The Press Box - De Blasio’s Announcement, Stephen A. Smith, and Brian Williams's Return | The Press Box

Episode Date: May 21, 2019

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio has entered the 2020 presidential race (03:00), Stephen A. Smith had an amazing half-week of content (21:00), and Brian Williams is back (36:30). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly and welcome to the Ringer podcast network. Before you get to the show, make sure you check out the ringer.com for our extensive NBA playoff coverage leading up to the NBA finals. Also look out for a 2019 NBA draft guide, which now features 50 of Kevin O'Connor's scouting reports. The draft guide has a first round mock draft, big board rankings from our draft experts like Jonathan Charks and Danny Chow, and much more to come leading up to the draft itself on June 20th. Once again, check out the Ringer's 2019 NBA draft guide. and all of our NBA coverage over on the ringer.com. David, Game of Thrones ended on Sunday. And there's already some concern in the media.

I'm not naming any names here. I'm going to leave all the names of the websites out of it. There is some concern in the media that the traffic gathering, boosting properties of Game of Thrones cannot be replicated. Oh, right. What I want to know is, what would you cover

to fill the traffic gap left by Game of Thrones. Wow. Well, the trailer they ran on Sunday night for Westworld was spectacular. And as someone who has spent a large portion of his life at one point in time doing a Westworld podcast. You mean we're just going to start covering other shows in microscopic detail? We don't just do Game of Thrones? I often wonder. I mean, there's certainly an end of the monoculture thing about this. wrote about it on The Ringer and it's a lot of people have talked about it. I often wonder if there's a, you know, if we all just decided that we're going to be this in on whatever Star Trek

show is running on CBS All Access or whatever. I mean, is there a wait? Could we, can we artificially manufacture this level of excitement and attention? Probably not. I think that, you know, for better or worse, we're going to be paying a lot of attention to this presidential election for the next little bit, Although taking all of the brain space that we all collectively spend on Game of Thrones and putting into politics might be a vague public good, but it's, I don't think anybody would say that's a, you know, smart allocation of our mental resources. Here's the way I think those two things will come along because just like every important television show, we will get to the end of the presidential election. We'll have this incredible monoculture night of television. Yeah. And then we will get the take we get at the end.

of Game of Thrones in every TV show, which is the finale, left a lot of viewers disappointed and with a lot of outstanding questions. So, I think that's it. I think that's exactly right. We are the peak TV of media podcast. This is the press box, a part of the Ringer podcast network. Well done.

The Pressbox is the media podcast where you're no longer allowed to write a piece comparing anyone to a Game of Thrones character. The window has closed. Get a new angle. Now, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker of the Ringer here with three topics for your pleasure and amusement. First, David,

if you thought the presidential campaign of Seth Moulton was kind of random, wait till you get a load of Bill de Blasio. We discuss what in God's name the mayor of New York City is doing in the Democratic primary. Second, ESPN, Stephen A. Smith had quite a week, and we tried to decipher what exactly happened there. That's all I can say. And finally, I wanted to spend a smidge more time on the topic of Brian Williams, because Brian Williams' fabulous news anchor is back.

really back. Should he be? All that plus the notebook dump and the overworked Twitter joke of the week. But David, let's start with Bill de Blasio. Can I give you a couple of scenes from the early stages

of the de Blasio for president campaign? Oh God, please do. This is via Eric Lack of the New Yorker. On Thursday, the official start of his candidacy, de Blasio's first stop was Good Morning America where he dubbed the president

con Don. Cond Don. Do we think that Bill de Blasio is going to win the nickname wars against Donald Trump? I kind of suspect not. And then another scene from the New York Daily News is Anna Sanders. Before that interview, DeBlasio staged a provocative Green New Deal press conference at Trump Tower. According to Sanders, Trump supporters swore, booed, and chanted while de Blasio spoke, carrying signs declaring him to be the worst mayor ever with depictions of the failed mayor as a donkey

excrement and Sesame Street's Big Bird. So we really run the gamut there of references. What do you think, let's start with a basic question. Why is Bill de Blasio running for president? Well, there's, you know, been a lot of scuttle butt floating around the Twitter sphere that he hates his job and is looking for any sort of graceful exit. And this is sort of a, I don't know, graceful is going to actually. be the best way to describe it, but this is a, this is one way to pull the eject your seat

without looking like you're running, running away. Who knows? I mean, I think that if even given, you know, the benefit of the doubt, it's sort of like what I think you talked about with, with Pete Buttigieg a while back. I mean, being the mayor of New York is a terminal job, right? I mean, there's like very few, very few mayors would, you know, have any interest or ability to going to be governor of the state of New York. And I don't think anyone will really see that as a promotion unless you're just a, you know, diehard machine politician or technocrat or, I mean, I don't even know what the rationale would be. And, you know, I think that there's a lot, being the mayor of New York City, it feels like an amazing gig and an amazing accomplishment, and it is.

