Right. Hey everybody. I got a bunch of stuff for you today. The pod is gonna be a double header. In segment two, we're gonna do a little MMA talk with the woke Bill Crystal of MMA world. So I think that will be interesting, particularly with the big fight coming up in the White House grounds and all of the. There's more corruption than I even realized between Trump and MMA world. So do stick around for Luke Thomas. Up first we got Jon Ossoff. You might have heard about him. He has been hot on the stump lately, so was excited to chat with him about his reelect in Georgia, but also some bigger picture stuff. Reminder, we have our live events in California, San Diego, Downtown San Diego May 20, Downtown LA, May 21. I'm getting some fun stuff ready. So come on, come hang, pull the trigger. Let's do it. Before we get to both of our guests, I taped both of them yesterday, so Wednesday and I'm taping this Thursday morning. We have some news this morning that Janet Mills has dropped out of the main Senate race. I just. The main Senate race has been an absolute calamity and I think that hopefully it doesn't end as a calamity. Hopefully it ends with Senator Platner. But I do think it's important for the Democratic establishment to take this moment to learn from what happened in the race. And the Democratic base is unhappy. They want fighters. They don't want people in their 80s. They want people that are going to demonstrate that they are up for the moment. And so having the D.C. establishment try to force people on them is not only not going to work, it's going to backfire like we saw in Maine. And this is kind of related to the Hasan discourse I was getting into. Sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy because I live through, obviously there are differences, but I live through the populist base uprising in the Republican Party. Some of it is untamable. But there are things that can be done and there are things that shouldn't be done. There are things that backfire. And I watched it all. Like I watched it all happen. I watched how the limp Republican establishment just kept stepping on rake after rake as they watched the Tea Party and then eventually Trump take over. And so there's at least some lessons learned for what not to do that I can offer to people. And one thing not to do is try to feed a 80 year old establishment candidate, Lobster Biden, onto an electorate that has told you they don't want it. If you want a fighting mod, you got to find a fighting mod. And I don't exactly know. Dan Cleveland was in the race initially. He's a beer guy in Maine. Who knows how well good of a campaign he could have run. But the fact that Chuck Schumer went and pushed kind of an independent minded mainstream Democratic businessman out of the race and pressured him and others to endorse Janet Mills's hopeless campaign and then went negative and started dropping oppo on Graham Platner long after it was obvious that Platner was going to win. And it was just a comedy of errors. And the comedy of errors was based on a lack of understanding of what is really happening on the ground. And if you understood what was really happening on the ground and you were worried about Platner because of, you know, his history, because he's a little bit of a loose cannon. Yeah. Whatever reason, like if you have legitimate concerns that that is a risky bet for Maine, well, you had sitting there an outsider businessman candidate that didn't have quite as rowdy of a background and maybe that wouldn't have worked. Graham is super talented. Graham might have been winning anyway, but at least going the other way there was a chance. Dumb and dumber. So you're saying there's a chance. And certainly if you're going to do this officially endorsing the establishment. I mean, like they cost Janet Mills points by doing this, by being heavy handed and getting into Maine. Okay, So I think that there's good reason for the base to be mad. You don't want to get eaten by the crocodiles though. I was scrolling through my Instagram feed this morning and had multiple messages from people sending me a post that has like millions of views from an influencer talking about how they're not a conspiracy theorist. And then they lay out a bunch of conspiracy theories. Like, you have to have lines around all this. You have to recognize that this thing can spiral out of control. And so wasting your credibility on a 79 year old Senate candidate and demonstrating just total tone deafness ruins your ability to have any trust with voters when you're going to them and saying, hey, this thing isn't true or this is out of line, this is too far. Maybe we need a different type of candidate to win in this type of state. I mean, like they just, the establishment has just totally torched their credibility. It's also related to the Favreau interview with Ken Martin that I'm sure many of you guys listen to over on Ponzi of America. It's like they gotta wake up. They gotta wake up and if they don't, there's gonna be a violent overthrow of the party by the populist left. And we'll see how that shakes out. So that's where we're at. It's gonna be Graham Platner vs. Susan Collins will obviously be covering that race a lot and just a total disaster class from Schumer and the DSCC and how to handle that race. I will say there's some other green shoots, including our guests today, including the recruitment of Mary Beltolda and Alaska, some other ones. So it's not, you know, things are nuanced. Humans are fallible. They make smart decisions and mad decisions. They're running a great race in Georgia. Have had some good recruitments in other places, but the main situation was basically a 101 and everything that you can do wrong as an establishment trying to deal with a populist uprising in your midst. All right, so that's that. There's a bunch of other stuff out there that we get into later on in the week. The gas price, we could have hit an inflection point, I think on the economic strife. The gas price is increasing. That we're seeing this week, particularly in the upper Midwest, is pretty alarming. And there's a lot worse to come on that front. That's gonna have major ripple effects in our politics. I think that we are very, very early in the economic crisis and things are gonna get worse before they get better. And that's gonna have a lot of impact on the midterms and hopefully that'll help people like Graham Platner and the guest we're about to get to next. So stick around. Segment two, it's Luke Thomas doing a little MMA talk. I am not an MMA person, so even if you're not an MMA person, it's very 101 and I think it sheds a lot of important light on what Trump. So I encourage you to stick around for that. But up first, it's Jon Ossoff. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome to the show for the first time the Democratic United States Senator from the state of Georgia. It's Jon Ossoff. How you doing, man?
