The Press Box - Trump's Impeachment Spin, Layoffs at Sports Illustrated, and the WWE Goes to Fox | The Press Box

Episode Date: October 4, 2019

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker cover the impeachment spin presented by Donald Trump (03:00), the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week (17:00), grim times at 'Sports Illustrated' (21:00), WWE’s move to Fox (36:15), and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up guys, it's Liz Kelly, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. I want to tell you guys about a brand new podcast coming to our luminary slate called Sonic Boom. For more than four decades, the Seattle Supersonics were among the NBA's most iconic franchises. But in 2008, they packed their bags for Oklahoma. Hosted by the Ringer's Jordan Ritter-Con, Sonic Boom tells the story of basketball and politics, wealth and power, and reveals new truce about the NBA's greatest heist. You can find the eight-episode documentary podcast exclusively on Luminary starting October 3rd. David, in a company meeting the leak to the media, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg told coworkers it would, quote,

suck if Elizabeth Warren became president. What I want to know is who is the best political enemy you could have right now. I mean, this is a week where Joe Biden has relished in being the person in Trump's line of fire. Joe Biden has finally found purpose in his campaign by being that, what did he say this week? I just want to say something to you, Donald. I'm not going anywhere. It's just like, who are you think you were going? That wasn't what was at stake here.

I think he thought he was on the WWE on Smackdown or something. And I was like, what better position? I mean, like, how could you possibly? possibly get luckier than to have Donald Trump come after you directly. And then news breaks that in an off the record, whatever meeting, Mark Zuckerberg went after Elizabeth War. And I'm like, oh, I think we found a better villain. Donald Trump had like 19 perfect enemies this week.

There was Adam Schiff, who he kept calling Shifty Schiff. Yeah. That was the thing, right? He also, who else did he name as his enemy this week? I mean, I think it was basically everybody, Nancy Pelosi. That was a big one, right? because she was, she unlike Paul Ryan would approve subpoenas for just about anything.

Oh yeah. Paul Ryan approved a lot of subpoenas. Basically any Democrat that would get in his line of fire? Yeah. I mean, the fact that he was like singling out Biden was big, but you're right, he has too many, he has too many, too many, too many opponents.

I think Mark Zuckerberg, and I think especially to like a younger generation, I mean, what bit, what greater villain is there than Mark Zuckerberg? Even if you love Facebook, he's turned himself into like the greatest bond villain ever. I was just going to say bond villain, yeah, because you control the technology. Unless you're like, I mean, unless an actual villain, I don't even know who that would be. Unless an actual... You mean somebody like with a mask or something like that?

Unless Kim Jong-un just started like tearing into Kamala Harris or something like that saying like she should never be elected. Like who could be, who would be more uniting than that? Well, I know. It's like, it's weird because in this time of Trump, we like actual internet. The international villains are tearing into the United States. It's like the Ebola virus just calls a news conference to say that we can't elect Beto O'Rourgism. We are the Ernst Stavro Blofeld of Media Podcasts. This is the Press Box, a part of the Ringer podcast network. Hello Media Consumers, Brian Curtis, and a real live in-person David Shoemaker here.

I just, honestly, it's weird to see you. It's weird to be here. I talk to you twice a week. There's no like face-timing in between. I think Chris and Andy probably FaceTime when, you know, Andy's out in the New Mexico desert or something like that. But you and I, it's just, it's solely on the pod. So when I get a good look at you, I'm always just like, wow.

He's really here. I have no idea how to take that. That's fantastic. No, you look, you look good. Very good. Lots of things to get to today, including a candlelight vigil for the writers and editors that Sports Illustrated. We'll talk about when newspaper reporters should hold giant scoops for

their books and when they shouldn't. We'll talk about pro wrestling moving to the penthouse of the Fox network. And we've got listener mail in that overworked Twitter joke of the week. But David, we got to start with the latest on impeachment, which we can group under the heading of wildly implausible ways Donald Trump and friends have tried to spin the Ukraine story. There are way too many for one segment because I saw Rudy Giuliani putting up texts on Twitter, the whole gang over at the Federalist feeling their oaths.

But I think we can break down Trump at his allies' attempts that's been into a few distinct categories that I'm going to hit you with here. Category number one, now this may seem counterintuitive, but commit the same impeachable acts anew. This was earlier this morning, just as we're going on, Trump's earlier problem was leaning on Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter, this morning on the White House lawn, Trump called for China to do the same thing. China should start an investigation into the Biden's, because what happened in China

is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine. So I would say that President Zelensky, if it were me, I would recommend that they start an investigation into the Biden. Somebody ought to think about impeaching that guy. What in the world? It's the same thing, isn't it? It's hard to, of all of the things that he's done, and there have been some real winners over the past week alone,

is that the hardest one to listen to and write off as being the work of a, you know, madman? I mean, that feels like it must be, like, of all of our conspiracy theories about how the Trump White House works, this one feels like it must be a deliberate decision to go out there and do exactly. what they've done before to normalize something by repeating it again in front of cameras and microphones, right?

