Diddy Pardon? Tapper’s Book BOMBS & Woke Culture BACKFIRES w/ Stephen A. Smith | PBD Podcast | Ep. 594
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I think I've ever said this before.

So about a week and a half ago, we're doing a podcast and we have a friend of ours that reacts to Vinny and says certain things about Vinny. Rob, if you can play this, because we just got to open it up. Go for it, Rob. Here's what Steve and I have to say about Vinny. Go ahead, Rob. Vinny, respectfully, specifically on this particular topic. I don't give a shit what you give a shit. I'm going to say it twice so we know that I wasn't stuttering.

I don't give a shit what you give a shit about. You can pause it right there. We have Stephen A. Smith in the house. How you doing? I'm in here. What's up, Benny? What's up, baby? Chilling? What's up, y'all? So a lot's happened since the last time we had you on. Obviously, we've spoken many times. You got the contract. You got all this stuff going on. You know, you're on the list ahead of Kamala Harris on some polls about running for president 2028. Right.

Thank God. And some big announcements being made today, apparently, which is big. Yeah. I'm going to be returning back to SiriusXM Radio. That's sick. Congrats. Congrats. Thank you. I appreciate it. And I'm going to be returning back to SiriusXM doing a sports show daily from 1 to 3 p.m. on Mad Dog Sports Radio, leading into Mad Dog and his 3 to 6 p.m. drive-time show. And then after that, my show will re-air from 6 to 8 p.m., and that's every weekday. And then at least once a week...

in all likelihood on the POTUS channel, I'll have my own political show. POTUS channel. That's right. That's exciting. That'll be, I'll be doing my own political show on the POTUS channel. And that will, you know, from a video perspective, it'll be airing on my own YouTube channel, which is still live, which is on Stephen A. Smith channel. And I like the fact that it's three years, because in three years, in case you decide to get another job. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I like it. I love it. Listen, these are the stories we're going to be going through. I got some questions for you. We covered that. Obviously, a lot going on with Ukraine, the bombing, 40 Russian bombers yesterday. And with all the stuff that's going on there, there's stories about Pompeo being in Ukraine. You got Lindsey Graham being in Ukraine. You got Blumenthal being in Ukraine. A lot of weird things going on. And so people are speculating.

Vinny's got some thoughts on this. There's another story about L.A. City Council passes budget that firms police fire spending. And then you got this Chris Cuomo shrugs off illegal immigrants, murdering Americans as an artificial issue. Completely made up. Vinny's got some thoughts on it. But this is a friend of ours. Maybe we'll react to that as well. And then Trump awards first ever medals of sacrifice to follow a law enforcement officer. I don't know if he saw the reaction of the daughter of whose father died.

Did you see this? He's recognizing the daughter whose father passed away in the line of fire. And you should see the way she reacts and what she says afterwards. You have to watch this. You've not seen this. I have not seen it. I am so glad you're going to react to this. It's such an interesting take.

You know, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer moves UK military into war fighting readiness. Why? No one knows. That's NATO. We'll talk about that. Lawsuit accuses Zion of rape, years of abuse. Again, we'll see what you have to say about that. Paris erupts in celebration. Riots after PSU wins Championship League. Stats.

Stephen A. Smith says Deion Sanders was devastated by Shador's 2025 NFL draft slide. I'm actually curious to know what you know about that and how it went about because everybody was following the story to see what was going to happen. Everybody was surprised what happened there. But if there is a family that's a mentally tough family, it's these guys. I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on this. Then World Boxing apologizes for naming...

Olympic champion Imane Khalif in sex test policy that just recently came out. And then you said something about you don't like the idea of pardoning Diddy, Trump pardoning Diddy. And 50 Cent said some stuff on there. We'll address that issue. Caitlin Clark, I really want to ask you about Caitlin Clark. Some numbers came out. I'm curious to know what you're going to say.

Then we got the Jake Tapper situation. This guy went out there, you know, revealing what he knew about Biden. And ever since he revealed that, not only did the book flop, but his show has flopped. It's almost like the audience is sitting there saying, I don't believe you. I don't trust what you have to say.

We'll talk about that. Anthony Edwards, look, you know, he said something in the interview. I know some of you guys maybe not be following basketball, but in the interview after they lost, they're like, so how do you feel right now? I'm 23 years old. I got a lot of playing to do. Sitting next to Connolly that's in his mid to late 30s, only got a couple seasons left to play, hoping to get his first championship.

I wonder what, if you have anything on how to market his view on Anthony. Is he going to be the next face of the league? We'll talk about that inside the NBA with the whole being the ending of it, Barkley, all of that. I'm just happy I know most of this. You know what I'm saying? Because it's not like you prepped me for the subjects we was going to be tackling. I got to be ready for this. You're a professional. You stay ready. Then I'll give you one that you know nothing about. Palantir. No, I'm not going to. Palantir.

Anyways, but by the way, you know, before we get into it, that I saw you acting and I, Rob, let's do this. For those of you that believe the future looks bright and you go to the gym and you want to sport the gear and be part of the community that represents future looks bright. Here's a new gear that came out. Athletic wear of future looks bright with our models. And guess who's in it? Vinny, Rob going to play the court. Steven, don't give a shit about what I'm doing. Hey, hey, hey, hey.

Those are 85-pound dumbbells. Okay, Nati. A good camera worker. The second one right there is what you kids should have kept the video. It's Natalia. Oh. Great personality on that girl. There she goes. Sick. Looks good. Yeah, we remember her. Yeah. We remember her.

All right, go to vtmarish.com. Place the order, first 100, and you're going to get an I Love You T-shirt. Brother could be struggling from amnesia and remember that. It's just the truth. It's just the truth. I'm just talking the truth. Again, vtmarish.com. All right, let's get right into it. A couple stories here. Let's get right into it. Natalia got a big shout-out to start off. Love it. God bless her. Let's get right into it. All right, first one I want to get into with you is Jake Tapper. All right? Yeah. CNN star Jake Tapper squirms when asked how much money he's making from Biden cover-up

He took part in. So here's the interview, Rob, if you have a play this clip, and then we're going to talk about some of the book sales, a bust, you know, what happened with it. And I'm curious to know what you have to say about this. Go ahead, Rob. In terms of the left, it's a money grab. I mean,

That's not the case. It's not. This is, I don't want to get into where my money comes from, but CNN is my main job and that's where my main source of income by far. Very few people write books to make money. You write a book because you want to say something, you want to have a legacy, you want to uncover something, you have a message you want to get out there.

I don't think people write books about Joe Biden to make money. We are gratified that people are buying this book. That's a good point. But I don't think...

I mean, the idea that I would do this for money is just silly and not true. All right, so you can pause that. Who's his publisher, Pat? For a guy like that, you get a multi-seven-figure deal. Jake Capra doesn't get a small advance. He gets a big advance. Now, here's the numbers. When you look at what's going on, and when he says, I make most of my money from CNN, he does make a good amount of money from CNN. But the book, they did pay him very well. CNN pays him, I think, $7 million a year.

is his 2024 contract. He's making roughly $7 million a year. So let's go through this on his book, how it did. Rob, what page do we have that on? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That is page 13. Okay, let me go to page 13 to see how his book did. Okay, so here's some data on how the book did. Jake Tapper's book sales a bust. Rating dropped a decade low. Book original saying co-author with Axios reporter Alex Thompson sold 57,000 units in its first week despite heavy promotion. A figure dwarfed by Bob Woodward's fear of

Trump in the White House, which sold 1.1 million copies in its first week, as reported by publishers Simon & Schuster. The article notes Tapper's attempt to exonerate the regime media and the Democratic Party for covering up former Biden's mental decline failed to resonate even with Democrats. Due to Tapper's lack of credibility, the lead with Jake Tapper on CNN saw a 25% viewership drop, averaging 525,000 total viewership from April 28th to May 25th.

The lowest since 2015. That is 10 years ago. Capturing only 11% of the cable news audience share compared to MSNBC's 21%. Fox is 68%. Stephen A., what do you think went wrong here? I think that when you see, first of all, it started with MSNBC. Let's call it what it is. Once Trump won the election, you should be pleased with what I'm about to say, Vinny. Once Trump won the election, a message was sent. We heard everything that y'all had to say. We weren't buying it.

But when you saw the reversal, the mea culpas, the Morning Joes going to Mar-a-Lago and others, we're like, see, nobody's hearing it. Feed into what you were saying about what we're not buying. And then unlike the typical voter out there, you are the news networks. Folks were relying upon you to deliver the goods. And when you come out with a book in the aftermath of the election,

saying that you interviewed nearly 200 people, almost all of them Democrats, and you talked about what you discovered. The reality is, is that the people that have turned against the network, the people that have turned against the news, the people that have turned against him, if that is indeed the case, it's easy to surmise that what they're saying is there's no way in hell we believe that you just found that out after the election. Mm-hmm.

We believe you knew it before the election and you didn't tell us. Now, that's not me saying it. It's not you saying it. It's not. Hell, it's not even Vinny at this particular moment. It's I'm saying it. It's folks that were watching the viewer, the viewers who were watching you, because what other explanation can there possibly be if you're a leftist?

And that's the kind of content that they were giving you on MSNBC or CNN. If you were watching this particular show or this particular host, why would you suddenly stop? You would stop because of the election. That's plausible. But months after the election, all of a sudden you notice a precipitous drop off. The drop off would have been in the immediate aftermath of the election where, you know, it's November 5th. And now from that point forward, boom.

But in this particular instance, according to the reports, the drop-off came when the book came, even more so.

And because that's the reality, there's nothing else to deduce from that. So, okay, let me ask you this other question for you. So let's compare you to Jake real quick, okay? You got Bill Maher. I'll give a couple names. It's mainly you and Bill Maher. Let's put those two in the same category. Sure. And then let's put Jake and Acosta. Who else do you want to put? Put a couple of these guys in this other category. Mm-hmm.

All of you voted for the same person pretty much. Okay? Yeah. You didn't vote for Trump. No, I did not. You did not vote for Trump. Okay. What happened to your market where four months, not four months, six months? It's been seven months since the election, November 5th, right? Let's say seven months. Okay.

Your viewership is skyrocketing. You just signed multi-million dollar deal with Disney ESPN. You're getting your show going on your YouTube, all over the place. You're on the list now, Rob. You can pull it up on Democratic candidates for 2028. Stephen A. Smith put it on the list. You see now all of a sudden being talked about in a top four. I've seen multiple lists where you're number two, number three, number four. Some are saying you're 7%, 18%, 12%. It's all over the place. Why did you all of a sudden spike?

And start gaining that credibility, even though you voted for Kamala. You didn't vote for Trump. Why are some of these guys getting hammered? Because I'm not perceived as being full of shit. That's why. See, I can argue with Vinny. I can argue with you all day. I can do that. But...

I'm telling you what I feel based on what I believe the issues are and what I believe we should be focused on. You know, Vinny might be like you talk about the borders. The borders matter to me. I was never for open borders. You understand? I'm about an economy. I'm about a strong national defense. I'm about those things. My issue against Trump.

Was simply I don't like the way that he acts and I don't trust that the polarizing figure that he is would ever be remotely interested in trying to bring us together. It was going to be more division. Whereas I looked at a person like Kamala Harris and I said to myself, it's not really about her. I believe a strong House and a strong Senate could compel her.

to operate across the aisle and get her to do some things. I might have been wrong in that thinking, but that's what I was thinking. You have others that if it's a MSNBC, if it's a CNN, I'm just giving out those names because it's clear what they were doing.

They leaned and tilted strongly to the left. And their objective clearly appeared to be to keep this man from regaining office. The difference between me and them is I would have looked you in the camera and told you exactly how I felt about them. And then when I started doing my reporting and interviewing somebody, I would have been right down the middle. How I feel has nothing to do with doing my job.

I could feel, yo, I don't like this dude. I'm not going to vote for him. And I'm not saying that I didn't feel those things. You know, I know you said, I said some things about Trump that I actually did not say. I've known Trump for years. We were cool. Trump, we would go to his properties, watch boxing matches. We see him at the basketball games. You know, people, I said, I don't like how he's acting. If he does something that I thought was racially insensitive, I would call it out. Never called him racist. Never compared them to Hitler. Never called them a Nazi or anything like that. No, I knew this man. I,

How the hell you gonna turn around and talk about him like that? My whole point is I always said if I saw him in the face, I would look him in the face. Why are you doing this? Why are you acting this way? You know you're ruffling feathers. You're being polarizing. Is that really necessary? Damn it, get it together. I would have said that to him, to his face. So I'm on News Nation with Cole Hall, and everybody starts laughing because it's my turn to talk to him. And he says, hey, Steven.

It's been a long time. And then all of a sudden, like, oh, they really do know each other. Yeah, because we used to talk all the time. So I've never talked about them like that. But my point is, even if I felt that way,

I'm still going to look in the camera and think about my obligation to my audience to be fair and as informed and as neutral as I possibly can in disseminating the information. You have too many people out there in our business that went away from the tenets of what our business is purportedly about, and they engaged in partisanship. You had people on the air hosting shows that

literally trying to get him unelected or not reelected. You can't do that because once you've made that decision, I can't trust your reporting. And that is what I believe is happening. Fair or unfair to Jake Tapp, I'll leave that for somebody else to judge. The joy reads of the world and others. In the end, when you do that, you compromise yourself. Is it 100% that in 2028, if you run, you will run as a Democrat?

The only reason I say that is because I don't think that I'd have a snowball's chance in hell of running as a Republican. I think J.D. Vance, the Marco Rubios of the world, even the Ron DeSantis of the world have that on lock, number one. Number two, the party is not as in disarray as the Democratic Party. Number three, even though I'm a centrist and I'm a registered independent who would not hesitate, by the way, to vote, I would have voted for Nikki Haley.

I would have voted for Nikki Haley. If Ron DeSantis hadn't pissed me off with the whole slavery, there's good parts about slavery comment. I might have voted for him. That was my issue with him. Trump, obviously, it's his behavior more so than anything else. But I had no problem with Nikki Haley. I'm friends with Governor Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey. He and I talk all the time. I've known him. So I look at that and their party is not as much in disarray.

In my perfect world, to answer your question, if a third party had a chance of winning an election, that would be the way that I go because I don't like leaning far right or left, and I think both sides pull you dramatically in their direction. Okay, so there's a poll that came out. Can you pull up the Harry Enten, whatever the video was that we watched today where he's showing –

you know, what happened with the Democratic Party, how, you know, since 1989, Democrats were always seen as the one for middle America. Look what happened. I don't know if you saw this poll or not. Yes, I did. Okay, go ahead and play this clip, Rod. Go for it.

