What Pablo Torre Is Finding Out

0:00Today's episode of Slates What Next is brought to you by Olympic hospitality. The Olympic Games are coming to Los Angeles in 2028. This is a once-in-a-generation event that you're not going to want to miss. It's more than a ticket. It's a story you share with your family and friends, and the ultimate way to get closer to the action is within Olympic hospitality package. Ticket-inclusive packages offer a range of prime seating and lounge access options. Then you depended priority entry, food and beverage selections from LA's diverse dining scene, and elevated service and continuous support, making your day at the Olympic Games one to remember for a lifetime. Get ahead of the curve with an LA-28 hospitality package. Discover more at hospitality.la28.org slash what next. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day. But what policy changes should investors be watching? Listen to Washington-wise. An original podcast for investors from Charles

1:00Schwab to hear the stories making news in Washington right now. Host Mike Townsend, Charles Schwab's managing director for legislative and regulatory affairs, takes a nonpartisan look at the stories that matter most to investors, including policy initiatives for retirement savings, taxes and trade, inflation concerns, the federal reserve, and how regulatory developments can affect companies, sectors, and even the entire market. Mike and his guests offer their perspective on how policy changes could affect what you do with your portfolio. Download the latest episode and follow at Schwab.com slash Washington-wise. Or wherever you listen. Hey, it's Mary, and we are at week three of Slates' pledge drive. And if you are still sitting here listening, I can imagine you are saying to yourself, listen, I haven't joined yet. Why now? So I'm going to give you a few reasons. First thing, there's the magazine. Slates.com, full of essential reading. Just this week, Aiman Ismail went on the campaign trail with Senate

2:02candidate Abdullah El-Sayed in Michigan. Great article. Then we published something else about why billionaires are dressing like they sell weed. Yeah, because you got to laugh. And then there's the whole library full of advice columns to enjoy. Okay, but maybe you're more of a game person. That's why Slates got a crossword and a news quiz. The news quiz has a leaderboard. Then we have our own proprietary games like pairs and soundbites. Then there are the podcasts. You know my favorite because you are listening to it. But then there's Amicus with Dolly Alithwick, Dakota Ring with Willa Paskin, the Gabvest for when you are just looking for a good hang. All of this is made possible by listeners just like you. People who decided to chip in and join us here at Slate. And sure, those folks get bonus stuff. Add for you listening. Special episodes each and every week of this podcast and all the others. But really, joining Slate Plus, it's about showing up for things you value. So the question isn't really why now. It's why not.

3:08The way to join is to go on over to Slate.com slash what next plus? Sign up there for a year of all access at 50% off by using the offer code what next 50 at checkout. That's what next 5 0. Because you know what? You're worth it. And Slate is too. Okay, on with the show. Pablo, it is so nice to see you without so much makeup on. I know. Every now and again, when I go on cable TV, Pablo Torrey is a guy I run into across the table. I've been wanting to have him on for a while. I just have these like oil blotting wipes because I get shiny and that's that's all I will confess to you. That's all I got today. Oh, okay, okay. That's how we're doing. Yeah, I know. I'm all natural when I'm on TV too.

4:10Pablo talks sports on his podcast. Pablo Torrey finds out. He investigates everything from football coach Bill Belichick's very controversial girlfriend to how private equity is warping team ownership. Why sports? I lead with sports because I have made peace over time with the fact that as much as it is the toy department that is the realm of silliness and childlike things, we are a nation full of adult children. I've come to think of Pablo as someone who can put a candy coating on a bitter pill of American life. The fact that money seems to be tainting everything. Have you always seen sports as like a business reporter or were you a fan first? I was a fan first. And by virtue, though, of me being a fan of the New York Yankees, you do realize how fun it is to flex your wealth, how fun it is to follow the money when you have all the money. Like the Yankees are. You sound like a guilty Yankees fan. I'm a Catholic Yankees fan. I was an author server growing up. The

5:14priest of my parish was literally the team chaplain of the New York Yankees. What? And so these are not metaphors. Married. These are real. This is my childhood. Weighted by what it means to be guilty. Thing is, while rich people seem to be getting away with so much right now in the White House most notoriously, the rich folks running the world of sports, they are paying attention to Pablo. I don't know if I'd say they are running scared, but his reporting has led some folks to feel the sting of accountability just a bit. Yeah, I mean, I wanted to have you on because I feel like you are laser focused on this idea of sports being entwined with money. In this way, that's very hard to pull apart. Also sports is kind of like, you've talked about it a little bit as a scammers paradise. You just have all these plays going on with money behind the scenes. And here's the thing though, a lot of people say that, but you've actually

