Bulwark Takes — “The Story Riley Gaines Doesn’t Want to Tell” (with Pablo Torre)

Podcast: Bulwark Takes
Host: Tim Miller (The Bulwark)
Guest: Pablo Torre (ESPN, “Pablo Torre Finds Out”)
Date: November 24, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode dissects the transformation of swimmer Riley Gaines from NCAA athlete to high-profile culture war activist, with a focus on what that story leaves unspoken. Tim Miller and Pablo Torre go behind the headline conflict about trans athletes in women’s sports, examining the economic, personal, and political incentives that shape Gaines’s advocacy. They also contrast the media’s treatment of trans sports issues with the relative silence surrounding sexual abuse perpetrated by male coaches—a threat Gaines encountered firsthand but chose not to champion.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Intro & Setting the Stage

Timestamps: [00:00–01:47]

• Tim and Pablo open with friendly banter about the endless content machine, parenthood, and Pablo’s career pivot from ESPN to his own investigative journalism podcast.
• Pablo: “Podcasting is what people regret on their deathbed. They didn’t do more of it.” [00:38]

2. Who is Riley Gaines, Really?

Timestamps: [01:47–04:25]

• Correction: Riley Gaines is not related to swimming legend Rowdy Gaines, but is the daughter of Brad Gaines, a brief NFL player (Philadelphia Eagles).
• Gaines competed for the University of Kentucky’s swim team, most famous for tying for fifth place with trans swimmer Lia Thomas at NCAA finals.
• Gaines’s activism pivots around that moment—being the “villain origin story” of her public persona.
  Tim: “She’s so outraged that this happened that she becomes a vocal spokesperson against having trans women competing in women's sports... She has taken this on and has become the face of this.” [03:17]

3. Debate vs. Story: The Real Victims & The Ignored Scandal

Timestamps: [04:25–08:10]

• Pablo, with reporting partner Madison Pauley, shifts focus from the inclusion debate (“reasonable, scientifically informed debate”) to Gaines’s personal evolution as a political operative.
• Critique of the “victimhood industrial complex” and how Gaines’s derived fame/funding overshadows real harms experienced by her teammates:
  “The real story...was largely, if not entirely, being ignored. That’s the story of the head coach of the University of Kentucky swim team, Lars Jorgensen, who Riley Gaines described as one of her best friends… Lars Jorgensen has been accused of raping multiple members of the women’s swimming team—Riley Gaines’s teammates.” [06:36]

4. Why Did Gaines Choose the Trans Athlete Narrative?

Timestamps: [08:10–11:03]

• Tim questions why Gaines made her career on the trans athlete controversy, when the far more prevalent danger—coaches abusing athletes—was present in her own locker room.
• Tim reflects on the cultural obsession with trans athletes (“moral panic”) vs. indifference to male authority figures’ sexual abuse:
  “You can decide, wait, I can actually gain more fame and influence by having experienced this...and I could decide that that tie that I had with a trans swimmer was the thing that is the real threat to girls, not the coach that’s actually assaulting them.” [10:07]

5. Media Incentives, Political Incentives & Financial Rewards

Timestamps: [11:03–13:28]

• Pablo argues that the current political environment rewards the creation of a ‘trans victim’ archetype far more than whistleblowing on actual abuse.
  “There are so few trans athletes that exist, it has been a political win in search of victims. And Riley Gaines...is also someone who...there was no actual harm along the lines of predation and assault, that happened. But over time, as money is going into her bank account...you see that the incentive structure reveals itself...” [12:11]
• Detailed: Betsy DeVos funding, $25k per speech—financial context to Gaines’s advocacy.

6. Victim Culture, Hypocrisy & Scapegoating

Timestamps: [13:28–16:35]

• Tim draws out the irony of conservative pundits like Ben Shapiro, who decry “victim culture,” elevating Gaines mainly for her claims of victimization.
• Alternate history: Gaines the anti-sexual abuse advocate “maybe gets a Today Show appearance” but never becomes a star.
• Pablo: “We know that for a fact because we've run that experiment and it's just called American history. ...the scale of her ability to take the trans issue and become this political superstar...it's just hard to imagine she could have done that had she spoken about the actual harm to her teammates.” [15:13]

7. Impact on Trans Community and Reality Check

Timestamps: [16:35–18:34]

• The real, measurable harm done to the trans community spurred by such rhetoric—citing rates of suicide and stigmatization far outstripping identified harms in NCAA locker rooms.
• Pablo: “Those people who are just trying to, like...blend in in impossible ways and play sports, end up being recast as these people that we need to hunt with pitchforks and torches. And that, that effectiveness is indefensible to me.” [16:35]

