The Press Box - Trump’s Greenland Crisis, a Sideline Reporter Runs for Senate, and Some Final Thoughts on the National Championship

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and Joel come together in person to discuss Trump's Greenland crisis (02:10). The guys listen to President Trump’s comments on Greenland (04:09), Iceland (05:30), and NATO (07:47), examining why Trump is doing what he's doing and whether it is simpler than people thought (12:49). Next, Bryan and Joel discuss Bari Weiss’s attempts at damage control following the airing of the spiked '60 Minutes' CECOT piece and the New Yorker profile on her (19:06). After that, the guys dive into some football audio (29:43), including sounds from the national football championship postgame festivities (36:55). Finally, the show wraps up with a discussion about former sideline reporter Michele Tafoya’s newly announced U.S. Senate campaign (43:31). All that and more, here on The Press Box. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson Producer: Bruce Baldwin Additional Production Support: Ben Cruz, Conor Nevins, and Sarah Reddy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox. It's Brian Curtis and sitting across from me for one of the rare times is Joel Anderson. That's right. We didn't even get any food. There's no burritos, no barbecue. That's how we usually get down when we link up. I thought you were still complaining about the amenities here at Ringerhead. Well, no, I mean, they did come through with some dinner for the championship game, but, you know, it was a little after the fact. It was a little after the fact. It wasn't a considered choice. This is so much fun for me because I look longingly at Ringer Podcasts like the big picture, at the watch, at the rewatchables. And I'm like, what would it be like to have your co-host in the same time zone as you? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, you know, it's crazy because we were in the same time zone when we first got started. We were. That's right. I was a Pacific time guy. I mean, I'm just like, you can have a co-host sitting across a table from you. You can make eye contact. Little gestures like you eat off of.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, man, I don't want to get into, you know, should I be living in L.A. or not. That's an interesting topic. I don't know. I want to talk about it, but not with my wife. What's nice for our long-distance relationship. It is.

Such a wonderful long-distance. FaceTime is important. It's great. Producer Bruce Baldwin here with us, too, of course. Coming up on the press box, Donald Trump is engineered a crisis over a part of the world he calls a large piece of ice. How do we wrap our minds around a story like this? Plus, Barry Wise damage control, a very feisty NFL press conference.

A sideline reporter is running for Senate. And some final thoughts on Monday's Indiana Miami National Championship game. I will ask the former college football player who's sitting across from me, what are the rules when players are hugging it out on the field at the end of a game? But Joel, we've got to start with. And this just makes me feel very strange to say. The Greenland crisis. I mean, it came up.

Like, we talked about this a year ago and people thought, oh, it was just a joke and nobody was, you know, I mean, I think the thing is, is that everything is a trial balloon. Yes. It's putting it out there and we might circle back around to it. And he doesn't know what's going to happen when he launches the trial bullet. No. I don't, I truly believe that. Yeah. He does not know where this is going to lead.

Right. And also, is he sort of impervious to public criticism? I know that it affects him. Like obviously, like he gets mad when he hears everything, right? But it also seems like even if something is wildly unpopular, it doesn't really matter to him, too. I just kind of want to know how he skins that particular cast. So that's a fascinating question. I was actually talking to Susan Glass or the New Yorker about that earlier this week because Trump's popularity is in the toilet.

Yeah. 36% approval rating in the Gallup poll in December. And he polls very, very low on a lot of issues. And one question I asked was like, does it matter to Trump? that he's unpopular. Yeah. Because a different president would say, okay, that's going to constrain me policy-wise.

That's going to get my party destroyed in the midterms later this year. But it's not clear that Donald Trump really cares about that. Right. That he thinks he needs Congress's approval to do anything, that it matters to him in his second term that he's popular or not. Right. As long as he's enacting his agenda and as long as he has his MAGA base, which let's say is 36% of the population.

Well, that's what I was going to say. That 36% is a strong 36% and they're very loud. and he traffics in areas where that 36% is he can hear and see what they're saying most loudly, right? Like you can sort of insulate yourself from the other 64%. Yeah, they're in the new media seat in the White House briefing room. That's right. Yeah, that's right. See, it's hard to miss. Yeah, right.

So Trump wants to acquire Greenland. He wants to acquire Greenland from Denmark. He doubled down Wednesday morning at the World Economic Forum in Davos, regaling his European audience, Joel, with some history about the U.S. presence in Greenland during World War II. And then after the war, which we won, we won it big without us. Right now, you'd all be speaking German

and a little Japanese, perhaps. After the war, we gave Greenland back to Denmark. How stupid were we to do that? But we did it. But we gave it back. But how ungrateful are they now? So, I mean, Eisenhower, man. That's your fault.

That's where your mind went of his week. That's right. Yeah. So fact check here from the New York Times, the United States was never given sovereignty over Greenland. Denmark signed a deal in 1941 for the United States to defend Greenland in Danish territory, but never to take it over. That's the fact check.

There's also the idea of Donald Trump standing in front of a European audience saying, if it wasn't for us, you would be speaking German right now. I mean, that is an old school. I feel like that was a joke that people told in the 80s and 90s, too. Like I felt like I heard a lot of that, which is, you know, testament to the decade he's still stuck in. And the people were not the president of the United States, just to be clear.

Oh, exactly. Yeah, it wasn't a joke that you'd made in polite company. Sort of a random comedian maybe making that joke. Andrew Dice Clay would say something like that. Let's say, right? At Davos, Trump also got confused about which part of Europe he would like to annex. I don't know that they'd be there for us. They're not there for us on Iceland.

That I can tell you. I mean, our stock market took the first dip yesterday. because of Iceland. So Iceland's already cost us a lot of money. But that dip is peanuts compared to what it's gone up. So Trump does not want Iceland. He does not want, which is too bad. I've known many people who traveled there and had a great time.

Seems like a beautiful place. Absolutely. And there's that whole thing about, you know, why have it called Iceland? Why is it green? Why is it really covered with ice, right? Donald Trump is apparently confused about that. That's also not the only time he's made that mistake. He made it at that gigantic press conference he had on Tuesday in Washington as well.

Right. So let's just say it. Like either he is shockingly unaware of geography or he's senile. Okay. Do we have to pick? What are the options? Yeah. Are there more? Does it feel like an either word of me? That's something that like, I mean, I don't even, I don't have a particularly great memory, especially. You know, you can get me on some stuff. But if that was a focus of the last couple weeks, going back a year,

and I've been talking about it over and over. I don't think I could say that country's name wrong three times in a row. No, two days in a row. Two days in a row, too. It was a low energy speech because his plane had to turn around because there was a small electrical issue, which is, by the way, very funny, all the media people being like, I'm on the plane with the president. I saw those.

You see like, and Caitlin Collins and Sean McRish, I saw posting about that, and then the plane turns around and you have to go back on a different plane. Yeah. It was all kind of funny. Well, he was also, you know, he was a little sluggish because he's 80 years. old and doesn't appear to be in great health. Well, there's that too. Yeah.

The headline from the Wednesday speech was that Trump seemed, and I only put seemed in there because it's Donald Trump. Right. He seemed to rule out using U.S. military force to acquire Greenland. Okay. He said that. Yeah. And he kind of underlined it weirdly in the speech like, I know this will make news,

but I'm not going to take it over by force. That was also contra his proclamation at the Tuesday press conference when someone asked, you know, what would you do to, what would you do to take Greenland? said, quote, you'll find out. So there's that. Here's Trump's final pitch to the audience in Davos. I'm helping Europe. I'm helping NATO.

And until the last few days, when I told them about Iceland, they loved me. They called me daddy, right? The last time, very smart man said, he's our daddy. He's running it. I was like running it. I went from running it to being a terrible human being. But now what I'm asking for, is a piece of ice cold and poorly located that can play a vital role in world peace and world

protection. It's a very small ask compared to what we have given them for many, many decades. A piece of ice cold and poorly located. I mean, this is outrageous, right? This is a thing. Yes, it is outrageous. But again, I think I'm just going to keep coming back to this and people are going to accuse me of having Trump derangement syndrome or whatever. But like, this is crazy. Like, this is unacceptable. This is unacceptable behavior from a world leader. Yeah.

I think probably people lay off the TDS accusations for this one even. Yeah. I don't know because people are, well, you guys are too biased. And then, look, I try not to read comments. It happens every now. I'm biased because I'm pointing out that this is bizarre. But, I mean, it is. And I just wonder, like, what point is that going to become the center of the conversation?

Joe Biden had a few stumbles in public. Like, he looked slow. He did. Right. But, and it was, it took over many, many new cycles and launched bestselling books. This is so much worse than that. Yes. So much.

And it has so many, I mean, the stakes are incredible. Like, it's not, like, this is bled into. geopolitics, global affairs, old alliances, old alliances of forming and breaking down. Like, we're our relationships with Canada, Denmark, anyway. Keep going. Yeah, all this stuff is at stake in. Nobody is talking about the underlying issue here. I know there are some people talking about it, but I feel like that should be a much more central conversation.

Well, this is what's hard because Trump does something that is self-evidently crazy to use your word, absurd, pick an adjective. And I think we all struggle with how to write and talk about that. I mean, you and are laughing during those clips. You're listening here and he's sounding like he's doing a real estate deal saying, you know, there's a really poor location. Yeah, right. This piece of ice.

It's a very poor location. He's running it down so that he'll get a better price for it, that you'll bring down your ass. And we laugh at that because it is funny. It is silly. It is ludicrous. But on the other hand, as you say, this is not. Joe Biden, this is married to an actual geopolitical goal that Donald Trump is pursuing. Right.

Alliance is the oldest, best American alliances that he is threatening. Yes. And you're just like, I think, I think we struggle with that. Yeah. I think all of us do. And by the way, if you want to find people writing about the seriousness of this, there's plenty of that out there. For sure. But just as a national dialogue as us people that try to follow the news, I think we have

trouble getting our arms around stories like that. I think so, too. Yeah, because we just don't, we've not been here. here in quite this way before, right, in this sort of media. And again, it's a, I don't know if the old form of media is necessarily equipped for this moment. Like it requires a different sort of media and a different sort of analysis. And it requires you to take risk in a very litigious time, right?

Like the administration has shown that they will go after you if you say things you don't like. So I know that a lot of people are in a bind, but it just feels like the coverage does not meet the moment right now. A couple of things I think can help us get our arms around this story. When I had Susan Glasser on the pod earlier this week, I wanted to ask her about Greenland because she and her husband Peter Baker wrote a book about Donald Trump. He was out of office at the time. He was in exile. So they go to interview Donald Trump. They have a long period of time because Donald Trump hates the media but loves the media. And they used their walkaway question to ask about

Greenland. You know how this goes. Your time. with the principal, with the subject is up, and the PR person says, okay, last question. Right. Now, you don't want a really important question is your walkaway question. You have wanted to get to those much earlier in the interview. It's almost like, what would you say, like a wild card question that you just, and by the way, can we throw one more thing in here? Yeah, if he says something cool, and if not, it's, you know, no big loss.

Like, I don't need it, but it could make news if he engages with it, right? Yeah. It's kind of the bonus question. Yeah, one more. Let's just toss this in. So I asked Susan, what did Trump say when you asked why he wanted to acquire Greenland, which he expressed interest in doing in his first term? Here's what she said.

