Episode 1 - Bomani Jones

Bomani Jones is an award-winning sports journalist that covers a wide range of topics on TV, radio and his podcast "The Right Time." Bo has worked for the likes of ESPN, HBO & Sirius XM and has left a significant impact on the sports media landscape.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

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Speaker 3 (01:30):
Right, welcome everybody. This is the Matt Jones Show. And
you know when I did my first show, I guess
of the old Matt Jones podcast which started many, many
many years ago. My first guest was Bomani Jones, and
I thought, how fitting that we're starting it back and
we bring him back, my longtime friend Bo from ESPN, HBO,

(01:54):
now CNN. He was a writer, he did local radio.
You've done everything, Bomani.

Speaker 5 (01:58):
Thank you very much, manppreciate you. It dawned on me
like we're not in the round number stage yet, but
we are almost at twenty years of knowing each other.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
Yeah, so let's start with that. You were Tell everybody
how we met. You were a local. A lot of
people don't know you did local radio for a long time.

Speaker 5 (02:14):
Yeah, but this was before I did local radio. I
was writing for Page two and I wrote a story
about Carolina and Kentucky had played at the Dean Dome.
This was the last year of Tubby Smith, and it
looked like it looked like everybody had checked out on that,
and I wrote two thousands.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
It was two thousand and six.

Speaker 5 (02:33):
So I wrote down my feeling that everybody had checked out,
and I probably got a couple things wrong. And I
know this because you reached out to me about it,
which went okay. And you know, you made also a
very worthwhile point that I wasn't thinking about, is that
you know, there's a racial dynamic in how Tubby is
evaluated and how I, as a young black guy, my
words could then be used on a topic that, to

(02:54):
be fair, and I have a better appreciation for it
now than I did then. Only knew was so much about.
So I was like, okay, this is cool. It was
actually interesting because I can't remember the reason ESPN took
it down, like they felt like there was some detail
that wasn't correct or whatever, and.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
They, oh, I didn't know they took it down.

Speaker 5 (03:08):
Yeah, that was part of what was famous about it,
was that they had taken the piece down after it
went up for whatever the reason. But I do remember
very clearly that after that, You're like, hey, you ought
to come on our radio show, and I said, okay, fine,
and I went on and I couldn't believe you guys
were talking like this about things in sports. I was like, oh,
y'all talk about Duke like this. This is crazy. I agree,

(03:31):
but this is crazy.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Well, you, at the time, you had written something that
was kind of like maybe Kentucky needs to make a change,
and I was a generally pretty positive Tubby guy, and
a lot of folks were using your words to go, see,
we're not racist, we want Tubby. God, here's a young
black guy that wants it too. When you have opinions
that are genuinely your opinions, but then people that might

(03:55):
be bad actors in your mind take them for arguments
you don't want, how does that work. I'm sure that's
happened to you before.

Speaker 5 (04:01):
Yeah, it just happened recently. We're talking about Shador Sanders, Yes,
and the draft and so what has made it complicated
is actually the presence of the Internet, or maybe the
Internet has made it a little bit more simple, in
that the Internet has made everyone more tribal. And I
think the thing the Internet has done that we don't
talk enough about is it has minimized intra group disagreement. Right, Like,

(04:28):
so a lot of these young columnists that I see
and I don't even know columnists is the right term anymore? Right,
But like young people who traffic in opinions, they seem
to figure out what everybody's already saying and then distill
that into one thing and then give people back what
they already said in the first place. Because you can
go workshop anything on the internet, right, Like you can

(04:49):
go figure out on a social media platform, how's this
take going to go over and then decide that the
people that you care about are going to feel the
same way. To me, I feel like, A that's cheating,
and B I feel like that's not particular interesting. Like,
if you're really good at this, then you've earned the
respect of your audience and they'll go with you when
they don't necessarily agree with you and maybe think about
it a different way. But people are also now far

(05:10):
less likely to actually do that. And so one thing
I have decided to push back on is the refusal
I see from other people to criticize within whatever the
group may be, what the group is. The left what
are the group is black people? What are the group
is young people? What are the group is fans of
a particular team or whatever? It is, Like, we've got
to have the healthy dialogue within that.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
Yeah, let me explain to people who might not know
what you said. You said about Shador Sanders. I believe
something like maybe he needs to be a little more humble.

Speaker 5 (05:40):
Yeah, he did it wrong, which he did it wrong, Right,
he did it wrong?

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah, and there and that was also the kind of
thing that like a right wing columnist would say, right,
and that's hard for you to say, even if you're
coming at it from a different point.

Speaker 5 (05:53):
Well, the trick bag on that is if you give
me time to talk it out. Right, Like my explanation
on it was, all of us get humbled by life
at some point. Neither you nor I hurt for confidence. Right,
We have both had moments where we were like, oh, okay,
we got put in check just a little bit by
the world. The problem is when people believe that somebody
is supposed to do it, typically believing that they themselves

(06:15):
the audacity to believe. Say you are the humbler, right,
you ain't gotta worry about that. The world's gonna do that,
and that's what happened to Shador. And so the thing
with Shador in the draft was, I just had a
lot of people who had made the call that it
was that there was something nefarious about the fact that
he slid in the draft, and I'm like, nah, I
don't think that's what happened. I think that what happened
was he wasn't necessarily talented enough to be a first

(06:38):
round pick. And then the way that he handled those
he handled those interviews as though he was the one
making the decision, not the teams. Yes he did, and
so the teams, you know, and that's what's going to happen.
But it becomes necessary to say those things. The problem
is some of the worst people in the world also
felt the same way. Broken clock a couple times a day.
It gets something right, But I can't. I can't let

(06:59):
those people to never let those people determine what I'm
going to say.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
Right, Yeah, so you didn't feel like you could have
the opinion Shador should have been a first round pick, right,
If you didn't think he should be a first round pick,
it right, I mean, like you can't have that that
p I'm not.

Speaker 5 (07:13):
And it's one thing where I think that there's when
I think there's healthy room for disagreement. Then okay, you
think he was a first round pick, that's fine. The
trick bag was something like Shador was Shador was playing
college football for a non college football audience. So the
people who are the most invested in that are the
people who are probably the least informed and the least
to wear. And so I look up and I see

(07:34):
a buddy of mine, a writer, and he says something about,
will show me a time when a guy won the
Johnny Unitis Award and had numbers like these and then
fell all the way to win. Ever, I was like
Gardner Minshew, twenty nineteen six round pick with all these
numbers that you said, like, we gotta.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
I am probably didn't even know that, right.

