10/28/25: Kamala 2028 Run, Trump's 2026 Election Plot, NBA Gambling Scandal

Krystal and Saagar discuss Kamala floats 2028 run, Trump's plot for the 2026 midterms, NBA gambling scandal erupts.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:33):
So we've got a number of pieces here on the
direction of the Democratic Party. So Kamala Harris has been
doing a whole book tour and taking some interviews, and
apparently she's seriously contemplating running for president again. Guys, let's
go ahead and take a listen to this.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
Gen Z and Latinos in some numbers moved across to Trump.
You stayed in your comfort zone, didn't you.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
That was the Democrats problem.

Speaker 5 (00:58):
I received seventy five from the votes from a variety
of people in college. You were.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
They're going to see a women in charge in the
White House in their lifetime for sure?

Speaker 4 (01:11):
Could it be you?

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Possibly?

Speaker 6 (01:14):
Have you made a decision yet?

Speaker 1 (01:16):
No, I have not, But you say in your book
I'm not done. That is correct. I am not done.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Oh my god, I don't know. I take from that
that she is intending to run again. It's crazy to me, Soger,
because I mean, number one, Okay, how did your two
presidential races go number one in the Democratic where you
didn't even.

Speaker 4 (01:37):
Make it to the first votes.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Okay, so that was your first time out of the
gates when voters actually got to see you in debates
and you know, like how this was going to go,
and they were like, this is not working for us.

Speaker 4 (01:47):
You had to drop out.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Then you're handed the nomination after Biden has pushed on
of the race, and you lose, and you know, I'm sympathetic.
I think it was a very difficult hand she was dealt.
But she also made some really key mistakes. And it's
just incapable of being sort of like a normal person.
And you know, going out in the world, everything is
poll tested. She doesn't really believe in anything. It's just like,

(02:11):
let me put my finger in the wind and try
to figure out where the electrode is and people sense that.
And now, like I could have been open to you know,
some growth and some development if she was in the
fight now. But this is just let me write a
book and let me do some self aggrandizement at a
moment when and I'll you know, sort of like channeling

(02:31):
a democratic base here, like they feel and I feel
the country is under an imminent threat, that there's all
this horror that is being proven on all these communities
across the country, all of this crazy shit that's going
on that we're covering every day. Where have you been, Like,
if you want to be a leader, that doesn't mean
you just show out here. I am and look at

(02:51):
my resume and aren't I next in line? No, you
actually have to lead. People want to see you out
there fighting. They want to see you at an ICE
protest get arrested, like they want to see you at
the stop Oligarchy tour.

Speaker 4 (03:03):
They want to see you rallying.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
For Zorn And all you're doing is your little self
promotional book tour. I mean, I find it utterly disqualifying,
honestly that her absence and her lack of interest in
what is happening in the country and the fights that
are going on right now, and I have to think
that the Democratic base is very much going to feel
the same way. It's crazy to me how out of

(03:26):
touch this lady is.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
Yeah, I don't know though.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
But at the same time, if you look at the polls,
she's always up there, she's got like four or five.
But the Democratic base, while previously you know, might be
showing some fight and all of that, they still are
deferential in some ways to previous party elites. Do they
recognize but do they recognize that the failure as Kamala's
or do they just blame Trump?

Speaker 4 (03:49):
I think I think it's so. I mean, I would
like to know. I genuinely think, like.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
You know, even with regard to the primary polls, already, she's.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
Not number one anymore.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
No, yeah, that's true, all right.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
You know, one he Gavin AOC was number one in
a recent poll. And Gavin in particular, you know, I
like think Gavin socks and we.

Speaker 4 (04:08):
Play the APAC like, oh, that's interesting clip.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
And I think he's going to run into you know,
a few burke walls himself. But he is in the fight,
you know, And the Democratic base certainly appreciates that. But
now if you look at they're discussed with current Democratic
Party leadership, you think they're going to go back to
that well again like the person who was a proven loser.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
Absolutely not.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
And yet the way this work soager is like, I'm
sure she has people around her who were there just
to like glaze her and proper up and tell her
she's amazing and that everybody still loves her, and they're
just waiting for her to, you know, come out and
have her coronation or whatever, because they profit, like they're
in position, they're the consultants. They were going to do
the ad buys and place the media buys and get

(04:50):
the cut the.

Speaker 4 (04:51):
Percentage off of that.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
And you know, they know that she can raise some
money from She's got all these donor connections or whatever,
and so they have a personal financial in in telling
her that the country wants her and that there's some
interest in her running for president.

Speaker 4 (05:05):
Again, it's insane to me.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah, look, I hope you're right. I want it to
be that way. I still am skeptical. I just think
there's a weird reverence for these types of figures. There's
a long history Unfortunately of California, Richard Nixon famously lost
the election, you know, ran for governor, lost as Kamala
apparently had thought about it and still was able to

(05:27):
prevail in the primary and in the general election in
nineteen sixty eight. So there is this weird thing that
we have in this country of some sort of reverence.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
I would hope that you are correct.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
But also there's the theory of spoiler right where she
could have enough people. Here's my thing, will enough people
speak out vehemently against her elites from which they have
some trust Obama, you know, Biden, even maybe Pete Botajeedge
others who served with her, who are like, this woman
is incompetent. She lost as the presidency. We can't go

(05:58):
down that direction.

Speaker 4 (05:58):
I hope it's the Cuomo was Yeah, it was abandoned.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
That's true. He lost the primary, you know, yeah, exactly.
I mean, but yeah, that's that's the thing.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Heading into the primary. It's not like people spoke out
for z around Mambdani. Everybody just stayed silent. I mean,
I guess time.

Speaker 4 (06:11):
Right, But that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
I don't know that it matters what Obama or you know,
certainly Joe Biden has to say about Kamala Harris. I
think the base is in a very very different place now,
and you know, we're like Graham Plattner is a perfect
example of this. We saw two poles that had him
way up on Jana Mills. There's another pole that came
up that had her up. But he did a town
hall last night in a town of like twenty two

(06:34):
hundred people and got seven hundred people there and they
were the most like normy, white hair, liberal looking Democratic
base voters that you could possibly imagine. It's just a
different moment now. You know, they tried the Biden where
they tried the kamal away and it failed, and at
the end of the day, they're not going to be
you know, they're not going to listen to those folks again.

(06:56):
MSNBC has lost their credibility, All sorts of liberal outlets
have lost their credibility. I truly think that they are
in a very different place than they were last time around.
And by the way, these are the voters that also
at least have the good sense to reject her in
twenty twenty as well, before she even got to the
you know, got to the starting line.

