Something about Nicolle: if she wasn’t a full-time anchor and part-time podcaster, her dream job would be to work anywhere near the NBA. So as the best teams in the league are battling it out in the NBA Finals, she welcomes Doc Rivers, NBA Champion head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, to talk Trump, politics, and professional basketball. Doc does not shy away from the dynamics of why Trump won, where Democrats need to go from here and how basketball can teach us everything we need to know about surviving this moment and being human.
Want to listen to this show early and without ads? Sign up for MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts.
Note: This is a rough transcript. Please excuse any typos.
(Music Playing)
Doc Rivers: Do you vote for someone for what it does for you or what it does for people who you care about?
Nicolle Wallace: It’s got to be the latter, right? But I think —
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: — they’re stuck in the first.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: And I think maybe we’re playing two different games, right? Maybe that’s why we keep losing.
(Music Playing)
Nicolle Wallace: Hi everyone. This is “The Best People with Nicolle Wallace.” When I set out to have a podcast, one of the things I wanted to do was inch my way ever closer to my most favorite sport, because if I were not a cable news host, if I weren’t lucky enough to have that job and this one, as a new podcaster, I would do everything in my power to work anywhere near the NBA for a team, in the front office, in the laundry room, maybe not the laundry room. You know what I’m saying. One of the people I love watching in the NBA is current head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, Doc Rivers. He won a championship for the Celtics. He’s not afraid to use his voice when it is necessary and helpful.
So we were thrilled to get to talk to him for this episode. This is “The Best People with Nicolle Wallace” and this is Doc Rivers.
(Music Playing)
Thank you so much for making time for us today.
Doc Rivers: Oh, thank you, Nicolle. Thanks for having me, number one. And if I wasn’t in basketball, what you don’t know about me is I think I would be in politics.
Nicolle Wallace: I think so too.
Doc Rivers: Or maybe I would cover politics. I think that’s the safer route, but I’m not so sure any more about that.
Nicolle Wallace: Well, the last time we talked, I was wearing a “We the People” sweater and you were wearing, I think it was, it was “Real Men Vote for a Woman,” right?
Doc Rivers: Yes. Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: And we had so much hope and it didn’t go.
Doc Rivers: That went so well. That went really well for us.
Nicolle Wallace: It didn’t go our way, but I wonder what from sports, what from the highest level of one of the most intense sports on the planet, do you know from a game or a season not going your way that the prodemocracy side might apply to this political moment?
Doc Rivers: Yes, it does. I guess the difference is in sports you have defeat. I’ve lost three 3-1 leads as a coach, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world. Like those experience is a part of you and it’s why you keep doing it. But the resiliency that you have to have in life and in sports is what eventually will get you to the top. And so, I looked at that doing this run and we were so hopeful. I think we learned a lot of things. We’re not as powerful as we all think we are, maybe, some people listen to you, but what you learn a lot and same thing in coaching, the ones who want to listen to you are the ones who are listening to you and the ones who don’t want to listen to you, they don’t hear you.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: And I have that sometimes with some of my players, like once they tune out to what you’re saying, they tune out. And so, you have to try it at a different angle. You have to keep at it though. And eventually, there’s been so many times in my coaching career where I’ve had players, who’ve kind of tuned out or they didn’t want the role that I wanted for them, but you just can’t give up on it. You got to stay in the arena, the man in the arena, you have to stay in the arena —
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: — and keep at it. And that’s what’s so hard to do sometimes.
Nicolle Wallace: When you went to the Celtics, you put the light on the wall.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: I love that. I think that’s how I’m thinking about this, right? Like, where is the wall and what is the light pointing toward it? Because it feels like it can’t just be the next election, right? Like, what are we pointing toward right now, this moment as a country?
Doc Rivers: Well, the first thing we have to point towards is getting out of our comfort zone and thinking that if we keep doing the same thing, that there’re going to be different results. That doesn’t happen. There needs to be change from the democratic side. I don’t know what that change is, but I know the norm has not worked. The norm works in the popular vote, but there’s states that hasn’t voted in the democratic side in 50 years. But some are leaning that way.
So what are we doing that creates that? What are we saying? We are a party of being exclusive, everybody’s included, right. But I remember Corey Booker, we’re at a function and I asked them why can’t the Democrats all agree on something because the Republicans do that well, like so many things —
Nicolle Wallace: They fall in line.
Doc Rivers: Yes, you have to look at some of the things they do well. One of the things they do is they fall in line. They don’t care. If you listen to some of the things some of these guys said about Trump, and then when you hear him speak now, all they do is praise. They’re falling in line.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: But he said something interesting. He said, we have so many different groups on our side. We don’t just have the white male. We have everybody. And to get everyone to agree on one thing is very difficult, but we’re going to have to start doing that if we want change.
Doc Rivers: I spent some time with folks close to Obama after the defeat in November. And what they reminded me of is that outside of the White House, every day of Obama’s presidency was a protestor from inside the coalition. So because of the rapid rate of deportations, there were immigration protests outside the Obama White House. I mean, he was not afraid of making his own side mad sometimes to keep the majority of Americans behind his presidency.
