Royce White on Playing for NBA, Trying to Join WNBA, Vlad Beef

0:00All right, here we go. Today we have Royce White, former Houston's rockets player who formerly gotten to online beef with DJ Vlad. Rand for said it twice is running for president. It's currently the ugliest woman attempting to get drafted to the WNBA. You think you think you're going to win? No week today, no week. You know, Royce has to take mental health breaks from now and again because the coming out was maybe a little too public for Royce. She thought that you could just become a woman and everybody would accept it, would embrace her. And there's been a lot of vitriol, a lot of hatred. So we got to give Royce a break every now and again. Okay, we'll talk about that in a second. Like I mentioned in the intro. You think of the ugliest woman? You sure? Royce is pretty, pretty hot, pretty good looking. No, I don't think so. No, is it the beard? I don't think so.

1:00Is it the beard or the facial structure? I think it's the beard. I got you. I got you. Every circus needs a bearded lady though Vlad. Right, but it doesn't mean that you want to get with that lady. True, true. There's that. Fair enough. Well, let's just talk about how you and I got into it. This was back in 2022. I got into it before, four years ago. And I had this tweet that went mega viral. I got something like 15 million impressions. I said, as an adult, playing video games for long periods of time is a form of depression. If you don't believe me, ask yourself this. Think about the 100 greatest moments of your life. Do any of these moments include video games? Probably not. This comes from a lifetime gamer. And you responded. And I think you called me a beta male or something like that. And then from that point on, I start talking shit about you and it kind of went back and forth for a little bit. I have no. I don't even remember it. You know, from the tweet that you just read off, I don't really, maybe I didn't catch it, but I don't even know why I would have a problem with it. But you got to realize, you know, when I was when I wasn't an open transgender, I had the

2:03tendency to get very emotional about things and just last shout, it was the transgender locked deep down inside of me that was just screaming to get out. And you know, Roisha would last shout in all kinds of ways. But no, like I told you, affair, I'm a huge fan of what you do. And you've had some incredible interviews. I always say this about people who had significant cultural impact. Some people's impact can't be quantified. And I think the interviews you have done fall into that category. And I watch a lot of them and I've watched them multiple times, multiple interviews, multiple times. So, yeah, no, we don't have a beef. I don't even remember the conversation, you know, to be honest. But it's all good, man. Not a big deal in my world. Not a big deal at all. In my neighborhood, too, where I come from, like, you could have an argument and tell a guy, fuck you, bitch ass, nigga. And then like tomorrow, we love each other. Maybe that's a little toxic, as they would say. But it's just the way that I grew up. So, you know, I come from a cousin family. We cuss, we, you know, we talk shit to each other.

3:05Basketball world's the same way, right? Basketball has a lot of that to it, especially at the playground. So, yeah, it's no, man, I'm a huge fan of the platform and the interviews you do. So, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Of course, of course. Well, it's your first time here. I want to start at the very beginning. Okay. So, you grew up in the Twin Cities. Yes. Yeah, Twin Cities, Minnesota. I was born in St. Paul, which is our capital city. But I grew up playing basketball or sports in the Minneapolis area. So, I grew up across the entire metro area. And even more so, my mother was a single mother. So she relied upon my extended family a lot to help with babysitting and transportation. And grandmother, grandfather, who weren't married at the time, they were living separate. So, I had a pretty broad extended family community that helped my mom make ends meet and help me get around. So, I really grew up all around the city. If you know anything about the geography of the Twin Cities, a pretty massive footprint.

4:06And I grew up in multiple neighborhoods or areas of the city, which I, you know, I'm blessed. I feel privileged to have experienced so many different places in my hometown. Some people never leave their blocks. Some people never leave their neighborhood, you know. And I think that it's helped shape to I.M. and the way I see the world because I was able to get around and see a lot of different things growing up here in the Twin Cities. Well, you became a standout basketball star in high school. Your name, Minnesota, Mr. Basketball, and you won two state championships. Yes. Okay. McDonald's All-American, did you ever try for that? You know, it's interesting. I was a Jordan All-American. And I was a Nike elite kid. My A.U. team was a Nike elite program, the historic Howard Pouley program. And I also went to two different Nike high school, DeLaSalle High School and Hopkins High School, which are two of the most, you know, successful high school basketball programs

5:06in Minnesota history. Two of the best coaches, my coach at Hopkins actually just, you know, just broke the all-time winning record. And my former coach, Dave Thorsten, who's now an assistant at the University of Minnesota is one 10 state championships, right? So you're talking about two guys who I couldn't have been more blessed to play for, and they have a wealth of knowledge that just you couldn't even pay for it, right? How much they know about the game. They know more than most have forgotten. But when it comes to the McDonald's thing, it was interesting because back then, like 2008, 2009, obviously social media wasn't as big yet. And the Midwest didn't get a lot of attention still. The attention for high school sports was still more, you know, more centralized on the coasts. East Coast, West Coast may be a little bit down in the Southern Eastern Corridor from Texas to Florida. That DMV area had a lot popping too, you know, a lot of great players come from that DMV

6:07area. But the Midwest was still kind of off the mat except for Chicago. Reason I say that is because I was ranked the number two small forward in the country, which put me at around 16, 15 overall. And about four players made the McDonald game that weren't even in the top 60. So it was very political back then, the McDonald all-American selection. And I didn't make it, unfortunately. But I always say, I'm okay with that. I took offense to it and it helped fuel and motivate me to prove them wrong going into college. Okay. So you graduate high school and do you go to University of Minnesota first? Stayed home, went to the University of Minnesota under Coach Tubby Smith. Okay. Never even took a visit anywhere else. You get five official visits. I never took a visit anywhere else because to me, I was the highest ranked prospect to come out of Minnesota in a long time and since Chris Humphries. And I felt that as an obligation to stay home and try and revive our only Division I program,

7:14which is the Golden Goafers University of Minnesota. So I never even considered going anywhere else despite having offers from Texas, Kansas, nor everybody. I mean, I had so many offers. It was crazy. But I never even took an official visit because I had already made my decision. I was staying home regardless. Well, while you were at University of Minnesota, you caught a theft case? Yeah. You know, you could say that I was at the mall with a group of friends and in this way maybe staying home wasn't the best idea. But you know, it is what it is. I was at the mall with a group of friends and we were playing a little snatch and grab game and we got apprehended by loss prevention. And the loss prevention guy got a little physical with me at the time. I was already 6'8", 230", 230", 5", I was a grown man. And he kind of tried to come up behind me and grab me from behind me by the neck.

8:14And I think I flipped him over my shoulder or something like that. So ultimately what ended up happening in that case was a petty theft that I played guilty to or I think I played Nolo Contender, right, which is no contest and then it gets expunge from your record after a certain time of lapses. But I was with a group of friends and you know, way I grew up, there's no, I wasn't the one who did it. This person did it that person did it. No, it's just, you know, it's a, it's a nothing issue. It's a nothing issue. Okay, you didn't want to sit shut your friends. It's just a nothing issue. I mean, it was petty. For me, I guess at 18, it didn't seem like a big deal because it was, and it was a petty misdemeanor. So it just, it wasn't a situation where I was going to, where we were going to go through a bunch of hoops to try and prove that I wasn't the one who actually snatched this or snatched that. It's like, you know, just take the community service, you know, make better decisions next time. You're playing high major basketball. You can't hang out with everybody and do everything everybody else is doing because it's

9:18going to be looked at differently. And I had to learn that and I take full responsibility for, for being there that day and what took place. Well, is that why you left university, Minnesota, Iowa state? No, no, no, not at all. No, what happened was, now I'm glad you're asking about this. Nobody ever goes back and addresses it. That's why you're you, right? No, well, so after that situation at the Mall of America, I was suspended by the, by the athletic program, the AD, who was Joe Maturi at the time. And which is another part of the reason why we played quickly because we wanted to get the situation resolved quickly, going through a lengthy trial over something petty would have just prolonged me being suspended from the team. And during the, the suspension, there was an incident that happened on campus where people were partying all night at a freshman dorm, which is typical stuff, you know, at a college campus.

10:19And a group of my friends went to a dorm, we didn't live at, right? I mean, I was a freshman, but we were at a dorm that I didn't live in. And a young girl had her laptop stolen from her dorm room that night. Now when the police came to ask her a question, her parents had come and they were filing a police report about this stolen laptop. When the police came, they asked her a specific question, which I thought was really leading. They said, who was in the dorm room that didn't live here, that she didn't recognize who doesn't live here or that she recognized it doesn't live here? And she said, Royce and his friends, so I became a possible suspect in that case. And as long as I was a possible suspect, the athletic department deemed that I would be suspended again until that case was resolved. Now interestingly enough, the University of Minnesota Police Department called me in for questioning. I came in for questioning of my own volition. And here they are, they're laying out these pictures on this table in this interrogation

11:21room and they're like, who's this person? Who's that person? Who's this person? And I'm like, I'm not telling anybody's names. I'm here to talk about me. I'm here to talk about what I didn't do. I had a very hostile University of Minnesota Police Department. In fact, the interrogator, a female officer, she told me, we know that she took this laptop or you know who did and we're going to prove it. That pissed me off because I actually didn't have anything to do with the laptop being stolen. And eventually after this lengthy three month investigation that they carried on intentionally to keep me from being able to return to play. They came back and charged me with trespass instead of theft. Right? I mean, it's just one of those classic situations where the system really has a miscarriage of process and justice. And you know, it got bad. Like the underlying story there and I'll tell you that because I appreciate you having me on the platform.