After all of the waves, Kate Baldwin, after the last few months, the first five months of the Donald Trump presidency, right, the first four months of the Donald Trump presidency, that you expect that Democrats are going to have this massive lead on the economy. It ain't so. It ain't so. The party that is closest to your economic views, in November of 2023, it was the Republicans by 11 points. Now it's still within that range, still within that margin of error. Can you go to the chart that shows...

Advantage for middle America. That's mainly what I want to keep going. Go back a little bit. Go back a little bit. Go back a little bit. Go back. Okay, let him go from here. Watch this. Go for it.

key issue of the day which is the party of the middle class has been a huge advantage for democrats i have polling from nbc going all the way back since 1989 when democrats had a 23 point advantage 2016 17 but by this decade we already started seeing declines back in 2022 where you saw that democrats led but only by four points well within the margin of error and now in our latest cnn poll among registered voters which is the party of the middle class it is

This, I think, speaks to Democratic ills more than anything else. They have traditionally been the party of the middle class. No more. Donald Trump and the Republican Party have taken that mantle away, and now a key advantage for Democrats historically has gone adios amigos, and now there is no party that is the party of the middle class. Republicans have completely... Adam said it best. A billionaire has more support from the middle class than the other side. So here's my question for you, Stephen A. Yes, sir. So...

2028, say you run. What are your top five values that you're running for in specific order? Me personally, the economy is always number one. And if you don't mind, let me tell you a really, really quick story. So I grew up poor in the streets of New York City, fellas. Queens, New York, stuff like that. And I've never been able to afford a home.

So in 2001, I bought my first home. It's in South Jersey. I'm not thinking about some of these issues. You know, I'm just happy to get you to make a little paper. And, you know, I got a mortgage now. I pay mortgage. And I could write off my mortgage, write off my property, whatever, right? And this rap artist, I'm not going to say his name, was living in the neighborhood.

He comes over to me. Oh, damn, Stephen. I'm right for the Phillip. I read you all the time. I just saw you on Comcast. I love you, dog. I love you, man. Keep it up, man. Keep it up. And I looked at him and went like this. Yeah, man, I appreciate it. But are you going to mow your grass? Because his grass was like, it was like a farm. I mean, it's six feet high. You bring it down the neighborhood. I never once thought.

About somebody bringing down a neighborhood. You literally remember that till today. I'll never forget it because I was looking at it like I've never thought about it until I purchased a home. Once I purchased a home and they start talking about the neighborhood and property value and property tax. I'm like, that's not good for us. What are you doing? I'm saying to you is that the lesson that I peel from that is the more you have, the more you value.

And the more you value, the more you pay attention to what value others place on things. And it provides a scope of how you should look at things. Ownership. That's right. So the ownership and all that stuff. And so as a result of that, the mentality is, think about the problems that we have throughout the streets of America and beyond. If more had, more would be leery of messing it up. And as a result, folks would act better because they got something to lose.

The real problem that we have in our society is they've got too many people with nothing to lose. And so that's how I view it. And that's why the economy would be number one. Okay. The economy would be number one. That puts the border at number two, because the border, whether we want to admit it or not, could catastrophically affect an economy. When you think about California,

And their version of Medicaid, you understand, and how they've lost billions of their billions in the hole because they spent so much money in that they used Medicaid money to take care of illegal immigrants.

Well, that's problematic because now you got problems in the state that you can't fix because you don't have the funds because the funds that you did have, you utilized for people who weren't American citizens. So I'm like, wait a minute. That drastically affects the economy. Can't forget that. Of course, number three on my list is safety. Safety in the streets of America. Let me tell you something right now.

I hate to say this, because as a black man, we don't want... The incarceration rate, the discrepancy that exists, we pay attention to that. We recognize issues like recidivism and stuff like that. We understand it all. But you think some of these GOP members or even Trump himself is bad. You don't want me in office. Let me tell you something. You're going to throw your ass in jail. Oh, you're going to be in jail. You ain't going to be committing crimes and getting out the same day. That's not going to happen. I'm not telling you that...

There isn't police brutality. I don't pay attention to it. I'm not saying that. So it would be Stephen A. Bukele. Don't get me wrong. You're not going to be shooting unarmed black folks. You're not going to be shooting unarmed anybody, okay? You're not going to be a rogue law enforcement official. But if you take a vow to protect and serve and you live by that as a law enforcement official, you will have my support. We don't throw your ass in jail. And I don't want you killing anybody, but I don't mind you kicking a few people's ass.

Because sometimes people do. Like, when I saw the riots in the streets, one of my proudest moments was when I saw this kid, I think it was in Missouri, and he was out there protesting and throwing stuff at the police officers or whatever. And out of the crowd, you saw this woman come and just hit him with haymakers, and it was his mama. It was his mama. Like, what the hell are you doing? That's my mother.

God rest her soul. That was my mother. You respect law enforcement. You obey law enforcement. You know, you get pulled over. There's been plenty of times that I've been pulled over and I didn't think I deserved it. You understand? But I also know I speed a lot. So this particular time I wasn't speeding. Hell, they got me all the times I got away with not getting stopped for speeding, right? What's the first thing I do? I roll all four windows down. Smart. I put my hands on the steering wheel. Yes, sir.

You know what I'm saying? Sir, you got your license, whatever. It's in my wallet. You got your shoes. It's in my glove compartment. May I get it? Or I get it before they get there and make sure all four words are done. You're law enforcement. You can't be. Like, you remember Tyreek Hill got into trouble. And I'm on the air. I'm on the air. And I went like this. It was excessive what they did to him because of them noticing that he was no longer a threat.

But I wanted to fast forward. I rather rather wanted to rewind back to the initial process. The initial process was you wrote the police officer rolled up on you. You had your windows up. He specifically said to you, roll those windows down and you made him wait. Oh, hell no.

And I'm thinking it's like this kids out there, black, Hispanic, white, otherwise do not follow that advice. When you roll, when the police roll up on you, if they pulled you over, obviously they need you to roll down your window. It

They shouldn't even have to ask for that. They should roll up to the window and your window should be down. Now, if it's pouring rain in or something like that, damn it, let you get under a bridge or something so you ain't soaking or whatever. But you don't do stuff like that. So those are the kind of things. We got the economy. We got immigration. We got safety in the streets. What's four or five? National security. Okay. You know what I'm saying? National security. I'm big on that. I like a strong military. I like peace through strength. I believe in that.

Okay? And I would say, I don't want to miss anything, so if I'm wrong about this, I didn't. But foreign affairs matters, because I'm not a nationalist. I'm more of a globalist. I'm a nationalist first. I don't mind America first. I don't like America only. I don't like us acting like we don't want to deal with anything from anywhere else, like we're the only one with minerals. We're the only one with technology. We're the only one with anything. That's just not true. And so because of that,

You know, be expansive. Be as worldly as you possibly can be. Have more allies than enemies. Just so you know, none of these policies are policies of the left. I'm aware. Four out of five. I'm aware. But here's what you're missing. Here's what you're missing about me and what I keep saying about the Democratic Party. Yeah. The reason why I would never win, as you would say, because you always tell me I'll never win. Not on the line. They will eat you up alive. They will eat me alive, right? What I'm saying to you is...

They're getting eaten alive. They're rotting before our very eyes. And what I would do, I would be on a mission to change the party. It won't let you. Okay, that's fine. But you want to know why? Let me tell you why. And by the way, remember this. For us, you and I, we will have conversations all the time, and it's a very open conversation where you can call out channels. All the time. It's respect. All the time. The conversation is open borders. Let me explain to you why, though. Let me explain to you why, though. Here's why. My concern is,

My concern is the left, look what they did to Bernie. Okay? Look what they did to so many candidates that were about to beat them, and they come in and they say, no, it's not your turn, it's my turn. Right? At least on the right...

There is if you come in and you compete and you go they'll allow you to compete and get your that's true Totally true the left will do whatever they can Glenn Greenwald comes out and says something about you know He was on a podcast with the next day. They're dropping videos about him You know stuff that he's doing my only concern is that but even forget about that because there's a part of it You know I don't want to forget about that No, I'm gonna come back to that, but let me tell you what even even above that you know above that for me is

If you give this message and only 30% of the Democratic Party resonates with this, you're not even going to get past a lot of these other guys. Because even when you watch right now Jasmine Crockett, right? Even when you watch right now AOC's position, even when you watch some of their positions on what they're doing, right? Even when you watch what... Gavin Newsom. Well, I think Newsom is also, you're more reasonable. You're reasonable. You're not even more reasonable. You're reasonable.

To me, a person like you, if it comes to the Republican side and you run as a center right, not as a right. Like imagine like a Tulsi or a position like that, right? Kasich? Like Kasich, yeah. I think you would shine more than you could imagine. I think you would shine more than imagine. But also I think you would have a shot at being a –

You know, it would be a different kind of a brand that we've not seen before. It's not going to be something that we've seen before. Let me confess to you that I was really, really hoping you didn't go there because I didn't want to answer this question because I know what I'm going to say. But I'm going to say it because you're my man. Here's the deal. None of those candidates are me. Now,

I have no desire. I just told y'all I just signed with Sirius XM. I got ESPN. I make some good money. I'm living in the best city in the world, Miami. You're living in Miami now. The greatest ever in the game. The vert in the way, I can't thank you enough. We talked about it. You know, he's one of the people that I confided in.

a lot during my negotiations, just in terms of his business acumen, his temperament, his mentality towards, you know, one step after another, after another. There were very, very few people that I communicated with, and Patrick Bette David was one of them. I cannot thank you enough from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate it. I will tell you, the life that I'm living is good, but when you talk about those candidates getting back to that discussion, none of them are me. Bernie Sanders, God bless him.

I understand who he is, but he's also a socialist, essentially. That'll never work in America. Never. Number one, number two, three and four. They can talk all they want to. They don't have my voice. What I mean by that is I'm not talking about you being well known. I'm not talking about you campaigning. I'm talking about what you do every day as a lift for a living. See, they're going to come to you when they're campaigning. I'm around, period. This is what I do.

So when you talk about a radio, you talk about a voice on radio. Well, I have that. You talk about a voice on television. I have that. You talk about your own pockets. Well, I have that. Wait, where am I going? So any time you try to attack, you have to think about the rebuttal I'm going to throw in your direction. And I think that I have proven throughout my career I can resemble a tsunami raining down upon your ass any time I want to.

And that's for sports figures. That's for people in social commentary. These are politicians. What a racket to attack. We got a $37 trillion deficit in this country. Okay? Y'all had nothing to do with that? I didn't. But you did. You talking about policies involving the border. I didn't have anything to do with that. You did. You talking about our economy and inflation ravaging us at that particular moment in time when Biden was in office. I didn't have anything to do with that. You did. You did.

The streets and crime going on in the streets and people getting off and times not, you know, law enforcement being compromised when you got police officers retiring. I didn't do that. You did that. When you talk about tens of millions of people that are either victims

off healthcare, off Medicaid or Medicare, right? And you're talking about those things because, again, Obama, Obamacare was essentially a tax. We keep forgetting that the Supreme Court ruled on that and that was a tax, right? So you had that going on. And now that you're talking about veering away from that, which Trump obviously intends to do or whatever, when we look at the big, beautiful deal and all of this other stuff coming down, you're talking about tens of millions of people that are going to end up off of healthcare. I didn't do that. Y'all did that. So you have a record to attack, right?

I don't. So I look at them and I say, you really want some? Come get some. I'm not trying to run for office or anything like that. But I'm very confident that if I were to elect to, I would be formidable enough where I could get on that debate stage. And once that happened, I can only say this to you. I can't imagine any moment in my life that I would be have or would have been more prepared for than I would now.

for the debate stage for a presidential election. You might not see me for a couple of months. I would hunker down and I would master every issue imaginable and I would be more ready than I have ever been in my life just for that moment. That would be the Super Bowl for me. That would be a game seven of an NBA finals or a World Series. That would be everything. And I

I believe that if the American people saw me and I was going up against those folks, what are you going to say to say to defend your actions? And as media members, you got to be careful how you come, because if you're CNN or MSNBC and you have a preferred candidate, who would notice it quicker than me? If you're on the right, same principle, who would notice it?

These are the kind of things, because I know the industry. I know the executives in the industry. I know what they're thinking and how they're thinking. I know what maneuvers they'll practice. I kind of know this. So I'm like, I'm not into it like that because I'm living a pretty good life. But they keep getting on my damn nerves. Who knows what I might do?

Yeah, I mean, I understand what you're saying. And, you know, on stage, I think you'll shine on eyeballs and already a status of followership. You're ahead of everybody on that side. All of those things are fine. But there's an element of values and principles that right now America is going more and more and more away from trusting the Democratic Party. Right. More and more away. That's trusting anybody on the Democratic Party.

For example, think about it this way. You're famous for saying what? Weed. You know, when you do that thing. Stay off the weed. You are not for players smoking weed. How long have you been saying that? I'm not for players losing their money smoking weed. One of my best friends is Snoop Dogg. Nobody smokes more weed than him. Nobody. Yeah. Okay? I've never once asked him to stop smoking weed. No. Okay. So if right now we all start smoking weed right now, would you stay in this room?

We all start smoking weed right now. That's a tough question because, first of all, I don't mind a contact high every night. It doesn't bother me. I wouldn't join you, but I wouldn't mind. And listen, we got a show to do. I got an obligation. I'm going to do it. Now, if it got too strong for me, I might step up and leave, but I might try to do it. Let me ask you a question. As long as I ain't doing it. How many days in a row could you do that? How many days in a row could you go with being around us with smoking weed? How many days? Let's just say your job every day. No, I wouldn't do that. How many days would you do it?

Five? Five days. Maybe. Eventually you're going to be like, I don't know if I want this job. Okay. Right. So check this out. This is kind of where I'm going with this. You ever gone on vacation with a group of people and say to them you've gone on vacation before. The other two you never have. Right. And the first day like, hey, what's up, John? Hey, Mary. Hey, what's up, Jack? Hey, what's up? You know, it's your buddy. Yeah. First day, what?

It's kind of weird. Second day. I get where you're going. But let me tell you where I'm going with this. All of us seem like, dude, I can't be around these guys for too long. We simply don't share common values. So would you consider yourself a manipulator? No. Would you consider yourself a persuader? Yes. How long can you be around manipulators and realize I am not willing to manipulate to get what I want and you guys are? That is a very fair question. Here's my answer. Not long. But my point is...

I'd eviscerate them. I want you out. See, you can't say that that's impossible when we've seen Trump.

pull off what was once deemed impossible. Sure. Yeah. We know his past, his proclivities and the kind of stuff that would normally not get somebody elected. Right. A Gary Hart, you know, didn't, didn't get elected a John Edwards for whatever reason, didn't get elected. Bill Clinton was in office, but had to go through being impeached and all of this other stuff because of the blue dress and the stains and all of this. I mean, come on now. I mean, we we've seen it and we never dreamed in our wildest dreams that

That somebody like Trump could ever get into the White House. That's why you have so many. There's I think it was. Is it Anna Navarro that. Yes. That was the view in CNN. What I remember most about her was her breaking out in extreme laughter at the thought that Trump could be president. Like to me, you will never get that will never erase Trump.

from the minds of somebody who saw that because you were a political pundit. So the mentality is we may not know better, but you were supposed to. You were supposed to at least know enough to know that he could be a threat.