Doc Rivers: Yes. I thought Clinton did that as well.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: Clinton got criticized as much from his own people —
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: — as he did from others. Forget the scandal stuff. I’m just saying —
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: — sometimes he decided that he had to negotiate. And so, you didn’t get everything that you wanted that you thought you were going to get or that he said on the stumping grounds, but you got some of it and that is compromised. They always say the best law is when both people come from it unhappy.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: That usually means you got something good, not bad.
Nicolle Wallace: So what is the conversation that people in politics should be having to understand, it’s almost become sort of too shorthanded, right? The manosphere on Trump won because he played in the manosphere and the liberals were emasculating men. What does that mean and where do Democrats go from here?
Doc Rivers: I think we need to take the because out and I’m serious, like Trump won and start there, and not because Trump won, what do we have to do different. You have to take ownership of things, Nicolle. We do it in sports all the time. Yes, I come in after a game, we lost because, but then I say we lost, but we have to do these things differently if we want to win. We can’t say, well, we lost because they just made a lot of shots, all right. Well then we have to force them to, to miss more shots. You have to do something different. It’s so strange.
We’re blaming the people who voted for Trump for why he won. And it makes no sense to me.
Nicolle Wallace: It’s backwards.
Doc Rivers: Yes. It’s backwards. We didn’t get enough people out to vote.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: That’s one thing. So we have to figure out, first start with ourselves. How can we ignite ourselves, our side, to vote more because we have more people to vote?
Nicolle Wallace: What’s the answer?
Doc Rivers: We have to make them excited.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: We have to connect to them. And like, we’re not connecting. We complain about black men. The majority of black men did vote for Kamala as it turned out. It’s just that there wasn’t a big majority. It wasn’t enough people.
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Doc Rivers: And so, why is that? And there’s a feel of hopelessness in our community because I think a lot of black men are saying now, it doesn’t matter. Either side, we’re not being helped. We’re still being incarcerated. We still are struggling. So there’s got to be an answer. And we have to figure out how we can answer that question if we’re looking at that part of it. For sure.
Nicolle Wallace: I mean, you’re right, though. I mean, black men aren’t the reason that Trump won. I mean, they came out in larger numbers than white men.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: What is all the pressure? I mean, we’ve looked at the last three elections for black men and women, really black women as well to save the country from Trump.
Doc Rivers: Yes. It should be all of us number one. And we have to get more white men to vote too. And I hate like, it shouldn’t be about race and it really it should be about whoever the better candidate is, but we’ve gotten off of that somehow.
Nicolle Wallace: In sports, you’re always scouting the other team. And because I was an ex-Republican, I’ve always been a student of MAGA. I can’t stop watching Steve Bannon to try to understand the risks —
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: — within MAGA. And Musk is this thing that really wasn’t on the ballot. And so, as I try to look for the weaknesses in the coalition, I’m a student of the Bannon and Musk fractures, but there’s not a ton of scouting, right, that goes on in MAGA. And if you’re going to beat him, if you’re going to beat that movement in four years, I think it’s a lot of vibes. I think it’s some creativity to give them due credit. It’s some audacity. It’s some lawlessness, right? Like judges are saying they do, but it’s a lot of vibes. And how do you, if you want to beat a team or a movement that’s got a lot of momentum, that’s just vibes, how do you become a student of that and then beat it?
Doc Rivers: It’s so funny you said that because I had a big discussion with my daughter, Callie, who is big into politics. She was crushed when Kamala. I mean she was crying. And during the election because I’m living in Milwaukee, right, and I’m watching the ads and I wish Callie was on because I caught her and I’m not exaggerating, 50 times, like we’re not answering to these ads. Well it’s beneath us or it’s silly.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: I’m telling you to go every 10 minutes. It was a transgender ad.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes. Unanswered. Yes.
Doc Rivers: And half the things that they were saying came into law when Trump was in the presidency the first time.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: But we thought no one cares about that. Yes, middle America does care.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: They still are on it. I turned to Fox and they’re talking about transgendered people playing in sports.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: There’s only, there’s only 10 —
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: — that have ever played in college sports.
Nicolle Wallace: Two right now.
Doc Rivers: Yes, two. Yes. But they know that’s what stokes people, that’s what gets people talking. You hear people who are pretty smart people, Sage Steel, is just gone nuts about transgender athletes and —
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: — it connects.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: But we don’t think that that’s an issue and so we study our opponent, every game. I just got out of an analytical meeting that lasted two hours. Every single number that they’ve ever done is what we’re studying to try to take advantage of, to try to figure out. Well, why do they do this well? I mean, those are all the questions that we ask. I don’t think we’re doing that. And until we do, you’re not going to beat anyone in anything, especially in sports, if you don’t know what you’re up against.
Nicolle Wallace: It’s not just knowing it. It’s respecting it.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: When I worked for Bush in the early days, I was a student of all the Clinton campaigns because they were the highest level the campaigning ever was.
Doc Rivers: James Carville.
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: And Stephanopoulos. And I know from the Obama people who came after Bush, that they were students of what Bush did well. And some of what Trump does is so outrageous, such a shock jock and so offensive. I think Democrats and pro-democracy Republicans come to their disapproval of him honestly and legitimately and in some ways too slowly, right? I mean, he’s been this person the whole time. But I think there’s a different mindset on the field where you have to try to defeat this movement that, to your point, is gaining steam, not losing steam. And I wonder as sort of a student of the psychology of momentum, what’s your council for Democrats?