I, 1,000% agree that if we have this narrow, maybe impeachable thing we did in a White House supplied transcript, we're going to double down on the fact that that is not, in fact, impeachable and muddy the waters and sort of convince people subliminally by just saying it over and over. Yes. So I guess the only question is what country is next? Should Turkey investigate Joe and Hunter Biden? Should Trinidad and Tobago investigate Joe and Hunter Biden? How far can we go here? I don't know.

But it is the Trump volume strategy, right? He has this thing where I think he does double down on bad acts. And in a way, it revs up his base. because part of what they like about Trump is that he's so audacious and he's the big tough guy who doesn't care and he's not going to back down to the media. He's just going to do it again.

Yeah, I think that's right. And listen, I mean, like I said, we're all in this sort of like post-factual stage in terms of our politics and news consumption, right? And like even the, I think there's a lot of very kind of baseline Trump supporters that are not looking at, to find out whether or not, and this goes for both sides, but they're not looking to find out whether or not what Trump did is impeachable or is illegal or whatever else, but they're just looking for a, a passable line of defense, line of argument on Twitter as to why it's okay, right? And this, and he sort of, he is providing that meat, that grist for his, for his supporters. I'll, I'll even go you a step down the evolutionary chain. I think they're just looking for a flex. Yeah. They're just looking for Trump to say,

I don't care. I don't care if you think this is impeachable. I'm just going to do it anyway. Yeah. I mean, I don't even know if that, you know, you're right, there is that, we're going to get to that in a second. This kind of Fox News, federalist right wing, here's what this is really about. Yeah. But I also think they just want Trump to just be like, nah, I'm fine.

I mean, I'm sure there's a million ways to attack this. Before we get too bogged down into sort of meta-analysis. Too late. No, of the whole thing. I guess it bears mention that like the actual things that the president is saying don't make any cognitive sense. I mean, I mean, he's he's attacking the whistleblower and then openly doing the things that the whistleblower said that he did.

Right? He say like like like the line if the line of defense against this accusation should be yes and it's okay. I did exactly what he said. Nobody should have any problem with that because then he then he's, I mean, functionally that's what he's doing. and everything, I mean, but just the mining of the waters. I mean... He's doing every defense at once. You're right. He's doing every defense at once.

He's saying, I didn't do it, and also I did it, and it's okay. We saw Rudy Giuliani do both defenses within 10 seconds. Yeah. I didn't do that. Of course, I did it. Yeah. It's really weird. A far more conventional diversionary tactic is just to attack your enemies. Sure.

Straight out of the Trumpian playbook. In this case, this was from a press conference with Finland's president, my God, that poor man, standing next to Trump while he raged against the media, Trump's particular target in this case was California Congressman Adam Schiff. Not a thing wrong, unless you heard the Adam Schiff version where he made up my conversation. He actually made it up. It should be criminal. It should be treasonous.

He made it up, every word of it made up and read to Congress as though I said it. And I'll tell you what. he should be forced to resign from Congress. Adam Schiff, he's a low life. He should be forced to resign. He took a perfect conversation, realized he couldn't read it to Congress because it was a very nice conversation.

I knew many people were on the phone. Not only were many people on the phone, we had stenographers on the phone taken it down, word for word. He took that conversation, which was perfect. He said, I can't read this. So he made up a conversation, and he reported it and said it to Congress and to the American people.

And it was horrible what he said. And that was supposed to be coming from me. But it was all fabricated. He should resign from office in disgrace. And frankly, they should look at him for treason because he is making up the words of the president of the United States. Not only words, but the meaning. And it's a disgrace.

It should not be allowed to happen. I know that this is ridiculous on its face and that Trump doesn't really care what Adam Schiff says. But, like, Adam Schiff was, you know, was clearly just, like, imagining what that conversation might have been like in a slightly humorous way when he was speaking last week. But this is, I mean, for someone like Donald Trump who literally reenacts conversations every time you put a microphone in front of his face, he just, like, makes, like, fantastic. And I'm not even talking about, like, places where we should be accusing him of lying or, you know, whatever. I mean, that's just the way this man speaks. See, like, you'll ask him like how his dinner was last night and he'll just be like, oh, I was sitting with Melania.

Melania said, look at that beautiful moon outside and you look so good in that suit, honey. And he just like makes up things that people say all the time. He is our national unreliable narrator. Yeah. And for that to, I mean, I guess maybe that's exactly why he focuses on it. I don't know. And even if Schiff had done a, you know, comedy version making up Trump quotes, that, let us just note that is not treason. an offense that is punishable by death.

Well, and you had Lindsey Graham, who was like, deliberately misunderstanding the definition of hearsay earlier this week. I mean, the way that these, like, these words are thrown around with deliberate disregard, right? Or maybe that's not even the right word. Hearsay, that was incredible. Yeah. I mean, to remove the meaning of every word is, I'm sure, I'm sure, It will be a, you know, the nut graph of some great philosopher looking back on this era in political history that we just like, to devalue the meaning of every word is a beautiful metaphor for the way that we've just like, you know, self-destructed our political system or something.

