The Press Box - The Election Day Eve Pod: The Selzer Poll, Pre-Recriminations, and a Wave of Democratic Despair Became Overconfidence

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

Hello, media consumers! It’s Election Day eve! Bryan and David kick off the podcast by discussing the Selzer Poll (0:47), what the news cycle has looked like during this election (10:24), some possible pre-recriminations (15:13), and more. Then in the Notebook Dump they discuss how The Washington Post lost subscribers after a non-endorsement of Harris (41:30), as well as Joel Embiid’s altercation with columnist Marcus Hayes (53:14) Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week, Only in Journalism, and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everybody? Chris Vernon here and welcome to a new season of the NBA and the mismatch. And huge welcome as well to my new co-host, Dave Jacoby. I can't wait to link with you twice a week every Tuesday and Friday right here on the mismatch to break down everything that's happening in the league. Who's playing well, who we loved, who we loathed, trade rumors, team dysfunction. We've got you covered right here. So follow us, subscribe and hit us with those five-star ratings on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. And also don't forget to follow us on social media. That's at Ringer NBA and check out

the full mismatch episodes with the two handsomest podcasters in the history of podcasting right on the Ringer NBA YouTube channel. David? Yes. Happy Election Eve, my friend. It's Election Eve Eve, Eve as we're recording this, right? Eve Eve. But for all those early voters out there, it's, uh, it might be election. What's the next day after the holiday. I don't know. Anyway, let's just do the podcast. Election Boxing Day? Yes, this is election boxing day. I don't know about you, but my wife and I started celebrating tonight around the fire, sipping cocoa, watching the kids write letters to David Chalien. Election Eve starts earlier and earlier every year. It really does. I had this whole rap for you

about how this weekend before a presidential election is like the Saturday before a Super Bowl, the veritable calm before the storm as they say yeah a little bit more at stake depending on your you know sports fandom level sure correct for the section of the newspaper yes but then I'm sitting there last night I'm like whoa did you see that seltzer pole Kamala Harris is leading in Iowa by three points

there's no calm before the storm it's time to get fired up yeah But I got to tell you, don't you feel like over the last 48 hours, Democrats, and by Democrats, I mean both political professionals and their fellow travelers on media Twitter, have swung from irrational despair about Kamala Harris to irrational overconfidence? Yes. And what are the data points here? Is it just the Seltzer poll? What else is baked into this new overconfidence? The sort of vague notes from.

Harris campaign advisors and also just general high level high level I don't even know how to say high level commentators people who have been on the inside of previous

presidential campaigns people who are just kind of vaguely saying I'm not making any predictions but the five checklist of five things that you need to have going your way in the weakening up to the election are all, all seem to be trending in Kamala Harris' way. You've seen those sort of tweets and notes on cable TV a lot.

I don't know, man. I don't have any logic behind it. And I don't really have any, any, you know, proof behind it. But it does feel like just about every election. This is the moment where the liberal side is, like, feels its oath to the most. And I don't know why. Right up from like, you know, the, you know, the, weekend before to

noon on election day. You remember John Kerry winning the election on election day until about 1 p.m. It seemed like there's a lot of early a lot of just kind of irrational excitement that comes out early in some of these things. And that's when the exit polls. You're talking about 2004 went up on drudge.

Yes. And I was like, okay. And everybody was calling around. Remember because this was a different era of internet time? Mm-hmm. It's like I've seen the exit polls on my computer. Yeah. And I'm feeling good about John Kerry.

Yeah. I'll tell you what the savvy take is this time. And I feel I've read at least two or three different versions of this. Even Nate Cohn in the New York Times was nodding at this. It's like, okay, see, the pollsters in 2016 and 2020 underestimated Donald Trump support. So this time, they're terrified of doing that. so in fact the polls that you and I are reading every day will have underestimated Harris's support

yes I feel this is an interesting theory it could be true but right now it's like none of us know that no no one has any idea if that's going to be right about it's an elaborate it's an elaborate way of saying the polls are probably wrong right and I and I and I

I get that this is a you know a fairly nuanced science that you and I are not going to be able to do justice to, even to understand, but certainly not to discuss any detail in this podcast. But if the polls are not right, then what are we talking about, right? Even if it really is a sampling error, we're going to give a little bit more to Trump,

just so we don't look dumb the same way we look dumb four years ago, eight years ago, whatever. What? Who cares? So the bowls are wrong. That's what you're telling me. And it's going to be, like, I do understand the logic of what people are saying,

but if we're sort of making up the numbers, if you're cooking something in the kitchen, and you're just sort of like, I don't want to mess up the way I did last time. So I'm just putting in some random amounts of ingredients this time. And hopefully it works out, it doesn't mean it's going to taste right at the end, right? It's just going to taste different. than what you did before. By the way, I went to PJ Clarks last night. Just wanted to throw that in there.

As long as we're talking about food, yeah. Those were talking about 2004 and food? Yeah. God, it makes me so hungry for a bacon cheeseburger right now. I open the polls this morning, David, from New York Times and Sienna. And you and I have both taken a vow that just because the election is ending, we will not stop mentioning, Sienna College, Quenipiac, Marist. We might even find out the last.

location of these fabled institutions. But I open up the polls from the New York Times and Seattle College this morning. And here we go. Pennsylvania, 4848, Michigan, 47-47. Harris in this poll has a slight lead in Wisconsin, 49,

47, and everything else is really close. Yeah. And then I'm reading some more Nate Cohn, and he says across these final polls, white Democrats were 16% likelyer to respond than white Republicans. Dot, dot, dot.

it raises the possibility that the polls could underestimate Mr. Trump yet again. So there is a competing theory of the case. As long as we're talking about liberal over exuberance, I should have written it now. My favorite tweet that I saw was a tweet that said, if the Seltzer poll is correct and all of the other polling is as wrong as Seltzer is proving and, you know, is proven the other Iowa polls to be wrong. This is what the liberal, the Harris. the landslide victory on the election day will look like.

