The Press Box - The Mueller Investigation Turns 1, Royal Wedding Reactions, and the Repackaging of A-Rod | The Press Box (Ep. 472)

Episode Date: May 22, 2018

The Ringer's Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker "celebrate" the one-year anniversary of Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's possible involvement in the 2016 presidential election (02:30), examine how America consumed the royal wedding (22:30), and look at Alex Rodriguez's media makeover (35:30). Credits: Hosted by: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Produced by: Jim Cunningham Brought to you by: The Ringer Podcast Network Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David Fox just signed a deal with the WWE to add wrestling to their network for $1 billion. Wow. What I want to know is, how do you think Vince McMahon should spend his money? Hi, guys. It's Bill Simmons. Hey, Bill. You remember the million dollar man and the million dollar belt? Yeah.

Could we do a billion dollar belt? A billion dollar belt? Yeah, it would be just like the million dollar belt, but maybe like, like 10 times bigger. What about an old-fashioned money bin? You mean like Scrooge McDuck? Yeah. You can go swimming in it? Yeah. I guess my big question is, what is the currency in the money been? Is it saccageoia dollars?

Or like, yeah, it would have to be... I know that you would probably die trying to swim in any pile of coins, but it feels like gold is the lightest. Am I crazy now? Is gold the gold... You think gold is the most swimable coin? I don't know. It's got to be the penny, right?

This is the real tragedy of 80. is that you can never afford your money bins until you're too old and frail to swim in it. Right. Or the tragedy of not being rich in the Disney cartoon universe as opposed to real life. More on that one, other important stuff. This is the Press Box on the Ringer Podcast Network. The Press Box is the media podcast where you're not allowed to call the White House leakers, cowards and traitors, and also claim that they don't exist.

We are Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker of the Ringer. articles for you to check out from our Ringer universe coverage of the week's number one movie, Deadpool, featuring columns by Sean Fennessee and Micah Peters and our trademark Ringer exit survey. Read Ben Lindberg on one of the nerdiest, and I say that admiringly, Star Wars subculture still alive in the world. And finally, our coverage of the rapidly approaching 2018 NBA draft, including Kevin O'Connor on the Combine and John Gonzalez on Texas' very own Mobomba.

David, I got three topics for you today. Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the election turned one year old last week. We relive the media's party of the century. Second, why did cable news host lose their ever-loving minds for the royal wedding this weekend? And finally, Alex Rodriguez has gone from PED cheat to one of the MVPs of ESPN. We examine the repackaging of A-Rod. Plus, as always, our overworked Twitter joke of the week. But first, David, a topic I'd like to call.

You say it's the Robert Mueller investigation's birthday. It's my birthday, too, yeah. Keep going. The media's going to set some unsustainable traffic benchmark. I'll stop now. On May 17, 2017, Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General, appointed Robert Mueller to investigate possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Remember when we could say possible interference in the 2016 presidential election?

A couple of things we should explore here about the media. coverage of the story, which is fair to say, taking up the bulk of the national section of every newspaper in the country for the last year, I think. I guess one thing that's funny is I was thinking about the two contradictory streams of information. On the one hand, blockbuster New York Times story. Sure.

On the other hand, Trump tweet, calling it a witch hunt or just sort of throwing up a smoke screening. Oh, hey, look over there. Mm-hmm. Which is incredible. Because, you know, we can go back to Nixon and find Ron Ziegler, like, you know, denying every new, you know, bit of news in Watergate. Right. But, of course, he didn't have a giant platform to do it in the same way that Trump's Twitter feed did.

And that's, I think, been one of the streets. It's like the first, it's like we've experienced a political scandal in a completely different way. Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things that's worth looking at is, Pete, that we've kind of tried to define this in terms of Watergate over the span of the year. And I think especially from like the liberal side that we have, like Slate has a podcast Slow Burn that's incredibly good.

Leon, who's the host of it, is an old friend from our New York days. Certainly is. But I think there's a, I mean, there's a, I mean, this is to say nothing about the podcast. It's fantastic. But the, but the way that I think that the liberals have sort of tried to solve their anxiety by constantly reminding themselves. the fact that the Watergate investigation took a really long time and it wasn't just a meet like, you know, someone didn't just flip the lights on and the next day Nixon resigned.

Totally. But I think that there's, it's impossible to overstate the distance between these two eras, just like what you were saying, you know, I mean, it's, it's so, it's such a different time and place. And just the way that, I mean, you know, in the Nixon era, the vast majority of people got their news from a very, very limited number of sources, you know, so much of America was watching the nightly news on a network. And right now, um, there's no telling where even the, I mean, people who were like the diehard network news viewers of 10 years ago might be spending all their

time on Breitbart or Facebook or, you know, wherever else, getting their getting just their daily news input. So, um, whether you're believing, well, even if the New York Times and Trump are the two polls of the, of, you know, the conversation that's going on right now, the filters that those are going through before they get to most, most consumers is, uh, you know, it's a totally different world. That's a great point. And the thing I think we forget now because we're so spoiled in this media ages. You know, when Watergate was going on, most people weren't reading the Washington Post. You couldn't just get it on your magic internet machine. Yeah. You know, you'd wait for your local paper to reprint the stories, which they often did, or wire service to summarize the findings, or they'd go

through the filter of Walter Cronkite, right? Who would talk about them but wouldn't, you know, lay them out in such detail that you could kind of like, you know, you'd be getting the very, very condensed version of it. And when you're getting a condensed version by a trusted source, when they're just like, all right, that's the end of the game. It's time to go home. Then you can just kind of take it for granted that that's true. Oh, totally.