But, you know, I think that there's a degree to which you're, you know, maybe your ego gets overinflated because the attention that you get or you're or just the you know number the the the recognition that you have compared to other major city mayors um and yeah i mean i think at some point you if you're a politician you want to keep being a politician you've got to look around for what the next gig is going to be and uh there's really only one you know certifiable step up from mayor of new york now that doesn't mean it makes any rational sense i mean i don't i don't think that i mean this is this is a misbegotten candidacy from day one but I'm not, I mean, and, and it is, you know, it is, it's, it's, well, I'll just stick with misbegotten,

but, you know, also misbegotten, we should see, we, we should say we're, you know, in different ways and, and to different degrees, where those, the, the candidacies of Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani, you know, I mean, the idea that you can just catapult yourself from that platform to the presidency is, is, you know, I think it's a, it's a weird move that's exclusive to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, the minds of New York mayors. And even those guys had a lot more national resonance. Sure. Than Bill de Blasio has.

So let's say part of it is delusions of grandeur. As you say, you're the New York mayor, but he's telling you how great you are. Part of it, I assume, with de Blasio, is he thinks he has some non-zero chance of winning this thing, maybe closer to zero than non-zero, but some chance, especially for a guy and lack-nots of the,

nods at this in the New Yorker who was not expected to be the mayor of New York. And we want to want an upset in the Democratic primary there. I would say the other thing with all these people who are marginal cancer running is I just think they figured out in some ways that, you know, the take, the take you and I have been trotting out and that everybody's been trotting out is, you know, you're going to get a book deal, you'll get more name recognition, you'll get a cable news job, you'll, you'll improve your your prospects in some ways, but I think even just refining it down a little bit is they figured out there's just this giant thirst, especially on cable news for content. And that if the moment

you declare yourself a presidential candidate, your content, you, you are in. And it doesn't really matter if you have no chance at all. I was just looking at the CNN announcement today. They're next, they have better O'Rourke this week for a town hall. And then their next four town halls are Michael Bennett, Senator from Colorado, the aforementioned Seth Moulton, Tim Ryan, and Eric Swalwell. Like, none of those guys have any chance of being president of the United States. The last three have less than no chance of being president of the United States. And they're getting full highbrow CNN town halls that are about the quote unquote issues. But that's just because CNN needs programming.

Yeah. Right? And these guys have figured out like, hey, I'm going to get an hour on CNN. If I may, you know, I'm coming from England, so excuse the terminology. If I'm a backbencher in Congress, I'm not getting an hour on CNN. But man, as soon as I declare for president, I'm going to be on TV. Yeah. And this is awesome. Yeah, I think that's right. There's no downside, right? I mean, I guess there is a downside, which would be just like a totally ignominious campaign. I mean, just some sort of like controversy. some sort of just fall from grace. But yeah, I mean, measured the way that you just described, it seems like there's no downside. And I don't think there should be an implicit downside. This isn't like a, or an inherent downside. I don't think that we should set up the election so that like, you know, you got to put up

your own money and risk losing it or something like that. Of course not. But it does seem like we're in a weird space where, I mean, listen, this is the way we talked about Trump before he got elected. And I'm not saying that any of these people you mentioned have even a chance to be a dark horse like Trump was. You can't, you can't discount anything, but the idea that Trump was just, you know, running, running for office to increase his national profile so that, you know, he could do better, I mean, increase his business portfolio or just be taken more seriously. I mean,

there's a lot of reasons why people would run that don't involve necessarily winning the election. Yeah, I would say maybe not no downside, but the downside is less than it's ever been. I think the downside for de Blasio is that he's in the midst of what, what is, you know, generously going to be described as a semi-successful stint as mayor of New York. And if this is a big adventure that takes him away from New York and it goes badly, that his terms as mayor are going to look even worse. And presumably he sort of cares about that. I know as a politician, you're supposed to stop caring about that once you get reelected

and you just, as you say, you just run for something else. But, you know, I think there's some part of him that maybe care. about that, but maybe not. And maybe that's just such a frustrating job. And additionally, it is just being a limiting job, as you said. It's so frustrating. You're going to get killed by all the papers no matter what you do. Um, or because of what you do in his case. And there you are. I had another campaign story. I'd love to shoehorn in the segment, which is Elizabeth Warren refusing to do the town hall on Fox News. Oh, yeah. This is something interesting because we've, we've played around with us. But the argument

sort of boils down to let's not create content for this channel. and ratings for this channel and somehow legitimize this channel versus we, and by we I mean Elizabeth Warren, maybe especially here, need to talk to and reach the kind of people who watch Fox News. Are those the terms of the argument?

