The Press Box - Do Democrats Have to Answer for Hasan Piker? Plus: What Is Jasmine Crockett Doing?

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

Today on The Press Box, Bryan and Joel start by explaining the schedule change for the show. Then they get into a few big headlines, including one from The Washington Post, one concerning the novel of the year, one about college football Week 0, and more. Then they talk about Hasan Piker. They discuss his role in the political ecosystem, his appeal to the left, and whether candidates should have to answer questions about him (25:02). They wrap up by discussing Jasmine Crockett and her coy interviews about her support for James Talarico and what her goal is now (50:02). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson Producers: Jon Jones and Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox. It's Brian Curtis and Joel Anderson. Hello, Mr. Anderson. What's up, man? How you doing? Decent weekend? Hmm.

Tees you lost. A lot of stuff going on. A lot of stuff going on, man. You know, just what am I supposed to do? You know, one thing about it, Brian, when your favorite football team loses first week of the season in college football, it really disabuses you of, like,

the notion that you're going to have to be as engaged year-round. You know, you don't have to, you're just like, oh, okay, like they're not going to compete for a national championship, probably not the playoffs. I can sort of disengage a little bit. I could just sort of let myself go a little bit. It's true. You reorganize your entire fall. Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. Based on a lost in August or September. Yeah, man. We don't even got a chance to get the old September sunny, man. I used to call Sunny like September sunny because he was good for going four and oh every September. But I guess he can still do it I mean we've got grambling in Arkansas State

So he damn well better go 4 in November The difference between this podcast and your other podcast Is Van and Tate will mess with you After a TCU loss I empower you Thank you Brian That's what happens on the press box I really you mean you're an actual friend

Those other guys You'll notice I didn't text after the game You know I said something funny about an hour later Yes That I saw on Twitter But I didn't text I don't appear, I don't slide into your phone.

I appreciate it. I appreciate it. And you know what? I wouldn't have even minded it. But, you know, you are a good person, decent, kind, and humane. Everybody can't say the same. And I'm not, you know, going to mention any of my colleagues or anything when it comes to that. Our producers are Isaiah Blakely and John Not Bones Jones.

Before we get rolling here, you might be asking yourself, why am I hearing from Brian and Joel on a Monday? Well, there has been a schedule change here at the press box. Some of the press box old heads will remember that we once upon a time were a Monday, Thursday podcast. We changed that around to accommodate everybody's schedule over the years. But oftentimes, you'll notice that there's a lot of news on a Monday. Newspapers release stuff, magazines release stuff, books are coming out. The president has said something completely. nuts and we feel like Stephen A and Skip in the first take green room. We are ready to unleash.

That's definitely the skip. That's the skip verb. Unleash. Unleash. Unleash. And Tuesday has seemed too late to unleash. That's right. A few cycles behind. Indeed. So starting today, we are going to record the first episode of the press box every week on Monday before noon Pacific time so that it can get into your phone by early evening if you're here on the West Coast, later in the evening on the East Coast, in any case you'll have it for your commute

on Tuesday morning. And you, Joel, are going to be part of that Monday episode. I know, no more Thursdays, man. What am I going to do on Thursdays now? Start the weekend early? It's not a bad idea. Thinking about college football? a day earlier than you otherwise would have.

I should go get a sandwich. Yeah. I never fear. The second press box episode of the week will remain in its old Thursday slot. David and I will be teeing that up. I hope that putting the first episode on Monday lets us treat the second episode of the week like the back of the book,

as they used to say in the magazine days, we can have some fun with culture, with sports, with non-newsy, non-political stuff. but if there's news, we'll jump on that too. Does Rick Riley, what do you think of that? Remember how Rick Riley used to have the, or Steve Ruchin, is that right? Russian.

Russian, they used to have the last column. The back page? Yeah. Is that sort of what you want to do with it? Yeah. I mean, back of the book to me is the art section of the New Yorker. You know where the movie reviews are, where the book reviews are, that kind of thing. But yeah, we could get into the, we could get over the way to Riley on the back page.

He had an amazing run there at SI. So Joe Monday, David Thursday. Also, if you've been listening closely to this podcast, you've probably noticed we have slightly tweaked the format. This used to be a classic three-story podcast. The Post-Penegon scoop, Tony Romo, and what's up with Barry Weiss? I enjoyed doing those kind of podcasts, but we often felt like we were missing having a bigger and more detailed discussion about one topic. You heard us do this recently, but Natalie Harp, Pat McAfee's rise. at ESPN, even with Anthony Bourdain.

So now we are focusing on one big topic per show, but again, never fear, because we are going to start the show with five headlines from our very large domain of media and politics

and sports and whatnot to get you caught up and give us a chance to weigh in on the news of the day. So with that preamble, Joel, are you ready for five headlines? I'm as ready as I'm as I'm as I.

I'm ever going to be, Brian. Let's get it on. Headline one, the Washington Post has scored another big national security scoop. Who you calling him battled? Amen. We're still breaking news here at the Washington Post. I mean, you know, the infrastructure is still there. The guts of the thing are still holding up pretty well. Still a lot of really good, experienced investigative reporters and grizzled journalists over there.

They've got a lot of talent still over there. It's just, you know, they've lopped off a lot of it as well. Particularly in the national security beat. Mm-hmm. This new piece is from Alex Horton and Tara Kopp. Several U.S. military leaders, they report, have advised Defense Secretary Pete Hex that the prolonging large-scale operations against Iran

is unsustainable and risk weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland. They found out what was in what's called the Secretary of Defense Order's book, which they say reflects the president's priorities, and found out that the leaders

of the U.S. European Command, the U.S. Pacific Command, and the U.S. Southern Command, along with the Navy's top admiral, responded with what is characterized as a non-conqueror, meaning they disagree with the Secretary's order to extend their forces, but will execute it nevertheless. So that's very private information.

Well, as soon as this was reported in the Washington Post, post columnist Mark Tieson quote tweeted his own paper scoop and wrote, whoever leaked this is a traitor and ought to be prosecuted. Man.

That's something, bro. Thanks, pal. Appreciate your support. That's crazy. Isn't it funny how Mark Tieson has gone from a guy who a couple of regimes ago was the conservative guy,

who the Washington Post opinion section seemingly had on for balance. You know, George Will's getting up there. We got to have a young conservative. Right. He'd been a speechwriter for George W. Bush to now, with the embattled, neutered Washington Post opinion section, he's kind of one of the stars. Front of the lineup.

