The Press Box - The Evaporating Iran News, CNN’s Podcast Identity Crisis, and Sports Radio’s Wilding Period

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Today on The Press Box, Bryan and David talk about the shortening news cycle under Trump, especially during wartime. Then they talk about journalists trying to get back into the Pentagon (20:19). In the Notebook Dump, they talk about Bill Raftery, Bob Woodward’s new book, sports radio fights (27:08), and more. Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week, and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline! Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David ShoemakerProducers: Bruce Baldwin, Isaiah Blakely, and Jamie Yukich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Damn it! Yes. I woke up in Los Angeles yesterday morning. I drank a cup of tasteless but effective currig coffee. And then as one does, I looked at the news. And I experienced something that seems... This is like the short story from my MFA class where the teachers just like cut the first paragraph.

It was where does that get? Is it a Philip K. Dickian? I stared into my intelligent newsbox and it told me. I had a bit of an experience like that. Before I woke up, Donald Trump had posted on true social that the U.S. and Iran were having, quote, conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East. Yes.

Also, before I woke up. I was going to say. There was a few tweets before you woke up, but go on. The Iranians had denied the story. Speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohamed Baguerre Galaboff, later tweeted, no negotiations have been held. Mm-hmm. Now, we could make some points here that Trump is churning out new U.S. war objectives

like our football writer friends are churning out mock drafts, which is at a very, very high rate. I'm not sure if Trump, even Trump. can keep up with Field Yates at this point. We've got two of them on the ringer.com, or we will soon. It's like, go on. We could also make the point that Trump is tossing out stuff to lower oil prices or or goose to stock market.

But what I would like to point out is the experiential quality of following the news now, which is that often by the time you hear the news, the news has been denied. Mm-hmm. And that's not even just for the West Coast. I don't remember what time I logged on that day, but it felt like it had already been through three iterations by the time I started paying attention. Like there's, it's just that, yes,

everything is denied before you even notice. Part of this is the way the media works now, right? News cycles are getting shorter. The idea of what counts as news is getting smaller. Part of it is also just Trump, especially Trump during wartime. He just says a lot of stuff. And it's impossible to ignore, right?

I mean, we've had the conversations before about what do you, like how to cover Trump to what, you know, does every tweet or true social post merit a news story or whatever? And it doesn't always, but the causality of everything that he says is just too important to miss, right? I mean, like by the time that that post had been denied, as you said, the real story was like how the market had reacted to it, right? And that becomes and that becomes the news in and of itself. And then it's like who placed bets on the market moving. Right. Who profited from that? If Trump just came out and said like, yes, it's me placing the bets.

Like, do you think, what would the reaction be? Oh, my God. I just feel we'd have so many polymarket follow-up stories. Yeah. But it just seems like, like, is that really, would that be, have been his greatest sin? Would that have been what gets him, you know, like booted from the presidency? Do we have time to concentrate on that particular offense? But yeah, I mean, it's just everything that Trump does, even in so much as he's kind of trying to bluff his way through this whole thing is in itself.

That's maybe the most important Trump story to be covering. So you can't ignore his his empty tweets when they kind of go to a bigger piece. I forgot who it was that tweeted. And it's somebody, I'm pretty sure it was somebody that I fall in respect, but said like, you know, I've been saying this since the beginning war is the one thing that's going to kill Trump because it's the one thing you can't bullshit your way through. And we saw a lot of that in those tweets that morning, right? It was just like, he's always feeling his way through reality. But he's like, everything's a trial balloon when he puts out a true social post. And this is one that can actually be refuted without like, you know, because every like American politician is too scared to say anything when he lies about them or at least for a while or it seems like they're lying in response.

But this is like reality he's fighting now. You know, we're having negotiations. It's like, no, we're actually not having negotiations. Sorry. Or he tweets about Robert Mueller and we're like, oh, that was tasteless and awful. And then we move on. And the Iran story has a level of deniability. Yeah.

A refutability to use your word. So I would like to propose a term for news that has been denied before you even learn it. No negotiations have been held. Just use that as a marker as we discuss future Trump news. Speaking of war objectives, one of the complicating factors about ending the war in Iran is whether the U.S. would allow Iran to maintain some quantity of highly enriched uranium. Listen to Trump tried to describe what exactly it is the U.S. wants to collect. What exactly are you looking for in these talks, Mr. President? We're looking for all of the things that we've been talking about.