Jon Ossoff (8:57)
I think it's a disaster. And it's the fruit of a many years long effort to dismantle the policy legacy of a civil rights movement and the foundations of black political power in the United States. And it makes me think about what President Trump has done and tried to do in Georgia since 2020, up to and including the recent raid on Fulton county where Tulsi Gabbard, the nation's spy chief, right, the nation's senior most intelligence officer, not a law enforcement official, was there overseeing, overseeing. And those are her own words that she used under oath in front of a Senate intelligence committee when I questioned her. The nation's spy chief overseeing a ballot raid in Fulton County. Well, why is it that Donald Trump has been so obsessed with Fulton County, Georgia and the 2020 election? And in my view, it's because this man, who is a committed lifelong racist, who recently posted memes of the Obamas depicted as apes, cannot wrap his head around the fact that black voters and black political power in the American south was responsible for his defeat in the 2020 election. Hence his obsession with Georgia ever since.
Jon Ossoff (16:35)
I don't think there has been a strategy. I think this is strategic and geopolitical malpractice. And it's been a debacle for the national security and economic interests of the United States, because, first of all, not only is the regime in Tehran intact, it now appears to be dominated by hardline IRGC elements who may pose even more of a threat to our national interests and who may be arguing internally against any kind of restriction on nuclear weapons development, particularly now that for them, you know, this is like the lesson of Libya versus North Korea. From their perspective, they may believe that they have more reason to sprint for a weapon on the basis of a stockpile of highly enriched uranium that they only built after Donald Trump shredded President Obama's Iran deal over the objections of his secretaries of state and defense. So you've got a more hardline and dangerous regime in Tehran which has now shown to the world that under heavy aerial bombardment from the two most powerful air forces in world history, they can sustain closure of the strait and throttle global energy supply. And very swiftly in this conflict, the president found himself in the dilemma where his options were to escalate or to lose. And now we're in this standoff that is doing immense damage to the global economy and our leverage in these nuclear negotiations, which are crucially important because an Iranian nuclear weapons capability would be an existential threat to many of our allies, a critical national security threat to the United States. Our leverage in that diplomacy is now diminished.
Tim Miller (18:39)
There are more important policy ramifications to this I want to get into with you, but I'm struck by how humiliating this all is for Trump and how weak he looks. And you gave that speech a little bit ago now where you're talking about how on day 10, he said the war was almost over, on day 11, said we've already won. Originally, when we started, it was only unconditional surrender. A couple weeks ago, he was going to end their civilization. And. And we have now here today, a president that is very limply trying to hope that the Iranians come back to the table. And he just looks unbelievably weak. I put my former Republican hat on. I was like, if a Democratic president was this weak in a counter negotiation, we would be mocking and belittling just how feckless and humiliated he is. And I just wonder if you think that there is any benefit in and engaging in that kind of attack. On the administration, just given how embarrassing this has all been for them.
Jon Ossoff (23:40)
Yeah, I want to go deeper on the Saudi and Emirati connections because I think this is some of the most blatant and grotesque conflicts of interest and corruption in the history of White Houses. But I also just want to put us on alert that we need to be watching like a hawk as this President engages with Xi Jinping, because the message that he and his family and his emissaries have been sending to the whole world is that the personal, private business of the First Family and the interests of the United States are, in the view of this President, linked. That's the message that the world has gotten. And we have to be on alert that the Chinese leadership may see opportunities to influence the foreign policy of the United States by offering direct or indirect inducements commercially that suit the interests of the Trump Organization. The President's businesses, his crypto venture, his son's businesses, his son's now the sprawling business empire, but didn't suddenly become great entrepreneurs. It's just that the whole world thinks they can curry favor with the President of the United States by patronizing his family's businesses. I mean, Jared Kushner, who had already received, through his private equity firm, Affinity Partners, billions of dollars of Saudi investment, very substantial Emirati investment, has been reportedly going around the Middle east asking for billions more from princes and sheikhs in the region while moonlighting as the special envoy, or whatever they call him, leading the most sensitive American diplomacy. It's grotesque, it's absurd. And I think that the American people see it for what it is. And it is another reason that a wave is building toward these midterm elections that is going to rebuke these abuses of power and this corruption in a historic way.
