"That's Just Corruption": Sen. Chris Murphy on the Prediction Market Crackdown and Profiteering in Youth Sports

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out presented by eBay Live. I am Pablo Torre and today we're gonna find out what this sound is If the NBA and the NFL get in bed with these prediction markets They are knowingly corrupting the sport right after this ad Lego Star Wars smart play sets contain everything you need for interactive play Including a powerful smart brick that reacts to how you move and play Smart bricks recognize smart tags and smart minifigures to bring play to life with amazing interactive features So now the galaxy plays back Shop all in one set for interactive play. I Think when you're diagnosed with cancer you crave a semblance of normalcy and control and so work allowed me to be me Cancer and a diagnosis can be all-consuming But it doesn't have to be Research shows that what's important for patients best outcomes is not only the treatment we give but the ability for them to continue their lives Which often means continuing to work and have purpose for what they're doing learn more and sign the pledge at working with cancer pledge calm Here's the new Citroen C3 aircross the perfect SUV for bears and lovers of the great outdoors Sure and comfort too Inside it easily goes from five to seven seats and for you cubs look it's got Apple CarPlay and your favorite apps Yes, Mr. Grizzly available in petrol full electric or hybrid So ready for a family adventure the new Citroen C3 aircross for lovers of the wilderness and everyday comfort now with a 1500 pounds electric car grant The United States senator from the state of Connecticut Chris Murphy, how obnoxious of a Yukon Homer are you in your own estimation? I Mean I'm pretty obnoxious. I mean Dan Hurley is you know kind of like a godlike figure and I I think everybody understands that you went to law school there. Yes Yeah, I didn't go undergrad but I went to but I went to law school But I grew up in Connecticut my parents grew up there. So yeah, I was a junior in high school when Tate George hit that shot to beat Clemson to send Yukon into the elite eight game and Like since then it's just been a dream, you know, we don't have a lot in Connecticut since the way there's left So Yukon is what we got you have Sue Bird winning games unto eternity you get Ray Allen rip Hamilton You get Karam Butler in that whole era right like late 90s early 2000s You've been spoiled as we enter the sweet 16, right? So just to do the accounting here for your partisanship on Friday tomorrow in the sweet 16 The one seed Yukon women Perennial powerhouse play number four North Carolina at 5 p.m. Eastern and then on the men's side The top seeded Yukon Huskies play number three Michigan State at 945 p.m. Eastern Give us a picture of Chris Murphy when he's you know rooting for the Huskies I generally like do it on my own I'm not great company for these games because I tend to get a little bit too wound up I have like a weird ritual now where I get so I get like just just so anxious that I sort of have to watch the games On a little bit of tape delay so that I can like fast forward Through some of the tougher moments and then rewind and watch it again So yeah, I I'm generally watching them on my own maybe with my 14 year old who's a big Yukon Fan and I use the tape delay as a way to kind of address my Anxieties as a way to self-regulate which is a theme of this entire conversation. I dare say how does one Regulate when you know what the excesses of such contest might be I just want to get the numbers by the way here in front of you because this whole tournament it's a high watermark economically and Perhaps the opposite when it comes to what you have described as something afflicting the soul of Sports which clearly you have perhaps unhealthy amount of love for but the amount being gambled legally here in America And this is not just sports betting but also now prediction markets Which we will of course get into you've been instrumental in attempting to regulate those we're talking about about four and a half billion dollars And so what comes to mind when I mention, you know an amount that's apparently on par with the GDP of Suriname Yeah, I mean listen to first of all I just think there's a lot of lives being ruined addiction gambling is a huge problem Especially amongst young boys today and young men and I just think we have to recognize that I think it's a it's connected to a larger Crisis that's happening amongst Men and young men who are losing a little bit of their sense of identity and purpose in the world They're trying to find new outlets for energy Trying to find new outlets for risk-taking and that often comes through sports betting I think for the non-better though, it's Fundamentally changed the product in many ways. So like my favorite show Historically to watch especially at the end of a long day has been Sports Center Sports Center is just a betting show now, right? I mean almost half the content on that show is About odds and about how to bet on the games tomorrow And so I've stopped watching it in part because you know, it just doesn't seem for me any longer And then as the numbers get bigger I just do think the opportunities for corruption are harder to avoid and more of these games are going to be rigged So I don't know it's I for me It's changed the experience for the worse and I think we don't really understand yet, you know How many you know lives ultimately get harmed when the bets are are that big? Well, the sports gambling came in and everything of course got