Kamala Harris 'regrets' not appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast during 2024 campaign

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Former Vice President Kamala Harris has publicly expressed regret for not appearing on popular podcast 'The Joe Rogan Experience' during her 2024 presidential campaign.

Harris made the remarks during an appearance on 'The Diary of a CEO' podcast, hosted by Steven Bartlett, which aired on Thursday, October 31.

Kamala Harris wanted to reach Joe Rogan’s audience 

Harris stated that she “wanted to do Joe Rogan’s show, and there were a lot of games being played, but I wanted to do Joe Rogan’s show.”

She also acknowledged the growing reach of podcasting, describing it as “a very powerful medium for people to get information.”

Harris noted that “for a lot of people that is a main source of information and it’s important for us to support that.”

She described how her campaign team advised against the appearance, stating that people assumed Rogan’s platform “would not be a productive piece for me” because of his perceived political leanings.

“Because they assumed, as it turned out to be correct, that he was supporting Donald Trump and that it would not be a productive piece for me,” she said. 

Harris added that despite that opposition, she viewed the invitation like her previous outreach.

She said “Just like when I went on Fox News … my perspective was … there are people that listen who are open-minded, and I’m going to go there and give them a chance to get to know me.” 

Regarding the mechanics of why the appearance did not happen, Harris said, “There was a lot of games being played around the scheduling and it didn’t happen.” 

She also acknowledged that she did not know whether insisting on doing the show would have changed the campaign’s outcome.

“I regret that we didn’t do it. I definitely regret that we didn’t do it,” she said. 

Kamala Harris and Joe Rogan teams dispute missed interview

Reports differ on who is responsible for the cancellation.

According to the book 'Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House' by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, Rogan’s team had allegedly promised Harris an appearance slot but later scheduled Trump instead.

On the other hand, Rogan’s camp contends that Harris’ team never formally committed and made demands including asking Rogan to travel to Washington, DC, and restricting the interview to an hour which they say caused the breakdown.

Harris maintained she had no personal opposition to Rogan or his audience, stating, “I don’t have anything against the people who turn on to Joe Rogan, and would love to be able to talk with him in a direct manner as I wanted to during the campaign.”

Her outreach rationale was “they may have their bias, but there are people that listen who are open-minded, and I’m going to go there and give them a chance to get to know me and give me a chance to make my case to them.”

The episode of 'The Joe Rogan Experience' that did air with Trump reportedly amassed tens of millions of views, highlighting the scale of the platform Harris says she missed.