Transcript of How To React To The Dianna Russini-Mike Vrabel Drama | Hour 1 (feat. Pablo Torre) New

This is the Dan Levitard Show with the Stugatz Podcast. This episode of the Dan Levitard Show is presented by DraftKings. DraftKings, the crown is yours.

Tell me if you guys are in agreement with me on this. I thought that the biggest story of the weekend, although it wasn't treated that way, obviously, because we've got playoffs all over the place. Brendan Sorsby, Texas Tech's quarterback, who, you know, this is a very good player who's paid $5 million a year. And is considered one of the best college football players, most important that there will be next year, just enters rehab for a gambling addiction because he's making thousands of dollars or thousands of bets at a time. And we're going to bring in Pablo Torre here in a second. Yeah, he just dropped— I'll be right back. Terry Rozier's story. Damon Jones is the first of the accused in the NBA gambling ring evidently to plead guilty.

Got tortilla soup thrown in his face.

Uh, yes, But that has nothing to do with this. The tortilla soup thrown in his face was a different incident. That doesn't—

throwing soup is funny.

Yes, we did a lot on the subject of a soup thrown at him. We wondered quite a bit which would be the most successful kind of soup to throw.

Broccoli and cheddar would be like dripping off your face. Be disgusting.

Big potatoes.

I think French onion soup would be pretty good because you just have that foamy sponge thing and some cheese and an assortment.

So good.

It does taste good.

You throw a bread bowl at me, though. I'm catching that thing.

Let's talk to Pablo about this and other stories. Where did the Brendan Sorsby story land for you? Uh, because these things are now happening quietly. What, what used to be, okay, before, uh, gambling was legalized in the United States, among the largest scandals that you would have found anywhere happens kind of quietly as we professionalize sports. And a $5 million quarterback is telling you, I need help with my gambling addiction, I can't stop gambling. Uh, what are your thoughts? What were your thoughts, Pablo, as you saw some this coming your way?

Yeah, it's about time. We were due for one of these stories. And I say that not because I had inside information about this guy in particular. I had— I mean, frankly, I sort of remotely been aware of his existence. But this was startling only in the specific. In the general, it was like, yeah, this is what happens. And I say that statistically speaking, because there is the someone in college sports, given the incentive structure, even if you're making $5 million, is going to, and I'll say fall prey because I think that's appropriate, fall prey to what the carrot at the end of the stick is suggesting he can do. And if all of your friends, if your network of people, if they're all holding these sticks with carrots at the end of it in which, hey, I can make money too, just help me out, there's a little bit of this. Yeah, that all makes sense. And then there's just the general notion of this is, this is a consequence of the expanding menu of available bets, which was very small back in the pre-legalized gambling era and now is Cheesecake Factory length. And so unsurprising in general, surprising in specific was my reaction.

Is this a byproduct of gambling being more readily available or is it a byproduct of— so is the betting data and leagues and conferences now have access to this because people are downloading apps and betting, and it's getting flagged. Whereas if you're just going to a bookie or doing this by proxy, not so much.

Yeah, I mean, I think the, the data around this, you know, when Amin and I, we did an episode to take it back to the NBA for a second, when we did an episode about the origin of the NBA gambling scandal, which you realized was that, oh, this started in China when they were engineering a whole gambling network, allegedly, in which you bet on CBA games, Chinese Basketball Association games. Death taxes in Chinese basketball was, was the phrase. But the way it was enacted was they were placing the bets in America because you could bet on Chinese Basketball Association games legally. And so I say all of this to say that information is the currency here. And I think what's interesting about this story, about the data of it, is that this is a star quarterback. But the real insidious aspect of this is not the star quarterback. That is the best headline. The most insidious, hard-to-stamp-out issue that the NBA is grappling with, as there are now new reports of— I mean, prosecutors now saying we are going to charge Terry Rozier with, you know, a bribe, with, with, with basically being more involved than you realized around the gambling stuff.

