The Press Box - Bloomberg Enters the Race, Nevada Scenarios, and Wes Anderson’s New Yorker Movie | The Press Box

Episode Date: February 14, 2020

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker discuss Mike Bloomberg’s legitimacy as a contender for the Democratic candidacy (04:00), the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week (23:30), the state of the Democratic race (26:00), the XFL and future of football on TV (38:00), Wes Anderson’s New Yorker movie (42:00), plus “guess the celebrity Democratic endorser” (44:45), and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, it's Liz Kelly. We have a new podcast launching this week exclusively on Spotify with Chris Ryan and Chuck Loosterman called Music Exists. Here's the trailer. Hello, this is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at The Ringer.com. Hello, this is Chuck Losterman. I'm a friend of Chris Ryan and the Ringer. And this is Music Exists, a podcast where we talk about how we think about music. Yeah, this is not a podcast where we tell you what music to listen to or we necessarily comment on what's happening in the culture. right now or what you should be listening to tomorrow before your friends do. This is a podcast about thinking about music, even when it's not playing. Yeah.

How does music shape the world you see around you, the world you feel around you? How does it make you feel about yourself? Yeah, particularly if the music that makes you feel things about yourself is Steely Dan or Black Sabbath. Or Radiohead. Yeah, that happens. That comes up a lot. Music exists, a podcast about Radiohead. Available exclusively on Starvation.

Spotify. David, a lot of people are writing memoirs about what it was like to work at glossy magazines back in the 90s. This predates our time in media. So what I want to know is, what did you think working at a glossy magazine would be like back in the 90s? Oh, man. I think everything that I, all of my conceptions were probably entirely colored by

movies and TV shows about working in media. I'm sure, I mean, glossy magazine probably wasn't, in my head, probably wasn't significantly different than like, you know, like, you know, whatever, like, the daily work life on, like, Murphy Brown was probably about the same in my head. Well, is that an old, that, that, and I guess, like, just the kind, like, the vague notion of, like, the Mad Magazine bullpen, right? I mean, it's just, like, the, just nonstop, nonstop antics that vaguely,

relate to the personality of the magazine. I don't know. I guess I just assumed it was a lot of, like, well-dressed people. I don't know that I would have guessed, you know, about the painkiller use that some of these memoirs are alluding to, but are talking about. But certainly, you know, on the clock cocktail consumption,

that sort of thing. Yeah. I think the in-and-out, like, editor-in-chief, who kind of pops in and out but is living a sort of semi-glammer. life somewhere else. I think I could have guessed that part. Yeah. The part, you're right, the myth we were sold is that everyone was very coolly and impeccably dressed, that the offices were like brand spanking new and clean

and everything like that and well lit, you know, in publishing, right? I think that was something. Oh, yeah. And then you get there and it's a lot of real faded gross carpet and all the deaths are messy and stuff like that. By the time we got there, yeah, I mean, come on. Yeah, well, we made that mess. A lot of, like, mocking up of the magazine pages, you know, just like these like, like, like two X size mockups that you would just like walk into the meeting room with and be like, look, look, like, look like people and, you know, then walk out.

I got the biggest misconception, people talking to each other in the office. Like having conversations instead of just staring at their computers all day. Yeah. That's media, baby. you know, we're not going over and having a funny joke-filled conversation with your neighbor. You're just sitting glumly at your computer. Staring into the abyss, yeah. We are the GQ style guy of media podcast.

This is the Press Box, a 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 the state of the 2020 race. We'll talk about the new XFL and the future of football on TV. Wes Anderson's New Yorker movie, guess the celebrity Democratic endorser, and of course the overworked Twitter joke of the week.

But David, we got to start with Mike Bloomberg. And I want to start with the disclosure that I haven't said yet because we never really believe Mike Bloomberg was real. My wife worked in the New York City Health Department under three mayors, Giuliani, Bloomberg, and de Blasio. And after that, she's done some work for organizations that were partly funded by Bloomberg. I don't think you'll see me tipping the scale.

Gales. If you do come heckle me on Twitter because I deserve it. But press box listeners should know that information and we'll re-up that disclosure periodically in case anyone missed it today. With all that said, David, this was the week everyone talked themselves into thinking a Bloomberg candidacy could be real. That Bloomberg went from the Morning Joe panel fever dream to a why the hell not long shot. This was helped by Joe Biden, cratering in New Hampshire and Pete Buttigieg not repeating his Iowa win there. On Tuesday, Bloomberg hung like a ghost

over the New Hampshire primary, according to the Daily Beast. He wasn't on the ballot, but when I turned on MSNBC, he was on the broadcast in the form of a commercial. The same commercials that have run nonstop through the Super Bowl and seemingly every moment of American civic life.

Bloomberg has bought his way into some of Instagram's biggest meme accounts. he still only has a 4% chance of winning the nomination according to Nate Silver, but that's only 1% less than Buttigieg's chances and ahead of Warren's, Klobuchar, and others. So my question for you, sir, are you there yet? Do you believe this is real, not in the Joe Scarborough sense, but in that this guy might actually win this thing sense? Oh, might actually win this is tough.

I mean, is my inclination up until, well, up until you pose that question to me is to say, hell no. But, you know, there is a sort of self-actualization process that goes on here with all of these candidates, right? I mean, they're only, I mean, you only have to look back as far as the Trump candidacy four years ago to say that, to see that, you know, news outlets deciding that someone is worthy of TV time is all you really need to to make. to actualize a candidacy, right? It's a little bit, it's a little bit hard to wrap your mind around the state of his candidacy. He has a ton of commercials, which I've previously said are incredibly effective in their way.

He's got a staff that's doing a lot of really intensive work, courting very, you know, different aspects of the electorate. He's on the road continuously. whether or not he's campaigning in any conventional sense, I guess, is up for debate. And, you know, as you mentioned, he's meming like nobody's memed before. There is, but can he win? It's an interesting, it's a really interesting question. I mean, I think that, you know, a lot has been made or not a lot.

I mean, people have, it's been pointed out that he, that his decision to run sort of coincided with his own personal lack of faith in the Biden candidacy. And who knows if his arrival, such as it is, has actually had a direct impact on Biden's numbers. But it's tempting to draw that, to draw that connection. And if it is true that he's had a material impact on Biden's numbers, then it's kind of, it would be crazy to discount the possibility that Bloomberg might win, right? If he's already having a material effect on the race, it's not that much of a jump of a leap

to think that he could go all the way. He's having some impact on Biden's numbers, probably, right? But then Biden's cratering was a necessary thing to happen for Bloomberg to even be a potential factor. Yes. And now that's happened in rather dramatic fashion. I guess my skepticism about whether he could win came from the fact that he seems almost too perfect a manifestation of what. left-leaning but centrist mainstream media wants out of a candidate.

I mean, here is the former mayor of New York. He is a billionaire. He is more than Wall Street friendly. And he is the answer. I mean, he's literally the opposite of what Bernie Sanders is in just about every possible way. And he is,

he's the guy they would want, they just would hope and dream would exist. And it just so happens he actually exists. He's here. And he's dumping money all over the place. Nate Silver made a good point this week. I thought when he said, it's not just that Bloomberg is buying commercials

because it's always a question of how effective that stuff is, but he's getting talked about, at least until the last 48 hours, very positively on cable news a lot. So he's getting a lot of free media attention and especially older voters watch a ton of cable news. So he's just kind of in the bloodstream, and I think that's been part of the reason

why his poll numbers have ticked up. I definitely think that there's a contingent of Democratic voters and not even just the moderates, or maybe not the people who would count themselves as moderates, who are very receptive to the potential of a Bloomberg candidacy, right? I mean, I think that maybe, because of the increasing polarization in our politics, you know,

the way that our political alignment sort of is part of everyone's personal identity. I don't think we're as much in the world. I mean, you know, when we were kids, there was an endless number of people who began life as Democrats and sort of aged into republicanism, right?

I mean, that's the, that's the Reagan coalition, basically. I don't think there's so much of that going on anymore, but I do think there's some like doctrinaire liberals who were like aging into like the Bloomberg support group, right? I mean, or the the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, as much as, as much as, you know, we might make light of his past republicanism.

And, you know, I mean, his, uh, his very questionable positions on, well, not just issues. I mean, but, like, major moral catastrophe is like stop and frisk and also, you know, his position, his literal position on the stage of the Republican convention introducing George W. Bush not too long ago. There are giant reasons that we can talk about why he is just a wildly unlikely candidate for the Democratic nomination. I do think that there is a huge block of voters who are, like I said, very receptive to him. And you're right. He's gotten a lot of attention. I mean, he's the results.

I mean, I think that there's a lot of it, like you said, that it's a functional reaction to Sanders victories. But also, I think Buttigieg plays a big part in it, too. I just think that there's not a frontrunner that looks like a conventional sort of establishment, you know, Wall Street Democrat. And Bloomberg is the personification of that, just like you said. Has there ever been a candidate other than Rudy Giuliani's various aborted runs at the presidency? Has there ever been a candidate where you can say the major media figures talking about him on television, lived and or worked in the place he governed that directly. You know what I mean?

Like these are people that enjoyed the spoils of Bloomberg's New York. In many cases forever, I mean, he was mayor forever, right? And so I think they were probably at parties with Mike Bloomberg or at events with Mike Bloomberg. I mean, this is one of those things where I tend to discount the kind of, you know, media conspiracy theorize. This is not a conspiracy. Like these people were all in the same, not that big place for a really, really long time. And so naturally there's going to be an affinity

and there's going to be this kind of thing of, oh, well, he could do it. Absolutely, he could be president. Wouldn't that be great? We've all been living here forever. Now, part of this little boomlet where the polls have ticked up where his support with African Americans is ticked up

is because, you know, Bloomberg, as you point out, hasn't really been a candidate in the conventional sense. He's been a commercial. He's been an idea. He hasn't appeared in a debate yet. And so there really hasn't been that kind of road testing of his record. Well, this week it kind of started, right? First, there was his defense of stop and frisk policy,

delivered in 2015 at the Aspen Institute. By the way, is there anything more Bloombergy than giving a speech at the Aspen Institute? Bloomberg said, 95% of your murders, murderers and murder victims, fit one MO. You can just take the description X-Rox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male minorities 15 to 25. That's true in New York. That's true in virtually every city.

Then came a video from 2008 in which Bloomberg seemed to blame the Great Recession on the end of redlining, which is the practice of not extending a housing loan to someone because they live in a minority community. Listen to Bloomberg. Talk about that. I would say it probably all started back when there was a lot of pressure on banks to make loans to everyone. Redlining, if you remember, was the term where banks took whole neighborhoods and said, people in these neighborhoods are poor. They're not going to be able to pay off their mortgages.

Tell them your salesmen don't go into those areas. And then Congress got involved as local elected officials as well and said, oh, that's not fair. These people should be able to get credit. And once you started pushing in that direction, banks started making more and more loans where the credit of the person buying the house wasn't as good as you would like. The Atlantic's Adam Serwer points out that something closer to the reverse was true. Racist, racism, excuse me, housing practices targeted at black and Latino people exacerbated the crisis and actually destroyed entire neighborhoods. So I guess the next step, David, is

can this very unlikely, as you put it, record stand up to scrutiny from the press, to attacks from fellow candidates? And are Democrats desperate enough for a, some kind of centrist avatar, and be just to beat Trump that they will look past all this stuff and vote for him starting on Super Tuesday. I don't know. I mean, coming off of a New Hampshire primary

where Elizabeth Warren first said and everybody else sort of followed suit either of their own record or, you know, under some pressure from after Warren said it, but how, you know, we're going to, how the Democrats need to unite

behind whoever the candidate is. Pete Buttigieg, I think, was it in his, in his pseudo-concession speech said, I mean, it's opened up with vote blue no matter who. I mean, it's certainly a Bloomberg candidacy will put that to the test. But it's, I mean, it's really hard to predict. I mean, it's hard, even as we discussed this, even if as significant as some of his Enroads have been,

it's really hard to wrap my mind around him being the last person standing on that side, right? I mean, we can talk about it at nauseam. I just can't, I don't think I can quite comprehend it. But, you know, if he's the nominee, if he gets to stare down Trump, you know, I think a lot of people will come around. I don't know that certainly he's, he's said some things. I mean, you just played those, he played that audio. He's, he said some things that's just deplorable, you know, I mean, that's inexcusable in so many ways. But I wonder how much of the, I wonder how much, even amongst Democratic.

voters are looking at their looking at candidates Democratic candidates for president. I wonder how many vote to what degree voters think that's just sort of baked in. I wonder how I wonder how many voters do it ardently line up for anybody on the ticket or

kind of you know secretly assume that they've said similar things and you know smoke filled back rooms along the way. I don't know. I don't know. It seems like it's going to stretch it seems like it would be a big stretch but but maybe not. But that's the question. But that's the

right is how much desperation plus cynicism plus you know damn it they're all flawed sort of give up is baked into the Democratic electorate

we just saw the New York Times today that Biden with another comment about race right how many of those have Biden had in this campaign that have been resurfaced or or spit out anew and I just don't know

and I also wonder how that plays with Bloomberg getting in, buying his way in, if you will, this late in the election, right? Those other candidates had, what, 12 months where we could sort of reheat everything they'd done wrong. And then either voters got over it or they processed it or they weighed against the other can't. This is happening a lot faster. There's less than a month until Mike Bloomberg is going to be on a whole bunch of ballots across the country. So the other question is just like, how fast do people process? of stuff and does the fact that he has ads running just everywhere yet i i was eating lunch today

i was eating chila keelis for lunch today and i'm sitting there as like why does that sound familiar and it was the radio of the mexican restaurant playing a mike bloomberg ad i mean it's just it feels like it feels like a dystopian novel where it's like you hear mike bloomberg everywhere you go or i have a dystopia just like a futuristic novel like we cannot you cannot there is no safe space America where you can't hear one of his ads right now. The Trump people, David, have already, not shockingly, jumped on the various controversies. There's a Trump tweet for everything, or in this case a random glob of Trump sound for everything, because Trump, too, was friendly to stop and frisk.

Listen to this ABC News report from 2016. In his pitch to black voters, Donald Trump promoting a controversial policy, stop and frisk. I want to know what would you do to help stop that violence, you know, black on black crime. Right. Well, one of the things I'd do, Ricardo, is I would do stop and frisk. I think you have to. We did it in New York. It worked incredibly well.

