MAGA in Full On Panic Mode After WNBA Disaster Backfires in Their Face, Riley Gaines Exposed

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0:33And here to tell me what he has had it with this weekend is, of course, our friend of the show, Matt Bernstein. He is also known as Max. Max. We're off to a good start. We're off to a terrible start. Matt XIV. He is a political and social media personality and the host of a podcast, A Little Bit Fruity, which I have been a guest on. It is fabulous. Matt, welcome to I've Had It this weekend. Thank you so much, Jen Welch. It's a pleasure to be here. our first time in person. I know it is our first time in person. It's a big, it's a big day. The podcast is also called a bit fruity, but you're one of many.

1:07What did I say? A little bit fruity, but you're one of many people who have added the a little bit. And if it sounds better that way, I should just change the name. I do this kind of stuff all the time. I'm constantly adding things. I just read my audio book for my book, Not Today Fascist, and they were constantly stopping me because I was adding adjectives that weren't there. Yeah, but it has some zazz. It's good. Yeah. All right. Let's move along. All right. Let's speaking of a little bit cuckoo, not fruity, but let's talk about Lori Ingram. Okay. She cannot stop talking about how hot AOC is.

1:43I don't know if she's horny or what's going on with her, but let's play the clip. I mean, it's straddling this socialist and old Democrat world and having a savvy social media presence and, you know, she's attractive. Yeah. That actually suffices. That's my point. That suffices in the modern Democrat Party. So that works for her. Okay, I've heard enough. The other guy seems like he's falling asleep at the wheel. Kylie and I have a theory about Laura. All right. You know, Laura's unmarried. Okay. Has children. Okay. From a man, she was, was she ever married? No. Okay. No, she is an unmarried. All right.

2:25woman with children. So she's not in a quote, traditional family. And Kylie was watching her the other day. And Kylie, what did you say? Kylie got a little butch vibe. Well, I mean, I'm not the resident lesbian here, so I don't want to speak too firmly to Laura Ingram's sexuality. But you know, I mean, everyone's I feel like gotten the hots for AOC at some point. Right. And I don't think it takes a brainiac to acknowledge that she has, there's a little bit of, there's a little bit of heat. Yeah. In her rhetoric style. Yeah. And she's very attractive. Yeah. Very attractive. Oh, yeah. Because before this, Loomer, that was a 40-inch slip, Laura Ingram was talking about how great her hair was and her red lips.

3:17But Laura has a fixation with attractive women, just like many of the closeted MAGA men are obsessed with gay and trans people. And Hunter Biden came on this podcast, sat right there, and told me that he calls it the closetocracy in D.C. And I've also spoken to Steve Schmidt, who served under George W. Bush and worked in the White House and was the campaign chair for John McCain when he ran against Obama. And he said, oh, yeah, I mean, you work in Republican circles. You work around 90 percent of the men are closeted and everybody knows it. It is a it is a widely known thing in Republican circles.

3:58And I understand that you have some things to say about this. I do. I do. I mean, I don't agree with Hunter Biden's characterization of this like closetocracy, what he said specifically. And maybe he was saying this a little bit in jest fair. but he said, you know, the biggest, you know, most powerful force in Washington, D.C. is not the oligarchy. It's the closetocracy. That's what he said. I think he's being tongue in cheek there. I know. I know. Fair enough. I mean, I was sitting next to him and I think that's, but I know a lot of people picked up on that component of it, but I think he was being a little cheeky.

4:36Which I understand, but, you know, there, I was looking at some of the people who really ran with that clip online. I like live on the internet as we all do. And there are a lot of conspiracy theorists who really do believe, I mean, that there is a sort of cabal and it's anti-Semitic in its structure a little bit, this conspiracy, but there's a cabal of homosexuals who have their hands on the levers of power. And this isn't that far from like a really kind of like 4chan-ish conspiracy called Globo Homo, which is, I mean, it's a good name, but it's the conspiracy that there is this cabal of homosexuals.