We want to see no nuclear bomb, no nuclear weapon, not even close to it, low-key in the missiles. We want to see peace in the Middle East. We want the nuclear dust. We're going to want that. And I think we're going to get that. Nuclear dust. What? We have to collect the nuclear dust.

And you hear Caitlin Collins in that clip following up, you mean enriched uranium? I haven't even heard nuclear dust. Am I an idiot? No, you're not. Okay. You have not read that term in the newspaper. Also,

worth mentioning that whole string of objectives low key on the missiles Trump sounds like a zoomer Kaelin Collins also had a follow-up

for the president about the straight-of-war moves Thank you What about the street-of-war moves Who's going to be in control of that? That would be opened very soon if this works How soon?

And who is in control of it? Will Iran still be able to control the flow of oil? Be jointly controlled. By whom? Maybe me. Maybe me. You want the United States Me and the Ayatollah, whoever the Iatola is, whoever the next Ayatollah.

Me and the Ayatollah. Now, we haven't heard from the new Ayatollah yet, so he hasn't been able to deny the story. No negotiations have been held. Me and the Ayatollah. Now, it's like it sounds like a song off like one of those like comedic 80s albums that would be sold on television through a 800 number. That's we're going to say Paul Simon there for. No, really though, who was it? Who sang Ahab the A-Rab?

I forgot. Oh, my God. One of the novelty, novelty song guys, that has now been... Ray Stevens. There you go. Whist into history? Yeah, that was a time of American life. All right, coming up on the press box for Tuesday, March 24th, 2026, CNN tried to turn

its TV shows into podcast, David, which begged the question, what was left of cable news? Plus, reporters won the right to go back into the Pentagon, and the administration said, nay. Sports radio reached a level of crazy that even sports radio is impressed by where Trump's ice in the airport's idea came from and the old guy still got it, March Madness Edition. All that and much more on the press box. A part of the ringer podcast network. Hello media consumers. It's Brian Curtis. It's David Schumacher. It's producers Isaiah Blakely and Bruce Baldwin. David, did you see that CNN had a bit of a casual Friday?

I did. I enjoyed it. People flipping on television and they saw, well, it wasn't exactly Sean Hannity's podcast studio with the traffic light. No. But it was the first cousin on its mother's side. It was CNN doffing its jacket, loosening its tie. These are actual things that Anderson Cooper did on a CNN show. Take a look at the photo I put there in the Zoom. excuse me, in the Google Doc.

And what does this look like here to you? So we got big microphones on the table, just like we do in podcast land. Yeah. We got a couple guests around a table. There are, there's a bank of monitors in the background. We got some empty computer terminals, which is always a great sign when you have a newsroom.

CNN branded coffee modes. Is that what I'm looking at here? CNN branded cups. And the best part of this is that there is actually a map on the table as if Anderson Cooper and his guests were discussing troop movements during World War II. Yeah. What were those little devices you used to see in the old movies where they would push the tanks around the map? What, like what do you, devices?

Well, it's like a big stick. You know, like they use in craps in the casino. Yes, it was like the, like a, like a rake. Yes, exactly. We had everything but that. So that was Anderson Cooper show on CNN. Jake Tapper did his CNN show from his office. Here's Tapper explaining that decision.

So you're probably wondering what's going on, why we're in my office for the first hour of the lead today. So it's an experiment. This is my actual desk where I do my actual work, not the desk in the studio. And we thought we would bring you into the. space where me and my team do our actual journalism and plan the show every day. So here we are giving it a shot. Giving it a shot. That idea, according to Puck's Dill and Byers, came from CNN CEO Mark Thompson, who thought, why don't we do something like the old Edward R. Murrow CBS broadcasts, which is, buyers notes is kind of ironic because that was also the day that

CBS Radio went bye-bye. Thanks to cuts from Barry Weisson Company. Okay, like I don't mind I feel, I don't know, I feel like this is just like such a bizarre thing. Like it really is just like putting a bow on somebody's head. You know, it's like such a weird affectation, particularly for the Anderson Cooper bit that you were talking about because they don't, where they are is not really discernibly different from just the studio.

right? So the fact that they just have tabletop mics in front of them, watching it, you just feel like the power went out or something, you know? It's like, it's like, we got to do this show Acapella. Like somehow the mic technology just had to be changed at the last minute. But we're not doing this during the Blitz. No. This is a normal Friday. Yeah.

Yeah, it just seems very odd. I kind of like the look at the Jake Tapper thing. It's very much the old school podcast aesthetic that we have talked about recently. But yeah, I mean, it's an interesting look. I don't know how you, I particularly like the part where they pan out and you can see the clothing rack with like 15 identical button down shirts. That's like news anchor. Yeah. You and I don't have that in our closet.

