The Press Box - Rudy Giuliani Opens Up, Peter King Says Goodbye, and the Joy Reid Affair | The Press Box (Ep. 464)

Episode Date: May 8, 2018

The Ringer's Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker sit down to examine Rudy Giuliani's enlightening interview with Sean Hannity (02:00), Peter King's departure for 'Sports Illustrated' (23:00), and the confusion surrounding MSNBC's Joy Reid (38:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David, the New Yorkers Maria Konnikova won so much money playing poker that she temporarily put the poker book she was writing on hold. What I want to know is, what side gig would you like to divert you from journalism? This is a really good question. Should we throw out like screenplays and stuff like that? I was going to say, back when I worked in book publishing, I used to always joke that everybody I knew. And this is not just publishing. This is kind of New York publishing broadly defined. Like everybody I knew had a windfall in their 10-year plan.

It's like when I sell my screenplay, when I sell my novel, when I, you know, this really untenable existence. Yeah, I don't know. I'm trying to think of what I would go through. I mean, I've covered mostly professional wrestling. And I could give the road answer of like, I've said before, if an angel came down to me when I was like nine years old and told me I'd be tall enough to be a wrestler,

or might have changed my life. I don't know that there's any point where I just saw guys like cutting themselves open or jumping off things onto their back and thought, yeah, that's what I want to do. Yeah. But you've covered a lot more various subjects than I have. Yeah,

well, I've never, I don't think I've ever seen a sport particularly. Have you ever covered any like easy sports, like ping pong or like, I saw Michael Phelps swim once. That seemed, didn't seem all that hard.

Everybody could do it. Remember those UHF commercials we used to see at kids where it was a be like for an employment Center or something and somebody who looked at the screen and go, I just want to work with people. That's with me. If this journalism thing doesn't work out, I just want to work with people. Oh, man, that's fantastic. Well, I think you can do anything you want to do, Brian.

You have all my confidence. Thanks much, David. This is the Press Box on the Ringer podcast network. The Press Box is the media podcast where you're not allowed to claim you were demoted because you're white. We are Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker of the Ringer. If you want some recent content, you got to read Rob Harvilla on Donald Glover. Julie Cleggman on mental health in the NBA and from last week, Palo O'Gettys,

the milkshake that saved Rajan Rondo's season. Oh, that's fantastic. David, I've got three topics for you today. First, Rudy Giuliani just started flacking for Trump on cable a day ago, the president said, but he's already become Washington's biggest content machine. We discuss second America's favorite NFL writer and Starwood Hotel preferred member, Peter King, leaves SI after 29 years. We size up his legacy.

And finally, what the hell is going to? going on with Joy Reid and MSNBC. We go deep inside the code. Plus, as always, our overworked Twitter joke of the week. But I think we start here with a segment I'll call Rudy, Rudy, Rudy, Rudy. Head tip, Chris Berman. We had a couple of relatively boring days, David, on the Stormy Daniels beat. And then on Wednesday, a new member of Trump's legal team, Rudy Giuliani, went on Fox with Sean Hannity.

And we learned this. That money was not campaign money. sorry, I'm giving you a fact now that you don't know. It's not campaign money. No campaign finance violation. So they funneled it through the law firm. Funnel through law firm and the president repaid it. Oh, I didn't know.

He did. So Trump did pay Stormy Daniels, aka Stephanie Clifford. And when Hannity gave Giuliani a chance to back off, you know, just throwing him the line in the water. He just said it again. Yeah. So what was your favorite part of this?

Was it that Giuliani claimed Trump was happy after the interview, that Trump then claimed Giuliani didn't have his facts straight, or that per the New York Times that Trump is now mad at Sean Hannity. For asking, for actually making news. Well, it was clear in Hannity's defense. It was clear that he was not interested in making news. He was caught off guard by the fact that news was being made on his news program. It's amazing. The eventual, like, John Oliver Supercut of Fox News hosts who are aghast at the questions they are getting in their softball interviews from people in the Trump White House or Trump himself is going to be fantastic. Yes.

It was a very strange. I mean, there was so much strangeness leading up to this, right? There were, like, rumors a week prior to Giuliani coming on that Trump was about to shake up his counsel. It's been for a while. Yeah. And he's decided. And he denied them a week before. So that was rubbish.

then Ty Cobb is out. Emmett Flood is in. The immaculately named Emmett Flood is brought in. And Giuliani is brought in as a personal attorney and personal lawyer and immediately goes out on a press tour, which is just so misbegotten. I get that if you're Rudy Giuliani, part of the payment is being out there in the public eye, is looking like the hero writing in on the white horse. But he has to have been paying enough attention to know that this isn't going to go well. The Trump could tell him one thing or that you get the impression of one thing? And then it's just going to, it doesn't matter what he says.

What matters is how it's received. And if it's not received well, Trump's going to say that he's wrong. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, that's the whole point where I mean, he wanted to be, he was an early supporter of Trump during the campaign. He wanted to be Secretary of State. And this is the booby prize that you get to go out. And as soon as you say something the president wasn't like, he just claims you don't know what you're talking about.

Was, okay, first of all, let's get. of Giuliani his due, no matter what you think, how craving you think his appearance on Hannity was, it's very clear that his goal, his objective, was to sort of normalize the response to some of of these things that were seeming like unnecessary, relatively unnecessary problems, sinkholes for the president. Sure. The Stormy Daniels thing. Yeah, I mean, like, if he had just said, you know, yeah, I paid her that money, no comment,

you know, we will be saying nothing else on the subject. Melania would have been mad. There would have been some people sort of like, you know, doing a performative, you know, chest clutching, a pearl clutching. There you go. But it wouldn't have been that big of a deal. He got himself under the trouble by, like, opening up this can of worms about the campaign finance issue, right? And so Giuliani, in that instance was going out and just saying, like, no, this was totally above board. Everything's going to be fine.

And just sort of like testing the waters. to try to remove these things from the conversation. Right. Without apparently telling the rest of the White House staff, though. That's the thing. Yeah, who knows? But maybe he thought that if he just went out there and sort of put some issues to bed, he would get some credibility.

Maybe he thought that he had gotten the green light. Yeah, that's his image, right? At the height of America's mayordom, which we could debate, that's a whole other show. But when he was big, it was because he was the truth teller, right? He was Mr. Get Things Done, No Bullshit. Yeah. I go and give 100 press conference. conferences a day. Remember that was his thing as mayor. I take all the questions until they're

tired of asking me questions. Yel at the reporters. Yell at the guy who likes ferrets on the radio or whatever the heck that was. John Lover covered that yawson. It's fantastic stuff. The, but I guess what's funny also strikes me about this is so he gives the the interview on Fox, which makes news. The New York Times described one of his interviews, by the way, is rambling, which is really the only adjective to describe all these interviews. Yeah. I mean, just the quality of the way he talks is very striking if not alarming. But he was, am I right in remembering that Giuliani was did not get the secretary of stage job because Trump said he was falling asleep in meetings or was that somebody else?

I can't remember if that was a particular. It's amazing that we cannot remember which Trumpi, Trumpite was was falling asleep in meetings. But you know, it's like there's this whole idea of like you tweet your way through a crisis. Yeah. Julianne is like green rooming his way through a crisis. Absolutely. So he went on Fox and Friends after that where he said things like that the North Korea had agreed to release American prisoners, something that was not confirmed.

affirmed afterwards. He went on this week and said the president could defy a subpoena from Robert Mueller, right? Again, just sort of like testing the waters, I feel like. That feels like a test of waters. He also said, I'm facing a situation with the president dot, dot, dot, in which every lawyer in America thinks he would be to fool to testify, but I've got a client who wants to testify. Right? That seems like in the true teller vein, right? He suggested that Mueller had leaked the list of questions he wanted to ask Trump to a New York Times reporter, which is almost certainly not true.

He said to Hannity Jared, meaning Kushner as a fine man, you know that, before adding, as the New York Times put it, men are disposable. It's kind of weird. And I also called the FBI agent Stormtrovers, which feels like a straight out of the Trump playbook. Yeah. And then there was also, I did not watch his interview with Janine Piro's justice program, but we can probably figure more of the same. Why do you think Trump picked Rudy? I mean, I think the simple answer is that Trump, you know, picks everybody, everybody that he appoints is from, you know, the circle of people with whom he's

interacted in the past 72 hours. Or maybe longer than that. I mean, they actually have a relationship. Yeah. And he's been a pretty loyal surrogate. But this was the job where he said, Rudy, you can come help me on this one. I need you. Yeah.

I mean, it's funny because Rudy is actually a good, it's not a bad choice for this, though. I mean, the fact that it's... In theory. Yeah, that's what I mean. but I mean, the fact that it's been such a mess is maybe more indicative of his client than of Giuliani. I mean, Giuliani for, for over a decade,

since he was, since he was mayor of New York, was certainly more warmly received and treated more agreeably than what some people would label the liberal media than one would assume given his political bent, right? And his, frankly, like, occasionally authoritarian

government style of his own, right? Yes. He's just partly because of 9-11, partly because he's, like you said, he's a problem-solver in a big city, partly because he's a, you know,

Republican with a sense of humor, who is, who, you know, people in the journalism world have been exposed to a lot because they're in New York. For whatever reason,

he can work a green room like nobody's business. He is, despite his politics that he, you know, displayed on the national campaign trail. People love Rudy Giuliani. You know, they love the sort of myth of Giuliani.

They love the character that he's made, that he's, you know, become. And if he were out trying to, if his job were to, were to push Trump's Iran nuclear deal position, I think he would actually do a really good job. If it were a set position. Right. Something that was somewhat tenable. Like it was an argument. Yeah. If it was something you could hold in your hands. If it was something that was down in writing, that it wasn't going to be contradicted. But I think he's got a really, it's just this really oozy, uncertain subject matter. And there's a lot of different factors at play. And at the end of the day, if Trump's going to be available to make himself available or through Sarah Sanders to just negate everything that Giuliani's said the day before, that's not a functional situation for the most skilled talker or lawyer. Yeah.

It's an interesting question to me of when we talk about Trump surrogates, who I think have been pretty lousy. It's, you know, how much is the job is impossible? Yeah. Versus they're doing it wrong, right? The answer is probably both of those things, but it's probably mostly that the job is just absolutely impossible. Jobs are going to the back to the Sean Spicer. Look, this crowd is bigger than that crowd photo thing of day one. Yeah.