Jon Ossoff (26:42)
That's a fair point. That's a fair point. And it probably should have. Although I will say I don't think he was occupying the same sort of role of diplomatic prominence during that period, but he was clearly advising the administration on foreign policy during the first term. But, but look, the, the, the oversight and investigations muscles in Congress generally have atrophied. I mean, that the Republicans in office right now are living in fear of the White House. They're not going to impose any accountability or transparency. But I'll just say, generally, I mean, I've spent the last few years using oversight power in Congress to investigate civil rights abuses in our prison system. To investigate abuses in ICE detention, to investigate the mistreatment of military families by defense contractors. And part of what's happened in the United States, part of the reason that power has shifted so much toward the unaccountable executive is because Congress doesn't bother doing real investigations and real oversight. You don't have to travel far to lend a helping hand. When neighbors help neighbors, hope can blossom. When hope blossoms, families and whole communities thrive. The dedicated staff and volunteers of the Catholic Charities Network believe a neighbor isn't just someone who lives nearby or down the block. It's someone who shows up and sticks around across distance or discomfort. It's the one who acts with compassion, follows through and carries on in moments of need. For more than a century, the Catholic charities network, with 169 agencies nationwide, has served communities across the country and down the street, no matter beliefs or differences, whether it's through housing, food, disaster relief, job training, or simply listening. Because when you faithfully serve as a neighbor, the life you change may be your own. Be the hope around the corner in your neighborhood nationwide. Learn more and volunteer@peopleofhope us.
Jon Ossoff (33:27)
Well, first of all, because it's top of mind for my constituents. I mean, healthcare costs are the number one issue in Georgia. The thing that folks raise with me the most when I'm out on the stump with the attacks on the Affordable Care Act. You got health premiums skyrocketing. More than a quarter of a million Georgians have lost their insurance altogether in recent months. People are furious about drug companies ripping off the American people. And the point that I'm making here, whether it's in my speeches that I've been giving at rallies across Georgia or this video we put out today, is we have to recognize that political corruption in the United States is systemic. Yes, the Trump administration has taken overt, brazen corruption to a whole new level, and there has to be accountability for that. But in some ways, in my view, Trump's rise is itself a symptom of the deeper systemic failure, especially since Citizens United, which just opened the floodgates to secret spending, billionaire spending, corporate spending on both sides of the aisle, and has, has corrupted the policy making process in a way that, that doesn't represent the interests of the American people. And we can, we can contain this present wickedness and contain the administration, but if we don't fix this more fundamental thing, I think our republic is still going to be in a tough spot.
Jon Ossoff (35:22)
I think that, first of all, we can, and we should try to get at it through statute, and some of it is also a constitutional question. But here's the thing. Don't you think we could build like, an 80, 20 majority to address this? There is no reason that the coalition that we could build to reform our corrupt campaign finance system should be limited bipartisanship. Like, if we were to go up to. We could. Maybe we should do this. If we were to walk up to people on the street in Georgia, Democrat, independent, Republican, unaffiliated, nonvoter, whatever, and say, hey, does it make sense to you that a corporation or a spectacularly wealthy person can spend unlimited amounts on political campaigns in secret? Like, I think nobody actually thinks that's good for our republic or good for public policy. And so we should be building that coalition to change it because it's doing so much damage.
Jon Ossoff (36:31)
Well, I think that the president's conduct within, I don't know, the first days or hour of his swearing in this term exceeded the threshold probably for any past impeachment, for sure. I can just think of right off the top of my head, multiple impeachable offenses. People speculate about the political wisdom of it, and so on and so forth. But, like, just taking a step back, whether it's this or just the necessity of oversight and investigations, there does have to be accountability for misconduct, just as a governance question. And I don't think that the choice is between economic policies in the interests of America's working and middle classes on the one hand, or exposing wrongdoing and ensuring there's accountability for it on the other. I think both of those things are necessary.
Jon Ossoff (38:55)
Yeah, look, I mean, I, I, I'm concerned about first of all, the mental health crisis that's impacting a lot of young people who experience intense loneliness and who struggle with addiction to social media. And you know, a generation of, of young people whose high school and college experiences were so disrupted by the pandemic that at the same time this technology was getting better and better at, at hooking us and drawing us in, they were also deprived of the kinds of relationships and social interactions that bring meaning to life. And I think we've got to make a decision as a society to re, engage in genuine togetherness, whether we're in our 20s or my folks generation, because the folks running Silicon Valley would be perfectly happy for us all to just sit on the couch with blue light in our eyes, scrolling mindlessly and consuming whatever the algorithm serves us and forgetting how to actually be with each other because that sells more ads and gets more engagement. But they're spying on us and manipulating us and, and, and addicting us to these technologies and in order for us to, to I think, achieve our, our potential together as a, as a nation and in order for us to be happy and functional, we gotta, we gotta have to get back together in phys. Recreate shared experience.
