The Press Box - Day After the Election Reaction Pod

Episode Date: November 5, 2020

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker break down the day after the election. They discuss Trump’s late night and early-morning speech, each party's strategy, and media coverage on election night (2:00). Then, writer Jemele Hill joins to discuss election results and the state of our country (42:00). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, media consumers. This is the press box, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker of the Ringer here with your day after the election reaction podcast. Here's where we are, David, at 10 p.m. Eastern as we record this. Joe Biden has won the states of Wisconsin and Michigan. The electoral counts differ slightly by media outlet, but Biden is on the brink of becoming the next president of the United States. Now, here's our job. John King disclaimer. Biden hasn't won. Trump hasn't lost. But David, as we look at this split screen featuring Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona, all at the same time, it sure does feel like we're very close

to hearing some news. Well, you know, the universe could have done us the courtesy of, you know, letting Nevada or Arizona get called before we hit record. But yes, it feels an awful lot like, it feels an awful lot like every channel I'm including Fox News and this is like trying really hard not to jinx things right now, you know, or like every decision desk is like trying not to be known as the jinx desk. Everybody is just sort of talking in very sort of plaintiff tones and trying very hard to avoid saying it's done.

And I include probably you and I both in that category as well. And I don't know, I don't actually believe this to be true in some statistical way, but it does feel a little bit like in another year, in another cycle with a different incumbent, a different name next to the R on the ballot. This might have just been called by now. Absolutely. Absolutely. Everyone is on their, I don't know if best behavior is the term. But everyone is trying to be as straight a newsman or newswoman as possible. Just calling it.

And I mean, I've never heard more disclaimers on the air on cable news. Cable news. This is not the medium for careful reflection. And look, let's not get ahead of ourselves. This is a medium usually for getting ahead of ourselves. And in fact, everyone, as you say, has just been playing this by the book as much as they possibly can. Yeah. In some ways, I feel like the best, you know, to get right in, the best kind of indicator that I have, that I felt like I felt all day was starting last night were the two speeches that Joe Biden's given, right? The sort of like quiet confidence of the first speech, which was really understated, really short, really to the point. But I think by by ruffling as few feathers possible, by sort of, it was like the ultimate holding note. And what really did just sort of allow the count, the vote counting today to happen without, with minimal.

you know, uprising. It didn't really, it really didn't, just didn't allow the door to be opened or minimized the opening for Trump to sort of whack everything out. And then today, this is today meaning Wednesday, he gave what was, you know, about as close to a victory speech as we're probably going to hear for a minute. But the confidence, I mean, but he spoke with a level of confidence and conviction that really felt like, you know, I don't want to get too into the woo-woo like Joe Biden's a trustworthy man, but I do feel like it's a trustworthy campaign to the extent that they wouldn't just, they're not out here to BSS, right? I mean, that's not the side that they're on. And I don't think setting, I don't think they're, they're

particularly trying to set unrealistic expectations. So, you know, that's, that's where I thought that, I mean, that was almost more assuring, more, more, it seemed more based in fact than a lot of, like, just the numbers that I'm saying all over. over the place, which trust me, I've been, you know, spending way too much time with. It's funny, isn't it? Because if you had no idea who was winning the election at this point and who was losing the election, couldn't you just tell by the way these two guys are talking? Exactly. I mean, you really don't need to know much other than that. My favorite tell, and this comes up,

pretty much every two years or every four years is when you start to hear the word pathway, we have a pathway to winning. That means you're losing, right? I mean, imagine if our editors said, hey, Brian and David, are you going to finish your article today? And we replied, there's a pathway to me finishing this article. I've actually used that, I think. Well, it meant it wasn't going to happen. It absolutely meant it wasn't going to happen.

And again, just the Biden strategy of, hey, we got this. Hey, I just, I want to see all the votes counted versus the Trump strategy of, hey, I am attempting to steal the election. I'm not going to make any bones about it. I am attempting to steal the election right now. Yeah. You absolutely, it is so obvious. Again, doesn't guarantee a result, but it's so obvious who thinks they're winning and who thinks they're losing. Yeah.

And there's this, I mean, this is, if this is the end of the Trump, era, it's sort of the perfect way for him to go out because he's spent, I mean, I think I've said this 500 times in the podcast, but he has this amazing way of trying to really inarticulately speak things into existence, right? Or he like tells you, he shows you, he says exactly what he's, what he's about to do. And then he's just like, like, going back to the early days of the presidency, I remember talking about the thing where they would, where they would like, this is the weird technique where they would say they were making up, they were making a pivot. And they would, you know, they would tell the media, we're about to make a

And then they wouldn't actually pivot, they would just expect that to be enough, right? Did they just like it leaked the notion of a pivot? And now we're experiencing this, this will probably be an interminable series of lawsuits filed and votes and recounts demanded and whatever else. But it's a, it's the playbook that they leaked one week ago, right? I mean, in Trump, it was out there basically spoiling it for the past several months, but really literally on Twitter and out loud for the past couple of weeks. So there's no surprise.

I say, you know, on the one hand, it sort of delegitimizes the whole operation. It's not actually based on the facts on the ground, but it also sort of normalizes it in a way, right? So we're all just sort of like, okay, this is what's happening. Like what I mean, even though they're not in recount territory in Wisconsin, we're going to demand a recount there and whatever. And whatever, they can have it. But, but it's just a very, just a very perfectly trumpy way for this whole thing to go out. Remember when the film critic Roger Ebert was identifying all the cliches in movies and he had the talking killer and all the killer needs to do is kill the hero but instead spends 10 minutes recapping the evil plan so the hero will know what they've

been trying to do for the whole movie. This is the talking killer presidency. Yes. It really is. I mean, it's just, I'm just going to, all my evil schemes, I'm just going to say them out loud. And I'm going to say them out loud at a convenient point in advance so that you can prepare for them. He would do this before the debates. I'm going to bring up all the Hunter Biden stuff. It's like, okay, we need to rehearse our response to that. It's wild.

And by the way, down to the Eric Trump and Rudy Giuliani showing up in Philadelphia today as the kind of, you know, a team to try to sort of rescue the Trump campaign in Pennsylvania. that was that was something else that was something else and I especially enjoyed the touch of Rudy saying he was going to file the national lawsuit apparently not quite understanding how campaigns work in this country

maybe it's because you were just talking about Eber but when you said they were showing up as the before you said A team I thought you were going to go with like the Laurel and Hardy or something that I guess all things consider the sort of like the Leo Bloom and Max Biali stock of the 2020 election is maybe a little bit more appropriate it.

They're presentate, I mean, listen, we've become very accustomed to the Trump family being sort of the figureheads, you know, the public faces of the Republican Party in so many ways. But all it takes is like Eric Trump to actually have to get up there in front of, you know, press gaggle and make the case for how Pennsylvania is being stolen. And you just realize just how inane this whole thing is. And, I mean, maybe it's just the cloud is lifting. But they also did the sort of performative thing where he and, And was it Kaylee McAnney, both sort of tweeted,

yay we got Pennsylvania last night at the same time to sort of like try to steer the media narrative and everybody was just like, no, that is untrue. It just couldn't be more transparent, but that's the whole point. It's, they're being transparent. And then, you know, I don't know if it was directly in response to that, but Trump was got on Twitter just to question his own attorney's moves, right? I mean, he was questioning their, their, they're, you know, plea for access. He was like basically it's it's already over.

The election's already been stolen. So I don't know if he's just resigned himself to that or what, but it's it. The whole thing is just so crazy. Election law is not something you can fake your way through. You and I could not appear before a federal court and be like, all right, let me, let me. It's not like a murder trial where we've at least seen, you know, the TV version. We kind of know what to do. Election law is really complicated.

It's not something they're being done on the fourth. fly. I wanted to revisit Trump's late night speech with you, which was really the first major salvo in his, we're going to try to win this election via means other than the ballot box, at least on election day. This was a little after 2 a.m. Eastern time. Joe Biden had already spoken. In fact, it's spoken quite a bit before that. The president comes into a room in the White House. He walks to the mic and this happened. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Now, we think playing hail to the chief was accidental there.

Just a reminder that I'm the president, still the president for a couple more months, even if I leave. Speech David was also this very weird mix of teleprompter and just winging it. Trump started out with all these very very very very. very specific numbers that I seriously doubt he just recalled from memory. And then he decided to just kind of riff. This felt like it was very off-promptor. So we won there.

We lead by 76,000 votes with almost nothing left. And all of a sudden everything just stopped. This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. So that was the authoritarian moment that we had all been expecting and or dreading. I couldn't help it say.

And again, maybe I'm just feeling kind at the moment. The off-promptor Trump that we got last night or early this morning, whatever, was in some ways, like a much more appealing Trump than we've seen in a long time. There was something, I guess, go on. I'll just say, given that we all knew the speech was coming or we had lots of reason to believe it was coming. In my head, it was much more, the presentation was more authoritarian, right? The presentation that we actually got was a little bit, a little bit hang dog, a little bit exhausted as anyone would be. I mean, he was upbeat for 3.30 in the morning. He did mention it was the latest news conference, as he called it, that he had ever given.

I guess the whole point is, Trump in that moment, his personality-wise, didn't seem particularly scary. That said the content of what he said was somehow way more frightening than I was expecting it to be. To say, to claim that they'd won the election.

I mean, I know it's meaningless to him. You know, when you know that you're bullshitting, then, you know, it sort of doesn't matter what you say. But, yeah, I mean, it's just like, it's obviously an incredibly dangerous incendiary thing to throw around. And especially when it's like, again, as we've said, so plainly false, so plainly in service of a big lie. You know, it's just, it's, it's frightening.

It encapsulated something that has been the subject of a whole bunch of Ross Douthat columns and reactions to Ross Douthat columns, which is how seriously should we take Trump's authoritarian streak if it is. is a comically carried out or ineptly carried out and be sort of so far at least in most parts of American life contained right and and you know and stopped in the breach and I think that moment was a particular was an absolutely perfect illustration of that because you're right it was like he's tired and it's this kind of little stage and all this kind of stuff and yet an American president

pretending that the results of the election were something other than what they were is frightening, absolutely frightening. It is. And again, this whole thing is far from over. I mean, even if this election gets called, it's not over. But

it did seem just sort of I mean, going to what you're talking, about that, I mean, the doubt that question. I think they're, I mean, coming out of that speech, it sort of felt like anything was possible, right? They sort of felt like on the one hand, you know, there could be like a Trump and Blaz and military unit walking down the street in front of your house tomorrow. And on the other hand, what actually happened, which was, can we please have a recount in Wisconsin to try to overcome a 20,000 point? You know, it was like

the, the team, the law, the legal team starts filing suit or starts, you know, or saying they're filing sue but not actually filing it as it turns out in some places. But the actual steps towards whatever they're going to do next, even with Eric Trump and Rudy and everybody out there and Donald, you know, braying from his Twitter account, it's not, there's just, it doesn't really amount to much, right? I mean, there's probably a lot of reasons why. Yeah, I'm more, I guess I was more just viscerally frightened at all those people showing up outside the place in Detroit where they're counting the ballots. There's just that that sort of mob thing.

But I think one important thing here goes back to the idea of the talking killer presidency. Everybody was ready for this. Yeah. Including the media. And when Trump starts that speech, there's this really fascinating moment, right? Twitter had been fact checking all claims about I won the election. I won this particular state all night. Well, then NBC News actually broke in mid-speech.

to say that the president was lying. Listen to this. They knew they couldn't win. So they said, let's go to court. And did I predict this, new? Did I say this? I've been saying this from the day I heard they were going to send out tens of millions of ballots. I mean, we're listening to the president speaking at the White House, but we got to dip in here because there have been several statements that are just frankly not true. the president going through some of the states stating that he has prevailed in those states, naming Georgia, saying they're winning Georgia. They won Georgia.

There's no way they'll catch us that they're winning Pennsylvania, one Michigan. The fact of the matter is those states have not come close to counting all of their vote. They're still outstanding vote. Well, the kudos to them. That was a nice break-in. I mean, you're right. Everybody was prepared for it. And it wasn't just, I mean, you know, you have.

have to kind of infer a lot of this stuff, but the media was very prepared for it. You saw it all over Twitter, people fact, check him in real time. I think you just said that. You also saw on Twitter that Twitter itself was prepared for Trump to start lying, right? Yeah. They started, they, they started, you know, labeling his tweets is uncertain. I mean, and by the time that like, it's, I don't, I mean, I can't get, I don't know what was happening behind the scenes, but it looked like he was actually trying to find ways to get to tweet things that wouldn't just get labeled as misinformation. And when he finally got something out, it was just so milk toast and empty. You know, I mean, he's just like kind of asking rhetorical questions to skirt the, you know,

the rules against misinformation. But the fact that Twitter was just immediately prepared and they were just like, we know exactly what to look for. I think Trump probably set that up for himself too. I don't want on a media podcast to valorize or make too big a deal out of little moments like that. But it is extraordinary to use a word that's been used a lot during the Trump administration. that a network newscast, this is NBC News, would interrupt the president of the United States's

election night speech because the president was lying. That's wild, right? We talked about when Chris Wallace during that first debate just eventually said, okay, I'm just going to have to confront the president about his interrupting. Yeah. This was even wilder to me that that happened. That takes that takes a big editorial decision. I know on if you read Resistance Twitter, they want that to happen all the time.