Well, some of the, I mean, listen, some of the, some of the great, like, former press secretaries are much more. I mean, they're much more personable and much more likable on as, you know, when they're talking head roles than they were when they were actually up there behind the podium, you know, in previous presidencies. Giuliani said this to watching post Robert Costa. We're, quote, we're setting the agenda. Everybody's reacting to us now and I feel good about that because that's what I came in to do. So I think there's an element too, right, of Trump, you know, who has a very, very short attention span,

seeing himself getting pummeled on cable news and saying, you know what, we need to send somebody out to cable news. And it doesn't really matter what they say as long as they're, you know, quote unquote going on offense. By the way, when I was thinking of the various representation, how does Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels, have a better lawyer than the president of the United States? I mean, Michael Avinati is just running loops around them. Yeah, I mean, Michael Avinati's lawyer with like, you know, he's making, he has more a gain in this situation than anybody else. And one of Trump's problems is that he's, you know, you hire somebody like Giuliani who looks It's like he's sort of, you know, past retirement and all, I mean, and he's kind of on his victory lap, you know, I mean, he's, you can't, you couldn't call that guy hungry watching Juan Hannity.

No. Not in the metaphorical sense anyway. Avanotti called his handy interview, quote, one of the worst TV appearances by any attorney on behalf of a client in modern times and an absolute unmitigated disaster. He also, if you notice the language that Giuliani, when he talked about how it was like this big fund, it allowed Avonati to start using the word slush fund. which has a very particular Nixonian connotation and also just a really damaging connotation

that, you know, oh, a slush fund, right? There really is no practical difference between a slush fund and a fund, right? In this case, it's like, I guess we're imagining like multiple mistresses. I don't know what he's asking us to imagine, but somehow that sounds more unsavory. What situation would you have to be in

for your attorney to handle a potential mistress situation without consulting you? And taking, but taking, but using your money, not just doing this on the side. Just give me this pool of money. If anything comes up, I got this, right? Do we talk about a little bit about Sarah Sanders? Because there was kind of this pivot moment to Sarah Sanders this week.

So Julie, this is all stems from the Giuliani-Haddy thing, right? He goes on. He contradicts the line that Trump and, by proxy, Sarah Sanders, have been saying for weeks and weeks and weeks. He didn't know anything about the Stormy Daniels paper. Yeah. This is all Michael Cohen acting on us on. Just no clue, right? So then the White House press corps, as reporters often do, go, wait a second, you lied to us.

You've been lying to us this whole time. And the question is then becomes right, did you knowingly lie to us or do you not know what's going on? Yeah. Either one of which is damning. What do we think the answer to that question is in Sanders' case? I don't know. It's too hard to know. I mean, I think that she's probably, yeah, probably a little bit of both.

It's some willful Willful ignorance too, you know? Yeah. If you don't demand answers from your boss, then you don't have to be knowingly mistruthful. Right. Well, there was this Washington Post piece that talked about how she loves to give the answer. I haven't talked to the president about that. It's like the all purpose.

Like, I don't have to answer that because I don't know. Yeah. And so maybe you just strategically don't ask about things. Also from this, she said a lot this week, I've given the best information I had at the time, some information I am aware of, and some I'm not. Again, this is per the Washington Post profile. It says the moment illustrates the precarious role Sanders has chosen to fill as the public face of the Trump administration and the doubts about her credibility in representing a president who traffics in mistruse and obfuscations.

By the way, got to love the newspaper synonyms for a lie. We just, we just cannot say this, right? I mean, again and again, this is year two. Can we just, can we just go? can we just cross the Rubicon? I think it's okay. It's so crazy. I don't think people, even Trump fans really might at this point would even would even be that upset by it, right? Like, what's the point? You know, it's like, clearly he's lying. You just don't, you just don't care about it. You don't. And speaking to which, by the way, here's Jake Tapper talking to Kelly Ann Conway for a couple of

seconds. This big confrontation, speaking of lying. Do you think that his job includes lying to the American people because he continually does so and he undermines his own administration when he does Jake, he does many things. You just want that, respectfully, you just want that to go viral. You want to say the word President Trump and lie in the same sentence. No, I would like it to stop lying quite frankly. So, I mean, I think that was another note we heard this week. And again, it's all from Giuliani, which is, once again, it's like, okay, does it matter that the president just lies all the time?

There was also the thing with the Trump, former Trump strategist, David Urban on Anderson Cooper saying he doesn't believe he's ever heard the president lie. Which is itself a lie. Yeah. Also a lie. There's no way that's not a lie. By the way, probably true for any. I've never heard the president lie is probably. I'm trying to think.

The exact word is. I think the president is prone to hyperbole. But do I think he's purposely misleading the American people? No, I don't. And Cooper was stunned silent forever. You know what weird thought I had this week? Chris Christie fell out of favor with Trump after the election. Yeah.

You know, went into just just got disappeared basically by the Trump administration. Two things. One is we now find out that Bridgegate is a relatively minor offense. Yeah. Compared to what members of the administration are accused out or in fact to apply to you. And second, wouldn't Chris Christie be an incredibly effective, also a former federal prosecutor, be an incredibly effective advocate for Trump on cable news? Yeah. When he can just go on and argue and people sort of like have some weird.

