Like most late night comedians, The Daily Show host Trevor Noah made a beeline for Joe Rogan’s apology video, but Noah made a surprising pivot by agreeing with the ladies of The View that Rogan’s mea culpa was “refreshing.” In a lengthy unscripted segment, Noah went to bat for Rogan’s apology, but he also repeatedly made it clear that he’s in no way defending Rogan or the misinformation he spreads on his podcast. Noah quipped that, inevitably, the internet will twist his words anyway.
“I actually thought it was pretty classy,” Noah said before joking that he just assumed Rogan would say his podcast was hacked. “But instead, he owned up to it. I thought it was pretty dope. It was refreshing.”
Despite Noah’s praise for Rogan’s apology, and his unusual sympathy for the podcaster, The Daily Show host wanted it known that is not a defense of Rogan’s actions. It’s simply an understanding that the internet pulls things out of context. Via The Daily Beast:
“I’m not trying to defend Joe Rogan,” he said. “And somebody’s maybe going to do it to me, they’re going to take a part out and go ‘Trevor defends Joe Rogan.’” But that being said, he wanted to back up Rogan’s claim that he often hosts people who disagree with him, including a viral clip of his anti-vaccine conspiracy theory getting corrected in real time during his own show.
“But because of the internet age that we live in, we shit on people based on the little that we see of them, we don’t give them the full context,” Noah continued. “So in his defense, I get that part of what he’s saying.”
Several times during the segment, Noah joked, “I can’t believe I’m saying that right now,” after going to bat for Rogan, and it’s easy to see why. Just last week, Noah was dragging Rogan for saying only people from Africa are 100% Black. So it’s easy to understand Noah’s predicament of suddenly finding himself agreeing with Joe Rogan.
(Via The Daily Beast)