Jason Whitlock is joined by Uncle Jimmy Dobbs on his new podcast, "Fearless Fearless" to talk about the latest ESPN scandal involving Rachel Nichols and Maria Taylor, and how they should've handled it differently. Plus, Jason gives his thoughts on why Rachel Nichols' chickens are coming home to roost.
00:06:29.100She will have, because what Rachel Nichols is, is a survivor. And I can't knock her for that.
00:06:35.600She's going the direction that ESPN is blowing everybody into. She's going with the flow. In order to survive at ESPN, you have to be woke or that political monster within ESPN will chew you up and spit you out. It happened to me from 2013 to 2015 when I was hired to launch and run the Undefeated.
00:07:00.960But my political point of view, which are my world view of being conservative, again, because I'm not really political.
00:07:09.460I'm just a guy that was raised in a church and raised playing football. And so my point of view is conservative.
00:07:15.960But I'm not going to back off that for anybody. And I got chewed up and spit out at ESPN by the leftists that are within that organization, the political factions, the lobbyists within ESPN.
00:07:30.400And so Rachel Nichols and others, and this will be an arrogant statement, but Rachel Nichols is smart. She's like, man, Jason Whitlock, look at his journalistic resume.
00:07:41.680He's at the top of the top of the field in the sports world. And they annihilated and assassinated him for having a conservative point of view.
00:07:50.580So if she wants to survive, she has to go woke. And again, I don't know what and maybe she's authentically woke.
00:07:58.800I tend to doubt it. I'm hoping that this moment looking at the leftist, I mean, I don't know, Megan, if you're aware and I almost hate mentioning this, but it factually happened.
00:08:09.680They're going after Rachel Nichols so viciously that two days ago, I think on Tuesday, she was trending over Twitter about a rumor and her and some NBA basketball player and Twitter allowed her to trend with the with all these tweets about her and some NBA player.
00:08:31.220And that's how hard the left wants to bury her, that they rig up something like that and instruct people to start tweeting and bots and algorithms or whatever about her personal life.
00:08:43.760This woman's married and doesn't need to be subjected to that type of gossip.
00:08:48.220Well, if it's untrue, it's defamatory. It's defamatory per se, as we as we refer to her.
00:08:53.220Her in-laws are apparently Diane Sawyer and Mike Nichols.
00:08:55.440Yeah, she's their daughter in law. OK, so so that's Nichols.
00:08:59.600And she's because what happened is a year later, that tape, what happened was somebody saw her in her hotel room.
00:09:05.780Somebody ESPN saw her making the comments, heard her surreptitiously because they weren't supposed to be looking at her, make the comments and took a video of it.
00:09:14.980And then I leaked it, I guess, to Maria Taylor and maybe others because it made its way around ESPN.
00:09:21.780It's very disconcerting for any woman to find out that somebody's been looking at her in her hotel room without her knowing.
00:09:27.160And I don't care that it was a camera ESPN gave her.
00:09:29.780She may have forgotten to turn it off properly because this wasn't something that, you know, she she certainly didn't.
00:09:36.060She had a reasonable expectation of privacy in that hotel room by herself.
00:09:39.680Anyway, but let's spend a minute on Maria Taylor, because at first I was like, well, I'd be ticked off, too, if I were her.
00:09:45.500And somebody was saying my advancement was due to my skin color or my lady parts.
00:09:49.140But the more I looked into Maria Taylor, I'm like, she's not that sympathetic either.
00:09:53.880She's she's somebody who's been out there.
00:09:56.620I don't know. You tell me, Jason, but I feel like she's been extremely woke.
00:10:00.500And I think she's been playing this behind the scenes because that tape didn't leak to The New York Times until a week ago, right before Maria Taylor's contract negotiation, where she's asking to be paid.
00:10:11.800They offered her a five million dollar deal. Reportedly, she wants eight million, which is what Stephen Smith gets.
00:10:17.240And people in your world, the sports world, are saying she's not worth that.
00:10:21.040And it's pretty interesting that it came out right as she was having the negotiation.
