With a huge audience and serving as an avatar for millions of centrist Americans, Rogan compares ICE raids to Gestapo
Joe Rogan’s comparison of US immigration raids to Gestapo operations, made during a podcast episode earlier this week, has sparked speculation about whether the wildly popular podcaster, who endorsed Donald Trump in 2024, has fully soured on Trump’s presidency – and what that might say of the millions of mainly young men who listen to Rogan’s show.
Rogan’s views, as expressed in the podcast discussion, were more complicated than the Gestapo remark taken alone might make them seem. Yet even his more measured skepticism about ICE immigration raids feels somewhat significant, given Rogan’s cultural status and the evidence that Americans in general are turning against Trump’s hardline anti-immigration efforts.
The Joe Rogan Experience is the biggest podcast in the United States, by most metrics, and political observers track it with keen interest. Rogan’s enormous listenership makes him a powerbroker for the digital age; his publicly-stated decisions to vote for Bernie Sanders in 2020 and Donald Trump in 2024, are considered at least as significant as traditional political endorsements.