6:18forced a kind of reckoning about it. You did this reporting about the LA Clippers and the outrageous lengths that they went to in order to skirt a salary cap for one of their players. And it results in an actual punishment for the team. And I'm thinking of you in this moment because they feel like so many people are hungry for accountability in other places. And I want you to tell me the secret. Oh, wow. Um, we're going to get deep Pablo. It's look, the secret is not so secret. It's I'm going to bring you a plate full of broccoli, but across it is so much cheese. So can Pablo and I find a way to serve up his secret sauce, his cheesy sauce, to bad actors in Washington? Today on the show, I try to get him to share the recipe. I'm Mary Harris. You're listening to What Next. Stick around.

7:30This episode is brought to you by Monarch. You know, it's funny how your money story changes as you get older, right? Like 20 years back, my biggest goal was probably buying a house. Now I'm thinking about paying for college. That happened fast. What hasn't changed though, is that every era has got its own financial goal, its own milestone to reach for. And getting clarity on progress towards those goals, that's what Monarch's all about. It tracks everything, so you don't have to. Our producer Evan is an OG Monarch money user. He says it's really clear. It separates all kinds of information about his money into categories he can easily understand. So if you're looking for an app that's going to help you figure out your own financial goals, Monarch is there for you. It's got a weekly recap that can help you catch spending spikes before they become a problem. It's got easy to read diagrams to help you visualize exactly where your money goes each month. It'll compare your investment portfolio against the S&P 500, so you know how you're

8:32really doing. A feature I think is pretty cool is called Bill Split. It lets you split the check on a night out with friends without the headache. You simply scan the receipt, everyone claims what they got, and then settles up. No separate app needed. So ready to give it a try? Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code whatnext at Monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch core half off at just 50 bucks. That's 50% off your first year at Monarch.com with code whatnext. Today's show is brought to you by Vanguard. To all the financial advisors listening, let's talk bonds for a minute. Capturing value and fixed income isn't easy. Bond markets are massive, murky, and let's be real. Lots of firms throw a couple of flashy funds your way and call it a day. But not Vanguard. Vanguard bonds are institutional quality. Institutional quality is not a tagline. It is a commitment to your clients. It means top grade products across the board. The lineup includes over 80 bond funds. They are actively managed by a 200-person global squad

9:35of sector specialists, analysts, traders. Lots of firms love to highlight their starport portfolio managers. Like it's all about that one brilliant mind making the magic happen. Vanguard's philosophy is a little different. They believe the best active strategies should not be locked away with one person. They should be shared across the team, which is why every client benefits from the collective brain power they've got. Not just one individual stake. The bond markets complex and it's not something one person or small team can realistically keep up with. Vanguard has been in the game a long time. Their scale gives them serious edge. They're able to invest across all kinds of sectors, maturities and geographies, which means they can spot and act on opportunities others could miss. So if you're looking to give your clients consistent results you're in, you're out. Go see the record for yourself at vanguard.com slash audio. That's vanguard.com slash audio. All investing is subject to risk. Vanguard Marketing Corporation distributor. This episode is brought to you by HomeServe. If there is such a thing as an opportune moment for

10:39your water heater to go kaput, that is not what it's going to happen. It's going to be when you're mid-shower with a face full of shampoo and a meeting you are running late to. Oh, and the repair is going to be pricey. Regular homeowners insurance doesn't cover a lot of the day-to-day wear and tear, plumbing failures, HVAC breakdowns, electrical issues. When that stuff breaks, you can feel like you're on your own. That's where HomeServe comes in. It's like a subscription for your home. For as little as $4.99 a month, they have your back. It's super simple. You choose a plan for your needs and budget. And when something on your plan goes wrong, you just call their 24-7 hotline to start their repair process. They've helped homeowners like you for over 20 years with a trusted national network of over 2,000 local contractors. As someone who's about to pay a pretty penny to get my boiler fixed, I know how frustrating it can feel to suddenly get hit with a home expense and feel like you don't know where to turn or what's a reasonable cost. With HomeServe, they have you covered. You can join the millions of customers who trust HomeServe for 50% less year first year

11:42by going to homeserve.com slash what next? That is homeserve.com slash what next for 50% less. Savings compared to renewal price void in Florida. I wonder if we should start out by you just telling the Los Angeles Clippers story from the beginning. Because my listeners are going to be politics, icos, they may not know anything about basketball. And I want you to just like, where would you even start the story? Because this story is so huge at this point. You won the ball at surprise for it. There has been a big investigation with NBA with real, real accountability. But like at the beginning, what was this story to you? Yeah, it was a tip. The story was a tip that you should look into this weird, I call it a tree planting startup. What it is really, as I translate all of this for the most general audience possible, is a carbon credits company, a sustainability fintech startup called aspiration.