Speaker 5 (07:52):
Oh, you had no idea he was operating on. What,
to be fair, is a somewhat reasonable proposition that these
white folks is doing that's wrong. There is an extended
track record where if that is your default, I understand
why you start there, But you can't just go there
no matter what, right, especially if you're trying to make
the point in public, because you're already going uphill when

(08:13):
you're trying to make that point to anybody at all,
it's not worth it to make that point unless you're sure,
like to me, you can't just be guessing. You got
to have a really really strong case rather than just
a correlation. And I thought, was sha door, what a
lot of that was simply was a correlation. And then
the argument I saw from people, and again there's a
track record of this of they wanted to tame the

(08:34):
you know, they just want to take this outspoken black man.
I'm like, he's not outspoken, he's obnoxious. Those are two
different things. So, like, I think the Internet gets us
with a lot of conflation of terms and people get
really charged up and they have to be on the
side and everything else. And I'm not gonna play that
game with people, Like I feel like I've earned the
respect that you're gonna listen to me regardless of whether
or not I agree with you.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
One of the people that said that was was Stephen A,
who said something like, this is like Kaepernick, and I want,
you know, I don't really know Steven A, but I
wanted to be like, look, it is clear Kaepernick had
the NFL. They had come together and violated antitrust. That's
why they settled with him, and that's why he's not

(09:15):
played since then. Steven A has become this figure where
whatever he talks about gets a lot of intention, including
the absurdity that people think he could run for president.
You've known him a long time. I know you respect
his work when he was a writer. How do you
feel about this notion that he's almost become this spokesman

(09:36):
somehow for not just sports, but anyone who might be
on the left or anyone like we all have to
hear what stephen A thinks about anything.

Speaker 5 (09:43):
So what I think is interesting about that? And it
doesn't happen so much anymore. But I noticed that I
was getting a heavy push from the algorithm whenever he
would go on anything or talk about any politics, Like
there are engagement for me accounts that put up that
steven A says on it podcast and everything else I am.
I think part of what happens when we start talking

(10:06):
about running for president now is people start talking about
candidates for president in the context of do you think
they can win? And the arguments behind yeah, but but
the arguments behind why you think somebody could win is, well,
how many people know who this person is already, and
so far and so on. It's all these things that
don't have anything to do with your actual ability to govern.

(10:26):
But of course that's reinforced by the person that's actually
the president, right, and so Stephen A is really famous.
I think that's the part that gets like lost and
under sold. He's really famous, and running for president is
effectively a television contest. Now, I am going to read
something to you that I found in a book that
I was reading just the other day.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
It was this pulled up I didn't even tell you
topics you phone.

Speaker 5 (10:50):
It just so happened that I had. I was talking
to somebody about this because I was reading this Neil
Postman book about education that I kind of had to
stop reading because I realized that it was to It
was more technically about education as a doctrine, like as
a study, as opposed to education as you know, just
the general idea. But the point they make, if I

(11:11):
can't find the exact the exact phrasing, but the point
they make is after a certain point where the media
gets too big and the media is controlled by a
certain like number of people, like television, was the argument
they were making right that it's going to reach a
point where a preregressit for running for president is that

(11:33):
you are a famous person or that you have a
career already as a celebrity, because otherwise, well, it's it's
a fair question the fact that Steven A. Smith thing
has gotten as far as it has. Look, I'm let
me tell you this. There's a story running very soon
in the New York Times that I know this because
they interviewed me for it, about the idea of Steven A.

(11:53):
Smith being president, And it's not in the sports media
section right like it was by a writer.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
Never know anybody that wants Stephen A to be president,
Like I hear people saying that he could be president.
But I have yet to meet one person that would
want Stephen A. Smith to be president.

Speaker 5 (12:09):
No, I don't know anybody who has said that.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
I don't.

Speaker 5 (12:13):
I appreciate the fact that Stephen Ay appreciates that this
is ridiculous. Right do you think he does? He?

Speaker 3 (12:19):
Do you think he does?

Speaker 5 (12:19):
He has said at every turn that the idea that
someone wants me to be president is an indictment primarily
of the Democrats.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
Nobody wants him to be president. He wills that into existence.

Speaker 5 (12:32):
But these pollings, but these polls have willed that into existence.
The people that put his name on the paperwork Cuomo
and Bill O'Reilly doing. Wow, what a salad those three
guys doing like like doing like town halls and stuff
like that. Now, to be fair to stephen A with
stephen A will tell you is that he's done political
commentary on television for a very long time, which again

(12:52):
is true, but so have I and I'm not, I
don't I'm not going to be the one to run
for president. I also think that part of why people
are willing to entertain notion is that right now he
has gotten behind a very bipartisan idea which is banging
on the Democrats. Everybody can everybody enjoys that loves that
sol right like that one has crossed over. It is
top ten, number one with a bullet and right fast.

(13:14):
This is what the this is what the book says.
It said. As Paul Goodness pointed out, there are many
forms of censorship, and one of them is to deny
access to loudspeakers to those with dissident ideas or even
any ideas. This is easy to do and not necessarily conspiratorial.
When the loudspeakers are owned and operated by mammoth corporations
with enormous investments in their proprietorships, what we get is

(13:34):
an entirely new politics, including the possibility that a major
requirement for holding political office be prior success as a
show business celebrity. And now to me, where he is
talking about television where it gets wonky is I think
the people who truly control that information in that way
are Musk Zuckerberg and the people that control the social
media algorithms, and they can greatly decide who does or

(13:57):
doesn't get famous, Like the idea of Steven A. Smith
as president was. I was getting a bombarded with it
about a month and a half ago, and I didn't
ask for it.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah do you okay? So you you're if people can't
already tell, and I'm sure they can, you are an
extremely intelligent person. I have watched as with you. You
have to try to have success in a world that
is for carnival barkers. So do I mean I have
to do the same thing. You have to be funny,

(14:26):
you have to be entertaining, et cetera. And you have
to walk that line. And some people can do it
and some people can't. Do you feel like you are
able to both be intelligent, make the comments you want
to make, but also be funny enough entertaining enough that
they can put you on TV and you'll make good TV.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
Well.

Speaker 5 (14:43):
I mean, I've been doing it for a long time,
so I'd like to think that I can right, Like
I could be wrong, but I think that I can.
The reason that I think that I can and the
reason I think I do it fairly effectively, And this
is a reason that you and I could be as
close as we have, I believe, and I think it's
very important. Is you and I grew up going to

(15:05):
rural public schools. Yes, and I think that that's a
very important point in terms of your ability to relate
to people. We understand what eye level is a little
bit differently, and we grew up around people who, if
they feel like you're talking over your heads, will try
to fight you. Like you have to learn how to
how to do this stuff and still talk to them, right.

(15:26):
So that's like my fundamental belief is that I believe.
My brother told me something when I first started writing
that I'll never forget, and he said a great argument
is not one that a genius cannot refute. It is
one that a fool cannot refute. And so I feel
like if I can keep it simple, like, keep it like,
keep it tangible, and there'll be something funny that comes
up along the way, then people will listen to it.
And in the end, I think that as long as

(15:48):
you're not being a jerk about it, people can identify
who are the very smart people, and they want to
know what the very smart people think about things, if
for nothing else then to affirm them when they agree
with the very smart people right. And so the trick
is figuring out how to assume that responsibility without being
condescending in the process, which I am not always know.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
The condescending is huge, and Democrats are terrible at that.
Our party is much more condescending than the other side.
I also think there's been this rise, though, of what
I would call the stupid intellectual, which is the person
that is just smart enough to sound smart in a
minute on TikTok yes, but then really can't. The example

(16:28):
I always use is Charlie Kirk, no offensive guy. He
might be a nice guy, but in a minute that
dude can sound smart and when they do the things
where he brings college kids on and he debates them
for thirty seconds. He can sound smart, but if you
set him next to a really smart person, he's not
going to sound smart. But I think the society and
social media now rewards the one minute smart person.

