The Press Box - The Mysterious Iran Deal and the World Cup Announcer Nobody Likes. Plus: Joe Biden’s Comeback With New York Magazine’s Ben Terris.

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

Today on The Press Box, Bryan and Joel discuss how the media covered the Iran deal, despite the administration initially not letting anyone see the deal. Then they discuss an ESPN fight and what other ESPN figures could pick a fight with a colleague (10:25). Later, they dive into some World Cup thoughts and discuss the discourse around Alexi Lalas (29:00). After that, the two are joined by New York Magazine’s Ben Terris to discuss his trip to South Dakota for Joe Biden’s legacy comeback, his recent story about John Fetterman, and much more (44:37). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel AndersonGuest: Ben TerrisProducers: Isaiah Blakely and Jamie Yukich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That was easy. Hello media consumers. Welcome to Press Box Thursday. Back in his usual seat is Joel Anderson. What's up, man? Good to see. Good to see you too. Also back in his usual seat, producer Isaiah Blakely.

Coming up on this here podcast, reporters spent the week, Joel, trying to analyze a peace deal with Iran that the Trump administration would not let them see. We discuss, plus which ESPN personalities are big enough to get in a fight with their colleagues. we asked the burning question about the World Cup. Does anyone like Fox's Alexi Lalas? And New York Magazine's Ben Terrace stops by to talk about his new piece about the Biden comeback, plus the riddle of John Federman and much, much more. But let us begin with the Iran deal.

This was truly a strange moment in journalists. Yeah. Because for the better part of three days, the Trump administration was saying, we've made a fantastic deal, but you can't see it. Several people inside journalism, inside politics made the point, this was really such a great deal. Wouldn't Donald Trump have put it on true social immediately?

You think so. How many, I'm trying to remember back in the days when Obama did the Iran deal. Did that make its way? Did we get full access to it and or the MOU that, that everybody had to the memorandum of understanding. I love MOU because I feel that's one of those journalism terms. We all pretend that we always knew what that meant. Remember like when the war in Ukraine started,

we all knew immediately that it was Ukraine, not the Ukraine. And it was Kiev, not Kiev. We go to this instant level of understanding. MOU felt like that for me yesterday. We all become geopolitical experts via the New York Times International Desk, of course. There were some things that dribbled out about this. It would be interesting to go back and look at the Obama deal, as you say. I feel like the parameters were at least more in the public domain.

But also complicates this as that Donald Trump said 90,000 things about the Iran war. Right. I mean, how do you keep, that's the thing. I never know how to keep up on this stuff because sometimes it looks like a deal is pending. Then a deal is off. Iran says, no, he's lying. So that was one of those things, following the developments in this story, I'm like, well, eventually they'll let us know when they finalized all this. But I didn't know who to trust along the way.

I felt exactly the same way. I woke up every morning and Axios was reporting that the deal was done. Yeah. It will be announced any minute now. And then I was like, oh, wait, the deal's not done. Yeah. All of a sudden, somebody's attacking Lebanon or something, you know what I mean? So totally.

J.D. Vance has been making the rounds for his book. Here's Nora O'Donnell pushing the vice president for a reason. Why wasn't that memorandum of understanding made public? Potential deal with Tehran. The president says he wants to put this war in the rear view mirror, and yet this framework remains silent. Why not allow the world to see whatever this deal is that you signed? Yeah, so there are some, frankly, diplomatic protocols that I don't fully understand.

The Qataris and the Pakistanis who have been helpful mediating this agreement with the Iranians. They've asked us not to release the full text for a little while. That it'll come out at the latest on Friday. We're actually trying to push them to get it out today because we want to tell the American people what's in this deal. It's like the Epstein, it's like the Epstein Blackbook. You know what I'm saying?

Epstein dress list or whatever address book. So I'm sure we'll see it any day now. Do we really believe the Trump administration would accept that from Pakistan and Qatar that they are telling us when we can release memorandum of understanding. Yeah, right, that they're following, they're taking orders from them or following their lead on this. Get out of here.

The other thing I thought about is, and you've brought this up a lot. This is a kind of a losing assignment for J.D. Vance, right? Like, where's Marco Rubio? In this, I mean, I know Marco Rubio has about 50 jobs, you know what I'm saying? And so, wouldn't this ostensibly fall under his list of responsibilities? Yes, and he went MIA on the MOU early this week. Like that. Nobody could find him.

And then when Trump was answering questions at the G7, he was standing stone-faced behind the president when Fox's Peter Ducey asked this question. There's some element to this where you send the vice president. If it works out, great, you look like a genius for sending him. And if it doesn't work out, it's the vice president. I like that idea. Sure. What?

This way if it works out, I'm going to take the credit. If it doesn't work out, I'm blaming JD. You better be careful, JD. He's going to turn his plane around and get the hell out of here. Yeah, I like that idea. I think it's a good idea. Thank you. I mean, strike me down, but isn't that the charming Trump?

Isn't that the actual likable Trump's like, yeah, I'm actually going to blame JD Vance? Yeah, right. And I mean, but sometimes he just says the thing. And, you know, I remember there was this really great clip that Van had on CNN once where he said, well, you guys, you know, you guys say sometimes you shouldn't take what Trump says literally or seriously. And he says, well, can you all just let us know like what's a joke and what's not? Right? Because we know, you know, usually when the president says something, you're supposed to take it seriously. Like, this is a sober. People have died, you know, as part of this war. So usually it's

supposed to be sort of a sober ending to a bloody conflict. But we just, how do we, I think he may have told the truth. He may have been joking, but I mean, I think there's probably some truth in that joke. Oh, there's a ton of truth. Yeah. Especially as J.D. Vance begins running for president, which I guess he already has since he's been on the view this week. But as he starts doing that and the whole question of, are you putting any space between you and Donald Trump, as Kamala Harris attempted to do with Joe Biden, and then I guess in the end refused to do with Joe Biden? As soon as that idea comes forward, Donald Trump is going to be laughing about blaming J.D. We're not laughing about it a lot more. We can see that come.

Absolutely. I mean, look, man, the last vice president, I mean, look how that, you know, there's not, Trump is not going to throw his body in front of anybody. Like, that's, that's just never going to happen. So, yeah, JD, you're, I mean, you're up. You're up next, you know. Here's how the deal to end the war with Iran finally came out of it. day. It was read on a conference call by an unnamed administration official. These were the ground rules. We'll give you the memorandum of

understanding. We're going to read it to you on a conference call and you can't say who read it to you. Crazy. Fascinating. New York Times printed the readout of that call and then interestingly went piece by piece through the memorandum. and showed how the things that Donald Trump was agreeing to were things that he said he wouldn't agree to when he was actually waging more with the problem. I mean, look, man, I mean, again, there's a reason that they've been sort of cagey about the details of this thing, right? It is sort of an interesting tactic, though, to do it to release the news that way, like people don't have the capacity to record it or, you know what I mean, like transcribe it later. I mean, we're going to find out.

So it just doesn't, I mean, nothing has to make sense, right? Why am I asking why they're doing something that doesn't make sense? Because that is sort of the through line in this administration. It was interesting. I saw the New York Times editorial board come out with a piece almost immediately saying that the U.S. lost the Iran war. You and I grew up as children of the Vietnam generation. Oh, yeah.

