File this one under: Things We Already Know But Are Happy to Hear Repeated In the First Person. On Thursday’s episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, host Joe Rogan attempted to clarify some of the controversial comments he recently made about COVID-19 vaccinations on his April 23 episode—namely, that young, healthy people do not need to be vaccinated because they’re not at risk for getting COVID (which is not true). And that parents wanting to get their children vaccinated “is crazy to me,” even though both of his own children contracted the virus, which he called “no big deal.”
While anyone who is listening to the comedian/UFC fight commentator’s podcast for medical advice should probably make an immediate appointment with a real doctor for a full-body workup, Rogan’s podcast is one of the world’s most popular, and his commentary—medical or otherwise—is being listened to by about 200 million people per month. It’s a large enough audience that Dr. Fauci, after a year of being discredited at every turn by Donald Trump, was actually asked to weigh in on the medical opinions of a self-confessed steroid user while appearing on the Today show on Wednesday.
The good doctor called Rogan’s statements “incorrect,” explaining that the former Fear Factor host—who once sat idly by while contestants were forced to consume donkey semen—was looking at vaccinations from a totally selfish position. “If you want to worry about yourself, and not society, then that’s OK,” Fauci said. “But if you say to yourself even if I get infected, I could do damage to somebody else… That’s the reason why you’ve got to be careful and get vaccinated.”
Rogan seemed somewhat tickled that the White House and Fauci had even heard about his statements. And while he didn’t quite backtrack on his previous comments, he did admit that “There’s some legitimate science to this” (wow, really?) and that the idea that getting vaccinated helps other people “makes more sense.”
Rogan then went onto explain his editorial/filtering process, which basically boils down to: drink, get high, and spend several hours saying dumb sh*t that even he’d probably disagree with when the sober light of the next day creeps in.
“I’m not a doctor; I’m a f*#king moron,” Rogan explained. “I’m a cagefighting commentator who’s a dirty standup comedian who [is] drunk most of the time. And I do testosterone and I smoke a lot of weed. But I’m not a respected source of information—even for me.”
Spoken like a true f*#king moron.