The latter stages of the election campaign centered around popular podcast host Joe Rogan.
The UFC commentator’s show became a hotbed of discussion; first, rumors swirled around a potential appearance by Donald Trump, who confirmed the rumors himself before later appearing on the show. An appearance from JD Vance followed shortly after. Given Rogan’s immense popularity among young male voters, talk of Kamala Harris appearing on the podcast – reportedly filmed in a chosen location with strict covenants on time limits – soon began to emerge.
The Rogan/Harris crossover never came to fruition, and we’re getting more details as to why. Initially, Harris made absurd demands, such as requiring Rogan to come to her for the interview, and having it shortened to only an hour.
Rogan has since revealed more details about the non-interview, most recently that Harris didn’t want to talk about marijuana legalization on the air, likely because it would be easy to highlight her hypocrisy on the issue.
Harris claimed in the latter days of her campaign to support marijuana legalization, posting that “No one should go to jail for smoking weed” in announcing that stance on social media. Rogan, an advocate for recreational marijuana, seemed to be the perfect place for a Democrat nominee promising that.
However, Rogan confirmed that marijuana was among the topics she wanted off the table in discussions prior to the interview-that-never-was. He said:
“They had, I don’t know how many conversations with my folks, but multiple conversations giving different dates, different times, different this, different that, and we knew that she was going to be in Texas, so I said, ‘open invitation.’ I think they had requirements on things that she didn’t want to talk about, she didn’t want to talk about marijuana legalization, which I thought was hilarious.”
Despite the issue being a core campaign pledge, Rogan added that Harris’ prosecuting record may have been a reason for wanting to avoid the debate. “She put a lot of people in jail for weed,” he added.
The decision came as a surprise to some on social media.
Others were more critical of the Harris campaign.
