Transcript of How to Make Journalism Fun, with Maury Povich

My name is Mark Hyman. I'm the director of the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism at Merrill College of Journalism. We're so glad that you're here with us today as we celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism.

So if you're wondering where we are and what we're doing and who all these people are, I should probably explain that the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism at the University of Maryland is a very special place in the PTFO extended universe. It is named after the legendary Washington Post columnist who wrote more than 15,000 articles over seven decades, meaning that Shirley Povich covered everyone from Babe Ruth to Mark Maguire and also happened to work with PTI's Toni Kornhauser and Mike Wilbon in a sports section that was run by the next voice you're about to hear, belonging to former Washington Post sports editor George Solomon, the guy who edited Shirley Povich until the day he died at age 92 in 1998.

With the first panel, I'd like to introduce first Pablo Torre, who was the originator of a podcast called Pablo Torre Finds Out, which I've never seen or heard. I don't know. I know Shirley would agree with me. I never did podcasts, and neither did Shirley.

Of course, would I agree to speak at this very special place in front of these hundreds of people. I did not quite realize that my job, perhaps, was to personally embody the devolution of print to podcasting. What had happened, actually, is that I got an invitation from Shirley Povich's son, my pal Maury Povich, who remains the truly iconic Connie Chung's lesser half and also the public steward of his father's legacy.

To build on that legacy, to make sure that the center is going in perpetuity for generations to come, the Povich family is now pledging $1.5 million to the Povich Center Endowment Fund.

Maury Povich, by the way, is 87 years old, and Maury is still working, just like his father did. So much so that the longest-running daytime television host in American history is also, now, a podcaster himself. His interviews show, on par with Maury Povich, Maury is a fantastic golfer, incidentally. It makes me smile pretty much every time I see it, even though Maury and I may appear to be something of an odd couple ourselves.

This is one of my new BFFs.

I was promised Connie Chung would be here.

Pablo has been on my podcast, On Par with Maury Povich, which, by the way, will also be taped tonight and shown. And of course, maybe three years ago, not many of you might have heard of Pablo Torre.

Why am I getting roasted all night?

Well, now he is so popular that his podcast, Pablo Torre Finds Out, is now an acronym, PTFO, and if it continues to gain a little more strength, maybe in the future it might be just called Pablo. I know about things like that.

Can I point out that Maury and I met earlier today, and just in case, you know, if you had some question about it, we did not coordinate dressing almost identically.

We did.

Wow. This navy on a black polo with gray slacks.

I got a jacket.

Sensible shoes.

Yeah. This is the first time I have ever worn sneaks at a public event.

You disgraced me.

I know. It's terrible.

How dare you.

Yeah, well, white man sneaks, to kind of tell you.

You can say that.

One of the reasons why I'm so happy that Pablo here is here is because he really does follow in my dad's footsteps in a lot of ways. The most important was that my father always believed that sports opened the door into race, into money, into power, into ethics, and this man is a great demonstration of that, trust me.

Can I just point out that people say to me these days, because of such reporting, that they are very scared when I show up to answer and ask questions.

I mean, Toni Kornhauser the other day called him the sheriff.

I'm just here to remind everybody in this audience and on the internet that nothing is quite so terrifying as Maury Povich asking you questions on stage.

Oh, yeah, right. I wish I had an envelope.

I am happily married and have, to my knowledge, one child.

OK.

What was it that got you started into the Clipper investigation? Was it the money?

It was a tip, and it was a tip that I didn't fully understand when I first heard it. This was more than a year and a half ago. The tip was you should look into this weird company called Aspiration. They're a sponsor of the Clippers end transmission. And I didn't really know what to do with that. But once Aspiration went bankrupt and there was a bankruptcy filing, a document, and inside of that document, you got to see that there was an LLC near the top of the list of creditors called KL2 Aspire LLC.

It could have been legitimate.

Absolutely, except that when you then and this is a journalistic technique I've learned over the years when you Google, Kawhi Leonard plus Aspiration, no hits came back. And so the question became, why was he owed money? What was the original deal? And why is there no trace of a relationship? And now the wheels are turning as to maybe I should reorient my schedule to look into this.

We all know that as this is the big investigation that ended up with the Pulitzer and also ended up with maybe the harshest fine the NBA has ever dished out. But did you ever expect it to end that way?

No, no. Look, on the merits, I had a sense of what this warranted in terms of a penalty or a punishment or interest from the federal government. But no, I'm look, I.

Well, I remember you and I talking about it, and you asked me what's going to happen, and I said, the first thing you better do is protect your sources, and the next thing you better do is maybe have to get a lawyer because the NBA certainly is going to want your information.

So one of the things that became clear to me over time, and I investigated this story for seven months before I published part one, and this became a at last check, a 16-part series, which is absurd, but a joy. One of the things I would hear is that Steve Ballmer, who is at last check the seventh richest man in the world, depending on Microsoft stock, he's the largest individual shareholder in Microsoft, which means he has $170 or so billion.

And not only that, there was a particular NBA owner who jumped on you. Mark Cuban basically said, you're wrong.

Mark Cuban, yeah, we got to frost Nixon Mark Cuban on my show.

You shit on somebody's reputation without having any real facts.

That was absolutely.

A deeply sourced, documented.

The fact that it's deeply sourced is irrelevant.

Investigated.

No. He was immediately the most vocal defender of Steve Ballmer, and then he showed up in studio to sit across from me to reiterate his defense. And I'm so glad he did that. One of the core tenets of what my show has found out is that intense wealth does not equate to intense competence.

Wow.

And I don't say that as somebody who, like, is the smartest guy about money. I am not at all. I simply mean that there is a confusion between how rich someone is and how good they are at telling the truth or even pulling off a scheme in which the truth is meant to be obscured. And I find that encountering and asking and getting to know billionaires, which has happened to a degree that is shocking to me personally since the penalty was levied upon Steve Ballmer, I have found that there is an underrated comedy in the lives of the richest people in the world that.

What's the comedy?

Sometimes they can be idiots. And we have built a mythology around wealth that follows them around like a shield. And all I want to express is that there are reasons to be impressed by someone's success and by someone's money, but they should show and prove that before we just grant it.

So everybody probably knows about the punishment. They lost five number-one-round draft choices. Ballmer is suspended for a year, can't be around the team. A couple of other people are suspended. One, the agent can't do any business anymore. Kawhi Leonard gets fined $700,000. That was a good enough punishment for you?

Their scope was quite narrow, the investigation scope. And within that scope, they found a rabbit hole that was as endless as I became familiar with it. And so I think there is a lot more they could have done, but.

You told me that you were satisfied with the punishment.

It's hard for me to complain. It was extraordinarily validating in a way that I need to be honest with you.

Yeah, why do you dance around that? You keep saying, I don't want to be validated. I don't want to be confirmed.

It's I'm playing hard to get, Maury.

Oh, Jesus.

No, look, one of the things about journalism is that we should not need the institution or the person we are investigating to raise their hand and say, you know what? This journalist was right before we trust them.

So you end up winning the Pulitzer Prize on that one. And I'm just wondering whether your parents have forgiven you yet for not going to law school.

I'm hoping this symposium counts as credit at the University of Maryland.

Boy, they wanted you to go to law school.

Yeah, man. I was the first one in my family born in the United States, went to a fancy college, was supposed to follow a career trajectory that's far less stressful for everybody who funded me and loves me. And I chose, in some ways, one of the scarier paths. If you're a risk-averse Filipino-American immigrant who's like, wait a minute, you're a fact-checker at Sports Illustrated making under $30,000 a year, and oh, by the way, the industry you chose is imploding.

Yeah, but the Clipper investigation, I mean, now, I mean, rumors and tips must be just dropping through the transom for you now. You must be the most sought-after investigative reporter in the country.

I am proud of how many people apparently want me to know things.

I mean, to the point where you took on Tim Tebow and the Life Surge investigation to the point where has he distanced himself from that thing?

He has cut ties. My favorite part is this. Tim Tebow has not just paused his relationship with Life Surge, de facto cutting ties. He has launched his own investigation.

For us, we're having our team do an investigation, but also pausing our relationship till we can learn more about the facts.

Perhaps the greatest legacy of my show, Maury, is that we also made Tim Tebow a journalist.

Yeah, and you also brought tears, tears to Kelly Clarkson. Oh, can't believe it. And Mechanical Birds. I mean, really, talk about comedy.

It's an automaton.

It's a bird automaton.

Talk about comedies.

Poor Kelly Clarkson goes into a store in Brooklyn, and the next thing you know, he's showing videotape.

I like how Maury Povich is blaming me for showing videotape.

Touche.

One of my theories, though, Maury, about journalism that I am proud of and I think explains why people are reaching out and the incoming and the transom, all of that is as described, is because we do tend to take stupid things seriously. And in that process, what I want to remind people is that journalism, especially investigative reporting, can be fun. You know, I think it's well established that it's important, and I will argue, of course, for its importance for as long as people want to watch my DVD of all the presidents' men.

So.

But it's also a good time. And sometimes you just, I think, need to show people the security footage of Kelly Clarkson, America's sweetheart, trying to buy a bird automaton but being denied even though she wants to spend $15,000.

Yeah.

Sometimes that also, I think, reminds people that, oh, this could.

And she thought she was denied.

But the videotape may suggest an alternate story.

Yeah, she thought that they were being what would you call it?

Yeah, look, I can't.

That she's not the way she walked in, that she's not worthy of buying something like that.

And what I cannot report or deny is how she felt. That is an interiority I do not have access to. The video, by the way, had no audio. But if you watch this thing, and I love that I'm here at the symposium to talk about Kelly Clarkson and this bird.

Hey, anything's a go with me, baby.

What I found is that there is a deeper story there about perhaps a more innocent misunderstanding between a shopkeeper and a customer that resulted in a fascinating phenomenon that is actually, I think, a through line in our politics and our culture, which is what happens when a person with an audience, an audience of fans, even fanatics, you know, stans, as they're called, you know, a stan culture.

I ought to mention about Mark Cuban. Subsequently, he gave you proof that you were right. He told you, you were right, I was wrong.

He may have given me a tweet that I have framed now in my house. Yeah, look, going toe to toe with the guy from Shark Tank, who I just got to reiterate, is always welcome on Pablo Torre Finds Out. Him coming around after that level of multi-part argument, yeah, man, it's my thing about billionaires, by the way, I'm not here to be a.

Well, we're going to get into that again.

OK, very good.

Because, I mean, you're under you've got an investigation going on now, but I'll just hold that. Dad always used to love to have fun with what he called his meal ticket. People like the racist owner of the Redskins, George Preston Marshall, he could have great fun with, you know, writing that the Redskins came onto the field in their colors, burgundy, golden, Caucasian.

Such a good line.

He loved to be able to tweak Marshall all the time. He loved to be able and had fun with it, and yet it was a serious subject. He loved to have fun trying to get Negro league baseball players into the major leagues, and he would just rip on Major League Baseball and the owners. And you like to have fun. You find out that the Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr has somebody in the stands looking exactly like Steve Kerr, and all of a sudden, it's a big story to the point of last night, Pablo gets a big shout-out from Steve Kerr on the Inside the NBA Show.

We look exactly the same, don't we? I mean, it's incredible.

No, it's scary.

Yeah, yeah. We actually connected. So Pablo Torre connected the two of us for his podcast last week.

What the hell did you do? Why did you do this?

Listen, when my nose is smelling a story.

A Steve Kerr lookalike story?

The tipping point was when I learned that the lookalike was also named Steve. And I'm always pressure testing whether we live in a simulation.

And you showed a picture where Kerr is looking at this guy.

So there's a viral video in which they encounter each other, so to speak, at a Lakers-Warriors game in Vegas. And Steve Kerr seems to recognize Bizarro Steve, the other Steve.

I mean, this is a twin.

What I did not know was whether either Steve actually felt that way. And so I called up the other Steve. His name is Steve Gillis. He is an English teacher at Bishop Corman High School in Las Vegas. Got him on Zoom. He's in his classroom, and he's explaining how all of these kids keep on stopping by the classroom to try and take selfies with him now. Thanks for joining us. Noted Steve Kerr, doppelganger Steve Gillis.

This is the best part of my day, talking to someone cool that knows sports, because I could talk any sport, any time, any day, or Hemingway or Shakespeare.

As he's explaining that he's actually here to teach Shakespeare and coach volleyball and all this stuff, it occurs to me that this guy may enjoy being put on a group chat with Steve Kerr. And what I didn't know was whether Steve Kerr would enjoy that.

Yeah.

And.

He tries to get in touch with coach Steve Kerr, and Steve Kerr thinks that Pablo is going to investigate him for some serious act that he's done.

According to Steve Kerr, he was worried that he was somehow a part of the aspiration scandal.

When Pablo called, I thought I was in trouble for the aspiration scandal, so I was relieved to know that he just wanted to connect me with my doppelganger.

Which is an issue with me in terms of making friends now. People are worried that I'm salary cap investigating them.

To wrap up the Clipper story, a lot of us think it's over, but you say it's not.

