This week, we’re breaking down the headlines you can’t ignore—from riots in Los Angeles to Trump’s latest shots at Musk and Newsom. Plus, a look at the NCAA’s game-changing ruling on student-athlete pay and commentary on Simone Biles vs. Riley Gaines, NBA and NHL finals action, and a tribute to writer Jon Tjarks. Join us as we tackle politics, sports, and culture with honest Christian insight!
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Topics
- (01:15): Riots in LA: Police vs. Protesters
- (04:58): Political reactions and controversies
- (11:07): Christian perspective on the riots
- (16:52): NIL House vs. NCAA settlement
- (21:20): Fairness in college sports: The new NCAA ruling
- (25:39): Spiritual reflections on comparison
- (29:10): Musk vs. Trump: A social media feud
- (32:15): Hollywood legal battles: Baldoni vs. Lively
- (33:37): Simone Biles vs. Riley Gaines: Controversial tweets
- (36:11): US-China trade negotiations
- (37:49): Tune-In: Major sports events
- (38:05): NBA Finals and Jon Tjarks legacy
- (41:48): Closing thoughts and encouragement
Resources
- Mailbag: [email protected]
- DenisonForum.org/subscribe
- Culture Brief on Instagram
- President Trump deploys the National Guard to Los Angeles
- President Biden issues “Proclamation on Securing the Border”
- Who is driving the chaos in Los Angeles and beyond?
- Politico: Playbook: Trump: ‘BRING IN THE TROOPS’
- How LA erupted over rumours of immigration raid at a hardware store
- Playbook PM: Trump says he would arrest Newsom – POLITICO
- NYT: How President Trump is changing government, the country and its politics.
- Playbook: The LA standoff Trump wanted – POLITICO
- The LA Riots Are a Trump Ad – by Ruy Teixeira
- Will Illegal Immigration Break the Nation Apart?
- Democrats Make Stephen Miller’s Day – WSJ
- Tangle: The LA Protests
- Arch Manning signs deal with Red Bull as NCAA-high NIL valuation rises to $6.6 million?
- With $2.7 billion settlement approved, college sports’ big money era is officially here
- A $2.8 billion settlement will change college sports forever. Here’s how
- House v. NCAA settlement approved: Landmark decision opens door for revenue sharing in college athletics – CBSSports.com
- Judge OK’s $2.8B settlement, paving way for colleges to pay athletes – ESPN
- Houston Christian is opting out of NCAA settlement but will lose $300K per year
- What does the Bible say about transgenderism?
- The NBA Draft’s Most Polarizing Prospect Is a Walking Analytics Experiment – The Ringer
About Micah Tomasella
Micah Tomasella is the Advancement Officer at Denison Ministries and co-hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. A graduate of Dallas Baptist University, Micah is married to Emily, and together they are the proud parents of two daughters. With an extensive background in nonprofit work, finance, and real estate, Micah also brings experience from his years in pastoral church ministry.
About Conner Jones
Conner Jones is the Director of Performance Marketing at Denison Ministries and Co-Hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. He graduated from Dallas Baptist University in 2019 with a degree in Business Management. Conner passionately follows politics, sports, pop-culture, entertainment, and current events. He enjoys fishing, movie-going, and traveling the world with his wife and son.
About Denison Forum
Denison Forum exists to thoughtfully engage the issues of the day from a biblical perspective through The Daily Article email newsletter and podcast, The Denison Forum Podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited.
Conner Jones: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Connor Jones.
Micah Tomasella: I’m Micah Tomasella.
Conner Jones: And this is Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast where we navigate the constant stream of top stories and news, politics, sports, pop culture, technology. And we’re doing it all from a Christian perspective. Micah, man, what a jam packed just week of news. Yeah. Seems like the, the theme of this week’s gonna probably be like one party versus the other in many different facets.
Yeah. So you wanna just give us a rundown of what we’re gonna be hitting on.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah, Connor, one of the craziest news cycles to date since we started this podcast. What is this? Episode number 23 for us. So thank you everyone, the faithful audience, the faithful listeners that have joined with us on this journey.
It’s been a special thing on a week like this. This is exciting ’cause there’s a lot of things to cover, but you mentioned the versus thing, right? We’ve got Trump versus Musk, Trump versus Newsom and Bass and Ice versus illegal immigrants and police versus Rioters and House versus NCAA and Riley Gaines versus Simone Biles and Balondi versus Lively and US versus China and Pacers [00:01:00] versus Thunder and Panthers versus Oilers.
We got a jam packed show. So let’s jump into the brief.
Conner Jones: The brief. Yeah. That that made it sound like we’re like a UF. C podcast, like just a bunch of, I was just, I got into bunch fires. Yeah, I got into it. That was awesome. Okay. Yeah. Micah, let’s hit on the, the first big thing, this is story dominating the news this week, is these riots in la.
One thing you mentioned is police versus rioters or protesters, and then also illegal immigrants and ice, but it’s also a big political fight. And so we’ll kind of hit on all of that. So to just start, we’ve seen these crazy images coming out of la. We’ve seen riots. There’s obviously a bunch of protesters who are not part of the rioting, but then the parts of this that gets all the headlines, all the images, all the videos are these people who are burning cars, they’re throwing rocks at police officers, they’re throwing scooters at police vehicles.
There’s lots of videos of this. It’s pure just anarchy in some parts of la. Yeah, and so it’s caused a lot of flareups. There’s been some other flareups throughout the country and some other cities, but nothing like LA’s had the last few days. It does seem to be tamping [00:02:00] down a little bit. Some of that might be because the military is.
