The Press Box - Hard Pass Interference | The Press Box (Ep. 544)

Episode Date: November 9, 2018

The kerfuffle about the contentious encounter between CNN’s Jim Acosta and President Trump at a White House press conference, and election fallout. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, it's Liz Kelly. We have another live show coming up on Monday, November 12th at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Ryan Rusillo and the ringers Kevin Clark and Robert Mays are doing a live dual-threat ringer NFL show crossover. They'll be breaking down week 10 of the NFL and covering the major storylines from around the league. For more info and links to tickets, check out the ringers, Twitter, and Instagram. David, we're going to talk about the standoff between the White House and CNN's Jim Acosta. But what I want to know is, what should we name you? this scandal. It needs a name, right?

Yeah. I'm trying to think that, like, I'm, I was trying to think of, like, a good rumble in the jungle style, like, boxing name for it. Yeah. I don't think, like, the tussle and the tussle and press pool don't really rhyme well enough. Maybe, I think, I think the scrum and the scrum is a little bit just too, too, on the nose, but, um, obviously with these things, we go to Watergate, right, with all these things. So, like, a Costa gate is, It's a little bit boring. Maybe chopper gate. It hits the beat a little bit better.

It was the whole kung fu karate chopper thing. I don't know. Do you have any good ideas for this? I just wonder if we're overthinking this slightly. Isn't the right answer, the acostrophe? All right. That's a winner. We can move on.

We're done here. Yeah, we're always overthinking this lately. This is the press box. Yeah, let's just start it. We are the hard pass of media podcast. This is the press box. A part of the Ringer podcast network. The Pressbox is the media podcast where you're allowed to be distracted from the really important news about the firing of Jeff Sessions.

That's what we're here for. That's our job. Yes. We are Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker of the Ringer. And we wanted to come back today and fire off a bonus episode about the incredible contra-tempts between CNN's Jim Acosta and the White House, which has now falsely accused him of manhandling a White House intern, has. distributed a obviously pretty obviously doctored video and has taken away his hard pass to the White House. We're going to get to the press freedom part of this discussion in the second, David. But how many times did you laugh when you learn the White House credential is called a

hard pass? I was just saying that this morning, not in Slack for the record. But yeah, I thought that was the funniest thing. The hard pass is, I mean, I guess as it was explained to me, if you're there for like, if you get a day pass, it's just a piece of paper. And if you have a permanent pass, it's laminated and therefore hard. But regardless, I wish, I think a lot of people listening to this, wish they could have taken a hard pass on this whole subject. Yeah, so that's what a great thing to devote a whole podcast to. We're going to hit the Costa. We're going to talk about the possible distraction that is it, how the press should respond to it. We're going to also talk about the question asked in that very long and quite

bonkers 90-minute Trump press conference on Wednesday by Yemish Alexander of PBS. But then we're also going to hit a few election topics. We're going to talk about the people surrounding Tucker Carlson's house. We'll talk about the convenient disappearance of the migrant caravan, which was the most important issue in the world before the election and seems not to be on the radar at all after it. We'll talk about Trump's new acting attorney general. And also Nate Silver, any election is not complete until we have the Nate Silver recriminations portion of the event, which is, I believe, happening right now between Nate Silver and Brett Stevens. So we'll talk about that too, David. But let's start with Jim Acosta. Here are.

the facts, the day after the election, Trump, who was clearly fed up with people talking about Jackie Rosen and Steve Kornacki, held a freewheeling 90-minute press conference at the White House. He called on his bet noir, Jim Acosta of CNN, and here is the end of their very tempestuous exchange. I think you should let me run the country. You run CNN. And if you did it well, your ratings would be much better. If I may ask one of the question, Ms. President, if I may ask I said one of the question, are you worried. That's enough. That's enough. That's enough. That's enough. Pardon me, ma'am.

Excuse me. That's enough. Mr. President, I had one of the question, if I may ask on the Russian investigation, are you concerned that you may have indictments? I'm not concerned about anything with the Russian investigation because it's a hoax. That's enough. Put down the mic. Ms. President, are you worried about indictments coming down in this investigation? So you heard Acosta in the middle of that say, pardon me, ma'am. That was him responding to a White House.

intern who was trying to grab back the microphone he was holding. And Acosta was playing keepaway with it. Remember that because that's going to be important later in the story. But first, let's hear the following exchange from the press conference, which is between Trump and Peter Alexander of NBC. Go ahead. In Jim's defense, I've traveled with him and watched him. He's a diligent reporter who buses by like the rest of us.

Well, I'm not a big fan of yours either, so to be honest. So let me ask you a question if I can. You repeatedly said. You are the best. Mr. President, you repeated. Over the course of... Okay, just sit down, please. Well, when you report fake news, no.

When you report fake news, which CNN does a lot, you are the enemy of the people. Go ahead. Mr. President, over the course of... So, that muffled sound you heard there was a cost of now standing up and trying to ask a question without a microphone. Mm-hmm. So that was the beginning of it.

Should we say, but then what happened next? which was that we gotta go straight there let's keep going on set on Thursday White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted we will never tolerate

a reporter placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern that referring to Acosta trying to keep the mic while the intern tried to take the mic Sanders continues

the fact that CNN is proud of the way their employee behaved is not only disgusting it's an example of their outrageous disregard for everyone including young women women who work in this administration. As a result of today's incident, the White House is suspending the hard pass of the reporter involved until further notice. All right. To this point,

David, in the story, Acosta has yet another fiery exchange with Donald Trump. There is the disputed grabbing of the microphone, and then the White House turns around and suspends his hard pass. What do you make of that? Man. Big sigh. There's so much, so much to say. I mean, I guess just to go back through your timeline a little bit. As soon as the press conference was over, and you know, it's a very minor point, but it should be said that nobody came away from that interaction

with, with, everybody was, you were obsessed with everything that came out of that interaction except the way that Jim Acosta interacted with the intern. I mean, that was, on nobody's radar. No. Except before Sarah Sanders tweeted it, if you had been on the Donald, the subreddit,

you would have seen one of the most highly voted stories, as I did, just happened to be right after that, that said, the headline was, so we're all just going to pretend Jim Acosta didn't just karate chop a female staffer's arm,

and then it linked to the video, which I believe was the same video that Sarah Sanders eventually tweeted, but which itself was taken from the Twitter account of Paul Joseph Watson. I have that name correct, right? A.k.a. At prison planet.

