Will Cain Country - Shohei Ohtani: The $700 Million Man

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

Shohei Ohtani: The $700 Million Man    Story 1: Are we just going to mask the problems on elite college campuses? Getting rid of the Ivy League presidents won’t fix the rot within universities.   Story 2: The man who is worth more than LeBron James. Shohei Ohtani is the $700 million man.   Story 3: Is this the poll that ends Joe Biden? A Wall Street Journal poll has Democrats in panic. Will they try to replace the embattled president?     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

One, America's elite is about to take a day quill. We're about to watch American college campuses relieve the symptoms while the rot remains at Harvard. Two, the man who makes more than LeBron James. Three, the poll that will end Joe Biden. It's the Will Kane podcast on Fox News Podcast. What's up? And welcome to Monday. As always, I hope you will download, rate, and review this podcast, wherever you get your audio entertainment at Apple Spotify or at Fox News podcast.

You can watch the Will Came podcast on Rumble or on YouTube. It's the most wonderful time of the year. It's the time when we all gather around the kitchen table and pour ourselves a cocktail. and slowly make our way through the Christmas card. We look at everyone's picture from every chapter of our life. And we see how they have aged. We see how much weight they've put on. We look at what kind of clothes they have chosen.

We look at how much effort and professionalism was put not only into the photo, but into the trifold brochure to update us on your family's life. Oh, it's true. We love the holiday Christmas card, but we also love sitting around judging the holiday Christmas card. I'm just telling you what everyone is saying. I'm just telling you what everyone is thinking. I'm just telling you the truth. Oh, look. Look at the Smiths. They went with a trifold this year. Oh, look. Look at the Barclays. They simply put a, looks like, an iPhone picture on a family vacation on the front of the card. Oh, but the dog's on the back. Man, oh, Mac, he's put on a few this year.

Man, he really aged. Look how big their kids are. It's one of the most fun traditions in national pastimes, and it's one that I hope we keep up. Just know, we all know. We're being judged. Can't be too fancy. Can't be too casual.

Can't be too showy. Got to make sure we send just the right message. And now, with Photoshop and filters, we can all look our absolute very best. Let's not pretend. We're not shaping a little body here. We're not sharpening a face there. Everyone is sending out these cards, knowing that the tradition is taking place. So pour yourself a glass of eggnog.

Put on your robe. I say that purposefully. Who wears a robe? I got a robe given to me this weekend on Fox and Friends. And I've never been a robe guy. I've never really understood the robe. This is a robe from a company called Dude Robs. And I don't have anything against the robe.

I just don't know where a robe fits in my day. Like, where are you supposed, when are you supposed to wear a robe? Even when you check into a hotel and it's displayed nicely there in a nice hotel up on a hangar? I don't know. I don't know. When am I supposed to take advantage of this privilege, of this perk, of this luxury? When do I use a robe? You know, you get up in the morning.

you take a shower and then you get dressed at what stage there is it appropriate to say i think i want to put on my robe and then how many hours have you said i'm going to be doing absolutely nothing because that's what has been said when you put on a robe right is a robe in place of pajamas in the morning is a robe what you put on when you go down and make a cup of coffee i'm asking in earnestness because i don't know i've never been a robe guy I just don't know. And the thing about a robe is, it's actually not that comfortable. You're always fighting it.

It's opening up in the front. You're retieing it. I mean, why is it better than sweatpants and a sweatshirt? I don't, again, nothing against the robe. Just never found the utilitarian time or convenience of the robe. But if you are a robe guy, put on your robe, pour a glass of eggnog, go through the annual, holiday tradition. Let's all judge each other on our annual Christmas card. Story number one. American elite campuses, American elite society, is about to take a pain

reliever, a day quill. They're about to mask the symptoms, but the sickness will remain. There will still be wrought at Harvard, at Penn. There will still be wrought at elite American universities. Over the weekend, Penn, president, Liz McGill submitted her resignation. She will remain at Penn but no longer serve as president. Attention now turns to the president of Harvard, Claudine Gay. There's been some attention to exactly how Claudine Gay achieved her position. She has no real obvious qualification. She's very little published. She's never written a book. She is, however, a black female. And that in modern America seems to be on its face qualification for elite universities.

