The Press Box - Trump’s European Vacation, Biden’s Plagiarism, and Duncan Hunter | The Press Box

Episode Date: June 7, 2019

The Trump family’s trip to London (03:00), Joe Biden continuing his serial plagiarism (17:00), Duncan Hunter talking openly about war crimes on the ‘Zero Blog 30’ podcast (23:30), the New York Times’s new TV show, ‘The Weekly,’ (29:00), and more. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. It's Liz Kelly, host of Tea Time. Exciting news happening across the podcast network, your favorite celebrity and pop culture podcasts are moving out of Channel 33 and into their very own feed called Ringer Dish. On Ringer Dish, you can still listen to Jam Session on Wednesdays and Tea Time on Fridays, and we'll be launching a brand new show that will publish every Monday, starting with a deep dive on Jalo and Ben Affleck's infamous relationship hosted by Amanda Dobbins and Juliet Lippman. So to hear more about the royal family and our current celebrity obsessions, subscribe to Ring Your Dish on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. David, some observers were struck by the fact that when Donald Trump took a diplomatic trip to London, he brought his adult sons, Don Jr. and Eric. And daughters. What I want to know is, what age is too old to go on a family vacation with your parents? Well, no age is too old.

It's always great to spend time with your family, and if you can do it on a lovely trip, all the better. But there did seem to be, there is just a weird and a vibe that's inherently odd, and it's special, specific to the American presidency. And I guess in some ways, the British monarchy, where you're always like the big baby son, like someone's large baby son until, I mean,

as long as they're, like, you know, president, that you go along kind of at the grace of your father Donald Trump, who has invited you on this. It's like, did Donald Trump, I mean, you saw them standing there in their little tuxedos or whatever, the whole fan, all the kids sitting across, and you do imagine Donald Trump, like, I don't know if he would call his kids, but like dictating a memo to his kids saying, great news, I've got a, I've got a chateau or, you know,

I've got a palace rented for us in London. I'd be happy to cover airfare. Just let me know if you can make it, you know. I mean. With like an Airbnb link just to kind of entice them to come along. Yeah, exactly. Here's some pictures of the view on a big bin from the window or whatever. Well, this is like the reverse, right?

Because your parents are usually begging their adult children to come with them on a vacation. You could tell that they were really wanted it. The cruise isn't going to be that bad. Yeah. Yeah. But in this case, the kids sort of leech themselves on. They wouldn't have given it up for the world. Yeah, the parents offer is usually like it's a really great beach front property.

There's not going to be any Wi-Fi. I'm not sure if that matters. to you, but, you know, and we have to be any, if you come, you have to stay the whole week, you know, that sort of thing. We are the poop crews of media podcasts. This is the press box, a part of the Ringer podcast network. Hello, media consumers. Brian Curtis and David Shumaker of the Ringer here on your twice weekly press box podcast.

David, I'm still not used to it. Lots of great stuff to get to on today's show, including Joe Biden's serial plagiarism, bar stool, sports, and Duncan Hunter, a new job for America's favorite Canadian, the overwork Twitter joke of the weekend, much more of it. Back to Trump in London, David. When some people travel, they make time for lying on the beach.

Trump makes time for gaslighting. You know, he reserves, I'm going to put aside in an afternoon. This, I think, was the first example when he was speaking to British reporters in the Oval Office, actually before he left, Trump said this about Megan Markle. Now, Megan, who's now the Duchess of Sussex, we've given her a different name.

She can't make it because she's got maternity leave. Are you sorry not to see her because she wasn't so nice about you during the campaign? I don't know that. I didn't know that. No, I didn't know that. No, I hope she's okay. I did not know that. She said she'd moved to Canada if you got elected.

Turned out she moved to Britain. Well, probably good. There are a lot of people moving here. So what can I say? No, I didn't know that she was nasty. So that story was dated June 1. And then on June 2nd, Trump tweeted, I never called Megan Markle nasty,

made up by fake news media, and they got caught cold. Well, CNN, New York Times and others apologize, doubt it. Trump has earned no benefit of the doubt on any of these questions. And he is obviously lying here. But is it a little weird that the British reporter kind of teed him up? And then, you know, can you understand it? Like if I, if somebody said, you know, David Chutemaker's been running you down all over the ringer office.

And I said, I had no idea David was being nasty about me. And then somebody said, did you call David nasty? I'd be, well, kind of. Yeah, no. Kind of. No, no, no. Somebody kind of goaded me into it. No, this is, this is a weird moment that's caused me to slightly, very slightly re-evaluate the entire litany of Trump's public lies.

Like, and wonder how many of them are actually. just total, like, mealy-mouthed semantic issues? Because he wasn't, I mean, he really, like, it's not that far from the truth. I don't think it's stretching the truth too far, even though, like you said, he gets no benefit of the doubt. But it's not stretching the truth too far to be like, no, he just said, I didn't know she was nasty, is could pretty clearly be construed as him being like, I didn't know she said a nasty thing.

