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Aaron Rodgers Was Right — ESPN Got Dogged on Their Own Air and Still Won’t Say Sorry · Right Now Hot Takes

• 0:05
  Imagine this, you're sitting on the set of the
• 0:07
  Pat McAfee show, cameras rolling, ESPN's logo
• 0:11
  is right there, and the four -time MVP looks
• 0:14
  straight into the lens and says the quiet part
• 0:17
  out loud. I'm gonna plead the fifth, like that
• 0:20
  absolute coward Tony Fauci. That's not a paraphrase.
• 0:24
  That's what Aaron Rodgers did last week on their
• 0:27
  air in their house Welcome to right now hot takes
• 0:31
  I'm Jim Rand five years ago the same network
• 0:34
  the same sports media machine Treated Rodgers
• 0:38
  like public enemy number one because he refused
• 0:40
  to take a shot. He didn't want he said he was
• 0:44
  immunized They called it a lie. They called him
• 0:47
  selfish. They called him a danger to his teammates.
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  When he tested positive, the NFL put him in a
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  10 -day isolation box while vaccinated players
• 0:57
  could clear faster. He got fined. The Packers
• 1:00
  got fined. Talking heads lined up to lecture
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  him about following the science. Fast forward
• 1:06
  to 2026. Fauci sits in front of the Senate, takes
• 1:09
  the Fifth Amendment more than a hundred times,
• 1:12
  and the coverage is a shrug. Rogers notices.
• 1:15
  He asks the obvious question on the same network
• 1:18
  that once obsessed over his medical status. How
• 1:21
  much time did you spend on my vaccination status
• 1:24
  every week? How much time on Taylor and Travis's
• 1:28
  wedding? Did you do even a minute on Tony Fauci?
• 1:31
  The answer is no. And that silence is the real
• 1:35
  story. Think about the ordinary people, not the
• 1:38
  MVP with a platform, the nurses who lost jobs,
• 1:42
  the soldiers who got kicked out, the parents
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  who got screamed at on school boards, the twenty
• 1:47
  -somethings who got told if they didn't comply,
• 1:50
  they were killing grandma. A lot of them made
• 1:53
  the same choice Rogers made. They looked at the
• 1:56
  data that was available, the changing stories,
• 1:58
  the natural immunity that got waved away, the
• 2:01
  side effect reports that got buried, and they
• 2:04
  said no. What did they get? Hate, cancellation,
• 2:07
  career damage, family fights that still haven't
• 2:10
  healed. And now, almost nothing. No big media
• 2:13
  apology tour. No network specials titled We Got
• 2:17
  This Wrong. Fauci gets a pardon and a quiet retirement.
• 2:21
  The people who enforce the rules move on to the
• 2:23
  next moral panic. Rogers didn't let it slide.
• 2:27
  He sat on ESPN's set and pointed at the double
• 2:30
  standard in real time. He even gave flowers to
• 2:33
  Stephen A. Smith for finally a apologizing to
• 2:36
  Kyrie Irving. That's more accountability than
• 2:39
  most of the industry has shown. Here's the larger
• 2:42
  point for anybody in their 20s listening. When
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  the powerful demand you surrender personal medical
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  decisions for the greater good and then refuse
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  to own the results when those decisions look
• 2:53
  different in hindsight, you are watching incentives,
• 2:56
  not science. The NFL's longer quarantine for
• 2:59
  the unvaccinated wasn't about pure health. It
• 3:02
  was about pressure. The media's wall to wall
• 3:05
  coverage of Rogers wasn't about pure journalism.
• 3:08
  It was about narrative enforcement. and the near
• 3:11
  total silence now that the lab leak theory is
• 3:14
  mainstream and the you can't get it or spread
• 3:17
  it if you're vaccinated claim aged like milk.
• 3:20
  That's about protecting the people who sold the
• 3:23
  narrative. Rogers was imperfect. The immunized
• 3:26
  word game was clever and it cost him credibility
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  with some folks. But the core decision. I will
• 3:32
  not take a medical product I don't want was his
• 3:35
  to make, and the people who treated that decision
• 3:38
  like a moral crime have mostly gone quiet. That's
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  not how free societies are supposed to work.
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  You don't get to bully citizens into compliance,
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  then pretend the conversation never happened
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  when the data shifts. The silence after the hate
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  is louder than the hate itself. Rogers just forced
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  the network that once hunted him to hear it on
• 3:59
  their own air. real scoreboard. If you enjoyed
• 4:03
  this episode, please do us a great favor. Rate
• 4:06
  and review the show on Apple podcasts, Spotify,
• 4:10
  or wherever you listen, and share this episode
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  with a friend. Subscribe for more unfiltered
• 4:15
  truth. I'm Jim Rand. I'll see you next time on
• 4:19
  Right Now Hot Takes.