← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everybody, it's Tim over the bulwark. I'm here with my buddy Pablo Torre of Pablo Torre finds out the only millennial doing more content than me out there right now. I mean, dude, like, where do you find the time? How many hours? How many hours are in your day? Pablo Torre?
- [00:15]
B
All you got to do. The key to making more content as an elder millennial, is to ignore your daughter. And so when you do that, Tim, you might consider that the ultimate life hack is being a bad father.
- [00:26]
A
Okay, I'm not ignoring my daughter, so.
- [00:28]
B
I don't know, maybe that's the competitive edge that I have.
- [00:31]
A
Okay, got it. That's right. You're putting a few more hours in. It's okay. There'll be time on the back end. There's always time for parenting and love.
- [00:38]
B
I'm told that, generally speaking, podcasting is what people regret on their deathbed. They didn't do more of it.
- [00:44]
A
I didn't podcast enough.
- [00:45]
B
Living up to that aphorism.
- [00:47]
A
You have a bunch of politics adjacent. People don't know. Pablo is of ESPN fame and has gone out on his own. Struck out on his own, so to speak. And Pablo Torre finds out as. As. How do you. It's an investigative reporting. It's sports, it's news. I mean, you've been on the page before for new people. You get, you know, sometimes it's really sportsy, and other times you're getting into other stuff.
- [01:11]
B
Yeah, it's journalism solving mysteries. They tend to be about sports, but they tend to also take us into squarely political topics in which sports happens to be. Tim, I don't know if you've noticed this. The crowbar that a certain political party is way better at using to pry open wallets and votes. And so in that regard, it ends up inevitably being a story about the time we are living in.
- [01:34]
A
Speaking of how much better that political party is at using sports. Like, boy, being in Tiger Stadium the weekend after Charlie Kirk's assassination was really something. I mean, it was just. It was crazy. Like, truly insane. I was sitting. I'm like, I'm the only person in the section that knows Charlie Kirk, actually. And I think, I don't know, maybe one other guy has been to a TPUSA thing, and the whole crowd was. Was just wrapped by the honorific that led the football game.
- [02:01]
B
Wild world.
- [02:02]
A
Anyway, let's get down to business. Your most recent one. Well, it's not your most recent, but the most recent one that is making waves, is about Riley Gaines. My colleague, JVL wrote a little bit of a spin off on it for the Triad newsletter this week. If people caught that rally. Gaines was the daughter of Rowdy Gaines, famous swimmer.
- [02:22]
B
That's not her dad, but, God, it would make more sense if it was.
- [02:24]
A
It's not.
- [02:25]
B
Brad Gaines, an obscure Philadelphia Eagles player who had a cup of coffee in the NFL is actually her dad.
- [02:32]
A
Really?
- [02:32]
B
Yes. Yes.
- [02:34]
A
I apologize to Rowdy for smearing him.
- [02:37]
B
It's a compliment and a smear that she would come from that lineage. But she comes from, in fact, football stock, SEC stock. Her dad went to Vanderbilt and played football.
- [02:46]
A
Now that's making way more sense. This is what you find out, and I'm just a commentator. So Riley was on the Kentucky swimming team.
- [02:53]
B
Yes.
- [02:54]
A
She was defeated by Leah Thomas, the trans swimmer at Penn. Well, it's swim meets.
- [03:01]
B
Well, I gotta stop you there, Tim, because if Leah Thomas never existed, Riley Gaines would have had the exact same Finish, which is fifth place. They tied and down to the 10th of a second. It's kind of like the origin story of this whole thing is they tied for fifth place.
- [03:18]
A
Well, she would have had fifth alone, so she would have had the honor of not having to share the fifth place college swimming with Leah Thomas. This is kind of the villain origin story of Riley Gaines. She's so outraged that this happened that she becomes a vocal spokesperson against having trans women competing in women's sports. I have some kind of complicated views on that. We'll get to that in a second. But the interesting thing is that this becomes her reason for existing, her raising to address her life's work. I've seen her speak at a lot of right wing events. She's on Fox all the time. She's just like, this is it like she, this. She has taken this on and has become the face of this. You spoke to many of her teammates at Kentucky, and the story gets a little bit complicated, especially when you consider that the context of a lot of her advocacy is that she's just out to protect women. She's concerned about women and girls. They don't want to have to share a locker room with trans girls. And protecting women is a big concern of hers. So talk to me about how that story gets complicated.
- [04:25]
B
Yeah. So we reported this story with Madison Pauley at the center for Investigative Reporting. Mother Jones. That's who did a lot of the legwork here. I want to make clear, though, at the top, before I explain what's complicated, that this is simple in some ways, because this is not a story at all about advocacy. For trans inclusion. I don't, frankly, in this specific conversation, I don't care what anyone's view is about, for or against. Yes, trans girls should be playing on girls teams. You could have a difference of opinion there. That's actually a reasonable, scientifically informed debate we can have. This story, though, is about Riley Gaines and the evolution of Riley Gaines as his political operative that you just described. Because the question of what's complicated got complicated because when you listen to what Riley Gaines was saying from the beginning of her story in which he ties for fifth with Lia Thomas, the argument goes from, man, I'm disappointed by this, and I don't personally blame Lia Thomas all the way to fast forward, the thing that tips the election, you could argue, which is an argument of I was sexually assaulted because I had to compete with a trans athlete in college. And so the argument goes from this thing about should Lia Thomas be allowed to swim against me, to these trans athletes are predators who are guilty of something that is equivalent morally to sexual assault. Those are the words that Riley Gaines says at the prodding of people. And you go through the sort of Mortal Kombat ladder of conservative hosts, from Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire to Clay Travis and out kicked Tucker Carlson on Fox News. You go up and you see through the journey of just listening to the tape, the ways in which this rhetoric escalated and got weaponized. And I mean that almost literally in the sense of these words got used against a population of people who were never accused before this era of, in this swimming context, being predators.
- [06:36]
A
Right.
- [06:37]
B
And so the complication, of course, is, is one that was brought to us because the story we tell is told through the voices and the eyes of Riley Gaines's former teammates at the University of Kentucky, who point out something essential, which is they had to watch Riley Gaines go through this whole victimhood industrial complex that earned her money, lots and lots of money, over time, swung elections in ever more increasing and pervasive ways, while also the real story of victimization of their team was largely, if not entirely, being ignored. And that's Tim, the story of the head coach of the University of Kentucky swim team, Lars Jorgensen, who Riley Gaines has described in her book as one of her best friends, a mentor, someone the person who brought her to uk, a person that as recently as a couple of months ago, she called a terrific coach. Because Lars Jorgensen has been accused of raping multiple members of the University of Kentucky with women's swimming team Riley Gaines teammates. And she has spoken as a matter of contrast against the Mortal combat, ladder of victimhood, industrial complex stuff we described before. She's talked about Lars Jorgensen. I mean, never allowed, but sent one tweet about it. And that was before, by the way. She compared her personal situation to what Simone Biles experienced when she was literally sexually assaulted by Larry Nassar in another Twitter feud. So the complication, I think, is through the eyes of the people who actually know her and competed alongside her.
- [08:11]
A
And that tweet she sent was, like, before this recent, like, recent compliments of him. Right. Like, when the first story about him came out, she did. She posted. I want to hear more about Jorgensen. But, like, just for people that are watching, because, you know, we have folks who have differing views on this, and we can maybe do a whole separate episode on this where I talk about the trans women's fourth. I just want to talk about why this caught my eye, why I wanted to talk to you, to you about it in particular. And it's more about just like, the fact that this person, Riley, could experience these two things at the same time and decide that the one that was a bigger threat to women was the trans woman that was competing against her. Because, like, from my position, I think that's complicated. There are certain cases where I think that, you know, that people make a big deal out of nothing when it comes to trans girls playing in sports, depending on age. And I think they're. Obviously, these are things that you should, like, the Olympics should be caring about, not, you know, senators. You know, I watched a Fox show. I was one time watching Fox, and they were talking about a trans girl that was competing in a skateboarding tournament and how she won. And I was like, I'm not sure what the advantage was there exactly. The swimming case, it's kind of like because of just the physical, biological nature of it. And it's not a team sport. It's individual. And it's just, look, this is. Who can swim faster. Obviously, Michael Phelps can swim faster than Katie Ledecky. Right. And, like, there's, you know, so I think that there is a biological element to this. I'm sympathetic to the point of view that, like, probably a trans girl shouldn't be competing in women's college swimming.
