Offline with Jon Favreau - Elon Musk v. Dollar Store Jon Favreau and How the UFC Conquered America

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

Not too long ago, Donald Trump, Joe Rogan, and Dana White—Offline’s favorite power brokers—identified UFC as a pathway for reshaping culture and politics around their idea of masculinity. Rolling Stone Magazine’s Jack Crosbie joins the pod to explain the parallel rise of MAGA and the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and break down why the sport is so appealing to young men. But first! Jon and Max run through some very Offline moments in Trump's joint congressional address, starting with the President comparing himself to victims of deepfake pornography. Then, they dive into Jon and Elon’s storied past, and what led Favs to intercede on peanut butter gate—a loss for the Focus Challenge, but a win for ending child hunger. Finally, they take a look at the economic blackout, whose slogan “don’t buy stuff" took off on social media this week. 

Offline is brought to you by Quince. Elevating your style used to mean breaking the bank, but with Quince you can get high-end, versatile pieces at prices you can actually afford. Now you can upgrade your style by snagging killer luxury essentials that sync with your vibe and wallet. Quince has all the must-haves like Mongolian cashmere sweaters from $50, iconic 100% leather jackets and comfortable pants for every occasion. The best part? All Quince items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. By partnering directly with top factories, Quince cuts out the cost of the middleman and passes the savings on to us. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical,

and responsible manufacturing practices along with premium fabrics and finishes. I love that. I just bought some T-shirts from Quince. It's getting nicer out here in LA. It is. It's getting warmer. It's getting me T-shirt weathershirt. I didn't my fleece for my morning dog walk. No, so I needed some new t-shirts I looked at Quinn's they got some great t-shirts there They got some great Henley's known to wear Henley once in a while guy loves a fucking Henley

Yeah, and and very affordable indulge in affordable luxury go to quince.com slash offline for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns that's quince.com slash offline for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's q u i n c e dot com slash offline to get free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash offline. I heard at these UFC events from his fans when he entered a Madison Square Garden. This was Donald Trump's first public appearance after the election. And he, you know, entered the arena to this absurd, enormous fanfare and the Jumbotrons going wild

and the announcers on the pay-per-view, you know, screaming out his name, Joe Rogan, you know, practically squealing in delight as he comes in flanked by Elon Musk and Kid Rock and Tulsi Gabbard and all, you know, the entire RFK Jr., the entire trappings of this MAGA movement, and the arena's going wild. And at some point in this,

in the like 15-minute standing ovation, I was talking to a couple of kids, and one of them said, you know, I like that he enters like a fighter. Like, it gives me hope to see this political figure come out here and do a fighter walkout. -♪ come out here and do a fighter walkout. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Max Fisher.

And you just heard from today's guest, reporter at The Rolling Stone, Jack Crosby. So Max, I hear you may now be getting into MMA. Yeah, I think I'm going to do a just iron neck training routine. Me and Zuckerberg only iron neck. What is iron neck? So when Zuckerberg went on Joe Rogan, they talked a lot about how,

boy, your neck is looking bigger. Do you do an iron neck? I hate that. I hate that. Do you have a gold chain? I'm going to get a gold chain, like really full desperation, you know, crisis of masculinity. I know I will never understand the appeal of getting punched

in the face for fun. That does not make a lot of sense to me But UFC is very important for understanding our politics today And the reason we're talking about this is because Jack Crosby who are you talking to today has a piece in Rolling Stone That's titled Empire of Blood how Dana White's UFC conquered America And the piece is about the parallel rise of MAGA and the Ultimate Fighting Championship better known as UFC and the three men Trump, Rogan, Dana White who saw UFC as a way to at least whether intentionally or not reshape culture and politics around their version of masculinity. I know you talked to Jack

earlier this week. How'd it go? Can you give us a little preview? So I wanted to talk to Jack because the UFC is kind of one of the only institutions in America that has figured out how to speak to younger men right now. And they're offering- With violence. I mean, honestly, that is part of the appeal because they're offering more than just entertainment, right?

They're offering a political identity that is both pretty core to Trump's second term coalition and that very directly addresses this crisis of masculinity or perceived crisis of masculinity that we've talked about many times that a lot of younger men are feeling today, this kind of alienation, grievance, isolation, loss of place. So if we want to understand how to engage young men in America today, especially young men who are not traditionally involved in politics, what they're looking for.

I think we need to understand the UFC. Yeah, I'm excited to listen to this one. It was fun, it was fun. And I learned a lot about punching people in the face and getting punched in the face. Which is important. That's right. So the second half of this show is gonna be you and me

in a cage match. And we are running a dog fighting ring here in the studio. For people who are not watching, there are two dogs just fully running circles around us. We've got Austin's dog, Junie. We've got my parents' dog, Cooper, who I'm dog-sitting this week. It's a place of business. It's wonderful. This is a workplace that we are in.

Nobody's taken a shit in the studio so far, so it's top half of recordings. Well, let me tell you. It's not over yet. All right, before we get to your interview, on Pod Save America, we covered Trump's State half of recordings. Well, let me tell you. It's not over yet. All right. Before we get to your interview, on Pod Save America, we covered Trump's State of the Union, which used to technically be called an address to a joint session of Congress since it's the first speech of a president's term. I'm renaming it like the Gulf of Mexico.

Okay. If we're doing that, we're renaming Denali. I'm just calling it all State of the Union for now. It's the Gulf of State of the Union. I'm so sick of hearing every time it's the first speech. It's technically not the State of the Union. I'm just calling it all State of the Union. It's the Gulf of State of the Union. I'm so sick of hearing every time it's the first speed. It's technically not the State of the Union. I'm done with it. I'm done with it. Anyway, there are a couple of offline moments from the speech that we should talk about.

Starting with a very strange moment where Trump seemingly compared himself to victims of deep fake pornography. Let's play the clip. With Elliston's help, the Senate just passed the Take It Down Act. And this is so important. Thank you very much, John. John Thune. Thank you. Stand up, John. And I'm going to use that bill for myself too, if you don't mind. Because nobody gets treated worse than I do online. Nobody. I mean... Wow. Trump's powers of self-delusion that everybody out there is watching porn of him I mean, wow.

Trump's powers of self-delusion that everybody out there is watching porn of him, I truly unmatched. Generational self-delusion. I don't even think, I think in the moment, because he clearly has no idea what the bill does. And we should say, it's bipartisan legislation. Basically it will take down intimate pictures that are either intimate content that is either AI generated or real, but non-consensual, shared on social media sites, internet, up

to two years in prison if it's an adult, I guess three years if it's a minor. Overdue. Yes. But I think Trump hears Take It Down Act and he's like is this something that when there's bad stuff about you on the internet You can just take it down because that seems pretty cool I'm sure yes deep fake is gonna be redefined as criticizing Donald Trump on social media No, I will say if Porn deep fakes of Trump is a thing that exists. Obviously we are gonna want to cover it on the show

That's gonna be relevant for us. So please let us know Obviously we are gonna wanna cover it on the show. That's gonna be relevant for us. So please let us know. Send us an email, tommy.vtor at crooked.com. And of course, subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's right. Because you're not gonna wanna listen to that one. You're gonna wanna watch.

That's right, yeah. Oh, there was that. Frame by frame. There was that, did you see that story last week that there was a deep fake video of Trump kissing Elon's feet. That was on the screen, like in the cafeteria at HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development. And it was a big scandal of the week on Blue Sky

because somebody posted it and it got taken down because Blue Sky has a rule against non-consensual AI porn and enforcing that rule for Donald Trump and Elon Musk was very upsetting to some people. Because some people wanted the toe kissing. Because what could be a bigger act of resistance than posting on Blue Sky? We're gonna, we'll get there.

We'll get there. It is also just everything is about, he identifies with any kind of victim. That's right, it's really he's the ultimate victim. He doesn't want to identify with some victims, marginalized people, but somebody brought to the state of the union, oh, you happen to be a victim too? Just like me, I get treated horribly online.

I will say the HUD video was funny. It's good to pass this law. You can enforce it all cases. The HUD video was kind of funny. What did, what did you make of the speech overall? I mean, this is the speech that you give if your agenda is catastrophically unpopular. Like, we all know that Trump lies constantly. It's like breathing for him.

There's nothing new about this. But in his first term, his lies were typically about making up some problem that didn't exist or exaggerating a problem that was real or mischaracterizing it to rail against it and to rile up his base on his behalf. You know, he was lying about immigration or about religious minorities, protesters, whatever. And that can be tenable when you're really just tapping into people's dissatisfaction with the status quo and trying to channel that in a way that is useful for you. But it's a lot less tenable

when people's dissatisfaction status quo is you. And when you are the status quo. And when the thing people are upset about is that you are dismantling both the constitutional order and the booming economy that you inherited and replacing it with corrupt handouts to your oligarch buddies. I also thought that it's a speech you give

when you give zero fucks about anything. And you were trying to just like dismantle democracy. And because we started talking about this on Paz de America afterwards, but like, because Dan mentioned something like, well, he wasn't really trying to get his legislative agenda passed through Congress, which is traditionally what a president might do before Congress. So I'm like, he doesn't, he wants it passed through Congress, but like, he's not trying to move public opinion in any traditional way.

