Episode 40 - Bomani Jones

Summary

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Interrupted by Matt Jones – Episode 40: Bomani Jones

Date: June 4, 2026
Guest: Bomani Jones (Host, "The Right Time" podcast)
Host: Matt Jones

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Episode Overview

On the 40th episode of "Interrupted by Matt Jones," Matt welcomes back Bomani Jones – sports commentator, podcaster, and Emmy winner – who was the show’s very first guest. The conversation ranges from the cultural phenomenon of the New York Knicks’ playoff run, to the state of college athletics in the NIL era, to trenchant political analysis, and reflections on performing (and resisting) political punditry on TV. The banter is sharp, insightful, and full of humor, characteristic of two close friends riffing on the intersection of sports, society, and media.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Knicks' Playoff Run and NYC Fandom

The Knicks Unify New York

• Bomani explains why the Knicks, despite historical struggles, bring New Yorkers together in a way that no other team does. He contrasts the genuine, lifelong Knicks celebrity fans (Spike Lee, Tracy Morgan, Ben Stiller) with LA’s Lakers scene, noting the authenticity of NYC fandom.
  • "All these Knicks people have been rooting for the Knicks their whole lives." (Bomani, 03:52)
  • "The Knicks are the thing that bring everything together here." (Bomani, 02:13)
• Matt notes the unique charm of Knicks fans compared to other fanbases and reflects on how deeply the Knicks’ success resonates with New Yorkers.

The Vibe in NYC After a Potential Knicks Title

• Bomani describes the citywide party atmosphere if the Knicks win:
  • "It would be a five borough party... bodegas are just like, hey, putting the TV outside on the corner and now you got a watch party with 100 people." (Bomani, 09:48, 10:14)
  • "Everywhere you go, the energy is palpable outside with this event that none of these people ever thought was going to happen." (Bomani, 10:58)

2. Bomani's Thoughts on Karl-Anthony Towns and the Knicks

• Initially skeptical, Bomani admits his surprise at Towns' impact:
  • "I have felt... that in this postseason, he has by far been their best player." (07:20)
  • The culture of the Knicks allows Towns to shine without being forced into a "leader" or "little brother" role.
• A Knicks championship could cement Towns as a Hall of Famer. (09:16)

3. College Sports: NIL, Player Mobility, and the Changing Game

NIL and Transfer Portal – Progress or Problem?

• Matt argues that recent changes (NIL, increased parity) have made college sports better and fairer.
• Bomani worries about player mobility eroding the traditional ties between players, fans, and schools:
  • "I don't think it's necessarily good for these players to like take a year, stop everywhere because then in the end you don't have roots." (Bomani, 12:17)
  • "I do miss some of that consistency." (21:28)
• Both agree that improved compensation for athletes has raised the quality of the game, with more experienced players leading to a higher level of play.

The Coaching Game’s Evolution

• Bomani: Success now demands real coaching skill, not just talent acquisition.
  • "Ball rollers better go to some camps and some clinics and, and get to working on some schemes." (18:15)
  • Matt: "It does seem like this new generation of coaches, Dusty May, Golden, Danny Hurley, they seem like smart guys." (18:35)

4. Sports as Theater and the Loss of Old Characters

• Bomani and Matt wax nostalgic about coaches and referees as part of the “theater” of sports, not just “television.”
  • "Theater is a more interesting product than television is." (Bomani, 20:26)
  • They miss the quirky constants – memorable coaches, four-year rivals, notorious refs – who helped create ongoing narratives and emotional investment for fans.

5. College Sports Legislation & NCAA Politics

Congressional Battles over NIL Regulation

• Matt and Bomani dissect a bipartisan Senate bill attempting to carve out antitrust exemptions for college sports, noting regional divides (SEC senators’ resistance).
• Bomani doubts anything will pass and detests NCAA’s avoidance of responsibility:
  • "I hate the idea of rewarding the NCAA for their outright cowardice and spending the last however many decades asking somebody else to bail them out." (23:50)

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Political Media & Society

6. TV Political Punditry: Authenticity vs. Performance

• Matt queries Bomani on his stints as a CNN analyst. Bomani’s principle:
  • “Can't do it. This ain't wrestling to me.” (Bomani, 26:28)
  • He recounts refusing to appear with people he finds disingenuous or disrespectful on-air.

The Problem with Cable News Panels

• Both lament the “professional wrestling” aspect of TV pundit panels – people playing roles, spouting positions they do not hold, for entertainment.

  • "Things that I think are fighting words... I don't, I can't recalibrate that for the fact that we're on Television." (Bomani, 27:27)
  • "I actually think they're a negative for society." (Matt, 29:15)

• They discuss figures like Will Cain and the strategy of finding points of disagreement with “the left” while never challenging the right’s orthodoxy:

  • "He would always find a place on an issue where he did not have to challenge the orthodoxy of the right." (Bomani, 30:17)

7. The State of U.S. Politics

Political Polarization & Party Strategy

• Bomani and Matt explore how the median positions have hollowed out, leaving polarized parties:
  • "The distribution has views over here, views over here, and it's really sparse in the middle." (Bomani, 39:44)
  • "I think Americans, if forced to choose between far right and far left, I think they'll choose far right...on our side we have to moderate more than they do." (Matt, 39:49, 40:02)

Economic Populism & Social Messaging

• Both agree that economic populism (“stuff costs too much,” “elites are taking over”) is a winning issue for Democrats and Republicans alike; the tricky part is not alienating voters with progressive social rhetoric.
  • "I think there's room to be less moderate on issues of the economy." (Bomani, 40:15)
  • "There are elites in the tech world that are trying to take over the world." (Matt, 42:53)
  • "We need to kind of broaden the idea of the working class." (Bomani, 42:59)

Tech, Economic Power, and Universal Basic Income

• Bomani delivers a mini-essay on how tech companies are restructuring the economy toward “rent-seeking”:
  • "What they're establishing is a world where they get money not because people buy stuff, but because you have to use their stuff...it's no longer profit seeking, it is rent seeking." (Bomani, 45:21)

8. Social Issues: The "Trans Sports" Flashpoint

• Matt and Bomani analyze how the right exploits “trans athletes in sports” as a cudgel against the left, and why defending the issue puts liberal politicians in an unwinnable rhetorical posture.
  • "At its core, we all know that players in the NBA are better than players in the WNBA. But somehow they've backed us into a corner where we feel like we have to not say that point." (Matt, 50:05)
  • "The Democrats wound up trapped in this vortex that they can't get out of because they can't put themselves in a position where it feels like they're rejecting the humanity of their constituents." (Bomani, 50:25)

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Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• On New York Knicks Fandom:
  • "No fan base ever maintains the level. But especially living here....This is the thing that kind of brings people together, the one team that everybody shares." (Bomani, 01:43)
• On Lasting Partnerships:
  • "Maintaining a performing partnership is very, very difficult...now it's kind of like, hey, so what exactly are we doing here?" (Bomani on the Deese and Mero split, 05:06)
• On College Athlete Mobility:
  • "I don't think it's necessarily good for these players to like take a year, stop everywhere because then in the end you don't have roots." (Bomani, 12:17)
• On Social Liberalism & Political Messaging:
  • "The messaging has to be careful. What it can't be is accusatory. And I think that's the place where people got themselves into trouble is...it was accusatory." (Bomani, 42:10)
• On NYC Life:
  • "New York is at once the most public and private place in the world. Everybody can see you, but nobody’s looking." (Bomani, 53:09)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Knicks and NYC Fandom: 01:16 – 10:58
• Karl-Anthony Towns Discussion: 06:45 – 09:16
• Postgame Citywide Street Culture: 09:48 – 10:58, 51:16–53:16
• State of College Sports (NIL, transfer portal, coaching): 11:59 – 21:35
• Sports as Theater/Consistency: 19:13–21:35
• NCAA Legislation & Politics: 21:35 – 25:30
• Cable News Punditry & Authenticity: 25:30–29:15
• Will Cain and Fox News Strategy: 30:08–31:32
• Political Spectrum & Modern Party Tactics: 33:44–40:28
• Economic Populism & Tech Monopolies: 42:53–47:22
• Trans Athletes & Social Debate: 48:36–50:45

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Final Thoughts / Outro

Matt and Bomani close with laughs about post-championship chaos in New York and the city’s unique character. They agree to collaborate again soon—possibly with Dominique Foxworth in the mix.