5:20It's kind of gay agenda adjacent. They're trying to turn everyone gay, whatever. But the bottom line is with the Hunter Biden thing, and with kind of all of this rhetoric that can veer into conspiratorial areas about like all of the gay closeted Republican men who are so angry that they're gay, that they're punishing the world,

5:42because they're also punishing themselves. It's like, first of all, are there closeted gay men in the Republican Party, in MAGA? I'm sure of it. I think Benny Johnson's gay, right? I made a whole, not to like throw strays at Benny Johnson, but like I just made a whole episode on my podcast about, I would say decisively that Lindsey Graham was queer. I don't even know how I would label him technically because he also was like very trans amorous. And so I'm not going to say he was just like a gay man. But to insist that this is like an issue that is like endemic within the Republican Party, that it is a driving force of Republican politics, it's not true.

6:27We know, just on the tippy-top surface level, we know that many of the people in the MAGA administration have abused, assaulted, harassed women sexually. So, like, let's just start there, right? You have Pete Hegseth. You have RFK Jr. You have all of these people with credible allegations of harassment and assault against them by women. And, but more so, I think the idea that a lot of the politics of MAGA men is driven by their closetedness, it's also, it's not true for that reason. It's also exciting, I think, for a listener to imagine that there are these things going on that we don't know about.

7:16It's kind of sexy to feel like, oh, there's some secret. But the reality is these men are largely driven by the things that aren't that sexy to talk about. They are driven by power. They are driven by money. They're driven by access. They're driven by furthering their own political careers. They are driven by the things that have created the oligarchy. So, you know, and that's harder to talk about. And that brings you into, like, leftist discourse. And it's not fun. And now we're talking about theory and whatever. And it's not as exciting as talking about, oh, there was a grinder outage at the RNC or whatever.

7:57Which, by the way, every time there are the—we live in New York City. if there were Grindr outages, they'd be happening right here. But they're not. Because Grindr doesn't just go out when there's an arena full of gay men. That's not how it works. But I understand why those memes are exciting to share. I understand that they play well on the Internet. And I'm not trying to punish people for having fun. But to take it seriously that there is a cabal of gay men who are so mad at themselves that they are being Republicans and they're starting wars because they can't handle their own sexuality. it's not true.

8:33It's not the driving factor. There might be, I would actually say, there definitely are certain closeted men in the Republican Party, just like there are closeted men everywhere on this earth. There are closeted men in the Democratic Party. But my other problem with the closetocracy sort of mythos is that instead of driving a conversation to a place where we We could say, well, the ultimate culprit here is homophobia, and none of this would exist. Which, by the way, it doesn't exist in the way that they're saying. But if it did, we could be redirecting that conversation to, well, let's fight homophobia.

9:09Because if there wasn't homophobia, then the structure of this conspiracy wouldn't work to begin with. Because these men wouldn't be so afraid of coming out. They'd just be out, right? But instead, it creates what I think is online more resembles a witch hunt, where we're all just talking about, oh, which men are secretly gay. And I don't know if that's productive. And I also don't know that it's productive for the well-being of gay people everywhere. And that's why I don't buy into it. Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense. And I think that this is a really healthy conversation to have.

9:48I think, first and foremost, the premier expert on autocracy's authoritarianism is New York-based Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat. And the through line through autocrats is homophobia. That is the through line. And academics say this from an academic level. I would say that I hear your trepidation about this potentially being homophobic and damaging to the gay community. And I think that's really valid. And you come from that from a very honest space as one of the premier advocates for the LGBTQ plus community. And so I appreciate where you're coming from. I come from this from a place where I have lived in a red state that is deeply, deeply religious for 50 years before I moved to New York.

10:42The through line isn't so much these gays. These gays are trying to kill me. The through line isn't so much that. It's shame. The through line between all of this is sexual shame because these Republican men are overtly religious. And they have been told that sex is bad. Sex is bad. You're born bad. You can only be good through this savior. And so there's a lot of sexual shame even for straight people who are Republicans. So the through line there is sexual shame. and the opposite the way you live is you live pride i'm proud to be who i am my gay lifestyle these men live in shame whether a lot of them are straight and they share the same sexual shame because they're horny af and they nobody told them honey just because you're on a diet doesn't mean you can't read the menu like my husband and i go to the gym he's like she's pretty cute i'm like oh my god she is pretty and i'm like god that guy's hot and he's like oh does mama getting a little eye candy, they think that even looking at another person, whether it be same sex or opposite sex, is lust and that God micromanages every single thought they have.

