The Press Box - The Best and Worst of the Republican National Convention. Plus, the NBA Strike and Listener Mail.

Episode Date: August 28, 2020

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker break down the best and worst of the Republican National Convention (3:00). Then they discuss the NBA strike and how it has turned the attention from Orlando to Kenosha, Wisconsin (36:10). Then it's time for Listener Mail, as the guys answer the question, “What is the highest achievement a Press Box listener can unlock?” (44:05). Plus: the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David, we found out during the Republican convention that Vice President Mike Pence is obsessed with Garfield. Garfield, what I want to know is what would be the most damning comic strip for a politician to be a fan of. By the way, I don't know, I was looking at the file. I don't think it made overworked Twitter joke of the week, but I saw a lot of people responding to that news by saying, damn now I have to love Mondays I think but uh uh Garfield is pretty bad Garfield is that's it's pretty rough uh I think they push vice president Biden off the table that's that's our campaign slogan but at least Garfield could be there there's some kits right like you could have a Garfield mug from childhood that's just sort of been your and that's been your thing forever like I yeah um

I mean there's a whole there's a whole group of just like non-famous comic strips, you know, one step, but the things that we grew up with and never read, like high and lowest or, I mean, I don't even know, like, Haggard the Horrible. If you're a diehard fan of, like, Rex Morgan, MD, I don't really know what to say, by the way, I read Haggar the Horrible with some frequency,

but Rex Morgan, like, all the, the soap opera ones. But if you're a fan of that, you are probably a hundred years old and not actually running for president. If you, if there was a, if there was a politician, if it came out that Kamala Harris was, like, whole office was decked out in like family circus comic strips or like i don't even know strip is the right word sort of the bubbles that would that would change your opinion of comela harris yes yeah absolutely for the worse for the for much worse i mean i thought i was on board with comel harris but now i found

out she likes the family circus so i don't know that man at least the family circus though has a cultural resonance garfield has cultural resonance heathcliff may be worse because it's like a cut rate garfield uh but I mean, if someone was deeply invested in like for better or for worse, like that was their great literature, I think I would probably be very suspect. Two questions about Mike Pence. Number one, do we think he pivots to U.S.

Acres at some point during his second term if he has one? And number two. Like a strain pun headline. And number two, does Mike Pence get the far side? Or does he just look at that and go, you know, it's just, it's not for me.

It's time for the press box. A part of the ringer podcast. Network. Definitely not for him. Hello, media consumers, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here. With lots of stuff to get to today, we'll talk about the NBA strike. How did players get us reporters to turn from Orlando, Florida to Kenosha, Wisconsin? We'll answer a little listener mail, including the question, what is the highest achievement a press box listener can unlock?

Plus, David guesses a strain pun headline in the overworked Twitter joke of the week. but David last night from the White House, we heard the final combative words of the Republican convention. And every time I've entered REM sleep this week, these words have been ringing in my head. Ladies and gentlemen, for freedom. That was Kimberly Guilfoyle,

former Fox News host and girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr. David, on Monday night, she was fired up. I can I can I pull back to Kurt can I tell a Brian Curtis story real quick

sure do you and correct me if I'm getting this wrong you were this is in a different age you were doing some internship oh no you were while we were in college you did an internship at Nightline is that correct?

That's right and as I vaguely recall the story you got to like sit at the what the evening news desk and like just do a riff for a minute that's right And if I remember correctly, the advice you were given was stop doing a news voice and just talk. That's right.

You're right so far. I'm shocked that nobody went to Kimberly Guilfoyle. It was just like, stop doing a Disney sorceress voice and just talk, right? Unless that's indeed what she really sounds. Like, how do you not have, how do you not listen to the trial run and just say, wow, this is going to read really badly? It's just comical. Like, do we want, maybe they want comedy.

Maybe that's her job. know. And at first I was like, maybe she's just kind of weirded out by the fact that she's speaking to an empty hall. But then I'm like, wait, no, she was on television. She's used to speaking to an empty room and having to communicate with a camera. Oh yeah. I thought about that with the volume level. Like maybe she thought you had to project into, it was very strange regardless, right? Again, that's a thing where someone can just say, hey, you don't need to yell. Everybody can hear you just fine. The convention ended Thursday night on the South Lawn with a sloth. leaping pill of a speech by Donald Trump.

According to National Journal's George Condon, at 71 minutes, the speech was longer than any incumbents convention speech since World War II, almost three times as long as Joe Biden's speech, David, which clocked in at a crisp 24 minutes. Trump's speech had 41 mentions of Biden's name. Previous high of mentions of an opponent's name was eight. And of course, team Trump loves to point out when Biden misspeaks. Listen to this gibberish from the president last night. Thanks to advances.

We have pioneered the fatality rate and you look at it and you look at the numbers. It has been reduced by 80% since April. We have pioneered the fatality rate. What was he supposed to say? What was he trying to say there? We reduced it. Yeah. Pioneered something about reducing the fatality rate.