turned over in various ways Many of which you just mentioned and then the prediction market as a concept emerges And so we're kind of dealing with these multiple fronts, but prediction markets is the one that this week as we're talking It's been kind of like prediction market week in Washington And I want to get to the bill you recently introduced titled the bets off act Which attempts to make really material changes to the way prediction markets like poly market like Cal-Chi can operate But just big picture here senator. Why do prediction markets as a concept? concern you especially, you know, there are lots of prediction markets on Events where you don't know the outcome and men sports is right on that list But the bets these days the prediction markets that exist these days are on events where the outcome is knowable for instance, you can place a bet on what a particular celebrity is gonna say on a You know evening talk show a late night talk show well those talk shows are taped at 5 p.m And so there's hundreds of people including all the guests who know what that celebrity said There's bets on whether the United States is gonna go to war on a Friday or a Saturday Whether people inside the White House who know the answer to that question So there are just a ton of bets on these prediction markets that are rigged by inside information and the markets make it Seem as if these are on the level bets when they really aren't so to me That's just corruption and we shouldn't allow for there to be Fundamentally rigged prediction markets or betting markets available to ordinary consumers that seems to be the primary problem But I also do just worry, you know like I worry about sports that everything just becomes Commoditized that we kind of just can't enjoy something for the sake of it That we can't look at an issue like war as a moral issue now It's just something that we can make money off of and I think that that cheapens life a little bit when Nothing has inherent value any longer where value is just connected to your ability to monetize it That's not what like sports was for me growing up and as a fan It was about a real attachment to the team a belief that when that team did well I was doing well, but not in a monetary sense in more of like a spiritual sense There's a purity to sports that I think it's lost when everything just becomes a bet a big question that I contemplate a lot as I watch sports as I Watch the news is who is this good for if it's a rigged casino economy who's getting rich and you've now You've now invoked the name of our Lord and Savior in a couple of different ways And it just reminds me that on poly market there was literally there is literally a market on will Jesus Christ return before 2027 and the real rub here is not merely that market It's the spin-off market which you can also bet on which is will the odds on will Jesus Christ return before 2027 Exceed 5% Which I think just speaks to the whole notion of we're now dealing with of course derivatives of the thing that already was kind of apocalyptic and of course you can manipulate all of this stuff by putting more money in Which is to say that yeah when money is now the mechanism through which predictions and Listen to these companies truth are being adjudicated. Yeah, it sports its war its politics It's all kind of being treated the same way in a Tragicomically unregulated era Senator yeah, and when I say spiritually, I don't necessarily mean that word in the religious sense I just mean that like there's a there's a purity and a goodness You know when we view sports purely through a fandom lens And I think that there's something important when we look at a question of war and peace purely through a moral lens I do think it just becomes corrupted When all of that gets monetized it cheapens the experience or the debate for us and I think we do like I Know this sounds like a little bit too apocalyptic But I think we die a little bit inside when everything just becomes about dollars and and cents So yes, I think it's time for us to regulate these markets I think that there are some markets we just shouldn't offer like whether there's gonna be a famine in the Middle East or Not or what somebody is gonna say on a talk show and on the sports side I just think that states should be able to put basic regulations Around these markets and they can't do that for the prediction markets. They can do that for you know draft Kings and And other sort of mainstream betting sites, but they can't do that for calcium and poly market And I think that we should have basic basic regulatory structures around betting markets Allow people to do it but make sure that there are some protections for people who aren't familiar with where the bar is right now on Regulation it does to continue the language of like who's gonna who's gonna save us? It's worth noting, right? so the CFTC which is now the regulatory agency that has taken jurisdiction under this administration of Quote-unquote event contracts aka the bets that prediction markets put out they According to Barons, you know have effectively closed their Chicago enforcement office, which was famed for its regulation That's where the enforcement attorneys were there apparently according to Barons are now zero of those attorneys left That SEC for those who are not keeping up with the news literally just from this week You have one of the top people there stepping down because apparently there is Perhaps unsurprising and retrospect conflict between how much enforcement the SEC will do as regards the president and his family Can you describe for a