The Press Box - Joe Biden and Tara Reade, Sports Plot a Comeback, and Ahmad Rashad

Episode Date: May 4, 2020

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker discuss Tara Reade, who says Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993, and Biden's candidacy (1:25). Then, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week (22:50), the sports comeback that could take us to Las Vegas (26:30), and finally, the sports reporter during the '90s who seemed to have gotten it right: Ahmad Rashad (31:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. We're excited to announce our latest podcast launching this week called Behind the Billions. Coming from the two co-creators of Billions, Brian Copleman and David Levine give a behind-the-scenes look into Billions Season 5. Following each episode's airing on Showtime, the podcast will impact the writing of the script, exclusive stories from production, interviews with casting crew, and much more. The first episode is out now, so make sure to subscribe to Behind the Billions on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, media consumers.

Ryan Curtis and David Shoemaker of the Ringer here. We got lots and lots to get to today. We'll ask when sports comes back in the near future, is it going to come back on the Las Vegas strip? We investigate. Off the latest installments of the Michael Jordan documentary, The Last Dance, we'll talk about the curious figure of Ahmad Rashad.

What was his? unusual place in sports TV in the 90s. Or if I were Marv Albert, his unusual place in sports TV of the 90s. Plus, David guesses a strain pun headline and the overworked Twitter joke of the week. But David, we got to start with a big story in politics the last few weeks. That is, Terror Reed's accusation of sexual assault against Joe Biden, who I think we're still obliged to call the presumptive Democratic nominee. On Friday, Biden

finally responded to Reed's charges. Here he is talking to Mika Brzynski on Morning Joe. Would you please go on the record with the American people? Did you sexually assault Tara Reid? No, it is not true. I'm saying unequivocally. It never, never happened. And it didn't. It never happened. Do you remember her? Do you remember any types of complaints that she might have made? I don't remember any type of complaint she may have made. It was 27 years ago. And I don't remember, nor does anyone else that I'm aware of. And the fact is that I don't remember.

I don't remember any complaint ever having been made. Have you or your campaign, have you reached out to her? No, I have not reached out to her. It was 27 years ago. This never happened. And when she first made the claim, we made it clear that it never happened. And that's as simple as that. Ooh.

I watched that interview live. I mean, I think, you know, that clip shows Biden, I think, kind of striking the right tone. If one sort of takes him at his word. But there are other moments where he wasn't as concise and he wasn't as straightforward. And I don't think that diminishes his credibility. necessarily, but it certainly diminishes the, or it certainly underscores the

political problem this is going to be for him. You know, I don't want to, I feel kind of icky making this political issue so quickly, but in some sense, I'm not sure that we can litigate the morality of it, and even if we could,

this has actually become a political issue, and that's you know, in large part, why it's a media issue right now. clear when he went into that interview that he had been told to emphasize two things. 27 years ago, number one, a phrase he repeated over and over again. And then the phrase, the very concise phrase, it never happened, which he also said over and over again. To your point about being a political issue, I'm amazed right now at how many, whenever I

read a piece about this, how many ideas and kind of competing forces are contained within this story. Me too, obviously, this idea about whether an accusation is itself disqualifying. We've seen a lot this week of the idea of will Democrats accept the standard that they pressed on Brett Kavanaugh against someone in their own ranks. Plus, beyond that, and to the political point you mentioned, there's all this dissatisfaction angst about Biden as the Democratic nominee that existed anyway. And then I think even beyond that, there's this sort of democratic soul searching about what, if any, compromises should we make in our mission to defeat Donald Trump in November, right? You're saying, you know, we heard all the time, the only thing

that's important is beating Donald Trump, right? That's all, that is, that is the thing. Well, you know, how, what do you sort of, you know, look away from if that's the way to do it or, or sort of put your hands up in the air if that's the goal. We've seen people tease out that idea. Should we do the procedural stuff first just to kind of put some of the facts on the table here? Let's do that. Tara Reid was a staff assistant in Biden's office in the Senate from late 1992 to 1993. Last year, Reid was one of several women to come forward with complaints of inappropriate touching by Biden.

This is the stuff about Biden stroking women next, putting his fingers in their hair, et cetera, et cetera. she made this new allegation in a March 25th episode of Katie Halper's podcast. She's describing an incident in the spring of 1993 when she says she was delivering a bag to Biden, then Senator Biden, in the Senate building. This is graphic, but here's a long clip from that podcast. It was like the side area. And he just said, hey, come here, Tara. And then I handed him the thing. And he graded me.

He remembered my name. and then we were alone and it was the strangest thing there was no like exchange really he just had me up against the wall and um i was wearing like a skirt and you know business skirt but i wasn't wearing stockings it was kind of a hot day that day and i was wearing heels and i remember my legs had been hurting from the marble you know of the capital like walking and i so i remember that kind of stuff. I remember like I was wearing a blouse and he just had me up against the wall and the wall was cold and I remember he it happened all at once. The gym bag, I don't know where it went. I handed it to him was gone and then his hands were on me and underneath my clothes. And yeah,

and then he went, oh, he went down my skirt but then up inside it and he penetrated me with his and yours, whatever. And I, he was kissing me at the same time and he was saying something to me. He said several things and I can't remember everything. He said, I remember a couple of things. I remember him saying first, like as he was doing it, do you want to go somewhere else? And then him saying to me, when I pulled away, he got finished doing what he was doing and I was pulled back. And he said, come on, man, I heard you liked me. And it's, it's. that phrase stayed with me because I kept thinking what I might have said. And I can't remember exactly if he said I thought or if I heard. But it's like he implied like that I had done this.

Like I don't know. And for me, it was like everything, everything shattered in that moment because I knew like we were alone. It was over, right? He wasn't trying to do anything more. But it's, I looked up to him. He was like my father's age. He was this champion of women's. rights in my eyes and I couldn't believe it was happening. It didn't see it seems surreal. Numerous media organizations, as you might expect, went out to report on this. New York Times, Washington Post, business insider. Reed's brother has come forward and said that he she told him about these events. One of the strangest details, David, is this 1993 episode of Larry King Live. Reed had said that her mother called into the show to tell a version of the,

these events at the time. Let's listen to that clip. A staffer would do besides go to the press in Washington. My daughter has just left there after working for a prominent senator and could not get through with her problems at all. And the only thing she could have done was go to the press and she chose not to do it out of respect for him. Or she had a story to tell, but out of respect for the person she worked for, she didn't tell it. That's true. The New York Times in their investigation could not find Biden's staff members to corroborate any details of Reed's allegation they write. In fact, Biden's top two aides said they don't remember Reed at all, much less this allegation. Reed says she filed a complaint in 1993.

This David has set off a hunt for the complaint itself, which may be in one of two places in which Biden's files are stored. Reed then told the AP on Friday that the complaint did not mention sexual harassment. in those terms, but though she said it perhaps described behavior, we would know, as sexual harassment. So that's about where we are now. We can probably pass over any sort of, you know, sort of accounting of Reed's Twitter account and things like that. But I kind of wonder, I think a couple of things. Let me put it this way.

Alex Burns, the New York Times said this on Twitter the other day, I believe, and I would totally agree, which is we're still on a fact find. phase about this. And I would, I would sort of encourage everyone with a big take to just sort of wait because, and it's not that there's going to be some huge revelation, but this feels still like the time for reporting, does it not? And figuring out what we're going to be able to learn about this. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I understand, obviously, the argument from say the other side, that that seems a little bit crass, but certainly like, there is a line of thought on the right that the mainstream media and the other,

other various powers that be are sort of trying to hide this story and trying to, you know, slow walk the investigation and, and, you know, hide it for lack of a better term. And I mean, obviously the point of comparison that they'll make and that other, you know, that anyone will come to mind for anyone is the Brent Kavanaugh hearings. I mean, there are functional differences. I'm not sure if any of them matter, but the functional differences are, one, I mean, for all intents and purposes,

the fact-finding mission for the Kavanaugh accusations were over as soon as they were made because it was going to inevitably be one person's word against another, right? And then there's obviously like the, I mean, the confirmation issue. In some sense, it had to be fast-tracked in order to have these issues raised in time for confirmation,

and the parallel to confirmation for Joe Biden will obviously be the election. The reason why they had to go into all this, go into all this history of Brink Kavanaugh is because the Senate was making a permanent decision. I mean, they were selecting someone for a permanent role in the Supreme Court, right? But all that, I mean, obviously, so this case is very different than that one in those ways. But it does feel insufficient. Justifiably, I mean, if you feel that this is not moving sufficiently fast enough, or you feel like that, you know, he's not being, that Joe Biden is not getting a sufficient amount of critique or skepticism at this point.

I think that's a legitimate feeling right now. It does feel, it does, there is the sense that even though we are still in the investigative phase, that, you know, it's, it does seem to be moving slowly. Well, it's an interesting question, right? I saw Tom Cotton, Republican Senator from Arkansas complaining on Twitter that the MSM, the mainstream media acts like bodyguards for the Democrats. And then he included a link to a New York Times column by Ben Smith about how the media wasn't booking Tara Reid, excuse me, on television. And you're like, well, you realize this story is from the New York Times,

which is what you're kind of accusing by thing. But it is interesting, right? That story that ran in Business Insider was turned down by Vanity Fair. Ben Smith in the aforementioned column writes that the non-Fox cable channels wouldn't book read, right? And Reed had sort of said at one point that she was maybe going to have an interview on Fox News this weekend, but she's also said, I'm just trying to kind of wait to get someone, meaning a TV host in the middle. I don't want to be pigeonholed as a progressive. I don't want to be pigeonholed as a Trump supporter.

