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RADIO WARS: Nick Kayal Launches MAGA Mortars at Les Bowen and “D Bag” Mike Missanelli
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Former sports guy Nick Kayal, a 97.5 the Fanatic alumnus, is now hosting the morning show at conservative talker 1210 WPHT.
Wednesday morning, he launched mortars targeting Les Bowen and Mike Missanelli installations, attempting to decimate their liberal strongholds amid partisan bickering over the Eagles’ White House visit. In the same rant, he shaded PHLY, opening a radio war on three different fronts.
Transcribed, in part:
For those unaware, Les Bowen was a long-time writer for the Philadelphia Daily News. He now works for an independent media company here in Philadelphia (PHLY). Les Bowen tweeted, quote, ‘Saquon is a good person and a wonderful player’ – and this is in regard to Saquon being seen at Bedminster (golf club) on Sunday, getting off Air Force One with Trump and being around Ivanka Trump, the total opposite of Jalen Hurts, right? Hurts did not go to The White House because of a ‘scheduling conflict.’
Les Bowen tweeted, ‘Saquon is a good person and a wonderful player, but it’s tricky when people in sports with huge platforms and good intentions’ – and this is the part that gets under my skin – ‘blunder into stuff they don’t fully grasp, to me this is Reggie White and the Wisconsin legislature-level cluelessness. Not a bad guy, but out of his depth.’
So here’s Les Bowen, white sports media member, telling black sports star, he, quote, ‘blunders into stuff he doesn’t fully grasp,’ because, I’m assuming, Les Bowen’s belief is black men should vote for Democrats and not support a Republican. And again, we don’t know for sure that (Saquon) is a Republican or a Trump voter or anything like that. And it shouldn’t matter. That’s my view.
Les Bowen is essentially channeling his inner Joe Biden. I believe it’s embarrassing and insulting that any white person or any black person tells the opposite race how they should think from a belief system standpoint, an ideological standpoint, a voter registration standpoint, or even who they should be seen with in public and associate with. If Josh Shapiro invited me to the Governor’s Mansion, I would go. I don’t like Josh Shapiro, I don’t support his policies, but out of respect for the office and being a human being, I would go. If Josh Shapiro for some reason said, ‘hey Nick I don’t believe a lot of what you say, but I’d like to play golf with you,’ I’d be okay playing golf with Josh Shapiro.
But apparently Les Bowen, now post-writing, has nothing else to do in his spare time and will have even less to do in 18 months when all the private money for (PHLY) dries up and he’s out of a job, and he’s sitting there being the white preacher of ‘oh black guy you don’t get it, just stick to toting the rock 27 times on a Sunday.’ That is insulting, flat out embarrassing.
And the same thing goes to D bag numero uno Mike Missanelli, who is a Penn State guy and he is all beside himself on social media. Trust me, I get all the tweets you send to me and tag me in, get over it with your 2.7 share and your midday show that stinks. You lost more of your audience than CNN because you have Trump Derangement Syndrome. You’re the Keith Olbermann of the Delaware Valley. Stick it in your keister, tough guy.
I’m so tired of sports media lecturing, especially white sports media, against black Republicans, black MAGA supporters, or any of us out there that actually have the temerity to come out in public and say ‘I’m a Trump supporter.’ So what you’re telling me, sports guy, is in the United States of America, we have two political parties, but only one can be known publicly. Miss me with the nonsense. Trump smoked your candidate. Swept all seven swing states, and he’s only grown in popularity every single election cycle. From 62 million votes to 74 million to 78 million and change I believe was the total. If he had the chance to serve a third term, he’d probably eclipse 80 million. So stop preaching like we’re in the minority. No, you’re in the minority. You’re in the minority. Your candidate only won states that don’t require voter ID. I’m so sick of these sports people bloviating and pontificating like it’s open season, ‘well I’m a liberal so I can talk about it on my sports platform, but you MAGAs out there, you take that on down the road.’
It continues for another few minutes. Kayal goes on to criticize Bowen for his response to the Eagles’ statement before wrapping it up.
As you know, we are a neutral blog when it comes to politics. We wrote about the White House visit and tried to keep it down the middle. The ceremony was totally uneventful and the President didn’t say anything incendiary. Dare I say, it was kind of boring? And sure, you had fans and media sharing lefty and righty opinions online, expressing their disappointment with either Hurts or Barkley depending on what they personally stand for, but this will blow over in less than a week and everyone will be gathered to watch the Birds in September, even the moderates, independents, Libertarians, Green Party people, Working Families, etc, basically everyone accused of being a fence sitter or “wasting” their vote. Power to the people!
Anyway, for some context, since younger readers might not understand Bowen’s Reggie White reference, back in the 1990s White made comments on national television and in other media calling homosexuality a sin. Reggie was a religious individual and ordained minister. He then appeared in front of the Wisconsin legislature in 1998 and said that being gay is sinful while going race-by-race through some stereotypes, saying that the whites were good at this, blacks were good at that, Hispanics are family people, stuff that more or less stunned the sitting legislators at the time. If it was controversial in 1998 you can imagine how it would be received in 2025.
I can’t find video of it, but this is a good read if you’re unfamiliar:
White Stuns Lawmakers With Speech
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com