It was always going to be an uphill struggle for Vice President Kamala Harris in October 2024 to land an appearance on Joe Rogan‘s podcast and have Beyoncé perform “Freedom” at a Houston rally to revive a flagging U.S. presidential campaign, The Hollywood Reporter revealed at the time about the behind-the-scenes negotiations.
But in an upcoming book, Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House, writers Jonathan Allen and Ami Parnes go behind the curtain to reveal how Harris advisers bet an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience and Beyoncé performance of their campaign theme song at a Houston rally could simultaneously win precious votes from young white men and women during a tight race with former President Donald Trump.
According to an excerpt from Fight that appeared Thursday on the NBC News website, that longshot gamble failed, and miserably so. The Harris campaign couldn’t agree on terms for an appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast, and Trump went on to do his own successful sit-down with the podcaster.
Worse, Beyoncé said she’d speak at the Houston rally, but would not perform. “No Rogan. No ‘Freedom.’ The campaign kept its poker face, but it had played out a losing hand,” Allen and Parnes wrote in the upcoming HarperCollins Publishers book, according to the excerpt.
The failure of the gambit by the Harris campaign was a big blow precisely because Fight reveals the Texas rally was arranged precisely to get Harris to Rogan’s studio in Houston just as crunch, yet secret, negotiations closed in on a possible deal.
And Beyoncé coming on stage in Houston, but not performing, had far less benefit for Harris and her campaign than a Rogan podcast appearance in offering access to white men, a demo the Democratic candidate urgently needed to reach during the waning stages of the presidential race.
Harper Collins said Fight as a backstage story is based on interviews with over 150 insiders — from the Trump, Harris and Biden inner circles, and party leaders and campaign operatives.