And she missed that. That could happen to me. That could happen to anybody. But it did happen to her. And so I think that there are people that hold that against her. Not me, but I think there are people that hold it against her. I'm just simply saying when you have a party that is acting the way that you say, that you've highlighted, that is the way that you've highlighted.

It's not working for them. One big difference. You would be absolutely right if the polls gave an indication that it's something close. They're plummeting before our eyes. The nation is telling you that what we've seen, they're siding with Vinny. They're saying that. And so if that's the state of the Democratic Party, I think they're in a world of trouble and...

Who knows who can break through for them? Okay, so here's the only difference. Here's the only difference. And then we can skip to the next topic to discuss other items. We'll go to other things to cover here. Sure. The difference with Trump when he came out is, you know, Americans wanted closed borders. Americans wanted, you know, to make it safer. Americans wanted...

those strong values and principles to be taking place. Americans wanted that, right? And Republicans wanted that. - Right. - And the party's like, "Who is this guy?" And they're like, "Holy shit, yeah, I'm with it. "This makes sense. "I want this guy," right? And then, "Hey, we're sending all the bad people, "the rapists and da-da-da-da-da-da-da, okay, great." So then they're like, "That's what we're looking for." Today, Sesame Street puts a tweet up for Pride Month, okay?

I want to show you this. So this is Sesame Street. Their account has 1.8 million followers. Yes. Okay. On our street, everyone is welcome. Together, let's build a world where every person, da-da-da-da. Okay, great.

This right here, this tweet, on an account with 1.8 million views, 1.8 million followers. Okay. How many likes do you think it got? You know, this is Twitter. This is X. How many retweets? I have no idea. Just take a wild guess. How many retweets on likes do you think this got? 25,000. 25,000 retweets? Yes. How many likes do you think? I was thinking likes. Okay, say 25,000. Can you show how many likes it got?

Zoom in a little bit. Oh, my Lord. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Stephen A., 24.4 million, 65 retweets, 440,000 likes, 19,000 comments. You don't stand for this. Okay. You don't stand for this. You're a parent. You don't stand for this. I don't want to speak on your behalf. You can challenge me and say I don't. But I've heard you say on the woke stuff, I'm not with it. I'm not with it. Okay, great. So imagine you're on the pulpit, and you're saying we have to put a stop to this.

You know, the woke, they're going to be like, no, we don't want to put a stop to it. No, we don't want to put a stop. That's the difference. But there are differences. Like, for example, I was just recently talking to Megyn Kelly about this. I was talking to her about this recently. I'll say it to y'all. So you're a member of the LGBTQ community, plus community. I'm all for civil rights, civil liberties. I don't think you should be bothered. I don't think you should be harassed. Live and let live. I'm for that. But I'm a black man.

And one of the things that people miss is that black folks in America, we've had to accept coming out of the womb, whether it's right or not, this belief you got to do twice as good to get half as much. You're not going to necessarily be liked by everybody, et cetera, et cetera. We were out for civil rights and civil liberties, not to be liked.

The society that we live in today, where they went too far, was trying to enforce embracement, not acceptance. Do you see the difference? It's like, wait a minute. It's not enough for you to say, look, man, why are you holding them back? Live and let live. What you bothering them for? It wasn't enough. It got to a point where if you didn't speak up and speak out and be full throttle in your support for them and everything they wanted support for,

You were anti. Nah, that's not true. But who said that message? Nobody on the left said it. Nobody on the right said it. You're not talking to people. Wait a minute. If you have a relationship with somebody, okay, it ain't for somebody else to approve or disapprove. Are they bothering you? Live and let live. Live your life.

But when you come and you want to compete, you want to transition from a man to a woman, and you want to compete in women's sports, wait a minute. It ain't about being anti-you. It's about how fair is that to that young lady who was born...

A lady who was born a woman, a female. How fair is that to her? To get in a boxing ring with her. To be 300th or 400th in the world as a man, as a swimmer. And then you transition to woman and you win a national championship. They don't agree with you. I'm just saying. They don't agree with me. No, they don't. But remember something. Everybody has their issue and that's true.

But how many issues are there that you care about? It's not just one. And again, I'm not saying that, listen, Trump won the election. He got 49.8% of the votes. Over 70 million people voted against him. Of course I'm going to have people that disapprove and play the numbers game. Can I say one thing? So, for example, Rob, can you go on ChatGPT and type in the following thing? What are the top five most important issues for a Democratic voter in 2025?

What are the top five most important issues for a Democratic voter in 2025? Okay. I already know the answer. Well, let me just zoom in for you. So this is where I'm going with this. Yours doesn't match with them.

Gun violence. Economic inequality and corporate power. It's different than economic where you're thinking about. Because you're not thinking about economic equality like Bernie Sanders and AOC. You're trying to get people, hey, I'm Stephen, I came from nothing and I made it to the top. Healthcare access and affordability, reproductive rights, climate change. None of these are your five. And that's the voter of the Democratic Party. They don't relate to you and you don't relate to them. But centrist left...

Centrist left do relate to me. Independents do relate to me. And I got news for you. Some folks on the right relate to me. And that's why RFK and Tulsi went to the right. It's the combination. It's the combination of what's going on on the left compared to how strong your candidate is on the right. You got Steve Bannon out there trying to get Trump a third term. Why? I looked at him. I said, what's the affection and the affinity for Trump? What's that about? I said, Marco Rubio...

J.D. Vance, along with a plethora of other candidates, are more than qualified, and they would govern along the same line as Trump. What does he say? He's once in a generation. Well, guess what? If you get two terms, you don't get a third. Somebody other than Trump is in there, and that once-in-a-generation talent is now gone. Well, who's going to replace him? It's not a one-in-a-generation talent. So because of that,

That's where somebody else comes in. And they could steal votes from both sides of the aisle. I made my case. Listen, I made my case. I made my case, dog. I made my case. What I'm going to do for you, I'm going to be in your ear, dog, for the next two years. That's all I'm going to tell you. Can I say one thing? Yeah, go for it. Stephen A., I love you. I'm going to come at you right now. Sure, please. Because you're me two years ago.

Where I've been a Democrat my whole life. My dad was a Clinton guy. He was a JFK Democrat. I was, I loved, you know, Obama was all right, but he was better than McCain. George W. Bush was a disaster. And when Trump showed up, I was like, hell to the no, no, no. And 2020, I was, how much money did I make when I bet everybody that Trump was going to lose on the podcast? Yeah.

And now, how much do you joke about me being like the biggest MAGA guy now? It's out of control. Like, we can disagree with something on Trump. No, I think he's doing the right thing, you know. A lot of the time. He's in a complete different state. And it's been—

But I'll still criticize him when he's doing wrong. It's so liberating to vote for Trump and be like, all right, I agree with the positions. I agree with the policies. I don't like how he talks like that. I don't like this. But there's something different this time. Trump 2.0 versus Trump 1.0. Four years sitting in the wings looking at what's going on here. Everything you said, brother, is my exact five.

The economy, the borders, safety, security, national security, defense, you know, peace through strength and foreign affairs, not basically being an ostrich head in the sand. Bro, you're a Republican. Okay. Straight up.

I'm just telling you. This is my top five of the Democrats. Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. Medicare for all. Abortion. LGBTQA mafia. You're not any of that, bro. You're not any of that. Yeah, I left abortion on my bed. You're a grown-ass man. No men would like a man who likes women. Like, I know you do. I know we do. You're not a Democrat no more. Okay, fair enough. What I'm saying to you is this.

I am pro-life. I'm sorry, I'm pro-choice. Okay. I am pro-choice. But it's not your number one issue. It's not my number one issue. Probably not even your top five. I'm just saying. It's not. Okay. But there's a bunch of women in my life.

And they don't like the fact that their individual choices in their eyes have been compromised. And so, again, I'm not for abortion, but I'm not for telling a woman what to do with her body. That's my belief. I'm not saying it's a top five priority, but that's just how I feel. I get that. That's just how I feel. So that's just an example. But my point to you is this. FYI, Planned Parenthood was built to minimize abortion.

The amount of African-Americans having millions of people. That is totally true. I do know that. That lady couldn't stand African-Americans. Margaret Singer. I do know that. I do know that. That's number one. Number two.

I used to argue with Democrats all the time because I thought they were swinging too far to the left. They're gone. They're so far left. I mean, exactly. And I don't know if I'll ever support them again. I think the party needs to be purged. I've said this. Now, I don't want to be disrespectful to any specific individual Democrats. I like Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania. I've interviewed him. I've spoken to him a few times. I like him. Well,

Wes Moore is my guy, the governor of Maryland. I really, really like that brother. He's somebody, if you haven't had him on here, you should get him on here. If you need me, I'll make a call for you. I mean, that's somebody that you should talk to. And I'm going to tell him he needs to talk to you. I love Wes Moore. These are guys that are more qualified than me, obviously. Most of them are, but I'm saying they're governors,

They're running a state. They know what they're doing. I had the pleasure of interviewing Andrew Cuomo. I'm one of those dudes that it always rubbed me the wrong way when he was thrown. And I know that he messed up with the nursing home stuff, but it always messed with me that these cases were thrown against him. And the second he was out of office, you didn't hear nothing about it.

That really, really bothered me because I was like, so the objective was to get him out of office. And like you pointed out, and I'm saying to you, I'm a guy that believes those people, that infrastructure that needs to be burnt down.

Because they're hurting our country. Because they're not letting and abiding by the wishes of the American people. They're telling you who they want. And compelling folks on their side to pick their candidate. I'm saying all of that needs to change. So if that...

It's going to lead me towards, okay, look, look at how you feel. You're leaning more right than left. I'm not going to oppose that because I'm not beyond voting for a Republican. I'm letting you know that. I'm not, I didn't say, I might've disagreed with you on that one point you would make it about me, but let me be very, very clear. There's a lot of stuff you've said, Vinny, I totally agree with. Totally agree with. I'm not going to sit here and act. I'm talking to this man half the time. This guy,

I'm like, yeah, you got a point. I am friends with Sean Hannity. Sean Hannity and I have known each other for 23 years. We butt heads, we butt heads, we butt heads. But I'd be lying to you to say if I said I was more right than wrong.

I mean, he's usually got the edge on me. This is what he does for a living. So I come with my emotions, and I come with my feelings, and I come with my semblance of facts, and then I'm dealing with a dude that's just a veteran that's been on Fox News for 25 years. Who else do I have on speed dial? Mark Levin. You interviewed a great one one day. Mark Levin and I have known each other for 20 years. Now, they know what my politics are. They know that I'm a bit different than them, but my respect for their knowledge...

and their positions and why they have those positions are hard to dispute. So I'm not averse. I don't get it. But let Sean Hannity try to show up on first take. You're going to run circles around that, too. Yes. Because he doesn't know sports. He needs to stay the hell out of there. He's shooting air balls out of his mouth. He needs to stay the hell out of there. All he knows is T-Bone. Stay on the sidelines. All he knows is T-Bone. So, Steve, and by the way...

I know we said it. It was one thing, and it wasn't about what I'm talking about. When you said, I don't give a shit what you give a shit about. But you know what's crazy? You like saying that. I love it. I give a shit about you, and here's where I'm going. Somebody like you that would run for a president, that's the type of person. Because all the stuff that you listed, that you were saying in the beginning, that's Trump circa 2016. Come in, to hell with everybody, want to make change and do everything. The only concern is that same president

infrastructure, those same people that had like a Trump that to me would be like what you would come in at, they would destroy you with what he's talking about. Because think about it. Anybody that comes in that tries to change the status quo, Stephen, they try to destroy them. Look what they did with Trump. Lawfare, Russia collusion, all that shit. Somebody like you that's going to try to come in with them, they're going to look at you and be like, who the... They will find anything that they can and do everything...

And I'm going to go there. Look at all the ones that actually tried to make a change. JFK, Reagan, Trump. They don't like people like you. You go in there, and I know that you give a damn about this country. I know for a fact, Stephen A. Smith, you are an American. You love this place. We can go back and forth. But I agree with you more than I disagree with you. But this...

system that tried to destroy and kill Trump would go after you the same way that they went after, especially that party. Bernie Sanders was winning the primary. Bernie Sanders was going to be the candidate. It wasn't his turn. And it wasn't his turn. And what they did in South Carolina, they changed the rules and pulled it out from under them. Yes, they did. Even with your voice, even if all the place you can go and your wonderful Republican positions here, even where you...

What do you do when they flip the switch? I don't understand your question. Like what they did to Bernie in South Carolina. Well, listen. If they decide, no, no, no, you're not our establishment. I don't know the answer to that question because I can't imagine that you're just going to flip the switch and you're going to get away with that with me, with the army of individuals that I have bringing us. When I talk about bringing a tsunami, I'm not talking about me, just myself. You know, you make a lot of connections and friends in this business, right?

You know, the industry that I'm in, which is the fourth estate, which I've been a part of for 30 years. I'm talking about that kind of tsunami because you've got to remember it's all about public perception a lot of times. And you're going to have to deal with that reality because you're going to have a voice. But I'm going to have a louder voice and I'm going to come down upon you to get to your point of what you were saying. You're absolutely right. I do love America. And I think that we got a lot of problems in this country.

And I blame most of it on the politicians because I think they make a concerted effort to divide us. And I think that the friction that we have in our communities throughout this country amongst people and all of that stuff, if we all got together, you'd find that we have a lot more in common than we don't.

You'd find that we can get along a lot easier than people would want to believe. But because of policies that they put in place and how they go about the business of adroitly engaging in division to keep us all divided so they could have their cliques supporting them and or somebody supporting the other side, it's really contributed to the deterioration of this country. And so when I look at it, I just say to myself, look,

Politics or no politics. I'm the kind of person that, like Sean Hannity holds me to this one. You promise me every week. You ever got an office, you're going to come on every week. I say every month. He said, you're already being a politic. Every week is too much. Every month. I wouldn't run from anybody. What I mean by that, Vinny, is this. If somebody like...

PVD is my guy. Think I'm not going to talk to him? Think I'm not going to ask him what he's thinking about something? You know, we got to get away from thinking that once in this binary system that one side or the other has all the answers. Sometimes it's both. Sometimes it's a happy medium. Like I might listen if if if if we're sitting around and we're talking about policies that really affect us as a nation. Right. And we're talking about keeping peace in the streets. No one can have it all.

