Adam Jentleson and Pablo Torre: This Country Is Being Scammed

Hello and welcome to the Bullard Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller, and segment 2. We got my guy, Pablo Torre. The man at the moment, looking forward to that. Make sure to stick around.

We also have coming up the live shows. If you haven't got your tickets, Jack, go get them now. We're in Columbia. We're in Charlotte. We're in Atlanta.

“Go to thebullard.com/events, and October, we might be adding a super special secret”

live show coming up in two weeks in the Midwest. So, a whole type for that, I'm going to have more news for you tomorrow.

Our first guest today is amazing, and he's wrote a great book that I want you to read.

I just want you to know that you can buy his book in good conscience because his book is an out-to-one next week. So he's not competing with the more important book of the week, Sarah Longwells. How to eat an elephant right now, the number one New York Times best seller is Ted Cruz's biography of Clarence Thomas.

He and Sarah are in an internet fight, so it is important for God and country and democracy for you to buy Sarah's book today so that she can be Ted Cruz. But here we go, up first. He was deputy chief of staff to center Harry Reed. More recently, he was chief of staff to John Fetterman.

He's a founder of the Search Light Institute, and his new book is Super Majority How Democrats can build lasting power. It's Adam General, son. What's up, bro? What's up, man?

It's going to be here. Welcome to the show. First time. Love it. We'll see how you're doing.

We'll have the commenter's rate and review you. Yeah, please. I want to get to the book. We have a ton of alignment, which is nice. I have some little skepticism too, so we'll explore all that.

But first, coming off of Labor Day, we can just want to chat with you about a little bit of the politics news. Trump's this week got his midterm convention. I've kind of barely talked about it because it feels so unimportant. And as we start to get closer and closer to it, it's feeling more and more sad than

me. But I'm wondering if this is a little bit of opium on my part or if it's true. It's just kind of like, who would even want to, you know, like it's hard for me to see a lot of excitement for this convention. What do you see in coming up this week?

I don't think it's opium. I think it matches up with the numbers. I mean, you know, Republican enthusiasm is way down. His approval ratings among Republicans are, you know, in the 80s, which is fine, but not really great.

Usually, he's up in the 90s.

“So, you know, I think it was this holding this midterm convention in the first place is a massive”

mistake because Democrats want nothing more than to make these midterms all about Trump. And Trump seems to share that goal. So, you know, by doing this, he's giving Democrats an enormous gift. He's doing it after Labor Day, which is for many people when they start to tune into politics. And so it would be the first thing they see and sort of set the tone for the home stretch.

I mean, you know, I think it's going to be a major gift for Democrats. And that's even before we know, you know, what kind of crazy stuff he's going to say at this thing. So, you know, this is a week of news about Trump and how the party is his and how he's on the ballot.

I think that's, you know, he couldn't ask for a better gift if you're a Democrat. It also, I think, is going to be like, I can't imagine it's full. They're going to fill a basketball arena for this. Like, people just want to go and sit all, I think about those turning point conventions I went to.

And, you know, it's just speaker after speaker. And sometimes, like, the place would be like a quarter full. It's just like, who wants to hear, you know, Mike Rogers talking and Roger Marshall. And that, like, it is, it's kind of a boring prospect.

I mean, the one thing Trump has always had over the Democrats is that, like, he's entertaining

to a certain type of person, right? And he can dominate the Congress, if you also, he's lost that a little bit. I mean, I don't, we'll see. I think he's lost a lot of his ribs. You know, I mean, he's lost a lot of that magic that he used to have, you know, just

objectively used to be a big crowd pleaser. He would hold these, you know, huge crowds wrapped for hours as he, you know, rift on this and that. But I mean, you know, look at, look at the, you know, the bicentennial that he decided to, again, make all about him, you know, nobody showed up to that.

You've got a bunch of things recently where he sort of made a big deal out of it. And then people just haven't showed up. I think people are tired of this guy. I think they're sick of him. I think Trump fatigue is, is setting in a big way across the country with Democrats with

independence. But also among his supporters. So, you know, we'll see. I mean, I'm not going to underestimate his ability. Should we explore the counterfactual?

Could we be wrong? Is Trump, I mean, should the Democrats be, sometimes you look at this stuff and it's like, I don't know, maybe are we in a different era? And it's like, people are more engaged. And there's that you got to feed the beast in the internet.

And so having a midterm convention, like, more sense than what have in the past. Is there anything to that, do you think?

I think it's always important to, you know, keep your mind open to different possibilities.

But, but by the same token, you know, we, we've got some very, very, very modest agreement in a background or factual.

“Well, this is the thing is that I think it works in the other direction, too, right?”

Like, we've sort of come to accept that Trump has a pretty high floor that the bottom can never drop out for him, right? And that sort of led to us, you know, to make different strategic decisions.

out.

“I mean, we've been disappointed here before, right?”

We've expected to drop out again and again and again and it hasn't. But maybe it's happening now, you know, I mean, we saw this with Bush after Katrina. The numbers are looking the same. So I think even as we, you know, sort of keep in our minds that this could be another instance

where we thought his supporters are finally going to abandon him and they don't.

They show up in mass for this convention. I'm totally open to that possibility. This will be a really good test. We should check back in at the end of the week and see where we're at. But I think we should also be open on the other end that, you know, even though it hasn't

happened yet, it doesn't mean it can't happen because people are exhausted by him. He promised to bring down prices. He promised to not start foreign wars and he's gone back on all of these promises that we're caught to his appeal, especially with his bag of coalition. So, you know, let's see.

Let's see. And the nice thing is we can just watch thinking about making things about him. Have you seen this AI voice that? I've tried to decide whether I'm allowed to play it on this podcast because I have a self imposed rule where we don't play Trump's voice.

But this wasn't technically his voice. They put out an ad where it's about housing and it's like an AI Trump voice talking about how, you know, the front door is so important. It's kind of like a nice fake Trump.

“It's like what if he was a normal candidate you would have him do?”

I can't even lock him in enough to read the voice over on the ads. Yeah, I mean, you know, Trump, you can't script him and he gets mad when you try to, right? And so, you know, all of his advisors and the Republicans, the leaders of the Republican committees in the House and the Senator telling him, don't make this about you, you know, try in a more optimistic tone like what you're describing and he won't do it.

So I think they're kind of, you know, working with what they can here and, you know, doing an AI voice over might be their best option because the man just won't be scripted. And I think that's really working in Democrats' favor right now. I feel like maybe for some Democrats, we could do it the opposite way.

But we have a voice, so AI voice over that kind of punches him up, 20 percent more.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is something I got.

Yeah. Yeah. We're going to add makers out there. Something to think about. All right.

Yes. And then we'll get into, you know, the real business of winning. Gallup party ID over the weekend had the Democrats up 10 points, only to 49 percent. But still, like pretty notable Republican party ideas down, I felt this like thing, which

“at some level, I think political professionals, a lot of us like poo poo visc, it's kind of like,”

there's a lot of noise here. But like Republican party ID going up and Republican registration going up was like a little bit more, I think of a canary in the coal mine in like 2014 on in this kind of era that you start to get into in the book than I realized at the time. And I do wonder if you think there's anything there or if this is more just like, people

that already Democrats just finally feeling okay to say it, which I guess is nothing as well. I think it is indicative. I think it's the start of a trend and it's certainly, you know, you don't want to look too much of the specific numbers there.