Speaker 5 (16:50):
I remember when I was in high school, I went
to a summer program, like a pre college prep type
of summer program, and a professor came and he was
a math professor, and I remember it seemed like the
most amazing thing in the world. He just started rattling
off formulas, right. He would be like, yeah, I do
mass so I know that son square to x plus

(17:11):
a cosine square to vects equals one. I know that
sign theta divided by cosine theta equals tangent theater like
you rattled off all these and you know, we're filthy,
and we're like, whoa, wow, this is so amazing. And
I remember I told my mama about this guy. And
my mom was a college professor for those of you
who don't know, and she just rolled her eyes. She
had been so sick of this man forever, with these

(17:31):
tricks that he was doing, rattling off these tenth grade
level equations, right, Like she had been so sick of
that for the longest, but he was capable of What
you're describing is the presentation is smart that goes away
when people ask a few questions. And one thing about
the way this internet stuff works is even with like

(17:53):
TV and radio, you were more likely to be in
a place where somebody was going to challenge you on
what you said and you had to answer for it.
Don't really have to do that on your own platform
like that. So, Charlie Kirk, you put the stuff out
there and a million people can reply to him and
say this is wrong, this is wrong, but he never
has to answer to him.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
And if he debates fifteen people and he loses one,
he can just not post that one, yes, right, like
you know that's the one he doesn't.

Speaker 5 (18:17):
Well, Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk taps into something I'm curious
what you think about where I am convinced that liberals
made Charlie Kirk famous, that Charlie Charlie Kirk trolled his
way into a larger fame.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
Oh yeah, we get so upset, We get so upset
at the craziest and we actually amplify them, right, and
that that's a negative. And by the way, the right
does that too. They picked the craziest left person amplifies
them as well, and you end up with extreme voice right.

Speaker 5 (18:49):
But the left does not. The right values the fact
that you antagonize the left. So Charlie Kirk making a
bunch of people on the left mad makes him more
famous with the right. It doesn't really work that way
that in the you know, it don't really worked that
way in the in the opposite direction. But I did
MSNBC once and I remember they made some mention to
Charlie Kirk and I had to be like, hey, guys,

(19:11):
the only reason I know who this man is is
because people I hate keep talking to people I know,
keep talking about him. People I like, keep talking about him,
like you would go And that was at the time
where you'd go to like his Twitter profile and it
was the same number of followers as it was following,
and that was in the hundreds of thousands. Like he
trolled his way into fame. But he would not have
gotten big enough if not for this outrage of the

(19:34):
left that wasn't even outrage. It was as much people
on the left show it how mad they were to
each other.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
Yeah, that's right. We're we're we're big on sort of
looking like we care the most. It's a competition to
see who who is the most to use a right phrase, woke.
But it's really like who's got the opinion that gets
the most agreement. You go on CNN now some some
for that handle show, it's what who's the host?

Speaker 1 (20:02):
What?

Speaker 3 (20:03):
Abby? Phil? And there's a guy from Kentucky that you're
on quite a bit with that. I actually used to
do television with a lot of these listeners will know
Scott Jennings. I find it interesting. You to me more
than deserved to be on there for your intelligence, but
it is also interesting to me that see it in
feels like that's where they go to get people. Is
there's all these sports people on there. I mean, Scott

(20:26):
Jennings is just that guy in Kentucky, Like he didn't
even like he's there's nothing. He's pretty pretty smart, but
he's not qualified any more than anyone else.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
Is.

Speaker 3 (20:36):
It's odd how the experts in politics now are just
people that they just kind of pick out of nowhere
and say this is an expert.

Speaker 5 (20:44):
Now, yeah, it's it's a mix of people and almost
like a sports like pipeline, like, hey, you just retired, Eh,
how would you like to go get a job on
NFL game day? Like you know, like it's it's it's
some measure that like with Scott, Scott and I haven't
done anything.

Speaker 3 (21:01):
You wanted to punch him. I've wanted to punch him
and with him all the time.

Speaker 5 (21:05):
I'll be honest with you. I told him, I was like, hey,
I don't need to be on TV with him, Like,
I just don't. I just I just don't think that's
a I don't think that's a good idea, you know,
because I don't because part of it is I don't
want to argue with him, but then you got to
argue with him if he's out there, and then if
this goes in a bad direction, I don't like. I
just I don't. I didn't feel like dealing with that
as it related to him. But I do notice on

(21:28):
a lot of these networks, like I do think that
I am qualified to talk about these things. I think
I've got the riggor But I also think it's fair
for somebody to look up and be like, why is
this guy on television?

Speaker 3 (21:39):
Why is this guy on TV. Yeah, he would be
the same with me if they put me on. It's
like when I used to host the nightly political show
in Kentucky. There'd be people say, why do you get
to do that? And I don't really know the answer
to that. But that's also, by the way, true about sports.
I didn't even play, so like, why do you and
I get to talk about sports? We weren't big athletes.

Speaker 5 (21:57):
Right, it's all and you have to you have to
show and prove like this is actually an interesting stephen
A Smith parallel. People were very upset with stephen A
Smith about him getting Max Kelluman fired, and I respected
the fact that Steven they owned it. But his point
was people come on every day and ask why are
you here? You weren't a journalist, you weren't a player.
Why aren't you here? And people took that as arrogance,

(22:18):
and I'm like, no, sir, that is the question that
all of us have to answer every single day when
we are on television, like we've got to answer it.
I will admit I watch a lot of political television
and I'm not putting this on newsnight. I'm talking about
in the Macro. I watch a lot of television, even
if the people have some qualification within this political world.
I watch a lot of television and say, I don't
understand why I'm listening to you.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
I'm surprised you watched that. Like I find it mind numbing.
What makes what makes you watch political television?

Speaker 5 (22:48):
I watch some of it just to get a handle
of what's going on. I don't watch a lot. I
want to be very clear, Okay, I don't watch a lot.
I'll see clips as they float down on the internet.
It is I mean, look, the business of cable news
is in a real bad place because apparently people in
general outside of the Fox News audience have decided they
don't feel like this is a great use of their

(23:09):
time anymore. Yeah, which I am fascinated by. How like
that has happened now. I think people just kind of
burned out on all of it. I think people have
just grown exhausted. Like I think with all the if
you think about ten years ago, like the emphasis on
social causes that you saw all of these things, I
think people are just in survival mode at this point,
and interestingly enough, cable news they don't feel like it's

(23:31):
going to help them survive.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
After well, that's interesting. You and I have had conversations
about this. After George Floyd, which was just five years ago,
it felt like a lot of people, companies and all
these folks felt like they had to sort of show
their commitment to causes. You've joked about how for two weeks, everybody,
like you know, did their two weeks of things, and
then it seems to have completely gone into different different direction.