I didn't even include in our litany here, but do you see Kevin McCarthy from Congressman from California on 60 Minutes? and he was read part of the official White House pseudo-transcript from the Ukraine call. And he was like, that's not what it said. You inserted a word. And Scott Pelly was like, no, I didn't. Actually, I'm just reading you verbatim from this document put out by the White House. And by the way, speaking of obscuring words and distorting their meaning Trump claimed more than once yesterday that that was an exact transcript. from his phone call with the president of Ukraine.

The thing itself says that it is not an exact transcript. Yes. So the White House released something and said, this is not an exact transcript. And the Trump says, actually it's an exact transcript. Okay. Maybe they should look into treason charges for that transcript.

I also wrote down another heading here, cussing. It's kind of a diversionary tactic. Cussing. Big Trump tweet yesterday, the Do Nothing Democrats should be focused on building up our country not wasting everyone's time and energy on bullshit,

all caps. But as many Pina Bull pointed out, here was Trump on the same day attacking Adam Schiff's criticism of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The most honorable person, Mike Pompeo, and this guy was negative on Mike Pompeo. He can't, you know, there's an expression.

He couldn't carry. his blank strap. I won't say it because they'll say it was so terrible to say. But that guy couldn't carry his blank strap. You understand that? I don't know if I do understand that. He's blank strap. Is it the bootstrap that he presumably

should have pulled himself up by him? What a weird place to censor. You remember when we were living together in New York and our moms would come visit us and immediately like the network sensor button clicks in our heads? Like, oh, we can't talk like we normally talk. in this apartment. We would have,

we would not have censored the word jock strap. No. Of all words to say, we'd have censored a lot from those days. We would not have censored the word jockstrap. No,

absolutely not. They didn't remind you that old bell match game bit, you know, a man walked into a park and he pulled down his blank. He was blank. Yeah.

Instead of the bleep, he's blank. Yeah. Yeah. I think I was, I was, my first take on this, this is not about,

the blank strap per se. Thank God. But I got a push notification on my phone that I'm probably going to misquote, but it was from NBC News that said like President Trump explodes in profanity. And I was just like, what the hell?

And I was literally watching CNN at the time. I'm saying at a hotel here in L.A. The only news available is CNN, you know, which is just sort of a weird island to be on, not what I'm used to. But I was watching CNN. I was like, why, what was the explosion of profanity? And then I realized it was just a tweet that said,

bullshit, but it's weird. I know that the news organizations are constantly recalibrating what they're going to kind of be permissive of in the Trump era but it did seem weird that like using the word bullshit in a tweet was sort of

like a bridge too far for NBC News you know I mean like I'm not sure that that qualifies even as like presidential norms aside I kind of feel like if President Obama had said bullshit and in front of a gaggle we would have just been like

okay like it's the 21st century right you can do this now but like President Trump tweets it and it's about something that regardless of what you believe about what's going on right now by this impeachment inquiry, it is reasonable for President Trump, someone in his position to be like, that's a bunch of bullshit, right? I don't know. Maybe I'm taking this too literally.

No, you're right, because it reminds me of Robert De Niro on CNN the other day. Oh, yeah. It was the cleanest thing Robert DeNiro had ever said, but we all have to do the, oh, whoa, oh, hey, kids might be watching this. Yeah, that was really weird. I mean, this is the P-tape president, right? Yeah. I'm sorry, let me do the P-word president.

I'm sorry. He's so easy to get confused with Donald Trump. The P-word tape president. I think blank word president is literally. Yeah, that's right. It's blank. All right. Time for the Overwork 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. Please send your nominees to at the press box pod, where they are always gratefully. received. One diversionary tactic, David, that we did not get to was Trump posting a video to Twitter that showed the world a picture of Joe Biden and Hunter Biden with a Ukrainian guy, allegedly a Ukrainian guy. And what was weird was that picture was inserted into the video of the 2005 nickelback song photograph. So Trump, given all the tools of, of propaganda that a president commands

went with the nickelback video. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write forcing the entire country to listen to nickelback should be an impeachable offense. Thanks to usually GP for that one. We mentioned that yesterday Trump met with the president of Finland. His name is Sali Nista.

I think I'm saying that right. Sully Nista over there in the White House. Thank you, Chris, for the help with that. During that, Trump gets into it with Reuters reporter Jeff Mason, who was really the face of professionalism during the whole exchange, made the wires proud. After going a few rounds, Trump demanded that Jeff Mason stop asking questions about Biden and ask Minista a question. Okay? He says, wait, we got the president of Finland right here. Why aren't you asking him anything? But listen to how Trump butts in even

on that question. Ask the president of Finland to question, please. Okay. I'll move on now. Mr. President, in your opening remarks, you said to President Trump that you had been to some museums today and that you respected the U.S. democracy and encouraged him to continue it. Are you concerned that that's not happening? And my second question to you, sir, is the WTO rule today in favor of the United States, saying that the United States can now impose tariffs on European goods because of illegal subsidies against Airbus. That was a big win for the United States, right? It was a big win.

with other presidents, did you? But we're having a lot of wins at the WTO. This was a case that started, I think, 10 or 15 years ago. So I want you to ask Finland's president a question, but I'm going to also answer that question. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write, I'm going to let you finish. Oh, man. My laugh was greater than it should have.

