The Press Box - CNN and the Bomb, the Francesa Controversies, and Megyn Kelly | The Press Box (Ep. 540)

Episode Date: October 30, 2018

The Ringer's Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker discuss the explosives sent to CNN (03:00), the weird controversies surrounding WFAN’s Mike Francesa (28:30), and Megyn Kelly and the “costume police��� (44:15). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, guys, it's Liz Kelly. The One Shining Podcast Tour with Titus and Tate officially kicks off next week on Friday, November 2nd. Chicago sold out, but there's still a handful of tickets left in Columbus, Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, and Bloomington, Indiana. You can find links to buy tickets at the ringer.com slash 1-shining dash podcast. David Politico reports. Donald Trump's schedule has up to nine hours of quote-unquote executive time. A euphemism, Politico says. For the unstructured time, Trump spends tweeting, phoning friends, and watching television.

What I want to know is, if you had that kind of cushy job, what would you do with your executive time? I was getting really nervous when you said that euphemism. I think any male that I know, if you said like nine hours of time to himself was a euphemism for something, I think it would have been a little bit more blue than the answer you just gave. Listen, I don't know if I was actually an executive I would like to think I would be spending some of that time coming up with a better euphemism for what I was doing with my time.

Just some sort of stories for, I mean, at least like, at least put it out there that I'm just some sort of like dreamer who has to sit alone and look at the sky to come up with my big ideas. Yeah, you could almost say the real crime here is just a bad title, right? Brainstorming would be fantastic. Sure, or just like there's a million years break it up into different chunks, you know? I mean, like, he works with his family, like,

they can cover for him and just saying he's having meetings or something. You know, this is a sort of like misdirection that I would actually totally abet here. I mean, a bye-bye. You know, I get into this conversation sometimes, like my fiance, it's like, if we got, like, rich, they should have the big power ball last week. You know, there's some people in life who will work no matter what their financial situation is. And there's some people who, if you get a certain level of rich, you'll just like, you know, chill out on the couch and watch TV all day. I think most people are somewhere in the middle, but like I could, I could spend a lot of executive time just watching reality television. Yeah. I don't, I don't need, I don't need that much purpose in my life.

I've got to be totally honest. Yeah. By the way, just a side note, can you imagine if Trump had won Megamillions? What kind of, what kind of crisis for the executive branch would that have created? Do you think if some, if the winner of Mega Millions were just a diehard lefty, it was already already, you know, had money of their own and just said, I will give this all to you, President Trump, to step down. Do you think he would have done it? David, I'm not falling for your George Soros conspiracy theories.

Don't try to go, what is this? Fox News? You can call this podcast excruciating time. This is the press box, a part of the ringer podcast network. The press box is the media podcast. We are not allowed to learn about 19th century racial history live on your own daytime talk show. We are Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker of the ringer. Big show today, David.

and our apologies for taking last week off. We had our own executive time going on. First, we shall talk about the explosive device sent to CNN headquarters last week and the shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue and the battle about. Listen through your iPhone for the giant air quotes, civility.

Second, we'll talk about the festering controversies involving legendary New York sports radio host, Mike Francesa. They are very weird. And finally, Megan Kelly said something racist on our NBC talk show. and soon Megan Kelly will not have an NBC talk show or even a job at NBC News at all. Some deep thoughts on Kelly and the Halloween costume horrors. Plus, as always, the overworked Twitter joke of the week.

But David, I want to start this week by listening to a snippet, not from media, but from the Florida gubernatorial debate. Because I think a politician has crystallized an idea that a lot of us in media, ourselves certainly included, have been trying to crystallize without much success. let's listen to Democrat and likely next governor of Florida, Andrew Gillum, talking about his opponent, former Congressman Ron DeSantis. Mr. Gillum, I'll give you a chance to respond now. Let me first say, my grandmother used to say a hit dog will holler. And it hollered through this room. Mr. DeSantis has spoken.

First of all, he's got neo-Nazis helping him out in the state. He has spoken at racist conferences. He's accepted a contribution and would not return it from someone who referred to former president of the United States as a Muslim N-I-G-G-E-R. When asked to return that money, he said, no. He's using that money to now fund negative ass. Now, I'm not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist. I'm simply saying the racist believe he's a racist.

Here's why it's so interesting, David. When Caesar Syok allegedly sends a bomb to CNN headquarters in New York, the media immediately tries to tie that act, at least indirectly, to incendiary things that Donald Trump has said. enough, right? And then it comes back from the White House. How dare you, we never set attack CNN, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. How dare you try to pin this tragedy on the president? But here, I think Gillum, rhetorically anyway, has sort of crystallized something, which is that while Trump does not say physically to attack CNN, there are lots of people who listen to Trump, call CNN the

quote unquote enemy of the American people and may think he is saying that. So the people who are want to attack the media think Trump is encouraging them to attack the media. And that should be a standard, maybe not the only standard, but at least a standard by which Trump's rhetoric is measured. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think that we have to, I mean, it's sort of bizarre to, you know, just segue into other terrorist, domestic, incidents of domestic terrorism. But to me, it is closely aligned with the, with the, um,

the Pittsburgh murder spree in the synagogue earlier this week or over the weekend, sorry, just in the fact that, I mean, I know this seems overly reductive, but there's just, there's like certain forms of, there's certain parts of, you know, certain types of communication like the very racist kinds that were not part of, not considered part of polite discourse, not very long ago, you know, I mean, there was sort of a glory, glory period between the part where like there were a whole bunch of racists in America and there still are but where people would openly talk that way and then now where I don't know if it's this simple but it always just seemed to me that like I'm sure that I grew up around racist people and I'm

