The Press Box - Reporting on the Biden Age Question, Interviewing Kamala Harris, and the Democrats’ MSNBC Problem With NYT’s Astead Herndon

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

Hello, media consumers! Bryan welcomes back Astead Herndon of The New York Times and host of ‘The Run-up Podcast.’ He comes on to discuss the following about President Joe Biden: Astead’s reporting in 2020 and how Biden’s age was a topic of conversation (1:04) Whether or not he ran his first campaign with the intentions of being a one-term president (08:38) The Biden campaign being more online now than four years ago (19:18) His experience interviewing Vice President Kamala Harris in 2016 (40:55) Plus, David Shoemaker guesses the Strained Punned Headline and Bryan closes the show with a quick update on the NBA rights Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Astead Herndon Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Bill Simmons. I am thrilled to announce our newest YouTube channel. It's called Ringer Movies. If you're a fan of our movie coverage here at The Ringer, then you're in luck because every episode of the rewatchables and the Big Picture, now on YouTube. Like Bill said, Ringer Movies will feature full episodes of my show, The Big Picture, the Rewatchables,

as well as special live episodes, deep dives into movie history, and a bunch of other fun stuff featuring other movie-loving Ringer personalities. Search Ringer movies on YouTube and experience the joy. Chris Ryan impersonating Wayne Jenkins on camera. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox. Brian Curtis of the Ringer here, along with producer Brian Waters. Our guest today is a familiar voice on the press box. Asted Herndon is a New York Times reporter, and he hosts the excellent run-up podcast where he's been asking questions about whether Joe Biden's age will be a political liability for a long, long, long time.

He's one of my favorite people to talk politics with. Ested, welcome back to the press box. Thank you. Thank you for having me, Brian. I appreciate it. So let's back way up, way before the debates. What first got you interested in the question of whether Biden's age would be a liability? Yeah, I would actually say that our focus was born out of our reporting in 2020. When I was the reporter for Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren and really involved in that Democratic primary, I remember that the big problem a lot of folks in the electorate had with Joe Biden was his age, was the sense that he was a more backward-looking figure, was in a diverse field that had not only younger people, but people of color and women.

And this was a huge topic of conversation. And I remember how the Biden campaign took steps. to really assuage voter concerns on that front. There was a there was the floats about the possibility of a one term, even though he explicitly rejected that. There was a intentional speeches about being a bridge to a next generation. There are ways that I remember of them doing these things to tell people, you know, I know you're worried about the future, but this is a campaign about right now. And that really worked. I mean, I saw people who were interested in candidates I was covering eventually land as Biden voters, partially because they made peace with that kind of

of horse trade to focus on the now rather than the future. And so frankly, after the 22 midterms, when we were thinking about what to do with the run-up, it was structured fully around this question that I had, which is that it seemed that both parties were in this position to re-nominate people the majority of the public's that they didn't want. So on the Republican side, we know with Donald Trump there has been liabilities around his fitness for office in the entire time, but the Republican base was still rallying around him, even though you had legal pressures and things going forward. But there was no one really talking about how this was also true on the Democratic side that voters had consistently said they thought Biden was too old for a second term.

And that, frankly, in the last couple years, the characterature of him as kind of doddering old man had become ever present in kind of social media and other places. And to a point where I found it kind of strange that the Democrats were at least talking about that or saying, how they would message about that or even really speaking to voters about it. There wasn't any, it was kind of a wish-it-away quality to it. And so we structured the whole season of episodes last year just based on, are the parties doing something amongst themselves that's completely separate

from the conversation that I think most people were having? And I think this really happened, I would say, as the last point, because people weren't paying attention. Like, most voters did not really tune in to the presidential election until a couple weeks ago with the debate. And so we knew that last year was going to be a moment where the insiders were having this conversation amongst themselves. And so it was a time to really get them on the record on these questions because by the time regular folks tune in, the cake was already baked. So what did these insiders, which is to say Democrats say when you asked about Biden's age?