So there's a sense that Smith asks, why hasn't she been put on television? when as we've seen with the Kavanaugh hearings, other people have been put on television to do a major interview. And she has not yet. And whether that is sort of some kind of double standard. I think the other weird kind of media manipulation you've seen is from Team Biden, that there has been this distribution of the New York Times story that I read from as if it completely exonerates Biden.

It does nothing of the sort, right? It's just purely a story about here's what we know, right? here's what we can find out from read from people she talked to from people in biden's office it just lays out the facts that story whatever you read that story does not say that joe biden that nothing happened back in 1993 so and even to your point of and to the point about fact finding there's also a very very good chance you know who knows what this document will show if and when it's found in the national archives but there's also a very very pretty good chance i think that this is about the level of information we have going forward. And then it's sort of up to the Democrats or whomever to figure out what they're

going to do or not do. Yeah. Well, I mean, talk about, you know, the mainstream media lining up in Joe Biden's defense. If you searched Tar Reid's name, the first thing that comes up is an op-ed from today or yesterday saying it's time for the Democrats to choose to go with Plan B or to find a Plan B. I mean, so obviously that's not, there's no monolith in support of hiding these things. And frankly, I mean, I mean, you know, critiques of bias, I think, are one thing, that this is some sort of like organized, you know, operation to protect Joe Biden. It's just ridiculous on its face because that would look like something different than what we're experiencing now, right? I mean, MSNBC would not make Joe Biden go on and plead his innocence.

They would just ignore the allegation altogether, right? The New York Times would just say, we'd just have people saying in passing, that's a lie that never happened, right? I mean, the best offense would look different than this. That goes without saying. I don't even know I'm wasting my time on it. But, you know, there was a bin, the Ben Smith where he interviewed Dean Bequeh about why it took 19 days for them, you know, from the first allegation or the first recent allegation for them to report on the thing.

And, you know, Bequey is a compelling figure, and he's, his logic is sympathetic. But it's sympathetic in some ways because you see that you get, you very quickly get to the end of, like, you kind of wear out the extremes of journalism law. logic, right? Like, like you can, and you just see someone sort of going with their gut. And, you know, to say that, like, that's not the lesson that we have learned in the Me Too era would not be inaccurate, right? I mean, that you, that someone, the dean Backe, you know, anyone in his chair probably shouldn't be in the position of deciding just to not cover something for three weeks based on where we've been over the past year. But it's, you know, it's definitely a tough situation. Yeah. And it's, and it's easy for us to say, right? Why don't you just get a story up about this? What's taking so long? You know, whereas if you're the New York Times, you know that whatever story you print, as we see with the Biden camp sort of misusing it, is going to be treated as sort of a definitive word or at least a partially definitive word on this topic, right?

So you want to be incredibly careful about getting it right, that you're not putting something out into the universe that turns out to be wrong, that turns out to miss something, right? it turns out to elevate or downplay something. I mean, you're just trying to get a thousand things right there. So I do have some sympathy for that. Were you surprised at all about the number of Democratic politicians who came to Biden's pretty immediate defense? I was interesting because Reed said this to BuzzFeed.

She says it was really devastating when Kirst and Gillibrand and Stacey Abrams and Hillary Clinton all in the same day just basically implied my story wasn't true. And they believed Joe Biden. I can't describe to you what that felt like. I cried for a while. She continues because they're important in my life. They've been figures that I looked up to. Yeah. I mean,

yes. It's impossible. I mean, you can understand why she would feel that way. And I would, and it was sort of surprising to see somebody, everybody come out so forcefully. If there's any evidence of conspiracy,

maybe that's it. I mean, you know, it's third degree or whatever, but like. Right. And whether it's conspiracy or just old fashioned rallying around, you know, your friend, the candidate, right?

Or maybe those mean the same thing. I don't know. But in this case. It certainly feels like, I mean, listen, regardless of whether or not the accusation is true, and maybe this is what the people who were rallying behind Joe Biden are telling themselves. There is an aspect of the political resurfacing of this charge. I mean, the way that the media on the right and Trump himself are treating the matter

that feels like pure politics. It feels like the playbook Trump was using four years ago when he showed at the debate with the, you know, Clinton accusers, Bill Clinton accusers. He tries to mitigate his own flaws, his own, you know, campaign liabilities by just saying, you know, you did it too. Like, this isn't a me thing. This is an us thing. You're right.