sure they had just been they had just been compelled by societal forces in the early parts of their lives not to say the stuff out loud or at least not in front of me in the polite company that I was a part of and that there's something about just the you know the wonderful part about the internet is that like, you know, loners and geeks and people who think that there's no one else like them in the world can turn on the computer and find out that there's millions of other people like them in the world where like the racists are finding out the same thing. You know, I mean, that's the other side of that coin. And that the things that you were discouraged from saying or from thinking, now there are parts

of the internet where that seems like, where it seems like, where it seems like, where it is, you know, just going discourse, you know, and it makes the whole thing feel a lot more normal. And I think that the Pittsburgh shooting is in some ways a little bit more crystal clear to me because there's a lot of it fell back on Gab, the social platform that the shooter posted on. And there's a lot of reasons why you can't blame away. I agree with the philosophy that you shouldn't blame a certain website or a periodical or whatever else for inciting that. but, you know, I don't know, I mean, most people listening to this probably haven't spent a lot of time on Gab, but it's the sort of place where, like, you know, even a right-leaning, young reactionary person could go and very quickly say, there's nobody here but the racists, you know, I mean, like, I don't want to spend any time there because it's too crazy. But if you go there because, you know, you got kicked off Twitter and that's the fallback, then there's a lot of people there who are shit posting, and I use that term deliberately, a very anti-Semitic stuff. There's people who, who might not believe it, but there's people who say it, you know, very, very casually and very freely. And it would lead a person who is already ingrained in this sort of anti-Semitism to think

that the world is sort of waiting for him to make his mood, to have his moment or whatever. Right. And all of this is a long way to say, yeah, that you can have a very direct influence on somebody without meaning to have an influence on them. And that doesn't make you part of the conspiracy, but it makes you part of the problem. I think that's a really good way to put it. And I would just add to the world is waiting for you to, quote, unquote, do something about it is also that you have the sense that a crisis has finally come to a head, right? Yeah. As we've seen in some of these Soros conspiracy theories that, you know, that the, what is it, the Soros occupied state department was the quote that was used on Fox Business. Oh, my gosh.

I mean, that was one of the, for that to pop up this morning as we record this on a Monday, like the most, I don't know how there's still room to be outraged, but Jesus, Lou Doe. I mean, come on. Yeah. I mean, in the case of the media, right, from Trump, it's that the media has caused this crisis that we're in, right? The reason our nation has so ripped apart is because the media. In the other ones, it's the State Department is quote unquote occupied. The caravan, the migrant caravan is arriving any minute, right? And this was just shocking, this post from Robert Bowers, the suspect in the synagogue shooting on Gab, which you mentioned was, I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered.

And that is by mythical immigrant invaders. he's talking about and then he continues, screw your optics, I'm going in. And that was just minutes before the death and mayhem in Pittsburgh. Let's back up to a little bit because that pipe bomb or the mail bomb moment last week was truly remarkable in real time. And we had bombs that were sent to Barack Obama, to the Clintons, to Soros, to Robert De Niro, many people who had spoken out about Trump or had in fact been cast as enemies by Trump himself. And then last Wednesday in Manhattan, CNN anchors Jim Shudow and Poppy Harlow were on the air when a fire alarm was activated inside the building. Let's listen to that.

We're going to jump in. There's a fire alarm here. You might have heard in the background. We're going to find out what the latest is here at CNN. We're going to be right back. And then after that, Shudow and Harlow actually went down to the street outside the Time Warner Center and fairly remarkably started reporting within a phone at their ears. Here's a little snippet of that. We want to respect this because the police are doing their job.

We tried to move a little closer to get a better look, but they'd ask us to move up to the corner, you know, almost a block away from the entrance. And you can hear behind us, this is another police emergency squad unit arriving. I've seen now two ambulances arriving. We're not aware of any injuries. We haven't been told of any injuries, although the police could confirm to me that the package, the suspected explosive device did get inside the building of CNN. But again, just to show the level of concern, they are moving us well down the street from the entrance to the building. And here you have. They're now moving.

That was on Wednesday. Trump read a general statement at the White House that day. But then that night, he went to a rally in Wisconsin. He did not curtail his midterm stumping schedule at all. And there, Trump delivered what might be described as a sub-tweet against Democrats in the media. Again, this is the day this package has arrived at CNN. at it. Let's listen to Trump on the stump in Wisconsin. We should not mob people in public spaces or destroy public property.

There is one way to settle our disagreements. It's called peacefully at the ballot box. That's what we want. As part of a larger national effort to bridge our divides and bring people together. The media also has a responsibility to set a civil tone and to stop the endless hostility and constant negative and oftentimes false attacks and stories have to do it. This morning, Monday, he was again tweeting about the fake news media and I would like to associate ourselves with this tweet from Maggie Haberman. This isn't a lack of understanding of the impact of these words. This is a strategy. describing it as he doesn't get it is a form of grading on a curve.

So, I mean, to back up to what we just talked about a second ago, he wants people to think this. He's not misspeaking here. He knows the effects of these words. He has now seen possibly an extreme impact, an extreme outlier impact, which is that somebody literally sends a bomb to CNN. But he's sticking with it. He's not backing down on media as the enemy of people. This is like, got to win midterms, got to save the Senate and keep the margin down in the House,

and I'm doubling down. And this is where we are at this moment here in America. Yeah, I mean, this is all so hard to discuss and even harder to get a handle on. but it's not that he doesn't get it, you're right. But there are things that he doesn't get. I mean, that he doesn't process in the way that we compare him to previous presidents, and it sort of seems like a lost cause. But for him just to not occur to President Trump,

that like being whatever the cliche version of presidential right now would be an incredible benefit to his presidency, right, to the midterms. You know, I mean, that's why a lot of people think George W. Bush won re-election was in a similar situation. Yeah. And by the way, that's puzzling to me because it seems like there's a kind of, if you observe the 24-hour act presidential rule where you're just like, this is awful, I condemn this. You know, you go hold some hands. You go do, you know, make some ceremonial act. Even if you don't meet it, there's a lot of media upside there for you. We see. Remember the this is the day Trump became president stuff? He doesn't do that. He consciously doesn't do that. He doesn't want to do it. Nobody can convince him to do it. I don't know what it is. Well, I mean, I think obviously there's a lot of just sort of unwillingness to admit defeat.