Do you remember how dicey it used to be? to say that the United States lost any war? I think that didn't really become safe to say until maybe a generation or two afterward, because even when they were doing like, you know, Vietnam movies, like, you know, the 80s, you know, Hamburger Hill, Platoon, all that, other sort of stuff, that those movies didn't really get into

who won, who lost, just that it sucked, right? But now people are like, Yeah, yeah, we kind of, you know, we didn't win, like, as we said about Vietnam. But to us, for somebody to say we outright lost, like, I mean, that would have been, I mean, that would have been a serious breach of, like, news protocol, too, like to just say, oh, there was a winner and losing here in America. Was it? Like, it would have been shocking 20 years ago for anybody who said that.

It just took Iraq and Afghanistan and now Iran for everybody to feel comfortable, say, yeah, we just, we lost the war. And that's what it is. I mean, it helps that his political. his ostensible political allies are the ones saying it right now. Like from like Nick, I was watching Nick Fuentes clips

the other day, Brian. Yeah. Yeah, Ben Shapiro, other elected geopolitics. Like they're the ones who are letting people know mostly anonymously because, you know, they're scared, that they're furious about this deal.

So maybe that's what gives people the amount of cover that they need to say, all right, we lost. And within that criticism, have you noticed pushing it on to J.D. Vance? Lindsay Graham's tweet the other day, J.D. Vance, the architect of this deal. Fascinating. Fascinating. I mean, yeah, man.

I just, again, you know, with no honor amongst such or such and such. So, yeah. Let's talk about a much less serious fight. One at ESPN. Yeah. Vincent Goodwill. That's right. Your friend.

He was just on the press box. That's right. Vinnie. He became the main character on sports Twitter. He listens to this show, too. So I know it's going to be, I can't wait to hear from him after this. But yeah. On ESPN's Get Up, he was talking about parity in the NBA.

Because in the last eight years, we've had eight different NBA champions. Is that good? Here's Goodwill on Get Up. I like to know that greatness is validated. How do we know that any of the last eight years? champions are actually validated because they have not done it again. Janus is itching to get out. Boston is thinking about trading Jalen Brown.

They don't believe in their one championship. LeBron's one championship in L.A. was not enough. So why would it be enough for us? Validate is the Larry O'Brien that I put on that shelf and stays there forever. That's the validation. The Laker thing. Oh, you mean participation trophy then? I'm sorry. Larry O'Brien is a participation trophy?

If everybody gets one? It is a actual trophy. You won the league. that year. That's tough. Yeah. Well, look, I was waiting to see what you would say. The thing is, is that I, and I just, you know, to be transparent here, I've talked about this with Vinny a little bit, you know.

And I think it was just he made a joke or made like an artful comment that he, that's a joke you make among friends are on text, right? And I can imagine being on set there. You just kind of being loose. You've got to try to be loose because you want to. projecting you want to give the sense of like authority but also that like this is not a rigid conversation so you're having fun so i don't think he literally believes that winning the larry o'brien trophy is a participation ribbon and i actually sort of do agree with his larger point that none of those franchises like they're happy about winning a championship but then like within a

year or two it's like oh man the self people look at the celtics and they say well that young core didn't get it done. Or nobody looks at Braun's tenure at the Lakers and say that went great because they won the bubble championship, right? Or Yokin, he only only has one championship. So I get what he was trying to say, but I also understand why New York fans would be very sensitive about that since they've waited so long to get it. And those are the people who've mostly been yelling at him, which is a person who doesn't like being yelled at on the internet. I understand. Wouldn't any NBA player that would, won a championship be sensitive about saying you got a participation trophy for winning the finals

for being wimby for beating the Celtics or beating whomever oh yeah absolutely i totally i i get why they would be like what the hell are you talking about this is the hot this is what a lot every like if you just start from the premise that every most young boys growing up love basketball like playing it and from that pool of millions of people you get to the very top of the pyramid and you win, that does not feel like a participation ribbon. And so if you want it, I could understand being sensitive about it. Now, the thing is, and I've talked about this before, is the problem is that people don't know how to disagree agreeably. And it's like gets into name calling and you don't deserve this job and all this other stuff. Like I just, that's the part that,

and I think Vinny would say that he takes most offense to, not that people disagree with him, but it's just the tenor of the disagreement. And isn't that because participation trophy has become such a radioactive term in our society? It's so crazy. It's been used so much. It's so crazy. I mean, I remember getting participation ribbons as a kid

and it just was not a big deal. Like I just, yeah, you're right. It has become sort of like a red line in sports with it. Like, I don't want a participation ribbon either. You won a lost. But it's just like, yo, I got them as a kid and everything. And it was not a big deal. let me tell you something.

I played U-Sports, and unlike you, I sucked for sports. And every year, they would give me a little trophy. I can still see my mind. I'm sure it's somewhere in my mom's house still. They would give me a little trophy that signified, Brian has played soccer. More to the point Brian put on the uniform and tried to kick the ball this year. And I put those up proudly in my childhood bedroom.

I was genuinely proud of a participation. control. Absolutely. I mean, there's something about getting to doing something that maybe you don't excel it and getting to the end of it. Like, there's something to be said for doing it and sticking with it and getting to the end of it. Now, my wife would be surprised to hear me say this, because she often is like, I'll be like, man, what would it be like if you just weren't good and kept playing sports? I probably would stop. You know what I mean? Like, I just said, oh, are you playing for a two and eight football team? Like, wow, that must be horrible. Why did you Why did you keep doing it?

You know? But I get it. You know what I'm saying? I get that like there's nothing wrong with telling people that, you know, you did something and you got to in it. You may not have been the best, but there is value in the attempt. Absolutely. Yeah. I remember this one year.

I'm pretty sure this was first grade. Mm-hmm. And this is probably my final year of soccer. Mm-hmm. And I remember I had light blue uniforms. And again, like for me to live. like contact the ball was probably a massive victory.

But one game, I kicked the ball really hard. Like I was a fullback, which is where you hide the less talented people in youth soccer. And I, and you know, here it comes.

And I kicked it hard. I think it went out of bounce. And for some reason, my parents took my jersey to the place that puts letters on the back. And this is in the 80s. So this was not, this was harder back then.

This is a big deal. Yeah, hard. And put the name, Thunderfoot on the back of my jersey. I love that. Thunderfoot. Thunderfoot. You kicked the ball hard one time and I was just so proud of that. I thought that was so cool. Oh, man. And you know what? I don't understand when people have kids, I understand now that

like, you know, they're not going to be the best of everything. And I want them to just try. Right? Like I don't, yeah, I don't have the expectation. I tell my wife or like I don't have the expectation that my son's going to be the fastest 10 year old in the country. at some point, right? Like, that's just not, that's not, that's not a thing. But it doesn't matter. Like, I just want him to try and develop a good work ethic and learn how to work with people and to make, have some fun times.

Like, that's the big thing about all this. And so, yeah, like running from the idea of the participation ribbon is just sort of ridiculous to me because I know everybody. I see people on the street. I know I played against a bunch of kids. I know a bunch of y'all were not great athletes. I wasn't even a great. I was a good athlete.

you know, I kept out. Come on. I mean, I capped out at a certain point. You play college football. You're a great athlete. Players are a strong word. But I capped out. You know what I'm saying?

In a certain point. And so I'm just like, who are you to sit up here and denigrate a participation ribbon? Like, it's fine. Okay. That's probably what you got. And so people are, it's like, you know, stolen valor. Like, because Jalen Brunson won a championship that does not make you a champion. Now we bring up Mr.