The streets too, sort of. They’re really more so just protecting federal buildings. Yeah. But that’s one of the big topics that’s got a lot of people up in arms is should the military even be deployed in a situation like this? So we’ve seen a lot of these individuals that are out there on the streets, they’re masked, they’re hooded.
They might be the casual, just like coming in from a different state or city. They don’t live there. They don’t necessarily represent the people who are actually trying to, you know, protest. Peacefully and then you’ve got these, yeah, these guys that come in and they’re anarchic. They are the ones who are in the images and the videos, and they really just make the whole situation so much worse.
Anyways, Micah, all these things that we’ve been seeing in la, the videos, the clips, the news, helicopter footage, all that, what, what have you been thinking about this? What, what’s it made you think of throughout the weekend and the, the beginning of this week,
Micah Tomasella: it just kind of breaks my heart and I’m like, I’m not trying to be dramatic, but like for some reason with this subject, it just feels.
It just feels tough. It feels weighty and it feels like a [00:03:00] little conflicting because there’s just no justification for the violence. There’s no justification for the videos going viral of people throwing rocks at police officers and you know, who have families who are just doing their jobs, protecting the streets, protecting innocent people there in Los Angeles.
So you’re gonna get into the dichotomy of this and how this is kind of a complicated subject, but that, I mean, there’s just no excuse for the violence. And I don’t believe that you’re getting your point across when you’re burning cars in the streets. Yeah. I really do believe in the assembling of people as a core tenant of our democracy and what the founding father set out, like I’m absolutely in agreement with that.
But your, your message gets completely lost if you know what, and you could even say that what you’re trying to do is getting co-opted. By a group of radical people mm-hmm. Who travel around to these different protests and who create all of this chaos and who, you know, loot and do all of this stuff. But you lose your messaging when this happens.
And [00:04:00] that seems to not be understood by a lot of public figures right now too. And man, it’s just, it’s just been complicated because, you know, at, at the same time, you don’t want families ripped apart. But at the same time, it’s also hard to kind of see. What the truth is in all this, and who ICE was actually going after and our families being ripped apart right now in that area?
Or were they actually going after the worst? The worst? To me, there’s just a lot of details that I think we’re gonna kind of start figuring out. Mm-hmm. More as more information comes out.
Conner Jones: Yeah, definitely. And so yeah, it’s a lot is it is a lot. It’s a lot. But what’s interesting is, you know, it’s actually been really relegated to just a few blocks in downtown la.
So like as big as this seems, it’s not nearly anything like it was back in 2020 during the BLM riots, which is probably what everybody’s thinking of when they see these images of police and riot gear protestors throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks and fireworks and Right. But you know, it’s not been nearly as widespread, at least not yet.
It could get to that point. But this is part of what the debate is. Because you’ve got the [00:05:00] Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, you’ve got the mayor of La Karen Bass. Basically blaming the Trump administration for causing this by sending in troops and by overreacting, and they’re basically calling him out, Trump specifically saying this is all for optics and that they should not be doing ICE raids in their city.
So Karen Bass, who. If you remember, we’ve talked about this previously. She’s really unpopular. Yeah. Because she just absolutely not a great, great track record, Karen. She does not have a good track record. She fold the bag when it came to the wildfires back in January. Yep. She was present in Palade and just a terrible leader at that time.
So yeah, she’s outta the country. She’s not popular. She’s trying to remake her image here. I think she’s been saying really on multiple networks on TV to sum up her message. She’s saying Stop the raids. There is a real fear in LA right now. Parents, workers, grandparents, young people, they’re all scared to go about their daily lives.
We are a city of immigrants, so she’s basically saying, you know, the city is fine having all these illegal immigrants. I. Also legal immigrants. Please leave us alone. Stop doing these ICE raids. These immigration custom enforcement agents that are [00:06:00] just going in into workplaces or neighborhoods and grabbing illegal immigrants to deport them.
Typically though, what we’ve learned is that they’re going for the most violent of immigrants. Illegal immigrants, the most violent of criminals, and this is where the optics gets weird. ’cause the Democrats look like they’re maybe defending this group of people that is violent and dangerous on the streets.
Whereas the Republican party and Trump specifically is we’re gonna come and get you. We’re gonna get you out of our country. So the popularity leans towards Trump’s side and his administration because it’s as the White House has said. On record. They believe this is like an 80 20
Micah Tomasella: issue. This is his, this is his only winning consistent issue so far of his presidency.
So far. Yes. I mean, the polling numbers on so many different things have been so up and down, and in a lot of ways a lot of his policies have been more down on polling. Immigration has stayed above 50%. I’m really interested to know how the polls come out when things. Settle after this on how he handled this and if this affects his stance on immigration or, or the way that people [00:07:00] view his stance on immigration.
But this is his singular dominating winning issue so far. And so he’s, he’s standing on that. It looks like
Conner Jones: this is true. Yeah. So the big controversy though that’s really come out of it is Trump sending in troops. He sent in the National Guard, right? He went around Governor Newsom to basically activate.
The California National Guard, which is not the traditional sense, he did this using what’s called Title ix, and that’s very rarely used, hasn’t been used since 1965, where the president can go around a governor to send in National Guard. He also sent in 700 active duty Marines. And then Newsom man, he’s just been in a public war with Trump and other Republican officials, either on tv, he’s been on TV a lot.