You want to look at the direction of the line and the line is pointing in the right direction for us. You know, the facts with what you're seeing in the states, right? In key swing states, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, you're seeing Democratic registration and start to catch up with and even outpace Republicans.

So, you know, there's sort of supporting data in addition to what you're seeing from Gallup. And, you know, that's just a function of the fact that the Democratic brand is recovering a little bit. You know, I think that we've had a lot of damage to our brand over the last five to ten

years. Republicans have, you know, been branded by Maga, which has been appealing to some people. I don't get it, but, you know, whatever, and that's starting to wear off. You know, and I think this is consistent with what we've been talking about here today, which is that people are just exhausted by this guy.

And Trump is the Republican brand, right? There is no brand beyond him. And so if people are exhausted by Trump, you know, they're going to start to leave the GOP and Democrats, I think, are starting to do a good job of, you know, opening the door back, open to people who were chased out of the party or felt like the party left

them. You know, and I think we're doing a better job in inviting those people back into our coalition in a way that is, that is promising for the future. Give me the pitch on the book. I know it is, but for people who, you know, don't know what your POV has talked about,

what you're trying to get out of Super Majority. Yeah, this book is about how we got here, right? It starts in election 1916, and it's basically my journey of trying to think through how we lost the Obama era, Super Majority, the dominance that Democrats had in that era, how we got Trump, and how we can get out of this era of narrow polarization.

Because the thesis is, you know, to enact the big change that we need, not just to improve the lives of working people, but also to beat fascists, these narrow majorities that we

have been winning, that we've gotten used to are never going to be enough, right?

If you win, by leaking out a narrow victory, you've got a narrow majority in the house in the Senate. You can pass some stuff, but then you hand back power Republicans right away. They undo everything, and you're sort of back at square one. You factor in the fact that conservatives have deep structural advantages in the Senate and

the Supreme Court and Jerry Manner districts, we're never going to have enough power to undo those advantages and level the playing field until we win bigger majority. So this is saying, how do we win on a grand scale?

And that's what this 10 years of trying to think through how we got here from 2016 to today comes through in the book.

“And I think, you know, the first half is a recent history of losing the Obama era, Super”

Majority to today. And the second half goes back through history and says, well, lessons can we draw from the other areas in history where Democrats did have Super Majorities, and we're able to enact that big structural change. Well, it's not going to be the Obama in first Bill and I, and yesterday's show, did was

respectively, kind of, did deep times in '94, and I was sick, kind of looking at what lessons can be learned about a potential wave this year, but I think that learning from 2010 is important. And I think that there is, I think, a sense among some Democrats, not you, that like this 2010 backlash was kind of inevitable, like the country was, countries racist, like

there was the first black president and there was a backlash to that, and there's something to that, of course.

But like also, like this is just how things go and, you know, that there's always going

to be a big wave in the first bid term, and I don't, I think that just kind of allowing that conventional wisdom to set in, like, prevented anyone from the Obama administration or after, from, like, looking into what kind of changes could be made that would have mitigated that, you know, going from the Democrats having whatever was 59 Senate seats and a big house majority to the opposite.

That's right. I think we shouldn't accept losses on that scale ever. I think Democrats expected to be rewarded for everything that we did in 2009 and 2010, including passing the Affordable Care Act, and we were sort of surprised when voters didn't say, "Hey, thanks, guys.

You know, we love you. We're going to sustain you in power." So I think, you know, one of the things we've learned over the last 10 years is that, especially in this attention economy, you know, you can't necessarily expect to be rewarded for the things that you do.

“You should do good things with your power, and you should tell people about them, but you're”

going to have to meet them where they're at. And people have a natural tendency to sort of get disappointed by the party in power to, you know, feel alienated and tired of that party. So, you know, you're going to have to make accommodations. One of the most reliable things in American politics is the pendulum swinging back and forth.

And so, you can't necessarily hope to have an unbroken string of successful elections. And this is part of what I talk about in the book. A big part of this is sort of maximizing your gains when you can and minimizing your losses when you have a bad cycle. And so in 2010, what we could have done a much better job of was meeting people where they

were still recovering from the financial crisis. Democrats were out there bragging about all these things they did, but people weren't feeling those benefits at the kitchen table or in their bank accounts. And so, we should have met them where they were at.

Maybe we still didn't have an amazing cycle, but we got blown out, right?

We lost 55 seats in the house, we lost three seats in the Senate. We could have done a lot better.

“And that's what we're going to need to do going forward is, you know, both be conscious”

of the things that we did and why we should be proud of them, but also keep a close eye on where people are at in terms of what they're feeling in their pocketbooks. And when those things don't match, we should be smart about it. What do you say about, you know, the idea that, hey, like, maybe Obama and, you know, those guys, there's like a little bit of hubris and, you know, they're forcing a lot of red state

senators to take tough notes on, you know, whether it was the big stimulus or whether it was the ACA and, you know, maybe they could have been a different policy approach that would have yielded, not that kind of backlash. Yeah, there was definitely hubris. I mean, you know, I was there at the time, guilty of that too, you know, that expectation

that we're going to be rewarded, avoiding tough votes for red state senators is inevitable. I think, you know, the reason that they are there is to do something meaningful with their power. I talked about Mary Landre in the book, Senator from Louisiana, you know, who voted was the deciding vote to pass the Affordable Care Act.

And you could argue that she lost her seat over it. She wasn't up in 2010. She lost in 2014, but when she was asked, would you do it all over again?

She said yes, you know, and over half a million Louisiana's now have health care because

of that vote. So I think it's really about, you know, mitigating those losses saying, we're going to deliver for people with the power that we have. We're going to take care of our red state senators. We're going to do everything we can to defend those seats and help them win, you know,

but some losses are inevitable. And then it's just a question of when the pendulum swings back your way, you know, regaining them because, you know, 2010 is worth learning from, but also 2012, you know, when Democrats defied expectations and many people thought Obama was going to lose and that we were going to lose seats in the Senate and instead we picked up two seats.

So we clawed back some of those gains from 2010. So a lot of this is about sort of riding those waves and sort of mitigating your losses when you can and running up the score when you have a good cycle. It's a what's the plan for getting more merry landers, though? I hear you kind of taking a noble principle to vote the cost of your seat.

It's good, that sounds nice for the legacy, but a lot of those Democrats, you know, were, look, I guess we're getting kind of old, we're not that old, and both of us were in politics when the Democrats had centers in North Dakota, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, West Virginia,

And so like, what's the plan for getting them back in play? Well, you know, where isn't play is Kansas? We've got Adam Hamilton running competitive in Kansas today in a big New York Times story about Roger Marshall, you know, a suing people who had medical debt and sending some of them to jail. I love this, where you love that debtor's prison is really popular right now, but you can get somebody

a C section and, you know, then the result is with that woman ends up in debtor's prison for a while. Yeah, exactly, exactly, when was the last time we were discussing a Democrat with a,

“with a real chance to win a Senate seat in Kansas, right?”

