How Trump and Billionaires Bend the Rules (And Get Away With It) — ft. Pablo Torre

Summary

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Raging Moderates: "How Trump and Billionaires Bend the Rules (And Get Away With It)"

Guest: Pablo Torre • Hosts: Jessica Tarlov (with appearances by Sam Biddle)
Date: April 1, 2026 • Podcast: Vox Media Podcast Network

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Episode Overview

This episode of Raging Moderates features Pablo Torre (host of Pablo Torre Finds Out) and co-host Jessica Tarlov in a lively, unsparing conversation about the theme: How extreme wealth and power—especially among billionaires and politicians—enables rule-bending and a culture of impunity in both sports and politics. The discussion draws direct parallels between NBA owner Steve Ballmer’s tactics to skirt league rules and the ongoing, often fruitless demands for accountability in American politics, especially around figures like Donald Trump and the Epstein scandal. The hosts interrogate why mechanisms of accountability seem broken, how the public is and isn't responding, and the high-stakes fight over truth and justice in today's fragmented America.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Accountability and Billionaire Impunity—Sports as a Case Study

(01:13–06:13)

• Pablo Torre recounts exposing how NBA owner Steve Ballmer used a shell company to pay Clippers star Kawhi Leonard, circumventing salary cap rules (01:26).
• Torre draws a direct line from billionaire impunity in sports to similar phenomena in politics:
  “It was fascinating to see Steve Ballmer...the day after this reporting...sit down with ESPN because he knows how important the rules are in sports or at the very least he knows how much he’s supposed to care about the performance of caring about the rules.” (04:18, Pablo Torre)
• The NBA’s internal accountability mechanisms are contrasted with the essentially self-policing nature of political power, where consequences are rare and often performative (05:13).
• Even when public shame is possible, meaningful punishment rarely materializes: NBA investigations tend to avoid targeting powerful owners directly (07:13).

2. The Collapse of Accountability in American Politics

(06:37–10:35)

• Tarlov connects the Ballmer/NBA scandal to U.S. political dysfunction; institutions meant to serve as checks and balances now seem toothless, especially regarding Trump (05:52).
• The Epstein case is discussed as the ultimate symbol of untouchability for elites:
  “They don't even have a fall guy. They have like fall. One fall woman. But she earned that right sitting in prison. Otherwise it’s nothing.” (08:22, Jessica Tarlov)
• Torre notes that, at best, public exposure imposes “some notion of shame,” but legal consequences are elusive for the top echelons (09:52).
• Quote:
  “…the only thing we can hope for is some notion of public reaction that feels maybe like we’re imposing something like shame, because again, the legal recourse is not necessarily available or close to guaranteed.” (09:52, Pablo Torre)

3. Public Demand, Cynicism, and the Search for Consequences

(10:35–13:39)

• Discussion of whether protest movements (“No Kings Protestant Round 3”) represent a turning tide or are still too small/fragile (11:20).
• Torre: There’s finally an “underserved public appetite that wants to see something like a reckoning” (12:17).

4. A ‘Bed of Nails’—Why Scandal Fatigue Shields the Powerful

(14:00–15:02)

• Torre introduces the “bed of nails” metaphor for Trump:
  “He can just lie across a bed of a thousand scandals.” (14:04, Pablo Torre)
• The endless churn of scandals prevents any single issue from puncturing political Teflon.

5. Need for Institutional Destruction and Reform

(15:02–17:07)

• Tarlov and Torre discuss the limits of incremental reform:
  “Not just rebuild, reform. Like we have to burn it down too. And I think that’s something, you know, as a Democrat that I’ve really struggled with...they want an arsonist with a D on their shirt or an R on their shirt and they’re going to pick whoever is going to make the most change.” (15:02, Jessica Tarlov)
• Bi-partisan and systemic accountability, not just for Trump, but for Democratic “Epstein class” members like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Les Wexner, Leon Black, etc. (16:27–17:02).

6. Insider Trading, Prediction Markets, and Unchecked Corruption

(17:07–22:05)

• Torre explains the explosion of “prediction markets” as a locus for insider trading and legalized corruption (17:50 onward).
• CFTC treats bets as event contracts:
  “While Don Jr. is on the board of both CalSHI and Polymarket, the two leaders...” (18:42, Pablo Torre)
• The platforms act as shadow markets for political currency, where insiders profit and outsiders lose (19:58–20:39).
• Quote:
  “It’s not only deeply corrupt...it’s also something I think is deeply even more dystopian...You’ve given to these insiders or to people with money broadly, the power to actually change public assumptions about what is reasonable to expect in our world.” (21:02, Pablo Torre)
• The “cheese on the broccoli” analogy: using sports stories to get the public to care about broader issues of corruption and accountability (27:04).

7. Trump, Iran, and the ‘Manosphere’ Coalition

(24:26–27:16)

• Analysis of Trump’s unpredictability, campaign promises (“no new foreign wars”), and the male-dominated “manosphere” audience disillusioned by betrayals on core promises (25:12–25:44, Pablo Torre/Sam Biddle).
• The left may be failing to reach this alienated and skeptical demographic, despite their openness to accountability and real consequences (27:04, Pablo Torre).

