Bulwark Takes - Ryan Garcia Already Regrets Voting for Trump (w/ Van Lathan)

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

Tim Miller is joined by Van Lathan for a convo about boxing star Ryan Garcia, once a Trump supporter, speaking out against ICE raids in L.A., a move that raises bigger questions about whether some high-profile “vibes voters” are waking up to the real impact of their political choices. Is this a sign of change among the Manosphere/MMA right-wing crowd? Or just a one-off? 

Rural communities are being squeezed from every side. From rising health care costs to crumbling hospitals, from attacks on public schools to the fight for paid family and medical leave, farmers and small businesses are reeling from the trade war. And now, Project 2025 is back with a plan to finish what Elon Musk started. Trump and the Republicans won rural votes, then turned their backs on us. Join the One Country Project for the Rural Progress Summit, July 8th through the 10th.

This free virtual event brings together leaders like Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Governor Andy Beshear, and others for real talk and real solutions. Together we'll tackle the most urgent issues facing rural America. Register today or learn more at ruralprogress.com. Hi, I'm Richard Karn, and you may have seen me on TV

talking about the world's number one expandable garden hose. Well, the brand new Pocket Hose Copperhead with Pocket Pivot is here, and it's a total game changer. Old fashioned hoses get kinks and creases at the spigot, but the Copperhead's Pocket Pivot swivels 360 degrees for full water flow and freedom to water with ease all around your home. When you're all done, this rust-proof anti-burst hose shrinks back down to pocket size for effortless handling and tidy storage. Plus, your super light and ultra durable pocket hose copperhead is backed with a 10-year warranty.

What could be better than that? I'll tell you what, an exciting radio exclusive offer just for you. For a limited time, you can get a free pocket pivot and their 10-pattern sprayer with the purchase of any size copperhead hose Just text water to 64,000. That's water to 64,000 for your two free gifts with purchase Water to 64,000 by texting 64,000 you agree to receive recurring automated marketing messages from pocket hose message and data rates may apply No purchase required terms apply available at pocket hose comm slash terms. Hey y'all, it's Tim Miller from the bulwark I am here with my buddy van Lathan you might know him from the higher learning. I am here with my buddy Van Lathan. You might

know him from the Higher Learning podcast on The Ringer or for his unhinged social media presence. His appearance occasionally yelling at Scott Jennings on CNN. Who knows where you might know him from? At the time he yelled at Kanye once for TMZ, it's about time you've been on the Bullwork page. How you doing, Van? I am great. How you doing, my brother? I'm doing well. Also the pride of Baton Rouge, Louisiana I should have mentioned I should have led with that. You'll be back in the fall. We'll do more football content Um, I want to talk to you about two things

The second one which will give people for dessert is this boxer who is a Trumpy boxer who? Is who's fucking around and finding out some? Seems like with regards to the deportations and he's having a change of tune So stick around for that. But first I I had a, I guess it was on Monday's pod. I made kind of a side remark about how putting the LA protest to the side, because I think the ICE things are different. The no Kings protests I'd seen are like pretty upper middle class whitish. And the one I went to in New Orleans, being that it's New Orleans, was kind of like, it was great. It was awesome. I loved seeing everybody. Like the spirit

was good, but it was super NPR tote bag vibes. You know, it was very Kamala vibes. And I made this comment and a lot of the commenters here on the page were like, either white ladies, defending the honor of people of color for not coming or some black folks were mad, you know, saying, and I actually like my critique was mostly actually of us of the pro-democracy movement that we got to bring more people in. But anyway, that was my assessment. And I figured I would have hashed that out with you because you might have might have some insight into what we're seeing out there in the protest. Yeah. So that particular protest was interesting because a lot of my friends went and these are

black people. Black folks. Black folks. Yeah. I love folks. I love the term folks. A lot of black people went. There's a tension right now though. And I think a lot of black Americans, I'm not going to speak for all of them, but I think a lot of black Americans, I'm not gonna speak for all of them, but I think a lot of black Americans are asking the question about what and how they should show up. There was, there is a sense of prescience for danger that exists for black people. We can see it and we can feel it coming. We have this sixth sense, or maybe this developed pro-evolutionary trait,

to be able to see when something is particularly dangerous. And normally, we're good enough to warn people as we're warning ourselves. Normally, we're good enough to say, don't walk down that block. There's a guy down there, don't do that. We don't walk down the block. Some of us do, but mostly we don't do it. But normally we're good enough to also tell

other people don't do it. Like, this is going to sound so stupid. I'm sure you've heard the trope about black people in a movie theater, seeing somebody about to do something crazy and going, don't go down there. That's because danger is not exhilarating. Like shouting at the screen. Shouting at the screen, right? Danger is not exhilarating for us. Danger is danger.

