What A Day - The WNBA's Culture Wars

Episode Date: September 27, 2024

Federal officials on Thursday unsealed an inducement charging New York City Mayor Eric Adams with a litany of corruption and illegal campaign finance crimes, making him the city's first sitting mayor to charged with a crime. But in good news, New York's WNBA team has made it to the league’s semifinals! While 2024 has been a banner year for the WNBA, players have also had to deal with a torrent of racist invective and general culture war nonsense all season long. Crooked’s own Erin Ryan, host of ‘Hysteria’ and the weekend edition of ‘What A Day,’ joins Jane to talk about it.And in headlines: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Israeli officials defiantly rejected international calls for a ceasefire with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and Hurricane Helene made landfall along Florida’s Gulf Coast.Show Notes:Check out Hysteria – https://crooked.com/podcast-series/hysteria/Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Friday, September 27th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is What A Day, the show where we are trend forecasting that this season's must-have accessory is a federally indicted mayor. It's the roaring 20s, baby! Corruption is back! On today's show, Vladimir Zelensky visits the White House, plus the WNBA is heating up, and so are the weirdos using it for culture war stupidity. But first, on Thursday, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, announced that New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been charged on a litany of corruption and illegal campaign finance charges, making him the first sitting New York City mayor to be charged with a crime, which, thinking about the lengthy history of New York City, is kind of surprising to me. Today we are announcing campaign finance, bribery, and conspiracy charges against Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City. As the indictment alleges, Mayor Adams engaged in a long-running conspiracy in which he solicited and knowingly

accepted illegal campaign contributions from foreign donors and corporations. After the indictment was announced by Williams, the mayor's home, Gracie Mansion, was raided by federal agents and his phone was taken, part of an effort to make sure no evidence gets deleted. This was actually the second time this has happened. Back in 2023, Adams' phone was taken by federal authorities and the home of his chief fundraiser was raided. Now, a thing about me is that I low-key love crimes. Not committing them, reading about them. So I read the entire indictment, which details allegations showing that since 2014, years before he was elected

mayor when he was serving as Brooklyn Borough President, Eric Adams was accepting, quote, improper valuable benefits from foreign business people, including at least one Turkish government official. Allegedly, through those connections, he flew Turkish airlines for free dozens of times, even on a trip from New York to Paris, with a quick stop in Istanbul, of course. And in case you were wondering, no, you cannot accept free Turkish airline tickets and a heavily discounted stay at the St. Regis Istanbul from Turkey in exchange for pressuring the New York Fire Department to overlook safety concerns and grant the Turkish consulate a building permit. In response to the indictment, Adams has decided

to go with the time-tested strategy of argue this is all a big effort by the haters. If that's the case, congrats to the haters. The haters are doing an amazing job. The actions that have unfolded over the last 10 months, the leaks, the commentary, the demonizing, this did not surprise us that we reached this day. And I ask New Yorkers to wait to hear our defense before making any judgments. The indictment alleges that Adams was well aware that what he was doing was illegal, and he created fake paper trails to cover up his actions. And in some cases, the feds say he tried to conceal the benefits he had received the old-fashioned way, deleting text messages and asking his staffers to delete texts they sent him.

But not all of those texts got deleted, including some between Adams' staffers that show they knew trying to get foreign contributions for his mayoral campaign was illegal, but they were just going to do it anyway. One of those staffers allegedly deleted her text messages in the bathroom during a break from speaking with the FBI. Don't do that. Despite Adams and his staffers being allegedly very bad at committing crimes, the mayor's claims of innocence seem to be working on one New Yorker

with some experience with the legal process, Donald Trump. I will say this. I watched about a year ago when he talked about how the illegal migrants are hurting our city and the federal government should pay us and we shouldn't have to take them. And I said, you know what? He'll be indicted within a year. And I was exactly right, because that's what we have. We have people that use the Justice Department and the FBI at levels that have never been seen before. Two things here. Personally, I think it's pretty funny that the law and order president has decided that the law is actually only for people who don't like him. Also, I don't think that he started doing crimes, allegedly, with the Turkish government just a year ago, according to all of the evidence. So the lawfare argument, it's not really working

for me. Multiple prominent Democrats have asked Adams to resign, including several candidates vying for the mayor's office next year. But Adams has stood firm and refused to resign from office. Because, let's admit it, it's way more difficult to get cheap flights to Istanbul if you're not the mayor of New York City. Good news for the people of New York, though. While your mayor is facing a federal indictment, your chief of police and chancellor of public schools have resigned, and every four days I have to hear about how your subways aren't working, your WNBA team?

Very, very good. In fact, the New York Liberty are in the semifinals of the WNBA playoffs, alongside the Las Vegas Aces, the Minnesota Lynx, and the Connecticut Sun. This year's games are already the most watched playoffs in league history, and they're capping a record season for the league, which saw its viewership more than double with the help of some big-name rookies like Kaitlyn Clark, Angel Reese, and Cameron Brink. But regrettably, thinly-guised racism and culture war nonsense are making their presence felt this playoffs, too. And frankly, it's been there all season. So to talk about all of that, I had my good friend Erin Ryan, host of Crooked Media's Hysteria podcast, join me to chat. Erin, I asked you to come here to talk about childcare,

but we actually got so excited talking about the WNBA that we just decided to pivot. Yes, we decided to pivot. Okay, the WNBA is so good right now, but it's not just about sports. It's about so much more than sports. But before we get into that, we've got games this weekend. Semi-final games of the WNBA. The Aces and the Liberty, oh my god, are playing That's going to be crazy. The Aces and the Liberty

play first on Sunday the 29th and then after that, the Sun and the Lynx play each other. It is going to be an amazing day of basketball and then the second game is on Tuesday and the third game is on Friday. The players are so good. They play their asses off. They're incredible. Now on Wednesday

the Indiana Fever which is is Caitlin Clark's team, was eliminated by the Connecticut Sun, which is Alyssa Thomas's team. So now we're going to get to the negative part of what I was going to say. Great basketball, super fun, so many fans. You can watch it on TV. Amazing, amazing, amazing. Along with that, there has been some trash dragged in. There has been some trash dragged in. And a lot of them, it appears, are using Caitlin Clark as a way for them to kind of funnel their racism at other players in the WNBA. The Connecticut Sun-Indiana Fever game this week, there was a woman there wearing a shirt that said, ban nails. Did you see this? Yeah, I did.

And it's a reference to a thing that took place there was a player who appeared to poke caitlin clark in the eye yes now but it was it was an accident it was a total accident and to everyone on the court's credit which is something i do want to get to to everyone on the court's credit they were like total accident happens basketball it's a thing caitlin clark herself was like it you know, this is total, everything's fine. I'm fine. And Clark can be a bit of a hothead, too. Right.

This is how, like, if it was not an accident, Caitlin Clark would have been mad. There are so many people who have, to use internet parlance, have come into, like, quote unquote, white knight for Caitlin Clark. Basically being like, and we've seen this before. We've seen this all season. That, like, a hard foul on Caitlin Clark renders that player gets so much abuse, so much racist invective. People talking about like, oh, she should be charged with assault, which one proves you've just never watched basketball before. Not women's basketball. No, no. And like, not sports, because what we're getting now is people who don't give a shit about sports. Yeah, what they want to do is culture war bullshit and they're using and they're using caitlin clark who to her credit is a fantastic player and you see this

across sports but a lot of times in women's sports in which people come in and are like i'm gonna take my culture war bullshit and like wield it in a sport that has existed for a long time has an existing fan base that is a real sport. Like, the people complaining about hard fouls, I'm like, have you ever watched the NBA? Because, like, I've watched Kevin Durant get knocked into a scorer's table before. Like, it's a real sport, even when women are playing it. Exactly correct.

And it's a very physical sport. And I think there has been a little bit of tension, because as all these new fans have come in, there are people who have been, like, grinding for a decade. You know, Dana Taurasi, who is 42 years old. 42 years old. Probably her career ended the other night with her team, the Mercury's loss. But, you know, she's been playing for so long,

and the amount of attention she's getting now is larger because of this freshman class, which involved Kaitlyn Clark, which involved Caitlin Clark, which involved Angel Reese, which involved Cameron Brink, who got injured. Yeah, before she tore her ACL because the knees are bad. Is she going to be back? She's going to be back. Okay, she better be back. But regardless, so what happened is now the WNBA gets all this new attention and these

people who have been working really hard and have this place where it's just a celebration of like female excellence, where it's very LGBTQ friendly, where they're black women dominate the game has suddenly become all about this white woman. And Caitlin Clark cannot help the fact that she's white. And Caitlin Clark clearly just wants to play basketball. She's clearly so annoyed with all the discourse. And I'm just going to say this, I think that the racist invective that Alyssa Thomas said was being hurled at her and her teammates in her postgame interview after they beat the fever, that has got to stop. We've been professional throughout the whole entire thing, but

I've never been called the things that I've been called on social media, and there's no place for it. And I really hope that after the postseason is over and after a champion has been crowned, and I hope it's the Lynx, I hope that Caitlin Clark decides to switch up her communication strategy a little bit, come out really hard against the fact that people are using her as like a vehicle for their racism, even though she herself probably wants nothing to do with any of this. Right, and we see this all the time in sports in which the athletes involved,

because let's keep in mind, like, Kaitlyn Clark has been playing basketball her entire life. She had to start out on a boys team because she was too good. And, like, you know, when she was at Iowa, obviously a standout. I know this sounds like a simple thing, but, like, she's been playing with black players her entire life. She is currently. And for people to use her as part of this invective against black women specifically,

against black women, and let's just say against black women often who are more masculine presenting. Or I think even now Carrington, Dajani Carrington, who was the target of the band nails thing, who is also an amazing player. Love her.

Hyper feminine. Yeah, hyper feminine. But also hyper feminine in a way that is very black. Yes. And I think that there's a way in which people want to culture war their way through sports. And so the situation seems to be like, I think it's great that more people are going to games. The University of Iowa, even without Caitlin Clark, has sold out all of their games for this upcoming women's basketball season. They're not even going to have the same coach this year. New coach,

new program. Basically new program. And yet they have built that in. And like, I think it's really great that people are paying attention. But I also think that one thing that I'm obsessed with, there's an idea that men are people and women are women. And so even when we talk about like men's sports, women's sports, there's an idea of like, oh, we need to, you know, protect specific women or women need to play in a specific way. And I'm like, no, they're people. Women fight. Women fight dirty. Like, I'm so glad you're here to talk about this because it's such an exciting moment for the sport but i also am just like so annoyed by how this conversation turns out i also think you know and not to have this because this isn't really a sports conversation this is

more about like culture war tries to find cracks anywhere it can and like the people that really could not care less before there was an opportunity for them to air their grievances. And I don't think really care now. No, no, no, no. These are the same people that would be, like, shut up and dribble if Caitlin Clark were to come out, which I still think she should. It's her life. She can do whatever she wants, whatever.

She's still a great basketball player. They would be the same people that if Rekia Jackson came out and, like, decided to endorse Kamala Harris, would be like, shut up, stick to sports. But yet, yet when they go to sports games they're not there for the sports they're there to exactly not stick to sports and i wish that fans when they come to sports games and they support a team but they're not there for like the wrong reasons right and be there to watch sports but with that said er Erin, Minnesota Lynx, are they your title pick? No, they're not my title pick. I actually think the Aces are looking pretty

unbeatable. But all four of the final teams that are in the tournament, there's reasons to love all of them. So it doesn't matter where you're from. It doesn't matter how much you're into sports or not. Like if you have ever turned on like an NCAA Final Four game or an NBA Finals game or whatever, and you've enjoyed yourself, the WNBA is so good right now. And it's so fun to watch. And I really do love the Aces, like Asia Wilson is just, she's just iconic. It's so fun to watch. Thank you so much for joining me. Yeah, thanks for having me.

That was my conversation with Erin Ryan, host of Crooked's Hysteria and the weekend edition of What A Day. Like we mentioned, we had originally planned to talk to Erin about how the Harris and Trump campaigns are talking about the cost of child care, and we are still doing that. She'll be back next week for that conversation ahead of Tuesday's vice presidential debate. We'll get to the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, watch it on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. And now, the news. Today we have a new support package, $7.9 million. This will be a great help. And I raced with President Biden on the plan of victory. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday. Ahead of the meetings, Biden announced he authorized billions of dollars

to send spare weapons to Ukraine. And for the first time, he's also sending long-range munitions. In a joint press conference with President Zelensky, Vice President Kamala Harris echoed President Biden's support for Ukraine. Putin started this war and he could end it tomorrow if he simply withdrew his troops from Ukraine's sovereign territory. Of course, he has demonstrated no intention of doing that. Instead, he continues to assault civilian infrastructure and terrorize the people of Ukraine. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump is taking a much different tone when it comes to Ukraine, saying things like this on Wednesday during a campaign

stop in North Carolina. Ukraine is gone. It's not Ukraine anymore. You can never replace those cities and towns, and you can never replace the dead people, so many dead people. Any deal, even the worst deal, would have been better than what we have right now. Note to Donald Trump, Ukraine? Still there. Trump said on Thursday he will meet with Zelensky this morning. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also in the United States for the UN General Assembly in New York City, where he is scheduled to speak today. Fighting continues between Israel's forces and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The United States and several other nations, including France, Japan, and Qatar, are trying to put an end to the conflict and released a joint statement on Wednesday night calling for an immediate 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. Here's White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responding to a question at a press briefing on Thursday about the Lebanese death toll, which the country's health officials say is more than 600 people, including dozens of women and children. It is intolerable what's going on right now. It cannot continue.