Goodwill. Yes. Because Kendrick Perkins. Yeah. Texas's very own Kendrick Perkins. Beaumont, Texas is own. Mm-hmm. He was on the road tripping podcast, which he does with Richard Jefferson and Channing Fry.

And he had a response to Vinny Goodwill. It's the shit that pisses me off. Is sometimes when you're on television and you get in the moment and you fill in the table, you go say some bullshit out your mouth. That was a bunch of bullshit. It was all the way disrespectful. And when I heard them said, the first thing came to mind is that, oh, your ass never was an athlete then.

You couldn't have never participated or been a basketball player or played on anybody's team talking that type of nonsense. Nonsense. That was the most asinine thing that I've ever heard. And if you're a person that hooped at any level and won at an elite level, I mean, one at an elite level on any level, then you know that shit hard as hell. I don't give a damn if you can't repeat.

You know, see, that's what I was talking about, disagreeing without being disagreeable. There is no need to talk like that about Vinny, right? Like, you can disagree with it and say, hey, look, I don't, I've won an NBA championship, Crennic Perkins, who's been a great basketball player since he was a high school player, right? And then won an NBA champion.

with the Celtics and I played for another championship with the Thunder, right? And like, there's just no need to undercut your colleagues' resume to do it. And I remember Howard Bryan always talks about the jococracy a little bit with just like very, if you are a black male in sports media and ESPN, it is very hard to get on there if you're not an athlete. Like, if you have not been some sort of athlete, there's that, though they're being pretty much, you know, winnowed out of the industry now. And so I don't know, I know Kendrick Perkins is not aware of that phenomenon, but like it just really hits home on that. I'm just like, oh, like, you're trying to undermine your colleague's credibility because he wasn't an NBA player. But Vinny is a very good

reporter and has very good sources. And I'm not just saying that because that's my dog, but because he's at ESPN and he's the Knicks beat writer and he's on first take. Like he's, he's been rewarded for how good he is at it. And so I just, again, I don't, I don't, I like Perk a lot. I really do. I love his, the way he talks. I love his friend. You know, I have, my heart goes to him because I met him when he was a high school kid and I spent time with him in Beaumont growing up.

But I just, that's just totally unnecessary. That's beyond a pale. Don't you think? Well, I got two reactions. First of all, I love Perks, use of the phrase, feeling the table. Yeah. If we ever have a just pure sports media podcast, it needs to be called Feeling the Table. How much of modern sports media is feeling the table.

Feeling the table. number two, I would have just loved to have seen this confrontation on ESPN's air. Because to me, even if you get overly personal about it, even if you get into the, hey, you didn't play, this is the most asinine thing I've ever heard. I would just love to see Goodwill get to stick up for himself. But talk it out because I think when you do that, you actually get to a better place. You get to, here's what I meant by that. And by the way, if the person wants to go address this on his podcast, that's fine. That's what we all do, right?

we don't all, hey, well, I'm going to wait until I actually see this person in front of me before I get there. Yeah, yeah. But I would actually just like to have heard this discussion. You know, it is interesting, you say that because remember when Ryan Clark and Peter Schraker had some version of this dispute on air? And people didn't like it, though, when it happened. Like, it seemed really uncomfortable.

And Ryan Clark had to apologize later, right? But yeah, I mean, I do wonder if Perk would have said that, not that he was afraid of anything. anything. I just wonder if he would have said it like that in front of him. I mean, he couldn't have said this shit pisses me off on first take, but, you know, presumably the other stuff maybe he could have talked about there. Brought up an idea for me. Okay. About ESPN. Yeah. And about going after your colleagues. Yeah. Who is big enough at ESPN now to be able to get in fights with their colleagues and have it be okay with the people that run the network? Do you make a list?

Okay. You want to start at the top? Stephen A. McAfee, $60 million man. Yep. Can Ryan Clark do it? Dan Orlovsky? So I think that's in a different tier. Okay.

The tier I'm talking about is they say something. Yeah. And if management calls at all, management calls and says everything good, they don't get mad at them. They just like just checking in. everything okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, were you upset by the fact that you had to get in an argument?

We never say don't do that because we don't feel like we could step in with Stephen A or McAfee. Right, man. That's a tier I want. I mean, I don't know if we're counting Charles Barkley and the inside crew is ESPN people, but they would certainly be on this tier. They could do that? Joe and Troy. I was going to say could Troy do it?

We never use the power that way, but I think, yes, I think Troy could do that if he wanted to do it. Okay. Is there anybody? Is there anybody beneath, I'm trying to think. I was trying to think of anybody on like NFL coverage. Well, there are a lot of people who would just never use their power this way. Mm-hmm. If SVP was upset, I think he would get the everything good call from Mike Foster,

Burke Magnus. I don't think he would, he would just, he's never going to go after his colleagues like that in public. Greenie would never do it. But he could probably get it. I mean, I could see him, you know, yeah, probably being able to get away with it, though. So to, you know, the tier that's interesting to me is the Orlovsky perk tier. Spears.

Yeah. I mean, those people are very, very integral to ESPN. But if there was anything that was like a personal attack against another ESPN, a fellow employee, a fellow ESPN talker, I think that would be, that would be interesting to me. That's the one that have questions about it. You would the thing is you wouldn't think they'd get in trouble necessarily, but they would have to have a conversation about it and be strongly encouraged to apologize. It wouldn't be the everything good conversation. Yeah, no, no, no.

It's like, hey, look, we prefer you not do that. Yeah, yeah. We prefer you not do that. And, you know, like, that's just not how we want to conduct ourselves. And then you say, well, hey, Stephen A. can do it. And they'd be like, well, hey, that's Stephen A. Smith. We didn't put Herbie on the list, but he did go after her a lot. for the Justin Fields takebacks today.

That's right. He sure did. That's right. And again, that was about, that was about an issue. He was like, I just think you're completely mischaracterizing this guy who played with hurt ribs in the college football playoff. And that was a pretty bad mischaracterization. Folks have gone after Mel Kiper before, too, right, like on that panel.

Like, not necessarily hard, but just been like, you know, I disagree with him on this, like particularly like the Shed Dor Sanders stuff. Mel doesn't seem to mind too much. I think that's his wheel. house. Like, he's like, bring it on. That was all good. Do you know one of the first times I ever saw this and I thought it made me uncomfortable. And this is, you know, early 2000s, Ralph Wiley was writing for ESPN.com, right?

But when Jason Whitlock used to go after Scoop Jackson. Now, people don't remember, like, Jason Whitlock wasn't always like a right wing provocateur. Like he was just sort of a firebrand column inside of Kansas City who just, you know, took his stances and whatever. But he like would denigrate like Scoop Jackson over and over again. I was like, is that okay to do for real? Like I just didn't. When he was at ESPN, when Whitlock was at ESPN?

Was it like at ESPN? Maybe it was a little bit before. That's right, because I'm trying to remember when he finally got there. Was it, did he only get there through the undefeated? No, because he was on PTI for years before that. Yeah, no, he was, he was, was he on page two first? I can't remember. I feel like there needs to be a whole, a Whitlock category of ESPN.

Oh, yeah. recent Stephen A one, because that's sort of a different category of intermurals. Lebitard has had some run-ins with guys, like from Calhurt, Skip Baylist, you know, even some of the reporters, I don't think it was Adam Schaefter, but there was somebody along those lines that he had kind of like, he was very critical of them on air, and they wouldn't even come on-air. Like, oh, like, Jay Billis, they had an on-air tussle once. Different air is interesting, too.

like the John Skipper era feels very different than the Jimmy Petaro era. Yeah. And how much, and I'm one of these people like, I think the go-to take about ESPN is, oh, these people are arguing on there all the time.

