Cenk Uygur Ridicules Joe Rogan and Bill Maher for Their ‘Classy’ Strategy of Making Fun of Fat People

Zachary LeemanApr 13th, 2022, 12:23 pm
 
Cenk Uygur Targets 'Conservatives' for Going After Obese People

Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Politicon

Young Turks founder and CEO Cenk Uygur has accused “conservatives” of taking on a “classy” strategy in their Covid-19 arguments: making fun of fat people.

In a Wednesday tweet, Uygur name-checked Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL), as well as podcaster Joe Rogan and, oddly, comedian and longtime vocal liberal Bill Maher.

“The new trend among conservatives like @mattgaetz, @RepMTG, @joerogan and @billmaher is to make fun of overweight people while feigning concern about their health,” Uygur wrote. “They’re blaming #Covid deaths on them and mocking them as the real problem in America. Classy, as always.”

The reference to Rogan and Maher stems from a recent discussion on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast where the two men discussed the extremes of modern cultural body positivity as well as obesity putting people in a higher risk category for Covid-19.

“Body positivity now is a term and it’s not positivity, that’s positively Orwellian!” Maher said. The HBO host clarified he was speaking about people whose health is at risk, but their weight is seen as an “alternate lifestyle.”

Rogan, who often discusses health and fitness on his podcast, agreed with Maher, and the two have since inspired some pushback on social media, including from Uygur.

In one reply to Uygur’s post, an old tweet was presented to him where he shared a Raw Story post referring to Republican Chris Christie “protecting his own fat ass.”

While that tweet is from 2013, a 2020 tweet from Uygur consists of him celebrating Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) referring to former President Donald Trump as “morbidly obese.”

“@SpeakerPelosi calling @realDonaldTrump ‘morbidly obese’ is the type of substance-free, high profile thing that she does to get a lot of credit from the #Resistance crowd without actually supporting anything progressive. Still, this one was very well played! Really enjoyed it,” he tweeted at the time. Both tweets remain up as of this writing.

Uygur’s tweet also refers to Rogan and Maher as “conservatives,” though both men have pushed back against the claim before. Rogan voted Libertarian in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, and Maher has accused liberals of simply going too far for him not to criticize them.

“It’s not me who’s changed, it’s the left. A large contingent has gone mental, and I’m willing to call them out,” Maher said in January on his show.

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Zachary Leeman

Zachary Leeman covered pop culture and politics at outlets such as Breitbart, LifeZette, BizPac Review, HollywoodinToto, and others. He is the author of the novel Nigh. He joined Mediaite in 2022.