Now, whether or not you should have said that. And whether or not it's just, like, idiopically myopic, not just to be, not just to cut it to answer any. question about her with like how great it is that there's an American princess and what evident you know what what a great metaphor for our relationship or something but I don't think that it's a straightforward read to say that he was saying Megan Markle is a nasty person based on the audio these trips are largely about you know diplomatic handholding we're assuming no great policy is going to be made with Trump and the UK and I think at the end of the day it's about

images right and at least in terms of the media we're curious and with Trump we're like 10,000 times more curious about what this is going to look like. Yeah. We want to see Trump squeezed into a tuxedo with the hunched over queen walking next to it. We want to see what that looks like. And by the way, it's incredible. We want to see what it looks like when Jared and Ivanka are in a high room of Buckingham Palace staring out the window. Like just what would that look like?

And by way, we're going to return to that in a bid here in the overword Twitter. joke. So I think it was, on the one hand, this trip was about images. On the other hand, it was about fact checking because Trump was there for three days. And just an incredible number of things happen. I believe in his press conference with Theresa May, prime minister of the UK. He said, we are your largest partner. You're our largest partner. He's talking about trade. A lot of people don't know that. I was surprised. I made that statement yesterday. And a lot of people said, gee, I didn't know that. They may have said they didn't know that because that is actually not true.

The UK is not our largest partner. China is. UK is fifth, as many fact checkers pointed out. In that same presser with Theresa May, Trump also said this about the protests that were raging in London. As far as the protests, I have to tell you, because I commented on it yesterday, we left the prime minister, the queen, the royal family. There were thousands of people on the streets cheering. And even coming over today, there were thousands of people cheering. And then I heard that there were protests.

I said, where are the protests? I don't see any protests. I did see a small protest today when I came. Very small. So a lot of it is fake news, I hate to say. But you saw the people waving the American flag, waving your flag. It was tremendous spirit and love. There was great love.

It was an alliance. And I didn't see the protests until just a little while ago. And it was a very, very small group of people put in for political. reason. So it was fake news. Thank you. So much there, by the way. It's an alliance. I love that. Yes, we do have an alliance with the Brits. And number two, is Trump searching for the words Union Jack there when he's saying your flag? Is he flashed out of? I think that that's what I was thinking. Panic flashing across the money. Of course, there were tens of thousands of protesters in the UK, some of whom had

the Trump baby balloon flying overhead. By the way, great moments in deathless, Wikipedia pros. The balloon depicts Trump as an angry orange baby holding a smartphone. That's the official description. Thank you. Wikipedia. Yeah, that's funny. I enjoyed this, David. There's a lot of times when you have a diplomatic trip. There's a big negotiation about the venue

because that's important for the pictures, right? Trump was meeting after his trip at time in the UK with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar. Oh, right. And according to the AP's Jonathan LeMeyer, Trump wanted to have the meeting at one of his golf courses. As one does. As one does.

That's a nice ad for the golf course. The PM was not into that and counted with the suggestion they should do it at an ancient Irish castle. Oh. Yeah. That's some romance to that. Yeah. Kind of a nice little BBC weekly kind of vibe there, weekly show kind of vibe. The compromise, LeMeyer reports, was the VIP lounge at Shannon Airport just down the hallway from the food court.

Oh, no. Oh, no. that's a little less romance in that option. So if this becomes a huge moment in the annals of American diplomacy, do we think these will be known as the Sabaro Accords? What name can we give them? That's a good airport standby.

The Chili's Two Accords? The, what are the... The Chili's Two Pact? I like that. That's fantastic. What are the ones that only exist? Are there any that only exist in airports anymore? Are they all chains at this point?

If you're flying JetBlue out of JFK, there's the Cheeseburger Cheeseburger Packed potential for that. How about the bookstore that looks pretty good but doesn't actually have anything I want to buy Accords? Yeah. It's just like an optical illusion. It's just like a poster that looks like it that looks like a stack of books. But really, you just like you go to grab it and it knocks it over and it's just like 75 copies of Self magazine on the table behind it. Hudson Fake News. Oh.

Oh. As I said, so three days in the UK and an amazing amount of Trump content, the New York Times called it his split screen persona. On the one hand, he is, you know, doing all this pomp and circumstance with the queen. And on the other hand, he is just, you know, firing off like Scarface against his opponents. Got into it with London mayor, Sadiq Khan, refused to meet with labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, called for a boycott of AT&T because he was watching scenes. in coverage while he was traveling, according to the Washington Post. I guess Fox News maybe was not coming through. Another amazing moment, he tweeted about Bet Midler, whom he called a washed up psycho, quote

unquote. Wow. I'm stealing this from someone on Twitter. I am Joe Bidening this, and I'm not on purpose because I just forgot who said it. But there was an objection raise that Trump was tweeting about Bet Midler in the middle of the night. And somebody on Twitter, who I promise I will credit next week, said, what is the proper time of day for the American president to be feuding with that Midler on Twitter.

