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Speaker 1: Before we begin, a reminder to please rate and review

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Speaker 1: our show that helps new listeners discover us and grow

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Speaker 1: the program. On this episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly, Royce

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Speaker 1: White was a good college basketball player who was perhaps

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Speaker 1: best known for a short and bumpy stint in the

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Speaker 1: NBA until when he led several protests in Minnesota against

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Speaker 1: police brutality following the murder of George Floyd. At the time,

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Speaker 1: White was praised as an up and coming civil rights activist.

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Speaker 1: So how did that version of White, a black man,

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Speaker 1: end up falling in with maga ideologues like Steve Bannon?

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Speaker 1: And why is he running for Congress in Minnesota as

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Speaker 1: a right wing populist. Journalist David Gardner joins us to

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Speaker 1: explain how White became a favorite of the far right.

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Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, June fifteen. I'm your host, John Gonzalez from

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Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio. This is Sports Illustrated Weekly.

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Speaker 1: My name is Royce White, on a fifth generation Minnesota

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Speaker 1: and a product of the Twin Cities. But first and foremost,

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Speaker 1: I'm an American. I'm running for Congress because our leaders

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Speaker 1: have sold us out. David Gardner, Welcome to Sports Illustrated Weekly.

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Speaker 1: Great to be here, Thanks for having me, John. Yes,

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Speaker 1: so you wrote a must read piece about Royce White

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Speaker 1: in the Washington Post. Heavily reported, and David White is

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Speaker 1: sort of this fringe figure in pro sports. He wasn't

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Speaker 1: in the NBA for very long. He's tried his hand

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Speaker 1: at m n A for a minute, and yet he's

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Speaker 1: gotten quite a bit of media attention during his career

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Speaker 1: for reasons that we'll get into. But first tell us

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Speaker 1: a little bit about who Royce White is and why

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Speaker 1: you decided to write about his nascent political career. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: if you're a college basketball fan like I am, then

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Speaker 1: you probably remember Royce had an absolutely spectacular season at

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Speaker 1: Iowa State. He lost to a great Kentucky team, but

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Speaker 1: they had a decent n c A tournament run. It

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Speaker 1: was a team loaded with transfers. He actually led the

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Speaker 1: n c A all five major statistical categories that season.

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Speaker 1: It was just an exceptional dominant player. Actually played sort

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Speaker 1: of ahead of his time. He's more of a small

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Speaker 1: ball oriented offense guy, and I think in today's NBA

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Speaker 1: he might have thrived more than he did ten years ago.

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Speaker 1: When he was drafted, he was a first round pick

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Speaker 1: and then, as I'm sure we're gonna get into, he

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Speaker 1: had some pretty notable battles with the NBA over their

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Speaker 1: mental health policy that sort of derailed his career. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a lot of the conversation around him back then was

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Speaker 1: about his unwillingness to fly. He's a reluctant flyer. I

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Speaker 1: guess we might call him euphemistically. Tell us a little

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Speaker 1: bit about that, because he says that that's not why

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Speaker 1: he didn't make it in the NBA, and that it's

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Speaker 1: a convenient narrative for the NBA to say, oh, this

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Speaker 1: is why, and it really he says, wasn't about that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so pardon the terrible pun, but I'll just say that,

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Speaker 1: you know, he said that this narrative took off because

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Speaker 1: of the NBA, right, But what he says is that

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Speaker 1: he was always able to manage his anxiety. It was

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Speaker 1: triggered by flying, but he was able to manage it.

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Speaker 1: And I talked to Iowa state coaches who confirmed that

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Speaker 1: they actually had an assistant coach that he was very

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Speaker 1: close with who would sit with him during takeoff at

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Speaker 1: the times when his anxiety was most likely to trigger,

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Speaker 1: and throughout the flight keep him in conversation, keep him healthy,

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Speaker 1: keep him talking. And then he also flew when he

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Speaker 1: played for the Professional Basketball League in Canada too. They

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Speaker 1: didn't do a lot of flying, but he did it

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Speaker 1: when he was able to, when he needed to, And

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Speaker 1: so I am sympathetic to him in the sense that

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Speaker 1: I think that he was more willing to fly than

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Speaker 1: people give him credit for. At the same time, he

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Speaker 1: was trying to unfold a larger battle with the NBA

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Speaker 1: about their overall mental health policy, and in that way,

