The Press Box - CBS’s Halloween "Bloodbath" and Michael Jordan as the NBA's Ombudsman. Plus: Vox’s Astead Herndon on Leaving The New York Times and the Future of the Democrats.

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and Joel discuss the layoffs at CBS News (0:51) before diving into their thoughts on Michael Jordan’s two appearances on NBC thus far (14:05), the NBA's relationship to storytelling, and what they want from these MJ appearances. Next, Bryan and Joel educate the listeners on Jennifer Welch (28:41), including where she originally grabbed the spotlight, what she does, and where she fits in the modern political media ecosystem. They end the show with the next installment of 25 for 25 as Vox’s Astead Herndon joins to talk about leaving The New York Times and the future of the Democrats (47:13). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson Guest: Astead Herndon Producer: Bruce Baldwin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Press Box Thursday. It's Brian Curtis. It's Joel Anderson. It's producer Bruce Baldwin. Coming up on the podcast, The Halloween Bloodbath at CBS News, Michael Jordan breaks his silence on NBC.

What do we want from an MJ interview? Plus, the rise of podcaster Jennifer Welch, fraud book tours, and in the latest installment of our 25 for 20, series. Asted Herndon is going to join us to talk about leaving the New York Times, Vox, the state of the Democrats, and much, much more. You're not going to want to miss that. First up, Joel, we talked on Monday about John Dickerson leaving CBS News. Well, yesterday we learned that about a hundred more people are going to be leaving due to layoffs.

That's, I mean, we all sort of expected this when the merger went through. So, yeah, the next thing to usually is when people, you know, people can lose their jobs as a result, unfortunately. So it sucks. In fact, this is part of a mega layoff at Paramount that's going to see 2,000 people lose their jobs before it's over. Stephen Bataglio of the L.A. Times has some of the names from CBS News. Dana Jacobson, we know her work from ESPN before CBS. Michelle Miller, they were co-hosts of CBS Saturday morning.

CBS closed its Johannesburg Bureau and laid off foreign correspondent Deborah Pata who worked there and covered just about every major story in Africa in the Middle East over the last 25 years. They pulled the plug on CBS Evening News Plus, which is a streaming program. I'm going to be honest,

I didn't know this existed until I watched the CBS Evening News last week on YouTube and I was like, why is this 50 minutes long? Well, There was a streaming attachment. And this, too, quoting from Bataglio here, the news division also shuttered its race and culture unit, which was formed in the aftermath of the 2020 killing of George Floyd. Not a surprise in the anti-diversity movement that is a pace around this country now.

And, you know, not for nothing, my understanding is it some of the people on the masked head at CBS, if you call it a masthead. We're skeptical of it, of that union in and of itself. So it's not a surprise that those folks were targeted. And, I mean, just to be frank, I mean, come on, man. You know that that's going to be one of the first things to go when they start shutting it down. Because, you know, news organizations already kind of have a weak commitment to covering that stuff of those issues anyway. So it's not a surprise, but that doesn't make it any less devastating, I would say.

Have you noticed the new euphemism for moves like this? you say, well, that's a 2020 idea. Yeah. Yeah. No one ever comes out and actually argues against it. Oh, yeah. They just say, oh, it's a 2020 idea. Well, yeah, I mean, I guess it's like, yeah, where everybody had caught a little bit of a fever, right?

Where there was a thought that, okay, well, like, you know, maybe we should, we feel bad about the George Floyd thing, where people had momentarily felt conflicted. And then I guess we had the pandemic. We were in a really low place in 2020. Yeah, but those days are over now. We're still in a low place. Is there a different low place? Yeah, it just seems like what's more important is to say whether it was a good 2020 idea

or a bad 2020 idea. And then argue that rather than simply being like, oh, that was of a time and place in American life and we've somewhere else now. Yeah. We've since moved on from that in a lot of ways. You mentioned layoffs were likely to happen, whether Barry Weiss was the editor-in-chief of CBS News or not.

Of course, when you combine this with Barry Weiss being the editor-in-chief of CBS, you are not talking about a high morale period inside that news organization? I mean, just imagine, I mean, it's kind of similar to the Washington Post. Like, just imagine working there right now. You've been there. That is about a safe and dependable a job in media areas, is working at the August CBS News. And now you've got a person that knows nothing about TV as far as we know,

taking over. And, you know, this rich guy who clearly has an agenda has bought it and is steering it in a certain direction. And they've got all these layoffs, even if you make it there, it can't feel good. It can't. Here's something you and I have not talked about. What does a 2025 version of CBS?

news actually look like? Fox News Light. Okay. There's two separate questions here. There's Barry Weiss's reprogramming of CBS News. Right. But set Barry aside if that's actually possible. What should they be trying to do?

Because, you know, when I hear all this stuff about she's looking for a new anchor of the CBS evening news. Or she wants, you know, to book this interview, or maybe she'll have some kind of influence on what 60 Minutes shows. What really doing is just taking old network stuff and retooling it slightly. I mean, shouldn't CBS News just be trying to be a multimedia organization that's not fighting old battles over who's watching you at 630 at night, but fighting new battles? I mean, I guess that, I mean, everybody has always been trying to do that, right?

Like, everybody is trying to be the new thing or keep up. Because the streaming program, for instance, right? Like, that is a nod to a newer generation of consumer, allegedly, right? My mom's not going to be trying to stream CBS News, right? And neither is yours. So, I mean, I guess, like, they're trying to do that. But it's just interesting because I hear people talk about being younger, more adept, more nimble. And I just never hear anybody talk about.

being better. You know, like just doing good work. You know, that's true. What we're going to do, we're going to do what we've been doing, but we're going to do it better, right? But you just never hear that. Yeah. And if we had to power rank these things, doing it better would be number one on my list. Absolutely. Also, you're talking about network news here. Yeah. And there has to be some kind of, you know, groping toward the future. Right. I guess I was thinking about this because I sort of belatedly remembered that John Dickerson is hosting the CBS Evening News, but he's doing his politics podcast for Slate. Now, if I'm CBS News, I'm like, wait a second, I have chosen John Dickerson to host our

biggest show or one of our biggest shows. Why would I want him doing political analysis on a podcast or someone else? like why wouldn't I want the John Dickerson podcast to be part of the stuff I'm doing? That's a great question. I mean, the bifurcation of media in that way, like by medium or whatever, is always been sort of weird to me. Because it's a, I mean, it happens all. It's not, that's not the only example.

And yeah, it does make sense. Like, why wouldn't, and I'm kind of like that this too. Like, I want to have all my shit at the same place, man. I don't want to be doing work for a whole bunch of different kind of people if I can help it. But that's just my preference. And I can imagine if you were a manager and you got somebody that's really talented, somebody that you've invested in, why would I be loaning them out to somebody else? It's so strange to me.

The other one is the athletic where they hire all these people and then they cut back their podcast operation. So you've got all these really good writers doing podcasts as freelance assignments. Yeah. And I'm just like, wait a second. You just want them for the words in 2025? That's noble, but like what? You don't want the podcast part of it?

It's not, I mean, it's not going to hold up. I mean, you know what I mean? Like, they're going to look at that one day probably and be like, what about that? But yeah, it doesn't, I just, nobody is, it's just tough because it doesn't actually feel like media companies don't actually have time to think ahead, right? Like, I kind of think some of this is just sort of a fake, because you're always sort of adjusting.

Like there's a new hit coming. Very few media organizations are expanding or growing. And so they're trying to do more with less. They never have a chance to look out ahead. And then you just kind of end up with a mishmash of plans. Right? You're just like, we're going to do something different, but with fewer people. And fewer of the people that were veterans, like, have some sort of institutional knowledge of this thing.

And it's just so, yeah, like you end up with this kind of stuff. You're like, we're going to do evening news and then we're going to do evening news plus. Evening news plus. Yeah. Right. But wait a second. But we're still talking about the evening news, which has been this, this just thing you've been doing for decades. and decades.

Right. And that's what's so strange to me. And I noticed I was looking up like CBS News podcasts, and they have their shows like the evening news, like Face the Nation, as podcasts. So if you're not watching on TV, you can list it in your car. And that's fine. But when we were talking about the New York Times on Monday, I'm like, I'm just like, look, I went to the, I go to the Times app, I go to the watch module.

