On episode #2465 of JRE, UFC commentator and podcast host Joe Rogan sat down with journalist and author Michael Shellenberger to address the recent military action against Iran. His comments showed someone caught between his support for Trump and his confusion over a war that seemed to contradict everything the president campaigned on.
Rogan opened the discussion with visible skepticism about the strike and the reasoning behind it. “This whole f***ing Iran thing, man. Like, did you see this coming?” he asked.
He went on to question the motivation behind the move, suggesting it was difficult to understand the logic behind the decision.
“It just doesn’t make any sense to me unless we’re acting on someone else’s interest, like particularly Israel’s interests,” Rogan said.
When the topic turned to Iran’s nuclear capabilities, Rogan acknowledged how difficult it is for outsiders to fully understand the reality of the situation. “If they had supposedly dismantled their chances of making a nuclear b*mb, whether or not that’s true, it’s so hard to know,” he said.
He also addressed the debate around Iran’s right to enrich uranium under international agreements. “That includes enrichment. To a certain point, right? But they’ve already surpassed that point,” Rogan added.
The discussion eventually shifted to how the conflict fits with the messaging that helped Trump win support during the 2024 campaign. Rogan pointed out that many voters backed Trump specifically because of his promise to avoid new wars.
“It just seems so unfortunate based on what he ran on. I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right? He ran on no more wars and these senseless wars and then we have one that we can’t even really clearly define why we did it,” Rogan said.
Shellenberger responded by noting that Trump had often spoken about ending “endless wars,” rather than rejecting military action altogether. Rogan, however, remained unconvinced.
“Well, endless wars. Listen, man. They’re all endless,” Rogan replied. “Do you ever hear Rumsfeld talk about Iraq when it first happened? They were talking about like six weeks.”
The conversation also touched on whether Trump was acting independently or being influenced by advisers pushing for military escalation. Rogan pressed Shellenberger on that point.
“You really think it’s that simple? Trump’s doing what he wants to do and that’s it. You don’t think people are influencing him? There’s a lot of war hawks around him, right?” Rogan asked.
He also suggested that Israel’s position likely played a role in the broader geopolitical pressure surrounding the conflict. “But clearly, Israel wanted this,” he added.
Shellenberger, meanwhile, raised concerns about potential consequences for the United States if the conflict escalates further. “That was the first thing I thought of, like, ‘Oh great. Are we going to get a bunch of Iranian suicide b*mbers in the United States now?'” he said.
He also pointed out that the global situation was already volatile before this latest development.
“The whole situation internationally has been so tense already with what’s going on in Gaza, with what’s going on in Ukraine. To add this to the pile, it genuinely feels like there’s a real possibility that we might be entering World War II,” Shellenberger said.
Closing out the topic, Shellenberger suggested that public concern about escalation and domestic security risks is a major reason why many Americans reacted negatively to the news of the strike.
“I think that’s where a lot of Americans, when it happened, the reason so many people were against it, I believe a majority is against it, is because you’re like, first of all, is it going to be another endless war, and second of all, are we going to get a bunch of te**orist actions here. I think if we did, I don’t think support for the war goes up. I think it goes down,” he said.
