The Press Box - Bernie the Front-runner, Chris Matthews, and Wilder-Fury | The Press Box

Episode Date: February 25, 2020

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker look at Bernie Sanders’s big win in Nevada (03:00), the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week (28:00), an unfortunate analogy from MSNBC’s Chris Matthews (31:00), Anderson Cooper's grilling of Rod Blagojevich (50:30), the Deontay Wilder–Tyson Fury fight (55:00), and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. David, Bernie Sanders won the Nevada caucuses on Saturday. What I want to know is, what piece of journalism were you most excited to read before you actually even read it? Oh, God. I mean, I guess first on my agenda is always like,

hate reading, whatever Jonathan Chait or the occasional Andrew Sullivan gets cranked out. out on New Yorkmag.com. Yeah, that's from the con side, right? Well, there's a little bit of, you know, like guilty pleasure and all that stuff. I mean, honestly, I think it's just a race to see who he was going to drop a, drop a, you know, Hitler reference first. But, and thankfully, Chris Matthews came in off the top rope, but did that right away.

What's your answer? Hmm, we'll get that. Yeah, we'll get to him later. Yeah, I think I was looking for, like, any former member of Deadspins tweets. Oh, yeah. after the Bernie victory. That didn't disappoint. Late era Gawker,

the Gawker Empire in general, but yes, absolutely. Yeah, that was big. I'm trying to think, just any weirdo to sort of wandering into the Democratic primary, like any sports media person who didn't quite know. I mean, that's also a big hit

and has been a big hit all the way through. I guess there's some obvious ones like Chopo, you know, a couple of, you know, victory dances there. But, but yeah, to me,

to me, the real gold is anybody. you didn't know had a really strong opinion about Bernie Sanders? Yes, yes. In either direction. But all of a sudden, yeah. Yeah, they're kind of flushed out of the woodwork, right? And guess what?

We may have like nine more months of this to go. Yeah. I mean, this may not be the end. We are the pained Brett Stevens grimace of media podcast. This is the press box. Part of the Ringer podcast network. Hello media consumers. Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here.

Lots and lots to get to today. We'll talk about MSNBC's Chris Matthews and his unfortunate Nazi analogy. We'll talk about Anderson Cooper grilling Rod Blagojevich. We'll talk about Saturday's heavyweight championship fight and boxing's place in the 2020 media universe. All that plus the overworked Twitter joke of the week. But David, we've got to start with Bernie Sanders, particularly the idea that Bernie Sanders is the front runner for the Democratic. nomination. As Nikki Fink used to say, told you. On Saturday, Sanders dominated the Nevada caucuses. If you measure by the way people showed up to vote, the so-called first alignment,

Sanders nearly doubled runner-up Joe Biden's total, 34% to 18%. If you measure by county convention delegates, it's actually a much bigger blowout. Bernie 47, Biden 21, everyone else below 15%. Polling God, Nate Silver tweets, the basic takeaway here is that it's Bernie's nomination to lose. Here's the sound of a Democratic socialist exulting in Texas this weekend. You've turned on the TV and some of the folks in the corporate media are getting a little bit nervous. And they say, you know, Bernie can't be Trump. So let's look at some of the polls out today, which are, which by the way, are not. inconsistent with many, many other polls. Nothing special. General elections, CBS, Sanders 47, Trump 44.

In the key battleground states, Michigan, Sanders 48, Trump 41. In Wisconsin, Sanders 46, Trump 44. In Pennsylvania, Sanders 47, Trump 45. Last poll I saw, I think we were tied in Florida. I think we're going to beat them there as well. You know, we've talked a lot in this, in this campaign season about who's occupying whose lane, whether it's like moderates who are taking up airspace from their fellow moderates or people like Bloomberg jump in and sort of take an existing lane. Bernie just drove headlong into, I guess, what would normally be Joe Biden's electability lane just then.

That's the case that he is going to, I mean, that's obviously a sure fire sign that he's, feeling his oath that he sees a path and congratulations to him for that. I think maybe more importantly than that, that's the argument he has to make going forward. If he's going to win he's got a lot of people to convince along the way no matter how many of these caucuses or primaries end up in his favor.

Absolutely. There's I think a whole bunch of Democrats out there who are like, I can live with Bernie Sanders position on the issues. What worries me is that he's going to lose to Trump, which is why you see the site of Bernie Sanders reading poll numbers, which is not something that's happened a bunch in this election. Nope. You know, that's my next front. By the way, another way to convince people is to win overwhelmingly in a place like Nevada, which has a diverse electorate, which was not set up for you in the way that Iowa and New Hampshire were supposedly set up for you.

And you go in there and you just kick everybody's ass. I actually want to spend a second here with you marveling at how we got to Bernie is the frontrunner. Because I don't think we should race past this and look at South Carolina quite so fast. We have enough political media out in the world, enough great reporters, enough free access basically or near free access to all these people, that when people complain, the media totally missed this. the media the why isn't the media reporting this they're almost always wrong all that said two months ago if we had surveyed the professional political reporter class or let's let's let's even back date to three months ago i don't think we would have found a ton of people who would have had us right here at this point with bernie at the frontrunner i i i really don't

And to the extent I talked to people offline, it was people making those same arguments, reporters making those same arguments. Oh, he's topped out at 25%. He's got this big core of people, but he won't be able to grow that. He's going to fall to the wayside as soon as someone else emerges. And one of these centrists finally walks out of the thing. None of that has happened yet. And now we're talking about the fact that Bernie Sanders could get to Super Tuesday. and amass this giant war chest of delegates and he'll be basically unbeatable.

So how did we, and we'll lump us in with people, because I'm not sure we were calling this shot more than a couple of weeks ago, but how did we not see Bernie Sanders coming, do you think? Well, put me on the spot there, why don't you? I think that there are a lot of reasons. I think most of them boil down to, I mean, really, even though those of us who are sympathetic to Bernie's politics and to, and, and who appreciate him as a politician, I think, I think it's not, you know, what, what that group among us suffered from is not too different from some of the mainstream uncertainty being directed at Bernie Sanders right now, which is that like he doesn't seem like a traditional political winner, right? I mean, at least on the national, on the, on the, on the national. stage. You know, there's also a long tradition of, of, you know, John McCain's aside, of, you know, people getting their one shot.

