Episode 1639: Dave Smith | The Brogan Report

Introduction

Episode 1639 of the Joe Rogan Experience, aired on April 23, 2021, features comedian and libertarian political commentator Dave Smith. This episode became one of the most widely criticized and fact-checked moments in JRE history — the episode where Joe Rogan directly told his millions of listeners that healthy young people should not get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Rogan’s anti-vaccine comments drew immediate rebuke from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House, and medical experts nationwide. Nine experts consulted by PolitiFact unanimously disagreed with Rogan’s advice. The episode also featured extended segments opposing vaccine passports, with both Rogan and Smith characterizing COVID-19 public health measures as “totalitarianism.”

TL;DR: Joe Rogan told listeners he would tell a healthy 21-year-old not to get vaccinated — advice contradicted by every major public health authority. He also platformed Dave Smith’s framing of basic public health measures as totalitarianism. Rogan later walked back his comments, calling himself “a fucking moron” and “not a respected source of information,” but the damage to vaccine confidence among his massive audience was already done.

Who is Dave Smith?

Dave Smith (born April 20, 1983) is a stand-up comedian, podcaster, and libertarian political commentator. He hosts the political podcast Part of the Problem and co-hosts the comedy podcast Legion of Skanks. He is a member of the Mises Caucus of the Libertarian Party and has described becoming a libertarian “through the Ron Paul movement.”

Smith holds a degree in history from the University at Albany. He has no credentials in medicine, epidemiology, virology, immunology, or public health. Despite this, he presented himself as an authority on the appropriateness of COVID-19 public health measures during this episode.

Problematic Claims

Claim 1: Healthy Young People Should Not Get Vaccinated

The most consequential moment in the episode came when Rogan stated directly: “If you’re like 21 years old, and you say to me, ‘Should I get vaccinated?’ I’ll go no.”

Rogan elaborated that if someone is “healthy” and “exercises” and “eats well,” they do not need the COVID-19 vaccine. This was not a claim made by guest Dave Smith — this was Rogan himself providing medical advice to his audience of millions.

Why this is dangerous misinformation:

Dr. Anthony Fauci called Rogan’s advice “incorrect” on NBC’s Today show, stating that young, healthy people should “absolutely” get vaccinated.
PolitiFact consulted nine medical experts, all of whom disagreed with Rogan’s recommendation. They identified three major problems: young people can still get seriously ill, they transmit the virus to vulnerable people, and widespread vaccination is necessary to achieve herd immunity.
Snopes rated the claim as misinformation, noting that while young people have lower risk of severe symptoms, they can carry and transmit the virus to high-risk individuals.
CDC data from this exact time period showed that adolescent COVID-19 hospitalization rates were rising in March and April 2021. Nearly one-third of hospitalized adolescents required ICU admission, and critically, nearly 30% of hospitalized adolescents had no underlying medical conditions — contradicting Rogan’s implication that being “healthy” provided sufficient protection.

Claim 2: COVID-19 Lockdowns Were “Totalitarianism”

Dave Smith characterized the entirety of COVID-19 public health restrictions as totalitarianism, stating: “I think objectively, the country went totalitarian for about a year.”

Smith also said he could not stand “when they use your basic freedoms as a negotiating tool,” describing public health measures as “using my freedom as a carrot on a stick.”

Why this is misleading:

The term “totalitarianism” refers to political systems where the state holds total authority over society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life — regimes like Stalin’s Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, or North Korea. Applying this label to temporary, democratically enacted public health measures during a pandemic that killed over 600,000 Americans by this point is a gross mischaracterization.
Public health emergency powers have legal precedent in the United States going back to the founding era. Quarantine laws have been upheld by courts for over a century.
The U.S. response was actually less restrictive than many other developed nations. Most democracies implemented similar or stricter measures while maintaining democratic institutions, free press, and open elections throughout.
Rogan did not challenge this extreme framing in any meaningful way. Instead, he agreed, reinforcing Smith’s rhetoric to his massive audience.