Wow. We are definitely pioneering the fatality rate a little more each day. Let me tell you here. Nobody, nobody has an I'm reading. Trump has the most transparent I'm reading face, I think, in the history of public speakers, right? I mean, nobody is like squinting their eyes to look at exactly the place where the words are floating in front of them harder than Donald Trump. And I don't, I know that, I mean, I know it's easy, whatever to wave your hand and say, like, he just loves the sound of his own voice, but he cannot enjoy this. I just refuse to believe that like reading something. for like generously the second time that that's sort of like under these Kleglites for well over an hour is a fun thing. I mean, whatever. He certainly didn't look like he was having

fun last night. It looked miserable for most of that speech. All right, David, just like we did with the Democrats last week, let's divide the Republican Convention into categories. Worst things, odd things, and best things, if we can

come up with them. First, the worst. number one worst thing about the GOP convention, the construction of an alternate reality that does not bear any resemblance to planet Earth at the RNC the coronavirus had, as Trump promised, magically disappeared. So did police violence. So did peaceful protesters.

And in their place, the Republicans conjured up an imaginary country were pretty much the only problems were quote unquote riots and cancel culture. At the Republican convention, Trump didn't demean women. He promoted them. Trump didn't subject immigrants to dehumanizing treatment. He naturalized them, David, right there on camera.

Trump isn't a racist. It's actually Biden who has the most to answer for on that score. So I think the number one question you and I had Monday was, how would team Trump get past a lot of terrible facts? The way they did it was they just pretended they didn't exist. Or pretended they were like you just said on the kind of opposite side. It's nothing new.

I mean, Trump's been doing this since he started running five years ago or whatever. I mean, it's a lot easier just to pretend that you had a different position on something than the one you actually had. And honestly, even if someone's going to fact check you. And by the way, fact checking was running rampant just everywhere I looked yesterday. I'm not sure at the end of the day that it made that much of a difference, right? I mean, it's, we're going to get to, Daniel Dale on CNN. Yes. It was like the micro machine man.

Yeah. All right, you got three minutes and like a hundred things to get in. Go. Right. And that's what, and that's exactly what Trump's counting on, right? If we, if we commit five fouls every time down the court,

they can only call one. And then, you know, and it doesn't really probably want to affect the outcome of the game. And again, I mean, only in your favor at that point. But yeah, I mean, and I mean, it's hard to say, I don't really know what the fact checked is for saying like, you know what? I feel safe in New York despite what Trump is trying to tell you. You know, I don't really know what the fact, you can take cameras outside, but that doesn't

take away all the crazy videos that people have seen on Fox News or online. I mean, I don't know. It's a denial is a hell of a tactic, man. And it was even in the staging of Thursday night's big Trump speech, 1,500 people, David, sitting next to each other, mostly without masks. on the south lawn of the White House. You and I are always talking about, like, what's going to be in the history books

that we're seeing right now? And I feel that someday our kids, our grandkids are going to read, wait a second, there was this pandemic raging in the United States, and all of the president's supporters were sitting next to each other like the virus was gone.

But it wasn't gone. And it was reported last night that most of the people there last night were not tested for the virus. So it's just, I've been speaking of just like, We're constructing Pleasantville no matter what's going on in the United States. My other favorite part about alt reality was the anecdotes.

Did you notice this? There were probably more anecdotes at the Democratic convention than there was policy. So the Republicans said, okay, we're going to come back with our anecdotes about Trump. We're going to humanize Trump like the Democrats did Biden. But last night you had Dron Smith, deputy assistant to the president, comes out and says, I wish everyone could see the empathy Trump had when George Floyd was killed. and you're waiting and going, okay, okay. And then there's no example of the empathy.

There's nothing that Trump said or Trump did. And it was like that for everybody. All members of his family would come out. I wish you could see my dad, but then they did not actually have a specific quote or anything to offer. Or any particular reminiscence. I mean, it was just like this, like, I wish you could see my dad. That was it.

I wish you could have seen my dad when he signed that bill. Yeah. The New York Times is James Pony Wazett called it anecdotes without anecdotes. Like you're set up for the example, but it never actually happens. One more point two in terms of alternate reality. And this was a really good deep thought from our pal Matthew Zitland about the whole media staging of the convention. So when you have a normal Republican convention, the network cameras can take shots of the audience, right? They have some agency to shoot what they want.

want in the big arena. Well, what does the audience of a Republican convention look like? It's mostly white, right? When you have a convention that is delivered to you by the Republicans, you are literally taking their camera shot. What do you see? You see a podium that is pretty diverse, right? A pretty diverse cast of speakers. So the whole idea of Trump and race is very subtly transformed in this kind of almost very hard for viewers to kind of wrap their minds around sense. And I thought that was such a fascinating point. And really until last night, when you saw the audience on the lawn of the White House, you were like, oh, right, this is the Republican base.

No matter what Trump is saying, this is the Republican. These are the people he is talking to. Yeah, I think that's a really, really smart observation. The camera work was, I think, I mean, just watching it, you kind of realized you were saying something a little bit different than you were used to. But that's an incredibly smart point. Number two, worst thing from the Republican convention, complete cognitive dissonance when attacking Joe Biden. We heard David that Biden wants to put everyone in jail. Actually, no, Biden wants to defund the police.