Yeah. I think that there's a lot of this trip. I mean, part of our obsession with it is, well, I mean, we as Americans are obsessed with, you know, the British monarchy and with the UK for the number of reasons that we don't need to explicate totally here. But I think we're particularly interested in Trump going there. And even more so, like we're talking about before, the entire Trump clan going there and the sort of like, you know, National Lampoon's vacation aspect of the whole thing. And just seeing this, you know, you know, you know, and saying, just because of there's, you know, when Donald, I mean, when Barack Obama goes to England, even when George W. Bush went to England, you know, there was, there was much less, there was much less,

it felt like there was, there was less likelihood that just something would go awry or that something wacky would happen. And when, with the Trump visit, it feels like anything's possible. But I also feel like going back to the Megan Markle, uh, nasty comment, and even just talking about the, and the tweet you were just mentioning, but the entire trip, I feel like it's this, man, I feel like I'm doing a lot of Trump apology this time. I feel like this entire trip is just like an exercise in holding him responsible to the kind of level of propriety that we know he won't adhere to. Is anybody going to like make a big deal of the fact if he said that exact same nasty comment about any other minor American celebrity that said something about him three years ago? Like no, no, that wouldn't matter. But now she's married into British royalty.

and so this might be a an issue of national politics. I mean, I guess that there is that there, but like, again, this is not a, like, Trump has not reached some new low on the, like, propriety scale, right? By doing that,

and I think it's the same thing about tweeting when other stuff's going on or whatever, wearing a misfit tuxedo. The whole thing just feels like, we're not, none of us are surprised by anything. It feels like an opportunity

to go back to our, like, the best of album of our Trump jokes because he's just doing it a new stage. We should ban the phrase new low from Trump coverage. Just because over you, way, way, way overused. I totally agree with everything you just said. And I would just add, did you see David Roth's thing in Deadspin about our fascination? This is also partly because Trump's style is actually royal style. The kind of the kind of the kind of grandiosity, the velvet, the kind of, you know, the kind of ridiculousness. That is that is kind of the

aesthetic that Trump craves so desperately, as Roth points out. And so when he's, you know, standing next to the queen and when he's, when he's getting his royal visit, he's just, he's just, he's loving that on a, I'm famous and I'm being treated with the respect I think I deserve, but also just on a pure like, I am, I'm here, baby, you know, this is, this is what I want. This is, these are, these are the red carpets that I have literally, you know, constructed in my own life. And I think that's fascinating, too. He's home in a way. You know, he's, he's made it. If he wasn't, if he wasn't president, he would be a minor royal. I think that's the best thing we can say at this moment. All right, David, time for the overworked Twitter joke of the week, where we celebrate a gag

that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Someone asked about our new twice-weekly podcast schedule. Does this mean it's now the bi-weekly Twitter joke? No, it doesn't. It just means that I'm even more desperate. So please send him to the at the press box pod and thank you to everyone who did um about that trump tour of europe david and about that photo of ivanka and jared kushner looking out the window of buckingham palace with haunting thousand yards stairs did you see that oh yeah uh very odd moment it was an overwork twitter joke to write the new flowers in the attic movie looks scary thanks to c brets for that one always nice to have vc andrews jokes by the way here on the press box more like that

in other Trump news on Tuesday Yvanka tweeted en route to the hague That was her next stop I'm not sure we need to do the joke But anyway it was an award Twitter joke to write God I hope so fingers crossed in custody I hope with your daddy Thanks to Matthew Benson for that one

A tweet from CNN, David Some sex offenders in Alabama According to CNN would be ordered to pay for chemical castration as a condition of parole if Governor K. Ivy approves a bill recently passed by the state legislature. Okay, so some sex offenders may be order to pay for chemical castration. It was an overworked Twitter joke to say a moment of silence for Judge Roy Moore. That was, I thought, a pretty good one. And finally, this week's winner by a landslide.

It was Big News Wednesday on the campaign trail when Joe Biden's campaign said that he still supports the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal law. funds for abortions with some exceptions. Okay. So that puts Biden at odds with a bunch of Democrats who would of course like to get traction in the race to beat them, beat him, excuse me, one of them being Bill de Blasio or old pal. Here was de Blasio's tweet. When it comes to supporting American women on issues like repealing the Hyde Amendment, Joe Biden is Dr. Jekyll. Oh, my God. Okay. One, yes, that's a bad joke, a terrible joke. Number two, the reference is bad. Because if you remember the novel, Jekyll was the kindly doctor and Hyde was the murderous double.

Spoiler alert, if you haven't read Strange Gaze of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Okay, so some funny overworked Twitter jokes. I got to admit, I thought Jekyll was the bad guy, too, until I read the book at about age 12. And finally, if de Blasio continues to own himself like this, I am on board with him running. So if you trolled Bill de Blasio about not knowing his Robert Lewis Davidson, and congrats. You made the overwork. Twitter joke. of the week. All right, David, lots of stuff to get to this week.

Department of Plagiarism. If you are old, you may remember that when Joe Biden ran for president in 1988 he famously lifted words from a speech by UK labor leader Neil Kinnick. And now Biden has done it again, at least online. Maddie Glacius over at Vox writes that Biden's climate plan

contains a number of passages that seem to have been copied and pasted at times with very superficial changes. from various advocacy organizations policy shops, and in one instance, a Vox article, the Washington Postman advisor notes that Biden duplicated language with an education plan on his website. And by the way, just a flashback a second, if you ever get a chance to see the side by side

of the Neil Kinnick speeches and the Biden speeches from 88, you really got it because Biden just took his biography, his biographical passages and just dropped the name Biden in there. I mean, just wholesale. It's really, I mean, Joan O'Lear would have been impressed. It's pretty incredible. A couple of takeaways from the new Biden thing.

