Kamala Harris to Skip Joe Rogan Podcast: What We Know

Vice President Kamala Harris will make not an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast before Election Day, her campaign confirmed Thursday.

During an interview with MSNBC, Harris spokesperson Ian Sams said that the campaign “talked with Rogan and his team about the podcast. Unfortunately, it isn’t going to work out right now because of the scheduling of this period of the campaign.”

Reuters reported last week that the vice president and Democratic nominee was looking into sitting down for an interview on Rogan’s podcast in the final days of the 2024 election. Rogan’s podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, is one of the most listened-to podcasts on platforms like Spotify.

Sams said on Thursday that Harris is “happy to go anywhere and any place to talk to a broad segment of the country.”

Newsweek reached out for comment to Rogan’s team via online contact form on Thursday night.

Former President Donald Trump announced last week that he would be appearing on Rogan’s podcast. The interview is set to be recorded on Friday, with episodes of the show typically being released online shortly after being recorded.

Rogan’s podcast has around 14.5 million listeners per episode, according to Digital Music News. As the show’s audience skews heavily male, an appearance by Harris might have helped her connect to a demographic with which she is seemingly struggling.

Polls have shown that Trump has a clear lead among male voters that appears to be getting larger as Election Day quickly approaches. However, polling also shows that Harris has a large and increasing lead with female voters.

David Karpf, associate professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, previously told Newsweek that a Harris appearance on Rogan’s show would make sense as part of the Democratic candidate’s “media strategy.”

“Some of [Rogan’s] listeners will surely back Trump, but some are up for grabs,” Karpf said. “She’ll want to get her message out and draw a clear contrast with Trump.”

Rogan previously endorsed independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy’s bid for the presidency. Kennedy has since suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump.

The vice president has recently been interviewed on the podcasts Call Her Daddy and All the Smoke, in addition to interviews on radio shows hosted by Howard Stern and Charlamagne tha God.

But a poll released by USA Today/Suffolk University on Wednesday suggested that podcast appearances were doing little to move the needle in favor of Harris and may instead be harming her campaign.

The poll, conducted among 1,000 likely voters, found that 51 percent of respondents who had heard the vice president on a podcast said that her appearance made them less likely to vote in her favor.

Only 34 percent of the poll respondents said that Harris podcast appearances made them more likely to vote for the Democratic ticket, while 21.5 percent said that it made no difference.

Large majorities of those who participated in the poll said that they had heard neither Harris nor Trump on any podcasts.