The White House has fired back at Joe Rogan after the podcaster said he understood why protesters were likening Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) behavior in Minneapolis to Adolf Hitler’s Gestapo.
Rogan was discussing the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, 37, by an ICE agent when he said he understood the ‘point of view’ of anti–ICE protesters.
‘You don’t want militarized people in the streets just roaming around, snatching up people,’ Rogan said. ‘Many of which turn out to be US citizens that just don’t have their papers on them.
He added, rhetorically: ‘Are we really gonna be the Gestapo? “Where’s your papers?” Is that what we’ve come to?’
The Gestapo was the secret police arm of the Nazi party responsible for suppressing opposition.
On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin responded to Rogan’s controversial remarks.
‘If Tim Walz and Mayor [Jacob] Frey would let us in their jails, we wouldn’t have to be there at all,’ she told Fox News.
McLaughlin added that the Trump administration was targeting ‘680 criminal illegal aliens’ – including murderers, rapists and child pedophiles.
Joe Rogan said that he understood the anti-ICE point of view, saying ‘you don’t want militarized people in the streets just roaming around, snatching up people’
Tricia McLaughlin, the Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary, said the Trump administration was targeting murderers, rapists and child pedophiles
‘People who, whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, you would never want these people to be on your streets or your neighbors,’ she said.
McLaughin called her retort to Rogan ‘very straightforward,’ although she did not seem to directly address the UFC commentator’s comments comparing ICE to Hitler’s Gestapo.
She claimed that immigration officers had, ‘to have a physical presence on the ground’ in Minneapolis, as ‘we don’t have state and local law enforcement’s help’.
Rogan said on his podcast that the recent ICE raids villainized the officers to many American citizens.
‘People are looking at them like murderous military people that are on the streets of our city,’ he said.
The podcaster also claimed that the agents being ‘masked up’ was ‘also a problem’.
‘Because if you get arrested by a cop, you’re allowed to ask the cop what is your name and badge number,’ Rogan said. ‘And you could film that cop. If you get arrested by an ICE agent, you have no such right. They’re wearing a mask. They don’t have to tell you s***.’
McLaughin said that Rogan had mentioned ‘the rampant crime we found’ when she was played some of his comments.
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She claimed that more than $9billion in fraudulent money had been found.
Her comments appeared to reference former Assistant US Attorney Joe Thompson, who said that the money defrauded from 14 Medicaid programs in Minnesota could exceed that amount.
McLaughin said that the Trump administration believed those schemes were ‘just the tip of the iceberg’.
She added: ‘If the state and local government would help there, if they would coordinate with the FBI, if they would coordinate with Homeland Security investigations, we would – on an expedited basis – be finding that fraud.
‘I think that all Americans would be better off for it. We want to give accountability. We want to give answers.’
On Tuesday, Rogan discussed the perception of ICE around the country with Republican Senator Rand Paul while commenting on the fatal shooting of Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, 43.
He called Good’s death a ‘terrible tragedy’ that should not have happened.
‘I’m not that guy, I don’t know what [Ross] thought – and again, this is a guy who had almost been run over,’ Rogan said. ‘But this just looked horrific to me.’
![On Tuesday, Rogan said that 'people are looking at [ICE] like murderous military people that are on the streets of our city'](https://www.americanpolibeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/1768434388_638_White-House-responds-to-Joe-Rogans-warning-that-ICE-behavior.jpg)
On Tuesday, Rogan said that ‘people are looking at [ICE] like murderous military people that are on the streets of our city’
The podcaster made the comments following Renee Nicole Good’s fatal shooting in Minneapolis on January 7
The mother-of-three was shot after she ignored demands to get out of her car, reversed it and tried to drive off during a protest
Ross was previously dragged by a suspect fleeing in a car six months before Good’s death, the Daily Mail previously revealed.
On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security said Ross had suffered internal bleeding to his torso after his encounter with the mother–of–three on January 7.
Rogan also said that he understood the conservative position on the recent ICE raids in Minneapolis.
‘Hey, there was an illegal program moving people in here to get votes, moving people in here to get congressional seats, and we’ve got to change that,’ he said.
The podcaster added that American democracy had been hurt by mass immigration.
He added: ‘We’ve got to take those people who got in and send them back to where they came from or do something, because if we don’t, they’re gonna have to take away some of the damage that’s been done to a true democratic system – because they’ve kind of hijacked it.’
Rogan called for a ‘balance to be achieved,’ although he admitted that he was unsure of how to get there.
‘It’s more complicated than I think people want to admit,’ he said.
The 58–year–old – who hosts the most–listened–to podcast in the world – endorsed US President Donald Trump in the last presidential election against Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