- [09:40]
B
My brief summary is that there should be rules regulating testosterone primarily, but just like, competitive advantage whenever possible. And if you want to argue, man, I can't justify this just because I think about those edge cases that are like, one in a zillion. I actually understand that's an okay position to have, and that's A separate. I would say, agreed, there's a separate episode in which that's the actual substance of the debate.
- [10:07]
A
We'll work through that. So then to me, it's like, okay, once that's kind of stated out there, like, the interesting thing about Riley is, like, how can you. It's almost a psychological question. It's a question of. It's a psychological question. It's a question about our politics that you can decide, wait, I can actually gain more fame and influence by having experienced this on this women's swim team in Kentucky and having experience having a coach who allegedly sexually assaulted my teammates and was an actual threat and menace to girls who are competing in sports. And I can also compete against a trans swimmer. And that 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. And to me, like, that bifurcation is what makes the story so interesting. And it has so much, I think it says so much about what's happening in our political culture and our discourse right now.
- [11:04]
B
Yeah, look, my mentions right now are a super fun site. It is un viewable, basically at the moment. And a lot of the debate, they want to have it. People who are like, pro Riley Gaines, let's call it, they want to have it on the basis of inclusion of trans athletes. The stuff that we just said, there is a debate there. The conversation that no one can really explain to me is why, if you're looking at weighing harms here, right, we're not all talking about the thing that happens actually with a degree of frequency that is undeniable, which is male coaches assaulting their own players. And so the whole thing of like, how dare you have men and women's spaces. I'm like, okay, let's have the conversation. But just understand that the history from Larry Nassar to allegedly Lars Jorgensen on Down the Line is full of actual case studies of harm that no one seems to care about. And so, Tim, this is where, like, the overlap happens. The trans issue. Because there are so few trans athletes that exist, it has been a political win in search of victims.
- [12:11]
A
Right.
- [12:12]
B
And Riley Gaines, as much as she is central casting in terms of who you want to see on a stage at cpac, she is also someone who, from Lia Thomas's perspective, as per her own quotes, in the days after she tied with Leah Thomas, 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. And we follow the money, by the way, throughout the story through tax forms. In terms of her leadership center, who's funding that, and DeVos, by the way, Betsy DeVos is putting six figures into Riley Gaines pocket and she's getting paid 25k a speech. And all this stuff is happening. You see that the incentive structure reveals itself because of our American political climate, in which being this victim, that indicates that a trans person is not merely an unfair competitor, but actually a threat to you, an innocent girl. That is a winning issue because people, men, let's be honest, they don't give a fuck in the main about, oh, wait a minute, there's a problem in women's sports with the coaches molesting. It's like we've heard that a zillion times before. The trans athlete, though, I think psychosexually, frankly, activates something in a voter that's just different and they've realized it and they're running that play as much as possible.
- [13:28]
A
God, that's so strange, though, because everybody knows somebody who's had experience with like, a woman in their life that has had some kind of, you know, unwanted sexual advance against them. And so that should be something that connects with everybody. And I just think about this. It's funny you mentioned, like, the victim, the rewarding of the playing, you know, victim here, as Riley did when she had. Some teens are actually victimized and like, she's playing victim for tying for fifth. And Ben Shapiro was one of the first people to give her a platform. Ben Shapiro is on this whole book tour right now about how, like, about how victim culture is a problem in America and how we need more lions and not lambs. And. And it's like you imagine a, an alternate universe, right, where Riley Gaines had decided, hey, I'm going to become an advocate for female athletes who are, you know, sexually assaulted by. By figures in power, by coaches. And, you know, I'm going to do a press conference about this and like, I'm going to try to find some money and start a nonprofit. I'm going to go out and talk about that. Like, you can imagine some. Like what? Like whatever she might be able to get on. Pablo Torre finds out there might be a Today. I'm not saying there's no interest in. There might be one Today show segment.