And that's a, you know, defeat is something that he perceives himself, you know, as opposed to, you know, it's all presumptive. What someone else might say it might accuse him of. But, and that's not necessarily a bad thing in the sense that, you know, this is the personality that's gotten them this far in life and in politics. Yeah. So we're talking just from. Yeah, but just from a political perspective. But I guess what it's always shocking to me. I remember saying half seriously after he was elected that, like, his supporters are such

diehards that he could really just go and he could have a Clintonian presidency as far as like he could be, he could pass the same laws that Hillary would have passed or that Bill Clinton did pass in his time and have 100% Republican approval rating and probably, you know, be very popular amongst liberals despite being, you know, at that point, a sort of caricature of the devil and flesh, but that wasn't his, that he decided not to do that, right? I mean, he decided the most important part of his governing philosophy would be whatever the opposite of President Obama is what he's going to do. Right, drive people nuts, you know. And policy-wise, he's just, he cares about so little, but instead of letting that, instead of

having that be, allowing that, you know, the country to unify, to find, to actually find common ground to push to push policies that everyone can sort of get behind. He just, you know, went as far right as he could go in a lot of ways. I mean, certainly there are ways in which he's a huge outlier to the institutional Republican Party. But it's the same. Go ahead. I just want to read this tweet from reasons Matt Welch, because it actually gets that idea. He says, anti-media slash elite animus is arguably the ideological glue that holds together contemporary conservatism. This was true before Donald Trump and he exploited it far more aggressively and crudely.

than his competitors. There's no way he's not always going to act this way. And when you talk about him being an outlier, it's true. Anti-media sentiment, just generalized, you know, open up the fire hose. It doesn't matter what you're really, you know, trying to get. Anti-media sentiment is this huge factor among conservatives. And he sensed that. And he has now taken that to this crazy degree.

But, you know, this is, like I said, this is arguably. one of the biggest issues in the midterms, other than his lie that he's trying to protect pre-existing conditions. And second lie that he's trying to cut taxes for the middle class, a 10% tax cut that's going to get done somehow in the next week. This is arguably his biggest issue. Or Democratic mobs or the migrant caravan, right? It's in the top three. Yeah. And I just, it's just, again, as we sit here as media members, but it is so strange that that has become the number one.

policy idea in America as that the media is the enemy of the American people. Well, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders came out today and had her first, you know, open press conference in a month almost. And her first, I think her opening salvo was saying it was how offended she was that CNN's what she put it, I'm going to get the wording wrong, but the first, their first reaction to the pipe bombs was to attack the president or accuse the president of complicity or whatever else. Whereas the president's, the very first thing he did was to condemn the bombing. Now, there's a little bit of chicken and egging here. I'm not sure if it really matters if it really matters what the first thing Trump said

as opposed to the immediate second and third things he said were. And also what she was referencing, I think was a memo, was some sort of statement from Jeff Zucker, which was certainly not CNN's first comment, first institutional comment on the bombings. I mean, they presumably had been on the air for hours and hours and hours before that statement came out. So if he just,

if CNN had just waited to attack Trump till that night, which was with the Trump's own standard, that would have worked. Right, because Trump, that night was attacking the media again. So CNN just waited until, like, Cuomo Live or whatever the show's called came on, that would have been fine? Yeah, I mean, what would you expect, I mean, someone to have, the, Dr. is an opinion on that?

I mean, of course he would. This is, these are his, this is, these are his coworkers, you know. Somebody set a bomb to his workplace, I think. But, but it's all, but it is sort of like, I don't know. I mean, we can save, you know, the grand unifying theory of, of Sarah Huckabee Sanders for another day, but for her to come out and like shed a tear, but to like be actively,

be engaging in this, in this, you know, calculated political response that, that there have been bombs sent all over the country. I mean, to notable critics of the president, mostly Democrats.

And so we are going to turn this into a media honesty issue. Yeah. You know, we're going to like turn this around on anybody, on the media, which is just, But I think that again, that indicates what I said. I think that's how potent an issue they think and what kind of priority they're placing on enemy of the American people as their big issue.

I want to get into one thing before we leave this topic, which is this weird rash of false flag kind of theorizing we had immediately before the bombing suspect was arrested. And then also some greater conspiracy theories we've seen on television. Frank Gaffney, who is known as what Wikipedia terms a counter-jihad conspiracy theorist. said in his tweet, none of the leftists ostensibly targeted for pipe bombs were actually at serious risk since security details would be screening their mail. So let's determine not only who is responsible

for these bombs, but whether they were trying to deflect attention from the left's mobs. David, would you like to guess the bland-sounding Washington organization that Gaffney works for? Oh, gosh. Just tell me. The Center for Security Policy and he's also the host of Secure Freedom Radio.

Is it me or is it always weird that the people who don't mince words then purposely pick the bland and official sounding group to found. Right? It's never the center for kicking ass in the Middle East. It's the center for security policy. But that's the moment where they hold back. These are people who are constantly and rightfully getting in trouble

for what they say. But when they name the organization, that's like, listen, we got, we got something that looks good on the business card here. We can't, we can, I don't want anything that would offend anybody. No, you guys, it's that, it's the, it's the, It's the sheen of respectability. It's like if you can't get hired by an actual respectable organization, just make one up yourself.

It was like Rand Paul's fake dentist organization. That's another example. The other one was CNN's Oliver Darcy declares in a new column. The Fox Business Network has a Lou Dobbs problem, which can be treated with an over-the-counter ointment, I think, if my medical expertise is correct. Dobbs was talking about the migrant caravan, which we're going to cover in another segment on another show, with Chris Farrell, a board member of another bland-sounding organization, Judicial Watch. And Farrell said this. Very influential.

A very influential. Normal sounding right-wing organization. If bland, yes. And here is Farrell talking about the migrant care of it. Look, this is a criminal involvement on the part of these leftist groups. It's highly organized, very elaborate, sophisticated operation. I have that from the highest levels of the Guatemalan government. They're investigating those groups criminally.

And I strongly urge President Trump in the very general sessions to do the same here. a lot of these folks also have affiliates who are getting money from the Soros Occupied State Department, and that is a very great concern. You want to start cutting money, start cutting money there. Where would unstable people get ideas about some of this? Where could they possibly be getting their ideas about some of the stuff that's going on? Josh Marshall, writer-blogger, said it was, quote, straight out of the protocols of the elders of Zion, that kind of language.

Anything else to say about that before we leave this topic? I think it is worth mentioning that, I mean, as I read the story, I don't remember where I read it, but that Josh Marshall was actually just flipping channel, trying to see if, trying to see if he get President Trump's rally on live television when he stumbled across that. And it really is amazing how much of, you know, I don't want to use insidious and too inflammatory way, but like stuff like this just comes across the airwaves and people don't even notice, you know, I mean, this is people, somebody's watching this. and and it's not

and there's you know no one's no one's you know there's no fox business ombudsman apparently um no Lou Dobbs is just such a weird situation I mean a weird character and probably probably you know

I mean there's a there's a deeper piece or or segments to spend discussing him someday but this was not always Lou Dobbs you know at some point he he I think he probably saw the success of Glenn Beck back in Glenn Beck's heyday

and just like you know turned on the internet for the first time and it was all over from there. But the, um, but, you know, this is,

this should, it's so, it's so, it's this should be, I think that he has a sheen of respect, but he lends a sheen of respectability to these absolutely just apes shit conspiracy theories. And this is,

I mean, I've, I've, I've, you know, the migrant caravan, uh, it's,

it's, it's, it's, it's a great example of, uh, of, an argument that's just sort of impossible to refute or to diffuse

because if you're arguing even remotely in good faith on the other side it seems like you're talking about a totally different subject I don't know if that makes any sense but the whole that the whole thing is just is bonkers but the but the and but specifically to the point of whether or not George Soros or the Soros occupied State Department

was behind the caravan I mean it's it's just so much that like I feel like I feel like I'm putting years of my life by saying these words out loud I mean it's it's just absolutely it's but and yet this is like a really important going now now this is a and actually a political concern in 2018 absolutely I'll just leave it at Lou Dobbs his Twitter feed just every tweet is hashtag MAGA that's just like that's we're just speaking of I was looking at Judicial watches Twitter feed earlier and I swear to God I saw pictures of Hillary like 50 pictures of Hillary Clinton on their Twitter feed.

At least Corbus. At 75% of their tweets. Maybe 45% of their tweets had Hillary Clinton photos attached to them. I mean, if you wonder where all this continued fascination with theirs is coming from, I'm looking at their Wikipedia page right now in their separate sections for Vince Foster conspiracy, White House visitor logs, false Nancy Pelosi claims, Operation Neptune Spear. I've hit Hillary Clinton in the email lawsuits. This is the good that the Judicial Watch is doing our country for.

All right, more on Operation Neptune Spear next week here on the press box. All right, David, now it's time for the overworked Twitter joke of the week. Yes. Where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. We're going to play some catch-up this week. Melbourne, Australia's very own Brett Collette emails to alert us to the fact that every review of First Man, which is the new Neil Armstrong biopic, used a play on the one small step, one giant leap pun. I just feel we should know about this.

my favorite of these, by the way, was Ryan Gosling takes one small step toward age equality. That's from the London Times. I have no idea what that article is about. Thanks to Brett for his vigilance there. David, be honest. Did you watch the World Series? No. I mean, I watched so little of it that I won't even, that I can't even, I mean, I would not insist that.

The press box is about honesty. Thank you, thank you for your courage on that one. Well, then you perhaps heard about a certain theme starting in game one, which was that Every move that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts seemed to make turned to shit. And every move that the Red Sox manager Alex Cora made, aside from leaving a starter in too long in game three, turned to gold. It was an instantaneous overword Twitter joke to say that when Cora got back to his office after game one last Tuesday, he learned that he'd also won the Mega Millions jackpot. See, when you incorporate the World Series in the Mega Millions record jackpot, that's called synthesis. Thanks to our pals.

I like that. Greg Gottfried and Brent acts for that one also at the World Series. my favorite control plus V baseball argument of all time is when are they going to start the World Series games earlier so the kids can watch them? I mean, well, these kids are going to fall out of love with baseball. Game three went a record 18 innings, which translated to seven hours of 20 minutes,

finally wrapping up at 3.30 a.m. on the East Coast. And it was an overworked Twitter joke to write a couple mornings and my kids may finally get to see the end of a World Series game. Thanks to Chef Cornoyer for that one. actually made that very tired, very tired argument come alive. And then finally, David, did you see the tweet from Southern Living magazine? Remember Southern Living? Kind of the garden and gun of the 80s?

Yeah. I grew up with Southern Living. My mom got every issue of it. I grew up going to doctors that subscribed to Southern Living. I think is the way to put it in my... Anyway, Southern Living tweet, classic dad move, George W. Bush's epic photo bomb at his daughter Barbara's wedding. All right?

seems like the kind of Southern living digital strategy that seems the kind of thing they'd want to show their readers there it was an overwork Twitter joke to say George W. Bush still bombing weddings after all these years it's an Iraq war joke

oh my gosh yeah and that was you know it was a big one if you refuse to let George W. Bush smile away his legacy of overseas war congrats you made the overwork Twitter joke of the week thanks to the epic for pointing that one out to me

All right, David, topic number two. This week we had two Mike Francesa controversies, to which the proper response is only two. The first controversy began in a column by New York Post sports media writer, Andrew Marchon, who will become a recurring character here. In his column last Monday, Marshawn reports, WFAN host Maggie Gray called James Dolan, the Knicks owner, a, quote, vile piece of trash.

