Joe Rogan has been accused of “casually spouting antisemitism” on his hit podcast while trying to defend under-fire progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar from the same charge.
The UFC commentator was discussing how certain terms led to people getting canceled when he decried the Democratic “squad” member getting booted from the House Foreign Affairs Committee for her past anti-Semitic comments.
He highlighted Omar “apologizing for talking about it’s ‘all about the Benjamins,'” he said of the congresswoman’s 2019 message about American support for Israel.
“It’s just about money — she’s just talking about money,” Rogan said on an episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” posted on Spotify Saturday.
“That’s not an anti-Semitic statement, I don’t think that is,” Rogan insisted of the term widely denounced as a racist trope.
“Benjamins are money. The idea that Jewish people are not into money is ridiculous. That’s like saying Italians aren’t into pizza. It’s f—ing stupid. It’s f—-ing stupid,” he said.
Rogan then said that “whether you agree with her or not,” Omar had shared “a bold opinion.”
“And that opinion is not her own — there’s many people that have that opinion, and they should be represented,” he said.
However, he soon found himself under attack, with some critics even tagging spotify to ask of the streaming service was “happy” its “multi-million dollar podcaster” was “casually spouting antisemitism.”
UK comedian David Baddiel — the author of a book about anti-Semitism called “Jews Don’t Count” — also accused the podcaster of spreading a “racist myth” on the show “with a big grin.”
“I actually want to stop banging the ‘Jews Don’t Count’ drum at some point but hard to do when a racist myth about Jews is just … said, breezily, on one of the biggest podcasts in the world and no-one gives a f–k,” Baddiel tweeted his 880,000 followers early Tuesday.
“For the hard of understanding, ‘Jews are into money’ is not like ‘Italians are into pizza,'” he stressed.
“Because unless my history lessons really missed something out, no-one has exterminated a large section of the entire Italian community because of their love for pepperoni,” he quipped.
“Also, Joe Rogan has a 200 Million dollar deal with Spotify. And yet apparently it’s Jews who are into money,” he tweeted.
Alex Zeldin, a columnist for the Forward — formerly The Jewish Daily Forward — replied sarcastically that “Jews are the only people into money.
“The rest of you with jobs for income and bills to pay and family to support aren’t into money and this isn’t at all a deranged point of view that gets Jews murdered.”
One Jewish journalist tweeted that “If only my relatives who were lined up and shot were so into money, they’d had enough to escape the nazis.”
Ball agreed with him that Omar “shouldn’t have apologized” for her “Benjamins” tweet, while conceding the congresswoman “could have phrased it a different way so that people would have less of a freakout.”
“But can you not talk about the influence of money in DC? I mean, this is very obvious,” Ball said.
“There’s a very obvious reason why for my entire life there’s been a uniparty consensus around our policy vis-a-vis the Israeli government,” she added, saying money is behind the support for Israel “just like every other f–king interest in DC.”
Enjeti, meanwhile, told Rogan: “I don’t agree with Ilhan Omar on a lot. I also don’t think it should be out of bounds to talk about the influence of any government,” saying the “hypocrisy” in politics “drives me f—ing crazy.”
Instead, he advised they follow his example and tell viewers, “Look, I love you guys — I’m just not reading your s–t.”
