If a president ignited a deadly, costly war, you’d think, at the least, they would monitor the crisis from the Situation Room. President Trump, however, is choosing to spend his time at UFC fights in Miami instead. With our Secretary of State. Surrounded by his “manosphere” — while the human and monetary price of his war continue to rise.
Pablo Torre can see right through the facade. In his conversation with Jen, Pablo breaks down Trump’s retreat to his UFC “comfort zone” amidst his unpopular war and the weirdly “homoerotic” bond between Trump and his MAGA men. Pablo and Jen also discuss the Department of Justice’s anti-trust investigation into the NFL, the Master’s, and golf’s newest European supreme.
Pablo Torre is an American sportswriter, podcaster, and television host. He contributes to various programs at ESPN, including Pardon The Interruption and Around The Horn. Keep up with Pablo on his Substack and podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out .
The following transcript has been edited for formatting purposes.
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Editor-in-Chief of The Contrarian. If it’s Monday, it must be Pablo Torre. Pablo, welcome!
Pablo Torre
Jen, where should we start? Where in the world should we start after this weekend?
Jen Rubin
I think we should start with the President and the Secretary of State a… UFC match. when the negotiations for the conclusion of a Iranian war are going on in Turkey. That seems to be Oh, maybe third or fourth in the list of the most ridiculous things that happened last week, up there with, trying to tangle with the Pope.
Pablo Torre
Right, yes.
Jen Rubin
Let’s talk about the event. What did you make of Trump’s visit there, and the crowd’s reaction to his visit?
Pablo Torre
Yeah, so I’ve been tracking… Trump appearing at UFC events now for years, and there is a pattern. And the pattern is unsurprising when you see it, but at the time, you sort of maybe don’t see the forest for the trees. When things are going terribly for him, from a PR crisis perspective, he goes to UFC events. This is sort of his way of reintroducing himself into not just an adoring public, but a comfort zone. And there is no sport that has been more captured by this administration, by any political party, administration, organization, ever. More than the UFC. More than Dana White’s UFC, as Dana White is the guy who also introduces him now. He’s the guy who’s introduced him at at least three GOP conventions. And so, Iran being so deeply unpopular. Iran being this disaster that, again, this was… This was new on the level of… it was truly simultaneous. to the negotiations that he and Marco Rubio had abdicated.
Jen Rubin
as…
Pablo Torre
So, we’ve seen him show up at UFC events after January 6th. We’ve seen him show up at UFC events after Jack Smith and the Special Investigation are producing charges, and then convictions. that happen, but not quite so parallel with J.D. Vance.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Pablo Torre
being invited to Miami, to this friendly atmosphere, and instead, you know, as you know, JD Vance was left holding the bag.
Jen Rubin
Holding the…
Pablo Torre
Claiming bag of dog poop.
Jen Rubin
Exactly. Not a good week for events, by the way, between Hungary and Iran, but does Marco Rubio go to these events absent Trump, or is this just like putting on the shoes that are too big? He has to do it to ingratiate himself with the boss.
Pablo Torre
Yeah, I mean, Marco Rubio’s an enormous sports fan, and that is real, and this was in South Florida, so all of this is sort of unsurprising, if you were to tell me, oh, Marco Rubio showed up, and that… that all tracks. But when you see… but when you see the walkouts… so Trump also, to be very clear, like, there are ways that celebrities… events, and they stand on the sideline, they get VIP treatment, they’re on camera somewhere, that’s all familiar. What is different and unique is Donald Trump being walked out alongside the commissioner of the sport, the de facto commissioner, Dana White, as if he himself is a fighter. he has his entourage, and so with Marco Rubio being in the entourage there, you know, what it reflects, Jen, is most favored… nation, most favored crony status at that given moment, right? Like, why was Rubio there? I would say that it’s because Trump wanted him there, and that is clearly, clearly the actual story behind why any of this was happening.
