(DCNF)—ESPN host Stephen A. Smith tore into Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for calling Republicans fascists Monday, saying Democrats’ focus on marginal issues and their name-calling were the reason President Donald Trump re-captured the Oval Office.
Ocasio-Cortez posted a series of videos on Instagram Sunday after the Chinese Communist Party-linked social media app TikTok ended a 12-hour shutdown, citing comments by Trump, during which she claimed the company was “privately collaborating” with the Trump administration. Smith said that Democrats engaged in “bullying tactics,” citing “transgender issues” as one example.
“So the left has not engaged in bullying tactics, so ‘woke’ culture didn’t exist?” Smith said. “Where people had to make sure they echoed the right pronoun in order to keep their job security. Where you had to sit and, God forbid, you literally challenged somebody with regards to transgender issues you were considered to be transphobic.”
“Where one minute we were called upon to protect the young women in our society and then that got thrown out the window the second a male was transitioning to female and wanted to participate in female sports and then all of a sudden there wasn’t any consistency with the stuff that had been spewed beforehand and ultimately enforced,” Smith continued.
Trump’s campaign ran ads featuring Vice President Harris discussing how she pushed “behind the scenes” for transgender prisoners to receive sex changes while serving as California’s attorney general, while Trump said he supported banning biological men from competing in women’s sports during an Oct. 16 town hall moderated by Fox News host Harris Faulkner.
“So now it’s the Republicans we need to be worried about? But not y’all? Y’all would never do such a thing. Oh my goodness. It would never be you. That would never happen. Really?” Smith said. “This is exactly why Trump is in office. Racist, fascist and all these other names. That’s what you do when you’re on the left. Not paying attention to the fact that the vast majority of American people are tired of that.”
“When are you going to tell us a message we want to hear? Trump didn’t win the election. You all lost. You put him there and let me get real raw with this. It got so bad with Biden in office, racism was thrown aside,” Smith continued. “Transgender issues don’t make up one per cent of this population. Black people make up nearly 14% of this population and for the vast majority of the last few years that issue has been more important than issues pertaining to black people, it seemed. That is just the truth.”
The issue of biological males who identify as transgender competing in women’s sports became controversial following Lia Thomas’s participation in the 2022 NCAA championships, where the biological male won the 500-yard women’s final.
Multiple college teams elected to forfeit matches against San Jose State University’s women’s volleyball team due to the presence of a biological male on the San Jose State roster, according to the Los Angeles Times. The transgender player spiked a ball into the face of a San Diego State University player during an Oct. 10 match, the New York Post reported.
North Carolina high school volleyball player Payton McNabb suffered a career-ending concussion when a transgender player’s spike hit her in the face in a similar play during a September 2022 volleyball match, described ongoing medical symptoms in legislative testimony she gave in April 2023.
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In today’s economy, healthcare costs remain one of the biggest threats to financial stability and family security. Americans work hard to build a better life, yet rising medical expenses can quickly erode savings, force tough trade-offs, and even push families toward debt or bankruptcy. Medical bills continue to rank as the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States, with millions facing underinsurance or unexpected out-of-pocket burdens that no one plans for. Many turn to government-run marketplace plans under the Affordable Care Act, hoping for relief, only to discover that what appears affordable on paper often delivers higher long-term costs, limited real protection, and coverage that may not align with personal values or family needs.
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