He's hitting in the three or four hole, right? He was the guy JD Vance was making fun of on Twitter the other day. You know, there's a lot of shows they say, you know, they don't fire people, right? So when a head coach, you know, has done something, they've had a little long run. Let's say that they had two embarrassing season opening losses in the span of four years. And, you know, the level of the program is clearly falling down. And some people would call for that guy to get fired, right?

But there are a lot of shows that won't do that. So we try not to call for the firing of journalists or people in the media. But you ask me this, Brian, as a person who's worked in media. if you had done that anywhere else that you've worked up to and including here do you think you would be able to come back to work the next day no yeah i don't even with the separation between the news operation of the post and the opinions operation especially now yeah when jeff bazas reimagined opinions i just think that is such i mean look we don't have to call for him to be fired. Can we call them a twerp?

I mean, tweeting that? You know what? I have a different verbiage, but I will, I won't use it on press box. But twerp is fine. I just, you know, just recently, so it was last week that former Washington Post columnist Karen Ataya won her arbitration case against the Washington Post. And the Washington Post, I'm sure either has to rehire her or probably get some sort of settlement to get her to go away. And the background was at is that she was accused of after in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination saying some things that they've considered to be impolitic about white people and white men. Right. And they walked her up

out of there. Like it was, you know, in fairly short order as well. And this speaks directly to the organization. So Mark Tinson, he later clarified that he thought that the person that leaked the information should be charged. But even still, that is interfering with the reporting that your media organization works for. Like you're calling for somebody. That distinction is completely lost on me.

Yeah. If you give information to the reporters of my paper, you ought to be prosecuted and maybe go to jail. Yeah. Okay. I mean, well, I didn't say the reporters should go to jail. I just said the person they gave him the information. Come on now.

Like that's, I mean, is that going to help your reporters get more information in the future? That's all good. And man, also, this should also clarify for many people, and the people that listen to this show know the difference. But now people can really see the difference between the reporting, the straight journalism portion of a newspaper, and the opinion and op-ed organ of a newspaper.

I mean, they obviously have two very different missions. Very rarely do they meet in the middle. But that is, I mean, I cannot believe that that tweet is still up. Like that's the the tweet is still up. Good job to the folks covering national security at the Washington Post and don't let that twerp get you down. Twerp. Headline two, Donald Trump versus Kristen Welker. She is the host of Meet the Press.

Hostess, to use a word Donald Trump went with in his post. I guess he got tired of posting about Maggie Haberman over the weekend. Do you think Hart, Natalie Harp corrected that? Do you think she changed it to that? You know, if it's a female host, it's actually a hostess. He also put it in quotes, which is funny. She had said, I'll meet the press, that Trump had mixed results when endorsing candidates in the midterms. That's not a controversial opinion.

I actually meant to mention this to you the other day. I've been, you know, open the Washington or the New York Times and the Washington Post, the day after all these primaries. And they just write the opposite story, depending on what happened, shows that Donald Trump still has. power within the Republican Party because Darlene Graham won. And then when the Trump candidate loses, shows that Donald Trump's power over the Republican electorate isn't what it once was. Like, okay,

we don't have to write this every time. Every electoral result confirms one of those two narratives now. Right. It really does. It's like, I don't think we need a think piece every single time. Trump posted on true social because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she meaning Kristen Welker, will be

reported to the FCC for rebukes. or punishment. I mean, Brendan Carr is going to be made to have to do that, right? I mean, he's at least going to have to pretend to look into it. He's at least going to be reluctant to do such a thing?

Was he ever struck you as that kind of guy? Yeah, not, of course. Yeah, no, I mean, it's just, I mean, what are we doing here? What are, you know, like this? The tweet is still up. Yeah, what the tweet is still? What are we doing here in America right now, man?

You know, it's just, ooh. You think they're going to ask all the Republican candidates what they make of the, Donald Trump's tweet about Kristen Welker or Maggie Haberman for that matter. Do you think female journalist should be called maggot, senator? I mean, look, man, this, where is the, where is the, have you heard a lot of broad condemnation of those comments?

Anywhere? I mean, I've heard the Haberman stuff. I saw Jake Tapper. I mean, every reporter tweeted about it. Yeah. Some of these reporters were the same ones who had Donald Trump up on the dais with them at the White House Correspondents dinner. not that long ago. By the way, how stupid does that look in retrospect?

I mean, bro. I just, there was always a bad idea and it only looks worse every day since then. I think there's broad condemnation. We'll get into it with Piker. Save that thought for just a second. Okay. About equality of condemnation. Headline three. The novel of the year and maybe the century.

Those words come from Dwight Gardner's review in the New York Times of Marlon James's new book, The Disappearers. Oh, wow. Dwight Garner, for those who don't know, is not somebody who makes lists for the ringer.com. He is not one who throws out superlatives lightly. But he wrote that about the disappears. Marlon James won the Booker Prize a decade ago for his novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings.

Of the new novel, Garner writes, with this novel about gay experience and murderous, homophobia in Jamaica and elsewhere during the 1980s and 90s, James has written a masterpiece, the novel of the decade, and possibly of the century thus far. That book is out tomorrow, September 1st, from Riverhead. That sounds fascinating. You know what? If anybody, no, I'm going to go ahead and buy it. I'm not going to troll and ask for people to send it to me for free.

But everybody go buy a copy. I'm interested. You know, I don't, do you read a lot of fiction? I don't read, I'm not a very much of fiction meeting. I'm mostly a nonfiction guy. Yeah. And this is a book, like with that, review that I would just love to sit down and maybe you and I can urge each other on in this.

Yeah. Let's read it. In fact, let's do it. Let's try to read it. Okay. I'm trying. Word warning, it is 600 pages long. Oh, wow.

You're not watching at home. Please fast forward to see Joel's face, but I informed me with that fact. Oh, my God. Yeah, no, I'm going to give it a shot. I mean, I'm realizing, you know, football season did just start. Okay. It did. but I do want to read it.

I do want to give it a shot. That is true of a lot of books that I have currently on my shelves, but not all of them have that sort of a review attached to them. Headline for Mark Codorobleau, reporter with KABC out here in Los Angeles, scored the first interview with Jake Reiner. His parents, Rob and Michelle Reiner, were murdered last December. Jake Reiner's brother, Nick, has been charged with those murders.

