Barack Obama’s New York Times op-ed blaming Republicans for "resentment" ignores Democratic voter suppression and Obama’s own controversies—like tapping reporters’ phones—while his Anaheim rally flopped against Trump’s packed crowds. The host mocks Booker’s Spartacus comparison as hollow, contrasts Nike’s Kaepernick ad backfire (losing $4B in market cap) with NFL ratings plummeting 10% post-protests, and slams Serena Williams’ U.S. Open meltdown as hypocritical feminism. Meanwhile, midterm polls show Democrats poised to win the House unless Republicans mobilize, proving political outrage often overshadows real governance. [Automatically generated summary]
Senator Corey Booker says he's Spartacus because he released some emails at the Brett Kavanaugh hearings.
This is about the closest I'll probably ever have in my life to an I am Spartacus moment.
Fact check.
Is Corey Booker Spartacus?
Let's find out.
First, we have to determine what the senator meant by comparing himself to the Thracian gladiator who led a slave revolt against ancient Rome around 73 years before Christ.
Was Booker comparing himself to the Spartacus from the pornographic stars TV series, in which case he was trying to tell us he felt like an aristocrat's naughty daughter having graphic sex with a muscular gladiator.
Man, I love that show.
Oh, or was he referring to the famous scene in the 1960 Kirk Douglas movie?
In that scene, the Romans offer to spare the lives of the rebellious slaves if they'll turn over their leader Spartacus.
Instead, the slaves start yelling, I'm Spartacus, to protect their guy.
I'm Spartacus!
The Romans then politely acknowledge the nobility and courage of the upstart gladiators by crucifying the lot of them.
Booker compared himself to those brave gladiators after he dared the Senate to strip him of his office for revealing classified emails that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh wrote on the controversial subject of racial profiling.
But it turned out the emails had been cleared for release hours before and Corey knew it.
Plus, they revealed that Kavanaugh opposed racial profiling, so there was nothing controversial about them.
So let's assess.
Spartacus led a courageous slave revolt and struck a great blow for the principle of human freedom.
Corey Booker made an empty and dishonest gesture in a sleazy attempt to become president, which will either happen on the 12th of never or when hell freezes over.
Whichever comes last.
Spartacus inspired a terrific movie starring Kirk Douglas, plus a stars TV show with absolutely amazing sex scenes.
Corey Booker inspired those rude noises you make when you squeeze your hand in your armpit, plus some hilarious Twitter memes and an occasional obscene gesture behind his back.
Spartacus was a hero.
Corey Booker is a buffoon.
Other than that they're indistinguishable.
Trigger warning, I'm Andrew Clavin and this is the Andrew Clavin.
Showy booms are wingy also sing hunky donkey shipsy tipsy, topsy.
The world.
Is it bitty zing, it's a wonderful day hoorah, hooray.
It makes me want to sing, oh hoorah hooray, oh hooray, hoorah.
Boy, here's a pro tip, kids, never compare yourself to Spartacus.
If you do, you will be incorrect.
I gotta tell you.
Once I I was following, I was driving in Santa Barbara with my son and a car pulled out in front of me and I realized that Kirk Douglas was in the car in front of me and we're driving, my son and I, We're going to this little diner we liked, a little unpretentious kind of hole-in-the-wall diner near Santa Barbara, which overlooked the ocean.
It was really nice.
And we kept noticing that Kirk Douglas kept taking the same turns that we were taking.
And sure enough, Kirk Douglas pulls into the parking lot of the same little diner we're going to, and we pull up next to him.
And Douglas gets out of his car, and we get out of our car, and he walks into the diner, and I walk in right behind him.
And, you know, Kirk is an old man now.
He's suffered from strokes and things like this.
He walks in, and so help me, the entire diner falls absolutely silent, and everybody gets to their feet.
Everybody stood up for Kirk Douglas, and there was dead silence.
And then one guy said, Spartacus.
Great movie.
He said, Thank you very much and sat down to eat.
It was a great moment.
It really was.
So never ever compare yourself to Spartacus.
We got Michael Knowles on tonight, who's the closest thing we have to Spartacus.
Michael Knowles on today, I should say, and he's going to be talking about the NFL.
Silent Applause00:15:42
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So last week we interviewed Henry Olson, who's one of the best observers of politics I know.
And people got angry at him and angry at me because he said that we're going to lose the House.
The way things look.
He said things were very fluid, but we thought we'd lose the House, but keep the Senate, talking about the GOP.
And people were angry about it.
And I thought, like, you know, what do you want him to do?
Come on and lie.
You know, there is a, but there is a new poll out from Scott Rasmussen, which is really disturbing.
He wrote this letter.
