Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has opened discussions with Joe Rogan that could see her sit down for an interview with the controversial podcast host who counts an army of impressionable young men among his listeners.
Officials from the Democratic nominee’s campaign met with Rogan’s team this week, according to a report by Reuters.
Harris’ outreach to Rogan suggests a significant shift in her campaign following a panic of sorts among Democrats who worried her previously light, cautious schedule was scuttling her chances in the election.
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Polls show her locked in a close race with former president Donald Trump and struggling with several key demographics, including men. “People are nervous,” a source close to the campaign told CNN last week.
As recently as last week, Democrats fretted that Harris was playing it too safe by limiting her appearances, avoiding policy details, and sticking to softball interviewers like late night host Stephen Colbert, jeopardizing her ability to control the campaign narrative in the process.
“It’s the most difficult oral exam on the planet for the most difficult job, and part of that is just that spontaneous—town halls, all kinds of interviews, and not just friendly interviews,” David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist who worked for former president Barack Obama, told Politico last week. “I would be doing them if I were her.”
The first signs that the Harris campaign had changed tack came amid a blitz of interviews, mostly friendly, last week: the Call Her Daddy podcast, an appearance on shock jock turned Democratic stalwart Howard Stern’s radio show, The View, Colbert’s Late Show, and a grilling on CBS’ 60 Minutes.
Then came an announcement Monday that Harris agreed to a sit-down interview with conservative Fox News followed by, in the early hours of Tuesday, the leak of her team’s talks to see her visit The Joe Rogan Experience. (Trump has already said he plans to appear on Rogan’s show before election day).
Both suggest those fears among Democrats trickled up to the Harris braintrust, who could see an appearance with Rogan as a chance to win over male voters who are trending Republican.
A New York Times/Siena survey released last week gave former president Donald Trump an eleven point lead among male voters, with 53 percent support to 42 percent for the vice president.
Meanwhile, Rogan—whose show had 14.5 million followers on Spotify alone as of March—is arguably the American media figure most tapped into Harris’ demographic sore spot: 81 percent of his listeners are male and 56 percent are under 35, according to a YouGov poll taken last year.
Going on Rogan, however, could risk promise or peril. The libertarian leaning podcast host has spread baseless conspiracy theories, including about the Jan. 6th insurrection and the coronavirus pandemic, given conspiratorial crank and school shooting denier Alex Jones airtime, and called rape apologist and alleged rapist and human trafficker Andrew Tate “a very smart guy.”
His rambling, freewheeling style—interviews often last up to three hours—could leave her stuck in a conspiratorial ditch. Notably, only 12 percent of Rogan’s listeners said they “trust newspapers to print the truth,” according to the YouGov poll.
When Rogan appeared to endorse Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders during the 2020 Democratic primaries, Democratic groups including MoveOn pounced on Sanders and called for him to condemn Rogan for past transphobic remarks—President Joe Biden, who was then running against Sanders and is now technically Harris’ boss, appeared to join the pile on.
But, despite the fact that his guest list has sometimes looked like a carousel of right wing grift all-stars—Jordan Peterson, Alex Jones, Russell Brand, Milo Yiannopoulos, Candace Owens—the libertarian leaning Rogan has warmed to Harris in recent weeks.
After initially saying he supported independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy for president, Rogan heaped praise on Harris for a forceful speech she gave after becoming the Democratic nominee, in which she challenged Trump to debate her.
“That one speech she gave right after they decided she was going to be the nominee, that one speech where she said, ‘if you’re going to say something, why don’t you say it to my face?’ It was great timing,” said Rogan, calling it a “banger of a speech.”
After RFK dropped out and endorsed Trump, Rogan praised Harris again last month after she was widely seen as the winner of the televised presidential debate, saying she was “nailing it.”
