Former President Donald Trump on Monday continued a streak of appearances with controversial influencers, this time in a 90-minute livestream with Adin Ross.
The live interview, streamed on the platform Kick, which took place at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s home in Florida, with a small live audience of his supporters, featured Ross asking Trump questions about current events and world leaders, similar to Trump’s podcast interview with YouTuber Logan Paul. Along with his vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s appearance on a podcast hosted by the YouTube group Nelk Boys last week, the Republican ticket has aimed to reach young voters via content with influencers who have large, young male followings.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, which has received attention for its digital savviness and popularity among meme-makers, responded to Trump’s interview with Ross in real time, posting clips of Trump talking about Venezuela and insulting a journalist who interviewed him at the National Association of Black Journalists conference last week.
The livestream with Ross, Kick’s most-followed personality, had over 580,000 viewers at its peak. So far it’s the third most concurrently viewed livestream on Kick this year. Trump told Ross that his sons introduced the idea of the collaboration to him, touting how “big” an influencer he was.
Ross is known for his controversial collaborations and statements, and he was banned from the livestream platform Twitch for saying homophobic slurs and displaying racist and anti-Jewish messages from his live chat (Ross is Jewish). Ross has also displayed pornographic images during his livestreams and promoted gambling to an audience that includes young boys.
Kick has fewer rules and less strict enforcement than Twitch. It hosts a number of controversial streamers, some of whom have been accused of violent and abusive conduct.
In December 2022, Jewish and anti-hate organizations spoke out against Ross’ plans to interview Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West. Ross canceled the interview after a phone call with Ye, during which Ross said Ye made anti-Jewish comments.
Ross is also a friend and supporter of influencer Andrew Tate, who is known for his misogynistic comments online. Tate’s arrest in March on rape and human trafficking charges was precipitated by Ross’ indicating in a livestream that Tate was planning to leave Romania.
Similar to his podcast interview with Paul, Trump touted his relationships with world leaders like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and China’s Xi Jinping in his interview with Ross, saying “nothing” bad would happen if he were in office because of the strength of their relationships.
Ross asked Trump to react to images of other politicians and people, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who Trump called “New-scum,” and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., whose “spark” Trump praised and Ross referred to as “Alexandra Cortez.”
Trump also called Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk a “genius” before Ross gave Trump one of Musk’s Cybertrucks with a decorative wrap showing a picture of Trump after he was shot at during an assassination attempt in July. Ross also gave Trump a Rolex watch. Online, commenters speculated about whether the gifts might run afoul of Federal Election Commission rules.
At the end of the livestream, after they listened to Trump’s playlist in the Cybertruck, Ross and Trump danced together and Trump pledged to “keep TikTok going.” In April, President Joe Biden signed a national security package that included a provision that would ban TikTok. In 2020, during his presidency, Trump signed an executive order to ban TikTok, which was struck down in court. In March, Trump reversed course, saying he would no longer ban the platform.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