This is like when we talk about the two different news feeds, this struck out to me this weekend. On the one hand, this blockbuster New York Times story on Saturday about a meeting with Donald Trump Jr. Eric Prince, Joel Zamele and George Nader at Trump Tower. As they said, Zemail's firm employed several Israeli former intelligence officers and had already drawn up a multi-million million. a proposal for a social media manipulation effort to help elect Mr. Trump.

One of the many amazing sentences in that story. And then on the same time, you have Trump tweeting, The Witch Hunt finds no collusion with Russia. So now they're looking at the rest of the world. Oh, great, exclamation point. Yeah. Right. Just the distance between those two things.

Another thing, and this was in this, Garrett grafted, an interesting piece in Wired about the one year anniversary of the Mueller investigation. And this point he made is he said, thus far we've watched the Mueller investigation through the public equivalent of soda straw, seeing only bits and pieces of what is clearly a sprawling effort, which brings me back not to Watergate, but to Ken Starr, something we live through. And Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton, that investigation leaked like a sieve.

I mean, just leaked all the time. Mueller does not, apparently. So we get these, like, tantalizing glimpses because, you know, the media reinterviews Trumpites that he's interviewed, they break their own, you know, they catch up with them. And another thing, Graff points out is that whenever we learn something, we always find out later that Mueller had learned about it six months earlier. Yeah. So we're like trailing behind the special counsel, but also seeing this tiny little interesting

but incomplete view of it, which I think is a fascinating feature of this whole thing too. Yeah. I think that that's definitely true. I think the question that remains is that is whether or not the way that the Mueller investigation has laudably kept mum on all this information, whether or not that's actually functional in 2018. Because by the time, no matter how deep and broad, his pool of information and facts is,

when the report is finally released, when charges are finally filed, has a year, 18 months or two years, whenever it finally happens, of Donald Trump swinging back on Twitter going to have done enough to null the blow. Yeah. You know?

I mean, it's like it's, it's actively being politicized whether or not Mueller wants it to be. Yeah. And as I think some people pointed out, you know, it's like this last week, it's not so much whether Mueller comes up with the goods. It's like who is running the House of Representatives, right? That's Trump's fate, right, at the end of the day. Because it's not, we've seen that the Republican House doesn't have any interest in this or in Devin Nunes's cases, you know, actually wants to interfere with the investigation, right? There was a story this last week that they were worried that Republican House members were trying to get access to the file. so they could muddy the waters, right?

So that's another sort of thing about this. I think another one that came out in Graf's piece that was fascinating to me is just all the things that the Mueller investigation has done. And these are things that have already happened. We talk about the indictments, right? And a few guilty pleas. It has led to the withdrawal of the president's nominee

to be ambassador to Singapore, as well as the withdrawal of a former senior campaign nominated to one of the top jobs in the Department of Agriculture to the downgrading of Jared Kushner's security clearance. All but the last one of the last one of those things I'd just completely forgotten already. Yeah.

Because they've been such, again, this has now become like a cliche in Trump land, but in any other presidency, this would have dominated the news really. You remember the level of controversy or at least like strum and drong or whatever on the liberal side between about Dick Cheney and his Halliburton ties? Yeah. And now we have Eric Prince of Blackwater given not the acting. I mean, it's changed his name. The founder of Blackwater.

But still very, still a functioning, still a businessman and who knows what his ties are. is working as like a fixer for the Donald Trump and there was a Trump candidateist, the presidential campaign I know, like setting up meetings and stuff. I mean, just why is it, it's not that like that's necessarily good or bad, but how much stuff has to be going on that like the most liberal among us. Let's face it, it's probably bad.

Yeah, but how, but like the fact that like there aren't liberals protesting in the street that a, you know, quote unquote war monger like Eric Prince is that involved with the Trump campaign and nobody knew about it, you know? Oh, absolutely, right? And Trump, I think Jonathan Chape made this point today, but Trump has said like in that tweet, oh, you know, they've now moved on to other parts of the globe. This is getting ridiculous. And it's like, no, no, that's not an exulatory.

That just means that there are potentially more scandals involving other continents. Yeah. That's the mean, that doesn't mean you didn't do the Russia thing. Yeah, if your defense is like, listen, if you look at every country in the world, you're going to find something I did wrong. Like, that's not much of a defense. Let's keep going then. Another thing you and I've talked about offline that's kind of fascinating is the way this, and I think it's partially because that partial view we're talking about, is the way this controversy has sort of encouraged the media to print conspiracy theories about what's going on. Now, there's a couple of different veins of this, right, that I don't want to tangle up.

