Does Joe Rogan Care Who Wins the Texas Senate Race?

It’s late June, more than two hours into the 2,518th episode of his mega-popular podcast, and Joe Rogan is critiquing part of James Talarico’s anatomy.

With his guest, the conservative-leaning comedian Tim Dillon, Rogan was riffing on possible 2028 presidential contenders. Dillon offered up Jon Ossoff, the well-known senior U.S. Senator from Georgia, prompting a “Who’s that guy?” from Rogan. The show’s producer having pulled up a photo of Ossoff, Rogan began to assess.

“That looks like a president. … His neck is medium. It’s not too thin; it’s not too thick,” he said. “Like Talarico’s neck is a little too small, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah, that’s probably true,” replied Dillon.

This bit of neck-related commentary wasn’t turned into viral social media clips or fodder for quick-turn news writeups. But, frequently, Rogan’s off-handed political claims made deep in the woods of his meandering “longform” conversations are indeed treated as newsworthy—part of a long, hard turnaround over the last five years or so.

Gone are the days when presidential contender Bernie Sanders was ostracized for having appeared on the transphobic Rogan’s show and when liberals mounted a campaign for Spotify to deplatform the host over COVID-19 misinformation. Instead, presidential flameout Kamala Harris’ failure to appear on Rogan’s podcast was treated as a major hinge-point in her 2024 collapse. 

And, a little over a year ago, Talarico’s appearance on the show was among the biggest stepping stones in his rise from relatively obscure state rep to hot-shot U.S. Senate nominee. That July 2025 conversation began with Rogan not knowing which elected office Talarico held and ended, 133 minutes later, with the former telling the latter to run for president. “A Joe Rogan-Blessed Democrat? James Talarico Draws Eyes of a Party Desperate For New Leaders,” swiftly blared Time—and even this month GQ described Talarico as “a progressive, Christian state legislator who managed to hang with Joe Rogan.” The out-of-state money and support flowed like Black Rifle coffee during a Rogan podcast.

Joe Rogan laughs as President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office on April 18. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

A month and a half after that episode, Talarico officially declared for Senate. But, over the following year, it’s been unclear whether Rogan supports this bid by the man he told to run for the White House—or even to what extent the Austin-based host is aware of the race that’s unfolding around him. 

Using three separate sites that compile transcripts of Rogan podcast episodes, the Texas Observer identified 20 episodes in which Talarico or his Republican opponent, Ken Paxton, were mentioned. A few clear trends emerge. Rogan often brings up Talarico when discussing possible ’28 presidential candidates—and particularly after bashing California Governor Gavin Newsom—rather than anything having to do with the 2026 midterms, in which the Austin state legislator is actually running. And Rogan tends to talk exclusively about Talarico’s position on the Ten Commandments being posted in public schools. As for Paxton, the state’s current attorney general, Rogan largely mentions him as the man who foolishly sued Texas cities for decriminalizing marijuana. 

Despite the largely positive comments on one hand and primarily negative on the other, Rogan usually talks all the way around the fact that the two men are engaged in a high-profile race that one will win and the other lose. Whether through studious avoidance or simple ignorance, he leaves the question open: Does he care who wins the Texas Senate race?

In the episode released on July 18, 2025, Joe Rogan opened by explaining to James Talarico that he’d discovered Talarico when Austin comedian Brian Simpson showed him a video of “some lecture … not a lecture, a speech you were giving about the Ten Commandments in schools.” 

Indeed, Talarico had recently gone viral on social media with a clip from a House floor exchange about Senate Bill 10, which requires public schools to display those principles of Mosaic law.

A few minutes in, perhaps detecting a certain vagueness in Rogan’s introduction and questions, Talarico specified: “I serve here in Austin at the state Capitol,” prompting the question “What is your position?”—to which Talarico responded by explaining the bicameral nature of the state’s legislative branch. 

Talarico, also a Presbyterian seminarian, elaborated his position that forcing Christianity on public school students would turn kids away from religion, and he explained to Rogan the role of big-money Christian nationalists Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks in Texas politics. He also made a biblical case for abortion access, arguing that the Virgin Mary chose to receive Jesus in her womb.

It was then in the middle of a late-episode tangent on government secrecy around Jeffrey Epstein that Rogan somewhat suddenly said, “You need to run for president,” setting in motion the wheels of history. 

Since then, Talarico has come up in at least 10 of Rogan’s podcast shows. There was a September 2025 Matthew McConaughey episode, in which the Texas actor responded skeptically to Rogan’s summation of Talarico’s view on the Ten Commandments issue. “When you look at the commandments, is there anything that anyone out there is going like, ‘I disagree with that one,’” said McConaughey.

Replied Rogan to his producer: “Let’s pull up the Ten Commandments, Jamie”—words that listeners of the show will hear ring in their minds clearer than a bell.