No, I could have a rack of black t-shirts. So it would look pretty depressing. But yeah, but yeah, that was, I thought that was pretty cool. I mean, I guess I would be really shocked to learn. He goes and explains that all the campaign posters on his wall or of Lueblo. candidates, which is a wonderful gimmick. Like, I really do, I really do appreciate it. But I'd be shocked to learn that this is actually how his office looked a week prior to them airing it in there. Everything seems so immaculately hung and put together. And that's, you know, to say nothing of the

fact that like, wherever the cameras are set up, certainly had something there before. You know, his desk was probably a little further from the wall or something like that. But, you know, it just it's it's not exactly lipstick on a pig but it just seems all sort of beside the point I do think that there is sort of something to the intimacy of the Tapper first hour in his office I hope we get like did they do like a walkout to the second to the to the real studio for the second hour is it like Stephen A used to do and on get up and then he would go over to do first take and they could do like the reverse Mr. Rogers at the end of the show where he's like yes to take off his his like, you know, sweater and put his jacket on and tighten up his tie and change his shoes

and walk out to the studio. Now I'm a new, real news anchor. Yeah. If there was some way to really make it work, I mean, to really make it matter. If there was a difference in the way you told the news, you read the news, I think that there'd be something there. But right now it feels like, like Edward R. Murrow didn't have a desktop microphone because it was like, because it like looked cool. You know, he had a desktop microphone because that was the only way to capture his voice for television and for radio, you know, like there were no boom mics or like lapel mics or anything like that that could have done the job. And I think everybody seeing that sort of knows it. It's just an affectation. So like, I, aesthetically, I like the choice. But like, oh, I know,

let's save news sort of tip. Like, maybe you should figure out just like, you know, a real rationale for doing, for making the choices you make. Biers writes that CNN is telegraphing a very present-day anxiety about cables diminishing influence in a cultural firmament where social media and podcasts are dominant. I was thinking about that while I was looking at photos of casual CNN and thinking, okay, let's say cable news tries to turn into a podcast. Yeah. Well, what advantage would they lose over podcast them?

What advantage do they have now by being on television? Well, immediacy, right? There's their live, you know, mostly live to all the viewers out there. There's immediacy, though. You could do that on a podcast. You go live. Right. You have, I think, a technological sophistication where you can go to correspondence around the world,

which is important in a time. Yeah, you have a giant, a giant. staff in general, you know. You know, guests, you would say, well, they can get, they can get great guess, but I'm not really sure that that's much of a difference in this day and age. And if you have a guess, well, you're having a U.S. Senator on for four and a half minutes. Yeah. Why wouldn't people want a U.S. Senator to be on for, I don't know, 45 minutes?

Sure. Talk about more things. Talk in depth. Answer different kinds of questions. More like a podcast, do you mean? Like a podcast. Yeah. So to some extent, you've got a mediasy, like you said, you've got technological ability to go around the world,

to bring people the world. Mm-hmm. But beyond that, you kind of have jackets and ties. Yeah. And pretty-looking sets, a kind of aesthetic authority of cable news. Yeah. And I don't think that's nothing. I think that, I think there is something to that.

And I understand. But they are, but you see them dressing down. You see them talking with their ties on with their ties undone. You think that that means they're losing something in the transaction? I think, I think, as Dylan said, I think they're anxious about it. But I think when you do that, you're kind of pissing away one thing that cable news has left. Yeah. One thing they can bring, which is just kind of a formality to it.

And it seems important. Now, you know, as you and I've talked about many times with CNN, when there's war in Iran, CNN is the place you want to be. they just have a Wednesday problem, which is, what do you do on a slow Wednesday? Why do we have to be here? Well, yeah, this isn't necessarily a solution to that.

It is interesting to think how, I mean, we, in the lifespan of this show, we have seen numerous new, like, set reveals, right? I mean, you remember when,

was it CNN that had there, was it, I feel like it was a CNN election set or something, but like there was just, there were press releases about it. It looked like it was an infinity pool, you know,

it's people walking out there on the glowing platform and it just dissipated, peered into just the background screens that look like more space. I mean, we all remember the big ESPN, like downtown new set up for get up and everything else. And that's gone now, right? I mean, it's like officially shuttered.