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For listeners seeking a lively synthesis of sports, politics, and culture – all filtered through two of the sharpest, funniest voices in media – this episode is a must.

Transcript

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[Bomani Jones]

to save this is Interrupted by Matt Jones on Newsradio 840 WHAS now here's Matt Jones.

[Matt Jones]

It is episode 40 of Interrupted by Matt Jones. And since it's the 40th anniversary in terms of episodes, let's bring on the guy we had on the first one and the first one before this, which is my friend Bomani Jones of many very enterprises over the years, all of which are great. And now the podcast the Right Time. Is that right? Right Time.

[Bomani Jones]

Correct.

[Matt Jones]

With Bomani Jones. Bomani, nice to see you with your Emmy in the background. And how are things in the city?

[Bomani Jones]

Amen. They're very happy about these Knicks, man.

[Matt Jones]

So let's, let's start with that. Like, is there any team that you can think of that's more fun to be around when they're winning than the Knicks in New York? No.

[Bomani Jones]

And I guess it's been so long since it happened here.

[Matt Jones]

Yes.

[Bomani Jones]

That I can't even know. Like they're going to get annoying pretty soon.

[Matt Jones]

Right.

[Bomani Jones]

Like, there's no way that they can, like there's no way that they can maintain this level of, you know what? Good for them. No fan base ever maintains the level.

[Matt Jones]

That's true.

[Bomani Jones]

But especially living here. Like the thing that's hard to explain to people is that two things. One, this is the thing that kind of brings people together is the one team that everybody shares.

[Matt Jones]

Cause nobody roots for the Nets.

[Bomani Jones]

No. I mean they were a New Jersey team.

[Matt Jones]

Yeah.

[Bomani Jones]

Right. And they know they, they moved out to New Jersey and then they're the team in Brooklyn. It's like I used to say was the case in la, though I think this has changed a little bit. Is that if you're in LA and you want to go to a basketball game, go to a Clippers game, but if you want to go to a Laker game, you go to the late, like the Lakers game is a different animal.

[Matt Jones]

Yes.

[Bomani Jones]

But if you're, if your team from out of town is there, you can get Clippers tickets for much cheaper and you go watch them. That's kind of what the Nets are. No, the, the Knicks are the thing that bring everything together here. The other thing that I think gets lost is if we think about this in the context of the last, we'll call it 40 years. And if you remove the Yankees run from 96 to 2000, they really haven't done that much winning here. The Giants like snuck a couple of Super Bowls there, but overall, especially like the last 10 years, they've been terrible. These fans here are actually a bit more long suffering that people give them credit for. And I don't even think they can really be happy about the Yankees in that way because. Because the Yankees, they expect to win, right? Yeah, this is a team they expect to lose, but they love with this real unconditional sort of thing. Like when you watch Knicks games and you see the famous people going on the road, they, they acted like regular people.

[Matt Jones]

That's true.

[Bomani Jones]

They're acting just like the, the other people that are there. Like they, they really, really, really love the Knicks.

[Matt Jones]

So am I crazy to think like, like, you know, when, when I was a kid and the Lakers celebrity fans, you know, I mean, it felt like you'd see Jack Nicholson and Dying Keaton a lot, but then besides that, it felt like it was a lot of people there to be seen. It kind of feels like with the Knicks, with Ben Stiller, Tracy Morgan, Spike Lee, some of the, you know, John Stewart, it feels like those are actual hardcore fans that are real into it and for some reason it makes it more charming to me.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, I think a lot of those la, those, those Laker fans eventually do become like really, really into the Lakers, but you can't assume that they've rooted for the Lakers their whole lives.

[Matt Jones]

That true?

[Bomani Jones]

All these Knicks people have been rooting for the Knicks their whole lives. Tracy Morgan has been rooting for the Knicks his whole life. Spike Lee, Ben Stiller, Shalam, Fat Joe, like all Jon Stewart, all of those people have rooted for the Knicks their whole lives. It's like Spike Lee, when you think about when Spike Lee got those courtside tickets, that was a big bet on himself. He wasn't really that, that rich or that ready as of that point. And they pay for him, right?

[Matt Jones]

They pay for.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, yeah, it was, it seemed very clear to me the Spike Lee was like, once I make it, I'm going to get courtside Knicks tickets. Like when Deese and Mero were together, he's going to Yankees games all the time. And it was clear that they had decided that, hey, if we ever got some money, we're going to go to Yankee Stadium. Growing up in the Bronx, we're going to go there all we can. And that's the thing with all those famous Knicks fans, is they've been in this from the very beginning. My buddy Brian Koppelman, I went and sat in his incredible seats with him once, and I got a text from him on Wednesday morning. Go Knicks. They're ready.

[Matt Jones]

Yes.

[Bomani Jones]

This is their thing.

[Matt Jones]

What about. By the way, this a little off topic. Deus and Marrow, are they just never going to be friends again? That was such a good show.

[Bomani Jones]

Probably not.

[Matt Jones]

That makes me sad. I don't even know why they're fighting. Is it. Is it. Has anyone ever said, well, I'm sure, you know, but is there, like, any story out there about why they fight?

[Bomani Jones]

I don't know if there's one that's out there. I would just simply make the point that maintaining a performing partnership is very, very difficult.

[Matt Jones]

Yeah.

[Bomani Jones]

And part of it is your ambitions kind of need to stay the same. Like, once the ambitions go in different places. Now it's kind of like, hey, so what exactly are we doing here? You know, like, it's. It's a wonder, anything that stays together like that. Like, a couple of guys I used to work with, they're dealing with one of those things right now, and it's like. It's actually pretty amazing that you stuck it together as long as you did.

[Matt Jones]

You made news the last time you were here talking about that, so I won't make you comment on it again.

[Bomani Jones]

It's funny. Boy, people. People got really bad at an obs.

[Matt Jones]

Really did. That was. It got a lot of.

[Bomani Jones]

They were mad at me.

[Matt Jones]

Yes, they were mad at you.

[Bomani Jones]

Given the scenario that I spelled out, you'd be mad at somebody.