It's just Stephen A. yelling. I think if you and I watched ESPN from morning tonight, that'd actually be a very, very small percentage. Like, that's not happening on NFL live. Absolutely.

That's not happening really all that much on, you know, ever on SVPs Midnight Sports Center. No. People are not calling people out and talking, that way. And it's almost like to me, what ESP needs is not less argumentation. It's more room for arguments that are about real things. Right. Right, right, right. Just more rigorous,

informed debate, right? Even if that got hot, I would watch that because it's really about something. It's about something meaningful. Is that what, isn't that what PTI is or, I mean, that's what PTI was supposed to be, right? Yes. But I feel like, They're very tongue and cheek about, you know, the idea that they're even on television in a wonderful way. Yeah, right. They're not standing up on the, on the, they're not feeling the desk. As Kendrick-Roberts would say. Yeah, my-

Feeling the table. What was it, feeling the table? Fill in the table. I mean, it's like a new segment. I love this so much. It's a, it's like, what if Siskel and Ebert were actually friends? That's PTI. I think, I think, uh, yeah.

And I, and I just think like, in a way, they're kind of like, they've always had this great sense of, you know, we're on television. We obviously care about this stuff, but it's not a death match. Even Siskel and Ebert had the feel of a death match, but it was about real things. You know, like, this is a good movie, this is a bad movie, and we're taking this very, very seriously. Like, you don't even hear that on podcasts very much anymore? Oh, no, not even. Not even. Hey, do you think we're allowed to do this at The Ringer?

Like, I mean, I would, like, what if you really disagree with Bill's take on his top 50 NBA players of all time? And it is absurd that Jalen Brunson. I don't feel that way. Like, I agree with him on it. But if you were not feeling the table, that's what you told me? Yeah, I'm not filling the table at all, Bill. I'm not disagreeing with you. You're asking, are we in the tier?

Yeah, who are the tier people at the ringer that can get away at this? This is dangerous conversation. Van is, I think Van is in the tier. Van is in the tier. He can do anything. He's a favorite sign. He didn't like me saying it, but yeah. Speaking of announcing,

I don't know how much World Cup action you've been watching. You know what? Usually I'm a big World Cup guy, but I have not had a chance to kind of ramp up like I would want to so far. I did watch some of the opener U.S.A. versus Paraguay, but that's about it so far. What about you? Well, Shoemaker and I were saying this on Tuesday. World Cup's a pretty fantastic sporting event that you can just walk into. It's a lot like the NCAA tournament where you don't necessarily have to have a lot of knowledge about the sport to enjoy it.

Oh, yeah. Like yesterday, I'm looking at Twitter. as one does. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, Portugal and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or VR Congo, as it was called yesterday on television over and over again,

are tied. Like, here we go. Yeah, amazing. Amazing, right? And, like, I look at that match and I'm like,

I know who Cristiano Ronaldo is. Mm-hmm. I don't know who anybody else on the pitch is, but I can get, I can watch that match and immediately enjoy it. I know who the favorite is. I know who the Cinderella is. I'm going to root for the Cinderella.

here we go. Congo's 14C. You know what I'm saying? The, what is it? Murray State, Austin P. Yeah. There you go. That match was called by Darren Fletcher and Owen Hargreaves on Fox.

I love this. Listen to some of these analogies that we're using to describe D.R. Congo's defense. He's no way voluntary. There's not a bit of a second. It's so good not. It's so good at you can't beat him.

He's the equivalent in the NFL of a shookdown corner. Dionne does that Revis Island down here? Do they call it one Bissaccar Island? He's so good. Was that the first Revis Island reference in this year's World Cup? That's not a deep cut because Revis is a Hall of Fame corner, but that's pretty good. It was great. You can tell us, you know, the American audience, we understand.

you may not Brian and Joel you may be speaking to us directly we're trying to bring up to speed absolutely we're trying to be we're just going to hold your hand in extra time a Congolese player was closed lined at midfield

yeah close line here is Darren Fletcher with analogy that every American understands you'll hear him pick it up after they chat with the rules expert the arm does come up but when you see it from another angle he's arms in a natural position

and it doesn't really move. We said does go into that arm, but the arm doesn't come out like a clothesline. It doesn't come fully extended. So really has to analyze it as it is, and it's certainly not violent conduct. Glad. The arm comes extended out in a violent way.

It was more stopped in the promising attack. Gladst that's Holkogen and Somerslav. I'm not having that. I'm not having that answer. He said that arm's not in a natural position. He clotheslined him on. Holkogen, not at WrestleMania, but Holkogan at Somerslam.

Man, I mean, diving deep for the American audience. I mean, they're going back, man. I appreciate it. Darren Fletcher was fantastic. They're in that game incredibly opinionated, funny, rollicking. You could hear him scoffing while the rules analyst was talking there. I mean, man, you know, soccer, I mean, I don't, I don't know enough about the game

or even like, you know, the culture of announcing in other countries. But I feel like it's a rollicking good time. whenever I hear them calling a game. Absolutely. And it was yesterday. Now, speaking of a relicke in good time, or perhaps the opposite. Okay. I regret to inform me that everyone hates Fox Studio announcer Alexie Lawless.

That certainly seems to be like, I have not seen a positive social media post about him yet. He's been the lead analyst at Fox since 2015. Yeah. he's part of Fox's big star theory of hiring they call these guys no Chiron necessary baseball who we're going to get I know Derek Jeter that's right that's right football who we're going to get I know Tom Brady

and I've talked to people over there and they've said we do this on purpose because if you don't know anything about the sport you can look at Fox coverage and be like I know who that is yep I recognize that person and Alexi Lollas is that person for soccer. Yeah.

One of the biggest names. Right. If you ask 90s Brian and Joel who, let's face it, knew nothing about soccer, despite my legacy of Thunderfoot. If you asked 90s, Brian and Joel,

name an American soccer player. I bet you and I could have come up with Mia Ham. Yeah. Brandy Chastain. Maybe Julie Fowdy. Maybe Julie Fowdy, yeah.

And a lot of Lexi Lollos. Yeah. That's probably, you've gotten to Kobe Jones? You know what? Maybe Kobe Jones because, you know, look, man,

you know, and the black community, bro, we take, if you're doing something in a sport that we're not often in, like, you're going to get a little bit more pub in the community, you know what I'm saying? So Kobe Jones, that's a good pull. Yeah, probably Kobe Jones. Lexi is part of the Fox studio crew

with the excellent Rebecca Lowe, Tieri, and Zlatan Ibrahimovich. Mm-hmm. There's so many moments here. I almost didn't know what to pick, but this is what Lawless had to say about James Corden, who's doing World Cup late night for Fox. Saw them for a second. Oh, what do you guys call him?

Polkitt Wanker, right? Or whatever. I mean, it's all dressed up and ready to go. You did it just so much. Okay. Lucky we're on American television. Oof, there's the W word on British TV. Did you know Wanker was a nuclear word on British television? You know, I know that it's not good, but I just, I guess I didn't know the scale of it, right?

Like, I know that that's, if they call you that you should probably take offense to it, but yeah, I didn't realize it was like, is that like MF? That the red line was drawn there? Yeah. Did you? No, I did not know that at all. About a loss of slights and moments of awkwardness as well, especially between Lawless and Ibrahimovich. Listen to this one. Just, just, just again, imagine.

