The Press Box - Biden the Dust | The Press Box

Episode Date: June 21, 2019

The Joe Biden-Cory Booker apology feud (03:00), the “Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week” (15:30), the nation’s first Donald Trump non-endorsement (17:45), “Listener Mail” (32:45), and more. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. It's Liz Kelly, the co-host of Tea Time. Your favorite celebrity and pop culture podcasts have moved out of Channel 33 and into their very own feed called Ringer Dish. On Ringer Dish, you can still listen to Jam session on Wednesdays and Tea Time on Fridays and will be launching a brand new show that will publish every Monday. Episodes so far have included a heated debate on which celebrity Chris reign Supreme and a social media deep dive on the Big Little Lies cast. So to hear more about the royal family and our current celebrity. Obsessions, subscribe to Ring Your Dish on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. David, Corey Booker demanded that Joe Biden apologize for comments about segregationists this week. And then Biden demanded that Booker apologize for asking him to apologize. What I want to know is, David, are there any apologies you'd like to demand today?

This is, as we record this, this is the NBA draft day. The NBA is in full swing at the ringer HQ. and I would like to formally request an apology from our own Kevin O'Connor for just teasing me into thinking the Mavericks might be signing Al Horford. Let's see. What apologies do we need? Can we demand an apology for Biden for committing more gaffes than we have weekly episodes of the press box to catalog them? It's never going to end.

It's never going to end. We are the sorriest media podcast. This is the press box, a part of the ringer podcast network. Hello Media Consumers, Brian Curtis, and D. David Shoemaker of the Ringer here. Lots of stuff to get to on today's show. We have the nation's first Donald Trump non-endorsement. We have a new and emerging type of journalism that's infecting the nation's websites.

And we have Texas news, plus the overworked Twitter joke of the week and much more. But David, back to Joe Biden and the segregationists. What we got this week, I think, was yet another appearance of defiant Biden. You know defiant Biden by now. It's the Biden who says, people know what's in my heart. no matter what incredibly dumb thing just came out of my mouth. And before we get to the guts of the story, just listen to Biden when he was asked if he needed to apologize to Cory Booker,

one of his opponents in the Democratic primary. Are you going to apologize? I apologize for what? Cory Booker's called for it. Corey should apologize. He knows better. If not a racist bone of my body, I've been involved in civil rights my whole career, period, period, period, period. Note careful listeners there.

We'll hear Biden's press person trying to cut off questions before. Then Biden delivers the singular soundbite that anybody paid attention to. This all goes back to Tuesday when Biden was at a fundraiser in New York. He was doing his, I'm going to charm the Republicans into working with me a bit. And he talked about a couple of segregationists he'd served with in the U.S. Senate back in the 70s, James Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia. and by the way, congrats to every journalist in America

who read the Wikipedia pages of James Eastland and Herman Talmage this week. Don't pretend you knew that much about those guys. Don't pretend. Biden's remarks were, we didn't agree on much of anything. This is according to the AP.

Called Talmadge one of the meanest guys I ever knew and said Eastland used to call Biden's son. Son, we're going to pass some legislation today. Yet even in the Senate, Biden said, there at least was some civility. We got things done. And there, David, is one of the great magic words of politics. Civility.

Sevility. Eastland and Talmadge were civil in the Senate with Biden, which is what Biden is saying is important, even as they were uncivil to all their African American constituents. Yeah. I mean, I'm not quite sure you can attribute civility. I mean, I guess we all know that we've all said things about people like, well, you know, you might have a lot of bad things to say about him, but he's never been anything nice to me. And I can only judge him by my personal interaction. But I think that kind of goes out the window when someone's like a professed segregationist, right? I mean, it doesn't really matter how they treat you.