Yeah, there was a consistent dismissal from the top levels of the party around the question of Biden's age. I remember being at the DNC as they were making South Carolina the first state to vote, a move that was intentionally done to make Biden's path to renomination easier. And I was asking them about consistent polling that says that people were worried about his age. And we frankly got two answers from people like Jamie Harrison, DNC delegates, people who were making this easier for the Biden folks. The first is that Donald Trump would be so inherently invalid that none of this would matter. is that whether it be the legal problems

or his political problems that became clear in last year's midterms, there was a core belief that maybe if there was a different Republican candidate, this would be an issue, but that Donald Trump would make it such that this doesn't really matter. The second point that you kept saying was that the policy accomplishments

would overcome people's concerns about age and that all they had to do was kind of invest in telling a story about him as a successful president and that would actually, that would overcome voter concerns about age. And so I would ask, well, what do people think he's been a good president, but they're worried about the next four years. And Jamie Harrison's quote, the head of the DNC, I remember him saying, was, I don't think that's the reason why people vote. They vote if you're doing a good job or not. And I remember thinking, hmm, okay, I think that's

why some, you know, that makes sense for some people. But I talk to a lot of people for a long time who had concerns about Biden's age, who like them as a president, but they don't like the vibes when they look at the TV screen and feel like the person is a reflection of the past rather than the future. And so there's these aspects of kind of inspiration and I think a representation of the country that the presidency represents, I think it was very underrated by the Biden camp. And I would say that they just didn't. I found it an abdication of their role as public servants to not even engage in the question. You know, like, I don't think you, you don't have to, you have to, I'm not saying the man had to step down or whatever, whatever.

But the refusal to even take people's concerns about age as valid enough to engage with, I found gaslighty. I found not just an insult to journalists, but the insult to the public. And so that's really what motivated us was that we have to ask these questions because it's the biggest question we get about Joe Biden all the time. So in 2023, before people were really paying attention to the candidates and to the election, what were voters telling you about Biden's age? Yeah, I mean, we were hearing basically that they liked the job he was doing as president, but they worried that he would last for four years. They worried about his mental fitness for the office. They worry that the version they see about him, the version they see him on TikTok that's falling off a bike

or needs to be helped off a stage was, would get worse in the next four years. And so we heard very little concerns about Biden as president right now. But there was often concerns about the future. And so I would say that that was something that was informing our kind of questions for them really early. But there weren't other options. So I think that this is an important point.

because the Biden campaign has been pointing recently to the primary to say voters reaffirmed us in this nomination. You know, I was there in 2022 in the summer before the midterms. And there was a lot of Democrats who were having a conversation about Biden as unpopular and too old at that time. What happened was that the midterms went better than a lot of Democrats expected. And that allowed the Biden campaign to really close off people who were looking and thinking about challenging, to really rally a unity around them, even though, as we know, he wasn't the way. on the ballot in the midterms. All the evidence points to a Biden-specific problem, not a Democratic Party problem. He actually drags the party down rather than the opposite. And so they use the midterms

as a moment to really consolidate that type of power. And to the media point, I think that's where a lot of folks missed the job is because they bought the spin that the Biden campaign was selling that made the midterms a reason to not ask the question about age. Those were two separate things. And the concerns people had about Biden's age were not reflected in how they were voting on the midterm elections. And so in that moment of kind of early primary, the campaign and kind of inner circles actions to really consolidate party unity at the top levels, I think were deeply missed in terms of coverage by a lot of people. You said Biden didn't explicitly promise to be a one-term president in 2020. But it's fair to say that he hinted at it a little bit, that he put words out into the universe that could make a vote or think he was going to be a one-term president? Absolutely. And this is, I think, a huge important point. The point that's got me in some trouble on Twitter. But I think it's actually a really, I think it's actually really core to why you, to why, what we have to think about here. Back in 2020, the concerns about Biden's age were such that the campaign knew it had to do something. And so did he promise to serve.

for one term. No, he rejected those promises. But if you look back, there's a lot of stories about Biden-AIDS having the conversation about possibly signaling one term. There was a lot of kind of background stuff that was fed to journalists about him being open to the idea. And then there was those public statements about being a bridge to a next generation, about saying he sees himself. And the premise of the campaign, I would say, fed the ethos that this was an emergency thing that was happening right now. And so what we heard from a lot of people was not that they thought that he promised that, but they thought that this was an open question and that they would just deal with the second term later, right? And so I'm saying if you're someone who really

only tunes into politics, presidential politics once every four years, as a lot of folks are, you basically thought you were going to have to deal with something four years ago and then looked up at the debate and you see a kind of significantly deteriorated Biden and a feeling that the party must not have been fully engaging in that question since the last time. And so I think that the promise and the kind of flirtations with the one-term promises really matter, because the question I have for people is, if you don't think that matters, then why were so many people surprised at his reelection attempts? Like, we talked to so many people who are just like, oh, I didn't really know that Biden was coming back. And I'm like, if you don't think that that signaling is the

reason why, what is the reason? Because for a lot of Americans, I think, think there's a willingness to just like talk over them. And I'm like, we hear that concern so much. I think it's valid and justified from somewhere. And I think specifically, it's because the campaign signaled it during the moment when it was a, when it was the people's biggest concern with Biden originally in 2019. Before we hopped on today, I was looking back at a speech he gave in Detroit in March of 2020, where he said, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else, standing on the stage with him during that speech. Kamala Harris, who was the other running mate,