Jen Rubin
Trump seems to truly idolize, even fawn over, the fighters in, a very, I don’t know, I won’t use the word, but in a very Personal, deeply felt way. What do you make of that? Is that him trying to be one of the guys? Is that kind of masculine envy? What is that?
Pablo Torre
You know, I can tell you from people who’ve been around Trump in sporting contexts, like, it’s pretty weird. Like, there is… I think there is objectively, in that conversation he had with a victorious UFC fighter who’s, like, leaning over.
Jen Rubin
Yes!
Pablo Torre
and kneeling before him from the octagon, there is a… certainly a rhetorical homoeroticism that is just, like, palpable to anybody in sports, and they’re like.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely.
Pablo Torre
this is notable, right? So there’s just that. He’s talking about how handsome and beautiful he is. All that stuff. But then, you know, the other part of Trump in sports is the dude, as I often like to say, is, like, kind of a fake sports fan. So, he shows up, but the things he talks about, none of it’s actually about the games, or the sports themselves as sports. They’re all in this sort of self-serving way, which is familiar to all of us. But look, keep in mind, right? at UFC events particularly, it’s not merely that he’s hobnobbing with these athletes and with these cronies, like, Joe Rogan is the announcer on these things. And so the subtext here, again, it’s funny, like, this is so political that it… I don’t need to make the argument that this is, like, sports and politics colliding. Right. Joe Rogan is both, and this is how he came… how Rogan came to power, as a UFC expert. And so he’s the commentator, the ringside commentator. And so when Trump is coming in, and he’s shaking hands, and he pulls in Rogan. Keep in mind that Rogan, in recent weeks, had been deeply critical of Trump because of Iran.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Pablo Torre
If this was part… look, we say this often, and we should say it as often as we can, Trump campaigned on no more foreign wars, on, we’re gonna get these Epstein files, and affordability. In some order. And so, when you have Rogan there as both this character native to the UFC, and now this guy who is also seemingly. you know, shaking hands and smiling and not critiquing the president to his face. You see also that Trump is doing something there, right? He is establishing in public I still have this guy, and it’s gonna be interesting to see what Rogan says on the other side of this, now that the manosphere, as we’ve broadly come to call it, now that they’ve been turning on Trump, in large part, I would say, because of the war in Iran.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. What is the crowd reaction when Trump goes to these things?
Pablo Torre
I mean, they… look, it’s the Colosseum, right?
Jen Rubin
the spectacle.
Pablo Torre
There is always gonna be exactly what Trump wants, which is roaring applause, and just like, oh my god, I can’t believe he’s here. That never fails. But… There’s also been, more than ever, the live experiment of his poll numbers. And so you do hear more boos. Now, look, South Florida is, in that UFC venue, is the most comfort zone demographic that he has. Among all sports. That’s why he does it, to be very clear. But we’ve seen it throughout sports, right? The US Open. Raining down booze, football games, college and the NFL, raining down booze. And so. he is looking for the place where he can feel the most like the version of the president that he wants to be, and he finds it in the UFC, but I would say even still, something that was also interesting to note was that, like, this UFC event wasn’t this massive, packed, sold-out thing. Even the UFC, I think, must sort of have to wonder, like, what happens to our brand when we have been so captured transparently by this unpopular president? And what happens when, perhaps, this administration is no longer in power?
Jen Rubin
Interesting, interesting. Well, from the ridiculous to the actually serious. Word comes that the federal government is investigating the NFL and its vertically integrated broadcasting scheme. What do you make of this? Is the NFL concerned about it?
