Ep 249 | Why Everyone Should Be TERRIFIED of Former ESPN Host Sage Steele | The Glenn Beck Podcast

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Speaker 3 And now, a Blaze Media Podcast. Today, I'm talking to a woman who is

Speaker 3 one of my favorite people in the world.

Speaker 3 She took on Disney. Nobody takes on Disney.
ESPN. She is one of the country's most loved broadcasters.

Speaker 3 And if you're a sports fan, you absolutely know who she is because you watched her on ESPN for 16 years until they made the mistake of punishing her for just saying, I don't think I want to put that in my body, having a different opinion.

Speaker 3 Plenty of sports anchors could speak their minds freely as long as they were woke, but not her. She found a way to speak to the nation without them.

Speaker 3 We are going to have a fascinating conversation: sports, faith, politics, picking on the mouse.

Speaker 3 Welcome to one of my favorite people in the world, veteran anchor, mother of three, host of the Sage Steel Show. Sage Steel.

Speaker 3 How are you? Fabulous. It's so good to have you.

Speaker 4 Thank you. I'm honored to be here.

Speaker 3 You've never been on my show. No.

Speaker 4 Isn't that crazy? I know. How is that possible?

Speaker 4 I'm going to let the past be the past. I know.
I'm not going to hold a grudge. No, it is an honor.
And I told you this. I know you hear from everybody, but like you have

Speaker 4 inspired me more than you know. So thank you.
That's really good.

Speaker 3 I mean thank you. You've inspired me and so many other people with what you did.

Speaker 3 I mean, I've, I don't want to dwell on this because everybody's told the story, but I think it's important to set the table.

Speaker 3 What you did in COVID and just standing up and

Speaker 4 even

Speaker 3 risking, I don't even know if you knew that, but risking a job of standing up and saying, and when you,

Speaker 3 if I'm not mistaken, that was your dream job for a long time, right?

Speaker 4 It was.

Speaker 3 I used to love,

Speaker 3 love Disney.

Speaker 4 I don't, I know.

Speaker 3 Walt wouldn't recognize it anymore. They've just become this monstrous machine.
Yeah. How much would that

Speaker 3 feel like? I mean, when you, because all you did at first, if I remember right, is you came out and you were like, I took the jab. Yeah.
And I didn't want to. And you were, right?

Speaker 3 You didn't denigrate them

Speaker 4 a little bit. That's arguable, maybe.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 4 i i did it on an off day on a podcast um

Speaker 4 just you know yes i i had i had no choice if i wanted to keep my job

Speaker 4 and i didn't appreciate that to be forced to take a shot um and i had done enough homework just to know that there's a lot of questions about it and so this is september of 2021 and um you were one of the first publicly weren't you I guess so, but I didn't mean to.

Speaker 4 Yeah, no, I know. I just, I had talked to my agent at the time and who had talked to people at ESPN.
They were saying she really doesn't want to do it.

Speaker 4 And then I thought there were other treatments or vaccines that they were researching that might be somewhat different.

Speaker 4 Would you ask them to consider letting me wait six months? I just didn't feel comfortable. And my agent said, well, you know, you could get a religious exemption.
I'm like, but that's a lie.

Speaker 4 This isn't about religion for me.

Speaker 4 Well, you could get a medical, but, well, that's a lie. Like, I was trying to do it the right way.

Speaker 4 I could have gotten a fake card well that was a lie and then i thought well then they'd really go after to make sure mine's right because they knew i was hesitant so i i just waited to the very last second and went and got the shot on the last possible day in order to be fully vaccinated by september 30th 2021 and then went on a podcast and all i said was because i swear to you this wasn't a prop it was warm and i had a short sleeve on and the band-aid was on and i had come straight from the shot to the podcast podcast into yours that I gave in.

Speaker 4 Right. And I didn't remember.
And it was on Jay Cutler, the former quarterback, his brand new podcast. And he said,

Speaker 4 what's the band-aid? And I just was like, oops. And

Speaker 4 I said, I took it,

Speaker 4 but I think, this is where I got in trouble. I think it's sick and wrong for any company.
to force anyone to do something to their body that they don't want to.

Speaker 3 That is right. Correct.
It is right.

Speaker 4 At that moment, I guess people were more sensitive. And I said, but I complied because I need my job and I love my job.

Speaker 4 And I'm not surprised because it is a big global company, Disney, like many others, that we're forcing. I said, not surprised, but I'm upset.
But here we are. And onward.
And that was it.

Speaker 3 And what happened? How fast did it take for you to get the phone call?

Speaker 4 As soon as the podcast hit, there were a couple other things that made some headlines from the podcast that I apparently were, I wasn't allowed to say opinions based on my experiences as a woman in locker rooms for 25, 30 years and as a biracial woman.

Speaker 4 Those topics around that got me in trouble. But

Speaker 4 it was day after it dropped and it started off with, you know,

Speaker 4 what you said isn't going over well

Speaker 4 at headquarters. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, I complied.
You made me do this. I did it.
Like, I have an opinion, but I followed the rules.

Speaker 4 and then it quickly went south and I had to I was given the choice to issue a formal apology a statement

Speaker 4 or I don't have a job I'd be fired and to be suspended with pay but to be suspended

Speaker 4 and I'll just for the context it for people who have through the years said oh well you caved you took the shot yeah I did I did. I also

Speaker 4 unfortunately had been recently divorced

Speaker 4 and I was the sole, still am, the sole provider, breadwinner for three kids. All of them are in college right now, as we speak.
So when I say I needed that job,

Speaker 4 I needed that job, and that's my responsibility to those kids. So as much as I did break, and I still am disappointed in myself in some ways for giving in to the mandate, I had no choice.

Speaker 3 For a different reason,

Speaker 3 I,

Speaker 3 you know, I never forced anybody to take it. I think that's, it's your body.
You know what what I mean?

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 I almost took it because we were going over to the Middle East and it was, remember the Afghan thing? And we were trying to save all these people. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I didn't have to be there, but I wanted to be there and lead some things.

Speaker 3 And we thought that the country wasn't going to let us in unless we got the jab. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And we all were sitting in a parking lot here in Dallas waiting for the attorney to say, you have to take it or not. And I wrestled with that.

Speaker 3 And I'm so glad I didn't. Do you, I mean, from what you know now, does it freak you out at all that you took that?

Speaker 4 The only reason I can honestly say no is because

Speaker 4 the night before, I wasn't sure I was going to do it till I walked in this stupid little pharmacy at a grocery store in the the middle of nowhere, Connecticut, the night before I went to bed in tears, because I was like, if I don't do this, how am I going to feed my kids?

Speaker 4 How am I going to give my husband his alimony checks?

Speaker 4 Like real issues, real questions. And I just, I went to bed and I just prayed for a sign.

Speaker 4 And when I woke up the next morning and I got in the shower, I was crying still because I'm like, what am I going to do?

Speaker 4 And I opened my eyes and I haven't told this story often because it makes me cry.

Speaker 4 This was a house that I had done some renovations, but I still hadn't done the bathroom. And there was some ugly brownish marble tile on the other side of the glass of the shower.
And I saw it.

Speaker 4 And for the first time, after three years of living there, for the first time, when I looked at that one spot,

Speaker 4 I saw the outline of an angel in the marble. I'd looked at that 10,000 times.
And at that moment, I realized I asked for a sign. And

Speaker 4 I took that as you will be protected. So I'd like to believe that what went in me that day was

Speaker 4 water, I don't know, was not the vaccine. I also had to keep my job, had to get a booster in order to do my job and cover the masters, as I always had.

Speaker 4 And I knew I was risking it, but I

Speaker 4 felt I did have a choice, but in order to keep my job, I felt I had no choice. And I just had felt like, okay, God has taken care of me all this time.
And that was assigned to me.

Speaker 4 That angel and the marble.

Speaker 3 If you wouldn't have seen that,

Speaker 3 what decision would you have made?

Speaker 3 I don't know.

