← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, guys. Tim Miller of the Bulwark. I'm here with Pablo Torre of Pablo Torre Finds out fame and, you know, a bunch of other stuff. Dan LeBatard stuff. ESPN World Sports Commentary. I saw you at Nicole Wallace yesterday or Monday. So you're coming into my space as a sports commentator. That's right.
- [00:17]
B
I'm peeing on all the trees, Tim, that you thought were just your urine. Guess what? I'm on there, too.
- [00:22]
A
You're peeing on it now. All right, well, I was jealous of Nicole that she got to hang out with you, so I messaged you. And, like, the main topic here is this meeting happening this weekend about the LIV Golf Tour and PGA Tour merging and Trump, you know, wanting to be the deal man in that merge. And some of our viewers might not give a fuck about golf, but I think this is very relevant in two senses. One, it is just going to be another example of a Trump grift. So I think it's worth talking about that part about it. But more, it also is like the golf world has, like, mirrored the political world and like this, you know, sort of decline in caring about principle or our values or anything that we once held dear. So I want to just kind of COVID both of those. But to do it, could you explain to any newbies, like, the live origin story? Give us, like, the TLDR on the live origin story?
- [01:18]
B
Yeah, happy to, because I've been following the story for years, and it's crazy. And we're numb to it, which is a good opportunity to remind people, hey, don't be numb to this. So the PGA Tour had a monopoly, effectively, on golf. And this is not to say that they were praiseworthy in any way. Right. Like golf as an institution. Lots of old and ancient and, yeah. Flawed rituals around all sorts of demographic groups. That's not why I'm talking to you about the pga.
- [01:45]
A
We remember Tiger woods first. First Masters dinner. You know.
- [01:50]
B
That's right.
- [01:51]
A
And some of the jokes at his expense.
- [01:52]
B
Yeah. Yes, yes. The same club, Augusta, that also had Condoleezza Rice as its first member of her demographic also was making jokes about fried chicken and watermelon. To Tiger woods, an august institution unlike any other, truly. But the reason PGA and its enterprise is relevant here is because they were disrupted. Let's call it. Let's use that term of art. By Saudi Arabia, by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and their private investment fund. So the Saudi Royal Wealth Fund came along and said, hey, you know what? We're interested in stealing golf from America in order to make ourselves look better to Americans. And I frame it that way deliberately because on its face, doesn't seem like it should be successful. But as a very wise person once told me once, the answer to all your questions is money. And so what they did was they said, hey, we happen to have a desire to launder our reputation. We happen to be the kingdom that you may know from episodes like the bone sawing of journalists, Jamal Khashoggi being one example in that genre. You may remember us from our treatment of gay people. We have executed them previously. You may remember us, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, from our generally abysmal human rights record.
- [03:12]
A
Yeah, but prisoning, what is imprisoning of political foes, you know, and there's case you always forget, they sent people to Canada to kill a political foe. That was another. They tried to do another bone sawing that failed. And that guy in Canada who they tried to kill, his teenage kids are still, like, in captivity in Saudi Arabia. So we could go on and on. I just wanted to throw that one out there.
- [03:33]
B
And we shouldn't just yada yada, yada over the laundry list here. Truly the laundry list they're trying to sports wash and launder. Because, by the way, also in that catalog is 9, 11, right? 15 of the 19 hijackers. Just. And that'll come back as I proceed deeper into this. But the point being, they said, hey, golfers, we're going to create a rival tour to compete with the pga. And you take our money, you become employees of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and we're going to basically prove to all of America we're warm and cuddly, we're warm and fuzzy, you might even say, and come around to seeing our new modern way of life. And what happened was all these golfers took the money, and so there was this big fracturing between the PGA and liv, which is what they called their rival tour, the LIV Golf Tour, which is, spoiler alert, not going to wind up being a good product, but will be successful in drawing big names from the pga. And so anyway, there was this fracturing. There was this seemingly blood feud between the PGA and liv. But over time, what happens is Donald Trump. I mean, do we want to get to the Trump part here? Because I think it's probably, I guess.
- [04:41]
A
Well, let's go to the Trump part after one quick morality thing, because my brother from another mother, Rory McElroy, is as, I think, kind of like the tragic figure in this story.
- [04:51]
B
I see the resemblance.