They want, you know, Kelly and Conway never to appear on TV. And I totally understand that and there's a lot of good ideas. But for a network, not to come back and fact check it afterwards, but just to say we are not going to take the president of United States live on election Eve, we are going to start the fact check right now. That is pretty incredible. Yeah, absolutely. And finally, I mean, it seems like after four years of sort of complaining in this direction, we saw, like we said, that social media and the networks actually step up. I mean, now is the time to do it, I guess. This is a moment of actual potential catastrophe. So, you know, I'm glad they did. To that notion of sort of labeling authoritarianism, containing authoritarianism, and then trying to work.

against it. You sent me a text last night and I'm so fascinated by this is we saw so much on camera of the mechanisms of vote counting last night. Did you feel that weirdly worked as a check against conspiracy theories? I mean, the camera shots are weird because we're kind of like following people down the street or following cars going to the office and all this kind of stuff. but it felt so normal. And you see the like pictures of civil servants and stuff like that. It's just like, these people aren't engaged in a conspiracy.

They're just counting, they're counting the votes at like midnight. No, it was so, when they cut to the video at one point of like a couple of dudes wheeling boxes of votes into a building in like the back parking lot, it was like such a boring parking lot shot that like I as a wrestling fan, I was just waiting for Mr.

McMahon's limousine to pull up. You know, I mean, it was like, why am I watching this at all? But yeah, you're right. I saw a clip on one of the channels this morning. I think it was in SNBC where they were inside a Pennsylvania. I think it was a Pennsylvania, whatever. It doesn't even matter. But like ballot counting outfit. And on ones that they're like over here, we have them people closing up shop. People who were actually done and they were literally just like closing their materials and taking off. And they panned over to what it looked like a security camera, like a jailhouse security camera feed where there was like a TV screen with six screens inside. And they were and and, and, and, you. And each one was like active ballot counting occurring. And it was just like, this is the strangest thing.

I can't believe we're looking at all this. But I'm, and I think you wrote back, it felt, it felt like oddly illegal to be seeing this stuff. Like the same thing a little bit like, I'm not sure I should be looking at this. But I'm glad that they did. It had to really, it did have a subtle effect of kind of changing our perception of the whole process. And it goes back to the whole Trumpian critique of the deep state and all the, you know,

the government that's working against him. folks these are mostly not glamorous jobs these are oftentimes and i'm not i'm not trying to be accidentally disparaging but these are oftentimes unglamorous jobs hard jobs that people do because they have a commitment to public service and when you see it in those in that respect you're like oh this isn't a nefarious conspiracy people are counting the votes i laughed today because Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist, what do we call him? He was, he was mad because there was this baseless theory that the Michigan vote counters were not letting in, in Wayne County there in Detroit, we're not letting in the, the, the conservatives who are

supposed to be able to monitor the thing. Yeah, the poll watchers, which were, right, which got into this weird thing of it. You don't just let everybody in. This is not a Costco, you know, Like there are just certain people that can come in. But I guess they were at some point, and I, and I don't hope I'm not spreading fake news here, but he was showing something where people are putting stuff over the windows, because I guess people are around. Is it what happened to transparency?

I'm like, no, no, it's not the transparency of the windows. Like it's a bar, you know, with the dark windows. That's not actually what transparency means. But anyway, I liked it. And I want to see more of our civil servants in action, perhaps with a dedicated cable network. Well, there was a really interesting, I'm glad you brought up Charlie Care. I mean, there was a really interesting divide that was kind of we, you could saw the sea, you could saw it. You could see the seas parting in real time before you on your Twitter feed where you had some people who were sort of reconciling themselves to a post-Trump future. I mean, you know, Ben Shapiro was one of the early ones on that. And even, you know, especially people on the, on the DC side, I think there are a lot of, especially when the, the new shape or the, the shape of the Senate and Congress in general, started becoming clear.

There were a lot of, I think, Hill Republicans who were sort of very content with the new status quo. And so, you know, that sort of started seeping out. And then you saw the sort of, you know, entrenched sort of leftovers. And they were kind of flailing with conspiracy theories, right? I mean, there was one very widespread,

not conspiracy theory, but just like, it was that screen cap of that said that there was whatever district that got 130,000 votes for Biden and zero for Trump that was like a misprint that was on the screen for five seconds. They corrected some point later. But that screen cap was like, oh, you know, that was, that's all it took, right? And that captured a lot of people's imagination. There was that whole thing about Sharpies and was it in Arizona where like they weren't, you know,

there are all of these little. We will get there. Okay. I just want to say there are all these little things popping up. And even Trump, you know, was just sort of retweeting people willy nilly. It was like, what the hell is going on? You know, would it be his commentary? you're like, what are we looking at?

And it was just everybody's sort of flailing. And it did seem like, with all of the preparation, even though it might have worked, it might have not on the crazy Hunter Biden thing, with all of the preparation that we're going to, you know, we're going to contest this election the moment that it's overall. I mean, the storyline was written, it did seem like people were just kind of like grasping its straw

to figure out even like a conspiratorial narrative after the vote started coming in. Absolutely. Absolutely. And by the way, we did not have Ben Shapiro on our list of who will be the respectable, you know, the respectable face of conservatism. I'm not calling him that. I'm not calling him that, but who will try to fill that role and say, got to count all the ballots.

This is not let, do not go here. Interesting, interesting that he decided for surely his own motives and reasons that he wanted to try to be that guy. Well, I mean, I don't have the timeline. I'm sure somebody will put together a timeline of who said what win. But you could tell even by, you know, by the time we got done recording last night at least, it sure felt like Fox News was sort of reconciled to a post-Trump future and was sort of kind of letting everybody down, just trying to soften the blow, especially into this morning. They were had people on the air who were, you know, openly talking about counting all the ballots and stuff. It wasn't, it didn't seem like that was going to be the point of. great controversy, at least, you know, from those quarters. All right, David, time for the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always gratefully received. Last night, David, it became clear the election would come down to states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Now I want you to think of the abbreviations for those states, W-I-M-I-P-A.

It was an overword Twitter joke or maybe just a great Twitter joke to write. And this is the way it ends, not with a bang, but with a wimpa. That's great. That's fantastic stuff. Thanks to a whole bunch of people who sent that in who will all be thanked on Twitter. Elsewhere, David, Donald Trump was having a normal one on Twitter today. This afternoon he falsely tweeted, We have claimed for electoral vote purposes,

the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the state of Georgia, and the state of North Carolina, each of which has a big Trump lead. Lots of good responses to that. I hereby claim myself the MVP of last year's Super Bowl. I have claimed that I am Michael Jordan and I have won six NBA championships.