Capital left. Thanks to Michael for that one. And finally, David, that story about Trump and the border that ran in the news. that ran in the New York Times, more on that in just one second, suggested that Trump wanted the U.S. to build a trench filled with alligators

to deter migrants from coming into the United States. A trench filled with alligators. Trump went to Twitter, shockingly, to rebut the charge. He says, now the press is trying to sell the fact that I wanted a moat stuffed with alligators.

But he did not write moat. He wrote moot. Moot. M-O-O-T. He even capitalized it. M-O-O-T. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write moot point, but even better. And when in doubt, go with a reference to Season 4 Episode 7 of Seinfeld, the Bubble Boy. All right, bubble boy. Let's just play. Who invaded Spain in the 8th century? That's a joke. The Moors. Oh, no. I'm so sorry, it's the moops. The correct answer is the moops. Moops.

Let me see that. That's not moops, you jerk. It's Moors. It's a misprint. I'm sorry, the card says moops. Sorry, Mr. President, the card says moot. If you referenced Seinfeld and didn't talk about streaming services, congrats, you made the overworked Twitter joke of the week.

All right, David, let us enter the notebook dump section of this here podcast. And let us enter it grimly because we've got layoffs at Sports Illustrated. The Wall Street Journal last night, this is Ben Mullen and Jeffrey Tractenberg, reported that at least 20% of the full-time staffers would be laid off today. And at deadspin, Barry Pacheski said that number could be as high as 50% of full-time staffers. the journal further reports that the maven you remember this company there's no space between the and maven the maven

or some simovan the miven sounds like a medicine it does something you give your kids when they have a really wet hacking cough at night the miven a media startup that was sold

the licensing rights to s i will bring in 200 contract workers to fill the holes created by the layoff in other news over there Chris Stone, the editor-in-chief of SI, is out of a job as of Tuesday. Pacheschi reports at SI's digital editor.

Mark McCluskey is also out. I feel you and I have had nine versions of this conversation about a media entity. So let me just, without being contrarian, let me just take us over one lane on the highway here. I don't want to hear about how this is defaming the legacy of SI. I don't even really want.

want to hear your memories of getting SI in the mailbox and how great it was and how terrible this thing is happening. You know what? In the 70s and 80s and Frank DeFord, Dan Jenkins, all those people, guess what? Those people got paid. Right. Those people got paid really well by timing. Yeah. This doesn't defame the memory of SI. That's not going anywhere. All this does is just absolutely suck for the people who are working there now. Yeah. That's all I really care about here. people who are apparently being called in or maybe not to a meeting today to get fired so that they can replace them with 200 randos who are going to cover sports for SI. Yeah.

I mean, to me, that's that if we are, you know, laser focusing our angst and concern, that's where it goes from me. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I'm not sure that if. you know, companies performing corporate takeovers or buying out legacy media with great,

you know, memories and reputation. I don't know if it would help anything if the acquiring firms would be more up front at the beginning and just being like, yeah, we just bought it for the logo. We want to put it on a duffel bag and we're going to probably lay a bunch of people off. If they had said that on day one,

I'm not sure that would make us feel any better right now, but it sure feels like something that would be just better for all parties involved, you know, make you feel like... They kind of said it right. Authentic brands said, remember,

we're going to build like SI the hospital? No, no, no. They... Medical clinic? Yeah, I mean, and there were some caveats too. And they, but they all,

you know, I guess it's the role of, I mean, any company now will put a positive PR spin on it so they're not going to focus on the negatives. But yeah, this just sucks for the people who are getting laid off.

And I think it just feels particularly dire. This happens time and time again. again. It's not the first, it won't be the last company like this that will cover. But it's like, you know, there's not,

it's life altering for people who are losing their jobs, especially in the world where they're like, there's not necessarily an obvious place to go and drop your application off, you know? There's not, this isn't,

this is, and SI has been such a legacy institution that one, we like to think that you'd be safer there in some kind of vague way. And two, there are a lot of people, people who've, you know, given their lives, I mean, spent a big portion of their lives there.

Right. And, and yeah, it's hard to see, it's hard to see that happen to the good people who are doing good work. I just think when my phone lights up with Texas that did last night as the story was coming down, our minds immediately go to the really good famous writers at SI that we know. those people, and again, I don't want to minimize their pain and annoyance and all that stuff, those people will probably be fine. It's the writers and non-forward-facing people you don't know that this is really going to suck for. Like those are the people that are today going, what am I going to do? You know, the person who has, there's really good at profiles and long forum and all that stuff,

that person's probably going to have a good chance. Again, I'm not guaranteeing anything. I'm not saying you'll be fine. No, when it says you'll be fine. No, I think that's exactly right. I mean,

I think that it's the big names are going to be fine. I mean, I think even like Chris Stone, who's not a household name, even amongst like media consumers or whatever. I mean, there's,

I don't know that he'll be fine in the, in his, for his definition of the term, but someone will, someone will bring Christone on, you know, and they'll be lucky to have done it. Um,

but yeah, there's, there are hundreds of more people who risk losing their jobs who, who you and I will never know their names, you know, like all, all,

all we know, I mean, all we can really know is that that people that are, you know, getting hurt by this because, you know, on the name of like, someone seeing greater value in SI as a branding operation than as a news hour. And as soon as that part of it came out when this, when the whole transition, God, what a horrible word transition, when the whole, you know, offloading of SI from Time Inc and then Merritt was starting.

