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- [00:00]
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- [01:01]
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- [01:57]
Isaac Saul
Coming up, we talk NBA Scandal and we're joined by Ethan Strauss, who heard that we were going to talk about some Nazis. So you decided to hang out for a little while. It's a good one. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening and welcome to the Suspension of the Rules podcast. I'm your host. Host Isaac Saul. I'm here today with Camille Foster, our editor at large, and Ari Weitzman, our managing editor. And we have a special guest here today, Ethan Strauss of House of Strauss Notoriety is joining us because we just have to talk about this NBA gambling scandal. I guess it's plural, too. Yes. Just. Yeah. There's no way around spending 10 or 15 minutes on this story. So. Ethan, welcome to the show. It's good to have you here, man.
- [03:03]
Ben
Thanks for having me. And yeah, it is plural. I was just reading up on this right now and I read the phrase the second indictment. You never want to read that. You never want to be in a situation where there's the second indictment. But, yes, I'm trying to absorb as much as I can about this. I can talk perhaps more cogently on what. What has led up to the conditions that would create this. But this is a moving target right now. This is whatever alarm fire for the NBA.
- [03:34]
Isaac Saul
Yeah, well, I'll do. Let me do the basics as I sort of understand it as a sports junkie and not a sports journalist like Ethan, but basically I woke up this morning to a push notification that Chauncey Billups, former NBA star, I mean, he was an all star player. Player at once.
- [03:57]
Ben
I think he's one of the most underrated players in NBA history and if we had had advanced statistics back then, might have appropriately been considered a superstar. That's a hot take, but maybe that, maybe that's why he never got his credit. So maybe that's why we're here today.
- [04:13]
Ethan Strauss
Off the rails.
- [04:17]
Isaac Saul
Nick.
- [04:17]
Ben
He had a great nickname, Mr. Mr. Big Shot, but I'm ruining your expository. Continue, sir.
- [04:22]
Isaac Saul
No, no, that's good. That's really good color. Okay, well, I would. I'd really, truly love to spend the next 30 minutes talking about Chauncey Billup's NBA legacy, but it is apparently just the flame. Anyway, regardless of whether he was ever a true All Star or not, because he was arrested this morning by the FBI, he is currently the Portland Trailblazers head coach. And he was arrested in an alleged gambling scheme as well as Miami guard Terry Rozier. Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, who was arrested, but not for the same gambling scheme that Chauncey Billups was arrested for. As I understand it, it seems like Terry Rozier maybe was in some like, poker game thing, something. I think I have that right. Is that like the general contours of that may be correct even?
- [05:16]
Ben
Well, yeah, I think we need to talk about the names of these different sting operations by the FBI, the different indictments. We've got Operation Royal Flush, which is the poker scheme, the rigged poker games, and I believe it's Operation Nothing but Net for the standard inside info and big gamble cartoonists. It sounds like it's so good. It's so Good. And I'm trying to gather all of these details as it comes. Rumors are flying fast. People are wondering about Camille Foster's favorite NBA player, LeBron James, friend of Damon Jones, odd mysterious injury. Mysterious injury. Very disconnected from the team. I'm not saying anything. We've got no proof of anything.
- [06:11]
Camille Foster
We don't need any speculation. I was talking to the guys earlier, before you got here, and what I text you was, was this on anyone's bingo card? Like, did anyone say NBA falls in love with gambling? There's going to be a deluge of controversies and takedowns and scandal because you've got this situation where you've got a lot of players who leave the league, not just the journeyman who's like, on a team, and it's not making a whole bunch, but the guys who leave and aren't getting the big checks anymore, but are still hanging out with and talking to some of the same guys. The temptation to do something a little shady that maybe skirts the line and perhaps gets you into trouble, like, actually seems pretty. Pretty big. Like this is. It seems like an obvious problem in retrospect, but I certainly hadn't thought about it when the NBA was embracing gambling in the way that it has.
- [07:05]
Ben
Yeah, I don't want to pat myself on the back too much, but I would say it was. It was on my bingo card. And I think this gets to some difficult issues to talk about and there's some nuance here. I think that I want adults to be able to do what they do. But a lot of people's sense of morality is anchored around what's legal versus what's not legal. And behaviors are going to engage in. They're going to be less inclined. Prohibition works to a degree. I'm not saying every bad thing, on balance, should be prohibited. Obviously they're externality of prohibition. But I think there's some naivete here where the leagues went from a model where gambling is bad, it's bad, and you athletes definitely shouldn't do it to one of gambling is great. And all the advertisements all over here are saying gambling is great, but you athletes definitely shouldn't do it. And they assumed that that would work. And it doesn't actually work, it seems, or at least it doesn't work enough to prevent scandals. And I think one of the storylines here, too is that I keep hearing the phrase tip of the iceberg, tip of the iceberg. But I feel like I'm just watching the leagues ram into various icebergs and just be in denial of the problem, I mean, I'll put it this way. The best baseball closer from a year ago and arguably best closer in baseball was caught. Allegedly. I don't know what's been proven, but it looks like, yeah, pretty proven, that he was just spiking pitches in the dirt for prop bets and was suspended, kicked off the team. Barely a story. I don't even know if you guys know about that one. Do you know about the Emmanuel clause? And I think what that speaks to is this other situation which is that all the leagues, all the media properties, nearly all the like surrounding media have that conflict of interest where they're in bed with the sports gambling operations. And I don't think any call goes out. I don't think this is top down, but everybody just kind of knows, ooh, don't talk about that, don't mess with that. And so there's also an incentive here. Not only are the athletes getting more involved in doing things that would be a massive news story 10 years ago and breaking these particular laws and hurting the integrity of the game, but the media organs and the leagues themselves have this incentive to hear no evil, see no evil. And when these things do happen, this is a big story today. I don't know how much incentive there will be to keep making it a big story a week from now is what I'm saying.