Doc Rivers: Yes. We get lost in Trump at times. I don’t know if it’s purposeful or not. I think it is. Today is Monday, Nicolle. Tuesday, there’s going to be something that he says or does that we’re talking about. But the thing that happened on Sunday is still more important.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: But we forget about Sunday and we go to the thing he just said on Tuesday and that’s what we cover and talk about. And then let’s say by Wednesday or Thursday, he’s onto something else. We don’t stick to it. If you’ve fall on something that has given you momentum don’t change course the next day because he did something different. You got to stay the course, you got to stay on things. And I think we lose our discipline very easy with Trump. I keep hearing like, and I hear people say the guy’s a buffoon. I’ve never heard that word more about a president of the United States than with Trump. And what I keep saying is, well, he can’t be because he’s the president.
Nicolle Wallace: And he won twice, yes.
Doc Rivers: And he’s won twice. And not only did he win twice, he’s got 70 million people that believe it the other way. So maybe we’re the ones that are the fools and we need to wake up.
Nicolle Wallace: Do you see anyone in the Democratic Party that approaches this with any discipline that impresses you as a coach?
Doc Rivers: Not yet because it’s just too early. There’s a lot of people. I mean, Cory Booker even, but —
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: — not yet. I think someone will come out. They always do. We didn’t see Obama coming. As a matter of fact, I was a fan of Senator Obama and I talked to him a couple of times because he loves basketball.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: And when he decided to run my first thought, no, no it was too early.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: That was my first thought. Can I say something on the economy though?
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: I think it’s the greatest marketing coup in the history of marketing on what Republicans have done. It’s proven that under democratic presidents, the economy is always better.
Nicolle Wallace: Always.
Doc Rivers: Always better.
Nicolle Wallace: I know that having worked for Republicans.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: It’s always the opposite of what Republicans say.
Doc Rivers: It’s unbelievable.When Obama came in the office, the economy was in the trash.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: He really lifted it up and Trump adopted that.
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Doc Rivers: But was it 50 years or whatever, 50 million new votes, new jobs by Democrats, 1 million by Republicans over the last 50 years.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: It’s amazing, but we don’t address it. We do the economy well, yet no one hears that. What we probably don’t do well, we don’t do the rich well and the super rich, they line up because of the tax cuts that they know they’re going to get.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: But what the Republicans have done that’s amazing is the masses don’t understand. That’s not them. They’re not included in that.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: What the Democrats have done includes everybody. What the Republicans have done, really the one percenters.
Nicolle Wallace: But Trump is almost like that on steroids, right?
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: Because Trump has said to the billionaire, at least in the oil industry, help me out, give me money and I’ll help you. It’s almost like that dynamic you just described plus some corruption on top. And he has more support among sort of people that aspire to be wealthy than all the Republicans that came before him. It’s almost like the more audacious the marketing, to use your word, the more support he gets among people whose interests are not served by what he ends up doing.
Doc Rivers: Yes. And I’ve gotten over to disappointment. I was at a place at times during the election or if you’re a friend of Trump, I’m not talking to you. I was disappointed, like, I belong to several golf clubs and they’re usually Republican base. And some of these guys are my friends and I stopped golf, like, with them. Just the greed part of it bothered me like okay, you may get a 1% tax cut. Like how greedy are you? But it’s human nature. It really is, but you’re right. Even those people aren’t getting help. It’s the super, super rich that really are getting help. And somehow we have to connect that somehow we have to get people to see what the economy really is, as they would say, for the masses. And somehow we’ve dropped the ball in that.
(Music Playing)
Nicolle Wallace: We’ll take a quick pause here. When we come back more with Milwaukee Bucks head coach, Doc Rivers. Back in a moment.
(Music Playing)
Nicolle Wallace: What do you think about the sort of analysis that the Democratic brand is so damaged? I mean, I’ve been resistant to politics as brands.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: Because I always think you’re one leader away from that totally turning.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: I don’t think the Republican brand is that great.
Doc Rivers: No.
Nicolle Wallace: People just really like Donald Trump.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: What do you think?
Doc Rivers: Don’t believe. Don’t believe it. We go too far with that —
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: — because you hit the point. We’re one step away from a leader that we don’t know right now to being right back. And I will say this and I’m more like you in this. If the Republican candidate was the better candidate, I’d vote for him.
Nicolle Wallace: Really?
Doc Rivers: Yes. I mean, I’m a Democrat, but I’m also an American —
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: — at the end of the day. We don’t root for our country right now.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: Somehow we have become a sport, politics, and you root for your team. I’m a Chicago Bears fanatic. And I don’t care how good or bad that they’ve been. I’m still going to be a Bears fan. And I’m still going to vote for the Bears if I was using that politically. Because I grew up in Chicago. That’s who I am. I must confess, I grew up a Knicks fan in Chicago, which is really strange, but —
Nicolle Wallace: There’s like a support group for people like you.
Doc Rivers: Yes. But you know what I’m saying? And that’s where we are now, but it would have to be a guy that’s way better than my candidate. I will say that.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: But there there’s just something there now. Tip O’Neill would go off on the Republicans and then 20 minutes later, they’re having dinner. Civility in politics are gone. It’s nasty.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: What they did to Obama the first time I’ve ever heard a president get booed in chamber. Marjorie is yelling stuff.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: And then we have the one guy that stands up and it’s just amazing the difference and I was —
Nicolle Wallace: The asymmetry. Yes.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: The asymmetry.
