Hour 1: The Game Pablo Torre Loves (feat. The Riddler of Sports Journalism)

Folks, I'm getting hungry, and you know my favorite part of any meal snack or game day

app?

That's right.

The goat, or should I say the greatest of all time, Frank's Red Hot, it's got the

perfect blend of flavor and heat that elevates all foods from wings to buffalo chicken dip

to even ice cream.

That's right.

I said ice cream.

And with a roster of flavors, from OG to sweet chili, you can put that **** on everything.

So make every dish the greatest and eat the goat.

America leads the world in medicine development.

It matters.

We get new medicines first, nearly three years faster.

Five million Americans go to work because we make medicines here at home, and not relying

on other countries keeps us safe.

But China is racing to overtake us.

Will we let them or will we choose to stay ahead?

When America leads, America cures.

Just a Washington to keep us in the lead.

Learn how at AmericaCures.com.

Pay for by Farma.

What if you could have the most reliable Wi-Fi at the same price for five years?

That's the Xfinity Five-Year Price Guarantee.

No annual contracts, no hidden fees, and our best equipment included.

Plus get online in minutes with same day Wi-Fi.

Just five years of fiber-powered Wi-Fi that boosts speeds to the devices that need them

most.

Lock in your price and unlock the possibilities.

Xfinity.

Imagine that.

Select plans-only restrictions apply powered by fiber connected to the premises by coaxial

cable.

Actual speeds vary.

This is the down-level tour show with the STUGATS podcast.

Pablo Torre is getting ready right now, and I don't know if you guys saw what it is that

Pablo did at the Sloan Conference.

Pablo!

Uh, but Mike, as Pablo gets ready to join us here, do you want to file any of

your objections?

And I will tell the people, first of all, if you didn't see what he did at the Sloan Conference,

he, I guess, taped.

I don't know whether he did it personally or someone else did, but the latest smoking

gun, the biggest of the smoking guns that there has been in the nine-part Kauai investigation

was taped to the chair in which Adam Silver was sitting so that the smoking gun was literally

under the commissioner's nose as he sat on a panel giving a conference.

And Mike Ryan somehow found a way to criticize Pablo for this.

Yeah.

The internet and myself are all wondering why is Pablo trying to be the riddler?

Yes, it was an impressive, uh, look, drawn out, overly dramatic, self-involved.

These things go hand in hand.

That should be the name of the podcast instead of Pablo Torre finds out.

All right.

So, like, there's a, like, it ends on this cliffhanger, even though he was promising, like,

this knockout punch.

I'm like, did I see the knockout punch or there are two more bits of evidence out there?

Also I asked, I mean, what was in the two other envelopes that were under two randomly

selected chairs because Pablo, on top of being the riddler, was also Oprah during this

thing.

And it means like, I don't even know what's in those envelopes where we trying to start

a huge, uh, who'd done it?

Is this a caper?

Are we, I, the search functionality on X is terrible.

So I can't actually find these other wayward envelopes.

It was naval gazing.

It was Pablo, it was quintessential Pablo Torre in that there was really good journalism

being done, but it was also very overly dramatic.

Pablo, what say you?

Let's see if we get his sound up here in a second.

Pablo does not appear to be ready for your what say you, uh, because he took those insults

all of them right on the chin.

He was smiling during many of them.

He shouldn't have been.

He should be indignant because he's doing very difficult work and he's doing it theatrically

because he can't help himself.

And two questions.

Has anyone called him Pablo, yet?

And Dan, do you ever get worried about potentially crossing Pablo as his boss here?

Because he seems to be a vindictive sociopath.

Good question.

Well, it is dramatic and I don't know what was under the other seats.

I was a little confused by that.

I think he was giving those people also the documented proof.

Mike, you're underwhelmed by what is really difficult to do journalism and you keep saying

give me more of a smoking gun.

When every time he does a report, it is more of a smoking gun and this is the most smoking

a gun has been around this where he's got the documentation of a whistleblower telling

the government.

There's paperwork saying, look, this is all allegedly a, uh, contrivance meant to just

pay Kawaii Leonard where no one's looking.

No, it was the lead and the whistleblower complaint.

That was, that was the nuts.

That was the big revelation that in this whistleblower complaint, uh, to the federal government,

the lead was they're trying to circumvent the MBA salary cap with Kawaii's endorsement

deal.

I'm not the person saying give me more of a smoking gun.

Pablo Torrey is.

He said there's two more smoking gun, uh, guns underneath two more random chairs and he

ended his live podcast on a cliffhanger and the broadcast cut out and it pissed me off.

Yeah, he's doing this in dribs and drabs and he's doing this because he's got it in months

in advance and he's way ahead of this story.

So Pablo, defend yourself.

Hi, guys.

Can you hear me now?

Yes?

Good.

Yes.

Um, I appreciate, I appreciate, uh, the insult and the conversation is always part of,

part of what I want to do is always, and this is the, the curse of me is draw attention

to what we're doing, um, because I, I unfortunately think right this phase where I thought we were

going to be done after episode two and we're not, you know, the MBA investigation is ongoing.