And confuse it as much as possible, right? Yes. Yeah, exactly. I was so fascinated, by the way, a feature of this to see in both the big New York Times and Washington Post investigation pieces that like a third of the way into the piece there was this huge paragraph that said by the way Donald Trump is way worse no matter what you think about this allegation was almost like this is our what aboutism shield because everybody's going to come to us and say you're you're falling you're going to do the but her emails bit again about this

and there were these big paragraphs in there there's like no no we're not we're not equating this by the way you know many many more accusations against Donald Trump than there are against Joe Biden. Just one minor point. Trump, and this isn't really in his defense or anything else, but, you know, the one powerful thing that he has is that he never claimed to have the moral high ground. So it's fine to say he's contradicting or, you know, that he's being self-contradictory. He's blaming someone else for something that he's done.

But, you know, I think to a lot of people out there, especially the Me Too skeptics, which there are more of than, you know, we know, the kind of just deserts aspect of what, of this, just the political side of it, I think is probably compelling, you know. Trump didn't claim to be morally superior. That was, that, that's what it is perceived that his opponents have done. A couple of thoughts going forward on this as we think about this issue in the coming weeks, and we'll certainly talk about it again here. This is from the Washington Post, Ruth Marcus.

She says, what would make this decision, and that means to replace by, as the Democratic nominee, if it comes to that, so difficult is that the imperative of defeating Trump is so powerful. This is not an ordinary political contest against an ordinary incumbent. Ensuring that Trump does not enjoy another four years in office may be enough to justify egregious hypocrisy, but it would be hypocrisy nonetheless, right? She's getting at that idea here that Democrats are so desperate to beat Trump. And what does that mean? and what does that push you to do that you might not do under normal circumstances? Alex Perrine has a good piece in the new republic,

resisting the idea that the Democrats' choice here is either to stick with Biden or reelect Trump. He says, no, no, no, that's a false choice, right? The primaries are not over because most of the primaries never happened to begin with. There's plenty of time between now and November. So if the Democrats decided at some point that they should replace Biden, they could do that. There's nothing to stop them from doing that if, again, that's the decision they ultimately came to about this. So just two ideas to keep in mind as we go forward. And all I would say is if there's any part of this that's like of the conspiracy theory or whatever else that's compelling to me, this point, and this is so minor and so imaginary.

but if Biden were disqualified today, then Bernie Sanders would be the nominee. And all those people rushing to Joe Biden's defense have, I think, have pretty clearly staked their claim that they don't want Bernie Sanders to be the nominee. Well, that's what I mean, that's what I mean when you think of the cross currents going through this, right? And that's not to impugn any particular person, right? But there's just a whole lot of, you know, down the list somewhere, there is a whole lot of other things coursing through this story. Yeah.

And part of it is, well, what happens if we get rid of Biden? Who's the nominee? And I didn't like Biden to begin with anyway, right? Or I wasn't sure about Biden. Or I didn't think he really deserved the Democratic nomination anyway. I thought he was just kind of a, you know, the safe, the quote unquote safe choice who now maybe is not the safe choice. I don't know. I mean, we've already gone through the Ukraine scandal.

I'm sure that it's going to resurface soon and now this. I mean, I don't know if there's any such thing as a safe choice in this day and age, certainly not, you know, running. against Donald Trump, but it does seem more fraught than ever. If you hear David and I having a lack of certainties and big takes in this segment, that's on purpose, by the way, because more to come. And I want to read more before I have any big opinions about what should happen and what's going to happen. All right, David, time for the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time.

send your nominees to at the press box pod on Friday David new White House press secretary Kaylee machining brought back the White House briefing it had been a while and she made this promise to reporters

so will you pledge never to lie to us from that podium? I will never lie to you you have my word on that it was an overwork Twitter joke to write that in fact was a lie thanks to Steve Fenster And by the way, not just a joke, because according to Daniel Daly and company, McAnney mischaracterized a Friday tweet by Trump about protesters of Michigan, gave an inflated figure for the cost of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, et cetera, et cetera.

So we did not keep that promise even through the end of the briefing. David, did you read about murder hornets any time over the last 48 hours? They certainly saw a lot of headlines about things. The official name is the Asian giant hornet. These hornets have invaded North America. They have a really cool orange and black look. They look like they could have been a Transformers character from our youth. The New York Times reports that murder hornets, quote,

can wipe out a beehive, a honey beehive in a matter of hours, decapitating the bees and flying away with the thoraxes to feed the young. All right? So murder, Murder Hornet cuts off your head and carries your chest back to feed its babies. That is what Murder Hornet does. Fantastic. Murder Hornet will also attack you if you're not a bee.