One is the Wall Street Journal op-ed page conspiracy theory, most recent of which was the May 17 editorial about Kimberly Strassel called Was the Trump campaign set up quotes around the, set up. And this is, I think, a pretty recognizable kind of strain of right-wing conspiracy, right? These are these are the homies who brought you was Vince Foster murdered, right? We know, we know what this product is. Now Trump is sort of literally quoting from it. But the one that interested me was New York Magazine was Professor Paul Compos, which he took this bizarre semi-connected story where Republican fundraiser, Elliot Broody, paid off a playboy playmate

through Cohen. Through Cohen who'd become pregnant. The playmate had become pregnant. Not Cohen or Brody, yes. And Compost laid out a theory that it was Trump. Mm-hmm. Yeah, a rather compelling theory. Extremely compelling theory. Not Brody who is doing all this. Yes. And it's incredibly convincing. But you send me a note, and I thought this was right, it's like, would New York

magazine have printed this in another time? No. I mean, I think that it's all, if it doesn't directly spin out of the BuzzFeed publishing the steel dossier, then it spins out of the weird place we are in history that that was, that they decided to do that. Yes. I think that's right. I think that, you know, we weren't doing a podcast when the steel dossier came out, obviously, but I think that in very broad strokes, there are two kind of conflicting correct things, right? on the one hand, it's like, this is information that's out there. We are in a full disclosure era. You know, the idea that Washington elite should have access to this,

but the average human, average person doesn't is crazy. Yes, that is true. On the other hand, is if we don't publish it, someone else will, an organizing philosophy for how to run your magazine? I mean, it's all very strange. Yeah, I was going to say through time, through journalism history, probably yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, and whether or not, and even if you,

you think they made the right call, they had, you know, BuzzFeed suffered for making the right call, right? I mean, to some extent. I mean, I think they're, I think that they're, I think that's, I mean, I think at least for, you know, half of America, they don't, would never trust them again. Um, they definitely have a bad reputation, you know, on the right now. Yeah. I mean, that's, I don't, that might have been unavoidable. I just think it's, I think that's, but I think you're right. It all comes from this idea of the information needs to be free. Yeah. And why does the New York. Times get to know this plus people in Congress. What do they get to know this?

But the American public doesn't get to know this. Sure. And we know this. I mean, you and I experience this on a regular, on a semi-regular basis that you'll get a text message from somebody who's works for the Times or, you know, their girlfriend or boyfriend is a reporter. And they'll say, oh, by the way, this rumor that's out there is 100% true. Everybody's trying to source it. They just can't quite do it yet.

You know, so there is a huge, this cloud of information. Yeah. That's like we heard about Harvey Weinstein. Yeah. Months before it haven't. Exactly. And the ones people that followed Weinstein, there was the checklist of all the names that were about to come off and about 90% of them proved to be accurate. Yeah.

Or that they were going to, you know, they're in the line of fire. Now let's list the other 10 brings. Yeah. Exactly. But I think that specifically to this New York Magazine piece, what you see is very, it's like when you, when you have a story that you believe with every bit of you to be true. Or, and you know, I mean, who knows what the sourcing was on this, but, you know, it feels sort of like a story. that you know to be true, but you can't pin it down in the strict journalistic, you know, method, that you go out there and you say, let me just, let me just propagate a couple of theories on the

internet. And by doing so, you kind of take the bullet, but then everybody else is free to talk about it because it's been published, even though it's a theory, it's been published in New York magazine. That's right. No, that's right. It becomes a thing. But it works both ways.

I mean, the way that we've talked before about how, you know, a crazy conspiracy theory can grow from a 4chan meme to a gateway pundit post to something. Then Breitbart picks it up. Then Fox News asks an open question about the subject. And the next thing you know, the president's tweeting about it or something. You know, I mean, there's, you know, these sort of conspiracy theories can come up from all corners. All it takes is someone willing to assume responsibility. Hey, just asking a question here. And then someone else, and then step two is someone saying, oh, yeah, this person asked a question.

Now, what do we know about it? You know? And that's, it's an interesting, it's an interesting piece of the sort of Trump-era media world. I think that's right. And I think what's your point, the point you make about the media changing the way. And it's like Trump is the other inextricable part of this. Because one is what could New York Magazine possibly publish about Trump in terms of a negative article about Trump that would turn off its readers at this point? Like almost nothing, right?

Yeah. They might have to worry about that in another era. In Reagan, you know, stuff like that, right? Even if most of their readers were pretty happy to read, you know, those kind of stories. But the other thing is, like, Trump is the president who we all believe could be, could have done this, right? Like, all we've learned over the last year plus is that maybe he did do this. Maybe this wild conspiracy theory is true. Yeah. And that to me is the lesson of the Mueller investigation, right?

It's that like, you know, the ultimate prize that a lot of people are after, which is that, you know, the Russian government and Trump, you know, collaborated, right, to monkey around with the election has not been not been proven publicly yet. But lots of other things have, right? So it makes conspiracy theories seem like, oh, well, maybe there's something to this. Sure. The other thing was true. You know, why wouldn't this be true?

Yeah. I mean, there's also sort of mutually assured lack of decorum that goes on with these things because, I mean, you talked about Reagan. I mean, basically in any previous presidency, if there were just the insinuation that the president's personal lawyer had paid off a pregnant Playboy Bunny, that the presidency would be over. Right? I think so, yes. And we're not in, we're not in that exception. We're not in that world anymore.

And so I think that a lot of. Well, the president would just resign. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think that there's, I mean, we're not in that world anymore. And I think that, you know, a lot of outlets are sort of making hey with that. It's like, well, if that doesn't matter anymore, then why should we care? I remember when Greg Howard wrote that big Keith Olderman profile in New York Times Magazine, he had a line in there. And I'm not in front of me.