That's happening. The Seaport set, yeah, that's gone. The get up thing is an interesting example, too, because I've long kind of privately made the case that Mike Greenberg's half beard is like one of the most transformative things in modern, in modern media that as soon as he started wearing the, the, uh, five o'clock tomorrow. shadow, like, you know, this sort of like, I'm not shaving on purpose. Then that just changed the demeanor of everything on ESPN and everything got more casual. Yeah, yeah.

Can we backdated to Joe Scarborough's Starbucks cup on the desk? Yeah, Joe Scarborough is like sweaters. And the half sip. I mean, to me, that was it for me when I was like, okay, the world's changing. Yeah. He didn't even put on a suit today. He's there and he putting a coffee cup right on the table. Yeah, he just rolled out of bed and started reading the news.

Yeah, this is a casual kind of. thing. This is not your grandpa's. Well, the show was called Morning Joe. He had to have it. He didn't have the coffee cup was just glued to the table. Yeah, but you could have put in a mug, sir. It was in like a Starbucks cup. No, you're right. You're right. Yeah. I use those CNN mugs, but the CNN coffee cups on that clip are just begging for sponsorship. They just got to see if Starbucks gets there first. But yeah, I think so. I mean, yes, that's a good point. I mean, then everything has

gotten more casual. Just a funny give and take, isn't it? Because you've got cable networks that are looking to podcast them. And this is where I always say give credit to ESPN's Jimmy Pettero because he figured this out early. He figured this out before the 2024 election when the rest of the world said, hey, what about those podcasts? Do we bring some of their D&A into our place? I always give them credit for that. So you're trying to say, okay, there's a popular world out there that is increasingly

where people are going. We need to be a part of that world. but we want to retain the thing that makes us special as we go to that world. We can't just be an, if it's just Anderson Cooper, the podcast, well, that might be a big podcast, but it's probably not going to justify a gigantic Anderson Cooper salary, or at least at this level, and you're going to throw away, you know, the money to be made in the dying days of cable, and you'll also throw away a little bit of the authority you have over the news. So how do you balance that?

I mean, you know, here it's like, we're taking off a jacket. We're doing the, we're doing the show from our office. It seems so silly, but it does seem like a problem they're grappling with. In fact, in some ways, the problem they're grappling with is the world changes. And, you know, you and I, when we have people on from TV news, I always try to ask them, what's the plan? Like, what's the plan to translate that thing into the next thing? And I have never heard one good answer because they do seem to exist in different worlds.

And you're like, so somebody who doesn't have YouTube TV, who doesn't have any brand loyalty to CNN or MS now or Fox News or anything. Like, what's the reason they're going to watch you in five years? That's a good question. Still waiting on the plan there. In a related story, there's a report and status that CNN is preparing for layoffs as it reboots for the digital era. Some journalists won a lawsuit against the Pentagon, David. Oh.

specifically the New York Times won a lawsuit back in October the Pentagon wanted reporters to sign a policy you'll remember to stay in the building

real reporters left the building rather than signed the policy a group of tame reporters then came into the building well the New York Times sued with their reporter Julian E. Barnes listed as a plaintiff

you aware that Julian Barnes is a New York Times reporter on international security and other subjects. Different than the novelist Julian Barnes? Julian Barnes did not write Flobert's parrot. Okay, just making sure. This is Julian E. Barnes.

Well, the Times prevailed. Judge Paul Friedman said a lot of things need to be held tightly and secure, but openness and transparency allows members of the public to know what their government is doing in times of peace and more important in times of war and upheaval. Boom. So Pete Hankseth and his spokesman, Sean Parnell, welcomed Julian E. Barnes and company back into the building, right? Yeah.

David, they did not. They did something a little sneaky. They announced they were going to close the media workspace inside the Pentagon. And that journalists would be moved to what's being called an annex, word that just makes me smile, an annex outside the building. And if you want to come into the actual Pentagon, you're going to need a minder.

Scott Nova, the Washington Post reporter has been covering this, says the annex isn't ready yet, so it's unclear where reporters would actually work. So they instituted a policy that made reporters, real reporters, leave the Pentagon. The policy was declared,

or parts of the policy at least, were declared unconstitutional. So then they devised a second plan that also made reporters leave the Pentagon. Yeah. For the annex. The New York Times says the new policy does not comply with the judge's order. It continues to impose unconstitutional restrictions on the press.