Claudine Gay, like Liz McGill, covered herself in shame before Congress last week under withering questions from Congresswoman Elise Staphaunic about whether or not calling for the genocide of Jews was a violation of the Code of Conduct against harassment and bullying at places like. Penn or MIT or Harvard. All of them overly coached, reverted to legalese to say it depended upon the context. None of them could give a simple moral answer. Of course, it's bullying to call for the genocide of Jews. And the answer to why they couldn't give an answer, I think is the most interesting question. And it ties into how someone like Claudine Gay ends up the president of Harvard, because it seems pretty incontrovertible that she is a DEI hire. Very little qualifications, some questions about the legitimacy of her background.

But she satisfies not just the ideological necessity, but the Department of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. DEI has gone from simply being an ideology, and I don't mean to say that dismissively, because simply being an ideology can transform a society. It can transform a civilization. But DEI has graduated into formality. DEI is a job. DEI is a department, not just at American College universities and campuses, but in corporate America. Chances are where you work.

I know where I work. There is a DEI department, most likely inside of or perhaps above, HR. And no matter where it lands on your corporate ladder, it actually is of the highest place on the totem pole within the corporation. Because the president of any given corporation or university has to answer to DEI, lest they see their scalp on the wall. You can't run afoul of the DEI department. Otherwise, you can't run afoul of the DEI department. Otherwise, will be branded the worst thing in modern America, branded in a court of public opinion that has no chance for an affirmative defense, no cross-examination, no presentation of evidence,

simply branded a racist, a homophobe, a transphobe, whatever resides, in fact, at the top of that cultural totem pole at the given moment. And so that department is in effect the the president of Harvard, the president of your corporation. But we shouldn't overlook the power of the ideology that led to the department. And that ideology is part of a greater movement that led us to that moment in front of Congress with McGill and Gay. You know, we brought it up in last week's episode of the Will Came podcast. I asked a guest, do you think the presidents of those universities are walking around a daily basis harboring anti-Semitic sentiment. Do you think they are walking around hating Jews?

I was at a Christmas party this weekend in New York City. I ended up speaking to a man who I'd never met before, but he was very passionate about this issue. And I think he was self-admittedly a man of the left, a progressive. He was also a Jew. And he had a great amount of wonderment. I'd say shock. The way the Israeli Hamas conflict and anti-Semitism within America had been covered in mainstream media, how it was covered at the New York Times, how it was covered at CNN, how it's being treated at Harvard. It was as though you could almost see the scales falling from his eyes. At one point in the conversation, he even said to me, look, I understand this thing about everything being boiled down to a relationship between the

oppressor and the oppressed. And I was taken aback. Because this was a Christmas or holiday party on the Upper West Side of New York. And I don't think that's exactly the bull's-eye target of the Fox News bubble. I don't think there's a lot of conservatism. Oh, there are some. But I don't think there's a lot of conservatism breaking into the collective psyche of the Upper West Side. and yet here was this man forget language yes using language but i think achieving a level of understanding of the deeper issues at play not just on american college campuses but in america

and i had to wonder where did you hear where did you learn where have you understood oppressor and oppressed we did go on to talk he said i do think by the way that At the end of this, there is unfortunately some simplicity. I do think there are people, how many is tough to define, but I do think there are people walking around with the hatred toward Jews. And I don't think I could rebut that proposition. Jews have been the target, as we've talked about, in our historical episodes of the conflict between Israel and Hamas,

Jews have been the targets of hatred for thousands of years, cross-civilizational, spanning the globe, from pogroms to the Holocaust. But it's hard to quantify exactly how much anti-Semitism lurks in the heart of man. Honestly, that's a job for the Department of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion. That is our collective therapist, or better yet, our collective inquisitor. What America is dealing with is the Spanish Inquisition, or better yet, you know, a Maoist color revolution or cultural revolution. We're looking into our minds and our hearts for compliance, for purity.

