JD Vance says LA is 'like a third world country' on podcast appearance

Joe Rogan and Vice President JD Vance spent nearly 20 minutes talking about California in a recent podcast episode, oscillating between how much they love the state and how much it's "going further and further down the toilet."

The duo spent almost three hours in a wide-ranging conversation largely centered on politics, circling back to California several times, a state where they've both lived. Rogan and Vance each talked about how much they admired the state but how it's been ruined by politics, homelessness, taxes, corruption and a high cost of living. 

Rogan didn't take long to bring up California, first raising the topic about 17 minutes in. Vance was careful not to bash it, instead saying he feels "a certain sense of, like, heartbreak over LA."

"Every time I'm in LA, you can see why this was, like, the quintessentially American city. The architecture is beautiful. It's got its own vibe going. Like you said, the weather is amazing. And then you drive through Skid Row and you're like, how could any state or any city let this happen?" Vance said.

Vance goes on to describe attending a Christmas party for the law firm his wife worked at in downtown LA, saying the company gave them directions that would allow them to "avoid Skid Row at night."

"I realized when I was there, you know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of going to the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Like, super security, crazy wealth and privilege and status on the inside, and squalor and misery on the outside. Like, it's the first time I'd ever thought America, like this part of America, is actually more like a third world country than anything that I thought we'd ever become," Vance said.

While it's not possible to directly compare the crime rate of LA's Skid Row to Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital has one of the highest homicide rates in the world, with nearly 6,000 people killed in 2025 during a wave of gang violence. Los Angeles, which is more than double the size of Port-au-Prince, reported 230 deaths in homicide cases last year, the lowest rate since the 1950s.

Vance also used California's high housing prices to talk about how hard it is to achieve the American dream, specifically calling out the city of Oceanside and saying the average Marine likely couldn't afford a home priced at $1 million. Oceanside is near Camp Pendleton, a major West Coast base of the United States Marine Corps.

The vice president, widely considered a likely candidate for president in 2028, said he didn't want to be "one of these people who says we should just abandon California to the Democrats," though.

"If you just abandon California, you've, like, lost something very core to American culture," Vance said. 

Vance lived in San Francisco from 2013 to 2017, for at least part of that time in an in-law unit in Bernal Heights. He worked as a lawyer and later as a venture capitalist for a firm founded by Peter Thiel. 

Rogan and Vance also briefly discussed the recent LA mayoral primary, with Rogan calling the results "super sus" because Republican Spencer Pratt was unable to come in second place despite a lead in early ballot counts. There has been no evidence of fraud in the election.

Rogan lived in California for more than 25 years, including some of his childhood in San Francisco, but spent most of his time in the LA area. The popular podcaster left California for Austin, Texas, in 2020 during COVID, blaming lockdowns, politics, high taxes and homelessness, among other factors. 

While living there, Rogan said he "loved it." He said he thought, "This place is great. It's warm all the time. The weather's fantastic. There's so much cool stuff to do. The people are great."

Rogan justifies his reasoning for leaving the state, saying, "Every time we go back to California, we're like, ‘We were right.' ... It's falling apart."

"Especially Los Angeles and San Francisco, they're falling apart," he continued.

It's not the first time Rogan has trashed San Francisco. During a June episode in which he interviewed filmmaker Taylor Sheridan, the co-creator of "Yellowstone," he talked about how great the city was when he lived there as a kid but how, now, "it's unrecognizable."

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