What you realize is that we're talking about an information network, and so many people can be aware of things that are not stars because they've been passed through locker rooms, staffs, all of, all of the ways in which humans have been gossiping forever. And now that's monetizable. So again, the headline, yes, it's like, whoa, that's a star quarterback. But the problem is incredibly difficult to solve, Mike, even if you have now the ability to of course flag stuff based on the data, which of course every operator is also incentivized to do because they see how this can go horribly wrong.

Pablo, we've seen it touch the NBA. We've seen it now touch college football with a major star in the sport.

Like, is this now just the future of basically every professional sport is going to have some sort of issue like this?

Are we going to see bigger guys going into the future being taken down by stuff like this, or do you think this is a one-off?

Well, I think we're learning something. I think everybody's learning something about what they can get away with. And I mean that, again, I'll use the, the NBA example because it's provided the most clarity that I've personally dealt with. And what's so interesting is that these are not bets in the NBA case, as of course we look at the football player in front of us. The NBA case was not about entirely, we're gonna throw games. It was, we're gonna share pieces of information in which me as the player, I am not actually costing my team a win or a loss. In fact, I'm playing around, so to speak, with the edges of what is bettable, actionable information. And so in this case, look, we're getting still reports about what he was betting on and how, and we will see how much the outcome of games was directly in doubt. But because more than the outcome of a game is bettable, I think the first wave of players in the big high-level scandals that we've been seeing it's very interesting to note that I can imagine that they have been able to rationalize this in their own brain.

Jonte Porter, right? I'm just a guy who's on the bench who's gonna take myself out of a game early. That's all I'm doing. Bet on the under. I'm gonna ensure that. But it's not, in his mind, actually affecting the outcome of the game. I, I think that the notion of we're gonna get a superstar quarterback outright throwing a game is unlikely, absent, frankly, some theory of mob allegation activity. I think in general it's going to be just the ability to trust the action on the court that becomes hard to imagine because every piece of action on the court is now action at a, you know, on a gambling service.

Pablo, if you had to have a type of soup thrown at you, what kind would you choose?

Borscht. It's cold.

That seems unpleasant. I'd prefer something warm than something cold. I don't want— I'd rather something warm, not piping hot, but something warm to cold. Cold is unpleasant.

Not a gazpacho guy.

No, no cold. None of the cold soups. I'm not cold. I'm not— soup needs to be warm. Hard stop. Just no, no variables. Soup needs to be warm. @LebatardShow, put it on the poll. No dilutions. @LebatardShow, does soup need to be warm? Hard stop. The point, Pablo, is making those an important one. The reporting we've seen so far, when he was at Indiana, he was betting on Indiana to win. These things are more scandalous if we find that somebody was, uh, betting on these teams to lose and then contributing to the loss. That's not what's in play here. What is in play here though is a gambling problem that he doesn't have control over that makes him the first we've seen so far to raise his hand before a season and say, I'm going to go get help before this. I'm going to go make a Heisman run and this is on my resume, and then I'm going to get help for this before I finish school. That's not something we've seen before.

No, no. And look, my two thoughts there are, yes, it is some kind of courage to be able to say publicly, I have a problem. I will commit to seeking help for it. This is something that I cannot control. And on that level, he is somebody that a lot of people in America, men particularly, statistically can relate to and should relate to. The other part is that's how bad it got, that the only solve for a PR crisis was I must admit to doing this. And, you know, without hearing from him, I'm not here to gage the sincerity of— look, we're living in an era in which counseling has become a PR instrument, right? Look at the Ray Blasini stuff. Look at all of this. So I am cynical by default. But this is an— it's, it's when you talk about— I'm struggling to articulate this because an addiction, a gambling addiction, I do think it's worthy of consideration as a disease, as potentially an epidemic, and it should be treated rigorously. And if this is the first person to be the poster child of it as a player is concerned, I just have to imagine statistically he's not alone.

And I hope other people realize this and they seek help for it too, because it is a medical condition as the human brain is scientifically concerned. I think chicken noodle is clearly the soup that you'd want thrown at you the most. The broth is not going to stain your clothes that bad. Like chili, I'm wearing that the rest of the day. Chili soup? Chili soup?

