>> Are you Peter Hotez?
>> I am, hi.
>> Nice to meet you.
>> How are you? >> Hey, so
why are you not gonna debate RFK on Joe Rogan's podcast?
>> Come on, that's harassment.
>> This weekend, an scientist named Dr. Peter Hotez yes, doctor and scientist.
I want you to remember those two things about Peter Hotez,
was harassed outside his home.
After Joe Rogan and Elon Musk repeatedly demanded that he debate
presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr. on Rogan's podcast.
All of this started on Friday when Hotez who helped create the COVID-19 vaccine,
the patent free vaccine.
Commented on a motherboard piece about RFK Jr's recent appearance on
the Joe Rogan show.
He tweeted out, Spotify has stopped even sort of trying to stem Joe Rogan's
vaccine, misinformation, it's really true, Anna Merlan, just awful.
And from all the online attacks I'm receiving after this absurd podcast,
it's clear many actually believe this nonsense.
Anna Merlan is the author of the piece for anyone who needed clarification on that.
But Joe Rogan got salty and got upset,
and his fragile masculinity was damaged by being called out by Hotez.
So he challenged him to debate RFK Jr. and in return,
Rogan promised to give $100,000 to Hotez's charity of choice.
RFK Jr. responded to Rogan saying he wanted to have a respectful, congenial,
informative debate.
That the American people deserve,
although I can't imagine what we did to deserve this.
Now Hotez, who's been on Rogan's show before, responded very respectfully.
This is what he tweeted, he said, Joe, you have my cell, my email,
I'm always willing to speak with you.
But did Joe Rogan reach out to him on his phone?
Did he text him, did he call him, did he email him?
No, he didn't, instead, he decided to publicly hit back on him on Twitter.
He said this, this is a non answer, I challenge you publicly because you
publicly quote, tweeted, and agreed with that dog crap 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.
God help us all, if you think someone else is better qualified, suggest that person.
And the clout chaser that he is Elon Musk had to jump in as well to make sure that
somebody was remembering that he existed.
He replied and said he's afraid of a public debate because he knows he's wrong.
Jesus Christ, thought leaders of America today, by the way, [LAUGH].
He's not debating because he knows he's wrong,
the man who helped invent a vaccine for COVID.
But Elon Musk continued on, he said, maybe Peter Hotez just hates charity.
Despite the fact that his research is funded by charity,
I really do not think that he hates charity.
Now Hotez responded by condemning the rights more on vaccines.
He tweeted out, Joe, if you are serious about addressing vaccines and
the fact that 200,000 unvaccinated Americans needlessly
perish during our awful delta/BA.1 Covid waves.
Including 40,000 in our state of Texas because they fell
victims to vaccine disinformation, I want to have that discussion.
He also said that he would come on the show with Joe, but
he doesn't wanna debate RFK Jr. Now,
Joe Rogan then angrily tweeted more about the debate, but that culminated with this.
Now, Peter Hotez tweeted this out and says, I just was stalked in front of
my home by a couple of antivaxxers taunting me to debate RFK Jr. Of course,
I was looking my Sunday best in our brutal heat wave, what is it with people?
Well, at least Houstonians now know I support the team, hashtag Go Texans.
Inexplicably, he attached that picture of himself, I'm not sure why,
maybe he just wanted to show off the fit.
But here's the full video from which we played a clip at the beginning
of the story.
>> Are you Peter Hotez?
>> I am, hi.
>> Nice to meet you.
>> How are you? >> Hey, so
why are you not gonna debate RFK on Joe Rogan's podcast?
>> Come on, that's harassment.
>> I'm just curious.
>> What?
>> Nothing hostile, I'm just curious.
>> I haven't said anything one way or the other.
>> I mean, are you planning on doing it?
>> 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?
>> Come on.
>> Anything for them?
>> Don't come to my house.
>> I mean, do you have anything to say to people that think,
do you have anything to say to people?
Yeah, I mean, do you think vaccine injuries are real Peter?
Peter is just a question, settle the science now,
on a safari to go vaccinate more kids.
>> The man filming and heavy breathing into the camera is Alex Rosen,
who considers himself an independent journalist.
And he has a Twitter username at I Fight for Kids, which I think begs a lot more
questions than it answers and makes me raise my eyebrows a little bit.
Cenk, this is completely inappropriate behavior to just show up at this
guy's house.
I mean, he's not a journalist, he's not asking him hard hitting questions.
He's just telling him that he wants to watch this debate and
I don't think this debate would be helpful for anyone.
I don't think a scientist has to be skilled in debate for
their science to be accurate and correct.
>> Yeah, I hear you, I have a nuanced take on this.
So, first of all, going to the house is unacceptable but
to be fair to Rogan and Elon Musk, they didn't send the guy to the house.
But they got to be a little bit more careful in what they say publicly cuz they
have big followings.
So, for example, I don't mind Rogan saying,
why don't you come on the show to debate RFK Jr.
And I've got a story about that in regards to our show in a second.
I don't mind that at all and he does it publicly because he said Hotez
criticized him publicly through the Vice article, etc, right?
Okay, no problem but for Rogan and Musk, at some point, you got to let it go
because especially cuz you have right wing followers who are a little cuckoo.
I know you all know cry for right wingers, no, they show up at people's houses and
do wacky stuff, so you got to be careful around your audience.
Now, look, I challenged Joe Rogan to a debate,
if I just said to people, you know what, go to his house.
That's crazy, do not go to Rogan's house,
that's got nothing to do with anything, okay?
So don't do that, so again, Rogan and Musk didn't say go to his house.