One entomologist went to destroy a hive and got attacked. He described the sensation as like having red hot thumbtacks being driven into my flesh. Murder Hornets. By the way, I read this piece in the physical New York Times on Sunday. And I was like, oh, that's kind of a cool nature story. I'd go to Twitter. Maybe I should just, you know, just tweet the link or something. And, and like, I saw that my, one of my favorite Dallas sports radio hosts was already

putting pictures of the murder hornet up. And I'm like, okay, we're done here. This is reached the saturation point. I have nothing to add. Anyway, murder hornets. It was an overword Twitter joke to write legally until they're convicted. We have to refer to them as alleged murder hornets. Thanks to Teresa Clift.

if you married insect humor and the pedantry of a veteran city editor, congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. David, let's talk about a plan for sports leagues to come back in Las Vegas. But first, this message from the ringer. Hey,

it's Bill Simmons. I wanted to tell you about a new podcast on the ringer podcast network that we are launching this week. It's called TV concierge. It's only available on Spotify. These are 12 to 15 minute minutes. mini podcast that review the latest TV shows streaming on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO, Showtime, FX, Apple TV, wherever else.

We'll preview new shows that are launching. We'll break down the biggest shows that just launched. We'll review the biggest binge watch seasons that drop as they happen. It's our new TV concierge podcast from the Ringer Podcast Network. Think they'd like a little bit of a playlist. Pick and choose the ones you want to listen to. It's available only on Spotify. All right, David, in the notebook dump.

are trying to come back. So I hear. We've seen various hairbrain plans. This one stood out. It was in a Friday piece by the New York Times as Kevin Draper. MGM Resorts International has pitched basically every sports league except the NFL on a plan to bring back sports on the Las Vegas strip. MGM, which has an ownership stake in 12 hotels in Las Vegas, has proposed a creation of quote a fully quarantine campus, Draper writes, essentially one full block of the Las Vegas strip

where players would live and play out whatever schedule the league wants, the leagues wants, excuse me, the athletes would be joined by their families, league and broadcast media employees, as well as the staff and vendors needed to serve them. So in other words,

instead of the plumbers convention that would be happening on the Las Vegas strip right now, we would just replace those with athletes and they would play their season there. What do we think of this? I mean, practically it sounds like a good idea, right? I mean,

if, I don't, I guess. No, I mean, I think people have been floating some, some variation on this idea since the epidemic kind of took hold. Like, why didn't,

just like, let's send every, send athletes to the, you know, some enclosed space and let them play for our common enjoyment. Yeah, there's been a lot of biodomes proposed. There've been a lot of biodomes.

I, I, uh, obviously there's, you know, Las Vegas, there's Disneyland has an option for, you know,

where some of this basketball could take place at least. I mean, it makes a certain amount of sense, right? It's like you're trying to solve a problem, then the first place you should look at, I mean, maybe you can solve two problems at one time. And the, you know, look for places with totally empty tourism industries. I mean, the places that depend on the tourism industry that are suffering so dramatically from the absence of that right now.

It does seem, though, like it's sort of a proxy fight. Like, we are very, very interested in working out the logistics, of how an NBA season could look because that is a conversation you can have on Twitter and how to come up with the vaccine is not a conversation you can have on Twitter. Yes. It's much more fun to say,

can we play sports at Disney World than to talk about like the six months of clinical trials we need for the vaccine. I'm a little weirded out by just picking places where it seems really fun to be anyway. for sports? Like, are we just confining like possible venues

or sports leagues to places you would have a bachelor party? Is that the idea here? You do point out about Vegas, 25% unemployment, Draper writes, Las Vegas mayor,

Carolyn control group Goodman, remember her, tells the times we are unique and we depend on crowds. And now we've become a mecca for major league sports. You can't enjoy those things

and life isn't worthwhile if you limit what people can do. I believe the article also said that the casinos would be open for the players. No, players are in the support personnel, the only ones in these Las Vegas hotels under this proposal. But the casino would be open. Which seems really like the reason to put the, this is why they're there, right? I mean, this is not, well, we've got a place for you to play, but most

importantly, the tables will be open. Where does like, Caesar's Palace is empty except for the dealers rank on your list of like night at the museum like what like like fantasies yeah yeah it's really funny because in the last dance they made a big deal out of michael jordan going to atlantic city until like two 30 in the morning on a game day that would be every day if the NBA is there no need to go to bed right i mean you could just you just kind of come back that's the whole point of a casino is that you never really need to stop being in public you could just go eat you can go you know play some, play some cards.