Gretchen Whitmer, and Corey Booker. Absolutely. And these was stagecraft. This is intentional political stagecraft. And so I'm like, you can take, you can fight the semantics of whether he promised to or not. But he definitely left open the possibility. And so for then, when I'm coming back to his advisors, asking him these questions around what comes next. And they are saying, oh, we've never thought about that.

oh, that was just the media. I find that just to be such, I find it to be really political insider haughtiness to say that what we do in this work doesn't matter. And it does matter. And I think people took those signals and it really did work as a way of convincing them that Biden was an emergency option that they could take. And I think it's a big difference from last time to this time is he's having a harder time really making that same sort of pitch. And I think for a lot of people, it's because they haven't felt heard on their biggest concern. And that's not just made up. They were not, you know, like,

and the Biden campaign can say that there has been maybe a deterioration or some of this stuff moved quickly. One thing I would say is the reason we were asking those questions, the reason why a lot of voters had those concerns, wasn't that they thought Biden was incapacitated right now. But just the prospect of someone getting 86, it left open the possibility of a deterioration. And so I don't think.

think, you know, it's not to say that the Biden we saw the debate has been this person the whole time and the story is of a cover-up. We don't know that, in my opinion. We do know that they refuse to engage in a voter concern that they had about the president for years. And they refused to do it at the time last year. And I think clearly, because it would have been an impediment or a complication to their own desire to lock down power and make his path to the renomination easiest. Since a debate two weeks ago, reporters have been doing a lot of naval gazing, as reporters tend to do. Do you think the press broadly defined missed the Biden story?

I would say yes, broadly, but I would say specific ways really matter. One, I would shout out our, you know, the Times politics team, I know Annie Lindschi at the journal, Alex Thompson and Axios. There have been people who have been trying to cover this stuff for the, the last couple years. And the Biden campaign, and I think the media environment, made it kind of difficult. And so I don't want to act like we were the only ones doing it. I think that we were one of the few people doing it in the re-election context, which I think was a deeply underreported story. It was not just his fitness for the job right now, but the gap between what they were asking

Americans to do and where the country was on that front. You know, every person I've talked to, every is probably a lot. But there are overwhelming amount of people I've talked to. about this election on our road travels, thinks the premise of an 86-year-old Biden as president is ridiculous. Like, way before the debate. And so I'm saying that fundamental tension between the re-election and age was completely missed. I would also say a couple media things have come up here,

which is the places where Biden's age was most unacceptable to talk about. So I would put Twitter and MSNBC in that category. Those are the places where the Democrats have their kind of open discussions, you know? And so I would say it's not even just those stories. Those stories were there, but those stories were specifically demeaned and not highlighted or taken seriously in the places where kind of Democrat elites gather. And I think Twitter and MS were not engaging in this story at all. And that to me is the biggest problem is that the place that Democrats create incentives around to think the most, the places where the politicians are, the AIDS

are, the intellectuals are, the type of people who they, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, was, who, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, and so if you're, he, who really had to stand on the public concerns, because we were getting it from both Biden campaign from kind of liberal ecosystem, and you're not rewarded in the same way, either. Right. Like, if I were right, if I, you know, we did a project 2025 episode for the podcast today and an important story. And I think that like, those two ecosystems being Twitter or MSNBC, they love jumping on that. Right? You'll get more clicks. You'll get more views. You get more shares. You'll do all that stuff. Coming at the difficulties of Biden, coming at the places where they're not being most honest was not rewarded. We were, we were taught, you know, it was hard. It was made harder for us. And so I'm saying the, I think the, a big media problem here. is there's increasingly few places that allow you that institutional backing to stand on something. Like, I'm thankful I work for the times that still has, it's still the type of place that will let you go out on a lurch, you know? But at the same time, I think you have to be comfortable in your own reporting enough to say Twitter's wrong. To say, to say, morning Joe is wrong.

