The Press Box - Breonna Taylor, Listener Mail, and the Seattle Protests

Episode Date: June 18, 2020

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker are joined by Ringer staff writer Jordan Ritter Conn to talk about Breonna Taylor, a black woman who was killed on March 13 by Louisville police (0:45). Then, Curtis and David answer your listener mail, where they consider the question “Which White House memoir would we actually want to read?” (20:20). Then the hosts welcome Seattle Times reporter Evan Bush to talk about the Seattle protests, which have become an autonomous part of the city (38:30). Plus: the return of the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week, and David Guesses the Strained Pun Headline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, media consumers. This is the press box. Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker of the Ringer here. A lot to get to today as we finish up another interesting tumultuous week. We'll answer your listener mail, for instance, on the day in which John Bolton is making news, David and I answered the question, which White House memoir would we actually want to read? We'll talk to reporter Evan Bush about the Seattle protests that has become its own autonomous part of the city. Why is Donald Trump so interested in the Capitol Hill organized protest. All that plus the return of David Guesses a strain pun headline and the overworked Twitter joke of the week. But first, David, we want to talk about Brianna Taylor, a black woman who was killed by Louisville Police on March 13th.

Let's bring in Jordan Kahn. He is the author of the forthcoming book, The Road to Raka, which you should go ahead and order right now. And writer of a fabulous new article at The Ringer about Taylor and her family that's out today. Jordan, thank you for joining us. Thanks so much for having me. I don't want to leave anyone behind who hasn't followed this story closely. So let's start right here. How did Brianna Taylor die on the night of March 13th?

On the night of March 13th, so early on the morning of March 13th, a little bit after midnight, three Louisville police officers arrived at her home with a no-knock warrant, which at the time was legal in Louisville and allows officers to enter a home without knocking or. announcing their presence. They went into her home while she was asleep with her boyfriend. They'd been watching a movie. She had just nodded off to sleep. And they shot her eight times and killed her. And her family, some weeks later, filed a lawsuit and began a process of seeking justice for her killing.

And she is now become someone whose name. is being chanted in cities around the world and who has become a, her memory has become a critical piece of this, this larger movement for, this larger movement against racial injustice and police violence that we're seeing around, around America and across the world. Well, just to pin down the details of the story, you said that the no-knock warrants were illegal at the time. They've since been, that's no longer the case, right? Yeah. And to be honest, I should have. have maybe made a little bit of a clarification there because Radley Balco, a writer for the Washington

Post, wrote a piece actually making the arguments using a Supreme Court ruling that even at the time this warrant was issued, it should not have been legal, that it was in fact illegal. But since then, the city of Louisville has passed a resolution that they're calling Breonna's law that bans no-knock warrants in the city. It's legislation that has now been picked up by Attica Scott, a state senator in Kentucky, trying to make them illegal across the state, and that has become a part of what I think activists in a lot of different cities are pushing for in their own communities and hopefully much more broadly. And just one more follow-up on that.

In your reporting, I guess I can only speak anecdotally. I've read a lot online. But just anecdotally, I don't think I've encountered a single person, Even in like the dark recesses of Reddit, who thinks that the no-knock warrants were justifiable in this situation or in any situation, it seems like the most implicitly, if not illegal, then sort of illegal process one could imagine. Did you and your reporting find anybody or encounter anybody who was willing to defend them? No, no, not at all. And it's important to say that Brianna Taylor was not the target of an investor. Right. Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was not the target of any investigation. There was, the warrant was issued based on an argument made to a judge that a suspected drug dealer had perhaps received mail at that address based on intelligence from a postal inspector who later told reporters that in

actually never said that to police. So everything about the warrant seems extremely suspect and full of holes. And I certainly did not encounter anyone who defended it in any way, shape, or form. I'm sure this question was in your mind when you started reporting this piece. But who was Brianna Taylor? She was a woman who her family talks about with just this incredible, incredible warmth, who was the kind of person who had a magnetic presence, who people orbited around, who was working in the healthcare field as a medical tech in an emergency room and also as an

EMT and had ambitions of becoming a nurse who had felt drawn to that field from the time she was little girl. She was someone who had just kind of an exuberant, exuberant energy and a desire for the people she loved to be around each other all the time. And I don't know. I got to spend a bit of time with her mother and a couple other members of her family. And the way they talked about her just made her sound like someone you would really want to spend time with and be around and get them.

know someone who brings an energy and a, and just a warmth and a sense of caring and love and savagrebren. You mentioned spending time with their mom and her aunt. They're not only grieving, but grieving publicly, which strikes me as such a tricky and difficult thing to do. How did you find them when you spent time with them? I found them to be full of social. many different emotions all of the time. Incredible grief, moments of incredible anger, a lot of moments of

sadness, and occasionally peeking out these moments of hope, moments of hope that come through simply watching the energy in this movement, watching the uprising of people in their city, and elsewhere watching the way in which Brianna's name is spreading and in which her life is being remembered and her justice is being fought for by so many people in so many different parts of the world. In that, I saw a little bit of hope. But also still a lot of pain. Her mother is, Tamika, is not a woman who likes the spot.

light. She's not a woman who she talked about all the time when Brianna would want everyone to be together and there to be a party. She kind of wanted to just be quiet hanging out in her own room. She's not a woman who seeks out attention in any way. And now she has reporters like me,

who she doesn't know, coming and asking her about the worst night of her life. And she has to stand at press conferences and and demand justice for her daughter when she really just wants her daughter to be there with her. And so it's a struggle for her.

