Kamala Harris Shared How She Really Feels About Not Doing Joe Rogan’s Podcast

Kamala Harris is setting the record straight on why she didn’t appear on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

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During an interview on the Diary of a CEO podcast, the former vice president clarified that she had actually wanted to appear on the former host of Fear Factor‘s podcast during her 2024 presidential campaign, and she regrets that it never happened.

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“I wanted to do Joe Rogan’s show, and there was a lot of games being played, but I wanted to do Joe Rogan’s show,” Harris said. “I think podcasting is a very powerful medium for people to get information, and to your point, for a lot of people that is a main source of information and it’s important for us to support that.”

Rogan’s podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, has reportedly recorded over 2,500 episodes in 15 years and is extremely popular among young conservative men.

As Entertainment Weekly highlighted, Harris and Rogan’s camps have had differing accounts of what led to the former vice president’s appearance never happening. In Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes’ book Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House, the authors claimed that Rogan promised Harris an interview but gave it to President Donald Trump instead. That episode garnered over 40 million views on YouTube within a couple of days of its release.

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Rogan challenged that claim in a Feb. 4 episode of his podcast, alleging that Harris’ team never agreed to appear on the show and only wanted his Austin-based production to travel to Washington, D.C. for the interview AFTER Trump appeared on the podcast.

On Diary of a CEO, Harris said she intended to do the show, but her camp advised her against it “because they assumed, as it turned out to be correct, that he was supporting Trump and that it would not be a productive piece for me. But just like when I went on Fox News with Bret Baier, my perspective was they may have their bias, but there are people that listen who are open-minded, and I’m going to go there and give them a chance to get to know me and give me a chance to make my case to them.”

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“So, that was my perspective on Joe Rogan, just like it was my perspective on Fox,” Harris said. “There was a lot of games being played around the scheduling and it didn’t happen. I don’t have anything against, certainly, not against the people who turn on to Joe Rogan, and would love to be able to talk with him in a direct manner as I wanted to during the campaign.”

Podcast host Steven Bartlett asked Harris if she wished she had stood her ground against the people advising her not to appear on Rogan’s podcast, but she isn’t sure how it would’ve affected the campaign. “I don’t know if it would’ve made a difference,” she said. “I wanted to do it, and it would’ve been great to do, and it would’ve been helpful to do.”

“The issue was was really about what’s the trade-off in terms of votes and where I spend my time. Do I spend my time traveling for five hours versus being for that period of time in a swing state? That was the trade-off.”

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“I regret that we didn’t do it. I definitely regret that we didn’t do it. I’ve been doing my work long enough that I never had the luxury of saying I don’t want to go into uncomfortable situations,” Harris finished. “You would need to have a different profession.”

In an excerpt from her book 107 Days, Harris wrote, “Even though most of my team thought doing the interview at all was a gamble, and others bluntly argued it was a bad idea, I really wanted to do it. One podcast was not going to win or lose the election. But Rogan’s audience was young and male. I wanted to reach those guys who might not otherwise hear from me.”

Do you think being on Joe Rogan’s podcast would’ve really made a difference for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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