Speaker 4 (07:13):
So you know, I look, we'll see.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
But even if I just think about Gavin Newsom, like
I think Gavin would eat her lunch, and he has
the donor base.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
I want them to have a fight, Like I want
them to have to come out and be like she's
an abject failure and we're not going down this path.

Speaker 4 (07:28):
Ever, they're not going to do that, like the elites
in the party. They're not going to do that.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
But I don't think it matters, like the voters themselves
will render the judgment. And so you know, Gavin has
the same These are these are donor creatures like her
and Gavin. These are establishment donor creatures. And he's a
much better political animal and political like.

Speaker 4 (07:47):
Total than she is.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Uh And they have similar donor bases, both coming out
of California. So if I even just think about him
versus her, let alone the you know, the AOCS or
whoever is to emerge over these coming years that are
much more charismatic and much more figure on the pulse
of where the Democratic base is.

Speaker 4 (08:07):
I don't think she's got a prayer, but I truly hope.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
So I just remain cynical about some politics and It's
one of those where I want to see the election status.
Who knows where things are going to be in twenty
twenty three. I could just it's not that I count
her out, it's I don't count out the machine. The
machine is powerful and at the very least, like they
convinced this, Like you're saying the voters will weigh and
I'm like they didn't in twenty twenty four, right, I

(08:31):
mean they just handed her, asked the nomination and she
literally got to run for president with no pushback. Even now,
everyone can admit KJP was a disaster. We can admit Kamala,
but there has there been like remember, oh I forgot
the DNC what is it called the retrospective the autopsy?

Speaker 1 (08:47):
How they won't.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
Examine Kamala, Like nobody is blaming this woman. Nobody in
the party even today can be like you were a disaster.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Nobody can say it.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Among them powerful Yeah, Bud, But I just you know,
in the way that twenty twenty went down is in
terms of like Bernie being defeated and everybody rallying around
Biden was these elite figures and the media apparatus still
had sway and when they said Biden's our guy.

Speaker 4 (09:12):
The base flipped immediately. I mean it was stunning.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
They do like that does not exist anymore, doesn't exist anymore.

Speaker 4 (09:20):
And Planner, I mean, it was a long way to go.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
And I'm not saying that he's gonna win. I don't
know what's going to happen in Maine, but you know,
they threw everything they had at him. In a twenty
twenty era, it would have been enough. He would have
had to drop out, Like you wouldn't even gotten to
this place to start with, right, Janet Mills is here,
she's the sitting governor of may. Of course we're going
to back Janet Mills, Like, who do you think you are?
And so the fact that he can even stay in
the race and is you know, at least a fifty

(09:45):
to fifty shot to be the nominee tells you it
is a totally different day in the Democratic Because I.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Don't know if he's gonna win either.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
My moin question is a bit yeah, No, you're right,
is that in the old days he would have been
done that They would have been like, oh the people, you.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
Have a Nazi tattoo, like, and you can stay in
the race now as a Democrat and people are flooding
your town halls. That's that is a very different moment
for the Democratic base. I wanted to get to get
this because I love it, so Kathy Hochel. Again, this
is another sign that the things are very much shifting
and influx in the with the Democratic base. Kathy Hochel

(10:20):
felt the pressure to go and rally with Zoron. At
this rally was Bernie Aoc Zoron and Brad Lander and others,
and Kathy Hochel, who had positioned herself previously as this
very like moderate centristee figure, and the crowd chants at
her aggressively tax the rich because Zoron needs the Albany'e
cooperation in order to fund things like free childcare, and

(10:42):
she has opposed that, and so the crowd is aware
of that, and so they're channing to tax the rich.
Zoran has to kind of like come out and save
her so she doesn't get booed off the stage.

Speaker 4 (10:49):
And so she gets asked about this moment.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
It's a very Kamala Harris answer that she gives here
and she pretend she didn't hear, she didn't know that
they were saying tax the rich. She thought they were
saying like, let's go bills or.

Speaker 4 (11:00):
Something like that, names that let's take a listen to
D two.

Speaker 5 (11:04):
I thought they were saying let's go bills. I wasn't
I wasn't sure. When you're up there, I heard some noise,
I heard a lot of tears. But later on it
became clear to me that there is a I know,
this passion for that.

Speaker 4 (11:16):
Oh my god, let's go bills and Queen.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
Incredible, incredible. It reminds me because remember what was it
on Medicare for All? Kamala like raised her hand saying
that we should get rid of all private insurance, and
then she thought better of that.

Speaker 4 (11:28):
And then, oh, I didn't hear the question. I didn't understand.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
There's also the infamous fuck Joe Biden chance that turned
into let's go Brandon. So there's been there's been a
lot of those there everyone. Anyway, Look again, I'm newer
to football, but let's go bills in Queen, come on
all right on a day when the Jets one get
the fuck out? Yeah, you know when you say.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
And she even responded, she was like, I hear you.
Like the way she responded indicated she understood what the
crowd was ultimately chanting at her. This was an interesting
clip too, the morning Joe creature coming out and Joe
Scarborough is sort of like accepting the rises are on, Mom, Donnie,
this is D three listlessm.

Speaker 7 (12:06):
Mom, Donnie that I did it right. And they they've
been Bernie Sanders and what do they have in common?
They have a populist message and yes people is they
are they're socialists and socialists socialists. Yeah, they said that
about Barack Obama too, and he kicked Republicans ass twice.
So it's that populist message that they're putting out there

(12:31):
that even there are times and even Steve Banny goes, yeah,
what AOC's saying there I agree with And a lot
of people like in the populist wing of the MAGA
Party agree with a lot of that stuff too. Same
thing with Lisa Khan and what she was doing about
breaking up monopolies. There is a lane for populist democrats

(12:52):
to run in and to win.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
He is a big Lisa con amazing stuff. But I
mean for him to you know, give zoron any bat
Cuomo or stay neutral or what I mean. This man
hated Bernie Sanders back during both of his runs, so
again shows you he's trying to have his you know,
finger in the wind of where things are.

Speaker 7 (13:16):
All.

Speaker 3 (13:16):
Oh, he's a New York City resident. He wants to
stay on the good side, you know. Yeh see, I
do think it's all.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Actually, he probably lives in New Jersey. I don't know
or connect but he lives in you don't. He's a
Manhattan guy. He does give Yeah, he gives me Connecticut.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
I'm gonna look it, uphile you're talking.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
At the same time, him and Mika are so into
the social scene. I kind of think they are. So
here's my theory, because I know that they have a
house in Florida. They are six month and one day
people in Florida and the rest of the time Manhattan penala.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
Oh damn.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
I would have guessed. I would I would have guessed
Manhattan penthouse for five months in whatever twenty nine days
for tax dodging strategy.

