Clay Cane
Journalist and author
29
APPEARANCES
5
PODCASTS
Sep 22, 2026
Clay CaneGUEST
And then it's funny when I think about Byron Donalds and he talks about being a conservative.
15 MINS LATER
Clay CaneGUEST
So it is a racism issue, but it's also a deep ignorance issue, and that's what's frustrating.
Clay CaneGUEST
And then to see those kids, not kids, grown-ass men, go on the former Officer Tatum show, who is like Candace Owens 3.0.
Clay CaneGUEST
This is just, as Frederick Douglass said about a man named Isaiah Montgomery in Mississippi, "Others will be dazzled by fame and imitate their bad example." We're not saying that, uh, this case is, uh, is solely about race, but to not see the intersection of it is crazy.
16 MINS LATER
21 MINS LATER
speaker_12SOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
with the official autopsy still pending.
Clay CaneGUEST
It's disappointing, and it takes me to the lies that Trump and JD Vance told about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, saying they were eating the cats and dogs.
Clay CaneGUEST
They've been after TPS for a while, and, um, even in that area, Springfield, Ohio, Haitian immigrants were only helping that area.
8 MINS LATER
Monique PressleyHOST
I got a couple more things I wanna talk to you about, Clay, before you have to go, but first, a word from our sponsors.
Clay CaneGUEST
Freedom in this country includes the right to believe and the right not to believe, and that only works if government stays out of it.
Clay CaneGUEST
I think a lot about how easily that line can start to blur, especially when religion and politics get pulled together in public life.
7 MINS LATER
Clay CaneGUEST
I mean, mentally he hasn't really ever been there, but I think it's just getting harder and harder to hide it.
8 MINS LATER
Clay CaneGUEST
Uh, we're, you know, waiting for the, the next list to come out tonight for the New York Times again.
41 MINS LATER
speaker_12UNKNOWN
[laughing]
Clay CaneGUEST
'Cause we all love the late, great Colin Powell, but when he was booed at the RNC convention for mentioning affirmative action, you know? There was a wake-up call there, right? J.C.
28 MINS LATER
Clay CaneGUEST
So I wanna be really, really clear, this is Republicanism, this is Trumpism, this is right wing.
27 MINS LATER
Clay CaneGUEST
I knew at some point people would, would rise up, and it pretty much happened immediately.
Clay CaneGUEST
And then I'm thinking about what's happening right now in Minnesota, and this book ultimately is about the people who rise up against their government that's enacting hell on them.
17 MINS LATER
Clay CaneGUEST
they didn't use words like gay or queer back then, but it had to have existed, and so I really wanted to-- This is not just another story about slavery.
Clay CaneGUEST
It's about everybody has dreams, and it's about fighting for your right to exist, and Luke and Henry is how I began the book.
Clay CaneGUEST
I began writing that in college when I read a book called Taboo, about homosexuality in Black communities, and they brought up these two people, Luke and Henry, and I was so stunned, um, by the references to them.
Clay CaneGUEST
Exactly, and he, and the officer who fired one single shot, Donald Trump called him a thug.
Clay CaneGUEST
And here we are, five years later, we have Renee Nicole Good, who was not breaking into the US Capitol, who was not breaking into the speaker's lobby, got three shots fired at her as she was driving away in her car.
Clay CaneGUEST
Biden de-escalated like a leader does, and this is the lunacy of where we are right now, the deep double standards.
Clay CaneGUEST
He was talking about tariffs when he was running for office, uh, the, the last time.
Clay CaneGUEST
Uh, sadly, it could get even worse.Hopefully this will be the wake-up call for the 2026, uh, midterms.
Clay CaneGUEST
Uh, this is a bleeding economy, and this is also the history, let's take Trump out of it, of the Republican Party.
Clay CaneGUEST
The Republican Party screws up the economy and a Democrat has to come in and clean it up.
7 MINS LATER
Clay CaneGUEST
That, that's what I wanted to do because, you know, things have been so crazy with the SNAP benefits and not everybody ha- has gotten them.
Clay CaneGUEST
I know what, uh, you know, the holidays look like when you don't have no money, so I'm gonna go volunteer, uh, tomorrow.
14 MINS LATER
Clay CaneGUEST
Uh, you know, Virginia, Winsome Earle Sears uh, is the Mark Robinson/Herschel Walker of, uh, this- this election.
42 MINS LATER
Clay CaneGUEST
And he's up there telling people how to be a good soldier with his alleged DUI record, right? He's telling people how they have to look, how they gotta behave, as you know, they let go Lloyd Austin, but he's finger-wagging at how you should be properly groomed when probably everybody in that room has much more experience than him.
speaker_4UNKNOWN
But let's say that it did.
Clay CaneGUEST
If Trump leaves office tomorrow, the Republican Party at large, Me- MAGA at large, the Heritage Foundation at large, they already have the control they want over this country.
Clay CaneGUEST
So, in some ways, I mean, Trump is there and all that good stuff, but they wanted to make sure Project 2025, that they were able to, to p- to put in everything they want it to do and make it permanent.
52 MINS LATER
Clay CaneGUEST
So, I think what's really sad in this moment, thinking about, uh, what's happening in Texas, is that it's not just a, a natural disaster, it's, it's a political failure.
Clay CaneGUEST
And so when I think about the great state of Texas, I just wonder, are folks gonna vote differently? Are they gonna show up differently? This is a blood-red state.
Clay CaneGUEST
And this is literally happening because we have people in office who are incompetent, who wanna end FEMA.
Clay CaneGUEST
I mean, I can recall 20 years ago with Hurricane Katrina, 20 years ago, President Bush paid the price for his failure in Hurricane Katrina.
20 MINS LATER
Clay CaneGUEST
Yeah, it really disturbed me when I read it and a lot of folks may not know, but during Jim Crow, uh, there was, um, this trope that Black children and Black babies were being fed to alligators.
Clay CaneGUEST
Uh, and there was, there's actually like, um, imagery around it, media around it, propaganda around it and this idea that Black people were alligator bait.
Clay CaneGUEST
That they were from the- the- the swamps and they were, uh, dirty and filthy and they could be fed to alligators.
Clay CaneGUEST
So for me, as- as somebody who wrote a book on history and all that stuff, it really disturbed me.
Clay CaneGUEST
And then at one point, Trump, what did he say here? He talked about we're going to teach them how to run away from a alligator if they escape prison.
12 MINS LATER
Zohran MamdaniSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
One, and not, not even a return phone call.
Clay CaneGUEST
So not to make it too national, but in some ways the, uh, New York City mayoral race is, is national.
Clay CaneGUEST
It's almost the, uh, Bernie Sanders situation that he's gonna have to expand his base, uh, beyond, you know, white and Asian voters.
Clay CaneGUEST
Now of course in the general election, you're gonna have a much higher vote, voter turnout, but I, you know, I, I didn't see him, uh, reaching out in that way to, uh, to Black audiences.
23 MINS LATER
Zohran MamdaniSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
he, he felt like he was entitled.
Clay CaneGUEST
Some people say to me sometimes, "Javi, why do you waste your time on these people?" Because those people are not few and far between.
Clay CaneGUEST
So I want to say this, and a lot of folks may be upset with what I'm going to say, but I'm on independent media and we could say this.
6 MINS LATER
Risa ColbertGUEST
So I just want us to understand that as much as rejection that we felt, as much vindication that we feel for everything we warned people about happening, we still have to at least stay woke.
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