The Press Box - Trump’s Iran Media Rollout, the Paramount-CNN Crisis, and a Visit to Capitol Hill with Sen. Tim Kaine

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

Today on The Press Box, Bryan and David start the show discussing the war in Iran and where they went to get their news as the situation unfolded this past weekend. Next, the guys talk about Paramount winning the Warner Bros. Discovery sweepstakes, including what it means for the future of CNN (15:45), and what will happen with the TNT Sports catalog (27:44). The show wraps up with some stories from Bryan’s trip to Washington, D.C., before some exclusive audio from his sitdown with the U.S. Senator from Virginia, Tim Kaine (41:01). They discuss how he would explain the U.S.-Cuba situation (43:09), losing the 2016 election (45:03), and why he reads the newspaper (49:05). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week, and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline! Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Guest: Tim Kaine Producers: Isaiah Blakely and Bruce Baldwin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Damn it. Yes. I woke up Saturday morning and I saw the following headline in the New York Times, U.S. and Israel attack Iran. Trump calls for overthrow of government. One of the many, yes, this is really happening headlines. Mm-hmm. Of the second Trump administration.

Yeah. Do you dive onto Twitter at a moment like that? Do you go to CNN? What do you do these days? I did watch some CNN Um partly because I watched my ESPN product through the like Disney Plus app at this point

I've fallen into watching the lot like the 24 hour ABC news channel and it's incredibly good it's like like like I don't care about David Muir one way or the other and generally have not been watching the evening news with him but just like it's just like regular anchors and it's and it just has everything you need to know And also it's like local news. One in every six stories is like, I can't believe there's a hot air balloon. They got stuck on a power line for two days.

You know, like there's some of that too to keep you kind of engaged. But yeah, I immediately turned on the news and turned on and I mean, it obviously opened up Twitter. Twitter's been, this has been a real banner episode for Twitter. I think largely because the right is not united in their point of view that it actually seems like there's a conversation going on. It seems like there's a sort of like actually wrestling with the events as they transpire as opposed to everybody parroting the same line.

I don't want to put that strictly on the right. Obviously, the left does that as well. But I think that, I mean, I think that applies to the left as well. I think there's a lot of people nominally on the left. A lot of the people that the left is lovingly embraced is the never, the never Trump, never trumpers of the middle that are probably more pro bombing Iran than, then, And, you know, the average liberal. And I think that that really helped a discourse on there a lot.

It's one of the few times in the past five years where you're like, man, I'm glad there's this many people on Twitter right now. You know, there's this many voices. The discourse was fascinating. Also, the war insiders who just popped up and were like, guys, Kamani is dead. Yeah. And I was like, who are you? How do you know this?

It's true. It's almost like there's a bunch of people that it sort of, have never been using their Twitter accounts or at least not using them for any reason that we'd be paying attention to them and suddenly their given voice, you know, their, their platformed in, you know, a really poignant way. And, and I mean, I can't tell you how many tweets I saw over the past several days that were like, FYI, here are the three accounts you need to follow about Iran. And it was always different people and people with like wildly different ideologies. You know, this wasn't just like random man on the street.

You know, who's like playing it straight. But there's a lot of, there are a lot of people who are the people you must be reading on Iran for sure. And, you know, I checked out a lot of them. When I was watching CNN, Wolf Blitzer was on there with this guy named Brett McGirk. Who's the former general or whatever? Yeah, the global affairs analyst now. Yeah. Who is fantastic, by the way?

Well, he's so, he's a, he is not, he would not win the part of a, of a ex-general and a Hollywood production. because he's sort of his voice is not gruff enough he sort of has a high voice and he's very like well spoken you know and he's not and he's he's he's like digressive a little bit too

you know he's just like well to answer your question first let me talk about you know let's talk about the bigger issues here or whatever and he'll just sort of go off on a tangent that I found him incredibly compelling he was and I think it's because he wasn't he didn't try to do too much he was because he was soft-spoken

he'd be like let me tell you the difference between an Iranian drone and an Iranian missile. Here's why one is harder to defend than the other. Yeah. By the way, he seems to have been mostly a diplomat.

So let's not steal any valor. Oh, sorry. Keep your valor. Keep the valor, folks. But I'm watching CNN and I'm like, cable news is supposed to be or soon to be a thing of the past. I'm not sure we've invented

something that's better than CNN in a moment like that. Well, we've talked about this before, man. If there was like a, if there was an endless war while that we've had that before, if there was an endless supply of new international incidents, because it has to be fresh, sort of for it to work, CNN would be indispensable. CNN would be the number one rated network in the country, you know? They're very well armed for that. And inevitably, you know, the Ellisons are about to get in there and I'm sure fire two-thirds of

the people who were, who, do international, you know, reportage for them. So this will be a whole different conversation in a couple of months. But there's no better place. There's just there's nothing. There's nothing better. There's no,

I mean, listen, there's no place where you can be more assured that you will like, turn on the TV and immediately see someone standing in the foreign place that is being reported on. Mm-hmm. And I think matching pictures with words. Because if I'm thinking like, what are CNN's competitors in a moment like that?

It's Twitter. Sure. It's probably the New York Times homepage now. For sure. The Times is leaning even more and more into video. But both of those, Twitter for just the caveat mTOR part of the site. And the Times,

because it really hasn't quite fused video and words in the same way yet, it's like, I want to watch CNN in a moment like this. As you say, this is what it's for. For all the compliments that I paid Twitter and I stand by them, I mean, the existence of Twitter, I'm not necessarily applauding the stat. I mean, the front office there. But there was an overabundance of information on Twitter, right?

I mean, the average person or even the very engaged person didn't get through everything. You need the New York Times and you need CNN. You need those to do their very basic job, which is digest the news and, Tell it to you, right? Tell you what really matters. And CNN in real time has been very, very good at that. Donald Trump was waging war and at the same time picking up the phone to talk to reporters. And Laura Lumer, apparently.

