How Republican Influencers Abandoned Football (and Might Fumble the Election)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: How Republican Influencers Abandoned Football (and Might Fumble the Election)

Podcast: Pablo Torre Finds Out
Host: Pablo Torre
Guests: Jane Coaston (Crooked Media, CNN, NYT)
Date: October 1, 2024

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Episode Overview

Pablo Torre explores the shifting relationship between American football and party politics, especially how leading Republican influencers—and segments of the MAGA movement—are increasingly distancing themselves from football, a sport long linked to conservative culture. With political figures from both sides vying for gridiron credibility ahead of the 2024 election, Pablo and Jane Coaston dig into how football as culture has become a battleground in the culture war—and how both parties are leveraging (or fumbling) America’s love of the game.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Football: The Real American Unifier

• [00:36–02:39] Pablo notes that college football is the #2 sport nationally (behind the NFL), acting as a cultural passport to America beyond coastal bubbles.
  • Jane: “College football is the weather.”
  • The sport’s role in creating social bonding is compared to talking about the weather—it’s a universal topic in much of the U.S.

2. Football as Political Battleground

• [02:39–04:26] As the election nears and the first vice presidential debate looms, both Trump and the Democrats are making strategic football appearances.
  • Trump attends Alabama’s stadium, throws chicken tenders; Tim Walz, former high school football coach, fronts the Democratic ticket.
  • Media and campaigns are treating football as a battleground state.

3. The Evolution of the Republican Identity

• [05:06–07:18] Jane describes her conservative Midwest upbringing and her journey from Libertarian to Independent, noticing how the GOP’s center of cultural gravity has shifted:
  • “The shortest way to put it is that Ronald Reagan is dead and Donald Trump is alive.” (Jane, [06:20])
  • The old coalitions (foreign policy hawks, social or economic conservatives) are realigning or dissolving.

4. MAGA’s Disconnect From Football

• [07:18–10:12] New MAGA influencers—Jane calls them “weird dorks”—increasingly attack football:
  • From conspiracy claims (the “Taylor Swift psyop” at the Super Bowl) to seeing sports as “a psyop” that distracts real Americans.
  • Pablo: “Donald Trump’s understanding of football ends around 1987, 1988.” ([10:59])

5. Online Campaigns & Culture War Tactics

• [10:12–12:56] MAGA is “the most online campaign in the history of politics,” recycling social media grievances—sometimes so out-there they lose connection with everyday sports fans.
  • Conservative influencers frame football as left-wing or corrupted; others say it’s “degenerate,” hinting at racial resentment or anti-mainstream posturing.
  • Jane: “It's like the weird dorks shifted parties ... now you’re starting to get like, sports ball on the right.”

6. Populism, Pandering, and Authenticity

• [14:06–18:30] Pablo and Jane highlight the Democrats’ opportunity: by authentically embracing football (e.g., Tim Walz’s real coaching background), they appeal widely.
  • Democratic outreach at games is called “obvious, cynical, and the right move.”
  • Football functions as a “big tent” in a divided nation.

7. The Anthony Gonzalez Parable

• [19:56–22:37] Ex-Ohio State/NFL star and GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez faces death threats after voting to impeach Trump, becomes a symbol of what happens to “real” football Republicans who break party lines.
  • Jane: “... people were trying to kill him ... people for whom his conservatism wasn't enough.”

8. Culture Wars: Who’s the ‘Cool Hang’?

• [29:23–33:39] Football fandom is reframed as a “cool hang” test—a measure of relatability for politicians.
  • Jane: “...college football is actually the best test for being a normal person in America.”
  • The GOP populist message is countered by a new Democratic effort to position themselves as both authentically mainstream and genuinely invested in football.

9. The Emotional Sublime of Sports—and Its Political Lessons

• [34:31–41:40] The hosts argue that sports provide the collective emotional victories absent from politics.
  • Jane describes the “sublime” moments in fandom—miracle plays, buzzer-beaters—as a uniquely American shared experience.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “College football is the weather.” — Jane Coaston [01:16]
  On football’s ubiquity as a topic of conversation, transcending regional and political divides.

• “The shortest way to put it is that Ronald Reagan is dead and Donald Trump is alive.” — Jane Coaston [06:20]
  Summing up the Republican Party’s transformation.

• “Donald Trump’s understanding of football ends around 1987, 1988.” — Pablo Torre [10:59]
  Pointing out Trump’s dated relationship with the game.

