The Press Box - Bloomberg for President, Trump's Stadium Tour, and the Diets of Reporters | The Press Box

Episode Date: November 13, 2019

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker discuss Mike Bloomberg running for president (03:00), the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week (22:30), Donald Trump’s sports stadium tour (24:15), what happens when you mistranscribe the tape of a presidential candidate (30:00), and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. Bill Simmons's Book of Basketball 2.0 podcast is officially out. This new podcast extends and reinvents his New York Times number one bestselling book from 2009 and breaks down the NBA's most important games, players, and teams. Starting with Steve Kerr in the premiere episode, Bill's using new commentary and fresh interviews to determine how the league has evolved and where it's headed. Check out the Book of Basketball on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. David, today,

the Disney Plus streaming service went online. You know how I know that? Because every single ESPN employee tweeted about it. What I want to know is, do you agree with Adam Schefter? The Disney Plus will quote, change lives. I am going to be very generous to Adam Schefter and to Stephen A. Smith and Woge and everybody else that tweeted about this. of all of the cross-promotional garbage that they could have been forced to do

promoting Disney Plus is a wonderful version of it. I am already a paid subscriber. I am proud to say. I've already watched the Mandalorian. I'm already gearing up to watch some Pixar movie with my family tonight, I'm sure. Can we say least bad version of it you could do? Instead of a wonderful... Is there any wonderful cross-present?

promotion. All I'm going to say is when I'm sitting down the couch tonight, trying to figure out what two adults can possibly sit through that an 11-year-old wants to see, I will say the Disney Plus app may well change my life. This is, they may well be changed by this. I like that spoken as a dad. Yeah. Yeah, no, this is, it's pretty hilarious. I woke up this morning, I was watching Get Up and they were in a great, in a great example of synchronicity. You know, all the Simpsons, the Complete Simpsons library is on Disney Plus,

which is brilliant of Disney to move that property over there. And on GetUp, they were ranking the top 10 sports, I mean, athlete guest appearances on The Simpsons. I mean, it was just, I mean, the potential crossover appeal here is just never ending. And I think that we're probably, I think, you know, I think ESPN is going to take its licks from folks like us and from, you know, overworked Twitter jokes. and everything else. But man, it's sort of, uh, it's, it will change lives. That's pretty

incredible stuff. We are the Venet Hutzog of Media Podcasts. This is the press box, a part of the ringer podcast network. Hello media consumers, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here. We've got lots and lots of stuff to get to today. We'll talk about Donald Trump's sports stadium tour across America. What happens when you mistranscribe the tape of a major presidential candidate, the most gloriously named guy in a news story you'll ever see, plus the overworked Twitter joke of the week. But David, we got to start with the billionaire presidential candidate who is reluctant to show his taxes. No, not that one. I'm talking about Mike Bloomberg. The New York Times is Alex Burns broke the story late Thursday that Bloomberg is preparing

to run for president. He filed to run in Alabama in the primary last week. He's in Arkansas saw today, apparently to file in that primary as we record this. The first question is the most obvious one, which is how seriously do we take this, both from, is there any chance Bloomberg could win the Democratic nomination? That's one. And two, what are the cousin Sal odds that Bloomberg is actually going to run for president? And this is not just a big show that ends with a whimper. Oh my gosh.

I think that the odds, the odds of him running or the odds of him winning? Which one are we talking about? I kind of want both, but answer in whatever order you think. I just want to say off the top that I don't think the odds are particularly high or very high at all that he would win. I don't think the odds in reality are so high that he would run,

especially considering it seems like the trial balloon went up and he immediately just like decided not to do it, at least it feels like with the pattern that we're in right now. And it's just like terribly disheartening. I mean, for a lot of reasons, but to think that this dude has the wherewithal to functionally launch a presidential campaign in at least one state. I mean, to get on the ticket, financially, that's no small thing, to have to start pulling a campaign staff together and the connections to get all these. news stories out there about him about him potentially running for president and it's

all just a little like shrugging shoulders trial balloon and it's and that he just kind of wanted to like feel out the world to see what the reaction would be it's like either run for president or don't but don't like half ass it just because you got the billion dollars to do it. I mean it's just I don't

