The Press Box - Disinviting the Eagles, Clinton's Book Tour, and Sitcom Sign-offs | The Press Box (Ep. 477)

Episode Date: June 6, 2018

The Ringer's Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker run the hurry-up offense to tackle Donald Trump's issue with the Philadelphia Eagles (04:30), the Bryan Colangelo story (10:30), Bill Clinton's appearance on 'Today' (23:45), 'High Noon' with Bomani Jones and Pablo Torre (32:00), the end of 'Arrested Development' and 'Roseanne' (39:45), and LeBron James's press conference after the J.R. Smith snafu (46:45). Credits: Hosted by: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Produced by: Jim Cunningham Brought to you by: The Ringer Podcast Network Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This summer there is a huge soccer tournament, David. Maybe you've heard of it. Unfortunately, the United States men's team did not make it. But Iceland did. Yeah. And since we can't cheer for the U.S. this summer, David, let us raise a glass of Raka vodka and cheer for Iceland. Go to reika.com, R-E-Y-K-A dot com to get Team Iceland gear and find a viewing party near you. Real fans drink responsibly.

Raka, 40% alcohol by volume. 80 proof distilled from grain, copyright 2018, William and Grand Sons, New York, New York. David, we're going to talk about Bill Clinton and James Patterson and their Me Too book tour.

But first I want to ask, which famous thriller writer would you want to be your co-writer? Does he have to be alive? No, I think the whole, you have the whole history. The whole history? If I was going to go, this is really hard

I mean listen James Patterson it would not be on my list but I gotta give him credit he'd get it done for sure Yes He would write like six books with you Yeah

This is gonna sound like we're like aping to watch We have a lot of interest in common George Policano As far as living guys goes Definitely up there on the list Richard Price I'm not sure I'm not sure

It's high tone Richard Price might be a little bit Too ponderous I think for To just be a co-writer You know, my old favorites are like Charles Williford and James Crumley. I like those guys, again, a little, maybe too much of a stylist. I think I'm going to go with John D. McDonald, one of my favorite just like, you know,

dime store paperback writers, wrote Cape Fear and a lot of other stuff, but he's really fantastic. I thought it would be a lead child, you know, kind of. Oh, yeah. You know, unadorned and unsparing, but that's not really me. Dan Brown, too religious. I've never thought about the sacred feminine in my real life. So I think I'm going to go with Michael Crichton. I'm going to fish from the dead thriller writers.

You know, it's sort of like stiff and kind of bland, but oddly effective. Oh, absolutely. That's kind of what I go for, you know, in real life. Speaking of which, the press box, stiff and bland and oddly effective is part of the ringer podcast network. The press box is the media podcast where you're not allowed to call the ringer an online media outlet. We are Brian Curtis and David Chewaker of the ringer. our friend, David, did you know, that's our friend Chris Sondrop in the early days of Slate

was called by a newspaper One Online Political Wag when they quoted him. That's what I love, I love euphemisms. That's fantastic. I love this. Like, I will not give this website

the dignity of naming it. We have been gone for a week. Thank you for bearing with us. And my voice and apologies for my voice, which sounds like I've been standing in the rain for the last week, but we will do our best. In terms of ringer content, please read everything we are writing about the NBA finals and read it now because it may be over very soon.

Bill Simmons is throwing out all kinds of amazing guests on his podcast from The Road, as it were, as he works on this HBO project. You can also check out Kevin O'Connor and John Gonzalez in several different forms from the finals. I would also recommend our Kanye reviews, right? Oh, yeah. Lindsay's O'Lads, Sean Fennessee and Micah Peters. Am I missing anything, David? There's been a lot of stuff. I know Mike is talking about it on his podcast this week on Shuffle.

Good show. Good show. But today, David, we have been gone so long. It was media news, Infinity War. So I figure we'll just drop the usual format here and just talk about a bunch of stuff. Let's talk about as much as we can. Let's just do it. All right.

Here we go. Number one, Donald Trump and the Eagles. Number two, the NBA scandal. known as Burnergate or Woodergate. Number three, Bill Clinton's Me Too book tour. Number four, Pablo and Bumani will also hit the sitcom suicides of Roseanne and Arrested Development. And finally, a note on NBA press conferences or how to blow off the media while wearing shorts. And if anything breaks in the next 45 minutes, we'll cover that too.

Plus, as always, our overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right, David. But first, we had been gone 24 hours without a Donald Trump scandal. So we woke up this morning. or it was the last night, I guess, and looked at Twitter and we're like, oh, boy, here we are. It is no surprise this is happening, right? Oh, yeah.

It's also no surprise that he has turned a team like the Eagles, which did not have one player kneel during the anthem last year, into a political prop, because we know that Trump cares more about the political point, in this case, then hashtag the troops. Or care is not interested in distinguishing between the political, whatever's on his mind. By blending them together, right?

here's what I find amazing. Trump has taken a pointless political ritual of the White House visit and turned it into a different pointless political ritual, which is the White House visit cancellation. Right? This is like bizarre a world every president until now. Yeah. I am going to disinvite the champs from the White House because that just benefits me politically, just like the old visit did for other presidents. Sure. That's so weird.

Yeah. I guess oddly effective in, you know, Trump Fox Newsland. We'll see. I mean, I feel like having any sort of disagreement with the Philadelphia Eagles in any sort of traditional political landscape can't be seen. I mean, would never be seen as a positive. Yeah. Pennsylvania also an important state. That's what I mean.

