Independent: Joe Rogan finally realizes Trump doesn’t have evidence of his biggest complaint

The podcaster gave Trump a huge platform when he was a guest on the show in the final week of the 2024 presidential campaign

It has finally dawned on Joe Rogan that President Donald Trump doesn’t appear to have any evidence to back up the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen.

The podcaster gave Trump a huge platform when he was a guest on the show in the final week of the 2024 presidential election campaign, where he reeled off his widely-debunked grievance that the 2020 election was “fraudulent.”

Now, Rogan has shared his skepticism.

“I don’t think they have any evidence,” Rogan told his guest comedian Dave Smith on Tuesday’s episode ofthe Joe Rogan Experience, referring to Trump’s 2020 claims.

“I think there’s a lot of speculation and there’s a lot of consideration about mail-in ballots. There’s a lot of shenanigans,” Rogan added. “There’s a good record of shenanigans and there’s the reality of any kind of electronics can be hacked.”

“It was one of the most interesting parts of your podcast with him was when you asked him about that, it was like he really didn’t have anything to back it up,” Smith interjected.

Rogan then criticized Trump for not having a “tight 10 minutes” prepared to present his evidence and argument.

“If that was you or if that was me, I mean, there was some reason why I knew that they did something and I could give you all the facts, I would have that ready for anybody,” Rogan said. “Because…you’re, for four f***ing years they’ve been telling him he’s crazy for questioning the election. So after four years I’d have a f***ing tight 10 minutes on the election where I could just rattle off at you and rock your world with it.”

Rogan’s interview, which pulled in 38 million viewers within three days of airing, and other podcast appearances within the so-called “Manosphere” have been credited with helping Trump clinch the presidency.

Rogan, who endorsed Trump after the episode aired, gave him the opportunity to explain his evidence for claiming the 2020 election was stolen from him.

“I want to talk about 2020 because you said over and over again that you were robbed in 2020,” Rogan said. “How do you think you were robbed?”

Trump then launched into a familiar tirade about judges not having “what it took to turn over an election,” mail-in ballots being insecure, and Democrats using “Covid to cheat.”

Rogan appeared to sympathize with Trump. “You get labeled an election denier,” he said, drawing similarities with being labeled an “anti-vaxxer if you question some of the health consequences that people have from the Covid-19 shots.”

More recently, Rogan has been calling out the man he endorsed for president. In July, the podcaster ripped into the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files.

“They’ve got videotape and all a sudden they don’t,” Rogan said. “You had the director of the FBI on this show saying, ‘If there was [a videotape], nothing you’re looking for is on those tapes,’” referring to FBI Director Kash Patel’s interview with Rogan in June.

He also criticized the Trump administration’s aggressive ICE raids on his show, appearing to suggest that they had taken things too far.

“The targeting of migrant workers — not cartel members, not gang members, not drug dealers. Just construction workers. Showing up in construction sites, raiding them. Gardeners. Like, really?” Rogan said. “I don’t think anybody would have signed up for that.”

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/joe-rogan-trump-2020-election-b2815018.html

Independent: Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem demand ICE agents increase arrests to 3,000 per day: report

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem demanded immigration agents significantly increase daily arrests to 3,000 in a “tense” meeting last week, according to a report.

Miller, President Donald Trump’s top adviser and architect of the administration’s aggressive immigration policies, and Noem told agents they needed to up daily arrests and deportations during the meeting at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. on May 21, according to Axios.

The figure is approximately triple the number of daily arrests that ICE agents were making at the beginning of the Trump administration, the outlet noted.

Ugly is about to get a lot uglier. We must resist this tyranny!

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/stephen-miller-kristi-noem-ice-arrests-b2759244.html

Independent: Even El Salvador’s president questioned Trump team on if migrants being sent were actually gang members: report

El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele privately ‘expressed concern’ about who the Trump administration sent to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, according to the report

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele asked the Trump administration for evidence that the 238 Venezuelans deported to his country’s maximum-security prison last month were actually part of a notorious gang, according to a report.

While Bukele and President Donald Trump appeared to be on the same page at last month’s meeting in the Oval Office, Bukele privately “expressed concern” about who the Trump administration sent to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT, according to The New York Times.

Bukele’s concern sparked a “scramble” among U.S. officials to get him evidence that the migrants belonged to the transnational Tren de Aragua gang, The Times reported.

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/bukele-trump-el-salvador-migrants-deal-b2742597.html

Independent: Elon Musk’s ‘efficiency’ team is quietly building a vast immigration tracking database

Musk’s team is using the highly sensitive data it has gathered to build a “master database” at the Department of Homeland Security that could be used to “track and surveil” undocumented immigrants, WIRED reported last week.

….

“The Trump-Musk Administration is infiltrating agencies and weaponizing the information they steal to target and attack America’s immigrant communities,” Connolly said. “DOGE’s dystopian demand for the sensitive, personal data of millions of Americans and immigrants is alarming, especially as this Administration abducts and disappears people off our streets without due process — including immigrants with legal status — and in light of President Trump’s chilling admission that he plans to target American citizens, or ‘home growns,’ next.”

Gabe Lezra, policy and advocacy director at State Democracy Defenders Action, told The Independent that what’s happening “should horrify every American.”

“The Trump–Musk regime sold DOGE to the American people as a way to cut costs and streamline government. What they actually created was Big Brother,” Lezra said. “This isn’t just about giving bad actors in our own government access to deeply personal data – like your party registration, charitable givings, medical history, citizenship status, and financial records. It’s also because we cannot have confidence that DOGE can keep this database safe–particularly because malicious foreign actors will immediately make this database their number one target,” he added.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/elon-musk-s-efficiency-team-is-quietly-building-a-vast-immigration-tracking-database/ar-AA1DFinZ