Share & Eat the Rich & Tell with Tim Miller and Stephanie Ruhle

Can Trump ruin these Knicks vibes? Why are billionaires so sensitive? Just how much of the White House is for sale? And is the pope radical? Or can decency levitate? Plus: the joylessness of a luxury box and… Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as a war criminal. Further content: • The White House Intervened to Get a $620 Million Deal for a Company Tied to Donald Trump Jr. https://www.propublica.org/article/donald-trump-jr-vulcan-deal-white-house (ProPublica) • The Trader in the Oval Office https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trader-in-the-white-house-trump-stocks (The Bulwark) • Subscribe to The Bulwark Podcast with Tim Miller https://pod.link/1447684472 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Pablo Torre?

  Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today, we're gonna find out what this sound is.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  So go out and buy a Dell. They're great.

• 0:09Pablo Torre?

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• 0:54Pablo Torre?

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• 1:19Pablo Torre?

  Where do we start? Because I've been sending you guys texts this morning, and we could start with this ProPublica story that just came out. We could start with the picture of the UFC stargate being erected on the lawn of the White House.

• 1:33Speaker 02

  You talk about Donald Trump trying to ruin the [bleep] vibes in the city. I land in New York. You know, people have a skip in their step. The weather is beautiful. Everybody's got Knicks clothes on. You know, people are fist bumping me on the street. Like, nobody can have any joy without me ruining it.

• 1:51Speaker 03

  Is there a Knicks game next week?

• 1:53Speaker 01

  No, I was invited to the... I was going to go on Wednesday, but they closed it out very quickly. They made... Jim Dolan's a great guy. He's, as you know, owns and in charge of Madison Square Garden. He's having a good year. Boy, what a team. They win all their games. They really... They have some great players. I think I'll be going to one of the games. I was invited by numerous people and Jim, and I think I'll be going. It's great. Great to see it. President Trump's on election tomorrow. The Knicks have really... They've really suffered for years.

• 2:30Speaker 04

  I think you guys are wrong on that one. You're giving him too much power on this Knicks thing. Trump wants to go to the Knicks game? Have at it, big boy. Who cares? Like, there's a lot of things we should go after him for and fact-check him on, but if that guy wants to go to the Knicks game, do it.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  That's correct, but there to me, some people can't resist being like, "F*** you, you suck, you suck."

• 2:49Speaker 04

  Then let him.

• 2:50Speaker 02

  No, they should be focusing their anger on Shay Gildes Alexander and how he's pretending to fall.

• 2:56Pablo Torre?

  A true war criminal.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  Yes. That's where all of the focus should be.

• 2:59Speaker 04

  I think the most powerful thing.

• 3:01Speaker 02

  Dialled in.

• 3:02Speaker 04

  The most powerful thing.

• 3:03Speaker 02

  The entire city should be like, "You f***ing shit."

• 3:05Speaker 04

  I don't think they're gonna care. They're gonna be focused on the game. I actually think that the president is gonna find himself frustrated because when he thinks he's gonna walk into this rocky like, "Yeah", people are gonna be like, "Move out the way, I'm here to see Jalen Brunson." I think that's gonna be his experience. But giving him more power around the "should he, shouldn't he", who cares? This is about the New York Knicks, who haven't been there in 27 years.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  This is somebody that's healthy. This is somebody that processes life in a healthy way, unlike me, you know? I've got, I'm deranged.

• 3:34Speaker 04

  He's a boy from Queens, he might actually wanna go.

• 3:36Speaker 02

  I find that very hard to believe.

• 3:38Speaker 04

  Okay, you know what, I said it and then I was like, "Maybe not."

• 3:40Speaker 02

  Very, very hard to believe.

• 3:58Pablo Torre?

  So the Knicks are donating 750 tickets, I believe.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  To the finals?

• 4:03Pablo Torre?

  To the finals.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  God, you hate to hand it to Jim Dolan.

• 4:07Pablo Torre?

  What's a better case for Jim Dolan? To sell the Knicks than, hey, it's never gonna get better, go out in a blaze of charity and goodwill as the city is rioting on your behalf?

• 4:17Speaker 04

  Is there an unlimited amount of mega-rich New Yorkers who wanna buy the Knicks?

• 4:22Pablo Torre?

  I mean, this is, this is what I want to discuss.

• 4:24Speaker 04

  So like, if owning a-

• 4:26Pablo Torre?

  What an incredible asset.

• 4:27Speaker 04

  If owning a sports team is the ultimate, ultimate vanity project for a super wealthy person, owning the Knicks is like, huh.

• 4:37Pablo Torre?

  It's the number one most valued asset, I would argue.

• 4:41Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 4:42Pablo Torre?

  Because, by the way, MSG is a sellout regardless whether the Knicks are good.

• 4:46Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:47Pablo Torre?

  Its, its gate attendance is, is always in elastic demand because it's New York City. And now you have the fact that they're actually good.

• 4:55Speaker 04

  But even when they're not good, it's super cool.

