The Press Box - The Fallout from This Week’s Primaries. Plus: Joel Has Thoughts on "Woke 1".

Episode Date: August 13, 2026

Today on The Press Box, Bryan and Joel react to the primary races this week with David Crowley upsetting Franchesca Hong in Wisconsin’s race for governor (1:25). Was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez out of line with her comments on “woke 1” (33:32)? Plus, Bryan eviscerates new Lakers owner Bob Iger. Host: Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson Producers: Jon Jones and Clifford Augustin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello media consumers, welcome to Press Box Thursday. It's Brian Curtis. It's Joel Anderson. Hello, Mr. Anderson. What's up, man? Good to see you, Brian. Welcome to No Vacation August. It's over for us.

So that's how you know we're really not a football pod because football pods, they take, I think they get themselves like one more week of vacation before they really get started. Whereas we just have primaries all across the Midwest to cover. So we don't get to get away? We don't get to get away. I haven't, my vacation was at home, so I didn't get to go anywhere in nice, like Connecticut or Boston or anything like that.

Our producers are John Not Bones-Jones. There you go. All right. We're going to make it a thing. There you go. And Cliff Augustin joins us today as well. We got a lot of fallout from this week's Democratic primaries that I want to get into.

Okay. And then we're going to run a clear-out play. I'm going to go stand in the corner. You're going to have the ball at the top of the key. Yeah. And you're going to talk about. what AOC called Woke 1. I'm going to do my James Harden thing, man, you know, for the Houstonians out there.

I can't wait. We'll see. I cannot wait. I appreciate it, man. Let's start with the results from Tuesday night, or maybe I should say Wednesday morning, in Wisconsin. David Crowley, a more moderate candidate. I guess you could call him a centrist, beat Francesca Hong, a socialist candidate. in the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary.

This race was incredibly close. Crowley finished with 39.81% of the vote. It's crazy. Hong with 39.33% of the vote. Are you surprised that they don't do runoffs? Normally, in a lot of states, that sort of voting totals would make you have to do a runoff. So it's candidate requested in Wisconsin.

I learned this on election night. Okay. So essentially you'd have to have the losing Democrat in a moment where everybody is quote, unquote, calling for unity. Right. Raise their hand and say, actually, can we recount all these votes? Because I might have won the Democratic primary. Okay.

That's fine. Well, I'm just thinking running back to one-on-one now, you know? Oh, you're like, it's like the World Cup. We're going in an extra time. Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, like, you got to do it one-on-one because, I mean, they still had other people on the ballot there. So, you know, I mean, I just kind of,

you thought you'd get a chance to squit. wear up and the primary voters get to decide between the two candidates, but that's fine. I mean, look, who am I to tell Wisconsin what to do? This is where the rank choice voting people come out of the woodwork and say, you know, if you could pick more than one person on your ballot, we would avoid situations like this. This was a fascinating race. Totally fascinating. Let's start with the fact that David Crowley, the winner, dropped out of the race last month. Have you ever heard of that before because I don't think I've ever, I know suspending a campaign is sort of a, it's a, it's a term of art because nobody ever comes back, right?

They don't suspend. It's over. But this is the first time I've ever heard of somebody actually like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to run it. I'm back in now. I don't remember anybody suspending their campaign and coming back to win. Yeah, that too. The first time Ross Perot ran for president, I think he suspended his campaign.

and then got back into the race. That's right. If I'm remembering that right, in 92. Man. But. Ross Perot. Yeah. So we had to go back away.

Yeah. We went, yeah. So David Crowley is the Milwaukee County Executive. Mm-hmm. He was one of many qualified non-socialist candidates in this field. It's a pretty big field, which was part of the reason that Francesca Hong got so much momentum. Yes. She had a clear lane and there were a lot of people vines.

for the other lane. Yep, yep, yep, yep. It was shocking, actually, to me, how qualified, I mean, this was a really qualified group of candidates, you know. You're talking about Mandela Barnes, Sarah Rodriguez, a lieutenant governor. Yeah, man, they had the former state economic development director that was in this race. I mean, all these people, I followed Mandela Barnes' his career just a little bit because I've spoken to him before for stories like five years ago, and I just kind of lost touch with them because we're both busy people. I had no idea that he was in this race

because I would have assumed just at a distance that if I, you know, not knowing anything else, that he would have been the front runner. I mean, he barely lost to Ron Johnson a couple years ago in that Senate race. So that he was the third candidate in this race kind of speaks to, you know, the quality of the candidates in this primary.

And dropped out himself before Election Day. Yeah. So Crowley dropped out he gave an interview the other day, which got another run on election night where he and his wife prayed about whether he should get back in the race and said, show us a sign, a red bird. His wife then spotted a red bird. Apparently, he got back into the race. Tony Evers, who's Wisconsin's Democratic governor and who got more involved in the race, he endorsed Crowley and importantly got on the trail with Crowley late in the campaign. Yeah.

This is as Francesca Hong was leading every single poll by double digits. I was, I mean, I think there was so many things that were unbelievable that she was the frontrunner, but by a significant margin.

Like, that was a huge, huge surprise to me. And yeah, and again, when Governor Iver's waded in, I assumed it was going to be for the guy that had been his lieutenant governor at one time. But, you know, yeah,

I mean, I guess he went with Crowley and realized, that he would have the best shot. And it seems, I mean, you never really know, like, there's still a lot of exit polling to do. And even then, that doesn't capture everything. But, like, everything on the margin seems to have mattered here. So I could imagine getting the governor's endorsement in enough time could have driven a few thousand votes. And that's all they needed.

