The Press Box - Buttigieg and Zuck, Clinton and Gabbard, and Giving Credit for Other Reporters’ Scoops | The Press Box

Episode Date: October 22, 2019

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker talk about Pete Buttigieg’s campaign hiring people Mark Zuckerberg recommended (03:00), the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week (17:30), whether The New York Times is giving proper credit to its competitors’ scoops (20:00), Tulsi Gabbard versus Hillary Clinton (33:30), and Donald Trump’s sleepover (44:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, welcome to the Ringer podcast network. Coming this Tuesday is the Ringer's third annual NBA Palooza celebrating the tip-off of the 2019-2020 NBA season. Make sure you're subscribed to the Ringer's YouTube channel so you don't miss our day-long live stream, including the premiere of the new season of NBA Desktop, the fourth installment of our Take Hunter series with a surprise twist,

the unveiling of the Bill Simmons' Lakers wine bottle team, and a live Ryan Rusillo podcast to go along with so much more. Again, you can check All that out at YouTube.com slash The Ringer. David, we're going to talk about the New York Times crediting other publication scoops. But if we were going to carefully credit all the influences of this podcast, what I want to know is, who would we cite? Sight? Well, I mean, it's, I'm not, I'm definitely not like failing to hyperlink from like Splinter News anymore.

Thanks a lot, Geo Media. I feel like who I'm not citing. I can just point fingers out. I'm just going to blame, like, Gio and Trank. Tronk? Tronk, sorry. That, the New York Magazine firewall or whatever. I can't fail to hyperlink to them anymore either.

I have no one to steal from anymore. It's really gotten terrible over here. Trank is what Geo Media shot into Splinter, I think. to put it away. Now, I just feel performatively, you and I are often channeling people we heard in our childhood. For instance, when I'm reading these setups, right, I'm sort of unconsciously doing every straight arrow newsman and play-by-play announcer with a really obvious haircut that I saw during my childhood.

Who are you doing? Who are you riffing on? Oh, my gosh. I have no idea. I hope somebody out there listening has an answer for this question. question because I don't know I don't know what I'm doing I'm doing I'm just I'm I'm like Ed McMahon with too much air time over here I'm like I'm just trying I'm no I'm trying to ride shotgun and they can they keep trying to cut the commercial because I won't shut up

we are the outbound link 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 got lots and lots of stuff to get to today we'll talk about whether the New York Times is giving proper credit to its competitor's scoops. We'll talk about the Democratic presidential race that somehow turned into Tulsi Gabbard versus Hillary Clinton as Donald Trump invites world leaders to a sleepover and the overwork Twitter joke of the week.

But David, I think we've got to start with the sultry tango of presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg and Facebook overlord Mark Zuckerberg. Because on Monday, Bloomberg reported that Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, sent Buttigieg's campaign recommendations on who to hire earlier this year, once again putting Zuck and Facebook in the middle of a presidential election. The two staffers who'd been named are both working in data analytics for Buttigieg's campaign.

Bloomberg reporters Tyler Pager and Kurt Wagner note that Zuckerberg and Buttigieg, quote, overlapped at Harvard and Buttigieg was friends with two of Zuckerberg's roommates. he was also one of Facebook's first 300 users, a spokesman for Zuckerberg and Chantle-Bloomberg that the couple has not decided who to support for president. I guess the first question is, is this a big deal?

Or will this potentially turn into a big deal? Well, I was just having a spirited conversation with her dear friend Justin Charity before we came on the air. And he would argue that it's not a big deal at all. Or at least the people making it out to be a big deal or either doing it wrong-headedly or in bad faith. I partly agree with that.

I don't think that this story, at least the degree to which I understand the details, to be a particularly big deal. Purely on the merits, I don't think it's particularly surprising or galling that a potential presidential candidate or a, you know, a high-ranking executive would send an email to a, you know, a high place acquaintance in a field that they're looking to hire in to get some advice on who to hire, right? I mean, I don't think in any other walk of life, that would be particularly shocking. Obviously, there's a little bit more sensitivity here, and this is where it gets into the questionable area.

You know, this is our presidential election, and it's incredibly bad form for Mark Zuckerberg to either be suddenly trying to influence it, which I guess is the accusation, or on the other hand, hand if he's oblivious to it, it's incredibly bad for him for him to be oblivious to it after what we went through in the last election, election cycle, right? Absolutely. I don't know what is, he's either self-interested in putting a big tech friendlier candidate in the White House, or he's just too stupid to understand the uproar that would come out with him helping staff up a candidate.

Right. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that it's no. number one. But I guess there's a chance it's number two. That just seems really, really dense. I think on the, yeah, I think the dense, yes. I mean, I think on the Zuckerberg side, I'm not sure that it matters much one way or the other. It matters, you know, historically and factually.

