After suffering a brutal defeat this past November to President Donald Trump, former Vice President Kamala Harris received a fair deal of pushback for underperforming among young men. Looking for somewhere to place blame, some critics pointed out that Harris had failed to secure an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, who spoke with Trump about a week before the election.
But new reporting from NBC News has shed some light on why Harris and Rogan’s tête-à-tête never came to fruition.
Joe Rogan recording an episode of his podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
According to an excerpt from the forthcoming book by reporters Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, the Harris campaign tried to secure an interview but were usurped by Rogan and his GOP allies—including tech billionaire Elon Musk.
The book, “FIGHT: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” describes how Harris’ team went to great lengths to meet Rogan’s demand that the two talk at his studio, which is in Austin, Texas. Rogan was supposedly adamant that the interview would not be conducted elsewhere, so Harris’ team had to figure out how to get her to Texas without seeming “desperate” to the press.
Her team ultimately decided to host a rally in Houston, another blue Texas city, to serve two purposes: to justify Harris’ presence in the historically red state under the guise of calling attention to Texas’ restrictive abortion laws, and to satisfy Rogan’s demand that they have their interview in Austin.
Before the scheduled interview, Harris reportedly sent a team to Rogan’s studio while plans for the Houston rally were finalized. Harris was willing to accept Rogan’s terms, according to the book, so she authorized her team to let Rogan know when she’d be visiting the state.
That’s when Rogan started to act fishy, an excerpt from the book revealed.
“We could do Friday, the 25th,” [Harris’ deputy campaign manager, Rob] Flaherty reportedly told Rogan’s associates on October 18.
“Wish we had known about this sooner, because he has the 25th blocked out as a personal day,” a Rogan rep allegedly responded.
“What about Saturday morning?” Flaherty countered, according to the book.
A terse response allegedly followed: “Only if it’s before 8:30 a.m.”
The book suggests that Flaherty was mystified as to why Rogan didn’t seem eager to interview Harris. After all, Election Day was just around the corner.
Days later, Harris’ campaign team realized why Rogan’s team was acting so strange: He scheduled an interview with Trump on Oct. 25, the alleged “personal day” for which Rogan’s team said he was unavailable.
News of Trump and Rogan’s interview came as a shock to anyone familiar with their on-again-off-again professional relationship. While Rogan has since become rather chummy with the president, he once called Trump “an existential threat to democracy.” He also referred to Trump as a “man baby” during a 2022 episode of his podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
But the book purports that Rogan and Trump set aside their differences and that Musk and Dana White, CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship, convinced them to bury the hatchet and do the interview.
And it paid off.
Rogan and Trump’s conversation garnered nearly 40 million views on YouTube within three days.
As for Harris? She was hung out to dry. Rogan refused to speak with her in Washington, D.C., and she couldn’t justify a second trip to Texas so close to Election Day. Even if she could make it back to the Lone Star State, it would arguably look bad for a Democrat to twice visit a state she had no chance of winning while swing states, like Georgia and Nevada, were so close by.
Harris and Beyoncé at the Houston rally on Oct. 25, 2024.
Harris didn’t leave Texas that weekend with nothing to show for it, of course. Her Houston rally still happened as planned, and she was joined by Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland, both of whom endorsed Harris’ candidacy.
Unfortunately, Beyoncé did not sing, and the event was taking place on a Friday night, when many Texans were otherwise consumed with high school football.
What’s worse, Trump’s interview with Rogan went viral, and the podcaster later lied by blaming the missed connection on Harris’ refusal to talk about cannabis on his show. (Notably, Harris had endorsed full legalization.)
Rogan later backed Trump’s bid for the presidency—one day before the election.
And the rest, sadly, is history.
Campaign Action