And this is all happening in the wake of Thanksgiving Gate. Yeah. Which is when Hong goes on Caitlin Collins's CNN show, gets asked about an old tweet about Thanksgiving. gives an answer that began with as a chef, comma. We played the whole answer on Tuesday. I honestly don't think it was that bad or that weird, but the fact that she just didn't say no freaked out a lot of Democrats in Wisconsin

and perhaps nationally. I think the thing is, is that, and we'll talk about this a little bit later, I'm surprised she didn't have a better response for it because I get what she's saying is somebody that is, you know, I mean, politically sympathetic to some of the causes she believes in. But you know that that's not everybody that's voting and that that's not really a sufficient answer.

And I'm just, again, all these political consultants have nicer houses than me. They make a lot of money. How is it that the candidates are never prepared for this stuff? So that's what's interesting about Hong. There was a story that was broken by Politico on election day saying that she was going to shake up, to use another politics euphemism,

her comms team and her rapid response team if she won the nomination. Again, this was a campaign that was not on television, really. Crowley was able to get on television late, get some late money, and that helped change the contours of the race, which he barely won.

But it was a fascinating case of the quote-unquote establishment, we can definitely call Tony Evers the establishment getting in late and saying, okay, we don't want Hong to win the primary or we don't think Hong is electable in a general. So let's get behind one candidate. And by that point, Rodriguez was out, Barnes was out, Crowley was one of the last candidate standing.

There was also one other candidate in this race who happened to draw lots and lots of votes from Madison, which was one of Hong's strongholds, probably helped Crowley. Also, Jonathan Martin has a very good column about this in Politico, which goes through all of the sort of fine grain in this election. But all that happens, and then on election night, David Crowley wins by a few thousand votes. Yeah, man.

That's, I mean, that's really amazing that he was able to come from behind like that and people still have faith in him after he, he didn't have faith at some point that his campaign was enough. But then within short order, people were like, no, this is the guy that can do it. And I think that's just a testament to the fact that, yeah, I mean, the establishment Democrats don't want to cede a lot of power to the DSA. And also, she was uniquely flawed because she couldn't even stand up or articulate which she was tweeting about six, seven, eight years ago in a way that was convincing to anybody. And so, yeah, I can I can understand how people were like, oh, that's a bad sign. Let's get behind this other guy.

since we both use the e-word. Is it funny to you that people are calling Crowley, who's 40 years old, the establishment candidate given his life story? Yes. Well, I mean, he does have a great story, and I read that he had just finished his degree

from University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, like two years ago. Two years ago. Yeah, two years ago. And he's like, he's 40 years old now. But he's the establishment, and as much as he's the preference of the establishment. And I also know that that's politically, there's a strain of moderation from any black person

who decides to run for public office, particularly statewide. Like, you're not going to see very many, like, wild leftist black statewide candidates. It's just not, I mean, it hasn't happened. I don't think we've seen a black DSA candidate run for a statewide office, let alone win a statewide office. in this country yet. So it makes sense. Politically, he probably is a little bit more conservative than Hong.

But I get what people are saying earlier, this guy that's from Milwaukee, this black-ass county in Milwaukee, you know, in Wisconsin. And he's the establishment, but yeah, in this case, it kind of makes sense. The word hit me funny, too, because as David Axelrod noted on Twitter, if Crowley wins, he will be the fourth black elected governor in the U.S. since reconstruction. Yeah, man. That's crazy.

Can you name the three governors, by the way? Doug Wilder, Westmore. Uh-huh. Oh, man. Deval Patrick? You got it. Is that it? Yeah.

Oh, man, I got that. I got all four. Here's the bonus one. There was one more black governor. David Patterson. There you go. David Patterson. Not elected.

Yeah. Very good. Look at that. Man, my black history facts, man. I'm, you know, I'm on it. I'm on that, at least. They will, Crowley will face

Representative Tom Tiffany whom we learn from Haley Stevens likes to hunt wolves. What a turnaround for Haley Stevens. There's really nothing but upside when you're

a flawed candidate or let's say a candidate that Twitter is mad at. But then you lock arms and say, I am campaigning for the winner of this primary. Then people are like,

yeah, yeah, I like you. I'm not mad at your accent anymore. I'm not questioning the authenticity of your mission. and exit, you're cool. Isn't it always the thing that you should be doing anyway? Like, if you want to have a future in politics, and the thing is, I mean, I mean, obviously

you want people to believe in things and believe in themselves and it believes that things they stand for, but it just is the politically smart play. What she's doing is extremely smart. It keeps her in the mix. It eases all, it may not ease all hard feelings, but you see that you can work with this person in the future. And that's a, I mean, that's good for Haley Stevens. I would imagine that like this is helping her political career five, ten years down the line.

All politicians who lose want to run again. Yep. And win. And their actions in the face of defeat are studied by not only the quote unquote establishment, but by all voters who might vote for them down the road. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I mean, man, you know, I shouldn't say this name because I would like to get them on our show,

so I'm just going to let that go. I know who you're talking about. Yeah, I know. I sent the text yesterday, so we'll see. The polls sucked again in Wisconsin. Yeah, man. Hong led by double digits in every recent poll. I was texting with someone on election night.

Okay. As we were awaiting the returns, let's call this person a Midwestern Democrat who was involved with this race. Oh, okay. And the person pointed out that if you really looked at those polls, Hong was topping out at 40%. Yeah. She was right around that mark, which is about what she got in the primary.

Mm-hmm. So polls were showing her leading by double digits, but then all the factors we talked about. Evers getting involved in the race, money coming in for Crowley, Crowley being on the air. Well, Hong wasn't really on the air. Thanksgiving. It all coalesced into an environment or a situation where the polls didn't necessarily tell the story of that race, or they at least offered an opportunity for Crowley to come back

and win that race. Yeah. Which was interesting to me. No, no, right. And it's just, I don't know, Brian, like, at this point, how do you, when you hear polls, because I do it over and over again. I'm Lucy kicking, trying to kick the, or I'm Linus trying to kick the football. Lucy's holding it there right for me, and I'm Linus and I'm ready to nail that thing.