Iowa, which Trump won, you know, by double digits in 2024 is in play with Josh Turich. Georgia is looking like it might not even be competitive. North Carolina, Roy Cooper is, you know, on the verge of walking away with this race. So, you know, we are competitive in places where we haven't been competitive in a long time. You know, it is possible to do this. People say, don't sleep on Mississippi.

Scott Colom is an incredible candidate down there, you know, catching a lazy incumbent napping.

I'm skipping over Texas. Look at James Tyler Rico, you know, leading just about every poll in the Lone Star State. So, we are putting states in play where we have not been competitive for a long time. So, this is possible to do again. The key is to have senators running in those states who fit those states, right? Part of the problem with what we've done of the last 10 years as a party is we've embraced this rigidity that requires everybody to sort of swear allegiance

to a very rigid set of mostly left-wing ideas. Now, some of those ideas are good, but they don't fit a place like Texas, Kansas, or Iowa. And what we're doing now is we're starting to break out of that rigidity. We're starting to break away from those purity tests. And you've got people running, you know, James Tyler Rico is running in Texas and embracing the oil and gas industry

because that's critical to Texas's economy. You know, you're not going to win working-class people

in Texas over by villainizing an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of working people. Adam Hamilton, Josh Turk, are running on sort of a hard line on immigration in those states. We are seeing candidates who fit their states running on sort of a mixed ideology

“that we've together some conservative themes with hardcore liberal positions. And that's what's”

working and that's what's going to win us back those states. I'm a little skeptical of this. And I think that like if the thesis for the book is that the Democrats need to maximize in good times, like it feels like this year is the year to be maximum. Like right, like this is the test case for this year. I mean, not when else you're going to have an 80-year-old president with approval rating in the mid-30s, who is like spending more time

redesigning his ballroom and actually trying to win people's votes. It's a pretty prime cycle. And I look at the cycle and think, man, that Democrats don't win Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Montana, whatever, Mississippi. Like when are they ever going to do it? Like this should be the prime time. And I look at some of these races and I just let you use Osborne for example. Osborne, when he ran last, was like really running as a hard line or on immigration.

Basically it's, you know, being like, I fully agree with Trump on the wall. Now, this is a my politics. I'm just trying to be strategic. And like this time, you know, he kind of sounds like any other Democrat. I can't, in one way, it's he different from Joe Biden. Like it's hard for me to identify anything based on my interview with him. This one I see in the campaign. And I feel like across the board in this way, like we're not really getting a lot of

Heidi High Camps and Joe Manchets out there. We're kind of, it's a, it's a pretty soft pivot, I would say, than these states. Well, I don't know what's going on with Osborne. He's a bit of a mystery to me. I don't know why he's tacked further for their left. But in the other states, you are seeing candidates break away. I mean, you had John Osuff, you know, doggyly refused to take, you know, all of these left wing positions, you know, Medicare for all open borders, sort of alarmist approaches,

to to climate change. And again, you know, those may not be your politics, but those are the right positions to win those kind of states. And, you know, to your point, I mean, we are winning in a lot of these races. Kansas has basically tied. And we're just starting to get into the Labor Day stretch. So I agree with you that this, this cycle will be a test. You know, if we can do it, we should be able to do it in this cycle with Trump's numbers as devastating as they are. But the good news is

that we do seem to be on track to doing it. If Democrats won every Senate seat, where we're currently polling ahead or within the margin of error, we would pick up seven seats, which would stake us to a 54 seat majority. So these are the kind of numbers we haven't seen be possible in a long time. Over the weekend, I was reading Charlie Cook, right, a very sort of

small sea conservative in terms of, you know, the scale of his predictions, saying that he's never

seen anything like this for Republicans, that the conditions that they're experiencing, you know, are sort of gale-force storms here. And, you know, this is the kind of cycle where this is possible. And when I talked earlier about, you know, sort of not ruling out scenarios that we haven't

“seen before, I think it's very important for us to realize that sometimes the bottom just falls out”

for the party in power. That is when you can run up the score. And that's what Democrats are in the verge of doing right now. Well, we are kids, summer meant freedom, no homework, no teachers,

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MintMobile wonder how possible this is compared to the past. One of it is it's kind of the internet and discourse around the internet and it's kind of social pressure around a bunch of these issues. You know, I do think that like, whatever, in 2006 or whatever, Mark prior, a senator and Arkansas was able to kind of take a bunch of Arkansas positions and do local news and talk about it and like a lot of democrats from the rest of the country didn't even really know. Like what his

position was on a lot of issues, right, or care, or even if they did know he wouldn't hear their feedback. And now it's like there is a lot of social pressure on the internet for democrats to conform, think that there's social pressure among the owner class to have democrats conform.

“And I think that there's a culture of kind of aligning around kind of one view on a lot of”

issues that makes it hard for candidates to stake out independent brands. What would you say to that? I think there's an opportunity there, which is that that level of rigidity and alignment means that when you do break, you get a lot more attention than you used to. Part of the problem with Mark prior was that by the time he was doing it, it was sort of boring and it wasn't interesting. And you know, had been part of his, his stick for a long time. And you know, he was beaten by a

republican who ran a more nationalized race. And that was the trend at the time. But you know,

trends sort of evolve and the key thing to do is to seek opportunities where you can run against

that trend. And so today, you know, as a democrat, you can get more attention for diverging from your party on an issue than ever before. And here's the other thing is that it's completely free to do, right? It doesn't cost a dollar to take a position that, you know, diverges from the orthodoxy of the left. And you will get a tremendous amount of media attention. And the kind of media attention that breaks through, right? So, you know, this, this culture of rigidity that we've

created has also created opportunities to define yourself. And again, you know, this may not be the politics of some of your listeners here. But the question is, what are the politics that can win in Texas or Iowa or Nebraska or Kansas? And so, you know, if you have candidates there who are, you know, very dedicated to core liberal positions like universal healthcare, you know, good schools for our kids, a safety net that catches you when you fall, right? But occasionally, there are going to be

issues where, you know, they are going to try to be more in line with the conservative electorates they're trying to win when they take those positions, they're going to get a massive amount of attention. You see this happening in Iowa right now, right? Where Rob Sand has said, you know, he doesn't agree with his party on issues like, you know, trans kids playing sports. Now,

“you know, that's not the politics of a lot of our listeners here. But that's what's, you know,”

a position that can help him with Iowa. And maybe, who knows? Well, the point is, I think that a lot of these positions, a lot of Democrats are actually more in the middle of the road on some of these issues than to sort of debate with let you know. But anyway, Rob has gotten a tremendous amount of attention for that position. And it's all for free, right? So, it's, I think it's actually a bit of a hack here, you know, in our attention, a star economy where, you know, these sort of constructive debates

independent kind of thinker. I have two thoughts in that one. Come going both directions. One is

a lot as you take positions like this. And it feels like there's more backlash and there actually is because what I was talking about about the internet and social pressure. I mean, like, like, I'm not trying to run for office when he votes. So obviously it's different picking podcasts, toast and one, but like, I think back to, you know, when we were talking about Biden's age, a lot in 2024. And like, there are a lot of very vocal, but we love and appreciate commenting

their displeasure about that. And like, creating social media threads about how we're focused on this too much. But I simultaneously, to that, like, my private correspondence, the emails to ex was all people being like, you're right. Thank God somebody's saying this. I kind of think that's true for, like, Rob Sand in differentiating on some of that stuff. And I think that Democrats get too scared to do things that just because they worried they'll be a pile on. Now you can overstate this.

