Kamala Harris Finally Reveals Her Side of the Story On Botched Joe Rogan Interview
Talk about a scheduling conflict.
Now we know former Vice President Kamala Harris’s take on why she could not talk to Joe Rogan before the 2024 election. The former vice president revealed, in her new book, that she had a date penciled in last October to talk to the podcast star. There was just one problem: Rogan had already marked it off as a “personal day” — a day he ended up using to interview President Donald Trump.
That is according to an excerpt from Harris’ new book, “107 Days,” which was shared by MSNBC contributor Sam Stein on X Wednesday.
Rogan, according to Harris, had agreed to interview her in Detroit, before reconsidering and asking to record in Austin, TX — where he is based. Harris said that was a “big ask,” considering “every minute in a swing state mattered” at that point late in the election. But she wrote that she was “game,” despite reservations from some of her team if they could wedge it in.
“Even though most of my team thought doing the interview at all was a gamble, and other bluntly argued it was a bad idea, I really wanted to do it,” Harris wrote. “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.”
So Harris said her team reached out to Rogan on Oct. 18 about setting up an interview for Oct. 25, when she would be in Houston for a rally. Rogan’s team told her it was a “personal day” for the podcaster, and asked if she could make the morning of Oct. 26 work — which Harris’ staff said would not work on their end.
Harris said it “came as a surprise” when her campaign later found out Rogan was using his personal day to interview Trump.
Rogan, on his end, has pushed back on how the Harris camp has framed the non-interview. He said earlier this year the Harris team said he “lied” about having Trump on, a charge he said is bogus.
“No, we just didn’t tell you that Trump was coming on. He was already booked a long time ago. This is how it worked: Trump was really easy to book, like super easy. We offered one day, he said ‘yes,’ that was it,” Rogan explained.
He added Harris “never agreed to do the show,” so it is hard to complain about their schedules not lining up.
Rogan’s three-hour interview with Trump was watched more than 35 million times on YouTube in the three days following its release. Trump, on the podcast, blasted CBS for its recent interview with Harris on “60 Minutes,” calling it “election interference.”
Some of the other topics and people that were mentioned during Trump’s appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience included: Joe Biden, Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, China, Israel, Russia, Iran, UFC, The White House, depression, primetime television, the media, Baron Trump, Melania Trump, Ronald Reagan, oil, Adolf Hitler, CNN, Tim Walz, the 2020 election, “The View,” David Muir, tariffs, policing, polling, and Elon Musk.
Harris has been making the media rounds this week to promote her new book. In one notable appearance, she unsettled MSNBC star Rachel Maddow on Monday when she said it would have been “too big of a risk” to have Pete Buttigieg as her 2024 running mate because he is gay.