And I do think, you know, one of the, I sort of laughed, sort of wanted to pull my hair out was just like the most common reaction to the speech right afterwards was like, we got a fact check in there were so many lives, so many lives. It's like, yeah, no, he spread so many of the conspiracies that we have talked about here that have spread online now just come out of the president's mouth in that have already been fact checked, already been debunked. And he's just doing it and they're going, and that did make me wonder. It's like, I don't, it's tedious, I think,

to continue to fact-check Trump, but people who tune into the State of the Union, I don't know who watched all 99 minutes of it, but some of those conspiracies you'd hear for the first time. Yeah, that's true. And you'd be like, I don't know, sounds, it sounds like it could be real, And that's what's tough about that. Yeah. I do think that your point that he no longer seems to care about even organizing

his allies in Congress or maybe even his own political base, I think, is really important and is like, in some ways, is a good sign or is promising because it means that if he's not trying to even energize his base, it's going to be much easier to organize an opposition to it. But in other ways is really concerning because clearly he doesn't believe that he has to care about public opinion anymore, even among his own supporters, which is a little worrying about what he thinks, the way that he thinks democratic governance works right now under him. It's like he said to Zelensky in that Oval meeting, which is you don't have any cards. I have all the cards. I think that's what he thinks domestically as well. I think that is absolutely what he believes. And eventually, hopefully he will hit that wall,

but up until we get to that point, or figure out what that wall is, maybe it's the midterms, maybe it's hopefully something sooner, the Supreme Court, it's scary because we're kind of, we're really mixing my metaphors. We're kind of Wile E. Coyote, like running off the cliff, seeing how far we can run before we fall. Yikes.

Are you yikesing at my metaphor? Cause I agree. No, no, no, just the cliff. No, I thought it was a perfectly good metaphor. Yeah. Okay, thank you. So of course, my social media bestie and our least favorite special government employee,

Elon Musk, he made an appearance last night. He was in the balcony as a guest to the president, who lavished praise on Doge before repeating Elon's false claims about social security that we debunked right here on this board a couple weeks ago about all the dead people that are supposedly getting money. They're not, not real. Nothing's real.

Let's play a clip. I have created the brand new department of government efficiency. Go. Perhaps you've heard of it. Perhaps. Which is headed by Elon Musk, who is in the gallery tonight. It just keeps getting paid and paid and nobody does and it really hurts Social Security and hurts our country. 1.3 million people from ages 150 to 159 and over 130,000 people according to the social

security databases are aged over 160 years old. We have a healthier country than I thought, Bobby. It's not, none of that's true. None of that's true. It's a widely debunked, easily debunked. I know. Very transparently not true. What did you make of that moment?

So I think it is important to remember that of the many things that Musk and Doge have done over these last few weeks, and I cannot believe it's only been a few weeks, is to essentially terminate Congress's congressional authority over spending. Like one of the most important powers that Congress has is to direct spending, which means that they are determining what the government does, doesn't do,

and Musk has been basically deleting congressionally mandated spending programs, government functions, entire agencies. It's basically a coup. Like those powers of Congress now just reside in the executive to the point that congressional Republicans who are supposed to be a co-equal branch with Donald Trump have been reduced to like court supplicants, begging him to reintroduce at least some of the programs that they are legally required to maintain. And who was fucking cheering Musk on Tuesday night? Who did you hear screaming in that clip?

The same congressional Republicans who have been cooed out of their constitutional authority. Yeah. It's really like, it's, first of all, it's totally spineless. Like it's really sad. I think on some, like these are grownup adults who are cheering the end of their own constitutional authority and it like it concerns me. I mean, I think the reason they're cheering it is because the aims of Doge are aligned with their own. Right? Like it's Republicans. They don't like government. Right. They don't

like government for a while, especially this group of Republicans. And so, you know, you cut a bunch of agencies, you cut a bunch of spending, you cancel a bunch of contracts. They're probably fine with it. There's some of them who are like, you know, yeah, the fact that it's their job. I mean, that it should be their job. I feel like they've given up on that back in 2017, 2018. That's true. But it's agencies that they voted for. It's programs that they vote. It's not like these are all like democratic imposed agencies who Republicans lost the vote on. These are things that they wanted to do that had been removed. So I take your point that like in a broader way that like, yes, right-wing authoritarianism and like cutting government spending to the point that federal government no longer works. Absolutely. But a lot of the way that they are doing it is upending things that they put a lot of energy into creating. They've got to know that in their own heads.

More important to keep Trump happy. That's what it is. Yeah, it is. A couple of the Democrats had Musk-Steel signs up there. Do you think that worked? I don't know. I think you honestly you have a better sense than I do for like what acts of resistance work and don't work as we've discussed like they don't have a lot of power right now. What do you think?

Yeah I mean I think we can talk in a bit about like overall opposition resistance to Trump because I think there's some interesting threads to pull there. On the must-of. I do still like them targeting their criticism towards Elon Musk. I agree. I think that's smart. I think he's still a worthy target because as we've seen from polling, he is much less popular than Donald Trump and getting less popular by the day.

And now, I mean, it was very funny that we heard Trump say, you know, Elon's in charge of Doge when in court the government has argued know, Elon's in charge of Doge, when in court the government has argued that Elon is not in charge of Doge. Donald Trump loves to say things that directly undermine his own administration's legal strategy, he loves to do it. Yes, yes, for sure. Offline is brought to you by Armra Colostrum.

Everyone's looking for ways to be healthier and stave off winter illnesses. Give your immunity and gut health their best chance with Armra Colostrum. Discover the transformational health benefits of Armra Colostrum that have earned tens of thousands of five-star reviews. Probiotics and other supplements are touted as a gut health solution, but most products on the market are dead before they even reach your gut. Armra Colostrum naturally fortifies your entire gut wall system and optimizes your whole body microbiome which helps guard against irritants that can trigger digestive issues and compromise your immune system. Research has shown that colostrum helps to enhance nutrient absorption. Armour colostrum can help stabilize blood sugar

levels, modulate hormones, and ignite your metabolism. This enhanced nutrient absorption has been a closely guarded secret of elite athletes like John Lovett. Let Armour Colostrum help you reach your goals by promoting lean muscle building and fueling cellular repair regeneration to fuel better performance and faster recovery. Colostrum bioactives have also been shown to reactivate hair follicle stem cells and activate collagen production, promoting hair growth

and enhancing skin radiance. I love to be radiant. It's important. We've worked out a special offer for my audience. Receive 15% off your first order. Go to tryarmor.com slash offline or enter offline to get 15% off your first order. That's t-r-y-a-r-m-r-a dot com slash offline. A-R-M-R-A dot com slash offline. [♪ Music playing. J.D. Bach's Favros Smart Buddies Not Too Bright. John got into a Twitter fight. Ba-da-ba-da-bow. So this Twitter fight, for people who have not been following... Love that sting more every time I hear it.

It's incredible. The bada-bada-boom. It's great. ...is also one of the few remaining constitutional checks on our government. So I don't want to give you too much shit for it. Like, okay, I know you talked about this in PSA. We cannot not discuss the fact that while Trump may have purged the inspectors general from all of our federal agencies, we do have one IG left it's at Doge and it's our own progressive podcast host John Favreau. So first of all on behalf of USAID recipients

thank you for your service and getting those grants probably reinstated even if you are definitely failing the offline challenge this week. But second of all, how exactly did you end up with the job of Elon Musk chief online antagonist and volunteer grant checker? Yeah, I don't know because, look, everyone's tweeting at Elon all the time and he is posting most hours and minutes of the day. So there's a good chance he's responding to a lot of people. I think he, I've gone back and forth on this. First of all, he could call me dollar store John Favreau,

which legalized comedy. Yeah, that's fine. Fine. I think that's because he, the other John Favreau, actor director, Iron Man director. That's true, right. I believe that Elon thinks that Tony Stark is based on him.

He said this many times. And there may be some, there may be some truth to it I actually don't know. There's a little bit, yeah. So I think he very much likes the other Jon Favreau, probably because of Tony Stark, which is a much better version of Elon Musk. It's hard to have a worse version.

Than Elon Musk. I also like, I've met Elon Musk before like way back when. Really? Yeah, way back when right when I left the White House. Okay. Tom and I started a speech writing firm, small little speech writing firm and our other business partner like introduced us to Elon because he had said he needed some communications help.

Oh, okay. Didn't really go anywhere. Yeah. He wanted to hire someone. Talk about the road not taken. Yeah, I was gonna say this is when, I was gonna say this is when he was like normal and like Democrats liked him. No, there was a time.

But I would say our meeting with him was, eh. Really? Weird guy. Weird guy. Okay. I'm not totally surprised he ended up like this. Let's just say that for the meeting.

Wow, I didn't see it coming. Well, at the time it was very, and I think a lot of people who knew Elon in the before times would say this too, it's very like, well, he's a little awkward, he's a little off. Sure. He's maybe a little dickish. I would say he's still a little awkward and off.

Right, but it was always like, well, but he's a genius and he's doing this with SpaceX, he's building rockets, he's doing cars. And it was kind of that vibe, but very like, not really looking at you, sort of looking the other way and just not a... Something strange going on. He may remember me, like we have some mutual friends, so I think he just like in that world, so he might actually know who I am. So that for whatever reason kind of you're in his brain, although something that I think is telling here is that he has like blocked and unblocked you a couple of times.

Yeah, so that was the most recent time before his Trump turn that there was some kind of indirect interaction was when he was one of the CEOs going to the White House in the first Trump term. And it was right when Trump pulled out a Paris climate accord. And remember a bunch of the CEOs said they weren't coming and Elon was still gonna go. And I tweeted something like, what the fuck? Because at that point, I know it sounds weird, it sounds quaint now, but Elon Musk, the Tesla guy who cares about global warming, going to the Trump White House, you know, I was like, this is fucking ridiculous.

And he got so mad that he blocked me. Wow. Yeah. And so then I reached out to the mutual friend that we both have, someone who had worked for him for a while, doesn't anymore. And he was like, he's like, you know what? Now he's pulling out, he's not going to the White House.

