You know the world is on fire when a conservative political personality feels the need to confront Joe Rogan about throwing gasoline on the blaze.
On Thursday’s episode of the “Joe Rogan Experience,” British commentator and journalist Douglas Murray wasted no time calling out the comedian for his role in rapidly spreading misinformation by routinely legitimizing random guests with zero expertise and “fringe” ideas on his popular podcast.
“Look, I just feel we should get it out straightaway,” Murray told Rogan just six minutes into the episode. “I feel you’ve opened the door to quite a lot of people who’ve now got a big platform who have been throwing out counter-historical stuff of a very dangerous kind.”
Murray’s blunt characterization of what he feels Rogan has done with his podcast had been brewing since seconds into the episode. At the top of the show, Rogan explained to his audience that he brought Murray — someone who has written books about conservative issues — on to discuss current events with his friend and frequent guest, comedian Dave Smith. Rogan explained that he paired these two men together because he feels both are “brilliant” and could embark on “rational conversations.”
Murray seemed to immediately take issue with being lumped into the same category as a comedian — especially one who seems to stir the political pot by taking provocative right-wing stances.
Murray went on to note that most of Rogan’s guests seem to share views that skew very far in one direction.
“Do you think you’ve tilted one way?” Murray asked Rogan of the political opinions he platforms on his show. “Just with the guests that you have?”
As Rogan scrambled to dodge the direct question, Murray eventually said:
“I’m just interested in your selection of guests because you’re like the world’s No. 1 podcast.”
“I don’t think about it that way,” Rogan replied. “I just think, ‘I’d like to talk to this person.’”
Murray then flagged one guest Rogan seemed fascinated with — conspiracy theorist Ian Carroll.
“Can I just … it’s your show,” Murray said. “But, sure, if you’re going to interview historians of the conflict or historians in general, why would you get somebody like Ian Carroll?”
“I didn’t bring him on for that purpose, I brought him on because I wanted to find out how does one get involved in the entire conspiracy theory business?” Rogan said. “Because his whole thing is just conspiracies.”
“But do you have any — I mean, there’s been a tilt in the conversation, both conversations, in the last couple of years. And it’s largely to do with people who have appointed themselves as experts, who are not experts,” Murray countered.
Murray then decided to use another frequent guest on Rogan’s podcast, Darryl Cooper, as another example. Cooper is a podcaster and Nazi apologist who has popularized the false narrative that Winston Churchill — and not Adolf Hitler — was the “chief villain” of World War II.
Murray swiftly discredited Cooper by referring to the Houlacast revisionist as some “dude who thinks he’s an expert on Churchill.”
“He does not think he’s an expert,” Rogan said, defending Cooper.
“In fact, everyone else is always calling him an ‘expert,’ and he’s like, ‘I’m just a history guy,’” Smith added.
But Smith’s argument that Cooper doesn’t claim to be an expert yet is still viewed as one seemed to prove Murray’s point.
“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 talk,’” Murray said of Cooper. “Or, ‘I’m not capable of debating this historian, but I’m going to just tell you what I think.’”
Smith tried to defend Cooper again by saying he “doesn’t really like doing debates, he likes to do long format stuff where he can really explain his position.”
“But if you throw a lot of shit out there, there’s some point at which ‘I’m just raising questions’ is not a valid thing,” Murray argued. “You’re not raising questions. You’re not asking questions. You’re telling people something.”
“Do you think Daryl’s doing that?” Rogan asked Murray.
“I think there’s a whole bunch of guys doing that,” Murray said, before coming full circle on why he was so annoyed to be discussing current events with a comedian like Smith.
“I think Dave is doing that very obviously,” Murray said. “Dave’s a comedian, but he’s now mainly talking about Israel.”
“You’re not a geopolitics guy in general, are you?” Murray asked Smith, attempting to call him out.
Murray then went on to imply that Smith is emblematic of many of Rogan’s guests who are positioned as experts when “they’re not knowledgeable about anything.”
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After Rogan and Smith went around in circles defending themselves and trying to claim that Cooper’s classification of Churchill as a villain is just a silly little joke used as a “hyperbolic provocative statement,” Murray had clearly had enough.
“If you only get the controversial view, which is, ‘Isn’t it fun 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!”