8. Can Democrats ‘Fight for the Audience’ in Sports and Culture Wars?

(28:29–33:33)

• Torre and Tarlov discuss the opportunity (and obligation) for the left to claim space in sports and pop culture, territory heavily mined by the right:
  “Sports is like the last big bipartisan tent left in American life in that way...If the left abdicates it, they are making a grave mistake.” (31:00–33:33, Pablo Torre)
• Echoes in handling culture war figures like Riley Gaines and Leah Thomas, highlighting the risk of letting the right dominate these narratives unchecked (33:40).

9. Birthright Citizenship at the Supreme Court—America’s Multicultural Promise

(33:54–36:09)

• Pablo, a first-gen American, shares a moving reflection on the threat to birthright citizenship and what it means for American identity and multiculturalism:
  “America ends up being so sincere in its protection of its freedoms that people still fall in love with it from the outside in.” (35:58, Pablo Torre)
• Hopeful note: the enduring idea of an inclusive America still has deep roots among the public, even as politics turns darker.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Exchanges

• On Billionaire Rule-Bending:

  “Why can’t I use all of my powers to their full extent? Why am I being regulated and suppressed by lesser beings?”
  — Pablo Torre (04:20)

• On Public Shame vs Real Consequences:

  “...he knows how much he’s supposed to care about the performance of caring about the rules.”
  — Pablo Torre (04:18)

  “The only thing we can hope for is some notion of public reaction that feels maybe like we’re imposing something like shame, because again, the legal recourse is not necessarily available or close to guaranteed.”
  — Pablo Torre (09:52)

• On Accountability Fatigue:

  “He [Trump] can just lie across a bed of a thousand scandals.”
  — Pablo Torre (14:04)

• On Calls for Institutional Destruction:

  “We have to burn it down too...they want an arsonist with a D on their shirt or an R on their shirt and they’re going to pick whoever is going to make the most change.”
  — Jessica Tarlov (15:02)

• On Prediction Markets and Corruption:

  “You are going to be the patsy that someone else profits off of.”
  — Pablo Torre (20:39)

  “It’s not only deeply corrupt...it’s also something that I think is even more dystopian, which is...you’ve given to these insiders...the power to actually change public assumptions about what is reasonable to expect in our world.”
  — Pablo Torre (21:02)

• On Sports as Political Battleground:

  “Sports is like the last big bipartisan tent left in American life...If the left abdicates it, they are making a grave mistake because that attention is going to be captured by somebody.”
  — Pablo Torre (33:33)

• On America’s Multiculturalism:

  “America ends up being so sincere in its protection of its freedoms that people still fall in love with it from the outside in.”
  — Pablo Torre (35:58)

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Important Timestamps

• (01:26–06:13): Steve Ballmer, billionaires and accountability in sports
• (06:37–10:35): Epstein files, elite impunity, public shame
• (14:04): Trump and the “bed of nails” metaphor for scandal fatigue
• (15:02–17:07): Systemic reform (“burn it down”), not just for GOP but establishment Democrats
• (17:50–22:05): Prediction markets: corruption, insider trading, regulation debate
• (24:26–27:16): Trump’s Iran address, “manosphere,” and betrayal of core promises
• (31:00–33:33): Why the left must not abandon sports and culture war arenas
• (33:54–36:09): Birthright citizenship case at Supreme Court, what America means

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Tone & Style

• Conversation is witty, acerbic, and deeply informed—but also frustrated, even cynical at times.
• Hosts and Pablo Torre are open about their exhaustion with institutional failure, yet determined to seek pressure points for reform.
• The episode is rich with metaphor (bed of nails, cheese on broccoli), vivid analogies, and sharp, unsparing language that makes its moral urgency impossible to ignore.

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Summary Prepared for Readers Seeking a Thorough, Engaging Account of the Episode’s Themes and Content

Transcript

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[Podcast Host]

You can tell a lot about a person by their accent. I really do say I park my cat in Havana.

[Pablo Torre]

Everyone around here says, like, got coffee and dwark?

[Jessica Tarlov]

We're so attached to the way that we sound because it's telling us tells a part of the story of who we are.

[Podcast Host]

Your accent decoded. That's this week on Explain It To Me. Find new episodes Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Henry Blodgett]

When is the AI bubble gonna burst? How do you AI proof your job? How should colleges handle AI and prepare students for a shifting job market? I'm Henry Blodgett, and on my show Solutions, I've been exploring all of those questions and more with experts who have actual answers. We hear enough about our problems. Let's solve them. Follow Solutions with Henry Blodgett.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Jessica Tarlov and I'm so pumped to have Pablo Torre here. The host of Pablo Torre Finds Out. What is it? Three Emmy nominations.

[Sam Biddle]

But who's who's counting? Ms. Tarlov, who's who's counting?

[Jessica Tarlov]

At this point you definitely are. And I am to make this intro as flashy as possible. It's so cool to have you here.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, thank you so much.

[Sam Biddle]

External validation is a poison I love to drink. So thank you so much for having me and for stating all the things my mom wants me to say even louder than I already do.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah, I mean, I'm a Jew, so I totally understand about the moms that want to talk about all the accolades all the time. But no, it's really exciting. I've been, you know, consuming you in a not creepy way for a very long time.

[Sam Biddle]

Likewise.