The Dolan takedown was brought on because Dolan, with his band, released a song called I Should Have Known perceived to be about producer Harvey Weinstein, who was Dolan's longtime friend. Maggie Gray thought it was hypocritical in light of the garden having been found liable for a hostile work environment with a Neutra Brown Sanders back in 2007. Okay, fair enough, right? After that, Marshaun reports, Dolan prohibited Nixon Rangers players along with MSG broadcasters from appearing anywhere

on WFAN, which is, of course, a station where Mike Francesa occupies the afternoon slot. He continues. Earlier and early in his program, Monday, Francesa sided with Dolan, not his fellow WFAN host, criticizing Gray, saying she went, quote, too far and was trying to get notice. Here's some more comments from Francesa as recorded by the post. Stuff was set on the CMB show, that's Gray's show, which was over the top. What was bad about it was it was personal and from someone who had never met him. So that's always risky. Trying to gain attention pushes other shows to try to get noticed more than they have to, rather than organically letting the show happen, you say things that are maybe going to get you attention and think that's the way to get ahead. When I read this, Isaac, we have certainly come to the point in history where the term hot take is only something to accuse other people of giving. Like that is it's only, it is no longer a descriptor. You're a Mike Francesa of New York sports radio.

And you're like, you know, that person was just trying to get attention with their sports opinion on the previous show. That's what you do. that that's your job yeah uh what did you make of that whole business oh man what's your hot take i mean i it's hard for me to to tell i didn't grow up with mike francesa or mike and the mad dog um so you know i don't have the same perception of them as i as i you know some northeastern the northeasterners that we you know socialized with regularly do but that but it my perception is that between this and I think, you know, we have another Mike Francesa story

that you're about to get into. It does, it sort of seems like, like, you know, the, the, the kind of Mike Francesa hug fest that we all, everybody in the media took part in upon his retirement is just rebounding really hard right now. And that the perception that, the existing perception that he was always soft on people in power and by that you specifically mean like the rich white men that own the teams

was sort of like attributed, you would hear that disgust in a sort of like the way you talk about, you know, one of your grandfather's foibles or something in the previous in the previous Francesa regime and now it just feels like a real specific slight against him

as it probably should. I like how he's like Grover Cleveland by the way. There's like a previous regime that's not continuous to this one. It's true. Would any sports radio show in America stand up to the kind of scrutiny that Mike Frances is getting right now? I mean, isn't part of this, and this is not to defend Mike Frances at all who's capable of defending himself, and why would I do that anyway? But isn't part of this the fact that we are like, thanks to the legendary back after this Twitter account, we are seeing every single clip that he does. There's another one up today with him trying to pronounce,

announce her Matt Veskirson's name, which is getting a lot of traction as we got on the ear today. One of the great clips of my lifetime, I think. But I just feel like if you just recorded every sports radio show in America and had somebody just pull out the clips,

there would be a meltdown, there would be a racial meltdown, there would be this meltdown. It would be unbelievable. But he is, as far as I can tell basically the only show in America that this happens to, that is that people are actually

like listening and looking for internet content from. It's kind of amazing. Yeah. No, I think that's true. And I don't have any a will at all towards Rincess. I think he's just really, I mean, listen, him spending two minutes trying

to say Matt Vascursion and then realizing that he was not trying to say Matt Vasersian to begin with, that's good that's good on-air content. I mean, this is a man that goes out and fills up hours of air time every day. And that's something that I certainly couldn't do. and people love him with good reason you know

I think just paying a little bit more giving a little more respect to your co-workers you know I mean you don't have to see yourself as a journalist if you don't want to if you're sitting behind the microphone every day but you know just sort of like standing in union with with the other people on your station I think it's okay to pay lip service with that

and not and at least you know just do the bare minimum there which seems to sort of escape him But here's the deal with sports radio. It's like the nastiest business in sports media. Oh, I know. The knives are out. Oh, dude, but I feel it's worse than this. I mean, he already, I mean, listen, that knife already, I mean, he already, the knife's

already bloody, you know, I mean, he took his, he took his time slot right back from Maggie Gray and the rest of the crew. So it's not like, it's, it's not like she should be surprised by it. But, you know, I mean. Yeah. And I'm not, again, I'm not saying it's a right thing to do. I'm just saying like, it's like, obviously she made, she made a fine point about Dolan and she shouldn't. She made a fine point that, I mean, the weirdest thing about James Dolan is as much, you know, smack talk as he gets.

Like, she didn't say anything that I hadn't heard a hundred times before, but that's weirdly the third rail in sports talk radio is that we don't go after like, you know, the owners when they make really bad hypocritical songs about the Me Too movement. Granted, that's a particular, it's not every owner you can say. line we don't cross. Right. I don't think the Red Sox owners have recorded a pop song about Me Too during the World Series. But I think you could talk this, you could have this conversation and go in a million different directions for a long time. I do think there's this really interesting tension just sticking to the, you know,

kind of stay out of the morality of the situation for a minute, is that a lot of the reaction that I heard when Dolan said, you know, no more, none of my employees can go on WFAN. the reaction was either one WFN will be better off for this without having to waste time having like you know stilted corporate interviews with players and managers and you know coaches and whatever else that was one half of it and then and then and then you know the other half was that like this was a like incredible catastrophe that no one else would ever should ever be able to get away with you know so it's like there's this weird split that like and I don't know what it says about where we are in sports media right now.