As soon as it was like, S.I. as a brand, you knew, you knew this was going to happen. I think that I was willfully in denial of that only because, and we've talked about this before, but I mean, I think I was willfully ignorant of it because, or in denial of it, because the history of,

like, publishing is, like, a prestige thing. It's, like, a luxury for rich people or rich organizations to have. I mean, it's a real thing. It goes back to the freaking Medici's or whatever, but, like, it's a, you know, part of it is you have to let the artists create art, right? I mean, you have to, like, to, for it to be worth, prestige of putting this logo on a fanny pack, like there's got to be something behind it,

right? I mean, one would hope, or at least you could make the argument that you have to have Sports Illustrated. So being Sports Illustrated for Sports Illustrated health clubs to be worthwhile, but I guess not. You know, you're, you were right on that way. It reminds me when you go to the airport and you see like magazines and newspapers that barely exist are the name of the newsstand at the airport. Yeah.

And those are not, in a lot of cases, vibrant places anymore. But, you know, as you and I are on the wrong side of 40, and we go and go, oh, that must be a reputable place. It's Southern Living Newsstand. You know, I remember that on my mom's night table when I was a kid. So that must be okay. David, if you're going to lay off a bunch of people, you should do it in the most ham-handed manner possible.

I think that would definitely help at a time like this. Oh, my gosh. This is also from Pacheski's report on Wednesday night. staffers over at S.I. were sent emails telling them to come to the transition meeting. There's that word again. Quoting Picheski, staffers compared the emails and quickly realized there are two separate meetings at different times. And they fear that one of the groups, Thanos-like, will be given pink slips with the other told it is safe. Then, Deadspin reports, as of this morning, Thursday, that an hour before the transition meetings began, they were canceled with no explanation. So, I'm sorry, I shouldn't be laughing at a time like this, but like... No, but it's like the Trump administration. We're like, yeah, these are not... You know, we want to make out the media overlords to be like, oh, these people are really, really bad guys, but really these people are probably just incompetent guys.

Yeah. These people are probably just ninkgo boobs. Yeah. I mean, that's probably their definitional quality at a time like this. I mean, listen, at least we live in an era where idiotic corporate overlords are... constantly on their heels, being put on their heels by blogs just stating the fact of the thing that they have done. I feel like this keeps happening where someone's just like, look at this thing that these dumbasses did and they're just like, oh, crap, we really hope nobody would

know would have known about that. They're like, we hadn't thought about this even for one second. I always wonder if they care about that. I mean, like, really genuinely. I mean, cancel the meeting. I mean, somebody cares about it. But it's like these media guys who were kind of, you know, outer rim media press barons, you know, like barely known. Yeah.

And that their first page of just Google search forever will be the guy that killed Sports Illustrated. I mean, is that, you know, I don't know. I mean, it's probably worth the gamble to them because, you know, if you're the guy that built something out of, you know, the ashes of Sports Illustrated, I guess that's the upside. I think that, no, I think they do care. I think that's what puts them on their heels.

I think that we saw that with like go media, you know, it's just like, as soon as you come to grips with the fact that there's an article that's going to be written with your name in it and just a cataloging

of the things you did that would have never been brought to light even five years ago, let alone in the era in which you came up, then suddenly you're just, you're, you become very apologetic or circumspect. I want to talk to you about the idea

of holding your scoops because maybe this week's most read non-impeachment story was a piece by the New York Times White House correspondent, Shear and Julie Hirschfeld-Davis, which I mentioned a moment ago, it's actually, and this will become important, an excerpt from their upcoming book, Border Wars, Inside Trump's Assault on Immigration.

Here is Shear and Davis on Trump, quote, privately the president has often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting AIDS to seek a cost testament. He wanted the wall electrified with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh after publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot migrants if they threw rocks, the president backed off when his staff told him that was illegal. But later in the meeting,

AIDS recalled, he suggested that they shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down. That's not allowed either, they told him. So that came out. And then Slates Ashley Feinberg tweets this, going to go ahead and say that if you know the president said in a meeting that we should be shooting migrants in the legs to slow them down, you should not be saving that for whenever your book is scheduled to come out. Where do you fall on that question?

I mean, I kind of fall on the like the, well, when you put it like that camp, I guess. I mean, I understand. We talked about this a couple weeks ago with Kavanaugh, and they ran the excerpt from that and there was this story that, you know, should have been, people arguing should have been brought to light earlier. I mean, it's tough when you're working on a book. A lot of times you sign, you know, part of your contract is you can't, you have to, keep everything secret until the book comes out or until you're doing the press for the book.

