The Press Box - Why Democrats Fell in Love With Jon Ossoff. Plus: NPR’s Supreme Court Botch, and The Athletic Vs. The New York Times.

Episode Date: July 3, 2026

Today on The Press Box, Bryan and Joel have a Senate race check-in. They take a look at multiple high-profile senate races in different states and provide their thoughts. Then, they check back in on the World Cup after the U.S. beat Bosnia-Herzegovina to advance to the Round of 16 (35:18). They also discuss the New York Times piece about Dianna Russini (40:38), NPR’s Supreme Court mishap (59:20), and more. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel AndersonProducers: Isaiah Blakely and Jamie Yukich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox Thursday. It's Brian Curtis. It's Joel Anderson. Hello, Mr. Anderson. What's up, man? What's going on, Brian? You ready for this?

I don't know. I had to be honest. Before we came on, I told you, I had to get my mind right. I don't know. Maybe it's at the end of the week thing, you know what I'm saying? I had in mind that we were going to have an easy press box today as we drift into July 4 weekend. Mm-hmm.

America 250 weekend. Yeah. I'm right on the street. But there's a lot to cover. There is. There's things that we didn't even include in here this week that, you know, I mean, that on their own probably could have, you know, carried a show. So let's unleash, to quote the great Skip Bayliss. By the way, Isaiah Blakely producing this podcast.

Hello, Isaiah. Thank you for doing this as always. Topic A, Joel. All right. Are the Democrats going to win the Senate? Are they going to blow it? I mean, I'm old enough to not know anything. other than the latter option.

So, so what do you think? Well, it was a big story this week. Yeah. I say delaying my opinion on that matter. Okay. I'll get to it then. A bunch of New York Times polls.

Mm-hmm. A bunch of other polls. Yeah. And this morning, an endorsement. AOC has endorsed Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Democratic primary. Yeah.

Michigan has three Democratic. running for the nomination, Haley Stevens, who's a U.S. rep, Mallory McMorrow, and El Sayed. Also, three different viewpoints. El Sade on the left, Stevens in the center, and Mallory McMorough in an increasingly undefined place in between them. Right.

This is a huge endorsement because AOC has been very, very picky about races she's weighted into. Yep. El Sayed has a lot of momentum. He's been leading in almost every... poll we've seen. Yep. What do you make of the state of this one in Michigan?

I do think that that's one of those endorsements that could sort of put its thumb on the scale, right? I mean, there's a, they said pretty much every candidate the AOC has backed thus far, has won their primary, and they were all contested primaries from California, New Jersey, Montana, and Pennsylvania. And, you know, her former chief of staff ran for, for what was it? It was a supervisor in San Francisco or something like that. And, oh, no, the race replaced Nancy Pelosi. And she didn't make an endorsement and that person didn't win.

So obviously, like, she's somebody that people listen to. And it feels like Michigan is one of those states that's sort of ripe. I mean, there's sort of the assumption that, oh, because it's a swing state, you have to go with the sentries. You've got to play somebody closer to the right. But I just, I wonder, and judging from this election cycle, all the other results we've seen, if somebody more to the left like El Saeed might have more of a shot this time. It's interesting because El Saeed is not a centrist politically.

Mm-hmm. And he's not a centrist rhetorically either. No. No, not at all. I'm going to point you to this new interview he gave to Dave Weigel for Semaphore. Mm-hmm. He's talking about his presumptive Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, presumptive if El-Said wins the nomination. And just listen to this.

The number of times I'm going to define and redefine and redefine Mike Rogers, we're talking about an anti-charismatic old-school politician who doesn't even know what he believes, except for he wants to make himself rich off the rest of us. You know what I'm going to do that, man? By the time I'm done, his best friends are going to look at him and think what I think.

Say what I say. I'm going to define him into eternity. Good. Help me beat the crap out of you. Little parts of your vestiges politically are going to be scattered all over the state of Michigan. Never to be seen again. You say Mike Rogers, it'll be like,

remember when Abdul just completely demolished that man's political future? I mean, don't you think, I mean, that is, there have been times and there is a growing cohort of Democratic voters on the left who feel unserved by the sort of, you know, the really generous rhetoric to their opponent. And they say, well, I'm going to be above the fray. But I think that there's a lot of people increasingly want people to talk like that. Like Newsom has tried this, right?

When nobody would consider him a leftist besides a Republican. And so, yeah, I felt like people are, there are some people that are starved for them to take the fight to Republican candidates like that. So it makes sense that if you want to stand out, you want to be talking like that. And it didn't seem clout. Like, it didn't seem clout. Like, that answer is not really representative of everything that he said in that interview, but it didn't seem clownish or anything, did it? I loved how he said, little parts of your vestiges politically.