• “Weird dorks. Weird dorks. Major league sports in and of itself is nothing but a psyop.” — Jane Coaston (on new MAGA anti-sports rhetoric) [12:02]

• “There is a funny shift of power in the high school cafeteria of American politics towards the kids in the back who feel like they aren’t the jocks—and this time they’re the Republicans.” — Pablo Torre [14:06]

• “I want to know who, if not sports fans...who’s directing this cruise ship?” — Pablo Torre [09:56]
  On the GOP’s political influencers.

• “Football in particular is the one thing that I predict will not go broke.” — Pablo Torre [14:44]
  On the “go woke, go broke” narrative.

• “Anthony Gonzalez... NFL, Cuban American, state of Ohio... now he wants no part of [the Republican Party].” — Pablo Torre [21:45]

• “If a major political figure happens to show up at the football game, where you’re going with your family, that’s good. That is the kind of retail politics... That’s right there.” — Jane Coaston [18:38]

• “The cool hang cafeteria table test: who are you sitting down and shooting the shit with?” — Pablo Torre [29:55]

• “I want people to find joy in places that are not politics, because politics... there are no eternal victories. What people in politics are looking for is that kind of eternal victory you only get in sports.” — Jane Coaston [38:58]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:36–02:39 | Football as cultural passport; “College football is the weather”
• 02:39–04:26 | Football as a political litmus test; campaign ritual
• 05:06–07:18 | Jane’s personal & ideological journey; evolution of Republican conservatism
• 08:08–10:12 | The Taylor Swift ‘psyop’ saga; MAGA disconnect from modern football
• 12:02–14:06 | Rise of anti-football right-wing rhetoric; from sports as mainstream to sports as “psyop”
• 19:56–22:37 | The story of Anthony Gonzalez, football, and party exile
• 29:23–33:39 | Football as the “cool hang” test for candidates; who’s relatable?
• 34:31–41:40 | Sports as the last big tent; the search for “eternal victory” outside politics

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Tone & Style

Pablo and Jane’s tone is sharp, conversational, occasionally irreverent, mixing sports nerdery, political insight, and humor. The episode weaves together pop culture anecdotes, political analysis, and personal stories to show how sports (especially football) remain both a mirror and a lever for deeper American divides—and sometimes, for fragile unity.

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For Listeners Who Missed the Show

If you want to understand why 2024’s political struggle is happening on the gridiron as much as on the debate stage, and how both parties are trying—with varying authenticity—to claim football fandom as a sign of belonging, this episode breaks down the history, the memes, and the big stakes. The bottom line: Football is the last great American common ground—and whoever fumbles it in the culture war might well lose the election.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[B]

He is a guy who will show up at the party with a 30 rack. He will make sure that you don't.

[A]

Drive home right after this ad.

[B]

You're listening to Giraffe Kings.

[A]

It has been very obvious to me that if we're going to do culture war stuff as the main mode of political discourse in America these days, we should consider, given that framework, what actual culture is in America. And so for people who don't know, and I try to say this as often as I can, college football is, in fact the second biggest sport in the United States after the NFL. Oh, yeah, look, for me, Jane, you're from Cincinnati. I'm from New York City. New York City. Not known as a college football hotbed, but merely covering sports and doing. Doing sports talk shows in which I talk about college football. It's been my passport to the rest of America, right?

[B]

Absolutely. I mean, I think about that all the time. I've lived in Ohio, went to Michigan, lived in Michigan, lived in D.C. lived in Utah. I, you know, been to a lot of different places and every single one of those places, football brought people together. About two years ago, I went to the Michigan, Maryland game. So I'm in the parking lot outside the game, pre gaming, as one does, and there is a car that is covered in Michigan stuff, but also covered in Trump stuff. And they've got like a big let's go, Brandon flag, but they also like a ton of Michigan stuff. And they see my Michigan sweatshirt and they're like, like, they offer me a beer and a shot. The moments where I'm at a wedding or I'm at a bar somewhere in some state, you know, somewhere random and like rural Utah, and I'm like, hey, did you see the Utes game? Like, is Cam Rising ever going to play again? Is his hand okay? How old is he? People used to joke about, like, just asking, how's the weather? College football is the weather.

[A]

So you may have noticed that there are less than five weeks left before Election Day, somehow. And that the vice presidential debate between Ohio Senator J.D. vance and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is taking place tonight. All of which helps explain why Donald Trump was at Brian Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa on Saturday, there to watch Alabama's enormous 4134 win over Georgia, which was an incredible sight, not least because Trump was there tossing boxes of chicken tenders to fans and also doing a safe space interview with Fox. At halftime Tuesday, J.D.

[B]

Vance gonna take on Tim Walls in.

[C]

The vice presidential debate. I don't know if you saw it, but Tim Wall said Democrats have taken back football from Republicans. This stadium, I saw him put you on the Jumbotron. I would dispute that pretty aggressively.

[B]

How do you think J.D.

[C]

Is going to do? And what do you think about the argument from Tim Walls that Democrats are the ones who are football fans? Well, first of all, I don't know, but he was at Michigan today. He got booed out of the stadium. Yes. And if you saw the hand that we got, it was a little bit different, wouldn't you say?

[A]

Tim Walls, just for the record here, was not booed out of the big house in Ann Arbor where he was attending Minnesota, Michigan. But watching all of this unfold over the weekend as it did, made me think about how the Trump and Harris campaigns are both trying to win football, basically as if the sport itself were a battleground state. And so there was one University of Michigan football apologist in particular that I needed to discuss this dynamic with. And her name is Jane Coston.

[B]

I am the host of Crooked Media's what a Day. I am also a CNN contributor. I am also a New York Times contributor. I am also an unhinged college football fan. That's actually how I got into this.

[A]

And the this in question. Jane's beat as a writer is the conservative movement in specific. It's a movement that Jane has taken seriously from the beginning, studying its history, reporting its evolution, cordially interviewing the likes of Texas Senator Ted Cruz for instance, which is to say that conservatives take Jane Coastin seriously as well.

[B]

I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio in the 1990s. Mark Twain had this famous quote that if the end of the world came, he wanted to go to Cincinnati because he'd have 10 more years. Like cultural change takes a really long time to get to Cincinnati. And so my parents are big time Democrats, always have been like union Democrats, left leaning people. We were surrounded entirely by Republicans. I always wanted to know how people thought differently from my parents. My parents, God bless them, they basically went from the well we are smart and these people are idiots perspective, which like it was not enough for me. I wanted to know more about how people got to where they were.

[A]

And where Jane found herself personally was the Libertarian Party where she was a card carrying member for years until 2022 when she decided to register as politically independent. But what's really important that you understand about all of those old school Republicans Jane grew up around in Ohio is that their Place on the cultural and political map changed, too.

[B]

The shortest way to put it is that Ronald Reagan is dead and Donald Trump is alive. I think that for such a long time, conservatism, it's a complicated movement like any political movement is. You could easily say something about liberalism or progressivism, in which there's always kind of this, you know, the policing of the edges, when to police, what does purity look like, what is correct within these movements. But I think that the further away we've gotten from Ronald Reagan, who exited the White House when I was 2, there are people who are still hawkish on foreign policy, except a lot of those hawks are now, like, voting for Kamala Harris. There are people who are still very socially conservative, but those people are supportive of Trump largely in kind of a we don't really have anywhere else to go moment. And you have people who are still economically conservative and they are mad all the time.

[A]

But in this new taxonomy of MAGA Republicans, what becomes obvious is that something so many of them have been mad at for several years now is what conservatives of yore used to love, without question, football. To the point now where this election may well be decided by a disconnect between the two institutions that Jane Coston has devoted herself to studying.

[B]

And I think it's important. When I am talking about the Republican Party, I am not talking about, like, every Republican. When I am talking about the Republican Party in football right now, what I mean is kind of like the influencers at the top who are attempting to direct attention to specific things in ways that I personally do not understand at all.

[A]

We have been talking about this specific episode for so long that we've seen it unfold in real time before we could actually talk about it in front of microphones. And it went from the super bowl and the Taylor Swift psyop thing.

[B]

So when it comes to some people losing their minds over the pop star, Vivek takes the cake. Ramaswamy says that the NFL is rigging the super bowl to give Taylor Swift more airtime ahead of her endorsement of Joe Biden.

[A]

And it went to, of course, what we're now talking about ahead of the vice presidential debate, which is JD Vance showing up as a graduate of the Ohio State University doing all of that.

[B]

Come on, come on.

[C]

We've had enough political violence. Let's.

[A]

And now realizing he is going to run against an actual former high school football coach and Tim Walls, who is.

[B]

Introduced at the DNC as, like, Coach Walls. And they talk about this a lot. And, you know, you had his speech at the DNC is a football metaphor.

[C]

It's the fourth quarter, we're down a field goal, but we're on offense, and we've got the ball. We're driving down the field.

[B]

We've got the ball, and we're driving. And I'm like, well, what are the weather conditions? Now's our quarterback. What happened? Where are we going? What are we playing? I need to know. Down and distance. I have a lot of questions because every play call here is very important.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

It's been funny because this was relevant when we started talking about it, and it's only gotten more relevant.

[A]

So this is why I brought you here, because we are sports fans. We can name. We can remember some guys for literally the rest of the day.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Right. And that is not the Republican Party of 2024, as I understand it. And I want to know who, if not sports fans, actual real sports fans. Who's directing this cruise ship?

