The Press Box - Trump Tweets Through Impeachment—Plus: Stephen A. Smith and Myles Garrett | The Press Box

Episode Date: November 19, 2019

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker discuss the latest on the possible impeachment Donald Trump (03:00), the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week (21:15), Stephen A. Smith on Colin Kaepernick (24:00), the Myles Garrett takefest (36:00), the newspaper scandal involving the so-called Hitler Diaries (43:15), and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. The NBA is in full swing and we have coverage across all of our channels to keep you up to speed with the latest news, trends, and storylines. Make sure to check out the mismatch with Kevin O'Connor and Chris Vernon, group chat with Chris Ryan and Justin Barrier, and heat check with John Gonzalez for daily coverage of the games across the league. And make sure to check out the ringer.com to read Kevin O'Connor, Dan Devine, and the rest of our NBA experts break down every development. As always, these can be found on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. David, Fox News had to make an embarrassing correction today after wrongly reporting that Cory Booker had dropped out of the presidential race. What I want to know is which candidate do you think would actually drop out if a major news outlet

incorrectly reported them dropping out. Oh, wow. Like, they got, like, they were so humble or so humiliated by the notion that they're an obvious candidate to drop out, that they would just be forced to drop out. Like, if someone makes, it's like when someone just, like, insults you so well that you have to just turn around and walk away. That's it. You win. Wow. I mean, I think a lot of them should. I don't know of all of them would.

I mean, Booker's not quite there. Dang, who is it? Who's still running? What's the bottom of the list right now? Yeah, I mean, John Delaney? Is John Delaney embarrassable enough to? Yeah, I mean, if Fox is a little bit, you can make the argument about Fox. If the New York Times ran a piece about like Julian Castro dropping out, he might just have to drop out.

I think he's on. He's not in the November debate. He's on the line. Yeah, he might go. I guess the question is, could you, if you're a Democratic candidate, even someone on the bottom of the list, couldn't you just fundraise the hell out of this? Isn't your first email? The New York Times says our campaign is dead, but let's show them. Help me raise a million dollars by midnight.

Yeah, it sounds like a Mary Ann Williams. You kind of have to be at the bottom to make that plea, though, right? If Joe Biden was like, the New York Times has her out of it, but we're not. Wouldn't you just be like, yeah, I'm going to need to see your financials just to be doubly sure that I'm not just throwing. throwing good money after bad. We are the Wayne Messum Forever of Media Podcasts. This is the press box, a part of the Ringer podcast network.

Hello media consumers, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here. We got lots and lots of stuff to get to today. We'll talk about the Renaissance or the maybe not Renaissance of ESPN opinionator Stephen A. Smith. We'll talk about the take fest that greeted helmet swinging Cleveland Brown Miles Garrett the other night. We'll revisit the great newspaper scandal involving the so-called Hitler Diaries plus of course the overworked

Twitter joke of the week but David until further notice I think we need to begin this podcast with the latest on the

possible impeachment of Donald Trump it's not really news at this point to say that Trump tweeted through something but Friday

was still pretty significant because Trump tweeted through his impeachment hearing literally and may have

committed an additional impeachable offense while doing it ousted American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch was testifying. And Trump tweeted everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia.

How did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian president spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. Let us listen to Democrat Adam Schiff. Stop the impeachment hearing to announce this tweet. What would you like to respond to the president's attack? that everywhere you went turned bad? Well, I mean, I don't think I have such powers, not in Mogadish, Somalia, not in other places.

I actually think that where I've served over the years, I and others have demonstrably made things better, you know, for the U.S. as well as for the countries that I've served in. Ukraine, for example, where there are, are huge challenges, including on the issue that we're discussing today of corruption. Huge challenges. But they've made a lot of progress since 2014, including in the years that I was there. And I think in part, I mean, the Ukrainian people get the most credit for that.

But a part of that credit goes to the work of the United States and to me as the ambassador in Ukraine. Ambassador, you've shown the courage to come forward today and testify, notwithstanding the fact you urged by the White House or State Department, not to, notwithstanding the fact that, as you testified earlier, the president implicitly threatened you in that call record, and now the president in real time is attacking you. What effect do you think that has on other witnesses' willingness to come forward and expose wrongdoing? Well, it's very intimidating. It's a design to intimidate, is it not? I mean, I can't speak to what the president is trying to do, but I think the effect is to be intimidating. Well, I want to let you know, Ambassador, that some of us here take witness intimidation varies, very, very, very,

