 Okay. Oh, are you Peter Hotez? I am. Hey. Nice to meet you. How are you? Hey. So are you not like going to debate RFK on Joe Rogan's podcast? Oh, come on. That's harassing. I'm just curious. What? Nothing hostile, just curious. I haven't said anything one way or the other. I mean, are you planning on doing it? You know, he just invited me, so we'll see. And I think you should though. Well, we'll give it some thought. Okay. And what do you have to say to people who think they're a vaccine injured? I mean, do you have anything to say to people that think you have anything to say to people? Yeah. I mean, do you think vaccine injuries are real, Peter? Peter, it's just a question. Settle the science now on a safari to go vaccinate more kids. You just watched Dr. Peter Hotez get harassed at his own house by a Joe Rogan fan. Now, we're going to explain how things escalated to that point where Joe Rogan fans are actually seeking out Dr. Hotez at his own home to harass him. But first, I do think that some background on Joe Rogan is required. So I think that it's pretty clear to most intelligent people that Joe Rogan is a deeply unserious, stupid person. And let me tell you what I mean by that. If nine out of 10 dentists recommended flossing, Joe Rogan is the type of person who'd seek out the one dentist who says otherwise, platform them to his audience of millions and then convince his viewers that the majority of dentists are actually lying. And on top of that, they're trying to silence the one dentist who's trying to tell the truth. Now, some people might disagree and say, no, he's not stupid. He knows what he's doing. He's probably just the contrarian or grifter. It really doesn't matter at the end of the day. These conversations that Joe Rogan has with these quack doctors and charlatans, they don't occur in a vacuum and they have real world consequences. For example, hundreds of thousands of COVID deaths could have been prevented between January of 2021 and April of 2022 if those people were simply vaccinated. Now, Joe Rogan has to live with the fact for the rest of his life that he probably encouraged a good portion of his own audience to not take the vaccine and as a result, they died. Now, knowing that you're partially responsible for preventable deaths is probably a pretty hard pill to swallow. So to shield yourself from guilt, you just, you can't admit that you were wrong ever. And that's where I think Joe Rogan is going to be in perpetuity. I don't think that psychologically he can deal with the fact that he was so wrong about something of such major consequence. And the thing is that as dumb as Joe Rogan has always been, he wasn't always this bad. And many people have speculated that COVID broke his brain, right? And I think that that's true. And he kind of confirmed that this is indeed the case in his interview with 2024 presidential candidate RFK Jr. When I had heard of you in the past before I had read your book and before I'd met you, I had no information on you, but there was this narrative. And this narrative was you were anti-vax and you believed in pseudoscience and you were kind of loony. I didn't look into it at all. I just took it at face value because that's what everybody had said. And in my mind, vaccines have been one of the most important medical advancements in human history, save countless lives, protected children. And I thought very strongly that they were important. I didn't have any information on that either. This is also just a narrative adopted from cursory reading of news articles and not really getting into the subject at all. Then the pandemic happens. And that right there is really all you need to know about modern day Joe Rogan. He was correct initially about RFK Jr. Then as a result of COVID-19 breaking his brain, he grew increasingly conspiratorial. And he began to embrace the quacks that he was once rightfully skeptical of. But to make matters worse, Rogan didn't just embrace the quacks and surround himself with his stupidest friends. He also pushed away the few reasonable people who kept him tethered to reality. For example, one of those individuals was Dr. Peter Hotez who explained how Joe Rogan started to push him away during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially when he began to embrace these anti-vax conspiracy theories. He would have you on because you are a respected credible voice. And I'm not sure how much he challenged you at that point. But after when COVID began and he started trafficking in some of these conspiracy theories and having doubts and all of that, you contacted Joe via email via DM on Twitter. You guys had had correspondence before and he never replied to you. Is that correct? Well, you know, I, yeah, I mean, I was, I was on twice on, I don't know if it was called the Joe Rogan experience or what, but back when he was in LA before he moved it to Austin. And what's that? Pre-COVID. Well, once was pre-COVID. Once was as COVID was getting underway. And, you know, he could be challenging and, and, you know, I, you know, I can't say it was totally smooth, but it was, it was reasonable. And I thought it was a very good discussion. Again, how we're making vaccines, you know, out of the, out of the pharma sector doing this nonprofit, making vaccines for the world. And then afterwards he came to Houston for his comedy show in the Toyota Center. And I got, I went backstage with my, my youngest son and we hung out, had a beer, you know, it was, it was fun, you know. And I, you know, I mean, I even thought of him as sort of a friend of sorts. And, and then when COVID really started getting bad, I want that I wrote to