For a guy who’s supposed to be really you know. He did this with the wildfires too. He’s supposed to be leading the situation, but man, every time I look on a screen, he’s there. So I don’t know. Anyways, he’s been fighting Trump, Pete Hegseth, JD Vance, all on Twitter all week, and on the airwaves. He did tweet the other day.
Let’s get this straight. Number one, local law enforcement didn’t need [00:08:00] help. Number two, Trump sent troops anyway to manufacture chaos and violence. Number three, Trump succeeded. Number four. Now things are destabilized and we need to send in more law enforcement just to clean up Trump’s mess. Man, he’s really pushing the blame on Trump.
You could say it’s a deflection. You could say there’s some justification to it. I’m not telling you what to believe here. This is up for people to determine on their own, but man, he’s really pushing that blame. And then man, he got into it with Trump’s borders are Tom Holman who suggested he might want to arrest Newsom for interfering with federal immigration action.
And Newsom responded on TV Arrest me. Let’s just get it over with Tough Guy. So you gotta remember, Newsom is a. Top favorite for the 2028 Democratic Presidential nomination. He’s trying to set himself up as, yeah, man, this is his moment. This is, this is his moment. Let’s see if it works out for
Micah Tomasella: him. I’m just not so sure if this is the issue to plant your flag.
Conner Jones: Right.
Micah Tomasella: But you know, at the same time, he can step up and. Lead a Democratic party that’s searching for a leader right [00:09:00] now. And so to a certain extent, if he’s trying to set himself up, I understand what he’s doing.
Conner Jones: Yeah. He’s trying to look like a, he can stand up to Trump and to his administration, be the tough guy and he’s willing to be arrested for it or whatnot.
So kind of an interesting just dynamic there. Anyways, the Wall Street Journal, man, they. The editorial board, they blasted Newsom. This is their quote for blaming Mr. Trump for their own failure in California to maintain order. The airwaves and social media are saturated with footage of protestors waving Mexican flags, atop burning cars, carrying signs, claiming California is stolen land.
Enchanting. We don’t want ice or police. Mr. Newsom really is living in La LA land if he thinks Americans will side with such radicals. Over Mr. Trump and other Democrat lawmakers. That’s a pretty
Micah Tomasella: strong statement from the Wall Street Journal. It’s a rebuke for
Conner Jones: sure.
Micah Tomasella: You don’t see that every day. Actually.
That’s, that’s pretty interesting.
Conner Jones: Yeah. No, you, you definitely don’t. You know, a lot of people see this military deployment as Trump’s reaction to not deploying the military back in 2020 when the riots really got outta hand across the country. He was [00:10:00] held back by some of his defense advisors. Yeah. Who suggested not doing that.
And they had their reasons at the time. And maybe we’re gonna find out some of those reasons now. But so far it does seem like the military being deployed might’ve helped quell these riots. At least that’s what the, you know, the right side of the aisle is gonna say. Is that because Trump acted first? I, I know it quelled the riots.
I don’t know. What I can say is the Pentagon’s financial chief this week said that the deployment of these few thousand National Guardsmen and Marines. It cost $134 million or likely will cost that at the end. I don’t understand how it costs that much to deploy the National Guard for a few days. Like I, I, that just baffles my mind.
Obviously I’m not in there because it’s so
Micah Tomasella: expensive in California. Maybe just the gas to get there. Yeah, just the gas oh my gosh. Hotels like the motel eight’s $400 a night. You know, something like that. Oh, that’s another thing.
Conner Jones: They didn’t have any plans for where these troops were supposed to actually stay.
So there are plenty of viral pictures of these troops literally sleeping on the [00:11:00] floors of the federal buildings. So it makes it feel like it was all rushed and it was all, I don’t know it, the whole thing’s a little bit of a mess on both sides. No doubt. You know, as Christians, Micah. I think it’s actually okay for us to be a little conflicted here, to see a little bit of both sides and to kind of land in the middle.
You don’t necessarily always have to take a side, especially when it’s something so heavy and political. No, and we’ve talked about this a lot with many different topics on this podcast so far, of kind of trying to find who’s in the middle here, who’s got the right part of this side, who’s got the right part of the other side, and how do we find the the perfect answer.
There’s rarely a perfect answer, but you know, as a Christian, we can be somewhere in the middle. You know, maybe you as a listener, you voted for Trump and you actually support the idea of removing illegal immigrants, particularly violent, illegal immigrants. That is, you know, the law of the land and that’s what you want enforced.
Maybe you didn’t vote for Trump, or you did, and you just don’t support this, and you’re upset about this, and you believe that the government is purposely trying to destroy the lives of [00:12:00] hardworking immigrants. Ripping apart their children from their families and sending them off to other countries. You know, it’s kind of hard to see sometimes, and so you might land on one of those sides.
You might land somewhere in the middle. Obviously this is what the First Amendment is for, to be able to protest, but protest peacefully if you want to. Yeah. Make your voice heard and known. Yeah, that you don’t support this. That’s why you can protest. It’s when it starts to get outta hand that everything goes haywire.
What happens though, Micah, when those protests do get outta hand and go haywire, and then when you send the military in, is that an escalation thing? Everyone ends up taking sides, right? You see these protests online or on tv, and you’re like, yeah, that’s not okay. Or Man, I really support that. So what do we do as Christians?
We stop, we pray, and we turn to scripture. That is the best thing you can do and intercede on behalf of those. Who are in this situation. Yeah. Whether it’s interceding in prayer for the immigrants or even for the, the violent writers praying that God would change their hearts and they would choose a [00:13:00] different path.