You didn't know anything about Greenland before he became president. But sometime very soon after he became president, his friend Ron Lauder, who he went to college with at the University of Pennsylvania, the cosmetics error, told him that there was great potential in Greenland. And we were really stunned to find this out in reporting our book because we, like the rest of the world had considered this not much more than a classic Donald Trump kind of throwaway line when it first became public in the summer of 2019. You remember that. And he floated this and he was like tweeting like weird memes of Trump golden places in Greenland. And the Dan said, no, thank you. And

then, you know, it was the fodder of late night comedians. But when we were reporting the book, we were told by former senior national security officials to Trump that actually he was very serious about this throughout his first term. i.e. way before, you know, he was demanding a Nobel Peace Prize for the eight wars that he allegedly ended and did not actually end in his second term. So we asked Donald Trump about this in November of 2021. I think his answer still is the real answer today. He basically told us, look, I love maps. I looked at this on a map. It's massive and we should have it. And, you know, he said at the time in November 2021, it's really just like a real estate deal to me, except it's a lot bigger.

And I think Trump's desire to write his name on the map of history is a lot of what we're seeing, not just with Greenland, but with many of these other very disruptive and unsettling actions that he's taken. Some of them, minor but upsetting, like putting his name on the U.S. Institute of Peace or putting his name on the Kennedy Center. You know, that's a man who's in a bid for as much immortality as he can get. And Donald Trump defines it in the most literal of terms. You know, he's not looking for. grand sweeping geopolitical doctrines. He's looking for his name in big gold letters on as much stuff as possible. I thought that was about as concise an explanation as you could possibly want of how we got here. That's really interesting. It does put, I mean, it makes me sort of ask questions about his feelings about his legacy against his mortality right now, right? To be focused on that sort of stuff. But also, it is sort of funny because when she mentioned that, like, a kid, he liked maps. And I was thinking, oh, yeah, there was a time in my life when I was really kind of fascinated with, like, how a globe looked. And I had a globe and I would look up there.

And I'd see, man, Greenland and Iceland, they're way up there, man. What do you think that place is like? And that's what he said. That's what that sounded like. It's 100% what that sounds like. Yeah. I went to Denmark a couple years ago because we were doing Spotify stuff and I went there on the way. I know, I know.

You weren't here yet. You would have come with me. Yeah, yeah. And I actually bought my son. This sounds very weird now. It sounds like I was part of the Trump advance team. But I bought my son a map of Greenland. Oh, wow.

Because I was like, he's 10. He will think this is awesome. Oh, yeah. And it's like one of the first countries as a kid. You remember, you're exactly right. That childlike impulse. We're like, look at that. Yeah.

Look how big that looks. Yeah. What's that like? We had a listener, Tim, who sent us a note and said, I can't imagine how frustrating it would be to try to explain the Mercator projection to Trump. Things are not exactly as the. they appear on maps. Also like Ross Douth's column in the New York Times about this,

he talks about there's two readings of Trump at a time like this. Okay. One reading is that Trump is a power mad narcissist. Yes. The end. The other reading is that Trump, when he is in dealmaking mode, plays somewhat self-awarely a power mad narcissist. Right. In hopes that by demanding unreasonable things,

he will get concessions. And doubt that comes to the conclusion that both of these are probably true at the same time. And this is where I go back to, you know, look at the threats Donald Trump's made in the second term that we've talked so much about. Bob Eager, oh, settlement. Mark Zuckerberg, up, settlement. CBS, up, settlement. He might not even know what kind of concessions he's getting in at the back end, but he knows that if he does crazy things at the front end, maybe something will happen than he likes. He's a guy that is obsessed with the deal, so there's definitely that.

But he also, do you remember when he would just mess around with Kim Jong-un a lot in the first? I think he has a lot of respect for that. And he's like, oh, if you can make a lot of noise and get people kind of scrambling a little bit, you can get some concessions around the edges, right? Like people will leave, either they're, if they want to shoot some missiles into the ocean, fine. You know, like people would just like, okay, fine. It's not the worst thing that could happen. And I think he learned a lot from that.

Or like Putin. Like he respects these strong men. these guys that are willing to like buck up in public. And I think what Trump has found out, I'm going to use a van. Oh. Lathen term here, okay? Quote the master. Please don't, don't, people don't judge me.

But, and I'm a little uncomfortable to say it like this. Trump figured out that a lot of world leaders and everybody is pussy. They're really scared. They don't, they're not tough. Nobody has a tough, you know, nobody is willing to fight. You know, he figured out that, oh, yeah, if I just talk a little bit of, lot of shit, you're going to back down, bro. I'm going to do whatever I want to you. So I think that that's what this is. I love a good history lesson because when we're talking about Greenland,

look, the knowledge of the American public, forget the president of the United States. It's pretty low, I think, in terms of what do we know about Greenland? This is from the New York Times. In 1916, Denmark sold what are now the U.S. Virgin Islands to the United States for $25 million in gold. In the treaty for that deal, the clause reads, the United States of America, America will not object to the Danish government extending their political and economic interests to the whole of Greenland. Man. So there you go. The world is just so, I mean, it also is a reminder that everything that happened in the world is all sort of new.

Like, 1960 is really not that long ago. No. My grandfather was born not long after that. I mean, 62 years ago before I was born, it was 1916. So 62 years ago before what, this 2026 is like what? You know. It's not bad at math. It's late 1960s.

It's not a math podcast. It's not that far longer, what I'm saying. All this stuff is still near. Yeah, right. You want to talk about Barry Wise damage control? We're bringing her up again? Well, you know, she just keeps finding her way into the news. All right, let's do it.

I just saw this short item in Oliver Darcy's status newsletter that I thought was really interesting. Okay. Finally, the Seekot 60 Minutes segment ran. Yes. It ran against the Rams Bears playoff game. A great game, by the way. Great game. Were you watching the big Seacot Seacot segment?

be honest. You know, I'd watch it initially already when it aired in Canada. We did. We watched the first version of it. Yes, sir. And it was so funny because we had one of our nice listeners like tweet at me and say, Brian, turn over to 60 minutes right now because they wanted us, you know, to keep track of what's happening.

I was like, I'm sorry. There's football on. This is a very good game. I know. There's a media story happening, but there's a playoffs. Let's not go crazy. This is what Oliver Darcy wrote. Weiss wanted to personally explain to report.

How it, meaning the segment, made its way to air and offer her perspective on the whole fiasco. Indeed, status has learned that Weiss personally spoke to several reporters covering the controversy, chatting with them on the phone one by one to offer her preferred version of events. Conversations with status did not take part in and learned about independently were conducted on background. So she's talking on background. Oliver continues. Status has learned that during these conversations with reporters, Weiss expressed significant frustration. with Sharon Alfanzi, who had declined to make the changes to her piece at Weiss's behest. While it is no secret that Weiss and Alfonzi are at odds, the fact that the network's top editorial executive would voice irritation with one of the marquee correspondence to outside journalists is to put it mildly extraordinary.

Is it for her? I mean, this is, I mean, again, for her or for somebody running a news organization. Barry Weiss came to national attention by basically live tweeting an in-house editorial meeting. That is shockingly unprofessional. Like, a lot of people get fired for that. Like, that's the sort of thing that will usually kind of get you run up out of your news organization. So she's already just shown that she doesn't have any respect for, like, a team, right? Like, that's, yeah, like, if you think about it as a team, when this is a sports media podcast, it's like, we don't talk about stuff that happens in the locker room right now.

now, you know, like we'll work out those problems later, but it's just like you, she's always going to be in search of her interest and serving her own interest. And it doesn't make a difference how it reflects upon her teammates because she's already shown that she can't do that. But I do think, did you read the Clara Malone, New Yorker, a profile on her. I don't know this personally, because I've never talked to her and the one person I knew that knew her did not fall for this. but they say she's charming. A lot of people say she's very charming interpersonally. And then like so she thinks that by calling people and telling that she can sort of win these reporters over and like,

you know how this difficult reporter and hoping that they'll sort of buy into those. Or at least soften the criticism. Soften the criticism a little bit. Yeah. Hoping that her charm can work in those circumstances. Shouldn't she work on winning over the newsroom? I mean, this is one of those, this is one of those things when whenever we have these boss stories in media, I'm like, it's your job.

to get people to buy into your vision. If you have a radical vision for remaking CBS News or even a minor, you know, halfway radical vision, you've got to convince people to do that or it's not going to happen. No. She doesn't probably think... I mean, how many football coaches or coaches have you ever heard that they go in there

is my way or the highway? Yeah. And like, if you can't get along with it, you can get the hell out of here. I just don't think news organizations of that size work like that. I mean, at the free press, you can replace half the same.

staff and some of the staff did in fact leave but at a something like CBS news she doesn't know how to operate a camera she doesn't know how to cut cut video like there's just what she going to do and it's like the New York Times if I went in there was like yeah the New York Times is sclerotic only in journalism and it needs to be fixed I would have to get people to do that I can't hire 400 reporters that is somebody that is familiar with the dynamics of a newsroom and what it is like to be a good teammate and has worked for people and knows like with the best way to like build a consensus and build like a feeling of like you know teamwork within a newsroom that is not really how she's had to operate right and i remember when this first got started i said it'll be really interesting to see if

she'll just take the money and just you know kind of keep a low profile and be like i know that i'm not really qualified for this job but i'm just going to like not have to make a lot of huge decisions but but do you know keep my my bosses happy or whatever Or she'll be a person that is like, oh, I'm going to do whatever I want. And I've got, you know, I know what I'm doing. These people are ridiculous. And I know how media is supposed to work. Let's do the fucking news.

And I think that that's kind of what it is. And the thing about Alfonzi, man, and I shout out to you, because I know what it's like to work for an editor you don't respect. And I'm not going to talk about who those, all those editors are. Well, list them in a bonus pop. Yeah, right. That's right. When we start charging you off our Patreon part, now just joking.

But when you work for an editor, you don't. don't respect, you are so reluctant to make choices because you're like, you don't know what you're talking about. You've never done this work before. And that's a real, it's a real struggle. And you have to, I mean, you know, especially with the story that's so important to her, I'm imagining it's really tough to hear from Barrie Weiss and think that she has the, the expertise to correct you. And let's not forget, Alfonzi wrote that memo after the piece was shelved, saying words to the effect of this was not an editorial decision, it was a political one. That found its way into the media very, very quickly. It's on.

I'm sure what Weiss thinks she's doing is, okay, she played that way. Now, I'm going to get on the phone. Yeah. I have my story to tell. And I did think this last quote from Oliver Darcy was also interesting. He says of this whole damage control operation, it also reflects Weiss's mounting frustration with her own press coverage, which has been relentlessly critical, scrutinizing everything from her management approach to her MAGA-friendly editorial philosophy.

That's interesting to me, too, because I would contend to you that I don't think she has, unlimited freedom under David Ellison. I think there's a point where this gets noisy enough. There are enough stories about her and about behind-the-scenes stuff at CBS News where it's not worth it anymore. Now, that may not be tomorrow. That may not be in a month or two, but I don't think she can sustain a year of this. I really don't. That's interesting.

I guess I would be more curious to know about what David Ellison had in mind. is David Ellison a smart person is what I would like to know. Like what did you think was going to happen then? Like you hired somebody that is wholly unfamiliar with the dynamics of network news and gave them basically carte blanche.