Well, she was in there. I mean, the first of these was early, early on Saturday morning. So, USBN, its attack a little after 1 a.m. Eastern time. Sure. Three hours later, Donald Trump was talking to Natalie Allison. of the Washington Post. Right. And the dynamic, I believe,

with almost all of these, is that people call Donald Trump's phone and sometimes Donald Trump answers. Yeah. Trump told Natalie Allison, I want a safe nation, and that's what we're going to have. She continues.

The president said his first reportable remarks after announcing in a 2.30 a.m. video message that the U.S. had launched major combat operations. Can we also log some of Trump's unreportable remarks? Sure. Is reportable remarks? Does that just mean like breaks this silence? Yeah, I don't really know.

That's a good question. He said a few things that I can't pass along. But the same day, Donald Trump talked to Axios' Barack Ravid, who was on those lists of, Here are the Reporters you must follow. Yeah. He talked to Michael Scherer of the Atlantic, said he was agreeing to resume negotiations with the Iranians. It's not sure how those are going right now. By Saturday night, he was talking to MS.

Now. I'll talk to the New York Times. He talked to John Carl of ABC News and he talked to the Daily Mail. This is a real headline. Trump breaks silence on U.S. troops killed in Iran war. President gives bleak warning to Americans and reveals four-week plan in candid interview with the Daily Mail.

It's an incredibly long headline. We mentioned CNN. Here's something else that's on CNN that I wanted to run by you. Have you noticed the strange new respect for the run-up to the last Middle East war, that is the Iraq War? So Donald Trump and his allies made almost no case for going into Iraq. Oh, no, not at all. Which has led some pundits to this weird kind of nostalgia. I'll quote from Michelle Goldberg here.

I never in my life thought that I would feel nostalgic for being lied to by George W. Bush in the run-up to the Iraq War. but this is an administration that doesn't even feel the need to propagandize the population because it doesn't feel like it needs the consent of the governed at all. Yeah. So that brings up an interesting question. Would you rather

have the country lied to and lied into war or would you rather have the case not made at all? I mean, during the first, I mean, during the Iraq war, I said the first Iraq war, the second Iraq war, I guess, the war war on terror. Yeah, we were lied

to and it was excruciating. I mean, every appearance before NATO, every, like, there was just to know that you were lied to, I think was actually worse. Like, I think in terms of the, in terms of the rule of law, I think that the Bush administration was probably better. But I think in terms of like psychology, I would rather be treated with neglect than with such disrespect. What a choice, right?

Yeah. I just love these of the. two options? Yeah, you don't want someone, you don't want to be, you don't want to be, you don't want to be treated like a fool. I mean, that's, that's got to be the worst. And I think that that's what Bush did. Such a weird kind of nostalgia, like, well, at least, you know, he had, I mean, I agree with the point that she's making. Like, we would be better off if they had, if they felt like they were bound by any rules at all, obviously. Um, I mean, just a supremely, supremely, supremely weird. You know, we spent so long,

I mean, how many times did we, did you hear people say during the first Trump administration, or even during the primary process and the election that like the scariest part about Trump is that he could just go start a war, you know, and like not be bound by any of the strictures. And it didn't happen really to the point where like, I think a lot of people were pacified this time. And that's saying nothing of the fact that he was running

as the anti-war candidate. But like, I think there is sort of like, well, if he was going to be that crazy, if he was going to fly off the handle, he would have done it by now. So maybe he's just a little bit more restrained or he has people around them that will prohibit that from happening. And yeah, the stuff in Venezuela wasn't great.

There's a lot of totally plausible conspiracy theories there about securing some oil before you, you know, go disrupt the Middle East. But I do think that there is a, I think that he was just like, that wasn't a success, but it was perceived enough of a success that this is the, this is how easy every battle is going to be from now on. And we're just going to do the same thing in Iran and, and get to claim victory. And, you know, I mean, how. How many times do we have to say? Like, you don't learn from, people who don't learn from the past are destined to repeat it. Like, it's, it's, it's funny. It's not even the predisposition to get into conflict that leads you there.

It's just the same sort of blindness. You know, it's the same sort of, like, the failure of imagination, the idea that, like, someone tells you it's going to be easy and you believe them, you know? And that's, that's the base of all of these problems. And isn't it especially strange that you say that? and the thing that we saw on Saturday on Twitter was old tweets from Donald Trump Stephen Miller, J.D. Vance, Tulsi Gabbard

being resurfaced talking about mid-east wars and in some cases wars with Iran specifically. Yeah. Hague Seth would did his press her today and he was just like, first and foremost, this is not Iraq. You know, that's like how he came out of the gate, you know? The Trump tweets were obviously the most damning because Trump was, Trump is

clearly projects more than anybody in the history of mankind, right? That he'll insult you in exactly the way that he is himself guilty at that moment. And all of those Trump tweets were like, just you better watch out. As soon as the economy goes bad, Obama's going to bomb Iran to take your mind off of it. You know what I mean? As soon as he needs to distract you from his poll numbers,

he's going to start a war with Iran. And then, of course, as soon as Trump is in need of distraction, he starts a fucking war with Iran. What was the other one? He's going to start a war with Iran because he does know how to negotiate? Oh yeah, he's a bad negotiator. Forget about that. That's the craziest thing.

That's the one where I think Trump would have second, you know, might have second guessed his decision if he had been shown that tweet beforehand, you know? That's what you think would really strike at the guy's heart. As reporters begin to sort of pull apart this decision, the why Trump did this is the most interesting part of it, don't you think, in terms of just psychology? Uh-huh. Like, why is he doing this in his second term? Sure.

