Van Lathan, Rachel Lindsay excoriate Pat McAfee over Patriot Games participation: ‘He wants to come out of the closet as MAGA’

The Patriot Games came and went this week, and probably wouldn’t even have been a topic of discussion in mainstream circles if not for Pat McAfee’s attendance while cozying up to President Donald Trump.

The event, an athletic competition backed by the Trump administration, involved one male and one female student from each U.S. state and territory (in theory) competing in events inspired by the Presidential Fitness Test, a boot camp-style course, and an obstacle course. During the competition, Trump and his guests and associates, including McAfee, watched from a box above the athletes.

Critics of the spectacle drew comparisons to The Hunger Games. As for McAfee, who was shown greeting Trump at the airport, walking side-by-side with him before the event, and sitting next to the president during competitions, he faced stiff criticism of his own for the perception that he’d broken his (and ESPN’s) stated desire to stay out of politics and was aligning himself with Trump (Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro and ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro were there as well as ABC aired a highlights special and replays of the event can be found on the ESPN App or ESPN+).

“Pat McAfee is right there beside [Trump] being a pawn, willing or unwilling,” Mike Ryan said on The Dan Le Batard Show the next day. “I think we’re at the point where we need to stop underselling whether or not he’s willing. Seems pretty damn willing and smart, and I’m sure he’s gonna be super defensive about it later today on his show.”

McAfee did indeed offer a defense on his show, which is broadcast on ESPN, saying it was about supporting the next generation of athletes, downplaying the political aspects, and using the entire ordeal as a promo for his debut music album.

Plenty of sports media figures have been dipping their toes into political circles in recent years, but McAfee appears to have taken things to a new level in how he and the Trump Administration appear to be coordinating. And while folks like us have been watching this unfold for some time, it appears that this latest move has crossed the threshold into other media spheres, and McAfee’s actions are being noticed for what they appear to mean.

On the latest episode of The Ringer’s Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay podcast, the two hosts laid into McAfee over his attendance at the event and what it implies.

“Pat McAfee, I guess he thinks we’re stupid, or that he thinks he’s smarter than us,” said Lindsay, an attorney and the first Black woman to be The Bachelorette. “Either he’s a blithering idiot and doesn’t see that being a part of the Patriot Games … he either doesn’t see that, or he doesn’t see it because he actually believes in every single thing that the Patriot Games represents.

“When he was on his show after the games, and he is confronting the criticism for him walking in with Trump and being there and supporting it. He’s like, ‘I just care about athletics and our youth and encouraging them to be active. And these games, this was so cool. It brought people representing their states throughout this country who were excited about sports.’ And I’m all about supporting athletics. I have a child. I want to see them involved in it. I’m an athlete. Like, that’s how he talks to us. And it’s like this whole game was something to center and praise Trump.

“Trump’s name was everywhere. People being interviewed were talking about ‘thank God for Trump.’ We love Trump. Trump walked out to chants. He’s sitting in front of all the athletes. Sorry, he’s sitting in front of all the athletes with members of his cabinet and conservative members of Congress with Pat McAfee. Everything about this was about Trump and about celebrating Trump and something that he has teased for a very long time.”

Lindsay then noted that participants in the Patriot Games needed to meet certain criteria set by the Trump Administration, including a ban on transgender athletes. CNN also reported that the chosen athletes were “overwhelmingly White,” with many participants coming from Christian schools. She wondered whether McAfee had considered those constraints and how they would be reflected in the event and in his participation.

“This was a 90% group of White kids who were chosen not based just on their athleticism… they had to submit a video explaining what it is to be a patriot. That was very much so about it. They also had to identify themselves based on… how they were born biologically. Both of these things are an agenda. Also, a lot of them were talking about their Christian faith.