But we're going to lean far more on what the right is, what the right side is, whatever that is. OK, and you might get your little something, but they're going to get this something, too, because the idea is better and it's better for America. If we could pull that off, then we got a better country. You got this big, beautiful bill that everybody's talking about. Well, you talk about eight trillion dollars.

You know, what is it? What? Eight trillion committed pledge from companies and stuff like that. You're talking about more folks having jobs. You're talking about more drilling in this country. You talk about a lot of different things that are going to benefit us. But they're talking about it's going to contribute about another five trillion dollars potentially to the deficit. Well.

You can't find something that contributes less than $5 trillion to the deficit because that's kind of defeating the purpose. You know what I'm saying? That's kind of defeat the purpose. Okay, you got millions of people that's going to be without health care. You can't find a way to avoid there being millions of people without health care. When you start asking these questions and dealing with stuff on a real level like that, all of a sudden it's not about party. It's about what's best.

We don't have people that's thinking about what's best because they're on Capitol Hill. And you got lobbyists in their face trying to get them to do their bidding. And people are capitulating to that because they've turned it into a career.

If you already got one and you're making money and you surround yourself with people whose ideas are about doing what's in the best interest of America, you might have a chance. And by the way, you know, the best ideas will win. And it takes a couple of years to get exposed. During COVID, a lot of leftist ideas got exposed in a major, major way. Yes. They got exposed. OK, so let's talk WNBA real quick because sports. Caitlin Clark. Mm hmm.

And Angel Reese, right? They're going back and forth. And Jameel Hill says by the time Angel Reese is done, she's going to be the Michael Jordan of WNBA. She said that about Angel Reese? She said Angel Reese, by the time she retires, can you pull up this quote? She said by the time she retires, she will be the MJ of go to Jameel Hill, type in Jameel Hill, yeah.

She says by the time she retires, Jameel Hill has made a bold prediction that Angel Rios will become the MJ of the WNBA by the time she retires. That's what she said. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Let me continue. Okay. All right. So now, while this is taking place, Brittany Griner comes out and says, I am so sick and tired of the NBA, WNBA. It used to be a peaceful, small little thing. Now there's crowds screaming, hollering. This is disruptive. It's not allowing us to play the game. This is her quote. I don't know if you saw this or not. Okay. Can you pull up that quote? Because I got to read to...

I'm going to apply for a job at First Take. I'm telling you right now, part-time, I'm coming on board helping the guys out. Can you type in Brittany Griner? I'll bring you on. I'll bring you on. I'll have fun with you. Brittany Griner, where she says, yeah, she says right there, watch this. Every time we play her, there's this commotion, like this loud rumbling from the stands. Turns out it's people, thousands of them, just sitting there watching on purpose. It's very disruptive. Jeez.

She says, WNBA games used to be a chill, quiet place. You could bring your laptop and relax, maybe even get a little work done. But now it's like there's large gatherings of people watching us from the stands. Some of them are yelling crazy shit about what they're seeing, putting unfair pressure on us to score like we're there for their entertainment. You are.

The whole thing is toxic. I saw a guy with his daughter in the crowd. Both of them yelling, couldn't hear what they were saying exactly, but it was either my performance or some light racism, light racism. But here's where I'm going with this. So the WNBA says they want to get paid more. They're saying this year they're going to make a billion dollars. That's what they're saying, okay? For the first time ever.

Now that Kaitlin Clark is hurt for two weeks, did you see ticket prices? Insane. Let me read you the ticket prices after Kaitlin Clark's been hurt for two weeks. All right? So let's go through this. Kaitlin Clark's absence is having an immediate impact beyond the court. According to data shared by Yahoo Sports via TickPick, prices for two specific Indiana Fever away games against the Chicago Sky are

and the Washington Mystics dropped sharply after Clark was sidelined. Before the injury, the lowest ticket available for Fever's matchup in Chicago was $86. For the game in Washington, fans needed at least $41 to get in. After the news of Clark's absence, those get-in prices fell to $25 from $86 and $14 from $41.

What the hell is going on with WNBA that they cannot handle all this attention that they're getting, as well as the hate and anger towards Kaitlyn Clark? First things first. Respectfully, Brittany Griner was in a Russian prison. You would think that somebody who is now free, back in America, on home soil, would not have too much to complain about. Especially something...

Like this. Fans in every sport. She described the fans. It doesn't matter what sport you are. It doesn't matter what sport you pick. That's how fans act. In every arena. In every arena. So, and then when you... Clearly she's not remembering who they let out to get her back. The merchant of death. The merchant of death. An arms dealer that...

wanted to kill American citizens, according to the reports. That's who they let out for her. You would think that you would be smiling. You would be ecstatic. You would be happy. And something like this wouldn't faze you at all. The fact that it does is disturbing. I'll leave it at that. When it comes to Caitlin Clark, now I've taken hits because I was calling it from day one. You got people that are resentful towards her.

But not she is really not about her guys. It's about what she represents. Before she ever came along, there were a lot of outstanding basketball players who happened to be black females that was doing their thing on the WNBA level. And they never got this kind of shine. This girl, the Golden Goose, comes along and she wreaks havoc. She's the rookie of the year.

She's fourth in the league in MVP voting. Fourth in the league, her rookie year. Wow. Outstanding. She's like Steph Curry. She can pull up from anywhere. You understand? She has that kind of capability. Then won a national championship, lost to LSU one year, lost to South Carolina another year. But she's outstanding and clearly worthy of being the number one overall pick. And what I was saying to everybody is ride the wave. Rising tide lifts all boats.

The girl is spectacular. It's not like she's not only, she's not a scrub. She's not only can play, she's a star caliber player who draws this attention. And maybe it's because that fan base that she has and her being a young white lady contributes to it. So what?

benefit from it. And then you have a lot of folks that have come to the defense of numerous WNBA players because they were pointing out like this had been going on before long and people are not hating on her. It's not about hating on her. It's that you feel she is getting a level of attention that you deserved and you warranted long before she ever came along. It's understandable, but it happens. You think there weren't players that weren't jealous of Michael Jordan? That didn't resent Michael Jordan? Okay,

Ask the Detroit Pistons how they felt about Michael Jordan and how much they enjoyed beating him up before he ultimately captured the championship. Eventually, he got tired of getting his ass kicked.

Like literally slamming him to the floor, you know, invoking Jordan rules. He got tired of all that, got himself bulkier, bigger, et cetera. And all of these things happen. The point is Magic and Bird, Jordan, Kobe came along, there was resentment. I mean, the list goes on and on. It happens. So to me, there's nothing wrong with the resentment that you may feel towards what she represents, right?

It's actually good because it provokes a level of hostility, which elevates the competitive fervor. And y'all go out there and compete and everybody gets paid. But unfortunately, you almost feel like you have some folks within the WNBA that wishes that would rather not be.

in a very fruitful position because of their resentment towards her. And they won't admit it, but I've been talking about it for months. I got a reply to this. So I'm not just going to let you sit here and talk trash about my man, Brittany Griner. Straight up. I'm just letting you know right now. Because...

My dude, Brittany. She's a young lady. Let me defend her for a second, please. There's people in there making noises. They're yelling. They're booing. In her defense, she's never seen fans before. Stephen A. Smith, they've never been at the games. They've never had fans. Now she has crowds. And she's wondering. She was at Baylor before.

Before she came to the WNBA. Are those Baylor Bear basketball games? I'm just saying. Maybe. 15 years ago. Women's basketball? Oh, yeah. College gets their love now. But not the WNBA. Not the WNBA. Well, it's growing. And the best thing that they've ever had in the WNBA is Kaitlyn Clark. From a box office perspective. And by the way.

She ain't the first to do this. There's Diana Taurasi. There's Lisa Leslie. Diana Taurasi is phenomenal. All of them. Respect to them. All of them. All of them. But let's just call a spade a spade here. Sure. WNBA is trash. No, I'm not going to say that. This is my opinion. Okay. This is my opinion. Okay. It's a zombie company. It loses money. Nobody's going to the game. Thank God they get Clayton Clark. She's injured for two weeks. All of a sudden, attendance goes down.

This is not going to work long term. Trust me. You'll see this long term. Ain't nobody going to WNBA games. Vinny, who won the championship last year? You don't even know. Liberty. You're a professional sports fast. Come on. Tom, who's the leading player in the league right now, WNBA? You don't know. Sarah. PBD, how many teams are there in the WNBA? 60. I don't know.

The point is nobody cares, and we're trying to make a story out of a story that don't exist. And I'm here to play the game. WNBA, Kaelin Clark, nobody cares. Nobody cares. If the WNBA makes a billion dollars this year, you lose the argument. Okay. If the WNBA makes a— That's the biggest if ever. Okay. What is WNBA projected to make this year? If my grandma had a—she'd be my grandpa. Here we go. Listen, guy.

It's projecting that this year WNBA is going to make a billion dollars. Is that profit or revenue? It doesn't matter. You'll find a way to increase EBITDA driven by surge in popularity, increased revenue from ticket sales, merchandise, and television deals, particularly due to the impact of the players like Caitlin Clark. The league's revenue is expected to grow significantly from

With forecasts suggesting a global market value exceeding a billion dollars. This is going in that direction. It's been 25 years where they haven't made a penny. So now all of a sudden you want to be like, maybe this year. It was growing before she arrived, and then it elevated to another level once she's arrived. And she's not going anywhere anytime soon. Oh, by the way, remember this name. Juju Watkins.

Okay. Out of USC. I seen her. Freshman. Great player. She's a big tech. She's a toy ACL. Toy ACL. NCAA tournament last year. She's special. And I'm just telling you, you're going to see the league continue to grow. Who wins this game? Ready? WNBA All-Star versus the best high school players ever.

ABC Nike game. High school Ben versus WNBA best players. Here's my response to that. I think it would be the high school, but I would say this to you. Don't underestimate women and the growing support they're providing to the WNBA. Remember, anything

You usually have the women behind it supporting the product. Don't underestimate the NBA subsidizing. The NBA and the NFL went to another level once they appealed more to women. What if the women decide we're going to focus and lock in on the WNBA? No, the NFL started growing once they implemented what's called cheerleaders.

And people are like, oh, okay, we'll go to the game. Look at them Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. You lost credibility. How did I lose credibility? Honestly, at this point, stop the podcast, Brent. Let's just finish it up. I'm losing credibility. WNBA hasn't made one penny, but I'm losing credibility. I'll tell you one thing. Let me tell you what I like. Let me tell you what I like. You know what I like? Here's what I like. I don't care what's going on.

I want to see animosity in sports. Yes. I don't care what's going on. I love the fact that right now, who's the guy in the heavyweight UFC that's pushing the buttons of Jon Jones saying, I'm officially the super heavyweight. Oh, Tom Aspinall. Aspinall. He's saying, I'm officially the beast. Because Jon Jones has retired. Jon Jones has retired. Jon Jones has retired. Right? I love animosity. The best fights were Cormier against Jon Jones. The

The best fight was Khabib against, you know, Conor. You know, you want that, you know, Mayweather used to fight what weekend? Cinco de Mayo. That was his way. Like, I'm going to take your ass out. So to me, I don't know. I just love the fact that there's animosity. You know what game I want to see the stat line on? You know what game the next time Fever plays...

Whoever Reese is. Whatever team she plays. No, no, no. Only Reese. Only Reese. Because animosity changes the game. My opinion, LeBron destroyed the game because animosity left the NBA. And by the way, look how interesting the NBA product is right now. Who the hell is in the finals? Indiana versus OKC. Indiana versus OKC. Are you freaking kidding me? Like,

There is no main names that we were, you know, the LeBrons or the Giannis' or, you know, all of these guys. For the short term, it may be problematic because both are in a small market. Even though Shea Gilgis-Alexander is the league MVP and he is special. And their defense, like a bunch of piranhas, they're not as special. Let me ask you a question. Indiana's better, but I will tell you, the league for the long term,

is not upset about this because remember, you're looking for new stars. For sure. And the Ant-Man, the Shea Gildress Alexander, you know, you're looking at a Tyrese Halliburton. You saw a Brunson. You're seeing some of these other guys on the come up wondering what they're going to bring to the table. You want some of that young blood infused. You want to tell me what I like about Halliburton? He creates animosity.

Yes. There's something about him. He's not an exciting player. We thought Trey Young was going to do more of that, but he hasn't been in a position to do it. He's a star. Tyrese Halliburton is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, look. I mean, we'll see what's going to happen. NBA. Tibideau got fired today. Yes, he did. Brunson's getting interviewed, and he says, oh, you think your coach is the right coach? Excuse me, what question are you asking? Are you asking if that's our coach? Yes. Of course that's our coach. What a dumb—and then walks out, right? Next day, two days later, the guy gets fired. Good decision or bad decision by the Knicks? I don't like the decision.

I don't like the decision because I think it has scapegoat written all over it. I've been critical of Tom Thibodeau in the past because I think Kenny Smith, TNT, came up with the line of the players when he said Tom Thibodeau wouldn't want to play nine dudes on a baseball field. And that was a great line because it's the total truth. But the man has gotten them to the playoffs the last four years. They've advanced every single time. They got better than they were the year before. And

And they were within two games of a berth to the NBA Finals. And the reason why they didn't get there is because they just weren't good enough. I know they blew game one, which was a devastating loss. Devastating. 17 with over six minutes left. 14 with two minutes and 50 seconds left. Nine minutes with just 52 seconds left. And you blew that damn game. That was horrible. No doubt about it. But the Indiana Pacers were a better team. They're a better coach. Rick Carlisle is a better coach.

He's gone 11 deep throughout the year. He had 11 guys play 15 minutes or more this regular season. 11 guys play 15 minutes or more this season during a regular season. How do you even do that? Because, again, he was building the team for the postseason. And they've been a top one or two seed in the NBA since January 1st.

So even though they had a lower seed, this is not a team that was really a lower seed. And so you look at Indiana and what they bring to the table in terms of their offensive potency and the fact that you've got a playmaker in Halliburton who gets off

and antagonizing the opposition and their crowd. Give me more. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. He's got his work cut out for him with OKC, though. I can tell you that. OKC, I haven't seen a defense like this in a long time. It looks scary. And there's only two players. Everybody talk about Shea Gildress Alexander. He was the runner-up for league MVP last year when he got my vote. He got my vote again this year. He won that league MVP. Did you know that his backcourt partner, Jalen Williams? Jalen Williams, yeah.

Only him and Evan Mobley of the Cleveland Cavaliers are the only two players in the entire NBA who was voted on one of the all-NBA teams.

And one of the all NBA defensive teams. Get out of here. Only those two. Good for those. Only those two. Wow. Only only two in the entire. Wow. And that's a sidekick who, by the way, was just in the conference finals against Ant-Man. Average 22.2 points. Shot 49 percent from the field. Shot 46 percent from three point range.