I'm going to play a clip here for you. Okay. You're going to have to battle through some local news background music and a few pauses. But this is Jake Reiner. He was asked if he thought his brother might be at fault when he heard about his parents' murders. Did you expect that? Did you know? Was that a surprise? I feel like that's something I don't really want to answer at right now.

You have described that after what happened, it was losing more than half of your family. Mm-hmm. That includes Nick. Yeah. I mean, he's in jail. So, you know, it's like I physically lost my parents and then Nick was arrested. And it's like now it's just me and Romney. You know, until you mentioned it, Brian, I wouldn't have noticed how distracting that music is.

I almost feel like it would have been more poignant if there had been no music and you just heard his audio. Definitely feels like it's from the local news toolkit of 1986. Yeah. In terms of the substance of what he said, that is just one of the more horrifying stories. I think about that all the time. Not all the time, but very regularly, I'm just like, how does that happen to a family? Like, how does it go, you know, you're raised, you know, I'm raising two children right now. And I, even though it was a few years ago that I read a story, I read a story by a woman whose son had murdered her husband, right?

And he'd had, you know, he'd struggled with mental stuff. And, and I was just like, man, you just know, you're doing all this work, raising kids, building memories, building this life, you know, and all the moments that you're staring off into the distance. and you're just like, man, they're going to get old one day, and I'm going to get to see them do this and that. And obviously nobody ever sees that in the future. And I just, you know, my heart just goes out to them. I'm just like, man, you just never know where your life is going to end up. That is not at all a deep thought,

but it's just something that occurred to me when I think about that case, and particularly when I hear what Jake is going through right now. I feel the same way. It's just hard to get your mind around. It's scary to get your mind around. I'm listening to that whole. interview on K-A-B-C. Finally, headline 5, Joel.

College football is back. Sorry. You're serious. College football is back. Yes. You've heard me say before, I can nerd out about sports television with anybody.

But as soon as I hear the word scorebug, I mean, a little graphic at the bottom of the screen, I'm out. I'm like, go away nerds. Yeah. I'm not part of your tribe. Oh, man.

Get away from me. I see a little Tarleton State versus Prairie View. Like, let me get to that game right now, you know. There were two interesting developments with the ESPN scorebug, though. Okay. That I noticed on Saturday. One had been reported. There's no bottom line anymore.

Scores are not scrolling across the bottom of the screen with ESPN's college football games. Not much of an issue on Saturday because we didn't have that many games, but come next week, that will be a big development. And as you say, that's often what takes your eyes away from the game you're on. You're like, ooh, got to go somewhere else. Yep. Social media probably serves that function now. Mm-hmm.

So we don't need it anymore. But also, ESPN did an interesting thing where they put the names of the announcers occasionally at the bottom of the screen. I don't know if you noticed this. I didn't have noticed it. Especially when they went to a sideline report. Mm-hmm. Dana Boyle was working the sidelines.

Mike Monaco and Jordan Rogers had the game. and what they would do is they would highlight the name of the person talking. It's great. Great idea. At a particular time. They've done that with Wimbledon. They've done that with the UFL recently. They're going to start doing it.

ESPN told me this morning with their top five crews, or five crews, I should say, in college football this season. Yep. It's fabulous. And especially if you're somebody like me is like, who is talking right now? Yes. Absolutely. Because I want to clock this.

I want to give that person credit or make fun of them for what they're saying. it is an enormously valuable tool. Very often you're listening to a guy, an analyst, and there's some opaque reference to their football career. And then they won't say who it is and you don't get any other clue. I'm like, who is that? Is that Andre where? Is that, you know, who is, who's talking right now?

So it's such a sensible thing. And it reminds me for you people who are not old enough to remember when I was a child and I'd be like, man, I wonder what time it is in the game. They used to not show the clock on TV on TV during games. And I was like, I don't know what time it is in the game. I wish they would show that. And this seems to make just as much sense as doing that.

So I'm glad that they're doing it. Can we talk real quick before we move on about a newspaper that is near and dear to both of us and at least a school that's near and dear to me? You talking about the Fort Worth Star Telegram? Yeah, man. Yeah. For people that may not be familiar with the story, a couple weeks ago, TCU kicked off one of its best defensive players

after he got into a fight with another player on the football team. And then that player got, they dismissed him. They kicked him off the team. And people, they just said, oh, it was just a violation of team rules, didn't really say what it was. Well, come to find out that it had a fight, and the fight was so bad that actually over the weekend, that defensive player got charged with the crime in the attack.

because the Star Telegram reported that story and they did not want them to, wanted them to, you know, they were trying to dissuade the reporter Stephen Johnson from reporting something that they considered to be false information. They stripped the entire sports section of their credential for covering the team. And I know what you thought when you first heard this, right, Brian, like this, what that's outrageous, laughable. Yeah. I mean, I'm happy to.

to get, you know, my dander up and get mad and shake my fist on behalf of sports writers everywhere. Also, it's just really silly and sad. Yeah. This game was in Dublin. Yeah, man. So essentially, Johnson had to fly to Dublin and not have a seat in the press box. Yeah. Just think how just wildly and awfully inconvenient that is.

Mm-hmm. I don't think he needed a seat in the press box to see how lousy TCU played on Saturday. Yeah. But it was, it's just sad to me. And it's just, it's not, you know, it feels, and again, it could have been from any decade because college football coaches have been pulling this kind of stuff forever. Yep. Yeah.

We've seen that recently with a lot of different schools. But I'm just, I look at that and it's like, come on. Isn't this also very much the Streisand effect? Because part of the argument they've been making in the background is that, well, because of the reporting that the Star Telegram ran, it put the player that was injured at risk, that he'd started. to receive some threats and everything else. And I promise you, TCU.

Nobody would have followed up or cared about this story outside of Fort Worth, maybe outside of North Texas. If you had not pulled their credential, you guys made it worse. You guys are the ones that if that player is at risk, you're partially responsible for it now. And you should take responsibility for it since it was such a big deal for you guys. And yeah, I just think it's so stupid.

I mean, look, man, I'm alumni of both those institutions. The first job I had was at the Fort Worth Star Telegram. The first internship I had was at the Fort Worth Star Telegram. And, you know, I care about both those places really deeply. But I just think that TCU, man, you know, you've not covered yourselves in glory last week. It was a really embarrassing week for our institution. And like it would have been bad. The loss would have been bad enough.