And be okay with that, you know? And I think particularly when the president and those around him create a lot of incentives to not acknowledge that, I do think some reporters fell in the trap of prioritizing that access, prioritizing that relationships over the evidence that was in front of them. Because what we can say is there was not a lack of evidence. There was not a lack of evidence of this issue matter. Polling has been saying this at 70% numbers for years. So if you didn't do those stories, it was not because they were not there. you used a phrase the other day weaponizing your own norminess

that's what he got me in some of trouble and that's just said look I have questions right I'm not I am not of morning Joe I am not of resistance Twitter I am a person on the trail listening to people asking questions yeah and that's what I was trying to say was that one thing I've learned about being closer and closer to these kind of decision making rooms is there such tight bubbles And elections are different than Washington reporting

Because in D.C. reporting, the nature of those bubbles, the way that they interact with one another, the kind of palace intrigue is actually how a lot of decisions are made. Like, you know, you got to do that type of reporting to know how the White House or Congress functions. One thing I like about elections is it's not about that. It's about often the gaps between that thinking and the public. It's often about how the public is receiving those messages.

and your ability to identify blind spots and reflect them back to the political system, I think is much more valued in an election context than it is in the Washington context, right? So think about 2016. It wasn't just, in my opinion, it wasn't just like politically embarrassing to miss the primary in general in directions it goes. It says something about how we misunderstood the country. If we underrate Bernie on one side, underrate Trump on another side, and then underrate Trump in the general against Hillary.

That means at every step, we were missing the core pockets of where people were. And that is not, that's because we were spending a lot of time on the shared agreement of the consultants and campaigns in D.C., and we missed kind of everything else. And so for me, it's been really informing as someone who kind of came of political age in the response to 2016. That's a lesson I've always taken, was that it feels like this political era is defined by the bottom up, is defined by grassroots, is defined about how they're reacting to systems rather than the kind of top imposing it.

And so for me, that means that normies, regular people, the people who aren't in those rooms matter. And that informs my work. That informs my curiosity about them. That informs our show prioritizing their voices over the top. And I'm saying that to me is what I mean on that front. It's like if you are going to understand politics right now, I don't think Twitter, I mean, Twitter and MSNBC aren't enough.

Like, or Fox. Like, this is an in real life thing. And I think 2020 got folks in bad habits, partially because it was so online, we were all stuck inside the house. And I'm like, you've got to get out of your house, and you're going to miss this election. A related story here.

And something I've also seen you tweet about, is that the Biden campaign itself, so not just MSNBC, not just the media, but the Biden campaign itself has become more online in 2024 than it was four years ago? Absolutely. Again, I'll go back to four years ago. A really defining feature of the Biden campaign

was the confidence it had in its coalition that were not in those places. That reminds you is that, you know, if we look at the kind of Twitter ecosystem, the cable news ecosystems, those were the last arrivers to Joe Biden. Like, his core audience was old black folks in the South were kind of pragmatic people

who were thinking about the kind of electability question over everything else. And people whose concerns was chiefly, beating Donald Trump. And for most of that primary, those town squares were interested in Warren, were interested in Pete. Klobuchar had a moment. All of those type of things, they were working around Joe Biden. That was not the core of his base. And I actually think that was a clarifying fact for that campaign at the time. They knew that. They knew their audience and they really stuck to that electability message. One thing that's changed is he's engulfed the entire party, right? So that primary is

specific slice. He then becomes the nominee. And I think as president, you engulf those other larger sections of the liberal base. And you've seen, in my opinion, you've seen them take on some of those tendencies. He speaks in Dark Brandon now. He kind of is self-referential to their kind of digital TikToky strategy. And it's not as if I think he's, that that's on Joe Biden's mind. And the other thing that's important, he's increasingly, included, right? We don't actually see him have interviews. We don't actually see him a lot of times have those unscripted moments. The digital messaging of Joe Biden has taken up increasing space. And so I think one of the things that shifted is they've become really linked to the parts of the

party that drive small dollar donations, that drive, you know, interest online. And some of that has doesn't serve people because it's a bigger difference. Okay, one of the points I was trying to make is if you're a Republican and you're talking about Fox, like Democrats have an inherently more diverse base than the Republican Party.

And so you can be Donald Trump call into Fox and Friends. And I think the audience you're speaking with is more closely matched to the Republican base than if you're Biden and you're talking to the morning, Joe. Because that is a wider crowd,

as a more college-educated crowd, as a politically-interested crowd. All of those things pull you further and further from where Democrats' core problems are right now. And so it just felt to me that they were increasingly winning in that ecosystem and not talking to the other one. And that's reflected in the data, too. The wider, the more college-educated, the more politically interested this electorate is in November,

the better it is for Joe Biden. And that's a huge difference, I think, for people to really inject. about where we are. Like there was that feeling that, you know, if more people vote, that's better for Democrats. You just got to sign them up and encourage them to come out. And that's not the evidence anymore. And partially, I think, it's because the top levels of the Democratic Party talk less to those people. And I think they've done that very subtly. And I don't even know if they know that either. You know what I'm saying? Like, there's a lot more talk about race,

but a lot less talking to black people. That's just one example I would say of a larger phenomenon. It was such an interesting snapshot the other day before the debate in Atlanta where Biden does that little clip for social where he's drinking the branded Biden water. Yes. Because the conservatives and Fox News have been talking, oh, what drugs is going to be on during the debate? Look at this guys.