But I don't think that the radio particularly needs him. And I also can't imagine how he would have thought this was a good idea. Even like this isn't even the best version of revenge on Maggie Gray. You know, it's just like it's so self-evidently going to make him look bad. Speaking of Dolan, that I just, it like, it makes it, it makes it all seem, it makes it seem way prettier just for like the silliness of the whole thing. Oh, yeah. You know?

Some Rangers. Some Rangers guy can't come on a radio station? Wouldn't it have been more effective just to have a memo that only your employees saw that no one's allowed to talk to Maggie Gray? And the word gets back to it and that really bites, you know, as opposed to just having this public proclamation that no one's going on this whole radio station. But if that was the case, then the rough score of the right move would be to not have them on any of the shows on WFAN, which of course wouldn't have happened. Let me just do the quick version of the second Francesa Controversy. Yeah. Which again begins with Marchand of the New York Post, sports media writer.

Yeah, so he appeared on the September 20th. I think I'm getting the timeline correct. He appeared on the September 20th episode of the Sports Illustrated Media podcast with Jimmy Trana. And he was talking about the Mike's On app that Francesa is hawking. Let's just listen to what Marchand said on that podcast. Is Mike really going to get the guest that he wants to date? I mean, is the Green Bay Packers coach going to come on? like he won't speedy and he had the F-A-N show, you know,

and they taped it during the week. I just can't imagine if you're the Green Bay Packers PR guy, you know, they call you up and they say we'd like to have Mike McCarthy on. Well, put him on the fan. What's your listenership? Well, we have, you know, we have 300 people who downloaded this app. So he facetiously says 300 downloads, right? Which is not exactly 300 subscribers.

It's not a clear statement. And as Marchand would later say, he was not report. porting this. He's just sort of talking this out, right? Francesa then tweets last Wednesday, the Little Weasel said I didn't have 300 subs said last night he only knew of one subscriber, but when challenged at

1,000, and here he put in parentheses 1,000 spelled it out, subs, he would get $10,000 in cash for every sub under 1,000. He ran fraud and liar. What Francesa was doing was sort of setting up a challenge for Marchand saying, I will pay

you $10,000 in cash. for every subscriber I have under a thousand subscribers? Under a thousand, yes. Under a thousand, right? So if I have 900, you get $10,000 times 100. Here is a little bit of Francis actually making this challenge on the air. It's just like they report things every day folks, like a guy like Moshan, who's a little wannabe who couldn't get a job at FAN, couldn't get a job in our business. So, and calls me up, begs me to talk to him and I won't, leaves me messages,

begging me to talk to my won't, but then tweets about me, according to the guys who checked it out 42 times in one day. We sit back and laugh at how wrong he is and how much he makes up utter nonsense, just complete fabrications because I won't talk to him, because he begs me to give him quotes or, I have a big story, can you give me a quote? No, I don't call him back. You know, I never call him back because he's not worthy of anyone talking to. He is an inconsequential little, just a little jealous little guy who does nothing except just make up nonsense, complete nonsense, and everyone knows it to be that kind of nonsense.

That's why I never address it. He is that poor, a reporter, that ineffective, and that just that awful a reporter. Here's the guy's been knocking around for years, never been a failure of his whole life. Every subscriber under 800, I will give him $10,000 in care. I'm giving him a chance, according to him, to make $500,000 in cash, which is about 40 years' salary for him.

He can stop sit there, you know, writing a bunch of lies. He, you know, he's never been able to get in the business like he wanted to be on a radio, can't get a job. So, I mean, this is a guy who can just forget that and can, you know, sit home and not bother anybody because he's going to make more money than he ever dreamed of. Marchand then tried to call Francesa, David. And last Thursday, Marchand showed up at the Hudson Street studios of WFAN. He was told by Mark Shernoff, WFAN's vice president, that Francesa was working at his home studio that day.

He writes that it was relayed off the air through Shernoff that Francesa wanted $500,000 in escrow to sit down for an interview with me, meaning he wanted to put the money that was being wagered, the wager that Mike proposed, into escrow so that when he, would collect it. They would, you know, since once they had

the interview or whatever confrontation they were going to have with the lawyers, he would collect the money.

First of all, between barstool, Skip Bayliss and Mike Francesa, if those guys went away, what would sports media writers have to cover? What would be left?

I don't know. We'd be talking about the bugger mobile all day? Is that what we left with? From the glass house that I'm sitting in right now,

I can honestly say, it's amazing that so much of sports media has now just become meta-analysis. and just our obsession Yeah It is

First of all I gotta say I love I love Francesa With the he couldn't have gotten a job But here if he wanted one Line It's sort of appropriating the like You know the the the screed story Like the angst towards like basement bloggers

Who wish they were working for NBA teams Or NFL teams or whatever But but can't get off They get out of their parents' basement But using that I mean that that Andrew Marchand is just like, oh, if only I could be an on-air radio personality, seems a little bit, I'm not sure that radio is exactly anyone's dream job in 2018.

But also, and also this bizarre, I mean, Mike Frances's tweet, or his tweet about the thousand subs thing reads like a foreign language. Marchand was tweeting this whole thing fairly clearly, but you had to know the story to realize what the $500,000 in Zan escrow was even talking about and there was a whole lot of confusing backstory. That sounds like wrestling by the way, 500,000 escrow. Well, that's it. I mean, yeah.

It's like the bad. What did Andre the giant win from Big John Stun the Body Slam challenge? Is it $10,000 in that duffel bag? Or was it 15? I don't even, I should know it. A whole of money. But the important part wasn't the amount of money. It was the moment afterward when Andre was throwing the fives into the crowd and the crowd was going wild.