Doc Rivers: It’s amazing.
Nicolle Wallace: What do you think about the league? I think it took a bit in Trump’s first term, and there were different things happening. I don’t like the comparison that the players are silent in Trump 2.0. Do players talk about Trump? Do they talk about politics? Is it sort of like, let’s wait a minute. Is it too fraught? Like where is —
Doc Rivers: Yes. I would say not as many as I would like. I think our league is very young right now and that’s the difference. They don’t even care most of them. They’re too busy trying to create their own careers and their jobs. It’s so funny for the election. The veteran players, Brook Lopez, wanted to talk politics. Pat Connaughton wanted to talk politics. Chris Middleton, who I thought was very involved in politics. But if you go to the young guys, they’re not registered most of them.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: And so, it is funny as a coach, you take on more than just coaching. You try to get them to be involved in politics. And I always tell them, I don’t care what side, I do, but I don’t. I just want you to get involved.
Nicolle Wallace: Care.
Doc Rivers: Because politics matter. And I hate, well, politics are part of my life. And I always say, well, that’s not true. Everything you do is part of your life and you need to be involved in it.
Nicolle Wallace: When you talked before the election, you had a great line. I think I stole it. You may not think that you’re into politics, but politics is into you. But to the other part of the conversation, there’s so much marketing that turns it into three dimensional chess when it’s whack-a-mole on the other side. And I wonder how you get that intensity to pull in young people. I mean, the league is full of exactly the kind of people that you need to care.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: Young, successful people who know discipline, people who know greatness, people who have ties to their community, who people look up to. If they don’t care, then we’re nowheresville.
Doc Rivers: Yes. People who have a million Instagram followers.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes. And a million dollars.
Doc Rivers: A million dollars and poor. But it’s so very true, and to get them to connect. And I don’t know this answer I’m asking you more, do you vote for someone for what it does for you or what it does for people who you care about?
Nicolle Wallace: It’s got to be the latter, right.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: But I think you’re stuck in the first.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: And I think maybe we’re playing two different games, right? Maybe that’s why we keep losing.
Doc Rivers: Well, this is the me generation.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: Now, let me tell you, I’m a coach.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: And this generation, there’s so many moments. I was really proud of our generation, our young generation, especially with the George Floyd thing. And just other causes the women rights. I mean, women have been unbelievable. But when’s the last time you see men excited about something in that way? It’s been a long time.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: But you’re right. Everything’s about, well, what it can do for me? How it can help me? You hear men, I’m voting for Trump because he helps me. He doesn’t. But that’s what they believe. That’s what he makes them believe. Trump says it over and over again.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: And he knows it’s not true, but he doesn’t care because he knows if 5% of those people believe him, he just took 5% away from the other side.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: And he does it over and over and over again. I don’t know who said it, but if you tell a lie a thousand times it’s still a lie.
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Doc Rivers: The problem is that’s not so true anymore. Its lies are becoming truth.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: I mean, there was no election corruption.
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Doc Rivers: There was none. But we’ve actually have changed policies over this.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: States are voting for registration cards.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes, IDs. Yes.
Doc Rivers: The IDs like this is all over a lie.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: But he said it and he never stopped, but give him credit, again. Like we all know, oh it’s not true. People laugh at him. No, they’re not laughing at him. They’re starting to believe him.
Nicolle Wallace: They come around on the lie.
Doc Rivers: Yes. It’s become a truth —
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: — when it’s still a lie.
Nicolle Wallace: What’s the response? I mean, like I think some of the struggle that Democratic Party is its own earnestness, right? So like it’s against the rules to do X, Y, and Z. So they’re never going to do X, Y, and Z, but the other side keeps winning by doing X, Y, and Z. How do you adjust?
Doc Rivers: Man, I do think, I’ll give you a point like this whole transgender thing in Wisconsin, every 10 minutes and I kept —
Nicolle Wallace: Yes. And those sides are unanswered. I mean, the campaign —
Doc Rivers: Unanswered, right.
Nicolle Wallace: The campaign had to confront that. David Plouffe and Stephanie Cutter and they were unanswered on TV.
Doc Rivers: They didn’t think they had to because they thought it was so silly, but it wasn’t silly.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: And it was connecting. And so, I think we have to answer back. We have to give real answers, not about Trump, in particular, just about the lies. We have to prove to them that this is not true. And we have to flood the market over and over and over again, because that’s what he’s done.
Nicolle Wallace: I mean, I think some of it too is everyone that has thoughts that’s willing to share them. I mean, that’s why we’re doing this right. I’m on TV. No one doesn’t get enough of me on TV, right. I’m there’re two hours a day, every day.And I may be wish casting here, but I think that there’s something about the way Trump has come out of the gates. He’s done everything that Kamala Harris said he was going to do everything. If you listen to President Obama’s final sort of two weeks on the stump, and there were laugh lines, right. And he’s done everything Obama warned and then some, and I wonder —
Doc Rivers: He surpassed it.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: So I wonder, like to your point, do you get your credibility back by doing both things? The vacuum created, and I know people who have daughters who say, listen, I don’t like Trump, but I don’t want my daughter to have to play or get hurt by a biological boy. To your point, if the facts were out there, I think there are less than a dozen transgender athletes playing in college sports. The facts may still move you into the column of voting for Republican, but absent the facts, you have no shot as a Democrat.