And correct me if I'm wrong. Number one, are we on extremely safe ground now to say that the Biden presidential campaign or campaigns are just incredibly sloppy? And the candidate's sloppy. The campaign is sloppy. We now have evidence going back to 1988 that this is true.

Yeah. And the only wonder is that Trump is calling him Sleepy Joe. instead of sloppy Joe, which is actually a pun? This is almost like the most unforgivable sin. I mean, as we see him like just limping really poorly through his, you know, the first kind of controversy in his campaign with his, you know, unwanted touching of various people along the way. But this is on a much more intellectual level, this feels like the unforgivable sin because this is a problem that he could have fixed, right? if you're not, if you, if you can't run a campaign effectively enough to, to at least disguise what has long been perceived to be your greatest sin, your biggest flaw, then like, how on earth

are we expect you to be able to run a government? Mm-hmm. Like him borrowing from Neil Kinnick is not a problem. Like it's, this is not a life-changing, this is not even a problem nearly on the scale with his, you know, with, with the accusations that have been made made against him on the campaign trailer in public appearances and stuff. But from, from a, from a, from a, just like I said, an intellectual, point of view, it's really hard to get past this. This is the biggest knock on you. Like,

you've got to be, you have to, like, if you don't go in saying there will be no, no whiff of plagiarism anywhere involved in this campaign. And if there is, the person responsible will be frog march out of the campaign headquarters at that moment, you know? Like, if you're not dealing with it with that level of seriousness, then like, how are you running everything else? Yeah. I agree. It's not the plagiarism itself, right? Joe Biden is not a a journalist. And he obviously didn't have anything to do with this. I mean, this is not like the, whatever, like the idea sheets on your campaign website. I mean, that's just like some functionary doing that. But they can't have this problem. Yeah, Iglesias notes that policy shops and advocacy groups

actually want you to adopt their ideas. Like the dream is for candidates to adopt their ideas. And if they use of specific language, all the better. It's just, it's a kind of a problem of footnotes there and Joe Biden is not a journalist, et cetera, et cetera. But you're right. It keeps happening. Nothing about his camp, nothing about his relatively small and relatively new campaign has been smooth. And, you know, why isn't, why don't we look at this and think a Joe Biden presidency would be, you know, lots of small fires happening every day? I get, you know, I just, I mean, you know, the Trump, the Trump campaign shows. that the Trump was a pretty good preview of the Trump presidency in terms of functionality,

right? It was not, I mean, that was a controversy a day, a crazy thing a day, people who aren't qualified running it, and thus the Trump presidency. But the Biden, the Biden thing seems like, in very different terms, to be a pretty effective preview in the same way. Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think that a lot of liberals would find it hard to go back through all the knocks they've had against the Trump White House and the Trump campaign before and not be able to relate some of those critiques to what Biden is going through right now. The official response from his campaign to the first set of plagiarism charges was voters know Joe Biden. And I feel that that is going to be the ultimate talisman that they hold up whenever he does something like this. voters know this man. They know they know Joe Biden.

You know, there may be plagiarism on his website, but they know Joe Biden. He may he may misspeak. He may, you know, be having a really limited schedule. He may be doing this. He may be well to the right of a lot of his opponents. Voters know Joe Biden. That is the whole cell of this campaign, that there is something, there is some essence, some knowability about Joe Biden that literally nothing you see can possibly distract from.

That's the bet they're making. It really is. And we will see how that holds up. Yeah, I mean, I think that's one of the, I mean, it's, we're talking about knowability. This is the most, like, unknowable thing possible. I mean, I guess there's some echoes to the proclamations that some people were making about the Trump campaign. And that, and which bore out to be true, right, that he was speaking to a swath of the American voter, you know, voting public that had not been spoken to directly before, et cetera. Like I said, a lot of that stuff turned out to be right. I think that voters know Joe Biden. I think

that there's probably at the end of the day a lot of truth to that. But, you know, and I think that certainly in so much as people know him, they probably know him, they probably reflect positively on him, um, more so than, you know, when you, there's not a lot of people, I'd say the number of people who when they think about Joe Biden think about plagiarism,

I'd say it's relatively low. But, you know, Biden's also, Biden's also, Biden in a lot of ways is also the sort of established, one of the establishment picks, if not the establishment pick. And if this kind of stuff drags him down in like the MSNBC primary, then it's going to have a real effect on this campaign. I've got a note here, David, that says Barstool Sports and Possible War Crimes.

We finally arrived. We all knew this day was coming. You should never have named yourself El Presente. This is a real problem. Last week over at the Barstool Military Podcast, Zero Blog 30. By the way, it could have been the Strain pun contest. Congressman Duncan Hunter, who's from the San Diego area, was interviewed by the host who are known as Chaps and Barstool Kate. They were discussing Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, who was facing a court-martial for stabbing to death, allegedly a stabbing to death, a young Islamic State fighter who had been captured, among other charges.

Duncan Hunter, the congressman, had defended Gallagher and said that he would encourage Trump to pardon Gallagher if Gallagher winds up being convicted. Let's listen to a little bit of that discussion. Even if everything that the prosecutors say is true in this case, then, you know, Eddie Gallagher should still be given a break, I think. So you're saying even if he did like take a knife to the throat of this ISIS fighter. Yeah. Even though that goes against our rule of war and our Geneva. Yeah, but the ISIS is not part of the, and I think this guy was going to die anyway.

Because I've seen the video once again. But even if you're saying. like you don't care that even though that goes against I would still support them yeah wow I just feel like it's such a slippery slope and it goes against our honor so egregiously if that is the case and maybe it is or isn't but I don't know I just have a hard time well then how do you judge me so I was an artillery officer and we fired hundreds of rounds into Fallujah right killed probably hundreds of civilians if not scores of not hundreds of civilians probably killed women and children if there were left in the in the city when we invaded so do I get judged too?

Wow. Yeah. That was that's quite an interview by the way. And and I think you're having listened to it and then listened to the discussion that the two hosts had afterward, a really remarkable interview. I think this sort of got mischaracterized on Twitter that. Yeah, I did. You know, that Hunter was, you know, sort of casually admitting to do it to bad acts.

in Iraq and that somehow because of the very well-earned reputation of the Barstool universe that the hosts were like chuckling along with them or something like that. In fact, they were pushing back. And then the kind of post-interview discussion, Chaps, who was one of the hosts came on and said, you know, thinking about it, that in fact, maybe there really shouldn't be a difference between what Gallagher is charged with, which is killing someone who was in custody and firing indiscriminately into a civilian population, which Duncan Hunter seems to be admitting that he did. You know, that these are all, you know, we can, we can judge them on a various moral scale, but these are all bad acts.

Yeah. I just thought this was a fascinating interview. And I encourage people to listen to the whole thing, but it is, it is so interesting. Both of the hosts of the podcast are veterans. So they have interesting footing to come at this. And footing, which, you know, is really about holding the military to certain ideals and not, And again, it's just, it's remarkable. And I think this would be a score for anyone from the New York Times on down to have a congressman saying that bluntly, even if he killed someone in cold blood, I support this guy.

Yeah, I mean, I think that, I mean, obviously this is a very personal thing for him for him. And maybe it would have been a little bit easier for one to wrap one minds around if he had come to it from the very beginning saying, I have a very personal experience with some, with this situation. and I come to it on a personal level. But from a legal point of view, and as a sitting congressman, you know, one would hope, who is involved,

who has made himself, you know, a part of this story, one would hope that they'd be a little bit more, be able to be a little bit more circumspect. But really, I mean, this is the same thing as the,

I mean, it's similar in a lot of ways to the torture debates of the George W. Bush administration, which were people trying to use the 20, the show 24 as an example, why torture should be legal, without calling in,

without actually just wrestling with the most light up a joint and talk about your philosophy 101 class sort of aspect to it, which is like, yes, no, it should be illegal and if you do something like this on a 24 type time of national emergency, you will be pardoned, you know, or you will not be sent to jail for your crime.

And I feel like that's kind of what he's wrestling with here, that he's just like, like, yeah, if someone, like, these things need to be illegal. People should like soldiers should be tried for these things. If there is a, if there's a justification or if there's a rationale, if there's mitigating circumstances, even up to an including PTSD, then yeah, there's like, those could be mitigating circumstances when it comes to, comes to the penalty. But he's just too close to this.

And I think that that he's not doing him, not doing any, I mean, not doing Edward Gallagher any good service by aligning himself with it. he is, who knows. Yeah, there was also stories about Trump. Trump had stated that he was interested in pardons for several of these military members who were accused

of war crimes and now apparently heard so much blowback to that even among his staff that he stepped back from the brink. Anyway, interesting interview and I highly recommended. I think both of us saw the first episode of the New York Times television show The Weekly. The Daily

is the podcast. The Weekly is the show that debuted Sunday night over on FX. What did you think of it? I thought it was good. I thought it was, I thought it had a, you know, a lot of the, what was the other show?

What was the other inside the New York Times show that was on Showtime or whatever? That would be the fourth estate. The fourth estate. It had a lot of the, the sort of melancholy of the fourth estate. Very good word, yes. I mean, obviously the point here was not, I mean,

the fourth estate was a lot of trying to press for the principles of journalism, the, the, the legacy of the institution of journalism. And this was more just telling a story. I mean, in a very, I don't, I don't know that comparing it to Vice News, does it any service or whatever, but that's, I'm sure, a reference that most people will, most listeners will, will understand. It was a single subject that was not purporting itself to be the story of the week. it was just sort of a deep dive into a story that was being reported and told. Story that ran last November

in the paper. Yeah. And I think that there's a lot of value. I mean, I thought it was, I was compelled by it. Honestly, it was, you know, maybe more so than Vice News. Maybe the point of comparison is just like, it felt like a good podcast. Stylistically, to me, it fell somewhere between Vice and an Errol Morris

documentary. Yeah, for sure. Because it was just, it was just that, does that kind of feel? Melancholy is exactly right, because both the Fourth of State in this had the sense that the Times is operating in this treacherous uncertain world. Reporters in real life smile, by the way. On these shows, they never smile. They're always very serious about their work.