Speaker 4 (13:54):
They do also have a place in Florida.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Okay, all right, see I knew that at least.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah, yeah, let's stick with this though, because I think
this is fascinating. This kind of gets to the sore
on point let's put this new chart up on the screen.
This is from a new kind of centrist platform thing
called Deciding to Win, And they put out a bunch
of polling on the Democratic Party and I thought this
was absolutely fascinating. This is the change in the frequency

(14:19):
per one thousand words of select terms in the party
platform from twenty twelve to twenty fourteen. So the mention
of jobs from twenty twelve percentage changed twenty fourteen was
minus forty seven percent. Economic is minus forty eight percent.
Middle class was minus seventy nine percent, Economy minus fifty,
work minus nineteen, veteran minus thirty one, criminal minus thirty,

(14:43):
small business minus twenty three, equity plus seven hundred and
sixty six, reproductive plus seven hundred and sixty six, LGBT
plus one thousand, forty four, guns plus seven to twenty five,
climate plus one fifty and white black Latino up eleven thousand,
or eleven hundred percent in percentage change in the Democratic platform.

(15:03):
By the way, another thing that they note, just to
kind of the managerial, bureaucratic creep of the Democratic Party
platform is that it just became super long. It was
pages and pages and pages long. And what I thought
was so instructive. I think I borrowed this from Josh Barrow.
One of the best things Trump did for the Republican
Party platform is he made it like two pages. He
was like, We're going to make America great, safe, and

(15:23):
awesome again, and that's it. No policies, like really inside
of it, and it was deeply like it was short,
it was understandable. What this kind of demonstrated to me
was all of those like constituent checkmarks around land, acknowledgements
trans LGBT immigration. You could see the job all starting
to go down in there, like that was the cultural

(15:45):
takeover over any economic message and fundamentally, like that's what
went wrong for them. I just did that event with
Hassan Piker. Even he agrees with me, he's like, yeah,
liberals use this bullshit to get away from talking about
even the most like basic problems with Americans, and like
that's why they lost.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
I mean, yeah, Tager, look at what they're trying to
do to Zoron, like right now in the New York
Prime Like, oh, he's not he doesn't care about Jewish
people enough, and you know he's not going to protect
you're right, right, you know I mean, they have never
stopped doing They're still doing it, even as they're still
blaming the let it's the left fault that the Democratic
Party went to woke.

Speaker 4 (16:18):
I've seen Lis Smith talking about this online.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
And now they're trying to you know, cancel Graham for
like his old Reddit posts and his tattoo and cancel
Zoron because he was insufficiently like whatever with the you know,
didn't say whatever magic words they want him to, or
condemn whatever magic freeze they want him to. This is
this is the liberal playbook. Now, I'm not going to
say so. They're the originators of this direction because they

(16:42):
saw that post financial collapse, coming into the later part
of Diobama years, you can see this economic discontent, you
can see the rise of this like Bernie style populist
energy in the party, and they've got to block it.
And rather than you know, saying, oh well, we're they
realize that just selling the same old centrism isn't going

(17:03):
to work. So Hillary in particular, of course Ryan wrote
the book on this. Literally, Hillary in particular pioneers I'm
going to sort of position myself like I'm actually to
the left of Bernie because he doesn't care enough about racism,
He doesn't care enough and talk enough about sexism, and
breaking up the big Banks isn't going to end racism.
And that is what she uses aggressively to defeat Bernie

(17:26):
and his movement and tag his followers as toxic Bernie bros.
Who are misogynistic and racist and sexist. So they roll
out this playbook. Now, then the Bernie Sanders wing adopts
a lot of this language as well, so.

Speaker 4 (17:41):
They sort of join in this project.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
So then you have a whole of party project that
is in this very you know, cultural identity direction. Of course,
Bernie always holds on to like his core populist values,
but adopts a lot more of this language.

Speaker 4 (17:54):
But it really does come from liberals trying to defeat
the left.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
And again we know that because there's literally still using
that playbook to this day. So I do think I
have it's a longer conversation about this whole.

Speaker 4 (18:06):
Study that they did.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
It's you know, it's a lot of center, it's like
Biden people and whatever that put this out. There's a
longer conversation about that. But this chart, in particular, I
think is very useful and very instructive over the reason
why people rightly felt that this party is really not
focused on economic issues, They you know, have abandoned their
commitment to delivering for the working class. And you know,

(18:29):
are you know, talking about things that are not core
to my life and feel disconnected from me, and that
I may, you know, really disagree with. People are not
crazy to feel that way as the bottom line one
hundred percent.

Speaker 7 (18:39):
You know.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
The other thing is is if you look at the
most unpopular democratic positions from the same graphic, number one
is the least the least popular position is abolished the police.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
Number two is prisons.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
Number three provide free healthcare to illegals, for lowering the
voting age of sixteen, five, cutting police budgets by ten, six,
getting rid of tracking in schools, increased refugee admissions ten
restore affirmative action in college admissions. Like, all of these
are cultural policies.

Speaker 4 (19:07):
Do you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, And it's one of those yeah, no shit that
the right wins. I've been trying to say this now
on the show for like five years. I'm like, if
you're not going to cling to this stuff, you just
have no idea how you're able to lose it. You know,
there's fascinating new polling as well from the Argument magazine. Yes,
I know, cringe centrist, et cetera, but polling is polling,
and we're allowed to discuss it. They even say on immigration,

(19:29):
the vast majority of the concerns around immigration are driven
from crime and from disorderly conduct. That's what people just like,
they don't seem to get that disorder and the fact
of like encouraging more criminal policy, the fact of lack
of control over life is a huge reason why conservatives

(19:54):
and right wingers win elections in this country. I have
literally been trying to hammer it home for years. Culture
is a huge part of it. Everybody says, oh, we
shouldn't talk about it, but like, if that's ultimately what
becomes probably the sole thing that kind of is really
up to people in power, then no shit, we're all
going to fight about it. And it's like one of
those where you know, I still don't think that the

(20:16):
Democratic Party has particularly learned their less or at the
very least now currently, Like I'm personally skeptical I could
see it's still going in that direction.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Well, the view I have is that you like I
really think that the ANALYSI is where you just Okay,
let's pull everybody's position and let's try to locate ourselves.

Speaker 4 (20:35):
In the center.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
Like that is not how Trump went this like thing
that just came out, which is overall the messages like
that's why Democrats need to be more centrist. That's the takeaway,
which you know, we've get these similar analyzes million times.
It reminds me very much of the Autopsy post twenty
twelve when Mitt Romney lost and there's a similar Republican like,
we need to move to the center, we got to
do something different on immigration, We're losing Latinos, we're never

(20:57):
going to win them back.

