(The HIll) – Howard Stern is embracing being called “woke,” saying he wants “to be awake.”
“I kind of take that as a compliment, that I’m ‘woke,’” the SiriusXM host told listeners of his eponymous show on Monday in response to a YouTube personality applying the term to him.
“To me, the opposite of woke is being asleep,” Stern, 69, said. “And if woke means I can’t get behind [former President Trump], which is what I think it means, or that I support people who want to be transgender, or I’m for the vaccine — dude, call me woke as you f—ing want,” Stern exclaimed.
“I’m not for stupidity,” he continued, saying he recently received the latest updated COVID-19 vaccine.
“F—in’ science. This f—ing country is so great,” he said.
“I am woke, motherf—er. And I love it.”
“I want to read legitimate news sources. Here’s how woke I am: I believe the election was not rigged,” Stern said Trump’s unfounded claims of mass electoral fraud in the 2020 presidential race.
“I’m woke. I think that’s a compliment,” added Stern, who frequently hosted Trump as a guest on his radio show before the New York real estate developer entered politics.
In the past, the veteran broadcaster referred to Trump as a friend, but Stern grew increasingly critical of the 45th commander in chief during his presidency, slamming him for his administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
“These guys who I see on the internet who say they’re not woke, but they seem to be really angry, super against gay people — especially transgender,” Stern said.
“Am I for kids being able to read about anything in school? Yeah, I am. I don’t give a s— what kids read,” he said of book bans in Republican-led states.
“Give me vaccines, man. I’m all for it,” the “Howard Stern Comes Again” author said.
“I like being woke, if that’s what woke means,” he told listeners.
“So I guess somewhere the rap is I used to be good, but now I’m woke,” Stern added, before concluding, “I think I always was awake.”
A USA Today-Ipsos poll released in March found that the majority of Americans — 56 percent — had a positive association with the term “woke,” understanding it to mean to “be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices.”