But I think his density has become sort of the narrative that everyone is so outraged by, right? That like, it's not, I don't think that there's a lot of people that think, think he was hatching a scheme with Cambridge Analytica so much as he was just like so cravenly driven by money and blind to everything else that he allowed things like Cambridge Analytica to happen, right? I mean, so it's, so it's the obliviousness define whichever way you choose to do it, that that is sort of the central problem. I think there's another big problem for Buttigieg. And, well, I think actually there's two problems. I don't know that again, this actually substantively is a problem for his campaign, but here's where it gets a little bit tricky

for him. One, I think that for the people who, a lot of the people who are really outraged at this story, or just the people who are paying a lot of attention of this story, for those, for a lot of people, Buttigieg sort of wandered into how to put this tactfully, uh, fuck that guy territory in the last debate. Uh, there are, I think, I think a lot, I think there's a lot of very, I think there are a lot of very liberal voters, uh, who a very, very active voter block, uh, very engaged voter block who were very interested in him as an outsider candidate and have been disappointed that he has seemingly staked out this territory as like as like you know a sort of red state moderate you know i mean that he that he's sort of a like a technocrat but so a moderate um and i think that

there's a lot of disappointment circling around him even as he seems to be attracting a more and more affluent um uh support support from a more affluent block i mean he's raising money and hand over fist. That's the one thing. And then I think there's the more meta thing where you can more meta point where, listen, his origin story is campaign narrative, however you want to say it, it's a sort of a thing of beauty, the sort of thing that all potential presidential candidates or political candidates wish they had. But the real thing of beauty of it isn't the specifics of the narrative, which is great, you know, the military stuff is sexuality, all that stuff it makes for a really impressive origin story,

but the most important part about it is that it never came across as a story, right? It always came across as just the unvarnished truth about this guy. And I think this is a very subtle point, I guess, but this story kind of runs the risk of putting the lie to that, right? That, like, if we had been presented with Pete Buttigieg

as, like, a college buddy of Mark Zuckerberg, then that's a totally different candidate, right? That's someone who we would have approach with it to a whole different level of trepidation and uncertainty. And I think that that's, I think that that's for him more so, more so than like what, than the Facebook influence. I think that it's just sort of like a counter narrative of, a quiet counter narrative of who this Pete Buttigieg guy is. I think that's exactly right. Because I think the kind of the rep you get from being potentially an extra in the social network, you know, a guy who was of that crowd.

is a lot more dangerous to me with rank and file Democrats. Forget the people we follow on Twitter here for a second who are up in arms about this, but actual rank and file Democrats, I think that's more dangerous than this guy is talk to the guy

who runs Facebook, which I'm not sure. I'm not sure maybe big, breaking up big tech is a popular idea, but I'm not sure like in just people who use Facebook to post pictures of their grandkids and watch. better O'Rourke going viral.

I'm not sure that Facebook has that kind of, you know, poisonous kind of rep to it. But you're right. Understanding that, oh, he was one of these guys who was friends with the guys in the Zuckerberg dorm room. He was an initial user. He's from that world.

Yeah, maybe that does have a thing. I think almost the Facebook part of this, by the way, is a distraction. Can we just do the old media version of this? Imagine a Republican presidential campaign. candidate, reaching out to Rupert Murdoch or vice versa, and Murdox saying, here are a couple of

former Fox News people that I think would be really good members of your comms team. With Fox being the place you have to play as a Republican candidate. People would go crazy, right? I mean, that would just, that would be seen as tipping the scales or putting your finger on the scales, would it not? Yeah, I do, I mean, I do think there's a subtle difference. I'm saying subtle difference. I do think there is a

there is a worth distinction that's worth making even though you're absolutely right everything that you said is true. I do think that like when you're looking for a when you're looking for people

who have worked in tech and communications to reach out to somebody who's the head of that field who you might know is a little bit of a distinction between just reaching out to a power broker and saying who do you want me to hire. But I guess that's the same person.

You're right. I mean, that's not just, you know, your friend who's good with the internet knows how to set up your router or whatever, right? That's like the guy who runs freaking Facebook. You're right. You're right. I mean, I think, I think, okay, yeah, I give you that. And it's, and it wasn't to me reading the Bloomberg article, it seems like Zuckerberg and Chan were pretty actively providing names of people, right? It wasn't just like a phone, you know, hey, you know anybody or something like that.

they were taking a very, you know, sort of active interest in throwing some names out there. Yeah. The other thing to remember with all this, David, is that this is all coming when Zuckerberg is in a sort of passive aggressive war with Elizabeth Warren. In March, Warren released a big proposal to break up big tech, making the case of Facebook, Google, Apple, et cetera, et cetera, are limiting competition that they are driving income inequality, that they're manipulating to, democracy. We had that infamous leaked Q&A a while back with Facebook employees where Zuckerberg said it would quote suck if Warren were elected. So now he has been revealed a while back, but has been revealed to be helping, you know, suggest staff members for the candidate that is maybe the biggest danger to Warren in Iowa. So again, that's kind of an accident of circumstance.

stances happen since then, right? But it sure does set up neatly to put him right in the middle of this thing again. Yeah, and Buttigieg went particularly, I mean, went after Warren with particularly, I guess, surprising flair during the last debate. I think that all of that lines up pretty neatly

if you want to kind of put those pieces together. Yeah, for sure. To me, the question you hit on earlier is really interesting, which is how much, how much of an image has Buttigieg carved out with potential voters as, and again, a very narrow slice of potential voters? What we're talking about, you know, he's doing well in Iowa, doing a lot better in Iowa than he's doing nationwide, but how much of an image is he carved out by being this what Michael Kinsley once called the nice young man full of ideas, that these kind of stories won't stick.