But her sister, Tasha, Holloway, told me that she felt like Temeco's, you know, maybe meant for this moment, whether she realized it or not, that she was put in this position to demand justice and demand change and to be at the center of this. massive, massive movement in ways that she never could have anticipated. And that felt right to me. That last point, it really struck me in the piece.

And I think that one of the threads that you touch on that really, I found really interesting, was sort of the, I don't mean this to be like a meta commentary, but there was a level of awareness of the cause before Brianna's death, right? I mean, Brianna herself was posting on Facebook about black people who are killed by cops and black women in particular. And I don't know if this, if it's a, it feels almost like a microcosm of what our country's going through. This like deep-seated sort of sin of our culture is, is now something that we're all grasping or, you know, grappling with on a very personal and a very intimate level. Obviously, Brenna Taylor's family is working on this, dealing with something much different than any bystander would be. But can you talk a little bit about that sort of, you know, the unlikely position that her mom's been put in and how her experience in the world.

And Brianna's perception of the world has shaped what she's doing right now. Yeah, I think, you know, what you mentioned about seeing, you know, the women and her family talked about seeing these killings by police over the years. and enduring these moments of mourning for people they never met. People like Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, so many others, going through this process of navigating the pain, of watching someone killed and connecting it to these larger, this larger apparatus of systemic injustice and police brutality against black people.

and I, you know, hearing them talk about just the surreality of having gone through that as someone just a private person sitting at home scrolling through their Facebook feed on their phone. And then now all of a sudden being in it and being in it because this woman they love so much was herself killed by police. it just felt they described it as just not quite feeling real and this didn't make it into the piece but one of her

this didn't make it into the piece but one of her cousins Katrina Smith said to me that there are something along the lines there are ways in which you imagine like this could happen to someone I love when you watch it happening to others but then she said that she never

actually imagined that it would happen to someone that she loved and now now seeing it and enduring it and feeling that loss and feeling that injustice. It was really, really painful for her. Jordan, there's been a murder charge for the officer who killed George Floyd, Minneapolis, murder charge this week for the officer who killed Rayshard Jenkins in Atlanta. We see arrest the cops who killed Brianna Taylor on Twitter daily. Why haven't these police officers been arrested? I don't know. I don't know. And I don't want to, you know, I don't want to try to assess what, you know, what is going through the mind of the FBI is investigating. And I don't want to try to assess what, you know, where their investigation stands. I don't want to, you know, try to speak to anything that I don't, at this point, even after reporting on the, fully understand. But I do know what

members of her family feel and that's this deep worry that law enforcement is just kind of waiting them out, waiting the protests out, waiting for things to die down and then to quietly let it slip away.

That is their fear. And so that's why they're so passionate about people continuing to demand justice for Brianna and to chant her name and make sure that her life and her killing is remembered in all people's minds because they're genuinely afraid that the reasons those arrests have been made elsewhere have been because of those demands for justice and that if things quiet down that they might never see the justice that they're

desperately hoping for. You mentioned the protests. I know you haven't been on the ground, I don't believe you have in any of the other big cities or protests have been going on, but can you characterize the protests in Louisville that you were present for? And if possible, was there anything unique about them, special about them? Is there a way, how would you, what was your experience like amongst the protesters? Yeah. You know, I went to, I went to a lot of protest there. They were, you know, I got there on Monday, June 1st, which was, I got there hours after police, police or actually I think it was a member of the National Guard,

it was found to have shot and killed David McAtee, the owner of a barbecue stand in Louisville. And the night that I arrived, there were tents. The night that I arrived, there was a curfew in place and protesters were peaceful, but they were out past curfew and police began kind of bombarding this main square in downtown with tear gas and rubber bullets and everything else that we've all seen on TV and video clips on Twitter. And, you know, just to break up the protests as fast as they could. And but then after that, the following nights that I would, was there, there was no, there were no standoffs with police. I, you know, I didn't see any violence on

the part of the protesters. I know there have been shootings unrelated to shootings by people who are not police at some point in Louisville before I got there, but I did not see any violence on the part of protesters at all. What I saw was a massive group. groups all across the city of people of all generations, of all races, together in times that felt righteously angry in some moments, that felt kind of defiantly hopeful in others, that felt sad at times, that felt in some ways like a party at other times, particularly in the afternoons. And the other thing that I noticed was just that Brianna Taylor's name, I know, has spread across the country and across the world, but in Louisville, her name is absolutely

everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. It is the first name that people were chanting every single protest, every single day. They were calling for justice, for so many others killed by police, but hers was the name that you heard by far the most. Her images of her face, whether photos or paintings, or everywhere you looked, you know, this kind of collective sense of mourning and this collective demanding of justice very much centers around her and around her memory.