There's lots of plausible theories you mentioned. the hey, you know, it was relatively easy in Venezuela, so I'm going to keep going. I think of something Susan Glasser, the New Yorker said on this podcast when I was asking about why does Trump want Greenland? Yeah. And she says, Trump, you know, wants his name in big letters on things. Yeah. Maybe he's decided that foreign policy adventures, that toppling regimes is the way to do that.

Well, I mean, listen, today he did the medle of honor ceremony. Did you see any of that? I did. Which was also his first public. speak, I mean, you know, public remarks since the war began, and he spent like 20 minutes, like, just talking about the ballroom that he's building. You know, I mean, like, when you want when you, when you wonder what really matters to Trump, like he tells you. He was talking about the color of the curtains I saw in one of the clips. Yeah. Now, with those reportable remarks he was

making there? That's a great question. I have no idea. Coming up on the press box, what does Paramount buying Warner Brothers Discovery mean for CNN? And what does Paramount, buying Warner Brothers Discovery mean for Turner Sports. Plus, I went to Capitol Hill and brought back some audio from the man who was almost vice president, Senator Tim Kane. All that much more on the press box. A part of the ringer podcast network. Hello Media Consumers, it's Brian Curtis, it's David Shoemaker, along with producers,

excuse me, Isaiah Blakely and Bruce Baldwin. David, on Thursday, Paramount, won these sweepstakes to acquire Warner Bros. Brothers Discovery. You can hear all about the Hollywood intrigue on other podcasts, but I want to focus on two points here. Is it like $3 billion that Netflix got just for signing that original paperwork? That was everybody's favorite point. How can we just start a company that just puts in bad bid, you know, like unsurious bids at

the beginning, but it gets the ball rolling enough that we can just pocket $2.8 billion. Yeah. If we had bought this, it might have been a bad deal because we didn't buy it and someone else made a bigger bid or higher bid than we did, than we get the money. You get to walk away. Two points I want to focus on is number one, what happens to CNN.

Oh, Lord, yeah. So you'll remember the key difference between the Paramount bid and the Netflix bid for Warner Brothers was this. If Netflix won, the cable channels, I hesitate to say cable assets, the cable channels that Warner Brothers Discovery owned would be spun off into a separate company. Yeah, which might have gone to the Ellison's anyway, right?

I mean, but that was always part of the conversation. They were going to be just pushed off in a rowboat and we would not exactly know what would happen. Yeah. If Paramount One, they wanted those cable channels. Yeah. Including CNN. Mm-hmm.

And of course, Paramount One. Yeah. So if all goes well, they will have CNN. Sure. Now, CNN CEO Mark Thompson came out with a keep calm and carry on type statement. okay Bill and Byers over at Puck says that Mark Thompson is not even going to be part

of the new company once the Ellison's get in there but I think we can come out and say right now that this is going to be bad for CNN and it's going to be bad for news consumers yes for the following reasons one is that having two distinct

news organizations television news organizations under the ownership of the same company is a bet this is why you heard Democrats like Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy growling he tweets Paramount should enjoy

its growing news monopoly while they have it because when Democrats win back power we are going to break up these anti-democratic information conglomerates all of them mergers as we talk about on here almost always mean fewer jobs and in this case it means

less competition for us news consumers. I think there was public information out there from Paramount that there's like millions and millions of dollars in like synchronicities that they were already counting on. So it's not just maybe it will lose jobs. They're going to cut thousands of jobs. I mean, just there'll be, are there's thousands of people?

Hundreds of jobs. Let's say that. It will, yeah, it'll be huge. And yeah, I mean, the consumer is not going to benefit from it at all. not to mention the potential political slant that a new CNN could have Washington Wall Street Journal reported in December David Ellison offered assurances to Trump administration officials that if he bought Warner he'd make sweeping changes to CNN

and I saw this idea out there that well you know is David Ellison really want to do this or he kind of one of these guys who shapeshifts his way through all these deals to you know please or you might say appease whatever administration is in You mean it won't be conservative if a Democrat gets elected. That's the implication. That's the implication.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's even more likely that he just doesn't have, there's no amount of Barry Weiss's in the world that he could bring in that would actually be able to handle that sort of makeover in any sort of functional way, you know, like, well, that's not true. It's obviously feasible. What about the Barry Weiss? Would that be enough to hand? No, I mean, I think Barry Weiss will be involved.

But you've seen, I mean, there are people thinking that she would have already like burned down CBS headquarters by now, right? and she's still looking for a pack of matches. Like, there's, there's, I mean, it's just, it would just be an insane amount of work to do, to work that sort of ideological shift at CNN in any sort of practical, like full-bodied way. And I had not saying that it's not going to happen,

probably it may well happen. But I think if you're looking at like how it might not be as bad as it seems, it's more likely to me that like David Ellison just gets exhausted by the, by the idea of it more so than he just changes his, stripes depending on who's elected. By the way, changing your stripes based on who's elected, that's not a great rallying cry for a news organization. It's also a really bad business model because when you want to be out of,

you want to be the news station that appeals to the people who are out of power, right? MSNBC thrives when Trump's in office, you know, like Fox thrives when a Democrat's in office. If you're the news channel that's just like, we're the state sponsored news channel. No one's going to be watching that. the Barry Weiss part is interesting to me too because I'm always fascinated just how much you mentioned you know Ellison maybe just getting tired how much tolerance he has for her mistakes okay go on we all see it through this ideological lens like great like she's doing to CBS news what he wants done to CBS news yeah but surely he wants it done in competent fashion it's a little like the Jeff Bezos Will Lewis dynamic yeah like you don't you don't want the terrible version of the ideological project. Yes.

You want the effective version of the ideological project. Correct. Yeah. That doesn't just result in tons of bad headlines that drive people away from the product. So, you know, is this something?

