Joe Rogan said that Democrats are “scrambling” to “create their own version” of his popular Spotify podcast following Donald Trump’s win in the 2024 presidential election.
The host of “The Joe Rogan Experience” had interviewed Trump in October but was unable to bring Vice President Kamala Harris on as a guest.
“I think these ‘Call Her Daddy’ [podcast] shows and all these different shows that [Harris] went on, I mean, I’m sure they had an impact,” he told software engineer Marc Andreessen. “But I think that in the future, I’m sure they’re scrambling to try to create their own version of this show. This is one thing that keeps coming up, like, ‘We need our own Joe Rogan.’”
“But they had me,” he added. “I was on their side.”
Andreessen agreed with Rogan, replying, “The [Democrats] had you, and they drove you away. That’s No. 1. But they also have, you know, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN. Right?”
The martial arts commentator argued that traditional TV networks don’t have the same impact as podcast appearances in the current political climate.
“But that doesn’t work anymore. It’s like, you know, like you’re using smoke signals, and everybody else has a cell phone,” Rogan said. “It’s just it’s a bizarre time.”
Rogan, who endorsed President-elect Donald Trump on the eve of the election, previously endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) during his 2020 presidential campaign.
Rogan also showed support for independent candidate and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for president in this year’s election, calling him the “the only one that makes sense to me” in August. He later clarified in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that he wasn’t endorsing Kennedy despite praising him.
Over the summer, Rogan said he “could see” Harris triumphing over Trump in November’s election.
“I’m saying it because she could,” Rogan said during a July 30 episode of his podcast, not long after President Joe Biden stepped back from his campaign. “I’m not saying it because I think she’s going to, and I’m not saying it because I want her to. I’m just being honest. I could see her winning.”
On Tuesday, Harris’ campaign aides explained on “Pod Save America” why the vice president’s interview with Rogan fell through.
“I hate to repeat this over and over, but it was a very short race with a limited number of days and for a candidate to leave the battleground and go to Houston, which is a day off the playing field in the battleground [states],” Stephanie Cutter said. “So, we had discussions with Joe Rogan’s team. They were great. They wanted us to come on. We wanted to come on. We tried to get a date to make it work, and ultimately we just weren’t able to find a date.”
Cutter claimed that Rogan’s team “never confirmed” with them and Trump ended up taping with Rogan that same day, adding, “We kind of figured that out in the leadup to it.”
Another Harris aide, David Plouffe, added: “We offered to do it in Austin. People should know that. Didn’t work out. I think maybe they leveraged that to get Trump in studio. And then we were obviously not going to be back in Texas but offered to do it on the road.”
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Elsewhere in the “Pod Save America” interview, Cutter reflected on whether appearing on Rogan’s show would have given Harris a leg up in the race considering she struggled to garner support from young voters in the election.
“[The interview] would have broken through, not because of the conversation with Joe Rogan, but because of the fact that she was doing it — and that was really the benefit of it,” Cutter explained. “Will she do it in the future? Maybe. Who knows? But it didn’t ultimately impact the outcome one way or the other. But she was willing to do whatever it takes.”