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Speaker 1: he was really well ahead of his time. Yeah, the

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Speaker 1: battle with the NBA and Royce White continues, at least

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Speaker 1: in one direction. He calls the n B a a

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Speaker 1: quote neoliberal, globalist, Marxist, radical materialist establishment, which is just

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Speaker 1: an incredible mouthful, and it's just one of the many

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Speaker 1: organizations and entities that he has a problem with. This

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Speaker 1: is a big grievance for him. Yeah, he considers the

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Speaker 1: NBA and many other large global corporation is to be

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Speaker 1: part of what he considers to be the corporate ocracy,

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Speaker 1: which is the merger of the government and large corporations

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Speaker 1: at a scale at which ultimately, I think the end result,

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Speaker 1: as he understands it is to strip everybody of their

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Speaker 1: individual American citizenship and to replace them with a global citizenship.

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Speaker 1: Of course, this is this kind of language is a

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Speaker 1: conspiracy theory that goes back as far as geopolitics goes back.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes there's lizard people behind it. Sometimes, unfortunately it's ethnic

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Speaker 1: minorities that are labeled as escapegoats in this situation. But

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Speaker 1: that's his understanding of his grievance against the NBA, which

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Speaker 1: particularly manifested it against David Stern, who he said that

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Speaker 1: he outlived because of prayer, even though David Stern is

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Speaker 1: about fifty years older than him. Yeah, you could also

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Speaker 1: take that into account. But so Royce White, I mean, look,

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Speaker 1: a lot of people have complicated, convoluted political beliefs. Certainly

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Speaker 1: athletes do as well, but he was not exactly an

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Speaker 1: athlete of renown, right, So normally, under usual circumstances, you

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Speaker 1: would expect him to be sort of relegated to a

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Speaker 1: innge figure that we only tangentially pay attention to, if

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Speaker 1: we pay attention to him at all. And yet he's

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Speaker 1: really had this resurgence in terms of people focusing on

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Speaker 1: what Royce White has to say. When did he first

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Speaker 1: pop back up? On the radar off the court. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think for most people, if they weren't paying attention

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Speaker 1: to his m m A career. And I think he's

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Speaker 1: only been in one fight. You'll have to fact check

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Speaker 1: me on that, but he does not have a stellar

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Speaker 1: mm A record, I think for most people and for

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Speaker 1: me certainly. He came back on to the scene after

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Speaker 1: the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Royce's from Minneapolis,

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Speaker 1: and he played his first season of college basketball, although

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Speaker 1: he never saw the court for the Minneapolis Gophers, and

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Speaker 1: he was out on the streets leading protests, and at

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Speaker 1: that time he was actually sounding in some ways very

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Speaker 1: similar to a lot of the liberal protesters. He was

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Speaker 1: talking about the police being outside the circle of trust

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Speaker 1: and wanting them to be back in the circle of trust.

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Speaker 1: But he has since sort of recast what he was protesting,

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Speaker 1: and he now says he was protesting like the Federal

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Speaker 1: Reserve and these other things that he takes issue you with. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: around the time of the George Floyd protests, he's out

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Speaker 1: in the streets, he's protesting with Black Lives Matter. He's

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Speaker 1: on MSNBC talking about policing issues. As you mentioned, sounded

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Speaker 1: at least to me, incredibly socially progressive, and yet, as

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Speaker 1: you mentioned, these days, something entirely different from his political position.

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Speaker 1: He's taken a very hard right turn. He's trumpeting a

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Speaker 1: lot of the sentiment you could hear from the MAGA

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Speaker 1: movement and the far right. How did he get involved

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Speaker 1: with and start espousing far right political views? So that

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Speaker 1: was my starting point with this story. I looked at

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Speaker 1: a guy who I read about actually in the Washington

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Speaker 1: Post two years prior to my feature, who was being

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Speaker 1: featured as an emerging civil rights activist, who was out

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Speaker 1: here on the streets, like you said, protesting the murder

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Speaker 1: of George Floyd. And then a couple of years go by,

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Speaker 1: and then I see him announce his campaign on Twitter,

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Speaker 1: and in his campaign he's criticizing Elan Umar and he's

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Speaker 1: saying some pretty outlandish things I would say. And so

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Speaker 1: then I look him up and it looks like he's

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Speaker 1: friends with Steve Bann. Now he's appearing on Alex jones

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Speaker 1: Is Info Wars program, which is a conspiracy theory show.