12:21The underlying story is I come from the neighborhood and the University of Minnesota is very close to the neighborhood on both sides of the river. So you got the Mississippi River and the University of Minnesota splits the Mississippi River. On one side you got the St. Paul campus on the other side you got the Minneapolis campus and both let's say Central City neighborhoods where black people live from St. Paul and Minneapolis about a 10 minute, five minute drive in some places from the campus. Naturally because I grew up in both cities, I had a lot of friends from the neighborhood in both cities and it was very easy for them to get to campus and they like to come and hang out. And I didn't mind that because to me it was like this is all I knew. You know, all I know is the people that all you know is the people you come from. Right? And let's say the University of Minnesota was very uncomfortable with having that many young black men who don't attend the school roaming around which is totally understandable. I mean, I understand their apprehension but it got a little personal with me and I became

13:26a representative of a growing problem in the city. And so at the time there were these changes that were made downtown Minneapolis which is the prominent club scene and they have switched the ages. So like it was I think 18 plus for girls for women, 21 plus for boys, men. So now you got all these 18 plus girls going downtown for the most part but all these boys under 21 are looking for somewhere to hang out in party. The campus became the de facto place to party and we threw our fair share of parties. Don't get me wrong, right? But there were people showing up who I didn't really know that well or people who I didn't really know other than maybe a little bit as a kid. I might have known from grade school or after school program. Maybe we played a little ball together. I didn't know knowing. Well, one day on campus a football player was stabbed by somebody and these calls went

14:30around. Like to my coach, my coach calls me early in the morning. He's like, you know, this football player got stabbed. They're saying that this was one of your friends and I'm like, huh? It's funny enough, I went even on campus that night. I was like back in St. Paul at my grandmother's house or something. So that became the narrative is like Royce is bringing all of these dangerous neighborhood guys to the campus. So anything that went wrong, you know, they were kind of looking at me and I just felt like, man, you know, let me get out of here. Let me leave, you know, this campus altogether and transfer and then that way I can't get blame for any of the stuff that anybody, you know, whatever anybody else does. So that's kind of the back story. I've never told that story. But it's interesting. I know we'll talk more about politics later. That really did shape a lot of, you know, what would later come in terms of my political views. It's me, the we don't need the jingle twice.

15:35Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how price line negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights and rental cars. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels. And the price line at fine. No one deals more deals than please stop. Two Shay. Price line. Well, then you transfer to Iowa State University. Yeah. Yeah, that was like 20 at the time. No, I was I was 19. 19. Okay. That season you let the team in points rebounds assist deals and blocks. Yeah. And it's a crazy season. It's a crazy fee. Yeah, congratulations. It's a rare, it's a rare statistical fee. The last person to do it was Cooper Flag at Duke and not many people have done it, especially in power six conferences like the big 12.

16:36It's actually pretty, pretty rare thing to do. Well, then at that point at the end of the season, you have to decide if you come back for another year in college or you go to the NBA draft and you decide to go to the NBA. Yeah, I declare for the draft. And you know, even that story like back then you couldn't just transfer free of charge. You had to sit a year still. This was before the portal and people could transfer as they as they wish. So you either had to sit a year, you had to have a waiver from the NCAA. So when I transferred, well first I got to tell you this story, when I transferred, well, when I was going to transfer Kentucky was recruiting me, which I'm absolutely blessed that Coach Calapari was even still considering me because I had trouble, right? I mean, I had a legitimate trouble following me, although I didn't do what they said I did exactly, but still that type of thing follows you whether you guilty or not. But Coach Calapari still was willing to recruit me and he flew in on a private jet with

17:42one of his assistant coaches sat down with me and my mother at the airport and he told me he said, I want to coach you. You know, I think you're really versatile and could bring a lot to the program. I'm going to try and get you eligible. We're going to put in a waiver, but I don't know if I'm going to be able to get you eligible. I'll tell you this, if you're not eligible next season to play, we have so many NBA scouts at our practices every single week. You're going to end up getting drafted just from being in practice and I'm never going to get the chance to coach you. And I'm sitting there thinking, this guy is just blowing smoke up my ass because he wants me to come to Kentucky, right? You know, there's no way I'm getting drafted without playing. That's impossible. He said, there's another player that's coming to Kentucky from Turkey. His name is Enis Cantor and he also is going to have trouble getting eligible. But I guarantee you the both of you will be drafted without ever having played a single game for me.

18:42And as much as I want to coach you, that's just the way it is. Enis Cantor went on to go to Kentucky and he was drafted without ever playing a single game. I remember watching the draft after that season and going, five. There's a lot of us telling the truth. This dude got any winning number like three or six or something too. So it was really high. And I had to sit at Iowa State for a year because I didn't get clear to play. Then I played the following year. My first season playing was actually my third year in college. So. Right. Because you were a little bit older when you were playing. I think that was the point of the question. You were like 20 or so at the time. Right. Well, my freshman year was a watch. Then my sophomore year I had to sit and then my junior year, my junior, my red shirt sophomore year was my first year playing. And you imagine if me and Enis and Demarcus cousins and John Wall had all played on that Kentucky team, I think they actually lost only one game that season anyway. If we had all four played that season, it might have been one of the best college basketball teams of all time.

19:43Talon wise, pound for pound. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. So interesting. So at age 21, you enter the 2012 NBA draft. And Houston Rockets pick you 16th overall. Yeah. Just as a backdrop to what's happening in that draft, Anthony Davis was first Bradley Biel was third, Damien Lillard was sixth, Harrison Barnes was seventh. So you had some hitters. Oh, yeah. Some hall of famous. Some hall of famous. Yeah, exactly. So you join the Houston Rockets, but everything goes left when it's time to actually fly. Yeah, this story has been told and missed told so many times. It's quite frustrating. And it's it also has really shaped who I am in terms of my political fight because when President Trump, for example, says fake news, I think he means it in the most general sense.

20:43I have a very personal experience with it. And this is that story, right? This whole flying narrative was just a way for the NBA to cover for their lack of mental health policy. So I'll tell you the story. I'm in a practice at Iowa State and we're doing better than expected. I think at the beginning of the season, we were picked to finish in the bottom three of the big 12. When this interview with ESPN took place, we're in the top three. And a reporter comes, he sits down with me and he's he's talking about my daily routine, right? Like, what do I do every day before the games? And I told them that I don't eat because of my anxiety. Now, granted, I was diagnosed with anxiety at 16 years old. At 18, I was still kind of sorting out, trying different medications, different dietary things, different, different meditative practices, so on and so forth. So even when I got to college, it wasn't all sorted. By the time I got to Iowa State, I got into a pretty good groove of understanding how to deal with anxiety. But it was still a very relevant part of my life, right?

21:47So for example, when I wake up in the morning or back when I was at Iowa State, I wake up in the morning. I'd have so much nerves about the game that I didn't feel comfortable eating. My stomach was just nervous. So I usually ate on an empty stomach and you're talking all the way to 7 pm now is when most of these games start. So I told this reporter that and he was like, hold on a second. What'd you say? Anxiety. And I didn't even think anything of it. I was just being as honest and transparent as I could about my daily routine. But at the time, it wasn't common for a high level division one athlete to talk about a struggle with anxiety or mental health at all. So he took notice of that. And then it became the subtext, you know, the underlying narrative of my entire college season and then subsequently the draft, right? We got to the draft and the narrative was how do NBA teams look at mental health and anxiety? Is it considered a medical issue or a character flow? So now and so to talk about the draft on draft night, the consensus was Royce is a top

22:54five talent and he's NBA ready. He's got the third biggest hands in the history of the NBA combine. He let his team in all five major stats, which means he's supremely versatile. There's nothing on the court he really can't do. And with the certain development and training that the NBA provides, the sky's the limit, right? The ceiling is high for him. I'm tough. I'm gritty, right? I got that Midwestern grit to me in terms of how I play. Dreymon Green has that too. We're tough, you know? So people were projecting that I could go anywhere from top five to middle second round. And the range itself was considered a big deal because a top five talent usually doesn't drop to the middle second round unless there's some extenuating consideration for a team. And so I end up dropping to 16, right? And a little backstory now, anybody remembers you can go and watch me play against Kentucky who had six players get drafted that year.

