Andrew Yang believes Kamala Harris lost the election when she refused to appear on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
Yang ran against Harris in the 2020 Democrat Primary and during his run for the White House, he made an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience to argue on behalf of his pet project of Universal Basic Income.
The head of the Forward Party told TMZ that Harris committed ‘political malpractice’ in turning down Rogan’s offer to appear ahead of the election.
‘If you think about that audience, you’re talking about millions, tens of millions of mostly men. It was almost entirely going to be upside for Kamala Harris and the Democrats.’
Yang also believes that vice presidential nominee Tim Walz ‘would have done well’ on the comedian and MMA commentator’s show.
‘I think that they would have gotten votes. It was also a very bad look that they didn’t go on because there were some voters who were like… what are they hiding?’
Yang adds that going forward, no major party candidate will be able to avoid appearing on the show.
‘If you can’t do it, then they should nominate someone else,’ he said.
He also pointed out how Rogan is amenable to left-leaning ideas, saying he would vote for Bernie Sanders in 2020.
‘He’s the number one podcaster, he’s got the biggest audience, in my opinion, it was political malpractice for them not to go.’
Trump’s interview with Rogan amassed a staggering 17 million YouTube views in less than 24 hours.
The three-hour sit down covered a wide range of topics including UFOs, the John F. Kennedy assassination files, the border and healthy food in the US.
As soon as the episode was released just after 10pm Eastern Time on Friday night, viewing figures skyrocketed with 300,000 in the first 30 minutes.
By comparison, Kamala Harris’ appearance on the Call her Daddy podcast with Alex Cooper has clocked just 685,000 views in the two weeks since it went live.
The vice president was also due to be interviewed by Rogan, but had to pull out due to scheduling conflicts, a spokesman said.
A voter in the crucial swing state of Arizona says her decision to shun an appearance on Rogan drove him to vote for Trump.
The unidentified Arizona State University student told MSNBC’s Gadi Schwartz that the VP’s refusal to appear on the popular show ended up deciding his vote.
‘We’ve actually been hearing a lot of talk about the Rogan podcast,’ Schwartz said. ‘A little while ago we were talking to two guys.
‘One of them said he was on the fence, when Kamala did not go on the Joe Rogan podcast that was what influenced his vote, he ended up voting for Trump.
‘He said he was open to listening to Kamala on the podcast and when she didn’t, not necessarily all the issues. She didn’t seem like a real person because she couldn’t talk for an extended period of time. ‘
Schwartz said many of the young men he’d spoken to had also been put off Kamala Harris and the Democrats by ‘feelings of attacks on masculine identity.’
The podcast host opened up about why the ‘very difficult’ Vice President had failed to follow in Trump’s steps and appear on his popular show.
He explained that Harris ‘only wanted to do an hour’, compared to the three-hour sit down he was given by Trump.
He added that he had insisted that the interview take place in his studio, but had been flexible on timings, Mediaite reports.
‘You could look at this and say, “Oh, you’re being a diva”,’ Rogan said Wednesday, ‘But she had an opportunity to come here when she was in Texas. I literally gave them an open invitation.
‘I said, “Any time.” I said, “If she’s done at 10 o’clock, we’ll come back here at 10 o’clock.” I go, “I’ll do it at nine in the morning, I’ll do it at 10 p.m., I’ll do it at midnight if she’s up, if she wants to drink a Red Bull and f**king party on.”.’
He said that Harris’ team reached out shortly after he announced Trump would be appearing.
‘But it was very difficult to tie it down,” Rogan explained. ‘They wanted to travel. See, the thing is, you can’t like — if I go somewhere, then there’s gonna be other people in the room.
‘And they want to control a lot of things, I’m sure, according to the interview on Fox. Like, people are waving him off. That’s a distraction.
‘My whole goal with her and with him is just talk. Just have a conversation like a human being. You find out things about people. You get a sense of them, at least.’
He explained he hoped to use the interview as a means of getting to know the candidates better.
By appearing on Rogan’s podcast, Trump was able to appeal directly to his 81 percent male listenership, of whom a majority are under 35.
Harris had long faced criticism that she performs poorly during press conferences or interviews and is frequently accused of giving rambling ‘word salad’ interviews.