Joe Rogan’s gaffe an example of how disinformation spreads

I would like to open this segment by apologizing for my voice. I have laryngitis, but the news cycle goes on. And so shall I. Here we go.

Okay, I shamefully admit to watching Joe Rogan. I think he is a great interviewer, and I find a lot of his guests unusual and compelling. I do not, however, like that he is increasingly just all-in on Trump. Joe Rogan, he is smart, and people listen to him, a lot of people. I listen to him about a lot of topics. And it is disconcerting to hear a man with this much intelligence and outsize influence even flirt with putting this country in the kind of danger that I believe we will be in with a second Trump term. It’s careless.

I watched the Joe Rogan segment the other day where Rogan and a guest named Bo Nickal were going on and on about how brilliant and sharp, and he’s just such a cool dude, and —Trump is, really — that was the guest take after, I guess, like playing a round of golf with him. He’s just so cool. And then they got to talking about Biden, and how he’s you know, doddering, cognitively declining, etc. The example they use of Biden’s decline was this:

JOE ROGAN: [Biden is] like, one of the reasons we lost the Revolutionary War, one of the problems with the Revolutionary War, was that we didn’t have enough airports. Have you seen that?

BO NICKAL: I saw it. Like what the Hell?

JOE ROGAN: Have you seen that? Like, pull him!

JORDAN REID: Well, geez, that sounds bad. Except:

FACT-CHECKER: Is this the video you were talking about?

JOE ROGAN: Let me see what this one says. I don’t think it is…

JOE BIDEN: ..By the way, the same “stable genius” said that the biggest problem we had in the Revolutionary War is we didn’t have enough airports! Whoa!

JOE ROGAN: Yeah, that’s it…

BO NICKAL: Whoa…

FACT-CHECKER: Just for, for the record…

JOE ROGAN:  Is that fake?

FACT-CHECKER: It’s not fake, but he was referencing Trump saying that.

JORDAN REID: That is Joe Biden referencing Trump. And for context:

DONALD TRUMP: In June of 1775, the Continental Congress created a unified army out of the revolutionary forces encamped around Boston and New York, and named after the great George Washington, Commander-in-Chief. The Continental Army suffered a bitter winter at Valley Forge, found glory across the waters of the Delaware, and seized victory from Cornwallis of Yorktown. Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do. Okay.

JOE ROGAN: Oh, okay…

JORDAN REID: Trump! Trump thought that airports existed during the Revolutionary War! Now, to their very partial credit, Rogan and his guests acknowledge, eventually at the end of the segment, that they were wrong, okay, but then couch that statement: “I mean, you know, Trump messed up his words. And, you know, I guess you got to look into media…” You guys! You are currently the media that people have got to look into!

And by the way, people make mistakes. If you’re constantly talking in front of massive crowds, you’ll make a few gaffes. Biden definitely does.

But I do not know how a thinking human being could even begin to compare the two when it comes to whether they’re like, okay to run the country. Trump frequently appears to believe, because he says so, that he is running against Obama. He confuses Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi. He brags about correctly identifying whales. I’m losing my voice even more, because I’m so upset about this.

The reason I draw your attention to this particular example, though, in which Joe Rogan confidently makes a false claim about Biden, one that, by the way, absolutely would speak to his cognitive abilities, and does speak to the cognitive abilities of the man who actually made the statement, but the reason I draw your attention to this clip is because if, like I would imagine most Rogen viewers, you didn’t take the time to watch the entire clip from start to beginning, or maybe you get your information from wherever Rogen got his information, and don’t take the time to follow the source, you’re going to think that Joe Biden thought that there were airports during the Revolutionary War, You’re going to laugh about it with your friends. You’re going to spread the story. They’ll spread it further. No one will fact check. And this is just one episode of one podcast, one in which they ultimately sort of clear up their error. Imagine what else is out there.