Speaker 4 I don't know. I wouldn't sound crazy to people.
I was going to

Speaker 4 walking away and just

Speaker 4 going back to court and say, I can't pay him all this money. Like, I don't know.
But I know that, and this is maybe the coolest part, besides the angel and the ugly marble.

Speaker 4 I went into the middle of the morning.

Speaker 3 Sounds like a bad Hallmark movie.

Speaker 4 Christmas with the

Speaker 4 angel and the ugly marble.

Speaker 4 Who has brown tile marble? Whatever.

Speaker 4 When I sat down in the chair in the stupid grocery store pharmacy in the middle of nowhere, Connecticut, the sweet, I don't, she probably wasn't a nurse, probably, like, you know, like me off the street putting the shot in.

Speaker 4 And she looked at me and she's like, are you okay? Because my eyes were red. And I said, no,

Speaker 4 I'm being forced to take this to keep my job. And I'm afraid.
And this sweet woman looked at me, grabbed my hand and said, this is so wrong. And I'm so sorry.

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 4 And then

Speaker 4 she put it in my arm.

Speaker 4 Something changed in me at that moment. Like something in me,

Speaker 4 anger, anger,

Speaker 4 something changed. And

Speaker 4 I don't think I knew it at the time.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 I felt it.

Speaker 3 Tell me what that means. Anger.

Speaker 3 How do you...

Speaker 4 Like they pushed me too far. Okay.

Speaker 4 As it's going in, as it's too late.

Speaker 4 It fired me up in ways that I think I'm seeing today still. My mom and I are like, whoa.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 something about her acknowledging how wrong it was to this complete stranger as she did it. She needed a job too, right?

Speaker 4 Like there's so many people who felt that it was wrong, but were afraid to say it. But then she saw me crying, but still doing it.

Speaker 4 I drove right home. I sped home because I was late.
I sat in the parking lot debating whether or not I was going to do it for way too long. So it was late to get home to do Jay Cutler's podcast.

Speaker 4 So I believe that like I was fired up, that I was put into that position. And so when I said what I said,

Speaker 4 I was holding back, but I meant it when I said I thought it was sick and scary because it is.

Speaker 3 It changed so many people. I mean, I remember being on the air, coming home from Christmas vacation,

Speaker 3 seeing what was happening before anybody was really paying attention, seeing what was happening in China

Speaker 3 and going on the air and saying, this is disturbing. I don't know what it is yet, but this is disturbing.
These signs aren't good. Then they started locking people up and everything else.

Speaker 3 And I remember saying on the air,

Speaker 3 don't fear the virus.

Speaker 3 Fear what comes and what people do because of the virus, the changes that will happen. And but I said at the same time, but I can't imagine that we will ever do anything like that in America.

Speaker 3 We'd go crazy. Well, I got the crazy part right.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 3 But just, I mean, I couldn't believe what we turned into. I know.
And still, in some ways, are.

Speaker 4 Still are. It's sick, and it is shocking, especially here.
China, you know, you can kind of understand.

Speaker 4 I remember I was thinking about this the other day about,

Speaker 4 you know, in order to go to work, in order to go anywhere, you had to

Speaker 4 go to the freaking drive-through and get a swab up your nose to your brain, basically.

Speaker 4 The things that we said yes to,

Speaker 4 we, all of us, said yes to, that's what's so scary. But I believe that was the beginning of us realizing.

Speaker 3 I think it was. I mean, RFK,

Speaker 3 he changed. We didn't agree on any.
He actually, at one point, I was on, when I was hosting a show on CNN, because I disagree on

Speaker 3 on the cures for climate change. I can read a temperature gauge, you know,

Speaker 3 but I don't believe these, what they're planning on doing is a good thing. He actually said, you're a traitor and you should be tried for treason.

Speaker 3 And I said to him, that's the only thing in the Constitution that's clearly spelled out. That's the death penalty.
And he said, yes.

Speaker 3 Right?

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 I've never had a lot in common with RFK. He came on the show and I said, you remember that time? He said, oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 And he said, COVID changed me. He said, I never thought, he said, I was too flippant and just, I just never thought we would ever become the people

Speaker 3 like that. And he said, when I saw COVID and what we were doing,

Speaker 3 I couldn't believe it. And I want nothing to do with it.
I mean, that's a massive change.

Speaker 4 Especially for Kennedy. Yes.
RFK.

Speaker 4 He was able to say stuff like that and basically the death penalty. Yeah.

Speaker 3 So if you agree. But it wasn't just COVID.
Finish what happened in the rest of that interview that got trouble for.

Speaker 4 Well, the first chronological order, the first thing was women in sports. And just talking about how much it had evolved through the years.
I graduated from college in 1995.

Speaker 4 And so I was always the only woman in the locker room, always.

Speaker 4 And then there were younger women coming along who I would, you know, I didn't have a female role model or someone to take me under their wing in the locker rooms and to tell you how to kind of manage the whole thing or dealing with all the coaches and traveling and what that looks like.

Speaker 4 And so

Speaker 4 I tried to do that with women along the way. And

Speaker 4 I just saw how more and more women would come in the locker room. But then I'd look and I'm like, what is, what is she wearing? And why?

Speaker 4 So I said, that's one thing that's been disappointing is because when women,

Speaker 4 not all, oh my gosh, of course, I think most are certainly very professional, but when you go into a locker room or any business area, conference room, whatever,

Speaker 4 it does matter what we're wearing as men too, but certainly as women.

Speaker 4 And so when you go into those spaces and you're hanging out and stuff's showing and you're more worried about like how sexy you look and how good you look, that takes away from your credibility and all the women who've come ahead of you.

Speaker 4 So I said, women, we are smart. I have two daughters that are in college.
We talk about those a lot. Women are so smart.
Let's not play dumb like, well, oh, I felt uncomfortable because you know what?

Speaker 4 If you're wearing that, I'm going to look at you. And I like men.
But like at the end of the day, we know what we're wearing.

Speaker 4 I'm just saying, be professional as you would anywhere else, not looking like you're going to a nightclub. So that turned into Sage Steel believes women who dress

Speaker 4 that way

Speaker 4 deserve to be raped. That's what headlines were.

Speaker 4 That was nothing compared to

Speaker 4 Jay asked me about being biracial and why it's so important to me if I'm asked to say yes, biracial, not just black.

Speaker 3 So in other words,

Speaker 3 they wanted you to be more black.

Speaker 4 Oh, okay.

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Speaker 4 I told the story of what happened when I was on The View in 2014 with Barbara Walters and Whoopi and Sherry Shepard and Jenny McCarthy. That was the cast at the time.

Speaker 4 And they said, hey, can we talk about you being biracial and how important it is to you? I was like, sure. So we get on there and it's live.
And Barbara Walters asked me,

Speaker 4 you know, about my background. And then she said,

Speaker 4 So, why don't you just identify as black? And I said, well, because

Speaker 4 I'm not. I mean, I'm both.
At that time, ironically, I found out later when I saw the tape behind me, they put up a picture of my family, my black dad, my white mom, and my two brothers.

Speaker 4 And hi, I'm both. I'm actually 50% of each.
And I'm so proud of all of me, right? Isn't that diversity? Isn't that what we want and promote in this country?

Speaker 4 So she said, well, 2014, well, the president says he's black and he's biracial too. And she goes, what do you do when you fill out the census? And I was like, I don't, I don't know.

Speaker 4 I check both or all of them or not. I don't care, but I'm not going to exclude one.
And I said, about Obama, I said, well, congratulations to the president.

Speaker 4 I think it's fascinating that he was raised by his white mother and his white grandmother. And his black father, unfortunately, was nowhere to be found.
Like, he wrote a book about it.

Speaker 4 This is not breaking notes.

Speaker 3 I said in 2014.

Speaker 4 Couldn't say it anytime, right?

Speaker 4 But I said, you do you.

Speaker 4 identify how you want, I'm going to do me. And I'm pretty sure that my white mom was there the day I was born.