Yeah, more or less. For sure. I just, it's interesting to me because when I saw her do that, I believe, I believe she believes what she says about Fox News. At the same time, though, I think these are all moral decisions halfway and also strategic decisions.

And it's a very on brand for Elizabeth Warren, who is running as more electable Bernie Sanders. And Bernie Sanders with more plans to say, I'm not going to do this. Yeah. Just like it's on brand for Buttigieg, who was just on there on a Chris Wallace interview, to go do it because he is running as, you know, Mr. Heartland. I can speak to the people of Indiana Democrat. Yeah. And we talked about this with Howard Stern last week.

I always think like people want to say this is a, this is a moral choice or a strategic choice. And with most human beings, especially human beings running for president, it's usually a combination of both. Yeah. I mean, I think we've seen this from Warren or from her campaign a few times. I mean, when she, before she announced when she released that video about her background, I mean, I'm sure she, I mean, we know that she, that was all meaningful to her.

and she believed every bit of it, but it felt like a calculated political move with an eye towards a candidacy when she calls for Trump's impeachment, I think I said last week or the week before, that it felt calculated in its way even though I'm sure she wouldn't have done it just in a purely, you know,

just a showperson style. And this feels the same way. I mean, and you know, you have to say that I think that the more electable Bernie thing is right, but in the absence of Bernie Sanders, she would probably be the one that was being, you know, tarred as a socialist and probably would have gotten a lot more of the steam behind a campaign than that,

I mean, a lot of that energy that he received. But with Bernie there and with Bernie having, you know, a previous campaign undergirding this one, it's, you know, she's,

she is scrapping for that far left Democrat base, right? I mean, she's, she, she, at this point, the calculation, has to be that she doesn't feel like she can

campaign with an eye towards a general election yet. Right? I mean, at this point, she's still trying to shore up her hard left bona fides and, you know, we'll see how that goes. Yeah, I'd say medium left to hard love somewhere in there. But yeah, no, I agree. And I think

I think we could also, by the way, draw a pretty direct connection between candidates who need to go on Fox News because where are they in the polls and candidates that actually go on Fox News. I mean, if you're Elizabeth Warren right now, Bernie's lost some ground on the polls. You're creeping up a little bit. You're definitely, at least in the Nate Silver first tier of candidates, there's a path

to you for winning this nomination. And for somebody else, there's probably not. So it's like you don't necessarily have to take that bait and go on there. Yeah. I noticed John Delaney, another Randow running for president, tweeted at her, if you're not using your town hall, I will because he needs it. But, you know, I just, it's always fine to me to see like, and I know there's like so many people who are parts of liberal Twitter or and or Democratic primary voters who are like,

who have really serious feelings about Fox News. I would just, I would just suggest that this probably contains a lot of strategy and running for president is taking things you believe or sort of believe and turning them into things. that will appeal to voters. And this is what she's doing with this, just like all of her other positions that she's throwing out there to try to get votes.

Yeah. I mean, it's all political. Fair? Yeah, but it's, and it's calculus. I mean, if you go on too, it's all political calculus, right? I mean, for one thing, if you go on, you get double the news cycle,

one of the agreeing, agreeing to go in the town hall and then the actual town hall. And then whatever you do when you get there, the performance is it, is an endeavor to get the sort of attention that Elizabeth Warren, uh, you know, presumably tried to get by not going on at all.

So, you know, it's not exclusive to this decision made by one campaign. It's all the same thing. I was going to talk a little bit about Bernie and the New York Times interview, but let's do that next week because I think there's some interesting things there too. And let me hard cut directly to 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, David. by the way, got an important note from listener Brian Terrison in Seattle who tweets at us, what are the future betting lines on the Pete reboot a judge overworked Twitter joke of the week?

So we've had the Beto reboot. We've had the Kamala Harris reboot. Will we have reboot a judge? David, what kind of cousin Sal odds would you like to put on that? I think those are really strong odds. I don't really know how odds work, but I would, but I would, I would, I wouldn't, I would say, you know, somewhere in the two to one range. I got an

an overword Twitter joke from Ralph Horowitz in Australia, in Melbourne. And you know what a fan I am of Australian culture. Sure. But I couldn't actually understand the joke. And it was about, so Bob Hawk, who was the beloved former prime minister of Australia, guy who modernized the Australian economy,

did a lot of other things, very well liked, just passed away. And Ralph was drawing me to all the Twitter jokes about people suggesting that Bob Hawke, that you take a day off because Bob Hawk died. So I turned to my friend Russell Jackson, Australia, and he explains this overwork Twitter joke course.