And I can see Donald Trump meeting with a new Japanese prime minister. I cannot tell you how important it was for TV news two decades ago to be the one thing in your life that would show you moving images of an event like that. That's real. Yeah. That's right. And it didn't matter what anybody said. You wanted to watch that because that was the place to find it. And you know, now I'm-

And you had to do it at home. And you had to do it at home. And you had to do it at home. A very good point. Yeah. And now, like, I'm sure CBS News could provide a, really good two minute, minute and a half report that gives you a lot of details and why that meeting is important and all that kind of stuff. But I'm like, if you've just seen that footage

somewhere else, you've stripped away a lot of what television news used to provide. Same thing with Face the Nation. Margaret Brennan could have the best guess and that's the best questions. I'm like, if politicians are on every podcast, there's no exclusivity there. It doesn't matter. At this point, yeah, like, I mean, if you say, oh, we got Gavin Newsom, well, Gavin Newsom was on this podcast and on this podcast, he has his own podcast. He's talking to people constantly. So it's very hard to get like something that is truly exclusive from somebody that we, you know, that's saying something essential that we don't hear already, right? So, so, so Barry Weiss opening up her book to get, you know, Prince Charles or whatever, or, you know, to get Hillary Clinton. It was like,

all right, I get, that's not a bad idea to get more ambitious with your ask, but it's just like, That's just not, everybody's already talking, man. Everybody's already talking out there. That's just not going to be what's going to revolutionize your business model. And as a reminder, Weiss is from a new media company. And we can argue to the extent that a free press is really a new media company and what kind of was and all this stuff. But she's from the future. It's a blog.

It's a blog. Okay. She's from the future of 2005. Yeah, right. But shouldn't this be what this is about? Like they've got so many smart people over there. Margaret Brennan talking about foreign affairs, Scott McFarland on the Justice Beat.

We can go on and on. It's like, what's the way, what's their daily podcast? What's their thing that's not the daily, but it's like that? Where it doesn't matter whether you watch one moment of television, but you can find CBS News in some other way. That's what I want to know about this whole transformation. Yeah. I mean, that's a great point.

I mean, I did not know that you could listen to Face the Nation on a podcast. Maybe I should have guessed that. But, yeah, I did not know. Yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of ways to make things better. But, I mean, again, like, we're asking them to do more and different stuff with a lot fewer people now. A hundred fewer people. Right. And it didn't, I mean, just based on the people who own it or whatever, like, they're not trying to get to the bottom of doing

investigations in Tanzania or whatever, like, tell us some big traffic. Like, you can clearly see that they're scaling back their ambitions for, like, doing that. I saw somebody say something like, well, oh, why did they have a Johannesburg Bureau in the first place? You dumbass? Like, I mean, it probably is the only bureau they had in Africa in that region of the world. And, like, that is an essential part of the international news report. Like, it's important to have somebody there. The New York Times has a Johannesburg Bureau.

But that guy, John Eligow, he can, he'll go up to other countries within Africa and other parts of the region and do that kind of stuff. And so people just, there's just sort of a failure of imagination of like what this stuff is and what they can do. But, you know, I'm just, you know, I guess you can see I'm frustrated. Like this is a, it's really sad because I'm just seeing all these cool jobs and cool people go away. And it doesn't seem like, you know, we're replacing it with anything that is going to be durable. I love when journalists start talking like bean counters. Why are they putting people on planes to go cover interesting stories? Yeah, why are they, man?

Bro, why are you rooting for a spreadsheet? Why are you rooting against people going places and doing things and doing work? I mean, I guess, you know, I just, it's very frustrating. I want to be hard-headed. I don't want to be, you know, we're living in some other time in the past, but like, come on, like, we should be able to do both those things. I mean, the Ellison should be able to afford it. Put it that way.

Let's talk about the NBA on NBC. Yeah, man. It's back. It is laced in the drug sense of the term with 90s nostalgia. Oh, okay. Crack? Drug of choice, whatever it is, for every listener out there. I'll let you come to your own conclusion.

All right. Roundball Rock is back, Joel. Yeah, and I think like there was a lot of argument. I think Rob Perez is... Yeah, very good. I'm sorry, I just stepped over you there. There was a whole argument about, do we have the right round ball rockback? I think Rob Perez has finally decided that the needle drop is appropriate, so we got that. Also in the nostalgia zone, we've got the Bob Costas pregame teams.

A half century ago, the Knicks and Bucks were two of the powerhouse franchises in the NBA. The Knicks of Frazier, Reed and Company, won the title twice in the early 70s. have won this basketball game. The box of Kareem and Oscar were champs in 71. The Milwaukee box are champions in the world. Four years ago, Milwaukee ended its 50-year title drought, capped by a trophy-clinching 50-point performance from Yanis. I love that so much.

That's cool, huh? The costus narration, the music. Yeah, man. I mean, watching it, watching the old clips, too, by the way. of when they aired it on TV, like seeing that old grainy footage of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, right? Man, people have talked so much about how the NBA

has sort of lost its way to build drama over the course of an 82 game season. And our guy, Logan Murdoch, came on our show not so long ago and was telling us about how the NBA needs to get back to the storytelling and telling stories. That seems like one of the ways to start to get to do it, man.

And it's the right use of nostalgia. Yeah. Because when ESPN would try to do nostalgia, they'd be showing the finals between Indiana and OKC and we go to commercial and like, here's a picture of the 77 Blazers. And I'd be like, that's cool, but why right now? Yeah, right. It makes way more sense that the Knicks are playing the bucks and you set the stage of the rivalry.

You show the past of those teams. And then here we are in the present and you can tell the story of that game in front of you. Oh, yeah. And I thought it was really notable. They did not have an insider on their pregame show. NBC and that's a decision you know I think a lot of people watch DSPN

and said you have these insiders on or you're just always talking about woge bombs yeah and what happens is you're talking about stuff that's going to happen maybe in six months maybe Janus is going to get traded maybe Janus is upset with the bucks roster

and you're just not talking about the thing we're about to watch right you're forced to talk about transactions and transaction ball as opposed to the event that is going on in front of you. And so yet the idea that they're centering the game itself, right, and the teams and the people involved is really cool because that's what we all got into this for, right?

We didn't get into it because, like, man, I hope they don't trade Ralph Stamson to the Warriors. You know what I mean? Like, that's not, you know, it was not by a formative memory of the NBA now. Joe Barry Carroll, no, right. It's like we want to talk about the games that are going to be happening.

And yeah, this is a, I've seen mostly on social, media like really good reviews for the NBA on NBC's presentation this far. I have to and I think that's part of it. You know, people like nostalgia. I always think, you know, it's so important for media outlets to to indulge in nostalgia once in a while because those are the memories we have at those places. Like, you know, with the Washington Post, remember when they got on the wrong side of Woodward and or Bernstein with all the new changes over there? I'm like, no, no, no. There's no version of the Washington Post that does.

doesn't have Woodward and Bernstein inside the tent. Absolutely. That is the thing we think about. There are people we think about with the Washington Post. Same with ESPN. It's like you absolutely need Chris Berman doing something for ESPN. Because it connects to the past. And it welcomes people in that may not be totally up on who's on there now.

Oh, Chris Bray, I know him. Okay. Now I'll give these new people a chance. Yeah, bring them in, usher them in. And then, all right. Hey, look at our new team. You know, look at the folks here, man. And of course, the biggest star of the 90s NBA on NBC was Michael Jordan.

NBC had the package for 12 years. Michael Jordan won a championship in six of those years. He's back now as a special contributor. And we've seen clips from these interviews he did with Mike Tariko called MJ Insights Into Excellence. Does that sound like something that's happening on a stage at a corporate retreat? Well, I was going to say, is that like one of those, what do they call it? You know, the, like with those influencer type conferences or something like that,

although not, not that MJ would lower himself. I don't want to say, and I was going to say, I didn't want to say super lower because I didn't want to be dismal. I think we can go ahead and say, okay. All right. I'll let you say it. Feels like there's a tiny list of people in the world that are so big and talk so infrequently that we hang on every word they say. MJ's on the list.

Who else do you think is on that list? Man, there's not many because we just talked about how everybody talks. Like, everybody has to sort of be ubiquitous now. So I came up with Beyonce. Okay. You know, she doesn't talk. She doesn't do interviews. What's your favorite Beyonce song?

Sorry, the audio went out again. Oh, okay. All right. I was going to meet myself and I. Really good song. Rihanna, though. I think Rihanna is another person. And I'm not just saying this because these people are black.

I'm just like I really feel like because they don't do a lot of interviews, because they've been tremendously famous. I used to, I don't know why I used the example of Johnny Carson, but I just always thought he had it the right way. It's like if you can sort of somehow keep up the mystery of your life while being a public figure, that seems ideal, right? If you can manage that without always having to be out there, seems so much more manageable than having to continually have to feed the beast, right? ubiquitous but mysterious yeah man Taylor Swift does she does she make that list when she when she says stuff it seems like a big deal right she was on the podcast the other day with the Kelsey's that's just a stop down moment for everybody yeah everybody's like I want to hear what this what this is even people like me who are not hanging on her every word absolutely all right so the first installment

of the MJ interview series came last week and Michael Jordan talked about his last clutch shot Seriously, the last time you picked up a basketball and shot it? I was at the writer cup. Yeah. And I rented a house from the owner. Sure. He came over to do pictures. He had grandkids.

And I was meet and greet and thank him for allowing me to stay in the house. And he had a basketball court. He says, I want you to shoot one free though. I said, really. And I already paid for the house. He already paid for the house. I like that you got to see me. So when I stepped up to shoot your free throw, it's the most nervous I've been in years.

Stop it. In years. Stop it. Come on. And the reason being is those kids heard the stories from the parents about what I did 30 years ago. Right. So their expectation is 30 years prior and I haven't touched the basketball. I hope you switched it.

Absolutely. I mean, there's a lot that that clip evokes. Man, it's just sad to me that MJ doesn't touch a basketball anymore, man. I mean, that is a real, like, man, facing down your mortality moment to me. Like, Michael Jordan is at a point where he has not touched a basketball in years. It's really weird. I got to say what's sadder to me was not that part, but the fact that this guy who owns a house on Long Island for the Ryder Cup

was making MJ shoot a free throw because that feels like one step away from MJ at the influencer conference. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's kind of. You must shoot a free throw. This must be an extremely wealthy, prominent person because it would never occur to me to try to make Michael Jordan do anything if I was in his press.

You know what I mean? Yeah. It's a great story, but then you think about that particular part of it, and it was like, oh. Perform. This week, Toriko and Jordan got into a dreaded concept for the NBA.

Load management. May not surprise you, Joel. M.J. said, Nay. What do you think of when you hear the term load management throwing around? Well, it shouldn't be needed, first and foremost. You know, I never wanted to miss the game because it was an opportunity to prove. It was something that I felt like, you know, the fans are there that watch me play.

I want to impress that guy way up on top who probably worked his ass off to get a ticket or to get money to buy the ticket. You really cared about the guy who sat in the top deck at the power? Alast in Auburn Hills to watch you when you came to Detroit? Yeah, because I know he's probably yelling at me. I want to shut him up. He's calling all kinds of names. I definitely want to shut him up. You have a duty that if they're wanting to see you and as an entertainer, I want to show, right?

That's endearing in a way that Michael Jordan feels that way. Like that part of him that is like, you know, I have an obligation to perform. But it also, I mean, you know, Michael Jordan has been involved in the NBA for 20 years. now was like a personnel guy and an owner guy, and that attitude towards load management might explain why none of those teams have had a lot of success. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, you know, you know, people aren't doing load management for the hell of it. It is really to preserve the bodies of the players that are assets on your team.

Like the players want to play, but it's just, you know, it's smarter to have them not do it. So anyway, so that in that way it was sort of revealed. to me. Not that I thought MJ would think any other way, but what did you think? Yeah. I mean, on the one hand, it's a little like when the Yankee beat riders used to go to spring trading in Florida and Goose Gossage would complain about the state of the game. Yeah. We know what he's going to say. Right. He's not going to be pro load management. Yeah. But on the other hand, because of the scarcity of Michael Jordan, I sat there and watched that whole clip and I'm just completely entranced. I'm like, I wouldn't hear what Michael George.

has to say about this. Him talking about anything is just going to be interesting as hell. So, right, if he's just going to be, I mean, I guess maybe we'll see how this goes over the course of the season,

but for the most part, if he's going to be talking and he's going to be a little unguarded, it's worth it. So what do we want from these? Do we want stories about his life now, like shooting a free throw for the first time in years and years?

I want all of that, man. I definitely, I mean, I'm really interested in Michael Jordan as a 60-year-old, you know, a guy who's not touched basketball. I do want his insights on basketball, of course. Although it's kind of like with Shaq, like I kind of feel like I can kind of figure out what Michael Jordan is going to say about guys, but it's still worth hearing even if we think that we can guess it. And also just think, like you mentioned, there's going to be nostalgia for the 90s.

The world is spiraling. So his life now, stories from the 90s. Yeah. Here's the thing. Here's the stuff I didn't tell you in the last dance. Here's the stuff that got cut. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, like we just, we all want to look back on a time when MJ was as big a name in the world as anything, when it was more hopeful, aspirational. We want to be reminded of that excellence and, in that greatness. And yeah. And also, I do think there's a little bit of, at least from him, that to seize back the mantle from LeBron. LeBron has had the NBA under his thumb for the last couple of decades. This is a real good way for MJ to sort of insert himself into the conversation and remind y'all, hey, I was pretty good. Yeah, I didn't even think of that subtext, but man, that is absolutely there. I've seen a lot of people, too, they really want Michael Jordan to talk about current players. Remember when the LeBron J.J. Reddick podcast first started and there was a lot of stuff about Horn's chest and all these other.

plays and then LeBron had like, I don't know what it was, like 20, 30 seconds where he talked about why Jason Tatum was good. And everybody did the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the TV meme and we're like, oh, oh, there, there we go. If we can get there with Michael Jordan. And I think a lot of this, by the way, this is the kind of media sort of subplot here, none of us know very much at all about what's going to happen with this. These two clips that I played were cut from the same interview.

They played at different times. There was one interview from Toriko. NBC will not say whether Jordan's going to do more interviews, whether Jordan could be on the set. You know, when we get to the, let's say, the Western Conference Finals or something like that, could you actually have him in a commentator role talking about what he just saw?

Would you be really exciting? And maybe some of that comes to the fact they don't know what Michael Jordan is going to be in the mood to do in his retirement. But if we can get to a point where he is commentating on the action, where he is being Charles Berkeley, except he's Michael Jordan. That's Nirvana.

Yeah. I mean, I want to hear what he thinks about Vijay Hedcombe, man. You know what I mean? So, yeah, I mean, that would be, it would be nice. It would be nice.

Yeah, him too. And Reed Shepherd. Like, also, do you think my Rockets, like, we need a real point guard in Jay. So who do you think? Not that he had any, we've seen what he, his personnel management.

So maybe, you know, I'm less interested in that, but it would be, it's still good to hear it. And old LeBron, like he was an old basketball player. Old was different back then. The ages were really different, but he was an old basketball player.

What does he think about old LeBron? What does he think about old Steph? Like, there's just so much there. Oh, man. Anything he says about LeBron going straight to the top of the headlines on any sports website. So, yeah. A couple more things for you. If you have looked at politics, Twitter, and especially liberal politics Twitter,

over the last couple of months, you have probably seen a clip of podcast or Jennifer Welch. You might have seen her lecturing Senator Cory Booker about taking APEC money, going one-on-one with Rahm Emanuel about the Democrats hedging on trans rights. Our friend Matthew Zitland tweeted, if you're not familiar with Jennifer Welch and Angie Pumps Sullivan, you won't be able to understand today's Democratic Party. So, Joel, is it worth just doing an explainer-like segment? Yeah. where we explain Jennifer Welch's rise while also explaining it to ourselves? Absolutely, because they have recently started showing up in my timeline as well, and I was like, who are these people?

So Jennifer Welch and Angie Pump Sullivan, if you don't know, two women in their 50s. They do the podcast out of Oklahoma City. Woo-hoo. OKC. I was, you know, I'm a former OKC resident. You have a lot of affection for all the states at Border Texas. That's right. I'd really do.

I really do. And you know this from living in Texas. If you're a liberal that lives in a deep red place, you're really a liberal. Oh, I mean, you've got to fight. You've got to fight for your beliefs. Yeah, it can be really lonely. It really, yeah, it's like Molly Evans when we were growing up. Yeah, yeah.

Like it sort of, there's a, the liberal has cut a certain way who's in a place like that. Absolutely. Sharpenes those edges a little bit, I think. Here's Welch and Sullivan on being two blonde women that they acknowledge. knowledge are Fox coded. I think it needs to be addressed that the optics of us, two middle-aged white women with southern accents, and some of these people see us, and they think, oh, those are my people. And I want to state, for the permanent record, we are not your people. We are progressive. We believe that Black Lives Matter. We believe that science is real. We support the

LGBTQIA plus community unapologetically. So if any of y'all are still musing around and you didn't get... You're trying to make a decision. You didn't get all the other stuff that we put down. You can exit now. I mean, that's bars, man. Bars. Well, just so if it became friends because their kids were friends.

You'll know this pretty soon, Joel. All your new friends will come because your kids were friends with their kids. That's just a thing that happens. I kind of picked up on that our preschool adventure last year. So, yeah. It's cool. I mean, I liked all of Desmond's parents' friends.