Speaker 4 And I'm so proud of all of me. Why is that bad? So you're telling me I'm not enough of this, but tomorrow you're going to say I'm not enough of this.
Like I can't keep up. This is me.

Speaker 4 I feel like I represent so much of America where we're mixed race and it's beautiful. So I, it was actually not a big thing then in 2021 when I repeated the exact story on this podcast.

Speaker 4 it was Sage Steel hates black people and the sellout the coon all of the language that I don't like to repeat

Speaker 4 so that was the other big thing and that along with the Disney comment is what got me shot down and canceled and the ironic thing is when they pulled me off the air and said you must issue this statement

Speaker 4 or you're out of a job is what they told my agent apparently not directly to my face

Speaker 4 I

Speaker 4 was sick sicker than I've ever been in my life with COVID.

Speaker 4 After, of course, getting the shot that was supposed to prevent me. So I'm in bed, unable to breathe at times.
Like it was, it got me hard alone. My kids were with their father for eight days.

Speaker 4 I was alone. I'd never been in a darker place in my life.
Being canceled by every person I thought was a friend, every network, every peer, every everything, and all black people, not all, of course.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 that was the beginning of my end um at espn which was also the beginning of a beautiful new beginning like all of it all of it but i look back and i still um

Speaker 4 i swear to you i would not change a thing

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 um

Speaker 4 there will always be pain from that because

Speaker 4 um

Speaker 4 The only reason I stood up and sued later is because

Speaker 4 ESPN and Disney allowed all of my peers who leaned to the left, who hated Trump, who loved Obama and loved everybody, they could say whatever they wanted on ESPN platforms, live on an NBA show to talk about Roe versus Wade being overturned while talking, instead of talking about basketball, or the don't say gay bill on a football, basketball show.

Speaker 4 So my point is, just be consistent. You cannot allow all of them to say whatever they want on ESPN platforms, nothing to do with sports.

Speaker 4 Well, I'm on a podcast on an off day talking about my experience as a biracial woman, my experience with taking this shot and complying with your rules.

Speaker 3 Especially when I can't comment on your experience because I'm a white cisgendered man and I can't even relate to your that's I mean, that's I can't comment on it, they'll shut me down.

Speaker 3 No way, I can't have an opinion on anything,

Speaker 4 but then

Speaker 3 you biracial, you should not have a biracial. I mean, it's it's really crazy.
I mean, we've we've gone insane. And

Speaker 3 I mean,

Speaker 3 I've been on the view.

Speaker 4 Oof,

Speaker 3 nasty.

Speaker 3 But I was talking to Jay Leno this weekend and

Speaker 3 he calls me up. He's like, why are you gone insane?

Speaker 4 I don't understand.

Speaker 4 And he said,

Speaker 3 he said, Glenn,

Speaker 3 I'm out. He said, I take my fire truck.
He's got an old fire truck. Take my fire truck out to the to the fires.
He said, because these firemen are

Speaker 3 eating and they're working 15, 18 hours a day. And he said, they need food and they're getting box lunches.
And he said, I just thought it'd be nice to have one hot meal a day. Yeah.

Speaker 3 He said, so I bring my fire truck up and I, you know, bring all these. He said, Andrickson Cooper comes up to me and says, what are you doing here, Jay? And he said, you know, these guys are.

Speaker 3 eating, you know, sandwiches and I think one hot meal a day would be good. So I'm bringing them hot hot meal.
He said, you know what that was twisted into?

Speaker 3 He said that was twisted into Jay Leno

Speaker 3 takes on America's box lunches.

Speaker 4 What? He's like, what?

Speaker 3 He's like, we have lost our minds.

Speaker 4 It's so stupid. It's so

Speaker 4 embarrassing and it is pathetic. It is.

Speaker 4 But that is why we're here today. That is why Donald Trump is back in office, because they pushed us too far.
And I actually believe it took every bit of what has happened

Speaker 4 leading up to 2020 black lives matter george floyd all of the things uh how the democrats chose to run kamala's campaign had they chose to put her there in the first place um for people to get to the brink of disaster before realizing i don't think everybody realizes that though no i don't i think a lot more do than yeah like i'm so obviously or else we wouldn't be here not many are willing to say it out loud maybe um i think we were actually

Speaker 3 blessed by the lord that he didn't win in 2020. Totally agree.

Speaker 4 Right?

Speaker 4 Totally agree because it would have just been, oh my God, four more years of this crazy person. Instead of going, oh,

Speaker 4 he's not that bad. Because look what these people did,

Speaker 4 not just allowed to happen, did to us.

Speaker 4 And it was intentional. And they didn't think that we would smart enough in time.
Why would they think that? Look at how we lined up and went and got that shot just like I did.

Speaker 4 So why would they think that we would, you know, be like, oh,

Speaker 4 why would they think that after what they did to the election in 2020? I have always been an election denier. I don't care.
You can tell me what you want. I've seen enough videos.
I'm not an idiot.

Speaker 4 And I'm choosing to see what's in front of me instead of ignoring it, or at least, you know, choosing to say it.

Speaker 4 It took every bit of this crap for us to get him get to where we are today and to get him back in office and a better version as a president, as a human being.

Speaker 3 I think him,

Speaker 3 first of all,

Speaker 3 I think it hardened him. I think when 2020 happened, he

Speaker 3 was like, and I said to him, I talked to him right after the election,

Speaker 3 and I said, Mr. President, I don't have any proof, but you'll never convince me that that was fair.
But I don't have any proof.

Speaker 4 That what was fair?

Speaker 3 That the election, 2020.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 3 I said, but.

Speaker 3 You know, I'm sorry for everything that you've gone through. And

Speaker 3 he just really had a a hard time with that. However,

Speaker 3 in time,

Speaker 3 he

Speaker 3 I think he just started to catalog, okay, what happened here? He had no time to think. What happened? What didn't I know? You notice he doesn't have his family as the only people around him this time.

Speaker 3 Yeah. He knows now who I can trust.
He had no one he could trust. So he started catalyzing.

Speaker 3 And then when they started coming after him and his family, the first time I talked to him, when they first went after

Speaker 3 his children, I think it was his son or maybe it was Ivanka and Ivana. And she said,

Speaker 3 or he said to me,

Speaker 3 they went after my effing children. And I saw real anger from him for the first time.
However. He then had to go through court and everything else.

Speaker 3 And by the time he gets up to the assassination attempt, he's not that way anymore. He's not that way.
And then the assassination attempt happened. And I think that was,

Speaker 3 I know it was, that was a God moment.

Speaker 4 It was.

Speaker 3 And it humbled him. Instead of becoming angry, he just became even more determined.
Yeah. And look at him now.

Speaker 3 He's what, he's.

Speaker 3 He's back to the Donald Trump I knew in 2008 or 10 or, you know what I mean? That wasn't running for politics, politics, wasn't running for president. He was comfortable in his skin.
He knew the game.

Speaker 3 He knew what he was playing. It was that four-year period that I think just took him absolutely by surprise.
Yeah. And look at him now.

Speaker 4 He

Speaker 4 I didn't know or think, of course I didn't know. I didn't know him or anyone around him at that time.
But I didn't think he was going to run again. I thought, you know what?

Speaker 4 Like this is a sad ending, but yeah, I mean, of what benefit is it? You certainly aren't going to have more money in your your pocket after. He had less, as we know.

Speaker 4 Nobody has come out with less except Donald Trump, right?

Speaker 4 But I do think that he had, yeah, he had to go through it. He's more humble, despite what people want to think, because, number one, the assassination attempt.
And I feel...

Speaker 4 his belief in God. He speaks about it much more than he ever has.

Speaker 3 In a real way.

Speaker 4 Beautifully. Like very genuine.
And I also think that from a business perspective almost, I mean, we all have to take a step back sometimes to be our best selves.

Speaker 4 And during that time, when he was ticked off and rightfully so because of what happened in 2020, and then of course coming after him, you have more time to assess and how can I be better?

