The Press Box - What Happened Between Troy Aikman and ESPN? Plus, a Senator's Hawk-Sized Airball.

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

Today on The Press Box, Bryan and David start with sports TV news. They talk about Kirk Herbstreit's contract extension with Amazon, the upcoming expiration of Troy Aikman's contract with ESPN, and the fight for no. 1 play-by-play jobs. Then they talk about the news that David Ellison is considering retaining Mark Thompson as the CEO of CNN. After that, they react to the sports mistake that Missouri senator Eric Schmitt made while questioning Jack Smith. The guys are later joined by former Michigan state representative Mari Manoogian, and they discuss a handful of upcoming races, Democrat hopium, and a story about negative political ads and Grantland. Plus David Shoemaker and Mari Manoogian Guess the Strained-Pun Headline! Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Guest: Mari Manoogian Producers: Isaiah Blakely, Jon Jones, and Sarah Reddy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Donate today at United WayGT.org. David? Yes. Let us start this morning with some very interesting news from sports television. Kirk Herb Street has re-signed with Amazon to continue calling Thursday night football beyond this season. Herbie's five-year contract was going to be up at the end of the year. Pause for a moment to think that Amazon has been showing Thursday night football. football for five years.

That seems really weird. It is. This is surprising to me. One, because I don't think anybody thinks that Thursday night football is Herbie's best work. He was put on this earth to be a college football announcer to host a big Saturday night game, to host college game day, to somehow know everything about every single college in America.

Mm-hmm. And the other part that makes it surprising is that. Herbie's deal was up at the end of this year. Al Michaels, his play-by-play partner is on a year-to-year deal. So this felt like a really good time to just reset the whole Thursday night booth on Amazon. Yeah. Start fresh. I remember hearing even before Ion Eagle went over to Amazon to start calling NBA games,

that he was the heir apparent to Al Michaels on Thursday nights. Now he's in the house calling the Western Conference. finals every other year. So what if he's Thursday night football, let's say, if you put him on play by play, and then Amazon had gone shopping for somebody like Greg Olson, who's a free agent at the end of this year. Sure. That feels like you'd have a really, really good booth and you'd have it for the next five

years, not just the next year. Yeah, I mean, you could also make the case that Herbie provides the in-house continuity, right? between if you're going to switch out the play-by-play guy. I think Herb Street still has a lot more name brand recognition than Greg Olson in the football world, even though I think, you know, quality-wise, you could certainly make the case. You know, we like very, I don't think we've even talked about Herb Street

as an announcer since, like, his first year, you know, doing the show. He's a lot better than he was at the beginning, which goes without saying people always, you know, mature into their roles. but this season particularly, I've, like, really enjoyed him as a color guy. At the beginning, you know, I mean, again, this is a long time ago, but it seemed like he was literally learning on the fly. You know, suddenly he has to figure out like a thousand new players' names and numbers. And, you know, and he feels really comfortable in the job now.

So I'm not, I can't, as much as I love Olton, it's hard to, I mean, I can't really quibble with it. And again, all these conversations are going on. I mean, we don't even know what the point of view is at Amazon, and maybe more importantly, we don't know what the point of view of the high-powered agents that are involved in these discussions are, right? I mean, a lot of this stuff gets outsourced basically to the agency side in the modern sports world, as you well know. But I agree, it would have been, it would have made a lot of sense to do a total, you know,

to have a total redo. I agree with you about her being a lot more comfortable. And what's amazing about that is he had to learn a thousand new players' names while not forgetting the other thousand players' names that he knows doing college football. Frankly, the most surprised. I mean, listen, these people rarely say no to big paychecks. But, like, one of the most surprising things to me always has been why Herr Street wanted to do it. You know, like he has his own little kingdom, and he's always going to be the best at what he does there, you know? Why even put yourself out there?

But I guess, you know, the answer is pretty obvious. Well, there's the payment part of it. But I would also say this. Like, he's just been on TV forever. When he had him on a couple of weeks ago, he was celebrating 30 years, 30 years of being hired for college game day on ESPN. He was 26 years old when he got that job.

I was going to say, he's not that old, though. There's just a point in time where you're like, what am I going to do with my life? Am I just going to do the same thing over and over again? And in this case, he didn't even have to choose. It wasn't like, hey, you've got to give up game day, you've got to give up the big Saturday. a game with Fowler. It's like, no, actually, you can just do both.

Yeah. And we'll pay you extra money to do both. This is really a great era for Just Do Both in like sports commentary, right? And it's all sports media. Really for all of American life. Well, for some of us, it's not always like an upsell. But yes. I mean, there seems just to be like a lot more sort of, you know, contract carveouts for, for the sports media folks, you know, and a lot more kind of free agency. So, which is a good thing for all of them. But you're right.

If you showed me, if you showed any person on the street a picture of Herb Street and said, is this guy been on TV for 10 years or 30? They would all pick 10, right? I mean, it's just not if they didn't know him, obviously, just looking at his face. But, yeah, it's a, it probably reflects a lot on him, this decision, right? I mean, not that he's in a position his career where he has to sell himself, But at some point, you have to sell your commitment. I mean, even, you know, Charles Barkley has to sell his commitment every time he goes into the contract negotiation room once a year.

And I mean, you're probably, you probably made the best point. This is sort of evolution for him. What is he going to do next? And knowing him a little bit, there's no chance he's not committed to Thursday night game to game to working as hard as he possibly can because that dude doesn't do anything else. But also, I go back to your point of stability. You know, it's fun to, like, do fantasy football with these and be like, what if Ion Eagle called games with Pat McAfee? Like, that's funny to talk about. But if you're actually programming at these various networks or a streamer in the case of Amazon, it's a lot easier just to do the same thing.

Now, absolutely. There is an asterisk in this Martian report, which is fascinating to talk about. Herbie is going to be the guy going forward on Thursday night football, though Amazon has the flexibility. Marciaan writes to pick somebody like Sean McVeigh, the coach of the Rams, for that job should he become available. There's some history to that. When Amazon first got the Thursday night package, McVeigh was their number one draft pick.

Yeah. I think they were talking to McVeigh like five minutes after he won the Super Bowl in 2022. There seemed to be some real traction there too. Like it wasn't quite clear that McVeigh is coming back. Because he's that type of coach who's, locked in as we saw in the worth him 60 minutes piece he's he's into it he's little things bother him but he's also always wondering aloud about whether he should just quit yeah and give

it up and yeah in the old days in the old days you know when we were kids that was it was the sort of coach that would just be on to the next team right they're all sort of itinerant he's now why go to the next team and you can just make twice as much money on tv trying to go get mcvay makes perfect sense it's a little weird to say you're our guy unless we get the other that we really want. Yeah. Listen, let me say one thing that I know you're going to hate.