That's the sidekick. If that brother shows up and plays this way against Indiana, this ain't going to be much of a success. Two questions for you. Two questions for you. If Shea Gillis Alexander brings a championship to OKC, which looks like 70% chance it's going to happen, right? Yes. It's better than 70%. I'm with it, but I'm just saying that this is going to happen, right?

How does this hurt the legacy of Harden, Durant, and Westbrook? It makes Shea Gilchrist Alexander clearly the greatest player in the history of the franchise. Clearly the greatest player in the history of the franchise. Oh, my God. Listen, Harden it doesn't affect at all because Harden was a reserve playing behind Russell Westbrook. That's right. He was 15 points a game. He was young at the time, and then they moved him to Houston and gave him the ball. And then he crushed it as a scorer. And then he crushed it as a scorer. Russell Westbrook.

I don't want to say it hurts him, but it does because he was a star player. Mr. Triple-double. Three years in a row, actually, did his thing, but never delivered the championship. The one that really, really does hurt is KD. Because if KD stays, you likely win a championship. Remember. 4-3. Remember, they were down 3-1. They were up 3-1. They let Golden State come back. Golden State...

He eclipses them, wins the series 4-3. And then three weeks later, he goes and signs with Golden State. And won two back-to-back championships. He was clearly the best player on the team. He was better than Steph Curry. He was better than Klay Thompson. And he deserves his two NBA Finals MVPs. And he deserves his two championships. But you left OKC. And so because you left OKC, you didn't deliver the goods for them.

You jumped on shit with the Splash Brothers to get your two chips. Shea Gilgis got traded there. They built around him, and he wins a championship. He's clearly the greatest player in the history of the Oklahoma City Thunder franchise. Follow-up question with you on this. So, profile, when you look at this.

KD, when they had the team, mid-20s. Westbrook, mid-20s. Maybe a little bit older, but 25, 26, 27. How old is Shea right now? 24, 25? I don't know. 26. 26 years old. 26, 27. So they were the same age while they're handling all this pressure. And the people he took out, it's not like he didn't take out anybody. They took out some teams is what they took out Shea. How much of the credit do you give to the fact that he is just cool?

Temperament. Poise. He's been interviewed. They asked him a question. How do you feel about the fact that people call you the free throw merchant? Doesn't bother me. I'm okay with that. Nothing gets to the guy. Do you give that? That's credit to him where he's got that ice cold in him? He deserves that credit because his calm demeanor, the cool, his ice demeanor, not phased by much.

That's leadership. Never too high, never too low. You can trust him. You can rely upon him. I got into a debate on First Take Today with the great Candace Parker, who won three chips in the WNBA. And I was saying that she was like she loved that even keel. And I said, I understand that, but let's make sure the world knows sometimes elevation is called for. Sometimes moments require you to be a bit more than your normal self. And Shea plays like that, but his temperament, his mindset is not like that.

He's always cool. And even when they've had, you know, they've been compromised. I remember when he lost in Denver. And I think it was either game four or six. And he walked off the court laughing because he was looking at the crowd and it was like he was saying, y'all do know y'all got to play us again, right? You know, and then they're getting blown out in Minnesota. I had to cover the Western Conference Finals. So I'm there in person. And the courts are a few feet away from them. And they're losing by 43 points.

And he's just sitting there talking to his teammates. Okay, here's what we did wrong. We ain't going to do this again next game. It's going to be all right. Just be cool. You know, and then he comes out there and he drops 40. You know, the very next game he dropped 40. So 40, 10, and 9 to be exact. So you just look at him and you just say to yourself, the pieces that they have around them no helps. When I know that I'm working with an elite team that can shut you down at any moment,

And we go 9, 10, 11 deep. I'm not worried about much. So even though his personality is his personality, it also helps that he can afford to be that way because they're all about stopping you. They want to guard you from the moment they get off the team bus. I think they're the best team in the league this year. I think they're the highest point differential of all time, literally of all time. But I'll tell you this, 2012 OKC,

plays 2025 OKC, I'm taking 2012. KD, Russ, Harden, Serge Ibaka, that whole unit, I think they're running laps around this team. And I'll say one more thing. Okay.

The reason that we're not talking about OKC being one of the greatest teams of all time is because they ran into a buzzsaw called the Big Three, the Heetles, in 2012 with LeBron, D. Wade, and Bosh, and Shane Battier and company, and Mike Mill and all these guys. Okay. Well, who wins that game? 2012 Miami Heat versus the Indiana Panthers 2025. That's a 4-0 sweep, sweep, sweep. You're probably right, but here's what I would tell you. It's a couple of things to consider. Number one.

KD is the difference because he's an offensive machine. And at six feet 11 with a J, a three-point shot and an ability to put it on the ball, that's unguardable. You understand? So Ant-Man 6566, you're Lou Dort. You're literally a linebacker playing basketball. You can't move him. He's that strong and he's physical, right? Well, that's not going to really work against LeBron James. No.

That's not going to work against KD because he's just too tall and he can look right over you and he can shoot right over you. So it's problematic. So you might be right. The reason why I say might as opposed to speaking definitively is because as great as Russell Westbrook is or was, he's also mercurial. He can be chaotic. He can turn the ball over, whatever.

They live off of it. They're averaging 23 points off turnovers. This OKC team. Yes. And it's a 20-point differential from anybody else in the postseason. So what I'm saying to you is if you got a guy that is not protecting the basketball, it can mess you up. How do we know this? Kevin Durant left. That's true. Can I give one more piece of information? Last topic on this, and then I want to go back to some issues because I've got to ask about 50 and a couple other things.

Anthony Edwards. Yeah. We're told is the Michael Jordan of the NBA. I changed my mind. Really? Talent-wise, he is. When I saw him resign himself to the circumstances in Game 6, Game 5, I'm sorry. It changed my mind because it reminded me of Michael Jordan. I remember when Pat Riley with the Knicks would take a 250-pound forward named Anthony Mason and he'd put him on Michael Jordan.

Michael Jordan knew that dribbling the ball out front, top of the key, that kind of area and stuff like that made it easier for him to be guarded because he ain't playing with his back to the basket out that far away from the basket. So you can guard him and you can anticipate what direction he's going and et cetera. And it wasn't that much on you. So what he had to do is get stronger, play with his back to the basket and kill you with his mid range game. And that's what he did. How would I know this? Because he told me, he told me that years ago.

And when he was telling me that, he was marveling at the greatness of Kobe Bryant because he looked at Kobe. And Kobe, he never had to tell Kobe that. Kobe watched his tapes and figured it out. That was the student that Kobe was. I see a phenomenal talent who has the potential to be the face of the league if he really, really wants it, an Ant-Man. What I didn't see was that.

I didn't see a guy that said, this is what they're doing to me. Let me figure this out. Let me come at it this way. Let me try it this way. I didn't see a coach in Finch who made the necessary adjustments. I didn't see guys surrounding him that could put the ball on the floor after getting chased off the three-point line and pulling up and scoring off the pull-ups. You know the Minnesota Timberwolves? Well, postseason low of anybody, 32% from the field in pull-ups.

The minute you chase them off the three-point line and you force them to pull up off the dribble, they don't make. Nas Reed, Jaden McDaniels, Mike Conley Jr., people like that, they're set shooters. They're not shooters off the dribble. Oklahoma City knew that. So Oklahoma City got up and ant. Everywhere ant went, it's like Vinny's sitting up there and ant drummed on the court. He going to the room. You know what I'm saying, Simpson?

Just touching him. Everywhere he'd go, just pushing him. Making sure he was felt. And it demoralized him. And I saw it. And that's why I say not yet. Let me tell you what's scary right now. This is what's scary right now. Story comes out that Michael Jordan wants to go be a commentator for the NBA. Yes, sir. NBC. And reportedly it's going to be around $40 million annual deal. Makes him the highest paid guy, et cetera, et cetera. Tom Brady, 37 and a half.

A part of me as a fan sits here and says, dude, Michael? They must be doing this because the NBA desperately needs his help because it's lost viewership. Heck, people may watch the game to just hear his commentary and not even pay attention to the game, right? But if you would have told me 10 years ago, five years ago, Michael's going to come back and do commentating, I would say, Stephen A., I don't know if I can see that happening. Tell me your thoughts on this. A couple of things. Number one.

Don't believe everything you read. NBA countdown, ESPN, our ratings are up. Not down. Our ratings are up. Okay? From a year ago, from two years ago. That's number one. Number two, linear television is one component. More eyeballs are transitioning to digital. And what people don't realize is just like you're doing this, like you're not on linear television. You guys have over 6 million followers. They're watching you. It's just not on linear.

So when you see people, they're not watching. It's just like with me, with people. I guess I'm a rarity because, you know, first takes ratings of, you know, been what it is and stuff like that. But I've got over a million subscribers on YouTube inside of two years. I watch more than I watch the game. Yeah, I appreciate it. But what I'm saying to you is that they're watching me on digital.

They're watching first take on digital. I personally register myself over 2.3 billion views annually between first take, between my podcast, between NBA countdown stuff, because it's not just linear. So just because they say that the numbers are down on linear television, there's a reason why Amazon has now replaced TNT.

There's a reason for that. Now, when you think about Michael Jordan, that's NBC. That's the longstanding relationship. Omar Rashad used to be over there. NBC had the contract. And you had this one executive that had a very close relationship with Michael Jordan that convinced him to do it. Because for network television, that's a drop in the bucket for them to get Michael Jordan. Nothing. Let me tell you something about Michael Jordan. He's going to be brutally honest. Oh, I can show you that. He's not going to be somebody that's going to be passive.

about not the Michael Jordan I know. The Michael Jordan I know, when talking basketball, he is as candid as it gets. He ain't trying to hurt nobody's feelings. He ain't trying to be insulting, but he's going to tell you what's going on.

Just like I just described something with Ant-Man. That's something he'll tell you. He's talking about the game of basketball. I don't think he's going to be passive at all. I really, really don't. And I'm actually proud of him for doing it because, you know, with the Jordan brand and him being worth over $2 billion, so he don't need this. So his mentality, oh, please, I'm wasting my time with that. Because he never wants to be interviewed and all this other stuff. And I said, come on, man.

Let me tell you something. Stop acting like you have nothing to say about basketball now that you're retired. You talk about it all the damn time. I'm talking about it. I'm literally talking about getting a call. What the hell did I just hear you say? Call me. Call me now. I'm like...

What the hell you say that for? That don't make no damn sense. This is him, right? Now, he wasn't as eloquent. Kobe was a little bit different. Motherfucker, I know I didn't just hear you say that shit. Don't even think about getting the fuck off the air and thinking that you're going to go someplace else because you got another one of your damn 12 jobs. Pick up the goddamn phone and call me now. That's Kobe. That was Kobe. Wow. That was Kobe. Mike's not quite like that, but he's candid.

And I don't think that he's going to be shy about saying what he sees at all. A matter of fact, if he is, he's going to have to deal with me because I'm going to be in his ear telling him, oh, we're getting shy now. That's what we're doing. That's what we're doing. That ain't the one I named him, MJ. I know what you're doing. Let's go. Tom, are you excited about this? Are you excited about this? Are you sincerely like, do you sit there and say, I'm excited for Michael coming back to him commentating? Well, you have to remember where I...

My fandom really grew up, right? I mean, I remember the national championship game between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, and I was looking forward to both of them coming to the NBA. And it turns out Magic went to my beloved Lakers, and they suddenly took off, you know? And you have to remember what stopped us. The move.

The highlight move in the finals that Michael dropped on my beloved Lakers that I looked at with respect in my jaw. Game two. Yeah. Spectacular. A spectacular move. And you know what? I remember my dad and my brother and I said, you know what? Next man up. There it is. You know, it's not Boston. It's not us. This guy. Here we go. And remember, that move came.

After they had lost game one. When Sam Perkins hit the shot? Yeah, Sam Perkins hit the shot. Magic and Divock and those boys rolled into the United Center. One game one. So Chicago couldn't afford to fall down 0-2. That was the game he did that move.

And then they won four straight. Do you actually see him actually commentating? Do you see him following through with this and actually getting on air doing this? Oh, he's committed to doing it. It's happening. What season? It's happening. Next season. You're saying MJ is coming back to the NBA. In the fall. To NBC. Commentating. In the fall. The return of MJ. Here to save the NBA, Stephen A. Wow. The viewership on TV, when you compare sport to sport to sport, TV, TV, TV, digital, digital, digital. Okay. Because they all say the same argument.

NBA comparing to NFL. No, it doesn't get it. It was up. NBA is down. LeBron hurt the league. My opinion. I'm going to say my opinion. I watch Caitlin Clark get her ass handed to her gets up within a second.

If God forbid you whisper something to LeBron, 20 feet is sliding all the way to the other side, and we have to say, I would never, ever see Michael or Kobe ever do that. My opinion, I hope we see a level of toughness with the game coming back, and I hope he calls everybody out. I hope he calls everybody out. You're saying LeBron may have hurt the league. Fine. I can side with that, but not for the reasons you're articulating. The reason why is...

When he joined Miami, you had everybody trying to join with one another instead of competing against one another. That's the real reason. You understand? CP3 went to Houston.

Before that, he was trying to get to L.A., remember that? And then David Stern nixed that deal as the de facto owner for the Pelicans at the time, okay? You know, you had Hoop City and you had Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan and CP3 with the Clippers. You had LeBron and you had KD, you know, one-upping them by joining the Splash Brothers and going to Golden State. You had Kawhi Leonard blackmailing the Los Angeles Lakers by saying,

the Clippers rather, by saying, you know, get Paul George or I'll go to the Lakers. You saw all of this. And so that's one of the other reasons why we should be excited about what we're seeing from Oklahoma City and Indiana, because they're showing you don't have to, you know, have a collaboration of stars descending upon one locale in order to win championships. The fact that there's been an absence of success.

In that regard, now you're looking at the new model where, guess what? Get a couple of stars. Build with them. Have supplementary parts around them that can ball and can bring stuff to the table. Have leadership that's about team. You see Shea Gilgis-Alexander doing an interview. You see his teammates surrounding him.

You see Tyrese Halliburton, you know, doing an interview. You see teammates showering in water or, you know, messing with them and stuff like that. You see them camaraderie. You see team as opposed to a star standing head and shoulders and distant above everybody else. That's what you're seeing right now. Yeah, and I like it. I like seeing it. I don't mind seeing it. Okay, let's transition to some stories about Ukraine. So story comes out that Ukraine bombs Ukraine.