But then to have that be part of the mess and the chaos that came out of that week, I mean, you did it to yourselves, and it just makes me wonder what is going on there. That was embarrassing. Also embarrassing the ads that ran during that game. Oh, man. Oh, my God. James Talariko and quote unquote, communist China. Oh, man.

I was like, I can't believe this is on TV. Yeah, I was, what? They're selling our land in Texas to communist China. Like, what the hell? I mean, man. It was just absolutely amazing. It sounds crazy. So great.

It just feels like we live in. Texas again. Yeah, I mean, sure it did. It sure did. Crazy, man. All right, Joel, let's get to our big topic. Our A story, if you will, Hassan Piker. Oh, wow.

Who's that? Yeah, who is that? The way this streamer has gotten pulled into the midterms, how he's pulled himself into the midterms, and how many Democrats should have to answer for something. Piker said at one point or another on his stream. We've seen candidates, across the country get asked about him.

See the topic come up on Dana Bash's CNN show over the weekend. Fox News basically has a Hassan Piker vertical devoted to mentioning whatever it is he said. Piker himself tweeted this last week. It sounds unbelievably stupid, but I have become this media cycle's trans athletes or migrant caravan. Wild how much supposedly liberal outlets let Fox News play the role of News desk edit. It's crazy.

All right. If you do not know much about Hassan Piker, let us fill you in really quickly. Mm-hmm. He's 35 years old. Mm-hmm. He was born in New Jersey, raised largely in Turkey. Yeah. He is the nephew of Sink Weeger of the Young Turks, for whom he worked for a while.

He calls himself the Rush Limbaugh for Zoomers. Oh, God. Okay. And we should note, he is a good-looking, more athletically inclined rush. Oh, very much so. Very, very handsome, strikingly handsome, even, I would say. Rolling Stones, Josh Eels had a good line,

calling him a Eugene Debs who deadlifts. Yeah, man. I was thinking about this because this is a lot of it as a media pose. I mean, you get, you remember, oh man, who was that the racist? Oh, Richard Spencer. Remember when everybody was just determined to call

Richard Spencer, like, well-groomed, well-dressed, that sort of thing? So it just comes to become a self-reinforcing cycle. But the media does a real good job of trying to, like, create a thing around a guy. And that's one of it. You know, I hadn't even really seen that much of a Sond Piker prior to us, you know. I mean, I'm not streaming as much as I should be. And, you know, to hear that, and they just like they want us to let us know that, no, no, he's cool, guys.

Like, and he's really handsome. And he works out. Like, you can just tell that they're just trying to build some sort of a, narrative here. He's not shy about talking about these things either, posting pictures of himself. He's a volume shooter, Hassan Piker is, much like his four runners and

talk radio. It's 50,000 -ish subs on Twitch, very big with young men. He's been drawn into the midterms for two reasons. One is a history of controversial remarks, most famously that America deserve

9-11, comment that he has retracted, also said the October 7th Hamas attacks were Israel's fault. He told this to Eels over at Rolling Stone. I stream for eight hours a day, seven days a week. I'm going to say some dumb shit. But at the end of the day, we're talking about more than 10,000 hours of content. And they've got like four quotes they keep hammering on to be like,

this guy's a dangerous radical. That's number one. The other reason he's been drawn into the midterms is he has endorsed and in some cases campaigned for candidates. most notably Abdul El Sayyad, who's running for Senate in Michigan. Here's Piker talking about that with Semaphors Dave White. I'll admit, I didn't realize how much the media would think that this is different. I had no idea that in the mindset of people in D.C.

And the mindset of like established media doing a rally with a policy, was apparently far more consequential than flying out to Dearborn and like working out with them, doing profiles, fundraising for them. I didn't, I didn't realize that it was a very different thing. I did not realize that people would get so mad about it. Two guys that like to work out. Yeah, man. Sond Piker and Abdul L. Sayette. It's got Jimbrose.

Where should we start with Asan Piker in the midterms? man well I think the first thing I want to go back to what he said I'm going to say some dumb shit do you do you find that to be a compelling argument I don't

because it depends on the four things you said right like if you say well I don't think black people have the right to vote sometimes cheese and crackers don't taste as good to me as they do everybody else or whatever like all those comments are not weighted equally like one of those

could really be offensive to somebody. And you need to be able to stand behind it and not say that's some dumb shit. Again, I mean, we all talk on the mic and don't say things exactly how we want to. I just did that probably five minutes ago, to be honest. But I don't find that to be a compelling argument. Do you? It's fair enough. Don't you think it's a generational thing, though?

Hey, I tweeted some stuff. I said some stuff. I have a regrettable online footprint. Yeah. See, okay. So great. I'm glad you said it that way that we got into this. Because I obviously like, and there's a big profile of him and some other guys last year in the New Yorker that was basically, you know, looking for the Joe Rogan of the left and why Hassan Piker had, you know, come into popularity.

And I think the appeal. and they kind of made this argument over and over again in the piece, is that you can sometimes be terrible, but people should be able to look past that if you have really good politics or that you have politics that people agree with. And that's complicated. I guess it depends on how good the politics are and how terrible you were and the last time you were terrible, right?

So I feel like that's what the argument is right now. Like, you know, how should we feel about that? Does that sound fair? I think that sounds fair. Okay. And look, your note is totally right. It matters what you said. Yes.

It really does. Like, there are all kinds of regrettable things one can say. And there's a big difference in door number one and door number two, which is cheese and crackers aren't as great as everybody says. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know. You know, obviously a lot of this is because, again, going into the 2024 election, that was the big problem and the big thing in the media was that, oh, the left doesn't have anybody,

a Joe Rogan for somebody to go on with and be loose and make jokes with and be sort of almost kind of racist or whatever. You know, have things that people have said. And I just, you know, I mean, we could talk about how we feel about Hassan Piker later, but I really think that one of the problems I have with this is there's sort of this assumption that people should just sort of be able to say things and do things and not bear any consequences for them and not you know you're if you're going to reap all the rewards the millions of streamers all the branding deals all the popularity all the things all the rooms

that you get into because of the things that you say I really don't think you can sit up here and get bad when people are like well you also said some shit we didn't like and we're going to hold you accountable for it. Like that's just, that's just what comes with it. Now, it's up to you, and we can talk about this, whether or not you should pay attention to it or not, and how the media should handle it. You should at least have to reckon with those statements. Yeah. Yeah. You're allowed to say that was really, really stupid. I regret it. Here's why. Not just because it's inconvenient to me now, because we don't keep bringing it up, but I regret it. Here's what I would say now, right? Here's how my thinking has changed or here's, here's why I said,

that stupid thing. I agree. I agree. I mean, you mentioned the Joe Rogan of the left. So much of this is Democrats just trying to get back into the podcast game,

whether it's with Hassan Piker or somebody else. I mean, remember when Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson were desperately trying to get Kamala Harris to have a concrete memory about the run DMC warriors? Oh, man.

