Joe Rogan criticized immigration enforcement tactics during the latest episode of his popular podcast, calling the fatal ICE shooting of Minnesota woman Renee Nicole Good a “terrible tragedy.”
“It’s very ugly to watch someone shoot a U.S. citizen, especially a woman, in the face,” the podcaster said during an interview with Republican Sen. Rand Paul on the “Joe Rogan Experience” that aired Jan. 13. “I’m not that guy. 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.”
Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was fatally shot in her car by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on Jan. 7 during an immigration operation in a residential area near downtown Minneapolis. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said hours after the shooting that the officer’s actions were in self-defense and claimed Good used her car to attempt to hit the agents, calling it “domestic terrorism.”
Later in the podcast, Rogan, who has served as a longtime UFC color commentator, questioned the claim that Good was attempting to run over the ICE agent who shot her to death, arguing: “When people say it’s justifiable because the car hit him? It seemed like she was turning the car away.”
After his comments about Good, Rogan criticized the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics, calling them dangerous.
“You don’t want militarized people in the streets just roaming around, snatching up people, many of which turn out to be U.S. citizens that just don’t have their papers on them,” Rogan said. “Are we really gonna be the Gestapo, ‘Where’s your papers?’ Is that what we’ve come to?”
Rogan’s recent criticisms of Trump
In the closing days of the 2024 election, Rogan interviewed then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance. Following the interviews, as well as hours before Election Day, Rogan went on to endorse Trump, saying Elon Musk provided a “compelling case” to vote for Trump.
But in recent months, Rogan has criticized Trump multiple times. Back in December 2025, the podcaster called out Trump’s comments against the famed actor and director Rob Reiner, who was killed alongside his wife at their Los Angeles home.
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“The Rob Reiner thing is not funny,” Rogan told podcast guest Shane Gillis during the December episode. “When you see it with no empathy, that’s when it’s hard to like.”
Months earlier, Rogan called the Trump administration’s refusal to release more information about disgraced financier and convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein a “line in the sand.”
“You have this one hardcore line in the sand that everybody had been talking about forever, and then they’re trying to gaslight you on that,” Rogan said.
Contributing: Patrick Ryan and Kathryn Palmer, USA TODAY
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at fernando.cervantes@gannett.com and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Joe Rogan criticizes ICE tactics after fatal shooting of Rene Good