- [14:39]
B
About this, I would like to think.
- [14:41]
A
Yeah, but there's no way to imagine. What there's no way to imagine is that that can be. That would become the platform for her to become a massive political figure. Speaking at Presidential events, you know, having an, you know, a content mill of her own that makes money. You're right. Like, the scale of her ability, to me, that is like the heart of the story. Like, that she was able 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]
B
Well, and we know that for a fact because we've run that experiment and it's just called American history. Like, I mean, just we don't know who that person is because they've never been elevated in that way. Donald Trump, when he puts those, you know, those truths out and he has the list of things when he was trying to distract us from the whole Epstein thing, and it was like, look at all I've done for you. He puts trans in there.
- [15:33]
A
Yeah, right.
- [15:33]
B
And. And that's not because it's a personal passion project. It's because I think it just works. And I do want to just acknowledge, like, politically speaking, it works. I get it. I get why you run the play. The question is, of course, and I mean this in all sorts of ways financially and just from a rights, a human rights perspective, at what cost? Who pays that price? And in some cases, it's the dark money flowing in to Riley Gaines pockets. In other cases, it's truly a vulnerable population that is already at risk by the way of suicide at a rate of almost one in three attempted. Right. Like, which is just crazy. And I just want to acknowledge that just because it's also statistically a thing to consider those people who are just trying to, like, frankly 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. And it's indefensible because it's actually working.
- [16:36]
A
Yeah, I agree. It's indefensible in a vacuum. But it's just, in this case, it's just so stark because, like, it's ineffectible as compared to the other threats that were shooters experiencing, by the way. This is not me being like, oh, it was morally, you know, Bradley Gaines was morally obligated to go out and become an advocate on behalf. It's not that. It's just that, like, these, these things happened. She identified one of them as something that was a major threat that. And that she was going to make her whole career about. And it was, you know, this, this, this issue that is a not really causing material harms to other people. It's not, they're not. There's not like all the abundance of cases of trans athletes in locker rooms creating problems. Right. Like there is with coaches sexually assaulting and, and, and, and worse than that, it's like it's victimizing other people.
- [17:22]
B
Yeah. And I, I do want to make clear, like, we talked to people who were dressing in those locker rooms at the NCAA final with Leah Thomas and Riley Gaines, and they say, they told us, multiple sources told us, that Leah Thomas changed behind a towel facing the other way. And by the way, when you talk to those swimmers and listen and read what Riley Gaines said immediately afterwards, 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. And to me, when I say that 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, sexual assault of dozens upon dozens of female athletes, with Riley Gaines experience tying for fifth with Leah Thomas, absent any other demonstrable harm, we're living in a batshit dystopia that we don't actually need to. If we just use the facts and the quotes and the tax forms as our guide to, like, is this bullshit or not?
- [18:35]
A
Right.
- [18:35]
B
And I hope that we do.
- [18:37]
A
All right, while we're talking about grifters, Clay Travis did come at you on this mutual friend of ours, Clay Travis from Outkick coverage. What was that exchange about? Where'd he fall on this?
- [18:47]
B
Everything that Clay has demanded of me falls along the lines of debate me on should men compete in women's sports. But the other stuff that we've just spent now, minutes, 20 minutes, almost talking about, there is nothing to say about that, which I think is the entire also point that I want to make, which is, it's very easy to win votes when you're creating this boogeyman. It's a lot harder when you have to, like, assess the facts. And, and I'll just point this out. Like, when you see the, again, the timeline in the Mortal Kombat totem pole, Clay is on there, and he prods Riley Gaines on tape, which we play in the episode, to sharpen the rhetoric. You can almost hear him coaching the rhetoric out of her, like, guiding politically this whole conversation to a More winning place.
- [19:41]
A
Right.
- [19:42]
B
And I think people should know better. Clay should know better. Listeners should know better. We should know better.