And yeah, that was just really evident everywhere you go. Since we are a journalism podcast, I want to ask you one question about your process. When you set out to tell us, story like Brianna Taylor's. What kinds of things do you want to do? What kinds of things do you not want to do? Um, you know, for me personally, um, I, I think it's really important to go into a story like this, knowing that I have very little, I individually have very little to say that is worth saying that anything, any way in which the piece is going to succeed is going to be

through the voices of people I interview. Um, and so doing absolutely everything I can to try to talk to as many people as possible, and to try to talk to people who knew and loved Brianna. And then when talking with those people, particularly with her family, giving them the space and the option to not talk about anything that they don't want to talk about, making sure that the conversation is on their terms and that they, understand that I'm going to ask about some painful things, but that they can say that they don't want to talk about them

and we can move on. And, you know, just having a sense that's having a sense that the more I can sit with them and hear about their experiences, the better off the piece will be. And the less likely I'll have to rely on you know, things that I'm not going to be nearly as good at. You know, I just want just listen and tell the story. Listen and tell the story.

And don't try to do anything beyond that. Jordan's piece about Brianna Taylor is up at the ringer right now. We urge you all to read it and then read it again and think about all the issues he raises. Jordan, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Appreciate you guys. All right, David, let us take a deep breath and then do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media, Twitter, made it at exactly the same time send your nominees to at the press box pod from the world of movies david according to a report

universal will resume filming of Jurassic world dominion various coronavirus safety protocols i know i for one cannot wait for Jurassic world dominion that's going to be exciting it was an overworked twitter joke to write i feel like there's a movie that warned against tossing money in the face of nature and science while demonstrating the inevitability of chaos in closed systems. I like that. David, a lot of chatter about the return of the NBA next month. We may be slightly excited about that at the ringer.

ESPN's Zach Lowe reports, quote, players and team staff will be given the option to use a wearable ring, a wearable ring that tracks heart rate, respiration rate, and other variables. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write Q insert player here Finally getting his ring jokes Thanks to Jake And finally David

I've had this one saved up for a couple of weeks But it still feels relevant Back on May 30th Did you and your family watch the Space X rocket launch? Yes of course, yeah That cool cockpit view of the two astronauts blasting off

Well it was an overwork Twitter joke to write Shout out to the two dudes who are finding a way to leave Earth in 2020. Thanks to Dan McDowell and a whole bunch of other people. If you're praying to be launched into orbit, congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right, it's the notebook dump, David,

and let's do some listener mail. We usually do this on Thursdays. First note here from Socrates La Crandis. Socrates writes, Ozzy here. What are the repercussions from the Donald Trump effect in international media? broadcasters in Australia spend more time talking about the U.S. and Trump than anything else. Literally, the media here is just laughing at the USA half the time.

We've considered this from a domestic point of view. But what happens to the international media when Trump leaves? First of all, we've seen this in small doses, right? I mean, we've had various clips come up over the months of foreign media reacting to President Trump. I would just like to make a personal plea to get some of these Australian broadcasts onto the White House television so Trump could actually just like view CNN

and other American news sources in the release that this provides. You know, you can see what somebody who's really laughing at him looks like. I don't know. I mean, part of me thinks that the response wouldn't be laughter

if there weren't a little bit of if there weren't some element of like hopefulness built in, right, that like whoever comes next will be, I mean, I guess I would say the presumption is that this is not doing irrevocable harm to the United States, even in the perception of worldwide or else they wouldn't be laughing. But maybe, I mean, I don't know. What do you think? No, I think that's right. I'm just trying to remember my months in Australia and remember like the newshole that would have to be filled in the tabloid newspapers

if Donald Trump just disappear. I just kind of can't imagine like a two pages facing each other about Joe Biden every day, which I think is basically what goes there in the Trump era. I think that space goes back to whatever Bill Simmons has said about Stephen Adams

most recently. Oh, the aggregators. Chad Orzel, good palavars, writes this, David. The violence of a few, weeks ago has ebbed, but peaceful protest marches are continuing all over the country. They're not getting as much media play anymore, though. What can they do to recapture the news cycle that isn't lighting stuff on fire? Oh, man. Well, the past couple of days in particular, I mean, I don't, I don't,

I'll just say this. I think persistence is key. I mean, I think that, you know, we're going to talk a little bit about Seattle, and I think that that's an extreme example, and I don't mean that is a loaded word in any sense, but but no, there's no movement of this sort that has ever been resolved quickly, I don't think.