But again, you got to like you got to let the attack dog off the leash at some point, right? I mean, like Chris Christie could be an incredibly, could be incredibly effective if he were allowed to go out there and say, so President Trump slept with some beautiful women. Who cares? You know, but that's, but if you say that and then you get fired, then it's worthless. You know, I mean, that's, that, towing this weird Trump White House line, I don't think would be beneficial for Christy or the White House. I agree with you, though. They could certainly make use of them somehow. All right, David, now it's time for our 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. We have, this is just into our overwork Twitter desk. I'm breaking news here. Put the red Kairon on this episode of the press box. This is Sarah Sanders talking about Vladimir Putin at the White House just minutes ago. President Putin in Moscow was inaugurated today for a new six-year term. Over the weekend throughout Russia, we saw police arresting. It's estimated about 1,600 anti-Puting demonstrators, including organizer and anti-corruption campaigner, Alexei Nolvone. We've seen the president tweet about.

other Russia matters today, but not about either of these things. What message does the President have for the Kremlin and the Russian people about these events? First, the President congratulates him and looks forward to a time when we can hopefully have a good relationship with Russia. However, the United States believes that everyone has a right to be heard and assemble. To which everyone on Twitter replied, David, wait a minute, what happened to do not congratulate? explicit instructions that Trump ignored. Thanks to Tom Fountain for the heads-up and Sopon Deb for actively trying to stop this runaway tweet. All right, David, from the world of professional basketball, a group award to anybody who made a joke about the Philadelphia 76ers confetti guy.

On Sunday, the Sixers tied the game at the end of regulation on Marco Bellanelli's two-pointer. Confetti guy thought it was a three-pointer and that the Sixers had won, thus cluttering the court with crap. And then there was a seven-minute delay where they had to clean up the confetti, which meant everybody had nothing to do but make Twitter jokes. Like they were just doing it over and over. The perfect Twitter storm. Confetti guy. Right. A literal, a literal storm.

I enjoyed this one from C. Rat So he, aka Damian Trillard, quote, the confetti dropping early is symbolic of how the process has been prematurely been dubbed to success. Even though the Sixers haven't won anything, I am very smart. Please support me on Patreon for the full take. Very nicely done with that tweet. By the way, the confetti guy via Twitter was also wearing the actual confetti guy. No joke. This is via reporter Sarah Todd was wearing a shirt that said breaking news, I don't care. Congrats to confetti guy for staying on message.

In other NBA playoffs news, when LeBron James went glass Saturday to put the calves up three games and nothing in their series against the Raptors, everybody on NBA Twitter was reminded of Raptors superfan Drake's song, God's plan. And here it is. Chabaz Khan, the senior manager for digital content for the T-Wolves and Minnesota links put the audio behind LeBron's game winner and everybody went from there. That was Nina Mandel of For the Win. Notice that one. Also, David, back to politics last week, Ty Cobb, who you mentioned. He of the magnificent and anachronistic curly mustache left Donald Trump's legal team and oh my lord the baseball puns. Ty Cobb thrown out.

Ty Cob benched. That was David Axelrod. And this is Bill James. Statistics Godfather Bill James. Ty Cobb forced out at the White House for spiking General Mattis under the table and allegations that he bet on the grand jury outcome. That is an extremely Bill James joke. Thanks to Kyle Madsen for that one, David.

And finally, we talked last week also about Michelle Wolf and the White House Correspondence Dinner. After the dinner, Roseanne Barr tweeted, quote, first rule of comedy. Never target someone more famous than you who was in the audience. You will lose the entire crowd. Now, a lot of people pointed out that there's actually the opposite of the first rule. You always punch up, right? Never punch down. But lots of funny tweets that tried to articulate what the real first rule of comedy is.

Let's do this one as a sketch. This is from Lloyd Davis on Twitter. All right, David, go ahead. Ask me what the first rule of comedy is. Brian, what's the first rule of comedy? That's good. That's good. It's like vaudeville, right?

Other ones I like the first rule of comedy. Have social issues and crippling depression. And the other one is first rule of comedy, colon, plug your podcast. Actually, the first rule of comedy these days. Thanks to Katie Hilton for that one. All right. Before we talk about Peter King and SI, let's take a quick break. This is JJ Reddick here to talk to you about the JJ Reddick podcast, part of the Ringer Podcast Network.

Currently, I play in the NBA for the Philadelphia 76ers, but you may know me from my previous teams. LA Clippers, Milwaukee Bucks, and the Orlando Magic, or from my college days at Duke University. Being a professional basketball player, I have a great opportunity to talk to a lot of interesting people, and the podcast is a place where I can share those conversations with you, the listener. On my show, I sit down with athletes, celebrities, and a variety of other special guests. If you haven't already, please subscribe to the JJ Reddick podcast on Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. All right, our second topic, David, I'd like to call, when you come at the king,

You best not forget to bring a delicious craft beer. Peter King's announcement that he's ending his 29-year run at Sports Illustrated to go to NBC Sports is journalism's answer to Ichero's semi-retirement. After June 1, King will still be writing his Monday morning NFL column under a different name. He's going to do some TV. But this is a kind of milestone. How do you look back at Peter King's run at SI? It's sort of impossible to overstate. much he's meant to the magazine, at least in the, especially in the past decade.

And I think that it goes to, I mean, even as like a fledgling media watcher, it goes to show the level of his influence that he leaves Sports Illustrated and I'm suddenly, and it's only at that moment that I'm aware that there's very little left, you know? I mean, that there's, like, it's everything, it's sort of a rising tide situation. the site seems very has a lot of life and a lot of value and then you sort of like pull away the one you know that one jingle log

and it just seems and suddenly their whole sale is just sort of up in the air but yeah I mean he's he's fantastic you know and I think he takes a lot of he takes a lot of flack just because of his sort of place in the hierarchy and the you know the the media world but but you know he's

He's a, he's a, he's very old school, but in some ways, very new school media figure that it's, I mean, like I said, it's hard to overstate his significance. Chris Stone, who's the other of SI, said, Peter, in my opinion, is one of the five most important figures in SI history. I agree if we change figures to writers. Yeah, yeah. Because I don't bring in like the inventor of the swimsuitous and stuff like that. Want my top five? Dan Jenkins. Sure?

Frank to Ford. Okay. Rick Riley. Yeah? Gary Smith. Wow, okay. Peter King. All right.

In no particular order. Sure. But I think that's right. And I think what's interesting, what's amazing to me about him is that he, as you said, brings them into the digital age. The squarest guy in the world. Yeah. Right? The least webby guy in the world.

This suburban dad from New Jersey at the time starts writing his column for the web in 1997. Uh-huh. Right? I remember hearing way back when the Boston Globe when Peter Gammon started writing his big Sunday baseball notes column. it was because he just had so much stuff. Yeah. And they just needed a place to put it. Right.

And that strikes me what MMQB was. I just have all this stuff that doesn't go in the print magazine. And I'm just going to put it in one place. And it turns out there's a giant audience for putting it in one place. And also just this idea like, you know, back then you remember this well because you're, you were reading right along with me. There was this weird thing where the magazine was still more prestigious than the way. Oh, yeah, for sure. But the guys on the web, at that point, it's like Peter King, it's Stuart Mandelan College Football, Richard Deich.

All of a sudden, people are reading them exponentially more than they're reading the people in the actual magazine. And so they weirdly become the stars. Yeah. Because you can read them at work. Yeah. And you can't read and like, you know, you can't read the other stuff. Yeah, absolutely. And it was this whole weird moment in magazines where everything just sort of flipped on its head.

Yeah, it's absolutely true. I mean, and even, yeah, I mean, it's hard to even go back in time to, for any of our readers, frankly, under the age of, frankly, under the age of like 37, to understand what it was like to be, like, sitting at an office cubicle where you could get away with sort of reading simple text on a computer monitor, but like, like opening a magazine at your desk, even during your lunch hour was a fireball offense. Yes, but it was somehow, okay, just to read the internet. Well, because the internet on your computer screen, like your boss walking by couldn't tell the difference between an internet page and an email or like a Microsoft Word document.

You know, no, everything was pretty basic back then. Yeah, it's what your boss was really old. Yeah, for sure. But yeah, I mean, it's really weird. And a lot of ways that, you know, that's the same era, you know, that our boss Bill Simmons was coming up, sort of from a totally different in a totally different way that he was coming up sort of as a blogger, you know, busting his way in. but it did sort of establish, you know, guys like him and guys like Peter King established what people wanted to read on the internet in a lot of ways. And the answer wasn't necessarily magazine profiles or, you know, purply pros or long, you know, like a well-crafted sentence. And that's about, you know, a thing that you're pointing out is the most important thing of the month.

That's right. It's just information and personality. Absolutely. And the interesting thing is those other four guys I mentioned from SI, all writers with a capital W. Yes. Right. King is a reporter. Absolutely. Not a writer. Can I tell a quick Peter King story? Absolutely. That speaks to his industriousness, his work ethic, his omnipresence. This is like 2006, 2007. I get assigned by a magazine to do what amounts to a chartical called Talking Football with Phil Sims. I'm not sure that was the actual title, but that was the point of it.

I have a vague recollection of this. The idea was go to Phil Sims's house and talk about football and it will. come out in this like he's drawing up plays or something like that, right? I don't need, no spoiler that this did not compete for the National Magazine Award that year with like Tom's you know, okay? This is just what it was. And by the way, Phil Sims, not my particular dream dream assignment. If you're talking football with Troikman, I would have been, you know, doing car wheels. By the way, this should have been your answer to the showtoper. I would have liked to be in Phil Simmons's cabana house for the rest of my life.

So I get in a in a higher car, this is pre-Uber, go to New Jersey. again suburban New Jersey. I get up to Phil Sims, and I believe describing me as a mansion, to best of my recollection, would be the case. It was a mansion. I don't remember if he answered the door or somebody who worked for him, answer the door.

One of the many Sims kids. One of the Sims children answered the door. I was escorted up to Phil Sims' very tastefully decorated man cave all the way up there. I'm excited, right? This is a famous person, Super Bowl winning quarterback. I walk in and Peter King is already there.

He's already in the. Manchin. I wasn't I wasn't aware that this charticle was like competitive story, but I got scooped because Peter beat me. I don't know. I don't know what was good. He was just already there. And he was with people who were like, it won some charity thing or something like that and hanging out with Phil Sims. And it was like an hour plus before they left. And then I got to do my charticle. It was wild. Did you get to talk to Peter King? Yeah. I mean, he was a friendliest guy in the world. I mean, he always had. Now, he's Everybody, that's, I think, when you saw the Twitter reaction to him, not retiring, but just kind of, you know, turning down his output a little bit. Yeah. Everybody loves Peter King. Well, not everybody loves Peter King. It should be stipulated. Let me say everybody loves Peter King the person.

I've never, I've never heard a bad word said about Peter. Okay, let's say, or 95% of people love Peter King the person. Sure. People, people, ding is writing all the time. But Peter King, Peter King, you know, Peter King, the journalist who has had his picture taken with Roger Goodell wearing lobster. bibs. I think it was chilly bibs, but yes. Okay. That leaves a longer and darker shadow than

the feelings about Peter King, the person. What do we make of Peter King the Simp? He, it's really fascinating. I looked this up today because I remember this and it was unimaginable of me. I thought I'd misremembered it. Summer of 2012, Arthur Blank owner of the Falcons invites Peter King to Montana to quote,

moderate a couple of football discussions for Falcons, clients, and sweetholders. So a professional football owner, I'm sure Peter paid his way or whatever he did, goes up to Montana so that you can do this. And Roger Goodell was one of the discussions. Like Roger Goodell was there. Peter wrote a Monday morning quarterback

with all the material he got for that. Now, just imagine if the guy who, if Jimmy Patero or Eric Shanks said, Brian, I want you to fly to a retreat so you can moderate a discussion with Joe Buck or, you know, Joe Tate. tessitore in front of the people who buy ads on ESPN. Yeah.