12:45This sounds good. We're good guys doing good guys stuff. We're zeroing out your carbon footprint. You got a private jet, you got a sports team, you got to make sure that you make your peace with mother earth herself. This was during the pandemic. This was the ESG movement. The era of corporations could also be good guys. And so aspiration is started by two Dems, two prominent Dems, two left leaning people, both with political ambitions, who both went to Harvard. And part of the story here is that there was something weird. That's what I was told. There's something weird about this company. And when you get a tip like that, you don't really know what to do with that. What I do is I Google stuff. And then I think to myself, I don't immediately see this, but it's going to go in the maybe pile inside of my brain. Fast forward. You printed a lot of documents too. I remember. Well, so how does the maybe pile become a pile of paper in which I

13:45am committing various sins against mother earth herself? How many trees had to die? So many. I am a mass murderer of of trees unfortunately. But the reason is because I got a bankruptcy filing once aspiration collapsed in a pile of financial insolvency. And I saw that one of the top creditors was this LLC by the name of KL to aspire LLC. And your audience may not recognize why any of that is a clue or interesting, except you should simply know that there is a player, a superstar on the Los Angeles Clippers called Hawaii Leonard with the Jersey number two. And so when you got a LLC called KL to aspire LLC, you might then put the dots together that I did and say this seems like a vehicle dedicated to receiving something from aspiration, the carbon credit startup by KL. Yeah, I mean, you discovered that the Clippers owner and executives like enabled this star player KL to sign a series of endorsement deals. It basically boosted a salary above a

14:50salary cap. So it's like there were rules rules didn't apply. Yes. And the rule here is simply to translate it that the richest person in sports cannot buy whatever it is that they want the most. You can't just pay a gazillion dollars. There's a cap on what you're allowed to pay any individual athlete. And so within those rules, Steve Balmer's problem was not what most other owners you might imagine would be concerned with, which is how are we going to come up with all of the money? It was how can I spend my almost endless amounts of it in ways that circumvent that rule? And this rule is known in the NBA as the cardinal rule because that's how important superstar athletes are. This is the thing. This is the entity, the human being that all owners, all these billionaires in this country club of 30. This is the thing they all are competing for. And so Steve Balmer cheated by offering him a series of almost sopranos adjacent no-show jobs in which you didn't

15:54have to do anything but got paid according to now the latest accounting, a total value of $66 million beyond what he was supposed to get by rule. Damn, I want that job. I mean, here's where the accountability piece comes in. Your reporting comes out and it arguably led directly to the NBA itself hiring a third party law firm to investigate the deals. That investigation just in September led to the clippers owners and others being suspended from the game. Team was fine. Teams reportedly under investigation by the Department of Justice at this point could lead to criminal charges. Do you think criminal charges are warranted here? I think that the investigation is absolutely warranted. I don't get paid enough to make the assessment that you've just asked me for. I do need to start billing people. You know, it's funny. Walk to a left in one of the finest white shoe law firms in the world. They were hired by the NBA to do their quote unquote independent investigation.

16:58They're an outside counsel in other words. Balmer paid for the bill. Balmer has claimed now that he's paid $50 million in legal fees on top of the $30 million in fines. I have seen my staff has seen no percentage of those billable hours. But we are confident that when you get to the story of fake jobs and effectively, things that should have been disclosed that were not including in the reporting that we've done most recently that isn't showing up in ways that you might imagine on SEC filings. The question becomes for the federal government. Is there a conspiracy to commit securities violations? And who knew what and when did they know it? When it comes to the end goal being we got to get the LA Clipper star player paid. But the mechanism is we're going to use a raft of companies, some of which were public at the time to effectively hide what the actual goal of any of

18:01this was. Yeah. I mean, the NBA could have ignored the outcry, right? Like why do you think that they weren't able to do that? I think there are two reasons. One reason is that the scope of their investigation was narrow enough to try and focus what might be the fallout. What do you mean? What do you say that? So they didn't say the NBA. They didn't say we're going to look at everything. If you read their report, they actually focus entirely on a very particular window that stops in 2022. And they don't want to get so in the weeds here, but our reporting goes well beyond that. And so the question for the NBA was what do we need to look at? And they started with a constrained window. And inside of that window, they found four companies doing this same thing with the Clippers.