And if you, you know, you miss it, the second time doesn't always end up a lot better. But honestly, I just think that with the combination of the prevalence of electability and the sort of conventional wisdom in that direction. And then I think Elizabeth Warren probably played a big role in. in it too, that if you were just trying to make these very base electability arguments and, you know, leaning with all your weight on conventional wisdom, you could point at her and say, well, she's got a lot of the politics, but, you know, not the same sort of personality baggage, I guess, that Bernie Sanders has.

Yeah, I think that's all mixed in there. I think also there's just two, I'm guessing, and again, this would take a full diagnostic. So I'm not sure, I'm not sure I can say it with any certainty. But I'm guessing if reporters were talking to, Democratic Party regulars to strategists to people on the rival campaigns over most of 2019. They weren't finding a lot of Democrats who were telling them, hey, Bernie Sanders could win this thing. That's true. They just weren't.

And you know what? If you're hearing that over and over again, it's really hard to go out on your own and write that article if you don't have people telling you that. That's not to say that reporters aren't smart, that they believe whether they're being spun in some kind of way. but there's just a sense that I don't think they were, I don't think they were getting those vibes because I don't think Democrats, rank and file Democrats, believe that could happen. And, you know,

at some point reporters can only go as far as people will tell them unless you want to really totally go off road on your own. And I think that trickled. I really do think that trickled into the thinking. It really did. Sure. I mean, I think that we've said,

over and over again. But a lot of these, you know, a lot of political strategists, a lot of even the biggest names, the campaign managers for super successful campaigns, you know, they don't, there's not a lot of them with multiple hit singles, you know, I mean, they usually have their one season in the sun and then, and then it's, you know, best case scenario is foreign elections or CNN, you know? I mean, it's, but I will say that, I will say that there's you know so I mean a lot of the people if you if you look for wisdom from people who have like done done well in previous campaigns you might not get the wisdom that you're looking for but what wisdom there was to be gleaned from four years ago I think has largely been ignored which is one that what Bernie Sanders was able to do while being like repeatedly kneecapped from all directions was really really impressive and not just in terms of running toe to toe with a gimmee nominee like hill

Clinton, but as we've said a million times, just changing the discussion, right? I mean, this is the 2020, the 2019-2020-2020 Democratic primary is being fought on a battlefield on terms that Bernie Sanders established four years ago. And that, and even separating it from Bernie Sanders, Bernie and Donald Trump don't necessarily have a lot in common. But if you're going to learn, if you're going to draw any overarching lesson from the Donald Trump campaign, that's at all applicable to Democrats, then you have to point at Bernie Sanders and say he has

some of what Donald Trump what made Donald Trump work. And it's In the broad outlines of an insurgent can come in who's not a member of the party per se and rally people who not only share his ideas but are

suspicious of the party, right? Suspicious of the Democrats, just like Trump supporters, in a very different way, but in the same broad sense that Republican Trump supporters were suspicious of the Republican Party, excuse me, and get the nomination. And that's what's happening here. Yeah, I mean, and you don't have to, I mean, it's not, it's not crazy, especially, I mean, Trump was elected and we saw the sort of wave a little before and after him of leaders in other

countries who are, who are sort of ideologically similar to Trump, either getting elected or making much more of an impression than I think people would have assumed they would. And, you know, there's other, I mean, there's, there's, there's, there's, else to Bernie Sanders all over the world too. I think that's, I think that, you know, you don't have to look much past the Labor Party in the UK to see that this sort of movement is really, really feasible in the, you know, in current year. And it's just a harder argument to make. And it's not, again, not a knock on the reporters who are reporting. But at some point when you hear that, you know, every single Democratic candidate has a real shot and you write out a

five thousand word piece about it, then it does seem like the slice of pie that Bernie Sanders is going to be able to get is smaller and smaller each time, right? I mean, when you're, when you are through the best of intentions and with the best of research, like imagining a, you know, a Castro or a Klobuchar presidency, then it does seem like Bernie Sanders might top out at 20 or 25 percent, right? But, but that's just not the way that politics is working right now. No, and, and, you know, again, I think a lot of things had to happen for us to get to this point, which is one, nobody had to emerge from that giant muck of other. candidates. You had to have, you know, a couple of things happened like various candidates

that are blowing themselves up or getting blown up at various points along the line. But again, every candidate just plays the hand they're dealt. That's what it is. Yeah. And I mean, at some point also you have to look and say, I mean, listen, Joe Biden didn't get, didn't wash out of this election based specifically on missteps he had made. A lot of it is based on the politics of Joe Biden. And sure, I mean, things that he said brought those into relief. But at some point, you have to say, you know, maybe we're dealing with either a more informed or more or a differently informed electorate at the bare minimum and voters who are able to look past a consensus frontrunner and actually, you know, pick a candidate based on what they see as the merits.

Sure. No, absolutely. There's this great piece and we'll put it on the on the Twitter account, the press box Twitter account called from December. Gabriel Deben Dede in New York Magazine wrote a piece called why aren't rival candidates attacking Bernie Sanders? And if you want a time capsule of Democratic thinking about Bernie a couple of months ago, I can't recommend anything better. And he and Gabe, to his great credit, gets at this idea of what was happening. But there's a couple things happening here. One is the Bernie people were complaining, as they usually do, about a media blackout. We're not being covered like the other candidates. You could also make the case that that blackout allowed him to do burning things, right?