And then he unblocked me like another day because he's like, this is the last straw for him with Trump. He's done, he's done. The Paris Climate Accord thing is done. I mean, that feels telling because like, who else does he block and unblock constantly? His ex-wives? I'm not saying that I think you're one of his ex-wives in his brain. I don't think he's got you that

confused. But I like what do we know about Elon Musk? Incredibly insecure, like incredibly sensitive about his relationships with people. So the fact that he is like angry at you but also wants your attention like clearly you're somehow in his brain. I think he also has some leftover affection for the Obama era and people who are involved with the Obama era because he was like an Obama supporter Democrat and now thinks that it was he basically thinks that the break between Obama and afterwards was where like the Democratic Party went wrong. Oh so I think now he now he says all kinds of horrible things about Obama right like but I think there's says all kinds of horrible things about Obama, right?

But I think there's still a- Somewhere in the swirl of his brain. So one thing that I'm kind of curious about because you are like beyond your, whatever your personal relationship is with him, which sounds incredibly complicated. You are also, you are one of the very, very few people who is not a Silicon Valley or

MAGA insider who he responds to in a given way. It does seem like he at least is trying to make a show of reinstating this program because you tweeted at him. But I'm kind of curious like how you were thinking about navigating this new very high-stakes relationship in your life. Yeah, it was very interesting because when I tweeted the CNN story about the plant in Georgia that makes the peanut paste, the contracts were canceled. Just in case people were not following this.

And we already spent $10 million on the contracts, the government did, made the peanut paste, told the contract was canceled, couldn't send it out because it had USAID on it. And so I saw the CNN story, it made me mad. And I was on my way to dinner Saturday night and I tweeted like Elon could end up killing kids and we didn't even like save any money here. I very purposely didn't even tag Elon in my tweet because I was like I don't want to get into a whole thing. I didn't, I was like... Because he will respond as we've learned. I get home late Saturday night and then there's the response.

Nobody texts you when that happens? No. Nobody is like the unelected supreme leader of America is in your mentions again? This is Twitter these days though, right? It's like Saturday from what, 7 p.m. when we went out to midnight when we came home beforehand. I'm stretching it. To be honest, we were home by 10.30.

Good for you. Yeah, no one's on Twitter that time of night. So I see it. I was like, I'm not going to respond tonight. Go to bed. Wake up the next day. And, but I went through my head was like, okay, okay. I could respond to him calling me an imbecilic propagandist, dollar store John Favreau by

just being like, you're a fucking dick who lies and it's blah, blah, blah. I was like, actually, like I think I want people to understand that this contract is not, this is not like typical government spending that even if you don't like USAID, you should realize that this is just wasteful and we're just like taking food from starving children that we've already paid for.

So I was like, maybe it's just gonna be better to be more constructive and make a little joke about it and see what happens. And then, you know, then it's just going to be better to be more constructive and make a little joke about it and see what happens. And then, you know, then it sort of went from there. But it's weird because then he writes back and he was like, actually, you're Kmart, Jon Favreau, and I'm not promoting you yet. And he was like, anyway, he was still nasty to me, but not as nasty as the first one. But it's interesting because then you start thinking like, well, I don't want to get into something with him where now we're talking and we're cool. You know, because. It so it's like, it's a weird figuring out like how to respond in

a way that is like tough and firm, but not like so dickish that he just says like, fuck you and ignores you. Well, this is kind of what I have been thinking about where like, on the one hand, obviously, it's amazing that you found one of like three avenues that exist to get these programs potentially turned back on. Like as we said, even Republican members of Congress haven't figured out how to do that. And like a lot of kids who are at risk of starvation might not starve now. And like, that's pretty good. But on the other hand, what Elon is doing, like intervening to save select programs if people lobby him personally is just like the most standard

tin pot dictator trick that exists where you can't does it to Trump does it to it's like it's literally there's even an expression about it in Russia that goes back to like czarist days because you force everyone to court you personally and treat you as the ultimate authority in a way that legitimizes your authority and then you get to pose as the good guy because you saved one program instead of the 99 that you killed and And it's like, like, how do you balance that? I noticed this recently with Elon, with someone who has much more power than I do, Susan Collins, Senator for Maine.

Like, so I read a story that she's been texting with Elon now, and because she had been criticizing him. And then when the reporters asked, well, what are you texting about? How's it going? And then she just sort of was like, well, I'm not because this is like, well, we'll work behind the scenes and figure out something. And like, who knows what kind of bone like, well, I'm not. Because this is like, well, we'll work behind the scenes and figure out something and like, who knows what kind of bone he's going to throw to her.

Right. But this is how this happens. And there's so much of it is just, it's hard to know what he's telling the truth about, what he's lying about because he lies all the time. And you know, finally he was like, you're not the one who turned on the contracts. I turned on the contracts before and they were already

going to go through and it wasn't you or the legacy media or all that. And like, who knows? Is that right? Is that wrong? I don't think it's right. But who knows? Right. Well, I would say we are early enough in this experiment of unconstitutional Elon Musk supreme leadership that I would say like, pull whatever lever you can. If we get past the like, you know, eight year mark of the Elon Musk administration, it might be time to reconsider. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And again, don't want Cash Patel showing up at my door. He also went on Rogan, Joe Rogan.

Have you heard of Joe Rogan? I've heard of Joe Rogan, yeah. Our other un-elected supreme leader. And you know, it went on forever, as most of those conversations do. But there's one clip I thought it would be worth talking about. Let's listen. It's kind of weird if you talk to somebody

who gets older information information from like what I call legacy media, they're living in a different world. Yeah. Then if they say are listening to, you know, your podcast or are getting news from Axe or, you know, just it's like it's kind of wild. Like it is very wild. Like you told it's like, it's kind of wild. It is very wild. Like you told, it's like they're living in an alternate reality.

So I think what's fascinating about that is it is like a, a just mirror image. It is. Of what we're all talking about. I know, right? It's the same thing. Yeah, and it really gets you like, oh, they think we're the ones in an alternate reality.

And we think they're the ones in an alternate reality. and we think they're the ones in an alternate reality. And like, I think maybe they genuinely believe that. I, you know, I started to think that, and I started to think like, oh, I guess we're both just on like, opposite sides of this mirror. But then I thought about like, okay, well, a lot of their discussion,

I don't know what it's gonna be in the clip we play, was about, was Joe Rogan saying like, I can't believe they're accusing you of being a Nazi. And that's so crazy. And it's like, okay, we know why they're doing that. It's because he gave a Nazi salute. It's because he talks all the time to Nazis on Twitter and amplifies them.

And then he spoke to the German far right party and dropped Nazi dog whistles. Like this is not a mystery. You have to work to admit that information. What he'd probably say is like, everyone keeps saying this German far right party is a Nazi party, but that's just part of the legacy media.

And I think they're just saying that because they're tough on mass migration and immigration. And that's what we need right now. Like I think there's a justification for fucking everything. Of course. But it's funny, like in that same interview, Rogan starts going on about how CNN

was the only network that aired the Butler rally, where Trump was, where the attempt assassination. Isn't that weird? Isn't that weird? Why would that be? Like maybe they had, it's like, first of all, no, everyone aired the Butler rally.

Right, is it true really? Yes, and it's very weird that there was no other Trump rallies that they aired. I'm like, no, it was the middle of the campaign. Rallies were being aired all over the place. This is what I mean. There's clearly some cynical level of construction going on. And like, look, I'm not a big Joe Rogan fan.

I know that's going to be surprising to people, but I could only ever get so mad at him, even with the anti-vax stuff, because like his whole thing is that he's the like goofy meathead podcaster. And so it's like, yeah, if you listen to a clip from the goofy meathead podcast, like that's what they're going to be doing and talking about. And it's like you're setting yourself up for failure if you expect anything else other than just like goofy meathead stuff. But this really, this moment feels really

different to me. This interview feels different because we are in the middle of, again, like an arguably unprecedented constitutional crisis in this country that Elon Musk is directly driving. The constitutional order has been kind of usurped by this guy who is infiltrating Americans IRS and medical data in huge numbers who's shutting down major parts of, for example, the FAA which keeps the skies safe, like whatever you think of USAID, like maybe you're even curious about that, and is totally opaque and unsupervised because all the IGs got fired and he will not talk to anybody except for Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan has him in the chair.

Only person who get him in the chair, he's there for 17 hours. He can ask for whatever he wants. This is a really important opportunity. Even if you agree with Trump about 99% of things as I think Joe Rogan does, like you don't wanna try to get some information from him. You don't wanna challenge him a little bit, but like what does Rogan do with his big moment? He sympathizes with him because isn't it so tragic

that people call you a Nazi on Twitter? And I think that is because he has so, like Joe Rogan has been so radicalized, he has so genuinely bought into this worldview that the questions you or I or any mainstream journalist, even any right-leaning mainstream journalist would ask, I don't think Joe Rogan even thinks to ask, because he was like, he's already decided that Doge was the greatest thing ever

and that of course the government is wasteful and social security is probably a Ponzi scheme and there probably is something up to Trump's assassination attempt and the Epstein files are somewhere. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. I agree with that. I think there's also just a real element of spinelessness here. I really think the defining feature of the party right now,

from Rogan to Susan Collins, is just spinelessness. Yeah. Spinelessness that I think continues through justifications, some of which you believe and some of which you maybe don't believe, but you need a justification. I think a lot of them don't, because a lot of them will then say off the record, or indirectly and informally to people the administration this is crazy we're going too far yeah you know don't have any meetings with constituents because everybody is so angry with us yeah I think they know they surrender yeah

certainly the Republican politicians yes so we've mentioned this briefly the Democratic reaction to Trump's speech was varied congressman Al Green of Texas was forcibly removed for interrupting Trump. Some Democrats walked out of the speech at various points. There were a few signs here and there that said false, accused Elon Musk of stealing, a couple other ones I missed. And Senator Alyssa Slotkin of Michigan gave a very normal Democratic response speech. We talked about this a bit on PSA.

I think overall the response and how varied it was is like emblematic of the larger challenge that Democrats are wrestling with which is how to mount an effective opposition to Trump when we have very very little power and Trump is breaking the law and acting like a dictator. And to that end you shared a story in Slack this week about the economic blackout that was organized for last Friday, February 28th. Those of you listening, if you didn't hear about it, this is part of the issue here. If you didn't hear about it, you are in the minority.

Right. There was a bunch of celebrities shared it. Oh, really? Yeah, it was very big. I didn't see it that much. That's funny. I heard about it, but I did not, it was not everywhere. Same. I didn't know how big it was until I was reading articles about all the big like Stephen King and okay

So the boycott which spread mostly on social media with a graphic of a rabbit and the caption don't buy stuff I don't understand the rabbit called for consumers to abstain from shopping at Amazon Walmart Target fast food restaurants and gas stations And encouraged consumers to use cash and shop at small businesses according to NPR calls for a blackout originated on Instagram with John Schwartz, a Chicago-based meditation teacher and founder of the fledgling organization, People's Union USA. When you shared the story, you noted that it reminded you a lot of Kony 2012.

Kony 2012. Care to explain? Okay, internet OGs will remember this. So in 2012, a not very successful NGO based in Uganda that was mostly staffed by these kind of like dreamy white 20-something Americans put out this video called Kony 2012. And ostensibly the purpose of this video was to help people in Uganda by raising awareness about this very bad warlord, a guy named Joseph Kony, who was terrorizing parts of the country. But really the video was 30 minutes of these like feel-good

montages about how white college kids should put up Kony 2012 banners on their campuses and share especially Kony 2012 branded social media content and that posting online in America would somehow defeat Joseph Kony in Uganda by raising awareness. And it did not. It did not. But it was, well, it depends on what you think the goal of the video was. It was one of the most successful viral videos of all time, over 100 million views just on YouTube.

And like, according to Facebook, two or three times that, but Facebook lies about their video views. But it established this model of online slacktivism that I think we are all very familiar with now that tells you that posting online both makes you very brave and heroic and makes you kind of the black squares around BLM, right? I think it's different because this was organizing something in real life online, right? Or at least trying to. At least trying to.

Much like the real organization around George Floyd was the people in the streets, right? Which was probably organized online as well. But like, or at least- But then it was also involved with a grassroots organization that was doing real outreach. Yes. This, I think the challenge here is, as I see it, A, I'm not clear and have not been clear how the economic boycott of those stores, like what the purpose is or what effect that will have on the broader right polity Yeah, how you get for save your shopping for Saturday to?

Trump leaves office and disgrace. Yeah, so I'm not quite sure how that works and but I do sympathize with like And because and this is why I brought up all the Democrats like everyone is trying to figure out what to do what to do Yeah, and I think some people are thinking about And this is why I brought up all the Democrats, like everyone is trying to figure out what to do. And I think some people are thinking about where we are as this is normal politics and most voters are still like, Trump still has a 47, 48, 49, 50% approval rating.

So half the country is like, this is fine. And we all are kind of singed from going through an election where everyone was like, dictator on day one, end of democracy. And then most countries like, you know, cost inflation, right? Or at least half the country, a little less than half the country. I know that a bunch of people didn't vote, we're not counting them, but half the electorate. And so like I sympathize with trying to figure out what to do.

It's just the hard truth is we don't have much power right now. And in terms of getting these people out of office and ending their reign, we have to look at elections. There is no other avenue right now. There's never gonna be an impeachment after everything we just talked about with the Republican party. The courts are not going to save us.

The Supreme Court just finally issued a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs who said they're still not paying the USAID contracts. It was five-four. So it was pretty narrow, thanks to John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett. Even Brett Kavanaugh sided with the crazies. And it's one of the lower stakes cases. And that's one of the lower, yeah, that's not anything about the, who does the administration

get to fire? That's just about like power of the purse. So when you thinking all that, you're like, okay, there's normal politics, which is we have elections, we gotta get them out of office, but clearly we're not operating in a normal political environment because he's acting like a dictator and he's breaking the law.

So then how do you oppose that? And what does that look like? And does that look like mass mobilization in the streets? Okay, but then what? Then again, to what end? I think it's really hard. And so I have a lot more empathy for everyone trying to figure it out.

And that goes from like people organizing an economic boycott to more moderate Democrats being like, this is normal politics. Like, I don't know that either is right. No one has the magic, yeah. But I think everyone's like grasping towards something. I don't know, what do you think? So to start with the boycott

and then to bring it around to this bigger question, because I think this is the big one that is leading people to engage with this boycott. Like, obviously we are not looking to disparage people who participate in this because it comes from a good impulse, which is trying to find a way to fight back that's good, that's noble. I do worry about this tendency when activism happens via social media, and we'll talk about

why that's happening as opposed to working through institutions, is that it makes it very easy for hucksters or grifters, the guy who organized the boycott, is like not a good guy to capture that sentiment for their own purposes. Whether that's like selling merch, t-shirts, or just doing engagement farming, which is often what a lot of this is, or to get captured by people who do mean well and do want to move that in a good direction, but they might just not have the background or experience to know what is or is not going to be effective. Because yes, if you participated in this boycott because you want to do something, then like sincerely good on you, but I think we'd all agree

the primary goal of political action, especially when the stakes are this high, is not to feel good about whether your motivations were correct. It's to make a difference. And this did not make a difference. And I think it is important to understand why that is. I think your point that you were making, I think is a really good one, that there is a big disconnect. There's a lot

of people who want to fight back against this. There's moderate Democrats, there's left-wing Democrats, people in the streets, there's institutions. It's not working together. I think this, what we are seeing is symptomatic of the fact that yes, a lot of people are hungry for resistance, but they're not in a place where they feel like they have institutions or trust institutions, even want institutions to rally behind to do that for them which leads them to more informal outlets Like I saw viral Instagram because there's not a level of trust in things like say The opposition party and part of that is that Democrats are unpopular right now just suffered a very significant loss

That's not surprising part of it is our era people do not like institutions. They don't trust institutions They don't want to rely on them. I was just joking with a friend who works on poverty outreach programs, actually some of the USAID funded programs, about how we're in this funny place where you're not supposed to call it development work anymore or God forbid philanthropy or charity, you're supposed to call it mutual aid. And it's kind of like, look, it's fine, call it whatever you want, it's just it's funny because it's not mutual, it's not supposed to be mutual, that's not the idea. I don't think that's going to do it. No.

I don't think the name change is going to do it. Right. But it's like, I think it is symptomatic of the prevailing mood right now is that anything that comes from a big institution, even a poverty NGO, is bad. And people only want things that feel like they are decentralized and bottom up. And I get that.

But if you want to fight something as big as the federal government and this united right-wing movement that has seized control of so much of it, the only thing that is going to be big enough to meet that challenge and to take it on is going to be a national political party. It's the only thing that has the power to field lawyers, to fight things in courts, to coordinate across state and local governments, which is really important to, and yes, organize tens of millions of people. And I'm not saying that means you need to like Democrats and like everything that the party leadership is doing.

I'm saying that if you want to actually fight this, the road to do it goes through something involving the Democratic Party. Now, if you don't like what the institution is doing, get involved and change it. Right. And I, yes, and I think it goes on for both sides too, right? It goes for the people in the Democratic Party institution. I have not been preaching the need for a big tent party for the last several years because I want everyone to like hold hands, kumbaya, get along or like, you know, the people who have one view,

they need to moderate their views or the other people need to be more progressive. Like it's not because of that, it's because just from a math perspective and a perspective of like what our political institution and structure is, not what we wish it would be, like this is the only way is to like build an Alliance that is very broad that goes from the far left to the center, right. Because that is the only thing that is going to give us a chance to actually oppose this movement.

Which is also why I give like, I'm trying to give everyone a little more leeway to do things that are maybe a little silly, maybe a little ineffective, maybe not quite on it because it's like we're all still groping around for stuff. But I do think, you know, I talked to Steven Levitsky on this podcast a couple weeks ago, and the one sign of who's looking for some hope, which is tough when you're talking to the democracies. Yeah. Yeah. The political scientists are not always the guys for that.

He was like, look in, in countries where the autocrat or dictator, dictator is very popular, not like fake polls, but legitimately popular, very hard to dislodge in country. The countries that have dislodged autocrats and dictators, they weren't that popular. And Trump is sitting, you know, hovering around 50% right now, and the Republican Party is still not super popular, though more popular than the Democratic Party right now. And so all I can think of, and this is not by any means an ultimate solution, and there's going to be other things, but right now what I can think about is like we, our job is to make sure that people who either are okay

with Trump or like Trump, not the fans, the fans we're never going to get, but people who are like willing to give him a chance, which by the way, those are the people that won him the election, not the people who love him, but the people who are willing to give him a chance, to like convince them that actually this is bad and to make them aware of what's going on in the government

and what's going on with their tax dollars and the programs they want to cut and everything like that. And I think making sure that in your own life, you are telling people who don't necessarily pay attention to politics about everything that's going on, using your own platforms to share stories. You know, and not, like you said, maybe not memes, but actual stories of what's going on.

That's the best I got for right now. And I do think that's the beginning of something. And to your point about the big tent, it is really essential that they not hate the Democrats more than they hate Trump. It doesn't mean that the Democratic Party has to represent, you know, center right Republicans now. I think that's not what we're saying, but for better or for worse, it's a two-party system that we have and that's just because of the way our elections are designed. It's not even a product of the Democratic or Republican

parties. It's just a fact of nature and it does mean that that is the institution that has to work through it. And I understand why everyone is feeling this like anti-institution, anti-incumbent mood and I get the discomfort with you know the party is too far left, it's too far right, I don't like that it's speaking to these people whoumbent mood. And I get the discomfort with the party is too far left, it's too far right, I don't like that it's speaking to these people who I don't like, I don't agree with their real disagreements within it.