(23:57):
And I have friends who are on the left who
just now like, I just don't I can't think about
it anymore. Frustrates me, and I'm just, like you said, exhausted.
Why do you think that happens so quickly? I mean,
it just reversed so quickly.

Speaker 5 (24:12):
Well, I always felt though that George Floyd was a
moment that was really eight years in the making. It
goes from Trayvon Martin to George Floyd, with four years
of Trump tacked on on the back end of that,
and then there was this George Floyd. It was so
egregious what happened that we could go back and look
at who the people were who always say the terrible thing,

(24:34):
and they were like, hey, not this week, right like.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
The one They're like, all right, we'll give you this one.

Speaker 5 (24:40):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeh yeah, Like there's a guy that
owns a website whose name I refuse to say, and
I think you know who I'm talking about.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
Even he yes refused.

Speaker 5 (24:47):
He was like, no, no, no, no, no, We're not
doing it this time. And it was such a wild
couple weeks. My favorite story about that Drew Brees got
in trouble because he had gone on some news show
and in this time was asked about the national anthem,
and he said, I think we should stand for the answer,
the standard Drew Brees answer. Drew Brees did not realize
that we were in the middle of a moment, right
and he gave the standard Drew Brees answer, and everybody

(25:09):
came down on one of his teammates even said few
to him, like it was wild everything that happened. But
I'll never forget. I was trying to explain to people.
I'm like, look, that's always been his answer about the
national anthem. He pressed the national anthem button and that
was what came out because it always comes out. And
Drew Brees's money is not affected by this. And the

(25:30):
point that I made was I went to the Wrangler
Twitter account and This is when everybody was means Wrangler
jeans and everybody was putting out like the Black Squares
with their statements about George Floyd and everything else. And
I was like, look, Wrangler has not put one of
these out, and you know why because that Wrangler money

(25:52):
doesn't care about this. Their audience does not care. And
I and the point I was making was that it
was okay, right, that's not who they're.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
He didn't think Wrangler needed to make a statement, right.

Speaker 5 (26:02):
It clearly neither did Wrangler, right, because they did.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
Bill Burr has that thing he goes. He has a
joke about this where he talks about Burger King and
he was like, Burger King came out and said we're
very against this, and he was like, I don't go
to Burger King to hear what you think about whatever,
Like I come for Burgers the other.

Speaker 5 (26:19):
But let me tell you this. The very next day
there was a post on the wregular Twitter account about this.
And this would happen from time to time, stuff like
this could happen, right, be all my show joking about
something like once the NBA store had old Golden State

(26:39):
Warriors gear, but it was Philadelphia Warriors and I had
not fully realized that Warriors means Indians, like all the
things that all the things that are Warriors used to
be in these like I had a baseball team that
was the Warriors when I was a kid, and it
was blue with red letters. It didn't dawn on me
that it was really the Cleveland Indians, right, And so
it's this wildly offensive image on this throwback merchandise that

(27:02):
is being sold at the NBA store for the Warriors.
I didn't even know it existed. I said something about
it on my podcast. I laughed about it. The next
day it was gone, gone, I tell you, gone, And
I'm like, dog, I wasn't even getting on you. I
was just laughing.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
So do you think the people that are kind of
the Joe Rogans or of the right who I think
that radicalized a lot of those people when those kinds
of things happened, do you think they had any point
or do you think that, like, do you think there
was any point that hey, it went too far?

Speaker 5 (27:36):
Well in sports? I think the example that people typically
point to is the NBA bubble and putting Black Lives
Matter on the floor and the name, you know, the
slogans on the back of jerseys. It was ham fisted.
They didn't know what to do. But if you weren't
here for that moment, it's hard to explain, like how

(27:57):
pressing it was. Andy's boys are talking about not playing
like it was falling apart. They had to do whatever
it was.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
Remember, they were talking about having it in Louisville and
because of Breonna Taylor, the players wouldn't do it. Louisville
was one of the two or three finalists to have
it because we have so many gyms where they could
do it. And then after Breonna Taylor, the player said
they wouldn't do it.

Speaker 5 (28:16):
Yeah, So I mean, like, I don't know if I
would say that there were things that went too far,
Like I don't think that there was anything real. I
don't think there was anything tangible that really mattered that
went too far. I do think what happened, though, was that,
as is the case with most social revolutions, and if
we will call this revolution for this discussion is they're
nobody spearheaded by young people, and it was spearheaded by

(28:39):
this generation of young people that is very very concerned
with language right and very concerned with feelings as much
as it is anything tangible, and so these offices, so
these like corporate offices and stuff that were full of
these young people who got these slack channels and they
were getting everything going. It was about keeping them together
and everybody holding the line because everybody's that get hold.

(29:00):
They're frustrated, you know, you know how terrible COVID had
to be for white people to get on board and
the way they did with this black cause. Like, it
was so much that was going on, and it is
fair to make the argument that the people who were
in charge just weren't quite ready for all the responsibility
and everything that would then come from that moment. But
the truth is that moment lasted for like three weeks,

(29:22):
maybe four.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
Yeah, Well, I mean in Kentucky, John cal Perry knelt
with the team at a game, and it still got
brought up three or four years later. It was one game.
It wasn't even in Lexington. It was at Florida. That
was the year he went thirteen and nineteen or whatever,
and it was like the only good game they played
all season. But people still remember and that image stuck

(29:45):
with him, and it's interesting, I still have people bumani
that five years later bring it up to me and said,
that's when I turned on him. It wasn't the fact
that they went thirteen and nineteen. It was that kneeling
that day.

Speaker 5 (29:56):
That's for something that is so ultimately benign.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
Like that that mattered to some people. I thought it
was silly, but it did.

Speaker 5 (30:05):
It did a lot, and it was I actually thought
that around college places that there would be if nothing else,
in understanding that this is good for business.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
Oh yeah, you know Mark Stoops as a picture he
and he the whole UK football team and Mark Stoops
Marston Lexington and there's a picture with pale Mark Stoops
with his red hair with Black Lives Matter shirt.

Speaker 5 (30:28):
I remember that. I just I can't wait hilarious when
this gets far enough away for people to do the
documentaries on it and we can go back and look
at all Lane Kiffin going down to the Lane Kiffin
and the late Mike Leach going down to the state
House in Mississippi to get the flag down, to get
the flag Chack, Mike Leach did it, Mike Leech, and

(30:48):
I look, I want to foil the emails that it
took for them to make that happen because Mike Leach
don't like look, I don't need players to play, We
don't need to recruit.

