← The Riley Gaines Show
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- [00:01]
Glenn Washington
I'm Glenn Washington, host of Snap Judgment, the award winning storytelling podcast from kqed. Every week, Snap deals a new card. Like the girl whose sister was a monkey. Or the man who lived in the woods for 30 years. Or even the woman who snuck her lover out of prison in a dog crate. Pick a card, any card. Tap to listen now to Snap Judgment from KQED on Spotify.
- [00:34]
Riley Gaines
Sophie Cunningham, the woman that you are. I've always enjoyed watching Sophie Cunningham. Beyond the fact that we've been able to develop a friendship over the past year, she's someone who's always at Caitlin Clark's defense, which means a lot when you're in a league that wants to seemingly destroy Caitlin Clark. So she, she's fiercely loyal. She is a Sports Illustrated model, swimsuit model. So objectively beautiful, like long blonde, ha. Tan skin, very thin, leggy. She had this baptism that went viral on social media. It was really beautiful. Like, you have this again, woman who has all this notoriety and, you know, growing fame, increasing her public platform. And with that platform, she chose to declare her life to the Lord very proudly. So that was super cool. And another reason how she sets herself apart, obviously. The pointing meme. Come on, it's so good. It's like one of my favorite memes that has come from the Internet, certainly as of recent. And if basketball doesn't work out, she can be a ring girl. Sophie Cunningham is like the queen of side quest because this is her at a UFC match doing the. The little round cards, doing her little viral pointing meme. Um, you can hear based on these videos that I saw online. The audience loves her. The people, the fans in attendance to that UFC match, they're cheering, they're roaring. It's incredibly loud. But people in general love her. Earlier this week, ESPN came out with this piece, which, by the way, this was never a given for ESPN to do a glowing pie piece on one of their star athletes who is white and beautiful and who seemingly you could piece it together that she just loves America. She loves the Lord. This was never a given. From espn, owned by Disney. That should tell you everything that you need to know. The piece is titled Love her or hate her, Sophie Cunningham will not be ignored. I'll read you just a little bit. It says Cunningham like the WNBA has become a cultural flashpoint. The league's footprint has never been bigger and the chorus of voices around it has never been louder. All star voting and sponsorship opportunities, whistles and non whistles. Who and who does not get to capture this attention economy all have become proxies for debates about race and gender identity and politics. Squarely in the morass, it's Cunningham. A white, conventionally attractive, attention grabbing reserve player who is not one of the league's all stars but is one of its most magnetic stars, goes on to say, you might delight in her or you might decry her. Either way, she draws you in. True. So whether you call Cunningham an enforcer or a dirty player, a role model or a culture warrior, fearless or shameless, brave or brazen, you will keep calling her and she won't mind, which, perhaps as much as anything, is the key to her ascending attention. The journalist interviewed Cunningham for the article and it has a quote from her here. And it says, people love me or they really freaking hate me, I just don't care. Sophie says you see so many people change or try to fit into a box. She says, I don't even know what that box is. It's a fake box. Everyone wants to look the same. Everyone wants the same vibe. Screw that. I'm gonna be me. Sophie says she never really lets the hate get to her. She says there's some corners of the Internet that label her as MAGA Barbie. What she says is entirely just projection based on what she looks like, based on where she's from, based on the things that has weighed in on before, such as protecting women's sports. In this piece, she says, I get a lot of negative feedback from me hating trans. And I'm like, I never once said that. She says, I think that I'm here to extend love, but I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room or young girls in sports who shouldn't have to go against biological men. This maybe sounds like to your normal, average person, like not a very novel concept, right? Especially in the year 2026. Like we had this debate in 2020, 21, 2022 and the years that have followed. But now President Trump is in the Oval Office, it's easy to say that men aren't women and men shouldn't play in women's sports. I'm here to tell you, if you're in Sophie Cunningham's position, it's not easy to say that. It's incredibly difficult. It requires immense courage. If you're Sophie Cunningham playing in the wnba, which is like the most woke league of all time in the history of ever, it takes immense courage to say exactly what she did. And it makes her really the first current high level female athlete playing in a professional league that has said this. She said she wants to protect girls in locker rooms and protect girls sports, which isn't that surprising considering it's girls sports that have given her the opportunities that she has had to succeed. Sophie Cunningham literally says in this article, the article that I read to you, that she is not anti trans, that she just wants to spread love. She just doesn't want women to feel uncomfortable in intimate areas of undressing, such as a locker room. And guess what? This is the most normal, normal, rational way of thinking that most people 100 agree with. Sophie's not afraid of trans women. So the whole transphobic, it's just stupid. Like, she doesn't have an irrational fear of transgender. She even says it in the article. That's not what this is. She's just simply not going to agree to having males in women's spaces like our bathrooms, our locker rooms, in our sports, hijacking the term phobic or isms, Any of the isms that we're called for, having, the beliefs that we do, they just don't work anymore. Well, I should clarify. They don't work if you don't let them. And that's what Sophie does really, really, really well. She's just done playing along with it. And you see what the response has been since. It's notoriety, it's credibility, it's sponsorships, it's opportunities, it's fame, it's an even bigger platform. And to be very clear, I don't think Sophie is doing or saying what she does because she wants fame. Actually, I'll put myself in her shoes. You have to imagine that she was concerned that she would lose opportunities. Maybe still she's even, even concerned about that. But she said it and she stood by it because she thinks that's the right and the moral and the just thing to do.
