Joe Rogan Fires Back at Claims His Podcast ‘Sabotaged’ Kamala Harris’ Campaign, Explains How UFC Companion Brendan Schaub Affected the Interview

Rogan shares receipts and provides a detailed response to clarify how Schaub's involvement impacted the conversation, denying any harm to Harris' image or campaign.

Joe Rogan
Joe Rogan - Image credit @kamalaharris Instagram @Powerfuljre Youtube

Joe Rogan has spoken out about why his highly anticipated interview with Kamala Harris during the 2020 presidential campaign never materialized. The UFC commentator and host of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast had been scheduled to sit down with Harris the day after Donald Trump appeared on his show. However, a scheduling conflict derailed the entire plan, and Rogan is now sharing his side of the story.

In a recent episode of his podcast, Rogan responded to accusations that he “screwed over” Harris, insisting that the situation was far more complex than it was made out to be. He pointed out that Harris’s campaign never formally committed to the interview, despite multiple attempts from his side to make it happen.

UFC 308 and Scheduling Conflicts

One of the major factors behind the failed interview was UFC 308, a monumental fight event that Rogan had been committed to covering. On the day Harris’s team wanted to do the interview, Rogan was preparing for a live podcast with UFC guests Brendan Schaub, Bryan Callen, and Eddie Bravo, all of whom had flown in from California to watch the event and record their famous “Fight Companion” podcast.

“They wanted to do it that Saturday, the day after Trump. I said, ‘I’ll do it, but it has to be at 8:30am’,” Rogan explained. “The reason why was I had a podcast already scheduled that was a live UFC podcast. We do this thing called Fight Companion.”

He further elaborated on the difficulty of juggling his commitments. “I flew in three of my buddies from California, and we were all going to do this podcast together. We had committed to doing this. Like, they were already in town. I can’t just say, ‘No guys, I can’t do this awesome thing because I have to interview Kamala Harris.’”

Not Just Any Fight: UFC 308 Was Unmissable

Rogan also made it clear just how big of a deal UFC 308 was. The main event featured a matchup between two of the best featherweight fighters in the world, Ilia Topuria and Max Holloway.

“It was Ilia Topuria vs Max Holloway. Just so you know for people listening that aren’t UFC fans, that was a gigantic fight,” Rogan said. “Max Holloway had just beaten Justin Gaethje in like literally the [best] knockout of all time. Ilia Topuria is one of the absolutely best fighters in the world. If not number one pound-for-pound certainly number two or number three – he’s in the top five of the absolute best athletes in any weight class.”

For Rogan, this was a “clash of the titans,” and he wasn’t about to miss it. “So, this was a clash of the titans. The greatest featherweight champion of all time versus the current featherweight champion. I’m not going to miss that!”

Attempts to Make It Work

Despite the scheduling conflict, Rogan wasn’t ready to give up on the interview with Harris just yet. He offered several workarounds, hoping to accommodate her campaign, but none of the proposed solutions seemed to work. “I said I would do it, but it has to be like 8:30 in the morning because I have to be done by the time the fights start. That’s reasonable. They didn’t do that either.”

In the end, Rogan stuck to his commitments, and UFC 308 took priority. “You’ve got to understand. I’ll work around [it]. I’ll come back at night. I’ll do it at midnight. I don’t give a f—, I’ll do it. It wasn’t me f—— someone over.”

Clearing the Misunderstandings

Rogan also took issue with reports that painted him as the one who sabotaged the interview. He insisted that his team and Harris’s campaign had miscommunicated during the planning process, adding, “They said a bunch of things that weren’t true,” Rogan said to guest Dan Richards. “They supposedly talked to like 150 different people about her … but they didn’t talk to us, which is kind of crazy. Like, they didn’t even ask.”

He also responded to claims that he lied about Trump’s appearance on the show, saying, “One of the things they said that wasn’t true was that we lied about the day that Trump was coming on,” Rogan said. “No, we just didn’t tell you that Trump was coming on. He was already booked a long time ago. … Trump was really easy to book, like super easy. We offered one day, he said yes, and that was it. There was no ‘What are we going to talk about? How long is it going to be? Is it going to be edited?’ There was nothing.”

Rogan further refuted the idea that Harris’s campaign had agreed to do the show, adding, “They never agreed to do the show. None of that’s true. They never agreed.” He also debunked claims that the Harris campaign had sent someone to visit the studio for a walkthrough, saying, “They also said that they sent someone down here to the studio to do a walkthrough of the set. That’s not true. The Trump administration did.”

He even suggested that if Harris had been willing, the interview could have been done in the same studio where Trump recorded his episode, as it had generated an enormous result. “And I said, look, [Trump] did it here,” Rogan said. “We should probably do it here. Like, if it’s possible to do it here — obviously when he did it, it had an enormous result. I’m willing to do the same thing for her. I wanted to release both of them on the same day. This was my goal.”

In the end, Rogan seems to have made his peace with the situation. “So this idea that I sabotaged her – there’s a bunch of people that say I screwed her over or whatever – that’s not true. So, you can think whatever you want.”

Published on February 5, 2025 at 10:01 am
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