him, emailed him a couple of times, several times in 2021. And then no response and once more in 2022, one to talk about our vaccines. And again, how we're bypassing the pharma sector. And also I was concerned because he was starting to invite some pretty hard hitting anti-vaccine types on his show. And, and, and as that Delta wave was starting to roll through the south, through the southern states of my state of Texas, you were seeing all these unvaccinated Texans and my neighbors losing their lives because they believe they believe the anti-vaccine disinformation. And I wanted to come on and, you know, tell people to get their, their vaccines. But at that time he didn't respond. So when you put all of the pieces together, you kind of see the full picture. That's how Joe Rogan became radicalized. He pushed away the smart people, got closer to the dumb people and the rest is history. But getting to RFK Junior, who is involved in this entire kerfuffle. This is someone who is so unserious that his own family denounced him. But since his last name is Kennedy and Americans love political dynasties apparently despite complaining about them. We're supposed to treat this individual as a serious candidate with serious ideas when in actuality he is as dumb as your racist uncle on Facebook. Case in point, here's him telling Jordan Peterson, another dumb fuck by the way, that chemicals in the water are responsible for transing the kids. I think a lot of the problems we see in kids and particularly boys, it's probably underappreciated that how much of that is coming from chemical exposures, including a lot of the sexual dysphoria that we're seeing. Hmm, where have I heard that before? I don't like them putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin' frogs gay! Yeah, so he's on par with Alex Jones. He's also against Medicare for all and pro apartheid very much so to the point where Cornel West even told him to get off the crack pipe. And Cornel West is one of the nicest people ever, so if he's saying it in such a blunt way, you should really reevaluate your position, you should listen to him. But I honestly don't know if RFK Junior even believes his own bullshit because he's been an anti-vaxxer for quite some time yet as Lance from the surface points out, guests at his party were encouraged to get vaccinated during the pandemic and also his kids are vaccinated as well. Now look, he blames his wife for that, which is fair. But I mean, you think that if he genuinely believed that vaccines were as dangerous as he claims they are, as big of a risk as he claims they are, you still wouldn't allow it despite what your wife says. You wouldn't just throw your hands up and say, well, she's the boss sometimes. I mean, if you actually think that this is a danger to your kids' lives, you're just going to go along with what your wife says, wouldn't you protest at least a little bit more? No, right? So I think that that is evidence that this man doesn't actually believe what he's saying. But getting back to Joe Rogan, he's gotten far worse after COVID and he basically suspended all skepticism to the point where it's now just comical. For example, RFK Junior managed to convince him that Wi-Fi causes cancer within like five minutes, literally. Wi-Fi radiation does all kinds of bad things, including causing cancer. Wi-Fi radiation causes cancer. Yeah, from your cell phone. I mean, they're your cell phone tumors. Do you see anything online? How it could open up your blood-brain barrier? I don't know about how, but I found an article. I was trying to find the validity of it, but it has a statement on here. Dan, it's the blood-brain barrier. Radiofrequency radiation exposure has been shown to affect the permeability of the blood-brain barrier, as well as altering the expression of microRNA within the brain, which researches state could lead to adverse effects such as neurodegenerative disease. Whoa, how come we don't know that? There's a doctor that did a study and said that it's been expanded on researches in China, and there's a published article here, but I was looking around at the page. They call it Leaky Brain. The findings were followed by suppression, misinformation, and a shutdown of government-funded research in the United States. Yeah, it's the same. It's the same play. Oh, we gotta get rid of Wi-Fi. And that's all it took. At this point, I'm convinced that Joe Rogan would literally become a flat earther if he just talked to one. Now, to be very clear, no, there's no evidence that Wi-Fi causes cancer, okay? But because Joe Rogan fact-checked it, he became convinced. Now, therein lies a problem with people who aren't qualified to interpret scientific information, right? So he pulled up a website from the Environmental Health Trust website, which is a website that is ironically associated with RFK Junior. And if you look at this website, it looks convincing. And a lot of these anti-vax websites do. They have this veneer of legitimacy because they use technical and medical jargon that most of us aren't qualified to interpret. So if you just look at it at a glance, you know, you might think that what they're saying is legitimate. But even if you have a single expert saying something who is more qualified than you, what ultimately matters is the consensus of experts. But people like Jimmy Dore, for example, will respond by saying, look, why can't we question the science? Because you're pushing back against us questioning the science. Must be evidence that it should be questioned. I mean, science in general should be questioned. That's the way science is. And that's correct, but science should be questioned