Seriously. The New York Times notes, David, that this probably does not fall under basic criminal witness intimidation, but it may fall under a potential impeachment charge of obstruction of justice or obstruction of Congress when paired with previous acts like dangling pardons or asking subordinates to write memos exonerating the president. This one really struck me because I think one of the features of the Trump administration has been, him tweeting through literally everything and us watching and saying, wait, is there any downside to just blasting

everybody and anybody in your Twitter feed? And I think with this and Roger Stone's conviction last week, Roger Stone, another guy who was tweeting through his various problems, it sort of showed the limits of it. that maybe it truly isn't a good idea to, you know, go after everybody who you perceive to be your opponent. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think there's, even if you want to be totally

generous to the concept, I think there's a difference between, you know, tweeting through some sort of difficulty or scandal and literally tweeting through it when you, when you're, like, tweeting as events are unfolding and putting yourself in a real precarious situation or unfavorable situation because you can't stifle yourself long enough to kind of decide what the move is. I mean, honestly, I think that the most, at this point, the most, the best defense Trump has is almost just the, I mean, the case that actually some Republicans have been making is just like his own ridiculousness sort of makes him impervious to these charges. And, and the, in the, tweeting during Yovanovitch's testimony, I mean, it was just so damage.

if not an admission of guilt just like a very like he drew he he got out the the the chalkboard and drew a diagram about how he is too idiotic to have avoided the pitfalls that he put him that he put in front of himself it just seems like I mean I mean it's it's impossible to watch that go down and one not feel incredible sympathy for ambassador Yvanovitch I mean she was incredibly impressive throughout the entire testimony and I mean one of the through all of these hearings certainly one of the most compelling figures that we've had in front of in front of the cameras but it was impossible to not just sort of like laugh at I mean almost at the ridiculousness of what Trump was doing to the point where maybe it's it does sort of diminish the

depravity of it you know I mean it just was it's just so just so inane that's I mean it is where actual impeachable acts collide with, as you say, what is emerging as a conservative defense, which is that Trump is too incompetent to commit impeachable acts. And, you know, I feel that for the last couple of years, we've had this national conversation about what happens when you tweet about somebody and turn your followers on somebody. That's just kind of been percolating. This is the presidential impeachment version of that conversation. Trump is turning his bots or whatever they are loose on this former ambassador. Again, not only against all common sense, but against what apparently were the Republican talking points, which was let's not insult this person. Let's let this go.

Let's ask questions, all that kind of stuff. But let us not assassinate the character of this person, including blaming the problems of Somalia. on this single American Foreign Service officer. Well, it's such thin gruel, too. Like, you really, like, when I, when I saw that tweet, the existence of that tweet, I was really expecting, like, there to be a couple more, you know, international healthscapes that she attended at some point during her career. Instead, it was just like Somalia, and then, and you know how that turned out.

And then now she's in Ukraine and what? I mean, there's just like, it was such a, a bad, such a like a half-assed insult. Yeah, I mean, it's just like, it's, I feel like we say this once a month or something like that, but the, this is, this, we are living a Saturday night live sketch. The idea that Donald Trump would have just like come off the top rope with the bad insult in the middle of his, you know, the impeachment proceedings is just so ridiculous. The good news is that Trump learned his lesson.

Ha ha, just kidding. Because on Sunday, he tweeted, tell Jennifer Williams, whoever that is, to read both transcripts of the presidential calls and see the released, the just-release statement from Ukraine. Then she should meet with the other never-trumper's, who I don't know and mostly never even heard of, and work out a better presidential attack. Jennifer Williams is a Mike Pence aide who is testifying on Tuesday. So we're still at it. Elsewhere in impeachment news, David, I would love to talk to you about he loves your ass. by that I mean David Holmes an official in the U.S. Embassy in Kiev or Kiev, if you prefer, submitted private testimony about a July incident at a restaurant.

He was at the restaurant with EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland and Sondland called Trump. I'm going to quote to you from David Holmes' testimony. I noticed Ambassador Sondland's demeanor change and understood that he had been connected to President Trump. While Ambassador Sondland's phone was not on speakerphone, I could hear. hear the president's voice through the earpiece of the phone. The president's voice was very loud and recognizable. Dot, dot, dot. I heard Ambassador Sondland greet the president and explain he was calling from Kiev. I heard President Trump then clarify that Ambassador Sondland was in Ukraine. Ambassador Sondland replied, yes, he was in Ukraine. And then went on to state that President

Zelenskyy loves your ass. I think he means loves your ass, not loves your ass, but you know, put your inflection where you want to there. I then heard President Trump ask, so he's going to do the investigation. Ambassador Sondland replied that he's going to do it, adding that President Zelensky will do anything you ask him to. Even though I did not take notes of these statements, I have a clear recollection that these statements were made. Then, after the call ended, and I'm still quoting David Holmes here, Ambassador Sondland remarked that the president was in a bad mood. I asked Ambassador Sondland if it was true that the president did not give a shit about Ukraine, Ambassador Sondland agreed that the president did not give a shit about Ukraine.