[Pablo Torre]

Like, allow me to say, as much

[Sam Biddle]

as my mom is disappointed that I haven't gone to med school or law school, doing a show like this with you really is something that I appreciate. So I appreciate that.

[Jessica Tarlov]

If you aren't already, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube page to stay in the loop on all political news. I want to start off by talking about the blend of your world and my world. So you do these incredible investigations and the aspiration one into Steve Ballmer, who owns L A Clippers, former head of Microsoft, richest owner in the league, was paying his star Kawhi Leonard, through essentially a shell company to get above the salary cap. So he got an extra $28 million. I think it was. And you know, you really blew the roof off of the story. Got a lot of ire from the billionaire class to say the least. And it feels very similar to what's going on in politics today. Not only the straight up comp between what Ballmer did and how super PACs and dark money works, but also this world in which billionaires seem to get away with whatever they want. Can you talk a little bit about the relationship between the two worlds?

[Sam Biddle]

Yeah, I think about this all the time now. The question of accountability and how does it get imposed and who gets to matter when it comes to, oh, there's

[Pablo Torre]

a report or there's something resembling shame

[Sam Biddle]

that a really wealthy, powerful person should feel.

[Pablo Torre]

And in this case, sports is a fascinating sort of like laboratory for it. Because a guy like Steve Ballmer, you know, it's interesting when he was running

[Sam Biddle]

Microsoft and he was the CEO at the time of the, I would say most infamous at that point, anti competitive

[Pablo Torre]

scandal in the history of the U.S. government and our country, he was so

[Sam Biddle]

unmoved, I would say, by the idea

[Pablo Torre]

that you must be regulated and your

[Sam Biddle]

monopoly must be broken up. Sports is fascinating because there are lots

[Pablo Torre]

of the same desires of, wait a minute, we're the biggest and the richest. Steve Ballmer is the richest owner in sports by orders of magnitude in the world. He basically is richer than all the other owners combined. And so the question that he is

[Sam Biddle]

asking himself, according to my reporting, is

[Pablo Torre]

again, why can't I use all of my powers to their full extent? Why am I being regulated and suppressed by lesser beings? And in sports, because he's a basketball fan in sports, because he can't just buy the thing he wants the most because there are rules around competition that in sports we are sincere in our cliches about fair play. Right? He has to answer for this stuff. It was fascinating to see Steve Ballmer, the aforementioned guy who at that point had 150 or so billion dollars. It was fascinating to see him go to Bristol, Connecticut to sit down with ESPN the day after this reporting that I published came out. And he did it because he knows how important the rules are in sports or at the very least he knows how much he's supposed to care about

[Sam Biddle]

the performance of caring about the rules.

[Pablo Torre]

And so if only, if only in

[Sam Biddle]

politics there was that level of sort of like built in mechanism of public attention.

[Pablo Torre]

Now the question, the follow up question of course is will there be punishment? And so there are, there is the

[Sam Biddle]

question of should he care about this? Clearly, yes. And people will Ask about it.

[Pablo Torre]

The secondary follow up is now will the institution which is empowered to punish him, in this case the NBA, which is to say his own employees, in

[Sam Biddle]

a sense, will they actually do the thing that will provide anything resembling accountability?

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah, I mean, you say that there are mechanisms there in the NBA and Adam Silver has as the commissioner a lot of latitude. Right. And what gets enforced and what doesn't. But bringing this out to like a larger American question. We are supposed to be governed by laws and the court system is supposed to be a check. Right. And Congress is supposed to be a check on the executive as well. But that ship really sailed a while ago. And I'm thinking about things like, you know, a judge just halted Trump's plan to build the ballroom. So now you just have a big dug up mess right on the lawn. And, you know, following where that goes. But it really doesn't feel like there's much accountability in this moment whatsoever for, for sports and certainly for our politics.

[Sam Biddle]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

I think what you're seeing in sports

[Sam Biddle]

as this metaphor for politics is public demand for accountability being expressed in ways that frankly, a lot of mainstream institutions are not necessarily encouraging due to various conflicts of interest.

[Pablo Torre]

But then the question of, well, who's gonna do the punishing? Who's going to mete that out?

[Sam Biddle]

Look, I was studying reporting on the outside independent investigation that the NBA has started with Wachtel Lipton, an incredibly well regarded law firm. And what the various former employees of this tree planting, carbon credits shell company

[Pablo Torre]

have told me is, is that they're

[Sam Biddle]

not being asked by that firm. At least five of them have not been asked by that firm about Steve Ballmer directly.

[Pablo Torre]

And so there is this thing of

[Sam Biddle]

like, well, there are fall guys, according to this logic as well. Right.

[Pablo Torre]

We're not going to touch the big man, but we might get to have someone lower on the org chart take

[Sam Biddle]

the fall for him, if that.

[Pablo Torre]

But it's, look, it's depressing. It's depressing to live in an era

[Sam Biddle]

in which the owners of these teams are richer than ever from industries like

[Pablo Torre]

tech that are less accountable than ever.

[Sam Biddle]

And I think it all redounds to this notion of people feeling like their heirlooms. Whether it's, I don't know whether, whether it's the emotional attachment they have to the premise of like, ah, we're a

[Pablo Torre]

country with laws, we're a civil society, or it's, hey, in sports you got to play by the rules. It's depressing to not immediately know that

[Sam Biddle]

those things are being prioritized when you're paying money into a system that is effectively telling you we're going to care about these things.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Absolutely. I mean, and the comparison that pops up right away to me from the language that you're using is what's going on with the Epstein files. And you've talked about the Epstein files on your show. We just had Julie K. Brown on Raging Moderates know the pioneering journalist who's been on this beat. She's unbelievable. And not going to lie, it was pretty depressing hearing her talk about her hopes or what's realistic to think could happen in terms of accountability because they're definitely not touching the Steve Ballmers or like the Trumps of the world in this. But they're, they don't even have a fall guy. They have like fall. One fall woman. But she earned that right sitting in prison. Otherwise it's nothing.

[Sam Biddle]

And what a prison it is. Right. The sort of Club Med. Right. Idea there.

[Henry Blodgett]

Look.

[Pablo Torre]

And this is a. The Epstein files to me are also

[Sam Biddle]

like a sports story in real ways. I mean it was interesting to see

[Pablo Torre]

Bill Gates after the first.

[Sam Biddle]

I guess it was months ago now,

[Pablo Torre]

but like that wave in which he

[Sam Biddle]

was really now a protagonist in the

[Pablo Torre]

files, the first public appearance he made was sitting next to his partner at Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, at a Clippers game. That was the first place he was like, I'm going to be out in the world again. And what I'm reminded of.

[Sam Biddle]

And we also interviewed a former three

[Pablo Torre]

time Democratic congressman, Tom McMillan, the 6 foot 10ish guy in the video where he's walking in with Epstein shaking hands with Trump at Mar A Lago. We interviewed him on the show and it was an uncomfortable interview.

[Sam Biddle]

I'm very glad we did it. But it was tense and awkward at

[Pablo Torre]

times and it reminded me that sometimes the only thing we can hope for is some notion of public reaction that feels maybe like we're imposing something like shame because again, the legal recourse is not necessarily available or close to guaranteed. So what happens when you don't have

[Sam Biddle]

the repercussions that you're outlining?

[Pablo Torre]

Even though Julie K. Brown has been doing incredible work like this as well as other journalists who are on the

[Sam Biddle]

story now as well.

[Pablo Torre]

What might you get at best? And it's the idea that when you talk about this public figure, you gotta mention this stuff now and is that enough? Is that nourishing? You know, when we're starving for something like consequences?

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah. I mean the line in the Wikipedia entry I guess is something, but probably not for the highest ranking people. What you're describing, you know, makes me think of last weekend was no Kings Protestant Round 3, 8 million people out 3300 rallies across the country. We saw, you know, the brave people of Minneapolis, they got ice out essentially. They showed up enough in freezing cold temperatures to advocate for their rights and for the rights of people who are here illegally too. Do you feel like we are seeing a broad based swell of people demanding change or something better, or do you still feel like it's too quiet?

[Pablo Torre]

You know, it's been really encouraging, maybe

[Sam Biddle]

because the bar has been on the floor.

[Pablo Torre]

It's been so encouraging to see people

[Sam Biddle]

demand both consequences as well as journalism.

[Pablo Torre]

I think that's something to unite all of this.

[Sam Biddle]

Something that I've been just feeling, you know, to your first initial question is

[Pablo Torre]

that it is, it has never been easier for a very wealthy and powerful

[Sam Biddle]

person to, to hide the reality of what they're actually doing. And I think about this, of course, in all the ways that are obvious in our politics, all the ways in which this administration has been using, I

[Pablo Torre]

mean from cryptocurrency to shell companies to all these other mechanisms that don't require disclosure, the prediction market, insider trading epidemic, all of that stuff, it's really easy to get away with opacity. But over and over again, like the lesson I've learned by doing my little show has been, my God, we're underserving

[Sam Biddle]

the public appetite that wants to see

[Pablo Torre]

something like a reckoning. And so look, the no king stuff,

[Sam Biddle]

which is orders of magnitude beyond, I

[Pablo Torre]

think what I, what I expected at the outset. And I simply say that because numbness and something like resignation, you know, that tends to follow cynicism. And I think if nothing else, the pendulum has been pushed and abused to the point where they have gone too far. The Epstein class, broadly speaking, has gone too far. And you're looking at frankly the, the petards, the petards that this sort of ruling class has hoisted themselves upon. They're some of the most on the nose, classic examples of just like comic book corruption. We're talking about pedophilia, we're talking about a lack of judicial accountability. We're talking about all of the obvious things around the funneling of money in, in, in excess of any previous standard of like, well, how much is, how much is being won and lost secretly, it might be billions of dollars in coordination with foreign governments. I mean, that's the heat check that I think we're watching happen. And that's the thing that we're watching, you know, explode in the streets of this country.

[Jessica Tarlov]

It's so weird how the stuff that's the most obvious and out front feels the hardest to deal with. Almost like the, you know, stab me in the front versus the back. Like the front appears to be more difficult to prosecute than the kind of work that, you know, you're doing or you spent a year looking into something. Right?

