6/9/26: Trump Booed At Knicks Game, Sports Gambling Scandal, Chris Rabb On Platner Controversy

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So President Trump decided to attend the third game of the NBA finals between the New York Knicks, of course Trump being a native New Yorker himself and the San Antonio Spurs. This happened at Madison Square Garden in New York. I don't know if you guys are aware of this, but Trump is not particularly popular in New York at this point. Nevertheless, he claimed after the game that he was met with mostly cheers, that it was very loud and enthusiastic. Let's take a listen to his take on what happened, and then we can show you what actually happened.

Do you see Mayor Zohran Mamdani at the game? I did not, no. What did you think of the reception you got from the next fan tonight? I thought it was amazing, actually. You mean when they had the camera on me? I thought it was very good, yeah. It was certainly amazing. It was, I think mostly cheers.

It was loud and it was very enthusiastic. Loud, enthusiastic, mostly cheers, he thinks. Let's take a look at what actually happened, both at the game and outside at the watch parties, when Trump was put up on the screen during the national anthem.

I don't know. That doesn't sound like mostly cheers to me. That sounds overwhelmingly like booze. And notably, after showing him during the national anthem, which they probably did because they thought, well, maybe people won't boo during the national anthem. They certainly did. Yeah.

They did not show him again. That was it. But they did catch him. Cameras caught him. I could put D1B napping towards the end of the game. Or actually, I don't even know what quartered this was in the game. But anyway, you know, he's an old guy. This is up past his bedtime.

Looks very high energy in this. I sympathize. I mean, you know, this isn't a Trump defense. But it's a list. It was like, you guys are popping off in our group chat. And I'm like, yo, I'm going to bed. I'm like, I had to silence all this. Okay, but if you were at the game, you would not be sleeping, especially the game of like, you know, a team that you are supposedly care about.

And it's really close. And it's very exciting. And you're just like napping. I wouldn't put myself in that position. I would never attend a game after 830. Is it called tip-off? Is that right? So I'm not an NBA fan.

All right, tip-off, tip-off for 8.30 p.m. Yeah, it was an interesting little, I have no idea why I did it, especially because if you think about it for Trump, especially whenever it came to UFC, when we would watch those entry videos that he would do around 2024, especially during the campaign, and immediately after, that really was, I mean, look, I don't know how indicative, because UFC is generally probably fan base is going to be a little bit more right wing, but it was evidence of like public acclamation, and there was a vibe to it. I think it was definitely part of the kind of vibes around Donald Trump in 2024, especially also, I think immediately after his inauguration. Obviously, the UFC is

returning to the White House South Lawn this time around for his birthday, technically part of the America's 250th anniversary celebrations. But why I think that this matters beyond, you know, being funny is, I'm not sure if you notice, do you remember we did that long segment from the New York Times about Trump and JD Vance, where Trump keeps bringing up that J.D., like, dropped the Ohio State trophy, I think, at something. He's like, oh, well, you know, he just can't have that. I'm like, well, dude, you just showed up to, you know, national sporting at Madison Square Garden, willingly, I will add, and got booed by the entire crowd. I don't think it's the first time either that he's had at least some booze. Even at the Super Bowl,

I'm trying to recall. Maybe it wasn't the Super Bowl. There was some major NFL game where, you know, there had been mixed things. But he literally put himself in this position. Maybe I guess is some sort of like, because he is a major New York fan. But look, these things, these symbols are actually the exact type of thing that Trump himself is obsessed with when it happens to other politicians. That's why I think it's important because maybe it's starting to process. that's for him. Yeah, that's sleeping too. I mean, you scarcely have a White House meeting now

where Trump does not fall asleep at some point. And so, you know, I mean, he's old. And it's starting to really show. And I think the way that it shows most clearly is how he just nods off all the time or what the White House says are long blinks. Here's the other thing is he completely cursed the team. So the Knicks have been on an amazing 13 game winning streak

until this Joker showed up. And then they, you know, the officiating also was terrible. But anyway, they lose to the spurs. Trump is there. There were all kinds of like Epstein affiliated criminals who were in the crowd as well. You had Howard Lutnick was there as well in like the front row. The whole thing just felt cursed. And it did from the beginning and put D3 up on the screen.

The lines that the fans had to go through to get into this event at all were insane. I mean, they had to wait their hours. to go through security because of the president being there. And these are people who paid $10,000, you know, plus for these tickets. I think the cheapest ticket to get in was around $8,000. And so they had to go through these long lines. You can see most of the NYPD was apparently

at Madison Square Garden to help to secure the event. You know, I will say it looked like there was a lot of concerns that it tip off half the crowd wouldn't even be in the building. But it looks like people, you know, showed up early into what they needed to do. to get inside. The whole area here around Midtown Manhattan was closed off, which I'm sure was a nightmare for the restaurants and bars that expect to make a lot of money because of their, you know,

location next to Madison Square Garden. So not great there as well. But, you know, your point about like the optics of it, getting booed in his hometown, cursing the team, you had Stephen A. Smith and others saying, even PBD said, hey, he's going to get blamed if they lose, which they lost. So congratulations, sir.

