Sports Journalist Pablo Torre and Instagram Comedian and "PE Guy" Johnny Hilbrant

Summary

The Jim Acosta Show

Episode: Sports Journalist Pablo Torre and Instagram Comedian and "PE Guy" Johnny Hilbrant
Date: December 5, 2025
Host: Jim Acosta
Guests: Pablo Torre, Johnny Hillbrandt ("PE Guy"), [briefly aired clips: Tom McMillan, Connie Chung]

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Overview

In this episode, Jim Acosta hosts two unique figures at the intersection of culture, comedy, and media critique:

• Pablo Torre, sports journalist and host of “Pablo Torre Finds Out,” discusses his investigation into the Jeffrey Epstein files, the overlap of sports, politics, and power, the state of independent journalism, and recent changes to CBS News.
• Johnny Hillbrandt, the Instagram comedian behind “The PE Guy,” skewers America’s private equity elite, performing his hilariously cringeworthy character live and discussing satire’s role in critiquing the wealthy.

The tone is candid, critical, and often wry—mixing investigative seriousness with sharp, comedic relief.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Pablo Torre's Investigation: Epstein Files and Accountability

[00:24–13:16, 20:12–28:31]

• Journalism as Mystery-Solving:

  • Pablo discusses transitioning from traditional sports journalism to broader investigative work, using sports as a “liberal arts education” and lens into systemic power (01:33–03:00).

  “I use journalism to solve mysteries...For me, sports has always been a bit of a liberal arts education.”
  —Pablo Torre (01:33)

• Epstein Files and the Tom McMillan Interview:

  • Torre explains why he covered the Epstein files despite being a sports journalist: pressure from his audience and the realization that sport figures are entwined with wider political and social scandals.
  • Reveals former NBA player and Congressman Tom McMillan appearing in infamous Trump-Epstein footage and repeatedly turning up in Epstein’s black book and flight logs (02:51–04:18).
  • Torre confronts McMillan with evidence on his podcast, McMillan struggles to explain the connections, continually resorting to “I don’t recall.”

  “There are ways to answer these questions that are less suspicious, but unfortunately, Jim, we received none of those answers.”
  —Pablo Torre (09:20)

  “So can you just explain why you keep coming up here, why you’re documented? By the way, my favorite detail there is in the flight logs. It's not just Tom McMillan, it's Tom McMillan in parentheses—Congressman.”
  —Pablo Torre (11:12)

• Public Interest and Transparency:

  • Both Acosta and Torre make a forceful call for the full release of the Epstein files, regardless of political affiliation (11:31–11:47).

  “We don’t give a [damn] who’s in there and what party they’re from. But Donald Trump sure as hell is trying mightily to keep these documents and files and videos...from coming out.”
  —Jim Acosta (11:32)

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2. Power, Media, and the “Capture” of Newsrooms

[13:16–20:12]

• Interview with Connie Chung:

  • Torre and Acosta play a clip from Torre’s recent interview with Connie Chung, expressing alarm over CBS News’s new ownership by the Ellison family and Bari Weiss’s leadership (13:45–15:47).
  • Chung laments the shift from fact-based journalism to opinion-driven content, blaming “greedy owners.”

  “We have so much opinion that the truth doesn't hold value anymore...CBS has now been taken over thanks to greedy owners...”
  —Connie Chung (13:46–14:44)

• Why Media Still Matters:

  • Torre argues that powerful people acquire media precisely to steer public narrative and avoid accountability (Bezos and the Washington Post, Musk and X/Twitter, Ellisons and CBS), underscoring the urgent need for real journalism (18:55–20:12).

  “They want control...They want to control what the average person hears in terms of anything resembling oversight.”
  —Pablo Torre (18:55)

• Crucial Role of Independent and Adversarial Journalism:

  • The episode turns into a spirited plea for more hard questions and adversarial reporting, not less, in an era where media is fragile and susceptible to capture and manipulation.

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3. Sports as a Trojan Horse for Serious Conversation

[21:04–22:22]

• Sports is described as the last “big tent” or monoculture in America—one of the few places where people of diverse backgrounds still come together.

• Torre sees sports coverage as a vehicle for reaching wider (especially male) audiences and introducing serious cultural or political topics “with the cheese melted on the broccoli.”

  “If I can melt the cheese of sports on the broccoli, on the nourishing substance of news...maybe that's how Tom McMillan shows up at my show.”
  —Pablo Torre (21:55)

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4. Sportswashing, the FIFA “Peace Prize,” and Trump

[22:22–27:59, 45:45–47:43]

• FIFA Awarding Trump a “Peace Prize”:

  • Acosta and Torre lampoon FIFA giving Donald Trump a so-called Peace Prize, calling out the transactional “gold offerings” given to world leaders for favorable treatment (22:22–24:11).
  • Torre dissects Trump’s hollow cosplay as “America’s number one sports fan,” highlighting his superficial relationship to the sports he uses for political gain.

  “If you're going to write this in the movie script, of course you have Donald Trump not even waiting...as if, of course, the entire thing was Trump awarding himself something.”
  —Pablo Torre (23:20)

• Broader Implications:

  • Sports events have become vectors for authoritarian “sportswashing” and propaganda, and Trump’s embrace of these symbols is both obvious and depressingly effective (25:04–27:59).

  “They're fracking sports...they are ruining sports and its ecosystem in the process...when all is going to be left, it will be this poisoned well that no one can enjoy anymore.”
  —Pablo Torre (26:31)

  • Acosta ties this to a wider trend: global elites finding it “so easy” to curry Trump’s favor with medals and other tokens, exposing vulnerabilities in American and global political culture (48:19–49:27).

  “How cheap have we gotten as a country where the President...can be handed a fake medal and all of a sudden you're doing business with [him]?...If they can hand out a gold medal for shamelessness, it would obviously go to Donald Trump.”
  —Jim Acosta (48:19–49:27)

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5. Interview with Johnny Hillbrandt (“PE Guy”)

[29:01–44:39, 51:21–52:44]

• Origin of the PE Guy and Satirizing American Elite:

  • Johnny, from Chicago, explains the inspiration behind his viral character—the insufferable private equity guy you “get stuck talking to at a wedding.” Initially a broader “guy who brags,” he zeroed in on the PE Guy because private equity types were everywhere and “everyone seems to brag about it” (31:14–33:56).
  • His character gleefully name-drops, humble-brags, and abuses financial lingo, satirizing not just the rich but the culture of relentless, tone-deaf self-promotion.

  “He started as the guy you get stuck talking to at a wedding...just the guy who wants to brag about his life to you and doesn’t care what you do for a living...”
  —Johnny Hillbrandt (33:10)

• PE Guy: Live Performance & Behind-the-Scenes:

  • Reveals that he uses a facial filter (not just contorting his face) and dives into character live, referencing “Chevy Chase,” “the wifey and kiddos” (with ridiculous names like Tarantino, Montauk, and Ebitda), and the privileged, disconnected world of the super-rich (37:49–39:44).
  • Explains the deliberately cringeworthy hats as satire on foundations and finance buzzwords (e.g. “Due to My Role”).