[Sam Biddle]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean there's also, I also think

[Sam Biddle]

about the, the bed of nails metaphor,

[Pablo Torre]

you know, when there are so many

[Sam Biddle]

scandals, like how does any of them puncture any one person? And Trump himself is the greatest embodiment of this. Like he can just lie across a bed of a thousand scandals. But something that I, I, I like to remind myself about is that, you know, I think we are for better and often for worse. We're living in a pendulum of a civil society and we will see the physics of this demand a counterbalancing reaction. But structurally, you know, you see this all the time. I hear you talk about it all the time.

[Pablo Torre]

Structurally, I think we need to have

[Sam Biddle]

a level of alarm that is still not in direct proportion.

[Pablo Torre]

It's still being underweighted compared to, it's one thing to say, ah, the public attitude demands change.

[Sam Biddle]

It's another thing to say, and now we gotta rebuild institutions that have been actively, you know, suicide bombed from the inside out.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Not just rebuild, reform. Like we have to burn it down too. And I think that's something, you know, as a Democrat that I've really struggled with and to communicate with lawmakers who are like, we're going to go back to how it was, like we'll be respected on the world stage. And I'm like, like it wasn't that great before for people, especially for poor people in America who are telling you like they want an arsonist with a D on their shirt or an R on their shirt and they're going to pick whoever is going to make the most change.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes. And you know, it's, it's, that's a

[Sam Biddle]

way better way to put it. I mean the thing that I was thinking about also with, of course, like this FBI and this Epstein files investigation,

[Pablo Torre]

look, this administration is the dog that

[Sam Biddle]

caught the car, right? They ran on.

[Pablo Torre]

We're going to tear down the system.

[Sam Biddle]

You are anti political. Not just apolitical, but anti political. We will be your avatar.

[Pablo Torre]

We're going to do all the things

[Sam Biddle]

that the populist will of the people has long demanded. And it turns out they, they caught the car, they got it. And the car turned out to be full of Epstein files and they were like, oh no, we don't want to

[Pablo Torre]

open the door of the car now.

[Sam Biddle]

And, and so look, I think it's really important to your point for Democrats, for people on the left, people who are just simply not associated with this administration, to also hold their own people accountable.

[Pablo Torre]

Because the credibility question, we are at an inflection point. And so if there are, and there certainly are lots of Democrats in here, I'm not opposed to bringing in Bill and Hillary done under of course, non

[Sam Biddle]

ridiculous sorts of conditions.

[Pablo Torre]

I'm not opposed to that. But it must also clearly be Trump as well. It must also clearly be Les Wexner and Leon Black as well.

[Sam Biddle]

I think that if anything else, we have a moment to say, yeah, I'm also here to reform and tear down the system.

[Pablo Torre]

And as proof, we're going to, we're

[Sam Biddle]

going to reform the people that also we didn't love who were perpetuating the same system.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Absolutely. And I think part of that tear it down or showing that you're really serious about change links to the prediction markets that you mentioned. So it seems like, you know, this is just a massive hub for insider trading. You know, anytime Trump is going to do something vis a vis Iran, you know, you see the spikes going around and someone's getting rich and the people who are supposed to investigate it are actually resigning because they won't even be able to carry out their work and maybe they're better, you know, served on the outside. I know you had Chris Murphy on to talk about this. Can you tell the raging moderates audience a bit about what you think is going on with these prediction markets and if you think there's any chance for regulation.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, I mean, this has been an

[Sam Biddle]

ongoing subject of our coverage because it's fascinating and deeply corrupt.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Sports betting is and obviously like a huge issue.

[Pablo Torre]

It's like 90% sports betting still, I mean, which kind of gives away the game. You know, it's.

[Sam Biddle]

If nothing else, economically, it's a way for sports betting to happen and to circumvent state by state laws. The CFTC is so fascinating as an institution because this federal agency has said we are going to regulate event contracts, which we consider commodities, which are what prediction markets offer. They're not bets.

[Pablo Torre]

Keep that in mind. They're not bets, they're event contracts. And these are commodities, you know. So the reason I say that is

[Sam Biddle]

because the federal government is basically saying,

[Pablo Torre]

we want a thousand prediction markets to bloom.

[Sam Biddle]

We love this stuff. And in the process While Don Jr. Is on the board of both CalSHI and Polymarket, the two leaders.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Seems like a conflict of interest. I'm surprised that, that you would do both, that you would get to do both.

[Pablo Torre]

I think it's so again, it's a

[Sam Biddle]

bit on the nose, right?

[Pablo Torre]

It's like what if, what if we had him work for both Apple and Microsoft?

[Sam Biddle]

It's like, well, why would that be?

[Pablo Torre]

Well, it's because they know the transactionality

[Sam Biddle]

of government is actually incentivizing this.

[Pablo Torre]

And so nobody seems to even pretend

[Sam Biddle]

that anything else is happening.

[Pablo Torre]

But it leads to the follow up question of if it's 90% sports betting,

[Sam Biddle]

great, okay, a huge problem.

[Pablo Torre]

But let's leave it off to the side for now.

[Sam Biddle]

In politics, the question becomes, well, if

[Pablo Torre]

everything is sports betting, you can make a market out of literally anything, including

[Sam Biddle]

Caroline Levitt's press conference. How long is that going to run? As well as will the price of oil, you know, react to a apparent alleged peace being imposed on the Middle east right now?

[Pablo Torre]

Um, well, who, who knows about that? And so a prediction market, just the, the history of it is fascinating because there's a logic to it that makes sense. If you have skin in the game, you can have lots of independent experts who know things to create something like

[Sam Biddle]

a consensus around what will happen in the future.

[Pablo Torre]

And that is really interesting to know. As a matter of forecasting, what is less cool, I dare say, is when the people who are insiders now have the ability to share that knowledge with a small number of people who will all profit at the expense of the public. And so the question you have to ask yourself when you're betting on anything political on a prediction market is am I more likely more likely to know more about this than whoever Don Jr. Is telling? It's just the question, right? Like you have no edge, actually, you have no inside information. You are going to be the patsy

[Sam Biddle]

that someone else profits off of.

[Pablo Torre]

Because this is a deeply unregulated space where inside information is still being reckoned with as almost a novel concept, even if it's the general thesis for why we have to regulate the stock market, right? It's just like the very basic logic hasn't yet caught up because everything is move fast and break things. And so look, the implications of it are vast.

[Sam Biddle]

It's not only deeply corrupt, it's not only a way to funnel money, it's not only a way for insiders to profit, is also something that I think is deeply even more dystopian, which is

[Pablo Torre]

if you consider these markets as sources

[Sam Biddle]

for accurate forecasts of truth.

[Pablo Torre]

You also are ceding to these markets the power to legitimate whatever the market is favoring, which is to say, if the question is, are we going to go and invade Venezuela?

[Sam Biddle]

Which was literally a question on the

[Pablo Torre]

prediction market, and the money is saying, yes, we will. And the consensus around the public response is, well, of course we're going to do it. Look at the prediction market now. You've given to these insiders or to people with money broadly, the power to actually change public assumptions about what is

[Sam Biddle]

reasonable to expect in our world. And war, assassinations, terrorism, whether Jesus will

[Pablo Torre]

come back from the dead before 2027,

[Sam Biddle]

which is literally a market on polymarket,

[Pablo Torre]

and there's also a derivative market based

[Sam Biddle]

on whether that number will ever hit 5%. It's all.

[Pablo Torre]

It's all pretty fucked.

[Sam Biddle]

I dare say.

[Jessica Tarlov]

I dare say the. My recommendation to people who are trying to track these things is to follow the Domino's tracker of with there's pizza going to the Pentagon, or I guess to Mar a Lago, which is now our new Pentagon, because we live in the 50th circle of hell. Okay, let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

[Brene Brown]

Hi, I'm Brene Brown.

[Sam Biddle]

And I'm Adam Grant.

[Brene Brown]

And we're here to invite you to the Curiosity Shop, a podcast that's a

[TikTok Advertiser]

place for listening, wondering, thinking, feeling and questioning.

[Brene Brown]

It's gonna be fun. We rarely agree, but we almost never disagree.

[Podcast Host (Explain It To Me)]

And we're always learning.

[Brene Brown]

That's true. You can subscribe to the Curiosity shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app to automatically. We receive new episodes every Thursday.

[Podcast Host (Explain It To Me)]

There's basically been one guy in Republican politics who's argued for regime change in Iran for years and for America to take a proactive military role in making it happen. Ambassador John Bolton, President Trump's former national security advisor. But now even Bolton says Donald Trump is messing it up.

[John Bolton]

As far as we can tell, he did no preparation of the opposition actually inside Iran. No coordination. No effort to see what they would do. No effort to support them, to provide resources, money, arms, if that's what they wanted. Telecommunications. Just no coordination at all. And they don't seem prepared for it.

[Podcast Host (Explain It To Me)]

How Trump lost the Republican Party's biggest Iraq Warhawk Today. Explain. Every weekday and on Saturdays, too.

[Version History Host]

In 1984, Apple launched maybe the most consequential computer ever. It was not a good computer, particularly. There was actually a lot wrong with it. But the Macintosh had all of the right ideas about what computers would become and it kind of changed everything. This week on Version History, our chat show about the best and worst and most interesting products in tech history were telling the story of the Macintosh and why, again, despite not being very good, it managed to change everything. Anyway, that's version history on YouTube and wherever you get podcasts.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Welcome back. There's a big Oval Office address tonight about Iran. I'm curious as to what you think Trump is going to be saying there. It's, you know, rumored online that he's going to go after the NATO alliance and, you know, put them on notice, as if that hasn't already been going on for a while, but that, you know, maybe they're serious about leaving this time. What do you think?

[Sam Biddle]

Look, I think that Trump is so deeply inconsistent outside of his own self interest that you could tell me he will continue to escalate the rhetoric where

[Pablo Torre]

it's like, hey, you know, England and

[Sam Biddle]

France, you go navigate the Strait of Hormuz. How do you like it? You know, like, go do that.

[Pablo Torre]

He could do any number of things

[Sam Biddle]

that always sort of like, project blame away.

[Pablo Torre]

The thing that I keep on returning

[Sam Biddle]

to, that I hope he has held to account for from a political campaign

[Pablo Torre]

perspective is, again, dude promised no new foreign wars. And when I think about the, again,

[Sam Biddle]

I come from sports, so I can't help but think about what has been deemed the manosphere. Right.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Because, well, that's where I wanted to go. So thank you for getting me there.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, well, you see that. What, what was the manosphere into? They were into no new foreign wars. They were into accountability for the Epstein files.