And so I can't do that. I would never want to. I would not want to presume to know how much all of us collectively, much less one man individually hates. That's why I always refer to facts, to ideas. because I actually think facts and ideas grant the benefit of the doubt. I'll never forget when I was on ESPN that one of those final debates in my final weeks, it was over the Bubba Wallace Noose hoax with Bomani Jones.

He was talking about, I can't remember the broad scope of the conversation, but it was something about, you know, what is America's center? Where does it, what is the nature of racism? And I said that I believe human beings are fundamentally tribal. And it's our goal as a civilization to get beyond our superficial tribalistic differences to begin to see each other as individuals, to understand us according to our merit, our judgment, our character. And when it comes to incidences and not just men by the facts, and I'll never forget, his response to me was, No, racism is the problem of white people. And when it comes to facts, white people haven't earned the benefit of the doubt.

Now, the conclusion in the zeitgeist of popular media was it, Bomani Jones somehow beautifully destroys Will Kane and lays out the nature of America. I think that's the nature of racism. To deprive a collective group of people and then by extension an individual of the benefit of the doubt because of their collective superficial characteristics. Look at a man and look at the facts, and you will have moved greatly towards an advanced civilization. But that's not where we are.

That's not America. We want to drag entire populations before our inquisitor, the Department of DEI, to see how much hate lurks in the heart of man. I'll never know, although I imagine, there's a fair amount of anti-Semitism. But what I think is actually going on, as we've talked about, what I think is taking place at Harvard, but also in media, and was taken over largely in America, is the adoption of an ideology that takes advantage of hate. The adoption of an ideology that divides, and the adoption of an ideology throughout history has a proven record of drawing lines to accumulate power. DEI is based upon a Marxist ideology of dividing societies based upon identity.

Marxist ideology's core tenet is to divide and conquer. divide and accumulate power we were all taught and in its first real implementation that the divisions were based upon lines of class bourgeois middle class the working class workers of the world unite this was the banner of the hammer and sickle this was the fight of the soviet union but we don't have to be deep students of history to understand that soviets were not working towards some great utopian vision of the future. That the Soviets had not accomplished equality. That the Soviets had accomplished a political party

that divided the rest of society based upon grievances, in this case economic grievances, in order to cast themselves in the position of power. And they did it very successfully. The only real challenges to power were within the Soviet party, within the Soviet Union. But their ideology of Marxism was exported to America from the early 20th century onward. And starting about the mid-20th century, Marxist ideology, invested, and this is an historical fact,

in the racial divisions of America, to look at their enemy from the outside and hope to conquer through division. invest invest in black liberation ideology invest in any ideology that divides on any line and as the 20th century progressed those lines became identity

Latino black gay convince every single minority that they are the oppressed and this is not always removed from historical fact. Of course, America is no utopia. America is not pure.

America is not perfect. So take our pimples and turn them into gaping wounds. And I don't mean to diminish our failings and our shortcomings. And obviously America's relationship with race throughout history, not in the present tense, but in the past, has been one of shame. So use that to define America, to destroy the idea. The idea that I think asks us from its very inception to judge us as individuals based upon our merit and our character, even if applied imperfectly. So we progress throughout history and we divide through the 20th century. We divide on all those lines. The feminist movement, the black liberation movement, the Latino movement, the gay movement and most recently the trans movement and you create then a totem pole a hierarchy

of victimhood and you constantly pit groups against one another as to who is the oppressor and who is the oppressed and if you are the oppressed you're forgiven of all sins because an oppressed person can fight for their liberation and what is terrorism what is a terrorist but another man's freedom fighter and you champion the victim you are always for the underdog and you are fighting against the oppressor. And all of a sudden, you divided society along so many lines and championed so many victims that at some point you start, you look up surprise, you don't even see it happening when victims groups were pitted against one another. It was noticeable. It's been happening. If you haven't been trapped in the bubble of CNN in the New York Times or even Harvard,

you could have seen us leading to this moment, but it became undeniable. It became undeniable after October 7th of 2023. When American college students chanted on campus for intifada, when American college students chased Jews into the cafeteria, when American

college presidents testified incapable of saying it's harassment to call for the genocide of Jews. All of a sudden, it became clear. It became undeniable to everyone except for Saturday not

live. Just increasingly, like, the closer you get to the bull's eye of cool or what was at least once cool, Saturday Night Live, the daily show, inside of mainstream culture, you just get to some of the, not just the stupidest, but the most morally bankrupt aspects of America. Saturday Night Live made fun of that hearing, but ended up making at least Stefonic the butt of the joke. But for any normal human being, where the scales have fallen off, you start to see, oh my God, what has happened? And I've heard from friends who are Jews and now new acquaintances who are Jews. How are we the oppressor? They realize they've lost. They've lost the conflict of victimhood. They found themselves lower on the totem pole than the Middle