You know, and I, and I think that even the length of the protests so far have clearly had an effect, right? I mean, and clearly been, and clearly been noted. I don't think, I mean, we're obviously living in a very strange world right now

where the new normal sort of redefines itself every 48 hours. But I don't think that the fact that there's not riot footage on the news at night affects the depth, the significance of protests being almost the way of life in so many major cities across the country. And I don't think that more than anything, regardless of what's on CNN, And I think local and national leaders are paying as much or more attention to it than many citizens are.

So I think to say it's not having much effect is actually the wrong question. But if you need – I mean, if I have to answer the question on its face, I think persistence is the key. Yeah, I think it goes to the point Jordan made a second ago, right? Which is that protests continuing undermines the government officials and authorities that want people to forget about this, right? That want to outlast the protests and say if we can just hang on and not do anything, whether that thing is charging a police officer, pulling down another statute, right? Changing a law, doing serious police reform rather than unsurious police reform. that's what it is. And I am still, to me, just amazed at the duration of the protests.

It's incredible. I mean, like we've seen the last decade and change, the Women's March, a number of immigration protests, the Iraq war protests to go back a little bit farther. A lot of those were incredibly massive and impressive and lasted a day, right? or happened over a weekend and then maybe happened a couple of months later. This has been a daily protest for more than three weeks now.

That is unbelievable. Yeah. And I think that even, I mean, setting the the, even setting the cause aside just slightly, I think that this is,

there's, I think there's a recognition that this is sort of redefined the way that our country protests in so many ways, right? I mean, that I don't think,

I honestly don't, I honestly think, that like the notion of I think there's many people are in the streets now or when all these people are realizing that this is an option and that there are positive effects for this and that the and that you know you can realize change and I don't think that you know to make it really small I don't think that there's anybody who's going to think twice about texting their boss or emailing their boss and saying I can't come in today I'm going to protest for like the rest of our lives right I mean this is like there's this is I think that there's been a real

change and just over the past couple of weeks and how the political system operates. And I think that that realization and like I said, the persistence of those efforts is going to change the responses because people, because people, I mean, the people in power will come to realize that you can't wait it out, like you were saying. This is from Aaron Sanders with John Bolton's book making the media rounds now. It has me wondering which theoretical tell-all book by a current senior administration official, would you most like to read? And I think we can stipulate that Aaron means that, like, the senior administration officials going all in, right?

They're delivering the goods on Trump. So who would we like to, to see deliver a book like that? Oh, man. I mean, in some ways, Bolton's the perfect one, right? Like, he's not going to have quite as much dirt as somebody who is sitting, you know, in the, he's sitting in the seat right next to him. all the time, but he certainly has, he certainly gives less fucks, right? I mean, there's like, John Bolton has a very few things that he cares about and, and, uh, you know, the rest, everybody else be damned, sort of. I think that, that the frankness of some of the stuff he's seen out of his book is going to be, uh, is, it's hard to, you know, it's hard to replicate. I don't know. I mean, obviously, if like, Jared went rogue or something, that would be really

interesting to read. I mean, I can't, I mean, it's sort of like if we can have anybody going full of, I mean, like, you know, just unleashing, it would probably be somebody really close to Trump. I don't, I mean, okay, I'll say this. In the realm of reality, I can definitely envision a world in which Stephen Miller goes rogue. And it would be a little bit closer to the Bolton school of like, I have things that I care about more than I care about the president's legacy of Donald Trump. Donald Trump didn't go far enough, right? Exactly. He didn't go far enough memoir and also like he conducted meetings without pants on. You know, like that that would be that would be the one we'd be waiting for, I think. Yeah. Stephen Miller writing a somewhat critical memoir about Trump is not completely out of the question. I don't think. Do we think just to throw a name out there, I don't know what this would be.

And again, it seems way beyond reality. But wouldn't a Kellyanne Conway honest memoir be really fascinating just because she goes all the way back to the campaign. You know, like, so many of these officials just appeared overnight, and so they only have a limited advantage point. Like, Bolton, she goes back away as she's been in almost every meeting or kind of around every meeting. What do we think about that one?