Just want to clarify that not all of your vestiges will be scattered across the state of Michigan. Is that like the old Phil Hartman line, they're going to find chunks of this guy on my stool? Was that a take on that? But I think you're right about the way voters want Democrats to talk now. Yeah. They want them to go low. They don't want them to go high when Republicans go low. They're like, we're happy with you going low.

And I think I saw Steve Bannon say something to the effect of politics has changed forever in this country. And that he's noticed this like rising movement on the left and that the way people are going to talk about the stuff, the way they're going to fight it out. It's, I mean, it's maybe it will go back to the way it was in the 90s and 2000s. But we probably won't be alive when that happens. I think right now we're going into, we're hurtling into a new, a dawn of a new day in politics in America. And increasingly, guys like this, El Saeed, are going to get those mics. They're going to get the attention. They're going to get the buzz.

Now, whether they convert those into wins, who knows. But it seems like if you want to stand out, you better give Democratic voters at least the pretense that you're going to fight. El Saeed doesn't just talk about Mike Rogers. His Republican opponent like that. he talks about Haley Stevens like that too. Oh, man. He says in this interview, Haley Stevens is a suit with a large

A-PAC bank account. That's it. I hope maybe they find some way to teach her how to string two coherent sentences, together two coherent sentences. I guess at some point when you sell out for that many corporations and special interests, I guess you forget how to think for yourself.

Now, you mentioned getting the mic. Yeah. There is an interesting media story buried within this Senate race, and I think you could say the same thing about Maine. You could say the same thing about those house races in New York, which is that when lefties run for office now, they don't have to go onto mainstream media outlets anymore.

They can largely avoid those places. This also comes from Weigel. He made this point on Twitter. You know, if you go on MSNBC, hey, right, what are they going to ask you about? They're going to ask you about, are you too lefty to win in Michigan? They're going to ask you about your differences between the Democratic Party, there's probably a lot of questions about Israel

and your criticism of Israel, right? Those are the kinds of the questions that are going to come up over and over again. What if you just go on podcasts and go on with streamers? Are you going to get battered about those questions? Probably not. And if you look at the power of mainstream media versus the power of alternate media,

it's just so much different now here in 2026. Oh, yeah. I mean, again, I think Republicans figured that out very early. There's like, we don't have to play by those rules, We don't have to go sit down, even with the local newspaper editorial board. Like increasingly you saw that over the last decade, the Republicans would just opt out of sitting down with the local media because it is like, why? You know, we don't have to do that.

We are out of the ways to get their messaging out. And leftists looking for something different, looking for something that more reflects their, you know, political ideology. They've got their own, you know, media apparatus now. You know, they can go on, you know, Sam Cedar or, you know, whatever, Medi Hassan. And that's not even as left as it gets. Asa San Piker, for instance, is one of those guys. To name a Michigan example. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

So, you know, people that sort of figuring that out that I don't have to go and kiss the ring with, you know, Jin Saki or Lawrence O'Donnell or whoever else or Katie Tur. Like, I can, there's other ways to get my message out. What happened to Mallory Memorial Memorial? Man, brother. I mean, this is the problem, I mean, not the problem, but this is the American political system. Like if you're the third person, you kind of get buried, right? And was she just the imagined consensus candidate somewhere between Stevens and El Sayed?

Maybe, but who, I mean, who was sort of dreaming for to have Mallory McMorrow, though? Like, who, who, well, you know, I guess the Freep. They endorsed McMorrell, didn't they? They did. And what that's worth. Yeah. I don't know what that means for. Let's go back to the point about establishment media versus new media, but there you go.

Yeah, right. I mean, again, they have to sort of do that sort of stuff. Like they have to, you know, they have a readership that is more diverse than people give it credit for and they don't want to be seen as out on the edge there, right? So, yeah, maybe that makes sense. But I don't know what happened to her. But again, I haven't, have you seen any interviews of her? you know, that have, you know, bubbled up to the surface like that?

Only the one where she criticized Asan Piker. Yeah. Instead of him, it is somebody who says extremely offensive things in order to generate clicks and views and followers, which is not entirely different from somebody like Nick Fuentes. And then all of a sudden, see, to me, her whole candidacy was in the center, right? This idea that I can project as centrist enough or I can project as left enough. Right. It's a perfect candidate for a newspaper to endorse.

It reminds me of the Times endorsing Amy Klobuchar back in the day. Cone salad. This is an idea. Yeah. This is a good idea. But then you look at the polls and it's like, oh, but it's just, she was just an idea, at least so far. Again, there's a lot of time, by the way, this primary isn't until August 4th. Right.

I mean, there's room for centrist. I mean, there's centrists that make up the bulk of the Democratic, you know, political, class, right? Like the leftovers of the Clinton and Obama and Biden administrations, nobody would say that they're very far left, again, but Republicans. So that apparatus is still there. They still have an opportunity, but again, like things are changing. And, you know, I kind of feel like that's the way playing the middle is not inspiring to anybody in a time when people feel like this is a life, again, an existential election. I totally agree with that, but this isn't just the middle.