Speaker 4 (20:58):
And then Trump's comes in as like fuck.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
You, I'm going to be radical on these issues actually
and completely transforms the electorate because he has a forceful
narrative and he's not out there polling his but he
takes a lot of positions that are wildly unpopular. But
he has a story that he is selling that made
sense to a lot of people, and he sells it
aggressively and people feel like, oh, and he's going to

(21:20):
fight for Like I believe that he's going to say
the things and do the things that he needs to
do to you know, right the wrongs and allow the
heroes of his particular story to succeed. You guys know
all the ways that I think that story is bad
and wrong, et cetera. But he has one Democrats don't. Instead,
they do these analyzes and they look at the poll
and they try to situate themselves in the middle rather

(21:42):
than telling a story in demonstrated people that are going
to actually fight for something that makes sense, that lands,
that has a logic that resonates in people's lives. So
that's why some of these analyzes are really like, it's
interesting to get the information, and there's you know, I'm
not saying it's like not useful at all, but I

(22:02):
think that way of doing politics is actually the way
the Democratic Party has been trying to do politics, assuming
the public sentiment of static, assuming this is the way
that people actually choose their leaders, and it's just not
how politics actually were.

Speaker 3 (22:15):
Very true, absolutely right, and I'm glad you said it.
I do think though, that what the graphic proves is
that the cultural mentions actually became the dominating thing that
they became.

Speaker 4 (22:22):
Not agree, Yeah, I agree, that's all I'm.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
Really just pointing out is that how much of these
are at albatross around the neck, and because they still
don't really stand for much, I'm personally still skeptical going
into the midterm elections that that's happening because again, you know,
at this point, the Tea Party was an organized force.
There were dozens of candidates all across the country. There
was money behind it, and everyone says, oh, that's just

(22:46):
because like I'm sorry, you guys don't understand. Yes, there
was money behind it. There were literally organic chapters rising
up across the nation, you know, in the same way
that No Kings was. But the problem is that No
Kings doesn't have a policy platform, Like, they don't have
an ass they don't have anything. They're basically just anti Trump.
And anybody could be anti Trump, from Dan Goldman to

(23:06):
Graham Platner. That doesn't mean anything. So if you don't
stand particularly for something, then how does this work in
twenty twenty eight when Trump is gone or if he's
not running or whatever. Again, how does that manifest right
into And that'll be the true battle. And I'm just
not sure even with these Tea Party candidates, like what
do they really stand for you could be a Platner.

(23:28):
You could be I mean, there's going to be some
Democrat out there that wins in an R plus twenty
five district Span Burger, Right, you could argue that she
could be whatever.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
Like a banner performing though yeah, yeah right.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
But it's one of those things you could really technically say.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
It CIA Democrat. Yeah, oh, they'll definitely say it. But
I mean, well, we'll move on. This conversation will continue.
But I think Zoran is proof point number one. I
think the midterms will be proof point number two. We'll
see what happens there, what type of candidates are able
to come out of primaries. You know, if Graham beats
the sitting.

Speaker 4 (23:59):
Governor, it's going to be huge.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
That would be a huge indication, you know, Abdulah Sayat
of course in Michigan is another one we're watching closely.
You know what happens with with Showycott. There's a bunch
of different candidates like this that are going to be
very interesting to watch. So that'll be another test point.
And then but the ultimate test will be of course
in twenty twenty eight picking Minuts leader.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah, part it is going to be twenty twenty eight.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
By the way, last thing all eyes New Jersey. I'm
very interested in New Jersey in that governor election. There's
a tie for one point right now. If Republican wins
in the state of New Jersey, that's actually going to
be crazy.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
Well, friends, we have arrived. It is time to fully
sound the alarm about the midterm elections and whether voters
will actually get to have their say in anything approaching
a fair or meaningful way. So, in a recent interview,
Steve Bannon understandably got a lot of attention for insisting
Trump would be present again in twenty twenty because he
is a quote vehicle of divine providence. But in that

(24:52):
same interview, Bannon also had something to say about the
US Congress, which is of course directly relevant for the
midterm elections.

Speaker 8 (24:59):
I think that to avoid actual civil conflict, which I
think you're seeing right now at the beginning, at the
harbinger of it, if you want to stop that, you
have to bind together tighter. We as a populist nationalist movement,
as a mega movement, we need to do that.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Like the redistricting fights.

Speaker 8 (25:18):
We need to get This is why I was down
in Texas. We need to we need to get the
House in a situation that is permanently defendable by the
Mega movement. Right, So it's a blocking mechanism and take that.
Like I said, you move a maximalist strategy with a
sense of urgency.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
And you seize the institutions. And that's what we're doing
right now.

Speaker 9 (25:39):
I don't see. I don't see how that is a
recipe for diffusing this crisis. I think that what happens
is when people feel shut out of power and interest
groups cannot get representation and cannot get an input into
the way that policy is made. That's precisely when you
end up with civil war.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
Disagree, because I think you'll see.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Seize the institutions, get the House in a situation where
it is permanently defendable by the MAGA movement. So those
Bannon just blowing smoke here. After all, he's not Trump.
He's not a Trump official either. In fact, if you
look though at everything that Trump administration is saying and doing,
it is undeniably clear they are in the midst of
executing a sophisticated plot in an attempt to rig the

(26:18):
midterm elections in favor of Republicans. This plot has several
different elements, and of course no guarantees of success, but
we need to grapple with what we are facing right now,
so I'm going to take time to go through each
of the various elements. Top line, though, first element is personnel.
Federal government divisions dealing with election, cybersecurity, and civil rights
violation has been gutted and replaced with twenty twenty election

(26:40):
deniers from the Stop the Steal Fraud. Second Executive Orders,
Trump assigned several executive orders seeking to consolidate control of
election mechanics, voter rules, and even election machines in his hands.
A Republican operative, by the way, now owns dominion voting.
Third jerrymandering. Trump is pressuring Republican states to redraw maps
to block out Dems, and is getting a major assist

(27:01):
from the Supreme Court.