As far as color guys go, there's probably nobody who would who would be a smoother fit for a three-man booth than Herb Street plus former ex-player or coach. Right? Absolutely.

So, like, you could, I don't think it's off the table that they just get Olson anyway. You're saying Olson in Herb Street, not McVeigh and Herb Street. Yeah, or whoever, I mean, if McVeigh is a sure but like you can have a you can have another number one pick as the third man the booth and and

I think it could work just fine here's the thing especially with I mean if we're if we're fantasy booking iron eagle which I think is the right move or whatever um I mean eagle he can do absolutely everything right but like I said you have the continuity of Herb Street and I mean and he's functionally a host right like when you go to the game he can be the guy that brings you in and then you have a ex player over there to like tell you what it would tell you what it's like in the trenches or whatever you know i mean there there's a lot of room there although both iron eagle and kirk herb street are high volume commentators here's the only thing olson has been telling us over and over again literally telling us i want to be a number one guy yeah does he finally want to be a number one guy

if he has to share the job it's all about the front office it's just like when you know when the spurs convinced kawai lennard he was the most important guy on the team when they saw him Duncan. You just got to tell somebody they're the number one guy, right? It's like make Greg Olson the executive vice president of commentary at Amazon or something and just get and make his agent happy. The only time we've ever really experimented with this was that old booth that had Joe Buck, Troy Eggman, and Chris Collinsworth. I totally forgot about that. Which all of us, including me, have memory hold. But they called a Super Bowl together. Yeah. But they were in the Puth at the same time.

And if you talk to Collins with an Akeman now, they're like, totally like that guy, nothing but respect, wanted my own sandbox. Like, I had enough to say that I didn't want to share it with it. Like, I felt I could call the game by myself,

and now, of course, they all are. There's another interesting part to Herb Street resigning with Amazon. And that's that there is very likely going to be a big-time NFL analyst. who doesn't have a number one job next season. So let us review.

ESPN has not re-signed Troy Aikman yet. They re-signed Joe Buck, but they didn't resign Troy Aikman. And they said they're not going to do it until the end of the season after Aikman is called the first ever ESPN Super Bowl. Greg Olson is a free agent after this year. We know Greg Olson wants a number one job. If I can throw a third party into this mix, let me give you Travis Kelsey, who might retire from football, who is extremely famous and could be really tempting for a network to say, hey, here's a lot of money. We know you've never done this before.

You do have a podcast. You know how to talk. Can we turn you into a number one announcer? Yeah, another unpopular opinion. I mean, I know that sort of Kelsey's Q rating is, you know, not necessarily based on his mic skills or on field skills for that matter. But, yeah, he would make a lot more sense than a lot of the other, like, high dollar flyers. These networks have taken, you know? I mean, like, he really can do the job.

I was actually just watching some of his S&L turn this week. And I was just like, you know what? This guy's actually very good at this. Like, he's like a very good public figure. Who knows if he'd have anything smart to say, but I kind of think he might. You know, I think it's totally feasible. You could put both Kelsey's in there. Just surely one of them would have something smart to say while they play off each other.

Or the Kelsey cast exclusive to Amazon, yeah, that could be great. I know we're talking Monday Night nostalgia with the Dennis Miller doc being out, but like putting Travis Kelsey in the booth with Joe Buck, that feels like old school Monday Night Football to me. Let's just go find an enormously famous person who crosses over from sports of pop culture. Yeah. And let's build the plane in the air. Let's just figure it out.

Again, they're about to do the Super Bowl. They won't have another Super Bowl for a while. You have some time. But if you just do the math here, David, even putting Travis Kelsey aside, let's say he, you know, finds his legs again this year and decides he wants to keep trying to win Super Bowls with the Chiefs.

Troy Aitman could be on Monday Night Football. Or Greg Olson could be on Monday Night Football. But they both can't be on Monday Night Football. Monday night of football. That will not be a three-man booth. No. Dennis Miller's got that one locked down. Go ahead. So where's the other person going to go? What's going to happen? A guy who's been a number one announcer for a quarter century. What does Netflix have rights to? They've got stuff. Luke Kinkley's doing stuff. I know. Could you, I was going to say,

Keeley, could you offer Greg Olson or Troy Aikman enough money to feel wanted to do their two, three games a year of significance on Netflix? Like, I don't know. I mean, is it impossible that, I mean, obviously, like, the eventual answer to this will be, like, the NFL dices its right situation up some more, right? Within the next decade. But it's, but it's, but yeah, immediately that is, it is incredibly interesting. But I don't know.

I mean, maybe the, maybe the answer is to go the other way. Just go all in on two play-by-play guys on Fox or CBS and don't even differentiate between the number one game and the number two game. You know, just say they're, it's like we have six starters or whatever, you know. It's like we're all on top here. So we've got a number one crew and a 1B crew, and you both are really number one crews to us. Yeah. Except one of you is going to do the Super Bowl.

Bad news for Crew 1B. They can go, they can each take, they can alternate quarters. It would be great. Or just to, you know, just do a quarter or a quarter and then whoever's really playing well, whoever's hot, got the hot hand, just leave him in. The egg, yeah. Can we talk about the Eggman thing for a second?

Because it is truly puzzling. Yeah. The Monday night booth was this huge problem for ESPN. Let me remind you that Steve Levy, Brian Greasy, and Lewis Riddick was a Monday night booth that ESPN put out there. It was a huge headache for Jimmy Patero. And he came in and he solved

the problem. He wrote a check. Actually wrote two checks. And he solved the problem. Joe Buck and Troy Hickman from Fox. We don't have to worry about this anymore. Yeah. And now five years later, Troy Hickman's not resigned. He's apparently not going to be resigned until at the soonest, the end of the season. And I'm like, what had to happen between point A and point B to get here? It's going to be a great, now they tell us to borrow a phrase when this story is actually told someday. Good phrase. I mean, there's a very basic question of like, how did Buck and Aikman end up with like different contracts, right? Like obviously they have different representation, but like, shouldn't they be functually?

That's an interesting story. But continue. But shouldn't they functionally be negotiating together? And if not, I mean, obviously I'm not pointing any fingers. But like Joe Buck signs a new deal. Well, someone is proactively deciding either Buck or Akeman to not do it at a lot. at the same time or you do not insist upon the other person, right? So, yeah, it is.