Will he look at her and be like, hey, you've done such a great job with CBS News so far. That I'd love you to look at CNN too. Take over that place as well. Yeah. I mean, again, I'm not sure how much attention they're really paying to CVS.

I think putting her in that spot is more of a, like that's kind of as far as they really were interested in going. You know, or they don't, it's not, you know, it's not necessary to do anymore. They're sort of making the point.

But, yeah, I mean, listen, if there's, if anything, if CNN, I mean,

it was obviously joking about being pro the party in power. I mean, I just can, I can only imagine if like the, the guiding ethos, of CNN and CBS eventually at that point is like a pro-Israel stance that would just be like such a bizarre gambit at this point in history maybe necessary to them you know um but yeah just barry weiss is not doing anybody in your favors i saw that do you see that what what was the tweet

where she just reacted with a fire emoji you know like what i like some whether like those a bunch of CNN or CBS um contributors report on iran right yeah just like is this really the look you You just want, this isn't like your company slack. You don't need, you don't have your, like, oh, my boss just put a fire emoji by my thing. That's pretty cool. You know, this is like a public facing tweet. Like that's, that's almost more inexcusable than half the other stuff she's done. The other funny thing about politically reorienting CNN is CNN just tried this.

Yeah, that's true. It's true. That was one chairman and CEO ago. It's true. Who looked at CNN and said, you know, this place? this place is a little too left leaning for me. Yeah. This is not the CNN I want.

Meanwhile, you and I look at CNN and say, isn't their problem that they aren't left leaning or right leaning? Yeah. Isn't their problem as they're stuck in the middle? Well, sure. I mean, that's a big problem for them for everything until it comes time for international conflict.

You know, like that's what it takes a certain deliberate, you know, nonpartisiness to really be able to pull that off. So yeah, I mean, CNN's just an incredible, like, listen, some of the people that have been the shot callers at CNN have been wrongheaded about a lot of that stuff. But I don't think there's a real, like, super clear direction to take. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like there's some obvious path that everyone's refusing to do.

I think one of the most difficult things about CNN is that their international coverage is so great that it makes it hard to sort of figure out what the rest of the product is to kind of build around that or what the product you can. What the most successful product you could build is where that international coverage wouldn't be out of place, you know? That's exactly right. War with Iran starts. There's no place you want to be other than CNN. Their question has always been, how do we get people to come back next Tuesday? Yeah. When it's a slow news night and the other networks are vamping with Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow, take your pick going,

oh, there's an, well, we go over here, you know. Vamping is a good word there. And it looks, you know, on a slow news evening, it looks way more fun. Mm-hmm. Than here is, you know, mostly even-handed, centrist, whatever you want to call it, call them like we see them, look at the news. Yeah. That's been something they've been hobbled by as the world has changed. By the way, Barry Weiss, this is a person who, according to a sim before report last fall, was trying to hire Scott Jennings away from CNN.

Yeah. Barry Weiss looked at CNN and said, you know what's good about this place? Scott Jennings. Which is super weird because, listen, I think Jennings is like, like, kudos to that guy. Like, he's carved out such a good lane for himself. You have to hand it to Scott Jennings?

Yeah, under no circumstances, you have to hand it to Scott Jennings. But I mean, whatever. But it's wild that Barry Wise looked at him and didn't get that he's doing schick, you know? And like, once you realize he's doing schick, it's like, okay, you're very good

at this job, but why does that mean you should be doing anything else? Like, you found your lane, you know? You don't make Stephen A. Smith the anchor of the evening news, you know, it's just like, it's just a very bizarre, just a very bizarre, like talent evaluation, I guess. She did try to hire Anderson Cooper, too. Sure. By way, what do you think Anderson Cooper's thing today? Just bailed on 60 minutes. Well, they were saying, people were saying that at the time. He leaves 60 minutes and they're just like, yeah, but they're about to buy your company. I don't know, man. Erringson Cooper set, Anderson Cooper could go start a substack and be totally fine. No, he couldn't.

He's not going to make $20 million on substack. But he's already got enough millions of dollars. They'll make enough to keep it going. No, the people who have millions of dollars want more millions of dollars. Can the athletic just buy all of the CNN contributors like they bought the Washington Post Sports page and just start something new? Wouldn't that an amazing story? I think I've floated that idea on the show.

I could be, I might be wrong. Steve Ginsburg might have been listening to you because all those people who, lost their jobs at the Washington Post Sports page, almost every one of them has another job or is about to announce another job. Yeah. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. Like, we saw no value in keeping you here. Oh, other big companies saw lots of value. Mm-hmm. And bringing you aboard. Funny how that works. Well, and the real value of them, we don't need to belabor this or either. The real value of all those people was not in their individual talents, which are immense, but in their, in the, in the group of talent, it's like, we get a pre-established unit here

that is walking in the door, that know how to do the job. That's exactly what the Washington Post got rid of. Well, I would say they screwed up with their collective talents, which you're talking about and their individual talents, because you could have looked at any of them and just said, hey, why don't you become a national correspondent for us? Yeah, for sure. Because you could just do that.

And they didn't want to do that either. You know, they just got rid of them all. Did you know, I don't know if this got put out there with all the stuff about the athletic hiring, but the Washington Post had three designated survivors from the sports section who were going to stay at the paper. Yeah. Remember this and cover sports in a societal point of view? Yeah.

They were Ava Wallace, Adam Kilgore and Rick Mace. Well, Wallace and Kilgore just went to the athletic. Oh, my God. So we are down to one designated survivor from the Washington. Should we go, should we see if they're hiring? Maybe you and I can be over there, the Washington Post and do their, do their And their national point of view? Yeah.

Who would be better at it? You would not be able to type that email with a straight face. Dear Mr. Murray, but pleased with some of the recent changes, you might have caught my commentary on my media podcast. All right, that's the Paramount CNN part. Let's do Paramount Sports. Because another one of those cable assets slash channels is TNT.