[B]

I don't want to do the thing where you're just like. Because I see this all the time.

[A]

Ergo, it must be happening everywhere, AKA the Twitter effect.

[B]

I do see it all the time. And it happens to be that we are in the midst of observing a political campaign in the Trump Vance campaign that is the most online campaign in the history of politics. Like, I'm aware. This is a very recent history. And when I say online, I don't mean, like, on the Internet. I mean stuff coming from the Internet being things they start talking about in Springfield.

[C]

They're eating the dogs. The people that came in, they're eating the cats. They're eating. They're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening.

[B]

Donald Trump has his own ties to football. Like, I do not think Donald Trump knows what an RPO is.

[A]

No.

[B]

My view is that Donald Trump's understanding of football ends around, like, 1987, 1988.

[A]

Oh. Oh. Can I give you a wrinkle on that? I believe that Donald Trump has always viewed football as a means to the end of Donald Trump. Donald Trump's self interest, which allows him to use it as an instrument, a blunt instrument, but never actually like it in ways that are plausible to me.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

The Trump administration, the campaign, they read their mentions. Oh. And they are. They. They love a retweet from one of these, you know, these gremlins like Charlie Kirk. I will not, you know, spend my time watching a league that tolerates this blatant anti Americanism.

[B]

He does not know ball.

[A]

He does not, you Think Laura Loomer knows what an RPO is?

[B]

No, no, absolutely not.

[A]

But these characters, Jane, if you were to classify that strain of quote unquote conservatism, which I think deserves the scare quotes.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

For all the reasons. What, what, what is that?

[B]

Weird dorks. Weird dorks. Major league sports in and of itself is nothing but a psyop. Get kids plugged into the cycle of going to public indoctrination camps, playing sports for their school, and going to games. Many end up devoting their entire childhood to competing in various sports, only to be cut from the team, at which point they become brainwashed into supporting professional teams because they know their dreams of becoming a pro athlete will probably never happen. So then they become obsessed with some grown man who gets paid millions of dollars every year to throw a ball around while promoting poisoned death shots and child slave labor through various brand deals and endorsements. So sad. It's like the weird dorks shifted parties. Because there used to be. I think you saw, like, you know, a couple of years ago, there would be always like, somebody who's super left leaning who is like, you know, sports.

[A]

Are bad because sports ball, Jane, it's sports ball.

[B]

And now you're starting to get like, sports ball on the right. Like, you know, I've never watched the super bowl or like, the people, basically you're getting. But I don't even own a tv. But from Republicans.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

I'll give you an example. A couple of years ago, there was a piece, I believe, in a conservative outlet written by someone who was at the time a big Ron DeSantis supporter. This piece that was like, ah, American men are spending way too much time watching sports. Like, sports is degenerate. Like, the light hint of like, why are you watching black people do things? Like, you should be out lifting weights and eating meat or something like that. And so you start to see people generally online who are like, sports is just. It's bread and circuses. How can people pay so much attention? You saw that a lot during the super bowl this year, where people incepted themselves into believing that Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce was some sort of weird conspiracy theory.

[A]

Oh, it's a psyop.

[B]

And not just the most obvious thing, like, oh, famous woman dating famous guy. Must be a conspiracy.

[A]

There is a funny shift of power in the high school cafeteria of American politics towards the kids in the back who feel like they aren't the jocks and this time they're the Republicans.

[B]

Republicans in this particular way have become like, weirdo hipsters. Of being like, no, I'm not going to do the super popular thing. Like, I, you know, I went to college in the early 2000s. I remember hipsters, a lot of people listening to LCD sound system in Bristol Castles. Like, this is more irritating to me personally. At least when I was in college, the hipsters went to the games.

[A]

There's a lot of like, we're stomping our feet, threatening to leave the house. And you're going to be so mad when we do because go woke, go broke. And then it's like sports, football in particular is the one thing that I predict will not go broke.

[B]

To me, it is an effort to simultaneously signal that you are not part of the mainstream, because mainstream is bad. Like, so much of this is not just a rejection of sports. It is rejection of the mainstream and a signal that maybe you're doing something even more important. Like, yeah, sure, you're watching football, but I'm studying the blade or something like that.

[A]

There is definitely, like, kids who have a katana fetish. A literal blade fetish kids, absolutely. Who, when they say bread and circuses, they are pining for the Roman Empire in that extraordinarily not even, like, fun online meme way, but in a, like, you guys took the wrong message from the Da Vinci Code sort of a way.