I hereby claim tomorrow to be Saturday. Claire McCaskill, former senator in MSNBC talking head tweets, I have claimed a size four. And I love this from Politico's Tim Alberta. When you think winning the presidency is like calling shotgun for a car ride. Thanks to David Trattner and Papa Dap. And finally, some interesting results down the ballot last night, David. Possession of hard drugs has been decriminalized in Oregon.

recreational marijuana is now legal in states like New Jersey. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write. I've seen enough. The drugs have won the war on drugs. We would have also accepted every single dispensary in New Jersey is going to be called like DeWise guys or Goodfellas with a Z. And it's going to be a whole lot of fun. Thanks to Connor for that one. If you suggested a remedy for our election night anxiety, congrats.

You made the overwork Twitter joke. of the week. Time for the notebook dump, David. And I wanted to hit you with a few election night media notes. All right. You and I were mostly operating in parallel last night except you're three hours ahead of me. So you just passed out from excitement and exhaustion a little earlier than I did. I watched Trump speech and then I fell asleep and I woke up and I had MSNBC on. I woke up on the couch. This is not a joke. Open my eyes with that kind of just blinking and comprehension. And I'm not kidding you, Dick Gephard was on the screen. Remember Dick Gepard? Oh my gosh. Talk about like an unmemorable guy that had an incredibly significant impact on politics during our lifetime.

A couple of things. He looks exactly the same. Remember how he always looked boyish? He still looks boyish. Number two, it was a Zoom call. So it kind of had a grainy thing. So honestly, I had. I had. I had about half a second where I was like, have I time traveled into this weird dream that Dick Gepard is still a force in American politics. Anyway, also right around that time, I was happy I woke up because did you see Steve Kornacki teasing for like hours that a whole bunch of ballots were about to drop from Milwaukee? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Trump was leading Wisconsin by about 100,000 votes. and Kornacki in his particular Kornackian way was so excited to get these ballots. Not because he wanted Joe Biden to win. It was just pure numbers nerd excitement. I'm going to get data. Take that for data. Data's coming. Take that for data. He was so fired up.

What a night for him. Did you have any thoughts on the Kornacki cam that MSNBC had? because Alex Hanson, one of our listeners, wanted your thoughts on Kornacki Kamm? I was enthralled by it. And honestly, it probably kept me watching MSNBC more than anything else that was on the screen. I mean, not even just Kornacki's presentation kept me there.

Like every time, every time they'd go to commercial, they'd have a little picture and picture of Kornacki Kamm, which is like, well, you can't even flip channels. That's the best part of the show, right? Although I do say, I mean, Kornacki is just such an everyman, you know, at least from the journalism world, right? I mean, he came up at that time when they kind of had success with Chris Hayes and they were just sort of scouring the liberal journalism world

to try to find people who could go on air. And he found his niche, right? I mean, this is obviously the niche for him. He's done some hosting, but this is his place. I can just say, as someone who's, you know, traveled in these kind of New York journalism circles, I can't imagine there's a single one of us that would be excited to have a camera trained at her ass for like minutes and minutes at. a time while we read over our notes.

I mean, what a, I mean, it is just a, I love his, I love that they've sent him out there in khakis and his shirt, but like, that's the moment where I would just be like, oh, maybe I should put on a sports coat or something. Like, tie a, tie a sweater around my waist. It's just, it was just such a bizarre decision, but it was so amazing. I couldn't look away. At the one point, tonight, I think he was like, I just looked up and he was standing off to the side of his stage, but he had a mask. He had his COVID mask on, but he was holding a bottle of

water. And I was just like, I, like, I'm trying to piece together what's happening ahead of me. It's like, I appreciate he's wearing a mask, but he seems to be very close to the space where he doesn't wear a mask. And I'm not sure how he's drinking the water with like, if he's here to take a water break, then why the whole thing was so weird. But, oh, man, I loved it. I loved every moment of it. I'm so glad you brought up the body image stuff because I had exactly. the same thoughts. Maybe because I just looked at all the outtakes of our family Christmas card photos. I was like, ugh.

Not such a great angle. But when I was watching Kornacki, Cam, I was like, if this were me, I would be incredibly self-conscious about my butt. Like, my butt is just on TV for like four minutes at a time during a commercial. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I don't think I would be self-conscious if someone just saw me reading a, phone or just rifling through papers? And by the way, what are the printed pages that Steve

Cornackey has in front of them? I don't know, but they're awesome. They're all, I mean, it's not a script. Is that just like more numbers? Like, let me consult my numbers here. We just bought a printer at this house and it's the first printer, you know, I mean, obviously I had work printers and stuff. The first printer I've had at my home since probably like high school or something. I mean, you can, you might know better than me, but I'm very excited to start having just papers in my hand at all times. I just want to be just all the information I need, literally in the palm of my hand. That's going to be great.

I know Cornacki, like, deification is just a, you know, a right every two years on election night. Not only does he look the part of a data nerd, he looks like a journalist would look in a Superman comic. Yeah. I mean, he really does. Did you see this? Did you see the interview with him where he said that, like, he hasn't had breakfast in, like, 20, in, like, 30 years or something? They're asking how he prepares and he doesn't eat. He might have something light in the morning of election day, but he doesn't eat through

the night because the food slows him down. And they're like, what about breakfast? Or what do you have for breakfast today? And he's like, I haven't had breakfast in 28 years. You know, it was like he's, everything about him is just legendary. It just gets better and better. But it's, I mean, it was, his, his excitement was palpable. His competition, you know, John King has an amazing command of that board.

but his energy wasn't particularly high. He seemed to be pacing himself for an inning that never came. And then I don't know who like the various weathermen they had doing that running the board on Fox were. But, you know, it certainly wasn't the same. Listen, the Kornackie cam, everyone might not love it as much as me. And I hope to God that, you know, he wasn't, that, you know, that he didn't get, get the issues from it that apparently you or I would. But we've come a long way in media presentation since like the days of our childhood where, like, every news anchor had, like basically, like, had a hairstyle that only worked from one angle and

that was staring directly at a camera, you know, I mean, like, like, literally, like, if, if Peter Jennings or Ted Cople, like, turned sideways, there might have just been like, like, a black hole where the back of their head would be, you know, we had no idea. They only ever, they only ever were presented from one very specific angle, right? Yes, yes. And now, you know, people are just, just, just. hanging around, just joking, tossing their heads back, sometimes turning around to refer to data. I mean, it's a very different world.

A thought on John King versus Cornacke. John King reminds me of a great wide receiver who has a really shitty quarterback. Like, you know, when we say like Calvin Johnson in his prime or AJ Green, and you're like, man, imagine what he would have been with Tom Brady. That's what John King is like with Wolf Blitzer. it was it was so bizarre because john king seemed like a guy who knew everything and wolf blitzer seemed like a guy who knew nothing about what was happening in the election it was almost a physical manifestation of being online and being offline like when i'm just like calling home to talk to my mom you know it's like hey i don't know it's like now what's going on with wisconsin

you know what yeah what's going on with michigan meanwhile cornacki over there in msnbcc see Rachel Maddow is nerder than him. He'll finish his spiel and Rachel Maddow be like, actually, can we go back to Wayne County? Because I have a very specific question about the vote. And it was great because like half the time the questions that she asked would not be answered in a meaningful way or at least not in the way that you would think that it felt like she was teeing it up. And she would just be like, okay. And they would just move forward. Is it like, okay, you really just were looking for the information there.