And if the Knicks go on to lose the whole series when they started up to nothing and they, you know, if they go on a losing streak after Trump comes and curses them at their game, then I think everyone is going to blame him for that as well. I think so. I mean, people are, sports fans are very, very superstitious. You know, I do want to, I don't want to harp on this. Maybe I have too much. I do think what's happening here with MSG is really bad and sad for the country whenever it comes to those ticket prices. And I've been stuck on it for a while. because I do think it's one of those last, like if you think about it, what the Knicks have not been to finals in several years, right? Like almost 30 years. It was the 90s. I believe that the last time they were there.

So there's probably an entire generation of people who grew up and who were rooting for the team, stuck with the team, let's say, in the bad times. And then all of a sudden, Madison Square Garden becomes like the hot it placed to be. And look, I'm not naive. New York has always been a playground for the rich, but you could generally, I assume, expect that you could,

if he splurge a little bit, be able to sit in the nosebleeds or standing room only type seat. But when tickets are going for 6, 7, 8, 9, 20, 30, apparently some report Mattis Square Garden sold two courtside tickets for a million dollars each. It just becomes completely out of reach for everyone. Nobody expects that average Joe can sit courtside. I generally expect that a middle class person would be able to. to afford a slight splurge, like if they saved up and have something in savings and their lifelong fan, would be able to go. Maybe, again, maybe I'm very naive. That's kind of what I expect.

I don't expect people to go to the U.S. Open final per se, which is like a little bit smaller, but I'm thinking, okay, you should be able to go maybe to a game. That's just not, it's not going to happen anymore. And I genuinely think that's tragic. Like, I'm watching it happen for all of these major sporting events from the NBA finals to obviously the Super Bowl's been like this, you know, years. It's always been like a status symbol. But I think it's going to happen at the everyday level, especially if the Knicks are good now in the future. Many of the diehard fans, maybe if they're not season tickets, I bet you next year it'll become like a vibey thing for New Yorkers with a lot of extra money. As I've mentioned with the U.S. Open, it's literally happening with the U.S.

Open. And every year, you know, stuff starts to go viral inside of these stadiums about, oh, this is the viral $100 hot dog that everybody has to have. Or this. This is the $80 cocktail everybody is drinking. You're like, yeah, like, how are everyday people supposed to just be able to go and to have, you know, just a good time for one? Yeah. And I don't know. There's something about that. I'm watching this happen across all sporting hotels, everything, flights.

And it just seems tragic for anybody who's just everyday working person. Let me tell you where you can still get a good deal on an NBA basketball ticket right here in Washington. Tin Zogger with the Wizards. They'll practically pay you to go to those games. Yeah, that's fair. Although they should be a little bit better this year. So maybe the ticket price is going to go up. But yeah, Kyle and I like to go to those games,

especially when we actually went and watched when the San Antonio Spurs came to town because we wanted to see Wembe, which was really cool to get to see him. And you could get tickets for like nothing. But, you know, it's not going to be the most competitive game because the Wizards were literally the worst team in the entire league.

But yeah, we went to one game at MSG this year. It was during the NBA Cup, which the Knicks ended up winning the in-season tournament. And even for a regular season game, like the tickets were crazy expensive. And I think the Knicks are a bit of an outlier

because it is the New York market, et cetera. But, you know, baseball games, football games, same deal. What used to be like an attainable luxury outing for a working class or middle class family is increasingly just like everything else in our economy. a playground for the rich.

You know, while Trump was snoozing in his luxury box there, the mayor of the city, Zohran Mamdani and Zohran Mamdani, had a slightly different experience. Apparently, he paid $1,000 to get a standing room-only ticket, which I actually didn't even know was a thing. In any case, let's take a listen to Zohran Mamdani for a moment. First question, I bought my tickets for a million $1,000 from a house in a park. I'll be going to tonight's game three, and I'll be standing for a duration of the game.

And I saw a self-reliven. of him with, you know, the people that he went with from somewhere up in the nosebleeds. Frenz, a very different experience for him. And he did something to the World Cup, you know, is coming to New York. And he did something cool, which I think is just emblematic of his style of leadership, which, you know, really does try to look for little ways to make life nicer for people in the city or even for tourists coming to the city. They published this whole map and schedule of different free events in the city.

either for residents or people who are coming in from out of town. This is the kind of things that he pays attention to. And so they had a lottery for affordable World Cup tickets that people could sign up for. And he actually called some of the people who won the tickets to inform them. And Zohran Mamdani himself is like a gigantic soccer fan, which comes through in this video. So this shows both like his approach to governance and his approach to communication, which I just think is like the most effective, genuinely. can't think of a politician that does it better in the entire country.