00:10:24.640I think Maria Taylor is is is as calculated and conniving as any person, man or woman in the media business.
00:10:35.000I think that she has been using race as a weapon for more than a year now to climb up the ladder.
00:10:43.140She makes one million dollars a year right now at ESPN.
00:10:46.860They offered her five million dollars.
00:10:49.200She said no. She wants eight million, the same as Stephen A. Smith.
00:10:52.800At a time over the last two years where ESPN has been slashing everybody's salary, men and women.
00:11:57.380And so let me walk you through what briefly what Maria Taylor has done over the past year through the New York Times and other places.
00:12:06.020When Drew Brees defended the National Anthem before the 2020 season, after Reverend George Floyd, Martin Luther King Jr.
00:12:15.820the third got assassinated, Drew Brees defended the National Anthem and Maria Taylor went on ESPN and savaged Drew Brees, basically accused him of being a racist.
00:12:28.680The guy did, said nothing wrong, certainly didn't need to have his reputation impugned in that manner, smeared in that manner.
00:13:30.460Now, if he would have came out and said, if he would have said, oh, well, you know, I understand why it happens and I understand the meaning of protest and why we need it.
00:13:46.260And I'm exhausted and I'm tired of having to listen to someone say something like that and then have to sit back and be like, well, maybe he did it.
00:13:54.680Maybe it's not his heart and it's this and it's that.
00:13:57.060When you reveal yourself to me and you say something like that and you say it out of an intolerant mind and or heart or a non-empathetic heart.
00:14:05.760And for the last five years, all we've done is see countless deaths in the street.
00:14:11.020My patience left my body when I watched George Floyd take his last breath.
00:14:14.800So if that didn't affect you and make you want to reassess the way that you're going to address a question that includes racial injustice in our country after you watch that man die in the middle of the street, something's off.
00:15:16.440And so to see all these people fake all of this emotion over George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks and everybody else that they're not connected to, they're using these dead bodies to advance their own careers and to build their own brands.
00:15:33.780And it bothers the hell out of me having experienced the death of a family member at the hands of police.
00:15:43.480And so she used she she used Drew Brees.
00:15:47.560And then a couple of months later, the New York Times circles back to write a story about how pervasive racism is at ESPN and Maria Taylor's at the center of it, because during some conference call, one of her white coworkers did, I think, not knowing or thought he maybe hit the mute button.
00:16:09.820But he turned to his wife or someone in his house on a Zoom call or conference call and said, yeah, this is a gripe session for black employees.
00:16:18.200And Maria Taylor told The New York Times that, oh, that comment was a slap in the face.
00:16:23.520And I was so offended because somebody said this is a gripe.
00:16:28.200So if she's this sensitive to any comment and everything's a slap in the face, they need to fire her ass because she's not built for the spotlight.
00:16:38.640And so she did that to the Dave Lamont guy who he and his wife had actually raised some black kid for several years in their own home who went on to become a college football player that people know about.
00:16:53.020She just smeared this guy and then now she turns around a year later and does it to Marie to Rachel Nichols.
00:17:03.480She's just stomping on the heads of white people in a racist fashion to advance her own career.
00:17:12.700Well, she would say she's holding them to account.
00:17:15.820You know, she went to H.R. in those instances.
00:17:18.380I mean, that's the thing that's a little odd to me, like people offend you at work.
00:17:22.260They can say sexist things, racist things, whatever it is.
00:17:25.380To run to H.R. is the new thing where you've got to go tell mommy and daddy and get the person in trouble for an insensitive comment or the Rachel Nichols thing was like, all right, she was on tape in a hotel room.
00:17:35.860She didn't know it was a good private conversation.
00:17:38.760And, you know, it also appears she runs to the press, right?
00:17:41.520It's like she literally did it in the case of the Drew Brees apology.
00:17:44.660And I would say, even though she didn't give the New York Times a comment on the record when they broke this story a year later.
00:17:50.980And by the way, Rachel Nichols has now been booted from the coverage of the, I guess, is it the NBA finals again?
00:19:17.420Yeah, well, I just, the whole thing is offensive to me and to sit around and act like that black employees at these media companies or any of these companies must be kept in a bubble to be protected.
00:20:03.280Which is a very unforgiving place right now.
00:20:05.340But here's my last point I want to ask you about on this because I do think it's interesting.
00:20:08.580So Maria's been out there, you know, talking about Black Lives Matter, railing on Drew Brees.
00:20:12.340You know, she's been sort of a social commentator for the past year plus.
00:20:16.380And she's also, we learned from the New York Times article that just hit, you know, coincidentally, just as their contract negotiation is up, that she's been pushing for more Black hires at ESPN, essentially saying that race should be a factor in hiring in promotion.
00:20:30.360And then when someone is caught on camera saying, behind the scenes, her race may have been a factor in her getting this job that Rachel Nichols had, she gets deeply offended.
00:21:51.560You're thinking logic and reason are important to Maria Taylor and her contract drive that she's on.
00:22:00.160She doesn't want logic and reason to enter into this equation at all, because if logic and reason enter in, they're going to pay her about a million and a half.
00:22:09.980They're going to give her about a $500,000 raise and say, Maria, keep giggling and laughing and flirting with Jalen Rose on air and shut the hell up.
00:22:19.600If logic and reason had anything to do with this.
00:22:22.840And so she's making illogical arguments.
00:22:25.620She's she doesn't care that she's pushing ESPN higher, black, higher, black, higher, black.
00:22:30.960And and Rachel Nichols and everybody else overhears that with or without a tape.
00:22:35.740Everybody knows that's what Maria Taylor and others are doing.
00:22:38.680And so when Rachel Nichols hears that and says, yeah, they took Maria's advice and these other people campaigning around here, higher, black, higher, black, higher, black.
00:22:48.320And but now we're offended that that's being thrown back in our face.
00:24:38.640The Raiders defensive end position is stacked with guys they've either paid, recently signed, or recently drafted.
00:24:47.360And so he's in the second year of a three-year contract.
00:24:52.260He knows that if he doesn't get on the field this year and put up good numbers because he had a mediocre season last year after they first signed him, that this is it.
00:26:44.500Polyamory is the practice of having multiple romantic partners at the same time with the consent of all parties, meaning you're not monogamous with any one person.
00:27:07.140Then there's Andrew Cuomo's daughter, Michaela, who apparently was upset that her dad was receiving too much of the press coverage and decided to come out and announce to everybody.
00:27:16.300Meanwhile, no one gives to anything about Michaela Cuomo.
00:28:58.780I like Bobby, Sherry, sir, ma'am, mister, missus.
00:29:05.440I want to go back, or maybe I thought there was a time, or we need to start a time, where people just keep their sexual activities just private to their bedroom.
00:29:19.560And I don't need to know what gets you excited.
00:29:22.420And that's my problem with Carl Nassib is that the media has reacted like, oh, my God.
00:29:30.080What Carl Nassib does with his penis makes him more ethical and courageous than Jason Whitlock.
00:29:40.640Well, what of the argument, Jason, that, you know, gays, you know, typically, not as much in recent years, but typically have had a hard time in the country.
00:29:49.200They certainly aren't, you know, prevalent or at least out and prevalent in the NFL.
00:29:52.740And so this may make, you know, some young kids struggling with their sexuality, feeling uncomfortable, feel more accepted and more like it's going to be okay.
00:30:04.060And I am aware, from my own childhood, in terms of I can remember kids, particularly male kids, that were more feminine than the rest of us and the type of bullying and harassment that they experienced.
00:30:18.780I am really glad that that has lessened in this new era.
00:30:26.800And it's been healthy for the country.
00:30:29.400And so we have to be accepting and view men that express their masculinity or express their sensibilities in a different way than John Wayne.
00:30:43.920And so I think that's good and healthy.
00:30:46.860But this whole we've moved to a point where we've a bit, in my view, overcorrected.