And also, I mean, as terrible as to even say out loud, I'm not sure that any of that meets, I mean, reaches the level of like catastrophe and catastrophic in terms of the Trump administration. Yeah, I guess that's a question. Is that such a national emergency that that should have been in the paper in Mard? The meeting was in March.

We don't quite know when the authors found out about it. We're sitting here in October, you know, with their newly released book. Mm-hmm. I'll say this. It's one of the oldest things in newspapers is when a newspaper person works on a book that's about their beat. Yeah. Are they hoarding scoops for the book that, of course, their editor in almost every case would say, let's get that in the paper. Yeah.

Let's break that. Usually it doesn't involve something like the president thinks we should shoot people. that are coming across the border and has to be talked out of it by AIDS. It's an interesting one to me. It's pretty close. You know, I think you could probably save alligators and snakes for the book or the, you know, skin piercing spikes because they're just so ludicrous.

Yeah. And so not going to happen. And I think probably part of their defense here is that it was, it's shit Trump says out loud. Yeah. And how much stock do you put on that, especially when AIDS immediately said you can't do this? yeah and again this is ridiculous

I mean this is this is horrific I don't disclaimer disclaimer this is horrific but it also matters the in the context in which he said it right

I mean if all those things are pieces of one sentence you know if he's laughing while he says it you know these are these are things that matter and yeah I think

but I think what you get at is is the main point this is just this is shit Trump says you know I mean I think that I don't know if you heard Chuck Closterman on our boss Bill's podcast this week,

but he talked a little bit about global warming and how there's a sort of like philosophical, like error that a lot of candidates have. Like if you call global warming, the greatest crisis ever that's faced humanity in the past thousand years, then like there's no reason to be campaigning on any other issue, sort of.

You know, there's just a cognitive dissonance between like what you say and like what you're actually the rest of what you say. There is a little bit about that. It's like if you, if you, if you think that what those words that Trump said, you think of any words that Trump said are so problematic, the specific words that come out of his mouth, especially in the private and in a meeting are so problematic that that determines front page, you know, front page attention in the New York Times or whatever, then, you know, this is a much more problematic presidency than I think anybody's, I mean, I don't, then anybody's really saying out loud. That's a great point. I just always think of it from the lot of journalists. Yeah.

They want to make money. Yeah. It's not a profession where you're getting real rich. And you want the one way to kind of change your income status in this profession, besides doing a serial podcast, is to write a book. And so then you're faced with this idea of, I got to save stuff for the book because I want the book to be to sell as many copies as possible. the book can't be a rehash of stuff I've already written for the most part. It's got to have new stuff in it. Yeah.

But how do I just do it? So to me, it's always like, it's kind of a journalist saying, how do I make money? And if it's on your beat and these people cover the White House, it's really tough. Like if they had written a book, David, about, you know, buying a house in Tuscany and redoing it and kind of finding meaning through, you know, through going there or maybe going to Bali and doing yoghers, I've just, I've just pure makeup, but just referencing random. best sellers here. How their golden retriever help them get through the death of their parents. A murder mystery in Savannah. You get the idea. If they had done that, the times wouldn't care. And nobody would really care. But because it's about Trump and it's on their bait, they do. Let's talk about wrestling. I'm ready to cheer out. Yeah. Because sometimes on the media beat, David,

you've got to leave your desk and do some shoe leather reporting, which is why we are heading over to Staples Center on Friday to watch the WWs Friday Night Smackdown. And this is a media story. because Smackdown is going to air on Fox, a bona fide network, which won the rights last year. It's also part of Fox's sports division, which I kind of find is a sports media person fascinating. I'm pretty sure that's the first time wrestling has been under the ages of a sports division. We might argue Saturday night's main event back in NBC. I don't think that was part of NBC sports. You mean like proper?

Like world class wrestling running on ESPN news back in the day or whatever. Yes. Something like that. I was thinking about this and the meta, we'll save the you know, grimy specifics for the mass man

podcast. Which you will be on this week. Yeah, we're doing a lot of crossover this week. But to me, this is, wrestling has been on this slow collision course with mainstream culture, which you have written about so many times over decades and decades.

Yeah. It keeps getting closer. For wrestling to get a slot on network television is to me one of the final, you know, bumps or, no pun intended, or final moves into the mainstream that shows me anyway that wrestling has sort of done it and it's sort of won. What do you think? Yeah. I mean, I think there's a couple of things that play. First of all, our pop culture in general and our sports culture or whatever has kind of, I don't know, diminished, but it's like, you know, come down off its high horse a little bit. Especially network

television specifically. Oh yeah. I mean the point that I make over and over again, I mean, I've said this so many times is that like when I was growing up, when you were growing up, the bane of every wrestling fans existence was when you would say you're, you know, you're into wrestling or you're going to watch wrestling, somebody would turn to you with disdain in their eyes and just say like, you know that stuff's fake, don't you? Right. And that was true up until, I mean, I started writing about wrestling. You know, I was, I mean, until like 10 years ago or whatever. I mean, and probably more recently than that, but now we're in a world where like, you cannot look at someone and say, you know,

know that stuff's fake, don't you? And then go home and watch the Kardashians on television. Right? You can't go home and say, you know, that stuff's fake, don't you? And then, like, you know, watch two people yelling each other on Fox News. You know, I mean, like, everything is false. Everything is fake. It's okay. You know, like, we're, we're past that. Also, there's, you know, this litany of wrestling deaths and injuries and everything that's become more of a reality over the past 20 years. Did you cover any of that? I can't remember. It sort of is like, you should write a piece about that someday. It sort of put the lie to the, wrestling is fake sports thing, right?