Because Charlie Brown, right? It's not Linus. Was it wrong? She doing that to Linus? Oh, you're right. It's Charlie Brown. I should know my. I should know my penis character because I had a Snoopy doll that I slept with

so I was like eight years old. So apologies to my penis family. I had a Snoopy doll too. Let's put those on social media at something. Oh man, we need to get that. Yeah, man. I got, well, it's around here somewhere. But, no, so the point is, is that I fall for this.

I know that the polling is bad all the time. Like, we've been shown this over and over and over again, particularly in like the last decade. But then they run a poll and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's the front runner. Do you fall for that over and over again, despite knowing what we know about these polls? Absolutely. And the prediction markets too now.

So, oh, you know, huh, 90 plus percent chance to win this election. Yeah. And that's the thing is we all lack a scoreboard. This is what we want. This is what, like, journalists are always thinking, okay, I want to write about this race. Yep. I have to point to some tangible number.

I can't do vibes. I can't just make this up. So I have to wrap my arms around something. Polling, even if it's flawed, a prediction market, even if it's an extremely flawed measure of who's going to win this race. And by the way, I would apply that to the larger narrative here, too, the centrist versus the lefties. Yep.

You're looking for a scoreboard. Oh, see, look, Crowley won in Wisconsin. Abdul Elsa had won in Michigan. So see, that's another mark for this team versus that team. Yeah. Even if these races were decided by a tiny, tiny, tiny number votes. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. How I see people trying to like make larger, um, draw larger conclusions from this race. I'm like, bro, the, it was decided by 4,000 votes.

Okay. And like, people talk about, like, in retrospect, when they're talking about Hong as a frontrunner, I'm like, all right, like, I know David Crowley is black and there's not been very many black governors in this country. But think about, like, like, what? Wisconsin has never had a female governor, let alone a Democratic socialist one. Wisconsin had never even had an Asian American member of state legislature until she became that person in 2021. And I know that, like, identity isn't everything in voting, but it definitely is something when you're deciding in the margins about who you're going to vote for and how likely

somebody is to become something. And so in retrospect, it doesn't make a lot of sense that people thought she was an overwhelming frontrunner. It also feels like we're confusing two different arguments here. One is a moral case. Should the Democratic Party stand for X? Or should it stand for Y? Should it be the party of Francesca Hong or the party of David Crowley?

That's one thing on a moral level. But then there's an operational campaign level. The center in Wisconsin got their act together late and did just enough to get Crowley over the line. Right. They did not in Michigan. But as people pointed out on Twitter, let's say big guys. Gretch got in there and started campaigning with Haley Stevens down the stretch, instead of just leaving it all to Debbie Stabin out. Would that have made a difference? Maybe. Yeah. If Alyssa

Slotkin had gotten off the sidelines and campaign for Haley Stevens, would that have made a difference? Yeah. I mean, you know, Mallory McMorrow didn't endorse until after the race was decided. So, you know, you're talking about a moral question, but again, you're just also talking about it on the ground ops question. Well, yeah, and primary voters are, and this is part of the problem with polling, primary voters are a different class of voter. They're very politically engaged. Yes. They can be moved by party stuff, right? Because these are people that identify, or at least they tend to vote with a particular political party. And so if the leader of their party or the money starts coming from one other side, it probably can sway you again in a race where the margins are

going to be very, very small. So, yeah, I mean, it's an explanation for why the polls are bad, but also like why Hong was always vulnerable in spite of what the mainstream narrative was. Did you watch Steve Kornacki late into the night on Tuesday? I didn't not watch him late into the night on Tuesday because my son has hand, foot and mouth disease. Oh my. And so I was, I was dealing with that, okay? Yeah, you didn't think Steve Kornacki was the chaser for foot and mouth disease? You just can't, you just cannot imagine how much itching can affect you from

not going to sleep. Put it that way. Yeah. I was there at one point as a parent and with that particular malady. So I can kind of imagine. It sucks off. I'm treating my son like a leper. I was like,

don't touch anything. But no, I didn't see it. I saw the clip. I saw the clip this, you know, this morning, but I did not see it in real time.

You were up. You were grinding tape, watching polls, all that stuff that night, weren't you? Well, this is where being back on the West Coast is very helpful. Yeah.

Because it wasn't that late. It was like 930. Right. 12.30 Eastern. And he's standing on a stage in Manhattan at 30 Rock. Steve Kornacki, by the way, if you don't know, he was used all over NBC pre-divorce. And then NBC News got him in the divorce rather than the renamed MS Now. Yeah.

Now, NBC News does not do full-on television election coverage for a night like Tuesday night. So he just has his own live stream. Wow. And when I say own live stream, I mean, there's no host. There's no pundit to kick it over to and tell us what it all means. In fact, they have a no punditry rule on the Steve Kornacki live stream. Man. Did you see the numbers?

What were the numbers like on that live stream? He was touting him on Twitter on Wednesday. I can't vouch for that. But I think a lot of people, at least people I know, were watching it. Okay. He's standing in front of the big board, which is exactly where we want him. That's what we're used to with him. We know that all television is kind of bending toward podcasting.

And you know that a lot of podcasts have your volume shooter and then your sidekick. We don't do sidekicks on the press box. We're all, we're all volume shooters here. Yeah, nobody's coming from the bench and getting up any shots here. Give it up. Yeah, exactly. You've got to shoot if you're going to be on the press. box.