They had the run of the place. And they have, you know, like even what we knew about her management style at the free press wasn't exactly like encouraging. And so what did you think was going to happen? Well, she might have charmed him. I mean, or she might have brought him an editorial philosophy that he thought, you know what? She's making a lot of sense.

This needs to be what the news is. But again, if the ratings stink, which right now the ratings stink, it's still a third place, you know, nightly newscast. It was a third place nightly newscast with Maurice Dubois and John Dickerson. Then what's the point? And I'm just enduring tons of bad stories. Now, will it help him maybe get his hands on Warner Brothers? Right. Part of this was fixing this thing up so that it was not antagonistic to Trump or less antagonistic.

because he has bigger business goals at hand. So maybe he gets to that. But if they decide at the end of the day, hey, we're selling to Netflix and that's it. And the Trump administration can't step in and stop it and save him, then I think, I don't know. There's a point to me where this becomes less useful to him. I don't know. I'm just guessing. I mean, again, I know that I've been very striding today.

Some of it is I don't feel great. As compared to what? Yeah, right. That's fair point. This is what we like about you. No, well, I just, but I would question how smart David Ellis. Ellison is. If this is the case, like, he was like, oh, she turned out to be bad at this job and our ratings didn't get better. No shit. I mean, what did you think? Why didn't you hire

somebody, the number two person in the organization, the number three person in the organization, somebody that worked at ABC News, somebody that worked at NBC News. Why didn't she, CNN, whatever. You hired something. The York Times, I mean, you know. This is the, I mean, just whatever, talk. Get the, David Ellison, man. You, whatever. It's just so stupid. I I'm sorry. Like, it's frustrating because this is really, there's a lot of people that work at CBS. That is a good job. It's a place where really good journalists go to work.

They counted on going there so they could do ambitious, inquisitive, you know, life-changing work. And then they got somebody that was wholly unqualified to run them. And then the guy is like, oh, yeah, if this is the case. And he's like, oh, man, maybe that was a bad idea. Well, man, you wasted a whole year. people's lives and careers and blew up other careers. It's just dumb. We cannot, we cannot understand, we cannot, uh, understate that enough. Yeah. That these are real people that are working. Again, from people that are just like, these are not, you know, they're not all like

highly paid correspondence either. The people that work in network news because they believe in the mission. They like the work. This is their life's work. A lot of people with 60 minutes who've been there forever. And you're just thinking like, you're dealing with this day to day. You're reading all these. You're listening to segments like this going, this is my boss. Yeah. This is is my boss. If you're Tony DiCopo and not far from me to feel sorry for him, I mean, bro, she put your career in reputation on the line. And like it is associated currently with failure. Like I, that would be really hard for me to take if I were him. I don't know how he sleeps in anxious. He probably would say with my wife in a big pile of money. I'm sure he's doing really good.

But I mean, at a certain point you want, and as a journalist, you spend your life in this business, like your credibility and the reputation matters. And right now I'd be like, man, you set me up to look like a fool out here. Yeah. I don't know. It's funny with him because it's probably balanced with the idea that the way he was going to get that job was her. Right. He's on the morning show.

Now he was doing fine. Yeah. But does he become the face of the network with another network head? I'm not sure. Another news division head. I don't know. Can I change the subject to football? Oh, yeah.

Let's do it. To make you feel a little bit better. Yeah, I'm sorry. You know what? Yeah, let me, I'm going to, okay, football. You sound like you were about to do the American Conto thing there. Oh, there was a very feisty Buffalo Bills Press Conference today.

Yeah. Brought to our attention by listener K. Tracy. So the bills lost to the Broncos last weekend. Their head coach, Sean McDermott, got fired. Their GM, Brandon Bean, did not get fired. In fact, he got promoted to president of football operation. And a lot of people look at the Buffalo Bills and like, wait a second, I watched them play, and I see Josh Allen playing hero ball trying to play. I didn't do a very good job of it last weekend.

And I see a team that looks like is really, really poorly and unevenly built. So why was this guy scapegoated? And this other guy who probably deserves as much blame, he got promoted as a result of this. Well, the bill's owner, Terry Pagula, and Brandon Bean decided to meet the president. press today to discuss a number of these things. This is a fascinating press conference to watch. If you are a fan of this kind of theater, I encourage you. It's about 50 minutes long. Clearly an owner in Pagula who does not take very many questions in public and doesn't know how to handle these things. Yeah. Because he's talking about he went to the locker room, right after

the bill's loss. Remember, this is when Josh Allen is crying. DeYoung Dawkins was crying. And he said, I went up to Josh Allen and I said, the interception was a bad. call. This is the interception in overtime. That was very, very close. Brandon Cooks. Yes, Brandon Cooks. Very, very disputed call. He said it was a bad call. That's why he lost. Whatever. And then, of course, somebody stands up and say, wait a second. If it was a bad call, then why did you fire the coach? If the only reason they lost, because if that's ruled a catch, they could field goal games over. Yeah. It was like, why would you then fire

him? Well, oh, it wasn't just that. It was a previous, you know, playoff recession. Okay. So, he's already, he's already tied in knots. Then the subject of Keon Coleman came up. It's a very sore subject in Buffalo because Kiann Coleman's been a receiver on that roster for two years. He's not performed particularly well. He was a healthy DNP four games this season. Did catch one pass last weekend. Also, funny, the bills had a first round draft back that they traded to the Kansas City Chiefs

who took another white receiver with that pig Xavier worthy. So people are like, wait a second, you're making a deal with your biggest rival. You're letting them get a receiver that you presumably need. Then you're trading back and you're getting a receiver who's less. productive. Well, they decided to address the whole Keon Coleman thing. Here is Terry Pagula and Brandon Bean. Pagula's the second voice you will hear. The wide receiver position has been an issue with this team and a lot of people out there believe you have failed in the free agent market and then obviously with the Keon-Colman

signed you which hasn't worked out. How do you answer the fact that you have not given Josh a good enough wide receiver room thus? Can I interrupt? I'll address the Keon situation. The coaching staff pushed to draft Keon. I'm not saying Brandon wouldn't have drafted him, but he wasn't his next choice. That was Brandon being a team player

and taking advice of his coaching staff who felt strongly about the player. And, you know, he's taken, for some reason, heat over it and not saying a word about it, but I'm here to tell you the true story. Poor Kean Coleman. Poor Kean Coleman is still a Buffalo bill. He got to pass last weekend.