23:54We played them in the second round of the NCAA tournament. You had Terrence Jones, you had Michael Kid, Gil Chris, you had Doron Lamb, Teague's little brother, Marquis Teague, and obviously Anthony Davis. And so you're talking about a team that was loaded and I was dominant. I mean, noticeably dominant. Like you go back and watch the live CBS broadcast, Charles Barkley's like Royce is the best player on the court. It's not even close, which shout out to Charles Barkley for that compliment. I haven't seen Charles Barkley since that time period. And I thank Charles for that compliment because he was incredible. I mean, Charles Barkley, right? But anyway, so it was frustrating to drop that low because I know that, you know, I knew that my talent was up there with the top guys, but it did. So now I'm in the NBA. And before people have to know this, before every NBA season, the rookies go to what they

24:54call a rookie transition program. The rookie transition program is a three-day seminar held in Hoboken, New Jersey, where they basically tell you three things. Watch your agent, watch your family, watch these bitches. Okay? That's the, that's the, that's the gist of the seminar. Watch your agent, watch your family, watch these gold digging holes. Essentially, don't do drugs. Make sure when you talk to the media that you keep things close to the vest because they're not your friend, right? And so I'm at this seminar and I remember hearing this guy speak name Chris Heron. I don't know if people know Chris Heron's story, but he was a big time basketball player and he ended up being addicted to heroin, getting addicted to heroin. And he spoke to us about being addicted to heroin and the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Basically, that was his part of the seminar. And I was so moved by it. I mean, if you've never heard him speak, go on YouTube, find him, find where he is, read

25:57his book, listen to his story. He's a guy who's been to rock bottom and came back, right? And at 19, sorry, at 21, I was really moved by that. And I was sitting there thinking like, man, a lot of what he describes is what I have experienced with dealing with anxiety, you know, the fear, the loneliness, the sense of being trapped in certain situations and wanting to be able to talk to people about it, but not really knowing how or feeling that you're comfortable to talk to people about what you're dealing with. I didn't do drugs. That wasn't a part of my struggle, but the mental health symptoms can be the same, right? That's why anxiety, depression, alcohol, use, and drug use are so comorbid. But anyway, so I go back to my hotel room and I read the entire collective bargaining agreement. This I was thinking at 21. I'm going, all right, I just heard Chris Herring give a testimonial about almost losing his life while playing in the NBA.

26:57But I'm thinking, how did that even happen? And when I read through the collective bargaining agreement, there wasn't a single mention of mental health in the entire document from front to back. And so alarms are going off in my head like holy shit. I'm prescribed this medicine, Xanax. I'm prescribed pro-Zach for anxiety. Is it going to be okay for me to take that? How does the team look at it? How does the NBA office and how do they look at it? And so I went to my team and I said, you know, myself, my doctor, my family doctor from back at home have contractual concerns about this collective bargaining agreement. And we like to clear those up, radio silence. Brushed me off. So, okay, I went to him a second time, a couple weeks later, radio silence, brushed it off. We'll talk about it. So we get to the training camp and I had this long talk with my family doctor and I'm like,

28:02they're just ignoring me. Like they're treating it like you should be happy to be in the NBA. We don't give a shit about if you have anxiety or not. We're paying you to do a job. Do your job and we'll help you out with that stuff if we get around to it. And I'm like, I know where this is going. I'm going to get into a fight in a practice at a training camp, maybe in an argument with the coach and the narrative is already there. They're going to say, Roy says crazy because he deals with anxiety disorder, which is one of the most common things in society. And it's going to be weaponized against me. So I said, no, I'm not going to training camp until we have that conversation we were supposed to have. Darryl, Morrie. We were supposed to have a conversation about the collective bargaining agreement and the details of how to interpret mental health in this collective bargaining agreement. And so we finally did. Now we get into this huge back and forth that became public, by the way, because Darryl Morrie told the media I was a wall, which wasn't true. I wasn't a wall. He knew exactly why I wasn't at training camp that year.

29:04And he knew exactly what the problem was with the collective bargaining agreement, as did David Stern in the rest of the NBA. And so eventually what happened was we got into a room. We were discussing this collective bargaining agreement and the NBA told me, you're right. We don't have any mention of mental health. We probably need to fix that. We can't fix it right now. We'll look at it in the off season. And you're right. There's a mental health crisis in our society. And we probably do have some players who are suffering from these kinds of things. And we love to be able to help them. And we do help players when we can, but we can't change the legal language right now. Which wasn't true, that was a lie. But that's what they told me. And effectively what happened after that was I went to go play in the D lead and they promised that they would take a look at the collective bargaining agreement in the off season. When the off season came, I was traded to Philadelphia and then I was essentially black bald. You know, for, yeah.

30:04Well, okay, hold on. Now the way it was reported though was that you had a fear of flying. You had generalized anxiety disorder with a severe fear of flying. And you had wanted a written plan on how the rockets would travel based on your fear of flying. So you could travel by ground, I guess. Yes, but see, this, this was how the NBA played the PR game to discredit the real issue. And what I essentially asked for was to be it, because I take, I was prescribed Xanax, right, which is an anti-anxiety medication, but it's very dangerous. Benzodazapines, one of the most dangerous medicines that you can get involved with, very addictive. The withdrawals are, you know, can be fatal. And I knew that even then. So what I asked for is, hey, when I can drive, let me drive. That way I don't need to take any anti-anxiety medication and we'll limit the aside effects.

31:05So if we're going from Minnesota to Chicago, just let me drive. If we're going from Orlando to Miami, let me drive. If we're going from Philly to DC or Philly to New York or Indiana to Ohio to Cleveland, LA to Golden State, wherever I can drive, let me drive to eliminate the plane travel. Because I don't like to fly. And, you know, I'm very open about that. Things flying does give me anxiety. I can do it and I've always done it. I did it at Iowa State. I did it when I was in high school. I did it playing AU when I was growing up. We were just trying to provide or come up with the best plan for me to mitigate as much anxiety as possible over the course of an 82 game, six and a half month, seven month season. And the NBA had huge problems with that. They said, well, this is creating a precedent that, you know, we don't want to create. And it's like, well, first of all, not so long ago, the NBA only traveled by bus.

32:09It's not like, you know, I mean, back in the 60s and 70s, people were traveling by bus exclusively. There wasn't even NBA air travel. But, you know, we got into a huge fight basically about insurance and liability and who or what the NBA should reasonably have to provide for a player in terms of paying the cost to travel and so on and so forth. So it was a, you know, it was more of a fight about power between the league and the players and legal precedent. And they just fenced it to the public as a fear of flying. It's complete bullshit. It was a lie. And that was the first time I had a real experience with just how powerful the media is and, you know, what, like I said earlier, President Trump caused the fake news because it was never about flying. And so, the policy of the NBA and I got a crashed horse in politics from the one of the biggest institutions in human history. Well, you got drafted 16th.

33:09What was your first year salary? I believe it was 1.2 million. Okay. So you're in the NBA. You're getting over a million dollars for your first year. You flew before while at Iowa State and so forth. I understand that you are dealing with anxiety and you're on medication and so forth, but you're in this incredible situation, right? Something that all your friends dreamed about making that you actually made. Yeah. Why not at that point say, look, let me go to training camp. Let me just get through these, you know, these flights. And let me just prove what I could really do on the court. And once I get a little more power and once I'm an established NBA player, really, I'm reckoned on the court, then I can have a little bit more push, a little bit more pull, and get what I want accomplished. Such a great question. And it actually is the crux of my entire political identity. See, because when you think that you can prove yourself to a group of people who don't value

34:15basic humanity, you'll be proving yourself to the day you go on the grave. You never have enough power or leverage to give people to do what they know is right when they don't want to do it for whatever reason. And that's kind of the carrot they dangle, you know, in front of all of us is at some point, you'll have enough money or power or leverage to force the system, the institutions or people just generally to do what you want them to do, but that's never the case. Now, power doesn't work like that, especially in this country or anywhere around the world. It certainly doesn't work like that for the global elites and the people who run the MBAs, kind of the global corporate watering hole, the watering hole for a global corporate community. They could have said that to me, and they did say that to me. They said, you're right about mental health, and we could help you be the advocate, the face of mental health like you want to be. And I'm sitting there going, but you have to play first, you have to prove yourself. And I'm sitting there going, well, I never asked to be the face of anything.

35:18We're talking about policy and what's right and what's wrong. Here you have a substance, a band substance list and the drug that I'm prescribed is on it. You're telling me I can take it because the doctor's prescribed it, but you know the inherent dangers of taking it over the course of nine months. You can get addicted to Xanx by taking it exactly as a doctor's prescribed. Let alone taking it for nine, but there's not even a doctor who would prescribe you for long-term Xanx shoes. That's how addictive they are. So what we uncovered is that there was a gap between the NBA's fundamental understanding of the band substance list they had created, the medicines that are on it, and how it's practically used with the players that play, or the players that are prescribed it. And we tried to sort that out. I tried to be the one to say, hey, you know what? I'm willing to use myself as a case study. Let's have the conversation. I'll be completely transparent about what I deal with and the medicine I'm prescribed. And we can figure out how players who deal with this kind of thing are best supported

36:19to be productive. And what we ended up realizing a year later, Kevin Love, Demarter Rose, and all these other players started to talk about their struggles with mental health, even some coaches and referees. I remember Joey Crawford, who was one of the most tenured refs in the NBA. He came out and talked about his struggles with anxiety. And they ended up changing the policy. In fact, the policy they have in place right now came directly from my notebook. The current policy they have for mental health in the NBA two days, I wrote myself at 21. And it's very basic, but we had to go through that process. The only thing I don't like is that they try to tell a half truth or fake story about the flying piece. It's no skin off their back to let me drive from Minnesota to Chicago. That was no problem. It wasn't about that. It was about presenting me, like you said, to a bunch of people who dream and aspire to be in the NBA, which is every little boy across the world, and create the deception