But this is a crisis. Yep. All right, it's time to check back in on the one segment keeping us sane, the offline challenge. This last week, we tried a simple change that you, Max, claimed worked like near witchcraft. I'd it's changed my life keeping the keeping the phone out of the bedroom. You've been doing this for a while Can you remind everyone why you swear by this?

So I won't repeat my whole spiel except to say I started doing this in December out of total desperation to save the last working bits my brain and also because Julia finally successfully bullied me into it took Took her a few months of lobbying, and then she bullies me, I bully you. That's the beautiful circle of life we have. And I just, I cannot overstate how beneficial this has been for me. I sleep significantly better, I fall asleep more easily,

I don't wake up as much in the night, I don't find myself reading from my phone, I feel better when I wake up in the morning, I feel focused, much more focused the whole next day. I never feel foggy the way that I used to all the time. And I have an easier time kind of, you know, regulating what I'm thinking about and what I'm emotionally engaged

and not engaged in throughout the day. It's great, I swear by it. So I'll give you my experience with it. Please. Is that it didn't work well. Oh no, I'm so sorry to hear that. It was one of those things where I got up more and got more, and here's why.

It's just because of the kids and because of the alarms on the phone and it's just a lot of, but what I think would work, because last night, because I got home late and I saw that Charlie was like maybe stirring and Emily was asleep so I didn't want her to wake. So I'm like, you know what?

And I didn't go, I went to bed. I didn't pick up my phone and like scroll through the phone, which is great. I just left it there. I was like, I think this would work for me if I didn't put it downstairs or another room, but just like across the bedroom. That's great.

That's huge. Because I want the sounds for the kids or for a call or for anything else that I can, or if I need it in the middle of the night, I can just like run across the bedroom. Just because whatever. And that would make me feel more secure. And then I wouldn't also scroll because what I think it definitely works for your doom scrolling, your texting, your doing whatever. I think that's bad. But just the phone, there's too much on the phone now for me to have it somewhere else. I get that. And I agree that having it in the other side of the room is huge. Because

I think it's just that having it within arm's reach. I don't know if you do this, but I, when I had it there, as I did for years, would find myself constantly and automatically if I started to get stressed, reach for the phone. Yes. Yes. It's almost like a security blanket. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. So this is the final week of the offline challenge. Phone pickups this week?

So I started at about 90, went down to the 60s, and now I've been hovering for another week at 70. I was at, I started at 276, went down to 201, 200. Last week was 257, not a great week. It's a tough week. I'm back at 206. That's great. So you cut like almost a third. That's amazing. So I'm in7, not a great week. It's a tough week. I'm back at 206. That's great. So you cut like almost a third.

Yeah. That's amazing. So I'm in the two, that's fine. How are you feeling? I feel good. Okay. I feel good. I mean, look, I think that the, again, the best thing we did,

I think is the reading, the reading and the walking. Those are two things that I am going to, and the phone across the room, which is a hybrid, but the reading and the walking, I am keeping. That's great. And like just the other night, I read again, even though that wasn't the challenge, I put my phone in the other room where it was going to be for the whole night and just had the book, like hard copy book, and it was lovely.

And I said the other, like every day almost, I've been taking a walk to Starbucks. Really? Still? From the office. Yeah. And just not listening to anything and just like enjoying my walk. Oh, I'm really taking a walk to Starbucks. Really, still? From the office, yeah. That's great. And just not listening to anything, just like enjoying my walk. Oh, I'm really glad to hear that. So would you encourage listeners

to adopt the reading and the walk-in? 100%. I think that if I were to give, if you were to only do one thing, I would say it's definitely phone in the other room, or if you can't do that, phone on the other side of the room, like if you do nothing else. But I would say that the like super upgraded

platinum Amex black card version of this is, for me is exactly what you arrived at. At the end of my work day, and I've been trying to do this since we started this, end of the work day, whenever that is, when you get to the end of having to be, you know, on your phone and email on the news, like go for a walk, no headphones,

put your phone in your back pocket so you're not looking at it, come back, phone goes away, or at least as away as you're able to, or just try to, I try to give myself an embargo on email, an embargo on social apps, anything with news on it, and then read for 20, 30 minutes before bed. And I think what that does for me, kind of book-ending my evening with those two things, really just downshifts my brain and creates this block of the day where I kind of know and I can feel my body almost anticipating it. I'm going to like really downscale. I'm really not going to be as stressed. I'm going to feel like I'm kind of almost living in a different world than I do in the rest of the day when I can just feel much more like comfortable and happier and more relaxed in a way that I really find echoes out across my entire day. Like I don't, it's not just they have a few hours that are a lot nicer now,

I feel much better every other time. It's honestly, it's kind of like a nice version of severance for yourself. Like you're kind of doing severance in the evening, but for like feeling better. And I can tell you why, like I feel the difference because last night, we're recording this Wednesday, last night was State of the Union,

we were all at the office late. I didn't get home till 10.30, which for me is, I was like asleep an hour by then. And so I was late, and that was on the phone, recording the pod, lots of Twitter, everything you have to do for State of the Union night. And I just, I feel worse today. I felt like I had no break between my day and bed.

There was no severance. And I woke up today and I just felt sort of like tired and unfocused. And it's just, it's a real difference. That is, whenever we've done these or I've done a version of this for myself, it's the day when I lapse, when I really realize how effective I am. It says here that there's a winner for this and that Emma has an envelope. Oh, okay.

I feel like I know who's gonna win. Oh. Congratulations, John. For me? Oh my gosh, wow. We're very proud of you. And the winner is Max. Oh, sorry. For me, we're realistic. Fuck that.

Emma handed the old iPhone clown case to John, which I assumed was the trophy, but it actually contained an envelope. This is a real moonlight situation here. We asked the friends of the pod Discord who did better over the course of the challenge. Max won 74% of the votes, John won 26%. Wow. Okay, well thank you to the Maxinistas as always. Discord community always talking you up to people here on the pod, but now I know. I wonder if it's because you politely sparred

with them a bit about Blue Sky. You know what, you win. And you gave us a lot of these challenges, so you know what, you get the prize. All right, in a minute we're gonna jump to the interview with Jack Crosby, but before we do, some quick housekeeping. Exciting news from our book imprint, Crooked Media Reads, Woodworking is the brand new novel

by Yellow Jackets writer and culture commentator, Emily St. James. And my pal. And you know, oh, that's right. And it's out now wherever you get your books. Woodworking is an unforgettable, heartwarming debut following a trans high school teacher from a small town in South Dakota who befriends the only other trans woman she knows, one of her students. The five-star Goodreads reviews

are already pouring in and Woodworking is featured on Vem and AV Club's most anticipated books of 2025 lists. Publishers Weekly says, St. James enthralls with her description of what it's like to be trans in a conservative and insular community and the courage it takes for people to openly be themselves. It is a quick, delightful read, more relevant than ever. You're going to love it. Everyone at Crooked loves it. Get your copy of Woodworking right now at crooked.com slash books. After the break, Max's interview with Jack Crosby about the UFC and Donald Trump.

Offline is brought to you by Lumen. Did you know that when your metabolism is working properly, you will feel the benefits in literally every aspect of your life? Lumen is a valuable tool that gives you insights to create a healthy metabolism for your body. Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach. It's a device that measures your metabolism through your body. Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach. It's a device that measures your metabolism through your breath and on the app it lets you know if you're burning fat or carbs and gives you tailored guidance to improve your nutrition, workout, sleep, and even stress management. All you have to do is breathe into your Lumen first thing in the

morning and you'll know what's going on with your metabolism whether you're burning mostly fats or carbs. Then Lumen gives you a personalized nutrition plan for that day based on your measurements. You can also breathe into it before and after workouts and meals so you know exactly what's going on in your body in real time and lumen will give you tips to keep you on top of your health game. Lumen is all the rage here at Crooked. A couple of the staffs using it. You're blowing into it. Suddenly you get your you get all your numbers. Yeah, you get your numbies. And they can give you a nutrition plan. They can tell you how much fat or carbs you're burning. It's great. It's great. Because

your metabolism is at the center of everything your body does. Optimal metabolic health translates to a bunch of benefits including easier weight management, improved energy levels, better fitness results, better sleep and more. Take the next step to improving your health. Go to lumen.me slash offline to get 20% off your lumen. That's L-U-M-E-N dot me slash offline for 20% off your purchase. Thank you Lumen for sponsoring this episode. We've talked a lot on the show about why young men in America are turning toward Trump, but we've never talked about one of the biggest parts of that story.

A mixed martial arts company called Ultimate Fighting Championship or UFC. For a lot of men under age 45 and especially men who are maybe not otherwise engaged in politics, Trump is synonymous with two things, Manifest for your podcasters like Joe Rogan and the UFC. Because it's not just a sport, the UFC is a culture and a way of seeing the world and it's proven it can speak to young male audiences in a way that no one else is really able to right now. Joining me today is the reporter Jack Crosby, who has a new story for Rolling Stone on how the UFC became one of the most important cultural forces on the American right. And I wanted to have Jack on to talk about why the UFC is striking such a chord with

young men and what that tells us about the needs or desires leading those men to the sport and therefore to Trump. Jack, welcome to Offline. Hey, thanks so much for having me, Max. So for people who have maybe never seen a mixed martial arts fight, like paint a picture for us. How does it look or sound different from say a regular boxing match? Mixed martial arts basically combines a whole bunch of different

distinct styles of combat sports and distinct styles of I guess fighting I would say martial arts and has codified them under a rule set into an actual sport. So an MMA fight will incorporate boxing, similar to Western boxing techniques, striking with the fists from the waist up, but it will also incorporate American kickboxing and in particular Thai boxing, which is Muay Thai, which incorporates strikes with the shins,

with the knees, with the feet, and crucially with the elbows as well. And a mixed martial arts fight, you're allowed to hit the other person with basically any part of your body besides a headbutt. And what differentiates MMA from say Muay Thai or kickboxing, where a lot of this is also allowed, is that when a fighter in a boxing fight or in a purely striking fight when a fighter falls to the ground, the fight is paused. That fighter is either stood up if they can and the fight is resumed or if they stay on the ground they're considered to be knocked out. In mixed martial arts, someone falling over does not stop the fight and And in fact, in a lot of matches,

that is where the real battle really begins. Something will break. And often in these fights, things do break or people are choked unconscious in relatively rare cases, but this is very much a possibility of what can happen to you in an MMA fight. It sounds really brutal, which the reason I want to kind of dwell on that is I think that's a really important part of MMA's appeal, right?