Chili soup is not a soup.

Oh, where is it on the menu? Oh, in the soup section. You guys sound dumb.

You guys sound dumb. That's crazy.

You guys sound like— No, you do. You sound uneducated.

I'm going to put Chris on this one.

I mean, like, where is it on the menu? Chili is mostly solid. I'll let the menu tell me what's Soup? What chili is?

No, it's gotta have a broth! It's gotta have a broth!

You never had good chili.

Chili, put it on the poll at Levittalkshow.

Chili drips.

Is chili a soup? Pablo, to the point that you're making though, it's not just skepticism. The timing of the admission was not vulnerable. It's because things were closing in on him, correct? Like, that's not— it's not just because he's throwing up his hand volunteering out of nowhere, hey, I was making thousands of bets.

You knew when the same came out. Oh boy, what else is coming out here? And it took 5 minutes for us to find out that when he was at Indiana, that detail— and by the way, this is all we know. I don't have access to the data. All we have access to is what's been reported.

Yeah. And look, the NCAA is investigating. And it's interesting to consider the NCAA because the NCAA broadly has been functionally useless for most issues, right? The NCAA used to be the sheriff in town for lots of things that are now either legal or de facto legal when it comes to paying players. Now, the NCAA is a hammer in search of a nail. And so it is interesting to think that the NCAA might now focus on the gambling issue as its sort of animating spirit. Like, what are we here to do? We're here to do that. But at the same time, look, I suppose what I, what I am trying to incentivize here is more honesty from the people involved, including the player in question. And if the NCAA made it inevitable that he was going to have to fess up to this, perhaps that is also more realistic than my desire for, oh, someone was forthright, absent a legal threat of some kind.

Hey, it's Mike Ryan, and I want to talk to you about the random midweek hang that you have with your friends. Maybe it's an NBA game. You get a text, hey, come over, you want to watch the game? And Maybe you're like, ah, I don't know, I kind of just wanted to stay home. And then you think about it after your buddy hits you up and you know just the thing that'll make that regular hang, that regular midweek hang around the basketball game into a special time, into a Miller time. That's right, this happened to me just last week. I grabbed a 6-pack of Miller Lite, said I was on my way, and next thing you know, we're arguing about rotations like we're on the coaching staff, yelling about a missed call. And the game's coming down to the final possession. It was one of those nights that you look around, you take a sip, and you think, yeah, this was the right call, and my friendship's stronger for it. Cheers to legendary moments with Miller Lite. Great taste, 96 calories. Go to MillerLite.com/Dan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer.

It's Miller time. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories. And 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

Going for 2 when you're up by 5. Switching the zone when man isn't working. Oh, and building your new stadium in the state your team actually plays in. In sports, some things just make sense. You know what else makes sense? Drinking Jägermeister shots. Ice cold. Drinking it any other way would be like punting on first down or letting your worst hitter bat first. Or like going for 2 when you're down 3 with a second to go. It wouldn't make any sense. So don't let the team down when it comes to Jägermeister. Drink it cold or don't drink it at all. Jägermeister. Damn, that's cold. Drink responsibly. Jägermeister liqueur, 35% alcohol by volume, imported by Mast Jägermeister US, White Plains, New York.

Dan Lebatard.

While there's nothing official and conversations are still ongoing.

Was that a fake Schefter? Because it was pretty good. It was excellent.

I feel like there's legs.

I tried at the beginning and then I I lost confidence in it.

Why? It was good.

It was good. You got this.

There's nothing official.

Yeah, it's so good.

Conversations are still ongoing.

Stugatz.

It is trending towards Nick Sirianni remaining the head coach of the Eagles.

This is the Don Levatar Show with the Stugatz.

What updates do you have for us? Damon Jones has now pled guilty, reportedly, first of the people involved in the story that you've been very close to involving the NBA gambling scandal. What update do you have for us there and on what is happening with Terry Rozier.

