The Dictatorship
Audi Crooks plays for Iowa State — and for all those who’ve been told their body is too big
ByEvette Dionne
Iowa State basketball player Audi Crooks is one of the best athletes in the country, and that’s no exaggeration. In the past week alone, she has been named second-team All-American by The Associated Press and the U.S. Basketball Writers Associationand she’s a semifinalist for the Naismith Trophy Women’s College Player of the Year. They’re well-deserved accolades as Crooks — the second-leading scorer in college women’s basketball — is coming off a monster season: averaging 25.5 points per game while shooting nearly 65% from the floor, grabbing 7.8 rebounds and scoring double figures in 97 consecutive games. She also became the fastest in Big 12 women’s basketball history to score 2,000 pointssolidifying herself as a generational talent. Today she leads her 8th-seeded Cyclones into the NCAA women’s basketball tournament.
So why, given her remarkable collegiate career, is there such a cultural obsession over Crooks’ body?
So why, given her remarkable collegiate career, is there such a cultural obsession over Crooks’ body? Basketball is a sport dominated by size. When it comes to the 6-foot-3 Crooks, however, the criticism — mostly around the size of her body — is often as loud as the applause of her on-court performance. In a particularly troubling Reddit threadCrooks is accused of being “out of shape,” of not taking her “conditioning” seriously and of being the reason Iowa State was bounced early from the Big 12 Tournament.
Such body-shaming insults are lobbed at athletes of all genders who defy narrow perceptions of how an athlete’s body should look. Just ask Serena Williams, who spent a record-breaking professional tennis career being accused of having a body that was “too masculine.”In 2009, Williams said she was called “fat” and “unfit” after she had surgery and fell to No. 200 in the women’s tennis rankings. “You have to enjoy what you look like,” she said at the time. “Sometimes I read things [that say] I’m too fit or my arms are too muscular, but that’s how I am.”
Before the 2024 Summer Olympics, rugby star Ilona Maher responded to a fat-shaming TikTok comment that said she had a BMI over 30, suggesting she was not an ideal athlete for Team USA. “BMI doesn’t really tell you what I can do,” she said. “It doesn’t tell you what I do on the field, how fit I am. … So yeah, I do have a BMI of 30. I am considered overweight. But alas, I’m going to the Olympics and you’re not.”
Even NBA player Zion Williamson has been navigating claims that he “overeats” since he came into the league six years ago.
When an athlete as powerful as Crooks comes on the scene, it is easier for some critics to lean into fatphobia to discredit her than to simply admit that what they’ve been taught about the relationship between body size and fitness is one-dimensional and outdated. Williams is one of the greatest players to ever grace the tennis court. Maher is an essential member of Team USA’s bronze-winning Olympics team. When Williamson isn’t navigating injury, he’s one of the most explosive players in the NBA. And, if her junior year is any indication, Crooks is destined to break more NCAA records her senior year.
Size hasn’t been a deterrent to those athletes’ greatness because size has nothing to do with athleticism. All bodies are capable of all things. Allie Kieffer, a professional runner who has placed fifth in the New York City marathonis more proof of how illogical it is to associate size with fitness. As she notes in a 2018 essay for SELFthe stereotype of the “rail-thin elite” athlete can push larger athletes toward dire outcomes, including quitting sports altogether or developing eating disorders. “I’ve known and heard of many collegiate and elite female runners who suffer from eating disorders because their coaches tell them that they need to be as light as possible to win races,” she wrote. “The consequences of this messaging are severe, as I soon learned firsthand.” Pushing herself to “cut weight” to compete at an elite level led Kieffer to develop a stress fracture in her tibia that prevented her from competing in the 2012 Olympic trials.
This body has gotten me so far in life, and it enables me to do what I do on the court.
audi crooks
When we push athletes like Crooks to embody the “ideal” athletic body instead of simply accepting that their body is one of the reasons they’re able to excel, it unfairly detracts from their talent and their accomplishments. It’s something Crooks is seemingly aware of, and to her credit, refuses to submit to. “My family, we’ve always been bigger, stronger people,” she told ESPN. “Like tall, big humans. That’s just kind of who we are. That’s our identity. I’ve utilized that as more of a tool because this body has gotten me so far in life, and it enables me to do what I do on the court.”
Being able to drown out the noise will benefit Crooks as she navigates today’s tournament game and a promising career, but she shouldn’t have to hear the noise at all. Accepting that athletic bodies come in all shapes and sizes, and that what we’ve been taught to believe about fatness is nonsense, will help set Crooks up for the basketball career she — and all plus-size athletes who come after her — deserve.
Evette Dionne
Evette Dionne is a culture journalist who writes on race and gender.
The Dictatorship
Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In South Carolina’s gubernatorial raceDonald Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette last month. Last week, however, ahead of this week’s primary runoff election in the race, the president published an online item telling voters that “you can’t go wrong” with either Evette or state Attorney General Alan Wilson.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because Trump has done this before. Around this time two years ago, for example, he endorsed both Republicans running in a congressional primary in Arizona. And two years before that, he endorsed two leading contenders in a Senate primary in Missouri.
Only the president can say for sure why he ended up endorsing Evette and Wilson in the South Carolina race, though it’s worth emphasizing for context that GOP primary voters have already ignored his direction into two gubernatorial primaries this month, and it stands to reason that he hoped to avoid a third.
* We’re one day away from a variety of notable racesincluding but not limited to South Carolina’s gubernatorial race. There are also some congressional primaries in a handful of statesincluding Maryland, New York and Utah.
* In took a while, but the ballots have been tallied under Maine’s ranked-choice systemand we now know that Democrat Hannah Pingree, the former state House speaker, will face off against Republican Bobby Charles, who worked at the State Department during the Bush-Cheney era.
* As for Maine’s closely watched congressional racestate Auditor Matt Dunlap won the Democratic nomination in the battleground 2nd District, defeating state Sen. Joe Baldacci, who enjoyed the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dunlap will run in the fall against a familiar figure: former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who had moved to Florida a few years ago, but who returned to run for Congress.
* In California’s congressional special electiontwo Democratic candidates — state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director — have advanced to an Aug. 18 special general election. The winner will fill the vacancy left by disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April.
* In a new commercial shared first with MS NOWDemocrat James Talarico has launched his campaign’s first multimillion-dollar ad buy in Texas’ gubernatorial race. In the 30-second spot, Talarico focuses on affordability and the cost of living. The state lawmaker will face scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the fall.
* And in New Jersey, Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.who has been missing from Capitol Hill since early March, will reportedly return to work on June 30according to a statement from his spokesperson. Neither Kean nor his office have offered any public information about why he has been away.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
The Dictatorship
Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls
After President Donald Trump’s pick for governor in Iowa lost in the Republican primary earlier this month, the president argued that he “would have endorsed the other person” if he had “the proper information.”
Trump is taking no chances in the South Carolina gubernatorial primary. Over the weekend he rescinded his exclusive endorsement of Pamela Evette, the lieutenant governor, announcing instead that he would support both Evette and her runoff opponent, Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general.
The move put Evette’s political future in jeopardy: Even before Trump’s dual endorsement, she trailed in limited public polling and was seen by political observers in South Carolina as a weak candidate with little to show besides the president’s coveted endorsement.
“Her chief distinction from Alan Wilson was that Trump endorsed her,” said Dr. Dubose Kapeluck, a professor of political science at the Citadel Military College of South Carolina.
Trump’s dual endorsement “was a kiss of death,” he told MS NOW.
Evette, who moved to South Carolina from Ohio to found a successful payroll and HR company in 2000, has been lieutenant governor since 2019, serving under Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term-limited.
In office, she has pursued meaningful but little-celebrated policies, like a key tort reform bill, according to Gil Gatch, a Republican member of the South Carolina state House and an Evette supporter.
But voters could be forgiven for knowing little about Evette besides the fact that Trump endorsed her, which he did just days before the June 9 primary. Visitors to her campaign website are greeted with a full-screen message labeling Evette as “Trump-endorsed.” The first line in her X bio states the same. Pro-Evette television ads are quick to tout the endorsement.