• Satire as Social Critique:

  • PE Guy is not “eat the rich” per se, but a call for humility—drawing attention to the “evil money people at the top” and the way PE firms have quietly taken over everything, from dental offices to entire industries (44:05–44:39).
  • Johnny also describes real-life stories of how PE buyouts disrupt regular working people’s lives.

  “It’s not to be mistaken as anti-capitalist...It’s more just, like, go be successful, work your ass off...But when you get back from the vacation, we saw it on Instagram. We don’t need to know the stars for the hotel.”
  —Johnny Hillbrandt (33:57)

  “He comes across in a somewhat pleasant way, but in a horribly satanic way as well. Weirdly likable. And you also kind of feel bad for him because he—he doesn’t get it.”
  —Jim Acosta & Johnny Hillbrandt (41:05–41:17)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Accountability:

  “There are questions that should be asked...lots of people...famous, notable figures are in these files and they should be asked questions like this—straight ahead questions.”
  —Pablo Torre (10:07)

• On Media Takeovers:

  “The Ellisons want CBS, they get CBS. They want the ability to control who gets to hold them to account...Media has never been more important. They want to control the media because media still matters.”
  —Pablo Torre (18:55–20:12)

• On Sports as Trojan Horse:

  “If I can melt the cheese of sports on the broccoli, on the nourishing substance of news...maybe that's how Tom McMillan shows up at my show.”
  —Pablo Torre (21:55)

• On Satire:

  “They’re frightened. And I—I don’t want them to be frightened. So maybe we should just let [the Epstein files] go, right?”
  —Johnny Hillbrandt as PE Guy (38:40)

• On Trump and FIFA’s Peace Prize:

  “If they can hand out a gold medal for shamelessness, it would obviously go to Donald Trump. Maybe we'll make one. The Shamelessness Gold Medal. And we will deliver it.”
  —Jim Acosta (49:27)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Pablo Torre on ESPN to Investigative Journalism: 01:33
• The Tom McMillan/Epstein Investigation: 02:51–09:54
• Connie Chung on CBS News Ownership (Clip): 13:46–15:47
• Role of Billionaires in Controlling the Media: 18:55–20:12
• Sports as “last big tent” in US culture: 21:04–22:22
• FIFA “Peace Prize” for Trump and Sportswashing: 22:22–27:59, 45:45–49:27
• Introduction of Johnny Hillbrandt, PE Guy: 29:01
• Origin and Style of the PE Guy Character: 33:10–34:48
• PE Guy Performance (Live and Clip): 38:02, 40:13–41:05, 51:21–52:44
• Satirizing Private Equity culture: 33:56–44:39

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Conclusion

This episode exemplifies The Jim Acosta Show’s unique blend of piercing journalism and irreverent humor. Acosta and Torre frame the “Epstein files” as a case study in the need for fearless media, while Torre’s sports expertise provides a bridge between disparate cultural worlds. The latter part of the episode with Johnny Hillbrandt’s “PE Guy” offers a sharp satirical mirror to today’s elite and their blind spots. Throughout, the speakers maintain a brisk, candid, and often darkly funny tone—emphasizing the value of truth, skepticism, and occasionally just having a much-needed laugh.

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For more:

• Pablo Torre’s podcast: "Pablo Torre Finds Out"
• Johnny Hillbrandt’s Instagram: @JohnnyThePEGuy

Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Foreign.

[Jim Acosta]

Welcome to the Jim Acosta show. And we're starting just a couple of minutes late here, but that's okay. We've got a special guest that I've been anxious to speak with for some time now. Sports journalist and now podcast hit Pablo Torre is joining us. Pablo, great to see you. Thanks for coming on the show.

[Pablo Torre]

Jim, it's great to be on the Internet with you. I'm a big fan of yours for many, many years and this is a surreal but delightful way to officially conn.

[Jim Acosta]

Likewise. Absolutely happy to do this. And I love what you're doing with your show. Pablo Torre finds out, and it's interesting. The reason, one of the reasons why I was like, we got to get Pablo on to talk about this is that, and I've been doing this for like the last several months, the Epstein case. We've been covering it non stop, as you know. It's been a huge story here in Washington. It's a major, I think, threat to Donald Trump's presidency, as we all know. And, and one of the, I mean, you know, subjects that come up time and again is, you know, the files themselves. What's in the Epstein files? Are they ever going to come out? Who's in the Epstein files? And you know, there, there have been these disclosures that have come out recently, Pablo, that have shown all sorts of people, Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard and Treasury Secretary, I mean, you name it. But you did something for your show on the Epstein files, even though you typically cover sports because your viewers were saying, we want you to cover this, is that right?

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. I use journalism to solve mysteries. And I've realized as a person who used to work at ESPN full time, that was my cable television teat that I was suckling from, Jim, for a very long time, was I feeling. And it was, it was, it was, it was delicious. But as I went on in my career, I realized that a return to journalism is something that sports was sorely lacking, frankly, in that same, in that same way. And for me, sports has always been a bit of a liberal arts education. There's always a way to get to everything else. And so as an investigative reporter who sort of resurrected in my own life that practice with sports as my lens, I looked at the Epstein files and people were telling me, could you figure out some way to use your strange, obsessive investigative sensibilities to just look at this? And what I ended up looking at was this video that I think you certainly and everyone else has seen before. It's the video that is now infamous. The most infamous video and the most famous story you could say is Donald Trump greeting Jeffrey Epstein at Mar a Lago in 1992. This is NBC footage. And right there in the background is a very tall gentleman who walks into Mar a Lago with Jeffrey Epstein.

[Jim Acosta]

I. I know this video. I know you're talking about. Absolutely.

[Pablo Torre]

And the question I had as a sports journalist was, who the is that guy?

[Jim Acosta]

First of all, he's huge, he's massive. We're gonna play this video in a second, but keep going.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. And so the question was like, as that, as anyone who's roughly 6 foot 11 gets asked in their life, did you play basketball? I was also wondering that same question. It turns out that the answer is not only yes, emphatically, it turns out that this man is a former NBA player, one of the great college basketball players of all time, a guy with the COVID of Sports Illustrated as a high schooler, and also, by the way, a three term Democratic congressman. That's right. Tom McMillan is this man's name. And so when you realize, wait a minute, this guy is in that video, flying under the radar, hiding in plain sight in a way that no person of that physical, literal stature would otherwise be able to do. He's also in the background of the video with Epstein doubling over, laughing as Trump is whispering into his ear. And he's literally trying to duck out of the frame. Jim. In the background, which is ineffective because he's again 6 foot 11, talking to Ghislaine Maxwell behind them. In the background of that same continuation of the NBC footage, it brings the question of, like, I would love to find out what it's like to be him. And then the new wave of files come out thanks to the House Oversight Committee, and it turns out he's actually in those as well.