- [04:53]
A
Yeah, my little brother, like, really looks like him. He's much handsomer than me. But the Rory, like, takes the moral high ground in this case, right? And it's like, no, I'm not going to go take the money. I'll take less money to stay on Tour. These are bad people. We shouldn't do this. We should have standards and values. And, like, essentially what happens as we fast forward and now you get into the Trump world is like, the public just kind of didn't care. And. And Rory's like, competitors ended up making all the money and then getting everything right. Like, there was going to be a moment where people are like, if you go take the Saudi money, you can't be in the Masters. You can't be in the US Open. And. And what ended up happening was everybody kind of folded, and they're like, well, the Masters US Open won't get as good ratings if we don't have the live people in there. And so Rory, like, lost all the money, and all the people that did the bad thing got rewarded for it. And that brings us nicely to Donald Trump.
- [05:51]
B
Well, yeah, and I just want to add one more thing, too, because you just reminded me, right, 2022, this is all going down. And Phil Mickelson has an interview with the author Alan Shipnock, for a book he's working on. And Phil Mickelson gives away the game. Okay? So we'll set the stage for the moral high ground here by quoting Phil Mickelson. He said, yes, the Saudi kingdom killed Khashoggi. Yes, they do all these things to gay people. Yes, they have a horrific human rights record. This is essentially a paraphrase. You can go look it up. But what we have here is an opportunity to disrupt the business of the pga. And therefore, I, Phil Mickelson, I am taking the money, right? So that he says it. He says it. He says it all. They know it. And what happens is 2022, you may also recall, was after 2021. And on January 6th of 2021, what happens is after the insurrection on the Capitol, a lot of the PGA Tour stops. They say we can't do the Trump thing, right? We can't have. We can't have events at Trump courses in Scotland, in America. And so Trump temporarily is out. And so the pga, Tim, now is the disloyal party. And so what comes around in 2022 is it's ahead of September 11th, the anniversary, and there are families, nine, 11 families protesting at Bedminster in New Jersey, at Trump national, his golf course, ahead of a live golf tournament happening at Bedminster with Donald Trump as the business partner hosting the event. And so you have these families saying all the things about, wait a minute, what happened to never forgetting what happened to what the Saudi Arabians did to literally Americans in one of the worst, if not the worst, modern atrocity that everybody agreed to care about forever. And spoiler alert, again, nobody really listened to them.
- [07:44]
A
You know what we never forgot is that we love cash, is that cash is green. That's what we never forgot. And so if the Saudis want to have a golf tournament at Bedminster, it's good enough for the America first party.
- [07:56]
B
Yes. So America First. Now, fast forwarding to the future. Donald Trump has been foreshadowing for two years, complaining about the PGA welcoming business from Liv and Saudi Arabia. He's been saying a merger is inevitable. Anybody who is fighting Liv is going to lose. You might as well allow me now, Donald Trump this week to basically moderate a detente, a business merger in which, again, unsurprisingly, Donald Trump becomes a major winner. Because, yes, now his business, at his golf courses, the things he love, he loves the most, they will get to profit in ways that are just very clearly corrupt, given that he's, you know, the president.
- [08:42]
A
Yeah, guess what? PJ's coming back to Doral. You know, PJ's going back to Bedminster, whatever the fucking course is in California that he's got, you know, that, you know, you get additional stops there. Who the hell knows? Maybe the PGA Tour will accept Trump coin in exchange for, you know, tickets to other events. I. We don't. We don't know the contours of the deal yet, but seems like it's going to be a financially beneficial one for him.
- [09:08]
B
Yeah. Look, I do want to just phrase this in terms that I think are pretty undeniable. It's really an amazing trick that Trump is pulling where he gets to bathe in nationalism while being the direct business partner to Saudi Arabia. Like, Tim, I'm trying to track what bigotries we want and which ones we don't. I'm trying to track when foreignness is supposed to feel foreign and not like one of us. And it seems like the only through line is literally, are you giving Donald Trump money?
- [09:42]
A
Yeah, because the Chinese don't count either. I was just interviewing Zeke Fox about the crypto stuff, and this guy, Justin sun, this trial, this crypto magnet from China who has some pretty illicit dealings himself, is like, dumping tons of money into the Trump crypto and like that, like somebody that would be disallowed from donating to his campaign as a foreign national. Somebody that obviously, if he's giving money to the Bidens, would have been. Would have been seen as this huge, you know, attack on American patriotism. In addition to being corrupt, he's giving money to the Trumps, and it's like nobody cares. He's taking money from the Saudis, from Chinese crypto magnets, from. From everybody. And I guess that's part of the American first deal, because Trump is America now. Maybe that's really it.
- [10:24]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A bit of a fine print we're missing is that when we say America first, we really mean Trump and his associated golf courses and meme coins. It is, it is.
- [10:36]
A
Which is why I said it should have been Golf of Trump. Just make it Golf of Trump.