Yes. Right. Who is a long-time arch, right, libertarian, whatever, Twitter presence. Also an employee of Info Wars. There you go. And he claims that he took the video, I mean,

took an existing GIF online, zoomed in. ran it through some, you know, some whatever online software. And it just came out in this way that happened to make it look like that Jim Acosta was, you know, using some form of defensive martial art on this, on the White House intern. And then at that point, that was the video that Sarah Sanders somehow got her hands on and used to justify the, you know, revoking or suspension of Acosta's hard pass.

And tweet it out herself. And tweeted out herself. Distributing it to a much, much bigger or at least much more mainstream audience. There's a couple of points here that, you know, side points that, and stop me if I'm getting too far ahead. But one is that Trump, even today as we record this, has now threatened that there might be other people who would have their press credentials revoked. which the which

makes it very clear that that since no one else is even purported to have put their hands on any White House staffers that that had nothing to do with Jim Acosta getting his credentials revoked right I mean it was this was a this was a punishment in search of a crime right I mean and they and they and they

they decided to use this wacky video to you know or this whatever doctored video to to prove it yeah you could also to say a controversy in search of a White House correspondent. Exactly. Yeah. And that's, and that's my second point, which is there were lots of reports that Trump walked into that gaggle or the press room that day looking for a fight, that he was in a bad mood either

because according to various stories, he's, he wasn't happy with the election results. He's worried that his son is about to get indicted by Bob Mueller. There are any number of things, but, you know, he, regardless of how many times he told Jim Acosta to sit down, he called on Jim Acosta, who he clearly doesn't like. I mean, he he he welcomed that first question, you know, and that was on him. So if he was so determined to, to, I mean, that CNN is fake news and not worthy of a place there, he could have just not called on him. And then let Jim Acosta stand up and talk without a mic, you know, on his own. But going back to the video, you know, if Sarah Sanders on her own, on her own saw that video online, whether it was on, you know,

on Watson's Twitter timeline or just you know it copied copied elsewhere even if she saw that video and that skewed her perception of that incident between Acosta and the staffer

okay that's fine but even if it's true the premise is a lie right I mean they they kicked him out for asking questions or for show or for whatever else not for karate chopping and intern's arm

and I think that that connection is obvious but important just to say out loud I think that's right. I mean, the accosted Trump symbiotic relationship is fascinating to me. Because Trump, if Trump is going to cast the media as the enemy of the American people, which he has done pretty much unceasingly throughout his presidency. And even as we saw in pretty concentrated form during the last week before the midterms, right? That was part of his closing argument is vote for me because the media is your enemy. that one does not exactly follow the other, but there you go.

You can't do that if your adversary is an unsigned editorial in The Economist. You need a kind of figure that you can point at and show video of on Fox News and, you know, cast as this crazy villain in the minds of your supporters. And here is Jim Acosta, this scenery chewing confrontation. grandios CNN correspondent who is perfect for that role in Trump's eyes. So of course

he's going to call on him. And of course he's going to relish the combat he has with him. I wonder if just the whole microphone bit was just a bonus for them. Right? They were, there are as you say,

walking to that press conference, change the subject in whatever way. Just change the subject. First of all, to have the president of the United States talking for 90 minutes and answering any question in the sun. Yeah. Change it by arguing with the Costa. But then I say, oh, this crazy thing is bubbled up in right-wing internet.

So we're going to promote this. And now we have a cover for the reason we're revoking his pass to the White House. First of all, just the whole karate chop thing. First of all, I think we can stay for the record. Jim Acosta did not manhandle anybody. and the video. No, and the doctoring of the video is one thing, but also the removal of the sound. I mean, if there's no way you can watch that, like I said, in real time, nobody watched that and came away aghast at Jim Acosta's, you know, that he had somehow got physical with an intern.

That just didn't happen. Yeah, but I'm saying your theory of the case, if you are right-wing internet, is that when the big, bad White House correspondent wanted to get physical, he went to the karate chop. Oh, yeah. That was his move. that was the first thought I'm going to karate chop my way out of this problem you know when someone tries to take your microphone

there's only one thing to do it's a karate chop yeah over on BuzzFeed Charlie Worsall called the video portion of this a handy example of the coming video manipulation dystopia dot dot dot where the very threat

of video manipulation can lead to the blurring of reality and it really it really does feel like a weird that we're getting into weird movie blow up, blowout territory there, right? Where it's just like, oh,

here's a video that will propound whatever opinion this side wants to have, and the press secretary of the President of the United States is blowing it out there. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a sort of looming threat of, you know, deep fakes or like, you know, whatever, all this, all these, you know,

the potential way that a video like this could be used by, you know, less than principal white house like the one we have now, at least, I mean, especially in an incident like this. And then, you know, and just in general, I mean, this is the one of our weird societal, I mean, odd societal fears right now, one of our greatest fears is this is this thing that, like, you could put our face on anybody and anyone could believe we're doing anything. And, you know, I guess, yeah, there's this sort of dystopic view of the future.

I do think that Charlie Warzel piece is worth pausing on for one second just because that was, I don't know if that was the first piece that, I mean, you know, big piece that came out after this. But the headline was people are arguing about whether this Trump press conference video is doctored, which is a perfect little, you know, BuzzFeed style headline to acknowledge that there is some dispute here. Yeah, it could be read as, by the way, people are saying, you know, reference to Trump too. Yes, exactly, exactly. But it does sort of give, you know, the, I mean, the piece itself is really good. I think the headline kind of gives too much credit to the not doctored camp because I don't think that camp has anything to stand on. And then the AP right after that comes out with or also comes out with a headline that's

expert colon, a cost of video distributed by White House was doctored. Now, that's great. They're saying that it was doctored, but I'm not quite sure why we're like outsourcing reality to like video experts. I think it should be pretty self-evident for and any reporter should be able to say that. Although I guess, you know, you always got to, you always got to make a phone call and get somebody on the record. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things like it's, and whenever I talk to pals or at the New York Times, they always say, when you write something for the ringer, wherever you write, you can just say something. We can't just say something.