[Jim Acosta]

And so interesting. He's. And his name is in there. It's Tom McMillan and I. Pablo, as a long suffering Washington Bullets and Wizards fan, I remember watching him play for the Bullets back in the day. And then he became a congressman here in the D.C. area. We should. Let's play this. It's a clip of what you did. And it's. The viewers who are watching us right now should understand at the Beginning of this, McMillan kind of basically says, well, I just showed up the party. I mean, he's just sort of playing this off as though, oh, I just, I just showed up at this party at Mar a Lago. And then you keep peeling the layers of the onion back.

[Pablo Torre]

Let's, let's watch welcome to Pablo Torre finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're going to find out what this sound is.

[Tom McMillan]

I really didn't do this interview, but hashtag something 35 years ago that I.

[Pablo Torre]

Barely remember as it is this historical artifact. And as I was watching it and studying it, I was like, hold on. That's the guy who might also be the tallest member of Congress.

[Tom McMillan]

That's right. So the story is I was coming to a party at Mar Lago. Trump had just bought it, you know, and I'm walking in with my girlfriend, and there's Trump and Epstein there. This was in 91, long time ago.

[Pablo Torre]

November 92, I believe. Actually, just looking at the date there at Palm Beach, Florida. Right.

[Tom McMillan]

And what happened was Trump was throwing an NFL party, so there were all kinds of NFL celebrities there, and he was trying to promote Mario because, you know, he, he wanted to do something with it, like turn it into a club or something. So I, I literally just walked into that. The reason there were cameras there is because Trump was promoting the NFL, you know, and promoting his club. You know, typical Donald Trump stuff.

[Pablo Torre]

So what's it like when you see your name with two entries in that black book? You listed C. Thomas McMillan as chairman and CEO of, of the Risk Group. But then also elsewhere, just with your Landover, Maryland address. What is your reaction when you realize that you're in these papers too?

[Tom McMillan]

Well, I'm not surprised. I mean, that address is. Goes back to the. Probably the early 90s. So, I mean, as I said, you run into people like this. He was a collector of people. He had a staff of secretaries. They probably kept all these names up. I didn't have a much correspondence with him or anything else. But, you know, he's, he knew a lot of people. There's no question about it.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

But.

[Pablo Torre]

So it's blacked out. The from is is sort of redacted on this copy. It's January 22, 2013. Yeah. And I, I really don't know.

[Tom McMillan]

I don't know. I mean, it's just strange to me. None of that would be. Make sense to me. So I have no idea.

[Pablo Torre]

Is Epstein plane flight logs. January 29, 1993. This is two months after the party at Mar A Lago that we showed when you were talking to Glenn Maxwell right behind Trump and Epstein, three weeks after you left Congress. Do you recall this flight? This would be from D.C. to Atlanta to Palm Beach? No. Because your name is listed there next to Tommy Quinn.

[Tom McMillan]

I don't, I don't recall and I don't think it's accurate.

[Pablo Torre]

So.

Wow.

[Jim Acosta]

And so. And little by little, folks need to go watch your podcast and watch you do this because you do this over several excruciating minutes where he just tries to play this off as like, oh, I was just here, I was just there. And then you're like, but what. Why are you on this page? And am I right? Paula? This came from the House Oversight Committee email dump that we saw a couple of weeks ago, where all of this stuff was in there.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. So I booked this interview with Tom McMillan about his life because I found him fascinating. The guy's a Rhodes scholar. The guy is a leader in the college sports reform movement. He is somebody who is a mover and a shaker in D.C. in the political world, as well as this historical sports figure. And so I booked him because the Epstein files were back in the news. What happened, though, thanks to, frankly, independent journalism, is that these databases of the tens of thousands of emails and files became searchable. And in between the booking of him originally and the discovery and the searchability of those documents, I looked him up. And so there was this fascinating moment in which you have somebody who has had. I think.

I don't want to overstate what happened here, but it's just very rare to get someone in front of you who is there to answer questions, journalistic questions that are not going to relent when it comes to. You were just recalling stuff from the 1960s about your high school basketball career, which we walk through, by the way, and like 4K clarity. But when it comes to the 90s and these flight logs, and then an email that was sent with a subject line to Jeffrey Epstein, Tom McMillan, from somebody who is alleged otherwise in the Epstein story to have participated in the, quote, unquote, massages and the orgies. This woman, Gwendolyn Beck, we present all of it to him over zoom, like, here are the documents. What do you remember? And every time we give him the opportunity to say anything, he says, I don't recall. And so it's just this, you know, it's not something that I intended to be like, haha, gotcha. But it is this thing of there are ways to answer these questions that are less suspicious, but unfortunately, Jim, we received none of those answers. They all raised more questions, frankly.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, I mean, it was a gotcha, I have to say. And, and it may sound cliche, but that's exactly what it was. And we're not saying that he did anything wrong, but what the hell, There's a lot of stuff to ask about.

[Pablo Torre]

There are questions that should be asked. And I think what we're experiencing, and maybe this is just one of the early wave of examples, is lots of people, famous, notable figures are in these files and they should be asked questions like this straight ahead, questions. If you watch the episode, we go through his life and we give time to all of his accomplishments. He was in Munich for that famous game against the Soviets. He's this Forrest Gumpian character who knows the commissioners of every sport. He was an appointee by Bill Clinton. He was chair of the physical fitness, the sports committee that Trump has now revived. He's a guy who got money from Trump when he ran for Congress. He is this guy with connections to everybody. But what happens when you're actually asked real questions that you can't just spin away from? My suspicion, my hope is that this is a version of accountability in the absence, by the way of we're not alleging anything, there are no criminal accusations, but it's just sort of like. So can you just explain why you keep coming up here, why you're documented? By the way, my favorite detail there is in the flight logs. It's not just Tom McMillan, it's Tom McMillan in parentheses.

[Jim Acosta]

Congressman.

[Pablo Torre]

Congressman.

[Jim Acosta]

I saw that.

[Pablo Torre]

And so it's like there are not many ways to pretend that this wasn't you. But his answer is, I don't recall.

[Jim Acosta]

So, yeah. Which is never a good answer in those kinds of settings. And, and, but it also raises the point, this is why we need to see the Epstein files released.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Jim Acosta]

And we don't give a who's in there and what party they're from. But Donald Trump sure as hell is trying mightily to keep these documents and, and files and videos and whatnot from coming out.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Jim Acosta]

It's very. I don't recall.

[Pablo Torre]

Ish. I would dare say that there are things that they actively don't want anyone to recall based on the behavior is displayed. And yes, beyond the political potency of this, which is vast, I would say. And that's partly why, as you've covered extensively, they're not releasing these things. Even in this Tom McMillan story, Donald Trump comes up not only as a political donor, but because the woman, Gwendolyn Beck, who is deeply associated in the testimony of the late Virginia Giuffre as a participant in these orgies with Jeffrey Epstein, the email she sends to Jeffrey Epstein long after he's already convicted to be as a sex offender, registered and all that in New York, and has these lawsuits in Florida years after that, she writes this email subject line, Tom McMillan, and we show it in the episode. And part of what she is doing in her emails with Jeffrey Epstein is also separately personal, personally asking him, hey, if you know of any positions that come up in a Trump committee or cabinet capacity, can you let me know? And this is, this, is this woman, Gwendolyn Beck, personally asking Jeffrey Epstein, hey, I know implicitly you're this guy I've always known to be close to Donald Trump. Can you do me a favor? And so interwoven organically even into this story is Donald Trump. Because of course, their connectivity is a reminder of, of stuff that the President doesn't want to disclose.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, no question about it. And Pablo, another reason why I was anxious to do this interview is that you recently tackled a subject that is near and dear to my heart. I'm a former CBS News correspondent. I don't go all the way back to the Connie Chung days. But you interviewed Connie Chung, who was an anchor along with Dan Rather of the CBS Evening News about the recent changes over at CBS where the Ellisons have taken over. They put Barry Weiss in charge and Connie Chung ain't too happy about that. Let's play this.