[B]

If you went to, to a sports bar on the day of the super bowl and if you had gone to that bar and started ranting about how Travis Kelce was a shill for Pfizer and that like this was all part of a giant conspiracy, the bar would ask you to leave. It's really interesting because you see Republicans, again, not everybody, but we're talking about like the top of the party. Like, I am not the one that put Laura Loomer on Trump's plane on the way to the debate at any level. But you were an actual coach, right? You weren't like one of these fake assistant coaches like Tim Walls. You were an actual football coach.

[A]

One of the things that I worry about with his time as a coach is he was more interested in boys wearing tight pants. So I should just jump in here to point out that someone like Laura Loomer, a Trump Advisor and noted 911 conspiracist and general all around bigot who said, for instance, that the White House will smell like curry if Kamala Harris wins the presidency. Um, she isn't the only person in Trump world who has zero idea what an assistant football coach actually does. Because Trump himself argued on Truth Social. Quote, Walls was an assistant Coach. Not a coach, end quote. And even though Tim Walls was in fact a state champion defensive coordinator at Mankato West High School, and even though all defensive coordinators at every level of the sport are in fact assistant coaches, Trump's surrogates all began parroting this same exact point. Unlike this assistant coach, Tim Walls, who.

[B]

Supplied his young men with tampons and maxi pads. Yeah, Joey. I mean, I've been assistant coach for kids soccer games. I don't necessarily think that I should run for president.

[C]

You know, when I played football in high school, my tiny little town, I always looked at the assistant coaches and thought, you know, that guy should be President.

[B]

Valor associated with his assistant coaching. It's like a stolen tackle. Yes. Just like the stolen Valor. It's like, very simple, less important than the stolen valor.

[A]

And on and on it goes, all of it suggesting a very basic lack of familiarity with football itself from MAGA Republicans, and therefore a glaring corresponding opportunity for the Democratic Party.

[B]

I watch every Saturday, I watch like 8 hours of college football. It's great. I love it. It's a great thing to do. Highly recommend. Most people don't do that, but the Democratic Party is seeing football a thing everybody likes.

[A]

It's just so obvious, Jane. It's so obvious and also cynical and also the right move.

[B]

It is. Which. All three. All three. It's very cynical. I know that. I know that. This is like the degree to which I am being pandered to in a way that, like, for instance, I saw Tim Waltz going to the Minnesota Michigan game on Saturday, and I literally was like, of course he is. He's the governor of Minnesota. He's going to wear Minnesota stuff. It's going to be great. And he's going to talk to students about the importance of voting every four years. Everyone remembers that. Actually, most people in America, this wonderful country that I love, most people don't care about politics very much, and they would prefer not to have to talk about it or think about it. I think that the way in which most people encounter politics is generally right now, and they are thinking about it in terms of their local elections, what's going to matter for them? What's going to matter for their family? So, yeah, like, if a major political figure happens to show up at the football game, where you're going with your family, that's good. Like, you're. That's right there. That is the kind of like retail politics, especially because I think that the message around football also goes to the idea of, like, you don't have to Agree with them on everything, but you're welcome into this tent.

[A]

There was a person that I was dying to talk to and I was hoping you would get time with that was not willing to talk on the record for reasons that I think tell this story in a nutshell. Anthony Gonzalez. Right. Can you explain who he is and what happened to him and why he will not talk about this stuff in public anymore?

[B]

Anthony Gonzalez. For me, he will always be terrifying. Ohio State receiver who slept in a hyperbaric chamber he built in his dorm room.

[C]

To me, this is perfectly natural and this is kind of a way to get, I think, what other people might be getting via supplements.

[B]

But I do it by sleeping. So he played in the NFL for a bit, then made it to Congress from Ohio. He voted to impeach Donald Trump after January 6th.

[C]

And so it was deeply sad to come to the conclusion that I did and to feel like I could no longer trust the President of the United.

[A]

States, even for a few days.

[C]

To be the commander in chief of our military.

[B]

In response, his life and the life of his family was put in danger. He left Congress because he was getting constant death threats all the time.

[C]

What does it say to the Republican Party? This is a 37 year old guy, a football hero in college, had an NFL career, Cuban American heritage, state of Ohio, Midwestern state. This was a guy who, a couple years ago, everybody was saying, this is a future senator or a future governor, maybe a future national figure for the Republican Party.

[A]

And now he wants no part of it.

[B]

And so I reached out to a host of people. I reached, you know, obviously tried email, tried phone, tried LinkedIn. And it just basically was like, he won't talk, he's changed his number, he does not want to have any interaction because, again, people were trying to kill him.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And these were people who probably voted for him, people who, for whom his conservatism wasn't enough. His, you know, his bona fides were not enough. Absolutely understandable that Anthony Gonzalez would not want to talk about the intersection of sports, sports and politics after essentially having to give up what could have been a long and promising political career because he made to me the correct decision and people wanted to kill him over it.