00:30:54.120And I'll go ahead and say, try to put it in context and context and not get myself canceled.
00:31:02.020But look, I don't view homosexuality any different than I view my choice to have sex outside of marriage.
00:31:29.780It's certainly not something God wants me to do.
00:31:32.480I put homosexuality in the same lane, not any worse than my sin, but that's how I see it.
00:31:44.120And so for me, have been raised in the church and having these Christian beliefs, I think, and I've made choices, sacrifices because of my approach to life.
00:31:54.840It's one of the main reasons I never got married, because for a long time, I didn't remotely believe in monogamy.
00:32:02.240And so I thought it disqualified me from marriage.
00:32:33.140That I just wish we'd keep our sexual preferences more prior, all of us, whether heterosexual, homosexual, trisexual, quadruple sexual, whatever.
00:32:46.120Now, I'll go down for that trisexual part.
00:33:33.560I think that the Bible is like a playbook for life and that the principles expressed in the Bible, there's a reason and a logic why God, I think, believes in monogamy and sex within a marriage.
00:33:49.180I think it leads to a happier, more successful life.
00:33:56.320The wages of sin, take it – I'll move away from sex, but it's just like the Bible preaches against gluttony and I have a problem with gluttony.
00:34:07.080And there are complications from gluttony and being overweight and the Bible and God wants you to avoid that.
00:34:13.700And there are complications to sex outside of marriage.
00:34:19.140That's why we have – if you look at all the illegitimate kids –
00:34:24.860That we have running around America and just this whole sexual freedom deal, there's complications to that.
00:34:34.500We have a lot of kids that have grown up and have never been raised because people that have put no thought into sex and having kids are having kids and they're letting video games and grandmamas and aunties and cousins raise them and foster care and all this other stuff.
00:34:56.200So I think there's a logic behind what the Bible preaches and what God prescribes and we ignore it at our own peril.
00:35:08.880I've said before it would be great if my kids would choose to be abstinent before marriage.
00:35:14.260I doubt it's going to happen, but I would love it if they decided to go that route.
00:35:18.500But to me, it seems different than talking about people who are gay or lesbian is that if you are gay and you try to live as a straight person, your life is miserable.
00:35:38.140You could become a dysfunctional person if you're pushed through that where you otherwise could lead a totally happy, well-adjusted life if you're just allowed to be true to who you are.
00:35:47.140Or to me, that's what God wants for us.
00:35:52.100I think that's what society wants for us.
00:35:56.220And I would say my sexual desires need to be tamed for me to live my best life.
00:36:08.200And so, again, I wouldn't be, and I'm not, I don't think God is asking homosexuals to do anything that he's not asking me to do as well as a heterosexual person who has, you know, had, you know, a lot of sex outside of marriage.
00:36:28.840That I've literally in the past few years as my spirituality has grown deeper, I've changed course and have been going a better direction and I see the benefits of it in my life.
00:36:41.000You know, with that statement of, I think that that's the reason, that that's the importance of having God in your life early.
00:36:53.500That's the importance of having a strong spiritual and religious belief early.
00:36:59.960That's the reason you have to have values and morality early.
00:37:03.160You can't wait until you get 18, 19, and 20 and start deciding, oh, I need to learn how to say no.
00:37:09.460Because if you start having morals and values early, then you don't have to get to this part to where now God got a judge on the curb.
00:37:19.280He's like, see, I told you this was going to happen.
00:37:22.420Well, I think as a general principle, that's true.
00:37:24.520But now when you're talking about one's sexuality, which most people will tell you, not these weirdos today who are just like, I'm ex-sexual, some made up thing that they're just choosing to sound what they think is cool.
00:37:35.600I'm talking about people who genuinely have a different sexuality other than straight.
00:37:40.060You know, they talk about, you know, I tried kissing somebody of the opposite sex at 10 just to see if I might actually feel something.
00:37:49.980You know, it's not like morality is going to change that for them.