Yeah. And there's attention, right now at least, to where a lot of black people saw this danger that we were going to be in, and saw how it would be particularly Different than the first time we went through this and tried to yell at the screen of America Not to go down that alley people did it anyway

So there's a lot of people that are wondering not to go down the alley of Trump to point I'm just making sure I'm following the metaphor here Of course trump 2.0 is the alley. Okay, 2.0 is the alley. So there are a lot of people that are going. Hey We try to warn you We try to tell you You didn't listen Godspeed now I do think that that's maybe being a little bit overplayed, but there is certainly certainly

Some black people that feel that way. Yeah. Okay. I have two questions. One is sociological and the one's like what to do about it. On the sociological side, I just got to tell you, I don't fucking know shit. You're in this business. You're in the podcast business. I have certain things I'm an expert in, but a lot of things are happening. I'm like popping my mouth off. So I don't mind when people are telling me, hey man, you didn't think about it like this. And that's true. It was true sometimes in this case, it's particularly true sometimes with the black experience in America. What bugs me though is

like, I had a lot of white ladies messaging me going saying, hey, Tim, black people are tired. Black people are tired, and we got to stand in for them. And there was something about that sentiment that just rubs me the wrong way. And I can't put my finger on why it rubs me the wrong way, but it does it's just like a little bit of a Speaking for an entire other identity part of it like it's making excuses. I don't know what it is How does that strike you? I'm gonna be honest with you. I appreciate it. Okay, cool. It's interesting. How can I really articulate this? So there's just a part of me reflexively to where it's going to bother me. It's going to

bother me anytime. White people are speaking for black people, because it just seems like when we start down that road, we never end up in a good destination. Right? However, in this case, if the sentiment is, look, black people are tired of being protest mules, or they're tired of being issue mules, or they're tired of being particularly black women. And this incident, she said, that always show up for America and show up to me for what's right in America. If they're tired for being a standard bearer of that, let's just pull a little bit of extra weight

and do our part a little bit more. I mean, I don't have any problem with that. I would say that allies tend to speak with you and not for you. However, they weren't speaking to black people there. They were talking to you. So if they were giving you that perspective, whereas, you know, always runs me the wrong way a little bit,

I do think there's some value there. I think there's some value in them having talked to the black people that they share community with and getting some information from them about what they're prepared to do. I don't know how long we can stay out of the fight. And I don't think that all black Americans by any standard are staying out of the fight at all.

Absolutely not. Kalika went to the protest. I had other homies hit me up telling me like how we gonna do it, how we're gonna go to the protest. I had other homies hit me up telling me, like, how are we going to do it, how are we going to go to the protest. I think there's also something that exists to where, I'll take myself for example. I'll stop talking about all of Black America. My vision and version of American justice

is oriented through the Black American struggle for justice. So I always think about it. I say, how hard it's going American struggle for justice. So I always think about you, I say how hard it's gonna be for us. I'm from South Louisiana. And my introduction to America was through disparity. It was through going to Merenguin to hang out with my father and his family. And just to kind of see the world that they existed in.

And I loved it, I loved being out home, I love riding, I love doing all of this stuff. But I used to look and I'd be like, why does this exist this way? And not on the other side of Merriwin. There was a guy that we used to go tend to his horses and he had an electric fence around his horses. So if the horses touched the electric fence, it would buzz them. And he had an electric fence around his horses. So if the horses touched the electric

fence, it would buzz them. And he had this great big house and it was all manicured and it was all of that. There was a lot of money there, right? For us, we had a lot of stuff, but we were living in the country poor away, the rural poor away. And I'm like, what's the difference? Like, what is this? And so the world was explained to me through a set of choices and priorities, the choices that weren't made for us and our priorities, the priority that we weren't. So when I think about justice, American justice, I think how do people that are have-nots become halves? And it's difficult for me to detach that particular struggle from other groups as well.

So when I see it, I go, well, if due process is meant to protect us, then it's meant to protect everyone. If due process is meant to be the thing that stops me from stopping frisk happening or the police coming into here with a no knock warrant or yeah whatever these things that exist that are right on the fringes of it i think that that protects me so it should protect you whoever the you is i think a lot of black people feel that way

i think we just have a problem with unfairness and injustice and And it's only so long, we're going to be able to take it, no matter who the target of it is. Yeah, so I get the feeling of last thing I say I get the feeling of exhaustion. But I think once a lot of people catch their breath, we'll jump back into the right. So that's my question. And I it's interesting you say that you kind of broadened it out because I wanted to broaden this out beyond black folks, because I don't even think I actually mentioned black folks in the thing, because I was really thinking broadly about who was not there, you know, in a group that had a lot of upper middle class white folks.

