In a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, host Joe Rogan shared his frustration over Vice President Kamala Harris’s apparent unwillingness to appear on his show for an unfiltered, open discussion. Joined by British commentator Konstantin Kisin, Rogan revealed his disappointment at what he perceived as Harris’s team’s attempts to control the interview environment, saying it hindered any chance of a genuine exchange.
The conversation opened with Kisin teasing, “I heard you might have needed to cancel on us to get Kamala Harris on.” Rogan clarified that while he would have prioritized a chance to speak with Harris, he was disheartened by the missed opportunity to have an authentic, no-holds-barred conversation.
“I knew you guys flew from England, and I wasn’t going to cancel on you,” Rogan replied, adding that he had offered Harris an open invitation to join him while she was visiting Texas. He emphasized his flexibility, saying, “I’ll do it at nine in the morning, 10 p.m., midnight… if she wants to drink a Red Bull, f***ing party on.”
Despite Rogan’s willingness to accommodate her, he suggested that Harris’s team had pushed for conditions that would allow them to control various aspects of the setup. “When they found out that [Trump] was coming on, her team reached out to me,” Rogan noted. “So I said, ‘Great, I’d love to talk to her,’ but it was tough to pin things down… If I go somewhere, there’s going to be other people in the room, and they want to control a lot of things, I’m sure.” Rogan stressed his desire to have a “human-to-human” conversation without an agenda, saying, “Like my whole goal was just to talk. Just have a conversation… I don’t give a [expletive] what we talk about. I just want to talk to you. Who the [expletive] are you?”
Kisin then suggested that Harris’s team might have been apprehensive about her appearing on Rogan’s show, perceiving it as a platform sympathetic to Trump. Rogan responded, explaining that he frequently encounters misunderstandings about his political stance. “There’s always been this assumption that I’m some right-wing MAGA guy… I was a Bernie supporter,” he clarified. “I’ve always considered myself politically homeless.”
Rogan elaborated on how his views have evolved over the years, especially as he noticed what he describes as a cultural shift. “I always considered myself a left-wing person… But then the tides of culture shifted in a very bizarre way.” He noted that today’s political climate pressures people to align strictly with one side, leaving little room for nuanced views.
“People pick a [expletive] team, and then whatever that team says… they’ll do their best to minimize the horrible effects of the furthest extreme version of that, whether it’s Antifa or the Proud Boys,” Rogan said. He warned that this extremism often eclipses genuine discourse, creating a polarized atmosphere where honest dialogue becomes increasingly rare.
Rogan also criticized what he sees as a departure of the modern left from traditional liberal principles, particularly the commitment to free speech. Reflecting on his upbringing in San Francisco with “hippie” parents, Rogan recalled that he had long associated liberalism with open-mindedness and the defense of free expression. “For me, it was always like the liberals were the ones who wanted education and open-mindedness… the ACLU [said], let the Nazis talk… You can’t infringe on people’s free speech,” he shared.
His frustrations extended to recent calls for increased censorship and what he sees as undue influence of pharmaceutical companies on health organizations, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). “They want to give the World Health Organization, which is deeply influenced by big pharma… control over what we take and what we don’t take,” Rogan claimed, referring to the “revolving door” between regulators and pharmaceutical firms. “That doesn’t make sense, because that’s not what the liberals were when I was a kid.”
Rogan reflected on the irony of witnessing a shift within the liberal movement, which he feels has moved away from valuing open dialogue. “When they had the power over social media and these collective groups of people that all had the same ideology… that tribal mentality kicks in,” he said. “You lose the perspective… that everyone has to be able to talk… and we have to figure out who’s right, and you might be wrong.”
Rogan’s concerns reflect a broader critique of contemporary politics and media dynamics. As someone who has hosted figures from across the political spectrum, he frequently champions the importance of free, unscripted conversations on his show. In his view, Harris’s decision to avoid such an exchange represents a missed chance for her to address the American public on a personal level. He believes her participation would have allowed people to understand her beyond the controlled setting of traditional media appearances.
In concluding the conversation, Rogan noted that he remains open to hosting both Harris and Trump, eager to engage in a conversation that breaks past the constraints he feels often limit meaningful public discourse. “This whole thing, for me, has always been about talking to people as they are,” he emphasized. For Rogan, the real loss is the opportunity to connect in a way that transcends political narratives, leaving listeners with a clearer, unfiltered impression of who political leaders truly are.
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