00:37:52.700The way I see, I think, some of evolution in the church and certainly in society is as a blessing and a benevolence and a real sign of progress that we're loving our gay brothers and sisters and accepting them in a way we never did in a way that was very damaging to them.
00:38:09.960Anyway, I see that you see it differently.
00:38:11.800And I've heard this, of course, having a lot of people who are much more biblical than I am.
00:38:15.840But I just, you know, I think about my own kids and if they turned out to be gay or lesbian, I certainly wouldn't be trying to change it.
00:38:22.560And I certainly wouldn't want anybody else to be looking at them as just, I don't know, anything other than awesome.
00:38:27.960I think that I am loving and accepting of everyone, regardless of whatever their sexuality is or sexuality issues are.
00:38:37.320The only thing I would just like as a society has to have a standard and a goal and again, and we can have those without because my promiscuity has never put me outside or made me a pariah in society.
00:39:01.880And so I, we need to quit making gay people a pariah in society.
00:39:13.520Their sin through sexuality, no different than mine.
00:39:17.420But where I'm really concerned, Megan, and I'm sure you've heard this before too, is just like when we come to this thing, well, you know, I just grew up.
00:40:31.360Yeah, I left Los Angeles and moved to Nashville was to help myself and to be around high quality women who would make me elevate myself and just, I'm trying to be in a different mindset.
00:40:59.120Up next, apparently our best runner, Sha'Carri Richardson, is not going to be representing the U.S. in the Olympics because she had a positive test on marijuana.
00:41:08.180AOC and others are saying this is racist.
00:41:12.700But before we get to that, I want to bring you a feature we have here on the MK Show called From the Archives.
00:41:18.720This is where we direct your ears back to a previous Megyn Kelly Show episode from our growing library that we think you need to hear again.
00:41:25.980And today we are going back to episode 59 from February.
00:41:29.380We hear a lot about critical race theory in schools these days.
00:41:32.620But back in February, when we started covering the story, we were one of the few.
00:41:36.180And before he started becoming a true household name, we were joined by Chris Ruffo, who has been so smart and so important in this whole battle about what critical race theory is all about.
00:41:51.140So let's go back and just talk about what critical race theory is.
00:41:53.780I think a lot of people think they have a general idea, but don't really understand what is critical race theory.
00:41:59.060Yeah, and critical race theory is a kind of academic movement that started really to kind of blossom in the 1990s and was really relegated to academia.
00:42:08.860And the idea is that is to kind of use race as a lens through which to analyze society and basically saying analysis up to this point has discounted the importance of race.
00:42:21.340We should really look at race, racial discrimination, racial oppression, and at that point, I agree.
00:42:31.400But they take another step, which is to say that they make a kind of historical judgment and then a legal judgment and a cultural judgment that the United States is fundamentally and irredeemably racist and white supremacist.
00:42:47.800And that all of our institutions from the founding of the country to the current day are merely kind of cover or smokescreens for racist oppression.
00:42:59.060And the critical race theorists actually started out of law schools and their idea was that the fundamental rights that we have as Americans enshrined in the Constitution, articulated in the Declaration, are actually kind of perpetuators of evil.
00:43:16.140And that we should essentially overthrow the constitutional order and end the kind of unfettered protection of speech, end individual rights as individuals, end private property, which is another form of discrimination, and then end kind of 14th Amendment protections that you're all treated equally under the law.
00:43:38.940For the critical race theorists, these aren't actually signs of progress.
00:43:41.900Even the Civil Rights Act, even desegregating schools, they were very skeptical of this because they say it gives the appearance of progress, but actually doesn't change the fact that racism is as bad in 2021 as it was in 1814.
00:43:58.860It's incredible to see how far this topic has come in just the past five months.
00:44:02.500And we're going to have more on it here at the MK Show in the weeks ahead.
00:44:05.640And we will keep bringing you more clips you need to hear from the archives.
00:44:10.180Now back to Jason and Uncle Jimmy after this.
00:44:18.560Help me understand why you are not on the side of, I think it's just Sha'Carri Richardson.