Speaker 3 (30:59):
Wow, I didn't runs Mike Leach did it? That is crazy. Yeah,
there's the great for people in Kentucky will know who
this is. But there's a picture of the front of
the UK Football Black Lives Matter march is Mark Stoops
and Landon Young, who literally grew up on a farm
in Lexington, whitest guy you'll ever see, and the two

(31:21):
of them are standing in the front, both with Black
Lives Matter shirts on. And that's when I was like, whoa, Okay,
this isn't a completely different plug.

Speaker 5 (31:28):
It was a time and they roll back just about
everything that came out of that time, and that that
I think is a fascinating It's kind of like after reconstruction,
right Like it feels like the Trump era is a
rollback of the Obama era, very similar to a post.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
Reag Yeah it is. Let's talk a little sports for
a second. Let me ask you about some things going
on right now. I love Carl Towns. Carl Towns is
if you get on TikTok, is a heck of a conversation.
People have wild opinions about Carl Towns. But now he's
playing well, the Knicks could easily end up going to
the Eastern Conference Finals. Carl Towns people who listen to

(32:07):
KSR no famously, the twenty fifteen UK basketball team all
took a shot to go in forty and zero and
he wanted to be part of it, and they were
all drinking alcohol and he took a shot of air
so he could be with his with his brothers. That's
what he said. That to me is Carltown's in a nutshell.

Speaker 5 (32:22):
Carl you know, he's a little bit disappointing as an
NBA player. He is so wildly talented. I live in
New York now, so it's interesting because like the Dominicans,
they got their guy, really, that's right. I think they
pressed up Carl Town's jerseys with the Dominican flag all,
you know, Oh really yeah, yeah, yeah, because I mean
because he's their guy. I just find it so wild

(32:45):
that he's out there being guarded by people who are
six foot four and I think he's Yeah, it's like,
it's disrespectful that the teams are willing to guard him
like that, and then the Knicks won't give him a ball,
which is even more disrespectful.

Speaker 3 (33:01):
Yes, it is you. You always loved Cal, didn't you?

Speaker 5 (33:04):
Yes? I I still love it.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
You still think he's good? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (33:08):
I appreciated what he was doing like I got it.
I felt him. I did feel this about Cal that
relative to his peers, he cared more about his players
than the average coach. Did I firmly believe that, And
I think that's I think, even after everything that has happened,
that is still probably true.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
Do you you know I've been around it more. I
think COVID changed him a little bit. Do you think
Mike Krzyzewski, because you've also followed Duke a lot, going
and getting one and done's and finally giving in and
saying I'm gonna go get Zion and I'm gonna go
get those guys, I think that changed Cal. What did
you ever think you'd see the day that Mike Krzyzewski
would be recruiting a one and done kid to a

(33:49):
university like Duke where you.

Speaker 5 (33:50):
Talked, Yeah, well, the only thing was Skrzyzewski always recruited
a lot of one and done kids. He was just
arrogant enough to think that he could get them to
stay for two right, like he thought he could get
Lou all dang to stay for two years, right. He
thought that if he got braided right to come, he
would stay for two years, like the whole list of them.

(34:11):
But what my Shrzewski is above all else, and what
Duke is is above all else is Duke of Bob
All else is a capitalist empire. And Shayzewski is absolutely
on board with that. He teaches his class at Fuquah
and all of that stuff. And what he wasn't about
to be doing is Gary Williams was willing to lose.
He was willing to lose to do things the way
that he wanted to do them. Shrzhevski has never been

(34:33):
that guy.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Yeah, that, you're exactly right about that. For people who
haven't seen when you had when you did your HBO show,
your rant about Duke, look it up on YouTube. It's
one of the greatest things of all time.

Speaker 5 (34:44):
Bill, think about that right fast. YEA favorite thing about
that is it's a comedy piece, right We talk about
why it is the black people hate Duke basketball, and
we run through it, yes, all the way. But it
was the first episode, it's the only episode where we
did not do it with a studio audience and Buddy
you'd have no idea. How many people didn't understand that
that was supposed to be fun. They thought it was real.
They were mad, mad.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
Oh interesting mad? I Yeah, you know, it's amazing how
much people laughing matters and doing things like that, just
the sound of random people. One time, we tried to
do on my local TV show a weekend update parody
with Kentucky News, and we did it once and when
you watched it, it was unbelievably painful because people weren't laughing.
Then we did it again and had an audience and

(35:26):
it was okay. But you've like when you sit there
and you try to make jokes and then there's silence.
Maybe it works on the office, but it doesn't work
in a show like that.

Speaker 5 (35:36):
Oh. We did something a couple months ago in Raleigh
and we played that clip for a live audience. Yeah,
and they laughed. And it was one of those gratifying
moments of my life because I finally got to see
that piece as it was intended to be. But we
just didn't know. We were like, we don't need a
laugh track, We don't need it. No, no, no, you
do you do? Is that about how fun you are?

(35:57):
You just need it.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
Bill Belichick and Jordan Hudson, whoop. I find it fascinating.
I'm gonna be honest with you. I don't care. I
know it shouldn't be interesting, but it is to me.
You're a smart guy, is it to you?

Speaker 5 (36:10):
It is definitely interesting, right? And what I find to
be interesting about it is I have a good friend
who refers to of Jordan Hudson as Fancy in a
metaphor that I think a lot of our listeners can understand.
Last years your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down.
This is Fancy's one chance, and Fancy is making the

(36:33):
most of it. Fancy got her eight million dollars in
real estate. Fancy is showing up like you look at
Fancies Cloancy.

Speaker 3 (36:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (36:42):
I was at a party at the super Bowl where
Belichick pulled up with Fancy and she's ready for her
close up, man Like, I am amazed at how prepared
she has been to get all this done.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
Okay, so what's your favorite part of it? I'll give
you a couple of minds, see what you think. Obviously,
everybody focuses on the CBO interview the fact that Bill
Belichick is so smitten he set it a holiday in
Express in Portland, Maine, and went to the Miss Main contest.
That to me is pretty amazing. And then the way
she was at the UNC spring game on the field

(37:15):
in the boots and the jacket, those two things, I
was like, Man, this woman has him like to where
he's he's in it.

Speaker 5 (37:24):
Matt. He took a video slash picture on his back
on the beach with his feet up and her on
his feet. That is my favorite part of this whole thing.
Could love, I have you do any old thing? Ain't nothing,
ain't nothing too goofy for love and he is loving
her out loud like she got this nerve.

Speaker 3 (37:49):
Yeah, yeah, that's that's true, because I mean, I don't
ever there's not a scenario I could see me posting
any woman like things like that. Could you hell no,
but you and I are both Single's part.