But something like that Olderman, because he was talking about Russia, and I was talking about, you know, these various theories was somehow out of step with where the public was. And I'm almost like, it seems to me that that's exactly in step where the public is. And that's where everybody is. More so now, maybe than then. But like if any presidency and if any media moment has, you know, would would favor that kind of treatment, it'd be this one. Sure. It'd be this one. Absolutely.

All right, David, now time for our overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrated the gags that were so obvious that all of media Twitter made them in exactly the same time. On Saturday, David, deranged portions of America got up at 4 a.m. to watch the royal wedding between Prince Harry and Megan Markle. It was an overworked Twitter joke to say, I wouldn't even wake up a 4 a.m. for my own wedding. Can you believe how much dad humor the royal wedding has sloughed off? Remember when we had that? Guess my invitation got lost in the mail a couple months ago? Yeah.

Do you think we're going to have to wait for Tim Allen's Fox show to bring dad humor back now that we have a little bit of a lull? As a relative newcomer to dad humor myself, I think the most stunning revelation is that like dad humor doesn't, ever work in real life, but it basically is indistinguishable from weird Twitter. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah.

That's a good point. They are there. I think that humor is out there thriving under different names. That's via Jimmy Berg. Also, our pal Rylan, grandsons, over a late-breaking overworked Twitter joke, which is people seeing George Clooney in the audience. We're talking about how it was a Ocean's 11 style plot to rip off the crown jewels while the wedding was happening.

And this is David's Koff. Several of the people tweeted this, thanks to Riland, as always. All right, David, on Sunday, we saw yet another chapter in one of the crazier sports stories of recent memory. The expansion, Las Vegas Golden Knights, made it to the Stanley Cup finals in their first year of existence. It was an overworked Twitter joke to tweet, good for all those long-suffering Golden Knights fans. They deserved it. This was tweeted by a ton of sports writers to which a Twitter account called Las Vegas local. countered

Vegas is a 113 year old city that wasn't allowed to have a pro sports team for the first 112 years hashtag shut the fuck up anyway that's Washington Post's

Des Beiler and finally this via reporter Peter Wilson last Wednesday David a Pittsburgh TV anchor named Ken Rice tweeted video of a dumpster

a dumpster slowly floating down a flooded street in Pittsburgh. Now, listeners, I am going to show David footage of the dumpster. Okay. I'm saying a dumpster floating down the street. To which many people grabbed that video and tweeted, Ben Rathlisberger already on his way to OTAs. And I didn't actually get this one.

Credit to whoever did that. Yeah, very funny. But also a lot of Pittsburgh hockey fans refer to the dumpster as Washington Capitol's right-winger Tom Wilson, who, and I hope I'm getting this right, had a vicious hit in the playoffs that broke the jaw and concussed the penguin, Zach Aston Reese.

I don't speak cocky, but I think you and I are both generally in favor of sports hatred. So if you compared the floating dumpster to Ben Rothesberger or Tom Wilson, congratulations. You made the overworked Twitter joke in the week. All right, before talking about the Royal Wedding, David,

let's pause for this brief commercial interruption. Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I wanted to tell you about the revamped Ringer NBA show podcast. We are Monday through Friday on Mondays. John Gonzalez's host, Heat Check, bounce around, talk to a bunch of different ringer staffers about the weekend that was

and what's coming up on Tuesdays. Chris Vernon and Kevin O'Connor, America's favorite couple. On Wednesdays, sources say with Chris Ryan and Juliet Lippman, maybe some interview podcasts as well. And then Thursdays, group chat. Chris Ryan, a rotating cast of Ringer staffers. We even put this on YouTube, too.

and then Friday, draft class. Kevin O'Connor, Jonathan Charks, sometimes Danny Chow, talking about the 2018 NBA draft, mock stuff, who's rising, who's falling, who's going to do what. You get this every day all the way through the playoffs, the draft, and even free agency,

five days a week. The Ringer NBA show, subscribe now on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Our second topic, David, I'd like to call the Princess Bride. we have these events these days where you look at Twitter and you suddenly realize, oh my God, we've collectively decided we're all in on this.

Right. It's time for hyper ironic humor. We are all going to pay attention to this. Yes. One of those events was the Royal Wedding Saturday morning, which had 29 million viewers in America, and I believe 2 billion worldwide. Can we start by listening to MSNBC anchors, Stephanie Ruhl, and Katie Turr waving madly at the Royal Carriage.

There is one flower for each country and the California poppy, which is the state flower from, of course, Megan's home state. So the message today is love, inclusion, and happiness. It's, it's, here they are right here. Megan! We love me. Safe to say that is not how Katie Turr covers Donald Trump. How did they get that audio of you and me on Saturday?

That's really awkward. That's amazing. the way I want to go here, David, is what is the appeal in America of the Royal Wedding here in 2018? Oh, man. First of all, I was looking to find a movie to go see on Saturday. On Friday, I was looking at the movie times the following day and realized that the multiplex in downtown L.A. was showing the Royal Wedding from 10 a.m. to noon. A replay.

Yeah. Or 20 a.m. to maybe later than that. It was a 10 a.m. showing. So I guess eight hours delayed, but you can go and watch it on the big screen. I would love to know who was in that showing. I know if I don't even motivate. It was dedicated enough to go to the movie theater but not dedicated enough to just wake up early and watch it on television. Sometimes some things are better on the big screen.

I mean, really honors and special effects. We got Hans Solo coming out this weekend. You know, it's a big screen experience. Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, we have some dedicated royal watchers on staff here at the Ringer. We do. Amanda Dobbins, above all also the Juliet Lippman, her podcast partner on Jam Session, is giving her a run for her money.

It's, I guess the experiment I was doing myself was if they didn't already work for the ringer, would we have found someone or would we have forced someone to get invested in the Royal Wedding? Probably. I think so. I don't think we would have hired a full-time Royal Watcher just for the event, but, you know, there would have been a, I mean, we would have had someone blogging about it probably, right? I think so. And Kate Howell, by the way,

it's been doing a stellar job of that for us. But that's why I find so fascinating about all these things. Are they, as content providers, do we all see something like this on the calendar and get excited because we know that's going to deliver the eyeballs? Yeah. Or do people actually care and then the content providers sort of follow? I can never quite untangle that with all this stuff.

It's a circular thing. There's not a beginning or an end. I don't think to it. It's all the chicken and the egg of, you know, media. in current year. But I do think that there is a, I mean, I have so many, so many thoughts about,

so many thoughts about the royal wedding. I do think that one of the things that really draws us to it, and you can find, there are a lot of points of entrance to the American fascination with the royal family. But one of the,

one of the things that draws us to it is the consistency, right? And you're asking about, like, how do they, you know, why are people interested in it? Like, how do we know, are we interested in just because someone told us we're interested in it?

I mean, listen, this is a never-ending reality show, but part of it is that it's really never-ending. It goes on and on. You know, we are going to follow. The royal family doesn't get canceled in 2019 because Fox moves to a different format. You know, I mean, this is always going to be a part of our lives. And, you know, we're fascinated with it for a lot of reasons. And part of it's we are, you know, the country that we live in is a, you know, offspring of the UK, I mean, of Great Britain. the royalty in general will always be part of our culture, America or not.

This is fairy tale culture. This is the last, listen, I mean, if the king of, if the rulers of Egypt were still walking around in golden headdresses and like shirtless in front of the great pyramids, we would be just as captivated by their weddings too. Yes. There is this, there is this old-fashioned pompous circumstance. I can simply say yes, I would watch that on television. And they, you know, so there's definitely that part of it.

But then, I mean, there is something refreshing about as much as we pride, as we in America pride ourselves on, you know, this kind of Republican, you know, democratic style government. There's something refreshing about not, especially right now, but not having a choice. You know, the voting and like the anxieties and the anger and the dissent with our fellow Americans that comes from it is, one of the central tensions of our lives right now, right? These people are just propped up there and they get it because they're born and they marry, they marry into it. We don't have any choice over the whole thing. And this was what Barack Obama said when he met with, who was he meeting with Prince William

in 2015? He said, it's fair to say the American people are quite fond of the royal family. They like them much better than their own politicians. Of course they do. Politicians have terrible approval ratings. Yeah. As soon as you get elected, it's just the numbers just go down. Well, and it's weird in England too, right?

Because you have the royal family on the one hand, then you have Brexit on the other hand, right? The work of normal politicians and the unruly populace, right? Sure. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure the royals weren't, what didn't want to leave the EU. A lot of the, I mean, a lot of the people who have written about this subject will say, it's funny because America, Americans seem to have a more unified positive opinion of the monarchy than members of the UK do, or citizens of the UK. because in America we're able to look at it through kind of rose color color glasses you know and and because we you know fought a war and left I mean and and you know separated from them we don't have the same association that a lot of

the rest of the parts the world do with you know written being a oppressor oppressor yeah that's the right word so yeah it's a there's a lot of stuff that goes into it Yeah, to unpack a couple of things there that I think are really interesting. One is you're right, the timelessness of it. You know what it reminds me of is CBS's master's coverage? It really is a tradition unlike any other. Yeah. You know, there's something about, you know, both of those telecast, both the masters and the

Royal Wedding are sold as this kind of timeless thing, this genteel thing, this thing is hemmed in by tradition, you know, this, the coach will do this, this person will say this, these people will be lined up here. And, you know, I think there's something in our turbulent. world that appeals to people, which appeals to people for sure, right? I think that that's definitely true. And there's a weird way, though, in which it's not always just a respect from the current, from the world outside.

And a lot of just almost randomly, the royal family seems have sort of kept up with our culture as retrograde as it is in so many ways. You know, and like we had Prince Charles and Diana. In 1981, Diana was the closest thing that monarchy was ever going to get to like a, you know, a Cindy Lopper figure. You know, she was just like a, like a liberated woman or perceived as such in a lot of ways, you know. And then I think there was. Thank you for clarifying me.

Yeah. I was thinking about it. I was thinking about it. And then, you know, Prince William and Catherine were definitely like a, I think I sort of returned to the, I mean, sort of return to, you know, a sort of fairytale vision in 2011. But I think that Megan Markle is, you know, is a revolutionary figure in a lot of ways and fits in really perfectly in 2018. And I think, and Harry is, Harry is the ideal, you know, the perfect mate for her in a lot of ways. He's always been seen as sort of the rebel of the family. It makes a lot of sense.