I mean, listen, you can't get any further than the commercial. break shots of the Kornacki cam, then Wolf Blitzer on his like fully animated platform or like the video screen starts like where the cameraman is and in somewhere in the heaven. I mean, it was like he's on the fucking Starlight Express over there and like everything could not be more heavily produced. Uh, and then on the other channel, it's like like like, I mean, sure, they have like a like a very functional like, you know, giant iPad that you can like, you know, change the identify different data points on. But aside from that, I mean, it was like there's like you said papers in his hand there should have pencil behind his ear there's

practically like hamster wheels powering the whole thing from behind i mean it was a very very different aesthetic one more moment i wanted to run by you which was a 1120 easter time fox news pretty shockingly called the state of arizona for joe biden no one else had called it yet Arizona is absolutely key to donald trump winning the presidency if that goes joe Biden and as we talk here, it's at least somewhat in contention because they're still counting votes. Trump basically does not have a pathway to use that word again. So 1120 Fox calls Arizona, according to Maggie Hammerman and Annie Carney in the New York Times, Trump and his advisors, I'm quoting here, erupted at the news. Jason Miller, the Trump advisor, frantically called Fox News

asking the network to retract it. Fox did the smart thing. They put Arden, Michigan, the head of their decision desk, their nerd, out on camera to answer the charges. Listen to Michigan. Are you pulling back that call? We are not pulling back that call. There is vote, additional vote that will be reported in Maricopa County. We do not believe that this will change the tenor or the texture of the race. And we strongly believe that our call will stand.

And that's why we're not pulling back the call. I love tenor and texture of the race. Mm-hmm. also is there anything more powerful than when the nerd just shoot you down like that well the tinder and texture thing that stood out because it seemed like every time on the upshot on 538 on the decision any time just that there was a tiny pulling back of the curtain you felt like you could see the cracks forming like this whole thing was about the time i'm tumbling down we're measuring tinnor and texture are we you know the whole thing was very strange but yeah i mean

Michigan is just an incredible on-screen presence. I'm glad they try to, they know that he's there to be used for these sorts of moments. The Arizona thing is really weird. I mean, the kind of nerdy balance to that is Nate Silver, who this evening is out there, you know, saying, I don't have to see any reason that they should have called Arizona, as close as it is, even though he thinks it's still leaning Biden. Nate Silver has done a lot in this, in the past 24 to, 36 hours of just sort of shoulder shrugging at other people's results.

You know, it's just like, well, I guess we got to wait for more information to come in. You know, I mean, but I guess that's in some ways his job. It's just not the job, the version of Nate that we sort of imagine Nate to be. But, but yeah, I mean, the Arizona thing is weird. It's still only, let me check my calling board here. Oh, yeah, please. It's still only Fox News and the AP that have called it. And traditionally, you know, we see when anybody calls it, no matter how reckless it may

be, they generally bear, they almost always bear out to be right, right? I mean, it's like it's, you know, they might be doing it a little bit rush, but like they have their reason to do it, just like they do it any other call. But still, we're a day later and nobody's, I mean, it's nobody has joined in. No. And the actual explanation from Brian Stelter of CNN says the AP and Fox News are relying on one set of voter analysis data while CNN and the broadcast networks are relying on a different set of exit poll data. That's the primary reason why Fox and the AP have Biden at 200 64 electoral votes a higher number than the other outlets that make projections. We'll see.

You're right. The decisions, decision desks often arrive at these, at these decisions at different points, sometimes hours apart, but they are mostly very, day apart. Yeah,

but they're mostly very, very good at getting it right. And it would be a Florida-like miss for Fox and Arna and Michigan to have missed this if, in fact, Donald Trump comes back and wins Arizona. Part of me, thanks.

And, you know, I think I said this. And if it sounds a little bit conspiratorial, I apologize. But I said this to you last night when Ohio looked like it was in the Biden column. And it seemed like if you won that, there was no path for Trump. I wondered if networks wouldn't be extra cautious about calling Ohio because that sort of like puts the pin in the narrative, right? I mean, that sort of ballgame. And I wonder if that's a little bit what's going on with Arizona right now, too. I mean, they're still looking at different data.

But as far as no matter what data you're looking at, the fact that you're looking at, the fact. that someone's called this is a data point that is meaningful often to other networks, right? But at this, but we're at the point now where calling Arizona is not getting, on the, on the 0.01% chance you're going to get Arizona wrong. It's not getting Arizona wrong. It's getting the election wrong, right? It's sort of hard to walk it back at that point. So that has to factor in. Totally. Totally. Absolutely agree. And then the, the actual data is Arizona plus Nevada, but yes, you're right. If If the networks all came out in called Arizona, they would essentially be saying that Joe Biden has won the election.

That's a really great point. David, in thinking about who we could have on today in the aftermath or the half aftermath of the presidential election, there was pretty much one person I wanted to talk to. It was Jamel Hill, who's been on this podcast before, who we always are interested in hearing from. This was a really interesting interview and a really fun one. Here's Jamel Hill. All right, Jamel Hill is here. Atlantic writer, co-host of the Vice Show, Stick to Sports, historian and critic of the Wire right here at the Ringer. We're talking at 530 Pacific on Wednesday.

Joe Biden hasn't quite won the presidency, and Donald Trump hasn't quite lost it. But Biden is a lot closer to winning than Donald Trump is. Where is your head at right now? I guess it's somewhere between being cautiously optimistic and also kind of pissed off, if you will, because even though I knew based off the data, the pundits, that everybody was predicting that this would not be an easy race

by any stretch of the imagination. They predicted Joe Biden would win, but it was one of those things where it'd be more like maybe a field goal or a touchdown, not necessarily, or late touchdown, I should say. It was not going to be one where he ran up the story. score or, you know, something that would have given people a little bit more at ease. And I guess, you know, the reason why I am a little angry is because, or at least frustrated, maybe angry is not the word, I'm frustrated because I was willing on some level to give people

a pass for 2016. You know, Donald Trump is a showman. And while certainly why he ran a lot of the same racist language and rhetoric that we heard the last, you know, four years. he ran on that language. So it wasn't necessarily a surprise there. But I did realize that there were people who were feeling as if they had not been heard by the government that were frustrated. This was their way of sticking it to elitist,

to the liberals and all that. I realized there was a lot to it, that it was kind of complicated when people voted for them. But we have just seen four years of a shit show. And to know that Donald Trump got more support this time around. 220,000 plus people are dead from COVID.

