Trump to appear on Joe Rogan's podcast in play for young male voters

Former President Donald Trump sits down with podcast host Joe Rogan for the first time Friday, appearing on the highly popular "The Joe Rogan Experience," as he reaches out to an audience of mostly young males as potential voters.

The podcast, which boasts approximately 15.7 million followers, a Spotify representative confirms to ABC News, is greater than the population of any of the seven election battleground states.

It wasn't clear when the podcast would be available.

Rogan, the former host of the mid-2000s NBC reality game show "Fear Factor," also has roughly 17.5 million YouTube subscribers and 19.3 million Instagram followers. Put together with his Spotify listeners, this comprises an audience of approximately 52.5 million.

Unsurprisingly, this is the most-listened-to podcast on Spotify, according to the app's charts. And Rogan is in a league of his own.

According to a Bloomberg News ranking of podcasts in March, the second most popular podcast at the time, TED Talks Daily, boasted merely 5 million followers. A podcast ranking from Edison Research in August also shows Rogan at the top of the pack.

The number of people following Rogan's podcast is nearly half the number of Americans who have already cast ballots for the 2024 presidential election so far. As of Thursday afternoon, with less than two weeks to Election Day, more than 30 million Americans have voted early, per the University of Florida Election Lab.

For her part, on Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris was taping with the 11th most popular show on Edison's ranking, Club Shay Shay, hosted by former NFL star Shannon Sharpe, scheduled to air on Monday.

Sitting with Rogan is a clear attempt for Trump to make inroads with younger males, as the audience largely skews that way. Political figures have been blanketing the podcast waves this cycle, from Harris joining the ever popular with women "Call Her Daddy," and Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen J.D. Vance, and Trump also appearing on comedian Theo Von's chart-topping show.

Rogan, a comedian, is hard to pin down politically. Last cycle, he said was likely voting for Bernie Sanders, who was on the program in August 2019.

And in April 2021, Rogan came under fire for his controversial claims about the COVID-19 vaccine.

"If you're a healthy person, and you're exercising all the time, and you're young, and you're eating well, like, I don't think you need to worry about this," Rogan said on his podcast.

In 2022, Rogan told the Lex Fridman podcast he was "not a Trump supporter in any way, shape, or form," adding that Trump is a "polarizing figure" and an "existential threat to democracy itself."

At the time, Rogan also expressed that he declined to invite Trump on his show. "I've had the opportunity to have him on my show more than once. I've said no every time," he said. "I don't want to help him."

Yet, this time around, though he has distanced himself from self-labeling as a political communicator, Rogan has become more active in the political sphere and expressed praise for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"I'm not the guy to get political information from," Rogan wrote on X in August after clarifying he wasn't endorsing Kennedy Jr. on his show but lauded his character as well as Trump's reaction to his first assassination attempt in July.

"He's the only one who makes sense to me," Rogan said of RFK Jr. in the August episode. "He doesn't attack people. He attacks actions and ideas but he's much more reasonable and intelligent."

In response, Trump posted on his social media platform, "It will be interesting to see how loudly Joe Rogan gets BOOED the next time he enters the UFC Ring??? MAGA2024."

Trump's appearance on Rogan's podcast comes as he continues to engage in long-form media, particularly capitalizing on podcast platforms with large youth audiences.

When asked about his recent podcast appearances during an interview with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo this month, Trump confirmed that his youngest son, 18-year-old Barron Trump, influences him by exposing him to such platforms. "He tells me about all the hot guys," he said.

According to Edison Research, podcasts reach 48% of 18-34-year old Americans every week.