- [09:55]
Isaac Saul
Yeah, I mean the irony in all of this, as I was starting to say, was that the NBA is literally an official partner of DraftKings. And my favorite tweet that I saw that came out of this, I don't even know who this guy is, but he tweeted the NBA is very concerned about the multiple arrests made as a result of the FBI Sports Gambling Code use multiple arrests for a 30% profit boost on a three leg parlay with DraftKings, the official gambling partner of the NBA. And it's like, I mean that does seem to kind of be where we are. Like it is just sort of absurd how intertwined these businesses are. And yeah, the incentives are. And look, I'm, you know, I'm a recreational gambler. I'm happy to admit that on the air. I like to make some sports bets here and there. Little, little Sunday NFL parlay makes things a lot more fun and interesting to watch. I don't have like some, you know, I'm not, I don't have some like purity perspective on this from like a moral standpoint. But like there's. This is clearly corrupting the professional sports leagues in a way that feels really meaningful.
- [11:07]
Ben
Yeah, I mean parlay, like let's, let's fixate on parlay right there. Because I think that's part of this story. I do making bets on sports outcomes, which I've done before and I enjoy doing. I like thinking about prediction. I've partnered with, we're trying to do non gambling prediction at Sports Predict. I love that stuff. And that's a little like blackjack. If you're saying, hey, who's gonna win the game? It's a little like blackjack, it's tilted to the house. But a lot of what the sports gambling companies are doing, they're trying to, they're trying to funnel people to the parlays because that's when you can really soak people and take advantage of some cognitive biases. I'm looking at something I wrote about it. You know, parlays for people who don't know, that's combined events where you can, like a lottery, you like a bunch of things go right, you win a big prize that's more exciting, but it's more unlikely. And according to the University of Nevada's center for Gaming research, sportsbooks earned 5.5 cents for every dollar wagered on basketball. And that's a pretty nice return. But you compare it to parlays. In the same study, sportsbooks earned, earned 32.1 cents per dollar on parlay betting. And I think that's part of the story is that they're really trying to soak the consumer for everything they have. And yeah, you could say you should know that if you understand the casinos and gambling. But I do think there's a difference between allowing some wagering and making some money off the way you would make money off the blackjack tables. And, and the way these companies and the sports leagues combined are not only doing this, but then on the other side of it, I think what a lot of people don't know, if you're good at it, they'll lock you out algorithmically in a much more efficient manner than if you were gambling at sportsbooks in person. You'll be locked out. You don't have to win a lot to be locked out. I've got friends who are pretty sharp betters. They win a four figure amount and they're locked out. And so the leagues have just along with the companies set up a highly predatory endeavor here and made it the perhaps major basis off the surrounding media apparatus is just, I don't know, just draining the wallets of people while not giving much of a return and not exactly playing fair.
- [13:38]
Ethan Strauss
I Would say, and there is something that is just different when we're talking about how this compares to blackjack, where it's a game. I like that analogy a lot. I'm a hobbyist. Card counter. It's a game where when you play blackjack, the house has a slight edge. And if you count cards and you do it perfectly, you tilt the edge slightly to your favor as long as you do it perfectly. But in order to play the game, you have to go to the house. And it's very different when the house is in your pocket. It's hard even for somebody. Like, I consider myself somebody who. I say, I don't gamble. I play blackjack. And it's tough when you know you're a person. I mean, it's.
- [14:17]
Ben
No, I get that you do it right. You do it right. But, like, if I was allowed to gamble on sports, and I say this, it sounds arrogant, but I did a picks column where I showed all my. Like, back in the day, before it was legalized fully, I would beat the house if I was allowed to bet on the NBA. And it's what I wanted to do and what I needed to do. I. I would beat the house. I'm not allowed to. And that's what people don't know. It's actually possible to win. A lot of people are in denial of that. It is. You have to. A lot of effort, just like I'm sure you have with blackjack, but they don't. They don't let you do it.
- [14:53]
Ethan Strauss
But also, Ethan, I think, like, when you're not at that level, because most of us want to be at the level where we do a lot of research to make the best informed bets for sports betting. But you're trying to be rational. It's harder when it's put in your phone and it's put in your pocket, and you can think of something where you think, you know, I like the spread here. I know that this quarterback struggles on the road, whatever, and you go to Benton under, and you're just. You open the app and all you see is like, parlay, parlay, Parlay. Here's a $20 free bet. Go place some more money on this. And it just keeps nudging you in that direction. It's hard to be a rational person when that context is flooding you in that way.
- [15:29]
Camille Foster
I was not expecting this to become a commercial for gambling. Like, I'm perhaps the only one who's not an inveterate gambler. But I hear Ethan saying, it's EAS easy. You could feed your family.
- [15:40]
Ben
I'm saying the opposite. It's on your phone. I'm saying the fallacy, like the fallacy people have is that beating the house is impossible and you have to be some super genius to be a sports better who beats the house. What I'm saying is you don't have to be a super genius. You just have to take it seriously, be fairly smart and have a good mind for that. And you will not be allowed to do it. That's what I'm saying is that, yeah.
- [16:05]
Camille Foster
They'Ll stop you after you make some money.
- [16:08]
Ben
So there's no profit in it. There's no real upside. The people I know who are sharp gamblers who make their living this way tell me that they, they spend way more bandwidth on getting bets down than getting an edge. That the edge is easy. The hard part is finding beards to place bets for you and just be eluding the house constantly. And I don't think people know that. I think people think, oh, I could get lucky. And no, over time, unless you quit the first time you win, you will not, you will not win. It's all set up to make you lose. And maybe this sounds idealistic, but I think that to me is a real shame that the sports leagues have decided that the major way they're going to make money is by making losers out of their fans. But where was I? I mean, there's just so many directions to take this. I just think in general, I think it also challenges the whole it's in your pocket. And I wonder about Camille's thoughts on this because Camille is libertarian minded and I am in some ways, but it challenges some of those. I want to let people do whatever they want to do. Presumptions. I have to go. I don't know, this might be just something that breaks us cognitively and we just shouldn't be allowed to do it. I don't like the results so far.
- [17:31]
Camille Foster
I'm only concerned when it begins to actually interfere with the game and they start playing the game differently. I mean, the league having its own rules, insisting that if you're an active head coach, if you're a player, you don't gamble. Totally fine. From my libertarian perspective, that is exactly how things are supposed to work. No problem with that. But whether or not there should be additional federal or state level restrictions, I'm less sure. It is interesting to wonder though, or at least to ask the question, I don't know what the Trump administration would likely do here, if they would be likely or more or less likely than, say, a Democratic administration, I presume, less to get involved.
- [18:15]
Ben
But that is not the assumption right now. That is not what people are saying right now. Stephen A. Smith just said on espn, he just gave a big speech about this, saying Trump is coming. Like he's, he's, he's coming after you guys.
- [18:29]
Isaac Saul
Huh?
- [18:30]
Ben
It's kind of funny phrasing, but he just gave a whole speech about, about this, about how. And I think there's something to it. He might be overreading what's happening. I don't know how much Trump is involved in the FBI investigation.
- [18:46]
Camille Foster
Yeah, I can't imagine.
- [18:49]
Ben
But I do know this. You know, the NBA used to have friends in high places. They used to have friends in high places. You know, Obama would walk into these games with Adam Silver, the commissioner of the NBA, and the NBA effectively took a side politically. They did. They opened up their arenas as these voting centers in cities. And it was funny, it was a bit of a kabuki because it was all about vote, vote, vote. And they would take that day off of the NBA schedule and still do. So everybody can vote, vote, vote. They don't say vote Democrat, but everybody kind of knows you've got LeBron as this anti Trump surrogate. And that's something that people are whispering about and talking about that if you've got any sort of, if you've got any sort of anything that isn't entirely legal and you are an enemy of this administration, you might be in trouble. And that might be true of the NBA writ large, that, you know, that LeBron, the NBA, they've been at war with Trump and now Trump is running the FBI. So, yeah, I think that there is probably more danger here and more of a chance of future investigations than if the Democratic Party was in charge. Considering their ties to the NBA and the friendliness, that's just what I would guess.
- [20:12]
Isaac Saul
I mean, I think you can tell, like, you know, Cash Patel is doing the morning news show rounds today. I mean, they are trumpeting this, the, like the arrest, the indictment, it happened in the morning there. He's, you know, out on X. The FBI is releasing statements like they are making a big splash of this, which that isn't always the case. You know, Kash Patel isn't like dialing into Fox News every time the FBI makes an arrest. Like, they want the media around this. They want the press around it. Which I guess to Ethan's point, to me is like a signal that they want this to be, you know, they want to create the Image, like, we're here to clean up the NBA, basically. You know, like, I think that's the message coming from the administration, which is interesting. And to Ethan's point, again, like, it does feel like every sport now has kind of gotten bucketed into, like, these certain perceptions of, you know, like, the UFC is like this, like, Pro Trump arena, where it's, like, it's friendly for him to go show up there and come to fights and whatever, and they want those people voting for them or.
- [21:17]
Camille Foster
For them to show up at his place.
- [21:19]
Isaac Saul
Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, oh, yeah. All of that is. Is kind of a live ball, in my view, in terms of just, like, the partisan warfare. I'm curious.
- [21:31]
Ben
There's no way.
- [21:32]
Camille Foster
I think.
- [21:32]
Ben
I'm sorry, it's just. That was a great example. There's no way Cash Patel is out in front of this if this is some sort of UFC betting scandal.
- [21:40]
Isaac Saul
There's just no way.
- [21:42]
Ben
So the politics does inform it.
- [21:44]
Isaac Saul
Sure, yeah. I'm curious, even. I mean, you know, your read on the degree to which this problem is actually permeating these professional leagues. Like, as a fan, you know, watching it feels to me like more and more of these stories are popping up. You know, like, we've. Last year, we had a couple stories about gambling in the NBA. I think before we hopped on the or, right after we got on, you were talking about, like, the. The Closer in Major League Baseball last year. You know, there was the whole Ohtani story, which, like, we've all just kind of memory hold now, like, from your. From where you're sitting, like, talk to me a little bit about the scale of the problem. Like, you know, if you were to try and make a read of the room, how many of these athletes might actually be caught up in something like this? And is this, like, just the beginning, or is this something where it's, you know, you're expecting a lot more arrests and indictments and things like this.
- [22:47]
Ben
Well, it's hard for me to know if it's just the beginning and what scale it gets to, because it's tremendously stupid to do this. And one would think that eventually guys in these professions would figure it out, that it's tremendously stupid.
- [23:02]
Ethan Strauss
But dropping one, but that still happens a lot.
- [23:06]
Ben
Well, there you go.
- [23:06]
Isaac Saul
And you've got.
- [23:07]
Ben
You have this problem. You've got this issue of all these advertisements everywhere, say, make money this way, make money that way. And they just feel, well, why can't I trade on what I do? You know, if the league doesn't care about its integrity to the point of promoting gambling. What do I give a shit? It's this different kind of moral and shitification of everything. And so I don't think they should do it. I think it should stop because they will get caught. And again, there's an irony here that it's hard to send them the message they will get caught because that message comes with the other message, which is that this is all rigged and bullshit. So the leagues don't want to necessarily promote that. It's not like Adam Silver can give a speech and go, everybody loses. And there's no way, if you win a big bet of $40,000, we won't find out instantly and arrest you. I mean, that's just. But that's. That's the setup, basically. Since it's all rigged, it's really stupid for the players to do it, but they think they can get away with it because none of the advertising tells them it's rigged. How many are doing it? I don't know. I'm hearing some rumors that we're gonna find out some college sports stories pretty soon. I just. I think there was a naivete here. I'm reminded of there was a rapper in the Bay Area, not a famous one, it was way back in the day named Selly Sell. And he had a line, how are you going to do dirt and stay clean? And that's what I think about with this whole thing, this idea of, how are you going to get involved in the lifestyle and have it not come back on you. He was talking about, people are going to try to kill you. How are you going to get involved in this and have that not happen? It seems like these leagues thought that they could do dirt and get involved heavily in the world of vice to find this new revenue source. Because these companies have an embedded growth principle, and this is what they figured out. And they wouldn't have this happen or it happened on the margins, and actually it's happening all the time. And so that's the situation.
- [25:10]
Ethan Strauss
I mean, I feel really compelled by a lot of that. And I think it comes back to this idea, though, that it conflicts with. Of prohibitions generally don't work. And having a reaction to something that is somewhat natural that people can have fun doing that can go to extremes of being a stance of never do it might not work either. And a thing that I always think about, anytime I hear stories like this break, that maybe this is simplistic and has its own naivete, but I always think, why shouldn't it just be allowed to bet on the outcome of your games as long as you're betting on your team winning.
- [25:46]
Ben
Well, okay, so here's the problem with that. Okay, well, who gets in this, in this scenario, you're just talking about the athletes or which, which people?
- [25:55]
Ethan Strauss
Let's say athletes. Anybody who's involved with teams. Like, if you're gonna place a bet, as long as it's betting for your team, go for it.
- [26:02]
Ben
Well, there's a perverse incentive structure with coaches. When people talk about Pete Rose, he was betting on his own team. You're making decisions about the long term health of the team, and you're making choices that you can, you know, you can do things that are maybe pennywise pound foolish. So from a managing perspective for the players themselves, I mean, that's a wild world to consider. Could you bet on yourself? As long as you bet on yourself? I don't know. I don't see it. I don't see it working. I just think that that's. We're going even further into this zone right here. I mean, it's not as bad as shaving points to bet on yourself, but it does feel like the first step to shaving points, because that's the thing you can always do, is just do worse. That's the, the leverage.
- [26:51]
Ethan Strauss
But doesn't that give you the ability to say, like, we have a line now. We can't just come out and say, you will get caught. Everyone loses. But hey, we told you it was cool if you did it this way. Now you're shaving points.
- [27:03]
Ben
So, I mean, I mean, I think.
- [27:05]
Isaac Saul
I, I think I actually, I think the practical response to why that doesn't work is like, I'm LeBron James and I'm making a public bet in some meaningless regular season game that I'm gonna go beat Kevin Durant. And me and Durant have a side thing where, like, you know, if Durant throws the game, then we'll split the pot. And that's just like the easiest way to rig that system possible. And now we're just like sort of doing it in the open and greenlighting it.
- [27:34]
Ben
So that's why it doesn't work. And also, the NBA is a weird sport now where you've got to pace yourself. And this is the whole pennywise pound foolish where you're going to be incentivized to maybe really try in a situation where you should let go of the rope. I mean, are they going to be able to bet lines? This is just going to be money line. I don't know, it just doesn't. This just feels like a Pandora's box that perhaps should not have been opened a few years ago. But what's interesting to me about it is that this was the first big thing that NBA commissioner Adam Silver wanted to do. He, upon taking over the NBA in 2014, wrote an op ed published in the New York Times arguing for gambling legalization. And I return to it every now and again whenever one of these stories pops up, because it's just an interesting document. It's naive about the future. It's trying to sell us on how this is going to make things cleaner and sunlight was going to be the greatest disinfectant. And obviously it wasn't motivated by wanting to improve society. It was motivated by this other thing, this term that they use called fracking the pie. I mean, the broader issue is this, like, why did we get here? One of the reasons we got here is because it's hard to create new sports fans. And there was a time when sports were just gaining more and more fans domestically, and then that stopped. We had so much competing for our attention. There are studies that say the incoming generation of teenagers, only 15% of them watch sports on television or watch live sports at all. And so there's a demographic cliff. In theory, it's harder to get people's attention spans. They've maybe maxed out whatever they can internationally, but they still try. You've got the NFL going to Brazil looking for more fans, and it's led to what I've called fracking the pie, where you have lost faith and belief that you can grow the pie. So you're trying to get as much out of it as you can and find it. Just dig deeper into the pockets of the fans that you have. And this is part of that. They're trying to dig deeper in the pockets. This was the big gambit to frack the pie, to do the sports gambling. And I don't know if we're here or here to this degree with this emphasis. If the sports leagues thought that they could just keep finding new fans, I think it's connected to them believing they can't.
- [30:15]
Isaac Saul
We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [30:22]
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- [30:53]
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- [31:31]
Isaac Saul
All right, Ethan Strauss, we have to talk about some domestic politics issues today. As much as I'd love to let this run for another hour and a half, we appreciate you dropping in on the show.
- [31:42]
Ben
Are you sure? I don't want to. I know you're trying to get rid of me right now. I can't talk about that. I mean, I could maybe talk about that, depending.
- [31:51]
Isaac Saul
Hey, I read your writing. If you want to stick around for some chatter about Nazi tattoos on demonstration.
- [31:59]
Ben
That's exactly what I want to talk about.
- [32:02]
Ethan Strauss
It's great because I'm so sick of talking about Nazi signaling. So you could just take my lines now. Ethan.
- [32:08]
Camille Foster
Vintage Ethan. It's. Every time I text him, he's like, let's talk about Nazi tattoos again. It's like, seriously?
- [32:13]
Ben
Oh, yeah.
- [32:13]
Camille Foster
I don't really.
- [32:14]
Ethan Strauss
Can't.
- [32:15]
Camille Foster
Creepy.
- [32:15]
Ben
I'm shocked that this one was such a. I thought it was going to be more vague. I was shocked at how. How much of a Nazi tattoo that it was. But, yes, I. Let me stick around for a few minutes. I don't want to take up your whole segment, but if you're going to talk Nazi tattoos, I'm in. I mean, I'm just saying.
- [32:32]
Isaac Saul
Camille Foster, you're. You're up, buddy. You're supposed to be framing this story for us. We're tapping you in.
- [32:39]
Camille Foster
Yeah, well, I've been following this a little bit, and I have to admit that initially, Ethan, I was with you. I fully expected that this Graham Platner situation. He's running for Senate in Maine. He only announced or launched the Senate campaign formally on August 19th, as I understand it. So not very long, but was already kind of taking off. You would see these clips of him all over the place. He was like Fetterman in many respects, without the kind of MAGA baggage. Like just this reliable guy. He looks kind of tough and masculine and he talks in this way. It's just very, very Direct and no nonsense. And Suddenly around the 16th, you started to get these odd media reports about these Reddit posts that Planter had posted back in like 2013 through 2021, it seems. And the posts were not great. They're kind of vulgar, forceful in many instances. This is him being a lot more kind of radical in his politics than he presents. He was describing himself as a communist. He was taking a kind of hard line that sort of echoed a lot of the sentiments that you might expect from the kind of Black Lives Matter moment in American politics. Like, yeah, that white rural voters are actually more racist than stupid than you suspect, like that sort of thing. And of course, advocating for fighting fascism, which generally speaking, not a bad thing, but certainly has a kind of political valence to it. So all of that was a bit rough and it actually precipitated the resignation of one of his top ranking campaign officials. And I might have expected that to kind of be the end of it. He actually responded to it in a way that seemed pretty good, like, this is not who I am. These are posts from a particular time. You know, I was a military guy and a lot of that was just different. I was in a hard place and I'm someone else now. And honestly, I heard that stuff in the moment and I thought to myself, that's actually, one, it's refreshing. Two, he's pretty good at this. And three, maybe this goes away now, but then he shows up on Pod Save America. And I'm a little uncertain of some of the context here, and I suspect we'll learn more in the coming days. The sense was that he was coming there to reveal some things and hopefully essentially do an oppo dump on himself. And they play this video of him shirtless at a wedding, singing in what look like briefs, but are apparently some kind of training underwear. And you can see this tattoo on his chest. And the tattoo has become the center of the scandal. And the issue with the tattoo is it is an actual Nazi insignia. I believe it's called a Totenkampf, which again is an issue because even he calls it that, but he's insisting he didn't know what it was. And the same campaign staffer who resigned is actually saying publicly, oh, he definitely knew what it was. He is essentially a historian of various things military related. And there's no way he didn't know what this was. And again, this is a person who resigned because they insisted that they couldn't stand by him anymore. And I don't know. I mean, this is the sort of Thing where I would have totally expected this to go kind of the direction of the Pete Hegseth scandal from not too many months ago when he was first nominated. And we saw some images of a tattoo on his chest, which I'm forgetting exactly what it was. It was some sign of a Celtic cross, which apparently has some other. Is that right? Okay, it has some other. Some other ways in which it's been kind of adopted by certain nefarious characters, but that's certainly not the only way that it's been utilized. This, on the other hand, it's hard to explain away. The best thing I could say for him, or maybe the best case I could try to make is maybe he walked into that shop in Europe where he had this tattoo done some years ago, I believe, back in like 2017 or 2007 in Croatia, and he just sees this hanging on the wall and is like, ah, you know what? That looks interesting. Sure. Put that on my body forever. And just had no idea what it was. But that just does not seem plausible.
- [37:08]
Ethan Strauss
Yeah. Kind of beggars belief that a shop in Croatia which was struck by like Nazis taking the Roma population during the Holocaust would have a Nazi insignia. He must have gone into a very specific shop if that's the case. And then for years with people who, if he didn't know what it was, other people did, would hear that and go, sure, but I'm going to leave it like even in the best understanding, it invites questions and speculation and also still doesn't sound great.
- [37:36]
Camille Foster
Yeah. So at this point he's covered it up, but the expectation here among conservatives obviously is that Democrats will condemn him. Although the response, at least up to yesterday had seemed pretty muted. There was a pretty big Wall Street Journal opinion piece which really kind of blew this wide open in some respects. And it's anyone's guess what happens next. I know Bernie Sanders was asked about this directly and kind of dodged and danced a little bit, but I'm not sure how this breaks.
- [38:06]
Ben
Yeah, I think one piece of expository context as well is that he made a bit of a name for himself as anybody is who's courting popularity, it seems, with the Democratic voting base by being anti apac. And so that's just another aspect of the story, I think, where there's this strange kind of anti Israel politics that is burbling, I think, in the grassroots of both parties, maybe more so in the media component with the right and more so of the politician component on the left. I don't want to stop. This is Your guy's show. I'm a dumb sports writer, so I just, you know, whatever. If you guys have a point to make, make a point.
- [38:53]
Isaac Saul
No, I mean, I would. First of all, don't, don't be so reductive about your range. Ethan. I've read your newsletter. We know, we know who you are. You are who we thought you were, man, you can talk about this for hours. I'm sure that's one, two. Look, I would add a couple contextual points here too, that I think are really important. One is like, we just got done a cycle, the presidential cycle and the sort of post mortem cycle where all Democrats have been doing is talking about how they need to find a way to reconnect with like the masculine young men, the manosphere. And then in walks Graham Platner, this like ripped, hairy former Marine who's just like espousing progressive politics with like his gravelly fucking manly voice, just out there being a man. And like Tate standing up for the Democrats and being a hard O with conservative. Like, he is the dream solution to the problem that they, they've been trying to address. And better yet, he's doing it in a Senate race in Maine that he could actually win. Like a Senate race that will be competitive in a state that for the last, you know, whatever, 12 years maybe. I don't know how long Susan Collins has been in the senate, but she's.
- [40:14]
Ben
1996, I believe is the one she first.
- [40:17]
Isaac Saul
Okay, so, yeah, so there you go. And like, and, and they're, they're, they're opening the door to finally getting this, like, I'm so concerned about Trump Republican out of the Senate and bringing in this like, fire breathing progressive who's gonna, you know, a, give them a really important vote and B, I think communicate to this base of voters they've really been hurting with. And then to have it all just like start to unravel in this kind of fashion is so it's like, of course they're going to resist this. Of course they're not just going to like submit and say, maybe we screwed up. Maybe there's some dirt here. Maybe we don't want to associate with this guy. Like, they are going to try and find a way to keep him politically palatable. I mean, one of the things, Camille, that you skipped over in your sort of his past online comments and the Reddit stuff is, I mean, he had a lot of really like homophobic stuff in there too. I know. I remember reading like one of the, one of the posts was you know, there's just like, all these posts of him, like, calling people fags and saying, this is the gayest stuff he's ever, you know, scene. And like. And it, like, really kind of stuff that in traditional Democratic times is like, you're out, that's it, we're done. But in this moment, I think the party is really inclined to keep someone like this in their orbit, and they're going to do some mental gymnastics. I will say, since nobody said it yet. I watched his apology video after the online post came out, before the Nazi tattoo stuff came out, and I thought it was basically as good as it could be. I mean, he did not.
- [42:08]
Camille Foster
I said that. Yeah, I said that.
- [42:09]
Isaac Saul
He's pretty good. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, he did not, in my view, he did not excuse the behavior. He did not try and, like, he didn't offer some sort of hard to believe excuse. He was like, look, I was in the Marines. I was in a dark place. I was swimming in gallows humor. That's how I talked. These are some of the things I believed. And I've evolved as a person. And I think if you want somebody to come out and get in front of a story like that, that's about as good as you can ask for. And I watched it, and I did not leave watching that apology video thinking, like, this guy's a fraud or he's a slippery politician or he's dodging this story. I left being like, okay, that seems like a plausible explanation. And, like, do I really want to, you know, hold this against this guy for the rest of his life for comments that he made online, you know, 10, 15 years ago, whatever it was. So the tattoo stuff's a little bit more like, I guess the hair on the back of my neck goes up a little bit differently, but it also just feels like he's not going anywhere. He's got a ton of grassroots momentum, and I think Democrats are going to keep. Do everything they can to keep him in the mix is sort of my read on what's coming.
- [43:26]
Ben
Yeah, I generally don't want people's personal indiscretions from the past to be disqualifying. I'm more interested in what a politician would do for me. At the same time, this is getting tested by the crazy Nazi tattoo on this guy's chest. And I think the problem for Democrats is a little similar to the problem Republicans had early on during the Trump phenomenon, where being with Trump was so dangerous and, yes, we can say low status, that the party became something of a bug. Light for freaks, I would say. I think that's less so now. Now that Trump is more legitimized and has more alliances with tech people or whatever. It's more a party in a situation where a non complete freak would join up. But right now the situation with the Democrats have got such a problem with young men. They've got such a problem with men writ large. And I thought that you did a great job framing it that this guy came in from central casting to solve their problems. But the problem is their message is so anti charismatic to men that the sort of person they're selecting for who would join them is, sorry to say it, a freak. Or more likely to be a total freak. This guy is a freak. I'm just saying it. I'm just gonna say it. This guy is a total fucking freak show oyster farmer. Just crazy Nazi tattoo. The oyster farmers.
- [45:00]
Ethan Strauss
Come on.
