Will Cain Country - Revisiting A Conversation With Stephen A. Smith

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

Today, Will revisits a monologue from his time hosting FOX News Tonight on the FOX News Channel, discussing why it is that why from Senators John Fetterman and Dianne Feinstein to President Joe Biden, we are increasingly led by leaders who seem to be not mentally fit for office. Plus, he shares an interview with the Host of First Take on ESPN, and author of the new book, Straight Shooter, Stephen A. Smith. Tell Will what you thought about this podcast by emailing [e-mail] Follow Will on Twitter: @WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From John Fetterman to Diane Feinstein to Joe Biden, why is that we are led increasingly by the frail, by the weak? When will we once again be led by strong men? It's the Will Cain podcast on Fox News podcast. What's up? And welcome to the week. Welcome to Friday. As always, I hope you will download rate and review this podcast wherever you get your audio entertainment. I'm still out this week, but I thought I'd share with you one of my monologues and one of my conversations from last week hosting Fox News Tonight. Increasingly, it's obvious that we are led by weakness and frailty, incompetence, in the form of people who are either incapacitated or beyond the age of being able to fulfill their service from John Fetterman to Dianne Feinstein to Joe Biden. We were once led by strong men. Now we are led by the weak. I also had a long conversation with my old friend and enemy, my friend of me, Stephen A. Smith about the case of Daniel Penny versus Jordan Neely and his disagreement with my position on Jha Morant. I hope you enjoy that conversation with Stephen A. Smith and this look back

at what happened to strong men. We'll be right back with more of the Will Kane podcast. Listen to the all-new Brett Bear podcast featuring Common Ground, in-depth talks with lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle, along with all your Brett Bear favorites like his All-Star panel and much more. Available now at Fox News Podcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. From the Fox News Podcasts Network. Hey there, it's me. Kennedy, make sure to check out my podcast.

Kennedy saves the world. It is five days a week, every week. Download and listen at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. You know, with all the warnings about fascism, it's likely you've become familiar with the concept, if not the term, strongman. A political strongman is an authoritarian leader like Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin or historically, Pol Pot. But a political strong man is not the same thing as a strong man, a man of wisdom, courage, capability. And sadly, here in the United States, we do not have a strong man. Joe Biden has hid from political confrontation.

He ran a campaign in a basement. He refuses to take questions from reporters. And then he incoherently babbles his way through his presidency. And he has set a standard for our governance. That standard? Frailty, incompetence, weakness. And it is spreading like a virus. Yesterday, there was a sad moment at the United States Senate.

Pennsylvania Senator John Federman. The Republicans want to give a work requirement for SNAP, you know, for a hungry family, has to have these kind of penalties. Are there some kinds of working required? Shouldn't you have a working requirement after we sale your bank with billions of your bank? Because they seem more preoccupied than SNAP

requirements for works, for hungry people, but not about protecting the tax papers that will bail no matter whatever does about a bank to crash it. That is so hard to watch. He's incoherent. And if we're being honest and not worried about being kind, that was one of his better moments from yesterday. That man should not be allowed to operate a power tool or drive a car, much less govern this country. But as sad as that is for Federman, it's more so. sad for the people of Pennsylvania. How did 2.5 million people vote for Federman? I'm going to show

you, at least in part, how. A Washington Post reporter named Jeff Stein watched that same clip we just played, and he transcribed it in a tweet. It read like this, Senator John Federman to SVP executive Greg Becker. Shouldn't you have a working requirement after we bail out your bank? Jeff Stein laundered John Federman to make him sound. coherent, to make him sound profound, to make him sound strong. That's modern journalism. In another moment, another eye-opening moment last week, in another moment of perhaps incoherence for this nation,

89-year-old Diane Feinstein came back to the Senate and cast her first vote in three months. But the California Democrat didn't seem to realize that she had missed a beat, or two, or missed a vote, or two. Despite at times being in the hospital for long-extended stays and most certainly not spending time in the United States Capitol, she said, quote, no, I haven't been gone. You should, I haven't been gone. I've been working. What is going on here? Who is using these people? There are useful idiots for whom? For Jill Biden, for Jacelle Federman, for Chuck Schumer? We here in the United States of America were once led by strong men. In America, we were led by visionaries who not only won a revolution against an empire,

but had the humility to limit their own power through eternal principles enshrined in a constitution. Titans, historic titans. And globally, we were led by men who, between glasses of brandy and scotch, stared down not only a tyranny, but also weaklings on their own team in order to, win a world war. If you look around you, you must feel not only the sense of duty done, but also you must feel anxiety, lest you fall below the level of achievement. Opportunity is here now, clear and shining for both our countries. To reject it or ignore it, or fritterate away, will bring upon us all the long reproaches of the after time.

