The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - The Big Suey: Dick Samson

Episode Date: July 22, 2025

David Samson reveals his Top 5 Biggest Shocks in Baseball including the story of how his relationship ended with the Dan Le Batard Show in 2012. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Now's a good time to remember where Tequila's story truly began. In 1795, Cuervo invented Tequila. Cuervo. What are you doing here? Cuervo. Anytime someone says Cuervo, I show up. Well, I do know that to be true, but even during ad reads, like... Cuervo.

I think he could lay out, especially for one of our great partners. Sweet, delicious Cuervo. Since then, Cuervo has stayed true to its roots. The same family, the same land, the same passion. Cuervo. So, enjoy the Tequila that started it all. Cuervo has stayed true to its roots. The same family, the same land, the same passion. Cuervo. So, enjoy the tequila that started it all. Cuervo. Cuervo. The tequila that invented tequila.

Proximo. Cuervo.com. Please drink responsibly. Cuervo. As a BMO Eclipse Visa Infinite Card Holder, you don't just go to dinner. You get rewarded for dining out. And you don't just buy gas. You get rewarded for dining out. And you don't just buy gas. You get rewarded for filling that tank. Because you get five times the points on things like groceries, gas, takeout, dining, and rideshare.

So you get more out of life. Apply now and get up to 60,000 points. Which is a lot of points. For more info, visit bemo.com slash eclipse. That's our website. Terms and conditions apply. Breaking news, McDonald's international menu items are vanishing. For more info, visit bmo.com slash eclipse. That's our website. Terms and conditions apply. Breaking news, McDonald's international menu items are vanishing.

McPizza bites missing in Italy. Big Rosti stolen from Germany. Teriyaki chicken sandwich disappears in Japan. And a Biscoff McFlurry blackout in Belgium. Oh, it's just in. We can now confirm the stolen favorites have resurfaced at McDonald's Canada. The international menu heist. Try them all while you can for a limited time in participating McDonald's in Canada.

Welcome to the Big Sui presented by DraftKings. Why are you listening to this show? The podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan LeBattard podcast. I'm sorry, I'm not gonna apologize for that. In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging. I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's fries

if they're just there. That hasn't happened to you guys? I've done it. And now here's the marching man to nowhere, fat face and the Habitual Liar. Yeah this episode of the Dan LeBouillet Show with Stu Gatz is sponsored by Drap Kings. Drap Kings, the crown is yours. Don Van Nata is gonna join us here in the next couple of days because there's yet more Union stuff coming out and it's worse and worse. Like a lot of bad stuff

is coming this way. It's just starting starting Pablo tori found out and now a real mess has started uh... we will have don van not other pull it's a prize winner in the next couple of days to talk about that and jerry jones but i meant to play this jerry jones sound a little bit earlier before we get to david samson of nothing personal let's play that sound for david samson to talk about in general what it is that jerry jones is doing the other thing i would say is uh... contractual for five years

there's a lot of water under the bridge if you step out there and do something in the first two or three you get hit by a car sisley and so there's a lot to look at over a lot of years it could make a big difference have you ever heard of any clubs committing to players and then they didn't and i think we did to them

we have i don't want to say one was the last time a player was hit by a car because it happened to andy dalton and miles garrett uh... but one was last time a cowboy was hit by a car? That's not the question. Oh, okay, what is the question? That's David Sampson from Nothing Personal. What's the question? The question is, is Jerry Jones now, and you can listen to today's Nothing Personal

for 20 minutes on this, and I'll give you just two that I didn't give you on Nothing Personal. The question is, is Jerry Jones the choice now instead of Jim Ursay, who has since passed away, he was the spokesman used by Roger Goodell over the last collective bargaining, over the last labor issues. And all this talk about guaranteed contracts

and fully guaranteed contracts, are they thinking of using the octogenarian Jerry Jones to try to get the message out publicly that, hey, this whole fully guaranteed thing, it's for the birds, we shouldn't be doing it. And here's the reason why. I hope Roger Goodell isn't going that direction, but man, it certainly seemed that way today.

Dwayne Haskins, Dan. That's unfortunate for me. It does happen. It's an odd thing for him to say that people can get hurt in that sport or can get hurt in accidents. It was also odd to hear him say that he thought about quitting for about half a second. What did you make of that?

No, he actually, what he said is he was asked about whether he would stop being GM. That's what he thought about for a fraction of a second. And I give him all the credit in the world for naming himself GM. He's one of the 32 meddling owners in football. He just has the guts to call himself the GM. The Cowboys just have no chance of winning.

It's not with him as GM, it's with him as owner. Because whether he names GM or not, it doesn't matter. He will always act as GM. And if he stops naming himself that then he's just deluding himself whereas now it's out there in the open. Hey, I'm the GM. All the owners are. Did I hear you correctly on both of these things though? You said you give him a all the credit in the world for naming himself the GM after immediately signing with owners

on you shouldn't guarantee any money to football players. I'm trying to understand the through thread on those two statements. I always like it when owners are honest about their involvement instead of just saying, oh, I let the baseball people do the baseball stuff, I have nothing to do with it, it's total poppycock. Every owner is involved in these signings

and in the trades and in the draft, they just are. And on the football side, you know, I guess they can say, oh, you know, what do I know about salary cap? It's so ridiculous. Jerry Jones just owns it. Wouldn't it have been great if in the old days, George Steinbrenner, instead of firing everybody, would have just named himself general manager

of the Yankees, because that's what he was. The through line on both of these things is that you are supporting, making sure labor doesn't get guaranteed money so power can stay in power and supporting that power saying brazenly that it should be in power, stay in power, even when it embarrasses everyone involved.

You're giving him all the credit in the world for that. I gave him the credit for naming himself the GM But I'm not fully understanding what your point of view is at all here damn because they're Pro that you're always pro ownership. They're not correct. That is not correct. If you listen to nothing personal I am both I talk when players are doing something right or the union is I will absolutely give them credit for doing that Going for guarantee, I understand. Obviously, you wanna be like the baseball players where you don't give money back when you stink

or when you're hurt, I get it. In football, the fact is, it's not about fully guaranteed. It's such a red herring of an argument. The question is how much is guaranteed at signing? And that number continues to go up. Players are getting more and more money guaranteed. Trey Hendrickson won't sign a deal because Mike Brown of the Bengals only offer him one year guaranteed, and all of his brothers, TJ Watt, Miles Garrett, yada yada, have three years guaranteed of their contract. So they're fighting over that. It's about what's guaranteed at signing.

And you have a deal, let's say a sponsorship deal. Is it guaranteed at signing? Well, no, because there's all sorts of things that can happen where you don't get the money that you think you're getting. In sports, when you sign a guaranteed deal, it doesn't matter how many listeners, followers, downloads, shows, wins, losses, you get that money.

That's just not the case in the real world. I think Zaslow led the audience to a bit of an epiphany in that Jerry Jones always ends up paying the most for these talents and he likes to draw out these conversations so they eat up in the news stream and people are talking about the Dallas Cowboys. I think this is intentional now after Zazzler shined his light on it. Do you agree? I think that the deal will get done with Michael Parsons. On the other hand, he's got 24 million dollars to be paid this year. He's got one year left of his contract and I think it would be in the owner's best interest to stop allowing players to hold out

and then get away with it. They signed a deal. That's not what I'm asking. Do you think it's part intentional from Jerry Jones to he doesn't care about paying the most money, he ends up doing it. Yeah, I guess the point that I'm making is if Michael Parsons was ready to sign a deal last year,

which would have clearly saved Jerry Jones money because the price continues to go up. So stopping short of saying Jerry Jones is stupid, why does he wait like this every time? But that's the same thing, Zaz. It's the same with everything. You could go back and look at your house. You could go back and look at any asset and say, man, if I just bought it last year instead of this year, the price would have been lower. That's inflation, that's just how assets work. And so when you don't sign a player at a particular year, yeah, the chances are if the player performs, that the price is gonna go up.

But you know that going in with every negotiation for everything that you do. David, I don't know not to switch topics here, but I'm switching topics here. I don't know if you saw what was going on over the weekend a former player of yours D strange Gordon and when he played for you was just D Gordon was on a podcast Did you happen to catch this? I got suspended in 16 for steroids. Look at me King It looks like I got to a stairway ain't no way

I ain't gonna say no name or nothing, but let me just put it like this. 2015, they told my little black ass, don't win that Batting Tank Championship. And I said, y'all got me f***ed up. Damn, so you went out there and said, f*** it, I'm gonna go get this little championship, this trophy.

And they said, don't do it. Was it like a money thing for them? Nah, it was a guy. I ain't gonna say his name. He would have won triple crown if I let him win the batting title. The last day of the season, I beat him for the batting title.

I went three for four with a whole run. I ain't saying nothing. Can you say it? It'll be easy. If it's who I'm thinking of. He won MVP that year. They didn't like that. They called me a week before.

They didn't like that. And I was like, man, I'm from A1 part, bro. You hear me? He said, I'm from A1 part. Your thoughts there, David? Oh, I've got, well, let me start with one bit of factual problem with what just happened. I was at the game. It was the last game of the 2015 season.

It was in Philadelphia. Dan Jennings was our manager. We were in the clubhouse, me, Mike Hill, Dee Gordon and Dan Jennings. We were doing math because he was just behind Bryce Harper. They were both hitting 330. I'll never forget this day for the reason that happened after, which I'll get to,

forgetting the fact that our GM was our manager, which was idiotic in every sense of the word. But we were doing the math. All right, if Bryce Harper pinch hits, you can't sit, you have to get a hit. If you get a hit, we can then pull you from the game. If Bryce is 0 for 2, you're 1 for 1, you win the batting title, even if he goes 2 for 4.

Therefore, do you want us to see you? We went through all of it because we wanted him to win the batting title. So we were in the clubhouse doing that math. Bryce ends up one for four, D goes three for four, and we're celebrating the end of a terrible season. The Phillies lost 99 games that year, but we had a terrible season too. But that said, we were super, super happy for him. But there was no triple crown winner. Nolan Aronato had 130 runs batted in, Bryce Harper had 99. Bryce Harper had 42 home runs tied with Aronato.

You have to get RBI home run and average. Harper was never gonna get RBI, so there was no Triple Crown to be won. And I texted Dee after I heard this, because I told him I'm gonna talk about it on nothing personal, because you can't be talking about me. I was right there saying, D, let's get this.

This is great for you, for us, for everybody. And he won't tell me who it was, but it was nobody with the Marlins, that's for sure. We did look that up yesterday, David, and we quickly realized there was no Triple Crown in play because Bryce Hopper would have needed 31 RBI that day. That'd be a good day. He needed to jump over Matt Kemp, Anthony Rizzo, Paul Goldsman and Nolan Aronado to win the RBI title that season.

Put it on the poll please at LeBotard Show, is it possible that D. Gordon doesn't know the three categories of the Triple Crown? Does it hold water David for him to say look at me when he came in that season weighing 13 more pounds and for a guy that that's that is that small that is actually a lot of weight gain and quite suspicious. Dee was a little Juan Pierre like when you saw Dee without a shirt he was not a small guy and this is pre-steroids. So he's very strong, very good body. And so I would say my second biggest shock in my entire career, first being the phone call from Fish and Wildlife when Jose crashed his boat and died.

The second was when I got the call from Dan Hellam. I was at lunch in Los Angeles. We were playing the Dodgers and he said that D Gordon was getting suspended. This was before Jose died. This is when we were gonna have a great year in 2016. And I said, no, you got the wrong guy. He said, no, no, the appeals dropped.

Like he's serving starting tonight. And I was at lunch with Mike Hill and PJ Loiello and we had to go right to Chavez Ravine, right to the ballpark to meet the team and to meet D. And I was so angry. To this day, I am angry with D over it. We've gotten through it. I found out exactly what he tested positive for,

how that gets into your body. It's not a diuretic. It doesn't come in, you know, through some sort of over-the-counter weight loss program. It's just a straight-up steroid. There's no other way to do it. And there's needles involved. And Dee and I have come to terms with it. It's in the past. I love Dee. But that was a crushing, crushing moment for our franchise. Of course, we had no idea that the franchise was going to be completely crushed only a couple of months later. Howdy folks, it's Mike Ryan. If you were listening to the show just a couple days ago, you know that Jeremy came up with the top five.

Breath of fresh air type of list. A really refreshing feeling. And on that list, Jeremy, help me out. I mean, that first sip of a Miller Lite at the barbecue on a hot day, crack it open, not a lot of feelings better. That sound ultra satisfying. And then that first sip, it hits. And yes, while it's hot outside as it is presently, cools your body down, it hits a little different down here in South Florida. But as someone that had Miller Lite north of the border and basically football tailgates as the leaves turn, there really isn't a bad time to turn into Miller time.

Next time we should do a top five times to have Miller time. I like where your head's at because it's every time. That's right. Every time, morning time problem. Well, scratch that. Nah, morning time. Morning time if you need it. If you're on vacation.

If you're on vacation. If you're on vacation. If you're on vacation. If you're at a morning tailgate, there's a noon game. It's Miller Time somewhere. Miller Lite, great taste, 96 calories. Go to MillerLite.com slash Dan to find delivery options near you or you can pick up some Miller Lite

pretty much anywhere they sell beer. Cheers to 50 years of Miller Time. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces Don LeBattard, Tata's, Stugats, Tata's, this is the Don LeBattard show with the Stugats so I guess who framed D Gordon then and why did they do that? Like why did they really want him suspended for steroids? Because you're saying it was impossible, but he said it's what happened.

So who framed him and why did they do it? It can't happen. There's a whole appeals process that you get to go through that's secretive. And people think that the teams know. I am here to tell you the truth, which is I had no idea that he had tested positive. We know which players get tested because we're there when the P guy's there taking players off the field and holding the ding dong,

waiting for them to go pee pee. But after that, we don't hear a word. And the first time we hear is when we get a call from the league that a player's been suspended. We don't know about the appeals process. There are no leaks about that. And that was just a, it was an absolute shock to me. So David, he's claiming two things that are clearly not true.

Number one, that someone from the league wanted to prevent him from stopping Bryce Harper's triple crown, even though Bryce Harper was nowhere near winning the triple crown. I feel like officials at Major League Baseball know what the triple crown is. Bryce Harper's Triple Crown, even though Bryce Harper was nowhere nearer winning the Triple Crown. I feel like officials at Major League Baseball know what the Triple Crown is. And then he's also saying that he was set up and that he didn't fail this drug test. Like these are two ridiculous claims. What is that? What is all that?

What is that? I don't know if it's just delusion. I don't know if it's misremembering. I don't know what any of that is, but that's his truth. And he's entitled to his truth and I respect his truth. I may not agree with it, but if he thinks that someone told him not to win the batting title

because of Bryce Harper's Triple Crown, whether or not it's true is not relevant to how he perceived it to be. And it's the same with steroids. Listen, Ryan Braun, there's a long list of players, long list, who say, oh, that it was a bad sample. It was it was misplaced by the FedEx people. Like there's a million things that people say. But guess what? We have a whole process in place which

stops that from happening. If there's a problem with a sample or a problem with being framed or this or that, the union is there to protect players from that happening. Believe me, we didn't want D Gordon to miss 80 games as our leadoff hitter when we thought we had a chance to actually be good that year. It's the last thing we'd want. Oh, by the way, he was already signed to a guaranteed long-term contract.

Side note. Why did the union let A-Rod take a suspension without failing a drug test? So that is a longer story. Thank you, Billy. The A-Rod situation is what happened between him and Rob and what happened between him and all of the line that he did. And that's why A-Rod's been on the Reclamation Tour

ever since, where he is now pals with Rob and talks so highly of him and is now an owner himself, which is where he wanted to be and is rightfully so in one of the great deals of this century, getting the Timberwolves at, you know, just over a billion and a half dollars and it's worth over three. But I think it's pretty clear, A-Rod did steroids.

He admitted it. He lied about it. And then he did, if you, Billy Corbin, guy we work with, you know him, go watch the movie about what A-Rod did and what baseball did. It's pretty shocking, that's why he was suspended. That movie was excellent. The sound of D. Gordon is from the podcast, Raw Room.

I don't understand why you're saying I respect D. Gordon's truth when it's his truth and not the truth. Because it's, just because I was there in the room where it happened and I know exactly what happened. But you know it's not the truth, so why would you respect his truth when his truth is not the truth? Because I'm trying to be a better person.

I'm trying to not completely come down on someone who I love dearly when I don I don't understand and I like to get asked him Would you go to a funeral? Yes, really? I would go to D Gordon's you can we stop perpetuating this where people are entitled to their own facts You know the truth. Well, there's a universal truth. Someone's truth is always code for your life. That is not his truth It's a he is lying. Well, David wasn't in the room. People delude themselves every day. He wasn't in the room when the peepee man

was watching him hold his ding dong, and he did tell us that. I was not. Put it on the poll please, at Lebatard Show, if you hear the phrase, holding his ding dong to go peepee, is that ever coming from the mouth of someone 56 years old, or 57 years old, at Lebatard Show. These are gonna be funny polls to hear out loud. Couple polls today have been weird. the mouth of someone 56 years old, or 57 years old, at Levitard Show.

These are gonna be funny polls to hear out loud. Couple polls today have been weird. Can you take out an equity loan on your franchise the way that you can if your home gains value? Because Dan mentioned that the Cowboys were purchased for what, how many million, 150? 150 million. And now they might be the richest team in all of sports.

They have to be, right? What are the Cowboys worth? So can you- You don't be the richest team in all of sports. They have to be, right? What are the Cowboys worth? You don't mean the richest. You mean that they'd have the highest enterprise valuation of any team in sports? Yeah, sure, Dick. Just tell me, like, can you do that? My name is David, not Richard.

You know what? We should make a bet around here at some point where if you lose, you have to change the imaging of your show for a day to Dick Sampson. It's Dick Sampson's show. Just answer the question. So the answer is that you do actually, you do pledge part of your team and your team's revenues

to acquire debt, but teams are split in different ways. So there's different holding companies. So stay with me, it'll be quick two minutes. There's a holding company that has the franchise in it, and you do borrow money against the value of the franchise. And that is a league wide credit facility. Then you've got the league wide TV deals. All of that revenue is in another bucket,

and there's money borrowed against that stream of revenue. And then you've got the worth of the outside, the franchise outside your media revenue, the other things that the Cowboys do that has a worth and you borrow money against that. So you don't go to a bank and say, Hey, my team is worth $10 billion. So let me borrow $2 billion because I want to buy a yacht because it's already split up into different buckets that support the loans that the teams already have

both at the national level, which all teams share. And then individual teams have debt as well where they're using parts of their franchise, enterprise value to get those loans. Understood, easy to follow. Thank you for doing that. When teams cry poor and say, our franchise is losing money,

are those additional revenue streams, those loans, those credit pools taken into account? So it's the same, yes, it's the same thing with your house or with your life. If you need to borrow money and you take money out of your house, you have to pay interest on the money you borrow and you use the money that you borrow in order to pay other expenses or to live.

But part of the cost of living is the fact you have to pay interest on the money that you borrowed. So all of these teams have in their financial statements, a huge amount under the line debt service. And that is the amount of money that you owe to the banks who you have borrowed money for based on the value of the league and your franchise. As part of Pablo Torre finds out his ascent to the top of the podcast rankings, part of his library has the sporting class where John Skipper and David Sampson do a better job

of covering all business things than anyone i've heard anywhere in the space if you want more of that i suggest if you like your sports business i suggest that you find pablo torrey finds out in the sporting class which exists under its umbrella but i want to do a couple of things here with you before we continue david i want to get some thoughts from you on what happened with Colbert, but since you already mentioned that the biggest shocks of your life in baseball were number one, Jose Fernandez dying, and number two, D. Gordon testing positive for steroids.

Can we do a top five list with you of biggest shocks in your Marlins career that doesn't have number two and number one in it? Can we go five, four, three? I'll give you time to think, and we can go to Colbert first if this is all very confusing because the difficult math of this eludes you because you can't do some quick math

that doesn't favor the owners. Only math that favors the owners is the math that you can do. Number five, David. When John Carlos Stanton tweeted after the 2012 trade how angry he was. I was shocked that he would do that. Number four.

When Cliff Floyd claimed that we didn't tell him he was traded. Number three. When I discovered that the San Diego Padres had two sets of medical records. Do you want to elaborate on any of those stories? Well, they're all true stories. Number five, we traded a bunch of- It's your truth.

It is my truth and it happens to be true. You guys may remember when the Marlins made a big trade in 2012 that caused the end of my relationship with the Dan LeBattard show. And Jean-Carlo Stan Twitter was- Not the end of my relationship with the Dan LeBattard show and John Carlos Stan Twitter was not the end of it. Clear right now. Clearly dick.

Kiss truth. Stop calling me dick, Dan. I'm sorry. Dick Samson. David, Don LeBattard. We love you. We've got you. We've all got each other.

Let's go, right now. Stugats. 1, 2, 3, Brett. 1, 2, 3, Brett! This is the Don Lebatard show, with the Stugats. I can't remember what the tweet was, and I didn't know Twitter. I knew Twitter was around. I just wasn't on Twitter.

But Giancarlo had a one line tweet. And I then went up to him and I called him. We weren't in person. It was during, you know, the off season. And I asked him what was going on and he apologized not for the feeling, but for the way he expressed the feeling because it was the way he expressed the feeling because it was just so public and so immature and so ridiculous.

He was our leader in fact, he was gonna be a Hall of Fame superstar and it was just ridiculous. But we've talked obviously since that many times and Twitter can be a tough thing. In terms of Cliff Floyd, it was a joke. We traded Cliff Floyd and he claimed that he had a read about the trade from it got released in the media

that Cliff Floyd was being traded. But we called Cliff Floyd, but the guy doesn't answer his phone. And so what we had to do is we left a message. Did we actually speak to Cliff Floyd? If you put your head in the sand and pretend that you're not around and go into hibernation like Aaron Rodgers

and then say, oh my God, I had no idea. It's just a ridiculous position trying to make us look bad. And that bothered me greatly. I have an OLI, which I'll get to. Number three was AJ Preller. We made a trade with the Padres. And when you make a trade, you exchange medical records, trainers talk, doctors talk.

We found out, and we then rescinded the trade, that the San Diego Padres illegally keep two sets of medical records. One that they'll show to teams and one that are real. And they got in significant trouble for that. And it was the end of AJ Preller's ability to actually function in terms of dealing with the 29 other teams.

He is still in that position, which is shocking to everyone else in that position. Stanton's tweet after getting traded. All right, I'm pissed off, plain and simple. That was it. Mike Stanton. What is your- People don't remember that. it. Mike Stanton. What is your remember that he was Mike Stanton? What is your OLI?

Sorry. No, that's okay. He was Mike Stanton. He walked in one day when he was just trying to, you know, form his career and he said, David, I will now be Jean Carvalho. I said, okay, like you got to tell the union, you got to tell the commissioner's office because we got to change all your baseball cards and we got to change all the scoreboards. But now you're Jean Carlo. And it was he's been Jean Carlo ever since. If you have a

Mike Stanton card from when he was young, that may be a valuable piece of collectible if you can find one of those. What is your OLI on being shocked while president of the Marlins? I was blown away at the reaction when when we did something. There was a franchise swap that happened when I first got to Florida. And there was a writer here that none of you know anymore, because he's totally irrelevant. His name is Mike Berardino. What do you say?

And he did a he did an article that was the cover of Baseball America that said that I stole facts machines from Montreal and I was just shocked at the level of irresponsible journalism that that was. And the absolute BS it was and the source he had was a guy we didn't bring with us from Montreal who was just full of sour grapes and vitriol and lies. I was shocked.

That was his truth. Do you know how much shock there has to be in your life for there to be a controversy in which someone is making up that you have on recording David Sampson saying all sorts of things that are racist and awful and it was all made up and it is not on his list of times that he was shocked as the Marlins president. I want to play some sound for you here.

A lot of people were waiting for Jon Stewart last night. I imagine the Daily Show did great ratings last night. And off of the news that Trump is suing Fox News, I want to play just an assortment of sounds from John Stewart's show last night. Donald Trump is suing Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, the man other than Biden, maybe most responsible for getting Trump elected.

Fox! Yeah, yeah, I f***ing snuck that in there. Fox spends 24 hours a day blowing Trump and it's not enough. Imagine suing someone mid-blow. Let's play some other Jon Stewart sound. I don't know how David Sampson thinks or feels about the idea that Colbert might have been let go for reasons other than strictly financial reasons as Paramount has claimed.

Let's listen to some more Jon Stewart. I understand the corporate fear. I understand the fear that you and your advertisers have with $8 billion at stake. But understand this, truly. The shows that you now seek to cancel, censor, and control, a not insignificant portion of that $8 billion value came from those f***ing shows. That's what made you that money. Shows that say something, shows that take a stand,

shows that are unafraid, and not to believe me, this is not a, we speak truth to power, we don't, we speak opinions to television cameras, but we try, we f***ing try every night. And if you believe as corporations or as networks, you can make yourselves so innocuous that you can serve a gruel so flavorless that you will never again be on the boy king's radar, A, why will anyone watch you and you are wrong? I have one more sound I want to play, but you're shaking your head. So go ahead.

I, it's just, I look at that clip and I just think it's so sad. It's like someone doing a commercial for typewriters when the computer's coming out or it's like the national news people, six 30 and 11 30 used to mean something. I grant you that it doesn't anymore. That's life. I'm 6.30 and 11.30 used to mean something. I grant you that, it doesn't anymore. That's life, I'm sorry, times have changed.

It's a new world out there. The late night shows the juice is not worth the squeeze anymore. It's fun, like it's artsy, it's opinionated, it's smart, except people don't care anymore and the cost just isn't right. And when you're looking at a merger, you merge because you are trying to find economies of scale.

You're trying to find savings. You're trying to pay down debt. You're trying to improve and increase the worth of the shares of stock that you own as one of the hosts of the shows. Guess what? The reason why your stock stinks is because they're losing so much money on doing something that used to be cool It's not cool to be the 630 National News anchor because no one gets their news that way anymore It's not cool. It used to be believe me. I grew up on Letterman. It's not cool to have the 1130 show anymore

It's not a 20 million dollar position. It's not a hundred100 million cost expense. It's way easier. Let me ask John Stewart this and Stephen Colbert. Or you can keep your job, then we're gonna lay off 10,000 people who when we add them up don't make what you make. Your choice, but we're gonna find the cut somewhere and we're finding it in the area of irrelevance. That's the reality of what happened.

Okay, I wanna get into this with you. I will say that I've seen some of the reporting on this and it's a little difficult because I don't know what reporting is true or not and I don't know what numbers are true or not so I have heard that that show had 200 employees that's accurate Colbert himself has said that and that they were losing allegedly 40 million dollars a year and also that CBS owns Colbert's building so it's a substantive piece of real estate that they can also sell if they're just

selling parts but you believe that the statement is real that paramount says that everything that happened there even local bear was accusing them on monday of a big fat taking a big fat bribe on their platform you believe that that's a strictly financial decision, strictly financial. They didn't mention late nights dying. The decision to make cuts in the middle of this merger negotiation has been going on not for a day, a week or a month, but it's going on for over a year. Yeah, but this week was the first time that Colbert accused them of taking a big fat bribe

and last week was the first time that the FCC met with Skydance's CEO. Not true. Not true. That is not true. This merger has been in play for over a year. There have been meetings and anticipatory documents about how do we get this approved. That's what mergers do, both sides of the merger. And as for what you're saying about just discovering, Stephen Colbert has been against Trump.

He's been doing it since the beginning. All of a sudden, because he's talked about bribes. Yeah, but big fat bribe happened this week. Accusing on their platform a big fat bribe, that happened three days before he was fired. People on platforms go against the platform. You made a living going against the platform. A big fat bribe, a big fat bribe. I living going against the platform. A big fat bribe.

I never accused ESPN of taking a big fat bribe. Yeah, you're a metal art because of what eventually became too much. I did not get fired by Disney. The times changed. The company changed. The country changed. We did not change.

But that's it. You did accuse them of cowardice. That's a mic drop. Exactly, the country's changed. Times have changed. I didn't get fired for country's changed I didn't get fired for accusing them I didn't get fired for accusing them of cowardice and I also don't have nearly the power ratings or money that Colbert has You may not have gotten fired for that, but it was certainly a contributing factor. I haven't lived it like I didn't get fired Okay, understood

And I'm not saying you got fired What I'm saying is there was a separation that is how MetalArk started that you were agreeing to. You were a part of that separation. I didn't get fired. Colbert got fired and he didn't even get the offer of would you like to do a scaled down show. And I understand what David is doing right now. It's hard to ignore the timing on this.

It was pretty instantaneous. It's suspicious. Especially after they actually agreed to this settlement and look 60 minutes you could hold them up as an example They were very critical of its parent company and so far We haven't seen the punitive measures, but we may not know those actual punitive measures that may have all been handled But 60 minutes wasn't making jokes and 60 Minutes wasn't offering opinions. Did the head of 60 Minutes also resign? Yeah, there was that too. There was.

Yeah, so David, you mentioned it's a dying time slot, but we just saw, what John Stewart said about these are not small shows, these are shows where they built their valuation on, South Park just got $1.5 billion from Paramount for a five-year streaming deal. So I don't know how much value you put on that property, but if South Park alone for just a five-year streaming deal is worth $1.5 billion, you could say the Late Show as a brand is worth several hundreds of millions of dollars if not touching the B-word. thing for The Daily Show, if you include their entire archive. Pretty soon, with just those three properties,

you're getting close to $8 billion in worth. So you're not touching little small properties that are fiscally irresponsible. You are directly impacting your $8 billion merger. Well, actually, if those properties are losing money for you, then you don't make it up on scale. You can't make the argument that, hey, we only lose a dollar a unit,

let's just make more units. Bullshit, you made $2 billion on a franchise that was constantly crying poor and losing money. And what? Who are you talking about, the Marlins? Yeah, I'm talking about the Marlins. You can absolutely make a big time profit on properties that lose money hand over fist. You cried poor every year.

But that was his truth. But you're talking about something that you can actually value with outstanding shares. The Marlins were a private company. There's a public market with paramount. I'm not sure I understand the comparison where you just add up the number of outstanding shares time the share price. Then you look at what the liquidation value would be of the assets and you say, wait a minute, is this trading above or below what would be, you know, liquidation value?

And you go and you, when you're making cuts, I've had friends who have been fired from CBS Paramount during the last merger. And the reason why is you're looking to cut expenses. And when you look at late night, you would say, hey, by the way, Mike, there are people getting paid $20 million. Tony Romo got what, 17 million a year to call NFL games,

3 million less than Colbert doing way less work because there is way more money in NFL than there is in late night. There is a different mix now of how that money happens and how it gets generated that is not related at all to how it was built. And what John Stewart is saying is, hey, we were part of why we're successful.

Okay, that's great, but it's not anymore. Therefore, we gotta move on. That's just business. We're gonna run out of time here for your review because we have to make time for would you attend their funeral. So give me the music right now. Yes, the happy music. We're going to run out of time here for your review because we have to make time for Would You Attend Their Funeral. So give me the music right now. Yes, the happy music.

["Would You Attend Their Funeral?" by David Samson plays.] David Samson, would you attend Chris Coughlin's funeral? I just was talking about him with my son because he was like, oh yeah, the rookie of the year? No, I would not. That was quick. Would you attend Marcel Ozuna's funeral? Ozuna the Braves.

Hi, I'm Ozuna the Braves. Do you have a camera in my house? The answer is that in South Florida, if he died young, tragically, I would go to his funeral because but if he dies as an old man, like in his 70s let's say and I'm still alive I would not what about 58 if he's 58 that would make me in my late 70s I probably would go Craig Minervini no I like no I do like him but I clearly I just feel like his funeral won't be interesting to me. I love his brother. I love you, Craig, but no, I will not even send flowers to that.

I don't even know who I'd send a note to. Maybe his ex-wife. I would send a note to. God damn, man. That seemed like a shot. What if he died with D Gordon and you would attend D's, you then would not attend Craig Minervini's they wouldn't do it separate would you attend. No they do a question a day apart it was the same incident you would attend one you same city one same people would be there at the second one you would say no I'm not it's the same you can get a hotel near there now listen when you've got multiple deaths you gotta stagger the funerals because

with one took us you can only be at one dance. So if you stagger the funeral times and Minervini and Gordon died together in an accident, and both are South Florida funerals, though DI soon would be in California, I wouldn't fly cross country. I'd choose LA and then not come back. I'd visit my daughter. But if they were in the same cemetery one day apart,

I'd do it. Visit my daughter. Oh, two birds, multitasking. We gotta let him go there after we get the Holy Trinity, right? We already got ding dong and pee pee and he closes with the punctuation of tookas, ladies and gentlemen. David seems to-

People gotta die for you to visit your daughters. Crazy David. Nothing personal if you want his truth every day. Two hours a day now, double the David, double the dick. See you later, Samson. Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe He's a good time to remember where tequila's story truly began. In 1795, Curo invented tequila. Cuervo. What are you doing here? Quervo. Anytime someone says Quervo, I show up. Well, I do know that to be true, but even during ad reads, like... Quervo. I think you could lay out, especially for one of our great partners.

Sweet, delicious Quervo. Since then, Quervo has stayed true to its roots. The same family, the same land, the same passion. Quervo. So, enjoy the tequila that started it all. Quervo. Quervo. The tequila that invented tequila.

Proximo. Quervo.com. Please drink responsibly. Quervo.