It's just like, wow, this is great. Let's put this up on the wall for the next 48 hours. We have something to be excited about until we all end up crying in our, well, cheese steaks. The thing this reminds me most of is one time I remember on my University of Texas message boards, these are the sites of lots of recruiting rumors, right? And I remember the mods being like, you know, if we have stuff for you, we want to make sure it's true.

We want to make sure we're giving you the straight dope. on what recruits might be signing for the Longhorns. And I remember a poster years and years ago saying, no, no, no, we want you to just post everything, even if it turns out not to be right. Yeah. And I feel that's the way political news consumers are right now. I don't care if the poll is right,

if it is meaningful, if it's going to create this Anne-Seltzer tsunami across the Midwest with middle class and senior voters. I just want to know. it. I just need data points right now. Yeah, I mean, we're past the hand ringing, right? Hands are fully wrung, nails are fully bitten. All you can really do at this point is find a way to get you through the next 48 hours or so. And, I mean, listen, if you want, if you're a pollster or if you're a media outlet and you want like the least, the path of least resist or the least problematic way

that you could possibly pull, the way to, I mean, if you were going to make up a poll to get the least flack after election day, you would go 48-48, right? Because no one's going to remember the polls that just had it split right down the middle. They're going to think, oh, wow, the rationale is super simple. Oh, the Trump supporters really turned out numbers in Pennsylvania. Oh, the Harris supporter, you know, whatever. But now we're not even at just the sort of, no one's game planning. All you can really do is just hope for the best and look for news that makes you feel okay, you know, everybody, everybody, it is what it is at this point, kind of. This is where you're supposed to say it all comes down to turnout.

Yes. It all comes down to turnout. Coming up on our election Eve podcast, we have some sights and sounds from the final days of the 2024 election, including, let's remember some news cycles. Professional wrestling still explains American politics. A student journalist makes news and how to watch the returns on Tuesday night. Plus, the Washington Post lost how many subscribers because of their non-endorsement of Harris and the case of Joelle Embede and a reporter in the Sixers locker room.

All that and much more on the election Eve press box, a part of the ringer podcast network. Hello, media consumers, Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker, and producer Brian Waters here. As we talk, David, on November 3rd, I know your mind is naturally drifting. to those 450,000 voters of Puerto Rican descent in Pennsylvania or Kamala Harris standing side by side with Maya Rudolph on SNL. But if I could, I want to take you back in time. With apologies to our friends at Defector, I want to remember some news cycles. Because these things actually happened during the 2024 campaign.

Are you ready for a couple of data points? God, sure. as Dave Barry used to say, I am not making this up. Number one, Ron DeSantis ran for president, and for a short time was considered the favorite for the Republican nomination. I was going to say, I don't know if frontrunner was the right word, but he was certainly the guy that everybody was looking at. It's almost as funny as remembering that Joe Biden ran for president this year.

Speaking of which, Joe Biden debates Donald Trump back on June 27th, and do you remember right before he went out on the state, and ended his political career forever, Joe Biden tweeted out a picture of himself holding a can of water. I went back and found this tweet. It looks like it's maybe taken on a service elevator headed to the stage.

It's in our Google Doc if you want to take a glance. But the context here was that Joe Biden had just given a state of the union and he was pretty good. And everybody said, man, it's like Joe Biden took steroids before the state of the union. I wish he could take some more of those for the campaign.

So Biden thinks this is a funny joke and he tweets out this picture of him holding a can of water that says dark Brandon's secret sauce. And I guess they were going to try to sell this maybe online. And it was a big ha-ha. And then, yeah, he had his debate with Trump. That's something that really happened during this campaign. Yeah. All right, number three for you. Biden deciding whether or not to drop out shortly after this debate was hold up in his 7,000 square foot Delaware Beach House.

He had COVID, you'll remember. Oh, yeah. He was meeting with advisors. And per the New York Times, the president's cat Willow was slinking around underfoot when these matters of state were being discussed. that's something that really happened. You think Willow was named after the epic fantasy movie character, Willow? Or is... He's a big Ron Howard fan or Val Kilmer fan that Joe Biden?

Yeah. I remember reading all those stories at the time and thinking, as dire as this situation seems to just about everybody who would be listening to this podcast. I really found it hard to believe that anybody at the Biden compound was actually having a conversation about whether or not he should continue in the race. You thought they were just sitting there just talking about, you know, the news, sports cores, that kind of thing. Yeah, I mean, listen, it's not that long of a conversation, you know, it seems pretty straightforward when we're the other, or you're avoiding the subject, which I kind of thought was the MO at the time. It certainly was. I'll remind you that there were two different assassination plots against Donald Trump during this campaign.

One in which a photographer captured the bullet in midair, captured an image of the bullet, I should say, in midair. That happened during this campaign. And then let us not forget, Laura Lumer, finding her way above the Trump plane. This was right before Trump's debate with Kamala Harris. so his next debate and we learned from Tim Alberta's big story in the Atlantic that published over the weekend that Lumer

was kicked off the plane for a particular reason what sealed Lumer's fate according to two people who were part of these conversations this is Alberta writing wasn't just her racist diatribes but also her appearance. Trump who is generally appalled by plastic surgery was disgusted to learn about the

apparent extent of Lumer's facial alterations. Wait, what? I miss this news Was this recent news? That particular nugget was published over the weekend in Tim Alberta's Atlantic story. So Trump was okay with the way she looked, just not the realization that she had had worked on. And it's certainly the way it's written. Wow. Okay.