In 2020, right? It's a bit like it's, you know, the Eagles fans and Trump voters have a lot of, I mean, have a lot of overlay. I have a lot of share a lot of common people. And yeah, I mean, it's not a, it's not a smart move. I mean, I just don't think Trump's particularly, you know, like I said, he's not interested in the distinction between Colin Kaepernick and literally every player on the Eagles. He just, it's not, he doesn't watch. I mean, it's hard to imagine Trump watches football and or enjoys the NFL. I think he watches football, but I think he's the ultimate low information fan.

Yeah. And he's like, that Tom Brady, he's great. Yeah. That's Trump watching a football game. Yeah. And I just think that he thinks he has a great, you know, he's got a political win and just dogging the NFL. And I think he's missing the fact that it's, you know, kind of specific people he should be kind of inanely targeting. I was going to say, if you had to target somebody.

Yeah. You don't have to target anybody. But so the background of this story is that it all sort of broke today all at once. It seemed like the White House was announcing that the Eagles weren't going to come for their traditional Super Bowl winning visit. But they were also sort of disinviting them in the same breath. Like, no one was quite sure what was going on. Then the White House releases their official TikTok, which is basically that they... Which is weird.

The one that this is a statement signed by Trump. That switches tense a couple of times. Yeah. And calls himself and talks about himself as your president. Yeah. This is like, it could not have been more disorganized. Annie Carney actually was the first thing that I saw the news where she said, last Thursday the Eagles submitted 70 names to attend on Friday.

the Eagles tried to reschedule the event for a day or days when the president was going to be in Singapore. On Monday, they said the group available on the pre-planned date would only be two or three players plus the owner plus the mascot. So it's going to be like Nick Foles and the Eagle. Yeah. And Jeffrey Lurie, who is wildly anti-Trump. Yes, yeah. Was captured in that New York Times story bashing Trump at an owner's meeting. Yeah.

And that sounds even more awkward, actually. There's safety in numbers, right, to have like 40 guys. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Although, as excited as Trump was to get that giant envelope from North Korea this week, he probably would have loved hugging the Eagles. What's the Eagles mascot's name? I feel like we should know this. I'll look it up.

And then subsequent to that, the Eagles released a sort of amazing statement. Oh, so the White House releases that one of the, the most interesting line is, despite sensing a lack of good faith, nonetheless attempted to work with the Eagles over the weekend to change the event. I love that there was probably a first draft of this where they were just like, it doesn't seem like the Eagles or the villains in this yet. What can we do to sort of twist it? Okay, so the White House release a fairly antagonistic response to this so far as these things go. And then the Eagles release a formal response, which is, quote,

it has been incredibly thrilling to celebrate our first Super Bowl championship. Watching the entire Eagles community come together has been an inspiration. We are truly grateful for all of the support we have received, and we are looking forward to continue our preparations for the 2018 season. just totally above the fray or in denial of the fray. It sounds kind of presidential. Oh, yeah. That's exactly right.

That is so weird. By the way, the Philadelphia Eagles mascot's name is Swoop. Swoop, yes, of course. Who is going to be the LeBron of this controversy that sends the U-Bum tweet about the Eagles? Can you imagine, by the way, of Tom Brady, now we know for a lot of reasons, Tom Brady will probably not be sending the U-Bum tweet to Trump? Yeah. But if he did, would that be the story of our lifetime?

Would that just activate every single member of the media sports or otherwise? Yeah, I mean, we're going to go from a 10 item episode of the press box to a one item episode of the press box next week. I mean, first of all. It'll be a lot like 10 hours. Two names bear mention. One is Zacherts, who, well, he didn't go after the president or anything involved. He did go after Fox News who accidentally, I guess, used stock photos of a pregame prayer. in which the Eagles players were kneeling.

Oh, sure. As they discussed the kneeling controversy, by the way, no Eagles players kneeled, not last year. A couple of them raised their fists. Nobody kneeled. So. It is not disrespectful to kneel during prayer.

No, absolutely. Lots of God-fearing Americans do that. And Fox issued a formal apology for that. But I think that, I mean, the other person that bears mentioned this conversation is LeBron James, who while he didn't send out a you bum tweet, did say, and it went, when asked,

that neither the warriors nor the calves are going to attend the White House. after winning the championship this year, and it's silly to even talk about it. There you go. So it's done. That conversation is over before it began. When he has preemptively canceled a visit.

Sure. They didn't give Trump the chance, right? Yeah. Heaven forbid you, the Warriors are really eager to go if they take it. All right, David, this hurry up offense press box, right? We're done. Next.

Number two. So last week I am on the set of the new Pablo and Beaumani show. Yeah. On the East Coast, I'm reporting. I'm a Mr. Media Reporter man, wearing a fedora, with a little thing that's a ringer in it. You're in the headband there. And I'm sitting there.

I'm ready. You know, take notes, capture the scene as they say. And the whole A block, the first segment, is about the ringer's story about Brian Colangelo. And I'm like, oh, my God. You know, on the one hand, you're nervous. You're excited to report. On the other hand, oh, my God, this is now becoming a human centipede of running content. Here we go.

This is sports media inception now. Yes. Yes, I am so excited. Here's what interests me about this. We've talked this story to death. Everyone else has the last couple of days. Why is this such a big story? I'm happy it is.