Speaker 4 And I loved when he went on Joe Rogan and talked about what he did wrong and how he admit, like he admitted that he should have vetted people better and not hung on because he's loyal and he didn't have the right people.

Speaker 4 To admit that is incredible.

Speaker 3 Remember when Barack Obama was asked, what did you do wrong? And he said nothing.

Speaker 4 Nothing. Nothing.
How about Kamala Harris? What would you change? Nothing. Like if you just show a little bit of humanity, what would I do differently?

Speaker 4 I believe people see that and go, oh, you know what else it is? It's really good leadership.

Speaker 4 When you can own your crap, and then as an employee,

Speaker 4 I said in 30 years in the industry, I've had maybe enough true leaders on one hand. People have the title, but they don't know how to lead.
Correct.

Speaker 4 When he did that, to me, it was a massive thing for me to see as I look up to our commander-in-chief,

Speaker 4 him and some others, and he acknowledged this is where I can do better. And now we've seen it.

Speaker 4 And I also think that 48 hours after he was shot, to be there in Milwaukee, I guess it was, and the shots that they took of him, shot, shouldn't use that word, the

Speaker 4 close-ups of him sitting there while his 17-year-old granddaughter had the courage to get on stage and speak about her grandfather. You saw the tears in his eyes.

Speaker 4 We are seeing the human side of Donald Trump. We saw it.
That's beautiful.

Speaker 3 We saw it that week, unlike I've ever seen it before in anyone else. You could watch it happen in real time.
From the minute he was... And let me show you this.

Speaker 3 to the ground. Yes.

Speaker 3 To the fight, to the next day, you could see the hesitance in milwaukee as he's walking he remember he walked out of that and then he stopped i do too he stopped for a minute and you were like he's not the same man not the same man he was not like look at me yes he was absorbing it and he was

Speaker 3 present but yeah he was also

Speaker 3 it it For the first time, he showed it because he actually really likes people, but you you don't see that. You know what I mean? He's got such a,

Speaker 4 but

Speaker 3 you could see how much the people meant to him.

Speaker 3 When he stood up, he told me, I saw that no one had run.

Speaker 3 And they were, I'm going to tear up saying this.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 they didn't run. They were with me.
That's when he cemented his relationship. I'm never walking away from these people.

Speaker 3 And he always said to me that it was about the people that he had promised, not the bigwigs, the people that came to his rallies that he promised he would fix.

Speaker 3 That moment for him, I think he realized they're the ones I can trust.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I will fight for him. And then for him to come out and he had that applause, you could see him,

Speaker 3 he was grateful.

Speaker 4 He was

Speaker 4 grateful.

Speaker 4 People don't want to acknowledge his human side. It's easier not to.
It's easier to hate somebody

Speaker 4 when you only see the one thing.

Speaker 4 I had never met him until

Speaker 4 a few months ago, you know, during the election, the campaign. And,

Speaker 4 you know,

Speaker 4 he's no different from us in the way that he wants to be liked. You know,

Speaker 4 maybe it's not everything for him, obviously not, or else he would have never done this, certainly not again.

Speaker 3 Or he would have just acquiesced.

Speaker 4 Just like everybody else.

Speaker 3 Yeah, just don't say those things.

Speaker 4 Yes, just like everybody else. And

Speaker 4 I love that about him. I love actually seeing that part because that means, oh, we have a little something more in common.

Speaker 4 I'm getting over that disease of being a pleaser and like trying to make people like me. I give up.

Speaker 3 I came from an alcoholic family, and that was my role. I was the little clown.
I was the little, hey, everything's okay, everybody.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I still fight that.

Speaker 4 I still fight that.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Not strangely

Speaker 3 not on the air.

Speaker 3 I got into radio when I was 13. And so I've told everything to this that I've never told to people.
I mean, my first wife, I came home one day after I talked about my mom's suicide.

Speaker 3 And it was a really traumatic moment for me. And I got home and she said,

Speaker 3 Your mother killed herself?

Speaker 3 I don't, I don't.

Speaker 4 this is different for me so your wife didn't know she didn't know

Speaker 3 i didn't even think about it at the time

Speaker 4 oh my goodness yeah yeah because your wife was listening she was listening and she was like what what wait what

Speaker 3 and um

Speaker 3 It's just, it's weird. So I don't have a problem saying hard things to it,

Speaker 3 but I have a hard time

Speaker 3 in real life. I don't like confrontation.
It's the alcoholic. You know, it's the alcoholic in me.
I don't like confrontation. You know,

Speaker 3 I was talking about that today about Trump and his tariffs. Yeah.
You know, I think people,

Speaker 3 they want America first. They want to do the right thing.
They want the end of the war in the Ukraine. But the minute...

Speaker 3 A leader stands up and says, knock it off and sit down and you too, Everybody gets uncomfortable. Well, let's not do that.
That could cause it's Reagan saying,

Speaker 3 Those guys, that's an evil empire. Yes.
You have to change the game.

Speaker 4 You have to.

Speaker 3 And you, you did that.

Speaker 4 Oh, God. You did.
You changed the game.

Speaker 3 No, but you did.

Speaker 4 I don't know. I don't know if I did.
And it certainly wasn't my goal.

Speaker 3 I know.

Speaker 3 But you did. And I think you

Speaker 3 still are.

Speaker 3 Women's sports. I mean, what's been happening with women's sports? And they're all saying,

Speaker 3 I'm doing it to protect women. And I honestly,

Speaker 3 I don't even understand the mathematics that gets you there.

Speaker 4 It's so stupid. It's so stupid that this is even a conversation.

Speaker 4 And the hypocrisy in it is just so thick, you know.

Speaker 3 Eddie has to be. Do you think anyone is sincere in that?

Speaker 4 Well, I, I, in,

Speaker 3 and saying that men can be women and women can be men, and it's totally cool. And I don't know.

Speaker 4 I think that they, yes, but they're part of the mentally ill group. And that group is growing.
Yeah. Sadly.
It is. But there's no other way.

Speaker 4 Because these are the same people that said, follow the science, follow the science. And then I'm anti-science.
Right.

Speaker 4 You know, I was thinking.

Speaker 3 Even today, because you speak out, you know, and say, hey,

Speaker 3 this obviously, the record is clear on the science that that just happened. Yes.
And they still will say that was science and you were wrong.

Speaker 4 Exactly. And I wanted to kill everybody around me by not being vaccinated.
Exactly. I do think it's a

Speaker 4 people have mental issues and or just absolutely refuse to acknowledge something that might make them look like they're more in the middle on something, which again,

Speaker 4 there's very few issues that are black and white, and this is, right?

Speaker 4 I think

Speaker 4 one of the reasons I keep speaking up number one yes because these young women

Speaker 4 but also when I was at ESPN I I was part of ESPN W which I love W for women and that and it was an annual like conference retreat summit every year I think starting in 2010 and I was the original host for 11 straight years 10 or 11 straight years

Speaker 4 until this year, that year in 2021 when I spoke up.

Speaker 4 And it's all the strongest women and athletes and executives from all different corporations whether it's Lululemon or Nike like Gatorade all over the place and

Speaker 4 the silence that we continue to see here you can't hear it because they're silent is mind-boggling and disgusting to me all these women who stand up there and preach pro-women pro-this pro that we don't you don't do enough highlights on us you don't do enough this and that then salaries and now you're silent at the most obvious time title iX is something we always talked about.

Speaker 4 Billie Jean King came to the conference several times. I mean, she was right there in the middle of it.
I was born in 1972. That's the beginning of Title IX.

Speaker 4 And now they're willing to take this and allow it. And they're actually encouraging it some and are part of it.

Speaker 4 I've said from day one with this, if we just as women's sportscasters came together and said, okay.

Speaker 4 There is room for everyone and we will figure this out because this is not about excluding anyone, transgender.

