Harris backed out of Joe Rogan podcast over ‘backlash’ from lefty staffers
A campaign official reportedly said Vice President Kamala Harris backed out of appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast out of fear of backlash within the Democratic Party.
The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that Jennifer Palmieri, senior advisor to second gentleman Doug Emhoff, said talks about Harris appearing on “The Joe Rogan Experience” fell through “because of concerns at how the interview would be perceived within the Democratic Party.”
“There was a backlash with some of our progressive staff that didn’t want her to be on it, and how there would be a backlash,” Palmieri reportedly said.
She added there was a “very weird dynamic” between Rogan and Harris’ team after discussions about Harris’ potential appearance leaked.
“Because all of a sudden he’s on his heels about how his audience is going to react to this, and the demands that they were going to put on him to be tough on her,” Palmieri said.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for a comment.
Rogan has since revealed many details about how the deal fell through, such as how her campaign demanded the interview only be an hour and that he travel to meet her, instead of recording at his podcasting studio in Austin, Tex.
He also suggested on Tuesday that the campaign wanted to put restrictions on what they would talk about during an interview.
“They had, I don’t know how many conversations with my folks, but multiple conversations giving different dates, different times, different this, different that, and we knew that she was going to be in Texas, so I said, ‘open invitation,'” Rogan said. “I think they had requirements on things that she didn’t want to talk about, she didn’t want to talk about marijuana legalization, which I thought was hilarious.”
He added the campaign seemed “chaotic” and the vice president wasn’t good in unscripted situations.
“I don’t know if she’s good at running things because you’d have to be behind the scenes to see how that works, but when it comes to talking off the top of her head, what she’s good at is a pre-rehearsed speech that she reads off a teleprompter. Pretty solid,” Rogan said.