The powerful men who helped elect Donald Trump
Despite scandals along the campaign trail, powerful men rallied around Donald Trump on the road to his return to the White House.
Billionaire Elon Musk, Trump’s former political rival Robert F Kennedy Jr and Joe Rogan, the highest-paid podcaster on the planet, all rallied around, endorsed and campaigned for him at key moments throughout the election.
Now Trump is promising them the keys to the Department of Health and oversight of government spending when his second administration starts.
Wesley Widmaier, a professor of international relations at Australian National University, said Trump has shown transactional relationships with RFK Jr and Elon Musk.
“Elon Musk had some influence by throwing his support behind Trump through Twitter,” he said.
“RJK, he got out of the way. He could have siphoned voters off Trump and in a very transactional way, dropped out of the race and endorsed him.”
Trump has now promised to let RFK Jr “go nuts on health” and suggested he is open to his suggestion to ban vaccines.
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“Well, I’m going to talk to him and talk to other people, and I’ll make a decision,” Trump said.
“He’s a very talented guy and has strong views.”
RFK Jr’s connection to a deadly measles outbreak in Samoa that killed 83 people, after he visited the island and stoked distrust in vaccines, has been heavily scrutinised.
He also admitted to having a parasitic worm eat part of his brain and to dumping a dead bear in Central Park in New York.
The rejected
RFK Jr was polling about 6 to 7 per cent before dropping out.
He endorsed Trump and campaigned for him after a requested meeting with the Harris campaign to discuss a cabinet position was knocked back.
Trump went through senior staff during his first administration at an unprecedented rate and the vast majority did not endorse or support his re-election, with his longest-running chief of staff calling him a fascist.
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Widmaier said that Trump will have no problem filling his administration with ambitious people in Washington.
“Machiavelli had this notion that you never want to give too much power to the people who came with you to the party because they think you owe them something,” he said.
“You see that in Trump, how there are people like [Rudy] Giuliani and [Steve] Bannon who came into Trump’s orbit and got too big for their britches.”
He said that the next Republican Party has changed dramatically since 2016.
“It is a wholly-owned subsidy of the Trump corporation,” he said.
“There’s no longer moderate Republicans v MAGA Republicans.”
Rogan experience
Rogan also tried to get Kamala Harris on his podcast and in front of his massive audience, but her team wouldn’t agree to an interview in his studio in Austin, Texas.
Meredith Ralston, professor of women’s studies and political studies at Mount Saint Vincent University, said both campaigns instead tried to play to their strength in choosing their media appearances.
“The candidates themselves recognised the differences in support with their choices of podcasts and media appearances,” she said in The Conversation.
“Trump spent three hours with Joe Rogan – who subsequently endorsed him – for his podcast that skews heavily towards young men while Harris went on Call Her Daddy, a podcast directed at women under 35.”
He invited Trump and Vance, who both appeared before he endorsed Trump just days before the election.
Rogan previously endorsed Bernie Sanders during his 2020 primary run for the White House.
His influence with young men is undeniable and Trump performed well with the demographic.
