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Podcaster Joe Rogan has backpedaled on his support for Donald Trump’s administration, revealing on a recent episode that the thinks the president’s deportation policies are ‘insane.’
On the July 2 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan and his guest, tech CEO Amjad Masad, slammed Trump for his merciless deportations of migrant workers and Palestinian students.
During a conversation about Masad’s Palestinian roots and his experience with politics in the tech industry, the CEO expressed his disappointment with the current administration.
‘It’s insane,’ Rogan intervened.
‘There’s two things that are insane. One is the targeting of migrant workers. Not cartel members, not gang members, not drug dealers. Just construction workers. Showing up in construction sites, raiding them. Gardeners. Like, really?’ he added.
‘Or Palestinian students on college campuses,’ Masad added.
Masad then brought up Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement earlier this year.
Ozturk spent six weeks in a Louisiana immigration detention center and was released in May after a district judge ruled in favor of her claim that her detainment was illegal.
Joe Rogan criticized Trump’s merciless deportation policies that target undocumented migrants and university students
Rogan had Trump on his podcast during the run-up to the election and endorsed Trump’s campaign, but has recently criticized the president’s policies
On a July 2 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience featuring tech CEO Amjad Masad, Rogan called Trump’s deportation policies ‘insane’
Ozturk was in a Ph.D. program at Tufts University and wrote an op-ed in a student paper criticizing the college’s ties to Israel.
Rogan expressed his shock at Ozturk’s detainment during the recent episode, questioning why writing an op-ed was enough to be arrested by ICE.
Ozturk was arrested in March by agents in plainclothes, which was captured on surveillance camera and went viral.
Masad explained that Ozturk’s essay criticizing Israel was used as evidence from the Department of Homeland Security for her arrest.
‘And that’s enough to get you kicked out of the country?’ Rogan reacted.
Rogan’s criticisms of Trump come after he had the president on his show in the run-up to the election.
He later endorsed the president, and political pundits widely credited his show for the surge in young male voters that supported Trump in his re-election race.
Rogan said students and migrant workers without criminal records shouldn’t be detained by ICE
Rogan was credited for helping shift the politics of young men in the aftermath of the presidential election (Pictured: Rogan at Trump’s inauguration in January)
The Joe Rogan Experience has consistently taken the top spot on the podcast charts and has a strong influence over young men, with a recent survey by Media Monitors estimating his viewership is 71 percent male.
Young men swung to the right in 2024, and many political pundits and strategists looked to figures like Rogan as an explanation for the shift.
Even though Rogan endorsed the president, he’s strayed from unwavering support in recent months, consistently criticizing Trump’s immigration policies.
In a recent episode with comedians Luis J. Gomez and Big Jay Oakerson, Rogan called the ICE raids in Los Angeles ‘nuts.’
‘They said we’re gonna get rid of the criminals and the gang members first. Right? And now we’re, we’re seeing like Home Depots get raided, like that’s crazy,’ he added.
Rogan endorsed Trump right before Election Day after the two sat down for a long conversation on JRE (Pictured: Rogan with professional MMA fighter Daniel Cormier and President Trump at a UFC event last November)
Rogan clarified that he supported ICE deporting criminals, but didn’t believe workers should be targeted.
‘Like going in and raiding those people and putting ’em in jail because they’ve integrated into society in an illegal way. It seems stupid,’ he said.
Trump’s key campaign point was securing the borders and mass deportations, which he has stuck to during the first five months of his second term.
ICE raids have ramped up under Trump’s administration, and his new One Big Beautiful Bill would continue to supercharge deportation efforts.
The bill would make ICE the most heavily funded law enforcement agency, allocating around $170 billion to combat illegal immigration.