- [06:22]
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- [06:51]
Riley Gaines
just truly cannot fathom being so stupid as to continue to fight over this point that men can be women and they should play in women's sports. A point that is not only regressive, but is unfathomably. Minute. And when pressed by this, in the following days, of course, Sophie Cunningham doubled down.
- [07:10]
Sophie Cunningham
Let's watch on that same vein. In that story with espn, you talked about wanting to protect young girls who shouldn't have to go against biological men. Just. Can you expand your viewpoint on that? I mean, I think I said what I said. I think it's kind of common sense and I think I'll always believe in that. I think it's really important to protect children, and that's little girls who are also involved in that category. And so I stand on what I said and I always believe that I saw this.
- [07:36]
Riley Gaines
You know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of Sydney Sweeney. I remember last year when that horrible journalist, she was pressing Sydney Sweeney and attempting to get her to apologize for doing this ad with American Eagle. You remember the one where it's like genes are passed down from person to person, often determining things like eye color and hair color, whatever. It was kind of an odd ad, but people loved it. I liked it. Right. But it came with people saying that Sydney Sweeney is a Nazi and that she's advocating for eugenics because she's white and she has blue hair. If she had blue hair, she would be on the other side of this debate. The people who are calling her a Nazi, she has blonde hair, blue eyes, and people hated her for it. It made her a Nazi to recognize that she is objectively beautiful. But when that journalist, a reporter, attempted to get Sidney Sweeney to apologize, she just wouldn't do it. I saw this video of Sophie and that's what I saw. I saw a woman who has more courage and poise under leftist ideological testing than maybe even some of the biggest right wing think tanks really do. She's potentially risking her very livelihood for saying the things that she said in that article, considering the WNBA's far, far, far left culture. And I say potentially risking because it is worth noting we are living in a totally different political, social, cultural in 2026 than we were in 2020. I think if she said this in 2020, it wouldn't be a potential that she's risking her very livelihood, like her very livelihood probably would be over. But the thing I think that really separates Sophie, it's not about the belief or the points that she was making because again, everyone knows what she is saying to be plainly and objectively true. It's just simply the refusal to be gaslit. And in today's world, that's rare and it does require courage. I look at Sophie Cunningham as like the anti Megan Rapinoe, who last week was on the View. Let's watch.
- [09:35]
Nancy Armour
Let's just like, pull back a little. At first it was like, well, nobody likes women's sports and nobody wants to watch it. Or there was, you know, abuse happening and nobody seemed to care. Now all of a sudden, we're going to use a vulnerable group of people in the trans community to be like, oh, well, we're just protecting women's sports and we care so much about it.