Both Welch and Sullivan were difficult marriages. Both later got divorced. Then they were on a Bravo series together called Sweet Home Oklahoma. What's your favorite episode of Sweet Home, Oklahoma, Joel? Probably the one where they were fixing up a house. Welch on that show was the interior design. and Sullivan was the quirky best friend, quoting actually from the promo. Is that where the pumps comes from?

What does the pumps mean? We might need to go back and do some research on Sweet. Can we do a ringer prestige TV pod on Sweet Home, Oklahoma? We should. Connor, are you listening? We can, we said it. We put it out there for you. They started the pod.

I've had it in 2022. it was initially an entertainment podcast that pivoted increasingly to liberal politics. And they've had everybody on that podcast. And by everybody, I mean AOC, Gavin Newsom, Bernie Sanders, even Barack Obama. Yeah, yeah. There's a great piece by The Guardian's Rachel Line Gang, which I draw from here, which really explains the rise of the pod. And some of it is, clearly they are.

summoning anger at the Democratic establishment. Welch tells line gang, you want to go low, we're going to go lower. The integrity politics of being perfect as a liberal needs to stop and we need to bully the shit out of these guys because they respond to it. I mean, you know, the reason she caught my attention is because of talk like that. Like it really does stand out in a crowded market, right? it's really clear and it's really razor sharp you don't see that a lot on on liberal type podcast right so dude in the language on this podcast i know you and i've been sampling a couple

episodes this week i mean this is like the movies in the 80s that would get an r rating just for language oh yeah i mean they are going out of their way especially welch just like f bomb f bomb f bomb like we are anger at the state of the world and at the state of the state of the Democratic Party as well is coming through in every single sentence. She made a reference to, quote, FU politics. And I think that touches on something that lots of people I know have been wondering for a long time. And I should clarify, there are a lot of left and liberal podcasts that use that sort of language and talk about people that way, but they never get that kind of access.

And they tend to not look like pumps and Jennifer Welch, right? They're not as foxcoded in their presentation. So it is really sort of, it's something to see and hear them go about it this way. The other thing I've noticed, and this was a little, this came through when we were talking about Adam Friedland, talking to Richie Torres, is the interviews where she'll have a major politician on. I'm talking about Jennifer Welch here. And there'll be questions, but a lot of it will just, of the interview will just consist

of Welch saying, here is my opinion on this interview, on this issue. And here is why you, sir, are disappointing me when you talk about this issue or the party's disappointing me. Listen to the way she talked to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel about trans rights. We were really south on kitchen table issues. We weren't really good about the family room issues. I disagree with you. I disagree with you.

Okay. The only room we were doing really well was the bathroom. And that's the smallest room in the house. That is such bullshit. That is total bullshit. That is buying into the right-wing media narrative. And I'm so sick at Democrats like you selling out and saying this. You know who talks about trans people more than anybody?

MAGA. Maga is the most genital, obsessed political party I have ever seen. Kamala Harris talked about homeownership. She talked about kitchen table issues. Trump's over there droning on about Hannibal Lecter. Are you kidding me? This is where the Democrats, lose because we're playing the game with the rulebook.

They've writ the rule book up and her crammed it down everybody's throat. You know, one of the sad things is that Rom really had, he put a lot of sauce on that bathroom line. Like, you could just tell. He was like, I just need to get that out. That was so rehearsed. Yeah, don't, yeah, it was so bad. And she, and she stuffed that shit.

She pinned it on the glass. And this still called him Mr. Emmanuel later, which is this, you know, speaks to the southerness of it. at all. But yeah, man, who's ever talked to Robin Manuel like that in public? That's what's amazing. I mean, you look and you watch him. Cory Booker was another example.

If you can watch that clip on Twitter, I'm sure that came across everybody's timeline. And they don't know what to do because there is a certain politest, if I may use the only in journalism word here, that comes with politician interviews. You can ask a tough question. You may follow up two or three times and do, excuse me, sir, but you don't do that in mainstream media.

I know everybody is busy. Like, I have times when I'm going onto a podcast and maybe I have not listened to it, you know, or I'm not quite familiar with the work. But I'm really stunned at how unprepared these public servants are, like Rom or even Senator Book, for that kind of, like, sustained, for those questions. Like, they should be, they should know that it's going to be occasionally hostile. right and be prepared but then you get to see them lose their temper or they get you know upset or they get flustered because they're just not used to anything like that and i'm just like but wait like

why didn't you why weren't you prepared for this why didn't you have a better answer for that you want to talk about fraught book tours for a second oh man yeah well uh you know Brian you're the bulk of flawed season is slowly but surely creeping up on us and so you know we got to start getting into the ais of our local bookstores and and checking it out, seeing what's coming out here. You know what they say? Yolo Boko Flood starts earlier every year. Every year.

Every year. I'm starting to see stuff up when I go to CVS and everything. And so, you know, a lot of books are dropping in this fourth quarter, hoping to ride the way over the holiday season. And, of course, one of the ones that's gotten the most attention in recent days is the one from former White House Press Secretary, Karin Jean-Pierre. She released this book, Independent, A Look Inside a Broken White House. outside the party lines, which she describes,

what she considers the betrayal of Joe Biden by the Democratic Party. That book and her are getting a lot of attention in press, Brian, but clearly not for the reason she would have hoped. Yeah. I mean, speaking of stuff that came across our timeline, how about the Isaac Chodner interview in the New Yorker?

I mean, so that went, I mean, that's about as viral as a Q&A can go, right? because I've got that in like three or four different group chats. People were showing up. Shout out Isaac, a Rockets fan, by the way. Yes, a friend of both of us. We should say that. Friend of the show.

I mean, did it get in the group chat power rankings higher than Isaac's interview with Cass Sunstein? Woo! Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I think so. I think what I'll just tell you what my bias is here and I'll just cut to it and then people can do with it what they want. Sometimes I thought people. were being really cruel and mean to Karene Jean-Pierre because she was a black, a woman, and LGBTQ, right? Like, she identified, right?

And I just was like, you know, they're not really giving her a chance. Like, they're just, she never had a chance with certain people, and they were going to treat her like she was unqualified. But the thing about this interview and this book tour is it sort of hints at the idea that maybe she actually wasn't as good at communicating with people

as you would like somebody in that job to be. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think that's fair, right? I mean, you look at these, I mean, I just, you look at the answers like, and Isaac has to keep going back and being like, wait, what, wait, tell me more, you know, explain this to me. Yeah. So there's a clip here, or a piece of it where he asked her, she's talking about, oh, I didn't

like the way that he was treated, right? He was treated so poorly. And so he says, so what was an example of the way he was treated? I mean, it was nasty articles that were coming out daily. You should go back and see for yourself. You're writing the articles, right? You should go back and see for yourself. It was a campaign.

It was even reported that it was a campaign, and then Isaac steps in. So you think asking him to step aside was okay, but there shouldn't have been nasty articles. And that's just like when Isaac thinks you're full of shit, like that's how, you know, he has a real knack for the question that makes you seem really stupid, right? Totally. I have to say this because every time. there's one of these interviews, people get on Twitter and say, why would anyone agree? Yes, to talk to Isaac Choddner.

And that just somehow just makes me just feel bad all over the place because I would like to normalize tough interviews for people. I would also like to normalize interviews like with Isaac or with Jennifer Welch, where a politician could come out looking bad. because I think we live in this world now where it's like, oh, my God, you know, they got dunked on. Oh, my God, it's a career ender. It's all over for them. No, no, no. We should be doing more of this stuff. Like if we can, and I know people are mostly just joking, but I'm like, I want people to do interviews like this where they get challenged and where they may not come out the victor, so to speak.

Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. Like, you don't, it's, you know, everybody has their own style of interviewing and Isaac certainly has his. But I think that there's something illuminating, like when you have an interview like that, right? And in fact, I have an appreciation, and I think it takes some courage to go with a guy that you know is going to sort of put you through that, right? I guess you just sometimes would hope that they'd be better prepared or have a better set of answers. I'm not above looking stupid on the mic. I'm sure there's a lot of people that would say that I do it all all the time. but I do want to be prepared if I can, you know?

Yes. You do want to have the facts in front of you and kind of thought about what you're going to say. Yeah, and I'm surprised that doesn't happen more often. Speaking of memoir, Cheryl Hines has a new memoir coming out. Oh, man. I used to love Cheryl, man. It's coming out November 11th and it's called Unscripted. Yeah.

Which sounds kind of like a generic memoir title for a person who's on television. and in fact, it turns out to also be the title of Ernie Johnson's memoir unscripted. Oh, was it really? In any case. She talks about her acting career and she talks about her marriage to RFK Jr. So Cheryl Hines went on Katie Miller's podcast, and I am already just, you know, driving off the road, having said that sentence. But she went on Katie Miller's podcast, and she got asked by Miller about Olivia Nutsi, though not by name.

Here's Cheryl Hines, clear in the air. And now, I don't know. You know, I don't know. I have no idea. I don't know this person. Don't know their intentions. I could guess, but I won't. But you can if you want.

But I don't know. So a lot of people who look for cloud. Well, that's the thing that, I really learned during the campaign, there are people that really want to be involved in the conversation. They want to be a part of it. And they want to, I'm not just talking about this person. I'm talking about a lot of people.

And they spend a lot of time figuring out how to write something that's going to get people's attention. Ma'am, you're doing an interview about a book you wrote. I mean, what are you talking about? That's exactly. Also, for the record, you said Katie Miller, just for people to clarify, that's Stephen Miller's wife. That's great, right? That's Stephen Miller's wife.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I have a soft spot for women who get embarrassed by their husbands, you know, and they have to kind of move on into public spotlight. Because that must be really, that must be a real tough thing they have to do. But you didn't have to do this. man. You know, like Cheryl Hines? Like you did, nobody was asking for the Cheryl Hines memoir.

I just, I don't, why do you think she's doing this? Well, and I also noticed that now we're using cloud where we used to use clickbait. Yeah. Oh yeah, cloud. Yeah. She's a little late on it, by the way. And now it's an article we don't like is to get clout. Yeah. So I guess

that's just a generational shift. She's fluent in the language of the internet. Speaking of Olivia Nutsi, we have some details about her book. We have a title. It's called American Canto. Okay. I tweeted out the cover on our various accounts.

Simon and Schuster in the press materials, and I'm getting this from Dylan Byers on Puck, calls it a mesmerizing firsthand account of the warping of American reality over the past decade as Donald Trump has risen to dominance from a participatory witness who got so far inside the distortion field that it swallowed her whole. So there we go. Okay. I mean, that's a way, that's a, that's a word for it for sure, man.

RFK, man. And finally, Joel, before we bring on instead, I just got one correction to our show from earlier in the week. We were talking about Maine Senate candidate Grand Platner. And the Reddit post he made in 2013 about black people in tipping.

We said that Platner was a bartender in Maine. Well, we got a note from listener DM, and he, listener DM writes this. If he wrote his black people tipping comment in 2013, he's course talking about Platner, he was most likely living in D.C. and attending George Washington and had been for two years. He worked at the Tune Inn in Capitol Hill, which was a bar I frequented in the late 2000s, when the neighborhood was fully in the throes of gentrification. I love that bar. Living in Maine now, I generally don't mind when media people generalize about this place,

but I was a little irked about you getting some licks in on us without knowing the details of Platner's situation at the time we made the comments. So I screwed that one up. Oh, yeah, man. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry for getting that wrong, although I would say, I mean,

does Maine have more black people than I assumed? I'm sorry. I just love it's like, we apologize for the error. Now let us continue getting the licks in on Maine. I'm sorry, but this is, this, DM put this on me, not Brian. I just like, did I get it wrong about the black population in Maine? My bad. So, anyway.

Anyway, we like to admit our errors here, and we like to put them out there so people can actually know that we made an error. We're not doing the Washington Post Opinion section approach to, you know, full disclosure here. Anyway, sorry about that one, and thank you, DM for the note. All right, Joel, time for our next installment, 25 for 25. All right, Joel, let us bring on one of our very favorite guests, a stead, Herndon's new business card says that he is now a host and editorial director at Fox. Before that, Ested spent more than seven years at the New York Times as a national politics reporter and as the host of the run-up podcast before leaving with a mic-drop mom-dani profile

earlier this month. Instead, welcome back to the press box. Oh, I'm so excited to be here and excited for this. All right, let's start with the press box question. Why did you leave the New York Times from Fox? You know, it's so funny because I was like, are we going to start there? We're going to end? Where are we going to get?

You know, I think it's been for a while. I have been thinking about the ways media has been changing. And I've also been thinking about the ways I've been changing. And I have wanted to explore what my journalism could be like if it was imprimised in a different environment. I wanted to text, right? I wanted to write audio and video at the same time. And, you know, one of the things about the kind of. of time structure. And I think some of those legacy outlets is that I was having to pick and choose

at different times, too. And I kind of wanted to just embrace the informality of the internet a little bit and think that, you know, for the goals that I have had about bringing kind of politics and elections and accessible ways, that some of that has moved into different languages. And so, you know, I can be fighting against that or I can try to meet people where they are. And so some of that really added up to me really exploring some of this more. And I just think that like I think I've been a newspaper person, my whole kind of career in life. And so doing the podcast four years ago was a little bit of an emotional break from that already. And so once I started to seeing what the possibilities were when you kind of touch people in different forms, it only made me want to do that more.

Well, I said, did, I mean, we were literally talking about this, maybe when the Mom Dani profile dropped. And Brian and I said, man, Stan's got a pretty good over there, New York Times. He kind of gets to do what he wants to do, you know, you've got the podcast thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The right thing. Did anybody try to talk you out of this? Oh, I mean, tons. Okay.

Here's what I'll say, is that this is why I go back to four years ago, I had a big experience of people. people trying to talk me out of leaving the paper and doing a podcast. And I already had to step out on faith, quote unquote, to use my dad's language, for to do that type of stuff out of the possibility. There was something else that you can create. And there's a different way to talk about elections. And so some of that was already an experience for me. But I'll also say, just to be actually honest, you know, like I've also had a little bit

of faith break within The New York Times, you know, and with, I think, with, I think, kind of the way, politics and objectivity, and I think some of the language that I think we've all, all have had to work within, but I think sometimes we do better or worse jobs at engaging in those kind of, kind of those constraints. And some, and, you know, I think for a long time, I was thinking about the ways that you can take that newspaper language and actually help and apply it to more modern times, you know. But now I kind of think, what if we free, what if you're broke, what if you don't have that at all?

And how can you reach people in that way? And, you know, it's actually, you know, to be, to be, you know, mostly, I read this book about like black press and other things. And I was thinking about like the ways even I've had to work around the frameworks of objectivity. And what if I did it, you know? and part of that was an exploration. That's why I say changes in self too.

Could you have had, I mean, that's a conversation you probably had with the Times, right? I mean, is that, did they seem resistant to this sort of work that you wanted to do? I don't think it's resistance. I know, I think it's been, you know, I think it's been large support. I would say, I would say in a lot of ways,

I have got to explore and develop. and some of these thoughts are only possible because I've gotten to do text, video, and audio at the times, right? So I'm not saying it's that, but I will say is though that, okay, like this has been reported on, so I'll say it. Like, I, you know, the Times had an all staff or all group meeting like a year or so ago where we, were me and another moderator asked questions of mass death. and one of the things I did in that meeting was really posed what was the big controversy of the time, the Screams Without Words piece to

Joe Khan and, you know, Mass Ted specifically and say, you know, the question I asked, which again, I'm only saying because it's been a report on at the time and still was about like, there had been a bunch of journalism professors who I think had questioned the accuracy of the piece. There's been like a lot. And there have been a call to submitted to an independent review. And I put in front of him like, you know, why not do that stuff? And it was a kind of typical times answer, which I think is a place that has, you know, stood really firm on its journalistic

like foundations and backing, but it's also insulated itself from hearing sometimes those outside voices. But to me, the best versions of the place are when those outside voices are taken seriously, you know? And I've seen those moments. I've seen them. And that has, improved the work. That's created space for folks like me. That's been a part of change in reporting I was really proud of, you know. And I remember in that question, just feeling a real shutdown to response. And I asked in the kind of follow-up, okay, so does that mean, you know, every word here is accurate? And I actually looked it up before because I didn't want to miss quota. But, you know, the response was really, you know, do we, do we know anything is fully

accurate and we stand by? And again, just that kind of double down. And I kind of had in that moment, like a sense of like, you know, maybe my race here is around. And like, not even in shade way. Like, in the way that like other people, there's so many, that's a thought that develops because of growth that happened there, you know? So I'm not saying that's independent from that place. I'm saying in my version of journalism I want to do, I don't know if I want to have to work in that vein anymore, at least in that space, at least right now. And I honestly think that we're in a moment where institutional names have to be lived up to day to day. Paper of record has to be earned, you know. And I think that the work

earns that. And so whether it's in the times or out of the times, I think I can do work that earns that type of thing in trust. And I just want to be in the space where I can do that most proactively and most honestly. And that was just the bet. And my thought is like, why not? I feel like a podcast was like a half bet on self in that way. And I think in Vox, I feel excited about what we're going to build there together around that premise. And so it's not really coming from laugh more so than some of what I was feeling made me think, oh, there's also other possibilities elsewhere. And you will be excited to explore those. That was way longer than I anticipated. No, I'm glad you went into it. No, because that's stuff we wouldn't even know.