40 or 41 bombers of Russia. The video has been all over the place. People have seen it. Absolute insanity. And more of a story comes out saying Ukraine has cards and they are long-term cards, says Senator after meeting with Zelensky. Now, Rob, if you got this clip here, I think this was Blumenthal, if I'm not mistaken. Everybody's wondering what happened. We thought there was going to be a peace deal. We thought there was going to be

the mineral deal that just got done. What are we doing going back to attacking these guys? Here's Blumenthal, Senator Blumenthal from Connecticut. Go ahead, Rob. Always uplifting and inspiring to spend time with Volodymyr Zelensky, my seventh trip to Ukraine, most of them with Senator Graham. But I've met with him on numerous other occasions. And sadly, one of my main takeaways was that

Peace, even a ceasefire, are nowhere in sight. Obviously, Putin is launching, even as we speak, a major offensive against

mobilizing forces in the east, Donetsk and Luhansk and other territories. But the Istanbul proposal that he made yesterday shows how unserious he is about peace talks. He's mocking Trump, playing him. But the combination of the attacks in the east, the

offensive there and the attack. - Can you pause this, Rob? This is the cure for insomnia. Can you go to the other clip, Rob, if you could, from while this is going on, you got UK. That comes out, okay? UK British Prime Minister Keir Starmer moves UK military to war fighting readiness. Why are they doing this? What's causing them to do this? Go ahead, Rob. - Are moving to war fighting readiness. When we are being directly threatened by states with advanced military forces,

The most effective way to deter them is to be ready. Okay. Vinny, what's going on here? Well, remember when we were talking about the other day on everything about... So, okay. Trump came in 2016. What was the major thing that they tried to get him with? Russia. Russia.

Collusion BS. Okay. He goes to 2020. What happens all of a sudden? And he's kicking ass. The economy, we're doing great. All of a sudden, a virus comes out of a lab that we own, destroys the world economy, everything. No president will ever survive a pandemic.

Biden stays in the basement. They win. Now he does the biggest comeback in the history of anything, wins this election. And now what? There has to be something else that they have to try to ruin him. And I think, my opinion, these war hawks like Richard Blumenthal, like Lindsey Graham and Mike Pompeo. And let's talk real quick because we were wondering who Brandon mentioned, Tom, about the CIA or who could be there. What is Mike Pompeo? Okay.

Okay. Ex-CIA, Secretary of State. What business does he have, Stephen? Please, because I know you're probably going to be on my side here. What is he doing there? Rubbing elbows, shaking hands with these people. He has no business there. Okay. I looked up his time because I wanted to find out. He works for Kansas State.

strategic solutions. It's basically, to me, it's a shell company. That's, that's basically what it is. Um, he's deep in their, uh, business scene. He's on the board of Kavistar, K Y I V S T T A R Ukraine's biggest telecom company. Did you know that Pat? He's on the board. Mike Pompeo is on their board and its parent company, V E O N V on, uh, that gig alone is pulling $600,000 a year plus stock and bonus, uh, options and lands him millions.

On top of that, his first impact investment scored $16 million in stock warrants and $3 million bonuses tied to a merger deal. So they're over there. We're trying to figure out, because think about it. Everything is going good, and then all of a sudden, Zelensky does one of, and we looked it up, the most, the...

strongest and most major attack. Tom, if I'm not... Rob, if I'm not mistaken, out of this entire war, this was the biggest thing. All the drones taking out these, what, nuclear airplanes. And it just seems a little weird. Trump has been fighting for peace. And I think...

Steve, behind closed doors, these guys are going over there. Lindsey Graham is a freaking war hawk. They want war. These guys work for companies that are either getting consulting with defense contractors, Tom, or they work for the actual companies themselves. And I don't see this getting good. Putin's been quiet as hell. And I'm telling you right now, he's not going to stay quiet for long. And this is what they were talking about, about pushing into World War III. And we're on that.

the cusp. I think we're right, right there because Putin, we know, we know he's a, he's a gangster, just like America's gangster with the government. He hasn't said anything. And I'm worried that something big is about to happen and it could turn into something ugly. We won't talk about it. And it's Vietnam by proxy member of Vietnam. We will only send advisors in here because the French have failed. So we will send advisors and then we'll supply limited arms. And then Biden said, well, we're not giving you big weapons because we don't want to have a

proxy war going with Russia. Remember that? We're not going to send you big things. And they're like, we need big things. We want the, and then I said, we want the other planes. Remember that? We don't want those planes. We want the other planes. Hey, can we have the F-15Es, you know, the electronic, electronic countermeasures, just like the Israelis have. Can we have the, the, the nice stuff? No, no, no, no, no. Can we have the look down, shut down radar? No, no, no. We can give you the basic stuff. And we were all that. And then guess what?

We went all in. We're all in. This is the military industrial complex. I look at these things from deeper angles every now and then. I look at it. You know what they have right now? They have a test bed for all their new stuff in a war theater called Ukraine. And I believe that these folks are kind of leftovers from the post-Reagan era of

Because remember, Reagan was there not to stop a country. He was there to stop an ideology when he went up against Gorbachev. And so he had an effective...

you know, outcome against an ideology. And he breaks up the Soviet Union. Now it's like we've got this old thing, must kill Russia, must kill Russia, must kill Russia. And it's bothersome to me. And then you see these people that represent these areas. That's not Marco Rubio. If you go back just 20 years ago, it was rare that anybody usurped the position of the secretary of state. That's the secretary of state's trip.

And then he would say, well, I'm taking a delegation. And he was like, they're tour guide. And it just disappoints me and bothers me because I believe that there are innocent people all in Ukraine. They're in the middle of this stuff. Stephen A., what do you think? It's tough because on one hand, I understand not having a nationalist perspective, having a globalist perspective and being concerned about

about the world as a whole in terms of our ability to do business with others and represent our own individual interests. But to me, nothing should come before country. And what I mean by that is Trump, whether you like it or not, is the president of the United States. And if we're going over there as elected officials, our job should be, if not to represent him, it's to convince him stateside to see Trump.

your way of thinking. You don't go over there against the interest of the president of the United States and think that there's not going to be full. But I'm not saying that you don't agree with you. You have to agree with him. I'm saying disagree with him here on these grounds on this thing. You don't go over to another nation speaking against the interest of the person that you have in office. I don't like that because you,

That's something that can be utilized to our detriment more likely than not. Having said that, I think that Ukraine is in a world of trouble. I know they've given Russia the battle of their lives. I understand that. But we also got to understand what's going on with Russia.

Bill O'Reilly brought up the Yalta Convention to me and wanted me to look that up. And then I was reminded about Churchill, Winston Churchill, and obviously Stalin at that particular time. What did Russia want? Russia wanted all of Europe.

Putin reminds me of that because Stalin gave America the impression that we're willing to engage and have a democracy. You know, after World War II and the aftermath of all of that and Hitler and all of this stuff, what they said was this is what we're willing to do. And then they went against the interest of the United States and they broke promises per se. This is what they were told. If I've got my history wrong, please educate me. That's what I was told. Stalin did that.

What has Putin's been? What has been his number one mission, according to all the reports since he's gained power? He was appalled at what happened in 1991. He was appalled that Reagan was able to tell Gorbachev turned it, tear down that wall. And ultimately, in 1991, that it happened. And the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as we once knew it, occurred. What has he been on a mission to do since 2008? Crimea.

2013, 2014, same thing. Obama was in office at that time. Did they address it with the level of urgency that it deserved? No. Did Biden address it with the level of urgency that it deserved? No, even though he was willing to finance Ukraine in terms of weapons and money and stuff like that. There was stuff that could have been done years prior to that that folks on both sides of the aisle didn't do. And now the American people finds itself in a situation where we're dependent on Trump

You understand, to resolve this issue. And Trump bloviating the way that's because that's what he's made. I'm not talking about anything else, but bloviating. I can end this. I've got a relationship with. Well, there are people that believe that, that believed you got this kind of relationship with Putin. You can help put a stop to this. No, you can't.

Because Putin has come and his mission is far greater than friendships or anything, assuming he has any. This man, I'm not, you know, whatever they want to call him, KGB, former KGB murderer, all this other stuff they try to say about it. I don't know what it is. I do know this. This man is on a mission to reclaim Europe.

He wants it all. He's not going to stop. Most of it. He's not going to stop at Ukraine. He's not going to believe that. I don't believe I do believe that. All my heart, Poland, Finland, whatever it is, whatever's in that area. OK, he's not going to stop. Russia at one time made up a sixth of the world's population.

The dissolution has fragmented them. They're on a mission to restore things to its rightful order in their eyes. And for us to not pay attention to that,

And the kind of impact it could have on our global affairs in terms of how we want to do business, in terms of what has assisted greatly in making us prosperous, is something I think we need to pay attention to. Adam. I mean, I think that's one thing's clear about Russia, and it's they're not as big and strong and as tough as they thought they were. Because they thought that this was going to be a David versus Goliath type thing. But it turns out it ain't some just little kid with a slingshot. It's some grown-ass...

looking dude with billions of dollars and weaponry and drones from all their big, rich homies from all around the world, namely the United States, Germany, the UK, France, and the EU and NATO. That's quite the, that's quite the allies there. Now who are Russia's allies? They have Belarus, North Korea, and China. It's not like they're natural allies. They share a border and there's some issues there, but I,

Russia thought that they'd be done with this war in 30 days. It's been three years. And now they're apparently losing. So if I'm Putin, I'm looking at this as like, how is this little fruity two cakes out here? Former actor plant in Ukraine beating me.

KGB dictator Putin. And my biggest fear is that he's going to do something real stupid. Can I ask you a question? Cause Pat brought this up and I'm, I genuinely want to know your thoughts on this. This, this was a major attack. Okay. With, with probably a lot of extensive, you know, planning and all that stuff.

Two questions. Do you think Trump, who's trying to do peace, knew that this was going to happen or knew that was going to go down? Okay, now they're approved or said no or fought back. And number two, if not, if not, Stephen, who has the type of power to

To go behind Trump and make this type of thing go down, meaning proxy Mike Pompeo. Who has the power here to go and talk to this dude and be like, yo, dog, to Zelensky? This is what Pat talked about the other day. Go and do your thing. We got you. Trump ain't going to be mad. Nobody's going to be mad. Yo, go bomb the shit out of him. Go do your thing. First question is when you say, do I think Trump knew? Do I think Trump knew what? That Zelensky was going to do this all.

bombing on Russia with all the airplanes and like that big ass thing that we just saw. I think that Trump knew because I think that if Zelensky did that without him knowing it'll make it that much more difficult to come back and ask for assistance from the United States of America. But in the same breath, it was a reaction to what Russia had done to them recently as well. So I think you have to pay attention to that. As it pertains to power, as it pertains to influencing Trump

I think the elected officials on Capitol Hill, the Mike Johnson's of the world and others who have the power to get in his way, I think they can have an effect on him. But I also think that, listen, we can underestimate this, but we just got to be honest. He cares about perception. Trump cares about legacy. I think he cares about those things. So when I see a guy like a Sean Hannity, when I see a guy like a Bill O'Reilly and people like that, you know, when I did the town hall with Chris Cuomo,

Trump's not calling in if Bill O'Reilly doesn't get him to call in. He called in because Bill O'Reilly got him to call in. You understand? And you have people that are in office that have connections to people who have a voice. If I, again, I'm not interested, but if I was a president, if I was the president of the United States, I'm a busy man and I'm not talking to everybody any damn way, but I'm answering Patrick B. Davis' call.

He can call me. You understand? Chris Cuomo can call me. Sean Hannity can call me. You can call me. I know you. All I need is a call.

All of a sudden I get in the office and I don't know you when you already have this prolific voice reaching millions upon millions of people to potentially persuade them to see my way of thinking. Why would I ignore that prowess? So, again, it takes a combination. But to summarily dismiss that that is a possibility, I certainly wouldn't do it. I'm telling you, and I'm not going to say any more than I'm about to say, but.

But I'm telling you, those names that I mentioned, oh, they talk to the president. They talk to him a lot, okay? So they have an idea of what he's thinking, what he's feeling, and they certainly speak to him and let him know their thoughts. Now, he's going to make his own decisions, but ultimately you listen to who you listen to and you're impacted by who you're impacted by. Yeah, I agree.

I don't know. I'm going to be curious to know how ugly this could get. I think it's going to get ugly. Yeah, how nasty it could get. And now UK is getting up there. Pompeo, why is he out there? I don't know. What are you doing out there? Like,

Yeah, a couple things. I don't understand. Nobody's asking him to be with the president, but you don't go to a foreign land to be against the president. You're undermining. Blumenthal is a Democrat. He's there with Lindsey Graham, who is a Republican, and you're trashing Trump in front of these people? Do we know they were trashing him, though?

Yeah, Blumenthal is anti- Bro, Blumenthal is as anti-Trump as they get. And then you're there with Lindsey Graham, who is a...

Republican war hawk who's wearing, mind you, who's wearing the American flag with the Ukrainian pin still. And then Mike Pompeo, who, he had some negative, once he left Trump and left a secretary of state, he was bashing Trump. All right. And remember, he's the guy too that was on some, let's go assassinate Julian Assange. He's a, he's a, but what's the most important thing guys? I'll ask y'all this. It's a genuine question. Is it,

Making sure we don't have to give but so much more money to Ukraine? Or is it making sure that Russia doesn't expand and become significantly more expansive in its quest that I believe is to recapture a lot, if not all, of what they lost with the dissolution of the Soviet Union? Well, I don't know how they're going to capture all of Europe, half of Europe, even two countries in Europe, because they can't even take one. I agree.

They can't take Ukraine. They can't even get to Kiev. And my biggest question here, maybe I'm naive. I don't understand. Why are we criticizing a country that's at war with another country? Oh, my God. Why would they blow up all their planes? Because they've been at war for three years. Maybe that's why.

Why would they do this during stalled peace talks? Well, maybe because Putin just bombed the shit out of Kiev and they're teaching that guy a lesson. I don't know. Maybe when a bully punches you in the mouth, you punch him in the mouth 10 times harder. I don't know. Where did I hear that from? Trump a million times. So I don't feel bad for Putin. And it's not like Ukraine invaded Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine. I didn't land on Plymouth Rock, Stephen A. And to your point, Vinny,

Get him a downer. If you think about how Trump, let's call it what it is. We can't like, listen, no matter how much you support Trump, you can't like every damn thing about him. I don't. So I didn't like what he did with Zelensky in the Oval Office. I thought that was a bad look for him. Oh, I loved it. I hated it. And I'm going to tell you, let me tell you why. I hated it for a couple of reasons. Number one, who the hell are you, J.D. Vance?

Who are you? I know you're the vice president of the United States. Well, the president was right there. Didn't need you to talk. But you were talking, and what did you do? You diverted away from the issue. Talk about, you should be grateful. You should be saying thank you. You should be. Really? And then you had Republican officials. He didn't have a suit on. Really? Really?

Really? We talk about war. That was a reporter. That was one of your people from the fourth estate. Listen, it was one of them two, damn it. The point is that, oh, he didn't have on a suit. Really? That's what we're doing? We're talking about a man whose country was getting bombed every damn month. And you're talking about him not wearing a suit. And not saying thank you enough. But he came here begging as if we owe it to him. Well, again. Have a little gratitude, little dude. Well, he was saying that.