Ha-ha. A good example. It has a terrible debate. Absolutely. A good example of a digital strategy that makes a, you know, that makes a lot of sense, but the substance is the problem. Like, the only question here that matters is, can he be the candidate that Ron Clayne promised me on our show he would be to overcome age concerns? And

So if that's not true, all the memes, all the TikToks, all of that stuff is just going around a more core problem. And so what I think is interesting is in the time since the debate, everyone's talking about his need to have impromptu meetings or unscripted campaign events. You know, they're tweeting about his need to have a town hall with voters in age. This isn't rocket science. Why isn't he doing it is the question? And so if that answer is that he cannot, that is the important part. Right? But I'm like, the problem is actually the substance that is at the core of this concern. It's not the micro politics here because let's say he gets everybody to shut up by tomorrow, which I don't think is going to happen. He has to pitch a perfect game between now and November to even for this not to come back, for us not to come back to the same place again. And if that was the candidate was able to do that, I imagine the debate would have gone differently and the post debate would have gone differently. And so that's really the situation we're in here. And I I got to say, like, you know, talking to those advisors for the last year or so, they have

already struck out on some of the things they were pitching, right? Like, the debate was supposed to not, not only was the debate supposed to be not this bad. The debate was supposed to put away the age concerns. That's the only thing they've been saying for the last year and a half. And so it's like, it's not just that it didn't work out in terms of how bad he was. It's that they were banking on this moment to reverse course. Right? And so they have not only failed at that, they've lost one of those rare opportunities because they only have so many moments of tune in in this race.

And that's what I think is just as important as the performance itself. My podcast partner, David Shoemaker, had a good question for you. He said, did you think you were able to get at the question of Biden's age more easily in podcast form than you would have been if you've been writing traditional newspaper stories? That's a good question. I would say yes, but I think I would have gotten out it in traditional newspaper stories. I think that the question of access that the campaign, like, I'll be explicit. Like, this has made me, this has made me deeply unpopular in Biden ecosystem. And the impact of that is very real. Like, we have had Democrats who were signed up to do our show and then say

they get a phone call telling them not to do our show and then back out, right? We have pitches that we gave to them saying, hey, we're happy to do this or that, that mysteriously go to other places or they're able to execute them. So I'm saying, one, I get why some people back off of the store because they do make your life harder. And I say that just to say, we were very explicit about why we were focusing on this. Not my hobby horse, but what we were hearing from people. we would play them that as the reason to ask them the question. And so I would say that that is what audio gives you is to transparency to really own the framing.

It's because I think if you listen to the run-up, you know 70% of Americans think Biden's too well for a second term. And so then when I am going to a Biden official and asking them that question, it doesn't feel like a stead on a crusade. It feels like a justified question that you've heard through this kind of, arc and process. And so that's the thing I always think that audio gives you is an ability to say, listen for yourself, you know? And so we're able to do that right after the debate. When I think if people weren't asking those questions a year ago, the Biden campaign could say, you know, maybe this happened really quickly. Who was to know? You know, all of those type of things. But we can run through the receipts. And I think that allows people to make those judgments for

themselves. But I would say audio helps. But again, I mentioned the institutions because I'm like, like, if I was just like a substacker, I don't know if I would feel the level of journalistic confidence individually to go out on a limb on stuff like this. And so it matters that it's that the Times is backing you, doing it, you know? And I think I think this storyline is a is a reminder of the role independent media plays. And if you got, if you were in the Pod Save world, if you were only in the more partisan ecosystem, that debate is a night and day from what you were told this debate, this election will be about.

But if you're reading the Times, if you are listening to us, I think if you're reading the journal or some of these other places that were going at it, I think actually you were more, you were just as prepared as regular American who's already thought this. And so one of the things I think is like, you know, journalism and media have taken a lot of well-deserved lumps since 2016 and a lot of well-deserved criticism about the inability to see the stakes of the election. But I think this is a reminder of the blind spots partisans have and the power that if you only if you see media

through a lens that they control the airtight ship they can create and so it requires people who will ask the questions even if they get burned

who have a institution telling them keep going even if they get mad at you to ask those necessary questions because I don't think the record of their own rejection of this storyline

would be clear if we didn't and we includes us and other people who have done it to let me ask you about some events of the last two weeks. Before talking to George Stepanopoulos,