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Speaker 1: And I was just very surprised at how this happened.

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Speaker 1: So that's why I wanted to get in touch with

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Speaker 1: him and see how do you reconcile those two things?

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Speaker 1: How do you go from being a protester against police

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Speaker 1: brutality to being a far right congressional candidate. And the

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Speaker 1: answer in that sense is that he sort of went

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Speaker 1: down a YouTube rabbit hole that started with watching some

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Speaker 1: Steve Bannon videos, listening to Steve Bannon's war Room Pandemic podcast,

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Speaker 1: and then eventually becoming friends with Steve Bannon through the

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Speaker 1: Big Three, which was a sort of unlikely and unexpected

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Speaker 1: basketball connection that I did not anticipate finding when I

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Speaker 1: started the reporting. Royce White, who's the beginning of the

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Speaker 1: season in the Big Three league, really the reason why're

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Speaker 1: having him on. I think he's one of the most

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Speaker 1: original thinkers in this country now. But populism, nationalism, economic issues,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. Well, First, first, Eve, I want to say

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Speaker 1: to you, like I said you off air, I've been

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Speaker 1: following a war Room since the pandemic first broke out

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Speaker 1: of the ulan Um. I really appreciate the information you

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Speaker 1: were putting out at that time and work you continue

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Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, you mentioned some of the very strange

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Speaker 1: bedfellows that he finds himself interacting with, like Alex Jones,

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Speaker 1: who was d platform from Twitter and YouTube for all

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Speaker 1: sorts of conspiracy theories, misinformation, disinformation. Most notably, he was

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Speaker 1: sued and has gone bankrupt or filed for bankruptcy because

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Speaker 1: he had said that the Sandy Hook shootings were done

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Speaker 1: by crisis actors. And now he's also Royce White hanging

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Speaker 1: out with Steve Bannon, who was a major figure of

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Speaker 1: the far right of former and current advisor to former

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Speaker 1: President Trump. I'm really aggressive anti immigration nationalist with serious

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Speaker 1: racist undertones or even overtly racist views. He's also under

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Speaker 1: indictment for refusing to cooperate with the January six Committee.

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Speaker 1: White calls him a friend, David and a mentor and

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Speaker 1: the quote American hero. This seems to me to be

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Speaker 1: a very strange alliance. Yeah, he refers to him as

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Speaker 1: an American hero, and our conversations many times, not just

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Speaker 1: the one time that's er in the piece, but he

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Speaker 1: regularly referred to Bannon as an American hero. We didn't

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Speaker 1: have a chance to get into the piece. It was

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Speaker 1: already lengthdy as it was. But he also discussed that

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Speaker 1: he thought that Steve Bannon's current indictment, which you referenced

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Speaker 1: he's facing misdemeanor charges for refusing to cooperate with the

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Speaker 1: January six Commission. Is a product of a kangaroo court,

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Speaker 1: he said, and he does not respect the January six Commission.

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Speaker 1: Of course. Bannon also evaded felonies previously because of a

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Speaker 1: build the Wall campaign that he participated in. Two of

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Speaker 1: his co conspirators have since pleaded guilty to those felony

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Speaker 1: charges of money laundering, wire fraud, those sorts of things.

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Speaker 1: Bannon only got away with it because Donald Trump, his friend,

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Speaker 1: gave him a pardon, and so it is a really

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Speaker 1: really strange friendship. But I think if you look into

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Speaker 1: a little bit more closely, you start to understand. Mainly,

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Speaker 1: Bannon still enjoys an enormous platform. He's been d platform

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Speaker 1: by Twitter because he called for the beheading of Dr

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Speaker 1: Anthony Faucci, but he still has an enormously successful podcast,

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Speaker 1: radio show, television show that live streams, and Royce has

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Speaker 1: been able to develop an audience in the far right.