12:03Like it's the ultimate big brother that surveils every moment they have and then it's sin. So they're just in this constant trap. I do think that a lot of these MAGA men are closeted homosexuals. I do. I think they are. And I've had corroborating evidence of people who have worked in Republican circles that are no longer on the MAGA train, who have said there's no question, very reliable sources. Look, I mean, do I think that there are some? Certainly. But I want to go back to what you were just saying, because I think that's really interesting, which is that men who come from places like where you hail from, right?

12:48from the South. But men, I would argue heterosexual men and also a lot of non-heterosexual men everywhere do live in shame. They live in sexual shame. They're afraid of their desires. This also comes from Christian purity culture in the US. Exactly. And it's also informed by homophobia because a lot of these men, they're afraid of sex acts with women if they are perceived as gay. They're afraid to get pegged because it can be perceived as gay if it is done to them by a woman, Even if that's what they really desire. They're living in shame. It's also informed by misogyny and their fears that they're not man enough.

13:25I would talk all day, and I do, in fact, on my podcast, A Bit Fruity, also sometimes known as A Little Bit Fruity. But I would talk all day about the ways that men's violent behavior is informed by all of these things. To me now, we're having a really interesting sociological conversation about the way that these forces shape the world and patriarchy and all of this stuff that's like, oh, okay, patriarchy. Now we're talking about leftist theory, whatever. But to me, that is different than Hunter Biden being like, there's this secret, dark, closeted, closetocracy, whatever, cabal in D.C. And they're so angry.

14:05But hold on. But Hunter Biden. I read it correctly in what he meant. And it is the same conversation I've had with so many other people that have been in Republican politics. And it is this open secret that everybody in D.C. knows. But even if that were true, how – like the thing that I'm not totally connecting is like even if there were a certain amount of closeted gay men in Republican politics, which, again, I am not denying at all because I think closeted men are everywhere, maybe even in this room. No, I'm just kidding. Everybody's out except for me. I'm just kidding. But, like, how much of that is really, like, a driver of what's happening in the Republican Party politically?

14:52I'll tell you why I think this. Because, and this is where Hunter's coming from. So Hunter is a recovering addict, and he has had to dive into shame. my husband is also in recovery and shame is this dark passenger and hunter if you listen to the podcast further spoke about the link between shame exacerbating these horrible decisions that people make whether it's an addict or if you're ashamed of your sexual proclivities or your sexual preference he was kind of getting into a deep therapeutic issue that i am privy to because I had to go through all of this therapy and family weeks and all this shit with my husband.

15:32He's sober now and I'm very grateful. But the number one thing you learn in therapy is the secrets keep you sick. The number one thing. And so whether that secret is that you're heterosexual and you like for your wife to peg you with a big black dildo or your secret is that you're gay yet during the day you're married and you have kids and advocate against LGBTQ plus things. The ripple effects of these secrets and these men, their secrets and their shame bind them. While some of them might be hiding the fact that they are gay, some of them might be hiding the fact that they're kinky as fuck. Some of them might be hiding the fact that they're trying to, they're just pieces of shit, but they Christian signal and say, well, the Lord this, the Lord that.

16:22Some of them are rapists. Exactly. And so I think that my takeaway from my conversation with Hunter was that secrets keep you sick. And he then dovetailed his experience of trying to hide his addiction and the shame he felt of that and the inferiority he felt with that with the secrets that a lot of these Republican men have. And you can see it just let's take Pete Hexeth, heterosexual, clearly an untreated alcoholic, allegedly. clearly my opinion, low testosterone, which is why he wants everyone to have testosterone. Right. And so he is trying to create this veneer of somebody who he is not. And that's what binds all of these Republican men together are their secrets.

17:08And it is a performance of masculinity. It's a performance of heterosexuality, whether or not they're heterosexual or not, they are performing heterosexual at all times. It's a performance of dominance. And it's, again, that's more interesting to me than, I guess, and I don't mean to talk in circles, but a sort of like, who's secretly gay? And, again, I just struggle to, and I'm right there with you. All of these forces cause men to behave brutally. But to pretend that this is a uniquely gay issue, I think, one, is statistically not true. two, it's like, well, then why are all the straight men that we know are straight in MAGA behaving this way?