Anyways, there’s a lot of scriptures on this. I’m gonna give you a few here. Deutero, Deutero, I can’t ever say it de, it’s a tough one, dude. It’s a tough one. Dude, for short, dude, 32. Four says the rock. His work is perfect for all his ways are justice. Jeremiah 22 3 says, do justice and righteousness and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed and do no wrong or violence to the resident alien.
The fatherless and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place. Isaiah one 17 Learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s. Cause I think that these verses, Micah, they just make it so clear that our God is a God of justice. Criminals are meant to have the weight of the law.
I pressed upon them. Yes. And deportations in recent months of known violent criminals in the US illegally are technically biblical because that’s justice, right? Yeah. But these verses also [00:14:00] do make it clear that we are to love the oppressed and the depressed. The church can surround those who are simply seeking a better life, right?
And show them compassion for all the men who are being picked up and deported. How many families are being left behind in the us? Yep. Those are the people, the ones who are oppressed or on the down and out, that the church can surround and love and support them. And so if that’s in your community, how are you loving and supporting those individuals?
And I would say that while many, you know, Americans support removing violent criminals here illegally, I also just can’t imagine being in the shoes of a non-violent immigrant right now trying to empathize with that individual out there. You know, none of us has the perfect answer to the situation, but what we do know, Micah, is the truth of Psalm nine, seven that says, but the Lord sits enthroned forever.
He has established his throne for justice. Amen.
Micah Tomasella: Amen. Connor. Yeah, I think to tie the bow on your bow that you [00:15:00] just tied, I think you can and maybe should, as a believer be able to look at this and say, these riots got outta hand. This is ridiculous. If there’s no justification for this, the best cause in the world is not justification for some of the things that we’ve seen and that are happening.
But at the same time, you can feel that way, but then also pray for and recognize that there are families and people made in the image of God the same way you are, who are struggling, who are hurting, who are living in fear right now, who are experiencing separation from their families like. You can want the law to be enforced and also have a heart for the people affected by it, right?
It doesn’t have to be one way or another, but media is speaking to us like you gotta choose a side. There’s no other side to this and this story, just like every story, if you like Trump, love Trump, or at least sympathetic to Trump, then you’re probably for this. And then if [00:16:00] you don’t like Trump for any reason whatsoever, you are totally against Trump on this.
And it is just one of those things where. It’s not always so clear cut, and it makes us feel better when it’s clear cut. Mm-hmm. But oftentimes things aren’t, and it’s okay to be conflicted because Conor, the point that you made. If we’re going back to scripture when we encounter these things, we’re going back to God.
Then oftentimes it’s not gonna align with what the right is saying, and what the left is saying are foundations in Jesus, which is a whole lot better. Oh yeah. And holds a whole lot more promises for now and our eternity than any one of these political sides.
Conner Jones: Yep. Our hope is not in Republicans or Democrats or ICE or protests.
It’s in God. That’s right.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah. I mean, you know, this story’s difficult and that’s okay. That’s okay. Yeah. We trust God to take care of it. Alright, so let’s jump into our next story. Connor, again, thank you for that. So we’re gonna talk about the [00:17:00] NIL house versus NCAA settlement and college sports. So I’m gonna kind of break this down blink, and you’d miss this story, but it is written into law.
It is a done deal that college athletes can be paid now, right? So there’s a major change happening. It’s one of those moments where you stop and realize this is going to affect. Everything in the world of college sports, not just in football, but every single sport, swimming, diving, I mean literally rowing, you know it’s going to affect everything.
The NCAA just agreed to a $2.8 billion settlement in the case called House versus ncaa. And starting next year, schools will be allowed to pay their athletes directly, Connor, and it’s not just NIL deals, but real. Annual revenue sharing and up to 20.5 million per school. So there’s kind of a cap on that.
Conner Jones: Yeah. Can I ask you something? Mm-hmm. Because we know that college students have been paid, college athletes have been paid, but are, are you saying that this now allows these schools to directly pay them rather than having to go through like boosters [00:18:00] or sponsors?
Micah Tomasella: Correct. So it’s not corporate sponsorships or different deals and stuff like that.
Now there’s actually a framework. To this, and now schools have to choose to opt in. And if they choose to opt out or if they can’t even opt in, you’re gonna get left behind. You’re not gonna be competitive in the world of sports as kind of the direction that this is heading. But you know, what were your initial thoughts when this officially passed?
Conor P. College Athletes isn’t a new topic, but now it’s a reality. Now it’s law.
Conner Jones: Yeah. I think what you actually just said is very interesting that what does this do for smaller schools that won’t have the money to be able to pace? Yeah. I’m gonna get into that. Athletes. Yeah. Yeah, that was one of my thoughts.
I was also like, man, this means just college sports is so different than it used to be. This college sports that you and I watched growing up, where students on scholarships or walk-ons may not even be able to get on these teams as easily now, and you don’t have students already. You don’t have them.
Sticking you out at a school for four years. They’re jumping around different transfers. ’cause they’re making deals. It’s basically free agency. It, it’s essentially a, a, a pro [00:19:00] sport with free agency now. Yeah. These students are gonna just go wherever they can get paid. And I don’t blame ’em.
Micah Tomasella: It definitely feels a little bit less pure and maybe that’s like the wrong word, but. College sports, were supposed to prepare you for the next level. If you were lucky enough to go into professional sports, like college football, for example, right? Like you prove yourself, you, you risk life and limb to then hopefully be good enough to then get drafted into the NFL and then make some money for you and your family.
