Joe Rogan says so much questionable stuff that he rarely actually gets called out. But last week he went too far. The NewsRadio alum-turned-podcast superstar announced that he’d somehow caught COVID after a year and a half of questioning its severity and spreading misinformation. In an Instagram video, he rattled off a slew of folk remedies he’d binged. Among them was Ivermectin, the parasite drug that is best known for treating horses and other farm animals. He got mocked bigly, by social media and medical experts alike. And that hurt his feelings so much that he’s toying with suing CNN.
On Tuesday’s episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the former Fear Factor star was belittled by guest Tom Segura, who greeted his host by saying, “Well, well well, if it isn’t old ‘Horse Worm Rogan.’” Rogan clearly didn’t like being dragged for taking a drug despite warnings from public health officials, who’ve noted a massive uptick in Ivermectin-related poisonings. But Rogan’s beef wasn’t with internet chuckleheads. It was with the news outlets who reported on his drug intake disapprovingly.
“Bro, do I have to sue CNN?” Rogan said, making a solid claim for one of the most 2021 lines of 2021. He continued:
“They’re making s*it up! … They keep saying I’m taking horse dewormer. I literally got it from a doctor. It’s an American company. They won the Nobel Prize in 2015 for use in human beings and CNN is saying I’m taking horse dewormer. They must know that’s a lie.”
It’s true that the company did win the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 2015. But as it so often is with Rogan, his intel was selectively chosen to bolster a dodgy argument. While versions of Ivermectin are used on humans, others are used to deworm livestock. Moreover, the FDA has sternly warned, again and again, that they have “not authorized or approved ivermectin for use in preventing or treating COVID-19 in humans or animals.” They have also, they said, “received multiple reports of patients who have required medical attention, including hospitalization, after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for livestock.”
But Rogan was still mad that he’d been painted negatively. “CNN was saying I am a distributor of misinformation,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going on, man. You know, there is a lot of speculation. One of the speculations involves the emergency use authorization for the vaccines. That, in order for there to be an emergency use authorization, there has to be no treatment for a disease.”
He also attacked the medical experts who’d attacked him, saying they were “pretending they don’t really work or they are conspiracy theories.”
But Rogan had his own theory on why he was torched for recklessly stumping for a potentially dangerous drug. “The grand conspiracy is that the pharmaceutical companies are in cahoots to try and make anybody who takes this stuff look crazy,” Rogan posited. “But what’s crazy is look how better I got [sic]! I got better pretty quick, bitch.”
The last time Rogan suffered a lot of heat was when he told his millions of listeners that young, healthy people don’t need a COVID vaccine. (Spoiler: They do.) He was a little more diplomatic then, admitting, “I say dumb s*it,” adding, “If you’re getting vaccine advice from me, is that really my fault?” Truly, touché.
You can watch the segment below.
(Via Mediaite)