Somehow, it is not. The federal government is investigating the Clippers, Steve Ballmer's Clippers, for this scheme run with four separate sponsors for effectively no-show jobs for Kawhi Leonard. And the question therein, according to my reporting, is whether there was violations of securities law. The SEC is investigating aspiration. The SEC is investigating on the back of our investigation into the scoreboard company Daktronics, which Kawhi also had a no-show job with.

So, Pablo, I've been to your office. I've seen how many people around you. You don't have enough people to do these investigations. Where are they?

I started drinking coffee like two years ago. It's not a joke.

I'm true. I'm doing it.

Not a joke.

No, we have a couple of guys in the office.

We have a staff of a couple of guys and gals. We have a staff of about 10.

Oh, you do?

Their names are in the credits.

Oh, you have 10.

But.

Well, how come I've only seen two?

Well, part of the issue is that we've launched our podcasts as a television show and an audio-first podcast, which means that George Solomon can consume it eventually in whatever platform he likes.

George is an octogenitarian. He doesn't know what the hell's going on.

I'm going to have Aaron Solomon read him transcripts of my podcasts.

OK.

And the reality is we launched this thing that exists as our own weirdo television show and an audio product. And so we have a lot of people on the production assembly line who are fantastic, and we have a bunch of overworked people, none of whom are exclusively reporters, all helping me report. And it's we're all very tired, Maury.

I bet.

We're all very tired.

Yeah, but I know you. You get outside help because you have people who collaborate with you from other organizations.

We believe that journalism is a group project.

For instance, on the Tim Tebow investigation, you had Mother Jones.

Yep, yep. And they are fantastic to work with. Look, my belief in this era of journalism is that everything is fractured when it comes to audiences and platforms, right? There are no I mean, Maury Povich, for those not familiar, is the type of guy so obsessed with his ratings that he is still checking if his reruns beat Jerry Springer's today. And Jerry Springer, last I checked, Maury.

Yeah, is dead.

So I'm just saying that the question of large audiences is harder now more than ever. And so we believe, as that fragmentation has occurred, because everyone's on their phone, so too can we divvy up the responsibilities around independent journalism. And that's my hope, is that we're easy to work with. I think we're a good time. My hope is that people also realize we're obsessive about our rigor and our standards, and that's part of what the Clippers investigation helped advertise.

Let me go into that phrase, independent journalism. A lot of people use it, and a lot of people aren't. Draw me the line.

Yeah, I mean, look, we are partners. We are licensing partners, for instance, with the New York Times Company and The Athletic. What does that mean? It means that they distribute the show. They are quite supportive, but we are editorially independent. Likewise, The New York Times will say that they are independent themselves. So what does this really mean? It's not a description of size. I believe it's a description of what business relationships may plausibly compromise the editorial product that they are working on.

So when you're doing an investigation and you want to put it on air in your podcast, do you have Times lawyers hanging over your head?

No.

Well, you have to have lawyers.

We have lawyer. Shout-out to Christopher Poe, Metalark Media's attorney.

Oh, so in other words, I see. You're a co-owner.

Yeah, so for those not familiar with the very strange branch of the coaching tree that I belong to.

Yeah, Metalark Media, that's involved with Dan Le Batard and other things.

Other things is a great description of Dan Le Batard.

Yes.

He's my financial backer and my boss and my friend. And he's the person who came to me and said, we want to give you a show. And I came back with something that has legally jeopardized his entire company, depending on my level of rigor.

Sure.

And we have one lawyer, and he's the best. I love him. He vets every episode.

How many times has he told you to stand down?

So what I love about a good media lawyer is that their position is not, this scares me, stand down. It's how can we find a way for you to report this that also protects us in the event of litigation? And I don't take that for granted, because the calculus, of course, is editorial ambition versus literally the existence of the company when a guy like Steve Ballmer may be on the other side of this. But what I believe and what we have invested in is the idea that in America, the country that I and my parents fell in love with, if you are telling the truth, you can wear that as a suit of armor against a guy with billions upon billions of dollars.

Charlie Povich was sued one time.

How'd that go?

He always and it went to a jury, and he was found innocent when George Preston Marshall tried to sue him for libel. And he basically said, truth wins.

We are living in a fragile time, and that is a premise that is the key to, I think, this room.

Right.

The idea that you can be risk-seeking if you are being responsible and if you are telling the truth.

Yeah. Let's get to the you have a current investigation into a fellow named Mark Walter. Mark Walter happens to own the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Los Angeles basketball team. And.

I just want to get the Lakers and the Clippers both, man.

Yeah.

I just want to make sure.

