The Press Box - CNN’s Trump Town Hall, Stephen A. and Concussions, and How 'Succession' Got Election Night Right

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

Bryan and David are back with another segment of NBA2Day to discuss one of the biggest stories in the NBA that focuses on Anthony Davis's recent injury (0:40). Then, they begin by breaking down the CNN town hall with former president Donald Trump and the strife that ensued, before touching on Ron DeSantis in Iowa, and bidding farewell to MTV News (10:57). Later, former senior White House media spokesman Eric Schultz joins Bryan to discuss his role in ‘Succession.’ He talks about being approached by the show, the scenes that required his expertise, and then ranks his favorite political shows (32:40). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Guest: Eric Schultz Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone, it's Ariel Hawani, and I wanted to let you know that each and every week, I'm part of a great program called The Ringer MMA Show. I hosted alongside two absolutely brilliant minds. Their names, Chuck Mindenhall and Pizzie Carroll, and every Thursday, a new episode drops where we preview the weekend in mixed martial arts and react to all the biggest news. Plus, after every UFC pay-per-view, we give you a post-fight show. So this is what you have to do. Just follow the Ringer M-M-M-A show on your Spotify app.

So you don't miss an episode. We'll talk to you then. David? Yes. Can we start today's show with the NBA today? Sure. Let's do it. Now, if people don't know, this is not the NBA today with a standard spelling.

This is the NBA number two day. This is our IP. I heard a serious XM segment over the weekend, and they were talking about the NBA today. I said, oh, do I need to send a cease and desist letter? Do we need to get the law firm of Brett Goner to send something out? No, no. This is our IP. The big NBA media story last week, David, this will shock you, was a Stephen A. Smith news site.

Oh, no. What was it? What happened? The Lakers, Anthony Davis, got poked in the eye in game five of their series against the Warriors. There was a report during the game that he was taken off to the locker room in a wheelchair. Don't you know, Stephen A had a take on that. Because damn it, I'll be damned if I were laughing. I'm like concussion, concussion.

I thought the NFL season was over. Now I understand that concussions can happen in other sports, boxing, UFC. And I mean, if the collision is fierce enough, I guess it could happen in basketball too. But damn, I ain't seen nothing yesterday that made me say, Concussion. Concussion. So we really need to create a special Emmy category for Brian Winhorst, who during this segment was in the middle box between Stephen A. and Jay Williams. And just was as expressionless as any sports pundit could possibly be.

His mouth looked like the Easter Island MoI. I mean, just nothing. Stephen A laughing at this idea. and when we're just staring straight ahead, baby. Not get myself involved in this. Now, obviously, Stephen A is wrong about concussions or brain injuries in basketball. We all saw Draymond Green hit his head on the floor in game four of that series. And there is a certain, would you say, 90s sports columnist vibe there about you're really hurt?

Yeah. What are you too weak to come out and play basketball? Well, I mean, it feels like sort of the end result of someone being, about it being impressed upon someone that concussions are a significant issue, but not actually requiring them to do the work to understand it. Yes. Yes. Or even really totally embrace the idea. Yeah. I mean, it's basically just like, listen, I know the concussions are a serious issue, but I didn't see any cartoon coyly marks coming out of his head.

stars circling around. So how could I possibly believe that this is a concussion? So Stephen A. Smith is obviously in the wrong here. I will just add one caveat without quite doing a Stephen A trademark, but here. Put Anthony Davis aside for a second. Put the idea of serious brain injuries aside for just one second. What have we seen over and over again during these playoffs? We have seen players not flop to get a foul.

called, but lie on the floor after a collision, after a foul. Yeah. Like they are never going to play basketball again. Yeah. And then hop up as soon as the refs go over to the video monitor to see if it's a flagrant one. That has been happening over and over again. Again, I want to completely separate these two issues here, but that has been happening over and over again in these playoffs. Oh, yeah.

That is ridiculous. Mm-hmm. It is ridiculous. So again, I do not endorse laughing at somebody with a possible brain injury. I don't endorse laughing at this. I know Shaq and Barclay, we're in on this too. But can we at least look at the practice of I am trying to sell that I am hurt as I have never been hurt and I'm not really hurt? And have a little merry fun with that very small piece of what's happening in the playoffs?

Yeah, I think so. I think that's fair. I mean, we've definitely entered a new level of, you know, soccer style flopping. Sort of, if you end up on your back,

best, the best way to turn it around at that point is just to get a little, take some deep breaths, get a little R&R, let your teammates do the same. But yeah, this is a very,

this is a, it makes it difficult to referee, I'm sure, but it also makes it really difficult to call the game because the tone, I mean, half-time show is one thing.

You can be a little bit measured. You know, you have some time to hone the take at that point. But in real time, like, how do you really modulate between a flop and a real injury, especially when you don't really know the difference? Totally. You're like, this is either the biggest story in sports. I'm going to lead sports center tonight or in five seconds, I'm never going to mention it again. Yeah.

