You may have seen this clip floating around out there.

Thursday, ESPN radio host Dan Le Batard broke from his typical programming to talk about the Trump rally that took place in North Carolina on Wednesday night, the gathering where supporters chanted “send her back” in reference to Somali-born Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

He also called out his own network for not having “the stomach for that fight,” which you can see after the jump (the audio and video don’t match up, so sorry about that, I didn’t make this clip) –

I’ll put the political stuff aside to focus on the ESPN angle, since you the reader are more than capable of coming to your own conclusions and passing your own judgment on the Trump/Omar thing. I will stay out of that.


I’m interested in where ESPN goes from here. If they suspend Le Batard, then they likely stir up a frenzy and he becomes some sort of martyr. If you don’t do anything at all, then you’ve basically admitted that your “no politics” policy is flimsy and useless. This episode is certainly much more of a transgression than anything Jemele Hill ever did or said, so it seems like we’re witnessing a defining moment for the network here, a crossroads of sort.

Apparently Le Batard was absent from the first hour of his show today, Friday, but I’m told he sometimes does not do the show on Fridays at all. It’s not surprising to see his co-host, Stugotz, host the Friday shows instead, so it’s impossible to know if he’s just sitting this out or if he was indeed suspended. ESPN didn’t comment, yet, so we’ll see what happens next.

EDIT, here’s an update:

And apparently the first hour has to do with being local to Miami: