Linda Cohn spent 34 years as one of ESPN’s most recognizable anchors, and she says some of the people reacting to her opinions have decided they already know how she votes.

The former ESPN 'SportsCenter' host appeared on The Sage Steele Show this week and was asked whether she realizes that some of her opinions are getting her labeled MAGA.

“Oh, I know,” Cohn said, laughing. “These people don’t know who I am. Way to get that paintbrush out. You better wash your little paintbrush because it’s very busy labeling everybody the same exact way. They have no idea who I voted for. They’d be shocked if they knew who I voted for, OK? So I’d ignore them. I laugh at it now.”

Her frustration centers on what it means to support Caitlin Clark.

“You can’t like and support Caitlin Clark without being called MAGA, by the way,” Cohn said. “Which makes no sense! At all! I can’t root for a kid from Iowa who has set the world on fire? Who has, if it wasn’t for her, we all know where the WNBA would be. Still in the place they were, with all due respect to the OGs before.”

Clark herself has never aligned publicly with a political party or specific cause, and at her end-of-season press conference in early October she pushed back on people who use her name for agendas.

“I think as far as people that have used me to demonstrate racist rhetoric or hate or discrimination, that’s not something I stand for,” Clark said. “That’s never been something I’ve stood for.”

Cohn retired from ESPN in June and has since launched her own podcast, where she has been far more outspoken, including supporting Clark and Fever teammate Sophie Cunningham and criticizing LeBron James over his behavior during the national anthem.

She also took criticism for a comment about A’ja Wilson, who withdrew from Team USA ahead of the FIBA Women’s World Cup for health reasons.

“Is there any part of A’ja that didn’t want to spend the next couple of weeks watching the World Cup become the Caitlin Clark Show?” Cohn said on her podcast.

She told Steele the backlash bothered her a little and was a learning experience. “That did not go over well because you’re talking about the queen, you know?” Cohn said. “Even though, in that same video, Sage, I said that she is the greatest basketball player in the world. Multiple times. They don’t hear that.”

She also defended Cunningham, who became a flashpoint this summer after telling ESPN she wants to protect young girls in sports from competing against “biological men.” Cunningham said at the time that she never said she hates transgender people.

Cohn sees the reaction the same way. “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing at the backlash to Sophie Cunningham,” Cohn said. “She never said she was anti-trans. Never! But yet, the naysayers, those who hate, those who love to find something to criticize immediately went there. And spread a narrative that was not factual. So she had to say it again. And that’s how I feel: this is nothing against transgender people. This is about the fight for Title IX.”