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Speaker 1: You don't see it on Twitter. He used to have

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Speaker 1: about five thousand followers on Twitter and now he's got

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Speaker 1: about a hundred thousand. But on these platforms like Getter

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Speaker 1: and Truth He's growing an enormous presence there. So White

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Speaker 1: gets access to Bannon's platform, he gets to put himself

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Speaker 1: out there. What does Bannon c in Royce White? Because

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Speaker 1: from Afar you see a guy, a black man who

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Speaker 1: was protesting on behalf of Black Lives Matter, who was

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Speaker 1: in the streets again protesting against George Floyd's murder. What

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Speaker 1: does Bannon see White as? Is he a good messenger

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Speaker 1: for their brand of politics? I mean, what is Bannon

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Speaker 1: getting out of this? Yeah? Well, I think it's important

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Speaker 1: to note here that you know, some people when I

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Speaker 1: talked to them about Royce, people who know him well,

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Speaker 1: some people were worried that he was just sort of

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Speaker 1: playing the part. And I think a lot of people

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Speaker 1: on the left have this conspiracy or this thought that

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Speaker 1: a lot of people on the right are disingenuous with

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Speaker 1: their beliefs, but they're just trying to get famous because

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Speaker 1: of them, or you can get a lot of reach

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Speaker 1: tweets or likes on your Twitter accounts. Royce actually, when

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Speaker 1: we talked, his views are in alignment with Steve Bannon,

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Speaker 1: and in fact, Bannon multiple times during our conversations said

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Speaker 1: that Royce White was to the right of him, and

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Speaker 1: I don't think that there are very many people in

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Speaker 1: Now Steve Bannon, if you're a cynic also gets something

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Speaker 1: out of Royce White, which is that he adds a

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Speaker 1: bit of diversity to his movement, which has previously been

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Speaker 1: associated primarily with white nationalism. And so he adds a

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Speaker 1: guy and he says it in the piece, he said,

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Speaker 1: here's a guy, here's a black guy who's talking about

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Speaker 1: real issues. And later on he says, the people on

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Speaker 1: his right criticize him for incorporating people who are black,

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Speaker 1: who are Jewish, who are Hispanic into his movement, but

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Speaker 1: he sees that as the future of America. He doesn't

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Speaker 1: think that he can enact the kind of change that

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Speaker 1: to bring minorities into the bold from the people around

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Speaker 1: Royce White, because I'm with you from afar, the cynical

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Speaker 1: part of me goes, Okay, this is just a transactional

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Speaker 1: relationship between White and these fringe far right figures so

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Speaker 1: he can gain some sort of popularity or notoriety. What

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Speaker 1: it was, friends and teammates and former coaches who know

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Speaker 1: him best have to say about the attorney's taken. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I spoke with countless people who have played with him

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Speaker 1: at all levels of basketball, people who have coached him

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Speaker 1: at all levels of basketball, and everybody sort of has

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Speaker 1: their theory because Royce doesn't maintain relationships with a lot

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Speaker 1: of people in that world anymore, and so these are

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Speaker 1: just people who are from afar observing what's happened with Royce.

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Speaker 1: Some people said that, you know, he's always been a

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Speaker 1: sort of conspiratorial guy, and so it's not too surprising

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Speaker 1: to them that ultimately he ended up finding these far

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Speaker 1: right conspiracy theories and identifying with them. Some people thought

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Speaker 1: that perhaps he was just doing it for a platform.

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Speaker 1: I had one NBA coach tell me that he was

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Speaker 1: just going to chase a check wherever he could find it.

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Speaker 1: I didn't put that in the piece because I didn't

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Speaker 1: think it was a necessarily fair way to describe what's

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Speaker 1: happening with Royce. And I thought his politics were genuine

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Speaker 1: in the way that he was talking about them with me.

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Speaker 1: And then other people are just really concerned about him.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I tried to emphasize that in the piece

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Speaker 1: as much as I could, but there are friends and

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Speaker 1: people who considered themselves at one time to be close

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Speaker 1: friends with his family, members of his who are really

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Speaker 1: deeply concerned about the kind of people that he's associating with.

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Speaker 1: It's not just Steve Bannon, who is a dangerous and

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Speaker 1: deranged figure in American politics, but it's also like Alex

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Speaker 1: Jones you referenced. I mean, if a guy calls Sandy

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Speaker 1: Hook grieving families crisis actors, if he says that people

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Speaker 1: who are neo Nazis are actually Jewish actors, if he

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Speaker 1: says that there's stuff in the water that turns frogs gay,

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Speaker 1: I mean, these are people that you just don't associate

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Speaker 1: with if you want to take yourself seriously. Yeah. So,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think when you call Royce Whites politics genuine,

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Speaker 1: it's also fair to call them extreme. He's circulating with

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Speaker 1: all these other people with these similarly extreme view who's