On Tuesday, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi came out and, was doing the whole discredited Hunter Biden nepotism roundup. But as Matthew Iglesias noted, if you were watching CNN when Bondi was talking about nepotism, they had that graphic on the bottom of the screen of who was coming up to talk.

And it was Tiffany Trump, Eric Trump, and Melania Trump. Nepotism bad. Actually, nepotism good. And honestly, if there's a goal of the Republican convention, I think it's got to be to come out with a direct line of attack

on Joe Biden. They did this with Hillary Clinton in 2016. This was so back and forth in both sides of every issue that there was no direct attack. Yeah. And as far as I can tell, it's this weird bank shot where you say, hey, there's violence in our cities. And Joe Biden is going to be the tool of Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot or something. I don't get it. It was so strained that I don't think they came out with a single direct attack on Biden. Yeah, attacking, I mean, the Biden attack, I thought that really stuck and forgive me if I'm jumping ahead too much was, I mean, specifically on Biden was the repetition of the 47 years thing, that Trump has done more on fill in the blank than Biden has done 47 years. That really, I think that it's a good, it's a good line. I mean, and it's not the veracity of the individual point sort of beside the point. I think that the bank shot that you were talking about. I mean, listen, without a doubt, the truth, the logic, whatever you want to say, is just off the wall, right?

I mean, to say that, like, if we elect Biden, then you will get, like, dot, dot, dot, what the Trump presidency has brought you directly. You know, I mean, it doesn't make any sense. That said, I felt like on the last night, and maybe the last couple of nights, they actually did, they actually did kind of plot the arc of the bank shot a little. bit, or pretty well, which is to say, this is what's going on in Democratic cities and you don't want your country to become a Democratic city. Now, I know it's, again, it doesn't hold logically, but there's enough of a through line there to actually make the fear tactic functional, I think.

Yeah, well, it's definitely more consistent than Trump's messaging over the earlier in the summer when Brad Pascal was running the campaign. And you can see they've, they're just, felt like more focused. Again, that feels like something that maybe closes this thing to like five points or less than five points, which is really Trump's first, you know, imperative right now to just make this a close election before you even try to win the election. I don't know if that gets you over the top, though. I guess we will have to figure that one out.

My favorite moment of cognitive dissonance, David, Trump in one of the many backstage vignettes had a roundtable of people who had been detained by foreign governments and then released. while Trump was president? Here he's talking to Andrew Brunson, who had been arrested in Turkey. Now listen to how Trump talks about the Turkish regime. I was held in Turkey for two years, and you took unprecedented steps, actually,

to secure my release, and your administration really fought for me. And I think if you hadn't done that, I may still be in Turkey. So I'm very grateful for that. 28 years, right? They had you there for, they had you schedule for a long time, Andrew.

Yes. We had to get you back. And I have to say that to me, President Erdogan was very good. And I know they had you schedule for a long time and you were a very innocent person. And he ultimately, after we had a few conversations, he agreed. So Turkish regime bad. Turkish regime actually very nice. Turkish regime throw you in jail.

Turkish regime is very cordial. Let's you out of jail. Both sides of the issue. unbelievable. I have a heading here, David, and worse stuff for just Hatch Act violations. Oh my God. The Hatch Act, as NPR notes, prohibits federal employees from engaging in the most political activity inside federal buildings or while on duty. Well, you had the presidential pardon on camera, had a naturalization ceremony. By the way, the Wall Street Journal found out that some of those immigrants in that ceremony, quote, found out only minutes before that President Trump would attend and they didn't know it would be air. during the Republican convention. You, of course, had the White House as a prop Thursday night and an opera singer singing

hallelujah from the White House while the fireworks. That actually happened while the fireworks spelled out Trump 2020. So hatchag poloza. And then finally I had this point. I do not want to pick on Kimberly Guilfoyle too much. But I do I do want to push back because I feel there was this journalistic consensus that a lot of people were saying, I sound like Trump, a lot of people are saying, they were saying, you have to admit the Republicans did stage the convention quite well. I would like to push back on that.

Because to me, the Democrats completely reinvented the convention. The Republicans largely just had an arena convention on a stage without an audience. Yeah. Like I was watching and I'm like, these speeches feel so repetitive. They feel so overlong. And to me, and I never thought I'd say this about a convention that was built around Donald Trump, so much of it felt boring. And like kind of a slog, whereas the Democrats convention felt much more made for television. What did you think? I agree with that. I think some of the pre-taped segments, you know, Mitch McConnell, the, the McLaughers.

Sorry, yeah, the McCloskey. I mean, those did look a little bit more like, well, I mean, more reminiscent of, you know, what the Dems did, but I think that's just sort of the nature of the pre-taped to some extent. I mean, they're well done. But yeah, I mean, there wasn't a lot of life to the kind of prime time speeches. And I think part of that felt like, and you could again tell this from the camera angles they took during Trump's speech was, it felt like their number one objective was to try to make you forget that this was an unusual convention, right? I mean, if they took camera angles that made it look like there were 10,000 people watching Trump speak, and there might have been for all I know.

