OAN Staff Blake Wolf
9:45 AM – Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan questioned Senator Bernie Sanders on a potential 2028 presidential run, while highlighting contradictions in Sanders’ stance on climate change and big-money political donors in an episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience.”

Sanders (I-Vt.) began by discussing his desire to pause all military aid to Israel, recounting the multiple resolutions he has brought forth in an attempt to block billions of dollars in arms sales to Israel due to the IDF’s conduct in Gaza.

Sanders condemned the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, characterizing it as a war crime while also denouncing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s regime for their resulting response.

“The Netanyahu government did not have a right to kill 52,000 people in Gaza, wound well over 100,000 – and right now as we speak Joe – children are starving to death because of Israel’s blockades,” Sanders stated.

Sanders was seemingly citing the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry’s data, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The true death toll remains uncertain, although independent studies, such as the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Study, and The Economist Projection, suggest higher totals due to indirect deaths and missing bodies.

The conversation eventually turned to a potential 2028 presidential run for Sanders after Rogan asked “Are you gonna run for president again?”

“I am 83 years of age,” Sanders quickly responded. “I’m not sure the American people would be too enthusiastic.”

Rogan interjected, adding: “I mean, you’re a couple of years older than Biden, right? Think of that. You could be off a lot worse.”

Sanders was seemingly taken aback by Rogan’s compliment as he awkwardly looked down and fumbled with his words.

The conversation then moved into big money politics, where Rogan checked Sanders for criticizing the $270 million Elon Musk spent on President Donald Trump’s campaign while failing to mention the large dollar donations former Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign enjoyed.

Sanders pointed out a Supreme Court decision that ruled in favor of allowing unlimited political donations through the justification of the First Amendment.

“What it says is you’re a billionaire, you now have the constitutional right because your money is your freedom of expression,” Sanders stated. “The result of that decision, let’s take us to where we are today, Elon Musk… he spent $270 million to elect Donald Trump. I think that’s absurd.”

Rogan challenged Sanders’ contradiction of constantly condemning Musk’s spending while ignoring the large dollar donations Harris received, asking what the largest donation to the Harris campaign was.

“They spent $1.5 billion just in the course of a couple months,” Rogan stated.

Sanders was forced to concede that the Democrats also engaged in high dollar donations as well, which has not been a talking point in his “Fighting Oligarchy Tour.”

“You’re not going to hear me defending [the] Democratic Party on this issue… During the election it wasn’t just Musk and the Republicans putting a lot of money into Trump, it was Democratic billionaires putting money into Kamala and other candidates as well,” Sanders stated.

Additionally, Rogan also shut down Sanders’ perception of a climate change crisis by pointing out that data shows the earth is currently in a cooling period.

“I know there are certain people that think climate change is a hoax, it aint a hoax. I think the last 10 years have been the warmest on record and we can create millions of good paying jobs transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels,” Sanders stated.

Rogan responded by bringing up a Washington Post article which analyzed long term data which revealed that the earth is actually in a cooling period.

“First of all, the reality is that the earth’s temperature has never been static right, we can both agree on that. It’s always been up and down there has been ice ages and heat waves,” Rogan stated. “Essentially [The Washington Post] found that we are in a cooling period. That the earth over the past x amount of years – and this was like a very inconvenient discovery – but they had to report the data and kudos to them for doing that.”

Sanders begrudgingly responded by claiming to not have read the article.

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