Live from New York — it’s ‘We’re Not Kidding’! This past week, Mehdi traveled to the ‘On Air Fest’ in Brooklyn for a very special LIVE taping of ‘WNK’ with award-winning sports journalist and broadcaster Jemele Hill. You may remember Jemele from the first Trump administration, when political ‘nepo baby’ and then-White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called for ESPN to fire Jemele for calling Donald Trump a white supremacist.
“The whole point of journalism is about telling the truth. If you can't call a thing a thing, why are you a journalist?” Jemele says to Mehdi. “You have a lot of people who will say, ‘Oh, I'm just being objective.’ No, your job is to be fair. There's no two sides to racism. There's no two sides to white supremacy. Either it's white supremacy or it's not.”
In this wide-ranging conversation, Mehdi and Jemele discuss Trump and Elon Musk’s recent attacks on the press and the dangerous behavior of some mainstream journalists who value access over solidarity. They also dig into the crucial intersection of sports and politics, including Trump’s historic Super Bowl appearance, the capitulation of (some) professional sports leagues, the 2026 FIFA World Cup and 2028 Summer Olympics, and whether the NFL is responsible for Trump running for president. “To be honest, I sort of blame the NFL because we have to deal with Trump in this capacity,” Jemele says. Intriguing, right?
Jemele also has some advice for the Democrats and she’s only half-joking: “Democrats worry too much about the people hating outside the club. That's the whole problem, right? They’re worried about everybody hating from the general admission line.”
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