Like it's not just a different set of techniques and rules, but my sense is that it's kind of the vibe is a really big part of UFC and MMA. And I think of boxing as like kind of a gentlemanly sport. And UFC mixed martial arts is like a little more blood sport, right? So this is, you have been conditioned by the boxing lobby to think this over many, many, many, many years. It worked. These were the original arguments against mixed martial arts. And in the early 2000s, John McCain called it human cockfighting,

because of the permissiveness of the rule set and the perceived brutality of the sport. And to be fair, MMA does lean into this, but proponents of the sport, including myself, I think, would say that there's really getting hit in the face is getting hit in the face. There's really nothing that much more brutal about an MMA fight than there is a boxing fight. There's even some research to suggest,

which I can kind of personally attest to, that being hit with a boxing glove that weighs a pound on either fist is, someone is swinging a large club that weighs a pound into your head. And there have been studies that have shown that you, boxers often will incur more head trauma over the course of their fights than a typical MMA athlete would be. That's also because in boxing, remember, you can only hit from the waist up. In MMA, there are leg kicks, there are body kicks and blows and punches, and there's all the grappling on the ground. So, it kind of depends on what you see as brutality, I think.

So I feel like UFC's rise has been pretty recent. Like a few years ago, I had barely heard of it and now it's kind of everywhere. Can you talk about how that happened? Yeah. So the UFC, I mean, has had a really, really good past four years. The sport was kind of this nascent cultural phenomenon, I guess, for many, many years. The UFC itself started as a company in the early 1990s, but it didn't really get off the ground and attain any kind of sort of mainstream recognition until the

kind of mid-2000s and in fact really early 2010s, mid-2010s. The current CEO of the company, CEO and president, Dana White, took over the company in 2001 with some financial backing from a couple of friends of his, and he has essentially run the ship since then. And I think he can be credited mostly with popularizing this sport and making it go mainstream to a much wider audience, both in the United States and around the world. And he's done that through a couple of different ways. I think when you probably first heard of UFC and when many people first heard of

UFC, it was probably around the early 2010s when Dana White kind of realized the star power and sort of figured out the marketing concoction that he needed to really create stars out of his fighters. He was aided by perhaps the most famous MMA athlete in the world, Conor McGregor, an Irishman who was just, you know, as brash as could be on the mic. He was, you know, had similar rhetorical techniques that, you know, made Donald Trump famous, made everyone,

he never backs down, is always up for a fight, is always ready to say the most outlandish and headline grabbing thing possible. And McGregor backed that up by the fact that in the ring, his fights were just as electrifying and just as exciting. And he was really, I see it as really the UFC's breakout moment into the mainstream of global culture where people knew who Conor McGregor was. You hinted at something I think important, which is that there's something kind of Trump-coded

about this sport, or there is a way in which it has naturally aligned with Trump. Can you talk about the kind of UFC-Trump alliance? Because I have to say, I did not realize until I read your story how important they have been to one another. Yeah, so there's a couple of things there. The UFC is directly connected to Donald Trump

through a whole bunch of different avenues, which I'll get into, but I think what's interesting about what you said is saying that like some of these things, the UFC being Trump-coded. So I think the cultural impetus that both Donald Trump and the UFC are tapping into is, is older than Donald Trump itself. It's not, it's not necessarily Donald Trump coded. It's it's reality TV coded to be honest.

And people make a big deal about, um, the UFC and its differences with what we now know as professional wrestling, the WWE, um, and these big shows that got really popular in the nineties, um, and the sort of the, the wrestling term is K-Fabe, the manufactured drama and putting on a personality for the fans and to tell a storyline of the fights. The UFC does a lot of this as well and it found, especially in the Conor McGregor years, it found a huge amount of success in treating its fighters like they were characters. And in fact, one of the UFC's other major breakout

moments was in the season finale of a reality TV show that Dana White had created called The Ultimate Fighter, in which he took a dozen UFC prospects and he forced them all to live in a house with one another for several months and fight each other on the weekends. And there were some really breakout moments in this where the sport was allowed to shine through the characters that had been developed through this, you know, this sort of storylining and giving those people space to breathe. And when you think about how Donald Trump really introduced himself to the

country, he was a known quantity for years and years, not really because of his real estate deals, not really because of anything like that, but because he went on TV all the time and he hosted a show called The Apprentice. He went on TV all the time and he hosted a show called The Apprentice. And this theme of the people involved in this sport, being able to capture popular audiences, being able to meet them where they were at, being able to just inherently know what is going to entertain people, is a really consistent theme.

In the piece that I are for Rolling Stone, I kind of explore the UFC through the access of a trifecta of people who have all been involved with it very closely from the beginning. Two of those, of course, are Dana White and Donald Trump, who we've discussed. But the third is Joe Rogan, who at the time in the early UFC when Dana White took over the UFC, Joe Rogan was the host of a reality TV show of Fear Factor. And that's how he became popular around the country.

And these three men all kind of understood that the catharsis and drama that comes from a sport like the UFC, like MMA, which is as close as you can get to just pure fighting to, to people in combat under a rule set that, you know, doesn't utilize weapons or result in death. The draw and the appeal that that would have to people, especially if surrounded by some of these elements of dramatic tension and, and, you know, sort of bringing these stories of these individuals and athletes into it was something that was going to really be irresistible for a lot of the country.

Yeah, I want to ask you more about this idea that I found so interesting that the UFC has figured out how to speak to certain people in a way that has proven really powerful and that kind of parallels the way that Trump has figured out how to speak to those same people. Because I think it tells us a lot about Trump's appeal, understanding how the UFC has kind of approached this.

So you write in your piece that the UFC rose in part by filling a latent demand for violence and catharsis in America. And I'm really curious whether people within kind of UFC world, if it's people who work for the company itself or kind of in the media environment around it, do they see their sport this way as filling a cultural need or demand that goes beyond just sports entertainment? Absolutely.

I think they might not explicitly discuss it all of the time. Sure. But in my conversations with Dana White and in many other interviews he's given, you know, he said quotes to the effect of, you know, human beings will always be fascinated with fighting. There's nothing like fighting. There is nothing like this sport. There's nothing sort of more primal, more connected to the spirit of human competition in general than,

then professionalized violence, essentially. I mean, if you look at something I thought about while reporting this piece as well, basically all of the sports that we play now, at least almost all of the team sports, you know, you can make an argument for things like tennis that have devolved significantly from their roots or whatever, but a lot of the sports are modeled on forms of warfare. You know, the entire family of sports that has resulted in both soccer and American football now started from, you know, a version of sort of football, as it was called, which was two

villages chasing a pig bladder from one end to the other, trying to beat the absolute crap out of each other the entire time. It was, it was a battle between two towns with a sort of secondary objective of a, of a ball going from one place to another, just to simulate combat, you know? People watch American football both for, you know, the plays and for the athleticism of the sport, but they've always, they want to see the big hits. People watch NASCAR for the crashes.

People watch hockey for the fights, right? That man on man or woman on woman, person on person, conflict is really at the heart of all competition. And I think what Dana White has realized is that MMA distills that impulse and puts it on screen in a way that is more pure really than any other sport out there. It cuts to the, cuts to the core of what we're watching all of this for. Um, and I think that that can be Disconcerting to a lot of people who don't necessarily like the impulses that they maybe get from other sports to be put on such stark display.

But to me, at least, you know, I played sports most of my life. Um, I enjoy watching basically all of them. I, I love the UFC and I love MMA because it is, there is a real athleticism and beauty to the sport at the heart of it, to what practitioners of it have to sacrifice to become good at it. And also to just what being truly talented at it can, can represent. So what do you think is the kind of, because it's a very good point about to just what being truly talented at it can represent. So what do you think is the kind of, because it's a very good point about the universal,

or at least potentially universal appeal of UFC, is there like a top spin that the UFC organization is putting on it that is giving it such a kind of like Trumpy or at least naturally Trump aligned appeal for so many people. Yeah. And so I talk about this in the piece as well, because that was really what I was trying to get into because it's, it's been difficult for me and for many other people I spoke to who are, you know, more liberal politically and who, but are still genuine, real fans of this sport and recognize the

beauty in the sport and love it as an athletic expression. And the sort of frustration that a lot of them have felt over the years watching the politics of this sport just and the, and everything surrounding it, the politics and aesthetics of this sport, just drifting further and further right. Um, part of the answer that I found, there's, there's a lot of sort of different reason for this. One of the, if you want sort of the pop psychological reason behind it, uh, that I, that I wrote in the piece is that fighting itself is a, it's a fiercely individualistic sport.

It's basically the most, the least team sport that one can ever possibly do. Right. Because the aim of the sport is just to simply to beat up another person. Right. You know, there is a collaborative aspect in fighting. You need to be a successful fighter. You need to have really good teammates, really good coaches, sparring partners, people who will train with you and do this work.