Yeah, so here in New York, uh, not too far from our studio, Terry Rozier, uh, there is a hearing. There's a dismissal hearing in the NBA gambling case, which we've exhaustively chronicled here and is of course relevant to where you guys are in Miami because the U.S. Attorney now says that the government intends to file a superseding indictment adding new charges, including that Terry Rozier allegedly, quote, solicited and accepted a bribe. And so look, part of the nightmare for the NBA when it comes to any investigation, and it involves the NBA gambling stuff, and of course it involves the Clippers stuff, it involves all the things that I'm interested in, and that Amin gets up— gets involved in with us. What the NBA fears is what the government, which has subpoena power, which has— under this administration, by the way, this is not an inconsequential concern. The government, the DOJ, under this administration, it's hard to predict what they will care about, but they care about different things than previous administrations. And so again, as always, two things can be true. One is there might be a ton here that is unknown with Terry Rozier and the NBA gambling scandal, which has now spread, of course, to Pennsylvania as well, as well as New York.

And so there's a lot going on. The other one is, go back to that presser, Dan, where Kash Patel was front and center, you know, announcing the charges. This is also something that they can make political hay out of. And if you're the NBA, your eyes are also getting googly. The NBA is wondering wide-eyed, what are they going to do that can make our business frankly messier and more legally dicey than we would like. We, we, the, the Rozier thing, what you guys went through in Miami with that, I think was almost traumatic for the NBA and its investigators at Wachtell Lipton to deal with because they thought they did not know what Kash Patel was going to do. What, by the way, and in fairness to the DOJ in general, what the DOJ under the previous administration had started It did not start with Kash Patel, but his desire, the current administration's desire to make something even more out of it is where they're also, I think in the NBA's case, the NBA is also watching its own back. And so what happens from here? It's just very interesting that new charges were just announced yesterday and Damon Jones is showing up today.

Pablo, I saw clips of your most recent episode. And my question to you is, are we at a point of no return where we just all acknowledge if you're a television insider covering a sport, The rules are different. You should be considered different because this isn't Big J rules anymore. The reaction to your report of Rossini having a rival pool party right across from Jake Lazor's was interesting because everyone kind of went to the news that Diana Rossini had a rival pool party and everyone just glances past Jake Lazor having 28 head coaches kind of doing the same thing in that moment.

Yeah. And I bring that up not because I think that what Diana had done allegedly in totality is exactly the same as what Glazer had done in totality, or Schechter, or Woj. But anybody who has worked in our business knows that an insider— I mean, let's talk about it from the perspective of the audience first. What the audience wants is access. They like it when their insiders are super plugged in, when they are getting texts and calls during television hits and they got to step off stage because it's like You know, getting— it's like when the president has to have, you know, he's reading to children and someone comes over and whispers into his ear, oh my God, what's— what are they going to say next? Right? What's the news that's breaking? So they like that. And I think that for a lot of the history of insiders, that has been the main standard is like, oh, they're getting information that we don't have and they're doing it because they're so plugged in. What they don't— what the audience does not like to know though, is how the sausage is made. And the sausage in this case when it comes to Glazer, like what I respect him for in this regard is that he does not make claims to be a journalist.

He is saying very out front and transparently, I am an MMA trainer. I train players. I am a friend to all of these coaches. 28 of them came to my pool party, which was started by Mike Tomlin 18 years ago. And he is saying, here we are day drinking. Sean McVay, he posted this picked up the tab. And all of that from a pure, just like, are you uncompromised perspective? Of course, of course there is the personal relationships being compromised, compromising the impartiality. Now, if you're a J of some size journalist, none of that's allowed. But I also think that the audience doesn't give a shit. And that's the trouble with it, you know, like all— again, I find myself being so fascinated by what the audience cares about in terms of how did you get your information? Did you want it organic, free range? Do you care that it got processed through this filter of my own personal, you know, transactional favor trading? And it's not just Glazer, it's every insider. And so the job of insider, I think, is unsustainably synonymous with journalism. I don't think those two things can be the same thing.