under like I know that he is I'm gonna I'm getting too deep I already feel it but who cares I know that there is this like there is this like mysterious vocal cabal of powerful centrist out there that is just

like trying to talk anybody into running for president. My guess is it's probably like one dude with money, but whatever. But the idea that we're just like Jeff Bezos, whoever else is trying to talk people

into running for president without any regard for the fact of just like the way that this just like scorches the earth for all of the existing candidates. It just seems so misbegotten, so disheartening. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. let's get back to the timeline that we've laid out here. I'm sorry. No, no. I think you've hit on the question, which is, which is why is he even doing the parade in front of the TV people and the centrist part of this? I kind of think if you're a normal elite politician, let's say you're Amy Klobuchar or your Cory Booker, you need the full presidential campaign to kind of attain that, you know you get get out there that that's the ego stroke right you you also want to win but that but part of what you're doing is saying i can do this and i want to see how people respond if you're a

billionaire like bloomberg i think really you only need a couple of days of this and there's a really good chance that at that point he's going to be like you know what that was fun that was that was you know i just need i needed i needed chuck todd to to say that i would that i could be elected and and i'm all good and and now i can go back to supporting causes i want to support. I just think there's different levels of this. And should, by the way, should we listen to Chuck Todd? Because we do have this cute up. Yeah, do do this. This is great. When you, because you kind of had to look for somebody this week who was saying this is a good idea, who was not a, who was not a fellow billionaire. It turns out it's NBC's Chuck Todd. Listen to him explained why he

thinks Bloomberg could append the Democratic race for the nomination. Guns and climate. Who's to his left? Well, Beto was to his left on guns, but he's not going to be a factor any longer. Right? I mean, so. Also the governor of, of, uh, you can make an argument. Bloomberg has embraced the green new. I don't think he's embraced that. I agree. That's one area where he actually is more to the center than she is. You know, in the smoke-filled room, you'd say on paper, Bloomberg has the right balance of what you want to win a broad election.

Maybe not a deep election. But if you're trying to win the suburban, the ex-suburban Republican, which by the way, Michael Bloomberg's an ex-suburban, arguably an ex-urban Republican. And at the same time, you care about these core progressive issues like guns and climate. It ain't just somebody buying an election. I'm trying to think of Michael Bloomberg as the nominee in Western Pennsylvania. I know what you're thinking. The suburbs of Michigan, the Michigan suburbs, the Ohio suburbs, the Wisconsin suburbs. By the way, there's only one money made for him. It's the same running mate Joe Biden has to pick. And it's the same money made.

Pete Buttigieg has to pick. It's Stacey Abrams, by the way. There's nobody else that Bloomberg can match up with if he someone got this nomination than Stacey Abrams. Why? I think he has to have a person of color. I think he needs a diversity on the ticket,

person of color, no? I don't know what he would need. I'm just trying to think of Bloomberg selling nationally in the nitty-gritty of the key swing places. Maybe he can. Look, I didn't think New York, but I didn't think New York City, But I thought that was a problem for Trump.

Like, I think we all thought New York City doesn't sell in America. And yet, what were the two nominees? Well, Trump was the candidate. Trump was the candidate from the apprentice. He wasn't the candidate from New York. I just think the New York thing. And the guy that talks their language, which Michael Bloomberg doesn't. No, but I do think that I don't think that's going to be as problematic as it could have been even a decade.

No, Republicans are ready to hit him on the two issues just said, right? Climate and guns. They're going to paint him as Elizabeth Warren. He is that extreme is what they're going to say. Sure, but Elizabeth Warren's going to paint him as a closet right winger. So in some ways, he's going to be, he could be bookended well. Maybe. Before we get to the general, though, there is the primary.