Again, if Russia, it may not be a problem for you now, but it might be a problem for you later if you let stuff like this slide. A lot of people felt that there was validity to that argument. I don't know whether or not, but they're saying it potentially. Yes, because of our problem for Europe. We got something called oceans. That's what that's what he would say. He said, you don't feel it now, but you will. Yeah. I mean, look, we can we can sit here and go through painting this guy's the bully in this picture. OK, fine.

Back in 2000, he asked Clinton, hey, I don't mind joining NATO. Oh, yeah, you would? Yeah. Five minutes later, he calls back. Yeah, not right now. Maybe later on. Why didn't you want him? Who said no? Who said no? You can go back. The premise of that doesn't make sense, though. The whole reason that NATO was created was so Russia wouldn't take over Europe again. Putin says Bill Clinton told him Russia could join NATO before pulling back hours later. Why? So then what would be the point of NATO?

That's the point. If Russia joins NATO, then NATO dissolves, does it not? The whole point of NATO was to counteract Russia. Adam, if let's just say we have a late security going on in our community because there's a rapist in our community that is walking around and he's been spotted five times and he's a known rapist. Every night we choose two fathers to go walk around the community and make sure they're safe. Every night. We do this for 60 days.

45 days later, we find that the guy is dead. Are we still doing that? No. We stop. What's the point? NATO is not needed anymore if he's telling you I want to join you. So don't tell me, no, there's people that want this war to continue because it's a big business model. So there's an element of this that we can sit here and say,

Who knows what kind of money they're making on the back end. Have you seen what Dick Cheney did? Have you seen what these guys did? Where $3 trillion of money has been missing? Where? Oh, it's just we're missing. I mean, look, we're always missing money, right? You always got $100,000. $100,000 is missing. $1 million is missing. $10,000 is missing. No. This is so deep that my curious side just wants to know someone behind closed doors is playing.

Trump's got ratings like he's never had before. Egg prices are down.

Tariff is bringing revenues like we've never seen before. $21.7 billion, $22 billion in a month. More than ever before. We've never seen tariff revenue like this before. Is the deficit lowering? Deficit is not necessarily lowering yet, but tariff revenue. You need revenue coming in. Revenue's increasing from tariffs. So you support his tariff wars? I for sure support us getting more tariff revenue coming in. I agree with that, but no, no, that's not what I asked you. I'm asking, did you support his tariff war, meaning that his...

his plan going after everybody instead of just China. I do. I do like that he did that. And for me, it was a, and the reason for that is the following reason. Trump is a guy that knows how to create peer pressure for people to take action.

Trump's the type of guy that he'll sit in a room and he'll say something. He's like, so what's your show ranked? Oh, you know he's beating you, right? So how do you feel about the fact that his show is beating you? I saw your viewership was down last week to Stephen A. What happened with you? By the way, who's this guy with the new podcaster that's beating you? Is he going to take over? That's how he is. But if you're the only person in the room, he can't do that to you because you're China.

So he needs all these other guys in there to go like this. That's his style. Doesn't mean it works with everybody. What about disruption of the market? What about the fact that you are coming across so haphazard that the market doesn't know what to do, and as a result, it gets people to be afraid to invest and fuel and stir the system? Can you tell me why the market is doing good? Can you tell me why numbers are looking good? I'm not challenging. I'm asking. I'm genuinely asking these questions because I don't know. I'm genuinely asking. The question then becomes,

For me, when I look at enemies around the world, who's the top three enemies for America? China. China's number one. Iran. Iran. Russia. Who's your third?

I don't even know if we'll put Russia number three. I think Russia's top five. But I don't know if I'll put number three. But I know for a fact China and Iran are top two. Iran's first. China's a competitor, not a friend. I'm not saying Mexico, but some would because of the borders. Some would. So when we say China and Iran,

And I know I saw what you did last summer. You know, what's that movie? I know what you did last summer. I know what you did last, you know, election 2020 with COVID and all that stuff. I don't trust China.

I'm going to expose the hell out of them. Look what happened. 60 million iPhones were being produced and manufactured in China. That moved to India. Now he's trying to bring that to U.S. a little bit. You think China's not experiencing a little bit of a downfall right now, the challenges they're facing? I don't have any problem with what happened with tariff. With China, I don't. The concern I have now, the concern I have, look what he did with Canada. It's like, look.

You guys don't spend a lot of money on military. I'm willing to give you a golden dome. You pay $68 billion. I'll take care of you as well, but you have to become the 51st state. I don't mind all these pushing and all these things that he's doing. He's a massive disruptor, but the data's showing he's making progress. You can say a lot of things you want to say. The average person goes to the market to buy some eggs for their kids. Last year was $6.55 million.

This year's 252. The average person, and that's bottom 80%. Bottom 80% is not sitting there asking about tariffs. Bottom 80% is saying, why is a dozen eggs now 255? Why are gas prices down? That's what the bottom 80% is saying. So gas prices are down, prices of eggs are down, and the media has been ignoring it.

Of course the media has been ignoring it. Why would they be celebrating these types of things? Media wouldn't be celebrating this kind of stuff. But it's so embarrassing now that even Harry Enten on CNN is saying this, and he says, I don't understand why his popularity is going higher. He's shocked. They don't understand why is his popularity going higher. They're confused. Are you guys concerned? Again, I'm asking questions, even though I know you guys are interviewing me, but I'm just curious because I want to learn. Are you guys concerned at all?

about the enemy being primarily within.

Meaning the destructive, like for right now, we just saw in Boulder, Colorado, somebody throw, I don't know if it was a Molotov cocktail or whatever at a club. 15 people, 55 to 88 years old. Pro-Israel supporters. We see the Israeli, I don't call it even the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I call it the Israeli-Hamas conflict because of what Hamas did in 2023 on October 7th. I see all of that stuff. But I also see a whole bunch of protesters in the streets of America.

And we see the Jewish community highlighting, you know, highlighting the issue of anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism proliferation in this country. And it seems to be getting more and more chaotic by the week. Any concern about that at all when we're thinking about the kind of issues that we're discussing? Let me ask you this. Right now, with Trump having the victories that he's having.

What are your deceptive ways to disrupt them with the momentum that he has? Because if you're part of the Democratic Party... Mm-hmm.

You know what your record is right now? Oh, for something. Yeah. I don't know what the hell it is. What are the worst NBA records of all time? Was it the Pistons? Who was it? There's a couple teams that had these terrible 13-end, you know. Pistons two years ago. This was brutal. This was brutal. Kade cutting hands. Pistons lost 28 straight games a couple years ago. Oh, there you go. Charlotte. Holy shit. Okay, Phil, that's a 76er. Damn. That was 20-12. Lockout, you know, not lockout, but –

Look at 16, 10 and 72 Philadelphia. Let's just say that's the one to go with, right? 10 and 72. Holy shit. That's the Democratic Party right now. They're getting their asses handed to them. So guess what you need to do? I remember one time I'm walking with one of the NBA owners. You know who he is. And I said, so how are you guys going to beat the Golden State Warriors? He winks. He says, all we need is an ankle injury.

And by the way, this is a pretty well-known owner. Like, what a dark motherfucking... Yeah. That's all we need, man. This is how this works. So you're freaking kidding me? He says, all you need is an ankle injury. Any chance. And we'll get past them. Okay? So guess what they need right now? They need an ankle injury. What's an ankle injury? If...

Russia, these guys go at it. Shit hits the fan. He said he was going to stop the war and he hasn't. Exactly. Who looks bad? If the Israeli-Hammaz conflict continues to be ongoing, who said that he was going to fix it? Who looks bad? That's the point. So if I'm the Democratic Party,

And I can't win here with policies. I have to show that this guy has nothing under control. I can't go into 2016 model with, you know, to 2020, the protesting, Black Lives Matter, all this stuff. We've already played that card. That's not going to work. I can't go through the insurrection. I can't do the COVID. Hey, man, let's start a war and talk about this is the president that said he was a president of peace. He's the president of war. You know how Democrats would run with that like this?

Game over. How does he rebuttal that? That's not going to affect him. You don't think it will? For the midterms? Let me explain why. Yeah. Because ultimately you have to deal with what you're doing in this country if you're a Democrat. When you're making the argument against him, yes, we don't like what we're seeing going on with Israel and Hamas. No, we don't like what we see going on with Ukraine and Russia. What's going on here? Mm-hmm.

And what role did you play in what's going on here? Because he's going to have a rebuttal to that argument. Now it gets a bit dicey. That's why the midterms are so pivotal. See, if the Democrats win seats in the House and the Senate in 2026...

And they gain some power. Now they have the power to disrupt and get in his way as opposed to just whistling into the wind. And then all of a sudden, the AOCs, the Bernie Sanders, the Jasmine Crockett's and others. Now it becomes a bit more formidable. Blumenthal as well and others. It gets a bit more formidable because he's going to need stuff now.

in order to get things done. You can't rely on just executive orders. You actually have to govern, and you got to go across the aisle. And that's going to be a challenge. So anything that he's doing right now, he has to make sure he's doing it to ensure that he's going to win. He's going to help his party win the midterms. If he doesn't pull that off, then it's going to get real interesting. Stephen A., if war tape breaks out,

They're going to say it's all on him. I'm not saying they're not going to say that. I'm asking you, is it going to work? Oh, yeah, 100%. Is it going to lose him votes? Did COVID work? Okay. Did COVID work? COVID was different because COVID directly impacted us. We were the ones that couldn't come outside. We were the ones that were stuck in our house, couldn't go to work. You know what I heard a lot of good Republican friends of mine that voted for him kept saying? What? What the protesting happened? They kept saying this. Pat, I'm not going to lie to you, bro. You know I voted for him. I like him.

I'm just I can't vote for him because I can't have the protesting going on. It's not safe for me right now. It's coming into our city. But again, because it was coming into American cities. Sure. So when you talk about Israeli Hamas conflict, when you have pro-Palestinian protesters, not just on universities, but protesting throughout the streets of America, then it could be problematic. If that doesn't happen. But there's a deeper reason for that.

Do you notice that there's this weird, strange marriage between progressive woke leftists and jihadists and Islamists? Is that weird? You never get weirded out by gays for Gaza or queers for Palestine. I must confess I didn't pay any attention to that. That's a symptom of a much larger problem. Because good luck being gay in Gaza.

It ain't going to work out too well for you. I don't think you can actually legally be gay in most countries in the Middle East. So why is that? What is that strange marriage? Well, maybe it's not just haphazardly. Maybe there's a bigger, bigger reason behind the scenes. You talk about people pulling the strings, puppets pulling the strings. There's a clear, clear plan to tear down the West.

And who is the leader of the West? Who's the best from East to West with the biggest thing on their chest? It's the USA, baby. So when the USSR dissolved, you think they just said, all right, we're going to stop doing communism? Nope. They aligned themselves with jihadists and Islamists. So there's this weird thing going on with Iran, Russia, and China. And they're all in a room and they're sitting there like,

Yes, we're going to bring down the United States, bring down West. And then the Chinese are like, oh, yeah, we're going to do it. And then we're like, how are we going to do it? Well, let's globalize the intifada. You ever heard this word before? What do you think that means? Let's bring chaos to the West. Look who is burning the American flag. That's the problem. Start there. Everyone wants to look, oh, this is what's going on. Everybody...

Look at what's burning the flag. Who's chanting death to America? Who is bringing fentanyl to America? Who is literally chanting globalized antifada? That's what's bringing down the West. Here's my challenge. Yes. And I'm only saying this because I'm open to being educated. I don't know. It's not an issue that I really talk about because I see how passionate folks are along religious grounds. You know, it's our land. We are...

You know, the descendants of this place. We belong here. You know, 1967, 1948. You know, they throw out these years, what happens. The Gaza Strip, we get that. There's a lot of things that get talked about, and it's dangerous conversation because you can utter the wrong word and everybody's ready to tear you down. Here's where people that I know come from that don't study the issues the way you guys do and the way I'm attempting to.

They look at Israel and they say, you're damn right there's anti-Semitism. It's not right. It shouldn't be happening. You attack their country on October 7th, 2023. You kidnap over a thousand people. You kill folks, et cetera, et cetera. How dare you? And you see folks complaining about anti-Semitism, justifiably so, in the eyes of a lot of people. Then you hear...

Pro-Palestinian folks, they say you don't see that Stephen A., you don't see this is genocide. Benjamin Netanyahu used to say he didn't want this all along, Stephen A. What are you doing? When are you going to talk about this? I've had people approach me.

And asked me to talk about it and challenged me to talk about it. And I'm like, I don't know enough and I'm not doing that. But the point is, they say stuff like this. Look at what's happening in Gaza. Look at what's happening just the other day. Was it today, this morning or whatever? Bombs were being dropped or whatever. USAID was talking about lives were lost, etc. They're saying all of these things. You look at the rubble and you're saying that's unlivable. You go back to the press conference that Trump gave where he's talking about

How, let's have a big, beautiful resort here. It's not livable there. And why was I appalled by what he said? Issues too sensitive to be bringing up a resort. Of course a nice resort would be great. Of course if it was prosperous, there's a lot of people that could benefit from that. But you have folks from both sides coming at you. One is saying,

We're the Jewish community and we're experiencing anti-Semitism. We didn't instigate this, et cetera, et cetera. And then the other side is saying, why are we starting at October 7th? There were decades and decades of turmoil that exist where people were being displaced, where homes were being destroyed, where women and children were losing their lives, et cetera. What about all of that?

I'm telling you, as somebody who's neither Jewish, clearly is not from Israel, nor Palestine, you know, nor a member of the Palestinian community, to listen to those things, you're desperate for some finite facts that no one can dispute and somebody educating the rest of the world. What is really the issue here? And who's really on the side of right or wrong?

Because if we're being honest, there's a lot of people out there that just don't know. I think that's a good assessment on where people are and where people are not. But at the end of the day, what ends up happening with time is time reveals a lot of things to see who was right on what position. Let's go to a couple other stories before we wrap up. Stephen A., this one story here is with Diddy.

Video comes out where the president's being interviewed and he says, you know what? Diddy said some good things about me back in the days. I would definitely consider pardoning him. And Rob, I don't know if you have the clip or not, if you want to play the clip. There's a clip of him. He's literally being Estawan right there. If you can play this clip. Diddy was a good friend of yours back then. He has since found himself in some very serious legal trouble. Would you ever consider pardoning him?

I well nobody's asked you how to be the one to ask Peter but nobody's asked but I know people are thinking about it I know they're thinking about it I think that people have been very close to asking first of all I look at what's happening and I haven't been watching it too closely although it's certainly getting a lot of coverage I haven't seen him I haven't spoken to him in years he used to really like me a lot but I think when I ran for politics he sort of that relationship busted up

from what I read. I don't know. He didn't tell me that, but I'd read some little bit nasty statements in the paper all of a sudden. It's different. You become a much different person when you run for politics and you do what's right. I could do other things and I'm sure he'd like me and I'm sure other people would like me, but it wouldn't be as good for our country. As we said, our country is doing really well.