Once the world had Winston Churchill. Now we have Justin from Canada, who today summoned all of his virtue signaling and just firehosed cliches into a tweet. He said, today, you should be able to be who you are and love whom you love, free from discrimination, and hate. Full stop. No ifs, ands, or buts. Full stop. Oh, Justin, the passion, the strength.

Does that mean, does that include, for example, pedophilia, man-boy love? What about cousins, incest? I mean, love who you love, right? Full stop. No ifs, ands or buts. At least Justin from Canada got all the letters and the ever-expanding acronym right. I think he did. Hell, I don't know.

It's hard to keep up. He probably copy and pasted it because it is very hard. It changes every week. and it has been hard in particular for Justin. I will never apologize for standing up for an LGBT, LGBTQ2 plus kids' rights. It's hard. You know, we once had Washington and Jefferson and Madison, and now we have Florida legislatures doing TikTok dances on the well of their legislature body.

Now we have Biden. Now we have Federman. Now we have Feinstein. And yes, for those individuals, they are the victims of ambitious spouses. But more importantly, they are the frontmen. They are the Manchurian candidates for permanent Washington. The faces may change, and the more indistinguishable they are, the better. But the interest stay.

The interests remain. And that's a different kind of malevolence. It's the kind of elitism that was on display, for example, exchange yesterday at a hearing on Antifa threats between New York Congressman Dan Goldman and journalist Julio Rosas. Sir Rosas, apparently the

expert now in organized terrorist activity has overruled the FBI director who says, there's a headline, says Antifa's an ideology, not an organization. No, no, no. Let's not listen to the FBI director. Let's

listen to, sorry, what's your title? Senior writer, Attifers, Town Hall, who is going to tell us that the FBI director is wrong. The contempt. Dan Goldman believes Julio Roses has no authority to talk about Antifa, even though Julio has been on the ground covering that violence for years. In fact, here's what Julio Roses has seen firsthand. So right now, we're still here in Kenosha, riots are still going on.

Right now, the curfew is still technically in effect, but as you can see, a lot of people are still out about. Obviously, burning building behind me, or as Ali Belch, would say, not an unruly protest. That's credibility. That's Julio Rosas. But none of that coverage matters to Dan Goldman. He says you need to believe him, even though his only credential is the fact that he's an heir to the Levi-Strauss fortune and that he spent $2 million of his own family's fortune to get himself elected in one of the wealthiest congressional districts in the country.

In other words, Dan Goldman is rich. and in his version of America, his opinion, because he is rich, matters more than Julio Roses. Well, his opinion and, of course, the unimpeachable opinion of the FBI. Thankfully, Julio Roses refused to be lectured yesterday by Goldman. I think it's funny to be lectured by an heir to Levi Strauss Corporation, and honestly, that's probably why he doesn't consider property damage to be that big of a deal, because not only does he have that, but he also has what some would describe an impossibly good stock portfolio. But what I can tell you is that in these riots that happened three years ago, they, yes, big corporations did suffer damage and looting, such as Target,

that would happen in Minneapolis. But a lot of the businesses, they were small businesses. They didn't come from a multimillion dollar families or corporations. Like Levi Strauss. So what's going on here? We most certainly do not have strong men as our leaders. But what it looks like we do have is weak men used as meat puppets for permanent Washington. In order to keep that money printing press buzzing, keep the bailouts coming,

to keep the cash cow of forever wars launching, to keep that good gig safe. That amalgam, that oligarchy, that's not a strong man, but that's our would-be authoritarian strongman. We're going to step aside here for a moment. Stay tuned. Following Fox's initial donation to the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund, our generous viewers have answered the call to action across all Fox platforms and have helped raise $7 million. Visit go.fox forward slash TX flood relief to support relief and rebuilding efforts. I mean, it's pretty undeniable.

American cities are broken. Local politicians and left-wing prosecutors have totally abdicated. Their duty to keep citizens safe. And so every day, millions of Americans face violent crime in an imminent danger. And they don't want to live this way, but their leaders seem to care more about protecting criminals than punishing injustice. And that's the world the Marine veteran Daniel Penny lives in. And in that moment of anarchy, that's the world Daniel Penny stepped up and was forced to protect his fellow subway riders. For that, now, he's facing serious jail time.

Many of his fellow New Yorkers wish someone like Penny stepped up in their moment of need. One recent victim of subway crime said as much last night. So they come out there and they attack people like me and other people who's going to work innocently who know they can't really defend themselves because I'm pretty sure they know how the system work. They've been in and out of it so much that they know what they could do and what they can do. That's why he didn't want to kill me.

He knew he would have ended up there. He just wanted to damage me because he damaged me. He damaged my life. I would never be the same again. I'm not that person that I was seven months ago. And if I had somebody like Penny around, maybe things would have been different. And poor lady lost her eye in her tragedy on the subway. Stephen A. Smith is the host of the No Mercy podcast.

He's my old friend. I guess some would say my friend of me. And I'm so glad to have him with me tonight on the program. What's up, man? Glad to have you here. I see you looking all polished, nice hair cut and all of that stuff. Oh, you're a host now. You're a host now.

That's why I had to come and join you. I'm a busy man. But I said, I got to make time for this one. This is a special night. What's going on, man? I know you're a busy man. And I know that because between the NBA players, in the No Mercy podcast, you're all over the place.

Let me ask you this, Stephen A. I think the world needs more men like Daniel Penny to step up. What do you think about this encounter between Daniel Penny and Jordan Neely on the subway? Well, it's unfortunate and it's hard to come to a definitive conclusion. You listen to Mayor Eric Adams. I applaud the position that he took when he said, let's find out. Let the matter be investigated by the district attorney's office. Let's see what that reveals.

And then after that, a decision needs to be made. investigation followed and obviously Perry is being charged with manslaughter charges. My position was it on, this is where it came down to. Okay. If you're skilled enough to know how to put the chokehold on someone, you should be knowledgeable enough to know when enough is enough and to let them go. Having said all of that, again, I don't know all the facts. So I'm not ready to convict him like a lot of people, politicians and citizens have been

so quick to convict this man of that, I think we need to hear all the evidence. He did have him in a chokehold for in excess of three minutes that seemed a bit excessive, particularly considering that he had two other people helping him, but then again, we need to know more. And that's why you've got to be careful with Monday morning quarterbacking, right? You've got to be careful in a situation like this, Monday morning quarterbacking. In my estimation, while I appreciate you wanting to wait for the facts, Stephen A, I don't think the man should have even been charged. And I'm going to give you two reasons for that. One, was it reckless? To your point on how long he held the chokehold, he apparently rolled over Neely several times and gave him a relief position to begin

to breathe. I don't think what we see here was reckless, and I certainly don't think he intended to kill Neely. And then to the larger point, by even charging him, you create a disincentive for strong men. Stephen A, you have sisters, you had a beloved mother, you were raised right here in New York City. You disincentivized strong men stepping. up to help the vulnerable. Of course. No doubt about that. I don't disagree with you. I get where you're coming from with that. Again, one of those details that you just pointed out in terms of him leaning over so he could breathe. I was not aware of that. So fairness to you in regard to that, but what I would say to you is this, as a person that's from Hollis, Queens, that took the F train,

the very train that this happened on. I took the F train for most of my young life on many, many occasions. I can't tell you the amount of times I saw an individual who just seemed to have some mental issues, shouting, screaming, I didn't hear them talk about how they wish they, you know, they're ready to die or they don't mind going to jail and what have you. That can be a scary situation so you understand why it would raise a red flag and put folks on high alert. Then again, that's entirely different than actually putting your hands on somebody or doing harm to them. That's why we've got to find out more. And that's why the investigation was warranted because we don't know the intricate details. But based on what you're talking about,

I can understand where you're coming from. And as a native New Yorker, that seeing crime ravaging through our streets or whatever, I don't blame a lot of citizens for being scared as hell right now for some of the stuff that's going on because there's certainly not enough punishment, but there's far too much crime. Anyone that's lived in New York has known what you've talked about here. Everyone has known that scary moment on the train. And from what I understand, Daniel Penny grew up in Long Island, lived in Queens. So he was probably not unfamiliar with these situations.