Yeah. But the archetypal podcast today is we have our famous person and then we have our other guy. Yeah. And in this case, the other guy, no disrespect, is NBC producer Adam Naboa, who's sitting at a table with a computer. But he was a very, very key member of the Kornacki live stream on Tuesday night because what was lacking in Wisconsin was a bunch of votes from Milwaukee County. They were coming in really, really late. Like I said, it's already 12.

30, 1240, Eastern Time. And Naboa is watching his computer and he's watching local news in Wisconsin, which apparently had a live stream of the votes making

their way to the tabulation headquarters. And they were on like memory sticks. Again, this is one of these things where we just expose how hilariously arcane our voting system is. Donald Trump's not right about everything, but there do need to be some reforms

and how we count things, because they're going there, and it's like, oh, it's a 30-minute drive from wherever they were in the first place to the tabulation center. Now, remember, there's nobody to kick it. There's no Maddow. There's nobody to kick it over to.

It's just Steve Gornacki waiting for the number to drop. And he's sitting there, and he's getting kind of frustrated because it's taking a really long time. And then DeBoa's like, well, actually, now on the live stream, there's a podium, which is either really good news or really bad news. It turned out to be bad news

because some, some of the data did not get on the memory sticks. And then the car had to drive back. Oh, man. This sounds like when I was putting together my college newspaper, man, having to get in the car and drive something somewhere. That's funny. Truly analog. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Here's some sound. This is Kornacki being informed on his NBC News live stream that the votes will not be coming in in a timely fashion. Yeah. And I'm just, you know, I'm just reading the closed cap. And so I don't have the fullest grasp of this, but it appears there were some irregularities in the reporting process.

So I think they have to go back to the city location and do some work there and then potentially kind of restart that process. That's what I'm gathering from the city right now or from the county update. Really? Really? That's so we're back to square one on this. Now, if you have not seen this clip, Kornacki just slumps over when that news is delivered to him. He also said that he had a speech to make early the next morning. Oh.

And then eventually he just killed the live stream. He just said, like, hey, I can't keep these camera people here on the set forever because Milwaukee can't get their electioneering together. I mean, I have a lot of for Steve does, but like, our voting process doesn't exist for media content. You know what I mean? So, too, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

You're right, but the thing is, it's like, that whole show is about taking you on the roller coaster. Yeah. Milwaukee's about to drop. Here we go. But then it doesn't drop, and you're like, uh, no, I want you to do? So do you listen to the cover three

podcasts? I have before, but I haven't, I'm not a regular, I would say. Yeah, but, Elliot, Chip Patterson, Tom Frenelli, and Danny Connell, my buddy. But it's a good podcast. I listen to it. And they complain over and over again about like the college football playoff voting show, the ESPN runs.

They're like, all it does is ruins people expectations and it's like, it serves absolutely no purpose. And you could kind of make that argument for, you know, these breathless minute by minute updates of voting results because it just gets people's expectations. in another place and it doesn't matter until it's all counted. And if anything, it reminds me to be mad that we've not funded voting infrastructure like we should. We've done like security, but not improving voting infrastructure in this country like we

should, like made it easier, hide more people to work in these clerks offices and things like that. So anyway, not to get mad at Steve, because I like Steve. But I'm just like, we don't have to, we don't have to have that. I understand that. I mean, I'd say the one important difference is that if we're going on the roller coaster, if you accept that a roller coaster will be on the tracks and that people will be riding on it, the outcome here actually matters, unlike the college football playoff rankings.

And that I would much rather, if we're going to do this, have somebody like him who can say, here is that number that just dropped here is the importance here. Give some context. Let me tell you what's happening rather than the old cable news. and we're like, oh my God, it's tied. You know, it's like 30% of the vote. And it's like, well, where are the votes from? Right.

Is it really tied or is it one person completely screwed because it's tied? No, that's true. I totally get it. But again, and I understand, especially having to get up early in the morning after a late night and all that, even though there was no conclusion here. But it's just, I think the thing is, and again, I mean, I'm a boring person. And I know that I can be a scold sometimes. But it just reminds me, I'm like, yeah.

I understand. I can be grading. But, you know, yeah, I'm just like, yo, man, the voting infrastructure in this country sucks. But, like, people are starving it for reasons that we can talk about on some other episode. That is totally right. We'll see what Kornacki does next week

with the primaries in Florida, Wyoming, and Alaska. Man, imagine staying up for those Alaska results, bro. Camer men, drink some coffee. You might be there for a while. Alaska's on Pacific time, though, right? Is it? I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I know Hawaii isn't. Alaska time zone. We do it. This is live research here. Yeah, this is great. Yeah, there is an Alaska time zone. It's one hour behind Pacific time.

Okay. Man, I don't think you're going to get results. Nearly the entire state, it says. Those 1.4 million viewers who checked in that live stream for Steve Cardigan, they're going to go to bed, disappointed that night because I doubt they'll be able to stay awake for those. Let's talk about a state that is firmly in central time, Minnesota. Oh, yeah. Tuesday night, Peggy Flanagan beat Angie Craig by 20 points, nearly 20 points.

In the Senate primary, that's to replace Tina Smith, who is retiring. There likely will be another Senate vacancy. If Amy Klobuchar becomes governor, then Amy Klobuchar will appoint her successor, which could be Angie Craig. But we're really interested in the Republican side here. Yeah, we are. Let me give you some of the contenders. Adam Schwartsey.

Okay. 24%. Royce White, who is turning to the president. The worst Houston Rockets draft pick of my lifetime. And that is saying something, man. I watched this pick Derek Chivas. You know what I mean? And, you know, we picked Jalen Green over Evan Mobley.