Of course. It has to be true. The interesting thing about this is there are 100 plus people in the room, many of whom went to, you know, to Twitter immediately and said, Jim Acosta didn't manhandle anybody. So you can also just rely on them, right? You don't have to say, well, was this video, you're sort of arguing about whether a video was doctored

as opposed to lots and lots of very reliable eyewitnesses that were sitting next to Jim Acosta and who could just tell you, right? Who were right there. He didn't do this. I saw it. Yeah, the doctoring of the video, I feel like, you know, I mean, it's a fun thing to talk about,

but it's a little bit more than a little bit of a red herring. The outrage seems to be more that Sanders tweeted it out than it was actually done. And you mentioned the other people in the room. Tell me what you think because I was a little bit taken aback by the fact that like every other Twitter journal journal. And this isn't everyone. But a lot of the people who responded to this, not just people in the room, but other journalists who were there, had to preface their tweets with say what you will about Jim Acosta. I mean, that's a sort of like...

Plenty to criticize Acosta about. Yeah, I mean, like, Jim Acosta, you know, whatever. He might not have conducted himself perfectly, but, you know, and then follow that with something that's just like so definitive that you, that it, I mean, it's just a way, it seems just really unnecessary, unnecessarily watering your argument down to do, to have the Jim Acosta, you know, preamble before everything. I mean, I get it like that that's kind of whatever, what reporters are saying to one another. and I guess, you know, full disclosure is, is a net positive, but, you know, you can keep that shit in slack, folks, you know? I mean, that's like you can, you can kind of side-eye your competition and his tactics without, like, having, without letting that water down your argument about a demonstrable wrong committed by the White House. Well, I don't necessarily agree with Jim Acosta's tactics. Yeah.

journalists be honest and go ahead and say that even as a comma phrase at the beginning of the tweet rather than just go straight to canned journalistic solidarity. Yes. Okay. Well, and I also talk about journalistic solidarity. Well, I think it was pretty much, I mean, I was I was sort of on the on the prow for for villains, you know, people that were, because it was basically about a hundred percent solidarity with Acosta, I think, on Twitter. Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller, if we're searching for somebody on the far side of the world politically and in terms of everything from CNN, says plenty to criticize Acosta about there is that can phrase. But he did not place his hands on the intern. It's ridiculous for anyone to suggest he did.

and after Trump joked about Jean Forte, the representative from Montana, body slamming Ben Jacobs, the White House can't bust out the fainting couch now. I was looking for people who actually disagreed and the only two I found were Diamond and Silk who were talking to Lou Dobbs about it

and Howie Kurtz, who went down, who went into both sides theater by saying it's extremely unusual for a White House to pull a full-time reporter's credentials. Also unusual for a reporter to, refused to give up the my guestster after asking several questions. You're right. You're right. How both of those things are unusual. So thank you for putting on the same thing. Yeah, but you mentioned, I'm interrupted real quick because you mentioned the feigning couch and I just wanted to get in there.

There is a certain, there is certainly a degree to which. And I don't, I know it's, you know, I'm not sure whether or not I'm allowed to question the integrity of Sarah Huckabee Sanders. But, um, I think you're, but, but there's a certain, and I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure that on some level she takes, uh, she has a very serious personal regard for the safety of young women. That said, when she trots out lines like, you know, regard for young women and, and accuses Jim Acosta of these clearly false things. It felt a lot like, I mean, it reminded me immediately of like the Mueller smear from last week, right?

Where it was just like that, where the whole premise of that, of that silly press conference. was trying to take what what like blindered arch conservatives thought were liberal ideals and turning them around on on their enemy on on their their perceived liberal enemies yes and this is just another example of that where it's like you know the I don't know that it I don't know that there's any if I don't know that there's I don't know there's rough edges in the in their minds between the body slamming and the karate chop because the this is just sort of like, this is guerrilla warfare. We're just using your tactics against you, you know? And that's, and that makes it even more ridiculous. It is taking real issues that the media and liberal politicians have used and weaponizing them against liberals. And often, in this case, just making them up, right? It's not, it's not like, oh, this is a real case of violence and why isn't the left talking about it or why isn't the media talking about it?

It's just like, we're just going to make up that you do that. in terms of solidarity it's interesting because we sort of moved after all the stuff about what Acosta did and what Sanders did had been adjudicated we moved into the now what does the press do about this

portion of the event Jason Schwartz in Politico writes his piece and uses a word which is kind of going around that this is a trap you know saying essentially this is a fight the White House wants to pick because all the eyes go away from Jeff Sessions and Trump losing the House and the coming subpoena fest from the House Judiciary Committee and Robert Mueller's final report, et cetera, et cetera, and go to this rather silly dispute. He quotes one White House supporter, this is Schwartz saying we don't want to give him ammunition.

At the same time, we don't want to be a doormat and just lie down. part of it is doing part of it is doing it in a way, meaning dealing with the issue that doesn't feed into the narrative that the media is the enemy. And that's real hard to do. So essentially what that's saying is if we just all stand on our hind legs for Jim Acosta, we're just all we're doing is, you know, adding more gasoline to the fire that Trump has just lit. And that we have to figure out a way to do it. And look, this is, I think, not just in the press relations part, but in the everything part, the maybe singular quandary of the media covering Trump is, you know, how much when you go in on this stuff are you just, you know, doing exactly what he wants you to do? Mm-hmm. I don't know that I have a really great answer for that.

But I guess it's fun. It's interesting to me that people's minds immediately went to. There was a whole thing of boycotting, right? press briefings. Jay Rosen of press think re-uped a suggestion he had from earlier where he said that the reporters should, quote, suspend normal relations with the White House, which could, you know, mean sending interns to briefings or ignoring certain parts of their presentation, things like that.

I don't know. And it's hard because I don't think, and Jack Schaefer pointed this out on Twitter, that it's really easy to tell someone else to wage a boycott. and just the way journalists work, they're not a block. They are not a cartel. They are all competing with each other. So the people you hear urging on the boycott are not the White House correspondents who are in a knife fight to get news out of the White House. Sure.

They are the people who aren't doing that at all who's, you know, writing a column for somebody and going, you know, you guys should all just pull out. Well, you first, pal. Yeah. You know, you pull out because underlying all this as there always is what journalists. is a lot of careerism. And I don't see, I don't see anybody, you know, I don't see a mass boycott happening at all. Yeah, I mean, and I think that in so much as, I mean, you, you mentioned this earlier, but in so much as this was a deliberate tactic, I mean, it was incredibly effective, right?