• 4:58Pablo Torre?

  Yes, but the people who show up at the Garden, right? Those faces that you see that Stephanie Ruhl actually recognizes? Because it's all of these masters of the universe, these captains of industry. One of the reason, Tim, Tim Miller, thank you for being here, by the way.

• 5:11Speaker 02

  Good to be here, baby.

• 5:12Pablo Torre?

  Steph, Stephanie Ruhl.

• 5:14Speaker 04

  Love being here.

• 5:15Pablo Torre?

  Stephanie knows rich people.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:18Pablo Torre?

  Well, Tim.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  And it kind of enjoys their company, which is a big difference between me and Stephanie. Talking about sports team ownership and being in corporate boxes is a thing that makes me feel the most anti-capitalist. To this example, my friend has the box at the LSU Tigers game and always invites me. And I'm like, if I'm gonna go to Baton Rouge on a Saturday night and have some whiskey and watch a football game, I want to be with the people. I want to be with, I want to be among the people. I want somebody to spill their beer on me. I want to high five a child that's up past his bedtime. I want to cuss at the other team and say, "S T T D B," you know? And I don't want to sit around and like have people asking me like, "What about the tariffs?"

• 6:00Speaker 04

  In a fleece vest.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  I don't want to hear about the tariffs in a fleece vest, you know? And like, that, that is kind of your world, though. And you're good at navigating it, though, because they'll bring up the tariffs and then you'll make a little off-color joke and like you'll have a tariffs take. You, you navigate it very well.

• 6:13Pablo Torre?

  Wow, how did that scouting report feel to you?

• 6:15Speaker 04

  Um, I don't think that's the case. I, I don't think I just make it. I, I don't think I've ever made an off-color joke.

• 6:23Speaker 04

  The funny thing about, I would actually say corporate boxes. You see, when they've built all these new arenas, they're trying to make corporate boxes closer to the people. Because there's nothing worse, right? Like, if you think about going to the coolest restaurant out there but saying, "We got the private room," it blows because it's like you're at this amazing place with the best energy ever and you're sitting in an insulated box. So I think you're talking about two different things. The fan experience is less exciting. And less fun if you're sitting in an isolated area. But you're also making the point, if you're going to a game, if you're going to a concert, you're there to experience that art, that sport, that live event. You sure as [__] don't want to talk about EBITDA and profit margins.

• 7:03Speaker 02

  I don't want to talk about EBITDA, ever, actually.

• 7:05Speaker 04

  Ever, actually, ever, yes.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  I hate the word EBITDA. Is that a word?

• 7:08Speaker 04

  Well, it's not a word.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  No, it's an acronym.

• 7:09Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 7:10Pablo Torre?

  But the idea that Steph is the type of person who goes to the Milken Conference, in which there are lots of NBA owners and lots of billionaires, and there is this conversation around, so, we are winning right now. We being this non-monolithic class of extraordinarily connected, wealthy, and informed people in the world of finance? I have to say that that way?

• 7:33Speaker 04

  Finance, yeah.

• 7:35Pablo Torre?

  Steph, part of the reason I wanted to have you here with me and Tim is because the mentality of these folks who are at that conference, this global conference, the people who are in these NBA arenas and elsewhere, how do you describe them to people who are not decades steeped in finance?

• 7:56Speaker 04

  I think the thing that's amazing right now is the deference and latitude they give the president. And sort of before now, one could easily argue, part of what makes America so exceptional is that we respect the rule of law, is that we have three separate but equal branches of government. And you've got all these business leaders over the last few decades, more and more who have spoken out publicly, who say, you know, like, we're leaders in culture, in business. It's our fiduciary to explain the way the world works. And suddenly, the cat got their tongue. Because now you've got a president who continues to push boundaries and blow through things. I mean, we do a segment on our show, White House for Sale. There's an unlimited amount of content.

• 8:40Pablo Torre?

  It's so hard to pick even what to focus on.

• 8:43Speaker 04

  We're long past the days of, let me tell you the stocks that Paul Pelosi traded yesterday. And, and let's talk about, you know, closing the carried interest loophole.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  That'd be nice, though. We could still do that.

• 8:56Speaker 04

  I'd love to talk about all those things, and we always have, but, but... The latitude they're giving this administration, and when you talk to people, part of it is they're intoxicated by the access they have. They can call this president, they can call Howard Lutnick and get what they want and get what they need. What's amazing to me is that they think they're going to get some sort of long-term loyalty from this president. He shows it day in and day out. Whatever serves him today. I mean, look at John Cornyn. John Cornyn, look at Bill Cassidy, sitting there with egg on their face. What killed me two weeks ago was when Bill Cassidy, a minute after he loses his primary, is like, oh, by the way, I'm not feeling, I'm not feeling good about that war in Iran. Really, Bill?

• 9:38Speaker 04

  What changed in the last 48 hours about the situation in Iran, other than you losing? Right. These are senators, United States senators. So, a business leader would, though they won't make the argument out loud, they would say, who do they have to answer to, right? They're fiduciary responsibility. They need to make sure their customers are still going, you know, doing business with them, their employees aren't quitting, and their shareholders are happy. So they would argue that that trifecta is their most important triangle, and it doesn't behoove them to speak out against the president.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  So Cat Got My Tongue makes sense. But then, last week, I was in a cross-country flight to California.

• 10:12Speaker 04

  That's how that works.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  And I was stuck, sitting there, watching cable news, which is great, we honor cable news, we're on cable news, but like, personally, I usually don't watch like, hours and hours in a row, right?

• 10:21Speaker 04

  No, you just watch 11 to 12.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just watch 11 to 12 on staff, and then whatever's right-

• 10:26Speaker 04

  Correct, moving to 9 to 11 a.m. That's right.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  Whatever's right before me.

• 10:29Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  And Pablo texts that he's gonna be on, but that's usually, that's about it. And so I'm watching CNBC, and it was just by accident, it was the day that Andrew Ross Sorkin is interviewing Bezos. And the Cat Got Your Tongue, like I said, I understand. If Bezos is just like, you know, it's kinda crazy over there, I've got this, I've got all these businesses, I've got the new wife, I've got the Venice wedding, and like, I've got my yacht, and I'm just gonna focus on that. You know, that couldn't be me, really. I like to yap, but I would understand that. But he didn't do that. He goes on with Andrew Alcortes and he's like, you know, Trump's really mellowed, I think.

• 11:04Speaker 04

  No, he said this time, yes.

• 11:06Speaker 02

  He's more disciplined. He's more disciplined.

• 11:08Speaker 05

  I'm comparing him to his first term. Yep. And I think he is a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term. And, you know, so he's, again, I've worked with all the presidents. I will work with all the presidents, you know, and I hope to do that going forward if they'll have me. But it's, we need our business leaders to provide input into the administration, regardless of who the president is.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  He has a couple of good ideas, and when he has good ideas, you really have to hand it to him. And I'm like, what? Why are you doing? That is humiliating.

• 11:46Pablo Torre?

  But just because this is the decoding I want to do. In your view, Steph, when Jeff Bezos is saying stuff like that, he is doing it because he is there also transacting.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  Or maybe he agrees. Or maybe he really likes Trump.

• 12:00Pablo Torre?

  I'm trying to calibrate my cynicism.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  Because I think he might really like him.

• 12:04Speaker 04

  So I would say a lot of them like that they have someone to call. I think a lot of them would say they like that they share an idea and maybe they get something out of it. But I think Jeff Bezos is unique in that, to me, his biggest, most important business or gaping hole is Blue Origin. Okay? Blue Origin is, pun intended, light years behind SpaceX, right? This is costing gazillions of dollars. They don't have nearly the amount of government contracts or relationship with the government that SpaceX does. And so he needs to make sure he's in good standing with the president, right? Days after the Melania documentary debuted, right? Brett Ratner produced, Amazon paid tens of millions of dollars.

• 12:49Speaker 04

  Days after, who rolls up to Blue Origin headquarters? Pete Hegseth, with Jeff Bezos shaking his hand.

• 12:57Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 12:57Speaker 04

  Right? Remember?

• 12:58Speaker 02

  And Bezos talked about how that was a good business decision in the same interview. And that wasn't quite right. Actually, it did lose 59 million, which might, which might be nothing, but that's kind of a lot to me.

• 13:08Speaker 04

  59 million is trump change if you, in, in his mind, right? During Trump's first term, Jeff Bezos was a target of Donald Trump, right? Amazon was a target of Donald Trump, Bezos was a target of Donald Trump. I actually think it's why he continues to own the Washington Post. When people are like, he doesn't want to own the Washington Post, he's not interested. He knows that the Washington Post and the media is so important to Trump. And so to be in good standing with Trump, I would say in his mind, being in, in the safe zone with Trump is good for him and good for his business. Now you might say, he's one of the richest men in the world. We could lose our democracy.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  Ever in history.

• 13:46Speaker 04

  We could lose our country. Doesn't that trump all of this? And that's a totally fair argument to be made.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  And to me, the other, the psychology thing I'm more interested in, because you understand the money. I understand what these guys are motivated by. That's why they're the richest people in history. But I, you know, these guys are all so sensitive to criticism from everybody besides Trump. And it is so, I hate to use the P word for the second time on the podcast, but we can say it again, thanks to, you know, Donald Trump winning. Uh, that's what the finance guy said. We can say the R word, we can say [BLEEP] again. It makes me feel like that they're [BLEEP]. It's just like, you could sell how sensitive he was to the Washington Post criticism in that interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin. It's like, all of these media journalists are, are making fun of me and saying, we're not doing a good job. Like, what am I supposed to do? Run a charity?

• 14:31Speaker 05

  If I do my job right. Right.

• 14:35Speaker 05

  The, the value to society and civilization from my for-profit companies will be much, much larger. Right. Than the, than the good that I do with my charitable giving.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  And he got very defensive in his backup. Donald Trump spent four years, like, making fun of how he looked, like, giving him a bad nickname. And now he grovels back to him? Like, what's the point of having [BLEEP] you money?

