The Press Box - Biden’s Next Move, Blaming the President’s Staff, and What It Was Like at the Debate With Tim Miller of 'The Bulwark'

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

With the holiday coming up, Bryan is treating you to the Final Edition of 'The Press Box' early. He welcomes MSNBC analyst and 'Bulwark' podcast contributor Tim Miller, and they discuss the following: The atmosphere in Atlanta during the debate (2:14) Reactions to some Biden family members blaming staffers for the performance (13:15) Reactions to the media telling Biden to remove himself from the race (19:09) This podcast was recorded before the announcement that Biden will sit down for a TV interview. Plus, David Shoemaker guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Tim Miller Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Bill Simmons. I am thrilled to announce our newest YouTube channel. It's called Ringer Movies. If you're a fan of our movie coverage here at The Ringer, then you're in luck because every episode of the rewatchables and the Big Picture, now on YouTube. Like Bill said, Ringer movies will feature full episodes of my show, The Big Picture, the Rewatchables,

as well as special live episodes, deep dives into movie history and a bunch of other fun stuff featuring other movie-loving Ringer personalities. Search Ringer movies on YouTube and experience the joy. Chris Ryan impersonating Wayne Jenkins on camera. Hey, Brian Curtis here. So this is what happens when you podcast about big, fast-moving news events. You're about to hear me and Tim Miller ask, hey, why hasn't Joe Biden sat down for a TV interview since last Thursday night's debate?

Well, as soon as we push stop, it was announced that Joe Biden is sitting down for an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos. So note that. And now on with the show. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Press Box. Brian Curtis of the Ringer here, along with producer Brian Waters. Coming up, more post-debate Biden talk.

What was it like to be in Atlanta last Thursday? What's with blaming Biden's staff? And does it matter that the New York Times editorial board doesn't want Biden to run? All of that with today's guest host, he's Tim Miller. He made his first career in politics working for John McCain, Jeb Bush, and others. Now he's the host of the Bullwark podcast. He's an MSNBC analyst. And he also writes about politics and other urgent national issues like Clay Travis.

Tim, welcome to the press box. I think I might have the best Clay Travis piece out there. I mean, there are very many subject matters with which I have, you know, kind of the preeminent document. But Clay Travis might be one of them. You've got the press box seal of approval on that one. Thank you. Fellow GW alum, Greg Clay Travis. We used to, we went on GW Hoops.com together.

We used to discuss basketball together back when he was an Al Gore voter. It's been a strange trip we've all been on. Absolutely. Let's start with the debate because you were actually there in Atlanta last Thursday. What was that like? I was not to say it was like a morgue, but that's not quite right. It was way spookier than a morgue. I mean, it was like having witnessed a murder, I think, in a group setting, you know,

where everyone's looking at each other. Like, did that really just happen? did that person really just jump off the building and we're all sitting here and staring at each other? People were very wide-eyed. It was quiet. You know, obviously there's some exceptions. The media setup.

It was a weird setup. So they were in a studio, Biden and Trump, down the street. And then the media and the surrogates were at the Georgia Tech basketball arena. I'd forgotten that Georgia Tech's went to two final fours in my lifetime. I don't remember one, but I was reminded by that by the banners. And so, you know, there's, there's a vast media there, you know, so there's ideological media. So there were some grinning Trumpers as well, you know, who are happy about the skydive off the building, I guess, to extend the metaphor to death. And, you know, and then after the debate, you have, well, it was supposed to be the spin room was going to be the basketball floor.

And so you have all of these Trump VP wannabes, well, you know, P.C. cocking, walking by J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio and Elise DeFonick and Byron, anyway, all the whole crew. And no Democrats for probably 15 minutes. And then, like as a show of force, Kevin Newsom and Raphael Warnock come out and they're just mobbed, like a mob I've never seen before. I mean, like, at least Stefanik was standing alone with like one Swedish reporter talking to her and everybody about to see what the Democrats thought

about Joe Biden and, you know, ask if he's going to drop out and all those sorts of questions. So that was, and then I think the next most interesting was, and the way that the setup was, was we at MSNBC, which had a live setup kind of on the concourse of the arena. But the next little booth over was Fox. So, you know, it's all of those VP guys I'm talking about it, Stephen Miller and Lara Trump. And everybody's like walking by the MSNBC and like walking past me. and, you know, it was painful. Reminds me of when Cam Newton lost the Super Bowl a few years ago for the Panthers,