[A]

He was One of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump in a way that would, again, absent all of the culture war stuff we've been describing, would have seemed obvious to the Republican Party that used to regularly, regularly be unquestionably known as the party of football.

[B]

It's wild to see how this has become a sport where. A sport that is. It's controversial, but not for the reasons Republicans want it to be. Every couple of months, there's somebody who's like, you know, some conservative influencer who's like, that's it. I'm never watching football again. And I'm like, come on. There are moments when you meet somebody who's like, oh, I'm not really into sports. And your brain is like, oh, well, I'm fine. If people genuinely aren't interested in sports, however, making that a virtue. That's where I get irritated. Making like, I am not interested in this thing into I am better than you or I'm superior to you because I do not pay attention to this thing. That. No, no, it's. I mean, in a personal basis, it's annoying. As a cultural effort, it's stupid.

[A]

But Tim Walls. Here's my critique of how the Harris Walls campaign has been rolling out Coach Walls because, of course, it's been obvious and cynical and the right thing to do. And they bring out his former high school football players on his team that he was the DC of. What I worry about, Shane, is that Tim Walls, the more he reveals himself to be the guy who is the right person that you want to run the Gay Straight alliance at your high school, that's more time being devoted to not remembering some guys. I almost feel like he just needs to yo be a sports fan. Tell me about your memories of watching goddamn Johan Santana take the mound. Tell me about the time I don't some. Some person from the state of Minnesota made you feel like everything was going to be okay when they scored a touchdown. Like, just give me some.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, especially because I think Minnesota specifically has, like, a really interesting college football legacy. And like, I still think about that. That Stefon Diggs touchdown against the Saints.

[C]

Steps into it. Pass is caught. Jakes sideline touchdown. Unbelievable.

[B]

I will say that that's one of Joe Buck's best calls because it's just like dinks touchdown. Like, it's great. That was awesome. Like, talk about that. Yeah. I think that if we're all working towards pandering towards stuff we care about. Tim Walls, go on the shutdown, full cast. Everybody's talking about it. Do it.

[A]

Absolutely, absolutely. And by the way, Tim Walls can and should make appearances on all sorts of sports podcasts and programs, because I have heard him do this very comfortably before.

[C]

And the 41st governor of the state of Minnesota, Tim Walls, has stopped by the nine to Noon radio show. He's here for the joint practices today. But nevertheless, what brings you here today, Governor? Well, football, for one thing. I said, I come about this somewhat more honestly than being governor. I said those years of coach in high school football and all the. All the Mankato training camps. But it is great to be in this facility. World class.

[A]

This was from August 2023, when Governor Walls joined Vikings play by play guy Paul Allen in studio during Minnesota Vikings training camp. And at one point out of nowhere, Tim Walsh and this announcer begin to remember a guy, a guy named Craig Dahl, a totally obscure NFL safety who won a Super bowl with the Giants, and a guy that Walls happened to coach against in high school.

[C]

So, Governor, so when you were at Mankato west and Craig Dahl played at Mankato east, was it East? Yes. Okay. And the stupid question, I apologize for not knowing this. Did you coordinate against him? Yeah, he was a monster. Yeah. And what I remember first, the first time I ever saw this kid, they were playing a freshman game, I believe they played on Monday nights or B squad game, and he was a freshman. And they sent me up there to scout, you know, to scout East. So I'm setting up in the stands and I see this man amongst boys. Yeah. First play of the game goes around the left end or whatever. And I remember the only notes I brought back is I said, we may be in trouble for a couple years. Wow. With this kid. Well, he was a safety on defense too, right? Yeah, because I was at Jerry Brown Stadium.

[A]

At various other points in this interview, Walls goes on to talk about how Randy Moss, the Vikings hall of Fame receiver, would stop by Mankato practices and how much man to man coverage high school teams are playing now versus when he was a high school coach. And all of this, all of the banter, it just feels familiar. It feels populist even as measured by millions of Americans who speak this language at a time when populism happens to be the banner that Trump and Vance are very explicitly waiving.

[B]

Populism has a long history, very long history in America. And it's one of those things where, like, it sounds like it should make a lot of sense, but the way it gets interpreted so often is that I am a better knower of the people than you are. And so it's been interesting to see populism be wielded in this way that's so narrow. Like, populism is a response in some part to the Gilded Age, which is about, like, everything looks great at the very top and they're the richest people you could possibly imagine. But everything below them is for. Is. But the populism that is being wielded right now by Vance and by Trump and by others is a populism that is like, you need to be this very specific type of person to fit into our version of the populace. You need to be working class. But if you're working class and working in the service economy, eh, we don't care about you. You're working class, but you're unionizing, but you're unionizing in a way we don't like. Eh, we don't care about you. It's like the narrowest populism I've ever seen.