The MBA investigation has been a focus of what we did at Sloan on Friday live, which

is to say I talked to five former aspiration employees who all told me that they were not

asked by Wachtel Lipton, the MBA's preferred outside investigation firm.

They were not asked directly about Steve Balmer by name, right?

And so I am not just like dumping all of this as fast as I can because, um, you know,

I'm trying to, I'm trying to be first on everything.

I, I'm, I'm trying to make sure I get it right and I'm only dropping stuff when there

is reason to say, oh, maybe it's actually worth considering that attention must be drawn

to a story that I think the MBA is actively trying to minimize.

And so that's, that's part of why we, we, we operate it.

Part of why me and David had no idea what they were getting in for.

It's why we did at a conference where Adam Silver was on those very chairs hours earlier

before, of course, going to meet Donald Trump at the White House in ways that I could not

possibly script.

What was under the other two chairs, uh, for those who don't know Sloan conference is

the Dorka Blues, uh, a lot of, a lot of the smartest people in sports get together and,

uh, you know, they congratulate each other for an assortment of things and, uh, under

the chair of Adam Silver was a smoking gun.

What was under the two other chairs in the audience that you placed in?

What were the seats?

Because you are trying to be the riddler.

There's no dispute on that.

Well, Mike said they were random chairs.

It was Rose Kaye and Roselle, uh, seat number two, you know, though.

But what was there?

So he's even more like the riddler.

Yeah, but what was there?

I don't want to solve this.

It is.

I get it.

I get it.

Unfortunately, unfortunately, that is for the people sitting in those chairs to reveal.

It's there.

They have those documents.

Get them to action.

Get them to action.

Get them to action.

Get them to action.

Get them to action.

I'm not, I'm not, I'm not here to, to, to step on further reporting.

Just know that the reporting continues.

The whistleblower complaint was many pages long.

You've done nine of these.

There's lots more to find out.

Yeah.

That was the ninth one.

Mike, I'm a surprise.

I'm a surprise is anybody that we're going to have a tenth, right?

I'm genuinely as surprised as anybody.

Um, it's, it's, it's something though in the whistleblower complaint that I don't

want to just speed past as we get to whatever sequels here.

Because I just want to clarify, this is the document that started the actual federal

investigation into aspiration.

So the co-founder of aspiration, Joe Sandberg was prosecuted.

He pled guilty to wire fraud, his co-conspirator, Ebrahim Al Husaini, who was a board member of

aspiration, prosecuted, pled guilty to wire fraud.

Those things happened because of the road map laid out in this document, which you've

been rumored for a very long time in type of aspiration.

But no one had ever seen before because a whistleblower complaint is confidential.

And one of the things that has happened that has enabled the reporting and by the way,

this is why like when I say I have to get it right, I really do wait for the actual document.

Like it's not, the evidence is now undeniable in terms of did these federal whistleblowers

under penalty of perjury put into writing in March of 2023, years before I ever even

published part one, did they say the thing that people have since accused me of grafting

and grifting onto a story and retrospect?

Oh, this, why would they ever be talking about caps or convention?

This is a larger criminal enterprise.

What does it matter that anyone cared about the salary cap?

Well, this is part nine, parts one through way, it explained that.

And here is kind of the keystone in case anybody still had remaining doubt.

And you can see it on screen.

It says, even to pay Clippers forward, Kawaii Leonard, an incentivized bonus to circumvent

the MBA salary cap disguised as an organic marketing sponsorship agreement.

By the way, we've provided contract of that agreement.

We provided bank statements of money in and money out.

We now have a whistleblower complaint under perjury from two aspiration employees.

And the only way, by the way, this comes together is because in sort of like poetic symmetry

with Adam Dilver going to the White House, this administration has effectively turned

over multiple federal agencies that have been investigating the story, the Department of

Justice, the SEC, the CFTC, the three agencies that these whistleblowers reported to, those

are all shells of themselves.

And so my ability to report the story, it is like panoramic at this point.

You know, it's like I'm going to every possible place and that's the only way you can get

to the bottom of a story like this and the question is, who else is doing that?

One of the things that I see happening and I just think that it really shows great ignorance

about, and I will keep saying this, the degree of difficulty on getting documentation that

is vetted that makes for proof.

A lot of people are saying wake me up when there is something that's an update as the

updates are incremental.

They are updates.

And Bruce Arthur, the Canadian columnist, is saying, quote, Pablo delivers again, there

is simply no other plausible scenario other than capture convention in the Kauai case.

Why do you believe that what's happened so far represents the greatest proof of any

kind that you have as it relates to a smoking gun?

And how can you possibly say there's a lot more to find out here?

So I want to credit Bruce Arthur because Bruce, of course, like offers the Raptors in

Toronto, he had heard and has reported since what Dennis Roberts in Kauai's unlicensed

representative, his uncle, I've been requesting of the Raptors.

And he had been requesting per Bruce's reporting a no-show job and equity in a company that

he didn't have to do any work for.

And that is the story, incidentally, of aspirations.

So these requests were made.

The question is how were they delivered and here we have nine parts showing that.

So credit to Bruce for truly like reporting out that aspect of the story.

To me, there are three indisputable examples of why this is capture convention.

The first one was in the first episode.