“So this was to promote Trump, to promote a conservative agenda. To promote Christianity. To promote Whiteness. All under the guise of, ‘We just really are about athletics and encouraging our youth to really be involved in exercise and athleticism.’ And if that’s really the case, then maybe you wouldn’t want to dismantle the Department of Education, which may not be involved in setting the rules for games but is definitely involved in sports and athleticism on a federal level when it comes to funding and programs of such nature.”

Lathan then started talking about how he takes pride in knowing that he’s the kind of person who says what he means and means what he says, and that others know him as much. He then started pondering whether McAfee has certain feelings and thoughts about Donald Trump and his MAGA movement, and wished he could be more vocal, rather than dancing around his potential support.

“… I wonder about people like Pat McAfee sometimes,” said Lathan. “Pat McAfee wants to be MAGA so bad, he just won’t let it happen. Pat McAfee wants to be desperately… He wants to come out of the closet as MAGA. He wants to be down so badly, but he will only stick the tip in. And I wonder if he feels like he’s letting his ancestors down. Your ancestors kicked the sh*t out of people for a long time, so you didn’t have to hide the fact that you stand next to a racist and xenophobic political product.

“They did so much so you could stand up proudly and be like, ‘I’m with the Death Star. It’s me, Emperor Palpatine, uh, Grand Moff Tarkin, and Darth Vader.’ They stomped on a lot of people, spread smallpox everywhere, so you could go and stand proudly by them, yet you won’t do it. You keep dancing around it.

“No one, to Rachel’s point, that is even mildly paying attention is going to look at this Patriot Game situation as anything other than a modern Hitler Youth event. Nobody who’s paying attention. Nobody’s gonna look at what’s being done on those fields or what’s being said in those videos and think anything other than this is really poorly done propaganda.

“The most successful thing about the Patriot Games is that they got Pat McAfee… The most successful thing about it is that they got somebody like him and ESPN to stand next to this product. No one else looking at this thinks this is anything other than direct propaganda from the Trump administration. But Pat McAfee, who desperately wants to be down, who desperately wants to get attaboys from the president, who desperately wants to stand next to him and put his MAGA hat on and do the entire thing, for some reason he doesn’t have the courage to do it.

“Just f*cking do it. Just do it. Everybody else, they done made it plain and clear. It cost them nothing. No one f*cking cares. You guys have outed yourselves as the bad guy. You think that any of the athletes that you would want to interview on the Pat McAfee Show are not going to come on there because you’re MAGA? You’re wrong.

“You p*ssy. Stop being one. Just do it. You like the guy. You like the guy. You f*ck with the guy. You love his raps. You think he raps on time to the beat and the rhythm, man. Go buy the f*cking tape. Just go buy the tape.

“I actually don’t even give a f*ck about none of this. The thing that I care about is the fact that you just won’t live in it. Just live in it. I’m not talking about Pat McAfee’s private life. And Pat McAfee, have your secrets. Everybody has them. But on this, you’re trying to go out there and then sell it as something different. What, you think n****s is stupid? Just go out there and do your thing.”

Lindsay responded to say that ultimately what annoys her is not McAfee, but the fact that he won’t be authentic about the choices he makes.

“That’s what is annoying to me,” added Lindsay. “It’s not that I care that much about Pat. It’s just that it’s so annoying that you keep talking to people like they’re stupid, like we don’t have two eyes and two ears and aren’t seeing and listening to the things that you’re doing. You don’t walk out with the president and sit next to him and members of his cabinet — like that picture where they’re all sitting there in front of those athletes. You look like you’re a member of his team. And you like it. You’re enjoying yourself. It is so obvious.

“The only thing missing is the red hat and the actual words of ‘I am MAGA, I do support Trump.’ But everything else that you’re showing us does that.”

Lathan and Lindsay then pivoted to another point of frustration they have around all of this: that, in their estimation, ESPN got rid of Ryan Clark in part because his outspoken nature didn’t fit their standards, but McAfee’s move into political waters and his platforming of Aaron Rodgers’ conspiracy corner is fine.