I think there's other, there's other material to be brought into the equation. I mean, listen, yes, we do know what was in his heart. we know that Joe Biden is not aligning himself with the segregationist cause. We do know that Joe Biden, I mean, we can all accept that Joe Biden was trying to make a point about working together to pass, I mean, in governance, despite enormous chasms in ideology or philosophy or whatever else. We know what was in his heart. We don't know what was in his head. And I think that's, you know, turned into the functional, I mean, the never-ending question. about Joe Biden in his quicksotic presidential campaign.

I say quicksotic. He's the front runner in a lot of polls and he came out of the gates. It sure feels quixotic with every mistake, but yes. But yeah, if this were anybody but Joe Biden, and by the way, if it were Joe Biden himself minus eight years as vice president to Barack Obama, I mean, we know what that looks like. It's Joe Biden when he ran before. You know, it is quixotic. It's just like it's the most bizarre person running, I mean, to run for higher office

that you could put that you could imagine except for the fact that he had this. Really significant eight-year run as vice president. We know what's in his heart, but in a way, that's what scares me is what's in his heart. Because he's running on bipartisanship and civility and national healing and appealing to our better angels. One of the funniest details about this was the New York Times piece in which Biden's advisor said, no, no, no. When you named Republicans you worked with, you were supposed to name John McCain and Bob Dole. You weren't supposed to pick the segregationists. You were supposed to pick the guys who kind of had that kind of nice bipartisan sheen on them.

And there are a lot of Democrats who would say, but that's not what we need either. Because one, that was an imaginary time long ago when politics was a lot different than it is today. Yes. When the parties were a lot more scrambled, when Mitch McConnell was not running the Senate, et cetera, et cetera. But also just like, that is just a very odd thing to be your defining characteristic. at this moment. And that's obviously what he wants more than anything is to, you know, use, you know, cool Joe, Joe cool, Mr. persona to somehow convince everybody to work together. I just, it's, it's an amazing, by the way, an amazing lesson to take from the Obama administration

is that you can charm, you can appeal to the better angels of Republicans to work together. Wasn't the lesson of the Obama administration the opposite lesson that that doesn't work? I mean, that was the lesson, but the philosophy of pretending that it was possible never really went out the window, right? I mean, that putting up a front of civility, I think was sort of their operating, you know, they're operating philosophy throughout the, you know, even until the bitter end, even when it's clear that was never going to work with a few notable examples. I mean, listen, far be it for me to give campaign advice, political advice. advice to anybody who's been doing this their entire lives or entire careers. But, I mean, it makes some amount of sense for Joe Biden to be running as a frontrunner, right? I mean, he has certainly the resume, as we've discussed, but also, I mean, the best thing he has going

for him is the presumption of victory. And so I, so I understand, I understand why Joe Biden is in a, in a general way running a general election campaign, right? To act like you're above the fray, to act like it's a given you're going to be taking on Trump. These things make sense. But this is the wrong kind of general election, the wrong sort of general election move to make, right? To act, I mean, to talk about civility at a time. It's talking about healing the nation at a time when your opponent is not Donald Trump.

Your opponent are these other 20 Democrats circling around you. And what he did was, we talked last week, how are they going to go at each other? What are they going to, how are they going to attack Biden? Now are they going to attack Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren. He has just teed up the easiest attack line on him and the most inoffensive one to the Democratic electorate. Right? I mean, this is the biggest gift that he could have possibly given the other Democrats running for the presidency. Absolutely.

Because it takes something that's hard to attack, which is bipartisanship. And it coats it in this, you know, racism and segregation. And it's like, how could you. you possibly want to be bipartisan and reach across the aisle if this is your idea of bipartisanship? Absolutely. Let's recount some of the attacks. Cory Booker, we mentioned demanded he apologized. Bill de Blasio running his presidential campaign in relative obscurity says,

James Eastland literally thought my wife and I should not have the legal right to marry, that those children should not exist and our children should not be on this earth. Beto O'Rourke said that Biden completely ignores a legacy of slavery and the active suppression of African American and communities of color right now. And last but certainly not least, here is California Senator Kamala Harris. I have a great deal of respect for Vice President Biden. He's done very good work and he has served our country in a very noble way. But to coddle the reputations of segregationists, of people who, if they had their way, I would literally not be standing here as a member of the United States Senate is, I think it's just, it's misnomerate.

informed and it's wrong. Did you apologize for that? He's going to have to make that decision. But, you know, let's be very clear that the senators that he is speaking of with such adoration are individuals who made and built their reputation on segregation. The Ku Klux Klan celebrated the election of one of them. I think the other thing that Biden is changing our minds about, maybe our minds were already changed, but he's certainly clarifying it, is that Senate guy is.

not a great candidate for president. And here's what I mean by Senate guy. It's that guy who's all about the pomp and collegiality of the Senate, somebody who has that long record. We've already talked about multiple times how Biden's long record in government is actually a hindrance for him in a campaign rather than a help. But also a person who his entire reputation was sort of built on, I'm one of these go along, get along guys. I believe in ceremony. I believe in the nobility of the Senate itself. These people have lost presidential campaigns pretty regularly. We mentioned John McCain and Bob Dole, both lost presidential campaigns. People like Barack Obama were in the Senate for five seconds. People like George Bush, you know, were never, you know,

never had that kind of thing. Hillary Clinton, who's Senate record came back to haunt her in two different presidential elections, even though she wasn't in the Senate all that long. I just, I just think he has, in a weird way, he is actually focusing attention on that body and on the way that body used to operate. Yeah. And has almost, you know, sort of ruled it out as something you can put easily on your resume and say, this is the reason to elect me. Yeah. I mean, listen, it's not that, it's not that dissimilar to the discussion of sort of the glorious ideals of the Senate versus the glorious ideals of, like, journalism, you know? I mean, the approval rating for either of those things in just some vague way.

is got to be rock bottom, just because you can produce a cool looking black and white photo of, you know, what it was like back in the 50s. That, I mean, that doesn't mean that anybody has any nostalgia for that, you know, and I think quite the opposite. And you're right. I mean, it goes against, it's not an argument that anybody's interested in hearing. And just like, and you made the point that it, that this gives them, this gives Biden's, you know, opponents a way to attack.

to go after civility, which was this kind of this vague, unimpeachable thing up until this point. It also opens him up to, I mean, every flaw with the Biden campaign that was sort of, you couldn't get a handle on before is now something you can just take a swing at. If you want to make the point that he's an inarticulate, idiotic, misspeaking candidate that's going to be a problem in the general election, you can make that point now because of what he just said, you know, you can make the point that I think is, you know, it might be still a little bit treacherous, but you can make the argument that he has, this huge blind spot in a very real way to the liberal mission, right?

I mean, the fact that he would say that is all you need to know about him. Someone can say that. And I think, and we keep coming around to this and who knows how much it matters. But the age issue is an issue that's going to keep coming up. And when your argument for how you're going to reform the government revolves around some sepia-toned memory with, like, you know, PBS documentary violins playing in the background, it just underscores the fact that you're a really old dude. an old white dude who does not, who has, I mean, you're out there just like pumping your fist. It doesn't matter. If all of your references are from the dark ages, then people are going to,

all they're going to be thinking about is how old you are. I do. That is exactly right. Because his opponents can't say he's too old to be president. But they can say he comes from this now bygone political age that is not right for now. That has no relevance to what we're doing now and should be left. back in the 1970s. I did also like this piece that was co-written by Mark Murray, who is the senior political director

of NBC News, and more importantly, a Texas Longhorn. He talks about the same day Biden was muttering about segregationists. Donald Trump was once again refusing to apologize for everything he did