I'm not sure. I think both because of her kind of ambiguous role in the White House, but also because of her husband and because of just the sort of various, I mean, her ongoing position is sort of a media punching bag. I, my guess would be that she could write just about anything and it wouldn't be taken with the sort of gravity of a Stephen Miller or someone who's as a more specific policy title. But I mean, yeah, there would be, I mean, if we were assuming that everything she wrote was true, then there would certainly be more interesting stuff in there than just about anybody else. Related from Alexander Angelo, who do you guys think will be the first Trump associate to do a complete 180 after a hypothetical defeat? in November. So not Mike Pence, not Mike Pompeo, right? Because anybody who wants a further political

career is not going to turn on Trump. They are going to try to triangulate this thing where they're like, I'm my own person, but I also still have fealty to Trump, right? Because I think the last thing you want to do if you want a future in Republican politics is somehow get on the wrong side of Trump. I don't think that's manageable, even if he loses. He's just going to have an enormous control over part of the party. So who would actually do a heel turn or face turn for the country, as it were,

against the president? Well, I mean, you could say, I'm sure there are some names that, I mean, I could say names that I think the least surprising people are the least surprising people. I mean, I'm sure like Steve Bannon is like ironing his hunting jacket in preparation

for this heel turn right now. He already turned, yeah. Well, I mean, but like he's going to, there will be no question about his stance that day after, you know, in election. anybody else who's anybody who's already been cast

by the wayside is probably prepping their you know kind of prepping their their resume for an MSNBC gig but I don't know I mean as far as people who are still there

what do you think I mean who do you think the quickest turn is going to be like the day after the you know election or whatever say I was I was trying to oppose him all along and now I can finally I'm finally free to speak out

does Ben Carson have one in him I mean is that is that no no I don't know I think people, I think the thing is a lot of people are in that White House because they're ambitious, right? And you don't want to turn off your ambitions if you're, if you're one of those people. So it's a really, it's a really tricky thing. This is going to require it.

The White House at this point is so full, ambitious, that's true. There's so many of these people that are, how do I say this? That come from the like ambitious side of the, like, ambition is the job description, right? And for so many of these people, they've decided that field Cied to Trump or the, the allegiance to the cause or just, you know, playing the party line, that that's not a, that's not going to be detrimental to their career. And so, and they're probably right. You know, I mean, is somebody, is, is there anybody in the comms department who's not going to get a job with the next president because they were too, they stuck by this one to the end?

No, I mean, that's exactly what you want, right? I mean, so I'm not sure. I think it's a really interesting question. Certainly somebody will, but I don't, I'm not sure. I'm not sure who it's going to be. One more on Bolton. Andrew Hertz asked, what do you think of Bolton's book besides the derivative title? Is it going to be valuable to the discourse? Or is it a cash grab when he should have given this information under oath as testimony? I think we understand the last question. Can we just use this moment?

And I might have been telling Almeida this before we went on air to just recount the great Mike Kinsley story about political memoirs. Go on. These are meant to be written and published more than actually read. Yeah. So one time way back when I swear this was a memoir by Strobe Talbot, I don't know why that name hangs in my head, but some Washington person wrote a big, giant,

hundreds of pages of long memoir that was a bestseller. Like people were buying it in droves. And Mike Kinsley, if my memory is correct, went to a bookstore in Washington, put his business card in like page 400 or 500 of the book and said, If you find this, call me and I'll give you $10. It was a known commodity at this point. It was not just like me putting my business card in there.

And nobody called. Nobody called. So people had bought the book, but they had not read the book. It's this very tenuous, this very fine balance that a book publicist goes through for this sort of book at this point in time, where you're leaking all of the important stuff to the major outlets. and you parcel it out, you know, to like curry favor with different people to the same, you know, to varying degrees.

And yet you still want people, you don't want to give it all away because they might not buy the book. It's actually different than most books on the political side because you do kind of give it away all the time, right? I mean, you're not, you mean, you just hand it out because you just hope that someone will read and immediately push by on Amazon. It doesn't matter that there's nothing else to them to learn from the book. they just want to sort of be a part of living history by like owning this thing that you know people read even less than they read like you know whatever like the 800 page novel du jour is the end of the trump book era is going to be a major think piece in a newspaper near you that's going to run like november 15th or at least we hope one more david from elliott gahm should there be a shelf life for op-ed columnists most become repetitive and boring and parodies of themselves e.g. Do we need Andrew Sullivan to write about the threat of illiberalism again. Maybe that was fresh 20 years ago. I swear I've read,

we need tenure for op-ed columnists. Yeah. A number of times. And it is true, and by the way, I would not restrict this to op-ed. This is true about sports columnists too when we had a world where that was the big newspaper job. Even the most electric people usually have like 10 to 15 years of garbage time at the end.

and they hang in there so long because it's such a good job and they don't want to leave that then everybody forgets what made them great. Yeah. And everybody's like, well, that guy, that guy sucks.

And you're like, well, you know, he was good. You know, at some point because nobody has that many ideas, right? Like at the end of the day, you just don't have that many ideas about anything. Nobody does, and especially not the people, the writers of the previous, or at least there wasn't the,

the writers the previous generation weren't, there wasn't the necessity, right? I mean, nobody, nobody under the age of probably 35 could possibly grasp how many, like how much conversation in any circle,

but particularly like high-minded circles was driven by Bobo's in Paradise, right? I mean, like, that was, it was the equivalent of like, of like, it was the equivalent of like six months of long read hits, right? I mean, like, there was like, We talked about, people talked about this book forever.