Right now.

[Connie Chung]

We don't, I mean, I can't. The paradigm has completely changed in news and we have so much opinion that the truth doesn't hold value anymore. And what we end up doing is trying to, we as consumers trying to find the truth. We can't find good old fashioned facts. And it distresses me so terribly. CBS is a whole different organization that I had worked for. CBS has now been taken over thanks to greedy owners, Sherry Redstone partnering with David Ellison, Larry Ellison's son. And their greed has caused the venerable CBS to actually.

Disassemble to, to crash into crumbles. And then they've hired this. I don't know what to call Barry Wise. I don't, you know, I, I just don't know.

[Tom McMillan]

Yeah, but she's, you know, we'll see.

[Connie Chung]

It's not a big we'll see as if, well, she could possibly restore.

[Jim Acosta]

She was there the other day when Trump goes on 60 Minutes. I thought it was a decent interview.

[Pablo Torre]

It was. Okay. You're talking about Nora o' Donnell's interview? Yes. Well, part of, part of my concern, by the way. And I, I find it very, if I were you, I'd find it very difficult to watch the administration of CBS News wear the costume of CBS News, getting to cosplay, to pretend that nothing is different, even though the very premise of Their acquisition of the network was in fact, at the discretion and blessing of the president, who was the interview subject in that video that we're describing.

[Connie Chung]

That's right.

[Pablo Torre]

And so just the very basic premise of that feels very hard to stomach. If you care about anything adversarial, if.

[Connie Chung]

You care about serious news.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, let's talk about this. Let's pick it up there. Yeah, that's a, that's such a great point. I'm so worried about CBS too. But your thoughts after talking to Connie Chung?

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. So this is someone in Connie Chung that I grew up watching and I knew of her because she asked difficult, uncomfortable questions of extraordinarily powerful people. And the power dynamic of the present day, I think is obvious to anybody in terms of who is getting to decide and install, frankly, people at the top of media organizations, because that's where we are in the mergers and acquisitions phase of this fragmented, siloed media economy. But the clip I referred to there is Donald Trump being interviewed by Connie Chung as well, in which he gets to not only grill him, but, but I would say do something that is rare in news media, which is also just laugh at how ridiculous he is. This was in the 90s and he's trying to claim that he doesn't care about attention and magazine covers and all this stuff. And she's of course there to say this is absurd. And separately, we played a clip in this episode too, where she interviews Bill Gates and Bill Gates leaves the room, leaves the interview because this is at the height of the monopolistic, the alleged monopolist behavior of Microsoft, of course, and Bill Gates doesn't want to be questioned by this person, Connie Cha, and the opportunities to have. And it's just not lost on me, by the way, when you bring in the Bari Weiss of it all. Bill Gates is a figure, by the way, also all over the Epstein files.

[Jim Acosta]

Let's just add that that's true.

[Pablo Torre]

Let's also remind ourselves that Barry Weiss recommended publicly that she wanted charismatic figures like Alan Dershowitz to be now presented by CBS News as one of the ways forward in this broken political news environment we exist in. Alan Dershowitz, not unrelated all over the Epstein files. Right. And so I'm just pointing out here not to say that there's some like top down ultimate conspiracy, but just that we're living in this moment where people in power are getting away with stuff. Totally. They're missing direct accountability. And by the way, Bill gates, certainly Tom McMillan, even Donald Trump himself, at the points at which we're talking about them. They have been and were Democrats.

[Jim Acosta]

That's right. And party has nothing to do with it. And it's a great point that you're making, Pablo. I mean, the media used to hold these kinds of figures accountable and we just don't see it that much anymore. Donald Trump doesn't do press conferences anymore. The White House is. Oh, he takes questions all the time. He takes questions in these settings where he's in the Oval Office and he can scream at reporters or on Air Force One where he can call them piggy. No, back and forth like, I mean, like I had with him back during the first Trump administration. And we just don't. And leading corporate titans who have bent the knee to Donald Trump, all this, they don't get pounded the way they should by good, intelligent reporters like yourself.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, listen, they want control. So the most powerful people, the richest people, frankly, it's not lost on me that. And let's just take it broadly right. Jeff Bezos wants the Washington Post, acquires the Washington Post. Elon Musk wants Twitter, makes it X. The Ellison's want cbs, they get cbs. They want the ability to control who gets to hold them to account. They want to control what the average person hears in terms of anything resembling oversight guardrails on their behavior. And when you live at this moment, I just ask everyone to wonder as media as a concept is breaking and it is, and it's giving rise to independent enterprises and journalists, as we are hopefully showing, they're also proving that media has never been more important. And I mean that purely. Just forget about the philosophy of it, the economics of it. They want to control media because media still matters. And so the answer to me is always, can we make sure that journalism doesn't go anywhere as well? Because that's the part that they are trying to cut out when they say media is, is alive and well, it's just not the ones that make them look bad.

[Jim Acosta]

That's right. And, and it's such an important point, and it very much is at the heart of where we are as a country right now. If the guy in charge, the guy in the White House can basically control who runs these news organizations because they can approve or not approve a media takeover, a merger. There was a huge one today, WBD and Netflix. And so, and that's going to have to go through the sausage press of getting approved by the administration. And you know, I mean, folks, I mean folks at home are smart enough to figure this stuff out. When CBS and ABC are paying these lawsuit Settlements, basically bribes to Donald Trump. He has them over a barrel. And so we've got to figure out a different way, a different construct for getting information to the people. It seems to me there's never been.

[Pablo Torre]

A bigger gap between what the richest and most powerful people want you to know and what's actually happening.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And that's because of everything we're describing. And sports, to me, by the way, like, why does sports matter? It's because it is the last big tent you could argue, left in American culture. It is a monoculture in an era of fragmentation and silos. It is the place where I could walk into a building and root for a team right alongside somebody who hates my guts in every other cultural context, but we might plausibly root for the same thing. And so for me, sports has always been a bit of a Trojan horse in which conversations can happen.

[Jim Acosta]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

And so for me, I've always been trying to do more than sports because I have interests, of course, well beyond. But now I'm realizing that if we're trying to reach men, if we're trying to make sure that conversations are heard by people who aren't explicitly asking for them, if I can melt the cheese of sports on the broccoli, on the nourishing substance of news.