We will be going back to court. Well, the worst thing is they don't just say, like, I don't want these a-holes here. Not that I believe that they're a-holes. But, like, it would, that seems to be, it was just like all of Trump's, like. Didn't they say that pretty much? Yeah, but I think that, like, trying to work around the ruling is just like, or like, you have to agree and sign this. And initially it was you got to sign this waiver.

which is ridiculous, but like, you're just making rules, making bars that they won't get over, as opposed to just saying, we're doing this because we don't want you around. It just makes them seem like even more, like, idiotic. It's like it really feels, doesn't it feel like with the minders and all that stuff? Just like increasingly, like they're just worried that a reporter will find a piece of paper on the floor that will give away the secrets to the war or like what? I mean, it really seems like there's just that they have no confidence in their own ability to run the Department of Defense.

No, they don't want wandering. Because wandering could lead you to a newsmaker. I mean, you know, they've always prepared. Well, a reporter would peek inside a room and see the secret document that shows we don't know how to reopen the street of one moves. I wish our reporters were like like 70s movie sleuths. Like, I don't think it happens that much. They just don't want reporters to have relationships with the people that work inside the Pentagon.

Sure. They want it all to come through. Pete Hexed in his rare press conferences or Sean Parnell and for there to be a penalty if you don't report if you report news that the Pentagon doesn't like. Now they don't want you in the building at all despite the judge's ruling anyway. We'll follow the story with Julian E. Barnes and company going forward.

All right, David, coming up in 30 seconds, the old basketball analyst has still got it. But first, let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so awesome. 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. On Friday, David, we lost Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris, 86 years old.

Mm-hmm. You have a favorite Chuck Norris movie? I don't even, I mean, this sounds crazy for someone of our generation. I'm not sure that I've seen a Chuck Norris movie. Would he do Delta Force? Was that his big one? that sounds right here's the weird thing about Chuck Norris

he was a B movie actor pretty sure in my childhood and yours I was not able to distinguish between B movie actors and A movie actors Of course not no So I just thought Chuck Norris was one of the biggest stars in the world

He was a big star I mean he was For what we were watching He was on TV a lot On Saturday morning TV I feel like he was in like probably did guest spots on like cartoons and stuff and like he was just all over the place he was a public figure in that way yes like a public figure of childhood the only time i remember watching a chuck norris movie on purpose was i was in a motel room with my mom one time i don't remember where we were going or what was happening

and his movie firewalker was on tv firewalker as i rediscovered this week after the unfortunate death of chuck norris turns out to be a terrible rip-off of Raiders of the Lost Ark and even romancing the Stone, which is kind of itself a rip-off of Raiders of the Lost Ark. My mom and I sat there and watched that entire movie, and my mom loved it. Just loved it. We had this memory afterwards.

I remember years later, I remember we sat there and watched Firewalker? What a great picture that was. That's so funny. Well, what better tribute, David? Is there than one final round of Chalky. Noorce jokes. Oh, right. That's the Twitter.

Yeah, absolutely. To bid farewell to the B-movie God. Here we go. RIP to the one man who could have reopened the straight of Hormuz by himself. Chuck Norris died 15 years ago. It took the grim reaper this long to build up the courage to tell him. When Chuck Norris arrived in heaven, he was the one who had to tell the angels, fear not. Another one for you.

I don't believe Chuck Norris has died. I believe he has. killed death and taken up his infinite burden. Yeah, there you go. And finally, at Chuck Norris's funeral, he'll carry the pallbearers. You wrote that Chuck Norris's tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried. Congrats.

You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right, a few things for you in the notebook dump. We got an old guy still got it alert. Yes. It went out for CBS's Bill Raftery. he is on the number one team calling the NCAA tournament at age 82 turns 83 next month

and he is still great yeah he is still great to me when I watch him do a game he sounds just like Bill Raftery did when I was a kid he has worked with just about everybody at CBS James Brown Sean McDonough Vern Lundquist very memorably later Jim Nance

yeah now Iron Eagle, whom he once did Nets games with. Yep. Of course, he did the Nets for the NBA, did Fox stuff with Gus Johnson. He got onto the number one team in 2015. Do you remember the events that led to that? Wait, tell me again. Got onto CBS's number one team in 2015.

Yeah? When Greg Anthony, who was the number one analyst, got arrested on a charge of soliciting prostitution. Oh, my God. I totally forgot about that. Yeah. So kind of an accidental number one guy. but has absolutely filled that chair.

My first memory, Bill Raftery, was from the 90s. You might remember there was a University of Maryland player named E-R-R-E-Hip. Uh-huh. E-X-R-E-E-Hip. Yeah. And I'm watching a game. Eggs-R-R-R-R-P, probably a tournament game.

