Joe Rogan broke ranks with MAGA to criticize the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policy during a discussion on his top-rated podcast.
In the latest episode The Joe Rogan Experience, the 58-year-old, who endorsed Donald Trump in the 2024 election, was joined by comedian Duncan Trussell. The pair began to discuss the harsh new immigration measures enforced by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
As a result of Trump’s immigration policy, which has seen Republicans direct a further $75 billion in funding towards ICE, as well as the National Guard deployed in several blue cities, “2 million illegal aliens have been removed or have self-deported since January 20,” according to a Tuesday DHS statement. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has been pictured in various high-profile stunts surrounding deportations.
“There must be a way to do this that doesn’t involve ripping parents out of their communities, away from their children, that doesn’t involve like actually removing people who’ve been contributing to American society, sending people to other countries when they can’t even speak the language,” Trussell said of the administration’s current approach.
Rogan agreed, telling Trussell that he never envisioned the scenes currently playing out on American streets when Trump initially announced his immigration policy during the election.
“No one with a heart is going to go along with that. And I did not ever anticipate seeing that on TV on a regular basis,” Rogan said.
“I really thought they were just going to go after the criminals. I really thought there was enough gang members and enough people MS-13 members and whatever they were looking for, that they would just go after those guys.”
Rogan went on to make a suggestion for “the only way to do [immigration policy] where you could get everyone on your side”.
“Borders are closed, and we’re going to find out who out of the people that are illegal that have committed felonies, and if you’ve committed X amount of felonies, you have to leave the country,” Rogan suggested.
He continued, “But if you’ve been here for 25 years, you have a family, your kids go to school here, you speak the language, you’re just illegal, but you’re a contributing member to the community that up until now has been protected. [It’s] crazy to ask lower income and middle income people who are getting by, and then all of a sudden you’re about to ship them to a country where they’ve never been, they haven’t been since they were four.”
“You’re going to you’re going to pull up their family and they’ve been in the community… like that shows no heart, and that’s the problem. Like you’re not going to get any reasonable people to want to go along with that. Any kind person would look at that and go ‘this can’t be the only way to do this.‘”
The Daily Beast has contacted DHS for comment.
The Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration has seen it engage in several high-profile attempts to deport immigrants back to their countries of origin or third countries that they have no connection to, as well as raids on formerly protected spaces like schools, hospitals and places of worship, including in sanctuary cities.
Noem, who this week flew to Portland, Oregon, a city the president has described as “war-ravaged”, threatened to quadruple the number of federal officers present in the city unless Mayor Keith Wilson met her demands for additional security at ICE facilities.
Known for her photo ops, Noem has joined Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in full glam; makeup and curled hair under a baseball ICE cap and bulletproof vest. This week, she was filmed confronting a migrant arrest by ICE, but reportedly blundered her translation.
She was also criticized after visiting the El Salvador mega-prison CECOT while wearing a $60,000 gold Rolex watch and tight-fitted shirt and standing for a photo op in front of prisoners behind bars.
Rogan’s view reflects that of the majority of registered voters; in a recent survey from The New York Times and Siena University, 54 percent of voters favored deporting undocumented immigrants, but 51 percent feel that the administration’s actions on immigration enforcement have gone too far.
Though Rogan leans Republican, it’s not the first time he has broken ranks with Trump, having previously criticized the president for his handling of the Epstein files and the attempted cancelation of Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show. He has also previously criticized Trump’s mass deportations, expressing concern that people who are not criminals could be swept up in Trump’s raids back in April.
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