Pablo Torre: America’s Story is the Story of the Knicks
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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It's public-private partnership, right? That's the euphemism. What that is is corruption. This is not helping anybody. It's only making certain people rich. And for the American people, for the fans of mixed martial arts, for the fans in the audience who hear that guy say that about Michelle Obama, the question is, in this era in which so many people are suffering, who's winning? Who's getting rich? And you may notice that the people who are getting rich are the ones that are in fact transacting and using sports, using your emotional long-held heirlooms, your family heirlooms for their own benefit. That's who's winning.
Hi there, everyone. What does the ultimate fighting championship, you know, those guys who fight each other shirtless and wearing tights inside an actual cage, have to do with foreign aid? Well, just about everything these days, according to my next guest. Pablo Torre is a brilliant, now Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist. He's also the host of the podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out. He has unearthed some of the biggest scoops, not just in sports, but in all of journalism over the last few years. He's also been one of the sharpest, most astute observers out there about exactly how MAGA is hijacking sports in an attempt to remake the country and its image. So without any further ado, this is The Best People, and this is one of them, Pablo Torre.
Thank you so much for being here.
Nicole, it's an all-you-can-eat buffet right now of sports and corruption, and I am very glad to talk about whatever you'd like from that selection with you.
It's a poo-poo platter, right? And it's like, there's a tendency, I feel like, to put sports at the end of a newscast. I think that comes from local news, right? And I think the history of that, right, was to make everybody watch all of that 23-minute local newscast. So you tease sports and weather at the end because that's what people really needed.
How is sports becoming a political battleground under the Trump era?
But with Trump, it's a mistake to separate them. Why do you think Democrats are so late to recognize the impact and the import of sports?
I think we could be a little too high-minded sometimes. And I get it because my whole thing in sports is I'm the guy who's trying to convince everybody else, hey, sports is a liberal arts education. We should and are empowered to, in fact, obligated to talk about everything. as it connects to all of the issues that have always been in sports. But that's inside of sports. When I get to the place that I've been enjoying being in, in cable news and in political conversation in the last several years, it's the reverse dynamic. When I got to convince people, hey, this sports thing's pretty popular. And if we're going to fight a culture war as a civilization, you might want to know which terrain the opposition has already taken the high ground on.
And for me, look, it's just basic math. If you're fighting a culture war and the monoculture, the biggest cultural institution available, happens to be sports, it would be insane and self-defeating to cede that territory, especially when the people who are planting their flag on it are themselves pretenders, pretending in ways that they are getting away with because of the lack of fluency, maybe, in the subject matter, which... one reason why I love talking to you because you know sports. And the second thing is... I don't know if I know it, but I love it.
I mean, it's both of it, right? Like you know it, you have the fluency piece, but to know it, you have to love it first. And I guess I worry about the loving it piece, you know? Who are all these people in public life who don't love sports?
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:35
2
How is sports becoming a political battleground under the Trump era?
2:35–13:40
3
Why do Democrats underestimate the cultural power of sports?
13:40–31:53
4
Why does the Knicks’ recent win feel like a civic thaw after the pandemic?
31:53–50:25
5
How did Jalen Brunson’s underdog story resonate beyond basketball?
50:25–53:14
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The Best People with Nicolle Wallace
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