Comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan has previously hosted presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his podcast.
Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk set off a round of speculation this week when he suggested an interview between celebrity podcaster Joe Rogan and 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump “will happen,” with just weeks to go before Election Day.
The anticipation for a Trump–Rogan interview took on new energy after the financial blog and news aggregator ZeroHedge posted a Substack
post calling on Rogan—a comedian and martial arts commentator—to invite Trump onto “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
The post, written by author Quoth the Raven, urged Rogan to extend the invitation to Trump before election day on Nov. 5.
Musk responded to the ZeroHedge article in an Oct. 10
post on his X social media platform, stating simply, “It will happen.”
While Musk has no particular decision-making power over Rogan’s podcast, Rogan’s official X social media profile added to the speculation in an Oct. 11 post, sharing an article referencing Musk’s comment the day prior, titled, “Elon Musk makes three-word prophecy about Joe Rogan’s podcast.”
The X profile for the Joe Rogan podcast also shared a
post on Oct. 9, broaching the subject of an interview with Trump.
A Trump–Rogan podcast isn’t without precedent. Rogan brought Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) onto his show for an Aug. 6, 2019
episode, during Sanders’s unsuccessful run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
Rogan also
invited Robert F. Kennedy Jr. onto his podcast this June, while Kennedy was running as an independent presidential candidate. Kennedy has since dropped out of the race and
endorsed Trump.
Trump is no stranger to the podcast circuit, including on shows that aren’t normally geared towards politics. The Republican presidential candidate
appeared on the “Full Send” podcast in April of last year, on an
episode of Logan Paul’s “Impaulsive” podcast in June of this year, on an
episode of comedian Theo Von’s “This Past Weekend” podcast in August, and on an
episode of comedian Andrew Shulz’s “Flagrant” podcast this week.
Rogan has given some thought to how an interview with Trump might go. During an Oct. 8 episode of his podcast, Rogan
said “If I talk to him, my number one question would be what happens when you get in there?”
Still, neither Rogan nor his podcast have announced any specific plans to interview Trump at the time of publication. If he intends to interview Trump before the election, he has less than four weeks.
Both major party candidates have begun to embrace the podcast circuit as a new way to appeal to voters this election cycle.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate,
appeared on the “All the Smoke Podcast” with former professional basketball players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson on Sept. 30. She also
appeared on the relationship and culture podcast “Call Her Daddy,” hosted by Alex Cooper, on Oct. 6. She is
set to appear on the “Breakfast Club” podcast, hosted by Lenard Larry McKelvey, who goes by Charlamagne Tha God, next week.
The Epoch Times reached out to The Joe Rogan Experience, and to the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment on their upcoming podcast plans, but did not receive a response by press time.