37:24of a proposition like you laid it out. Everybody would kill to have this opportunity. And here you are squandering it because you don't want to fly. First of all, I reject the premise. I don't do what the things that I choose to do in life are never based on what my friends would do or not. I lead. I'm going to do what needs to be done. I'm going to say what needs to be said. I'm going to fight the battles that need to be fought. And if I have to be in convenience or if I have to sacrifice in order to do that, that's the rightest thing to do. Now the NBA had an opportunity to do the same. And they failed that test. They had an opportunity to say, you know what, mental health is going to be the greatest social issue we face looking forward or going forward. And we should get ourselves organized around it without trying to play a power trip game with this 120-year-old who called us out about the lack of policy. It's like, and you know what, a lot of black people, and I'll say this, a lot of black people are so obsessed with sport. It's not just black people, but the NBA and black culture has a symbiotic relationship

38:28in many ways for obvious reasons because black people dominate the sport. A lot of black people said that to me at the time. They said, well, why don't you just shut up and play? And then it's funny because like some years later when when Laura Ingram told the Brown to shut up and dribble, everybody was outraged. It's like, well, wait a minute. When it was me, you were telling me to shut up and dribble. Black people, you were telling me to get on the plane, smoke weed, drink, do drugs, do whatever you need to do. Because we would kill our all. We would steal from our mama to have the chance to make the money that you have a chance to make. And that's the crisis of our time. That is the crisis of our society. Selling out. We have an epidemic of sellouts. We have an epidemic of people who will take whatever, who will take whatever shortcut, who will do whatever, you know, wicked or evil or dishonest thing for the material benefit. And I got a head start. That's why I'm running for president now, right? Because there ain't, there's probably not 10 people that anybody watching this could name

39:30that would turn down potentially a hundred plus million dollars on principle alone. And there certainly ain't anybody running for president that would do it. Price line, negotiated. It's me, the price line, negotiated. We don't need the jingle twice. Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how price line negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights and rental cars. Seems like we decided. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the price line app. Fine, no one deals more deals than... Price line, please stop. Price line, two-shay. Price line. Price line. Well, by 2014, you got traded to the Sacramento Kings. Yeah. And I flew there. You flew there. Yeah. And you played three games for the Kings, all of which were home games. Yes.

40:30Okay. Were you telling them you didn't want to fly once you got to the Kings? No, those were just the games that were in the 10-day schedule. Ah, okay. No, it had nothing to do with... No, that was completely just by coincidence. When I first went to Sacramento, I went to the Reno Big Horns, right, in Idaho. I'm sorry, in Nevada. I went to the plane for the Reno Big Horns in the D-Lee, and then I was called up for the 10-day, and the three games in the 10-day would just happen to be at home. Yeah. Got it. That was an interesting situation, too, because they had a real discord in Sacramento at the time between the... of Vivek, who was the owner of Lolli Divak, who was in charge of basketball operations. Pete D. Ellisandro, who was my guy, who really wanted me there. He was the GM, and then Coach Malone. Mike Malone, who obviously went on to win multiple championships with the Denver Nuggets or a championship. I'm not quite sure I'll talk about my head. I think they may have won, too. But, you know, so they had a lot of discord about the direction of the organization.

41:35And what Pete D. Ellisandro essentially wanted to do was bring me in to play the one, move Isaiah Thomas to the two, let Ben Mac or Moore play the three. Rudy Gay would have been at the four and Demarcus cousins at the five. That's what he wanted to do. And Mike Malone wasn't interested in that for whatever reason. Mike Malone's an interesting guy. He's a tough guy. He's got his way of doing things. He's got the way he views the world and the way he views basketball. So he wasn't a huge fan of Royce at the time of me. Okay. So, then Sacramento lets you go. And that essentially ends your NBA career. Yes. Did you realize at that point you're not going back to the NBA? I knew there was a good chance. I knew the day that I didn't show up the training camp to talk about mental health policy. There was a good chance I would never play. And I didn't really play, right? I mean, when you get in, when you get in with 50 seconds left, the first two games in Sacramento, they put me in with like a minute left.

42:37And then the last game of the 10 day, they let me play for like six minutes. I didn't even try and score. I didn't even take a shot. Because in my mind, I'm thinking, what's the difference between me having zeros in my career stack column, getting in these garbage minutes, or having seven points for the rest of my life? And what the fuck's the difference? Right. So you get let go by the Kings. Then you want to go play for the London Lightning and London Ontario, which was Canada's pro league. You won two championships, you won an MVP. Yeah. And you were living in Canada at the time. Interesting. And eventually you come back to the US and you play for the big three. Shout out to Ice Cube. Right. Ice Cube is big three.

43:39You would shave political slogans on your hair, like deep state, gain of functions, and free the weavers. Weavers. What's a weager? The weavers are a group of ethnic minorities in what is called East Turkestan, China. It's a province out in Western China. It used to be East Turkestan has now been annexed. You could say colonized by China and has functionally been renamed to Zhengjiang, the Zhengjiang province. But before it was East Turkestan. And in East Turkestan they have a very prominent Muslim religion, or Muslim ethnic minority of Turks. It's a very interesting people. Muslim Turks who live out in Western China currently. And they were rounded up and put into concentration camps by the current Chinese Communist Party. Two million of them actually. One of the most untalked about humanitarian crises and genocides still to this day.

44:42Yeah. The Chinese Communist Party currently, by most people's estimates, has around two million ethnic minority Turkic Muslims locked in concentration camps or what President Xi referred to as reeducation camps. So yeah, free the weavers is what I wrote on the side of my head. Okay. And then by 2022 you ran in the Republican primary. Yes. And you actually ran against Ilan Omar. I ran to try and unseat Ilhan Omar. I was defeated in the primary on the Republican side. So I was never in a general election against Ilhan. Right. You were the primary. That's right. You ended up losing to her. Wait, so she was Republican at the time? No, no. I lost to a woman named C.C. Davis on the Republican side by about 700. Oh, got it. Yep. By about 700 votes. Yep. Okay, got. Okay. So you lost the primary, the Republican primary who then ran against Omar and lost.

45:46That's right. Got it. Got it. What do you think about Omar in general? Oh, I think she should be deported. Okay. Why? Because this is not Mogadishu. Yeah. That's my campaign pitch for my presidential run. Don't Minnesota, my America. Don't Mogadishu, my America. First of all, you got to go back to how Ilhan Omar got here in the first place. She wasn't born in America. She was born in Somali. Her father was a deep state asset. He was a security asset for the resistance in Somali when we ran a coup on a warlord there that a dictator that we didn't think was best for our interest in the region. This was Black Hawk Down in the 1990s. The movie Black Hawk Down shows the military involvement of our deep state as we call it in the Magah movement in that area in Somalia.

46:46And they unceded a warlord of dictator just like Moamar Gaddafi or these other folks. And what has happened to Somalia since? It is still the most unstable country on the United Nations stability index after 35 plus years of us being there. And Ilhan Omar's father was, you know, she was involved in a genocide. By most historians measure, her father was involved in what they call a civil war, but it was more so a genocide led by his faction of the resistance of the rebellion or America's sponsored, state sponsored coup in the country. And she comes to this country. So after we, you know, we, we clear the smoke in Somalia, all of these assets, all of these people who work with the State Department in Somalia are brought to America along with the other refugees. Now America's going to become a refugee, you know, epicenter for the Somalis. And these people come to our country and they have the audacity to talk, you know, to

47:48talk down on this country as though it's the worst place possible to live. Go back to Somalia. Go live in Somalia then if America's so bad, you know, and it's ill, it's not just Ilhan. It's Ilhan, it's Mamdani, it's Said. You know, they, they, they, they talk about white supremacy, racism, how bad slavery was and the, the lasting impact it's had on shaping society and black people or minorities in general. All three of their countries still have slavery. Egypt still has slaves. Turkey still has slaves. And when I say Turkey, I'm referring to Hassan Pike, okay. He's a Turk. Turkey has slaves, Egypt has slaves and Somalia, the slaves have slaves, okay. I'm being funny, but it's that bad in Somalia is like, what is slavery when the whole country is a shithole? These people are so brazen and they're hatred for this country, my country. And there's a distinct difference between heritage, black Americans like myself, whose forefathers came through the slave trade and, and Ilhan Omar. We're not the same.

48:49And, and so I think and, and not to mention the entire immigration scandal that's on her jacket of marrying her husband in order to fraud and, and, and get immigration status. Well, she's, they're accusing her of marrying her brother. That's what I'm sorry, marrying a brother. Sorry, not her husband, marrying a brother. Right, right, right. Everyone in, in all ways, would have married their husbands. Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, I apologize. I misspoke. It's okay. You got me fired up, you're talking about little Ilhan, you know, and it's just like, look, I'm, I'm from the Twin Cities. Obviously, this is the number one immigration place for Somalis. I know plenty of Somalis who are good people. I'm not making a wholesale comment about all Somalis. I'm not making a wholesale comment about all Muslims. But what I am saying is that this country is going through a cultural crisis and people like Ilhan Omar only make it worse. And it's scary enough. A lot of people follow her. Like for example, how does she have the audacity to say the number one threat in the world? World wide, the number one threat to people worldwide is the white man, angry white man,

49:54white man bad. Excuse me? If it wasn't for the white man, you wouldn't even be in America. And when she says the white man, it's really not about white men. It's really, you know, it's really a dog and whistle to say, people who believe in having a country, people who believe in Christ, people who are Christians, you know, or people who believe in the second amendment. It's a political statement that white men become the central figure of. And I'm just not buying it. I mean, I'm just old enough to remember when we were more saying about this color and racial thing. And you know, we've just lost our fucking minds about it. And people like her, they love it. They can't get enough. So we should deport her. Denaturalizer deporter. Get her ass out of here. And that's just for stats and appetizer. Well, Minneapolis got on the map because that video came out about all the childcare fraud. Yes. That was happening by the Somali community. Yeah.

