Gaines for Girls with Riley Gaines - Riley Gaines Responds to Pablo Torre’s Smear Piece

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00:00:21.320 Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Gains for Girls podcast. I trust that you had a very

00:00:25.940 fantastic and fruitful Thanksgiving. Hopefully you got to spend some time with your family,

00:00:30.940 enjoying time off work. You got to eat good food and really just allowing yourself to sit in the

00:00:35.180 stillness and reflect, reflect on what you're grateful for. At the Barker household, I mentioned

00:00:41.380 on the last episode, the episode that was released on Wednesday that we had a turkey from Popeye's.

00:00:48.600 Yeah, like Popeye's chicken. It was really, really good. I'm just going to like hope and assume that

00:00:53.700 it wasn't pumped full of like preservatives and things that would make RFK Jr. super mad,

00:00:58.840 but it was really good. We also talked about on the last episode how I would be doing almost like

00:01:05.460 a reaction because truthfully, I have not even remotely bothered myself to look at the pretty

00:01:12.940 pathetic excuse of this like groundbreaking investigative reporting on me by Pablo Torre.

00:01:21.560 This is a man who I've never heard of before. Not a knock at him necessarily, like just someone

00:01:28.180 I've never heard of. So you can imagine my surprise when a man I had never heard of releases a deep

00:01:34.900 dive article titled how right-wing superstar Riley Gaines built an anti-trans empire. The subtitle says

00:01:42.480 the swimmer tied a trans woman for fifth. The MAGA industrial complex took care of the rest. The

00:01:48.080 article features this picture of me too, which doesn't make me look very good, but I'm not going

00:01:54.020 to lie. I kind of like like the ambiance of it. They've got me standing there in my swimsuit from

00:01:59.300 University of Kentucky, which has the University of Kentucky emblem on it. I wonder if that's some

00:02:04.140 sort of copyright infringement. We should look into that, but it's got me standing hands on the hips.

00:02:09.700 I'm clearly in Washington, DC. You've got the flag flying in the back, the Capitol building behind me,

00:02:14.900 uh, people doing my makeup, putting lipstick on me, curling my hair, spraying perfume. You've got

00:02:21.220 someone who's like holding a phone as if we're at a gaggle and a Fox news microphone, similar to the

00:02:26.320 one that I'm sat in front of right now, obviously with the outkick emblem. So maybe this has the

00:02:31.740 opposite effect as Pablo or whoever the illustrator was intended for it to have, because I actually

00:02:37.540 think it looks pretty cool. This article it's by mother Jones. I guess that's the outlet of which

00:02:43.180 Pablo partnered with. Again, like I have no idea the structure of how this works. The article is

00:02:48.180 super duper long and accompanying the article is a podcast episode. Podcast episode is from Pablo's

00:02:57.060 podcast, which he calls Pablo Torre finds out, which we will talk about why that's kind of ironic

00:03:02.140 in a minute. And the title of the episode is what is Riley Gaines hiding? Question mark. We

00:03:08.080 investigated. At least that's what it's titled on YouTube on the other podcast platforms. The episode

00:03:12.880 is titled all American grift. We investigated Trump's favorite sports troll. Those two titles

00:03:18.840 make the episodes agenda and the tone of which you're going to hear Pablo and his reporters

00:03:23.760 talk about me. It makes it abundantly clear what they're trying to accomplish. And before

00:03:28.080 we get into the episode and the content of this ridiculous article, let's be very, very clear

00:03:32.680 what Pablo and his like groupies engaged in. It isn't journalism. This was a smear campaign.

00:03:39.080 If mother Jones, if these reporters took a single moment to talk to any of the people, especially

00:03:45.560 the women who have been fighting against gender ideology for over a decade, maybe there would have

00:03:50.300 been like a semblance of balance here. But of course that was not the goal. The goal was to paint me

00:03:56.940 as some like MAGA creation, like this right wing grievance driven grifter and thereby paint the

00:04:05.360 entire movement to restore women's sex-based rights, to protect children, to protect parental

00:04:10.260 rights as a right wing political strategy, not based in any valid arguments, not a movement

00:04:15.420 bringing women and men together from across the political divide, not a movement grounded in basic

00:04:20.920 biological reality and concern for actual women. This article came out mid-November. I got an email

00:04:27.320 end of October, actually October 27th to be exact. I'm looking at the email right here. It says,

00:04:31.580 Dear Riley, my name is Madison Pauley. I'm a reporter for the Center for Investigative Reporting,

00:04:35.640 working on a Mother Jones magazine story and video podcast episode in collaboration with the

00:04:40.080 Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast. She goes on to say, this is, this story is a profile piece of me.

00:04:45.520 They'd been doing this piece for several months now. And she says, I have a couple questions.

00:04:50.180 I would love to clarify with you. She says she wants to give me a chance to respond to some of these

00:04:54.680 things. She then goes on to say that she spoke to three of my teammates at the University of Kentucky

00:04:58.600 who swam with me on the women's swim team. Now I did not respond to this email. I was not even

00:05:03.060 going to give her a chance to twist my words because based on the questions that she was asking

00:05:07.860 me to respond to and just how pointed and sharp and obviously biased they were. I knew this was a

00:05:14.780 piece that was not coming from a place of journalistic integrity. I knew these people did

00:05:19.500 not possess a shred of honesty or common sense for that matter. And I knew how this piece was going

00:05:24.340 to paint me regardless of what I said. Let me read you a few of the questions that she sent over

00:05:28.680 to me. Now there will be some important context that I'll provide in a minute surrounding my time

00:05:33.000 at the University of Kentucky and some allegations that came out surrounding my head coach, Lars

00:05:37.800 Jorgensen, after I had graduated. He had been accused of some really horrific sexual acts against

00:05:44.460 athletes on the team, which I'm not here to weigh in on if I think that's true or not. Again,

00:05:49.040 this was after I had graduated. These things came to light. I will say I never saw anything.

00:05:54.880 I never heard anything. I was never a part of any of this behavior. He's again now being accused of.

00:06:01.180 She sent over, she sent over 18 questions. I'm just going to read a few to give you a little

00:06:04.800 context again of why I did not respond. She says here, all three teammates I spoke to described

00:06:09.400 abusive coaching practices in a toxic environment on the UK team under Lars Jorgensen. Is this accurate?

00:06:15.040 Does this match your characterization of the team? And do you have any context to add?

00:06:18.380 She says here, one swimmer I interviewed told me that you were a good teammate,

00:06:22.140 generous with your car, fun to party with. In parentheses, she wrote, she said you sometimes

00:06:26.380 partied hard and friendly and respectful when two women on this team started dating each other.

00:06:30.780 Is there anything you'd like to respond to or dispute in these descriptions? It seems like a

00:06:34.520 pretty accurate description. I don't know, like generous, good teammate, friendly, respectful,

00:06:38.560 says I'm fun, fun to party with. I partied hard, which is pretty silly. If any of you were

00:06:44.260 division one athletes, especially in a sport like swimming where there's literally no off season and

00:06:49.360 you're practicing basically every single morning, you don't really have time to party hard. Yes,

00:06:53.940 I found myself having good times. Of course I was in college, but nothing like overly crazy as

00:06:58.540 she's insinuating. And she talks about here how two women on the team started to date each other.

00:07:02.960 Guess what? Shocker. I don't really care if two women are dating each other. It has nothing to do

00:07:08.660 with me. Again, so long as it doesn't cost me my taxpayer dollars, so long as I'm not forced to

00:07:13.580 celebrate it, so long as it's not being forced on children, right? Like I don't really care what

00:07:18.260 you do in your personal life. That's the beauty of America. One of these women, actually, I really

00:07:22.280 would have considered a pretty good friend. We had different things that we enjoyed and cared about.

00:07:27.260 So different on a fundamental level, but I respected her a lot. She was a good teammate. She worked

00:07:31.560 really hard. I had respect for that. She's one of the women who was interviewed. She put her name and

00:07:37.060 her face to this, which even still, I don't really care. It doesn't make me, like, want to be her

00:07:42.240 friend less. We haven't really kept up following that national championships or my time at the

00:07:46.400 University of Kentucky, given the fact that we fall on different sides of this issue. She has every

00:07:51.680 right to use her voice to speak to Pablo or anyone else, for that matter, on any issue she so

00:07:56.860 chooses, okay? It doesn't make me think less of her. I think that's a key difference in understanding

00:08:01.520 where I'm coming from. The next question says, that same swimmer also recalled a long

00:08:06.900 conversation with you in summer of 2021 when she says you talked about being raised as a religious

00:08:11.240 conservative. She remembers you saying that you didn't like Trump. Is this an accurate description

00:08:15.420 of the views at the time? How would you say your politics have evolved since that point in your

00:08:19.340 life? Is this accurate? Look, I initially endorsed DeSantis for the 2024 presidential candidate.

00:08:27.020 Again, that's not really, like, a groundbreaking revelation. And why did I do that? I actually did that

00:08:32.420 because I believed DeSantis to be the stronger conservative, the stronger Christian conservative.

