Bulwark Takes - JD Vance Fumbles—Literally!

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

Tim Miller and Pablo Torre take on JD Vance's embarrassing moment with the Ohio State football team at the White House. Let’s just say, things didn’t exactly go as planned.

Hey guys, it's Tim Miller from the Bulwark and, uh, you know, look, I'm still at the hotel here. So we're doing an emergency pod because when something this veepish happens in the world of sports and politics and they intersect, I have to get Pablo Torre, my man from Pablo Torre finds out on to talk about it. What's going on, man? I had a choice. Do I start investigating this on Pablo Torre finds out immediately, or do I text Tim Miller emergency pod in all caps? And I think you now know which one we've chosen. We've made the right choice. Okay, so if you've missed it, here's J.D. Vance, pretend football fan from

Ohio, with the Ohio State team, raising the trophy. They won the college football playoff this year. Let's watch. I mean, that is bad, Pablo. What you got to do, OK, is take the video we're making and then you're going to rewind it many times because we're going to we're going to point out some people you should have an eye on. OK, OK. So first off, I think you just watch Trump. Just watch Trump because Donald Trump is not loving it. Actually. Uh, imagine Tim just being him watching that guy drop, uh, the metaphor of what it means to be impressive on the floor break.

Um, that, that I just started with, I don't know who you looked at, but I looked at him and laugh very hard. I was pretty focused on JDs humiliation. So I was like micro micro focusing on J.D. and just him realizing he was Selina Meyer in that moment. Ryan Day, I think, looking like kind of like Marco Rubio in these meetings about deportations, like in front of the president of El Salvador. It looks like Ryan Day is kind of simulating what it looks like to be very politely nodding. As you sort of know better, I think you know better and yet you're still politely nodding. You also can't have too big,

too many fast movements with Ryan Day because you don't want that hair dye, you know, to start leaking down, down the face. You don't want a Rudy Giuliani moment if you're Ryan Day. Absolutely. The Giuliani, he is the most Giuliani of all of the coaches in in sports um and also by the way like i was

watching this because of course it's like vivek ramaswamy i don't think he was on stage he was off camera i think but he was also there that day of course like trying to glom on to ryan day um and so you had these people who all cosplay as like the bros but have none of the credibility when held to the light of an actual sports fan and you're like wait a minute this is fully translucent there's nothing here there's nothing inside this can you name a player name me some cincinnati bangles vivek uh you know what does andy mean to you? So the legend, by the way, AJ Green, the legend was merely that they would, J.D. Vance and Vivek,

when they were in grad school together, would get together and watch Bengals games on Sunday. One more source before we do the thing, by the way, when you look at the back row of the players, the current players whose names they definitely don't know, and there's just one guy who can't control himself and turns around laughing. And before that guy gets deported to El Salvador, I just want you to know that that is the exact right reaction to what you just saw happen. I have a new favorite Ohio State Buckeye.

You've watched a lot of trophy ceremonies, Pablo. Have you ever seen a collapse like this? Have you ever seen a, I guess I understand that the trophy maybe is in two parts. So this is that what was happening here? Do we know the fundamentals? Having never seen this happen before, I can't totally tell you the fundamentals of how the trophy should be handled because no one has ever broken it before. That would be the investigation in fairness to Vance, I'd like to pursue. However, the confidence that, yeah, of course I'm just going to go pick this thing up, and then for it to fall apart immediately, and you dropping one of those parts as the other part is cradled,

as if you have become a child whose dad needs to make sure that he knows how to hold the football right. All of this was just it was perfect it's particularly for trump i like how you focused in on trump's face because you know trump loves trophies trump cherishes trophies trump has a lot of fake trophies that he's given himself from his golf tournaments and so like this is like a symbol that is meaningful you know to the to the to the masculine, you know, Trump, what our imagery, hagiography, and JD just being the former fat kid that just ruins it is really is really kind of amusing in particular. I remembered immediately that video from earlier this year where Donald Trump is hosting, I believe it's Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, who brings in a ridiculously ornate golden trophy.

And there are parts that spin. And Trump is treating this like he is showing everybody. Yeah. Like, look, look at look, look inside the pyramid that I have. Gaze upon my works, ye mighty, and despair. It's just like the most sincere awe I've ever seen him in is in this thing, which he wants to keep at the White House. And so the trophy and despair it's just like the most sincere awe i've ever seen him in is in this thing which he wants to keep at the white house and so the trophy and what it means to donald trump is yeah i just it just it just it continues the the thing i think he's thinking to himself which is he knows that jd doesn't have the juice no he knows it he knows that he's this is just the latest example yeah he's a dork. He's a dork.

You know, the other moment worth reflecting on for me is maybe the only good moment of the first Trump term, which was when LSU went to receive their trophy. And we have the famous video. If you haven't seen it, we're about to show it right now of the woman doing the get the gat inside the white house i mean lsu just defiling the white house with with with louisiana just fucking down home party atmosphere let's watch so there you go that's how you celebrate all right no no goofy stuff you know we're not we're not dropping things we don't we don't don't have Rudy Giuliani hair dye on. You know, it's just fucking gumbo and dirty South rap. Yeah.

We are seeing, by the way, the return to the White House be totally back in vogue. And I get it. I'm not here to actually tell people, Tim, like you shouldn't go visit. If you're Ohio State. You shouldn't go visit if you're in Ohio State. You shouldn't have. Now, but what I am saying, what I am saying, because I don't want to look, I. If you're Ohio State. I am. You shouldn't go visit if you're in Ohio State. You shouldn't have gone. But what I am saying, what I am saying, because I don't want to.

Look, I'll let you say that part. I got to be the sports guy. I hear you. Yeah. It's just I recognize. I recognize that you're going to get people who are absolutely uninterested in everything I've ever said. And so I just want to acknowledge those people. Cool.

Go do what you want to do. Just know that you have a high likelihood of being in a meme that you regret. That's all I'm saying. You're going to be in the background of something where you're like you are that guy in the documentary. Now, maybe that's not a moral pressure I want to put on you, but just know that you have the high likelihood if you choose to go to this house of horrors, that you're going to be that guy in the documentary and your kid's going to be like, you went to that? And you're going to have to say yes. Yes, I did. You're going to get maimed,

but also you might be able to laugh at J.D. Vance. So, you know, you win some, you lose some. Pablo, it's so good to just share this moment with you. I was at lunch, you know, heading to the airport, heading home, and I was like, you know, I should check my phone. And there's JD just fully humiliating himself. I'm glad that we could kind of memorialize it together. The next time he picks up a trophy,

I'm going to give you a call. Okay, see you, Pablo. Go check out his show, Pablo Torre Finds Out. We'll be back. Peace, subscribe to the feed.