But then, you know, through the rest of them, it was just sort of like a regular convention speech just without the crowd cuts, right? And, and, uh, and that leads to something sort of monotonous and boring, sure. But I kind of wonder if, you know, when we talk about playing to the base, I mean, the real Republican base might be much more welcoming to monotony and boredom than the audience of the Democrats were trying to reach. last week. You said the word pre-tape. Trump had boasted, hey, we're going to do this live, unlike those rascally Democrats. Virtually the whole Republican convention was taped. That Kimberly Guilfoyle speech? I know this sounds insane. That was a taped speech.

They did not ask for a do-over. Almost everything except the big stars was taped, which was really, really interesting. All right, David, let's do odd things from the Republican National Convention. Number one, R&C Chair Ronna McDaniel. Listen to this bit from Monday night. Democrats started their convention last week with Eva Longoria, a famous Hollywood actress who played a housewife on TV. Well, I'm actually a real housewife and a mom from Michigan with two wonderful kids in public school

who happens to be the only, only the second woman in 164 years to run the Republican Party. and unlike Joe Biden, President Trump didn't choose me because I'm a woman. He chose me because I was the best person for the job. I would like to unpack a few things from that. Unlike Joe Biden, President Trump didn't choose me because I was a woman.

I'm sorry, did Joe Biden choose you for anything? That sentence makes no sense at all. Boasting that she is only the second woman to run the Republican Party in 164 years is actually a sub-tweet of the Republican Party. Yes. And number three, Rana Romney McDaniel. This woman's grandfather was the Republican governor of Michigan. Her uncle Mitt was the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.

Texas's very own, Ava Longoria, whom she's talking about, meanwhile, was not born into acting. She worked at Wendy's when she was growing up. So get out of here with that. I mean, you are, you have got to be kidding. You are part of the Romney political dynasty. And you are criticizing Avalongoria for being a fabulous hot. Get out of here. I mean, that was unbelievable.

Number two on my list of odd things, random sports guests. How about UFC honcho Dana White making his second straight Republican convention? Oh my God. He had a great line where he said, Donald Trump is the only presidential candidate who has kept all his promises. How one billion Pinocchio's for Dana White for that claim. You might as well. That is it.

That is the totally, I think the totally appropriate way to judge Trump's presidency. Trump has broken so many promises. Trump has neglected. Everything that comes out of his mouth is inherently a broken promise that the best way to possibly rate it is just to say like he kept every one of his promises because I couldn't possibly lie more. Dana White is an impeccable figure in his way But you would think

And I get to like four years ago There was again a lot of fewer people who were willing They're interested in speaking You would think though that at some point The Republicans would realize that people who are Whose job is to basically their job is professionally to play heel right I mean Dana White has gotten basically everything he has achieved in life by being loathed online you would think that like when someone's coming out with that,

it's he's transparently, he's just not genuine, right? I mean, he's out there, he's trying, he's speaking just like his fighter, Kobe Covington, he's MAGA because people are going to be pissed off about it, and it's going to get him attention, it's going to drive money to the UFC. Like, that's a bad reason to put somebody up on stage, but I guess that's better than the alternatives. And it wasn't boring, unlike a lot of the speeches, I will give Dana White that. Former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz.

Oh, Jesus Christ. got this long thing on Wednesday night. I mean, that bid had the energy of a diabetes medicine commercial. What a, what a moment for Lou Holtz, who accused, by the way, Biden of being a fake Catholic, one of the more jaw-dropping accusations of the whole convention.

I just can't, like, I would read a 20,000 word TikTok on how those words got spoken out loud. I can't, maybe I just have had Lou Holtz in my life for too long. I find it hard to imagine that he was not somehow conned into that moment. What's the right amount of time to have Lou Holtz in one's life?

That's what I want to know. Too long for all of us. Yeah, whatever it had been minus this week. I don't know, man. That was one of the most just unconscionable things I can imagine someone's saying.

And most heartbreakingly, 1980s Dallas Cowboys legend Herschel Walker. Yeah. I joked the other day about my childhood dying. It turns out it was not the Star Wars prequels.

it was Herschel Walker saying Trump wasn't a racist. That was it. Young Brian is gone. His innocence and dreams have been dashed. Herschel Walker saying Trump isn't a racist. Dear God. And the last odd thing from the Republican convention, David, Matt Gates,

gonzo congressman from Florida, gave us a new conservative term of art for lefties. I want you to listen to this. Settle for Biden. That's the hashtag promoted by AOC and the Socialists. The woketopians will settle for Biden because they will make him an extra in a movie written, produced, and directed by others. Why is every speaker, every, like, up-and-coming speaker on this looks like a, like, central casting college Republican? Like, I just don't.

