Pod Save America: “Is Trump Afraid of Bad Bunny?” (feat. Pablo Torre)

Episode Date: February 8, 2026
Host: Tommy Vietor
Guest: Pablo Torre

Episode Overview

On Super Bowl Sunday, Tommy Vietor is joined by sports journalist and podcaster Pablo Torre for an incisive, often hilarious exploration of how Donald Trump has strategically embraced sports, gambling, and sporting personalities for political gain. The conversation also delves into the explosion of legalized sports betting, Trump’s controversial relationships with sports leagues and franchises, the politics of trans athletes and propaganda battles, and some truly jaw-dropping sports oddities. With signature wit and sharp reporting, Torre and Vietor pull back the curtain on the intersection of sports and American politics in 2026.

Key Themes & Segments

1. Does Trump “Know Ball” or Just Fake It?

• [05:54 – 09:48]
  • Torre and Vietor begin by questioning Trump’s authenticity as a sports fan, lampooning moments where he mangles athlete names and delivers awkward sports banter.
  • Memorable quote:
    • Pablo Torre: “There are lots of ways that Trump reveals himself to not know anything about sports while wearing the costume of basically being a white guy who loves athletes, which is not the same as sports knowledge by the way.” [07:28]
  • Comparison to Vice President JD Vance, whose attempts to talk football expose similar inauthenticity.

2. The NFL, Trump, and Clubby Exclusion

• [11:01 – 14:34]
  • Analysis of Trump’s fraught relationship with NFL ownership and his failed 2014 bid for the Buffalo Bills, with reflections on how exclusion from the NFL "club" reinforced his political ambitions.
  • Memorable quote:
    • Tommy Vietor: “If I bought that [Buffalo Bills] team I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. God damn it, Buffalo.” [13:11], quoting Trump.
  • Discussion on NFL leadership’s willingness to provide Trump with the big-stage cachet he craves.

3. Bad Bunny, the Super Bowl, and Weaponized Pop Culture

• [14:34 – 18:27]
  • Dissection of speculative media chatter that Bad Bunny’s halftime show is a political ploy, dismissed by both as cynical and missing the profit motive.
  • Memorable quote:
    • Pablo Torre: “The answer to all your questions is money, and this is the god the NFL worships. They do not give a shit about politics.” [16:48]
  • Discussion of how the NFL seeks new fans globally and the disconnect between the league’s profit incentives and political narratives.

4. Kaepernick, Populism, and the Political Pendulum in Sports

• [21:58 – 24:16]
  • Revisiting the legacy of Colin Kaepernick’s protest, Trump’s exploitation of it, and how the “stick to sports” crowd homogenizes political expression—contrasted with NFL’s superficial anti-racism slogans.
  • Notable exchange:
    • Pablo Torre: “It’s so quaint what Kaepernick actually was doing... It was the thing that kind of made sports go crazy... it’s just crazy that we watch what’s happening again in Minnesota and the version that these woke tards enacted upon them was they kneeled.” [22:22]

5. Trump’s Embrace of Soccer, FIFA, and the Cult of Sports PR

• [24:25 – 32:30]
  • Analysis of Trump’s budding friendship with FIFA president Gianni Infantino, the FIFA Peace Prize, and Trump’s persona as a “sports guy” to project populist credibility.
  • Skewering of Trump’s obtuse “Why isn’t it called football?” riff at the World Cup draw.
  • Memorable quote:
    • Pablo Torre: “The most un-American position that you can have is to go against the NFL in 2026; it reveals you ostensibly to be disconnected from the monoculture as a politician and what normal everyday Americans like the most statistically.” [31:12]

6. Ultimate Fighting Championship: The Manosphere, Dana White, and Political Image Laundering

• [25:23 – 30:13]
  • Torre examines how UFC CEO Dana White has provided Trump an invaluable platform among young, anti-establishment, and often apolitical male demographics.
  • Notable quote:
    • Pablo Torre: “It is the ultimate in political image laundering because he’s just one of the guys, he’s one of the guys at the fight that you want to hang out with.” [27:41]

7. The Sports Gambling Explosion: From Taboo to App-Driven Addiction

• [36:05 – 40:29]
  • Rapid transformation of American sports betting from criminalized taboo to widespread, easily accessible tech-enabled addiction.
  • Analysis of how prop bets and “cheesecake factory menu” betting interfaces have eroded sports’ competitive integrity and created new vulnerabilities to match-fixing.
  • Memorable quote:
    • Pablo Torre: “It used to be like, you know, who’s going to win or lose, the point spread, the outcome of games, and now... you can bet on things as obscure as unders... It is a radical expansion of what is bettable.” [37:44]