You might say translating it from Australian into American. And he says after Australia won the America's Cup yacht race in 1983, Hawk as PM said any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum. Okay. Every second Australian tweeted that any boss who sacked anyone for not turning up to work the day after Bob Hawk died last week is a bum. So it was definitely overworked, but I like it most because it focuses on the most Australian thing imaginable, taking tenuous days off, and the least Australian thing imaginable, which is expensive yachts. So thank you to Ralph and Russell for explaining that to us. We like to be international here. I think, David, we have to do Game of Thrones overworks this week because that's everything. So again, please fast forward if you have not watched a show or consumed the voluminous ringer content about it.

this one comes from Daniel T. Clark and William Boitler. Brand, the Broken, is the person in the group project who didn't do anything but ends up presenting because everyone else is shy and then gets all the credit. Or alternatively, brand didn't even show up once with their group project, but still got an A.

Thank you, Daniel Clark and William Boil for that one. And finally, I saw Charlie Pierce on Twitter pleading with people to stop making 2020 election Game of Thrones references, which Saliza just took, just took off the board forever. Yes,

please don't do that. But I do think there's room for a subtler category of Twitter joke that sort of joins Game of Thrones and politics. So here are a few from last night's episode.

Again, if you haven't seen this was swimming nothing to you. We watched eight seasons of Game of Thrones for this to end with a CNN town hall with the lords of Westrose.

And finally, Brand gonna run around Westrose telling everyone why his favorite book is Ulysses. So if you compare the future of Westrose to the future Democrats, congrats. You made the

Overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right, before we move on, let's take a quick break. If you're a podcast and movie fan like I am, you need to check out Luminary. They've just launched a bunch of great original shows that you can only find on their platform, including a spinoff of our show, The Rewatchables, called The Rewatchables, 1999, which dissects the most iconic movies from 1999, all time,

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or more. Luminary has a right show for you. podcast. You need to check out Luminary. Get your first two months of access to Luminary's premium content for free when you sign up at Luminary.com slash channel 33. After that, at 799 a month. That's Luminary.com slash channel 33 for two months of free access. Luminary.com slash channel 33. Cancel any time. Terms apply. All right, David. topic number two, Stephen A. ESPN, Debate TV pioneer Stephen A. Smith. had a pretty amazing half week, which you alerted me to in,

in email because this was all happening while I was asleep in London. And I'd wake up and it would be trending topics. Stephen A. speaks in the dark. And I'd just be, I have no idea what just happened. But let's just stroll through it and you jump in when you feel moved to. It began after the NBA lottery where if you haven't been following Jason Concepcion, you might not know that the Knicks once again failed to land the number one overall pick.

and thus draft Zion Williamson. Here was Stephen A. Smith's reaction to that news. Typical necks, man. I knew it. They'd get close. They tease us. Then they want to get it done. I saw that compared to leave Brittany alone,

but is there a sort of more highbrow cultural reference we're missing here? What did that remind you of? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I think he's, I think at this point, he's evoking the past. This is, there's probably a Game of Thrones joke here. He's evoking everything that's come before and, and, uh, in the history of sports casting

and meme them, but he's making it into his own, his own thing. He will be the point of reference going forward, I strongly believe. And there was no light for this, this, this was a, this was a Twitter video. But he was just, there was just this voice coming from the gloom, like, just angry. It was like somebody in a basement. let us continue. This is a little clip from Stephen A's radio show on the same theme

that was tweeted out to the world by Pablo Torre. I am having a very bad day. One of the worst days that I've had in a long time. I'm not in the mood to play with anybody. Radio really is a theater of the mind, isn't it? Oh, man, that's so great.

Yeah, I mean, listen, this is performance art of the highest order. And listen, this run of Stephen A. Smith meminess preceded the draft. I started seeing him pop up in my Twitter feed and, you know,

in like office slack in the week leading up to it with a much higher rate than normal where he would, it would just be sort of just random explosions that he did on the air, on TV or whatever else. You know, just moments of just just inanity that

were, but double the sort of moments of bliss. Stephen A. Smith has certainly found, I mean, for someone who spends roughly 20 hours a day doing TV or radio, he has found a wonderful sideline in his this sort of social media

half-life. And it's, it is really impressive to see both him embrace that and sort of the world embrace that at the same time. So it's sometime in the last six months, sports writing opinion leaders

turned around on Stephen A. Smith. They decided that they liked Stephen A. Smith. I seem to remember and, you know, forgive me if I'm wrong, but I just remember a Barry Pacheskey tweet or or Deadspin post or something. I can't remember what he wrote, but there was some kind of man, you got to give it to

Stephen A. Smith. And I was like, oh, wow. We've, we've, we've, we've come around here. And then I saw this Will Leach item this week. He says, I give up Stephen A wins. I accept it in a sports media world of disingenuous hucksters, blatant liars, and barstool. This sort of lunatic performance art has a certain dignity to it. Good for you, Stephen A.