to him that it really won't make a difference. Like you said, like, oh, wow, he's, you know, an acquaintance with the guy who runs Facebook and he's like, and these guys are talking about staffing up the campaign. He's got this, these are his policy ideas. How much of his image will allow him to overcome stories like that or just kind of slide around him, do you think? I mean, I think just like with anything else, sort of like with the conversation we had about Warren last week, I think that, you know,

I don't have an answer for that other than that, like, the answer to it will be incredibly telling, right? I mean, the response is going to be almost more important than the charge here. And especially for Buttigieg, who hasn't, you know, hasn't dealt with a lot of, like,

hand-to-hand combat, at least combat directed at him in this campaign. It'll be interesting to sort of see how, you know, what his campaign's next move is. Yeah. And I guess it's, it's probably kind of a backhanded compliment

when they start attacking you because it means they're worried about you. There was a Suffolk poll last week that had Buttigieg at 13% in Iowa. But listen how tight this is Biden, 18%, Warren 17%, Buddha judge 13%. So, you know, that's an indication, again, that Iowa to me is such a key to unlocking this thing, right? Because if Buttigieg wins Iowa, that just screws everything up for a lot of people. It screws things up for Joe Biden. it screws things up for Elizabeth Warren, who could win Iowa,

New Hampshire back to back and be pretty unstoppable. It certainly screws up things for any loss, screws up everything for Biden. It screws up things for a lot of, what are right now second and third tier candidates because Buttigieg would just take all that oxygen away and most, if not all of them, would drop out. So he's in a fascinating place.

It just feels like, I don't know, it's funny, watching the media coverage of this campaign, it feels like we can just see when the camera lens moves to the right or to the left. You know, it was Biden, Biden, Biden, and then it was Warren. And it's still pretty much on Warren. But then it's almost like it just moved a quarter inch over to kind of put Warren and Buttigieg in the same frame. Maybe I'm over imagining that. Well, that's literally what happened at the last debate, right? That it was that Buttigieg, I mean, I think other people, other people pointed that out. But the camera sort of paned back and suddenly instead of like the three in the middle, there was four in Buda

Judge was the fourth. So, you know, I guess it shouldn't be surprising that the kind of media lens is sort of turning in his direction too. I wonder how, I mean, I wonder how much of it is like kind of a specific exercise and like, oh, you know, in newsrooms where they're saying, you know, Budu judge isn't going anywhere. We should actually like, let's, let's do some digging or if this has been going on the whole time. It's sort of, it's, or if it's, there's appo research involved. I mean, there's a lot of questions here. Yeah. I mean, I think he first invited scrutiny, right, or got a lot of scrutiny with the police shooting in South Bend, you know, and I think that was, that was kind of like, that was the first moment when nice young man, uncomplicated, nice young man began to seep away,

at least a little bit with the press. Then maybe that faded away because he wasn't seen as such a threat or the real story was that Warren was in first place or, you know, searching toward first place, but now we're back in the scrutiny zone. I don't know. This will be fascinating, though. And again, I'm just, I can't decide if this is going to be one of those things we talk about this week and never speak of again or if we're you know or if this is in the back half of the show on Friday.

And I could see it going either way. Again, I'm just not totally convinced that there is a specter of that the whole specter of big tech Zuckerberg Facebook is yet that salient among the broader Democratic voter base as it is

again amongst Bernie voters, Warren voters, certain fired up liberal Democrats. But we will see. All right, David, time for the overworked Twitter joke of the week, where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Please send your nominees to at the press box pod, where they are always gratefully received.

David, we missed this one last week, but His Holiness, Pope Francis, had a tweet. The Pope wrote, Today we give thanks to the Lord for our new hashtag saints. They walked by faith, and now we invoke their intercession. The only problem was when the Pope or whoever tweets for the Pope typed hashtag Saints, the New Orleans Saints Fleur-de-Lee emoji appeared in the tweet. That led to a bunch of good stuff.

Thank you because that last guy was probably a Falcons fan. Another one says Saints fans took their officiating complaints all the way to the Vatican. And finally, gonna just throw your cardinals. under the bus question mark. That's the capital C, Cardinals. Thanks to Adam Haynes further for that one. David, remember the musician known as Shaggy?

Of course. Early 2000s thing. This was an all-time layup because last Thursday, a headline in the Daily Dot read, Shaggy says an online scammer is impersonating him. An online scammer is impersonating Shaggy. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write. Do we want to just,

You want to just keep going here? Do I even need to say it? Please, please. It wasn't me. Yeah, thanks to a whole bunch of people with that. Rob Harvilla, the ringer's very own, had the tasteful version. So what he's saying is, there we go. Thanks to a whole bunch of people, Asif, Doja, Dukas, the Lucas, Beno, and Ben Gibson, and Vince Parachi for that.