But at the end of the day, when the actual competition comes out, it's you and one other guy in a cage and, you know, one of you is leaving a winner and the other is leaving a loser. And that kind of outlook, especially orienting your entire life and your entire sort of career on your ability to inflict violence on another person, blends itself, I think, very easily to people having a worldview that does see things in a very sort of stark black and white that sees things in a very sort of immediately, you know, it's either, you're either attacking or you're defending, you know, and most of the time, most fighters, you always want to

be attacking. These are things that all have very much played into the dominant sort of right-wing culture of the moment, which is a culture of we are constantly under attack and the way to get through that is to fight back. And I think it's very easy for a fighter to, when you're in the gym and when that is your entire life, to see the world in that way. There are a lot of other factors, but all that is to say is that the general practitioner of MMA, the general fan of MMA, I think, in general, is going to more often than not lean slightly to the right, I guess, maybe because of the individualistic nature of the sport. But that doesn't mean that this is, that is, that is as a whole, that this describes every person that it describes every fighter.

There's a ton of room in this for people, but that was sort of the answer that I came to. And the second part of it, which you were asking about, is, you know, how has this been so successfully captured by the right wing and by specifically Donald Trump and the MAGA movement? And that goes into several things. It goes into Donald Trump and Dana White's personal relationship. But I think it also goes into the fact that the right wing has

successfully been able to present a definition of masculinity in this country that involves sort of the constant threat of an ability to inflict violence. They have created a world in which everyone is coming to take from you. And things that scare you or frighten you are out there. And they're real. And Donald Trump got elected twice by saying, I know what's scaring you and I'm going to fight back against it. And I heard at these UFC events from his fans when he entered at Madison Square Garden,

UFC 309, which was on November 16th, I think, 2024. This was Donald Trump's first public appearance after the election. And he entered the arena to this absurd, enormous fanfare and the Jumbotrons going wild and the announcers on the pay-per-view, you know, screaming out his name, Joe Rogan, you know, practically squealing in delight as he comes in flanked by Elon Musk and Kid Rock and Tulsi Gabbard and all, you know, the entire RFK junior, the entire trappings of this MAGA movement and the arena is going wild. And at some point in this, in the like 15 minute standing ovation, I was talking to

a couple of kids and, and one of them said, you know, I, I like that he enters like a fighter. Like it gives me hope to see this political figure come out here, do a fighter walkout. And to get to the heart of what I think that represents and why it fits in so well in fighting is that the conservative movement in this country has really tapped into the fact that they've turned every political discussion into a fight, into a cage match, essentially between one person who's fighting for you and one person who's fighting against you. And I think that when you're conditioned to see the world that way, and everyone inherently a little bit is, you know, who among us has not ever wanted to punch our boss or, you

know, someone who has aggrieved us on the street. You don't have to answer that, Max. Don't worry. But it's good to say that, you know, first half of this show is me co-hosting with my boss. So obviously I've never felt that, but I've heard other people describe it. Wonderful man. Never felt that, but I've heard other people describe it. You have spoken to a wonderful man. Never felt that towards him either. But, you know, I think when you're watching a fight, something I kind of tried to get

into in the piece, but maybe didn't say as explicitly, when you're watching one of these fights, all sports essentially are a form kind of wish fulfillment and fantasy. Like when you're watching an NFL game or something and you see someone get really laid out or someone throw an incredible touchdown pass or something like that, you know, a rational person is not thinking like, oh man, that's me, I could do that. But they, maybe what they are thinking if they played a little football in high school or they played or something like that, and they see Josh Allen, you know, absolutely gun one sidearm to an open receiver or something, and they're thinking about that moment of triumph from their own life.

They're thinking, they're projecting this onto the athletes that they're seeing. And when you get that in such a distilled fashion in terms of fighting, it's like, you go in there, you're rooting for your guy and your guy wins. He like, you know, slips outside of that jab, comes back with a right cross and it lands flush and the other guy just goes out like a light. You see him just crumple. You're projecting everything that's wrong in your life onto that moment, right? And there's a feeling of when you see the right guy go down in your mind, the right

guy get hit and get punished, get knocked out. There's a sense of like that catharsis and justice where it's just like, you know, oh, for that little second, right? The guy who was fighting for me, he won and all is right in the world. And so I don't know if people think about that explicitly when they're watching these fights, but I'm saying that's definitely part of the feeling when you're watching this just absolutely stark athletic spectacle, you know, that is often sold through a storyline of two fighters having something on the line in this fight,

that you begin to think your fandom, your like for a certain fighter is also on the line. If they lose, you're gonna look silly to your friends, if they, you know, who were saying, fighter is also on the line. If they lose, you're going to look silly to your friends. If they, you know, who were saying, no, there's no chance they would win or something like that, it's all, it brings you into this and it really. It does the same thing that any other sport does, but it combines it with. The fact that the only thing that the sport is, is the violence is the turbocharged

Sort of catharsis of those moments that you may watch an entire three-hour football game You know for that one for that one big hit for that one dagger touchdown pass that really Sticks it to the Chiefs and seals it that they're not gonna win three Super Bowls in a row or something right? That's a really smart point about the UFC offering a kind of cathartic projection of feelings of strength and empowerment for people who are maybe feeling that they're not as strong or empowered in their personal lives as they want it to be. And the point you made earlier, especially about the UFC offering a kind of story about masculinity and about what masculinity is and should be. And I think that is something that really,

in my mind, connects it with Trump's appeal is speaking to a kind of longing for that. There was just a poll in the New York Times reporting that 80% of Republican men say society has grown too feminine. And the number of Republican men who say society should return to traditional gender norms has doubled in just the last three years from 22% to 48%. Do you think that this is something that people in UFC world, and again,

thinking of both the people in the organization itself and also the media world around it, do they see themselves as speaking to this crisis, do you think? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm not sure if it's thought about in that sort of philosophical terms in the UFC. I think it's definitely thought of in that kind of, in those kind of marketing terms where they see these trends and they think, oh man, you know, the 18 to 25 demo, which, which I, I

wrote about in the piece, the 18 to 25 demo is pissed off. They've got worse earning potential than even, you know, the much decried millennials like us, you know, there's, they've got nothing going for them. They're mad and they're looking for an outlet for that. And they're responding to these versions of masculinity presented by influencers who very much are on the right side of the spectrum and who are advocating for those traditional gender roles. I think the UFC has realized that young men specifically are responding to those themes, both because to a certain

extent, those themes are kind of the only ones out there around masculinity right now. And the UFC has realized that they're responding to them in big ways because they are similar to Donald Trump is it offers that demographic, that view of the world offers them sort of an easy fix to all of their problems. I know you on offline talk a lot about politics and the, you know, the rest of the crooked ecosystem focuses directly on politics, but you know, what's been at the core of both of Donald Trump's or all three of Donald Trump's candidacies for president is he has said,

there are problems in America and I will fix them. And the UFC, I think, buys into a version of masculinity that says, like, there are problems in your life, clean your room and go to the gym. It's the standard, you know, this stuff started getting introduced with Jordan Peterson. And with all these other influencers who are telling young men, like, you can fix your life by going out and doing these things. And some of it is good advice.

Like it is good advice to go to the gym. I would recommend that anyone listening to this show go try martial arts. Like they rock. It's amazing. Like it is literally the only thing that keeps my sanity intact on a week to week basis is being able to go to a place where like I am just using my body freely and expressing myself as such and I'm not thinking about literally anything else other than the fact that like, you know, is Eric going to be able to land his right cross on me and I don't want that

to happen. Offline is brought to you by Zbiotics Pre-Alcohol. Let's face it, after a night with drinks, I certainly don't bounce back the next day like I used to. Oh, no, no. And so you have to make a choice. You either have a great night or you have a great next day. Until I found pre-alcohol. Zbiotics Pre-Alcohol Probiotic Drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic.

It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's this byproduct, not dehydration, that's to blame for your rough next day. Pre-alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just remember to make pre-alcohol your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow. I was out last weekend, I forgot it.

Oh, no. Had a friend bring an extra, that's how important it was. Someone else at the table had never heard of it before. She was like, what are you doing with that thing? What are you... And I told her all about it, and she's like, seriously? This works? Is this just like something you guys sell on the pod? It's like, no, no, it works.

It happens to be both. It happens to be both, and it worked, and it worked. And it worked. This college hoop season, don works. It happens to be both. It happens to be both and it worked and it worked and it worked This college hoop season don't let anything sideline your celebrations Hoops grab pre alcohol before you go out and be ready to cheer on your team all day and all night long Go to zbiotics.com slash offline to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use Offline at checkout zbiotics is backed with 100% money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money no questions asked. Remember to head to zbiotics.com slash offline and use the code offline at checkout for 15% off. You talked about the story that the UFC

tells implicitly about what masculinity is and what it should be. What do you think that that story implies about what's wrong with masculinity or what's missing or what the problem is? Because I feel like the way that it contextualizes both the solution and the problem for its audience is an important way to understand both its appeal and also where it's leading people. Yeah, I think there's a very specific way that the UFC presents masculinity. And part of it is that they don't really have to do

a huge amount of message shaping to get this. They have the stars of their organization and most of the people who are visibly involved with it are fighters. And the vast majority of those fighters are men. The UFC has a lot of very successful women's divisions. It has very successful and extremely talented women's fighters. But fighting still is, for the most part, a man's game. And like the distribution of most sports, the male divisions are often, you know, watched more, they're cared about more and the male fighters are often the bigger stars. I think true fans of the sport don't see it that way. I think they think that they're

some of the most electrifying fighters in the UFC. Zhang Weilei, for example, and, you know, a whole bunch of other fighters are women, but I think it's easy for the UFC to show this version of, of masculinity, which is you endure pain to go out and to win and that you are going to overcome challenges in your life by basically fighting through them by pushing through the pain. It's the classic, you know, football coach with a t-shirt, pain is weakness, leaving the body. And the fighters themselves embody this. You know, they talk a lot of the times when they do express vulnerability,

and some of them definitely do, it's always presented in a way that it's just like, you know, I had to identify this about myself and then come up with my tactical plan to overcome it. And here's how I did. And I won my next fight because of that, you know, and it's always in the UFC. It's always leading them towards a direct conflict where you win or you lose. And the attitude behind it, even if you lose, it's like, well, I learned from that and I will come back as a stronger man.