Jon Ossoff (40:46)
So I grew up with Daniel Platsman, who is a very close friend of mine and was the founding drummer of that band. So I have been a fan, I have been a true fan since before they were, you know, well known. And Daniel's an amazing musician and, and he's also a great Film scorer and folks should look him up. Look up Daniel Plattsmith and the arms routine. Man, I just try to. Yeah, I try to work out when I can, every day if I can actually told my, my team. I know you've been talking to some folks on my team. I told my team like a year ago as we were entering the election cycle that we can't treat physical wellness as something to like squeeze in between engagements. It needs to be part of the schedule because sleep, nutrition, exercise, mindfulness, these are the building blocks of good work.
Tim Miller (43:37)
Thanks so much to Senator John Ossoff. Up next, Luke Thomas. Delete Me makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data. At a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable, it's easier than ever to find personal information about people online. Having your address, phone number, and family members names hanging out on the Internet can have actual consequences in the real world and make everyone vulnerable. With Delete Me, you can protect your personal privacy or the privacy of your business from doxing attacks before sensitive information can be exploited. You know, I'm kind of an open book these days. I'm blurting out what's happening in my life. You know, when you hear about somebody that they keep things close to the vest. That is not me. You usually know exactly what I'm thinking just by looking at my face. And so as a result, I'm also a little fast and loose with the amount of information I have online. But as we've grown here at the Bulwark, that leads to potential threats and troublemakers and other fuckery. And so Deleteme has brought me some peace of mind. Thanks to Deleteme, my data isn't flowing out there for bad actors to use, and we can update it constantly and they make it easy. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com bulwark Use promo code Bulwark at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com bulwark and enter code bulwark at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com bulwark code bulwark. Delighted to welcome to the Bulwark by popular demand, a combat sports analyst, host of Morning Combat. You can also find him on Substack. Everybody's on Substack these days, and he's got a YouTube channel. Luke Thomas GetSpolitical. It's Luke Thomas. As mentioned, there are some in the MMA UFC world who have been messaging me, you got to get Luke Thomas. You got to get Luke Thomas on. But for others like me, dainty homosexuals who don't know anything about ufc, can you give those in the audience just like a little bit of a, you know, I don't know, like a first date? Like, how'd you get into all this. Were you getting into a lot of fights in high school? You know, what exactly is your purview?
Luke Thomas (46:09)
Yeah, right. I. I decided to join the Marine Corps out of high school. I joined. I graduated high school on a Friday. I went to boot camp on a Monday, but I also went to college at the same time. Marine Corps does not have an ROTC program, so it was either be an officer or enlisted in the reserves. That's what I chose the latter. I was with Hotel Battery 314, 4th MarDiv, out of Richmond, Virginia, for the entire time, which was an artillery unit. And this was 98 to 04. And then I had watched MMA coming up as, you know, in 94, as an American teenager, just, just like, you know, amazed at what had happened and then kind of got back into it after the Marine Corps had kind of, well, I mean, during that time, but like really picked it up after the Marine Corps time had ended. And this was right when in 2005, the Ultimate Fighter, the reality show on Spike TV, had hit and it just sent the sport into another stratosphere. And I never really intended, to be honest, to do any of this. It just. I caught a wave at a really strange moment in time. I was actually doing, you know, political messaging and speech work in D.C. prior to that.
Tim Miller (48:47)
So talk to us about, like, for somebody who's an outsider like me, it was kind of funny hearing you tell that story because you're like. And on Spike tv, there was the Ultimate Fighter. And then we went into the stratosphere, like, we're about the same age. And I was like, I don't remember any of that. It's like, this just was just never of interest to me. And so when the Trump MMA stuff started happening, when the overlap started happening, they're going to fights, I recognized that it was popular. Of course, I have some friends that are into it, but I didn't have the background to kind of understand, like, where this overlap was happening. Like, what was driving it. Like, I got it on the WWE side. I did watch that as a kid and kind of understood Trump's backstory with them and how he kind of knows about kayfabe and storytelling. But this is different than that. It's real fighting, for starters, from your vantage point, like, when did the kind of, like, merging of the politics and the MMA world start? And, like, what is underneath all this?
Luke Thomas (49:45)
This is a more complicated answer, because you could even go back to 1930s Brazil and the origins of the Gracie family. These are the people who are the original, like, UFC 1 stars hoist. Gracie was the star of that. He was using jiu jitsu. It was kind of like wrestling with pajamas, essentially to beat people much larger than him. And it was this revelatory. It actually, in general, really was a revelatory moment for hand to hand combat in terms of understanding what worked and what didn't and what was valuable. But, like, that family in the 1930s were part of the integralist movement, which was a, like, like, avowedly, openly based on European fascism is a fascist movement.