Speaker 4 (27:02):
Most likely forth threats.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Trump is sending election monitors to California, New Jersey, deploying
National Guard in Blue cities, and threatening to invoke the
Insurrection Act. All of this is occurring as he repeatedly
insists elections are rigged on documented immigrants vote illegally, and
mail in ballots are fraudulent. Taken together, you can see
they are serious. They are operating on a variety of fronts.
They are unwilling to accept the verdict of voters. So

(27:28):
let's start in depth with personnel. According to The New
York Times, Trump has installed a number of stop the
Steel wackos in key election related roles after gutting departments
which previously dealt with election integrity and rights. So several
of these new officials come from the so called Election
Integrity Network. This is a far right group at the
heart of inventing lies during Trump's effort to steal the

(27:48):
election in twenty twenty. Now in the newly in the administration,
in the newly created election integrity position at the Department
of Homeland Security, Trump is installed a woman by the
name of Heather Honey. She has a stop the Steel
nutt who immediately jumped on official government calls when she
was appointed to spread wild conspiracies about rigged voting machines.
Prior to her appointment, she floated invoking a national emergency

(28:13):
in order to gain control over state voting. Another whack o,
a guy named Kurt Olsen, has also been brought into
the Trump administration to investigate these supposedly stolen twenty twenty election.
Just in case you were wondering if they had given
up on those old lies, Olsen helped cook up my
Pillow CEO Mike Lindell's twenty twenty rigged election delusions. In

(28:33):
addition to them, you've got the former Dacab County Georgia
Republican chair. Marcy McCarthy is her name. She was appointed
to be Director of Public Affairs at the Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency or SIZA. Marcy was at the heart
of spreading Georgia voting machine conspiracies back in twenty twenty,
but perhaps even more critically, she was involved in purging

(28:54):
thousands of legitimate voters from the roles in Georgia in
twenty twenty four, in an effort that resulted in tens
of thousands of voters losing their ability to vote in
what appeared to be a racially biased manner. Now that
experience of Marci's might be particularly relevant when you consider
the election related executive orders that Trump has been signing.
So Back in March, Trump signed executive order mandating more

(29:17):
string and nineties recertifications of voting machines under new rules
that literally none of the existing machines currently comply with,
and perhaps most troubling, this executive order granted Elon's DOGE
access to voter roles for quote unquote fraud audits. Now,
lest you think that with Elon's departure this aspect would
be dropped, the Trump Justice Department is demanding that states

(29:38):
provide them with their voter roles, an action that many,
even red states, have actually resisted. So far, the Trump
doj has sent demands to thirty states already, with intent
to send to all fifty. What's more, they've already sued
eight different states for refusing to hand over their voter
roles so far. An additional executive order seeks to end
mail in balloting, which of course is used more often

(30:00):
at this point by Democrats, and reiterates the commitment to
get rid of every existing voting machine. About those voting machines,
by the way, you remember, are all the furor around
dominion voting machines supposedly rigged in twenty twenty by the
ghost of Hugo Chavez or some such nonsense. Well, that
company has now been bought by a Trump ally. The

(30:20):
former Republican Elections director in Saint Louis and in the
announcement of the purchase, this guy made a point of
nodding towards that Venezuela conspiracy and of saying he was
going to prioritize complying with Trump's executive orders.

Speaker 4 (30:35):
Dominion is being renamed Liberty Vote.

Speaker 7 (30:38):
Now.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
Now, perhaps this guy is just trying to rebrand, trying
to pander to the conspiracy nuts in the NAGA base,
But half of the voting machines in the country are
Dominion and they are now under partisan ownership. Next, we've got,
of course, the mass jerry mandering push coming directly from
the White House. Three states Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas
they've already drawn new maps and more heavily favored Republicans.

(30:59):
Five more states are considering following suit, and a sign
of what a priority this is for the regime, Jade
Vance has visited Indiana twice to pressure lawmakers to draw
new maps, and Trump spoke directly with Indiana Republicans earlier
this month. Just yesterday, Governor Brown called an emergency session
to consider the President's demand. In addition, the Supreme Court

(31:19):
looks set to deliver a major assist on this front,
striking on parts of the Voting Rights Act, which would
plausibly allow Republicans to eliminate roughly a dozen seats currently
held by Democrats. Let's go ahead and put this chart
up on the screen. So Nate Cone did this analysis,
and he found that the upshot of all of this gerrymanter,
when you take into account democratic attempts to retaliate in

(31:39):
places like California, is that it could take Democrats winning
the popular vote by as much as five points or
six points in order to take back the House. Five
point popular vote wins, those are the stuff of modern
day waves. We're talking to Obama wave in two thousand
and eight, the Tea Party wave in twenty ten. This
lanted playing field, it doesn't make a House majority impossible

(32:00):
the bull for Democrats, but it does make it very,
very difficult. And that is, of course, before you consider
all the other efforts that I'm tracking here today to
shape who can vote and how. Now, the last category
of election rigging activities is both the most dominant and
the most vague, and that is the threats which are
emanating from this White House. Under this category, I placed

(32:21):
Trump's consistent rhetoric about stolen elections, his use and abuse
of the military and his promise to send election monitors
into California and into New Jersey. Just yesterday, Trump posted
this on True Social He said, what's worse the NBA
players cheating at cards and probably much else, or the
Democrats cheating on elections? The twenty twenty presidential election being

(32:42):
rigged and stolen is a far bigger scandal. Look what
happened to our country when a crooke and moron became
our president.

Speaker 4 (32:48):
We now know everything.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
I hope the DOJ pursues this with as much gusto
as befitting the biggest scandal in American history. If not,
it will happen again, including the upcoming mid terms.

Speaker 4 (32:59):
No mail in or early.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
Voting, Yes to voter ID watch. How totally dishonest The
California prop vote is millions of ballots being shipped. Get
smart Republicans before it is too late. So consistent with
this baseless claim that California is rigging the ballot initiative
to determine whether they can redistrict, Trump is announced he
is sending DOJ election monitors into both California and New

(33:24):
Jersey as a blatant intimidation tactic, and of course as
you know, he has sent the National Guard into multiple
Blue cities and is flirting with invoking the Insurrection Act,
and Secretary of Warped Hegsath won't deny the development of
a rapid response military force that could be deployed in
all fifty states before the midterms.

Speaker 6 (33:43):
Secretary hig Seth sir. A memo circulating on social media
details the establishment of a National Guard response force that's
going to be trained in crowded control and civil unrest
and deployed in all fifty states by April twenty twenty six.
Can you verify the authenticity of that memo and do
you have any more information on the operations.

Speaker 10 (34:06):
I'm not going to answer particulars on something that may
be in the planning process, but we definitely do have
multiple layers of National Guard response forces. Whether it's in
each state, whether it's regionally, whether it's Title ten active duty,
whether it's Washington DC. We've got a lot of different
ways that constitutionally and legally we can employ Title ten
and Title thirty two forces, and we will do so

(34:27):
when necessary.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
So again, just so we're clear, we're talking here about
a fifty state rapid response force that just happens to
be in place in time for the midterms. Does all
of this sound crazy, I don't know. Guys using national
emergencies to do wild stuff is kind of just how
this administration operates.

Speaker 4 (34:42):
That's their whole shit. Not to mention, Trump is.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
The guy who literally already tried to steal an election,
and they already hired a lady who floated using a.

Speaker 4 (34:49):
National emergency to control elections.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
By the way, they've also got a pretty powerful motive,
and more crimes they commit, more backlash they stoke, the
more existential it is for them to hold onto power
and never let go. You don't think Steven Miller knows
Democrats want them to spend the rest of his life
rotting in prison. The Trump administration are engaged in an
all out war against their political adversaries, an attempt to

(35:11):
seize long term control. That's what Bannon means when he
says seize the institutions and create a permanent, defendable MAGA majority.