But the thing is, is like they’re putting their bodies on the line. And they’re making their schools a ton of money. True. And they’re adults. They’re not children. They’re 18 and up, so why shouldn’t they get paid? But it’s an argument that I think is gonna continue to rage on. So here’s why this matters.
For a long time, college athletes generated billions for schools, and they generated billions for coaches and media networks, but got almost nothing in return outside of a scholarship. And again, free education’s great, right? But that’s only if you’re in one of the. Larger programs or larger schools or in, in a more popular sport.[00:20:00]
That never sat right with a lot of people. And now finally those athletes are gonna see some of the money that they’re helping create. So the new system will do this. It’ll send billions to former players who have previously denied fair compensation. So there’s like this retroactive payment that’s gonna go back, I think, to 2016 if I believe that’s gonna pay some athletes in the past.
It’s gonna let schools start paying athletes directly from the revenue that the school brings in, and then it’s gonna shift college athletics from amateur competition to a. Semi-professional business model, right? Yeah. There’s, once this gets really set and going, you’re not gonna see a huge differentiation in the business model from college sports to the professional part of those sports at the next level.
In simple terms, I do believe this is a massive victory for. Fairness, and then we can kind of get into the pros and cons of this. So let’s talk about the pros. Let’s talk about the good side of this. Athletes are getting what they’ve earned for years. They’ve worked full-time hours, gone to school. They’ve also risked injury, and they brought in money for their school.
They brought in [00:21:00] attention and prestige to their schools, but they did not reap any financial benefit for that for years. Now that’s changing. It also brings more honesty into the system. I believe instead of schools pretending this is just education, we can actually admit what it really is. It’s a billion dollar business.
College athletics is a billion dollar business. And so for players who don’t have the personal brand to land big NIL deals like Arch Manning, who I’m gonna talk about here in a second, this means they still have a chance to earn something for their time and their talent. Like even if you’re a backup, you actually are gonna get compensated for your time, not just for the stars, right?
So everyone on the roster is gonna be able to start getting paid. So here’s the bad side of this. The reality is only the big schools can afford to pay these new salaries. Only the big schools. ’cause it’s like you got that $20.5 million cap from the school to pay the players, but there’s a lot of schools that aren’t even bringing in 20.5 million.
A year into their programs. Especially when you start talking about sports that aren’t football and basketball, I mean, college baseball in some [00:22:00] cases, but in a lot of cases, no. And so schools like Ohio State, Alabama, Michigan, Texas Tech a and m, you know, name ’em. Some are setting up massive endowments to keep the money flowing for years.
Smaller schools not so much, so Houston Christian. University, otherwise known previously as Houston Baptist University. For example, when this passed, they literally announced they’re opting out of this new model which schools have an opportunity to do. They can opt out so they can’t just afford it.
Other schools may follow. That creates an even bigger gap between the haves and haves nots in college sports. It also raises real concerns about non-revenue sports like. Swimming and wrestling and tennis, and then many of the women’s programs. If most of the money goes to football and basketball, what happens to everybody else?
Will programs get cut, will scholarships disappear? I mean, it’s just something to think about, even though I do believe overall this is fair and probably the right thing. I think there’s a lot of collateral damage from this too. This ruling is a win for fairness in one area, like I said, but it might unintentionally create [00:23:00] unfairness in other areas.
Conner Jones: Yeah, I saw there was a group of coaches, they call themselves like the Olympic Sport coaches from around the different colleges. Yeah. They wrote to the, I think the White House or Congress saying that they are very concerned about this, what this means for future Olympians whose programs might get cut at their schools and rowing or track and field.
Yep. Things that don’t bring in as much revenue, but that’s the model that brings up our future Olympic stars. Is these colleges and if they get defunded because all the money’s gonna go to football or basketball or the other bigger programs, what’s gonna happen to them? I think they’ll still be around, but these coaches are just expressing their concerns now.
Micah Tomasella: It’s gonna change the landscape. Just like any change. Oftentimes people just have to adapt. You know, just like when anything changes even in our own lives or where we’re working or the business model that we’re used to, things change. Yeah. Ai, for example, things are changing. Get on board or get left behind.
It’s the same thing with this type of situation, right? Let me give you an example of the money that I’m talking about, the valuations that some of these athletes have. Now, these [00:24:00] are some female athletes I’m about to mention, but Olivia Dunn, for example, she’s a gymnast at LSU, is worth over 3 million from brand deals alone.
The Cavender twins, ha, and the other one. So they’re both women’s college basketball players, but I mean, they’ve pulled in over a million thanks to social media, business deals, business savvy. Arch Manning is the starting quarterback for the University of Texas, and he’s number one on his valuation in all of college sports.
He’s worth 6.8 million. Okay, so he’s inked major deals with brands like Panini, EA Sports, Uber, Bori, red Bull, I mean, all kinds of things. There’s real money in college athletics, and there always has been. But now the players who are risking their. Bodies are actually getting paid for it. Are there any solutions in the works?
I’m just gonna run through these possible solutions real quick because now that this passed, how do we do something about this? Is there gonna be a salary cap? Is there gonna be a tiered system so that it’s more fair? So there’s [00:25:00] athlete. Unionization. There’s federal legislation that could step in to help this.
There’s conference revenue sharing based on your conference. More money can be split up within your conference that competes to help with some of these costs. There’s tiered systems where you could break ’em up into the larger schools, maybe middle schools, smaller schools, and then finally just stronger NIL oversight.