It was that no one ever announced this deal.

Why would an endorsement deal be secret?

Like I've been waiting for any, I had Mark Cuban in the studio at length, like asking,

why would this ever remain confidential, an endorsement agreement with Kauai Leonard

in which not only did he do nothing, you never announced it.

Why would that never be announced?

Why would that be?

When you say do nothing, the alleged no-show job that he was paid for that required him

to do nothing.

He was, he was signed to a $28 million contract and endorsement agreement that he did

nothing for.

In fact, the greatest example is that they never even announced that the endorsement contract

existed, even as Kauai was getting paid, to never talk about it.

Why would the clippers and Kauai and aspiration all agree none of us should not only, we should

never say anything about this, we should deny it in the future.

Like what other reason other than this needed to be a secret deal to violate the MBA salary

account?

What other reason would there be?

Is this the logical, like, documentation and evidence around that part?

The second thing is the fact that Dennis Wong, the clippers co-owner, the bomber has one

co-owner of the clippers.

It's rare, Dad.

A 99 to one ownership group.

Two people.

One guy was 99, one guy was 1%.

Dennis Wong went to Harvard with Steve Balmer.

He is his close friend.

He is the vice chairman of the clippers.

He, as you've reported exhaustively, when aspiration was in default, Dennis Wong had never

put money in before, and he decides in December of 2022, I'm going to invest $2 million into

a broke company that I know via the disclosure form on the contract, which we also published.

We know that they are under investigation by the SEC.

We know that they have no money.

They're broke.

I'm going to invest as if they're a normal company.

And then, nine days later, Kauai Leonard will be paid $1.75 million as quarterly payment

to do nothing after months of not getting paid that sum, because aspiration had burned

through all of their money, right?

Why would they do that?

Why would they pay Kauai when they had no other money to pay anything?

Why would they pay the guy that is a secret endorser who does nothing nine days after

the co-owner of the clippers, but in money for the first time, the only outside investor

to give money to aspiration, right?

No one's ever explained any other plausible money in, money out explanation for that.

That's the second thing.

And the third thing, we're just talking about what feels the most indisputable, the rankings

here, the third thing is this complaint, the whistleblower complaint under penalty of

perjury to the federal government in 2023.

One of the questions has always been, why is it that you have all these anonymous sources

even on tape, voice modulated, right?

It's very easy to say, in retrospect, they were circumventing the cap because maybe

you were convinced by episode one, maybe you were just, you know, connecting dots on

your own.

This complaint shows in writing under federal penalty that can be prosecuted if you

knowingly lie that people said this long before I ever heard of the company.

And so I'm okay with the demand for a smoking gun.

All I ask of anybody who takes that side of the argument is to provide one alternative

explanation to Bruce Arthur's point that it's something else.

Tell me what you think explains this and no one has ever plausibly done that.

Listeners, you know this about me.

I am the only person in the shipping container who actually tries every day when it comes

to my style.

I genuinely care about clothes, I care about my wardrobe, and I finally hit the age

where I realize something, which is that you don't need more clothes, you just need better

ones.

Only built wardrobe comes down to pieces that mix well and last.

That's where Quince shines.

With their premium fabrics considered design, everyday essentials that feel effortless

season to season.

I'm telling you this because actively, as I speak to you right now, I am currently

wearing one of my favorite Quince pieces, which is my Mongolian Kashmir hoodie.

And I'm talking to you about their lightweight Kashmir sweaters, their short sleeve Mongolian

Kashmir polos, linen shorts and teas and 100% Pima cotton.

These are the pieces that actually make your wardrobe work.

Right now, go to quince.com slash dan for free shipping and 365 day returns.

That's a full year to build your wardrobe and love it.

And you will.

Now available in Canada too.

Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last.

Go to q-u-i-n-c-e.com slash dan for free shipping and 365 day returns.

Quince.com slash dan.

Folks, listen up, quick break in the action.

Are you counting down the days until payday?

Instacash from MoneyLine can help you access up to $500 of your hard-earned pay early.

There's no interest, no credit check and no monthly fees, so you can manage those in-between

expenses with less stress.

Download the MoneyLine app and link your qualifying bank account to see what you qualify for.

MoneyLine.

Make Money Easy.

Instacash is subject to terms and eligibility requirements expedited to deliver requires

a turbo fee.

Quick break to tell you about a special miller time I had with my good buddy Mochetta.

Mochetta texted me the other day, he said, hey, what are you doing for the game?

I said, I'm just on my couch right now, doing nothing, enjoying it.

He's like, hey, do you want some company?

I said, from you, Mochetta?

Absolutely.

Mochetta comes over to the house and I pull out the Miller Lite.

Miller Lite made that casual hang a memorable good miller time with my good friend Mochetta.

As Miller Lite brought us together, we took that first sip after we toasted our beers and

we knew we made the right call.

We watched a game, all of a sudden we're standing up on our feet, big threes are being

drained and white cans are being clanged.

See times like these?

That's exactly why Miller Lite is my go-to, clean, refreshing, easy to drink, brute for

taste with simple ingredients.

The original Lite beer since 1975 and it still hits different for yours truly and is good

friend Mochetta.

Cheers to legendary moments made with Miller Lite, great taste 96 calories.

Put a Miller Lite.com slash stand 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 will walk you Wisconsin 96

calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

Don Lebertard!

Pablo leads all of podcasting in reading while smiling.

If you listen ESPN daily, he sounds like he's having the time of his life.

Still gots.

Coming up next.

I'm going to tell you, this is better bananas, a change of taste.

How do you know I'm smiling?

How do you know I'm smiling?

That's how I find my vocal range.

Sometimes I just say Savannah bananas.

Savannah bananas.

This is the Don Lebertard show with this two gods.

These documents are really difficult to get a hold of unless you're randomly seated

in Rose K and L at the Sloan Conference and then it's just in your possession.

Pablo, did you embargo this because you ended the episode on a cliffhanger and I just assumed

well since two randos have these documents, I'll just check social media and this will

be posted there.

But I haven't heard what's in these envelopes at all.

Are they in your employ?

How have you kept this buttoned up?

Well, you know, I'm a careful person.

I'm a careful guy.

Why even do that?

I don't think you need anything else.

I genuinely think that after part one, and let's say part two, right?

The first two things in this power rank is the three things that are most undeniable.

That was accomplished in the first two episodes.

Everything else has been further roof reporting, sourcing, dissection, counterargument, pressure

testing, all that stuff, you know, for seven months.

And so if anybody wants more, there is more.

But frankly, I don't think I need to say what else is out there.

But I guess I'll get to it at some point though.

Two questions, Pablo.

One, did you run into Adam Silver at all at the conference?

And two, have you heard it all from Mark Cuban lately?

You know, Mark has disappeared.

Mark has summarily disappeared.

It's interesting that like the episode he did with Dan, when I brought Dan in for one

of the aspiration episodes, it was about the carbon credit stuff.

And we retraced that in this episode, part nine on Friday at Sloan.

Dan was the first person to experience that.

And I bring that up because the reason I booked Dan for that episode was because I wanted

to get Mark Cuban and I had to settle for another Cuban.

And Mark was the person who first theorized if we were going to do, it's true.

It's true.

And the question that Mark Cuban theorized was if you're going to do capture convention,

you do it through carbon credits.

And so I'm not going to redo all of the Friday episode here, although I've basically

started to, it's, yes, great point.

And we show that that is also what happened here.

And so Mark Cuban has disappeared, which is I think telling as to your point.

Adam went almost immediately from that stage to I presume this is just my connecting

of the dots I get to wash in DC in time for a four o'clock meeting with the president

from Boston, where he was.

He went right to the private jet I assume to the White House.

So no, although again, it was, it was the number of people who were in the audience.

Yeah, these are, these are all characters who I think might have thumbs on the scale

of what the NBA does.

And we'll see whether, whether that was persuasive to that.

Take us through how it is that physically you got the document taped under his chair

and did you literally want the evidence to be right under his nose?

So it started and it's like, as much as I like being the, you know, something like the

Joker or the riddle.

The riddle.

You're not the Joker.

The riddle.

You're not the Joker is evidenced by that sound.

That's better.

That's not the Joker.

You don't get to be the Joker.

You can be the riddle.

That's a good photo.

The Joker would hold him.

Adam Silver looks like somebody who could be a villain in one of these movies.

He's just physically more than anyone in sports.

But how, how is it physically?

Take me through both the thought process, the decision and who physically did it?

Yeah.

So again, I'm not the riddle.

I'm somebody who got invited to do a panel at Sloan and thought to myself, who else

is speaking at Sloan?

Oh, wow.

Adam Silver is speaking earlier in the day in the same lecture hall.

And I'm going to have David and Amin there, like how can I convey to David and Amin this

new information?

Well, typically I'd give him folders, but there's not a desk.

So what if we do it some other way?

And then I thought, well, it'd be funny because I have, I'm an American who grew up in

the age of daytime television.

It'd be funny if like I did the Oprah thing and was like, look under your chairs.

There's a gift for you.

Instead of a car, you got to pay taxes on.

It's this document.

And so I thought, wait a minute.

If we put those documents under David and Amin's chairs early enough in the day, it's

possible that Adam would be sitting in that same chair.

And so I had one of our producers who will remain nameless, perhaps for legal reasons,

show up at Sloan at 7am on Friday and tape it underneath the chairs.

And I should say for legal reasons as well, Darryl Mori, the organizer and the co-founder

of the conference had no idea what we were doing.

Maybe at the conference was in on this in the way that our staff was.

And so for that reason, we just woke up really early and it turned out that, yep, these

were the chairs.

I should mention that Balmer and the Clippers continued to deny all wrongdoing.

They declined to comment for this episode as they have for a while.

And they say they are fully cooperating with the NBA's investigation that was sparked

by Pablo.

Pablo is up for yet more awards.

I should tell you, 2026, I heart podcast awards are next Monday at South by Southwest.

He is nominated for podcast of the year.

He's also up for best host.

So podcast of the year, he's going up against the daily call her daddy, the breakfast club,

Mel Robbins, Theo Vaughn, all the big names in podcasting and on best host.