Did you, I mean, you, there was that, you had a tweet on that, that you passed earlier. Oh, from, did you say this already? The, the lawfare blog, the lawfare tweet from, Quinta, Quinta Jurecic said, one, the Acosta thing is garbage, obviously, and two, cannot help but note the media Twitter is switched almost entirely from sessions to Acosta. So, I mean, I think that it is, we are in a world where so much journalism happens online, or so much, so much of, you know, the journalist's existence is on Twitter and other forms of social media, but especially Twitter. And it's all so obsessive. There's a very, like, it's very rare that, that anyone on Twitter is,

who is tweeting with any with any regularity is is tweeting about more than one thing at a time right I mean it's it's it's it's it's just the world that we live in right now and especially if you give a bunch of white house journalists as a red meat of the subject of white house journalism you know I mean everybody has a thousand tweets to to to to toss out on this and I think that that that that that it's I think that that what they should be covering or what they should be tweeting about or what we should or taking the bait or whatever else is a really important conversation and a really important thing to think about because we'll see over and over again we've seen throughout the Trump presidency and we'll continue to see throughout the Trump presidency

that I feel like you have to you have to put all of the just destruction of norms in a separate silo and then and actually cover what's going on right it's important to keep tabs on the on the of norms, but that can't be the story every day because then you never cover what's actually happening. Now, you can have meta-podcasts like us that will say one, you know, say one thing at one side of their mouth, and then on the other side of the mouth, we can talk about those norms. But I do think for reporters, that's an important distinction to make. I mean, to get specific on the destruction of norms, it is wild. I mean, just wild that they revoked his press pass, right? I mean, this is a thing that literally, if you go through the history of

White House reporters. Nixon tried and I believe failed to get the post reporters banned from the White House. The Bush White House they suspended Trudy Fulman for looking through a press a desk late at night, which that seems like a pretty good of

like a reasonable offense. That was only 90 day suspension. Sometimes just need a pin, you know. Pin right in a hand. And then LBJ, during LBJ's presidency, the Secret Service denied Clearance of Robert Sherrill, who this is again, this is from the AP, had gotten into physical fights with government officials. Like, this is the bar that is set right now, not asking questions, you know?

Yeah. But all that said, it is when that's what takes over media Twitter and media full stop, then that does a disservice to, you know, the way that this, to the way that we understand our government. Yeah. I mean, you could look at, too, if we wanted to, again, not to equivocate, but if we wanted to talk about Obama, early on Obama wanting to, you know, sort of downgrade Fox News, right, which got a howls of protest from CNN, from Jake Tapper and other places at the time. You might put that in there, but certainly nothing, nothing certainly with this theater either, right? I mean, it was just never, it would, Obama was not yelling at, you know, whoever the Jim Angle,

whoever the Fox Corpsemon was at the time of the White House, you know, and that was what, you know, propelled him into this. I also think just in terms of the question of how much do you cover this, how mad do you get? I was really struck by this piece that was in New York Times by Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns. And it was one of these post-election pieces. they are ace congressional correspondence, America's congressional correspondents. And they wrote, they had a piece kind of a what happened in rural America piece. Yeah. And they talked to Claire McCaskill. And one who got wiped out in her reelection bid for the Senate in Missouri. And one thing she talked about was going to rural areas. And Fox is just on everywhere. And of course, newspapers have essentially been downgraded and or wiped out in those areas. So the media. has been nationalized. And these people, so people that might have relied in their local newspaper for news and

some national networks and stuff are now getting news direct from the Fox News pipeline. So in terms of the migrant caravan, which we talked about, they're just watching like all migrant caravan all the time. And she's saying, I don't have a chance to break through with these people because that's all they're getting. So to come back to a costume, my argument would be if they're getting that kind of tonnage, from Fox News about something. And I'm sure they're getting that kind of touch about Acosta on Fox News, by the way, right?

I mean, how could this not be on every show? The only real way to counterbalance that is tonnage on the other side, right? So, you know, saying this bad thing happened and this is why it's bad. You know, this thing happened. Here is some correct reporting about the migrant caravan. Here is stuff putting into context. I don't know the other way. It'd be great to say, let's just ignore it.

But you've got a news network that is not going to ignore it. That's just going to talk about it. And they've got a virtual monopoly on certain, you know, portions of the country or the populace or whatever you want to say. And it's like, I don't know what you do except just over, maybe not overcovered, but cover it a lot on the other side. I don't, I don't know what else to say. What's the other answer? You know, if you just pretend that the Acosta thing didn't happen, the Trump isn't revoking press credentials, how is it ever going to, how is any kind of something approaching truth

ever going to get out? No, I have no idea. I don't think there's a right answer to that. I think you know, I mean, I think that there is, you know, there is strength in numbers. And I think that, you know, there is strength in numbers. And I think that we've seen even in the past that, that, you know, Fox has aligned with other has aligned with other news outlets when it comes to protecting freedom of the press and it's so it's definitely not unthinkable that they would if there was if that they would go along

you know they would come to the defense of CNN in this sort of situation that said I mean it's not hard to imagine I mean it's not it wouldn't be hard to fill up to fill up the briefing room with only you know pro-Trump outlets in 2018 you know and I'm sure Trump would have a better time giving his press conferences

I don't know. By the way, do we actually think that? Well, I think Trump likes to mix it up? I think it's a day-to-day thing. I mean, obviously we're just doing just office chair psychology here, but, you know, I think that I think, yeah, but I mean, I certainly think that you can imagine him being sad when he found out that people weren't coming to his party anymore by choice, right? But, but that's sad. I mean, he does, he does, you know, when he gets a question that he likes the tenor of and when he feels like he answers it well that obviously lifts his spirits do so i mean i think that i think that he would i think that you know that

that would go okay but he but certainly he would still be looking for a fight and something he would be looking for some outlet to mix it up and he's looking for a lot of outlets these days he's he's talked to the press many times if we stipulate that acosta has been wronged here and put aside just for a second everything that we just talked about costa trump wrong Acosta right, okay? Sure. What do we think of Jim Acosta? Oh, God.

This is that first part of the tweet you were talking about before the comma. First part of the tweet, second part of the podcast. I mean, there's a little, I mean, it's clear that he's, it's clear that he's, you know, motivated. I don't know if he's like, you know, like searching for personal glory, but he certainly feels motivated by some unique sense of purpose and, and the desire to, if not make the story about him, then the feeling that, you know, he's, he's, he can, only he can pursue it in the way that he's, that he's doing it. Or some, maybe it is just a particular sense of mission to really get the questions asked that need to be asked. Although I, you know,

I got to say him, I mean, he just had a series of questions and I guess they were follow-ups. It was kind of hard to follow his line of questioning, not his fault. He was off mic for a lot of it. And there was a whole lot of other madness going on in the room. But, you know, I mean, it's, it, it, you think about that and you think about that kind of viral video that sort of that came around last week of that of that what was it a you was it a college newspaper reporter who was questioning Steve, representative Steve King and asking him whether or not he was a white he was a he identified as a white nationalist and there's there's like such a power to just sitting there and asking the same question over and over again as the person you're you're you know asking the

question to just starts just loses his mind and that wasn't and that's not that that's that's Jim Acosta's line of questioning certainly didn't have that level of you know quiet resolve and effectiveness. So I don't know. I mean, you hear everybody says, I mean, all of these tweets, none of them, I'm sure, are deliberately misleading. I mean, the perception of him is that he's kind of in it for his own personal glory, or at least to some degree. And I think on the one hand, there's probably some truth to that. And on the other hand, you know, there's a big pot kettle situation. Nobody that's out there tweeting and pursuing this sort of, especially on camera careers, but even byline careers isn't out for some sense of, I mean, for some sort of personal

glory. That's how the world works. No, and it's like when Costa is like the perfect example of I often think this with journalists, what journalists are saying about another journalist on Twitter versus what they would say after two beers in a bar? And certain journalists have like the widest range. Some of our long, some of our long form stars on yet another great, yet another great feature by blah, blah, blah. and then if you actually ask the journalists off Twitter what they think, you know, they just bury the piece and bury the writer and everything. They just blow hard. Yeah.

I think Acosta probably has the biggest range of that. Here's what I'd say it's interesting about him. If I told you just in a vacuum, there is this reporter, this White House correspondent who is extremely adversarial with President Donald Trump yelling questions at him, holding to account, etc. Where does this correspondent work? You might say MSNBC, right? That's where it's going to be, you know, because of the political character of the network, that's where it's going to be most adversarial with Trump. It's actually CNN, right? And to me, he is tonally perfect with CNN circa 2018, which is we can't really, we are still trying mightily not to be ideologically left or

ideologically right. We are really, we are desperately trying to stay, which is why we've hired Jeffrey Lord and all these loser Trump pundits and why we just desperately tried to tack this course through the center even as the president of taxes, right? So how do we solve this problem that we can't be left or we can't be right? We are going to be noisy truth seekers. We are going to be Jim Acosta yelling questions at the president. We are going to be Chris Cuomo carrying on in prime time. I'm, damn it, I'm here for the truth. I want to hear this and I want to get some answers.

We are going to be Jake Tapper, you know, sitting there with that, with that Jake Tapper face frown that you and I were laughing at an email the other day. Jake Tapper faced really needs to be the new Eli Manning face. Just that kind of just, you know, kind of that skepticism and just anger with the whole damn system. that's CNN right now and he is perfect for that aesthetic milieu whatever you want to call it

that he is CNN to me which has this problem and he is helping them solve it I think they have a fine line to walk because anger at the system I think is you know can be poignant

but as we've discussed before you know anger in defensive journalistic ideals I don't think has you know I don't think carries much water, right? I mean, I don't, that, that certainly doesn't seduce anybody viewing it. It just, it's just all, um, as, as much as, as much as, you know, you and I might believe in it

and support and everyone else who does. It just, it, that's, it, it just comes across as really sort of empty and whining at times. And like you were saying, to be that sort of like, ideological without, uh, without, without like a popular ideology to back it up is, it's just noise, right? And maybe that's what, you know, the point you were trying to make. It's scenery chewing, right? It's, and, and looks, I'm seeing, sometimes scenery chewing is good. This is cable news, right? I mean, we don't have to, we don't have to pretend, you know, this is, this is, uh, McNeil Lair or something like that. But it just to me, to me, CNN right now is kind of like on a good day is scenery chewing in pursuit of truth.

And there's a lot of that on the network. I like a lot of network. On a bad day, it's scenery chewing in pursuit of scenery chewing. That's what it is. Let's also listen to the question for

Yamich Alcindar. This was a big part of this. Yes. She is a reporter with the PBS News Hour.

She's a veteran in the New York Times Washington Bureau and was a character in the doc, the fourth

estate. She noticed that a man named Patrick Casey, who is executive director of the alt-right

affiliated group Identity Europa had appeared at the White House on Wednesday. So Alcinder

asked Trump about the consequences of calling himself a nationalist. Here's that. On the campaign trial, you called yourself a nationalist. Some people saw that as emboldening white nationalists. Now people are also saying that the press- It's such a racist question. There are some people that say that now the Republican Party is seen as supporting white nationalist because of your rhetoric. I don't believe that.

I don't believe. I don't know. Why do I have my highest poll numbers ever with African Americans? Why do I have among the highest poll numbers with African Americans? I mean, why do I have my highest poll numbers? That's such a racist question. Honestly, I mean, I know you have it written down and you're going to tell me, let me tell you a racist question.

And Mr. President, I want to ask. You know what the word is? I love our country. I do. You have nationalists. You have globalists. I also love the world, and I don't mind helping the world, but we have to straighten out our country first.

We have a lot of problems. Excuse me. But to say that what you said is so insulting to me. It's a very terrible thing that you said. And Mr. President, Mr. President, people have, you talked about, you talked about middle class tax cuts on the campaign trail. How will you get Democrats to support that policy? You have to ask them.

Well, what's your plan? Excuse me. You know what my plan is? You know what my plan is? I'll ask them. And if they say yes, I'm all for it. And if they say no, there's nothing you can do because you need their votes. Go ahead.

Pretty much what we were talking about earlier, isn't it? David. It's racism is a problem in the world. One that Trump himself cares very little about. So I'm going to appoint a reporter and say, you are a racist. You are just like, I mean, it's pretty much the same playbook as saying, that Jim Acosta is manhandling a woman.

