Joe Rogan spoke with fellow podcaster Konstantin Kisin on the latest episode of his popular show over the weekend, and at one point during the lengthy conversation, sounded the alarm over the possibility that the Trump administration sent innocent migrants to El Salvador’s brutal mega-prisons.
Earlier in the month, the Trump administration made headlines and sparked outcries for sending hundreds of alleged Tren de Aragua gang members, which Trump declared a terror organization, to notorious prisons in Central America, famous for their harsh conditions.
“And there’s probably still people coming through that are criminals. You know?” Rogan began, praising the Trump administration for bringing down the number of migrants crossing the border illegally.
“But the thing is, like, you got to get scared that people who are not criminals are getting, like, lassoed up and deported and sent to, like, El Salvador prisons. Like, that kind of shit. Because I read some story,” Rogan said, “Was it Glenn Greenwald?”
“The gay barber guy?” Kisin asked, “It’s scary.”
“Is that true? Is that story accurate?” Rogan replied.
“I don’t think we know,” Kisin responded.
“Can you explain the story for people who don’t know what it’s about?” Rogan pressed.
“Well, from what I read, I think it was in Time Magazine, Jamie, if you can pull it up, maybe we can get it accurate. But basically, with a bunch of these Tren de Aragua guys, allegedly, they got one guy, at least one guy, who wasn’t a criminal, who was just a gay barber, who I think, according to the story, came here legally.” Kisin explained.
“He was here legally. That’s what they said,” Kisin added.
“So, do they have a green card?” Rogan asked.
“I don’t know what the details are. Maybe Jamie can find it,” Kisin asked, again asking Rogan’s Google fact-checker to weigh in.
“No criminal record?” Rogan pressed.
“From what it said in that story,” Kisin replied, adding, “Now, this is the problem, right? Because the mainstream media has been putting out so much shit, that I don’t know what to believe anymore, right?”
“I feel the same way,” Rogan replied.
“And so, it’s difficult. But, it’s something that we actually brought up in one of our conversations. We interviewed the guy from the Heritage Foundation,” Kisin replied, adding:
We brought this up. Because I think, we talked about this with DOGE as well. When you do things quickly and you do things aggressively, that’s how you get shit done.
But that’s also when mistakes get made. And I think a human being, being plucked out of nowhere and ending up in a country he’s never been in, in a maximum security prison with gang members, seems like a bad thing to happen to me.
“It’s horrific,” Rogan replied slowly, adding, “It’s horrific.
“I don’t think that should be controversial,” Kisin replied.
“No, that’s not controversial at all. And this is the thing, you know, measured twice, cut once. This is the, like, this is kind of crazy,” Rogan said, adding:
That could be possible. That’s horrific. And that’s, again, that’s bad for the cause.
Like, the cause is, let’s get the gang members out. Everybody agrees. But let’s not get innocent gay hairdressers lumped up with the gangs?
And then, like, how long before that guy can get out? Can we figure out how to get them out? Is there any plan in place to alert the authorities that they’ve made a horrible mistake and correct it?
“Well, if you think about it from a government perspective, and this is where I think it gets quite sinister, is, once you’ve done that, the incentive structure is never going to be to admit that and deal with it. The incentive structure is to say nothing, to cover it up, to pretend it didn’t happen,” Kisin said.
“Uhhh. That is horrible,” Rogan replied.
“So someone ends up in a black hole. But we’ve seen it. We’ve seen it in every country, including in America,” Kisin added.
“But that’s the thing about politics, right? Never admit your fault. Never admit you’re wrong,” Rogan said, adding:
It’s so dumb.
And this is the thing we’re seeing with the Signal thing, and this is the thing we’re seeing with this. It’s like, I don’t know if it’s been brought to their attention. I mean, I would assume someone’s alerted them to the fact that they might have rounded up this just random hairdresser and accused him of being a gang member.
As the conversation continued, Rogan wondered outloud about the allegedly incarcerated barber, “But what is his life like in there, man?”
“Yeah, it’s horrific,” he added.
Watch the clip above via YouTube.