• 15:03Pablo Torre?

  But the thing that I think is most immediately actionable when it comes to who's even persuadable anymore? What should people be aware of economically in terms of just like the big headlines? It's the fact that we're talking on the same morning, Thursday, May 28th, when ProPublica. Releases this story, quote, "The White House intervened to get a $620 million deal for a company tied to Donald Trump Jr." And this is where I just read some ProPublica. "When the Pentagon announced a $620 million loan last year to a small North Carolina startup linked to Donald Trump Jr., defense officials and the company tried to tamp down suspicions of cronyism. The president's oldest son said through a spokesperson that he wasn't involved. The Pentagon said Trump Jr. played no role in the record-setting deal.

• 15:47Pablo Torre?

  The startup's founder told reporters that his company, Vulcan Elements, received no political favoritism. But interviews and Defense Department records reviewed by ProPublica show that the request to loan hundreds of millions of dollars to the firm linked to Trump Jr. was made by Peter Navarro, a White House adviser to President Donald Trump and a friend of Trump Jr.'s." And the reason all of this is particularly, I would say, relevant to what the public attention might be trained on is that there have been lots of stories about corruption and quid pro quo-ing and transactionality, but this particular story is apparently the first time that the awarding of a contract from a federal agency has been directly linked to White House intervention.

• 16:31Pablo Torre?

  People from the White House, apparently, according to sources in the story, said, quote, "We have to get this done." And Peter Navarro, for those not familiar, is also a guy who appeared on Don Jr.'s show on Rumble to say this.

• 16:47Speaker 06

  Your father has done more, I guess it's nine months now, than presidents do in two terms.

• 16:59Speaker 07

  Well, Peter, as always, thank you very much for what you're doing in there. Thank you for what you've done to yourself and to your family, standing up for us. Guys, make sure to check out "I Went to Prison, So You Won't Have To" by senior counsel for trade Peter Navarro. He's just a great friend, a great patriot, a great American. Peter, thanks very much, and I look forward to seeing you again soon, buddy.

• 17:21Speaker 06

  Thanks, my brother, for being there in my hardest of times. You know, when my back was against the wall, you had my back, brother.

• 17:31Speaker 07

  It's my honor, my friend. Thank you.

• 17:34Pablo Torre?

  But Peter Navarro, just for those who are unfamiliar with his work, how should we remind people who this guy is?

• 17:41Speaker 04

  So I'm gonna quote, without naming the person's name, a member of Trump's first term, who said at best, "Peter Navarro is a wackadoo and a kook." Peter Navarro was discovered by Jared Kushner during Trump's first term because he did a Google or an Amazon search looking for someone, anyone out there whose views on trade and tariffs were in line with Donald Trump's. And after digging and climbing and going through and around the bend...

• 18:12Speaker 02

  He had a book from like 1997 or something, right?

• 18:14Speaker 04

  Correct, correct. In 1997, where in the book, he quotes fake economists who are named, like if you take the name Peter Navarro and mix up the letters, that's the names of the people who... He had fake quotes in the book.

• 18:29Pablo Torre?

  Ronvara.

• 18:30Speaker 04

  There you go, Ronvara. Ronvara, okay?

• 18:33Pablo Torre?

  Navarro, Ronvara.

• 18:35Speaker 04

  So they then bring Peter Navarro into the first Trump administration. And let me be clear, he's an economist. Did you see him work with Steve Mnuchin? Steve Mnuchin said, "Huh, absolutely not." Did you see him work with Gary Cohn? Nope, he did not. They had to relegate him to go work in the Commerce Department under Wilbur Ross. And Wilbur may or may not have known that Peter Navarro was even there. The problem isn't necessarily, in many of these cases, the government getting involved in businesses, and in some cases it is. The problem is, bet your bottom dollar that you check, and somehow the Trump family or close associates are making money hand over fist in it.

• 19:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I've heard from people in business world who just are like, "You know, [bleep] we decided to make Don Jr. a strategic advisor because we figured like that could help us get a government contract." Like, this is happening all the time.

• 19:28Speaker 04

  Don Jr. is an advisor to both Calci and Polymarket. Like, does anyone realize how, and it was funny because I asked-

• 19:35Speaker 02

  And the administration's trying to interfere. Minnesota is trying to ban prediction markets in their state. Back when I was a Republican, that's how things were, as laboratories of democracy. If red states wanted to do one thing, blue states wanted to do another, that was, you know, pretty essential to what the worldview was. And now, the administration is trying to intervene to prevent Minnesota from passing a law for their state. Well, I wonder why. Maybe it's because the president's son is making money.

• 20:00Speaker 04

  When I was at NBA All-Star Weekend, they had a tech conference the day leading into the weekend. And I interviewed Kalshi, Polymarket, FanDuel, DraftKings onstage. And before, I can't remember whether it was Polymarket or Kalshi, but it was someone on their team. And I brought up, I'm like, it was offstage, but I brought up like, so, you know, Don Jr. advising both your companies? And the person was like, oh, he didn't invest much money. I'm like, no [BLEEP] Sherlock, I didn't think he wrote you guys a big fat check. Like, no one thought that.

• 20:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, right.

• 20:33Speaker 04

  Whatever you've given, whatever equity stake you've given him, whatever advisory role, I don't think he's had to reach into his pocket one single day. What you guys are doing is paying him, is giving him some upside. So you get no regulation and a clear path to build your mega business, which is exactly what's happening.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  Can we add one more story that was from last night that I have to get off my chest, me and stuff, we're talking about on the way in?

• 20:55Pablo Torre?

  Please.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  Do you follow the account Unusual Whales?

• 20:58Pablo Torre?

  I do.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  Unusual Whales is, you know, not, you know, I don't know if they have the same vetting process that ProPublica does. But they've done some good analysis and were kind of like a key account in like prompting like the Pelosi tracker and this idea that too many, you know, members of Congress are investing.

• 21:16Speaker 04

  Which is true, both sides of the aisle.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  But the story about Trump's investing that that came out, my colleague Joe Perdicone like, you know, crunched the numbers on this. Trump has invested more money this year in the stock market than all members of the House and Senate did combined last year in 12 months. Right, where this was just for the first quarter. So in the first quarter of this year, Trump's invested more than the entire Congress did last year. So if you're concerned about Congress investing in the stock market and the corruption, you would think you would be concerned about Donald Trump. Here's this one from last night. Dell, and you might know that Michael Dell himself put money into, what is it? The Trump.

• 21:54Speaker 04

  The baby bonds.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  The baby bonds, the Trump bonds, you know, so he put his own money into something that Trump could put his name on.

• 22:00Speaker 04

  A huge amount of money that can serve a huge, that would be great for lots of people.

• 22:05Pablo Torre?

  So these are the Trump accounts in which he's going to give 25 million eligible children, apparently.

• 22:10Speaker 02

  But again, in a free country, you know, you would call them baby bonds. You'd call them something else. You wouldn't name them after Dear Leader. They're not Kim Jong Un bonds or Trump bonds.

• 22:17Speaker 04

  And let me tell you, so when I ask people, like in the investment community about this, they all roll their eyes and like, ah, you gotta play ball. It is what it is.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  Not really. We've been, it's the 250th year of the country. We've never done this before. Business leaders have been, managed to succeed and make money and have good EBITDA without putting the president's name and face on everything that they did throughout all of history. So that's actually not true. And here's the Dell story. Dell just won a five-year, $9.7 billion Pentagon software agreement for the US military. Now, I don't know about you guys, maybe the Dell is the best company for that. I haven't used any Dell products in quite a while now. I have to imagine there are probably other competitors in this space. Before they got that $9.7 billion contract, Trump bought Dell multiple times since February 10th for more than $5 million. So Trump has put more

• 23:08Speaker 02

  than $5 million into Dell right before they got the contract. And in case you're thinking, ah, you know, maybe that's a coincidence, maybe, you know, Trump's financial advisor is focused on that at the blind trust, on May 8th, right before the contract was received, Trump said.

• 23:25Pablo Torre?

  So go out and buy a Dell. They're great. Dude, you're getting a Dell.

• 23:29Speaker 04

  Dell, not the singer. Dell, the stock.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  A Dell. It's like, the unusual rails, right? It's unusual. I think it's a little more than unusual. And it's, it's right there. It's text.

• 23:39Pablo Torre?

  But to now complete the circle, right? So this deal with the Rare Earths Vulcan, which is based in North Carolina, estimates of its valuation grew tenfold after the deal was announced. And Trump Jr., Don Jr.'s venture capital firm, took a stake of undisclosed size in Vulcan about three months before the Pentagon announced the deal.

• 24:00Speaker 04

  Sounds like he just got his room upgraded on his honeymoon. He just went up to the presidential suite after that.

• 24:06Pablo Torre?

  But my point being that this is not merely do this favor my friend. It's like they're actively profiting in ways that anybody who wants to say, and I get the instinct, all of these MS Now people, crying wolf, it's just sort of like the wolf is on the table right now and it's just like showing you its fucking portfolio and it's like, I don't know. What are we waiting for?

• 24:30Speaker 02

  And honestly, like, think about all the coverage Pelosi got. I was just, I was looking at the Dell thing last night and I was like, media criticism gets kind of tired at this point, but just, you know, if, if this was Mitt Romney, or if this was like, you know, Nancy Pelosi, it really would be leading the nightly news type thing. It could be leading David Muir, it'd be the front page of the newspaper, there'd be investigators, there'd be follow-ups, like, wait a minute, how did Dell get the contract? Like, why did you say invest in them? And it's like, Trump has now created this bubble where it seems like he's very public and it seems like he's doing a lot of media stuff, but he has all of these like Newsmax and, you know, Mike Lindell TV, people ask him questions, so he doesn't get questions from real reporters. There's a lot of other news crazy shit happening, like, you know, the war in Iran, et cetera.