And, yeah, and that's enough to get David Brooks a permanent place in front of us. I mean, I'm not, I agree about the tenure thing. I don't think that, I don't, yeah, but I'm always reluctant to say we should like, you know, take somebody's job away if their boss seems to be thinking they're doing. Maybe the answer is just a sort of like seniors tour of the op-ed circuit, right? The champions tour. That's what they call it in golf. Like once you've lasted for a decade, you just write a weekly piece for USA Today that nobody actually reads.

Like that's just what we do. Tom Friedman, welcome to the Champions Tour. We love you here. There's an audience for you here. This is great. And you can keep writing the books that no one's reading, right? Yeah, exactly. By the way, Bobo's in Paradise.

If you put a million dollar bill on page 200 of my copy, it'd still be there. There's a book I pretended to read. Oh, man. I worked, dude, I worked at politics and pros. The books that I've pretended to read over the years, I still don't even know which ones I've read and which ones I was lying about. It's all a blur. All right. Ringer Power Ranking. We're coming. We're coming for, this is only going to run, by the way, on the press box, Twitter cat, because nobody else cares about this. But power ranking, political books we pretended to have read at some point in our lifetime. David and Brian's top ten. All right. The Lexus and the Olive Tree, number one. We could just do the New York Times op-ed version. man we collectively have pretended all right dav before we run let's talk about seattle i lived in seattle for a short time as you know so i am biased but as well are you as interested as i am in the protest area that was known as the capital hill autonomous zone i was and i had lunch with a relative recently uh who you know will tell you he's a lifelong democrat he's a catholic and uh and you know

has now been swayed by the sort of Fox News cause. He was more interested in Chaz as it's known than just about, was known than just about anything else. So if you don't know, the police vacated a precinct in the Seattle neighborhood of Capitol Hill. And the protest sort of grew to take over a six square block area of Seattle. It turned into something more than a protest, something larger to this whole kind of zone.

Evan Bush, reported with the Seattle Times, has visited the zone and written about it. Here's Evan Bush on what's going on in Seattle. Okay, Evan, my first question about this protest space is what we should call it. The first name was the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or Chaz, but now I understand it's called something else? Yeah, so it's now CHOP. And that at one point stood for Capitol Hill occupied protest. and now it's also being called the Capitol Hill organized protest. And do we know why the name changed?

I think it just evolved. You know, there was some concern about what Autonomous was saying and what that meant to the broader public and outside of this area. And I think they just wanted to rebrand, to be honest. And, you know, it developed sort of in the span of a couple days and went from there. So you've read a couple of pieces about this in the Seattle Times. Tell us about how chop, as we're calling it now, was founded.

Well, you kind of have to step back to the weekend after the police killing of George Floyd. There were demonstrations in Seattle. And the first night on Friday, there were some clashes with police between protesters and police and quite a bit of flashbang use and the protesters ended up, some of the demonstrators went up and down a street sort of adjacent to downtown Seattle and there was some smash windows and things like that. Then on the Saturday, the following day, downtown there were significant protests, lots of tear gas, lots of flashbangs, cars set on fire and And, you know, I think a lot of the demonstrators at that point felt that some of the police,

some of the police actions were heavy handed. And it's sort of the protests continued for there, but they transitioned to Capitol Hill, which is a neighborhood that's about, you know, a mile from the downtown core. And there's a police precinct in Capitol Hill. And so for about a week, there were protesters involved in sort of a daily standoff with police. And it often ended, not every day, but many days, it ended with tear gas. It ended with flashbangs and ended with police sort of using crowd dispersal methods that many of the protesters felt were heavy-handed and sort of galvanized them. And so the East precinct became this kind of flashpoint.

And then last Monday, police actually left the precinct. And they camped and they left and the protesters, you know, had sort of claimed the area for a space for them to exercise their First Amendment rights and continue to demonstrate and call for police accountability and other measures. So when the police left that precinct, I understand there were. was an idea from the police themselves that they were worried perhaps or had heard some rumor that their precinct was going to be burned down similar to some of the images we saw from Minneapolis. Do you know how true that is or how much evidence there is that that was a possibility? So that's something that the police have said. And I think that the, you know, I think that

the, you have to keep in mind where the, what the images were, you know, in other cities and Portland had had an issue where, um, you know, um, you know, and, uh, Portland had an issue where, um, where a police, I think it was actually the headquarters in Portland, you know, was burned. Minneapolis obviously had the same thing happen. And, you know, Seattle police believed, is what they've told the media, that they had a credible threat. You know, protesters say that it's overblown, some protesters anyways. And, you know, and I think that they've tried to, protesters tried to make the point that, well, they left and nobody burned it down. We wanted to keep this space and they, you know, aim right now to turn it into a community center.