Doc Rivers: Exactly. And also saying like, listen, I don’t know the answer on that one.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes. I don’t either.
Doc Rivers: But we’re too scared to say that.
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Doc Rivers: We’re too scared. We don’t want to offend anyone.
Nicolle Wallace: That’s so true.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: Because I also, as a mom, you want to honor and you don’t want to make anyone feel left out of the coalition. I don’t know the answer.
Doc Rivers: Right. I don’t either, but I know that I have a daughter, you have a daughter, you think the same way. And then you catch yourself, wait a minute. I can’t think this way. And that’s what you do.
Nicolle Wallace: I’m not like them. Yes.
Doc Rivers: Yes. I’m not like them. And so, we have to be better at studying all that and answering to it. It’s just so important for us.
Nicolle Wallace: I mean, what’s the human sort of the emotional intelligence piece is almost a disadvantage in politics?
Doc Rivers: It is now. That’s used to —
Nicolle Wallace: That’s crazy.
Doc Rivers: It used to not be. The standards have been changed. They’ve been lowered. The debates are a joke now.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes. So true.
Doc Rivers: They’ve become these nasty things. These name calling things. Listen, and the debates have also shown that they’re not as important as we thought.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: Because if you go by the one debate, it was a blowout. But then Trump, the same day, says he won and he stayed on it. Again, he just stays with it, and we don’t. Kamala had so much great momentum —
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: — after that debate. And within two days it was gone. It was just gone.
Nicolle Wallace: She ran on joy, which like spoke to me.
Doc Rivers: Yes, me too.
Nicolle Wallace: But obviously, didn’t, you know. What about that was wrong?
Doc Rivers: I thought it was right at the time.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes. It felt good.
Doc Rivers: I was wrong as everyone else. I mean, Bruce Springsteen was given free concerts in Pennsylvania.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: And Pennsylvania voted for Donald Trump.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: Half the audience at those concerts, who had a great time, voted for Trump anyway. So what does that say?
Nicolle Wallace: What does it say?
Doc Rivers: I don’t know the answer. I really don’t.
Nicolle Wallace: I mean, is it in what you said about your players though, that people are looking for the intersection with where it benefits them?
Doc Rivers: Always.
Nicolle Wallace: Right?
Doc Rivers: Always. Even if it’s not true, in politics. All you have to do is make them believe that you’ll be better the other way. And it used to be, it was actually truth. Now it’s not.
Nicolle Wallace: It’s so interesting. I mean, I think the other thing about politics that doesn’t sort of benefit from the reality based world of sports, is that the result is the result.
Doc Rivers: The results are the results. That’s what I love about sports. I hate sports where there’s a judge.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: Hate it. Like figure skating and all that. I can watch the same thing and all of a sudden I’m like, wow, how did they win? Because they’ve voted on it.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: Boxing, I love boxing, love boxing, but the end scares me.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: I like the scoreboard where you can see the scoreboard and it’s a fair playing field, like it’s equal. One thing I love about sports and I always use this in life. We all start in the same place. When there’s a hundred yard dash, you don’t get a 20 yard, a 30 yard advantage, or 40 yard advantage. And that’s where when you get in the race, that’s where a lot of black men are saying like, wait a minute, they got a 70 yard advantage in a hundred yard dash. Now we’re going to start even, but they still are ahead 70 yards. How do I catch that? And that’s the answer that I don’t have.
Nicolle Wallace: Are the Democrats still at the table? I mean, are black men still listening or —
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: I mean, Trump took down Jackie Robinson’s page. I mean, does that reengage or does that more just make it tune out?
Doc Rivers: I don’t know. It senses me, some of the things, the DEI. DEI just blew up. Woke blew up. They changed woke into something completely different. I mean, Bill Maher, who I used to just love has literally ran away with this woke thing —
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: — unless it involves him.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: Or —
Nicolle Wallace: It used to be political correctness, right —
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: — which was his thing in the ‘90s.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: And then they keep rebranding it as like an umbrella for everyone’s grievances.
Doc Rivers: They are things in the woke part that’s just silly, too much, but there’s so many important things that are not. And for you to put them in one category hurts the things that are important. There are things that we need to wake up about in our country. I love using Germany. I love this as an example with the Holocaust. Germany did an amazing job after the Holocaust. They had a reckoning. They did, they had a reckoning. They had to admit that what happened was atrocious, was wrong. They paid reparations.
If you go to Germany, there’s markers on every home where there’s a Holocaust victim. The Nazi flag is illegal. There there’s no Nazi soldier statues. They’ve had a reckoning. And what they found out that it didn’t necessarily, it did help the Jewish people. It helped the Germans more. They became more open-minded. The protests when Elon Musk in Germany.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: Because they’ve had a reckoning. We have not had that. We have not had that with slavery yet, and it’s in our own country. And so, for me, I’m a black man. When I see a Confederate flag, I’m angry and I’m scared because I see that and that scares me. And we do nothing about it. Is that woke because we want to remove a black Nazi, a swastika sticker? It’s the Confederate flag. And I don’t think that’s being woke. I think that’s being real.
Nicolle Wallace: What is it like to see things go the other direction?I know that progress is uneven, but this is a real reverting.
