President Trump signs executive order on psychedelic drugs with Joe Rogan
Podcaster Joe Rogan accompanied President Trump in the Oval Office as he signed an executive order aimed at accelerating research into psychedelics.
Podcaster Joe Rogan joined President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on April 18 to sign an executive order accelerating research into psychedelic drugs to treat veterans. Logan supported the move, and there were recent interactions between the two sides.
The executive order is the latest meeting between Mr. Logan and Mr. Trump, but the president’s relationship with the podcaster goes back years, marked by interviews and public disagreements. Since appearing on the podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Rogan has repeatedly criticized President Trump, his policies, and his administration.
Let’s take a look back at the key moments between the two celebrities.
October 2024: President Trump appears on “The Joe Rogan Experience”
Trump appeared on Rogan’s podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” in late October 2024, just before the presidential election. Rogan’s show is the top-ranked podcast on Spotify with millions of listeners.
The nearly three-hour long interview gave the president an opportunity to target undecided young male voters weeks before he heads to the polls for re-election.
Mr. Logan ended up endorsing Mr. Trump as a presidential candidate after the interview and in the final hours before the election.
July 2025: Logan criticizes Trump administration in Epstein files
Logan’s public comments about Trump have changed since he appeared on the podcast. In July 2025, the podcaster had harsh words for the Trump administration, saying it was “trying to gaslight” the American people about the Epstein file.
“This is a red line,” Rogan said on July 25, 2025, while discussing the scandal with his guest, former CIA official Mike Baker. “We thought Trump was going to come in and fix a lot of things. He was going to drain the swamp and fix everything.”
Logan went on to describe the Epstein scandal as a “line in the sand” where “they’re trying to gaslight you.” As of January 2026, the Department of Justice has released more than 3 million Epstein pages.
November 2025: Logan mocks Trump over Epstein file
The Epstein scandal will continue to be a hot topic, as Logan later mocked Trump again about the files in November 2025.
Rogan spoke about the scandal on the Nov. 19 episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” criticizing inconsistencies in President Trump’s story about the files, including calling the files a hoax before calling on Republicans in Congress to vote for the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
“I heard there was no file. I heard it was a hoax,” Logan said on the Nov. 19 episode. “And then all of a sudden he tried to release the file. Well, I thought the file wasn’t there.”
December 2025: Logan criticizes Trump’s post about Rob Reiner’s death
President Trump’s reaction to the suspected murder of actor Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle in their Los Angeles home on December 14 also struck a nerve with Logan.
The day after their deaths, President Trump condemned Reiner in a social media post, claiming that Reiner was killed due to “the anger he provoked in others due to a mind-numbing illness known as Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Rogan responded to Trump’s post on the Dec. 25 episode of his podcast, calling the president’s comments “not funny,” “hard to like,” and “very disappointing,” adding that “in a caring society,” Trump’s comments have “no validity.”
“It’s no different than the people who were celebrating when Charlie Kirk was shot. It’s the same thing,” Rogan said, adding, “Imagine if President Obama tweeted something about someone after he died like this, that this person was a psychopath who hated Obama.”
Logan added that the post shows how “crazy” Trump is “thinking and speaking.”
March 2026: Mr. Logan condemns President Trump’s Iran war
More recently, the joint war between Israel and the United States against Iran has drawn Logan’s criticism. The podcaster said on his March 10 show that the conflict has left people feeling “betrayed” by a president who wants “no more wars.”
“When you think about what he ran away from, I think it’s just insane,” Logan said, criticizing the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. “I mean, that’s why many people feel betrayed, right?”
“He’s done with wars, he’s put an end to stupid, pointless wars, and now we have wars where we can’t even clearly define why we did it,” Logan added.
Mr. Logan’s comments join a number of backlash Mr. Trump has faced in recent days from his right-wing supporters, including those divided by the Iran war and the president’s recent social media activity.
April 2026: Logan joins President Trump to support psychedelic research
Mr. Trump and Mr. Logan’s most recent interaction was the signing of an executive order on April 18 that helped the podcaster gain attention. Mr. Trump credited Mr. Logan with being one of the people behind his support for research.
“A lot of people called me, including the great Joe Rogan, and he said we have to do something about this, and I thought about it,” Trump said in the Oval Office, surrounded by Rogan and other advocates for drug use for veterans, including Robert O’Neill, the former Navy SEAL who claims to have killed Osama bin Laden.
Still, just days before appearing in the Oval Office, Logan criticized President Trump over the Iran conflict, calling all wars “horrible” on a podcast.
“How is this still going on?” he said.
Contributors: Katherine Palmer, Carissa Wadick, Patrick Ryan, Cybele Mays-Osterman, Zach Anderson, James Powell, Sara Lapidus. america today
Kate Perez covers national trends and breaking news for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kperez@usatodayco.com or X @katecperez_.