I will come back as a, you know, this isn't going to change me. I'm going to double down on who I am. And I think that that's been incredibly powerful to a generation of young men, especially those who have been through COVID and who have been through a lot of experiences in their generation's lifetime where things have not gone well, where things have been difficult like any generation, like millennials did as well. But the answer to that always has been not necessarily, you know, and I'm not saying that there's an implicit good in any of this, but like introspection and, you

know, openness and things like that. But there has been like, you need to reassert control over your life. You need to, it's a very conservative outlook on the world. It's you need to assert control over everything you need to do. You need to be disciplined. You need to be, you know, aggressive when you need to be aggressive. You need to be, you know, focused and sharp and on the ball. You need to lock in as the kids say, you need to, you know, and, and that I think

is a version of masculinity that is truly embodied by a lot of the UFC's fighters. Because to a certain extent, you do have to see the world that way to be good at fighting. Um, and that's something that the UFC has realized they can market until the end of days. Well, that makes me very curious about your experience with mixed martial arts because you're, you know, obviously much more a left-wing guy, but are involved in this sport

that kind of naturally aligns with right-wing ways of thinking. It makes me curious what those gyms are like. Like, are they all kind of MAGA right-wing spaces of thinking. It makes me curious what those gyms are like. Like are they all kind of MAGA right-wing spaces, even in Brooklyn? So what's interesting about this is I've spent so long describing why mixed martial arts lends itself so easily to a right-wing point of view. And I think what attracted me to martial arts in general

and to MMA as well is that I don't really think it has to. And a lot of aspects of this don't embody those things. So gyms in general around the country, simply because of the politics of the moment and the general sort of male heavy demographics of people that go to MMA gyms, I think you would probably find on average around the country, they may be trended slightly more conservative than the general population as a whole. Right. The environment in some of these gyms can be overly masculine.

It can be, you know, in, in some areas be a little toxic. You don't see very much of that in New York, in Brooklyn especially. But you also don't see a ton of it elsewhere around the country because the other aspect of martial arts and of fighting in general and of learning how to use your body in this way is that there has to be an enormous amount of respect involved because you're not doing something like baseball or tennis even. I compare fighting to tennis all the time because I played relatively competitive tennis when I was a kid. And when I described to people what the actual, you know, sport of fighting is like, I'm like, the only thing it really compares to is like extremely high level singles tennis, but

instead of like losing a point, you might break your nose. But when you're in a fighting gym, the way that people are judged is how they comport themselves on the mats, how they respond to training, how they respond to their training partners. And there's not a lot of room in a successful and a well-run MMA gym for someone who is going to be disrespectful and who is going to treat other people poorly. And so you get these kind of strange spaces where I have heard wildly not politically correct stuff in a gym, but I've also trained with people who are all over the sexuality and the gender spectrum. And for the most part, in any good gym, I think that you will generally find that, yeah, maybe I'm sure, you know, I'm obviously a cisgendered person. I find it much easier to come into these spaces.

But you know, I know a lot of people who are not that, who have very positive experiences with martial arts. And that's because at a certain point, what race a person is, what culture they come from, what background, what religion, what gender they are, what sexuality they are, that kind of stops mattering when the only thing that matters to them is like, can you learn from them? Or if you're, you know, sparring or something like that, can they hit you in the face? Like, you know, Or if you're sparring or something like that, can they hit you in the face? Like, you know, getting hit in the face by the 120 pound stunt woman in my gym feels just as bad as getting hit in the face by the, you know, 125 pound janitor

that's next to her, like, you know, and he's a man and she's a woman. And like, it, you know, it doesn't matter man and she's a woman. And like, it, it, you know, it doesn't matter. Like Hannah kicked me in the face two months ago and my jaw didn't like close right for about a week. You know, it doesn't, and that doesn't matter. Like the fact that she's a woman, like my face still hurt, you know, like it's, it's not. So where that leaves me with the culture of martial arts, I think, is that there are these aspects of it, of the communal respect and of the sort of humility that participating in a sport like that teaches you, that they get mentioned in this sort of conception of masculinity.

You know, the UFC always plays up like great moment of respect in between their fighters, like, et cetera, et cetera, because they know that people want to tap into that as well. It's a shame to me, I think that often with fighting people focus on and focus in the UFC has, you know, really focused on empowering the, the worst sides of this athletic endeavor rather than the best ones. They've focused on the divisiveness and the, you know, the bad blood and the beefs and things like that. And there's always going to be some of that in sports. It's part of what makes sports fun.

You know, like if, you know, if there's Philly sports fans out here and they hear me saying like bad blood isn't a fun part of sports. Like, don't come for me. I love it too. You guys are crazy. Like, you know, everyone loves a good rivalry, right? But there is a way of conceptualizing mixed martial arts in this sport that doesn't necessarily rely solely on this sort of regressive,

aggressive version of masculinity? Well, it really makes me wonder if there's a version of, I guess, MMA or something like it that speaks to those needs that we've been talking about that, like, have brought so many people to the sport or the thing that people feel it is addressing for them or that it's exciting for them about it that is maybe not so extremely right wing coded because obviously there are aspects of the sport, like you said, that lend itself to it, but there are also aspects of the sport, like you're talking about, that are more aligned around community, which to me feels like a much more kind of left wing coded idea.

I think that unfortunately or fortunately MMA itself, I don't think is going to be the primary driver of it. I think that the culture inside mixed martial arts is always going to be more of a reflection of where our society is at in general rather than the other way around, if that makes sense. And you know, you've seen this even among the sort of cynical business decisions that the UFC has made in between the Biden presidency and the Trump presidency. You know, Dana White has not always been full MAGA, you know, his relationship with Donald Trump, which, you know, we haven't fully discussed, but it's all in the piece.

They've known each other for decades. They've been involved in one another's businesses for decades. Trump played a very close hand in sort of the rise of Dana White's UFC. But White, for a long time, has really kind of tried to split the cultural gap. He, for a while, was operating much more on sort of like a Roger Goodell level, where the NFL is always sure, during the Bush years, they couldn't stop doing military flyovers and having Soldier reunited with Son and Golden Retriever Dog on halftime at the 50 yard line, you know, and stuff like that. But then tempering themselves to be like, you know, now we've got stop racism on the back of helmets and like there's a pride flag over some stadiums and things like that.

Like White to a certain extent has tried to kind of play those waters, but I think the big change was when he saw the strength and power of this MAGA movement and especially the referendum that it saw in 2024 when it was basically ushered in is like, this is where the country is at. This is the dominant sort of cultural force in the country right now. I think that if that changes, and if that changes through politics, if that changes through outside culture, I think that we'll see more of a reflection of that in mixed martial arts. Like I said, these athletes in the sport, they can trend towards right-wing views, but there's so much in it,

and there's so much like in the athletes that I see, a lot of them as well, that shows that there is room for those broader conceptions of masculinity. There is room for a, I would say sort of more holistic and less, I guess, kind of jingoistic and fear driven conception of this sport and culture at large. There's room for that in this sport. But I think it's going to take kind of a broader cultural reimagining of American society to get there.

And I think as well, it might take something other than the UFC, which is a difficult proposition because right now, if you're an MMA fan, the UFC is pretty much all that you've got. Yeah, I feel like one thing I'm taking away from this is that the UFC as an organization, we are not going to be welcoming to the resistance anytime soon, but that if people felt that they wanted a version of something like MMA or MMA itself that was speaking to those needs, but did it in a way that was more aligned with left-wing values,

that the sport does have room for that. Yeah, I think that it does, but I want to be clear that you're not ever gonna, there's not gonna be like a rule set change where you can make like leftist MMA or something like that. The sport, I think, is the sport, right? But I do think that there is that. The sport, the sport I think is the sport. Right. Yeah.

But I do think that there is room within the culture of the sport and within, and to still get what the sport offers, even in terms of that, you know, kind of violent catharsis and that like, which right now, I think that that catharsis has been sort of grafted onto. Yeah. Like we've been talking about some sort of grafted onto, yeah, like we've been talking about some sort of ugly cultural trends, right? But I think that there is a way that that can be a much more universal thing that people can still gain that enjoyment out of the sport without it, you know, always explicitly feeling

like that. I mean, I, I get that catharsis from the sport right now, you know I'm not thinking I'm probably think about very different people when I project those fantasies Onto the fighter that I don't like getting knocked out then then you know Some of the Donald Trump for instance is when he watches that but right, you know I think that I think the sport is good like the sport shouldn't go anywhere I think that how it's organized, who runs it, and who is profiting off of it, I wish that some of those things were different.

And I'm not sure how we get them that way, but I do think that there is room inside the cultural phenomenon of mixed martial arts for that change to happen. Jack Cosby, thank you for joining me. Thanks so much for that change to happen. Jack Cosby, thank you for joining me. Thanks so much for having me, Max. ["The New York Times"] Offline is a Crooked Media production.

It's written and hosted by me, John Favreau, along with Max Fisher. The show is produced by Austin Fisher and Emma Illich-Frank. Jordan Cantor is our sound editor. Audio support from Charlotte Landis and Kyle Siglund. Dallon Villanueva produces our videos each week. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Ari Schwartz, Madeleine Herringer,

and Adrienne Hill for production support. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Music Music