I wish we could get that here. And I think that's sort of that's what Mike Francesa thinks he's doing by like floating these numbers but it's but it's all it's all it's all so bizarre that he's talking about a thousand subscribers i mean that that would be i don't know i don't like what unless unless the answer is like aha i have a hundred thousand subscriptions then why are you getting to a fight about this nobody heard this podcast i think that's the biggest thing i think it's that's the no offense to jimmy train up by the way

No, no, no, but I think that's the biggest, that sort of, you know, symbolic of the shift in media is when Mike Francesa saying, you know, anybody would want to work at this radio station, anybody would want this job and they can't get it. It's the same thing as him hearing a recording of a thing and assuming that everybody or half of everybody heard this recording too, right? He doesn't realize how much the media landscape has changed and how insignificant a soundbite could be that comes upon his radar weeks after it happened. And I think I hopefully, you know, this is, it's just fun grist to talk about on the press box and talk about at the bar with your friends. I mean, honestly, when Marshan's like follow-up piece about this came out the other night, I saw it. I opened it up on my phone and read it to my fiance in the car. And like it's like we were in like the McDonald's drive-thru. And I was doing like interpretive theater because it was just so it was such great fun.

but it's perfect it's perfect for the new york tabloids i mean it is it is and it's this is exactly what should be happening right is that a sports columnist is in a showdown with the king of new york sports radio that should just like that feels exactly right i'm not i'm not saying not saying why it's happening and all that's it's up but that just feels like that should be happening pretty much on a daily basis yeah big week for big week for mike let's try topic number three david megan kelly didn't I think I'd have much to say about Megan Kelly, but I think I do. I think we have stuff to talk about here.

Here's the clip that will apparently cost Megan Kelly her gig at NBC from last week's segment on Halloween costumes. There was a controversy on the Real Housewives of New York with Luanne as she dresses Diana Ross and she made her skin look darker than it really is. And people said that that was racist. And I don't know. I felt like, who doesn't love Diana Ross? She wants to look like Diana Ross for one day.

I don't know how like that got racist on Halloween. I haven't seen it, but I have not seen it. You have watched it. Me too. And by the way, I haven't seen the other, but if she really wanted to look like Diana Ross, she should have dressed as Michael Jackson. Because they... Earlier in that segment, David, she referred to the costume police, quote unquote.

And as long as we're talking about mythical police forces, do you think the costume police and the PC police work out of the same precinct? Probably the same building, different floors. What about the grammar police? Where are they head? The grammar bullies have a, have a, like a, like a beautiful old brownstone that's totally fallen into ruin somewhere. They're off on their own. Yeah, Lewis Lapham is like smoking a cigar on the top floor of that one.

According to the New York Times, John Koblin and Michael Grinbaum Kelly sent an apologetic email to her coworkers. Later, Al Roker slammed her on the Today Show. Did you ever think you would hear those words from anybody? Then she started, then it became pretty clear. They put reruns on for the rest of the week that Kelly was not going. to be back. The show was not going to be back on NBC, and Kelly herself was not going to be back on NBC. I want a couple of things here. It has become sort of like conventional wisdom that Kelly was just a really bad fit for morning TV. This is kind of what you're reading, right? Morning TV is an

art form. And it requires a special skill set, and Megan Kelly was not right for it. I agree with that to a point. But listen to how she starts off the Halloween costume segment with the sort of perfect faux outrage of morning TV. Here it is. Television host, Melissa Rivers, is here. So this is a different kind of fashion policing, Melissa. Halloween is next week, as you know, right? I mean, this year, the costume police are cracking down like never before.

Take a look at what some now say is an offensive costume. You may no longer dress as a cowboy. That's now offensive. Okay, the student union at Kent University in the UK is pushing to ban this. along with several other costumes saying they cause offense that they're inappropriate. And it goes on to sort of list the things that you're not allowed to dress like Harvey Weinstein. Okay, but let's be honest. Fair enough.

Fair enough. Like, seriously, like, come on. No, thank you. So she starts out with this kind of generalized outrage. She could have gone so many directions there and sort of won the segment. She could have done the, you know, why are all these cheapo-com? costume sellers peddling the slutty nurse outfits in the age of me too, right? Don't our children deserve better?

That would have been a winning segment on morning television. She could have done the whole, you know, what, when did Halloween get all political? What happened to dressing up as a ghost or a goblin? I think if you follow her argument to the end, she would have been pro-slutty nurse, though. I mean, that's, this is, you should be, this is the company, she's the complete, she's a Halloween libertarian. I mean, anything should be, anything goes on our creepiest of holidays, I think. Yeah, it was just a particular, I mean, it had to get.

to hey, what's so bad about Blackface for her to just completely like generalized outrage kind of works I think on morning television right? That is the view, you know, that is the the chew or whatever the other things are. But that I just, the other thing that was striking me about this was,

it was a Fox News segment. Did you hear what university this is? The University of Kent. In the UK. Yeah. Like Megan Kelly's right to wear a costume has been impinged upon by a student union of a British university.

Like, that's the ultimate Fox thing, right? It's like something I read on the Dredge Report. And by the way, I looked up a piece on Huffpo about the actual costumes that the Student Union at the University of Kent was banning. You ready for this? Here, tell me some of these

that are ISIS soldiers, the Prophet Mohammed, Native Americans, Nazis, anything to do with the Crusades, accused sex offender Jimmy Seville. Everything is just, everything listed there besides cowboy is a pretty much no-brainer like, yeah, no, that's not a good idea, right? And so let's not have that on campus.

By the way, it was also a list, according to Huffpo of acceptable costumes, Dave, which you'll want to know includes cartoon characters, letters of the alphabet, aliens, cavemen, ancient Greeks, and Romans, doctors and nurses. So that's okay at the University of Kent. But I would just like to associate ourselves with Tom Clutz, Tom Clutt of CNN, his tweet. He said it's fitting that Megan Kelly's final act at NBC was a segment in which she defended blackface Halloween costumes and pushed back against political correctness. That would have worked just fine on Fox where she thrived, but her skill set was never suited for network morning TV. Yeah. I think this is maybe is a very small point. But to me, I, you know, formally aligned myself with Al Roker in this debate.