You know, tighter rules on these collective agreements and how athletes are getting paid. So we’ll see how all this turns out. Hopefully there’s some sort of a solution for it, but I just thought this was a really interesting subject that you could have easily missed this past week with all the other big news that we just touched on, and we’re about to touch on some more.
But let me kind of give you a spiritual application from this. It’s hitting me as I’m processing through this. This new NCAA ruling is creating a major gap between. Athletes at big schools and then the athletes at smaller ones, or a big gap between big schools, small schools, big sports, small sports. Some are signing million dollar deals while others might see little to nothing at [00:26:00] all.
Same sport, same effort, but wildly different outcomes. And that kind of gap naturally leads to comparison. I was thinking about comparison a lot. We know what that feels like. We may not be. Division one athletes. But we live in a world where we’re constantly measuring ourselves against others who look more successful, who are more recognized, who are getting opportunities that we want, that we wish we had, but comparison.
It’s the thief of joy, and it’s a trap. It drains our joy. It distracts us from our calling, and it leads us away from God. And the way that he’s leading us in our own lives. Philippians four 11 through 12, Paul says this, not that I’m speaking of being in need for, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.
I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound in any and every circumstance. I’ve learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance, and need. Paul doesn’t say that contentment comes naturally [00:27:00] to him. He says he learned it, he had to learn it, and maybe. We have to learn it too. Maybe that’s a process of our sanctification in our lives, is learning how to be content and to be thankful for what we do have rather than constantly comparing ourselves to people that we perceive as more happy than us.
Odds are, they might not be right, but people that we perceive are more successful than us. Then we just have to go back to what is life really about? Am I living my life for myself? Or am I living my life to know, love and worship the Lord? So when it feels like we’re just doing as much as someone else, but maybe getting a lot less in return, that that hurts.
That’s a struggle. So here’s a challenge for us this week. Stop looking side to side. Stop looking sideways. Look up. Don’t let what someone else has make you forget what God’s already given you. Instead of resenting someone for their success, intentionally celebrate it. Mm-hmm. And then thank God for where you are, what you have, and how he’s shaping [00:28:00] you through it.
If comparison has been stealing your peace and your joy, lay it down. You’re called to be faithful in your story, not someone else’s story. Run your own race. Own your race and love your race. You’re blessed, run that race because contentment isn’t about having less ambition, it’s about having more trust in God, in his timing and in his
Conner Jones: purposes.
Ooh, that’s good stuff. Especially in today’s world where I think there is so much comparison, and particularly, I don’t know about everywhere else in the world, but in America it’s all about, oh man, you know, competition and there’s a materialistic aspect. Consume
Micah Tomasella: go, go, go culture. We’re gonna feel this a lot.
In our culture here in America, you know? Oh yeah. Really are.
Conner Jones: Yeah. And some people are very blessed to be born into, if you’re born with the last name Manning, you’re just already set up for some sort of success. I know. But rather than be jealous, just go do exactly what you just said, celebrate success and you know, have ambitions.
Go do your thing and allow people to celebrate. Own your story.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah. [00:29:00] Own your story. Go make the best of your life. You’re blessed. God’s got you. Mm-hmm. Okay. Amen. Let’s jump into this check-in section, Connor. I’m gonna hit this first one and then you go ahead and jump into the ones after that, but Musk versus Trump, let’s talk about that for a second.
Okay. We could have done a whole segment on this last week. We talked about it and we, we preloaded it and then it just blew up and then it blew up on social media right after we recorded. Yeah. So Trump and Musk, I’m just gonna try to give you like a super 30,000 foot summary of what happened this past week.
Trump and Musk clashed this past week after Musk blasted Trump’s tax bill, calling it, and I quote and I quoted this last time, but this was just a start. Things really unraveled after that. Who knew? He called Trump’s one big, beautiful bill, a disgusting. Pork filled abomination. I like saying that ’cause I feel like I rarely would ever get the opportunity to string those words together.
Disgusting pork filled abomination and he suggested in their exchange on [00:30:00] Twitter, on x, sorry, that Trump should be impeached. Trump hit back. Calling Musk crazy and threatening to remove Tesla and SpaceX Contracts with the government then. Musk escalated by posting, then deleting accusations, linking Trump to Jeffrey Epstein saying that Trump’s on those files.
That’s why they haven’t been released. He posted no proof for that. When he posted that that was a real low blow, it felt like the few, that was
Conner Jones: like the nuke of the situation,
Micah Tomasella: that was the nuke of the situation. That one, it was like, oh, this isn’t. If there was any playfulness in this? Not anymore. The feud actually tanked markets for a bit, and Tesla lost 150 billion in market cap after this exchange.
What an interesting time that we live in that fights arguments are playing out on social media for the whole world to see, and then it affects. The value of companies by $150 billion. I mean, that’s, that’s just insane. So the, the feud, you know, it happened and then reports say actually that Trump was very sad about the falling out.
He [00:31:00] felt like he lost a friend, but he publicly claims Trump publicly claims that he has no interest in reconciling with Musk and doesn’t want to talk to him anymore. But here’s the latest. Okay, this, this kind of just happened in the middle of the night, so this is Wednesday morning that we’re recording.
Elon publicly expressed regret for some of his recent harsh posts about former President Trump tweeting at 3:04 AM to be specific on Wednesday morning. I regret some of my posts about President Trump last week. They went too far. Trump then reciprocated the peace offering saying he wishes him well.