And it was a lot of the people that Kamala really struggled to reach. And so the broader point I made was a political point, which is like, this was a good start, these protests, but there's still this nut we got to crack, which is a lot of working class people of all colors, a lot of younger people are like not being activated at this moment by the kind of protecting democracy type of protest. They are a little bit on the anti-ice protests, I'll say, which is why I kind of put that in a separate separate bucket. But like, the democracies have they're being activated. And that's a lot of obviously, it's a lot of younger men to spend a lot of time talking about that. So I'm just wondering if you have any kind of thoughts on that? Like, what

is not resonating there? What might, you know, what would you advise fucking Democrats who are like, man, I just don't know why I'm only reaching the NPR substack bull work audience. You know, how do I get question that? It's amorphous. It's formless. It doesn't, there's no meat to it.

Saying that we should fight, speaking to a certain group of people and saying that we should fight for democracy. It seems like the most important thing in the world, and it also seems like something that you don't really know how to distill. Like fighting for democracy is a big, huge thing. Democracy is the biggest thing in the world.

But it doesn't seem like a direct piece of pizza. It doesn't. If you tell me right now, I'll give you an example of something that the right uses. They go, do you think that boys should play girls sports? And people go, no. And they go, well, the other side, that's what they want. They want boys to play girls sports.

What do you think? It might be kind of silly or a small group of people, but it's tangible, you get it. It's easy to understand. Right, they go, do you think? It might be kind of silly or a small group of people, but it's tangible, you get it. It's easy to understand. Right, right. They go, do you want to be rich or poor? Well, fuck it, I want to be rich. I mean, it doesn't even matter if the policies

that are undergirding what they're telling you, it are going to lead to that for you, because it's not even about you being rich, it's about you being able to actually have food and sustenance in a living wage like right now. How you going to work to be rich when you hungry? How you gonna work to be rich when you don't have a living wage, right?

But they tell you, they go, we're giving you a pathway to not, to be Donald Trump, to be a big shit talking motherfucker who never has to say he's sorry and who has a gold toilet. That's what you want, right? That's what we, you don't want all of this other stuff. You don't want kumbaya.

You don't want to sit around in a circle. You don't want to have to work to understand people. You want to be a big dick with a gold toilet. That's what we giving you. I mean, that's what- And a small dick, but- Yeah, exactly, but you know. It's so funny when he talks about that, he goes, hey, let me tell you. There's no problems down there.

It's so funny. I don't know. If you say that- That's not what Stormy had to say. Right, exactly. Stormy, by the way, Baton Rouge. Shout out to Baton Rouge. Yeah, there you go.

Making a lot of difference. We are, we are. We are. So, democracy, as important of an issue as it is is you can't put it on a t-shirt Yeah, it doesn't work in the same way and honestly, I don't know what to say to those guys because I'm an humanist So when yeah, I am so when they asked me why are you on the left? I go because I don't think your grandmother should have to die broke from cancer. Yeah, that's what I say. Right. I'm on the left, because I don't think that the police should be able to kill you whenever they want. I'm on the left, because I don't

think that the government should be able to tell you what to do with your body. I'm on the left, because I believe in equality and the upward mobility of all people and the destruction of hierarchy. That's why I'm on the left. But some of these guys like hierarchy. Yeah. They're alpha males. Well, it's the nut we're gonna keep trying to crack over the next couple of months.

If you come up with a good idea, you just let me know. All right, before I lose you, I do wanna talk about the Ryan Garcia thing I referred. You know, I'm a sports guy. I do basketball and football, but like boxing, MMA, this is out of my wheelhouse. My one boxing friend tells me that Ryan Garcia is or was an up and comer and kind of a big deal. I don't know what his status is. You can tell me about that. But he's American from Cali. And he was a Trumper. And he tweeted this. I'm going to read the tweet for people and then I want you To kind of tell me what you think about the whole story

He wrote I may have voted for Trump, but I can't stay silent about what's happening with ice in LA These aren't just illegals or statistics They're people hard-working immigrants, especially Mexicans who pay taxes race families build our communities and are part of the people we love Ripping them away from their homes is not just policy. it's pain. We can have borders without losing our humanity. I read that and I was like, shit, maybe is there something here on immigration? I don't know, Joe Rogan talking out about the Venezuelans or this Ryan Garcia guy.

I don't know, or is it just a personal thing for him? I don't know, what do you make of the story? There's definitely rumblings, right? There's, I mean, Ryan Garcia is a fucking moron. I just gotta say that. But hey, hold on. Morons coming to our side is a good sign. I always said I knew it was a bad, I knew it was a bad sign in 2024 when everybody's like, all the cranks and idiots are coalescing around one party. And I was like, well, shit, that's going to be the majority.