50:54What ultimately happened with that on a large scale basis of someone that comes from there? Because it was all in the news, but how did it all end up? I mean, it died on the vine. It's, it's ongoing. Now the same Democrats who oversaw the fraud or allowed it to happen under their watch are telling us they're going to be tough on it when they get elected during the midterm. And black people believe that. It's, it's, it's, my embarrassment has embarrassment from the level of naivety that persists in this country's politics like, yeah, $20 billion in fraud. And it's going to be $50 billion before it's all send. Nobody knows how much fraud is. Let me say this. When a couple hundred thousand go missing, that's a theft like the leftons are heist, right? A couple million dollars. That's a theft. When a hundred million dollars goes missing, that's fraud. It's usually electronic, right? You had to have scam some type of electronic system to move a hundred million dollars. When $20 billion goes missing, that's foreign policy.

51:55That's foreign policy. And it's not by accident that it was Somali, that it was Somalis. It's not by accident that the Somali economy is largely supported by, by funds that are sent back to Somalia from Somalia immigrants that live here in America. And so some of America's tax money ended up in the coffers of Al Shabaab, who was a known Islamic terrorist organization. I mean, this is all, this is all out there in the public. This stuff is documented. So imagine Minnesota Democrats, or Democrats nationwide, because now the former chair of the DFL, who is our Minnesota Democrat party, right, is the chair of the DNC. Yeah, Ken Martin, Minnesota, we punch way above our weight and politics. How does the Minnesota chair of the DFL end up being the chair of the National DNC? I mean, even that should be suspicious for most people. That's more than a far walk for a, you know, a grondoon of the Minnesota political scene.

52:58But it's not by accident. Same reason Tim Waltz became a VP candidate. Minnesota is the cultural epicenter of American politics. And so Somalia is like, you know, it's not by accident that the $20 billion was concentrated in that Somali community here in Minnesota. And now they're telling us, oh, we didn't know. Amy Klobuchar, who's the current US Senator, is now running for governor. Back in the 1990s, she was the district attorney that uncovered daycare fraud in the Hmong community. She's been a United States Senator for 24 years and she never thought to pick up the phone and tell Tim Waltz where to look for the, the buried bones on fraud. And that's, that's a mistake. That's an oversight. Yeah, maybe because you're out there, you know, in, in, in Ukraine, right? In Ukraine, getting your, getting your coffers filled. You're out there with your donors. You win dinners and lunchens. That's why you didn't call your fellow Democrat governor and tell him, look at the daycares for the fraud. I already tried this case. There's precedent. There's, there's evidence there.

53:59We've seen this done before. I don't know, man. I'm just, you know, I'm in the belly of the beast. Well, in 2023, you run for Senate again. And you actually get the endorsement of the Republican Party. Yes. So you get to the general election and you ended up losing on paper. Oh, you feel like you won reality? Well, I feel like Minnesota is a, if there's one state where the elections are surely not secure, it's Minnesota. And if you, if you saw recently, there was a guy named James O'Keefe who works a, a, a broadcast or an outlet called Project Veritas. He came to Minnesota and exposed how you can go to the polls with a legitimately registered address and vouch for eight other people who don't have registration or an address to vote. I mean, even that alone should just shock the American citizens. Like I can show up to a, a poll and say these eight people I'm vouching for and they can

55:05vote. That's before you get to the machines where Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris both said in 2018 that the machines can be hacked. In fact, Kamala Harris demonstrated before a senatorial committee that the machines could be hacked. So Minnesota's elections are not secure whatsoever. Our elections are secure in the, you know, nationwide, but certainly Minnesota is a hotbed for fraud and voter harvesting and like in the, in the dementia warts here in, in Minnesota's Minnesota's elderly care homes. There's a statistic flying around that like 97%. There was 97% voter turnout in the dementia warts of our elderly homes, of our senior living homes, which is like ridiculous. But you know, yeah, Minnesota's elections aren't secure for sure. It's me, the, we don't need the jingle twice.

56:06Stop it. Start out vacation inflation and how price line negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights and rental cars. Things like we decided. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the price line app. Time to read the deadline. Fine. No one deals more deals then. Please stop. Price line. Tushay. Price line. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task. Unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business from designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond. Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Hines and all birds continue to trust and use them with Shopify on your site. Turn your big business idea into sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. Well, you knew Charlie Cook personally. Charlie Cook. Charlie Kirk. Yeah. Yeah, I know him.

57:07How did you feel when you saw him killed? Broken the tears. I was in disbelief. I was in disbelief at first. I had double check, triple check that it wasn't AI. I got a hundred phone calls all at once. And yeah, I was in tears, of course, because what a brutal thing to happen. So yeah, definitely flipped a switch in me that will never that need I say God willing turn off before the day I die. The flip is switched. We're at war in this country. And Charlie Kirk's assassination is proof of it. And it's not just that he was shot and killed because crazy people have been shooting and killing public figures or political figures since time immemorial. You know, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Marlotte King, Malcolm X, R.F.K.JFK were assassinated. Ronald Reagan got shot. People get shot. Never in my lifetime has somebody been assassinated and people take to the streets and celebrate or dance.

58:07That was a shock. I actually just interviewed John Hinckley Jr., who shot Ronald Reagan. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah, he did 35 years in a mental ward and got out recently. So did he say he was paid by the CIA to send Ronald Reagan a message? No. He was actually crazy and he was obsessed with Jody Foster. That's actually the story. I don't know if you know the story. Sure I do. Yeah, not do. Yeah. He was just crazy. I'm just making a point that is conspicuous. And I think Ronald Reagan had a real change of tone after he took a bullet, which is understandable. Well, you said that you were friends with Charlie Kirk and you admired him. But Charlie Kirk did say some things about black people. He said MLK was awful. He's not a good person. He said one good thing. He actually didn't believe. He also criticized the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and so forth. So how do you feel about those statements?

59:09Well, I know Angela Stan King very well. And I think Marluita King was one of the most intelligent and philosophical thinkers, but also writers in American history. Marluita King's legacy is controversial because the origins of who supported him, who got behind him politically and for what reasons. Their motivation can be argued. And it's right for us to question those things. And Malcolm X certainly did it. When Malcolm X was alive, he was very critical of Marx. And he was very critical of Martin Luther King. Now, people have a problem with it because Charlie Kirk's white or maybe because he's a Republican. Depends on who you ask. I don't agree with this whole sale indictment of Marluita King. And one of my problems with what he said was, or he used these FBI wiretaps to justify

1:00:12his criticism of Martin Luther King. Let's just call it that. And I don't think we should trust the wiretaps for many government agencies at this point. But especially the wiretaps or evidence or surveillance that was taken by the FBI at that time. I think the motivation for the incentive for that information to be corrupted is obvious. So I didn't agree with this comments about Martin Luther King. Some of his comments about black people, obviously true, not all of them. Certainly some nuance there that he probably wouldn't understand because he's never lived in a black community or grew up in a black neighborhood. So obviously there's some things that he just can't really connect with. But overall, Charlie Kirk's legacy is cemented. He was a man who spoke the truth. He was a political force of nature. He was probably going to be a president at some point, if not certainly a presidential candidate, a very viable one.

1:01:12And he died not because of what he said about black people. He died because people have a problem with people who speak up and speak the truth. There's nothing in me that believes whether it was Tyler Robinson or not that Charlie Kirk was shot in the interest of defending black people or black people's history or our standing in this country. I'm just not at all. Not at all. Well, transgender rights have been in the news a lot over the last couple of years. And this is what brings us to the main reason why you're here. Queen Roisha. Recently you and Inez Cantor said that you wanted to submit yourselves for the WNBA draft. Okay. What gave you this idea? Well, first let me say black trans lesbians matter. We've always mattered.

1:02:12We've always existed. We have a right to exist. We have a right to be included. We have a right to participate. And that's what I want to do. I want to participate. After 35 years, it's a revelation that I could become a woman. I'm enjoying being a woman. I never thought I could be a woman. I always trusted the science. And maybe I was taught the wrong science. Maybe I was miseducated growing up in school. But I woke up one day and to find out you could become a woman. And I got to say I'm having a blast. Minus how much of a hassle the hair can be, which is why I'm not wearing the wig today. My wig isn't workshop and I should have bought more than one. But hey, for 1999, I thought I got a good deal. Right? It's a good bargain. It's great being a woman. And the debate about transgenders is not really about transgenders. No, the debate about transgenders is a proxy for a much bigger culture war, much more bigger and insidious culture war between men and women, of which transgenders like myself,

1:03:17Royce, a beautiful black trans lesbian, are just cannon fodder. And a much more insidious culture war between men and women. Okay. So you actually identify as a black transgender lesbian. That's correct. Okay. And you plan on suing the WNBA for discrimination if they don't allow you to enter the draft. Well, if it comes to that, I surely would love a chance to play with my queens, you know. But if it comes to that, we'll take every legal, every legal route necessary to hold the WNBA to their language and their standards. Then the NBA by way of, because they're one lead, right? At least financially speaking, they're one organization. In fact, you'll find that a lot of the organizations in certain cities run both the WNBA organization

1:04:19and the NBA organization. So we're going to hold the NBA and WNBA community to their standards, to their stated standards and values. And right now, if you identify as a woman, that's all that's needed to become a woman. And I think I've become a beautiful, despite your criticisms of the beer, I think I've become a beautiful woman in the earliest days of my transition. It's your pre-op or post-op right now? Oh, I'm pre-op. I'll always be pre-op. Oh, too bad. No, yeah. No, I mean, and why would I need surgery? It's interesting. Like, I thought all you had to do was say you're a woman to become a woman and then I become a woman and they say, what about the medicine? What about the surgery? What about the clothes you wear? Why you wearing a suit? Why you ain't wearing a dress? Your name ain't feminine enough. Roish, you ain't feminine enough. It's like, well, first of all, I don't trust big pharma, so I won't be taking any hormone drugs. Don't bully my hormones. Number two, my trans affirming doctor told me I could think of my genitalia as 9.5

1:05:24inches of clitoris. I'm going to be keeping my 9.5 inches of clitoris. And number three, you shouldn't have to dress like a woman in order to become a woman. What about all the women who like a nice suit or whatever else they choose to wear? Womanhood is not defined by clothing or attire. And I think we've long since sorted that part out of the gender identity. So yeah, I'm trailblazing right. I'm the Mona Roisha of Black Trans lesbians. Well, you actually want women's sports to do genetic testing the way the tennis used to do it at some point? Sure, that would be reasonable. Okay. Yeah. Well, I mean, at this point, I don't think there's any biological males playing in the WNBA. That we know of. Okay. Not sure about that. Okay. Well, then you're, I guess, partner and arms.

1:06:24Ena's decides to show up to a WNBA game. Not my don't. And first flat, let's be clear about something. Okay. And I want to, I'm giving you this first. Okay. Okay. Me and Ena's not associated with each other at all. We come from two different brands of the conservative right. Ena's, first of all, he's a Turkish, he's a Turkish national. I'm a foundational black American, heritage American. Not only do I not trust the Turks, I don't trust the CIA or the State Department that facilitate political, political amnesty or political asylum for immigrants anywhere. Back to our comments about Ilhan Omar earlier. My comments about Ilhan Omar earlier. So, you know, me and Ena's got nothing to do with each other. I wish him the best. I hope he does well. I hope he gets drafted.

1:07:25I hope he does whatever it is that he wants to do in life. But, you know, me and Ena aren't together or anything. I don't like the circles he runs in. See, because when he first popped on the scene and he was talking about, you know, about the Uighurs and some of the other things happening there in Turkey, he was at these events with people like William Burns, who was the then head of the CIA. You know, I don't associate with those kind of people. I know who they are. I know what they're up to. The CIA should be smashed into a thousand pieces the same way John F Kennedy said. And when I'm president, that's exactly what we'll do. And if I take a bullet before then, it'll probably be the CIA that's responsible. So me and Ena aren't the same. We're not in it. We're not in on anything together. We're completely two different quals of the gap between us is interdelactic. Okay. Well, but Ena also wants to join the WNBA. And he actually showed up court side at a WNBA game. He had a shirt that said woman, noun, adult, human, female.

1:08:27And in the course of the game, he got into an argument with Natasha Cloud. Timeout was called. She started screaming at him, basically yelling that Sophie Cunningham was not going to sleep with you. And then he was actually escorted out of the building. So even though you two guys are not on the same page, do you agree with him being escorted out of the game in that situation? Premature ejaculation. Okay. Premature ejaculation, that was unnecessary for them to ask. Escorted them out of the game. I didn't think it was warranted at all. And then they suspended them indefinitely. He wasn't going to go back to another Chicago sky game anyway. So that was just fluff, more PR fluff for the peanut gallery. So yeah, premature ejaculation for sure. Well, didn't you show up to Indiana Fever game at a wig? Yeah. Okay.

1:09:27I had a blast. No, and the Indiana crowd was very welcoming. It was a complete opposite of Ennis' experience in Chicago. I think he was booed. I think he was yelled at a little bit outside of the arena. I saw one black guy come up to him in a video. Not sure if it was real, but I'm pretty sure it was. One black guy came up to him and told him, you're not good here in Chicago. I thought that was interesting. You're not good in Chicago, nigga. Nobody's good in Chicago. The most gangster people in Chicago are taking dirt and that's by the day. So I don't think anybody's good in Chicago. To even talk like that to Ennis. He's a square from Turkey. Again, that's entirely another conversation. But it's indicative of the point. Like in Indiana, I showed up in the wig. And people were just like, hey, good to see you. Thanks for coming.

1:10:27We love having you. We appreciate what you're doing. Clear political difference between Chicago and Indianapolis, right? Well you said that ever since you started wearing the wig and identifying as trans, more trans people have called you more racial slurs than you ever had as a black man. 100%. Oh, I get daily. It's a daily occurrence where somebody on social media, whether it be Instagram, Twitter, will message me and call me a monkey or a nigger or whatever the case may be. And I go to look at the profile. And of course, they're a Democrat supporter. They have Antifa and their bio or they have the LGBTQ flag or whatever the case may be. And yeah, I've been called nigger much more in the last month than I have in my entire life. And Minnesota is majority white. Well, now you're actually running for president. Yes. And your goal is to win a MVP in the WNBA and then head to the Oval Office.

1:11:30That would be historic, wouldn't it? That would be historical. That would be one way. That would be one way to describe it. Yeah. Yeah. No, the presidency is, you know, like I said, I think we're going through a reality test across a number of areas in our society. The gender debate is one of them, but really we're having a conversation nationwide and worldwide about what is up, what is down, what is, what is, you know, real, what is fake, what is true, what is false, and most importantly, what's right and what is wrong. And you know, every presidential election should be a referendum on those questions. And that's why I'm running because at 35 years old, now I'm eligible. I'm already the first United States Senate nominee to be born in the 1990s in this country's history. I'm the first black person to be endorsed by either major party in the history of Minnesota to run for you as Senate. And it's Minnesota. I mean, yeah, I lost two elections here or I lost one election because I was only on

1:12:34the general ballot in one election, the other two I lost in the primary, but we got to get a bigger sample size. We got to go to the, you know, to the nationwide level and to be quite honest with you. And less President Trump wants to take a third term, which I would be in support of because I think they took one from him. And I think we have a crisis of national security in this country right now. But minus that, I don't trust any of the other Republicans in the field who are being mentioned to do what needs to be done. Price slide, negotiated. It's me, the price slide, negotiated. We don't need the jingle twice. Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how price line negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights and rental cars. Seems like we decided. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the price line app. Time to read the deadline. Fine. No one deals more deals than. Please stop. Price line. Two Shay. Price line. Well, Royce, I appreciate you coming in.

1:13:40Like I said in the beginning, you and I had some online beef, but we're more, you know, the two of us are mature enough to get over that and get back to business. And at the end of the day, congratulations for running for office. Even though you haven't won yet, the fact that you actually got out there and really got far, you know, not everyone wins the beginning. Not everyone, you know, just goes through as a rock star. It takes a lot of people a long time, but the fact you've actually gone through the process, you didn't just talk about it. You actually did it. And I think during our back and forth, I think I was talking shit about you losing, like the primaries and you said, well, I did run because I wanted to, it's because I felt it was my duty. And even during the beef, I'm like, okay, that's kind of dope. You know, you feel like it's your duty to run. And I think that's actually, that's a very cool way to go about it. So I appreciate you doing it. I hope you do, you know, actually win at some point. Well, man, that's a great endorsement. Can I put that on my website?

1:14:41I'm endorsed by DJ Vlad to... There you go. There you go. Enthorced by DJ Vlad. Yeah, no, that's a great endorsement. And I think, you know, in a lot of these problems we're having in our society, we can solve. We got to be honest. And we got to be honest on both sides of the aisle. I'm trying to be one of those voices. It's increasingly difficult because the polarization is so thick in our culture. But there are some basic questions that we can answer. I'm on the more radical side, like mass deportations. If you don't have a border, you don't have a country. Bottom line. We can't be the only country in the world without a secure border. Also, we can let 20 million foreign invaders stay in this country that we're led into this country and some would say intentionally, or if not incompetently, we got to secure our elections. We got to start arresting some of these deep stators. This Epstein files thing is a problem. Still, that's hanging out there. And you know, back in 2022, when I was saying, who killed Epstein?

1:15:42I was at the big three. I wore a shirt, you know, at this political statement. I say, who killed Epstein? I had the picture with all the jumpsuits. The liberal mainstream media was saying it was a conspiracy theory. They were covering up for the Epstein deal. Now all of a sudden, it's their top priority. So in ultimately, the last, but not least, I want to say this before we head out. We are just now realizing the culture where I mentioned earlier between men and women has reached a level where a woman could strangle her three children and her basement with exercise bands and women rally and raise her $3 million. No, we have reached a critical point in this country where we better sort some of these things out quick or we're going to be in a fast and sharp tailspin and watch this country crumble from within. And some people want that. Some people are all good with that. I'm not. I think this country is great. It's not the best.