I mean, it's not, I mean, it's not too far off weirdly from the Megan Kelly conversation that we had. And just in the, just the lack of self-awareness or of awareness full stop that allows one to question the public wearing of blackface

is the same that that allows one to indulge in the concept of reverse racism. Which is, you know, people traffic in that a lot on the same quarters of the internet where people are saying like, what's the big, like, why can't I say the N word? What's the big deal? You know? And it's just these bad, it's just this bad faith sort of logic that leads anyone into that line of argument. You know, it's not a racist question. And it certainly just doesn't make any sense on its face for Trump to be accusing an African American journalist. asking a totally legitimate question of racism. I mean, it's just, it's, it's, I, if it were, if it were deliberate, I think it would actually be better. I think it's just idiotic.

Yeah. It's, it doesn't make any sense and it is also insulting on its face. Should we, should we cover a few other amazing bits from the press conference before we move on? Do we, we have to hear Trump and Liljohn, right? That has to be a thing. Yes, please. Jimbo, can we roll the clip where Trump is apparently unfamiliar with someone who has appeared on the apprentice. Michael Cohen recently said you called black voters stupid. That's false.

Omarosa has accused you of using the N-word, and the rapper, the rapper Little John, has said you called him Uncle Tom. What's your response? I don't know who Little John is. I don't. He was on The Apprentice. I don't know. Oh, he was. Okay. Oh, I see. Have you ever made racist remarks? No, I would never do that, and I don't use racist remarks. And you know what? If I did, you people have, you would have known about it. I've been hearing their case. Oh, my gosh. What was amazing? me is looking at this up. Little John was on The Apprentice twice.

Yeah. He went on two seasons. Well, I will say in Trump's defense, say, record this or use this for when you do the audio mashups of me saying fake things. I will say in Trump's defense that the reporter said, little John in a way that really did not, it made it sound like a Robin Hood character and not the rapper in question. Somebody Robin Hood fought on a log with two sticks, yeah. Yeah.

Yes, it is kind of, yeah, the OIC was sort of, when he did have some, you know, realization that he should have realization, that was the highlight for me. May I share with you, David, some of the other contestants who appeared on season 11 of The Apprentice? Yes, please do. Number one, John Rich of Garbage Country Duo, Big and Rich. Oh, God, one man's garbage is another man. Oh, go ahead. Jose Canseco and Marley Matlin.

So what a collection of a contestants that was. Oh my gosh. We did not appreciate at the time because we weren't watching it. But we did not appreciate how truly strange the Redis got there at the end. Minor personal story. There was one time when I was working back in the book publishing world in New York, I was right by the flat iron building. And I was just coming back from lunch and that sort of just.

just like midday days. I had no, I wasn't really paying attention to anything, probably listening to music on my phone or my whatever thing I was listening to at the time. And I looked up and I was like, holy shit, that's Bill Goldberg. And as a wrestling fan, this is from like half a block away, I was like, whoa, Bill Goldberg is right outside my office. And I thought that was really cool. And then as I'm like getting my phone to text somebody about it, I look over and I'm just like, wait a second, that's Brett Michaels, lead singer of Poison. And I was just like, do they know each other? And then I said, and then I just, you keep looking around. It was just like, my God, that's Daryl Strawbear.

That's Sinbad. I know I saw Sinbad out there. And you're just like, is it possible that these people are friends? I don't understand what's happening. And then, of course, it turned out they were just filming like a remote shoot for the celebrity apprentice. But I, and Donald Trump was not present. But it was just all these like minor celebrities out like trying to get people off the street to come into their shop or something. And I was just like, this is the weirdest moment of my entire.

entire life. You thought they were all just going to grab a sandwich at Pret-a-Mage together or something like that anymore? Yeah, what's the really great deli that's right there? They probably were, they were probably all getting some like some, some, you know, delicious matzabal soup. Yeah, just a nice big sandwich. A couple of other notes, David, from the post-election media world. Tucker Carlson's house has been surrounded by protesters who were, this was on Thursday yesterday, who were chanting. Tucker Carlson, we will fight. We know where you sleep at night. Carlson's wife was at home. I'm quoting from the excellent Politico media newsletter.

Carlson said his wife who was at home walked herself in the pantry and called 911. Carlson was on vacation from his Fox show, but he called in to his show Thursday night to talk about the protesters, and this is what he said. I know. We can go ahead and say that this story aside, Tucker, Carlson, I do not think wants to hear the views of his adversaries so much as use his adversaries as punching bags in the Trump Jim Acosta sense. But obviously, neither one of us thinks that people should go surround Tucker Carlson's house at night. No. It is a little rich, though, for Tucker wasn't Tucker Carlson the one saying that gypsies were invading the United States? Yeah. And has

participated in all these, you know, sort of carni act immigration scares and all the stuff who is whipping people into a frenzy on a nightly basis on Fox to get mad. I mean, you know, again, like, you don't, I don't want to come anywhere near saying, please go surround Tucker Carlson's house because that's not a good idea. But he is whipping people into a frenzy, right? And bad things happen when you whip people into a frenzy. So if anything, I would just like to point that out as two news stories. Don't go around Tucker Carlson's house, but also Tucker Carlson, don't do this on a nightly basis.

Yeah, I mean, someone was just circulating a video of short, I mean, just from last week, the week before, of Tucker laughing at the prospect of George Soros receiving a mail bomb, right? I mean, just, I mean, and that, and I guess that's probably a harsh way to read that, that sequence, but, but, you know, there's certainly a, he, he's definitely, you know, argued that you sort of put yourself in the public eye and you deserve some of the clapback that you get that argument in the past. That said, you're absolutely right. I mean, listen, he doesn't deserve, if, if the reports that we've heard and most of them come from him are true, you know, he, no, no one deserves that sort of treatment. And if the issue for you is, is Tucker Carlson's, hypocrisy and of the sort that I was alluding earlier, I mean, at the end of the day, that's sort of a silly charge because, you know, I mean, we're all hypocrites, but Tucker Carlson, above all else, he's paid lots and lots of money to be a professional hypocrite. So let's not act like we're, let's not clutch our pearls over his, his, you know, him changing his tune because the, because, you know, he's now the target. Also cribbing here from the political media newsletter again. and in a sadly related story,

an Arkansas man was arrested Wednesday accused of making more than 40 threatening calls to CNN from October 31st through November 2nd. The short period of time, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette reports the calls directed at CNN anchor Don Lemon were racist and violently threatening.