- [09:52]
Riley Gaines
Only Megan Rapinoe would view protecting women's sports by ensuring they're only for real women as an attack on women. She was actually on the View to discuss this was following the World cup and how the men's team is having to split their earnings with the women's team. And so she was on there to talk about the progress that she had made. And she. She did, like, individually, as one person. She dedicated a lot of time and resources and. And a lot of personal effort to advancing women's pay in sports. Lots of ground being that had been made there by Megan Rapinoe. And so there to talk about how her work there and why the men's national soccer team subsidizing the women's national soccer team is actually a good thing and how it's fair and equitable and whatever. Again, not the point of today's episode. So on one hand, she's there to talk about the progress that's been made for women, and on the other hand, in another segment, she's talking about how basically she wants to roll back all of it by ensuring women don't actually have an opportunity to compete and to succeed like she did. And can I just make the point? Really? No one? No one. She said there's a bill in Washington to inspect genitals. That is a total lie. That is not happening. No one is inspecting anyone's genitals. She talks about a sex verification test, first of all, only happening to Olympic athletes. That's not every young woman and girl, okay? Olympic athletes who are overwhelmingly in favor of this actually are receiving a sex verification test to determine their sexual. It is a cheek swab. It's not a genital inspection. It's a cheek swab. A saliva test. You can test it through urine, I guess, but it is a saliva test screening for the SRY gene, which is only present on the Y chromosome, which is only present in males. So this whole idea that girls are going to have to pull down their pants and a Republican lawmaker is going to stare at their genitals, that is not Happening. But even to that point, these are things that happen in physicals which should be required to play sports. And they have been. Historically, they have been. That is a total fabricated lie. That's not even like a stretch of the imagination. There is no bill in Washington D.C. that is going to enforce genital inspections on young girls. That is absurd. Hear me when I say I have never advocated for that and I would never advocate for that. I think it's kind of funny how Megan Rapinoe says black women are going to be tested first if we kick men out of women's sports. I'm like, so what are you saying? Are you saying that black women look like men? Because if we're gonna do this whole like pinpoint racism type thing and screech it from the top of our lungs, I don't know, it's kind of toeing the line. Megan, we are in peak summer, which means you're probably in a bikini, you're probably by the pool or going on vacation to the beach. I want to tell you, if you want to feel confident, if you want to feel less bloated, if you want to feel energized, it starts with your gut. I used to think that being blo after every single meal, every single day was normal. Guess what? It is not. That is why cowboy colostrum has become really a part of my daily routine. I started taking it for gut health, but the results that really surprised me were clearer skin, fuller looking hair, which really matters now, being nine months postpartum, better digestion, and way less bloating after meals. But that is not just my experience. Cowboy actually ran a clinical study where 83% of participants reported improved gut health, 79% experienced less bloating and inflammation, 72% saw improved digestion, and 62% saw fuller, thicker hair. Cowboy colostrum is 100% made in America from American grass fed cows. It is true. First day, whole colostrum rich in bioactives like immunoglobins, peptides and growth factors. It is whole full fat, which is actually a good thing. High protein and made with no artificial flavors or fillers, just real natural ingredients. But don't worry, they only collect the surplus colostrum after baby calves have had their first fill. Their new cookies and cream flavor, by the way, tastes like a nostalgic cookies and cream milkshake mixed with milk. But it's still that same whole unstripped colostrum. That is what I have been having every morning I pack it when I travel. Even I throw it in smoothies. I even put it sometimes in my yogurt. It is so good. You can try the new cookies and cream flavor for yourself for a limited time. Our listeners listeners of the Riley Gaines show. You get up to 25 off of your entire order. Just go over to cowboycoloshroom.com RileyGains and you can use my code Riley Gaines. That is R I L E Y G A I N E S at checkout. That's 25 off with code Riley Gaines@cowboyclassroom.com RileyGaines Anyways, it's always the people though who talk about women's rights who are the most anti woman. And going back to the whole activist journalist thing, there was a piece in USA Today by Nancy Armour and this is her most recent on Caitlin Clark. There's been a lot of bad takes on Caitlin Clark, but USA Today's Nancy Armour this is the worst one by a mile. In this piece, Nancy Armour is saying that Caitlin Clark is putting black and queer WNBA players in danger by flopping, by her fowls, her flagrant fouls, and by arguing with the refs. I'm going to read you an actual paragraph from this piece. It shouldn't need reminding. This country has an awful history of black people being harmed, even killed, in the name of defending white women. The WNBA's All Star Game this weekend is in Chicago, Emmett Till's hometown, and a local art gallery is currently hosting an exhibit imagining his life if he hadn't been lynched. While it's incumbent on the WNBA to do more to protect its players, not Caitlin Clark, it's black and queer players. There should also be an expectation on Clark to recognize the what the wider consequences of her actions. Do you realize what Nancy Armour is doing there? She's connecting Emmett Till's lynching to Caitlin Clark's talent and skill set and behavior on the basketball court. Excuse me. Excuse me, I these people are insane. They're insane. They have lost their ability to think rationally. That is literally dead and gone. In what world do those two things connect? Honestly, even after reading the piece, I don't know where she's going with this. The refs don't take matters into their