“Like, sometimes, you know, you have to, each case is individual. Sometimes, you're getting”

piled on because you fucked up. But like, I do think that sometimes that there's a little too much fear on that. Yeah, 100% I mean, you know, the sort of internet culture is not real life. Like, people say, Twitter's not real life. And I think that couldn't be more true. I mean, you know, Democrats are not super far to the left on every single issue. They tend to be very middle of the road on a lot of these things. And so, you know, the fear of getting yelled at online is part of

what's led us to this place. And you do see candidates more and more start to say, hey, listen, you know, I'm not going to let that fear be the thing that dominates my position taking because the argument I'm making here is not an argument to pick fights for no reason, right? It's actually an argument to just the honest about what you think because most of these candidates do not hold exclusively left-wing positions across the board. In fact, they are taking those positions in

an authentic way because they feel pressured to do it by the internet culture. And so, you know, the actual authentic move is to just say, hey, listen, I don't agree with my party on everything. And then to explain the points where you don't agree because I don't think there's a single person out there who, you know, agrees with the part of every single issue. So just be yourself, you know, articulate the places where you do disagree and, you know, you will get yelled at, but getting yelled

at is part of why that's going to break through and create some constructive conflict. I think you do it in a spirit of, you know, constructiveness of family debate. You don't want to ever sort of be trying to pick fights for no reason, but, you know, respectfully and with, you know,

“with the sort of a principled stance, you should say where you disagree and don't back away”

from the conflict that comes with it. What do you say about people who say that the same principle should hold people differentiating from the party brand from the left? I think that, you know, there's sometimes a frustration among those in the left and this is one element of their critique

I agree with. What it's like, the focus on swing voters is always like focused on either, you know,

my people like suburban, former Republicans or people who are very conservative views on social issues and like those voters exist, but they're also voters who have been pushed out of the democratic party or feel home in the democratic party because they want more aggressive oversight of corporate America or because they want the Democrats to be really the anti-war party again and, like, less support for Israel and particular, but for more middle-east

wars in general. People criticize their party for not going far enough on health care. Like, what would you say to that? I think we should be a big tent, you know, I mean, I think there's room for those kind of criticism from the left and, you know, to be honest, the left doesn't pull its punches about differentiating themselves from the national party, right? They are very willing to criticize the national party, the national party leadership and criticize other Democrats. And,

you know, I think that's fair game, but, you know, people should do it from the other direction as well. And that is how you build a big tent, you know, we shouldn't be in the business of trying to police who is in isn't allowed in our party. There are core things that we believe in as Democrats that differentiate us in clear ways from Republicans. We believe in universal health care. We believe in making the wealthy pay their fair share. We believe in raising taxes on the rich

and big corporations and using that money to help provide social services to people who, you know, are down on their lock or who work hard and play by the rules, but are having trouble getting ahead. So, every single one of those things is a core democratic belief. Every single one of those things differentiates us in clear ways from Republicans, right? And so, as long as you agree with those

“basic parameters, like that's what we are in the business of doing. We want to win elections,”

so we can get power to enact those kinds of policies. And if you basically agree with those things,

you're on our team. If you have differences over, you know, corporate money, or, you know, exactly how you achieve universal health care, you know, how we raise taxes on the wealthy, do we do it through a millionaires tax or do we raise rates? These are all disagreements that we should welcome. But, you know, those are only disagreements you're going to find within the democratic party, because the Republicans don't want to do any of those things. So, I will, you know,

we'll let the left to make their criticism, the folks in the center should make their criticism

people say to you, I'm, I'm sure you see this, like, this isn't, sorry, like, heterodoxies and

possible on this issue. This is a human right. This is a more right. And, like, two of the hot buttons that come to mind on this are, you know, on the trans issue. You looked at what Seth

“molten did. I think he took a pretty modest differentiation from the party base. And it was basically,”

you know, really castigated and protested, not just about how he didn't support trans people. And then on this issue is real. I mean, like, look, you look at right now with Abdul, you have some Jewish Democrats saying, like, this is not acceptable, the types of people that he's associating with, or that his view is like, or support for Israel as an acceptable. On the other side of that, you have some left Democrats who say, like, if you don't say the exact word genocide, then you're

not supportable. Some of these stuff is just, like, these are real principle positions for people

and just saying, heterodoxy, like, accepted, like, isn't going to be good enough for some parts of the

electorate. I think we should welcome disagreements, but reject purity tests. And, you know, there's this phrase, everything bagel liberalism, which is, you know, everybody has their topping on the bagel and everybody puts their topping on an office, and you've got this everything bagel, and, you know, we don't know what we stand for, because we stand for everything. You know, and I think if everybody has, you know, says, I'm not for litmus tests, except for this one litmus test, right? And then

“everybody says that, but they all have something different. That's how you get to everything bagel liberalism,”

right? And so people should have very vehement and, you know, impassioned disagreements over things like support for Israel, over, you know, how you achieve universal health care, over civil rights. But, you know, fundamentally, we are the party that is pointed in the right direction on all of those things. And I'm a strongly in favor of, of articulating, you know, those differences out in public and hashing it out and having that debate. But, you know, once you

start saying, okay, well, those people aren't allowed in the party at all, that's when you get into the business of litmus tests, and I think that's an important distinction. I mean, what do you say to people who say that, like, sorry, the genocide and Gaza is a litmus test for me, and I hear what you're saying, and I want to be a big tent, but that is, you know, my issue or, or frankly, the inverse of that, saying, like, you know, the Israel states,

right? Do exist as a litmus test for me. Like, how do you, how do you talk to those voters? What, what's your view on it? If those voters, you know, think that that issue is so important that they want to vote for the Republican, then they should go ahead and do that. Or not vote. That's, that's fine. I would recommend against it. I would recommend for those people to sit and think about what other issues they care about. I bet a lot of those people also care about making sure

that every American has access to affordable health care. I bet they also care about making our tax system more fair and raising taxes on the wealthy so that they're paying their fair share. I bet they also care about providing good schools, about lowering crime rates, about building more housing and making housing more affordable. And, you know, if you truly believe that one issue is so important to you that you can't see your way to supporting the party on these other

issues where you share a lot of agreement. These issues that are going to improve lives of millions

“of Americans. You know, I didn't, I don't know what to tell you, but I think for most people,”

they can take a look at the big picture here and take a step back and say, I am really upset about this issue. I feel this disagreement very strongly, but there are a lot of other things that I care about and the business of politics is to pass policies that help people. And so I am going to put that larger interest of the public of advancing all these other causes that I care about ahead of my disagreement over that one issue. Okay, so let's say that you're right.

