The Josh Innes Show - Riley Gaines v. AOC

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

For whatever reason, my Twitter feed is loaded with Riley Gaines/AOC content. These people are insufferable. It's wild to me that AOC and other liberals like her crush Riley for being a good athlete. On the other hand, Riley is annoying because her grift is tiresome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is big. Get the new iPhone 17 Pro at tellus.com slash iPhone 17 Pro on select plans. Conditions and exclusions apply. You know who I find annoying, other than Kirk Herb Street, of course, is I do find Riley Gaines annoying. For some reason, my algorithm on Twitter is showing my, is showing me all this stuff with her,

like I'm seeing like her fighting with AOC, another twit that I don't really care about but like it shows up and then I respond to one thing and now nothing but that pops up on my algorithm a bunch of Brian Kelly stuff and stuff with AOC fighting with Riley Gaines right and that's all I see

nonstop and it's so fucking annoying but like I dislike AOC as well but I find Riley Gaines to be annoying because I'm just sick of hearing about you let me play a couple commercials and we'll talk like ultimately like good for you, you're a moderately attractive chick, pretty good looking chick,

you lost in a swimming match that there was a dude swimming in, and that's what you've built your whole name on. Like, I see two sides to this. And I know you're not supposed to see two sides to things. You're supposed to have a hard, fast opinion on things. Here's my opinion as I see both sides of this, okay? What I see is I see someone who's been able to grift and make a name for themselves, fighting for a cause that I don't think is a bad cause, right? Like the cause of, hey, keep dudes out of women's sports. is a good cause because dudes are better athletes than women and you open Pandora's box and you're going to start getting more of this shit.

That said, how many dudes playing women's sports are truly making that much of an impact? Is it that much of an impact that it's got to be the biggest fucking thing in the world? Probably not. But in each individual case, when you look at it and things are obvious that someone's got an unfair advantage because they're a dude, then that's something that's going to be talked about. fine. My issue is this Riley Gaines doesn't seem to be an overly talented human, doesn't seem to possess a skill outside of swimming, which is a good skill to have, I guess. You won't drown and good for you. But like, your skill essentially is that you've found an angle, you've got a bunch

of people that'll get in on your angle, and you're moderately attractive. You're a good-looking person. That's it. But now she's fighting with AOC, who has also found an angle as she is a moderately attractive person and has found an angle that is on the other side, and now they fight with each other. And I just don't give a flying fuck about what either one of these people do. Yet my algorithm is having this. But I think the most fascinating thing is not that they're both involved in grifts because everybody's a grifter. Here's the thing. I love when people try to call people grifters, if you are involved in politics in any way, if you are making money off of politics, if you are a politician, if you are doing a talk show that is politics driven, you are all

involved in a grift. Because it's impossible to not alter your angle on things. based on what your audience wants to hear, right? Like you're going to shift a little bit because you know where your bread is buttered. When you see the numbers instantly and you can see what kind of reaction you're getting on social media, when you can see what kind of podcast download numbers you're getting,

YouTube numbers you're getting. You know who butters your bread, right? And you can't tell me that these people don't change kind of the way they do things. And I think that goes for sports too. Like I see it with people that I've known for a long time that I didn't think were people that got into the business of kind of, you know,

making hardcore, opinions and making trolling kind of angles, but I've seen people that I've known for a long time that do kind of trolling angles and find ways to fuck with certain fan bases so they can get their people to tune into their YouTube and their podcast. It's just the way of the world, right? They're all grifters. Everybody's involved in a grift in some way. I'm not really in a grift because my podcast is kind of out of side out of mind. I got a hardcore group of people that listen. I don't promote it. I don't really go out and look for new people. I don't do any YouTube right now. So my podcast right now is done for the core group of people who

listen to it. It's not finding a ton of new listeners. It's just not what it is. This is not what my show is. What I like it to be at some point, maybe, but it's not. And if I ever try to expand it, sure, I'll get in on some sort of grift and try to find whatever angle I need to play to get more listeners because money is money. And to a degree, I don't blame those people. That's whether you're trying to get power, whether you're trying to get money, money and power, power into money, minute after minute, hour after hour, whatever it is you're trying to get, I understand why you do it. My issue here is that the AOCs and these people, people of the world are the people that want to talk about women's empowerment and how important

women are and small business owners owned by women, all this. Yet, when you've got a woman whose main angle is, hey, don't let dudes compete in women's sports, and you'll just shit on this woman nonstop. Like, women hate women. We know this. Women do not like women. Women do not support women. Women. Women hate other women. Now, there are women who idolize certain women, like women who love Taylor Swift, idolize Taylor Swift. That is what they do. That's who they're into. They idolize Taylor Swift. I'm not telling you that there are not women who don't idolize other women. There are. But for the most part, if things are on a level playing field and you're both in the same field and you're competing, women fucking hate women. There's no lifting up other

women. Women hate each other. And you see that when you see people like Riley Gaines, who again, I don't particularly like Riley Gaines. I don't really find her particularly hot. I don't find her to be particularly interesting. Like, I'm on her side in the sense that, hey, don't have dudes competing in women's sports. Cool. But I'm also of the camp that doesn't think it's that huge of a deal. Like, how many people are out there? Like, how many dudes are out there with wigs, Joanna Manning this shit?

How many of them are out there? I do think you have to look at each individual thing and say, hey, there's like a seven-foot-tall dude playing with the girls. Maybe this isn't the move. But outside of that, it doesn't really impact my life. And I don't really give a shit. And I don't think it's that big of a factor. I have never attended a woman's sporting event.