Eggs-R-R-Hip, shoots a ball, gets fouled. The ball lips around the cup and does not go in. and Bill Raftery says Exeterie with a hip hip but not the hurrah I saw that that was great old guy still got it

speaking of which Bob Woodward has a new book coming out Oh my gosh Bob Woodward is also 83 years old According to Axios's Mike Allen The book is a memoir called Secrets

Woodward tells me Allen writes that because some long time top sources have died, he can reveal surprising new stories. That's coming out in September. You remember when Bob Woodward couldn't comment on all the layoffs at the Washington Post

because he was too busy working on his next book? Yeah. Or couldn't comment in any depth that was... This can't be his first memoir, though. I think it is. Let me look now. Chasing history? Oh, that's Carl Bernstein.

I was going to say he was a picture Carl was on the show talking about that one. I mean, he wrote a book called The Secret Man that was about Watergate. Yeah. It was a little bit memory. But this is the first pure memoir. He's been too busy, you know, exposing the secrets of various administrations. He writes so quickly, though. It's crazy that he wouldn't have pumped one out by now.

Correction of the week for you, David. Okay. The tireless, punchable congressional correspondence. at Jake Sherman. Yep. tweeted this morning, White House expected to announce

that King Charles the second will make a state visit next month, likely to include address to a joint session. It was just one problem.

As a community note on Twitter pointed out, Charles II has been dead since 1685. Charles the third

will be making a state visit to Washington next month. Sports Radio You might say, Brian, what's new about sports radio fights? There has never been a detente period in the history of sports radio. Yeah.

If you're in sports radio, you don't just hate the people at the competing stations. You hate the people that work at your station as well. Yeah, that's true. You are always pissed off. I feel like there's fewer competing stations. Has podcast them kind of leveled that out a little bit to podcasters all hate each other? which ring are podcasters do you hate there's like streamers certainly streamers hate each other i don't know if podcasters really take the time to hate you i guess that's not that's not true

there are certainly podcasters who who thrive in the sort of drama sphere right that's that's kind of what keeps people engaged maybe we should start feuding with somebody should we pick can we talk about national treasure Tommy veter again this week to try to get his attention I was thinking like a friendly like K-Fay rivalry with the big picture or something But now you mean let's actually take on some political podcasts And just call them out Yeah I think Amanda Dobbins is actually

Podcasting right in the next room right now Yeah she would be that hack Poked in on her and Juliet And see if I can mess that up There have been some crazy podcast fights Over the last couple of weeks Even by the standards of the genre or excuse me, some sports radio fights even by the standards of the genre.

There's one in Philly involving Angelo Cotaldi. Yeah. The legendary former morning host on WIP. Yeah, I listen to WIP all the time. He's been going back and forth with the people that work at the station now. Another one on New York's WFAN. You know the show Boomer and GEO in the morning? Yeah.

This is the David Shoemaker-Bermuda Triangle of Sports Radio. You're between all these plays. My car radio will get to any of those shows, yeah. This is a very complicated story. It's more complicated, as far as I can tell, than Iran. More complicated than why Levitart and Stugots are still mad at each other. Something I probably will never understand. But if I have read the awful announcing pieces, and there have been several of them,

Greg Gianotti, the GEO in question, made a prank call to Brandon Tierney, his former F-A-N-Tierney. mate like a year ago he recently revealed the prank call tyranny was aggrieved and then we went back to geo and then back to tyranny and we just keep going back and forth like he told he said he revealed it and then tyranny said oh my god that call really messed me up i can't believe you did that even though that wasn't very nice you know that wasn't great yeah and then they went back and forth here is uh geo this morning continuing the feud in high sports radio style. Dead.

Yeah, that was sort of what was going on on my messages yesterday after I killed branded tyranny with some of his old producers. The celebration that was going on by these guys was just amazing. One after another, after another. They applaud hands

and the thank hands and all those things. And hey, remember this one, there was one guy that was mad at me, though. He goes, you didn't mention me. And I was like, oh, it's right. I said, what was your story?

He goes, I quit the business because of him. No. Just he sounds so. happy twisting the knife. Yeah. Just enjoying that sports. The applause hands and the thank you hands. The thank you hands.

The funny little waving hands. The traditional chef's kiss hands. But yeah, though, it's, I really do think that there's a degree to which this is just lack of competition. Most places that have any competition at all, it's like the ESPN flagship versus the local station that's been around for a while, those that have not been gobbled up by the ESPN monolith. And so there's less like, like, you know, shock jock era making fun of the competition, like, openly to their, you know, while you're both on the air and more of just like, like, on WIP,

they're constantly like setting up athletic competitions between members, the cast members of different shows just so they have, just so they can complain about their coworkers. who were on a different time slot. Like, there's always something going on there. The Angelo thing feels a lot like Mike Francesa, doesn't it? That it's just like you retired and then you realize you're not ready to retire. And now you just like, what are you going to do except listen to your old place of business and complain about it, you know? Yeah.