What a painful memory that is in retrospect. I don't want to say anything because we had a moment like this on that show. And you probably know what I'm talking about. We did. Anyway. We did.

But that was, and meanwhile, Trump's doing every single podcast. Yeah. Now, I do think there is a distinction to be made from doing a podcast with somebody who might have said X, Y, and Z in the past, to having someone from that podcast campaign for you. Right. That's a different level, right?

At some point, and again, we can talk about. about me to overkill in a second. But at some point, you're saying, I like you, I believe in what you do, even if I don't believe in everything you've ever said, I believe in what you do. Mm-hmm.

I want you to be with me on the trail. Mm-hmm. And Abdul El-Sayed is making a calculation here. Mm-hmm. He knows that Piker's appearance would piss some people off. Right. Maybe chase some voters away,

but let's just say piss some people off because it's not even clear that that's going to have. happen. But he is calculating that it will also make younger people more fired up to vote for him that other people will come into the electorate because they'll be like, hey, this is a guy who speaks to me or a guy I've at least heard of, unlike some of his other surrogates. So now I'm more fired up to vote. Yeah. You, I mean, you're trying to stoke that perennially underwhelming voting block of young men ages 18 to 29. You know that Hassan,

Piker has at least a large amount of those people captive, you probably would rather take your chances that he might activate them than you're going to piss off people who are probably going to be inclined to be pissed off with you anyway and not open to your politics. So if El Cayed makes that calculation, how many of Puyker's past statement should he have to answer for? You know, I think he should answer as many questions as people have to have. And then you say, I've answered that question already. I've talked about it publicly.

I'm not going to talk about it again. Because I think that's the thing because people are going to be confused here and let me clarify. I don't necessarily think that you should be able to say things and think that people aren't going to take offense with them. Right. Like that is just part of the deal. Can't you be surprised or whatever? And if you campaign with this guy that has said some controversial things of the past, you should not be surprised if people are going to get upset and ask questions for it. The issue is how you handle it.

and what I think is the right way to handle it in the media. And I think that El-Sayed is counting on the idea that, you know what, I see Republicans go through this all the time at a lower level, though. Like, you just don't really see the buzz around all of the, you know, the dozens of races or bigoted or transphobic things that Republicans and their acolytes are saying throughout the week. Like, so they just kind of, they flood the zone. And I think what El-Sayed is counting on is that this is going to go away. I'm going to talk about it once and it's going to go away and we're going to move on and I'm going to pivot.

And so if you're as good at it as he is, and I'm sure a lot of people here have seen his clips, if you're as good as he is, is answering the question and pivoting back to what he wants to talk about, then have Hassan Piker on. If you're somebody that's not good at that, then you should think about whether or not you want to be in public with that person. I don't mind the media questions. Yeah. There's a question of scale. Well, see, yes.

There's a question of scale, but I think that if you have somebody campaign for you, even in the primary in this case, because we're talking about stuff that happened in the primary, that's stuff that's necessarily going to continue in infinity. Great. You are saying this is a person I want to be seen with, allied with. It's a fair question. I ultimately hope that those reportedly questions are about trying to understand and communicate what El Sayyad truly believes rather than just playing a bingo game with here

is something Hassan Piker said in the past because that to me is the highest form of this. Right. You can say, well, do you believe in X? Do you believe in this? Would you like to distance yourself from this? And it just becomes a game. Yes. At some point? Yes. I want to know what El Sayyad actually thinks. That's the public service here.

Right. People in Michigan are going to vote, right? They should have the best sense of what he believes about these subjects and where he might differ with Asan Piker on different issues of the day, not just a past state. Right. And I would say the media should be aware that people are watching and listening, that voters on the right and left are watching and taking note of the discrepancy. Because this is what we talked about with Natalie Hart, right?

It's like, why is this interesting to people? Why are they pushing it? Will Democrats and left-leaning voters say the media only pay his attention if you make a big stink? You got to keep it up. You can't drop it. You got to keep bringing it up. And so that's what the right is doing right now with Hassan Piker. And shit, I mean, some centrist Dems are doing that.

There's like, we're going to make him, we're going to keep talking about this and make it a big deal because we don't like that guy. We don't like what he stands for. And they're fighting a war for control of the Democratic Party. Absolutely. They want to keep their hands on power. And if they can say, hey, you know, those candidates are associating with somebody else who has this history of so-and-so and so-and-so, that helps them. But what to do then, Brian, if you're going to do El-Sayette like that, a guy who's, you know, not currently a senator, right?

But then you've got somebody like Laura Loomer who's calling somebody a ghetto bitch on Twitter. This is a guy, this is a woman who has a direct line to the president. There's plenty. Like, if you disagree with me that there are a lot of people in Trump world that are not saying racist, a bigoted thing, fine. I disagree with you, though. And there's a lot of comments. I'm sure you can look them up of people that are, that have access to Trump or have been in Trump world or whatever,

Trump adjacent. And they're saying things all the time. And Republicans are very rarely held accountable for it. And so people on the left, this is when people have problems with the media and they talk about, like, the problem of balance in the media. in the media. This is why I would just laugh when people on the right say that the media is left leaning. I mean, they may be politically, but when it comes to having to do the job, they're much more responsive to the critique of the right than they are the left. And people, I mean, you can't help but notice it in a situation like this. And Laura Lumer is much closer to power

than Assam Pike. Absolutely. That he currently is and perhaps ever will be. Absolutely. That's just the truth of it. I completely agree. I do think, The scale thing is so hard because I just don't know how to measure this anymore. Yeah. When we say, like, are you making too much of a deal out of Hassan Piker? Is the media writ large? Okay. Well, who are we talking about?