So this is happening to lots of people on cable news. Also, please do not do that if it needs to be said. Nate Silver, David, and Brett Stevens. Talk about Clash of the Titans. You thought Beto and Ted Cruz was a big deal. She, yeah. I feel we have this moment after every election where we then have,

any election in America is really a referendum on Nate Silver at the end of the day. The first one and the usual one we get to was, was Nate Silver right, which is a very ham-handed way of saying was his, where the polls right and was his particular, particular methodology of forecasting right. The answer to that was yes, once again this year. Then you had Brett Stevens come along, and essentially what he was arguing was, were the

Democratic gains on Tuesday a wave or not? He wrote a whole column about it, and then Nate Silver came off the top rope on Twitter a couple of times and said, sort of enjoying thinking about Brett Stevens knowing deep down how dumb his hot take was and cringing a little bit every time Dems win an additional House seat. We're now projecting they'll finish with plus 37 or so. Stevens's column after the election was called the midterm results are a warning to the Democrats. Stop manning imaginary barricades and start building real bridges to the other America.

It's such a portentist subheadline there. this was one of those interesting story because the whole wave thing, I mean, again, I don't think you and I need to debate the wave part of it. But just that split decision of the Senate and the House, forget that the fact the Democrats had picked up lots and lots of state house seats, governorship, things like that. As soon as that split decision was apparent on election night, it's like, oh boy, right? People are going to be scrambling to both sides of this. and they are going to look at this election result and say whatever they already wanted to say about American politics,

which in Brett Stevens's case is the Democrats are doing it all wrong, even though I oppose Trump. And from another point of view, might be the Democrats did great and had a great night. What did you make of this whole strange argument? Kerfuffle. Can I use that once per podcast?

Yes, absolutely. No, I think it's, I mean, I think it's, it's, listen, Brett, Stevens had the good and bad fortune of becoming conservative New York Times pundit in current year, right?

I mean, this is... Mostly good fortune. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a great for... I mean, it's a great job. It's a... It's a wonderful platform and it's, you know, it's a little bit rich for him to be accusing other people of trolling.

But he's, you know, part of... He will not be the first New York Times conservative pundit to um to come up with or to to imagine his his headline before he fills out the rest of the column right?

I mean this is the the the goal in a piece like this is to argue an ideal and do and to back it up with cherry picked facts and I think that um you know part of what you have to do now that maybe the you know David Brooks didn't have to do in his heyday was actually like defend your self on Twitter when people point out that you're cherry picking and or you know seeing things through red colored lenses you know so I mean it's it's it but it but there is this there is I mean it is sort of wonderful and also just kind of like I want to bang my head against the wall to have to to witness this conversation because these these are two people who don't speak the

same language and don't have any interest in speaking the same language well I I mean I I think I like the point you made before, which is just like the op-ed is not, the op-ed is that used to be done when you and I were starting out in this business is just really not great, not a great vehicle in Twitter world. Because, you know, so many of those, there are plenty of good ones and plenty of well-written ones. But a lot of them are just kind of like 800 fairly dishonest words. and or just like just like a really dumb trolley kind of take and you just throw that out to Twitter and it just gets dismembered. And in this case, you know, Nate's just like you are just willfully distorting these numbers. And, you know, this is this is not even really a try. And again, this is like I said, this is what he already thought anyway.

You know, this isn't like I looked at the number. You know, I looked at the election results and this is how I read it. it was, I don't think Democrats are building bridges to the American people. And here's another version of that argument. It just feels like that was what he was going to write anyway. What election result would he have not written that answer to? No, no, no. If there had been the proverbial blue wave, it would have been the same piece, but it would have been the Democrats are endangering their future by running too far to the left and just drumming up their most ardent supporters or something.

Yeah, they're empowering Trump accidentally, right? That could have been a take, something like that. But 75% of the article could have been the same. You know, I mean, it's, or the op-ed, sorry, it could have been the same. I mean, it's, whatever. Speaking of victims of the age of Twitter, how about acting attorney general Matt Whitaker? Ooh. Whose Twitter account, I sort of was consuming it through Stephen Roderick's retweets when he was finding stuff that Whitaker had tweet about like Tim Tebow.

And I'll forget the Mueller investigation. Also, Tim Tebow and other, he had lots of hot takes. He becomes acting attorney general. all of a sudden his Twitter and cable news resume gets picked over. He wound up blocking his Twitter account. This is also like this, I feel an issue we've now seen. You know, it's like the old millennial thing, right? Somebody, it's the milkshake duck thing, right?

Somebody comes up and then go back and like, ugh. It rarely reaches the level of acting attorney general of the United States. Well, that's, yes, that is correct. I mean, I think part of the problem is how, how, in this. this is a problem on a couple different levels, but how brief his or how short his relative journey was from, um, you know,

literal nobody to acting attorney general, uh, with a couple of stops off at like corrupt companies and, and, you know, on screen pundit jobs in between. Um, and that you can understand how somebody maybe with that sort of,

you know, quick rise didn't clean up their, their social media footprint before, before they got there. Um, but I think, you know, that's,

says a lot about the selection process for putting him in that position. But it was an absolute joy to watch, you know, the various cable networks actually, like, reporting in real time about someone's, about reverse searching someone's Twitter timeline. I mean, it was, and even just looking, just looking through the CNN record, I mean, the various appearances that he made over the years, the speeches that he's given, all that kind of stuff. I mean, it was really, and part of it was, part of it was goased by by this incredible sense of urgency

that there might be another shoe to drop that you know that this is actually the real purpose and the real power of journalism would be to air the truth about a person if there's if that person is problematic before they can assume power before they can do something damaging whatever you see the you know the situation to be

and yeah I mean you just flipped on CNN or MSNBC and they were just like, oh, wait, you know, our producer just watched another old video. He's going to come on the screen now to describe it, you know? And it was sort of halting in the sort of resonance of every little tweet, every little tidbit that came out. It's like one of the characteristics of the Trump administration is they're just really bad at planning and preparing for anything. And rolling something out in the way that we are used to administrations kind of slickly rolling out new appointees, which by the way I am all for. You know, I'd rather know the truth than the kind of laundered, you know, ready for primetime version.