[A]

Your personal political platform, which is that college football is actually the best test for being a normal person in America.

[B]

Absolutely. 100%. Just like, can you even at like, a basic level, like, do you know who is good at football? Can you be, like, conversant in this?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Not even in terms of politics, because I think that the policy and politics question here is almost secondary. It's just like, do you seem like.

[A]

A cool hang cafeteria table? That test? Who are you sitting down and shooting the shit with?

[B]

Yeah, Cool hang. Who could have a normal conversation about stuff that actually isn't about policy? Which is fine. And to be clear, there are lots of Democrats who could not pass the cool hang test. I don't know who created Pokemon Go, but I'm trying to figure out how we get them to have Pokemon Go to the polls.

[A]

By the way, that used to be the major. The major Achilles heel of the Democratic Party.

[B]

Yes. Like, they couldn't be cool hangs. No. And now it's like, Republicans are like, we are going to be the worst hang ever. Like, we are going to make famous every single person who you would avoid at a party. I'm J.D.

[A]

Vance. I'm American vice President here.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Halloween work is.

[B]

I'm a beginner of July. Okay. Everything.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, a lot of glazed here, some sprinkle stuff, some of these cinnamon rolls. Just whatever makes sense.

[B]

It's the language. It's being able to, you know, it's code switching. Being able to talk, to talk about, you know, talk about football in a way that is like, you are with them, but also talk to everybody else as if you care about them. That's the biggest thing here for me is can you convince me, can you convince all millions of Americans that even if you're not exactly like them, that you care about them and are interested in what they think? Because what we keep seeing, again from J.D. vance, is the Answer is no.

[C]

It is the weirdest thing to me. Democrats say that it is racist to believe. Well, they say it's racist to do anything. I had a diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today. I'm sure they're going to call that racist, too, but it's good.

[A]

I love you guys. I understand that we are in the realm of political strategy here. Right. This is. This is. We're talking about how to, again, win a culture war. Win an election that is going to be contested on the grounds of. Am I like, this person, Tim Walls? His main advantage, as I see it, is that he's actually someone that, you know, if you like sports.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Actually, plausibly, the person inside the building with you, not for political reasons, but for actual. I love football reasons. Watching this game.

[C]

So they were running the ball a lot. Yeah. I appreciate you bringing this up.

[B]

These guys were crowding the box, making sure that.

[C]

That's exactly it. And our guards, you know, in high school, if you pull a guard, it pretty much know where the ball is going. And if you can teach kids to.

[A]

Do that, like, student body right, student body left, that kind of stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Everyone is tuned. Thank you for not allowing the yearbook to close on this chapter of my life. I do think it's important. Like, this is. It is important. And I. I have to tell people.

[A]

The more that we don't get to see that, the less powerful the whole, like, balancing of the ticket is. Right. This is another version of a dei, sort of math.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Let's say you don't believe that Kamala Harris is hanging out with you at a tailgate. Okay, cool. But this guy actually is.

[B]

He is a guy who will show up at the party with a 30 rack. He will make sure that you don't drive home.

[A]

I'm not trying to be anyone's campaign manager. I just think it's very funny that we have gone from. I have gone from a person who's like, look, sports and politics are absolutely interlocked. And, of course, you cannot talk about one without the other. Only to arrive at politics and be like, you guys should do less politics in more sports. Just, like, stop talking about policy. Stop it.

[B]

Yeah. And especially because I think that I spend a lot of time around people who do not think about sports. And I genuinely am like, you know what? You'd be. You'd be happier if you did. You'd be. Well, you'd be happier sometimes. And then you'd be, like, really furious. And then you need to explain that you're furious. Because, like, a group of children made a mistake, but, like, that's a growth experience.

[A]

No, Jane, what you just described is, is what it means to be a real American.

[B]

Absolutely. You know, once a week for the, you know, the best part of the year, I permit a group of children to decide how I feel for the rest of the week. Real Americans, once a week, we pack stadiums and parking lots because tailgating is awesome. And we watch on numerous channels. We pack into bars, living rooms and dens, and we stand around somebody's computer and. And we watch children play a brutal, stupid, beautiful sport. And we love it even when we hate it, even when we're, we're so mad, we're like, well, we might as well just watch this other game. That could be interesting because you don't know when you're going to see a 120 yard punt return from BYU and the kids throw up afterwards because he works so hard.

[C]

Scooped up by the return man, Parker Kingston. And now he's going to turn the corner. There he goes, Kingston to the 50, still going. Kingston, touchdown.

