BS BULLETIN:

• Joe Rogan says he no longer believes he’d support Bernie Sanders the way he once did.
• Rogan blasted Sanders for allowing the Democratic establishment to “run him over” during the 2016 primary against Hillary Clinton.
• Rogan previously praised Sanders as a champion of working-class Americans and publicly backed him during the 2020 Democratic primary.

Joe Rogan once thought Bernie Sanders was the presidential candidate who made the most sense.

Not anymore.

The podcast giant revisited his past support for the Vermont senator Wednesday and said he doesn’t believe he could bring himself to support Sanders today.

His biggest complaint? Bernie didn’t fight hard enough.

Rogan recalled the enormous reaction he received after publicly expressing support for Sanders, whom he praised at the time for his anti-war views and economic proposals.

“I said, ‘If I was going to vote for anybody I’d probably vote for Bernie,’” Rogan recalled.

But Rogan said his view of Sanders has changed.

“This was a long time ago,” Rogan said. “I don’t necessarily think that I would feel the same way anymore about him.”

He then pointed directly to Sanders’ treatment by the Democratic Party establishment during the 2016 presidential primary. Rogan accused party leaders of rigging the process in favor of Hillary Clinton and faulted Sanders for failing to fight back aggressively enough.

“He kind of gave into the Democratic establishment,” Rogan said. “He let them run him over.”

Rogan said Sanders should have publicly confronted party leaders rather than ultimately backing Clinton after losing the nomination.

“He let them get away with stuff,” he said, arguing Sanders should have put his foot down and called out what Rogan considered an unfair process.

Clinton won roughly 3.7 million more primary and caucus votes than Sanders in 2016 and entered the convention with a large delegate advantage. But the Democratic National Committee was also rocked that summer by leaked emails showing some officials privately expressing hostility toward Sanders during the supposedly neutral primary process.

Then-DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned on the eve of the Democratic National Convention amid the controversy.

There’s an interesting wrinkle in Rogan’s timeline. His most prominent public embrace of Sanders didn’t come during the 2016 campaign. It came four years later. During the 2020 Democratic primary, Rogan praised Sanders as “insanely consistent” and said he would probably vote for him.

Sanders’ campaign enthusiastically promoted Rogan’s comments at the time, triggering criticism from some Democrats over controversial remarks Rogan had made on his podcast.

Rogan continued praising Sanders afterward. In 2022, he said Sanders genuinely cared about working-class Americans. And Sanders himself appeared on “The Joe Rogan Experience” as recently as June 2025, where the pair discussed inequality, Gaza, health care, and other issues.

But Rogan’s politics have continued to shift.

He has increasingly described himself as politically homeless and has criticized both parties while becoming far more hostile toward the progressive movement he once viewed favorably.

Now one of Sanders’ most famous celebrity supporters is looking back at Bernie and reaching a very different conclusion.

MY QUICK TAKE

Bernie finally lost Joe Rogan.

It just took Rogan about ten years to decide that 2016 was the dealbreaker. That’s one heck of a delayed breakup.

DBS WIRE SOURCES:

• Mediaite — Joe Rogan says he no longer supports Bernie Sanders
• Politifact — Rogan’s history of presidential endorsements and votes
• JRE Database — Rogan’s 2025 interview with Bernie Sanders