And finally, on Friday, the legendary Law and Order actor Sam Watterston, was arrested at a climate protest at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington. And boy, was that fertile soil for Twitter jokes, e.g., in the criminal justice system, the interests of capital and the fossil fuel industry are represented by two separate yet equally important groups. I also like this one. At the 50-minute mark, we're going to find out they got the wrong guy. Thanks to Matthew Zitland for that. If you think the original law and order is still prime comic fodder,

congrats. You made the overword Twitter joke of the week. All right, David, time for the notebook dump. And I want to talk to you about giving proper credit to other journalists stories. Because we had a conversation in our little journalism kingdom last week that got kicked off by a piece in VICE's motherboard by Lorenzo, Franceschi, Bikkeri. I'm sorry, Bickory. I hope I'm saying that right. And Jason Kobler also I hope I'm saying that right. We'll put it on the feed in any case. And before we have this conversation, I think it's worth saying there are two parts to this issue. One is the very legitimate, the New York Times took my story and didn't give me credit part.

Right. And the second is the deeper psychology of journalists where something that goes with a job is feeling that you're never properly given enough credit for how great you are. I just feel that is a common condition among all journalists. Anyway, we'll separate those two things out. First, the legitimate stuff. The motherboard authors got a hold of a memo that Phil Corbett, the New York Times Standards editor, wrote in January. The memo was written because the Times is constantly criticized for not crediting other

smaller publications with scoops. And the fact that Corbett wrote it is pretty telling. The memo reads, linking routinely to the work of others can erase the perception, often exaggerated, but not altogether wrong, that the Times can be aloof, self-obsessed, and ungenerous in acknowledging the work of others. That perception feeds on itself with each oversight. or missed opportunity, social media is full of complaints by fellow journalists who claim we refuse to acknowledge their work or, worse yet, pilfer their idea. Failing to link might suggest to some suspicious minds that we are concealing our reliance on others.

As I said a second ago, David, I almost think the fact that Corbett wrote that memo is an acknowledgment that the Times has a problem in doing this. Yeah. And or at least, you know, maybe this is one of those quote unquote here, my giant air quotes, bad low. situations, but the fact that you're having to put that in people's email boxes tells me that it's something and it's a real thing. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, listen, anybody that's worked in journalism or probably any, just about any walk of life will recognize the sort of tone and demeanor of that copy desk note, or the best practices note that went around or the chipperness of it sort of belies the gravity of the situation,

or at least the earnestness of the plea. An interesting thing that the story about, you know, this story kind of gets into is that, I mean, as this memo clearly shows, there are forces within the New York Times. I mean, many important people in New York Times who are very pro-crediting and pro-linking and everything else, but it's the old guard on the editorial desk that's still there that sort of turns up their noses at it

or is just otherwise oblivious to the practice and therefore reluctant to do it. But you're right to make this distinction between those two sort of things because it can sort of cloud the issue here, right? I mean, there's no greater sport than claiming credit for something on Twitter. You know, I mean, that seems to be what Twitter's made for

is just like, we have a whole segment on the show dedicated to overwork Twitter jokes that people are making these jokes at the same time. There's no shortage of conversation that goes on about how every idea that you had that you thought was unique, you know, that the problem with social media is that now you know that like 100 other people had the same idea. But, you know, there's a lot of people who will see a story that is clearly in the, you know, ether or else why would you have thought of it? But then someone else comes out with a similar story a couple weeks later and it's just,

you know, just outrage, online outrage about someone stealing ideas. And that's understandable, but that's a separate thing. That, you know, getting down to sort of brass tacks of like,

should the New York Times be actively crediting people that they influence? I mean, that are influenced them? I mean, yes, of course they should. There's no question at all.

And I think that, like, frankly, I mean, I'm sure that there's a lot, maybe this is revealing too much, but it seems like the, the, the, the bare minimum of the hyperlink is, like, is not nearly enough in a lot of cases, but it's often, it's often the sort of, like, the, the cheap way of citing, of crediting somebody, and the fact that that's part of what the New York

Times is the most averse to is a little bit odd. I mean, I mean, again, I understand the old guard's point of view. I understand that's, or that's the problem, but, like, you know, the hyperlink, if you're influenced by the work of someone else, a hyperlink is not enough credit to them and to whatever work they've done before. But like, that should be, that should be the bare minimum. There's also this interesting copy question about how you can like, if there's a, if there's a hyperlink online, does that have to translate into something else in the printed form and everything else? But I don't know, this is just a great story. It's a juicy story for people in the business. And, you know, it's funny. Of course, the New York Times is the one taking the hits.

well you're right it sort of combines times pomposity and you know this this lingering idea which is probably less less of a thing now than it was you know 10 20 30 years ago but this idea that it's when we do it that is the definitive version and we heart you know you heart we we only grudgingly need to cite anyone else

it combines that with you know as you say this kind of Twitter you know we're going to hold you to account and and make everyone know exactly what this is. A couple of examples that were cited here were sort of amazing. You know, April Glazer of Slade broke news of Kickstarter unionizing. The Times didn't mention her work in its piece about that until they were kind of shamed into doing, though. A Times writer crowed on Twitter, quote,

my definitive account of the in-and-out burger that appeared on a random street in Queens. It was saying that jokingly. But in fact, Vice had written about the burger before, and that story was widely shared. This was an amazing one because everyone was sharing and journalism was sharing how I got, you know, how I didn't get enough credit story. This one really struck me. It was by a journalist named Emily Gundelsberger. She wrote a book or has a book, new book out, called On the Clock, which is about her taking low wage jobs, including one at an Amazon fulfillment center and writing about what they're really like. She thought that journalists were

were kind of reporting these things secondhand and didn't understand them. Well, the New Yorker's Charles Duhigg was writing a big piece about Amazon and he calls up Gundelsberger. He interviews her and gets all these very vivid inside the fulfillment center details that she gathered and put in her book. But when the New Yorker article comes out, it treats Gundelsberger like she's this former random Amazon employee. Yeah.