Sammy Poler and Emma Chamberlain and also Alex Cooper from call her daddy, the biggest

award that you have been proudest to win so far and do you expect to win this one?

Because the work you're doing is unlike anything anyone, never mind sports podcasting,

anyone anywhere is doing in podcasting.

Yeah, look, no one, no one, for better and for worse than the award stuff is for the

better.

Like, you know, I'm hard in that people have felt boxed in and off by journalism that

they feel like they got to put us into those categories, frankly, because we're doing it

in a way that no one else is doing it for better and for worse, which is to say with

these documents, like where we're we're I would love to get to a point where, you know,

the sheer force of my charisma is the reason why I'm in a category with Amy Poler in

any way.

But nah, man, it says we're doing journalism, like we're really showing the power of doing

evidence-driven reporting.

And so I am so thrilled that we've been included because it's weird, like it's a bunch of people

that I would say billionaires would love to invite to a cocktail party and then the

one person who they absolutely don't.

And I take pride in that, I take pride in the fact that it's a weird thing for us to

be in those in those in those rooms.

Who's on the other side of arguing the other side of this right now?

Who are you hearing from and are you willing to say that Mark Cuban is now hiding from

you in a sheer act of cowardice?

If Mark Cuban is out there, I would love for you to come back on the show.

He came in studio and we talked at length and he was such a delight and then he tweeted

nothing after it came out and he stopped talking about aspiration entirely and I'm just

curious why.

So I'm not going to call him a coward.

I'm merely going to say that a silence has been conspicuous and I'd like to figure out

like if his thinking has changed, he was team bomber and since he's been very, very,

very, very quiet.

Who's on the other side of this?

Who else is out there?

Because look, it's strange to me, okay?

I underestimated 10 years ago that the president of the United States could become

the president of the United States taking a hatchet to journalism.

People hate journalists more than just about any occupation.

It's right up there with used car salesmen and agents and lawyer in terms of not liking

somebody.

You, despite doing legitimately extraordinary work, have now become polarizing at least

in part because you do it as the riddler and you do it with some self involvement and

you call it charisma, I call it hateability that you were taught at the knee of us.

You?

Yes.

Yeah, exactly.

I learned it from you, dad, by the way, and Dan, I learned it from you, Dan, said in

the voice of dad, you have been surprised by the reaction and who's on the other side

of this because you keep presenting facts that make it damn near impossible to be on the

other side of this because of all of the things that you said show me the alternative reasoning

here that no one can explain.

Yeah, look, the reason that I do the theater of this is from a place of, wow, I got invited

to this conference to do a live show, how can I make this interesting?

And then it was if I'm going to do another chapter in this series that people are pretty

numb to because I think most people out there, by the way, fans, head coaches, owners, general

managers, when I run into them, when I see them at games, at conferences, they all agree

that this is egregious.

These allegations feel like they deserve punishment, right?

These alleged schemes must warrant punishment.

That's what I hear all the time.

So I'm not saying that like, you know, people are idiots who don't get what I'm saying.

I think they largely do.

If the actuality comes from the premise of journalism needs entertainment to cut through.

And I was a writer who only wrote.

I was a TV person who only gaspagged.

And now I'm trying to do both of them together because I am, I am at odds, I guess, with what

is required, otherwise to make an impact.

And so I decided, fine, I'll play the game too.

And I enjoy the game.

And so that's where that's why I do it that way.

The people who are on the other side of this, though, frankly, it's people who cover and

talk about the NBA who find that this story should be adjudicated by the NBA.

And I'm like, guys, I'm not here to say that we're woodward and Bernstein, right?

I'm not here to say that this is the president being forced to resign.

I'm not saying that.

All I'm simply saying is that if you ever talk about cheating in sports, if you talk

about capture convention, which is how you get the most important assets in this sport,

our players to join a team, which everybody cares about so deeply that entire off seasons,

entire seasons are overshadowed by the acquisition of star players, right?

That's the whole thing with NBA Twitter.

We're obsessed with it.

I'm telling you, the most egregious, and the ringer has said this to its credit.

The most egregious caps are convention scandal in history, allegedly, is this one.

And so why would you leave it to the NBA to tell you how big a deal it is or not?

It's removed from its initial impact such that the footprint of it, the accountability

of it, the importance of it can be reduced, right?

Like that's, I come at, and this is where, you know, I do feel like I just got to reassert

something.

I do this because I'm like actually a sports fan because I grew up loving the NBA because

I grew up writing into a little notebook, the dream team's statistics, and fetishized

in New York Knicks and admiring Michael Jordan despite my fandom of the Knicks and going

to games and really caring about this thing and then watching our sport, my favorite sport

become a thing that built up credibility over time that became a very popular mainstream

product welcomed into American homes all around the world as well.

And they decided to get into business with a bunch of people who, frankly, are misrepresenting

the truth of what they're doing to the public.

And I mean this to say, in the Epstein class sense.

I mean this to say in the crypto scammer sense.

I mean this to say in the sovereign wealth fund sense.

I mean this to say in the Silicon Valley sense.

And certainly in the case of a company like aspiration, which the NBA and the Clippers

decided to present to the public as if this is a real company and they didn't do the

due diligence.