[Matt Jones]

Still comes up on me. It still comes up on Reddit. So every so often when anything. When. When anything happens, I want to go back for a second, because in Kentucky here, obviously, we care about Carl. And I think Carl Townes has been interesting because when he went to New York, I was thinking, as a fan of his, just as a person, this is a feast or famine thing. It's his hometown. It's either going to work out like storybook, or Carl's personality in New York are just not going to mesh, and he's going to get obliterated. And then early on, when he got there, there were the zesty Carl stuff went viral and I thought it was going to be obliteration. And now he's three game three wins away from being like royalty forever in the city. I'm really happy for him and hope he's able to close it out.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, I thought it was going to be obliteration.

[Matt Jones]

Yes.

[Bomani Jones]

I thought that I would be leading the charge and I don't even root for the dicks. Like, I've, I've, I found him as an NBA player, no matter how many all star teams he made or whatever, to be very disappointing. Why?

[Matt Jones]

Why, why did you feel that way?

[Bomani Jones]

Because he is incredibly talented. There's no way around that. And Minnesota had to go get a leader for him. They had to go get him a big brother. His big brother was Anthony EDWARDS that was 19 years old. You know, all the stupid fouls and everything else he did, he, he does a lot of things I don't like. Right. Like them faces he'd be making after baskets. And he's like, he just, he always seemed just kind of lost trying to figure out who the person he wanted to be in front of the world. And you know me, I, I, I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who exist in that state of flux. The thing is, though, I said last year that if the Knicks are going to win a championship, he has to be their best player. And I have felt, and I think the numbers have actually borne this out, especially the advanced numbers, that in this postseason, he has by far been their best player. They run things through him. Like, if the Knicks don't win it, it's going to be because Jalen Brunson mucks it up. If they keep running things through Carl, I don't think anybody can beat them.

[Matt Jones]

And he kind of owned Wimby in the first half last night, you know.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, he did. I think part of it too is that it is reasonable that Towns would be able to beat him off the dribble. But Wemby apparently is the only person that knows how to play hub side defense on that whole team.

[Matt Jones]

Okay.

[Bomani Jones]

And so once he goes by him like, there's nothing el that's happened here, but I mean, I have to say this for him is that I think what they've got going with Brunson and Hart and like that particular collection of guys, it put Towns in a position to where he neither had to be leader nor little brother. Right. Like, he just could be a guy on this team. He fits in well with this. A bunch of nice kids, right? Like nice kids Went to private schools

[Matt Jones]

or you know, like the 2015 Kentucky team, you know what I mean? Like a bunch of. Because he was just kind of one of a bunch of guys, all of whom were talented. He was probably more talented than all of them, but he could just kind of. There's the twins, there's Willie, and then there's Devin Booker and he's just one of the group. Yeah, right.

[Bomani Jones]

And it's been, it has been a great fit. And if they win this, like, I mean, it's really on the board in a way that I hadn't really, really taken seriously until about two weeks ago. If they win this, I mean, there are already people trying to say that Jalen Brunson would be the greatest Nick ever, which is preposterous. But that's the, that's the. But that's the level that we're at with the way that people feel about this team. I mean, if they win this, Carl Anthony Towns becomes a no brainer hall of Fame case.

[Matt Jones]

Oh, I agree. I think he probably already is. But for sure, after, if they win. Okay, so I'm going to be in New York when Game 6 occurs. I'm not, I won't be able to get in because it's too much. But let me ask you a question. Like, let's say they win game six and win the title. Is this, what is going to happen in that city? Like, is it going to just be. I mean, I'm going just for the, to perform the outside, but like, is it going to be just what's going to be.

[Bomani Jones]

That's a great question. Because game six would be in the city. I would be at Madison Square Garden. It would be a five borough party. Like, I don't think there's anywhere that you would be able to go and this would not be a thing. You could be as far uptown as I am. You could be all the way downtown. You could be anywhere and it's going to be a thing. I mean, they got like 5,000 people going to watch the games in Central Park.

[Matt Jones]

Yeah, that's true.

[Bomani Jones]

And I was talking to somebody a little earlier that was making the point that like bodegas are just like, hey, putting the TV outside on the corner and now you got a watch party with 100 people on the corner. Because the thing about New York that people don't understand is much in the way that you can just put a chair in your yard and just sit outside with no shirt on and watch the cars go by or whatever it is everybody can do that with their building in New York City, like anybody can decide that any patch of sidewalk is their own. You can pull out a grill, you can pull out chairs, you can pull out a table, you can decide you're going to sell vinyl. You can do whatever you want at any place. It's a really wild phenomenon and people are doing that with Knicks games. So everywhere you go, the energy is palpable outside with this event that none of these people ever thought was going to happen.

[Matt Jones]

Yes. And. And you know, they haven't. Not only they, not one, they've been bad for some of this time too. Like been really bad. So yes, I, I think that's. That that's part of it too. I want to ask you, because you're very smart guy to talk about sort of college athletics. And I have the, I have the controversial view that I actually think everything that's happened the last few years has been oddly good for college sports. That, I mean, beyond the sort of fairness of guys making money, which I think was needed, it's also just been more entertaining. I mean the games are better. I guess you could argue that we've missed a little bit of the Cinderella in the first and second round of the NCAA tournament, but more teams are good at college football. More teams are actually have a chance to win it in college. Basketball, baseball, softball, have all time ratings stuff. I mean, put everything else aside as to whether it's sustainable long term. Hasn't it just been better in the post Covid area era to have nil?

[Bomani Jones]

That is a good question. The, the thing that is difficult for me and it is fair, so it should be as it is. But I do not think is good in the long run is the uncontrolled levels of player mobility.

[Matt Jones]

But why is that bad?

[Bomani Jones]

I think that there is. First of all, I don't think it's necessarily good for these players to like take a year, stop everywhere because then in the end you don't have roots.

[Matt Jones]

That's true.

[Bomani Jones]

You know, like you're. You're at one of those places where you and I would always talk about who the guys are that are just still around the arena like, hey, Hashimu Evans, Kenny Walker.

[Matt Jones]

Kenny Walker has been living on being Kenny Walker his whole life, you know.

[Bomani Jones]

Right, right, right. And so I think there's something like I am a person that believes or appreciates the charm of a senior day where it's a guy that's really been through some things over the course of those four years and you've had a relationship With a fan base and with an area. And I feel like a lot of these guys, you get this money on the front end, which most of them are going to blow because people blow money that is nothing about any particular subset or group of people, but you give a million dollars to an 18 year old. 18 year old is probably going to blow a million dollars, right?

[Matt Jones]

Yeah.

[Bomani Jones]

And so I think that for me at least, like in terms of watching the sport, having a general idea of who actually plays for the team, I think is a pretty good thing. So for me, I think the level of player mobility can interfere with some of the warmth that comes in the viewing of it. But otherwise, I think there's something to what you're saying, man. Like, look, these guys making money, that part is absolutely great. I do, I do think this, like about college football, for example, when the

[Matt Jones]

games start though, do you care who's on the team? I mean, aren't you rooting, as Seinfeld used to say, for laundry?

[Bomani Jones]

I think that kind of depends. Like, yeah, I think I understand the argument that no matter who it is that is in, like when I rooted for Texas football, no matter who it is that's wearing the burnt orange, yeah, I was probably going to root for them, right?

[Matt Jones]

Yeah.