[Sam Biddle]

You know, they were into, frankly, like, we shouldn't let billionaires be lying to us. And what has our conversation resembled so far?

[Pablo Torre]

It's been a repudiation of each of those major planks from people who were, again, not merely apolitical, but anti political. And so the Iran thing is hugely,

[Sam Biddle]

I think, a lever on the destruction of the campaign promises of this administration. I think that when J.D. vance releases his new book about faith and he wants to go talk about it to all of the dudes online, you should not merely notice that that church apparently is seemingly like an Episcopalian church and not a Catholic church. And as a Catholic, I can sort of value one of the few high horses I will get on as a

[Pablo Torre]

Catholic in 2026 is stolen valor. Like, what are you doing? Like, that's not even a good cosplay of Catholicism. Not only talk about that, but also talk about why. Why?

[Sam Biddle]

And how can you possibly be smiling as the number two person in this administration while you're going back on literally everything you said. And so Iran is complicated, but it's also very simple. And I imagine that Trump's campaign messaging

[Pablo Torre]

will be unpersuasive to a bunch of

[Sam Biddle]

dudes who I think, by the way, spoiler alert, the.

[Pablo Torre]

The left can also access not merely

[Sam Biddle]

by promising what feels like conspiracy, but

[Pablo Torre]

what actually might be accountability. And if you can use sports as a. As a bit of cheese to melt

[Sam Biddle]

on the broccoli of accountability and accountability,

[Pablo Torre]

journalism and consequences, I think you have

[Sam Biddle]

a way to speak to what actually is a desert, a relative desert of. Of that audience of these dudes feeling like they're getting what they've asked for.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah, I mean, I would hope so, because I certainly, you know, working in conservative media, I've basically just heard about how neutered all Democratic men are, and that, like, no man worth their salt or could, like, get a woman pregnant would ever be a Democrat. I don't know how we possibly have all these children, but anyway, so I.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, can I ask you about that?

[Jessica Tarlov]

Because I look, children.

[Pablo Torre]

How are. How are. How are babby formed? How girl get pregnant?

[Brene Brown]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

No, what I wanted to ask about was something I admire about you, is

[Sam Biddle]

that you go into hostile, a hostile arena, and you are unbowed. And it's really impressive to watch because you're living in a state of perpetual conflict.

[Pablo Torre]

I actually think your perspective on, like,

[Sam Biddle]

what is even worth strategizing around when

[Pablo Torre]

it comes to convincing those people with those views versus going to this audience that I think is still up for grabs.

[Sam Biddle]

And actually, I guess the question more broadly is how up for grabs do you think the audience is that you

[Pablo Torre]

are speaking in front of, even as

[Sam Biddle]

all of the stuff I'm saying is potentially pulling at the threads of a political coalition?

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah, well, the audience, like the 4 million that sit down at 5 o' clock or, you know, access their DVR to watch the five, about 50% are Republicans, 20% Dems, and 30% independents. So there's a good amount of talking to people who have at some point voted like me. And I think in the Trump era, everything is scrambled. Right. Like the hardcore MAGA can't hear you, but Normie Republicans can. So I've always felt like it's a great place to try your hand at persuading. But, you know, you know better than anyone that, like, your audience for who tunes in at the moment versus what you can do on social when your clips invade another universe, like our worlds. I mean, because of what you investigate, they sync up. But, like, we live in two different stratospheres, essentially. Right. But I see you all the time, and I'm sure that you see me. Maybe not all the time, but, like, it gets into the feeds, and that's where I think the real opportunity is. And to that group of young men that you're talking about, the ones who fell into the manosphere, the Andrew Schultz devotees. Right. Or the Dana White fans, they feel totally up for grabs to me. And I'm wondering if you could unpack a little more, like, the relationship or the fissure, I guess, between, like, the sports world and politics. Because it feels like there has been a bit of a boomerang back where it's like, this actually isn't that cool for us to be in bed, putting aside the UFC fight that's going to happen on the lawn and Mark Mullen. Yeah, but do you. Are you sensing that, too, that there is a bit of a breakup there?

[Sam Biddle]

Oh, yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Look, the number one.

[Sam Biddle]

Well, there are lots of hypocrisies to power rank here, but one of the top hypocrisies has always been that all this administration wants is for people to stick to sports.

[Pablo Torre]

No one has more cravenly and more

[Sam Biddle]

transparently tried to infuse their political messaging into sports than the Trump administration.

[Pablo Torre]

And the reason why they do it,

[Sam Biddle]

of course, speaking and harkening back to the rhetoric around, like, the transactionality of

[Pablo Torre]

all of it, is because it's not a bad strategy.

[Sam Biddle]

It might actually have a return on

[Pablo Torre]

the investment simply because, as you pointed out, we're so fragmented that sports is

[Sam Biddle]

like the last big bipartisan tent left in American life in that way. Like, the reason why I think sports is so valuable is because it's a vector to reach people who are not merely in my audience politically. It's a vector to reach people who are just here for games and then

[Pablo Torre]

they come for the sports and they

[Sam Biddle]

stick around because I've, again, cynically speaking, I perhaps tricked them into thinking that this is just going to be all cheese and no broccoli. In fact, I think there's some. There's some stuff that they might even

[Pablo Torre]

enjoy eating underneath that.