Doc Rivers: It’s a rumble. And it started the day Obama was elected. I really believe that. And I think there’s a lot of people in certain areas like, we’re not letting this happen again or now we’re not being hurt. And I think that’s where the MAGA started. They connected with the people that didn’t think they were being hurt now. I don’t know how they got there. I think they fell into it. But they saw it, they recognized it and they ran with it and they’ve done an amazing job with it.
Nicolle Wallace:I mean, the movement really starts and the attachment emotionally to Trump starts with Trump and the birth certificate.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: Right? So if you look at the people as his followers, they started following that. I know people that are still really excited about Trump, who used to call me and say, oh the birth certificates coming out today. I’m like, what are you talking about? And the obsession with de-legitimizing, arguably one of the most successful presidents, not of our lifetime, but of our history. I mean, eight years without a scandal. You can’t say that. I worked for Bush and I love him, but we were not without scandals, right?
I mean, there was Katrina, there was Harriet Myers. There was Iraq. I mean, there are plenty of political and policy debates that they started in this country, but the effort to de-legitimize them to now continue the vitriol against them is extraordinary.
Doc Rivers: It’s what started it. You’re right, the birther. That’s what started it. People got behind that. That’s as racist as it comes if we’re just keeping that real. And the reason they’re still on the Obamas, they’re scared of Michelle.
Nicolle Wallace: You’re right. My read is like, would never —
Doc Rivers: Never, no.
Nicolle Wallace: Like doesn’t even want to read the political news anymore.
Doc Rivers: She’s actually making comments to make sure you understand that.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes. What part of no did you miss? I’m out.
Doc Rivers: I was at a conference this summer that she was speaking at and every time she opened her mouth and said so much, oh no, she’s making sure we know.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: There’s no chance of it.
Nicolle Wallace: Is disqualifying herself from every party primary that could ever —
Doc Rivers: They did the same thing to Hillary.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: If you ask —
Nicolle Wallace: And Harris. And Kamala Harris.
Doc Rivers: Yes. If you ask the average person why they don’t like Hillary, they can’t tell you.
Nicolle Wallace: Right. Same with Harris.
Doc Rivers: Yes, but they did it because they knew what was coming and they attack early and they did a hell of a job.
(Music Playing)
Nicolle Wallace: We’ll be right back with more of my conversation with Doc Rivers. Stay right here.
(Music Playing)
Nicolle Wallace: I think your assessment of the league is the best explanation, right? And it’s actually comforting that they’re young and they don’t see how it affects them yet and its early days. And when you were at the Clippers, I was on “The View” and I remember covering the Sterling crisis and scandal. And I remember it engulfing the White House as well. I remember President Obama spoke about it, and there were a lot of politicians spoke about it.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: But I wonder if you think that these players, if something affected them or touch them, if they could still be touched by politics and drawn into politics and activism.
Doc Rivers: Yes. I thought that group was drawn in.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes. Right.
Doc Rivers: And the goal, I have to say when it first happened, I thought it was a big deal, but I didn’t think it was a big deal.You know what I mean by that?
Nicolle Wallace: You don’t know how big in the moment.
Doc Rivers: Yes. We’re in a make believe world, athletes are. Our life is ridiculous. We fly private. I mean, if the food’s not right on the plane, we can order different food. Like we complain a lot in our lives. So when this happened, I remember the two things when our first meeting with the team, I wasn’t sure like how it was going to go. I wasn’t even sure how they were going to take me because I worked for him. And so, I had to make a decision, do I wear the Clipper Jersey or the Clipper logo or not? I wore it and I walked in and none of the players had it on. So, I’m like, oh, this is not a good idea.
And when I first started talking, I will say this, everyone had their hands folded, which means they’re not listening. Look at your audience, Democrats, look at your audience. And so, I put my pad down and I remember saying, okay guys, listen, my name is Glen Rivers. I’m not Doc Rivers. I grew up in Chicago and I’m a black man, and I’m offended by what was said. And the moment I said that the arms were unfolded and we did things together.
And that group, Chris Paul, Matt Barnes, all those guys, they were involved a little bit, that made them involved, that got them involved because it connected to them. It hurt them too. It bothered them. Adam Silver was amazing in that whole thing. But even after that, I remember going to the first practice and that’s when I knew, oh Mike Wallace is here. Tom Brokaw. I’m using names that I know.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes, yes.
Doc Rivers: But everyone was in the gym.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: And I thought, oh wow, this is a big deal. This is a big deal. And again, it’s because of the whole race thing, Nicolle, which in our country, it’s so funny. You can’t talk about race. And if you talk about race, you’re using race. And I still go back to just, let’s get back to who we are, understand what’s happened in this country and we can move on, but not teaching history —
Nicolle Wallace: Well, right. I mean, the —
Doc Rivers: — is ridiculous. It’s really hurting us.
Nicolle Wallace: And trying to erase —
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: I think part of what was revealed maybe by that is your players couldn’t avoid it because it was about, like, it was a person who owned the team. And it’s not a thing until it’s a thing. You’re owned by a guy who’s so flagrantly racist. And that was so clear. But I think, I think people who want to be on the right side, not just of history, but of a moment, are looking for their cues and the problem with not teaching history and making these conversations so dicey for people who want to be part of it, and then so punitive and so flattened on the right, is that people don’t know how to step in and then so punitive and so flattened on the right, is that people don’t know how to step in. And then that’s how the wrong side perpetuates the wrong beliefs and succeeds in erasing history.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: And you see with canceling DEI, it’s not just about erasing black history. It’s about making white people ignorant, right, of the things that have happened because somebody on the right thinks that you’ll make a white kid feel bad about something that happened, which there’s literally no example of that happening ever, where a white student learning about the history of slavery feels bad for something happened a hundred years ago.