I just think the incentive structure is so tilted towards, of course, this is about personal relationships and favors, and that's just the history of the job, and we should just be clear about that.

Pablo, I don't think the audience cares. That's what I've learned in the, you know, 10 years or so I've been doing media. I thought people used to care. They don't care. They just want the hot goss however it gets to them.

Well, I mean, that's why I'm asking, is this a point of no return where the onus falls on us? Like, let's stop trying to have these insiders adhere to a level that hasn't actually been the case for several years. Like, we just have to acknowledge insiders are different.

I don't know if you want to open those floodgates though.

I mean, here's the thing though, I think the floodgates have long been opened and now we're just recognizing and pointing to them and saying actually there's been water running through this deeply porous, if not non-existent, wall. I mean, I mean, you know this, like there are insiders. I mean, think about how, how powerful Adrian Wojnarowski was at ESPN. When I say that he was somebody who was not merely a clearinghouse of information, but someone who was directing valuable information to teams according to his own discretion that enabled transactions. The sausage is being made not only of information, but of actual trades. Like, this is not— and so do people care? You know, I think it's interesting. People should know that. But do they care? I, I guess not.

Yeah, because I mean, Adrian is the reason why I feel like people don't care, because as we were explaining, his propensity not only to bogart other reporters' reports in-house, but also to manipulate, right, news in order to assist people who were benefiting him with information. I would explain these things and people were like, whoa, J-Bomb! I'm like, uh, so you guys just don't care. You just care that you found out 5 seconds before that Ty Simpson is going to the Rams. That's all they care about. They don't care about anything else or how it's happening, or forget about how it's happening because of the relationship. To me, the bigger thing is the manipulation of how news is described. It's no different than why people come to this country And without having ever lived in America, be like, Black people are responsible for most of the crime. Why is that? Well, because the news that they turn on at 6 o'clock— once upon a time when people watch 6 o'clock news— was conveying the message in that way, was portraying. And this is all because of news flow organizations in the '70s and '80s that went to every local station across America and said, hey, this is how you do the news.

That's why we always like, and coming up, a puppy that refuses to bark, you know, like The way local news is constructed is not identical across the land by accident. It was something deliberate by organizations called news floor organizations. So I say all that to say, like, people don't seem to actually care, I think, even though what they're getting isn't merely just biased or merely just one-sided, but is also many times deliberately delivered in a way to shine a particular light.

Yeah.

And look, all I think here— here's why I think fans and consumers should be interested and should care, because they should demand some level of transparency and disclosure from the people delivering them the food they're eating, from the information that they are consuming. And if you have a relationship, if you have a bias, just disclose it. Like, that's the rule, right? So I don't— I don't mean to take us back to a time in which, you know, there are rules where sportswriters couldn't root for their favorite team when they were just like in their own private life. Like, you couldn't like wear the cap of your favorite team. You couldn't cheer, right? Like, you were meant to be this sort of like omniscient, impartial voice of God from nowhere in which you were just objectively observing everything. I don't think that is realistic, and it never has been realistic.

It was before Will Bond tucked his Cubs jersey into his jeans. That was the day. That was the day it all died. That was when he went out there and threw out the first pitch and was wearing a Cubs jersey and he tucked it into his jeans, the illusion was shattered.

And then Dan hit the drum.

Yeah, we made a whole song about it. Yeah.

No, that's etched in stone.

Oh, yeah, it was etched in stone. It was etched in whatever it is Wilbon did.

You should have tucked your jersey into your jeans. That would have been a great callback. Pablo, Amin mentioned Woj and market manipulation and perhaps being a shadowy hand behind some of these deals. Let's have an uncomfortable conversation. AJ Brown is supposed to go to the New England Patriots here. Uh, we had Diana Rossini on the show several times, and I would say she was at the forefront of reporting on AJ Brown, and that market did kind of take a dip. Now, we don't know what he went for, but it is curious. She reported a lot on AJ Brown. AJ Brown is reportedly on his way to the New England Patriots. The NFL has said this doesn't fall in line with their personal conduct policy, but Should the NFL look into this?