But yeah, go ahead, Brian. Yeah. Joel and I were talking to Jamel Bowie early this year about your social media persona when you work at the Times, you know, and how he posts now on Blue Sky. Yeah. You have no shortage of opinions about politics and everything else. Did you ever get pushed back from the Times about your social media persona? I would say less than folks think, to be honest. I would say, honestly, I would say they largely encourage voice, at least. To me, when you do your day job, like, that's the key thing.

And so, importantly, whether I was tweeting or whatever, whether they like the tweets or not, I was on the road and doing the work I was supposed to be doing. And so I have always found that also because who I kind of am as journalistic, like the takes, you know, the takery, I think, even different than some of the stuff we're seeing now, I wouldn't consider myself like someone who's rooting for a team or strategizing for parties. in a way that I think folks are kind of openly doing now. And so I don't think it was the same. I would say I've had much work.

I mean, before the, I would say like the conversation I have when I joined the Times was largely the ones they stuck with about that social media pressure here will be different. And you will have to live up. And it will be reacted to differently here. And I think that they largely held that line. So it wasn't actually all that bad. And it wasn't like, it wasn't like some like social,

media cracked down. I self pulled back from social media before the Times was going to pull me back. Like, I sell back to the Twitter before Twitter could get me up out of there. You know? Can you just walk me through your last day at the time? Like, what did you do?

Like, what was the, what was that like? I'm hoping it ends with you admitting that you cried. No, it was actually, I'm not sentimental. Like, I'm not like that in that way. I'm looking ahead. Like, I really think I did work. I was, am really proud of. Like, I'm not, there's nothing from first day to last.

Like, that to me is the thing about even with Mom Johnny and stuff. I was like, you know, I was having some of these thoughts earlier this year, post-election, whatever. But, you know, a New York City election like this is a thing that I want to be at the times for. I want to, you know, so like when that opportunity came with the magazine, I think something like, you know, that work that we did and the hair story we did are unique things, you know. And so I recognize the places, I'm not down on the place, hopefully. I really am saying, I, in this current role, it's all the above, you know, and that's different. And so that doesn't happen.

And that's a, that's a, to me, that's a media lesson. That's a, that's a media structural thing is that if you're someone, who wants to podcast, write, and make videos, you can either go independent, sure, or there are a few places that are nimble enough to support those things. And I'm saying, I'm just choosing that nimbleness and feeling like that plus vision,

that plus political ideas can really be a great match. And so, for me, it really didn't come straight from some place of like, you know, heartbreak fully. I'm saying there were three things, I think. I think it's changing media, changing me, change in place. And I think that all adds up to me feeling excited

about the turn of page. So let me actually say what my last thing was. Like, the thing about it was, is, you know, the Mimdani thing did make itself admittedly dramatic. So I will cop to that. You know, it wasn't meaning to be day. after. There's a lot of other concerns. We had a lot of competition about the profile and

the published and all this other stuff. So it's like the dates aren't set, you know? So like, my people in my life were like, dude, what? And I was like, I promise you that was, I did not set out for that for the plan. Like these are dynamic things. But I let them know before the story came out and I told them this isn't about the times really fully this I'm excited to do something else so I you know I wasn't trying to play both sides I wasn't trying to you I wasn't trying to pit against one another I was trying I was trying to close a chapter and start another one And so I really feel like in politics, and in my own life, 2016 to 2024 feels like such an arc. And so I knew that as we were doing the run-up, you know, I really felt as if we were chronicling the close of this political chapter.

Now, but I really felt different. But I didn't expect it's for the media chapter to feel like it changed so much too. Like I looked up after the election and what we were. we were doing narrative podcasts are largely, I mean, diminishing. I won't want to be too mean, but diminishing. And so everybody's making short form videos or three-hour ones. And so all of a sudden, what is our work? How are we continuing that?

And so I'm saying that was, to me, like things I was wrestling with at the beginning of the year. but that comes from me learning after the 2020 election look around like take a second and like put yourself in the best place for going forward and not backward. And so that's what led to doing the podcast the first time and this is what leads me to kind of move in now too. You talked to instead about meeting people where they are.

You're going to do a video pod for Fox. Is it how do you meet people in video So it's different than meeting them in print or in audio podcasting. Totally. I think this is a huge important question. And for me, like, even it's clear in stories and writing, too. Like, you know, there were ways, I mean, I was like kind of joking with the magazine. Some of the criticism we got about, like, even just some, I mean, largely good response.

But some of the back and forth about the magazine piece, I was like, you know, people want preciseness when you, when you're in a podcast, they'll just complain that you didn't like literally write it down. And then once you write it down, everyone just wants a vibe. And they just don't want you. And so I'm saying, every time I pick a medium, I'm just missing the other medium. And so in general, so I say that to say, like, that to me is the interesting challenge of the videoy moment. One, I think there's a lot of ways the kind of man on streetish stuff we were doing in audio is popular in video format.

You know, TikTok is full of those little mics and go in person to person. And so I don't think that inherently people were engaging with us on that front because we were from the New York Times, you know? And so I don't think that any of that type of thing, I think that's certainly an option for us. But I don't think you can, for example, I don't think you can just make the run-up in video form. I don't think that works. I think I need to think about what were the macro ideas we were trying to get across and then try to think about ways video-wise to apply. So obviously there's a bigger interview element, I think, than we were probably doing. But I also think that, like, there's a new, I think there's like a way people having craft, like, tonal informality and serious information.

And I think, I would like to think that's, like, my personality. So my hope is that. We could kind of do some of that. Was Vox the only, I mean, you said that there's, you know, ways you could do this, right? You could do it on your own. You could do it at Vox, right? Were there other options out there? Were there other outlets or other mediums you were looking at and saying, hmm, I might be interested in trying it over here?

Because I kind of had played the field four years ago and recommitted to the times, I kind of knew what I wanted to do this time. And video helps too. Like, what does Vox do? What have they done? That type of YouTube audience, I think, is useful. And so there was a pitch there that made a lot of sense to me. And I think for me, too, like, I'm drawn to people who proactive, you know, who see you and to me that just matters more, right? And so I think Vox saw what we were doing in the run-up.

And, yeah, I'm not going to make the same thing. but thinks that that's a type of vision that could support coverage, you know. And that's, that helps me grow too, right? Like, you know, I was, I was telling folks, like, I had the experience of kind of planning election coverage in terms of what we were doing in the podcast. But I do it in a week of working here.

It kind of makes me think, how wild was it? That I was putting all my energy into a 40-minute audio thing, you know? Like, that is actually kind of crazy looking back. Like, there's ways I can support folks who are writing. There's ways I can today explain and jump in on Trump. And so I'm saying it's a different way of going about it. But I absolutely think it unlocks things for both me and my growth.

But also I think for even journalistically, I think I'll be in more places. And so that has already clear to me. I was like, oh, like, you were really on your artsy. You were really in your, like, cave. Like, you know, because, you know, I think it's kind of beautiful how we this American life our way through the election. But, like, that's like not a way everyone consumes information. I love that.

A few questions about politics instead. You were one of the handful of reporters who figured out very early on that a huge segment of the Democratic base did not want Joe Biden to run for reelection. My internal legacy. Your internal legacy. And I remember when you were this American life in your way and through it, you would find people who would say, I don't believe you that he is running for president of Donald Trump. They would literally say those are not going to be the candidates when the ballot comes out. Actually, I think those people were so proven correct that I laugh all the time.

I spent all of 2022 and 3 telling them, no, it's Joe. Like, you're wrong. It's Joe. And I'm like, who was the clown? How do you think that episode changed the party and changed the Democratic? based going forward. Oh, it's totally different now. I think that a trust deficit is massive. I think that, and it's not even just Biden. I mean, I think Biden's reelection, and this is why this is why the tweets were so pointed. I think it was the literal and most obvious manifestation

of a larger disconnect from public and elected. So there were so many other issues that it was also reflected in. But I'm saying that was the most flagrant and obvious. And I think the most unbelievable to the people who we were interacting with. So for the question of going forward, I think from the center and from the left, like there is a willingness from the electorate to view the solutions that's coming from the outside, right? So I think I think, I'm Donnie and kind of all that stuff

is an obvious example on the left side. I think people are really underrating the center of it all. Jasmine Crockett is a star. Like the outside voices, the I've had it, ladies, stars. Like the outside voices, even from people who you would not consider the far left, are still dominating and driving convoy. And I think that is really reflective of the loss of trust that has happened from establishment and center. And I really think, like, it's actually blown my mind because I thought, like, you know, Donald Trump winning would just, like, cleared this all up. but like even the

even the kind of efforts now to focus group which issues they keep and which efforts each which issues they drop I'm like I'm like it would be much more beneficial for them to go in the woods

for two months and decide do they want to defend trans people or not just or not and when you come out the woods never budge again never budge again you know what I'm saying I'm like

forget the poll Do you believe it? And so it blows my, I just, I just think no one's asking that. Like, like, and if you do, go defend it.

Go lead. Like, go do it. And the polls might change. Like, or don't and give it up. But like, I just don't. Like,

I, I think that the, that wishy-washiness is going to collapse. I don't think there's, like, much space for that. And so I'm saying, your, your pro, your, your, your, your centrist with owning their own voice, even if, even if it's

kind of Biden era, identity politics, he style stuff, they will do better than people who are trying to triangulate their way to a coalition, in my opinion. The timing on that is great because it was just earlier this week, you know, you, you read the, consulting group deciding to win, right? Released a 70 page document, you know, talking about the Democrat. Party to focus on economics and less on, you know, basically identity and cultural stuff. What did you think of that then? Like, did you think, is that more of the same, basically more of the same? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't scoop art today explained episode fully. But I'm saying,

I do think that that's kind of what I'm talking about in terms of one, one, for the record, I find polling valuable. I find data valuable. I think that so many times the work we were doing anecdotally, was just giving a why or a nuance to data that we see publicly. So I'm not team anti-poles. But at the same time, it's very clear that things like issue polling don't work fully in the real world because issues are connected. And like people just say stuff, you know, like people just be saying stuff. And so like there's a way that I think I have like a, I don't get the full

prescriptiveness. Like my big, my big problem is only the extrapolation, you know. I think it's helpful to say, for example, that non-voters are not strictly ideological, which is in that report. That is 100% true. They're not little leftists in waiting, you know? That's like they are a mixture of beliefs. They are like, people feel disaffected from systems, all of that type of stuff. And so when you talk to people who don't vote, it's clear that they don't like easily plot on like a Joe Manchin or like not progressive enough scale. But all I'm saying is, like, I don't get why the answer to that, at least for some Democrats right now, is not more imagination.

You know? And so what that report does, and I think what some of these efforts have done, is still just take the kind of status quo of issues, which I would, actually, let me do a better example of this. I think it's really reflective in something I remember from Biden, like in them a year or two ago, where they would assume the electorate was disaffected and people weren't going to engage in the election.

And so how do we win among that? And they never talked about how their own actions were causing that feeling. You know? And so I'm saying right now, and this is something that comes through in the Zoram profile too. He can reject the polling that tells him affordability is not people's biggest concerns

because he's done enough in a personal work. I would say canvassing is similar to like, journalistically, like enough people talking, where you can recognize it's really a reflection of lack of faith that they're ever going to do anything about it. So if I can show that I'll do anything about it, I'll do something about it. They'll come to me, right? That's only something you can have if you're coupling the data with a little bit of vibe, with a little bit of leadership, with a little bit of value. And so I'm saying you don't have to be a leftist for that to be true. You can you can just own whatever you're kind of, but you got to advocate.

for something. And so whether it's abundance, whether you want abundance, public education, like pick something, you know, but I'm saying you got a, it has to be for a belief. And right now I think the center is just anti-left. I mean, even Cuomo, he will

win by scaring a, scaring this, I mean, if he wins, it will be to scare the city out of Zora. Right? Like, like, Andrew Cuomo used to be for stuff. Like, I think, like, It's made to me what that stuff was, but he used to be for stuff. Let me tee up one of your favorite subjects.

The politics hive mind. We know what politics hive mind missed in 2016. We know what it missed in 2024. What is the hive mind missing right now? Well, I guess I'm just saying like, it's kind of what we talked about. The story we're about to write is completely new. And so I just think the current efforts, to house it and previous knowledge

are not missing something. They're just kind of useless, in my opinion. They're just going to kind of, they're just kind of middle. They're just kind of going to be noise largely. Because when we haven't engaged two-sided primary, but particularly let's just talk about Democrats, if that's what we're talking about, they have so many questions that were left unanswered from 2019,

like fundamental policy baselines that they never asked, because Joe Biden basically won by saying those questions shouldn't matter because we're going to prioritize electability and beating down Trump. So you paused. All there, what do we believe on immigration? What do we believe on all this stuff? And I think 27 is the first time that conversations had in full in a decade, right? It's going to be different.

We don't know, you know. And so I guess it's just surprising to me. that people would presume to know. And so I felt so sure about what was missed. Now I'm like, to be sure would be a problem. Donald Trump is going to do some things we do not know and the world will be responding to and the democratic landscape will be blank.

I think to say that that easily means X Y, to me, would be a mistake. So I said this is actually one of my favorite side conversations that I never have in public, and I want to do it a little here today. Because I felt like there's a group, a class of political reporters that have, like, dominated the conversation and headlines for like the last, you know, 10, 15 years or whatever, right? And you're like, that certitude is something that always sort of annoyed me because I'm like, you guys are wrong.

So much. You guys are wrong so much. And did you ever feel like by voicing your opinion about that that people tried to treat you as like is an interlover? Like you don't know. Like you don't know what you're talking about. You're an outsider. You're dealing in identity. You know, Twitter makes it public. Okay. But it was it's a tone that's been true my whole life. You know, like like. And it's really why I like elections, to be honest with you. Because they're really. a quantitative, factual reason to give people power that I care about, and I know matter. And so whether you think they matter or not, I actually don't care because they're going to matter. I know they're going to matter. So, but if I didn't have that backstop, then that type of tone wins, in my opinion. So that's why I can, that's why I feel like I can't, I struggle on the hill. because it is insidery. You do have to, you do, scratching back since how that micro information is past.

And so like, I mean, I think there's people of respect who do more or less of it than others, but it is the lay of the land, you know? And so to me, I was not going to succeed in that environment, but elections give me a universe where those people can be empowered

journalistically. But I get the tone you're talking about and it's funny to me because I actually set this in a meeting at the time we were talking to like young journalists this was like six months ago and they had us through a panel on failure

because it was supposed to be like people in the newsroom who like people don't think fail and I was like this is like here's all the times I got rejected here's all the else I took like here's how and so I'm like I think it was kind of a valuable thing whatever sure one of the things I said to them

it's like, I refuse to let someone who blew the 2016 election make me feel bad. I refuse. I refuse. You can't make me feel bad because I was in college. You know what I was doing? Like, nothing. And so one of the things I said is like, free yourself, free yourself of the judgment. Like, the rules lost.

Like, they did it. They played it. they told America what was possible and what was not, and it is wrong. It's so wrong. And so, like, I'm not saying that to say that those folks have no value and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm just saying that for, like, like, trust, go through your process, trust your reporting, like, and don't let a specific framework of the world tell you that's the wholeness of journalism.

it's not. Now, what I tell them also, though, is those people have seen a lot of journalism, no. So if yours ain't making sense, that might be a problem. So, you know, I'm saying like, if they can't see what you're doing, maybe you should, maybe you should take that as a sign because they have ingested a lot of journalism. But does that mean that their view of journalism is all that matters? Absolutely not. Like, and so, I bring it back to, I think, really, my formation in journalism. I'm like, all the stories, I really took that kind of NABJ lesson to heart.

Like, you know, these are places that have been defined by successes and failures. Journalism is not, journalism can be good and it can be bad. It can expose. It can placate. It can be propaganda. It can be investigations. It's not inherently good. And so I don't take.

as our institutions. This really helps me on the road, too. When people are like, why talk to you, media does this or that? I'm like, preach. They do. That's so crazy. We're about to do something different here. But I agree.

I agree. I retweet. And so I'm just saying, like, I come from, I don't come from the expectation of invalibility, you know? And so if I, so I was trying to. impart that to particularly people who are young, who are marginal, you know, all of those type of things. I'm like, I think my version of DEI or wokeness includes talking to Trump voters, includes talking to those, to people who like maybe in that strict original version it wasn't in,

but it's wokeness nonetheless. Like, I believe diversity is good. You know, like, and so, you know, like, it's so it was funny to be like, I think people kind of put me out of that category. Like, I think people can act as if I'm something that's not that. And so sometimes I have to, like, remind them. Like, unfortunately, no. Like, unfortunately, I kind of care. So, yeah, that's it. One of the many things Joel has brought to the press box instead is a lightning round. Cool. And he has one for you right now. Yes. Are you ready instead for the lightning round? Okay. All right, I said, this is a lightning round. What are you going to miss the most about the times? I have so many friends there. Like, I've been there for seven years. Like,

my besties are there. Which one? Who's your bestie? Oh, I got to rank them. You got to pick. Okay, yeah, pick your top three. I would say, I would say the young black crew. So, Maya King, Jordan Holman, those are the two that come to mind. But, like, support. like a generation of people who we kind of grew up together. Who is the best writer at the New York Times, who wasn't you? It ain't me. Oh, there's a lot of great writers. I think about political features, like people who do work like Dionne Searcy and then Casey.