And the Charlie Cook Wave happens 54. The Democrats get 54 senators and obviously they're not going to be able to get anything passed that matters the next two years when Donald Trump is in, but say the 2028 comes and Democrats pick up the seat and what's constant and end up with 55 seats in the Senate or something along that in 2029. There will be some tension in prioritization about what to do with that majority. With all the things you just laid out who are policies,

about trying to improve people's lives versus addressing the structural changes that you get out in the book about why they're at these problems for the Democrats, whether it be the Supreme

Corps or Tour, Jerry Mandarin, adding D.C. is a state or like they're a million things you could do.

That is whoever the next Harry Reid has, I don't think it can be Chuck Schumer, but we'll stay sure. Whoever that is, how do they, what are your lessons from that time about like this question of prioritization and how you manage that? You're going to have to operate on two tracks. You're going to have to have one track where you advance all of the policies that we care about things like expanding access to health care, achieving universal health care, expanding the social

safety net, and then you're going to have to have another track where you address the structural reforms. This is possible to do Congress can actually function with a aggressive push, but the

how can we also pass the structural reforms to make those changes stick? We can pass a lot of policies under a democratic trifecta. If we have control of the White House, the House and the Senate, but if we don't pass the structural reforms to make them stick, Republicans are just going to come back into power and undo them. The White House should work very closely with the Senate leaders and say, we need to deputize leaders in the Senate and the House who are in charge of each of these areas

and then work closely together and we need people who are in charge of each of the policy areas that we care about and we need people who are in charge of the structural reforms. I'm talking about things like ending the filibuster, passing court reform, statehood for DC and Puerto Rico. These are

“all critical priorities and the key to all of them is eliminating the filibuster so that you can”

pass them with a simple majority. The topic of my first book, I'm strongly in favor of this,

the challenges that will face the necch Democratic administration are on a scale unlike any they've ever faced and so having people who can take those challenges and work through not just the policy challenges but the structural reforms we need is going to be key. You live through this first time though and you saw the stuff firsthand like it's it's tough to wrangle. I mean you know you just look at like the Obamacare debate for example where they're trying to get to 60 votes

and like there's all this horse trading and you end up with you know kind of bend a brass gun exception and you got Joe Lieberman to do with any of Scott Brown running. Let like I mean Harry Reed had a much firmer grasp on the Senate than the two subsequent majority leaders and even still was challenging. I mean like this is easy or something done. That's true but you know the

number of things that we got passed in the first two years the Obama administration you know made

that Congress the most productive since the great society now we should not be satisfied with that. We should do more and be even more ambitious when we take back power but that's part of my argument you know we are going to need to win margins on a scale that we haven't seen and so you know offering some flexibility for candidates to be able to run in states like Kansas Iowa and Nebraska you know on policy positions that better fit those states is going to be necessary because you

are going to need those votes. I promise you that every single vote in the Senate is going to be necessary at some point in this process if it's just a majority of 50 you know tied with advice president breaking the tie or 51 it's going to be very difficult to get things done on this

scale we should still try you know absolutely I'd be the first to say that but you know our job

between now and January 29 when hopefully a Democratic president takes the oath of office is to run up the score as much as we possibly can so that we have the room to maneuver to do those big things to pass those big policies and the structural reforms to make them stick when we're back in power. Cornholzker kickpack is what I was called took this second right now so like you're starting to not to be confused with the Louisiana purchase for for Mary Landry you know

those are kind of things that it that it takes to get stuff done you know but that's why you need people you know the democrat in those seats as opposed to a republican and that's got to be our priority for the next two cycles. Last thing after Harry read you went to work for John Federman he's back in the news more staffers leaking about you know private conversations where you know he was basically saying he didn't you know want to meet injured veterans just wants to do

Fox News things of this nature what lessons you have from the Federman experience and how do you kind of process all these weeks and like how what the honorable way is to handle a situation like

“this. I think the honorable way is if you're going to say something critical you should put your”

name on it this was the approach that I took when I left took me a long time to think about whether there were things that I felt that I thought the public should know I took a year to think about it and decided that there were some things that I thought people needed to know but I did it on the record and you know then voters can can decide whether that's material to the their decision making or not. I think the sad thing about Senator Federman you know as we've talked about here I am all

for you know diverging from your party on certain issues that you care deeply about but the fighting can't become the goal and what happened with him is that the fighting became the only thing he cared about it has occupied all of his decision making it has occupied you know the way he approaches the media all he does all day is go on Fox News to bash his party and so that desire to fight consumed him and it's taken over his identity and I think it's honestly really sad to watch because

this was a guy who had a tremendous amount of promise who has let a lot of people down and it's

“incredibly disappointing to watch. What do you think about my plan which is you have to depiate highs”

another Senator like Brian shots or Ben Ray Luhan or somebody to just go and be his friend and have lunch with him every day and complain about the lived tards and like do whatever it it needs to kind of keep him feeling loved but he's kind of like just a wayward child that needs

had some of those folks who basically did that early on but the pattern is I mean early on it was

Pierre Welch Bob Casey who unfortunately lost Senator Padilla you know there were there were folks who he really connected with but the pattern with him has been anytime people get close he ends up chasing them away and it's it's been really sad to watch so I would say go for it man

“I think can't hurt to try but I think there are deeper things going on here that are that”

are going to take some time to resolve. One other thing about the situation I wonder that you know Matt Eglacius has made this point that Kevin made me reflect on it because I am one of my things as I'm encouraging Democrats is part of your super majority effort one way I agree with it is like you want some kind of anti-establishment types of people right like that is what's appealing to voters right now if you look read Sarah's book or your book if you learn from history or focus groups it's like

people want like are not looking for typical politicians that are just going to tow the party line right and so whether that's coming from the center or from the left or from some kind of more heterodox kind of populist viewpoint like Democrats want candidates like that but if you look at like the types of candidates that have fit that bill recently you know Tulsi Fatterman Cinema it's like not not a great kind of list partner like the it's a lot of the people that that have like

“gone against the party established and have turned out to flame out in different ways and”

and maybe you know it maps on to psychological issues that they have how do you think about that question of like wanting heterodoxy but all of the heterodoxy people that we've had lately have gone a little kooky well you can be heterodox but also capable of doing the job and working with people you know these two things aren't you can you can not wait well not lately but I mean you you and I were talking earlier about all these senators we used to have in a caucus who did that

in Maryly Andrew Mark prior and Nelson you know and they were great colleagues so there's no inherent contradiction between having a heterodox approach I think we've gotten a little to you know preoccupied with this cult of personality and that's that's a big problem so a lot of those folks that you mentioned there's two things going on with them right one is that they are unconventional and anti-establishment and the other is that they don't have a track record of working well with others right they

tend to be people who got a lot of attention for themselves or in the case of Tulsi like they do of a track record of just doing what a guru tells them to do yeah exactly right well there he go you know but even Pennsylvania you know before he ran the federal man had a reputation is not sort of you know working well with others and so you know I think if you have somebody who who's got a lot of attention for themselves without really sort of you know collaborating or working