17:52You know what I mean? I think this is a productive conversation. I think you bring up a lot of really good points. And I do believe that a sexual shame is a driving force and a lot of secrets that banned a lot of these MAGA men together. I appreciate your concern about these accusations that we have to be careful that it doesn't harm your community. And I think it's a very valid thing to say, and I respect the hell out of it. Thank you. And I think it's just, again, it's just, it's the direction that we take this. It's like, I agree with you that sexual shame undergirds American life. But is where we go with that to try to deconstruct the sexual shame for all people?

18:47Or is it, you know, let's opine endlessly on Reddit about who's gay? That to me is an important choice about where we take it. I don't, I'm not that deep with it. I'm like, if somebody's a hypocrite, I am, and it's vowed for me. If somebody's a hypocrite, if somebody is a, Lindsey Graham is a total war hawk, nutjob, family values, masquerading, Christian signaling, traditional family values, and he was never married and hiring trans sex workers at night, I want it exposed. Just like journalism in its most pure form is about shining a light on corruption. To me, this is corruption. Furthermore, if somebody says, like the whole trans thing, when it comes up, my immediate response is, why are you so obsessed with trans people?

19:35What's all that about? Where does that come from? When Riley Gaines is non, non, nonstop about traditional families and trans people, I'm like, what's all that about? That's a weird thing to be obsessed with. But I actually think Riley Gaines is a good example. And we can get into some of the WNBA stuff if we want. But the reason that Riley Gaines is obsessed with trans people is not because Riley Gaines is obsessed with trans people. It's because Riley Gaines is obsessed with money. When Riley Gaines first tied for fifth place three years ago with a trans swimmer in college in a race that nobody knew about, her first interview that she gave about that race was, it was a little bit of a bummer to have to share the fifth place podium with another person.

20:22And, you know, they gave, you know, the trans swimmer the trophy and they mailed me mine in the mail. I didn't even know there was a podium or a trophy for fifth place, but I digress. I digress. She was robbed of that fifth place trophy everyone always wants. I never heard of that either. Yeah. But in that first interview that she gave to like a local news and it's still online, she was like, I wish my opponent well in her transition, no hard feelings. And then like two years later, after she's gotten the book deal, the Outkick podcast deal, the Fox News regular appearances, the CPAC speaking gig standing next to Trump, now she's talking about the size of the genitals of her opponent.

21:07Now she's being so needlessly cruel. Is it because she cares deeply about trans people and the safety of women's locker rooms or whatever? No, it's because she cares about getting money. Yeah. And she knows what plays well online. And I think, you know, we just watched something really interesting happen with Sophie Cunningham. Have you been following? Okay. Tell my viewers and listeners give like a, you know, cliff note version of Sophie Cunningham, and then I'll have questions for you. I'm so excited to explain sports. Okay. Yeah. To your audience. Explain it. Strap in everyone. Cliff note version.

21:44Um, Sophie Cunningham is a, and this is like objective, this isn't me trying to be snarky. She is like a not very memorable WNBA player. Okay. And I say not very memorable because I think in like the last like four games, she scored four points. She is known for being on the bench. I mean, she's a bench writer. Yeah, exactly. I didn't even know that was a thing, but I'm learning, I'm learning through this controversy. But the cliff notes of what happened is she, I mean, she looks like Riley Gaines. Okay. She is, and also kind of like you, I mean, this is why. MAGA-coded. MAGA-coded. Okay. And she has become sort of the face of the WNBA's latest controversy around like trans women's participation in the WNBA.

22:32First of all, there are no trans women competing in the WNBA. There are no trans women who have ever competed in the WNBA. There are no trans women currently set to compete in the WNBA. And there's no trans women even being like, let me play in the WNBA right now. So just like this isn't happening. But of course, we know we're many years into this being elevated as a hypothetical issue because a cruelty is an American pastime and also because it helps distract from all sorts of other things that the MAGA movement is doing that's very unpopular. Look at your gas prices. But so Sophie Cunningham has been elevated because she did this ESPN profile where she was like, you know, I'm not a political person.