Let's go ahead and take a look at that. Hi, is this, Cindy? You signed up for our Affordable World Cup ticket program, and I just wanted to personally let you know you got a ticket. No, wait. I'm going to cry. This is incredible. I swear, the best news ever.

I'm so blessed. Have you ever been to a match before? No, I have not. I try to go so bad. But then tickets were so expensive. Who are you going to take to the game? My husband. My brother-in-law.

Now I'm going to have two. I'm going to let you pick between your dad and your fiancé. So it's the sort of thing like, is this world changing? No. Although for those people, it's very exciting. But it's at least nice to see a mayor or a politician who's looking out for not just like, you know, your material needs, but also your desire to live an enjoyable life that has these little experiences and luxuries in it as well. Look, yeah, I mean, you know, got a lot of differences with Zohran Mamdani, but I'm not going to deny. These are the types of things which back in the day, we would. fantasized about Trump or any of these other types of politicians doing. I mean, Trump had some

version of this in 2024, if you recall, no tax on tips, the McDonald's famous, you know, Norman Rockwell, like, leaning out of the window. These were iconic moments. And look, the truth is, we're just a long, long way away from that. And I do think. I thought, I did think in 2016, not so much this time around or 2020 or whatever, but I did think Trump would be more of this type of leader. Where, and I remember very early on, remember that whole thing

with the carrier factory that was moving overseas and they showed out, he paid personal attention to it. And again, it was like a small number of jobs, but for those people, it means everything.

And the signal of it really mattered. And I thought, oh, if he does this a lot, like Democrats will never win again. I know. It's going to be tremendously popular because of what it shows about the type of things

that he pays attention. to. And it's a different type of, you know, he has personalized the White House, but it's all personalized around like, you know, him and his Nepo kids and whoever's in his inner circle making ungodly amounts of money and doing whatever hell they want, getting away with crimes left and right. I thought he could go in the direction of that style of personalized leadership where, like, he is in a position to sort of dole out these, you know, gifts to the public and look very magnanimous and like he cares so much about them and their lives. And obviously, that's not the path that he finished. Well, they haven't had that. You know, with the Iran war,

really from the beginning, a lot of it in terms of the way that they've governed just been so opposite. I mean, part of the reason I do think is Iran one was not just social media. I mean, look, I also think that these small things, not just, even just speaking very cynically, it's like, look, by the way, rent prices in New York has gone up in case anybody's noticing. But guess what? If you start doing all this World Cup, FIFA, organizing watch parties, some people will forgive you, right? They're not going to pay as close to attention. And I'm not saying it's just bread and circus. I think it does genuinely care.

But there is something to putting on at least an enjoyable circus. Right now, I wouldn't say that the Trump circus is all that enjoyable. And so when you- It's a circus. It's just a dark one. Right. So in this case, I mean, these are the types of things where you should be focused on everyday, you know, normal experiences. And, you know, in an absence, like, for example, Trump cares a lot about Washington, D.C. beautification.

Which, by the way, I actually think it's cool. like it's good to have a nice capital city with fountains and all of that. It gets zero public attention because of the Iran. By the way, rightfully, because the war is a lot more important. But that's kind of my point is that if you had a situation where, I don't know, let's say even the feds preempt something in Los Angeles. Yeah, we have the immigration race, but you also have the feds coming in and preempting maybe the Palisades fire is a good example. preempting, passing some sort of law, and being like every single thing is going to be rebuilt at cost. I mean, a lot of people would be like, listen, I don't like Trump, but hey, got my

house built. That's the type of stuff which people really remember. You could go, no tax on tips, was one initially, which people cared a lot about. However, unfortunately, with inflation, grocery price, et cetera, I don't think it's worked out to as much for their overall pocketbook. But these are the individual types of things. If I think, especially to a lot of the politicians, things that I respect. Some of them were really famous programs in U.S. history, the New Deal era, the CCC, work, the WPA, like those types of administrative projects.

It's not that people necessarily, it's not what the people were like, wow, these rest stops are great, although they are great, by the way. But, you know, it gave people a job. Everybody, you can read the books about how people for years, they would put pictures of FDR up in their house. You know, they would literally put them up next to pictures of Jesus Christ. This is a very religious population. You never really had that before in U.S. history.

