Freedom 250 Recap with Bo Nickal, The Hand Anthropic Was Dealt, Fox Buys Roku | Bo Nickal, Gavin Baker, Leif Abraham, Aaron Ginn, Rafael Vivas

**Jordi Hays** (0:00)
You're watching TBPN!

**John Coogan** (0:03)
Today is Monday, June 15th, 2026 We are live from the TBPN hotel room, the Temple of Technology, the Forks of Finance. La Capital de Capital.
Let me tell you about ramp.com. Time is money, save both. This is corporate cards, bill pay, accounting, and a whole lot more all in one place. The chat wants me to pronounce Le Chaton, and it's gonna be a fun day. Obviously, Ms. Strahl is in the news.
Incredibly bullish for Ms. Strahl.
Obviously, very unfortunate drama happening in the Anthropic world. We'll go through all of that, but if the sovereign AI thesis could not get any stronger right now, this weekend really showed a lot of countries. Hey, maybe we do want a national champion. Hey, maybe we do want someone that will provide us models forever. We're also gonna be going through SpaceX IPO. Gavin Baker joining in 30 minutes, and we're recapping UFC Freedom 250 It happened at the White House last night. Jordi, take us through your reactions. Introduce our first guest of the show.

**Jordi Hays** (1:06)
Okay, quick intro on the event overall. I am a UFC fan. It's one of the few sports, maybe the only sport where I actually know the names of the people that are competing.
Our guest in just a few minutes is one of those people.

**John Coogan** (1:22)
Are you more of a fan of the UFC or more of a fan of the government? Because a lot of people were watching just because they're fans of the government, and they said, oh, I will watch anything. I watch C-Span all day long. I watch anything that happens if it involves the government. This was an interesting cross.

**Jordi Hays** (1:37)
No, more seriously, as a UFC fan and as an American, I'm excited for the UFC to do well. I'm excited for the fighters to have a platform. I was a little bit wary of this event overall, just because the aesthetics of putting on this crazy party in this moment, when there is a ton to blackpill about.

**John Coogan** (2:03)
Yeah. Interest rates, wars, all this other stuff going on.

**Jordi Hays** (2:07)
And yeah, so war raging, gas prices are high, house prices are high, rates are going up. A lot of people in America are not having a good time.
And it really felt like a bread and circuses moment. But the bread and circuses, John, it worked on me.

**John Coogan** (2:25)
Top notch.

**Jordi Hays** (2:25)
It worked on me. Some of the best ever. It was...

**John Coogan** (2:29)
Why was it so good compared to a normal UFC event?

**Jordi Hays** (2:32)
Well, you didn't watch, so I guess it's hard.

**John Coogan** (2:37)
Was it the aesthetics or the actual card?

**Jordi Hays** (2:38)
Well, so one, the production value, one, the card was absolutely stacked. It was eight fights, no filler, wall to wall.
Really, really, fights that had a lot of...
They carried a lot of weight, right? So like the main title fight, Gagey versus Ilya Topuria, that changed both fighters' careers, like full stop, right? And even with Bo Nickal joining in just a few minutes, you know, Bo, that was the biggest possible stage that any athlete could be on, especially in the UFC, at least here in America. So anyways, going into it, I thought the aesthetics were bad. I was excited to watch the fights. It turned out it was just really cool. And sure, there's still going to be people that are upset that the president and the admin is like platforming something like this. Turned out to be really fun. It was a cool night. And I think America kind of needed it.

**John Coogan** (3:40)
Yeah.
A lot of people are saying it's not unprecedented because Teddy Roosevelt held a boxing match in the White House almost 100 years ago, around that time. And apparently, he fought in the boxing match, which is crazy.

**Bo Nickal** (3:54)
Yeah, he was a big boxer.

**John Coogan** (3:55)
He was a big boxer. And so, imagine, imagine. So this is like a light craziness.

**Jordi Hays** (4:01)
Anyway, we have a guest. Yeah.
The event was incredible. And I came away thinking that big parties and sporting events are potentially the most underutilized political strategy. I would actually expect the admins' overall popularity to go up, approval rating to go up, based on this event, because there were so many iconic images. Funny enough, the most iconic image is of a Brazilian named Diego Lopez, which we had up on the screen there.

**John Coogan** (4:35)
Standing up on the...

**Jordi Hays** (4:37)