Joe Rogan Says NewsNation Seems Fake, Suspicious of Network’s UFO Obsession: ‘Something’s Off’

“If I was the government, and I was gonna make a news show,” the podcast host says, “this is how I’d make it”

Joe Rogan
Joe Rogan

“America is discovering NewsNation” goes the fledgling cable-news channel’s promo video, and that includes podcaster Joe Rogan, who recently checked it out – and thinks “something’s off” about the straight-news network’s obsession with UFOs.

Rogan was interviewing digital entrepreneur, venture capitalist and investor Marc Andreesen on the topic of AI last week when he veered into an aside: “Can I ask you [something] slightly off-topic? What is NewsNation?”

“What is NewsNation? I don’t know what NewsNation is,” Andreesen replied.

“Is NewsNation a real channel?” Rogan continued.

The 24-hour news network – formerly known as WGN America and now home to known anchors like Dan Abrams, Ashleigh Banfield, Elizabeth Vargas and Chris Cuomo – was launched in 2021 as a down-the-middle, straight-news offering to counter hard-partisan competitors Fox News and CNN.

Rogan still isn’t convinced that it’s not a government psy-op, however:

“I was watching NewsNation today, and I may or may not have been high,” he said. “And I was like, ‘This has all the feeling of like, fake news that someone put together. Like, it felt like, if I was the government, and I was gonna make a news show without Hollywood people, without actual real sound people or engineers, this is how I’d make it – like this. I’d make it real funky, I’d make the lights all fucked up, and I’d make everybody weirdly un-charismatic.”

Rogan, who’s such a UFO/UAP enthusiast that he named his Austin-based comedy club the “Mothership” and regularly interviews guests who speak on the topic, says the channel’s focus on whistleblower disclosures and congressional inquiries is over-the-top.

“The thing about this NewsNation – they’re spending an inordinate amount of time on UFOs,” he said on the episode released Wednesday. “An inordinate amount of time on this David Grusch case and I’m increasingly more suspicious. I’m increasing more skeptical. The more I see people confirming it, I’m thinking something’s not right. And then to see that this channel is the one that’s covering it the most – I’m like, this seems like … something seems … something’s off.”

NewsNation does, in fact, spend more air-time on the UAP phenomenon than its competition. It also posts to YouTube multiple such clips, which are typically its most-viewed.

Cuomo, having heard Rogan’s comments, clapped back Friday on the network while speaking with UFO enthusiast and documentarian Jeremy Corbell:

“It’s interesting how [Rogan] was, like ‘Yeah, I don’t know what NewsNation is but they’re really into this UFO thing,’ like I was waiting to learn that the moon is made of cheese,” Cuomo said. “He seems to be like a lot of people where it’s not about little green men, it’s about what you’re doing to know what’s happening.”

But even the UFO-obsessed Rogan thinks that’s a bit much, and finds it suspicious that most people coming forward these days got their information second-hand.

“I want to talk to the guy that sees the ship,” Rogan said. “That’s it. No one else. Until then, I just feel like I’m being hosed. It seems to be laid out on a platter.”

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