That style of leadership, it really matters. This is a long way away from the Knicks. But, you know, it's kind of bringing up, I think, a lot of the ways that we've seen this administration go. And they had a lot of promise. They had a lot of ability. I really do think, as you said, there were so many signs from Carrier, especially in 2024, when I think back, you know, when you win households under 100,000 as a Republican, like, that's a huge event. He really could. And the feds can do a lot for a household making under 100,000 to make your life materially

better. We just haven't really moved in that direction, unfortunately. Yeah. Well, it relates to the block we just did on North Korea and the sort of, you know, Chinese approach to growth and development, which, you know, with all of these large construction projects really creates a visible manifestation of, like, the government's positive impact on your town and your life. and, you know, that was not just the jobs that were created by the WPA.

I mean, you and I both love the national parks that many of which go back to that time period and, you know, which don't get recreated anymore, which we're still enjoying and living off the fruits of. So in any case. Interesting look at dueling styles of leadership. We'll leave out there. There you go. Okay. Let's get to Sorsby.

Turning now to the NCAA, I think people who watch this show know that I absolutely hate sports gambling, what it's doing to the integrity of the sport, how it's massive. impoverishing an entire generation of young men here in America. And one of those people whose life it appeared to have been ruined was Brendan Soresby. Let's go and put this up here on the screen. Brandon Sorsby, some of you will recall, the quarterback for Texas Tech, had placed tens of thousands of dollars in wagers, some $90,000 on professional in college sports over a four-year period, including 40 bets involving Indiana football when he was a freshman with Indiana in 2002. Now, immediately everybody assumed Sorsby will never play again for Texas. In fact, it should ruin his career.

And instead, he actually appealed his case to a judge in Texas and has now been granted an injunction versus the NCAA after they ruled that he could no longer play. And he will be eligible to play in 2026 after serving a mere two game suspension. The reason why, Crystal, that this is unbelievably scandalous is it shows that there is now basically no punishment for violating the internal rules as long as some judge will allow you to do so. Now, I don't want to just focus here on the judge. I want to focus on the totality of how gambling is completely ruining this and how the amount of money that is sloshing around is violating the integrity of the sport. It is creating entire cottage industries and black money of NIL and sketchy deals. It is basically created this entire system in which you really cannot

trust almost anything that is really going on. Because if you compare this to the way that previous regulations were there, for example, let's put E2 up here on the screen. Here was an Ohio, an Iowa wrestler Nelson Brands, he actually reacted very negatively in response to this, who was, had a suspension actually for betting. He had announced that he could come back in 2024 after he was suspended actually for placing bets. Penalties from resulting the state investigative into sports wagering the spring of 2023. He never even faced criminal charges, but was suspended for the NCAA for wagering on Iowa's football team.

So he wasn't even wagering on the team that he was in, but he was still suspended. Yet in this case, you have a person, a quarterback, who was literally gambling on the very games of a team which he was a part of and now facing a two-game suspension. Just to give you an example of how it's saying this is, let's put E3 up here on the screen. This is instances of active players that were caught betting on their own team.

You have Pete Rose and the MLB, banned for life. Eight White Sox players, banned for life. John T. Katie Porter, Ban for life. I'm not going to try and pronounce this baseball player. Ban for life. Brendan Storesby now, college football, suspended for two games. I'm not going to confess, I'm not some big NCAA college football guy. But when I watch zero consequences like this happen,

and a legal system and a school which wants to defend him, which wants to allow him to play, and no architecture of rules, what? is the logical conclusion that all of these now multi-millionaire college athletes can draw whenever they look at a case that is happening like this? It's that there are no rules. You can violate them. You're getting paid big money. You can do what you want. You can even gamble on your own games. The one last taboo. And I blame all of the leagues, the NCAA, all of these other people for getting into bed with these gambling companies, specifically for normalizing this in our society. The only thing that's shocking to me is how quickly that we start to see things like this happen.

Legalized sports gambling. Boy, it's not even a decade old at this point. And we're already nearing worst case scenarios. So let me ask you a couple questions about those because I don't know anything about it except, you know, the couple of articles I read in preparation for this. So he claims that he has genuine gambling addiction and, in fact, went to rehab for that gambling addiction. I mean, I presume you think that gambling addiction is a real thing. I certainly do. I've seen people absolutely ruin their lives as he appears to have attempted to do over that.

Do you think that there should be some consideration made for people who have a genuine addiction that they're struggling with? Because it does seem plausible to me, given the fact, again, the number of bets that he placed and the profoundly, I mean, he genuinely has come very close to ruining his entire life over this gambling scandal. you know, do you think there should be some consideration made for people who genuinely have a problem? Well, the thing was is, as I, again, as I'm not a total expert, but as I understand it, he still was being allowed to declare, I think, for the NFL supplemental draft. So it's not like his entire, you know, ability to play was over. It was specifically here in the NCAA, but rules are rules. And while, yes, I believe that gambling addiction is real and that people should have recourse and the ability to seek treatment. In fact, I encourage it for anybody who's watching this show.

