The Press Box - More on the NBA and China, the Matt Lauer Accusation, and Elizabeth Warren’s Teaching Job | The Press Box

Episode Date: October 11, 2019

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker discuss the latest in the NBA-China situation (03:00), the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week (27:45), the accusation towards Today show anchor Matt Lauer (30:30), Elizabeth Warren’s pregnancy (37:30), and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends. Welcome to the trailer for The Road Taken with CT and Bayo. I'm Bayo, and I'm C.T. We've embarked on a massive world tour and are excited to experience all the thrills and boredom that entails. To help us process our own experiences along the way, we'll be having conversations with peers, idols, and maybe a rando or two. The Road Taken with CT and Beow, part of the Ringer podcast network on all podcast platforms. David, this Sunday, comedian Ellen DeGeneres was photographed at a football game sitting next to former president George W. Bush.

We're going to talk about the firestorm that that created. But what I want to know is, what politician or general famous person would you not like to be photographed sitting next to? Oh my gosh. Man. Do you think that it'd be, what do you think the reaction would be if, I mean, if you, you got caught sitting, like yucking it up with Bill Clinton in 2019. I mean, that's not like it would be the most, like, redeeming thing that could happen to you either, right? So I guess it's like, who would you want to be?

We should just ask the opposite way. Who would you actually consent to being photographed? It's really tough. I think if I was sitting next to you, we were in a suite together recently. That would be okay. Jimmy Carter, I think, is kind of unassailable. Is that an ex-president who would be okay? That's a safe harbor, for sure.

I think Gerald Ford before his death would have been a safe harbor, too, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, I wonder if, like, if you were just, like, backslapping with, like, Paul Wolfowitz, if he would be under the radar enough for you to, like, people to not be, like, think that you're a terrible person? I think it would be so confusing is what is Paul Wolfowitz doing in the box of the the Dallas Cowboys game. I was also thinking about this in terms of kind of the conservative media slice. Another one, it's really hard to find. Shep Smith is probably a safe harbor, right?

Oh, yeah. Does Chris Wallace get under the bar? That's a really good question. If you're sitting with Chris Wallace, are you going to get dragged on Twitter? Probably not. Yeah, I mean, imagine, though, in that moment that you, I mean, I don't know if you'd be surprised to find George W. Bush and Jerry Jones is, you know, suite at Cowboy Stadium.

But like if there was like a moment where you suddenly, where you were suddenly made aware by running into him that Chris Wallace or somebody of that stature was like a fan of the same team that you were a fan of, there'd probably be a moment of bonding there, right? I mean, you'd probably try to find some common ground. It'd be a moment that would reaffirm everybody's faith in America, I feel like. We are the Chris Christie Hugging Jerry Jones of Media Podcast.

This is the press box, a part of the ringer podcast network. Hello Media Consumers, Brian Curtis, and David Shoemaker with you. We've got lots of stuff to get to today. We've got a sickening accusation about former Today Show anchor Matt Lauer, Elizabeth Warren's pregnancy, and next week's Democratic debate.

We'll have Justin Charity on to talk about the strange meeting of George W. Bush and Ellen DeGeneris, RIP Splinter, and a young child reads the New York Times. But David, I want to start by returning to the subject of the NBA in China, which is a huge story.

But if you read ESPN, you might not appreciate its hugeness. I want to take you back to last year when ESPN president, Jimmy Petaro said this. There is an intersection between sports and politics. When Tiger is talking about the president, when the anthem story, every time there is an intersection,

ESPN is the place of record. They have not been the place of record on the NBA and China story. They've done stuff. But at the same time, they've circumscribed what their writers and TV people can do. Laura Wagner over at Deadspin had a memo where an ESPN executive said that they could not get too deep into the Hong Kong China subject and they should stick to the basketball elements of the story. And I'd argue they've limited themselves even in what they can say about the basketball parts

of the story. The biggest basketball reporter in the country is Adrian Woznarowski. And when we started to tape this, he had not had an original tweet about the China situation. Zach Lowe is one of the other biggest basketball reporters in the country. And when we tape this, he has not had an original tweet about the China thing. Now, Rachel Nichols and Dave McMinneman are on the ground there in China reporting, and they should. But it's clear to me, in corporate terms, that ESPN has decided not to go all in on this. They've decided not to let the very smart and skilled reporters they have use all the clubs in their golf bag on this. and it's incredibly disappointing.

And I can say that some people inside, not all, because not everybody wants to touch this, but some people are pretty deflated because the promise Pataro made to his journalist last year as he defined and shrunk the notion of what kind of political story ESPN can touch was if the story touches sports go all in. We're the place of record.

And I would submit to you that they didn't keep that promise. It's kind of hard to disagree with that. Remember when like during, was it during the 2016 election when like Keith Oberman just came out of hibernation to do like a really low wattage version of his show for like, was it GQ? GQ, that's right.

Don't you kind of wish that like Bob Lay would be doing that right now from his basement? Do you see his blocker charge tweet with the photo of Tiananmen Square on it? Yes, yeah. But isn't that, I mean, isn't that the voice? I mean, like, I guess, I guess to me the only, I don't know if redeeming is the right word here, but I feel like the, like, the only mealy-mouthed defense I can come up with some of this is that,

like, as, as eager as someone like Woj, I don't want to over-focus on him, although, you know, this is sort of, you know, one would be expecting some tweet, something to emanate from his, from, from him. but as much as as as hungry as he is to like you know to to beat everyone else to the punch on certain stories um this isn't like you could argue this isn't squarely in his beat and he might be just like 90% of all the other huh what no no it's in it's in his beat broadly defined i'm just saying that like there's probably a lot of writers out there who are like not terribly interested in covering this and bob you know is one of those guys that like would be like filming at the

mouth for whatever to cover it. Like there's, I feel like, I don't know, I mean, I'm sure there are people who are disheartened over there. I'm sure people that they're, they're, that they're, that ESPN would be in a general sense would be covering it more. I wish to God they were actually covering this because the world needs them to cover it. But going, going reporter by reporter. I mean, I'm not, I wonder, I guess I just wonder how many people are being formally silenced

by this ESPN edict and how many of them are like, thank God, I don't have to do any history research. Well, that's a great question. think there's two different kinds here. There's formally silenced and then there's kind of, you know, you can't cover it the way you want to cover it. So I'm going to sit out entirely. Right. If you told me you can do a certain part of this, but you can't do the way you really want to do it, then there's another option where you say, you know what, I'm just not going to cover it at all. And that's going to be my, my protest. And I don't know how many people are in in each category. But I just think,

And a story like this, there are different parts of it for every reporter. For some reporters, maybe the story is the crisis in the NBA front office. What's Adam Silver doing? What is the TikTok of how they saw the Mori tweet and responded to it? And we're calling and we're calling Joseph Sy and saying, what the hell do we do? Yes. Like, that's kind of what, if this were an NFL story, that's what you would expect Schaefter and Mort to be doing, for instance. there's another part of it that's explaining the business of the NBA in China.

Why is this such a big deal? Oh, it's because of 10 cent. It's because of this. And they're in a kind of deep dive into the business part of it. There's another part. Right. And again, I'm not, I'm not holding up anything here that's even said the word Hong Kong protests yet. I'm just, this is all kind of reporterly stuff.

And then you got the parts of, you know, like you said, somebody going on. outside the lines and being able to kind of, you know, explain the moral elements of it. What's at stake here in terms of free speech? What is what is all that kind of stuff going on? Yeah, I think that the business side explainers and the absence thereof are pretty shocking, right? I mean, it's, it's, I mean, there's, and not just from a, from a moral point of view. I mean, from just a, from a, you know, capitalist point of view, like there's a lot of people, you know, readers have a lot of questions about tense. I mean, about all the stuff that, you know, about the Chinese. market. I mean, there were people, there was one tweet that went around, Chris, who was this?

They tweeted earlier that like there are some, some front office people seem to be like potentially revising, you're thinking the salary cap might decrease by 10 to 15 percent in coming seasons because of, you know, if there is an actual absence of money from China. That's really significant to every basketball fan, you know, and every basketball player. These things are really interesting. And it helps you understand what Silver's doing and why he's behaving the way he's behaving. I mean, if anything, I think it adds context to that because a lot of us are sitting here going, why won't he just say, why won't he just stick up for Darrell Mori full stop? Well, help us understand the stakes.

I mean, I just think it's interesting too because when John Skipper departed, resigned from ESPN and Disney reasserted its authority, ESPN was run by, is run by non-journalists. So I think a lot of us had the question about the future of journalism. at the company. And I, in retrospect, I think we kind of asked the question wrong. We asked, is ESPN still committed to journalism? And to that question, they could rightly hold up like that big Tim Donagie story they reported. Say, yes, look at this. If we weren't committed to journalism, would we have published this? I think the better question is, is ESPN committed to all journalism? Yeah. And again, accepting Jimmy Potarro's prescribed standards of what counts as a sports story,

what counts as an ESPN story once that arises will you go all in on there and at least again in at least in this case the answer to me is a very very loud no weirdly outside the lines is covering the story

I think this is from today's episode they had Chris Mannix of all people so it's not actually giving an in-house reportage on there who's like taking a moral stand did you say something no that struck me too when I saw him brought in I think that was actually earlier in the week, or at least you were the first time early

the week. But I was like, wait a second. You've got the best group of NBA reporters on the planet and you're going out a house to find somebody to talk on outside the lines. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, listen, it's a really it's pretty shocking.

I mean, like I said, I mean, I don't, I don't want to be like overly mealy-mouthed about this whole thing. It's really deplorable that they're not, that they're not pursuing this story. I guess just like, I, you know, we shouldn't cut Jimmy Patero any slack. I mean, he's made this decision. I understand from a, again, from like a capitalist point of view, he's in business with people with China too and doesn't want to mess up his, you know, what he's got going on over there. And you can imagine him sitting, you know, in his office and saying, like, listen, we're not the, like, let the New York Times cover this. We're not going to block them. But, you know, we just, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, if not technically, then financially. Um, but. But. But that's the problem when you like, when you seek to become monopoly, is that you don't get to, you don't get to shirk these sort of duties and then have,

and then just like, and then, you know, cover your eyes and have everybody think it's okay. And I think in their case, with basketball, they've got a bigger percentage of famous NBA reporters than they do. Yeah. Famous NFL reporters or famous baseball reporters. So when those guys are not all in on it, then it's more noticeable. like if there were an NFL scandal of course you'd want to hear from schaefter moort Seth wickersham Don van nata all those guys and if their absence would be noticed too but i think there's just a bigger kind of

you know thirstier NFL press score that would jump on it with with basketball to their credit they've hired so many of the big basketball reporters that you just miss them it's more noticeable when something like this happens it's uh it's a funny thing And like you said, I agree with you. There's no need. You know, I was a little, I felt I was almost a little bit mealy-mouthed on Tuesday. I don't think there's really a need anymore. I think we've seen what's happened here.

Another thing I want to talk to you about with the NBA story in China is this notion that I've been hearing from a few different places. I was talking to my friend Kevin Arnowitz about this. And we've heard it from different people that say, well, you know what, Hong Kong, China, the NBA, it's complicated. You know, I need to do some more reading about this. I don't know when those words first got into the bloodstream if it was the Daryl Morey apology, if it was Joseph Sy. Listen to Warriors coach Steve Kerr deliver a version of that same spiel on Monday. What I've found is that it's easy to speak on issues that I'm passionate about and then I feel like I'm well versed on.

And I've found that it makes the most sense to stick to topics. that fall in that category. So I try to keep my comments to those things. So it's not difficult. It's more I'm just trying to learn. My brother-in-law is actually a Chinese history professor. And I emailed him today to tell me what I should be learning about all this and what's happening. So I'm trying to learn just like everybody.

I want to push back on that a little bit. This isn't complicated. NBA salary cap stuff is complicated. But somehow we all figure that shit out. Any of us who have lived through the Cold War, and that includes you and me, David, and Steve Kerr, get the broad strokes of this story pretty quickly. This is an authoritarian regime that is leaning on

and attempting to reduce the freedoms of a semi-autonomous city state within it. The end. You can go deeper than that. I encourage everybody to go deeper than that. But what is hard to understand about that? Yeah. What do we need? I don't believe we all need to go read a 500-page book to get the thumbnail sketch of this.