I mean, it is truly the American fairy. Like, American woman marries prince, right? That is, that's the movie story, right? Well, the best part about it is that everybody is that so many people now are familiar with King Edward the 8th and Wallace Simpson from watching the crown on Netflix. Like the previous time that a British royal tried to marry an American, which was a divorcee, although I guess that mattered probably a lot more than it might matter now. But like we have our frame of reference from Netflix,

but that also speaks to our fascination with the Royals, because there's a Netflix show that none of us wanted to watch that we're all obsessed with now, that we all can't stop talking about season three. The Royal Wedding had a peg. That's huge. It absolutely did. There are a couple of funny things before we get out of here

that I found online that were worth reading. Back in 2015, Nick Bryant wrote a BBC review for a Broadway play called King Charles III. That was a speculative Shakespeare-style play about Prince Charles being elevated to the monarchy. And there's a lot of really good incisive

looks pre-2018 about how we, you know, how Americans kind of glorify the crown. But one last thing, there was a Huffington Post piece that I just, that was published recently

that I'd have to read out loud from. It says, however you consume royal media, it's important to keep that fascination healthy. This is a quote. Doing it as a hobby is okay. This is an expert named Rockwell.

I totally missed the context. But being obsessed to the point that you were spending a lot of time, not living your own life, is harmful. Too late, says America. Yeah. I would also have two other things. One is just generally a good news story, right, an uncomplicated good news story. Which is funny.

By the way, this is for Brian Stelter's evening newslet. that David Muir, who was the anchor of the ABC evening news, says, good evening from Windsor tonight, he said on Friday newscasts, and then immediately has to go to the school shooting in Texas. Because, oh, we came over to cover the fairy tale wedding, and guess what? Somebody shot up a school and killed a bunch of kids. Oh, man.

So that was kind of, you know, kind of brought that home a little bit. Diana, by the way, still a global superstar, even in death. These are her kids, right? Do not discount the power, the enduring power, especially among people on the other side of 50 and 60 of Diana. I mean, she was huge. Absolutely. It is just so hard to explain to people how big she was in the 80s and then later into the 90s. The other thing, a little bit separate from Royals' fascination is just, I would say, general anglophilia in America, which kind of goes up and down, right?

I mean, the 80s, like, how did you express that in the 80s? It was die. It was probably a masterpiece theater, right? Ricky Jervas probably later became either a symptom or Down Abbey had a huge moment Down Abbey's another really good one right And I almost feel like what post down

Abbey are we are we at a low A mini trough of Anglophilia Thanks to Chile relations from Trump at all like what am I missing Are we is there I don't are we sure that Trump isn't A symptom of Anglophilia though Because he's a part he is a version of New York That like I mean he's on I mean he's not quite

John Kerry but he like he's that northeastern old money sort of vibe that, I mean, I think that's what people see in him. Yeah. He's obviously very different than that, certainly very different than that New England. I speak half in a British accent anyway, but like, I don't know. I don't know. It'd be interesting. He does own the golf course in Scotland.

Yeah. So maybe he is. I don't know. I'm just hypothesizing now. Us, I feel we're a little overdue for our next movie that's in what we call the accidental royalty genre. So like the Princess Diaries would be one. King Ralph from our childhood

Like guess what? I'm the king Guess what I'm the princess? I had no idea This is well we're not going to get that But we're going to get reality shows with Megan Markle's family For the rest of our lives Yeah it's gonna be it's gonna be like the crown prince of coral gables Florida or something you know and it's just gonna be made It's gonna be like her like her coral gables

Her cousin on a hammock you know with a shotgun or something And that's gonna be yeah We're gonna have that for the rest of our lives I know there's a safe space so I can confess this but we often because I was like, did you know this was still a thing? I only vaguely knew what suits was. I'm going to be totally honest. I just, I didn't really know.

As a diehard consumer of middle brow TV and, you know, everything on the USA network, thanks to WWE, I was very familiar with suits. My mom was into suits. Yeah, I have a lot of opinions on suits. I guess what surprised me more than anything, even as someone who has consumed suits, is that the entire cast of suits were just presumed invitees to the wedding. Yeah. Like, I love everybody at the ringer. I don't know that if I married a royal that everybody here would be on the invitation list.

All right, David, moving on a segment I'd like to call the repackaging of Arod. Last week at ESPN's upfront, I was struck by the central role played by Alex Rodriguez, not just because AROD is double dipping with ESPN on Sunday night baseball and Fox on postseason baseball, but because A rod. I don't have a moral qualm with AROD stuff here, but it's worth, I think, taking a moment to appreciate just how effectively and completely AROD has been repackaged to be the face of two networks

after essentially leaving baseball in disgrace. Can I point you to the moment where this flip for him? ESPN magazine, 2015. Oh, yeah. J.R. Mooringer's piece about Aira. I just, I think that completely changed the conversation. about him. I really do. I think that took him from, again, admittedly cartoonish villain and I'm not somebody who

lines up on, you know, throw the, take the cheaters out of the Hall of Fame, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right? But from cartoonish villain to conflicted guy trying to find his way in the world, trying to discover himself, dad, right? There's some family scenes in there. Sure. And made him palatable, if that's the right word again. Yeah. To networks. I think that's true I think that certainly I mean that that that certainly

swayed a lot of people who were in the position in making those decisions although I don't think it's fair to like totally throw the PED stuff just like out with the bathwater I mean I think that a lot of what we've seen

in the time but I mean I think you know our culture has probably changed some in the time between he was when he was you know got suspended and now but also think of there's a difference and sort of the tastemakers of the genres, right? I mean, it's like, I'm not quite sure

how much the average person cares about PEDs, except when it's being told, unless they're being sort of tisked at by the, by, you know, ancient sports writers. You know, and what's funny is I would, I would say, I would normally say the same thing, and I probably still say the same thing. And yet when Robinson Canoe got busted the other day for PEDs, every article was about whether he was going to make the Hall of Fame or not.