• 25:13Pablo Torre?

  Or him going to the NBA finals.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  It's hard to decide which corruption to pick.

• 25:17Speaker 04

  The idea, though, that people don't know or don't care, I don't think is true. I think the investment community is sort of like, they're making so much money and it's working out so well, they're just like, if you can't beat them, join them. And, and they're the ones who are panicked, they're like, ugh, there are these crazies like Mamdammy who's coming for us, blah, blah, blah. I would argue, no. It's the mega wealthy getting mega wealthier, right? If you take the Forbes 200 at the end of the Biden administration, and obviously they were really rich, they're on the Forbes 200, and look at their net worth now, it has exploded. That's not the case for most other people. And so what's amazing to me is, they kind of look at this

• 26:00Speaker 04

  Anti-capitalism sentiment, like, these people are crazy, like, the anti-capitalist, the eat the rich sentiment is so real Yes. and visceral in this country, right? Like, I lived in New York and I worked on Wall Street during the Occupy Wall Street. This is that tenfold, and I think what they don't realize is, as much as you like making all this money during the Trump administration, the more this mega grift is happening, the more the other side is going to come for capitalism.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  Can I just rant about this for a sec?

• 26:29Pablo Torre?

  I want to say one thing before Tim rants, which is, the notion that they're coming for capitalism, the people truly dismantling capitalism are these people right here.

• 26:41Speaker 04

  This is the point.

• 26:41Pablo Torre?

  Capitalism requires competition and the rule of law as a set of regulatory governance practices. And when the people are like, this is not the free market, it's not capitalism. This is, like, uh, classic corrupt autocrat shit.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:00Pablo Torre?

  And when people come for capitalism, it's because you people did not actually defend it.

• 27:05Speaker 04

  Okay, this is it. This is it in a nutshell, right? Like, I love free markets, I'm as pro-capitalism as they come. What's actually transpiring isn't that.

• 27:23Pablo Torre?

  This message is brought to you by Apple Card. With Apple Card, you earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases, like groceries, or merch, or tickets to the game. Plus, it can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. No matter your team, no matter where you shop, Apple Card is here to help you tackle game day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 27:59Pablo Torre?

  I think the point is, yes, there is and has been corruption in government, under Joe Biden, under every presidency. But right now, we're talking about true tonnage in a way that is unprecedented. It's like people don't know what a billion is relative to a million. Even that very basic math question is like hard to fully grasp. And in the same way, we're looking at this, again, this giant wolf on the table, who is [bleep] stealing all this money, allegedly. And laughing as everybody is just not only complicit, but also profiting.

• 28:36Speaker 04

  Okay, so then here's the question. Tell me the name of the Democrat who would like to be in leadership, or who is running for office, who is writing an op ed, or who is coming on television and saying, "This is what's happening. It's deeply unethical, it's anti-democratic, it is currently legal. Here's what I am going to do. Here's what the Democratic Party is going to do if you vote for us in the midterms and we regain control." Tell me the name of the Democrat who's laid that out for us.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  I'm not, just really quick, I'm not sure it's all legal. I mean, some of this is foreign money.

• 29:11Speaker 04

  But I'm even giving them the benefit of the doubt, right? And saying, right, I'm trying to be like as generous as I am in this, right?

• 29:16Speaker 02

  I'm just saying, it isn't, it isn't actually legal for the UAE to bribe the president's family.

• 29:20Speaker 04

  So let's go even further, let's say, right, fine, then let's say, "This is illegal, and come November, if you vote for me, this is what we're going to do."

• 29:29Speaker 02

  Look, this is gonna be the job of the Oversight Committee. Robert Garcia was really good on Epstein. I think it's gonna be his job in the House. Who is the big-name Democrat that is like taking this on? Like, there isn't one, and they should, and I don't understand why. And I think it's really their job in 2027.

• 29:43Pablo Torre?

  How to persuade is the question. How do you message this?

• 29:46Speaker 02

  They need to say, "By the way, he's not gonna be in charge forever, and if you're one of these [bleep] rare earth companies, or if you're Dell, and you think that you're gonna have a government contract in 2029, well, you've gotta come turn over all of your documents right now."

• 29:59Speaker 04

  Okay, so Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan, was one of the only massive companies that didn't write a big check for The ballroom and Jamie Dimon said publicly on the record. I'm not going to write a check for the ballroom. Because when there's a new administration, they will come for me. Because this is, I don't know if he said bribery. But he said something along the lines of this will not pass the sniff test. I don't want to touch it. Life is long, this person won't be president forever. Moments after he said that is probably when Trump said, I'm suing you.

• 30:28Pablo Torre?

  Well, but this is, the whole thing has like a spirit Halloween after October 31st kind of vibe. It's like, everyone knows that this is the last days, it kind of feels that way. And those who are not acting as such are trying to get all these discounts on these costumes that they may never wear again. This is the thing, though, it's like, who is actually playing the longer game? And who is merely taking the cash also available on this table?