with the Central Park 5. Republicans, with Republicans, nobody cared about what Trump said. But when Biden did his bit, his own party, dogpiled it. And it's that sort of asymmetry of outrage, as Murray calls it, that is going to be a big factor in this campaign. It was very similar with Hillary Clinton too, that Biden is not going to be given tons of slack by his own allies, whereas Trump is going to be given, you know, basically an infinite amount. By the way, this just absolutely sharpens the issues for next week's debates. speaking of well-timed gifts,

we talk about how it gives them a way to attack Biden. Well, guess what? They're going to be on stage. This is like the minor fisticuffs at the way in. I mean, this gives us something to look forward to in the debates next week. This is the shove, the performance of shove, and then we're ready, now we're ready for the main event. We are contractually obligated to remind you that next week,

we are doing live press box episodes Wednesday and Thursday night. After the Democratic debates, turn down your music. at the Eric Swalwell Victory Party and please join us. We'll be there. 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. I asked listeners to please send their nominees to at the press box pod where they will be gratefully received. David, here's a tweet from the publication of The Hill.

Broadway play about Hillary Clinton is closing early due to low ticket sales. This is the, this is the, the rather improbable Broadway play. Yeah, it was an overwork Twitter joke to write. They should have advertised in Wisconsin. Thanks to Matthew Zitland for that one.

That joke will never end, by the way. I think that's going to take us past 2020. Remember when Donald Trump misspelled Prince of Wales on Twitter the other day? Spelling whales like the oceanic mammal? Yeah. It was a terrible, terrible, terrible, but extremely widespread, read overworked Twitter joke to say, do you think at the real Donald Trump

typed that on porpoise? Again, I do not. I'm not endorsing it, but it was out there. Thanks to Augie Hayes for that one. That's great. And David, we got tons of stuff from the Toronto Raptors victory celebration. Kauai Leonard and Pals won the NBA title last week

and celebrated this week with a parade through the streets of Toronto. Dave Mulherne, avid listener, notes that it was an overwork Twitter joke to write, board man gets parade. Not paid. Board man gets parade. And by the way, that was used by the ringer account.

And we believe in intellectual honesty here at the press box. And we hold, we hold ourselves to account on overworked Twitter jokes just like anyone else. Pat bull down, he's not getting away with anything here. Anyway, thanks today for that one. And finally, this one came from the ringer's own Donnie Kwok. one of the subplots of the NBA finals

was that Guard Jeremy Lynn won a ring with the Raptors despite playing in only one game in the NBA finals and not taking a single shot so played in one game in garbage time did not take a shot but isn't Jeremy Lynn is an NBA champion

as Donnie notes it was an overwork Twitter joke to write for all the years of Asians having to do all the work in a group project no one should be giving Jeremy Lynn crap for becoming an NBA champion. All right David time for the notebook dump this week Donald Trump kicked off his re-election campaign in Orlando, Florida, with some rhetoric like this.

I want to make clear to the media, we have among the cleanest and sharpest crystal clean. You've heard me say it. I went crystal clean. Air and water anywhere on earth. If we have about three or four empty seats, the fake news will say headlines. He didn't fill up the arena. Do you notice there when he was talking about the quality of the air? He said, we have the sharpest air. He started to say that. I had to back off that adjective. So we need to decide, David, if this move was thirsty or brilliant or possibly both.

Because as Donald Trump was ready to kick off his campaign in Orlando, the Orlando Sentinel, a paper near and dear to the heart of the ringer's very own Kevin Clark, decided to file its presidential endorsement or non-enesternation. or non-endorsement. The headline was our Orlando Sentinel endorsement for president in 2020, not Donald Trump. The paper wrote, Some readers will wonder how we could possibly eliminate a candidate so far before an election and before knowing the identity of his opponent,

because there's no point to pretending we would ever recommend that readers vote for Trump after two and a half years. We've seen enough. So the opinions editor of the Orlando Sentinel, Mike Lafferty, was trying to explain this calculus, David. And he essentially says, okay, we're not endorsing Trump, but that is no guarantee

that we will actually endorse the Democrat. We might not. And so I love this because there's all these like scenarios here where the Sentinel does not endorse Trump, but also doesn't endorse the Democratic nominee. I mean, can't you see the kind of lame, okay, we cannot support the president, but we can also not support nominee Bernie Sanders.