“an legislative body or being a business leader you know that's when you should really be skeptical”

and this height machine kicks in and there's all this branding and image stuff that goes on you know and adds with you know the the sort of guitar track and all that stuff hey the guitar track

you know that's when your red flag should go up and say like wait a second you know is this

it's as vibes you know is this or is there something real here does this person have the potential to be a leader do they have the willingness to do the job so you know there's no contradiction between ideological heterodoxy and a commitment to the work and a commitment to being a good colleague we've seen that in the past and we can we can have that again all right that's Adam Jellson the book is super majority he has a bunch of history stuff that we didn't have time to get into in my

license when the FDR era etc so go check it out it'll do you well appreciate you very much Adam next probably for Instagram all right we are back with the man to the hour he's the Pulitzer prize winning host of Pablo Tory finds out is reporting on the LA Clippers and Kauai Leonard led to an NBA investigation and the most severe punishment league history yeah and people were doubting the reporting and there it is right now vindicated right here on the

bulwark Pablo Tory what's up man Tim it's been a strange roller coaster and I just like it sometimes when three institutions all sort of have to point guns at each other and I just get this sit over here and be like man that seems that seems dicey for everybody involved so yeah that's how ESPN the NBA and Steve Balmer and his 174 billion dollars have kind of found themselves in a bit of tension even after the report came out I love it man I'm so proud of you and happy for you I

want to for people who haven't been following this who aren't like as much into sports or wondering why you can have Pablo and a politics podcast I've been thinking about that there are a lot of politics

sports stuff to talk about that we want to get to but this always Clippers investigation in

particular there's like one element of it that really stuck with me as I've been thinking about

past week and I think it's this it's like we're living in this era where it feels like there is

“free reign for the richest people in our society to control everything, grift, screw people over,”

break the rules and they still get rewarded for it time and again we have a corrupt guy controlling the presidency they control the biggest tech platforms or controlling sports and there just hasn't been a good story of accountability for someone in that class and like a minute and in this case like you were you know not to compare Steve Balmer to Donald Trump but like you're infestitating one of these kind of elites that seems to be getting all of the bounty of our society

and they circle the wagons around him and accountability came anyway and I kind of think that's the story and for people who haven't been following maybe give the a little summary of that yeah so I'll summarize it with the context that you laid out which is that the bar is on the floor when it comes to what feels like a win when it comes to anything resembling the richest people on the planet and Steve Balmer again I lose track because his wealth is Microsoft stock largely

but he's at $174 billion dollars the ninth richest person on the planet right now

with all the resources to hide the truth of what his money is doing from the public and so sports provides his funny context him when there are cardinal rules like salary caps or convention which are sports financial crime effectively or essentially you can't just pay whatever you want to buy the thing you want the most which is kind of the premise of what makes sports so special and valuable right like if you're a team you can't just go get whatever because you're the

richest you got to earn it you got to win it there are these regulations around that and that's a not so subtle metaphor for everything resembling financial indiscretion happening broadly

“but then you add in the factor and this is why I think it's broken through is is that accountability”

is so scarce and so anything resembling forcing a billionaire to tell the truth to us is something

that I think is renewing and I don't want to be like naive about this because look there are way more serious political stories happening all the time you know this is a sports story but it's a sports story that made people feel like oh my god consequences are possible my sort of thing that I care about is is the story and getting it right the consequences for other people to levy the consequences enabled a feeling that I think yeah I've felt too in my mentions and beyond

so for the people you know who do not mind or sports at all don't know who you are don't know who the clip what the clip for us are you know some of those people listen to this show and have supper through my LSU Tigers takes from time to time I appreciate your discretion and not just leading what's laying I want to play the locker room audio which I will link in the show notes for people of link kiffin just being a fucking boss after just the 51 to 10 beat down

of clips and we did this weekend I don't know if anybody knows that he's counting 15 to 10 beat down those it was nice to be integrity for that but for people who don't know any of that just just give like the most basic kind of readers digest version like what happened to this wasn't just paying a player more than he is allowed to be paid this was four concurrent financial schemes operated by the L.A. Clippers owned by Steve Bomber former CEO of Microsoft in which they figured

out ways to get money funneled from A to B to C where A was Steve Bomber's Clippers C was co-wide Leonard and B was a series of companies that the clip was partnered with. Daccronics a scoreboard manufacturer aspiration a tree planting good guy carbon credits start up locked in insurance a private insurance broker as well as of course boingo wireless wow the wireless provider of the L.A. Clippers into a dome building and so in the point go wireless is integrity put it called into

question many of us have said as we try to pay for boingo wireless on a delta flight this is a company that I would be shocked to find has anything but the most sterling reputation behind the scenes. But this is it's it's far so cool on that level that they were doing this by the way Tim

“and this is the key part walk tells report which of course affirms what we've been saying for a”

year in significant parts they also point out that these were in some cases nine figure contracts that the Clippers only signed with Daccronics for instance if Daccronics agreed to this scheme to funnel money to co-wide Leonard and so this is of a scale and ambition that resulted in the largest punishment ever because this was more than just hey we're going to slide a bag of cash SEC style southeastern comfort style this is more of a other sort of a scandal which literally

the securities and exchange commission is now probing dactronics as we speak in addition to aspiration

kind of element of this it is kind of mentioned beginning referenced is you know you've done this

“doing this investigation for a year like two weeks ago now maybe maybe the last ESPN comes out with”

a story that's like hey there's been all this scuddle about about the Clippers break in the rules but we've got sources that indicate that actually this is all in the up and up and and like that was like this final gas of an attempt by you know kind of the institutional power to try to you know protect bomber in the Clippers and it just backfired spectacularly I can't speak to the internal monologue of the reporters who I know personally who were by-line on that

why worked with personally in the past when the ruling came out but I will safely establish as we continue to report the story of crisis PR spin in the backdrop of this story the whole time as well as PR departments that establish relationships with journalists I will simply say that one party here I know to have been a source for ESPN on that story and I know the Clippers were a