• 31:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:00Pablo Torre?

  And so we're left at this moment, and we don't even have time to really get into this. But we're left with a vacuum of moral, let alone legal and ethical leadership. And so it turns out that the literal Pope ends up being this person that everyone's like. Is the Pope now a truly radical figure because he's talking about in some way regulating? The masters of the universe. And it's like, how refreshing that there is someone who is not bought and sold by this administration. Who is not sensitive to the same pressures as everyone else in this country, whether they trying to figure out.

• 31:42Pablo Torre?

  Okay, how do I, how do I increase my growth?

• 31:46Speaker 04

  Pope is not radical. This whole idea that he's being painted as such is nonsensical. And so I think when people try to make that argument, you just have to take them back to facts. And that's the thing with quote unquote, going after Trump. The truth isn't bias, it's just the truth. Some people just don't want to hear it. And so as it relates to what the Pope is trying to do, the Pope is trying to raise our level of decency. Right? The Pope devoted his adult life, most of his adult. To serving the poor in Latin America, this boy from Chicago. And I just think we have to keep going back to just covering the facts and the truth, because it's all right there.

• 32:29Speaker 04

  And what we just need to do is show it to the American people. And what the Democrats need to do is not just say Trump sucks. They need to say, here's the path forward and here's what we're going to offer.

• 32:39Speaker 02

  I love that the libs are coming home to God. We could maybe use a good, and Joe Biden was Catholic, but kind of talked about it more earlier in his, earlier in his career. The Dems could use a 2028 person that talks a little bit about God.

• 32:50Speaker 04

  The Pope doesn't talk about God that much. What the Pope talks about is decency and living in service of others.

• 32:56Speaker 02

  The interesting thing about the Pope, and I think why it's resonating, Pablo, is in part, because of this moral vacuum of leadership. Like, we're going through this period where everybody feels like, screw it. Like, why do I have to, you know, care about ethics? Like, this, you know, the masters of the universe, the big tech CEOs, the president of the United States, like, all get away with whatever they want. Like, maybe that should be my model. Like, the Pope is offering this counter-model. The other thing that the Pope is doing is, in some ways, he quasi-codes liberal, but he's like, he's still the Pope, right? He's still pro-life, you know?

• 33:29Speaker 04

  This is what I mean.

• 33:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, he still, you know, has all of these values that are, that are small c conservative, right? Whether it be family values or traditional values or eternal, you know, kind of going back through history values.

• 33:42Speaker 04

  He's literally the head of the Catholic Church.

• 33:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's not jumping on fads, right?

• 33:46Speaker 04

  That's the glory of it, is that it doesn't need to be coded left.

• 33:50Speaker 02

  It gives him, like, I do think that credibility that we have, we have flattened everything, particularly in the last 10 years, into like, oh, you're a MAGA or you're an anti-MAGA. And it's like, you can dismiss the, the comments of somebody that is in the other tribe, even if they're making sense as part of this, like, never-ending, you know, online political forever war that we have. And like, he's not part of it, right? He levitates above it.

• 34:17Pablo Torre?

  Largely the Magnifica Humanitas,

• 34:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:20Pablo Torre?

  Which is the encyclical. Um, it's about AI and that's incredibly important and its own, of course, forever series. But the thing that I, I loved that Pope Leo the 14th wrote was quote.

• 34:33Speaker 04

  Did you read all 22,000 words or did you have ChatGPT summarize it?

• 34:36Pablo Torre?

  I certainly did not have ChatGPT summarize it. I did the thing I did while going to Catholic school growing up, which is.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  Skim.

• 34:43Pablo Torre?

  I selectively skimmed.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 34:45Pablo Torre?

  Um, but this is the part that I landed on.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  And then wrote a whole essay on the one part that you skimmed.

• 34:49Pablo Torre?

  And, and, and here is the part. The value of persons, however, does not depend on what they achieve or produce. There are rights that apply to everyone simply by virtue of being human. The various, it goes on to write, the various kinds of job insecurity, fragmented career paths and automation must not be evaluated solely in terms of efficiency, but in relation to the dignity of the worker, the right to sufficient remuneration and the genuine possibility of participating in society. End quote, which in a normal year, normal administration, kind of reads maybe cliche. But in this context, even we just spent all this time talking about, talking not about profit and growth and the green arrow feels relatively radical.

• 35:33Pablo Torre?

  And like the fucking Pope, like we don't need, I would say, for this to be a Democrat owned issue. My hope is that this is maybe the most basic test that we are taking. And also failing because it turns out the Pope is, oh, he's seizing on ground that people aren't.

• 35:56Speaker 04

  But then let decency be the nonpartisan issue that, that, that actually helps political leaders or people running for office or business leaders rise above this.

• 36:08Pablo Torre?

  And it's available for them to take, is my point.

• 36:10Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 36:10Pablo Torre?