But Royce White, man, you've got, you've got your, in Houston, you know, I mean, he couldn't run for, he couldn't do this shit. in Houston. He couldn't run for office in Texas because we remember. We remember Royce White down there. He has got a fascinating electoral history section of his Wikipedia page now. Yeah. So he ran in 2022 for a U.S. House seat, finished second in the Republican primary. He won the 2024 Senate primary. And then do you want to guess how many points he trailed Amy Klobuchar and the general? How many? years ago, almost 16.

15 and change. Now he's third. That's actually closer than I would have expected given who he is. Trump was on the ballot presidential year, perhaps at playing some role. Okay. But the winner of that Republican

primary, Joel, Michelle Tafoya. Man. I mean, what? This second life she's had. I mean, you know what? I mean, it is sort of incredible. You know, she's out of TV now.

You know, it's hard for these people who've been on TV, sports media for all these years and decades, to just find something else to do when they get older. Look at what Michelle Tofoy has done. That's incredible. It's pretty wild. Now, she sold herself as more electable than some of the other choices, presumably Royce White, included. Yeah, I mean, that seems fair. It is going to be a massively uphill climb against Peggy Flanagan, who's won statewide office before.

Michelle Defoy has tried to, I don't know, I don't know how exactly you would put this. She's tried to finesse the whole ice issue, which has an enormous resonance in Minnesota. How can you, I don't know how you can win in Minnesota while supporting ice. Now, maybe again, I'm probably, it seems foolish because I know what direction America is going in. But, yeah, that is a real needle that she's going to have to threat there. And that seems tough, given where the climate that is in Minnesota right now. She was also on the Todd Starns show and was asked about the war in Iran and high gas prices. Here is Michelle Defoy trying to finesse that issue.

I think right now at least just kind of keeping a stiff upper lip. Maybe you'd take one less trip to Starbucks. And so that gas goes a little further until this thing is over and these gas prices come back. back down again. Let's just try to be patriots about this. I mean, you know, we've talked about this some before. It is surprising to me that people who make a living, who made a lucrative living, talking on camera into a microphone, are this bad at talking to the public when the stakes are this high. Right? Like, you can't, that, what an unforced error. You don't have to do

that. Does she know what's actually? happening in America right now, that that's not what's happening, that affording Starbucks is not actually the problem with why people are having economic distress right now? Is that better or worse than Thanksgiving Gate? Oh, well, you know, I mean, I'm biased. I'm biased, because I can kind of see where Hong is coming from. This, I'm just like, again, I know that there are a lot of people that think like this, though, too. The thing about it is sometimes I forget that there are people that believe, well, you know,

you could probably skip going to McDonald's every night and again or something like that. And they think that that is going to make the different. That's going to be the difference between me owning a home and not. So maybe it's not as unpopular as I thought, but it seems to me like just a really dumb thing to say at a time when so many people are struggling. And it's not because they're spending all their money on lattes. There's a really, really fascinating history of people lecturing the public about how, if they just stopped drinking Starbucks. Yeah.

They would have lots of money. Remember Susie Ormond, who was the financial lady on television? Wasn't that her bit? Like, if you just stop drinking Starbucks, you will have, you will be able to retire by age 40. Who's the other dude out of Tennessee? He's big on that as well. What's his name? No Starbucks?

Yeah, he's the guy. He's a, oh, Jesus. Now Joel's got to look it up. What's that guy's name? Dave Ramsey. Dave Ramsey. Does that sound familiar to you? Kind of.

Okay. He's a big financial guy? Yeah, he's a big financial guy based out of Tennessee. A lot of people believe in him. I once wrote when I was doing a financial column for the slate, I interviewed somebody that was a huge fan of his and it followed like his books and all that stuff. So yeah, it's a lot of like, yeah, well, if you just forego rent for three years, you live on a couch in a friend's house, then you can afford.

And that stuff can be tremendously persuasive because I, you know, I, you know, that stuff can be tremendously persuasive because I'm thinking, you know, why am I not, why am I failing? Why do I not own a home? But, you know, I mean, so that stuff can work on people. If I just slept on my friend's couch, this would all be fixed. If I didn't need a car, like, let's just say, or if I just ate, you know, breakfast and dinner and not lunch, I could save enough money to buy a house, maybe. New York Times reminds us that Minnesota has not elected a Republican in a statewide race since 2006. What a weird state, man, by the way.

I just, before, you know, I just, that's just a funny weird state. All right. James Harden is stroking his beard. Yeah. He is dribbling the ball. Yeah, that's right. Brian is now in the corner. Okay.

We ready. Just in case he gets an open three, but he's not counting on it. We used to call this J-School. Yes. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to J-School. Yeah. Okay. Let's go.

Let's fry. But anyway, so I just, again, I wanted to briefly revisit the conversation you and Dave had on Tuesday show about this AOC. woke 1.0 controversy, in large part, because I'm an asshole and I want to be an asshole for a moment. And I realize that sometimes this is going to be a platform to air my grievances, okay? But more seriously, I think anyone who listens to this show or is familiar with me and my work understands that my politics are pretty far west on the spectrum, okay, and that I've long admired Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and the way that she's gone about pursuing her legislative agenda.

