Joe Rogan and his guests discussed the political climate surrounding Donald Trump and the recent midterm elections in Texas during an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience.
Reacting to the uncertainty surrounding the political landscape in Texas, Rogan remarked, “We’ll see. All Texans are panicking.” The discussion then turned to the decline in Trump’s political support, with Rogan suggesting that the administration had lost more than just its online following.
“They didn’t just lose the podcast bros. They lost most of the country,” the guest said.
Rogan then pointed to concerns surrounding the administration’s policies and the public response to them. “Like when you get into a war that no one wants to be in when you got militarized police in the streets wearing masks and no American citizens,” he said.
The discussion then shifted to immigration enforcement, with Rogan arguing that while some of Trump’s border policies had positive outcomes, the administration’s approach to deportations also raised concerns.
“They did some good things. They closed the border and then crime dropped significantly. That’s those are good things. It’s not a good thing to have the border wide open where anyone can come in.”
“Also, not a good thing to snatch people out out of their taco stand that have been in the country for 20 years and are nice, good people that are loved by the community, but they just don’t have the right paperwork,” Rogan explained.
He went on to question the treatment of long-term undocumented immigrants, particularly those who have built lives and relationships in their communities.
“It’s a lot of [ ] that happen to be born right here in this patch of dirt that we keep letting out of jail. And you got these hardworking people that never did nothing wrong other than make their way over here when it was okay to do that, which was a lot. Like for the last four years, they allowed anybody to get through. And if you just snatch those people up now, like what did we just do? You just let all these people in. And some of them are good people. Filter it out.”
The group also compared deportation figures under different presidential administrations. During Joe Biden’s presidency, ICE carried out approximately 588,500 deportations between 2021 and December 2024, while the broader number of removals, border returns, and expulsions exceeded 4.6 million.
Barack Obama’s two terms saw approximately 3.1 million formal deportations and 5.3 million overall removals. Trump’s first term recorded around 2 million removals, while his second administration had reached approximately 1.2 million deportations as of October 2026.
Rogan questioned why immigration enforcement under previous administrations had received less attention from the media, particularly during Obama’s presidency.
“Nobody ever pushed back against it during the Obama administration. You never even heard about it media,” he said.
The discussion then turned to the suggestion that popular podcasters should be given front-row seats at presidential press conferences. Rogan was not particularly interested in the idea, arguing that podcasters should not be treated as traditional members of the press.
“How about no? How about real journalists? How about not have us do that? Also, we’re not going. We’re not going to the press conferences and sitting in the front row and asking questions.”
He continued, “We’re not going to go to the press conferences. We’re not press people. And it’s a sickness of our society that people take our opinions so importantly that it’s so significant. It should not be.”
Rogan also addressed how his political views are often interpreted, suggesting that much of the criticism directed at him comes from people who rely on short clips or outside narratives rather than listening to his full conversations.
“A lot of it is people that don’t really listen to you. They just listen to a narrative about you or they listen to a clip. They think there’s a clip that comes out of context that and then they make a distinction. And in a lot of people’s eyes, I represent the right or the far right,” he said.