Speaker 5 (38:05):
Yeah, look I'm saying, And that's I was about to say.
And that's part of the thing. Like Bill's old the
girlfriend he had for all those years she would put
pictures of him on the internet right in large part
because I don't think he really knows how it works.
Because somebody asked him about it in the CBS news interview,
and he was kind of like, I didn't know anybody
had seen that picture, right, Like he's got all these
things going on, he has no clue. But she somewhere

(38:27):
along the way convinced herself that she knew how to
do this. And I think she figured out that these
jobs are like a lot of jobs, that it's it's intuitive.
She thinks she has an intuitive understanding of how to
be the first lady of these things. And she's like,
you guys, like you need to update yo ship for
the twenty first century. You know, like Bill Belichick is

(38:47):
like a caveman to her. And so what I think
is most interesting is this is all the talk we're
doing before they play games. I don't think that Bill
Belichick changes anything about North Carolina.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
He's the co in game one.

Speaker 5 (39:01):
Oh, he's the coach. He's the coach.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
Do you think it works?

Speaker 5 (39:06):
This is a over under seven point five win program,
like Kentucky is an over under six win program, right yeah.
And Mark steols Is can get you consistently eight And
now people are used to that, and so they get
a little antsy about whether or not eight is good
enough for you. I think that Carolina is going to
still be a seven and a half win program because

(39:28):
I don't know if you guys realized this, but the
last time you saw Bill Belichick coach, and he wasn't
good at it.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
That's true. And I think part of what makes it
so fascinating is of all the people, you wouldn't pick
him as that guy, right, You wouldn't have thought. I mean,
he seems like such a grouch and such a like
no fun in all business. And then the video where
she's walking in the jacket is hanging off her arms
and she looks like she's like seventeen years old, like,

(39:56):
and he's like walking ahead of you know, I ask
any man who it was dated, you don't walk ahead
of the woman. He's way ahead of her. That's partially
to me. Also, what makes it faster, I mean the
amount of women bomani that care about this story in
a way they don't care about sports, Like when we
talk about it on our show, women flooding me with responses.

(40:18):
This is like, this transcends sports, oddly.

Speaker 5 (40:22):
I think the most interesting level of this, and I've
talked about this on my show, is whom one believes
is the predator? Yes, in this relationship because I think,
and it's flip, don't you think. I think there's a
tendency for people to look at it as this older
man is the predator dealing with this younger woman. And

(40:42):
I think that if you talk to anybody who has
an older father and this is not me, by the way,
but if you talk to anybody who has an older
father who started dating a younger woman, they do not
think that the older man is the predator, right, because
the older father is the one writing all these checks
and bankrolling the situation. Like you'll talk to the people
whose dads are going like you sit in your dad

(41:02):
money and your dad's sending that money to this little
young girl that you mess with.

Speaker 3 (41:06):
Yeah, I kind of think, though part of me says, listen,
I'm not gonna criticize that girl. She maybe it's the
fancy part. She seems like to me, she made him
mess up with the CBS program, But otherwise it feels
like she's kind of done what she's I mean, and
maybe they like each other. I don't know.

Speaker 5 (41:24):
She clearly makes him feel alive. What is that good?
The thing I have learned in my travels, bat, I
believe that you will agree with me when I say
it. It seems very simple, but it's the truth. People do
what makes them feel good. The people who spend more
money than they have, they feel good when they spend
the money. Right. The problem is the good feeling of

(41:45):
spending money doesn't last, but they feel good when they
spend the money. People do the thing. There were animals
in that regard. They do the thing that makes them
feel good, and it is clear she makes him feel
Tony the tiger.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
Right, that line is first is why I love Love Bomani.
I'm gonna ask you just a personal question for a second,
because you and I, like you said, we both sort
of radiate confidence that some people would say goes into arrogance. Yes,
we both have had successes, but we've both had failures. Right,

(42:21):
I've had some on a lower level failures. You have
had some maybe higher profile failures. For someone like you
and like me, who's like considers themselves a high achieving person,
how do you deal with a failure?

Speaker 5 (42:37):
So it kind of depends on what we're talking about, right,
So for me, for example, I did a show on
HBO called Game Theory. We got two seasons. I think
that is an unmitigated success, like there was nothing that
could happen after that show went on the air, because
it's so crazy that we got to do the show
in the first place, that I would look at that
as not being successful, because that was the one thing

(42:59):
that I was like, We're so lucky to be here
that when I had a deal for six episodes, I
never thought about the seventh. Success was going to be
about how I felt about those six, And then we
got ten more and it went the same way. I
did a show on ESPN called high Noon with Pablo Torre.
That show lasted for about two years before they canceled it.
That one I would probably categorize more as a failure.

(43:22):
It wasn't I thought Game Theory was very good. I
knew it was not very good. I don't think it
was bad, but it was not very good. I think
I was somewhat fortunate in terms of how I dealt
with it that it ended also right when the world
shut down, so there wasn't much time to think about it.
There were a million things going on in the end.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
I saw you during that time. You and I met
in New York during that period, and it's the only
time in my life. I've talked to you that I
didn't feel like you were doing great. Yeah, maybe I
read that wrong. It just didn't feel like to me
you were that happy. And maybe I'm reading it right.

Speaker 5 (43:54):
No, no, no, you're right. What I was not happy about
in that time was I didn't have enough going on.
Like I wasn't hurt by that fact, but I didn't
know this.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
I was not.

Speaker 5 (44:03):
Gonna be hosting a television show for ESPN ever again,
And I was overqualified for any other job that you
have for me to do on TV at that point,
that wasn't it. So No, I was a little lost
in the wilderness at that point, certainly, and it didn't
feel good. But after I flucked out of graduate school,
which is probably the biggest thing that I would consider,

(44:24):
I did that was a failure. What I realized was that, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I didn't pass the micro quality a second go round.
So all that meant was that maybe, just maybe I'm
not a PhD level microeconomist. It's not exactly the biggest
insult in the world, right, you know, Like if that's

(44:44):
the case, like I'm still qualified to teach college, I
could still there's somebody who could be a Nobel Prize
winner that I could teach in econ one oh one
who will appreciate the fact that they had me Like
all of those things I had to recognize, and that
moment taught me I don't have to be the I
don't have to be great at everything that I do right.
And so when high Noon didn't work, it was just like, Okay, well,
what are we going to do now? But what I

(45:06):
learned was there's no stopping in this. There's no room
for self pity. And truly, if you have not slipped
up somewhere along the way in this, it is because
you're not trying that hard. Like I've worked with people's
who overhead failures, and one thing they have in common
is they're not trying that hard. Their ambitions aren't the
same as mine. Like, do you realize the level of
ambition or the what I learned in this. It sounds

(45:29):
dramatic as I'm saying about myself, but I do believe
this took a little bit of courage for me to
sit up in a suit at a desk for two
seasons telling jokes like I was doing the ever Noah job,
the John Oliver job, the Bill maher job, and I
did it. I think like I was getting better and
it could have been better, and it wasn't. I'm not
saying it was the greatest effort, but we did it,

(45:49):
and I think we did a good job of it,
and I think about that way more than I think
about the end of it. That's crazy, that's just setting
yourself up for misery.

