Charles Payne, host of Fox Business Network’s “Making Money,” discussed his tense on-air exchange with Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy last month as well as his “callous” tactics regarding investments in an interview with Mediate that was posted on Friday.

In a late June interview, Payne brought Portnoy on to discuss his early involvement in a Reddit movement that drove up value in “meme stocks” like Gamestop and AMC. Portnoy, who popularized the term “stonk” and has no formal finance or investment training and education, nevertheless hosts the “Davy Day Trader Global” podcast, and Payne pressed him for leading other investors to get out of those stocks very early after he convinced many to jump in, which caused them to lose money because the stocks continued to rise.

Calling Portnoy “paper hands” — a term used to describe investors who get out of stocks at the first sign of trouble — Payne remarked that a lot of people who made an early exit with Portnoy were angry with him because the stocks continued to grow in value, though Portnoy said in February he lost $700,000 by selling shares too early.

As Payne pressed Portnoy to take some responsibility for his actions, the Barstool Sports founder pushed back hard, calling people who got out early “idiots” while also throwing Payne some shade throughout the interview. The climax came towards the end of the segment when Portnoy called Payne “a moron” and the financial host responded by calling Portnoy “a little b*tch,” which the Davy Day Trader host laughed off.

But later, Portnoy went on his own podcast, “The Dave Portnoy Show with Eddie & Co.,” and continued to disparage Payne, saying, “I don’t know what (Payne’s) deal was with that, but if you rationally think about it, he made an idiot out of himself with his argument.”

In his interview with Mediate, Payne pushed back on Portnoy’s characterization and said he was attempting to get Portnoy to take some responsibility for his actions while offering some protection for investors so they don’t get bamboozled and lose a great deal of money following bad advice.

“He’s got a large following and a lot of people got involved in the stock market because he really was big with ‘stonks’ and the idea that stocks only go up,” said Payne. “He talked a lot about his success and the money he was making, and it attracted a lot of people who were traditionally not in the stock market to give it a shot.”

Payne went on to say that the meme stocks investment “was the first test” for some people who had “never been in the market” before, adding that while “a lot of people got in at the right time,” others followed Portnoy’s advice because “they were sort of looking up to” him “in terms of guidance” when he “bailed out.”

“Some of them felt let down,” Payne told Mediaite.

Later, the Fox Business host addressed the name-calling and went so far as to suggest that it was a race thing.

“…[T]herewas a general lack of respect at the very beginning. I’ve had very few times that someone called me a fool, an idiot, a moron. I was worried he was going down a checklist of insults and there were some he was going to get to that would be totally unforgivable! Even people in my family said, ‘how could someone speak to you like that?’” Payne explained.

“We can have a difference of opinion, but don’t call me a fool. And the real reason I got upset was, I felt he was dissing and belittling a lot of people because they don’t have as much money as he has. That really bothered me,” he added.

“This guy came on and insulted me, and honestly, I don’t think he would have done that to a lot of other people. I’ve never seen him insult any white people like that,” said Payne. “So I think it was bulls**t and I didn’t start it.”

• Author
• Recent Posts

Jon Dougherty

Staff Writer
[email protected]

Jon is a staff writer for BizPac Review with 30 years' worth of reporting experience, as well as an author and U.S. Army veteran. He has a BA in political science from Ashford University and an MA in national security studies/intelligence analysis from American Military University.

Latest posts by Jon Dougherty (see all)

• Jan. 6 committee chair Benny Thompson offers a stunning take on potential Trump criminal actions - January 2, 2022
• Life-long New Yorker posts ‘sad’ Twitter ode on post-pandemic Big Apple being ‘shadow of its former self’ - January 2, 2022
• NYPD officer shot in head in police lot as he slept in vehicle between shifts - January 2, 2022

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.