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Joe Rogan Is Still No. 1. He Just Doesn’t Matter the Way He Used To.
Two years after he helped decide the “podcast election,” Rogan still tops every chart. But his criticism of the president barely registers, his rivals have multiplied, and his biggest bookings now look like late-night TV. In October 2024, Donald Trump flew to Austin and sat with Joe Rogan for three hours. The episode drew more than 26 million YouTube views in its first 24 hours and 41 million within a week. Days later, Rogan endorsed him. Pundits called it the podcast election, and Rogan was its kingmaker. Two years later, Rogan is still on top of the charts. He is also, by most measures that matter beyond the download count, past his cultural peak. The numbers still say yes First, the case against this argument, because it’s a strong one. “The Joe Rogan Experience” ranked No. 1 in Edison Research’s U.S. podcast rankings in both the first and second quarters of 2026, a spot it has held since Edison started ranking shows in 2019. As of late 2025, it was more than two and a half times the size of the No. 2 show, “Crime Junkie.” Spotify re-signed him in 2024 in a deal reported at $250 million, this time without exclusivity. The show passed 2,550 episodes in September. No one else in podcasting is close. But reach and influence aren’t the same thing, and the gap between them has been growing. “Reach and influence aren’t the same thing, and the gap between them has been growing.” From kingmaker to lobbyist Since the start of 2026, Rogan has sharpened his attacks on the president he helped elect. In January, he suggested the administration was using immigration raids to distract from the Epstein files. In February, he said the redactions in those files looked “terrible for Trump.” In March, he said the war with Iran was “exactly the opposite of what we were told” and warned it could lead to “World War III.” He called a lot of MAGA supporters “dorks.” In 2024, a Rogan endorsement felt like an event. In 2026, Rogan’s criticism of the same president lands as one more voice in an already crowded chorus. Trump’s approval rating sits at 37% in the Silver Bulletin average. Rogan isn’t leading his audience away from Trump so much as following the rest of the country. He hasn’t lost his access. In April, Rogan stood in the Oval Office as Trump signed an executive order to speed up federal review of psychedelic treatments, including ibogaine, a drug Rogan has championed for addiction. Rogan said the whole thing started with a text: he sent Trump some information, and the president wrote back offering FDA approval. “Literally that quick,” Rogan said. That’s real power. But it’s a different kind of power. A man who once seemed to swing an election now gets a personal favor on a cause he cares about, while his broader warnings about war and the Epstein files go unheeded. That’s not a kingmaker. That’s a very well-connected lobbyist. The listeners got there first It’s worth remembering how much pull Rogan once had. Researchers cited by Australia’s ABC News estimated that Trump’s 2024 podcast tour added between 1 and 2.6 percentage points to his vote, with more than half of that tied to Rogan’s show alone. In a close election, that’s the margin of victory. His turn didn’t start this year. In July 2025, he called the administration’s mass deportation push an “overcorrection” that was hurting innocent people. That fall, after Jimmy Kimmel’s show was suspended, he argued the government shouldn’t be telling comedians what they can say. On an episode with the comedian Dave Smith, he said of Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen, “I don’t think they have any evidence.” Other big podcasters made the same move. Theo Von objected when the Department of Homeland Security used a clip of him in a deportation video. The comedian Andrew Schulz said Trump was “doing the exact opposite of everything I voted for.” Roughly four in five of Rogan’s listeners are men, and about half are between 18 and 34, the group that swung hardest toward Trump in 2024. Trump’s approval among young men has been sliding ever since. Rodney Taveira, a senior lecturer at the United States Studies Centre in Sydney, has argued that backing Trump felt rebellious before the election, and that the appeal faded once Trump became the establishment. The same goes for the people who backed him. When the outsiders win, they stop being outsiders. And it’s hard to be the voice of the rebellion when you’re standing in the Oval Office. A crowded room Rogan built the template for the long-form, anti-establishment podcast, and now everyone is using it. His friend Theo Von ranked No. 8 in Edison’s first-quarter list. In February 2025, the progressive MeidasTouch podcast briefly passed Rogan in Podscribe’s monthly download rankings, after a month in which “The Joe Rogan Experience” dropped about 32%. He bounced back, but the illusion that nobody could touch him didn’t. The wider genre he spawned is cooling, too. Megyn Kelly’s show fell from No. 13 to No. 19 in Edison’s rankings between late 2025 and early 2026, and Tucker Carlson’s fell from No. 20 to No. 29. The anti-establishment podcast boom that peaked around the 2024 election has started to look like what it is: an establishment of its own. The Johnny Carson of podcasting Look at what works for Rogan now. His most-watched episode of 2026 so far is an interview with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. That’s a late-night booking. This is the same show that once let Elon Musk smoke weed on camera, sending Tesla’s stock down 9%, and that prompted Neil Young and Joni Mitchell to pull their music from Spotify over its COVID-19 commentary. Today, it’s where movie stars go to promote movies. Its audience is enormous but narrow, too. About 78% of Rogan’s listeners are men, according to Edison data shared with Forbes. That’s a huge, loyal base. It isn’t the whole culture. None of this means Rogan is finished. Johnny Carson stayed on top of late night for decades after his biggest cultural moments, because being the comfortable default is its own kind of power. Rogan has become that default: the show people put on while driving, working out or doing dishes. It will probably stay No. 1 for years. But the next voice that shakes up an election or starts a national argument probably won’t come from a studio in Austin. It will come from somewhere nobody is watching yet, just like Rogan once did.