And there's still, it seems allegedly not doing the due diligence and the question of

like, what has happened, you know, what's that meme?

What's happened to the game I love?

The reason I'm on this and why I'm not leaving it to the NBA to tell you what's really happening

here is because I think the truth when it comes to sports should be taken seriously.

And I gotta be a turd in the punchball sometimes I guess to do that.

And also that and also literally the ridler.

Perhaps you've also noticed that when he gives the ringer credit or Bruce Arthur credit

and he says to their credit, it's only when they're saying that he's done exactly the

correct thing the most correctly.

You've noticed that perhaps that he doles out credit to people who already agree with

him on things and the whole exercise is fairly masturbatory.

But it does seem well, it becomes less masturbatory, the more participants, right, become something

else.

They're all the terms for it.

It's true.

You know, thank you Jeremy.

I appreciate you.

He's right.

He's right.

Co-signing on that.

Yes, to your credit, to your masturbatory credit, wherever it is, there's one person masturbating

verbally.

You'll get right in and masturbate verbally even more than that.

Like here, I have to masturbatorily be right about the Miami Heat.

But Pablo has people there to help him when it comes to the clippers.

By the way, Pablo, what do you think of the five game win streak for the heat?

So anyway, the other things that Pablo is doing because he is doing an extraordinary job

on Pablo Torrey finds out is every episode has something interesting in it.

You just did one on AI when you say the sport I love, the social media parts that I used

to love.

Mike Ryan just pointed out on X how hard it is to search for things.

Meena Kimes is pointing out that Google doesn't help her do her job anymore because it's

been so contaminated as a search engine.

I was alarmed by your recent reporting on artificial intelligence.

You've done a couple of pieces on this.

What is the last and most recent information that you found most interesting about just

how damaging and dangerous artificial intelligence is?

Yeah.

I mean, economically speaking, I'm talking to all these experts who are far better versed

in the industry of artificial intelligence than I am.

There's just no way of avoiding the sinking feeling that AI is becoming too big to fail,

which is to say that Meena was a great voice to this as a former business journalist herself.

We're being sold to product and we're being told that this product is so popular and

so good and whether or not that resonates with you at home using AI in the way that you

do or don't, the money pouring into it from the U.S. economy is unprecedented.

The speed of money and the scale of money entering artificial intelligence as an industry

is so enormous that we are going to get to a point that reminded us, me and Meena, of 2008,

the great financial crisis.

When we were both reporters working in New York City and there were companies, there were

banks that were too big to fail.

What does that even mean for those who forgot the great financial crisis?

It literally meant that there was so much money tied up in certain financial institutions

that even though those institutions were corrupt and betraying the public in the most

definitional ways and were not using that money responsibly, in fact, collapsing the economy,

the U.S. people, us, the government, public money had to save those companies to prop them

up.

Otherwise, the economy would have been even worse and so AI is getting to that same point.

There is so much money propping up AI, which is in turn boosting the U.S. economy.

We're thinking about the most valuable companies in the world, like Nvidia, these chip makers

that are funding the processing that AI runs on.

When you think about open AI, when you think about anthropic, when you think about Google,

these are all, Apple is getting into the AI, it's already in the AI business, all these

companies are saying AI is the future, cool, and before they have to prove its use to

the people, to customers in real life, they're getting investment such that if those products

end up being not a thing people want to actually pay for, right?

Like what's the actual business at the end of this?

Meno is asking the question, are real people paying for these AI products or are companies

or enterprise customers paying for them?

And therefore, it seems like a lot of normal people are, but really it's just companies

paying other companies to boost stock prices.

And if that's the case, and AI as a product turns out to not be the revelation, then by

the time those stocks fall, the U.S. economy will be so reliant upon them that we may

have to bail them out too.

They will become too big to fail, which is to say we are inviting potentially another

economic crisis if we don't watch where the money is going.

And that is a little bit terrifying.

In sports championships aren't one alone, the one with the right people around you,

that's exactly what into a topo tax brings to taxes.

With topo tax expert full service, match with a dedicated tax expert who handles your

taxes from start to finish.

The experience is seamless, storm in person, finish online, move between both whenever needed.

The dedicated tax expert keeps things updated every step of the way so nothing falls between

the cracks.

They give it like having a great head coach with a solid game plan.

The plays are called, adjustments are made, and the work gets done while everyone stays

focused on what actually matters.

And just like game film doesn't wait for business hours, neither do taxes.

With topo tax expert full service, you can get any tax question answered at no extra cost,

even on nights and weekends during tax season.

This is having someone in your corner running the whole operation and helping put points

on the board.

Get started at topotax.com

All available with into a topo tax full service expert, real time updates only in iOS mobile

app.

Oh, folks, look at me, I'm in my 30s, which is old enough to know better, and somehow

still young enough to ignore that information pretty regularly.

Like you know me, I'll have a couple drinks, normal adult behavior, nothing crazy, and

in the next morning, my body reacts like I have made a series of terrible decisions with

no supervision.

My sleep score tanks, I wake up confused, suddenly even replying to one text feels like

a full task.

But that is why I have discovered and gotten into Cheers Restore.

Alcohol is differently now.

