Former president Donald Trump‘s best pal Dana White was invited up to shout out a cadre of MAGA-adjacent streamers and podcasters in a bizarre addendum to the Republican nominee’s victory remarks Tuesday night.
“I want to thank the Nelk Boys, Adin Ross, Theo Von, Bussin’ With the Boys, and last but not least the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan,” said White, the UFC CEO, in what was possibly the strangest extension of gratitudes since George Washington was elected in 1789.
During the campaign, Trump did a whirlwind press tour of right-wing podcasts and livestreams, while rejecting a sit-down with CBS’ flagship newsmagazine 60 Minutes.
Ross, who hosted Trump on a Kick livestream in August, has been banned no less than eight times—permanently as of February 2023—from streaming site Twitch for broadcasting homophobic and hateful slurs and antisemitic messages.
He’s also hosted white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who Trump himself dined with alongside MAGA rapper and antisemite Kanye West.
Now—along with the seltzer-hawking Nelk Boys and Trump-friendly Barstool Sports football podcast “Bussin’ With the Boys”—he’s part of the MAGA-set’s own stand-ins for Barbara Walters and Terry Gross.
“We are so over as a nation,” tweeted progressive streamer Hasan Piker, after seeing White’s nod to Ross.
Rogan, the podfather of freewheeling libertarian conspiracies, was the most prominent figure in the online bro-sphere to endorse Trump, doing so at the eleventh hour of the campaign and after he failed to seal an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump’s appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” was the peak of his campaign’s strategy to put their candidate in front of Gen Z and Millennial males who consume less traditional media.
MAGA billionaire Elon Musk, Rogan said, was the one who convinced him to come out in support of the Republican nominee, after he appeared on the podcast Monday to make the case for his candidate.
White, who has been friends with Trump for a quarter of a century and introduced Trump at this year’s Republican National Convention, huddled with the president and Musk as election results rolled in.
“This is karma, ladies and gentlemen,” White told an ecstatic crowd of diehard Trump supporters in West Palm Beach, before thanking Trump’s pod bro supporters.
“That is a piece of work,” joked Trump, of White, after he finished speaking. “No, he’s really an amazing guy.”