And when you think about Bloomberg's entry in relation. I've heard enough. I feel like that's like 19D chess. I know. Chuck Todd's immediately going now, who is going to be Bloomberg's running mate? And everybody on the panel's like, wait, what? I know. That was the moment where the curtain,

got pulled back a little bit and someone off stage was yelling like, pay no attention to the talking head behind the curtain or what? I mean, it was just like way to, it got so horse racy that it just invalidated everything else as if everything else he said wasn't already nonsense. I mean, I don't know if he was trying to make the case that Bloomberg is actually more of a lefty than we're giving him credit for. So we should start giving him credit. I don't, I'm not sure that anybody's going to be compelled into believing that the billionaire technocrat that was literally a former repatri. Republican is more liberal than Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders for Pete's sake. I mean, it just doesn't, I just don't know what the point of making that case is. I don't know really what the point of making.

I mean, he's got a wins, you know, he's got to have a constituency. And he's got to have a constituency that's bigger than Jeff Bezos and Chuck Todd. I mean, he's just like, I get the, I get the horse racey intrigue, but it's not. I mean, he was a, he was a, I mean, he was a, I mean, he was a punchline for us when we were trying to make sense of de Blasio running. And I don't think that, despite the fact that he was a more successful mayor and more successful, and a very successful businessman and, and obviously a very committed, you know, committed political, uh, political, uh, thinker. I don't think that that validates a run for presidency. He's certainly not an insurgent run. to run as a third party or something than like, you know, more power to him. But it's this whole thing. And now we're talking about Deval Patrick today. And I know I'm

skipping ahead, but Deval Patrick's jumping. By the way, I want to correct something I said earlier. I said that Mike Bloomberg was, looked like he was already backing off his presidential run, but he did tweet today a picture of him having a lunch with Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. So he's obviously not. He's obviously still running, running, running. I mean, I don't understand every time someone else, of course, I've said it before, every politician, every politician, everybody running for president desperately wants to be president. We know that. And they all have this dream that they're going to step out their front door and there's going to be, you know, a million Americans that just like chanting them into the White House. You know, I mean,

that they're going to, they're going to ride in on their white horse and save the, and save democracy and go down in history as the greatest president ever. And, and, but listen, I mean, you can't just, I mean, if you disrupt a political process, the way that, like, all of these weird Bloomberg and Deval Patrick and everybody else are threatening to do, then you can, then, I mean, it's just, I, it's just crazy. It's crazy. It doesn't make, it doesn't make any sense to me. And I don't, I understand why they're, why their ego is driven to this point, but like, the idea that there's not a centrist candidate out there, there's the idea that there's a hold of fill. I mean, I don't know, I just don't know what, I don't know who it is.

that's in their ear. And so you've got now Bloomberg, you've got potentially Devald Patrick. You've also, according to Washington Post, that Hillary Clinton has been fielding calls in recent days about whether to get into the race. Some close to her set. I'm reading from a recent piece by Matt Weiser, Michelle, Yehee Lee, Annie Linsky, and Michael Scher. I mean, I just can't believe.

I mean, first of all, it is believable because this is an archetype, right? The panic candidate. Oh, my God. my party's going to blow it. So I need to come in and save the day. There was a good piece in Politico magazine by Jeff Greenfield, where he went through some of the great panic candidates of our lifetime before. Do you remember Wesley Clark in 2004?

Yeah, definitely. Coming in and going, ah, see, I'm a general. Democrats have a problem with Iraq. Remember Fred Thompson in 2008? Oh, God, yeah. Getting in and kind of went with things. Gary Hart kind of qualifies as this guy, Jerry Brown from California back in the 70s. there is this whole idea of this person coming in on the horse and they're going to save the party from certain ruin.

I guess the question I have for you, if we're both extremely skeptical of Bloomberg in all kinds of ways, is, is he right to panic? Is he right to look at the four front runners in this race, which would be Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg Elizabeth Ward and Bernie Sanders in no particular order, and say those four people, aren't great candidates that if one of them gets in there we might blow this. Is he right to panic? No. I don't think so.