Right. And are we just, because you and I just read tweets about this all the time, it seemed like we can point to and say, okay, it came up on, like Dana Bash was talking about on CNN. Okay. That's a sign that it's in that world. Okay. There's stories about him, right? They're asking other candidates, including John Ossif, who's about Ossev.

And I guess the tie there is that Piker once talked him up. And now he's having to distance himself from something Piker said he's not going to be campaigning in Atlanta for John Austin. Right. No, there's no connection there at all of it, other than they're both, you know, on the leftward side of the spectrum somewhere. I just, I think it's hard to, like, I wish there was like, you know how in the stream you can, on the streaming service, you can have an ad-free tier. Yeah. What if we had like a Fox News free tier and a right wing Twitter account tier? How much Hassan Piker stuff would we actually be reading every day? It's a good question. It's a really

interesting question. Now, to your point about Laura Loomer, I don't think, I don't think somebody's going down the list of Republican senators and Republican can't be like, do you agree with this statement about Angie Nixon? I just don't feel that's the case. Maybe I'm generalizing too much. I hate when people generalize about the media, but it certainly feels that way. Right. So what do you do then? So like, the thing is the Trump thing is never going to be fair. Right.

Look at just, we just mentioned the Maggie Haberman tweets. It's never, it's, it's, it's, it's just not going to be that way. Right. There's nothing. You're never going to be like, okay, have we asked X many questions based on how many things just Donald Trump said, forget even his allies? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

Just things that Donald Trump said on the record or posted on true social today. Are we going to ask as many questions? questions about that as we are going to ask about the left wing podcast. It's just never going to be, it's never going to be straight up. But man, that's a hard thing to say if that's going to be a lot of your customer base. Well, I'm just talking functionally. It hasn't been that way. Yeah. In almost one and a half terms of Donald Trump. Right. I just, it's not because he floods his own. I mean, it's almost like what you're saying about streamers. There's just so much stuff.

There's so much you got to listen to. Yeah. And that, what's the thing. thing is, I don't, and I don't know what the answer is. So like, you know, pardon me for bringing this up and not having the solution. But I just think the media is going to have to learn for account for that. Because I even, even I, you know, people, again, my politics are what they are, I notice the discrepancy. And sometimes it could give the impression, well, you care about some people and you don't care about other people. And why would I support a media outlet that is not you say you're just calling balls and strikes but actually you're not you know they're throwing a lot of balls over there that you're calling strikes in fairness a lot of the inflammatory stuff and

that's that's a really nice word right a lot of the shit Donald Trump says mm-hmm gets written up and publicized and has prominent place in a lot of news organizations it is not it's not ignored I think what we're talking specifically about here is you're a republican official who needs centrist voters to win your campaign, right? If we just do apples to apples, are those people being asked about Laura Lumer, the thing Donald Trump just posted on true social, as much as Democratic candidates

who were in a similar position are being asked about to sign pike. That to me is the thing that I would want to measure because I think you can get something close to apples to apples. Do you think Beau French and Ken Paxton they're going to get Laura Luma questions. I mean, would they mind all that much? I mean, yeah, man, they might be like, yeah, she's a good old bitch.

I'm sure. You does stuff with them? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I'm sorry. Let me take that. Oh, my God. No, I just, I just.

Well, I mean, Laura Luma said it. She did. I mean, and double down, by the way. She's not, she's not apologizing. And then, like, went through an extended analogy of her as a dog, talking about tugging on her collar and everything. So, yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm sorry. It is a horrible thing.

I don't, you know, I know people are probably throwing it. I don't normally say the B word, but that's what was said right here. It's a horrible, it's a very offensive word. And, yeah, it's just like, all right. You know, Michelle Tofoyo, what do you think of this? Has that happened yet? I don't know. If it has, please send us the evidence of it, please.

And it might have. And it might be buried in a story in the, you know, one of the papers in Minneapolis, and we just didn't see it. Yeah, right. And because she just said something about it and distanced herself and just like, I'm here to talk or I'm here to talk about the people of Minnesota. I'm not commenting, right? That's the, that's the safe way to do it.

You don't actually reject it. Just like, I'm not listening to what so-and-so says. I'm here to talk about issues that are applied all the Minnesotans. Two more parts of this I want to get to. Political reporters. I think they perk up their ears when they see stories that illustrate. change within the Democratic Party or friction within the Democratic Party. Yeah.

Hassan Piker illustrates both. Yeah. Friction is, hey, you know, somebody's okay with him and John Osso's not okay with him. Roy Cooper is not okay with him. Change is, hey, the Democratic Party is starting to sound more like Hassan Piker than Chuck Schumer. Yeah. That's a hypothesis.

Yeah. And that's not what's happening, but yes. there you go that's number one the number two is we're thinking about him piker that is as a surrogate yep an endorser maybe somebody on the campaign trail

a lot of people who listen to him think of him as the media yes yes they get their news from him they get their news and he analyzes it for it I mean they say he's on air about eight hours a day maybe more

so yeah they're People are tuning in and they're getting a lot of their news filtered through the Hassan Piker. That is a news, that isn't a manner of speaking, a news organization. Not in a manner of speaking. It's just the news organization. Well, there you go. Nobody's like, well, this isn't the New York Times. You're like, what's the New York Times?

Yes, fair. Why is that relevant to me? This guy's cool. He speaks to me. I like it. Do you watch a little bit of this? Yeah, I did. It's just very busy.

Very busy, yeah. The clips. The stuff. And, yeah, it's just a very little bit of this. busy, a lot of stuff going on. It's like cocoa melon for adults. And so normally I just can't, I can't do all that. Like I can't watch four football games on a screen.

I need about two. This is just too overwhelming. I just can't take it all in. What did you, what did you think? For all of that, for all this stuff going on. Yeah. It really does remind me the early days of AM radio. Really?

I mean, chats instead of phone calls. Yeah. But this idea that there would be people speaking extemporaneously and that they'd be talking so much that you couldn't get your arms around it. Remember Rush Limbaugh? We can go back to Piker's analogy. You know what? In the days before media matters,

the days before you could just like easily have a recording of a talk radio show, we were supposed to sit there and push record on their tape recorders to get rush during the day and then go through and fact check all those statements or be like, Can you believe he said X? Right. And if he did say X, how representative of that is that comment of the entire show? Right. Like, is he saying that all the time?

