Can you smell what President The Rock is cooking? That's a question we could be asking ourselves after some eye-opening revelations from Dwayne Johnson regarding his interest in running for president.
Johnson was the first guest on former Daily Show host Trevor Noah‘s new Spotify podcast, What Now? with Trevor Noah. During the interview, Noah mentioned a poll from 2021 that found 46% of U.S. adults would support Johnson if he ran for president.
“That was an interesting poll that happened and I was really moved by that,” explained Johnson. “I was really blown away and I was really honored.”
“I'll share this little bit with you,” Johnson continued. “At the end of the year in 2022, I got a visit from the parties asking me if I was going to run, and if I could run.”
That's quite a truth bomb from the former World Wrestling Entertainment superstar, although he didn't share which political parties he was referring to.
Johnson went on that “It was a big deal, and it came out of the blue. It was one after the other, and they brought up that poll, and they also brought up their own deep-dive research.”
The Jumanji and Fast and the Furious franchise star elaborated that the research was meant to convince Johnson that he would have a realistic chance of winning in a general election “should I ever decide to go down that road” and actually run for president.
“It was all very surreal because that's never been my goal. My goal has never been to be in politics and, as a matter of fact, there's a lot about politics that I hate,” admitted Johnson.
Johnson said he has no plans to run for politics at this time because it would take too much time away from his family. Johnson has one adult daughter, Simone, 22, with his ex-wife (and current manager) Dany Garcia. He has since remarried to Lauren Hashian, with whom he has two young daughters, Tiana Johnson, 5, and Jasmine Johnson, 7.
Johnson stopped short of saying he had no interest in running for politics down the line, however. He has been known to tease the prospect in the past, starting in 2016 in an interview with GQ.
Johnson also took to social media in 2021 to respond to the presidential poll results on Instagram. He shared a Newsweek story about the survey and responded with, “Humbling 🙏🏾🤯 I don’t think our Founding Fathers EVER envisioned a six-four, bald, tattooed, half-Black, half-Samoan, tequila drinking, pick up truck driving, fanny pack wearing guy joining their club – but if it ever happens it’d be my honor to serve you, the people 🙏🏾💪🏾🇺🇸”
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One silver lining of the Donald Trump presidency has been that it's made believers out of any entertainer's ability to run for the highest office in the country, with severe lack of political experience no longer a deterrent. Also, it's hard to imagine anyone performing much worse in the role than the 45th Commander in Chief.
Although, a former pro wrestler becoming President of the United States is scarily close to the prediction from the Michael Judge cult-classic political satire from 2006 Idiocracy, written in response to the pre-Trump lowlight presidency of George W. Bush.
Still, with the recent maddening New York Times poll results suggesting that Trump is somehow favored in five swing states over Biden despite currently being on trial for multiple crimes, Dwayne Johnson — who has described himself on X (formerly Twitter) as “a political independent & centrist” — making a run at the presidency is starting to sound more and more enticing.
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