Joe Rogan has explained why he moved from supporting Bernie Sanders in 2020 to endorsing Donald Trump in 2024, pointing to immigration, COVID-era policies and dissatisfaction with the Democratic presidential nomination process. In Rogan's opinion, the dominance of two political parties in the U.S. isn't ideal, and he described his break with Democrats as the result of several issues, rather than a single event. On Wednesday's episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan was asked about his political evolution by actor Michael Douglas.
Underlying the conversation was a broader frustration with America’s political system. The former Fear Factor host, 59, argued that having two dominant parties leaves voters with too little choice, describing the arrangement as not healthy. Immigration was among Rogan’s sharpest criticisms.
"First of all, the open border was insane," Rogan said of the Biden administration, arguing that its handling of migration was a major factor in his political break with Democrats. His views have been criticized as oversimplifications of a more complicated record, particularly his characterization of the border as "open." Border encounters rose substantially during Biden’s presidency, but millions of encounters did not mean that the same number of people entered and remained in the country. Government data examined by FactCheck.org showed that, as of early 2024, approximately 2.5 million people encountered at the southern border had been released into the United States while about 2.8 million had been removed or expelled.
Encounter figures can also include repeat attempts by the same person. Customs and Border Protection defines its encounter statistics as encompassing several categories, including Border Patrol apprehensions between ports of entry and people found inadmissible at official ports. Rogan also argued that Democratic voters had not been given a meaningful choice of presidential candidates in recent elections, describing the process as another reason for his disillusionment, though there is important context to that claim.
Biden faced challengers during the 2024 Democratic primaries and became the presumptive nominee after securing a majority of delegates. He withdrew from the presidential race on July 21, 2024. Per democrats.org, Kamala Harris did not subsequently compete in a new nationwide primary election.
Instead, after Biden withdrew, his delegates became unbound and Harris secured the Democratic nomination through a virtual roll call of convention delegates, receiving 99 percent of participating delegates' votes. Rogan questioned Biden’s mental fitness while he was president and suggested that uncertainty over who was making decisions contributed to his loss of confidence in the Democratic leadership. COVID-era vaccine requirements were another grievance.
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