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High-Profile Dem Says Joe Rogan Is Too Scared To Put Him On Air

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Governor Gavin Newsom
Photo Credit: "Gavin Newsom" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) accused Joe Rogan of hiding behind his massive podcast audience while refusing to put the governor in the same room for a direct fight.

Newsom, 58, unloaded during an onstage interview with YouTuber Shelby Church, turning a question about podcasts and the 2024 election into a fresh attack on the 59-year-old host of “The Joe Rogan Experience.”

Church asked whether Newsom would appear on major shows such as Rogan’s or Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy,” and the governor immediately put the issue back on Rogan.

“I mean, you’re bringing up Rogan,” Newsom replied, before later returning to Cooper’s show.

Newsom told the audience that he has made a habit of engaging people who disagree with him, but claimed Rogan has blocked that kind of exchange.

“I’ve long prided myself for reaching out to the people I disagree with,” Newsom explained. “The problem with Rogan is he won’t have me on.”

The governor accused Rogan of avoiding a conversation that would force him to answer for his political commentary.

Rogan is reluctant “to be confronted with the bullsh*t that he spews, particularly in the political sense,” Newsom argued.

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“He’s a bullsh*t artist, in political terms,” Newsom added.

After the room stayed quiet, Newsom kept going rather than walking it back. “Sorry. He just is,” Newsom continued.

Newsom said he once would have taken the confrontation to Rogan’s studio, but claimed the window had already closed. “But he won’t do it. Now, I’m not even interested,” Newsom declared.

At the YouTube In Session event, which focused on major California city issues, Newsom clapped sarcastically while addressing Rogan as a phony tough guy.

“Well done, tough guy,” Newsom quipped.

He argued that Rogan did not want to be challenged by someone he had spent years criticizing from afar.

“I mean, obviously there’s some anxiety and insecurity around it, for him. Cause it’s threatening,” Newsom claimed. “Cause I will call him on the bullsh*t.”

Rogan’s criticism of Newsom goes back at least to a July 2023 episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” when the podcaster attacked the governor’s record on California crime, homelessness and COVID-era policies.

“It’s f***ing madness. There’s so many businesses that are closing down, they don’t want to be a part of it anymore,” Rogan remarked at the time.

Rogan also rejected the idea of Newsom becoming president. “Nobody wants President Newsom either. Nobody believes in that guy. That guy’s a f**king con man,” Rogan said.

The podcaster pointed to vaccine mandates for children and Newsom being seen without a mask after COVID restrictions as part of his case against the governor.

“I mean, everything he did in California, from trying to mandate vaccines for kids when it was totally unnecessary to being caught out in public without a mask and lying about the fact that he was outdoors. All of it,” Rogan added.

Rogan framed Newsom as a politician whose public image did not feel real to him.

“It’s just, nobody believes in the guy. He’s just a politician, just a stone-cold, narrative-driven politician, you know, and nobody thinks he’s a real human,” Rogan continued.

Newsom and his press team have since turned the dispute into a recurring online taunt, repeatedly accusing Rogan of talking about him while avoiding a face-to-face appearance.

In July, Newsom called Rogan a “chicken” on X and complained that Rogan still would not “have [him] on” his show.

Newsom’s press team used Trump-style all-caps phrasing in May while branding Rogan “Little Guy.”

“‘Little Guy’ Joe Rogan is too scared to have me on, but he wont stop talking about me,” the post read.

“He is obsessed with my ‘good looks,” the post added.

A similar April post accused Rogan of taking “cheap shots” from his own platform instead of facing Newsom directly.

“Joe ‘Little Guy’ Rogan is too chicken to have me on his failing podcast because he know (sic) I’d crush him, so he takes cheap shots from the peanut gallery as he gets relegated to irrelevancy,” the post read.

“All talk, no action. I’m ready when you are, ‘Little Guy.’ Or keep hiding!!!!” the post added.

Rogan later discussed a possible Newsom booking with comedian Andrew Schulz, who suggested there could be an entertaining version where Rogan brought the governor on and “cook[ed] him.”

“He’ll cook himself. I mean, that seems to be already happening,” Rogan responded, pointing to Newsom’s Trump-parody X strategy.

The podcaster said Newsom’s online approach had made him less interested in an interview.

“It’s just stupid. It’s like, this is a bad strategy,” Rogan explained. “Like, I probably would have had him on. But now I’m like, no, what are you doing?”

Newsom took another shot at Rogan on his own podcast in August after former Washington, DC, metro cop Michael Fanone, who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, attacked Rogan’s show and dismissed the idea of building a left-wing version of it.

“You don’t need the Joe Rogan of the left. F*ck Joe Rogan, that guy is an assh*le,” Fanone said.

“He is an a**hole. Thank you,” Newsom replied.

During an October appearance on CNN’s “The Story Is with Elex Michaelson,” Newsom described Rogan’s years of criticism as a one-way arrangement because the podcast host would not give him a seat across the table.

“For years and years he’s been attacking me, and it’s one way, and he won’t have me on. He’s consistently not having me on,” Newsom said. “By the way, I’m moving on. I have no interest. Joe Rogan is the Facebook of podcasting.”

When Michaelson noted Rogan’s large audience, Newsom argued that audience size did not matter if Rogan lacked the confidence to host him.

“With all due respect, if he has a big audience but he doesn’t have big enough confidence — I didn’t go there — to have me on,” Newsom responded.

Newsom said the pattern among Rogan and similar conservative media figures is to attack and mock people without offering a direct exchange.

“These guys, they all have something in common. It’s one way. They attack, they belittle, they demean, they take things out of context, but this is a serious thing,” Newsom stated.

He also rejected the idea that one Rogan appearance by Harris would have been enough to change the 2024 race.

“And so often we just sit back and go, ‘I really would love to go on.’ ‘Oh, if Kamala Harris just went on Joe Rogan, she would have won.’ It’s so much deeper than that,” Newsom argued.

Newsom said Rogan should give the people he targets the chance to respond in the same forum.

“The unwillingness for a guy like that to even have the common courtesy to attack someone,” Newsom concluded, “and not have the decency to say, ‘You know what? Why don’t you have a chance to come on? Let’s have a civil dialogue.’”

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