I mean, he came in, remember he was just like the darling of Buffalo media. You know, doing his Louisville. Louisiana accent thing. People loved him. And now they're just like, man, he's so bad. That was his fault. Like, he's the guy that's responsible for him. But yeah, I mean, this is why most owners don't appear in front of microphones. I mean, that's just unbelievable.

Yeah. My GM didn't want to draft this guy. The coach wanted to draft this guy. And you're just like, and the guy's still on the team. Like, by the way, we didn't want you. The people that are still here, we didn't want you. Yeah. Or we wanted you less than the coach did. I just I can't imagine saying that into a microphone. That, I don't know how to say, but it sounded Trump-esque to me. I don't know how to explain it. But it just felt like, from the voice.

No, Trump would throw the underling under the bus. He would throw all the underlings under the bus. Don't you think? Yeah, right. Yeah. It's like, well, and Brandon, you know, he doesn't, he's not done a great job, but he's done a good job sometimes. But Sean McDermott.

Yeah. So I just thought, oh, okay, like that's just a bad. Yeah, that's just somebody that is not used to answering questions and probably shouldn't be answering questions. I do wonder how that works if the only. when he wants to talk to the media, how much media training? Because that's something that they have to be willing to accept. Right?

They say, I want a press conference and I'm going to sit right up here. And then what's the, they're like, all right, well, look, you might get asked these questions. Like, I got it. Or is it like, okay, help me to prepare for these questions? How does that work? They sure don't seem to have much. Yeah. Because whenever you hear these guys, I mean, like Jerry Jones, I think it's just reps.

But he makes news every time he talks. Oh, he's clearly not. Yeah. Yeah, he's not. I don't think media training is what I'd use. Yeah, not at all. Yeah, not at all. Let's talk about the National Championship game.

Yeah, man. A few final thoughts. One is after the game, we got a Fernando Mendoza F-bomb. Here she comes. Such a great group of guys. I love you guys. Great job. Let's fucking go!

That was pretty amazing. We went with like straight A. What did he say? Was it flipping? What would he? Yeah, was it flipping? No, he, yeah, he had some one of those, God, now I forget. He had one of those things he used to see in 90s sports columns when people couldn't cuss.

So they would write a, was it, was I'm, you, you go here. I'm going to look this up. Okay, yeah. Well, no, so I kind of missed this part because people behind the curtain here, we all watched the game together in our studio here. And we moved over to the studio to record Tailgate. And so Brian and then we're watching the last few minutes of the celebration, everything. So I kind of missed all this and I didn't see it in the moment, but I definitely didn't think that Fernando

Mendoza cursed. Like I didn't know that he cursed in public. That was sort of a surprise, but, you know, the Hoosiers are flipping champs is what he said after beating Ohio State. Flipping champs. Yeah. That was an old newspaper euphemism. Yeah.

Flip. And it's kind of like, yeah, just kind of surprised that he did it. But, I mean, maybe, you know, I don't think it's hard to be in the public spotlight right now and not hear the things that people say about you, even if you're trying to. So I just wonder if he was like, I'm a little human. I'm going to show him I'm not a big, I'm not as a straight arrow. Guy Pearce and LA confidential, you know, I'm going to show him I got a little bit of a dark side hair. Yeah.

I wanted to ask you about postgame etiquette. I'm very curious about this because you've done the postgame thing on the field as a football player. Yeah. Somebody won. Somebody lost. But we're going to do hugs, handshakes, I guess exchange jerseys in the NFL. Miami running back Mark Fletcher Jr. had a great game. He's so good.

And then after the game, we get a shot from ESPN. This is during their long post game show. And Scott Van Pelt is throwing it over to Mark Fletcher throwing hands at an IU football player. See it. Perhaps you at home have seen it afterwards. There's a, that's Mark Fletcher who swung at an Indiana player, which obviously is Tyree Tucker and couldn't possibly. know what was said?

Yeah. What did you make of that? I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often, to be honest, because it is really hard, especially in a game where there's really, you know, like the highest of stakes. You've been competing against somebody. I think players talk a little bit more shit

now than they did when I was a kid. People talk shit, but I just feel like now that's just the language and the culture of the game that you talk into people all the time. But also, a lot of the guys that you see on the field after the game, especially now, you know them. Like DeAngelo Pons, like, he went up against Jeremiah Smith in high school. Like, these guys go to their camps together.

So you're looking for people that you've already kind of built relationships up with and everything. So there's a little bit more, like, familiarity out there. But, yeah, I mean, sometimes I, it's got to be hard to turn down the temperature, especially somebody, you know, did a cheap shot to you or said something that you thought was out of line. And it is worth noting that one of Miami's staffers, Mike Rump, former cornerback there, said online, I think it was on an Instagram comment that this is his allegation that Tyreek Tucker said something about Mark Fletcher's dad. And you know a big part of the Mark Fletcher Jr. story is that he text his late father every game day before the game.

We heard about that during the game, ESPN. Right. They've talked about it pretty much every game now. Right, and about his family. And so I don't know if that's true. I don't, you know, I haven't seen what Tyreek Tucker said about it yet. But if that's true, I kind of understand, man, you know? I mean, I, I mean, what would make a running back want to go fight a defensive tackle?