[Jim Acosta]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

Maybe that's how Tom McMillan shows up at my show. And you can actually hear someone have to answer questions that he has no good answers for. And that's something that I'm. I'm thirsting for opportunities like that because I believe the audience, the American people, as you've also experienced in this capacity with your show, it's just never been more necessary and more desired because people aren't idiots. They know that it's. It's. It's being withheld from them.

[Jim Acosta]

Exactly. And I mean. I mean, let's. Let's just discuss one more thing here before you go, and that is, you know, Donald Trump. Speaking of Donald Trump, he was handed basically a participation trophy today by the folks at FIFA, talking about, talk about big wigs, corporate titans kissing up to him, getting what they want. They had the big rollout, the big FIFA rollout about the World's cup coming to the US Next year. Donald Trump's very proud of this. He takes all the credit for it. And the head of FIFA brings Donald Trump this Peace Prize. We should watch this, Pablo, and then get you to comment, because this is wild Peace Prize. There is also a beautiful medal for.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

You that you can wear everywhere you.

[Pablo Torre]

Want to go.

Right now.

[Jim Acosta]

Okay, let me hold Fantastic. Excellent. Look at that. Wow, Pablo, I was going to have one for you today as well, but I'm sorry, it just wasn't in the budget.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, I demanded in my rider that I be also given some sort of equivalent honorific. I love that because it's so on the nose. Like, you can't. Again, we live in this stranger than fiction time. And if you're going to write this in the movie script, of course, you have Donald Trump not even waiting for Johnny Infantino, by the way, the head of the most corrupt organization in global sports. You have him not even waiting for him to put it around his neck, as if, of course, the entire thing was Trump awarding himself something. And so there is that. And so as he is named and this is, it's almost like, you know, I was thinking it's almost like FIFA was like, we've made our inaugural one under 80 list and the only person on that list is Donald Trump. Congratulations. It's just like, what are we even doing anymore? Yeah, it's corruption in its most obvious and frankly pathetic form.

[Jim Acosta]

And blatantly obvious.

[Pablo Torre]

And the reason it's. It's not blatantly obvious because it is, it's also effective, like, and that's the sad part, is that people keep doing this because it works, right?

[Jim Acosta]

All the tech titans bringing him the golden offerings. It's the same thing.

[Pablo Torre]

Tim Cook explaining why this. And it's all gold. It's all very on the nose. And Johnny Infantino representing FIFA, this is a guy who is infamously, infamously familiar with the quid pro quo as a matter of doing business globally. And so the United States acting like it is any autocracy that they've dealt with before. And this is how you get the World cup in Saudi Arabia. This is how you bring it to Qatar. This is how you bring it to the United States. Sports washing, it's, it's.

[Jim Acosta]

And sports, on that point, we're getting sports washed. Donald Trump's getting sports washed.

[Pablo Torre]

And Donald Trump is sports washing. The whole notion of I'm going to use this thing that he knows is so deeply popular for all the reasons that sports has been special over time. It's this ostensible refuge of fair play and integrity and meritocracy where people of differing opinions must still pay attention in this era of time delaying and dv, DVR is so ancient now. But like everyone's feeds being separated, Donald Trump has used, despite not knowing anything, by the way, about sports. Actually, for a sports fan or reporter, it's Very funny. To watch him pretend to know things about sports.

[Jim Acosta]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

And wear the costume again, of sports, while actually being totally disinterested in why sports actually are important and matter, because his behavior is a violation inherently of those core premises of meritocracy and fairness and integrity. But he's presenting, he's cosplaying as America's number one sports fan. And it is so trans to me, it is so transparently fraudulent that when he shows up at a college football game and he's demanding to be named, he's. He wants the Commander's new stadium, of course, to be named after him.

[Jim Acosta]

I'm a Commander's fan. That will be. I will have a heart attack if that happens. And people in Washington will not go. I'm telling you, they will burn their season tickets. They will not go if it's named after him. They hate him.

[Pablo Torre]

And it's. And in part it's because, again, people actually aren't as dumb as Trump is acting. And so I always think about. You know, I've been using this term a lot lately, but it just seems like Donald Trump, lots of people, frankly, Johnny Infantino among them, they're fracking sports. What do I mean by this? I mean, they see that there's money buried in it, and they're thinking to themselves, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, this is accessible now. What they don't realize is that they are ruining sports and its ecosystem in the process. They're drilling deeper and they are violating the sanctity of these arenas, of these institutions, such that when all is going to be left, it will be this poisoned well that no one can enjoy anymore. And that goes to the Commander Stadium. That goes to the World cup as this place where actual immigrants, Hispanic, I mean, just like Jim, to the idea of, like, soccer coming to America and people being afraid of being arrested by ice at them.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Like who?

[Jim Acosta]

I assume they'll put ice outside these.

[Pablo Torre]

Stadiums as they have at football games, as they have at Dodger Stadium. It's. It's a total poisoning of the last place where Americans can gather. And it's done in the service of the man who put the metal around his own neck because he was so impatient that he couldn't even pretend like it was anything other than a masturbatory exercise. And so here we are.

[Jim Acosta]

Here we are. A master exercise. Pablo. No pun intended. No double entendre intended. Pablo, great to see you. It's. It's Pablo Torre finds out Pablo's here on substack. He's on YouTube. I mean it. You've been crushing it. I watch you on Ms. Now. Joe Scarborough loves you, apparently. This is Joe and Meek. You're like Joe Amica's favorite guest now. You're blowing up.

[Pablo Torre]

Congratulations, Jim. Thank you. Thank you for giving some credibility to my weird show, Pablo show on Substack and all those other channels. We use sports to solve mysteries. I would dare say that the mystery you've discussed is pretty obvious, but nonetheless, I try.

[Jim Acosta]

Hey, we found out something today, more than just one thing today. And it's that we can say masturbatory on. On. On a YouTube show, on a Substack show, which is totally fine. It's great.

[Pablo Torre]

I thank you for letting me abuse the decency standards that you have spent decades building.

[Jim Acosta]

You're welcome. Anytime. Please come back. Please do it.

[Pablo Torre]

I will. Anytime.

[Jim Acosta]

Pablo, great to see you, man. Best of luck. Thanks so much. The great Pablo Torre. Keep an eye on him, folks. I mean, he is. This is. I mean, it sort of reminds me of Real Sports with Brian Gumbel that used to be on hbo, where you take real journalists who do real journalism, cover sports, but in a way that talks about our society, talks about our world. And Pablo is. I mean, he has nailed it. He has totally, totally nailed it. And it's great stuff, so make sure you check him out. Want to switch gears in a big way, but in a fun way as well. I've been looking at this guy on Instagram for several months now, and I just said, you know what? Hell, I'm just going to follow this guy and see what happens. He immediately followed me back, and it's Johnny Hilbrant, AKA the PE guy. There he is right there. And. And Johnny, you don't look anything like many of the videos that we see on Instagram, but we'll get to that. But for the folks at home who were wondering, who is this Johnny guy? Who's Johnny? Johnny does these hilarious, absolutely hilarious videos on Instagram of a private equity guy, the PE guy. And you basically skewer these rich who show up at weddings and bar mitzvahs and you name it and just brag about themselves. Johnny, great to see you, man. Thanks for coming on the program.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Thanks. Yes, thank you for having me. I was honored for the follow and then immediately followed back. I was like, is this real life? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I really appreciate you having me on. This is a cool opportunity and the more eyeballs on the stuff, it's the better. So.

