Joe Rogan raised eyebrows this week when he compared President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdowns to the deadly tactics of Nazi Germany.
The outspoken podcaster expressed his frustration during the Tuesday (Jan. 13) episode of The Joe Rogan Experience featuring special guest Sen. Rand Paul.
Rogan told the GOP lawmaker that he saw “both perspectives” when it came to the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. He claimed that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids could be effective in reversing some of the “damage” caused by illegal immigration; however, the department’s brutal tactics, which have been well documented on social media, have led many Americans to view ICE agents as “villains” and “murderous military people.”
“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? It’s more complicated than many people want to admit.”
Joe’s comments came less than a week after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen who encountered ICE officers in Minneapolis after dropping her 6-year-old son off at school.
Video from the incident showed ICE agent Jonathan Ross briefly confronting Good as she sat in her car parked in the middle of a south Minneapolis street. Good then reversed her SUV, steering her wheel to the right before she began moving forward.
The ICE agent fired one shot through Good’s windshield and two more through the open driver’s seat window. The vehicle then crashed into a parked car. Good was eventually transported to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
“It’s very ugly to watch someone shoot a U.S. citizen, especially a woman, in the face,” Rogan told Sen. Paul. “It just looked horrific to me… I'm not that guy [Ross]. I don't know what he thought. And again, this is a guy who had almost been run over, but it just looked horrific to me."
Rogan was referring to a June 2025 immigration operation in which Ross was reportedly dragged at least 50 yards by a vehicle.
Many ICE proponents have argued that Ross shot Good in self-defense, as he believed the victim was attempting to run him over.
“I mean, when people are saying it’s justifiable because the car hit him, it seemed like she was kind of turning the car away,” Rogan said. “It seemed like she was out of her fucking mind to begin with… She didn’t seem mentally healthy, but does that mean she needs to be shot in the head? Is there no other way to handle this?”
The Department of Homeland Security responded to Joe’s comments in a Wednesday interview with Fox News.
“Currently, there are 680 illegal aliens; that includes murderers, that includes rapists, child pedophiles, people who, whether you’re Republican or Democrat, you would never want these people to be on your streets or your neighbors,” Tricia McLaughlin, the DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, told the network. “That’s the people who we are targeting and we’re trying to get out of Minneapolis because we don’t have state and local law enforcement’s help. We have to have a physical presence on the ground there.”