And you can see announcers sort of running this. And if you get it wrong in either direction, you could become the story. You could become part of the story. Exactly. Go back to that Anthony Davis entry for a second. Because last week on the pot, I had John Ireland,

Lakers Radio Play-by-Playman on. And I asked him, what do you do as an announcer when you're looking at a player and trying to figure out if he really is suffering from a serious injury? I was texting the Laker PR guy. Any update on AD at the, and he sent back to me in real time.

No, nothing yet. And exactly when he did that, Chris Haines came on TV and said, Anthony Davis is out for the rest of this game and he's being wheeled in a wheelchair for further observation. I used to get that stuff from the team. Now you'll get it from clutch. You'll get it from his agent. You'll get it from reporters like David Beneman and Chris Haines who are dialed in. So it's a whole new world trying to figure out what's real and what spin.

I thought that was so interesting. not just the offseason transaction notes. Not just those are coming from agents and agencies, but the actual in-game injury update, the Lakers official play-by-play announcer is having to turn to an insider who has that connection rather than the Lakers. And listening to John do that game on the radio, he's just like, I'm reading a tweet from Chris Haynes right now.

I have no more information than this. And I don't even know. And Chris Haynes is pretty rock solid, right? So you feel pretty good about that. But I cannot give you like the Lakers can affirm this. I can just read your tweets. Play-by-play guys, they're just like us, right? Something else for you, David, before we start the show proper here.

The Denver Nuggets are going to play the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals starting on Tuesday night. this is one of my favorite things because this is the rare pro sports franchise playing in a huge game or series in this case that has almost no national media footprint. Very few associations even with people who are big fans of the sport. Oh, yeah. It really reminds me of when the Bengals made the Super Bowl. and remember people didn't know how to pronounce the team's mascot. They were saying bingles. This really happened two years ago.

People did not understand how to pronounce the name of the Cincinnati Bengals. Yeah. I feel we're now back there with the Nuggets. Oh, for sure. Never won an NBA title. They've never won a conference title. Can you guess who the Nuggets celebrity fans are? Oh my gosh. I mean, I assume it's like, you know, some writer for like it's always sunny in Philadelphia or something.

How high on the celebrity chart could this possibly go? That was really good because the answer is, according to a Grantland piece by our friend Chase Serrano, Matt Parker and Trey Stone. Oh, there we go. Which is not bad. But you and I didn't know that. We had no idea. No. And I was even looking up on Amazon and eBay to try to find out how many proper books have ever been written about the Denver Nuggets. Yeah.

There are, you know, stories from the Nuggets. There was a Denver Nuggets joke book, which I'd really like to get in my possession just to see how many jokes deep you could go on the Nuggets franchise. But I found one called Hardwood Gold. Oh, really? then a couple of player bios. And that's it. So again, no offense to anybody here, but we're just talking about a franchise that has a very,

very, very tiny media imprint. Dang, the Nuggets Gift Shop must be pretty depleted in the book section there. You think the Denver Barnes & Noble? You think they just do pro basketball. They don't even have like a half a shelf for Nuggets books. God, that's pretty crazy. One book. One book, I think.

If anybody has any more, let us know. Coming up on today's podcast, David, what went haywire with CNN's Trump Town Hall is Ron DeSantis writing a media underestimation news cycle, RIPMTV News, and former Barack Obama spokesman Eric Schultz joins us to talk about how he helped succession create a terrifyingly realistic presidential election. All that much more on the press box. a part of the Ringer podcast network. Hello Media Consumers, Brian Curtis David Shoemaker, producer Erica

Servantes here with you. So that Trump, CNN Town Hall, that went pretty well, huh? A lot of great reviews. Yeah, no comment. Here is a typical exchange between Trump and CNN's Caitlin Collins talking about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. If I'm president, I will have that war. settled in one day, 24 hours. I'll meet with Putin. I'll meet with Zelensky.

They both have weaknesses and they both have strengths. And within 24 hours, that war will be settled. It'll be over. It'll be absolutely over. Do you want Ukraine to win this war? I don't think in terms of winning and losing. I think in terms of getting it settled so we stop killing all these people and break you down. Far be it from Trump to ever think in terms of winning and losing.

in that clip you could hear exactly what hijacked this interview, which was the crowd cheering Donald Trump. Yeah. They were cheering him all night. They were cheering when he talked about the writer E. Jean Carroll, who just won a civil verdict against him for sexual abuse. And it changed the whole nature of the interview, because instead of Caitlin Collins asking questions of Donald Trump,

