“I’ve had the opportunity to have him on my show more than once – I’ve said no every time. I don’t want to help him. I’m not interested in helping him”. So said the podcast host Joe Rogan about the marginalised former president Trump in 2022. He couldn’t make it any clearer that he was “not a Trump supporter in any way, shape, or form.”
How times can change. In the two years that followed, Donald Trump would stage the most remarkable political comeback in living memory, soaring past his primary competition and brushing off indictments and assassination attempts to become the successful Republican challenger of the 2024 election.
And Trump knew he needed Rogan. The podcaster, with 15 million subscribers and a roster of A+ list guests, had warmed to Trump in the intervening period, even while maintaining the harsh-but-fair assessment of both the Republicans and Democrats that brought him widespread popularity. The agnosticism shifted to outright support with an 11th-hour endorsement for Trump on polling day.
Rogan’s official stamp of approval may have come too late to have swayed many voters, but his sprawling three hour interview with the man he adamantly argued against having on the show the week prior certainly might have, exceeding an astonishing 45 million views on YouTube alone.
That Rogan’s views are of such interest is testament to his enduring relevance and popularity. It was strange, then, that Kamala Harris refused the opportunity to appear on the show after Trump, apparently claiming scheduling issues, an unwillingness to fly to Austin, Texas, and a desire to keep the interview to an hour – which any Joe Rogan Experience superfan would know is tantamount to sacrilege.
Don’t let Rogan’s eventual endorsement retroactively tar him: he expressed his qualified admiration for Harris even while speaking to Trump, and was clearly seriously interested in hearing what she had to say. Rogan has happily hosted Democratic voices before, warmly chatting with Pennsylvania Dem Senator John Fetterman.
Call it hubris, then. The Harris campaign, aided by Silicon Valley Super PAC Future Forward, spent $700 million on state-of-the-art advertising. She massively outspent Trump on ground game operations, too, with sneering dismissals of the (admittedly chaotic) contributions of Elon Musk.
Rattled by criticism that she was avoiding the press, she eventually submitted to a few brief televised interviews. A few, highly selective podcast appearances would follow – in retrospect, appearing on “Call Her Daddy” as Hurricane Milton battered North Carolina might have been a bad call – but Rogan was clearly a step too far.
Trump was savvy enough to follow Rogan’s star. Credit is due to Alex Bruesewitz, the young Vance staffer who apparently pushed for Trump to take advantage of alternative media networks.
The Joe Rogan listener isn’t too dissimilar from the Donald Trump voter: both are sceptical of establishment authority, hate foreign interventions, are virulently anti-woke and – as this morning has proven – represent a diverse snapshot of modern American identity. He can’t be dismissed as a “bro” influencer in the same way as the pro-Trump YouTube pranksters the Nelk Boys. As the world wakes up to the election results, it’s clear that America is now Rogan country.
