Podcast titan Joe Rogan, who had long flirted with support for Donald Trump before finally endorsing the president in the lead-up to the 2024 election, is now reeling from the latest wave of MAGA madness.
On a recent episode, Rogan suggested that, if the Trump admin had said we’re going to go to Home Depot and construction sites and arrest those people, “I don’t think anyone would have signed up for that,” Rogan said.
Well, Joe — everyone did see that coming. Everyone except, apparently, the people who endorsed Trump, thinking he’d suddenly discover subtlety and compassion in his second act.
Trump: “The largest domestic deportation operation in American history”
Rogan: If the Trump admin had said, "we're going to go to Home Depot and construction sites and arrest those people" I don't think anyone would have signed up for that"
— usurp tha chef (@usurpthachef) June 19, 2025
You're so right Joe, no one could have seen this coming (except all those people who said this was coming) pic.twitter.com/MnEtBcnrF8
Throughout his 2024 campaign, Trump leaned even harder into anti-immigrant rhetoric than during his first run. He vowed to carry out “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” Trump described undocumented immigrants as “poisoning the blood” of the country — a phrase that drew comparisons to fascist propaganda.
In his second term, Trump hasn’t exactly walked any of it back. If anything, he’s doubled down. The targets? Not just dangerous criminals or cartel leaders, but workers outside of your local hardware store.
And that’s what has Rogan so rattled. In his view, Trump’s immigration crackdown was sold to the public — and to him — as a security-focused effort, not as a war on the laborers and families holding up entire sectors of the economy — but was Rogan listening?
Rogan: Better late than never?
ICE at Home Depot on Sunset this morning.
— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline) June 19, 2025
SIDEBAR: Yesterday I said to a friend from East LA, “At some point these masked, anonymous ‘ICE agents’ are going to roll up on the wrong people and get capped.”
She said she was told, “ICE is purposely avoiding the gang areas for their… pic.twitter.com/NZOfwyH4La
Rogan made the remarks on a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, reacting to Trump’s escalating rhetoric and reported plans for mass immigration raids that include targeting day laborers at places like Home Depot and construction sites — in other words, the people doing the jobs American corporations do not want to give to Americans.
Rogan sounded genuinely stunned, as though Trump hadn’t already spent years casually threatening to round up immigrants,
Maybe Rogan forgot about the family separations at the border. Or Trump’s infamous “s—hole countries” comment. Or the Muslim travel ban. Or the time he tear-gassed peaceful protesters to hold a Bible upside-down.
What’s clear now is that Trump’s return would not be about fixing a “broken system” — it would be about wielding unchecked executive power to terrorize the marginalized. And even Trump’s supporters, like Rogan, are starting to wake up to that dystopian reality, albeit years and thousands of ICE raids too late. Joe, welcome to the party. The rest of us have been watching this train wreck since 2016.