1:16:43You know, it could be. It could be better. Certainly JFK said, think not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. And I'm trying to do some of that and just talk about things as honestly as I can. But we face some real cultural crisis in this country right now. The Lindsey Clancy thing, I just can't. I can't even, I have five kids. I can't even imagine. I mean, it's just such a profoundly evil thing. Not only to have happened, but to have women rally around and try to justify, it's, you know, that's where we are. That is the sign and symbol of the height of the culture war that has broken out between men and women. And ultimately, the victims that you see first are usually the children. Our nation's children have not received justice in this country. Last stat I'll give you. I'm sorry to go on. I talked early about Ilhan Omar and I want to try and clarify my statements. Slavery was a bad enterprise.

1:17:44The British Empire's business model was drugs, piracy slavery. It's not a Christian business model. It doesn't work. It's a downstream moral implications. Slavery is not the be all end of our history as humans. But I'll raise these abortionists, a slavery for abortion every day of the week and twice on Sundays. And I'm a black man. Those who say that I shouldn't fly the American flag or be proud of my country because of slavery, I'll raise you a slavery, an American slavery for abortion every day of the week. In 45 years, there have been 2.5 billion with a billion abortions worldwide. 2.5 billion people we have lost to abortion in 45 years. That's a genocent. I'm going to push back on this one. Please. Please. All right.

1:18:44And me and you actually agree on certain things. Like for example, into the Lindsey Clancy thing, I agree with you on it. I understand that she was having some sort of mental health crisis, but to be a fan of someone who killed their three kids, I don't understand that part. Right? A fan of a child killer I don't get. And also, I'm an immigrant myself. I came from the Ukraine. It was a USSR at the time. But I came over here illegally. You know, I have a social security number and so forth. And I do find it somewhat annoying that people who are here illegally are paying themselves as a victim when they know they're here illegally. The fact that you got caught, doesn't matter how long you've been invading, getting caught. If you got caught, you need to go back to where you're supposed to be. Right? This is how immigration works. Right. There's a process you can go through to become a legal immigrant. Just the fact that you snuck over the border and no one caught you for 20 years and you say, oh no, it's so bad because I have a family here now. Well, you chose to do this. You chose to live under the radar and now you've gotten caught.

1:19:47The Borscht thing, I disagree with you. You're saying that you'd rather have no abortion and bring slavery back? No. What you're saying? No, no, no. What I'm saying is if you try to equate what the two enterprises, the impact that the two enterprises have had on humanity in terms of quantifiable death or suffering, then abortion out, you know, outruns. Listen, there have been more abortions in 45 years than human deaths. By war or cancer in all of human history. There have been more abortions in 45 years than death due to war or cancer throughout human history. It's just the number is astronomical and it just blows my mind like if we were to find a single cell, if we were to find a single cell organism on the moon, on an asteroid,

1:20:50on Mars, through a telescope, anywhere else in the universe, we would celebrate it as having found life. But yet a clump of cells in this country is now. Okay. So I looked it up. There's roughly 65 million abortions since 1973. No, in America, worldwide. Okay, yeah, worldwide is probably a lot. It's definitely a lot harder. Well, but that's an important point though because you got to think on the left, they say silence is violence. So if you don't disavow an enterprise, you have to take on the guilt of all the deaths that come by way. That's what they say about America, right? If we don't disavow these founding fathers or the flag or monuments, then we take on the guilt, the existential guilt, the historical guilt of all of those, those sins. The same thing is true of abortion. Women in America who are pro-abortion have to wear the 2.5 billion abortions worldwide because it is a single enterprise and it's the cornerstone of the feminist movement,

1:21:521,000%. Well, okay. When you have a situation, right, when you have a situation where somebody gets pregnant, okay, accidentally, it's not a planned pregnancy, which happens quite a bit, right? Sure. People have sex, people get pregnant, people don't use condoms, people don't use the pill. So you have a situation where you have two people that are not ready to have that child, and do not want to have that child, they're not financially equipped to have that child. I waited until I was 42 until I had kids because I wanted to be 100% sure I was totally, fully financially able to have those kids and they can give them, I can give them the type of life that I wanted to give them. When you have two 15-year-olds who get pregnant and there's no form of income, they come from broken homes, that child is going to be raised in a horrible set of conditions. And I've been in relationships with women that grew up in these kind of conditions, moms

1:22:53on crack, dads in prison. These were some of my exes, right? So I understand how these people churn out. Whereas I remember I read in the book, The Outliers. Yeah. Where, what was it? So abortions became legal in 73? Yeah, I think in 73. Right, right? Roe v. White. Year I was born. Right, Roe v. White, year I was born. So what they noticed that after about 20 years there was a huge drop in crime in America. And when they finally figured out where it came from, it's because of abortions. Suddenly you had all these people that were not born into bad conditions who ultimately would have ended up in the life of crime because they're growing up in such bad conditions that the overall crime rate dropped. I believe in abortions if a person wants to get an abortion. They don't feel that they're ready to have this child. I mean, you consider it murder, but it's not actually a human being at that point.

1:23:54It's not conscious. So I am pro-choice. I always have been. Are you, are you, are you, are you, are you Ukrainian? Are you Eastern Orthodox? Were you family Eastern Orthodox? No, I'm Jewish, but I'm not religious. Okay. Well, well, yeah. I mean, the fundamental about the religious view of it is one thing. And I'm Christian on Catholic, so my view of it, my bias towards it is going to be what the Catholic church would, you know, what Dean is a sinner, not to say there's not a ton of problems with the Catholic church because there certainly is. If there's a deep state, there's certainly a deep church and the pedophilia that went on in the Catholic church is a black mark that the church may never be able to live down, but that's separate from God in Christ. Regardless, I just, I fundamentally disagree that all people are bound to a life of crime or a life of horrible conditions. If they're born into low circumstances, I think, you know, if you think about the eugenicist

1:24:58theory, the people who invented abortion, to say, I mean, imagine, imagine black people, I mean, it's just rosemar mine. Imagine most people, we don't have to talk about race, but imagine most people who are middle class and lower, because most people are middle class and lower would buy into a concept that if they don't meet the material, the financial or material standards of a globalist elite, of an inflated economy or an inflated perception of wealth and standard of living, then they should not live. They should die. Yeah, but that's not what I'm saying. Well, you're not, but that is what they say. The eugenicists do say that. They say, right, but I'm not saying that I'm saying a situation where these are two kids in high school where a woman got raped, you know, where, for example, rape is different. Right. Or for example, and you've seen this in the situation recently where a couple had a surrogate give birth to their baby and you find out that the baby is going to be, so

1:26:01it had severe defects and a very low chance of living were that baby to be born. And the surrogate said, I don't care. I'm going to give birth to the baby anyways. Now the baby is like in critical condition and they're not sure if it's going to live or not. These types of situations are a reason to get abortions. I'm not saying if you don't make $100,000 a year, you should get rid of the baby. No, I'm not saying that at all. There's lots of great, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, but it goes towards households. Oh wait, you brought up the crime rate. And so the crime rate statistic is one that's much broader than the justification of rape or medical deformities. And while those do exist, I don't think that there, you know, in any way a large portion of the abortions that take place in this country or worldwide, in China now they did have a one-child policy where the Chinese government forced abortions on women to the 200 million which is an astronomical number, any of itself, just horrifying. But yet again, women on the left who are favorable to Marxism

1:27:02or at least some of the left-leaning ideologies, they celebrate China. They celebrate China. They celebrate communism. They celebrate a form of government like the Chinese have. And yet they have no care. It seems for the women who were forced into abortions by the Chinese government. Or what about 50% of the $400 million were probably women that were aborted. And again, I used the example I used before. If we found a single-cell organism on Mars, we would celebrate that we had found life. So to say that a clump of cells on Earth created by two human beings isn't life, it's illogical. It's just absolutely illogical. And you know, we... The bottom line, let's talk about black people. Because black people have a disproportionate amount of abortions, same way we do crime. And I think Kanye West pointed this out well, but I want to reiterate, if the Democrat Party claims to be a function of force for good in black America,

1:28:09the sole source, you could say one of the... Or at least one of the main sources of political power in this country is numbers because we live by democratic consensus. Well, the vote has a lot of power, right? Constituencies, how many voters you got in your representation, politically has a lot to do with your overall leverage in power. So how can anybody justify that the black community, aborting maybe a conservative number, you take 33 million abortions just in black America over 50 years, 40 years, could end up being 45 million people on the low end, another 45, 50 million black people in this country. What would America look like if we had another 50 to 60 black, 50 to 60 million black people living in this country? That's a lot of political power we missed out on. And I'm not convinced that the people who proliferated abortion in the black community didn't do so intentionally, just to... Just to thwart the rise of political influence. And I think every black person would be right to at least consider that this enterprise of abortion

1:29:11for black people has a much more insidious and specific meaning than maybe abortion for the rest. Although I do think in general, it's a child sacrifice deal, right? Price line negotiator! It's me, the... Price line negotiator! We don't need the jingle twice. What about a third time? Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how price line negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars. Seems like we decided. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the price line app. Time to read the deadline! Fine. No one deals more deals then. Price line! Please stop. Price line! Two Shay. Price line! Look, we could both be right in this, right? This is not a U.A. Right. We both make valid points in this. Me, I have two kids in one on the way and all the life. Congratulations. Amen. Thank you. Every last one of them was planned.