Speaker 4 but if we just stood up this would have ended but instead there's been one and a half people in the sports industry two people me and my friend samantha ponder who also got fired from espn last fall because she's a conservative

Speaker 4 and then we're we're silenced because of it and canceled and threatened and you're losing a door because we're standing up for women um it's no different than covet to me

Speaker 4 they want to control,

Speaker 4 they're making money from this stuff. And if we continue to stay quiet, there is blood on our hands.
And I firmly believe that.

Speaker 3 Oh, if you ever read, try to remember who wrote this. Back in the 50s, there's a book.
I think it's called Ordinary Men.

Speaker 3 And it was done by a researcher. Some of the worst Nazis were the best police officers of Poland.
Okay.

Speaker 3 They were fair. They were decent.
They were honorable. And they quickly became the worst of the worst of the Nazis.

Speaker 3 And so this researcher went back and tried to figure out what the hell happened because it happened that fast.

Speaker 4 So fast.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I'm doing horrible injustice to her theory, but it's absolutely right.

Speaker 3 One person said,

Speaker 3 do it.

Speaker 3 Or you're fired. You're out.

Speaker 3 And they did it. And then it just was a Rubicon.
They just crossed it. And then they just had to continue to reinforce that they were on the right side.

Speaker 3 And it just got worse and worse and worse and they could no longer see it. Once they crossed the river, once they did that, it was over.
And it's, I feel like that's what we're doing again.

Speaker 3 I mean, thank God, not to that degree. But people have just crossed the river.
They've burned their families, burned people. They stood for things that

Speaker 3 no person in their right mind today would still be backing up. But they can't, they can't go back.
They feel like they can't go back.

Speaker 4 And there's, and I understand the fear in many ways. I have noticed, though, lately, with all of these topics, political, cultural, whatever,

Speaker 4 I think this is something I need to work on. I have no more patience for people who live in fear.
I don't.

Speaker 4 And I'm not saying that from a mean, whatever perspective, but I think it comes from some personal stuff too, where when you live in fear, I mean, I'll just say I'm divorced, you know, and I was married for 20 years, and I wouldn't change a thing.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 I love what we had, and I have my three kids, and I'm grateful.

Speaker 3 I was shocked when you and I met at Amfest. At Amfest with Charlie Kirk's thing.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I've known about you, but we'd never met. Had we ever talked before?

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 3 And I was so immediately impressed with your strength and

Speaker 3 the sense of you just know there's

Speaker 3 successful people are either total frauds or they just know who they are. And that's why they're successful.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I just was overwhelmed by that. And then you started talking to me and putting little breadcrumbs out.
About you were afraid in a relationship you're afraid. And it doesn't

Speaker 4 that doesn't equate. Yeah.
It doesn't work.

Speaker 3 Have you ever talked about it?

Speaker 4 Are you willing to talk about that? Yeah,

Speaker 3 what was that? What happened

Speaker 4 in my marriage?

Speaker 3 Yeah, with you being afraid.

Speaker 3 How did that happen? Because you don't seem like a woman who's afraid.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I'm not anymore.

Speaker 3 But why were you?

Speaker 4 What happened?

Speaker 4 Very well-intended, I think.

Speaker 4 Only girl,

Speaker 4 first child.

Speaker 4 I just, the pleaser in me,

Speaker 4 just, I wanted to make sure everybody around me was okay and happy.

Speaker 4 And I come from an incredible, and my parents, I'm 52, my parents only married 54 years this year as an interracial couple that get married in 1971. Wow.

Speaker 4 Where my mom's family, or parents, not family, but parents disowned her for marrying a black man. And all that they've been through, they are my why, my strength, my everything, along with my kids.

Speaker 4 And not but, but and I, I just, I was that girl and I wanted to please and please the teachers and please my coaches and please everybody and make sure everybody's good. And I

Speaker 4 married my first boyfriend, met him in college. I was 20 and got married at 26, almost 27.
And

Speaker 4 yeah, divorced at 47. So that's all I knew my whole adult life, my whole life, you know?

Speaker 4 And it was a, again, I say this, I wouldn't, I wouldn't change anything, but it was, um,

Speaker 4 it was, he was a stay-at-home dad.

Speaker 4 And it was great for many years as my career, you know, continued to,

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 I had this, I mean, I was always, I had guilt. I had guilt for not being home as much as I wanted to be.

Speaker 4 I had guilt for, okay, having been too successful at some point, which, which, how did that make my husband feel

Speaker 4 and he he was going to go back to work when the baby got into first grade and never did and that's why we're here today etc

Speaker 4 but what were you afraid of I was afraid of everything I was afraid of I just I don't know when I say everything I can't even think of how to summarize it because I was afraid that if I wasn't home enough then I wouldn't be a good mother and my friends who all stayed home were judging me.

Speaker 4 I was afraid that if I was too successful, then it would make my husband feel smaller because he's the man and I'm very, very, very traditional.

Speaker 4 And I didn't, the whole role reversal, I didn't like anyway, but I was doing well, so it's the right thing for the family.

Speaker 4 So I made myself smaller. Oh my gosh, in every way

Speaker 4 to try to make sure everybody around me didn't feel like I thought I was all that on TV and all the things.

Speaker 4 And then I was afraid to address the issues because I'm I'm Catholic and we don't get divorced.

Speaker 4 You don't do that. I was afraid of the judgment.
I was afraid God would be mad at me.

Speaker 4 The fear was everywhere. And then

Speaker 4 you're not enough racially, right? Because I'm not white and I'm not black. And so then you have to choose.
And if I say this, then I'll be too white. If I say this, then I'll be too black.

Speaker 4 And then I'm different. I'm not black enough because I have white hair.

Speaker 4 It went everywhere. And so then, okay, I'm doing well and I was good at my job and I worked my butt off and everybody was happy.

Speaker 4 And then I had these, these things were happening in society where I'm like, that's wrong. That's not okay.

Speaker 4 But if I say something, then I'll be too far over here. And then I won't be liked by the left and people who look like me because, so you just stay silent.
And then if I then I would speak up.

Speaker 3 This makes my head hurt.

Speaker 4 I know. Do you see why? This is why I hold on.
I wonder why my hair is curly because it's just everything. But I just,

Speaker 4 it was smarter to stay quiet, Glenn. So much smarter.

Speaker 4 From every perspective, certainly for work, financially. I mean, what I've lost financially is insane.

Speaker 4 But,

Speaker 4 God, it feels good to be true to myself in every way now.

Speaker 4 to realize that if I'm leading with my heart, if I'm doing it in what I believe is the right way, leading with kindness, but strength as well,

Speaker 4 man,

Speaker 4 if you don't like me, that's kind of on you because I'm actually a really nice person and loyal and supportive. And if you don't like me because of my opinion,

Speaker 4 that's on you. It just took half a century to get there, and that's really annoying.

Speaker 4 But now, because of all the people I was around, including my leaders and bosses and teammates and coworkers and peers and people in my personal life, which I've made kind of obvious here, when you live in fear, I can't be around you because I need someone to continue to uplift me as well.

Speaker 4 Let's make a team. We're going to do this together.

Speaker 4 And I shudder at the thought of

Speaker 4 what my life would look like if I had continued to live in that fear, whether it be with my opinions,

Speaker 4 standing up about what I thought

Speaker 4 was wrong with forcing someone to put a shot in their body. That's an experimental unproven shot.

Speaker 4 Or even if I had

Speaker 4 lived in fear of what everyone would think of me for making a decision to end my marriage and where I would be today,

Speaker 4 even though I have no idea what tomorrow is, I don't know what my professional life is going to turn out to be. I don't know if my little show is going to work.

Speaker 4 I don't know if I'm going to get married again. I don't know if my kids are going to hate me or like me tomorrow.
It depends on how much I give them for spring break. Like,

Speaker 4 I don't know, but I'm okay with it. And it's just, I'm so grateful that God has allowed, and it's it's all God, has allowed me to

Speaker 4 like say trust. That day in the shower, when I saw the angel and the ugly brown marble,

Speaker 4 like, I feel like it was a turning point. And I have trusted with every aspect of my life.
And the fear has gone away.

