Joe Rogan ‘Our Generation’s Larry King’

Joe Rogan is getting high praise from fellow comedian Bill Maher.

The political commentator believes Rogan, who not only provides color commentary for UFC pay-per-view (PPV) events, but also hosts the world’s No. 1 podcast on Spotify, is our generation’s Larry King, but bigger than King ever was with his massive online reach.

“I would argue that Joe Rogan is not like Larry King, but every generation has its own iteration of that,” Maher said (via Club Random podcast). “And certainly there are differences, but huge audience. Bigger than Larry King ever was. He’s not looking for a fight and he’s willing to open the mic to people, even ones that the establishment of some kind or another says, ‘How dare you let that person speak!’ I would say he’s our generation’s Larry King, in the same way there was Carson and then Letterman, Leno, then it moved to Fallon.”

King was a television and radio host best known for his Larry King Live program on CNN, where the award-winning interviewer spoke to everyone from Vladimir Putin to Snoop Dogg. Similarly, Rogan hosts a wide range of eclectic guests, including those personalities deemed taboo by the “woke” police.

“For what Joe does, he kind of opens that mic like Larry did,” Maher continued. “Elon Musk will do that show, and like, the biggest people in the world because they know of the reach. I just think also Joe earned that. This is just a regular guy smarter than the average bear, but is not gonna be intimidated first of all, by you saying, ‘don’t platform this guy or don’t listen to this.’ And will let anybody speak and usually has a common sense view of it, of his own. You know, he’s a little to the right of where I am on things.”

King died in 2021 at age 87 and conducted over 50,000 mainstream interviews throughout his career.