Biden did interviews with radio stations in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in which the campaign provided questions to the hosts in advance. Would you make of that? It bums me out, to be honest, because the Biden campaign knows they are putting those places

in a difficult position. If you're a black radio station, a small radio station, you know, the local outlets they're going to, getting an interview with the president's a big deal. And it makes me annoyed that they would put those places in a box of journalistic ethics versus interview, right? And I think the reason I put that blame with not, I mean, I think I'll get to the ethics part in a second. But the reason I partially blame them is because they know they're the ones who have the power in that situation.

you know and so that part annoys me as a reporter it's unforgivable you know i would say that like as a reporter i don't think you should be sharing questions you didn't take the questions they have we're not writing through it we're not doing that and i think that like that's the reason there was some uproar particularly when the when the public interest issue at hand is transparency with him you know particularly when it's when that we know that it's important that the stephanophilus interview ran on that today it's important you know i think that that that's a level of like of media trust that has to be overcome. And, you know, it's been interesting to see the Biden campaign lean on his relationship with black voters in media here. Because I'm like, every piece of

evidence would tell us that black voters are just as split as whether he stays in office, even more so than anyone else. And so, you know, I just think that there's a lot of sleight of hand happening. And there's a lot of using a convenient individual to represent a full group. And, you know, when we talk about, you know, politicians have learned the phrase, you know, communities aren't monolithic. But this is the way that they treat people still as monolithic, you know. And one thing I remember back when I was covering Harris, I remember writing some story that got a lot of flack. And, oh, I'll tell a different story, actually.

Because they're kind of related. And I think it's the tough position that a lot of these particularly Democratic campaigns put specifically minority reporters in. One time I was writing a story about, it was during George Floyd. And I was writing a story about how these black mayors and their tough relationship with police departments. And I cited Biden's, some of things that Biden had set in the crime bill, because I did the Times crime bill story a long time ago. And for a while, I just had a document of like

old kind of racist things Biden said. So I would just sprinkle it in like partially every now and then. And so I tell the campaign, I'm like, I'm doing this story. I'm using this quote, whatever. Move on. And I get, I end up getting this intense call that I'll leave the person now. But they were basically saying you're letting down black people by, by like, by making this about Biden and not Trump. And those kind of moments happen all the time where I think that there is a box that liberals and particularly like a kind of white liberal framework will put black reporters in. That makes you not a journalist.

That means that the only time you're allowed to be a full, a journalist is if your conclusions are matching up with what I want to say. and if not, there's some like race betrayal happening. And that to me is the same type of kind of soft reduction that leads to something like scripted questions with these people, right? They know if they were doing an interview with the New York Times, we would not do that. They know that. And so why are they doing it with these folks, knowing that also?

And so I'm saying that is to me reflective of what I have felt every now and then often, which is like who gets to be a journalist here? And sometimes that's not equally applied. This intense call, this was from someone with the Biden campaign. Yeah. Yeah, I'll say that. Interesting. And the thing is like, it's not specific to them.

That was happening a lot during the primary. I think it's a way that Democrats have often treated. I would say as a black or. reporter who reflects black people's thinking and wants to do that as part of their work, that includes a lot of democratic stuff and that includes a lot of problems with Democrats, as with all people. And so just because, you know, black people vote for Democrats in higher numbers, like you, what does that mean? You think they don't have problems or thoughts or other things, you know? And so I'm saying that type of thinking has sometimes popped up. And I remember

that moment of being something where I said specifically, And I've tweeted this publicly and stuff like that. But I'm saying, I've said specifically like, if that's the box you want to put me in, you're not letting me be a journalist. You're not affording me the freedom all my colleagues at. And I don't, I didn't sign up for that. Very different subject.

Would you make of the George Clooney op-ed in the Times yesterday? I thought, I think it's a bomb, to be honest. Like, I think these are the type of things. Like, think about how. few people have access to the president and use that in the way that he did. So with who are that recognizable? You know, and so like I would say, you know, yesterday when it came out, that's the thing I got sent by friends who only barely follow politics, right? They're not sending me the episodes that we have done for a year and a half about Joe Biden in the age arc. They're like,

wait, George Clooney said he was old. And so I think it matters in that type of cut-through way. to me it reminded me of just how much access to these people that like rich people have. Like, I think it's been really interesting that his cleanup efforts are all these like democratic insiders and donors. I think you're reminded of like who really controls and controls strong, but who really is the, you know, important pieces of presidential campaigns. But, you know, I don't know. I guess I would say the important part to me was not that he was calling, not just, what he was calling for, but saying, I have seen him and my feelings have changed recently. You know, I think the firsthand account is what stuck out for folks.