layman how bleak it is right now when you speak of enforcement and corruption? So the Trump family are paid advisors to poly market and calcium So those prediction markets and they're obviously the biggest ones are embedded Inside the Trump family and the Trumps are planning to open up their own prediction markets So this is I think not hard to understand the word is just out We're not enforcing any consumer protection laws against the prediction markets We want them to be able to get as big as possible so the only sort of prospect here is for states to step in and regulate these prediction markets, but the Trump Administration is trying to stop states from doing that that will likely be litigated in the courts or For us ultimately to pass legislation through Congress, but that doesn't seem like a very high likelihood in the near future So yeah, I think for the foreseeable future. It's unfortunately gonna be the wild wild West The act that you're proposing the bets off act and bets off happens to be an acronym You introduced the last Wednesday alongside three fellow Democrats one in Rhode Island another in Texas another in Arizona What would your bill do our bill would say that you can't place bets on Government action. That's kind of the simplest thing that it says And for two reasons one because it's just you know rife with opportunity for inside the information But two you don't want people inside government to be placing their own bets and to be pushing government action So that they make money. I mean what we know is that right before The United States struck Iran there were a whole bunch of bets made So we struck around on Saturday and on Friday a whole bunch of people made bets That the war was gonna start the next day And it was a anomalous series of bets on no other day where there are a bunch of bets made that war will start in 24 hours So that that clearly doesn't smell right, but you also imagine, you know Some young guy in the situation room who has a bet that war is gonna start on Saturday Pushing the war to start on Saturday whether that's good for national security or not So our bill says first no bets on government action second It says in an instance where there's one person that knows the outcome of a bet and controls the outcome of a bet That shouldn't be on a market either So is a particular singer going to appear in a Super Bowl halftime show right that shouldn't be a bet because only that singer Knows that and the people in there Inner circle everybody else is you know just as unfair odds and making that bet I would still leave you a whole bunch of stuff to bet on but our bill basically says those two kind of bets are Fundamentally rigged and so they shouldn't be allowed on these markets Yeah, it's worth pointing out that Kashi this week seemingly in response to this genre of legislation announced that it was banning And this is where the sports and the politics of it reconverged. They're banning athletes and politicians from trading on their markets But based on the scope of your proposed bill that sounds like what to you Whitewash, right? I mean, it's it's an attempt to look like they're doing something, but they're not I mean Let's take the example of a fairly robust betting market, which is you know, what words will Donald Trump use in tonight's speech or tonight's press conference Okay, so their new policy, I guess says Donald Trump personally can't place that bet But there's 20 people around Donald Trump who know the answer to that question and who can make bets and can make a bunch of money off of it That should be prohibited too. I think it's really hard to like chase the inside information That's why you know, my legislation is just let's just not have those markets because I think it's really hard to Pick and choose who can and who can't place bets. Yeah, I'm thinking of again this week. We learned 650 a.m. On the day that of course Trump announces formally discussions with Iran are Happening apparently and we're gonna postpone the strikes and the S&P 500 rose the price of oil fell About 14 minutes before 704 a.m. When all that stuff happened at 650 a.m. One and a half billion dollars worth of S&P 500 futures contracts were purchased 192 million dollars worth of crude oil futures contracts were sold and I bring this up to say I think there's a numbness among lots of people about yeah politics Congress It's all corrupt. Whatever this though just feels like a cartoon version of it Yeah, yeah, but I think your point is really right My kids were both born after I was already in Congress and so like they've grown up around this stuff But I had a conversation with my oldest son a few years back about corruption and he was sort of telling me his assumption That you know kind of everybody is on the take and I was like but wait a second Oh, and like you've grown up in this like world like you know My colleagues you know that they're not on the take he's like yeah, but I think we all just assume that you guys are all bought off I know you aren't bad, but I just assume everybody else is and I think that we have just become you know really anesthetized to corruption in politics and We shouldn't because it's actually not true that most people are on the take in fact a very small number are and The corruption we've seen in the last year is really anomalous And so instead of just accepting it and move on we should stamp it out It's a part of a broader problem in society in which we just sort of think that the people that have succeeded in our economy or in our Politics they're just supposed to get whatever spoils come their way And I just I just think we should expect more of our economic leaders right and of our political leaders So yeah worries me the notion of insider trading one of the things that any prediction market executive if you were to ask them about This that they'll point out is like look Congress people like Chris Murphy they can trade stocks right they're allowed to do that while serving in Congress So are there spouses? What is your position on the proposed bans on trading individual stocks while serving in Congress for people like you and your Family members I support them again. I do think it's important to still recognize that You know brazen corruption you have inside information and you trade a stock it happens in Congress But it is really the exception But we have no reason that we need to trade stocks We should just ban that practice right now though just to sort of compare it to the prediction markets now that works Right now we can trade stocks, but we have to disclose all of that So at least you can see you know whether there was a Dirty deal done, but we don't nor do our staff have to disclose Any bets we've made on prediction markets And so at the very least if we're not gonna ban these prediction markets We should do the same thing we do for stocks and make every member of Congress and every high-ranking staff person have to disclose If they're making bets on the prediction markets It does feel like Documentation is the minimum that we should be expecting from Frankly our government as well as the corporations that get to participate in American capitalism It's just really hard for me to look at prediction markets and not see it as somehow part of this overlapping Venn diagram with not only Sports betting but crypto with just the notion of we're going to get off of what has been a traditional additional pipeline of documentation, but what is then being sort of welcomed without a full Understanding perhaps of the unintended consequences is the fact that we can't even tell anymore Who are who are the people profiting who is getting rich becomes something that is Defended by this cloak of invisibility the reality is these unregulated crypto markets They are the place where really bad people do their financing It's where the sex predators and the drug smugglers and the terrorists do their money And they used to have a really hard time moving their money back when everything was back when money was moved through transparent visible Exchanges the same thing is happening with these prediction markets Obviously we don't know who's making these trades an hour before the markets open or the day before war starts The president has his own cryptocurrency and we can't see who's putting money in his pocket Maybe it's just maga fans, but maybe it's foreign governments or oligarchs or CEOs that are buying Trump's crypto coin putting money in his pocket and then whispering to him what they want from government So yeah at the very least just putting some transparency around all these markets would at least allow Journalists and citizens to see whether it's on the level or not This is an ad from better help Am I forgetting something did I reply to that email? What am I doing ever feel like your mind has an inbox that never stops filling don't forget to reply Some days. It's not just messages. It's pressure. Did I say the wrong thing? It's doubt. Do you think they like me? It's everything at once Therapy with better help can give you space to unpack what's weighing on you one message at a time Get matched with a qualified therapist and start clearing your mental inbox today at better help Visit betterhelp.com slash random podcast for 10% of your first month of online therapy Idol money lies in your current account picking crumbs out of its belly button wondering should I eat them? But when you start investing with Monzo your money's always busy It turns on regular investments Invests your spare change and tops up your stocks and shares isa it even helps you make sense of risk and return Monzo the bank that gets your money moving You could get back less than you invest Monzo current account required UK residents 18 plus T's and C's apply Here's the new Citroen C3 aircross the perfect SUV for bears and lovers of the great outdoors Sure and comfort too inside it easily goes from five to seven seats and for you cubs look it's got Apple CarPlay and your favorite apps Yes, Mr. Grizzly available in petrol full electric or hybrid So ready for a family adventure the new Citroen C3 aircross for lovers of the wilderness and everyday comfort now with a 1500 pounds electric car grant The notion of cops on the beat when it comes to sports It's worth pointing out here that and again, you're obviously a basketball fan I grew up an enormous fan of the NBA I remain so despite many things that worry me one of which as the commissioner of the league Adam Silver saying that on the one hand We welcome the business of prediction markets on the other hand We would like control over how to solve for those consequences the unintended consequences that we were that we're talking about He says quote this at the Sloan conference where I also was I don't think it's one that you can necessarily turn the clock back on I think how do you assess? perspective like that. Oh, I think we absolutely turn back the clock. I mean the clock hasn't You know run the dial many times This is a really recent phenomenon and and the prediction market problem in sports is a specific and acute one Okay, if the only bet you can place is on the outcome of a game We still acknowledge that there's you know a lot of