A forthcoming book has given new insight into how Kamala Harris failed to land an interview with Joe Rogan during the homestretch of her presidential campaign—and how Elon Musk allegedly had a hand in it all.
Rogan’s team allegedly pulled the plug on Harris’s interview mere days before she planned to travel to his studio in Austin, Texas, for what would have been an hours-long, no-topic-off-limits interview in late October.
The sit-down never came to be, however, after Rogan’s team scheduled Donald Trump on the same day Harris was set to be in Texas, write Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes in FIGHT: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House.
An excerpt from the book, which is set to publish on April 1, reveals that Harris’ team went to great lengths to pull off a Rogan interview without making it appear as if the former VP was desperate.
Rogan’s team was reportedly adamant he would not interview Harris anywhere but in his studio. The podcaster, who boasts close to 15 million subscribers on Spotify alone, had only traveled for an interview once before—in 2019, to speak with Edward Snowden, the infamous whistleblower who was wanted in the U.S. at the time.
With an interview outside Texas off the table, the book claims Harris’ team concocted an elaborate excuse for why she would travel to a state she had no chance of winning in her campaign’s final weeks. Her team landed on hosting a rally in Houston on October 25 that would put a magnifying glass on abortion in a state that was—and still is—so restrictive against it. At least, that’s what they would say publicly.
The rally’s real purpose, the book claims, was to put Harris in proximity to Rogan’s studio—approximately 165 miles west of the city—while providing justification to her donors for why she made a trip to Texas when she was needed in swing states.
Harris sent an advance team to Rogan’s studio as the Houston rally was being finalized. She was willing to accept Rogan’s terms, the book claims, so she authorized her negotiating team to OK the interview and inform Rogan of when she would be in town.
That is where the first red flags allegedly emerged.
“We could do Friday, the 25th,” Harris’ deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty reportedly told Rogan’s associates on October 18.
“Wish we had known about this sooner, because he has the 25th blocked out as a personal day,” a Rogan rep allegedly responded.
“What about Saturday morning?” Flaherty countered, according to the book.
Flaherty noticed the tone from Rogan’s camp was now “different.” The same people who had previously seemed open to a Rogan-Harris interview, as long as there were no topic restrictions, were now less eager.
The book suggests Flaherty was taken aback that Rogan—unlike everyone else in U.S. media—was not chomping at the bit to interview Harris less than two weeks before Election Day, especially given how rare her media appearances had been.
“The vice president of the United States is offering to come to your f—ing show, and you keep putting up more hoops,” the book quoted Flaherty’s thinking at the time as being.