So I think the threat, it's not clear to me how credible the threat was, but not that it's not credible either. So this zone, he reported as about six blocks in size. Now it had these vehicle barriers in the streets, essentially to prevent people from driving into it. I think it's important for people who are not from Seattle, and I was a short time Seattleite myself, to just spend a moment here understanding what the Capitol Hill neighborhood is and what part that plays in the life of Seattle as a city. Sure. Capital Hill is kind of a fun, freewheeling neighborhood. It's got a lot of interesting, you know, young businesses. It's kind of an arts center.

For many years, it was, you know, for many years it's spent. a neighborhood with a lot of nightlife. The LGBTQ community is well represented on Capitol Hill. There's many businesses that are LGBTQ. So it's always been also a neighborhood where there's been protests, and that's been a flashpoint for a lot of these events. Seattle's had for years some demonstrations unmade it. Many peaceful demonstrations for the labor movement.

And then in the evenings, there are sometimes demonstrations that have turned to violent clashes with police. And a lot of times the Capitol Hill neighborhood has been where that has happened. So marchers are not an infrequent site in Capitol Hill. I used to love Capitol Hill when I lived there. And I remember it had a bookstore that was open 24 hours on weekends. this bookstore may still be there. So like someone like me who was suddenly looking for a used book at 2 a.m. On a Saturday,

admittedly small category of people. Capital Hill was definitely the place to go. So you've been to chop a couple of times, including this week. Yeah, I visit Chaz, and I also visited chop. So I've seen both versions. Under the original and the rebrand. So put us in your reporter brain or behind those glasses. What did you see when you walked in?

What's it like there? So last week, it was really interesting. There's sort of a mutual aid community that it developed in the aftermath of some of the, you know, the clashes with police and amongst even some of the business owners. There's a gym owner who was, you know, cooking up hot dogs for demonstrators. And, you know, there's medic tents and things like that that had developed sort of out of the protest. And then last week you could see that sort of movement growing. There was a small storefront, if you can call it that,

called the No Cop Co-op, where everything was free. There were, you know, there's things that have developed sense like gardens. There's a conversation lounge where you can talk about issues. There's basically a bunch of couches and chairs. And, you know, it's sort of become a little mini, many, many protest society in some ways. And, you know, with some of the normal pieces of society, so the medics serving in something of a de-escalation role, a health care role, free food. There's people cooking free soup out there the other night. It looked like a really tasty curry.

And it's centered on this kind of, you know, until recently it was centered. on this sort of six block area in Capitol Hill. Not all six blocks are blocked off, but there's a park. You know, kids were playing the other night. We're playing touch football. There's a basketball hoop right in the middle of the 12th and Pine area. Excuse me, 11th and Pine area. And then, you know, at nights there have been film screening.

So, you know, the 12th and Pine, which is right. right around the East Precinct or the police precinct. There was a showing of 13th, the DuVernay, just the street blocked off and people kind of sitting and taking in that film. And there's also, there's been sort of speaker circles, right, where there's, you know, someone throws a platform in the middle of the street and everybody gets to stand up

and say their peace and talk about their experience with inequality, with racism, other issues that they're concerned about. and also discuss what they want this movement to become and what they see for themselves and for others in the protest. And I got to say all those details are pretty remarkable. And I think this is what part of it makes it so interesting to me. You know, film screenings, sports, conversations, something that has really evolved from a protest into something a little bit bigger.

I noticed you quoted somebody saying in your first article saying, this is not Coachella. The message of which seemed to be we're not here just to party and have a good time. There's something important happening here. Did you get a sense of how people there were balancing these two things, right? On the one hand, this is a protest. This is about something. They're about ideals.

And on the other hand, part of this is a very just happy place to be and comforting place to be. Yeah, I mean, I think that there is tension between that, right? And some people might not do it that way, right? There are some people who just want to pass through and see what's going on and, you know, grab a free piece of food and, you know, take in the scene. So, you know, it's not one thing to everybody. But I think the sense is that protesters want their demands heard and they want to maintain this area to exercise their First Amendment rights. also, you know, join in community. You know, it's sort of one part street festival, one one part protest, one part commun. It has a lot of different elements. And not everyone is there

for those same elements, but they're all represented. So people are having fun. People are talking. People are very serious political conversations. You know, people are protesting. You know, the space is not without, it has, for example, folks. who are open carrying weapons and things like that. It's not without tension and between these groups of people who might see it as something different amongst themselves. And anybody can walk in there now. Like if you or I wanted to walk in there today, we could walk right in. So I've walked right in many times and no one really gives you more than a glance.