It affects your brain, your sleep, your liver, all of it, and Cheers Restore is made for

that.

It's a dual action after alcohol aid designed to support your brain and your liver after

drinking.

And the origin story is wild.

It started with a Princeton student researching DHM, which is this compound tied to alcohol-related

effects in the body.

It's in Walgreens, CVS, 7-Eleven, basically, everywhere.

It was on Shark Tank.

All I do is take three capsules after my last drink or before bed, and the next morning

is way less dramatic.

Same night out, way better morning, with Cheers.

For a limited time, our listeners are getting 20% off your entire order by using Code Dan

at CheersHealth.com.

Just head to CheersHealth.com and use Code Dan for 20% off.

After you're purchased, they will ask you where you heard about them.

Please support our show and tell them the Dan Levitard show, Set You!

Hello friends, hello listeners.

I want to talk to you about Chi.

Because Chi is changing the way people bank, and honestly, it just makes sense.

This is fee-free, smarter banking built for regular people like you and me.

Not old school banks charging overdraft and monthly fees just for trying to get through

the week.

This is banking that actually feels like it's on your side, which is very, very important.

Chi isn't just another app.

They unlock smarter banking with tools like MyPay, giving you access to up to $500 of

your paycheck when you need it.

And boy, do we sometimes need it.

It even lets you get paid up to two days early with direct deposit.

I know someone who would benefit from that.

No overdraft fees, no minimum balances, no monthly fees.

Chi helps your everyday spending work harder, with credit building tools and savings earning

up to 3% APY.

And there's the new Chi card, build credit with your own money, and with qualifying direct

deposits.

Earn 1.5% cash back on eligible purchases.

It is not just smarter banking.

It is the most rewarding way to bank.

Join the millions who are already banking fee-free today.

It just takes a few minutes to sign up.

Head to chimedocomslashdan.

That is chimedocomslashdan.

Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank.

Banking services, a secured chimed visa credit card, and MyPay line of credit provided

by the bank or bank NA, or stride bank NA.

MyPay eligibility requirements apply, and credit limit ranges $20 to $500.

Optional services and products may have fees or charges.

See chimedocomslashfeasinfo.

Advertised annual percentage yield with Chi plus status only.

Otherwise, 1.00% APY applies.

No main balance required.

Chime card on time payment history may have a positive impact on your credit score.

Sales may vary.

See chimedocom for details and applicable terms.

Done lebertard.

This song glasses in boxes today, but in my bed in the hospital, ending our lives

all the same.

Stugats.

It's the final night gown.

Have any of you guys seen the movie 2073, 2073?

It is put out there as a dystopian future action movie, but it's actually a documentary

inside of it.

Like what is presently happening with the government of the United States, for example,

being so brazenly purchased by billionaires more brazenly than we've ever seen.

It's always been so, but the government being used right now by billionaires to create

a dystopian future that separates the billionaires from all of the little people, I had to turn

it off in the middle of it because the truth is so horrifying.

Your podcast with Meena felt the same way.

The truth is so horrifying.

I wanted to turn it off because there's no coming back from where we already are.

That is a downside for us in the awards categories we've been entered into that people find

the things we're reporting to be so horrified.

It's not call her daddy.

It's not call her daddy.

It's not what you're doing.

It's not what you're doing.

It shouldn't be in the same category.

We're reporting on glucking of a different kind in this case.

In this case, it is the administration of our country and the corporate leaders that

you're referring to.

Yeah, man.

It's scary.

It's scary.

I think there is, again, the water is warm, by the way.

It's just funny, dad, that again, the eye-learned from you stuff, I think there's a lot of room

for people to make an impact here, talking about this stuff, and maybe people have made

a calculation that serves them best, and that's okay on some level, but I don't know.

It just seems like in the documentary of our time, and this is the exercise I always

tried to do, 10 years from now in the documentary of our time, which character are you going

to be?

I think people are maybe not making the right choice on that.

The name of the podcast is Pablo Tori finds out.

Can we do something a little more uplifting when we talk about the end of the world?

We're all going to die, we're all going to die, we're all going to die.

The sky seems to be falling, and here I'm wondering why, here I'm going to let's turn

on the nearest and find out that we're going to die.

Thank you Pablo.

Pablo Tori finds out.

I really is extraordinary.

I urge all of you to check it out.

I remember when the Quaint Apocalyptic movie was called 2011 or 2012 with John Cusack,

the movie where he's just driving as fast as he can as Earth falls apart behind him.

It seems quaint and charming and fossilized, just an antique compared to where it is that

we are actually headed.

You liked the movie?

It's 2011 or 2012.

2012.

2012.

Where the Statue of Liberty just falls into the ocean.

I like those apocalyptic type.

What's the one with Jake Gyllenhaal as well, right?

Day after tomorrow?

I like that movie too.

Yeah.

I like those kind of films.

We're living in the middle of it right now, we're at the center of it, so let's distract

ourselves with the Miami of Ohio undefeated.

I'm going to say Miami Heat.

Oh man, thank you for finally bringing it to these spectacle of the sporting weekend.

It was a great weekend for sports.

It's basically sports equinox, you got a million things going on and I was positively

dialed, sound on to Miami of Ohio at Ohio.