It's incredibly intriguing. That's what happens in television a lot of the time. You know, I grew up with Pat Summerall and John Madden being a unit, and John Madden was doing his thing, and sometimes Pat also got to do the thing until he didn't anymore. I mean, that's, this is big stakes, it's TV, it's all that kind of stuff. I'm just like, man, again, going back to Jimmy Petaro, this was a win-refer. this was a win for you. You fixed it.

Joe and Troy also are good. This isn't like a Tony Romo situation where you have annoying media critics tweeting about this booth. I mean, I've said this before. Like, when Joe Buck decides to retire in 50 years, it will not be crazy to think he is the best ever to call NFL games, ever to do it.

I do not say that lightly at all. Oh, no. I totally agree. I mean, we're the cheering section for that booth, this podcast. I feel like we sing their praises all the time. Unless it's a cost-cutting maneuver by ESPN, that they think they can get whoever else it is for half the price,

which would be wild, or an ESPN synchronicity move. We want someone that can be on first take in the morning. We want somebody who can do studio shows, like whatever. That would make a lot of sense. But if it's not that, it's just absolutely wrong-headed. Because no matter what, even if Jimmy Petaro is like, I'm tired of Troy Yekman,

he's smart enough to know that no announced team switch is going to make any material difference in their ratings. You know, they've already maxed out. Right. I mean, they've gotten as good as an announcement will possibly get as far as inso much as it affects viewership. Do a little carve out for Travis Kelsey, but yes, your point is correct. Because we just don't understand that totally, right? That could just be a different kind of phenomenon. But yes, your point is right.

And I also agree with your point about get up and all that stuff. I don't know that Treyman wouldn't do that stuff. He seems to be available to do podcasts a lot of the time. But you're right. He's not part of that ecosystem in a way. But also, like, dude, you have so many people to go do that. Like, do you, would you make a decision based on, hey, Greg Olson's up for breaking down film with Orlovsky this morning? Isn't that Dan Orlovsky's job?

Yeah, Marcus Spears's a job. Like, don't we have just legions of people at ESPN to do those shows? Would it be cool to have Aitman on that show? hell yeah that's why just like what happened to get us here it's fascinating now the one thing that could change this game of musical chairs CBS we're all kind of functioning with the idea that j j watt is going to be the number one announcer or somehow dais x mocking and style johnny romo's just going to be back like palpatine it's like oh okay never mind so my for that whole embarrassing video.

But there's a scenario, I guess, where CBS could say, you know what? We're out of the Tony Romo business. We pay him off. He's gone. We look at JJ Watt for the season. And we decide he's really good, but maybe he's number two. Or maybe there's an opportunity to go get one of these guys that's suddenly available. And we can't help but want to go do that and get this thing straightened out.

And we don't even have to like guess at how good J.J. Watt's going to be because you're kind of guessing right now. Would that be a CBS thing to do? Absolutely not. It's speaking of stability. Like, they love stability. Would you, you know, go from, oh my God, we lost Tony Romo in the most ridiculous possible way to like, hey, we're in the Tregman and Greg Olson or hell, Travis

Kelsey business? That just seems crazy to me. I mean, and listen, JJ Watt is very good and also just sort of threads the needle a little bit. When it comes to like what kind of announcer or what kind of media personality do you want? I mean, obviously he's good in the booth that can do all the, you know, a lot of the stuff that Romo can do or Ickman or wherever else. But he's also younger and more media savvy. He shows up on McAfee. He tweets coherently and thoughtfully, you know, like there's there's a lot more of a, there's a lot more of a built-in sort of omnipresence to what he's doing in a good way in the modern media ecosystem.

So that would, I mean, it would seem weird for them to go off of him. for a more old-fashioned color guy, but that's CBS, you know? I mean, they were wearing blazers until 15 minutes ago. It's like, I think they still are, dude. Do they still wear those blazers? I swear I saw CBS Network Blazers the other day.

Oh, man, I'm an idiot then, but that's still, it's just unbelievable. Yeah, but I'm just saying it's a very old-fashioned place to work. So, I mean, in a lot of ways, so, you know, if they were going to, if somebody was going to just show everybody the door in favor of the established old hand in Aikman, that would be the place. I agree with you,

though Wad is a great modern media face of a network. He's good on Twitter. You can put him on a podcast. He's in commercials. He's just, he's sort of that guy. As much as anybody. It's just a question of whether he can be that guy in the booth. All right, David, coming up on this podcast,

a United States Senator tried to score points by mentioning an Atlanta Hawks game and he failed. miserably. Also a friend of this podcast, former Michigan State Rep. Mari Manugian stops by to tell us a great story about negative political ads and Grantland. All that and much more on the press box. A part of the Ringer podcast network. Hello media consumers. It's Brian. It's David. Isaiah Blakely's back. John, not Bones Jones, never left. Sarah Reddy also over there in the control room. Thank you all

for making this podcast happen. We got some... It's a big team to make us look good. It really does. It really does. A lot more than it takes Greg Olson and Troy Akeman. Some breaking newsday before we get started here, Joe Flint, veteran media reporter,

Joe Flint reports in the Wall Street Journal some news about the Paramount Warner Brothers merger, which is about to close. Flint writes that David Ellison has asked CNN CEO Mark Thompson to stay at the helm of the cable news network after the merger. He continues, Barry Weiss isn't expected to have a role involving CNN.

The close of the deal, according to people familiar with Ellison's thinking, Ellison isn't expected to name a news chief to oversee both operations. Now, that's true. What a big win for CNN that is. Yeah. Now, it's got to hold up.

and Mark Thompson has got to want to work in the new merged Ellison Company. I don't know how likely that is. I don't know what kind of guarantees of autonomy, which is what he's seeking according to Flint. But man, if you keep rolling with Mark Thompson instead of having Barry Weiss run and redo CNN, if I'm Jake Tapper and company, I'm really happy about that. Sure.

I mean, absolutely. I mean, I think that there's a lot of things going on. One, this is an enormous, the consolidation of these companies is going to be an enormous endeavor. And if there's anything that Barry Weiss, even if you're a fan, her experience time at her. You're a Barry Wise Stan and you're listening to this podcast. Yeah, in her relatively brief tenure,

it's clear that like these things aren't, these transitions aren't simple. There's no way to make it easy. So especially for the beginning, consistency is going to be really key, right? Unless you're literally buying something to tell it for parts, right? I mean, that doesn't seem to be the case here. Two, somebody tweeted, and I'm sorry, I didn't even keep track of it. But someone pointed out that when they announced that David Ellison would be the CEO of Paramount Skydance,

that Yonan cries coming from Mattel would be the co-CEO and board member, which is just this sort of, this sort of brilliant setup by Ellison where he like kind of gets the glory and crisis in the position. If you look at their responsibilities to like, you know, take all the blame if something goes wrong.