[Jim Acosta]

Totally. And I was just reading a profile about you in The Chicago Sun Times. And I guess you're from the Chicago area, which is great. I used to work there. And it says Johnny Hillbrandt needed a laugh. He'd been stuck in one too many conversations at one too many weddings, listening to one too many private equity finance guys nonchalantly tick off life successes and lifestyle excesses until his Midwest. Nice. Almost burst. And so you've invented this character. And for the folks at home who have not seen this yet, you really need to find Johnny on instagram and on TikTok lots of other places. Let's watch it. We'll talk about on the other side. And then I'm going to ask you if you can do it live, which I'm not sure you can do, but.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Anyway, I can find a way for you. Yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

We'll reveal this as we go. All right, let's watch. Let's watch for souls.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Yeah, these are the ones that fold up. They're awesome glasses, man. Actually left them at Les Dipple Mat last week.

[Jim Acosta]

Lay dip.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

And I just went to pick them up today. I'm so surprised they still had them, but the manager drives.

[Pablo Torre]

Awesome.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Yeah, yeah. We're in Chevy Chase now.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

So once the fun hit, Carrie, wifey and I decided that we were done sharing walls with civilians. Yeah. It just was time, man. Honestly, we looked in Georgetown, and Georgetown is decent, but it felt a little retail to me. So, you know, no offense. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, my wife did a couple years on the Hill working for her father. He's a senator. He's a salt of the earth kind of guy. Great guy, awesome guy. But, you know, now she's focused on entertaining and community building. And, you know, she's. She's on the board at the kids school.

[Pablo Torre]

So.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Yeah, they're at Sidwell. Yeah, it's awesome school. So, you know, they're gifted children. We want them to be challenged intellectually, but. But also geopolitically.

You know? Yeah, Tarantino's four, Montauk is two, and Ibada's nine months. Yeah, they're awesome kids. And, yeah, Tarantino's doing great. Yeah, he just started fencing, actually. Not competitive.

[Jim Acosta]

All right, Johnny, we gotta cut.

But.

You'Re talking about the wifey and the kiddos. This is a constant feature in your videos. You play this character, the PE Guy.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

And you. And for the folks at home who are just catching on to this, Johnny basically skewers different cities with wealthy, affluent people all around the country. Pretentious asshole people all around the country. You can sort of Go through the list. There's like, there's one for the Hamptons. There's one. I think you do one for the Cotswolds in Michigan. And so. And it's just absolutely. Tell us, why did you start doing this? Tell us, how did this happen?

[Pablo Torre]

I started.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

I started doing it as he started. The character started as the guy you get stuck talking to at a wedding. So he was like, it was not a PE Guy. And then I. And then I did another one as the guy you get stuck talking to at a wedding. And it's just like the guy who wants to brag about his life to you and doesn't care what you do for a living and. Or where you live or if you even have a house, you know, he started as him, and then I was like, I had to give him a job. And then I thought like, okay. I feel like everyone I've talked to recently over the last five years of weddings, everyone's like, I'm in private equity. And everyone says, oh, well, he's in. He's in private equity, so. And I'm like, I don't know. Is that a big. Is that a good thing? What is that? So I just. I named. I was like, all right, yeah, this job is private equity. And then people were like, you're really nailing the private equity guy. And I was like, oh, did I. It was a happy accident.

[Jim Acosta]

Wow.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

But I was sick of. I. I am sick of just the way that people, like, act and talk in public. And I feel like, you know, not. Not any of my close friends, if they see this, they won't be offended. But there are people that I used to love hanging out with, and now I'm like, I can't stand you because all you want to do is tell me about your, like, Rivian. And I'm just like, I don't. I don't care about your Rivian. I don't care what you and I. And I. It's not to be mis. Mistaken as, like, anti capitalist, you know, like, down with the rich. It's not like that at all. It's more just like a. Like, go, be successful, work your ass off, have the best time, go on amazing vacations. But when you get back from the vacation, just. We saw it. We saw it on Instagram. So, like, we don't, you know, we don't need to know, or I don't need to know the stars for the hotel.

[Jim Acosta]

You're crying out for some humility.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Yes.

Brit, for that.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Thank you.

[Jim Acosta]

And what is the hat substantial. Because one of the things I've noticed from PE Guy in many of your videos is he has these different hats with different words on them. And I'm, I'm just imagining that they're like his foundation or something that he exploits or just there's something funny about the hats.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

There is something there. I have, I have three hats now that are mine that I sell, and this is one. And there's one that says decent and then one says the decent one due to my role. Because I actually did have a conversation with someone at a wedding who was talking about themself and I, you know, I was kind of wide eyed while they were talking because they were. And he was like, well, you know, due to my role, I mean, we're able to go to Europe for all of August or whatever. And I was just like, I lock that in and I printed a hat with it and now I sell the hat.

[Jim Acosta]

Amazing. Yeah, amazing. And okay, so here's the other question that I have. Somebody told me, and this is, I mean, you must run into this all the time. People are at parties, they're looking at your videos and they're like, who's this guy? I mean, I've had people send these videos to me. I've talked to people at parties about these videos because it's just so funny. And especially in dc, it really skewers very well a lot of the people who are in D.C. and I'm a D.C. native and I just, I can't stand these kinds of people. Yeah, but one of the things I was wondering about your videos is do you have to put a filter on or are you contorting your face and doing this yourself?

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Okay, it is a filter. The funniest, the funniest thing, I, I went on early days, not early days. This is a couple months ago, September. I went on Fox News and they, you know, CNN didn't reach out. So I was like, you know, all press is good press, whatever. I didn't want, I don't want to piss anybody off, but I was like, all right, they're gonna, they were talking about something intense before, and then I came out, I was like, you know, but they, whoever was producing the segment or whatever did not tell the host that this was my face. So they had no idea. So I get on live television and they're like, we're all very shocked that your face, you know, and they're like, can you, can you do it? Can you? And so I did a, a little bit of it. I didn't have my phone in the room, so I wasn't able to, like, kind of do what I'll try to do here.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

And they. They were like, oh, it's. It's crazy. He didn't do the face. And then the other host was like. I think it's because it takes him a second to really ramp it up. And I'm just like. That is like. It was. It was. I had, like a nice little laugh to myself after that because I was like. A lot of people think that I just kind of do like a little like this, and then it. My face gets stuck like that.

[Jim Acosta]

I was kind of wondering that myself, because you got the hat, you've got the stubble like a PE guy might have. You've got the AirPods in. So I thought this was something, you know, could he do it on the spot? But okay, so if you were to do it. All right, so show us how you do it. If it's okay. If you don't.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Oh, so this is the filter. So it's not going to be the best quality.