23:18I just think that we shouldn't have, you know, trans women playing in basketball because I care about protecting little girls or whatever. And then she gets like a small crowd that comes out for her next game. They stand outside. They're all holding anti-trans signs. We love you, Sophie, like never back down. and then it's like, oh my god, get a job. But she then, like people boo her inside of the stadium and they're calling her anti-trans and it just sort of gets whipped up and whipped up and whipped up. And then, you know, Sophie Cunningham is a surprise ring girl. I might be getting these events a little bit out of order, but she's like a ring girl for some UFC fight.

24:00She's there with Dana White. She's there for a fight that is, one of the fighters was Conor McGregor, who's an alleged rapist. Yeah. Which kind of really pokes a whole, and she - A violent, violent, violent sexual assaulter. Happy as a clam to be the ring girl for that fight. I don't know where protecting women and girls went in that equation for her. Oh my God. But you know, it is what it is, I guess. And yeah, she just kind of has become this MAGA darling very quickly. She was courtside with Riley Gaines, taking photos. She's posting on Instagram with the caption, I said what I said. And she's whipping this up and she's getting more attention for herself than she's ever gotten as a basketball player.

24:40Her Instagram following balloons to over 2 million. And then a couple weeks into this whole thing, she gives an interview and she says, I think we should go back to just talking about basketball. And you know why? because she saw the tea leaves for her own career. She saw what abject cruelty has done for the likes of Riley Gaines. And she said, I want a piece of that pie because I am not going to be making a lot of money and getting a lot of attention as a basketball player for the rest of my life. But what I could do is be really cruel to trans people on Fox News and make a lot more money that way.

25:23And then she actually got into the belly of the beast ever so briefly. She was given the opportunity. And I also think she was shown who her supporters would have been had she pursued that line of work. And these are people whose day in, day out thinking is about trans people who are obsessed with this issue. And she said, actually, I think this is a miserable way to live. and let's go back to talking about basketball. And it's funny. She ultimately made the opposite calculus of Riley Gaines, which is like, this isn't for me. I don't think I can do this. This is all a little bit much to be this culture war lightning rod figure.

26:12And I don't know. There's a unique type of person, like a conventionally beautiful, unchallenging, white, blonde, young woman who can make that sort of calculus, who gets presented with the opportunity to be a figurehead of bigotry and then decide to not do it only after she's whipped millions of people into a frenzy about this issue. And the one thing I want to add, too, is that amidst this, because she's attempted to withdraw herself from this issue. But the controversy around the WNBA hasn't stopped. And I think it's sad because the WNBA, as you probably know, has gotten more attention and money and fans and airtime this year than it ever has.

27:02Women's basketball is like, has become one of the pillars of like American culture. How amazing for all of the incredible women who have fought for that to be the case. And yet, if you Google the WNBA right now, the top results aren't about women's basketball. They're not about the players. They're not about upcoming games. They're not about any of that. they are about cisgender men, former NBA players who are retired and trying to make a name for themselves doing something else. And so a number of them, including a guy named NS Cantor, have come forward and said, I am submitting myself for the WNBA draft because I'm a woman.

27:48And they're pulling this stunt and saying, well, if all you need is to say you're a woman, then I'm a woman and I want to be drafted. Mind you, no trans woman has even done this. But they're saying, well, I'm a woman. And it's like, okay, well then start taking estrogen. Go into the world and live as a trans woman. Change your pronouns. Get facial feminization surgery. Do all of these things that a lot of trans women feel like they have to do to exist in the world. And then tell me what a privilege is to be a trans woman. But anyway, when you Google the WNBA right now, all of these men pulling these stunts, That's the first thing that comes up.

28:24And it's like, yeah, I guess we're really doing this for women, right? That's the cliff notes. So here's my takeaway from all this. Number one, this is incredibly disgraceful on a number of fronts. But the first thing that I see is that sports have always been inherently political. If you look back in the NBA's history, you see a lot of racism in the early days. You see that Larry Bird was the white player in Boston when Boston was deeply racist against Magic Johnson, the black guy in L.A. And sports have helped us evolve socially. And a lot of people say keep politics out of sports. Well, it's the racists and the bigots that are always injecting politics into sports.