He certainly has not eased up on playing footsies with white supremacists. He has encouraged them. He has given them a voice. And, you know, he has not any less racist than he was the day he left office. And so to know that there were still takers for this is frankly really disheartening.

And I sent this on Twitter and people were upset that I said it. I don't care necessarily. Is that, you know, this to me is still on white people. And people need to thank every black person they see if Joe Biden wins up winning this election. Because based up what the returns are, especially in Pennsylvania and Michigan, saw how Detroit turned out the majority of black city, Philadelphia, like all of these majority black cities show they did their job.

They decided to save a democracy. that does not often consider them, that marginalizes them, that overlooks them. And yet you have this other group of people who are just like, we're all good with the racism. We're all good with it. It's fine. Because at the very least, either you're a racist or you are okay with it. And I don't know what that makes you if you're okay with it. But to me, it makes you being closer to a racist.

So there, on one end, there is, you know, cautious optimism. There's also frustrating. It's a frustration that we're back at this point in the conversation. Absolutely. And I saw after you tweeted that, you tweeted later, I'm all for, working together, but to do that requires an uncomfortable amount of honesty. And I think for a lot of people, right, that's the thing here. Let's say Joe Biden wins by a field goal or by a touchdown and a two-point conversion, which may be where we get to by tomorrow. Then what? You know,

okay, well, that's good. But then what happens, right? What happens to all the stuff that has been super-sized and over the last four years? Well, that to me is going to be a really hard thing to overcome. I mean, maybe we'll get there eventually, but this bigotry that was unleashed is not going away. In fact, I think what will happen is in many respects, it will get bolder because I think they will see this, they will see that maybe all we need is somebody who's just acquired a racist,

okay? and that the same people who have, you know, consider themselves having a voice now, having, you know, having a level of acceptance with their bigotry, they won't, they're not going to become less bigoted. They're not going to go crawling back from wherever they came from. They're going to remain out. And so I think that it's put our nation at a very difficult point.

I understand middle ground, but there's no middle ground with people who hate your existence. I don't know what that is. There's no middle ground with people who deny your humanity, with people who are intolerant of who you are as a person who don't want to see full equality. There's no middle ground there. I can't work with you. So this idea that we're just supposed to forget everything that we saw in the last four years,

frankly, there's only a privileged people who can say that. I can't personally say that. And there are just some factions that have been exposed that I am going to be unable to forgive. I'm not forgetting anything. I'm going to be petty. So all those people who want to go on a redemption tour after they have exposed themselves under Donald Trump, I'm not here for that shit at all.

Yeah. And by the way, in the fantasy scenario where Joe Biden won 350 electoral votes, we'd be having the same conversation, wouldn't we? It's not like there's this group of Trump supporters. Well, you know, he got his butt kicked. Well, but you know what? I will say this.

If it was a landslide that those who were a little, who are more complicit as opposed to being outright, kind of brutish as some of these Trump supporters are, I think the complicit ones, that would have shown the complicit ones actually felt a little shame, that they were embarrassed by who they voted for in 2016. But what it looks like, for the most part, is that some people double down.

And I know there's going to be a lot of conversation as we unpack this election about how Trump did a little bit better with black men, you did a little bit better with black women, a little bit better with Latinos. Like, there's going to be that conversation. But I am not going to allow the narrative to be that that's what got Donald Trump more support than before.

No, what got him, the whole reason we have him, period, is because of white people, period. And that is an indisputable effect. And even though he may have lost a few, you know, white male supporters, the reality is that 50% of white people support this dude, and that is going to be hard to overlook. Biden ran from the very start on this platform of healing. How much healing is really feasible in the United States, and how would we even do that as a country? Well, usually the way healing happens, if we think about our personal relationships, is that it's got to be some ownership over the wrongs that were committed.

It's got to be some level of accountability. it's got to be some level of contrition. And the reason why our country generally has not been able to heal a lot of our racial wounds is because we like the fairy tale of believing we're better than we actually are. And I hope if there's anything these last eight years exposed is that we're not.

We actually, that country we think we are, we're not that country, okay? You know, we used to say with sometimes, you know, when I was growing up, with girls who were kind of conceded is like, you're not as fine as you think you are. And that is America right now. America thought they were a dime,

and it turns out we are nickel. And so I need for all of us to understand that portion of it. And if we do, we actually can go make some progress. But my concern, because historically this is the case, and presently this is the case, that there's going to be far more energy toward clinging toward the same systems and the same structures and the same racism that got us here, as opposed to actually trying to dismantle it and actually admitting that we need to be able to be honest about

where we are and where we aren't from a racial standpoint. I mean, I just think you and I grew up in the 90s, and there was this thing in the 90s called a national conversation, remember? We had the national conversation about race like three times. And I just think like in addition to that being like kind of a TV show idea of national healing. I just think like, how would that even, you know, can that happen person to person? Sure. Can that happen on Twitter or somewhere in social media? Kind of, maybe in a way.

But I don't even understand beyond that. I don't even understand the mechanism by which that would happen in this country. Well, I think it's got to happen where there's got to be white people who are actively, they're actively okay. and actively pursue sort of rejecting their privilege to some degree. I give me sort of what I mean by that is, you know, I'm old enough to remember how, you know, I don't know, five, six months ago, we were having this racial conversation. You had corporations releasing all these statements saying,

Black Lives Matter, and we're here for the Black people. And, you know, I had, on Twitter, you would see Black, white people apologize and ask it for reading lists. A friend of I pointed out how there was at one point during all these conversations, where like the top five books on the New York Times bestseller list by all were black by black authors and all about race. So white people will buy these books and like, all right, we end black people. We hear.

And I don't know what happened in between that conversation and this one. And then we get to the election. It's like, oh, yeah, but 50% of us like we're doing with racism. It was like, wait, what? I thought we just had this conversation. I thought something was happening here. So what usually what it requires is for people to, equality doesn't mean you give something up,

but we have to have more of a mentality of sharing. And what I have discovered and what history has shown us is that people don't want to share. They do not want to share in not just the wealth. They don't want to share in the equality. They look at it as a zero-sum game. If you have equality, that means I have none. And it's because of that mentality that we have been unable to progress past certain things.

So I just don't know if we're at a point where there are white people who are willing to reject white supremacy. I just don't think they haven't gotten there. And until they get there, we're going to be in trouble. They didn't make it through the reading list. I mean, you know, they bought the book. They bought the books. Maybe they didn't open it. Maybe they just sort of skim through it and like missed all the good parts.

I don't know what happened. But, yeah, that conversation about the racial reckoning, as I feared it would, it ran out of steam real fast. I want to circle back to a point you made a second ago because Ben Rhodes, who was an Obama National Security Advisor, tweeted this last night. He says, looking at black voters in Milwaukee, Detroit, Philadelphia, at Atlanta, it's striking that people who have been treated the worst by our democracy consistently do the most to save it. Now that we have the full arc of this election going back to that South Carolina Democratic primary, which was so striking, how do you think we'll look at the role of black voters in this election? So I hope that black voters have celebrated. And I hope it encourages the people who have the power to really, I think one of the first things

that Joe Biden is elected, they've got to do. And as the Democratic Party has got to do, they have got to dismantle voter suppression. They have got to have an all hands on deck full out war because Republicans have been playing that long game forever. And they fell asleep at the wheel. They watched it happen and they didn't do anything about it. And so now that they have become a party that frankly is completely dependent on black turnout. Like the Democratic Party can't win anything without us, knowing that you need to do everything possible to make it easier for us to vote. Nicole Hannah Jones, who as you know was a big part of the 1619 project within the New York Times, she said something to me that I have just not

forgotten. She said that black people are the most inconvenient people because we actually remind and want America to live up to everything it promised. We remind you of that all the time. But like, didn't you say this was equality? Didn't you say that inalienable rights? Wasn't that what you said? We're constantly reminding this country of what they said and what they supposedly stand for. And that's why many of us, myself included, we get so upset when, you're our patriotism is questioned or the fact that patriotism has come to be defined as something that's purely white. Show me somebody or a race of people that would, despite the fact they don't even have full rights and full equality in their own country, want to fight for this country, as they

have done in every war. Show me a people that would be willing to die for this country, despite the inequitable treatment, despite facing systems of oppression left and right, that's what black people are about. And in this democracy, even though white people showed that they wanted to back a racist, misogynist, white supremacist, black people decided that even though it was going to be

much harder for them to vote, especially in places like Georgia, that en masse that we were going to have historic turnout everywhere to change the face and tone of this country, for that not to be recognized would be a slap in the face, which is why I said, despite the uptick that there was a marginalized group of Trump support, the story has to be what white people didn't do. Don't talk to me about Black Lives Matter, and then you lack the conviction to do the hard work when the voting starts, right? So it's like we have to make sure

that the narrative is that, once again, black people save America from itself. You would think Joe Biden, people would understand this. I hope that he does. And this is, even though I know, you know, you mentioned the primary, and I'm glad you brought that up because I know that at least there was a lot of conversation, certainly in the black community, about the flaws that Joe Biden clearly has. Yep. But black people being pragmatic voters, they also knew that the best person to be the old white guy is another old white guy, is that they had to give white people a choice.

that they could believe in. So frankly, that vote was for that. And it's a shame that that has to be the case that black people feel like they can't vote for Kamala Harris. They can't afford to vote for a Cory Booker or Julian Castro or anybody other than a white guy because history has shown us that is what the picture of leadership

at the presidential level, except for one, is in this country. Right? So I guess I say all that to say is that now that we, have a president that we can actually hold accountable that knows that he is only there, literally because black people wield it, then there better be some queer pro quo. And not four years from now, not two years, like almost immediately. And, you know, I think that at least from what I've seen and what I've read that Joe Biden has been able to build a coalition of people, I think that will ensure this will happen.

But he can't be while he's in office trying to constantly use his time to capitulate to these Trump voters who've already made it or Trump supporters who've made it clear where they stand. I hope he doesn't spend his energy doing that. Spend your energy reinvesting in black and brown communities, making sure that we have free and fair access to elections, closing the racial wealth gap, improving education in these communities. That's where he needs to spend his time if he and Kamala Harris want to stay. there. And it's a two-sided problem, isn't it? It's one, is Joe Biden on board and then is likely Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, this wall that the Obama administration ran into again and again and again going to do anything about this, right? Are going to let anything happen? I would say use the playbook that was just established. How many executive orders did Donald Trump do?

Which she got from Obama because Obama had to do it because he had a hostile Congress. Joe Biden and the Democratic Party in general, they need to understand they're dealing with a different element. That Republican Party of coalition building and across the aisle, that nicety stuff, doesn't exist anymore. The party was overtaken by Trump. And before it was overtaken by Trump, it was overtaken by the Tea Party, right? So we got full-out races that are in Congress on the Republican side of things. So the idea of trying to build bridges with them, I think he needs to never go down that route. That's not to say they become obstinate.

Those that want to be on board will be on board for sure. There'll be natural coalition building. So I'm not necessarily talking about that. But he needs to go in there with the same brave and bold attitude that Donald Trump did when it came to undoing Obama. Go in there and undo everything that dude did just like he did for the previous one

within your power as president. Because Donald Trump was in their testing powers of the presidency I didn't even know it was possible. And so he needs to do. do the same thing. And the thing is the Republicans can't say anything because they just let it ride. They just let it ride. So executive order away Joe Biden. That's my advice to you. But the worrying thing, right, is there was a lot of bridge building in the Biden pitch, right? I'm going to, I'm going to go to those reasonable Republicans. And they're going to, once Trump is

at office, they're going to become reasonable again. And we can work together like we did in some fantasy time that we don't remember. They're just going to conspire again to try to overtake the presidency in another four years, all right? And so I, you know, Joe Biden has been in public office for 40-something years. So he may think this is the Republican Party of old, but it is, it is not. And I just hope that they go in there with, frankly, a take-no-prisoners attitude, because if they want to ensure that there is a wave of progressiveness that follows his presidency, they will do that. And he also has to realize he has an opportunity to do something in store. I mean, Kamala Harris being vice president is already historic.

But considering she just ran for president, I mean, he could very well be walking a black woman into the presidential chair. And that's a responsibility he needs to take very seriously. I was going to ask you about that next. What are your thoughts on Harris right now if she becomes vice president? I think it's, you know, much like how a lot of black people period, clearly when Obama was put in the office, it was a very significant special. historic moment. But I think it will be that kind of moment for black women. That's not to say that black men won't celebrate it. Of course, it will. But it will be super meaningful for us, especially at this time in the country where you have black women as the most educated group in the country,

black women being the number one business owners more so. They're the only ethnic group who owns more businesses than their male counterparts. You see a lot of black women kind of stepping into a sense of power. And she represents that. She is somebody who has ran her campaign unapologetically, who, you know, being a black attorney general. I mean, one of two black senators, I mean, this is, she has been breaking barriers for a really, really long time.

And so I think for us to see that you can get to where she has been able to rise to being not just unapologetic, but also. not concerned about what her ambition looks like, which a lot of women, not just black women, worry about, is being too ambitious. Remember when that whole thing came up when Joe Biden was deciding? So it's really monumental to be an historically black college graduate,

you know, to be in a black sorority is that it has, for black people, for black women, it will provide us with a certain kind of validation about the type of power about what's possible for us. us, particularly in the hierarchy, you know, black women are, if not at the bottom, very close to the bottom. So this is a huge signal boost, I think, for everything that we've been through. A really low-key, crappy moment in this election was Peggy Noonan getting mad at Harris for dancing during that one rally after we've seen Donald Trump do the village people thing like this?