Yeah. And I'm like, oh, wow, we're still doing this. Yeah. We're still doing this. we're still upset. You know, it's like, it's just, I just don't, I mean, it's just kind of amazing. I actually thought we had moved on. I think, I think that, I think that PEDs matter a lot more when, when the subject in question is sort of distant and alien.

And that can be, that could be defined any number of ways. But I think it's, you know, not particularly, uh, difficult to look at the fact that like, you know, no one. I mean, that Ryan Braun took a lot less heat than Kanoa or. whoever else, you know, I mean, that when he tested to understand that, like, if someone's relatable and always out in front of the camera, then they probably, then it's a lot easier to let bygones be bygones. And I think that that's what Alex Rodriguez was certainly, like, one of the, was like from another planet for most of his career, not just in terms of being a Superman at the plate,

but in terms of being an unrelatable figure. Utterly. And that putting him in front of the camera sort of immediately mends all wounds, or, you know, heals all wounds. Because he is, he's immediately relatable. But I think that I think you're right. We understand him as a human being. Yeah, the mooringer piece, I think, did that.

Although I think it's, you know, rereading it this weekend. It was sort of surprising how sort of difficult the piece was at times. Just because it's, there's no, there's no quotes. You know, it's a, it was a hard piece to write and a really good, a really well executed version of that piece. But it's not, but that wasn't the same as, I mean, it didn't, it didn't, it didn't, it's sort of like, expressed that he was human and fallible and trying to reach a deeper understanding of himself, but it didn't feel like a direct window into a soul in the way that a more, that a piece with quotes or a, you know, I don't know if we could have gotten that piece.

Yeah. But you had to, that was step one for sure. I think it goes to what you say about just putting it in front of a camera, just letting a journalist observe him. Uh-huh. You know, it has the same effect. Sure. It just looks like a fairly normal person instead of a person just cut off from.

It's the little stuff that had the most power. You're right. The stuff with the kids, the stuff where. where his disposition changed on a dime. Him going to college, right, and sitting in the back of those classes. Trying to hide in the back, pulling his hood down low or whatever. I mean, it was pretty... But then that in one scene and then another scene, he goes back to his old high school

where he couldn't get on the baseball team and he takes batting practice and just starts cranking home runs while people just sort of watch him in awe. I think that there was a really interesting running thread throughout the piece where the distinction between people looking at him in awe and gawking at him. at him was very blurry at times and moreinger did a good job of trying to of of differentiating between the two but it was always people staring at him and and I think that that sort of you feel more sorry for him in both instances about that than almost anything else you know yeah and so many things to entangle with

A route too because this the PDs is the big one but the other one was like you know when you got that two hundred fifty million dollar contract with the Texas Rangers there was a sense and I remember going through Nexus a couple of looking it was like the ball players are going to bankrupt the owners I mean that was an actual thing in the sports pages. Oh, Yeah. Baseball cannot survive the greedy baseball players.

Well, I mean, Scott Boris took a lot of the flack for his players, but yes, that was definitely the vibe at the time. And that was like, you know, that was, I mean, now we just laugh. I mean, if anybody said that in any sport, right? Well, the Rangers did trade A-Rod for financial reasons. Yeah, totally. But it's not like, but that's, you know, it's not like they willingly signed him to contract. And it's like, okay, you know, the guy's other businesses went bad. The owner's other business went bad.

Yeah. Oh, all right. And now it's just like when that happens, you know, when somebody's, you know, when somebody sign. One of the most amazing things in the press in my lifetime sports press has been the end of the overpaid athlete. Yeah. Right? People still get mad about Tristan Thompson. Like you didn't

allocate your resources in the right way. Yeah. You shouldn't assign him. You should assign somebody else or something like that. Yeah. But it's very rarely like that person doesn't deserve to make that much money because this is a game which was still very much in force during early, in the early parts at least of A-Rod's school. Five years ago, it felt like. It was incredible.

I mean, it's amazing his power to a ESPN. So he doesn't, ESPN has a couple of internal candidates they were looking at for Sunday night baseball, which is their big baseball franchise. He brings Matt of Ascursion from Fox, who shares an agent with to be the play-by-play man, even though Vescurgent is not a guy at ESPN, which is kind of amazing at the time. I've heard from people at Fox that they did not feel this is ideal at all to essentially take a guy they discovered that John Entz, who's an executive at Fox, pointed at and said, this. could be this guy could be something when none of the other networks wanted to take a chance. And now they're sharing him with the world, right? He's on television every week, not just a special thing that happens at ESPN the postseason. He's on television every week and developing other projects at ESPN as well.

The other thing I was thinking with him is that there is just this general thing of the healing power of television. Yes. In sports television. That what made you a jerk in the quote unquote real world is an asset on TV. Right. Oh, yeah. You have a high opinion of yourself and you're critical of others and kind of, you know, withering in your criticism of others.