Pablo Torre
You know, so I am also trying to parse how ridiculous and how serious this story is. Because broadly speaking, there is, for sports fans, a serious Sentiment. The affordability crisis has come to sports. We’re all paying so much more than we used to. We are all paying for a zillion subscription services. None of us really know where the game is on any given week. And the NFL has, again, the fewest games, and so should be the easiest to follow, and yet even still, fans all the time are complaining, very understandably, about how expensive tickets to games are in person, and then certainly what it costs to basically be informed about their favorite thing, the most popular thing left in America, as we often say, football. So, there is just that sentiment. But in terms of what this antitrust exemption is that the DOJ under this administration is challenging, keep in mind that this is the reason why, when you’re a TV network paying billions upon billions of dollars to the NFL, you are negotiating with the league office. Which then shares all the profits equally among its member teams, as opposed to the Dallas Cowboys individually, or the Giants individually. And I’m picking the big markets first, because those are the teams where if they had to make these deals individually, they’d get the most. And so, the point being that the NFL, the entire way it operates as this entity, hinges on this exemption. So, the question of, like, what’s happening now that would make this administration care about this, my suspicion is that, and this is what the reporting has been, in places like the Wall… well, not… it’s been tricky. It’s been tricky to actually discern where and how this is being talked about, because one of the big players that is sort of behind the scenes in all of this is Rupert Murdoch. And so, what’s happening with the NFL? The NFL is so popular that they’re saying, we can reopen all of these deals, these multi-billion dollar live rights deals we have with networks, and get more. We can renegotiate now, because we’re the NFL, and we want to get these deals to be even more expensive than what the NBA got. And the NBA got a big deal from all the streamers. So the point being, Is it the ca- this is the clubhouse leading theory. Beyond the affordability concerns, which are real, is it the case that an entity like Fox, owned by Rupert Murdoch, would benefit… would benefit from the NFL being put back on its heels a bit. and basically being scared straight into not trying to extract all the money they can from networks via an administration directive from the DOJ that, in fact, we’re going to examine the legal status of the entire way that you negotiate these deals in the first place. could Fox be getting something like, effectively, a discount or a reprieve from the NFL’s negotiating power by getting the NFL to not try to open up any of the deals that rely upon the antitrust exemption that the DOJ is currently scrutinizing?
Jen Rubin
I have a simple rule of thumb. If there’s an explanation for something that the Trump administration does that is based on good policy and the public good, on one hand, or a nefarious scheme to enrich his friends. I will go with the latter every single time. That is how they operate. So the notion that this administration, which has blessed, in fact, forced. the Warner Bros. Paramount deal is suddenly concerned about antitrust?
Pablo Torre
I know.
Jen Rubin
It beggars belief, it really does.
Pablo Torre
It’s… the most consistent theme of this administration when it comes to antitrust is that they are in favor of the oligarchy.
Jen Rubin
Thanks.
Pablo Torre
The idea that there would be a concern for the affordability of anything when it comes to normal customers is, to your point, so antithetical to every behavior that they’ve, pursued here. So, I’m…
Jen Rubin
with you.
Pablo Torre
Absent reporting, I must provide the context, because, look, and here’s the cruelty of this, actually. You are, as a customer, what you should know is that there are reasons, and there are ways, that this administration could help you, and in fact, they know.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely.
Pablo Torre
on some level, what they could be doing, and why. Instead, as with prediction markets, as with, frankly, the whole rigged casino of our country at this point, when it comes to World Liberty Financial and everything else, what they are doing is the thing that Makes the notion of competition and improved products for consumers. It makes it all farcical to even consider as their foremost motivation.
Jen Rubin
Exactly. And by the way, the key to the Iranian deal is Wait for it. Trump Tower, Tehran.
Pablo Torre
God.
Jen Rubin
That will make this whole thing go away, I guarantee.
Pablo Torre
Yeah.
Jen Rubin
And I’m kidding, just a little bit, because I wouldn’t put it past them.
Pablo Torre
Yeah.
Jen Rubin
Let’s talk real sports. Let’s talk the Masters.
Pablo Torre
guest.
Jen Rubin
For two rounds, Rory was on fire, particularly on the second round, where he shot 7 under par on a really, really, really hard course. Van… Something happened? He got a little tripped up, he began stumbling on the third round. And you could just see everyone’s mind going, okay, here it comes, Rory going down the tubes again. But then there was the fourth round, And he pulled it together. He had a great round, and he won back-to-back, which was the most unusual way of all for him to have won this. What do you make of all of this, and what does it tell you about Rory as a person, as a competitor, that may be different today than it was a few years ago?