That would be pretty great, man. I got to tell you, if you have your loved ones there, your friends, your teammates, and there's no line at the steakhouse in the Mirage or whatever. Yeah, I mean, that could be pretty fun. I do like this race to become the hero of the sports comeback. I think Peter Schrager and Simmons were talking about this last week of like Jerry Jones, possibly swooping in and bringing everybody to North Texas. Because he's got a nice practice facility there.

like hey we can have the whole NFL here just everybody's kind of competing to be the party host for the comeback it's like nothing but goodwill right accrues to you you know like yeah that's the las vegas casinos want to bring sports back i feel i feel good about them all of a sudden as opposed to a place where i just go and drop money let's talk about a mod rashad for a second if you were watching episodes five and six of the michael jordan documentary on espn last night the last dance and you weren't a child of the 90s, you might have discovered a curious figure. NBC Sports is Ahmad Rashad. Rashad David was the host of Inside Stuff, Sideline Reporter.

Maybe most notably, though, a Michael Jordan confidant. Yeah. And in one amazing scene last night, Rashad was driving with Michael Jordan from his house to the NBA finals. right so if he had to submit an expense report to nbc sports that week he didn't need to expense the limo to get to work because he was riding with michael jordan there was a scene last week i think it was last week where he was in the team plane on the team plane or team bus but off camera and someone and there was some conversation about whether or not a one of the players

was richer than amad rashad and jordan's like no but amad rashad wishes that he was that rich First of all, that sent me down like a 30 second rabbit hole of just like trying to imagine what a moderate shot was getting paid in the 90s or whatever. Like I just have no frame of reference for that. But yeah, he was just sort of, even when he's not on camera, he's there. He's present, you know, and he's...

Omnipresent, you might say. Omnipresent, yeah. There seems to be, I mean, God. I mean, the journalistic ethics violations are just, I'm not sure what the, you know, the NBA inside stuff code of conduct said back then. But there was, it wasn't just that. There was also the, and obviously this is an extreme example,

but there was a thing about Magic Johnson, who was calling the NBA finals that year, spending every night in Michael Jordan's hotel room, right? I mean, playing cards. Playing cards, which is obviously, you don't get Magic Johnson, you know, on the broadcast team for his down-the-middle, you know, unbiased eye, but still, it did seem like there was, he was probably, you know, to some extent

he was probably there because he was going to spend every night in Michael Jordan's hotel room. And Amad Rashad probably fits that description too, although Amad Rashad is an incredibly talented broadcaster. Proximity to Michael Jordan, I mean, before, you know, people gave Brian Winhor's shit for being too embedded in their LeBron James camp, and a lot of that totally unjustifiable. there was Ahmad Rashad who was like just basically like you know having nights out on the town and like you know just carousing with Michael Jordan to all hours. Not even insult Winhorse by me. Winhorse is Upton Sinclair compared to Matt Rashad.

I mean, I don't get to bring Brian in here. He's a he's a journalist. The first of all. No, no, but seriously the point I just don't want anybody to think that like the comparison is it. And I don't want anyone to take that from what I said. the point that I, the only point that I want to make is people are very interested in that critique in the modern era, right? People are very interested in busting a reporter's balls or just, or by, you know, trying to hurt somebody's career by impugning their journalistic integrity.

That is not something that anybody was interested in in the 90s. No, not as much anyway. I mean, I think you would have seen the media critics of that age, your Norman Chads and stuff like that. I'm pretty sure I remember them taking shots at a Maude Rashad, like the buddy, buddy, buddy, done with Michael Jordan. That was a topic, I'm pretty sure. I mean, to explain Ahmad Rashad to the kids, imagine somebody who had very genuine athletic cred himself. He was a really good wide receiver in the NFL who had a friendship with Michael Jordan

and who had no conventional journalistic ambitions whatsoever. That was Ahmad Rashad. And it was also, I think David, it's worth saying, it was this particular moment in media because by the time the bulls get good, which is the period in this, the walls are really coming down between reporters and NBA players, right?

In the 80s, you used to be able to go in there and talk to Larry Bird, Magic, John. That is kind of done, right? Yeah. But it's still an old media world, right? We don't have Twitter and that kind of stuff. So I think the way to think of Ahmad Rashad is kind of like a prequel, to the Players Tribune, right?

He barely, he was the guy like, Michael Jordan needs to get, needs to say something. Let's get a moderate shot over here. And in fact, this literally happens in the dock last night. I think it's for the 93 finals

where they've been talking about Michael Jordan's gambling problem or gambling, let us say love, love of gambling. And he's like, calls a moderate shot. Let's do the interview right now

before game one. I'm going to wear sunglasses on television, which was an incredible look. and we're going to get everything out right here. That was Ahmad Rasha. That was kind of his lane on television in the 90s. Yeah, I mean, honestly,

he has more of a role in my, you know, memory, my basketball memory is growing up than almost any player, right? I mean, he was, like I mentioned, NBA inside stuff. He was always doing court side stuff or, like, player interviews.

