Joe Rogan is an American actor, commentator, and podcaster of the hit podcast called “The Joe Rogan Experience.” The podcast came to be in 2009 and on it Rogan has many guests that he interviews discussing a plethora of topics. He has people of different professions such as comedians, politicians, activists, actors, and more. As of this year, “The Joe Rogan Experience” is now available on streaming audio and media service, Spotify.
Due to the elections this year, debates took place between former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald J. Trump. The first debate was on September 29th with Fox News commentator Chris Wallace as the moderator. In total there were supposed to be three debates, but due to Donald J. Trump testing positive for COVID-19, the second debate was planned to be pushed back from October 15th. Instead of in-person, the second debate was to be held virtually between both Biden and Trump, but Trump refused such a plan. Both presidential candidates decided to hold town halls with Biden on ABC and Trumps on NBC instead. On October 22nd the “third” and final debate took place between both candidates moderator by NBC News journalist, Kristen Welker.
Though both candidates drew criticism for their performance during the debates the moderators drew judgment as well. Wallace was criticized for mishandling the first debate and not being able to handle the candidates. Both candidates talked over each other constantly, more often Trump, and using inappropriate language such as when Joe Biden told Trump to “shut up.” The moderator for the second debate, Welker, was criticized for being biased with it seeming that she favored Biden more than Trump. Also, the format and questions of the debate were bashed because each candidate had only two minutes to answer a question. To add on, during some questioning the moderators were not asking the candidates questions that they then needed to be held accountable for. Such as issues about racism and privilege in America when Biden was asked the question, he wasn’t being held accountable for the 1994 crime bill that disproportionately affected the African American community. For Trump when the COVID-19 pandemic was discussed he wasn’t questioned about his mishandling of the pandemic. Nor was he questioned about the deaths and what he plans on doing to decrease the virus outbreak that is rising again. After the first debate, a petition was created for Rogan to be the moderator for the next two debates though it never happened. After the last debate, everyone asked, should Rogan have moderated the presidential debates?
Rogan has had controversy over things he said about transgender people and had racist guests on his show such as Gavin McInnes. I believe he should have moderated the two debates that took place for different reasons.
During an interview with psychologist Gad Saad, Rogan discussed ways in which he would have handled the debate between Biden and Trump. The first thing he said is that during questions he would have held both candidates accountable such as when Joes Biden claimed that he never would ban Fracking. Which he has said before and Rogan said he would pull up receipts in the form of articles or videos. Also, he said he would completely stop the moderation and fact check both candidates. Another thing he would change is the amount of time each candidate has to answer a question which is two minutes. He also went on to say the debates shouldn’t be only 90 minutes compared to debates centuries ago candidates had one-hour speeches making the debate continue for hours. Everything that he said I completely agreed with him because Biden and Trump were not held accountable for lies that they stated during the debates. Also, the amount of time they had to answer questions was too short and most of the time they had to be cut off in order to continue.
Apart from the interview, another reason that I would have liked Rogan to moderate the debates is that he is unbiased. He has had multiple politicians on his show from conservatives such as Dan Crenshaw and liberals such as Bernie Sanders. He treated both of them the same and asked questions that he pushed back on and played devil’s advocate.
I would understand why some wouldn’t have wanted Rogan as the moderator, but I would have preferred Rogan over the moderators that were present.