Eastern, then the Palestinian. And they asked themselves how. For thousands of years, there's been no greater group who has been oppressed than the Jew. Again, pogroms from Asia to Europe, the Holocaust, who has been more persecuted than the Jew? So how is it they have lost the totem pole battle of victimhood? The answer to that, I think, offers, is offered up through three points. One, wider than the Palestinian. In America, the lighter, the wider, the more the oppressor. Two, Israel is an outpost of Western civilization, adhering to Judeo-Christian values, using Greek and Roman tradition of concepts of justice and law.

And by extension, therefore, Western civilization, an oppressor, an American Jews, by extension, because of Israel, the oppressor. And three, that Israel is a modern-day colonization. This is always a place where whenever I have this conversation with my friends who are Jewish, they don't want to hear that. Jews have been in the Middle East for thousands of years. It's true. It's true.

For thousands of years, there have been Jews in what we now know of as is of. Israel. There's been Jews across the Middle East for thousands of years, but the population was much smaller as a percentage and as a raw number, much smaller. And it's just undebatable. It's a historical fact, as we've laid out again through three parts of our history series here on the Wilcame podcast. Starting in the 1880s, there was a European Jewish colonization effort of the British mandate of Palestine. I don't say that with moral judgment. I don't use that word as I would have been taught at Harvard. I didn't go to Harvard. I haven't been indoctrinated. And I don't think the word colonization is a slur, is a sin, is a historical

black mark. I don't put colonization right next to slavery. The United States of America is a colonization. Many great projects throughout history are colonizations. We've had deep conversations with Douglas Murray on this podcast about that colonial efforts are actually the original anti-racist effort. The underlying message of colonization is, regardless of your skin color or ethnic background, you too can reap the benefits by adopting the cultural moors of a civilization that is produced, advancements in medicine, longer lifespans, greater health outcomes, greater literacy rates, lower child mortality rates, objective metrics, we would think. We would think, if you love survival and humanity, of advanced civilization. In colonization, whether or not it's the Brits in

India or it's the American colonists on the eastern shore. Yes, in many places wrought havoc on indigenous populations, but in other places brought advancement of civilization. So I don't look at the idea of colonization as an ill. That's how it's taught, by the way, at Harvard. And for what it's worth, anyway, Hayam Weizum, David Ben-Gurion. Zev Jabotinsky, any of the original Zionists from the 1880s through the 1920s and 30s knew and described it as themselves as a colonization effort of Israel. But because the world has accepted a different definition of colonization, it forces Jews into the role of oppressor in this new modern-day melodrama between oppressor and the repressor. oppressed. But this totem pole has all of a sudden made people realize where do we stand in our victimhood hierarchy? I said to several of my friends, please do not try to win this

battle because that battle is the symptom. And that's my point. These American elite college campuses are moving towards taking a day quill. They're going to make everybody feel temporarily better. If they fire Claudine Gay, they fired McGill, they fired the head of MIT, it's not going to change the underlying rot. These universities have baked this Marxist, ideological, oppressor and oppressed, victimhood totem pole into the minds of children of kids for decades, leading to adults, walking our streets, manning our media empires, working in our law firms, sitting on the bench administering justice

and yes manning the Department of Diversity and Equity and Inclusion who see the world through the lens of victimhood who knowingly or unknowingly have bought in to Marxism and that is the rot

that requires that is the sickness that requires medicine because truthfully this moment of anti-Semitism is the most obvious but not the first time that the scale should have fallen where this absurdity that if you are a minority or a marginalized group that somehow this ideology is your champion should have been displayed why don't we just ask the feminists the feminists Maybe, if not the original, certainly one of the founding members of a grieved minority status in the United States of America, driving this identity-based ideology, who certainly would have been early adopters of DEI, has now for years been subjugated to a lower place on the victimhood totem pole than no.

