Joe Rogan disputes claims by Kamala Harris from the former vice-president that he lied when he stated she would not talk to him about marijuana before 2024.
Harris, in her book “107 Days”, which refers to the short time that she had left to run for president after Joe Biden dropped out of the race last year, discussed the controversy surrounding the plans to appear on Rogan’s podcast during the lead-up to Election Day.
Rogan claimed that Harris, when invited to the Rogan and Company show shortly after Donald Trump won the second term in office, “didn’t want” to discuss marijuana legalization.
Rogan, who backed Trump in the end shortly before the elections, thought that the supposed refusal to speak about marijuana was “hilarious.”
Rogan, in an episode released on Wednesday of “The Joe Rogan Experience”, responded to Harris’ book by saying that this was not the case.
“They didn’t want to complete the task.” Rogan explained that the campaign wanted Rogan to perform a 45-minute event in another location. Harris’s team of campaigners “did claim that there were some issues that Harris didn’t wish to discuss, but then denied this.”
This is in conflict with Harris’ retelling the story, published just last month.
Harris writes in her book that the team of then vice president “suggested topical issues which might be interesting to Rogan’s audiences, such as social media censorship and crypto.” The team of Rogan said that they only wanted to talk about the economy, immigration, and abortion.
Harris stated that Rogan has “lied” on his program in the months following the scheduling error, saying we demanded strict topic limitations. He “even claimed the topics we suggested were the ones we refused to talk about,” Harris added.
The former vice president stated that no interview was conducted due to conflicting schedules and Rogan’s refusal to conduct the podcast outside his Austin studio. On a pitch day for the Democratic campaign in October, last year, Rogan told her that he would take a “personal” day. But later she found out that Rogan interviewed Trump on that particular day.
Adrienne Iapalucci, a comedian who appeared on Rogan’s podcast to address the Harris controversy in an earlier episode, asked Rogan about the vice president at the time not wanting to discuss marijuana.
After all, Harris had reaffirmed her support for cannabis legalization on the campaign trail, sponsored a bill to end federal prohibition during her time in the Senate and would presumably benefit from highlighting her advocacy for the bipartisan issue in the run-up to the election.
Rogan stated that the campaign was claiming this “because of [her] prosecuting record in California.” Harris was criticized for her work as San Francisco’s district attorney, and then state attorney general. Opponents often cited data about cannabis arrests made under Harris.
“She put a lot of people in jail for weed—1,500 apparently,” the podcaster said.
Harris’s new book also addresses this topic briefly, stating that Harris’s prosecutorial history “had been mischaracterized.”
When I was elected district attorney in this country, the criminal justice system was even more deteriorated than it is today. She wrote, “I was elected as one of the country’s first progressive district attorneys. I looked for ways to prevent nonviolent criminals from going to jail. “I did not seek prison time for marijuana-related offenses.”
During the campaign, Trump had also gone after Harris over her prosecutorial record on marijuana, claiming that she put “thousands and thousands of Black people in jail” for cannabis offenses—but the full record of her time in office is more nuanced.
According to a Bay Area News Group investigative report, the San Francisco District Attorney’s offices reported that there were 1,556 people charged in San Francisco. Confiscations For misdemeanors and felonies marijuana crimes from 2004 to 2010, when Harris was in charge of the office. However, the actual number of inmates sent to prison by state was 45. Although it is not known how many were actually sent to the county jail. The total number may therefore be higher.
Harris received criticism from the cannabis reform community over a video her office posted in early 2024 that prematurely claimed the Biden administration had “changed” federal marijuana policies.
Trump for his part endorsed the federal rescheduling cannabis and an eventual failed Florida marijuana legalization measure just weeks before Election Day. Since he took office, however, the marijuana rescheduling process initiated under the Biden administration has remained stalled—though the president suggested in late August a decision on the matter will come within weeks.
Joe Rogan provided the image.
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