Yeah, why?

Give them both my attention.

Now you're into the Lakers because he is potentially selling the Lakers to a group made up of Jonathan Kushner. Is that his name?

Josh.

Josh Kushner.

He's the good Kushner, Maury.

Yeah.

Josh Kushner is the good Kushner.

Yeah. OK. And the longtime president of the Walt Disney Company, Bob Iger. And now you're into this whole thing about how this sale is going about and how did Walter get all his money and where did that money come from. You know, bring me up to date.

There's an active federal investigation into Mark Walter, who happens to be also a man whose empire is built on insurance companies. And look, I am somebody who it turns out hears something that sounds like straight-up vegetables to a sports fan. You want to talk to me about insurance, life insurance, and annuities now? And what I tell them is that what if it explained how a guy like Mark Walter came out of nowhere to afford the Los Angeles Dodgers, who paid the most money in the history of sports for a team at that time on the back of an arranged deal that we reported on my show in which he started a local sports television channel and bought the team and figured out a way to borrow, according to our reporting, from a series of companies that he controlled that were premised on, according to the reporting, the premiums paid by America's parents and grandparents.

So what are you trying to prove?

Well, I'm not trying to prove anything. What I'm trying to do, I think, is understand what is the federal government interested in, where is Mark Walter's money really coming from, and how can he possibly continue to afford the Los Angeles Dodgers, which is the team he says he will not sell, even as he sells the Lakers after about a year and change for $12.50. And it's an ongoing story.

Well, he had to have had some kind of money to buy. I mean, the owners of the NBA and Major League Baseball, they're not going to let somebody in without putting up the money.

One of the things I've learned about these leagues, and I should just say, in case it's not obvious, I'm an enormous sports fan. I grew up like writing the stats of these players on the back of little note cards, making my own version of trading cards and stuff. I'm a sports nerd. I don't come at this from a position of I want to destroy and burn down this world. I do not. But one of the things I've learned about leagues is that the question of due diligence is something we presume that they do.

So if I had to paint this investigation of yours, you're into the sketching part. You're not even putting color into it yet, are you?

I think that is in the eye of the beholder. I think there is a sketch. I think there is some color. I think that right now, as he is putting the LA Sparks, his other team, up for sale, and the F1 team that he controls up for sale, there is a narrowing window in which it seems increasingly implausible that he will continue to hold on to the Dodgers. And at that point, yes, there will be a burst of Dodger blue onto the canvas.

You have a lot of students here who probably look up to you in what you're doing because investigative journalism, I don't want to say it's a dying art, but it's a rare, rare art. And so I thank you very much for what you've put into it. Appreciate it. So now we're going to open it up to questions from students. If we have any mics, anybody nobody has a question?

As long as you don't show a video of a child behind us, I am good.

I mean, anybody who wants to take issue with Pablo.

Can I point something out about Maury as we wait for the students to get microphones? Maury Povich is the kind of person who and this is not an exaggeration who met Walter Johnson.

Well, yeah, OK. That just talks about age. That's it.

How many people have met Big Trent?

How about Kornheiser and Wilbon used to go to the post sports department with George, and my father would be there, and they would walk into his office, and he would be talking, and all of a sudden he would say, well, I was talking to Train, and they would go nuts that he would Wilbon has the greatest story that the first boxing match he ever covered, he was in the car with my father, and they were driving to the match, and my father looks at Michael, and he says, Michael, you look a little nervous.

Sure. Mark Walter is one of the big benefactors of women's sports. The Billie Jean King Cup, Billie Jean King is somebody who he has a business relationship with. And in women's hockey, he is the guy whose name is on the trophy. And so one of the questions that I think is of interest is, is this a genuine interest and a passion, or is this a performance of interest? Because if you're going to get all of the sports, maybe you want to be a really good guy funding those sports that perhaps struggle to find funding otherwise.

The Laker franchise total was what, $12?

$12.50 after about nine months of functional ownership. You know? And.

And meanwhile, I read a story where Iger and Kushner haven't come up with the money yet.

Well, that's part of what we're also interested in, as everyone is now jockeying in public, by the way, to say, no, we're totally good for it. Right? The purchase has yet it has yet to officially close. One more note just on where sports valuations are going, though, is that $12.50 billion to the question you raised of like, do they have the money, is incredibly difficult to generate. $12.50 billion. And so who can afford such things? Private equity companies, sovereign wealth funds.