- [10:40]
B
I know, let's just cut to the chase here.
- [10:41]
A
Yeah, just make it Golf of Trump.
- [10:43]
B
The Saudi Arabia thing, though, just to like. What's frustrating to me is that, look, I understand that we're all playing hypocrisy detective, right? And sort of the big win of the MAGA party has been to say, but you do this, we're bad, but you do bad stuff, too. What we're dealing with, with the Saudi Arabia stuff and so many of the other things that you're outlining in terms of corruption is a reminder that not all corruption is created equal.
- [11:07]
A
Right?
- [11:08]
B
And in fact, when it comes to dealing with Saudi Arabia, again, if you're to pick 9, 11 as this thing that we all said was a pretty good standard for when America coalesced around really what felt like, let's value our own country instead of the people that fund terrorism, you would say that Saudi Arabia, okay, that's probably beyond the pale, but, but we've been testing. And again, in sports, by the way, this is not just a Trump story. This is a sports story in which everybody, unfortunately, is thirsting for their money. It's a really interesting thing. So, like, basically, in sports, by the way, as I always like to say, the lone monocultural institution we seem to have left, the. These, these, these American institutions everybody is putting a toe in the water of. Okay, you say the cable bundle is being disrupted, which means that our billions of dollars in revenue as scheduled are going to be eroding or changing. Well, we need to find a new. A new backer. And there is Saudi Arabia themselves thinking we gotta switch over from oil at some point to something else, maybe tourism, maybe entertainment. And they're saying if we can use sports to cover up atrocities that we have committed, then Maybe that's our future. And so there's this just meeting of desperate interests. And it's a marriage made in hell. And sports is quietly across the board. They are quietly meeting and deciding, let's get some of that money in because we don't want to be left out.
- [12:46]
A
I'm Dante and I'm taking you one step lower into hell. We're going even deeper right now because maybe the one thing that the Saudis missed was that it turned out they didn't need to sports wash it at all. Like. Like maybe it real. What it really turns out is that as long as they came with the money, everybody was going to eventually fold to their interests anyway. Particularly in a Trump 2.0 world.
- [13:11]
B
That's a particularly. You know, Tim, I can always count on you to make it even more staggeringly dystopian. Yeah, but you're right, like when we joke about the fine print, they're not even bothering to hide it in the small cereal box font.
- [13:27]
A
Yeah.
- [13:28]
B
We're seeing it in the newspaper. Like, this is unsubtle. Right? Like mbs Yazir Al Rumayan, his head of sports. I mean, truly, again, I come from sports. I've been monitoring this story and I'm like, okay, cool. Liv is back in the news. All right, I'm familiar with that. What's happening? Oh, Russia and the US are meeting in Saudi Arabia. Like, all, all of the streams are crossing. Like, what the fuck is this?
- [13:56]
A
All the streams are crossing. So this takes me to my other final topic for you, because it's my obsession and what I'm going to be talking to people that I'm thinking about a lot over the next year or two is that we, we being, you know, whatever, the defenders of liberal democracy, or democrats in some cases, however you want to put it, have been. Have been bleeding support from young men, from the bros, so to speak. And this conversation is like, kind of like, I think speaks to the challenge, right? Because if I'm coming into this as like a 22 year old dude vaping, you know, selling my fucking shitcoin, my fart coin, you know, looking for nudes.
- [14:40]
B
I'm just looking for nudes, mostly.
- [14:41]
A
Yeah, I'm like, I just stumbled upon this because I saw Pablo on tv, TV one time and I thought this was going to be some sports talk. I thought we're gonna be talking about how good Bryson Dechambreau's driver is or some. And I stumbled upon this and what I got is these two millennial scolds talking to Me about how, like, don't we have values anymore? Don't we? You know, and so I just, I do wonder in like the context of sports, like how you think the live thing has been resonating with people who come not from the 911 era like us, but from, from younger folks.
- [15:18]
B
Yeah. I mean, so first and foremost, like on my show, Pablo Torre finds out as aforementioned, like my entire mission there is to make sure I melt cheese on the broccoli. Right? Like you're going to get nutrition.
- [15:29]
A
Can chama.
- [15:29]
B
Chocolate.
- [15:30]
A
Can I get some chocolate on the broccoli or. I don't know.