Yeah. Those are all things that actually happened during this presidential election. I want to talk to you about pre-recriminations. Precriminations? Precriminations. right because there's no there's no use in waiting for somebody to lose and then us going over all the reasons they lost yeah we can do it right now i feel the harris loses precriminations are pretty easy a lot of it's Biden or if you prefer the democratic party not pushing Biden to get out earlier we can do tim walls over josh shapiro yeah walls has sort of disappeared at least as a player of any significance. But where do you place Kamala Harris shouldn't have been the candidate in the pre-crimination ledger?

Is that on the Harris side or is that a separate category? I think that's mostly tied into Biden, right? Yeah. Because you say that Biden didn't get out soon enough and therefore he made a Democratic primary all but impossible. I mean, remember people were entertaining that idea through the summer, that there was going to be that blitz primary. Remember they were going to be interviewed by Obama and Bill Clinton on stage?

It was just so many crazy ideas. But I think you put that in the, it's Biden's fault column. Biden's political legacy is very, very much writing on what happens on Tuesday night. If Harris wins, people forget about a lot of that or a lot of that gets shoved to the side. Yeah. But if she doesn't. Well, and also Harris is there to kind of write the, right, help, write the history if she so chooses right i mean it was such an act of bravery that led to that moment

blah blah blah um but you're yeah absolutely correct yeah and harris's refusal to break with biden it's probably on the list too or at least break with him in a more dramatic way instead herndon and i got into that a little bit on thursday and he was talking about here some of the ways she could have done that she she decided not to do that which was an interesting choice uh the republican precriminations i mean again, this is like kind of a more fascinating one because we've thought of Donald Trump as the semi-inavitable nominee since at least last summer, so almost a year and a half ago when DeSantis's poll started tanking. But you know, if you read that Tim Alberta story, it's really interesting. I don't know that there has ever been a campaign where it's so easy for reporters to spot the difference between the professional campaign apparatus and the candidate himself.

How so? Well, let's watch television over the last couple days. There's some very, very professional, very straightforward Donald Trump ads that are like, elect Donald Trump because of the economy and because of immigration and something else. Yeah. Then watch Donald Trump on the stump talking about Liz Cheney and firing squads. Or various violent things done to us media members. or RFK Jr. talking about fluoridated water

or anything that happened at that MSG rally. Yeah. It feels like two completely different things. And that's always the case to some extent, you know, like campaigns are trying to herd candidates a different way and candidates will go off script and go off message or give bad answers or have bad debates. But man, I've never seen it so apparent.

Yeah. As in this campaign. Yeah, that's definitely true. I mean, but that's just sort of Trump in a nutshell, right? The longer he stays in this thing, right, he stays in the political game, the more, to some extent, professionalized his apparatus. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the more, the more that Trump is the center of, of, of the Republican Party proper, the more necessary power. all the super PACs are going to have, right? And actually just like trying to soften the edges,

trying to conduct a coherent campaign. And so that's a lot of the stuff that we end up seeing, right? Is it is the, and then that's just, that's just what Trump necessitates, I feel like. Yeah. I mean, I guess maybe there were so many think pieces at the beginning about Susie Wiles

and how she was going to run this totally different Trump campaign that was going to be, different than Kelly and Conway and Corey Lewandowski and everybody that came before. But it certainly stands out that there are two very different Trump campaigns sort of fighting for airtime. I want to ask you this. How are you going to watch election night? With my fingers over my eyes. Under a pillow.

I don't know. There is something like lightly reassuring about the notion that this will not be decided on election night. although I'm not sure that's going to end up being true but there is a little you know it makes it a little bit easier to stomach

because you're like I know I'm not watching and I know the protagonist is not going to die in this scene sort of as terrifying as the movie might be yeah I mean I assume I'll just be flipping channels probably now that I'm saying this out loud, this is a great question.

I haven't really thought about it. But I'll probably be with my mom. I feel like my... It feels like a secure way to spend election night. I feel like my presence is probably more necessary there than with my wife and kids. But we'll see. Maybe my mom will come over to our house. If you had to pick just one family member to reassure on election night,

what would be your mom, your partner or your kids? I have, I don't know, but I have just become more of a CNN person over the last four years. I used to watch MSNBC and dude, every time I turn over there now, I swear, Rachel Maddow is saying goodbye to a Democratic senator or governor like they are her favorite aunt or uncle. Thank you so much. Just wonderful, wonderful to spend so much wonderful time with you tonight. I saw that episode too, yes. Holy cow, man. And it just like makes your teeth chatter.

I just, I can't do this. Like, I cannot do this. Yeah, there was a thing about, I think it was an Ezra Klein piece in the times today or this weekend said, had something about how it was like the Democrats are now just like, the people who were trying to uphold the institution of democracy. And the Republicans are just like this like kind of big tent wild coalition of people who are just trying to just get power, you know, and just different, I mean, and, you know,

you get the tech bros and the trying to, the MAGA people. And there's a, you know, a bunch of different ones, whatever the JD Vances are. But there is something that's, that is, that MSNBC and just sort of cable news in general has become, but the, but the, you know, the cable news in general, when they started on the defending the the concept of journalism kick during the first Trump term got a little bit I don't know just a little bit cloying and then now there's with like the liberal that added onus of like the the the the liberal side just being the party the the the the coalition of of the of the defense of all that is sacred within our country listen it is the right cause don't get me wrong yes democracy good but it does

change the way that, you know, this isn't your, this isn't your lefty uprising news network that, you know, that we grew up with. I thought, um, Astead made a good point on Thursday because he was talking about Democrats, and I think you'd put the MSNBC people into this same group. When, when they hear democracy, when they hear Trump talking about stolen elections, they immediately do climb that hill, right, and plant the flag and go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, sir, not in America. But there is another part of democracy too where he says he talks to voters all the time who say versions of here's the thing.

