Last week, Joe Rogan welcomed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to his podcast for a wide-ranging discussion. However, MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan wasn’t keen on the topics covered.
During The Mehdi Hasan Show, the MSNBC host mentioned that the Joe Rogan Experience was one again in the news, but it wasn’t centered on Rogan’s many missteps.
“Not for once again spewing racial slurs or spreading antisemitic tropes or platforming some infamous transphobe,” Hasan said. ‘This time it was for a conversation with RFK Jr. That wasn’t exactly, shall we say, tethered to reality.”
Hasan then turned his attention to a back-and-forth on Twitter by Rogan and Dr. Peter Hotez, a global health expert and co-director of vaccine development at Texas Children’s Hospital. Hotez took issue with RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine stance, which Rogan didn’t push back on. Ultimately, the podcast host offered the doctor a $100,000 donation to the charity of his choice if he were to debate Kennedy Jr. on the podcast. Twitter owner Elon Musk also chimed in, adding that Hotez would fail to engage because “he knows he’s wrong”.
Hasan took umbrage with the interaction.
“Look, I literally wrote a book about the art and importance of debate. And I’m telling you tonight that I am tired of the incessant ‘Debate me, bro’ mantra from conspiracy nuts on social media,” said Hasan. “Because it is never a good idea for an award-winning, world-renowned peer-reviewed, vaccine scientist — or an actual expert in any academic field — to debate an unhinged crank who thinks Bill Gates wants to control us with microchips or that chemicals in the water are turning kids transgender. And yes, RFK Jr. has said both of those things.
“Set aside for a moment that Joe Rogan wouldn’t even be a neutral moderator of such a debate. He’s endorsed anti-Vax nonsense many times before, but you just can’t win a general debate with conspiracists and loons. You can’t debate whether up is down hot is cold, black is white. They never changed their minds, and they win just by you agreeing to share a platform with them. What’s the expression? Never wrestle with a pig you both get dirty, and the pig gets 40,000 new followers on Twitter.”
