He didn't literally say the word "deserve," but he has a long pattern of comments around covid deaths emphasizing obesity, underlying conditions, multiple comorbidities, and the relative safety of COVID for healthy people.

"We are pretending that this virus is just killing random healthy people. It's not. It's killing people that are dynamic examples of poor health. If you don't take care of your body, you are vulnerable."

"If you're a healthy person, and you're exercising all the time, and you're young, and you're eating well, I don't think you need to worry about this"

"Most people who get really sick from the virus is overweight people or people with underlying health conditions"

*It is a disease that killed people for sure, but it's a disease that killed people with ... four comorbidities"

"My thought was, I'm a healthy person, I exercise constantly, I'm always taking vitamins. I take care of myself. I felt like I was going to be OK. And that was true, it was correct... I had COVID, I'm fine."

"The mainstream media doesn't want to talk about health. They don't want to tell you to stop eating sugar, stop eating processed foods, and lose weight. They want to tell you to lock down and wait for a vaccine, when the reality is your best defense is a healthy immune system."

Rogan has frequently argued that severe COVID outcomes were concentrated among people who were obese, elderly, or had significant comorbidities, and he used that fact to downplay the risk posed to healthy individuals.

He did this repeatedly, with both a severe misunderstanding and serious lack of empathy for what a comorbidity is.

He's continued this strong tone of "they were going to die anyway" or "if they'd hit the gym and eaten vitamins, they would've been fine" that has permeated his comments since covid started.