Somebody also said it's about that, and again, I need to do some, I need to do some reading and some listening to truly understand what's going on with Angela. But somebody said it's about his generation of sports radio is like, we kill everybody. and then the world changed. And now, and again, I cannot totally speak to the, you know, day part of WIP in 2026, but people now, generally speaking, would probably be more likely to come with the pose of, I am a fan of the local teams.

Oh, for sure. I'm going to be critical of them, but I start as a fan. It starts as we. Yeah. And it's just a generational thing. Us thing awful announcing our pals over there have done an amazing job of atomizing these disputes.

I'm glad. That's good. Yeah, because the morning show there is still pretty old school, like old school in terms of just like number of voices and like the tone. But they certainly are fans first. I mean, WIP's constantly, I feel like they get into pissing contests about their fandom. Just like, what you don't care about game seven? Like you care about the birth of your child? What are you know? I listened to the afternoon drive Moore and Spike Eskin, who's like, you know, one of the big guys over there. It's obviously a podcast or two and brings a lot of that energy to it to the job. and I think manages to sort of allied that issue. Like, he's like, of course I'm a fan first. Like, look at my resume, you know? And his dad was there. So he was. No, I mean, obviously. Obviously.

I mean, yeah. Is that still there, you know, on occasion? But, but his, but yeah. So he, but he definitely has that tone of like, like, if you're not a fan, then like, what are he doing here? But yeah, it is, it's a, it's a very odd. I mean, the Angelo thing is very interesting. As a listener, I don't, I mean, he, he certainly did kill people more.

And definitely you listen to WIP, you listen to any sports radio station now. And it's like every segment is broken up by coming up in 10 minutes, we have the GM of the Sixers, you know, for his weekly call-in. You know, it's all servicey. But it's interesting. I actually don't know how much it's changed. It's been a wonderful hour with Angelo a couple years ago when he was on his retirement tour. And I went to Philly and I went to his house. When we sat next to each other on his couch.

Yeah. I had my little recorder mic there. What's in the couch with cup holders in the arms? That would be my guess. It was a very, very nice house. Very, very well appointed. And we sat next to each other and interviewed him about his life covering the Eagles. And then WIP, it was great.

Two more quick ones for you. Where did Trump's ICE idea come from? You've seen all the content being generated by those long security lines at the airport. Uh-huh. By the way, New York Times homepage now has the security wait times The major airports just like you used to see on the screens This is like where a New York Times story

And the story your mom emailed you became the exact same thing Yeah, that's true It's kind of like the signs on that When the digital signs on the highway Where they're like they give you the amount of time That changes like during rush hour It's like like minutes until exit 85, like 12 minutes She's like, God damn it.

This is right before we came on this morning. Houston, George Bush, four hours in the general security wait time. 44 minutes at JFK in New York. Well, Trump's answer to this problem, and I put answer in air quotes, was to send ice to the airports. You might say, now, where did that idea come from? We can answer that question. It came from Linda in Arizona, who was a caller to the Clay Travis and, and Buck Sexton radio show,

something I bet you've listened to slightly less than you've listened to WIP. Here is audio of Linda in Arizona. Clay, I think I have a solution to the TSA problem. What we need to do is we need to supplement where we're missing out on TSA agents who can't afford to work for us anymore. We need to bring in ICE agents.

So that was Linda. Just to be clear, she is from Arizona. But the Clay and Buck Show is not a local Arizona a radio show. No, they're national. Okay. They're big. She's from Arizona. So she says that to them. And then Clay Travis goes on

Jesse Waters' show on Fox. Brian Stelter from CNN has this whole rundown. He goes on Jesse Waters' show from Fox. He says it on Fox, Trump may not be much of a radio listener, but he definitely is a Fox Watcher. And then ICE at the airport. Wow. Neat little package.

Now, I saw some video of ICE arresting some folks. the airport. Are they actually helping with the screening process or are they just there to be walking around and intimidating? They're not allowed to do certain things with the screening process, right? Didn't I read this? There would have been a bunch of explainers about this, right? They're not allowed. They can't just be like, oh, I, how are they getting paid during this period of partial shutdown and the TSA agents are not? As the answer, that they've just like reduced ICE's roles so much because of the backlash.