Very well actually these two man and Musk, such a Trump response. I wish him well. Very well actually. And Musk responded with a heart emoji. This signaled a potential upside of their bromance and maybe things are back on a level foot.
Conner Jones: This just reminds me of high school, like you read so much into an emoji and different people saying different things and there’s a week of like just hardcore fighting and they’re not talking to each other to, Hey, maybe we actually do each other again.
There’s definitely
Micah Tomasella: some immaturity on display from two [00:32:00] of the world’s most powerful men,
Conner Jones: grown men. It’s so bizarre. Anyways, we’ll keep tabs on that. It just was funny ’cause man, we talked about it last week and then it just blew up the next day. Blew up and just turned into an all out war between the two of them.
Okay, another battle that’s happening, we’ve talked about this one before in the podcast. Justin Baldoni versus Blake Lively. Obviously this a big Hollywood. Fights. We’ve talked plenty about that. You can go find our past episodes, but just so y’all know, B’S $400 million lawsuit against Blake Lively in the New York Times for Defamation was tossed out by a judge this week, so he’s already on the losing side of this.
He could technically refile some of those. Claims that he’s got on there and can still try to get some money, but who knows what’s gonna happen. He’s got a few weeks to be able to do that. Him and his team, there’s still a trial set for 2026 and this is what everybody wants to know. Is this gonna happen?
This would be a big made for TV type of trial next spring, and that’s Blake Lively’s lawsuit against Baldi for sexual harassment claims and all of that. So we’ll see what happens there. Anyways, it’s looking good for Blake Lively right now, even though she’s not necessarily super popular in the public [00:33:00] eye.
Micah Tomasella: I was about to say, are you still after this? Dismissal of B’S case. Are you still team bald? I don’t have a specific team. I, I mean it You did seem more sympathetic to Baldi though, like last time that we talked about it. I think what ’cause it was the little guy versus somebody much more powerful, you know, it’s kind of that concept.
Conner Jones: In that sense, yes. In terms of did he actually sexually harass her on a set and whatnot? I don’t wanna speak into that. I wasn’t there, but, and I don’t support that obviously, but it’s a PR war and both sides are trying to make, it’s hard to know what’s true.
Micah Tomasella: Shocker. A big story’s coming out.
It’s hard to know what’s true. Everybody’s picking sides. It’s hard to know what the truth is. Wow. Anyways,
Conner Jones: yeah. Interesting. So just keep your eyes out on that one. Another big thing that happened this past week, Simone Biles versus Riley Gaines, if you don’t know who Riley Gaines is, she was a former NCAA swimmer.
She ended up tying a transgender male in a, I think, the National championship to win the title, essentially, of swimming, and they gave the tiebreaker to the transgender male, Leah Thomas. At the time, so ever since then she has been very outspoken against [00:34:00] males and female sports. She’s got this big platform now.
Man, she’s been talking about some of the cases we’ve discussed, particularly in high school girls sports where males are dominating and guess who came out of nowhere, out of the blue and spoke out against her? Tell me. The world’s most popular female athlete, Simone Biles. Simone Biles. She came out and she tweeted out of nowhere again, she said, two gains.
Bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male. So first off, just a weird statement to come out with. And then second off, a little bit of body shaming there, according to many people, and something that Simone Biles has been body shamed for herself, given the muscles that she’s got being a gymnast.
And then after that, Biles said, you’re truly sick. All of this campaigning because you lost a race against you didn’t lose. She tied. You’re a straight up sore loser. You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports more inclusive, but instead you bully them. One thinks for sure no one is safe in sports with you around.
Whew, dude. And then just for days it blew up. That tweet got like 60 million [00:35:00] views, was all over. The news, all over. Podcast just feels so
Micah Tomasella: random for Simone Biles to jump into that.
Conner Jones: Yeah, it’s just weird. And then there’s just so much irony to it too, because Yeah. You know, where does she stand? She, she has so much of a voice in female sports.
Why would she wanna stand for having transgender males compete in these female sports and basically put down female athletes? It, imagine if a male. Joined female gymnastics and just started to dominate. I wonder if she would feel differently. Anyways, she would, Gaines really defended her position. A lot of people were defending her.
Biles did come out a few days later, after several days of silence. She came out, I think on Tuesday and tweeted a long apology. Kind of sounded a little prish to be honest. She, I’m sure her team worked with her to, to craft this apology. Little chat.
Micah Tomasella: GP Tish, at least, you know, a little
Conner Jones: chat, GPT, a little Gemini in there.
She did apologize for the tone of her comments, and she also apologized to Gaines for the very specific kind of. Insults on her body and all of that. So we’ll see what comes outta that. I will say for Denon Form’s [00:36:00] stance on this issue, we are going to link our deep dive article on what does the Bible say about transgenderism.
Okay? So that will be linked in there, Micah. Okay, there was some breaking news. Wednesday morning, what do you got?
Micah Tomasella: Literally, just before we recorded all this stuff came out with updates on us and China and their trade negotiations to kind of get their 90 day truce back on track to develop a trade framework.
So let’s talk about it. The US and China, they. Held, I guess two full days of high level trades in London this week, focusing on easing tariffs, rare earth mineral access, and then export controls on chips and AI tech, right? Those are the big things that they’re talking about. They agreed on a trade framework that pauses most tariffs for 90 days, and.
Eases restrictions on rare earth exports. China’s holding on to some very important things that not only the US needs, but the world needs, and these are these rare earth exports. While markets reacted with cautious optimism, the deal still needs formal approval from President Trump and Xi before it moves forward.
