Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear declined to label Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide” in an interview with Politico published Sunday, instead critiquing the question as a litmus test among Democrats.
Kentucky
Mark Stoops expects turnover and surprises during “tumultuous week”
In some ways, the writing has been on the wall for this season for a while. Even though it was only made official with last week’s loss to Texas, it’s been clear for weeks the Cats weren’t going to a bowl. The season has been on a steady decline for over a month, with today’s humiliating 41-14 loss to Louisville serving as the icing on a crap cake.
After today’s loss, Stoops admitted he’s been thinking about how to fix the issues that plagued Kentucky this season for quite some time. The rebuild starts tomorrow with an all-staff meeting ahead of what is known as the wildest week in college football. The Early Signing Period starts on Wednesday and even though the transfer portal doesn’t open until December 9, Stoops said there will be some hard conversations in the coming days as players decide their futures and the staff tries to make room for a rebuild.
“Tumultuous week; that’s an understatement,” Stoops said during his postgame conversation with Tom Leach. “There’s going to be a lot of turnover and there needs to be. And nobody needs to panic because we, I, have to create room. I have to build a roster that can compete in this monster league. And we clearly didn’t meet it this year but it’s not like we’re going to be so far away.”
Stoops compared Kentucky’s current situation to when he took over for Joker Phillips back in 2013. Thanks to the transfer portal and NIL, a roster rebuild can happen much more quickly, especially with the right resources, which he says he believes he has. Stoops wants to build around Kentucky’s young playmakers — Cutter Boley first and foremost — and restock the rest of the roster through the portal.
Player meetings will take place in the next few days; while Stoops and his staff will have a plan of who they want to keep and who will need to go, he knows they’ll likely get some bad news too.
“There are going to be players that we ask to go somewhere else, to go play somewhere else, and there are going to be guys that we ask to come back. There’s going to be incoming freshmen, there’s going to be incoming portal [players], and there’s probably going to be some surprises. Let’s be honest. There’s going to be a surprise and again, we won’t flinch. It’s not like we’re going to like it or anything. If you lose somebody you don’t want to but it’s not the end all be all. There are ways to replace anybody.”
Stoops joked that fans probably want to replace him but he’s not going anywhere. After all, as he said earlier in his conversation with Leach, he’s the winningest coach in Kentucky football history. He’s confident he can turn things around, even as the landscape of the sport continues to shift by the second.
“It’s not like I have no idea what I’ve done. I’ve done things at this school that nobody else has. It’s not like I totally forgot, but I have to do better. I also accept it so I don’t, want anybody to attack me for saying that. I’m admitting and saying I need to do a better job and we will.”
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“That’s becoming one of those new litmus tests that we said we would never do as a party again,” Beshear told Politico’s Dasha Burns after being asked if he agreed with the label. “It’s trying to throw out a word and, ‘Are you going to raise your hand or are you not going to?’”
Beshear is the Democratic governor of a solidly red state and a potential 2028 presidential contender. His remarks come as Democratic candidates increasingly grapple with their stances on Israel amid record-low support for Israel among their base.
While several lawmakers, including Vermont’s Jewish Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent, have called Israel’s actions in Gaza a “genocide,” the label has not gained mainstream support in the Democratic Party. Last October, former Vice President Kamala Harris declined to use the “genocide” label, which Israel had long rejected, but said, “We should all step back and ask this question and be honest about it.”
Some Democrats have embraced the question, with a New York congressional candidate telling the leftist streamer Hasan Piker this week that she is “100%” comfortable with the issue serving as a litmus test in her party.
Others have acted as though the litmus test is already in place. In January, for example, California congressional candidate Scott Wiener announced that he believes Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide after drawing scrutiny for declining to answer the question during a debate.
Beshear critiques Trump, Netanyahu
While Beshear told Burns that Israel “has the right to exist as a democratic country, as a Jewish country,” he added that his feelings about President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct during the war in Gaza and ongoing war in Iran were “a different thing.”
“I believe the United States needs a strong Israel, but not one with decisions being made in the way that Netanyahu is making them,” Beshear said.
Beshear also critiqued President Donald Trump’s response to the crisis in Gaza.
“I believe that it could have been done without a lot of the suffering, but I put a lot of that blame also on Donald Trump,” he said. “If he’d said we are coming in and we are bringing food and aid and you are going to make sure that we’re safe, it would’ve happened.”
Last week, a spokesperson for Beshear told Politico that “AIPAC has never contributed to Governor Beshear and they’re never going to – ever,” a response that dovetailed with a host of other potential Democratic presidential candidates, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who are increasingly distancing themselves from the pro-Israel lobby.
“I think that’s up to each and every Democrat,” Beshear answered when asked whether he thought his fellow Democrats should take money from AIPAC.
“In the end, I think people need to be clear about their stance on these issues,” Beshear said. “And for me, it’s one where I believe that we need a future with an ally in Israel. But we need decision makers there that are not acting the way that Netanyahu is, and we need a president that will push when we are seeing humanitarian crises to actually do something about it.”
A massive addition to the transfer portal just happened as former Liberty guard Brett Decker Jr. announced that he plans to hit the portal when it opens on April 7th. This should immediately catch the eye of Mark Pope, as Decker Jr. is a Kentucky native from Elizabethtown.
This season for the Flames of Liberty, Decker Jr. averaged 16.9 points per game while shooting 49.9% from the field and 47.1% from three. Decker Jr. will more than likely end up being the best three-point shooter in the transfer portal, so knowing this, plus the fact that he is a Kentucky native, Coach Pope needs to do everything in his power to land Decker Jr.
Last season, the Wildcats didn’t have that much three-point shooting outside of Collin Chandler. Otega Oweh, Denzel Aberdeen, and Kam Williams all were solid shooting the three ball, but Chandler was the only player fans could rely on to make one from deep.
When Pope doesn’t have a lot of players who are capable of making threes, his offense isn’t going to be that good, and this is why the Wildcats had a rough season last year. Coach Pope needs to learn from this mistake and make sure that he adds a bunch of players via the portal who can fill it up from deep. Obviously, Decker Jr. is a player who makes a ton of sense for this staff to target to come in and play the Koby Brea role.
If Decker Jr. does pick Kentucky, he could come off the bench as a flamethrower from deep, and in the games where he just can’t seem to miss, Pope won’t take him off the floor. When it comes to the other backcourt members Pope recruits, he will need guys who can score all over the floor, while Decker Jr. could just be the shooter for this team.
Decker Jr. is only a sophomore, so if Kentucky were to land him, he could develop the rest of his game and be one of the better players in the nation during his final two seasons of college hoops. Pope needs players who are going to be knockdown shooters from deep, and a good start would be to land the best shooter in the portal.
If Kentucky is able to land Decker Jr., Pope will still need to go out and get some more players who can be reliable from three, but he would be an excellent start. Coach Pope needs to do everything in his power to bring the Kentucky kid home.
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