- [45:01]
Ben
I mean look, he's really taking the anti Semitism far where he's got not only the Nazi tattoo but he's got to get the anti kosher food as his main means. He's really just going, no, I don't. There's nothing wrong with oyster farming. Oysters are delicious. I personally like them grilled. But that's a side note. Yeah, I just think that that's part of the problem they have. They've got a message, they've got an issue that repels men and so they think they can fix it by finding the correct man from central casting, a man such as this. But their problem is actually the message and the contents of the policies that they push. And it creates this deliciously ironic crazy situation where the guy they choose is just going to be more likely to be something like this. I couldn't have predicted this, but something crazy. That's my thought on it.
- [46:06]
Isaac Saul
We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [46:12]
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- [47:46]
Isaac Saul
I'm just going to say really quick, Camille, and then I'll let you go. It is fascinating to me that we're getting such a huge volume of this genre of story right now. Like the J. Jones text, Graham Platner Reddit post tattoo, the Young Republican stuff, the Paul and Gracia text. Like it, there's, it's, it's. It feels like there's like a proxy war of who said the worst shit behind closed doors happening right now. Um, anyway, it felt feels relevant. I figured I'd throw that out there.
- [48:19]
Camille Foster
But yeah, I was, I was gonna push in the same. I was gonna push in the same direction. Actually, I'm thinking about. I've spent a lot of time over the course of the last week and a half thinking about and talking about the Republican scandals with respect to these odious comments in these chat groups. Much of it again, seems like people were joking, but I don't really joke that way in a sustained way with anyone. And we joke about a lot of things in our crazy text groups. Not this one. Well, me and Ethan do, and I suppose me and Moynihan and Welch. But the rest of the I don't.
- [48:54]
Ethan Strauss
Want those facts coming out. Maybe let's just keep a rap on that.
- [48:57]
Camille Foster
I mean, it is what it is. Someone will hack my icloud eventually.
- [48:59]
Ethan Strauss
Let me ask and like, I know that we've covered a lot of ground of this already, but like with the vice signaling and the opposite of virtue signaling that I think a lot of people get into in order to do edgy humor. Can we just stop doing the Nazi stuff? It's like, it's barely funny for one. Like, I think it's played out loving Hitler's outfits.
- [49:21]
Ben
Which Nazi stuff? I need specifics here for my ch.
- [49:25]
Ethan Strauss
I think it's you want to talk about Invading Russia in the winter, fine. Like, that's military tactics. But anything to do with the trap ground we've already trodden, it's just boring. It's just not funny. And also, like, kind of don't like Nazis. Maybe it's just like, yeah, come up with a different thing. Why is it always Nazis? It makes me, like, it makes me want to already recoil from what the back the backlash will be, which will be more. We have to protect Jews. We have to protect Jews. I'm like, stop talking about the Jews. I hate being a Jew that's in the spotlight all the time about this. Like, maybe some more jokes about, like, South American dictators for a little bit. Let's just leave this one alone.
- [50:09]
Isaac Saul
I totally agree. I mean, I. As I've said on this show before, I think we should bring back Italian American slurs.
- [50:15]
Ben
We should focus on Indiana Jones.
- [50:20]
Ethan Strauss
Like, swap of one.
- [50:22]
Camille Foster
Oh, can't we all just get along?
- [50:24]
Ben
I am surprised by how enduring the Nazi Hitler thing has been saying in culture. I mean, it's. It's sort of. It's just amazing to me that at these protests that you just hear like, Nazi, Nazi, Nazi. And it's just this thing. It's this fixation. I mean, this was a very long time ago. Obviously World War II set the table for a lot of what became of America and a lot of our sense of morality. I think our moral architecture is informed by a lot of what happened there, but you would expect it to fade out a bit. And then there's this other aspect where a lot of the people yelling Nazi as a pejorative are also perhaps least sympathetic towards whatever Jews are going through currently, or the least supportive of the country where half the world's Jews live. It's very strange. We live in strange times.
- [51:20]
Camille Foster
I mean, just as a rhetorical device and in political argument, being able to appeal to and invoke the apogee of evil is valuable and it's useful to do it and projecting it at other people. I do find that the part of this that makes it so frustrating is the fact that it is happening on both sides. Like, the left and the right have their version of this problem, their Nazi problem, their bigot problem, which they are not policing particularly well. They are making excuses for the people who are indulging in this garbage. And it does feel like a place, especially considering where we've been over the course of the past five years. They know what zero tolerance looks like, and they're doing anything but that now. And I don't need zero tolerance necessarily, but I do at least need a reliable, credible pushback against the most kind of distressing and pernicious bigotry being openly broadcast in some respects and in some cases, you know, behind closed doors as well. More often than not. Seems behind closed doors recently. But you do have an active conversation on the right on this, on social media about no enemies to the right and not attacking other conservatives and essentially having a big tent that includes people who are kind of flirting with, if not openly endorsing really ugly ideas that that should be okay. And apparently the people that are too far afield are like the David Frenches of the world. Like, that is disturbing and strange and it is very frustrating that you see exactly the same kind of dynamic playing out on the left and the right. And actually, I wouldn't say it's exactly the same. I don't want to go for equivalence at this point. I just want to establish that there is something similar happening in both places and that makes this story just a bit more frustrating.