What do you think? Yeah. I think that, I mean, listen, I encourage. everybody to get informed about things before they argue loudly about them. I think the world would be a better place if more people did that. But that said, most of us involved in this conversation have now had enough time to get that background, right? Especially people who were in positions of great influence and great authority. They could, you know, you could call your brother-in-law, who's a history professor and find out really quickly what the state of affairs is. Not to, you know,

again address Steve Kerr directly but you know there's everybody has access to to learning things and you're right this one isn't too difficult now I guess if you want to if you want to like locate difficulty if you want to if you want to if you're out in search of of complicating factors well I mean noted historian Ryan Rosillo said this on his podcast uh I think just today or this earlier this week that like listen people don't like it when other people like talk shit about your country even if even if they're right right and uh and and and that's obviously that's taken to a completely another level in china uh where the where the state you know authorizes certain forms of speech and disqualifies others but there is some like passable small level of truth to what

steve Kerr said if the if the point is knowing how to say what i believe to be true is complicated right? The facts of the matter should not be complicated. But if it's a question of delivery, okay, there's some complications there. Feel free to take some time to sort this out. But you're right. Factually, this should not be a deeply complicated issue for anybody. And, you know, I'm not sure what, I'm not sure what Darrell Mori's intention was in the initial tweet. But I do think there's a strong likelihood that like this situation seems so obvious that he couldn't possibly contemplate

a downside to what he tweeted, right? Which goes to what you're saying. This isn't a comp, this should not be one would think, a particularly complicated situation. I just think if Quinn Cook gets traded tomorrow, if you're not a sports fan listening of this, Quinn Cook is a very marginal

basketball player. If Quinn Cook gets traded tomorrow, all of NBA riderdom, if not all of sports writerdom, will instantly have a grasp of all the complicated salary ramifications of that trade. We will be sketching out what the future number two pick is like and why, you know, if they're going to get the number two pick in 2021 or 2020, we will have all that down instantly. So this to me is not the thing that just cannot be learned in a pretty quick time. Just to have it again, you don't have to write a,

you don't have to write a book about it. You don't have to become a New York Times bureau chief tomorrow. Just understanding what the stakes are here. I don't believe that's that hard. And I really don't believe people saying it's that hard are being truthful about that. Since we were last year, David, there has been significant fallout from Darrell Mori's tweet, which of course began this whole business. On Tuesday, Tencent and CCTV suspended domestic broadcast of NBA preseason games.

And on Wednesday, the Chinese sportswear company Anta, severed ties with the NBA. We are of course deep in the take cycle now of the NBA in China. I think the winner so far is Barry Weiss's column. Trollishly titled The World's Wocus Sports League

Bows to China. Other thing that's really happened is there's a lot of political opportunism right off the bat when this story broke. It included everybody but Donald Trump and has since widened to include Donald Trump. Here's the president

commenting on Kerr and Spurs coach Greg Popovich on Wednesday. Well, the NBA is a different thing. I mean, I watch this guy, Steve Kerr. He was like a little boy. He was so scared to be even answering the question. He couldn't answer the question. He was shaking. Oh, I don't know.

I don't know. He didn't know how to answer the question. And he'll talk about the United States very badly. I watched Popovich sort of the same thing, but he didn't look quite as scared, actually. But they talk badly about the United States, but when it talks about China, they don't want to say anything bad. I thought it was pretty sad, actually.

You'll notice that when the president is going after Steve Kerr, he is also refusing to comment on the situation. He wants to attack Kerr for being a wimp, but he's not actually commenting on it either. And in fact, back in August, when the Hong Kong protests were reaching a new level, Trump's comment was, the Hong Kong thing is a very tough situation, very tough. I hope it works out for everybody, including China, by the way. I hope it works out for everybody. Hmm. That sounds like Steve Kerr.

Yeah. What a punt. And by the way, I mean, to say nothing of the fact that Trump has, you know, advisors left and right who could tell them what's going on, contemporaneously to that statement by Trump, like Mitch McConnell was out there saying that, like, you know, speaking out in defense of the people of Hong Kong, you know, and saying that and they cracked down by China would be unacceptable. So it's not like Trump was speaking from some point of, you know,

information being inaccessible or something. No, that was arguably the most, most mealy-mouth comment a politician gave about China. Yeah, it was wild. Beto was out there, Ted Cruz. We just everybody was on the thing. We now have bipartisan letters going out, one from Josh Hawley and Democratic Congressman Bill Pasquerel, who I cannot imagine will be.

cooperating on much legislation, urging the NBA to cancel the exhibition games in China. I also found this an interesting part of the whole thing, which is the Adam Silver component of it, particularly the coverage of Adam Silver, wrote a piece this week, noting that Silver has had one of the great honeymoons of any commissioner I can ever remember in sports.

And it's not that people kiss his butt, though there is some of that. They just give him the benefit of the doubt in this incredible way. Everything he says is, everything Roger Goodell says is, you know, strip mind and taken for the worst possible thing.

Deservedly so, by the way. Everything Adam Silver says, I see the opposite. People go, oh, well, this is what he really meant.

This is what he's saying here. Do you think the coverage of him is going to change it all after this? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that, I mean, I think that to whatever extent

people are forgiving the way he speaks. That's, you know, that has a lot to do with the way he's been, with how liked he is up to this point. But I also think it has to do with the reality. People are giving him the benefit of the doubt for this, like, sort of reality that at the end of the day, his job is to make money and just to make money for the owners of the teams. And that he's, you know, he is, yes, he's talking out of both sides of his mouth, but he's do, he's kind of doing the best he can, you know, given the situation. Well, but I think that almost necessarily means that yes. the perception of him is going to change going forward because before he kind of almost had this feeling

that he was like like a movie like what did we just talked about this recently like when like when Dave like in the movie Dave when he becomes president he's like I'm just going to do everything completely honestly and forthrightly and with the best of intentions and it's all going to work out for the best and that's sort of been like the perception

of Adam Silver up to this point right and that and this just sort of concession that he is in fact at the end of the day exactly like every sports commissioner I think will necessarily change the people's, not in their opinion of him, maybe, but certainly their coverage of him. Our boss, Bill Simmons said this was like the most interesting NBA storyline potentially since Sterling.

And I think that you can, I mean, that's a reasonable argument to make. I don't, I do think that those, I don't know if this directly counteracts it. I don't know if this is Adam Silver, Sterling. You know, I mean, if this, you know, changes, it puts that out of balance or whatever. But this is a really significant,

This is a really significant development for his tenure, sure. Silver said one thing in Tokyo I wanted to fasten on. I would like to believe as a combination of Daryl Morey's tweet and Joe's size response that many sports fans that don't pay all that much attention to politics or did the situation in China and Hong Kong may as a result know far more now about the situation. I just find the fact, the idea that this is all a national explainer for us on the Hong Kong protests. and on the Chinese regime and what they're trying to do to Hong Kong. I just find that to be an absurdly optimistic take on this.

And I know that's what Adam Silver's paid to do. And I also find it really sad. I'm incredibly sad that we don't know collectively as sports fans or sports writers anything about the world. And we need an international crisis caused by a Darry-Mory tweet to understand international affairs. or to even be curious about international affairs. And again, I know that's not news.

I know that's not new. But I don't know, man. I just find that depressing. I really do. And that is not, that is not an optimistic coda to this whole thing. That's just, that just makes me sad. You know, well, now we can all pay attention to what's going on in the rest of the world and threats to democracy. Hey, at least we started, at least we started a conversation, right?

That's what's important. I mean, as sports fans and sports writers, we had to rely on Dork Elvis and the owner of the Rockets who owns the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company to help us get educated about what's going on in Hong Kong. God Almighty. God bless America. I want to end on this note. This is from today James Hardin and his Houston Rockets teammate Russell Westbrook. We're at the podium in Japan when a CNN reporter tried to get them to talk about the news of the hour. Thank you. Hi, Christina McFaul and CNN. The NBA has always been a league that prides itself on its player and its coaches being able to speak out openly about political and societal affairs. I just wonder after the events of this week and the fallout we've seen, whether you would both feel differently about speaking out in that way in future. It's a legitimate question. This is an event that's happened this week during the NBA.

this particular question has not been answered. James. And thus ends the James Harden era of American diplomacy. It's all over. It's all over. He's not going to become our Richard Holbrook. We're going to have to look for someone else to repair our relationship with China. I do think it's totally okay for basketball players to not care about this,

or at least not have, don't want to say anything publicly about it. It's a weird, it's a weird, the sports is just an interest, is a weird world for this. I mean, we talk about this in some form or fashion just about every week, but it's, you know,

I mean, this is a story that has to do with like the, the NBA league office and the owners of the teams and to kind of go to the star players with the expectation that they'll, you know, having, they'll have a take on the story, a meaningful take on the story,

I think is kind of asking a lot. But they are, you know, well-paid superstar. So, you know. If James Harden doesn't have a take, that's fine with me. I'd like to hear it from James Hardin rather than that spokesperson who was intervening on James Hardin's behalf. If he tells me, I don't want to talk about this anymore, let him say that. You know, instead of censoring all the questions.

That's ridiculous. 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 where they are always. gratefully received. First up, we have Tampa Bay Buccaneers tight-in O.J. Howard. He caught a foul ball at a Tampa Bay Rays playoff game. And it was a frustrated fantasy football overworked Twitter joke to write. He is getting more targets from the rays than the bucks. Thanks to Tim Bovine and T.J. Wanderslug for that one. This is a quote from Tucker Carlson this week. It's hard to think of a company that's hurt this country more than Twitter.

Tucker Carlson says. Maybe there are some, but I can't think of one. If you look at the hate and the division and the cruelty that's now common, it wasn't common 10 years ago, Twitter is a huge part of that. So Tucker Carlson can't think of a company that's hurt this country more than Twitter. It was an overworked Twitter joke to say, I can think of one, Fox News. Thanks to Royal Rerick for that. Big news from the White House, David.

This comes from the AP. The White House notifies the House that the Trump administration will not participate in the impeachment probe, which it calls illegitimate. The Trump White House will not participate in the impeachment probe. It was an overweight Twitter joke to write, Trump can't just decline to participate. This is not the Vietnam War. Thanks to the Browns are back for that one.

And I love this from listener John Drazen. On October 8th, Wired, as in Wired magazine, tweeted this. See if this would make you click on the article, David. Stitch Fix, goes the Wired tweet. using something called eigenvector decomposition, a concept from quantum mechanics to tease apart the overlapping notes in an individual's style. Using physics, the team can better understand the complexities of the client's style minds. And then there's a link. Would you click on that story or would you be completely, I'm going to go with extreme hard pass on that one. Well,

it wasn't just a hard pass because scientists, engineers, and mathematicians actually got really pissed off with that thumbnail sketch. And I love the responses. One writes, I aced my linear algebra classes in college. So I'm really a quantum mechanics expert. Another person who's angry says, the concept from quantum mechanics or literally week five of any introductory course in linear algebra. Another says it's only called quantum mechanics if it's from the quantum region of France.

Otherwise, it's just sparkling linear algebra. I don't know quite what they're talking about here, but I love the anger. So if you took offense to being linear algebra-splained, congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right, David, time for the notebook dump. I was going to save Ronan Farrow's new book for next week because I actually want to read it

rather than just consume all the scoop secondhand. Yeah. But we got to talk about this particular scoop now. Kate Arthur and Rameen Situidae, two former co-workers of mine, over at Variety, got their hands on the book and recount one story that's in it. The story is that at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Pharaoh reports, Matt Lauer is accused by Brooke Nevels who worked at NBC of raping her.

It was at the 2014 Olympics, as I said, Lauer, Meredith Vieira, and Nevels were at a hotel bar, and here I'm going to block quote the variety story. At the end of the night, Nevels, who'd had six shots of vodka, ended up going to Lauer's hotel room twice, once to retrieve her press credential, which Lauer had taken as a joke and a second time because he invited her back. Neville's, Farrow, writes, had no reason to suspect Lauer would be anything but friendly based on prior experience. Once she was in the hotel room, Nevels alleges Lauer, who was wearing a t-shirt and boxers, pushed her against the door and kissed her. He then pushed her onto the bed, flipping her over, asking if she liked anal sex, Farrow writes.

She said she declined several times. According to Neville, she was in the midst of telling him she wasn't interested again when he just did it, Pharaoh writes. D. Dot, dot, dot, dot. Nevels tells Pharaoh, quote, it was non-consensual in the sense that I was too drunk to consent. She says it was non-consensual in that I said multiple times I didn't want to have anal sex. So that would allegation was published. Lauer also released a giant letter, which is public. He denied the allegations. He provided details of what he said was a consensual affair with Nevels. He also included this kind of weird semi-threat at the end. anyone who knows me, I will tell you I'm a very private person. I had no desire to write this, but I had no choice. The details I've written about here open deep wounds for my family, but they also lead to the truth. For two years, the woman with whom I had extramarital relationships

have abandoned shared responsibility and instead shielded themselves from blame behind false allegations. They have avoided having to look at a boyfriend, a husband, a child in one eye, and say, I cheated. They have done enormous damage in the process, and I will no longer provide them the shelter of my silence. One, yeah, one that charge is horrifying. I don't want to skip over that.

But if you read this letter, it really feels like we're going back to an older and outdated playbook for famous people who are accused of sexual assault. Because, you know, we've been in this period after Me Too where someone who's accused denies the charge. They say something like, my recollection of these events is different, and then they just vanish. Here, Lauer's sort of doing the opposite, isn't he? He's coming in. He's saying in this letter that this woman wanted money, he charges her with that. He's using the old woman scoring things, saying she's mad at me because I broke off the affair. And, you know, I always assume that these people are doing whatever their highly paid crisis PR people and lawyers are telling them to do it.

So I guess it's notable in whatever sense that Lauer is now doing the opposite. Yeah, I mean, I think that, I mean, I don't know if this is like so obvious. I should invoke Occam's razor, but it does seem like, you know, there is a, there is a reality in which he could sort of keep his head down from the stuff that happened before and maybe, you know, after some passage of time, come back into the public eye. but I think after the charge, this specific charge, and probably for him, just the continuation of him being under negative spotlight, my guess is that the calculus was that he was, that, you know, that this sort of put the cabash on any plans

for any kind of rehabilitation, right? So, and there have been some rumors that that sort of rehabilitation plan is already in the works. And this, you know, obviously, you know, ruins that. And I mean, and it probably should. I mean, it certainly should if any of this is true. And I think that he's,

that he probably feels like his only option is to just, you know, burn it down, which is just incredibly unseemly. And, and again, presuming that any of it's true, it's just like, just despicable. But it is. So the seriousness of the charge plus his whatever fanciful idea that he's going to come back at some point.

Pushes you to kind of go all out like this. That's my guess. I mean, that makes a ton of sense to me. It really does because what a strange thing. I want to leave you before we move on here. We will definitely go back to Farrow's book next week because like I said, I'm very eager to read it and read what else he has in there about Mount Lauer. But the allegations were reported on the Today Show on Wednesday.

I want you to listen to Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotbe talking about their former co-worker Matt Lauer. I feel like we owe it to our viewers to pause for a moment. You know, this is shocking and appalling. And I honestly don't even know what to say about it. I want to say that we, I know it wasn't easy for our colleague book to come forward then. It's not easy now. and we support her and any women who have come forward with claims.

And it's just very painful for all of us at NBC and who are at the Today Show. And, you know, it's very, very, very difficult. I'm looking at you and I'm having a weird moment that we were sitting here just like this two years ago. And truth be told Savannah and I did a little prayer upstairs just before just to sort of sort out what we were going to do. And I think it's it's like you feel like you've known someone. for 12 years, and I don't know if you guys have ever felt like that. You know someone. You know them. You feel like you know them inside and out. And then all of a sudden, like, a door opens up. And it's a part of them he didn't know. And we don't know all the facts and all of this, but there are not

allegations of an affair. There are allegations of a crime. And I think that's shocking to all of us here who've sat with Matt for many, many years. So it's a tough position to be in to go on television like that and not to be able to not be able to say anything perfectly definitive, but I thought Cotby really put in perspective there. When you read these letters, when you read the kind of counter charges that come from somebody like Matt Lauer, you can get distracted. This is not an allegation of an affair. This is an allegation of a crime. I thought that was really good. And also we should note that Nevels tweeted, I want to thank the many survivors who shared their stories with me today and offered their support.

It takes courage, and I am truly grateful. I want to spend a minute, David, talking about the next Democratic debate, which is Tuesday night. We got your after show right here on the press box. One big story is going to be Elizabeth Warren. She is now a frontrunner, if not the frontrunner in this race. And because she's a frontrunner, people think Democrats are going to gang up and start attacking her at this debate.

Well, Warren had her own small tempest this week and it involved her teaching career and her pregnancy. I'm quoting the New York Times as Thomas Kaplan. It is one of Elizabeth Warren's signature anecdotes in her stump speech. By the end of her first year as a public school teacher, she was, quote, visibly pregnant, and the principal wished her luck and hired another teacher to replace her. Well, on Monday, a conservative website, the Washington Free Beacon, published minutes from the meeting of the Riverdale Board of Education that referred to her employment status. Minutes of the meeting on April 21st, 1971, show the board approved the

issuance of a contract for Ms. Warren's second year. Quote, Mrs. Elizabeth Warren, two days per week, speech, the minutes said. But minutes of another school board meeting on June 16th, 1971, say that Ms. Warren's resignation, effective June 30th was accepted with regret. Ms. Warren's first child, Amelia, was born set September. So to translate that a little bit, what happened was in that April in 1971, according to Warren, she was not visibly pregnant. So the school board issued her a second contract. By June, she was. And so essentially, she was told, thanks, but no thanks, you're out of here. We will probably not know the resolution to this because when school boards had the apparently frequent practice of asking teachers who were pregnant to leave their jobs, they were not going to

write down on the form, visibly pregnant, asked her to leave. They didn't happen. No, of course not. But what Warren says is backed up by another teacher at the school who says that this was the policy, by several news articles of at the time. They say this was a policy later overturned. But the Republican National Committee has said now that

Warren has been, quote, caught lying. I like this tweet from former Clintonite Brian Fallon. If you don't think the women running for president have it harder, consider the last 24 hours. People are questioning if Warren was fired for being pregnant because it wasn't admitted on official records. And Kamala Harris is being asked about misconduct at a law firm where she never even worked.

That is her husband's law firm, by the way. I don't know what to ask you about this other than misogyny was such a big part of the last campaign. It is 100%. If Elizabeth Warren is a nominee, it is 100% going to be part of this campaign. campaign. Yeah. I just wonder if something like this isn't going to backfire terribly. Because it strikes me that calling her a liar about things like this, he's really going to make a lot of people mad.

And it should make a lot of people mad. Yeah. I think in the short term, it probably will backfire. I think in terms of her standing in the Democratic primary, I think, you know, backfiring is a real possibility. I think that the longer play is to sort of tie this to you know, the charges of the whole Native American

storyline from I guess before the primary began and to sort of this like meta-narrative of sort of feels over reels, I guess. If you could like put, if you, I mean, just sort of if they can tag Warren with being someone who will like kind of fudge the truth on the campaign trail to make a bigger point than maybe that sticks in a more in a deeper way and maybe that's something that that Trump in a general election scenario could do something with but I will say that like

this was I mean the story itself is ridiculous and if if there's any story like this it's going to rebound both in terms of content and in terms of practice this is it I mean this is I mean the Washington free beacon I guess was who broke the story and if you read it it is like a a case study and how to like circulate fake news. I mean, it's just like every beat of the story feels like a legacy news institution reporting on a real thing, but there's absolutely no substance

to any of the sentences. It's like a robot AI that's learned how to blog or something, but like it doesn't really know, but there's no like actual content. But then the bigger issue is not that. It's like the traditional news outlets that like treat it, if not credit.

treat the charges credulously enough that then it gets repeated in this sort of way that it starts sticking, right? That when, I mean, like, and this is not, I'm not, I'm not, you know, again, pointing a really deliberate finger here. I don't know exactly what the solution is, but if you're, you know, NBC or CBS or the New York Times or whoever, you have to figure out a way that you can, like, address the situation that these charges are being made without giving them any credibility. And that's, that's the tricky part.

Tulsi Gabbard is going to be in this debate on Tuesday, David. Two debates ago, you'll remember she attacked Kamala Harris. She has tweaked Warren recently over her lack of, quote, leadership. And in Politico, Daniel Strauss writes that during this debate, Gabbard, quote, could even decide to put the whole Democratic presidential field on blast for politicizing the impeachment process. While on Wednesday, Gabbard went a step further than that. She said she might not show up at the debate because of her,

discontent with the DNC. Listen to this. They're attempting to replace the roles of voters in the early states using polling and other arbitrary methods, which are not transparent or democratic, and they're holding so-called debates, which really are not debates at all, but rather commercialized reality television meant to entertain rather than to inform or enlighten. So in short, the DNC and the corporate media are trying to hijack the entire election process. So in order to, you know, to bring attention to the serious threat to our democracy and to ensure that your voice is heard, I'm seriously considering boycotting

the next debate on October 15th. I just want to point out that our coworker Justin Charity just sat down on the table with me. He had threatened to boycott this episode of the podcast, so I appreciate him showing up. I think that this is brilliant for Ungabrid's part because everybody else co-opted, you know, Bernie Sanders, obviously, was like the populist voice of the Democratic Party four years ago,

and his profile and his platform only grew and grew over the intervening time. Everybody else co-opted is like universal health care and all his other big, big policy ideas. She's just trying to co-opt his like, the DNC is rigged constituency. And, you know, as much as the DNC has done everything to avoid, even to their own detriment, to avoid that sort of sheen. She's obviously already got some of that sort of Bernie Bro online. fan base going for and this is just like I think doubling down on

on you know just like the disaffected portion of that vote of that you know that voting block she's got but she's got one Bernie bro she's just it's like she's so such a tiny base I mean Bernie Sanders walked out of this debate and said this whole thing is rigged I'm out of here

I'm going to go recover from my heart attack that would be an emergency for Democrats because then you think oh my gosh you know he's he's walking out and, you know, 10 plus percent of voters, you know, could be sitting this thing on the sidelines of looking for a third party candidate. I just think this is one of those things where she's going to leave. Everybody's going to be like, great. You know what?

Don't show up. It makes life easier for all the rest of us. I just don't know what the consequence of her walking away is. Okay. You know, you just will have the debate and you will not troll us during the debate. We're all for that. Charities here, David. So I think we should talk about Ellen DeGeneres.

George W. Bush. Yeah. Let's do it. Sunday we're watching the Cowboys near a team near and dinner my heart and oh wait in the in the owner's box there is the former president of the United States and Ellen Ellen on her phone a lot of people got angry at this. Ellen went on her show and did a long explanation charity you wrote about this. Yeah and the ringer.com and I'll say I wasn't even tempted to write about it until

She went on her show and explained it, right? Because there's the photo. There's this photo of Ellen and W. Sitting together at the Cowboys game. And yeah, people, I think people were outraged with this sense of George Bush is a war criminal. How could Ellen be friends, be buddy, buddy with a war criminal? And, you know, I think initially I thought that was kind of like a facile. It's both true.

It's like a thing that, sure, if you want to make an argument about George Bush and Afghanistan and Iraq, sure. Why are we framing that argument around a conversation about Ellen DeGeneres? But Alan went on a show and talked about the photo. And she, in a weird way, kind of like leaned into the political significance being projected on the photo. But to say that actually the photo is proof of, I forgot how she phrased it on YouTube, True Maker. I think she phrased it as like this photo. It will give you faith in America.

Yeah, this photo will give you faith in America again. And that's what I felt like I peeled off the sideline and thought, well, no. Like, aren't you, you're friends with George Bush because you're just like two wealthy people and all wealthy people in America know each other. That doesn't give me faith in America. That has nothing to do with, you know, the civil health of the U.S. And it has everything to do with wealth. I will say having not even watched Ellen's video, in defense of the title, yeah, I mean, the American dream, at least as, you know, as Republicans would push it today. I mean, the logical conclusion is, yes, you too can potentially get rich and famous enough that partisan politics ceases to matter.

Yeah, maybe that, yeah, that's a, that's a good understanding of it. And whatever potential war crimes are committed. When I first saw this, I didn't think people were going to go to Iraq and Afghanistan. I thought they were going to go to George Bush backing a constitutional amendment against what was then called same-sex marriage back in 2004. and using that issue, making sure that issue was put on the ballot in swing states during 2004 to goose Republican turnout. Correct. Correct. I mean, to me, that actually is actually more, you know, I mean, this person you are sitting next to thinks or at least thought that you should have fewer rights than other people. Right.

That doesn't restore my faith in America. That does the opposite. Right. But at least that would have felt like that would have felt like an argument that had something. It would have felt like an appropriate context to rail on Ellen DeGeneres about. Whereas I don't know. There's something about the impulse of people to invoke Iraq and Afghanistan against, like, I don't know. Ellen DeGeneres is not a judge at the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

You know, it just felt like the argument was kind of lost. It's like, sure, I get what you're saying. And I get that there are a lot of reasons to look at Ellen and think she's too progressive to succumb to networking with George Bush. But it just seemed like it felt like this cosmic brain moment to me where people thought that they were making this very pronounced, righteous articulation about Iraq and torture and all the stuff that we remember from Bush's presidency related to the war. But I think hanging all of that stuff on Ellen DeGeneres felt like it was trivializing those things, if anything, right? Yes. Yeah. I think that's right.

I mean, I think that I'm not quite sure. The whole thing kind of took me by surprise. One, because I don't feel like George W. Bush has been out of the public eye enough for, I mean, like, there was a litany of stories about him being like like, like, like low key buddy, best buddies with Michelle Obama. I don't remember Michelle Obama getting dragged. She did. I remember. Did she? Yeah.

Because I remember when I wrote about McCain's funeral, I wrote this piece about Bush instead of how we'd sort of, I think how people in general. maybe had had come to understand him differently. Not McCain's funeral. George Herbert Walker Bush's funeral. And yeah, I do remember there being some pushback from from Webb leftists. All right. About Michelle Obama calling Bush a very generous man and a beautiful man. I mean, okay.

Well, that's fine. And honestly, like my, I was going to say as I was saying that, like, I say it was trepidation because like I feel like any like, I don't want to be like pulling what aboutism on this because like some people do take this. I mean, the charges here are very serious. Don't get me wrong. I just think like, you're right, putting them on Ellen. I mean, first of all, there's like this.

I don't want to trivialize this. But first, but there is this giant like aspect that's sort of preamble to the whole thing, which is just like, have you ever been to a place? Right? Right, right. I mean, like, if they're left your home ever. If I went, if I went to Bill Simmons' birthday party,

And we said this yesterday, and he seated me down and, like, I was sitting next to Ben Shapiro or somebody, whatever. Like, I wouldn't spend the next hour screaming at him or, like, just flipping him the bird and sitting in silence. I don't know that I would have much to say to him. Right. But part of it's like you're just like someone else has put you in a chair. The fact that someone could find a photo of us laughing side by side probably wouldn't be too shocking. But see, I think that that was the case at the beginning of this. But then imagine in your scenario, if then later you took that photo of you and.

Ben Shapiro were like, actually, this is proof of what the founders believed about America that we could be at Bill Simmons House together, you know, drinking Jambajoo. Like, I don't think that that's, I think that's what Ellen did. And that's what made Ellen feel kind of silly. It was super, it was very silly.

It felt very craven. It felt very just, it felt whimsical. I don't know. It felt like she was, again, it's like my primary annoyance was, oh, great, this is another moment in American political life. where people are determined to conflate celebrity culture and political culture.

And as much as Ellen wanted to resent that or push back against it, I don't know. It just felt like her monologue on the show was her leaning into it in a really roundabout way. Yeah. It just felt like a... It did seem to trivialize the whole thing, as if the whole thing wasn't an exercise in trivializing. I don't know. I just kind of feel like Bush's rehabilitation. began the moment we started giving Cheney credit for everything that happened during the administration. I 100% of good with that.

Like as soon as he was out and as soon as Goethefer or whatever, to release those paintings and it was just like, okay, George W., you're in a separate category now. I'm just sort of forget, let you wander off into whatever. Can we put a bow on this by going back to Charity's point about all the famous people know each other? Did you see when guys see when Ellen posted her link from the show on Instagram? Did you guys see the replies that people captured in the tweet? Yeah, every celebrity.

Jamie Fox. I felt betrayed by Jamie Fox a little bit. We got Jamie Fox. We got Lenny Kravitz, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Garner, Snookie, Kendall Jenner. I honestly thought that was a parody. I was like, this can't be real. Well, it wasn't just that they commented. It's that they commented with this very odd, whimsical boosterism that felt like, yeah,

this is exactly what America needs to hear. right now. It's like those parodies where people do the text chains with famous people you know and I just couldn't believe it was real. I'm more amazed by the fact that everybody I don't know how like the algorithm of Instagram or whatever works but like how did they

all know to like comment like what was the drive? I can imagine them maybe feeling that way. Yeah. But just that they were all did like did they weren't in a meeting? Did their agent? Did they all share an agent? They're like please comment on this right now because it just felt so bizarre that they were that everybody was just like

yes, this segment on Ellen is exactly what the world needs. This is what I've been feeling. Every time I get seated next to a Republican and I get shit on. It's like an industry plant coordination type. It was all weird. Justin Charity, thank you for stopping by.

You can read him on the ringer.com and we hope you come back. And all this segment needs is a title. So, you know, charity stripe, sweet charity. We're going to, well, let's work on that. Let's workshop. I'm in.

All right, David, a quick RIP for Splinter. I saw a tweet from listener Tall Brad. He says the fact that the press box pod has an obituary every week is depressing. You're right, Brad, because this week's came from Alexander Chan, who is the EIC or was over at Splinter. Site run by the Geo Media Stooges. He says, it's been my greatest honor to have been the editor of this site, and I will love this staff till my dying breath. Thank you to all our readers, fans, and haters. It's been a thrill for their details.

TK Splinter forever. Guess not surprising. You know, the first thing I thought is, remember that when we found out geo-media was trying to cut the political and media coverage out of Deadspin. Yeah. Well, that is Splinter, right? At least to a large extent.

Oh, sure. So if they hate that, I guess it's not shocking that this is the course of action that they would take. Yeah. I mean, I think that's pretty straightforward. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, we just have to sort of read the backstage calculus into what happened. But, I mean, it does just seem.