Luke Thomas (50:23)
Yeah, right. I mean, I guess, you know, they're back. They come back. Yeah, they come back in any event. But, like, you know, in terms of the majority of my time covering the sport, it really had no relevance whatsoever. And, in fact, what you really have to understand is that the ufc, post Ultimate Fighter, so they have this reality show on Spike tv. The American public sees them for the first time. The ratings are very, very good. But more to the point, it launched the sport, the stratosphere. The sport was hanging on by a thread. It was barely allowed on television in certain cases or pay per view. It wasn't even. Up until many years later, it was not allowed in most states. And this show changed everything. But when that happened, you got to understand the pitch that they were making. The point that they wanted to make was, we're going to show you that this type of sport is for everybody. Kids, adults, old, young, male, female, black, white, gay, straight. In fact, Tim, the UFC no longer does this, but they used to sell a shirt that said, we are all fighters. And it was written numerous times on the shirt, all in the colors of the gay flag. Right. Or the rainbow. They've since taken that one down. I don't think that they're into that kind of messaging anymore. But there was a point in time where they were. Where they were clearly making this pitch. You asked about when the switch happened. Dana White speaks at the Republican national convention in 2016. But even that is really not the answer. And the pandemic itself began to, I think, send White in a particular direction. But it was after January 6th. It is 2021. It's the summer of 2021. UFC 264. Donald Trump had made one appearance at that February CPAC, you recall, after Jan.6, and then one in that summer, and on that same weekend, he goes to this event in Las Vegas, which had Conor McGregor on the card. So it's a. It's a very, very important event in the UFC calendar, and he makes his return. And what you really have to understand is the UFC did many things for Donald Trump, but there is no private actor that I can think of in this during the Biden years And then the 2024 election, that did more to rehabilitate Donald Trump's image than the Ultimate Fighting Championship. They laundered him completely, among other things that set in motion these forces.
Tim Miller (52:30)
Yeah. And so is that relationship based between Trump and Dana and Rogan or like, were there some policies, you know, that ufc, you know, they didn't want to be regulated by the libs? Or was it, is it like a cultural thing? You think that there's this affinity from, like, this is like an outsider league and he's seen as an outsider. Like, like, what do you think it was? Like, what was the tie that bound them, you know, even after the insurrection?
Luke Thomas (53:35)
I mean, his ability to hold coherent conversation is substantially challenged. But the point I'm trying to make here is when the UFC first sold to the company or the ownership structure that took it over in 2001 that Dana White was a part of, he was not a part of early UFCS. He didn't take it over until 2001. The first two shows that they had as a consequence of that were at the Trump Taj Mahal. And so a lot of folks sort of pinpoint those moments as like, oh, this is the date from when they were growing. Because to understand something, to be in 2001, to be in New Jersey actually is quite important, because that commission is one of the more established ones, the State Athletic Regulatory Board. And they were willing to sanction UFC within their system. That was kind of a big deal. But being a Trump Taj Mahal was not a big deal. It didn't mean anything. But the point I would like to make is that actually is not the place where they began to develop a fruitful relationship. There is evidence to indicate in the late 2000s that they were actually kind of a little bit of friction between the parties, but somewhere they come back around together, circa 2016. I think Dana White became much more rich at that time, and I think a lot of rich guy politics tends to intersect. But you asked about, like, what was really binding it, and my personal belief is there is Some ideological symmetry between them, but it's more about a willingness to get transactionalism through each party. The DOJ, under. Sorry, the FTC, I should say under Obama, looked into the UFC two times during the 2000s and kind of looked the other way. And now what they're trying to do is they, this is true. The first piece of legislation this year that Congress has taken up in terms of the labor force is a piece of boxing legislation to essentially hand monopolistic control over to a single dominant firm. They get this because of what I was told on Capitol Hill was the White House was kind of leaning on Republican lawmakers to push this through. That is part of it, the lack of regulatory scrutiny. They now have huge monopolies over this parent company through tk. It's called tko. It owns wwe, it owns ufc, it's owning now other. Other verticals that they're trying to put in place. So you get this, like the regulatory wind at your back in a way that is generationally impossible by virtue of this transactionalism. But I will say this. A lot of people say, oh, does Dana White have the same politics as Trump? I mean, I don't know exactly. I've heard him repeat election denying stuff before, kind of vaguely. But the reality to me is it doesn't matter if you did your part in substantial portion to return this political project to power, you are on the hook for it. It doesn't matter whether you agree with every part of it year after year after year. Tim. Of trying to make sure this guy got in the public eye and to rehabilitate him during the Jack Smith indictments, during the trial in New York City, during, you know, you name it, Jan6stuff, and they went out of their way to lift him at that time. You're on the hook for what comes next.