8. Event Contracts: Markets on Anything—and Trumpworld’s Profit Pipeline

• [41:45 – 47:49]
  • Explanation of “event contracts” and prediction markets—where you can now bet on things like the duration of a White House press briefing.
  • Trump family and loyalists (e.g., Donald Trump Jr.) directly involved in these markets, which are lightly regulated and susceptible to insider exploitation.
  • Notable exchange:
    • Pablo Torre: “When everything is bettable like this, you can change the expectations for every governmental action... people with money get to decide in an unregulated way. That is a fucking nightmare.” [49:45]

9. The Trans Athlete Debate, Riley Gaines, and Manufactured Outrage

• [52:45 – 60:53]
  • In-depth reporting by Torre on Riley Gaines—the right’s leading anti-trans “sports activist.” He details the manufactured evolution of her rhetoric, heavy right-wing financial backing, and the weaponization of her narrative.
  • Key revelations:
    • Gaines shifted from reasonable concerns about rules to inflammatory, false accusations against trans athletes, goaded by right-wing media and financial incentives.
    • Meanwhile, serious allegations of sexual assault within her own former team were ignored.
  • Memorable quote:
    • Pablo Torre: “Not only is it the dishonesty of the rhetoric, it’s the actual substitution of real event happening over here—let’s get that out of here and replace it with this trumped-up fake thing while ignoring the actual victims who I was on this team with.” [58:21]

10. Wild Sports Oddities: The Penis Injection Ski Jump Scandal

• [60:53 – 62:41]
  • A humdinger of a segment in which Torre explains how some Olympic ski jumpers are injecting hyaluronic acid into their genitals to expand jumpsuit measurements and gain an advantage (!).
  • Memorable quote:
    • Pablo Torre: “Part of the physics of ski ju is you emphasize how big your penis is for this reason... it used to be back in my day the scandal was people were sewing… creating a bigger crotch, but these guys are like what if I told you we could make the measurements actually reflect the size of our temporarily enormous penises.” [61:33]

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Trump’s knowledge of sports:
  Pablo Torre: “He is somebody who always will talk about that like kickoff rule he hates on Truth Social… he has some go-tos, he’s like that guy who has half a take and he won’t stop giving the take.” [07:47]

• On why Trump skips the Super Bowl:
  Pablo Torre: “He does get booed, and I think the risk of Bad Bunny being somebody who dares to say words in Spanish plus a bunch of people in the Bay Area who might boo him… I think that’s enough for him to say I don’t want to look bad.” [15:01]

• On the business of sports and politics:
  Pablo Torre: “The answer to all your questions is money, and this is the god the NFL worships.” [16:48]

• On prediction markets and their risks:
  Pablo Torre: “The CFTC... seems very clear to a lot of former CFTC employees that this is all happening… and it seems to be of a piece with the business dealings that we’ve been describing now this whole episode.” [47:49]

• On the hypocrisy of anti-trans sports outrage:
  Pablo Torre: “There is a problem in locker rooms all across America when it comes to female athletes, and the problem is the men who are around them. It’s not the trans athletes though… that is a concern very often and this is real, and it should be reported on.” [61:11]

Timestamps for Major Segments

• [05:54] – Trump’s faux sports knowledge and comedic examples
• [11:01] – Trump’s NFL ambitions and relationships
• [14:34] – NFL, Bad Bunny, and Super Bowl stagecraft
• [21:58] – Kaepernick, protests, and political backlash
• [25:23] – UFC, Dana White, and laundering Trump’s image
• [31:02] – Trump’s football/Soccer gaffe and FIFA relationships
• [36:05] – Legalized gambling and its societal impacts
• [41:45] – Event contracts, prediction markets, and corruption risks
• [52:45] – Conservative narrative on trans athletes and the Riley Gaines exposé
• [60:53] – Olympic penis injection scandal (“Crotch-gate”)

Conclusion

True to form, this Super Bowl episode unpacks myriad ways sports serve as both a political cudgel and a lucrative business engine—from stadiums to sportsbooks to cultural narratives. Torre’s deep dives and dry humor provide both expert context and a cautionary tale about the blurring lines between spectacle, manipulation, and governance in a media-saturated election year.

Listen to Pablo Torre’s show Pablo Torre Finds Out for more wild investigations at the intersection of sports, culture, and fraud.