Not only what I say no, but that would be unimaginable that anyone would think of me for that job. Yeah. That was Peter King. Mm-hmm. He was so inside. Yeah. I mean, he was just, he was all the way in. I mean, beyond in.

Yeah. I remember reading that at the time and going, what? What is this? Yeah. You know? And I'm sure, you know, he. got tons of material out of Gidell and Arthur Blank and...

Well, that's the moral compromise you make with yourself, right? If you get material, then maybe you can justify it. Yeah. He saw his role. John Coblin wrote the great piece about some dead, which he called the deferential spirit, which was a hat tip to a piece.

Joan Didion wrote about Bob Woodward. And he called it. Coblin says it was a lightly impressionistic scene setting that establishes the discreet credentialed presence of a scrupulously non-judgmental writer. And that was, you know, That was how he said, you know, he talked about this, right?

You know, like when he went to, there's his Goodell profile in 2011, which is heavily criticized. His editor just said, just go do, just tell me what Roger Goodell's like as a person, you know. Don't want judgments. Don't what you should bury the guy. Just go tell me what he's like as a person. Just give me, you know, fair down the middle reporting about these guys. Yeah. Often whom, I'm talking about NFL owners and the commission, are hated.

Mm-hmm. By people. Sure. And, you know, and I don't know if that's just partly getting to that perch that you just get so high that you're in that you're never just going to murder somebody like that. Or being the kind of guy that has a 99 cent approval rating as a human being. You know, I mean, I don't, I don't, it's not to give them a pass and it's not to make any overly broad generalizations, but okay, I'll make some broad generalizations. I mean, I think the people that are probably angriest about, I mean, I'm not, and the journalistic ethics are are bullshit in this is, you know, I'm not trying to defend that at all. But, you know, to be that, I mean, there's a reason why you become that, why someone that likable becomes that successful, you know, because there is a corollary between likable, between like, between how nice you are and how reluctant you might be to throw somebody under the bus, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that people, that, you know, to be, you know, morally outraged and not at that, you might, I think that there's, it's a huge ethical lapse. But I think that, you know, he's he made a lot of hay about by having good relationships with people, you know? And that's, that doesn't mean that he should have done what he should, he should have gone and spoken for Arthur Blank. But, you know, just because he's not, it doesn't just mean he was just too inside to get the, to get the story right? You could have just been that kind of person. Oh, I think, I think it does sales perfectly with his personality.

Yeah. And I mean, that's just like I said, that's the kind of guy he is. I saw him at training camp last year, Cowboys Camp. and I was interviewing for a piece about Jerry Jones because Peter's dealt with Jared Peter's interviewed Jerry Jones a billion times. And he to me just looked, he said this and looked just tired and burned out.

You know, this guy who was at SI for 29 years. Yeah. And was doing that giant hunk of words almost every Monday. Yeah. It was like to think of they said it was up to like 7,000 words. And he and running MMQB. Well, that's it.

Chasing down ads for MMQB. it said in the recent stories. Dom Concentito's Costino, excuse me, piece on deadspin. And he says the 24-7th of the job has worn on me as has some of the silly and invented stuff

that populates the football media, the monster must be fed daily enough. That was Peter King. Yeah. And Peter, to me, it strikes me as the kind of guy who rode that monster for a long time. Yeah.

Like, he was a guy willing to write all the time. Yeah. Everything. Like, I would read MMQB and kind of forget, Oh, wait, he has like a mailbag the next day? What? Yeah, I'm just running the site.

I think the ad sales, all that kind of stuff. I mean, that's what's really crazy about it because he got MMQB. I mean, Sports Illustrated put him in that position at a point in time when, you know, Simmons got Grantland when it's 538 to become a big thing. There's all these vanity sites were a big thing. This is the vanity site boom of the mid-a-auts. It was the vanity side boom. The vertical. Yeah, the vertical.

And it seemed like the only way you could. properly reward Peter King was to give him something like that, right? The only way you could compensate it, it was not even about the finances. It's about showing him that he's worth enough to you that you will launch a vertical in his honor. But part of what comes with that, I mean, you have to get off on selling ads on your name in the way that you get off on getting good like Twitter mentions when you write a mailbag. You know, it's like that that has to mean as much to you. And if it doesn't, then it's just bonus work. And it's not just 25% more work.

It's 500% more work. And I can totally understand why someone, King's age and the point in his career would want to take a step back. And, you know, I like a lot of the stuff that MQB did. They're really going to be hurt despite saying they're going to keep going in his absence. It's going to be very difficult for them. And it's going to be sad to see him off of the page of Sports Illustrated. But, I mean, it's kind of funny, man. His, the job he got with NBC is, I think, if you pulled 100 journalists, sports or sports writers, that's the dream retirement gig, right?

Oh, my gosh. You write a column a week of maybe it's a little shorter than usual. Yeah. You get to go on TV and you just make lots of money into eternity or whatever. I mean, it's fantastic. And because it's NBC and because it's TV, you get the big guys, right? Yeah. That helps you get Aaron Rogers.