- [15:32]
B
We will, we will. Chocolate, some msg, some Molly. Yeah, we can do some, some. We'll microdose some lsd. We'll do that too. Whatever, whatever you need to make this feel like you're enjoying yourself. We'll do it. But I mean that seriously, right? This stuff shouldn't just be scolding. It should also be truly like a realization that there is great comedy, albeit a dark comedy, in the absurdity of what we're seeing, which is a parallel to politics. So how is sports a parallel to politics here? Well, what's happening is that a sacred institution that you loved growing up has been sold piece by piece to truly the modern equivalent of the axis powers. It's the bad guys in the most on the nose movie you've ever seen. And the question is, as it is to the voter, are you having a better time consuming the product that's being sold piece by piece to the bad guys? And Liv Golf, what I will confidently say is that no one really likes that shit. It's not better now than it used to.
- [16:40]
A
Chills. When the music comes on, you know, you don't get the vibes. It's not the old flashbacks of Payne Stewart in the fucking pants. You know, it's worse, the product's worse, it's in shitification.
- [16:54]
B
It is being in shitified. And so even if, by the way, we led with some acknowledgement as we do as liberal cucks towards the idea that, by the way, the PGA August that they have some issues not trying to enshrine them, the point is what you are getting as a result of the insurification of everything due to outright unprecedented corruption is not good for the normal person, it's not good for the fan, it's not good for sports. And by the way, like the other thing that's funny to me and the comedy in this, Tim was watching all of this happen as the super bowl just sort of like turned over to me. Okay, what did the super bowl reveal? Lots of things, but one of them was that Donald Trump doesn't know ball. Tommy Tuberville, literally a football coach, does not know ball. He's. They're both making shit up about Patrick Mahomes, Right. In a way that should signal to you these people are not who they claim they are. They're using sports as if they are the bros and we're the cucks. And in reality, they're revealing at every turn that they don't actually know what they're talking about. And that part is just fundamentally, I'm just like, look, you can get me on the moral level, maybe you disagree with my philosophies, sure. But if you're telling me that those people are convincing you that they're actually Die Hard familiar with the shit you care about, we, we, we just aren't going to be able to agree on anything because they're revealing all the time that they're lying to you for their benefit and they're using you for spoiler alert. Their benefit.
- [18:32]
A
Yeah.
- [18:33]
B
Okay.
- [18:33]
A
I like this. This is how we're trying to reframe it. I mean, if you're the guy in the, in the back to back World War Champ shirt, you know, drinking the net, pounding the natty light, like, this is, this is. We're. We're on the bad guy side now. You don't want this. We should be fucking kicking these guys ass. We don't need their Saudi fucking money and that. We don't need them, you know, ruining our sports. Like, this is our shit. All right, get mine. Maybe there's a. Maybe there's a jingoistic way to take this back from Trump.
- [19:05]
B
It's yes, yes. If I can give you the people who we should. I mean, again, look, Tim, I, I am just, I'm from New York. Right. And so there's a parallel here to just like the New York thing.
- [19:18]
A
Yeah.
- [19:19]
B
Because 911. Look, I'm not, I'm not. I am somebody who has found a way to, to truly like not have that be the thing I want to club people over the head with every day. But when it just comes to like the most cinematic version of patriotism, I, I'm like, really? We're gonna let those guys who did this help that guy who's doing this to us? Like, this is weird. Pick whatever movie that you love growing up. Pick fucking Rocky. Guess who we're on the side of now. Ivan Drago. Guess. I mean, it just come on, man. Like, I grew up. I grew up. I grew up with a sense of who the villains are. I'm not even asking you to. To other eyes, anything. I'm just saying use the same shit that you grew up watching. Now just think of the world through that lens. What do you see?
- [20:11]
A
No, they're plane jacking Air Force One from Arizon. Ford, right? Yeah. All right. Be fucking Harrison Ford. Okay.
- [20:17]
B
Yeah. Instead of fucking Con Air, by the way, which is what this movie feels like.
- [20:21]
A
All right, that's Pablo Torre, everybody. Subscribe to rv. But go check out Pablo Torre finds out which I love. It is. How should I put this? It is sometimes a welcome reprieve from the dystopia that is my life. Every once in a while his shit overlaps with my dystopia and that's good then too. But I enjoy it. It's plain. It's plain listening for me. You know, it's evergreen. I was on with him right after the election, so if you want to go see how sad I sounded then.
- [20:48]
B
Oh, that was a good one.
- [20:49]
A
You guys can go listen to that app Sad.
- [20:51]
B
Tim Miller in person with a Denver Nuggets hat askew on his head contemplating is all the success of about to have in this post election cycle really worth it?
- [21:00]
A
And the answer is no. But I appreciate you all go listen to that episode of Pablo. Tori finds out. We'll be seeing y'all soon. See you brother.