There are four people there, including Rebecca Lowe. Listen to how this is put. And all the adrenaline is passing the body. And we are just waiting for the game. And I see here around, everybody is getting a little bit nervous. Except for me and Terry Lee, we're used to the big stage. Now, there are three former soccer stars there. Can you imagine if we were doing a three-man weave with you and me and David?

And I said, you know, big-time journalism, a lot of people would get. We get nervous. A lot of people wouldn't be able to handle it. But Joel and I have a lot of experience in this. Yeah, that's a dis. That's not, I cannot hold it back. He does not like him. I mean, that's one of the great things.

It's very difficult for him to restrain his, like, sort of resentment of him. It really is. And when I hear people on television talk to each other and then I see everybody go to social and me, like, ooh, he really, he secretly hates that person. Yeah. It's almost always bullshit. Right. I'm always always like, you know, the people who are on television or who are on a podcast, they're acting.

Right. They really don't feel this way. They're acting. That's this part of the game. But I don't know. I've watched this and I'm like, eh, it doesn't seem like acting to me. Well, yeah. I mean, remember, there was a lot of scuttlebutt about whether or not Richard Jefferson hated Doris Burke or if they didn't like each other.

There was no guessing with this. Like, it was pretty much all out there on the table, you know? Lawless is a specimen. We don't see all that often on. a studio show. Yeah. An announcer who apparently has no fans. I mean, that is becoming a Fox specialty.

Isn't that why they put Dave Portnoy on their college football coverage? Right. Here's a difference. Yeah, that's the thing. I think there are a lot of people like, I hate that guy, but also go and say, I want to see what that guy says next. Yeah. You're right.

And look, some people do. I mean, a lot of people clearly like him. I mean, they like his pizza reviews and all this sort of stuff. So, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, who else would rival him for that? Like, who is there? Who do you have on that list? Okay, so I consulted with some sports media friends.

Okay. That she'll remain unnamed. And here is the list of possible comps. Okay. People who had long careers in media, despite no evidence that they had fans of their television. You better not say Reggie Miller, but go ahead. Reggie Miller's not on the list. Okay, all right, good.

You and I are weirdly, that's our most controversial takeout. Yeah, but he's not that bad. You know, and you know what? When the ESPN crew didn't go get Deerrin Fox for trying to do that hero layup at the end of the game that cost the spurs, I was like, Reggie Miller would have gotten there. You would have said something. Reggie Miller would have said something. Here's my list. Phil Sims.

Ooh. I think late career Phil Sims had no television defenders. You know what, man. And that is a really good one because, I mean, it was bad at the end. It was bad in the booth and it was bad on the studio show. Yeah, you're right. That is, man, that's a really good one. Good pull.

Okay. Tony Denji? I mean, so that's difficult, right? Because I think there are a lot of people who are warm towards Tony because of like how he lived his life and he was sort of a soft-spoken guy. But is the issue like, we don't want to see you on TV or we don't like you? Therefore, we don't want you on TV. Yeah, I don't think he had go away energy.

Yeah, like Lawless does. Yeah. Here's a weird one because I think this will strike a lot of people as surprising, but if you were around during the NBA on NBC Hayday, during the 90s and 2000. I know who you're going to say. I know, oh, man. Bill Walton was this guy.

Bill Walton was a troll on that. I mean, I'm sorry. This is not the beatific Bill Walton who appeared later on. Okay. Low Wattage College basketball games. that everybody loved. You know what? Bill Walton was was on there to piss people off.

That man, you know what? I'm going back in my memory bank. Okay. Yeah. What did you think I was going to say? I thought you were going to say Peter Vessy. Oh. Yeah, that's an interesting one, though.

He was, I feel like he was a reporter. Yeah, I mean, he was more. He was not a pundit. But sometimes I don't feel like people were mad at Peter Vessie like that. So I felt like he was kind of controversy. Yeah. He was controversial. But I don't feel people were like switching off.

When Bill Walton was calling the finals, that was a very controversial period in American life. I miss Bill Walton. RIP, Bill, man. Here's another name I got. And this was kind of looking forward as a potential no fans guy, Russell Wilson on CBS this fall. Oh, man. Oh, dude, that is a good one. So do what, you put Tiki Barber in there then?

Did Tiki Barbara ever do anything enough? Tiki was like, was like, was Tiki on every show. Remember that? They tried. They tried so hard to make that work and it just did not hold it. He was on morning television. Yeah, man. Not even football, but morning television.

I mean, when he stepped out of TV, I mean, when he stepped out of football, it was just like, oh, he's going to be the next big media guy. He's going to be the star. And it just did not work out like that at all. Wasn't it funny that Michael Strayhan from the same team became the guy that everybody thought Tiki Barber was going to become? I mean, it's true. It is.

That is so, it's so amazing. that Michael Strahan is that guy. Like, his life is just fast. You know, he's a TSU grad. I think he went to Westbury High School in Houston. Yeah, just for him to have a kind of guy. Because also, like, I mean, he was just like a big, not an oath, but just kind of like I don't know how to explain it, but like he was a defensive in.

And I don't remember him coming off as particularly friendly in interviews, but I didn't interview him all the time. But, you know, I mean, I didn't see him interviewed all the time. But like, he didn't come off as particularly friendly. But now he's like, you know, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, friendly enough for morning television. Absolutely. Yeah.

My wife has a charisma. He can do lots of different things on television. Yeah, he's had a great career. My wife doesn't like many people and doesn't watch a lot of sports, but she likes Michael Straighthand. I think also she has a little bit of a crush on him, but that's another thing. All right. One more name.

Okay. This might be the best one. Okay. Came from Ben Koo of awful announcing. He tweeted this out. Okay. Mark May. Wee.

That, you know what? That's the one. That's the one. That's the one. That's the one. Wait, hold on then, because that makes me think of Trev Alberts. Ooh, that's another great one. Uh-huh.

The Trevor Albert's era of ESPN. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Man, Trev Albert's Mark Bay. Why did ESPN do that to people? I enjoyed, and the thing is, I enjoyed that show with Herman. Lou Holtz at the end of the night. I looked forward to that show.

The whole sub-game day tier of ESPN college football is fascinating because it's always like, why are the game day guys getting all the attention? We're just as good as they are. Oh, yeah. I mean, that was just a lot of weirdness. Yeah, college football final, man. That was, yeah, those, I mean, it wasn't,

there wasn't the Chitlin circuit, but yeah, it's not the same thing as being on game day at all. I looked into a little bit why people are so mad at Alexi Lollas. Okay. A couple reasons came up. One is he's just not as good as a, the other two guys on the panel. I read a piece by James Dater and SB Nation who said,

hey, Fox has Clint Dempsey on the roster who had a much better, bigger career in Europe. He could be on there if they need an American. Another reason is he feels very 1994. You know, again, go back to young Brian and young Joel, who knew nothing about the sport. Americans now do not feel they need an American ambassador to the beautiful game. Like they know soccer well, right?

They want to see the real stars on there. It's different now. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. The European part of it maybe would matter more now. They're like, oh, no, that dude was a real star, not just on the American soccer team, but he went over there and excelled.