And he says, vow to dissuade President Trump from pardoning Diddy if convicted in his federal sex traffic in a racketeering trial, stating on Instagram, I'm going to reach out so he knows how I feel about this guy and said some real bad things about Trump. And he would consider pardoning anyone who was being mistreated, not Puff Daddy. And President Trump would ask him, obviously, to give the answer. What are your thoughts with this, with Diddy case, with pardoning, with all the stories that we hear about him?

I don't want to hear about pardons from Trump based on who he likes or who's complimentary to him. You're the commanding chief. If you believe there's a viable case to pardon somebody, make your call.

If you believe this, not make your call, but it shouldn't be predicated on. He was very nice to me. He's always very good to me. And I mean, very nice thing. He's very nice thing. No, you know what I'm saying? Just like, you know, I remember when he was at the NABJ, National Association of Black Journalists Conference and Rachel Scott, who's an outstanding young reporter for ABC. She was up there hosting the event and she went right into it, asking him a question. And his exact words were,

That might be one of the nastiest questions. You didn't even say hello. How are you? And I just cracked up laughing, you know, because you didn't say hello. So when he came on News Nation, I said, hello, Mr. President. Hello, Mr. President. Because you get respect. Well, not just that, but I'm just saying I understand. That's how you treat people. That's how you treat people. But I'm just like, damn. That's what you focused on was my point. I say all of that to say so much about him.

Elijah Cummings, God rest his soul, former representative out of Maryland. He passes away. You can't even say my condolences. He was never nice to me. What? Come on, man. That's the kind of stuff about him that drives me crazy. Because it's petty. And this ain't something to be petty about. I want to remind everyone, listen, if Diddy's innocent,

Of sex trafficking and racketeering. Those are federal charges. Very, very serious. Okay. If you found anything, God bless you. Live the rest of your life. We saw that video with you beating your girl. Ain't no coming back from that. Nope. We heard testimony that your own defense didn't deny where not only was sexual acts taking place with sex workers as well as yourself urinating in her mouth.

You're not coming back from that. You might have people that may be committed to convicting him just because they said, I'll give a damn what the charges. His ass got to go to jail. It's possible with a jury. They can tell you everything you've been in this case. They might not think that. But because your behavior, your acts were so egregious, they said, hell with this. I remember years ago, guys, when I saw a video or an archive,

And R. Kelly was having sex with clearly an underage. The first words out of my mouth is, there's going to be a prosecutor in his ass within the week. And my second third words out of my mouth was, I bet you it's a black one. Because that was a young black girl. And my third thing I said is, why? Because that man probably got a daughter.

You got a daughter and you see, just think about all of us, who we are as men. You know, you brought up my mother, my upbringing, all of us as men. Just think for a second, black, white, it's been, don't matter. You have a daughter and you see somebody else's daughter in a video being treated like that. What you want to do? One of the things that I get upset about when the issue of domestic violence come up, I get really, really upset when people act like,

most men would turn a blind eye and a deaf in. Okay. No, most men would be ready to kick a dude's ass. 100%. If you saw a dude, you could be walking down the street. And if you saw a dude beating a woman's behind, you probably put yourself in danger to stop him because you know, there's certain things you just don't do. And what I'm saying is if you're a juror,

on the Diddy case and you've heard the testimony and you've seen it, you got to wait for the defense to make their case in fairness to him. And if he's innocent, he's innocent. You let him live. But the video that he has acknowledged, he was in a very bad place. He was effed up and blah, blah, blah. And the testimony that piggybacked off that video from her on the stand, you ain't getting passed. And I think that in jail or not, he has, he's staying forever.

And I personally have a hard time believing he's going to get off because I believe that the jury is going to look at him and say, we don't give a damn about the sex trafficking and racketeering, the specificity of the charge. What we've heard and what we've seen, you deserve to be in jail. Knowing all of those things, I'm just saying, if you're going to make a decision to pardon him, if you're Trump, it needs to be because you think that the case wasn't strong enough.

It don't need to be. He was very nice to me. He used to be very nice to me. It's funny. These are two clips of Diddy and what he said about Trump. Here's what Diddy said about Trump. This man is elected. We're not standing by no more getting killed. We're not scared of anybody standing up and standing by. We're on the verge of a race war. This is when he endorsed Biden. White men like Trump need to be banished. What year was this?

That way of thinking is real dangerous. When you look at it, we don't have no choice. You know what I'm saying? You can say what you want about Biden. I can't say I love the pick either. But hey, we got to get him in office and then we got to hold him accountable. All right. And here's the other one. What's this? We're in a war. Number one, Trump got to go. And then what? Anything that's, you know,

That is about oppressing us and keeping us down. Now I want, I want to break his, I want to break his neck. I want to run it out of town. Have you ever interacted with him?

Yeah. Did he? Yeah, I've seen him at a couple events. How was he with you? Oh, he was always cool with me because he wanted to be an owner, an NBA owner. He was trying to become an NBA owner for the Charlotte Hornets. You know, once Bob Johnson gave it up and then Michael Jordan was obviously talking about giving it up. I mean, he definitely wanted in. Interesting. On that, the NBA had its reservations. I don't know.

I don't know why, but obviously one would deduce maybe somebody knew something that we would ultimately end up finding out. And I don't know the answer to that question. What I would tell you is this, you know, listen, as a black man, I'm going to tell you right now. And I don't know if anybody admits this, but let's talk about Trump for a second and what makes us uncomfortable. Policy wise, we've complained about a multitude.

of folks in office. We complain about the Republicans and fairness to y'all, and then a Democrat gets in the office, and then we find out we had a whole bunch of complaints, except we complained about the Republicans before they get to the office. We wait until the Democrats leave office to complain. You know what I'm saying? It's a double standard that needs to be fixed, no doubt about it. But what I've often tried to say to people, the Trump that I communicated with, I never viewed, never thought of as racist. What I think about him is opportunistic. He is the kind of individual that

That if you told him you can get everything you want, if you appeal to these Democrats, but the Republicans are turned against you, he don't give a damn if the Democrats are what he needs to get what he wants. He's narcissistic like that. He's about getting what he wants, what he believes is in the best interest, whether it's of himself, the country or anything like that. That's how he's.

We who have experienced with him in the past, that's how we know him to be. The uncomfortable part about that is you don't get to look at that and then bring up racism because you don't like what he's doing. When you know he's opportunistic, if you said if you said if Trump, let's just say, for example, that black folks was going to determine the outcome of the terror for.

And he had to go in and appease to a bunch of black people and alienate Hispanics and Asians or alienate the Jewish community or whatever. And that was going to get him what he wants. That's what he would do. That's the Trump I knew.

That's the Trump a lot of people knew. And so we may not like it. There's a lot that I don't like about it. But I think it's real easy to just lean on that. And I think it's a mistake. Let me tell you something. I'm an ambassador for HBCU week. I do everything that I can to contribute to historically black colleges and universities. There may be a point in time I got to go and try to communicate with this man.

How the hell am I going to do that? Oh, man, he's a racist bastard. He's a Nazi. He's this, he's that. But let me have my hand out for your help with the HBCUs. We got to think. We got to be smarter than that. And we got to be bigger than that and understand in politics and in business and stuff like that, we're not going to always hear whatever we want to hear. We're not going to always get everything that we want. But the prize, the objective has to be bigger than us as individuals. We don't do a good enough job of understanding. Stephen, do you fear...

you know, when I've watched you 20 years. Yeah. And I've seen when the black community comes after you and it gets uncomfortable for you. You're very comfortable in every single situation I've seen you in, except when the black community comes after you. And, you know, part of it is I'm Armenian, I'm a Syrian, so I understand heritage. Yes. And this is who I am. This is my identity. I totally get it. Is there a level of...

responsibility or fear where you feel like, hey, and when it comes down to color and it comes down to this, it's color before America. It's color before good policies. Do you see it that way? No. No. No, I don't have fear is not the word. I'm not scared. What I would tell you is that when my own community has come after me in the past, it's hurt. There's genuine pain because I know how much I love people

My black people, I know what we've endured. I know what personal sacrifices I've made in my career just to help my community. And when that is ignored, when that is glossed over, when there's this pretension that it didn't happen, it hurts. Because it's like, wait a minute, I could have shut my mouth and

Kept quiet, collected the dollars, and been on my damn way. But I put a lot on the line by willing to put myself front and center to fight for these issues because I know I never fight against my folks. When I'm sitting up there and I'm calling out folks within my community, I never call out because I don't speak for the whole community or whatever, but when I call out individuals with the mistakes that they make who emanate from my community, I'm not calling them out to condemn them.

I'm calling them out to say stop before you condemn yourself to a point that you can't return from. Because I want us to prosper. I want us to succeed. I don't want it to be at the expense of anybody else. I'm not anti-anybody. But am I pro-black? Yes, and probably so. I root for us. I want us to succeed. I want us to prosper. I don't want white folks to go broke. I don't want...

Vinny to do worse than me. I just don't want to do worse to him. I want to do worse than Adam. I want to do worse. I want to do worse to Tom. I want to live just as well as y'all. You sit up there in a private jet. Damn it. I want to be a private jet. You got, you, you, you got a Lamborghini. Damn it. I want one. I want to be able to get one. I might not want that specific ride, but I want, I want everything anybody else would want. And so when I'm looking at us as a folk, as a people, I'm saying,

I'm giving you a heads up. I'm hip to the game. I've been in corporate America for 30 years. I got a clue. I got an idea of how things are done, why they're done, the thought process behind it. If I'm around Adam and Pat and Vinny and Tom and there's an education that I'm receiving, I'm the type of guy that leaves from here and goes out into my community to say, you see the game they tipped us to? Then you're going to pay attention and you're going to ignore it. Because guess what? Y'all ain't stupid.

Y'all happen to have love for me, so you'll make me hip to something I didn't know. You're educating and edifying me in hopes that I will go out there and spread the wealth so we got more people that are being like-minded, smart-minded, intellectual, thoughtful, calculating in how they go about doing things. So we can all benefit. But...

If I don't do that and I'm all about me, like some people are who will remain nameless in our industry to no good bastards that they are, okay, that's them. I'm not that guy. And so when I'm about that and I can point to what it has cost me in my career endorsement dollars.

contracts, all of this stuff, job opportunities, all because I was outspoken. I was in your face. I was defiant. I had courage. I wasn't scared because I was thinking about more than just myself. And then my own community turns against me and you associates me with names like sellout, uncle Tom, hell yeah, that shit hurt. It hurt for a long time. It's just that I recognized along the way that,

Nobody was saying this about me when I was failing. Nobody was saying this about me when I didn't have shit. They said it about me after I had ascended and while I was continuing to ascend. And sometimes that's the game. That's how it goes. And you got to have the tough enough skin to take it. And I do. And look, I mean, I, you know,

Terrell Owens, Max, that whole exchange. I can't go back. One, you did 18 years ago, 17 years ago. We're like, hey, pull up your pants. Do this, do that. Maybe we got to vote Republican. Maybe we got to. I don't know. It was a small group sitting like 20 people sitting in front of you. And this other African-American man was asking you. It's like, hey, sometimes you say stuff. And no, I've been watching it for four minutes. And I think the biggest part is sometimes I'm Armenian.

And I'm a Syrian. There'll be comments that'll be made and say, oh, he doesn't support the Armenian thing. He doesn't support the Syrian thing. I'm like, yeah, it no longer does anything to me. I don't feel I have to make the case to win you over every time. Because then that's a form of ownership you have on me, and I'm walking on eggshells. There's an Armenian, probably the most Armenian, not probably, he is the most Armenian successful man ever

In business, he was the MGM guy. Who was the MGM guy? Kirk Corian. Kirk Corian, right. At his peak, the guy was worth $10 billion. At 99 years old, he was still doing deals. This is who he was. What age did he die, Rob? Can you look up what age he died? 98. 98 years old, he dies, right? This guy was doing deals to the very end.

You know how much money he gave to Armenia? So much money. Eventually, it's like one thing I learned. No matter how much I give, you can never win them over. No matter how much I give, you can never win them over. I think that is a challenging thing to overcome. You do your best. You go about it. But if you constantly try to appease and conform, there's a form. I'm not doing that. No, I know you're not. I know you're not. What I'm saying is if you do, and I'm talking if general, not you, if general to everybody. Yeah. If you try to do that.

You know, that guilt, that guilt, constant guilt. So, you know, guilt, guilt is such a, can you pull a power versus force, Rob? Power versus force, you ever read this book? I have not. Power versus force chart, type in chart. Look what level guilt is. It says that the level to go at, if you look at the third row, go right in the middle where it says yellow courage, that's the first row of

Where when you get to courage, your level of consciousness increases. Below it, it's pride, I'm so important. Anger, desire, fear, grief, apathy. Guilt is the second lowest. And sometimes certain communities, they try to use that and it produces the worst feeling. It's blame, destruction, evil, vindictive. Look at what's at the top, enlightened. That's right. And why is that so important?

Because let me tell you something. So we're sitting here today, right? And all of us come from different backgrounds. I cannot tell you how much better my world got when I went away from this onus. I do feel this onus not to agree with my community, but to make sure that my community's voice is heard in terms of whatever their collective perspective is so people will know. But I feel no obligation to agree with it.

If I don't agree with it, I don't agree with it. Why? Because I have the faith in myself that I'm around the right people who give me a potpourri of thoughts. Adam is nothing like you. You know what I'm saying? Vinny and Adam might not be alike. Tom and Vinny might not be alike. All of y'all bring something. So me being around y'all,

Edifies me. I don't think like Sean Hannity, but hearing him think I have a clue as to who people like him think and why they think the way that they think along with others. It could be a Cuomo. It could be a Bill O'Reilly. It could be a Mark Levin. It could be my boss, Jimmy Patara or Dave Roberts or anybody else.

Learning from other people, I walk around edified because whatever decision I make, I know I was reasonable enough to listen and inhale and take all thoughts into consideration before I draw my conclusion. So even when you don't agree with me.

you're not necessarily offended by it. And if you are offended, it's usually for a reason other than what it should be. It's you, not you. Which makes it your problem. That's right. Not mine. There you go. And that's how it goes. And I think that's what we're going to finish it on. Gang, hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as we did.

And today's what? Today's Wednesday. Yes. And they will get another episode tomorrow. Home team will be doing it as well. But Stephen A., my man, much love, brother. Same to you, my man. Great having you on again. Take care, everybody. Bye-bye. I do give a shit about what you give a shit about sometimes. Good to see you, buddy.