randomness that happens in that game That is not unless somebody is really on the take a knowable event but Yanis is you know a big investor now in Cal-she and the bets on Cal-she are not just bets on you know who wins the Bucks games But bets on where Yanis is gonna play next right what the trade structure is gonna look like if he ends up getting dealt and Yanis has tons of Of control over that there are bets on who is gonna be in the starting lineup That's not a random question That's a question that the coach and the coach's kid and nephew probably know so If the NBA and the NFL get in bed with these prediction markets, they are knowingly Corrupting the sport. I get it that they're just looking for a quick buck But this one gets really gnarly pretty quickly Rob Manfred the commissioner of baseball recently disframed his exclusive deal with poly market as quote imperative steps in Proactively managing the new and rapidly growing prediction market space and quote although of course the follow-up question is around regulation Would you like to see the commissioners of these leagues testify before Congress about what feels to many sports fans? I've talked to like double dealing like they're speaking out of both sides of their mouths They want their cake but also to eat it too as it concerns how any of this can actually be regulated of course, I'd like them to testify because I think it's pretty clear upon questioning you'd learn that they're just in this for the cash grab and You know, these are very powerful people and so they probably do have a bit of a God complex They think that if they can get poly market or Cal sheet in the room They can convince them to you know, ban bets on things that might be rigged. I think they're naive I think these are companies that are more powerful and more capitalized than the leagues themselves And they're gonna offer whatever bets make them money and it's ultimately just gonna lead to more corruption opportunities inside these leagues not not less You know the question of what has money done to the games that we love it takes us to youth sports Into private equity if you were to summarize for people who are not in the building rooting at times maniacally for their kids In the American youth sports industrial complex. What has happened? Thanks to the influence of private equity. How would you begin to tell that story? I tell it through, you know an anecdote So it's my younger son that plays hockey and he you know plays in one of these, you know Very competitive and very expensive travel leagues Part of the reason he plays in that travel league is that the quality of rec level hockey In the East Coast has been gutted and so if you're a player that has any level of skill You almost have to play in the travel leagues to be able to play with kids who are at your level but that's a five to ten thousand dollar investment for many families and So it ends up excluding a lot of good hockey players from participating at the level that they should be playing at But it gets even worse in in our league, which is owned by private equity They just find all sorts of ways to squeeze every dollar out of the product One of the ways they do that is by creating a closed-circuit circuit television system And that's the only way that you can watch your kids play hockey. I don't you know, I go to some games My wife goes to some games But I can't live stream the game for their mom or their grandparents That's illegal in our league because they want the parents and the grandparents to buy a Subscription to the closed circuit television system It can be anywhere from twenty five to fifty dollars per month to buy Black Bear TV Which is the private equity backed company that owns the league and many of the ranks So like again, I get back to this question of like what is this doing to us spiritually? Like that's like one of the most important rituals as a parent to be able to share your kid's sporting events with their grandparents and now I can't do that unless my I or my parents pay Um hundreds of dollars a year It's just like robbing us of the things that make parenting special that that make being a kid special as these Youth sports experiences become more and more and more expensive and more monetized I think a bit of the through line we're discussing here is that the demand for sports in 2026 and beyond It remains so seemingly inelastic It is relentless how much we care about these games To the detriment perhaps of every other competing cultural institution that we have left But the knowledge that you can extract from that you can frack sports To get more and more money out of it despite what the consequences again might be to our Environment to our country to our soul as as you put it It raises just the question of like how is that what you just described? What Black Bear sports group has been doing with hockey rinks? How is it legal? And is it in fact just the thing that oh wow clever No one had tried it but now they did and it turns out you can totally do that We used to have an informal Understanding in this country that there were some industries where you didn't want the incentive system To be money you wanted the incentive system to be just what was right We have no recollection of this but the the health insurance industry in this country Didn't start out as a for-profit business It was just like the right thing to do the idea that you would pool risk So that nobody goes bankrupt if they get sick it started in texas Where a whole bunch of teachers essentially got together and pooled the risk of hospitalization And you know until about 20 years ago health insurance was still not for profit And then somebody figured out that you could make a whole bunch of money off it and it became for-profit That was the same thing with youth sports, right? Like when we grew up It was inconceivable that a new york investment firm would own the league That my Little league baseball team played in we just had like an understanding that like it was just kind of icky for Certain things to be run for profit So now what do we do? Do we come in as a congress or does a state legislature come in and say That youth sports associations can't be owned By for-profit entities maybe like maybe that's where it's come to but boy It'd be a lot better off if we could have just kept that old informal understanding But isn't that the story of our time senator the notion that some people realized shame Is a market inefficiency And that if we were to merely decide to not care about what feels like a humiliating concept If that in fact were to no longer be a pain point for us then there's yet more money to be won That just feels like the thing underneath everything we've been talking about It's a transition that's been in the works for decades the idea that the only thing that matters in our economy is profit and efficiency and that if a particular industry is generating profit then it must inherently be working Correctly that's a really new idea in america used to be That we thought an economy should work first and foremost for the common good We wanted people to make money because that's how you get innovation and Ingenuity and hard work is something you want to incentivize but we said first The economy should work to just make us happy right to make us feel fulfilled and second it should work to make People rich so yeah now. I think we've gone to the point where That informal value structure is gone. There is no shame in the private sector Everything is commoditized now. We have to look at legislation that's the kind of reinserts These priorities the common good worker health community health back into the calculus That these companies are making yeah, I always think about incentives right? What are we dangling on the end of the stick? What are the carrots that we are dangling in front of every very clever? entrepreneur out in silicon valley or every abjectly corrupt family member of this administration We keep on coming back to who's going to save us And our faith collectively as a country in congress as we wonder who is going to put a stop to any of this is also vanishingly small But I assume you also wrestle with this the impotence of the office while knowing better Yeah, and listen, I'll take I'll take responsibility in both my roles, right? I mean, I definitely could as a parent have just said, you know what? You're just going to play rec level hockey, right? We're not spending the thousands of dollars. We're not spending our weekends in philadelphia and buffalo and so You know every parent and every individual can decide to not enter that rat race as willingly at least when it comes to Youth sports, but yes the ultimate solution here is for congress to step in and do something about this And I do think and I'll just tease this because it's a longer conversation I do think that there's a real bipartisan consensus out there in america Around how much profit matters in our entire economy, but let's just take youth sports. I don't think People on the right or the left are excited about how professionalized youth sports has become And I think that there could be an opportunity for republicans and democrats to work together Now congress is especially impotent right now because of what trump has done to our entire federal government And there's not an ability to like take on private equity in sports because private equity right now is so integrated into This administration, but I do think that there's a political realignment there for the taking out in america around people's cooperation With the lionization of profit and efficiency and the commoditization of everything not nailed down Including little league baseball. That's there. It's probably not going to be able to be capitalized upon until after trump is gone This is an ad from better help Some days it feels like you're carrying something no one else can see stress grief Responsibility the kind of heaviness that doesn't show up in photos, but follows you everywhere You don't have to hold it alone With better help you can talk to someone who helps lighten what you've been carrying for far too long Take the weight off start therapy anytime from anywhere online with better help visit betterhelp.com Slash random podcast for 10 of your first month of online therapy Here's the new citron c3 aircross the perfect suv for bears and lovers of the great outdoors Sure and comfort too inside it easily goes from five to seven seats and for you cubs Look, it's got apple car play and your favorite apps Yes, mr. Grizzly available in petrol full electric or hybrid So ready for a family adventure The new citron c3 aircross for lovers of the wilderness and everyday comfort now with a 1500 pounds electric car grant It's pete and sam here from the stay relevant podcast and this week We're sponsored by wayfair.co.uk where you can shop all things home now You've challenged me with sorting our office out with wayfair's help haven't you peter? That's right. How are you finding it? Well, don't get me started mate wayfair.co.uk is the best Destination to shop online for furniture and decor and the value is unbelievable. So you won't ruin the budget too much Exactly and i'll