19:04It's funny. It sounds like you're saying almost like they tried to eliminate. We're just going to look at this little thing over there. And then they turned it over. They're like, yeah, no, there's a lot of bad things out of here. And the other thing, the second reason I think they had to do this was because frankly, my podcast started annoying them. And we relentlessly, we're in part 17, as we speak today. Like it's just it's over 17 hours of reporting in podcast forum. And what we made clear was that we're not going to stop investigating. And so there was this sort of check on the NBA's investigation, which was started by ours because ours wasn't ever going to end. I think that's a really good point because I do think reporters sometimes get tired. And they're like, oh, seeing this before, do you know what I mean? Like, oh, do we really need to do this again? So why didn't you have that moment?

20:06We certainly contemplated whether we were over, over focusing on this story. I mean, we do three episodes a week. This was not all of the episodes. We went weeks at times between episodes. I want to also just give a shout out to all the episodes we did that are not this. But it was so much of our mental real estate in part because we thought that we were on to something in part because we thought that the public wasn't being told the truth. And in part because it's a it's a really fun story. It's also reporting as lore. Do you know what I mean? It's like very internet native where it's just very different than like how a newspaper would work. And I think that's important. I think the other thing that the NBA couldn't avoid is that you're a fan. Like, you legitimately love sports. And that's where the investigation was coming from. And it's just different than I don't know. It's like if a sports radio host, someone like you who's

21:13done like sports stuff is investigating. It's just different than like cover of the New York Times. To me, I think this was not like a weird accounting story that someone outside of sports was trying to impose upon the NBA because this was about the competitive balance of so many people's favorite thing. It was urgent in a way that lots of quote unquote serious stories about very serious real world issues. Frankly, don't get hate attention to. And so it was about the game, but it was about so much beyond it. And that again is part of that recipe for why the NBA needed to deal with it. It was relevant to the very thing that a league, a commissioner exists to regulate. You said this thing to the New York Times that I thought was so interesting and kind of gets into your approach and how it's different. When the NBA's report came out, you had this conversation with a reporter over there. And you said, my show, it's called Pablo Torrey finds out.

22:18Not, you know, Pablo Torrey is right. And that's my whole approach essentially. It's not meant to be 100% perfect. And therefore you must trust us. And that stood out to me because I think journalists for a long time have sought to be credible by making sure they are as buttoned up and correct as possible. It's like almost a lawyer approach, right? Making a document or an article that's totally unimpeachable. Copping to something being a work in progress is just not something I think a traditional journalist journalist, you know, from journalism school 20 years ago would be ready to do. Like do you ever worry someone's going to come at you and be like, do you got it wrong? Oh, I mean, but that that is all a function of that anxiety. I mean, part of what we did here on this story, I guess the sports radio people do that all the time. They come at you and say, dude's got it wrong. You got to have it. You start your mind. You do need to make peace with being in the dunk tank every once in a while. Yeah. If you work in sports. But with this story in particular,

23:21I think it's it's a point of pride that we investigated this story for more than a year. And while the MBA's investigation was going on, which took 364 days exactly, very coincidentally, I'm sure. There was every opportunity for a guy with 150 plus billion dollars to fact check correct sue litigate do anything. Rue us wrong. And they never did. And I don't say that again to say, look at how right I was. I say that because it was the product of two things. One was this incredible corpus of sourcing that relied on humans, former employees of these companies, all these human beings that were brave enough to speak to me, the journalist, as well as a documentation that they helped me acquire if it wasn't already in some federal filing system somewhere. But the

24:21second thing that made me want to say, hey, the show is not going to be 100% perfect is because I exist unfortunately at this moment when media needs to figure out how they're going to win back the trust of the public and the omniscience of the mainstream institutions that I grew up, both subscribing to and then working for. I was at sports illustrated at the NESPN have been a journalism nerd my whole life. The omniscience, the view from nowhere of we are correct. We are the truth. In fact, in fact, some may even claim that democracy dies in darkness, right? The grandiosity of what we're promising has led to I think a loss of faith because we are also incredibly fallible. And we are exposing ourselves to the charges of hypocrisy if our mandate is without us

