Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre presented Joe Rogan with a 70-lb kettlebell created by a Calgary company.HO/The Canadian Press
Pierre Poilievre arrived for his long-rumoured-and-finally-realized appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience bearing hefty baggage.
The Conservative Leader presented Mr. Rogan with a 70-lb kettlebell created by a Calgary company that specializes in bespoke alterations to guns and knives. Before the episode even aired on Thursday, Mr. Poilievre’s office sent out a statement containing what I can only describe as a pornographic level of detail about the present he brought to the Austin, Tex., studio of the most popular podcast in the U.S.
The shape of the base is “a fun reference to Joe’s interest to (sic) the great pyramids,” the press release explained. Its handle is stamped “Jamie, pull it up” because that’s what Mr. Rogan barks at his producer when he wants something looked up online. And the hand-dyed leather pad commemorates the first Ultimate Fighting Championship event for which he provided commentary.
The kettlebell itself looks like a Canadian flag, which Mr. Poilievre told Mr. Rogan was “a subliminal message” that he needs to visit. A central part of the podcast host’s persona is his obsession with working out, and the Conservative leader told him that he, too, is “a big kettlebell freak.”
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You could brick yourself alive into someone’s tomb, in other words, and demonstrate less devotion than the effort represented by that kettlebell.
Over the 16-year run of his podcast, Mr. Rogan has swelled from pop culture phenomenon to powerful right-wing political force – he endorsed Donald Trump in the 2024 election – and he occupies guru stature among the young men who have been Mr. Poilievre’s base since he became Conservative Leader.
As it turns out, the gift presented at the start of the two-hour-and-23-minute podcast interview was a pretty good symbol of what followed.
The way Mr. Poilievre had framed the conversation was that he “fought for Canadian workers and Canadian interests on the world’s biggest podcast.”
The Conservative Leader did indeed tell Mr. Rogan – and his enormous audience – that the tariffs need to go, because they’re getting in the way of the two countries prospering together and making life more expensive. And he argued that the two biggest problems the U.S. has right now are affordability and security, and Canada could help with both.
But the word “tariff” was spoken 10 times by either party in the episode, and “Trump” just four times. On the other hand, the two of them said “kick” 40 times, and variations of “fight” and “fighter” some 65 times.
It would be difficult to overstate how much of this conversation revolved around martial arts, UFC and lifting heavy things to fix depression, drug addiction and assorted other social ills.
But in between those extended meditations on all things bro, we learned some interesting things about Mr. Poilievre. He was “bored out of my mind” after a shoulder injury ended his high school wrestling career, so he asked his mother to bring him along to the conservative events she attended – and that’s how he fell into politics.
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He started gobbling up political books, he said, and when he mentioned Fidel Castro’s biography, Mr. Rogan interjected to insist that the late Cuban leader is Justin Trudeau’s real father. Mr. Poilievre laughed and dismissed the internet conspiracy, then neatly side-stepped to talking about how Pierre Trudeau enraged the west with the National Energy Program.
When Mr. Rogan raised Alberta separatism at another point, Mr. Poilievre responded flatly, “It won’t happen.”
He elaborated: “There’s some legitimate frustrations, but at the end of the day, Canada’s going to be united. I’m born and raised in Alberta, and Albertans are seriously patriotic Canadians.”
He also said he’s been texting Prime Minister Mark Carney while touring the U.S., and when Mr. Rogan gave him with a chance to dump on the Prime Minister, Mr. Poilievre said, “I won’t criticize him on foreign soil.”
The Conservative leader insisted he didn’t know he was being recorded in the 2023 apple-chomping video in which he mouthed off to a local reporter, and that his staff had no idea it would go viral and thrill the likes of Mr. Rogan’s audience when they “dumped” it online. The chances of that being true sit somewhere between zilch and none, but the podcast host loved the story.
Pierre Poilievre talks about his trip to the United States outside the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.Seth Wenig/The Associated Press
But at a certain point in the conversation, I started to feel sorry for Mr. Poilievre. He’s a smart person who likes to stuff his brain with history and obscure facts, and it was clear he’d done his homework. Over and over when the conversation wandered away from politics, he tried gamely to join Mr. Rogan’s smug soliloquys with some related trivia that he’d offer with the air of someone arriving at a potluck with a dish they hope everyone likes.
And Mr. Rogan would wave off the idea, dispute it or just make it clear he had no interest, because it had not come from him.
“Taekwondo, wasn’t it the Koreans who developed it so they could actually kick a man off a horse in war? Is that why the kicks are so high?” Mr. Poilievre asked, because for real, you cannot imagine how much these two talked about martial arts.
“I don’t think so,” Mr. Rogan said. “I think it was just ‘cause they’re smaller in stature and they realized that you had to have more powerful kicks.”
Eventually, Mr. Poilievre simply started asking Mr. Rogan question after question – and they were frequently perceptive, informed and curious queries – and acting fascinated and impressed by every answer he received, which served to encourage more holding-forth.
But there was a different point when Mr. Rogan was doing the asking and listening, and he posed the question I would most like to hear Mr. Poilievre answer bluntly: What does he think happened last year?
“So, there’s a narrative in America and the narrative is that you were about to win and your party was about to win, but then Trump came along and said that he was going to turn Canada into the 51st state and everybody went crazy,” Mr. Rogan said. “Is that accurate?”
“I wouldn’t say they went crazy,” Mr. Poilievre said. “They should be upset.”
He added, “It is a crazy thing to say. Canada’s not for sale. We’re never going to be the 51st state.”
A short time later, Mr. Rogan prodded again: Did the President torpedo an election that you were supposed to win?
“Well, you never know,” Mr. Poilievre replied. “But I try not to cry over spilled milk. I focus on what I have to do and live in the present.”
He paused for the briefest moment, then asked Mr. Rogan what he thought about a new MMA fighter, and the subject changed instantly. Jiu-jitsu moves can happen in conversation, too.