[Sam Biddle]

And so for me, I think that it's number one clear that this administration, as much as they say they are the number one, whatever sports fans in our country and all these beta cucks, they don't know what they're talking about. I think it's also pretty clear, as per the JD Vance example, they don't

[Pablo Torre]

really know as much as they pretend you could put in a former MMA

[Sam Biddle]

fighter in Mark Wayne Mullen to head, you know, to head Homeland Security. But if you look and hear how Trump and J.D. vance certainly are talking, they're not so

[Pablo Torre]

much sports fans as they are people

[Sam Biddle]

who are deeply self interested and know that they should appeal to people who like sports. And I think for sports fans there has been a difference. I think the cynical manipulation of sports in a way that is so overt is in excess, frankly of what had been characterized previously as political but was really about race.

[Pablo Torre]

You know, like I think about even just the Colin Kaepernick stuff and that's

[Sam Biddle]

a whole other multi part podcast series

[Pablo Torre]

obviously, but like the whole idea of

[Sam Biddle]

like what happened, it's like, well, a super majority of NFL players are black and they felt like their experience was being trampled upon in ways that were unfair and in violation of anything resembling their First Amendment rights.

[Pablo Torre]

And there's a debate there certainly, but

[Sam Biddle]

the notion of like, well, this is a Democratic party, it's like.

[Pablo Torre]

No, no, hold on. I think that what we're seeing with the Trump administration. Administration is something that is so clearly

[Sam Biddle]

campaigning by a party versus a reflection of like what is a perpetual stew of. Yeah. Of sociological tensions that can result in protest.

[Pablo Torre]

Anyway, I'm now rambling officially, but my

[Sam Biddle]

point is I think sports is absolutely the number one culture war territory that is available for both parties. And if the left abdicates it, they

[Pablo Torre]

are making a grave mistake because that attention is going to be captured by somebody.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Absolutely. And you've done really great work also on Riley Gaines and the kind of culture war mashup of sports with her and Leah Thomas, the pen swimmer. That was really fascinating. I recommend everyone go look at that.

[Sam Biddle]

Thank you. Yeah.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Birthright citizenship is at the Supreme Court today. I've seen some like, trickles out so far that it seems like Chief Justice John Roberts is skeptical of the case that the government is making, pushing back on things like birth tourism and you know how often it happens. Do you have a feel for, you know, how you think it's going to go, but really more like what it means for the country that we're even having this conversation?

[Sam Biddle]

Yeah, look, I'm a first generation American. My parents came from the Philippines legally and I was the first one born here. And I got to be a citizen because I was born in the state of New York in the United States of America. Look, I grew up and it's funny to think of New York as like the embodiment of A bubble. Because in some ways, of course it is. It is also, though, the America that I fell in love with and still like, adore. And the reason is because it is a genuine multicultural society. And I think all of this redounds to this larger question of do we still consider a multicultural society to be a concept worth fighting for? Or is it, in the eyes of this administration and its various enforcement arms, is it in fact the degradation of what America ought to be? And so, look, the Supreme Court is going to handle this on a constitutional level, on a legal basis. And I am hopeful that, yeah, the wisdom of relative normalcy.

[Pablo Torre]

And I say that knowing that Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas exist, I say

[Sam Biddle]

that with the hope that, in fact, it still is a popular idea that America engenders love for itself by bringing in people who visually and even audibly don't sound like what used to be the movie idea of what an American is. But America ends up being so sincere

[Pablo Torre]

in its protection of its freedoms that

[Sam Biddle]

people still fall in love with it from the outside in. And so, yeah, I'm hopeful that that's still the case.

[Jessica Tarlov]

I too would like an America like that. And we're both New York City kids. I don't have the same immigration story, but I know what you mean about it and it would lose a lot of magic if something like that changed. Pablo Torre exceeded expectations which were already so high. Thank you for joining me.

[Pablo Torre]

Anytime.

[Sam Biddle]

I'm a fan and yeah, I hope to pop into your algorithm whether you like it or not.

[Jessica Tarlov]

You are welcome. Invade all the time because it's pretty red pilled right now. That's Elon Musk's.

[Pablo Torre]

I was going to say you're both.

[Sam Biddle]

Our phones are in a pretty bad place, I'm guessing.

[Jessica Tarlov]

Yeah, very unhealthy. All right, before we go, a reminder that not only is Raging Moderates five days a week, we're also on Substack. Subscribers get ad free episodes, which I think you guys really like. Live streams and a place to connect with me and Scott and the rest of the Prof. G community. Find us@raging moderates. Prof. Gmedia.com, also big news. Nominated for a Webby Award for best news in politics podcast. Can you believe it? We need your help to bring it home. Head to vote.webbyawards.com and cast your vote. Show us some love. Scott and I really appreciate it and like it is a big deal just to be nominated but like everyone really wants to win. Of course. That's all for this episode. Thank you so much for joining today,

[Sam Biddle]

Sam.