[B]

You don't know if you're going to see the greatest touchdown you've ever seen. This past year's Rose Bowl. Even thinking about it gets me emotional.

[C]

And they pitch it to a touchdown as Wilson walks in. Roman Wilson. A huge, huge impact on that drive as the Wolverines take it.

[B]

And for us to tie, go into overtime against Alabama.

[A]

You're actually getting emotional right now.

[B]

It genuinely. It is, it is to me, I've said this before, that that is one of the most sublime experiences of my entire life. You spend years as a fan, decades as a fan, hoping to get a moment of sublime. And whether that's like the helmet catch, Giants, Patriots, or whether it's like, you know, winning the World Series or whether it's watching somebody win the Tour de France, or whether, you know, it's anything in sports, whether it's watching the All Blacks play, whether it is watching, you know, the New York Liberty kick ass. Like you get a moment of sublime and you spend the rest of your life, you're like, I gotta have another one. I gotta have another one. And there is, there are millions of Americans who know what I am talking about, who know what that feeling is. And they cross all parties.

[A]

We want to share this with people who otherwise might hate our guts 100%. I still want you to feel the goosebumps that I am feeling.

[B]

I want that for everybody. I want like buzzer beaters, I want home runs, I want touchdowns, I want blocked field goals. If the Kick 6 I I Yo, there's this great video following the Kick 6 where you watch the Auburn band react to the kickstarts.

[C]

Oh, my God. Davis is going to run it all the way back. Auburn's going to win the football game. Auburn's going to win the football game. He ran the miss field back. He ran it back 109 yards.

[B]

The band is playing. The band manager is sobbing incoherently. And it's one of those things like, I know exactly how you feel. Like, I know I am not an Auburn fan. I've never lived in Alabama. I don't know who any of you are, but I know what that is.

[A]

So much of what I'm interested in sports, of course, is the way that sports allows me to talk about other things.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But political debate today has made me almost saccharine about the emotional power, the unifying power of sports, as you described it. I realize, oh, this is the lone big tent in American life where we're all getting along. My dream for any given American election is for it to feel like I am watching a reaction video on YouTube that I'm going to look forward to watching years later.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Just to vicariously enjoy something that other people are clearly, clearly going to take to their grave as a formative American experience.

[B]

I also want people to find joy in places that are not politics, because politics, there's a unique thing to politics, which is that there are no eternal victories. What people in politics are looking for is that kind of eternal victory that you only get in sports. Like, I have long said that I think in some ways Donald Trump thought that winning the election was like winning an Olympic gold medal. Like, he would get a parade and everyone would be happy and he wouldn't really have to do anything. I think winning a presidency is great. I think being president sucks. And so it's been interesting to see that relationship. And so I think, like, so many people are looking for the eternal victory that you could look up on YouTube, that doesn't really exist in politics because politics is like just an endless slog fight. Like, you know, since kind of the beginnings of urbanization, you can see that, like some of our political battles where it's like, oh, yeah, so we're still mad about ethnic conflicts and, you know, rural versus city. Oh, okay. Like, we're still mad about that. And so like those eternal battles and then you see people being like, you know, could this be the big one, the big victory? No, there isn't that such thing. But if you want that if you want the perfect eternal victory, you can watch college football. You can watch like, the 2019 LSU team where they just kick the out of everybody all year, and it was great and they were perfect.

[C]

As they say in the bayou, let the good times roll.

[B]

That's it. Like, you can go watch, like, when an NFL team is at their absolute best and when it's just, like, it's just over the second it happened. You know, you're seeing demar Hamlin get an interception on Monday, and just like that, stadium vibrating because they know what he's been through.

[C]

Lawrence on the move. Launching down the middle, intercepted over for the man. And Jamar Hamlin, a huge roar.

[B]

Those are moments of kind of eternal victory. That last. That there isn't going to be like, oh, demar Hamlin has to go, like, defend his Senate seat tomorrow or something like that.

[A]

Nobody, upon losing an election, goes back and watches the video of the last time you won an election. No, nobody does that. No, that is absolutely what you do if you are hurting. Hurting because your college football team maybe just got, you know, picked off in the end zone and suddenly the only thing that can make you feel whole again is the fact that there is a banner still hanging with your name on it.

[B]

Yep, exactly. 100%.

[A]

Jane Coston, my fellow sicko.

[B]

Yes, we are not.

[A]

Well, thank you for helping me take the temperature of the American political system anytime. For more Jane Coston, by the way, you can go subscribe to Crooked Media's what a Day. It's their daily news show where Jane is now the lead host. This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production, and I'll talk to you next time.