I mean, wrestlers are getting concussed and injured at a higher rate than football players. I mean, they're putting their bodies through hell. But I think that in general, you're right. I mean, our culture is lowered itself. Wrestling has climbed up a little bit. They've met in the middle. There's also, just in terms of sports, it's got to be said that wrestling was kind of their first. I mean, what WWF did on Saturday Night's main event and on MTV, you know, back in the 80s,

they were the sort of, like, that was an aspirational point for pro sports. Right. For football, football has been climbing towards that point of pop cultural kind of crossover ever since then. The NBA, too. I mean, none of that. Our pro sports didn't look like Hulk Hogan on MTV back in the 80s. You mean in blending with pop culture. Yeah.

Becoming a pop culture thing. Crossing over. Yeah, exactly. Kind of having, you know, the figures that like everybody recognizes. I mean, just, yeah, having that sort of cultural awareness. So now we're back. It's really, it's, you know, we've known this has been coming for a long time. Obviously, they inked the deal with Fox to move Smackdown over there a while back,

and we've been sort of counting it down. But I was not prepared for the emotional, for the, for the emotions that I felt when Fox NFL Sunday football was promoting WWE wall to wall on Sunday. that every game, every like, every, every commentary booth seemed to have a professional wrestler sitting in it. Every bumper had a, you know, WWE Smackdown graphic. Every, like the announcers themselves were like, we're like spitting out segways just like, and if you like that hit, you're really going to love what Roman Raines does this Friday night on Smackdown. I mean, it's incredible, right?

It was, first of all, it was shocking that it happened, but more importantly, it was shocking how weirdly seamless it felt. Am I right about that? It did. and apparently we're going to get more of that because Roman Raines is going to be on Thursday night football tonight in some capacity. Now, if he's like throwing the football around with Michael Strayhan and Terry Bradshaw,

I think we can think of that as one level of entrenchment in American culture. Yeah. If he is standing between Joe Buck and Troy Ackman in the booth, that just to me is like, oh, whoa. I mean, that, for some reason, that feels more like, oh, wow. wrestling has really, to go back to the penhouse metaphor, it is in the box.

It is in the sky box. It is here. It is part of our lives in a way it hasn't been before. And this is why the Fox deal means more to WWE than anybody could really, has really, could really wrap their mind around is that Fox needs this to work, right? And it's not, it just doesn't need to have like a new show that's successful on Friday nights.

They've got the NFL on Sunday. They've got the NFL on, on, oh, sorry, they have the NFL on Thursday and Sunday, college football Saturday. That's right. Professional wrestling is a linchpin of a four-day block of sports programming. And all this stuff has to be. Live sports program.

And synchronicity is a key. It's like your favorite MSNBC show throwing to the next show. I mean, they just have to throw from night to night. And it all has to work for the block to work. Yeah. So, I mean, I think there's going to be a lot of attention paid to WW ratings because that's a thing that wrestling nerds have long loved to do. and I'm not sure that the specific numbers

that we're, you know, that anything, I'm not sure that we know the specific numbers they're looking for. I'm not sure how much anything, any of our discourse about that will matter, but I do think that they need it to succeed. And part of success is the kind of sheen of legitimacy, which is something that's really hard

for pro wrestling to achieve on its own. It takes an MTV, you know, in the brawl to end it all era. It takes Saturday night's main event. It takes Saturday night live when wrestlers appear on there to give wrestling that, sort of legitimacy. And Fox has a very, very vested interest in making WWE seem like a legitimate

endeavor right now. And I don't mean legitimate in terms of it being real. I think we're all aware of what pro wrestling is. I think it's legitimate in terms of this deserves a two-hour block in primetime television every week. And to that point of legitimacy, have you been as amused as I have? As wrestlers have fanned out across the Fox empire this week, particularly, on Fox and Friends. Yeah, I love this. Now, the obvious joke here is that that man who's playing an offensive over-the-top character know the one sitting next to Steve Doocy.

Rimshaw. Here is Kofi Kingston, who is the W-W-E champion? WWE champion. I'm going to make sure I get my belts right. WWE champion appearing on America's Favorite Morning Show. You know, when Fox does things, they do things differently. How is Fox going to do Smackdown differently? It's big.