Whereas, like, we didn't, you know, Americans don't give a shit about what our athletes do over in Europe, you know? Also, lawless right-wing Twitter account was at the 2024 Republican Convention. Yeah, well, that's that drives from people away. Yeah. I mean, I'm surprised people hold that against him in this environment, but yeah, I could see how that would work, yeah. And maybe there's a fan base out there that he has, you know, gathered

through his political beliefs that you and I just aren't privy to. Maybe there isn't. I'm saying, a silent majority, if you will. That's what I'm saying. Like, I'm not on all the Internet spaces. And so there might be some people that think wokesters are being unfair to him or something. You said you were watching Nick Fuentes the other day. Hey, look, man.

I look, man. He was making some points. God can't lie. All. Here is our special guest. Hey, y'all. It's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfar. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if?

Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. All right, Joel.

Let's bring on Ben Terrace. He is one of the best political. profile writers and reporters out there. The author of recent pieces about the Biden comeback, about Janine Piro, about John Federman, and he does all this as the Washington correspondent for New York Magazine, a job that has never had any controversy attached to it whatsoever.

Ben, welcome to the press box. Thanks for having me on. We'd like to sandbag the guests right away. Yeah, didn't see that coming. So you went to South Dakota to report on the Biden's attempt at a comeback. For people who haven't read your piece yet, what did you see from the former president? Well, the first thing that people should know is when I went to South Dakota to see the former president of the United States speak, he was doing so at a best Western in Sioux Falls, which I just thought was like, I don't know, that was enough to pitch the travel to my editor, which is like, this guy was the president. He still thinks he should be president. He thinks that he could have won the last election. But instead of being at the White House or in the Rose Garden or, you know, doing campaign rallies in these.

stadiums or whatever. He's at at Best Western Motel in South Dakota to speak to, you know, pretty much every Democrat in the entire state, which is not that many Democrats in the state. But, you know, it filled up a, it filled up the ballroom at the West Western. And what did I see there? I mean, I saw a man who looked old and tired and a little sleepy, honestly, but he did get a big response from the Democrats that were there. They were psyched to see him. It was kind of an older crowd as well. So they maybe, didn't hold it against him, that, you know, he tried to stay in the presidential race despite his advanced age. And he got a little more political than he might have expected in recent

speeches. He kind of stayed away from that, but he, you know, took some shots at President Trump as the most corrupt president, and people really ate it up. So, Ben, and this is sort of a theme running through the story, but in this, I wanted to ask you this question in this context. Why do you think they're relitigating 2024 a few months before the midterms? Because it feels like maybe that shows the distance they have from the Democratic establishment right now or what else is going on? Yeah, I think there's a lot of factors at play here. One, Joe Biden doesn't have that much time to fight for his legacy, right? I mean, a lot of presidents leave office and they got 20 years to build their foundation and build a library and, you know, return to the scene four years later.

and everyone kind of sees them through rose-colored glasses and maybe starts liking them more. Joe Biden is old and he has cancer and he might not have as long to live, frankly. It's sad but true. And so he has to kind of fight for his legacy now. There is a financial aspect to this. Jill Biden's book came out now in part,

I believe, because they're not making a lot of money. They didn't make a lot of money. And getting a bestseller is helpful to the Bidens. They help support their children. Joe Biden was a public servant for a really long time, didn't make a lot of money. So those two things are going on. And also one of the main things I've tried to focus on in the story is

they have always had a tight inner circle, but it's shrunk even tighter now. And it's this bubble that has not served him well necessarily. And so I think a lot of people probably thought when Jill Biden was going to put out her book and try to relitigate what happened in 2024 or tell the story from their point of view or go on speaking tours and do interviews about it.

And when Joe Biden's out there now, I think they thought, oh, America is willing to hear you guys out now. Things have gotten so nasty in the current political climate. People are so unhappy with President Trump that perhaps by comparison, Joe Biden will return and be seen as a conquering hero. And so I think those factors all kind of play together to make it. So right now is when we're seeing him,

even if a lot of the Democratic Party would rather push this off a little bit. If we go back to the summer of 20, For Joe Biden lost a debate, a real debate, but also a debate within the party that said, can you be president for four more years? Are you up to the job? When you talk to Biden defenders now, the ones who are really still rallying around him, do they really think he has what it takes to be president right now? Because that's what he set out to do two years ago. Right now, some of them, even some of his most ardent defenders kind of waffle on that. And they, and they use the cancer diagnosis as their kind of excuse for it, which is, look, we didn't know

that he was as sick as he is now. We didn't know that that was happening or was going to happen. And so at the time, we were positive and we believe that it was still the right case to make that he was okay to be president at that moment and would continue to be okay. Now there's an unforeseen thing that's happened that makes people kind of question it. I'm not sure how unforeseen that really is. I mean, when you get to a certain age, like health things can come. come up at any given moment, it's not actually a huge surprise when that happens. And so, you know,

people who wanted him to get out of the race and be a bridge candidate like you said he might be, can use that as their reason to say, well, look, this is what we were talking about. This is the kind of thing that we were afraid was going to happen. Some people still think he could be president. And I think all of them will say, no matter what, he's still better as an option than the current situation. And I think a lot of Democrats believe that, but it's, you know, or those are the only options you had was either Joe Biden or Donald Trump or was there a whole, party of people waiting in the wings who could have stepped up and, you know, run a campaign had they had the chance.

You know, so even before he lost the race, I mean, books on Joe Biden didn't necessarily do well. Like there were always articles about, hey, there's not a lot of interest in that. And there's been some dispute about Jill Biden's book and like its bestseller status, right? About how it's been received. And then in your story, you talk about him trying to raise funds for the presidential library and it's not going. So what do you think it says actually about his popularity that

it doesn't seem like people, he wants to go out there and sort of relitigate his legacy and go out there, but it doesn't actually seem like people are that interested in hearing from him or learning more about him, right? Yeah, I mean, I talked to David Axelrod for the story, who's become a little bit of a Biden critic. And he was basically like, look, it's not that people hate him and it's not the people that love him. It's that people just don't really want to think about them. And that's a really hard place to be for raising money, for defending your legacy, or really just frankly for being a person who's used to being powerful and important and now not really being thought about. And so I think that there's some truth to that. I mean,

if you look at, there's not a lot of polls at the moment, but if there's some polling out there that suggests that within the Democratic Party, he remains broadly popular, 80% or so of Democrats still like them. You know, liking somebody is not the same thing as liking them enough to go out and see him speak or buy Jill Biden's book or donate to his his foundation. And so there was a lot of struggle. Part of that is a hangover from 2024. Democrats are so upset about what happened. They probably don't want to donate money to any Democrat, especially the guy who was, you know, the president for four years. But there is some evidence that that hangover could end. Lots of presidents disappear for a while. Barack Obama disappeared for a while. George W. Bush is

basically still disappeared. Clinton even kind of, you know, there were stories apparently about him like, you know, holing up in Chappaqua and not being seen or heard from for a while while he was building his post-presidency out. And so there is, you know, plenty of examples of people going away and then coming back and being more popular with time. It just has to be kind of like we talked about before on an expedited timeline. The presidential library is one thing, but when we talk about book sales. I'm always fascinated by how many normie resistance Democrats are out in the world. And it sounds like you were among some of them in South Dakota. But like these are people that

are pissed off at Trump. They feel powerless. And they just want to do something. And doing something might mean buying Joe Biden's memoir and buying Joe Biden's memoir, whether it comes out in September or at some indistinct date into the future. How big a group do you think of people are described like that, normie resistance types? Yeah, I think it's probably bigger than people in the press or in, you know, establishment, Washington or New York City or, you know, these places would want to give credit for. I mean, you know, I just saw a slice of it in South Dakota. And people lined up for more than an hour to take their picture with him.