If someone has to rain, it might as well be you. And I guess what interests me is why we, if I may include myself in this, came around. Oh, man. Is it just that he, is it just that, I mean, the thing people didn't like about these shows was that it was performance art. It wasn't real. It wasn't real sports opinions. It was performance art.

And let's table the idea for a second that the rest of us are not doing performance art. We are strictly doing genuine sports reactions all the time. But they didn't like those performance art. So do we just, did we eventually fall in love with Stephen A because he was so committed to the performance art? Yes. That there was so little difference between real Stephen A and Stephen A reaction. on air that we were like, oh, wow, he just, he has owned the bit and that's what it is?

Yeah, I mean, this is, oh, God, I mean, earlier this month, there was a day when I was watching first take and, and the, this will, this will, this will, will, uh, I guess come full, I mean, be more meaningful in a second, but he, he, he, they were talking about Magic Johnson leaving the Lakers. And it just devolved or evolved into Stephen A. Smith repeatedly pronouncing at the top of his lungs, I will not rest. I mean, the rest of the sentence was until he got to the bottom of why Magic left the Lakers, but it was just, I will not rest. I will not rest. Do you hear me? I will not rest. And that, I mean, I was just like, I was typing away at my computer. And when that started, I just had to stop everything and just stare at the screen. I mean, it was just

one of the most impressive performances I've seen. I mean, without getting. And then today, he found out. He found out. He did. He did. That was really great. Before we get to that, I will. Before we get to want to go back to what you said before. Our boss, Bill Simmons, has been an outspoken Stephen A advocate for a little while. And I think it's a lot of that is the, well, I mean, to take, I will not rest, I guess, to a more literal level. I mean, he's, he is one of the hardest working people in sports media. You know, you don't have to appreciate what he does. You don't have to, you know, you don't have to acknowledge the degree of difficulty that is certainly there to say that like, the number of hours he spends on television and radio, the way, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his,

just incredible gravity his significance to ESPN is just so clear. I mean, they have him doing blocks on get up now just to delete because they know that people are going to care about, you know, people will tune in early who would, for, you know, the first tape viewers will tune in early to see him. And he's just on for the rest of the day doing all kinds of sports.

You know, I mean, just to bring him in for anything. And he's, he's tireless. You know, I mean, he's a hard worker. but I think that I think that you to answer the question about why we came around I think that a lot of people

I mean I'm gonna have to do it I'm gonna bring this back or I'm gonna bring this around to pro wrestling again I think people at the beginning I thought you were gonna say game at the time so I was worried that go ahead

no but it was him and I think Skip you know Skip Bayless who worked with him on first take but also preceded him yeah is a different sort of personality

and I don't want to play them off each other but some of the distaste for them together and for Stephen A individually, I think there was a denial of the, of the artifice, right? There was a feeling that he was, he was putting,

he was, he was a huckster or he was, he was putting on a show, but that they were trying to get us to think it was real. And it's like, it's like when you're, when you tell someone you're wrestling fan, and they're just like,

well, you know that stuff's fake, don't you? And you just, you're just, it's exasperating. You're like, yes, of course it's fake. That's the beauty of it, right? And then it's when you buy in, you realize, that the flexing and the grunting and everything else is like the best,

that like the fakes parts of it are the best parts of it. And I think that, I think over, I don't know what happened, but at some point we all got, uh, accustomed enough to Stephen A that we are now fully in on the joke. Okay.

So, and when Stephen A is, who is from New York, as he said in a couple of these amazing cuts from this week, is he really upset, that genuinely upset, about the Knicks not getting the number one pick? Or is he Rick flaring his way through a segment about like that.

That's I guess what I'm trying to do because I think what a lot of people were upset about was these aren't these people's real opinions, whether it's, you know, all the debate people you named. Is he winking at us and saying, I know, I know you know that I don't feel exactly like this about the Knicks, but I think you'll ride with me because. because this will be so wildly entertaining? Or is he still? Because I don't, you know, Stephen A. gives interviews fairly frequent, but I don't know if I've ever read him say, he never says this is just an act.