I really am on the ringer's behalf. Oh, sure. But I think in, if I had told you this were happening before it was released, I think you and I might have both underestimated how big it was. I was sitting, I mean, at the, you know, I might be saying too much, but like I was, I was sitting in the office in which the published button was pressed when this went live. And, you know, we were just kind of going over the last few things. I as art director and there was, you know, a staff of, I mean, people that Chris Ryan has spoken of, you know, has thanked in his podcast and everything else. The kind of core staff that was making the last, all the final tweaks and the decision to print.

And there was a minute where Chris and I, I think, I think our copy chief, Craig Gaines, were just kind of said, I wonder if this will just be nothing. Yeah. And we can kind of talk ourselves into it. You know, like, you're so in the weeds. And we, and this story, you know, and I was not intimately involved in the production of it. But this is the sort of story where you have to work really hard to stay out of the weeds, right? To look at it from every angle as you're going along. Absolutely.

And, and at that point, we were all just kind of, you know, you just talk it to death. And you're just like, at that point, we'd kind of gone through the, you know, gone through the mirror and come back out the other side. We were just like, yeah, maybe it'll be nothing. You know, maybe it'll just be a funny story. It'll get a couple of likes on Reddit and that'll be the end of it. That said, I don't think any of us believe that, but we like entertain that possibility. It is, it is, and then it was way bigger than anybody could have thought. Oh, my gosh.

I mean, it was just that night. And again, I'm so sitting in a hotel room and it was just like alarms going off, people calling me. No role in the production of it at all. There's a lot of that around the ringer. Credit to, first of all, to Ben Dietrich. Don't want to, don't want to diminish it at all. It just strikes me. I mean, one, we've had a conversation on this pod before about NBA Twitter, right?

Yeah. NBA Twitter, you just chum that water, right? And NBA Twitter gets excited. This is a big story. I think another part of this that's so fascinating to me, there's obviously the hinky Coangelo stuff. Yeah. Which is mostly, as it relates to the story, just like the greatest of all conspiracy theories

at this point. Yeah. I think the other thing is, though, that people like Woge create this atmosphere in NBA reporting where everything is off the record. It's all sources say, right? It's all this, you know, there's this whole, you know, backstage element of the NBA where all the really exciting stuff happens. Yeah.

Then you get a piece like this that just reveals just a little bit of the curtain, right? And you're like, and everybody's like, oh my gosh, right? This is the world I've been led to believe exists. And here it is, here's a tiny window into it. And it just blows people's mind. Yeah. If it's like, if the word is stylistically, aesthetically with what we kind of conditioned ourselves to think NBA reporting is. Yeah.

Yeah. Something like that. I mean, specifically to Woj, I think that the piece was buoyed pretty significantly by the fact that he jumped in really quickly with a couple of tweets, one of which said, you know, the biggest problem Colangelo is going to have is that whoever is tweeting this stuff is revealing a point of view that Colangelo has himself, you know, said privately. Yeah. And I think that that work, I mean, it's interesting to look at the Woj tweet on another level. I think that you're right about NBA Twitter. That's really significant. But it's also the whatever the ringer's place is in this ecosystem that it was sort of that we sort of and the ringer in the story and whatever else.

That this could have just been, if this had popped up on NBA Reddit, then Woge wouldn't have commented. Everyone else, you know, all these other basketball writers would have been making jokes all night. Totally. But that there was, you know, that we sort of legitimized it enough so that Woge had to respond. everybody's sort of saying, well, here's what my point of view is, based on my sources, then sports center is covering it, and it just, everything snowballs. This is the deep state of the NBA. Yeah, absolutely.

That is the appeal here. It's really nuts. And I think, yeah, getting into, I mean, the fact that Woj dignified it was one thing. The fact that he, and I don't mean this is a knock, but the fact that he, you know, that his first response was, oh, yeah, there's a lot of stuff I'm not telling you. I know. Oh, what? And there's, and everybody, and every reporter.

does that and there's lots of reasons for it. I mean, you can be the greatest, you know, information nihilist out there, but there's still things you're going to sort of back pocket, you know, for fear of repercussion or just for lack of sourcing. I want to be an information nihilist someday. Yeah, that's something to aspire to. It is amazing. And also, I think the, you know, then the statement from the Sixers the next day saying it's an investigation, right? There was sort of a, you know, a couple of sort of denials that night and then the next day of we are investigating. Yeah.

Meaning, which essentially means this is something. You know, this is a thing. Uh-huh. You know, it's going to go somewhere. Yeah. And the answer isn't going to be, the answer almost certainly is not going to be we had nothing to do with it. It's very, I mean, but it's very rare that you have a situation like this when there's

like a PR problem and like a political, so you have an internal political problem that, I mean, it's not rare, but they are, I mean, the Sixers are in a really weird position of having to deal with this, not just from a outside perception. standpoint, whether or not this is true, how it affects, whether this is actionable, you know, how this affects, you know, the perception of the team, but also like just functionally, some of the stuff that was in some of those Twitter timelines makes it really hard for someone like Clangelo to do his job if, in fact, you know, it's tied back to him. And I felt like Joelle M. B's tweets brought that home, right?