[Bomani Jones]

But there was. But there was also for me, like the three years of Vince Young. I got a Vince Young picture right there behind me. The three years of Vince Young. I remember that arc. I remember how it went. I remember halfway through 04 when people were talking about moving him to tight end and they were recruiting Ryan Perrilou. And in this day and age, it would have been entirely possible that Vince Young goes to transfer somewhere else because they're going to bring Paralu behind him. They're going to spend a bunch of money on it. And then under those circumstances, I never get 05 right? Like, oh, five felt the way it did because it was. I prefer a long run arc rather than what the season's got to become, which are these like one year samples over and over again. This was kind of the thing that I imagine also Kentucky fans experience getting acclimated to the Calipari era, where these guys are just going to pop in for a year where you guys historically had had these bunches of guys.

[Matt Jones]

And maybe that's why it didn't bother me as much is that I'd had a version of that with the one and done. Right. Like, I'd had 10 years to get used to having guys for one year, you know, so maybe that, maybe that's it you like college basketball though? I like. And I like that about you. The quality of the sport though is infinitely better than it was seven years ago.

[Bomani Jones]

So to me that's the place where the guys being able to get some money really change things because the quality of play had really been kind of on a 20 year drop and you got to the draft and you never heard of any of these players. Right. It'd just be a bunch of guys that stopped in for one year and it's like, I don't, I don't even think I saw them play. They're not even necessarily going to the big schools. Right. It just be like, oh wow, this guy from Florida State, how did that happen? But now that the guys can make a couple of million dollars sticking around and playing college basketball, yeah, the quality of play has improved dramatically. But one thing I think that is still lost in the, in the. With the mobility is there were certain programs where if guys went there like Duke is a. Is too good of an example in a lot of ways. But Duke always get on tv. We knew who the eighth man on Duke's team was. Like, you and I could rattle off all these Duke players we hated that weren't even necessarily really good or I thought about it when Lawrence Moton died, who played at Syracuse a little while ago. Lawrence Moten was really famous though it was never really in the cards for him to be a great NBA player or even an NBA player at all. And that happened because he, Syracuse is on TV a lot and so you see him with the high socks and he just became like a player that you were familiar with or that you knew something about. And so when the guys bounce around so much as they do, that's where I think it gets to be a little difficult to like keep up. Like Michigan winning a national title with a bunch of guys, none of them who started at Michigan.

[Matt Jones]

That's true.

[Bomani Jones]

You know that that's the dynamic that I think gets lost. But again, you and I are on the same page that these guys, this is the chance to make some bread. Right. I knew that when these days came around that we were going to lose some of the charm of it. But I didn't think the charm should be my appreciation of the. For the charm should have been maintained at the expense of what was actually right.

[Matt Jones]

I agree. I just think when you get like I was thinking of the tournament last year and Kentucky was out in the second round. But you know, that Yukon Duke game is one that will be remembered forever. It had a great Combination of top five pick in boozer, but also, you know, the little brother who's not as good, who makes the big turnover at the end, Braylon Mullins. Been in college forever at UConn and he's part of the game. And then you get. It was a great Final Four. Florida is essentially bringing back their same team next year. And it's also this new generation of coaches. Bomani, I mean everybody thought, well when K and Roy and those guys are gone, it falls. And now there's a new group of guys to hate. Like you can really hate Todd golden if you want to. You know, you can hate Nate Oats if you want to. And Danny Hur.

[Bomani Jones]

I knew you were going right to

[Matt Jones]

Nate Oats, but I'm just saying, like there's a new generation of guys to, to bring the sport through. Yeah.

[Bomani Jones]

Let me tell you what's going to be interesting though about the coaches and to me where it gets fun and watching the archetypes and paradigms change is you're going to have to really be able to coach now.

[Matt Jones]

I agree.

[Bomani Jones]

Guys who are just able to get dudes and then roll the ball out, the ability to get dudes is no longer tied to the in the way that it used to. And so there all these guys historically we could talk about Lefty Drazelle, Dale Brown, like everybody's got their guys on the list where you just felt like they were just going out here rolling the ball. Ball rollers better go to some camps and some clinics and, and get to working on some schemes. Because the guy that rolls the ball out there now is the collective. The collective is going to be the one that's going to go get these dudes and you better figure out how to coach them.

[Matt Jones]

And it does seem like this new generation of coaches, Dusty May Golden, Danny Hurley, they seem like smart guys, right? So like they seem, they seem like they actually know basketball on a really high level.

[Bomani Jones]

But it's fun to have a loot Olsen here, right. These guys that you do in some way, they're going to blow it. Like eventually it's going to come up and it's going to be there.

[Matt Jones]

Cal still gotta be Lewis.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, but you know, but I always thought the Cal was a better coach that he got credit for. I was feel like when Cal's teams give it up, it wasn't because of strategy, it's because he was choking it away. Like Roy Williams would be good to choke a game away that it would be Bill Self another guy.

[Matt Jones]

Is that John Shire now maybe That's.

[Bomani Jones]

It's a fair question to ask.

[Matt Jones]

Right.

[Bomani Jones]

I don't think it'll necessarily last forever with him. It's brand new, but it goes down. But there was, like having. That was the Bobby Knight line about Dale Brown. I was really worried that I look over and saw Dale Brown and I knew everything was going to be okay.

[Matt Jones]

Oh, did he say that? I didn't know that.

[Bomani Jones]

He did say that. You know, everybody loved Dale Brown as a person, but at the same. But other things. Crazy about Dale Brown is. But if you give Dale Brown just seven guys, Dale Brown will take you to the final four.

[Matt Jones]

Yeah. Seven randos. But then he can't win with Chris Jackson, Shaquille o' Neal and Stanley Roberts.

[Bomani Jones]

Right, Right. It's like, what are we doing here? How did this happen? You know, So I think that's. I was actually thinking about this, and this may be a bit of a. An extension of where or a tangent off of what we're talking about. But I was thinking about the idea that when we talk about things as being theater, that we use that as a general term. But I don't think that we appreciate how much of what we used to watch really was a descendant of theater. Right. And so, like, the idea that. I love the fact that we hate Scott Foster in the NBA. We hate Tony Brothers like we have. But the refs used to be. We knew the names of a lot more reps back in the day. You didn't have to be gamblers. They were part of the show.

[Matt Jones]

They were.

[Bomani Jones]

Right. Like when you think about, like, tv.

[Matt Jones]

Teddy. Yeah.

[Bomani Jones]

Right.

[Matt Jones]

Yes.

[Bomani Jones]

Right. There's another one. I can't remember. Jamie. Jamie. Whatever his name was. But whenever. But like whenever the managers in baseball used to come out and argue with the umpires and they're kicking dirt. All of that stuff is theater. Right. It's things that attract the people in the back row. It started to move to a place where we were producing television as opposed to theater. And theater is a more interesting product than television is. Right. And part of the theater was the. Of the casting of coaches was like, all the coaches. None of the coaches are. Are bad dressers anymore. There's no whip.

[Matt Jones]

That is true. Yeah.

[Bomani Jones]

Out here in a crazy coat. Right. Even if, you know everybody's gone to quarter zip. But even then, everybody knows how to dress like the character of the guy that just looked like he rolled out of bed.

[Matt Jones]

Yeah.

[Bomani Jones]

There's. There, There's. There's something to be said for having all of those things and that kind of ties also to, like, the player mobility thing is that having those guys that you've hated on the same team for four years. Right. You know, you could probably. You could rattle off the guys that Kentucky has had to deal with in the SEC or again, Duke. Nice long list of them.

