Fox’s Charles Payne On How He’s Protecting Investors From Dave Portnoy’s ‘Callous’ Tactics, And Why Barstool Founder’s Beef With Him is ‘Bullsh*t’

Sixteen months ago, the prospect of an on-air battle between Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy and Charles Payne of Fox Business Network seemed unfeasible. But Portnoy doesn’t stick to sports, unveiling his alter ego Davey Day Trader last year — thus putting him squarely in the arena with the Fox Business host, and setting up what has become a highly entertaining, yet thoroughly contentious clash.

Portnoy is not a financial advisor, but he plays one on social media. Popularizing the term “stonk,” Portnoy led his followers to a sort of revolution, helping “meme stocks” such as AMC and GameStop skyrocket. But the Barstool founder bailed at the first sign of trouble, claiming to have lost $700,000.

Joining Charles Payne on Fox Business Network last month, Portnoy was asked to address his rabid group of followers who might be disappointed in the Barstool founder for selling too early.

During the exchange, Portnoy fired insults at Payne as the Making Money host pressed him for leading a stock market rebellion, only to bail out.

“You’re being a moron!” Portnoy said to insult Payne during the interview.

“You’re being a little BITCH!” Payne replied before suggesting Portnoy go to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler to change the rules.

“Who’s Gary Gensler?” Portnoy asked.

The Barstool founder later went on his personal podcast, The Dave Portnoy Show with Eddie & Co and furthered the dispute with another insult directed at Payne. “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.”

Naturally, Payne doesn’t agree. Mediaite caught up with the Fox News host early Friday to talk about the ongoing feud, as well as the larger impact on the market caused by Portnoy’s fans.

This interview has been edited and condensed for content and clarity.

Mediaite: Who were you asking Portnoy to apologize to? Or address — because I don’t know if you actually used the word apologize.

Charles Payne: 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. 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.

Was it less about who made or lost money and more about the people who looked up to Portnoy and then he just bailed so quickly?

This was the first test for some of these folks who’ve never been in the market. There’s an investor revolution and a lot of people got in at the right time. As Wall Street was bailing out, they got in and they outperformed tremendously. But it was a big test, and the person that they were sort of looking up to in terms of guidance bailed out. Some of them felt let down.

Portnoy talked about how small some of their losses would have been if they sold, but as a percentage of what they’re worth, it was a lot for them. Probably more to them than 700 grand is to David. When a stock is down, that means there’s a lot of selling. So obviously, some people did sell, a lot of people sort of grinded through and held on. But the idea that at the first real sign of trouble, he kind of bailed out, let a lot of people down.

Even people who held those stocks and made money, could they have still lost respect or trust in Portnoy?

Sure, even if they held, they were still let down that he didn’t hold. When the number one public advocate bails out, that feeds into the Wall Street narrative that quote unquote, this won’t end well. It gave credence or credibility to the naysayers who, in my opinion, are actually rooting against these investors.

On his podcast, Portnoy recently said you looked like an idiot after the argument. Do you think anyone came out of that interaction looking like an idiot?

[Laughs] All I can say is, if you are in the stock market and you don’t know who Gary Gensler is, then you don’t look great. I know I didn’t look like an idiot, but everyone’s entitled to their opinion.

The little bitch comment, was that just spur of the moment?

It wasn’t in my script, it wasn’t in the teleprompter [Laughs]. But honestly, there was 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?’

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.

Were you surprised at Portnoy’s reaction, he did call you a moron, but he kind of laughed off the little bitch comment, did that reaction make it less tense than it could have been?

He called me a moron before I called him that. He called me a series of names before that. So let’s get the chronology correct. 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. So I think it was bullshit and I didn’t start it.

I was a gentleman, I asked him questions about people who were really concerned, who put a lot of money, maybe even their life savings into this and I thought they deserve better. He disrespected me right out the gate and then he disrespected those people who looked up to him.

How does this influx of interest from Portnoy’s following, Stoolies and Reddit impact the market?

It varies, the individual investors are a lot stronger in terms of – I won’t say power, because these major institutions control trillions of dollars, but they made their voices known. They’re showing that they have resolve and I’m praying they have commitment. I’ve written a couple of books on the market and one of the main things I always ask of investors is, make it a lifelong endeavor. Don’t just give it a shot, don’t try one stock and see if it works. That’s a big mistake a lot of people make. The stock market is the greatest money making machine ever created, and it’s a blessing for anybody to be able to try to get in there.

But you will have greater success the longer you’re in there. Build and develop a portfolio, and you manage it. I think people can do it on their own. I don’t know that they all need a professional, if you do that’s fine. But every year Forbes comes out with the 400 richest people in this country, and they all have one thing in common – stocks. Either their company is publicly traded or they bought stocks. It’s the only way you’re going to leverage up what you earn. There are other assets, and I think people should own something. Own vintage watches, own a wine collection, there are so many things you can own that could be worth money, but you have to own assets. And I think the stock market is the best, easiest to buy. Just pull up a 100 or 200 year chart, it’s an amazing thing, it blows you away.

Do market investors like Portnoy’s involvement over the last 15 months or so? To the point that now he is regularly discussing stocks and appearing on cable news shows.

I haven’t really been able to survey enough people on that. It’s not something I think about because I have my own research business, I have my own way of going about the market and I’ve been helping people for over 30 years. I don’t really measure that as much as I have rooted for the individual investor. Someone posted a clip the other day of my show from years ago, where I talked about the same thing. How shorts, for the most part, try to destroy these companies. When you destroy these companies, you destroy the people that work for them.

There are tens of thousands of people who work at AMC and GameStop, these aren’t just symbols and letters. When the so-called smart money starts talking about these companies going to zero, they’re talking about 15,000 people without a job and they do it in such a callous way. I think it’s a zillion times bigger than Dave Portnoy. He played an important role, he moved on and that’s fine, but I just hope the people who are in it stay with it.

Would you have Portnoy come on your show again?

Absolutely, I think he did a great job helping small businesses, I donated $5,000 dollars to his fund. But the outrage just isn’t my kind of shtick. Everything I do is purely out of wanting to help people, and it’s not a temporary thing. I’m not dipping my toe into this, it’s something I’ve been doing for a long time because of my background. We were dirt poor, we went through winters without hot water. I know what poverty is, but I was able to see and identify the advantages of the stock market. I know what it did for me, and I know what it can do for anybody who really does it the right way. There’s no single formula, you can take different approaches, but you have to really build out a portfolio and give it time.

Portnoy said Fox quickly apologized to him after his appearance on the show. Did you get any pushback from Fox, Barstool or even Stoolies after the interview?

No. 99.9 percent of the feedback I saw was people who were saying, ‘thank you Charles.’ It was overwhelming.