Tim Miller (56:22)
It's funny listening to you talk about that. I don't know a ton about this legislation, but just like the fact that they're on the other side of the antitrust folks, again, there's this period of time where there was a big push for antitrust across a lot of different verticals, like the populists, like the MAGA populists, We can work with the left populace on this. And antitrust is important because it's going to help the workers and the people. And listening to you talk about the transactionalism, one tie that binds these guys is the fake populism, this idea of, oh, I'm going to talk like I'm on behalf of the regular guy. But what I mostly care about is enriching myself. And, you know, it seems like that this, this legislation and you know, kind of the deals that they're doing, having, having them on the White House, which we can get to next, like, is all an effort to enrich the people at the top, like Dana himself and his partners. And that's similar to how Trump has acted in a bunch of different areas where there's like a lot of populist rhetoric. But. But really, you know, he's lying in the pockets of himself and his Mar A Lago buddies.
Luke Thomas (57:48)
Here's what I'm going to say. People tried to make the wrong. I saw your episode on this. People try to make the wrong argument about it. Well, sort of the argument is not, was it semi pro? Was it pro? It was pro. I mean, there's not an argument it was pro. But what you have to understand is like pro in regional Oklahoma, like not a significantly difficult strength of schedule. Let's just put it that way. Okay. I mean, he was fighting Make a Wish kids and shit like that. And you know, just like. Absolutely. Like, I don't know if there was odds on his fights, but if there were, you know, they were heavily favored in his regard. Nevertheless, he trained, he fought. There's something to be said for that. But the point I'm trying to make is in 2017, as a congressman, Mark Wayne Mullen tried to take the existing law that I'm referencing on the books. It's called the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act. It is a piece of labor protection for boxers that was put in place by John McCain in 2000. Okay. He tried to get that I was
Luke Thomas (58:45)
Basically. I mean, there's more to it than that, but that's a basic. I wait to understand it. He tried to put legislation forward that would have extended it to mma, because it doesn't apply to mma, it only applies to boxing. And in fact, had UFC executives on the Hill in hearings, like cross examining them, like getting testy with them. And then when the Trump UFC alliance became into focus and he became a senator, all the fighters who were initially part of that effort to get it extended, they called up Mark Wayne Mullen, said, hey, let's get this going. He had no interest in it whatsoever. The point I'm trying to make is, of course, this transactionalism reveals that it's only about the top 1% or, you know, the. The approved parties. But I'm just also trying to underscore even a guy like Mark Wayne Mullen, who had kind of a little bit of skin in the game and tried to do some good when maga's sort of priorities became clear, abandon it immediately. These people believe in nothing.
Luke Thomas (59:48)
The way to understand this White House event is think of it as two different events simultaneously. It's just one, but try to wrap your head around it. There is one side of it, let's call it with inside the bubble. How are. How is the community viewing it? And they view it as. It's a smaller fight card. A fight card can be, you know, up to 10 or more fights. This one is small. I think it's just seven. There was six. They added one last minute. It's a smaller fight card. However, two of the top best guys in the sport are in the main and the co. Main event. It has real relevance and within the sport. For a sport that had really hard time getting regulated, that nearly went away completely. The ability to say, hey, we're in the White House. This means something to us. We have ascended and there is, I think, something to be said for that. But there is going to be an event, a fighting event on the White House lawn. They're building this sort of crazy structure just on the other side of that street there, on this space called the Ellipse, where Trump gave his Jan6 speech, by the way. Yeah, they're going to have a crowd to watch it. Not so much like directly watching it, but on screens out there. It's just kind of like a. A big event, but that's only one side of it. The other side is like, why is this event happening at all? And the answer is, this is the reward from the Trump administration to the UFC for what can only be described as their usual unique contributions to keeping him out of prison. There's really no other way to say that that's why this exists. It is sports washing of the highest order. It is a political reward in giving them something that he gave them. I mean, a mainstream sport that was really hot during that portion of the pandemic, putting all their chips in on a guy. You can't buy political coverage like that. You can't make a rally be anything like that. It is something that is literally not even available for purchase. This is the return to them for that. And so a lot of folks, let me just say this, a lot of folks make an idiocracy argument about this, which I understand the optics kind of lend itself. It is a gigantic mistake to look at these people and think, oh, this is idiocracy. It might look that way and maybe they say stuff that makes you feel that way, but these people are not screwing around. They're highly skilled operators and their ability to manage these channels of power, I think speaks to that.
Luke Thomas (64:17)
So you get the idea that, like, there's clearly, like, pressure due to what's happened over there. Okay, so that's, so just put that aside because that's its own little wild card. But let's just talk about what we've gotten here. Two different ways to understand it. There's the MMA side and then there is the boxing side. And they do differ. The UFC has been famous about never letting anyone have control of their product when they would do television deals. In most other sports, the network assigns who the commentators are going to be and who's going to cover it. That is not the way it works with ufc. They always have control over all their production, all their broadcast, all their systems of information, over their journalists, everything. Right. I, I, I'm in on the outs with them because I do conversations like this. Okay, so they will give, they'll bring premiere events to some of these places. They are going to go to Saudi Arabia then. They haven't announced one yet, but they've been there. Or, you know, other uae. They've been to Dubai a million times because they'll do deals like any of these kind of dictators and these governments who just pay them maximum money they'll bring there, but they don't give them control over the product. And they don't necessarily bring always their A game to Saudi Arabia. They'll bring their A game to uae, but that's the general idea. The boxing side is very, very different. Zufa boxing, which is that tko boxing vertical. So does the wwe, mma, now the boxing vertical. They are being bankrolled by them. Them essentially, they are trying to get this legislation passed that would take away these protections, that would enable them to monopolize. But then who's footing the bill is Saudi Arabia on the other end? And so that promotion and that union is actually quite significant, to say nothing of how the rest of the boxing world has. I mean, you, like, you don't get modern boxing without the Saudis at this point. They have, they have almost. I'm not Total control is a strong word, but pretty significant control of that industry.
Luke Thomas (67:06)
I don't feel like I really had a choice. I cannot be told what to say. You know, be friendly. Okay, fine. You know, like, have some professional decorum. Okay, fine, sure. But, like, you can't talk about theocratic dictators taking over your sport. Like, I'm sorry, I'm. I just can't live that way. I. I don't know else to explain to you. I. I cannot. I cannot allow myself to be told that. And that is a big one. But that's just a small part of it, to be honest with you. Just within the industry itself, like the ufc, it's very, very funny. Right. So the UFC sells itself to the public as, like, a free speech organization. I have to be very, very clear with you. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is complete and total kabuki theater. So let me give you just a million examples. First of all, they control their media class. Like, no sport on earth controls their media class. If you get out of line, brother, they will take your credential, period. This is well established, even against very, very big names. They'll do it. I haven't gone to a UFC show in four years. Now, I've not applied for a credential, but I'm not going to waste my time. Right. There's really no point to it. And then more to the point, if you're a UFC fighter, they'll say, you know, we don't. We don't control these guys. What they mean is they'll let them say slurs. But if you, for example, are, you know, your water's been turned off. I've seen this. And then you win a fight and they put a microphone in your face, you say, I really need a bonus. And because I don't, my water's not turned on, they'll purposely not do it because they don't want you on the microphone, broadcast into the world that you're poor. But if it's a free speech organization and you don't control what guys say, why do you just let them say slurs and then not let them question the ne. The necessity of some of your business practices? The reality is, I'm not going to be told what to do by them. And the way in which I have constructed my career is to never be able. In a position where I have to ask them for anything, because if you ask them for something, well, then they hold it over your head. But the reality is, Tim, it's honestly worked out to my benefit because the media class is so unable to marshal any of these criticisms in any kind of way, it has created a gigantic lane for me. Yes, it creates friction within the industry. That is true, but there's so many people, including UFC champions, who have messaged me saying that they're grateful that at least somebody is articulating this into the marketplace, you know?
Luke Thomas (70:04)
It's well known. It's. It's well known. Yeah, that's not a thing. And you're asking about the average fan. I mean, the way the, the average fan is also pretty tired of it now. The, the reality is they're not upset that media has been affected in that particular way to the best that I can ascertain, like, oh, we're really sad class. That's not sure. It's not really a thing very, very often. But what they are noticing is that the total control that is being exerted has made the, the leadership of the company feel distant from the actual concerns. So recently, for example, the UFC had used AI for example, on one of their ads, and the fans didn't like it because it was not good, it didn't look good. And Dana White's response was quite literally, how about this is verbatim. How about this? Shut the up and watch the fights. That was literally what he said to the fans. Like, can you imagine Roger Goodell saying that? Or even Jerry Jones or whatever the proper description or the, the comparison would be? It's simply impossible. So what I would say is there is dissension in the ranks and realizing that they run this kind of operation, the fans do, the hardcore fans anyway. And then you're asking about, like, the right wing sort of valence and their recognition of it. They've changed the fan base. It used to be more mixed. There was. Used to be a lot more people like me. Most of the people like me are gone. Like, they don't really exist anymore. However, what I would say is Trump antipathy is real. Like, the way you can tell that, like, understand something. They brought him out to UFC327, which was the last big UFC event. They brought Trump out, and I had two friends in the arena who I trust, and they were like, you know, there were some booze, there were some cheers, but mostly it was just kind of a little bit quiet. Understand that that fan base is going to be his Alamo. If the Alamo is treating you like that, you have serious problems. You need to start understanding. So I will say that they, the Trump love, they'll look the other way because they just want to see great fights on the White House. And I understand that, but they don't like him that much anymore.