It never mentions the book in the article. And at one place in the article. article. She's referred to not by name as a quote former warehouse employee, making it sound like Duhigg knows has cultivated all these sources that worked in Amazon warehouses rather than a journalist who was working in the warehouse to write a book. And, you know, Duhigg and she and Duhig had this exchange during fact checking. And Dugick says, well, the New Yorker's kind of weird about mentioning book titles. But, you know, that's one of those. is like, I don't know what the style is, but the style needs to be changed so that you can

mention that this woman wrote it. And again, not some ancient book has a book out about this right now. And that deserves to be mentioned. Wait, that was in the New York Times? That was in the New York. The New Yorker. Okay. Well, I guess that sort of, I mean, listen, same prince. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we've long joked about the, great New Yorker essay tendency to like, you know, get 8,000 words into a philosophical debate with oneself before you, before it's revealed that this is based on the, the publication of a recent book.

And all the details are from the book. Yeah, everything, everything you've just read. I was just thinking about Charles Darwin the other day. And then, yeah, 19 paragraphs in. Oh, I read this Charles Darwin biography and here it is. But, I mean, yeah, I mean, it is the same principle. I mean, one can imagine the philosophical argument here, at least in the New York Times point of view,

where it's like, is this, I mean, is the story that we're covering a factual thing, or is it like an opinion-based thing? Well, if it's a fact, if, in fact, this building is being built on this block, and if, in fact, everything we put in it is based on original reporting, then I'm not sure that we need a site, like, you know, upper-e-side blog for, like, the tip, right? I mean, I can understand, I don't, I don't, I don't agree with it.

But I can understand like the string of logic that gets you there. But a lot of these conversations are about really unique ideas that would not have floated, that would not have bubbled up, you know, without another source. And regardless, I mean, it's just, it's just a sort of common courtesy. I think that in a world in which the New York Times is your only source of information, it might only slow you down. I mean, to have to read through all the, you know, the series of foot. notes that that get you to the to the lead of the piece, all the citations of who came before.

But that's a very old, timey way of looking at things, if that's the argument, right? That, like, that you're concerned about the reader or concerned about, or it's just the New York Times has some sort of propriety. I mean, in this day and age, it's very easy to cite things. And I think people are more interested in everything that came before. I mean, they're more interested in the way that stories are built and told. So it just seems really kind of ridiculous to not be doing it at this point. It's almost impossible to drop any rules about this because the rules would have to be so intricate about when you cite somebody and when you don't.

And, you know, when does it count that it was on a blog? What if it counts if I re-reported it? If I move the ball, right, it just gets so. So this is why I go back to the Curtis rule of intra-journalistic relations, which is don't be an asshole. just don't be an asshole. If you're worried when you're writing it that you're being an asshole, and this is,

I'm quoting something that was actually in Phil Corbett's memo, because he said if you're asking whether you have to link, you probably have to link. If you're worried when you're writing that you're possibly being an asshole, you're being an asshole.

Don't do that. Don't do that anymore. Right. That's the rule. That's it. That's the only rule that's ever going to work. Because this is all self-policed, right? There's some cases where it appeared in another, the Times just flat got beat on a scoop and where it's obvious.

You know, you're going to have to say this news was first reported in the Wall Street Journal. Then there's this giant gray area below that where it's like, do I have to cite them? Do I not have to cite them? Don't be an asshole. Trust me, this will solve everybody's problems. Just don't be an asshole. Because we all know, you know when you're doing that or you know when you're tempted to do that. Don't do that.

Stop that. Do a citation, do a generous link and credit the other publication and move on. That is my rule. I don't know how else to say it because everything else is too complicated. I think that's exactly the right way to say it. If everybody was just determined to not be an asshole, the world would be a better place and in journalism in particular. If we grant all those grievances that we just mentioned are completely justified and real, I would love to do this. I would love to have access to the psychological. department at a state university at some point. And I'd put a whole bunch of journalists in a room. And I'd put up on the screen a Times article that ripped off their scoop without credit, okay? And I'd record their responses.

And then I'd show the same journalist a Times story that properly credited their scoop. And I'd record their responses because I think even for the second group, they would say a version of the first response. They wouldn't, they wouldn't be mad at the Times should not credit him. They'd just say, well, when is the Times going to hire me instead of that hack that they had to write in the story, you know? Part of being a journalist is feeling people never adequately appreciate how great you are. And we find all the time the more successful journalists get, they actually, that gets worse.

It doesn't get better when they sell books or do whatever, you know, be successful. So I just feel all, I mean, to me is like as somebody who writes about the press and who sits in the ringer newsroom and hears complaints like this all the time, it's funny because it's just this giant. it is part of the psychology of this thing because you're competing against everybody, you know, even if you're not really, you know, chasing what the news out of the White House, you are competing with people for ideas and angles and things like that. And so that's just part of the mindset. Again, I'm not denigrating any of the actual examples there. And I just want to repeat.