00:08:39.100 That being said, I am thrilled with President Trump. I am so glad that he has proven me,

00:08:44.540 I don't want to say wrong, because again, I think DeSantis would have done a fantastic job

00:08:48.440 as president, just as he's done in leading the state of Florida. But President Trump has come out

00:08:52.700 on these issues, such as gender ideology, such as the abortion epidemic, much, much stronger in his

00:08:59.140 second term than he did his first term, which thrills me as a religious Christian conservative,

00:09:04.820 as my teammate described to me. In continuing to talk about the environment on the University of

00:09:09.040 Kentucky team, the reporter's asking me about a sexual harassment investigation into another coach

00:09:15.340 that we had, an assistant coach by the name of Chip Klein. She says that all three of the teammates

00:09:21.520 that she talked to indicated that I was a target of Klein's behavior. This is something I've never

00:09:27.160 spoken about, because honestly, I think it takes time to process and really grapple with some of the

00:09:34.420 abuse. I don't really use that word lightly either. I think obviously there are different kinds of

00:09:40.220 abuse. You have physical abuse, emotional abuse, you have sexual abuse. Some of the different behavior

00:09:44.680 that we were exposed to and targeted by in my time at the University of Kentucky. I could tell

00:09:51.980 many stories of interactions that we had, forcible interactions, nothing like penetrative, which

00:09:59.020 sounds like really graphic, but definitely not acceptable behavior from a coach, an authority

00:10:03.340 figure to an athlete, a female student athlete. I'm not going to get into all that because

00:10:08.460 I don't think it's necessary to make the point that I'm trying to make. But I will say this on this

00:10:14.880 topic. I went to the Title IX office in 2021, I believe, after I had had enough with this coach's

00:10:21.780 behavior. He never stepped foot back on that pool deck again. And we're going to get into the contents

00:10:26.080 again of what this article really, the meat and potatoes of this article. But when I see Pablo saying

00:10:31.920 that I don't care about sexual abuse allegations against female athletes, number one, it's personal.

00:10:40.580 Um, but two, I don't think I have to, to also make the point that men aren't women, right? Like,

00:10:47.220 again, we'll get into that. But the reporter asked me if I wanted to share my experience with Klein,

00:10:52.580 coach Klein and how it affected me. She goes on to say two of my teammates say they're disappointed

00:10:56.620 and frustrated that I haven't spoken out more about the allegations against our head coach,

00:11:00.560 Lars Jorgensen, or focus my advocacy on sexual abuse by coaches. My response to that is why haven't

00:11:06.280 they done that? Guess what? None of my teammates have used their platform to disavow these things.

00:11:12.020 If they feel so strongly, I would highly encourage them to do it because guess what? It is a problem,

00:11:16.200 especially in the sports like swimming, gymnastics, sports, I think unsurprisingly, where women are half

00:11:22.220 naked to compete. I imagine you're not surprised to learn that this is absolutely false. I tweeted this

00:11:28.180 back in 2024, in April of 2024, when all of these allegations became known to the public. And at the

00:11:34.080 same time became known to me. I said this, I took the weekend to spend time with current and former

00:11:38.640 University of Kentucky teammates after seeing the article slash lawsuit that was dropped.

00:11:42.860 The general consensus is that we're disgusted, heartbroken, and ashamed to be affiliated with

00:11:47.180 the program where anything like this could be alleged to have happened. Lars was someone I trusted,

00:11:51.560 loved, and respected. I would have gone to bat for him and defended him until the end. I feel

00:11:55.680 entirely blindsided and betrayed. To be extra clear here, I never saw or heard any of these claims

00:12:00.340 taking place, but it isn't difficult to say. I vehemently condemn all violence, especially sexual

00:12:06.100 violence against women. While I spend most of my time speaking to the harm and severity of allowing

00:12:10.180 men into women's sports, we can't neglect or condone other issues that are far too common in female

00:12:14.580 athletics, like sexual abuse from authority figures. It's my mission to defend women, really humanity,

00:12:20.400 and this falls in line. Time to process and digest is necessary for healing to occur. Regardless of the

00:12:25.400 allegations, my stance is clear. Sexual predators should not be able to obtain or maintain a position

00:12:30.780 of authority over anyone, much less a team of vulnerable, half-naked young women. And I really

00:12:35.640 did. I drove up to Kentucky that weekend from my home in Nashville and spent time with teammates

00:12:40.380 because that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to hear my other teammates, their perspective on these

00:12:45.040 issues. And as I indicated, I really was like blindsided and totally betrayed in learning about the

00:12:51.100 horrific details of this lawsuit. And I want to be clear, that's not to say it's true,

00:12:54.400 not true. There's a civil lawsuit that's being litigated in court right now. So I'm not here

00:12:58.860 to definitively make a statement, but I wanted to listen to what my teammates had to say about it.

00:13:04.540 And to Pablo's point, the accusations that my coach is being accused of is really not rare at all in

00:13:10.680 women's sports. And I do agree it happens far too often. People like Jen Say, who's the founder of

00:13:15.260 XXXY Athletics has talked about this ad nauseum. She actually wrote a book about it. And I said it here,

00:13:21.040 I will say it again. It is the easiest thing in the world to condemn.