Speaker 3 (45:57):
Totally agree. I had two local TV shows, and the
first one I wasn't failure. It didn't work, I wasn't
the easiest to work with, but it made it to
where I felt like the second one was good. I
see your Emmy back there. We won an Emmy, and like,
that's I feel good about it. What's interesting, though, is
you're it's interesting to hear you say your failure was
dropping out or was not getting the second round on

(46:19):
the micro econ. When I was doing the Wrestling Company,
we did not get a second season of that documentary,
The Wrestler Show, And there are people who will say
to me, you should have had a second season. How
did they not give you a second season? And I
wanted to be like dude, I bought a regional wrestling
company and got Netflix to make a show I forget

(46:44):
the second. I can't even believe they did one. I mean,
can you believe that they did a show? And I
got the director who did Cheer and the Dallas Cowboys
show to do like last Chance you he did it.
So to me, it's all about perspective.

Speaker 5 (46:57):
Like you said, the HBO show was literally my dream job.
I don't care if I ever do a TV show again.
I have checked off every box that I ever wanted
to do. How in the world do you think you're
going to make me feel like I failed by literally
a chieve a dream and I don't have a lot
of dreams.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
You said you didn't want to say his name, so
I won't say his name. Actually I have to. You
don't have to say it. He's on these stations. He's
on this station where on Clay Travis, who has spent
almost a career of picking at you for a long time,
he really liked it. Without addressing him. What is it
like to have a person that every single thing you do,

(47:41):
they're sitting there ready to poke you about it, and
have a mini army of people joining you. People who
listen to this. You may have heard Clay earlier today. Heck,
he may have talked about BOUMANI today. He likes to
pick at you. Is that does it anger you? If
you saw him? Would you what would you do?

Speaker 5 (47:58):
It is frustrating for or for me? It is frustrating
on a larger level because I believe, and this is
something you and I have talked about about, like our work,
and it's what I've talked about this on the air
when I guest hosted your show. What frustrated me most
about him and what they do is I believe they

(48:18):
have created a caricature of me that does not really
exist right, And so I do not work to achieve
I'm not in this to make white people like me right.
But I also believe that we have more in common
than people give us credit for. Like our friendship is
a testament to the fact that I have more in
common with the people who listen to you than I

(48:39):
think that people realize if they'll just give it a
chance and get over whatever trash they got in their heads.
And so what frustrates me is when somebody like Clay
leans in on what this nonsense is and stops what
connections we could actually make amongst ourselves as people. And
I know we can because I did radio and Raleigh
and I fought against all of this stuff early, and
then by the time I left, I was a fairly

(49:00):
beloved figure across the board because they realized, like, we
have more in common with each other than probably anybody
else that you're going to hear on the air, because again,
I'm a product in rural public schools, like we're there,
and so that's what frustrated me most about them and
all of that. What I realized, though, is their army
of people is largely bots. Like when I would look

(49:21):
on the Internet when something from that website would come
down about me, and who the people are who are
talking about me? None of the accounts seem real now.
I actually stumbled upon Clay Travis at the super Bowl
this year.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
Oh really, because see, I know you both, I'm friends
with you. I'm not really friends with him, but I've
known him for a long time. What was that?

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Like?

Speaker 5 (49:44):
I realized in the very short conversation we had that
he and I are not built to say we do
these jobs for much different reasons and this is all
wrastling to him. That was that was the conclusion I
came to from him. Is that to him, this is rastling,

(50:07):
and as long as everybody's making money, what's the big deal?

Speaker 3 (50:10):
And so did he like try to be your friend
when he saw you?

Speaker 5 (50:14):
Not?

Speaker 3 (50:14):
You don't have to say if.

Speaker 5 (50:15):
You don't want, not quite my friend. But I will
say that he behaved in a way that misunderstood how seriously.
I take what I do interesting, and I don't.

Speaker 3 (50:31):
I think I've seen you angry, and uh, when you're angry,
you're angry.

Speaker 5 (50:37):
Before we wrap up, I chose to walk away. I'll
tell you that, Oh you didn't, Okay, I chose to
walk away because look, you can't give nobody like that,
none of you, because that's a victory to them, you
know what I mean, Like, all you can do is
walk away.

Speaker 3 (50:51):
Yeah, that's true. I need to learn that lesson because
I I I people always tell me, man, when these
folks come after you, you need to let it go. That's
hard for me than it probably is most people, maybe
because I grew up in eastern Kentucky and you don't
just walk away.

Speaker 5 (51:05):
Oh I've had to learn. I've had to learn.

Speaker 3 (51:08):
Yeah, and I can't fight, so I would fight with words,
and it's hard for me just to walk away. Well,
I'll wrap up because I know you gotta go. I
would you. One time you said something to me that
I still quote, and I don't even remember what the
issue was. It had something to do, I can't remember,
but you were watching the NBA Finals. It was when

(51:28):
Lebron was playing against Durant and the Thunder in the
finals and something happened and I called you because I
wanted to know your opinion on and you answered the
phone and you said, I'm watching the NBA Finals. What's up?
And I asked you some question and it was basically
exactly what your response is. You paused, and you go, Matt,

(51:51):
I love you, but I can't be the black friends
you call anytime you want a black opinion. That was
basically what you said. It was like, you're calling me
because I'm black to ask what I think about this.
And it really did change the way I thought, not
just about you, but a lot of things. Explain to
me why you said that, and do a lot of
people do that with.

Speaker 5 (52:11):
You at various points in my life. Yes, Like I
think I served that purpose for Dan Levatard in many
ways at points of time. But it was in part
also because I think Dan was very fascinated by the
idea that a black person could be this smart, which
I never got that vibe off of you, right, like no, no,

(52:31):
like that's not it. Like I think Dan couldn't believe
that this happened, Like it was like, wow, look at
that look at that fish ride in the bicycle like
you just like he just you know, like it just
he just hadn't And to be fair to him, he
lived in Miami. He don't see no smart people at all,
let alone a black one. Like that's not so much
hated it. I mean, it wasn't bad for me because
I had bread, right, but like if you don't have bread,

(52:51):
I don't. It's a very thoughtless place, that's the best
way I can put it. At the least awful place
I've ever been. But no, that can happen from time
to time. And I think think and white people don't
realize this, that there's a tendency to take the black person,
you know, and that black person be the spokesman for
all the black people. And I can't speak for all
of them, right, and so I know there's no harm

(53:14):
in Like the only reason I would say that to
you is because I know there was no harm intended,
because if there was harm intended, I had just never
took the calls in the first place, right, But I
definitely wasn't about to miss out on the NBA Finals,
to be your sure, PA, that wasn't that wasn't going down.
I'm over here living.

Speaker 3 (53:28):
It was a series too, The thunder Cams was a
good series.

Speaker 5 (53:33):
It was. But I also so what's interesting about that
for me, though, in a professional capacity, is you could
sign me up to be the person that speaks for
black people, but you have no idea what's coming after.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
You do that.