Yeah, you need some idiots, right? You need some idiots on your side. So we'll take it. And you also need to believe in the idea that like, today's idiot is tomorrow's genius, like people just need to be informed, right? Um, the reason why I say is a more honest because Trump ran on this, he ran on it, he ran on it, he ran on it, he ran on it. And look, people talk about vibes. Here's the thing about vibes.

Trump was a vibes candidate, I get it. But when people say that, there's something that they never talk about with vibes. Nothing is more fickle than vibes. I want you to think about it, Tim. You've been in a party where the vibe is great. Everything is vibing. The DJ plays the wrong song, Vibe killer. Wrong person walks into

the party. Vibe killer. Wrong memory gets brought up. Vibe killer. A vibe is very fragile. So when you vote on vibes, you're voting for fragility. You're voting for something that can change in a dime. You're not voting for something that has any structure to it. So Ryan Garcita, the entire time he was looking at Trump and going, that's a cool guy I can vibe with. He wasn't actually paying attention. So Trump was actually saying things that were gonna impact his community very directly. And the same thing with all of these guys

who thought that Trump was something different than the rest of the neocons who want war at the drop of a hat everywhere, and now are seeing the level to which he's willing to be engaged. that Trump was something different than the rest of the neocons who want war at the drop of a hat everywhere and now are seeing the level to which he's willing to be engaged in US dominance over a region on behest of a foreign ally. They're seeing all of that and they're going,

wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, this is not what we voted for. But it is, it is what you voted for. So I would say to Ryan Garcia and to the rest of those guys, maybe pay attention to the fine print, or like you're gonna find yourself in this situation as an American. Okay, I'm with you on all of that.

I guess I'm just looking for you to give me a little help, which is, you know, I'm usually a downer on the pod, which is, is there something here? The MMA guy? I mean, like you just, you're in this world more than me, right? Like where these guys are starting to like kind of be like, oh shit, I didn't sign it. Cause they're, I kept saying to people like this crowd, the Manosphere guys, the MMA guys, like they're different than Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro. Like Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro are partisan ideologues. These bros just kind of signed up for something they thought that was cool or the vibes are good on.

And so that means they're gettable. So I don't know. Do you think that there's... Is this just a one-off thing with this Garcia? Yeah, but you just gotta keep it real with him. You gotta keep it gangster with him. You gotta tell them straight up, you got fucked over. You gotta play. You know what them straight up, you got fucked over. You got played. You know what Ryan Garcia is used to? He's used to getting punched in his chin whenever he drops

his left hand. That's what he's used to. That's how he learns. He learns by getting sat on the canvas. That's what he learns. That's the way you gotta talk to him. You can't baby these motherfuckers, which is what we've been trying to do. Ryan Garcia got played, he got used like an idiot, and now the pain of his community, because he's from the IE, I think, the pain of his community, it's on him. He is one of the people that told those people to go out and vote for that guy without paying attention to this stuff.

It's on him, it's his fault. And so to me, yeah, there is something there. You've seen Joe Rogan backtracking a little bit over the El Salvador stuff. He hasn't really been talking about the freedom of speech stuff, which is pretty interesting. I thought that that would get him going a little bit, but he hasn't really dug into that.

You see all of this stuff happening. Those guys are gettable, but they're not gettable about dancing around it. You're not gonna nice them back into the situation. You're gonna have to talk straight to them, situation. You're going to have to talk straight to them. Yeah. I'm going to note Ryan Garcia's handsome. So is there any, are there any lefty MMA or boxer guys that I could start to follow?

Is there anybody speaking? Nah, brother. It's the whole, it's just a- MMA dude, bruh. It's fucking uniform. The UFC is like a fucking pit of MAGA. I'm telling you. But that might be our path out.

We just gotta find one. We just gotta go recruit one to be like a lefty MMA guy. So Phillip Roe, Phillip Roe, Philly Fresh, he's kinda cool. You know, that's my guy. I wouldn't call him a leftist, but he's cool. But in the combat sports era, you have to remember, it's going to be hard for you to be a lefty when your goal is to beat somebody's face.

I don't know. Muhammad Ali did it. I don't know. Muhammad Ali was- Sugar Shane mostly wasn't for W, I don't think. I'm pulling the only boxing names I got. I don't know that Muhammad Ali would have been political in the way that, I wouldn't call Muhammad Ali a leftist at all.

He was probably- I didn't mean leftist, I just meant culturally left. Yeah, he was cool. What we need now from the MMA, UFC, is whoever is a non-straight up Nazi, like we'll take them. We'll try to rehabilitate them. That's it, that's where we gotta go there. Just non-Nazis, we'll see what we can work with.

All right, you go recruit them. Van Laithen, everybody go check out Higher Learning. It is awesome, it's more of this all the time, constantly, and you'll be back soon, all right? Man, I appreciate you. All right, brother. Hi, I'm Richard Karn, and you may have seen me on TV talking about the world's number one expandable garden hose.

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