Joe Rogan, who was often described as "Trump-curious" during the 2024 presidential campaign, endorsed Donald Trump but has not aligned himself uniformly with MAGA Republicans. The vodcast host has also sharply criticized Trump's immigration policies, including comparing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids to "Gestapo" tactics.

According to The Atlantic's Michael Scherer, Rogan's circle is now involved in what Scherer described as a "messy" dispute with Dr. Heidi Overton, a Trump administration health official who could be chosen to lead the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The dispute centers on ibogaine, a psychedelic drug derived from the root bark of a Central African shrub. Ibogaine is currently classified as a Schedule I controlled substance in the United States, meaning federal law considers it to have no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Researchers have been studying ibogaine as a possible treatment for addiction and trauma, and advocates have pointed to its potential for addressing opioid use disorder, which remains a leading cause of overdose deaths nationwide. However, the drug has also been associated with cardiac risks, which has complicated efforts to advance clinical trials in the U.S.

"The world's most popular podcaster, Joe Rogan, reached out privately in April to the world's most powerful man, Donald Trump, to discuss the healing power of ibogaine, a psychedelic made from the root bark of a Central African shrub that researchers are studying as a treatment for addiction and trauma," Scherer reported in The Atlantic. "Trump responded by text, 'Sounds great. Do you want FDA approval? Let's do it,' Rogan announced, weeks later, when he stood behind the president in the Oval Office for the signing of an executive order on psychedelic therapies. 'It was literally that quick.' But it wasn't that simple."

Scherer wrote that after Rogan contacted Trump, the president instructed his team at the Department of Health and Human Services to alter the policy. HHS then sent a draft executive order to the White House Domestic Policy Council.

"That's when things got messy," Scherer continued. "In the days that followed, Rogan's allies engaged in battle with a mid-level White House health adviser, Dr. Heidi Overton. As a deputy assistant to the president who focuses on health policy, Overton ran a process to revise the draft in coordination with other stakeholders, including the Departments of Justice and Veterans Affairs."

According to Scherer, supporters of the Make America Healthy Again movement were "furious" and believed Overton "had undermined Trump's own desires." The MAHA movement, aligned with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has advocated for shifts in federal health policy including greater access to alternative treatments. Bloomberg News reported in late June that Overton was being considered to head the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.

"The friction, which has not been previously reported, became so intense that Rogan and W. Bryan Hubbard, the CEO of Americans for Ibogaine — a nonprofit that champions the drug's therapeutic benefits — threatened to pull out of the signing ceremony if they did not have a say in Overton's final edits, according to three people familiar with the events," Scherer wrote. "Overton's efforts on the Domestic Policy Council shrank the roughly 1400-word HHS (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) draft to about 900 words by the time Trump signed his name."

Scherer's Atlantic article was published at

In a July 24 post on X, Scherer highlighted the dispute, writing, "Joe Rogan and his allies threatened to not show for Oval Office signing ceremony on psychedelics this spring, amid fight with White House staffer now a finalist to run FDA." The post is available at https://x.com/michaelscherer/status/2080614313115427080.

One MAHA supporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, criticized Overton as an "unelected bureaucrat" who "sought to use her pen to override the intended exercise of presidential power."

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Overton, telling The Atlantic that "the president adores her."

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles also defended Overton. "Any suggestion that Heidi Overton or the Domestic Policy Council is slowing things down is being made by an uninformed person," Wiles told The Atlantic. "Things move at a light speed in this administration."