Doc Rivers: Yes, it’s ridiculous.
Nicolle Wallace: But you look at efforts to erase history and that seems to —
Doc Rivers: It’s scary.
Nicolle Wallace: It’s scary.
Doc Rivers: It’s scary. Like we’ve learned if you don’t study history, it will repeat it. I mean, that’s been told to us since we were kids. The two things though that came out that I would say with the story, one thing for sure is what I learned for the first time is people were judging us how we responded. We became the issue somehow instead of focusing on the wrong doer. How will the Clippers respond? Did they respond enough? Did they do enough? Should they play? And I’m like, wait a minute. We’re the innocent guys. Let’s focus on this racist and let’s talk about him. Let’s go after him and do the right thing. And I was blown away by how our players were getting inundated with they should not play or they should do this. That was more of the focus than it was on Donald Sterling.
And then the biggest thing with race, some of my friends, I love discussion just to get a discussion going. I guess I’ve always liked debate. I like it. But recently one of my friends said, well, why do I have to pay the price that something I didn’t do? That’s the average white man’s thought. And in some ways he’s right and he’s wrong, you know? I did nothing. Why do I have to pay a cost or, no, I don’t agree with that. It goes back to, well, you’re ahead already. How do you argue that point? Because it’s a valid point and it’s a hard one.
Nicolle Wallace: But what is the zero sum of it about because how does it take from you to learn the actual truth?
Doc Rivers: No, that’s the whole key because I don’t want to feel bad. I don’t want to learn the whole truth. What we’re missing is it’ll make you better. The truth will set you free, not us, everyone. That question about why do I have to do anything different? I had nothing to do with that. Yes, but mass of wealth that was generated from Jim Crow, years of slavery and all that, it puts people in a hole that it’s impossible to get out. And how do we figure that out? And I have no answers.
Nicolle Wallace: How do you make the truth —
Doc Rivers: The truth?
Nicolle Wallace: — and how do you make it like the thing that’s stickier and that goes viral and that people are posting on Instagram? How do you make the truth the coveted sneaker of the season?
Doc Rivers: Because the truth is interpreted, and that’s why, because it’s hard for people to understand the truth as just simply the truth. Nicolle, Sunday, go to five churches and they’re going to open up same Bible, and they’re going to read the same verse. And that’s the truth. If you are in that religion, and they’re going to say five different things. And that’s, unfortunately, where the truth is now, instead of there are just math truths is what I call them. Two plus two is four. There’s no explanation to that. All right, it’s four. It’s nothing else. And there’s certain things that are actually that have happened and we don’t need an interpretation.
We have to figure out how to make those things the solid truth. And somehow those things, I mean, the fact that there are people that saying that there was no Holocaust, and there’s millions of people who believe that. How does that happen?
Nicolle Wallace: How do you marry the best of culture, sports, music, art? A student of history knows that you can’t just push every four years in our presidential politics. You have to push the culture. What role can sports play in sort of pushing the truth and pushing the best and pushing our history or has sort of shut up and dribble permeated sports?
Doc Rivers: I think it has not. I think that the more we stand out and talk about it, the more we get guys to talk about it. I think where we have failed as a lead, Nicolle, I think our players think that only the good players, the stars should talk, and that’s not true. Everyone should talk. Everyone who has a voice or belief. You have to have passion in something to really speak on something. And we need our players somehow to become passionate about this because it affects not only them, it affects their entire community and that’s the way they have to connect things.
Nicolle Wallace: Most of them, though, are passionate. I say you don’t end up in the league if you’re not passionate, right.
Doc Rivers: Right.
Nicolle Wallace: If you’re not disciplined. I mean, all the things that put them in front of you as players would make them better than just about anyone. I mean, and they all have sisters or moms, and you go back to women’s issues. Is it sort of like, almost like we’re hostages of our algorithm, right, so they’re just not seeing it or is it their youth or is it —
Doc Rivers: Yes, I think it’s all those, but I do think it starts with the passion. I mean, listen, I’ve been through those highs and lows and the highs, you worked your life for, all right. When Obama won, I was emotional for the first time. I’ll never forget. There was a black couple in the front row. I want to say it was a Rockets game. And that was the night of the election we were playing. And the black lady was crying.
The game’s going on, Nicolle, and I see the husband hugging, I don’t know what’s happening. So, there’s a timeout and I stopped. They were right by our bench. They’re in the front row, and I stopped and I say, sir, do you need some help? Are you okay? And he looked up, I’m getting choked up, thinking about it. He looks up and says, no, Obama just won. And I literally, the game, we’re about to go out and I’m choked up. I called a time out. I called another time out and I told our guys, hey guys, Obama just won. And I know there’s video of us jumping up and down. God, we need to connect that again. For me, that made me emotional. And so, that’s where we got to get back to somehow.