So therefore, take a pass on this one. Or Lafferty also held out the idea that maybe they would support Mitt Romney if he ran in the very unlikely event. He was going to run against Trump in the primary. So I like this. We're ruling out Trump. But we've got about like four or five scenarios where we don't endorse the Democrat. The Sentinel has endorsed Hillary Clinton but did not endorse any Democratic nominees from 1950. to 2004.

In other news, David, we've talked on this here podcast about the journalistic postmortem for the X-Men movie Dark Phoenix. And since then, we've gotten how to go wrong pieces about men in black international and the Houston rocket season.

Yes, yes. Which dissolved into acrimony in a second round playoff lost. And any journalists listening to that will sense the necessary three examples for a trend piece. Yes. I'd like to inaugurate a segment called David's Assignment Desk.

Take it away, David. First of all, I just want to give a shout out to Sean Fennessey. I'm doing this for you, man. As soon as we got three deep, and actually I think it was four deep because a couple of the last few came at the same time, I thought, this feels like a Brian Curtis piece. And then Brian Curtis went on the Bill Simmons podcast

and just spoke life to the piece. You and Bill went on there and you talked about this subject. you talked about how crazy it is that it's just it feels like within 36 hours after every just large scale failure that there's a lengthy piece with many many mostly anonymous sources explaining how everything went wrong and listen we're about to see we're about to fall backwards into another barrage of them when we have to read you know 6,000 words on how the nicks offseason went to shit or whichever other team is and it is it is

that comes up empty this in this NBA off season, although I'm just going to assume it's the next. And, you know, with the way the summer movies have been going, I don't think there's any end of those either. I feel like this is a perfect piece. You can take movie to them. You can take the NBA. You put those two things together with the magical pin of Brian Curtis.

This is a perfect ringer piece. You got to write this. First of all, I want to clarify something. If I had tweeted that out, then I would have gotten the note from the editor saying, Hey, is this a piece? Is this a piece? You just tweet out. But I feel if you speak it on a podcast, then you basically already written.

So that was totally strategic on my part. So maybe instead of maybe. It's gone. It's done. It's been filed. It's trending on Twitter. It's over. Yeah.

It's a very strategic. Just a small thing for journalists. Don't tweet your ideas. Just speak them on a podcast. And then you'll be, you'll be absolved of writing. No, I do think this is interesting because I've sort of made. fun of this for a long time where the sports writer waits until

the season is over or the free agent walks out the door and then unloads all this stuff that's been happening. And I always like to call that a now they tell us piece. Yeah, then now they tell us. Yeah, then now they tell us. And it's interesting because some of it is totally self-interest. The writer is saying, okay, once Kyrie Irving leaves the Celtics, then I will tell you all the terrible things Kyrie Irving did, which of course I could have told you over the last couple of

months, but I didn't want Kyrie Irving to be mad at me. That's one part of But I do think there's this other part of it where as soon as, you know, Irving or another superstar walks out the door, management does then maybe come forward and say, and hey, you want to hear all the bad things that we couldn't tell you he did for the last couple of months. Right. We're going to tell you. And so I do think the other part of it is that sources kind of get a little more, get a little freer with information. Mm-hmm. And that certainly is part of it. The movie one is fascinating because it's sort of like we have to,

we all know the movie's going to bomb. I think Dark Phoenix and even Men in Black were we knew this was not going to be a giant hit. But as soon as that happens, that then frees us to just point. It's more of a finger pointing exercise. I didn't have anything. If you want, you know,

you want to hear the executive over at Sony or at Fox who screwed this up. Let me tell you who it was. And that to me just re-cle, of like calculation and also like how do I get that person's job you know how do I how do I pay back somebody that didn't you know green light my movie by uh you know blaming them for the dud yeah I think that's right I mean to me the sports this on the sports side it's a little bit evocative of you know the back in the well the the sepia tone glory days of sports journalism when the the the beat writers would would fly on the team playing or fly

with the team on the plane, they'd be in the locker room, they'd be out drinking with them late at night. They do everything. They kept that out of the press for the most part. But then maybe they would sign a book deal as part of the retirement package and that they would let all the secrets out then.

But this is just happening at a much faster rate, right? I mean, this is like immediately upon Player X leaving the market, you can just unleash all holy hell on it. The Hollywood thing, I think you're right. I mean, it's a, it's competitive. It's, it's about, there's a little bit of vendetta, but there's a whole lot of just sort of jockeying for continued employment, you know, if not a promotion to take someone else's job, headhunting for someone else's job. But I, I think that

that's, you know, I think that's a real part of it. I think that it's just this, you know, there's a lot of sorts of writing that have exploded in the modern internet era. You know, oral history is there a great example of that. And there's certain sorts of like quick reactive blogging that are examples in that. It's sort of mind-border. to me that this though I keep coming back to this but this sort of writing it just can they can turn it around so quickly I mean of course it's big on the internet but you can it's two days later to it's 36 hours and all of a sudden we know every single thing that went wrong it's just people are crazy all right David this comes from the department of literally figuratively one of our favorite one of our favorite devices to monitor Alex Burns in the New York Times directed everyone's attention to this snippet from a Joe Biden pool report Biden was talking about his frontrunner status. And he said, quote, I don't believe the polls right now, guys. This is a marathon.

It's true we're ahead. It's true we feel good about where we're going. That means two things. One, there's a target on my back. And then Biden added that he meant that figuratively. So just to clarify for listeners, Joe Biden is not apologizing for his remarks about segregationists, but he does want to clarify that he does not have a literal target painted on his back.

There's not something painted on the back of a suit. Thank you, Joe Biden, for clarifying that that was, in fact, a figurative statement. From Trump's bedside table, David, the redoubtable K-file over at CNN found this exchange where Donald Trump appeared on CNN's Crossfire. Remember that? Back in the 80s. The host's Pat Buchanan and Tom Brady started asking Trump about what he was reading. It was a great subject. Pat Buchanan says, who are your favorite authors?

Donald Trump says, well, I have a number of favorite authors. I think Tom Wolfe is excellent. Buchanan, did you read Vanity of the Bonfires? Trump, I did not. Buchanan. Bonfire of the vanities, excuse me. They go on and on and on. And then Pat Buchanan says, what's the best book you've read besides Art of the Deal? A book Trump himself wrote.

And Trump says, I really like Tom Wolfe's last book. I think he's a great author. He's done a beautiful job. Buchanan, which book? Trump. His current book, just his current book. It's just out. Buchanan.

Bonfire of the vanities? Trump. Yes, and the man has done a very, very good job. And I can't really hear you with this earphone, by the way. So much going on there. Number one, the great Michael Wolf trick of I can't hear the question I don't want to answer. But you know, we have those. Yeah, we have those rare moments where you don't like Donald Trump, but you at least,

there's some tiny, tiny piece of you that kind of identifies with something. But pretending you've read a popular book, which Donald Trump is pretty clearly doing there with Bonfire of the Vanity's. That, to me, is something I can identify with when you're kind of nodding along. As you know, I worked at one of the country's most prestigious bookstores for about a year, years and years ago. And pretending I'd read popular books was actually part of the job description. And I don't know if anyone ever said that to me out loud. But it took me years and years after working at that place to deprogram myself and to the

point where I could actually remember which books I had read and which books I hadn't read. Because I would just get into conversation with people. And people would just be like, like, oh, did you read McCullough's John Adams? I'd be like, yes, of course I did. And here's like three fun bullet points about it. They'd be like, wait a second. That's not a book I actually read. That's a book that I hand sold that book to hundreds of people.

That's why I know about it. No way you read that book. Absolutely not. We need to do a press box where you just do 10 books you pretended to have read. And I just guess which ones you actually might have read. Guess which ones you actually open the cover to? Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Yes. That's fantastic. that we got to do it. It's great. I just threw this down at the last minute. Did you see the whole controversy with Chuck Todd of Meet the Press and concentration camps in Alexandria, Ocasio Cortez? I don't want to go down that rabbit hole because, frankly, it's sort of boring. But I did notice this. Tim Russert's name was trending yesterday.

And the reason Russert's name was trending, Russard, of course, the deceased former host of Meet the Press, Chuck Todd's predecessor. Yeah. was because all these people were tweeting, look at this, look at this Chuck Todd, this feckless Chuck Todd. Tim Russert would never let this happen. Just to anyone who is not old enough to remember, all people did when Tim Russert hosted Meet the Press

was complaining about Tim Russ. That is all they did. All they did was call Tim Russert, feckless for going after these weird ideas of truth and lies and everything else. Sorry, this has been, this is, this happens whoever hosts the show. So please do not use him as a prop in this debate.

We see through that. Stop. I think it's worth stating that the agreeing that the highlight packages that we see of Tim Research do evoke a person who would not have put up with that stuff. Yes, that's right. It's sort of speaking of sepia toned Washington memories. Is that the media was better back in the day? No, it wasn't.

Everybody complained about the media back then. They just didn't have Twitter and stuff like that to do it. New department, David, called Texas News. You and I are both Texans, and you were worried that Florida man was getting all the national attention, and that we should refocus some of that attention on Ted Cruz's voice, the great state of Texas. Well, this Texas news story comes from Sugar Land, Texas, and KPRC Channel 2. Jim, can we just play the beginning of this clip so we can hear and appreciate the wonders of local TV news? neighbors upset tonight about a gator sighting in Sugarland.

Not because of what it might do to them. They're worried about what someone did to it. See for yourself, it appears a knife is sticking out of its head. It's a story you'll see only on two at six o'clock. That gator is in a neighborhood lake. Family say it's been there a while. So, David, just to be clear, one, there is a knife sticking out of an alligator's head in Sugarland. And number two, you're only going to get that here on Channel 2.

just, you know, the other station across town may have that important school board meeting that affects your kids' lives, but hereon two, we have got the exclusive of the knife sticking out of the gator's head. That's fantastic. Let us continue with KPRC correspondent Sophia Bozillet telling the story of the gator and the knife. Aaron says the gators keep to themselves and doesn't understand why someone would stab one with a knife. I wanted to help him, but, you know, he is a wild animal and, you know, maybe. by myself, I didn't want to do anything, which is why the community is asking for help. The Fort Bend County Game Warden is aware of the picture. He comes back to work on Monday,

and he says that's when he will come out here and look for that gator. Aaron Weaver, the woman who found the alligator, tells Fox 6, that may actually may be the station across town. I feel that somebody did this on purpose, or maybe on purpose, for the, for the gator. So thanks to, thanks to those stations. down there for our first edition of Texas news. Thanks. A late laugh too. I appreciate that.

Listener mail, David. Last week we called for help in naming our segment about the continuing public makeover of Guy Fieri, once hated and now regarded by the media as some kind of hoagy eating badass. Well, Michael Elves won the contest by proposing that we call our regular segment fear rehab, fear rehab. So look for that on a press box near you. This week, David, we talked about how Steve. Bullock, the governor of Montana,

was one supporter shy of making the Democratic debates. And we asked how long it would take David if he was wandering around Brooklyn to find that elusive Bullock supporter. Well, Gene Monterecelli writes, I was walking around Brooklyn this morning

on the way to the gym listening to your pod. You could have found this guy, David. You could have literally bumped into this guy. I am from Wyoming, Gene writes, and I had no clue Bullock was running for president. And it might have taken me three guesses to even come up with his name. So Gene will not be supporting Bullock or not obviously supporting Bullock.

Dan Whalen, the listener writes into us, I listened to the press box at 1.5 speed. And when you said gravitas with scale, that was the terrible euphemism of Ross Levinson, who is now running Sports Illustrated. When you said gravitas with scale, I heard gravitas with kale, which frankly I like better. thanks to Dan for that one. And then Ben Gibson, I love this one, referring to a segment we did a while back about how the Rock,

the Dwayne Johnson Rock, was considered a journalist by a court in a case over a lawsuit over a movie he produced. Ben writes, so with the Rock as a journalist item, it reminded me of my old hypothetical indie wrestling gimmick. Are you ready for this, David? Oh, please. AP Styles.

AP Styles. It's going to be his. That is so terrible that I loved it. It is so bad. Thanks to Ben Gibson for that one. All right, time for David Shoemaker guesses the strain pun headline. Oh, no.

Are you ready, David? That's ready as I'll ever be. This is one who's from Michael Dimitris, who points us to an L magazine profile of Hope Solo. Remember Hope Solo, the former Gold. This finally one I can sing my teeth into. All right, keep going.

Tell me about it. I was going to say, I think they've been a little obscure lately. So I kind of wanted to correct back. is something you actually had a chance at. Former goalkeeper of the U.S. Women's National Team. The profile is about her uniqueness, her outspokenness, some of the controversy she's been involved in.

What is the headline of the L magazine profile of Hope Solo? Oh, my gosh. All right. We get two good words here. Are you going to tell me up top of if I should be working with Hope, solo, or both? You should be working with only one of the two words. Okay.

I'm going to specify. I mean, I'm getting really hung up on solo a Star Wars story for the for the second one. So I'm just going to, I'm going to, I'm going to hope that it's that it is her first name. It is her first name. That is correct. This is in what magazine? In L magazine, you said? L magazine.

I mean, it's after she, I mean, she's out of the women, the U.S. national team, right? So the real, I mean, so the really easy one would be. hope comma solo but I'm very very good that's actually better than what it is but but continue if this were a fashion spread it could be a gown called hope

let me see there's like I mean high hope ray of hope these things are not particularly interesting hope floats hope floats I'm looking I'm actually what about a what about abandoned hope all yehu who enter the women's world cup is that again that's good stuff

she was still playing what is it what is it but the hope solo is my best guest do you have any more hints for me so I'm assuming

what if I what if I pointed you toward a popular Obama era catchphrase um so the Clinton era catchphrase would be

a place called hope that's not it but the Obama era catchphrase would be the audacity of hope the audacity of hope the audacity of hope solo that is correct wait it has both

All right, that's great. All right. That's fantastic. I love it. Right. They did add the last name. You're right. It could have just been the audacity of hope. But we went with the audacity of hope solo. He is David Schumacher. I'm Brian Curtis. Producer is Jim Cunningham, research by Chris Almeida. We got more lukewarm takes on the media next Tuesday. And then we're back next week with two different press boxes reacting to the Democratic debates.

I'll see you then, David. See you later, Brian. Listen, my heart. Factless. As you know, I work. Yes. To deprogram myself. David, if he was wandering around Brooklyn,

Abandon Hope. Please do not. Continuing public makeover of an inarticulate, idiotic. That, to me, is something I can identify. When you're kind of nodding along. Yeah, I think that's right. No matter what incredibly dumb thing just came out of my mouth. You're a really old dude, an old white dude who did.

And I can't really hear you with this earphone, by the way. It's just people are crazy. You know, bullshit. We see that. How do I get that person's job? But in a way, that's what scares me is what's in his heart. Give this move.