Three years ago, the Commanders went for $6.10, and everybody went nuts.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, look, there is a curve that you can trace in which sports valuations are increasing at a rate that is only really seen in artificial intelligence companies. And I would ask the young people how secure they feel in artificial intelligence companies as an economic proposition.

Here you go. Yes.

Hello. My name is Joshua Bollinger. I just applied to the University of Maryland. So I'm wondering, because that is an intense journalism field, and it can be nerve-wracking, so what advice would you give to someone who wants to get into that field?

That's a really cool question to get. My advice is that I hope you really love it. You know, something I realized about myself is that my kink is kind of investigative journalism. I didn't necessarily know that about myself, Maury, when I was at Sports Illustrated and ESPN.

How would you rate your batting average?

On stories?

Yeah. On subjects that you start.

Yeah. There are a couple of episodes.

I mean, it's better than a 300-hitter?

The equivalent, I'd like to think so. But baseball itself, it's a game of failure.

So 3 of 10?

Well, I would say that we're very proud that we've only never run a couple of episodes we've taped. Like, you can count them on less than a handful. There are episodes that we start that have been sitting in our fridge for over a year, and I intend to get back to them. My staff gets mad at me because I always say, there is a story that I love that's in there. We're going to get to it eventually. And yet we haven't done that yet. So I think we're pretty good. But if you don't love the making of it, so much of this and look, this is where like not to be corny about it, but all the Presidents' Men or The Insider, these great movies about journalism, they're reminders that making a phone call, young people out there, can be really fun.

Yes.

Good evening. My name is Leslie Olabisi with the Owl Newspaper at Prince George's Community College. Thank you for being here. My question, I understand the brave and difficult position and investigative integrity that guided you along this journey. And I'm sure you've gotten a lot of praise and positive feedback and appreciation for you uncovering the veil, so to speak.

Absolutely. Yeah. It's so nice to be in a room where people seem to be generally appreciative of the work. Typically, I think my expectation is more along the lines of having to explain why do you care so much about this. And one of the things that I often think about is that the show is, for better and for worse, premised on my curiosity. And that's a luxury. It's a real luxury. And the question of like, what are you doing and why do you put so much work into it, it makes me also want to remind everybody, I am not a war reporter.

Yeah, but I say again, it's the relevance of opening the door to power and money and ethics.

And it might just be the thing that someone really likes to hear about otherwise. You know, when I'm always trying to convince people, hey, this could be a good time, sports makes it easy. It's about the thing that they love the most. It's about the thing they inherited from their dad. It's about the TV show they love to watch before they go to bed. You know, what I get to do is take and I say this all the time, but I take that cheese, the cheese of sports, and I melt it on the broccoli of the important stuff. And so why do I care?

Very good. We have any more? Yes.

Two quick questions. Do you envision yourself hosting PTI more now that Wilbon is taking a leave to the IR? And then the other one is just to make me feel good. Can you talk about how much of a loser Vivek Ramaswamy actually is?

Everybody, you have to understand that Vivek and Pablo went to school together.

He is, in ways, I can't fully summarize.

Did you know early on?

Yes.

You mean he conducted himself at Harvard in this way.

He was that guy. Students of the University of Maryland and the surrounding colleges, you all know this guy, the guy who won't stop talking in class, who raises his hand and wants to argue with everybody because he thinks he is, in fact, worthy of all of our attention as long as he has something to say. And there is a version of me that is evil that resembles that, I think, a lot more.

Really?

But.

You were not cowering in the back of the lecture room?

There are levels to this description. And Vivek Ramaswamy and I, we're an intro to philosophy together, moral reasoning 22, justice, which means that I got to first experience what it's like when one of your classmates becomes a libertarian rapper called Da Vek, which is a true fact.

Yeah, but are you surprised that he ended up a billionaire?

I'm less surprised that he has not been able to win elected office at any level.

Oh, wow.

But the Wilbon thing, just to be clear about that.

Yeah, we ought to talk about first of all, our hearts are with Michael. He's a dear friend of many of us. We're all hoping that this is a short absence and that he'll return because if he doesn't, Tony will throw a fit. He will just he will be incorrigible, which he already is.

Yeah. Mike is irreplaceable. Mike will be back. And if the Bears are as good as they seem to be, he will be back next week.

Yeah.

It's an honor to warm his chair and, you know, me and Isola and the group they have to fill in for Mike. We are honored to do it and increasingly terrified of what Tony will do to us.

Ladies and gentlemen, Pablo Torre, thank you very much. Maury Povich, everybody.

This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Metalark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.