A college basketball game in the hundreds, them going back and forth at each other into

overtime.

I mean, the lighting in the arena was terrible.

It had a film on it when you were watching the game broadcast and it was like another

time.

It was March basketball.

It was everybody clear out of the way.

We're giving it to the best player, scrappy number 13 in white, Pavelski, go try and

a hold on to this, this rivalry advantage that Ohio has had over Miami, Ohio, Miami, Ohio

undefeated this season in college basketball, gunning for their 30th victory.

Ohio had had victories over their arrival.

I think dating back at home since 2011, so this was a huge win streak.

In the game, friggin delivered back and forth the entire time, heroic shot making absolute

cags from each team and such hate from the Ohio attendees that at the end of it has

Jeff Goodman tweeted because at the end of it, they were mother bleeps and bleep

views and smiling faces hidden meanings, projectiles, it was a scene.

I loved it.

It was the best basketball game I'd seen this year.

Miami of Ohio against Ohio, Ohio was a small dog in the game.

Miami of Ohio ends up perfect seasons as low that nobody believes is going anywhere in

the tournament because they've had the 300th toughest schedule or something like that.

It was the last time I checked, it was at 280 and they're an undefeated team playing against

Ohio on the road and they're just a four point favorite because everyone knows that

team is not all that good, even though it's undefeated, they are not favored to win their

conference.

Akron is whatever if you're undefeated, you make the tournament.

If you don't lose if you're you're playing division one basketball and you don't lose

a single game in your regular season, you deserve to be the tournament in one college

sport.

But it has so much juice to it and they've had several of these games where they survive

when you don't think they are.

That's a fun story.

It's also a TV show like when the committee is making their selections this weekend,

you don't think that's going to have some juice to it.

Miami of Ohio first round game Thursday or Friday the following week, that game's got

some, that game's got some juice to it.

I want to check that out.

And they got this like a little, you would think that the underdog undefeated Miami

Ohio team would be beloved, but they've been villains.

I don't want them to continue to be undefeated and now I'm kind of come around like I rock

with these guys.

They're trying to be bad guys when no one believes in them.

They're trying to bully people around when they're four and a half feet tall.

It's great to see.

Who would you rather have in the tournament undefeated Miami of Ohio or if 15 lost Auburn?

Like get the hell out of here.

Get the hell out of here.

When Mike Ryan says no one believes in them, I saw him wandering around during our break

trying to get someone to believe him that the Ben Shapiro eyebrow situation wasn't photoshopped,

wasn't altered by others.

There's no way Mike this can't be real, I have videos from his social media selfie videos.

Oh, videos are never fake.

He posted this himself.

He has Tom Selik's mustache above each eye.

That is a selfie video that he posted that is not real that like how do you even get eyebrows

like that?

Nobody says, hey, I'm a grow out my eyebrows.

That's not a thing.

You can't just like you can grow out your hair, you can grow out your beard, you don't grow

out eyebrows.

I put it on the pole, please, that levitage.

It's not real.

His Ben Shapiro have Tom Selik's mustache over each one of his eyes.

This doesn't seem like it can be real.

Occasionally someone will send me a picture or a video of me that day that Ron McGill said

that I looked like a poppy trullo when I was just doing an impersonation of somebody

who had done a fake highly questionable with me in Beaumonti and I had just painted on

my eyebrows and on my mustache something so very dark as to clearly be fake.

I saw over the weekend, I saw a Hispanic's crooner of some sort, an old guy singing with

Tony Bennett who had, yes, thank you, that's him right there.

Look at that, Zazlow, which is the more egregious offence between those two people.

I am remiss in not knowing who that Latin legend is.

Well, yeah, see, that's the thing.

That guy's eyebrows, he may have been born with those eyebrows, that may be just how

he looks.

Ben Shapiro all the day, all of a sudden is showing up with a bush above each eye.

It's not real.

It is real.

All the videos are real.

I understand the skepticism.

I shared in it and then I researched the internet for 15 minutes to try to find evidence

to the contrary.

He dies the eyebrows, but he also made them busher.

It's irrefutable.

My mother has rarely been more frustrated with my father than when it is that he would

go from totally gray at work when he was an industrial engineer and the plant manager

for a fiberglass company in Hialeah.

He would go from totally gray to looking the following day like this Latin crooner because

he had painted everything black.

Mike, you know, I have one rule to live by, right?

Don't place parlays on multiple long shots.

Don't say a game is one when it hasn't hit triple zero.

Always drink your Jaegermeister ice cold.

That's the rule.

Everything else is merely a suggestion.

Everything else.

Everything else.

Wearing clean, underwear every day.

Well, that's just a personal decision.

Brushing your teeth.

Ugh.

Obviously smart, but not a rule.

Never pee pee on an electric fence.

Okay, maybe there are two rules, but the one that is 100% that I insist on completely,

Jaegermeister must be drank ice cold.

Or don't drink it at all.

Damn, that's cold.

Exactly.

You're finally starting to get it.

Drink responsibly.

Jaegermeister LaCore 35% alcohol by volume imported by mass Jaegermeister U.S. White

Plains, New York.