Speaker 1: D NBA Playoffs, Zion Williamson controversy, Pee Diddy more controversy,
Speaker 1: Harvard versus Trump, Elon Musk and Trump and Jamal Charlow
Speaker 1: with a boxing match this weekend in the house.
Speaker 2: Personally, there's a lot going on with The Steven A.
Speaker 2: Smith Show and I'm here for it. Let's roll.
Speaker 3: What's up?
Speaker 2: Everybody?
Speaker 1: Welcome to the latest edition of The Stephen A. Smith Show,
Speaker 1: coming at you as I love to do it at
Speaker 1: the very least three times a week over the digital
Speaker 1: airways of YouTube and of course iHeartRadio. As always, before
Speaker 1: I get into any subject matters, I like to pause
Speaker 1: for a moment to thank my subscribers and followers the
Speaker 1: millions of downloads courtesy of iHeartRadio, a subscriber base over
Speaker 1: the digital airways of YouTube that has now eclipsed one
Speaker 1: point twenty two million. Can't thank y'all for the love
Speaker 1: and support enough for the show. Keep it coming, and
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Speaker 1: for all of our newest content, and you too shall
Speaker 1: be considered the latest member of the Steven ATE Smith
Speaker 1: Show family. And while you're doing that, Please don't forget
Speaker 1: to pick up a copy of my New York Times
Speaker 1: best selling book, Straight Shooter, a Memoir of Second Chances
Speaker 1: and First Takes, now in paperback. Just go to straight
Speaker 1: shoot book dot com to get yourself a copy once
Speaker 1: to get that straightsheet to book dot com to get
Speaker 1: yourself a copy. If you notice usually on the screen,
Speaker 1: you'll see you know, hey, straight Shooter Media. I named
Speaker 1: my production company my media company after my book, So
Speaker 1: that's the correlation.
Speaker 2: In case you were wondering. Let's get started with a
Speaker 2: few things.
Speaker 1: Obviously, I got Trump and must to get into Trump
Speaker 1: and Harvard to get into and what that's gonna bean
Speaker 1: free speech in the United States of America, Diddy, Oh lord,
Speaker 1: I got my mayor Ryan Smith coming up. Considering the
Speaker 1: stuff that we've been hearing that's going on in that trial,
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, that's a lot to talk about as well.
Speaker 1: And of course Jamal Cello, former junior middleweight to middleweight
Speaker 1: champion of the world, now looking to become super middleweight
Speaker 1: champion of the world. But he's got to win. He
Speaker 1: was enacted for the last eighteen months. We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: to him for a little bit. But before we do
Speaker 1: any of that, let's get started with the NBA playoffs
Speaker 1: and the Eastern Conference Finals, where the New York Knicks
Speaker 1: have forced the Game six back in Indy against the
Speaker 1: Pacers to borrow night. The Knicks looked or locked up
Speaker 1: the Pacers last night, holding them to just ninety four
Speaker 1: points while Jalalen Brunson and call Anthony Towns led to
Speaker 1: charge for New York. Brunton came out swinging, of course,
Speaker 1: dropping thirty two points on Indy, while Town's finished with
Speaker 1: twenty four points and thirteen rebounds on a gimpy leg,
Speaker 1: so give him credit for that. But again, defensively, the
Speaker 1: Knicks held the Face just forty percent shooting.
Speaker 2: For the game.
Speaker 1: Tyrese Halliburton, who was the hero in Game four with
Speaker 1: that thirty point triple double, was held to just eight
Speaker 1: points on two for eight shooting.
Speaker 2: And that is where.
Speaker 1: We go because when you look at Tyrese Halliburton, Listen,
Speaker 1: there's been a debate going back and for Superstar Superstar
Speaker 1: not Superstar.
Speaker 2: And the brother can Ball.
Speaker 1: You got a whole bunch of haters in the NBA
Speaker 1: calling him overrated. That's bs, He's not overrated. The brother
Speaker 1: can ball. But there's been at least thirteen or fourteen
Speaker 1: games this year where he scored in single digits.
Speaker 2: That's not a superstar in this league.
Speaker 1: You're the number one option their game planning for you
Speaker 1: every single night, and every single night it's a given
Speaker 1: that you answered the call. The Steph Curries of the
Speaker 1: world know about this. The Lebron James of the world
Speaker 1: knows about this. Back in the day, it was Russell Westbrook.
Speaker 1: It's still Kevin Durant. By the way, you're still Yannis,
Speaker 1: it's still Jokic. Those are superstars. Anybody else you're not
Speaker 1: getting that title, can't give you that title. So we
Speaker 1: gotta be clear about that. But Tyrese Halliburton can ball,
Speaker 1: make no mistake about it. And because of how horrid
Speaker 1: he was in Game five at Madison Square Garden last night,
Speaker 1: I'm certainly not anticipating he's gonna be that way in
Speaker 1: Game six. I think he's gonna look to be aggressive.
Speaker 1: He's gonna look to find this shot him and Pascal
Speaker 1: Siakam and if the New York Knicks are gonna walk
Speaker 1: away with a victory, notching the series to three to
Speaker 1: three and forcing the game seven at Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 1: It's going to have to be because Jalen Brunson and
Speaker 1: Karl Anthony Town show up with their A game, And
Speaker 1: it's gonna have to be because Michel Bridges and og
Speaker 1: Annobe show up and handle their business and do what
Speaker 1: the hell they're supposed to do. Now, let me be
Speaker 1: very very clear about what I'm saying when I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about og Anobi. Okay, that's two hundred twenty million dollars.
Speaker 1: It's two hundred twenty million dollars, two hundred and twelve
Speaker 1: million dollars. It's contract he got, damn it. You came
Speaker 1: out of Toronto when the Knicks acquired you. Bottom line is,
Speaker 1: nobody expected you to be a two hundred million dollar player,
Speaker 1: but you've developed into that. And I'm very very happy
Speaker 1: you got your money because Lord knows you can defend.
Speaker 2: You need to tomorrow night. You need to Tomorrow night.
Speaker 1: Somebody gotta help shut down Pascal Siakam.
Speaker 2: And if you're Michel Bridges, my brother, the Knicks gave
Speaker 2: up five first round picks for you for unprotected.
Speaker 1: If the New York Knicks can't get their hands on
Speaker 1: a Jannis Anthe, the Gounfo or Kevin Durant to get
Speaker 1: him to come to the garden or somebody else.
Speaker 2: You know, everybody gonna look at you, right because the
Speaker 2: New York Knicks would be devoid of the.
Speaker 1: Assets to appease of Milwaukee or Phoenix or anybody else
Speaker 1: for that matter. And as a result, we gonna look
Speaker 1: at it because most of the assets were given away
Speaker 1: to acquire you. Michael Bridges. I believe in you, brother.
Speaker 1: I believe in your spirit. I believe in in your reliability.
Speaker 1: I believe in your presence.
Speaker 2: You got to show up. You got to show up.
Speaker 2: It's just that simple.
Speaker 1: I don't think I give the Knicks about a thirty
Speaker 1: percent chance to win this game. I'm hopeful, of course,
Speaker 1: because I'm a diehard New York Knicks fan, because I'm
Speaker 1: a native of New York and I love my Knicks.
Speaker 1: But realistically speaking, neutrally, just basketball expertise, I give the
Speaker 1: Knicks a thirty percent chance. It's nice to see Tom
Speaker 1: Thibodeaux using this bench now. It's really really good to
Speaker 1: see that. I get it, I understand it, no problem.
Speaker 2: But who can we really trust? Can Jayon Brnst to
Speaker 2: stay out of foul trouble.
Speaker 1: Can call Anthony town stop committing stupid fouls and stay
Speaker 1: out of foul trouble so we can have them on
Speaker 1: the court so he can make shots that need to
Speaker 1: be made, particularly since he has his way with Indiana
Speaker 1: and he drops the average is thirty on fifty seven
Speaker 1: since shurting. Come on, bro, this is what he's done
Speaker 1: against Indiana this year during the regular season. It's the playoffs. Now,
Speaker 1: stop getting in foul trouble. We don't need you on
Speaker 1: the bench. And then Tim's gotta put in Mitchell Robinson
Speaker 1: and they engage in a Hacker Robinson philosophy because they
Speaker 1: know he's gonna go to the to the free throw
Speaker 1: line and miss half the shots.
Speaker 2: We need Carl Anthony Towns of the game, stay in
Speaker 2: the game.
Speaker 1: Even with all that being said, Indiana's gonna be a
Speaker 1: lower because Halliburton is no joke.
Speaker 2: Siakam is no joke.
Speaker 1: Nie Smith and them hard is gonna have something to
Speaker 1: say about this outcome.
Speaker 2: Hell TJ.
Speaker 1: Mcconne's gonna have something to say about this this outcome.
Speaker 1: Not to forget Matherne, who's been good the last two games.
Speaker 1: The brother had twenty points in twelve minutes in Game four,
Speaker 1: he had.
Speaker 2: About seventeen last night in Game five.
Speaker 1: Indiana's d and if I'm being totally honest, they make
Speaker 1: for better finals then New York against OKAC because I
Speaker 1: don't know if New York will win a game against
Speaker 1: it's the OKCE thunder. Whereas I could see, Indiana went
Speaker 1: into of those games because they have offensive prowess and
Speaker 1: they could score. But Oklahoma City is gonna win the championship.
Speaker 1: So that's all I wanted to say for now. Enjoy
Speaker 1: the games over the weekend. We'll talk more about this
Speaker 1: on Monday when the outcome is decided and or you know,
Speaker 1: unless there's a game seven Monday.
Speaker 2: Night, we'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 1: Got something else I need to get into right now,
Speaker 1: because it's time to get to a headline that broke
Speaker 1: earlier today, literally about an hour or two ago, and
Speaker 1: that's a lawsuit filed against Zion Williamson of the New
Speaker 1: Orleans Pelicans alleging rape and kidnapping. The suit comes from
Speaker 1: a woman using the pseudonym Jane Doe, who claimed to
Speaker 1: be an ex girlfriend who alleged she dated Zion back
Speaker 1: at twenty eighteen when he played for Duke.
Speaker 2: Jane Doe alleges that.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, a little over a year after Williamson
Speaker 1: left Duke to join the New Orleans Pelicans, the basketball
Speaker 1: star raped and assaulted her.
Speaker 2: In southern California. Look, y'all, I have.
Speaker 1: An obligation from this microphone to be very very careful.