25:24democracy dies and you can trust us but not them. And then one of us, maybe not even the person saying those things ends up being wrong, however inadvertently or intentionally. And so have your facts but be humble. And it's just a recognition of like I'm trying my best. I'm going to show you the work. I'm going to bring you the pilot documents. I'm going to bring you sources on tape. I'm going to do old ass ancient journalism stuff that you may have seen in other formats. Perhaps in this one, it'll feel new. But really what it is is me explaining why I think I found something out. And there is some loyering, I guess in that I am both the promoter and the advocate of my own reporting. But I also need to be able to say to myself as much as anybody that I'm not over promising. And so the pickle frankly, Mary, that I'm finding myself in is that people are not coming to me because I'm the guy who's right. And now I have the opportunity to be like, well,

26:25is it time to pivot? Is it time to be the guy who's right to being the guy who's right? Because I got this big outcome. And I always am reminded at how fragile all of this is. And most prominently, the trust the public has in us. We'll bring it back. But before I go anywhere, just a note, it is pledge drive season over here. The way to join us and support all of our conversations with all kinds of folks is to go on over to slate.com slash what next plus and use our offer code what next 50? That's what next 5.0 for 50% off your membership to slate plus. Do it now. It would mean so much. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day. But what policy changes should investors be watching? Listen to Washington wise, an original podcast for investors from Charles

27:29Schwab to hear the stories making news in Washington right now. Host Mike Townsend, Charles Schwab's managing director for legislative and regulatory affairs takes a nonpartisan look at the stories that matter most investors, including policy initiatives for retirement savings, taxes and trade, inflation concerns, the federal reserve, and how regulatory developments can affect companies, sectors, and even the entire market. Mike and his guests offer their perspective on how policy changes could affect what you do with your portfolio. Download the latest episode and follow at Schwab.com Washington wise or wherever you listen.

28:33Home Chef comes in. Home Chef delivers restaurant quality meals right to your door for less than eating out with way less stress than meal planning. Home Chef makes cooking simple. It's fresh food delivered easy recipes to follow and meals that taste great. It takes the stress out of your week with convenient weekly deliveries. It'll keep your fridge stocked and it'll eliminate meal planning and grocery runs, no shopping lists, no complicated prep. It's perfect for busy schedules and right now as we head into the holiday season, it's pretty busy. Home Chef is also not one size fits all. They've got 30 meal options each week with choices for different tastes and dietary needs, including calorie conscious and even GLP-1 friendly meals. And people really love it. Home Chef is rated number one by users of other meal kits for a quality convenience value taste and recipe ease. Customers say they spend less time planning, shopping, prepping meals, plus they say it's affordable. Home Chef customers say they save an average of

29:3586 bucks a month on groceries. For a limited time, Home Chef is offering my listeners 50% off and free shipping for your first box, plus free dessert for life. Just go on over to HomeChef.com slash what next. That's HomeChef.com slash what next for 50% off your first box and free dessert for life. HomeChef.com slash what next must be an active subscriber to receive the free dessert. When we started out talking, I was asking you about like how do we apply the lessons you learned here about accountability to a place like politics where I see some of the same weaknesses that you're talking about in sports. When it comes to money investment, I mean you look at Donald Trump, the corruption is everywhere, the corruption is out in the open and it feels almost impossible to get accountability for it. But I think what you've done actually gives just important lessons like okay,

30:36first thing, you start releasing your reporting about the Clippers. You got tremendous pushback, powerful pushback from like Mark Cuban. And you just rolled with it. And it was so interesting recently like Cuban when everything came out with the MBA investigation. He was like congratulations Pablo. And I thought that was just such a funny moment. Like you had rolled with it enough and just been solid in what you were doing and just kept on keeping on. And then you were like well maybe Mark Cuban will do an interview with me now. Do you know what I mean? Like it was just a kind of brush your shoulders. First of all, I think that's so important. I think embedded in that Frost Nixon and I did with Mark Cuban on the show, he came on twice and we debated each other about my reporting. There's also a lesson in we are living at this time in which billionaires are astride everything. And I just think it's really important to both study and report on them. Well also maintaining

31:40a confidence that could only be bolstered by meeting them whenever possible so that you understand that they can be just as stupid as everybody else. There is there is a whole thing of I just think it's important to I want to say this without seeming super like arrogant or condescending. I have found that someone's intelligence or their ability is not necessarily correlated to how much money they have. Maybe that is the most arrogant thing I've ever said in my life. But I just have reported enough about people with so much money and they do stuff that is cinematically tragic comic at times. Well, you're lucky you have access. You know what I mean? Like you can float between the worlds and have the chance to confront Mark Cuban because a lot of people feel like they don't have

32:41those chances but they have something to say. Oh yeah and that's why I think the reception I've received is is freighted with a lot more than just good story. I think it is freighted with something like the relief that, wait a minute, these people are listening to you and they might even punish themselves because of it. And that's why I think sports as the laboratory, the laboratory of democracy that I don't think elects us to talk to the envision when he did his grand study of hardation. But perhaps would be updated in the paperback version. It is one in which sports ends up being this connective tissue that accountability can travel along. Shockingly. Yeah, I mean, I do think that sports and politics is different in that there is an expectation of fairness in sports that I think has gone away in politics. People are actively rigging things.

33:47Like you look at Jerry Mandarin just as one example, right? And we have an active debate about what is fair there. There aren't rules like you talk about the salary cap rule like gentleman of all agreed. We have the salary cap. Let us move forward like we aren't agreed on these things. And that that's it. I mean, really at bottom of this story is there are a lot of people who still care about the rules enough to act upon them and to get mad about it. And it turns out that cuts across the demographic spectrum. That is true of Steve Almer's fellow owners. It's true of the NBA commissioner. It's true of everybody that I am reading on the subreddit for the NBA. It is in my mentions. And I do think that's a reminder that if people perhaps democratically coalesce around the idea that this stuff is to be respected and must be defended.

34:49Even if it's going to expose any number of us to legal liability, you know, myself first and foremost included, I guess. If we all agree that that stuff is worth protecting, then there can be consequences. And now I sound like an after school special. But you know what I think about all the time? I think about the fact that with sports, there is a way for regular people to access it and have an experience with it in their local community, like a very low stakes way. You can buy a ticket to a game. You can show up and you can be like, I participated in that. And now I'm invested in that in a way that you can't do with politics, which I think is part of the trouble. Like when I look at for instance, turning point USA, I see them creating a space for people to access something that's important to them and like be part of something. When I look at the DSA, when they're doing like book clubs and things like that and like, let's all go out and, you know, doorstop or whatever. I'm like,

35:52oh, this is a way to access. And to me, it's very sports adjacent. Oh, I think that the lesson of sports also is that why is it, why is it, you know, this age of scams, particularly in sports, it's because people realize that sports can be used to access demographics that they wouldn't otherwise be able to reach. And it's not the only passport you can use to get to those places. But it's the most popular one. And so the question then to your point becomes, what else can we use to connect with our fellow person that does not make them immediately go on their heels like their tasting vegetables that have been airplane into their mouth by their mom. You know, like, how can this be plausibly something you might enjoy talking about? And that's, that is as big a lesson for me as anything, which is make sure that you're enjoying the thing you're doing. Make sure that the thing you're telling your audience about is itself, both funny and hopefully, I don't know,

37:00meaningful. But it's, it's a yes and thing. It's, it's not one or the other. This gets flattened to like politicians need to be more on TikTok or like doing front-facing videos or something. But what you're saying is actually more important, which is like they actually just need to look like they're having fun. Like actually, that's actually, you see, super power. You found something you enjoyed and other people enjoyed it too. And you didn't have to perform the theater of it. You didn't have to, by the way, and I should say this is a warning label across all of this, right? We are also familiar with the politician who just wears sports like a skin suit, like they're a men in black alien. And it's not convincing. And in fact, has the opposite effect. This is a failure of strategy because you don't actually care about this. But I promise everybody, as I continue my after school special, that there is something out there that you care about that other people do as well. And you just got to find it. One accountability lesson I learned from your reporting that I'm not sure anyone, not anyone. Not sure some people will love. Is that accountability for bad actors doesn't

38:02necessarily look like people behind bars? It looks like fines. It looks like civil penalties. It looks like a really long process potentially. And that you got to have some patience with and maybe do 17 episodes about. You know what I mean? Like it's just it's longer than you think. It requires more of you than you think, and it may not end with someone in a stripy suit. No, but it might end in something evasive as well, which is a real sensation that someone is ashamed. And if that is what we got, not prison time, should that be warranted at any level of this? But just the idea of someone try to get away with something. And now everybody knows that they didn't. Do you think Steve bombers ashamed? I think he is. You do. According to my reporting, I think that he has spent the last year of his life feeling a pressure point that nothing in his career has made him feel. He is, look, I'm not saying that

39:11the metric on shame is the back page of the New York Post. But I will point out that we here in New York City had a back page after the NBA punishment came out that simply said Los Angeles cheaters. And it was bombers face and it was the team's logo with cheaters instead of where clippers should be. And this is something that is going to trail him for a while because the real the real rub here for Steve Balmer is that he also loves basketball. He is a super fan and evolve the punishments beyond the 30 million that he owes to the NBA, beyond the 50 million legal bill that he's also footing. It's the fact that he is banned from his own gleaming $2 billion arena that he built to watch his team play basketball games. It's the fact that he is banned from that arena for one year that is going to I think haunt him more than anything else. It's that reminder that once again, you can't just buy the thing that you want the most. Yeah. I mean, I look at

40:17our political situation right now, Donald Trump in office and whether accountability might come. And I feel like part of the issue is that his corruption is so open like he brags about it. And it denies someone like you one of your superpowers, which is uncovering something hidden, creating a world full of lore. You know what I mean? Revealing something to the rest of us, making us all lean in. Do you think that's a real problem? I think there's that line from the big short that I think about a lot, which is at some point someone goes from confessing to bragging. You know, why are they confessing? No, they're bragging. That is how I feel about this administration, which embodies the age of corruption, the golden age of corruption, you might say more than anything else. And yeah, at the point at which they're not even operating like it's a secret. I think the suspense, I mean, this is now we're now providing the

41:22opposite playbook. If you're trying to avoid being investigated by an investigative journalist whose entire theory of the case rests upon telling a story that has stakes, stakes informed by the fact that you don't want them to know it. If you simply on some level operate as if you're proud of it. Yep. That's a pretty good hack, I guess. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're saying that really for you, your answer on accountability is just embarrassed the crap out of people. Just embarrass them. Find something that they did not want you to know that means something to them such that when you know it, they feel it. That would be the clinical diagnosis of why I think Steve Balmer fought this for a year until he couldn't anymore. It might also explain why Donald Trump naturally is made for

42:24the era of shamelessness when every other institution is also, by the way, feeling something that he biologically perhaps at this point never will. But you're giving me faith that we can pierce immunity. Maybe, maybe, you just have to find the thing and keep out it. I think it's worth trying. I think it's, I think people in this way, I don't think we have many other choices left, Mary. I think we might as well try to do this one. Pavo, I'm so grateful for your time in your reporting. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for asking. Pablo Torre is the Pulitzer Prize winning host of Pablo Torre finds out. And that's our show. What Next is produced by Evan Campbell, Madeline Temsdusharm and Patrick Fort. Paige Osborne is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD. Miele Bell is the executive producer of podcast here at Slate. Ben Richman is our senior director

43:26of podcast operations and I'm Mary Harris. Go check me out on Blue Sky. I'm at Mary Harris. Thanks for listening. Catch you back here next time. I love days like these at the pool, but my moderate to severe plaque rise is can sometimes take me out of the moment. I'm ready to make a splash with clear skin. Thanks to SkyRizzy, Risenkism ab Rizza. SkyRizzy is a prescription only injection for adults who are candidates for systemic or phototherapy. At four months, most people saw 90% clear skin when measured from head to toe and many were even 100% plaque free. People also saw significant improvement in psoriasis symptoms of pain, redness, itching and burning. Don't use of allergic to SkyRizzy. Serious allergic reactions, increased infections or lower ability to fight that may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor about

44:30any flu-like symptoms or vaccines. Now there's nothing on my skin. Thanks to SkyRizzy, and that means everything. Ask your doctor about SkyRizzy. The number one dermatologist prescribed by allergic psoriasis. Visit SkyRizzy.com or call 1-866 SkyRizzy to learn more. 98 of the top 100 US accounting firms trust Bill to handle bill pay processes. Why? Because our tools are built on over a trillion dollars of secure payments. We're not just moving money. We're powering financial workflows for half a million customers. That's a level of expertise. You just can't fake. Ready to talk with an expert? Visit bill.com slash proven to get started. And grab a $150 gift card as a thank you. Terms and conditions apply. See offer page for details.