Joe Rogan, host of the popular “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, is refuting claims that his team evaded an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris as she was campaigning for the White House.
“This is really important, because they keep pretending that I lied or I did this or I did that,” said Rogan during an interview this week with Dan Richards of the DeBunking the Past YouTube channel. “They never committed to doing it,” he added.
When Harris first replaced former President Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate to run against now President Donald Trump over the summer, she received criticism for her lack of interviews. NBC News even noted that it seemed like her campaign leadership “kept its candidate hermetically sealed in the manufacturer’s box, like she would retain more value without exposure to air and sunlight.”
While Harris did eventually start doing more interviews, from the “Call Her Daddy” podcast to FOX News and an appearance on “Saturday Night Live”, some have pointed to her failure to appear on Rogan’s show as a miss in terms of connecting with young male voters. Rogan said that around 50 million people listened to an interview he did with Trump ahead of the election.
Last month, experts from the upcoming book “FIGHT: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House” revealed that Harris deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty, the aide in charge of digital strategy, began negotiating for an interview on the podcast with Rogan’s reps in October, less than a month from the November election. While Rogan confirmed that his team was in talks with the Harris camp for an interview, the two sides paint different pictures of how things went down.
According to the narrative outlined in the upcoming book, as cited by NBC News, Rogan’s team requested no staff in the studio [Rogan’s, in Austin, Texas], no topic restrictions, and that Harris would have to sign a waiver. Harris’ campaign was in full force at the time and focused on swing states, so a trip to Texas was a hard sell, but offers to do the interview in Michigan were rejected, said NBC.
Eventually, plans materialized for a rally in Houston (that pop superstar Beyoncé would speak at, but not sing at) in late October. From there Harris’ team hoped they could get her to Austin for a Rogan interview. Harris campaign chief Jennifer O’Malley Dillon “authorized her negotiating team to give Rogan what he demanded – an in-studio interview in Austin – on October 25,” reported NBC.
Flaherty reportedly called his Rogan contacts on October 18 to arrange the date. However, Rogan’s reps allegedly said they wished that Harris’ team had offered that date earlier and that Oct. 25 was blocked out as a personal day for the podcast host. When Flaherty asked for the following day, Rogan’s team allegedly said he could do it only before 8:30 a.m.
Then, the Associated Press reported on Oct. 22 that Trump would be Rogan’s guest on Oct. 25.
“Mutual friends Elon Musk and Dana White had convinced Trump and Rogan to bury their dispute, according to a Trump aide,” said NBC. “There would be no Harris interview.”
The outlet noted that Rogan and Trump had disagreements in the past. Rogan called him a “man baby” and “threat to democracy” in 2022, and Trump posted a dig at Rogan when he appeared to endorse Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign (Kennedy later backed Trump and is expected to become secretary of Health and Human Services).
Rogan said several times in the interview this week that the Harris camp “didn’t commit” to doing an interview and offered to do an abbreviated, 45-minute version. Most of “The Joe Rogan Experience” interviews are around three hours long and have a relaxed, conversational feel.
“While this guy’s saying that we were difficult to deal with, not true,” Rogan said. “We were super easy, we made it real clear.”
Furthermore, Rogan said that he wanted to release episodes with both Harris and Trump on the same day. He said his team even offered to do an interview with her late at night.
“We went through, we have all the receipts, by the way,” Rogan told Richards.
He explained that he wanted to do the “actual show,” and not “some fake version of it,” but that Harris’ team wanted staff in the room and they were concerned that episode would not be edited. On the other hand, he said Trump agreed to do the typical three-hour run time with just Rogan and his producer.
NBC did report that some of Harris’ team was not in support of her going on the podcast.
“I don’t think they ever really were sure they wanted to do it,” said Rogan. “Then once Trump did it, and it had this huge response, I think then it was like: ‘What the f***? What are we doing?’”
NBC reported that Rogan would also “later blame the missed connection on Harris and accuse her of refusing to talk about marijuana,” though Harris aides said that was one of the topics her team pitched to Rogan’s team. One thing that both sides said was that there was a final discussion about an interview in Washington D.C.
“Even after Trump went on, they offered for me to come to D.C. and do a show with Kamala,” Rogan said. “But even then, it was the same deal.”
Per the NBC report, “Rogan’s team balked, citing the Austin-only condition.”
Rogan eventually endorsed Trump just before the election. Fox News Digital, which also reported on Rogan’s comments this week, reached out to a former Harris campaign aide for a comment.