Speaker 1: Rape is a very serious allegation. Sexual assaula is a
Speaker 1: very serious allegation, and we certainly don't want to summarily
Speaker 1: dismiss anybody making those claims because history has proven, according
Speaker 1: to stats and data, that many, many times that women
Speaker 1: have been abused and assaulted, it's been years before the
Speaker 1: assaulters have been brought to justice in some kind of way.
Speaker 1: So we understand that, and we understand that the times
Speaker 1: that we're living in is by and large because of
Speaker 1: some involving no good ass men who would do such
Speaker 1: a heinous thing to a woman, And in other situations
Speaker 1: it's involving men who turned the blind eye and a
Speaker 1: deaf ear to it all. Now, there are plenty of
Speaker 1: men that have daughters, they have sisters, that have wonderful moms,
Speaker 1: who loved the women in their life and fine and
Speaker 1: would never do such a thing and would be ready
Speaker 1: to kick anybody's ass who is guilty.
Speaker 2: Of such a thing. And I'm certainly one of those people.
Speaker 1: But I can't help but asking myself, what about the
Speaker 1: innocent ones? What about the ones who are falsely accused?
Speaker 1: That's why listen. Jay Z was in the news months
Speaker 1: ago because of what he was accused of involving a
Speaker 1: thirteen year old girl, and he fought like hell, case
Speaker 1: ultimately dropped, and he's still going after Tony Busby, the
Speaker 1: lawyer representing the accused with the pseuitonym, and we understand that,
Speaker 1: and maybe Zion Williamson will go that route, maybe he won't.
Speaker 1: I just hate the fact that he's in the news
Speaker 1: years after being in the NBA for something that's alleged
Speaker 1: to have happened at least five years ago by an
Speaker 1: accuser whose name we do not know, and now he's
Speaker 1: in the news for being accused of this crime at
Speaker 1: some point in time. It's a lengthy discussion, and I
Speaker 1: welcome ladies coming on his growth associated with women's groups
Speaker 1: and what have you coming on this show and talking
Speaker 1: about this subject, but also men who have been falsely accused.
Speaker 1: We don't know if that's the case with Zion or
Speaker 1: anybody else. We get that part, But that brother's had
Speaker 1: enough problem trying to get healthy to be on the
Speaker 1: basketball court so he can validate, you know what, We
Speaker 1: all assumed he would be on the basketball court because
Speaker 1: he's a man amongst boys on the basketball court, make
Speaker 1: no mistake about it, and when healthy, he can do major,
Speaker 1: major damage. He's an all star caliber player. But he's
Speaker 1: never on the damn court, which is essentially ruined the
Speaker 1: Pelicans franchise because you can't rely on him. But you
Speaker 1: just find yourself saying, damn, damn. Another accusation. And again
Speaker 1: we don't know what the outcome will be. What we
Speaker 1: know is that until some outcome has decided, this accusation
Speaker 1: will be out there about him, and in all likelihood
Speaker 1: it will forever remain, and this accusation will stain him.
Speaker 1: I just wish that we can come to conclusion sooner
Speaker 1: than later. And if somebody is innocent, particularly after being
Speaker 1: falsely accused, there's a price to pay for those who
Speaker 1: falsely accuse others. If you're guilty of such a thing,
Speaker 1: throw your ass under the jail. Rape, sexual assault, these
Speaker 1: unforgivable sins in some people's eyes. When you do that
Speaker 1: to a woman, you have murdered her. You have killed
Speaker 1: a part of her. And all of us who love women,
Speaker 1: love our sisters, love our daughters, love our mamas, etc.
Speaker 1: We ain't down for that. It ain't man who is.
Speaker 1: We should want nothing to do with all I can
Speaker 1: say at this particular moment in time, because I don't
Speaker 1: have any evidence to speak on anything else.
Speaker 2: Other than to say, I hope he's innocent. I really do.
Speaker 2: I hope he wouldn't be guilty of such a thing.
Speaker 2: But it's in the news. It's in the news, Damn Shane.
Speaker 1: Coming up, President Donald Trump escalated his war with Harvard University.
Speaker 1: We've got the latest as the administration accuses Harvard of
Speaker 1: treating the country as a disrespect But first, the latest
Speaker 1: in the federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial.
Speaker 2: Against Sean Diddy Combs.
Speaker 1: We'll hear what a former assistant had to say about
Speaker 1: the rap mobul, and we'll ask a legal analyst if
Speaker 1: the rat mobul should take the.
Speaker 2: Stand in his own defense. All that and more coming up.
Speaker 2: It's the Stephen N. Smith Show. Don't go away, you
Speaker 2: got more to come.
Speaker 1: All right, everybody listen up with all the big time
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Speaker 1: Hey, Hey, rent your game. Welcome back. Now Let's get
Speaker 1: to the latest in the federal sex trafficking and racketeering
Speaker 1: trial against Sean Diddy Combs. Testimony resumed this morning from
Speaker 1: a former assistant using the pseudonym Mia. This is her
Speaker 1: second day of testimony where Mia said Combs physically and
Speaker 1: sex assaulted her numerous times when she worked for him.
Speaker 1: Mia says that she also felt trapped with no safe
Speaker 1: way to report the abuse she suffered. The former assistant
Speaker 1: testified she was suspended several times from her job for
Speaker 1: different reasons, including accidentally falling asleep after being awake for days,
Speaker 1: and reacting to one of Comb's violent episodes. The jury
Speaker 1: saw an email Mia received from human resources following the
Speaker 1: incident that noted she was suspended without pay for five days.
Speaker 1: Mia testified she was told her suspension was because Combs
Speaker 1: said she was being insubordinate. Colmbs is pleaded not guilty
Speaker 1: the charges that include racketeering, conspiracy, and sex trafficking. If
Speaker 1: convicted on all accounts, he could face up to life
Speaker 1: in prison. Joining me now to discuss this and other
Speaker 1: elements of the trial this week is Ryan Smith. Contributed
Speaker 1: to the show Legal Analyst Extraordinaire for ABC Sports Center
Speaker 1: anchor as well. We welcome back to the show, Ryan,
Speaker 1: how are you man, how's everything?
Speaker 4: Goodness? See step How you doing man?
Speaker 2: Oh man? This case is crazy. Man, I'm doing well,
Speaker 2: but I'm doing a hell of a lot.
Speaker 1: Better than Diddy. Let's get that out the way. It
Speaker 1: definitely hell of a lot better than him. I want
Speaker 1: to pick up from where I just left off. What's
Speaker 1: the significance of me A's testimony this morning.
Speaker 5: It's huge, not only from the perspective that she talks
Speaker 5: about how she was sexually assaulted by Ditty, which is
Speaker 5: a big part of the prosecution's case, but it's also
Speaker 5: part of their racketeering case. Part of what they're trying
Speaker 5: to prove is a forced labor element of his racketeering case,
Speaker 5: essentially saying he had people like Mia working for days
Speaker 5: in a row under force of threats or cores and
Speaker 5: what threats. There's threats that she has over text message
Speaker 5: of communications where he's saying I'm gonna tell everything things
Speaker 5: like sexual assault that she experienced in her mind that
Speaker 5: might be told to Cassie and others that might hurt her.
Speaker 5: So what they're trying to put together to MEA's testimony
Speaker 5: is a couple of different things. First is that there
Speaker 5: was an element of forced labor going on under Ditty,
Speaker 5: where people felt like they had to do things that
Speaker 5: were extreme under force of like threat or violence.
Speaker 4: She talks about how.
Speaker 5: He threw a computer at hers who spaghetti at her back,
Speaker 5: concerned led her to be in this forced labor situation.
Speaker 5: She's also there to cooperate elements of Cassie story, Cassie
Speaker 5: talking about the sexual assaults she went through, and now
Speaker 5: Mia talking about what she experienced as part of the
Speaker 5: overall case of did he having this criminal enterprise, having
Speaker 5: all these people working for him, planning certain things, doing
Speaker 5: certain things to cover up the crimes they believe he
Speaker 5: was committed.
Speaker 1: So what else stood out to you in court this week?
Speaker 1: I mean that seems like more than enough. Was there
Speaker 1: anything else that stood out to you?
Speaker 2: Over the last.
Speaker 4: Tipcorn Clark's testimony that was huge. I mean, this.
Speaker 5: Woman talking about everything she went through working for him,
Speaker 5: working with him that contributed to the elements of kidnapping
Speaker 5: and arson. Because you talk about kid Cutty, that whole
Speaker 5: situation we talked about this last week Steve and A.
Speaker 5: The idea of kid Cutty feels that he did he
Speaker 5: tried to bomb his Porsche.
Speaker 4: That's the arson part.
Speaker 5: So she's talking about all the different relationships that Cassie
Speaker 5: have a Kid Cutty, how did he found out, and
Speaker 5: the reactions he had coming to her house, the gun,
Speaker 5: forcing her to go one place. That's part of the force,
Speaker 5: coercion and all of this, and then doing these things
Speaker 5: like breaking into kid Cutty's house. He talks about everything
Speaker 5: that happened there, and that seems then assigned to go
Speaker 5: and tell him not to talk to the police. All
Speaker 5: of this works into this criminal enterprise they're starting to
Speaker 5: talk about here, this idea that he owned or operated
Speaker 5: and associated this enterprise of doing crimes and had all
Speaker 5: these people doing things to help facilitate that. When we
Speaker 5: talked last week, we talked about, hey, where is all
Speaker 5: of this going. Now we're starting to see stephen a
Speaker 5: where all this is going. It's not just about the
Speaker 5: accusations of sexual assault, the accusations of being a bad boss,
Speaker 5: the accusations of doing things of threatening violence. It's the
Speaker 5: fact for prosecutors that he is doing all of these
Speaker 5: things to sort of facilitate criminal activity, and then on
Speaker 5: the other end, involving all these people to do these
Speaker 5: things for him to either conceal it or to keep
Speaker 5: it going and then doing an under force of threats
Speaker 5: or coercion, saying to people like Mia, hey you do,
Speaker 5: or the in situation is hey you do. You don't
Speaker 5: do this for me, I'm gonna tell everything about what
Speaker 5: happened with you and me. You do so on somebody else.
Speaker 5: You don't come with me. I've got a gun. You
Speaker 5: gotta come with me, even if you don't want to.
Speaker 5: This is the prosecution starting to lay out that most
Speaker 5: powerful case on racketeering. That's what they need to get
Speaker 5: to get the maximum time in jail.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting that you bring that up because obviously
Speaker 1: when we've had you on, we've had you on covering
Speaker 1: this for us, and we really really appreciate it. You
Speaker 1: made a point to say, basically, be patient, just wait.
Speaker 1: They're just starting to make their case. You know, when
Speaker 1: you're talking about him and his behavior domestic violence, that's
Speaker 1: not sex, sex trafficking, that's not racketeering. They're laying the
Speaker 1: groundwork for their case. You kept emphasizing that. Right now,
Speaker 1: How are you feeling about what the government is doing
Speaker 1: and how they're doing in presenting this case against Diddy?
Speaker 1: What kind of a grade would you give them right.
Speaker 4: Now gundplus to a minus, maybe even a.
Speaker 5: And here's why they have their duck in a row,
Speaker 5: and they have their information set and their witnesses from
Speaker 5: what we're seeing in court, are testifying very very well.
Speaker 4: What do I mean by that, Well, the groundwork part
Speaker 4: of it, like.
Speaker 5: You talk about when you first, when we first started
Speaker 5: talking about this, you asked me how long this case
Speaker 5: would last. I said six to eight weeks. Now they're
Speaker 5: even saying it could go five weeks. So this case
Speaker 5: is picking up steam. The prosecution is not only efficiently
Speaker 5: presenting their case, because Steve and you got to think
Speaker 5: about this as like people are sitting in that court room.
Speaker 4: Every day for hours hearing this stuff.
Speaker 5: If it drags on and on and on and prosecution
Speaker 5: can't be very efficient with their points, you start losing jurors.
Speaker 5: They're going fast, they're going smoothly, and they're getting out
Speaker 5: information very quickly and very precisely.
Speaker 4: That's helpful for the jury.
Speaker 5: Not only that, cross examination becomes huge here because these
Speaker 5: people are getting pressed back.
Speaker 4: Let's say, for example, me and capitals, we're getting pressed Yeah,
Speaker 4: they're getting pressed.
Speaker 5: Back on their social media posts, all these things they
Speaker 5: posted with Diddy. These witnesses are prepared though they're talking about, hey,
Speaker 5: I posted this on this day, Yes, but it didn't
Speaker 5: mean I didn't feel this way at the time they're
Speaker 5: talking about with Capricorn Clark, they tried to press her
Speaker 5: on the fact of did he have a gun? Yes,
Speaker 5: he had a gun. I had to go with him
Speaker 5: because they had a gun. That's witness preparation right there.
Speaker 5: You don't want that witness getting up there hemming and hauling,
Speaker 5: opening up other lines of questioning.
Speaker 4: Now, the defense is doing what they can do.
Speaker 5: But what the speed of this case and the witness
Speaker 5: testimony I'm reading is showing me are prosecuting witnesses that
Speaker 5: are very well prepared and a prosecution team that is
Speaker 5: slowly and methodically but efficiently building that case for Rico.
Speaker 4: It's not an easy thing to do.
Speaker 5: And from what I'm seeing so far reading because we're
Speaker 5: not able to see it on TV, what I'm reading
Speaker 5: so far, they seem to be doing a very good job.
Speaker 1: Well, we're just reading. You're not just reading. You're in
Speaker 1: the legal profession. You got sources all over the place.
Speaker 1: I know you listen to Ryan Smith of me. How
Speaker 1: is the tell us.
Speaker 2: Tell us how the legal profession feels.
Speaker 1: The defense is doing in light of how good the
Speaker 1: prosecution looks right now, what are you hearing about what
Speaker 1: the legal system I'm talking about your colleagues, your contemporarate lawyers.
Speaker 2: What do they feel about how the defense is doing.
Speaker 5: Lawyers I know and people I talk to, they think
Speaker 5: the defense got an uphill taste to begin with. I mean,
Speaker 5: this was a tough This is a very tough taste
Speaker 5: to be Steve, and you and I have talked about
Speaker 5: this before. This prosecution office one of the best in
Speaker 5: the world. I mean, this is top notch, best lawyers
Speaker 5: you can get. That's number one. So you're fighting a
Speaker 5: really good lawyer on the other side. The second thing
Speaker 5: is he has a lot of bad facts against him.
Speaker 5: He's got lots of people coming forward talking about sexual
Speaker 5: assault abuse, So he's got a lot of people talking
Speaker 5: about the systems, how things ran, how use threats and
Speaker 5: coeris them to get them to do certain things. This
Speaker 5: is the Rico case. So they've got so much going
Speaker 5: against them. How are they doing? From people I talk to,
Speaker 5: the defense is doing well because you play the hand
Speaker 5: that you have. That's the key with defense. I think
Speaker 5: sometimes people think, well, defense lawyers are going to come
Speaker 5: out and have this smoking gun that nobody saw coming.
Speaker 4: That's not gonna happen. That's not gonna happen because there's
Speaker 4: so many bad facts.
Speaker 2: I apologize, I wasn't. I didn't mean that.
Speaker 1: Ask how to lawyers your contemporaries feel the defense is
Speaker 1: doing in terms of are they doing a good job
Speaker 1: or are they not? I'm meant to ask, are they do
Speaker 1: are they confident they're gonna be able to get this
Speaker 1: man off?
Speaker 2: That's what I'm asking to win.
Speaker 1: This case because you can have lawyers, you can have
Speaker 1: lawyers there. I think they're doing good based on the
Speaker 1: hand of debt, they're doing an excellent job. I'm asking
Speaker 1: are there chances improving or dissipating towards getting them off?
Speaker 5: You're asking me what I think or you're asking what
Speaker 5: they would tell you if they were being honest.
Speaker 1: I'm asking you and your contemporaries, what do y'all peel
Speaker 1: from what y'all have read, what y'all have heard?
Speaker 2: What's the scuttle? But in your profession about how it's
Speaker 2: looking for.
Speaker 4: Diddy get worse and worse by the day.
Speaker 5: Get worse and worse by the day, and every every
Speaker 5: bit of testimony, I gear it's.
Speaker 4: Getting harder and harder for him.
Speaker 3: To get off.
Speaker 5: I think his chances are well below fifty percent of
Speaker 5: beating these charges.
Speaker 4: And you and I talked about this last week.
Speaker 5: Perhaps they're is a way this jury looks at this,
Speaker 5: doesn't believe certain witnesses and does what we call a
Speaker 5: compromise verdict. We're gonna convict on some things that are
Speaker 5: lesser charges, and maybe not on racketeering.
Speaker 4: That's perhaps something that might happen here.
Speaker 5: But I got to tell you, stephen A, what I'm
Speaker 5: seeing here is this racketeering case being built very well.
Speaker 4: That's the main part of this case.
Speaker 5: When you have witnesses coming up and talking about he
Speaker 5: did this violence, he did that violence.
Speaker 4: We expected that.
Speaker 5: What I think is really interesting to me is how
Speaker 5: these witnesses are testifying that he would use that. I'm
Speaker 5: gonna say this about you. If you don't do this,
Speaker 5: I brought a Glenn. You're coming with me. You're gonna
Speaker 5: do this with kid cutting. You're gonna talk to him
Speaker 5: and tell him not to talk to This is exactly
Speaker 5: what people say happens in regal cases, and you got
Speaker 5: a jury who might be looking at it like well,
Speaker 5: regal cases. I think of mob cases. I think people
Speaker 5: have to understand what do you think happens in those cases?
Speaker 5: It's a my boss allegedly telling somebody else to do this,
Speaker 5: do that. I'm not getting my hands dirty, You're gonna
Speaker 5: do all these things, and I'm directing and Steve nay.
Speaker 5: There's a no part of this that I think might
Speaker 5: resonate with this jury that I think we have to
Speaker 5: keep our eye on. These are women, in particular, young
Speaker 5: women coming forward talking about the forced labor, the violence
Speaker 5: perpetrated on them, the ways in which they were forced
Speaker 5: to do things at gunpoint. If you believe capricainclar if
Speaker 5: you talk about what Capri Capricorn Clark talked about the
Speaker 5: things that he would say about them, will jurors look
Speaker 5: at this and say he's treating women like this? And
Speaker 5: when we think about a mob case, we think different
Speaker 5: men trying to prove things to other men. I wonder
Speaker 5: if there will be a dynamic of this of these
Speaker 5: young women in MIA's case, somebody in their twenties trying
Speaker 5: to work in the music business and all of a
Speaker 5: sudden realizing they're in these situations.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You know, I appeared on Law and Order recently. You know,
Speaker 1: I got killed. I got killed in first five minutes,
Speaker 1: you know. But it was on my bucket list because
Speaker 1: I'm a Law and Order fanatic. I always watched the show, right,
Speaker 1: and we often see the defense coming to the prosecution
Speaker 1: looking to make a deal, okay, and sometimes the prosecution
Speaker 1: except it because obviously you represent the state, and you know,
Speaker 1: the quicker the case ends, the less money you have
Speaker 1: to spend, et cetera, et cetera. In real life, in
Speaker 1: the real world, what if Diddy's defense came and went
Speaker 1: to the prosecution and saying, they're not looking pretty good
Speaker 1: for us, but you know what, we'd like to plead
Speaker 1: to a lesser charge.
Speaker 2: This prosecution the Southern District of New York.
Speaker 1: They strike me as a bud. They're gone for blood.
Speaker 1: They want this man. They ain't trying to settle. They
Speaker 1: don't want to settlement. That's how That's what I'm getting
Speaker 1: from this to that.
Speaker 5: You say, what a ship has sailed? That deal ship
Speaker 5: I think has sailed. Look, stephen A, I'm not a
Speaker 5: part of their office, so I can't say if somebody
Speaker 5: there might say, hey, if here's what we don't know.
Speaker 4: We're in week two, week three of this case.
Speaker 5: If something goes really wrong for the prosecution that's unexpected,
Speaker 5: that might change this dynamic. But if it keeps going
Speaker 5: the way it's going, I would say that ship sailed.
Speaker 4: That ship probably sailed.
Speaker 5: Not long after the raid or not, maybe a couple
Speaker 5: months after they started whispering things of charges, because for him,
Speaker 5: the more he has been defiant, the more you put
Speaker 5: a prosecution in a place of well, he's been saying
Speaker 5: for months, these are all lies.
Speaker 4: This isn't true. I didn't assault anybody, didn't do any
Speaker 4: of this.
Speaker 5: And now the prosecution has to deal not only with
Speaker 5: their case, but the fact that in the public opinion,
Speaker 5: this case has taken on huge attention, and you don't
Speaker 5: want to be perceived as I'm letting them off the hook,
Speaker 5: especially if you have a strong case. So in my opinion,
Speaker 5: that ship has sailed unless there is something that we
Speaker 5: don't know or something unexpected happens for the prosecution.
Speaker 1: I kind of agree with you because I believe even
Speaker 1: if they don't do anempt an exemplary job of proving
Speaker 1: sex trafficking and racketeering. I think they made such a
Speaker 1: case for depicting him as a monster that you're going
Speaker 1: to have jurors that say, no, his ass going to jail.
Speaker 2: The hell with it. I'm gonna say he's guilty for
Speaker 2: this too.
Speaker 1: I mean, I really feel like it can get that bad.
Speaker 1: But let me move on to this next quest because
Speaker 1: I know you got to get you out of here.
Speaker 1: Suge Knight called in the CNN last night, said Combs
Speaker 1: should take the stand in his own defense. Combs actually
Speaker 1: did back in two thousand and one, if you remember,
Speaker 1: when he testified in the Manhattan nightclub shooting that sent
Speaker 1: rapper Shine a prison for ten years. Combs was acquitted
Speaker 1: of all charges in that case. By the way, we've
Speaker 1: got to mention that. But Ryan Smith, is it possible
Speaker 1: that he'll end up taking the stand in this trial?
Speaker 2: And should he? Would you advise him to do so?
Speaker 4: No, not at all.
Speaker 5: I don't want to get on the wrong side of
Speaker 5: Shug now, that's number one.
Speaker 2: But look, neither do we. Neither do we.
Speaker 5: But I'll tell you what that is a last resort
Speaker 5: of last resorts. I know that people watch long look.
Speaker 5: Steven Amal on order fan too. I know people watch
Speaker 5: shows like that. They see people take the stand. Sometimes
Speaker 5: they see people hers minds being changed, something comes out.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I can't believe it. That is a rarity.
Speaker 4: This is something you don't do, not want.
Speaker 5: The moment he takes the stand and opens his mouth,
Speaker 5: everything about his life is fair.
Speaker 4: Game, including stuff that they would not bring into court.
Speaker 5: Now he's opening his mouth, Let's talk him about those
Speaker 5: things that wouldn't have been admissible because he opened his
Speaker 5: mouth on him. Once he opens the door on some
Speaker 5: of that stuff, things that he might not even be
Speaker 5: thinking about, ways in which he might want to defend
Speaker 5: himself that his lawyers tell him not to say, but
Speaker 5: maybe he could say, because anything can happen on that stand.
Speaker 5: Now you're diving yourself into an even deeper hole. So
Speaker 5: for me that I do not think he should do it.
Speaker 5: I would never advise it. And honestly, even if everything
Speaker 5: was against him, I would still say no, because once
Speaker 5: you open that door, that could change everything about what
Speaker 5: you as a defendant. With you as a person who's
Speaker 5: on truck, things could happen to you.
Speaker 4: And I think it's easy for people to think about
Speaker 4: it outside of that, like I'm gonna prove myself. But
Speaker 4: that is not how it plays out in the court room.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm just maybe I'm thinking a little bit differently
Speaker 1: because I got.
Speaker 2: To open my mouth for a living.
Speaker 1: I mean, you host, I commentate, you know, and so
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about, Oh my.
Speaker 2: God, people accused of it.
Speaker 1: I got the city and listen to all of these
Speaker 1: people talk, and I can't say anything in my defense.
Speaker 5: Not for all you want, Ryan, but steven A, I
Speaker 5: see you get cross examined.
Speaker 4: But now let's imagine you getting cross examined on.
Speaker 5: Your own words for days in a row, and not
Speaker 5: only that, on things that might have flowed from those
Speaker 5: words that you didn't even bring up.
Speaker 4: That's the problem with cross examination.
Speaker 5: You open a door, and that door can be so
Speaker 5: much wider than you think.
Speaker 2: Let me throw this by you.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've seen the reports percolating right now,
Speaker 1: my man, they're talking about how Trump President Donald Trump
Speaker 1: has not closed the door on pardoning p Diddy.
Speaker 2: For this sex trafficking and racketearing case. I mean, what
Speaker 2: do you make of that?
Speaker 1: Ryan, I mean, and how do you anticipate something like
Speaker 1: that could potentially influence the prosecution.
Speaker 4: I don't even know what to say to that.
Speaker 5: Okay, So the first thing is if Diddy's convicted, he
Speaker 5: can do it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, President's not can do it. That's number one. Number two.
Speaker 4: Other than as a prosecutor, I would not let that
Speaker 4: affect me in any way. Here's the deal. My job
Speaker 4: is to prosecute the case. That's it. My job is
Speaker 4: to prosecute the case.
Speaker 5: If the president chooses to do something else, then he
Speaker 5: choose to do something else. Now, some people might be
Speaker 5: out there thinking, Okay, if the prosecution here's this, maybe
Speaker 5: that makes them want to make a deal.
Speaker 4: That is not how I would approach it.
Speaker 5: If I was a prosecutor, I would say I can't
Speaker 5: control those things. What I can control is the case
Speaker 5: I prosecute. And also what I can control is what
Speaker 5: my office does. And what my office does is we
Speaker 5: brought this reco case, and we brought this sex trafficking case,
Speaker 5: and because we believe that we could win it, so.
Speaker 4: We're gonna pursue that.
Speaker 5: If something happened in the courtroom to change that and
Speaker 5: we needn't make a deal, fine, but I wouldn't do
Speaker 5: that on the basis of what someone outside of the case, says,
Speaker 5: because to me, that's where you start second guessing yourself,
Speaker 5: and you erote your case once you start doing that.
Speaker 5: So if I'm prosecutors, that's noise. My case is my
Speaker 5: case inside the courtroom, and that's what I focus on.
Speaker 1: Any idea, how you think that would influence the deal
Speaker 1: or dare I say, a jury if they somehow, some
Speaker 1: way became aware that the president is just lurking being
Speaker 1: quoted as saying, did he once.
Speaker 2: Liked me a lot?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: I mean we would we got along just fine.
Speaker 1: I mean, could you imagine it having any kind of
Speaker 1: impact on a.
Speaker 2: Jury or the defense and its approach?
Speaker 1: Knowing there's a possibility, maybe that's an angle they could
Speaker 1: work in a month to come.
Speaker 5: I don't think it would have much of an impact
Speaker 5: on the defense other than they too have to kind
Speaker 5: of go with what's in that courtroom. They're bound by
Speaker 5: the in that courtroom, the judge is what matters, the
Speaker 5: jury is what matters. Outside actors do not matter. So
Speaker 5: for them, they got to focus on that.
Speaker 4: Now. Could they use that later? If did He is
Speaker 4: convicted they're trying to appeal.
Speaker 5: If there's rumblings about that, maybe that's a different discussion.
Speaker 5: But what I really worry about, stephen A, is what
Speaker 5: you just said. A juror somehow finding out about this.
Speaker 5: You know, I just want to say this as a
Speaker 5: person who's practiced law for decades, the courts are just
Speaker 5: we don't realize how precious this institution is. We don't
Speaker 5: realize how amazing it is that we live in a
Speaker 5: society where people can be on trial and jurors can
Speaker 5: sit there and they can actually not read anything, see anything,
Speaker 5: and take the process so seriously that nothing outside affects them.
Speaker 5: It makes me sad that someone on the outside would
Speaker 5: say something maybe or not realizing how that could taint
Speaker 5: somebody and possibly take this process. Because I gotta say,
Speaker 5: step and and this is not me just saying, this
Speaker 5: just the greatest process in the world. And I know
Speaker 5: a lot of people feel like courts go against us,
Speaker 5: go against black folks.
Speaker 4: I understand that part of it.
Speaker 5: I'm just saying, like, the integrity of the court system
Speaker 5: is so vital to making these cases in any way fair.
Speaker 4: And if we start having.
Speaker 5: People say things on the outside that could perhaps get
Speaker 5: to a djur man, that's disappointing because that's a slippery slope.
Speaker 4: We don't want to go down before.
Speaker 1: I let you go, uh Zion Williamson. You see the
Speaker 1: accusation that has been leveled against him. A former girl
Speaker 1: that he was involved with is saying that he raped
Speaker 1: and assaulted her. I believe it was twenty twenty. I
Speaker 1: spoke about it a little bit early on the show.
Speaker 1: Just make listen. I don't know what the hell has happened.
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on. I wasn't an eyewitness.
Speaker 1: I can't I know, I can't speak to it. I
Speaker 1: just think that the times that we're living in, when
Speaker 1: somebody can make an accusation, I find myself saying to
Speaker 1: the guilty, I hope they throw your ass under the jail.
Speaker 1: To those who are innocent and being lied upon, it's
Speaker 1: sad because the presumption of guilt in this day and age,
Speaker 1: adding a social media and beyond, is going to be
Speaker 1: attached to you. What are your thoughts about that as
Speaker 1: a legal mind, as a journalist as well, what are
Speaker 1: your thoughts about that?
Speaker 5: Well, first of all, I look at a situation like this,
Speaker 5: and again you said it, we're just finding out about this.
Speaker 4: We don't know all the details.
Speaker 5: But the moment I looked at it, I think it's
Speaker 5: important to say, first of all, it's a civil case.
Speaker 4: This is not a criminal case.
Speaker 5: This is someone filing a complaint, making an allegation. I
Speaker 5: think the first thing I look at in these situations
Speaker 5: and Stephen ABC a more or more these days, was
Speaker 5: this a consensual relationship that in some way didn't go
Speaker 5: the way one party or another planned? Or was this
Speaker 5: a situation where there were elements of assault?
Speaker 4: And to me, it goes like this.
Speaker 5: The first thing, and you mentioned it because the times
Speaker 5: we live in, I wouldn't be surprised to see an
Speaker 5: NBA investigation into this. They're gonna follow what's happening, and
Speaker 5: in some way, that's going to follow Zion no matter
Speaker 5: how it plays out. The second thing, though, and I
Speaker 5: think the more pressing thing for him is this legal process.
Speaker 5: I think there is a playbook we've seen sometimes with
Speaker 5: folks who say, when these accusations come, they're false, they're
Speaker 5: based with I understand that that's essentially what Zion Williams
Speaker 5: since people are saying.
Speaker 4: But I think what's going to be really important for.
Speaker 5: Him is to make sure that in this case that
Speaker 5: if it's completely false and completely baseless. Then he's going
Speaker 5: to need to make sure he is saying that specifically
Speaker 5: and not just saying this person is lying.
Speaker 4: I think what we've learned more and.
Speaker 5: More nowadays is conduct that people have when one person
Speaker 5: thinks it's one thing, somebody else thinks it's something else.
Speaker 4: It can be used in these kinds of cases.
Speaker 5: To be real assault, to be real litigation, to have
Speaker 5: real civil consequences. So I don't know what happened between
Speaker 5: Zion and this particular person, but I think the consequences
Speaker 5: here could be very big based on what happened in
Speaker 5: that relationship, And I think it's very important for Zion
Speaker 5: Williamson and his people to come out and not just
Speaker 5: do the thing of hey, this person is false. I
Speaker 5: know there might be nuances here, but also to understand
Speaker 5: that we live in a society now where people who
Speaker 5: make these accusations, we need to be looking at these carefully,
Speaker 5: and we need to be making sure that his conduct
Speaker 5: in some ways, if it did cross the line, he
Speaker 5: needs to be addressing that. He needs to be addressing
Speaker 5: that and not simply be dismissing someone if something crossed
Speaker 5: the line.
Speaker 1: Ryan Smith Legal Landlas's extraordinaire for ABC News as well
Speaker 1: as the Sports center hosts for ESPN. My buddy, I
Speaker 1: appreciate the contribution to the show as always, my man,
Speaker 1: take care of yourself and have a wonderful weekend. I
Speaker 1: would like to say, we'll be talking a little bit
Speaker 1: down the road, but it's gonna be real sooner than that,
Speaker 1: because I'm coming in the finals.
Speaker 2: You know me, see you soon. I'm ready, I got you,
Speaker 2: I got you coming up.
Speaker 1: President Donald Trump escalated his war with hum the university,
Speaker 1: going after the ability to enroll foreign students.
Speaker 2: But what does it all mean.
Speaker 1: I'll get into that next right here, Steven Nate Smith Show,
Speaker 1: Don't Go Away.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Steve Nate Smith Show.
Speaker 1: My next guest has a boxing record of thirty three
Speaker 1: and zero.
Speaker 2: With twenty two knockouts.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow night, he returns to the ring after an eighteen
Speaker 1: month hiatus at the michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada,
Speaker 1: to take on South Jersey's Thomas Lamana, whose record is
Speaker 1: thirty nine to five and one with eighteen knockouts. He's
Speaker 1: been here before, even though I'm his brother's been here before.
Speaker 2: He's here now.
Speaker 1: The one and only Jamal Charlo, the hit Man, the
Speaker 1: modern day hit man.
Speaker 2: What's up, big time? How are you man?
Speaker 3: How's everything from Stephen? How you doing?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 2: Now? Where the hell have you been?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 1: I mean, you're too damn great, You're undefeated, You're too
Speaker 1: damn good for us not to go eighteen months without
Speaker 1: seeing your fight.
Speaker 2: Where you been?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 6: You know, sometimes uh pim here wounds, you know, and
Speaker 6: sometimes you know, I had to step away and you know,
Speaker 6: get myself back focused and get back right. And some
Speaker 6: of the fights that I was looking for, they wasn't happening,
Speaker 6: and you know, getting a little holders, just had to
Speaker 6: take care of.
Speaker 3: My kids and just just you know, hid none of
Speaker 3: the rock working.
Speaker 1: You know, I saw you and the last time we
Speaker 1: saw each other face to face was at the Aerospinch
Speaker 1: Junior and Turns Crawford way in and I remember talking
Speaker 1: to you because your little brother was about to fight Canelo,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, wait a minute, you bigger. You know,
Speaker 1: I said, you' the one that's supposed to be in
Speaker 1: that ring with him, and that didn't happen. And I
Speaker 1: thought that that would have been an epic fight. When
Speaker 1: you look at your career and the bottom line is
Speaker 1: you're undefeated, but people barely talk about you. How much
Speaker 1: has that resonated with you and made you eight to
Speaker 1: get back in the ring?
Speaker 3: Man, it does feed my eagerness. Uh.
Speaker 6: And then now I'm getting a little bit more educated
Speaker 6: or like, you know, uh process and how everything you
Speaker 6: know happens. And some of these fighters that is trying
Speaker 6: to fight me on that big level of that big stage,
Speaker 6: it's not even on them. It's it's these promoters, uh,
Speaker 6: some of the stingy people, some of the people that's
Speaker 6: uh that's over the headquarters it you know, it's it's
Speaker 6: so hard to make these fights happen, and we with
Speaker 6: the same handle as half of the time. So honestly, uh,
Speaker 6: you know, the big fights is you know they're on
Speaker 6: the way. But now we're starting to the fighters themselves
Speaker 6: are starting to promote the fight. They starting to make
Speaker 6: the fights happen now, so it's fighter versus fighters.
Speaker 1: You know, I get criticized because listen, listen, I'm a
Speaker 1: fan of you and your brother.
Speaker 2: I always have been, and damn it, I'm always gonna
Speaker 2: be because I like y'all.
Speaker 1: I like y'all both, okay, and I remember you know,
Speaker 1: when you got yourself into some issu, used the crash
Speaker 1: into the Lamborghini and got arrested, all of this other stuff.
Speaker 1: I was saying to you when I saw you, I
Speaker 1: was saying to you what I had said on television.
Speaker 2: You've been through a lot.
Speaker 1: You've been going through a lot emotionally, and I'm glad
Speaker 1: you brought up that stuff about, you know, other fighters,
Speaker 1: because it seemed like you looked at the system, whether
Speaker 1: it was the fighters, the promoters, you were struggling to
Speaker 1: figure out what the hell was going on and why
Speaker 1: you were going through some of the things that you've
Speaker 1: gone through. What do you have to say to the
Speaker 1: boxing audience right now about all you've been through and
Speaker 1: why they should believe you're back and you're here to
Speaker 1: stay for the foreseeable future, as opposed to being somebody
Speaker 1: that's going to disappear in another year.
Speaker 3: Or two from Baltimore. Heart.
Speaker 6: My fans still with me that that honestly knew what
Speaker 6: I was going through at the time. I really wanted
Speaker 6: those big fights and they wasn't happening. And a lot
Speaker 6: of times, you know, we don't know what we're going
Speaker 6: through at the moment, and yeah, I was that on
Speaker 6: that verge of crashing out, but you know, I stay focused.
Speaker 6: And the reason they should know that this is not
Speaker 6: gonna happen ever again, because like you know, I moved
Speaker 6: forward and I gave it all the guy now, so
Speaker 6: I know God got the best interest of me. Fans
Speaker 6: that that have been there for me and that you
Speaker 6: know understand me. They know that I'm here to go
Speaker 6: get another world tight away at one sixty eight, and
Speaker 6: I'm here to stay.
Speaker 3: I'm here to stay. I'm back, I'm better.
Speaker 6: The little time off is something I needed to heal
Speaker 6: myself and I did mentally physically ani muscling.
Speaker 3: So I'm back in the ring.
Speaker 1: When you say that you were close to crashing out,
Speaker 1: not my words, Your words tell an audience specifically what
Speaker 1: you mean by that.
Speaker 6: I was giving up in my mind. You know, I
Speaker 6: gave up on myself sometimes, some of them dark nights.
Speaker 6: And when I was in my dark places, I you know,
Speaker 6: I didn't have no one to turn to.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 6: I was actually embarrassed to go to my mom. I
Speaker 6: was embarrassed to go to my brother. I started me
Speaker 6: going around my brother then and my mom and my
Speaker 6: family and my friends. People that were close to me
Speaker 6: like that I was bringing negative energy that they might
Speaker 6: want to be around. Nobody wants to try to handle
Speaker 6: it on my own. But then I just stepped out
Speaker 6: the little box and kind of gave it to God
Speaker 6: and started giving everything, you know, all my problems to
Speaker 6: put it on the table facing them and batter on
Speaker 6: myself crashing out like I was, you know, of not
Speaker 6: caring about what the next person thought about me or
Speaker 6: how I felt about it. To my fans and my
Speaker 6: you know, people who really understood me, I just didn't
Speaker 6: want to listen at the time, and it took me
Speaker 6: some you know, some some shaping up to do.
Speaker 3: I got back, and I feel like I'm back and
Speaker 3: I'm stronger and I'm better.
Speaker 1: How much, if at all, has your brother helped you?
Speaker 1: And how close are you guys?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 6: My brother definitely helped me. I even said some things
Speaker 6: to him when I was going through I was going
Speaker 6: through that, you know, I regret saying. And we got
Speaker 6: that one bond where you know, we talked about it.
Speaker 3: We figured that wasn't the move. And you know, and
Speaker 3: me and my twin brother we real close. Now. We
Speaker 3: see how he understood what I was going through.
Speaker 6: You know, it's just one of those things, you know,
Speaker 6: Like my brother always got me, so he motivated me
Speaker 6: more I got. We're back training together. We went back
Speaker 6: to our whole roots. We both got our first trainer,
Speaker 6: back to amateur trainer that we started this boxing stuff
Speaker 6: off with, and we both trained together.
Speaker 3: We got our boxing gym together. We you know, we're
Speaker 3: back on.
Speaker 6: You know, he went through the Panella fight and I
Speaker 6: wish I could have been there a little bit more,
Speaker 6: but I blame that on me. So now it's my
Speaker 6: turn to get in there with him.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering whether or not that's ever gonna happen. I
Speaker 1: think you got business to handle with Caleb Plant first. However,
Speaker 1: you got this fight because you can't take anything for
Speaker 1: granted in the boxing when you know that a hell
Speaker 1: of a lot better than me or most people talk
Speaker 1: to me about this fight coming up. Who this brother
Speaker 1: is and what you think he brings to the table,
Speaker 1: particularly going up against the likes of you, this guy
Speaker 1: Thomas Lamana.
Speaker 6: I mean, I'm not taking nothing away from Thomas Lamada.
Speaker 6: He has experienced, he has like thirty nine fights or
Speaker 6: WHATNOTU He's a tall guy. Rangeye he's been in the amates,
Speaker 6: he's been around boxing for a while. He's not it's
Speaker 6: not like a push off in o'halko. He's just you know,
Speaker 6: he's never been in there with a Jamal Charlotte. I
Speaker 6: don't come to lose, I don't.
Speaker 3: Come to play.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna try to be as precise as I can.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna feed him everything that he's developed for. The
Speaker 6: defense makes a championship, you know that. So my defense
Speaker 6: will be on point. I'll be sharp, I'm faster, I'm better.
Speaker 6: I'm telling you I only could talk about it, but
Speaker 6: I rather to show you, you know. But had time
Speaker 6: to timas Mamala for stepping up and being you know
Speaker 6: who he said you're gonna be you know, I mean,
Speaker 6: we're gonna see you know, hopefully he can stand up
Speaker 6: to the punishment of it or not.
Speaker 3: You know, it is what it is.
Speaker 6: We fight for the w b A so to be
Speaker 6: my third world title and in my third vision.
Speaker 1: That's right, you're already wanted general middleweight in the middleweight title,
Speaker 1: and you're undefeated, and now you're going for a super
Speaker 1: middleweight title. Everybody believes that this is the setup. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you're on the undercard. Caleb Plan is on the main card,
Speaker 1: the main event that night, And everybody's heard about y'all
Speaker 1: history where you know, you know you, you grabbed his
Speaker 1: bed and supposedly slapped you and all this stuff. Y'all
Speaker 1: don't like each other, but according to reports, y'all have
Speaker 1: talked to each other, and y'all like, I ain't gonna
Speaker 1: call y'all friends or anything like that, but y'all understand
Speaker 1: the business that comes with it. Right now, everybody's looking
Speaker 1: forward to you ultimately fighting that dude. How much are
Speaker 1: you looking forward? How much does this fight service motivation?
Speaker 1: Knowing that in all likelihood Caleb Plant will be next,
Speaker 1: assuming he handles his business Saturday night.
Speaker 3: Right, he has the interim title.
Speaker 6: Uh, the super should be the super champion should be
Speaker 6: vacated Zoon and me and Kelen Plant, it.
Speaker 3: Should be fighting for that world title.
Speaker 6: I want to fight. That's the fight that the fans want.
Speaker 6: That's the fight that needs to happen. No if ends
Speaker 6: a buss about it. Uh, you know the Canelo fight here,
Speaker 6: that's a cool fight, But the fans and all people
Speaker 6: around the world, they rather to see me fight that
Speaker 6: fight that's a fight I want to have.
Speaker 3: Yes, we we talked about it. We we handle business together.
Speaker 6: You know, he gotta take care his business. I gotta
Speaker 6: take care of mine. You gotta take care fam I
Speaker 6: gotta take care of mine the same. But you got
Speaker 6: a different hunger in Jamal Shallow. Now that's the fight
Speaker 6: I want. That's a fight we're gonna have.
Speaker 1: So you want the Taylor Plant fight more than you
Speaker 1: want Canelo more do you want David Videz?
Speaker 3: Yeah at this point for sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, So.
Speaker 6: I rather I'd rather fight for my legacy rather than
Speaker 6: just go, oh been to vi there because he so
Speaker 6: called the Mexican mon said Canelo, because he's Canelo. You know,
Speaker 6: he's an all time great or whatever Hall of famer
Speaker 6: you know, can't take nothing away from none of these fighters. Key,
Speaker 6: he's one of those uh high guard champions on me.
Speaker 6: But I feel like this is one of those fights.
Speaker 6: Me and Keyler Plant, we uh this, this would be
Speaker 6: better right now at the time. This would be a
Speaker 6: better fight than a Canelo fighter being to be there.
Speaker 2: But but why do you want him so badly?
Speaker 3: Put it?
Speaker 1: I don't want to expeculate for why do you tell
Speaker 1: the world why you want him so bad?
Speaker 3: History, We got history. He snuck me at the thing.
Speaker 6: He want to be tough, he want to be you know,
Speaker 6: uh he a coach or vulture. I want all that,
Speaker 6: you know, if you really want me to go there
Speaker 6: with you? You know, ky not on my level. You
Speaker 6: know what I'm saying from Houston, from he from Tennessee whatever.
Speaker 6: We both southern, but you know, uh, just speaking on
Speaker 6: it like as wed as I can. I want to
Speaker 6: fight somebody that like, I won't that fight. I'm more
Speaker 6: eager for that fight of anything.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, then that means you're gonna handle your business
Speaker 1: even more Saturday night? Can I get a prediction for
Speaker 1: I let you get on out of you? Are we
Speaker 1: looking at a knockout? And Saturday night way, We're looking.
Speaker 6: For batu ass for the whole twelve miles and if
Speaker 6: I knock him out, I'm knock him out.
Speaker 2: I got you.
Speaker 1: I'll see you soon, man. I'm happy to see you back.
Speaker 1: Handle your business so you can stay back. I don't
Speaker 1: want to see I love your brother, you know, I
Speaker 1: love your brother. But I was so mad when he
Speaker 1: was in the ring with Canila because I was like
Speaker 1: he's moving up.
Speaker 2: Two weight classes. You were supposed to be in there
Speaker 2: against that brother a little bigger.
Speaker 6: And we both for madding because I was mad at
Speaker 6: you for picking on Lebron Lebron alone.
Speaker 2: Oh you stopped that. Man, Me picking on Lebron picked.
Speaker 1: I'm picking on the six eight, two hundred and sixty pounds, dude,
Speaker 1: I'm picking on him.
Speaker 2: I'm picking. That's when we doing tomorrow.
Speaker 6: You're showing up at the fights is just like me
Speaker 6: showing that at Taylor Plant them fights.
Speaker 3: You you're taking.
Speaker 2: All the best.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: I'll be watching Saturday night.
Speaker 1: Bro, We'll talk to and we'll talk about that Lebron
Speaker 1: share when I see you too, we'll talk about all right, head.
Speaker 5: Of your business, all.
Speaker 2: Right, bro?
Speaker 1: Taking these to good luck man. That was Jamal Taller.
Speaker 1: I'm wishing him luck man. You know I had a
Speaker 1: love conference, a few conversations with him in the past.
Speaker 2: Man, it's good people.
Speaker 1: I'm really hoping that he handles his business Saturday night.
Speaker 1: I think he will, and I would like to see
Speaker 1: him against kaylor Plant, to be honest with you, really.
Speaker 2: Really would coming up.
Speaker 1: President Donald Trump bids farewell to Elon Musk and escalates
Speaker 1: his war with the university. I'll get into all of
Speaker 1: that and then some right here on the Stephen the
Speaker 1: Smith's Show.
Speaker 2: Don't go away to Steven day Smith Show. Let me
Speaker 2: get to another matter now, please.
Speaker 1: President Trump bid farewell to Elon Musk in an Oval
Speaker 1: Office event made for the cameras. Trump thanked Musk for
Speaker 1: his work with DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, a
Speaker 1: role created to reduce the size of the federal workforce.
Speaker 1: The TESLA CEO concludes his government service after.
Speaker 2: Four months of leading DOGE.
Speaker 1: Musk worked for Trump as a powerful and obviously a
Speaker 1: special government employee, after spending approximately two hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: eight million dollars of his own money to help get
Speaker 1: the president elected. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know about
Speaker 1: the rest of y'all, but I just see all of
Speaker 1: this as nothing more than pomping circumstance. You know, if
Speaker 1: you're Musk, Okay, you spent Listen, you spent anywhere from
Speaker 1: one hundred and nineteen according to some reports, to two
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty eight million in helping getting President Trump elected.
Speaker 1: You have to remember that this is the same muscle
Speaker 1: one's vote for Hillary Clinton, who wants voted for Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: So him changing course shows how alarming of a direction
Speaker 1: he saw the.
Speaker 2: Country going in when led by the left. Having said that.
Speaker 1: Him departing from Trump, to be honest with you as
Speaker 1: much ado about nothing, because where's he going. He literally said,
Speaker 1: he's a friend of Trump. He's gonna still be an
Speaker 1: advisor to Trump. He'll still be making some visits to
Speaker 1: the White House. Well, ain't that essentially what he was doing.
Speaker 1: All of his pieces are in place, The personnel that
Speaker 1: he wanted overseeing DOGE are in place. Now they want
Speaker 1: to sit up there and they want to brag about
Speaker 1: some of the cuts that have taken place, to some
Speaker 1: of the money that they've saved American citizens. I'm just
Speaker 1: looking at some of these stories here, trying to decide
Speaker 1: which one I want to get into. Like the American
Speaker 1: taxpayer has been saved about one thousand and eighty six dollars,
Speaker 1: says according to DOGE dot gov, Musk and his crew
Speaker 1: have saved one hundred and seven twenty five billion dollars
Speaker 1: so far and estimated one thousand and eighty six dollars
Speaker 1: per taxpayer. Well, it has a taxpayer seeing that extra
Speaker 1: dollars in their pocket. Musk sat up there and said, Hey,
Speaker 1: in the end, I think we'll save the government about
Speaker 1: a trillion dollars.
Speaker 2: This is a billion. Ain't a trillion?
Speaker 1: Okay, there's one hundred and seventy five billion. He thinks
Speaker 1: he's gonna save them about a trillion dollars where you
Speaker 1: got about eight hundred and twenty five billion to go. Really,
Speaker 1: how many jobs are gonna be lost? We're talking about
Speaker 1: eradicating waste, fraud and excess, right, how many jobs are
Speaker 1: gonna be crossed?
Speaker 5: How man?
Speaker 1: How many federal jobs are gonna be lost? How many
Speaker 1: people a gonna end up unemployed? I think these are
Speaker 1: illegitimate questions. I also think that as much ado about nothing,
Speaker 1: Because listen, Musk wasn't talking about going away until Tesla stock.
Speaker 2: Dropped Rember in the first quarter.
Speaker 1: Last year, there was a seventy one percent this year. Rather,
Speaker 1: there was a seventy one percent drop in first quarter
Speaker 1: earnings for Tesla when he announced that he was gonna
Speaker 1: step back from his duties with Doge and ultimately go
Speaker 1: back to work overseeing his company for Tesla, which is
Speaker 1: Tesla one of them anyway, stock.
Speaker 2: Jump twenty percent.
Speaker 1: So all of these things are the kind of things
Speaker 1: that I'm looking at and I'm saying, Okay, we get it.
Speaker 2: Your company is losing money.
Speaker 1: Listen, you really don't have to be here in the
Speaker 1: White House talking to me in order to oversee this
Speaker 1: to some degree. And you're no longer gonna be in
Speaker 1: an official capacity, but you still have the President's here,
Speaker 1: which means that whatever you think should be done, the
Speaker 1: President will probably side with you. And you don't have
Speaker 1: to answer to Congress, to the Senate, to elected officials
Speaker 1: anywhere because you no longer have this job. Seems to
Speaker 1: be against the best of both worlds. Goes back to Tesla,
Speaker 1: raises his stock. He's already worth over four hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty four billion dollars, richest man in the world. Tesla
Speaker 1: stock goes up once you return. Okay, specifically, this stock
Speaker 1: search twenty percent, like I said, after MUCKs pledged. According
Speaker 1: to the Business Insider, the news came in the wake
Speaker 1: of a challenging first quarter for Tesla, which saw significant
Speaker 1: dropping profits. We get this, Tesla was losing money. You're
Speaker 1: going back to work, save your company. Make sure you
Speaker 1: got competition in China. You got competition in Europe because
Speaker 1: they're electric vehicles. They're coming with their own You recognize
Speaker 1: that you got to lock in and zero in, so
Speaker 1: you don't be on the job with Doge anymore. But
Speaker 1: your influence isn't dissipating any way imaginable. So to me,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, it was much ado about nothing. It
Speaker 1: was a press conference to let the world know he's
Speaker 1: back looking over Tesla instead of being a special employee
Speaker 1: for the government. So, in other words, I stock can
Speaker 1: rise again. I don't need to be losing money. But
Speaker 1: my influence is cemented. It's all it is.
Speaker 2: It's all it is. Now let's stay at Washington.
Speaker 1: Where yesterday a federal judge extended the temporary order that
Speaker 1: blocked the Trump administration from revoking Harvard's ability to enroll
Speaker 1: international students. The extension came after the administration said it
Speaker 1: would give the university thirty days to challenge the decision.
Speaker 1: Court documents on Wednesday show the Department of Homeland Security
Speaker 1: asked Harvard to quote submit sworn statements and documents or
Speaker 1: other evidence to rebut the grounds for withdrawal of certification
Speaker 1: end quote. Harvard enrolled students under the federal student in
Speaker 1: exchange visitor program. Just last week, the Trump administration revoked
Speaker 1: Harvard's ability to enroll foreign students, and then hours later
Speaker 1: a US district judge temporarily blocked that effort. Joining me
Speaker 1: now to discuss the administration's ongoing feud with Harvard University
Speaker 1: is a national political reporter for The Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: who wrote the article The Punch that launched Trump's war
Speaker 1: on American universities. Please welcome to the show, Eliza Collins,
Speaker 1: Eliza Howard you.
Speaker 2: How's everything good?
Speaker 7: Happy to be here.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Let's get right to it.
Speaker 1: For those who have not been keeping up with the
Speaker 1: escalating few between Trump administration and Harvard University.
Speaker 2: Eliza tell us, how did we get here?
Speaker 8: Well, it really goes back decades. But basically, the conservative
Speaker 8: movement has had issues with universities for a very long time.
Speaker 8: They have felt the universities have moved leftward. I mean
Speaker 8: we saw this with President Nixon. He actually tried to
Speaker 8: do what Trump is doing now, back with the anti
Speaker 8: war Vietnam protests. Now, his own administration stopped him at
Speaker 8: that point. But this has been sort of circulating for
Speaker 8: a long time. There's been tension with conservatives and universities
Speaker 8: going back decades now. In Trump's first term in office,
Speaker 8: this was on the radar of some of the nationalists
Speaker 8: in his party. You might remember Steve Bannon, his former
Speaker 8: advisor now talk show host, were talking about this a
Speaker 8: little bit, but it really launched onto Trump's radar when
Speaker 8: a like you said, a punch a kid got punched.
Speaker 8: He was literally tabling trying to recruit conservative students at
Speaker 8: UC Berkeley. He got punched in the face. He showed
Speaker 8: up on Fox News with the black guy got in
Speaker 8: front of Trump, and Trump said, let's do something about this.
Speaker 8: So conservatives started attempting to basically take on universities. In
Speaker 8: his first term, he had an executive order that did
Speaker 8: a little bit of this, the federal funding thing.
Speaker 7: But it didn't go really anyway.
Speaker 8: Trump ended office, and then in the four years in between,
Speaker 8: conservative think tanks thought leaders, they started mapping this out
Speaker 8: and saying, how can we take on universities, not just Harvard.
Speaker 7: That they feel have moved to the left.
Speaker 8: The anti Semitism argument that we're hearing now, that came
Speaker 8: onto the scene in twenty twenty three after Hamas at
Speaker 8: tact Israel in October and then Israel attacked back. The
Speaker 8: gods of protests exploded on campuses, and that was when
Speaker 8: conservatives really saw their moment. They've been sort of laying
Speaker 8: this ground. We're having tension with universities now, they say
Speaker 8: these universities are allowing anti.
Speaker 7: Semitism on campus.
Speaker 8: Trump takes office again and we've seen this explosion. They're
Speaker 8: trying to take federal funding, they're trying to ban international students,
Speaker 8: they're trying to get rid of their tax exempt status.
Speaker 8: So they're really trying to hit them on all sides,
Speaker 8: and Harvard's fighting back in court.
Speaker 1: So essentially, what you're selling us is that this isn't
Speaker 1: just about Harvard. This is about This is about any
Speaker 1: university that the Trump administration, the conservatives, the nationalists that
Speaker 1: are associated with this administration well with the GOP, their
Speaker 1: belief that there are a lot of quote unquote liberal
Speaker 1: universities out there and we need to change the way
Speaker 1: our youth are being educated. Harvard is just the first stop.
Speaker 1: Is that an accurate way to depict this.
Speaker 8: It's absolutely an accurate way to depict this. Harvard has
Speaker 8: become sort of Trump's obsession on our reporting shows because
Speaker 8: it's the richest university in the nation, so they have
Speaker 8: a lot of money. They are able to fight back.
Speaker 8: The administration has done this to other schools. We've seen Columbia,
Speaker 8: some other elite universities. They are basically negotiating with the government.
Speaker 8: They have tried to appeal to what the government is doing.
Speaker 8: Harvard is not. Harvard is saying we are not dealing
Speaker 8: with you on this. We are going to court. So
Speaker 8: it's a broader strategy from the government. You're absolutely right
Speaker 8: to get elite universities, and then ultimately they want to
Speaker 8: get down to the state level. But Harvard has become
Speaker 8: sort of the point of the sphere on this.
Speaker 2: A day or so go to General Services.
Speaker 1: Administration directed all federal agencies to explore ways to cut
Speaker 1: remaining contracts with the university. According to a senior administration official,
Speaker 1: is that legal.
Speaker 8: Well, we'll find out. This is all going to end
Speaker 8: up in court. Basically with the research funding in particular,
Speaker 8: Congress appropriates government funding that does not come from the
Speaker 8: president or his executive branch, and so there are a
Speaker 8: lot of questions about the government restricting funding to universities
Speaker 8: that has already been allocated. All of these different cases,
Speaker 8: the international students funding government contracts.
Speaker 7: I imagine we will see them all.
Speaker 8: Ultimately make it up to the Supreme Court you talked
Speaker 8: about this international student ruling. International students can continue to
Speaker 8: enroll in Harvard for now, But there's a lot of
Speaker 8: questions really about the administration's power and how much power
Speaker 8: the president and his other agencies have.
Speaker 1: Harvard has an endowment worth about fifty three billion dollars,
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, by far more than any other
Speaker 1: American university.
Speaker 2: What would argue, why.
Speaker 1: Can't they tap into that as a pos to needing
Speaker 1: federal assistance or requiring federal assistance. Why would they not
Speaker 1: just tap into their own funds and be independent so
Speaker 1: they don't have to worry about needing federal dollars in
Speaker 1: order to do what they want to do. That way,
Speaker 1: trumpet the administration, the nationalists or anybody else wouldn't have.
Speaker 7: But so much power, Well, they might have to.
Speaker 8: And I think that's why Harvard, unlike some other universities,
Speaker 8: actually have some staying power in this fight. You know,
Speaker 8: fifty three billion dollars is an obscene amount of money,
Speaker 8: but Harvard spends a lot of money, and they do
Speaker 8: have a lot of research. They've said that these government
Speaker 8: funding cuts will affectings like cancer research, and so they've
Speaker 8: become really reliant on the federal government, as have a
Speaker 8: lot of these elite universities for research funding. Another thing
Speaker 8: is that a lot of these universities make money from
Speaker 8: international students, because those are the students who are.
Speaker 7: Generally coming in.
Speaker 8: They're paying full price, they're not getting scholarships, and they're
Speaker 8: really reliant. And Harvard I think it's about a quarter
Speaker 8: of their student body is international.
Speaker 7: That's a huge chunk. And if they can't get that money.
Speaker 8: It's not tomorrow that their funding stream runs out, but
Speaker 8: it is a big deal. If they lose their tax
Speaker 8: exempt status, then they suddenly have to start paying taxes
Speaker 8: on things like their property, which I imagine Boston area
Speaker 8: pretty expensive.
Speaker 7: So I think they spend a lot of money. They
Speaker 7: have a ton of money. It's not going to happen tomorrow.
Speaker 8: They have to do things, but there's a lot less
Speaker 8: hope for schools like maybe UC Berkeley, which is an
Speaker 8: elite state level institution, if their state funding gets cut off,
Speaker 8: I think it's a lot harder for them to fight
Speaker 8: back in the long term, sorry, federal funding cut off.
Speaker 1: And clearly people are going to be in panic mode
Speaker 1: because you got these smaller universities that don't have that
Speaker 1: endowment base that Harvard has, and as a result of
Speaker 1: Harvard loses, Okay, then everybody loses. That's they're probably their mentality.
Speaker 1: I must ask this goal. Going back to the international
Speaker 1: student body that you pointed out exist at Harvard, Conservatives
Speaker 1: will say those are not because again you have a
Speaker 1: lot of people that nationalists view. That's the national perspective.
Speaker 1: Remember Trump America first, America first, America first. He never
Speaker 1: said America only, but he says America first, and people
Speaker 1: in America who support him take it like America first
Speaker 1: last and always. So with that mentality, one would ask
Speaker 1: the international student body, how does Harvard explain how such
Speaker 1: a student body is that large as opposed to more
Speaker 1: American citizens being enrolled in their universities. Do they ever
Speaker 1: try to discuss that kind of argument, because it's certainly
Speaker 1: one that the folks on the right has made against them.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 8: I mean, I think we've just seen the Harvard at
Speaker 8: least in court related to these international students. They say
Speaker 8: these students are instrumental in making Harvard.
Speaker 7: Harvard.
Speaker 8: Harvard, of course is an elite university, so they have
Speaker 8: really smart people from around the world. They have incredible athletes.
Speaker 8: I'm not sure if they've made exact case saying this
Speaker 8: is why we have so many.
Speaker 7: They're not the only school.
Speaker 8: Most of these Ivy League schools have large populations of
Speaker 8: international students, as do a lot of these sort of
Speaker 8: state ivys like a UC Berkeley or a Michigan. They've
Speaker 8: just over the years become really reliant. I'm sure a
Speaker 8: large part of it is their funding. And then of course,
Speaker 8: you know they're bringing in smart students now the universe
Speaker 8: the government, as you said, sort of this America First agenda.
Speaker 8: Steve Bannon told me that when he was talking about
Speaker 8: this idea in Trump one point l far before the
Speaker 8: conversation about anti Semitism, he felt like students on American
Speaker 8: universities were becoming anti American. And so this really goes
Speaker 8: back exactly what you're saying to that nationalist idea of
Speaker 8: who's American and who is patriotic, and that is a
Speaker 8: priority for Trump.
Speaker 1: Any idea, whether he's in good he's in a good position,
Speaker 1: or whether the hall that is in a good position.
Speaker 1: Who who's got the pole position right now?
Speaker 7: As they say, you know, I'm not a legal reporter,
Speaker 7: so I can't. I can't guess.
Speaker 8: I think it's we have reported at the Wall Street
Speaker 8: Journal that even if Harvard wins these cases, the damage
Speaker 8: at least in some point is done. Right if you're
Speaker 8: an international student, yeah, you can stay right now, but
Speaker 8: are you going to come back in the fall if
Speaker 8: it could be revoked, or you're going to try to
Speaker 8: go somewhere else at home? You know, there's a lot
Speaker 8: of federal funding that's been cut off. They might get
Speaker 8: some back, but is it all going to be reimbursed,
Speaker 8: you know, at the same levels. I think there are
Speaker 8: a lot of questions, especially for people making decisions.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 8: If you're a student who is supposed to go to
Speaker 8: Harvard in the fall, do you have pause?
Speaker 7: Maybe not, but.
Speaker 8: Especially if you're in an international student, it has to
Speaker 8: be on your radar because you could be sent home
Speaker 8: at any.
Speaker 1: Moment any specific institutions other than Harvit that that the
Speaker 1: administration is targeted in your estimation.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so we can talk about Columbia a little bit.
Speaker 8: Columbia Universe City also got demands from the government and
Speaker 8: basically we should be clear that the government demands on
Speaker 8: Harvard were pretty extensive. Basically, they said they should have
Speaker 8: say over who the university hires, who the university admits,
Speaker 8: who the university's curriculum. Basically, the government says, if you're
Speaker 8: receiving our money, we are we should have a say
Speaker 8: in what happens at a university. Now, that bucks a
Speaker 8: long standing tradition of universities getting to do what they want,
Speaker 8: and that's why Harvard pushes back. Columbia had a little
Speaker 8: bit less of a list of demands, though basically the
Speaker 8: government does want a say. And as someone at the
Speaker 8: DOJ described me, they said, Columbia is playing dead. Columbia
Speaker 8: is in negotiations with the government, has agreed to do
Speaker 8: some things. I know one of the requests from the
Speaker 8: government at Columbia was to ban masks. That was something
Speaker 8: that we saw students wearing during these protests to disguise
Speaker 8: their identity.
Speaker 7: Seems like col agreed to that. So it's a similar.
Speaker 8: Situation at Columbia, though they are negotiating with the government.
Speaker 8: Now we know Trump is he's obsessed with Harvard in
Speaker 8: this case, and it's really because Harvard is pushing back
Speaker 8: in a way that other schools are not. And they
Speaker 8: have so much money. So Trump feels like what you
Speaker 8: asked earlier, why do they need our money if they
Speaker 8: have so much money.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to know if you can't answer this, I
Speaker 1: certainly understand because you're a reporter, and I certainly don't
Speaker 1: want to put you in that kind of position. But
Speaker 1: I'm curious to know what level of support Trump has
Speaker 1: from the Jewish community because in the aftermath of what
Speaker 1: you alluded to earlier, with Hamas attacking Israel on October seventh,
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, right, what transpired thereafter, obviously
Speaker 1: is reel has been you know, after Hamas, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of Palestinians that people have been viewed as
Speaker 1: suffering tremendously, and you have pro Palestinian supporters primarily on
Speaker 1: college campuses. They're scene more so than any place else.
Speaker 1: And Colombia is one of those places. Harvard was another
Speaker 1: one of those places. You see Berkeley, if I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: I think was one of those places you pointed out
Speaker 1: these kind of things. I'm wondering what role it's perceived
Speaker 1: that they're playing in pushing Trump or supporting Trump to
Speaker 1: take these positions against universities. One would argue they've supported
Speaker 1: the Jewish community is supported for years. I don't know
Speaker 1: the answer to that question, but I think it's an
Speaker 1: appropriate question.
Speaker 8: Well, we can definitely say that Trump's win in November,
Speaker 8: he did better across basically every demographic group, including young people.
Speaker 8: I think it's really important to say he closed the
Speaker 8: gap with that Biden had won young people in twenty twenty.
Speaker 8: I think it was by like twenty five points. Harris
Speaker 8: won young people by four in twenty twenty four, So
Speaker 8: young people in general of all religions were moving towards Trump.
Speaker 8: That has emboldened him Jewish supporters. I think it's it's
Speaker 8: a smaller group, so we haven't seen a ton of pulling.
Speaker 8: But we do know that Trump's hardline approach to Hamas
Speaker 8: strong support of Israel did help him with Jewish, especially
Speaker 8: conservative Jews who are pro Israel. Of course, not all
Speaker 8: Jews are, as you know, pro the current Israeli government,
Speaker 8: but those that Jewish section of the population we've seen
Speaker 8: is more aligned with Trump. I think it's also really
Speaker 8: important to note that the frustration over Gaza, while there
Speaker 8: were a lot of progressive voices advocating for Gaza.
Speaker 7: They didn't show.
Speaker 8: Up for Democrats in November, and so in some ways
Speaker 8: they actually even helped Trump even if they didn't support him,
Speaker 8: because a lot stayed home, a lot voted third party.
Speaker 8: I live in Arizona. That's a key battleground state. We
Speaker 8: did some reporting on Arab Americans here. It was amazing
Speaker 8: how many I talked to who didn't vote at all.
Speaker 8: Arizona's a state. Trump won it pretty easily this time
Speaker 8: around of five percent, but in twenty twenty Biden wanted
Speaker 8: by ten thousand votes. So if Michigan huge air of
Speaker 8: American population where this was an important issue, so Trump
Speaker 8: was helped by those voters too, even if they didn't
Speaker 8: necessarily mean to, because some of them were protesting Harris
Speaker 8: and the Biden administration's policies.
Speaker 1: Last couple of questions for I'll let you get on
Speaker 1: out of here. How soon should we anticipate the decision
Speaker 1: being made on this matter between the Trump administration and
Speaker 1: Harvard University.
Speaker 8: Well, there are several different lawsuits, and like I said,
Speaker 8: I think with Harvard, and with a lot of these
Speaker 8: cases we're seeing with Trump in general on immigration on
Speaker 8: government cuts. I mean, these are cases that are making
Speaker 8: their way through the courts and ultimately probably will end
Speaker 8: up at the Supreme Court, because the Supreme Court has
Speaker 8: the final say, and these are real questions about how
Speaker 8: much power the President of the United States and his
Speaker 8: executive branch have, and so I don't know, you know,
Speaker 8: each court has to decide to take something up.
Speaker 7: They have their own timelines.
Speaker 8: The Supreme Court has all sorts of rules about when
Speaker 8: they can take cases up. So I think we're months
Speaker 8: away from decisions. And of course, like that international case
Speaker 8: is one case, federal funding something else. You know, we're
Speaker 8: seeing fight over tax exempt status with the IRS. I mean,
Speaker 8: there's all these different fights. So I don't think anything's
Speaker 8: going to be tied up with the bow, and certainly
Speaker 8: not all of it at once. I think we can
Speaker 8: plan for this is going to be going.
Speaker 4: On for a while.
Speaker 2: Very last question to you.
Speaker 1: I've seen various conservatives even lamenting Trump's push towards this
Speaker 1: this issue with Harvard because they talked about it compromising
Speaker 1: our First Amendment rights, free speech, etc.
Speaker 2: And so you got to wonder about that. I guess
Speaker 2: the question would be.
Speaker 1: If Trump were to win this case against Harvard and
Speaker 1: these kind of changes were to be invoked. What would
Speaker 1: that mean for universities throughout the country. What's the perception
Speaker 1: rather of what it would mean for those universities and
Speaker 1: for America as a whole, Considering the fact that an
Speaker 1: administration in a White House could pull off such a feat.
Speaker 8: I mean, I think it would have the facts that
Speaker 8: if what the government was asking to do to Harvard
Speaker 8: was have a say over who they hire, who they admit,
Speaker 8: what they research, and so if they're able to win
Speaker 8: that case and that is implemented at universities across the country,
Speaker 8: I think we would see a major shift from how
Speaker 8: things have been further, as long as you know, the
Speaker 8: US has been around. I think it's really important to
Speaker 8: note that polling shows Americans overwhelmingly opposed cutting medical research
Speaker 8: and funding from universities. If you ask that question simply,
Speaker 8: but if you get into details and say what about
Speaker 8: doing it for anti semitism on campuses, the issue basically
Speaker 8: evens out. So basically half and half would support funding cuts.
Speaker 8: There is a lot of polling that shows Americans feel,
Speaker 8: you know, elite universities do not represent them. They feel
Speaker 8: that college is too expensive. They feel that the value
Speaker 8: of education a degree doesn't go.
Speaker 7: As far anymore. So I think not. I think.
Speaker 8: I know that the administration feels they have a lot
Speaker 8: of polling and a lot of anger at universities, but
Speaker 8: there also is that counterpolling that people do not like
Speaker 8: the idea of medical research, in particular that funding being
Speaker 8: This is of course decided in the courts, not by vote,
Speaker 8: but I think the where the American public is on
Speaker 8: this issue is important.
Speaker 1: Lots of Collins, National reporter for the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: covering this particular issue with the Trump administration at Harvard University.
Speaker 1: Outstanding column just the other day in the New Washington
Speaker 1: in the Wall Street Journal, the punch that launched Trump's war.
Speaker 2: On American universities.
Speaker 1: Elizah, thank you so much for coming on the show,
Speaker 1: taking time out of your busy schedule. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: It was wonderful talking to you. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: and feel free to come back anytime. That was a
Speaker 1: fully loaded show, so I don't need to give you
Speaker 1: anything else. Okay, you got plenty of stuff to soak
Speaker 1: in and absorb over the weekend. This is Stephen A.
Speaker 1: Smith signing off. Thank you for staying with me. Really
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. Look forward to talking to you on Monday.
Speaker 1: Until then, Peace of love everybody, enjoy your weekend.
Speaker 2: God bless