ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro says it's a huge misconception that his network is "political," but his employees keep making him eat his words. On Tuesday, First Take co-hosts Max Kellerman and Stephen A. Smith attacked President Donald Trump and his friend, golfer Tiger Woods, for reasons having nothing to do with sports, demonstrating that ESPN can accurately be described as the “Entertainment Sports and Political Network.”
On Sunday Woods was pressed by the media about his friendship with the president and responded that he's known Trump for years, has dined and golfed with him and, he added:
"Well, he’s the president of the United States. You have to respect the office. No matter who is in the office, you may like, dislike personality or the politics, but we all must respect the office.”
A day later on First Take, ESPN's Molly Qerim asked Kellerman and Stephen A. Smith to "do some fake sports news" and comment on Woods' remarks. They went well beyond Tiger's remarks; they went deeply into politics and their contempt for President Trump.
Kellerman said Woods' comment "really bothers me. I’m angry at what Tiger Woods said. It is a thoughtless statement held up as a thoughtful statement and it either holds in contempt the intelligence of the people who hear it. Or else it’s just a stupid thing to say.”
Smith said Woods has a "checkered history." He added that it's "incredibly dangerous, particularly with an individual who shows no compunction to act with decorum." But "you have to respect that power and the President can make things happen in bad or good ways." Smith denied ideology is connected to his criticisms of Trump:
"Ideology has nothing to do with my commentary on Trump especially as it relates to sports. Some people don't believe that. We are talking about someone under multiple federal investigations, possible conspiracy with a hostile foreign power to fix a close election. Several associates have been convicted. He is essentially a co-conspirator to multiple felonies to which his lawyer has confessed. I mean, we are not talking about a normal situation here."
Smith said there are several avenues to bring the ire of our nation upon Trump because of how he conducts himself. "In the process of doing so we have an obligation to be responsible with our rhetoric." Kellerman said, "No. He has a greater responsibility and he is failing."
Smith America "ain't a dictatorship" and said you can get Trump out of office in four or eight years, and Kellerman quipped, "Or sooner."
Woods was not allowed a break from the criticism, which descended into a discussion of his ethnicity. Smith said the golfer gets criticized for not really being black and that blacks don't respect Woods because he doesn't speak out on issues. He's perceived as a black man, but his mother is Thai and "he's not black, he's Asian."
Kellerman said Woods shouldn't play a "shell game" by trying to mislead people with his remarks.
That munching sound in the background is Pitaro eating his words about the ESPN not being political.