He says, Scott Rasmussen is releasing data based upon the most likely voters rather than all registered voters.
On the generic congressional ballot, that model shows the Democrats with a 49% to 39% advantage.
The reason being is the Democrats are all telling pollsters, we are going to vote, and the Republicans are not.
Republicans are saying, well, maybe, maybe we'll vote, we might vote and all this.
On a race by race projections, currently show 210 House seats at least tilting in the Republican direction and 25 tilting toward the Democrats with 20 seats in the toss-up category.
But if the Democrats maintain a 10-point lead of people who will show up, right, they are likely to win the vast majority of toss-up races.
The Rasmussen model currently shows that with a decent partisan turnout, Democrats could end up with 238 to 197 majority in the House.
So that means that the battle for the government, the battle that's going to take place, is going to take place in your shoes.
The people who put on the shoes won't lose.
Okay, I don't want to sound like Johnny Cochran, but that's about it.
If you are sitting there getting angry at Henry Olson, but you don't vote because you don't like the Republican in your area and he's not quite Trumpy enough or whatever it is, that's how you're going to lose the government.
Because Trump, no matter what you think of the guy who's running, Trump needs those Republicans to keep his agenda going.
And everything you're hearing, everything that's going on is about that.
I mean, if the news, if the news were just the news, if the news were actually the news, the news would be, oh, my goodness, 200,000 more jobs, wages finally going up.
Hey, look, ISIS dead.
You know, that would be the news if they were reporting the news.
But instead, they're telling you, oh, it's crazy town in the Oval Office, and people are just so unhappy because Trump yells at them and he makes phone calls in the middle of the night.
What do you care?
Why would you care about that?
Are you John Kelly?
No, you don't care.
But they're just trying to get that base excited, the Democrat base excited, and to damp down your enthusiasm.
And so they have brought on what they think is the big gun.
They brought on Barack Obama.
In the New York Times today, they had an op-ed, Barack Obama is back.
And I thought, good, because if anybody can remind the GOP voter why he should get out and vote, it is Barack Obama.
You know, Ben Sass, the senator, said the other day that he wakes up every morning wondering if he should still be a Republican.
And David French over the National Review said he no longer identifies as a Republican.
The problem with all that is that the world isn't taking place inside your head.
It takes place in reality.
And in reality, there are two operational parties.
There are Democrats and the Republicans.
If you're not a Republican, you were voting for Democrats, and the Democrats are Barack Obama and worse.
They're actually, Barack Obama is now kind of a centrist among Democrats.
So he comes out and gives a speech.
Now, this is breaking precedent for former presidents.
They do not get so political that they come out and attack the guy in the Oval Office.
Why?
Because they know it's a hard job.
They realize it's not good for the country to have two presidents fighting with each other.
But, but that is not reasoning with Barack Obama's ego, which had to be brought to the scene separately in a tractor trailer.
All right.
Obama came in first, and then his ego backed up.
They backed up, and 15 guys had to carry his ego onto the stage.
He was in Anaheim, and they had a big thousand-seat arena, and instead, like about 700 people showed up.
Compared that to Donald Trump, the 700 people were all dressed as Mickey Mouse, but that's, I don't know what that had, how that happened, but that's the way it happened.
So let's listen for a minute to remind ourselves of what Barack Obama thinks about us.
This is Obama talking about who we as the opposition party are, cut number six.
So neither party has had a monopoly on wisdom.
Neither party has been exclusively responsible for us going backwards instead of forwards.
But I have to say this because sometimes we hear, oh, a plague on both your houses over the past few decades.
Wasn't true when Jim Edgar was a governor here in Illinois or Jim Thompson was governor.
Got a lot of good Republican friends here in Illinois.
But over the past few decades, the politics of division and resentment and paranoia has unfortunately found a home in the Republican Party.
That's you, folks.
Resentment, paranoia.
And you can leave out everything he said before, you know, because he's talking about decades.
He says, for the past few decades, years, tens of years, this has been going on.
It's not the Democrats with their constant cries of victimhood, their constant cries of racism, their consequence that they are being cheated out of things.
The Supreme Court was stolen from them.
Not them.
It's you because you wanted jobs instead of Barack Obama's little programs that he was enforcing on businesses that were keeping them silent.
He actually claimed, he actually claimed credit for the current recovery, which is hilarious.
He says, remember when it started?
I remember when it tried to start.
I remember when the recovery tried to start after the crash in 2008, but he kept sitting on it with the regulations and that voice, so help me, just remembering that like we are supposed to wait around through those long pauses to find out what he's going to say.
Play some more of them.
But first, we have to, just for a break, we have to talk about Battlebox, which is so great.
I mean, Battle Box is a new sponsor.
They are so great.
You know, a lot of it, it's a subscription box for men.
And when I say this is for men, you can't even let your wife see what is in those things.
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Knowles and I have been chasing each other around with the combat knives they send you in these things.
And eventually I'm going to catch him, and then there won't be a Michael Moll show anymore.
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You too can pretend to chase Knowles around the studio at trybattlebox.com slash Clavin.
Don't actually try that.
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And by the way, not only is there no Ian Clavin, there's no Ian Battlebox.
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You've got to listen to more of this Obama because you just have to remember who he is.
First of all, not only are you full of resentment and paranoia, but your president is virtually a Nazi.
So play cut number eight.
We are Americans.
We're supposed to stand up to bullies.
Not follow them.
We're supposed to stand up to discrimination.
And we're sure as heck supposed to stand up clearly and unequivocally to Nazi sympathizers.
How hard can that be, saying that Nazis are bad?
Well, let me ask a question.
How hard can it be saying that Islam, Islamists are bad?
Remember, this is the man who couldn't get the words radical Islam out of his mouth.
How hard?
You don't see Donald Trump hanging around with terrorists and then lying about it and saying, oh, Bill Ayers, he was just a guy in the neighborhood.
You don't see Donald Trump going to a church where they say, you know, where they damn America every Sunday and then saying, yeah, I didn't actually realize that that was going on.
I mean, you know, Lindsey Graham had a really good comment about this, about what it wasn't what Obama said, it was what he left out.
This is cut number nine.
President Obama, it's not what you're making up.
It's what you're leaving out.
You're leaving out the fact that your attorney, General Loretta Lynch, told the FBI director, don't call the Clinton email investigation and investigation.
Call it a matter.
You're forgetting to tell the public that the number four at the Department of Justice, Mr. Orrs, Mr. Orr, Bruce Orr, wife worked for Fusion GPS, which was on the payroll by the Democratic Party to hire a foreign agent to go to get dirt on candidate Trump and Russia.
You're leaving out the fact that Mr. McCabe, the number two guy at the FBI, is under grand jury investigation for lying.
You're leaving out the fact that the director of the FBI under your watch, Mr. Comey, actually leaked internal memos for the express purpose of getting a special counsel appointed.
You're not talking much about the Paige Strzok memos where they openly hated Trump and the tank for Clinton.
Other than those few details, President Obama, you got it right.
And he didn't even get it right because he also had this.
This was the most galling thing about it.
I just have to play this stuff to remind you why you should put on your shoes, because if you don't put on your shoes, you lose.
I mean, this is the thing that they are counting on.
They are counting.
All of this stuff is about making the Democrats so upset.
All the stuff about, oh, his management style, and he's going to blow up North Korea because he's so out of control and all this stuff.
All of it, all of it is about getting the base ginned up while you stay home because you think things are fine.
Because look, you look around, you say, hey, I got a job, things are good.
I don't really have to go out and vote.
All of it can go away.
Most presidents, you know, accomplish everything they accomplish in the first six months in office.
Trump has really been on a roll in the things he's done.
He's been very aggressive and accomplished a lot of stuff.
But Congress is always lagging behind and you want them to start to legislate the kinds of things we want going on.
So one more cut of Obama because I got to play this one.
This was the one that was most galling to me because of all the talk about how evil Trump is with the press.
Think about it.
Trump has done not one thing to hamper freedom of the press.
And here is Obama talking about that.
It shouldn't be Democratic or Republican to say that we don't threaten the freedom of the press because they say things or publish stories we don't like.
I complain plenty about Fox News.
But you never heard me threaten to shut them down or call them enemies of the people.
He banned them from several press conferences.
He tapped reporters' phones.
He named James Rosen, Fox News reporter James Rosen.
His Justice Department named him a criminal co-conspirator under the Espionage Act of 1970, 17, 1917, because Rosen used a State Department contractor as a source for a story.
He was also labeled a flight risk.
Okay.
And he tapped.
And Maggie Haberman, the Clinton hack, the woman who was identified in hacked Clinton emails as a friend to the campaign and is now covering the White House for the New York Times because that's how straightforward and honest they are.
Maggie Haberman is tweeting, well, yes, Obama did some of those things, but he never called us enemies of the people.
He never, you know, it's like sticks and stones, lady.
You know, really, this is insane.
So anyway, they brought him back.
So just remember, remember he's out there.
And meanwhile, again, talking to my pal David French over at National Review, talking to Ben Sasse, remember, there's only two parties and the other party no longer stands for the Constitution.
You know, they were out there.
Unbelievable, the stuff they had during this Kavanaugh hearing.
They brought in the children from that Parkland shooting.
They brought them.
Why are children sitting there?
They were sitting there complaining that, oh, evil, you know, Brett Kavanaugh was not going to overturn the Second Amendment, you know, because they want legislation from the bench.
So I just have to play this one cut of David Hogg.
Michael Moore was holding a rally for his, I guess for his new film.
Is that what it was for?
It was in Canada.
Okay.
And David Hogg, same guy, survivor from the shooting, gets up to make this speech.
This is a wonderful speech.
Just remember throughout this, he's in Canada, okay?
I have a question for you guys.
Who's ready to save America?
Who's ready to make America the country that we say it is on paper and make it the actual country that it wants to be?
I think it's the most important thing to realize, however, is the problems that we face as a country.
Whether it be water in Flint, Michigan, or the amount of mass incarceration of people in color, of color that can't vote.
In Florida, The amount of eligible African Americans that would otherwise be eligible to vote that can't because of a previous conviction is 21%.
In Kentucky, it's 26%.
In Mississippi and Alabama, it's 15% to 16%.
These are people of color that have been historically discriminated against and still are to this day and have their voting rights taken away.
Voting Rights Under Threat00:06:47
Exactly.
Turn that shame into your vote.
If you're not Canadian.
All right.
So Canada is going to invade.
So we should move.
You know, I've always thought Trump should build another wall on our northern border to keep those people out.
It's unbelievable.
I only play that to make fun of him, but I only play it actually to make fun of the Democrats for bringing kids to this Kavanaugh hearing to talk about the Supreme Court.
And let's listen to Kamala Harris, who is doing a better job than Corey Booker of running for president during this hearing.
That's what they're both doing.
Kamala Harris and Corey Booker are running, both running for president in these hearings.
But Kamala Harris is doing a better job of it.
She actually looks a little bit more statesmanlike and a little bit more intelligent than Corey Booker, which isn't hard because Corey Booker just was not built for this.
I mean, really, really, when you come in to the Senate, they hand you a little booklet.
And rule number four on the booklet is never compare yourself to Spartacus.
Okay, that's the thing.
So he didn't even read the little booklet.
But Kamala Harris starts to challenge Brett Kavanaugh on the concept of unenumerated rights, okay?
Rights that are not in the Constitution and what the Supreme Court has said they are.
And when she, listen to the way she refers to the Constitution, it's all worn and tattered that Kavanaugh carries around in his pocket.
He carries it around because he reads it all the time.
He's clearly worn to the edges.
Listen to what Kamala Harris says.
So unenumerated rights is a phrase that lawyers use, but I want to make clear what we're talking about.
It means rights that are protected by the Constitution, even if they're not specifically mentioned in the Constitution.
So they're not in that book that you carry.
So what we're talking about is the right to vote.
That's an unenumerated right.
The right to have children.
The right to control the upbringing of your children.
The right to refuse medical care.
The right to love the partner of your choice.
The right to marry, and the right to have an abortion.
Now, putting those unenumerated rights in the context of the statement you made, which was to praise the stemming of the general tide of freewheeling, creation of unenumerated rights, which means you were, the interpretation there is you were praising the quest to end those unenumerated rights.
My question to you is, which of the rights that I just mentioned do you want to put an end to or roll back?
Three points, I believe, Senator.
First, the Constitution.
It is in the book that I carry.
The Constitution protects unenumerated rights.
Now, the book that I, that little bit reminds me of Piers Morgan talking to Ben, you know, like that, your little book, your little, your little, I throw your little book in your face.
He's talking about the law.
That's a senator talking about the law of the land, that little book you carry.
That is the Democrats.
And by the way, the thing about unenumerated rights, I believe there are unenumerated rights guaranteed by the Constitution, but what the Constitution does is it enumerates powers.
It enumerates powers that the federal government has.
And what is not enumerated in the Constitution, the federal government cannot do.
This is why many of the founders said we don't want a First Amendment protecting free speech because the Constitution gives no power to the federal government to regulate speech.
And therefore, to say that you can't make a law against free speech is to double talk.
It is to say basically that you do have this power unless we take it away from you.
But the idea of the Constitution was supposed to enumerate powers.
So my objection to, for instance, the unenumerated right to marry who you want is that the federal government has no right to make any laws about marriage.
It hasn't got the right to take your marriage away.
It hasn't got the right to make marriages.
I mean, if the state can say it wants the marriages to be what it was, as I read last week in Scalia's dissent, that the state can make laws.
When the Supreme Court is giving you, pretending to give you rights, it is always actually taking away your right to govern yourself.
You know, in the New York Times today, on Knucklehead Row, and we're not going to play the song because we're running out of time and I want to get to Knowles, but there is a piece, a Knucklehead Row, from a guy named Jedediah Purdy, a professor at law of law at Duke.
And he says, how can progressives take back the Constitution?
So I read that with interest.
I thought, yes, how can progressives take back the Constitution since everything they want is unconstitutional?
So he has a list of the way you take back the Constitution.
So the centerpiece, he says, should be how progressives take back the Constitution, should be a constitutionalism of strong democracy, fighting against the vote suppression efforts of a Republican Party and letting former felons, incarcerated people, vote.
So he wants former felons to vote, even though that has nothing to do with the Constitution, but he wants that that's going to be their constitutional, the way the progressives reclaim the Constitution.
Second, he says, progressive candidates and activists are pressing for a new conception of economic citizenship.
Third, constitutionalism of just criminal justice.
Activists are raising a new generation of questions about policing and the prison system.
Who gets stopped?
The system of money bail that keeps arrestees locked up simply because they cannot raise the cash to get out.
Every political movement has its constitutional visions from great society liberalism to Reaganite economic libertarianism and cultural conservatism.
The work now is to define a jurisprudence of economic citizenship, strong democracy, and inclusive justice that will help a resurgent left reclaim the Constitution.
But the problem is, none of that is in the Constitution.
None of it is in the Constitution.
So he wants to reclaim constitutionalism by using the word, by using the word.
That little book that you carry, that little book that you carry can say anything we want.
You know, it's a living document, that little book that you carry.
It's a living document.
So since it's living, let it run away and stop bothering people while we make the laws that we want to make.
There are only two parties, folks, only two parties.
And if the party that is out of power gets back into power, it's going to be Barack Obama Times 10.
The investigations, the giveaways, the blocking of Trump's agenda.
If that's what you want, then keep your shoes off.
Keep your shoes off, because if you don't put on your shoes, you lose.
And that's really what they're doing.
They're just trying to make the gin up the base.
You know, the New York Times is simply the Democrat spokesperson.
That's all they are.
They're the Democrat bullhorn and the rest and the networks as well.
They're Democrat bullhorns meant to gin up the base while you get complacent and stay home.
Dragon Debate00:03:02
Hey, tomorrow, we are going to be up in Santa Barbara, Rob and I, doing our show from the, not from the Reagan Ranch, but from the Reagan Center right on State Street.
So come on over, and if you're up in Santa Barbara, come on over.
You can watch the show.
I will also be making some remarks at the 9-11 Memorial up there.
They always have a very beautiful memorial where they put a flag in the beach in the sand for each of the people who were murdered on 9-11.
And so I'll be making remarks there as well.
So come on up.
If you're in Santa Barbara, come and visit.
All right, we've got Michael Knowles coming up, but we have to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
They are simply not big enough to contain the magnificence of Michael Knowles.
So you have to come on over to thedailywire.com where you can listen to the rest of the show.
But while you're there, subscribe.
It's a lousy 10 bucks a month, lousy 100 bucks for the year, and then you can watch the whole show streaming right there.
Noles, how you doing?
So I just got literally, just before I went on, I got a letter from my publisher who was bringing out the novel of what was our first season of Another Kingdom.
And they wanted some promotional pictures.
So I sent them some promotional pictures of myself.
And the lady publicist wrote back and said, oh, if I could only get some pictures of Michael Knowles.
Stop it.
You know, there are dark corners of the internet where she can find as many pictures as her heart delights in.
That's all I get.
Here's a picture of me.
Oh, could I have a picture of Noah?
Oh, please.
Oh, that swarmy little ooh.
Hubba, hubba, hubba.
Well, it has been a lot of fun.
We've been going, we did two episodes last week of the new season.
Yes, yes.
I mean, amazing.
Yeah, I got to tell you, the real trouble, I think you probably remember this when we were doing the second episode last week, is I was on a roll, you know, we were shooting for a while, and then I totally flubbed it because I was getting too into the story that I forgot to perform.
So it's so good.
I mean, it's really just train, this constant momentum.
The story is just terrific.
I thought the first season was good.
This season is better.
Oh, well, thank you.
And you're doing a great job.
I have to tell you, we had, I don't know if you were there when we had the dragon argument the other night.
Were you in the room when I kept flitting in and out of this dragon argument?
So we had J. Hey, the producer, and I have been having this argument because there is a monster in the story who I keep referring to, or the narrator keeps referring to as a dragon.
And he keeps saying, well, a dragon has to be a serpent.
And I keep saying a dragon is a monster usually represented as a serpent.
So he got in the argument.
I made the mistake of having this argument in front of my son, Spencer, who speaks a million languages.
And he said dragon is, in fact, Greek for serpent.
So now I felt like an idiot.
So I go back to the manuscript to see how he first describes it.
And he describes it as a dragon-like monster.
And then, as shorthand, says dragon.
So now I've emphasized that a little bit for J. Hey, you may have to reread the line.
I'm going to have to go back to the back.
You have to go back.
You committed one of the classic blunders.
Nike's Black Moment00:15:52
One is never fight a land war in Asia.
The other is never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
And then the third is never quibble over the meaning of a word with your son who knows the meaning of every single word over there at all.
It's an irritating little person.
I don't know how he ever let that kid out of the house.
All right.
But let us, speaking of irritating, let us talk about my former favorite sport, the National Football League.
Speaking of classic blunders, right?
Classic blunders.
They're still at it.
They're still kneeling and making a fun.
Is that fair to say?
That is fair to say.
So in May, you'll recall, the NFL announced no more kneeling.
It's not against the rules to kneel.
You don't have to come out for the flag, but you have to, you can't kneel if you do come out on the field.
And this was after Donald Trump was just raking in public approval for pointing out that it's very wrong to protest the American flag, especially during sports.
So, okay, that was May.
Fast forward to July.
And the NFL says, yeah, we're not going to enforce the rule.
Well, it's the rule, but we're not, we're a little nervous and blah, So this past weekend.
Now, I'm sorry to say that people kneeled, but I'm pleased to say that it was just two people who kneeled.
But was it only two people?
It was only two.
That makes me feel a little better, actually.
So there were 13 games, 26 teams.
Two people kneeled.
It was on the Miami Dolphins receivers.
Kenny Stills and Albert Wilson kneeled during the Star-Spangled Banner.
And the defensive end Robert Quinn raised a fist, but that's fine.
Who cares?
You know, I use that fist emoji all the time, so that's okay.
But the real disrespecting of the flag, that was the real problem.
And so the NFL has gotten clobbered because of this.
Their ratings have tanked.
You know, their ratings were down.
When all this started in 2016, their ratings fell 8%.
Then last year it was 10%.
This year, analysts expect the numbers to fall even more because the NFL cannot get this under control and the damage has already been done.
So what does Nike do?
What does one of the biggest sports brands in the world do?
Decides to emulate the exact campaign that has destroyed the NFL.
You saw the Colin Kaepernick ad, I assume.
I saw the poster of it, but they did a video ad now, too, which I haven't seen.
They did a video.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to pull it.
The video is fine.
They only showed the most egregious last part, which is Kaepernick's face.
You know, when it says, believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything, or if it means ditching a failing career and making millions of dollars from Nike.
And what does he believe in exactly?
He believes the country over the world.
He believes in Fidel Castro.
He believes in Malcolm X, whom he wears on his t-shirts.
So there are a lot of people now trying to come out and say that this was a great move for Nike.
You know, the minute Nike did it, they lost, I think, $4 billion in market cap.
The stock was down over 3.5% just about.
The stock has rebounded a bit since then.
But there was a Morning Consult poll that came out right after this happened.
Net favorability for Nike before the Kaepernick ad was plus 69.
So what Nike thought was that, okay, we're going to lose old white guys, but we're really going to win among left-wing, 18-year-old black athletes in certain cities or whatever.
That's what they were doubling down on.
They had no boost in their key demographics.
They actually declined slightly, according to Morning Consult.
So those key demographics include black customers, younger generations, current Nike users, and others.
It actually, they had a little bit of a decline.
The campaign hasn't seemed to have much effect on the NFL yet, but that, you know, how can the NFL fall any further?
You know, I have to tell you, last night, I usually tape a game on Sunday and watch it at night.
And last night I started, I turned it on and I just couldn't watch because I had heard that they were no longer enforcing the rule.
And, you know, when they said, when they made the rule, I thought, okay, fair enough.
I'll watch the show.
People who don't want to salute the flag don't come out.
But first of all, it makes me so annoyed that a sport, which is supposed to bring the whole country together, sport has always been a way of bringing a country together, that a sport is being used to disrespect the flag.
That's the first thing.
But the second thing is, when Trump protested against it, when he said we should all respect the flag, they immediately played the race card, essentially saying, no, black people don't have to respect the flag.
And my feeling about this is, you know, black people were mistreated in this country.
Nobody denies it.
The shame that we have endured, the guilt, the self-searching, it has all been done.
Racism has been expunged from the principles of our institutions.
That's not saying that there are no racists running around.
That's absurd.
But it has been expelled and expunged from our institutions.
And now they're saying, oh, and yeah, take your flag and stick it.
And my feeling is, hey, dude, you know, you're welcome.
You're welcome to come in.
We want you in.
We get it.
Big mistake.
I wasn't there.
It wasn't on my watch, but it happened.
I get it.
Come on in and they say no, and my feeling about that is, I, I can't imagine that's a good thing.
So the thing here is that white activists, the white rich people who run the NFL, are allowing this to happen for a few uh, sore heads.
But at least, at least what?
From what you're saying, it seems to me that actual black human beings are thinking uh no no, i'm not going for this, that's right.
It mars an entire race of people because of some communist punk.
You know who is in a NIKE ad.
Yeah, and there and there are white communist punks and that's fine.
But I, but it's they, it's the, it's the white people who are putting this all on black people.
That's right.
Half of Colin Kaepernick right, exactly?
Yeah, of course, I mean it's the same thing.
You're I saw you play that David Hogg clip.
Yeah, when they say uh, we need to not lock up as many criminals because that's unfair to black people, you say you're calling black people criminals.
I'm not doing, you're the one who's conflating those two things it's.
It's really uh, really offensive and it's being cheered on by white liberals.
But if these numbers are true from morning consult, then it shows us what that really means for the country more broadly and for black customers more broadly.
The one thing we're hearing from the left now is they're saying, well, Nike's online sales shot up over Labor day weekend.
This is evidence that the campaign worked.
First of all, NIKE sales always shoot up over Labor day weekend.
They I think last year they were up 17 percent over that weekend.
This year they're up something like 30 percent.
So I I do see that statistic, but it is worth pointing out the two things can simultaneously be true.
The ad campaign can be hurting NIKE and their sales could have gone up.
One explanation for that is that this year, year over year, from last labor day, the economy is up 17 percent.
Right now we are at record low unemployment, record high, uh economic growth.
So i'm not surprised that NIKE is selling more running shoes.
The question is, what is the effect on their brand perception?
And according to a very reliable source, morning consult, it looks like they have been killed across the board.
So, in other words, they are benefiting from the Trump economy while Trump hammers them.
For, like you know, it's just unfair.
You know, is there in?
In terms of football, losing some of its credibility is every time they talk to the football uh, people about this.
They say well, there may, that may be one aspect of it this flag.
You know Foo-farah, but you know there's so many other things that we have to deal with.
To me it seems like that's the only thing.
This was before Colin Kaepernick who, as you remember, as you, you remember, he replaced uh, Alex Smith.
I think it was on the SAN Francisco 49S.
They threw him in there when Smith got hurt and Smith went on to lead the Kansas City uh, the Kansas City team, to several uh um, playoff appearances, right so well, while Colin Kaepernick tanked because all these guys who pass and run the minute they can't pass, run anymore because they can't afford to hurt him, they lose their game.
So he was tossed out.
But it seems to me that they that the NFL was the biggest business in America until this and that all of this is this.
Is there any evidence that there's anything else affecting their their uh, viewership?
Not one little bit.
You know they.
They keep trying to blame it on all of these external factors, just like they blame Kaepernick, you know, losing his football job, on external factors other than he was a failing player who then had to create an off-ramp for himself, which he's done very lucratively.
Yeah uh, the the numbers that we're seeing 8 percent down, 10 percent down, possibly more down this year they exactly coincide with the uh take a knee campaign.
Now they people can blame it on streaming services on the internet, on this, that or the other thing.
All of those existed long before 2016, long before take a knee, but the plunge accelerated when when take a knee started to happen.
They always are distracting on this, even about the flag protest.
They say well, they're not really kneeling for the flag, they're not protesting the flag.
They're protesting the anthem say well, the anthem is called the Star-spangled Banner.
They say, oh, they're protesting police brutality.
You say, well, they're not, right?
I mean, they're protesting the flag.
And Colin Kaepernick says as much.
He says, I will not stand for a flag of a country that oppresses black people.
That's what he said.
Those are his words.
And I think they're always trying to distract.
It is very clear.
Colin Kaepernick is protesting the flag, which is the symbol of the country.
It has totally destroyed the NFL.
It's hurting Nike, not only on its stock price, but in key demographics.
And everything else we're hearing is noise and distractions and saying, look over here, look over here, look over here.
Don't look at what is really happening.
But we can see it clear as day.
Wow.
Good job, Michael.
Michael Knowles of the Michael Knowles Show and apparently the Dreamboat Angenu of Another Kingdom season two.
Who knew?
Hubba, hubba.
Yeah.
Send her my number, baby.
I'll talk to you later.
Thanks.
See you later.
All right.
our crappy culture.
So continuing on this theme a little bit, Serena Williams playing the U.S. Open.
She lost to Naomi Osaka of Japan.
And Naomi Osaka, very dignified, kind of almost self-effacing character, goes up against Serena Williams, who has been a dominant factor in the sport for a long time.
And during the game, her coach, Serena Williams' coach, was caught cheating.
He was sending her hand signals, coaching from the stands, which is against the rules.
And when they called him out on this and they docked Serena for it, she broke her racket, which is also against the rules, and she lost her temper and went nuts and ultimately lost.
She was docked to another point, I believe, and then lost the game.
Here is Serena Williams losing it for the umpire on the court.
I didn't get coaching.
How can you say that?
You need to, you need to, you owe me an apology.
You owe me an apology.
I have never cheated in my life.
I have a daughter and I stand what's right for her and I've never cheated.
And you owe me an apology.
You can never get it.
For you to detect my character is something that's wrong.
It's wrong.
You attacked my character.
Yes, you are.
You owe me an apology.
You will never, ever, ever be on another court of mine as long as you live.
You are the liar.
And are you going to give me my apology?
You owe me an apology.
Say it.
Say it sorry.
Well, then you're then don't talk to me.
Don't talk to me.
You're a good dude.
And that's not right.
This is not fair.
This has happened to me too many times.
This is not fair.
This is not fair.
But to give me a point to lose a game for what we're saying, that is not fair.
I mean, it's really not yet.
You know how many other men, you know how many other men do things that are much, I don't think they do much worse than that.
This is not fair.
There's a lot of men out here that have said a lot of things about this girl that doesn't have any.
Now, by the way, her coach admitted that he was doing it.
I mean, it's caught on camera.
You could see it clear as day.
Coach admitted he was doing it, but said everybody does it.
Now, if you have a mother, you know that that excuse does not wash, right?
Everybody's doing it.
Never washes, not with mom, not with the umpire, nobody.
Now, here's what bothers me about this.
Serena Williams is a lousy sport.
She is a great athlete.
Nobody would ever deny what a great athlete she is, but she has been a lousy sport all her life.
And that is even cutting her some slack, cutting her some slack in the fact that champions are typically not the best losers in the world.
But she has been a John McEnroe bad loser from the start, and John McEnroe level.
And that means she is a great athlete, but a lousy role model, okay?
And then she comes out and she pulls the political card.
You know, it's like the feminist card, which is ridiculous.
The race car, everything.
And she comes out and gives this press conference.
I've seen other men call other umpires several things.
And I'm here fighting for women's rights and for women's equality and for all kinds of stuff.
And for me to say thief and for him to take a game, it made me feel like it was a sexist remark.
I mean, like, how he's never took a game from a man because I said thief.
For me, it blows my mind.
But I'm going to continue to fight for women and to fight for us to have equal.
Like, Courtney should be able to take her shirt off without getting a fine.
Like, this is outrageous, you know?
And I just feel like the fact that I have to go through this is just an example for the next person that has emotions and that want to express themselves and they want to be a strong woman.
And they're going to be allowed to do that because of today.
Maybe it didn't work out for me, but it's going to work out for the next person.
Oh no, no, no, no.
What a pile of garbage.
I mean, the fact that they applaud for this, you know, I swear, I swear that white journalists, left-wing journalists, they treat black people like children.
Like they have to be like, they have to be coddled and they have to be given extra, you know, no man.
Tennis has always been a gentleman's game.
Men get fined for this stuff all the time.
They get docked points for it all the time.
They get thrown out.
I mean, McEnroe was always getting, you know, punished for this stuff.
That's not, she was a poor sport.
Roger Kimball writes a piece in The Spectator comparing her to Hillary Clinton.
And there is something to be said for the fact that the left just cannot lose and make something positive out of it.
They saluted John McCain for the way he losed.
He taught us how to lose, they said.
I'm not seeing that.
I'm not seeing anybody losing with any kind of dignity.
You know, I just find it appalling that she should not be held to the standard of an athlete who is a role model for children.
Nobody should ever talk to an umpire like that.
That is absurd.
That is absurd.
And it's not appalling to me that a champion is passionate, that a champion breaks the rules, that a champion does all those things.
But she should be treated like everybody else.
And when she does it, certainly the press should react and say, no, that's not the way people act in a gentleman and ladies game.
It really is bad.
It's the same thing they do with black athletes when they kneel.
It's like, you know, welcome to the country.
Now behave like everybody else, you know, because it's just absurd.
Champion's Passion00:00:44
All right.
Standards.
Tomorrow we are up in Santa Barbara.
So the show will be a little late, I think.
It'll be in.
It should be around the same time.
Oh, it is?
Oh, okay.
That shows what I know.
But if you're up there, come and visit.
If you're not, come and listen.
I'm Andrew Clavin.
This is The Andrew Clavin Show.
Oh, hooray!
The Andrew Clavin Show is produced by Robert Sterling.
Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.
Technical producer, Austin Stevens.
Edited by Alex Zingaro.
Audio is mixed by Mike Cormina.
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And their animations are by Cynthia Angulo and Jacob Jackson.