“source because the Clippers released and almost concurrent press release that basically frame the”

story in the same way almost immediately in which it becomes clear to him that this was not a summary of findings the evidence being assessed this was the Clippers legal defense in response to those findings that got published as if these are the findings new truly look I can only lead a horse to water I guess I can't make you actually I love to say you don't like it subscribe I can't make you do either but you might have had some clues if you had listened to part one or 15 in the series

yeah it's brutal well ha makes you feel good just makes it a kind of take a deep have a cigarette just take a deep who gy-y breath like whatever serves you it's like a nice a small victory but we're all looking for small victories this year you know head to the midterms also looking for some small victories there others in the air beat that are coming I saw you're also working story about lakeers owner Mark Walter yeah and they're interesting thing about this whole thing

is we just kind of just as I mentioned the top but it's like even during the Trump air it's like even worse than the richest people are getting away with everything it's got like they're also providing cover

for their friends to be able to get away from anything they want it I always think about the commissioner

who is a regulator who's supposed to oversee the crypto industry who resigned a couple of months ago and she was like if I was that type of person this would be the time to do crypto discounts because there's just nobody look at you know everyone's doing the oj if I did it yeah but cover there's just no guards at the handhouse and so how it's intrigued when I saw I mean you know concurrently with your reporting on Balmer that Mark Walter the owner of the lakeers he sold his team to the Kushner family

so it's a little that's a little eyebrow raising but he had to sell a team because it does seem like the few guards at the handhouse that are still working were circling him for some reason and you've been doing some additional investigating on this explained to people just kind of the basics what's happening with the lakeers owner yeah this is really your center well it's not quite former yet because there's an agreement to sell to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger but that has not been

consummated officially and we await to see this is a story about following the money we await

whether that's that the money's going to show up twelve and a half billion dollars the most

that's ever been paid for a team there's an agreement but not yet the funds and so we're waiting the thing about that story though time in a nutshell is that Mark Walter is an insurance guy he owns life insurance companies these annuity deals in which America's parents and grandparents think they're making the most risk of risk conservative investment possible and instead what they're learning through this reporting is that their money is being used to invest and purchase

sports teams they're borrowing do these undisclosed ways Mark Walter initially his companies Guggenheim partners is the subject they initially were supposed to say hey only about a billion dollars billion plus in these undisclosed related party transactions are bad that's a fancy way

for a ledge self-dealing to be phrased affiliate transactions and instead it's 20 billion dollars

that they have to unwind and so the leakers get sold for twelve and a half the Dodgers are under scrutiny now Tim the greatest team in baseball two-time defending world series champions they were required according to our reporting through again this undisclosed borrowing

“from Mark Walter lending it to Mark Walter to pay Mark Walter and that's what happened insurance”

company lands money to his TV channel which pays his team the Dodgers and the way he got the team in the first place was because of this framework it was there from the very start and so this is far more I think real world and it takes us to my favorite scene and finally

House during a federal investigation that is happening by the SEC and the DOJ concurrently

“and he went to the White House with the Dodgers and handed the president a world series ring”

coincidentally I'm sure might end up buying a part in we'll see this is the type of story that makes you know me ready to go red and just kind of get like a Bernie T shirt and just whatever throw away my old capital is passed because it's like a guy taking money that people are putting in for life insurance like this is just like regular people's money that they have that they're trying to put a little nest egg in for their kids or their family something happens to them is using the money

to go and buy sports teams and galvanter out it's a totally insane story and and I guess like if if there is not full accountability for it you know like it just continues to lend to this idea that like there are no rules for people like this well and this is how sports became so valuable

Mark Walter pays a record price 2.15 billion for the Dodgers in 2012 new record for Chelsea

“over 3 billion years later the lake is again this is like the one man economic stimulus package”

for leaks he comes in is willing to pay and reset the market for everybody to get rich and so the only question of course is why weren't you disclosing this to the public so they can decide whether their nest eggs as you accurately put it were being risked on what could be great if it keeps on going up forever but also might be at risk in case they don't and why aren't the leaks investigating like you know this is one of those sports where it's just kind of like wait isn't this kind of weird

you know if Elon Musk bought the L.A. Dodgers and started spending fuck you money on players like way more than anybody else you'd be like this sucks but like at least I know where this money is coming from like I understand it's like this random insurance guy comes in and all the sudden is outspending all the richest people in the world and it was suspicious oh yeah 2012 there were questions asked at Major League Baseball in owners meetings like how is this guy he went up overnight

seemingly more than half a billion dollars to buy the Dodgers and they wondered why and the answer

came there's a media deal that I described previously but the answer really is that no one asked too many questions because all of them were so excited about their own teams going up in value because Mark Walter was going to pay that much for his and so due diligence in vetting is I think the story of our time yeah why isn't it being done who are we trusting why perpetually are we getting scammed as a nation and sports has been like that there's a secret story of Epstein too like

like obviously the main story is the abuse of the uncurls right but there is a side story when you read all the emails which just like how many people just like went along to go along with it because it's like you know doing due diligence and having integrity as hard right just saying like this looks a little weird but I'm going to get to go to a fancy dinner out of it like that is the path of least resistance and also can you really imagine consequences being told out

by the class of people that they have now these connections to who help decide whether those

“consequences will ever happen and so that's why again in sports you have something that may”

rightfully be only sports punishment but because it's dealing with the real world story you have the ability to wonder aloud what's stopping us from accountability everywhere else that we're seeking it. The people in power in Washington and Trump's Washington you kind of want to let you know the unfettered animal spirits run free and every part of our economy from AI to crypto etc but there is one area where they have decided that they want some regulation decided that

they need to come in and control the way that the market is working and that is the area in which young black athletes get paid a little bit more than if they feel like they are deserves we had a circling of the wagons this weekend from Kurt Street to Pat McAfee to Ted Cruz talking about how things are out of control and college sports and we need new regulations that's the one regulation they want we need new regulations to make sure that these athletes aren't

getting paid this much they want an anti-trust exemption Chris Murphy that are really interesting thread I thought over the weekend I'll also link to the show and it's kind of pushing that come out instead of that so just like like obviously you know college force is a little bit out of control and that there's certain kind of rules that need to be put in place you know at this point

but what the NCA is asking for right now is an anti-trust exemption that basically it lets them

what you know major league sports have to do they want kind of a new separate carve out for

“them because of amateurism talk about like what what you've been seeing on that front yeah it's”

this question of like what happens when you lose over and over and over and over and over again in the court system you go and try to get some DSX Machina legal language that says hey actually

you can operate with an anti-trust exemption effectively as this cartel which we've always known

you to be but now we're going to give you a plausible legal defense that's actually saying aloud what you guys have been getting away with this whole time um the college sports two things are true right like one thing that's true is that it is a total mess Tim like I'm not here to say that the version post supreme court rulings around allston at all in which the anti-WA actually was told you guys got to compensate what is obviously a labor force that is professional in effect if not

your intent you got to do that I'm not saying that every gets happened since then isn't a total cluster fuck because it is but at the same time it's a mess that arrives because you guys don't have