1:30:11I'll probably plan on having more. But I understand the situation that happens to someone who has an unplanned pregnancy. Now, I don't think that abortion should be used as birth control, which some women do. They just go and have a sex. Most of it. Most of it. But when I'm statistically speaking, go to the Planned Parenthood statistics. Most people give the justification like you're given. They don't think they're ready. They're economic circumstances. It's unstable and so on and so forth. Look, I say this because I grew up in a single mother household. My mom and dad were together. When they had me, they ended up not being together. My mom never took my dad to court for child support. And I didn't end up meeting him until I was 13. My mom waxed eyebrow. She didn't make up. She did facial. She's an esthetician. I remember coming home with my mom after work. And she would have these little vanilla envelopes. This was back when you went to the salon. You didn't add the tip on the card after you make your payment.

1:31:12You actually slipped the cash in these little envelopes and put them in the person's mail slot. At the salon. And she'd have 50 of them, 100 of them. She'd have so many. And she'd be bustin' them open. And she'd be takin' the cash out. And it'd be ones and fives. Maybe a 20 here there. And she'd count them all. And in the morning, she would go to the essay, Super America Gas Station, around the corner, and trade that cash in for money order to pay the rent. So I grew up blue collar like that where my mom wasn't rich. She wasn't well off. She could make the argument she wasn't ready. But look how Roy should turn down. Right? I'm on the Mount Rush more beautiful black trends, lesbians. And had my mom thought that my life wasn't worth having. She certainly could have made that justification. I think a lot of people do. I think it's a way to target poor people to believe that life is ultimately about how much you have. And at least Christianity was a faith created for the poor.

1:32:16The faith of Christianity says, you could have next to nothing. But you still have God. And if you have God, then you can have righteousness. And if you have righteousness, you can experience the world in a way that's glorified. And I think we just get rid of that ideal at our own peril. How much money do I need to have in order to afford a kid? Well look, congratulations to your mom. Who was a hard working woman who made it happen. Black woman too. Black woman who made it happen, who supported her kids, and you turned out great. Thank you. But I also know of a lot of other situations. For example, Tricked Daddy who I interviewed. His mom had 11 kids by 10 different men. That's rough. Right? Clearly he shouldn't believe in abortion. Right? Clearly abortion is not on her bingo card. Amen. Amen. Okay.

1:33:16Look how Tricked Daddy took, I mean, you know, Tricked Daddy, well, you know, he had a rough road to get to where he was. Right? And a lot of people are going through the road. And not sure how well. Vlad, you come from the bloodlands, brother. You know, and you know, people won't even know what I mean when I say the bloodlands. You know what I mean, right? Because you're Ukrainian. But you come from the heartland. You know, you come from a war torn part of the world. Right? And, you know, it's just like, sure, maybe Tricked Daddy and his brothers and sisters. Had it rough. But there's nothing that says that people who are born into wealthy families don't have it rough. Look at Lindsay. Wait, wait, wait, let's use Lindsay Clancy's example. Her husband's well off. She had a nanny, good corporate job. You know, she strangled her three kids. So I know plenty of rich people that treat their kids like shit or their kids had weird upbrings dealing with, you know, living in an upper middle class or wealthy family. I think this is the argument.

1:34:16And this is a fundamental argument or wedge issue between conservatives and liberals. It seems in this country. Our position, at least my position, the conservative position is the value of life, all human rights, civil rights, and other rights, proceed from the value of life, the value of human life. And if you pull out that jingle piece, even before birth, if you pull out the fundamental value of life as a jingle piece in culture, everything else sort of falls apart. And I think there's good evidence of that. Sure what you're saying is true. There are a lot of people who are born in the bad circumstances and because of those circumstances, they live lives of suffering. But you could also make a strong argument. I think the evidence is there that look at the society we've created. Look at Chicago. And I see you interview a lot of mob guys and a lot of repudiated crime figures across all races. Look at the stories they tell. They talk about a basic lack of value for human life.

1:35:17And that didn't start with mobsters. It didn't start with criminals. It didn't start with women. It didn't start with the military. It started with us as a culture as a whole, but it is a reality we have to face. What we see right now is the basic value of life is in peril. And we are so desensitized to what's his name? Bloodhound Q50. I think his name is, right? He gets shot in. Yeah. I interview him. Right? He gets shot in kill. But it's King Vaughan. And we could use these rappers as an example. But the real crisis is, you and I both know there are 50 guys who are getting killed every day all across this country. Who never had a chance to rap. And the two are connected. There's a correlation between the loss of sanctity of life as a culture and our willingness to do lethal violence towards one another for petty and trivial purposes.

1:36:17And I think we, you know, even the war. And I think we made a had a disagreement about the Ukraine war because you're Ukrainian, but even war as an enterprise worldwide. And I have a problem with remote bombings, right? Because I think when you take away the physical visceral consequences of war like two fucking guys right now on horseback with a sword and a shield. When you take away that visceral physical consequence of war, you lose, you know, what the consequence really is. It doesn't hit the same. And we've created an entire military industrial complex and war enterprise that thinks we're tough because we press a button and bomb somebody a world away. I think that has done a great, that that has done terrible things to our culture. And it's, but they all proceed from one another, right? Whether you're talking about military industrial complex and war, abortion, a young black men being sia opting to thinking, being a gangster is the highest thing they could ever be because of their lowly circumstances. You're talking about science. You're talking about technology, the convenience of it.

1:37:22And when we say things are going to be more convenient so they're better, I always say on my show, convenience will be the death of freedom. Okay, well, I will say this, I don't think there's any correlation between women who get abortions, who end up killing people after work. I don't think there's that correlation after you're an abortion, you're not more likely to kill an adult human being. Oh, no, no, I don't think there's a correlation. No, I don't think so. So you can't just bunch these two together. No, no, no, no, no, I want to say women. No, I want to talk about the women. Okay. I'm talking about the women are getting abortions though. It's the women. No, I'm not getting abortions. Not the men. No, no, no, no. Right. No, what I'm talking about is the cultural, the cultural premium on the value of a life. And if your mother, if your mother or let's say women in general, right, if women in general have made a conscious decision that their political identity is tied to being able to get rid of a life at conception if need be, then of course the men or the children of of womanhood, not not a specific woman, but of womanhood as a collective.

1:38:30The children or the society of a womanhood like that are going to have a distorted view of the value of life too. If it's easy to, if it's easy to discard your child as a clump of sale, look at the look at the results, Vlad. Well, how is it so easy for a man to point a gun at another man and pull a trigger? How is it so easy? Well, look, the thing is that you're Catholic, right? So Catholics don't believe in abortions, but they also don't believe in birth control? Sure. Yeah. We would say that birth control is also on the on the list. Right. Exactly. So a morning after a pill, no. Different severity of sins, certainly, but. Right. But it's still a sin, right? So using birth control, using condoms, using the morning after pill, being on the pill or having an insert in your arm or whatever else, these are all considered sins in the same breast. Sure. As abortion. But so, but. And the other day, you and I just have a have a difference.

1:39:31Like, I don't believe in God. I'm not religious. So you and I are just going to be different in this regard. Well, wait, Vlad, you got to realize, you got to let me, let me speak on behalf of the Catholics. You have to realize that while the, the, the framework or standard is there for sin, hopefully to guide people to live life the right way, we also do have a mechanism for people to atone for and repent for the sins because we do realize that people are falling in Christ. So it's not, for example, if you have sex without a condom, if you have an unplanned child or birth, if you, you know, if you're on birth control, it's, it's not like the Catholic Church is saying you're, you're, you're, you know, your ex out from the church or ex communicado. No, we say come in and confess for those sins and ask God for forgiveness because we realize all people sins. So it's not a non-starter. I think the way it's framed culturally is like those Catholics, they're so strict that if you do any of these things that normal people usually do, then you can't live in their world. And it's like, no, all the Catholic people sin in that way. A lot of them do at some time a point or another.

1:40:37And we've created a mechanism to, you know, that was told to us by scripture, you know, to, to tone for the sins. So sure, yeah, we might have fundamental disagreements. But again, as running for president, I'm not saying if you've ever been on birth control, if you've ever used a condom, if you've ever had sex, you know, before marriage or fornicated, you're out. It's like that's crazy. I mean, you have to deal with things where, where you are, not where you wish, where you would, would like to be. And I think I'll give you this out of branch. I think conservatives and Christians make a grave error when we think we've created a culturally, a culturally decadent society like we have. And we're going to wake up one day and all of a sudden, you know, all of the, all of the sin is going to just, you know, disappear and we'll start living as Puritans. And that ain't going to happen. And anybody who says that is naive. So, you know, we want women who have had abortions to join the movement. You're not, you're not mortal sin can be forgiven, but you have to acknowledge that it's a sin, realize it's a sin and ask for forgiveness.

1:41:46So even women who have had abortions are, you know, are, you know, are people that we still want to want to help. Well, Royce White, appreciate the conversation. You and I differ on certain things, but that's okay. We could talk it out as men, you know, unlike my recent, Erie Spears podcast. We're not yelling at each other and screaming at each other, calling each other liars. We're actually being adults in the process. And we don't have to read every piece. What's your, what's his beef? Man, I'm going to do a video responding to that shit today. Okay. You'll see. Well, that's what it is, man. I appreciate you joining me until next time. Peace. Thank you. Thank you.