So they know they have like 200,000 underutilized potentially overweight Americans that are just waiting for looking for something to do with their time. You've gotten to the level of explainer that I have not, the outer ring of explainer that I have not read yet. Yeah.

I was distracted by that Greg Bovino profile in the Times today. He saw his Sean Penn when the Oscar. The guy, I got one more in me. Oh, my God. doesn't it feel like there's more I mean it has to do with it just general diffusion of media and of politics and everything else but doesn't it feel like there's more like

important or like must read profiles than this day and age than there were like 10 years ago like it's like long form died and then and then it came back to life and I can't keep up with it. It's like is there another McKay Coppin story out? Two and one two like two and two days was that what happened?

I was supposed to read how many where are these going finally great work by my cake hoppins by the way managed to make everybody mad and everybody enlightened at the same time with that gambling thing i met i texted you that you we should have him on the show again because of it and by the time the text went through he was on like 17 different shows i was like all right he's probably done and we were already doing the backlash it was kind of it was kind of the negotiations have not happened moment you know where i'm like what do we my favorite part has been the real which are not i don't mean i don't mean to say that they're not correct but just that it went that far that there's all the the hardened gamblers who were saying this story is completely meaningless because he never had his own skin in the game. It's like without his own money on the line, nothing here can be taken as gospel. It's like, okay, I'm glad that we got to that point.

Finally, Wizards Thunder, big fight on Saturday night. Did you see that? Uh-huh. This is a clip from Wizards played by playman Chris Miller. See if you hear a fun, rasslin world, and rasselin word in this description of the fight. Gill. Gets inside, counting.

Old school power four moves right there. Anthony Gill, get into a jump stop and a hook. And Champany and Jalen Williams are having words. Champany pushed A.J. Mitchell. And we have a Donnybrook here on the baseline. A Donnybrook. That's fantastic stuff. You wouldn't even use that in wrestling.

But J.R. would say that. We got a Donnybrook, folks. Yeah. There's also a great novel by Frank Bill. but Donnybrook, that is. But yeah, that's great. My favorite thing is when there's ever, there's a brawl, usually like there's some announcer will just incorrectly be like,

he suplexed him. Like any wrestling move name can fill in for any wrestling move in those moments, you know? Yeah, Tom Brady did that at least once. Yeah. Tom Brady's gearing up for WrestleMania, it looks like. There was a really unfortunate good old JR death hoax the other day. No. that he had passed.

J.R. and Mean Joe Green within days of each other. And somebody had to come forward and say, I'm sorry, that J.R. is watching March Madness right now. He is still with us, thank God. My God. Oh, my God. My God.

Thanks to Matt Fellig and Kunjali Padaya for sending us that one. All right. It's time for a feature that will never die, that will never be its own pallbearer. It's time for David Shoemaker guesses the strain pun headline. Yeah. Last Tuesday's headline about a failed LED basketball court was Lead Balloon. State's headline comes to us from alert listener Jay Isles.

It's from NPR, David. The UK is abolishing aristocrats' rights to inherit parliament seats in the House of Lords. They used to be able to inherit that. You cannot do that anymore. It's over. I think that's enough What was NPR's strain pun headline Wait

You can't inherit Your father-mother's seat on the House of Lords That's correct Inher is it a Nepo baby thing Is it a peer? Something is ending Peerage Oh the end of the end of an

H-E-I-R-A Oh, I just gave too much away The end of an era Yes, end of an era He's David Shemaker I'm Brian Curtis. Protection Magic. Bill Rafter, he says, from Isaiah Blakely and Bruce Baldwin. Got another very special in-studio political guest coming Friday, David.

Don't want to give it away because, you know. It's President Trump. Well, you had to go and say it's actually Linda from Arizona. We were able to book her. Can we just start a bit where we trade something good for Trump's phone number and call him in every episode to see if we can get them on the line? What do you think the odds of Trump answering if we said we were from the ringer press box, podcast. Well, he answers the phone, right? But that's what I mean, like Trump and go to- Oh. I don't know, man. He'd probably, he'd probably, he'd probably chat for a while.

He might mistakenly think that you're, you know, on the same wavelength as him. That's coming up Friday. Then the March issue, me and Joel Anderson, that's going to be Monday, March 30th. Follow us at Pressbox Ringer on Instagram. You can see David Shoemaker's cover for the March issue very soon. David, you're back next Tuesday, where we will be sharing more. lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brad.