It was like Caitlin Collins standing on a stage during a Trump rally. And dude, there were issues I have with the interview, but I am not sure how any commentator succeeds in that kind of environment. Well, I think a lot of people are justifiably putting those things, tying those things together, right? I mean, CNN agreed to the terms of the debate, which included who was in the audience. but yeah I mean it's a totally

it's a totally different situation does it debate town hall I mean it's a totally different situation than anything comparable because you're not in pursuit of truth or even if you're in pursuit of truth it doesn't really matter because you're you know staring down somebody who's

in pursuit of popping the crowd right I mean it's you can ask whatever you want if Trump can just stand up and be just like like you know does the Hulk Hogan on hand wave cup to the ear and the crowd goes nuts it doesn't really

no response is really necessary and you could be interviewing you know just the person with the lowest approval rating on planet earth and if after they say everything the crowd cheers and when you say something the crowd is dead silent I think you're going to create an impression on television

that they are holding their own. Oh, for sure. Or perhaps even carrying the day. It's just so strange. And, you know, I wondered, like, why would CNN put Caitlin Collins in that position, given that she's about to become the 9 p.m. anchor on their network. There's high visibility, but there's also setting somebody up not to succeed. Yeah, it's almost as if there's no amount of planning that can really prepare you for that situation, right?

It's like the harder you work, the more inevitable it is that you will be, that you will, you know, be outwitted because someone is doing just something totally different, right? It's not a conventional town hall. It's not a conventional interview by any stretch of the imagination. No. And it is very strange. I'm sure the calculus, though, was that, I mean, I'm sure part of the calculus was that she wanted to do it. and CNN wanted to put her in that position,

you know, I mean, we're in no press as bad press world, right? So why not? Well, that's definitely CNN's idea about this whole thing. But just struck me,

it's like we're having this huge conversation about platforming Donald Trump. There's probably also a very important conversation about the nature of the platform. Oh, for sure. This is a one-on-one interview in a studio without an applause track, or is this going to be something where everybody's like,

yeah, Yeah, great answer. I'm going to settle the Ukraine dispute in one day. Yeah, yeah, he'll do that. It's like, no, that's ridiculous. That's not going to happen. Yeah. But everybody cheers.

It comes along. Okay, sure. I'll tell you another thing about the CNN town hall that really blew my mind. They give Trump 70 minutes and then they go to the panels. And one of the panels was hosted by Anderson Cooper out of New York. And it's a bunch of familiar CNN analysts that you and I have watched over the years. And part of the panel was Byron Donald's, who is this Republican representative from Florida, who has endorsed Trump. So we've given Trump 70 minutes. Trump's told a bunch of lies. Then you go to

your panel, who you would think is like, these are the people who are going to adjudicate things. if we've made a mistake, at least here are trusted CNN people who can tell you what's right from wrong, give you a sense of what happened this evening. No, no, no. We've got a Trump surrogate on the panel. Yeah. Who is making that process next to impossible. I mean, when I saw that, I was like, oh, that's the Chris licked vision here. The Trump thing, it's probably a one-off.

He may never do it again. They may not want him to do it again. but this idea that we can't even have CNN analysts analyzing the debate by themselves. We have to bring in a surrogate. Are we going to do this when Biden has a state of the union? Did Biden's first stay of the union? Do we have Jen Saki sitting there on the panel? Well, here's what Biden was trying to say.

No, he just gave a speech. We get to dissect. Now it's time for the journalist to take over or the analysts to take over. I thought that was crazy. I totally agree. I mean, it's this weird, this weird sort of corner that Trump has backed everybody into, which is that if you don't, even if you were nominally conservative pundits, don't claim to be Trump fans, which numbers just about everybody in like polite society at this point, then now you have to find a voice. If you stick by your, you don't have to. If you go by these old tired hidebound rules or whatever about how to balance the scales, you have to go find somebody. who is, you know, going to even things out. And in Trump's case, it's only the zombies.

They're the only options because that's all there is. It just feels like we're going back to Jeffrey Lord CNN of 2016, 2015. And whatever you want to say about CNN during the Trump era, and you and I've talked many times about how that has been retconned into something that it absolutely was not. Jeffrey Lord's era CNN was terrible. That was a flop. That stunk. Everybody hated that.

This idea of like we're having that. Now it's almost like we've up the ante. It's not even just like, well, this is a commentator who happens to be pro-Trump. This is an elected official who endorsed him. He's getting to do the analysis rather than being interviewed. I just thought that was so wild. They popped a 3 million or rating of 3 million viewers.

on Wednesday night. And guess what happened the next night? Well, Donald Trump wasn't on TV anymore, so it went down to half a million viewers. That was funny. Created a lot of internal strife at CNN. There's been a lot of reporting over that on that over the last couple of days. Here was Anderson Cooper trying to put a brave face on the town hall.

Maybe you haven't been paying attention to him since he left office. Maybe you've been enjoying not hearing from him thinking it can't happen again. Some investigation is going to stop him. well it hasn't so far so if last night showed anything it showed it can happen again it is happening again he hasn't changed and he is running hard you have every right to be outraged today and angry never watched this network again but do you think staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with is going to make that person go away so the case he's making and you can tell he's not completely convinced but the case he's making is that

this was a scared straight moment for America. Yeah. We've heard that a lot. That guy could still be president. And we're showing you a vision of the guy who could still be president. One more time. Okay. Yeah.