That implying that the president didn't care about actual corruption in Ukraine, but cared about Ukraine, making a show of investigating this fake theory about the Biden's and or Ukraine's interference in the 2016 election. So that's pretty damning. And how amazing is it, David, just the stagecraft of this. that this was revealed because President Trump talks too loudly and could be heard through the phone. Not I was sitting around, you know, as a part of an official communicate, taking notes,

but I could hear the president essentially yelling through somebody's cell phone while we're sitting at a cafe in Ukraine. Yeah. What as the press box is resident drama critic do you make of that? it's just it it's just so perfect I mean like everything else is there anything I mean it's it's like there's there's no one that is that has read that there's no one that's listening to this podcast

there's no one that has heard the report of this on the nightly news who does not know exactly what Donald Trump looked like as he was yelling into the phone right I mean it's like so easy to imagine there's not even a question of what it was what was going on and sadly that's just sort of the state of affairs, at least maybe more metaphorically of everything that

this administration seems to have got itself into. As these various plots are laid out in the media, too, there's always a sense of we're not going to find a smoking gun that's as obvious as that. We're not going to find somebody using language like, do you, hey, is it agreed upon that so-and-so is going to do the bad thing? Yes, it's agreed that they're going to do the bad thing. but I feel in the Ukraine affair, we keep finding that. And this is just yet another part. That is just wild and baffling.

Elsewhere in Ukraine news, a big week for John Solomon. Who's John Solomon? Well, he's a journalist who's kind of where's waldowed his way into the whole thing. He is 52 years old. He worked for the AP and Washington Post and also Newsweek. More on that in a second. Solomon started writing columns for the Hill, and as the Trump whistleblower noted, started publishing stories about Ukraine, became influential in the White House shenanigans.

According to a New York Times story by Jeremy Peters and Kenneth Vogel, in one column, Solomon interviewed a Ukraine's prosecutor general who claimed that Maria Yovanovitch, the now former investor, gave him a do not prosecute list. The prosecutor general later admitted there was no list, But Donald Trump Jr. and others amplified the story and Yovanovitch lost her job. According to a ProPublica piece by Jake Pearson, Mike Spies, and Jay David McSwain. Here I am quoting again, more than a year before his Ukraine columns were published, The Hill had serious concerns about Solomon's credibility and conflicts of interest.

Hill staffers began raising alarms, including the paper's publisher at the time, who warned in an eternal memo that Solomon was engaged in, quote, reputation killing stuff by mixing business with journalism. In response, the Hill's management took steps to limit Solomon's reporting, rebranding him as an opinion writer, but did not prevent him from writing his Ukraine series. ProPublica further notes that Solomon was working on the Ukraine series with Lev Parnas, you know Parnas, the now indicted Rudy Giuliani associate who was working to push the Ukraine story. Solomon defends himself, and I love this, to ProPublica by saying, quote,

everybody who approaches me has an angle. My mother has an angle when she calls me. So he's defending working with Lev Parnas, who was pushing the Ukraine conspiracy theory by saying, hey, even when mom calls, she's got an angle. Now, I don't know about you, David, but when my mom calls me,

she wants me to get my flu shot. Well, that's an angle, Brian. That's an angle. She's worried about my health. wants to make sure I'm getting an FRS. She's not saying, hey, do you think that it's actually

Ukraine rather than Russia that monkeyed with the 2016 election? But that's what he's saying here. I got two thoughts on this. One is, this kind of shows Trump world's contempt for the press

that not only do you take a blaster to the New York Times and Washington Post regularly, but you then are feeding scoops to this guy Solomon in the hill and regarding that as legitimate journalism. I believe Trump said that Solomon deserved a Pulitzer Prize at one point. So you have such contempt that not only are you sort of, you know, slagging the legitimate journalists, but you are saying that people like this are the legitimate journalists, right?

It's almost a replacement thing. And to me, that's almost as, you know, medieval as, as blasting away at the New York Times. What do you think? Dare I say, I think that's right. I mean, Solomon's such a ridiculous character. I think I mentioned him last week. I mean, he's both the sort of source and the jester in so much of this story. I mean, if you're interested, you know, I'm sure I'm not the only one out there that like when big news is breaking will, we'll toggle the TV over to Fox News or hop on conservative Twitter to see what the sort of alternate take is going to be. If you want to see what like the world is like when viewed through like a hallucinogenic lens, you can go to John Solomon's Twitter feed where he's just like literally posting counterfactuals as news. I mean, he's talking about.

about like in the middle of testimony that was plainly incriminating Trump. He's talking, he's just like saying like, he's just reporting the Hunter Biden news up to the moment. As of, yeah, just yesterday or on the, sorry, on the 15th, he tweeted the Yovanovitch testified she about sharing sentiments with other State Department officials that the Biden-Marisma relationship was a created the appearance of a conflict of interest. Like that is clearly, he's honing it on that over. and over again, which is just seems, I mean, which is just utterly, you know, beside the point. As many people have pointed out, if you want to find him now, you can find them on a John Sommonreports.com. Not on the hell.