Claim 3: Vaccine Passports as Surveillance Tools

Smith raised alarms about vaccine passport proposals, describing them as “a national caste system” and “an idea straight out of the Chinese social credit system.” He also claimed: “If you look at the proposals, isn’t a passport, it’s an app, with your medical history, your data can be tracked, your location can be traced.”

Context that was omitted:

At the time of this episode, the Biden administration had explicitly stated there was no federal plan for COVID-19 vaccine passports. No state had mandated vaccine passports through bills or executive orders.
These inflammatory comparisons conflate temporary public health verification measures with comprehensive social control systems, misleading audiences about the scope and intent of such proposals.
Vaccine verification for certain activities had historical precedent, including school enrollment requirements and international travel. Private businesses making their own health safety decisions reflects the market freedom that libertarians typically support.

Claim 4: Lockdowns Were Ineffective

The conversation criticized lockdown measures, claiming they “weakened immune systems” and did not effectively stop virus spread, without acknowledging the nuanced scientific evidence showing that properly implemented restrictions did reduce transmission and save lives.

Why this is misleading:

Peer-reviewed research published in journals including The Lancet and Nature demonstrated that non-pharmaceutical interventions, when properly implemented, significantly reduced COVID-19 transmission.
Neither Rogan nor Smith cited any peer-reviewed evidence for their claims. Their assertions were presented as self-evident truths rather than contested empirical questions.

Joe Rogan’s Role

This episode stands out because Joe Rogan was not merely a passive host platforming a problematic guest — he was the primary source of the most dangerous misinformation.

Rogan originated the anti-vaccine claim. The statement that healthy young people should not get vaccinated was Rogan’s own opinion, not something Dave Smith said that Rogan failed to challenge.
Rogan amplified anti-lockdown extremism. Rather than pushing back on Smith’s “totalitarianism” framing, Rogan agreed and noted he had specifically invited Smith to discuss their shared “deep concern” about vaccine passports.
Rogan acknowledged he is not qualified to give this advice — but only after the damage was done. On April 29, 2021, six days after this episode aired, Rogan walked back his comments, saying “I am not a doctor. I am a fucking moron” and “I am not a respected source of information even for me.” He also stated he believes vaccines “are safe” and encourages “many people to take them.”
The walkback came too late. As The Washington Post analyzed, by the time Rogan clarified his comments, the original clip had already gone viral and been amplified across social media. The original anti-vaccine statement reached far more people than the correction.

Real-World Impact

This episode aired during a critical moment in the U.S. vaccination campaign — April 2021 — when vaccine eligibility was expanding to all adults and public health officials were fighting vaccine hesitancy. The U.S. death toll had exceeded 570,000 and new variants were emerging.

270 doctors, physicians, and science educators later signed an open letter calling on Spotify to take action against misinformation on the Joe Rogan Experience, citing this episode among others.
Rogan’s audience at the time was estimated at 11 million listeners per episode — larger than most cable news programs. His anti-vaccine statement reached a predominantly young, male demographic that was already among the most vaccine-hesitant groups.
The episode contributed to what NPR described as a broader pattern of COVID-19 misinformation on the JRE that represented “a sociological issue of devastating proportions.”
Dr. Benjamin Mazer of Johns Hopkins called Rogan “a menace to public health” in the context of these vaccine misinformation episodes.

Credit Where Due

It should be noted that Rogan’s subsequent walkback, while late, was unusually direct for a public figure. His statement “I am not a doctor, I am a fucking moron” and his acknowledgment that it “makes sense” for young people to get vaccinated to protect public health showed a capacity for self-correction — though the original misinformation had already spread widely.

Conclusion

Episode 1639 represents a watershed moment in the Joe Rogan Experience’s relationship with COVID-19 misinformation. This was not a case of a problematic guest making claims that Rogan failed to challenge — Rogan himself was the source of the most dangerous medical misinformation, directly advising his millions of listeners against vaccination during a deadly pandemic.

The fact that he later walked back these comments, while commendable, does not undo the real-world impact of spreading anti-vaccine messaging to one of the largest podcast audiences in the world during a critical window in the vaccination campaign.

Sources: PolitiFact, Snopes, CNBC, CDC MMWR, Variety, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, NPR, Heavy.com, Hollywood Reporter