Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance sat down with a popular podcaster Joe Rogan Wednesday for a lengthy interview in which he discussed his initial reaction to the assassination attempt on former president donald trumpopinions on transgender rights and your favorite Netflix guilty pleasure, among a wide range of topics.

Rogan hosts the most listened to podcast on Spotify, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” with approximately 14.5 million followers. Their audience is predominantly young men, a key voting demographic that Trump and Vance are trying to get to vote in the 2024 election.

Vance’s appearance on the show comes less than a week before the contentious 2024 election and just days after Rogan spoke to Trump about everything related to the issue.From aliens to electoral interference.

Rogan often signaled that he agreed with Vance during the more than three-hour friendly conversation and on several occasions questioned Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ fitness for the office.

Further: From Joe Rogan to Greg Gutfeld, the influence of conservative comedy grows

Vance frequently spoke about his wife and two daughters throughout the show and at one point described himself as a “pretty boring guy.” In addition to delving into policy debates, Vance also gave insight into his personal life and said he thinks the Netflix show ‘Emily in Paris’ is “a masterpiece.”

These are the key moments from the podcast episode.

Anti-trans rhetoric

Rogan and Vance spoke at length about transgender rights Early on in the conversation, specifically about gender-affirming childcare and whether people should be allowed to play on sports teams that match their gender identity.

“I’m a father of a two-year-old daughter,” Vance said. “I don’t want her to participate in athletic competitions where I’m afraid she’ll be beaten to death because we allow a six-foot man to compete with her in sports,” Vance said.

Vance also suggested that wealthy parents might even go so far as to force their children to undergo gender surgeries to get into better colleges and universities.

“If you’re a middle- or upper-middle-class white parent and all you care about is whether your child goes to Harvard or Yale, obviously that path has become much more difficult for many upper-middle-class people. children,” he said, adding that “the only way those people can participate in the DEI bureaucracy in this country is to be trans.”

Vance later argued that he wouldn’t be surprised if Trump won “the normal gay vote because, again, they just wanted to be left alone.”

“Now you have all these crazy things that say, ‘No, no, we didn’t want to give pharmaceuticals to 9-year-olds who are gender transitioning,’” Vance said.

Biden’s ‘trash’ comments

Vance joked during the interview that he believes President Joe Biden is “trying to help” Donald Trump win the election, referring to comments Biden made earlier in the week that suggested Trump supporters were “trash.”

Biden received a blow from Republicans and some Democrats over the comments, which the White House said were referring to one supporter in particular: a comedian at a Trump rally who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”

Vance claimed the comment had to be an attempt to help Trump, given the criticism Biden has received since then.

“After we win, I will be convinced that Joe Biden was trying to help us all along,” Vance said. He also referred to a moment when Biden jokingly putting on a Trump 2024 cap during a visit to Pennsylvania on September 11.

Vance also told Rogan that he would bet $20 that Biden planned to vote for Trump and $100 that his son, Hunter Biden, would also back the Republican nominee over Kamala Harris.

Biden endorsed Harris after she dropped out of the 2024 race in July and has been a strong supporter of Harris’ campaign since then.

Climate change

During a lengthy discussion about the environment, Vance stated that he “didn’t have a firm opinion on what carbon footprint finally does it,” seeming to doubt whether there is human-caused climate change.

“It’s interesting that the environmental movement in the United States all they talk about is the carbon footprint, and they never talk about… . . Why do we have the highest obesity rates in the world right now?,” Vance said.

Rogan added that it was “disturbing” that “profits are also being made from the environmental movement,” and he fact-checked the name Bill Gates who has invested billions of dollars in climate technology solutions.

The podcaster also mentioned an unproven claim from his interview with Trump: that wind turbines, a form of clean energy, are negatively affecting and even killing whales. There is no evidence to support those statements. Most whale deaths that humans are aware of are caused by boats and entanglements in fishing gear.

Where was Vance during Trump assassination?

Vance told Rogan that he was mini golf with your family in Ohio when he learned that Trump had been shot in the ear during his Butler, Pennsylvania rally in June.

“I actually thought they killed him because when you first watch the video, he grabs his ear and then falls,” Vance recalled after watching the video of Trump’s July 13 rally. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, they just killed him.'”

Just days earlier, Vance said Trump had told him he was a favorite for vice presidential nominee. Trump had floated announcing the news at the rally, but had decided not to.

Vance, who is a Navy veteran, said his immediate reaction to news of the assassination attempt was to load his weapons.

“At first I was very angry, but then I went into fight or flight mode,” he said. “I grab my kids, throw them in the car, go home and load up all my guns. And I basically stand as a sentinel.” at our front door, and that was my reaction.”

beg Harris speaks

Rogan, at points of service throughout the podcast, expressed skepticism about Harris’ candidacy for president.

“It’s just strange that everyone is accepting that this person who is the least popular vice president of all time is now the solution to the problem,” he told Vance, arguing that “the media machine in just a few days, made 180 and he just sold it.” as the solution.”

“As long as they prevent her from having these conversations where she’s allowed to speak, they’ll be able to make it happen, and the fact that it’s happening without a primary should be really concerning to people,” he said of Harris’ campaign.

Harris faced criticism for not giving many interviews in the first months after wresting the Democratic Party nomination from Biden. Since then, he has embarked on a media campaign with appearances on various podcasts, daytime talk shows, and news programs.

At one point, Harris was in talks to appear on Rogan’s show. The podcaster said earlier this week that Harris had agreed to appear on his podcast, but had rejected the terms of the interview because he would have had to travel and he wanted to talk to her for more than an hour.

“My sincere hope is to have a nice conversation and get to know her as a human being,” Rogan said of the possibility of interviewing Harris. “I really hope we can make it happen.”

This article originally appeared in USA TODAY: Key moments from JD Vance’s interview with Joe Rogan