Somehow, Against Staggering Odds, Joe Rogan Has United Howard Stern And The Hosts Of ‘The View’

Following Howard Stern‘s surprise defense of Joe Rogan, the ladies of The View have entered the chat and also agree that the conspiracy peddling podcaster should not be “canceled” by Spotify following a demand by Neil Young. During Wednesday’s episode, The View panel tackled Stern’s remarks that he’s against censorship of any kind even if it involves Rogan, who the shock jock has repeatedly criticized for pushing anti-vaccine misinformation.

“I mean, I agree that Joe Rogan is a horror. A horror,” Joy Behar said. “But the way to counter that speech is with more speech. The way to counter it is with boycotts.”

Here’s where things get confusing. Unlike Stern, the co-hosts qualified their defense of Rogan by arguing that he shouldn’t be outright canceled by Spotify, but if enough musicians forced the streaming service to take action, that would be fine. Which is odd considering that’s exactly what Young is doing. Via The Wrap:

“Maybe other musicians will follow suit, and that would be legitimate,” Behar said. “It’s not a cancel culture, it’s a consequence culture. And the way we handle it is we don’t buy Spotify. We ignore Spotify.”

At that, Sunny Hostin chimed in, arguing that Spotify should still be “good corporate citizens” and draw some lines on Rogan.

According to Hostin, Rogan shouldn’t be pulled from Spotify, but there should be efforts to rein him in. “How about a disclaimer on his podcast, that says “This is misinformation.’ How about removing some of the podcasts that disseminate this misinformation?'”

The issue became even more convoluted when Behar compared Rogen to Fox News and said he’s protected by the First Amendment, which for the record, does not entitle anyone to a million-dollar podcast from a private company, but by this point, the discussion had gone off the rails.

“You can try to get Fox off your cable vision if you want, or disclaimers, but you can’t just cancel the show,” Behar said. “Because we have the First Amendment.”

Hmm. Okay? Good chat, everyone.

(Via The Wrap)