I'm not talking about stolen elections and, you know, 10,000 mules or whatever the hell that movie was. But I'm talking about the fact that democracy isn't working for me. These candidates go into office and my circumstances don't change. I'm not feeling like I am part of the American system. That's a condition out there that. that Trump, even Trump raising crazy conspiracy theories somehow touches on that in a way that Democrats haven't quite been able to hold on to. And everybody and media members too could do a better job of thinking about those people. One side show of election night TV, David, is it Brian Williams is back?

On Amazon, Apple TV, ors he on? He's on Amazon. Yeah. Just like Amazon got Al Michaels to call the football games. they got Brian Williams to do election night. It's going to come on at 5 p.m. It is going to be, I guess, your first major streaming election night special.

Williams tells the AP, and you'll need to imagine his best anchorman voice here. This will be the first, if you'll forgive the phrase, new product introduction in the election night space since color television. He's going to have an all-star team. Wait.

He's being sarcastic. I mean, he's being Brian Williams. I mean, Brian Williams is often sarcastic. It's that sort of tongue in cheek, I'm kidding, but I'm not. But he's also kind of using the vocabulary of like the

Amazon sales room pitch, right? Like this is something that somebody would actually say. I think you could probably identify some other products as loosely as he's using that term that have been there since been introduced since the color television.

I mean, Steve Kornacki's been introduced since color television. Yeah. That was big to the election night space. It's like, it's like the introduction of the automobile. So yeah. Brian Williams' all-star cast will include Shep Smith, who I know you've been looking out for every election night.

James Carvel, Mike Murphy, our friend Tara Palmary, Doug Brinkley, the historian, Tim Ryan of Ohio Oh wow Abby Huntsman former view co-host

It's quite a Quite an assembly over there He also What happened to Chef Smith Didn't he have a show? Yeah he was on CNBC And then not anymore Now he's on with Brian Williams

On election night I feel like we didn't cover his departure We didn't notice He'd left the election night space Until he reappeared in said space Brian Williams is promising some gadgetry we've never seen before. I'm not sure if that's going to be like a next-gen stats Thursday night football telecast or what.

It's like on Amazon when you're watching a show or a movie and you hit pause and it has all the actors' names on the screen. Maybe they'll just do that. Every time you hit pause, it's just like that's Donald Trump right there. It says continuity error. Oh, yeah. tells you why something was wrong and it's like this dumbest thing ever. Yeah, I kind of want Jeff Bezos to come on to the Amazon election night thing and lecture

everybody about why they shouldn't endorse candidates. I think that'd be kind of a neat feature. Maybe he'll come on and say we shouldn't call this election. That might put us in an odd place. Tell Brai, why he can't call the election. This story from this week just absolutely made me smile. You and I always love when a student. journalists muscles their way into a new cycle.

And we have one such student journalist. His name is Luke Riddell. He goes to Syracuse. I know that will surprise you. Mike Johnson, who is the Speaker of the House, was campaigning up in Syracuse for a local Republican Congress member. And Luke Riddell asked about the Chips Act,

which is a semiconductor chip manufacturing act. that's very important in that part of New York. CNN says it would bring a $100 billion microchip manufacturing center to the area. So listen to Luke's question and then the answer from the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. Yes, hey, here are you all? Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate it. So two quick questions, if I may.

The former president has said that he doesn't support the Chips and Science Act. You voted against it. If you have a Republican majority in Congress and Trump in the White House, will you guys try to repeal that law? I expect that we probably will, but we haven't developed that part of the agenda yet. We've got to get over the election first. That's why we're so happy to be in New York's 22nd. So then he goes off and says all this pabulum about how great the candidates is who's there to

talk about and on and on. Well, Luke Redell tweets out this video, David, and this turns out to be big news. Big news, not least to the local congressman that Mike Johnson was trying to help. He's like, we're going to cancel that $100 billion. thing that's coming to your area. Mike Johnson then had to walk back his comments, as they say in Washington, saying, I misheard the question.

He misheard it. Oh, that's great. And if you want to see how unlikely that is, please watch the entire clip where not only does he answer the question directly, but then the congressman he's campaigning for standing next to him also answers the question the opposite way.

But our intrepid student reporter Luke Riddell not only tweeted out the video after Ms. Hurdgate had emerged, he tweeted out a picture of himself standing just a few feet away from Mike Johnson as he asked the question. I thought he was talking about chips, like just the things you eat. No. Didn't really know what he meant when he said repeal, but I was just trying to be polite. I really had no idea what this dude was talking about. yeah no that's a mike johnson's been out there just wilding and just getting putting his foot in his mouth all the left and right out there and that's great i'm glad they have no no policy uh no no policy plans for when when if trump gets elected seems like a real solid plan i though i do appreciate i

misunder i misunderstood him is plausible on the spectrum of things much more plausible than the what we've heard a lot of this week. Like I haven't heard the joke that the comedian at MSG made a week, a full week ago that is tormenting my campaign and I've been asked about 12 times. I haven't heard it. Not familiar with the joke. Like what? Yeah.

The people not realize it makes you sound like you would be terrible at being president or being in charge of anything. If you're just like a week later, you're at no point of you. been interested enough to see what people are talking to you about? I don't really follow political news. But I would like to have one of the most important jobs in the country. I keep meaning to look that up on Twitter.

And I keep for every time I hope I just get stuck in my timeline and I just forget, just forget what I'm there for. God. Oh, this is the best reason or let's say a top 10 reason not to reelect Donald Trump is that we'd not to hear senators say I haven't seen the tweet for a number. other four years that they're inevitably asked about. Anyway,

welcome to the journalism business, Luke Riddell. Great job out there on the trail. Sean McCreech, David, the ringers are, I should say the press box's very own Sean McRish, wrote a very funny article over the weekend, which is about a particular rhetorical tick of Donald Trump.