And who knows if that's exactly true? But I do think that there's a lot, there's always going to be a measure of, of responsibility. And you want lieutenants in a company as big as this that will be responsible for their own efforts. The biggest problem with the Barry Weiss regime, regime so far is that it reflects directly on the Ellison's right and there's no plausible

deniability there it's like this is what you did you know and letting CNN stay mostly intact for the foreseeable future will still allow the Ellison's and maybe even Barry Weiss to have a hand in the in what it becomes without it being a criticism of them when it fails you or if it were to not go great. That said, there were also some just random unsourced tweets like in the past week prior to this announcement that Barry Weiss might be on the way out. I mean, and I don't want to give that any credence,

but like. Source to radar or what's, what is now radar? So, I mean, I don't quite believe that. That seems like there would be a ridiculous admission of defeat, even if it were true in a practical sense, you know, to let her go, you would just reassign her or something, you know. or hell, give her CNN and let that go down in flames. But yeah, it is a very intriguing announcement.

Also that, I mean, I know when these things happen, these things get announced. But, and also doesn't it kind of, I mean, I might be totally wrong, but doesn't it kind of seem like when they do these giant corporate mergers? Like, it's always just some sort of boys club. It's like, I mean, I don't mean, particularly in like gender rule terms, but it's there are,

all the executives know each other. And it's just, is this a person that you've, like, enjoyed having lunches and drinks with before? And then they get to keep their job. You know, it's like, a huge part of it. And see, and the, because more often we pay attention to the inverse. It's like, this company bought this company,

and you know these two have bad blood, so-and-so is on the way out. You know what I mean? Like, it's, it's got to be, it's got to be part of the calculus there. All right, let's move on to our main event. David, it's a reference to a regular season, Atlanta Hawks game heard round the world.

Here is Missouri Senator Eric Schmidt. Did you go to an NBA game between the Golden State Warriors and the Atlanta Hawks on February 3rd, 2024? I'm sorry, could you say that again? Did you go to an NBA game between the Golden State Warriors and the Atlanta Hawks on February 3rd, 2024? What city would that be in? Atlanta. No. Okay.

So your testimony today is that you did not go to a Hawks game. on February 3rd, 2024. Is that correct? I have no recollection of that. Okay, is it your testimony that you were not in Atlanta on February 3rd, 2024? Let me just give you a little context.

The day before Fannie Willis came clean with her affair with the prosecutor. You know the Atlanta prosecutor that was also trying to get Trump, the next day were you in Atlanta? I do not believe so. Okay, did you ever go to Atlanta during your time at special counsel? I really don't think so.

It's possible I flew through the Atlanta airport on the way to Florida, but I do not have a recollection of going to Atlanta. I definitely did not go to a hawks game. I'm sure of that. I don't even know what to say. I mean, that's for the, I don't, you don't have to edit that out.

I have no idea what to say. This is one of the most amazing things. This might be one of the most significant non-presidential election days in political Twitter history. I totally agree. It was so big. because there was something for everybody. Yes.

Resistance Twitter, obviously. Huge day. Sports Twitter, you get to make fun of politicians who are trying to talk about sports. Yes. I mean... And it doesn't have to be incredibly partisan either. It's like, look at this dodo who doesn't know the difference between two teams.

Although, for the record, I think that the second reading that this got on Twitter is actually correct. I don't think he confused the Hawks and the Hawkeyes. I think that they just had proof that he went to a game with a tip off at 730 and did not look at the women's college basketball games. And the only one was this. Who fed them this? The Trump White House gave them these texts.

I haven't seen any answer as to whether or not they fed them the conspiracy theory. But it does seem like everybody's out over their skis here. Like somebody had this started with somebody's just terrible. misreading of the calendar or of these text messages and then just snowballed because nobody thought twice about it. It's crazy. Especially crazy because if they, if you look at the poster that they made, which is now all over Twitter too, it doesn't have anything damning in there.

It doesn't even lead anyone to believe he like was at a game. Like it was the texts they had were very oddly chosen. But even if, even if you see the, say the contents there, all that were establishing is that he was in Atlanta. the day before or after Fannie Willis is like, it came out that she was funneling money to her partner. With the implication being what, that he was just like exchanging anti-Trump info with Fannie Willis,

which shouldn't be particularly damning or weird or like why the hell? Or alternately, why the hell would he be doing that? Like, he's got the force of the government behind it. Like, it's so strange. And that they met at a hawks game of all places to have this cleanse. Cold War spy-style meeting? I mean, if I didn't want

anybody to see me, I would go to a hawks game. I was going to say you're sitting down there and you look around and just one skybox has the lights dimmed, you know? There's just like shadowy figures meeting in there. Trust me, they all have the lights dimmed. I don't think that, I don't think the conspiracy theory aspect of this

has gotten enough attention because even if he hadn't been an idiot, even if he hadn't gotten this story completely wrong, I don't know what the story was. But the conspiracy theory is the thing, right? So Jack Smith, if people don't know, Jack Smith was the special counsel who's testifying, this is Tuesday before the Judiciary Committee, he had been

investigating Trump both January 6th election stuff and Trump's hoarding of documents at Maralago. The president and his allies like to say that all these prosecutors are trying to railroad poor innocent Donnie Trump. What they also like to say, and this goes to your point, David,

is that everybody who is doing this is tied together. somehow. That it's not just that you're a rogue prosecutor that you and the other rogue prosecutors are meeting at a hawks game. Correct. To compare notes.

And that points to just something, right? Oh. By the way, can we talk about the art on that poster and how awful it was? If you had turned something like that into the ringer, I would have picked up the phone and performed a wellness check.

That's my respect for you. Like Kevin Clark and I always talking about how like, what would you have to do for your bosses to just call you and be like, hey, David, everything good? Yeah. Somebody, I don't know if it was the Daily Show or just some other online snark was, mentioned this getting printed out at Kinko's or something. And it looks exactly like, it looks like when you go to a print shop and they have the

examples of what they could print for you around, you know? It's like, look at this really weirdly designed poster that's clearly not professional. It was, yeah, it was, because there was obviously some design talent there because they like size the voice bubbles appropriately or the text bubbles appropriately. It was just like, it was just wild. The whole thing is just unbelievable. Unbelievable. And when you look at all the tweets that went out and we can go into the right wing ecosystem where there was all these people with like the canned tweets that knew this was going to happen before it happened. They just didn't know that he was going to get.

it wrong and all these people tweeted as soon as the second the clip was available just like oh he really got put Jack Smith in a corner like even those did not imply some specific conspiracy it just said they got it like they he

scored a point on it might have perjured himself yeah but there was no there there right it's like what are we accusing him of exactly it was like an episode of new or old Matlock where the attorney's job is to get the person on the stand to accidentally incriminate themselves. Oh, you weren't at the Hawks game.

And he just see the little smile. Are you talking about the new version of Matlock and the original? New or old. But you saw Eric Schmidt smile as soon as he said that he wasn't at the Hawks game or he hadn't been to Atlanta. And he was like, aha, now we got you. When you said new or old for some reason, I imagine that you were talking specifically about the Andy Griffith Matlock

and that there was like a widely known middle period of bad matlock or something? No. No, there's Kathy Bates Matlock and there's Andy Griffin's Matlock. Two things. Yeah, yeah. It's just all so bizarre. I mean, I guess it's just like the fact that I don't believe he confused the Hawks and the Hawkeyes actually just makes it better because now, because he deserves to get tarred with being that much of an idiot too, right? I mean, that he would confuse those things.

And this is, as many people pointed out, was it like 24 hours after somebody was floating him as a potential J.D. Vance vice presidential candidate, you know? That was Axios. Yeah, I was good. I didn't remember which newsletter or which, you know, D.C. side it was. But it was. But yeah, Axios floats him out there. First of all, is there anything that just should be more damning for anyone's political career in 2026 than being floated as a J.D. Vance vice presidential. candidate pick? Like, who wants that? Who, like, team Vance, unless you're just like a Silicon Valley executive, like, who, no one wants to be part of team Vance right now, right? You're either like, team Vance by default because you're team Trump, but like, it's so weird. But anyway, I, this is

just an all-time downfall, too. Like, he could obviously go onto a much bigger thing in a political career, but he'll never live this down. He's not going to go on to bigger things. He's really not. I think this is it. I mean, if you'd ask me before this, who is Eric Schmidt? I would have given you Republican senator from Missouri. If you'd ask me about his politics, I think I could have said very Trumpy.

But if you'd ask me like a specific incident or story from his career, I think I would have given you Josh Hawley material accidentally. I just, I had absolutely no sense of this guy other than his existence and him occasionally popping up on Twitter for me. To be clear, if you would ask me what I thought of Eric Schmidt, I would think you were talking about the ex-Google CEO, right? Like the name recognition is going to be an issue.

There's even a New York Times writer with the same spelling of the name, which is always kind of confused me too. But yes, by that Axios piece was one of the most poorly timed beat sweeteners I have ever seen in my life. it said we hear the VP that as J.D. Vance views Schmidt as trustworthy, intelligent, articulate, and a deft political operator. Well, I think that, I mean, I think who is there? Who is the Texas rep that Vance was out there on stage with the other day? I think Vance is very conscientiously doing this thing where he's building the army, right?

He's going around and like giving promising young politicians a leg up so that they will be indebted to him or whatever. and and also I don't think it's a conspiracy theory on the other end to say that that Axios piece was planted specifically to put a spotlight on him for this amazing thing he was about to do. Because they knew they knew they had the Matlock moment. And so they're just making sure the cameras are rolling, right? But but it's, I mean, it's just, it's amazing how how quickly it all came crashing down. And again, like everything good in politics, this. is going to stick, both on Schmidt and on the Republicans in general, because

it speaks to a bigger point, which is that they're just absolute content-free jimokes trying to chase down conspiracies that don't exist. And do Donald Trump's bidding by chasing down those quote-unquote conspiracies. Huge credit to Amy Klobuchar,

of course the senator from Minnesota, who came in like Tony Riali during his stat boy days on PTI. and was like, actually you're wrong and made the connection, whether this is right or not, made the connection between Hawks and Hawkeyes, which I think that was...

If she set the terms of the debate going forward for sure, yeah. I think that would have taken me much longer to get there if I'd been in that scenario. Absolutely true. I'm no Globetcher fan, but that was an incredible,

incredible turn by her. Also, because when you watched the... When I first started seeing the stories, I was like, I just assumed there was a... She had a little convo with her staff, before making that point, like there had been some measure of time between the two things.

But no, she just was like, you watch the video, you can tell she's exhausted, you know, and she's just like, I don't, like, why do I have to speak right now? But is it possible that this is the error that we're going up? You know, it felt like when you have to, like, politely correct me on this show,

you know, and I just say something that's like, I'm just like, my calendar is totally off. But yeah, it was, it was incredible work by her. There's nothing funnier than when politicians try to talk about sports. No. In this case, he was,

setting a perjury trap. But in other cases, they just see that as a safe space. Like, you might not like my position on X, but this is sports. We're all sports fans here together. We all love this. And that's what makes them make mistakes that they would make nowhere else at no other time during their career. I was thinking back to Ted Cruz going on college game day to whip up.

Yeah, I was good bad to say. I mean, first of all, he's been powering through this, just like Eric Schmidt's trying to power through Hawksgate. And he's saying like, you know, actually that was a very positive appearance. Even though people are chanting, you suck at me the whole time in the crowd. But the part of that appearance, that's why we never do press box alive shows, by the way. There'll be a lot of you suck chants out there. But the funniest part of that that people have, I think, kind of forgotten in a way is that

he was calling, this is Ted Cruz, he was calling transfers, which is at the heart of this bill, how many times can athletes transfer from school to school? He was calling them trades. Yeah. Trades. So like when Texas got a player from Auburn, they set back a conditional draft pick? Do you think that's what happened? That's not football.

That's not college football. I think that's the entire premise of the Protect College Sports Act. I mean, obviously, like, Republicans wanted to win before the midterms and whatever else, but like, why they signed up for this bill in particular? I don't know. I think it actually could have been, I was talking. talking about those referendums where they both were on the ballot. They look like they're both sides are want the same thing.

I think that the Protect College Sports Act could have been for the exact opposite side and all the same senators would have signed up because they don't understand sports. Like they're just like, oh, I want a sports bill to sign on. That'll make me look folksy and relatable or whatever. Iran's gone to hell. Gas prices. Everything prices. I could save college sports.

Yeah. All right. last note here, the funniest moment, or let's just say a small moment from that first clip that I love so much is Jack Smith trying to rack his brain about going to Atlanta. Have you been to Atlanta? And then eventually he says, well, I might have changed planes there. We can all relate. That is the answer to- Have you flown one time this year?