Speaker 4 (35:19):
And what's to stop them at this point.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
The Supreme Court, which is handed them twenty three out
of twenty eight decisions on the shadow docket. The media,
which is like being all bought up by the Zionist
pro Trump ellisons or threatened with lawsuits to comply. The
Republican House majority. Come on, don't make me laugh. How
about the Democratic House minority. That'll make me cry. It
is ultimately on us. We need to understand what's happening.

(35:43):
We need to track it. We need to educate our
fellow citizens who may or may not share our political beliefs,
but I hope are at least somewhat interested in continuing
the very imperfect experiment that we have here with democracy,
because whatever the public is willing to accept, that is
exactly what we are.

Speaker 4 (35:59):
Going to get.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
And so sober, lengthy and a little tedious. Thank you
for bearing with me, but I.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Want to put all together, and if you want to
hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber
today at breakingpoints dot com. Joining us now is Pablo
Torre a. He is a journalist. He is the host
of Pablo Torre Finds Out. He is taking the sports
world by storm and for our purposes. He is an
expert and one of the few actually doing some deep

(36:25):
dives in the sports world. So Pablo, thank you so
much for joining us. A lot of respectful of course,
of course, thanks for having me.

Speaker 11 (36:31):
I have too much to say, probably about all the
things they are interested in, but happy to try.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
Well, we want to hear all of that.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
I have personally just watched with amazement at the coverage
of this NBA gambling scandal. Let's go ahead and put
this up here on the screen, some of your own
reporting that we can share with our audience. I'm sure
they've heard a little bit here about the initial indictments
in the NBA Chauncey and the poker games quote. A
number of former pro athletes played at a private poker

(36:59):
games organized by those indicted by the DOJ and Operation
Royal Flush. One of them was Kevin Garnett in twenty nineteen.
There are a number of other names who you list, Pablo.
Why don't you break some of that down and also
just tell us how existential this is to the NBA.

Speaker 11 (37:15):
Yeah, so big picture first, and I'll tell you about
some of the names that I've been reporting that haven't
been in the indictment for reasons that I think makes
sense and are also a bit chin scratching. The story
here to me is that the NBA set up an
incentive structure. One of the first things that Adam Silver
did as commissioner of the league, and he was hailed
almost welcomed as a savior of the sport in part
because he did two things. Number One, he orchestrated the

(37:36):
transfer of power from Donald Sterling about racist Band for
Life to Steve Balmer, another character I've been investigating in
a separate story which I have too much to say
about with Aspiration and the Clippers and the salary caps
are convention that I've been reporting on. But the other
thing Adam Silver did that fall was right an op
ed in the New York Times in which he said
gambling should be legalized and regulated.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
He was the first commissioner from about that.

Speaker 11 (38:00):
This was one of his first acts in terms of
taking over the sport. And so that incentive structure, which
we've seen happen, and you guys have covered it as
well as anybody infiltrating the entirety of sports and sports
media has created these incentives in which there is a
menu of almost micro bets which now carry legal markets
for prop bets like unders on Terry Rogier, meaning you

(38:24):
can bet on the underperformance of an obscure player like
John Tay Porter, who has since been banned for life,
by the way, and so all of this is fruit
from that tree. All of it is fruit from the
Adam Silver op ed to Johntay Porter group chat and
now banned for life. Scandal into what happens when inside
information that could be seemingly microscopic in its scope. Will

(38:47):
this player play in this game? Will this guy leave
this game because he is in coordination with you, perhaps,
according to the indictment, trying to also profit off of
those incentives. All of this comes together in a way
that feels, if not existential, I think the story of
the era of money in sports that we live in.

(39:09):
And so Kevin Garnett Tylou, the head coach of the Clippers,
also a character who's been spotted at these games, one
game in particular April twenty nineteen where Chuncey Billups was
Antonio Gates, former pro football player Hall of Fame player.
I'm not alleging that those guys were of the Chauncey
Billups level in terms of what they knew or did

(39:31):
not know, but they were used as Wales face cards.
The government calls them to draw in betters in the
poker world, which happens to be connected deeply with, of course,
the world of sports.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
Betting, right, And let's talk a little bit more about
the specifics here, because some of the specifics are wild.

Speaker 4 (39:46):
Do you say, maybe those guys aren't the level.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
Of understanding potentially alleged of Chauncey Billups, who appears to
have had knowledge that the games were rigged. These games
were being set up by some of the sort of
classic New y mafia families. So give us some of
the details about what was going on with these games
and the way that they had them rigged so that

(40:08):
they were raking in seven million dollars in the context
of these rigged poker games.

Speaker 11 (40:14):
Yeah, so the connective tissue between these two indictments, and
there are terrible puns all over the story by the way, guys,
So it's Operation Royal Flush for the poker stuff, is
Operation nothing but Bet for the sports betting stuff. But
the reason I went back to the johntay Porter scandal
is because the characters who overlap some of those names,
you know, and I reported on this in July because

(40:35):
they were on that group chat with John tay Porter.
These are all poker guys poker associated, guys who turn
out in one case to be also mob associated. And
so in these poker games, Crystal, we're talking about X
ray machines that are hiding under the tables. We're talking
about sunglasses that can read marked cards. We're talking about
rigged deck shuffling machines. That is the allegation, in particular

(40:56):
to Chauncey Billups in that April twenty nineteen game in
Las Vegas. We're talking about technology in which people who
were conspiring to rig poker games using NBA players as
co conspirators as wales to draw in the competition. We're also,
according to these and two indictments in league with Chauncey
Billups identified as co conspirator number eight in the sports

(41:20):
betting indictment, to also get information around which players on
his team that he is the current head coach for
the Portland Trailblazers, would be playing in a game. And
so organized crime is an ancient story when it comes
to secret poker games. We've seen a zillion movies along
those lines. What's different is that there is now a

(41:42):
legal sports betting market in which those same characters, maybe
because according to the indictment, and according to my reporting,
you have athletes who've always loved gambling and card games.
Also an ancient non surprise might be in debt and
or in cooperation with some of the unsavory characters that

(42:04):
you know Cashotel referred to as LaCOSA nostra, which is
the literal Italian model.

Speaker 2 (42:08):
And isn't that what happened with John Tay Porter, that
he was in debt to these guys, And that's part
of how this all goes down.