and if you have a problem, that's what you need and you should do. But there needs to be consequences and integrity for the sport, especially with a long-held tradition of any violation will result in a genuine ban from being able to play. And I think, by the way, it's not just me. It's really a lot of the other people who are even involved. So I'm not sure if we have this story, for example, but we've had multiple actually instances of other athletic directors

who are apparently considering not even playing Texas Tech or scheduling games against them because they see how what kind of precedent and problem that this is going to set. Not only Texas Tech allowing this play, but also actually creating a situation where they're going to normalize this throughout all of college athletics. I also want to highlight E6 now, for example, and that's really why I wanted to do the segment, is this is one of the few times that I would be on the NCAA side, who obviously look, they've conducted themselves ridiculously. Even I as a casual fan am aware of this. But what they show is they're trying to leverage this situation into congressional action. As they say, the NCAA strongly disagrees with the

courts ruling in the Sorsby case and is deeply concerned about the damaging, far-reaching, and broadly destabilizing ramifications of this outcome, which undermines and corrupts the integrity of sport. The NCAA is committed to supporting student athlete mental health, but must continue to aggressively defend against actions that defraud college athletics and threaten competitive integrity, such as betting on one's own sport. And they're using it, or at least trying to, pushed for some sort of regulatory, you know, mechanism, which would stop so much of the genuine chaos where we have people and students and coaches being paid and leaving midseason and nobody has any idea what their team is going to look like and the tens and hundreds of

millions of dollars of money that are moving through all of these bank accounts. And the reason why I highlight about corruption and craziness is like the level of insanity that we're getting at is let's put E5, for example, here on the screen. You now have states which are now trying to pass laws, which would exempt income tax for NIL earnings for their top college athletes. This is a proposal by multiple different states simply to remain more competitive in drawing these top college athletes. We're already the coaches and the players now are drawing insane salaries. The coaches always have, but now the players themselves also earning. I have no problem with college students earning money, but what you are watching is basically a total free-for-all in the system, which, again, I'm from a college sports town.

Like, this is a religion, and it has thrown it into such chaos that there is no governing authority body, no set of rules, no even real standards that is outside. And then you have judges in some of these cases apparently, you know, looking at the area, a lot of Texas tech fans who are ruling on behalf of their own sports team. setting a really horrible precedent, I think. Oh, that's an interesting point that the judge may be self-interested here. And many of the judges in the appeal are all Texas Tech graduates, just for the record. That NBC sports piece that you had up earlier that was talking about congressional action, the author of that piece actually makes an interesting case of, you know, the real answer here may not be in like congressional, regulation, although that may be required as well.

But if you had the players in a union where you had a negotiation between the union, and between the NCAA to establish these rules, establish an arbitration, process, you know, establish even rules regarding how payments work to these athletes, then you would have a much more established system with buy-in from both sides versus, you know, the way the NCAA operates right now, and, you know, it's changed somewhat, but I was an NCAA athlete at one point,

is they come up with their own rules just from on high. And because they're a monopoly, like, you have no other option. If you're going to be a college athlete, you're going to be under the NCAA. You default must subscribe to the rules that they lay down. You have no power in that situation. And so it does seem like a better approach

would be for the players to be unionized. So, you know, as you do in other professional sports leagues so that there is a negotiation, there is a buy-in process. You have representatives for the players. You have representatives for management and, you know, for the league itself that come to decisions.

and have an arbitration process to figure these things out. That seems to me like a better situation than what exists currently. You're totally right. I also want to put up this post from Van Lathen, who apparently is a fan of the show, and he had some good analysis. I'm going to read some of it here. The judge set a very interesting precedent here in the Sorsby case. Part of Soresby's argument was that the NCAA's hard and fast no gambling rules are BS

because of the close ties between college sports and gambling companies. The judge bought that, at least in part, which softens the argument for strict penalties for gambling on games, even games your team is playing in, as long as the NCAA maintains any type of relationship, even through broadcast partners with gambling. Essentially, the judge has said the NCAA can't really tell you to get not to gamble anymore because they are also making so much money off of it tangentially via these broadcast rights, which are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

That's not the entirety of the judge's reasoning as he says. This is just an injunction, but that certainly is an interesting development. Now, he's right. Obviously, this can go to appeal, but I think his point is. so, so important. And that's why yesterday I was criticizing a lot of these sports podcasters who will, you know, come out and be like, oh, this is ruining the integrity of the game and literally in the middle of it. And they'll be like, by the way, use my promo code, you know, idiot to bet $5 and win potential 200. And they were like, well, we don't play in the games.

