Joe Rogan Scolded by Own Guest for Pushing Conspiracy Theories

Last year, Joe Rogan pushed a guest repeatedly over the course of nearly a half-hour to believe something that was patently false: That arguably humankind’s greatest scientific accomplishment — the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing — was utterly faked (even though the U.S. literally left stuff up there).

For listeners of The Joe Rogan Experience — which often ranks as the most popular podcast in the country — this kind of thing has been increasingly common since the pandemic, with Rogan and his right-leaning guests sometimes peddling false claims, often under the disclaimer of “I’m not saying this for certain, but I’m skeptical.” Given that Rogan’s guests tend to financially benefit from being on the show, and that he seldom books people who might push back hard on his ideas, it’s rare somebody earnestly and seriously calls him out on this.

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But this week, during a tense exchange, British conservative columnist Douglas Murray took conspiracy-pushing on Rogan’s show to task almost immediately during his appearance (which was alongside comedian Dave Smith).

“If you throw a lot of shit out there, there’s some point at which [saying] ‘I’m just raising questions’ is not a valid thing,” Murray said. “You’re not raising questions. You’re not asking questions. You’re telling people something … I feel you’ve opened the door to quite a lot of people. You’ve now got a big platform and have been throwing out counter-historical stuff but a very dangerous kind.”

Murray specifically criticized Rogan having on Ian Carroll, a YouTuber reportedly known for antisemitic conspiracy theories, as well as Darryl Cooper, who has reportedly tried to justify the Nazis murdering millions by suggesting they were the victims of poor planning. Both were on Rogan’s show in March.

“There’s been a tilt in the conversation in the last couple of years, and it’s largely to do with people who have appointed themselves experts, who are not experts,” Murray continued. “And the problem is [that] your own platform has come about because you’re a very successful comedian and you ask questions and you are interested [in what people have to say]. But there are a lot of people who have come along, — partly, I think, because they’ve come on this show — and they’ve decided, ‘I can play this double game [where], on the one hand, I’m going to push really edgy and, frankly, sometimes horrific opinions, and then if you say, ‘That’s wrong,’ they say, ‘I’m a comedian.’”

Murray pointed out his guests’ criticisms of Britain’s World War II-era Prime Minister Winston Churchill, whose toughness standing up to Hitler and strength in the face of enormous adversity is considered a model of world leadership. Cooper has called him “the chief villain of the Second World War.”

“These guys are not historians, they’re not knowledgeable,” Murray said.

“No one’s calling Ian Carroll a historian,” Rogan replied.

“But then why listen to their views on Churchill?” Murray countered. “It’s pretty hard to listen to somebody who says, ‘I don’t know what I’m talking about, but now I’m going to tell you what I think.’ If we all pretend Churchill was the bad guy of the 20th century, at some point, you’re going to lead people down a path where they think that’s the view, and that’s horseshit of the most profound kind.”

Explained Rogan, “I don’t think about it that way. I just think I’d like to talk to this person … I didn’t bring him on for that purpose. I brought him on because I want to find out, like, how does one get involved in the whole conspiracy theory business? Because his whole thing is just conspiracies.”

Reaction among Rogan’s viewers has been divided, with some being rankled by the idea that guests should be experts on a subject in order to discuss it, while others felt that Murray had a point and that the podcast has become counter-factual to an extreme.

One of the most upvoted posts on the Joe Rogan subreddit argues, “Yes, Douglas is smug … but he was 100 percent right. This show thrives when Joe either has experts [talking] about interesting topics and he uses his interviewing skills to break down complicated subjects so that any moron can understand them, or he has funny people on and they just fuck around and have fun. It goes off the rails when he has guests on that don’t really know what they’re talking about … I know we are all dubious of anyone who says anything akin to ‘just trust the experts,’ but that’s not what Douglas was saying. He was just saying talk to everybody, which has always been the ethos of the show, and make sure you’re balancing out some of these fringe guests with people who have really studied these issues … above all, stop hiding behind ‘just asking questions’ and ‘I’m just a comedian.’”

Rogan long held somewhat middle-of-the-road political positions, but last fall endorsed Donald Trump after the Republican did a three-hour interview on his podcast. The endorsement and interview was considered among the most influential moments in the presidential campaign that returned Trump to the White House.

Rogan also appears in the new Netflix comedy special Kill Tony, which brings comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s popular podcast to the streamer.

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