I'd rather there were more AOCs in the House all things considered. And I also understand that the kind of people I would fantasize about seeing in public office almost never will. It could happen maybe on the margins, but I understand the sort of compromises that need to be made in the name of pragmatism and the large political intent required to make any real progress in this country. But that does not mean that I have to prostrate myself in front of centrist, okay? in the name of compromise. We really don't have to disavow what woke stood for then or today, which is the hopefully non-controversial idea

that racial oppression is bad, which is really something only racist have a problem with. Okay? So it brings me back to what AOC said on ABCs this week on Sunday, and she was asked about the positions of people, some of the positions people on the left took around 2020,

and she said, I quote, woke one was crazy. She clarified and follow-ups. saying it's more important to know where candidates stand today as opposed to holding them to their beliefs of the yesteryear. And there's some truth to that in general. But specifically, this is what really piss me off, Brian. Do people know what people were actually mad about in 2020 and in the years leading up to that? And if you're not, let me just familiarize you guys with some of what happened that year. In May of 2020, people saw this nine-minute video of a white police officer

kneeling on the neck and back of George Floyd, a black man, until he died. I still have not seen that video. I don't have the heart, I don't have the stomach for it. I can't even get 10 seconds of that thing. But that video, as people probably remember, sparked outrage all across the country and launched a movement that some people thought was the biggest since the civil rights era here in this country. And out of all those massive public demonstrations came the slogan defund police.

Some people said abolished, but it was really defund the police, okay? And this was a broader call to reassess how and why we were funding police departments in the way that we do. You can literally go on the BLM website. I know people don't want to do that. I understand. But you can watch this four-minute video about what defund the police means. And in that video, it talks about redirecting our public resources toward other services like

education, health care, public housing. And they make a point in this video that in many cities, cutting police funding by 5% could potentially double public health funding. Okay? Which seems reasonable to me. It makes sense to me is someone who is part of a marginalized

group of people in this country most likely to have a violent interaction with police. Okay? And it also makes sense to me as a writer. I spent several years in this country writing about police violence. I went to see, I wrote about Eric Garner and Staten Island.

I wrote about Michael Brown and Ferguson. I wrote about Freddie Gray in Baltimore and so on and so Alton Sterling and Baton Rouge. And I talked to their families. I watched Eric Garner's daughter, Erica, lie down in front of the store where the police choked him out to death for selling illegal cigarettes. Do people remember the Tamir Rice video, a child getting gunned down in public? And so people are telling me that it's crazy to think that that's crazy. And that maybe we should try doing something else than just giving the police. police all the money that they want.

In this society, we've just done that year after year. We give the police billions and billions of dollars every year and there's very little accountability for how they use it or how they police people. And yet people are still scared all the fucking time, okay, in this country. So people can pretend that they don't know what defund the police means. But I think that's because they wanted to seem outrageous and they wanted to seem crazy, as AOC called it. And that's just fucked up to me.

Like, I didn't, I don't expect much of American when it comes to this stuff. I don't, I don't, I, I know people don't really care if I get shot by the police or if my kids do someday. There will be a headline to most people. And they'll be like, what did they do? Why didn't they comply? Right. But I thought AOC and I were on the same page about this. And maybe I'm sensitive about this because as Brian knows, I've dealt with a lot of pushback over my contention that woke and the way that lots of people use it today.

could be considered a racial slur. And even if you don't take it that far, people are using it as a word to mock and mischaracterize anti-racism. So I love the origin story of woke, right, about like as a black person, there's a point in this country where you become aware of your circumstances and how you ended up that way. That's what woke meant once upon a time, right?

And so I hate the way people have just abused and just deployed that word today. And if you want to learn more, you can Google me and woke as a racial slur for more information about that. The federalist found out about me saying that on Twitter. For more information, I love that. Yeah, for more.

So the thing is, it just never occurred to me that AOC and I would be so, AOC would be so willing to throw that kind of work and movement under the bus in the name of political compromise. Calling it woke 1.0 is a concession to this really insidious movement to diminish the impact of police violence on black folks in this country, man. and I think it's okay if people are mad about that because I know that I am. So I didn't have to take a shot from the corner. You didn't, okay.

That was me handing over the box. Oh, no, you were great. That was very, very well said. And I think when I hear that term, I'm like, the whole just, the whole way that 2020 is considered is just, I don't know, fascinating as a right word, but it is kind of fascinating the way Democrats are treating 2020 now. Yeah, they're scared of it.

They're scared of it. And this idea that one thing that somebody said somehow delegitimizes everything that everybody said in 2020, including about police violence, like, you're backing off that? Like, that's, that's, that's interesting to me. Also about 2020, and this is at the risk of me shooting shots here. So go for, no, please. Yeah, please do it. We do remember that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, right? That's, that, that happened as well.

This disastrous, you know, moment for Democrats where everybody got. So, of course, oh, wait a second. Joe Biden, who specifically rejected defund the police, won the 2020 president. That's also a thing that happened to 2020. Just to remind. Cornbread, man. Do you remember the cornbread story?

Corn Pop. Corn Pop. That's right. Corn Pop. Yeah. Joe was a lifeguard? Was that what in Delaware? Some of corn pop got a chain out or something like that and he diffused it.

I mean, that turned out to be real, which was just shocking that that story turned in. I want to go, no, no, no. I want to go on record and say, I believe that story the moment he said it. You did. I was like, no, this is just a little too, there's too much detail. I was like, just everything felt right. So anyway, the corn pop time. But yeah, Joe Biden won in 2020.

He did. He won Joe Biden won the presidential election in 2020. That's the thing that happened. Right. So we're talking about 2020. Yeah. I got some quick ones for you before we get out of here. Okay.

Speaking of AOC. So she was talking about freezing her eggs. That was a big story last week. Then it was revealed semi-accidentally by Pucks Leanne Caldwell that AOC and her boyfriend or fiancé, I should say, Riley Roberts have broken up, at least reportedly broken up according to many sources close to the process. That's tough, man.

What was interesting about that story was this. And Annie Carney did a good job writing about this in the New York Times, which is that AOC's, one of her great skills is her ability to communicate via live stream and create this intimate relationship with voters. And we've talked about that in the context of 2028 if she runs. Do you need to go through Jonathan Carl? Do you need to go through Jonathan Martin? Do you need to go through anyone named Jonathan to communicate with the public if you're

running a presidential campaign? Or does that live stream, that ability to just get on a video. and start talking to people get you most of the way there. You're right. Yeah. Democratic primary. That's right. I mean, I'm sure she can get millions of people on those streams if she wants.