I'm like, yes, but you have created this entire ecosystem where gambling itself underwrites. Why so many people watch the games, so many people are betting on the games, massively impoverishing. It funds everything. how do you think Brendan Soresby even found out about sports gambling? You think he really would have had the ability to place these types of wagers when sports gambling was not legal? No, we all know this, these crazy-ass parlays and other things literally didn't exist. Would he be found a bookie? Maybe to bet the spread. Possible. But this level of insanity, $90,000 and the number of bets he was making, it simply is impossible. And that was normalized, created, and is propped up by a lot of these same

sports podcasters, the broadcasters, you have ESPN analysts who are out there talking about how bad it is. Meanwhile, they're still shilling and show the live odds down in their kairons. I mean, this is exactly why you have to fight so hard against a normalization and this creation of these types of standards when not even a decade ago, they would have testified before Congress and said that betting itself would be ruinous to the integrity of the sport. And now they're literally in league with them. So I apologize if I got any specific details on college football wrong. Like, I'm not a big college football person, but I do know many people in my life who are, and all of them, including many of the athletic directors, as I'm reading and others, are out here saying what a disaster this type of decision is and what the precedent of this will set,

just to show the absolute, like, jungle mentality of all of this with literally billions of dollars that are moving around. It's only a matter of time before something even worse happens like this, like that FBI case, we saw it with the NBA, there's going to be so many more in the future. And there's no reason for it. We just, we didn't have to be here. There was no reason to be here. Well, and to deep personalize it from the specifics of source, because I don't think, accused of, like, fixing games or point shaving or anything like that. But if you just told people like, okay, we're going to have the system where you can bet on, you know, little tiny things that happen. And how many points, whether a player gets injured, whether they sit down at the game, you know, all these, like, tiny little, and all of these insane parlayes.

There's going to be tons of money at stake. Everyone's going to be in on it from, you know, the leagues and the, the journalist and, you know, all the big players are going to be in on it and making tons of cash. You're going to have players, some of whom come from not a lot of money, who are going to be, you know, have people throwing money at them to, oh, just like, play a little bit, not quite as hard in the second quarter. You don't have to change the whole result of the game, but just do a little bit less than

you would have done. get a few, like, get fewer rebounds in this, you know, particular moment. Are you going to have players who are going to do that? Yes, of course you are. And so that's where that doesn't excuse it. Like those players are still responsible for their own actions, just as Sorsby is responsible for his actions in this instance. But is that going to be a surprise to anyone that that is what this system generates and creates?

Of course not. So obviously it's going to undermine the integrity of this. the game. Yep, absolutely right. All right. We got Chris Rab standing by. Let's get to it. So to discuss the future of the Democratic Party this morning, we are very fortunate to be joined by Pennsylvania State Representative Chris Rab. He is the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania's third congressional district. Welcome, sir, and congratulations. Thank you so much. Yeah, of course. We followed your election with interest. You had a lot of powerful forces going against you, a lot of interesting things that happened there. What do you

you think is the message that you're pretty clear-cut, fairly overwhelming victory in this primary sense to the party? Yeah, it was a stunning defeat of entrenched politics here in Philadelphia in the bluest congressional district in the entire nation where we had not had an open seat, no incumbent on the ballot, first time in 35 years, against a political class that was united against this progressive. And it was a 15-point win. And I think it's a resounding affirmation that organized people beat organized money every time.

And you seem to be taking a very, I don't know that it's a novel approach, but you've gone out of your way to go and campaign for other candidates, both incumbents who you support, like Summer Lee, who you're likely to serve with in Congress, others who, you know, are challenging incumbents and are running sort of upstart campaigns across the country. Why has that been important to you?

What role do you feel like you are serving and that you want to serve? Well, to be clear, I'm a movement candidate. And that means the movement has allowed me to have a collective victory. And that means that whatever political capital, whatever momentum I have, as the presumptive next member of Congress

for the city of Philadelphia, means I've got to pay it forward. And it's also in my best interest. I want to come in with this largest, boldest, progressive class of members in U.S. history. So the only way you can do that is by showing up for others who are viable, substantive candidates. And I'm really excited about our not just taking back the House.

I mean, there's a big difference between having a Democratic majority and having a party that knows how to lead in the belly of the beast. and in the most adverse times in modern history. Those are two different things on the Venn diagram of national politics. So I want to make sure that we have a critical subset of Democrats who are going to vote in furtherance of shared prosperity and fighting fascism and taxing the ultra-wealthy and having structural changes that the base is demanding,

but corporate Democrats refuse to, acknowledge or commit to. You were critical of Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, which became a campaign issue, actually, for you. One of your opponents had some pretty interesting things to say about that. But I'm just curious, since you have won the Democratic nomination, just so people know, Pennsylvania's third congressional district, is one of the most Democratic in the entire country, so very much expected that you will be sworn in with the next class of members of

Congress. How has the party responded to your victory? Have you had any outreach from, you know, the sort of establishment leaders of the Democratic Party? Oh, absolutely. They've all reached out to me quickly. And I appreciate that outreach. We got to build relationships. We got to figure out how we can work together. But I would push back a little bit. I would say I was critical of Hakeem Jeffries, per se, but it's just when someone tries to, you know, say, will you support him? And my answer is, what is any candidate for majority leader, for Speaker of the House, how are they, how is their leadership going to resonate with how I got elected to office?