Please don't be an asshole. Anybody. David, I have it down. We need to talk about Tulsi Gabbard and Hillary Clinton. Oh, man. Yeah. Last week, Clinton was on David Pluff's campaign. HQ podcast. My goodness, there is some dramatic, doomy theme music for that podcast I found out this week when I was doing the segment.

Pluff asked Clinton about Trump winning re-election with a relatively small percentage of the vote in key states. Listen to how Clinton thinks Trump will pull that off. They're also going to do third party again. And I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on somebody who's currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third party candidate. She's the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far. And that's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she's also a Russian asset. Yeah, she's a Russian asset.

I mean, totally. And so they know they can't win without a third party candidate. And so I don't know who it's going to be, but I will guarantee you they'll have a vigorous third party challenge in the key state. that they most need it. Before we get to the Gabbert part of this, should we just reflect on the Hillary Clinton part of this? Yeah, please. Hillary, who's obviously has not endorsed anybody yet.

It'd be interesting to see who and under what circumstances people would accept that endorsement. Staying out of the specific fray of the Democratic primary wades in to call Jill Stein and by extension Tulsi Gabbard. Russian assets. There's a third party point there that makes a lot of sense, right? That you have a candidate in Gabbard who's clearly alienated from the Democratic establishment.

Her brand is being alienated from the Democratic establishment. Clinton goes, pushes beyond that and says this is, you know, essentially this is a plan by the Russians to make her a third party candidate and, you know, eat off. just enough Democratic support to help Trump get reelect in the Midwest. What do we make of that? Well, I have to admit, the first way, I found out about this news because I got a couple of text messages congratulating me for being on the cutting edge of this because I guess I had offhandedly referred to Tulsi Gabbard as a Russian asset in the past. Did you say that on this pod? I don't know if I've said it on this podcast or just in conversation or what.

I think that her. Why didn't we get credit? I can't believe David Pluff getting all the credit. I don't know that I'm not sure that she's actually a resident, a resident asset. I don't have quite the assurance that Hillary Clinton does. I'm not sure she's actually a Russian asset. Nothing has given me more,

nothing is giving me more pause in this theory than Hillary Clinton agreeing with me. I shall all say that. But, you know, I don't, but it is a sort of, I don't know, I think it's a slightly useful, shorthand for whatever the heck's going on with her. I mean, I don't, she's a very confusing candidate. And a lot of,

a lot of people, I think, feel the same way. Certainly her perceived affinity for Bashar al-Assad is puzzling to just about everybody. And generally, her foreign policy, some of the moves that she's made, even over the past 12 months,

have been, not the moves what we'd expect of someone running for the Democratic nomination for president you can go back to I believe this summer's

New Yorker profile of her what does Tulsi Gabbard believed that just is about 10,000 words of just like an implied parenthetical question mark

I guess like there's just a lot of I mean obviously it's right there in the headline but there's just a whole lot of like what is going on right now like I'm not even sure

what the words I'm writing down are supposed to mean It's a very, very good piece, by the way. I'm not trying to dismiss it at all. Just the opposite. But it's, but I mean, the fact that Hillary Clinton just straight up said it like that is pretty shocking.

And I, and I, and maybe if it's commendable, if that's true, if she believes that with great certainty. But I think that the reaction from most people is probably going to be something along the lines of tarring people, painting people with the accusation of being Russian assets is not any more

helpful than Russia trying to influence the election themselves. Does that make sense? No, I think that's right. And you can see her, you can see her calculation right, because she's trying to get the second message out. She's trying to get guys, the whole, that podcast is very Russia heavy for Clinton, who obviously is understandably worried and upset about Russian interference in the election. So she's trying to say, look, this is happening again.

Mitch McConnell and company don't want to protect us from this. Also, be on the lookout for the way Trump is going to win this is by having a third-party peel off just enough support. But she's balancing that with actually calling Gabbard a Russian asset. So that was a weird. That was a very weird calculation. I guess it was the best thing to happen to Gabbard because as we saw, she was supposed to sort of troll everyone at the last Democratic debate. It mostly ended with her asking a very vague question to Warren about her readiness to be president

and then CNN throwing it to a commercial. But she took the Clinton bit and ran with it. She Gabbard writes on Twitter, great. Thank you, Hillary Clinton. you, the queen of war mongers, embodiment of corruption and personification of the rot that is sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation.

We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose. It's now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly. If you thought Trump had used some literary license to write to Turkish President Erdogan, David, I got news for you. Tulsi Gabbard has an even more amazing literary style. I think that to me is they, I don't know, kind of the most kind of, the most kind

a frustrating part about this is like, I think Hillary Clinton is maybe the worst possible messenger for this accusation, even if it were proven to be 100% true. That like all of the people, the people who are going to, the people who are going to potentially propel Tulsi Gabbard to any kind of success are people who are like already just like, just despise Hillary Clinton, you know? And I'm not even sure they're particularly affiliated with the party. I think an independent bid might be an interesting I mean,

I don't think she would win, but it might have some teeth. I just think at some point Clinton has got to realize that, you know, maybe this is a case where it's one of those things where if you say it out loud, then it becomes appropriate

for other people to say it too and she's taking that hit. But I think overall, I think weirdly Tulsi's response feels a lot more significant to what's going to follow than what Hillary said. Yeah, I mean, it was like I said, if you're if you're gabard and, you know, in a pretty explicit part of your candidacy is the DNC is corrupt and, you know, the Democrats have gotten us into these ruinous foreign wars.