“good answers to questions like why doesn't anyone have a contract for their labor and so when you”

have to avoid the contracts because you don't want to start negotiating with a union well you're in a bit of a pickle in which you're looking for Ted Cruz and the cast of college game day apparently to save you as lobbying is happening on college football's premiere program Tim I loved LSU I loved the circus I loved the hosts that you guys were but the sort of context for all of this it felt like we were watching lobbyists go to town it was kind of remarkable yeah and to me it's

like like I understand that people have complaints and things were always better when you were

young and you know for the boomers we want to go back to Bear Bryant and from our peers it's like let's go back to the 90s you know when things are and I get it but like I don't tell you that there are things that are out of control in the way that you know there's been conference real I met and they're like in anything that things to complain about but like the players are are you know professionals like they ask you that it's a professional sport there's billions of

upon billions of dollars that's going into it and so we have a bottle for how to treat them just like treat them like professionals like everything else and they're out there saying we need we want this other system we got to create this other system where we have more control over them where the you know the ADs and the presidents and the and the boosters can put our thumb on this and tell them what to do and it's like that's that's not like a fair approach

and capitalism by the way it's not just for me the definition of the opposite yeah and so and for all the complaints about things in sports like there's some things in conference for us that are better than ever like women's college basketball is thriving in the new system like you have these young women now that are able to get these NIL deals

and make money that was never possible for female athletes before you know and like you've

got these fucking old white blowharts on TV going like what about the women's volleyball you know it's like they're getting squeezed it's like no nobody's getting squeezed like this has been good for the athletes what's happening is that the market is beginning to show itself and there are individuals who never would have gotten paid like those female athletes that you mentioned before who are for the first time the issue is that schools have only

really wanted to spend so much money and before they kept themselves they're like we have these endowments we're really going to spend this much on sports even though that's the front portrait of our institution right I think that everybody talks about that's kind of the story the you know it's all of these things sports are the thing that people on Main Street

“whatever metaphor you want normies right the actual general audience that's what they pay attention”

to it is the way that you see all of these people see bomber is seen through a sports team LSU is seen through its sports teams right and so you have this scrutiny and is public pressure and when that pressure is applied and it's able to create a flow of money through a market that is somewhat regulated ideally as well as one that prioritizes the competition you get a world that is not as convenient for the schools that wanted to pay way less than the market

would want it's the story of a market yeah that's such a good point about how it's anti-capitalistic and you have these I think conservative politicians and the rich guys want to like you know present what they're doing as capitals and a string that in whether you're talking about the pro sports owners you know or kind of the boosters the college presidents that they want to present like okay we want to reap the rewards of these teams let's look at pros for example we got to

it's grown but I also don't want any risk I want the public to pay for my stadium I don't

want to have any obligation to the community like they're paying for the because I don't want to get to go to the White House and you celebrate me the people's house but there's no competition if people don't like how I'm doing it's not doing a good job you can't you can't have a new business open up in my community like I was we're telling about this about the nuggets and avalanche for a while in Denver like the owners weren't putting the games on TV because they were in a

fight with confidence this is what the Dodgers this is what they dealt with and I'm just like

“they're blacked out for years you have to put the games on TV you have an obligation to the”

community you're making billions of billions of dollars this is what you have to do but it's like oh no you know I don't want to pay the right market rate I kind of like acting like this is a normal corporate dispute but it's like not it's not like some other rich guy can say I'm going to create a different basketball team in Denver and we're going to put the games on TV to compete against you like this isn't a market no and and the thing that they are avoiding as looked salary caps right like

what what is that I'm not saying that everybody philosophically should love the salary cap as a concept I'm simply saying that that is the product of collective bargaining right that is a product of two entities entering an employer and laborers and deciding what can we agree on and it's

never going to be perfect with the fact that college sports won't begin that process at all says

so much because I know that they will have leverage inside of it when they get there they're actually asking for the safe space around the safe space it's like levels of greed that is kind of mind-blowing to be the other kind of hot topic in our sports site as I guess right now it's kind of WNBA discourse there've been some hard files on Caitlyn Clark and Laura Ingram's done several seconds but and it doesn't seem fair I'm just wondering kind of where you're at on the on the

“WNBA discourse I think it is very persuasive that someone would be like I want to protect women”

sports so much that I'm throwing a green dildo at them which for people who have missed it is literally something people are doing in the stands at WNBA games throwing dildos yeah and it gets and it gets even more absurd right like these ask to eat his canter and Royce White like the suicide squad of like crazy NBA also a rans being like I'm a woman now and I'm gonna play

I just want everybody I never say this to him I just want everybody to be as honest as Jesse

Waters was when he spoke when he spoke on the five about how he just doesn't even care about women sports enough to care about this controversy and all I want is for people to actually acknowledge that you don't care about any of this you're trying to score points in this culture war which you've learned can be very hospitable to you because you're playing with the perceived victim hood of women and girls and instead what you're really doing is you are routinely victimizing

one of the most if not the most victimized demographic in America in trans people who want to be bad at sports just like all of us have the right to be and that to me is what's unconscionable and it would be inexplicable if I wasn't also watching politics broadly and seeing what happens when vulnerable people can be used for other points I want to wrap this bow up what how we started and give people a rare it's post labor day I have a long weekend I got a little tan I've got

a tiny tool thank you and so I'm going to be positive on today's show which is which is a nice change of pace I'm still relying to this just like your investigation into Hawaii if I don't

“have been good news I think that the WNBA is about to go through a heyday and that these bad and”

malicious actors attempts to kind of insert themselves all they're doing is creating free PR for them we see the value of owning narrative in our politics and I think that does NBA you know there's an old stupid cliche about all prices good press that's not exactly true but the NWNBA I think is benefiting for this they're best ratings ever on the stupid game that in this canter tried to insert himself into on the court the product is better than ever at the tailgate this weekend I was talking

to you know just a regular old southern guy who is like yeah I just don't really like the product it's boring that's my biggest problem so if you watch the game this year now like watch a game actually it's like the product is a lot better you know they have a lot of stars now and and I think that this is this attempt to go after the WNBA is going to backfire hopefully they get a good commissioner and the commissioners resign so that's that's my hot take yeah I think we're about to

do a golden air I think that women sports has gone from a cause that people felt like they should care about to a product that has enough audience as we live in this fragmented world term in which you are a media tycoon so too so too came Caitlyn Clark you're not so different independent creators

enough people come over here and pay attention to what we do and even enjoy it I think it's never

“been more plausible and at a certain point also the prices already gone up whether or not people”

realize it yesterday's price is not the same as today's price as a great poet once said I love that

you could share in this moment of positivity with me Pablo and even try to gas me up a little bit

“on the side so I'll end by gasing you up people go if you haven't want listen to Pablo Tory finds out”

it's not all sports investigations he does other related investigations and if you're looking for a

way in I'm just going to throw out for people my two favorite episodes with the past year too your

“investigation into the mentalist oh is a fucking fake who I fucking knew it you don't have to say”

that you're a reporter I'm not I knew I was just like what is this the whole time it was like Mark Walter for me I was like this is not real and and and and you shine the light on part of that yeah I appreciate you you did a story that had been crying in an airport listening to Ronny cycling former Miami heat player and he became a DJ and he also had this moment with magic Johnson after he got his HIV diagnosis that is really inspiring so people can go listen to

those two episodes if they want to win all right I really appreciate you saying so to him thank you man alright brother we'll talk to you soon everybody that's Pablo Tory thanks also to Adam gentlemen we'll see y'all tomorrow for another edition of the show peace the board daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper associate producer Ansley Skipper and with video editing by Dante de Chico and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown