Joe Rogan, a Prominent Supporter of Trump’s 2024 Campaign, Compares ICE to the Gestapo: ‘Is This What We’ve Come To’

Joe Rogan is criticizing President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement tactics, warning that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has begun to resemble “the Gestapo” — more than a year after Rogan endorsed Trump, 79, during the 2024 election.

During the Tuesday, Jan. 13 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan spoke with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul about his concerns over ICE operations and the way some arrests have been carried out.

Rogan, 58, said he understands why many Americans support law enforcement and the arrest of criminals. But he argued that, at the same time, many of those people believe ICE is “operating illegally” — and that the approach has become overly aggressive.

“Those same people that believe that might also believe that once someone is here, they should be able to stay in this country and ICE is operating illegally and we shouldn’t have militarized groups of people roaming the streets just showing up with masks on, snatching people up, some of them U.S. citizens, and shipping them to countries they didn’t even come from,” Rogan said.

Rogan also raised alarm about agents demanding identification or documentation from people in public — comparing the tactic to actions carried out by the Gestapo, the political police under Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime.

“I can also see the point of view of the people that say, ‘Yeah, but you don’t want militarized people in the streets just roaming around snatching people up, many of which turn out to actually be U.S. citizens that just don’t have their papers on them,’ ” Rogan said. “Are we really going to be the Gestapo? ‘Where’s your papers?’ Is that what we’ve come to?”

Trump’s immigration enforcement tactics have faced heightened scrutiny over the past year amid videos circulating on social media that appear to show ICE agents detaining people in public while wearing masks and using force. There have also been reports of agents arresting legal U.S. residents and citizens, along with recent deadly shootings, including the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis.

Separately, data obtained by University of California, Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project indicates that nearly 75,000 people arrested by ICE during Trump’s first nine months in office had no criminal record.

The data — compiled by an internal ICE office and made public through a lawsuit against the agency — reportedly shows that almost one-third of those arrested during that period had no criminal record. For those with convictions, the dataset does not distinguish between minor offenses and violent crimes.

Rogan’s public stance toward Trump has shifted over the years, and some researchers have described the podcaster as an influential voice for young men forming political opinions ahead of U.S. elections.

In 2022, Rogan said Trump had requested to appear on his podcast, but Rogan stated at the time that he was “not a Trump supporter in any way, shape, or form” and wasn’t “interested in helping him.”

By October 2024, Trump did appear on Rogan’s podcast for a conversation that ran nearly three hours. Days later, Rogan formally endorsed Trump in the 2024 election in a post shared to X after an episode featuring Elon Musk.

“The great and powerful @elonmusk. If it wasn’t for him we’d be f—–. He makes what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you’ll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way,” Rogan wrote. “For the record, yes, that’s an endorsement of Trump. Enjoy the podcast.”