Absolutely. You know. Herod doesn't want to do print. What's to do a sit-down with NBC before the Packers? on Sunday night? Sure. Yeah. Maybe or maybe, at least the answer is maybe. Yeah. Not no. And I think this is a whole different segment for a different show, but I think it probably says a lot about how, you know, the personality, like we said, what the internet wanted at the beginning of the segment, the personalities mean a lot more than the context that they're in, right?

I mean, like Peter King can steal can be just as valuable or more valuable to NBC.com or, you know, publishing MMQB. He doesn't need to be on a sports site is what I'm saying for the audience to find him. Now they're going to find him through Twitter. They're going to find him through Facebook. Oh, sure. Find him everywhere else. I mean, he was one of the guys was bigger than the place he worked for. Absolutely.

You know, he's just so, he's just so big. Yeah. I thought he, I thought I made the mistake people made with Grantland where I thought he was going to, people were people thought Graham was going to be all mini bills. Mm-hmm. I thought I thought MMQB stupidly was going to be mini Peters. Yeah. And he did a really good job of casting it.

Sure. Really good job. And it's really good. And I hope, I do hope it continues. but it's like he was interesting. Like people sometimes like that, you're like, okay, this person does what they do. Can they be a, you know, a boss and a spotter of talent and a cultivator of talent? And he proved that he can't.

That is a feather in his cap for sure. All right, David. Our final topic, let's just call the Joy Read Affair because there's nothing else straightforward about this topic. We were full up on media news last couple weeks. I was thinking Ode to Joy. Ode to Joy? I don't know if it's going to be an ode.

We're full up on media news, so we missed this. but we wanted to get to it. Back in December, some homophobic posts were found on a blog that Reid wrote long before she became a host on MSNBC. She apologized. And then last month, they found more. This time she apologized for some stuff,

like what she said was a transphobic post about Ann Coulter, but then claimed that many of the offensive posts were not hers and that she was hacked. So what we have is something like what they used to call in politics, modified limited hangout. I did something, but I didn't do everything. Listen to the very careful way she apologized on the April 28th episode of AM Joy. I couldn't imagine where they'd come from or whose voice that was. In the month since, I've spent a lot of time trying to make sense of these posts. I hired cybersecurity experts to see if somebody had manipulated my words

or my former blog. And the reality is they have not been able to prove it. But here's what I know. I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things because they are completely alien to me. But I can definitely understand based on things I have tweeted and have written in the past, why some people don't believe me. I have to own the things I've written and tweeted and said, but we're still not clear what she wrote, right? Yes. What did you make of the apology? by the way I

I was sitting here awkwardly relishing in the fact that you had to be a little you had to sort of qualify everything in that preamble like that you you couldn't say outright

that she wrote the things because this is still up in the air to some extent like we have to formally pretend or just like give her the benefit of the doubt on this well it's like any I was hack story

yeah how do you I mean we can we can we can just assume often with 99% certain But if you say like I tweeted something terrible and the person just goes, okay, I was hacked. Right. I mean. It's nuts.

And she has not. And she, as she admitted on the air, she has not proven that she was hacked. She has offered no evidence. She had, she employed a computer and or whatever, a hacking expert. I don't know. Cyber security expert. Cyber security expert who gave some, presented some semblance of proof that she was, that her old blog post had been hacked. And then a number of people, including the Daily Beast, where she's also employed.

presented evidence that all of his proof was horseshit. Yes. I think is the term. That is the official internet term. And they haven't really presented anything else. The initial response was that she had been hacked, which it seemed very, she said she must have been hacked, which seems, I guess, very believable. In this day and age that, like, some screenshots of an old blog post that pop up on Twitter or something, yeah, like, that could all be fake. It is feasible.

It is very feasible. Especially, like, when you feel like you're blindsided by it, yeah, your reaction. If you're that deep in the trenches or whatever might be, yes, I've been hacked. But then the way back machine, which captured, how long was, 16 minutes, 18 minutes after the blog post went up, captured proof of it. So the implication, I don't think she made this case directly, although maybe she did that someone was hacking her blog posts immediately upon her writing them. Well, they offered so many theories that eventually the theories were whittled down to this is the only possible theory. basically because she wrote it this by the way Tom Clutz very comprehensive

April 28th piece on CNN is a very good reading if you're interested in this so he sees reads claim wrestling the idea that a hacker was tampering with her blog not years after the fact but contemporaneously sometimes within days or even hours of the events that were the subject of her post and that she never noticed right so she's publishing this blog someone is coming in behind her and she claims

inserting again I'm hedging but homophobic wording into the post yeah and this is clutt if the narrative pushed by reading her team is true the hacker had 26 minutes between the first moment read could have logged out of the blog and the pages captured by the way back machine to create the fraudulent material I would just like to say one of the I think the Rudy Giuliani high points of the week that I don't think we mentioned in our first segment was his interview with Robert Costa where he was trying to explain this the

Michael Cohen payment and he said President Trump wasn't told, but even if he was told about the payments, he wouldn't have remembered it. These are the knots we're tangling ourselves in this story. This is where we are with Joy Reid. Listen, I have all the sympathy in the world for somebody who says they, who has changed so much in their ideology, you know, nominally for I guess one would say for the better that, that, that, you know, you don't remember this place where it doesn't make sense that you had been that person before. I think the weirdest thing is how much of a crazy miscalculation this was. Because it's not just the left. Everyone loves a come-to-Jesus story, right?