People even, I've seen reporters smile and make bad jokes when they're reporting a serious story. It really happens. But in this, the two reporters, Erica L. Green and Katie Benner, who are investigating, we should set this up, a school in Louisiana that had a remarkable record of sending African American students and other students to elite universities. They go in and show what has already happened and those kinds of things. I think I find what is so compelling to me about this, and maybe this is just you and I. But when they showed the reporting process itself, so there are a couple of moments in this, they give the guy who runs the school a chance to respond. In fact, they say, now it's time to give them a chance to respond.

And, you know, we see them calling up. And when they call him up, he actually volunteers a battery allegation against a student that the reporters hadn't heard about. They had one allegation, but he gives them another. And then they go back and look at their police reports. And an amazing instance of a subject sort of fessing up to something that you didn't even ask them about. Yeah. There's also then he brings them down to Louisiana into this room.

And there's all the kind of students. and he's kind of obviously, you know, his success stories are all around. And, you know, he's sort of using it as a chance to charm them and think, okay, they'll show them the students and they'll, you know, be convinced or at least mitigate the story a little bit. And then one of the things they found out that this guy did was make all the students kneel on the ground. And they ask who around here is kneeled and like all the hands go up or most of the hands go up. Those parts to me, it's kind of like the part of a 60 minutes piece where you see Steve Croft waiting outside the, the insurance office

for the guy to come out so he can confront him on camera they're a little reporterly parts of the show the weekly has gone all in on that and I like that and I think people are curious

in this day and age about how news is made and reported and yeah I thought those parts were really really effective yeah I thought I thought it was really good

I mean I think that you know from an insider perspective I guess it did make an interesting more of a vaguer but but compelling

case for journalism. And I think there's a lot of places that when you get to the, when you get to the difficult part of the reporting here, just the existential questions about whether or not you're going to do more damage than good by airing the, by reporting out this story and printing it, there did seem to be the sort of conviction that like, we're the New York Times, this is news, this is what we do, right? And I think that there's many other outlets that would have wrestled with that question in a different way and maybe gone the other direction. And so I think that there is some deeper value to the way, you know, to the school, the field of journalism by showing those sorts of decisions being made.

And I do, and I think that, you know, at some point there will be, you know, the interesting questions for me are kind of how the donuts get made. kind of questions, like how much of these interviews was re-recorded or how much of this was staged for the show, if any. But all in all, I thought it was really well done. And I thought that, you know, I think that if it continues along this path of telling significant stories that may or may not be

incredibly time sensitive, you know, I'll be watching it. From the Department of New Jobs, David, I saw a tweet that said one of Canada's most famous journalists is heading to CNN to cover Trump full-time. Has the phrase, world's most famous Canadian, does that ever not sound insulting, by the way?

The journalist in question is Daniel Dale, Washington correspondent of the Toronto Star, who got famous cataloging Trump's lies. He tweets that he's headed to CNN to be on the truth beat, dissecting dishonesty from Trump, Democratic candidates and others.

Now, with the K-file already at CNN, do you see this being an Avengers-style team-up? or more of a tension-filled Batman versus Superman kind of thing with them under the same roof. Yeah, I have no idea. I think it'll probably be more like, like, you know, Spider-Man and the Avengers where they kind of, they operate in completely different worlds except for the team-up movies. And then those team-up movies, yeah, are going to be really awesome. How many fact-checkers can one have, I guess is a good question during the Trump?

There's also this weirdly like expanding definition of fact-checker at play here. When I saw the first tweet about him, it was just the Washington Post was eagerly announcing that he was joining the fact-checking department or whatever? And I was just like, you mean the people who just make sure that you didn't put an error in your story, which is an very integral part of any news operation? Don't get me wrong, but not exactly like a glory post for someone who's being hired away from another establishment. We got a tweet here from SB Nation's Mike Prada.

This is the Department of Journalism and Labor, yeah. With this being the last scheduled day of bargaining the SBNation.com NBA team won't be providing any game three of the NPR. NBA Finals, that is, coverage today until the Vox Union receives a fair contract. This was a hard decision. But securing that contract today is more important than an NBA finals game. I found this so interesting because I cannot remember or at least don't have anything in my fingertips of a journalism union action that were he refused to cover a game. And I thought that was so fascinating.

I'm sure that happens sent us a note at the press box spot if that has happened somewhere in the annals of sports writing. but just an interesting moment and interesting we talk about how what great content the NBA is right and essentially this is so this is where you dig your heels in and put pressure on the bosses yeah I mean I think that from aliens looking down on our culture level

if you want to be stoic about it then yes by far the most deeply the most interesting part of this is that the NBA playoffs have ascended to the point where I mean I can you what would be the other what would be the other instances in all of news that would be worthwhile single things to boycott to make a point.

I mean like an inauguration. Yeah, I don't even think that would matter. I think it'd be more like election night or primaries or something like that. I guess like a big primary would probably be the equivalent maybe. Sure, okay. Something important but not absolutely critical.