Speaker 11 (42:15):
Yeah, the reporting that I've been doing suggests that Johntay
Porter got into debt with a man named Amar Awade,
who is identified in these indictments as a guy named
Flapper Poker or Flappy aka a mob associate. And the
question of and again this is ancient, what happens when
you get in debt to someone like that. They don't

(42:35):
just want the repayment of the money. They say, I
have another way that you can help us out. And
Johntay Porter, a truly obscure backup that no one would
have known otherwise, ended up according to exhaustive group chat records,
he ended up taking himself out of games, letting them
know ahead of time Sager, and that ended up being
this thing that blew up the NBA last year.

Speaker 3 (42:56):
Yes, Pablo, what I want to focus on is to
zoom out on the system because, and let's put this
up here on the screen from Politico, Adam Silver is
now facing calls to come before Congress. By the way,
he should, because one of the things that you and
I talked about previously, Pablo, is that the NBA cleared
Terry Razier of all wrongdoing. They did an internal investigation,
they allowed him to play, and they said, hey, we

(43:17):
did an investigation.

Speaker 1 (43:18):
He did nothing wrong.

Speaker 3 (43:20):
When the Department of Justice now comes out and says, actually,
that's completely false, how can we ever have any faith
in the word of the NBA, of the NFL, of
these private sports leagues which are directly in league with
the betting companies, Like what does this tell us about
Adam Silver's credibility?

Speaker 1 (43:37):
At this point?

Speaker 11 (43:38):
The conflict of interest here seems very obvious. And for
anybody who's not a sports fan, keep that lens of
what should a normal business do here if they're faced
with any scandal in this case in sports in the NBA,
it turns out, you investigate yourself and you therefore have
the ability to turn the dial on how big of
a public scandal is this, and of course the NBA

(44:00):
scene under Adam Silver, I mean, look, they have taken
the money on the table at the expense of what
I would call various risks to its brand, and I'll
just keep it at that level because I want to
speak the language of what these corporations and sports and
commissioners speak. They want to minimize the scandal and damage
to their brand. The bet that Adam Silver has made

(44:22):
is that by getting into business with legalized gambling, in
fact advocating for it, he could make the cost benefit
analysis work, such as the benefits the money on the
table are worth that roll of the dice, so to speak.
And so when it comes to what did they know
and when did they know it? The NBA I talked
to Terry Roseier's lawyer who told us they cleared us.

(44:45):
The NBA cleared Terry rose years why who was able
to play and get traded to the Miami Heat, by
the way, and a transaction that did result in an
eight figure salary pay out from the Miami Heat and
a first round pick, which is, for those not in sports,
a big deal.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
And then the question is, so why didn't.

Speaker 11 (45:01):
You the NBA the heater complaining why didn't you tell
us what you were looking into? Why didn't you keep
the investigation going if in fact a federal government was
going to continue it and according to my sources, never
cleared Rogier, as is obvious based on the indictments, And
so you have in this case uniquely, I would say,
a body with subpoena power in the government, that has

(45:23):
the ability to buy virtue of their interest in the story,
hold the NBA to account when it comes to what
did they want to know and when did they know it?
In most cases in sports, Zaga, as you know, there
isn't that level of check. There are journalists, right, So
that's what ostensibly I am trying to do. But in

(45:44):
the public perception, when you have federal indictments, it puts
with a real strong underline what is actually the conflict
of interest to play?

Speaker 2 (45:54):
Yeah, and so just for people who you know, maybe
don't know the incidentuts of the case, what Terry Rogier
is accused of is basically like faking a foot injury
in the middle of a game, coming out early. And
then you know, people who ve bet that he would
underperform his normal statistics, and you don't know if I
think hundreds of thousands of dollars were able to cash
in because he planned to go out early and plan
to sort of like not throw the game, but throw

(46:15):
his own statistics. Which raises the question how much of
this how much of the problem here is with these
prop bets, right, with the ability to bet on these
very specific outcomes, because then a player doesn't have to
throw a whole game, doesn't have to underperform a little bit,
or just have to do you know, something that you like,
whatever it is that you're able to bet on. How
much of the problem is is just those prop bets?

(46:37):
And also, like, what's your sense of how widespread this is?
Are we talking a few bad apples or is this
just like you know, during the Barry Bond's era of baseball,
where it's just like, oh, yeah, everybody's juicing.

Speaker 4 (46:49):
That's just how the game is at this point.

Speaker 11 (46:51):
Yeah, That's why I framed it in terms of incentives,
because what is happening is that the legal betting market
and the scandals that crop up have all been around
prop bets hitting on unders.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
So just for people who don't know how it used
to be.

Speaker 11 (47:06):
If you ever watched a mob movie, right like back
in the day, you would need to fix a game
by fixing the outcome of the game, meaning you need
five players on one team to sort of coordinate in
some fashion such that you actually impacted who won or lost.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
That's what typically bookies.

Speaker 11 (47:21):
The guy on your corner in your neighborhood in a
dark alley, that's what they would allow you to bet
on in this era, because there's this exhaustive, almost like
cheesecake factory length menu of like, wait a minute, I
can bet on pretty much anything.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
There are a zillion pages here.

Speaker 4 (47:37):
What colored dildo gets thrown on the floor.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
I've been sounding the alarm on this forever, Pablo, And
you know, one of the things it kind of gets
to me is you just talked about journalism. This is
a main thing I really wanted to talk to you about.
You spent your life at Sports Illustrated and at ESPN.
Now you're independent. You are more famous than ever before.
I see your name dropped on every major sports podcast

(48:00):
in the country, Pat McAfee, everybody else. But there seems
to always be a hesitance, and it seems to me,
you can tell me your observation that they are desperate
to preserve their relationship to the league, to the NBA.
They're afraid of platforming or emphasizing what you're saying, even
though you're one of the few doing actually revelatory journalism

(48:21):
in sports. So I'm curious if you could talk about
that dynamic, like how difficult it is for an ESPN
or people connected fundamentally to a private organization that has
no obligation to give you anything to some of the
work that you're putting out there, and why you found
so much success in a short.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
Period of time.

Speaker 11 (48:36):
Yeah, again, I point to incentives. Right, So I worked
at ESPN. I was familiar in that era with a
company in which there was literal billion dollar business dealing
with the leagues directly, but at the same time an
attempt to fund a newsroom that had some sort of
firewall in between. Right. Any media organization of a certain
scale is familiar with that dynamic. What is so different

(48:59):
now is at the pretense of needing to support journalism.
And again, I'll use brand equity as the motive for
any company who wants to consider this, that branding priority
the whole idea of we need to plausibly be a
news room, an actual news gathering operation that has sharply
declined as the sources of money have shifted, in this

(49:22):
case to the legalized gambling operators. And so what I
found is that I didn't set out to do investigative
adversarial journalism that would take me to the stories that
are most directly in conflict with commissioners of the sports
that I otherwise cover and love and enjoy as a fan.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
I did not set out to.