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Speaker 1: and he's running for Congress. He's running in a very

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Speaker 1: heavily democratic district where the congress person at present is

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Speaker 1: Ilhan Omar, And I think the wrinkle there isn't just

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Speaker 1: that he's running against Omar, who is a convenient person

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Speaker 1: to attack for the far right. But the interesting part

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Speaker 1: for me, what stood out was that the GOP doesn't

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Speaker 1: even want him to run in that district. Right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So the way that Minnesota congressional seats work is that

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Speaker 1: there's a delegate process, and so nobody is bound by

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Speaker 1: the delicate process, but it's particularly the way that normally

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Speaker 1: candidates are nominated for seats. So the delegates actually voted

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Speaker 1: seventy seven twenty four in favor of another Republican candidate

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Speaker 1: to face off against Ellean Omar. Her name is Cec Davis.

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Speaker 1: She's got a really interesting story herself. And Royce went

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Speaker 1: up in front of these delegates when this meeting happened,

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Speaker 1: and he said that he was not going to accept

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Speaker 1: it because he said that the Republican Party had to

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Speaker 1: describe itself as the Party of God, and he was

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Speaker 1: going to stand up as the face of the Party

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Speaker 1: of God. And as a result, he's decided that he's

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Speaker 1: going to primary miss Davis as she's running, and so

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Speaker 1: there's a pretty likely outcome in which he doesn't even

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Speaker 1: actually end up facing off against Alan Omar, unless he

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Speaker 1: decides later to run as an independent. If you can't

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Speaker 1: secure the Republican nomination. Yeah, the I believe the primary

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Speaker 1: is in August. What are his prospects for the primary?

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Speaker 1: He doesn't seem favorable for the primary. I mean you

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Speaker 1: have to consider that this district is plus twenty five Democratics.

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Speaker 1: So if he were out in the further out in

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Speaker 1: the suburbs, or are really in rural Minnesota, I think

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Speaker 1: that he would have a better chance at a nomination.

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Speaker 1: But he's in a really heavily democratic district, and even

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Speaker 1: the Republicans in this district are not what you would

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Speaker 1: consider the sort of far right maga Republicans. They're more

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Speaker 1: of the classic nineteen eighties Ronald Reagan Republicans, who are,

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Speaker 1: you know, just interested in tax cuts and family values

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Speaker 1: and things of that nature. I don't think that Royce's

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Speaker 1: messages about, for example, the federal or reserve will really

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Speaker 1: have a lot of resonance with people. And I think

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Speaker 1: that also he's going to face some attacks from the

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Speaker 1: right because although he says he wasn't protesting with Black

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Speaker 1: Lives Matter, that's how most people remember him in Minneapolis

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Speaker 1: right now, is leading these protests against police brutality. And

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Speaker 1: you have to remember Republicans took a very negative view

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Speaker 1: of those protests, they called people looters. Public opinion polls

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Speaker 1: showed that Republicans were not interested in these protests and

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Speaker 1: they had a negative view of them. And so he's

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Speaker 1: going to have some attacks not only from the left

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Speaker 1: but from the right. In this district, he faces a

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Speaker 1: really steep battle. Yeah, he's really trying to thread a

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Speaker 1: needle there. And the way that you buttoned up the piece,

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Speaker 1: I think said at all. You had a family member

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Speaker 1: who said, what if he says all this terrible stuff

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Speaker 1: and loses, or what if he says at all any winds? Right?

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Speaker 1: I mean, So he's just out here peddling a brand

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Speaker 1: of politics that I'm not sure who exactly it's for. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean I think if you want to know who

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Speaker 1: it's for, it's for the people that he's appearing with

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Speaker 1: on their podcasts. You know, there is an audience out

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Speaker 1: there for people who want to hear this kind of

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Speaker 1: popular right wing rhetoric. He's going to have a platform

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Speaker 1: with Steve Bannon for as long as he wants it.