own hands because they don't protect Caitlyn Clark. That's like the whole discourse that's been online. And anyone who watches Caitlin Clark play would be able to tell you that. That those are two of the dumbest paragraphs that I have ever seen published by sports media in the history of sports. Maybe it's just like an all time rage baiter. Like dropping Emmett Till's name in an article about the WNBA All Star Game. That's got to be an all time rage baiter. I don't know. Maybe I'm falling for it. Maybe this is what Nancy Armour wanted. Journalists and mainstream media just can't even be parodied because their real posts are already unbelievable. If I were Caitlin Clark, I would look into some sort of legal action because what she's doing here, what Nancy Armour is doing in connecting the two, is she's basically saying that Caitlin Clark could end up being responsible for someone being murdered. Like all it takes is one unhinged person to read this and to do the opposite and to take Caitlin Clark out because they view her as causing harm to. I wonder if we'll see the WNBA say anything on this. I imagine we won't. I wonder if USA Today will have any recourse for Nancy Armour. I imagine they won't. Therefore I would love to see Caitlin Clark, I mean, pursue some sort of legal matter. Because if someone said that about me to this very large publication, large I guess in its, in its history, no one reads USA Today anymore, then I would have something to say about it. But the WNBA say anything about it because they're so committed to self imploding, they subsidize everything. If I was a higher up at the WNBA, I would advise the board or the GMs, whoever to lean in to Sophie Cunningham and Caitlin Clark, right? If like the goal is to make money, which any business, which the wnba, it's a business, an organization, any league, that should be a goal, right? You want to be profitable, you want to have money, more money coming in than your putting out. That's kind of just like basic economics. If that's the goal, then I would say lean into Sophie Cunningham, lean into Caitlin Clark. But that's not the goal of the wnba. They've been presented these like golden geese. It was golden goose, I think for a while with, with Caitlin Clark being the main reason people were watching, tuning in to the wnba. But now I would say golden geese because I really do think Sophie Cunningham is a part of that. Now the WNBA is doing actually the exact opposite because they are unseri. So much so that the WNBA players union is not allowing brands to monetize. Sophie Cunningham's point, you know the point. They're not allowing brands to monetize that because it says it would be profiting off of player conduct from a confrontation between our members. Color me shocked. Of course, the Bitter, maladjusted. Mostly women in the WNBA would conspire to sabotage and tear down the league's 1. A few normal, attractive women. It's like textbook intersex competition and resentment. It's the biggest meme in sports right now. The White House posted about it. The UFC. Max Holloway reacted to it in the UFC cage.
- [20:09]
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- [20:13]
Riley Gaines
To finding true love or just like a Good guy?
- [20:17]
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- [20:19]
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- [20:21]
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- [20:28]
Glenn Washington
I'm Owen.
- [20:29]
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- [20:29]
Riley Gaines
What about you and me?
- [20:30]
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- [20:32]
Riley Gaines
I've been told I'm a seven.
- [20:33]
Nancy Armour
By who?
- [20:34]
Riley Gaines
Your mom? No, she thinks I'm a ten.
- [20:36]
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- [20:39]
Riley Gaines
Sheen is selling shirts online and the WNBA players union just banned its own partners for making a single dollar off of it. It a league that reportedly lost like $40 million last year and whose players have been fighting through a CBA battle over pay. The most marketable moment in the league's entire season, if not ever, fell into its lap for free. Mind you, they didn't have to pay anything for it. Every brand in the licensing program you had to imagine wanted it, right? 2k lids. The union said no. The good news is that Sophie Cunningham can license it herself without the, you know, you take off the WNBA logo. She could build a merch operation from scratch mid season and probably make more money. Actually, definitely make more money than she's making with her salary being a part of the wnba. And I hope she does. I hope she does. I hope she monetizes that point. Sell those shirts. Capitalize on every single bit of deserved attention attention that you're getting. What you're selling. I'm buying. People across the world are buying because she has that effect. Last thing re WNBA. Caitlin Clark is now officially the NBA 2K27 Deluxe Edition cover athlete. I just say that to say again, hopefully the league. Because it seems as if league affiliates and partners are leaning in now. Hopefully the league begins to lean in. I'll never forget the asinine decision to keep by 2K to keep Caitlin Clark off the COVID in 2026 and to put Angel Reese on it. Caitlin Clark is the face of the league. She has been the face of the league. Now she's got a little sidekick in Sophie Cunningham. They are a dynamic duo. Fans love them. People love them. Kids love these girls. Here's a video of Sophie Cunningham recently at a kids camp and they're all doing the point. That visual, it means a lot. It says something. That's how you inspire the next generation. Not by people like Megan Rapino tries to like fear monger into thinking young girls are going to have to get their genitals inspected in order to play sports or in order to exist at all as women. It's not true. So in a world full of Megan Rapinoe via Sophie Cunningham thank you guys for watching the Riley Gaines Show. You can subscribe right here. We have new episodes every single Tuesday and Friday at 10:00am Eastern Time and we are covering everything from pop culture to politics to deep dives to motherhood. It's sports, all of that and more. We want to hear from you though. What is it that you want to hear? Comment down below. We can't wait to see you next time.
- [23:36]
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