A New Low? Trump Invites SEX OFFENDER to the White House (w/ Pablo Torre)

Summary

Bulwark Takes: A New Low? Trump Invites SEX OFFENDER to the White House (w/ Pablo Torre)

Host: Tim Miller, The Bulwark
Guest: Pablo Torre
Release Date: August 1, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of Bulwark Takes, host Tim Miller is joined by Pablo Torre, the unofficial sports correspondent from The Bulwark's YouTube platform. The discussion delves into a controversial White House assembly led by former President Donald Trump, which includes figures with questionable backgrounds, notably a registered sex offender and professional entertainer Triple H. The conversation spans various topics, including Trump's handling of scandals, the state of college athlete compensation, and the broader implications for sports culture.

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Trump's Controversial White House Assembly

The episode opens with Tim Miller addressing a peculiar event where Donald Trump, now a prominent figure at the White House, is surrounded by individuals who appear to be leveraging their notoriety for political purposes.

• Notable Quote:
  Tim Miller [00:15]: “Donald Trump, the President was flanked by several people who seem like they're using PEDs to discuss the re-establishment of the Presidential Fitness Test.”

Pablo Torre expresses his frustration and amusement regarding Trump's choice of associates:

• Notable Quote:
  Pablo Torre [02:21]: “Lawrence Taylor, who is literally at one point an actual registered sex offender. New York Giants great is up there.”

Tim Miller sarcastically criticizes the strategy of bringing a sex offender into the White House, suggesting it serves as a distraction from administration scandals:

• Notable Quote:
  Tim Miller [02:32]: “It's important to bring in, you know, when you're dealing with a scandal about that's embroiling your administration, about how you are covering up Your involvement in a sex offender. It's important to bring a registered sex offender to the White House to kind of distract.”

The duo continues to dissect the odd composition of Trump's entourage, highlighting the inclusion of Triple H, a professional entertainer rather than a genuine sports figure:

• Notable Quote:
  Pablo Torre [02:40]: “Triple H is there. This is what I'm mad at. Like, I live in sports. I feel like the kid in high school who's like, he doesn't even go here.”

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Handling of Sexual Scandals

A significant portion of the discussion centers around Trump's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and the involvement of high-profile individuals in his administration.

• Notable Quote:
  Donald Trump Clip [04:22]: “We banned men from competing in women's sports. And last week the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee announced that they will be complying with that order.”

Tim Miller critiques Trump's response to the Epstein allegations, suggesting a lack of genuine accountability:

• Notable Quote:
  Tim Miller [05:07]: “He's got LT with him. It's like RFK is there. And he's like, gotta answer this question from ABC about, like, whether he knew what Jeffrey Epstein was doing.”

Pablo Torre adds depth to the conversation by questioning the authenticity of Trump's initiatives, labeling them as "fake" and ineffective:

• Notable Quote:
  Pablo Torre [13:38]: “And so it's like, what do you do with Tim? What's more, what's more notarized than having triple H there counterpoint.”

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State of College Athlete Compensation

Transitioning from political controversies, the conversation shifts to the evolving landscape of college sports, particularly the debate over athlete compensation.

Tim Miller shares a personal anecdote about his passion for college athlete pay, illustrating the intensity of his commitment:

• Notable Quote:
  Tim Miller [01:38]: “I have a longtime passion for college athlete pay. It's been like when me and Jeb one time got into a fight on a plane...”

Pablo Torre critiques the current proposals by Trump’s council, arguing that they lean more towards socialism than free-market capitalism:

• Notable Quote:
  Pablo Torre [11:48]: “It's so much more socialist than anything Z Doron is proposing. It is. It's just like you had for the first time the sort of primordial ooze of a free market.”

The discussion highlights the confusion and frustration within college sports regarding the lack of clear regulations, with the NCAA being criticized as an ineffective governing body:

• Notable Quote:
  Pablo Torre [12:15]: “The NCAA is basically an absentee institution that's I think participating in this whole circus, this charade because they want an antitrust exemption.”

Tim Miller defends the current system, emphasizing the autonomy it provides athletes in choosing their teams and negotiating NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) deals:

• Notable Quote:
  Tim Miller [10:25]: “They're on LSU and they're not playing or they're not getting a good NIL deal and Nebraska comes in... it's the student that's able to make this choice for themselves. It's a pure capitalist system.”

However, he acknowledges the potential for future regulation issues if initial rules are not effectively implemented:

• Notable Quote:
  Tim Miller [13:40]: “If some of the people start following the rules, well then that's what other schools will be like... You can sue us and we'll go see you in court.”

Pablo Torre underscores the chaos that could ensue without proper contractual agreements, comparing it to an "eternal free agency":

• Notable Quote:
  Pablo Torre [15:28]: “That's very frustrating to Nick Saban... it's like, you half heard a complaint by Tommy Tuberville at a golf course, and you're like, I got it.”

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Sports Culture and Personal Anecdotes

Throughout the episode, Tim Miller interjects personal stories and accolades to highlight positive aspects of sports culture, such as celebrating his daughter's achievement at a basketball camp:

• Notable Quote:
  Tim Miller [07:53]: “Shout out to my daughter and her cousin who got the gold medal in the 89 year class at the Nuggets Denver Nuggets basketball camp this week.”

He contrasts this with the cynicism towards professional athletes like Nikola Jokic, emphasizing the importance of nurturing youth sports:

• Notable Quote:
  Pablo Torre [08:04]: “Care as little about winning a trophy as they do Nikola Jokic.”

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Conclusion

The episode wraps up with Tim Miller praising Pablo Torre for his insightful contributions to the discussion, hinting at future conversations on similar topics:

• Notable Quote:
  Tim Miller [15:28]: “Pablo, thank you for being our unofficial sport correspondent. Everybody, go support Pablo. Go listen to stuff...”

Pablo Torre responds with anticipation for continued dialogue, suggesting that the issues discussed are far from resolved:

• Notable Quote:
  Pablo Torre [15:42]: “I have a feeling we will be talking about this way too soon. Actually.”

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Key Takeaways

1. Controversial White House Moves: Donald Trump's inclusion of individuals with dubious backgrounds, such as a registered sex offender and Triple H, raises questions about the administration's priorities and strategies for handling scandals.

2. Handling of Sexual Scandals: The episode critiques Trump's approach to addressing allegations related to Jeffrey Epstein, highlighting a superficial handling of serious issues.

3. College Athlete Compensation: The discussion underscores the complexities and challenges in regulating college sports, especially concerning athlete compensation and the role of the NCAA.

4. Sports Culture: Personal anecdotes emphasize the importance of fostering positive sports environments for youth, contrasting them with the chaos and cynicism in professional sports.

5. Future Implications: Both Tim Miller and Pablo Torre acknowledge the ongoing nature of these issues, indicating that further discussions and potential legislative or regulatory actions are anticipated.

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Final Thoughts

Bulwark Takes delivers a nuanced exploration of intersecting themes in politics and sports, anchored by Tim Miller and Pablo Torre's candid dialogue. By weaving together personal experiences with critical analysis of current events, the episode provides listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and controversies shaping today's socio-political and sports landscapes.

Transcript

[Unknown Speaker]

Not all meals are created equal. For instance, breakfast has the spicy egg McMuffin for a limited time and lunch doesn't. McDonald's breakfast comes first.

[Tim Miller]

Hey, everybody. Tim Miller from the Bulwark here. Donald Trump, the President was flanked by several people who seem like they're using PEDs to discuss the re. Establishment of the Presidential Fitness Test. And the Sport Council, which is going to be doing a lot of. Including making sure that young, poor, black athletes have some limits on what they can be paid because capitalism is so great. I brought in our. Our unofficial sports correspondent of this YouTube page, Pablo Torre, who is on a fucking heater over at. Pablo Torre finds out which you absolutely have to be subscribing to. He got somebody fired recently. You know, I mean, he's dominating debates in the podcasting space. There's a lot happening with you, Pablo.

[Pablo Torre]

Two people. Two people got. They resigned. They graciously resigned. Not in disgrace at the nflpa. But I digress. Tim, this video. I'm so mad. I am laughing, but also like, actually mad, which is a rare combination.

[Tim Miller]

Which party mad about because I'm trying to decide which clip that we'll play first. And the thing that I'm the most mad about because I have a longtime passion for college athlete pay. It's been like when me and Jeb. Me and Jeb one time got into a fight on a plane and I was like, we gotta find a couple issues we disagree on. And it was permanent daylight savings time college athlete pay. I'm forgetting what the third one was right now.

[Pablo Torre]

And we had a heated exclamation points.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, we had a heated fight over a couple scotches about college athlete pay. So I'm a longtime passion project for me. But if you have a different part of the clip you want to focus on first, we can.

[Pablo Torre]

There's a lot here, but I just want to focus just on like, who is there?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, let's do that first. I mean, Tim, you've got RFK Jr all natural there in his body. I don't know if you've seen that physique, but there's definitely. It's very Maha. No beef tallows going in there. Only beef tallow, rather. No hgh, definitely.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, I know how the sausage is made. It's more sausage. Lawrence Taylor, who is literally at one point an actual registered sex offender. New York Giants great is up there.

[Tim Miller]

It's important to bring in, you know, when you're dealing with a scandal about that's embroiling your administration, about how you are covering up Your involvement in a sex offender. It's important to bring a registered sex offender to the White House to kind of distract.

[Pablo Torre]

That's right. It's kind of like how you need a bank robber to know how to prevent further bank robberies.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. It's a catch me if you can type situation.

[Pablo Torre]

Absolutely. It's a white. He's a white hat sex offender. Allegedly. Got it, as it were. And by the way, Triple H. Triple H is there. This is what I'm mad at. Like, I live in sports. I feel like the kid in high school who's like, he doesn't even go here. Like, what? Triple H is in sports. What are we doing? He's not sports. He's a guy portraying not even a sports figure. He's portraying a professional entertainer. Tim, I'm watching the Suicide Squad assemble of just like sports adjacent characters. And it's. It's sad. It's a sad scene.

[Tim Miller]

Well, we definitely. You have to also mention Harrison Butker, who is definitely not gay. And a really good kicker. Like, a really good kicker is very. He's very well groomed and a good kicker, which is. Which is, you know, kind of sports being a kicker.

[Pablo Torre]

That's just good old fashioned Catholicism. Tim, digitized graduation speech. That is just what it's like to love the holy Trinity.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. So, I mean, he's a really good kicker, though. We do have to give him credit for that. Much better than me.

[Pablo Torre]

Very good.

[Tim Miller]

He'd do really good on game day in the kicking challenge. Okay, who was that? It. Was there anybody else? No.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, Bryson DeChambeau, who is, you know, he's there. He's a noted golf meathead who may or may not have been, you know, playing footsie with Saudi Arabia at one point, but who's counting? Who's counting at this point? Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

So that's a cruise. I do think it's interesting. I guess we'll. Since we've started. Since we've already started here. I will save the nil talk for the very end. I want to play one clip first. Just about this disassembled crew having to respond to a question about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

[Donald Trump]

Between this executive order trade, Russia, Gaza, but also the family of Virginia Giuffre released a statement overnight in response to some of the comments that you made this week. You said that Jeffrey Epstein stole people.

[Tim Miller]

From Mar A Lago.

[Donald Trump]

At the time, did you know why he was taking those young women, including Virginia?

[Unknown Speaker]

No, I didn't know. I meant I would. I would figure it was ABC fake news that would ask that question one of the worst. But no, I don't know really why. But I said if he's taken anybody from Mar? A Lago, he's hiring or whatever he's doing. I didn't like it. And we threw him out. We said we don't want him, you know, at the place. This is a story that's been known for many years as, you know. But it's. I didn't like it that he was doing that. Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

And so there. So Trump is up there.

[Pablo Torre]

Well done.

[Tim Miller]

He's got LT with him. It's like RFK is there. And he's like, gotta answer this question from ABC about, like, whether he knew what Jeffrey Epstein was doing when he was abducting these young women, young girls in this case from his club and then, you know, sex trafficking them. And Trump once again is very upset at abc, is obviously the person acting there. But it's pretty amusing to watch Triple H embroiled kind of tangentially in a sex scandal through the wwe. You know, you got LT there. You got rfk, who had some questionable issues in his past.

[Pablo Torre]

It's a real porous offensive line he's assembled to block him from conversation about the things they've all allegedly tangentially been involved in.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. So I thought that was. That was your most newsworthy exchange. And then because this is your favorite topic, you had him discussing the Miami Dolphins QB1. Let's listen to that.

[Unknown Speaker]

He was on the council and Tua Tag Ovalia, the quarterback who is really. He's been fantastic. He's been. When he's not injured, he's great. He's gotta stay healthy. But he's. And he's a great guy.

[Pablo Torre]

So look, I wanna acknowledge, like it's a very hard name to spell that is missing. That's like. It's your opposite.

[Tim Miller]

Could you pronounce it for our audience.

[Pablo Torre]

To a tongue of Iloa is how you should. To. To a tag of Iowa is also acceptable to a Tungamala Violoa. Like whatever. Like get in the continental. Sort of just like zone of the name. That's.

[Tim Miller]

Or just two of them. Just give him a Beyonce.

[Pablo Torre]

Be a guy who's ever watched football before, I think would be the standard that he has missed by about 100 yards.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And a couple decades, I think. And LT he feel. I think that he probably could speak with maybe a little bit of knowledge about the 1980s giants. Maybe not. But.

[Pablo Torre]

But clearly it was a real loosey goosey time.

[Tim Miller]

No ball. He doesn't know any ball when it comes to this year. Okay, now for the actual subject matter. Hands. So this group that he's put together, you know they're gonna do. We're gonna do the fitness competition again. That seems fine to me. I don't even know actually. I'm gonna go see the pod bro, the Pod Save bros tomorrow because I'm gonna be out in LA and I'm gonna give them some shit about this. I don't know why Obama got rid of the national fitness thing. Was that a woke thing? I don't know. Who knows? We should. We should have kept it. I agree, I agree.

[Pablo Torre]

I believe and I believe in trophy culture as a person from the world of sports. Yeah, let's feel bad that we can't do all of the pull ups. That's part of growing up.

[Tim Miller]

It is. Trophy culture is great. Speaking of which, shout out to my daughter and her cousin who got the gold medal in the 89 year class at the Nuggets Denver Nuggets basketball camp this week.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, wow.

[Tim Miller]

The other team won the championship, notably my daughter, seven. So do they teach the kids to.

[Pablo Torre]

Care as little about winning a trophy as they do Nikola Jokic?

[Tim Miller]

As do.

[Unknown Speaker]

They.

[Pablo Torre]

Just the little kids and Jokic just want to play with horses actually.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. No. The trophy culture was very strong here. They were very proud of their medals and much. They were. Let's just say they were much happier with their championship victory at this camp than Nicole Jokic was about the 2023 championship.

[Pablo Torre]

Sounds like.

[Tim Miller]

At least visibly on his face.

[Pablo Torre]

It does sound like it.

[Tim Miller]

Anyway. Okay. So we agree with that. It's nice to find an area of agreement.

[Pablo Torre]

Totally.

[Tim Miller]

Can.

[Pablo Torre]

Totally.

[Tim Miller]

Here's the other part of this, this little motley crew which included, I guess lt, but no other really football people.

[Pablo Torre]

You were promised Nick Saban at one point.

[Tim Miller]

Remember that people with familiarity with what's happening in college football and college sports today. And Trump goes on this rant, which we'll play right now.

[Unknown Speaker]

Great athletes have asked to join the council and we're going to let some of them come in, but they're going to also be working on college football in terms of what happened. It's a mess. What happened, what they're doing with college football and the fans are upset about it and players are being taken from team after team and being traded around like playing cards. And a lot of money's passing and nobody knows what's happening. So these people behind me are going to be very much involved in figuring that whole thing out and working on it and trying to bring some sanity to that. Incredible. Not only the football, college sports, very, very bad for women. Very bad. What's happening. Because now all of a sudden there's no women that are able to get the money that they're talking about. You know, it seems to be going mostly to football, some basketball and women's sports are being totally decimated. We know that, Annika, you know, with, with us, it's all going into football and some to basketball and everything else is being left behind and women are being left behind and lesser sports are being left behind and the Olympics is being decimated because that was like training for the Olympics. And now we're not going to have that many of those sports left. The smaller sports, they're almost going to be completely wiped out. This is crazy. What's going on. We banned men from competing in women's sports. And last week the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee announced that they will be complying with that order.

[Tim Miller]

He's mad that players are getting. He thinks players are getting traded against their will. I think, which. I think he misunderstands the program. What's really happening now, which is. Which I understand there's some annoyance too, which is now that people can. Now that these young men in football. And by the way, also he goes on to kind of rant about how this is hurting young women, which is totally not true. Like women's gymnastics, women's basketball players in college are making a ton of money right now actually, and good on them as those sports are becoming more popular and others. But anyway, these, these young athletes, mostly coming from poor backgrounds, not all, but a lot of them working class backgrounds, now have a chance to actually get some of the profits that these sports have been making. And as part of that, one of the other rules is they can choose to change teams, right? If they're on LSU and they're not playing or they're not getting a good nil deal and Nebraska comes in and it's like, hey, you'd be our QB one here at Nebraska. You're the backup at ls. We'll give you a million dollars. Local car dealer will or whatever. You can go, you can choose to leave. It's not like LSU is trading them to Nebraska. It's the student that's able to make this choice for themselves. It's a pure capitalist system. There may be some rules we could put around it. I'm open to talking about that. But I do think it is interesting that the crowd that is like, we are the Meritocracy we are for capitalism has looked at sports and they're like, the one thing that this council is going to change is to make sure that 19 year olds cannot get paid for their services to the universities. Okay, rant over. Pablo, what do you think about this.

[Pablo Torre]

Is so much more socialist than anything Z Doron is proposing. It is. It's just like you had for the first time the sort of primordial ooze of a free market. By the way, ruled 90 in front of the, in front of your own Supreme Court. Brett Kavanaugh sounding like, I guess in this context the wokest lib you've ever met, talking about how it's absurd to not let these, these professional adults realize the value of their labor in the most obvious and just like objective sense. And so here's where I think this happened, right? So I believe that lots of people in college sports rightfully are like this is way too messy. There are no real rules. It's the wild wild west. It's that, it's all of that. And they're not wrong. They're not wrong. There is no real way to regulate this. The NCAA is basically an absentee institution that's I think participating in this whole circus, this charade because they want an antitrust exemption. That's the Hail Mary to protect their ability to regulate a thing that is obviously in violation of various standards of would be collective bargaining. Except they're not employees and therefore cannot unionize. This bit of a whole issue with the definitions of like, are these people even employees in a legal sense. But Tim, the whole thing here is, you may agree that this is messy. You may agree that football and basketball and the revenue generating sports will because of the market make more money than the non revenue generating Olympic sports. And they are right to be worried that in a total free market in which none of this really has any precedent or regulation. What he is proposing though, I want to be clear about this is not real. Like is this an executive order saying you got to do this? Everybody I talked to in college sports is what they are saying is, is this anything? Is this anything actually? Like there have been Supreme Court cases, there have been settlements, there have been plenty of things that have happened through the court system. This seems fake.

[Tim Miller]

And so it is fake.

[Pablo Torre]

And so it's like what do you do with Tim? What's more, what's more notarized than having triple H there counterpoint.

[Tim Miller]

And it's also like if some of the people start following the rules, well then that's what other schools will be like, no, we're not going to follow the rules. You think that, you know, you think that the SEC schools are going to be like, we're going to follow these new fake rules. They're like, no, we're going to keep doing what we're doing. You can. You can sue us and we'll go see you in court. We'll beat you in court again, right? Like, the whole thing is ridiculous. And the things that they're proposing, like, we're going to cap socialism, like, we want to make sure that there are limits on the amount of money that they can create, et cetera, et cetera. And it'd be one thing if it's like, look, we should treat them like regular employees. There should be collective bargaining. They should have a contract. There should be a limit. Like, it's like anything else, right? It's like, if you sign a contract with LSU for three years, you can't then say, oh, I'm going to go to Nebraska. Sure. There's certain things that are within a normal economic system. That's not even what they're trying to do, though. They're just trying to be like the old man. That's like, we should go back to the days where these guys got paid nothing. And it's a. It's a student athem Elite.

[Pablo Torre]

They were so close to inventing contracts as a concept, right? Truly, it was like, it's. It's the scene in the Simpsons where Homer's brain is like, money explained. Money can be exchanged for goods and services. It's like, they're so close to understanding the basic unit of what capitalism is, and you need contracts. And that would help both sides, by the way, ensure salary, but also ensure the need to stay to abide by said contract at your team instead of entering the transfer portal, which is truly a chaotic thing that can basically resemble eternal free agency. That's very frustrating to Nick Saban, but, man, like, this is sort of like, you half heard a complaint by Tommy Tuberville at a golf course, and you're like, I got it. And then you showed up and it was this. And now here we are.

[Tim Miller]

Pablo, thank you for being our unofficial sport correspondent. Everybody, go support Pablo. Go listen to stuff. Not because he's my pal or because you should or whatever, because it's fucking great. His stuff is great. Go follow him on YouTube or on your podcast app of choice, and we'll be talking to you soon, bro.

[Pablo Torre]

I have a feeling we will be talking about this way too soon. Actually.

[Tim Miller]

All right, that's sad.

[Unknown Speaker]

Not all meals are created equal. For instance, breakfast has the spicy egg McMuffin for a limited time, and lunch doesn't. McDonald's breakfast.