I think the NFL should look into it. But I also think that this is really interesting. And my governor for whether you should look into something is, is it interesting? The NFL's governor on should we look into this is, is this a business problem for us that we need to attend to? And for them, it is absolutely not. You know, so there is just the practical reality of that. But let's talk about the AJ Brown thing, because I've talked— look, when I say, and I try to be clear about like how I do whatever it is that I've become known for, which is reporting and investigative journalism into subjects that can be messy and soap opera-y sometimes.

Muckraking.

Well, the muck here is very— there is a chili sort of level of mess that we're dealing with.

Is it a soup?

So when I say I'm making calls, what I'm— well, I think chili, if you put it through a strainer, is mostly solid objects, which means it's probably not a soup. There's some drippage.

Closer to a stew.

That's—

matzo ball soup is meat.

Not a soup.

Matzo ball soup.

Chili's not a soup.

Yeah, because careful. I've been trying to make balls. I've been trying— matzo— okay, that's mostly carbs. Put matzo ball soup through a strainer, you're getting a giant ball of carbs. That's the one that I would want thrown at me, but then I would worry it was a hate crime.

I swear I didn't know. I thought he was Cuban.

Don Lebatard. Doesn't matter anywhere. We could do it in Buffalo or Baltimore. Either.

You say you could do it where?

Anywhere.

Oh, whoa.

Oh, that's crazy.

That's crazy. That's crazy. He said he could do it anywhere.

That's crazy, Murda. Murda, tell him.

Stugatz. I had no idea Mean had that in his locker.

That might be his best.

That's crazy. I'm not kidding.

That's crazy, Killer.

It's two Americas, then.

You don't get it.

This is the Don Levitar Show with the Stugatz.

I want to play some sounds.

We didn't get an answer.

Uh, I, I'm tired. I'm tired of this subject.

I know Dan's already bored.

What did Diana Rossini manipulate a market for AJ Brown?

I'll say, I'll say, I'll say this, people. What I've, what I've What I've been told in the calls that I've been making are that certainly there are people around the Philadelphia Eagles organization who think that what Diana was reporting has made their lives harder because they've had to deal with AJ Brown and this storyline. The follow-up question, though, is how much of a thumb does that reporting put on the scale, right? Is that actually forcing a transaction? In my view, no. It needs to be something that erupts from the reality of dealing with AJ Brown, the person. However, is it annoying when there are all of these reports and now all of this chatter and speculation around AJ Brown wanting out that are louder because of Diana's reporting than otherwise it would have been? Also true. And so if you're thinking to yourself, is this person serving some other agenda that is meant to undermine us, and is that agenda owned by the team that wants AJ Brown. That's how we get to that level of, of, of mess. But I just, I just keep on reiterating, this is not unique. The idea that there is a report that makes it easier for one team to get what they want and harder for another is so much of the sausage making.

It's all transactions enabling transaction reporting, enabling perhaps transactions. There is favor trading at— it's favors all the way down in the insider game. And that's when I say, no, she's not unique. Yes, this is exceptionally messy, Chilli-level messy, but it's simply not a pioneering example of was there a favor being traded that we've seen or not had disclosed but seen for decades.

All right, let's not make it Information Insiders though. Let's make it Stephen A. Let's make the people talking about Stephen A. Steve Stout and Rich Kleinman. Rich Kleinman is the business manager for Kevin Durant and others. He has his own podcast. Uh, Steve Stout is a record executive. Here is Steve Stout talking about Stephen A.

Fame and talent had a great relationship. Fame is the amplifier of talent. Fame has decided it doesn't need talent anymore. Fame has actually outpaced talent, and the The worst part of that is that talent has accepted that truth. So people who are talented will actually do something that will get them famous versus leaning into their talent. If you decide, I'm gonna have a hot take that's ridiculous as shit just because I know it's gonna get clicks, what are you doing to your brand? What do you think that does to you?