I'm just saying just a little bit more caution here, but
overall, on debating you're right, Rayvana,
it's tough to ask a scientist to do a political debate, right?
And God forbid if they're awesome at science, but they're not good at debating.
And then the other guy looks like he's right even though he's got
all the facts wrong.
I hear you on that, the flip side is,
I don't think our side should be concerned about debates.
Like, I'll take 99% of the world scientists over Randos any day,
and so Hotez represents that 99%.
He's right, about 234,000 people apparently died according to studies that
were done cuz that didn't need to die, because they didn't take the vaccine.
Cuz they listened to knuckleheads like RFK Jr.
and Joe Rogan and so sorry, but they did, and they didn't need to die.
And you guys are totally and utterly wrong, and
every legitimate scientist thinks you're wrong.
But I know you heard about Ivermectin online, etc,
so I wish somebody like Hotez would debate RFK Jr. and
humiliate them and show what real scientists think.
Again, this is in full disclosure, I knew RFK Jr. before he decided to run for
president, before all this stuff, but he was anti vaccine back then.
And he asked me to arrange a debate on this show, and
I had no problems with that, but
I couldn't find a single scientist to debate him, so then I let it go.
I didn't say, then we got to go to the scientist houses, that's crazy, right?
I wish the scientists would debate them, but you can't make them and please,
right wingers, can you stop being so mental for a second?
Okay, you have a point you wanna make?
Go ahead, make it on the shows, etc, but don't scare people with kids and
go to their houses and breathe heavy on them and say, why aren't you doing, okay?
I don't think that's useful journalism.
>> Right and RFK Jr. he did explain to Mehdi Hasan why he was not
interested in taking the debate, so we have that video here.
>> The reason I got involved with RFK Jr in the first place is I have an adult
daughter, Rachel.
Who has autism and intellectual disabilities and
wrote the book Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism.
That refuted all of his false claims and
he's been kind of after me ever since then.
Antivaccine disinformation, it's always done a lot of damage and harm,
but now it's a lethal force in the United States, and
that's why we have to have that discussion.
And I offered to come and talk to Go on Joe Rogan again.
I've been on a couple of times and have that discussion with him, but
not to turn it into The Jerry Springer Show with having RFK Jr.
>> He also responded to RFK Jr's
accusations that he's a pharma shell.
>> I'm a vaccine scientist,
I make low cost patent free vaccines for low and middle income countries.
We made 100 million doses, we made two vaccine prototypes that led to
100 million doses being administered in India, in Indonesia.
No patents, minimal strings attached, so
we actually found a way to bypass the pharma companies.
And yet RFK Jr incessantly calls me a pharmacy shell, when if anything our
vaccines maybe kept Pfizer and Moderna out of markets in India and in Indonesia.
So I don't understand that piece.
>> I mean yeah, exactly, I think this guy is kind of the opposite of a pharma shell.
I mean, I've been told I support Big Pharma for defending him,
I understand the inclination to criticize Big Pharma.
I'm the first to do it, they're absolutely not above criticism,
but you need to be criticizing them on the correct things.
You need to be criticizing them on their greed, on their lobbying,
not extending that to just individual researchers who are, if anything,
going against Big Pharma.
I know Cenk, what do you think about that?
>> Yeah, the problem is that the world thinks in black and white, right?
Not everybody, but unfortunately, way too many people.
So Big Pharma does a lot of things that are wrong like Rayvana suggested for
example.
They use their political power to make sure that we can't negotiate drug price in
America.
Absolutely mental, doesn't make any sense, it's the height of corruption,
I can't stand what Big Pharma is doing in regards to that.
And some of their drugs are dangerous and some of their products,
the talcum powder, the forever chemicals, etc, right?
But that doesn't mean that they've never developed a good drug and
their drugs don't save people's lives and every scientist in the world is lying.
Please, please, do nuance, look into human judgment calls.
So, no, not every doctor and every scientist know, they're all lying.
All the doctors in all the hospitals in America, let alone every other country,
they're all lying about the vaccine.
That's absurd, that's insane, so, no,
the vaccines have saved tons of lives, millions of lives.
And what did this Hotez guy do?
Look to be honest with you, I used to see him in that lab coat on TV and I thought,
this is kind of a little bit goofy, right?
You see Hotez, the doctor guy, what is this about, right?
But then you find out that the guy developed a vaccine and
made it patent free so that poor people could also save their lives.
That's not Big Pharma, that's the opposite of Big Pharma, you have to use your brain.
If you say, I'm turning off my brain, and I think it's a black and white world, and
I'm just gonna say, it's medicine.
Boo, we hate medicine because Big Pharma developed and we hate all medicine.
I can't help you cuz you just facts and logic and words don't have meaning to you.
No, they could do some things that are terrible, and
they could do some things that are wonderful, and it depends.
And the doctors and the scientists are not the biggest liars,
they're the people who lie the least, the least.
The politicians are the liars, it's idiot talk show hosts, yes, we're a talk show.
Yes, those are not the most trustworthy people, we tell you all the time,
please double check everything we say.
We try so hard to get things right but have you seen the other talk show hosts?
The right wingers, bunch of loud mouthed jackasses and
you're telling me they know better than all the doctors in the world?
Come on, man, ironically, you need to go see a doctor if you think that.
>> I feel like their next step is accusing just the people who take medication of
supporting Big Pharma.
Every time you have to do a copay when you're picking up your medicine from
Walgreens somehow now you are also a Big Pharma shell.
>> Yeah, okay,
don't take Advil, the Big Pharma developed it, you want the headache?
Keep the headache, all right, whatever, okay, good luck to you guys in your lives,
you're definitely gonna need it.