Recapping Aaron Rodgers’ Tucker Carlson interview

On The Stephen A. Smith Show, Smith gives you his renowned point of view, breaking barriers beyond the world of sports, and tackling pertinent issues across entertainment, pop culture, society, business, and politics. Three times a week, you’ll hear his LIVE unfiltered opinions on the day’s biggest headlines as well as straight-shooting interviews with top celebrities, game-changers, and thought leaders across the societal arena.

The Stephen A. Smith Show is sure to entertain, inform, and motivate anyone who tunes in.

worth let me move on to this next subject because it’s more important to me to be quite honest with you that this needs to be addressed this involves New York Jets quarterback Aaron roders because he’s making headlines again off the playing field Aaron Rogers sat down with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson on his program on X in an interview released just this Tuesday during the interview Rogers praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as quote interesting and smart individual but to be specific because we want to be fair here’s what Rogers specifically had to say check it out you did one of the most controversial somehow not to me most controversial interviews in the last I don’t know how long when you went to Russia and did Putin how did it feel coming back because like anybody watched the interview is like number one it was [ __ ] awesome number two Putin came off as an interesting thoughtful smart individual and if you’ve read 1984 you know the base game plan of government control is you have to have an enemy and you have to slander that enemy regardless if you know anything about him and I think a lot of people are like oh Putin apologists are like you know you know whitewashing all the stuff that he’s done to the different people and I was just like no I’d love to see Joe Biden give an interview where you can speak on the history of uh the United States in the same way that Putin talked about the history of of his country what’s the problem with that ladies and gentlemen what’s the problem now I know that there are people out there that are going to have their backup a little bit because when you’re talking about Vladimir Putin you’re talking about essentially a dictator um you’re talking about the president of Russia who’s invaded Ukraine you’re talking about everything from elementary schools to hospitals to buildings etc etc that have been bombed by Russia it is clearly a war day instinct ated many many lives have been lost along the way and that is enough for you to say you don’t want to hear about Putin being smart and interesting when some would consider him to be a very vile individual couple of things number one everybody’s entitled to their opinion and number two I didn’t hear Aaron roders speaking on behalf of the character or the moral compass of the Russian president he was talking about how Vladimir Putin came off in that interview with Tucker Carson both things could be true you could be a vile despicable human being you could be a murderer you could be a dictator you could be a lot of different things but sitting down for an interview somebody might find what you had to say to be compelling and interesting it’s not a crime for Aaron roders to convey that point of view whether you agree or disagree he didn’t Step Beyond The Pale he didn’t step across the line and say something that should cause a national uproar I do think it’s got to the point where everything that Aaron Rogers utters out of his mouth is taken in such a way that folks are looking for a reason to get at them I don’t think that that calls for it I really really don’t again most of us would feel differently that’s not the thought that would come to our mind when we’re thinking about Vladimir Putin in this particular day and age considering what’s going on in Ukraine and what we suspect and the things that we’ve said about his stewardship over Russia but that ain’t where Aaron roders went he was talking about what he said to Tucker Carlson in the interview let’s learn to compart to compartmentalize and isolate things on a Case by casee in a situational basis that’s all I’m saying nothing more about that let me go to the other part of the interview with Aaron Rogers and calls tu tu tuckson which lasted more than two hours by the way because it also focused on the pandemic and the ethics of the covid-19 vaccine which Aaron Rogers opposed here’s what Aaron Rogers said regarding that I think it’s time time for a lot of us to to maybe adjust some of the approach that we’re doing I mean it it obviously hasn’t worked we’ve been trying to wake people up I think yeah with uh the studies that are out there now exactly with the science all the time uh with the Articles with the change in stances by everybody fromis Chris Cuomo on down who have you know either had vaccine injuries or side effects or um just look at things differently um and it’s me to I think have a little bit more empathy and compassion for those people who uh had ton of fear you know thought they were doing the right thing yes for themselves for their friends for their families and went through all the mass formation psychosis that we all did this just full court propaganda against us and are now going oh [ __ ] maybe maybe that wasn’t the best maybe they lied to us maybe maybe they weren’t being truthful maybe this wasn’t safe so I think it’s important for us to if we want to make a difference which I do and I don’t don’t necessarily want to be way a part of the conversation anymore um is how do we call people forward to like um with compassion and kindness that uh just come over to the to the side of of being awake to what’s going on because I think we all need to come to the grips that this could happen again not so fast there Aon Rogers to crystallize matters you may not have flat out lied but you were a bit