And who else is running? I don't know who's running. So, you know, I think that's important. It's not about the individual. It's about who seeks that position to what end. And that has to be aligned with the electorate and the constituents I seek. to represent on January 3rd. But I also know that it's a body of 435.

You need 218 votes to get anything done. And we have to figure out what we can agree on and the things we can't agree on how those of us who are left of the party to move the party forward. And those are things that have to happen simultaneously. So you say you're not a no on Hakeem Jeffries' potential speaker, but you're a, we'll see.

Yeah, I mean, I need to know who's running, right? I mean, the reality is he could be the only one on the ballot, right? So it's a non-issue there. But that's not, to me, that is not as important as how we hold whomever is running and whoever wins to account. And that's not based on my personal preferences or it's based on how I got elected. If those leaders work for the members, the members put them in those positions of power, how do we hold them to account? And how do they express their willingness to do the things that a larger subset of Democrats in Congress want?

And, you know, that is going to be back and forth. You know, we also have to understand, too, that for the folks we may not prefer in leadership or in office at all, but who are going to be there, serving in whatever capacity, for those of us who are there with them, our responsibility between election cycles is holding our own colleagues to account and moving them towards the moral center, not the political center.

And that is something that people should want their newly elected incumbents to do because, listen, we have a clear villain here. You know, it's Trump, it's mag extremism, it's fascism, It's late stage capitalism. It's any number of things. But we can't make our colleagues the enemy. They may be not on the same page with us, but it's our responsibility to make them do better.

And we have seen some progress when we have, not myself quite yet, but others in Congress get some of their colleagues to stop taking APAC money. That's a win. And we need to respect that. And we also need to understand that that comes with certain. risk for the people who have been funded by folks we don't believe they should be funded by, which also means we need to support them if they're truly understanding of why that dynamic is so problematic. I wanted to get you to weigh in on what's going on right now with Graham Platner up in

Maine because I do think it has some important fissures here in terms of the direction of the Democratic Party. You know, his ideological program and yours is not exactly the same, but you're more or less in the same lane and have, you know, similar views of the world. And certainly, you know, I've been and clear-cut, clear-throated opponents of genocide of APAC funding and the influence of the Israel lobby. He has faced a number of allegations, some of which he has acknowledged that he had a very rough go of it after serving in the military, that he had a drinking problem, he has PTSD, that he engaged in toxic behavior and relationships, other aspects of which he's completely denied. There was an allegation from a Republican political operative that he had grabbed her by the

shoulders forcefully, that he had yanked her by the hand out of a cab, that he had put her arm behind her back and pushed her inside of a room. Again, she says this occurred. He denies it, and the New York Times was unable to confirm it. I wonder what you make of the allegations and also what has been seen as extreme scrutiny into his life that doesn't seem to be matched with a level of scrutiny into others who do not challenge the oligarchy and do not challenge you know, APAC and the status quo on Israel as aggressively as he does. Yeah, you know, this is a, this is challenging for me because I've felt that folks who have been identified as hard, scrabbled, populist, left of center, white guys

And when I feel John Fetterman vibes, I get very, very nervous. I don't know, Graham Platner. I've not followed his race closely. I've had, you know, a grueling 10-month campaign I'm just coming out of. So now I'm really seeing what's on the landscape of opportunity in the House and the Senate. But I do think we need to hold space for folks with genuine grievances, and we need to have a process for those folks who are expressing legitimate concerns about the behaviors and choices of candidates, but to do so in a way that is in the spirit of restorative justice, as opposed to, the spirit of the politics of personal destruction.

And I think that is something that is really, really necessary. Because what we don't want to do is to silence or erase the voices of people who have felt real harm, particularly women. But we also have to make sure that we do not feel that there's a class of candidate that has to be perfect. There are no perfect candidates, and we also have to make sure that those candidates acknowledge their faults. Everyone has them and how we work through them. So if he said, I have a, you know, I understand when someone says, I made a bad choice as a young man, and I was struggling with addiction and that sort of thing. We need to hold space for that.

But you also may have intervening years or decades where you did not do any further introspection about what you've done so that you can feel a sense of atonement that other people can value as legitimate long before you ever considered public office. We can hold those two truths at the same time. So you don't believe he's done sufficient atonement to have sought public office? I don't know.

