Joe Rogan says his interview with former President Donald Trump faced an “issue” that prevented it from surfacing on YouTube’s search function, a problem Google reportedly said it addressed, as he now alleges—without evidence—the video sharing site intentionally suppressed the interview.
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA - APRIL 09: Joe Rogan looks on during the UFC 273 event at VyStar Veterans ... [+]
In the latest episode of the “Joe Rogan Experience” released Oct. 30, the host mentioned “something happened” with YouTube’s search results for his interview with Trump, adding platforms “can’t suppress sh*t anymore,” and questioning why his video wasn’t trending, saying “there's no way it was a mistake, that's too convenient, but it could have been like some rogue engineer.”
In the episode, he also shared that Elon Musk “was furious” about the issue and called Spotify CEO Daniel Elk before he posted the video on his own X account.
Rogan had tweeted Tuesday his interview faced “an issue with searching for this episode on YouTube” and uploaded the video in its entirety to X.
Rogan also reposted a video from David Heinemeier Hansson, the CTO of software firm 37signals, which purported to show dozens of other videos appearing in his YouTube search for the Trump interview, and saying it “would be beyond bonkers if they're actively trying to suppress it. Must be a glitch, right?”
Hansson is one of dozens of X accounts reporting issues with finding the interview or noting YouTube’s search function showed snippets of the Trump interview instead of the full video, as some users appear to imply YouTube had intentionally suppressed it, with billionaire Elon Musk posting on X, “YouTube experienced some uh … technical difficulties.”
There is no direct evidence YouTube deliberately did not show the interview, which remains available and appears in search results.
An unnamed spokesperson for YouTube parent Google told Variety late Monday the video “didn’t appear prominently” for “some searches on Monday,” and the issue had been “resolved,” though it didn’t specify what caused the issue (the company did not respond to a request for comment from Forbes).
On Oct. 25, Rogan first posted the highly anticipated hours-long interview with Trump to YouTube and Spotify. After posting, Rogan said his team delisted the video from YouTube, meaning it was no longer visible, to fix what Rogan described as a “glitch” in the uploading process across his social media accounts; he later made the episode available, saying on Oct. 25, “there is no issue with YouTube censoring the Trump episode.” It later didn’t appear in some search results, creating the swarm of posts and Rogan’s response. Even so, Rogan’s episode with Trump quickly became one of the most notable episodes in the podcast’s history. It was the first time a former president went on the show and had been in the works for weeks, after Rogan previously said he would never host Trump on the show. For the Trump campaign, the interview was an opportunity to target young men in order to combat the expected strong turnout of women voters for Harris. In the past year, Trump has been on dozens of similar podcasts catering to a male audience, but Rogan’s podcast is the most-listened-to podcast on Spotify. In the episode, the two talked about election fraud (but didn’t provide details), Trump’s policies as president and the existence of aliens.
It still appears unlikely, but Rogan posted Tuesday he hopes to make it happen. “For the record, the Harris campaign has not passed on doing the podcast,” he writes, adding that “they offered a date for [Oct. 29]
Trump’s vice presidential pick JD Vance interviewed with Rogan on Wednesday, and the interview is expected to be released Thursday. Vance has often followed Trump’s podcasting line-up and attended many of the same shows that Trump has, such as the “Full Send Podcast” and “This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von.”
41 million. That’s how many views Rogan’s interview with Trump has on YouTube, making it his second most watched. That’s not to mention the 18.8 million it gained with Rogan posted it to his personal X account. The podcast, which has been interviewing guests for over a decade, now only has one episode with more views on YouTube. Rogan’s most viewed episode on YouTube, at 61 million views, is from 2019 with controversial character Bob Lazar and film director Jeremy Corbell, two names behind a prominent Area 51 documentary. The episode beat out his longstanding second most viewed YouTube episode, with 38 million views, is with famous whistleblower Edward Snowden.