by other scientists with relevant expertise, more specifically, not dipshits online, who have a monetary incentive to reaffirm their audience's anti-intellectual beliefs. But Dr. Peter Hotez was harassed because he called out Joe Rogan's interview with RFK Jr. So he shared a vice news article about Spotify's handling or lack thereof of Joe Rogan's nonstop misinformation when it comes to vaccines, saying Spotify has stopped even sort of trying to stem Joe Rogan's vaccine misinformation. It's really true. And Merlin, this is the author of the article, by the way, just awful. And from all the online attacks I'm receiving after this absurd podcast, it's clear many actually believe this nonsense. Now, I'm assuming that he is referring to attacks that he's perceiving because he's one of the main voices speaking out against anti-vax misinformation. But Joe Rogan saw that and responded saying, Peter, if you claim what RFK Jr. is saying is misinformation, I am offering you $100,000 to the charity of your choice if you're willing to debate him on my show with no time limit. Now, Dr. Hotez responded saying, Joe, you have my cell, my email. I'm always willing to speak with you. Joe Rogan responded to that saying, this is a non-answer. I challenged you publicly because you publicly quote tweeted and agreed with that dog shit vice article. If you're really serious about what you stand for, you now have a massive opportunity for a debate that will reach the largest audience a discussion like this has ever had. If you think someone else is better qualified, suggest that person. Now, of course, Elon Musk jumped in saying, he's afraid of a public debate because he knows he's wrong. And after this exchange, well, Dr. Hotez got a lot of harassment online with one Joe Rogan fan even showing up to his house. And one thing that really stood out to me, which kind of gives you a picture as to how bad things are, was this photograph right here being shared on Twitter with somebody saying basically, well, who would you rather trust when it comes to medical issues? I'm paraphrasing, but they said that, share this picture and then share the picture of Dr. Hotez. Now, because Dr. Hotez is overweight, there's this implication that he shouldn't be trusted when it comes to medical expertise, but he's the doctor and these two are not doctors. One is an environmental attorney and the other is a podcast host. So yes, you should trust the doctor here when it comes to medical things, especially that are relevant to his specific field. But because people don't know how to properly digest information and have no media literacy, they just believe somebody who appears legitimate, who says something that kind of confirms their preexisting biases. And of course, as I stated, that led to a dog pile of Dr. Peter Hotez. And let me just say that Dr. Peter Hotez should not debate RFK Junior. No scientist should debate dumbfuck cranks on podcasts because some things just aren't debatable and subjecting them to a debate for purposes of views and clicks promotes the idea that science isn't settled when indeed it is. It's a propaganda tactic that we've seen again and again and it's been especially useful when it comes to climate change. I mean, you all know how mainstream media like CNN will bring on Bill Nye to debate climate change with Marsha Blackburn, for example. And even though when you watch that exchange and you see that he's very clearly right and has facts on his side and she's very clearly wrong, well, the implicit assumption, the message that audience members are being primed to believe is that climate change isn't settled science. It is still debatable when that's not the case. So just suggesting that a scientific consensus is up for debate, especially with non-experts like this, that does a disservice to the American public. But to CNN, they only care about ratings and similarly Joe Rogan only cares about putting on a good show. And others pointed this out, one of them being Mark Cuban of all people who replied saying, wait a talk in generalities, Joe. Not saying there aren't a lot of fucked up things about pharma. That's why we created costplusdrugs.com but to ignore that the same industry has saved who knows how many lives is bullshit and you know it. He adds, Joe, you and Elon Musk's Twitter are the mainstream online media and your platforms have become everything supposedly wrong with mainstream media. You are driven by self-interest just like the mainstream media always has been accused of. And that right there is the crux of the problem with Joe Rogan and Elon Musk, right? And that was a great point about big pharma. The conspiracy isn't that they are selling people poison. The conspiracy is that they're creating essential life-saving drugs and that they're hiking up the cost and forcing people to pay it because they know they don't have a choice. That's the conspiracy. I mean, it's to the point where every single person, regardless of how skeptical they may be of big pharma, they have to take pharmaceuticals if they want to exist. I mean, have you ever taken a Tylenol because you've had a headache? Well, congratulations. You're a big pharma shill according to the logic of these fucking people. But the point is that there is a large portion of the population that is rightfully disillusioned with mainstream media, right? But rather than filling that void with context and actual facts that are missing from mainstream media, what Joe Rogan does is he perpetuates a different type of propaganda. It's not necessarily pro-corporate propaganda intrinsically, but it is propaganda in a different way. It's skepticism that's