Speaker 4 What a blessing to have been canceled 150 times, to have the to have been

Speaker 4 embarrassed intentionally by my company, intentionally. What a blessing to have lost all the all the money

Speaker 4 that was right there on the table for me to take. What a blessing for some family members to be like, she's a nut job, keep her away.

Speaker 4 What a blessing to have been called

Speaker 4 a coon,

Speaker 4 a sellout, other names I won't say.

Speaker 4 People I thought were friends to go away and say, yeah, I'll be friends with her. Don't put it on Instagram, don't show anybody that I'm having lunch with her.

Speaker 4 I am so, I swear to you, I'm so grateful for every moment because God has been there every step, He always was.

Speaker 4 I just wasn't willing to see it.

Speaker 4 Sorry, that was way that was not sound bite length. I'm very sorry.
No,

Speaker 3 no,

Speaker 3 um,

Speaker 4 no more fear, no more.

Speaker 3 I think that's the most common

Speaker 3 I think that's the most human thing that we all have in common is fear. I know I was, you know, I am.
I'm an alcoholic. But when I was a practicing alcoholic, it all came from the fear of...

Speaker 3 I don't want people to find out about this or who I am or I'm not sure I am any good.

Speaker 3 All of this crap.

Speaker 3 And we're all just living in fear. And

Speaker 3 when we

Speaker 4 when we

Speaker 3 admit it

Speaker 3 and when we let others see it,

Speaker 3 two things happen, I think, at least it did in my life. One,

Speaker 3 you find real people. Yeah.
You know, you find people are coming up to you and going, I can't believe you did that, but thank you.

Speaker 4 Right?

Speaker 3 And can we get some Kleenecks?

Speaker 3 And the other thing is

Speaker 3 you become the most powerful person on the planet.

Speaker 3 Everybody is afraid of you.

Speaker 3 And they're afraid of you because

Speaker 3 They can't manipulate you. They don't...

Speaker 3 You should be, and I think you probably are, the most predictable person in anyone's life. Because you're so clear on what's true and you're not afraid to walk away.
That terrifies people. It does.

Speaker 3 It's wonderful, isn't it? I mean, not the terrifying them, but it's wonderful.

Speaker 4 It is. And I never knew.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 every time I've shared a little bit, probably started in like 2018 after the first first time I got canceled in 2017.

Speaker 4 Every time I did, every time I shared something,

Speaker 4 thank you.

Speaker 4 She did a great job on my makeup today, too. Goodness gracious.
You'll let me know if it sticks to my face.

Speaker 4 Every single time I've opened up about anything personally, which I was afraid to, you try to protect your kids, try to protect everything. I, you know, I still try to, believe it or not,

Speaker 4 professionally about the decision to

Speaker 4 stand up and sue the employer that I loved.

Speaker 4 Every time I have received such a gift and one response from somebody

Speaker 4 on social media, on an email, at an airport, in a women's restroom, at a restaurant, the number of people now

Speaker 4 who come up to me, Grown men in tears, thanking me because they're afraid to say something about women's sports and keeping men out of them for their daughters. It has overwhelmed me.
And

Speaker 4 that's what I'm trying to do on my little show as well. It's like every time we open up, not only are we helping ourselves, we're helping others.

Speaker 4 And they say, oh my gosh, this person that looks like they have it all together and they're on TV and famous and money and all that.

Speaker 4 They're going through that too.

Speaker 4 So I now believe that like

Speaker 4 it is what it is. I don't even care.
Think I'm a loser because I cry too much. But

Speaker 4 you're with me. I know.

Speaker 4 Exactly. But like, we are helping others just by being true to ourselves.
Yeah, I know. And that is a gift.
And I know that there's some strength in that.

Speaker 4 But to me, the credit has to go back to my faith.

Speaker 3 Oh, I don't, I wouldn't have done it without faith.

Speaker 4 No way. And what you have chosen to overcome and address, whether it's right here or in any other way,

Speaker 4 it is that's the win. And I actually think that that's how we all heal and recover as a society: we stop trying to be so damn perfect and keep it all together and be so like,

Speaker 4 No, I mean, do you see this hair? Like, there are so many imperfections here that now I just embrace them.

Speaker 3 Stop talking about your beautiful hair content. Look at mine.
Look at mine, then look at yours. Stop.

Speaker 4 Naturally, mine is the same color as yours, believe me. No.
100%. I'll show you later.
The roots are back here. But, But

Speaker 4 I'm so grateful. This is what I said to my kids.

Speaker 4 Whether it be speaking up, standing up for yourself, or in relationships.

Speaker 4 Please don't waste my pain.

Speaker 4 Please take my crap

Speaker 4 and use it and be better and smarter and wiser. and fearless.

Speaker 4 And I'm so glad. And Glenn, the day before, the day before my lawsuit dropped in April of 2022, I spoke to each of my kids separately to say, this is what's happening tomorrow.

Speaker 4 One was in college and then two were in high school. And I just want you to know that this is probably going to be ugly.

Speaker 4 I don't want you to defend me. This is about free speech.
And that's why I'm doing it.

Speaker 3 I had the same conversation with you.

Speaker 4 With your kids. Oh, my God.
Like,

Speaker 4 I just didn't want, I didn't want them to feel the need to state to defend me because it does get old.

Speaker 4 And teachers and coaches and other parents would say things to my kids and I was like tell them to talk to your mother and that's when that's when the ugliest age will come out because you touch my kid I will cut you I will hurt you and I'll go to prison for you but I said don't defend me just remind people that everybody has a right to their own opinion and diversity of thought that's all you have to say and I said but I'm sorry for what is to come because I know it's going to be ugly but just know I cannot be quiet anymore and I'm so sorry but I love you and do you know each one received it differently My son, who's in the middle, I would say between my two crazy daughters, my saint son, who's like, oh boy, he's gonna be the best partner someday.

Speaker 4 My son stopped what he was doing and he looked at me and he said, Mom, it's about time you stood up for yourself.

Speaker 4 He was 17.

Speaker 4 I thought I was protecting my kids this whole time by staying quiet. And in the meantime, what did they see? They saw me being quiet and afraid

Speaker 4 and not true to myself and small.

Speaker 4 And so I'm teaching that. We're teaching our kids to be strong and to do all those things.
But what example are we showing them? The opposite. Shame on me.

Speaker 4 So I knew at that moment that even if Disney won, hello, David versus Goliath, they could bleed me dry in five minutes.

Speaker 3 One thing they do well is litigate.

Speaker 4 Very good. Very well.
Even if they won,

Speaker 4 I actually just won won because my kid,

Speaker 4 they saw me saying enough.

Speaker 4 I knew my career there was going to be over. When you sue your company, it's over.
And by the way, I was still on air for 16 months after that lawsuit dropped.

Speaker 4 So I would sue them while on their screen every single day. And it was so scary every day to walk in there and do those live shows.
But my kids saw their mom

Speaker 4 supporting them, supporting everybody, and fighting and so I

Speaker 4 I Did know at that point that I'm here for more

Speaker 4 on this earth to be their mama even when I drive them crazy, which is a lot

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 To use my voice I knew I was done at ESPN. I didn't know what was next but to help others who also lived in fear and I know now that that's why God has me here

Speaker 3 I'm going to give you a list of people and you tell me what they they have in common. Andre Botticelli, Steph Curry, Justin Bieber,

Speaker 3 and Tim Thiebaud.

Speaker 3 All of their moms were encouraged to end their pregnancies.

Speaker 3 That's incredible. Now think of the

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Speaker 3 Most moms do not want to do this, but she wants to make the right choice. Nobody is around helping her.
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Or visit preborn.com/slash Glenn.

Speaker 3 You go back to 1971. Your parents.

Speaker 3 Right over here in the dark. That's the Archie Bunker set.
That's all in the family.

Speaker 4 I love the music.

Speaker 3 That was the first one to really deal with interracial. I mean, 1971, your parents were ahead, way ahead.

