Joe Rogan Experience #2567 - Mariana van Zeller · Aired Oct 16, 2026
Claim summary · not a verbatim quotation
Approximately 10% of shipping containers arriving in the United States are inspected.
The finding
What the evidence shows
A Congressional Budget Office report says customs officers check every container coming in by sea or land for radiation. Officers also review shipping records for nearly every container, and they X-ray about 5 percent of incoming sea containers, not 10 percent. Trucks at land border crossings, where most fentanyl comes in, get scanned far more often: government auditors put it at roughly 27 to 32 percent in 2024 and 2025. So the 10 percent figure is too high for sea containers and too low for trucks, and the idea that containers aren't checked leaves out that every one gets a radiation scan. This verdict would flip if official customs data showed that about 10 percent of all incoming containers are X-rayed or opened.
Read the supporting source · www.cbo.gov ↗Quick answer & review status
Quick answer
Is it true that Approximately 10% of shipping containers arriving in the United States are inspected?
Partly. The claim stretches what the evidence shows. A Congressional Budget Office report says customs officers check every container coming in by sea or land for radiation. Officers also review shipping records for nearly every container, and they X-ray about 5 percent of incoming sea containers, not 10 percent. It was said on Joe Rogan Experience #2567 - Mariana van Zeller, aired Oct 16, 2026, at 1:58:50. We haven't independently confirmed who said it. The supporting source is cbo.gov, linked below.
The context belongs here.
No separately verified on-air correction is recorded for this check. That is not a claim that nobody corrected it.
- Attribution
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- Editorial context review
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- One selected claim from the episode
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