- [19:49]
A
Yeah, Clay does know better, which is why I pick on him. Okay. You've had a couple other episodes lately that, that overlap with the political. As mentioned, Phil Mickelson, who I just want to say, you know, all I can judge him on is being a 12 year old that went to the local golf tournament in Denver and which golfers were nice to me and when I wanted to get signatures and which ones were mean. And Phil was nice. Phil's nice. He waited around. He likes attention, all that. So I don't know what happened, but Phil has gone full maga now. Phil is like off and full Saudi. Right. He's not even really full MAGAs. Make America great again. Phil has gone full MSG, I guess, and he's off his rocker. So you've done that. People might like that one. And also you're being sued by Bill Belichick's girlfriend. So if you want to give us. Yeah, just give us like the elevator pitch for both of those episodes before we lose you.
- [20:42]
B
Yeah. So Phil Mickelson is a guy who has, I think, talking about gambling and sports a lot recently. No one has gambled more on pro sports while being a pro athlete than Phil Mickelson.
- [20:53]
A
Is that based or not based? I don't know where we're at on that.
- [20:55]
B
I think it is based to the point of, I mean, it feels like you're free basing drug, frankly, that is afflicting a lot of American men these days. And I say that to say that his involvement with naturally a literal, like, oil rig off the coast of Santa Barbara that he has been taunting Gavin Newsom about. There's a 14 inch cock tweet about Trump and there's a lot in that story, but he's basically in a group chat with a bunch of bros.
- [21:25]
A
He was giving Trump a. If you're in the business world, you know about multiples, you know, if you have a. If you have a company and you have a certain revenue, like, you know, sometimes someone's investing in you, they want to give you like a 5x multiple. Or think for on Trump's cock, he was giving him like a 7x multiple, which is, you know, which is something that you want to do if you want to make Trump happy.
- [21:44]
B
And the point being there, that that enormous inflated cock was to be waved in front of the face of Gavin Newsom such that the regulations would subside and that company, Sable Offshore, would become A real winner. Another gambling play that would potentially pay off for Phil Mickelson. The investigation on whether it will, I would, I would just say humbly continues, but doesn't look great. But Phil as political and economic actor is its own like politics, sports nightmare. The other one which I am dealing with as of today. We're talking on Sunday. And Jordan Hudson, Bill Belichick's idea mill slash muse slash momager slash girlfriend slash business partner slash everything.
- [22:28]
A
More jobs than Marco Rubio.
- [22:29]
B
More jobs than us, Tim. Like really, she's out there.
- [22:32]
A
She's grinding.
- [22:33]
B
Enterprising young person rising to shame, moving fast and breaking things, as Mark Zuckerberg would say. She has just put on Instagram that she's going to sue me. I have reported, of course, extensive. I don't quite know. I genuinely am continuing my investigation as to, like, what did I do this time? But we've had multiple episodes, of course, investigating Belichick, who is the highest paid employee, public employee in the state of North Carolina. 10 million a year to coach North Carolina, who will not make a bowl game as of this past weekend, officially, it seems. And Jordan Hudson has decided to wage, apparently, or at least threaten to wage legal war against me, which I look forward to covering. I suppose. So. There's also just that my phone is. Is a bad place right now.
- [23:20]
A
Yeah.
- [23:21]
B
Except it also continues to warm the fire of my dark, dark, content driven heart. So there's a lot happening.
- [23:30]
A
Thanks for just spending a few minutes in the Good place with me over here and good luck coming back to your phone after this and I will be keeping you posted. Everybody can go watch and listen to your material. We'll put the links down here at Pablo Torre finds out and it sounds like we'll have more to talk about soon. All right, brother.
- [23:48]
B
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.
- [23:54]
A
Go parent right now. Leave that phone right there and go.
- [23:57]
B
All right.
- [23:57]
A
There's got to be some sports on. You know, go spend 20 minutes or read her a book. Read her a book. How about that?
- [24:03]
B
You know what?
- [24:04]
A
I took my daughter to the two lane LSU women's game on Monday. Look at me. So this is me. This is sports dad, honoring women's sports and parenting and content creating. Not to rub it in your face, Pablo, but that's what's happening over here.
- [24:16]
B
I've been reading Phil Mickelson's tweets.
- [24:19]
A
Okay, okay.
- [24:20]
B
Yeah, that's what this dad's been up to.
- [24:22]
A
Take a break from that, all right? We'll see you soon, homie.
- [24:24]
B
Touche.