I don't know. But I think that is something that needs to be addressed before November 3rd. Absolutely. Isn't that up to the voters to decide? Well, it's not just voters who do. decide who's a viable candidate. Viability is also based on how much money you raise, what your platform is, how you come

into, are you a movement candidate, or are you a candidate who says the right things in the right political moment to be aligned with a movement that shows considerable political power? I don't know. I have not watched his candidacy that closely to answer those questions, but those are conversations that need to happen within community and not all. on social media. So he, just to be clear, he was a movement organizer in Maine, which is how he came to the attention of people to encourage him to run for office.

The primary is today in Maine. His, you know, opponent, Maine opponent was the former governor or current governor, sorry, Janet Mills, who has suspended her campaign. You know, she is not particularly ideologically aligned with you. You know, she's much more supportive of our status quo with regard to Israel. She has, you know, done things like veto tax hikes on the rich in the state of Maine. She's had an adversarial relationship with labor unions. You know, if you were looking at this race, like, do you think that voters would be better off choosing her

because she's had fewer personal controversies than Graham Platner? No, but it's a matter of how we hold the people who we would prefer an office. to account. I think that's the issue, right? Because sometimes we vote for people. Well, sometimes we vote for people, right? And sometimes we vote for the person who we have a better chance of holding to account and making sure that the candidate functions similarly once in office, right?

Because you can, it's very easy, particularly in these moments, to campaign as a progressive. It's radically harder to govern as a progressive. And I speak as someone who is currently in legislative session here in Pennsylvania and Harrisburg in the largest full-time state legislature in the country. It is very hard to govern as a progressive. And so how we hold anyone to account, myself included, is by making sure that they fulfill their promises that they made in the campaign, on the campaign trail, and making sure that they will sit down in earnest with people who have genuine concerns and priorities

that may not be fully aligned by the time someone wins their primary. One more on this, because you mentioned you got John Fetterman vibes from Graham Platner. I want to explore that a little bit more. So John Fetterman and Graham Platner have actually been going back and forth with each other. John Fetterman's been attacking him. Graham Platner has been responding, I think, called John Fetterman and Asshole. Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of how John Fetterman went after Graham Platner. For me, as a Democrat, I'm never going to carry water for a guy that calls, you know, an American hero, a dumb MFer or someone that, you know, smears Chris Kyle, you know, the American sniper and claim that he's he's shooting innocent civilians.

I mean, you've literally lost count. And he also called rural Americans as racist and stupid. It's countless. It absolutely is. This is a guy that had a problem with me, how I dress. But he seemed to have no problem posing in a towel at a disgusting website that consistently had serious problems about that kinds of depravity. So I wonder if you could respond there to John Fetterman. But also, I am curious for you to elaborate when you say that plastic.

you're getting John Fetterman vibes from him. What is it specifically that you're responding to there? No, I wasn't specifically referring to Graham Platner regarding John Fetterman vibes. But here in Pennsylvania, I get that when people say, oh, I like what you're saying, you know, you seem to be right on all the issues, but how do I know you're not going to be the next John Fetterman? So that actually applies to me as well.

When people are very traumatized in Pennsylvania and beyond, when they think that they're electing a progressive populist and they get something very different. I don't know Graham Platner enough to weigh in on that specifically, but I can tell you that, you know, I don't know how many black folk you're polling or talking to, but all I can say is we need to have more conversations about what accountability looks like

for folks who are running to the left and making sure that we understand the intersexual nature of progressivism and ensure that folks, racial politics are aligned with the populist politics that are trending so so well these days. That's all. Yeah. I think that's well understood. So last question for you, representative, is when slash if, but looking like when you get

to Washington, what will be some of your first priorities you would like to work on there? How will you operate in a way that you think is different from how a lot of other members operate? Sure. Well, just to be clear, I'm not an optimist by nature, but there's no Republican on the ballot, and they're more raccoons than Republicans in my district. So I think it's safe to say that I'll be in Congress on January 3rd. So we have to dethrumpify Washington, D.C. All the choices, appointments, cuts, all of the structural fissures and such, we need to do what we can to restore or prepare for their restaurant.

And we also need to build a bold vision in a post-Trump world. And, you know, frankly, that may happen long before two years. What does that look like? So he's been a wonderful villain. But, you know, people are struggling. They need to know what Democrats envision for a society with people closest to the pain struggling like never before and making sure that we are clear with that message and consistent.

and make sure that we hit all of those people, particularly folks who, generally speaking, the Democratic Party counts out and disregards, who really should be centered. The people closest to the pain, young people, poor people, black folk, I'm going to keep bringing up black folk. If we do not take care of black women, we will lose, and we do not deserve to lead if we do not understand the primacy of black women.

When we help black women, we help everybody. future congressman Chris Robb. Thank you so much for joining us and taking the time. I appreciate it. My pleasure. Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. Ryan and Emily tomorrow.

They'll see you then. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.

Thank you.