All this news. It's, you know, I'm sure just a self-run blog. And it's a blog in the most, like, old school, like WordPress possible connotation. It doesn't even, like, have the appearance, you know, that. like he could at least just gone the route that other wackos have gone and like publish on medium to give the appearance of legitimacy or something like that but no this is too wild for medium to two yeah absolutely this guy I mean what's amazing me is this guy had quite a run in respectable media he was at newsweek when I was there like he just he kind of showed up as this

political writer editor person at some point during the first Obama administration yeah and none of us could figure out why he was there. And none of us figure out how he got there. Man, what a strange journey this guy's had. And the fact that he's now somehow, I mean, it's utterly perfect that he's in the middle of this.

Because if you had to pick, I don't know, Dave, if you had to pick one journalist from conservative media other than Sean Hannity and, you know, that would somehow be in the documents and in the impeachment hearings,

John Solomon would be my pick. Without even knowing what the scandal was, I would have picked that. Yeah. Just absolutely weird. All right. Time for the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all the media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always gratefully received.

A local crime headline from CNN, David. Two Arkansas chemistry professors arrested for allegedly making meth. to Arkansas Chemistry professors arrested for allegedly making meth it was an overwork Twitter joke

to write Breaking Sad thanks to Jump 6 who's been on fire and J.W. for that one. A weirdly related

headline from Zombie Newsweek quote feral hogs find and destroy cocaine were $22,000 hidden in woods

that's kind of a great madlibs of clickable subjects there Feral Hogs find and destroy cocaine worth $22,000 hidden in woods. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write. So that's where the 30 to 50 feral hogs got off to.

Thanks to Terry McDonald. I saw a couple references to 30 to 50 feral hogs this week. Big week for that one. And finally, David, we're a week out from Thanksgiving. And that means we're about a week out from the traditional presidential pardon of the White House turkey. It was a very overwork Twitter joke to write this year on Thanksgiving. Trump will pardon a turkey. after it gives him dirt on Joe Biden.

Thanks to double down Rob for that one. If you treated the White House turkey like the Ukrainian president or maybe Roger Stone, congrats. You made the overwork Twitter joke of the week.

I don't mean to make light of it. But isn't the right joke that Trump'll only pardon the turkey that committed war crimes? Send your emails to David Shoemaker. That's box letters. All right, before we get to the notebook dump, let us pause for a quick word

from our advertisers. David, I want to talk to you about Oris watches. Staying true to a rich heritage, Orris is one of the few Swiss watch companies to remain independently owned and operated. Because of this independence, Oris has a freedom to follow its own path.

They're focused on bringing change for the better, which means making choices that are ecologically, socially, and financially responsible. That includes ocean conservation and recycled plastic partnerships. Of course, that's along with Oris's century-long and change commitment to making inventive, high-functioning Swiss-made watches that serve a real purpose, and at prices that make sense.

the best possible watch for the money comprised of four themes, diving, aviation, motorsport, and culture, oris watches are made for everyday wear. Shop the many different unique styles at O-R-I-S-C-H-S-Poss. You're sure to find one that suits your style and taste. That's O-R-I-S-C-H-S-Pox. All right, David, time for the notebook dump. And on Friday, blackballed NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick

was set to take part in a league-sleege. sanctioned workout down in Georgia. It quickly went to hell. Kaepernick didn't sign the waiver the NFL gave him, feeling it was way too broad. Kaepernick's team wanted the event to be open to the media as well. Kaepernick wound up working out at a Georgia high school in front of fewer NFL teams than expected. And I want to use that story as a peg, as they say in the business, to talk about Stephen A. Smith. It will surprise no one that the ESPN opinionator had a take on these events.

Here's Stephen A. staring into his phone and letting her rip. He don't want to play. He wants to be a martyr, but guess what? It ain't working this time. All of us believe that Colin Caput would have showed out. And if he had showed out, I'm here to tell you, I believe he would have had a job inside of two weeks. But it didn't happen because he didn't show.

He wanted to show up to a high school in Georgia. Not an NFL facility, a high school. And then YouTube it live. Like the average Joe out there gets to the side of he's on the NFL roster. You don't want to work. You just want to make noise. And you want to control the narrative. It's over.

Colin Kaepnik's aspiration in the NFL. for an NFL career. Sova. Talk to y'all Monday on first take. I think what was surprising to me about that, David, was not the content, but the volume of Stephen A. It was like someone was sleeping in the next room. He was doing, like, hypnotic overnight radio. I thought it was like the Reverend Robert Tilton was like giving me hot sports takes.

somewhat later Smith got into it with Eric Reed NFL safety and Kaepernick ally in a long Twitter exchange and I mean long but my favorite part was the final Stephen A tweet which read excuse the couple of spelling errors I was driving before pulling off the road so even driving will not stop

the Stephen A take machine from pushing forward I wrote a piece last week that you and I test drove on this pod David about how we've entered an era of strange new respect for Stephen A. Smith. And I predict that this thing, which would have been like a three-day event on Deadspin, if Deadspin still existed, won't ultimately matter because we've all decided that Stephen A is okay. And can you and I, and again, I feel like we've sort of taken a small bite of this subject, but can we just talk about, and I'm going to ask you first, why we think this happen, how we can be here, but then all of, and when I say all of, I mean, a large part of, like, whatever we consider the sports media cognizcini to be, will sort of shake their head, but then embrace Stephen A, or at least half embrace him after a take like that.