An accomplishment like tort reform, while noted on Evette’s website, “maybe could have been something that was highlighted more heavily,” Gatch told MS NOW.
The political makeup of South Carolina nearly guarantees the next governor will be whoever emerges on Tuesday between Evette and Wilson. They survived a crowded primary field on June 9, and nearly every challenger who fell short of the runoff publicly endorsed the attorney general.
“She’s just not a good candidate,” Josh Kimbrell, a state senator who failed to make the runoff and has since said he’d back Wilson, said of Evette.
“She kind of assumed this was a coronation, and that was never going to go over that well,” he added.
Even some pro-Trump voters were confused by the president’s initial endorsement of Evette, whom he called “a good friend, fighter, and WINNER” in a social media post in May.
“I have no clue why Trump would endorse Pamela Evette,” Leland Lemmons, a 30-year-old Trump supporter told MS NOW as he exited a polling site in the Greenville suburb of Easley on June 9.
“She’s served, you know, a decent time. I just haven’t seen much fruition of what she’s done in office,” he added.
In a post on Truth Social Friday announcing his dual endorsement, Trump wrote, “I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson!”
In a subsequent statement on X, Evette said, “I was proud to come in first as [Trump’s] endorsed candidate for Governor on June 9th. Looking forward to doing it again on June 23rd.”
After The Washington Post foreshadowed the dual endorsement last Tuesday, allies of Evette were quick to denounce the possibility.
“I would guess that’s fake news,” Suzanne Pucci, a member of Evette’s finance committee, told MS NOW of the chance Trump would also endorse Wilson. “She’s probably not real worried about it.”
Another close ally and supporter told MS NOW at the time the report was “a total, fabricated lie.”
“[Trump] is invested in Pamela Evette because she invested in him. He’s a loyal guy. That kind of stuff is important to him,” added the supporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“With or without Trump, I think she is going to win,” they said.
On Thursday, a senior campaign aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, brushed off the idea of a dual endorsement, telling MS NOW in a statement, “Pamela Evette has earned the complete and total endorsement of President Trump. She is the only Trump-endorsed candidate in this race and we look forward to delivering a big win for the president on Tuesday.”
Roughly 24 hours later, Trump retracted the exclusive endorsement.
Will McDuffie is a reporter for MS NOW.
As last week’s G7 summit in France got underway, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether his purported deal with Iran was final. “No, it’s not final,” the president replied. Later that day — during a visit to Versaillesof all places — he signed the framework anyway.
But moments after signing his name to the memorandum of understanding, Trump offered an unsubtle hint about what he was thinking at the time. Amid applause from those around him, the American president pointed down and then up while saying“Oil down, stocks up.”
In other words, Trump’s focus had nothing to do with natural security and everything to do with the economy. What’s more, the four-word phrase was part of a larger and underappreciated pattern. The Washington Post reported:
In the more than 100 days since President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran, he has offered a shifting list of reasons for why he started the conflict. But in explaining his push for peace, he named a priority much closer to home: protecting the stock market.
“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains, France, after the Group of Seven summit.
As the summit wrapped up, the Republican similarly said“I’ve studied presidents, some good, some bad, some great. Not too many are great and some really bad. … And the one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover. I didn’t want that and who knows what would have happened.”
He pushed the same point in an interview with Axios, which was released over the weekend.
“If I went further, the stock market would be much lower,” the president said. “Now think of this: I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover.”
The comments came days after Trump similarly argued“The alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people.”
Whether the president fully appreciates the implications of his own rhetoric, this string of comments doesn’t just shed light on his motivations for accepting a defeat, it also suggests he saw his failed policy in Iran as pushing the global economy toward a dangerous cliff.
In other words, based on Trump’s own comments, the war he started was poised to create an “economic catastrophe,” which he was desperate to avoid — and which led him to accept a framework that empowered Iran to get what it wanted in exchange for effectively no concessions at all.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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