I saw an 81-year-old woman kiss Joe Biden right on the lips. And right in front of her husband who said that his only regret was that Jill Biden. Biden wasn't there. And so, like, you know, the people I saw were psyched to see him. And I think probably you go across the country, you'll find lots of people like that. And as for book sales, I mean, I don't think it takes that many, not that many people are buying books these days. So to hit the New York Times bestseller list, you know, that's tens of thousands of people

probably in this country. There's certainly tens of thousands of people who love the Bidens, maybe even millions of people, but are there hundreds of millions? I mean, it's hard when the numbers get this big. But I do think there's a lot of people out there who think that Joe Biden was a good president. And even people who were upset about him staying in the race too long, I think even some of those people would say, well, look, he was a good president. He did a lot of good things. He fought for the things we care about.

I was talking to folks from the story, you know, even kind of lefty Democrats who were like, look, we don't want to go after his policies because we kind of broadly like his policies. He's stacked the administration with, you know, Elizabeth Warren-type folks who, you know, we don't want to say the word Bidenomics anymore because it's not a popular term, but the stuff behind it is still broadly popular. And I don't think people necessarily want to run away from his presidency. They just kind of want to run away from his last campaign. Hunter Biden has resurfaced on social media. Where does the fascination with Hunter Biden come from? Oh, man. I mean, I think there's a lot of reasons to be fascinated with him.

You know, he was kind of a side character throughout the last administration, always in the news. I mean, we're talking about guns and nude pictures and leaked stuff on the, on the internet and drug use. I mean, there's just something kind of interesting about him as a character in general, almost succession-like, right? Like the son of a very powerful person who's gone through his own kind of mental issues and done so publicly. That makes him interesting. The fact that he's sober now and talks about all this stuff in a very kind of raw, way and powerful way, frankly, sometimes I think makes him interesting. Also, he just never know what he's going to say, right?

There's something kind of almost unhinged about his character that makes him more exciting than Joe Biden, for example, who, you know, I guess he would say stuff that he wasn't meant to say, but like he was always like a politician. This is a guy from a political family who's just not of that world exactly. Also, I mean, you know, he's kind of a troll. He knows how to use the internet in a really interesting way, picking fights with people, making fun of himself. And then everyone wants to know, like, what's he doing? Like, is he trying to run for president himself?

Does he want to be less the Joe Biden of the Democratic Party and more like a Donald Trump of the Democratic Party? Is he got something in mind? I think it is an interesting time for him. Plus, the fact that Donald Trump's kids are like 10 times more corrupt and, you know, out there in the news, just raking in billions of dollars. for themselves makes everyone kind of look at Hunter Biden differently, which is like, oh, yeah, he did have his things, but I don't know, maybe it's not as bad as what we're seeing right now. Strange new respect for Hunter Biden. Exactly.

It's interesting because I remember when he did that channel, I guess it was the Channel 5 interview and since gone on and done like Candice Owens and all these other folks. So what was your conversation with like? I just like you said you talked to him over the phone in the story. So, you know, was he as unpredictable and sort of, you know, unfiltered? in the conversation with you? Honestly, I wish he had been more unpredictable and more unfiltered. By the time I talked to him, I feel like he had gone through not media training,

but he'd done enough of these things where he knew what he wanted to say and he kind of said the things he wanted to say. You know, that Channel 5 interview was what, like three hours long and he just like kind of would say anything. I didn't quite get that experience with him. You know, he wanted to, this was a story about his father, so I think maybe he took it seriously in a different way than when he's just talking about himself. He wanted to make sure he didn't say anything.

that could damage his father. He didn't want to say anything that could make the story seem more like it was about Hunter Biden than about Joe Biden. So he kind of stayed inside the box a little bit more than I expected him to. Ben, you wrote a terrific piece several months back about John Federman,

who seems to be on Fox News every night or calling Graham Platner a new name every other day. How do we understand what John Federman is doing right now? It's hard to understand John Federman because I'm not even sure he fully understands himself these days. But I think one thing about him to know is that when he feels backed into a corner, he kind of lashes out even more than your average politician does. And I think once he felt like he was losing his allies, the Democratic Party loved him. He was a hero. You know, he helped

Democrats control the Senate, won a really important and difficult race, did so with a lot of difficulty and kind of an amazing personal story that was happening. He was like a hero. And when he lost that status, I think he almost sort of just sought out new people to love him. And, I mean, Fox News loves him. Republicans love him as the Democrat that makes other Democrats' lives miserable. And so I think there's part of him that just kind of likes that stuff. I mean, I know that his father's a big Fox News watcher, his brother's a big Fox News watcher. He's always kind of wanted their respect. I'm sure he's getting it from them in certain ways. And he also likes to be heterodox and kind of iconoclastic and likes to shove it in people's faces. Like, you think

you know me, you really, you really have no idea. This is who I am. You know, that was, I mean, even, you know, looking at a distance, that's a really tough story for anybody to deal with, because it talks so much about, like, his mental health issues and I treated people. That's a really touched on a lot of really sensitive issues. And near the end of the story, it seems like he was sort of resentful of the idea that you were talking to people and the people that talked to you about that stuff. When the story came out, did you hear from him again? Did you, did you get any feedback or hear anything from the Federman camp about what they thought of the story? No, because pretty much all the fighting that happened about that story happened pre-publication. There was a lot of,

you know, back and forth, a lot of difficult conversations. And I think it let a lot of the steam out. And by the time it published, I think they were just done. And I literally never heard from him or anyone in his office again after that story came out. It was just sort of a one and done situation. All right, Ben, when you were a young profile writer and you're reading stuff and you're thinking about your career, who was a person you looked at and said, hmm, I want to write like him or her when I grew up? I mean, the obvious answer for me, I went to the Washington Post style section and the kind of queen of Washington Post profile writing was always Marjorie Williams. And her profiles were just incredible, long form pieces, very tough. made, you know, I think people probably read stories about themselves and learned things about

themselves often unhappily, is my guess. And I think her writing was just like kind of the perfect political writing that can never be topped. And so that was always somebody whose work I read and studied and tried my best to like, you know, come within 20 or 30 miles of when I was writing. You may not think of it this way, Ben, but you're the new Olivia Nutsi. Okay. You're the literal of numerical replacement for Olivia Nudsi. So what's been different about working at New York Magazine as opposed to the Post and what made that position appealing to you? Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, you know, the Washington Post was an amazing place to work. I kind of thought that being in the style section was going to be the last job I ever had in journalism. Like I would just stay there forever. You know, things happened at the Washington Post in recent years that I'm sure listeners are familiar with. And that was part of the- But we're not familiar. Yeah, we can do another segment on that another day.

You know, I'm still rooting for everyone over there, and they're still doing really great work. And so it wasn't the only reason why I left. But, you know, I wanted a new challenge. Magazine writing is a different kind of challenge than newspaper writing, even longer-form newspaper writing. And I think what I really love about New York is I feel like I'm stretching in a way that I kind of wasn't by the time I was done at the Washington Post, where I'm writing longer. and writing longer isn't just more words. It's figuring out how to structure it. It's figuring out what makes a story worthy of 5,000, 7,000, 10,000 words instead of a 2,000 word story.