[Matt Jones]

Yeah.

[Bomani Jones]

That you hated year after year after year. I do miss some of that consistency.

[Matt Jones]

I do, too. That's a fair. I think that's a fair critique. So let. All right, so right now, Congress has this, this Senate bill, and it's. I talked about this on my show, and you're. You're also a political guy, so I think you'll appreciate. I can probably talk to you about this in a way a lot of people. I couldn't. So you got this bill that Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell came up with. It's a bipartisan bill. It seems like the Republicans liked it more than the Democrats. The d. The Democrats were. Because, you know, it's not too pro player. Ted Cruz, of course, is in Texas. So you presume you're gonna have the Republican votes, and then it's just, can you get enough Demograt Democrats to get it across the finish line? And then out comes the SEC and says, we don't like it. And almost every senator in the SEC is a Republican. And you got the conference where they are in saying, we don't like it. And so Tommy Tuberville, who helped write the bill, now has his state where he wants to be the governor. The two schools going. Well, we don't like it. And it's now SEC versus everybody, but they have to get these SEC votes. Do you think when it's all over that a bill even passes? No, you don't.

[Bomani Jones]

So a big part of why I don't think a bill passes like that last one that just got shut down, which I think was a horrible bill for players.

[Matt Jones]

Yes.

[Bomani Jones]

It had so many things in it. And I think this bill also has the same problem where you're looking at it like, this will never stand up in court. Like, I think, I actually think it

[Matt Jones]

would, though, because, like, they're literally changing.

[Bomani Jones]

This is the one that is also trying to stop, like, coaches from leaving before the end of the season.

[Matt Jones]

Yeah. But, you know, but the reason all those things get overturned in court is antitrust law. And this basically says antitrust law doesn't apply to college sports. And. And I'm not sure. I don't see any reason why that wouldn't hold up. You could argue it's terrible policy, but I Think it probably would hold up, to be honest.

[Bomani Jones]

I think it helps that they are like, there's some guarantee of health care and the likes. There is. I am assuming, though, that it also prevents collective bargaining and unionization.

[Matt Jones]

No, they take no position on employees. That's what the Democrats required. So they take no position. They basically say that we'll leave that for another day.

[Bomani Jones]

That is important. I hate the idea of rewarding the NCAA for their outright cowardice and spending the last however many decades asking somebody else to bail them out rather than anybody doing their frigging jobs and actually trying to come up with some sort of solution to this. I. I am always inclined to believe that these things are not going to pass because I am not sure that the majority of the public cares nearly enough about this for the energy that gets expended toward it. But if all the SEC senators say no, then it just can't.

[Matt Jones]

It just can't pass. Well, you do. You are right that, like, we care about this in the south, but in New York, this drives nothing. Right.

[Bomani Jones]

Like. Like that. That's why when the CBC was out here talking about trying to organize a boycott of the Southern schools based on the Voting Rights act changes, it felt very cynical to me. Like, it felt like example I've used. Like, it felt like when they made Tim Waltz the vice president and they started calling him nominee and they started calling, and it just felt like some people up north were like, yeah, they love that down there.

[Matt Jones]

Yeah, you're exactly right.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, that. That's what. That's what they'll do. And that's what the same thing felt like when they were calling for this boycott where I'm like, you guys aren't taking any of the steps you need to take on the ground to establish a culture that would allow for this sort of thing to happen. But if they're like, yeah, that's what'll make these. That's what'll make these. These Southern states look out for voting rights. We'll take away their football. I'm like, buddy, they demonstrated when the last time they had these blogs and they wouldn't let us vote, that they were willing to lose that football in exchange. They like. It doesn't mean what you think it does, I'm here to tell you. But I think they view this cynically as something that matters down here. But don't nobody up here, like, around where I'm at, they don't, like, care.

[Matt Jones]

Yeah, I agree with that. Let me ask you. I want to take a different direction with You. Because you did some time. Make it sound like you served in prison, but you did some time on the CNN political panel, right? Where you.

[Bomani Jones]

I still do it every now and then. Yeah.

[Matt Jones]

Okay. So you would go on. What's. I always forget her name. The woman's chat. Abby Phillips and Scott Jennings, who is. People who listen to this are familiar with. He was. He's on there often, but there are a lot of people on there. How do you. To some extent, it seems like a circus to me and to some extent it seems so performative. These people act like they're angry with each other, but they're not. And it's Republican, Democrat. But then they all shake hands after. I know you, I get a sense that you. If somebody is a jerk, that you can't just smile when the camera is off. Am I right about that?

[Bomani Jones]

Can't do it. Can't do it. Can't do it. This ain't wrestling to me. Like, none of this, none of this is wrestling to me. It is interesting to watch people and I have watched people on that show who were able to do that. Now, to be fair to them, I think that, like the example that I have off the top of my head that I feel like those people are collegial all. Even when they're talking crazy back and forth with each other. It is in a but we're friends sort of way.

[Matt Jones]

Yes.

[Bomani Jones]

Right. You know, there's some people. Like, I've had two different occasions that I'd been on there where I was like, I'm going to have to call the producers and say I can't be on television with that person because I don't play. Like that one of them, they made the decision themselves that that person was not going to be on there anymore. And it was like, okay, cool.

[Matt Jones]

Can you say who that is or

[Bomani Jones]

no, it was the dude who. I don't even remember his name, but he was the dude that accused the other dude of having like, like a pager. Like the, the. The. It was, it was a. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Jones]

They're about the. I know you're talking about. Yes.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, yeah. And I was like, yo, this dude, I've been on the show with him a couple of times. Yo, he'd be saying, some wild man. I can't. I like, I don't. I've learned about myself in the course of doing TV that things that I think are fighting words. I don't, I can't recalibrate that for the fact that we're on Television. I don't want to put myself in those positions to where I might make a fool of myself based on like. And if somebody's a line stepper, I'll need to, I don't need to be there. But for me. No, no, like if you say some wild, something wild to me on television, I'm taking that as you saying something wild. I don't, I don't know how else it is.

[Matt Jones]

You're taking it. You mean it. It's not like you. Yeah, yeah.

[Bomani Jones]

I don't say anything I don't mean. I think that's the part that maybe I'm a little naive about is how many people are willing to get on television and say things that they don't mean.

[Matt Jones]

Like how do they do that? How do they do that? Like how can you get up? Like, I'm not going to make you speak on the guy. But Kevin. Oh, the Shark Tank guy. Yeah, maybe he believes all that stuff, but I refuse to believe he's been as successful in business as he's had and been like that or else people would have hated him a long time ago.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, well, what I also try to figure out about this is because the truth is I've never had a producer encourage me to do anything like that. Like people come up with this idea themselves that they're going to create these personae and turn into them once they get on television. And I don't know, maybe I am just existing with an arrogance to believe that I'm just charming enough as it is, you know, and that I'll be able to get this done by myself, myself. Like it is wild to me that people really do get out there and like treat this like it's just a show. And hey, I get. And also they paying for the most part. They ain't paying people enough money if they're paying them anything at all to get out here and do this. Yeah, I just, like, I just, I don't, I don't think there's any win to be had from behaving like that. But clearly I'm the one that's wrong.