We've seen Matt Gates a million times before. I'm not trying to act like he's new to me, but, like, every time I was like, what's that guy's name again? it's just they were like I I mean dude anyway Matt Gates woketopian is just fantastic I accept

I accept woketopian let's just all be woketopians now I mean I just don't it's it's such a terrible name coming from such a terrible place that I think we should just embrace it if you're new to politics the woketopians are the alien race

that will kidnap the child in season two of the mandolore all right David it's time for the overwork Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always gratefully received David do you think political Twitter had anything to say about Kimberly Guilfoyle speech I would think so by the way putting her up so close to the beginning I think was just I mean maybe that was the move right just let everybody get their mean tweets out

and then you then all your materials are to ruin for the rest when like the rest of the Trumps get up there. Exactly. No, totally. It was an overworked Twitter joke to compare her to Rita Repulsa from the Power Rangers. Thanks to Chris Almeida and Schneider. By the way, McCauley Culkin tweeting this week that he turned 40 was supposed to make us feel old. That joke actually made me feel old because I really don't understand it. But hey, it was out there. David Lewis DeJoy, the Trump appointee who is postmaster general, went before Congress this week to answer questions. And DeJoy got a real stumper from Orange County's very own Katie Porter.

What is the cost of a first class postage stamp? 55 cents. Just wanted to check. What about to mail a postcard? I don't, I don't know, ma'am. You don't know the cost to mail a postcard? I don't.

It was an overwork Twitter joke to write, well, DeJoy is the Postmaster General, not the Postmaster Specific. Thanks to Tony Elkins and John Gets. And finally, oh, deep sigh. There was Jerry Falwell Jr. Oh. The now former president of Liberty University.

I'm sure you saw this story, David. Mm-hmm. A former pool attendant named John Carlo Grande, tells Reuters he had an affair with Falwell's wife. And quote, and I am quoting from the story here, the relationship involved him having sex with Becky Falwell while Jerry Falwell looked on. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write Jerry Falwell Jr. has resigned to spend more time watching his family.

Oh, no. Thanks to every press box to list. If you proposed a joke, I spent several days wondering whether I should read aloud on the press box. Congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. In the notebook dump, David, let's do good stuff from the Republican convention. It's probably isn't going to be good like we agree with the ideas. but good in the sense that if you're in Trump land,

you thought this was at least a successful part of the four-night convention. Number one, Mike Pence. And I put this here because I keep hearing, Kamala Harris is going to wipe the floor with Mike Pence in the debate. Are we totally sure that's going to be a blowout? Did you see Mike Pence's speech? Yeah. Mike Pence is a very formidable politician.

He really is. Yeah, he's a very politiciany politician, right? I mean, in some sense, we're going to get, we're going to get like, we don't know what's going to happen with the presidential debates, right? I mean, it could be, it could be, I mean, it's just like a heavyweight fight, but like with two guys, with like both fighters are Kimbo-Slice. Like this match, that debate could last like one second and somebody would be out cold, right? I mean, but like the vice presidential debate is going to in some ways feel like the presidential debate. It's going to be like a very formal affair with like probably much more substance and two politicians who are more politiciany. But I think that Mike Pence is, I think you're right.

I think he can hold his own. I think the Biden campaign was really smart to put Kamala Harris out there on a stage of her own this week to sort of argue on behalf of Biden and their shared platform. And that actually gives me more solace, I guess, to your question than I might have had. But I do think Pence did a really, you know, he did a really fine job when he wasn't just bastardizing the Bible to throw old glory into it, which, you know, for his. That was wild. For his purposes, I think that's exactly what he meant to say. And he didn't offend anybody that he really cares about offending. but, you know, I think that he'll probably be fine in the debates, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, look, it was a deeply dishonest speech that he gave on Wednesday night. We can underline that a thousand times. But again, I thought this in 2016, I remember him coming out, and I had not heard him speak before, I don't think. And it was very small town, it was very Middle America, very Mayberry. And I was like, ooh, that was an effective speech, unlike Tim Kane the next week. And I went, that's not going to help. And by the way, if we're, if we're handicapping everybody for 2024 and why not, Pence is such an interesting confluence of three kinds of Republicans,

Trumpites, evangelicals, and regular Republicans, remember them? Part of that video they showed Wednesday night had Bill Crystal standing behind Mike Pence, leader of the resistance, Bill Crystal. And you're like, it's just interesting how many of those sort of sections of the Republican Party he touches. Yeah, I wonder if it's just in the party of Trump, no matter how much of the sort of acceptance of the Trumpites, whatever that you could get, I wonder if someone is just sort of, like I said, as someone who evokes politician who just looks like someone, again, of central casting so

much, I wonder if that person could get the nomination. But you're right. I mean, we're going to talk about the rising GOP stars in a minute. But you're right. I mean, he's got those three things kind of locked down. Let's talk about them right now, actually. because Trump and Trump family takes up so much of the oxygen that I think if you're a Republican, you're kind of like, who's on the bench again? Who do we have coming up in this party? Tim Scott

