged the reimbursements as legal expenses in the final weeks of his 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump, who is running for the Republican nomination for president, has denied the allegations against him and has called for protests among his supporters if he is arrested.
“But they just don’t want him president again,” Rogan said of Democrats and other critics of Trump. “And they know that if he runs against Biden, Biden is so old, you know? And no matter what you think about his policies, you hear him talk. He’s so old. He’s so compromised.”
Rogan, a controversial media figure in his own right, has sparked backlash for his comments on the coronavirus pandemic and other issues on his popular podcast.