Pablo Torre
Look, Rory… has reopened the conversation around not just, like, how do we think of him as this guy who used to choke until he won the Masters last year, which we’ve talked about a lot on your program, and then there’s also just the question of, like, all time. What is he? And after this weekend, Rory McIlroy is the greatest European golfer of all time. That is…
Jen Rubin
It’s more.
Pablo Torre
That is where he is right now. He is one of the 10 greatest players. of all time. That is the consensus within golf at this moment. Roy McElroy not only, you know, won the Masters two years in a row, but he did change the story also of the present, which is… Okay. Scotty Scheffler was the guy who was supposed to be… And by the way, Scottie Scheffler is still incredible, no one is taking that away from him. But the point being that there’s now a conversation around… Scottie Scheffler had come along and boxed Rory out in terms of, like, the who’s the greatest golfer alive right now conversation. And now Rory’s absolutely back in it. And so, it changes the past, how you thought of him, it changes the future, how he may be remembered, it changes the active conversation of who’s gonna win a tournament, at any given, major. And so that’s… it’s a… frankly, only the Masters, I think, allows such a sweeping reformation of your.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Pablo Torre
hypotheses.
Jen Rubin
It is so unusual in golf that someone begins the downward spiral and then pulls out of it. 90% of the time, when that begins, the unraveling just continues. We saw it a few weeks back with Shane Lowry, for example, who just collapsed in a tournament. what do you think is the process? How do you think he kind of got it back? Or… Was he, at that point, maybe the pressure was off because he thought, oh, well, I’m gonna lose it again, so I might as well just play my best. Do you have any insight into how he did that?
Pablo Torre
Yeah, I think that my insight is more about the human brain, and one of the more fascinating things, and this is… my own pet theory, but one of my… One of my favorite case studies for sports and human psychology is Roger Bannister. So, Roger Bannister was the guy who ran a 4-minute mile. And he was the first one to ever do it. And when he did it, it was revelatory, and unprecedented, and then… As soon as he did it, all these other people did too. And so the question of what is the 4-minute miles lesson can apply, I think, even to individuals. Once you see someone do something, suddenly it becomes possible. And once Rory McIlroy overcame his own demons, the demons lost their… their claws. he declawed his own personal nightmare, and at that point, what you just said, watching him through this weekend, he had done it before, you know? And look, frankly, if you could… if you could bottle up and sell, and even explain clearly what Rory did to fix himself. You would be… I mean, what a product that would be. Everybody…
Jen Rubin
Excellent.
Pablo Torre
But that’s the only thing I can imagine, is that he saw it possible and then realized, oh my god, I can just… I can just do this.
Jen Rubin
Exactly. The buzz will start, no doubt, maybe less so, because he came back and was very competitive in the final round. What’s the matter with Scotty Scheffler? He hasn’t won. Is he declining? Is his time up? Which is really a completely unfair con… Conversation, made possible only because he has had this remarkable streak. There is always going to be a regression, if not to the mean, at least to normality, some sense of normality. I don’t think Scottie Scheffler has lost it. He is playing really well, but on any given day, everybody else is playing really well, too.
Pablo Torre
Yeah, I mean, look, he… when it comes to… I was just looking up the numbers on this, because there’s a world… again, all of this is, like, a hair’s… a hair’s…
Jen Rubin
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
There’s a world in which Scottie Scheffler pulls off a record comeback. he was very close. I mean, it was the 15th hole. Yes.
Jen Rubin
They had a burning trance.
Pablo Torre
And he played the final two rounds without a single bogey. And so he was 4 under 68 on Sunday, one stroke behind Rory, and so… as always in sports, and like in history, I just want everybody, when they tell the story, to go, like, one inch deeper on the context. Because, yes, the story can be, Scotty Scheffler didn’t win, huh, man, what’s wrong with him? Or it’s… he almost dug himself out of a hole that would have changed the entire way we think about this, if you tell it as a paragraph as opposed to a sentence. And so I am not worried about Scotty Scheffler.
Jen Rubin
No, I don’t think we need be. Well, we also come to a similar story. It’s interesting you were talking about Scotty Scheffler as having the claim to be the greatest living golfer, and then Rory coming back into the picture. The same thing may be happening in tennis. Last year, it was really Alparez’s year. And it seemed that there was definitely not Guys at the top. Alcaraz, a half step ahead. This year, it has been all sinner. He has won now 3 Masters 100s in a row, and he beat Alcarrez. I don’t say easily, but handily in straight sets in Monte Carlo. Is this a matter of, these guys are just so good that when one guy gets better, the other guy comes back to improve his game, and you just have this constant Rivalry based on self-improvement.
Pablo Torre
Yeah, I think about the parallel, and boxing reminds me of tennis in many ways, is… the great heavyweights of, the 70s, you know? It’s Ali, it’s Frazier, it’s George Foreman, you have these guys who… In any given fight, the best part was that you didn’t know who was gonna win, even.
Jen Rubin
Right.
Pablo Torre
you have your own, sort of, like, preferences stylistically, and even based on the merits, like, who is actually the best? And, look, the big news to anybody who is tracking Sinner and Alcaraz is that It’s clay season. And so the idea… and that’s where Alcaraz has… that’s been his comfort zone. And so Yannick Sinner reclaiming world number one on that surface tells me that we are in for a season that certainly looks like Sinner, and rightfully so, is in pole position, but I would love a world in which it’s not foregone.
Jen Rubin
Yes!
Pablo Torre
when and how each of the… each of these guys is gonna play on these given surfaces. I think that’s fantastic.
Jen Rubin
Exactly, and I think having that sense of, competition and an evening out is… Great for the sport, great for the fans. I also have to say, I love the way the Azkaias treat one another. They have so much respect, they are… absolutely decent, I almost think happy for the other guy, although that sounds strange because they’re super competitive. The way they interact at the net, the way they congratulate each other, it is really kind of a refreshing change. From the grumbling, mumbling, just get me out of here kind of attitude that you sometimes see. When people lose the hard matches, and it is hard to lose. It’s really hard to lose.
Pablo Torre
Yeah, I mean, my favorite… look, my favorite things about one-on-one competitions like boxing and like tennis is that they’re so physically exhausting that at some point, humiliation can be on the line. You may be embarrassed out there. That is… those are the stakes. And when someone has the respect of their rival and vice versa. You get the thing that we so miss in politics, in our, diplomacy, which is a mutual appreciation and actual respect among people who are otherwise Actively trying to destroy the other side. And I just think…
Jen Rubin
success.
Pablo Torre
sports is… it’s just… it’s just the foremost clinic where we get to see, oh my god, wait, we can… we can do both. And that’s… that feels good after a weekend like everything else we’ve talked about.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Well, I think the lesson for today, folks, is be a ionic sinner and a Carlos Alcarrez, or a Pope Leo. Don’t be a.
Pablo Torre
Yeah.
Jen Rubin
You know, that’s kind of… Noted.
Pablo Torre
Noted White Sox fan, Pope Leo, has learned some things about suffering in sports as well, and I don’t know… I mean, I have a sense of what fights Trump is picking at this point. All of it feels, though, like the clock, again, to go back to our sports, it seems like his clock is running down. This is… this is the stuff of a desperate losing team.
Jen Rubin
Yes, this is crazy panic time. Pablo, as always, what fun! From the sublime to the ridiculous, and it’s sometimes hard to tell which is which.
Pablo Torre
It is.
Jen Rubin
But have a great week. We will see you back next week.
Pablo Torre
Talk to you next time, Jen.
Jen Rubin
Take care, bye-bye.