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Speaker 1: He was just on Tim Pool's show, which has become

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Speaker 1: an increasingly far right presence. He's got an open invitation

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Speaker 1: for Alex Jones as well, And of course he's appeared

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Speaker 1: on former sports reporter Jason Whitlock's podcast a number of

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Speaker 1: times too, and Jason himself has had a turn towards

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Speaker 1: right wing politics, and so I think that he enjoys

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Speaker 1: the platform. You know, I think that if things had

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Speaker 1: gone differently with the NBA, that he could have had

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Speaker 1: a different voice in this if he had been respected

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Speaker 1: for his battle against mental health, things could have gone

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Speaker 1: a different way. But ultimately that's not the way that

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Speaker 1: it went. And he's gone to a place where he

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Speaker 1: enjoys a platform, he enjoys being accepted, and he enjoys

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Speaker 1: being thought of as a thought leader. That's how Steve

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Speaker 1: Bannon describes him as a thought leader in the far

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Speaker 1: right populist movement. So you wrote this piece about White,

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Speaker 1: and I would call it a very unexpected life turn

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Speaker 1: for him, and it got a massive response, including from

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Speaker 1: White himself, who respond in his newsletter, and I'll just

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Speaker 1: describe his newsletter as a lot. He called you a

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Speaker 1: pencil powered keyboard warrior. I don't know what that means,

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Speaker 1: but good for you. I think you should have a

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Speaker 1: shirt made up. What did you make of his response? Uh?

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Speaker 1: You know, I thought it was interesting because I have

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Speaker 1: written pieces before about people who I didn't think we're

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Speaker 1: gonna like the ultimate product, and uh, I had very

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Speaker 1: many interviews with him where I was pushing back on him.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if he expected it to be a

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Speaker 1: flattering piece or not. I sent the piece to his

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Speaker 1: campaign manager. Royce never gave me his number, so I

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Speaker 1: didn't talk to him that way, but I sent it

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Speaker 1: to his campaign manager. His campaign manager said thank you.

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Speaker 1: I didn't hear from Royce at all. I sort of

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Speaker 1: half expected him to call or his campaign manager to

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Speaker 1: call and yell at me. People are always welcome to

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Speaker 1: call me after I report on them. I just have

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Speaker 1: not heard from him in that way. And then he

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Speaker 1: published this open letter, and you know, I didn't respond

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Speaker 1: to it on Twitter, and I'm not gonna respond to

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Speaker 1: it on Twitter either. Is because I think that he's

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Speaker 1: just trying to draw out the fight. And I think

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Speaker 1: that for many people on the far right, it actually

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Speaker 1: helps them to have what they call hit pieces run

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Speaker 1: against them in mainstream media outlets because they can say

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Speaker 1: then that they're, you know, not endorsed by the Jeff

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Speaker 1: Bezos Washington Post or the New York Times or whatever.

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Speaker 1: I read the piece. He asked for a correction, but

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Speaker 1: he didn't cite anything that he wanted to be corrected.

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Speaker 1: I stand by all of the reporting in it. I

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Speaker 1: did think that if you read his other substack posts,

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Speaker 1: it's very in line with that in the sense that

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Speaker 1: he goes off on many tangents and it's very lengthy.

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Speaker 1: And if I can be silly for a second, I'll

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Speaker 1: just say it took me about a month to write

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Speaker 1: my three thousand words story, and I think his response

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Speaker 1: was words and he wrote it the next day. And

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Speaker 1: I have enormous respect for that as a right to

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Speaker 1: be able to do that on deadline. Yeah, he really

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Speaker 1: cracked that out. I don't know that I would recommend

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Speaker 1: reading his newsletter, but I very much recommend reading your

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Speaker 1: piece about Royce White and the far right in the

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Speaker 1: Washington Post. David Gardner, thanks for this, Thanks John, thanks

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Speaker 1: for listening, and a reminder to please rate and review

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Speaker 1: our show. Be on the lookout for Friday's special bonus

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Speaker 1: Father's Day episode with Pat Forty. Sports Illustrated Weekly is

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Speaker 1: And for more of Sports Illustrated It's best stories and podcasts,

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Speaker 1: visit SI dot com. This episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly

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Speaker 1: was produced by Jessica Yourmoski and Isaac Lee, who was

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Speaker 1: also our sound engineer. Our senior producer is Dan Bloom.

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Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Scott Brody and me John Gonzalez.

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Speaker 1: Our theme song is by Nolan Schneider. If you've stuck

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Speaker 1: around this song, we leave you with this tease for

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Speaker 1: Friday's special episode. Yeah, all of a sudden, the little

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Speaker 1: brown eyed girl who used to sit night. I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: cry reading this. I haven't read this in a long time.

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Speaker 1: All Right, get it together.