[Jim Acosta]

That's okay. Oh, my God.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

So, yeah, So I do that. And if I'm looking at my phone, can you see my.

[Jim Acosta]

Yes.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Yeah. So perfect. So, you know, and I would be like.

So, Jim, really wonderful to see you. You said you're DC native, Is that right?

[Jim Acosta]

I am from dc. That's correct. What do you think of dc?

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Yeah. Oh, well, I mean, I don't even know where to begin. I've got. I've got lots of dear friends in the Chevy Chase area. There's lots of wealth, lots of government contractors and such. The deal flow there is. It's decent enough. I get down there for work, but I tend to stay out of politics. It's just, you know, and I, obviously, I've. I make my donations and I know I don't necessarily think we should release the Epstein files. Definitely not.

[Jim Acosta]

Of course, PE guy would say this.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Yeah, I think it's.

[Jim Acosta]

I think.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

I don't think it's. Yeah, I know. Let's put it this way. I know a few. I have a couple of buddies who are really wonderful folks and. And they're frightened. And I. And I. I don't want them to be frightened. So maybe we should just let it go. Right.

[Jim Acosta]

Oh, Jesus. But you always like to talk about the wifey and the kiddos. And you have Tarantino and Is Montauk one of the names of the Montauk.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

For obvious reasons. And then Ebitda. So Tarantino's four Montauk is two, and EBITDA is nine months.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, and ebitda. What's the last one?

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Ebitda. Yeah, for the. Are you familiar with the. The financial. The acronym.

[Jim Acosta]

It's.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

It's an acronym for. It's Earnings before Interest, Taxes and Debts Adjustments or something like that.

[Tom McMillan]

I don't know.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

Literally a PE term.

[Connie Chung]

Wow.

[Jim Acosta]

Well, it's a lovely name, I must say. And how's wifey doing these days?

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Oh, she's wonderful. Yeah. I haven't seen her in a couple weeks. She went. She went on a retreat, Jiu jitsu retreat with the tennis pro a couple weeks ago, and I haven't seen her, but she's doing good. Very happy.

[Jim Acosta]

Amazing. Johnny, this is amazing stuff. And as I was saying earlier, the other thing that's really funny about this is that you do this. And do you have to contort your face a little bit behind the scenes?

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

I don't have to, but I do. I get all. My whole body gets involved. It's like a. Yeah. And then afterwards I have to just, like, go to bed.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the other thing is, is that you. You tailor this to different parts of the country, and maybe my producer, Mac, he can just pick his favorite one and we'll play that one.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Yeah. Our home in the Cotswolds.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

And Happy Thanksgiving to all. So we typically do Thanksgiving in the Cotswolds, and we. We flew over on the plane last night. It was amazing. The kiddos slept, obviously.

[Pablo Torre]

The.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

The seats turn into. To full mattresses, so. And. And wifey, she's not awake yet because she doubled up on her plain pills, which is great. Which is. Which is okay. And she's doing great. So. But Tarantino, obviously, he fasts and takes a vow of silence on this day, so we will not hear from him or see him all day. But, yeah, those of us that are eating, we're not doing turkey. It's a little too pedestrian for us. So we are.

[Pablo Torre]

We're.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

We're flying in a.

[Pablo Torre]

He.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Hand foraged, raised on a gorgeous farm in Geneva, a Cornish hen. And that's what we'll be eating. So, yeah, I'm wishing you and your families a wonderful and happy Thanksgiving.

[Jim Acosta]

And what's beautiful about that, Johnny, is he sounds like he believes it, like he's so earnest about this. And he. He comes across in a somewhat pleasant way, but in a horribly satanic way as well.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Weirdly. Weirdly likable. And you also kind of feel bad for him because he. He doesn't get it? But he's like, like, he's like, well, of course they're doing wonderful. And you're. Yeah, yeah. It's amazing. Shocking. Yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

And. And tell us a little bit about yourself.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

You are.

[Jim Acosta]

Did I see that you're a fitness instructor?

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Yes.

[Jim Acosta]

And so much anymore.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

In Boston, Massachusetts. Yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

Is this your new thing now? Are you just like. This is. You're doing.

[Pablo Torre]

This is.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

This is like cracked open into like a whole thing that I. I've always acted kind of like a fool on the Internet and this is just like blown up and I'm loving it. I'm just. It's like, it's a. It can be a full time job and it cannot. I mean, I. But I'm making it a full time job, so. But I teach at Barry's and SoulCycle, so. But I teach, like one class a week at both now. I'm just holding on to one.

[Jim Acosta]

Got it. It seems to me you've got to get on substack.

[Pablo Torre]

You.

[Jim Acosta]

You've got to get on. Are you on YouTube? I saw you're on TikTok.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

I'm on YouTube and tick tock and Instagram. Yeah. And I need to get. I. I need to do the subsect thing. I got to figure it all out. I'm like, still, it's been one thing. When I tell you it started as like, it's like it's been one little thing at a time. And all of a sudden I look back and I'm like, what the hell happened in eight months? Like, incredible. Started in March. So I'm just like. And I'm doing these, like, cool collabs and having amazing podcast guests. And there's a podcast which is like, you know, what the hell am I doing with the podcast? I have zero experience with. You know, makes sense. Jim Acosta has a podcast.

[Jim Acosta]

Okay.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Johnny Hillbrand has a podcast. It's like, what? No, okay, Relax, Johnny. It's. You know, but it's.

[Jim Acosta]

I run with this, man. I mean, honestly, it struck a chord. I think part of the reason why it struck a chord is that there's. We're in a little bit of an eat the rich moment. I have to say. I hate to break it to you. I know you want to. Don't want to piss on those guys. But I mean, we are sort of in a moment where they're gobbling up, like, all of the world's resources for themselves. Elon Musk is going to become a trillionaire. So, like.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Yeah, no, you're right. Yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

There's an appetite for it.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Yeah. Especially the PE thing. I think I hit on a thing because it's. A lot of people's companies are being bought by pe and they're people who are. Who, like, still work for the company, and. And they see that. So there's. There is a lot. People send me their stories a lot. And I'm like, this is like, I almost can't handle readings because it bums me out so much. It's like. And I've worked at this dentist office for 20 years, and they just. They got bought by PE and. And now I have to work on Saturdays, and if I don't like it, I have to, you know, like. And it's. And I. I hate that. Like, that whole, like, you know, evil money people at the top. But I think it still so exists, and they're just better at camouflaging themselves in a lot of ways. And my husband is. Which is funny. I have a husband, not a wife, which is hilarious.

[Jim Acosta]

Some of the husband.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

D. Husband. The husband. Yeah. He's an oral surgeon, and he has experienced, like, a lot of the oral surgery practices and dental practices are. These guys come in and they'll, like, take you out to a huge steak dinner and wine and dine you, and they're like, we're gonna do this, and it's gonna be great. And, like. And you're either on board now or you're not. And all of these. You know, all of the oral surgery practices are going to be owned by pe, so you might as well get on board now. And it's. And these people, you know, he spent 10 years in schooling for this, and he's like, I'm not. I want to own my own practice.