and he was giving his post-game interview, but he could hear all the people from the winning team, for the Broncos giving their post-game interviews at the same time. We heard from just about every put-it-on-TV that their phones were blowing up 10 minutes into the debate. Who was on your phone, and what were they saying? It was funny. I went back and looked at my slacks. I went to Slack my colleague, Jonathan, last one of my podcast co-hosts the other day

just about some bulwark business. And I noticed that it was eight minutes into the debate that was, how are we going to start planning for Trump 2.0? Was our private Slack at eight minutes in? You know, in my phone was basically everybody. I was on the circus for a while, if you remember, on Showtime. And so all of my co-host, John Howellman and Jen Palmieri and Mark McKinnon and Alex Wagner, I went, Alex and John were in the building with me, and so I went to sit with that.

I wanted to sit alone and focus on the debate, but the first commercial debate, the first commercial break, I needed some company. So I went and sat by John and Alex, and John's phone was really, but I'm a former Republican. You did my intro. So, like, I don't have a lot of, you know, I've got some friends at my age level. I have friends that are staff for a lot of these candidates, Democratic candidates. but I have friends that are fellow liberal podcasters. But I don't know like the old wise men of the Democratic Party and Holloman's phone was just exploding with, you know, rich donor types and, you know, politicians and et cetera.

The most interesting thing about my phone, though, was not actually the insiders. It was the regular people, you know, the normies, if you will. I mean, like my friends from college or high school, I mean, my LSU cap now, this is an audio podcast, but like my LSU football text chain is filled with people who like don't even care about like don't even vote. And some of them were like, Tim, what is happening? Like this person cannot speak. I mean, they were alarmed. And I think that the less you had seen of Joe Biden, the more alarmed you are.

And that's something I've been trying to like bring to my commentary this week because there's this notion. out there right now that's like, it's just the pundit class that's bedwet about Joe Biden. And, and, you know, he's been seen this before. There've always been, you know, we'll get to the New York Times. So always these commentators that like to hear their own voice and self-important podcasters are going to be panicked. And that's not my experience, man. I mean, my experience is that the the less engaged in politics you are, the more shocked and alarmed you were by this. And that's what I was hearing from people in my life. And evidence for that is that the Biden campaign's stated strategy was to do this debate early

so the people who weren't paying attention to the race, who really didn't believe that Joe Biden and Donald Trump were going to be their party's nominees would suddenly be shocked into recognition and go, oh, my God, that guy's going to be president. we got to pay attention. Yeah, it's the most frustrating thing that the post-debates been for me, for Biden world, is like they wanted this. They wanted that they set up the rules. They wanted to have the mute button.

They wanted to have no audience. And the whole point, and I bought into the strategy, by the way. So that part is that it's the post commentary that I'm annoyed with, not the strategy, was, you know, that Joe Biden would benefit from bringing some clarity to the race, right? Like focusing people's minds. Because Biden was doing very well before the debate among, you know, it's almost like an inverse relationship based on news consumption.

If you're listening to the press box podcast, like probably just depending on what your demo is, you're over, you know, you're more likely to be for Biden than somebody who's also in that same demo who doesn't watch any news, right? And only gets news coverage from like random clips that show up in their algorithm, right? Like that's what that's what we were seeing. the least engaged you were, the least less likely you were to be supportive of Biden. And so the idea was, okay, we get them out there. The concerns about the age get assuaged like they did at the State of the Union for a certain class of people.

People are reminded how much of a lunatic Donald Trump is. The scariness of a Trump 2.0 begins to come into focus. And Biden will start to improve in the polls. Obviously, the opposite happened. And I think that's why the Biden campaign is in just a complete crisis right now, whether or not they want to admit it, because they were losing going into the debate. The debate was the strategy for coming back. And they had the worst debate in presidential history. You called this the single worst performance politics or non-politics in the mass media era.

Tim, was there not really an Oscar acceptance speech? Yeah, that was on your podcast. The day after. Yeah. some people kept saying to me like, oh, it's kind of like Nixon 60, a Reagan 84 or Obama 12. I lived through Obama 12. That was absurd. I went and rewatch Reagan 84 and Nixon 60 and some of these other debates that people reference. And they're not even the ballpark of what happened with Joe Biden. Like the closer analogy would have been like Miss South Carolina or something, you know, like maybe.