00:13:25.280 I think an important distinction to make though, and why I spend so much of my time

00:13:29.200 speaking to the issue of men and women's sports, as opposed to speaking to the harm of these

00:13:34.440 predatory men in these coaching positions is because it's not like you have an entire

00:13:40.140 political party, at least in terms of elected representation. It's not like you have an entire

00:13:45.100 wing of the media, actually virtually all of mainstream media for certain, saying that this is

00:13:51.740 a good thing, that these predatory men in these positions is good. Actually celebrating them

00:13:56.820 and denouncing the people, ousting the people, doing smear pieces on the people who raise concerns

00:14:03.820 with these predatory men. Like, are you understanding what I'm saying here? Does that make sense?

00:14:07.520 That's where this issue differs from the trans issue. The reporter asked me how I'm funded. She

00:14:11.700 says that the Betsy DeVos Foundation indicated that it donated $100,000 to the Riley Gaines Center

00:14:17.760 at the Leadership Institute in 2023. She says, is it fair to say that Dick and Betsy DeVos

00:14:23.000 Family Foundation funded you directly? No. They talk about these FEC filings that indicate I had a

00:14:29.240 paid speaking engagement of $25,000 by the Harris County Republican Party for the 2025 Lincoln Reagan

00:14:36.700 Day dinner. She said, did you receive that payment? Is that a typical speaking fee for you in 2025?

00:14:42.620 We'll get into that. She asked me about San Francisco State. She says, you weren't actually

00:14:47.000 physically hit by a man. Were you, I mean, no one could actually confirm these things. There is

00:14:52.280 audio and video evidence. Okay. Which has been posted many, many a times of how these angry,

00:14:59.220 deranged, soulless ghouls held me hostage. Okay. Uh, she even says here, you described the event as

00:15:06.200 kidnapping. Yeah. That's typically what you would call it when you have a group of people holding

00:15:12.020 someone hostage and won't let them leave. When I was supposed to be returning back home,

00:15:16.980 they were keeping me there. She says, is there any additional basis for saying you were kidnapped

00:15:21.060 or held for ransom? Again, the audio, the video, uh, the police statement that I filed immediately

00:15:26.720 after I've testified before Congress on this, which you're under oath in that environment. Okay. So

00:15:31.400 baloney in two quotes, she asked me to clarify. She says in May of 2025, you said the gender ideology

00:15:37.940 movement is a house of cards and I believe it's lying on the sports issue. This will be the card

00:15:42.000 that makes all of it crumble. Did I say that? That's pretty good quote. And I stand by it a hundred

00:15:47.300 percent, 10 toes down. It is absolutely accurate. She says here in September of 2025, you said on the

00:15:52.640 gains for girls podcast, if you're insane enough to believe that men can get pregnant and women need

00:15:56.760 prostate exams and tampons belong in boys' bathrooms or whatever the other crazy stuff that they believe

00:16:01.400 you're insane enough clearly to pull a gun and shoot someone. Uh, do we need to look any

00:16:06.560 further than the political assassination of Charlie Kirk? So I hope that's enough for you to understand

00:16:10.560 why I did not respond to these insane allegations and questions. So they spent six months on this

00:16:16.580 groundbreaking deep dive investigation. And what did they find? Uh, they found that my coach,

00:16:22.420 my previous coach at the university of Kentucky has been accused of sexual allegations. They found

00:16:27.120 out that I have a job that I'm paid for. They found out that my messaging has gotten sharper as I have

00:16:33.320 learned more about the issue. Honestly, I almost feel bad that he spent so much time on such a

00:16:39.780 lackluster story. Six months. That's a long time. And I, I believe he didn't even like uncover my most

00:16:45.680 controversial take to date, which is that I hate mashed potatoes. I hate them. I know this is like

00:16:51.960 maybe a sensitive topic coming right after Thanksgiving. They're disgusting. Why are we

00:16:56.460 mashing them? And why are we putting sour cream, butter, and bacon? Like sometimes cinnamon and brown

00:17:01.440 sugar. Like, please, that is the weirdest combination of things I've ever heard. I don't

00:17:04.980 want to hear any of you pro potato people in the comments. Uh, they're gross. Like I said, I haven't

00:17:10.780 even really looked at this beyond what I've seen on social media. Uh, really, I didn't have the energy

00:17:15.840 to go through and pick apart the sham of an investigation that is Pablo Torres, the real Riley

00:17:23.800 Gaines. But there is a couple of things that I want to address. Number one, the first thing is that

00:17:28.480 this, the position that I've taken, the advocacy that I do, and will certainly continue to do,

00:17:33.840 uh, that that's a grift. Do I need to remind Pablo Torres and those who seem to appreciate and agree

00:17:39.820 with this article of the political cultural environment that I spoke out in back in 2022?