Yeah. To gather his forces and not have the scrutiny that some of these other candidates did from his rivals, that is. There's also this sense that you have candidates in the piece saying, look, if we criticize Bernie Sanders, we're just going to make a bunch of people mad that aren't going to vote for us anyway. So we're just going to stay away because that supports over there in the corner, you know, and there's just no, there's no sense in it, so we're just going to do it. Again, ignoring that Bernie's base could be much bigger than a little portion of the Democratic electorate over there. And then finally, this paragraph, which I thought was so great, to establishment-minded Democrats concerned about Sanders's staying power,

it all adds up to an unsatisfying strategy of weight and hope. One senior Democratic strategist insisted to me that if it started to look like Sanders could actually win next year, it'll be like oh shit and it'll take care of itself the rest of the party the strategist said would just coalesce behind another candidate he just wasn't sure which one here we are here we are I mean I said it I think I said it like less than a week ago but like this is this is the lesson of this should be the lesson of Ted Cruz from four years ago he said he was going to like hug Trump and all the Trump supporters until the last minute and we saw how

that worked out Yeah, and it's the lesson of every primary. The plan of I'm going to lose a bunch of primaries and then magically win all the rest of them. It never works. No. It never works. And if you're spotting Bernie three wins and let's call Iowa, you know, a tie or a co-win. And then he's just going to start losing all the rest of the primary?

Can we call this the Eli Manning theory of politics that you somehow just like lose the first seven of the first. seven of the first eight games of the season and then somehow end up winning a Super Bowl and an MVP. It's, it just doesn't ever happen. There are no Eli Mannings in this field. I can say that. Let's set up what's going to happen next because this is fascinating.

As I said, almost every candidate in this field had a debate that was devoted to taking them down a pick. Biden had one. Warren had one. Buda judge had one. Even Bloomberg got one last week. Bernie has not had that debate.

That debate will almost certainly have. on Tuesday night. Yeah. In South Carolina, in advance of the next primary, 8 p.m. CBS, Nora O'Donnell, Gail King, and a cast of thousands

handling the questioning. I'm interested, David, in, if you're another Democratic candidate, you are desperate to do something about this, and time is running out. What's the best argument you can make against Bernie at this point? I think you referred to a second ago

that making ideological arguments about him gets a little scary because he would say all that Medicare for all that's just too much you know are you really going to convince anybody with that especially at this point to me the best argument or I'd say that one of the most likelihood of success against Bernie and maybe it's too late for this was

Bernie is too risky of a bet to beat Trump you've got to beat Trump beating Trump is absolutely is 100% the goal here we cannot have a second term for X, Y and Z reasons and Bernie's just too risky a bet. Is that still the best argument or is there something else on missing? I mean, I think it's really hard when you have numbers,

when you have polls that you can look at right now. I don't think that it's, I don't think that in a vacuum it's a bad argument. Well, let me say this. I don't think that maybe if the polls were less consistent, I don't think it's a bad argument necessarily. But it'd be hard for, you know, Joe Biden to make that argument when Bernie can just say, listen, for the first like, you know, for the first two months of your campaign, your entire campaign was look at the polls, you know?

I mean, and now you're going to take that, now you're going to say that doesn't count? I think that separate from that, it is a kind of risky argument because it's giving, I mean, I just feel like it's not separate from polls. It's just, it's just theoretical. And it seems like, I just feel like it's one of those, it's one of those calculations that, that almost gives the person you're attacking too much credit, you know? It's like, it's like, it's like, you know, telling somebody that, you know, that bad boy is just not good enough for you to date or something, you know, I mean, it's, it's like, it's like, it's like, you know, telling somebody that, that, you know, I mean, it's just, I feel like it just turns people in that direction. It just, it focuses too much on the person. And I don't know that there's any validity to it. I don't know that any, I'll just say this. I don't know that anybody up there on stage can make the argument that they are a less

risky proposition. This concept that there's going to be, you know, millions of Americans that stay home on election day because of a ingrained aversion to socialism is fine in theory. but I'm just not sure that we've actually seen that borne out in any in any contemporary contest. Yeah. And I think if you were going to make that argument, you probably needed to make it in October. Because as soon as Bernie started winning primaries and caucuses, it began to wipe away. Oh, Bernie can't win.

Well, he just won. Yeah. And I think just won something. I know it's not the general election, but he just won. And you're telling me the guy who finished fourth or third. is a better bet than the guy who finished first? It's a lot like Donald Trump four years ago in the sense that one of the biggest mistakes that the other Republicans made was just to like tolerate him on stage.

And I don't mean that they should necessarily done backroom dealing to get him excise from the debates, although, you know, a little bit shocking that nobody went that route. But to treat him at all like a like a contender, I think just, you know, validated him. And I think to the extent that Bernie has been a really impressive and really steady force on every debate stage so far sort of just takes all the water out. I mean, all the intensity out of a he's too risky sort of argument. You know, I mean, what's the, how could that work? Treating him not only like a contender, but a very admirable idealogue, right? Elizabeth Warren isn't leveling with you about how to pay for a health care plan. Bernie over there,

at least that guy tells the truth. Yeah. Still one, I think one of the biggest moments in this primary race was that was the takeout Warren debate in the fall when she had that brief blip at the top of the polls when everybody pointed at Bernie and said well that at least that guy is leveling with you at least he's at least he's committed to the bit now I will see the effect after the heart attack after the aOC endorsement of propping up Bernie Sanders and I think to the signaling to the rest of Democratic electorate hey

you know you might not you might not love all his ideas but at least he's an honest man I will say this. We saw the Castro Cuba opo dump or whatever that was that kind of leaked out today with Bernie Sanders saying, yes, we... It's on 60 minutes. Oh, that's where it was. Okay. So, yes, you know, Castro is bad and we don't agree with his totalitarianism or what have you. But like, you know, sometimes you got to look at the fact that he had a great education policy or whatever, a literacy program and say, that's a thing that absent everything else is a positive. Now, in some ways, just... Just as I've been saying that the anti-Bernie talking heads on TV need to come out and say the thing that they're just like implying because I do not know what the hell it is. We'll get to Chris Matthews in a minute. That's its own segment. That's its own segment. But just in the same way, if you're going to make the risky argument, I honestly, I think you just, I think you have to have the guts to say, hey, listen, we've done the APO research on Bernie Sanders. We know that Trump will do it also. And here's what we have. have. You can, and if there's actual meat to it, then like, let that affect the election. But don't let it be

the sort of vague, like, oh, who knows what will come out. I think I have a pretty good sure, pretty good idea that like, you know, the Biden campaign knows what knows what's going to come out in so much as it's knowable right now. So you think you're saying it's going to be left-wing dictator week? Yes. I mean, I remember. Cuba, Soviet Union, Nicaragua, you know, look at, look at what Bernie said about all these various kinds of If the stuff doesn't exist, then maybe it's, and then certainly it's more, it's more potent to, like, just allude to it. But if there's stuff out there and, you know, there's every reason to believe that there's more stuff like this that, I mean, I mean, and I'm not saying that should sway an election. But if there's more stuff out there that you think's disqualifying, then bring it out. One more note before we move on here. This, in this morning's New York Times, that is Monday's New York Times, is a piece by Sydney, Ember, and Jonathan Martin about Bernie's next step. Bernie is not just playing for Super Tuesday. that is to do well in Texas and California and all those big states.