Game three is like the equivalent of the you know, South Carolina primary. How about that? It is, yeah, I think that's right. could you but I mean and it's pretty amazing that the NBA playoffs have risen to the level of the South Carolina primary. Yeah I don't think you would have especially game three. I don't think you would have I don't think you would have said that game seven right to various points in history. But yeah that was pretty pretty interesting. And then you know separately it is we have not talked a lot if if at all on this show about the sort of groundswell of unionization efforts in New York especially journalistic you know journalistic. houses and you know it's a it's a really important conversation and it's something that that uh you know kudos to the folks at vox and espionation um for taking this on and for taking it this seriously

and uh it'll be it's you know a lot of a lot of liberal i mean mostly or not mostly but largely liberal um writers and editors have sort of thrown their hats in with um the vc corporate world to give them platforms to make these wonderful new media enterprises and sometimes that ideals can run up against one another. So it's going to be really interesting to see how this trend continues. I'd like to create a department, David, called We're All Good, where we pick a story that at one point in history was incredibly interesting, but I just feel I have absolutely complete on the coverage of. And today I'd like to nominate any coverage of the final blockbuster video stores

in America. Oh my gosh. We had a wonderful piece by Justin Hecker on the ringer. I was going to say we did that. The last year. No, we did it. I mean, we're,

we did it. I saw a tweet from Reuters TV. And when we've reached Reuters TV, I feel, I just feel, I get it. I was a child of Blockbuster video. But I think we have looted this particular topic. I mean, this is like, this is like a president slowly dying.

We're paying trip, you know, we're paying visits to. the bedside over and over again. I think if we're going to, you know, if we're going to really, you know, examine the death of 90s chains, it's time to do like Boston Market or something. I mean, we really have to just need to pick something else. Anyway, blockbuster video. Get it while you can.

This week in Twitter beefs, there was a good one between two conservative commentators, David French and David Marcus, the former is of National Review, the latter of the Federalist, And I believe this all stems from a feud of sorts started by Sorabamari of the New York Post, which you can read more about in a Ross Douthat column. Anyway, this particular beef was about David French, that is of National Review, his pro-life bona fides.

And it's a long thread, but I want to quote to you from the last French tweet. These are actual words. This is not me quoting from an ancient text. So how dare you, sir? How dare you impugn my commitment to the most vulnerable people. I will not be slandered.

I do not seek your approval. I don't care about your approval. But the truth matters. And this is the truth. Holy moly. Yeah. Max Reader, old pal tweets, can only imagine what the state of conservative punitry would be if dueling were still

allowed. First of all, I think we need to incorporate the how dare you, sir, language into NBA Twitter. Ethan Strauss wrote about Dremont. He criticized KD. How dare you, sir? How dare you impugn my commitment to the warriors? I would love this.

Or if somebody like slightly misuse it, like misappropriates a 538 statistic or something, then that person has to jump on Twitter. Just like, how dare you, sir? That is not at all with that algorithm portrays. Listener mail, David, got lots of notes about Guy Fieri, whose reinvention we talked about on Tuesday. Our pal, Seth Somerfeld, sent us a defense of Fieri from comedian Shane Torres. Let's hear a little bit of that.

People are horrible to a television personality, and he didn't do anything wrong. Here's what he did do, America. He started a company where he hires everybody. He pays more than minimum wage. He gives health benefits before he has to. He has a nonprofit where he gives pretzel-making machines to schools so they can fundraise.

I know that one sounds like I made it up, but I swear to Christ, it's true. He works with Special Olympics athletes, and if you need a little, little more sugar with this medicine, he also officiated a gay wedding. Yeah. But because he has flames on his shirt, everybody shits all over this dude like he's a member of Nickelback. And by the way, what the hell did Nickelback ever do? It's time for the counterintuitive defenses of Nickelback. I think that's my first reaction.

Second of all, Shane Torres, that was a really good bit. Doesn't he sound like Jimmy Swagger to like an 80s televangelist with that cadence, that familiar cadence. He sounds like, he sounds like a comedian that would have been invited to my like middle school youth group to perform for us. I don't really, in the South, not content. I was going to say he may have been running your middle school youth group. That's incredible. Another listener male from Peter Hartlob of the San Francisco Chronicle who sends us a very good

defense of Fieri. He wrote back in March, Fieri cooked some food for Hartlob's dying grandmother. I retweeted that from the press box thing. We may have now hit the ultimate point, David, where it's such a giant straw man. Everybody actually likes Guy Fieri, but everyone is taking advantage of this little moment in time and cranking out in defense of Guy Fierry think pieces.

Oh, yeah, I like this. So I think we should declare this moment. You've got a month. You can sort of ironically or unironically or unironically defend Guy Fieri for a month. And then he becomes America's new Julia child. He's off limits, right? You've got to move on to Nickelback.

You've got to pick something else. It's like Blockbuster and video. We're just moving on. Anyway, one month from today, we'll revisit if David and I actually remember. Also, last week, we talked about book publishers and why they don't have fact checkers. This in response to Naomi Wolf, Jeff Newman, who was an editor at Simon & Schuster and edited literally every great sports book of the 90s. I mean, every great sports book of the 90s. He was a man in that job.

Sent me a note. And he says, and I'm quoting here. and pulling various sentences from his note, but he says, the biggest reason book publishers don't do extensive fact-checking is that books are inherently different from magazines or newspapers.

A book is a presentation of the work of an individual or individuals who knows or cares what company published a book. The author is the brand, not the publisher. A newspaper, on the other hand, is proclaiming the truth of validity

of everything it contains, and so is a magazine. A periodical's editing and fact-checking process will be more extensive because its reputation is on the line in the way a book publishers isn't. He also says, this is also reflecting the fact that a newspaper magazine will generally insist on two sources for a troublesome account or charge.

