Billionaire Mark Cuban accused podcast host Joe Rogan of becoming "everything supposedly wrong" with the mainstream media in a tweet on Sunday after Rogan and Elon Musk pushed for a debate between a prominent vaccine scientist and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Cuban, in a lengthy tweet, claimed Rogan was speaking in "generalities," and said trying to "bully" Dr. Peter Hotez was "ridiculous."
"Joe, you and @elonmusk's @twitter are the mainstream online media and your platforms have become everything supposedly wrong with MSM. You are driven by self interest. Just like the MSM always has been accused of. And you both have earned that right. You busted your asses to be great at what you do and earned all you have accomplished. But don't lie to yourselves and all of us and tell us you are different. You aren't," Cuban wrote.
Rogan offered Dr. Peter Hotez $100,000 to the charity of his choice if he agreed to debate Kennedy on Rogan's program after Hotez slammed a recent interview Kennedy had on Rogan's program as "awful" and "nonsense."
Cuban said he believed there was a lot wrong with Big Pharma but said it was also wrong to ignore an industry that has saved "who knows how many lives."
"Not saying there aren't a lot of f----- up things about Pharma," Cuban wrote on Twitter, responding to Rogan. "But to ignore that the same industry has saved who knows how many lives is bull---- and you know it. It's also disrespectful to all the doctors, researchers and medical professionals that dedicate their lives to saving lives, like Dr Hotez and the 800k plus doctors in the country that believe vaccines save lives."
Hotez appeared on MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan's program Sunday to explain why he wouldn't "debate" vaccines with Kennedy, saying in science it was more typical to write papers instead.
"I have a new book coming out that basically says 200,000 Americans needlessly perished, because they believed the anti-vaccine disinformation and refused to take a COVID vaccine during our Delta wave and BA.1 Omicron wave in 2021-22 after vaccines were widely available," he said. "So the point is anti-vaccine 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 go on Joe Rogan again… I’ve been on a couple of times and have that discussion with it, but not to turn it into the Jerry Springer Show with having RFK Jr on."
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Musk had also chimed in on the back-and-forth on Twitter and claimed Hotez was "afraid of a public debate."
Kennedy, a longtime vaccine critic who has been accused of trafficking in conspiracy theories, announced he would be challenging President Biden for the Democratic nomination in April. He has long made the unfounded claim that vaccines cause autism.
The presidential candidate recently joined Rogan's program and told the podcast host that he has to "be careful" about the CIA.
"I gotta be careful," Kennedy said. "I’m aware of that, you know, I’m aware of that danger. I don’t live in fear of it at all."
Kennedy said the military, the intelligence community and his uncle, John F. Kennedy, were "at war" with each other during JFK's presidency and that the two entities were "trying to trick" the late president into deploying troops to various countries, including Cuba and Vietnam.
The Democratic presidential candidate added that his uncle was so fed up with the CIA that he wanted to "shatter" the agency and "scatter it to the winds."
Fox News' David Rutz and Houston Keene contributed to this report.