And I think that it underscores the dilemma that the Biden campaign has, which is, is this the biggest election of our lives or not? You know, is this an existential threat to democracy and the like underpinnings of our country or not? because if it is, then I think it's fair for people to say, how am I supposed to ignore all the evidence in front of me? And what they are currently asking you to do is disbelieve the debate you saw. And if you're going to ask people to do that,

you have to be presenting them a consistent version of Joe Biden that feels different. And they're not really doing that either. And so you're just saying, when I'm saying, did that happen? You're just waving your hands and saying, no, it didn't. And so I think that's what the kind of Clooney thing responds to is that that level of insulation is not serving Democrats. I think was his message. It's also interesting, the tone of that op-ed being so different than the golden corral buffet of euphemisms we've heard from the Hill over the last 48 hours.

What was Richard Blumenthal yesterday? I am deeply concerned about Joe Biden winning this November, almost like it had been outsourced to somebody who's part of the Democratic constellation, but is not a person on the hill who feels awkward about saying this out loud. He said, I talk to these people privately and they're honest, they're more honest, probably, which is experienced journalists have all the time. I mean, I think that this is a problem. I mean, the place Democrats are right now is a, is a real reminder of the incentives that

politics creates to not acknowledge an obvious thing, right? Because I think if you strip off, if you strip off the names, the party identifications, anything else, and you said, shouldn't in the 86-year-old be president, people would be like, that seems a little dicey. Like, but because of, I think, all of these incentives for political, for political actors, for media, for people whose jobs were reliant on the kind of access that those people, and access and power that those people can provide, they actually convinced themselves out of talking about the obvious thing. And so I think when you see the clunies and people outside of it,

I mean, funny story, I was telling, I was, I was telling my therapist last Friday, I was like, oh, it turns out, like, you know, the debate's been kind of crazy, because actually it's driven a lot of interest in the show because we were recording, we've been reporting on this for a while. But, you know, it's been actually kind of hard because they've been acting like I was crazy for a year and a half,

and I think, you know, whatever, whatever. And she's like, why are they acting like you're crazy? And I was like, oh, because like, you know, you're not supposed to, like Joe Biden's age was kind of a thing you're not supposed to talk about. And the confusion, I had to spend like two to three minutes explaining how media dynamics made it such that we couldn't acknowledge that Joe Biden was old.

It didn't even cross her mind. that the idea of Joe Biden being old would be a controversial thing to discuss. And so I'm like, I have been in so many conversations like that over the last couple years where people were telling me like, no way these two people are coming back.

And I'm like, they're coming back. And they're like, no way. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, for sure. And I would go to these Biden things and they're like, Americans are going to be shocked when Donald Trump comes back. And that's going to make us win. And I'm like, you're half right.

Because they are shocked about Donald Trump. But they're really shocked about you too. Like, you don't actually know this or you're, maybe you do know this and you're ignoring it. But I, they're pretty shocked about you also. And that was always, always the massive disconnect of this election. All right. Last one for you, Stead. You wrote a profile of Kamala Harris for the Times Magazine last year.

In search of Kamala Harris that people want to go read it. You mentioned covering her in 2020. as well. How did you find the experience of interviewing Kamala Harris? It's hard. I mean, I mean, I write this in a piece, but like, I never shared more with Jeff Sessions than feeling in that moment. Oh, my goodness. I am on the witness stand.

And so, you know, it's a big part of the story, but every question was responded to with the question. It was an interrogation of like broad premise and, you know, it's a big part of the story. And I think it's reflective of a politician who's more comfortable asking questions than like answering who doesn't want to really be in a space of what she would call pontificating, but other people would call like laying out a political worldview or ideology. I think she's best understood as a prosecutor. Like, this is a person who wants the info in front of her and wants to execute decisions and doesn't want to suffer fools. This is a person whose life has not been retail campaign campaign. and like a city council glad, handy way. But it's been in California where there's a different mode

of where politics has worked, right? Like there are some things that I think help explain why the interview or kind of interactions with her can be complicated, but they are. And so the thing I would say, though, is the biggest piece of info I learned as it relates to right now during that reporting, the Biden campaign, it says it on the record.

I mean, neither done says it in the story. But would not acknowledge A, to such a degree that they did not see themselves as selecting the next, they did not see themselves as setting up the next president, you know? And I found that so hard to believe. I found, I found it astonishing that they would not see the ticket as a bridge itself, you know. And one thing I think that they would not see the ticket as a bridge itself, you know. And one thing I think that, is becoming clear right now is the way that D.C. and kind of that ecosystem, Democrats, I would say, like, did not embrace her strengths is a real short-sighted reflection of I think the same type of white liberal haughtiness that I've been like hinting at of previously. It's like there was not only not a recognition of the problem, the same thinking did not allow them to see her as a solution. right. And so there could have been a universe where they were trying to set this person up for success under the premise that Biden would need a kind of strong partner to answer an age question. But that would require age being acknowledged as the principal problem. And there was a refusal to do that. And so I think it's interesting right now that so many people are willing to set all those things about her aside for the purposes of emergency.

and I think like some of the things that we went through in the profile, some of the difficulties people have had with her, I don't know if they're going to matter this summer going forward because if it's just about who can beat Donald Trump, it's just about energy on the trail, if it's just about who gives a better abortion answer on the stage, I'm 100% sure that if Trump would have set that answer about abortion, Kamala Harris would have come back and talked about it differently.

