Johnny McEntee went viral before virality, as a trick-shot QB at UConn. He foresaw the rise of Donald Trump, while ordering him KFC on the campaign trail. He was straight out of central casting, but suddenly "Johnny Mac" the quarterback became enforcer-in-chief for the commander-in-chief, running a presidential "Gestapo" and hand-picking cabinet secretaries. Correspondent Devin Gordon meets a Trumpworld action figure and asks: How did this in-over-his-head loyalist get so powerful? And could it happen again?Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/JZGb3Z3Qk68 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Would you clone your dying dog? Why are burner accounts still a thing? And how much do you REALLY care about what other people think about you? Also: Stephen A. Smith mispronouncing Pablo's name (twice), Dan sobbing shirtless in a convertible, and Pablo defending the relative scale of his narcissistic, psychopathic Machiavellianism.Further reading:Are Pet Cloners Happy With Their Choice? The AtlanticHBO Bosses Used ‘Secret’ Fake Accounts to Troll TV Critics Rolling StoneThe Sociopaths Among Us — and How to Avoid Them The AtlanticDark Triad Personality Test (If You Dare)Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xZvtRCuNdPs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This fall, Emmy-winning screenwriter Cord Jefferson (Watchmen, Succession, The Good Place, Master of None) has become a major Oscar contender for his directorial debut movie, the forthcoming (and deeply funny) American Fiction. So we wanted to ask Cord the truth about awards, competitiveness, race, external validation, and happiness. Also, the Men In Black soundtrack.Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/4O3jaJ1TN94 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's Shakespearean. It's Freudian. It's a Greek myth with a Real Housewife. Yes, sports fans: Marcus Jordan and Larsa Pippen are getting married. But are they just a reality-TV couple engineered to goose the algorithm? Or is this true romance? Pablo, Cortes, and "Oddball" host Charlotte Wilder listen to their podcast so you don't have to... then confront the Romeo and Juliet of our time with the awkward and essential questions about Michael and Scottie.Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/VOaPwe6d0W8 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is the NBA's TV bubble about to burst? Is how we consume sports about to change forever? Hear from the man who reshaped the business itself. Plus: Who’s to blame for our misinformation minefield? And what the hell happened to retirement? The jamokes from The Sporting Class explain.PTFO-approved reading: House of Strauss: I'm Not Sure How the NBA Triples Its Rights Fees in a TV Recession https://www.houseofstrauss.com/p/im-not-sure-how-the-nba-triples-itsVanity Fair: Inside the New York Times Debate Over Its Gaza Hospital Bombing Coverage https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/10/new-york-times-gaza-hospital-storyThe Washington Post: Older Americans Are Dominating Like Never Before, but What Comes Next? https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/10/24/older-americans-working-longer-aging-impact/Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GsSzvwXkpLE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Next week, the White House is releasing the first executive order on A.I. in U.S. history. So we asked David Epstein, bestselling author of Range and the best sports-science writer in America, to explain the state of our union. And what humans can do that the best computers still cannot. Even though A.I. still might, uh, wipe out 10 percent of the global population. Plus: Why robots need to be more like First Take — and why our future depends not on humans or computers... but a centaur playing chess.PTFO-approved readingDavid Epstein's Range: https://bookshop.org/p/books/range-why-generalists-triumph-in-a-specialized-world-david-epstein/12472879Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/zbgKzE7SztI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The most important Joker on the court isn't Nikola Jokic or Novak Djokovic. Indeed, the most popular tattoo among our sports heroes is a villain, and PTFO correspondent Wyatt Cenac is here to interview them about it... as Batman… with a mask on. Could Joker Mode become the new Mamba Mentality?Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Sc3d9M3jLGI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why did Ariel Helwani, our planet’s leading combat sports reporter, use ring girls as human shields at a televised Logan Paul melee? What video game is Katie Nolan mostly living inside? Do you remember the time The Rock actually broke the news that Osama bin Laden had been assassinated? And more.PTFO-approved content:https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/shams-charania-nba-insider-the-athletic-new-york-times-profile.htmlhttps://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2023/10/16/were-more-ghosts-than-people/https://arielhelwani.substack.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The author of the definitive new book on gender in sports, Katie Barnes, explores how The Right ran up the score on progressives in a political messaging war — then offers a modest proposal, from pronouns to hormones and statehouses to schools, that most sane people can agree upon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Michael Schur is a legendary comedy writer who calls his TV reboot of the classic baseball film "the best thing I've ever written." (He's written for SNL, The Simpsons, The Office, Parks and Rec, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place...) So why didn't his version of "Field of Dreams" ever get made? Also: what happened to the actual baseball field that he built, out there in the cornfields of Iowa? Sports-movie nostalgia has never felt quite so painful. Or surreal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices