The Press Box - NBA Finals Story Lines, More on the Trump Verdict, Charles Barkley’s Free Agency, and Colin Cowherd: Resistance Hero

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and David kick off the show with some notes on the coverage of the Trump verdict (1:09). Then, they get into the following topics: What kind of story are the 2023-24 Dallas Mavericks (9:02) Charles Barkley’s free agency and what could happen with the talent from ‘Inside the NBA’ (18:19) Later in the Notebook Dump they discuss: Reactions to Colin Cowherd’s monologue about Trump’s conviction (32:43) The upcoming presidential debate and the advertisements that will be available for purchase (41:00) Bryan and David are in LearnedLeague trivia (43:15) Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, humanoids. It's the Maskman David Shoemaker. It's a new era in professional wrestling, and that means a new era here at the Ringer Wrestling show. Kaz here, every Monday and Thursday hang out with me and my guys' shoes on the Masked Man show. And Ben Cruz here. Come kick it with me, Cal and Brian on Tuesdays for Ringer Wrestling Worldwide, where we hit on the most interesting headlines and even react to some of Maskedmans and even your hottest takes. Don't tap out. Tap in to the Ringer Wrestling Show feed now on Spotify. or wherever you get your podcasts. Worldwide. David? Yes.

We've had a little news since we last spoke. Former president of the United States was convicted of some felonies. 34 felonies, if you're scoring it home. And I got three notes on the verdict coverage for you. On the coverage of the verdict. On the coverage of the verdict. Yes. That's what we do here. Yeah. We cover the coverage.

Note number one, the big question for pundits, of course, was how will a guilty verdict affect the election in November? And I was struck by how many pundits said, I don't know. Yep. Journalism is a profession where you get paid to not say, I don't know. Mm-hmm. But we seem to have entered a rare and genuine zone of unknowability. it's okay to go on TV and just say that you're not sure. Yeah.

And do we think that comes out of Donald Trump wriggling out of every other legal entanglement? So people have just stopped betting either way, how any event might affect him? Yes. I mean, I think that I don't know what the, you know, seven-step process is to, learning lessons in the era of Trump. But this does feel like a much belated step one, which is to admit that, not admit you have a problem,

but to admit that you don't know anything, right? I mean, of all, we've done so many podcasts about how should they be covering Trump differently, what lessons have they learned since the last time. I think not knowing is, is one correct, right? I mean, and, and I think that, um, it's meaningful to say that.

But I'm not sure how much it really shows learning and growth. I guess that remains to be seen. But yeah, I mean, it's not just wriggling out. I think it's, I mean, you know, we're, I mean, it's, I'm sure a million people have said it. But, but the distance between where we are now and where we are, where we were 10 years ago, even, but certainly 20, 30 years ago. It's just so dramatic in terms of politics. I mean, the notion that, like, you can imagine programming these shows, having these conversations, like, do we even need to ask if it matters that he lost?

Because, I mean, the answer 10 years ago, 15 years ago, would have been an unqualified yes. 20 years ago, it would have been unqualified yes, that he would, he would have, he wouldn't have been able to run for the presidency with these convictions hanging over his head, whether or not he was found guilty. You know, I mean, these, and in these ways, in so many months, more. I mean, Trump is just sort of upended the status quo, right? I mean, and again, this all goes without saying almost, but, um, but yeah, I mean, I think saying that you don't know how it's going to affect the election is the right answer, right? I mean, you know, it's difficult when you look at in terms of the concrete stuff that we do know, that he made $70 million and however many hours after the verdict came down that, you know, he's raising money at a competitive clip for the first time in this

campaign and, you know, there are real concrete ways in which it's going to help him. And I think that you're right. I think that it's not just about him wriggling out. It's about him just coming out and saying, I didn't do it. I mean, it's the, it's the, you know, I don't think for most of the, the Trump adherence that this really changes that much, except it makes him look persecuted. Now, I think that the meaning, the only meaningful part is like what percentage of, you know, potential swing voters still actually exist. And does this dissuade some of them from voting from potentially voting for Trump?

And that's the big, I don't know, you know, unless somebody can, like, show us the demographic breakdown, which nobody seems to have a real handle on. I don't think anybody really knows. Yeah, Nate Cohn suggested in the Times, it might be young and non-white voters. Joe Biden has lagged behind the usual Democratic advantages in those categories. So maybe that happens as a result of this. we did eventually retreat to a pundit safe space, which was to say, hey, the impact on the election November might be small, but this is an election where every vote counts.

Completely bulletproof prediction about November. Yes. That every vote will count and that the margins will be very small. Note number two for you, David, is how or if the Democrats will use. Trump's conviction. Because we saw this in the GOP primary. Remember, Donald Trump has been indicted four times, but we do not think that is a relevant issue in this primary,

said his opponents. We will not use that against it. And then they sort of ran out of things to use against him, having put that one off to the side in the unusable category. Democrats, there's a big article in the Times about this yesterday, having a big debate about this. Should we just say convicted felon Donald Trump?

over and over? Is that distracting voters from the quote-unquote stakes of the election they really care about? There have been some Democrats who've tried to finesse that a little bit and say, it's not so much about the conviction. It's about the chaos that Donald Trump stirs up every day and that people may have forgotten about as we've gotten farther away from 2020 in the early days of 2021. Just what that was like to have Donald Trump as a president of the United States. Yeah. So how do you billboard that idea? Another fascinating question. And then note number three, this comes from Michael Lev, who's a listener and sports columnist at the Arizona Daily Star. He was watching CBS Sunday morning, which among network news shows, I feel, still retains a young viewing audience or let us say middle age viewing audience. It hasn't been completely.

completely abandoned. Yeah. Compared to a lot of shows. CBS Sunday morning had Douglas Brinkley on playing the role of sober historian. Mm-hmm. Commenting on the verdict.

And I want you to listen for a phrase we have never heard before, but we'll absolutely use on every episode of this podcast going forward. The Manhattan Criminal Court has changed American presidential history forever. Out of 46 presidents, only Mr. Trump carries the ignoble albatross of convicted felon. The ignoble albatross. I like that. That should be the, that should be the name of our, of our newsletter,

ignoble albatross. It's got some old newspaper vibes to it. Do you think Douglas Brinkley wrote that down on his yellow legal pad with a quill? Yeah, so then he used the quill to put a bunch of exclamation points and stars around it to make sure he remembered to use that. Yeah, it was fantastic. The ignoble albatross of a felony conviction. Only on CBS Sunday morning and probably more to the point only from Douglas Brinkley.

All right. Coming up on this ignoble albatross of a podcast, notes on the NBA playoffs, including the free agency of Charles Barkley, where your favorite announcers might wind up at the end of the NBA rights negotiations. And we ask, what kind of story are the Dallas Mavericks? Anyway. Plus, Colin Coward, welcome to the resistance. The White Sox announcer is fired up. We got presidential debates and presidential debate ads. All that and much more on the press box. A part of the ringer podcast network. Hello, media consumers, Brian Curtis, David

Shoemaker and producer Brian Waters with you. The NBA finals, David, is starting Thursday. The Boston Celtics versus your, your Dallas Mavericks. That's right. I want to start by talking about what kind of story the Dallas Mavericks are. Because frankly, we've heard plenty about the Celtics. Dallas Mavericks are underdogs in the finals. They were certainly underdogs to be here at all. But they're not exactly a nobody believed in us team, are they?

no they're just a sort of like nobody cared about us team really um i mean i don't think most of the i mean sure that like you know the the the the NBA podcasters and writers that we know made predictions about the playoffs and they predicted i'm sure very few of them predicted the the Dallas Mavericks would be in the finals but it's not like you know they dismissed them out of hand and it's not like anybody was like has been utterly shocked by what's happened. I think it's more just like there were more interesting things going on that got in the way of people believing in or not believing in the Mavericks. And so they kind of like snuck under the radar weirdly a little bit.

Minnesota was a cooler story because Minnesota's never been good. The Nuggets losing was a bigger story. The Celtics had its own kind of. of inevitability because they were good all year, great all year, and because everybody kind of had them pegged to win the finals this year,

at least be in the finals anyway. Dallas, on the other hand, was in the play-in-game toilet bowl into the spring, and then in March, all of a sudden they change up the lineup and get really good. Go 16 and 2 down the stretch.

so they were a little bit of a late breaking team. Yeah. I can tell you as a student of Dallas radio, there was not a lot of MAV's excitement really until late spring at all. No, I heard you talk about a little bit on Bill's podcast today, but you're absolutely right. I mean, I can't,

if you spend any time on the Dallas Mavericks internet, you probably would have thought that Jason, kid was the most hated, most reviled coach in all the league up until sometime in March, early March. I mean, there were people, there were, there were like earnest Reddit threads about whether or not, like what the history was of firing coaches at the All Star break and whether or not there was any, you know, there was ever any upside for that season to trying to finish out the year of the different

coach. Yeah, there was not a ton of positivity. I mean, but then, you know, if you spend a lot of time in, in. team specific in any team, any sport, team specific, you know, quadrant of the internet or sports radio or whatever else. You know, I mean, there is always sort of an irrational exuberance that goes along with it. Now, you know, when wins and losses are not easily, I mean, they're not easy to dispute, you know, there's every Mavericks fan will have players

that he hates, but they also have just an irrational overconfidence in like six of the players on the Mavericks bench, right? their trade value, the fact, the idea that they should be getting more minutes, everything else. I thought that obviously the deadline trades that they made have proven to be incredibly, you know, an incredible positive. But the conversations even then that were going on in and outside of Dallas Maverick circles were, you know, yes, this is an upgrade, but was it worth the price that they paid, which is a correct conversation. I mean, a correct question to be asking, right? Yes, and will it be enough to keep Luca Donchage from leaving this team in a couple of years? Yeah, that's really key because the Mavericks really just kind of out of nowhere got in that zone of

it's not just about winning, it's about keeping your star. And then in that conversation, again, is much more interesting than are the Mavericks going to win the championship when the odds were not really in their favor. Oh, and a much bigger subject than will this team get a championship with Luca? Will Louca stay here? Yeah. No, I completely agree. And the Kyrie Irving discussion is so interesting, too.

And to listen to the national discussion, Bill and Ryan have talked a ton about this. We're all marveling right now, and I think rightfully so, at the fact that Kyrie Irving has not had the kind of off-the-court stuff, and I use the euphemism on purpose, that he had at his prior stops, right? Seems happy, seems engaged. Again, even if you just go to like Mavericks fans who actually had their eyes on this team before the nation did, the discussion. really wasn't about that. It was just, is Kyrie Irving good enough? Is he going to play well enough along with Luca to get this team to another level? Is he too? Yeah. I mean, my, my question, I mean, it was always just, is this, is he too duplicative, right? Is it, okay, if all of, if your entire, if like 75% of your salary is in your starting back court,

is that going to be enough to get you to the finals? They've, they've, you know, made me look like an idiot forever asking that question. But, I mean, that there was, you're right. It was a very, I mean, the conversation on Kyrie was always very different in the pro-maverick circles. And, you know, it has changed a lot, but it's still very different in the one that's going on kind of more broadly. I think this also goes to the idea that Dallas has never been an especially big spot on the NBA map. With the exception of a few Dirt-Navitsky seasons. It just hasn't. and this all comes from first-hand experience rooting for the Mavericks in the 90s when the Mavericks were just God awful,

but they weren't even appreciated as God-awful. Yeah. Because they were in the central time zone. They were the central time zone clippers, but all people paid attention to when they wanted a Sports Illustrated cover was the Clippers. Yeah. And they were absolutely terrible and nobody cared. Then Mark Cuban buys the team, their fortunes perk up a little bit.

And what happens? every summer, hey, you know, people want to play in Dallas. No income tax, great city, great franchise, owner who really cares about the team. And then nobody would sign there. Yeah. They are just this, they're not like Denver exactly, but they were this kind of fuzzy spot, I think, on the map of national conversation. For sure.

I'm also curious about this. You remember the last time the marriage from the finals, 2011, against the heat, LeBron's first year on the heat. that was the world record for number of people in the nation rooting for the Dallas Mavericks at any point. Oh, yes. They were pissed at LeBron. They were pissed at the decision.

They wanted the Mavericks to win. How do we feel national mood breaks down when we got the Celtics, the team, not that many people want to win outside of Boston versus the Mavericks this year? I don't think it'll be as severe as the LeBron season. And but I think there'll be some of that. I mean, I know, like, my son is 15, is he's going to root for the Mavericks,

not in solidarity with me, but because he doesn't want to see the Celtics one. By the way, to your last point, we were talking about the black hole that was the Mavericks franchise. When they won the Western Conference of their night, and Michael Finley was up there, I was just like, Finley, like,

oh, it's so good to see him on TV, whatever. And my son, who knows a just startling number of players from our youths, just through YouTube and, you know, TikTok and video games and whatever else, just never heard the name Michael Penley or, you know, and never crossed his mind. But yeah, I think there'll be some of that. I mean, I think it kind of, listen, on my wrestling podcast, we were talking about NBA and pro wrestling comps.

And somebody asked me about Luca, this is a while ago. And I made, I kind of shockingly, to a lot of people there, just went under the assumption that he was. a heel, right? Because he kind of, you know, he's, he's cocky, he's good looking, he complains to the refs all the time. These are basic heel tendencies, right? He picks out a fan in the audience and makes fun of him. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, but, so I think a lot of it will come down to, to what degree he is recognized as a heel by the national audience, right? Or whether he's a baby face, because he's going up against the Celtics who are the institutional heel, right? I mean,

I think that'll matter. I think Luca will probably have his fair share of new fans and of, you know, new haters by the time this playoff series really gets going. Can you imagine Luca versus the fans in the garden? Oh, my God. That's going to be absolutely unbelievable. He was getting on Minnesota Timberwolves fans, dude. Yeah, I know.

Minnesota Timberwolves fans. Another matter for you in terms of, the NBA and all the stuff swirling around the league right now. Charles Barkley's free agency. I don't know if you've seen this, David, but Charles Barkley's been doing a couple of interviews now and again. Yeah.

Very reluctantly doing some interviews. Talking about the quote-unquote clowns that run his parent company, Warner Brothers Discovery, standing up for the people at Turner Sports who figured to maybe get laid off if Turner loses the NBA and then loses the pregame show inside the NBA, which we all love. Have we all sort of memory hold the idea that Charles Barkley almost left the show two

years ago to go to Live Golf? Yeah. And was also giving lots of interviews during that period saying, here is an possible asking price that would convince me to give up this beloved show and my television pals. Yeah. To go to LiveGall. I wrote about this on The Ringer.

A story is called Charles Barkley is open for business. But mostly I'm fascinated by some of the complexities, the whole fate of the inside the NBA conversation. Follow me here. Two things can be true at one time. Inside the NBA is a perfect show. Yeah. The announcers have perfect dynamics between each other.

They treat each other incredibly well. They work together as a puzzle. Everything fits. And at the same time, Charles Barkley is a bigger free agent than any of them. He has more leverage than everybody else on that set combined. Okay. That's complexity number one.

Number two, Charles Barkley is genuinely great friends with all those people on that set. Yeah. This is true. He loves them. given his druthers he would love to work with them for the rest of his career. At the same time, if you actually listen to what Charles Barkley says, if you actually watch what Charles Barkley does,

it's business. And where he goes and what he does after this might not be predicated totally on keeping the band together. Yeah, no. You know, it's like one of these things where we love to have imagine our TV friends are inseparable. No way to pull them apart. Absolutely not.

And you're like, it's business. And when there's a ton of money being thrown around, sometimes that changes people's minds. The comp, I may have laid this on you already, but the comp I always come back to is John Madden and Pat Summerall. Perfect team. Perfect announcing team. When John Madden was a free agent,

he like Barclay was the free agent. And as far as I know, and I've talked to lots of people around this, whenever John Madden left a job, he never demanded that Pat Summerall be hired with him. Yeah. That didn't happen. He went out and made the best deal. Now Pat Summerall went to Fox, and it turned out great,

and they got another near decade together, and that was awesome. Yep. But the deal wasn't, hey, if you want me, got to hire Pat. It was, I'm going to go make the best deal. And then we'll see what happens. Yeah, exactly. Egman and Buck worked the same way when they left Fox, right? I mean, it was, they weren't, they might have been a package deal in the minds of the folks at Amazon, but they, but that's not how the negotiation went.

Yeah, yeah, I think that, that, I think you're right that both things can be true. I mean, I think Barclays is out there speaking, you know, in good faith. I agree. But, you know, part of that is just his dissatisfaction with the knuckleheads at, you know, timeware discovery, right? That it's just like we wouldn't be having to have these conversations at all if you guys had just stepped up, right? And that's where, and that's the part where you start thinking about all the people whose jobs are going to be affected, you know, which we really haven't discussed at all if we have not enough on this show.

I mean, every time this sort of thing happens, it's the sort of regular folks. or run the cameras and the soundboards and stuff. Those are the people who could potentially really get affected because, you know, there's not necessarily an endless supply of those jobs in Atlanta or, you know, wherever they live. But, yeah, I mean, assuming Bill said a million times, you know, inside the NBA crew is going to be fine and they will. And hopefully, you know, and who knows?

Maybe they'll just keep recording exactly, you know, just down the block from where they are. Maybe they'll just keep it together exactly the way it is now. Like, who knows? But yeah, I mean, when this actually comes down to brass hacks, if TNT no longer has basketball, Tom Wernskeverner's no longer has the NBA, then I guarantee that Charles Barkley's agent

will not be sharing phone calls with everybody else from the, you know, who's sitting at the desk, their agents to try to go in there together and get a good group rate. No, he'll go in first and he'll get the biggest possible contract that he can get. Yeah. And it's in his, if he wants to keep it together, if he decides at some point, by the way, I think this is totally in the realm of possibility. He says, I want us all to move over to Amazon, let's say, together and do the show, do the show we do. He, I think he has

the power to do that. I think he is in, as in the best position possible. So if he were to go to Amazon, maybe even NBC, ESPN will be a little trickier. But at least those first two and say, the way to hire me is to hire everybody. I think there would be like, they would say, that sounds great. Yeah. Let's do it. Now, he might not get the best possible deal because if you're spending like $40 million on pregame salaries without hiring somebody to call the basketball game, it's a lot of money, right? Yeah.

Maybe giving up a little bit of your leverage in order to do that. You may be spending your, or you're using your leverage to do that in particular. But if he wants it, why not? Yeah. I also think Charles Barkley could probably work for two networks if he wanted to. Yeah, you mentioned that to me before, and I hadn't thought about it, but I think that's very feasible, right? One night on Amazon, one on on ESPN. Why not?

It's Charles Barkley. Mm-hmm. People will crawl over all kinds of sharp things to hire Charles Barkley right now. It's interesting. We have some NBA announcer Scuttlebutt, David. Oh, I love Scuttlebutt. From Dylan Byers in Puck. First of all, he had a piece.

It was about Barclay, but then toward the end, he just starts unloading everything he's heard. And this is kind of piece I like to read. He says the self-produced inside option, which Barclay floated with Dan Patrick, people think that's not a kind of a non-starter. He also says that a lot of people want Barclay, and if they want Berkeley,

they want Shaq to come with Berkeley, but not so much Kenny Smith, to the point we just made about everybody having options. That's really interesting. I think Kenny's just a real lynchpin to that crew. But it doesn't surprise me that people would be saying that, right? I mean, if you're just looking for the most bang for your buck, the most star power on your broadcast or whatever,

I can, it, it feels a little bit irrational, but I can totally imagine whatever executives who are messing around with this saying they don't need, thinking they don't need Kenny Smith. In big demand from the networks, Chris Paul, Dwayne Wade and Draymond Green. Mm-hmm. Possibly for studio, possibly for color analysis, at least in Wade's case, because he's doing the dream team this summer. At NBC, this is again, according to Dylan Byers and Puck, number one announcer, Mike Toriko, very likely. They get the rights. Number two, Noah Eagle. He does have one note in there where he says it's not totally clear whether Maria Taylor will definitely be the host of the pregame show.

I thought that was interesting. Amazon, Byers, says, number one announcer could be Ian Eagle, who will suddenly be available. at least his NBA work will be available. He even notes that maybe Ion Eagle could one day be the voice of Thursday night football, which would be fun. Not sure how his CBS contract, how that would work out since he calls the NFL for CBS. He also says Kevin Harlan could wind up over there at Amazon,

which would be cool too. So that is where we are. And we've talked about this before, you know, with announcers. It's not like you have a Yelp rating that carries over. to whatever future job you have. This is good. There's going to be a lot of executive whim here. Oh, yeah.

Who do we think is our number one person? At NBC, you know, Mike Tariko is, I think this, you know, he's the guy, right? Like, there's, that plays out as pretty obvious. He's the guy. He's number one. You know, he's doing football. He's doing the Olympics.

Of course, he would do the NBA as well. But something like Amazon where you're starting from scratch, Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, Tariko's even an interesting question mark to me because he is the guy. I mean, he's the, but that's a very old school sort of mindset, right, that you would have your Bob Costas, your whatever the sort of voice of gravitas that, you know, does all this other stuff for you, does it there. I mean, listen, NBC is going to play it in a traditional way.

I think that's pretty clear. Amazon, by their track record, probably will too. But I do wonder if we're not moving in a direction where you'd want somebody. with a little bit more of an edge, a little bit more of an insider appeal, and not just the booming voice of God that Tariqo would present, right? What's the kind of guy you're talking about?

I mean, I don't know how, to what extent it actually exists. I think I think Ion Eagle is closer, but Ion Eagle has a lot of Marv Albert in them too. I mean, there's a lot, you know, there's just so much, there's a lot of performance there. I don't know. I think it's part of the, I mean, it goes to the conversation

that you were having with Bill. I think, you know, even just the conversations that we've had about the reaction to the Dorisburg J.J. Reddick booth and the way that people listen to them and just the degree to which we're trying to make our announced teams

into podcasts and in what ways those things play off each other. But I don't know. I mean, I think Breen is one of the best. And largely, that's because he was able to accommodate Van Gundy for so long. And not that Van Gundy is like hard work, you know,

but Mike Breen made it seem like a conversation, you know, like made it seem, just made it seem so natural and free-flowing. And a lot and less like a traditional sports announcer put on. And so I don't know, I just, I think that,

you know, I think that none of this will end up mattering. I think that NBC and Amazon are both going to hire the most famous people. that are available to them. But I do wonder if you start sort of inching in another direction. We'll see. No, it's true. And like there's a safety in hiring famous people.

Especially if you're Amazon, especially if you're like you saw with their football stuff, trying to establish yourself as normal. You're Al Michaels' voice and you're like, this is a football broadcast. Yeah. I accept this, even though this is on a streaming platform.

Yeah. No, absolutely. And by the way, do executives, sports TV executives tend to be pretty conservative people when it comes to this stuff. Like the crazy out of the box idea is let's go get Tom Brady. Yeah. Like one of the most famous people on earth and pay him a ton of money. Yeah. I mean, that is, and that was a big get for Fox.

But it's like, that's not like a crazy. Like, here's somebody you've never heard of. Yeah. That we are now selling to you as the voice of the NBA or the voice the NFL. All right, David, coming up in 30 seconds, Colin Coward takes on not Dag Prescott, but Donald Trump. First, let's do 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, always gratefully received. We had a lot of Trump conviction jokes.

I hit a few of them on Thursday. Today is the day Donald Trump became precedent. It's particularly strong. Also, I personally want to congratulate Donald Trump for finally winning a popular vote. Thanks to masked mirage for that one. But this week's winner, David, comes to us from value listener Jake Query. There was some bad news for Ticketmaster. I'm quoting here, Ticketmaster has been hit by a cyber attack.

and hackers are reportedly demanding $500,000 in exchange for keeping the stolen data sealed. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write the $500,000 ransom is actually $1.6 million after fees. If you prefer to buy your tickets directly from the Parks Casino Box Office like a real American, congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right, in the notebook dump, David,

let's talk about resistance hero Colin Coward. Yeah. Yeah, I said it. He had a monologue on his volume podcast about Donald Trump's conviction. Watching Twitter react to this was a fascinating moment because we got two different parts of our universe coming together as one. The Resistance and Sports Radio. And there were a lot of people like, I don't know who this gentleman is. but he is making a lot of sense.

That's most people's impression when they first hear Colin Coward's voice. It's kind of a sequel in a way to Colin Coward's Taylor Swift monologue. From before the Super Bowl, remember he was like, I don't know how to tell you this, but there are members of my audience who are not having sex. They are not having sex. Still one of the most incredible monologues I have ever heard in my entire life. he almost reached those Olympian heights again. Let's hear a little bit of Colin Coward on the Trump verdict.

Donald Trump is now a felon. His campaign chairman was a felon. So is his deputy campaign manager. His personal lawyer, his chief strategist, his national security advisor, his trade advisor, his foreign policy advisor,

his campaign fixture and his company CFO. They're all felons. Judge by the company you keep. It's a cabal of convicts. Caball of convicts. Let's file that along with the ignoble albatross. But don't you hope the people in Wilmington are taking notes? See how clearly that's laid out.

It's not how Donald Trump was convicted of something. We're just going to mention how many convicted felons are in the Donald Trump, you know, on the Donald Trump Wikipedia page. Remember the Housian days of our youth when we spent this time talking about the odd stories about members of Trump's cabinet not being able to get confirmed or not being able to get all the, the, um, not be cleared by the secret service to like read all the documents that they were supposed to be able to read because of their crime histories. Yeah.

I mean, when you lay it all out like that, um, it does seem like a lot. I, I, it's funny because there's, it's, it seems like, and, you know, without reflecting too much on Joe Biden's age, it does seem like there's a part of this fight that seems like Joe Biden is perfectly equipped for and part that he's just totally ill-equipped for making the sort of moral point, yes, but sort of the

laundry list aspect of it, not so much. So it's not in his mouth. Can we put this in Kamala Harris's? Should she just say this in a speech? Could Donald Trump's, or excuse me, Joe Biden's allies just say this in a speech?

Yeah. I mean, this is one of the, the values to me about having somebody from like coward come in and just be like, here is the obvious thing. You know, we're not, we're not wrapped up in this. Oh,

is this polling well? You know, do we just every time we call Trump a, a felon, it just redounds against us in some weird way because nothing sticks to him. This is just all laid out there. Mm-hmm. And I just wonder if that could be a line from a speech.