[Matt Jones]

Well, you say clearly. I mean, I, I think all those shows are sort of. I actually think they're a negative for society, to be honest with you. I mean, I actually think the idea that every political thing should just be people screaming at each other. I know that those conservatives cannot believe and take up for everything Trump does, but they just do it cuz they feel like they have to do it. I don't know how they do that, how do they do that? You're around them. How do they do it?

[Bomani Jones]

Oh, I only see him when I go in for that show and then I go back home. Like, I don't, like, I don't, I don't traffic in the circles because that is a, the, the decision that so many people have made in the media on the right that you're going to just have to figure out. So I'll use Will Kane as an example.

[Matt Jones]

He's your friend, right?

[Bomani Jones]

I work with Will. Like friend. No, I don't dislike Will. Like, my, my personal interactions with Will were always positive.

[Matt Jones]

Yeah, I remember.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah. But we're not friends. Okay. You know what I mean? I'd say we are friendly. What I noticed about Will when I worked with him at ESPN and the Fox thing, I don't pay enough attention to it, so I have no idea what he's doing over there. But what I would find was he was very careful to say that, hey, you guys don't know everything that I believe. Don't assume, you know my views on everything, X, Y and Z. But he would always find a place on an issue where he did not have to challenge the orthodoxy of the right. Even where he disagreed with it. He was always looking for something else so that he could always find a point of disagreement with the people on the left. And that was his angle. An example, the Bubba Wallace thing where they found the rope that was tied like a noose in his garage or all of that. He waited until somebody gave him something that allowed him to say up. The Democrats overreacted or the people on the left overreacted, even though it didn't even appear that that was going to be the case.

[Matt Jones]

But he wasn't going to take up for the noose. He was just waiting until.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, right, right. He wasn't going to say, hey, what's wrong with a noose? Yeah, right.

[Matt Jones]

But, but that was his line, was that he wasn't going to take up for a noose. Okay, Right.

[Bomani Jones]

But he also wasn't going to say, hey, this noose is nauseating.

[Matt Jones]

Yeah.

[Bomani Jones]

You know, like he was never going to go to that place. And so the, the nature of this, that doesn't allow for that much intra group criticism. I find that the Democrats do a better job or are more likely to engage in certain measures of intergroup criticism in front of people, though I should correct that. I'd say perhaps the left does, but the people who hold the lie for the Democratic orthodoxy, they also.

[Matt Jones]

I was going to make that distinction Because I have found in the last couple of years that there's a distinction between the political actors and the ideological actors. The political actors. I mean, all you have to do is look at how much everyone waited to say Biden was 100% until the very last minute. And then, and I, and I liked Joe Biden, but there came a point that it was very clear he needed to not run. And there were people who went down with the ship. And now even his wife said that she thought he was having a stroke during the, during the debate. But there are ideologues on the left who will criticize those folks. The ones on the right that do it tend to be like Nazis. Like, like, you know what I mean? Like, the only one that's really true, like, the only ones that will really criticize the right is if, like, you think you're so right.

[Bomani Jones]

Yes.

[Matt Jones]

That you'll just say anything, you know?

[Bomani Jones]

So it's funny you say that because I, as someone who is aligned to the left of the Democratic Party, I don't find the Democratic Party is that far to the left at all. Right. Like, this is much, this would have been considered a center right party 50 years ago in Canada. The Democrats are basically like, the right wing is up there, for example, but the right, the Republicans of this day and age are so far to the right that if you say that this isn't to the right enough for me. They're like, damn, not even, you know what I mean? Like, like, like, even if you agree with the orthodoxy of the center left, even if you agree with that, you, you acknowledge. Oh, but there is farther to the left to go. How much farther to the right is there to go from where the median Republican is in 2026?

[Matt Jones]

See, it's hard because I, I don't feel like, and again, maybe I'm taking up for him because I live around him. I don't feel like these people. I don't feel like the average Republican is as extreme as the average Republican politician.

[Bomani Jones]

I don't, I think that is probably fair.

[Matt Jones]

But the average Republican politician feels like they have to play to the 20%, 25%, 30% of Republicans who are crazy extreme. And then in the sort of, well, you got to pick one side or the other. These more moderate to conservative Republicans are like, well, I guess I got to take up for this because if, if I don't, then I'm on the other side.

[Bomani Jones]

Well, let's consider this right. That a significant part of the establishment of the base of what is the modern Republican Party. I mean, it's 1964 and 1965. Civil. The Civil Rights act of 1964, the Voting Rights act of 1965. That kind of helped the stag. Like a big thing that has galvanized that party is voting against the blacks.

[Matt Jones]

Not everybody's going to agree with you on that, but they're not.

[Bomani Jones]

But I mean, the majority of white people in this country have voted Republican every election post 1964. Like, this is, this is an interesting. Even.

[Matt Jones]

Is that true? Even Clinton? Yeah. Yeah.

[Bomani Jones]

Okay. It's. And, and it's never. And it's not even been close. So like this, this is just what it is. Historically, that's where the lines wound up being drawn. I mean, there was a time where Strom Thurmond and those guys were Democrats. Right. You know, like this is this, this is where the line has been drawn. So if you start initially from that position, even if that's not part of your conscious, even though you were born in 1975, so that doesn't even matter to you. That is the path dependency of that party, which is to say nobody has ever won an election or a primary, at least as a Republican by bringing this back to the middle right, to bringing this back in this other direction. That's not how they win. And so the game now, though, that

[Matt Jones]

wasn't always the case. It used to be that they would sit there and think, like, think about, about nominating Mitt Romney. I think the theory was we nominate Mitt Romney so we have a chance. If we nominate the Pat Buchanans of the world, we can't win, you know, fair.

[Bomani Jones]

There were some people. Yeah, you are correct. Pat Buchanan, little bit too far right.

[Matt Jones]

But, but he wouldn't be too far

[Bomani Jones]

now, which is kind of crazy. Right. Well, the only thing that might make him too far now is that he was a little bit too explicit in the way he stated his two foreigners and he didn't really like coded up any. And of course, his other issue is he was so far, in a way that doesn't really exist anymore, which is this is the man who was really, really down for the Palestinians because the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And that, that.

[Matt Jones]

Well, it's interesting you say that, Bomani. I think when it comes to Israel, Palestine, the far right and the far left kind of come together.

[Bomani Jones]

Yes, it depends on what kind of far right you're talking about.

[Matt Jones]

But there are you. There are far right wing people who take the view that like Israel is what's wrong with following Israel. Is what's wrong with America. Yeah. And they take up for the, I mean, like on Israel alone, Marjorie Taylor Green and Omar probably agree.

[Bomani Jones]

That is, I think that is a very good point. Like, I think for the far right, how you feel about Israel depends on whether or not you look forward to Armageddon and you think that you can perhaps do things that'll get us one step closer to it. Like that's the people who believe that if we do this Israel thing, right, Armageddon will come and Jesus will come back. They're out there. Right.

[Matt Jones]

But your Thomas Massey's right are on the same side in some ways as your AOCs and your Omar's on that issue.