He was just, he was omnipresent back then, too. like in, you know, in basketball media before there were all these basketball talking heads that every fan can name check, right? I mean, he was, he was one of the originals. Him and Peter Vessi, who's sort of been a missing voice from this documentary so far, but, you know, Vessi had this. Jim Gray. Yeah, Jim Gray for sure. But yeah, I mean, it was, Amad Rashad was, I mean, is just such an incredible character, an incredible character.

And seeing him, catching up with him, you know, he still looks great. he still, I don't know how plugged in he still is into the, into the Jordan verse, but, uh, but he seems like he's doing good. I'm guessing pretty plugged in because I would see, you'd see the thing is he's basically, mostly retired from television. I hope I'm not insulting him here. But like at the NCAA tournament every a few years, you'd see him sitting with Michael Jordan in the stands. Like they were still doing a post game interview, you know, like he was still, he was, he had never, Monterey Shah was still on the beat, you know. this is basically the rationale for every podcast that exists. It's like, hey, we're having these conversations anyway.

Why don't we just pick up a microphone? Oh, absolutely. Ahmad Rashad right now would be hosting the boardroom on ESPN, like the Kevin Durant. Because somebody asks this, Isaac Chipp says, who's today's Ahmad Rashad? Dude has literally been low key in every episode of this show. And I think that's probably the right, the right sort of character today, right? if Michael Jordan had been playing in an era where he was making media shows in a way that like Kevin Durand is now or something like that's

Ahmad would have been the guy he would have chosen to host the show with him oh for sure like the barber shop of the of its day like Amad would like can we get a mod in here as a mod free mm-hmm but even without that a mod had an incredible run I'd sell on Wikipedia he hosted NBA inside stuff NBA inside stuff was was if anybody is not remember this was Saturday morning show. Yeah. Kind of ran alongside cartoons on Saturday morning.

It was like the outro. It was the segue from cartoons to the real world. Yes. That's good. Yeah. Right. And then like this teleangelist came on after NBA inside stuff or something. A mash rerun, you know, something like that.

He hosted NBA Inside Stuff for 16 years. Like a Carson like run on Inside Stuff. Absolutely. absolutely incredible. But yeah, like, you know, when we think of like Doris Burke or basically anybody who's on the sidelines now, they're not really comparable to Ahmad Rashad. I don't think they're comparable at all. They're more comparable to Jim Gray, I think, is, it would be the more of the comp in that,

in that age. And by the way, I'm missing in this documentary, Marve Albert, who's apparently not interviewed. Peter Vessie, you mentioned, who was not only one of the biggest NBA writers of that era, but a big presence on NBC as well. I'm missing Jim Gray, so far at least. I'm missing Bob Ryan. Where's Bob Ryan? I'm missing Jack McCallum.

Back in the 90, back in the 80s, CBS NBA days, I'm missing Pat O'Brien. Where are these guys? I know you can't get everybody. We're really no Marv? We're going to leave out Marv here? Yeah, it sure looks that way. I mean, listen, this is documentary is built on the archival footage.

everybody else is just telling the story, but it would be nice. It would be nice to see Costas and Marvin and. Oh, Costas, we have. Oh, no, because we have, sorry. But it would be nice to see Marv. That's for sure. The other thing is interesting in this,

and maybe we'll talk about this more down the line. But this whole lot, this moment in 93, which is essentially what part of the episodes were about yesterday, when all this gambling information comes out on Michael Jordan. And you and I were young back then, and it was so, shocking because there was no Michael Jordan, you know, Reddit where you could go to and go,

oh, let me let me find out all the stuff people are whispering about. Like that didn't exist. So essentially you had commercial Michael Jordan on the Gatorade ad or the Nike ad with Mars Blackman. And then he's called to testify in this trial. This book by Richard Askenas comes out, which I said on Twitter last night that I like had my mom drive me to the bookstore to buy. because I could not drive because I was so eager to read it. The book is called Michael and me are gambling addiction.

Dot, dot, dot, dot, my cry for help. Because it was not only about all the stuff like I gambled with Michael Jordan, but I am having a cry for help because I am addicted to gambling myself, says Richard Desquinas. I only barely remembered the existence of that book. And definitely, I mean,

and watching it on TV last, night, I wasn't sure that it was actually like a real published book. I'm kind of surprised to hear that you went to the bookstore to get it. But I guess this isn't the day before like Amazon.com self-publishing. So I guess a book was a book was a book back then. Yeah. And it was and it dropped like a bomb because there wasn't a way to find out that kind of information other than like in a book or a newspaper story. And again, how much was your local newspaper covering Michael Jordan on a daily basis other than in the NBA finals or in the NBA playoffs? like most likely you're reading about your local team.