That's in the power rankings for worst in the mass media era. And this is more of a ringer, probably effort to do like a list of the worst. public speaking performances in the mass media era. So Miss South Carolina comes to mind is the only thing comparable to Biden. But I would say it was probably worse than her. Yeah, you made this point on the pot too. There's a difference between a C minus and a D minus and a zero on the test. Like that those are different grades.

And this was closer to zero. And Biden could survive to C minor. This is the other thing. Like, you know, the expectations weren't really that high for him. You know, the expectations were he is. of delivering a critique of Donald Trump and explaining to people why Donald Trump is so, the specter of Donald Trump is so dangerous and, you know, giving a just a basic defense of his record and, you know, a, you know, a basic outline of what you would want to do in a second term, right?

Those are the three things he had to do. This is not high degree of difficulty stuff. It's not quadruple Lutz territory, right? it was, hey, the economy's getting better. It's not perfect, right? Crime is coming down. It's like the border's not perfect. It's getting better.

It's like, here's what we're going to do in the next term. And oh, by the way, Donald Trump is a criminal who's been indicted in four courts. And also he sexually assaulted people. And also he admitted that he's actually assaulted people on tape. And also, like, he wants to tear up the Constitution. He says he wants to be a dictator. Right? Like, that's like, that was the challenge.

Like, to just be able to remind people of the greatest hits against Donald Trump, and he, like, couldn't do it. And he couldn't, I couldn't do anything. And he didn't have a coherent answer on any topic except for golf. Yes. And I would, I would call, I would call generous to say that that was a coherent back and forth. But we can argue. That's a side of the second order concerned. I at least understood the critique he was offering about Donald Trump's golf score. He thinks that he's better. Fair enough. I don't know if it's true. It might have been a lie. his only host terror and attack

might have been his one untruth of the night because Donald Trump was obviously more untruthful but yeah I mean and so I guess

the only similar of this is if he does stay in the race is that he was so bad it makes it kind of hard for Donald Trump to skip a September debate the initial thinking

was that why would Trump debate and he's going to be winning you know why not use the same strategy he used in the primaries but it kind of you know almost in like this alpha dog beta thing that Trump is so obsessed with, like this, you know, fake masculinity,

you know, posture that he has to put on. It would almost feel, you know, it almost feel like wimpy to say that he's scared of debating Joe Biden again after Joe Biden couldn't speak. So maybe that gives him another opportunity, but I don't know. What evidence is there that he could he could use another opportunity in a way that would advantage his campaign. Let's talk about what's happened since Thursday. I first read this in a New York Times story by Kitty Rogers and Peter Baker, this notion that the Biden family, or at least some members of the Biden family, were blaming staffers for not having properly prepared him.

As a former staffer, what did you make of that? Look, I've poorly prepared Jeb for the first Donald Trump debates. I wasn't like in charge of DAPE, but me and my colleagues, I think, poorly prepared him. So that's fine. You can blame staff sometimes. We had a defense, which was Donald Trump had never debated before. And like, you know, who would have thought that like his weird strategy is just like spouting nonsense, lies and shouting over people and would actually appeal to voters. I think that we kind of didn't know what we didn't know back in 2016.

we learned over the course of the debates, and he improved some. And, you know, that was not really Jeb's strength, right? Like, there are other candidates or better debaters and worse. So, you know, staff can only do so much. You know, I always would say to candidates, they come in and that I would prep for debates. Like, if you're a C, I can help you get to a B, you know, or if you're a D, I could help you maybe get to a C plus, right? But, like, you can't turn somebody that's a D into an A. Going back, Joe Biden was a zero. Like, he couldn't speak. So I think that they probably made some mistakes in debate prep. He clearly seemed to have too much, too many facts in his head. He's talking about how many degrees Celsius we need to get to what our targets are on climate

and things like this, you know, when he really just needed some basic facts about, as I said, his record and his plans and Donald Trump's flaws. But that was not a staff problem. And it's offensive. It's offensive in gaslighting, really, to what the campaign has been doing since the debate. as far as their messaging, attacking media, attacking podcasters. With a capital P, I thought that was interesting day. I never seen a podcast or capitalized like they had enough fundraising. It's capitalized podcasters. If you're attacking, you're delivering more potent attacks on friendly podcasters who are unhappy with your performance than you are on your political opponent.

That's what the sign things aren't going well. So, yeah, I mean, the whole thing is silly. the reality is he was atrocious. The only way to fix it is to accept it, to acknowledge it, to try to demonstrate that he can do better if he can. And that is what they should be focused on. They should be focused on highlighting the existing contrast with Trump. He did go out last night. We're taping this on Tuesday. He did go out last night and give a brief speech with some new bronzer about the Supreme Court decision. And I think, you know, he delivered an attack on Trump. And that's what he should be doing.

You know, more and more of and should be explaining and answering questions about concerns that people have. That's not what they're doing. They're circling the wagons. They're pointing fingers. And that's not a path to victory. Semi-related, there's a Politico story out this morning that's getting a lot of attention with four bylines.

It says, the pervasive view throughout much of the party is of Biden's inner circle as an impenetrable group of enablers who deluded themselves about his ability to run again, even as they've assiduously worked to accommodate his limitations and shield them from view. What did you make of that piece in the reporting now that's going back and looking at Biden and his White House over the last few years? Yeah. So I think that's a more, a stronger criticism of staff than the debate problem issue. And I think the reality is this. There have been some reporters, Alex Thompson and Axius stands out, some others, that have been talking about this for a while like that, that the, the Biden White House, is too insular, that they are overprotective of him, that his calendar is pretty light, you know, that criticism doesn't break through, that there's a lot of people that don't know

what's happening. And he got a lot of pushback for his reporting, as did others. I've pushed back on some of it, you know, because at times it's like, okay, it's one of those things where that it's only a problem if it's a problem, you know? And it's hard to know from the outside, whether, like, you know, a president can have a small circle of advisors that he prefers to keep and, you know, like a schedule that suits their, you know, preferences. And like, that's fine. If it's just because that's their preferences and they're still doing a good job presidenting and they're still capable of handling that domestic and international tasks and they're still getting honest feedback from that small circle of advisors. Like, you know, some people keep lots of

you know, Donald Trump, like, he listens to whoever the last person wants to talk to him and, like, calls everybody, right? Like, that's not any, that's probably a worse system, right? So, so, you know, this is something that people have known about. There's in some reporting on, and then there's been some kind of criticism of that reporting about whether it was too harsh. And, you know, the people that were doing that reporting, I think have been vindicated, right? Because it's one of those things where, like, clearly it was a problem. And, you know, we, there were maybe some signs of this before. but after the debate, it's very clear now, and I think it sheds new light on that initial reporting. It's like, wow, was he keeping such, is he being protected?

Like, is there such a small circle because they don't want other people to talk to him? You know, because they don't want other people to see him on bad days or bad hours. I don't know. I don't want to speculate about that, but I think those are now legitimate questions that seemed, not illegitimate, but seemed maybe like people might have been stretching a little bit before the debate to make that case. The media has been telling Biden to get out of the race, New York Times editorial board, David Remnick, and the New Yorker.

What, if any, impact do you think that has? Probably hurts. My buddy Peter Hamby over at Puck was like the best thing, if you want Joe Biden to get out of the race, the worst thing that you could do is have the New York Times editorial board at call for it because Biden is very, you know, has a chip on his shoulder about the fact about the elite media and the fact that they haven't given them enough credit and they loved Obama more, et cetera, and they wanted Elizabeth Warren during the 2020, et cetera, et cetera. And they didn't believe in him in 2020, anyone. So I don't think he listens to that group that much, but

somebody has to talk. Like, to me, it's more like a, you know, it's more a domino thing. Like, does the New York Times speaking out gives courage to some Democratic politicians speaking at lower level ones and do them speaking out give courage to some higher level democratic politicians to speak out right and so i i think that there's maybe some value in it in doing that um i'll say this though um again in this in this kind of divide between the media no nothing there's nothing better as you in media critic circles and everybody's like i'm the one member of the media that it's in touch with the real people and it's these other media people that are in a bubble um but uh that's why we do a focus group podcast of the bulwark and

right before we tape this, I just watched two focus groups with swing state voters that voted for Joe Biden in 2020. And when the moderator asked if they think Joe Biden should get out of the race, both groups were unanimous, yes. So, you know, to me, that is, that's more telling than what the Times editorial board does. But maybe those media institutions give credit or give cover to low level, as you say, politicians. I saw Lloyd Doggett from Texas, who I interned for when I was at UT. Lloyd Doggett's still in the house amazingly. You intern for him. I intern for him.

He's the one that broke the ice today. He did. He seemed like that type of congressman to you, that he would be such a bold man back when you were interning? Bold would not be number one on my list of adjectives for Lloyd Doggett. You know. It's fellow older politicians that feel a little bit more freedom to do it. I noticed Tom Harkin, no longer a senator.

former senator from Iowa, but who served with Biden, is about the same age as Biden. We gave, I think, the most forceful statement I've seen so far. So maybe there's something to that, that they feel a little bit more freedom to speak honestly? I don't know. Of all the Biden must go columns, my favorite had to come from Tom Friedman at the New York Times,

who began his column like this. I watched the Biden-Trump debate alone in a Lisbon hotel room, and it made me weep. I mean, you can't, you know, you can't mess with excellence, Brian. And it's just, and that's top of the line, columning. And I'm just never, I'm never going to get, I'm never going to get on that level, you know. And so, I admire it. Did you, when they're talking about bedwetting podcasters, the Biden campaign,

are they talking about your old pals at Crooked Media? Are they talking about Ezra Klein, the New York Times opinion podcast? Who do you think bothers them the most? But, I mean, I think that the pod Save America bros are at the top. of the list. But Ezra is definitely there as well. And I don't know. I don't exactly, I can't, I can't divine who is in their head when they were talking about this, but I did receive a stern phone call from a friend in the Biden campaign about, about my commentary as well. Oh, so you were in the bedwetting podcasters community. I mean, I'm a bedwetting podcaster.

So I don't want to do any stolen valor from John Lovick, who was the bedwetting podcast. Codcaster capital P in question. But I can't imagine that, well, I wasn't lumped in there. By the way, I'm not, and anybody that is not bedwetting, like, is in a coma or supporting Donald Trump. Like, I am not bed wedding. My bed is not lightly. Like, my bed is soaked. My bed is soaked.

I can't even sleep in my sheets right now. I know David Axelrod drives team Biden to distraction and has since. 2020 when he was criticizing their campaign strategy. I got to imagine James Carville is also in that tier who had a quote. He said, it's like seeing your grandma naked. This is how he described the debate. You can't get it out of your mind. And he's seemingly been raising his hand to be on every podcast or television show since it came out.

James Carville so much. I love that man. And when I just spit out my Coca-Cola classic when I saw that quote, And it's exactly how I feel. I can't get it out of my mind. I can't stop talking about it. My husband's ready to kill me. He's like, he's like, will you talk about something else?

I cannot. I'm incapable of talking about anything else. It was one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen. And we're in deep doo-doo. And James Carville gets a lot of credit. You have to, you have to mention Axelrod, Carville. I'll throw in my colleague Bill Crystal in there. You know, these old wise men types.

it's easy to be like, you know, oh, you washed up old hacks, like just want attention, right? And that was the conventional wisdom about those guys. Like, they got negative heat from the Biden administration. They got negative heat from younger people in the commentariat. And it's like, you're just trying to stay relevant. You're just a washed up old hack. And it's like, no, I don't know. It's maybe a good lesson for life. Like maybe washed up old hacks, I have the freedom to be to, to, to be honest, right? Because they're washed up old hacks, right? And there's something to that. And there's something that they were able to kind of say what other people were a little worried about saying because, you know, they're worried about their future career or next steps, et cetera. That's why you keep old wise men around. You know, I feel like back in the old days, old wise men was like a revered thing. You wanted to be an old wise men. And so there's something about our modern culture that instead of being an old wise man, you become a washed up hack. And we should go back to listening to old wise men. That used to be the place to get to.

I just remember when I first moved to Washington years and years ago, and I turned on whatever the local meet the press thing was. Okay, maybe Chris Matthews was hosting it at that point. And Jack Germann was like sitting in a chair that had him at 180 degrees. It's like when you get business class on an overseas flight, he's answering questions. Like, that's the old wise man. That's what I want to get to.

You don't even have to be sitting upright during the broadcast. I don't recall that show. But I'm going to, I will now be searching for clips of it on YouTube. We got a note from a list of Chris Rolls and said, hey, you guys have been talking a lot about Biden and very little about Trump and what he did Thursday night. So, Tim, what did you learn about Trump and his campaign from his performance in that debate? Well, I think, so I'll, I'm loath to ever compliment Donald Trump who I find to be to be the most repellent person on Earth. And so I will say this. The campaign definitely learned from 2020 about how the fact that he was too aggressive.

he was off-putting turned off swing voters. And he was more restraint. Obviously, he was lying the whole time. And the content of his remarks, you know, like defending the people that rioted the Capitol and saying that he is going to go after, you know, get retribution on his political foes and, you know, not believing climate change. The content was bad. But the tone and tenor was better.

It was restrained. And frankly, there were a number of opportunities. where 2016 Donald Trump would have really gone for the jugular on Joe Biden. Like I was almost shocked at a couple of points that like Joe Biden was was mumbling and and leaving Donald Trump with very easy opportunities. I think back to 2016 when like Rand Paul was trying to make an attack on Donald Trump and like he was talking and he does a one-liner about how he's way down on the end and he's really ugly. And it's just like that's, you know, like that's sort of insult comedy shit.

Trump really didn't do. So I think that that benefited him. I will say, though, again, it wasn't a, it wasn't like some amazing performance. Like some people are out there. There's some substacks. And they're like, he used the fascistic strategy of gish galloping. And Joe Biden had no, no chance against the gish gallop. And it's like, no, actually.

Donald Trump, I think, gave a pretty bad performance historically, right? If Barack Obama was on that stage again, if Mitt Romney was on that stage against him, you know, if going back further, George W was, I think it would have been very easy to counter a lot of his lies and, you know, his mendacity and, and his extreme statements. And Joe Biden just wasn't up for doing that. So I don't, you know, I don't think that he was particularly strong. He was just for Trump a little more restrained. Last podcast I heard you give.

I couldn't quite tell if you were in the, hey, we need to change candidates or the Democrats need to change candidates mode. Or if you were in, let's have a deep and, you know, heartfelt conversation about what we should do, which camp do you find yourself in? I lean towards the change, but it's like, I want to change if he can't do it. And so if he can do it, then let's see him. And I've not been at all assuaged by the five days. since the debate.

You know, it's like he gave one good teleprompter speech. He gave a very brief telepronter remarks last night at the White House. There's got to be more than that. And, you know, I think that they both, both strategies bear risks. I think anybody that tells you absolutely one is better than the other is full of it. We don't really know. I would have judged six months ago that the risk of replacing Biden was greater than the risk of keeping him. But even back then, I always said it wasn't a close, I think it was a kind of a

close run call. I flipped to that. I think the risk of staying with him now is greater than the risk of changing horses. But I don't think it's an, I don't think that's an obvious choice. I do, I did like, Nikki Koss said that this is the Democrats Tua moment. Oh my God. I used to work with Mickey. I don't know that the Democrats have Tua in the wings. Or that, or that, or that, General Biden is Jalen Hurts. So it's not exactly a perfect metaphor, but I think it might, that's where I fall. I think it's probably, it would be probably better to make a change. I worked with Mickey at Slade, and let me tell you, I did not see a Tua Tugavilo

reference coming from him. That was completely out of left field. I'm also surprised by it, but I was like, yeah, that's right. It was Mickey Tewa reference and James Carville's naked grandmother, were the observations that really stuck with me. So as a comms guy, you'd say, if you were advising Joe Biden on television this week, not in a teleprompter style affair, but answering questions from a news anchor, something like that, you would want him on TV as soon as possible?

If he can do it. And so this is like the thing, right? And this is what we don't know. This is where we need actual reporters and other people who do work. But if Biden can do interviews, he needs to be doing interviews, lots and more. and flooding the zone. So if you have one little gaff, it doesn't take over everything, right? Like, he should demonstrate that he's up for it, that he has the vigor, his vitality, that he can answer the questions, that he can campaign against Donald Trump, that he can deliver an attack against Donald Trump.

Now, if he can't do it, you know, I think there's another theory out there, which is that Biden's not up for it, but the people around him and the president himself judge that even are not up for it, Joe Biden, is better option than Kamala Harris. And so you run this kind of, of hide the ball. I don't know. Now I'm really, you know, hitting our sports metaphors to death. But you know what I mean? Like the four corners, offense, whatever. Like, you run this kind of campaign where you do the best you have with what you got. And okay, I mean, I'll be for that strategy, I guess, in September, if that's, if that's the best strategy available. But I think that if that's case, and it's my judgment that if really he's not up for it, then it'd be better to have somebody

who has. That's what's so fascinating about this when we go back and maybe we'll have to wait for the game change style book to get all the details here. But in January, they don't put him on the Super Bowl interview with CBS. And as you say, the easiest thing to assume there is that they didn't think he was out for it. They think that the risk was too much to put him in that kind of setting, even if it seems like an absolute win for him. But then the campaign was eager to put him in an hour and a half live television debate with Donald Trump in June.

Right. It seemed like completely. And then after that debate turned out to be disastrous, they're not eager to put him back on television in an unscripted setting. I don't see the through line there at all. To me, to me, I think, and I have no

sort of the Biden, look, I'm not at the top of the Biden's call list these days. So, I don't have any source on this. My senses that they, let's see, I was using this analogy yesterday. It's like, if I'm going to go skiing with my dad this winter, I'm from Colorado, you know, we're probably not going to spend the whole day on double blacks, right? We're going to spend the day on some blues. They will go down to black, we'll send some day on the blues. It doesn't mean that he can't ski anymore, right? It just

means that like I'm judging, you know, everybody's judging that like we're just going to do what makes sense. And so maybe that's what they thought, right? Like that they don't think he has dementia or that there's any real problems. They think that they did. But like, why take unnecessary risks? You know, let's, let's protect him and keep them in safe spaces. Now, then the question is, why did they think you could do the debate? And I think the answer to that is we'll try to, that explains all the rule changes, right? Like, we're going to try to make this a little bit more of a blue diamond instead of a double black, or excuse me, a blue square instead of a double select. And, and, and we're going to do five days of prep at Camp David. We're going to keep his schedule clear.

you know, we're going to, you know, take, have a mute button so Donald Trump's not yelling at him, but he couldn't do it. So, I mean, that's, to me, I think that's the most likely explanation is that they know that he is not at the peak of his powers, but they don't think that there's something fundamentally wrong with him. And so they're trying to manage it. And I think that they're doing a pretty poor job of managing it. You said we were all out of sports metaphors. And look at you. We just switched over to skiing. Yeah, no, I, I, I did. didn't say it. I said, I'm beating the sports metaphors to death. That was just the comms guy. We need a new, we need a new beat over here.

Tim Miller, listen to him on the Bullwark podcast where he will be making the case for bedwetting. You can also read him in their digital pages. Tim, thanks for coming on the press box. Thanks, Brian. It's my honor. I love you all. All right. It's time for the second weekly edition of David Shoemaker guest's the strained pun headline. Happy 4th of July, Brian. Oh, happy 4th of July. You too. Sorry, as we're recording this immediately on the 4th.

I messed up my timing a little bit. Monday's headline, David, about San Francisco tourism was missed opportunity, missed opportunity. Today's headline comes to us from valued listener Bruno Alves. It's from the New York Times. A 20th anniversary retrospective of the Wayans Brothers movie white chicks. Remember when Sean Fennessey said, oh, wait, the Oscars are for me now? The New York Times is for us.

We're doing the white chicks retrospective. The writer of the piece Robert Daniels argues there's a lot of value to the movie beyond its central conceit, which is, of course, that the Wayans Brothers dress up as white chicks. More to it than that. What was the New York Times as strained upon? headline. More to it than that, more than just,

more than just chicks. Yeah. What if I spot you the word pale? Pale in comparison, pale, more than a... It's offering more, David, so it's increased, greater, uh, beyond, beyond. Oh, beyond the.

The Pale. Beyond the pale was the headline. That's good. That is the press box. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Brian Waters. We've got the entire July guest host lineup coming very, very soon. Check back at the press box pot as I feverishly, only in journalism, assemble that.

Also, want to plug an announcement we have made on this show, but haven't made in a while. The Democratic Convention is going to be held August 19th, 3rd. 22nd in Chicago. I'm going to be there covering it for the ringer.com, and I want to have an event in Chicago with the beloved and valued listeners of this podcast. I think it's going to be more like a meet and greet event rather than the full-blown stadium rock show you might have seen from some ringer podcast. That just means it's going to be more intimate, right?

You don't even have to sit in an auditorium to hear me do beloved catchphrases like, David and production magic. In fact, I will do them on command. I have no shame if you listen to this podcast. If the idea of doing some kind of live event interests you and you are in the greater Chicago land area or you're a media member who will be in Chicago, please email me, Brian.curtis at the ringer.com

or DM me at the Pressbox pod. Send me your name. Send me your email. I'll make sure you are on the not-so-secret guest list. We've already got a ton of names. Love to see as many. people out there who can possibly make it. Shoemaker returns Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media. Happy 4th and have a great week.