I think if you're wearing a police officer's uniform, you definitely get a glance or two. Those folks might not be welcome in the same way. You know, I have seen where, you know, I don't think that access is blocked to anybody, but there are there are folks that might be less welcome. You know, TV cameras, I think, have drawn attention. And it's probably easier to be a print reporter there in there right now. That's interesting. Do you have a sense, and of course this is, I guess, a burning question in Seattle, but how much autonomy do the protesters actually have? And how long do you think they'll have it? Well, I think they're, you know, the city is working hard to make sure that that is a safe space for the protesters and residents around there. So I think that that's a key concern. And safety is a key concern of the protesters. So the fire chief met with.

with the demonstrators in talking about kind of adjusting the space, shrinking the space for access for for fire trucks and, you know, and safety response, essentially. So a big concern has been, you know, egress and ingress in that space. And there's been some negotiation back and forth over that. And I think we're still waiting to see where that all plays out. And that's been a key issue for the demonstrators, too, is, you know, they're a big concern. is having someone drive a car through there, right, and hurt people. And, you know, I think the events previously, someone did drive a car, you know, when police were there,

when the handoff was still happening, a man did drive a car through there and, you know, someone was shot during the demonstration. So that's a very real concern, front of mind for a lot of the demonstrators. So that's how these vehicle barriers got put up around child. And I guess I understand I read at some point that the city of Seattle came in and tried to replace those with flower boxes or something a little less threatening looking and were met with some resistance, at least initially. Yeah, so the city has taken these big concrete barriers and move them into different positions than the protestant barriers. And they're covered in plywood so people can spray paint and decorate.

And, you know, the idea there is that, you know, the city, I think, is trying to create a space where the protesters can demonstrate and be and not, but allow some access to emergency vehicles. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the idea of protesters achieving this level of autonomy, of marking off part of a city as their own attracted the attention of Donald Trump, who tweeted a couple of times about this. He urged the mayor of Seattle, Jenny Durkin, take your city back now. If you don't do it, I will. This is not a game. These ugly anarchists must be stopped. Another tweet said, domestic terrorists have taken over Seattle run by radical left Democrats. Of course, all caps, law and order.

Is there how much, and you've seen some other, there's been a Fox News story about this and some photographs that were allegedly of Chob? How much of that matches the reality of what you've seen in Seattle? Well, there are plenty of pretty people in there too, Brian. So, I mean, the ugly anarchist bit. All types of anarchists. Right. So, I mean, I think my experience being there is quite a bit different from that characterization. You know, most people there are there to express themselves to communicate with one another and to, you know,

some cases have good time. And I think that, you know, what me, colleagues of mine have taken a look at some of what Fox News has put out there and there was an incident in which they were, Fox News was photoshopping the same armed person and various different images. So I think he was in three different images. We wrote a story about that and then Fox did apologize and put a correction out there. So my colleague Jim Brunner, his story, sort of highlighted some of the misinformation out there. And, you know, early on, the police had said in, you know, a news briefing that the demonstrators were restricting access and extorting folks, so making people pay for access, essentially.

And, you know, after some follow-up, the police walked that back. But that was something that had clearly caught the attention of some of the media and, you know, the right-wing media and the blogger's viewer and social media. And actually got a lot of calls about that from folks saying, you know, your article didn't mention all the extortion going on. And that turned out to be a little bit preliminary or based on anecdote rather than. just rely on the Seattle Times now going forward for your for your reporting you can read Evan Bush and his colleagues work in the Seattle Times we should also note he's wearing a sonics hat as he does this interview which is extremely on brand here at

the ringer Evan thank you for your time thanks Brian appreciate it all right David it's time for David Shoemaker guess is a strain punt headline oh man we're back to this again it's been so long that David took an extra half second to have an exasperated sigh. The last one of these we did many, many moons ago was about the Lake of the Osarks

what me get Corona Party, which was called No Ducks Given. If you remember that, we could have just done that one again because you'd probably already forgotten. This week's headline is from Travis Andrews. It's from the site the takeout.

Remember the candy Neko Wafers? Yeah. That real ancient looking candy with the kind of like old timey writing on it for the logo. Okay, yeah. Neko Wafers are back. You might not have known they left, because I didn't.

But they're back. Here's a report from WTAJ. Folks, a classic candy is making a comeback. This is exciting. I like classic candies. Neco Wafers is one of the oldest candy brands in existence. Yesterday, the Spangler Candy Company announced the flavor discs. We're heading back to store shells.

Wafers were created back in 1847. Spangler says it purchased the brand two years ago, and I've been working on its return ever since. So the return of NECO Wafers, and I need you to hit the note, David, that they were gone for a while. What was the takeouts strained pun headline? Oh, man.

Gone. I mean, I'm trying, like, all I can think of is, like, gone, but neck. as neco is the day where you were born i mean what like what is the what is the neko is missing here neko is back after oh that's the headline you're giving me the beginning oh so it's not neko is back oh after after being uh oh oh oh uh neko is back after being away for uh away for for for for years. Mecca was back after being a wafer so long.

That's great. That's great. I wish the audience can see the look on Almeida's face right now. That's the press box. He is David Schuemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. It's kind of a wince. Kind of a disgusted wince.

Researched by Chris Almeida, production magic by Erica Servantes. We're back Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, guys.