Well, that's the thing. It's so out of character. Yeah. And Van Pelt, by the way, NESPN, we're so careful with this. You heard it there. They were not, you know, pointing fingers. They're like, there's something happening here that we don't understand. Right.

Because this is very, very unusual for something like this to happen. And hilariously, Mark Fletcher Jr. had gone up and given a big hug to Fernando Mendoza after the game. And Holly Roe had taken a picture of that and said, look at this sportsmanship. Like held him up as like, this is a guy. Even after a tough loss, you balled out today. Your team loss is not your fault. And you're going over there and, you know, dapping up the quarterback. Everybody has talked about Mark Fletcher Jr. is like an upstanding young man.

That, like, his character has never been in question. And they've always said, oh, he's like one of the leaders of this team. Remember when Malachi Tony had that fumble in a playoff game? And it was Mark Fletcher, Jr. that went up to him. Yeah. Could your head in the game. And he just seems like a fully formed man in a lot of ways. And so this was sort of surprising.

But I would know, we've come a long way since the days of LaGarrett Blunt. You remember? So there was a game, it was Boise State versus Oregon and a season opener, and it was about 15 years ago. And it was a hard-fought game. The Boise State beat Oregon. And Oregon was, like, highly rated. Ligarit Blunt was a running back that was walking off the field, a defensive tackle from Boise State,

Byron Hout said something to him, and Ligargett punched his shit out of that dude. I think he knocked him to the ground, right? And everybody came out to Lageret Blunt. I think he got suspended for the rest of the year after that. And I just let people jump on that kid immediately. Like they were just, oh, horrible, can't do it, whatever. And I don't think you should be able to punch your opponent after a game,

but nobody, there wasn't a lot of like, what was said, you know? What would drive somebody to that? It would make somebody do that. And that's the thing I think the media has changed so much now. You know, everybody's just much more careful. Yeah. And there's much more, again, you can find tweets, but there's much more, I just there's a little more introspection about it, a little more caution.

Let's find out what happened. Right. Now, if we want to jump to conclusions, how about Carson Beck? Could you see the highlights he got? He's the Miami quarterback for people to know. He threw an interception late in the fourth quarter that ended the game for Miami when they had a chance to win. Yeah, man.

There's a shot ESPN took of him walking off the field. appearing not to shake hands with anybody. Again, this is just one of these things we see on TV. It led to a bunch of tweets in an all-time New York post headline, Carson Beck in handshake drama after devastating interception sealed Miami's National Championship hopes. Poor Carson Beck. I'm like, come on.

And is it, okay, so if we're just going to, if we're going to, you know, moralize about the post game, isn't it okay sometimes just like, I just want to go? I just want to be by myself right now. I respect everybody out here for both teams. I got to go inside. It never occurred to me that also that was the expectation of my college quarterbacks. Like in NFL,

like you normally the coaches will meet each other and the quarterbacks will go say something. I didn't know that that was the expectation in college either. Like that seems like a new... It doesn't feel very professional, right? Yeah. It's a professional. Hey, we're all pros here.

We're all making lots of money. Yeah. We know each other because we're around the... Senior under at the Manning Academy or whatever. But yeah, no, I felt bad for Carson, and I can understand that is probably one of the more devastating moments in his life as a football player. His college career is over. Got to be the most. Lost on an interception that was not a great throw.

I can understand wanting to walk off the field and being like, you know, I'll see you around, bro. You know. Some news about the college football post game schedule. Maybe we'll save that for another time because I think the playoff people are about to come up with the schedule. Donald Trump has also weighed in on that. Oh, I know that Army Navy game, man. We need a four-hour exclusive window for Army Navy. Can you do that?

You're the TV expert. Is that possible? I don't know what an executive order would do. Yeah. Saying that, okay, we need four hours for Army Navy. And they're proposing maybe to have two playoff games on that day, which we play in playoff game again. This is a discussion for another time.

I don't think a president can do that. I would love for them to have a totally DEI broadcast team for that, if that would have happened. Oh my God. All right. This is the last one I had for you. Okay. Michelle Tofoya for U.S. Senate.

Yeah. I feel like we're the right podcast to cover this story. Why not? Former Sunday Night Football Sideline Reporter. She is running for Senate in Minnesota for a seat currently held by Tina Smith. Michelle Tofoy has worked at the big four. She did the John Madden. CBS, NBC, ABC, SPN.

Most people probably know her most recent from Sunday night football, but she also works sidelines for Monday Night Football. from 2004 to 2006. She's originally from California, but did her early work, media work in Minnesota, including at the big sports radio station, their KFAN.

I wanted to play you a little bit of the campaign announcement. Oh, please. I haven't heard this. Well, we'll stop and start here as we go. Here is Michelle Tofoya declaring her intentions to enter American politics.

For years, I covered the biggest football games in America. I walked the sidelines when the pressure was mounting, and the stakes were the highest. That job taught me about more than football. It taught me about how leadership really works. When leaders are prepared and accountable, teams succeed.

See, I thought she was going to go for the obvious metaphor there. I was on the sidelines. Now I'm coming off the sidelines. Oh, coming off the sidelines. Now I'm coming off them to save America. She does get to that later in this. I'll play a few more seconds here. This is mostly just like a laundry list of ways to be a Republican in Minnesota.