Yeah, I mean, just when I go back and look at some of the coverage of her, not just her presidential campaign, but once she was announced to be the vice presidential nominee to be on the ticket, it just shows how far we have to come because there's definitely a way we cover women, especially women in high power positions like hers. But it's even more obnoxious how we cover black women. You know, she's had to face questions about her blackness. She's had to face, you know, questions about her choices and a husband. I mean, her choice in a husband.

It's like she had to really battle through a lot of different things. I mean, it's one thing to have to defend your record as a prosecutor and attorney general. That's expected. But I have to defend who you love to have to defend whether or not you were listening to Tupac as you were smoking weed. Like, this is just dumb stuff. So it just shows that there's just a different level of scrutiny when you're a black woman. And I hope people are able to see the nuance of when you have to deal with, racism and sexism at the same time.

And don't forget birtherism on that list either. Oh, forgot about that one. Thanks for reminded me. It's a long list. Yes. Is she even from here? It's like, okay, what are we doing? Before we go, I want to take you back to September 2017.

You're working at ESPN. You tweeted that Donald Trump was a white supremacist. By coincidence, I was writing a feature story about you at that very moment. And I was like, well, I guess I got to put this in the lead. Right. If we are truly at the end of the Trump presidency, and I want to emphasize it's a big maybe, but if we are, are you able to look now, kind of come full circle on that moment and see what it did to your life, to your career and everything at this point? Yeah. I mean, now I can certainly, you know, kind of take that reflective look on it.

You know, at the time, it just felt like my whole life was exploding. And now that the dust is settled, I realized it was a necessary component in the journey. I've always been the type of person. I'm a big picture thinker. I look at, you know, that there's a reason that everything happens. And while I had no idea when I said that tweet, what it would exactly lead to, but what it led to is something is why I will never regret that it happened.

Even though there was a lot of things that happened along the way I didn't particularly like and I didn't enjoy going through. I didn't like seeing some of the people I respected and cared about it, ESPN, being kind of drugged through the mud just because they were associated with me. I didn't like that. I didn't like what happened to our show and a lot of other things. But if the end game is this,

it's hard for me to look at it regretfully. I'm asked a lot if I feel validated because of how things have turned out because what people saw for the next couple years from Donald Trump and maybe even more so now if he winds up being booted out of office. I don't feel validated

because I wish I was wrong. You know, that's the thing. If there was one regret I had, if I wanted to really comb and dig for a regret, it said, I wish I wasn't right. I wish it turned out that Donald Trump was misunderstood and became this fabulous president that was able to govern and interested in governing all people, rather than dividing people.

I wish she wasn't somebody who seemed to be, you know, the white supremacist poster boy of the month. I wish that wasn't the case. But unfortunately, it was. And it gives me no great comfort that the last four years that we've had to put up with that, that we've had to deal with this high level of incompetence and bigotry. So while, yes, I may have been right if you want to put it in those terms, it didn't, it's not one of those where, you know, it feels good to be right. This is not a sports prediction where I got my Super Bowl pick correct.

All right. This is a little bit more on the line here. So, so yeah, I mean, but I look at everything that I've gone through as a result. And through the most difficult moments came a really bright moment for me. It helped me, frankly, reimagining my career in a way. I don't know if I was courageous enough to reimagine before that happened. This forced me into a space and to begin to be more of a creator and an owner as opposed to just an employee.

You know, it's just somebody that went to work and did what they were supposed to do and came home. You know, now I'm a business owner. Now I'm a content creator. An executive producer of a production company. None of that. I don't know if it gets in the gear the way that it did if that tweet isn't fired off. Check out Jamel Hill at the Atlantic on Stick to,

sports here on the ringers wire podcast way down in the hole are you in van doing season five we are we about to start season five my least favorite season i was going to say are we going to do that thing where we rehabilitate everything can season five possibly be rehabilitated i mean and it feels bad to say that the wire had a bad season but that was a bad season you know how when you read a Wikipedia page on a really bad movie and it tells you how terrible the movie and then the last sentence is but it became a cult classic like everything has to become a cult. Season five cannot become a cult classic. Now, let's

open this rewatch. I'm suddenly like, you know, I had a change of heart. I don't think that I will. In fact, I probably wind up being even harsher on it. Jamel, thanks for coming on the press box. I appreciate it. Thanks, Brian. All right, it's time for David Shoemaker. Guesses the strained pun headline. Oh, all right.

Monday's headline about a creature that can taste with its arms was when it comes to octopuses, taste is for suckers. That's good. I forgot to bring up that the octopus's octopi thing. Someday we will investigate why weren't you led to believe octopi

was like cacti, but maybe not. Rhinocerite. I'm not quite sure if that was a made up one from like Dr. Seuss books. But a lot of those turned out to be just sort of variable. And I think the plural eye stuck with us

because it was so interesting when you were a kid. But yeah, anyway, we can go into that later. Today's headline comes from Michael Edgecombe. It's from the Associated Press. You mentioned, David, the election conspiracy theory in Arizona called SharpieGate. It has been shared by none other than Eric Trump.

The theory is that poll workers in Arizona were giving Sharpies to Trump voters to mark their ballot. The idea being that the ballots would not count because this was the wrong pin. This was kind of like the threat that you could only do your SAT with a number two pencil. That if it were a number one pencil, your score would be. be completely invalidated. I bet, by the way, very let down by the lack of the term Scantron over the past 36 hours. I feel like, I feel like somebody should be making Scantron jokes. I mean, there's an audience for it. I'll get you started on this headline, David. Claim that Sharpie Pins ruin Arizona ballots. Dot, dot, dot, dot. Claim that Sharpie Pins ruin Arizona

ballots. Dot, dot, dot, dot, what was the rest of the AP's strain pun headline? Yeah. Is it like not written in ink or a sharpie doesn't wash something like that it doesn't I like what you're thinking won't come on it's a little different

what if I give you the word mark made it's mark leaves a mark marks take the side door there not not made it's mark but the opposite of making the mark is erased it. I have no left its mark. Ruin Arizona ballots misses the mark.

Oh, stupid. Yes, that's great. Okay. He is David Shoemaker, I'm Brian Curtis. Research by Chris Al made a production magic by Erica Servantes. As Wolf Blitzer would say, David,

we're going to be monitoring these events. You will probably hear from us again on Monday. but you might hear from us before that if something happens that we don't anticipate. If David keeps refreshing that page with what media outlets made the calls and he sees something he doesn't like. Next week,

we're going to talk a ton more about this very interesting, very unexpected in its tone and textures presidential election and its fallout, the media ramifications. And otherwise, on Monday, we're going to have a very big time political reporter.

I can pry him away from his computer. On Thursday, David Dwight Garner, book critic from the New York Times is going to be on this show. We will have more tone and texture about the media, plus those lukewarm takes you've come to enjoy. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.