Tim Miller (73:29)
Let's cook. Okay, so put on your political consultant hat from 20 years ago. All right? You know, you did it for two years. If you're the Democrats right now and you're trying to think, okay, like, the popularity is waning with this community, are there any Democratic politicians that like ufc, There must be one. You would think nobody's coming straight to mind, but let's imagine that we identify one. What do you think they could do to communicate to that audience? Like, I do think that sometimes people just are looking for folks to show up. You know, I say this all the time. Like, Theo Vaughn was not ideological five years ago before all this stuff happening and he got a little mad about COVID stuff and various other things, but it was more about like, Trump courted them, you know, And I guess I just wonder, is there even a path there for some type of Democrat to try to court that audience?
Luke Thomas (74:40)
Like. Well, the answer is not nothing. But what I'm trying to point out is no one on that side of the political aisle has a relationship to these people. You just need to understand that flat out. I've seen right wing influencers a million times at MMA events. I've just never seen left wing ones there. It just doesn't exist. And so you just got to recognize if that's a real audience that you capture, like, it's just for whatever reason, let's imagine we're going to get that. You have to start from nothing. You have to start from the. The belief that I have to now bring this from the. From scratch. Pardon my language. That's really what it has to be. If you're asking, like, policy avenues that are usable. I don't want to stereotype all MMA fans as working class. There would be no problem with that. But that would also not be true, that it's a mixture certainly of. Of white collar and blue collar. But I would say that MMA fans have a real keen sense of the unfairness in the market. I think somebody who could get behind Medicare for all, somebody who could get a handle on AI regulation, somebody who was doing something that made the average American's life measurably, materially, noticeably better on these core kind of kitchen table issues, I think could win. And I do want to say one more. This is probably going to be an area of disagreement between you and I, but I'll say this. It's the area I get the least amount of pushback on from my audience, Israel. They have deep, profound skepticism of any politician closely aligned with their interests. And I think anyone perceived to have that is going to have a real hard time winning over this audience.
Tim Miller (76:15)
Yeah, I don't know if that difference is going to be there, given what's happened with the Iran war. This is basically the one I've been banging the drum on for the past month, which is, I'm saying as a former Bush person, I feel like I have the credibility to say this, which is like, Democrats need to take this opportunity to speak to the type of person you're talking about, whether they're MMA fan or not. Somebody who's working class, who's culturally more conservative, went along with Trump with skepticism of these wars and say, I'm opposed to this carte blanche and the fact that Israel was in our situation room pushing Trump to get involved in this war. And as a Result, you're going to pay more at the pump, you're going to pay more at the groceries. That's insane. And you mentioned Ruben earlier. Ruben's been good on this, but I feel like the Democrats need to be more clear and it is maybe an opportunity to talk to them, that type of voter. I don't know, listening to you talk about this, it kind of reminds me of NASCAR, how Democrats talked about NASCAR 15 years ago. Right? It was like there was no, like there was just a cultural difference, Right. Like, there weren't a lot of Democratic politicians or influencers who just, or they didn't call them influencers then, but media members or whatever who, like, liked nascar, could speak about it fluidly, would go to the events and enjoy them. But, like, they just started to try, you know, and Obama just, like, invited the NASCAR champions to the White House, just like he would invite, you know, the winners of the NBA Finals to the White House. And he knew more inside jokes that he could tell with, you know, Steph Curry when he came through than he, than he did with whoever it was, Jimmy Johnson or whoever. But, but that's trying. And to me that it's like my main message to the Democrats, like, even if they are starting from zero, like, you know, maybe this is an opportunity to try.
Luke Thomas (77:55)
The reason why I say it's important to mention you're starting from zero is like Kamala Harris coming out. You know, I, I, I'd vote for Kamala over Trump if it was a thing again or whatever. But I don't like Kamala Harris. I want to be very clear about that and her coming out and being like, oh, we're going to do stuff for crypto and weed legalization, it's like, this is not going to do you feel authentic. Yeah, this is nothing. You are doing nothing. And so I just want to be that it's important to, like, kind of set the terms to understand what has to happen. The last thing I'd say on this is, to me, it's okay, like, if some sports just are more conservative than other ones. I want to be clear about that. Like, they don't all have to cater to every audience. My only point, the reason why I've kind of focused on this, for me, is that it had significant and disastrous electoral outcomes in this country. And I think interrogating how that happened is a useful exercise.
Luke Thomas (78:47)
Dana White at the White House. Dana White, first of all, being at The White House Correspondence Dinner, an event that is, at least just in theory, designed to honor excellence in journalism, is just profoundly funny to me. And then to have this, like, response being like, yeah, that was great. It's like, that's how you get to a point where you're promoting professional slapping is to be so desensitized to the. To humanity, is to then, you know, be like, oh, we can get guys to slap each other for $400. A. You know, a match or whatever. Kind of. Kind of a very revealing moment to me. You, to be honest.