00:17:47.860 It was a very different landscape to that of which we're living in now in the year 2025.

00:17:52.660 When I spoke out, there was no million dollar sponsorship waiting for me. All of the female

00:17:59.860 athletes who came before me had either been ignored, they'd been punished, they'd been

00:18:04.440 belittled. I knew that, okay? I knew what I was risking and I had no reason to suspect that I would

00:18:11.060 be treated any differently than those women. But even still, I chose to use my voice because I knew it

00:18:16.200 was the right thing. I think moral conviction is just a foreign concept to some people. This was under

00:18:21.740 Biden's presidency. His department of justice was literally launching investigations into people

00:18:26.760 who dared to even question or remotely oppose some of the gender insanity things that they were

00:18:33.920 pushing, whether it was this, whether it was medicalization side of things. One of those people

00:18:37.800 being Dr. Ethan Heim in Texas, a whistleblower at the Texas Children's Hospital and saying, look,

00:18:43.440 we passed the law. This hospital is still doing this. The department of justice launched an

00:18:47.200 investigation into him for being a whistleblower. And he basically faced political persecution for

00:18:52.280 seven months. They took his cell phone. They took his guns. He had to spend time in court. It was a

00:18:57.360 huge stress on his family. It took time. It was a financial investment. That's the environment that we

00:19:02.660 were living in in 2022. And I mentioned some of those people who came before me. I have a real problem

00:19:07.200 with how Pablo calls me kind of like the main character of this movement. I reject that wholeheartedly.

00:19:14.000 Honestly, this is an insult to the women who have been fighting this fight long before I ever got

00:19:19.840 involved. Granted, I think this issue, specifically that photo of Thomas on the podium, him standing over

00:19:26.700 me like eight, nine inches taller than me. I truthfully believe it gave a perfect visual to the concerns that

00:19:32.180 so many people had been raising, so many women especially, had been raising far longer than I. But to call me the

00:19:38.400 main character of this is false. I didn't start this movement. And I don't think these people

00:19:42.400 understand that, again, the reason that I have become now a prominent figure, if you want to call it that,

00:19:49.360 this was building for years and years and years. But the absurdity of Will Thomas calling himself

00:19:56.320 Leah, stripping down naked in our locker room and stealing an NCAA Division I National Championship title,

00:20:03.980 despite never having even won a conference title in the men's division. In full view of the public,

00:20:11.120 that's when things finally exploded. But I'm not the main character of this movement. Pablo says he

00:20:15.820 believes this issue of men and women's sports, it's a topic that's been around for four years,

00:20:19.920 is what he says. The co-host jumps in and she says, no, I think it started in 2020.

00:20:22.860 Uh, no, actually. Men have been stealing women's opportunities in sports since the 1920s. The media

00:20:29.780 has just done their best to keep the voices of the women silent while they champion the male athlete.

00:20:35.000 I'm sure you can remember Renee Richards, who came out onto the scene, I believe, in the late 1970s.

00:20:40.540 This was a man, a 43-year-old man, standing at 6'2", who was allowed to play women's professional

00:20:46.060 tennis. We saw in the 80s the doping scandal, which is very similar to the issue of men and women's sports.

00:20:51.580 At the 2016 Olympics, in the women's 800, men, male athletes, these were not trans athletes,

00:20:58.400 they were athletes, male athletes with DSDs, won gold, silver, and bronze. In the women's 800,

00:21:05.100 these are athletes with Y chromosomes who went through male development. In 2021, that's when

00:21:10.180 we saw the male Olympic weightlifter by the name of Laurel Hubbard competing for New Zealand in the

00:21:15.140 Olympics. And then we reached Will Thomas, and we have gone beyond that even. So that's a rough

00:21:19.840 timeline, with very few examples inserted there. I could go on for hours. The second point I want

00:21:24.640 to address is that I have a job, which this is in like total contrast to what AOC said. Remember when

00:21:30.040 AOC a few weeks ago, she made some comments about me saying, you know, maybe if you channeled your

00:21:35.260 anger to swimming, you would have swam faster or something to the effect, to which I then challenged

00:21:39.760 her to a debate. She says to me, well, I challenge you to get a real job. Well, Pablo seems to disagree

00:21:44.440 with AOC. He understands that I do have a job, that I make money. They really just can't keep

00:21:48.640 themselves straight. Typically how it works, which this is standard across the board, if I'm traveling,

00:21:53.420 taking time out of my day to go to a state to participate in a fundraising activity, which that's

00:21:58.340 what he cited in talking about this Harris County Reagan Day dinner. It was a fundraising dinner. If I'm

00:22:03.140 going to give my time to be there, of course I'm going to get paid for this. They're raising funds

00:22:07.100 on my name. That's only fair. This is what people like Megan Rapinoe do, which I would honestly be

00:22:11.960 super interested to figure out what her speaking fee is. Let's look it up in real time together

00:22:16.620 right now. Uh, Megan Rapinoe speaking fee. Oh my gosh. I've been undercharging. This says Megan

00:22:24.340 Rapinoe speaking fee generally ranges from 50,000 to over a quarter of a million dollars, depending on

00:22:31.480 the events specifics. I don't see Pablo talking about Megan Rapinoe and her speaking fee. You know

00:22:37.360 why? It's because she agrees that men should be in women's sports. Let's look at someone like

00:22:41.600 Hillary Clinton. This is kind of just like a fun game at this point. Let's look at Hillary Clinton

00:22:46.480 speaking fee. Oh my gosh. This is Hillary Clinton speaking fee after leaving her role as secretary

00:22:52.200 of state generally averaged around 200,000 to $225,000 per appearance. Some reaching as high as

00:22:59.560 $300,000 for a single event. And I'm looking at this article here back in 2016. It's by CNN,

00:23:07.820 by the way, uh, it says $153 million in bill and Hillary Clinton's speaking fees documented

00:23:14.900 $153 million. But guess what? That's capitalism. That is the free market. That's called supply

00:23:24.580 and demand. People are willing to pay it. Of course, bill and Hillary Clinton are willing to

00:23:29.100 take it. And you're not going to see me knocking them for their speaking fee. I'm actually applauding

00:23:33.120 it capitalism at its finest. Now, Pablo Torre or Torres, whatever his name is, uh, I would bet

00:23:38.940 he's paid to write stories. Now, granted, I'm not going to do a six month deep dive investigation to

00:23:44.560 find out if he is or isn't because I don't really care, but I'd imagine he's paid to write stories.

00:23:49.280 And if that's the case, then surely he's biased because he gets paid to do it, right? That's his

00:23:53.820 stance on me. I get paid. So I'm wrong. He put out this tweet on Wednesday. He says the people

00:23:58.200 funding Riley Gaines would love for you to think that this story is about trans athletes competing

00:24:01.940 in women's sports. It's not. It's about following the money and the female athletes actually victimized

00:24:07.480 by men that those funders cannot even pretend to care about. No, Pablo, this article is about smearing

00:24:12.900 me to get more views. Honestly, for a journalist, his lack of basic comprehension is pretty concerning

00:24:19.000 and it makes zero sense. Like the fight that I'm fighting is regarding the insane trans movement

00:24:25.180 that is discriminatory in its true nature. It's exclusive in its true nature. They love the word

00:24:30.380 inclusion. No, it's exclusive. And also this tweet is stupid because what does any of it have to do

00:24:34.900 with me? Right? Like the people who pay me and air quotes don't care enough about other things that

00:24:40.780 have happened to women. What is Pablo doing to show that he cares about those women other than making

00:24:45.740 super obnoxious podcasts? And also the tweet's simply not true, right? Like you can care about two

00:24:51.580 things at once. It doesn't have to be an either or like, let's say I donate to finding a cure for

00:24:56.580 breast cancer. Does that mean that I don't care about finding a cure for brain cancer or for

00:25:01.860 cardiovascular health research? So I guess my question to Pablo is like, are individuals permitted

00:25:07.840 to dedicate their time and energy to specific causes? Or should we automatically go to like the

00:25:14.140 what about ism? Like, well, what about this issue? Pablo mentioned how I brought up Larry Nassar

00:25:18.660 when Simone Biles and I got into this feud and I talked about how Simone Biles had testified against

00:25:23.740 Larry Nassar. He said that I was using Simone Biles abuser against her. That's not what I was

00:25:29.900 doing at all. I was calling her actions hypocritical. On one hand, she's against sexual abuse of young

00:25:35.460 girls, especially female athletes. And on the other hand, she's totally okay with it. Any man forcing his

00:25:42.120 way into a woman's private changing area, no matter what he calls himself is absolutely a predator.

00:25:48.660 Larry Nassar and Will Thomas. Voyeurism and indecent exposure are crimes for a reason. We have sex

00:25:57.360 separated spaces for a reason. Women and girls deserve privacy away from boys and men when we're

00:26:04.140 changing and allowing boys and men into that space is a huge violation in a form of sexual abuse. I don't

00:26:11.300 know who dug up this gem, but it seems like Pablo has shifted his stance a bit too, because he tweeted

00:26:17.140 this back in 2016. He says, if you're defending a man's right to expose himself to a female employee

00:26:23.120 against her will at work, I humbly beg you to never procreate. It's extremely convenient to go point at

00:26:29.600 somebody like Riley Gaines, who can say, hi, I was a victim of this, who can go sit in the Kentucky

00:26:35.940 legislature and say, look, there is a real victim of these policies. And that's, I think, why her story

00:26:43.060 breaks through. Yeah, there's aren't enough examples of female athletes, period, who are losing to trans

00:26:48.040 athletes because there aren't that many trans athletes in general. And so you get Riley Gaines

00:26:53.640 testifying not just at the Virginia state legislature, but at the Kansas state legislature

00:26:58.000 and the North Carolina state legislature, all for these anti-trans bills that are being, again,

00:27:04.080 put in front of these voting bodies. The NCAA forced female swimmers to share a locker room with

00:27:09.300 Thomas, a six foot four, 22 year old male equipped with and exposing male genitalia in a room full of

00:27:16.100 vulnerable undressed women. And in each one of those cases, what you see is that it's not just the

00:27:23.680 Leah Thomas story. From 18 to 22 year old girls who were exposed to male body parts. She, this single

00:27:29.500 data point, Riley Gaines, is now this avatar for all girls everywhere. Our experiences as Z1

00:27:36.240 swimmers, it's not unique. Who are in danger of quote unquote men, these predators in women's

00:27:42.820 sports. And she goes on the road. She continues to go on the road. I mean, she's giving speeches at

00:27:47.560 college campuses. I mean, it's not unlike Charlie Kirk. I don't think he realizes that that's a compliment

00:27:53.840 to be like Charlie Kirk. A couple of things I want to address. First and foremost, I don't view

00:27:58.600 myself as some sort of victim. I really don't. I don't possess a victim mentality. I couldn't have

00:28:05.380 made it to the level that I was competing in sports if I did. Okay. It's just not in my nature

00:28:10.660 to view myself as a victim. That's why honestly, it took me so long to even sue the NCAA. They

00:28:16.420 explicitly and directly and intentionally violated federal law. Yet I didn't see myself as a victim.

00:28:23.780 Therefore I wasn't really wanting to sue them, but I understand now that it's necessary and

00:28:30.600 ultimately accomplishing the goal, which the goal is keeping men out of women's sports. He also plays

00:28:36.140 that emotional testimony that I gave. This was several years back. I believe that was in the

00:28:41.660 state of Virginia. It was when my emotions were much more heightened surrounding this. Um, it's kind

00:28:47.460 of like surreal to look back and watch. I remember how I was feeling in that moment, obviously nervous,

00:28:52.300 right. Being a college age student recently graduated to stand in front of, you know,

00:28:57.860 legislators at the state level. Like that was really terrifying to me. And I want to make the

00:29:01.700 point too. He's talking about me traveling all over. Uh, I don't get paid when I travel and testify

00:29:07.920 on bills and help draft these pieces of legislation and meet with lawmakers and teach them how to speak

00:29:14.180 about these issues, the messaging behind it, how to be effective. I don't get paid for that.

00:29:18.220 There's no lobbyist group who funds my work. There are different organizations that I do work

00:29:22.980 for, but even at this time, like I was flying to these places entirely out of my own pocket

00:29:28.420 because I understood it as necessary and timely and urgent and righteous and just and moral and

00:29:35.620 just the right thing to do. Again, a foreign concept to some. And Pablo says that I'm this single

00:29:41.280 data point and that there's not that many trans athletes. That's always what they say, which is a

00:29:46.220 horrible argument by the way, because you're not really saying that you agree or disagree.

00:29:50.960 You're just saying, well, it hasn't happened enough yet for me to have an opinion. So what

00:29:54.900 Pablo is effectively saying here is that yes, some girls have been affected, but those girls don't

00:30:00.100 really matter. Maybe it would be an issue if, if this was happening more often, if more women were

00:30:05.300 getting pummeled in their sports, like we saw in women's boxing at the Olympics, maybe then it would

00:30:10.080 matter. Probably not though. Maybe if more women had to expose themselves while simultaneously

00:30:14.840 being exploited to naked men, maybe then it would matter. Maybe if more women were like

00:30:20.400 given career ending concussions, we would care, but where it stands right now, we really don't.

00:30:24.740 And to refute the point that it's not really happening. Like, honestly, I hate even having

00:30:28.840 to do this because people know that it's happening. It's happening in states like Oregon, California,

00:30:35.120 Washington. We just watched in Michigan where this happened at the girls high school state

00:30:39.340 championship in the sport of volleyball. If you look up the website, she won.org, it says on their

00:30:44.720 website's page, it's a website dedicated to archiving the achievements of female athletes who

00:30:48.740 were displaced by males and women's sporting events and other types of competitions expressly

00:30:53.020 for women. One day soon, we hope their accomplishments will be formally recognized.