No. Right? I mean, this is, he would, in fact, I think vehemently deny that it was. Yeah, I mean, I think that the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

I mean, does he is, I mean, the next stuff is, feels like degrees, like, like a further degree of put on. But at the same time, like,

so, I mean, I don't, I think he does believe it on some level. and I think he probably believes it much more seriously than he believes whatever the preceding take was. He's legitimately more emotionally worked up about the Knicks than he is about whether or not Russell Westbrook can be a number one option. And so just the fact that he's operating in degrees of magnitude makes it seem like this is just the volume has turned so much further up. But yeah, I mean, I think that, I mean, listen, part of the implicit.

agreement of pro wrestling is that it will is that you have to is that the performers and the viewers are going to interact as if it's real even though we all know it's fake so stephen a can't go out and say i'm just i'm just messing with you like he can't like that part of it like to make it fun he has to he has to be this outsized personality he has to be the character he's playing on the screen but i mean he winks at us every day so i don't i don't know that there's i don't know that there's that much of a distance between him telling us what's true and what's not and him just doing what he does. I love this. I pick the exact right guy to explain this. I'm so happy. This is great. I feel I feel now I'm because I just, I was really having the

trouble of reconciling this, but now I think I think I get it. It does strike me as interesting. And Skip has done this. In fact, I've written about it in the ringer, you know, has sort of leaned into his Cowboys fandom a little bit. And you see Stephen A leaning into his you know, I guess childhood Knicks fandom. And I think that also fixes one of the problems that people have with debate TV because they're like, nobody could be this passionate about every subject. Like you might be really passionate about, you know, pick an NBA subject or a football subject or whatever you want.

But like nobody's passionate, this passionate about the D block. Nobody's like, okay, now I've just, I'm gone crazy about the NBA and the NFL. And let me tell you about Deonté Wilder. and I'm going to get worked up about this too. Like people just don't buy. But if you mix in fandom, then that's something that people at home can sort of understand. They're like, oh, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I felt like that too when my team didn't win the lottery. Or I felt like that when my team lost a big game. And it sort of bridges that divide between, you know, human at home and debate guy on TV, I think, a little bit and makes that a little more, a little more palatable. Can we just play a little bit of his Magic Johnson thing? Because this was actually a hugely newsmaking interview. Magic answered questions for like two hours the day he resigned as Lakers president

and never said any of this stuff. And in fact, Jim, just play the very front of this clip. I put like 30 seconds down, but just just play the very front of this because I think it's very revealing of the Stephen A method. Does Magic Johnson feel betrayed and if so by whom? I want to learn how to answer all my questions. I ask all my questions as a journalist in a third person like that. Does Joe Tessitore feel betrayed and by whom?

Does Scott Van Pelt feel betrayed and by whom? I just want to adopt that style. I think that's fantastic. I just started laughing when I saw that. That was great. That was great. The interview was amazing. Yeah.

I mean, Magic just let lose. He did. And by the way, there's all this, I mean, it's like going to feed the ringer for days, but there's all this debate show content coming now about like,

Why did Magic say this now right before the Lakers are trying to sign free agents or trying to trade for Anthony Davis? And, you know, that's a whole, I mean, it's just, like you said, I guess I'm in the Will Leach camp. I mean, we just give it up. It's unbelievable. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. The interview is fantastic.

I mean, it's worth listening to in full for Stephen A's performance. And, you know, I mean, it has to be said, we got to give a little bit of credit here to his co-host Max Kellerman who I think that some of the realization that this is all put on had to come from the fact that Kellerman came from a slightly more serious a slightly more serious journalistic better or per you know television journalist background and just sort of when the first take opportunity arose he was just like yes I can do that I can be that person if you want me to be um so he I thought you were going to say that Max Kellerman came from boxing and that he sort of understood it well it makes it means the day on the

Yonte Wilder segments have a little bit more oomph to him, that's for sure. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's, uh, you know, that whole interview was, was just very good. The part, there was one point where he made a quip about Magic Johnson being able to name players now, which he got into trouble, you know, for like tampering when you would mention players when he was working for the Lakers, and they both just broke up and just started just laughing hysterically. Um, Magic Johnson was clearly in on the gag here. I mean, he came on with a, with a, you know, he knew what he was getting into. He probably helped orchestrate with, you know, the entire thing. But he also seemed to be operating on a different sort of level than Stephen A. Smith. And, you know, Stephen A's just, just wild style,

I mean, just makes everything. I mean, the fact that he does that and pulls it off, it just seems, it just seems so much more, so much more interesting. I think also his connection to people like magic, his genuine repertorial connection to lots of people in the NBA also makes him stand out in this world. Because when you watch him, you do feel like he is talking to people. And he may

not be, you know, reporting at the same level. He may just not have time given, as you say, the 20 hours of sports talk he does a day. But you do have a feeling that he's in touch with that world and knows what's going on. And I don't think you'd say that about everyone else in that space.