He's trying to win the South Carolina primary on Saturday. He wants to take Joe Biden out right now, right? He's, according to Amber and Martin, he's up with ads in every media market in South Carolina, scheduling new rallies as we speak. We talk about the debate Tuesday night in South Carolina. And then on Super Tuesday, he's going to go to Massachusetts to see if he can beat Warren there. and he's going to go to Minnesota

to see if he can beat Amy Klobuchar. So Bernie is not in consolidate my high 20s, low 30s, whatever it is, portion of the Democratic electorate. He's in, I'm going to take out all my opponents, right? I want to end this thing as soon as humanly possible. Yeah, I mean, this is the barnstorming tour, right? I mean, he's just going to go take on all local comers

and hopefully he'll be the champion standing at the end. I think that it's, you know, Massachusetts and Minnesota, notwithstanding. I mean, South Carolina is hugely pivotal for him. The all-important South Carolina primary as somebody is inevitably writing right now. I mean, Nevada was an incredibly impressive win, not just the win, but the way that he did it. He got black votes. You know, he got the Latino vote. He managed to take on the most powerful union in the state and win nonetheless. less, right? I mean, the culinary union was supposed to be the decider, and they went up directly against Bernie Sanders in the weeks prior to the election. Now, I don't think at this point in South

Carolina he needs to win the African American vote. I think the bar is actually lower. I mean, I think he just has to win some of the African American vote. You know, I mean, if he has, if he has, you know, anything resembling a, I mean, a piece of it that looks like the rest of his victory, I think that he can make the case that, you know, it's all smooth sailing from here. But the way that he wins is going to be really pivotal there because not just for the campaign, not just for the campaign solvency of Joe Biden, I have no idea how long he can stay in, even with the South Carolina win. But the way that the campaign is going to be written about going forward is going to have a lot to do with his performance there.

If he underperforms with the African-American vote, if he comes in two, like if he does, win the state if Joe Biden, you know, trounces him or whatever. I mean, there's a million ways, there's a million ways where this can be spun as the end of the Sanders campaign, despite the fact that he'll still be in the lead. Oh, in Deli count and in states and whatever else. So it's, that, that state is really, really important for him. The other two, I think that if you win South Carolina, the other two will, will, you know, be imminently winnable. But they're sort of gravy, all things can, you know, all things considered. Yeah, I mean, South Carolina, the stakes are huge.

Like you said, for the rest of the field, it's just trying to just stop the burning momentum in any way they can. And then for Biden, it just simply must win. You know, that's that's all over if he doesn't win. But if for Bernie, the possibilities of winning, right, you won in the Midwest, you won in the Northeast. You won in the West. Now you win in the South, right? Again, what's the argument within the Democratic Party about Bernie Sanders at that point? What's the argument?

I don't hear it. I don't know. So debate on Tuesday. We'll cover that on Friday's press box and then primary Saturday. We'll cover that next week. Ride along and observe the revolution with us. All right, David, time for the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always gratefully received.

In baseball news, a fan showed up at the Houston Astros spring training game. in Florida with a sign that said Houston Asterisks Houston asterisk because of the whole cheating scandal. According to ESPN Stefano Fasaro, the sign was then confiscated by stadium security. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write

you'd think the Astros might want to stay away from stealing signs. Thanks to Alex Peterson, blue shirts breakaway and Charles prior the third. Speaking of baseball, an absolutely crazy story in the athletic by Andrew Baggerly and Zach Buchanan,

they discovered that Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Madison Bumgarner has secretly competed in team roping rodeo events under the alias Mason Saunders. This is true. It was an upward Twitter joke to compare

Bumgarner to Ron Swanson moonlighting as Duke Silver on Parks and Rec. Thanks to, to Josh Peterson. You and I are pretty obsessed with aliases, especially aliases that sound like they've been ripped from a bad pulp novel. Where does Mason Saunders stack up? As someone who's like named a baby with the not too distant past, it's pretty amazing that we live in a country now. We're like Mason Saunders isn't under the radar name. But that's that's just, you know, that's America 2020, guys. I think if I was glancing at the rodeo results in the act. of the back of the sports page. I'm not sure Mason Saunders would stand out to me at all.

I think I just nod my head and go, of course he won the cutting horse competition. All right, David, finally in celebrity endorsement news, the Wall Street Journal asked Clint Eastwood what he thought of Donald Trump. Eastwood replied, The best thing we could do is just get Mike Bloomberg in there.

It was an overwork Twitter joke to write Eastwood, a man who once debated an empty chair, has endorsed Bloomberg, a man who could probably only win a debate against an empty chair. Thanks to Ryan Scott. If you reminded us of a moment in politics that seemed wacky in 2012, but actually seems fairly middle of the road right now. Congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right, David, in the notebook dump. On Saturday afternoon, when it became clear Bernie Sanders was the.

winner in Nevada, MSNBC's Brian Williams went to the only man who could possibly help us make sense of it all. That's right, our platinum blonde centra supernova, Mr. Chris Matthews. He got nowhere near. Bernie on the other hand did his job. He got more than a majority, more than a majority of that 67%. That is the name of the game. It is pretty much over unless that changes. I was reading last night, Brian. I know you're a history guy too. I'm reading last night, about the fall of France in the summer of 1940. And the general, Renault, calls up Churchill and says, it's over.