00:30:56.980 It has counted and tracked and recorded. The number of female athletes who have been affected

00:31:01.020 by this is 2,900. The number of medals that have been taken from women by cheating men is 4,231

00:31:08.960 across 1,784 different competitions and across 51 sports. So Pablo, did you consider maybe for your

00:31:18.640 story reaching out to any of these women? No, I don't think so. Only my teammates who choose to

00:31:25.100 disavow me, like the three of them that exist. He somehow found them all. The rest of my team,

00:31:30.400 by the way, we're a team of like 40 girls. So naturally when you're a team of 40 girls,

00:31:34.960 you're going to have some people who disagree with you on these issues. The rest of my team though,

00:31:39.620 35 of them, I would say, uh, maybe we have different levels of, you know, willingness to

00:31:45.460 use the pronouns and we vary on those things, but the rest of us agree that it's wrong to put men in

00:31:51.180 women's sports, that it's unfair to women. Notice he didn't talk to those athletes. And before we like

00:31:56.060 really close out, I think it's important to make the point. I didn't ask to be here. I really didn't.

00:32:01.620 This isn't what I wanted for myself. I've talked about that before on this podcast. Like I didn't

00:32:06.620 set my sights on becoming this political pundit as Pablo calls me. It's, it's never what I wanted.

00:32:13.880 I mean, I think you would have to be clinically insane to ask, to be in the position that I'm in,

00:32:18.500 to actively work towards being a target for people like Pablo. It's not fun to read the negative,

00:32:24.460 hurtful and totally false things people say about you. I'm just a normal person. I'm a woman.

00:32:31.840 I was a female athlete. I had plans to be in dental school. I was accepted into dental school.

00:32:36.460 Those were the plans that I had made for myself. I'm married. I'm a wife. I'm now a new mom,

00:32:41.720 which it's not very fun to be fielding a bunch of negative comments when you're, you know,

00:32:46.680 just a few weeks postpartum, which I have to imagine it was intentional. Pablo released this

00:32:51.540 article just after I had my baby, which speaks to how evil these people can be. The death threats

00:32:55.800 that I receive nearly daily, uh, the extra security precautions that my husband and I have to take

00:33:01.980 to make sure that my safety, and now more importantly, our daughter's safety is ensured.

00:33:07.340 Like who would want to do that? And I will say there have been fantastic opportunities and I have

00:33:12.880 been abundantly blessed with relationships and friendships and doors that have been open that

00:33:18.420 otherwise having not used my voice, uh, doors that wouldn't have been opened. I recognize those

00:33:23.720 things. I'm grateful for those things. I'm grateful for the lifestyle that I have being able to with

00:33:28.660 the occupation that I do being able to stay home with my daughter, or if I'm traveling her being able

00:33:33.840 to travel with me, my husband, he has a construction company. He has some flexibility. He gets to travel

00:33:37.980 with me. So I'm like, I recognize those things and I recognize how blessed I am. Of course I do,

00:33:42.720 but it's not my fault that I'm here. You can thank people like Will Thomas for me having the voice in

00:33:48.800 the platform that I have. So to Pablo on your six month deep dive investigation into Riley Gaines and

00:33:54.920 her private life and who she is, uh, nothing you reported was groundbreaking. Actually really only

00:34:00.840 thing you did was re-report other people's work, which feels really slimy. Actually, the only

00:34:06.780 groundbreaking thing you did was talk to my teammates, two of which who weren't even willing to put their

00:34:10.900 name or their face to this. That was the only real piece of journalism. If that's what you want to

00:34:15.400 call it. The rest of this was stealing other people's work, claiming it as your own and trying

00:34:19.960 to twist a narrative to paint me in a bad light, which it didn't really work. If you go through

00:34:25.060 Pablo's comments on social media, I think people just recognize this as him embarrassing himself.

00:34:30.860 And really it only makes me look better. It only gives me more credibility. So maybe I should thank

00:34:35.840 him. Thank you, Pablo. Thank you, mother Jones. I didn't know you before. I don't really care to know

00:34:40.620 you after this, but the coverage that you provided on these issues to anyone with a fifth

00:34:46.580 grade understanding of biology, a shred of common sense, I think is on our side, which is the right

00:34:51.960 side of history. As always, we appreciate you guys. I hope you were watching at youtube.com slash

00:34:56.500 outkick. That's where you can find all things gains for girls. We had some stuff on screen. So if

00:35:01.500 you weren't watching, go back and watch, look at the visuals and the clips and the inserts that we put

00:35:05.800 in. Be sure to comment. Don't want to hear any of you pro potato people in the comments though.

00:35:10.640 Uh, I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving, uh, took some time to relax and be grateful until next time.

00:35:17.500 We'll see you guys soon.

Gaines for Girls with Riley Gaines - November 28, 2025

Riley Gaines Responds to Pablo Torre’s Smear Piece

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