Well, I think, and I mean, Trump's given them enough sound. Bites talking about his conviction. All you have to do is just have those words just have him talking about it coming out of his mouth. And again, in a traditional political landscape, that would be, I mean, you basically have him on tape, you know, admitting to crimes, despite the fact that he admits, says that he never did anything wrong. But I think that's part of it too. I think that you let

Trump make this case for himself. I mean, and put that in ads, put that, put him, just put his words everywhere. Because he, the more he has to be out there in defending it, be out there defending it, I think the more that it will affect these potential swing voters. This is another line from Coward. I'd love to see a Joe Biden ally say this. When you're constantly trying to sell me on an America that I don't see, I'm not saying inflation's not an issue, but I get on airplanes all the time. And it's not a bunch of rich people. I get on planes, there's people in normal clothes, don't look rich to me. And the planes are all full. And the hotels are all full. And the freeway.

are all full. That means people are going to work. You're trying to sell me on this story and this narrative that's just not true. This is a weird corner that Joe Biden's been backed into because if he says, hey, the economy is much better than you've been hearing, then you leave yourself open and people say, oh, look, you're out of touch. You don't understand how much those dozen eggs. I feel that's the most cited example here. Doesn't eggs cost at the supermarket. Yeah. But there has to be, but when you give into that and then you go into the defensive crouched, then you sort of admit that your opponent's right about the economy. Mm-hmm.

It feels like you could, again, take big tracks of this speech. If you want to change it up a little bit, fine. Just say, like, in there's somebody in the Biden circle who's going to be like, by the way, the economy is not as bad as that guy says it is. Yeah. Let's just talk in common sense term. Maybe Bill Clinton is the one to deliver this message at the convention. Yeah, I don't know what Bill Clinton.

I mean, I'm not sure if Bill Clinton will be. an integral part of the convention, but maybe. But yeah, I, I, you're right, people need to be saying this more. I think his point at the end, though, which I don't know, could be taken a number of ways, was pretty salient, which was like maybe it is in the Trump voting portions of the country, right? Maybe, maybe it's worse there. I certainly think the perception is that it's worse there.

I mean, the perception from the internal perception is that things are really bad. and I think the sort of economic stress is built into our economy now, and a lot of the ways that the economy is getting better doesn't affect everybody. And I think that inflation is in some ways, you know, a huge indicator of that. In some ways, it's just an easy thing to grab onto, to catchphrase to grab onto if you want to complain about the economy. But the complaints are based in a reality. You know, there's people who are financially insecure. And, I mean, I think that the, I think that the real.

important point is that Trump is trying to sell us on something that doesn't exist and can't exist. Things weren't great when he was president. He just kept telling you they were, you know, and those lies don't make a new reality. You know, I think that's the, that's really the point to get across. Things weren't all great then, man. I mean, all this, like, there's no data that any Trump supporter shoots, like puts out there that's not, that's not false, right? How many times it seems like every week there's some headline Trump supporter out there like spouting off economic or crime data that's actually talking about

the wrong presidential term you know like it's just it's it's all it's just all duplicitous and yeah I mean I think that I think that Coward Singh was was right on the money I saw lots of people immediately getting there and saying well he's rich you know how does he know how he live and yeah it's true but he did a pretty good job of talking about that you know he's out there in the world and, you know, things aren't great, but things keep plugging along.

I don't know if you remember this, but I interviewed him pretty early in the ringer's existence. It was right after Trump had been elected in 2016. And he had the occasion to tell me the two best presidents of his lifetime. Do you want to guess who Colin Coward? I remember this. I'm trying to. Number one and number two. I'm going to guess of his lifetime.

Mm-hmm. Oh, God. I don't know. I would just be guessing. Number one, Obama. That's what I was going to say, Obama and Reagan, but I don't know why. Number two, you got it. Is that right?

Obama Reagan, one, two. Two best presidents. There's some debate stuff for you, David. A couple of breaking items here. Breaking item, number one, it's June. As we get older, we can do what our parents would always do. Like, can you believe it's June? Oh, my gosh.

Just every month, you just say, can you believe? it's. Yep. I love having aged into that cohort where it's okay to make that joke. Here's breaking item number two, though. There's a presidential debate this month. Oh my God. It's June 27th, full coverage of the coverage here at the press box. And we have some news about this debate from Max Tanny at Semaphore. Debate's going to be on CNN. And Tanny reports the network is offering two tiers to potential advertisers. According to multiple sources, dot, dot, dot. The top tier, David, available for just a few advertisers is a $1.5 million minimum advertising buy with all of the network's features. The package includes a branded countdown clock,

advertiser on-air billboards, co-branded tune-in promotions, a 30-second pre-debat ad slot, a 30-second ad during the debate, and one after. The package also includes ads on max and a takeover of the CNN politics section on its digital site. Now, why this is particularly interesting is it sounds like the Super Bowl, but previous debates have been presented without commercials. So now we don't just have the commercials on CNN, but we have the full package for you. Yeah.

We got the branded countdown clock, David. That sounds like a wise investment. Everybody loves a countdown clock. It's interesting because, the debate's on CNN, but CNN's going to share it with everybody. So essentially what they're getting is a branded CNN debate moderated by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash that is appearing everywhere beyond CNN. It's like NBC will be running the CNN debate.

And then I guess the idea is not only do you make money off the ads, but then you hope to get people over to CNN. Yeah. Because God knows they need some viewers right now. Another update for you. Have you ever heard of learned league trivia? I don't know. I don't think so.

It's an online trivia league. It's new to me too, but it's had stories about it and the New Yorker and the Washington Post. Joe Walski, one of our listeners, was playing learned league trivia. By the way, this sounds like something you and I would really enjoy

because we like to show off that we know really strange you know, small-ish type things. But Joe Walski, this listener was playing, and he sent me the question, and here is a question from Learned League trivia. I'm not making this up. A recurring feature on the ringers

the press box podcast is only in journalism in which co-hosts Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker collect words and phrases that tend to appear in print, but rarely in casual conversation. Name either form of, of the word redacted from this clip. And then they have an audio transcript of me

reading a New York Times story to you about Belarus, which was described as the veritable redacted of Moscow. Do you remember what the word, the phrase that pays was? The veritable, no, I don't remember that. It was the veritable satripy of Moscow. Satripy, satripy, that's right. The veritable, ignoble albatross of that part of the world. The best part was learned league trivia produced the whole transcript, so it's like me calling you dude.

So anyway, I tweeted this out, and then Steve Green hit us up in DMs and says, he turns out to be the one who inserted this into learned league trivia. Oh, okay. So we have Steve Green, we need to thank. making us the answer to a trivia question. And Steve writes, as a long-time listener, I'm glad I could do my part to spread the word, even though you probably have a strong foothold in the private online trivia league demo. He continues as a decade-long vet of Indie Wire and a current freelancer.

Here's hoping I can someday put together a piece worthy of media consumption, at least one that doesn't involve me handing a complete stranger a shoebox stuffed with my cashed-out life savings. Steve, thank you very much. We really, really appreciate it. That was very, very fun to see. Speaking of only in journalism, David, a couple of nominees this week. Dano or Dano sends us a great one.

Torrid. Yankees' Aaron Judge is off to a torrid start. Well, I mean, you only ever hear Torrid love affair. Any other use, I think, is only in journalism, and even that one. Torrid love affair or sports writer who is tired of saying hot. Mm-hmm. Or feels there's a level beyond hot.

Yeah. Aaron Judge is Torid. Greg Kaplan, who hosts a New York Rangers podcast, sends us another really good one. Jettisoned. Yeah. You never hear jettisoned. I mean, it's not out of the question to use that term, but you really just never hear it. Again, a sports writer who's bored was saying cut or released or trade.

Or traded for pennies on the dollar, they say the player has been jettisoned. Yeah, it certainly doesn't save any letters when you're trying to lay out the front page. It's time for a feature that will never be jettisoned, at least not over my dead body. It's time for David Shoemaker guesses the strain pun headline. Yeah. Thursday's headline about a British PM giving a speech in the rain was Drowning Street. Today's headline comes to us from valued listener Hugh Hartzog. from the free press up there in Mancato, Minnesota.

I believe that publication's first appearance in this feature. The Kansas City Chiefs were at the White House Friday, David, and Joe Biden put on a Chiefs helmet. Had somebody text me and be like, is this Biden's Dukakis in the tank moment? We'll see. What you need to know here is Biden honoring the Chiefs in his own special way.

what was the Mancato Free Presses strained pun headline? Biden, wait, what did Biden wear? He wore a Chief's helmet. Okay. He looked like Rishi Rice. Maybe that's a bad example. Like Patrick Mahomes. KC.

Commander in Chief? Commander in. You know, you're there. Just change up the small words a little bit. Commander and in Chiefs? Yeah. That would have been perfect. The Commander and Chiefs.

Yeah, okay, that's great. Commander and Chiefs. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Brian Waters. We got a very special basketball-related guest this week. I'm sorry to be vague, but I want to make sure we get the podcast recorded that everything goes well. If it does, you will hear that Wednesday.

It will give you some time to listen to it before the NBA Finals. Trust me, you're going to want to listen to it. Monday, this guy, Shoemaker, returns with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.