So when you say talent's accepted it, is it that they'll either compromise their brand or just accept that what their talent is?

Both. I have a great deal of respect for Stephen A. Smith. I think Stephen A. Smith has done so much shit that is about fame than the fact that he's actually a great journalist. He's clearly cashing out, but his journalism, the thing that he's great at, I believe, is homogenized by the shit that he's doing for fame.

Pablo, what's the game? What's the game we're playing? I mean, I— my worldview is shaped by an under— a fundamental understanding of incentives. Once upon a time, the standard of success was not metrically as baldly obvious as it is now, in which fame is synonymous with, is this going viral? Am I getting more attention? And Stephen A, look, again, he is not the first, but he might be the most effective at recognizing that incentive structure. Look, my view of Stephen A's evolution professionally has been through the lens of somebody who's also launching his own YouTube channel and is trying to compete in the same space. And I'm seeing a world in which Stephen A is leaning more into the stuff that got attention, that got more clicks because that's the incentive. And so whatever your talent is, I was going to say that felt like, uh, Chris might've been eating what is arguably not a soup earlier today.

Breakfast burritos.

Yeah, there it is. Oh, damn. Damn.

God.

Damn.

Got to check into the chat.

I was merely making the point that the noises that Steven A makes, he's been the best at making them and that the talent as defined as talent would be, are you winning the game? And so look, when I see him on his YouTube channel, he's, oh, he's interviewing more, he's interviewing Candace Owens. Why is he doing that? It's because people are clicking. He's talking about running for president. Why is he doing that? Because people are validating the effort. For a time. Now that seems to be dissipated, but nonetheless, he was following the incentives. And when it comes to the whole thing of, man, Stephen A used to be X and now he's Y, the through line in everything we've talked about, from the gambling scandals to the insider sausage making to this, is what are people being incentivized to do? That's what I think, unfortunately, talent is synonymous with, is are you winning? And if you want to argue, as Steve Stout seems to be, that talent is something different and, and, and more ineffable that should be valued as a virtue, let's have that conversation. But the reason we're seeing it happen this way is because someone incentivized it.

But I do think that people think of talent as noble and fame is not. Like, we have gotten there. And, uh, I, I'm remiss in not mentioning before now that over the weekend at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, uh, there was a fairly seismic event. And, um, I wanted I want to talk to you about this portion of it. There have been some, I dare say many in MAGA, which has been a conspiracy-fueled movement, who thought and have articulated that the original assassination attempt on Trump many months ago, but on the run-up to election, that it was staged. And while I wouldn't put it past this administration to think like that, even if it involves the death of a person, in it. I do question this administration's ability to successfully execute it competently in a way that would keep us fooled for a while. But Donald Trump never mentions it. His ear is now fine. And then this weekend we have yet another incident, and the immediate reaction, Pablo, online disoriented me because we're already in the post-truth age of nobody believes anything they see. And so something happens, and the instant that it happens, instead of believing threat, danger.

America at large just keeps eating its salad like that guy who never moved, and we just go on to questioning whether or not what we just saw happen actually happened. So what was your take from the weekend's events?

So I was watching this at home. I was in DC for some of the events earlier that weekend, was not going to attend the dinner, left earlier that day, but was very interested in watching the dinner remotely, because I was just curious. Trump was going to be there for the first time. How is it going to be handled? All of that stuff I was interested in. The thing that stuck out to me immediately, though, was how this shooting happens. This event in which someone intrudes and— you guys know the story— does something that would have been uniquely catastrophic once upon a time was so non-unique that the word immediately after, according to the president's own desires, was we're gonna head back out there and continue the dinner. And maybe that was a callback, a parallel to the whole like fight, fight, fight thing at Butler at that rally in Pennsylvania that you referred to, Dan, with the ear and, and the blood and all that stuff. Trump standing up saying, no, I need to be here behind the podium showing strength. Maybe that's what his instinct was when he was communicating via all these proxies.