I don't, you know, and I do think that gives him a little more. Gravitus is probably not the word we're looking for, but I think it gives him something like Gravitos on debate TV. All right, David, let's talk a little Brian Williams before we wrap up here. I've had this in my press box TBD notebook for a long time. And I direct you to an April 24th Politico newsletter written by Daniel Lipman and Paul Volpe, quoting the return of Brian Williams to cable network anchor status has been so understated and seamless that it would have been easy not to notice. It was just over four years ago that he was removed from the NBC anchor chair for fabricating a story about coming under

fire while in a helicopter covering the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The authors go on to note that Williams anchored the coverage of William Barr's press conference before the release of the Mueller report. He was also there for the state of the union, host of the network's midterm election night coverage last year. Why do we? Why do we? we think, and I think there's some, I think there's all kinds of interesting reasons here, but why do we think Brian Williams has been able to so seamlessly come back and get, if not his old job back, then something approximating his job on cable news? Well, the very, like the base reason is because he had the support of NBC, right? I mean, they, they removed him, but then, you know, placed him on to

MSNBC. And I remember well his first appearances there doing election. I believe he popped up initially at election time and was and was sort of anchoring these sort of roundtables with the other hosts. And there was, you know, there was a little bit of side eye from other people there having to share the stage with them despite the fact that they all seem to be very friendly and, you know, convivial or collegial. But, you know, I also think that there's an element that that goes along with that. It's either people at NBC or the public at large is in so much as they understand at all what it was that got him fired.

They're a little bit sympathetic to it. I think there's probably people at NBC who are, you know, who probably say like, well, I lie more than that. I tell bigger lies than that every day, you know? And I think that most people can sympathize. You should have seen what I've gotten past the NBC News censors. man. He lied about one helicopter ride, man. I got worse stuff that on the air on Tuesday. Yeah, I mean, and I think that, you know, I've mentioned on the show before. I think we've discussed it a little bit, but there's, you know, Malcolm Gladwell had a whole episode of his podcast, revisionist history about this subject and about how we all, we all fabulous. We're all fabulous in retelling stories. You know, our memories don't function in the way that we want them to function. They, they lend themselves to that sort of,

fabulousism. And, you know, I think that there's a certain amount, there's a degree to which it's identifiable. Also, though, I think that the bigger issue, if you want to make a philosophical case about it, and I think you're the one that made this point to me, is that he's not a, you know, he's not primarily a journalist.

He's not a newsman. He's a performer. You know, he's there to read us the news, you know? And, and I'm not sure that, that for that job description, it's quite as significant to be, to have a, you know,

absolutely clean resume in that, in that department. So the Gladwell point. And I, and his point is absolutely true when it, when it comes to just us telling stories. But let's not forget that the, the William story,

was it not that his, his helicopter was hit by an RPG and been forced to land. And that just didn't happen. So that, that's not. Right. He doesn't get to be he doesn't get the misremember on that one and I just embellished it. But yeah, I totally I totally agree with the point.

I think the other thing in Lippman and Volpe make this point in their Politico thing is that and this is this is pretty messed up. But but I guess speaks to the world we live in is it, you know, Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose and Mark Halpern went down for me too offenses and or alleged offenses. And that weirdly as bad as what Brian Williams did, he didn't. do that. And those guys just made him by being, by that behavior being so disgusting slash immoral slash unlawful, they weirdly, by some weird boomerang effect, made him look a little better. And so, you know, he's kind of ushered back on the news.

And I don't doubt that that's right. And again, one should have nothing to do with the other. But it is really interesting. The other thing that I was thinking of with Williams is that it's really interesting to me how cable news has responded to Trump because we saw when Obama was president the button that Roger Ailes pushed at Fox News was I want my conservative commentators, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, whomever, to just say the craziest things about Obama. I want them just to go, you know, pictures of Joseph Stalin on the screen, here we go. it's all about opinionating. It's all about, you know, just going off. It's been a little different, has it not, with liberal cable news and quote unquote liberal cable news.