Speaker 5 (53:44):
Anything Thoto supposed blaze in that moment like that would
happen for Dan often we would call me on this
show to be the black person and he would not
necessarily get the thing that he thought was coming.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
Yeah, do you get angry when people are asked to
be the representative for black voices and you don't think
they're representative, Like, I'm just picking a person, but it
could be a lot of people Candae Owens or something like.

Speaker 5 (54:05):
So, what I will say about that is with somebody
like Cant, it's always the people who are doing that
are being very particular and calculating on what they're doing
so that that doesn't make me nearly as angry, but
I do have a twinge of what should I do
when they call me to be this person? Because God
knows who the next call is, right, that's interesting, Yeah,
like this next person might not actually be smart. I

(54:27):
may agree with that person, but that person's back. Like
there's a lot of things that kind of come down
to it. But I did what it's so funny like
being the black guy on television because this was a
non black topic. But I did some of the CNN
hit about Trump and Sabing and the NIL commission, and
I said something about, like, basically, they don't need to
cut down on the money they're playing paying players because

(54:50):
I'm like, hey man, there are always gonna be people
out there who loved a trick off on college students.
And there was this pause from the two hosts it
was two women, because they weren't ready for that, and
then one of them no doubt.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
They said no doubt.

Speaker 5 (55:07):
She said no doubt because that seems like something you
say after somebody says something about tricky, Yeah, that seems
like your president answer.

Speaker 3 (55:15):
They'll call you for the answer they won that you
don't give it like, so, I've had that happen twice
with the New York Times. They called me once to say,
do you think Andy Basheer can get elected president? Then
I was playing the role of mister Kentucky guy, and
I went no, because you have to understand the unique
circumstances of him. His dad was the governor. Everyone hated

(55:35):
Matt Bevin, and then we've had these huge tragedies that
he's been really good during. I don't think that translates nationally,
And it was clear they wanted me to say yes,
he could be president. Then the second time was the
Stephen A. Smith New York Times called me to ask
about whether or not he could be president in sports right,
like Sports World say probably the same article, and I
was like, no, nobody wants him to like it's peace respecting,

(56:00):
but nobody says steven A. Smith. And both times, I
doubt my quotes probably won't get used because I didn't
give them what they wanted in that moment.

Speaker 5 (56:08):
Yeah, the question I would ask people about Steven A.
Smith for president, And I'm telling you, man, I get
it from everywhere, Like you'd be surprised some of the
calls I've gotten with people and I'm like, I'm down
to talk to you about it, but I'm not gonna
say anything bad about him, first of all, because I
don't I don't think.

Speaker 3 (56:23):
Because everyone says he's I don't know any but everyone
says he's a nice guy off the y.

Speaker 5 (56:27):
Yeah, he's a decent dude. But the part of this
story that is problematic and ridiculous is not his fault. Yeah, right,
Like the idea that we're entertaining, it is not his fault.
Even if he said I should be the president us entertaining,
it is not his fault. And so if he look,
if he thinks he can be the president, then bless
his heart. Right, Like, I'm not gonna be the one

(56:48):
that says anything bad about him in the course of it.
But it is why I just would throw this out
to somebody at this point, why and not me? Not
because I want it, but I'm just curious what people think,
like what their explanation is. Now, if your explanation is, well,
he's a lot more famous than you. Cool, that makes

(57:10):
perfect sense, but acknowledge what that means, right, Acknowledge like
what that says about the whole situation. So that's where
it always comes down to for me, it's just kind
of like, how do we get here? Like you people
who are entertaining this, why why did you pick this guy?

Speaker 3 (57:24):
It's the movie Idiocracy. It just came twenty years twenty
years earlier.

Speaker 5 (57:29):
But again Trump, But I would say this right fast though.
The thing I'll give Stephen a credit for. You'll notice this.
He doesn't say anything really critical to Trump. He has
not said anything critical of Republicans. He has just picked
the thing that we all can get behind. These Democrats
they stink, they stink, And everybody's like, hell, yeah, that
man tells you that's right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
That's the easiest thing. It's the easiest thing to say
because in some ways it's true, like the mainstream democrats
are out of touch. We can all say that. Whereas
you know, I've learned you can take people ask well,
how do you have conservative listeners? Here's the answer. You
can talk take liberal positions, just be very careful about

(58:10):
taking shots at Trump the person. Yes, right, you can say,
let's use the example of the Katari plane. Do you
think the president should take a plane four hundred million
dollars from a foreign country and then keep it when
it's over no. But if I say, do you think
Trump should take a plane, different conversation. Right, So the

(58:35):
key is, as much as possible, leave him out of it.
Now sometimes I don't, but that to me is the key,
and Steve and as the king of that well.

Speaker 5 (58:41):
The other part too is conservatives can listen to someone
with our politics more easily and readily than liberals can
listen to someone with Trump's politics. I'm not sure right
or wrong, but that is true.

Speaker 3 (58:58):
For sure, and can conservatives. I can do it because
I have a country accent. Yes, right. When's the last
time you've seen a white country male on TV speaking
Democrat policy? Right?

Speaker 5 (59:12):
Right? I can pull it off.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
You used to say that you thought people in North
Carolina would listen to you because you were black and
not a white liberal. Because they really hate white liberal
they do, especially educated they do.

Speaker 5 (59:24):
They hate them and they don't know how to talk
to them. But the other part is when they've got something,
I'll say they've got something. For example, Yeah, they ran
end around on us about Biden a year ago and
what his what his physical, physical and mental constitution was? Right?

Speaker 3 (59:41):
Does that make you mad? By the way, it does
mean now furious because I liked Biden. I don't blame him.
I blame the people around him.

Speaker 5 (59:49):
And the reason the people around you do that is
for their own jobs. Like they were all, look, we
got a history of this happening with politicians, like this
isn't the first time this has happened. But when that
when that went down, I was doing the CNN show,
and you know, they tend to balance it out, and
it was somebody was blaming. Somebody was pushing back on
the idea that the media was to blame for hiding

(01:00:11):
this about Biden from us, and I was like, no,
they either they have to be the blame, right, Either
they didn't know, which is a problem, or they knew
and didn't tell us, which is a problem. But you
got once you're willing to say that, the conservatives are
more likely to be like, oh okay, And I think that,
to be fair, it goes for liberals also, like the
liberals can appreciate the conservative that are right for the

(01:00:33):
Atlantic for example.

Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
Or the Bulwark or the like those sites. Yes they do.
You're exactly right, the John McCain's of the world for
lack of event.

Speaker 5 (01:00:41):
Yeah, if they the five of them that are.

Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
Left, Yeah, they're not many, but MANI thank you very
much for doing this, and if I ever get another show,
you'll be the first guest on that one.

Speaker 5 (01:00:51):
Hey brother, same here, man, I appreciate you.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
So that's been episode one of the Matt Jones Show.
You can get the entirety of the conversation on podcasts.
Look up for Matt Jones Show because there's more to
it than you heard, and we'll be back next Thursday
with another conversation with someone interesting. This has been the
first ever episode of the Matt Jones Show on WHA.

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