Now, that's a big category. But McCreche identified one. We keep hearing on the trail, which is Donald Trump stands before a crowd and say, and says, my advisors didn't want me to tell you this, but I'm going to say it anyway. Let's play a little bit of a clip here. This is going to end in a soundbite that made some news.

This is Donald Trump having a conversation with his advisors. And my people told me about four weeks ago, I was saying, no, I want to protect the people. I want to protect the women of our country. I want to protect the women. Sir, please don't say that. Why? They said, we think it's very inappropriate for you to say.

They said, why? I'm president. I want to protect the women of our country. They said, sure, I just think it's inappropriate for you to say. Pay these guys a lot of money. Can you believe it? They said, well, I'm going to do it whether the women like it or not. I'm going to protect them. I'm going to protect them from migrants coming in. That's the first time I've listened to that full clip and realize that maybe the most gawling part of the whole thing is that Trump is telling this. story and doesn't seem to have any comprehension as to why his advisors might have thought that would have been a bad thing to say. Not that he would just went and said it because that's not

shocking, but just that it would be at, like, like he couldn't, he was grasping for the word and couldn't get to misogyny, right? Like, he knew that someone had told him a word and he was just like, inappropriate. Like he was just he just had to fill in the blank. But that he just had no concept

of what the issue would have been. But I do like the rhetorical device. That is a good one. They told me not to tell you because that's like 99% of whatever

this era in American life is about. It's the secret knowledge conveyed you by a dunderhead. Totally. I mean, we should start every episode saying,

you know, Bill Simmons and Sean Fennacy didn't want us to say this. But what the hell? We owe it to you listeners to say it anyway. Give our podcast a little more of a frisson of excitement.

How professional wrestling explains politics. Oh, no. Continued. You, sir, sent me a video last week that had Donald Trump deplanning from Trump Force One, his airplane, and walking into a rally while the theme song for the wrestler the undertaker played Trump was doing the wrestler

the undertaker I always worried that people are coming in here they don't have any clue what we're talking about it's fantastic it's fantastic this is like when you get your when like your

remember the early days of playlists where you would just people like you would throw a party and you would just have your iPod like not your iPod like not your this is pre-iphone. There was just like an iPod and it had all your shit on it and you didn't really have

separate playlists for things. It just had all your stuff. And so you would throw it on. Maybe you had a mix. But you would put on a, you put the mix on for your party and you're, you're proud of like the various MP3s. You've scavenged from other people's hard drives to make this very nice mix.

And then like 45 minutes into the party like chat. after three of the tipping point comes on because it's just because your audio books are just mixed the hell in there and you didn't really factor this into the to the party planning. That was sort of what it must have been like when the Undertaker's theme song, they're like, Donald Trump's like, oh, he said we could use that one and we're down to like 21 songs now. Let's throw the Undertaker in the mix. Right. We've already put in Ave Maria today, so how about The Undertaker?

The funny thing about the how pro wrestling explains politics think piece that we like to make fun of is it usually is about something, right? Like politics is K-fabe now and J.D. Vance has Xbox heat. There's at least a thesis there. This is just Donald Trump walking into the Undertaker's theme music. Yeah, but if Donald Trump loses, then that's that somehow like retroactively, becomes the last significant moment of the campaign. Just like Sean Hannity thought him getting on the garbage truck or whatever was the was the greatest moment in presidential history.

It might just end up being the undertaker. Yeah, the streak is broken, you might say. One more note for you. Wait, can I, since we're talking about streaks, can I ask you something just totally a question you won't want to answer? This is a late night press post. If Donald Trump loses. Okay.

how certain what are the odds that he's going to run next time 100% yeah 100% going to run I just think that's the plan if he loses then again what are the odds he run to the age of 88 I'm curious why did you think I wouldn't want to answer this question I just thought to be putting yourself out there too much but I guess if it's 100% then that's not that shocking I agree

he will run as long as he is alive for president yeah I think so too I mean, the awkward thing would be if he wins and then he is term limited by at least the Constitution as we understand it today. What does he do in 2028? I think it would be awkward for him. Like he's not going to be, you know, win one for the Gipper like Reagan in 88. He is going to want to be in the spotlight. And I think that's going to be a very weird situation.

He'll be confused as to whether or not to push the boundaries of the Constitution and run again. or you think he'll just be like uncomfortable with not being president? It will be awkward both personally and constitutionally that Donald Trump cannot run for president one more time if he wins. Constitutionally awkward is a is an incredible place that we found ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. I just I think I think that there's still whatever, whatever benefit of the doubt we're giving the sort of norms of institutions of American government. I think there's a just a I talked to a lot of people who were like, well, this is the last time they'll run. Also, he made such a big deal about Biden's age as if that he's bound now to some code. No, no chance.

That's what Donald Trump does all the time. He accuses somebody something. He doesn't. But knowing that he would be probably a terrible candidate in four years. We're not terrible, but less. Worse. He has diminished this. Is the Republican Party totally tethered to him until he passes away?

I think it's a really great question. I mean, they're clearly terrified of him at present. So are they just not going to be, I mean, every time we hear like, we're not terrified anymore, you're done, sir,

but he doesn't go away and he doesn't want to go away. So I don't think he's going to, his influence will slack off all that much. I got one more wrestling politics note for you. Oh, good. You're familiar with the movie Red One? Yeah.

starring The Rock comes out on November 15th. This is a tweet from Jacob. Red One is lifting the review embargo right in the middle of election night on Tuesday at 9th Pacific. Most genius method to hide potential bad reviews I've seen. Oh my God. Is it supposed to be terrible? Is that the idea? Well, I don't know, but midnight eastern David, 9 Pacific.

