MS NOW’s Ali Velshi likes to think of himself as the type of journalist who speaks “truth to power” and cares more about facts than being neutral, but on Wednesday, The 11th Hour host welcomed podcaster V Spehar to unveil MS NOW’s newest conspiracy theory: that people will use the Supreme Court’s ruling that greenlit state bans on males competing in girls’ sports to ban actual girls.
Velshi led Spehar with an interesting claim, “Meanwhile, he's still trying to get his voter suppression act done. And the Republicans are still struggling with trans sports.”
MS NOW's Ali Velshi fancies himself as the kind of journalist who speaks "truth to tpower" and values facts more than neutrality, so he brought on podcaster and tin foil hatter V Spehar to attack the GOP after the Supreme Court's trans sports ruling, "Can I just be at a game and… pic.twitter.com/I8XJZRi55D
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) July 2, 2026
Republicans are not “struggling with trans sports.” The public is overwhelmingly on their side. Nevertheless, Spehar proclaimed, “They are struggling with the trans sports, and they're writing legislation that is hurting their children more. The most recent piece of legislation that just got, sort of, decided between the Supreme Court was this idea that states are allowed now to discriminate against trans kids who want to play in girls’ sports.”
The reason why this issue has become important is because athletes who have previously competed as males have switched to the female competitions, but Spehar made it seem like nobody could possibly know who is transgender and who is just an athletically gifted female:
Now, that's going to affect maybe 12 or 15 kids who are trans across the nation that want to play girls' sports. It's going to affect millions of little girls who play sports, because one of the things that the GOP similarly refuses to agree with Democrats on is if there's going to be a ban on trans sports, then there ought to be a ban on genital exams, because who gets to decide who's trans? Can I just be at a game and watching a girl excel and go, ‘Well, she's playing too good.’ She must be trans. Let's check her out.’
The exact number of males who are now prohibited from playing girls’ sports does not matter. It takes just one to corrupt the results.
However, Spehar continued, “And in 23 states, GOP has voted no, ‘We don't want to ban genital exams. We want that to be on the table for us going forward.’ So, I just think we've reached a place of madness, Ali, like this is a crazy madness. Where the escalated investment in Trump's priorities, things like trans sports bans, while he's not prioritizing housing, have made us just absolutely lose our minds and lose focus on what is reality, what is humanity, and what are we even doing.”
Both the West Virginia and Idaho laws the Court upheld allow for alternatives to genital exams, such as testosterone production and genetics, but in both states, a female athlete would only need to prove her sex if contested, which, again, would be extremely unlikely if she had always competed with other females.
Here is a transcript for the July 1 show:
MS NOW The 11th Hour with Ali Velshi
7/1/2026
11:11 PM ET
ALI VELSHI: Meanwhile, he's still trying to get his voter suppression act done. And the Republicans are still struggling with trans sports.
V SPEHAR: They are struggling with the trans sports, and they're writing legislation that is hurting their children more. The most recent piece of legislation that just got, sort of, decided between the Supreme Court was this idea that states are allowed now to discriminate against trans kids who want to play in girls’ sports. Now, that's going to affect maybe 12 or 15 kids—
VELSHI: Yes.
SPEHAR: —who are trans across the nation that want to play girls’ sports. It's going to affect millions of little girls who play sports, because one of the things that the GOP similarly refuses to agree with Democrats on is if there's going to be a ban on trans sports, then there ought to be a ban on genital exams, because who gets to decide who's trans?
Can I just be at a game and watching a girl excel and go, “Well, she's playing too good.” She must be trans. Let's check her out." And in 23 states, GOP has voted no, “We don't want to ban genital exams. We want that to be on the table for us going forward.”
So, I just think we've reached a place of madness, Ali, like this is a crazy madness. Where the escalated investment in Trump's priorities, things like trans sports bans, while he's not prioritizing housing, have made us just absolutely lose our minds and lose focus on what is reality, what is humanity, and what are we even doing.