turned into conspiracy theories that leaves people less informed than they were if they just stuck to watching mainstream corporate media. And that has real consequences, right? There's a problem with this. It kills people. For example, again, hundreds of thousands of people died when their lives could have been spared if they just got the COVID-19 vaccine. But as Dr. Copeland points out on Twitter, we have comedians like Joe Rogan being seen as experts on science. We are entering a world where antibiotics won't work and pandemics will become yearly events. The erosion of expertise will yield deadly dividends. Now, Karl Bode also made a really great point saying an assortment of wealthy attention-seeking bullshit artists spent the weekend undermining public health advice for attention and political rat-fucking purposes under the delusion they're ingenious philosophers. Yeah, and those are both really important points. But to Karl Bode's point, you know, that's important specifically because in this online space, people like Joe Rogan and Elon Musk, they are the mainstream. And in a capitalist system, those with the most wealth, they have the loudest voices, right? I mean, there's a reason why transphobia is spreading online, because the Daily Wire, they virtually have unlimited funds to spread their bigotry far and wide, right? Whereas people like myself, we don't have an advertising budget, right? People like Elon Musk, who owns Twitter, has the capacity to reshape what we see on the platform, control our perception of reality, right? Just by allowing people to purchase blue checks and letting them be boosted in the algorithm because of that has given us this idea that everybody is conspiratorial and they're bigoted. And as a result of all of these people controlling the flow of information online, we've collectively become either dumber or depressed as a result. And people like me who try to push back, we just can't compete. So it feels like we're fighting a losing battle and it just feels hopeless sometimes. But regardless, this is why we have to do what we possibly can. Everything in our power, as hopeless as it seems, to uplift the voices of people who are telling the truth that are being drowned out. People like Peter Hotez, for example, who tweeted out a recommendation for his book where he says to understand how the anti-vaccine movement became a well-financed, organized lethal force during the pandemic and its immediate aftermath, my latest book out soon, The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science, A Scientist's Warning. And I usually don't like to share the books that people are hawking, but in the case of Dr. Peter Hotez, he's actually trying to make a difference in this world and he is arguing from the standpoint of facts, logic, and reason, which matters. Because the people who are conspiratorial ironically think that they have actual facts, reason, and logic on their side when in actuality, they've been misled by propaganda and bullshit artists. And I want to encourage people to continue speaking up in the face of loud, well-funded idiots. Even us YouTubers have an incentive to pander to conspiratorial reactionaries who support RFK Junior and Joe Rogan. Let me show you what I mean by that. So when I did a video a couple of weeks ago shitting on RFK Junior, it was my most disliked video in quite some time and it wasn't that bad, but only 74.5% of the audience liked it compared to the usual 98% that I received and I have a feeling that my video was shared and probably brigaded by these morons, but YouTubers see this and this creates a sort of disincentive to talk about things if you feel like you're going to be attacked or piss off your audience and this is how audience capture happens, right? Where otherwise normal YouTubers turn into reactionaries by audiences that pressure them to deliver more confirmation bias and sort of backs them into a corner and you see a lot of YouTubers succumb to this. Jimmy Dorr, Dave Rubin, these are just a couple of examples, but let me be very clear, I refuse to be part of the problem. So if you're a fan of RFK Junior or if you're an anti-vaxxer who found this video, I encourage you to dislike the video. I encourage you to call me a big pharmaceutical in the comments. I couldn't give two shits about your temper tantrum. Objective truth matters, facts matter and we need more people to speak the truth despite the backlash. But I don't want to make it seem as if everyone in this space is bad faith or a dishonest actor who changed their opinion because of audience capture because I actually don't think that that's the case with Joe Rogan. I don't think that he changed because of audience capture. I don't know if he is grifting intentionally, but I think that he's just genuinely stupid and couldn't care less about the effect that he has on the world. But regardless if somebody is a grifter or they're just stupid, it doesn't really matter. It's a distinction without a difference because either way, all of these folks collectively are contributing to the dumb fuckification of American society and we have to push back as loudly as we possibly can before we devolve further into a full-blown idiocracy. So even if you're going to get dog-piled by kooks and anti-vaxxers for speaking up, you should still encourage yourself to do that because if you remain silent in the face of pressure from these dipshits, you're only letting them win. Like everywhere there's glow, you see them all the time. I mean, it's constant. My children will be like, mama, glow, glow, glow, glow. Actual TV, there's glow in the background. Every TV show loses media.