  It is, this territory, Tim, is basically open for them.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  And they can do it by, even if they've made mistakes before. My, as a, as a, as a fallen person myself, as a sinner, here's my favorite part.

• 36:22Pablo Torre?

  If someone going to hell, what is.

• 36:23Speaker 04

  Just be clear. A sinner today, you don't have to be a sinner tomorrow.

• 36:27Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 36:27Speaker 04

  And Catholics like Pablo and I, here's the best thing.

• 36:30Speaker 02

  All cradle Catholics. All cradle Catholics. Um, are you going to church on Sunday, though? We'll talk about it after. For an algorithm, an error is a flaw to be corrected. For a person, however, an error can be a catalyst for profound change. A person's future is not calculable, but depends on one's freedom, elevated by the inexhaustible grace of God and on the relationships cultivated. I love that.

• 36:51Speaker 04

  I love that.

• 37:02Speaker 04

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• 37:16Pablo Torre?

  Feel the play in the McDonald's app. Get your bag. No purchase necessary. 50 US and DC age 18 plus. See playatmcd.com for rules and playatmcd.com slash AMOE for info on playing without purchase by mail by November 2nd. Chance card game ends November 8th. Game ends November 22nd, 2026. See rules for prize details. Monopoly is a registered trademark of Haskel.

• 37:41Pablo Torre?

  My favorite clip, maybe, of the last year. Speaking of Christ and its opposite.

• 37:46Speaker 02

  Was it on the Bulwark Podcast?

• 37:48Pablo Torre?

  And his opposite. It was actually in an interview with a noted conservative, Ross Douthat. And this was Peter Thiel, one of these masters of the universe, who I just want to remind you, did say this.

• 38:03Speaker 05

  I guess where I end up is I still think we should be trying AI and that the alternative is just total stagnation. So, yeah, there's sort of all sorts of interesting things that's gonna happen with. Okay, maybe drones and military contexts are combined with AI. And, okay, this is kind of scary or dangerous or dystopian, or it's gonna change things. But if you don't, if you don't have AI, wow, there's just nothing going on. AI is better, it's better than the alternative, and the alternative is nothing at all. Because the stat, look, here's one place where the stagnationist arguments are still reinforced. The fact that we're only talking about AI. I feel is always an implicit acknowledgement that but for AI,

• 38:47Speaker 05

  we are like in almost total stagnation. You're deeply invested in Palantir, in military technology, in technologies of surveillance, in technologies of warfare and so on, right? And it just seems to me that when you tell me a story about the Antichrist coming to power and using the fear of technological change to sort of impose order on the world, I feel like that Antichrist would be maybe be using the tools that you were that you were building, right? Like, wouldn't the Antichrist be like, great, you know, we're not going to have any more technological progress, but I really like what Palantir has done so far. You would prefer the human race to endure, right?

• 39:33Speaker 05

  You're hesitating. Yeah, well, I. Yes? I don't know. I would. I would. This is a long hesitation. This is a long hesitation. There's so many questions implicit in this. Should the human race survive?

• 39:47Pablo Torre?

  I mean, this whole thing goes on like that for a while. I am the person who is warning you about the Antichrist. I am also the person who is bringing you artificial intelligence. I am also the person refusing to be regulated. I am also the person who now gets to set the standard on what is godly enough. I mean, this is a symptomatic notion that Peter Thiel is expressing, but he is one of many people.

• 40:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:13Pablo Torre?

  Who's profiting while also saying crazy shit.

• 40:16Speaker 04

  At least the Russian oligarchs just took all of that money and bought really, really, really big boats and the hottest women ever to go on those boats. At least that's all they did. Our oligarchs are saying, we're going to run so much more than that. That's where I'm like, wait, what? What do you want to get involved in? I would be OK if it was just a whole lot of money and you were spending it on a boat somewhere in the Mediterranean. But this, this is some scary stuff.

• 40:44Pablo Torre?

  I suppose that we should probably close here by referring to the T-shirt. That does bring all these topics together.

• 40:51Speaker 02

  The "I am not the Antichrist" t-shirt, which is raising a lot of questions. Did I already answer about the shirt?

• 40:57Pablo Torre?

  It's one of the great, speaking of defying regulation, one of the great unlicensed t-shirts that I've seen. "The Knicks made the finals on the day the Pope declared a holy war on AI, Monday, May 25, 2026."

• 41:10Speaker 04

  Did someone actually make that t-shirt?

• 41:12Pablo Torre?

  There's a human hand that I'm seeing in my version of it, which I guess can be faked quite easily at this point.

• 41:18Speaker 02

  It depends on how many fingers.

• 41:28Pablo Torre?

  Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Walter Avaroma, Maxwell Carney, Ryan Cortez, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McCray, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, and Chris Tumanello. Studio engineering by RG Systems, sound design by Andrew Bersick, digital strategy by Bailey Carlin and Andrew Northern, theme song, as always, by John Bravo.

• 41:50Pablo Torre?

  And we'll talk to you next time.