well if I must you must I mean I think that a lot of the and we did discuss this and I'm almost certainly going to end up contradicting what I said before but I think a lot of the respect for Stephen A. Smith has come from

a sort of steady realization that he's in on the gag and also an appreciation for his you know consistency and volume I'm not sure that there is any sort of widespread appreciation for the takes themselves or his, you know, politics or, you know, arguments,

and, you know, consistency of argument or anything like that. I think that... It's the delivery, the performance of said take? Yeah, I think, I think it's a, I think it's a sort of like, you know, it's like a lifetime achievement award to, I mean, like a lifetime achievement Oscar to like Charlie Chaplin or something, you know? I mean, it's just like, well, none of it really is. Oscar worthy, but the body of work made us so happy over the years.

Can I stop you? I actually thought you were going to say Charlie Sheen, which I'm not sure would be, wouldn't be a better comparison here. But please continue. Charlie Chaplin. No, but I just mean that like it's a, I mean, I think that we, I'm not sure that it's necessary to have, to have acquired a newfound appreciation or, you know, an appreciation over the years for what Stephen A. Smith does and to defend that take. I don't think

that those two things are necessarily married. However, we should be, as with anything else, we should be, you know, willing and eager to call him out on his terrible takes. You talk about him being in on the joke, which is a really interesting concept to me. I agree with you. I think does that happen when he gets sort of translated from TV first take into internet? net land. Is that when this happens when he starts doing this stuff on Twitter and starts tweeting his own memes and outtakes from his green screen stuff? Is that when we decide he's in on the joke? Because the TV performance is exactly the same as it ever was, I think. Yeah. I think that the combination of the selfie, you know, Instagram videos or Twitter videos or

whatever and also just the sort of proliferation of his radio show video and stuff. I mean, I think that part of it, I guess what's special about the Twitter videos is that it's clearly him in a room or him in his closet or whatever, filming this thing without the benefit of like producers coaching him on or anything like that. I mean, he's not performing necessarily for a live audience or for the people around him. This is a man who knows, who is, you know, who has the performance down to an art form, right? And I think that would be some of the distinction there. There has to be a level of self-awareness that sort of comes with that. And also, like, he was, he was self-deprecating. I mean, that, that run that led to us talking about him before was

was him just sort of, like, flipping out about the Knicks, what, draft picks, or the, or their inability to get a free agent, whatever it was, but it was his own fandom that he was, and he was really over the top with his reactions in a way that made it clear that he was, he had to understand, he had to understand the bit to be able to sort of like, you know, make fun of the bit. So that's another thing I want to ask you about, to see the personal I think we tolerate this kind of, you know, over the top opinionating when it's about your own team a little bit more. But I think one thing that he's been able to do maybe better than anybody else who does that job is make every team his own team somehow. Like Stephen A has this big thing about the Dallas Cowboys that I've noticed because I'm a Cowboys fan where he's like wearing cowboy hats and screaming at Michael Irvin, you know, about Cowboys stuff.

and he's from New York, and so maybe it's like a giant's rivalry thing, but that's funny. I flipped on the radio last week. Part of the reason I wrote that story is, and he was just so wounded that the University of Alabama had lost to LSU. Now, I didn't know Alabama was a personal Stephen A thing like the Knicks,

but apparently it is. And the tone was exactly the same as him being upset that the Knicks didn't win the lottery. So I think part of the trick is that he's been able to personalize everything. And I think when we're watching it, you don't, we don't,

you don't necessarily believe that he feels that strongly about every single team in American sports, but you're willing to suspend your disbelief enough and, and kind of ride with it. You know what I'm talking about? Like you're watching a movie and you see a special effect and you're like, I know this isn't right, but it's so,

it's so done so skillfully that I'm willing to kind of forget that it's not real and go with it. Something like that anyway. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's true. I think that he's, he's, uh, he got that. You got that. I had more distaste for this Kaepernick take because it felt sort of like a, I don't know, Mr. Wolf coming in to clean up. Like he was just like, like he, like he was just sort of trying to just like sweep whatever takes he had prior on the situation under the rug for the sake of just sort of like tying a bow on this one. Um, but, and I don't think defending it. I think he looked terrible before defending it. I don't know really what he can do

because it's like pro wrestling. You know, part of the schick is that you have to insist that it's real. You know, you have to continue insisting that all your takes are real or else the whole facade sort of shatters. But I think that we will forever look at Stephen A. Smith and his