I think honestly a lot of the almost every statement that came out against Megan Kelly I thought was was incredibly I mean and you know and especially those that came from NBC the various quarters of NBC were incredibly smart and and and really appropriate but I think the really small point that that was the first thing that jumped out at me was the felicity with which that the turn that you were just talking about happened that it was just it was a man isn't this crazy how PC you know our Halloween cost of people are you know

litigating our what costumes we can wear on Halloween and how it just in the snap of a finger went to and why can't I wear blackface again? Yeah. Oh exactly. Like that's just naturally where the mind went Yeah, and I think that that more so than the actual like offensiveness of any certain line or whatever else.

I mean, listen, Megan Kelly is making a whole lot of money from NBC News. If she wants, if she, if she wants to dedicate an hour of, you know, news programming to investigate why, you know,

why Billy Crystal could never wear the same Sammy Davis Jr. costume he used to on SNL in 2018, I'm sure that there would be some outlet for her to do that investigation. You know, I mean, if that's the, if that's the, if that's the, if that's, if that's, if that's she's deeply interested in and, and, and, and, and that's the kind of intellectual pursuit that she wants, you know, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, you know, get some, get a time slot

to do that. But the fact that she just so quickly went from, like, look at these silly rules to, and why can't, I mean, seriously. And, and, and the, the craziest thing is just to call it blackface, like, the, the, the, to be so, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, to be so, to have so little self-awareness that you are associating yourself with the reason why this is inappropriate, but not, but not actually be even a little bit interested in what the, what the issue, what the core issue might be there. It's just sort of mind-boggling. Yeah, I was trying to think of places, vehicles where Megan Kelly could have her launcher

investigation about Billy Crystal. Brian Williams canceled primetime news magazine Rock Center. Oh, I like that. I like that. Yeah. You know. We can really dig on this issue. Yeah, it was, it's no surprise that she's gone from the network. Also, to your point about just the idea that you, then the next day she had, was it Roland Martin, someone else I can remember who else was on, teaching her the history, the painful legacy of blackface, you know, in entertainers and use by use on television, the movies and live shows and things like that. It's just so strange that your whole idea is that your gravitas is somehow derived from you knowing stuff. And then you have to be taught on your own show, the history of stuff. Yeah.

I mean, that is just, I think that happened with IMS too when he had his meltdown. It's just got to be one of the weirdest, just one of the weirdest things on television. I want to. There's something, go ahead. There's something so, I don't mean to interrupt you, but there's something, I mean, obviously, just so performative about that. I mean, which is the very point that you're making. We should probably have a word for white people acting like they're learning a new thing in front of America, for, you know, for all of America. got to bear witness to.

Yeah. And also, I just, I mean, as far as just the, you know, the, the, the new, the new normal for the cycle and all this stuff is the, is the immediate vacation that was, that was retroactively always the plan, you know, like, oh, we, like, she had jury duty this whole time, which is like, just exactly, it didn't that sound exactly like what happened to Bill O'Reilly before he was disappeared? Totally. And, I mean, it's just, I love that.

I love that. But go ahead with what you're- I'm putting a lot of effort to my Halloween costume this year and what we're, just want to have a couple of extra days. I just found one tweet. Since you and I are fans of both infamy and books, I found a tweet by the writer John Lingen, who I love. And he predicted the title of Megan Kelly's post-NBC book.

Would you like to take a stab at what will the Megan Kelly Regnery book publishing event be titled in which she will explain her side of this whole story? Oh, man. Oh man, I feel like I feel like it's right on the tip of my tongue This is what Lingett went This will get you started Okay, wait, can I

I have one guess Okay This is gonna, this is too vague I was gonna, is it something about like Is it is gone tomorrow the pro? Is that in there somewhere? That was good. He went with defaced

Finding strength after PC persecution Simon & Schuster 100,000 first printing national author tour So that's, that will be coming up. from the Megan Kelly thing. And by the way, kind of the most, you already see where this take

because this was in some of the pieces, but it was, this was in, in fact, I think the Koblen Grimamon piece I read from earlier, she alienated today's show colleagues with her coverage

of in-house harassment scandals involving Matt Lauer and Tom Brokaw, according to two people of knowledge. That is absolutely going to be the Megan Kelly line, right? I stepped on, I was trying to, like Ronan and Farrow,

I was trying to step up and expose what's going on in here. And there was that bizarre thing that she wanted, did you see that? page six that she wanted Ronne Farrow present in her meeting with the lawyers? Like is it like a witness? It's, I mean, it's just a perfect example of how she's just like

like, it's just a hyper fixation. You know, I mean, like, they're why, like, compare that to like any other day on Megan Kelly today and just ask like why, why, why so much more intensity on that subject? Someone said, I don't know if someone wrote this. I believe this is, this is something

someone said to me, but that the or it might have been on Twitter, that the, you know, NBC's most brilliant move was not to fire her over Matt Lauer over Ronan Farrow, but just to wait for her to do something racist. And I think that I don't know that I completely, like, I mean, I don't know that I believe that to be true at all, but if there was any lingering anxiety over those things. And there were reports that she had previously talked to the heads of NBC about transitioning to another time of the day, another show format, whatever else.

that she would be on that sort of thin ice. I don't know if thin ice is how she would describe it, but in that stage of her career and to not be more careful, or to be maybe she thought she was being careful, and this is still where she ended up. It's pretty incredible. I think she just naturally went there. I think that's where her mind goes.

All right, David, that's the press box for this week. Chris Almeida helps us with research. Our ace producer is Jim Cunningham. More hot takes on the media next week we promise this time. See you then, David. See you later, man. you do with your nine hours of quote unquote executive time. Oh man.

I feel like it's right on the tip of my tongue. David, be honest. Um, formally align myself with Al Roker.