The twist, as Carney notes in the New York Times is something like this happens. It's obviously big event in your life. You're not obliged to talk about it. But when you have that idea of intimacy, sometimes people who feel they know you, feel they know everything about you, we have a very minor version of this is. podcasters go, wait a second, you didn't tell me about this huge event in your life. Yeah. You didn't tell me everything. I felt like I knew.

I felt like you were different than other politicians. Now, is that fair? I don't know. Probably not. But it's an interesting wrinkle as we think about how she's going to communicate going forward. I mean, yeah, you know, it is, I mean, that's a very intimate thing. I don't know.

Maybe it's, I don't think there's any stigma to that because it's a much more common occurrence that women will freeze their eggs now. People need no other things to do that. And it's something that's available. people, even sometimes through their insurance. But yeah, it is kind of like, you're going to tell me about that, but you're not going to tell me why you need to do that, you know? Because that is kind of, that would be the next person.

Wait, I thought you were, I thought you were in a relate, you know what I'm saying? That's the next thing. I was wondering about that piece of it the whole time, but just didn't look any further. And then the news came out. Yeah. And again, we're imagining what an AOC super fan who's watching AOC and the live stream things. we're not those people.

We're imagining here. But, you know, and it's one of those things. And again, will there be double standards for the way she is treated by the media and by voters in 2020 if she runs her president? Absolutely. Because it's been a double standard for every woman who's run for anything ever and we'll go over that too. Just something I want to put on your radar. Yeah. In other news, farewell Damien Woody from ESPN.

Man. The work of day after me. The most successful former center to ever do television? Ooh. Who's the competition for that? Is there another one? I don't know. How many centers can you even name?

There's been some offensive linemen. You know, your Dan Deirdorffs. Yeah. John Madden. Hey, don't laugh at me. Would you Alex Caras play on the line? He was a lineman, but I don't think he was a center. He wasn't a center.

I want to say Alex Carers was a defensive lineman. Was he? Yeah, you played the Iowa, man. The number 10 pick in the 1958 draft. I loved Alex Kierrez. He's from Gary, Indiana? Wow. That was a different, that was a different Gary.

That was a different Gary. Oh, man, he died in 2012. But anyway, yeah, man. Yeah, I mean, just, but I guess is that the Patriots thing? Is that what elevates us in a Senate? Not really, right? That's part of it. I think it helps.

I mean, I say this is somebody who watched. every single player for the Dallas Cowboys get on television. Like, you know, Darren Woodson had a pretty long TV career. How many safeties make it as far as Darren Woodson do it on television? That's a very fair point. What I thought when I saw this news was something a smart person told me, which was after the ESPN layoffs, you remember the list of on-air people that got laid off last month was actually pretty short.

It was a very long list of behind the scenes people, but the on-air list was fairly short. Right. It was like four or five people, basically. I just had somebody tell me this isn't over. It may be over in formal layoff terms, but it's not over. Talent on ESPN is still going to get cut as we go forward. And there you go. Well, the way that you don't have to call it layoffs is that you just let people's contracts expire.

Right? Exactly right. And I think ESPN's got more clever about that in recent years. Yeah. And it's like, why are we doing this all on one day when we can, you know, move this out a little bit? But, you know, and so people don't notice and don't write, think pieces about whatever happened to ESPN. But just considerate layoffs continued. Yep.

Another story. Who was on the Trump decoy plane? Who was on the plane? According to MS. Now, Pete Hexeth flew with Donald Trump on the not Air Force One plane out of Ankara. He loves Hexas so much, man. I mean, bro, I bet he wishes he was married to his daughter. He loves Pete Hexas so, so much.

But the people on the decoy plane, according to Amos now, those who remained, despite the fact that Trump was not on the plane, Marco Rubio, Trump also loves. Scott Besson, who Trump seems to be quite fond of. Yeah. Stephen Miller, no explanation necessary. Stephen Chung, maybe also no explanation necessary. and other Trump officials. Yeah. Along with members of the press.

That's funny. Flying on the plane. Have you ever seen New Jack City, Ryan? It's been a long time since I've seen New Jack City. So there's a scene in the movie for people who ever seen New Jack City where Wesley Snipes is this drug overlord named Nino Brown.

And he's at this wedding. Like Keith Sweater, what's your favorite Keith Sweat song? Oh, give me one. I was joking. Scott McFarland has one. When we get Scott McFarland, He'll have one when we get invited him back on. But, but, you know, anyway, it's this nice wedding in New York.

So I guess it's somewhere near Harlem, whatever. And then this guy, these guys come by and shoot up the wedding because, you know, Nino's a drug dealer and there's a lot of, you know, other drug-related associates out there. What Nino does is that he grabs a little girl who's running to him for cover and wields her. Like, you know, like she's some sort of a shield, right? and I was like, well, yeah. I mean, that's Nino Brown, though. Nino Brown doesn't care if you live or die.

And that is Trump. Trump is Nino Brown in a nutshell. He doesn't care if you die, man. Like, he would, not for one second would he grieve their deaths if that plane got shot out of the sky by Iran? I don't think so. I really don't. No. I also have to share with you that I just searched Keith Sweat.

Oh, yeah. Desperate attempt to find my favorite song, but. Never mind that. I just want to tell you that Key Sweat is going to be performing in Temecula on October 8th. Is he really, man? You know what? Does that sound about right? He gives a good show.