Speaker 11 (49:40):
Be the turd in some commissioner's punch bowl, frankly, but
the race that I am apparently competing in is almost
devoid of other competitors. And so what's happened is that
I'm the guy who's just willing to do it, and
I am obsessedive about wanting to get it right. I
come again from a fact checking background and a journalistic
backg ground, and we request comment and everybody gets a

(50:02):
chance to weigh in. We provide all of those opportunities
as a quote unquote mainstream news organization would. But the
fact is, I'm willing to get on bad terms when
it comes to the access that otherwise gets granted and
the partnerships that are in play. If you're a sports
talking head and your goal in life is to be
on a set in which you talk about any of

(50:23):
these sports, you should be aware that the people who
ultimately have to green light your inclusion at that table
sit in the league.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Office, which is to say, they.

Speaker 11 (50:34):
Don't want people who are going to actually jeopardize their
business involved in their business. And likewise, if you're covering,
for instance, Los Angeles Clippers and your day to day
livelihood is access to games, you're signing up for a
way harder life if you decide to stick a toe
into the stuff that I'm doing. And so I'm not naive,

(50:55):
and I don't blame other journalists, reporters, whatever the term
is you want to use to discretion. I have the
different jobs that we do. I get the incentives again
at play. I just think we're living in this desert,
especially in sports media, but certainly broadly. You can speak
to every facet of journalism across America now, but there's
a desert when it comes to the quote unquote toy department,

(51:16):
in which huge stories that reflect our national priorities and
our national conflicts of interest are coming home to roost
and they're not enough people covering it.

Speaker 4 (51:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
Well, I mean I have to think that the you know,
the corporate ad dollars are an important part of that
story too. I mean, even us being outside of the
sports media sphere and many of our competitors take tons
of money from these gambling povergies. They just have an
endless amount of money it seems like to throw at,
you know, different personalities, And so I would think that

(51:47):
if you're going directly, if you were taking that money
and you see something untoward, you're maybe gonna you know,
keep it, keep it to yourself, rather than risk that
cash into your operation.

Speaker 11 (52:00):
Yet, look, I am somebody who believes. Again, I worked
at ESPN, I work at Sports Illustrated. I'm familiar with
all the media companies in the world who have to
make some level of internal firewall between business and news.
I get that ancient attempt to do that. All I
would say is, if you are taking money from any

(52:20):
of the parties that you are also covering, you do
at some point need to show through journalism that holds
those parties to account that the firewall is plausible. And
I think what's increasingly obvious is the implausibility.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
Of that firewall.

Speaker 11 (52:33):
And maybe it's because, again, the public demand for this
stuff has been characterized in these boardrooms as so low,
like journalism that's not going to make you money, and
therefore let's just go all in on the business of
favoring our partners. But I think what you guys have experienced,
that what I've experienced as an independent journalist, as an
independent newsroom, is that there is such a demand for

(52:56):
people who actually want to know the truth, people who
actually want to know what am I not being told
and why am I not being told it about these
institutions that I love that I'm giving my money to.
And so the pendulum has just swung in such a
way that I think there's actually now a business case, obviously,
to get into a real journalistic operation. I just think

(53:19):
that they are not enough places that are actively considering
it along a profit motive as opposed to just a
obligation morally or otherwise.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
You're totally right, and I see it everywhere. I mean,
you know, the most successful sports journalists are basically just
people who tweet press releases from the NFL and from
their agent from the players agents. If a guy is
really injured. You're going to be the last to know, right,
and they are going to be the last to tell you.
You find things that, I mean, I found out this
morning Carson Wentz has been injured like weeks ago and
is going on under certain Nobody said anything about that,

(53:51):
and there's no incentive for the people who cover it
to actually tell everybody the truth. So my last thing
I do want to let you expound on is that
Salary Cap story. In my opinion, yeah, massive, massive scandal
with like IRS implications, league implications, player implications, same thing
touched on, very little acknowledged by much of a sports media.

(54:11):
I do want to let you get some of the
details out there because I want our audience to know
how crazy and corrupt this is.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (54:17):
So this is a story that is also being investigated.
Scare quotes around that I suppose by the NBA and
by Walktel, the law firm that they hired as their
outside council to look into this. And so it's funny
as I've been covering two stories, the betting scandal and
the Aspiration Clippers Kawhi Leonard capture convention scandal that the
NBA has been tracking in parallel as well, basically listening
to the pod trying to figure out, like, what is

(54:38):
the one guy here to make our life MESSI gonna
report next. And I say that not merely because I'm
proud of the work, but just because I have an
insight into the question of investigation, and in this story,
it is the richest owner in American sports, Steve Baumer,
one of the ten richest people in the world, who
we report, got into business with a guy who ended
up defrauding him, which is unfortunate because that same guy,

(55:01):
Joe Sandberg, the co founder of a climate change company
called Aspiration, he had trusted Steve Balmer had trusted, according
to our reporting, to help him deceive the NBA. We're
talking about fifty million dollars into Aspiration from Steve Balmer.
We're talking about forty eight million dollars guaranteed from Aspiration

(55:21):
to Kawhi Leonard in what amounts to the most unprecedented
in scope and in mess at this point, caps or
convention scandal in American sports history. And the reason this
matters is because from a pure big picture perspective, let's
say you don't care about sports, just understand sports ownership
in America has never belonged more clearly to the richer

(55:42):
and richer individuals that you might otherwise see all across
Silicon Valley and now of course into the Middle East
and private equity. Sports teams go up and up and up.
The media economy that we spoke about is fragmented. Sports
teams continue to appreciate in value. It's all green arrows.
Richest people in the world want to buy them. And
when they want to buy them, it turns out, accorded

(56:04):
by reporting, they get frustrated that there are actually some
caps on their spending. So the things that the richest
people in the world want more than anything else at
this phase in their lives, often an NBA title or
a star player for their team, they just can't buy.
There are rules around fair play they need to abide by.

(56:25):
And so that is the story of Steve Bomber trying
to get money to Kawhi Leonard, and the question around
these three thousand plus pages of documents that I acquired
and the now nine anonymous sources who worked at Aspiration
who have testified to me that this was for caps
or convention. It speaks to what the NBA once again
is willing to find in an investigation in which the

(56:47):
check is not, for now the federal government when it
comes to Steve Bomber, but a dude with a podcast.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
And that's sort of the other thing that I'm working on.

Speaker 3 (56:56):
To well, you know, keep it up, man, Yeah, yeah,
out there. If you're listening, you have something to leak,
send it to PAPLO. I would love to see it.

Speaker 11 (57:04):
I'd appreciate it. My podcast would in fact appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
Thank you, guys, I appreciate you too. Thanks for coming
on mans anytime, anytime.