Seems like Trump. Is going to approve it. [00:37:00] Analysts say it’s a positive step, but it lacks detail. Just like a lot of these things, like a lot of those details are gonna have to be ironed out later. And big issues like tech controls, long-term tariff policy remain unsolved. But for now, without a doubt, this is most definitely progress between the largest GDPs in the world.
The US and China. But Trump tweeted, just before we recorded this, he said, rare Earths will be supplied upfront by China, and then Trump says the US will be scaling back their tariffs 55% on Chinese goods, and then China will be dropping theirs down to 10% on American goods that are going into China. But goodness, you just never know, man.
I mean, it’s, it’s positive, but you just never really know how some of these things are gonna work out.
Conner Jones: Yeah, it, it’s kind of crazy. It is constantly breaking news and I, I don’t know. We’ll just see. Hopefully it sticks anyways. Let’s jump into the tune-in section of things you guys should definitely be watching out for.
As y’all know, the NBA finals are happening currently as we’re recording. The series [00:38:00] is tied one to one between the Indiana Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder. Game four will be Friday night at eight 30. Eastern Game three is technically tonight, so we don’t know the actual result of that, but I had to just point out something very special that I saw over the weekend in Micah regarding this a couple years ago, 2022, our colleague here at Denison Forum.
Lost her husband, Jonathan Tjarks to cancer, and really just a very tragic time. Impacted a lot of, a lot of people here on staff, but also just in their community. He was a man, honestly, just of incredible faith. Yes, he was also an esteemed basketball writer and podcaster for the sports organization, the Ringer.
Micah, you and I both had the wonderful pleasure of being around John at different times. You got to know him pretty well, and we got to see him in his kindness and see his heart for the Lord. And also his love for the game of basketball. We love to talk shop with him just about basketball and what was going on there.
And you know, on Saturday I was just scrolling through X when I saw a tweet that said, there’s always always a Tjark’s story, which I was like, that’s a very specific last name. So I figured it was about him. [00:39:00] And it linked to a 2019 article that John had written for The Ringer back then titled the NBA Draft’s Most Polarizing Prospect is a walking analytics experiment.
And it was about a then relatively unknown recruit named. Tyree Halliburton, who if you know is now the star of the NBA finals, he has just taken the Pacers to the next level. Yeah. And so John had this sharp eye for the game of basketball, and he saw the potential that this kid that nobody knew at the time had to be an NBA star in juggernaut.
All of this Micah, just to say I, I thought it was really cool to see that tweet. Somebody brought that up. Yeah, that was an article he wrote years ago. That’s now very relevant. And we do miss John and his legacy lives on, not just through his basketball articles, but in his family and his faith. And I just wanted to point this out ’cause he was a prime example of a man that lived.
For impacting culture where God had placed him and then for him that was on podcasts and basketball writing. But his faith always shined through that. And you know, what is that for you? What is that for me in our [00:40:00] culture? Where’s that? Where are you being used by God? Just remember John, as you watch basketball this weekend and you see Tyse, Halliburton, remember that John was an incredible man of faith and he impacted so many lives and is still doing it today, which is so cool.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah. Connor, thanks for that. Call out. John left an incredible legacy. He was a friend of mine. I’m so thankful for him. Yes, I saw that too. And yeah, it just, it just makes you stop and it’s we just never know. When our time’s gonna come. So let’s stop wasting time on frivolous things and let’s serve Jesus.
And John’s life really marked that and I’m thankful for his legacy. So the Stanley Cup’s also coming up. Florida Panthers lead the series against the Edmonton Oilers. Two, one. Right now, game four is on Thursday night. You know, here’s the thing that’s at stake here for Canada. Canada hasn’t had an NHL team that’s won the Stanley Cup since 1993.
Canada really wants the Oilers to win this so the Stanley Cup can make its back way up North Florida. Panthers look really, really good and they might repeat. But let’s talk about something else that’s [00:41:00] coming up that I know Connor and I are both excited about. And that’s the US Open, the 2025 US Open tees off the day.
We release this episode on Thursday, June 12th at Oakmont in Pennsylvania. This is one of golf’s some say it is golf’s toughest course, and it’ll be exciting to watch. Scotty Scheffler, our Boy Scotty, comes in as the favorite after multiple dominant wins this year. He’s clicking on all cylinders and he’s fun to watch.
Mm-hmm. But look out for Rory McElroy and look out for Bryson de Shambo. This is gonna be an exciting one. Connor, who’s your pick pick? Scott. I
Conner Jones: actually, man, I, I want to pick Scotty, but I’m not going to, I gotta go, I gotta go outside the box here. I feel like John Rom is a guy to watch out for as well, but man, this course, gimme John Rom if’s great.
Ever wins. This course is like the hardest course for these professional players to play. I cannot wait to see how it just dominates them. It’s gonna eat their lunch. Yeah. Anyways. Yeah. What a week we’ve got ahead. Thank you guys for tuning in this week. There was so much to cover, so we’re really appreciating that you guys are joining us and really take it all with a spiritual application and apply your faith to everything that’s happening in the [00:42:00] news when there is so much going on.
Just slow down and pray and intercede. Thank you guys for joining us on this week’s episode again, and we will link. All articles and videos, anything that we mentioned, any tweets, all of that, that will all be linked in our show notes. So check those out. If you did enjoy today’s episode, please subscribe and rate.
Review this show and share it with a friend, and we will see you next Thursday. See ya.
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