And you have to be proactive. Other thing I was entertained by David on Tuesday night as we were watching the New Hampshire returns was all the kind of Wizard of Oz media savvy that Bloomberg was being credited with. people were wondering whether in fact his team leaked the stop and frisk video on Tuesday night by leaking it right before the New Hampshire returns came out it got gobbled up by a lot of things he did well in Dixville notch which is this weird little place in New Hampshire that votes at midnight so that it can get a lot of media attention Michael Bloomberg actually got three right in votes despite not being on the ballot winning Dixville Notch which again

again, for people that are kind of, you know, watching network morning television and half paying attention to the election. Oh, I heard that Bloomberg did well in the early returns. Bloomberg wasn't on the ballot. People were saying, did he send a team to Dixville Notch to win that thing? So there is this whole, there is this whole mystique of his campaign, which again, I think is probably to some extent true. they've certainly, again, given a a bajillion dollar advantage played their hand pretty well.

On the other hand, they really haven't been tested yet. And I guess this week we're going to see how well, how smart and how savvy those guys are when they wind up getting attacked by every other Democratic campaign. Yeah, I mean, the mystique of the can, I mean, just the fact that people quickly made the assumption

that the campaign itself had leaked that audio I think tells you a lot about the perception of the campaign. That was puratively debunked in a Politico piece today that was about, to quote the headline, Bloomberg's 48-hour dash to contain his stop and frisk crisis, which is either the true version of events or damage control because too many people realize they leaked it themselves.

I'm not quite sure which conspiracy theory I want to believe. But even that, even in that piece, you see, You can see the way that the Bloomberg campaign is sort of thrown the doors open and let at least select journalists in to see, if not the actual inner workings of the campaign, like the appearance of all of the interworkings of the campaign. And it's this sort of mass of information. It's almost like opening up the data stores or whatever to target voters or whatever. There's so much information being presented to reporters. It gives the appearance that this is the most just in-depth, intelligent campaign ever.

And that will only continue to pay dividends, right? I mean, obviously, regardless of whether or not they, you know, sent operatives to Dixville Notch, this is a very intelligent campaign. This is a very modern campaign in a way that we haven't, you know, necessarily seen in the past. And it's a very expansive campaign. And nobody appreciates that more than the people in the media who are going to be writing about it. Uh-huh. We are such a cheap date for a smart campaign. you know it's a

it's that's what's always funny to me is the media likes in a way when they're being when voters or they themselves are being spun in an intelligent way and they almost resent it when it's done sloppily even if sloppy spinning is tends to be closer to

the truth and you're right they are going to admire the professionalism of this thing and now we will wait and see whether it is actually real all right david time for the overwork 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 will be gratefully received. David, did you happen to see the unsatisfying Astros spring training press conferences this morning? I did. I did. It was satisfying in a different way

than I was expecting, I think. Yes, the Astros, of course, were caught in a sign-stealing scandal and they were not exactly unconditionally sorry today under a barrage of questions. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write. Sounds like the Astros would have handled this press conference better if they'd known what was coming. Thanks to Alex Peterson for that one.

A tweet from pro football talk, David. Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback James Winston undergoes LASIC surgery to repair vision. LASIC surgery to repair his vision. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write. Winston went from 30-30 to 2020. It was 30 touchdowns and 30. Wow. Thanks to Jamie McCourt and Jake Christie.

An Oscars tweet from the entertainment writer Amy Kaufman, Natalie Portman, she writes, embroidered her Dior cape with all of the female directors who weren't nominated for Oscars. And there's a little video there. You can see the names of the snubbed, little women's Greta Gerwig, the farewells, Lulu Wang, and many others. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write,

nothing screams protest like an embroidered Dior cape. We would have also accepted not all heroes wear capes, but this one certainly does. And finally, David, on Monday, the New York Post had this semi-terrifying tweet, mysterious deep space object, sending signals to Earth every 16 days. mysterious deep space objects sending signals to Earth every 16 days.

Some good stuff here. It's the Iowa caucus results. The object is signaling to Astros hitters. Oh, wow. Okay. And my favorite, it's congratulating the Knicks on each win. If you thought both aliens and the Nix had the potential to end human life on this planet, congrats.

You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right. in the notebook dump, David. Let's do a little state of the race because we are coming off New Hampshire on Tuesday night. Bernie Sanders was the winner. Pete Buttigieg in second.

Amy Klobuchar, a somewhat surprising third place. What we've seen in the last 48 hours is the centrist block rising up to stop Bernie at all costs if they weren't worried before they're worried now.

There is a Las Vegas Sun editorial that endorsed Amy Klobuchar and Joe Biden For some reason America's editorial boards can't just pick one candidate. You have to pick two candidates. Klobuchar and Biden. The quote here is,

Sanders is the only clear non-starter dot dot dot. A Sanders candidacy simply guarantees a Trump second term. So there's that. The powerful culinary union in Nevada warning its members that Sanders is Medicare for all what plan would take away their hard-won health insurance.

So again, with Nevada coming up in nine days, a week from Saturday, you are starting to see this panic. We always knew this was going to happen if Sanders won. And I think the whole notion here is he can't win one more. Because if Bernie Sanders co-won Iowa, he won New Hampshire. outright and then he manages to win Nevada. Again, we can talk about Bloomberg. We can, you know, fantasy book all these other candidates into the nomination.

But it starts to become really, really likely that Bernie Sanders is going to win the Democratic nomination. If he wins Nevada? Yes. Yeah. I mean, that's that's undeniably true. I mean, first of all, if we can go back to the split endorsement. I mean, the New York Times endorse. I mean, maybe this is just newspapers around the country realizing that the rules have changed.

The New York Times just sets the rulebook for like every future, every endorsement that follows. It's like the New York Times style guide influences all the other newspapers around the country. I don't, I mean, picking Klobuchar and Biden together. I don't, I cannot even imagine what the intellectual, philosophical argument is for that, except just to say, vote your conscience, conscience as long as it's not the white-haired dude from New Hampshire, or from, from Vermont. Also, I know that, I mean, there are a lot of people making this point. Chris Hayes in particular has been banging this drum loudly.

The idea that the editorial board for, what was the newspaper? The Las Vegas Sun. The Las Vegas son knows for certain that Bernie Sanders would lose in the presidential race to Donald Trump is incorrect and just such a symptom of the moment that we live in. Like, every, everybody, every voter that was interviewed in New Hampshire and in Iowa was like running game theory. They're like trying to figure out who the most electable candidate is because that has a huge, I mean, and it wasn't just their fault. They were constantly being pulled by pollsters who were coming through. asking, is it more important to you that your candidate agrees with your values or can beat Trump? As if these two things are necessarily mutually exclusive.

I mean, most of the argument against Donald Trump or a lot of the argument against Donald Trump four years ago, was that he was going to just, Hillary was just going to steamroll him in the general, right? That's right. I mean, that he had this, like, loud, vocal minority. And the idea that we can predict anything, especially when the thing you're saying with such assurance is that Amy Klobuchar can K-O-Trump in a round. Like that is, it's just, it's just befuddling. But going back to the way, where we started,

or where you started me on this rant, if Bernie Sanders can win Nevada, I mean, that's it, right? I mean, I guess it's not, that's not it. That means we'll probably have many more Bloomberg segments to follow. But, I mean, that would be incredibly significant. And we're not, we wouldn't even be at super, Tuesday yet. It's not it, but it's, again, his hand just gets better and better. I totally understand.

We've now had a 48-hour argument about the size of Bernie's victory. And you saw so many hilarious tweets saying, well, the story of the night is Amy Klobuchar. And the second biggest story of the night is Pete Buttigieg. It was like, we're just going backwards up the power rankings here. Like, you know, you know, Bernie Sanders won New Hampshire, right? Chris just sent me a tweet. Chris just sent me a tweet, and I don't even know where the screen grab is from, clearly like CNN or one of the big networks that has Bernie Sanders, it says Sanders is headshot with 26% underneath, and then next to it is Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Biden headshots, and underneath it says, total 53%. And the tweet from, this is from Jordan, U.HL, Jordan All, says, tweeted, wow, this is bad news for Bernie Sanders when he runs

against three people at once in the general, which I think is exactly the right take, right? when the Cowboys miss the playoffs next year, I'm going to be relieved that I can add that Cowboys win total to the Redskins and the Giants. And that they will then leap into the playoffs because they won 16 game. I mean, I just don't, I don't understand it. I totally understand people putting the brakes on and saying, for a candidate that co-won one prime, one caucus and one another, Bernie is pretty weak, right?

like his vote total was in the 20s rather than even Trump's in New Hampshire last time around, which was mid-30s, if I'm remembering correctly. He does not, he is, there is not yet this notion that Bernie can take that coalition and expand it beyond what he's done, right? He is certainly ripe to be beaten. That said, I look at every other candidate, every one of the major candidates, let's put Bloomberg aside for the second. But whose hand would you want right now other than Bernie's? He's got the money. He's got the wins.

He's got the organization in other states. He's got the name recognition, thanks to 2016. Would you rather have Elizabeth Warren's? Hell no. Joe Biden's hand right now. Hell no. Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg may be notionally interesting, but no. I wouldn't.

So again, if you just, it's okay to say Bernie's a front runner right now. Nate Silver says Bernie's a frontrunner right now. You can say he's a weak frontrunner, I'll take it. But he's a frontrunner right now. And it just feels like Democrats and some of their media pals are contorting themselves to just not say that, as apparently this CNN thing is. Well, I mean, listen, if you get to give them the benefit of the doubt, and we certainly should not give them the benefit of the doubt. But to, but to take, but to. Why?

But for this, but for the sake of argument, if one presumes that the average, that voters fully understand the policy platforms of all of the candidates. It's not true. I admit that. But if you're looking at this as like, you know, these three moderate candidates have very similar governing philosophies and political philosophies and everything else. And Bernie Sanders is clearly an outlier from that.

I understand why you would differentiate, why you would put people into two columns. But the vast majority of voters don't operate that way. And even the ones that do operate that way, I mean, I feel like most of this conversation ended the moment they allowed Bernie Sanders to get on the stage. He's standing up there next to people. And it's not like the things he's saying are like, it's not like he's like, you know, waving a Soviet flag up on stage. He's making, but sound to the average listener, like pretty, pretty reasonable policy recommendations.

And it's just the idea that anybody would listen, would watch Bernie Sanders in a debate come, you know, and say, this man is a, is a, is a, crazy outlier. I just don't believe anybody thinks that way. Anybody would think that from watching him. No. And by the way, mainstream Democrats thus far didn't give people many reasons to think that. They didn't endorse anybody else. How many people are sitting on the sidelines right now? That if they truly wanted to, quote, stop Bernie, they could go endorse somebody. But they haven't. And it's sort of, again, if you're a Democrat who's like, and I think this speaks for a lot of Democrats out there, I'm even related to some that are saying just tell me who to vote for so we can win this thing. Just I'm ready I'm ready to take signals from the secret DNC compound in Washington. Just tell me they're not getting any signals

right now. None. And again, this whole idea of well, you can add the centrist up every election. I don't want to run the poker metaphor into the ground here, but every election is about playing the hand or dealt, right? Oh my gosh. My Senate term happens to be up in an off year. So I'm and I might have a reaction to President Trump that boots me out of office. Oh my gosh, I might be running in the midst of the biggest financial calamity in 100 years. Right. That's, that's all, oh my gosh, my opponent might have melted down. That's all you get to do, right, is play the hand. And if all these centrists are chewing up each other's votes, but not getting a low enough total to get out of the race, that's all Bernie can, that, sorry, that's, that's, that's to Bernie's

benefit. You don't get to just redo it. The other thing about Nevada that's interesting to me, first of all, I was told this week it was pronounced Nevada by John Ralston, the dean of Nevada politics. So I guess Nevada. But interesting thing about Nevada is, where did Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren have to finish to stay in this race? I know they've assured us that they're going all the way to Super Tuesday. Joe Biden's case, at least to South Carolina, which is the week after. Is there any if Elizabeth Warren finished to say fourth or worse

is there any reason at that point to continue her candidacy other than just stick around and hope something crazy happens? Is there any reason to continue Biden's? I mean at some point the factor of running out of money and just plain embarrassment

I think begins to crawl up there and I just think this is this feels like For them, every primary at this point feels like last chance saloon. Either you show some signs of life or you're done. It's hard to disagree with that. I think that, I mean, they're both positioned financially and infrastructurally to kind of hang around as long as they want to.

Although I might have to make some, you know, tough, budgetary decisions to allow them to themselves to keep going, you know, at a reduced rate or on a smaller scale. But so, I mean, they could, I mean, the answer could just be we're going to hang around because we can. But philosophically, I mean, like, what's the, you're asking the right question. I'm not sure if either of both of them just tanks it in Nevada, the argument just becomes vanishingly small. I just, I mean, again, Biden has pointed to South Carolina all along, so maybe he wants to just, you know, fulfill that promise that he's going to go there. But, but again, we haven't seen a, we haven't seen a good poll of South Carolina. Are we sure that Joe Biden's still ahead in South Carolina right now? And if he's not, does he want to go there and get embarrassed? I don't know. I just think all those factors, which don't have,

you know, an exact one-on-one relationship on how you'll do, but just on media pressuring you, other Democrats pressuring you, money drying up, there's going to be a big case for one or both them to get out. Let's talk about the XFL, David. the new WW's funded spring football league started play last week. We like to focus on the league's viability, which is fine. But to me, it's more interesting as a laboratory of what sports TV could be like. For instance, in the XFL, we have access to the refs in the booth during an official replay review. Listen to this.

Mike Chase is a replay official on the left. So the runner slid down. He was not contacted as he's going to get up. We have no contact. The ball is out. And we have a defensive recovery, correct? Okay, so we're just going to get you a spot. We're going to reverse this and give it to the defense.

We're going to give you a spot. It looks like let's go with the 36. Isn't that cool? Mm-hmm. And why didn't you watch that and think, well, why can't we have that in the NFL? or in college football and maybe this is the Trojan horse

to get us in there. Yeah, I mean, the only answer is that knowing that they were, you know, on television, might affect their job performance or at least certainly the way that they talked, the way they spoke to one another,

knowing that it was going to be broadcast, but, I mean, it was hard, it's difficult to listen, well, to watch that clip, to have watched the games and to think that it would actually be problematic in any way. It just seems like what a positive step that would be.

Yeah. It's, I mean, if you talk to the network people who work with the NFL who basically have to show NFL games, they will constantly tell you how controlling the NFL is. I thought back to that when the Jets played the Patriots on Monday Night Football, I think was

last year, two years ago. Sam Darnold was just terrible that night and the mics caught Darnold saying, I'm seeing ghosts. Oh, yeah. And it was an amazing quote. And then the Jets got really mad because the quote was too interesting. And they said, we can't, we can't have this anymore.

Yeah. We can't have a microphone picking up our players saying something interesting. So they don't want that. But if you show the NFL and say, hey, look, the XFL has a mic in the referee booth and it turns out it's fine. You know, they have to watch themselves. As you say, maybe there's a little performance involved in it. But to me, that's the way to do it. And the other thing I saw this week was, by the way, access to coaches and players on the sidelines.

And again, it's the XFL. It doesn't matter as much. I get all that. But surely there's a hint to the NFL there that you can open yourself up a little bit and create really compelling little parts of your TV broadcast that aren't being exploited in exactly the same way. Yeah, and to go to maybe to argue with myself on this. I mean, there's no reason why the referees, I mean, why it's a net negative for the referees to not try to entertain this a little bit. I mean, if they're concerned with their, with their presentation, I mean, maybe this goes against all sort of moral code or whatever, but just like let them be, let them, let them do it up for us, you know? I mean, if everybody out there was like, was like Frank Drebin at the, when he was umpiring the baseball game, I mean, I think that's probably a net win for viewers, right? I think that, yeah, sure, sure. the one thing I don't think would work is when the coaches we hear the coaches calling in the play from the sidelines

which we can hear in the exfell that would never work in the NFL that would be like an astro's trash can scandal waiting to happen those coaches are way too paranoid to let that happen or the flip side they can't say anything that the other team's not secretly spying on already anyway so what's just you know let them out let them have it I want to talk to you, David, a little bit about Wes Anderson's New Yorker movie. Okay, yes. First question, how the hell did it take this long for Wes Anderson to make a New Yorker movie? I have no idea.

He is the Eustace Tilly of directors. I mean, this is, every movie feels like a New Yorker piece that was written in the 1940s that you know about but never read. Yes. The movie in this case is called the French Dispatch. It is loosely inspired by the New Yorker, at least according to. to the actual New Yorker. The movie's promo materials say, quote, the film is a love letter to journalists

set in an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional 20th century French city and brings to life a collection of stories published in the French Dispatch Magazine. Jeffrey Wright plays Roebuck Wright, a mashup, the New Yorker says, of James Baldwin and A.J. Liebling. I never thought of those two

housed under one roof. Owen Wilson plays someone that at least you know, resembles at least in the broad strokes Joe Mitchell. Up in the old hotel Joe Mitchell. Everybody you think is in this. Bill Murray, Bob Bellabay,

you don't even need the list. You could just, if you guess that this person is in the movie, they're in the movie. I don't know what to think. I'm undoubtedly intrigued and at the same time, it's kind of like every West Anderson movie.

I'm totally intrigued at the same time my head hurts already. The tweenus is just off the charts. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, that just makes the subject matter here so much more perfect. It'll be intense. It'll be maybe the purest distillation in some ways of the Anderson form. But like, I'm, man, when an artist and subject matter are so aligned, I mean, I am excited just to, I'm privilege, I'm going to be privileged just to view it.

It's destiny, right? Destiny. Scorsese was going to make a movie about Hoffa and the mob and Wes Anderson was going to make a movie about the New Yorker. I hope on the press tour, Wes Anderson will ask the New Yorker to apologize for his 2009 profile, which was headlined Wild Wild West. Is that the Richard Brody one? That's the Richard Brody one. Yeah. Okay.

I mean, listen. you can say what you will about that headline that probably once it's said out loud and that it's in the office it's probably pretty hard to resist David I want to talk to you about random celebrity endorsements okay our friend Chris Sullenrop and I got to talk this week about the Democratic primaries

Oh yeah The ostensible peg here was Monday when singer Clay Aiken changed his endorsement from Biden to Klobuchar Bold move Right by the way raise your hand if you knew Clay Akin had endorsed Biden. I did not know that.

So I've got some random celebrity endorsements here that Erica helped compile. I'm going to name the celebrity and I want you to try to name the candidate. Are you ready? Yes. Wait, before we get there, we should also point out that Cleaiken did run for office in the state of North Carolina. So he's not just a celebrity endorser. He's also something of a politician. He's also a client.

Okay. Yeah. one and I guess number two here. Terry Hatcher and Rivers Cuomo. It had to be, Rivers Cuomo has to be Bernie. That is incorrect. The answer is Andrew Yang. Oh, forgot about the Yang gang. Of course. You're right. It seems like Bernie. Actually, the Bernie ones are tough because they were so obvious. They're so loudly Bernie that it was hard to find any to put on the list. Let us continue. you. The Eagles Don Henley.

Oh. Wait, wait, let me think this through. Don Henley. I mean, look up Don Henley's age just, just as a data point. I was going to say, Kevin Cosner was on TV endorsing Mayor Pete this week. Don Henley feels like a 72 years old. Feels like a very similar demographic. I'm going to go, I'm going to go Joe Biden. Why not? That is correct. Yeah. Joe Biden. All right. How about Star Trek's George to Kay? I'm going to go Elizabeth Warren. We actually have sound on this. Take it away, Mr. Sulu. Today I'm both proud and emotional to make my endorsement for the president of the United States. We have a fine set of top contenders for the nomination, any one of whom I will be happy to support against the current occupants. of the White House,

but my choice is Pete Buttigieg. Oh. Pete Buttigieg. By the way, if you're a celebrity and endorsed, you should have to make a video like that for Twitter. I enjoyed that so much.

The big preamble and everything. And also saying, he did the Buttigieg thing, right? Did the Vote Blue thing. I will support any of these people, but my particular choice. All right. David, this is kind of a tricky one.

Recently deceased Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas. Sorry, I don't mean to laugh. Kirk Douglas. Kirk Douglas. Wow. We would have the Hollywood inroads. Let's go with Bloomberg.

That is correct. Wow. Nice. Michael Douglas on Mike the other day said, this is not a joke, came out and said, with some of his final words, he said, I think Mike can do it,

talking about Mike Bloomberg. So apparently one of Kirk Douglas' final thoughts was to endorse Mike Bloomberg, at least according to Michael Douglas. And what's Mike Bloomberg's campaign slogan? Mike can fix it? Yeah. So that's suspiciously close. Well, maybe he had some campaign paraphernalia had been mailed to the hospital or something.

Anyway, Kirk was for Mike. This is a popular one. Actress Jane Lynch. Jane Lynch, the great Jane Lynch. Sure, Elizabeth Warren. Let's do that. Turns out, sorry, it's Amy Klobuchar. Wow.

It was kind of a tepid endorsement as kind of a, I like Amy Klobuchar, please donate to her kind of thing. By the way, not all these were, not every celebrity endorsement as I wholeheartedly support, but Klobuchar. And finally, Martin Sheen. Ooh. I feel like I just saw him on, did I see this? He was at a climate protest the other day.

I think he was the one where Jane Fonda got arrested. I have a vague memory of being let down by Martin Sheen's endorsement. And I don't, and it's now, even though this certainly happened recently, it seems like so long ago. I'm going to say Martin Sheen. is pro a buddhajudge we have sound on this one too take it away captain willard

who are the best candidate you think in the democratic side on climate change who are you behind right now? Oh my God it's hard to tell I don't know I haven't really seen anybody step out of me I mean you like the most what we need

Elizabeth Warren I think you you know it's got a a woman. We need a woman. Good for you, Martin. The women are the only thing you can save. Kind of an off-the-cuff endorsement there. The climate protest.

Let's not put that one on a t-shirt. The t-shirt would say inaudible and then dot-dot-dot-da-lisabeth Warren. Check out Heather Schwettles piece last month in Slate for more. She's got a whole list. All right, time for David Schumacher. Guess is a strain pun headline. okay last Friday's headline about the flu was get a grip

America this week's headline I'm pretty sure we haven't done this one yet by the way we're running pretty low so all press box lists we need we need some more strain pun headlines I had to go deep into the archives this one which I'm pretty sure we haven't done comes from Dennis Schwarks hope I'm saying that correctly Dennis it's from the economist back in November, David, before Jeremy Corbyn and Labor were wiped out by Boris Johnson. So long ago, yeah. It was a kind of warning, a gentle warning, because it's the economist, about how a labor government under Corbyn would radically transform Britain.

In other words, labor's promises seemed beguiling the magazine was saying, but be careful. what was the economist's strained pun headline but I mean labor pains loves labor lost that has surely been used in the British press over the last hundred years spectator has got to have used that like 900 times

that's funny sheesh I have no idea the bad news take your mind to a recently rebooted HBO comedy recently rebooted HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm

Is that it? You got to give me a little more than that Corbin Corbin Enthusiasm Corb So close Just on the doorstep here Corp

You're not thinking Not on enough Corb your Corb your enthusiasm Corb your enthusiasm Oh that's terrible admirable David was actually trying to use the whole name as opposed to just

Corb Going for this train Yeah going for this It's Corb his name in the British tabloids Maybe so I think it's something else actually All British listeners please write in He is David Shoemaker.

I'm Brian Curtis. Research by Erica Servantes and Chris Almeida. Production Magic by Jim Cunningham. We're back Tuesday with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian. David? Yeah.

Either you show some science of life or you're done. Uh, Buttigieg? You've got to give me a little more than that. Sheesh, I have no idea. The, hmm. Uh, uh, that's Ooh. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Wow. Oh, that's terrible. Uh. It's Enrico.