A month later, there was another exchange with National Geographic correspondent Mariana van Zeller, who had heard the Talarico interview and was so enthused that she compared the lawmaker to Martin Luther King Jr., which Rogan seemed to think was a tad much. Then, an episode released that New Year’s Eve with Australian comedian James McCann, in which Rogan called Talarico’s abortion argument “bizarre” and said it “doesn’t jive with how most people view Christianity.” And a February conversation in which another comedian, Matt McCusker, informed Rogan of the then-recent primary spat involving Colin Allred, Talarico, and Jasmine Crockett—producing great confusion on Rogan’s part. 

In general, however, Rogan stuck across these episodes to his script of bringing up Talarico as a favorable contrast to Newsom or to recite the Ten Commandments issue. Among the second category, Rogan engaged Vice President JD Vance in a lengthy July back-and-forth that led to Vance tapping out with a “We can agree to disagree.” 

As for Paxton, the scandal-laden Texas attorney general who defeated incumbent U.S. Senator John Cornyn in a bruising May GOP runoff, the podcast trail extends back a bit further. 

In January 2022, about a year and a half after he moved to Austin from California, Rogan learned who Paxton was from James Lindsay, a Tennessee man who runs the right-wing Twitter account “@ConceptualJames.” (Dialogue: “Who’s that?” “Your attorney general.” “Texas attorney general?” “Yeah.”) Then, two years later, Rogan told comedian Jeff Dye the following about marijuana’s legal status in the Lone Star State: “Apparently it’s decriminalized here in Austin, praise Jesus, but then I heard that Ken Paxton is trying to sue the City of Austin—who I’ve met. He’s a very nice gentleman. Ken, how dare you? … This is stupid, Ken.” 

Across at least eight additional episodes, Rogan generally acknowledged the AG’s existence only to criticize the latter’s stance toward legal weed, other than a passing defense in August 2024 of Paxton’s efforts to root out supposed voter fraud.

Based on this evidentiary record as maintained by Spotify and YouTube, it is possible that Rogan’s political awareness simply begins and ends at the bounds of his own recorded conversations; thus, to him, Talarico and Paxton also start and finish at the edges of his niche interests. It is also possible that—while Rogan explicitly endorsed Donald Trump for president in 2024—he’s intentionally limiting his engagement with this race to avoid blowback from part of his audience. Some of his apparent ignorance, too, could be feigned—a means to stand in for a poorly informed listener. 

It’s hard to guess based on the publicly available material, and his stray comments about politics more generally do little to clarify.

In both late July and mid-August, Rogan made remarks to the effect that Democrats taking over Texas would be deleterious. “The liberals that want to turn Texas blue, like, don’t. You’re going to ruin it. You’re going to ruin it for you, too. … Balance is important,” he said in the earlier instance. “[Austin is] a liberal city surrounded by like hardcore Republicans with guns and tigers. And it works. … It makes for nice people.” (Talarico responded to this, saying he agreed with the idea and thinks “the best color for Texas is purple.”)

One thing that’s clear: Rogan is haunted by what he sees as the liberal excesses of his former West Coast home state. But what does “balance” look like in a particular race for U.S. Senate, in which the candidates are opposed on issues including, to name one, marijuana legalization? We don’t know, because he won’t let his conversations become specific enough to find out.

Requests for comment sent to an email address and multiple social media accounts associated with Rogan or the podcast went unacknowledged.

This ambiguity came to something of a head in mid-September, when Ron White, the stand-up comic who is sometimes known as Tater Salad and became famous in his days touring with Larry the Cable guy et al., put the question rather plainly: “So what we gonna do about the Texas Senate—you met Talarico, you liked the guy, right?” 

“I did like him. I liked his thoughts on the Ten Commandments in schools,” answered Rogan, launching into his well-worn spiel.

Then, like a thunderbolt of contextual knowledge, the surprisingly erudite Tater Salad, who hails from a small town in the Texas Panhandle, said that he’d first noticed Talarico when the rep was opposing school vouchers in the Legislature. Apparently unfamiliar, Rogan requested an explanation of the extremely high-profile school privatization scheme, which White provided before concluding: “You really can’t put Ken Paxton back in office in the state of Texas. That guy’s just too corrupt; he’s just a bad egg and we don’t need him around here.” 

Without missing a beat: “There’s a lot of shenanigans with weed in this state right now,” Rogan said, redirecting to his pet Paxton-related topic. 

An hour later, though, White managed to steer the ship back to Talarico, saying the Democrat could be an unusually ethical leader.

“I would hope so,” responded Rogan, before expressing a reservation: “He’s said some things that I think are questionable,” with the subsequent conversation roughly revealing that the “things” are trans participation in competitive sports and gender-affirming treatment for minors. 

White tried to put Rogan’s objection in relative context, summarizing the various scandals that have gotten Paxton sued and impeached over the years. “He’s a criminal, just a piece of shit.”

“I don’t know enough about him,” Rogan replied.

Well, at least there are still a few weeks left to brush up.

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