Yeah. Right. Is Hassan Piker's entire eight hours about how America deserved 9-11 or is that something he said one time, right? Like that's what's difficult about all this. Absolutely. Unless you live in that world, it is a very, very hard world for people like us for media members to process. that's why I was almost sort of reticent to talk about it. That's what we talked about this before we did, because I'm like, how do I know

that I'm hearing anything close to what's representative of a Hassan Piper show, given that he talks at length. I mean, that's why it's hard to talk about Steve, because Steve, I don't know what it is about Stephen Siff. He manages to break through the chat, even though he talks all the time. But with the Hassan Piper thing, it's just very, I was like, I just don't know. Maybe I'm just because I'm not familiar with that world. It did make me feel old.

And I was like, you know what, that's something I probably, we all should, you know, get more familiar with. Because that's where a lot of people are turning to now to get their information and their news. These people are like getting closer to influencing politics in the world. And so, yeah, I mean, I might have to get a Twitch account, you know. We came on here and said we're just going to talk about one big topic. Yeah, every show. But I have a one B. Okay.

It also has to do with politics. and specifically the Senate. Okay. What is Jasmine Crockett doing? Man. Brother, I don't know. Jasmine Crockett was running for Senate in Texas. She lost to James Tala Rico.

Immediately the next morning, despite some irregularities she pointed to an election night, she endorsed him, said, I am for James Tala Rico. Then she gave an interview to a podcast. The other day where she said she wasn't going to campaign with Tala Rico. Yeah. She said the same thing to Laura Coates on CNN.

Here's a clip from that in her. Talrico might very well need that magnetism. Will you campaign with him? I will be campaigning down ballot. I think that what matters most... Because when we're looking at a state like Texas, we've tried this where we've got one amazing candidate that's running at the top of the ticket.

Beto is a very good example of this, raising all the money, doing all the things, running around the entire state, but it's not enough. So for me, I don't think that it should be a matter of there's just one thing that is getting me to the polls. I think it has to be something a little bit more in a state like Texas. And so for me, I think that making sure that people that maybe are getting overshadowed because it seems like it's only about one big race, I think amplifying them, making sure that I can raise their profiles, and introducing them to people, that'll give something more to voters to make them say, you know what? It may be raining outside, but I got to go get there because I got to go get there for this person and this person, plus I don't like Trump.

What do you make of that? Why can't it be both? And the follow-up question of that, who are you doing that in coordination with? Like, are you working through and with? Which candidates? Yeah. And you're doing that in conjunction with the National Democratic Party, the State Democratic Party? like who's deciding on this strategy or is it Jasmine Crockett, Inc.

You know? So Coates followed up on both of those things. She said her PAC was partly the answer to the second one, candidates she's supporting through there. I'm not sure we know exactly who those people are yet. Coates also said, wait a second, why is this, why do you have to do one or the other? Okay. You know, can't you do an event with Tala Rico and then go back to supporting local candidates?

and she said, no, the states of Texas is really big, so I actually have to do one of the other. Why do you think she's doing this? Those are good answers, but why do you think she's doing this? Why is she not campaigning with Talarico? Well, why is she talking about it with Laura Koch? Because that is why people want to talk to Jasmine Crockett. That's why we want to talk to Jasmine Crockett.

We'd love to talk to Jasmine Crockett. I've sent out an interview request. So why do you think she's doing it? Because those don't seem like good answers to me. Maybe they ought to her and people that really, really support Jasmine Crockett, but they don't seem like good answers to me. So why do you think she's doing interviews about it? Not that long ago, I asked a political reporter,

hey, let's say there's an hour to your deadline. And you need a quote from somebody in Congress. You need somebody said this in your, in your story. Who are your go-toes? And the political reporter told me Rokana and Jasmine Crockett.

Wow. Okay. For the answer to that question. So I think Jasmine Crockett likes attention and likes answering the phone. That's why she's doing these interviews. And by the way, thank God for people like that. That's true. That helps our jobs immensely that people like that.

Oh yeah, let me not be Mark Deason about this. Like, please, yeah. I encourage people to talk with and cooperate with the media. We will not call for your prosecution if you return Joel's phone calls or my phone call. You are a friend of I. If anything, my complaint is like, well, why can't you do that with us? You should come on with us. That to me is the answer to the first question.

The second question is a more interesting one, which is what is she trying to get out of this? Yes. What does she want? Because if James Tolariko was running for president, I think I would understand the endgame here a little bit more. You're a little coy. You withhold your endorsement. Maybe you're angling for a policy concession. Maybe you're angling for a job in the administration.

But he's just running for Senate. Right. So what is she getting out of this long term? I don't. I mean, that is a fascinating question because, yeah, I mean, what do you do after this? Like, she's not going to be in office. And if you don't play nice with the guy that everybody has lined up behind in the Democratic Party, then it's like, well, you couldn't have that much of a future.

But the question I actually have for, too, is that she's mentioned this in a few other interviews about how black voters are not excited about this election or whatever. And she gets to say that over and over again. And I would actually like to know, and maybe I will try to find out myself as a reporter at some point, if that's actually true or not. I don't, you know, she's gotten to get away with saying that over and over again. because the voting base she's talking about and because like she's not at the center of this election cycle anymore, I don't, I haven't really seen a lot of stories about that yet,

at least so far, right? There's still time. And how do we know until election day? That's the thing. Yeah. How do you, so it's just the thing. I mean, the thing is if you ask her that question, she'll say, well, I've been, I've been campaigning in Waco and LaMahia and, you know, Richmond, Rosenberg.

I've been in all these places and that's what they're telling me and so she'll just be able to come back and say that. New Broadfills. Let's just list in Texas. Oh yeah, San Marcus, Sagan. Fort Davis.

Lemisa. Let's go. Centerville. Madisonville. But yeah. So I would like to, I mean, it would be tough to get an answer to this. It's kind of like what we were talking about

the tit for tat that we want to keep with, you know, the people that get asked about Piker as opposed to Laura Lume or whatever. But I would, this is a tough thing to sort of suss out, but I feel like she gets to say that over and over again.

And I want somebody to like, write about that or report about that if that's actually a thing. Yeah. How do you know that? What signs are you getting from voters? Yeah, tell us. Does they say we're not going to go vote?