ilk. Anyone, you know, that's working the sort of routine is going to always look badly when they have a bad take and then defend it. They have to be we're putting the position of having defended on Twitter or anywhere else because that's not what the, you know, what the gig is about, right? It's just about, it's about expressing the take. The defense is really just a totally different thing. I was talking to one person from ESPN World over the weekend. And he was recounting about when the network decided actually not to resign Stephen A back in 2009. This has now kind of all been forgotten. But he had that show quite frankly around 2005. It did not. It was can. canceled. And then ESPN actually, you know, sort of bid him goodbye in 2009. Then I bring him back two years later. He winds up on first take. Now he's the most, the biggest star at the network. But this guy was telling me that he said, you know, we all like Stephen A back in the a in the aughts. But we thought here's a guy who's really talented, but you can only put him on TV for two minutes at a time. Because that's all the audience will tolerate. And what ESPN figured out, somewhat later was that we can put him on TV all the time. Not only do you have your two hours of first take,

but he's using GetUp as the first take green room. He's like kind of rehearsing, you know, running the take on there with Mike Greenberg before he goes out to first take. And then he's on SportsCenter later. And he has hours and hours of a national radio show on ESPN. And apparently more things now that they've signed him to an $8 million a year contract.

So that's kind of been the surprise. that it's not less Stephen A that the audience wanted, it's more Stephen A. And as soon as ESPN unlocked that or figured that out, you know, again, he was on the way to becoming the guy at ESPN, which I'm not sure anybody really saw coming 10 years ago. I think that part of it is that he's, I mean, I think that, you know, the mysterious ESPN source that was quoted there was half right. I mean, you can kind of, you still can only have two minutes of Stephen A. Smith, or you can't have more than two minutes of Stephen A. Smith, but you can string those two minute blocks back to back together all day long, right? I mean, you don't want, no one's interested in minute four of a Stephen A. Smith take, you know, no one's probably interested in most of a minute two of a Stephen A. Smith take. But that first minute, that first minute and a half can be enough to like, you know, just set you reeling for the day. And that's, that's sort of what you want. great pun headline from Ray Villa about Colin Kaepernick changing the venue of his workout

Colin an audible Oh wow Colin an audible Wish I thought of that Speaking of sports takes David Segway Last Thursday night at the end of the Brown Steelers game Cleveland defensive end

Miles Garrett And Pittsburgh quarterback Mason Rudolph Got into a fight As should be noted this was a 217 game With 8 seconds left Always a good time for a fight after Garrett took Rudolph down after the ball was out of his hands

Rudolph started to tussle with Garrett. Rudolph tried to pull off Garrett's helmet unsuccessfully and then Garrett pulled off Rudolph's helmet and hit him in the head with it. Let us revisit that classic audio. There's a flag as Mason Rudolph

Giles Garrett. There'll be swinging a helmet. Yeah, there'll be some objections. Coming out of this. There may be suspension. That's right. Suspensions. Joe and Troy had their coats on and their briefcases packed up. All of a sudden, I was like, whoa, you got some more content here.

Garrett would be given an indefinite suspension that will last at least as long as the 2019-20 season plays out in postseason. He's going to appeal the suspension on Wednesday, which is fair enough. But David, media members, many prominent media members clutch their pearls on Thursday night as dramatically as human. possible. Let me give you a sampling. Here's Adam Schaefter of ESPN. He tweeted, assault, period.

He tweeted 10 minutes later, calling Garrett's actions unthinkable and unimaginable. Here is Stephen A, the aforementioned. Go to Miles Garrett's page and you'll see the headline. A hero is made by the path he chooses,

not by the power he is graced with. Yet he goes and did what he did to Mason Rudolph. This calls for an automatic season ending suspension. He should be done. All caps for the rest of the year. Skip Baylor, Stephen name for her partner. Miles Garrett should get a long suspension for that. Never seen anything like it so low.

Booger McFarlane of Monday Night Football. Miles Garrett violated code amongst the fraternity. We compete against one until the edge of destruction within the rules. Afterwards, we take our helmets off, shake hands and wish each other well. We never intentionally try to hurt each other. He committed a crime and should be charged. And this from Dan Rolovsky, who has a whole numbered list here, very thankful Rudolph is okay.

Miles Garrett should not play in the NFL for the rest of the season, and that's the minimum. All caps don't embarrass the shield. Number three, he should have criminal charges pressed on him. And number four, the Haslam family, that is the owners of the Brown, should take it upon themselves before Godell does. Do we? Ooh. Yeah. Do I guess I guess I'm less shocked by Take Fest 2019 than

sort of investigating why do we need to go all in like 10 seconds after something like that happens? For the first time ever, I mean, the NFL acted swiftly and seemingly correctly, right?