I want to go back out there, we're resuming the dinner. And in fact, the White House Correspondents Association had indicated Initially, there were— there was reporting that, yes, this event will resume. And when those first waves of reports were released, that's what I found the most jarring. I was like, I'm not— I'm not so numb to the idea that there was a shooting, there was a suspect apprehended, and he's lying out there shirtless with various federal agents surrounding him. And we're gonna go back and continue to eat the meal. That part, I'm like, no, I, I, I just thought that that said so much about, yeah, what smelled around that event.

How much about the reaction to this? Because immediately this is met with skepticism when in previous years that wouldn't be the case. Everybody would be afraid. It was almost instantaneous. Once people found out that no one was injured, no one was killed, everybody went to, well, this is awfully convenient. Your poll numbers are, are low. How much of this is this whole post- truth thing where every day is a circus. A president on his own channels spreads misinformation, denies universal truths. Every day there is truth that is shot down by this administration, that since we're meeting every day with this kind of skepticism, naturally things like this, though tragic, are also met with that.

Yeah, and this actually continues the incentive conversation because the incentives— like, what was there to be gained by President Trump and the administration because this event happened? Quite a bit, right? Purely based on the incentives, because everyone's safe, you can now say, well, this changed the conversation from the war in Iran, from the fact that he had just Truth Social'd a declaration of a civilization's demise. It pivoted away from any number of other scandals involving the Epstein files and everything else that you can point to. And his poll numbers are, of course, reflective of those scandals. So pivoted to a ballroom.

Pablo, it pivoted to a ballroom, which is something that he's been driving.

And so now you follow the incentives there, like, oh, he wanted the ballroom. There was now reporting around how the ballroom was a horrific deal that wasn't getting legislative approval through the formal channels. And now this thing becomes a pretense to justify legislatively and otherwise the ballroom. So you follow the incentives and you're like, I see why this was good for President Trump. But the second level— and this is where, again, people get bored immediately— the second level is you actually got to report it out. It's not enough to say this was a benefit, therefore it happened. It's now, how do we prove so that we can safely say this, that this is what really happened? And I think that a lot of the conspiratorial conversation which admittedly I have been fascinated by, a lot of it stops at the incentives. And so the missing piece is always— to the question of like, why aren't you saying more of this out loud? The question I get a lot about on Twitter when it comes to the Rossini stuff, when it comes to this even, it's like, you're the investigative guy, why aren't you saying things as full-throatedly on certain subjects as much as other people just online are, the commenters, right?

About like, hey, did he— was this kid named after Mike Vrabel? Was this all— was Butler, Pennsylvania an op? It's like there is a difference between recognizing incentives as your first lens to see who stands to benefit from here. The other secondary, even more important lens though of fact-checking is why I don't come out here and speculate wildly about this. Unless, of course, I'm on your show and Chris Cody is farting in the background.

We can all agree clam chowder is the absolute worst, right?

Yeah, it seems like it'd be pretty bad. Let's just leave this with Pablo just to haunt him a little bit. He's the best podcaster among all the podcasters winning awards, but this is how he communicates.

This is an— it's, it's when you come up, I'm struggling.

Hey, it's Mike Ryan, and I want to talk to you about the random midweek hang that you have with your friends. Maybe it's an NBA game, you get a text, hey, come over, you want to watch the game? And maybe you're like, ah, I don't know, I kind of just wanted to stay home. And then you think about it after your buddy hits you up, and you know just the thing that'll make that regular hang, that regular midweek hang around the basketball game, into a special time, into a Miller Time. That's right, this happened to me just last week. I grabbed a 6-pack of Miller Lite, said I was on my way, and next thing you know, we're arguing about rotations like we're on the coaching staff, yelling about a missed call, and the game's coming down to the final possession. It was one of those nights that you look around, you take a sip, and you think, yeah, this was the right call, and my friendship's stronger for it. Cheers to legendary moments with Miller Lite. Great taste, 96 calories. Go to millerlite.com/dan to find delivery options near you. You. Or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer.

It's Miller time! Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.