I'm 100% of that she could have set the words Project 2025 in the debate. You know, like, there's some low bars here that I imagine this candidate can clear. But that's not how she's been judged. She's been judged about vision. She's been judged about a kind of own articulation of our ideology. And she's been judged for, I think, a disappointing 2020 presidential campaign. But there's such emergency in the air. I wonder how much that's going to matter in the end.

All right. Instead, Herndon, subscribe to the run-up. New episode today about Project 2025. The words said aloud on the podcast, unlike at the day. debate. Instead, thanks for coming on the press box. Thank you for having me. Always love it. All right. It's time for the second weekly edition of David Shoemaker guesses, the strained pun headline. Yeah. Thanks for letting me out of the box, Brian. Monday's headline about recent transactions involving the Golden State Warriors, David, was Clay it ain't so,

Dre will not go, turn the light ears off, curry me home. What a mouthful. I hope they did that just for us. They really did. They really did. Today's headline comes to us from Chad Orzel. It's from the New York Post. Yankees rookie catcher, Ben Rice.

He hit three home runs against the Red Sox last weekend. Three home runs. He is the first Yankees rookie ever to do that in a single game, just something. Ben Rice, David. What was the New York Post's strain pun headline? Three home runs. Ben Rice.

Mm-hmm. Ben Don't overthink this Ben It three home runs Three Three Three

Ben Ben Ben Oh he's right there folks Why can't I How many is this a famous bin Ben Ben?

No three home runs Three He's Ben Not rice but Oh, been thrice. All right. Ben thrice. Ben thrice.

The Daily News went with the Benbino, which I thought would have been a lot for you to try to one pack. The Benbino. That's a great one, though. Before we go, I want to spend a moment talking to you about the NBA media rights. Remember the NBA media rights deal? Well, it may have finally. reached a conclusion.

Andrew Marshand reports in the Athletic that the NBA has settled on its TV partners and they are the partners we thought they'd be. ESPN is going to get the so-called A package, which means it gets the NBA finals every year. NBC is back. They're going to get the B package. And Amazon will get the C package.

At least that's what the league has decided. So where does that leave Turner? Well, the NBA is going to now send those deals to Turner. And as Marshan writes at that point, the company will have five days to make its move, meaning it can attempt to match the bids of those other media companies. Now, as we've talked about on this podcast before, it might be impossible for Turner to actually match those bids. NBC, that's broadcast. Turner's a cable company. Amazon, that's a big, big streaming service. Turner can't quite match that. So this is the question. Can Turner match? Does this wind up in court? And then we

proceed to the stuff that I think people actually care about more, which is what's going to happen to Charles Barkley, who at this moment is at least theoretically about to retire? What's going to happen to inside the NBA? A lot more left to come there. And just to leave you with one final thought, a couple of days ago, I sent a note to Brian and David. I said, hey guys, you know, there's a non-zero chance that Joe Biden might drop out this election. And we need to have an emergency podcast ready to go, ready to record if he in fact is out. And at that point, I was reminded that several weeks before I had actually teed up an emergency podcast about the NBA rights. Howard Beck, I believe, fell asleep in the press box green room at some point over the last

few weeks because we never actually did it. So congratulations to the NBA. finally pulling the emergency alarm slightly before the Biden campaign. I guess that's saying something. That is the press box. I'm Brian Curtis, production magic by Brian Waters. All right, coming up next week,

it's the GOP convention. We've been talking a lot about Democrats, but it's time for the Republicans. So Thursday, July 18th, we're going to have an old friend of mine, Chris Solentrop of the Washington Post opinion section. Chris Solentrop, he's going to be on the ground in Milwaukee. He's going to tell us what's going to tell us.

going on with the Republicans. We'll have some thoughts on that convention. And then on July 25th, we're going to be in Olympics mode. Logan Murdoch's going to be on the podcast talking about Team USA and his encounters in the locker room and outside the locker room with those players. Coming up on the press box, you will not want to miss any of those shows. Shoemaker and I, of course, will return on Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media. Have a fantastic week.