You and I might be on the air at that point. We need to immediately start seeking out unembarked Red One reviews. I was going to say this is going to be awkward because I was to be filing my Red One review. Yeah, David, we got the latest in Bucks County just right a kicker. We got a we got a pot about this. All right, coming up in 30 seconds, it wasn't hard to see why the Washington Post non-endorsement of Kamala Harris was a bad idea. Economically speaking, it might have been harder to see just how much the post competitors would smell blood. But first let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag.

It was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always, always gratefully received. David, among the many celebrity endorsers of the Harris campaign, we got another one Saturday. Harrison Ford. Oh, yeah. Has made a video he is going to be voting for Kamala Harris. It was an overwork Twitter joke to do your best Indiana Jones voice and write Nazis. I hate these guys.

If you hope the Harris campaign gets fortunate and glory, congrats, you made the overwork Twitter joke of the week. All right, David, a couple of quick ones in the notebook dump. A few more thoughts on the Washington Post non-endorsement. NPR's David Fulkenflake has done some terrific work on this story since you and I potted last time. Yeah. He reported that as of last Tuesday, the Post had lost more than 250,000 subscribers. Yeah, it's unbelievable.

250,000, a number that was later confirmed by the paper itself. That represents Falkin Flake tweeted approximately 10% of all paid circulation. So here is the Washington Post, a newspaper that runs on subscriptions. This is a paid media in it. you have to pay for. It was losing loads of money before endorsement gate. 10% of its paid circulation vanished. Yeah.

That is unbelievable. Mm-hmm. Absolutely unbelievable. Did you see that one, that weird story that the New York Times had lost a bunch of subscriptions as well? Yes. And people were like F. Bezos when they unsubscribed. Yeah. I believe Max Taney broke that.

Yes, that's correct. Was there ever any more reporting on that one? That's just my favorite kind of story because it's just media literacy at its finest. I am mad and I'm going to cancel something and it's all Jeff Bezos's fault. Yeah, exactly. Or else you're just like, I don't know, I can't figure out how to unsubscribe from the Washington Post. So I'm using like rocket money or one of these apps that you see advertising. on TV and while you're doing it, you're like, shit, man, I'm subscribed to a lot of stuff.

Absolutely. I might as well get rid of them. I don't really watch them. Don't really watch like AMC Plus anymore in the New York Times. It was just X out of here. Oh, my God. I was amazed that the Washington Post competitors wasted absolutely no time and stomping on the post bleeding.

corpse. Yeah. Bleeding corpse. Is that right? You know what I mean. Bloody corpse. Yeah. Bloody corpse.

New York Times, the next day has their endorsement of Kamala Harris right at the top of the homepage. They have a video explaining why they have chosen to do endorsements. The Atlantic, just by pure coincidence a couple days later, sends me their endorsement of Harris in an email. By the way, this was published several weeks ago, but we would like you to know that we, and magazine that you also have to pay for have endorsed Kamala Harris.

Thought you might be interested in that fact. The Guardian did fundraising on their endorsement of Harris. Made a lot of money. Again, there are so many parts of this that are interesting, but doing this in a competitive media environment where everybody's trying to find their niche and especially people that are asking you to pay for something, and then you just give this giant target to all your competitors and go,

hey, our publication didn't mind endorsing Kamala Harris. And if we weren't, we certainly weren't going to cancel it right before the election. Yeah. And have our space executives meeting with Trump on the very same day. Space executives sounding the fakes thing in the world. No, it's funny because when we talked about this before, we said that, you know, it's sort of sad, but that the canceling descriptions might be the most direct line to getting the attention of your billionaire owner, of the billionaire owner of the publication you subscribe to, but it's also going to, you know, most negatively affect the rank and file. But this isn't a terror. This may be a more direct way to get the attention of the, of the billionaire owner of the Washington Post, to have all.

of the competition, like you said, dancing on the bloody corpse or whatever. You know, I mean, this is the sort of stuff that's going to pop up on, you know, news feeds and at dinner parties and stuff like that. Like, shit, man. So they're really, the New York Times really, uh, really talking some shit about you behind your back or to your face, really, you know, and that's, that's important stuff for rich guys. I mean, this is, this is the, you know, one of the most successful businessmen in the world. Yeah. You know, this is the guy who didn't let Barnes & Noble.com become a competitive entity in the world of selling you books.

And he has opened up his newspaper to that. I read an article in seven before by Tanny and Ben Smith said called the Washington Post sold democracy. Now it needs a new line of business. And I was thinking about this and I was like, you know what? The resistance Twitter readers and let's figure that

a lot of the people, maybe almost all the people that canceled fit under that tent, people that would have both subscribed to the Washington Post and been mad enough or eager enough to make a statement that they then canceled the paper.

Those readers can be incredibly annoying. Because they learn what they know about Donald Trump from a Josh Dossy article, David, and then they're like, ah, but look at your headline. Your headline doesn't please me. Yeah. Your headline is normalizing fascism. I don't know. These are the people that say your newspaper doesn't do enough to expose Trump, but then every time you expose Trump, they tweet about it and screenshot it and go crazy. These are some of the most annoying readers of all time. But I don't know what a successful Washington Post is without those people. Oh, yeah.