Because when he jumped in that night, that brought in the, oh, my gosh, you can't just deny this and then we move on. No. Right. And he is saying, you know, in not so many words that this isn't going to work. And in Bede's presence, I should have mentioned him earlier, was just as every bit as significant as Woj and, you know, the sort of power players, ESPN. Because there are a lot of these stories that don't, that we don't see any evidence that this is trickled down to the actual, you know, rosters of teams. As politically, as socially, social medialy active as some of these players, I mean, as many, many most players are now, there's still a lot of these.

a lot of stories that just you don't see any clapback on unless it's directly like fill in the blank is a is a you know onus to their team and they'll just be like L.O.L. You know. Right. That's the all purpose. Yeah, but I'm aware of this. But the fact that Embed beat engaged in the very Joelle and Bede basketball Twitter level of just sort of

you know, you just you know guffawing at it and making his own jokes that that changed the narrative too. Yeah, absolutely. Also, also quangelo being at the not the enemy of the process but the guy who flattened out the process right who inherited what Sam Hinky did right that just activates NBA writers

and Twitter people in a specific way right? Colangelo is not in a good I mean yes he's got to be the like with the exception of maybe like Vladay Divac but Vladay's at least got like got some you know comedy on his side you know and people are inclined to like him just for a lot

of other reasons Calangelo is in the most just uncomfortable situation and then EGM because of, I mean, just in terms of basketball Twitter, in terms of the way that basketball media works right now. So on the one hand, you could see why, you know, this insecurity would get to you. But on the other hand, it's like, you know, he's just a sitting duck for this kind of story in some ways. All right, David, now it's time for the overwork Twitter joke of the week, or two weeks in this case, where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious

that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. A little catch-up. A little fast forward for you here. All right. The Washington Capitals are up 3-1 in the Stanley Cup finals against the Las Vegas Golden Knights. Are you aware that this is happening? Dimmily, yes.

So it was an overworked Twitter joke to say, quote, so the Stanley Cup finals will pit Sin City, a den of vice and corruption where the worst of the worst gather against Las Vegas. Kind of a nice little, hey there. I like it. Well, I got that from Mark Gianato, Chauncey Talese, John Soloway, and Jeremy Montgomery.

All those people have in that joke. It was a big one this week. Wow. From the Department of Bad Puns after J.R. Smith's brain fart in game one of the NBA finals, it was an overword Twitter joke to say, who's shot J.R.? Question mark? Oh, good. That is fantastic.

And you realize we've lived most of our life with Dallas puns? I think our lives are basically been framed, at least, you know, it began with Dallas puns. Same Department of Bad Puns after the cancellation of the TV series, Roseanne. Roseanne Bard Yeah She is barred That does not That does not get my

My applause Those come from Yogan Benjamin Howard Blake Crispin And Nathan Young Also about Roseanne You'll remember that she blamed Ambien

For her odd tweets Right Go on yet Right I cannot This does not seem Like an overworked Twitter joke

But just Search Twitter And I promise you A hundred versions of this This is where everybody's mind Went

Hitler didn't mean to invade Poland He was on ambient And it's it's Hitler and Poland I mean like Not Hitler something else That's what I just would never have thought to go there That is all over Twitter Are we sure those are real people

Organic organic Jokemakers or is this or these bots That are just copying good good tweets To make to get on the press box In a related story I lost the person who sent me that one So maybe it was a bot Thank you bot or real person who said that one

And finally on Roseanne David It resulted as you know And they canceled the immediate cancellation of ABC's rebooted hit show. It was an overworked Twitter joke to say, man, why couldn't the Big Bang Theory cast also tweet something racist? All right, David, before talking about Bill Clinton and Roseanne, the aforementioned, let's take a brief commercial break.

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Go customize your borough and get $75 off your order by going to burrow.com slash pressbox. That's b-U-R-R-R-O-W. dot com slash press box for $75 off your purchase. Burrow makes the luxury couch for real life. All right, David, here is former president, Bill Clinton on the Today Show with reporter Craig Melvin. You've apologized to him. I apologize to everybody in the world. It is important to me that everybody who has been hurt know that the sorrow I feel is genuine.

First and most important, my family, Monica Lewinsky and her family. But you didn't apologize to her? I have not talked to her. Do you feel like you owe her an apology? No, I do. I do not. I have never talked to her. but I did say publicly on more than one occasion that I was sorry.

That's very different. The apology was public. And you don't think a private apology's owed. I think this thing has been, it's 20 years ago. Come on. Let's talk about JFK. Let's talk about, you know, LBJ. Stop already.

I don't think President, you think President Kennedy should have resigned? Do you believe President Johnson should have resigned? Someone should ask you these questions because of the way you formulate the questions. I dealt with it 20 years ago plus and the American people, two thirds of them, stayed with me. And I've tried to do a good job since then with my life and with my work. That's all I have to say to you. So, David, I have two reactions to that. One is that my voice sounds a lot like Bill Clinton's.

Second, and most importantly. Bill Clinton is saying I have been subjected to double jeopardy, right? I was prosecuted by Ken Starr in the media 20 years ago. Yeah. You don't get to do it again. But what Melvin is pointing out is that the world has changed since then, right? These are different. This is not the charge you were necessarily prosecuted on before.

Sure. Before it was you had an affair. You're bad, right? Now it is, oh, no, no, let's talk about the terms of that. fair. Let's talk about what consent means when it is a White House intern and you're the leader of the free world. Yeah. Fascinating stuff, right? And I don't feel much sympathy for Bill Clinton, by the way, in this and in that churlish kind of strange response. He went on to cite the number of women who he had employed in, you know, various parts of government, as if, you know,

making Janet Reno, the attorney general would make up, would solve this problem. for him. But it's fascinating, right? Yeah. The listeners of the show will know we previously discussed the fact that I've worked in book publishing prior to working at the ringer for some time. But I don't have any book publishing insight for this. I don't want to sound like this is something like, I know how this stuff works. But on a practical human, we all have jobs level. How they decided to let him go in front of a camera. Clinton. Clinton. At this moment, at this moment, at this moment, went in time, well, that full stop.

But also, if you're determined to do it because any, you know, the most like, the lightweight interview, whatever situations, if they stick exclusively to like parade magazine covers and stuff like that, sure. But like, but how do you not, how do you not know this is conceivably coming? So Brian Stelder said in his newsletter that they were ready for Lewinsky questions. I think they weren't ready to be pushed perhaps. to this point about it or to come in because what he said was, if you notice kind of what he said is he's not,

he's upset about the way the question was asked, I think. Yeah. That's the, that's what was so interesting about it. It's not, you know, in the era of Me Too, do you think about Monica Lewinsky differently, right? He's being, you know, he specifically asked, did you apologize to her? Did you have like a conversation with her? And he says, no. He says, yes, I did, which is that general apology he offered to the world.

But I think, I just think that it's funny because he's, we know Bill Clinton to be both incredibly slick and also incredibly, can be incredibly snappish, you know, and withholding. Yeah, that's clearly the big thing here. By the way, the third voice in that was the thriller writer James Patterson, who was weirdly of all the jobs he's had in his life, having to play referee and mention LBJ's and John Kennedy's a fair. on a national television show. Right. It's so wild. It's really funny because this, so this came up in the press.

Monica Lewinsky writes a piece in Vanity Fair in February. And she wrote a very judicious piece about it. She wrote that she said all along this was a consensual affair. Yeah. This was, I have always, I have maintained that people of, because the right wing has said lots of things about Bill Clinton's sex life, right?

Many, many times that it was not. She says, this is a consensual affair. But then she said, you know what, during the Me Too era, I began to look at it differently because I began to look at it about issues of power. She doesn't come to any conclusions, but she talks about it. And guess what? The world changed, right? The world is not what it was in as messed up as it was in 1998.

Yeah. It is a lot different now. And I just think that's, this is Bill Clinton saying, you don't get another crack at me of this. I'm beloved, I'm beloved ex-president now. Yeah. Who shows up after like hurricanes and stuff. and the media kind of going, eh, not so much. Yeah, yeah.

You know, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this sort of second wave. I mean, I think this sort of second wave of, there was a Bill Murray article the other day. There was a brief little blog hubbub about him not really understanding what Harvey Weinstein had been accused of. And there have been a couple of other things about, I mean, I guess Jason Bateman is not in that category, but there was a bit, but, you know, there was a lot of kind of to do about his response in that, the arrest development presser. But I'm not quite sure how I feel overall about, about like, about the second wave being, do people understand why me too matters? Because certainly that is, that's a, I mean, some level it's a generational thing. and as long as the world is changing, I'm not sure that we need to waste a lot of time

like finding every old white man that doesn't get it. But, but it's sad. No, but that's what I was going to say. It's deeply saddening. For someone as theoretically thoughtful as Bill Clinton and who is an integral part of this story to have not thought deeply about it enough to have this be his response.

Yeah. But I think in a way, I think he's, I don't know if it's that he hasn't thought about it. I just think it's that Bill Clinton, there's no way to explain away a lot of the stuff. You know, if he were to come out and say, you know, you're right, there are lots of issues of power involved in this

that were not maybe, you know, thought about at the time. Or at least that wasn't the highest priority at the time. I recognize what I did was wrong on that level too. not just to my marriage, you know, which was essentially the grounds he was apologizing for the first time, right? Or a dragging Monica Lewinsky into the spotlight, which is kind of what he was been. And by the way, reminder, Bill Clinton settled a sexual harassment lawsuit while he was president of United States for a lot of money for like $850,000 of memory serves, right? Remember when we're doing all these articles and the existence of those kind of settlements becomes, you know, essentially a bullet point in the person.

you know, the case against the person, right? Mm-hmm. That happened. Yeah, but I think the way, I mean, one of the biggest problem with, I think, Clinton's inability to answer this question, I mean, if we assume that he has thought about it in any depth, is that he never really admitted to it. You know, there's the admission, there's the paying the settlement, and there's the apology, but it's kind of hard to have this conversation when you're still stipulating that, like,

I'm not going to say the words clearly out loud that I had an affair, that I cheated on my wife while president of the United States. Right, or that I did something wrong beyond that, I think. Well, that's what I mean. If you're not going to say the most basic thing, then how can you, like, in any way publicly wrestle with the deeper thing? Absolutely. And it's what's really strange. And I do think we're going to, I do think there's whatever the second wave of this is, the second or third wave is going to be reconsidering people who went through a scandal at some other point in their lives.