Speaker 3 Your dad was, if I'm not mistaken, the first

Speaker 3 black varsity football player, right,

Speaker 3 at West Point. Yes, sir.

Speaker 3 I'm trying, again, I'm trying to balance this.

Speaker 4 That wasn't fear.

Speaker 3 That was not fear.

Speaker 3 How did you,

Speaker 3 how did they influence you or how did you miss that epic stance from them without without fear

Speaker 4 gosh i don't mean to make you no i love this yeah

Speaker 4 how did i

Speaker 4 because they put you were raised

Speaker 3 you're just talking about you're just talking about i taught my children i think i can teach my children and they can learn from my example but i don't think they actually learn until They face their fire.

Speaker 3 Yes. You know what I mean? So is that the same with you? Because your parents faced fire.
You You had to, as a young kid,

Speaker 3 white mom, black dad, you had to be the odd person out in school.

Speaker 3 How, how did you,

Speaker 3 what happened there?

Speaker 4 What happened was the environment in which I grew up was beautiful as an Army kid, military.

Speaker 4 It was a safe space. There was a lot of kids who looked like me.
There were so many interracial marriages in the military, if you think about it.

Speaker 4 And everywhere you went in the world, and I lived in four countries by the time I was 11 years old.

Speaker 4 Everywhere you went, there were kids who knew what it was like to move and to start over and to, you know, okay, now I have to find new friends on the playground and then on your sports teams, et cetera.

Speaker 4 And so

Speaker 4 it was the most

Speaker 4 diverse upbringing because racially and all that, but it was a bubble because we all took care of each other there.

Speaker 4 And so then my senior year of high school, the Army moved us from Fort Carson, Colorado, Colorado Springs, to Fort Benjamin Harrison outside of Indianapolis. And it was my senior year of high school.

Speaker 4 And there was no school. It was a small Army post, which is now a state park.
It's no longer

Speaker 4 with the downsizing of the military in the 90s, it changed. And so I went to a public school there in a non-military town.
And I, of 1,800 students at Carmel High School, I was the only black student.

Speaker 4 I say biracial, of course, but

Speaker 4 the only one. And so that

Speaker 4 was my first time feeling different was as a senior in high school, not all those years leading up to it. And so I'd been protected and also protected.

Speaker 3 Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Speaker 4 Well, in hindsight,

Speaker 4 you know, it was my first experience with racism.

Speaker 3 Did you know that it was out there?

Speaker 4 No. But just not.
No, I mean, yes, I guess. But there was no internet.
You know, it was a different world.

Speaker 3 I grew up in a time.

Speaker 3 I grew up in a time, I grew up in Seattle, and I think there were like four black people at the time. So I didn't, I couldn't relate to

Speaker 3 the South. I couldn't relate to what that was.
It just seemed like a distant kind of.

Speaker 3 So when I've moved back east, and I start seeing, oh, oh,

Speaker 3 oh, there's a real, there's a real split here. You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 First time I went south and I felt like I was, I stopped, I remember stopping from Gat for gas and I felt like I was in deliverance and I'm filling up gas and this guy says,

Speaker 3 those are Yankee plates.

Speaker 4 And I'm like, oh dear God,

Speaker 4 they're going to eat me.

Speaker 3 And I think they have slaves. I don't know what's happening here.
I mean, it was just, you know, different world. So you kind of had the same.

Speaker 4 Yeah, because I was so protected with the diversity. diversity in it you know it was again it was beautiful it was perfect in my mind and then one day I was walking to class and

Speaker 4 was surrounded by a group of boys who I one of them I thought was my friend and

Speaker 4 Enward

Speaker 4 go back to Africa look like a gorilla go back like just the ugliest moment of my life up to that point and I what year was that? 1990, senior of high school, 89, 90.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Wow.

Speaker 4 So,

Speaker 4 I mean, other people are like, yeah, dumbass. This is how it is in the real world.
And I was like, well, it's never what I experienced. And that changed me.

Speaker 4 And then, so I went home and I mean, they cornered me and it was the worst.

Speaker 4 And I escaped and ran to class. And I mean, they weren't going to touch me, but it was.
verbal. And so I got home that day from school and told my mom my dad was out of town with military.

Speaker 4 And we went into school the next day to talk to the principal. And

Speaker 4 he basically, he looked at me and my mom and said, I don't believe you. It didn't happen.
He didn't believe it. It happened.
He thought we were making it up.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 that changed me. My poor mother, who was, you know,

Speaker 4 I had no reason to make that up.

Speaker 4 And I named names and they did nothing. And so a couple weeks later, I remember

Speaker 4 I was walking around school. It did change me and I had my eyes on the ground.
I was no longer this kind of bubbly, like,

Speaker 4 and this woman tapped me on the shoulder, a teacher, and she pulled me into her classroom. And her name was Agnes Cam.
She was the German teacher. I didn't take German.
She knew who I was.

Speaker 4 I stood out, I guess.

Speaker 4 And she said, I want you to know that I heard what happened.

Speaker 4 And I'm so sorry. And she said, but look at me.
She goes,

Speaker 4 you are doing more for Carmel High School than we can ever do for you just by being here.

Speaker 4 Don't let this affect you.

Speaker 4 I don't know if I ever saw her again,

Speaker 4 but I remember that verbatim.

Speaker 4 And just by staying there, just by being in the classroom and being someone that looked a little different from all of these kids in a rich white suburb north of Indianapolis.

Speaker 4 By the way, 90% of them were awesome. This is not a referendum on the town.
That experience, though, and told I was a liar by the principal, did change my life.

Speaker 4 But that was, I think, the beginning of realizing, okay, you can be different and still be okay and still have friends and still, you know, and then on to college and then through my career.

Speaker 4 And at times when mom and dad, you know, the career wasn't going well or the bosses were awful, no leadership. My parents would say, okay, you can't control them.

Speaker 4 You can control your reaction. When I was little,

Speaker 4 my two younger brothers, we had to memorize part of the cadet prayer that my dad had to recite 100,000 times while at West Point. And this prayer

Speaker 4 eventually made me fearless.

Speaker 3 Say it.

Speaker 4 Helped me to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong. And never to be content with a half truth when the whole can be one.

Speaker 4 Every part of that that meant nothing as a kid

Speaker 4 saved me as an adult through all the stupid drama ID as Pan and Disney, through my marriage, through

Speaker 4 every day. If you're at the grocery store and you're in a rush, do you want to put the cart back? It's the right thing.
Put the cart back, right? It's hard to write when you're in a rush.

Speaker 4 Sounds stupid.

Speaker 4 And to not ever be content with a half truth when the whole truth can be one.

Speaker 4 I mean, i had no choice at some point if i've been reciting this and then made my kids memorize it

Speaker 4 harder right the harder right was what

Speaker 4 was to say no disney no espn

Speaker 4 you are hypocrites and this is not fair and i have other friends who feel the way i do but would never say it because of their maybe they're smarter than me for staying silent but the harder right is what is to stand up even though it cost me everything literally and figuratively.

Speaker 4 The harder right is to have that conversation with a friend. The harder right

Speaker 4 is in your relationships to be the example for your kids. And if I'm telling my daughters and my son, you listen to this and don't stay comfortable because you think that's what everybody else wants.

Speaker 4 And then I'm not going to, like, if I say that, but don't live it, why would my kids ever then become fearless? It's the harder right, and it sucks sometimes because we know what it is.

Speaker 4 Like in here, we all know what the right thing is. It's just easier to ignore it and to not tell the whole truth.

Speaker 3 I'm the whitest white guy you've ever met.

Speaker 3 And I remember when Barack Obama

Speaker 3 became president,

Speaker 3 I think there is times, and even

Speaker 4 the

Speaker 3 I think the intent of a lot of people that were involved in BLM, not the crazies, not the socialists, not the Marxists, but the people who are actually marching going, there's a problem here.

Speaker 3 I thought that was so healthy.

Speaker 3 I cannot relate in 1990 that somebody would have said that to you.

Speaker 3 And that might seem like distant past to some, but it wasn't that long ago. And

Speaker 3 somehow or another, I think it's just because it became politics.

Speaker 3 This is the kind of conversation that people need to have.

Speaker 3 Where you're actually hearing one another and sharing experiences that the other people

Speaker 3 I can't relate to, but we just, we don't have these conversations very often. And

Speaker 3 have we passed the point of being able to, or are we coming,

Speaker 3 have we just taken a long circle back to where maybe we were

Speaker 3 getting to in the early 2000s? And maybe it's just my point of view, because

Speaker 3 I thought

Speaker 3 we were not perfect by any stretch. There is racism.
There was and there still is. And it's real.

Speaker 4 And there always will be.

Speaker 3 Always will be. Always will.
Opposition and all things.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 I felt like we were getting better. And then all of a sudden, I felt like because it became so political, like everybody just built up walls and we're not going there.

Speaker 3 Are we getting back to a point to where maybe we can have a real dialogue and actually grow from here?

Speaker 4 I think so. I have hope.
But I'm an eternal optimist and glass half full always. I do think so.
I was so sad

Speaker 4 at how

Speaker 4 socially and culturally

Speaker 4 things I think got worse under Barack Obama.

Speaker 4 I mean, I think if we can go back and think about a myriad of reasons. Yeah, I think if we can go back and look at when things changed and when he was, you know, in power,

Speaker 4 I thought it would be, listen, to me, I did not vote for him. I voted for John McCain,

Speaker 4 and I didn't vote for him in 2012 either.

Speaker 4 But in 2008, I was excited. I didn't vote for him.
But number one, he's the commander-in-chief. That's how I was raised, military kid.
My dad's West Point, retired colonel.

Speaker 4 Absolutely, I support you and supported Joe Biden for that reason too. If the president wins with, you know, making America great, before that was a thing,

Speaker 4 then we all win. Like, of course you support your commander-in-chief, and that's how I was was raised with my father.
Um, but in general, like, I understood, I understood

Speaker 4 why

Speaker 4 so many people, certainly people of color, were so excited about Barack Obama. Sure.
To me, it wasn't about race, though, because I was thrilled to see it. By the way,

Speaker 4 biracial.

Speaker 3 I thought it was

Speaker 3 me. I remember saying this on the air after he won because I wasn't a fan of him because I think he was a Marxist.
Totally. He is.

Speaker 3 But I remember saying he has the opportunity to transcend race you know what i mean to be able to say none of that matters

Speaker 4 and none of that was done none of that was done to me it was beautiful to see that yes on the stage in chicago with his wife and daughters on that that night like beautiful in so many ways to me he was just the wrong black president that's all like it's not about black white asian female i don't care i it's i'm not voting for that reason actually Content of character versus color of skin and what you stand for.

Speaker 4 I guess it, again, is it only matters when it's convenient for you? Like, I don't know. My grandmother at the time was in her late 80s.
My dad's mom, so she's she was black.

Speaker 4 I mean, late 80s, maybe 90 years old. And I remember her crying.
Like, I didn't like that he won, but I respected that for a 90-year-old black woman who was born in 1920, who what she witnessed.

Speaker 4 So I get it. 100%.

Speaker 4 He divided instead, and then it continued. And even at the very end of this last

Speaker 4 political campaign with Trump and Kamala, even at the, what did he say to black men at the end? Scolding them for not voting for her because she's a sister. She's one of us.
What?

Speaker 4 The divisiveness continued and it was intentional. Instead of saying, you know, Just because I'm black doesn't mean that we think alike.

Speaker 4 Or wait a minute, then you're the racist if you think just that this dictates how we feel or should feel what we should be doing and i do think that we're getting back there in some ways having the conversation remembering everybody has an opinion and to me our opinions are based on what our own personal experiences so you can't tell me and i can't tell you because you don't know me and i don't know you in that way Your wife, your first wife, didn't know that about your mother.

Speaker 4 I mean, my goodness. So to judge is so closed-minded, and there's such an obvious lack of tolerance and acceptance and true diversity of thought.

Speaker 5 Online reviews say I'm steep, rocky, and a difficult trail. Next time, I'm going to say, not if you're driving a Toyota truck.

Speaker 3 We know what we're made of: Toyota trucks.

Speaker 3 So, but is there a place to where tolerance

Speaker 3 becomes a danger? For instance,

Speaker 3 I've never had a problem.

Speaker 3 You want to transgender, you want to do, I don't care. It's not my life.
It's your life. I don't care.

Speaker 3 I think one of the best things about Americans is

Speaker 3 live your life. I'll live my life.
I don't care. Yeah, I don't care.
But because we are tolerant, of people saying, no,

Speaker 3 that's a female.

Speaker 3 I'm sorry, it is a dude. Okay.
You can't change, follow the science. You can't change that.

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 you know, you look at this and they try to make people try to make you feel bigoted when you're like, no, no, no, I, I, I, it's not about them. It's about my daughter and my friends' daughters.

Speaker 3 Should there be a transgender league?

Speaker 3 I mean, I don't even know what. I mean

Speaker 4 like what's the solution here what's the solution here yeah

Speaker 4 um

Speaker 4 first of all as far as the tolerance i say say what you want do what you want great identify how you want and there's rules and there's rules in society based on that you know i mean you i like it when people say oh okay i'm a i'm a billionaire then

Speaker 4 Go ahead and believe that, but have you seen her checking account? Right. Probably not.
Like,

Speaker 4 sadly, it's not going to happen.

Speaker 4 I think that in sports in particular,

Speaker 4 first of all, it's fascinating that it's only happening going one direction. Are there women trying to go play on the men's volleyball team in college? No, it's only going one way.

Speaker 4 Because we know that it's not going to, it's impossible. Like, it's just not.
So women own everything, own everything. And that includes, like, right now, apparently in the NCAA, right?

Speaker 4 Okay, you can't compete on the same team, but you can still be in women's spaces and women's locker rooms.

Speaker 4 You can still, you still get the benefit, which means you can take scholarships that are supposed to go to women if you identify as a woman.

Speaker 4 So let's finish the deal, close the book on that, and make it all women all the time there. Because we know that there are basic scientific differences.
And over here, it's open.

Speaker 4 Open category. Men plus open.

Speaker 4 Do whatever you want. But if you were born

Speaker 4 as a male, you are a male. One of the problems right now with the NCAA is proof of male-female is your birth certificate.
Well, I believe in 44 states, you can change your birth certificate.

Speaker 4 So that's a problem too. It's got to be shored up.

Speaker 3 DNA tests. They were talking about where you're going to have people having to check people's

Speaker 3 pants. No,

Speaker 4 we just just do a DNA test it's so simple it's really so simple if we could do it that quickly you know in a drive-up parking lot shove it up to my brain to let me know if I have COVID or not like we could do this and it's actually more simple so to me that's the solution and I will never accept people saying that we are anti-this anti-trans anti-gay no no no I'm not anti-anything I'm actually pro-women number one, first and foremost, which is what you've been telling me.

Speaker 4 All the feminists out there who are sitting on their damn hands continuously, all the Democrats that voted against the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act recently. Shame, shame, shame on you.

Speaker 4 Women, these female politicians who continue to talk out of both sides of their mouths. So that's the solution.
Female here, male plus open, and

Speaker 4 no more women will have to get hurt or lose scholarships.

Speaker 3 I didn't even look at my notes.

Speaker 3 I have so many things to ask you, and I didn't even get to them. You are truly one of my favorite people in the world.
I just

Speaker 3 love you. I just think you are amazing.
Thank you so much for coming.

Speaker 4 I don't know that you know what that means to me.

Speaker 4 Thank you and for

Speaker 4 always allowing everyone to just be

Speaker 4 true to themselves. That's what people like you or why have hope.
You've been doing this a long time and you... have evolved but not changed that part of you.
And that is what makes America great.

Speaker 4 That's why we're going to be okay. I have to believe that.

Speaker 3 Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.