men pretending to be women. Trans ideology has commandeered a higher place on the totem pole than feminism. For that matter, the gay movement has been relegated to a lower place on the totem pole than the trans movement. Look at any conflict between these groups. Who wins? Who wins the Olympics of victimhood? Who wins the greater oppressed? Feminism has been so gutted, so declawed, that women themselves champion men entering sports to destroy them in the exact thing they fought for for decades.

Feminism defined by Title IX, defined by equal opportunity in athletics, now sacrificed at the altar of a greater victim, the man proclaiming to be a woman. this absurdity will continue it'll move from trans and gay and trans and feminism to Palestinian and Jews to something else and something new each time pitting two groups

against one another and it will ultimately divide America into the ugliest of lines forcing us all into these identity-based tribes to wear white grievance white male grievance will become a powerful constituency.

Is this the world we want to live in? Is this justice? Is this a better world? Ask yourself today, if you're an American Jew who's voted on the left, an overwhelming percentages of American Jews have and do vote on the left. Is this the world you envisioned? Is this advancement? Was this the champion of a minority status?

Was this a great leap forward for equality, or were we duped into equity? Diversity, equity, and inclusion. The rot will remain. And truthfully, most American institutions are probably beyond redemption. There is no firing that will correct course. There's not enough Claudian Gays or Liz McGills to pure. these institutions. So there's just another hydra head that will rise because the ideology is and has been there for decades. It will only be reformed from the outside. It will only be

reformed by beginning to ignore, deny prestige. And ultimately, the requirement will be to deny power because all of this, all of this is in service of the same end game that resulted in the Soviet Union. A hero comes along to save you a grieved minority. A hero comes along to promise you a bad guy. It starts with the white male. It ends up with the turfs. You know, fake feminists who don't support trans. It comes for the Jews. It comes for anyone as long as it continues to consolidate for the hero, his power. That is the rot, and the only medicine will come from the outside for the rest of us to focus on our individuality and our merit and our character, to look at each other as individuals.

and to rob them of that power. We'll be right back with more of the Will Cain podcast. It is time to take the quiz. It's five questions in less than five minutes. We ask people on the streets of New York City to play along. Let's see how you do. Take the quiz every day at thequiz.com. Then come back here to see how you did.

Thank you for taking the quiz. I'm Janisteen. Join me every Sunday as I focus on stories of hope and people who are truly rays of sunshine in their community and across the world. Listen and follow now at foxnewspodcast.com. Story number two, the man worth more than LeBron James. Shohei Otani, formerly of the Los Angeles Angeles, has signed with the Los Angeles

Dodgers for 10 years, $700 million. $Otani, who both pitches and goes to the plate, right now serving as D.H. Can't play the field, will make $70 million a year. To put that into context, Steph Curry makes $52 million a year. LeBron James makes $48 million a year. Patrick Mahomes, the best quarterback. in the NFL makes $45 million a year. Most of the other top paid players in baseball,

like his former teammate Mike Trout, are somewhere in the $35 to $45 million a year. Hell, Otani looks like he's going to pay $30 million a year in taxes. This is a major leap forward for American sports. Now, Otani is a unicorn. He's one of a kind. When he comes back from injury, which will still be another year away,

he plays essentially both ways. And nobody does that in baseball. There's a saying that I've been told, don't make yourself great. Don't make yourself the best. Make yourself unique. Everyone's replaceable unless you're one of a kind. Otani is one of a kind.