So this is like, so, I mean, I guess you can give, you can be forgiven if you think that you should get your takes in because the NFL wasn't going to do anything

about it for two weeks or three weeks or something. But, but yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I mean, I don't,

I don't think there's really any, way to easily cover the subject without feeling like you know old man yells at clouds over here I mean it's just like but I mean the answer is really sometimes like you can hold two thoughts in your head

at one time like this can be a bad thing and it can also be sort of inherent I mean like directly I mean an A B connection to the sport that we're watching and no one needs to go to jail over it I mean it's just it seems so yeah can I get a take off here? Yeah Chris you just say I

This, I feel like, was one of, like, the least troubling things you'll see in an NFL game. You know, like, this injury and this, like, display of violence was, like, clearly outside the rules and prompted a swift suspension and everyone knew it was bad, as opposed to all of the other violence that is within the rules. And we have to think a long time about whether it's bad or not. Most of the time, we don't even concede that it's bad. you know, a player got hit and was bleeding out of his ear earlier in the game. And there were no takes about that. So here, I don't know, is maybe the least dangerous thing about it, the fact that it was outside of the rules. And so we knew it was bad.

Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right to quote David Schumacher. And I think it's one of those things where why is this the line, right, where you object to football? Why is this the line? I think that's a really interesting question, right? because when you see people get worked up like that, why is this the moment that is... Well, I think because it's outside the road,

I mean, I think you're, you answered the question. I don't think, it doesn't take much, it doesn't take that, you know, many mental gymnastics to say like, to, you know, you can, it's easy to, you can laugh right at anyone who says, you know, we don't play with the intent of hurting each other. I mean, that's like, that's like saying, like me and my brother were out in the backyard,

like swinging nail studded two by, fours at each other, but we weren't trying to hurt each other. We're just playing around. I think they would say they play to hurt each other. They just played to hurt each other within the rules of football. I mean, this is like the Bountygate thing, right? The thing that was shocking about Bountygate wasn't what was happening on the field. It was that like you could

prove what was in their hearts while they were doing it, that it was malicious. Yeah, I mean, they 100%. Yeah, but that's what makes, that's what I'm saying. That's what makes it easy. And I think that when you, that the reason why all these takes are coming out is because a lot of these, a lot of these voices are probably take a lot of shit from assholes

on Twitter all the time for defending players. And this is like the high horse you can climb up. Yeah, this is the sports journalism wild, wide sister soldier moment where they can like come down on a player for being a criminal and not have to feel like they're betraying anybody to do it. Yeah, I think, I think, I think that's, that's it. I also just wonder, do people, when you're in on this after like 10 seconds, how much of that is I have something I have got to get off my chest.

I have an opinion that I just need to let people know. Or there is just, there's a lot of, you know, bounty of likes and retweets to be had in this 10 second period. I mean, I'm always, I'm always interested in the combination.

We can probably agree it's both. But I'm always interested in the, in the sort of how much is one and how much is the other. And I guess it varies from person to person. But I just, I'm always like, Yeah, well, okay, that was wild. Back to whatever else I was doing.

We'll see what happens. And by the way, calling on Roger Goodell to do something about this is not a take. Of course, something needs to be done about this. That's not, that basically doesn't even qualify. Of course, something is going to happen. But somebody hits somebody with a helmet. That's not, it's not really, you know, anyway. Well, until next week's sports take.

Fest, which we won't cover at all here at the ringer.com. David, can I change the subject and talk to you about the Hitler Diaries? What the hell? Segway. Sure. Sure. I'm excited to see what this is about. I bring them up because last month marked the death of Frank Giles, former editor of the London Sunday Times, which is the paper that in 1983 published diaries, the paper said were written by Adolf Hitler.

there is a whole story now about how Hitler during World War II allegedly put important documents on a plane and sent them out of Berlin as the Russians and allies were closing in on his bunker. Anyway, a German fraudster manufactured his diaries and in cahoots with somebody else sold the publication rights to the magazine Der Stern. Now, you can imagine, David, in 1983, we're not talking about a couple years after the end of World War II. We're talking about 1983. This was going to be a huge scoop. Hitler's diary in his own hand. And into that deal came Rupert Murdoch's Sunday Times, which bought these serial rights. I'm quoting now from a very good Giles obituary written by New York Times writer Catherine Seeley.

Some at the Sunday Times were skeptical and urged further investigation. They remembered when the Sunday Times had almost been taken in years before by fake diary. purported to have been written by Mussolini. Can I stop right there and say that how many fake dictator diaries were washing around Europe in the 70s and 80s? They were fake Mussolini diaries and fake Hitler diaries? Amazing. Quoting again from the Times, but Mr. Giles put his faith in Hugh Trevor Roper, who is a

British historian, and according to another editor, once Trevor Roper gave his seal of approval, Murdoch ordered the diaries published without any further. inquiry. The world was bracing for blockbuster revelations. Newsweek magazine, which bought the American rights boasted in advance advertisements, these controversial papers could rewrite the history of the Third Reich from Hitler's rise to power to his suicide in the ruins of Berlin. On Saturday, April 24, 1983, the presses at the Sunday Times began to roll. Unknown to the newspapers editors, Hugh Trevor Roper had started to doubt the diary's validity. Okay. So just to pause here again. The historian the Sunday Times had relied on to authenticate the diaries now doubted them

as the presses are running and they're about to publish this. This has got to be one of the great scenes in newspaper history, which I'm about to tell you, again quoting from the Times. That night, meaning April 24, 1983, Frank Giles, editor of the Sunday Times, was in his office with other senior editors celebrating their scoop. They called Trevor Roper, the historian, to share their joy. What ensued was a heart-stopping telephone conversation between Giles and Trevor Roper. According to others in the room, Giles' side, that's the editor's side of the conversation, went like this. Well, naturally, Hugh, one has doubts. There are no certainties in this life.