8. What Happened in the Kentucky Locker Room?

Timestamps: [17:21–18:34]

• Eyewitness reporting: Leah Thomas changed discreetly, facing away from others; no contemporaneous claims of predator behavior.
• Pablo: “No one accused Leah Thomas of predation or sexual assault. And so it is merely the rhetoric. This is a story about why has the rhetoric changed and who is funding it and what is it doing to our country.” [17:21]

9. Media’s Role in Escalation: Conservative Hosts as Rhetoric Coaches

Timestamps: [18:34–19:48]

• Pablo: Conservative media figures (Ben Shapiro, Clay Travis, etc.) escalate Gaines’s rhetoric for political effect.
• “You can almost hear [Clay Travis] coaching the rhetoric out of her, like guiding politically this whole conversation to a more winning place.” [19:41]

10. Brief Teasers: Other Pablo Torre Investigations

Timestamps: [19:48–23:56]

• Phil Mickelson: Detailed gambling, aligning with “MAGA” and Saudi investments, bizarre social media moments, and regulatory taunting.
• Bill Belichick Lawsuit Threat: Coverage of Belichick’s girlfriend threatening to sue Pablo for his reporting; comments on the high stakes of coach salaries and sports celebrity drama.

11. Closing Parent Talk & Sign Off

Timestamps: [23:47–24:24]

• Tim, lightheartedly, flexes his sports-dad cred and reminds Pablo to balance content with parenting.
• Pablo: “As long as I get, I don't know, get like five minutes with my daughter in the next 30 days, I think I'll go parent. I'll be back.” [23:47]

Notable Quotes

• Pablo Torre, on the escalation of rhetoric:
  “The argument goes from, ‘Man, I’m disappointed by this...’ all the way to...‘I was sexually assaulted because I had to compete with a trans athlete in college...’ Those are the words that Riley Gaines says at the prodding of people. And you go through the Mortal Kombat ladder of conservative hosts…” [04:25–05:45]

• Tim Miller, on media incentives:
  “You can imagine some...alternate universe, right, where Riley Gaines had decided, ‘Hey, I'm going to become an advocate for female athletes who are sexually assaulted by figures in power...’ There might be one Today show segment... but there’s no way to imagine...that would become the platform for her to become a massive political figure.” [14:39]

• Pablo Torre, on real vs. manufactured panics:
  “The trans sports thing is a moral panic, it’s not to dismiss the real debate around the science of competitive advantage. It’s to point out that when someone is equating morally—as Riley Gaines has done unrepentantly—Larry Nassar’s assault...with [her] experience tying for fifth, absent any other demonstrable harm, we’re living in a batshit dystopia.” [17:21]

• Pablo Torre, on American history’s repeated silence:
  “We know that for a fact because we’ve run that experiment and it’s just called American history...The scale of her ability to take the trans issue and become this political superstar—in which it’s just hard to imagine she could have done that had she spoken about the actual harm to her teammates.” [15:13]

Key Timestamps Overview

• [03:00] — Riley ties for fifth with Lia Thomas, origin story of Gaines’s activism
• [06:36] — Coach Lars Jorgensen accused of rape, ignored by Gaines
• [10:07] — Why was the trans athlete her chosen cause, not teammate abuse?
• [12:11] — Financial rewards and political incentives for anti-trans activism
• [17:21] — Locker room reality: Leah Thomas’s behavior vs. rhetoric
• [18:34] — Conservative hosts escalate Gaines’s victim narrative
• [20:41] — Phil Mickelson’s gambling, political antics, and sports gossip
• [22:27] — Belichick girlfriend lawsuit threat

Tone & Language

The episode maintains a conversational, sometimes wry and irreverent tone, blending deep critique with gallows humor and pop-cultural asides. Both Tim and Pablo shift seamlessly between banter, genuine moral seriousness, and sharp media analysis.

Example:

• “The key to making more content as an elder millennial, is to ignore your daughter. ...the ultimate life hack is being a bad father.” (Pablo Torre, [00:15])

In Summary

This episode provides a nuanced look at Riley Gaines’s activism, focusing less on the trans sports policy debate and more on how and why a story about a minor competitive outcome became, for political and economic reasons, a cultural flashpoint—while more substantial, documented harm toward female athletes by male authority figures languished in obscurity.

For listeners seeking clarity on the Riley Gaines discourse, this conversation is essential—not for policy resolution, but for understanding who profits from moral panics and why some stories get louder than others.