I mean, that's the way that people have been dealing with Trump since he started running. What do you expect us to do? Not put him on TV. He defies convention. He defies all the rules of, like I said, polite society when it comes to broadcasting news. and, you know, how many years are me now? And nobody's actually just figured out what they want to do about it.

I mean, here's the thing, CNN might have been prepared for backlash, but they probably weren't prepared for the amount that they got because no one's figured it out yet. No one's cracked the code yet. And I don't think that ignoring him is the right solution. But it might be the best solution right now. it might be the most practical solution. Did Savannah Guthrie and Jonathan Swan

kind of cracked the code, or at least offer an idea of how you could interview Trump and not create an advertisement for Donald Trump? Sure. I mean, if you get him out from in front of an audience and you, you know, just let the cameras roll. I mean, like I said, everything is at odds with the convention, right? I mean, the, I think probably the greatest value you would get out of a Trump interview,

a lengthy Trump interview would be the stuff that would normally hit the cutting room floor. Right? The pauses, the, the non-ansors,

the, just the, you know, he wants to ramble. He wants to just keep going. But at some point, that sort of tells on itself. So,

I mean, who knows, but it does seem like there's, there's a path forward. It's just, if you have to, if you have to draw up a whole,

if you have to change the whole, defense to account for his offense, then is it worth even cracking the code, right? Is this a conversation that we're all willing to have? Totally valid point. CNN has a media newsletter that I and a bunch of other people rely on. It's written by Oliver Darcy. It came out right after the town hall and said,

it's hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening. According to reporting first in Puck and then in semifor, that earned Oliver Darcy a meeting with Chris Licked. Interesting time to be at CNN. By the way, the whole broadcast began with Wolf Blitzer, who always has amazing announcer speak saying this. This is an important night in the United States. We're watching it very closely and then cutting to the town hall.

What AI generated intro was that? In other political news, David, Ron DeSantis. went to Iowa this weekend. He is still running for president. Oh, yeah. You may have heard him count it out. I'm exaggerating somewhat, but he also rolled out some endorsements.

Has he actually announced his candidacy? He has not. So he's not technically running for president. Sorry, he is probably about to run for president. If you haven't announced your candidacy, what is the argument? What kind of dereliction of duty is it to the people who voted for you or the citizens of Florida that you're just like chilling in Iowa.

Well, you know, like going to barbecue cookouts and wearing aprons all over the place. He has had this amazing rhetorical tick when in Iowa or anywhere where he praises the state by invoking this phrase. This is from the website Florida politics. Rhonda Santis says Florida is quote, the Iowa of the southeast.

So down here in Florida, we're just trying to replicate the Iowa model. But he says that everywhere he goes or just in Iowa? Yeah, it would be funny on its own, but there's another headline here. Ron DeSanta says Florida is the Utah of the southeast. How far can we push this? Alaska of the southeast just doesn't really make any sense. You know, there's no way that you up there with your weather being radically different than I. I just don't think that metaphor quite tracks all the way.

Yeah. Do you think he can get away with the South Dakota of the Southeast? Sure. I mean, it's Florida. You can say whatever you want. There's some Hamlet somewhere that is vaguely reminiscent. No, you can lie whatever you want, I guess is the point. You can't say the California of the southeast.

Every time I go back to Texas, those politicians are like, we don't want to turn this place into California. True. That's terrible out there. terrible, I tell you. I'm in California. DeSantis rolled out some endorsements, Trump style,

37 state legislators, representing over a third of the combined number of Republican lawmakers in the state's House and Senate, according to National Review. I do wonder if DeSantis is now going to enjoy a low expectations news cycle.

What do you mean? Well, there were a lot of reporting. all of it true on him getting clobbered by Trump in the polls, him getting outfoxed by Trump in terms of endorsements, him not being so great at talking to other human beings on the stomach. Yeah, sure. So now he comes in and if he is just generic politician,

replacement level politician in Iowa and other places, everybody's like, oh, were we overlooking Ron DeSantis? Mm-hmm. I don't know. It seems really simplistic, but this far out, that's kind of how it works. Yeah, I mean, but it's pretty, you know, it'll probably work. I was going to say that's a pretty fast, like, ham-fisted, force-fed news cycle, if that's the case. But, you know, it probably would work.

Our political media, again, will somebody exactly write that piece? No. But will that be a guiding influence as reporters who are looking at their watches and going, I have 18 months left to go? Mm-hmm. Am I going to write Trump as inevitable for the next until January, February, when the primaries start? Are we going to try to know? Is this going to be interesting? Well, he's going to entertain the idea that DeSantis has something here.