Right. or maybe got through it under very different media terms, now having to talk about it or face it in a different way. I think that'll be sort of a fascinating. I mean, we've seen that some with Polansky and Woody Allen, although that conversation is sort of ongoing. Yeah, Woody's a good thing. And even there's, you know, at the very beginning,

there were stories of people who, you know, actors who were all the accusations were way back when. but most of those was new information yeah I think you're right Woody Allen's going to be is an interesting one that's going to be

sort of litigated moving forward all right David hurry up offense topic number four high noon Pablo and Beaumani yeah I am I have extracted myself

from the production I've written a piece my mind is my mind is full of this stuff have you watched the show I've only watched clips I haven't watched the whole thing what did you think from the clips

I mean I think it was a little bit I was I read your piece and read and read a lot of reaction online and you know in the ringer Slack channel so I think it was like I was I was less I wasn't certainly wasn't caught off guard by the camera work which which is the thing that keeps coming up yeah exactly but I liked I think overall I really liked it now I like both Bumani Jones and and Poblatori met Pablo once or twice but don't know him in any depth. I've never met Bumani Jones.

But I've always thought that I've always liked Pablo's TV presents a lot. Bumani's appear, he's a different sort of personality depending on what show he's on and the way he's being shot. And I thought that there was a way in which this show managed to capture his, the best side of him. His very human side, is very, you know, he didn't, I don't know, they managed to do a talking hedge. show that didn't feel like, like overly, I don't know, just overly intentional. Talking heading. Yeah, it felt sort of natural. Which is the right home, Eric Wrightholm being the creator of the show.

Yeah. And PTI and a lot of other big hits in the sports and Deezis and Mero, right? That's the big one. The trick is not to make it. The trick is taking a friendship, making it into a television show, and somehow kind of shaving the televisioniness off of it so that the viewer is watching it

and having good time and they're formatted, right? We go through the topics, all that stuff, but we don't feel like we're watching a staged television show. Yeah, and we don't have to write on the camera stuff too much,

but there's a way in which it just sort of felt like that was all a misdirect that you sort of got blinded by all that to the point where your brain sort of just, just was willing to just listen to the words sort of or like or engage with the people. I don't know I don't know quite I'm sure I don't know what other decision was made but I certainly felt sort of like hypnotized into enjoying the thing a little bit.

Yeah it's funny too. I mean I think to your point about Bimani is really interesting because one word I heard a lot from multiple people while reporting the story was that he was they were trying to soften him in a way and I think that what that means effectively is just making him more comfortable on television. And, you know, I think even right at home told me, it's like he showed these amazing flashes when he was sitting next to Dan Labattard on highly questionable. How do we create an environment where he feels he can say exactly what he wants? Right. He feels like on the radio show, which he would, I think, describe as the purest form of Bumani or on his podcast. He feels like,

I can just go, right? It's exactly what I want in the amount of time. Television's a little bit different, right? It's a little shorter. It's a little more constricted. And I think one of the goals of the show was to do that. The big question that just interested me, was how you translate a friendship to a TV show. You know, you and I had an extremely low-level version of that on this podcast. You and I've been friends since we were 14 years old. Then we sit down and it's like, we cannot have the conversation that you and I are going to go have on the park bench outside.

No. On a podcast. Because everybody will be bored and baffled and just, you know, completely confused as to why this is using up their time. Yeah. And that's essentially what Pablo and Bimani had to do. You remember Bomani's apartment in Miami having these super in-depth

out there conversations that they both walked away feeling good about and then it's like now how do we make this into a TV show on ESPN that people will actually watch. Yeah, I think at the most, I mean, just talking about you and me, I think at the most basic level is how do you have, how do you, how do you have a friend, a conversation between friends that,

that omits all of the shorthand that's built up over the years? Totally right. And it's hard. And let me tell you the shorthand, it's not just like in jokes and kind of like starting in the middle of the conversation. Yeah. That's obvious, right? Like you and I started talking about Star Wars, we would just start somewhere in the middle.

We would not have to set it up for ourselves, right? Like we would on a podcast. But the other part of it is I think that I saw while they were doing this is you have to, you wind up short-handed why I care about this, right? If you started talking to me about wrestling or comic books or something like that, or be Traver novels, I would instantly need an actual, example, ladies and gentlemen. I would know your stake in that, like why that wasn't really important to you. Yeah. And I could name examples for me to you, right? But on television, you have to tell the

public that. Yeah. Because they don't know. And if they don't know, and so, you know, like, one of the things I was watching is just like, Pablo literally turning to the camera saying, here's why I'm interested in Sam Hinky in the process. Because maybe the public doesn't know that Pablo wrote about Sam Hinkie in the process. I think that's exactly right. And it's a The thing that, I mean, it's the thing that we discuss in general at the ringer all the time. I mean, I always say, just like, don't be afraid to ask the stupid questions, you know, and it's just, I mean, in all various walks, but it's like you got to, you actually have to, is Jim laughing. Why is Jim laughing?

How do you turn on this mic, Jim? You have to, like, you know, someone who's, you know, deeply interested in a subject is not going to necessarily be turned off by an explanatory paragraph, you know, but there's a lot of people, even more people are going to need that paragraph, right? And so, and that is a sort of, that's a difficult, that's a difficult feat to, to perform in the context of, like we said, like, yeah, translating a friendship to the screen. Especially in media today, right? Because Twitter and the internet pulls us towards insiderdom, right? It pulls us toward in jokes. Yeah. Shorthand, all that stuff.

And then you get television, like, oh, this is a person sitting at home at noon, 9.m. Pacific, who is, you know, just watching TV. Right? this person may not have a second screen open. They may not know, they may not have a Twitter account, and you have to make this show somehow speak to them too. What was your overall take? I really did like the show. I think it's going to change pretty enormously.

I mean, I don't say nor anything. I think they make a lot more changes. Just talking to Eric Wright home a lot. His whole thing is this like baseball game. You strike out, you know, on day one, and on day two, you come and hit a double. And then by day three, you hope you're stroking it, you know, the other way, something like that, right?

You know, his thing is, you're not going to do your best show on show one that you're going to do on show 50. If show one is as good as show 50, you're done something wrong, right? The difference, I think, is that Twitter and inside ESPN, they'll just be a lot more patience with this

than there is for get up. People are actually rooting for this show to work, right? Get up, there was a lot of people that were not rooting for that to work for various reasons. And also inside ESPN, by the way, when they saw all those salaries, how much those people were making. Yeah. There was that.

So to me, it's like, as the first release, this is what we got day one and day two, I think it's pretty good. Yeah. Okay. I also really like those. And I like essentially that they're trying all the stuff like the music they're talking over and all that stuff now, the letterboxing, because that's the easiest stuff to cut away, right?

And if you don't do that on day one, you're not going to do that probably on day 50. I think that's a good way of looking at it. All right, David. Topping number five. Roseanne in Arrested Development. Let's start with the latter, because I think the first one's kind of been talked to death. I would like to praise Sopan Deb, who wrote the, who conducted the interview and wrote the story that ran the New York Times about Arrested Development. Here's how these things can usually go when you get a weirdly bit of controversy like that.

You look at your recorder and go, oh, I got that on my recorder. Now let's move back to Arrested Development, Nostalgiaville, because I know I'll have a tweetable news bit, right, for my piece. I am probably guilty of that. Guess what he did? He went back in and just kept hammering that point home. And it turns out when you keep asking people questions, all the times we're about talking about NBA press conferences, but when people are like, why did you ask the same question over and over again?

Hey, guess what? Sometimes people keep talking. Yeah. And in this case, people are just tying themselves in knots. Well, sometimes you get lucky enough that other people in your interview group were asking each other questions too. They weren't exactly sure what they thought of it either. Yeah, I mean, this is obviously, this is the, this is the sort of answer to my question earlier about Bill Clinton.

Like, how did they not prepare for this? It's clear that Jason Bateman prepared for this, but didn't prepare for the sort of like second, the second act of it. Right. Yeah. You know, we didn't, we didn't discuss in Clinton, with Clinton and Patterson that they probably thought whether or not it was negotiated. They probably thought they were walking into safe territory with Craig Melvin. I think so. And this is one where I think I don't whether or not they thought that they were walking the cast of arrest development was walking into a you know safe territory.

They that there were that it would be dealt with. You know, it could be dispensed with pretty easily this the subject of Jeffrey Tambor. I think the same thing they thought it was like the today show one question. Yeah. And then we move back to fun stuff. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of crazy.

I mean, it's that it not and and the the wild thing is that it wasn't just Jason Bateman not. being prepared. And it should be said that he, you know, came up, popped up on Twitter afterwards and apologized for the whole presentation and everything else. The most amazing thing was that they were unprepared to the degree that they, there were actual revelations in the interview. That should not, that should not, one would think that in the era of PR that we live in, that that would not have happened. Well, that was why it was so stunning, right? Yeah. It was uncovering with Jessica Walter. New facts that they had not bothered to, not about it's oh Jeffrey Tambor

had this giant scandal on another show maybe we should go investigate what happened here and make sure that didn't happen here I think that work had obviously not been done completely asking the stupid questions the thing that stuck out to me about this listen I I get that I get that this show

I mean Bateman and others said they wouldn't have done the show without Jeffrey Tambor and I and I get that even for your most people much more loathsome than Jeffrey Tambor you know, sometimes your coworkers and friends will stick up for you and that's a thing. I mean, of all shows for it to be a rest of development where, like, Jeffrey Tambor was literally off-screen

in an attic for a lot of the show. Like, it would have been so easy to do the show without him. It's sort of, it's even maybe more stunning that they brought him back for this. I think it was already taped right, or they were already. Oh, was it? It was already filming.

Well, still, but it's, you know, it's no, it's no worthy. You can't bring him Christopher Plummer. halfway through like you did with the Kevin's Basie movie to like recast the part. But the rest of the development could have brought in Christopher Plummer. Actually, they probably could have pulled that off. It would have been hilarious. I'll just say one thing about Roseanne before we move on

because this is always kind of blows my mind. Obviously, she was fired most directly for the Valerie Jarrett tweet, Valerie Jarrett being former Obama White House official, who she said was as if the quote, Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes had a baby, which was an objectively wrong. racist thing to say. She also tweeted about George Soros. Yes.

Being a Nazi who turned in his fellow Jews and stole their wealth during the Holocaust. Do you think if she'd just done the Soros thing, she still have a show? Well, what's the line? Yeah, I think she... Like everything was kind of objectionable? I think that well, number one, there are a lot of people

in the, you know, darker corners of the internet, who believe that it's the Soros tweet is actually what got her fired, of course. The conspiracy theorists out there think that the Valerie Jarrett tweet was good cover, because anyone that slites George Soros is getting, you know, forcibly removed from whatever and that, and they needed cover, but, you know, they want to keep that under wraps. That's crazy. But also I think that Soros has this weird thing where he is this, he has an incredible amount

of power in the conspiracy world, maybe more power than he has in real life. And I think most, I would say most people, but certainly most liberals, or not liberal is not the right word. Of the, of most human beings who would normally, who would clearly be offended by her, by her planet of the apes tweet, don't know or particularly care who George Soros is. Right. So I don't, I think, and he almost exists as this sort of boogeyman to the far, far right conspiracy world, but also just like a fairy tale character to the rest of the world because you hear as not. name only almost in modern culture, almost exclusively used in conspiracy theorizing. Totally. So it doesn't even have the relevance of like you're insulting this, this real human being

who didn't, who was the opposite of a conspirator in Nazi Germany. Right. I mean, that charge is breathtaking. Yeah, but that's very. I mean, you hear that a lot. The other thing, it's like 100%, well, it's like 99% of America's like, the other thing is like, this is incredibly racist and intolerable. The other thing is anti-Semitic and intolerable by the.

way. I mean, it's just, it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. They had many things to pick from. Let's say that. All right, David, before we go, NBA press conference theater. All right. Here is Mark Schwartz and LeBron James having a polite back and forth after J.R. Smith forgot to shoot the ball in game one of the NBA finals. LeBron, Mark Schwartz, ESPN. From listening to everybody's reaction to the play at the end with J.R. getting the rebound, there's still confusion about whether J.R. thought the game was tied or whether or whether he thought you guys were ahead. From where you stood on the court and from talking to him after the play, what's your reaction to it?

What's your version? What do you mean? What's my version? Well, did he think that the game was tied or did he think that you guys had it salted away? How do I know that? Or did you discuss it at all with him at the end of the play? No. They asked me if I talked to J.R. about it.

I said no already. I knew it was a tied game. We was down one. George Hill went up. He made the first one. We got the offensive rebound. You know, I thought we were all aware of what was going on. That's my view.

So I don't know what JR was thinking. I don't know the question of you're trying to ask. I was just trying to see if you knew exactly what his state of mind was. Did he think that you guys had it won? Or did he think he was trying to make a play? Not sure. Maybe I'm not sure. No, I don't know his state of mind.

Did you know if he knew the score? And then LeBron James got up in his sunglasses and suit and shorts and walked out of the press conference. So I wrote about press conference awkwardness. And to me, this was kind of a fascinating example because this was like, this is one of the things that this was the right line of inquiry. I'll say that. We can debate whether he has the right questions or not, Schwartz. This is the right line of inquiry after the game. This is what you want to know, right?

Yeah. guess what? After a heartbreaking loss, post-game interviews are incredibly awkward. They're incredibly awkward in the locker room. And what you're taking is a slice of that awkwardness and just putting it on television. Yeah.

Taking something that happens all the time in game, after games, all the time, and making an international incident out of it because it's on TV. And everybody goes, whoa. You know, he didn't want to answer questions and walked away. Yeah.

It's like, yeah, that happens. Guess what? And guess what Mark Schwartz asking him a question after game two? What do you think of it? I think that you're right. I think I think that, well, I'm very compelled by what you just said. I think that from, I mean, when you, yeah, I mean, both points of view, I think Mark Schwartz could have framed the question a little bit better or asked it more directly, succinctly, especially when he got like the second go at it. But that's kind of neither here nor there.

It's really easy to, I mean, it's really easy. to, you know, armchair quarterback that, you know, when you're talking in real time on a microphone. And from LeBron's point, but aside from that, I don't they see any problem with it. I think if anything, you maybe, you know, change tax a little bit. If you have more questions,

you might expect that sort of, expect the walk out to come or predict it to the point that you protect against it. But from LeBron's point of view, sure. I mean, I'm sure he probably realized in that moment this is all we're going to talk about from now on, and I don't really feel. like talking about it anymore. Yeah.

I have a lot to give. He gives a lot every night to these reporters, and this is a thing where it's just like, I could repeat myself ad nauseum, but how would I, like, what am I going to say? Yeah, he's a fun example, because he's usually really zen during these things.

Yeah, after a loss. And he's, yes, and, and has, and usually has very, you know, smart,

uh, photographic memory answers as we, you know, we've discussed in recent weeks. Uh, you know, he can, he can usually break things down,

even if it's in the most like anodyine way possible. He can he can answer questions with some some depth or at least some length. But yeah, I just don't, I mean, I don't know. I think on some level, you're pushing to get LeBron. You're pushing for the, you know, that great tweet. You know, you're pushing for that great one-liner from him when you, but you know that there's so many reasons why he's not going to answer it. See, I agree, though I think that's, I think that's what people get wrong about this all the time, right? There's no downside. Television has created the downside not to push, right?

Because you can look like a jackass on national television. But as a reporter, it just doesn't matter. You're going to push LeBron James and he'll be there tomorrow and it'll be fine. And if you get that bit of insight, even if it's a one-liner or whatever about what really happened on that play between him and J.R. Smith, great. You know? Yeah. And people are like, why would you make it mad? It's because you're just trying to get information.

that's all that guy's trying to do right yeah it's true but when you put it on TV he looks like oh that big bad reporter made LeBron mad now we have a giff of LeBron walking off stage with his like head in the air and it was really bizarre way that is going to become one of the old time right yeah I know I agree

I don't think there's any I don't I don't I think it's it's litigation I mean we're litigating it for the sake for its own sake right yeah all right David that's a fast forwarded edition of the press box take a deep breath thanks to our producer Cunningham for rolling with us back next week and we meet it this time with more takes about the media. See you later, David. See you later, Brian.

Tomorrow, guys. Be better tomorrow. I always say, just like, don't be afraid to ask the stupid questions.