When they aren't, people pay the price. When I look at Minnesota and Washington today, I see politicians selling out honest, hardworking people like you. I see massive government fraud exploding on Tim Walz's watch, ripping off taxpayers and embarrassing our state. All right, Jill's giving me the side eyes. I'm going to go ahead and push stop. Okay. There are a number of Republicans running for this seat, which is an open seat. as I said, she's got the endorsement of the National Republican Senatorial Committee,

the NRC, if you're in Washington. Minnesota has also been a very, very blue state over the last several cycles. Reminder that Amy Klobuchar beat Royce White by more than 15 points two years ago. I don't remember what order we're airing all of our episodes, but remember when I said when the Republicans run a black person in a seat like that, that means they don't care. That means they've given up. And so Royce White was, he would just consider him nude Africa.

Remember our boy in nude Africa in North Carolina? How could I possibly forget? Yeah, he's Alan Keys. That's not nude Africa, by the way. Who is not nude Africa. Sorry if anyone was offended. Royce White is running this time around. So I believe Royce White will be running against Michelle Defoeia.

I mean, she strikes to me. And again, we can laugh and all this stuff. But she strikes me as a person who's going to get this nomination. And she is going to be an interesting. candidate for this. I mean, this is a tough hill to climb. You got the Tim Wall stuff in the news. Yeah. You got everything that Donald Trump has said about the Somali community in Minnesota, right? We know what notes are going to be hit here, but Donald Trump is the president of the United States. Yeah. And it's a really, really rough. So it feels unlikely we will get Senator Michelle Tofoya, but will we get candidate Michelle Tofoya on the ticket in November?

Yeah. I would guess so. I know she's like more a creature of the internet now. Like she has a podcast. I think and is, you know, doing a lot of the Republican right-wing tweeting stuff. Yeah, she said she left TV for politics. Yeah. So, I mean, this seems sort of the obvious play for her. I was, I've been kind of shocked having seen a little bit of her show,

just the clips before any of this ever happened. And I was just like, oh, she doesn't have a lot of charisma. It was kind of shocking to me. I was just like, oh, she's been a TV. All, you know, a lot of her life. I just didn't feel like a person that was like, okay, that people are going to be excited about her. That's interesting.

Yeah, because the ads are very professional. You know, she sounds very good, yeah. I don't know. What happened to Michelle Bachman, man? When she used to be a person? She used to be a person. She used to be a person there? No, man, look, Minnesota is the weirdest fucking political state in here.

Jesse Ventura, the Tim White. Just, is Keith Allison's from up that way? Like, just the, just the confluence of people there. I just, I don't know if anybody's written anything about like the politics of that state in particular, but like, I mean, I could see a thing with Michelle, if you get the Republican nomination, you've got a chance. Yeah, I mean, it's close enough. You know, I think Kamala Harris won by four points over Donald Trump. So it's a swing state, but it's one of the swing states that's almost, you know, reliably pretty reliably been a blue state. So wait, and so Colbuchar is not running.

So who's, uh, Angie Craig. Okay. Uh, who's a representative. You're testing my knowledge of Minnesota folks. And Peggy Flanagan, who's the lieutenant governor. Okay. Forgive me Minnesotans if I got those details wrong. I mean, you know, yeah, she's not going to be going up against an incumbent.

She's a pretty big name. People are familiar with others. She's on TV before. So, yeah, she has a real shot. But, yeah, I mean, theoretically Minnesota is a blue state, but who knows anymore? We didn't get Paul Feinbaum for Senate. We didn't, man. We didn't yet get Stephen A for president.

But we did get Michelle Tofoya. We're not even going to get Coach Walls, man. No. Coach Walls isn't running for real. Coach Walls is over. All right, he's Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis. Prodaxy Magic by Bruce Baldwin.

A couple of things. Follow us on Instagram at PressBox Ringer. We always love you to retweet and re-skeet the podcast. You know, it's funny. I was listening to a New Yorker podcast today, and they were saying, please rate us at, you know, wherever you get your podcast. I was like, wait a second.

If the New Yorker can do commerce. Oh, yeah. Then we here are not above. asking doing a little commerce asking for things begging for things that's right that's right um some scheduling man we got a lot of stuff coming up we really do um we're gonna have a very special political interview which we will keep quiet for now yeah coming up on the press box uh another political show coming up also special you know a lot of democrats joel are quietly running for president yes and some democrats aren't quietly running for president.

They're not going to run for president at all, but people wish they would run for president. Right. We thought we needed someone to come in and rank all these Democrats to construct what we call the Democratic Dept Chart. That's right.

And that person is Van Lathen. Yeah, man. He's good at that. I mean, Van is great. Sitting next to him, I was like, damn, man, this dude is smartest shit, you know? I mean, but yeah,

He's great for that. We recorded that this week. Yeah. You will hear it soon. We had 25 Democrats, which is more than I thought we'd get to. There's 27. I think, yeah, and I think he ranks 17. Yeah.

So we will have Van Lathen's Democratic Debt Chart. And he's already promised to do the Republican debt chart in February. Oh, he was excited. He wanted to do that. So we're going to do that too. That's right. Next week, also the January issue of the press box about in cold blood, the invention of true crime. And then we're going to have a Brian, David, and Joel three-man weave.

And for that, we need. your questions. Oh yeah. For a segment I like to call our disillusion listeners. You can ask us about media stuff, but you can also ask us about personal stuff. You can ask us about text and stuff.

Whatever you've wanted to know for me and Joel and David will be together. We'll answer your questions as part of that episode. Don't get too personal. But yeah, personal questions. Reasonably personal. Send them, though, to Pressbox Ringer at Gmail,

which is our new email account. I will find them there. Oh, wow. Okay. We got a new Gmail account. I'm learning. Okay. Well, it's just one of those things

where I was getting a lot of, I can't climb out of my inbox. And all these awesome listener things are like, Brian, let me tell you a story. And I'm like, this is awesome. But I have just got to put this in some other place. So smart, yeah. Find me there. We're going to finish January like Fernando Mendoza at the goal line. There you go.

There you go, Joel. Can't wait to talk to you next week. Look forward to it, man.