It's so much. I'm like that we've had a lot of promotion and even just the way that everything is shot camera-wise. It looks great. You know, there's so much enthusiasm behind this whole movement. You know, it's a big deal for us. And I've been saying it all along like WWE and Foxby, it's like hand and glove, you know. Everybody wants to do it so big. We're all looking at the countdown. Yeah, we got the countdown. Yeah, we got the countdown. We have a ring, a wrestling ring set up in the middle of New York right now. Wow. So, you know, we're doing it. So, you know, we're doing it. What can we expect? When can we expect it? Yes, October 4th, you know. I would just like to point out that I was on Fox and Friends talking about professional wrestling before any of these fools were. The champ is here. Wow. David claiming superiority even over Kofi Kingston. Let's do a little list or mail that we'll get out of here. David, this one comes from Steve French. He says, camping out in front of the ringer store until I get an at the press box pod t-shirt that says, I think that's right.

It's always nice to be informed by someone else that you have a. catchphrase. And by the way, you did say that I was listening for it on this pod and you did say it during the Sports Illustrated segment. I don't doubt it. It's like, by the way, and thank you, Steve, for that. It's usually like a one or one and a half second pause where when we're doing this show separately, I wonder if your mic has dropped out or if your connection has dropped out. And then it's like, I think that's right. It's David gathering his thoughts. Thank you, Steve. Speaking of Pressbox masked man crossovers. Michael Salerno directs us to the news that Jesse the Body Ventura is kind of sort of contemplating a run for president. Here he is with Alex Michelson of Fox L.A. The country is going to get reunited is to elect an independent president. So if it's not you, then who is it? I don't know.

So then do you feel a need to do it in order to serve your country? I have that voice in the back of my head that says to me, if not you, then who, it's there. My commander-in-chief, this guy who claims to have had bone spurs got out of the Vietnam War because of it, he couldn't even do one day a boot camp to be a private. And I'll speak to this. Every enlisted guy in the nation who's ever gone to boot camp, the first night, I don't care what service it is, the first night at boot camp, there's one person there who will break down, wet their pants, cry for their mom, and throw. Tantrums, the authorities will come in in the middle of the night. They'll remove that person. You'll never hear or see or you never know what happened to them.

Donald Trump would have been that person. Wow. Jesse the, what, Jesse the, the, what, Jesse the, the spoiler Ventura. Is that what we're calling him now? Yeah, he's, um, I think that's right. No, I'm just kidding. The, I think that Jesse, it's amazing how many moves of the Ventura for governor of Minnesota campaign that Trump,

kind of stole. Yeah. I mean, it was, you know, Ventura was sort of building on Ross Perrault and the Trump was sort of building on Jesse. Just hearing Jesse's voice, by the way, I just, I miss him so much as a color commentator. Oh, okay.

In professional wrestling? Yeah, I mean, truly one of them. And did he have an XFL run to? That's why that's the joke I was about to make. Truly one of them. I mean, if I'm doing my power rankings, you know, Madden is number one and then we get down, but I still might have Jesse Ventura head of Tony Romo.

I'm not quite willing to coronate Romo just yet. to do David Shoemaker guess as a strain pun headline. I love seeing that sigh in that resigned sion person. My God, it's beautiful. Last Tuesday's headline was To be or not to be. And this comes to us from

J. Free Boo and Derek Burke. It's not a headline, David. Okay. It's a tweet. But all the same rules apply. Are you familiar with Escape the Pena Colada song? Yeah, of course.

Okay. Well, Dave Brown, who is the deputy defense editor of Politico, all of America's great comedians get their start as deputy defense editor of Politico, has changed some of the familiar lyrics to reflect Donald Trump's Ukraine scandal. Okay. I'm very into this. David, what are the refashioned Pena-Colada song lyrics? And we're just looking for like two lines here. Is it like, are we looking at the chorus? Is it if you like Pena-Coladas and getting caught in their music?

The rain? Exactly. Oh, the rain. If you like, yeah, the rain in Ukraine is sitting right there. If you like. You guys are doing great. If you. Now nail that first part of it.

Pia colladas. If you like. Pia. If you like. Is Bill back on Yacht Rock? Oh my God. This is incredible. Pina.

Subpoena. If you subpoena the Bidens, if you subpoena... You guys don't need any further. If you like subpoena colladas and getting caught in Ukraine. And notice he didn't say the Ukraine. Yeah. God, I could just let... Can we just briefly turn into a serious channel and just let this play us out?

This is one of my favorite songs of all time. This is incredible. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Research by Chris Almeida. production magic and groovy tunes by Jim Cunningham. We're back. When are we back?

We're back Tuesday, bright and early. I think that's right. With more lukewarm takes about the media and delicious syrupy drink. See you then, David. See you later, Brian. David? Brian? When I get a good look at you, I'm always just like, wow.

All this does is just absolutely suck. I have no idea how to take that. That's fantastic. That just to me is like, oh, whoa. Yeah. Oh, whoa, hey, hey. Kids might be watching this. What in the world?

Wasting everyone's time and energy on bullshit, all caps. Yeah. An offense that is punishable by death. Thank God. Am I right about putting this fanny pack? I don't even really want to hear your memories. Yeah. Is that the hardest one to listen to and write off as being the work of a, you know, madman?

I, 1,000% agree. These people are probably just. ninga boobs.