I think of Matt Flegenheimer. I think of obit writers who be cooking. those were some of the immediate folks who come to mind. But obviously, even as I do this magazine stuff, too, more, you know, people like Charlie Holman and, you know, I'm just saying, like, there's so many ways I learned. I remember when I started being really envious of that, like, Maggie Haberman, Jay Mart, Alex, like fifth, six,

paragraph where they just like flex their knowledge and how much they knew about the room, you know? And I remember being like, I got to get there one day, you know, like, I don't need, I don't know if I'm going to like, this doesn't need to be the journalism I do every day, but one day I'm going to flex my sixth paragraph, you know, so I'm saying like, I was someone who was trying to take things from everybody involved. The most interesting person you've ever interviewed and why? Oh, I think about, I think about the first person that came by this, this is random.

voter we talked through who was pro BLM and pro January 6th and I think about him all the time what he was saying wait he was what was he was he was he was why he was this like he was this and he was like it just needs to burn down so anything that anything that gets me closer to that goal and I found it so consistent like I found you know it's at everybody been so many people and I've never heard two people rock with both. And you said, you actually, as long as you're rioting, I'm in. I was like, honestly, king. I've told the story on here before about how I once interviewed. You're a Chicago guy. It's Cedric Benson. I interviewed Cedric Benson in high school, and I wasted everybody's time. It was a waste of money. I went there and he talked to me for like

four minutes. Okay. He didn't talk much. I remember. Oh, my. Yeah, he wasn't a much of I remember this being like a famously, yeah. Yeah, I flew out to Midland, Texas and got nothing, you know, so I wasted everybody. So who's done that to you? Who wastes them? I mean, who's wasted? I mean, I build some time wasting in the cost, you know, particularly with the Trump side. Like, your first day wasted.

So I had to start planning with the time waste day. And, you know, like, the first day, they're just playing you to your face. And so I actually had to learn, eat it and stay one more day, you know? And so I don't have like a specific example. I just am thinking about like, you know, switch locations. I mean, God, I remember one time I interviewed, what's that guy, not Jack Pasernovich, you know, the like pizza. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. and it was in D.C.

And I think he had some, like, masculinity. Like, I don't do, I don't sit down with other dudes thing. Because he asked me to go to a cigar, like a cigar lounge. And I was like, no. Like, can we just go to a coffee? Can we like, get, a food? Like, a beer. I drink that.

Like, you know, like, what are we? And then he was like, no, we got to walk. And I'm like, and he would walk and he would change directions mid-sentence. to like reassert alpha maleness. And so like mid word, he would like switch and go the opposite way. And I was like, this is so stupid. So stupid. Rink your skills from best or worse.

Write, talk, listen. Listen, one. I would say I would, I would say I'm a better writer than talker. I would like, or at least more than percentile-wise. I think there's better talkers. I just think yapping is the way of the world. And I do love it. But I would probably begrudgingly say too was writing.

I've always wanted to be something more, like, better than writer. Even though now that like nobody writes anymore, it's kind of uniquely cool again. But I've always been so jealous of like art in different forms. I would love to be like to tell stories in a less literal fashion. I'm like always so jealous of people who can do that I feel yeah I feel that okay I'm winding down here you've talked about how smashed burgers are terrible

so so what's your favorite burger then and from where oh it's it is it's really both are in Milwaukee I would say cops there's this like frozen custard burger place on the north suburbs Milwaukee is delicious there's a place Oscars on the south side that is also delicious.

I think my burger eating peak was in like my Midwestern-ee time. I think that's like, even when I'm back is like when burgers are most introduced. And it's funny because it's like one of the things that, you know, obviously like New York is I think not comparable food-wise to anywhere. But it's like certain specific things.

I'm like, oh, the burger and the Bloody Mary. I think with the two things I'm like, Wisconsin's got so, that's so much better. than New York. Man, Milwaukee should love us. We've interviewed a few people here. I think even Brian Winhorse talked about how he liked Milwaukee. I'm like, yeah, yeah.

No, I'm like a Milwaukee. The big Milwaukee state. Milwaukee, I think, has a strong community of supporters. When it was at the R&C last year, it was in Milwaukee. I took all the Times people to this steakhouse, which is actually Charles Barkley's also favorite steakhouse. Five o'clock Steakhouse, Milwaukee. It is delicious.

If you are ever there, five o'clock steakhouse. last two, I promise. The most surprisingly delightful city you visited in the course of work. I would say regional-wise, region-wise, elections really helped myself appreciation. I had, like, Northern Yankee, I think this has some racial connotations, too, but I had, like, I had that brain through college, I think. and I was a regional-wise. I had like first election, big was my big like South Awakening.

But if you're talking specific city, I would say of the early states, I used to love my time in South Carolina and so much so that I like convinced my family to do like a family trip there and they had a blast. And we had like, we did like the...

Charleston. We got Charleston, we did the Gulles stuff. We did like all this. And it was, so I would say in work specific ways, South Carolina has been the spot. Who are going to be the Democratic and Republican nominees in 2020. Republican, I'll pick bands because it's just to lose. I think, God, I don't even want to. Like, okay, my big, my thoughts are like, there's a, there'll be a left person,

AOC's at the top of the list, obviously, unless she does the Senate. In my sense, why do the Senate? Like, nobody cares about steps or experience anymore, you know? Roll the dice. So if she ran, I would put her near the top of the list. I imagine there'll be, like, I imagine there'll be individual primaries. A, like, Newsom, Buttigieg-e center lefty lane will have an inner primary.

Left will have a primary that will probably be AOC-vers and that, outsider. And I think there will be a censor primary of, I think an outsider makes sense, though. I really think my bet here, the only prediction I'm really making here is I think people are underrating like the Bob Igers of the world. The like, I'm saying like the random businessman who can just become a centrist for the purposes of random celebrity. I think outsider is up. So I think Stephen A. Smith ain't the person, but I do think that that idea of, I saw, I mean, I think underrated, I think R.R.K. Jr. is an underrated figure of the last two years in terms of impact, like in terms of importance. That independent, they're lying to you, to both sides

hate you type of thing. I think lends itself to outside voices, people kind of untainted by establishment of now. So if I was, if I was like a, if I was like a, it was an easy way, someone with name recognition or money, then take that over.

So maybe that's a J.B. Pritzker. Maybe that's an outsider. You know what I'm saying? But I'm like, I think it's there to be had. Like, D.C. wasn't, you know, I'm untouched by that. Ooh, those people, you know. I would do the Donald Trump. I ain't never heard of them.

They say my people. All right. Ested heard in the video pod starts next year on Vox. This is the timeline we're on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Next year. So we're going to do some developing, but I'll be doing short form stuff.

And today explained and some other stuff all building toward there. Audio words, et cetera, et cetera in the meantime. Estad, thanks for coming on the press box. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. That's a press box. He's Joel Anderson.

I'm Brian Curtis. But thanks to Magic by Bruce Baldwin. Joel, can we make another plea for people to follow us on Instagram? I'm usually above begging, but because you ask, I think, yeah, please follow us on Instagram. We need to get those numbers up. This is the new press box. We are no longer above begging. We used to not get into the grubby business of likes and reviews and retweets.

Actually, we're there. Just as Stead said, it's a new media world. We're not shy about this. So we should tell people, that's right. follow us on an Instagram, you know, share, blah, blah, blah. We should do that. Yes, good idea.

Please do it. Please do it. Press Box Ringer on Instagram. Coming up on this podcast, David Shoemaker and I are going to kick it off again. Hopefully David's feeling better. We're going to meet on Tuesday. That's Election Day, Tuesday.

So mark your calendars for that. And then next Thursday, Joel, you and I have a very special guest. It's Booger McFarland. Whoa. getting us ready for Alabama LSU, and we got so much to talk about, talk to Bogg about. I mean, just the LSU alone.

The LSU of it all. It really is. That's a whole section. That's coming up next Thursday. Joel, cannot wait for that and more lukewarm takes about the media. Looking forward to, buddy.