He's not right. I don't believe so, especially not wait against the potential the potential damage his own candidacy could do the party. Maybe I'm just overreacting. Dave Weigel had a really smart tweet

the other day where he said, When we look back at 2019, I think people ask why the moderate rescue plan was a Bloomberg candidacy and not like Bloomberg giving $100 million to a Booker Super PAC, which I think is exactly right. I don't know that we'll look back, anyone will look back and think that. I think that's the exact right question to ask, though. I think that that raises an interesting question, which is if it suddenly became worrisome, who was the candidate that a month ago, had hope in and why not help that candidate, right? If it if this is a sudden issue and not one that's dated back to the very beginning of the primaries, uh, what changed? What's the problem? Um, I'm, I know there's a lot of people who have a lot of money to give liberal candidates who are probably very leery of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and everything they represent. Um, you know, I would like to think on some level that they should be worried

but I kind of more deeply believe that they probably don't have a ton to worry about in the grand scheme of things or at least in the extreme they'll be fine but it is interesting I don't know that I just don't know I don't think that

if the soul if the goal at the if the end goal is beating Trump I don't think that Bloomberg's fears as you stated are particularly rational if the fear is not letting Trump or Bernie or even Elizabeth Warren win the presidency, then I can see why someone in his position might want to jump in.

And that definitely is his other fear, for sure. No, I think, I agree with you. I think to just try to get into the mind of him and a bunch of centrists, they look at this, they look at the polls and think they're sort of lopsided, right? They would rather that top four include Booker, Klobuchar,

and somebody else like that, maybe, maybe, you know, there are a couple of centrists in the race, right? It's just that Pete Buttigieg has never won even a state election. And then you got Joe Biden, whose rickety performance is scaring everybody to death. So I think they would just rather the polls sort of be flipped upside down. And you have, you know, a Midwestern senator or, you know, a New Jersey senator or somebody who's going to come in and they would do that.

So that's what's provoking all this. But I agree with you. I don't know that it's going to damage the party at all. I don't think it'll matter. I think it'll be mostly a sideshow. I think it damages the party if we stipulate that he could have taken $100 million and just spent it on attacking Trump for the next 12 months, which is probably what he should have done. Here's my fear about damaging the party. I don't think that there's some like, I don't think having another person on the debate stage is going to damage the party no matter what their positioning is. I don't think that having someone run a tough campaign against any of the frontrunners is going

to damage the party. What I worry about is just this prolonged horse racy meta-conversation that's never ending on television and everywhere else about the inadequacy of the current candidates. I mean, if that becomes what this, I mean, there's no evidence of that particularly. I mean, you can point out that, like, Joe Biden is stumbling, but that doesn't reflect negatively on the people around him. and the fact that, I mean, we have a big field, it's necessarily going to lend itself to a bunch of sort of variability and uncertainty. But the idea that this is all we're going to talk about on, you know, MSNBC and that Fox News is going to be over here, guffawing about all this stuff. I think that that actually has the potential to, you know, hurt whoever ends up coming out of the Democratic primary.

If our worry is that morning Joe will continue to be underwhelmed by the Democratic field, there might be nothing we can do about that. Well, no, listen, I mean, that's true. I think I heard Joe Scarborough being incredibly complimentary of Elizabeth Warren this morning, at least in terms of how she's run her campaign, if not her politics in particular. But I agree with that. I just think that the thing that, I just think that one real lesson that, that, you know, was obvious, but, you know, was probably obvious beforehand, but should have been taken from Trump four years ago is that some of these meta-conversations sort of self-actualize, you know? I mean, the more you talk about a thing on TV, the more it becomes a real thing. And I don't think that, you know, I think that especially in terms of like, like, Deval Patrick as a meaningful political figure. Now, listen, I like Deval Patrick. I, part of me, part of me, he thinks he would have been a good presidential candidate. But him is like a white knight writing in here and like trying to save the day. It's just so beside the point, you know?