I don't know. I think that's in people's minds. I think so, too. I mean, I also think it's important at this point just not to give the polls too much credence. You know, Trump just takes up a lot of oxygen, but he also just has such name recognition and such a sort of of movement behind him that I'm not sure that DeSantis or anybody else is really you know I don't know that that they're pulling is really an accurate reflection of what it might look like when the primary actually gets going so but in then for that reason I'm not sure it's even

worth doing the whole I mean even considering the whole comeback kid cycle because he he is where he is it's not like you you know if you thought that he was going to come out of the gate with you know, 30%, 40%, you're probably wrong to begin with, right? You're starting from a wrong place. So who knows? No, every way the media covers Trump is a reaction to the way the media once covered Trump. Remember 2015 when Trump was ahead in all those national polls and was like, oh, it's just a celebrity.

It's just name recognition. Mm-hmm. Yeah, these national polls don't matter. It's who wins Iowa, New Hampshire, et cetera, et cetera. and then Trump stormed to the nomination. It's just, it's like all this shell shock, right? Oh, well, I once said that those polls didn't matter for Trump. Well, am I going to say that again and be wrong twice?

Again, this is the kind of thing that's in reporters' minds. For sure. And they don't have to overcorrect the other way and say Trump is inevitable the polls this far out of right, but nobody likes to be wrong the same way twice. Of course not. But you don't overcorrect and get wrong and be wrong the other way. right? I mean, that's not really a functional solution. I mean, it's a functional solution. It's not a very good solution.

Do we want to say a word or two for MTV News? Oh, yeah. Which left your cable bundle last week. You have a favorite MTV News moment? Are you on the Kirk Cobain death announcement or Bill Clinton being asked, boxers or briefs? Certainly more of a Cobain death announcement. announcement guy.

Although the boxers a brief thing was a big deal at the time. Not sure that's age particularly well. But yeah, I mean, listen, MTV News was a huge part of my childhood. All the people that are rightly being

touted are incredibly significant. It is weird when a eulogy like this happens and we immediately go to eulogizing a piece of it from a long, long time ago. The Kurt Loder Tabithoran era. Yeah. I mean, I guess that makes sense, right? I mean, if like, whatever, I'm not even going to name a name because I feel like I'll be jinxing it. But if like a 70 or 80 year old former NBA player dies, then a lot of his father is going to be about his championship rings.

Because please don't wonder aloud about anyone's possible. Yeah, I can't deal with any more jinxes these days. But, but yeah, so yeah, it's a, it's a, it's, but it is, it has been interesting in that like, you know, MTV News was a going concern up until, well, I guess. up until now. I don't really know what it's been like late, but, you know, it obviously rebooted several years ago under our old boss Dan Fehrman and we know a lot of the people that work there. But MTV News has been sort of floating,

the hazy target, except for, you know, between that, you know, between that point and the part that we're eulogizing before. But yeah, I mean, the on TV, TV news aspect of it, the sort of Ir, Vice News, you know, news for the rest of us, sort of vibe for the,

that it put off was was incredibly significant and I think probably really formative for a lot of the people that do the sort of thing for a living. We don't wear suits here. No. Kurt Loader might wear leather jacket. Mm-hmm. It had a lot of ESPN2 in it or probably vice versa. ESPN2 sought to have a lot of MTV news. Sure.

When in it, when it was created. There's also, as you say, news for you. Mm-hmm. We're going to give you the music news, pop culture news that you want right now. And then we're going to stick a foot into the adult world, which you might have thought was either too arcane or too important to worry about. Then we're going to go interview those presidential candidates. We're going to get time there. Make sure we have a big foot in the election.

Well, part of that's just a realization that you have power. I mean, that, you know, demographics bring with it a certain power. Candidates, whoever else can talk to the youth of America by going on MTV News. It does not really access journalism or whatever, but we certainly see a lot more of that now than we did at the time. Coming up in 30 seconds. And speaking of cable, how did Succession make a frighteningly realistic election episode last night? Eric Schultz, a consultant explains. But first, let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week, David, where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time.

Send your nominees to at the Pressbox pod where they are always gratefully received. Today's winner comes to us from Ronnie Ronnerson. A lot of news about the writer's strike out here in Hollywood, actually, on both coasts. and lots of those social media posts you've been seeing show celebrities turning out to show their support for the writers. Will the band Imagine Dragons turned up? Oh, no. And played some music for the writers down the street from our old Ringer headquarters in Hollywood. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write,

Imagine Dragons is going to break the strike by performing. Yeah. Pause for laughter. If you've heard that joke concept a million times, but it makes you smile because it's imagined dragons. Congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right.

In The Notebook Dump, if you don't want succession spoilers, skip right ahead to the pun headline. But if you were terrified by last night's election episode, America decides we've got the guy who deserves some of the credit or much of the blame. Eric Schultz is a senior advisor to former president Barack Obama. Now he's helped Succession create an episode with a tortured decision desk guy on a conservative news network. Eric, welcome to the press box. Brian, thanks for having me, I think. Let's start here. How did you become part of Team Succession?

Sure. I have been in touch over the years with Frank Rich, the executive producer, Jesse Armstrong, the creator of the show, about a few sort of political storylines that sort of creep in very, very occasionally over the years. And they would just call to sort of gut check some questions. Then early last year, when it became apparent that they were going to have a presidential election as one of the storylines for this season, asked if I would come on it and be a consultant for the season. And it was not, didn't take a lot of arm twisting for me to say yes.