And it's not good for either side. It is just not. This is why we're trying to get to a diplomatic solution here. And you mentioned children and women. Nobody wants to see that. We don't want to see that. But Israeli officials have responded defiantly to the calls for a ceasefire. After landing in New York Thursday morning, Netanyahu spoke with reporters on the tarmac in Hebrew.

The prime minister said that Israel will, quote, continue to hit Hezbollah with all our might. The president and I, of course, are monitoring the case and the situation closely, and we urge everyone who is watching at this very moment to take this storm very seriously. And please follow the guidance of your local officials. And President Biden and I, of course, will continue to work closely with state and local officials to ensure that everyone is safe and to protect communities before, during, and after the storm. At a White House event Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris warned Americans about Hurricane Helene. The hurricane made landfall along Florida's Gulf Coast on Thursday night

as a Category 4 storm. Helene had already brought heavy rain across the southeast before making landfall. Several alarming videos shared Thursday on Twitter showed cars continuing to drive over a bridge in Tampa Bay despite intense flooding. Thankfully, the bridge was officially closed before 4 p.m. Eastern. Speaking at a White House press briefing on Thursday, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell warned that the storm's harmful effects are likely to extend well beyond Florida. The water is what kills people. And so we need to really look at where this storm surge is going to be in Florida, but Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina,

and those Appalachians, they're going to have up to 20 inches of rain in an area that can have significant flash flooding. And that is really life-threatening. To all of our listeners in the affected areas, please stay safe, be safe, and stay out of harm's way. And that's the news. Fox & Friends aired Melania Trump's first interview in over two years on Thursday with Ainsley Earhart. And it was a masterclass in two things, a journalist coddling a source, and a person describing someone I thought I knew pretty well in a way I have never heard in my life. What did it look like when you walked back in your house that had been raided? I saw unpleasant stuff that nobody wants to see it.

And you get angry because, you know, nobody should be putting up with that kind of stuff. Nobody should be putting up with that kind of stuff. Even people who are hoarding classified documents in their private residence, in their bathroom, no less. Melania, believe me, many people who do way, way, way, way less than that do, in fact, have to put up with that kind of stuff. While Ainsley held her hand through softball questions, Melania did everything she could to portray her husband, Donald Trump, a person who has been a part of our lives, non-consensually, for like nine years now,

as nothing more than a well-meaning, nice guy who just wants to make the world a better place. How do you feel when people say they don't like him? What do you wish they knew about him? That he's really a family man. He loves his family. He loves his family. He loves this country. And all he wants to build better and prosperous.

Who on earth is she talking about? Like, who is this person she is describing? Look, I'm glad she likes her husband. But liking your husband is like the lowest possible bar for marriage. I am pretty sure that many people love their spouses and believe in their ability to do things, but I don't have to vote for anyone on that basis. Melania did have one criticism of her husband about one of his favorite activities, actually. Maybe some, you know, strong tweets, but everything else great for this country. You know, besides the mass deportations and Project 2025's efforts to make transgender people's existence illegal,

and the sexual assault allegations and the benefits to billionaires and the efforts to strip environmental protections and the lying, the omnipresent lying, the true passion he seems to show for reveling in the pain of others and the total inability to say a complete sentence while calling the vice president of the United States stupid and arguing that she, quote, turned black, and the fact that every single person he's endorsed is the worst person I have ever heard of in my entire life. Everything else, great for this country. One more thing before we go. Do you ever just want to reminisce about the good old Obama days? Back when Trump was just a guy on reality TV and Twitter wasn't Elon Musk's personal safe space? Well, if you want to take a walk down memory lane with Alyssa Mastromonaco and Jon Favreau,

you can join them on the newest episode of Inside 2024. They talk about the role that campaign rallies play in elections, even before they became the number one place to hear weird Hannibal Lecter takes. To get access to exclusive subscriber series and more, head to crooked.com slash friends now. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review,

stay safe from Hurricane Helene, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just the laundry list of crimes and the Eric Adams indictment like me, What Today is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston. And let's just let the rats run New York City. They've never been indicted.

What A Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded by Jarek Centeno and mixed by Bill Lance. Our associate producer is Raven Yamamoto. Our producer is Michelle Aloy. We had production help today from Ethan Oberman, Tyler Hill, Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters, and Julia Clare. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adrienne Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.