NBC canceled Norm Macdonald’s appearance on “The Tonight Show” Tuesday after he made comments defending several entertainers accused of wrongdoing, including Louis C. K. and Roseanne Barr.

He later apologized, but on Wednesday, while discussing the controversy, he gave it new life by telling Howard Stern, “You’d have to have Down syndrome” not to feel sorry for the victims of sexual abuse.

The original remarks came in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in which Mr. Macdonald, the former “Saturday Night Live” cast member who has a Netflix talk show debuting on Friday, said he was “happy the #MeToo movement has slowed down a little bit.” He criticized a lack of “forgiveness” for the performers who had “all their work in their entire life being wiped out in a single day, a moment.”

Louis C. K., a comedian who wrote the foreword for Mr. Macdonald’s 2016 book, “Based on a True Story,” was accused of sexual misconduct by five women. Ms. Barr, who gave Mr. Macdonald one of his earliest writing jobs, on “Roseanne,” lost her rebooted show on ABC after a racist tweet in May.