- [53:20]
Isaac Saul
I mean, it's like the, the reality that we're living in is that it seems like most of the country has the most rudimentary understanding of one historical event. And It's World War II and like 1930s Germany and they don't understand it that well, but it's their only touchpoint for any anything and everything kind of goes back to that always. And that sort of once we start circling like Nazi, you know, fascism and you know, anti Semitism, all in the context of like, oh, I sort of understand this one historical event. And then all our modern day political controversies just require invoking this like one singular period of time. And as Ari said, we just somehow end up always coming back to the Jews, which, you know, never makes me super comfortable. All right, well, listen, we are, we are coming up on an hour here and we have to have a little bit of a shorter show than usual today because we are out in California, at least Ari and Camille and I are, and we have our Tango Live event, our third ever Tango Live event, happening in Irvine, California on Friday night. So if you're listening to this before, then there are probably still some tickets available if you're in the area and want to come out. Ethan, since you're here, you're the first guest I've ever had on the show who I couldn't get rid of. So congratulations. I tried to usher on you, somehow managed to stay for the full unbelievable aura. In order to do that, we like to end our shows with something we call the airing of the grievances. This is a safe space where you get to complain about things. Something. Any. Any particular complaint that you have from the week. The more privileged sounding, the better. You know, Camille likes to talk about how he didn't get the proper treatment in, like, his first class JetBlue flight across the country or something like that. Things are typically in that context. So I'm gonna pause for one moment so we have some space for John to play the grievances theme song. And then I'll actually go first this week because I think I have a good one.
- [55:29]
Commercial Voice
The airing of grievances.
- [55:35]
Ethan Strauss
Between you and me, I think your.
- [55:36]
Ben
Country is placing a lot of importance on shoe removal.
- [55:40]
Isaac Saul
Okay, so we're. We're out here in Orange County. I'm in Orange county, and Ari's in Orange County. And I got off the plane, and we have this event on Friday. And I needed a haircut, so I looked up a barber. I went to go to this barber. And just be clear. This part of the story is not my grievance. This was awesome. I went to go get my hair cut, and I was in the chair getting my hair cut by a woman, a lady barber, which I don't usually have. Almost all my barbers are men, always. So it was a nice change of pace to have a woman cutting my hair. And we're just, like, gabbing for a few minutes. And literally two or three minutes into the conversation, she's explaining to me how the Palisades fire in California were orchestrated by Gavin New Scum.
- [56:25]
Ben
And I was like, this is.
- [56:29]
Isaac Saul
I am so happy to be in this chair right now, you know? And it's like, it's one of those amazing social situations where you have 30 minutes with somebody and you have to talk and interact, and you just know you're never gonna see this person again. And so you can just be whoever you want to be. So I just egged her on. I was just like, whoa. Like, I've never thought of it like that. And she gave me a really incredible rundown of an apparently quite commonly held view in Orange County, California, that Gavin Newsom wanted the Palisades to burn. And there's a big development project coming in that he's super supportive of. How could they not put out the fires? The ocean's right there. I mean, good questions to be asking. I don't understand it myself, but that is not my grievance. That was a true, genuine highlight of my day yesterday. And she was an incredibly nice woman. And at a Few moments it felt like maybe she was doing some of it in jest, and then it would sort of circle back to like, oh, no, she's totally serious. At the end of the haircut, we're about to wrap up, and she's just doing the stuff great barbers do. I got a great haircut. Just like, final clean, little bit of razor here and there, making sure all the angles are right. And she just says, and just going to clean up the eyebrows real quick. And then before I could say anything, just. Just like, caught in her fingers and just, like, trimmed my eyebrows. And I was like, whoa. A, nobody's ever done that. B, you have just introduced an entirely new insecurity that I never would have consumed, which is that my eyebrows are, like, out of control somehow and need to be managed. So wait, do you love it? I came home and I can see the difference a little bit. Like, she made them less bushy. But, yeah, I just, I look, I spent three minutes in the mirror last night just like, fuck, have I been walking around with, like, gross eyebrows? Like, this woman took one look at me and was like, yeah, I'm gonna clean that up for you. So that's my grievance is this wonderful barber in Orange county, whom I had an exhilarating 30 minute conversation with about Gavin Newsom. Just, like, A, shaved my eyebrows against without my consent. The word, um came out of my mouth, and then she just hit them both. And B, now I'm insecure about my eyebrows, which I never, ever in years would have been. So that's my grievance for the week.
- [58:55]
Ethan Strauss
I kind of get it like the. For myself anyway. Like, I been looking in the mirror and, like, when I'm shaving and I feel like there's what I would call old man hairs on the eyebrows where there's like a rogue here or there that kind of starts to curl a little below. And I took the. The little adjustment head on the. For my electric razor and I tried that. I just, like, did a little bit below each eyebrow. And then afterwards I was like, that was great, actually. I feel like that resolved this issue. I'm just going to do this every time.
- [59:24]
Camille Foster
I'm not doing for it. I'm not going with you guys there.
- [59:27]
Ethan Strauss
You're Camille, Your eyebrows are perfect.
- [59:29]
Ben
You're fine.
- [59:29]
Isaac Saul
They are. You're not.
- [59:30]
Ben
You're not Jewish. You're not afflicted with this giant cartoonish Eugene Levy eyebrows like some of us have. I need to be managed and trimmed.
- [59:41]
Ethan Strauss
With hedge trimmer anti Semitic tropes.
- [59:44]
Ben
Right away.
- [59:46]
Camille Foster
Maybe I'll go next because I've got a barber story that you've just inspired me to, I guess remember Isaac and it ends in a slightly different way. There was also a moment though where I had this man instructing me in grooming my facial hair. I'm 40 plus years old, I didn't know that I was grooming my mustache the wrong way and apparently I need to let the hair grow up towards my nostrils a little more and it makes my face look longer and I think it actually works. He's right and maybe that makes this next part okay. I found him because he happens to cut inside of a hotel that I was staying at and there was just a sign and I needed a barber. I had to do something. I was in LA for that night of awe and wondering.
- [60:33]
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