And, and, and all that, all that, that, that entire conversation is only about Joe Biden being a dodo. I mean, really. I mean, and that's, and I, and I, and I, I, I'm not, I'm not sure what the, you know, what, like how, how, I'm not sure what the, what the, what the positive spin on that would be. Can I, can I, can I say what I think is behind a lot of this, both from, please the media and Democratic voters is we just hate uncertainty I see this personally in our little sports world every time there's a college football playoff coming up and there's like you know somewhere between like eight to 10 viable teams a month out and everybody's like what are we going to do what this is chaos this is crazy people people hate uncertainty

and the fact that they don't know who's going to be the Democratic nominee yes and they don't even have a really good idea just drives them up the fucking wall. And I think, I think if Warren were just dominating right now, even if people weren't totally comfortably with her politically, they'd be like, okay, she's it. Okay, well, I understand. I can wrap my brain around this. But I think not knowing just makes people go nuts. And I, and I think that's some of the voter media angst here is they just don't know who the nominee is going to be. Yeah. They really don't. I think I, there's, there's a lot of truth. that. I mean, I think that you cannot underplay that aspect of it. And I think that trying to

construct a narrative even, you know, I mean, one degree removed from that is tough. I mean, I think that Warren's campaign has, Warren's campaign, I mean, the position that that that campaign is in right now could be, I mean, it's really easy to construct a narrative where she's just run a remarkable grassroots campaign is doing incredibly well. and is over-exceeding expectations by a lot, I think somehow she's sort of like, as soon as she took them, as soon as she kind of took the mantle

of a front-runner, one of the front-runners, people kept on trying to look beyond her. And I think that, and even Pete Buttigieg, who's up 14 in Iowa, I mean, suddenly, and I mean, not 14 points,

but over his, over from his last numbers. According to the Monumenthal, yeah. Raising money out of her fist, he's doing incredible. I mean, I just, I don't, I'm not sure. I'm

I struggled I'm struggling with exactly what his narrative's going to be I don't I think the same people that are that are eagerly anticipating

a Bloomberg candidacy or I think that a lot of this is not just about Biden but it's also sort of implicit reflection on him and his whatever

like understated inadequacy I'm not quite sure what it is I think that he's I mean maybe maybe a lot of the anxiety comes from him as well I mean I guess that's the

but the most I could say about it. Let us break from our angst, David, to do the overboard 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. Please send your nominees to At the Press Box Pod, where they are always gratefully received.

Bloomberg for President, David, might have produced one of the biggest best timed overworked Twitter jokes in human history. It was an extraordinarily overworked Twitter joke to write, OK Bloomberg. who would have also accepted OK Bloomer.

Thanks to Matt Zeeland, David Obertie, Kyle, rather, Nick Field, Dr. Blumen and Jeff Borden for that one. Beloved game show host, Pat Sejag, David, had emergency surgery last week for a blocked intestine. Vanna White had to step in and guest host Wheel of Fortune. Sejack now says he's doing well and he'll be on the show next week, according to Twitter. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write,

I'd like to buy a bowel. I'd like to buy a bowel. Thanks to the Chet Lemon and Bill for that one. Finally, David, some important post-Hlloween news from Gothamist, quoting NYPD announces arrest in case of smashed pumpkins. NYPD announces arrest in case of smashed pumpkins. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write, guessing the perp was a somewhat portly middle-aged bald man

with a very pale skin and a lot of guitar. We would have also accepted despite all his rage. He is now just a guy in a cage. Also referring to the alleged perp despite all your rage, you cannot smash a gourd in this age. Thanks to Argyle umbrella jump six. And Christylee, if you joked about a band that is not the official 90s band

at the press box, congrats, you made the overwork Twitter joke of the week. All right, David, time for the notebook dump. We had a huge and very good LSU Alabama college football game on Saturday, which is notable for us because it was the latest stop on Donald Trump's stadium tour. He did the World Series. He did UFC.

And now he did Bama LSU. Dave Weigel, the aforementioned tweets, sorry, been busy. Did the president actually keep going to sporting events until he found one where the crowd would cheer for him? Yes, he did. And at Bama LSU, the Washington Post described the reaction as booze, cheers, and chance of USA, someone from the student government association at Bama sent an email before the game saying any organizations that engage in disruptive behavior during the game will be removed from block seating at Alabama football games instantly for the remainder of the season,

which some people read as anti-protests. And there was a backtracking email saying from the same guy saying, my email has nothing to do with anyone's First Amendment rights. And I am sorry for the confusion. also notable at this game david senate candidate bradley burn running for the republican nomination in alabama was sitting with trump in the box not sitting with trump in the box was jeff sessions trump's former attorney general whom he made fun of relentlessly and is now running for his old seat so that was pretty funny um i want to share one more thing and we'll talk about trump

in sports. There were protesters outside Brian Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa for the game with a 20-foot high baby Trump balloon. You've seen baby Trump. It was slashed and deflated allegedly by a man named Hoyt Hutchinson.

After his release, Hoyt Hutchison spoke on Facebook live. He said, some liberals tried to come to my hometown and start some trouble. That ain't happening. I did get arrested. I got charged. That's all right. I do it again given the opportunity.

That is real. That is not the Elmore Leonard novel about a president visiting a college football game in Alabama. Incredible. What do we think of Trump's stadium tours? I mean, it's amazing that he has strung all these together. And as Wigo said, I do really think he was waiting

to get the good reaction. after UFC and the World Series didn't go quite as he planned? Yeah, the UFC when I thought was really weird, because while one might expect Trump to get a good reaction there, yeah, I'm not sure that that's like the victory that you're looking for, right? Like I got cheered at a UFC event. You know, I'm not sure that that makes up for past booings. LSU Alabama, I think, really fits the bill.

You get cheered there, so what if it's like exactly, you know, that, that, that, that, that, that, is right in your back pocket. That's a major, major sporting event and is very presidential and everything else. So kudos to whoever thought of that one. But yeah, it is a weird, it's a weird, it's a weird. The tour is a weird thing. But, you know, for better and for more often than not worse,

Trump's ego has driven him to the point where he is right now. and you know he's probably helped him as much as it hurt him during his professional political career so you know keep going on to sporting events you know mess up traffic it'll be it's fun for everybody he's certainly not obviously the first president

to dip into these waters college football Richard Nixon college basketball Bill Clinton all that stuff the UFC thing was fascinating and Jason Gay wrote a really great column the Wall Street Journal about it essentially saying if magazines still existed. That visit would have been a novella length Norman Mailer opus.

Mm-hmm. That just that thing. I mean, getting the whole spectacle of cage fighting of Trump and the kind of approach to politics he brings of Dana White, who spoke at the RNC in 2016, of Joe Rogan, right? And his whole crowd podcast listenership and how that kind of crosses over in certain ways with Trump's crowd. Trump came out to back in black, according to Jason Gay? I mean, just like, what?

Which is just funny. I'm like 19 levels. The whole, that's just, I'm, it, that's one of those, it's amazing this happened. Trump goes to UFC. I told, you know, if somebody told you and I that after we'd been asleep for two weeks, we would have said, okay, absolutely believe it. But still, just standing back, a president visits the UFC and sits. pretty close to the cage.

He was not. He was, he turned down the box. He wanted to be close to the action. Yeah. And that's just, I just don't even want to think about that. Well, but it's incredible. He made the right choice. There's nothing like sitting close to the cage for a, for a MMA fight.

I can speak from personal experience. Yeah, I mean, the only problem with the hypothetical magazine piece that I would have loved to have read, is that as with just day-to-day politics, Trump steps on his own news so quickly that, you know, that would have been an interesting story for about 15 minutes until somebody else wrote the piece about him going to the LSU-Bama game. But that is, I mean, that would be,

I mean, that would just be an incredible, it was an incredible moment. It was an incredibly weird, just a moment in presidential sports history and hopefully one we will never forget. Department of transcription, David. Evan Halper, national reporter from the LA Times, made a mistake this weekend.

His mistake was that he accidentally made a Pete Buttigieg quote, interesting. Buttigieg was talking about his approach to health care and Joe Biden's. I'm going to give you some of the quote. He says, my message is not going back to where we were, getting back to normal. I think because I come from part of the country

where normal has been a real problem for a very long time, I think the failures of the old normal help explain. explain how we got to Trump. Okay? What Helper had him saying was, I think the failures of the Obama administration help explain how we got to Trump. So we went from nice platitude to shot at Obama. Halper, to his credit, quickly and transparently corrected it wore the hair shirt,

et cetera, et cetera. Liz Smith, who's a communications person for Buttigieg tweets, for those who feel the need to dunk on the reporter who erroneously reported this, just don't. This episode taught us anything that we need to be a little less dunking on Twitter. And Buttigieg was very gracious in accepting the correction as well. Can I say something that sounds a little bit hot takey? Oh, God, please. This is the kind of thing journalists should be dunked on about.

Yes. And again, I don't want I don't want to help her anything professional. get back out there, kick ass and all that stuff. I don't want anything to be bad. But the crazy conspiracy theories and bias accusations that Trump puts out there, that stuff is stupid. But getting the words and sentiment of a quote from a presidential contender right, that's legitimate.

That's what we should be doing correctly. And if people are mad at journalists on Twitter, I'd rather than be mad at that. you know, rather than the made up you hate my candidate and you're trying to, you know, undermine my candidate stuff. That's just, that's just what that's just part of the job, right? So again, I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm not asking for the mobs to come and credit to Budajajid and his team for being so gracious.

But, but that's the kind of stuff readers should be mad about journalists about. I think that that's right. I think that the, though, that we were in an age where the mobs are almost inevitable, though. And so I appreciate the effort that the Buttigieg campaign made to sort of, you know, stifle the the uprising. You know, I mean, this is certainly not. I agree with you definitely in theory. And, you know, definitely don't think, don't wish any ill will upon help. But I'm just glad that we didn't.

I mean, this was not a situation where we needed like the ceremonial firing of a copy editor or something. You know, I mean, it just seems like, it just seems like the distance between, it just seems like the distance between the acknowledgement of the error and just catastrophe is so short in this day and age that, you know, I'm happy that this is sort of, you know, passed by with, with relatively little attention. Yeah. Oh, I agree. And speaking to which, Edward Isaac DeVir, the Atlantic tweets is, politics in 2019, people sitting on their phones on a Sunday night made a Buttigieg quote go viral. That was the mistranscribe quote. Bad faith interpretations turned it into a big issue for Buttigieg. The quote was wrong. The whole thing was done in 12 hours and most of the world had no idea any of it happened. It's pretty funny. Got a department here, David, for you.

The Diet of Journalists. This is a bit from Republican Congressman Matt Gates, who was somehow always in the news. He was on a Mark Levin Fox News show that I had never heard of. I'm going to play a clip for you. A lot of this is just generic. anti-media rant. But David, I want you to listen to these specific culinary details that Matt Gates provides when he's talking about journalists. I believe that far too many people in the Washington media have given up journalism and instead have taken on the role of advocacy. They don't believe

that their job is to report on what is happening. They are trying to shape public opinion to be consistent with their worldview. It's a worldview where you eat nothing but kale and quinoa, where those of us who cling to our Bibles and our guns and our fried foods in real America are looked down upon. Now, on the binary choice of diets that Matt Gates proposes, which side would you say that you and I fit on? The quinoa and kale side or the clinging to fried foods side? Definitely the latter. Although I did have kale in my lunch today, I cling to my fried foods with every bit of my lifeblood energy. Yeah, if Matt, if Matt Gates wants to come have lunch with the press box solely to see what we consume,

I'm sure we could accommodate him. There are lots of ways to attack journalists, even on cultural terms, but eating healthy would not seem to be your best line of attack. I just don't, I don't know who, I don't know how people imagine journalists are what they look like. this is not this is not a healthy group of people generally speaking this is just it's just not and i just love that that everybody's eating kale and quinoa again nothing i you know nothing about and by the way speaking of journalists i saw a few who you know most of the jokes were like oh i eat all this crap a couple of them were actually talking about the stuff they've cooked recently

you know all you have to do is throw the prompt to the journalist right tell me about your reporting process and they keep and they start talking about the stuff they cook now just go no no no sorry sorry matt gates takes it back we don't want to know thank you thank you go back to writing stories anyway thanks to just and franz for bringing that to our attention david i don't have a dial a quote of the week for you but i do have a news story figure of the week jd jrberrsons this long did you see the story about memphis basketball player james wiseman guy probably going to be the number one pick next year but he was ruled ineligible by the ncala because his family took money for moving expenses from Memphis coach Penny Hardaway.

Yeah. So by the way, by the way, before Penny Hardaway was Memphis coach, just for the record. Yes, that's right. And Penny Hardaway's pre-coaching life, he gave some money to the family. It's stupid. Please do not take this as an endorsement of some dumb NCAA penalty. Anyway, here you have a basketball star being told he can no longer play. Would you believe, and I am not making this up, as Dave Barry used to say,

Would you believe his attorney is named Leslie Ballin, aka Les Ballin? No. That's not true. It is absolutely true. What was the Simpsons? What was the Simpsons line? Les Winen. Yeah.

The suspended basketball player's attorney is named Les Ballin. And I went to his website. I wanted to, we do shoe leather reporting here. at the press box. He looks like he could have been an extra in the firm. I mean, this is this is Memphis all the way. Undergradate University of Texas law school at Memphis State. The firm's name is Ballin, Ballin, and Fishman.

Oh, my gosh. The official attorney. I was going to say of the, this guy literally, this guy looks like he took it as a picture of Hal Holbrook from the firm on his wall and he's just like modeling his career after. Can't you see him standing in the background when Tom Cruise walked in the room

they were all giving him those stony looks and it turns out he just scored well in the bar exam. I was going to say official attorney of all ineligible basketball players, but maybe of the press box. Less balling. Unbelievable. All right. Time for David Shoemaker. Guess is a strain pun headline. Friday's headline about the death of a very woolly sheep was rest in fleece.

As usual, readers were smarter even than the headline writers. Mary Mouplet says the headline should have been he will never be forgotten. Nick Sandberg suggests Shearly departed Steve Hendrickson This is a good one Last woolen testament Sean Fox says

We'll be missing you Which is pretty funny Jeff Gehagen Austin George Justin Greggott Alex Stewart and Suburban Bourbon all had the winner though David Which is Died in the Wool

That is pretty perfect Died in the Wool I love it Oh, this is good. Today's pun headline comes from Dylan Paris, David Eldred, and Craig David. It's from the Financial Times. It's Nigel Andrews' review of the movie The Irishman. It's a positive review.

Kind of a rave review. Here's what I'll give you. Think of the man Al Pacino plays in the movie Jimmy Hoffa. And think of classic gangster movie lines. What is the Financial Times' strained pun headline? Oh, man. Say hello to my little friend. You want to play rough?

I know I'm trying to fit it. I'm trying to put Jimmy your Hoff and I always wanted to be a guy. Make him. Oh. Hmm? Hmm? I'm, I'm, uh, I'm going to make it. I'm going to make him a Hoffa you can't refuse.

Is that the, Hoffa you can't refuse. Oh, a Hoffa you can't refuse. There we go. There we go. That's actually really good. Who is that from? Financial Times.

Oh, wow. Pretty spectacular. A Hoffa, you can't refuse. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Research by Crystal made a production manager by Jim Cunningham. We're back Friday, bright and early. More lukewarm takes about the media.

See you then, David. See you later, Brian. Some liberals tried to come to my hometown and start some trouble. that ain't happening. No. I did get arrested. I got charged. That's all right.

I'd do it again, given the opportunity. That's not true. That is real. It's crazy. It doesn't make any sense to me. Can I say something that sounds a little bit hot takey? Oh, God, please. David was a somewhat poorly middle-aged bald man with very pale skin and a lot of guitars.

I don't understand. I think not knowing just makes people go nuts. My guess is it's probably like one dude with money. I'd like to buy a bowel. Yes. No, not that one. Oh, man. No, not that one.

Say hello to my little friend? No. You want to play rough? No. I'm getting too deep. I already feel it, but who cares? We don't want to know. Thank you.

Thank you. I know. I'm trying to fit it. I'm trying to get back out there, kick ass. That stuff is stupid. But yeah, it is a weird. it's a weird it's a weird

thing but you know for better and for more often than not worse maybe I'm just overreacting up the fucking wall what I worry about is just this prolonged horse racy meta conversation that's never ending on television

and everywhere else yeah sidro bob chasm and Les Weinen says that you're not experienced enough to be mayor sir what do you have to say about that I'd say that less whining ought to do more thinking and less whining.