In this case, the one television appearance that came up again and again was when Whitaker said, I could see a scenario where Jeff Sessions is replaced with a recess appointment. And then the Attorney General doesn't fire Bob Mueller, but he just reduces his budget to so low that his investigation grinds to almost a halt. Yeah. So that was, that sort of seemed to give the game away a little. bit. And now we're in the kind of disputed territory where Trump is now insisting, I saw in his, in his little press of veil this morning, where he said that, he was like, what, should I just

disqualify everybody that appears on TV from public office? And the answer, I mean, and I guess his implication was, you know, there are lots of young politicians that'll pop up on whatever channel and that person will eventually run for higher office or something like that. And that doesn't disqualify them but it's like no but you expect them to actually say what they mean and if you do say what you mean and it becomes problematic later on then that that's the issue no one's disqualified for because they were on tv you're potentially disqualified because i mean listen if i was like you know how i would kill somebody if i got a chance i would uh i would i would get a whole bunch of ambian and uh and then once i like melted that into your tea i would strangle you with a pillowcase if you if you

heard me say that and then you walked into the room and i had a giant handful of Ambien, you would be justified in being freaked out, right? I mean, that's like, it's okay to draw conclusions that things that people say are things that they mean, you know? I mean, it's just sort of, it just sort of beggars belief to think otherwise. The last note I had on here for us to talk about, and I don't know if there's really anything other than just a noted, is that the migrant caravan, which was the single most important issue in American life the week before the election, to hear it from Donald Trump and his allies has basically vanished off the radar after the election.

We no longer, you know, this is the greatest threat imaginable to the U.S. and its borders to quote, unquote, security. And now it's gone. I'll also add this tweet from Jim Shuto of CNN. Day after the election, the Pentagon announced, and Pentagon, of course, sent troops to the border as part of this grave to combat this grave problem. Pentagon announces no longer calling U.S. military mission on southern border Operation Faithful Patriot, now calling it just border support lowercase.

No reason given for the change. So RIP operation faithful patriot. We hardly knew you. Which was that ridiculous title to begin with. Go ahead. It was dumb and it was clearly false at the time. And, you know, it's, it was, it feels sort of obligatory to say like, kudos to Shepard Smith for being the one voice on his network to actually say out loud.

there's, you know, this, this caravan, if it even gets here as months away, and there's nothing to be afraid of. But, like, as you said, if half of the country is just watching Fox News on repeat, then I'm not sure, I mean, this was a real issue. I mean, it's not, Trump didn't just make it a real issue. Fox made it into a real issue, and this became a national story. I guess, you know, this is no defense of Donald Trump, but it does seem that he, you know, really believes in the ills of immigration from the southern from the south right i mean that's it's a

thing that he that he holds dear and and i don't think i don't think the racism is any particular put on i think trumping it up no pun intended for the midterm elections was a deliberate political calculation but you know i mean he's talking now about about getting rid of birthright citizenship and i mean this is a he spoke about it this morning and and and it's all part and parcel of the same thing. But yeah, it was, it was sort of a... I will grant him that race and immigration has been a consistent theme throughout his political career, right? Whether he actually cares about it, I don't know, you know, like in a, in a, I'm worried for the United States kind of way. I don't know. But yes, those are things he has

brought up since his birthdays. I guess that's... Well, he does care about the United States. At least that's what he said to, to Michelle Senator. He was like, I'm not a white nationalist. I just love my country. I'm a nationalist. But yeah, that was a... He gave quite a performance today, too. I know we're not going to have a lot of time to talk about it. But he did...

He's been firing on all cylinders, getting in front of the press and just going. He is... I mean, he is... Again, it seems so funny to talk about... And I don't want to sound like Sarah Sanders here, but we're talking about, you know, cutting out reporters after the president of the United States

gave a 90-minute news conference in which he was willing to entertain almost Yamisha Alexander Alcinders, excuse me aside, almost any question, no matter how absurd from the meteor, how absurd or small or picayune. I mean, we live in very strange times.

The only other thing I want to clean up, David, is we talked about the inevitable final act of Beto O'Rourke Longform that's going to happen here immediately. I, you know, it's going to be in Rolling Stone, it's going to be in the Atlantic, it's going to involve like, you know, this crush

defeat and what is Beto's next move potentially on a national stage? I said as a possible headline it gets Beto in the earlier podcast. I just want to also throw out, were we leaving Mo Beto Blues on the table?

I was wondering the same thing. That's great. I'm glad that you brought that on. Always good to have a Spike Lee reference in there. I love those kind of headlines. We here at the press box may not be back next week. We're going to see if we can make things work.

But that, we have plenty of things to talk about, David, before the end of the year. I want to talk to you about Michelle Obama's book, memoir, and stadium tour, which comes out next week. I think we owe the people a wrap up on the first season of the rejiggered Monday night football booth before the end of the year. You and I have been kicking around some ideas for our year-end look at the media podcast, which is, which could be really, really fun. You can find updates to those things and many more on our, on our Twitter account.

Do you know we have a Twitter account at the press box pod? We're kind of like a food truck. We just tweet when we show up, you know, like we're, hey, guys, we're going to be around Friday. Everybody come out. So check there for updates about the next pod. And we'll see it before Thanksgiving anyway. Our research is provided by Chris Almeida, our ace producer, is. Jim Cunningham, who can tell you all about New York radio, circa 1995.

All you want to know right before the pod starts. I'm Brian Curtis. He's David Shoemaker. David, back soon with more hot takes about the media. David, should we leave the final word to Donald Trump from this morning Friday, responding to a reporter, when asked if the video that Sarah Sanders shared was doctored? Here we go. Take it away, Mr. President. Nobody manipulated it. Give me a break. That's just dishonest reporting.

All that is is a close-up. See, that's just, that is just dishonest reporting. I watched that. I heard that last night. They made it close-up. They showed it close-up. And he was not nice to that young woman. I don't hold him for that.

Because it wasn't overly, you know, horrible. But it was, but all that was, when you say doctor, you're a dishonest guy. Because it wasn't doctored. They gave a close-up view. That's not doctorate. You know how I would kill someone. if I got a chance, I would, I would, I would get a whole bunch of Ambien. And then once I, like, melted that into your tea, I would strangle you with a pillowcase.

That's enough that I should all just pull out. Well, you first, pal, that's enough, you know. Yeah. You pull out because that's enough. This is good, by the way, David. That's enough. Yeah, I really, I thought it was great. This wasn't one of our shitty ones.

This was a good one. We were due. We were due for a good one. We had two good ones this week. The election one's good, too. All right. See you. Later, everybody.

That's enough.