I think it's more about, and maybe this has to do with Trump, maybe this has to do with their personal style, but it's more about being the newsman or newswoman. It's more about just the facts. It's more about reporting. I think you see the way Chris Cuomo has kind of styled himself on CNN. Brian Williams getting a bigger role at MSNBC and MSNBC being pretty different, I think. Sometimes the most damning thing that you can do, I mean, the most damning argument you can make is just reading the facts, right? And that's, and in some ways, just like a laundry list of the things that happened in the news today is a more effective way of playing to the liberal base that watches the network or, you know, just generally. making the argument against Trump

than a literal argument against Trump. All right, David. Let's do a quick notebook dump that we'll get out of here. The couple notes, New Orleans Pelicans won the NBA draft lottery and outside of a

cataclysmic asteroid-style event will draft Duke's Zion Williams and number one overall. Sure is a really bad time for the New Orleans Times picking a newspaper to have been sold and shut down, meaning the already depleted

Pelicans Press Corp will be even more depleted. They had last year when I wrote about this, you know, the Pelicans did not have somebody on the road with the team full time. And to me it's like so, one, that's sad, but it's two, it's really interesting to see what they'll do with Zion. And if that is enough of a reason to sort of, you know, get employers to buy airline tickets and that sort of thing.

Second, Steve Croft is leaving 60 minutes. here he was saying goodbye at the end of the last night's show. We end tonight's broadcast on a personal note. After 50 years in journalism, 40 years at CBS News, and 30 years at 60 minutes, it doesn't seem possible. I've decided to retire. It's been a difficult decision, one that I've considered at the end of each of the past four seasons. Now feels like the right time. As my good friend and colleague Morley Safer advised me a few days before he passed,

passed away. Don't stay too long. So Steve Croft only 73 years old, which in 60 minutes terms is kind of young, I think. 60 minutes is kind of like the Senate. There's really no need to ever leave. So that's number one. He's walking out a little bit early. Number two, Steve Croft looked more skeptical than any reporter in the history of network news. And I just mean his like his his, visage. You know, he just, he, he was that he had the perfect. He had the perfect. look when he's sitting across from the politician or the, you know, insurance salesman or whatever. I mean, he just looked like he didn't believe the shit that you were saying.

And it was really, he did the big Bill and Hillary interview back in, you know, I've caused pain in my marriage thing back in 1992. But, um, and it was always weird when he was doing a celebrity profile because like he'd be with Janus and look kind of skeptical. And you're like, really, you're skeptical of what Janus is saying. And I don't think you are. Anyway, I just, it really worked on 60 minutes. Godspeed to Steve Croft.

The Guardian, David, whose print edition I was consuming daily in London, announced that instead of climate change, their reporters are now instructed to use the term climate emergency, climate crisis or climate breakdown. They'll also be saying global heating instead of global warming. Do we have any reaction to that news? No. I mean, that sounds significant.

I think we'll be talking about that more in the coming days. That sounds significant. That sounds significant. We'll talk about that more in a future episode. It's definitely a good way to handle any difficult news at him. All right. How about this? This is more fun.

David Shoemaker guesses the terrible blunt headliner book title. Oh, no. Okay. I'm glad you said that because listener Jake writes us and says, I'm looking forward to my favorite part of each episode when David is caught off guard by the arrival of the recurring segment where he guesses the headline. I could ask for the end line. in advance, guys. I could ask a reason to... I could actually...

I could look at a research Google document ahead of time, and I proceed not to every week. That'd be a lot of work. All right. I have a British tabloid-strain pun headline for you, David. Jennifer Aniston is 50 years old, which actually happened back in February. But she posed for some scantily clad photos in Harper's Bazaar, one of those, gosh,

doesn't she look great at 50 type of things. Okay? Okay. Okay. British tabloid, the Daily Mail, pulled one of those scantily clad Jennifer Aniston photos and put what pun headline over it?

Oh no. So Jennifer Aniston scantily clad, 50 years old. I would think about her most significant contribution to American culture when thinking about what the pun might be.

Friends. friends. Friends. Maybe something. With friends like these. I don't know what you're trying to say there. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. No, no, no, I got it.

I got it. Is it, I'll be bare for you? There we go. Is that right? Yeah. Wow. My first ever. Oh, my God.

As someone who bought that Rembrandt's album because of that song back in high school, I feel like finally that investment has paid off. we truly have damning confessions here on the press books David about the Rembrandt's album all right I'm Brian Curtis he's David Shoemaker Jim Cunningham back this week as producer Chris Almeida helps with research more lukewarm takes on the media next week see you then David see you later man David yeah scantily clad 50 years old um yeah it's crazy I will not rest I will not rest do you hear me I will not rest I was really having the trouble of reconciling this, but now I think I think I get it.

I tell bigger lies than that every day, you know? And I think that most people can sympathize. You should have seen what I've gotten past the NBC News Censors, man. We end tonight's broadcast on a personal note. Please don't do that. But radio really is the theater of the mind, isn't it? No.