How Joe Rogan, Elon Musk and Others Fared

There will likely not be a winner declared Tuesday night between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump when the polls close. However, even before the results are final, there are some clear winners and losers in this year’s topsy-turvy race for the White House.

Let’s go to the Decision Desk:

TALKING HEADS

WINNER: CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD
That Comedy Central show may not have worked out, but the Breakfast Club co-host truly spoke truth to power this election season, repeatedly. From warning Americans against what could happen after Election Day, Joe Biden’s electoral and cultural shortcomings, and the burning desire out there in a divided nation for less jargon and more straight talk, the Get Honest or Die Lying: Why Small Talk Sucks author was way ahead of the curve. In piercing on-air interviews with Kamala Harris and RNC boss Lara Trump, Charlamagne owned the curve. Calling out CNN’s “bullsh*t”-spouting Anderson Cooper and the mainstream media in behind schedule October for not putting a glaring spotlight on the real “fascist” dangers of a Trump return to the White House, the CAA-repped Charlamagne had one of the defining media moments of the newfangled era.

LOSER: JOE ROGAN
Sometimes supporting Bernie Sanders, sometimes admitting he isn’t someone you should go to for vaccine advice after dispensing vaccine advice, Rogan over the past decade has made a successful, untraditional media career off red meat men, literally and figuratively. The pratfall-filled 2024 election was tailor-made for the former Fear Factor host, bigger than ever off the Austin-based The Joe Rogan Experience podcast and his longtime UFC announcer gig. Yet somehow Rogan turned triumphant into one bad joke with a sycophantic and meandering three-hour fact-challenged sit-down with Trump. The interview got tens of millions of downloads, and Rogan formally endorsed the Republican he once called a “man baby” behind schedule last night. Maybe the fix was in, and that’s why Rogan petulantly shunned an interview with Harris last week. The VP’s team wanted Rogan to meet her on the campaign trail to record the podcast and was offering an hour. Rogan wanted to do it in Austin and get three hours. In the end, he got nothing. I mean, dude, why didn’t you take the win? Maybe you never wanted to. Maybe time to lay off the bison for a bit, it’s gone to your brain.

SURROGATES

WINNER: LIZ CHENEY
Let’s not fool ourselves: The daughter of Darth Vader himself, former VP Dick Cheney, may be standing with the current VP for the rule of law and facing down the insurrection-rousing Trump, but Liz Cheney can’t be unaware of the historic role she knows she occupies. Put out in the wilderness by Trump seeking revenge for her participation on the January 6 congressional committee, the former Wyoming representative has gone from being one of the Democrats’ sworn foes to the party’s closer surrogate and VP nominee in all but name. If Harris wins, Cheney will be the real comeback kid.

LOSER: TONY HINCHCLIFFE
If Trump loses the election, which he will claim early that he won, it will be in no diminutive part due to the trashing of Puerto Rico and insulting of Hispanics by the roast comedian at the October 27 mega-MAGA rally at Madison Square Garden. The GOP tried to reset by focusing on Biden’s gaffe playing on Hinchcliffe’s “garbage” slam of the American territory, but the damage was done. Put it this way: When Megyn Kelly rips your “bro-tastic” event and its opening act, you’re in trouble.

RELATED: Donald Trump Celebrity Endorsements: A List Of Celebrities Supporting The Ex-POTUS

TV

WINNER: MSNBC
In a divided America it seems everyone has their echo chamber of choice. For those on the right, that’s still Fox News. For those on the nearly everything else, it’s MSNBC. Sure, CNN had almost 53 million watch its much-simulcast June 27 debate between Trump and a befuddled Joe Biden, which was the beginning of the end for the incumbent’s reelection bid, but the cable newsers are all down from 2020 in this fractured environment. Fox remains No. 1, but the Comcast-owned MSNBC is a solid No. 2, with CNN in third place for most of the year. It’s never good to undermine the power and draw of Rachel Maddow in an election year, but the truth is in the math: According to Nielsen, MSNBC has topped CNN repeatedly on core events this election, like among the 25-54 demo during the DNC, and, for the first time ever, in a presidential debate when Harris and Trump met September 10. Compared with 2016, MSNBC is up 40% among viewers on average, while CNN is down around 33%.

LOSER: BROADCAST NETWORKS
The reach of the news divisions of ABC, NBC and CBS is way, way down and prestige last meant something in the Reagan Era. All of which means, for the most part, the broadcast networks were side players in the drama of this year’s election. Yes, ABC saw massive viewership numbers out of its multi-outlet simulcasted September 10 debate between the VP and the former POTUS. Yet, none of that was seen on ABC by the millions who subscribe to DirecTV as Disney was in a contract dispute with the satellite provider at the time. CBS has gotten more attention for Trump ranting about revoking its license over edits made to a 60 Minutes interview with Harris than anything in that interview or anything else the network has done this election. Somewhere in the heavens, Walter Cronkite is wiping away a tear.

RELATED: Kamala Harris Celebrity Endorsements: A List Of Celebrities Supporting The VP

BILLIONARIES

WINNER: MARK CUBAN
The eminently unlikable former Dallas Mavericks owner proved a true shark in the 2024 election. Putting on some glasses and bringing down the volume a bit, Cuban reinvented himself as a self-deprecating and stats-sharp surrogate for Harris. Got to give the man his due.

LOSER: ELON MUSK
Twitter is now worth about 80% less that when the government-subsidized Space X chief bought it for $44 billion in behind schedule 2022, and the onetime global town hall is now foolishly called X. Still, dumb names aside, the world’s richest man has a right to play with his plaything even if Twitter has turned into a disinformation dung heap. He owns it, he can break it. However, joking about someone taking a shot at Harris with Tucker Carlson (another 2024 loser, BTW), literally buying off voters with $1 million checks and ranting about illegal immigration while avoiding some challenging facts about his own entry into the country, the South African-born Musk did neither himself nor Trump any favors. Not so astute to be bouncing up and down for Trump at rallies like a 6-year-old who broke into the pantry and got his hands on the entire box of sugar-packed Lucky Charms and donating nearly $200 million to a Trump Super PAC, while ignoring the ex-POTUS’ dismissive attitude to allies once they outlive their usefulness. Even with all that, the lack of a real response from the billionaire to reports that the security-clearance-privileged Musk has been chatting regularly with Vladimir Putin separated the men from the boys and sealed his fate, regardless of who wins.

PLATFORMS

We have a tie.

WINNER: TIKTOK
The Biden administration and half the power players in D.C. want to shut down the social media platform owned by Chinese internet company ByteDance for national security reasons. Joe Biden, the VP and everyone else in D.C. who wants to be a player know that TikTok is also one of the top information sources for Americans under 30. The realpolitik is TikTok is bigger than the U.S. government to many voters, and that’s why if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em – which is what Biden, Harris, Trump and almost everyone else have done.

WINNER: PODCASTS
Trump says his teenage son Barron has been advising him on podcasts to reach traditionally non-voting audiences. If true, Barron is looking pretty astute in both campaigns. From the laughing and mocking hosts of Flagrant, to Bussin with the Boys’ ex-NFL players Will Compton and Taylor Lewan, to the oddly touching back and forth with Theo Von and of course Rogan, Trump took the lead and found welcoming unthreatening places that had a much more direct and unmanicured route to voters than 60 Minutes or another debate. As proven by the VP’s appearances on Call Her Daddy with Alex Cooper and Club Shay Shay with Shannon Sharpe, not to mention the radio perches of Howard Stern and the Breakfast Club, the power of podcasts are something on which both candidates agree this election.  

LOSERS: LATE-NIGHT
Jon Stewart came back to work the Monday shift on the Daily Show after host-in-waiting Hasan Minhaj was unfairly given the media equivalent of wedgie by the New Yorker, but who really cares? Certainly not Harris or Trump, as neither of them showed up on the Comedy Central show. Sure, the VP was with Stephen Colbert on October 8 and on SNL this past weekend, but otherwise late-night was pretty much a no-upside risk for the tightly scripted Harris in a whirlwind campaign. As for Trump, fuhgeddaboudit – been there, done that. Can’t take the jokes.

MVP

WINNER: BEYONCÉ 
Taylor Swift delivered her endorsement of the VP as the September 10 debate with Trump ended, but it was Queen Bey who has proved vital to the Harris campaign. Beyoncé’s 2016 tune “Freedom” is the VP’s walk-on music at those well attended rallies. The 32-time Grammy winner supposedly donated $4 million to Harris’ campaign in its first days this summer. Beyoncé never showed up at the DNC despite those absurd whispers she would be there on the closing night in Chicago. Saving the best almost for last, the “Texas Hold ‘Em” singer showed up in her hometown of Houston on October 26 with her ex-Destiny’s Child bandmate Kelly Rowland to introduce the VP. Unlike Barack Obama’s second inauguration, Beyoncé didn’t sing at the rally co-starring Willie Nelson, but her words of a “new song” for America to sing was music to the Harris campaign.

LOSER: JEFF BEZOS
We don’t know how much Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had to do with Prime Video’s upcoming live Brian Williams-hosted Election Night coverage. Thanks to his own staff and his own words, we do know that Bezos put the kibosh on the Washington Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris. The LA Times’ owner Patrick Soon-Shiong pulled a similar jack move last month too. Billionaires will be billionaires, but fact is Bezos has much further and deeper-reaching tentacles than Soon-Shiong, so his decision has greater implications. Which is why Bezos tried to distance himself from the meeting between Trump and executives in his space-exploration company Blue Origin on the very day the no-endorsement was made public. To utilize WaPo‘s Trump Era mantra against itself: We all know it looks like democracy could die when you bend the knee. That’s a stain that won’t wash away from this would-be American oligarch no matter who wins.