And now I'm speculating, Stephen A, my suspicion is he's felt somehow this time was different. This was not just a crazy man yelling and ranting and raving. This one had the potential for violence. That's my speculation. But I want to move to this, Stephen A. My old friend texted me today, he said, I want to come at you about John Morant. John Moran is the NBA superstar about with the Memphis Grizzlies. He has been suspended for now. You can see on the side of your screen. He's flashing a gun in an Instagram live video. I said earlier this week, Stephen A, that I don't think he should be suspended for what amounts to dumb but legal behavior. Everyone Stephen A. Everyone has disagreed with me on this count, and I know you do as well.

Yeah, because, you know, you're usually ill-informed when it comes to sports matters. That's not your forte, even though you sound great talking about it. But then when we get to the facts, you always got some slippage there. Here's the reality of the situation. He's been involved in several instances. He was involved in an incident last summer where he allegedly got into an issue where the high school prospect came out of his house with a gun. There was another issue involving a friend in Indianapolis where, after a game, some kind of laser, red dot laser was being pointed in the direction of some folks with the

Indiana Pace's party. Then it was the issue he got suspended over for eight games that cost them over $600,000. Now there's this. He had met with the commissioner, Adam Silver, the National Basketball Association, looked him dead in his face and essentially told him, this is not me, this is not indicative of my character, and it won't happen again, and yet turns around and this kind of thing happens. So when you're looking at it in a vacuum and you're thinking about the fact that no laws were broken, no crime was committed and obviously he plays in the state i don't know which car where he was in terms of

when he was in the car for the latest incident but he plays for the memphis grizzlies that's in tennessee and obviously in tennessee you don't even need a permit to carry so he didn't break any laws or anything like that but the nb a private industry and they don't want to be associated with that because they remember what it was like in the 80s when the show when the league was on tape delay and they weren't raking them billions the way that they are now they're going to protect the brand And if you compromise the brand in any way, they're going to deal with you. And clearly, when it comes to John Morant, they believe he's compromised the brand. And that's why suspension.

And Steve, now, you know I've been on the same side of issues about private enterprises being able to regulate the behavior of employees. We were in some ways, not entirely, in some ways on the same page when it came to Kaepernish protest. But quickly, I don't have a lot of time. I don't tell you why I still remain on the side of John Morant here. And I know it's unpopular. Okay, it's a math equation for me. Employers increasingly are controlling the behavior of people. outside of their work environment.

It's happening more and more. Number two, private companies, big companies now, are getting increasingly political. They don't share my value, Stephen A, and they certainly don't share my politics. And when you add those two things together, what I think we're headed for is companies controlling your behavior that have nothing to do with work and remain legal, and it's up to them to decide what is dumb.

I know they have that right, Stephen A, but I don't think we want to live in a world where your mid-level manager in Cubicle Q is telling you And what you did in your private lies is going to get you suspended. Hold on, wait a minute. You're absolutely right, Will Kay. There's no disagreement between you and I with that. But understand something.

As much as we lamented, we accept the reality that the bottom line comes into play. And if a company believes that companies that they do business with will feel compromised if this individual is representing their brand and it's going to compromise their bottom line and cost the money, they're going to make decisions. I get it. You know that. I know that. We accept it so other people have to as well. That's the reality, whether we like it or not. And there, but for the grace of God, go I and Stephen A. Smith and everyone else. By the way, it'll just be a matter of time, but I'll be back. I'll be talking you under the table on sports in no time as well. You will. I'll let you take a few shots here and there like that.

I'll kind of allow it. I'll kind of help make it happen, especially since you've improved your suit game. It desperately needed work, and you have stepped it up. I'm very proud of you. You look good tonight. You look good. We've had a lot of disagreements, but we've had more handshakes. I appreciate it, Stephen A. That's right. No problem, buddy.

There you go. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Will Kane podcast. I will be back with you in real time on Monday. See you then. Listen to ad free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcast. And Amazon Prime members, you can listen to this show, ad free on the Amazon Music app. It is time to take the quiz. questions in less than five minutes. We ask people on the streets of New York City to play along.

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