It's not just literally writing more words on the page. It's figuring out what story is worth that and how to make it be more about more than just the person you're writing about, how to have it be, you know, the themes be broader and bigger. So that's a huge reason why I love New York Magazine. My editor is amazing at New York Magazine. I mean, my colleagues are so smart that, you know, it's great to be able to talk through stories with them. It's just a really good team. And it's exciting to be at a place that I just think is killing it every week. You know, and I know people may not know this.

Ben and I are mutual admiration society. And in fact, we once ran into each other at the Ben, we were just talking about it before, the Ben Carson presidential announcement in Detroit in 2015. Yep. Right? What a time that was. Yeah, that was. What a different world that was.

right. But one thing that I've always admired about you and really just like it's almost like makes me jealous like the stories that you pick. So how do you choose the stories that you're going to do? And like what does that ideas list look like for you? Yeah, I always sort of felt like there's two kinds of stories I want to do. Right. One is right about somebody that nobody's ever heard of, but it's super important and interesting and powerful, you know, the most powerful person you've never heard of, you know, that kind of thing. If you can find somebody and introduce them to the world, that's very satisfying. You know, that can be, here's a crazy, interesting, powerful person that you should know about. That's one way I think about stories. And the other is trying

to write about somebody in a way, a person that you think you know about, that you think that you've heard of and you think you might understand and writing about them in a way that nobody's ever covered them before. And that can either be a definitive piece, a long piece that just kind of really takes their whole life and says, look, you never need to read another story about this person again, here's the one, or finding a slice of their life that has not been covered and kind of really drilling in on that. And those are the ways I think about stories. You know, in the Trump era, it can be difficult because the bar for what is considered a surprising or important or funny or whatever, the bar becomes different, right? You really have to find something about somebody,

or find somebody that jumps out at you. And it's harder and harder to find those stories these days. Ben, you said we could do this on a later podcast, but we've already opened Pandora's box, or as we like to call it here, Will Lewis and Matt Murray's box. Gross. How do you make sense of what's happened

to your old paper, The Washington Post? I think, how do I make sense of it? Well, I can't, frankly, make sense of it. I think the paper was filled with incredible talent, incredible stories, great editing, great storytelling. I don't think it was in need of a shakeup, and I think they shook it up anyway. I don't know. It's hard to get inside the head of a deranged billionaire, you know, like he was,

Jeff Bezos did a great job with The Post for a long time, gave a lot of runway, and then just decided to change it all. Was it a business decision? Probably to a degree. I don't know. but what really frustrates me is all the talk about how it wasn't working and how subscribers you know subscribers were leaving but the real reason that a lot of subscribers left was because of the owner's decision not because of the work that was happening there and there's no ownership

of that right so if you're going to be working on this at this paper and gaining subscribers with your incredible work and then the owner makes a decision and 300,000 people leave the next day and then the owner goes out and talks about how the paper was losing subscribers. It's like, well, that's your fault. And so I can't really quite make sense of it. And I find it very infuriating for the people that are still there and the people of Washington who need a paper to, you know, to land on their doorstep or read on their devices every day. I think it's just a tragedy. You know, in the story, you make reference to Kelly's Irish Times.

You call it this a low-key pub in your Capitol Hill. And one of the things I'm always sort of fascinated about, because especially I lived in D.C. and I live in the DMV, like, the bars and the restaurants where folks are hanging out here, right? So, like, when you're doing your reporting, where do you hang out? Like, are you going to like Kellys or Bullfeathers? That's another place I've heard about or whatever. Tune in. Tune in. Yeah. Can I come? I want to come with you one time. But, you know, what are those places like and how often are you going? Yeah, I'm going to disappoint you, I think, honestly. And this may be giving away myself a little too much. I'm not a big creature of the night's life scene here. When I first started in D.C., a fellow journalist who's still a successful journalist, I will not name names, told me, like, the only way to be successful is to move to Capitol Hill. And this is when I was covering the hill and report all day and then spend all night at the tune-in

or at Capitol Lounge or whatever these places are, because that's where you're going to get the real scoops and whatever. And I was like, that just sounds miserable. Like, I will burn out on covering this place if my whole day and my whole night is spent working. You know, I really kind of need a separation of my job and my life. You know, I care about things outside of politics. I don't, I never really wanted to write about politics. I think in some ways it makes me a better political writer than I would be because I can look at things with a little bit of a jaded eye. And so I don't really go out to the bars that much.

I don't really hobnob. I'd rather not see the people that I write about because sometimes they're mad at me. And I would rather not spend all my time hanging out with sources because I don't want to get too close to them because I want to be able to cover cynically. And I want to be able to see things with fresh eyes and not feel like I'm of the place so much as an observer of a place. Not what you'd expect to hear from the new Olivia Nutsi. I know. I kind of hope that my editor is not listening because maybe they want me out all the time. I was going to say, I didn't know you could separate your life from politics when you're a DC political reporter.

That's, I thought that was against the Donald Martin bylaws. But honestly, I think if I didn't, I think I would have burned out. Like maybe I would have been like an incredible reporter for two years in a way that I never have been. But then by the third year, I might be like, I can't do this anymore. I have to go, you know, teach high school or something, which would be great. Honestly, teaching high school sounds fantastic. You didn't want to do. So what did you kind of writing did you want to do then?

Because you've been doing politics for like, over a decade now? So how in the hell? Yeah. Well, Joe, I'll tell you, Mike, the first... Yeah, right, yeah, right? Well, the first job I ever had was when I was 13 years old covering local sports for the Concord Journal and Concord Massachusetts

writing about baseball and basketball, the high school teams. I always wanted to be a sports reporter. I mean, you know, in some ways, it's not that different, right? Like you're writing about political figures either way and people who don't necessarily want to talk to you and people who have their own talking points. People think of both as a game. even though only one is actually a set of games and the other matters in ways that some of the reporters don't necessarily remember it matters. I think honestly I just would like to write

about people. I'd like to write profiles. I'd like to write about if I could write 10 stories a year, maybe three would be about politicians, three about athletes, three about like weirdos, inventing things. Who knows? Just people. It's just like your kind of classic stories. All right, Ben Terrace. New York Magazine, the new piece is called Building Back the Biden Ben, thanks so much for coming on the press box. Yeah, anytime. Thanks for having me. All right, that's the press box. He's Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis.

Producing Patrick by Isaiah Blakely. Coming up next week, there's going to be a big Washington book. You and I are going to jive into Mr. Anderson. It's not about the Wizards. It's not about the Wizards. The book deals are going to the Knicks writers, not the Wizards writers. Oh, okay. Fair point. Red Capp has already got a book deal.

Wizards do. So let's set the clock like 10, 15 years from now. Okay. How many Wizards books have been published? Oh, my God. I can't be that many. It can't be. There was definitely a Jordan on the Wizards book.

Oh, nothing else matters is a great book. And was source material for the pot I did called The Last Last Dance Over at the Slate. So, yeah, people who haven't read that book, they should read it. It's really, really good. I remember when the Nuggets made the finals a couple years ago and I went back and tried to find. a book that had been written about the nuggets, and I found one that was kind of a book.

It was an oversized thing, so maybe hit a little bit of coffee table book feel to it, but it was just like there's a lot of teams that just have never had a book. A lot of Doug Moe and Alex English in it? Exactly what it was. Cadillac. Yeah.

All right, but the book we're talking about next week, it's regime changed by Maggie Hampton, Jonathan Swan. You and are going to dive into that. See how close they get to the Woodward standard of Washington political books. That's Thursday. Shoemaker's here Tuesday. Joel cannot wait to have more lukewarm takes

about the media with you. Looking forward to, buddy.