tell you what else is unbelievable the variety of great stuff you can buy for your home Oh, yes the stuff for us both then you are going to love what i've done to the place I'm sure I will and if you're at home need to shop all things home then shop now at wayfair.co.uk Why has it taken so long for the democratic party to realize that sports Is a terrain in a culture war that is ripe To not only be metaphorically useful for all the lessons around Fair play and competition and regulation, but also the reality of like this is where people feel The effects of government whether they realize it or not Yeah, and and I think You know, maybe it is true that you're not going to put this genie back in the bottle when it comes to The amount of betting that's happening And if that's the case then yes people are going to feel the impact of government's absence If these prediction markets increasingly become where sports betting happens and you have no protection On these markets from bets that are inherently Rigged I do think that you're seeing the impact of government in action You know mainly we're talking about government not stepping up and acting But that has an impact on your ability to enjoy the sports that you like right even as you tell your family to get out of the room By and large and watch on tape delay because you yourself don't trust yourself to regulate your own emotions Yeah, no, that's that's that's right. Yeah, but I but I have a stake in it I guess I mean I guess the reason that I have such strong feelings about Why congress should step up and do something Whether it's college athletics and compensation or these prediction markets is because I get such value from being a sports fan like I hate the fact that sports center is now just a betting show It's like how I would release energy after a hard day In the senate is that come home and I just think about Sports and so I get I get such value from watching my kid play I got value as a teenage athlete learning how to be a great teammate Learning how to lose learning how to win so I know how much value sports can bring To a person's life and so I don't want to corrupt it by an economy that doesn't care about anything other than money Or a government that just sits on the sidelines while these sports markets continue to crumble in atrophy I'm realizing that things are so dire in our country that I I find myself yearning for the motivational pep talk of some coach to come in and remind us Maybe we just need jim calhoun to just yell at us Just to rip into just to rip us a new ass man. Yeah, we are. I mean listen We have become a soft culture in a lot of ways and we have moral softness now because like we don't stand for anything as a country Morally we're willing to accept these dizzying levels of corruption and we I don't know that hurley's the right guy to give that lecture but but but calhoun right as a As a as a pretty die hard irish catholic That's probably coming and give a good moral lecture to the country on what we should put up with and what we shouldn't put up with Right shame may be a marketing efficiency, but as a fellow catholic I can validate That there is no force quite like guilt Yeah, there is still a part of our biology that that responds to guilt whether our economy response to it or not our dna response to it Yeah, my mom is living proof of that as well Um senator a really good conversation. Thank you so much for joining us and hopefully we'll talk On the other side of what feels like I don't know at times a political apocalypse Appreciate you focusing on this. Um really great to be with you This has been Pablo Torre finds out a metal art media production And I'll talk to you next time It's pete and sam here from the stand relevant podcast and this week we're sponsored by Wayfair.co.uk where you can shop all things home now you've challenged me with sorting our office out with Wayfair's help Haven't you peter that's right. How are you finding it? Well, don't get me started mate Wayfair.co.uk is the best destination to shop online for furniture and decor and the value is unbelievable So you won't ruin the budget too much exactly and I'll tell you what else is unbelievable the variety of great stuff You can buy for your home. Oh, yes the stuff for us both then you are going to love what I've done to the place I'm sure I will and if you at home need to shop all things home then shop now at Wayfair.co.uk Hello, this is William and Jordan from the podcast help I sexed with my boss and this message is brought to you by EE the UK's best network Would you like to hear my dilemma at the moment people having a cheeky glance at your phone screen? Well, you're in luck because the galaxy s26 ultra has a built-in privacy display So it's viewable only to you and it's fully customizable You can even set it to specific content. So your messages for example a private You'll save money while discovering the amazing benefits of being with the UK's best network if you trade in your old phone with EE Order today with EE trade in value dependent on device eligibility credit check and terms apply credit by EE limited verify best network at EE.co.uk forward slash claims Here's the new Citroen C3 aircross the perfect SUV for bears and lovers of the great outdoors Sure and comfort too inside it easily goes from five to seven seats and for you cubs look It's got apple car play and your favorite apps Yes, mr. Grizzly available in petrol full electric or hybrid So ready for a family adventure The new Citroen C3 aircross for lovers of the wilderness and everyday comfort now with a 1500 pounds electric car!