Brendan Schaub found himself in an uncomfortable spotlight this week after fans surfaced video of him making dismissive and derogatory comments about Michelle Obama, calling the former First Lady a man, only to have him stumble through a series of contradictory denials when confronted about it on his podcast.
The clip, which spread rapidly across social media and gathered significant attention, captured Schaub in what many observers described as a textbook deflection spiral.
When someone pointed out that Schaub had made the same type of comment he had just criticized another public figure for making, Schaub’s response was a tangle of half-admissions and pivots.
“The Michelle Obama stuff, I don’t know what’s going on there,” Schaub said, before quickly redirecting to unrelated grievances about former President Barack Obama. “I got my issues with Obama and how many people were harmed with drones and the race wars that he started if you look back on the history of his term.”
The claim about “race wars” drew particular scorn online, with many pointing out that no such thing occurred during the Obama presidency and that the comment appeared to be a recycled talking point with no factual basis.
When a viewer in the chat pointed out that Schaub had specifically called Michelle Obama a man on a previous episode, his response traced a familiar pattern of denial and minimization.
He first suggested he may not have said it, then acknowledged he might have while framing it as inconsequential, and finally landed on the position that it was acceptable because it happened on a comedy podcast.
“I think it was last year,” he said. “Here’s the difference, I do a comedy podcast. We say way worse things that we have to edit out. You can’t take me making a comment, and it was trendy at the time too. We were probably talking about the Obamas in general.”
Schaub then attempted to distance himself from the remark by contrasting his situation with that of the public figure he had originally been criticizing. “You can’t compare me to Hokit on a world stage,” he said.
Commenters online noted that Schaub appeared to follow a predictable sequence when confronted: deny the comment, suggest it was taken out of context, then partially own it while framing it as harmless given the venue.
One Reddit user described the sequence plainly: “Denies he said it, maybe he said it but taken out of context, he did say it but it’s okay because everyone else was saying it at the time.”
Others took issue less with the specific comment and more with Schaub’s unwillingness to simply acknowledge what he said. “If you said it, own up to it,” one commenter wrote.