spoke on Monday night, Senator from South Carolina, Daniel Cameron, Attorney General from Kentucky. I thought Nikki Haley was just okay. I thought Tom Cotton was unbelievably dull. And Mike Pompeo is kidding himself if he thinks he's going to be president or anything. But between Tim Scott, Daniel Cameron. I thought if you were a public, like, maybe we do have a bench here. Maybe we do have people coming up who could be leaders of the party. Pompeo is an interesting one, because you watch that speech and you were sort of trying to decide whether, you know, like, who was, who felt like more of a hostage between him and Melania, right? I mean, but, but then you start, then you kind of comprehend that Pompeo is really trying, right? Or at least that's his

version of trying. He's a politician. Yes, I know. I know. I mean, we have this long history of, like the secretary of state being these like grand figures, you know, and he's just whatever the opposite of that is is Mike Pompeo. But I thought Nikki Haley and Tim Scott's speeches were really interesting because they basically gave like their version of like the vice presidential nomination speech, right? I mean, they both like introduced themselves the American public, gave their brief biography. And, I mean, and those were, I guess, were in service of a point, you know, other points they were trying to make. But, I mean, it really felt like. like Nikki Haley, who seemed, you're right, her delivery was off. It was not the Nikki Haley we

were kind of accustomed to. It seemed like she was running for office. And Tim Scott, I thought, gave a fine speech, man. I thought he, I thought he did a good job. But it's, that was sort of, it was interesting that the only people who kind of had any glimmer in their eye at all had, they, like, seemed to have the glimmer in their eye to try to like, you know, get the, get, get the, tie over themselves. I thought the Republicans did an effective job with the man and woman on street aspect of the convention. So we talked about how they had a lot of regular speeches. Well, they took basically, they took some of those kind of weird Hollywood stars like

stars in quotes like Scott Beaux from 2016 and replaced them with regular people. So there was a lobsterman who spoke at the convention. There was a cop from Albuquerque who spoke at the convention. There was a guy in a make logging great again hat. by the way currently available as a fashion accessory in Brooklyn make logging great again there was a nun sister deirdre d.D Byrne who had the line i am not just pro life i am pro eternal life at the convention i thought that stuff worked quite well especially when you really don't have a ton of stars in the republican party right now as a lot of people pointed out um and finally david in the good category something i thought i'd never say the comedy stylings of Corey Lewandowski. This is Donald Trump's former campaign manager during Monday's roll call. I'm Corey Lewandowski and I'm the chairman of the New Hampshire delegation.

On behalf of the people of New Hampshire, the Granite State, the first in the nation primary state, a state that picks presidents, the state that delivered the president's first victory in 2016. the state where our motto comes from General John Stark, who said, live free or die. New Hampshire is the state of such luminaries as Senator Daniel Webster and brave Americans like Krista McAuliffe. We are home to the first American in space, Alan Shepard, and baseball Hall of Famer Carlton Fiske, whose game-winning home run in the 1975 World Series is remembered as one of the greatest moments in sports history. New Hampshire is known for our maple syrup, comedian Adam Sandler,

poet Robert Frost, and New York Times bestselling author Corey Lewandowski. Carlton Fisk, Robert Frost, and bestselling author, Corey Lewandowski. Fantastic stuff. If you come to the roll call, you better have a bit. All right, David, let's talk a little bit about the NBA strike. Huge, huge, huge news in sports world this week. on Wednesday the Milwaukee Bucks went on strike. They refused to play game five of their first round playoff series

against the Orlando Magic in light of the shooting of Jacob Blake by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Shortly after that, news started to break that the Thunder and Rockets who were playing in the next playoff game on Wednesday weren't going to play either. And after that, the NBA moved to postpone Wednesday and Thursday's games, a lot of different sports joined in. This was just, I mean, one of these moments where you went, and of course, you and I had one and a half eyes on the Republican convention, and then we're going, whoa, what?

Mm-hmm. No NBA basketball today again. And I guess my, the first thought I had was my memory went back to the very first day of this rebooted season. Remember the Lakers beat the Clippers by two? TNT sideline reporter Jared Greenberg comes up to LeBron James after the game and LeBron James talks about social justice. Yeah.

As much as he talked about the game. And he sort of said, you know, this, this type of moment is where you want to talk about basketball. Here's what I'm going to talk about. And they've been doing that, the NBA players have been doing that in interviews for the last couple of weeks. This was the next level of that, wasn't it? The NBA players saying, look, you want to squeeze us for content. You want to talk about Luca and the Mavericks upsetting the Clippers.

You want to talk about Ben Simmons and is he going to be traded? We want to talk about Kenosha. So we are going to grab hold of that microphone and we are going to redirect the sports media to talk about what we want. Sure. Yeah, I think that's really right. I, you know, it was a really poignant, powerful statement by the Bucks and by NBA. all the NBA players. And I thought, you know, it justified them, I mean, just in terms of helping the political discourse.

Obviously, there were people who didn't want to be playing at all, and there are still people who don't want to be playing at all, thinking that they could do more outside of. But it really, but the way that the earth sort of stood still at the moment that the Bucks decided to not take the court. And I don't think that would have been possible. in any other sequence of events, you know? I mean, LeBron James can get a lot of attention in a post-game interview, but I think they would probably even be diminishing returns on that.