Having Hillary Clinton come out and, you know, sort of be the personification of that idea. Yeah. Is definitely happy for you. Again, on those crazy terms. I'm also sort of, I am interested in what you're talking about, which is this kind of idea of Hillary unplugged, which has. happened in dribs and drabs since, you know, basically her formal career as a candidate ended with the 2016 campaign. Yeah.

I couldn't help but notice that she posted a parody letter on Twitter on Sunday. And it was a parody of Trump's letter to Erdogan that we just mentioned, except this is John Kennedy writing to Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And I'm not, I'm not kidding. This is actually on, on Twitter. Dear Premier Crucchev, don't be a dick, okay? Get your missiles out of Cuba. And on and on.

You're really busting my nuts here. Give me a jingle later. Hugs John Fitzgerald Kennedy. So at some level, Hillary has just decided like, I'm going all in on comedy, right? I'm a political satirist at this point. And I guess good for her.

it's funny. I just, I guess I have some sympathy for her because every time she says something I feel, everybody gets mad. You know, every, it's, you know, Democrats are still mad about 2016. Democrats who are running now are like, please don't interfere in there. Please just don't say anything because that'll just mess up this chess board even more. I have some measure of sympathy that she just can't get a statement out of her mouth without it becoming. you know, without everybody just losing their minds. I think that's reasonable sympathy. I'm not sure what the imperative for her to go on David Pluff's podcast was, though. And for this to be the platform to say these things. Maybe it's the perfect platform. Maybe I'm a Luddite who doesn't understand what podcasts are. She's kind of been on the media circuit, right?

I saw her with Chelsea doing something the other day. Sure. Oh, yeah, no, no. She's around. I just like, it just seems like, I don't know. It just seems like a very serious accusation to make, but who knows? Maybe that's just me. Before we get out of here, let's spend a little time on Donald Trump and Duralgate because the president announced he was going to hold June's group of seven summit

at the Dural, his own Dorel Golf Club in New York, in Florida, excuse me. That seemed like self-dealing. And by late Saturday afternoon, the New York Times reports, Trump had changed his mind, but quote, he waited to announce the reversal until that night in two tweets that were separated by a break he took to watch the opening of Janine Piro's Fox News program. So Trump announces that in fact the G7 will not take place at Derell and then, you know, we all take a moment. You watch the beginning of Janine Piro and then finish the tweet. The hilarious side note here, David, is that acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney went out and gave that disastrous press conference.

last week, partly or fully because he was talking about the venue for the G7. And then in passing, admits the quid pro quo at the heart of the Trump-Ukraine scandal while talking about the venue. So if we follow the bouncing ball here, Trump had a bad idea of hosting world leaders at his own property. is acting chief of staff in the process of defending the idea admitted to a possibly impeachable offense and then Trump just canceled the bad idea anyway. Did I miss it?

Well, if you put it that way, there's also the interesting subplot that Mulvaney is, of course, still acting chief of staff, not actually chief of staff. That's true. But his actual job is that he's the budget director? Is that his title?

That's correct. The Office of Management and Budget. And so it would be, I think, now I believe I have this subplot. I believe I had this teased out correctly that it would be utterly implausible that he did not, that he was not involved in the actual, you know, budgetary process for searching out these different, these various venues, which they may or may not have actually priced out. And that there's actually, there's like a significant conflict in like the president knowing any of these things. So, like, the idea that his budget director and chief of staff are the same person is incredibly problematic in this whole situation, too.

But going back to what you said, yeah. I mean, this one is, I think, to quote myself from last week, this is one of those times where it's really hard to figure out what the 3D chess move is, right? I mean, I just don't. I don't, like, I could wrap my head around. I could just about wrap my head around we're going to use Ukraine as a distraction to get Dural as the side of the G7

or vice versa. I'm not exactly sure what it is if you're willing to back down. And also I don't know of all of the things that Trump has done. I find it hard to believe that he was convinced

that he could, that having the trying to have the G7 Dural is a is a is a bad enough move to back out okay i mean that you've hit on an interesting thing and i think this the times piece goes into this because it says the president first heard the criticism of his choice at the Dural while watching tv where even some fox news personalities were disproving times goes on to say that molvaney was with a bunch of moderate republicans at camp david and when the president called mow vaney informs the president hey these republicans are even uneasy about this and don't want to defend you on this.