I mean, I guess the writing has been on the wall for a while, right? I mean, there was, I still, I mean, I went to Splinter on a very regular basis up until this announcement. If they're so publishing today, I apologize, I haven't been today. But the, you know, I mean, it was very, I mean, it was very, I mean, it was. was in some ways, it was in many ways the sort of spiritual or literal error of Gawker, at least the, at least the sort of national affairs aspect of the side of Gawker. Sure.

But in a lot of ways, it was like a previous generation of Gawker, right? Because it was just very much a blog. And I love that about it. And part of that was because they had, you know, kind of kneecapped it. I mean, their resources had already been limited to such degree that it was just mostly incredibly productive for what they had to work with, you know, mostly reactive political magazine.

And for, I mean, it was, it's a great site that I'm going to sorely, sorely miss. But it's, you know, I mean, as part of this little bigger narrative about geo-media and everything else, I mean, and the larger scale Gawker story, it's just depressing. Got one more note, Dave, before we get to the pun headline. you and I, my friend, are both very proud to be dads, and one job a dad does is to pass on your passion to your kids,

whether it's football, Star Wars, Legos, pirates, snakes, whatever. And I had a bit of a mission accomplished moment. Snakes. You're not interested in snakes? It's been a lot of time with my son talking about snakes. Anyway, a bit of a mission accomplished moment the other day when my son, to whom I have tried to pass along my love of, of real analog newspapers said to me,

Daddy, when is there going to be another kid section in the New York Times? You know that section they do every month in the Sunday paper that has kids articles and articles for kids? My first thought was, wow, that's so cool that he and I can share something we both love. And my second thought was, that sounds like content. So here, David, and you do not know this is coming, is my interview with my son about why he loves the kid section of the New York Times. Oh, that's good.

Hello, press box listeners. This is Brian Curtis, and I am on the scene in Orange County for an interview with a very special young man. Young man, tell me your name. Owen. Owen. Oh, I like that enthusiasm. Owen, how old are you? Six years old.

Now, Owen, your daddy loves to ask you trivia questions. So I'm going to ask you one right now. What does daddy do for a living? Right. Right. That's good. And what does daddy write about? Um, sports media.

Spores Media. Wow. Not sure how you knew that, but I'm really impressed. I'm a little speechless right now. Now, you know we get a couple of newspapers at home. And on Sunday mornings, I like to sit there on the couch and read the newspaper. Now, when you come and try to talk to me while I'm reading the newspaper, am I really, really nice or I'm really, really grumpy?

I'm really now. Yeah, somewhere in between, right? It depends on the day. Depends on how much coffee daddy's head. All right, we're doing this interview because you told me how excited you. you are to get a new kids section of the New York Times. And I want you to tell the listeners at home why you're so excited to get that kid section. What kind of articles do you like?

The salmon ones and the pancake ones. The salmon ones and the pancake ones. We've got to tell them about the salmon one. In the new issue, which is September 29th, there's an article about a salmon canon. Why on earth, Owen Curtis, would people need a salmon cannon? So catch salmon to eat, and so they can lay their eggs. So they go into a barge and then up a tube, and they get their pictures taken in the barge, then up a tube, then out of another barge, and the thing takes 43 seconds.

Wow. Now, the other article you got really excited about this time around is one about a pastry you put in the oven. Will you tell me about this very special pancake? So you put basically whatever you want in it and then you put it in the oven and it puffs up and then when you take it out of the oven it completely deflates and then you can eat it. You know what I'm so impressed about is you actually remember what you read in these articles? One, that's an incredible compliment to a journalist. And number two, you read more closely than a lot of professional members of the press. Congratulations on that.

Now, here on the press box, my partner David has this phrase. He says all the time and it drives everybody nuts. He says, I think that's right. Before we go, Owen, I want you to give me your best. I think that's right. I think that's right. There you go. Young man, one day you're going to have a media podcast of your own.

There we go, ladies and gentlemen. Owen Curtis. It is time for David Shoemaker guesses a strain pun headline. We wait patiently for, next time we get Owen to do that. Owen grown. I was waiting for it. Pretend to groan like you really want.

You don't want to do something, but you really do. Tuesday's pun was acorn squashed. Today's headline, David, comes from listener Alex. It's from the Associated Press. Their sub-account AP oddities, which is the AP's own news of the weird, I guess. The Twitter description is from just a little off to downright ludicrous, which is a very genteel description of funny news.

Here's the story. A family visiting a South Carolina, Carolina Beach fished a big package from the ocean, took it to their vacation home and opened it up, finding about 44 pounds of cocaine, the AP rights. Authorities assess the cocaine's value at $600,000. So they fished a package out of the ocean, took it home and found 44 pounds of cocaine. What was AP Audities strained pun headline? All right. Family in South Carolina finds a package in the

in the sea. Yeah, at the beach and they found and it had 44 pounds of cocaine. Yes. I believe they pulled it out of the water. I think you're going to need that notion here somewhere. What do you say when you, it's like the hole in one of fishing?

Like what do you say when you call in a fish? real like reeling in something like this is it something with um maybe we should start with synonyms for coke yeah i was going to say is there powder uh uh what is keep going coke cocaine uh i'm gonna do a little snow uh blow oh mm-hmm hmm uh blowing in the wind uh no uh no uh blowing in the wind uh no uh no uh Blow out of the water? That's close. Also good, by the way. Probably better than what they have.

Blow. What were they doing out there? Blow fish? Blow fish. Blow fish. Blow fish. And of course, it's the AP, so they did blowfish, perin, I, and G.

Blow fishing. He is David Schumman. I'm Brian Curtis. Research by Chris. I made a production magic by Jim Cunningham. The official band of this podcast is Jim Blossoms. Programming note, we're back Tuesday night after the debate where we'll have more lukewarm takes about the media.

See you then, David. See you later, man. It's all over. It's all over. Thank God I don't have to do it. It's all over. Whether it's football, Star Wars, Legos, pirates, snakes, whatever.

It's all over. Snakes? Snakes. You're not interested in snakes? I'm going to go with extreme hard pass. Yeah. So anyway, this whole thing is rigged. I'm out of here.

I'm going to go recover from my heart attack. It's all over. I think that's right.