Mr. Kid Rock Declares Himself “Uncancelable”

BUCK: Mr. Kid Rock is an exceptional rocker and also just all around great American, from what I understand. And he is very clear by the fact that while we’re sitting here talking about the Babylon Bee having its Twitter account locked — and I’ve been hit with fact-checks by PolitiFact and all this. And they’re always wrong when they do this, by the way. It’s like they’ never actually are on the side of, never mind the angels, on the side of free speech, truth, you name it.

They’re always in the wrong when they do this stuff. They pick these fights, Big Tech. If the Big Tech people making the decision don’t go along with this, they will have insane 25- to 35-year-olds who are protesting outside their offices and, like (impression), “You’re literally killing me by, like, not doing what I want.” They lose their minds. They watched too much MSNBC and Comedy Central and all the rest of it. Here is Kid Rock just letting everybody know, sometimes you can’t cancel people like him.

BUCK: I love hearing this, Clay. This is what we need. People… Even irrespective of their specific politics, people listening to this will write in. They’ll say, “If I speak out, I’ll lose my job.” Look, if you’re the junior accountant at XYZ Corporation, I don’t want you getting fired from your job and not able to pay your bills and have your wife or your husband all stressed out because you want to post something political. Okay? You’ve got to have… I would say, as far a machine gun nest; don’t just run up the hill. If you’re Kid Rock and — in this analogy — essentially bulletproof, there are people like that. They’re in charge of, “I’m not going to play this game anymore.”

CLAY: That’s what’s so frustrating to me about cancel culture in general is people already have enough resources — and I put myself in this category now. First of all, I don’t think that I could be easily canceled, right? But I have the resources to be able to say exactly what I think all day every day. And there are so many people out there in business, politics, entertainment that also have the resources to say exactly what they believe and they’re still afraid to do so.

And I’ve said this before, Buck, but if you don’t say F-U every now and then, what’s the point of having F-U money? It is a conversation that I’ve had with a lot of people who agree with much of what you or I might say, but they’re like, “Oh, I’m afraid of what might happen to me.” I say, “You’ve got $50 million in the bank. Why do you care? Your family will be fine!”

BUCK: You don’t even have to say anything crazy.

CLAY: It doesn’t even have to be crazy, yeah!

BUCK: You just have to say, “A man is a man.”

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: There are things you could say that would get you in trouble. No one is asking someone… You don’t have to be some free speech radical who is out there on the… Our most basic, fundamental right you have as a human being, never mind as an American, to say what is observable fact and true without reprisal against you from society around you is something that is under assault right now.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: They are attacking fundamental obvious truth and telling people to bend the knee over it. That’s what I… I wish we could sit here say, “Why can’t we all just say whatever?” No, that’s not it. “Say whatever” is now is “a man is a man.”

CLAY: What’s crazy, Buck, even saying women should not compete against men. Most sports writers are afraid to say it, because they are afraid they might lose their jobs. That’s the world that we’re in right now, and I understand that if you make $50,000 a year and you’ve got a couple of kids in school and you’re 58 years old and you’re trying to close out the rest of your career. I understand why you could be incredibly nervous about that.

But I mean the people who actually have real ability. Why does Stephen A. Smith, who is the most powerful person at ESPN…? Why won’t he go on his show and say, “You know what? I’m fine with people choosing their gender if they want to, but dudes shouldn’t be swimming against girls?” Because of how woke ESPN is. He’s got enough money to live on for the rest of his life. He’s being a coward. He won’t say it.

BUCK: People who are used to being celebrated by the elites and are used to making $20 million a year want that to continue even though they don’t really need it. It doesn’t make much difference to them one way or the other at a certain point. But it’s all ego at that level.

You want to be the guy or gal who is invited to the fancy cocktail parties where the people who are important and powerful and rich all get to sit around and determine that we’re not allowed to separate women from men in sports anymore. It’s crazy.