So have we just reached a point with impeachment, Ukraine, Syria, where Republicans won't defend him and Trump's ability to have bad ideas and execute them actually does depend at least partly on Republicans or Fox News personalities defending him, right? So if that goes away as it kind of has in the last week or so that he actually can't execute bad ideas, he needs that political cover. Okay, well, this is really interesting because one, he specifically cited the Democrats and their allies in the media as the reason why he couldn't. No, no, but it's interesting that the actual culprits here were the Republicans and their allies in the media, right? I mean, if that's in fact why he had to back off of this, that it was just like, that was like diametrically wrong. Um, it's also, uh, it's also interesting because I guess my theory would have been that with all of, with all of, I mean, the, this is just sort of a straw that broke the camel's back sort of situation that with everything else going on, there's finally people who have, you know, who are like, you've gone too far, right? I mean, that would, I guess be like the sort of like, morally what we would hope or what we might assume is going on right now. But it's a, it's, it's kind of quietly the opposite. It's like,

there's probably a lot of people out there on Fox News, because I've watched some of this coverage who are dissenting from the Durald decision because they don't have the guts to dissent from the more important stuff, and they want to make it sound like they're even-handed. I wonder how much of that is what's going on, and how much of that is what he's hearing, right? Because I'm not sure that Dural is really going to,

it would really be that much of a problem for anybody sitting in Congress, but if they want to seem like they're not taking it easy on Trump, even though they are, then maybe backing, maybe disagreeing with Dural for the G7 is a sort of safe protest. And this imperative to at least appear somewhat even-handed is happening

because of impeachment? Yeah. Because they didn't need an impure even-handed about him for the first couple of years. It wasn't like, oh, you know, I have my problems with Trump. It was mostly... I mean, listen, even Fox... No, no, but I've seen some of this on Fox News

and you really do get the impression that up until last week that they might have kind of reached the logical conclusion of like guffawing away impeachment investigation, right? I mean, like literally, there are Fox News hosts would literally laugh about it. And at some point, they say impeachment enough times in a given day that you have to have some sort of gravity to what you're discussing. And maybe it's, I mean, and maybe that's the way they balance it out, even as they sort of dismiss this is Russiagate Part 2.

the impeachment part that is. Part of our answer to the question of why, what is the 3D chess move here? I go to this quote that Mulvaney had on one of the Sunday shows. At the end of the day, he said, Trump still considers himself to be in the hospitality business. Dot, dot, dot.

So I think the simple answer is Trump wants to promote Trump properties. Yeah. To other powerful people. And that's the end of it. I don't think it's a distraction or whatever. I think he just, he, he, and this is a problem if you're the president of the United States, he is still in the real estate business. I mean, that's, that is, that is part of what we've all been saying is a, is a big problem for a long time.

But that's what he thinks. Why wouldn't I happen to my fabulous resort and fabulous golf club in Florida? I loved also this tweet by our pal, Stephen Shepherd at Politico, biggest fold at Dural since Phil against Tiger in the final group in 2005. This is not nice. Excellent stuff. All right. Thank for David Schuemaker,

guess is a strain pun headline. Okay. Last Friday's pun tweet was, or excuse me, pun headline was DeiSX, Ma China. Remember that one? DiasX Mauchina.

I was up at Lake Arrowhead with the family this weekend, up here in California. And David, I grabbed the local paper, which is called the Mountain News. And wouldn't you know it, right there on page one below the fold,

was a strained pun headline. Oh my God. The story is, yep, the story is by Nick Kippley, who also took the pictures. It's a nice piece about a local woman named Barbara Doubt, whose kidney stopped functioning. She had to have a kidney transplant.

Her daughter, Amy Sherro, became part of something called the paired kidney exchange, where you agree to donate a kidney to someone who needs it, and then someone else will agree to donate a kidney to someone else who needs it, in this case, her mom.

Anyway, everybody seems to be doing well. the Mountain News reported this story of kidney transplants with a wow can you believe that style headline so David what is the Lake Arrowhead Mountain News's strained pun headline oh my god wow can you believe that yeah that's style you got one word your plan off here is it doubt or is it kidney kidney is it like a kidney believe it or are you kidney are you no is that it that was almeda almeda just jumped in off the top rope are you kidney you've got to be kidney me I'm giving this one to Chris you got to have it kidding me he can have it this is a bad what a magical moment first straight the teacher this is great oh my gosh my career. There you go.

Congrats to Chris and congrats to the Mountain News for that one. He is David Schuemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Research by the number one champion. Chris Lave made a production magic by Jim Cuttingham. We're back Friday, bright and early with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.

I'm going all in on comedy. I was up at Lake Arrowhead with family this weekend. I'm here in California. Oh, my God. And David, I grabbed the local paper which is called the Mountain News. Um, and wouldn't you know it, right there on page one below the fold. Oh, my God.

The hilarious side note here, David, is that, don't be an asshole. Just don't be an asshole. Maybe that's just me. We all know, you know when you're doing that. To quote myself from last week, um, I don't know what I'm doing. Don't cowardly hide behind your proxies. I'm not sure what the... Wow, can you believe that?

Well, if you put it that way, Um, there's... I'm not kidding. I guess the first question is, is this a big deal? Or will this potentially turn into a big deal? Uh... You, the queen of warmongers. Maybe I'm a Luddite who doesn't understand what podcasts are.

Don't be a dick, okay? Get your missiles out of Cuba. Without it becoming, you know, without everybody just losing their minds. Uh, I, I didn't. that's exactly the right way to say it. David, I got news for you. Yeah, please. At the end of the day,

you're being an assing. Don't do that. Don't do that anymore. And I just want to repeat, please don't be an assing. I don't agree with it. Mm-hmm. Just too stupid to understand.

Please, please. The luf, self-obsessed and ungenerous. Right. Really, really dense. Uh... Did I miss it? Had to put this tagfully. Fuck that guy.

You're really busting my nuts here. Give me a jingle later. Hugs.