[Jim Acosta]

I don't.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

You know, I don't need Blackstone a part of it.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. No question about it. But that's. That's where the world is headed right now until somebody slams the brakes on this stuff. And you're doing that to some extent by screwing these people in a wonderful way. So thank you. Hats off to you in the public service that you're doing. Johnny, it's great to meet you. I'm glad we. We did this, and we'll do some clips, and hopefully I'll come on your thing and we'll keep doing this.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

I love it. Yeah. Thank you so much for reaching out. I'm. This is lovely.

[Jim Acosta]

You got it.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

To you.

[Connie Chung]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

All right.

[Jim Acosta]

Happy Friday, Johnny, the PE guy. Thanks so much. Great. It's not. It's not PE Class. It's private equity. So just in case, everybody. Good to see Johnny. Thanks a lot.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Nice to see you, Jim. Thank you.

[Jim Acosta]

That was great. And I, you know, I had to do. We just need this at the end of the week, folks, to just unwind and like, it's okay. It's gonna, we're gonna be okay. And yes, we're gonna get, yes, we get pissed at stuff. And yes, you hear me say things on this podcast that you used to not hear me say on corporate media. But every so often we got to sit back and laugh a little bit or we're all just going to go totally batshit crazy. So I really appreciate that.

[Pablo Torre]

And we have.

[Jim Acosta]

Let's just, we just show this one more time. The Donald Trump getting the partition, the participation trophy, the, the peace prize. I guess they. FIFA gave Donald Trump a peace prize earlier today as part of this World cup rollout here in Washington, D.C. over at the Kennedy Center. There is also here. It is beautiful. FIFA giving Donald Trump a peace prize. A peace prize. That is not the Nobel Peace Prize, by the way, in case folks are wondering. Fantastic. This is not the Nobel Peace Prize. It is the FIFA prize. Peace prize.

And a lot of folks immediately responded on social media that this is a bit of a participation trophy. And I, you know, I have to take issue with that a little bit in that. In what way is Donald Trump participating in peace? I mean, I will say I, I support the idea of participation trophies, by the way, as somebody who has kids, little kids on a soccer team or on a baseball team, whatever, it is totally fine and cool to give everybody a participation trophy. I hate, I hate it that people slam that for little kids, because what are you going to do at the end of the season? Not just give, not give them anything. I think that's how we grow up. But I think that's okay for kids to have participation trophies if they participate, if they go to the practices, if they go to the games. You participated, you should get something out of it. That's cool with me. Donald Trump does not participate in peace. And so what FIFA handed out to Donald Trump earlier in the day is a fraud. It is, it's, it is not a real, it's obviously not a real thing. They just made it up. I think this was their first annual peace prize that they handed out and they gave it to Donald Trump. And, and so it's a fraud on that level in that Donald Trump did not earn it. He. He's blowing up boats in the Caribbean, whether they're drug dealers or not. They're just, they're just wasting people. So there's that.

But there's also something else going on here with the Nobel or the fake Nobel Peace Prize that Donald Trump got.

And it's, and it's this. It is once again setting the example not only to corporate titans here in the United States, but to governments, to dictators, to the worst of the worst around the world, that this is how you kiss up to the President of the United States. This is how you get something out of the President of the United States. This is how you get something out of the United States government.

He is so easily.

Sucked up to. He is so pliable. He is so malleable. He is. He could be fluffed, you want to call it that, with, with gold offerings in a way that is truly, truly sickening. And it is truly disturbing because, I mean, it's, it's now more than obvious to just about anybody on the world stage. And the FIFA presentation, I think, is the icing on the cake for it, that Donald Trump is somebody who can just be bought with trinkets, with, with gold trinkets. And, and obviously, more than that, we've been, you know, you can buy some of his crypto, buy some of his family's crypto. There's that, too. You can let them build a hotel or let the family build a hotel in your country. There's that, too. But how cheap have we gotten as a country where the President of the United States can be handed a fake medal and all of a sudden you're doing business with the President of the United States? I mean, it is.

It is a joke. It is a joke. It is. If they can hand out a, a gold medal for shamelessness, it would obviously go to Donald Trump. Maybe we'll, maybe we'll send him up. Maybe we'll make one. The Shamelessness Gold Medal. And we will deliver it. We'll present it on the show. I probably couldn't deliver it, but we will present that to Donald Trump maybe at some point. My thanks to Pablo Torre for being on the show today. Great stuff from him. Check out his podcast. Pablo Torre finds out. And also, don't forget to check out our friend Johnny the PE guy, Hill Brandt. He is on Instagram and is just absolutely fantastic. There's his Instagram account. I saw this the other day. I was like, I gotta reach out to this guy. And it's so funny that he went on Fox and they thought he was gonna be in character, but no, he does it through a filter. I, I suspected that was the case and I wanted to test it out on my show and I did find that out to be the case. But make sure you check out Johnny on Instagram and maybe we'll find him in some, in some other places very soon. But in the meantime, just want to thank all of you a week in and week out supporting this program. Make sure you subscribe, you hit the like button, all of those things, they help the show. I try not to do too much of this. It seems like I'm like doing the pbs, you know, fundraising campaign thing. No, no offense to pbs. Love it when they do that. But I, I try. I, I, I don't know what it is. I, I feel a little bad asking for folks to support the show. But I, I ask you humbly if you could, maybe I'll send you a medal if you support the show. No, I won't do that. But, but I will thank you on this program for supporting the show. And you do that by subscribing and liking and telling other people that you know about this show. It means the world to me. But in the meantime, I hope you guys have a great weekend. Thanks so much for watching. Still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. I'll see you next time.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Bloomfield Hills money. Yeah, they basically own half the shoreline between Charlevoix and Petoskey. Oh, yeah. So we live on Vaughan Road, seven bedrooms, gated, of course. Yeah. So trees are so tall they create their own microclimate. So, you know, FedEx has a brutal time finding us, which can be a problem because we've got breast milk fresh squeezed from Switzerland, shipped in weekly. Wow, I didn't realize you could do that. So that's for your nine month old? No, no, actually all the kiddos. So Tarantino, our four year old, he's almost five. He's still enjoying the finest breast milk that the globe has to offer. What?

[Connie Chung]

Yes.

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

And for clubs, we're at Bloomfield Hills Country Club, bhcc, You know, golf, tennis, the whole thing. It's, it's gorgeous. Yeah, those are really nice spots. So I'm assuming your kids go to.

[Jim Acosta]

Some sort of private school?

[Johnny Hillbrandt]

Schools. Yeah, schools. Schools are non negotiable. Yeah. So wifey toured Cranbrook once and literally sobbed. Yeah, when she saw the natatorium, she said it reminded her of her semester abroad in Lausanne. So where do you live? Actually, I'm near Grosse Pointe. We don't live in Grosse Pointe, but our boat does. She summers gracefully at the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club while we summer properly in Harbor Springs. Yeah, not anything that touches Canada. We've got standards. Wait, what's wrong with Canada? Well, listen, my man, really great chatting. I hope you have an awesome rest of your day. Very cool.

[Pablo Torre]

Sam sa.