But that being said, I mean, my team, the Texas Rangers, was rumored to be involved potentially in signing Otani. And I'd mixed feelings about it from the beginning. Don't get me wrong. I would have celebrated and I want him to sign him. But it would have come with a little bit of hesitation. Whenever you go all in on a guy like,

this. Does it usually work out? You know, in baseball, you can look at these guys, whether not it's Giancarlo Stanton or others. I mean, how many of them actually work out? Corey Seeger signed a deal to make $32 million a year in the Texas Rangers won the World Series, so that pays off. But the, you know, Fernando Tatis Jr., Juan Soto, Giancarlo Stanton, Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, how often does it actually result in the payoff, at least on the field for the team? And Otani will pay off the field for the Dodgers. The Japanese superstar promises to bring in a massive market, massive revenue. But $70 million a year is a reflection of baseball, still alive and healthy.

Everyone wants to write off baseball just because it's not talked about on national radio. shows on ESPN, but still alive and healthy with regional revenues, really only topped by one sport in one place. And that's soccer in Saudi Arabia. I mean, in the Premier League, Kevin DeBrona, in my estimation, the best, makes something like $28 million a year for Manchester City. But funny money in Saudi Arabia, oil money, is absolutely blowing numbers out of the water when it comes to sports. golfer just signed with the Liv Tour. He got something like $300 million.

I'm not sure how many years it's over, but I think it's a huge amount per year. Cristiano Ronaldo signed with a Saudi team. He's making $260 million in one year. Namar, $112 million in one year. And Lionel Messi, who signed with Inter-M Miami here in the United States, the numbers they say are $135 million, but his are so mixed up between salary and jersey sales from Adidas

and ticket sales for Inter-M Miami. and Apple subscriptions, I don't know how much we can attribute to salary versus, you know, off-the-field income because LeBron and all these other guys make tons and endorsements. And Messies is too intermingled for me. But the Saudis just buying everybody up. And you almost can't count that. But weirdly, Shoyotani approaching Saudi-type numbers for a real American business concern in the Los Angeles Dodgers. I mean, not run by the Saudi investment fund as a sports washing enterprise to just, you know, no need to turn a profit.

And it's because, it's not because he's great. It's because he's one of a kind. Don't go anywhere. More of the Will Kane podcast right after this. 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 million dollars visit go dot fox forward slash tx flood relief to support relief and rebuilding efforts story number three the poll that ends joe biden wall street journal published a new poll showing hypothetical matchups for president in a matchup between donald trump and joe biden donald trump leads joe

to 43. But we've come somewhat used to polls with Donald Trump beating Joe Biden. The poll that ends Joe Biden is the one that actually includes all of the other potential candidates for president. Of course, you know, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is running for president. There's a no labels ticket that's on the ballot in almost every state, and rumors are that could include Joe Manchin. If you include Cornell West and Jill Stein, once again, for the Green Party, The numbers look even worse for Joe Biden, according to the Wall Street Journal. 37% for Donald Trump. 31% for Joe Biden.

8% for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 3% for Joe Manchin. Now, these poll numbers are the type that should and probably will send most of the Democratic Party not just into panic. But into action, my suspicion is this is the kind of poll that begins the process of replacing Joe Biden. And my suspicion is this is exactly the moment for Gavin Newsom. When you start looking into the poll at the issues, it is overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly positive for Donald Trump. I'm talking about huge swings on huge issues from the economy. you're talking about 17 points on who is who would be better to handle the economy trump versus

biden tame inflation 21 points secure the border 30 points for trump 52% to 22% margins like that in fact the only issue the only issue where trump lost to biden was abortion and so that promises you that over the next year we will hear ad nauseum, goodbye Israel Hamas, goodbye Ukraine, goodbye the economy, goodbye inflation, we'll hear ad nauseum about abortion. For what it's worth, a hypothetical matchup between Nikki Haley and Joe Biden, Nikki Haley is up even bigger than Donald Trump, 51 to 34, 17 points. Of course, that's not the poll that would matter to Nikki Haley. The one matters to Nikki Haley is the one to get to that race. You got to win the race you're in.

And she's behind Donald Trump by something like 30, 40 points in the Republican primary. But this is the type of poll that ends Joe Biden. That's going to do it for me today here on the Will Kame podcast.

I will see you again next time if you see it as so worthy. I would love to share this podcast with your friends and leave it a five-star review. You can always send me a note at Will Kame Podcast at Fox com. See again next time. Listen to ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcast

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