I mean, you and I have had various conversations about this, but a successful Washington Post that doesn't lose the gobs of my. money it's losing right now has readers who are interested in politics and the readers who are interested in politics and we'll pay for it at this point in history that's the resistance that's these people 250,000 conservatives aren't walking through that door going oh interesting newspaper over here you didn't didn't endorse Harris maybe I will give your paper a whirl that's not happening. So what do you do? Now maybe these people come back. Maybe Donald Trump gets reelected and Dossie is breaking news and they're like, okay, I want to read this stuff. I need to know this stuff. And they come back. But I just don't, I don't understand what the Washington Post is without

those people. Yeah. I mean, I think that any large scale subscription service is, heavily, heavily dependent on people who are wealthy enough to not remember they're subscribing to the service. And to the extent that these people are involved, I mean, are some of the cancellations, that takes, we'll take an incredibly long time to rebuild. You know, if you canceled all your subscriptions, you would sign up for a couple of them tomorrow. And then it might take you a full, like, three, four years to resubscribe to something just in a moment of need. You know, it's like, I really got to

freaking watch Masters of Air again or whatever, you know. And then you finally pay money to Apple TV Plus. The, so yeah, I mean, that could take forever to rebuild. But you're right about the resistance. I'm not sure if I would define it exactly the same way, but, but you're, but it's, it's true.

I mean, it, it is whatever portion of that, that those sorts of ideologues that also understand that there's sort of baseline information New York Times and Washington Post, even the Wall Street Journal and stuff that it's important to subsidize and also learn, you know, and also read. So yeah, it's a, I think though they may get some of it back. I'm a little bit, but I was trying to do a thought experiment about whether or not I thought a Harris win or a Trump win would make it more likely for canceled Washington Post Subscriber X to resubscribe.

I think a Trump win by far. Because the new, just because it's more people are hungry for the news. Yes. The Harris win was sort of a forgiven forget sort of the idea for, I mean, concept for me, right? It's just like, all right, they didn't end as badly as it could have. So we'll just renew the subscription. But you're right.

I think people would be more so thirsty for news in general that Trump will probably do better for them. We should have a whole discussion about what resistance 2.0 is going to look like in the media and otherwise if Donald Trump wins. I don't think it will look exactly like 1.0 in terms of I am subscribing to every single publication on earth as an act of my political opposition. But I do believe that will happen, right? people will, Donald Trump will be the president, people will regard that as an emergency, and they will want to pay for stuff. You know, that will be one way they cope with that, deal with that. Yeah, it's totally true.

Resist in whatever way. And I think the paper, again, the reporters are still going to do a great job. Like, they're going to be really good at breaking news if Donald Trump's the president again. And I just don't, I don't know how it adds up again. And again, reminder, the post was losing. lots of money before those 250,000 people walked out the door. It was not making money. So we got to get busy inventing Wirtle 2,

Wordle 3, Wordle 4, and Whirdle 5, or we got to figure out how to get people that will pay money to read political news to subscribe to the newspaper. And believe me, I'm not saying we need to kowtout. The pet post needs to kowtow to them or turn the paper into a bad Twitter account. Not saying that at all.

but that has got to be part of a successful Washington Post. That's it. You know. Yeah. And you've dug yourself a big hole for absolutely no reason at all. You know, and the whole thing of, oh, the timing wasn't anything. It just, it would just weren't organized. And, you know, that's, I just kind of realized late in the game that I was going to, you know,

that we shouldn't do this. Give me a break with that stuff. I mean, I just, I don't find that plausible. Yeah. I mean, it's just like the Trump, I didn't see the joke lie. It's like if we're to take you, everyone's just sort of nodding along saying like, hey, we know you're lying, but we can also see that this is a dead end. So we're just going to let it, just going to give up. But clearly, if we were to take you at your word, then the more pressing question is, did you not understand what a catastrophe it was going to be then?

Are you not the owner of a newspaper? You shouldn't understand the timing of something like this? You took the time to come to this, the considered decision that the Washington Post of all papers should not be endorsing a president. And then you just like hit like publish on your blog so fast that you didn't have time to think about the ramifications of it. Like what a idiot you are. Should we talk about Joe Ellen B before we get out of here?

Oh, sure. All right. This is a strange story. there is a columnist at the Philly Enquirer named Marcus Hayes. Marcus Hayes wrote a column about Joelle Embed, who has not played this year yet for the 76ers. In the column, he called him the least dependable superstar in the history of the game,

and Marcus Hayes also wrote this. Joel Embed consistently points to the birth of his son, Arthur, as the major inflection point in his basketball career. He often says that he wants to be great to leave a legacy for the boy, named after his little brother, who tragically died in an automobile accident when Embed was in his first year as a 76er. Well, in order to be great at your job, you first have to show up for work. Embedd has been great at just the opposite. Now in his 11th season, he consistently has been in poor condition.

This poor conditioning apparently seems to have delayed his debut this season, etc., etc. So, Joel Embedd was not happy about that. not necessarily the parts about him not showing up to play, though I'm sure he wasn't happy about that either. But the way that point was linked to both his son and his deceased brother in the lead of that column. He mentioned it to reporters when Marcus Hayes was not present. His quote was,

I've done way too much for this effing city to be treated like this. and then on Saturday in the locker room Hayes and Embed had a sort of meeting I guess that's one word for it after a game against the Grizzlies according to the AP Mbid said the next time you bring up my dead brother

and my son again you are going to see what I'm going to do to you and I'm going to have to dot dot live with the consequences Embed B then reportedly shoved Hayes what are we to make of all of this just really drop down into my lap, huh?

Well, maybe I should ask, where do we start with Marcus Hayes and Joel Embed? I mean, listen, it was incredibly inartful lead. And I think inartful is an important word there, right? He's not taking shots at Joel Embed's son or brother. He is linking this in this really awkward way. though. Yeah, and you, I mean, you said though, I mean, you said it correctly that he probably, that Embed probably wasn't happy with the rest of the column either. I mean, I think that that's a consideration from the point of view of the writer as well. The writer needs to take in as well, right?