But these doubts aren't strong enough to make you do a complete 180-degree turn on that. Pause. Then Giles says, oh, I see, you are doing a 180-degree turn. the editors called Rupert Murdoch with the dire news, but he was said to have dismissed Trevor Roper's concerns with a vulgarity and ordered the publication to proceed. The entry's Sealy rights were riddled with factual errors, and some did not exactly sound like they actually came from Adolf Hitler.

One diary entry read, That gerbils, what a pain in the neck. That was actually a quote from the fake diaries. Frank Giles editor of the Sunday Times was sacked, with Murdoch demoting him to editor emeritus, Rupert Murdoch later said, I take full responsibility for it. It was a major mistake and one I shall have to live with for the rest of my life. So this was like Stephen Glass 1983, David.

Except even more widespread and even more ludicrous. The Diary of Adolf Hitler published in a major and respected British publication later shown to be BS. Pretty amazing stuff. all right I feel like I miss my calling I think it'd be really good at fake Dicketian out fake diaries No not sniffing out

Just writing them Oh As a As a You'd like to get into the business Of important historic forged historical documents Yes I think nothing would make me happier

All right well let's talk after the podcast We'll see what we can do All right time for David Shoemaker Guess is a strain pun headline Here's where David sighs Ah Tuesday's headline about the removal of Munch's make-believe ban from Chucky Cheese restaurants was Good Night Squeak Prince. As usual, our listeners are even funnier.

Our listener Chad thinks the headline should have been Gouda Night sweet prince. Jeff Hoffman says, who moved my cheese? Brian Mayer has the headline, The Cheese Stans Alone. Yeah. Steve Kapana says rest in pizza. it's pretty good. But I think our winner is Marissa who thinks the headline should have been

Good Night and Good Chuck. Oh, wow. Good night and good Chuck. Today's pun headline, David, comes from the story I just read to you about the Hitler Diaries. Frank Giles... That segment seemed to end rather abruptly.

I'm glad that it was going somewhere. You did. Frank Giles, the deceased former editor of the London Sunday Times, wrote his memoirs, as British newspaper editors are wont to do, and his memoir had a pun title, okay? Giles was punning on,

this has nothing to do with Hitler or the diary. Giles was punting on Sunday Times. Sunday Times. What was the strained pun title of Frank Giles' memoir? Sunday. Is him looking back? Is this all he did was work for the Times?

I mean, I already did. A long career as a writer and journalist. Is it just a time? Like the times they are changing, the times of our lives. Oh, buddy, it's more strain than that. What if I told you that Frank Giles was looking back at various times in his life? Miscellaneous times in his life. The best of times, the worst of times?

Various times. Miscellaneous times. All sorts of times. Get out your SAT word thesaurus here. Miscellaneous. Various. Not Sunday, but. Sundry times?

Sundry times. His memoir was called sundry times. Oh my gosh. I don't think if I saw that in a store, I don't think I would even catch the pun. maybe the Sunday Times aren't as big of a deal, yeah, I don't know. Is that the drollest thing you've ever heard? I feel like you've texted me,

you've texted me photos of like British memoirs before that fitted that were even more droll than that, but that is quite a category. It's just like droll British memoir titles. We had the Kingsley Amos biography called Lucky Him on this podcast before, but I think sundry times may be the drolless British pun we... Oh, it's good stuff.

Ever had. He is David Chimbinger. Shoemaker, I'm Brian Curtis, researched by Chris Lameda, production magic by Jim Cunningham. We are back Wednesday night because there's a Democratic debate with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian. David, my mother loves your ass. Oh, wow.

What as the press box is resident drama critic, do you make of that? Now she's in Ukraine and what? Wearing cowboy hats and screaming at Michael Irvin as dramatically as humanly possible. I was really expecting like there to be a couple more, you know, international healthscapes that she... Loves your ass, not loves your ass, but you know. I feel like I miss my calling. I think it'd be really good at it. Just kidding.

Perfect. My mother did not give a shit about you, David. Yeah. So, when my mom calls me, she wants me to get my cocaine worth $22,000 hidden in woods. Really? Why do we need to go all in like 10 seconds after something like that happens? I think that nothing would make me. happy. Maybe it truly

isn't a good idea. I mean, there's just like, it was such a bad, such a, like, a half-ass... So that's another thing I want to ask you about to see. Is that the drollest thing you've ever heard? Well, yeah. Man, what a strange journey this guy's had.

Dare I say, I think that's right? If I must. You must.