I bought tickets to a show with him that was supposed to happen in April 2020. So we were right in the middle of COVID then. So that concert never happened. But yeah, Key Sweat, good show. If you're not busy in October. Temecula is kind of far. I got a show for you. Temecula is kind of far.

Unless I fly to L.A. and we go together. We will, I would absolutely go with you. You mentioned Scott Jennings. Did you see him get brought up as a potential replacement for Caroline Levitt, his White House Press Secretary? And he didn't rule it out when asked by his CNN colleagues? But that's good leverage no matter what, right?

It's kind of, to me, if that's, if you're Scott Jennings, that's kind of aiming low, right? What, being Caroline Levitt? Aren't you sizing yourself up for statewide office in Kentucky or something else? Yeah, I don't know. See, the thing is I don't understand. It's tough for us to understand the allegiance that they have to Trump or the, the, the, the pull he has over them, you know. So, yeah, I don't know.

Maybe he might consider it the greatest honor in the world and he'll get to be famous. If called, I will serve. And he'll get to write a book. And then he'll just get to go back on TV. You know what I mean? So that's the thing. If you are just, if you're just dedicated to TV, this is probably great for your career. Because then you just go right back to CNN.

And if CNN says no, just go to Fox. where Caroline level will probably already be working. She already have a job there, her and Dana Perino right next to you. And you'll have, you'll have, you know, employment for life rather than just being kind of the respectable, quote unquote, Republican on CNN. I mean, Sarah Huck could be Sanders, man. I mean, she's also shown that you can just go on and be the governor of a state. Well, that's what I mean.

So maybe, but again, she was probably, she had probably had more to prove, I think, when she took that job than Scott Jennings does now just by virtue of TV fame. Yeah, that's fair. He has a podcast too. All right. The last one I had for you is Bob Iger's new owner of the Lakers, the co-owner of the Lakers. Man, that's crazy, man.

Him and Josh Kushner. Yes. Bill had a great open about this where he went through all the scenarios. It's fascinating. It's really, really fascinating because he knows that world very well, and he was talking about the Kimmel thing. I'd just like to backdate this to December 2024 when ABC News settled the defamation

suit that Donald Trump brought against George Stephanopoulos. Because Stephanopoulos misspoke on this week. And they agreed to pay Trump $15 million that went to his presidential library. Yep.

Yeah. I mean. What a just absolutely rotten, cowardly run Bob Eiger had during his second Disney. There you go. You sound like Bruce Feldman,

talk about Michael Lombardi, man. Here we go. What a constant. No, no, that's amazing, man, because, yeah, I mean, I feel like everybody has given up. I mean, we talked about, we talked conspiracies last week, Brian. So I feel like all the rich guys are giving up. And, you know, this is a, this is, I mean, who wouldn't want to own the Lakers given an opportunity, right? We get in on that.

But it also, I mean, yeah, but Bill talks about like, you know, the Vegas thing too, because I guess he, you know, the Vegas cause. He was in on that. I mean, I don't know, I just have the Lakers instead of Vegas. But don't you, I saw I listen to Bill's podcast. I'm, you know, I'm a regular listener of the Bill Simmons podcast. And I love when Bill gets into his rich guy in L.A. bag. Because he, I mean, I mean, I was riveted because like, oh, yeah, he knows all the players in this shit right here, man. I bet there's so much more that he knows that he can't even tell us.

I just, when I saw that, I'm just like, I understand. I've never been enthrall of rich guys. I'm not, I'm terribly interested in rich guys, even though we often talk about. because they own the media companies that we are looking at. Yeah, for sure. But what Bob Eager did with regard to Trump and standing up for his own journalists and his own late night talk show host was terrible and cowardly. And I got more adjectives if you want it.

It was absolutely, and it was embarrassing. It was truly, truly embarrassing. Yeah. And guess what? It didn't work either. Just operationally, it was a mess because you paid off. You give $15 million to Donald Trump's library in 2012-14. guess what Trump did the next year?

He came for Jimmy Kimmel. Yep. Yeah. Unbelievable. Name a billionaire who stood up. I mean, since this, right? Like, I mean, name somebody a rich guy was something to lose who has put their name on the line.

George Soros. Yeah, right. But none of the times. It's a pretty small group. None of the people that own media properties have. No, but it didn't even work. It didn't work. It doesn't work.

Like even the tribute you paid. because George Stephanopoulos said the wrong word on the air. Now they know you're a mark. That's the thing. Now they're like, oh, you're going to give us a little money. We know you soft now. And that was obvious. That was obvious from the beginning.

You didn't need to learn that as it goes. Anyway, he's Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis. Production magic by John, not Bones Jones and Cliff August. Let me give you a little preview of what we got coming up on the press box, Joel. Okay. We have a bonus pod coming tomorrow. Oh.

That's right, a bonus pod. A very special political guest is going to be in our LA studio. Okay. All right. I'm not going to guess who it is. You know who it is. I was trying to build the suspense. I was building the suspense.

You know who it is. If people want to guess, please hit us up at the PressBug Spot on Twitter or Blue Sky. We're also going to have another special guest, not from politics, from media next Thursday in our Los Angeles studio. You don't know who that is, by the way. That's coming up next. Thursday, and I'm going to interview that person right after you and I do our show. Okay.

Pressbox ringer on Instagram. That's all I got. That's good. I'm glad we're back at it, man. I feel like now the season's getting started. You know, nobody's going anywhere. We're all going to be here for the rest of the year, I think. I'm feeling the table.

I don't know about you, to quote the great Kendrick Perkins. Yeah. I am feeling the table, and I can't wait. I mean, what a liar, man. Port Arthur is in the house. Port Arthur in the house. More lukewarm takes about the media next week and Friday. See you, that, Joel.

See you, buddy.