Nicolle Wallace: I cry at the Anthem at every Knicks game and every Mets game, which are the two sporting events that I go to most regularly. And I don’t know if it’s just that I think that people sitting around me might hate my guts for what I do on TV, but we’re all standing there in that moment, singing the same song to the same country, or if it’s that for the next two, three hours, I’m going to be free from the things that keep me up at night, or if it’s that I think someone out there might be the next person that can bring people together and bring us to something better. But are you optimistic? Do you hope?
Doc Rivers: I’m always optimistic. I really am, Nicolle. Listen, as you were saying, what you were saying and seeing when I started talking about the Obama thing, you were getting teary eyed then, and I was. Do you know what makes our country great is we just had this discussion.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: And we can, and in most countries you can’t, or in a lot of countries, you can’t have this. If we had this discussion in a lot of other countries, right when we got off air. There are people waiting for us to lock us up, and we can complain. It’s like your family. Oh, you could complain all day about your own kids, but don’t let anybody else complain about them.
Nicolle Wallace: Exactly.
Doc Rivers: That’s how we feel about our country.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: So we have the right to complain. We have the right to want to fix it, and we should all get involved in fixing it, but don’t mess with our country. Our country is fantastic. That’s the way I look at it at the end of the day.
Nicolle Wallace: There’s so much about where you are and how beloved you are and how beloved your players are. What’s been the best moment this year?
Doc Rivers: Oh, that’s a great question. This year, our best moments, number one is winning the in-season tournament. That was absolutely awesome for us. I would say number two this year is watching my young players progress so quickly. Players before the year, we didn’t think we were going to have. And then three, this is a strange one, but it was Christmas afternoon, I was in the office by myself and Pat Connaughton, who is a player on our team who had lost his minutes, a veteran who won a championship here, was in the gym all by himself running. And like, I’m the emotional guy, that actually made me emotional.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: Because this is a guy that doesn’t complain. He just sticks at it. And he believes that at some point he’s going to get another shot.
Nicolle Wallace: You do the work.
Doc Rivers: Yes. Last night he had 43 points.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Doc Rivers: And he got a shot. And so, that might have been one of my best moments.
Nicolle Wallace: I love that. I love how much you love them. I know you said that some of the worst advice you got was to not get attached to them, the players.
Doc Rivers: Yes. Thank God, I didn’t listen.
Nicolle Wallace: I was going to say, it feels like the best advice you might give a coach just starting out is to do the opposite.
Doc Rivers: Yes, pour in, and you’re going to get your heart broken. It’s just like, I guess, trying to fall in love, I don’t know, but you’re going to get your heart broken. There’s going to be guys that are going to resist you and that’s okay, and just understand, don’t take it personal and don’t make that guy a bad guy. He just didn’t, as you use the word vibe, he didn’t vibe with you. And I’ve learned that as a coach that I’m not for everybody and that’s okay.
Nicolle Wallace: I love something that you said in the Netflix docu, you said these guys say I’m going to practice. And I see this in my own son. He doesn’t say he is going to practice. He’s going to hit.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: There’s nothing that makes my son feel more alive than swinging a baseball bat.
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: So he never says like, I got to go practice or I’ve got to go. It’s I’m going to hit. And it’s like his face lights up. And you said that about basketball. That it was never, I got to go practice because I’m going to go play basketball, the greatest game. Is it sort of sinking your passion with what you do or what is sort of the best advice —
Doc Rivers: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: — for being as good as you are still.
Doc Rivers: Being in love with what you do. Just being in love with it. I’m maybe accused of sometimes being too in love with it because there are things, family and all kinds of things that you make sacrifices and if you look back, oh man, I probably shouldn’t have done that.I know right now the players are about to start. There’s either two outcomes. I’m going to land the plane or I’m going to crash the plane and that’s it. And you can’t wait to get involved in it. That tells you how great this job is for me.
Nicolle Wallace: Good luck with everything that comes next.
Doc Rivers: Yes. Thank you.
Nicolle Wallace: Thank you for carving out this hour for us. We’re really grateful to get to talk to you.
Doc Rivers: Oh, this is great. I could talk to you every day. This is fantastic. Thank you.
Nicolle Wallace: I’m always here. You know where to find me in the summer, if you want to come hang out anytime.
Doc Rivers: I love it. Thank you.
Nicolle Wallace: Thank you so much. Thank you.
Doc Rivers: Take care.
Nicolle Wallace: Thank you.
Doc Rivers: Bye-bye.
(Music Playing)
Nicolle Wallace: Thank you so much for listening to “The Best People.” Be sure to subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple podcasts to get this and other MSNBC podcasts, ad free. As a subscriber, you’ll also get early access and exclusive bonus content. If you’ve been enjoying our conversation with “The Best People,” be sure to rate and review the show. Your reviews help others discover the show. Also, all episodes of the podcasts are available on YouTube as well. Visit msnbc.com/thebestpeople to watch.
“The Best People” is produced by Vicki Vergolina and senior producer, Lisa Ferri, with additional support from Pat Elliot and Ranna Shahbazi. Our audio engineer is Bob Mallory and Bryson Barnes is the head of audio production. Pat Burkey is the senior executive producer of “Deadline: White House,” and Aisha Turner is the executive producer of MSNBC Audio. Search for “The Best People with Nicolle Wallace” wherever you get your podcast and follow the whole series.