Current events

Trump’s tariffs, financial anxieties, a Masters preview & hot take, plus more trending news | Ep. 14

April 10, 2025 - Conner Jones and Micah Tomasella

Join hosts Conner Jones and Micah Tomasella for an insightful episode of Culture Brief. This week, they discuss some of the most pressing news topics with spiritual insight: The impact of new tariffs announced by President Trump and their potential effects on the US economy, stock market, and everyday prices. Get the latest sports updates, including a recap of March Madness, Alex Ovechkin’s record-breaking goal in the NHL, and the excitement surrounding The Masters golf tournament and a related hot take.

Topics

(00:16): Economic chaos and tariffs
(02:13): Impact of tariffs on everyday life
(04:09): Market reactions and public sentiment
(11:00): China and the trade war
(12:51): Faith over fear: Finding peace in uncertainty
(19:44): Sports update with Micah
(22:42): Gretzky and Ovechkin: Celebrating hockey legends
(23:46): Masters week: The pinnacle of golf
(31:23): The spiritual side of sports fandom
(34:56): Hot take: Wearing Masters apparel
(41:15): Check-in section: Updates and news

Resources

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.

[00:00:00] Conner Jones: Hi, I’m Connor Jones. I’m Micah Tomasella, and this is Culture Brief, a Denon Forum podcast, where we navigate the constant stream of top stories and news, politics, sports, pop culture, and technology. We’re doing it all from a Christian perspective. Micah, man, it is a chaotic economic week, but that’s not all that’s happening this week.

That’s right. We gotta talk about a lot. What do we got on the docket today?

[00:00:24] Micah Tomasella: There is joy. So obviously we are gonna talk about the tariffs and the economy and. All the uncertainty all the misinformation, all the good information that’s out there about it. We’re, we’re gonna give you a sports update.

We’re gonna talk about the masters. It’s masters week, so no matter how much uncertainty there is in the stock market. Or all the answers that we seem to not have right now, it’s masters week and that’s gotta give you joy. And so we’re gonna talk about today and so much more.

Not too much more, but so much more. So let’s jump into the brief. The brief.

[00:00:58] Conner Jones: Okay. Let’s see. We, I mean, I think Michael, we gotta just start off. At the top with what everyone’s been focused on this week. Whether you are a economic person, you are in the stock market, you are not in the stock market, there’s no way you’ve been missing everything that’s happening with.

Tariffs. And how many times have we talked about tariffs on this podcast? We’ve only been around for three months, and I feel like we’ve talked about it on every other podcast You’re doing your hands, tariffs. Tariffs. Yeah. I’m kind of doing the Trump hands right there. I I know your listeners can’t see it.

This is a phone log. Yeah. I look like I’m a whole measuring a fish. Anyways, we know that tariffs are just something that, I’ve been at the, the forefront of the conversation for several months now, and then this week it really heated up. Why is that? It’s real. That’s because last week we prefaced with.

Trump is having his quote unquote liberation day, where he’s gonna be, he was gonna be announcing tariffs and man, did he announce them. Universal 10% baseline tariff for all imports into the US is one of the things he announced. And then he had a set of country specific tariffs that are, includes like 20% on European Union goods.

46% on products from Vietnam and then we’ll get to China. ’cause that’s a whole nother story. Yeah, that’s a big thing there of where we’re going with China. But you know, analysts have estimated that the new US average effective tariff rate across the board, across the globe is now north of 20%. That makes it the highest in over 100 years.

You know, this has affected the economy. This has affected the way people are thinking about the economy, the way they’re thinking about the stock market, how are their portfolios, their 4 0 1 ks, but also pricing on just everyday items. As we know, the last few years have been just inflicted with inflation, and we’ve seen the prices of everything rise, and this could cause them all to rise more just as an example, we’ve seen some people storming Apple stores trying to go get Macs and iPhones and iPads before the pricing on those shoots up due to tariffs. ’cause a lot of that product is made in China. You know, the, the cost for Apple manufacturing of an iPhone could go from $580 to $850.

That is their cost. That does not. Impact our cost as a consumer, we would still end up paying way more than that, probably between one to $2,000. ’cause that’s just what their cost would be for manufacturing. So I think Micah, you know, the question is, why would Trump do this? Here, here’s what I would say his rationale is.

Here’s what he says his rationale is. He wants to use tariffs, obviously, to boost domestic manufacturing. He’s hoping that companies will bring their factories to America and create things here. Support American jobs and infrastructure. And he says that for decades, the US and I’m gonna quote this, this is not my words, this is his words, has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered, end quote by other nations in that quote, again, taxpayers have been ripped off for more than 50 years, but it is not going to happen anymore.

So he wants to see the end of this, like what he considers other countries taking advantage of the US and US consumers.

[00:03:44] Micah Tomasella: Yeah, the, the first part of that quote is extreme. The second part of that quote, in my opinion, is not extreme. I, I do, I do think. That America in general has been taken advantage of in a lot of ways from some countries, not all countries.

But gosh, that, yeah, that first sentence is probably a little extreme.

[00:04:03] Conner Jones: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, he doesn’t tend to, he’s pretty hyperbolic a lot of times anyways. Yeah, that’s

[00:04:08] Micah Tomasella: right. That’s right.

[00:04:09] Conner Jones: What’s the status now? Obviously we’ve got economists, we’ve got financial institutions, wall Street moguls.

They’re all issuing their warnings about what these tariffs could mean for the US economy. And I, I mean, Micah just. Anyone check your 401k? Actually, maybe don’t I? It’s up to you. How, how do you wanna feel about your day by checking your 401k? If you do, you will probably see that it is down. If you own any stocks, you’ll see that those are probably down as well, and that’s just part of it, that’s part of the economy.

Moving to this type of thing hedge fund billionaire, who is very prominent, bill Ackman. He is from Pershing Square Hedge Fund and he is one of those guys who’s very popular on social media. Always tweeting his thoughts. And he, he, he pretty much turned conservative last year and really supported Trump during the election.

Even he is I’m not a fan of this. He tweeted on Sunday night, leading into Monday. Economic nuclear winter is upon us because of these tariffs. And he thinks that Trump should give a. 90 day time out to countries to be able to negotiate and find a way forward without just automatically applying these tariffs.

That did not happen. The tariffs are all applied now as of, I think Tuesday and Wednesday, depending on the country. They’re all live. They’re all. Being applied. So the 90 day pause did not happen, but that’s what he wanted. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, they both raised their probability of a recession to 46, 40 5% to 60% based off the tariffs, their concern.

And so many’s concern is that the prices of everyday products will drastically increase and hit the wallets of everyday Americans. What some people are calling, you know, main Street, wall Street. Has got their concerns, but what about Main Street in every US town in America? And you know, you think about products like avocados from Mexico, iPhones from China vehicles for instance, Jaguar and Volkswagen are pausing their shipments of vehicles to the US because they just don’t know what these tariffs mean.

So they gotta rethink everything coming over from Europe. And then, you know, we saw significant stock market dips last Thursday, so Trump made the announcements on Wednesday. Thursday, stocks dipped Friday. Stocks dipped but not terribly. It seemed like the world was waiting out to see if this was just one big negotiation tactic and then Trump was gonna pause it or, or start negotiating deals.

But over the weekend, man, that when Trump kind of doubled down on the fact that this was not a negotiation tactic, this was like real, these were going into play this week. Everyone started freaking out and that’s when we had that Bill Ackman tweet. That’s when we had so many people on social media and on the, on the news stations going out and saying, Hey, we could have a black Monday.

This coming week, black Monday, of course, is 1987. The stock market dipped 22%. That’s the largest one day loss in history. So people were worried that was gonna happen again. Didn’t it happen? The stock market did go down on Monday, but it, it kind of actually evened out a little bit. It was not terrible.

In fact, did you see about this tweet that literally. This guy moved trillions of dollars by one tweet.

[00:06:57] Micah Tomasella: Yeah. This fake tweet. Yeah.

[00:06:59] Conner Jones: Yeah. He, he basically, I, I need to look at this account handle Hammer Capital, which had 600 followers. I mean, this is just a regular dude. For whatever reason, he tweeted out that the National Economic Council.

Kevin Hassett who was on Fox News at that moment, said that Trump was considering a 90 day pause on tariffs. That was not at all what he said. The guy, Hassett actually said, I think the president is going to decide what the president is going to decide, which is just a weird statement that doesn’t mean anything.

What a great sir, the guy, what a great answer. This guy tweeted out that there was gonna be this 90 day pause. He tweeted that out at 10:11 AM By 10:12 AM that tweet had reached the New York Stock Exchange floor and cheers were being heard on the stock exchange floor. And by 10:18 AM this is seven minutes later, the stock market went up $2.4 trillion in value.

You know, if you think you can’t have a an impact on a large market like this, sometimes you just gotta send out an erroneous tweet and you will yeah, move money.

[00:07:59] Micah Tomasella: If you’re ever doubting, if you can make a difference if you’re just a drop in the bucket or not, this is proof. You can make a difference.

People,

[00:08:08] Conner Jones: you can. Mm-hmm. So for those freaking out, Trump has a statement for you. He’s, he’s posted on truth social on Monday morning, the US has a chance to do something that should have been done decades ago. Don’t be weak, don’t be stupid. Don’t be a panicking. And then he says, that is panicking is a new party based on weakened stupid people.

Again, this is just the way he talks. I don’t know, man. I thought that was interesting. Some of us might have been in the panic and party for a minute, and maybe some of us still are. Who knows? Yeah. S So Michael, where do we stand now? Treasury Secretary Scott Bassett went on scene BC and said that if other countries come to the table with solid proposals, I think we can end up with some good deals, which was a sign of hope for some people in the stock market.

They were like, okay, maybe they are willing to listen to some people. Cent said that up to 70 countries have contacted the White House for how to come and negotiate, so countries are scrambling. Think that number’s higher now. I think it is number higher

[00:09:05] Micah Tomasella: now,

[00:09:05] Conner Jones: because that, yeah. Definitely. Anyways, so some countries have reached out.

We’ve seen Trump already start talking about this with Israel. Netanyahu was at the White House this week. He’s also instructed his team to consider quote Taylor made deals. And he’s reported they had some constructive conversations with, like I said, Israel, Japan, South Korea and then the Italian Prime Minister is coming to the US next week to start negotiating for the eu.

Right?

[00:09:30] Micah Tomasella: I mean, I mean, and that’s just people that are. I mean, everybody’s just trying to get on the list right now. So these are just the people who are at the front of the line. You know, I wonder if these negotiations all have to, I, I was just thinking about this, Connor. I wonder if these negotiations all have to happen in person or if they can happen over the phone.

Because right now it’s like I. These people are all visiting from all these other countries. They’re sending delegates and people in power from their countries here to have these discussions.

[00:09:54] Conner Jones: And I think the EU is smart to send the Italian Prime Minister, ’cause she’s got a great relationship with Trump and specifically Elon Musk.

They’re like besties over there. So yeah, him or her, Trump doesn’t like stom, but he likes her. The Starmer from the uk Yeah.

[00:10:06] Micah Tomasella: Yeah. They’re, yeah, they’re tight too,

[00:10:08] Conner Jones: it seems so it’s kind of dependent. Everybody knows it trump’s a relationship guy. You gotta have a good relationship with him. And so you send whoever can be that person that he likes.

[00:10:16] Micah Tomasella: And there’s, there’s a lot of things that you can say about his decorum. I think that we can all acknowledge that, that he doesn’t fit into the box of. How any president, at least in the last a hundred years, has acted. But whenever he does meet with people and it’s productive, he rarely meets with somebody in person and then posts on truth social like bashing them, like even with people that he doesn’t typically like.

He says, Hey, this was a great productive conversation. So it does seem now that we’re talking about this, I’m just having this thought, it does seem like the in-person meetings work better for him.

[00:10:50] Conner Jones: Yeah, I think so. Unless you’re zelensky, but we talked about that a few weeks ago.

[00:10:54] Micah Tomasella: Yeah,

[00:10:54] Conner Jones: sorry, didn’t mean to bring it to that moment. And I ran. Let’s

[00:10:56] Micah Tomasella: see how that goes too. Anyway, we’ll talk about that later. Yeah,

[00:10:59] Conner Jones: we’ll talk about that later. But, okay, so let, I mentioned China when you got, we gotta hit on China ’cause this is our biggest trade partner. They are a massive importer of goods to the US and they are also getting the brunt of these tariffs.

So Trump is not happy with China or President Xi and everything going on with China. They are kind of our, they’ve been our odd like sort of enemy. I. In a way like this tariff war enemy, even in Trump’s first administration, they were, we were in a trade war with them. Yes, it’s back on. I mean, it’s back on and they full force, full swing.

So they ref they refused. China refused to remove any of their own tariffs. So Trump’s administration is now tariff in Chinese goods at get this 104%. So China responded on Wednesday morning by saying they’re going to tariff US goods at 84%. That, of course, sent stocks tumbling again. So Tuesday, we’re recording on Wednesday morning, Tuesday night when the market closed, it closed down a little bit.

It opened up back. Down some more. It was lower this morning on Wednesday morning. I don’t know what it’s gonna look like by the time this podcast posts. This, as we learn, you can move $2 trillion in eight minutes from a tweet, so anything can happen over the next six hours. Anything can happen over the next 24 hours for sure.

We’ll just see what happens there. But. Micah, I mean, all this uncertainty, all this movement, all this weird economic stuff that goes way over the head of so many of us. And honestly, we said you can’t have power if you have an erroneous tweet. That’s kind of a joke because in the real scheme of things, I.

Most of us don’t have the power to do anything here. We can’t change the tariffs, we can’t move the stock market. We’re not gonna move hundreds of millions of dollars of stocks to shift a market or change our investments in that way. But we are, a lot of us are gonna be impacted by this either in the stock market or 4 0 1 Ks, or down the line here in a few weeks, months and years.

The price increases that we’re gonna see is something that can cause a lot of stress and worry. I mean, how are you feeling about all this?

[00:12:59] Micah Tomasella: I mean, definitely over the weekend you know, if we’re just being fully transparent and then even going into Monday, I mean, we, we work for a nonprofit, Christian ministry, like we are supported and we get to do ministry because people give, they’re hard-earned money.

They’re hard-earned investments. To help us further our mission. And so obviously when we’re in this position, Connor, it, it, it is more anxious for it can cause more anxiety for people who are kind of in our position. But, you know, at the same time God’s really been working on my heart. And as we’ve been talking about this, a lot of the things that we’re talking about are what ifs.

So we’ve talked about the stock market before, how. They always talk about how it’s lost trillions in value. Okay? Value, meaning, unless you move funds around, unless you sell out, unless you pull your funds out, you haven’t technically lost that money. In theory, it’s just value. When you pull it out, you’ve lost it.

But if you’re invested for the long term and you have the ability to be able to do that then it’s fear. Fear is what’s driving the stock market that’s struggling. Fear of what things are gonna cost, fear of how things are going to happen. It’s fear, the fear of the unknown. And I, I anybody from anywhere can relate to how fear.

Can very quickly become the foundation for the way that we’re operating decisions that we’re making. And as believers, we’re called to make our decisions from a a, a, A position and a foundation of faith. But very quickly, if we’re not praying and keeping it in check, it can turn into fear real quick, I.

[00:14:27] Conner Jones: You’re exactly right. I actually texted a friend this week, he works at JP Morgan. I was like, Hey man, what do you think about all this? And he was like, he said, kind of what you said, the market is driven by some of the unknowns. And there are reactions to things that we just don’t know, including quarterly projections, but also when this is a big almost theory, this theory by Trump and his administration that says, we believe these tariffs will work in the long run.

What’s a theory? And we all have theories on things. And sometimes they turn out the way and what is the, they’ve done.

[00:14:56] Micah Tomasella: What is the long run? And, and we don’t know how far he’s willing to take this. If, if, if if he starts to cut deals and a lot of these tariffs get scaled back then we’re having a conversation in a month.

That’s different than what we’re having right now. How far is he willing to take that is, is he willing to take these tariffs to the extreme and for how long? That’s a big question that I only think Trump and his inner circle know right now. And it kind of depends on the actions of others too. And that’s hard.

I mean, that’s, that’s hard. ’cause there’s nothing that we can do about it. And that’s difficult. That’s, that’s difficult for us and our human nature. Yeah, it

[00:15:32] Conner Jones: definitely is. In fact, I, I was right there in that same boat with you over the weekend. I got kind of anxious as everyone was like, black Monday’s coming.

And I was like if, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. I mean, there’s not much I can do. I just gotta sit here and wait and, it did cause some anxiety, and especially because of everything you said with our personal jobs. Thankfully you and I, we are young and so long term, I’m not super worried about that for like our long term investments and stuff.

Yeah. If you are, we’ll have to touch those right now.

[00:15:54] Micah Tomasella: Yeah.

[00:15:55] Conner Jones: We don’t, but if you, you know, some of our listeners maybe do, they’re. Approaching retirement or they are retired and it’s a different ball game. So it just depends on your situation. But also, you know, like personally, honestly, Micah my wife Reagan and I, we made a big decision in the past few weeks for her to step away from her job.

And, you know, she’s going part-time, which is great for her, and she’s gonna be able to be with our baby boy more and all that. And I love that. But at the same time, I was like, that happened this week. At the same time, this market is going crazy. And I was just like, man, it caused me some anxiety. And I, I. I was able to stop on Monday.

I took Monday and I just stopped and prayed throughout the day. Lord. Bring peace. I know you’ve got this all on your hands. And then I was really refreshed on Tuesday morning. Dr. Jim Denison wrote a fantastic daily article on this whole thing about the markets and the anxiety and just wanted to pull up a few things here that he’s, he kind of wrote out and obviously starting off, his first sentence was just Philippians four six, which says, do not be anxious about anything.

And I was like, clear? That’s pretty clear. That’s pretty clear. Why didn’t I. You know, I’ve been anxious for the last 24, 36 hours. And so to read that I was like, yeah, God’s got this anyways. Mm-hmm. He also said, you know, we can expect much more bad news in the news. And that’s because that’s what sells and that’s what secular people you know, anyone who’s not in Christ, that’s, that’s all that they have is just things going on in this world.

But I think what’s cool is we have so much more than what’s happening on this world. You know, he gave an example of like diseases that threaten our bodies, disasters that threaten our homes, and stock market downturns that threaten our finances. They’re all existential threats. If our bodies, homes, and finances are all that we believe to exist, I.

But as followers of Jesus, we know that none of that is true. We know that our bodies are temporary. As second Corinthians five, one says, and our home is not in this world, as John 14, two and three says, and our finances are, but a temporal means to eternal purposes as one Timothy 3, 6 17 through 19 says, now this doesn’t make disease and disaster and market downturns any less painful in the moment, right?

But it does mean that we can use. Fear, like you were saying earlier, to choose faith. We can trust that God is the great physician with our health and he’s the creator with our disasters, and he’s the king of kings with our finances. And we can remember that Jesus has been where we are, felt what we feel hurt as we hurt, and now praise for us from His throne and glory.

As Romans 8 34 says. So thankful for that and just grateful for the peace that God brings us and the fact that we don’t have to be anxious. It’s easy to be anxious, but if we turn to God and allow him to just bear the weight of our worries, he will, and we trust that he’s a

[00:18:40] Micah Tomasella: provider. Amen, brother. That is so good.

Connor, that’s a really great way to wrap this up. I know that we’ve spent more time on this today, guys. And thanks for tuning in with us and thanks for processing things through with us every single week. It means a lot to us. We don’t have all the answers, but we know who does have the answers. We’re not in control, but we know who is in control.

It’s easy to have faith when things are easy. When things are difficult and we’re faced with fear and uncertainty, the way that Jim said it in his article and the way that Connor and I were both encouraged from it and encouraging each of you look at your fear and turn to faith. Choose faith over fear.

Recognize the fear and anxiety within your F within yourself, and turn to Jesus and choose faith and see how you can have joy when a lot of people around you can’t because their world revolves around what they can see, touch and feel. The world that we live in, the way that we choose to operate as believers, there’s there, there’s so much more eternal implication to everything and there’s so much to be hopeful for no matter what our circumstances are right now.

Connor, thank you for that reminder. Alright, so let’s jump into our second story. We’re gonna do more of a fun one and I’m, I’m not saying it even. Fun sarcastically. Just gonna kind of give you a sports update. So let’s call this sports update with Micah. So this sports season, specifically this spring sports season, has already delivered major headlines.

We’ve seen a lot of stuff from basketball and hockey and golf. That’s what I’m gonna cover right now. And so we had a thrilling March Madness finish that we’ll talk about to history being made in the NHL, the National Hockey League, and the anticipation of the masters. Augusta National in Augusta, Georgia coming up this weekend.

So here’s where things stand. Here’s an update. So March madness recap. So on April 7th, the Florida Gators secured their third. NCAA Men’s Basketball Champ championship by defeating the University of Houston, the Houston Cougars 65 to 63. Kind of a thrilling finish. Kind of not the Gators overcame a 12 point in the second half, which was fantastic.

They definitely were, came back a team that many people were picking going into it. But I mean, how did your brackets turn out? I mean, I know that you and I both had several brackets. Did you have any that turned out this time. I

[00:20:49] Conner Jones: was in the bottom three of every single group that I was in. No, I picked Duke across the board and then they melted down in the Final Four against Houston and just completely blew that game.

So they didn’t even make it to the championship. And then I never had Florida going this far, but good for Florida. Look at them. The Gators.

[00:21:07] Micah Tomasella: Yeah. We talked about this last week how it, it’s rare to see all four number one seeds make it to the final four. It’s so rare that I almost never pick that. I mean, I just almost never pick in my brackets that all four number one seeds will make it to the final four.

And that’s exactly what happened. And I, in two of my brackets, I finished in the bottom third in one of my brackets I finished in, I dunno, maybe the top 10 or 20, there was like 200 people competing. But that was just because I honestly was kind of picking. More upsets at the beginning, and then I was picking the higher seats towards the end, and that seemed to kind of work out for me.

So that’s kinda what happened with March Madness. It’s always a beautiful time, but that has wrapped up. Let’s jump into Alex Ovechkin breaking an all time record in the NHLA big record. So on April 6th. Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals surpassed Wayne Gretzky. If, if you’re not a hockey fan or not, you know, whatever your familiarity is with hockey, you’ve probably heard of Wayne Gretzky.

He broke his record by scoring his 18 895th career goal during a game against the New York Islanders. So this milestone achieved in Ovechkin 20th season, so it took him 20 seasons to score 895 goals. And on a scale of one to 10, Connor. How much do you care about this specifically? I would, I would say like a seven record, just because.

[00:22:28] Conner Jones: Yeah, I, I’m not a big hockey guy, but I do respect the fact that this is an insane milestone and record to beat 895 goals. And it took 20 years to do. And I don’t know how much longer he is gonna play, but he also has won a Stanley Cup and he’s obviously one of the great players. And I think Gretzky will always be remembered as the best player of all time.

But Ovechkin has gotta be up there too, right? This is, and even Gretzky was there. He celebrated with him. It was like. You did it. Like they, they celebrated together. Gretzky was very proud of him and excited for him. So just a cool record to see broken and it was honestly a pretty epic goal too.

It’s not like it was some boring one. He was like pretty far away from the goal and just slap shot that thing right into the net. That was pretty awesome.

[00:23:06] Micah Tomasella: Yes, yes. I would say I’m kind of similar, maybe like a six or seven. I’m not a huge hockey fan. I’m a fan of my local team, the Dallas Stars, but I typically really start watching in the playoffs and I’m not.

Scared or sad to admit that there’s just only so much time in the day, but this is such a monumental record to break. Like Ovechkin is the highest goal scorer in the history of the NHL. That’s a big deal, and it’s just always cool to see that. And you’re right, Gretzky was traveling to the last few games that Ovechkin could break the record.

Just to celebrate with him when he did it. And I think that that showcases a lot of humility and it’s just cool to see that that gretzky’s happy for him. Alright, let’s jump into the Masters. So it’s Masters Week, like we talked about at the beginning of the show. It’s a great week. It’s a beautiful week.

Cue the music, the 2025 masters tournament’s set to take place April 10th through 13th. So when this episode releases, that’ll be day one of the tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. In Georgia, this prestigious event will feature all the top golfers from both tours from the PGA tour. From the live tour.

The majors are really exciting because you get to see the best golfers in the world, regardless of which league that they compete in, compete against each other. They’re gonna be competing to win that coveted green jacket. So the masters with its famed green jacket in storied history remains the most iconic event in golf.

One of the most iconic sports events in the world, really winning in Augusta is every pro golfer’s ultimate dream. Without a doubt, it is their ultimate dream. And so there’s nothing like witnessing that. There’s nothing like witnessing a, a golfer. Reaching the peak like that, you know, celebrating after that type of victory.

So it’s easy to romanticize the masters tournament, this type of tournament, Connor, this specific tournament, why do you think that is? I think

[00:24:58] Conner Jones: there’s so many reasons. One, like you said, the golfers, this is their dream. Everybody wants to play in the masters. Everybody knows the masters, the masters.

Even if you’re not a golf fan, you would recognize the logo that is everywhere. It’s a little yellow America with a red pin in it, and you see people wearing those polos. You see the hats all the time. You know that this is the most prestigious golf event in the world. Like you said, all the best players come.

It is a beautiful course. The it’s, it feels like when the master is on, it’s the opening introduction of spring. You see all the beautiful flowers. It’s the most like well-maintained course in the world. It is pristine. It is perfect. Even the bunkers look prettier than a Florida beach. Like it’s kind of just insane how beautiful it is.

And then it’s just so high scale. All the just pomp and circumstance of it just makes it something special. And yeah, the music Q. I don’t know if you mentioned it, but the like it sounds almost like you’re just entering a, a peaceful, almost retirement home. Very tranquil. Very, there’s something serene, something so tranquil and peaceful.

The, the chirping birds and the trees and the beauty. It’s just, it is something to even watch on tv. I can’t even imagine what it’s like there in person, but I know you can ’cause. You’ve been, you went last year. What? Oh, I mean, tell us, tell us about your experience. You’re right. Somebody I did because it’s to clarify, for anybody who doesn’t watch the masters or know much about it, it is extremely difficult to get tickets to the Masters.

You have to play a lottery to try to win tickets. You don’t pay for it. But even those are very

[00:26:28] Micah Tomasella: wealthy, have a difficult time get in. Yeah. You can’t just, you can’t just buy your way in. It’s very unique.

[00:26:33] Conner Jones: You, you cannot, you’re not supposed to sell the tickets on the secondhand market. Some people do. Yeah.

But it is. Very difficult. I knew somebody who they played, his dad played for 25 years before he finally won tickets to go. And then even then you usually only get one day that you’re able to go one day of the week. And it could be practice rounds, but you still go because it’s so hard to enter Augusta National Golf Course.

So the fact that you got to go last year, Micah, and you went on the weekend is something to be said.

[00:27:02] Micah Tomasella: Yeah. Connor, it was amazing. It truly is an experience unlike any other that I’ve ever had. So Connor, you and I, we’ve grown up in the technological world as millennials. So you step into this place and if you bring your phone, they make you check it in and you gotta pick it up when you’re leaving.

The easiest thing to do is just leave it at where you’re staying, at your hotel or your Airbnb in your vehicle. And so you walk in. And nobody’s distracted. Nobody’s staring at their phones. Everybody’s got their shirts tucked in, no one’s yelling obscenities or trying to mess with the golfers. You can’t wear your hats backwards.

I know that that sounds like kind of extreme, but when you step into this environment, it takes an extreme level of rules and guidance and kind of. Pageantry to keep this going into 2025. And I mean, I was just struck by the no phones. I was struck by how polite and present everyone was. Just the.

Just the pageantry of it, the customs that you experience there, the way that they’ve been doing things for nearly a hundred years and how you get to experience that today. There are literal payphones there. If you have an emergency, there are two sections of payphones that you can use and then. Really, I would just say it’s the most beautiful and maintained piece of God’s green Earth I have ever laid my eyes on.

I haven’t traveled extensively. I’ve traveled internationally some, but you just want to talk about attention to detail. They’re, they’re picking pine straws out of the greens. They have people just picking up those thin little pine straws out of the greens. I mean, just beautifully manicured. The concessions are cheap.

It’s so fun. Yeah, they’re so cheap. You can buy like entire menu points. Everyone’s so kind and

[00:28:48] Conner Jones: $70, which is crazy. And, and it’s like iconic foods, right? Like the pimento cheese sandwiches and, and the

[00:28:55] Micah Tomasella: Yeah, the barbecue sandwiches. The, and the juices. The peach ice cream. The Oh man. I mean the Master’s cups.

I mean, we brought so much, so much stuff home with us and. You know, you go into the pro shop and they’re not upselling everything. Like it’s kind of the same prices of any pro shop you would go to in any golf course, right? And they do that on purpose. There’s a lack of commercialization that’s taking place, and they do that on purpose.

The tournament could be making a lot more money and they choose not to. And even the concessions, I mean, this is, it’s cheaper than McDonald’s man. Like the concessions at the Masters are literally cheaper than McDonald’s. This year they had to, they raised the prices on a few things, but I saw you could buy the entire menu for $77.

The entire menu, you could buy every item for $77. Man, it was, it was incredible. We got to go the last two days and saw Scotty Scheffler when it all, it was an experience like none other that my wife and I just enjoyed and still talk about at least once a week. That is awesome.

[00:29:59] Conner Jones: Yeah, and I, I think a lot of us who are listening to this, and a lot of Americans have the dream of going to, and, and honestly, a lot of international foreigners have the dream of gonna the masters at some point.

So I, I continue to play the lottery every year and hoping that one day they, they send me that you got some tickets and that I can go, yeah, ours

[00:30:14] Micah Tomasella: was a, ours was a crazy family connection. We never thought it was possible. We didn’t buy our way in. It was a crazy family connection ’cause we’ve been entering in, you know, in the lottery.

But you, you typically just get picked for one random day and we got to go for the last two days and we know how blessed we are to have been able to experience that.

[00:30:31] Conner Jones: Yeah. And it’s not just patrons that it’s exclusive for the, the course, the club only has 300 members and this is one of the most exclusive clubs in the world.

Everybody wants to be in it. You have to be obviously prominent and be able to pay the insane amount of dues that are owed there. But then also. When you win a Masters’, you get to always come back and play, and you can always go play the course when you want with a, with an actual member. So to win the Masters is such an honor, one in and of itself, but you can go back and play.

So these guys who won back in the seventies and eighties, they still come back and play the course. And sometimes they play in actual competition. Even when they’re older, when they’re not competing on any other tournament, they can compete in the Masters because they won at one point and they get that green that perfectly.

You know, it’s just sewn together. Beautiful green jacket that they got to put on on Sunday.

[00:31:18] Micah Tomasella: Yep, yep. Absolutely, man. Absolutely. So this has got me thinking. You’re probably thinking, Micah, how can you give me a spiritual application for sports and everything that you just talked about? I’m gonna give you one and I’m gonna tell you that it’s very, very important.

Dr. Denison releases articles throughout the week, so you can go to denison forum.org and check out those articles. And he released an article on this topic and kinda the spiritual nature and, and how we get wrapped up with sports as, as people, but specifically as believers. So the first thing I wanna do is I kind of wanna talk about the challenge that he gave and how it sat with me.

So he said, and kind of my synopsis of it is we often tie our identity to the success or failure of our sports teams, of the, of the players that we support and root on. When our team wins, we say we won. Or when our player wins, we say we won. But when they lose, we separate ourselves by saying. They lost or we just don’t talk about it, or we stop tuning in, right?

This shows how we can form conditional attachments, only celebrating or identifying with success. So maybe why bandwagon fans get so much hate, right? They’re jumping on and supporting only when success is happening, but you gotta stick with your team through the ups and the downs. Again, we always bring up the Dallas Cowboys, right?

I love my cowboys. Through the ups and downs. I’m a true fan. Connor’s the same way we’re true fans, but it’s easy to relate to that, right? Even if you’re not a sports fan, it’s easy to relate to having conditional attachments to something and only want only wanting to associate yourself with something that’s a winner, right?

So lemme give you an encouragement from it. Dr. Dennison does a fantastic job contrasting this concept with God’s love, which is unconditional and doesn’t depend on performance. Unlike. Attach ourselves to sports teams or our favorite players. God’s love. It’s constant. Regardless of our success or failures, it’s unwavering.

We are called to build relationships that are not based on performance, but are actually based on unconditional love, just like God’s unconditional love for us. Lemme give you the scripture, Romans five eight says, but God shows his love for us that while we were sinners. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

So this article and this concept challenged me to think about how we connect with others and how we can move beyond performance-based connections to something deeper and more lasting, and how we can be reminded in moments like this to thank God that he loves us. Unconditionally. Unlike the way that we love certain teams, certain players, or even certain people in our lives, we form these conditional relationships that I’ll support you.

I’ll love you as long as you’re supporting and you’re loving me. Thank you God. Thanks be to God that his love for us is nev, is never ending and everlasting and unconditional, and that whenever I’m wavering, he doesn’t waver too.

[00:34:20] Conner Jones: Yeah, man, that’s good. Really appreciate that because it is so easy to just watch sports and it’s a thing that brings us so much joy.

A lot of times, sometimes pain when our teams or players lose but it, it’s a communal thing. It brings it together a city or a college or whatever, and everybody can enjoy sports. It kind of takes you away from the world. In fact, when everything was happening on over the weekend with tariffs and stuff, I was like.

Try not to think about it. So I was like, you know what? The Masters is this week. And I was watching these videos about the masters and some of the history and all that, just to kinda get my mind off that, because that’s what sports does, but it, it’s got such a deeper relevance to our, even our spiritual lives.

So that’s awesome. Thanks Michael for that. I, I wanna wrap up this sports section with a quick hot take. That. You and I have discussed, I’ve actually had this discussion with quite a few people, and it, it does revolve around the masters and this could make some people a little mad. That’s okay. If you totally disagree with me, let me know on Instagram or email us and I’ll give you those details in a minute.

Or I actually, I’ll drop some polls too. I’ll put a poll on our Instagram page and I’ll put a poll on our Spotify page. You can’t do it on Apple, so if you’re listening on Apple you won’t be able to see that. But if you’re listening on Spotify, scroll down to the bottom of this episode and you’ll be able to see this poll.

Where you can tell me if you think people who have not actually attended a physical master’s tournament in Augusta, Georgia should or should not be able to wear the master’s apparel, like the logo for instance. I have not been to the masters. Like I said earlier, I would love to go, but until I go, I. Do not reserve the right to wear anything from the Master’s tournament.

Micah has been, in fact, he’s wearing a Master’s polo right now. He has earned that, right? In my opinion, that is my hot take, and here’s why I say that. There is only one place on Earth that you can buy Master’s apparel, and that is at the tournament in Augusta. It is not available online. It’s not available in other shops around the country.

You can only get it there. You can buy it from from secondhand

[00:36:18] Micah Tomasella: shops, but technically you’re not, not supposed to. You buy on eBay and stuff. It’s not. It’s kind of a gray area.

[00:36:23] Conner Jones: Yeah, it is, in my opinion, a reserved right. For people who have attended. If you are wearing master’s apparel, I should be able to walk up to you and say, Hey man, what year did you go?

What day did you go? What was the best experience? What was your favorite hole to see in person? I wanna be able to ask you about it. If you’re wearing master stuff and I ask you about that, and you’re like, oh, I’ve never been. I’m gonna judge you. I mean, not really, but like I’m gonna say yes. Really? Then why are you wearing that?

You don’t. Oh, that’s funny. Judge you, I don’t wear a shirt. If I’ve been to another country, I’ll wear a shirt that says, you know that country’s name. If I’m wearing a shirt and it says, you know, Panama, but I’ve not been to Panama, it seems kind weird for me to wear a shirt that says Panama. That’s the way I see that.

If you’re wearing a shirt from the Masters, a hat from the Masters, you got some master’s material. You better have been. That’s my hot take. What do you think as somebody who’s been, I’m saying this from an outsider, I haven’t been yet, so I’m saying I don’t deserve it. But you’ve been, is this an exclusive club?

[00:37:16] Micah Tomasella: I’m gonna give, I’m gonna give kind of. A neutral view because I really want people to kind of hear you out, and I want them to vote based off that we have these debates with our friends and with those that we’re close with, and there are a there is a wide variety of opinion. What I would say is this, whenever I’m wearing master stuff, which we did, we, we got several things and so I love to wear the master stuff.

It was one of the most unforgettable experiences of my life. I am asked frequently when I went. How it was all the questions that you said you would approach somebody with. So if you wear the gear and you’re a follower of Christ, you gotta be prepared not to lie and just tell ’em the truth and say, I didn’t go, you know?

And so if you’re willing to do that, I don’t have a problem with you, with you wearing it. Because I think where the argument comes down to is I’m a big. Texas Longhorn fan, but I went to Dallas Baptist University and so am I allowed to support that team and wear their stuff if I didn’t go to that university.

I think that that’s where some of the logic falls apart a little bit on your hot take, but I do understand where you’re coming from. But even as somebody who went, I. I don’t know. I, I think I here’s why that doesn’t

[00:38:29] Conner Jones: match up. Here’s why that doesn’t match up. ’cause you can buy University of Texas stuff anywhere.

It’s available for the general public. That’s fair. Again, you can only buy master stuff at Augusta. So if you’re wearing it, it tells me you have been there, you went into the pro shop, you bought that. Yeah. Physically at the checkout counter. And the vast

[00:38:44] Micah Tomasella: majority of people, I, I think that wear it have been, but obviously if you can get your hands on some master’s gear, you’re probably, you’re, you’re gonna have to think long and hard about if you’re gonna wear it, because obviously like this is one of the most recognizable logos in golf.

[00:38:59] Conner Jones: It’s probably, yeah. When you go to

[00:39:00] Micah Tomasella: the most

[00:39:00] Conner Jones: recognizable, the church that we go to on Sunday of Masters, so this upcoming Sunday. So many people are wearing their master’s polos. And I’m like, did you actually go? And I’ve actually asked some people, you know, are you holding their

[00:39:12] Micah Tomasella: feet to the fire con,

[00:39:13] Conner Jones: you know, I’ll, I’ll be next to them washing my hands at the sink in the bathroom.

And he is got his polo on, Hey, what year did you go? And he is oh, I went in 2003. And I’m like, oh, that’s awesome. You know, like it’s, it’s a cool conversation starter if you’ve actually been, anyways, that’s just a hot take. It’s not that serious, but it’s also kind of, you know. I mean, I’ve, I’ve got my thoughts there and one day I’ll wear master’s logos hopefully.

Anyways, yes, hopefully. Just to close up this whole thing, Micah, who do you, who do you think is gonna end up winning this master’s tournament?

[00:39:42] Micah Tomasella: I think Colin Morikawa, I’m gonna kind of pick a, a dark horse. When we were there last year, he was neck and neck with Scotty into the fourth day, really half like really into the ninth or 10th hole.

And then he kind of fell apart and that’s kind of his problem overall. He kind of. He kinda loses steam towards the end, but he plays the course really well. And so I’m picking Colin Moore ACA to win.

[00:40:02] Conner Jones: Okay.

[00:40:02] Micah Tomasella: I got Rory which

[00:40:04] Conner Jones: is you? Yeah, he’s a great pick. That’s the guy you mentioned he needs to get his last major here.

Major. And he is just on fire right now, but he tends to melt down on Sundays as well. Yeah. Who’s your bust? Who do you think’s just

[00:40:13] Micah Tomasella: not gonna perform well at all? Jordan Spieth, which isn’t really a big surprise. I’m a big Jordan Spieth fan. He just hasn’t been the same the last several years.

This is his 10th anniversary, so he won the Masters in 2015, so this is the 10th year, you know, signifying when he won. So he has been at the peak in the pinnacle. So I’ve been reading some articles about people saying that he’s gonna do he’s gonna do great and he’s gonna kind of resurrect himself to a certain extent.

I don’t think that’s the case with how he’s playing this year so far.

[00:40:39] Conner Jones: Yeah, I don’t either. And I would say similar. I, my bus is Brooks Koepka, who has just been an elite player in the past, but I don’t think he’s gonna, I don’t think he’s got it in him this year. That’s the Masters watch that this weekend.

And also so many other sports things. Did you watch sports consider the spiritual applications? I.

[00:40:54] Micah Tomasella: Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Okay we just wanna briefly cover the mailbag here quickly. Please, please continue to send any thoughts or topic ideas to culture [email protected] or follow us on Instagram at Culture Brief Podcast.

Please send that in. We’ve been getting great responses and topic ideas in, so please send those in. So we’re gonna jump into our check-in section Connor. Tell us about the check-in section and what we’re gonna be checked up on.

[00:41:23] Conner Jones: Yeah, so this is something we’re gonna try to do going forward of things we’ve talked about in the past and update you guys.

So real fast on something we talked about deeply last week, which was the immigration and deportations aspect of what’s going on in the world. Just so you all know, the Supreme Court. Did rule that the government can use that rarely invoked wartime law that we mentioned last week, the, I can’t remember what it’s called, aliens, oh, I can’t remember the full thing, but they did say that anybody being deported with that law must get a court hearing first.

So in one way, it was a win for Trump. In one way. It was a win for the people who were saying Trump was going past his bounds. And Chief Justice John Roberts did temporarily block. Judge’s order requiring the US to bring back a man. The government admitted to have that. They admitted they mistakenly deported to El Salvador, which we talked about last week.

So he’s still in El Salvador while the Supreme Court considers the issue. Anyways a couple other things to just keep note of. The Trump administration is negotiating with Iran on Saturday. They’re having talks about who knows what nuclear deals, mi military actions, all of that. Just stay up to date there and we may check back in on that next week.

And then obviously the masters is this weekend, so watch that. And then one last thing is, I don’t know if you all saw this, the dire wolves, if that’s something that doesn’t ring a bell with you, that makes sense because they’ve been extinct for 10,000 years until now. Apparently this group called Colossal Biosciences says that they genetically created two wolves.

Who were brought back from extinction using genetic edits derived from a complete dire wolf genome. Meticulously reconstructed by colossal from ancient DNA, found in fossils dating back 11,000 to 72,000 years. What could go wrong here? You might question, in fact, Jurassic World. I thought this was awesome, tweeted.

We see no possible way this could go wrong. If you’ve seen the Jurassic movies, you know that this goes completely wrong when scientists bring back big creature movie.

[00:43:17] Micah Tomasella: And we’re seeing it, you know what I mean? Because they like, they want, this company wants to bring back like the mammoths, like their goal is to bring back the actual big mammoths.

Yeah. Yeah.

[00:43:31] Conner Jones: Wooly mammoths. Yeah. The next thing you know, somebody’s gonna bring out back the T-Rex. Yeah. There’s, I mean there’s lot of debate on this topic. I mean, I think

[00:43:38] Micah Tomasella: if if this continues to kind of gain steam, this would be a really interesting topic of, you know, as there’s so many. Things that this applies to as the advancement of science and medicine and technology.

How much should we be messing with things like resurrecting an an entire extinct species? I mean, it’s just, it’s interesting because I think that we’re gonna start seeing this on a bigger scale. Guys, I. Thank you so much for joining us for this week’s episode of The Culture Brief, a Dennison Forum podcast.

All articles, all videos mentioned will be linked in the show notes. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please please subscribe and please rate and review the show. And remember, we’re gonna be posting polls about Connor’s Hot Take. Under our Spotify link and then also on Instagram. If you follow us at Culture Brief Podcast and please share it with a friend and we’ll see you next Thursday.

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