For a book, one good source can be sufficient, and then good, quote, is the key word. And I thought that's really interesting because he's right. And again, I think you can still kind of come down where I do and say that publishers may be abdicating their responsibility in this and say, well, it's on the author. It's not on Knav. It's not on Simon and Schuster. but he's right. When the New York Times says something, it's the New York Times says it.

When Michael Wolf says something, it's really not Hought Mifflin. It's Michael Wolf saying it. And that's a difference. Again, I'm not sure if that significant a difference at the end of the day. You know, there's no like natural law about the way to do these things.

So any difference that you can explicate like that is significant. But I will say, you know, this is not a, you know, a firm pushback against what he's saying because what he says makes a lot of sense. But you know who does care about the publisher, about the publisher whose name is on the spine of the book? I mean, the publisher does.

Everybody in New York publishing knows exactly what lists the other publishers are publishing. They feel like everybody in the world that walks into any bookstore understands what Knauf means or what the Penguin Press means or what Henry Holt and Company means. They believe that book buyers know what these things are. So while what he's saying is absolutely true that nobody cares, the people who were deciding to not have fact-checking departments are actually believe the opposite. Let's do David guesses the strain-pun headline.

Before we do, I have, can I have news for you? Oh, please. One more bit for this. It just came across the wire, Brian. Oh, please. It just popped up. We talked, when we were talking about the New York Times show, we talked about the daily, we talked about the weekly.

It's just been announced by the Meredith Corporation that Entertainment Weekly is going monthly. No. my mind is completely blown. J.D. Hayman has been elevated to the editor-in-chief of Entertainment Weekly from his previous post as deputy editor of People, and the new monthly frequency, because according to the Meredith's release, will mean more in-depth coverage and product enhancements. Are we calling it Entertainment Monthly? No. No.

It still called Entertainment Weekly. It still calls Entertainment Weekly. The August issue will mark Entertainment Weekly's first as a monthly. I still remember the Mad Magazine parody sometime in our college days where it was called Entertain Me Weekly, W-E-A-K-L-Y. And speaking of which, David, how about a strain pun headline? Let's do it. I think we should do this one that reader Jason McGinsey sent in. By the way, send us these at the at the press box pod.

I love to see him. This was a Sunday morning report from ESPN's Mike Reese about Rob Gros. Gronk was shooting down rumors that he is attempting a comeback. Okay. So there were some rumors out there that Gronk may come back or, you know, at least come back immediately. Gronk was shooting them down. He is saying that he is remaining retired. Okay.

I'm just leading you on here a little bit. What is the strain pun headline? Also, I'll give you one word. It involves the word pat, not patriot, but pat. Okay. Rob Gronkowski, shooting down rumors. that he is attempting a comeback. Yeah, like short for Patriot.

Is it standing Pat? Oh, oh, oh, okay. You got half of it. I mean, you gave me Pat. There's not that money. Okay, but what's the other part? Oh, wait, there's more to it than that? Yeah.

Kind of one of these kind of mirror headlines. But standing pat is in it? Mm-hmm. Blank, blank, standing pat. I'm still standing. It's another pun? I'm so confused by the construction here. It is. I have no idea.

What is it? Sitting pat, standing pat. So, Gronk, when he retired, became a sitting pat, capital P-A-T, sitting pat, and he is standing pat. Wait, where did this run? This is on ESPN. Like it's on an ESPN.com story page?

Yes, yes. It's not exactly the, not exactly the playground for like artful, like, for, you know, flowery headlines. It became Esquire in the 60s overnight somehow. Sitting Pat standing pat That's your strange point. It sounds like a folk song or something. Okay, I'm looking at it right now.

Country Joe and the fish sing that at some point? That Stitting Pat, standing pat is the weird colon, gronk still retired as it might be the weirdest looking head on an ESPN.com story I've ever seen. But it's kind of funny. I got it. He is David Chewaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Our researcher is Chris Almeida. Our producer is Jim Cunningham. More lukewarm takes about the media on Tuesday. We're bike weekly now. On Tuesday. See you then, David. See you later, man.

If you are old, I do not seek your approval. I don't care about your approval. But the truth matters. For sure. And this is the truth. You're a washed up psycho. We're wearing a misfit tuxedo. How dare you, sir? I'm not sure. How dare you? You know, there's no like natural law

That's the way to do these things It's pretty incredible Yeah, I have no idea From aliens looking down on our culture level We are the poop Holy moly Very good word, yes This is like a president

Slowly dying What did you think of it? I thought it was good I thought it was Uh Yeah Is the phrase World's most famous

David? Does that ever not sound insulting. We all knew this day was coming. Yeah. We want to see David squeezed into a tuxedo with the hunched over Guy Fieri walking next to it. We want to see what that looks like. My God. Are we on extremely safe ground now to say that even if Guy Fieri killed someone in cold blood, I support this guy. Fieri. Yeah. Great news. I've got a I've got a chateau or I've got a palace rented forest in London. Uh, wow. It's a really great. beachfront property.

Scary. The whole thing just feels like the most unforgivable sin. I love that. If you want to be stoic about it, then yes.