During a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, host Joe Rogan sat down with actor and musician Luke Grimes for a conversation that touched on distrust in government and the public’s growing skepticism toward official narratives.
The topic came up as Grimes reflected on the current climate of distrust surrounding institutions and authority. Rogan responded by noting that skepticism toward government is not a new phenomenon, but argued that recent revelations and controversies have only intensified that distrust.
“We’ve seen what they’ve done with real events like the Epstein files and a lot of other stuff where you’re like why don’t you just tell us what you know,” Rogan said. “In the interest of national security, some things must be redacted. There’s a reason to not trust them.”
That comment led Rogan to revisit a long-standing position he has expressed about the moon landing. Rather than claiming it was definitively faked, Rogan framed his perspective as a question of credibility and historical trust.
“I mean, that was always been my argument about the moon landing,” Rogan said. “Like, you think that they’re going to not lie about this one thing when they’ve lied about everything else, including how we got into Vietnam, Kennedy’s assassination, fill in the blanks. Everything in the 1960s they lied about because they could.”
Grimes agreed with the idea, noting how tightly controlled information was during that period. “There was no, you know, they controlled all the information,” Grimes said.
Rogan’s point was not presented as a detailed conspiracy theory or new evidence. Instead, he framed it as a consistency argument: if governments have a documented history of deception during a particular era, it becomes harder for some people to accept major historical claims from that same period without skepticism.
The conversation then turned to how the modern information environment has changed the relationship between the public and institutions. Rogan argued that increased access to information has, paradoxically, fueled even more distrust.
“That’s what’s interesting about today. That’s why there’s less trust in the government than ever, because we have more access to information,” Rogan said. “So there’s more reason to not trust them. You know, it’s like it’s a squirrely time.”
Grimes then made lighthearted comment about his own lifestyle choices, joking that living in Montana gives him some distance from the chaos.
“That’s why I like living in Montana,” he said. “When it all goes down, I’ll be way far away.”