The best drama on TV. Yeah, I can be available for that. Right. I was like, okay, what time should I show up? Like, I'm getting on the plane right now. Now, did they want to pick your brain in a big session as they were thinking of storylines? Did you come in at different parts of the writing process? When were you present?

You bet. So I think they asked me to, they invited me into the writer's room pretty early on as they were crafting the arc of the season just to discuss, you know, what the political storyline would look like. And so we discussed a whole bunch of scenarios. And obviously, that was always going to culminate on election night, which was last night's episode. but even for the episodes where the politics is in the background for other episodes this season, we would be consulting because obviously the writers of the Shem were brilliant. They are creative. They're hilarious.

And they are obsessive with their attention to detail. And so making sure that even though a lot of the storylines are outrageous and dramatic, they wanted to make sure that it felt real and that these scenarios were plausible. You've been in a lot of high leverage meetings in your career. What did you make at the Succession Writers' Room? Oh, goodness. I mean, I don't have that much experience working in film and television yet, but I will say that I just found everyone to be incredibly kind and gracious and welcoming.

I did find a lot of parallels in terms of working in politics. Unfortunately, in my real life, I've never met anyone like the Roy family, but I will say that the sort of collaborative nature of working together, the sort of team energy, the rolling deadlines, it felt very much like analogous to working in politics. And obviously, the sort of centrality of storytelling and how that is sort of the anger of all of the other work, you know, was something that had home for me. What kind of election scenario did they tell you they were. interested in creating?

I think they wanted something disruptive and something murky so that, you know, there was a lot of, you know, intrigue and confusion around what was happening. So obviously with how it ended up playing out last night, right, we have analogs to a bunch of presidential campaigns. You've got 2,000 where it all comes down to one state and yet a bunch of ballots. It's a little unclear how they were cast. You've got 2016 with a candidate who most people didn't think was going to win and sort of shocked the nation by doing so. Last night you got that scene with Jared Mankin, the candidate, and Roman, who both acknowledge that he's unlikely to win.

And I think both Republicans in 2016 would have said the same thing going into election night. And then obviously in 2020, when Fox News now famously called Arizona for Joe Biden, they were the only network to do so. You could imagine a scenario where they didn't, right? You could imagine, you could sort of play out your hot head how squishy things would feel if they weren't really to do that. At the same time, that boxes them in for the moving forward, right? Because they can't call the other states or else they'd be the first network to call

Joe Biden and President of the United States. And so I think the writers definitely sort of turn that on its head for this episode. Yeah, so instead of boxing themselves in to declare Joe Biden the president or basically declare in the president, which we know now from reading all these emails made Trump incredibly angry and caused some people inside Fox to ask, hmm, is this a permanent decision? Can we can we waver on this at all? Yeah, yeah. Right. You've even got, but the show is pretty good about showing the interplay between the campaigns and the networks, right? Because a political people like me who are on these campaigns. campaigns are constantly lobbying to get sort of both favorable coverage, but also sort of optimistic, you know, sort of optimistic prognosis from their, from their pundits and their on-air talent. I think what's different about the show than in real life is, you know, in real life, there's a firewall between the editorial side and the sort of decision desk in this in this show. It's called decision desk, Darwin. But there's a pretty clear firewall between those of us, between the news side and reporters who are engaging us and the sort of data crunchers who make these decisions.

Obviously, the professional who was in charge of that decision for Fox in 2020 no longer works at the network was fired. And so I think the writers in this instance wanted to sort of poke that a little bit. Give me a sense of what those election night calls are like in real life. You were talking to a producer. You're talking to on-air talent in that case. I'm talking to anyone who will take my calls. I worked for the L. Franken for Senate campaign in 2008, and that really was a recount situation that went many, many months after election night.

And our opponent at the time, Norm Coleman, had declared victory that night. And again, we burned up every phone line we could find to say, guys, this isn't over that I would not prematurely call this race. And even though Coleman decided to declare victory, we worked very hard to make sure the journalists and the sort of mainstream news outlets knew that this was far from over. And I think that dynamic is also its display in this show when I think it is, right, Kendall and Shiv talking about if they can deliver the platform, men can declare victory. It's sort of a one-two punch, right? They announce the projection,

and then Men can go ahead and declare victory. And I think that that sequencing was definitely sort of the most terrifying part of last night's show. Absolutely. Back to real life for a second. Your cell to the media and the networks in the cases of Frank and Coleman is, you don't want to look dumb tonight

by saying one guy won, and then a few months from now when we go through all the machinations and the recounts, the other guy will have won? Yes, I think Florida in 2000 is a legendary example of this, that networks had called it for gore, and they called, you know, they sort of like flip-flop back and forth, and it just looked pretty terrible. And I think for that reason, networks and news outlets that called races became a lot more conservative in how they do so to just make sure they not only triple-checked it, they quadruple-checked

it. There was no scenario where it could be reversed. And so our job is to sort of exploit that insecurity, right? Like, if we want, the last thing news networks want to do is be wrong. Some things you just are factual and you have to be, you have to get right. And yes, our job is to make sure that they know that this was likely to go into overtime and that we had sufficient votes to make up the gap. Part of the episode last night is that there was a big, fire at a vote counting center in Milwaukee. So what would happen if a bunch of votes went up in flames on election night before they were counted?