And Churchill says, how can it be? You've got the greatest army in Europe. How can it be over? He said, it's over. So I had that suppressed feeling. I can't be as wild as Carville, but he is damn smart. And I think he's damn right on this one.

Joy. Oh, man, I was going to make a joke about how Chris Matthews sounded like another dictator or something. But instead, I just want to really hone in on the greatest part of that line, which was, I know you're a history guy too. That's just like the, that's just like being out with coworkers and being like, Brian, I know you're really going to love this joke before I just say something really off color, you know? I mean, it's, in politics and in media, we have been politics in particular right now. We're obsessed with candidates who are like living up to their, what their typecast as. Chris Matthews has has just.

outdone himself with being with like it's like people weren't making making enough fun or paying enough attention to chris matthews inanity over the past three or four months and so he just decided to double down and it is it is just mind-blowing it is i know that they're out there just like spewing stream of consciousness bullshit for hours at a time on these election nights but i mean Chris Matthews, man. I was going to say you had one job. I mean, it really does seem like watching MSNBC. It doesn't seem like they have plenty of people

whose job it is to pour cold water on the Bernie Sanders campaign. Chris Matthews kind of gets to go out there and freelance a little bit, but this is freelancing taken to such an unconscionable extreme. I don't even know what to say about it. I mean, I feel like at a bare minimum, at least like everybody noticed this time.

You know, I mean, at least Twitter. Yeah. I mean, he's, this, this would be a sad way for Chris Matthews to go out, man. But this was, this was a, I mean, I don't know, I haven't heard any follow up, but this seems like the sort of, the sort of faux pa to put it lightly that is just sort of hard to recover from. Can we alight on one thing he said there? Was he really reading about this last night? Chris, Chris Matthews was in Las Vegas.

So he's sitting in his hotel at the Belagio or wherever Before a noon caucus the next day Reading World War II History Like that was that was the Not just not just you know Reading talking points memo or something Well

I mean yeah I mean do you think that's in his in his like writer that when he shows up At the MSNBC hotel he expects like a like the collected works of like Antony Beavore to be there or something like I don't Like that would that would not surprise me, frankly. But that would be hilarious. All the David McCullough volume so I can just look for it. I mean, you say this would be a bad way to go out. It would also be the most perfect way to go out for Chris Matthews.

Yeah. Because he is Bartlett's famous quotations made flesh, right? Nothing excites him more than coming up with this telling remark from the Cold War slash World War II slash the founding of America that explains this to us. And you can see him in that in that clip. He's thinking of this. I got this quote. It's over.

And I'm going to, I'm going to take the viewer and I'm going to get him there and it's going to be amazing. He just forgets it. It's about the Nazis. You know, and it's also just really random. You know, it's like,

okay. And I've never seen, you know, and I know we all, you know, kind of climbing our high horse, but the amount of indignation for this, even outside Sanders world,

Ian Sams, who was the press secretary for Kamala Harris, says, I've worked on two primary campaigns against Bernie Sanders, but comparing his campaign to Nazis or communist regimes is so beyond the pale and absurd, people need it to get it together. Communications Director for Sanders. Mike Kaskis has never thought part of my job would be pleading with a national news network to stop likening the campaign of a Jewish presidential candidate whose family was wiped out by the Nazis to the Third Reich. But here we are. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and this is, I mean, I don't. know that anybody's made the defense of Chris Matthews, that he might not have known that that Sanders family, uh, I mean, died in the Holocaust, but that's exactly why you don't make these sort of just assonine comparisons ever, ever. I mean, it's just, it's so beyond the point. I mean, if you're reaching back that foreign history to try to make a cogent point about where we are right now, you've already lost. I mean, it's like, you've, I mean, you're already not making

any sense to anybody paying attention to you. I don't care how much history, how much of a history guy you're talking to. I mean, it's just, it's just despicable. Keith Olberman, Chris Matthews' former partner at MSNBC, had this great line where he said, there is a sense at times that we're always joining Chris Matthews already in progress. Which pretty bucks explains it. We knew he was like this. Yeah. But his essential Chris Matthewsness, David, I think has multiple sub-basements, all of which are telling about the current state of cable news. And I wrote a few them down and I want to list them and just jump in wherever you want.

Number one to understand this. Chris Matthews and Bernie Sanders. Chris Matthews is rich, right? Yeah. Chris Matthews is a Democrat, but Chris Matthews is a rich Democrat. Yeah. Important to remember whenever we see people running down Bernie Sanders or, again, or trying to compliment them by coming up with these zany analogies.

Yeah. And something we don't mention, right? It's true. And Chris Matthews has a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of, you know, blue-collar affect and blue-collar background to, you know, to his presentation. But yeah, I mean, Chris Matthews is more so than anybody else that you see on television, Washington, D.C. royalty. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Maybe the one thing you know about Chris Matthews is that his wife is more famous than he is in D.C. And his wife was for years the NBC Nightly News anchor in Washington, D.C. And they are royalty around there. I mean, there is no. There is no. there is no higher echelon than the Matthews is. And so Rich almost doesn't do it justice. But yes, in terms of in the Bernie Sanders conversation, wealth is incredibly important. Number two, and I guess this is partially in his defense, Matthews is a Tip O'Neill, Jimmy Carter, end of the Cold War centrist, right?

That's his lane when we talk about lanes. If you need proof, listen to this Matthews sound by from earlier this month after the pre-pre, primary debate in New Hampshire, the other voices you're going to hear are Joy Reed and Chris Hayes of MSNBC. I have my own views of the word socialist, and I'll be glad to tell them, share them with you in private. And they go back to the early 1950s. I have an attitude about them.

I remember the Cold War. I have an attitude towards Castro. I believe if Castro and the Reds had won the Cold War, there were executions in Central Park, and I might have been one of the ones getting executed. And certain other people would be there cheering, okay? So I have a problem with people who took the other side. I don't know who Bernie supports over these years. I don't know what he means by social.

One week it's Denmark. We're going to be like Denmark. Okay, that's harmless. That's basically a capitalist country with a lot of good social welfare programs. Denmark is harmless. Pretty clearly in the Denmark category, yeah. How do you know? Did he tell you that?

Well, I mean, that's what he says and that's what his agenda calls for, right? He's not calling for any. Let's see. Let's see. Let's figure that one out. But we haven't seen a campaign yet where, video of him praising the other version. Right. It will be used.

That's the question of how... Of how, what the effect that has? What does he think of Castro? That's a great question. What did you think of Fidel Ismo? We all thought he was great when he first... I could be cheering like man for him when he first went in. And then he became a communist and started shooting every one of his enemies.

Okay. All those thoughts on the Cuban Revolution. He's all about to think. I have to go back to the spin room and Democratic presidential candidate. Sorry, Chris. We only do Cuban Revolution talk on Casey Hunt. on the weekend here. We just,

you just hold that for another time. There is a sense like a lot of guys of his generation, David, and I'm stealing a little bit here from a tweet from Connor Rowe Southerd, where you've been told

you were the good liberal, right? Yeah. You've been told that and all of a sudden the world changes, the center of gravity of the party moves to the left, and all of a sudden, you're not that guy anymore. And you act out, right?

We've seen this happen a hundred times in American life. And to me, Chris Matthews is he is the archetypal, I used to be a liberal guy on cable news. Yeah, I think that I think that's right. I think that it's not just that you are the good liberal, but it's also being told you were right over and over again for a couple of decades. You know, it's not just specifically the Cold War centrist, but the post. Cold War Centrist too. I mean, anyone that, that, you know, happily identified as a centrist, which is a fine thing to be, but a lot of those, a lot of those, a lot of the people who fall in that category and have major podiums in the media landscape today who are over a certain age

are just overwhelmed by this sort of negativity at this point, right? I mean, the sort of, it's, you don't have to look much farther than, you know, I don't know, I mean, the front pages of, or any op-ed page to see people who just, you know, seem like disaffected by the fact that everything that rolls off their tongue isn't true anymore or isn't isn't celebrated as genius anymore. And, you know, it's, it's tough for them, but it's, the, the landscape has changed and comparing people to Nazis, less, it need to be said, comparing people to Nazis is, is not the, uh, the appropriate way forward. I don't think. I'm glad you said age, because that brings us to number three on my list. Chris Matthews is,

Act is a product of the demographics of cable news. Oh, yeah. Much like newspapers, cable news is built to cater to an audience of mostly old people, right? So Chris Matthews ranting about the Nazis or Cuba or Tip O'Neill. That's not intended for you and me.

That's for grandpa, right? That's who watches these shows, right? So Chris Matthews is like the young buck, you know, he's the, He's the, he's the, you know, even, even the young people on, on cable news are to borrow a line from Michael Gensley, an old person's idea of a young person for the most part. That, that enriches or surrounds or even inspires the Chris Matthews we know on TV. Number four, David, don't underestimate how everything Chris Matthews does can be explained by career anxiety. Yeah.

There's a great Mark Leibovic piece in the York Times Magazine from 2008 that I tweeted over the weekend. and when Leibovic wrote about Matthews, he was on edge because he was seen as a lesser light to Oberman to Tim Russert, even David Gregory back in that. Remember that time? Well, fast forward to now. He's been outflanked career wise by Brian Williams, Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes. The list could go on and on. And, you know, when I see Matthews going there,

I see a guy who's like, what's my role here? Yeah. You know, what's my corner on MSNBC? I know I'm going to lean into this role even more than I already was tempted to. That's interesting. I mean, the Chris Matthews Keith Oberman days were interesting for any number of reasons. But I have vivid memories of them sort of sitting side by side on these election nights. And it was sort of like, Oberman, we just talked about this recently.

The Oberman was sort of in the director's chair. You know, Oberman was the play-by-play guy, but they put Chris Matthews next to him. It's sort of like when Terry Bradshaw kind of got the new Fox contract and got to start doing like the highlight packages every once in a while. It's like they put Chris Matthews there and didn't tell him that he was in the number two chair. They just let him believe he was in the number one chair because he was sitting right in the middle, but they just sort of like secretly tipped the cameras towards Keith Oberman, you know,

when Matthew wasn't paying attention. And then you're right now. I mean, he's been. I mean, he's been laughed, and I don't know that that's through any, like, fault of his own. But, you know, now they just bring him on for these segments. You know, I mean, he's not, he's not, he's not always up front and center. And, you know, frankly, it's, it's sort of amazing to watch Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes, who are certainly as political as he is, if not more, but, you know, they're able to kind of call these events down the middle

in a way that Chris Matthews finds himself incapable of doing. Yeah. Well, they talk about politics in a different way, right? They talk about politics in this kind of Ezra Klein, wonky, you know, it's about the bigger values. It's about things bigger than who's up

and who's down the way that we reward now. And Chris Matthews talks about it in the old way. And probably so, I think. You know, he's about, you know, again, he's about telling stories about Tip O'Neill, cutting deals and all the stuff like that that that's his way of thinking yeah and he just seems so different i also think and i don't again i don't i don't want to exonerate him too much but he's somebody who's out here actually having opinions about things where you see maddow and hayes and all

these people pretty much being you know straining to be as open as they can to all the candidates right they're not they may criticize they may they may say well this isn't working or that's not working or whatever, but he is trying to stake out ideological territory on MSNBC, which a lot of people on that network aren't. And that's interesting, too. There was an interview on MSNBC with an non-Geredaeratis. I hope I said his name right. He was on with Joy Reid, talking about how Bernie Sanders' victories required everyone to open

their minds. Think about politics differently. Then he gets around to MSNBC's own. pundits. What is happening? What is happening? This is a moment for curiosity in America. I think about this network, which I love, which you love. And I think we have to look within also. Why is a lobbyist for Uber and Mark Zuckerberg on the air many nights explaining a political revolution to us? Why is Chris Matthews on this air talking about the victory of Bernie Sanders who had kin murdered in the Holocaust and analogizing it to the Nazi conquest of France.

The people who are stuck in an old way of thinking in 20th century frameworks in Gulag thinking are missing what is going on. It is time for all of us to step up, rethink and understand the dawn of what may be frankly a new era in American life. Wow. That was the first time I heard that the audio clip of that. I'd read the text and that was, I think, really profound. Listen, MSNBC probably in no small part due to the fact that the Nevada caucus happened on a Saturday and, you know, viewership was going to be down and whatever else.

They didn't present an evening with the normal electoral fanfare they sometimes do. But the fallout from that, I think, was that we had a remarkably like interesting beyond the Chris Matthews segment, I mean, beyond the Chris Matthews section of the evening, a remarkably like vital, new, interesting and diverse. set of voices on MSNBC and um erie melbers i mean rie melbers panel i mean in arie melbourne has an incredible he's like half born to be uh an anchor and half like whatever the opposite of that is it's just he has an it's there's there's a sort of like discomfort that comes like exactly exactly yeah chris hays is sort of settled into his role a little bit and arie melbourne still has a little bit of like there's a there's a certain like i don't know i have a little bit of a slight anxiety watching him but he's incredibly compelling in his way but he was up there with jolani cobb and i mean and a couple

other people who are both very i mean just the conversation just seemed so much smarter and more humane than sometimes we're used to seeing on these shows and uh it's a great place to eavesdrop on the conversation that's happening within the democratic party right now as bernie continues to win and you know if if you're if we can use that analogy chris matthews evese's is, you know, your distant relative who's banging on the table at the far end. And then at the other end of the table, you're having this nuanced, interesting discussion. How do Bernie's values and the values of the Democratic Party, as they have traditionally been, at least as expressed through their presidential nominees, how do they match up? It's fascinating.

Yeah, I'll just say one thing on the way out. Well, two things. One is, I mean, I think that this will probably be talking about this again when we're back on later this week because, I mean, probably we'd be able to be able to be able to be able to be. to talk about it at like 505 Eastern tonight. After Chris Matthews goes on the air, we'll know a lot more about, you know, whatever's next in this conversation is. And the other part is that it is possible that Chris Matthews did, ironically did a great service to the Democratic Party because I think that clip that you played is exactly right.

There are a lot of people who consider them, themselves good Democrats who were sort of maybe befuddled by the Sanders campaign or by the Sanders surge or by his popularity. These are the people that we sort of talk about all the time. And it's time. I mean, it really is a moment for the power establishment, however you want to define that, to kind of reconsider where they stand or reconsider what they believe to be true. They believe to be absolute. Because, you know, if the next several months are, I mean, a squabble in the Democratic party in the party, it's going to be, it's going to be a cluster fuck. I mean, it's just going to be a mess. And you can oppose Bernie Sanders. Please, by all means, if you are,

if you are ideologically opposed to everything that he stands for, get up and say it out loud. But don't just like, obliquely compare him to Nazis. I mean, that's just not going to accomplish anything except burning the party down. And it's just, I just, I just hope it doesn't end up that direction. It's the least, it's the least you could ask really. You know, don't, don't subtly compare them. By the way, that's, tweet earlier about an Uber and Zuckerberg was a former Obama campaign chairman David Pluff. Now with beard and appearing regularly on MSNBC. Let's talk a little bit about Anderson Cooper, David, because on Thursday's press box,

you and I were constructing our dream cable news lineup. And we said, God, wouldn't it be great to have a host who wasn't just a quarterback who was actually capable of opining and telling us what's what occasionally. Well, Anderson Cooper obviously listens to the press box because he got a hold of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, who sentenced Trump just commuted on Friday. Blagojevich, speaking of terrible analogies, compared himself to a Nelson Mandela-style political prisoner. And thus, we got what media critics like to call a heated exchange. Let him have it, Anderson Cooper.

I hope one day, maybe you'll join me in the fight. to reform our criminal justice system and actually do something about the problem of over sentencing blacks and Latinos. Right. I learned that when I was there. Okay. What's sad is that you hadn't actually learned that when you mattered, when you actually were the governor.

You talk about working for the criminal justice reform. There's a lot of people in Chicago. There's a lot of people in Illinois who actually like spit up when you say that because when you were actually in power and when you were actually governor and you could have helped thousands of people with clemency cases, you blew it off. The governor after you inherited

a huge backlog, nearly 3,000 clemency petitions that you failed to review. In fact, you were sued as governor by Cabrini Green legal aid to try and pressure you to actually pay attention to clemency cases instead of extorting people for money and campaign contributions. So it's a little ironic and frankly a little sad and pathetic and hypocritical. You talking about, you know, commuting, getting a, you get a commutation of a sentence, which is within the president's right. but you ignored a whole hell of a lot of other people

who are hoping you might give them clemency when you actually matter. So actually, you know what? I'm happy to, there wasn't a question, it was a statement. I'd be happy to work with people on criminal justice reform, but I wouldn't work with you. Okay, can I answer that statement and question? Okay, I'll like address that.

Look. We'll go ahead, imagine. Are you, can I get in here after I've just been dragged? on cable TV. Oh my God. I think my favorite part was when Cooper started with, it's a little bit ironic and then just immediately elevated it to sad, pathetic, and hypocritical.

Yes, amazing stuff. In searching for the right word, you just keep going further and further down until you find, like, the shoe that fits or whatever. It's just, it was just so bad. I mean, and every moment of that interview was amazing. I mean, like any sound bite that we played would have been better than the last. It's just, I mean, Rod Blagoivich is a, is a, is a, is a, is treated as a comical figure, uh, to such a and frankly, I think most, most television hosts would probably treat him as such if he, if he, if he had come on. Cudos to Anderson Cooper for actually like, engaging with him in all

his terribleness, uh, in real time in front of, I mean, for us all to see. And if you saw the clip, Cooper's face, it looked really genuinely hurt. Like, it's somewhere, between very angry and very hurt, you know, just a very different mode for him. Like he just, it wasn't just look at this guy, you know, but, but I'm, I'm genuinely upset by the tail you are spitting on my air. Let's do a little more sad because I, I just got, this will run for. Oh, yes, let's do it. This was, this was the, this was the coup de grace, Anderson Cooper and Rod Blagojevich. Governor Blagojevich, I do wish you the best.

I really, I'm glad for your family that you're out. I don't know, by the way, you were asking me questions. I'm sorry, I appreciate you having me out. But just honestly, I just, look, I have no problem with you getting out. I think, you know, the president can be whoever he wants. I just think I wish, you know, you're besmirching prosecutors who actually, who are no longer in government, but, you know, prosecutors are important in our system, and you are going after the very basis of our justice system,

which has plenty of problems. But part of the thing is you got out, you do have an obligation to at least admit what you did wrong. And you refuse to do that. And you're creating a whole new alternate universe of facts. And that may be big in politics today, but it's still, frankly, just bullshit. David, I've got a great segue.

Let's talk about the heavyweight championship of the world. Thank you. Great work. We had an event Saturday night that makes every sports writer sound like somebody working in the 40s with a fedora. Deonté Wilder, who's from Alabama, was dominated by Tyson Fury, who's from the UK.

The fight was finally stopped by Wilder's corner in the seventh round. Two quick thoughts for you. Number one, I know the XFL, the Spring Football League, is sort of self-consciously weird in this TV-friendly way. Sure. I'm watching the match on Saturday night. boxing is weird like that times one billion Tyson Fury comes down to the ring

and if you haven't seen this on Twitter please go look it up immediately dressed like a king with a crown and a robe on a platform pushed by women to the sounds of Patsy Klein's song Crazy Everything in that sentence I just said is true Because we all know how great sports For a S anthem when we hear one, Patsy Klein's crazy. Wilder came to the ring dressed like one of the rejected members of the watchman.

I mean, it's like, what in the hell was that? And what a thing to wear to the ring right before you get dominated and came out in a weird Halloween costume? Fury, after his victory, grabs the mic and sings American Pie. Yes, the Don McLean American Pie from the ring with the crowd. Wow. You're a connoisseur of wrestling, but wow, man, that was something. I know. I mean, watching the entrance, I was like, you know, making plans to, you know, make King Haku jokes until the cows came home today, but I don't think any of that would have done it justice. It was just so immensely weird. I have, first my old man thought about this. I mean, official, I don't know if boxing cards have changed or I've just officially reached the age where like this stuff just had to be. I have. happens too late for me. I mean, every, but there were,

the younger contingent in the ringer office out here on the East Coast was, like, fell asleep before the match started. And I, I, I remember the days

when I could stay up for boxing main events. Usually it was like, you know, the plan was just keep drinking beers until somebody tells me it's time to go turn on the TV.

But, this was, this happened in the, like, the wee hours of the night. I know the West Coast matters, but geez, like,

they got to do something about that. Anyway, enough old man, carping about this. Because part of this, I mean, my other big thought, and I borrow from

Ringer, Matt Dondor on this account, there's a great old man aspect to the media coverage of this. I love that every time there's a major boxing fight, particularly in the heavyweight realm. But any fight really,

any big, big, big fight really counts where we just all agree to pretend that boxing matters for like 45 minutes. Boxing is back for the 20th consecutive year.

It's, I mean, this was a huge fight and it was a great time to watch it on replay. And it was, you know, and the engagement of it was, I guess nothing lasts that long in the, you know, media atmosphere right in this, in this day and age. But, you know, this was the biggest fight that the heavyweight car, the heavyweight realm had to offer us in, you know, and it probably will for another decade. And it was worth the attention that it got. But we're going to all go back to covering like, you know, you. you know, NFL off-season rumors tomorrow or today already. And it's kind of amazing, the energy that we put into this boxing, you know, to boxing only to forget about it immediately thereafter.

Yeah. I mean, boxing definitely is at a higher level than it was when it bottomed out a few decades ago. It is, it is in a more respectable literary tier of sports writing for sure. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And happily, and for me, happily so, because I did enjoy watching the fight. you're absolutely right that though that there is this kind of self-conscious conversation about the sports place in the universe whenever we have a big boxing match if you thought the NBA conversation was self-conscious about the NBA's place in the sporting world you you ain't seen nothing yet watch a boxing

match because it's like it's like the NBA conversation on steroids it's really incredible and that and by the way it's okay I love I point down 80 bucks for that fight. Really enjoy. I don't think I'm going to put it on an expense account. I don't think. But I enjoyed it. But you know what? I'm not going to put down 80 bucks next week. It's going to, it's going to take a couple of years. All right. Time for David Schumacher. Guess is a strain pun headline. Oh, okay. There we go. Tuesday's headline about the rebuilding of the LA Clippers was a tankless task. Everybody on Twitter, David, told us it should have been thanks, but no tanks, which is, I believe.

that is better. That is fantastic. Yes. I'm sorry I didn't get there. That is amazing. This week's headline comes from Evan Bretzman. It's from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. You'll recognize this type of newspaper story, David, which amounts to nice local thing happened. Okay? Or nice thing happened locally.

In this case, the nice local thing was the Midwinter Folk Music Festival. Oh my gosh. Okay. The festival featured an accordion. Okay? It's a person pictured playing the accordion.

Imagine you are a newspaper editor and you want to put a nice smiley punny headline atop the picture of the man playing the accordion. What was the Minneapolis Star Tribune's strained pun headline?

Wait, am I using accordion? Because I have some good ones for folk. Oh, please. No, I think it's more of a New York Times like arts and leisure section look to say like, but seriously colon folk. I mean, do you think that would work? That's very good. Different strokes for different folk or something. I think that'd be good too. So. Different folk for different folks. Yeah. So accordion. Is it like accordion, like of one's own accordion? Something like that. Let me start you off here. It all went.

According, accordion, accordion to plan. It all went accordion to plan. All right. That's great. I agree with you, though. By the way, folk music was, you know, facing its annihilation or something. That's all folk. Yeah.

Fantastic. Yeah. There's a lot of ways to go there. He is David Chewmaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Research by Erica Zervantes and Chris Almeida, production magic by Jim Cunningham. We're back Friday with more lukewarm takes about the media

and the South Carolina debate. See you then, David. See you later, Ryan. Yeah. I want to end this thing as soon as humanly possible. Fantastic. Late night. See you later, Ryan.