Turner Sports, as you know, David, has been gutted. Sure. They've kept around just enough stuff to keep their cable fees at a certain level. As awful announcing, A Block newsletter noted this morning, Turner Sports is a weird buffet that includes March Madness, the Big 12, the French Open, college football playoff games, it licenses from ESPN.

ESPN owns the whole playoff and they buy a few every year. Sure. Postseason baseball and hockey, though those deals are about to expire. And inside the NBA, which is still produced by Turner but licensed to ESPN.

But that's not. Inside the NBA is not really an argument in favor of, I mean, is not, I don't know how to say it. The whole, the rest of it could all go away

and they could still employ the people that it take to produce that show or freelance. to them, you know, like, that doesn't have to be part of some larger infrastructure. Yeah. I mean, I think the carriage fees or whatever, the cable fees are the significant piece here. I mean, you basically have two, I'll leave this to the town, as you said, but like, you basically have like two MOs in this situation.

And, you know, as companies try to deal with the diminishing cable market, one is to, is to shrink and one is to grow, right? I mean, there's a lot of cable enterprises that are just getting. more and more channels and putting, you know, just like you take the same IP or whatever, the same sports rights in this case, the same personalities, and spread them across four channels, and then you're making, you know, maybe close to the money you were making 10 years ago. Well, five years ago. I don't know what the look will be here.

It's kind of, I don't think that one position is necessarily more right than the other. But I just don't think there's enough sports content to justify further investment. You know what I mean? Like I think that the cable fees are really significant. But Turner Sports, and by the way, you didn't mention AEW wrestling, which is part of the deal, at least when it was on platformed on HBO Max. But I just don't know that there's enough for it to ever be spun off into its own thing. And that's the only thing that really makes sense.

Well, let's talk about it now as part of the Paramount family. because there are a lot of sports in that family. Sure. CBS has NFL, the rest of March Madness, the Masters, crummy college football to go with Turner's crummy college football. And if we think of Paramount Broadly, they just paid $7 billion for UFC rights for the next year. Oh, crap, yeah, I hadn't even put that together.

That's going to be huge. The Paramount Plus is, I mean, that's going to have a lot of buy-in automatically, just from people watching UFC. Drew Lerner over at Allful announcing rights, it's fair to say that this live sports portfolio would be rivaled only by ESPN. So now in the combined company,

if Turner is staying within the family in some form, you're not going to spin it off. What happens? Do you just rebrand everything as CBS Sports? Keep some of it on TNT and TBS just to keep your cable fees where they are. Obviously, that's another place, David, where jobs, unfortunately, could be cut just for...

Yeah, I mean, I think you just put everything onto Paramount Plus. I think you just build the sports vertical there, right? Because... So CBS Sports is a brand within that. Maybe Turner Sports is a brand within that, but Paramount is all... I think there's just a sports tab, and they don't even worry about anything else, you know?

I mean, more and more, and we saw this with the Olympics, it's just like without exclusivity onto cable, and there's still some of those deals stringing along out there. but without the exclusivity, then basically we're more and more starting to look at the cable broadcast of sporting events as the spinoffs from the platforms, right? It's just like the NBC brought all the cable broadcast of the Olympics. Like, I'm sure to our parents are the main ones. But to us and everybody younger than us, it's like, no, the peacock one is the main one.

And anything that shows an ESPN, I mean, an NBC is just doing a repackaged version of that for a different audience or something, you know? So I think that'll probably be. what it's like. Yeah. And that's the way you get into the future, right? So you can still watch the late game with Tony Romo and Jim Nance on CBS.

But you're just funneling everything through Paramount. Yeah, absolutely. And you're building that up. And look, that's a pretty darn good list of stuff. They have to renegotiate the NFL in a couple years. But if they get that done, NFL,

UFC, college basketball, Marcia, both parts of March Madness now reunited, the Masters, there's lots of golf. It's not bad. I mean, this is probably a bigger conversation, but it's just,

but I would kind of wonder where the NFL, like the NFL seems to be more important than ever as these places just sort of try to plant flags in the, I mean, I know this is kind of obvious, but people will try to plant flags in the over-the-top world. And I wonder if that like drives up the value or we already hit the peak value.

Is that what people were bidding on last time? And when you say they're going to have to re-up with the NFL, Like, like, if it's such a powerful force, isn't everybody bidding every penny they have to get a piece of the NFL? You know, like, is it going to be such a layup for all these companies to renew their rights in a couple years? Like, I don't know. There's a lot of questions. The answers are no, yes, no, if I remember your question is correct. Like, no, we haven't hit the top of the value.

And partly that's because what happened in between the last time the NFL deal was signed. and now the NBA deal was signed. Oh, for sure. The UFC deal was signed. And the NFL looks at that and goes, oh, we're worth way more than that. Yep. So you've just sent another benchmark

for us to exceed. Do they have to bid every penny they have? What if you're Fox? Like, that is, that is it, right? That's the ball game. We are a network that has NFL football.

Yeah. So yes is the answer to that question. And the Simpsons. Go ahead. And the Simpsons. in season 96. But you don't exist if you don't have that anymore. Correct. So yeah,

you've got to do that. CBS is CBS I would have said the same thing about. Now they're in a little bit of a different position because they're, they've had a little bit of a corporate restructuring two times over now. But absolutely they have to get the NFL. Oh, CB. I think for CBS, it's more important than Fox almost.

I mean, CBS definitely has a lot of TV shows that like our parents watch that we don't watch. But yeah, I mean, I can't listen. No, no slight to the NCISs and the whatever else is of the world.

All slights to the NCISs of the world. You don't watch any of that. No, I don't at all. I was just going to say there's no, I don't know there's any over the top app where I have, I feel like I have less engagement with most of the product.