That makes you good on TV. Yeah. TV doesn't like nice person. Mm-hmm. TV likes a person who has really clear, smart judgments, right? This is why Charles Barkley works on television, right? I mean, Charles was always a great quote and all that stuff, but like, like, you want the person who's kind of a dick. Shack, too.

Yeah. I mean, that's what. And so it's always so funny to me because people will see them in the one context and like, oh, that guy's terrible. That guy's so full of himself. And they come to tell he's like, oh, he's great. Yeah. Because he, because by being full of yourself, you think you can pass judgment on everybody else.

Sure. And Simmons has always been a proponent of Kobe Bryant taking that road too. I think he fits those criteria from everything we know. Yeah, I mean, it's true. There's a certain sort of player who's sort of like more of a searcher, you know? And those are the players that you'd like to have on a podcast. Or the players that you'd like to be writing for you because they're thoughtful and they can get to that third graph or whatever, you know?

But yeah, I think you're right. I think that Arod is, I think that it takes someone, I mean, and as much confidence as confidence was in question through that ESPN piece and various points in his career, at his core, it's not, right? There's not a question when a ball is, when a 98 mile per hour ball is coming towards you. He knows how to hit it out of the park, right? It ain't better than anybody else.

And it's that same sort of speed and recognition, I think, that allows him to be, and confidence that allows him to be a perfect, you know, a perfect on-air personality. Yeah. The amazing test, by the way, for this, the healing power of television would be, would have been if Jay Culler had actually done a season of Fox last year. Could America have liked J. Culler under any circumstance? I don't know. Do you think, do you think this, Matt Veskerson will be healed from all the XFL baggage by the end of this too? I forgot he was a voice of the XFL. What a career.

A couple other examples of this, by the way, John Gruden was one. By the end of his time in Tampa Bay, Ford has really hated him. And he was seen as being kind of withholding and not great with the press. Then he comes to ESPN, and the rap on him is he's too nice.

Yeah. On air. Sure. He was hyping everybody. Which is like the opposite of the problem in Tampa Bay. I even think somebody like Tony Romo, his characteristics got changed around. People in Dallas would say,

oh, we don't like Tony Romo because he's not locked in. enough. He's not like Peyton Manning and Tom Brady where he's just all about football. And he comes on television and he's the ultimate like fan and this is awesome and I'm so excited to be here. And everybody loves it. Yeah. That same characteristics they were mad about. Everybody loves it. It's like

oh, so great to see somebody with enthusiasm and fresh eyes and all that stuff. It just gets to flip completely around. It's very funny. That's funny. And man. And now man, I mean, you know, there have been lots of rumors that Fox was courting Manning for, you know, it's an NFL game and stuff like that. He was the locked in one.

Although I guess his TV reel are all the commercial work, all the commercials that he did over the years. Like that's his audition tape. Yeah. And I think that, I think that is with everybody. I mean, maybe Ramos was direct TV. True. But you're right with Manning is doing those commercials. I have no doubt that network for network executive, that's just as important as anything else.

I want you to come in and do a tryout. But really, they see you on the commercial like, that guy's funny. That guy's funny. When he's selling the, when he's doing the cut that meat, that guy's got a good sense of humor. Yeah. And there are a lot of people of that level, you know, probably wouldn't be that eager to do audition. You know, it wouldn't be that eager to work out. You just got to, like, see what they've done before.

But to A-Rod specifically, like, I don't remember any commercials during his heyday or whatever that really made me think he was a human or relatable or interesting person to watch. He was always just the robot. No, and by the way, the great experiment would be if we threw Derek Jeter in one booth and A-Rod in the other booth. Jeter, beloved in New York, A-Rod basically hated and saw who fared better on with media. a Twitter on the air. Yeah. I think it would be Arod. Yeah.

And that's fascinating because I think Jets would be just like, oh, this is so boring. He's not saying anything. This is too nice. I do think that there's a little bit of that searcher aspect, though, to Arod as well as just being the kind of alpha, being the superstar. Because you see that in the ESPN piece and throughout that he's trying to learn how to be a better businessman, trying to figure out all the, you know, he's training with Barry Bonds because Bonds was so good in the kind of twilight of his career.

You know, he's, it's always questions with him. He only communicates in terms of questions to try to figure out answers. and he certainly the put on for him is being a smiling television personality right that is the great that is the great put over of this whole thing and I think that to a certain extent that's what that makes us that's what makes us love him is that he is that you have to do things in a certain way you have to strike that comfortable tone in your audience you know right you got to be you got to have that little Joe buck baritone and that Troy Eggman twang to make people really feel like they're watching football you know You're absolutely right, David. And I think that A-Rod, you know, I think that there's an endless amount of fun that can be had when someone like, you know, Jeter or somebody else who's just, or Romo, who's just very comfortable in there is doing that thing. But A-Rod sort of impersonating a studio guy, but, you know, color guy, but then also being as incisive as he is. Yeah.

Because it's a sort of perfect combo. All right. That's the press box for this week. Thanks, as always to our Uber producer, Jim Cunningham. Next week, David, more hot takes on the entire media landscape. See you, buddy. See you later, man. But being obsessed to the point that you were spending a lot of time not living your own life is harmful.

Too late, says America.