You're going to relate. No, that is the answer to the question, have you been to Charlotte? You're like, wait. Does that time I waited too long to make? an American reservation, I had to take U.S. air, and I changed planes there. Does that count as having gone to Charlotte? Yeah. That'd be great. Do you remember the rocking chairs? Yes. Okay. Yeah, I was in Charlotte for like 45 minutes. Yeah, that was me. I remember as a kid with my mom, we'd change planes and I'd be like, does this count on my states list? I specifically had that thought in Charlotte as a child. Like, I've been to North Carolina. I got out of the airport.

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You're richer than you think. All right, in the notebook dump, David, I want to bring on an OG friend of this podcast. If we ever do the press box order of friendship, as we threatened, Putin style, Mari Manugian is going to be the first recipient. She is a former member of the Michigan House of Representatives. She worked on the Harris campaign two years ago. She is now executive director of the next 50, an organization she can tell us about. On a personal note, she is also the person I look forward to texting on big election nights.

Like when those Wisconsin gubernatorial returns are slow coming in and Steve Kornacki's just crashing out in front of us. Mari, welcome to the press box. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Oh, my God. It's so nice that you're here in our L.A. studios with us. For those watching on Spotify, she's wearing a 1989 Detroit Pistons World Champions t-shirt. I am very jealous of that.

That is incredible. It's probably my most favorite article of clothing. I delicately hand wash it so it stays nice and everything, but they're my favorite team. Someone knew she was coming on and ring her podcast today. I know my audience. We appreciate the effort. We really do. So many things to discuss. Can we start with Michigan Senate in your home state? Yeah, of course. Okay. Abdul El-Sayed versus Mike Rogers. Yep. El-Sayed has led in most polls, I think with only a few exceptions that have been tied. Yes. Up one in the recent Fox poll. Yes.

What is ultimately going to be the deciding factor in this race, do you think? I think the ultimate deciding factor is turnout for Democrats. And there's multiple races at the top. of the ticket in November in Michigan. So we have Jocelyn Benson, who's running for governor. We obviously have Abdul, and then all the rest of our constitutional offices are up. And so building on the success of previous one campaigns, which is what we call our coordinated campaign for Democrats in Michigan, building on that success over the past several midterm cycles is really going to be critical to making sure that all Democrats are able to come home and vote for Abdul. If there's conventional wisdom about that race, I would say it's something like

this. Trump's extremely unpopular. Yes. The person with the D next to their name should win in a cycle like this. Yes. But because El Cayed is more progressive than some other candidates, maybe this will be a narrower victory than it would be with, say, another Democrat. Do you buy that? So I want to push back a little bit because Sarah Longwell at the bulwark had a really great deep dive on Trump voters who they did a focus group with that talked about why they're supportive of Abdul. And so I think that was a really interesting piece that y'all should check out that talks a little bit more granularly about how his pushback against the oligarchy and the powers that be that are making costs really high and corruption in the system and why the cuts to Medicaid

are just devastating to Michigan. We're seeing a lot of really interesting crossover for for someone like Abdul, which has kind of been the argument that progressives have made just sort of writ large is like there's a real opening to bring in people who really feel disaffected by the system. And you saw that with the election of Trump twice. And there's ways that that sort of messaging also fits with what Abdul is talking about. And you can see that this is working because Senator Slotkin and Abdul are doing a town hall this weekend in McComb County. And McComb County is famously a place that votes for Donald Trump and also votes for Jocelyn Benson. Where have we heard that county before 20 million times on election night?

Yeah, yeah. The Reagan Democrats, yes. To the extent that that race, I'm already, has been, like, obviously very nationalized in a, in a, I mean, to focus almost specifically on Hassan Piker and on people talking about talking about Hassan Piker. Is that affecting the, like, voters on the, that are actually there? No. Or it's, we're not paying, we're just paying attention to local matters? I think, I mean. I always use my dad as sort of the barometer for how I understand, you know, sort of your typical, you know, older Democratic voter.

He's in his late 70s. He was a labor leader, but previously, you know, worked in the bucket trucks for our electric company in Detroit. So he's a guy that, like, worked with his hands for a living. And he has no idea who the hell Hassan Piker is, like, at all. And he's a pretty, like, plugged in Democrat, right? Like he, I think, you know. His daughter was in the state house. Yeah, yeah, but even still, like, he's a pretty, like, plugged in person.

And he's like, I literally have no idea who you're talking about. Just as a quick follow-up, as somebody, as it relates to your current job. Yeah. How do you advise young candidates in a world where it seems like every small race is going to be nationalized? Yeah, that's a really wonderful question and a great segue to sort of talk a little bit about, like, what it is that I do for a living and what our organization's all about. So the next 50 was founded to be sort of the premier organization to help build out the bench of the next 50 years of the Democratic Party. We endorse and support candidates mostly down the ballot. And so about, I'd say, 20 to 25 percent of our races are federal races.

Everything else is state and local. And so we do several different things to support them. But to your point, we do a lot of advising on a case-by-case basis with each of our individual candidates. We don't have a litmus test or a policy litmus test or a questionnaire you have to fill out. We are looking for specific leadership traits in each of our candidates rather than looking at it in terms of like a whole of caucus agenda or something like that. And so to your point about advising what happens when races get nationalized, we help try to help our candidates make sure that they are focused on two or three very local issues. You can see that when Kate Conley is specifically talking about things that are really related to the Hudson Valley with regard to congestion pricing and things like that that are really top of mind and granular to voters in New York 17. You can hear that when we are listening to Rebecca Bennett, who's running against Tom Keene Jr., and she's talking specifically about the tunnel.

Like, if you can have, you know that things are going to get nationalized because our, you know, voters are getting their information on the Internet and things get served to them in their algorithm. them and you have little to no control over that. But what our candidates do have control over is being super disciplined. And that's one of the things that we advise them to do. I'm glad you mentioned Rebecca Bennett. I'm located here in New Jersey, so I get a lot of Rebecca Bennett advertising. It's intrigued me that she, discipline is the right word. She has bullet points in all of her ads, right?