We don't like James Tala Rico. I don't think, you know, again, maybe I'm wrong. They may say that, but in the next breath they may say, But there's no way that I can let Ken Paxton be my senator. You know? So, yeah, I feel like we need to get to the bottom of that.

This is a big headache for Tala Rico and Democrats in Texas generally. Mm-hmm. But put on your journalist Fedora for a second. Okay. Wouldn't you rather her tell the truth than go do a phony, hug it out, and just be like, I'm your Haley Stevens, I'm your surrogate, put me out there. We love each other. Yes, yes, you're the best.

Let's go. Wouldn't you rather know what she really thinks? Well, she's not really telling us what she really thinks, though. She's kind of hiding behind it. You know, that's the thing. She won't say that she doesn't like him or doesn't want to say, oh, I'm just busy with local candidates. She's evading the truth, but just in a different way.

Yeah, we're not dumb. You know, we can all see what's going on here. And so I don't think, but yes, I mean, it's more real than saying what you're going to do and then not doing it, which is sort of what I kind of think. was happening with John Cornyn and Ken Paxton because I saw some comments from John Corny this past week about Paxton

basically criticized his campaigning and that he hasn't been doing much to offer the voters. And I'm like, do you think John Corny is actually going to be out there stumping for Ken Paxton? I don't know. I don't think so. By the way, fascinating question.

How does what John Cornyn wants to happen differ from what Jasmine Crockett wants to happen? Somebody needs to be asked. asking John Cornyn about that. Like, what are you doing? Like, who have you gone to seeing what troops are you rallying? What voters do you feel are not excited

enough about voting for Ken Paxton? Oh, man. I mean, now, if he wants to say the black voters in Texas are not excited about the Kempaxon campaign, you don't even have to look it up. I probably read that. You don't need any additional reporting.

Yeah. I mean, with Cornyn, you're like, would he, does he, is there any doubt he wants to see Ken Paxton lose? Oh, my God. And see his argument, validated even if it costs Texas a Republican senator

like does he care but and I honestly think that's I mean again even if even if you had Jasmine Crockett on the press box I'm not sure you'd get to the answer here but you know if Tala Rico goes down in flames if Tala Rico turns into Beto 2.0 I told you. Is she going to be upset? I don't know

yeah well yeah would she rather would she rather say I told you so I told you yeah I mean I think that's well I don't want to guess to you know I don't I honestly don't know the answer to that question yeah I don't know the answer but if you really wanted him to win wouldn't you be offering up your services and saying hey let's go let's go to dfW where I know the voters let me help you bring as many people to the polls as I

possibly can I tell you what Brian if Tala Rico loses and that's still a very good a very live possibility um the media attention the she she's going to get and that black voters are going to get in Texas really kind of makes my stomach term because they're going to get blamed if James Talleyco loses them because she's also been sort of suddenly putting it on the black voter. Well, they're not excited. They're not excited. God forbid James Tala Riko loses by a point or two in the general election.

And I mean, is that the kind of burden that she wants to face on the other side of this? I guess we'll find out. Speaking of something you could report on after the fact, but, uh, also speaking to which you still think Kim Paxson is going to win? I'm looking at a bunch of very favorable Tala Rico polls. So we talked about this crazy poll

that had Abbott down too. In it, right? That was too much for me to believe. I was like, yeah. I just, we're doing that thing again. We had a whole episode where it's like, man, people fall for these polls. They don't know how to poll now.

But no matter what, you put a poll together and people are like, oh, man. You and I text each other every single one of these. Every time. Yeah. Yeah, we texted them. I'm like, oh, wait a minute. I forgot.

This is just whatever. And this is the New York Times list of recent ones. Tala Rico plus six plus three. Paxton plus one and then Tala Rico plus three, two, four, two, three, five, two. A small but fairly stable lead if you believe these things. Do you think James Tala RICO is going to win the election? No. No.

I'm not there yet either. Well, here's what I think, Brian. If the people doing the poll, it's probably really hard to say that you support Ken Paxton out in public. It's a lot of easy to just go full. Yeah, well, I'm just saying, like, you just probably don't want people to think of

a certain way about you, right? But it's easier to go vote for him and say nothing about it as opposed to telling people that you support this guy who everybody of, I mean, Just any reasonable human would say this is a really bad candidate for a number of reasons. And they say that, oh, I support that.

People will think, you know, you probably don't want people to think ill of you. So I don't think that's what I think is going to be a problem with the polling, that they just can't capture that. You don't think voters are fired up by that stump speech. It was going around on Twitter over the weekend of Paxton and the golf shirt. Dude, tuck your shirt in, bro. Do something, man. I mean, you know, when I was in high school, you used to get Penance Hall for having your shirt untucked and not wearing a belt.

Penance Hall. Was that much detention? Detention? Yeah, it's like detention. Yeah, penance hall. This is what a religious school is like. PH. PENance hall.

Yeah, you get a pH. I don't know if you still get a pH. Penance Hall. I love that. We need to make that into a press box segment. We should. When we have one of those regrettable moments because we're talking and talking and talking, look, Joel's going to Penance Hall. Don't ask me how I know what happens after you get 20.

Uh-oh. Did you have any football games you had to sit out because too many times in pencil? No. No, but you know what? So you had regular pH on a day-to-day basis and then you had Saturday pH. So after one game, I had to go do my, you know, the Saturday morning you go up to the field house, do a little small workout jog to get the soreness out, everything like that. and if you were really dedicated, you know, getting a hot tub or whatever, right?

And then after I finished that, I had to go serve my Saturday pH. Oh, man. And then I got a pH during my Saturday pH. So, you know. Wait, because you were not being sufficiently penitent? Yeah, I wasn't being penitent. I've R.R.P. Brother Casey, man, he was a good dude. But I told him I didn't like the way he was talking to me.

I was like, I threw my broom down. I was like, oh, man. So yeah. All right. New press box featured, Penance Hall. We'll be joining, feeling the table,

which we also over the last few months. Shout out Kendrick Perkins. All right, he's Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis. Proxy Magic. By Isaiah Blakely and John,

Not Bowens Jones. Shoemaker's here Thursday. It's your new press box schedule. Monday Thursday. Monday Thursday, they will roll into Labor Day weekend. So as soon as we start the Monday Thursday schedule, you and I will actually be back next Tuesday. Oh, man.

Tuesday? More lukewarm takes about the media. Have a great weekend, y'all. You tonight.