Like the reference to the brother to the son was not necessarily out of bounds on its own, but when he wasn't, you didn't say anything explicitly inappropriate about them, but in the context of a piece that its sole purpose is to jump up and down and make noise at the expense of Joelle Embed, then it's understandable, I think, to some extent that it would be read especially by Embed that way. And also, it's a thing, I mean, it sounds like it's setting journalism aside. I mean, just read it again. And it's like, that's a sort of thing that like you could maybe imagine yourself saying to someone in real life, something like that. And it's a, and it's a sort of thing you would immediately apologize for when you saw the look on their face. Like,

dude, that's not what I fucking meant at all. You know, like, I'm sorry. And this is like in paper for everyone to read and blah, blah, blah. I'm kind of surprised that it got to the point of these two having a sort of meeting in the locker room as it was described that none of the writers that Embed had previously spoken to about it or the PR team for the Sixers sort of would have intervened. Maybe they did. Maybe they tried to. Um, they definitely, they definitely did at some point. But if this is where it ends, I don't think that this is more than just a sort of cautionary tale, right? Like, you know, be ready to own your sick burns or these are real people, you know, just be careful, you know, when you're dealing with it. When you're, everything,

when you're a sports writer, can feel like grist for whatever the column is your writing. But, you know, these pro athletes are people, too, as they tell us. I'm with you on that. And Hayes did rewrite the lead. He said due to reader feedback and just made it a more straightforward lead about Embed not playing. The point of the column was he was saying the 76th year should give refunds to fans if he's not showing up to play. That sounds like a sports column. I will underline all your points there about remembering people's basic humanity. I also think like, you know, a lot of stuff is settled in locker room face to faces like that. That's the oldest rule of sports writing, you write something tough and then you show up the next day.

So if the player wants to yell at you or get mad at you or take issue to a column in whatever way that you are there and you're available, you know, you're not, it's called showing up. That's one of those old school columnist ethics of writing. You know, you don't just decide to take a week off the newspaper at that point. I would draw the line though at, you know, putting your hands on somebody else. It's very hard to understand the context of this because we don't have a very video or seeing what's happening. Yeah, it's also just a bizarre.

I mean, it sort of was trickling out in tweets. And then there were stories that like the, all the stories seem to artfully, like, seemed to like, avoid repeating what the lead of that story was. So it was, I mean, for, I can understand why, but it was, there's a lot of just kind of confusion about it. Also, it doesn't help that Embedde was quoted as speaking sort of like a first draft of like an 80s movie villain. But I'm not, but that's also could have just been actually what Joelle and Bede said.

So I'm not. I thought the same thing, but I'm guessing that was in the AP, and I'm guessing the writer was taping while that was going on. Because remember, this is the locker room after the game. So you're probably running a recorder or you turn on a recorder as soon as this happens. It makes more sense as a like a literal recording than it would have, you know, as just someone kind of taking light liberties with it.

But I think the whole, I think, yeah, it's unclear what happened. Obviously, there's a line at putting your hands on somebody. But like I said, if it ends here, I think belaboring the issue kind of just sort of defeats the whole purpose of everything. Like this doesn't have to be a real major story, right? Right. I mean, look, the NBA is investigating because somebody put hands on somebody else. Yeah. That's probably the line.

But there is a grand history of writers writing things that athletes don't like, showing up in the locker room and that stuff getting talked out. and it may not be the athlete is like, hey, you know what? It turns out great column. I totally understand your point of view. It's just like talked out. That's what happens. You know, and whenever I,

you know, I've talked about before, whenever you see these clips of an athlete getting mad and a press conference, like this has been happening for the history of athletes and sports writers. This is what happens. We're just seeing this now or we're having these little moments where we get little glimpses of this.

I would, however draw the line between putting hands on somebody, right? Let's, even if it's a crappy column, you know, putting hands on somebody. Again, I don't know everything that happens before that moment comes to pass, but it strikes me that you should be able to write something that sucks, go in there and not have an athlete do that. Again, maybe more facts come to lighten you and I understand this in a different way. It's time for David Shoemaker guest is the strained

on headline. Yeah. Thursday's headline about the well-timed return of Russell Wilson was Russ hour. Today's non-election headline comes to us from our good pal jam dad who's got a press box campaign

button headed his way. It's from the Wall Street Journal. David, the story is about bathtubs. As a homeowner, I know you've been thinking a lot about bathtubs. Turns out there's two options. You either have a built-in bathtub or you go old school and you have a free-standing bathtub.

We need to hear opinions about both kinds of bathtubs. It is important, David, that we give equal weight to the two kinds of tubs. Think about that as you ponder. What was the Wall Street Journal's strained pun headline? Equal weight. for built-in or free-standing bathtub Yes, we need to hear two opinions

like a clawfoot bathtub like Is this going to be like a tub something or not tub something? Are we going? No. Okay. The word you're using, the word in the headline is bath.

Bath Bath Number two different opinions. Yes. Bath. Oh my gosh, it's too late. What if we put bath instead of both? So bath.

Oh. Both both. We're there. We're close. Bath. Both options. Both are both. Hmm, not options, but both.

Right and left. Both sides of the sort of baths. We're close. I can't get it. Bath sides now. Okay. Bath Sides Now is the Washington, or excuse me, the Wall Street Journal's very strained, pun headline. He is David Shoemaker. I wish you could see his face right now too, folks, just stunned late night by the, by that headline. He is David Schumacher. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Brian Waters. All right, coming up on the press box, we've got to fill people in on the schedule.

Tuesday night is the next time you're going to hear from us, election night. We may have a winner. We may not. in either case David and I will be on the old press box machine talking to you probably fairly late at night then we're just going to keep going semaphores Dave Weigel is set up to talk to us next week

hopefully to do a How Harris won or how Trump won podcast Joel Anderson our new teammate at the ringer is on tap to be with us next week can we not wait to talk to him we're just going to pot and pot and pod, David, until we have a president. That's what you're getting, folks.

Cannot wait to discuss everything. We'll talk Tuesday night when Shoemaker and I will have more lukewarm takes about the future of the free world. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.