It's not like you go get an out of town newspaper. But I do want to see and I want to see where this doc goes in the next in the next episode when Jordan retires for the first time because it did feel to me a little bit like the media was being made to this boogeyman kind of thing. Yeah, that's definitely true. You know, we're tis-tisking, you know, all those reporters getting on Michael Jordan for going out and gambling until 2.30. I'm sure there were some very huffy takes back in the 90s.

In fact, I guarantee there were. but Michael Jordan, the most famous basketball player in the world, gambling in Atlantic City till 2.30 in the morning during the Eastern Conference Finals, I'm sorry, that's a story. It would be a story today. Michael Jordan being called in a gambling trial.

You can imagine LeBron James got called as a witness in a trial like that? Of course that would be a story. Of course that would be a story. Was it overkill? I'm sure it was. Were there some bad takes? I'm sure there were.

But this idea that that mean old media made Michael Jordan mad, come on, man. I don't even like the implication of that. I totally agree with you. So what I'm about to say is not, I mean, take it for what it's worth. But I think for those of us who aren't regular media scrum participants, and I think the vast majority of people viewing this fall into that category. Yeah, to clean the two hosts of this podcast, by the way. Go ahead.

One of the most incredible, I mean, just really like, one of the, one of the, one of the, few things that floored me as a, you know, writer, you know, someone in the media world, uh, was just the, the scrum that Jordan walked into every single night. When all the other teammates were out the back door and he was like, guys, I got to go do media and he walks out the side door into where there are, what, conservatively like 30 people with cameras of all various kinds and microphones all already shoved into the corner where Jordan will stand. And he has to just go stand all these lights in his face.

I mean, I'm sure everybody watching is like, oh, they really can't see anything when they're doing these things. You know, like what? Like, and the fact that he was able to engage with people there seemingly on a human level was pretty incredible too. I mean, just the whole thing was, listen, the media should not be made into a boogeyman, certainly. But at the same time, man, I was I was sort of wowed at what he had to go through on a regular basis. Absolutely. And that's what I'm talking about, you know, in terms of like the walls coming down, right? it had just gotten so popular.

You know, it was popular with Magic and Larry. I'm not denying that and all that stuff, but it had just with the dream team, with the 90s, with Jordan himself, with Jordan being such a commercial icon in addition to an NBA icon, it had just taken this huge step. And, you know, in a way,

Michael Jordan was just meeting what was this kind of inevitable step up in the coverage. There was going to be more of it. There was going to be more skeptical coverage. There was going to be coverage that unearthed things, he didn't want to talk about like gambling unless it was a maud rashad doing the interview but he didn't it was just you know it was sort of this inevitable place and we can talk about you know was it bad and did it change everything and oh this stuff i mean it leads to where we are today right where you

walk into any NBA locker room you know with the exception of some small market really bad teams and there are just a ton of people in there yeah a ton of people for your regular you know regular season game, much less the playoffs of the finals. All right, let's do David Schumaker guess as a strain pun headline. Whop-Wop. Monday's headline about Donald Trump was in bleach him. Today's headline comes, I guess I was waiting for a lap. Today's headline goes from Alex Panhans.

I hope you're seeing your name right, Alex. Panhans, Panhans. It's from the Associated Press, those scamps of the AP, David. They were reporting on the Miami Dolphins release of defensive end Taco Charlton, former failed Dallas Cowboys draft choice, Taco Charlton. Uh-huh. So I need a headline about the dolphins getting rid of Taco, which has a slight eating in the time of coronavirus reference.

What was the AP's strained pun headline? Uh, it's not Charlton, Chalston, Choolellan. Charlton chew out would be when Taco was reprimanded for not hustling. I was thinking more like Charlton chewed up and spit out. Oh, that's good. So it's a taco pun that I'm going for here? Yeah, yeah. Taco, no social distancing closed.

What is it? How do we eat in a, how do we interact with restaurants? Delivery. Yeah, right. We wouldn't eat inside the restaurant. We would get it. To go. Oh, tacos to go?

Dolphins ordered taco to go. Oh, yeah. That's a good one. Pretty solid for a wire service. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. David is unconvinced. Research by Chris Hall made a production magic by Erica Servantes.

We're back Thursday with listener mail. Send it now, people. And of course, more lukewarm takes about the media. See you, David. See you, Brian.