Like there's some stuff on there I love, you know? I mean, I love the Taylor shared and stuff. But you know, I like, you know, there's all, I mean, there's always something to watch on there, but I feel like I have to wade through so many of, like, my mom's favorite TV shows to get there. So I'm sure they're doing well, but to me, obviously, there's a very personal point of view.

CBS has more to lose, losing the NFL than Fox says, you know, as far as my engagement with the channel. Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to think of, like, what's the non-sports thing I watch at all these places? I don't know if there's, like, one thing, news sometimes. at CBS and any of the networks yeah

what's your favorite NBC show other than Sunday night football um dude I'm not gonna know off the top of my head but I guarantee there's something that I like bingeed on peacock okay

the red with the road although most of the stuff that I watched and there were like peacock originals um so I don't even know I'm looking right now I don't know what it is I literally don't know

yeah so I think I watch an episode of the hunting party okay let's take that's an answer there's not a set There's not really a second favorite show. Yeah. Is Chicago Fire and Chicago PD on NBC? My mom loves that.

Those are the my mom shows that I've actually watched with her and gotten through. The whole Dick Wolf Empire is basically on NBC, right? Right. God, what a run for that guy. Yeah, he didn't he disappear for a while? And now he's back. He's back with a vengeance. Yeah, late night TV is the way that it gets into our lives.

It's watching clips from the Tonight Show and stuff like that. That's a clip. That's not a show. Oh, you mean something that you actually sit down and watch? No, there's nothing. It's game shows. It's like once a season, I will, you know, throw on the voice or throw on American Idol. And like, it'll keep going to the next episode while I'm doing something else. And then that's it.

All right, coming up in 30 seconds, a report from Senator Tim Kaine's office about Donald Trump, the Washington Post, and the book of Exodus. But first, let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag. it was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to add the press box pod where they are always, always gratefully received. David, after Trump declared war on Iran, again, it was an overwork Twitter joke to write, I can't believe the inaugural owner of the FIFA Peace Prize would do something like this. You know that Donald Trump created the Board of Peace. Yes.

It was also an overwork Twitter joke to write, board of peace board of peace when was the board of peace meeting that I totally missed why were there photos with a board of peace screen in the bank

really yeah weird timing that would have been a great that would have been an absolutely I'm sure that there was not this much foresight but if the idea was if he was so mad about not getting

the Nobel Peace Prize because the plan was to get the peace prize and then start starting a bunch of wars and the shrugging your shoulders. Like, you know, I have the Nobel Peace Prize. Like, this must be the right thing to do. You know, you guys must have my, if that was a plan. I must be a man of peace.

Yeah. Then that would have been pretty smart. If that's the first time you used the word bored during Trump's second term, congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. Thank you to alert listener, Nicholas Grossman, for pointing one of those out. David, I spent the last week in Washington, D.C.

and on Wednesday I went up to Capitol Hill Yeah I remember Wednesday was the day after Trump's Endless State of the Union Mm-hmm So I get up to Capitol Hill I go into the Hart Building which is one of the Senate office buildings

Yeah I went over to the little boys room Go to the bathroom And as I'm washing my hands There's a Senate staffer in there dressed very nicely With a hair dryer plugged into the wall

drying his hair And he looks over I mean, he goes, sorry, late night. Because all these people have been held hostage by Donald Trump's hour and 47 minutes day to the union. Everybody was dragging. That's so funny. Start of the day in the office of Angus King, the senator from Maine.

Yeah. He was having a constituent coffee where someone from Maine, or I suppose someone not from Maine, could go in there, have a cup of coffee, have some delicious, main blueberry bread and then speak to the senator about their concerns. Did you try the blueberry bread? Are you being sarcastic when you say delicious? Oh, no, I did. It was really good.

Okay, great. Dude, this was so old D.C. Yeah. Not even like our childhoods, but, you know, something we read about happened in the 1940s where I have some things on my mind that I would like to unburden myself to the senator. Sure. And he's in there, you know, taking pictures.

talking to the constituents. I got a few minutes with him, and I reminded him that he had actually been on the press box podcast a couple of years ago, and we chatted as he was leaving, he was off to the floor, he goes, invite me back on your podcast.

Oh, yeah. So I said, yeah, well, we'll create a slot for Angus King here in the near future, hopefully. Dropped in a few offices. Talked to some comms directors, more on that later. And then at 445, David,

I had an appointment with one Tim Cain, the senator from Virginia. Remember him? He's got one of those big, old-fashioned, high-ceilinged offices in the Russell building. We sat in his office. I got out my Zoom mics and we had ourselves a little interview. Now, topic one, of course, was the State of the Union. Democrats, you remember, many of them did not go. some of them went to the people's state of the union on the mall some of them according to people

I talked to just stayed home yeah they were like you with a wrestling pay-per-view i'm just going to watch this from bet yeah the best place to do this tim cane decided to go he was in the chamber and i asked him why i have a very strong feeling that this is our house not the president's house and you know not going to something in our house is like i wouldn't forfeit a home game this is our house. We're going to be here longer than you, Mr. President. So that's why I have always attended the State of the Union. We must protect this house.

As we were talking, he also told me he brought a guest to a doctor from rural Virginia. He was like, it's such a big deal for a person who is a guest to come to an event like that. You almost forget that. We're so jaded. For sure. And whether the person likes Trump or likely does not like. like Trump, just being a part of those festivities and being invited to an occasion of state. Like he didn't want to let them down.

Yes. And recognize the importance to them to come to something like that. Sure. Everybody was talking about Iran. I wanted to ask him about another foreign policy crisis that has gotten knocked down to the bottom of the A section. That is what's going on with Cuba. Yeah. Easy to forget that the United States effectively has a blockade of Cuba right now. Sure. He is also pursuing regime change in this country. And I asked Tim Kane, how would he explain what's going on with Cuba to the American people?

The United States is trying to oppose an economic clampdown on Cuba. And if any nation was doing that to us, we would view it as an act of war. Call it a blockade, call it a quarantine. But, you know, imagine if China and Russia said, we're going to block all commerce into ports in the United States and deprive you have access to, you know, energy or food or medicine, even if they weren't using, you know, military missiles lobbed in the, we would view it as an act of war. And once I am done forcing a vote on that we shouldn't be at war with Iran unless Congress votes to do so, you can expect that I'll likely either do or support somebody else in doing a similar action with respect to Cuba. It's funny to have this news world win with Trump. takes something like that.

And I'm not doing that nobody's covering this because everybody's covering it. Yeah, there's been more Cuba since the Iran war started than there had been in the previous weeks. Go look for news, folks. It's out there. Yeah. But in terms of our ability to focus on it,

to concentrate on it, to read as much about it or be as engaged with it as we might otherwise be, it's very, very difficult. For sure. Very, very difficult. I had to talk to Tim Cain about 20, 2016, David.

Because the reason Donald Trump is giving states of the union, it's because he beat the Clinton-Kane ticket that year. And it's funny, every time I'll have an athlete who turned sportscaster on this podcast, I like to ask them about the games they lost. Because I find that no matter how many games, a Chris Collinsworth or a Michael Irvin won when they were. playing. They remember the losing ones. They remember the losing games. So I asked Tim Cain, how often do you think about 2016? Yeah, well, I'll tell you in a way, here's the way I look at

2016 is huge catastrophe for the country. Probably better for my quality of life. The VP job sucks. And except for you want to help a president be good. my work in the Senate is very, very important. And I also, I'm not really suited to like the security entourage and the kind of VIP motorcade treatment. That's just not me. And often during 2016, I felt like, you know, some of this is cool, but it's not really me.

So when I think about 2016, I have this kind of mixed feeling. Like, of course, our ticket winning would have been much better for the nation. I have been able to do my public service in a way that is much more in tune with who I am. You want to hear a little bit more of that about the stuff you think specifically about 2016? Sure, yeah. All right, here's more of Kane on the election that wasn't. I also think about what could we have done differently in 2016 to win. Very hard for a woman to be president.

We haven't had one. Very hard for Democrats to win a third term in a row. you know, it's only been, it's only been Jackson and his successor and FDR and Truman twice in the history of the country have Dems held the White House for more than two terms. Hillary could overcome being woman, Hillary could overcome that, Hillary could overcome either the FBI putting their thumb on the scale or Russian interference. It's just she couldn't overcome all four. Still, Democrats, I believe, often make mistakes in. campaigns by trying to win the electorate on all the issues other than the economy and kind of ceding the economic argument to the other side. And that's why if you do like generic polling,

who's better for the economy, Republicans or Democrats, Republicans usually have a big edge. Now, an individual candidate, you can narrow that down, but Republicans and have an edge on the economy, and it's not because their results are better, Democrats' results are much better in the economy going back 100 years. It's just that we don't make that the center of campaign after campaign after campaign. And I have a hard time remembering 10 years ago, like, you know, what was the crisp economic argument? For Donald Trump, it was, hey, I'm a business guy, I'm going to cut taxes, cut regulations, super crisp. Okay, what was the crisp Democratic argument? Similarly with Kamala Harrison, 2024, she had all the receipts, you know, infrastructure,

advanced manufacturing you know the other really important investments that were being made she she had kind of a make build grow agenda right at her fingertips we're going to make it here we're going to build it here we're going to grow it here to counter the cut taxes cut regulation that's not really the way the campaign was run

it's funny isn't it how everything comes back to that James Carville it's the economy stupid oh yeah declaration and even him kane looking back 10 years like we didn't have a bumper sticker message yeah to talk about the economy no matter what the message was no matter how much writer ours would have been than trumps we just didn't have that kind of crisp was his word crisp message yeah about the economy

yeah for sure all right two more for you one is on the washington post told you i spent the week reading the washington post on paper finding of course the highlight being that opinion column that was was talking about Bill Cunningham's Senate campaign. There is no one named Bill Cunningham running through Senate. God bless copy editors. What do they need an editor over there or something? I know. I wanted to ask Tim Cain,

how does what does somebody like him get out of reading the newspaper? And I still, you know, have ink on my hands most days when I'm in Richmond. I'm a daily subscriber of the Richmond paper. and you know and I like the ink on my hands and not just all online I think you I think you miss a lot I think you miss a lot if I'm if I'm reading and I don't know that my habits are like others let me just what you ask me what do I miss if I'm reading online I read articles that my staff give me or I read things that I'm searching for if I'm reading the newspaper I read the whole newspaper things that I'm not searching for things

that I didn't care that much about. There may be a local issue going on. There may be an issue in the western part of Virginia. The article doesn't have my name in it, so my staff's not normally giving it to me. So there's sort of a difference between searching out the things you want and being exposed to things that you want, maybe things that you don't want.

Man, that is a really succinct explanation. Very good, very good stuff. For why you should read a newspaper? Because what if there are articles that exist that you don't know you want to read? but then you see them and you do want to read. And they're not served up to you by AI. They're by an algorithm because you didn't even know you wanted to read it. Finally, David, Tim Cain has been reading a book.

The book is Exodus. The book of the Bible? The book of the Bible. You don't often hear people say, what book are you reading? They often hear them say the name of a book of a Bible. A lot of people say, I'm reading the Bible, which is just, inherently BS. Precisely because if you were being honest,

you would probably be saying Exodus. You'd probably be saying, well, you know, I'm halfway through acts right now. But still, Exodus is in some ways very timely. And weird. I mean, just a very unusual answer, I think.

I had to ask me. Mostly for your sake. For all of our sakes. but mostly for your sake. Well, stop this, Bruce maybe here if I give you the high sign, but here is Tim Cain on his experience reading Exodus. Catholics usually give something up, but I don't like to just do that. I also like to do something.

And so I don't know why. The question just popped in my brain. Lent's 40 days. Is there a book of the Bible? It's got 40 chapters. There's one book in the Bible that has 40 chapters. And it's Exodus. And of course, Exodus, I mean, it would,

if you wanted the reader's digest version of the Bible, You would read Genesis, Exodus. You'd probably read Isaiah, maybe Job, and then you'd read the gospel of John. So I can give you the fast version. All right, Bruce. Hold it right there. David, do you approve that as a Cliff Notes version of the Bible? Absolutely.

I mean, there's people. The weight of the Old Testament is imbalance. But, yeah, I mean, what else you need from the New Testament? I mean, you guess you could do acts. You guess you could do. there's some people that would put revelation in there, but they don't know what they're talking about. Yeah, no, I think that's probably right.

I think that's probably right. I mean, Isaiah is, Isaiah might be the first one removed, but it's just integral to the understanding of the Old Testament. And Job, we all know Job. I think it's just, it just has such a metaphorical weight, you know, historical weight that, yeah, I think he's right, actually. Speaking of metaphorical weight, Tim King continues.

Exodus is the powerhouse because it is the story of liberation from slavery, the move from oppression to freedom. And so it has religious significance to Jews, Muslims, and Christians, but it also has like an individual psychological significance, sort of breaking whatever the chains are that bind you and finding a liberating path to freedom in your full self. Exodus is also the book that includes the Passover story that is a seasonal story this time of year. and, you know, Judaism and Christianity, you're dealing with the Passover story. And so I decided, let me read the book of Exodus. So every day I read a chapter. Of course, it's heavily a chapter about immigration.

Early in the book, you know, Moses grows and marries Zaporah, and they have a child, and he names his child Gershon, because I was a stranger in a strange land. Right from the beginning, the Israelites, in a strange land being oppressed so hard, looking to escape from their captivity if they cannot be treated fairly as strangers. But there's a lot in Exodus

that is extremely relevant to today. There you go. I'm going to start at Tim Cain, David Shoemaker Book Club. I think you do. I'll have a lot of subscribers, yeah. All right. It's time for a feature that has many, many subscribers. It's time for David Shoemaker guesses,

The strained pun headline. Yeah. Last Tuesday's headline about... Before you start, can I just say something? Please. I just want to go ahead and preempt all of any epic fail headlines that come out of this war effort. The idea that the Trump administration decided to name this operation Epic Fury,

knowing that Epic Fail was just hanging out there, just waiting to be the response is just, that might be the dumbest decision they've made. All operational names are pretty bad. Yeah. But Epic Fury is really bad. Yeah. even beyond the epic fail,

Epic Fury. Yeah. It's just really crazy. That was really like, let's let AI decide what our, what our mission name is or something. I don't know. No, AI would have done better.

I don't know. Anyway, let's move on to the headline. Last Tuesday's headline about chickens caught in the hellscape of industrial farming was bang the drumstick slowly. Mm-hmm. Today's headline comes to us

from alert listener, Mike Hiney, it's from Puck. Sometimes Puck headlines, David, are uber strained. Yes. Sometimes they just knock it out of the park. In this case, they have a piece by Peter Hamby about Democrats figuring out how to talk about Trump. Uh-huh.

Developing a language of fighting, you might say. What was Puck's strained pun headline? Is it like a jiu-jitsu thing? Is there some sort of martial art? Trump, the method of fighting. Trump. Remember, these are Democrats.

We know them for short as. Dims. Uh-huh. Dims fighting words. Yes, Dims fighting words. Damn good, isn't it? Yeah.

Good job, Puck. He's David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Products the Magic by Isaiah Blakely and Bruce Baldwin. Please follow us at the Pressbox spot on Twitter and Blue Sky at Pressbox Ringer on Instagram. I want to direct your attention to the February issue. Just because it's March,

you can still listen to the February issue with Amanda Dobbins. It's about the Kennedys featured a fantastic David Shoemaker cover, which you can see on our Instagram page. If you care about the Kennedys deeply, if you're one of those Kennedy watchers like the Royals Watchers over in the UK, you'll love this. If you are not one of those people, you will also love this.

Because what Amanda and I did is go through the last 40 years and pull out all the occasions, the people, the places, the events, David, that kept the Kennedy flame alive. So Teddy Kennedy endorsing Barack Obama in 2008. Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger getting married in 1986. It's all there. And we had one category that was like TV shows and movies that are About the Kennedys, but not really. Yeah. And in this, I put Mer Quimby from The Simpsons,

the Seinfeld episode, The Contest. You remember JFK Jr. had an off-screen role in that. Oh, pivotal role, yeah. Somebody, California CA Dreaming Cat sends us the note and said, don't forget the cigarette smoking man from the X-Files, fictional character involved in the JFK assassination. Oh, yeah. So that's a fantastic one.

Also, one last piece of listener mail. Alert listener, John Tatum, says, please let Shoemaker know there is a new Buckees on Interstate 81 in Harrisonburg, Virginia that he will pass on the way to Charlotte if he'd drive down south to visit his family. Oh, wow, okay. I'm there. Anyway, thank you, John, for that. Our email address is Pressbox ringer at gmail.com. My interview with Wolf Blitzer is coming up on Wednesday.

I talk to him in the CNN Bureau down there in Washington. Joel Anderson is usual slot. On Thursday, David, we will be watching this very closely, and we will have more lukewarm takes about the media. Talk to you next week. See you later, Brian.