This was a deeply significant moment, largely because of the historical context, but also because of the way it played out. Totally. And I just, and again, there's a basketball story here, there's a labor story here, but just the media part of this, and the success of the inverse,

players, you have a whole team of people, including here at the ringer, that are ready to write basketball takes on Wednesday night's action. And now they are writing takes about Kenosha and about police violence. Mission accomplished, right? That is exactly what these players wanted to happen, right? You know, we're not going to give you the basketball takes. It's time to pay attention to this, at least for a couple of days. NBA actions. starting again Friday night. And by the way, this is all over the sports world. We're NBA centric here. But the WNBA postponed two nights for several walkouts. Six MLB games postponed at last count, Major League Soccer forced to move games, even the NHL, suspending its Thursday slate. You had interviews like Mooky Betts, the Dodgers talking about why the Dodgers

Giants game was canceled. Another media point in this is listener Matthew Moore wanted us to talk about the terminology. Some journalists use the word boycott while others use the word strike. Pretty clear that strike is the correct term here. Also, we all learned what a wildcat strike was, which is when workers strike on their own

without the approval of the union. That was kind of an interesting moment. The New York Times Sports page had this huge, went with a huge dramatic cover that said boycott. which is maybe needed the copy desk to look at it one more time before it went to press. I was also fascinated by media people who had moments. On Wednesday, Kenny Smith of the NBA on T&T.

He's on the set with Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, and Shaq, and he walked out of the broadcast. Listen to this. I think the biggest thing now is to kind of, as a black man, as a former player, I think it's best for me to support the players and just not be here tonight. Figure out what happens after that. I just don't feel quick to do that.

And I respect that. Pretty incredible moment, wasn't it? Yeah, I mean, in terms of, you know, I mean, it was almost like you could see, he was evidence of the spread, you know? I mean, it was that this was a, this was a, it's not an isolated. right you can see that like and you can see that the the success and the the success of of what the bucks the other players did um and the meaningfulness of it the success in raising kind of awareness even to people who were intimately aware of it before that moment um and also the the to look at

kennie smith's face as he made what was plainly like an uncomfortable if not super if not difficult decision right the his even for those of us that are kind of ideologically sympathetic to what the Bucks did and the other players. Kenny Smith humanized it in a way, you know? I mean, and I thought that that was just watching him go through. That was really interesting. But also watching like Chris Weber go through the kind of emotional experience, the emotional toll of everything as he was trying to sort of give an uplifting reaction message.

Can we play that clip too? Absolutely. Here's Turner's Chris Weber talking about his thoughts. about Wednesday's events. We know vote. We keep hearing vote. Everybody vote. But I'm here to speak for those that are always marginalized.

Those that live in these neighborhoods where we preach and tell him to vote and walk away. Charles Barclay came to my high school. Just seeing him in the locker room, seeing his hands and his body, that inspired me. You can't see something.

You can't be something until you see it. And when I tell you the little kids that have called me, upset. I have a godson that has autism and I just had to explain to him why we aren't playing. I have young nephews that I've had to talk to about death before they've even seen it in a movie. If not now, when? If not during a pandemic and countless lives being lost, if not now, when? Yeah.

I mean, yeah, I don't even know what to say. I know. It speaks for itself, doesn't it? Mm-hmm. Let's do a little bit of listener mail, David, but we'll get out of here. This is from Gabe Hernandez. We do this every Thursday, by the way, at the press box pod or DM, whatever your preference is. This is from Gabe Hernandez.

Wow. I've hit for the cycle this year and gotten an overworked Twitter joke, a listener mail question, and a strain pun headline on the pod, there's got to be a name for this type of achievement. Do we have a proper name, David, for the for the trifecta of the press box? God, that's really good. I mean, hitting for the cycle, there has to be some sort of like new cycle, hitting for the cycle, like overlapping. Hitting for the new cycle.

Hitting for the, I mean, that's fine. I don't know if that really, that really sounds like an award, but that might be the best we can do. Yeah, I did. I did think, you know, we were talking about last week, how you need three examples of something to write something. So you could tell you that he got the trend story. You know, you did, you had to hit all three boxes. Anyway, opening that up to nominations, what is it called when you get something in all three listener generated sections of the press box? This comes from Carson Grigsby.

Brian and David did the R&C break irony. We feel that that irony had not been dead. I guess Carson is sort of saying until the last four days. Yeah, I just find it hard to. I don't think they pushed anything that much further than it was already pushed, but maybe so. I mean, it certainly is true that like there is a absolutely type of diminishing returns. There is no value into like pointing out irony when it, if anything that happens on a week like this, but anything that was said in the convention. So maybe so.

This is from the drizzle. will every featured speaker at this year's R&C be running for president in 2024? Probably yes. Yeah. What was the list of actual featured speakers? Is that Pompeo is in there? Obviously, Haley and Scott.

You can say Donald Trump Jr., perhaps. Maybe it's on that list. Mike Pence certainly on that list. I just think, I mean, first of all, there's going to be a gigantic field in 2024. as the kind of air to Trump, the redirection of Trumpism, the antidote to Trump, I think we're going to see all those things represented. I don't know if that pivot's going to be as hard as it sometimes feels like sitting, you know, from ideologically where we sit. I think that when we saw this week that Trumpism means exactly what you wanted to mean in any given moment.

So it's not like you have to say we're not doing, we're not goodbye to all that. You can just say like, yes, the things, whatever this party is for now is the stuff that we've been for all along. And you just don't remember it, right? One of my friends who I will not name this weekend had an amazing idea, which is, let's say Trump loses in November. He starts Trump TV in two years with an apprentice style show where all the 2024 GOP contenders have to come interview with Trump. because no matter what Donald Trump is, he is obviously going to be a power broker. And his blessing slash at least tolerant,

the fact that he is, you need to win at least the fact that he is not going to do mean tweets about you if you want to be president. Mm-hmm. Don't you think all those candidates would agree to the Donald Trump Apprentice interview? I mean, if it's one interview in a dark boardroom, I mean, I would assume so, yeah.

I can't imagine how hard that would be. I mean, you know, I think if you just sort of smile and agree with whatever Trump says and be prepared to deflect as like overt racism, then you're probably going to come out fine. Yeah. But just imagine one side of the table. Like, Ivanka, there's Trump himself. There's Rudy. Maybe Dan Scavino, who had kind of an unlikely star turn last night is on that side of the table.

How are your social media skills, Mrs. former governor, Haley? What are we doing here, you know? I think I would watch that show. Definitely be better than the one that ran in the New York Times editorial thing. Totally agree. Totally agree. That's a fantastic idea.

You know, we should float that. You should try to get that idea in front of Trump because that might, you know, if he has a narrow loss and is thinking about trying to throw into question our entire election system, maybe that's enough for him to accept defeat and move on to something else. Mr. President, have you thought about a Ringer podcast in your future? finally this is from Drew what's your COVID studio presentation preference

the TNT basketball guys being like 20 feet apart the super wide ankle is a little jarring or these zoom boxes or somewhere in between good morning America will have like two people in the studio and then Robin Roberts

at home what is your spatial preference David for COVID studio television well first of all I'm impressed especially with all the zooming I'm impressed with the way that people are able to make it seem so seamless. I mean, you and I do it seamlessly, but we've been friends our whole lives. So, you know, that's sort of, you know, none of that's true.

I prefer the widely space studio because it makes for a pretty, like, there's not a ton of difference from what you're used to saying on these shows. It feels pretty much the same. But then every time they go to the wide shot, it's just good for a little laugh, which is, I think, what, you know, that sort of levity is what all these studio shows. are missing sometimes. Not that inside the NBA, it's not funny, but inside the NBA just feels very natural.

Doesn't it feel like part of Shaq's new contract was that he just gets to spread his legs and be 15 feet away from Ernie? Like it just seems like it suits that set maybe a little bit more than other places. It's like the first class seat, right? Yeah, exactly. It's leg room.

Yeah, but it's like when you see the airline and you're like, I've never even flown that airline, I didn't ever know that level of first class existed. Yeah. That's the new, yeah, That's the new inside the NBA. All right, time for David Shoemaker guesses the strained pun headline. Okay.

Monday's pun about see-through public restrooms was looky-lose. We did get a vote for urine plain view. This week, David, we have a pun book title. It comes from me. I've had this in my possession for a little while, been waiting to spring this on you. Because, David, it's a new book from liberal writer Eric Alterman. You should see David.

You see the excitement on David's face. I'll give you the subtitle, why presidents lie, Long Dash, and why Trump is worse. So the pun word here is a lying. What you just read to me was the subtitle of the actual book, and what we're looking for is the actual title of the book. That is correct.

The pun word is lying. It's going to involve the word lying. What was Eric Alterman's strained pun book title. There's, I don't, I'm thinking of only bad, like, meaningless puns. Good. The lying sleeps tonight. Is that, uh, walk the lying.

Uh, lying is the word, right? Uh, the line is the word. The lying sleeps tonight. Uh, uh, lying. The lying game. Hmm. Very good. The, uh, the, uh,

all sweet of Eric. Ultiman books that David is writing right now. Why? Eric Alterman has not stopped. He can write a couple of more of these. I'm going to give you a little help here. Lying in. Lying in.

Lying in weight. Lying in. Close? Lying in. Rhymes with weight. Lying in. Lying in. Lying and hate.

Lying in. lying in state Oh Lying in state Well that is a really That is referencing a very formal phrase All right, all right From our friends at basic books

Lying in state Yeah Now at a bookstore near you He is David Chewaker I'm Brian Curtis Research by Chris Almeida Production Magic by Erica Servantus Leaders and Fighters for Freedom and Liberty

We're back Monday With more lukewarm takes about the media See you then David See you later Brian Thank you.