Yeah, I mentioned what I found most terrifying about the episode. Maybe I may want to amend my answer. But look, we picked Wisconsin not by accident. There was a lot of research by the team that worked on this, including a young talented writer named Justin Galdeser and Ben Ginsburg, Republican, and super lawyer who helped do a lot of the research to make sure that this episode felt realistic. And we looked at various scenarios around the country. We wanted to find a state that was later into the evening. So it was sort of sequenced correctly for the sort of arc of the

episode. We wanted to find a state that was a sway state. And we wanted to find a place that could house enough boats in order to be determinative. And so we were shooting from the hip when we picked that venue. We did a lot of research to figure out in these contingency scenarios, is what would happen. And the truth is, it gets murky, that it has not really been spelled out for sort of these different various emergency scenarios. And so, as Schiff said, well, I guess it was Roman in the show that a revote, and I think Darwin also says that a revote is entirely rare. That is true. And so I think finding precedent for these things proved to be illustrative. And I think the writers found that, found the lack of a flavor to be really rich material.

So obviously there'd be lots and lots of court cases. But then it would come down to a decision of do the people who voted and whose votes weren't counted because of an act of God or saboteurs or whatever it was, do they get to vote again? That's the essential question. Exactly. And I think you're right. They preview that there's going to be months of litigation to come. And it, I think, you know, we basically say this is going to come down to the House of, to Congress meeting in January when the electoral college, you know, he makes it official, right? There's going to be a lot of disputes until that. And so we weren't, we weren't trying to skim over how messy this is that both because this had never happened before, And because of the stakes that it was that it was fraught. But again, that underscores the power that a network like ATN has in the moment to say, hey, based on our analysis, our experts believe that men can won the race. And how that sort of changes the conversation in the minds of the audience and also the country.

Right. Like if the election does not feel legitimate or not does not feel credible, it's almost everything else is at risk. Yeah, imagine that. I haven't experienced that as a country lately. You mentioned the succession team being really obsessed with realism and small touches of realism. What were some of the parts of the show that you waited on personally and said, I can help you with that? Yeah, I think a couple things. One is the way election night progresses, right, the way the states are reported in and their electoral votes, that was all very intentional. and very realistic because again, some of the plot lines are flights of fancy

but the writers wanted to make sure that it took place against a backdrop that felt real and credible and so that's why I think the show pops is because

everything feels more plausible when it's taking place in a realistic environment. One example from an earlier episode there was a moment where the presidential candidate wants to stop by and make a personal visit to the Roy's family that's grieving the loss of their father.

And the writers and production team would ask, well, what kind of security footprint would that look like? And for me, in my world, that's called it off the record stop, an OTR, where it's not announced in advance. And so there's a very specific protocol for secret service. And I walked them through what that footprint would be, both in the room, outside the room, in the building, outside the building. And then it said, okay, great.

What kind of vests do the Secret Service dogs wear? And I was not prepared for that level of detail, that question. And so I had to go back and do some research. But we got them their answer. And the answer was? Well, you'll have to watch, I think it's episode four. I just don't remember the dog vest. You know, we should give him or her some more attention.

That's pretty inside even for a ringer succession recap. episode, but go back and look. In terms of what was pure fiction last night, what stood out to you as being something we have on TV drama, but we don't have in real life? Yeah, I think, again, and unfortunately, art is imitating, that life is imitating art, Brian. I think that, again, at credible news outlets, there's a firewall between, I talked about the sort of decision desk and the news side, but there's absolutely a firewall between the news side and the business side. And obviously that has been trampled over at ATN, but arguably

at Fox News. And so I think that an incredible legitimate news outlet, that would not be breached. I also don't think a credible news outlet would call Wisconsin for a candidate with everything are under suspicion. I think they would want to play that out. But again, Fox News in today's environment, I think maybe 10 years ago, they'd be more conservative. But now that they're sort of a more nakedly political right-wing outlet, that that symbiotic relationship with the Republican Party, they probably have left qualms about that. What struck you about being on the set for the filming of this episode. Oh, it was the coolest thing I've ever done.

Again, everyone was kind and gracious. And, you know, if there was something that didn't sort of sound right to me, and I would sort of tip off a writer and say that felt a little off, they would fix it for the next take. And so they really were fanatical about making sure that they got the small stuff right. at one point we had a conversation about the Silver State, Nevada,

because I think some people pronounce it Nevada. But if you work in politics or you've been to that state, you know that it's Nevada. And so making sure that our characters got that right. You know, small stuff like that was part of why I was there.

