Joe Rogan praised Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for exposing and cutting out “weird, shady s---” in the government.
On his podcast, Rogan talked about DOGE’s review of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The review found millions wasted on questionable programs. One included $1.5 million to push “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in Serbia’s workplaces. Another was $70,000 for a “DEI musical” in Ireland.
Because of this, President Donald Trump shut down the $40 billion agency on Monday. His administration is reviewing ways to cut staff. Rogan called it a “business approach” to government.
"What’s fascinating right now is we’re getting a chance to see what happens when you take a business approach to the government in the White House," Rogan said. "We’re seeing right now with this whole USAID thing where they’re uncovering massive amounts of corruption and waste and just a lot of weird, shady s--- with NGOs and where an enormous amount of money is going."
He continued, saying politicians usually just make small changes to keep things going. "Instead of saying like, well, this is just how it is and this is how these politicians get funded, so let’s just keep this thing going the same way it is and make some incremental changes to try to make people happy so we still get elected."
Rogan noted that since Trump isn’t running for re-election, he’s "going ham" and "cleaning out everything" in the government. That, he said, is "freaking" people out.
"The same people that say we need radical change. ‘We need radical change. We’ve got corruption. We need radical change.’ Okay, well, here’s your radical change. ‘We don’t need this!’ But you do," Rogan said. "The government does. They need oversight, and they haven’t had that. And because of that, you’re seeing this, not just waste. You could call it waste, but it’s deeper, it’s deeper than waste, it’s corruption. And you’re seeing that that corruption get weeded out."
He applauded DOGE for shining a light on wasteful spending and hopefully changing minds. "I am hoping that this is successful and that it yields a benefit to the American people, to the working class people, to everybody where they recognize like, hey, we can’t just be spending all our f---ing tax money on nonsense," he said. "And it all should be done with a real clear understanding of getting results. If that happens and that idea spreads across the country because ideas spread and people change their minds and, you know, and sometimes it happens."
On Thursday, Rogan continued his praise of DOGE while blasting the media for ignoring it. "I don’t think I really grasped it until Elon’s six wizards, they brought in some young wizards to go in there and go in the books and they are just finding crazy s---!" he said.
Rogan was shocked at how left-wing media is handling it. "It’s crazy and it’s so interesting. I was listening to a left-wing podcast today — I like to mix it up, you know, I listen to all kinds of different stuff and it was like I was listening to a different world — they weren’t even talking about all this corruption and all this obvious buying of influence. Instead, they were talking about aid overseas and how people are gonna starve."
"It’s very strange that the media’s ignoring it, especially the left-wing media," he continued. "It’s just too much of a win for the right, and so they’re just ignoring it, and then they’re just highlighting the good things that USAID did, which I’m sure they probably did. Probably had to do some good things to at least justify its existence."
"There's so much they haven't even tapped into, where they think the real mother lode of fraud is," Rogan said.
Meanwhile, Congressional Democrats are pushing back. They argue shutting down USAID harms U.S. national security and that it should remain independent.