evasive to say the least and you did give false pretense as to whether or not you had taken the vaccine you could take the vaccine you can refuse to do so a guy like Kyrie Irving who was then a member of the Brooklyn Nets he refused to take the vaccine he was very honest and up front about it and a lot of people out there mistakenly thought I was getting on them for not taking the vaccine I wasn’t getting on him for not taking the vaccine I was getting on them because it was always it was the latest excuse for him to miss work he had played 29 games that year there was always a reason for Kyrie Irving to missw work you ain’t hear me say nothing but praise for him this year because he played and he’s been a star and he’s given the people what he signed up and swore to give him whether it’s the Dallas Mavericks franchise now or what he should have done in Brooklyn and Boston before that what he once did in Cleveland when he was the star there with LeBron James was getting on him for not taking a vaccine but in the case of Aaron roders you going to have cynics and critics who felt you should take the vaccine you will to have others who felt otherwise but because of the rules implemented by the National Football League rules that you clearly wanted to circumvent you were not forthcoming you talked about being immunized and you said you were immunized giving an indic ation that you had taken a vaccine when indeed you had not and at that time because the world was scared shitless because everybody thought that anybody who didn’t take the vaccine was going to be in a position to potentially contaminate them with the vaccine if they ultimately acquired covid people having that innate fear because they were believing what Aaron Rogers clearly was not believing in my eyes was enough justification for you to be honest about it and say yo I didn’t take the vaccine people had a right to know that because you were around teammates you were around team Personnel you were around other people they had a right to know that you were not vaccinated so in that regard Aaron Rogers you do not get off the hook but everything else Aaron Rogers said ladies and gentlemen how can we have a problem with that you have some people who are stor supporters of the vaccine you have some people who are supporters of the vaccines and the booster shots but now not supporters of the booster shots even though they were supporters of the vaccine you got others who are questioning the vaccine you got people Once Upon a Time Dr fouchy was such a a huge figure they had him throwing out the first pitch at Washington National games now the man retired and you’ve got legislative officials wanting to go after him you got some people in the public wanting him called to the carpet because they believe he’s responsible for some of the things that have transpired in our society in a negative fashion evolving around covid-19 because of the panic it created you’ve got debates taken place on National Television courtesy of Fox News when the Florida governor Ron Des santis was debating against the C Governor gav Gavin Nome and what is Gavin Nome what has he been excoriated for how he went into complete panic mode and shut down the state of California in such a fashion that not only did it cost the state billions but they still haven’t recovered whereas Florida doesn’t have that problem and G and Ronda santis is widely considered to have done a better job handling the covid crisis that Gavin Nome has so as we sit here and we learn more and more information and learn more and more news I’m certainly not pretending to know anything I only know what I read what I will acknowledge is this whether right or whether wrong no one can say anything definitively I took the vaccine hell I encouraged others to do it by doing PSAs and stuff like that fair enough others that disagreed with me however I can’t knock them they have the reasons for having their feelings Aaron Rogers is entitled to that just like Tucker Carlson is entitled to that just like folks like Chris CUO and others are entitled to change their minds once they’ve learned more and more about the facts popular podcaster Patrick Bet Davis spoke about these things too we learn more and more and more as we go on the one thing that we able to deduce from all of this and we must peel from all of this is that whether you agree with him or disagree with him Aaron Rogers is not stupid he’s not senseless he’s not the insensitive dude that people have excoriated him as being and at least some of what he says if not a lot more than some of it gets attached with enough legitimacy to it that it will make you at least say it’s something we need to discuss we can no longer sit here and act like every word that comes out of Aaron Rogers mouth makes no sense and that he’s completely clueless and he don’t know what the hell he’s talking about the man ain’t stupid there are people like Joe Rogan and others who’ve agreed with him and a lot of the things that he has said just because we dislike things sometimes don’t mean we get to dismiss it as completely false I don’t know I don’t know the answer to these questions but neither do a lot of people who think differently than Aaron roders so if we don’t know who are we to say he doesn’t know it’s worth listening to it’s all I’m saying it’s worth listening to instead of jumping to this conclusion that he’s somebody that needs to be vilified and excoriated I will say this about Aaron Rogers though we really don’t give a [ __ ] about what you saying when you ain’t throwing that damn football get your ass back on that football field and remind us that you that bad man that I know you to be cuz you a bad brother throwing that damn football that ain’t some [ __ ] to be debated we know ain’t no debating that you want of the best to ever do it get your ass back on the football field let’s see you throwing more than talking that much I will say