[Bomani Jones]

I think that, I think that's a good point. I had not quite thought about it in that way, but I do. But to your point, I do think you're right that there is a way too far in certain places, there's a way too far that you could go. Right. I mean, David Duke almost won those, those elections in Louisiana, for example, and I have no reason to think that if he came back out now that his fortunes would not be similar if he tried to make it work. But that was also back when like Edwin Edwards was there, like the good old fashioned Southern Democrat that just knew how to talk that and could get it across. Right. Like, we don't, we don't, we don't, we don't have so many of those anymore. But anyway, to the point about the Republicans is, I do think though that your point about the Republican politician being farther to the right as the voter may be the case. But I do think even that voter who is maybe not nearly as extreme as the politician, they like how that sounds. Right. They're, they're listening to it. They're like. Yeah, like they're, they're still picking the guys who do that.

[Matt Jones]

No, they are. I think the average Democratic politician is not as left as the average Democratic primary voter.

[Bomani Jones]

Absolutely.

[Matt Jones]

But I think the average Republican primary voter, let's just say Trump endorsing was not in. Let's just say they had to pick without Trump telling them. Right. I think more moderates would win. Like, the problem is Trump tells them and then they'll just pick whatever he says. Right?

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Jones]

And he tends to pick the more extreme people because they will just agree with whatever he does and never challenge him. Like John Cornyn or Bill Cassidy or whatever. Right. So I think that. But like if you just had a straight up race between John Cornyn and Kim Paxton, it's Probably pretty close. But once Trump weighs in, then it's all going to be for. For Paxton. Does that make sense?

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, it does. And I think it's interesting because, you know, I think we both know a little bit about kind of political theory, and the idea has been that to win. To win, you need to position yourself as close to the median on the spectrum of views as possible, because the majority of the people are at the median. But I think we're at a point now where the distribution has views over here, views over here, and it's really sparse in the middle.

[Matt Jones]

I agree with that.

[Bomani Jones]

There are that many people, which makes it really weird in trying to figure out what the equilibrium is.

[Matt Jones]

But I think Americans, if forced to choose between far right and far left, I think they'll choose far right. So I think we have to. Unfortunately, on our side, we have to moderate more than they do, because.

[Bomani Jones]

Correct.

[Matt Jones]

And that stinks. But it's also just reality, which is why I wanted to get your take on 2028. I think we're going to have to nominate a moderate, but I think that's going to be hard to do because I think our party wants vengeance.

[Bomani Jones]

Well, I think that. I think there's room to be less moderate on issues of the economy.

[Matt Jones]

I agree with that. I agree.

[Bomani Jones]

I believe. I don't know where you are on Zoran, but the Zoran thing seems to be working up here.

[Matt Jones]

Yeah, I think. But you know why I think Zoron's working? Because he clears the snow. Right. Like, because he gets. Because he actually does, like, the daily stuff that people need government to do.

[Bomani Jones]

Exactly. Right. But I think he's delivering in a way, I think. I think his message that every. Every Democratic voters, every Democratic politician message to me, needs to be, hey, man, this stuff out here costs way too much money.

[Matt Jones]

Yes.

[Bomani Jones]

Right. Like, you are losing. Like, the thing I always say about this, I promise I'll land the plane here. The thing I always say about Tucker Carlson and what made Tucker Carlson dangerous is that Tucker Carlson has a point. The corporations are killing us.

[Matt Jones]

Yes.

[Bomani Jones]

Like, he starts from an initial position that works, and then he takes it all kinds of places that I don't necessarily want to go with him, but this version of the Democratic Party post, Citizens United in particular, nobody really wants to take the position, not in Bernie Sanders world, that the issue is livability. Like. Like Zoran's message in New York City is, this city is great and you should be able to afford it. And I'm going to do whatever I can to make it such that you can appreciate all the things that make this city wonderful, because otherwise, you're just trapped in this city. I think that there's room to move farther left on that message. I think populism is what people like to call it, but I think there's great room to move there, and I think the success of this Sanders movement demonstrated that there's room to go there. What I think the American public has demonstrated, regardless of how you feel about the underlying issues, is the way we speak about issues of social liberalism.

[Matt Jones]

Amen. For example, you got to be careful what you say.

[Bomani Jones]

The messaging has to be careful.

[Matt Jones]

You got to be careful what you say.

[Bomani Jones]

Well, what it can't be is accusatory. And I think that's the place where people got themselves into trouble is not the message behind what they were saying. It was that it was accusatory.

[Matt Jones]

And it was also. It was also. People said it with a sense of, I'm smarter than you. That's the thing that gets everybody worked up. But there are two. I totally agree with what you said. I think there's two principles that 80, 70 to 80% of America would agree with, and this should be where Democrats start and actually, I think where a lot of smart Republicans are starting. Number one, things cost too much and it's too hard for the working class. And two, there are elites in the tech world that are trying to take over the world.

[Bomani Jones]

Yes.

[Matt Jones]

And those two things are things that like, 70 to 80% of Americans can get behind.

[Bomani Jones]

Yes. I also think that we need to kind of broaden the idea of the working class. So do I ever tell you about what I had to go give a talk on a picket line once?

[Matt Jones]

No.

[Bomani Jones]

So when the writers were on strike, they asked me to come. One of the shop stewards or whatever the. You know, one of those guys was a. Had been a writer on my show that I did for hbo. And so he asked me to come. And Buddy, I was out there with Marty Walsh.

[Matt Jones]

Who's that?

[Bomani Jones]

Former labor. Marty Walsh is the former labor secretary under Biden, mayor of Boston, but he's a. He's the head of the NHL Players association, or at least he was at the time. Mahdi. And boy, let me tell you, Mahdi had clearly spoke on many picket lines before, and I had to go after him. And Buddy, I was definitely an opening act. I did not need to be going behind a man that knew how to do this. Right.

[Matt Jones]

I had a similar. I want to let you finish, but I spoke once at the United Mine Workers. And the head of the United Mine Workers got up and I swear I was like, thought I was in church. Amen. Like, you were like, dude, because that guy, I saw a video of him, it was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah. Like, this ain't my room. Right. Even though it was kind of my room. But this isn't what I do. I've never done this before. So I'm trying to figure out how to do this. And I'm. I don't have a lot of rah rah in me. I'm very self conscious about that. I'm a reasoned thinker, I like to walk things out. But as I was talking, I finally found a place and I don't know if they hurt me, but I was trying to say we move from a, like, we are a very white college society. We went from a manufacturing based society to a service based economy. And what that means is that who the working class is is not just people with dirty fingernails anymore anymore. Right? Like you people who are working in these offices, you're the working class now. It is your jobs that are being eliminated by AI and all these other things there. And so I don't think it's kind of like how everybody thinks they're middle class when they're really not. People don't like thinking they're working class because they think of that as being a half step away from poverty. But the bottom line is those tech guys that you're talking about, it's a lot of people who think they got it made out here that they come in for you. Like, I work in an industry where it's still. Where it still goes pretty good for me. But I saw the writing on the wall a while ago, like, hey, this ain't gonna last very long. And I was. But that was the job where I was able to position myself to be like, okay, I'll be okay down the line. I think people are in grave denial about how high the stakes are with climate and how high the stakes are with what's going to happen to this economy. Because in theory they shouldn't eliminate all our jobs because you can't buy stuff if you don't have a job, right? But what those guys are doing. My man Giannis, I forget how to say his last name. The Greek finance minister, I always mess up his name, but he wrote a book called Technopoly. And what he makes, the point is that all these guys like Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, what they're establishing is a world where they get money not because people buy stuff, but because you have to use their stuff. You have to put your app in the Apple and in the Apple App Store. Right. If you want to sell things, you have to sell them through the Amazon marketplace, because otherwise you can't stay alive. Elon Musk, why would he pay such a price for Twitter? He was trying to make it this place where everybody goes and you do all your stuff and they just skim rent off of it. So it's no longer profit seeking, it is rent seeking. And under that world, no, people don't need to have jobs. We're just going to take every dime that you've got because you need it to be able to exist. Like.