Oh, there. No, that's the story. No, when I was growing up, and granted, this was a different world when I played high school basketball. I don't recall there ever being a time that there was a dude playing with the girls. And, like, you'll hear about these occasionally, but it really isn't that big of a deal. But if it's what a home girl wants to do to make a name for herself and fight that good fight, look, I'm not against you. I'm on your side for the most part in the argument. However, I don't really give a shit.

I don't think it's that big of a deal. I don't think it's that big of an impact on society. Fine. But what's wild to me is because these left-wing people disagree with her and they get into these arguments, they try to turn her into a shitty athlete, which I think is a bullshit argument when some bum like AOC or some of these other bums that are out there fighting against Riley Gaines act like she's some sort of obsolete, unimportant athlete because she came in fifth in some race and she bitched that a dude was racing. or swimming against her. Like, I don't know, man. You've got to get to a point where it's not good or healthy or right that your move and your argument is to just shit on someone for being a bad athlete.

Like, what have you done with your life, AOC? Like, who are you? When's the last time you truly accomplished something? You get yourself elected into these things, I guess. Cool, good for you. What do you do? What is your great accomplishment in life? So I think it's a weird flex to just shit on someone who's a woman and you're a woman.

You're both women. It's a weird flex to be like, oh, by the way, you're a shitty swimmer and you're mad because you came in fifth. And like, I don't know if you felt that the playing field was unfair and something you spent your whole life trying to do, like you'd probably feel the same way. You liberal people bitch about how the world's unfair all the fucking time. That's like your whole angle. Like your whole thing is it's unfair for everybody except white dudes. that's all you talk about. So like it shouldn't shock you when someone else is like,

hey, it's kind of unfair that some dude swam against me in a swim meet and I lost. But it's weird to watch people of the same sex, you know, two women who are supposed to lift each other up, to watch a woman just dump on someone. Like it's just the animosity. It's a weird flex and it's a weird thing to go at somebody for. Like, oh, you're a shitty swimmer. Well, what are you good at?

What are you good at, AOC? See, what is Kamala Harris good at? What skill do you guys have? So the place that I'll defend this Riley Gaines is at least she did something. She had a skill. She used her skill and she competed. The fuck do you people do except sit around and call people racist all fucking day? You are losers.

Like, congrats, I guess you're winning in the sense that you've advanced in the world and that you've moved up and you've gotten yourself elected or you've become a politician and you've got power to some degree. Good for you. But it's just a weird flex for me to see someone going at another woman and saying she's a shitty athlete whenever I thought the whole point of this was to uplift people. And then they fight with each other. It's so lame and so stupid. Like at some point the world's going to reverse course and we're not going to have to deal with this shit anymore.

One would think. Although the genie is probably never going back in the bottle. We talk about this a lot. Like is the genie ever going to go back in the bottle? I don't think it can. I don't think we can never get to a point where the genie goes back in the bottle. Probably not. I mean, look, there's too much power. People are addicted to being on social media and seeing the power they have on social media. They're addicted to posting something and it gets a million likes in five minutes. That's what people are addicted to. That's what I don't take most people seriously. I don't take them seriously because I don't think they're serious people. Why do I not think they're serious people? Because they are people addicted to getting likes and retweets. And you will say what you need to say to get likes and retweets. It's the same reason I don't take most media seriously or sports media seriously. Like the number of of people who have websites and everything that are team-based websites that are like, hey, we're

Texans whatever.com or we're Tex-Ags or whatever. I don't take these people seriously because I know that they're in bed with this team. They root for that team. They are completely biased. And what they say means nothing to me because they do it through the lens of, hey, I'm a fan of this team. Therefore, I'm not taking what you're saying seriously because you're not a fan of my team. I don't know. I just don't take that stuff seriously. I don't like the way that's going. I know this is kind of a shift in this conversation. But look, I'm not against you existing, and I'm not against the idea of you having millions of fans that are like you as part of your cult and don't want to hear anything about anybody else. But to me, it doesn't turn me on in the same way that like the SEC network, when I see these guys on the SEC network, like to me a guy who's on a network, a guy who's an anchor for a network, whether it be the SEC network or whatever, and I get they pay your bills.

So you're going to be partial to them. I don't like when I see dudes who are network dudes who are anchors on networks that talk shit about other conferences. Like it feels weird. It just feels it feels unprofessional. I know that's something coming from me, but I'm a talk show host. My job is essentially to be unprofessional and be a dipshit. If you're a person who's an anchor on the SEC network, it's weird to me to watch you talk shit with fans about how the Big Ten sucks or the ACC sucks. Like, I don't know.

It feels weird to me. And I don't take your opinion seriously. Like I'd like you to have some level of, not down the middle necessarily, but give me something that makes me believe that you're being at least somewhat objective in your viewpoint and then you're not just totally bought off by the Big Ten or the SEC or whatever. Give me something that makes me believe that what I'm hearing from you might be legit and not just propaganda. And it's one thing to get propaganda from Houston Texans.com or 49ers.com or Astros.com. Because those people work for the team, basically. Like, that's the propaganda you're going to get. When your team loses, you know, 15 to nothing in a baseball game, but your station or your team social media is like, but hey, man, such and such got his 10th hit in 11 games.

Like, that's their job. Their job is to tell you bullshit and feed you bullshit because they are employed to do so. But if I see a guy on the SEC network or whatever, I'd like to think that, like, you're giving me your honest opinion. But when you're fighting with big 10 guys and, like, you're putting your flag in the ground and, you're, you're putting your flag in the ground. and won't listen to anything else about anybody else, then you're just a biased asshole and I have no need for you. I know that was kind of all over the place. But anyway, more to come.