She's a former Navy pilot. And bears mentioned that like 20 years ago, that would be enough. That's the entire platform for either running Republican or Democrat. but it's former Navy pilot and she's running on basically lower prices ending the war in the Iraq and banning Congress stock trading, which is just like a, which stands out as a very interesting thing that a candidate is like pointing at right now. I think it speaks obviously to a bigger issue of corruption and feeling like, you know, you don't have a, most citizens don't have a path forward. But it feels very responsive, almost more responsive than you would expect a candidate to be to the

electorate in a way like that. Do you feel like that represents a bigger change in the climate? Yeah, I actually want to drill down a little bit on the corruption point that you made. I think that's a really important point this entire cycle. You're seeing candidates from Michigan to Iowa to New Jersey. It kind of runs the gamut of the geography and levels of government talking specifically about how corruption in the system is making prices really high. I remember early on earlier this year, we were talking with a lot of our candidates about, you know, oh, this corruption question is popping in polling. We're seeing it in public polling and private polling that people really care about this. But the real key is for this message to land is to have Democrats talking about how corruption in

Washington is making costs really high. And I think Rebecca has done a fabulous job of this because Tom Keene Jr. was missing in action for like 100 days. And he was still trading stocks while he's a member of Congress. He continues to trade stocks and in fact has hold stocks that are in line with some of the committees that he sets on. And so when you're talking a little bit, when Rebecca is talking about the corruption piece as well as costs, she's really able to make that connection with failed leadership of Keene Jr. and how those two things are really tied to one another. So the development here is Democrats, not just talking about free-floating Trumpian corruption.

Which we've seen. They think, we think, they think is self-evidently important in a problem. And then voters kind of go, eh, what, I don't understand, but connecting that to what is the most important issue. Right. I think Democrats see that as, like, Democrats traditionally see that as disqualifying. And so we sort of sort of leave the sentence without that second clause in it where we sort of say, like, you know, look at what happened with Doge or look at what's going on with Elon Musk or any of, you know, the fact that the Trump family has. increased their wealth exponentially since he took office at the beginning of last year. But adding that second clause of like how this corruption is impacting you on a day-to-day basis

is what is making this message really land for Democrats this cycle. There's a ton of hopium out there on social media right now about the size of this blue wave. How much opium are you indulging in? I mean. Does your hopium get to Kansas? Kansas is super interesting. I'm very nervous as a just as a person. Just generally, that's my general affect. But I am cautiously optimistic about the direction of things, particularly, you know, obviously polls are a snapshot in time, there's snapshot backward in time. And it's, you know, we've had a lot of really big polling misses, which I'm sure we'll talk about in Wisconsin, for example. But I am looking sort of at the whole picture of where things are at. And, and, you know, we've had a lot of really big polling misses, which I'm sure we'll talk about in Wisconsin, for example. And I'm sure, I'm looking sort of looking sort of at. And with the trend of where the generic Democratic ballot is going,

I think things are going to get quite interesting on election night. And I'm cautiously optimistic. I mentioned the Wisconsin governor's race. And texting with you, when you see the polls that showed Francesca Hong was going to win big, and then the actual result that had David Wright winning narrowly, what do you attribute that to? So I can talk a little bit about our involvement there in that race and sort of what my thinking was. in how we approach the last few days of the race. Obviously, the Wisconsin gubernatorial race was probably the craziest primary

in terms of like people getting out, people getting in, like front runners dropping out. It was really chaotic and very hard to make sense of things, which I think, you know, as someone that is not a pollster, but has many pollster friends, probably really challenging to poll in that kind of environment. Things were very fluid and really hard to capture what was going on. But I was on the ground in Michigan on election night

during the Senate primary. And when as soon as I saw things start to tighten in ways, the polls were not capturing in Michigan, my gears started turning. And I started talking to our team about what we thought might happen the following week in Wisconsin. Because not only did I think that the results in Michigan were indicative of like, you know, if the election were held the following day in Wisconsin, things might have looked similar to how they turned out, but that we had the opportunity to actually have an impact and make

make a difference in those five days because people saw the results in Michigan, donors saw the results in Michigan, voters saw the results in Michigan. And they said, like, oh, like, maybe this is actually not what we think is going on here. And so we were able to convene some support for David and made sure that he was able to stay on the air all the way through election day. And he won by a fraction of a percentage point. And so, you know, we're really proud to have been in the foxhole with him this whole time. He's been a next 50 person, someone that we've endorsed over multiple cycles, which is part of the work of our organization, is that if we endorse you, we try to stick with you as you lead and your leadership grows. And that was something that, you know, my spidey senses started tingling on Michigan election night.

And I was like, there might be, there might be something fun we can go do over here in Wisconsin. In general, I mean, how do you pick, you said you pick the candidates based on leadership credential or leadership criteria. Sure. What is the process? Can you give us more of a window into how that happens? I'd love to. Yeah. So we kind of joke about this that we search the highways and byways of America for talented young leadership. We're pretty serious about that. We actually have candidates in Alaska this cycle as well who are running for the state house. And so we look for four traits in our candidates. We describe our candidates as principled, pragmatic, energetic, and focused. P principled, do you have a sense of, you know, know, how you view the world and sort of a heuristic in the schema for how you view how you engage with it. Pragmatic, are you someone who is, you know, able to reach across the aisle, but also work within your own party to bring people along to a good idea? Are you energetic? Are you someone who can communicate really well in a union hall on a doorstep, on digital, all the

places where voters are going to be having conversations with you and can you meet them where they are? And the last one, to be honest with you, is like, the real gating criteria is, are you focused? I meet a lot of people who want to run for office who really, when it comes down to it, don't want to do all the call time, really struggle with doing all the doors. And when you're running for a down ballot race like mayor or city council or state house, honestly, just shoe leather can get you over the line when you're winning races by a couple hundred votes, maybe even 100 votes. that's a field margin. And so you need to be willing to do the work to get that done. And that last item really is a gating. It's a gatekeeper for a lot of our candidates.

And Ken Paxton doesn't want to do that. And he's running for a state race in Texas. Yeah. You don't want to get it. That's also kind of why ex-athletes are really bad at being candidates, you know, because they just, they're too, they think they're too important to do that kind of thing. Right. They're used to having teams around them to sort of do the, you know, hard, you know, grit execution work.

and that's why, like, you know, having been a statehouse candidate that flipped a Republican district, Republicans held my seat since the 60s when I flipped it. So I know what that's like. I knocked 10,000 doors myself in 2018, so I can kind of like do the smell test and be like, does this candidate have, you know, that sort of work ethic? And I'm really proud to say that I'm really, really impressed with the work that our candidate's been putting in this cycle. One more question for you before I set you up to tell this amazing story. Sherrod Brown's trying to get back into the Senate in Ohio. Yes. Right against John Houston. Yes.

What is Sherrod Brown's political superpower? I mean, so we're doing a little bit more work in Ohio than I would have expected this cycle as well. We've endorsed Brian Poindexter, who's running against Max Miller, you know, to use a- Who's been in the news? To use a press box embattled term. He might be beyond. Yeah, I think he's far beyond and battled. But yeah, so, you know, we've sort of, as an organization, we're looking more closely at Ohio than I think we have in previous cycles. And, you know, I think what Brian has is similar to what Sherrod has. And even my dad, who was a labor leader, like knew Sherrod and spent, you know, spent some time with him. He, the way my dad describes him is how I think about this, too, which is just he is in touch with the people and people view him as one of them. It is the superpower of any candidate.

I think the word authenticity is like super worn out this cycle. And I'm really like I think it's very important to think about, but I am a little bit sick of hearing about what that means. But like, you know, from people like Brian Poindexter who literally was a cross-country mover for many, many years before he became a union iron worker to someone like Sherrod Brown who just like understands his constituents, I think that's a superpower that he has. And it's putting Ohio in play in ways that are super interesting this cycle. There's a very funny New York Times story the other day by Emily Davies that said that a lot of Ohio voters do not think that John Houston is currently in the Senate.

They think Brown is the incumbent. And the Republican Houston is actually using that as an advantage. Be like, yeah, throw the bum out. It's like, no, no, I was thrown out two years ago and I'm trying to throw you out. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. I mean, Sherrod Brown is like an institution in Ohio politics. So it sort of didn't surprise me to see that, though. It was a little bit funny and kind of irritating.

Can I just make the case for messy hair? I just think like politicians with messy hair work really well. Especially in a place. I mean, Ohio like Trafficking was from there too. We'll be Bernie Sanders and and of course like you shared Brown, Brown Paul even. You know, I mean, there's messy hair is great in politics. Messy hair rolled up sleeves. Yeah.

Button downs. I don't want to describe David and I too much. But I'm getting close to there. Thank you, David. but also for endorsing be more like James Trafficant. Yeah, listen. It's fiery. That's a place called hope if there ever was one.

All right, Mari. You have a great story. I do. About negative political ads and your time in the Michigan State House. Yes. I'm going to clear out. I'm going to go to the three-point line. The floor is yours.

It's a little, this is like truly, I don't know that I've ever told this story like super publicly, so this is pretty crazy. So when I was running for the state house, Of course, you know, there's positive and negative ads. And I actually should really back up. So I've, like, you know, been a fan of y'all's work for a very long time. And as a, like, baby grad student back in, I think it was 2015, I think this must have been,

2015 or 2016, I got invited to a Halloween party by, like, someone who was like an editor at the Atlantic. And I had no costume. And it was the same weekend thereabouts that Grantland was shuttered. And I was like, oh, I should just go as the ghost of Grantland because all these reporters are going to think this is very funny. And I just have all this like random sports stuff. So I had like a Knicks snapback and a Monty Genobley Spurs jersey.

And I like fashioned this piece of cardboard to hang around my neck that was like 404 error, internet error, like Grantland. So I went as the ghost of Grantland And I had like zombie makeup and stuff It was very funny And David I've just slacked you this picture So Pablo Torre style Please open slack

And look at the picture of Mari as the ghost of Grantland So I like obviously made it The sad face is great So that's a very important point Thank you for bringing up the sad face The sad face is very important Because of course years later My Republican opponent

Finds this photo on like Twitter something and takes this picture and uses it in negative mail and negative TV. And I'm like, you know, having, I was out for dinner with some people after I'd been canvassing that day and I like look up in this sports bar and my face in this like crazy Spurs jersey outfit is on all of the TVs in the sports bar like grayed out. I'm like, you guys don't even know what this is about this about the nerdiest possible thing. And it was like, you know, Mario Menugian wants to raise your taxes. And it had, like, you know, text over the top of the thing that said Grantland.

And I just thought, like, God, if only people actually knew how, like, dumb and nerdy this was, they would probably get a pretty big kick out of it. They would have done better to just say, look, she's wearing a spurs jury. Right. Like, oh, does she actually, she says she's a huge Pistons fan. She says, like, yeah, but. I love that the line of attack was Mari Minugian is sad. Right.

Therefore she will raise your taxes. Well, this is like not part of the Grantland piece of it all, but like it was very funny to me the pictures of me that they chose to use in attack ads. I mean, there was one that they used of me. I mean, I knocked doors, rain, shine. It didn't matter if it was like 110 degrees outside. I was like on your doorstep. And they used a photo of me. I mean, grinning while it's pouring rain.

I had like a rain slicker on with like a hood and everything. And I'm like, I look so cute. Like, what do you mean? This is a nice. Like, I look so adorable. What do you mean? Who wouldn't want to open their door for me? So there you go, David.

Grantland, or the ghost of Grantland, was a negative political ad. Just be careful. You might run for something someday in those old wrestling columns. Come back to bite you. You never know. We thought we were being all literary and stuff. And there are consequences in the real world for that. Mari, would you like to stay around and guess the strain punt headline with David?

Oh my gosh, I'd love to. Would this be fun? All right, here we go. It's time for David Shoemaker and Mari Manugi and guess the strained pun headline. See, David didn't use as usual, yeah. He's thrown off by having somebody else here. I'm trying to concentrate. We're in an audience now.

There we go. Our last headline about yet another Sydney-Sweeney controversy was Tempest in a D-Cup. You'll remember that one, David. Today's headline comes to us from another friend of this podcast. investigative reporter Tully Taylor, headlines from The Bullwork, and it is about the thing we've all been watching and tweeting about this week. Eric Schmidt, trying for his Matlock moment in the Senate with Jack Smith that did not exactly come true. I want you to think about this gentleman's name, David and Mari, as you ponder,

what was the Bullwarks strained pun headline? Talk amongst yourselves. All we have is that it's Schmidt? It's Schmidt? Yep. That's all you got. It's got to be a shit pun then, right? I think that's the fastest. Schmidt Storm?

Mm, good, but not it. He's messing up. He has screwed up in a public way. He has... Oh, Schmidt's bed. Yes, very good, see? Very good. Watch your back, Shoemaker.

Eric Schmidt's the bed is the full work headline. Very, very good stuff. All right, he's David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. She's Maury Minugian. Production Magic by Isaiah Blakely and John Not Bones-Jones. Coming up, more press box with Joel Anderson. He's back Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian. Calculating route to avoid seeing poverty. Turn left to bypass the unhoused youth sleeping on the street.

Then keep right to skip by the lines of people waiting for food. Steer clear of the crowded shelter turning people away. Then take the number. next exit. Let's stop looking away and get in the way of rising poverty. Your donations help the United Way fight poverty in thousands of ways, like providing food, shelter, and crisis prevention. Donate today at United WayGT.org. For 50 years, Canadians have wondered what the names of IKEA furniture mean,

like Natopa, the guardrail for children's beds. Natopa means giving your favorite person room to grow. It means their safety and your people. No. In Swedish, not Opa means night monkey. Mom, he's back. Ikea, 50 years of Swedishness at home. Look, he's wearing little pajamas. So cute.