00:45:49.320I do think she's made an excuse by because they keep saying, Megan, her biological mother died.
00:45:55.800And the reason why they keep using biological, I think, is because she didn't have much of a relationship with her mother or they would just say her mother died.
00:46:06.260And so the death of her biological mother allegedly caused her to use marijuana.
00:46:25.820I've written as a journalist about America's drug war and the unfairness of how the drug war was prosecuted.
00:46:32.120As a sports writer, I've written extensively about this.
00:46:36.040Having said all that, we should quit acting like marijuana is harmless.
00:46:40.520And we have to understand that there's a connection between drugs and alcohol and criminal behavior.
00:46:51.880Most of the people, and I say that 60, 70 percent of the people that commit violent crimes are on some type of drug or alcohol, mind-altering hallucinogen.
00:47:06.000And so we just need to quit acting like, oh, man, they're just smoking pot.
00:47:09.720Most of the bad decisions I made in life could be attributed to either marijuana or alcohol use.
00:47:23.040And usually those all work in combination.
00:47:25.660Women, drugs and alcohol, and dumb decisions.
00:47:29.300For men, they all work in combination.
00:47:32.160And then the other thing I would say, Megan, and I'm out here a little bit, but I just think they could have put her on the Olympic team to run the 4x100 relay because her 30-day suspension will be up when the 4x100 relay comes up at the Olympics.
00:48:44.800Yeah, what they know, think, what the people that actually have interacted with her know her far better than all the celebrities and tweeters and everybody.
00:48:54.380They know her better than everybody, and they don't want her on the team, or they would have put her on the relay team.
00:49:00.260Well, I should state for the record, we have absolutely no proof nor even any allegations that she's doping.
00:52:41.000So I'd love to get your thoughts on the anti-Americanism, the belief that the flag is now just a Republican thing and that patriotism lies in watching the Capitol riot and talking
00:52:53.860about basically reinforcing how shitty the country is.
00:52:56.800People that are involved in the retelling and reimagining of American history are doing it for the express purpose of trying to create the narrative and the belief that democracy and capitalism, our Constitution, our Declaration of Independence, our Founding Fathers, all failures.
00:53:25.000And it's failed so spectacularly that we need a great reset.
00:53:31.900We need to remake America and the world, and we need to make it in China's image.
00:53:59.820And so they have to create the belief, and they're doing it through black people because the actual truth about the black American journey, it doesn't damn America.
00:54:14.480It actually explains America and how inviting and how great freedom is and how our system and the documents from the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution allow for dramatic change that increases freedom for men, I mean, for black people and for women in this country.
00:54:40.080That's been our history, that's been our history.
00:54:41.560And black people's pursuit of freedom was the steroids that made America great.
00:54:49.960Black people fighting for freedom from slavery, fighting for freedom from Jim Crow and segregation and just our full rights, powered America for 200 years into being the greatest country on earth.
00:55:07.860And black people have been America's moral conscious and compass and have made Christians, believers, pursue their better selves and make this country pursue its better self.
00:55:25.100No longer is America the greatest thing and that all the rest of the globe is trying to get in, beat in our doors.
00:55:32.100Our borders are jammed to the south because America is so great and it has nothing to do with any of this crap the left is talking about.
00:55:44.780It has to do, everybody else can see the obvious freedom and opportunity here, and that's what America promises, freedom and opportunity.
00:55:53.060It doesn't promise you freedom from ever getting offended or any of this other crap that everybody thinks now America is supposed to do.
00:56:01.660But all that you're hearing from Cori Bush, Maxine Waters, the New York Times and all the other, they want to reimagine America's history, use it as a excuse to blow up our Constitution, to take away our rights and freedom and make us more like China.
00:56:24.080Uncle Jimmy, what would you do if you showed up at Claire McCaskill's house on the 4th of July and she started running video of the Capitol Hill riot on January 6th?
00:56:51.100I mean, that that I like how you went to Black Panther fiction, another fictional story, because this insurrection thing is a fiction bunch of unarmed people.