Everybody loves this tale of redemption. Did she just not think she could do it twice? Was that the idea? Because there was this other post, right, that was about Charlie Christ. Oh, did you call her Miss Christ or whatever? Miss Charlie. This is the one from 2007, which she apologized for. This, by the way, is the other evidence.

I did have a homophobic blog post in this period that I apologize for, but these, which do not read terribly differently from the one that I have admitted to, also happened from a hacker. Yes. And the hacker anticipating that a decade down the line, apparently, that all both fraudulent and real ones would come out. I mean, that's just like, I don't get it. I don't get it. No. And I don't also get MSNBC. by the way, it's not news that print has higher standards than cable, right?

Daily B suspended her column, right? While they were investigating it immediately. And yet MSNBC still on the air. No problem. Let's talk about this. The only thing, I mean, I don't, I hate to conspiracy theorize about this because that's, you know, conspiracy theory is what got misread into the situation that she's in. But the, but the, it does, I mean, if it, if you're right that maybe she was told with MSNBC told her, we have your back 100 percent. but if you ever do something like this again,

if something else comes out, you're fired, then that would sort of explain her response and also explain why MSNBC is just so, just bizarrely holding on to the results of the FBI investigation, as if like, I mean, it really seems like they're just like, all right, we'll let you hang yourself on this one or whatever, because the FBI is looking into it now,

and then presumably they're going to come back and say, you know, there's no evidence, anything took place. if the FBI, I'm not sure why the FBI is being bothered with this, but if they, I mean, I presumably it's happening, if they're saying it's happening. Is it weird to you that Rachel Maddow was just all in? Well, that's the other weird thing. Brains, guts, heart and soul. Belovet Joy,

Reed has always been treasured by a brilliant colleague and I've never been proud of to work with her than I am now. She said the day that Reed went on the air and talked about the story. Talked about not. It's really, it's really. And gave the half apology. It's really easy to be like, God, I didn't think I wrote that. She's been on the air since

than several times. I didn't think there was any way I wrote that. I've changed so much. I did. It's unrecognizable. Yeah. But not literally unrecognizable like some hidden hand in it. It's not.

I mean, she's not the only liberal person in 2018 who had homophobic views that long ago. The last Democratic president of United States did not, did not run on gay marriage. No, and there was a lot of talk about whether, I mean, there was a lot of talk at the time about whether or not he was going to lose votes in the black community for being more open to, to gay marriage than he openly was. I just think this is one of those things, you know, liberals like to believe, right, that they are following the facts wherever they leak.

Yeah. And that, you know, compared to Fox News, which is the Hugo Chavez aloe Presidente of American politics, right? What would Rachel Maddow do if this were a conservative talk show host making these kind of claims? And what would she do to this?

She would every night have a just-the-fax-maam thing up. if there was any time after the inevitable Trump story of the day, she would have a prosecutorial style brief casting doubt again, if not 100% certainly than casting tons of doubt on all these explanations. Sure. There's no question. There's just no question. But then it's, but in this case, it's, well, you know, we stand by her.

I just don't, I don't get that at all. I really don't. No, it's, I mean, I think it's a little bit. it would obviously be different if this were a main if this were a prime time host right who was on every night who was a maddow level face of the network and you know for as much time as she spends filling in on weekdays sometimes that's not joey reed's role um but i just don't i just don't get how how maddow and everyone else at msnbc who's come out in her defense even a qualified defense is acting is is is is feigning this this lack of awareness that the issue is not anything she said before. It's that she's lying about it now. So Glenn Greenwald, another people have said this on Twitter. It's not, they've said it's not the posts. It's the lying. Yeah. Right. It's not the post. I actually think it's both. I think it's mostly, it's mostly not coming clean about the posts. But I also think, look, if MS, if you told MSNBC,

here's this very talented talk show host. And all these incredibly bad posts are going to, you know, were written on her blog in 2006 and 2007 and are going to come out, could come out at some future date, they'd be like, oh, maybe not. Right, but what is, what is Matt Owr proud of, if not for the conversion that Joy Reed has made over this time? I think that's right. And you said qualified, qualified defense. I don't, nothing about that strikes me as very qualified at all.

It sounds like an unqualified defense. Right. Yeah, no, yeah, but I think there are other people who have come out and said, you know, things. If you're proud at how far she's come, you're proud of how she's standing in the face of adversity, that's not, you know, just 100%. It was just so weird on that show that you're talking about, that we went to the teachable moment part of it, which I think is commendable, right?

You have people on there that talk about a panel. Right, a panel that says like, these are why these comments are hurtful. This is why this language, this is, you know, putting it in context, taking your medicine, right? But first, the interesting question is, did you write this stuff, right? Yeah. And it just, it's weird to go to the teachable moment without the full confession first. We're still, you know, chasing. She conducted, she conducted the show as if she had written at all.

And as she said, she understood why people would think she had written. written at all. And she, and, you know, between you and me and the 18 listeners of this podcast, she did write it all. But it's, but, but to have all of that to get the, the kind of like, you know, cosmic benefit of the teachable moment without actually having to say or admit anything, is that it's just so silly. This did not sound like an ode to joy segment to me. I don't know about you. We've got to change that. I have a different definition of ode than you do. When we record the second version of this that people actually listen to, we'll clean it up. All right, David, that's it for the breast box today.

Thanks to our producer, extraordinary Jim Cunningham. David, back with you next week for more hot takes about this media world we live in. Let's see you next week, man. So President Trump slept with some beautiful women. Who cares? The squarest guy in the world. Yeah. David, go ahead.

Ask me what the first rule of comedy is. Brian, what's the first rule of comedy? Timing.