[Matt Jones]

Well, no.

[Bomani Jones]

Elon Musk.

[Matt Jones]

Elon Musk, as awful a human being as I think he is, he has said multiple times he believes in universal basic income. He's basically saying, like you, he basically wants to be the old coal camp owner.

[Bomani Jones]

Right? Yeah.

[Matt Jones]

It's just the whole country is the coal camp. We all have to pay Elon Script. That's what he wants at the end of the day.

[Bomani Jones]

And that's what they all want, is someplace where you have to pay them.

[Matt Jones]

Yes.

[Bomani Jones]

Right. Where it's not an option to do this. You have to go through their stuff. But when that happens, it doesn't matter if you have a job.

[Matt Jones]

That's exactly right. Right.

[Bomani Jones]

So, like, if you like. So if you believe in universal, universal basic income, it's kind of the same principle. Just go get the money from somebody else and then bring it back to me.

[Matt Jones]

That's exactly right. Yeah, you're exactly right.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah. And these are terms that I think it's very difficult for the political class to explain without sounding like you're too far to the left.

[Matt Jones]

I think, though, when it comes to the. What is interesting is if you had told me in 2020 during George Floyd. Right. If you had told me I thought America was going to become socially very liberal and economically very conservative because we were not being allowed to work and all that kind of stuff. And in six years, it's completely flipped. I actually think America is ready to be pretty liberal economically because Trump is kind of liberal economically. In some ways.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Jones]

But socially conservative. And I think Democrats have to learn how to not offend on the social liberalism. And just like, you know, do we have to argue about trans athletes in the Olympics? Can we not just let that go and focus on this other stuff? Because, like, you know, I mean, I'm not. We should have trans rights. But do we really need to focus on the Olympics? Can we not do? Because that's the stuff that hangs people up, in my opinion.

[Bomani Jones]

What's so interesting is that the people. In my experience, there's a demographic that is really like, why are we worried about trans athletes? Trans people, they're like, hey, man, we just wanted people to stop killing us and like, give us some respect for basic humanity. We didn't ask for all of this. But what the right has historically done is thrown stuff against the wall till they figured out something that stuck. Abortion is a great example of that. Like this they figured out that really got the people going. And then that became a cause that galvanized the party. And this is the latest one that they figured out. Does the job. It really. And I get why it does. Right. Because if your argument is, hey, man, he said he was a dude last week, now he's playing ball against girls, hey, man, I understand why you might have a question. Right.

[Matt Jones]

It forces people on our side to take a position they can't really defend. Like, at some point you then have to argue that, like, someone with predominantly male for female hormones could beat of someone with a predominantly male hormones in a race. And none of us believe that, right? No, nobody believes that.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah. Like, it's, it's, it's, it's. It's difficult to walk people through it.

[Matt Jones]

Yeah. Because. Because, like, no, but, but at its core, at its core, and this is hard for people to say, but at its core, we all know that players in the NBA are better than players in the wnba. We know that.

[Bomani Jones]

Yes.

[Matt Jones]

But somehow they've backed us into a corner where we feel like we have to not say that point.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah.

[Matt Jones]

To just say, treat people equally.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah. Yeah. And it also gets to the thing where it's like, so now you guys care about women, huh?

[Matt Jones]

Like, all the, all, all the, all

[Bomani Jones]

the opportunities you had to show that you cared about women.

[Matt Jones]

Yeah.

[Bomani Jones]

Now this is the one that you pitted. Right. Really got the people going. And now I feel like the. The Democrats wound up, like, trapped in this vortex that they can't get out of because they can't put themselves in a position where it feels like they're rejecting the humanity of their constituents.

[Matt Jones]

Yeah.

[Bomani Jones]

But on the other side, it's like, damn, man, I didn't. Why are we still here?

[Matt Jones]

Yeah. But you know, we sometimes have to just, like, weak. I can just give my position, but my position of, you can treat everybody equally and respect their difference, but acknowledge that there are differences. It's o. Okay. It's okay to acknowledge that there is, you know, is a difference. So anyway. All right, well, I know, I know you gotta go. Let me ask you one quick question. Do the Knicks pull it out? And if so, are you going to be on the street with your shirt off?

[Bomani Jones]

Okay, I think right now, given that we're talking immediately after game one.

[Matt Jones]

Yes.

[Bomani Jones]

I would have to say, yes, they're going to pull this off. I don't think I'll be in the street with my shirt off for that. But I will tell you, I've made, like, a decision that if the weather, whenever the weather's nice enough, go out and go out to the park. I got a go bag that I pack. It's got my little chair in it. It's got my blanket, everything. Like, I'm real big on making sure that I use the parks in the city. It's a really great thing about this city is that it has access to all the outside stuff. I'm gonna be out there with my shirt off. You better believe it. Because the thing about New York City is you can do whatever you want here. As long as you leave other people alone, you can do anything. But no, no, no, I don't. I.

[Matt Jones]

That.

[Bomani Jones]

That chaos of after they win a championship. Oh, buddy. But the bright side, can you imagine

[Matt Jones]

what the parade would be like?

[Bomani Jones]

I will go to that. I don't know how early I'll have to get there, but I will. I will absolutely go to the parade. The only thing I'm thinking about now, though, in retrospect, is I remember what it was like in 05 after Carolina won the championship and being outside for that. And the only way you went home by yourself is just because you felt like it. So maybe I just need to go out and see what them streets is hitting on. Man, you never know what's.

[Matt Jones]

People who don't live in New York don't know. Like, people in New York will have a parade for anything.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Jones]

So, like, there's just a parade culture. Every weekend there's some parade of something.

[Bomani Jones]

Everybody has the right to throw a party at any point in time, in any place. Like, I don't. I don't think people quite understand that we've all made the decision that we're just going to ignore whatever this is that you're doing. Oh, you are playing gospel music at 3 o' clock on a Thursday afternoon on the train. We're just going to keep doing whatever we're doing over here.

[Matt Jones]

Knock yourself out, but it's kind of beautiful, actually. Like, I kind of. I kind of love that. Some people don't, but I think it's actually kind of. You can really do whatever you want.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, I would. The thing I say about New York is it is at once the most public and private place in the world. Everybody can see you, but nobody's looking. Looking.

[Matt Jones]

That's a great way to put it. I'll leave it at that. That's a really great way to put it. Bomani, always awesome. Thank you very much, and we'll talk to you soon.

[Bomani Jones]

Hey, man, one day I got to get you on my podcast, but we recorded while you be making radio.

[Matt Jones]

I'd love to. I mean, I. Listen, I can sit with me. You, Dominique Foxworth. Let's do it.

[Bomani Jones]

Oh, I got it. Yeah. You and Dominique would be an interesting pair of fellows to watch Talk. I need to. I need to make that one happen.

[Matt Jones]

Let's do it. Let's do it. Thank you, Bo.

[Bomani Jones]

No problem, man.