If you work in politics or follow John Ralston on Twitter, you will never mispronounce the name of the secretary. Yes, yes. Some of us have learned the hard way, Brian? Are political people like journalists and that they all really want to have their own

HBO dramas by the end of their career? Look, I think that there's certainly an immense overlap between the entertainment industry, the political and politics. If you look at rituals like the White House correspondence dinner weekend, you know, we sort of celebrate the White House press corps are the First Amendment in Washington, but we're also sort of a bunch of Hollywood executives

and talent and writers, producers come to D.C. to join us. We're sort of all smitten with each other because they get to see how we work a little bit and we get access to them. And so I think there's a mutual fascination between our two industries. And I don't think that's going away any time soon. I heard from a very, very confidential source whose name is definitely not Claire McNair that you were spotted at the correspondence dinner this year with one or more of the Property Brothers. Is that correct? Can you confirm right here on the press?

I can confirm that I do have the pleasure of working with Drew and Jonathan Scott of HGV's Property Brothers. They're very, they do a lot in this sort of renewable energy space and obviously working to make sure that, you know, that's obviously a sort of a very, very. right public policy area in Washington, but making sure that that translates to people at home and what you can do to greenify your home. It's hard to find two better messages for that. So that's an example of celebrities using their platforms in real smart, helpful ways. So wait, you work with them. You work with Succession and Designated Survivor now. This is

your Hollywood portfolio? Yeah, can you believe it? Don't ask me to rank them. You're not doing a power ranking of my Hollywood clients? Yes. A designated survivor was also a blast. I worked on the third season when Netflix did the reboot of it. And it was largely, you know, a similar experience of the writers just wanting to know what it's like to work in the White House. And what are the sort of the scenarios that come up? And if we have this sort of storyline, how would you deal with it?

what's a plausible way to sort of address it? Who would be in this meeting? Would you be eating lunch in that meeting? You know, all of the, where would this sort of rally type thing event happen? And so, you know, it's cool because it's a different way to use, to use my experience. All right.

Before we go, here's a safe power ranking you can do. Favorite television shows or movies that have depicted life inside the White House? House or politics? I would have to say one of the reasons I got into politics was watching the West Wing. And so that was just like a very cool window into watching, you know, mostly young people, but people in it for the right reasons, energized, working around the clock, trying to solve complex issues, taking the work seriously, but not themselves too seriously. All of that sort of wet my appetite to come to Washington.

And of course, Vee, I mean, the show is hilarious, but it's also so damn realistic. And obviously, they had brilliant consultants on that show, too. I did not work on that show. But obviously, their depiction of how Washington works is dead on. You can follow Eric Schultz at Eric Schultz on Twitter where he will be putting even ringer succession recapers to shame. Eric, thanks for coming on the press box. Great to join you. All right. It's time for David Shoemaker guesses the strained pun headline.

Yeah. Last Monday's pun about the rise of the pocket calculator was Empire of the Sum. Today's headline comes from Chris. It's from the Verge. We've been talking a lot about AI, David. Well, this piece in The Verge argues that Google's AI chatbot, excuse me, which is called Bard. It's not very good. and the last thing Google should be spending a fortune on is this not very good thing.

I think that's enough. What was the Verges? Strain pun headline. Wait, one more time? Is this an Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good,

very bad day pun? What am I? Very bard day? This is the barred chat bot. No good. Do not spend money on this thing. It is not good. I don't waste money on this thing that's not good.

Ruman Bard of a... If something is no good, the last thing you want to do is dump a bunch of money on it. Oh, waste... An expression. Throwing good after... Good money after Bard. There we go. Google needs to stop throwing good money after Bard.

All right. Chris, who sent the send said, this may be too strained for you guys. I was like, apparently you don't know us all that well, Chris. But thanks for the headline. He is David Chewaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Erica Servantes. I mentioned the Denver Nuggets, David, earlier in the show.

So I was thinking, like, that is one of those beats in sports writing that I just, I didn't have, I couldn't give you a lot from. Yeah. You tell me Chicago Bulls. New York next anything. I could give you something. I couldn't really give you much from the Denver Nuggets Beat. So I'm sitting there going, who can explain to me what the Denver Nuggets Beat was like?

And in fact, give me some fantastic war stories from the Denver Nuggets Beat. And I was like, I know who it is. It's Mark J. Spears from ESPN and Anscape, who covered that team for the Denver Post from 1999 to 2007. I try not to overhype podcasts. You know,

I see some people that every podcast, this was a phenomenal interview, fantastic, phenomenal. I try not to do that. This was so much fun. Listening to Mark tell war stories from Mello's arrival, Alan Iverson's arrival, the time the team boycotted a practice. Oh, no. Didn't know that story. The time he was pulled off the beat to cover a space shuttle explosion in Texas. Just yanked right off?

Yanked right off. Got something else? to do. Your gamer can wait. Anyway, love talking to Mark. Shoemaker and I back Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.