Joe Rogan’s endorsement helped put President Trump over the top in 2024.
Rogan doesn’t shy away from discussing Trump on his podcast.
And now Joe Rogan is weighing in with a piece of advice for the President that nobody in the media saw coming.
Trump Gets a Mixed Welcome at the Garden
President Trump attended Game 3 of the NBA Finals recently as the guest of Knicks owner James Dolan, making him the first sitting U.S. president to attend an NBA Finals game in history. The 45th and 47th President of the United States watched the game from Knicks owner James Dolan’s suite.
During the game, the president was loudly booed by Knicks fans while he was shown on the big screen during the national anthem, though there were also some chants of “USA!” So it wasn’t exactly a one-sided crowd. But in New York City, when the boos come, they come hard.
After Trump announced his plans to attend Game 3, the NYPD encouraged attendees to show up at least two hours before tip-off for screenings and canceled a free watch party outside Madison Square Garden. Fans who just wanted to watch the Knicks play were suddenly navigating a security operation that felt more like a presidential summit than a basketball game.
“People were so upset that Trump was gonna go to the NBA because if he’s there, then they have all these crazy security protocols. It makes the traffic even worse,” Rogan said.
And then the Knicks lost. The Spurs beat the Knicks, 115-111, in Game 3, cutting New York’s series lead to 2-1.
Stephen A. Smith Blamed Trump. Trump Fired Back.
ESPN host Stephen A. Smith, often discussed as a dark-horse 2028 presidential candidate, excoriated Trump’s trip to MSG. “This president has no business showing up in New York City,” Smith said on ESPN, claiming that Trump has not attended a Knicks game since the 1990s.
Smith had already promised before tip-off that if the Knicks lost, he was pinning it on Trump. They lost. He followed through.
Trump wasn’t having it. “I think he’s a nice guy, but you need a certain aptitude to run for president,” Trump told reporters. “You need a high IQ. I’m not sure that Stephen has that.”
Smith fired back on his show, pointing out that cameras caught Trump appearing to doze off during the game. Smith appeared at a podium and said: “The brother wasn’t awake. If it was that important for you to be there, why did you look like you were asleep? Didn’t you call out former President Joe Biden, ‘Sleepy Joe’? Well, what should we call you?”
The back-and-forth between Trump and Smith was good television. But the bigger story was playing out on Rogan’s podcast.
Rogan Weighs In
“Yeah, he should stick to the UFC,” the host of *The Joe Rogan Experience* said. “They’re gonna boo him everywhere else.”
Rogan wasn’t being cruel about it. He was being practical. And he backed it up with firsthand experience.
“Go to the UFC. People say he got booed at the UFC. I’ve seen him at the UFC six times or something like that … Never get booed.”
Comedian Joey Diaz, who was a guest on the episode, agreed: “They love him.”
But Rogan also acknowledged the mixed signals at MSG. “I heard some people cheered. I heard it was like cheers and boos, but the problem is, if there’s cheers and any boos, if there’s like 50/50 — don’t go to that spot,” Rogan added, laughing.
“He’s never gotten booed” at UFC events, Rogan continued. “They f–king cheer. The people that say they’re booing them, you’re distorting reality.”
Rogan then painted a picture of what Trump’s UFC appearances actually look like. “They cheer him. He walks in there like an American bad a– to a song, especially if Kid Rock was with him and Dana White behind him, and sometimes Tucker Carlson was there, back when they were close. It was like the conservative Avengers.”
That last phrase is doing some real work. “Back when they were close” is Rogan acknowledging, without making a big deal of it, that some of those relationships have cooled.
The UFC vs. the NBA — Two Very Different Rooms
The contrast here isn’t just about crowd preference. It’s about what each venue represents culturally. The NBA has spent years cultivating a politically progressive fan base and brand identity. The UFC crowd runs differently — blue collar, anti-establishment, the kind of audience that has cheered Trump walking in to Kid Rock since before he was President the second time.
Trump himself seemed to know the NBA was a stretch. “It’s a little left wing but it’s great entertainment,” Trump said about the NBA following Game 3. That’s a man who knew what he was walking into and went anyway.
And that’s actually worth something. The President of the United States showing up to a Knicks game in New York City, sitting in the owner’s box, taking boos during the national anthem and not flinching — that’s not a man who hides from unfriendly rooms. You can give him that.
But Rogan’s point stands. Trump has recently been greeted by boo birds at a Washington Commanders game, the U.S. Open, and the FIFA Club World Cup. The pattern is real. The arenas where Trump gets a roaring welcome are not random — they tend to be places where the working-class, sports-first crowd shows up without a political agenda attached to their ticket purchase.
UFC is exactly that room.
What Comes Next
President Trump is hosting a “UFC Freedom 250” event at the White House this weekend. The guest list, capped at 4,300, was put together by President Trump and UFC president Dana White. That crowd isn’t going to boo anybody. It’s a carefully assembled audience at the President’s own house, watching a sport that loves him back.
So Rogan’s advice may have already been taken — at least for this weekend.
The bigger question is whether Trump keeps pushing into NBA territory, or whether the MSG experience was a one-time detour. New York City is not a friendly political environment for him, and the Knicks crowd made that clear. But Trump has never been a man who reads a hostile room and quietly retreats. He reads it, notes the boos, and then tells reporters the other guy isn’t smart enough to run for president.
That’s not a politician calculating optics. That’s a 79-year-old man who genuinely doesn’t care what a Madison Square Garden crowd thinks of him. And for a lot of Americans watching from home, that’s exactly the point.
But Rogan’s right. The UFC crowd cheers. And there’s a UFC event on the White House lawn this weekend. Sometimes the right move is just to go where you’re wanted.
Sources: New York Post, AOL/New York Post, Mediaite, Yahoo Sports, Deadspin, Fox News/OutKick, The Hill, Irish Star, HuffPost, Operation Sports