This is the middle between Stevens and El Cajet. Yeah. That's the middle of the middle. You know, and I was talking about this with somebody the other day, and this is more of a political commentary. I don't know what Center means. Center is just a plot between two, you know, between two points. And, I mean, that's not really standing for anything. And right now in a time when the economy isn't great, where it war,

gas is expensive, everything costs more to live, I don't think people want to hear about, you know, well, I'm going to be the reasonable person in the middle. I mean, people want, people, they want the government to deliver for them. And sometimes it's shutting out immigrants. And for other people, it's Medicare. I mean, for all. So, yeah. Chuck Schumer is also an interesting issue in Michigan. Yeah, man. Last month, Teddy Schleifer and Reid Epstein in the New York Times reported that Schumer was privately backing Haley Stevens. It's hard to find somebody make an affirmative case for Chuck Schumer to be the leader of the Senate Democrats going forward. I asked that question to Chris Murphy when he was here in L.A.

It's a bad sign that I don't totally remember what his answer was. It seems like we could have a repeat here of Maine where voters say, hey, you know, Washington Democrats, a.k.a. Schumer want us to do this. We're going to do this instead. if there's a defense of Schumer, if I may, if I may make one, Joel. Okay, go for it. He was instrumental in recruiting candidates like Roy Cooper in North Carolina,

Mary Peltola in Alaska, Josh Turrick in Iowa, and Sherrodin, Ohio. Now we'll see if the Democrats can pick up four seats. But if the Democrats win the Senate, it's probably a mix of Schumer candidates and not Schumer candidates, is it not? You say that, yeah,

But all those people you mentioned are losing in the polls right now. Not Roy Cooper. We're not Roy Cooper. Right. And so that, I'll give you that. But yeah. Who knows? I mean, the thing is about Chuck Schumer,

if you've seen his favorability numbers, like his poll rate, like he is extremely unpopular. Like even before you get to him being a kingmaker still within the Democratic Party. But you almost wonder if you're running for office as a Democrat somewhere in the country that's not like I don't know, North Carolina, I guess.

You may not want to even mention that Chuck Schumer is the one who sent you. No. I'm not sure you're mentioning that anywhere, even in North Carolina. Chuck Schumer sent me. Chuck Schumer sent me. It's like, ah, okay. No, I don't know about that one, player. By the way, one correction.

Fox News poll yesterday, Josh Turrick, up four points on Ashley Henson. They really? Okay. Okay. For what it's worth. Okay, things are moving. Things are fluid. The one we saw, we shared some polls yesterday, and I think the Democrats were losing and what, they were only winning like two or three of the major elections or something. Like they were, you know, Republicans were up in most of those races.

And so, and that was one of the ones where Josh Turrick was losing. But good. You're referring to those New York Times Sienna polls. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember this is the time of year where we start to talk about colleges that are never mentioned on ring or tailgate. Sienna, Quinnipiac. Quintapak, man.

Does CNN have a football team? It's a great question. Yeah, we can. It's an unknowable. I'm going to get, I guess, no, but. So that's Michigan. Should we talk about Georgia? Oh, please, let's do.

Because everybody loves John Assov. I don't know if you know this, but he's very popular right now. He's very popular right now. He's a lot. Fox poll came out yesterday. Assoff is plus 13. Plus 13. That's crazy, man.

I mean, that's amazing. Now, again, it's early, lots of polls. But he is so fascinating. Mm-hmm. Because he has become the trendy name. Yeah. For Democrats. About who could be the 2028 nominee.

Mm-hmm. He's 58-38-fave versus unfave in that same poll in Georgia. Mm-hmm. How do you think he became the trendy pick? for the 2028 nomination. I think, well, first of all, he presents very well. Like, if he's good at giving speeches, and that's important. He looks good on camera.

I mean, you know, there's a lot of people out there that are like, you know, Senator Alsop is a hottie. You know what I mean? There's a lot of nice young man energy. Not a nice young man. And never underestimate nice young man energy. I mean, you and I both got moms who are looking at these people. Nice young man takes you a long way.

Absolutely. You know, and the thing is, it's different. and we're going to talk about Texas in a minute, but it's different than Tala Rico. It's not, because I think that what people think about Tala Rico is not as muscular a brand of a nice young man, right? You sound like Ken Paxton now. Yeah, I mean, but I don't think the thing,

I don't think they would tag us off with that if he was running in Texas. And I don't know what's going on there, but it feels like there's a little bit of a difference. But I also think, and I lived in Georgia, for three for almost three years. And that was during the height of the Tea Party, okay? And so it was like so bad that like black Democrats were switching parties to like the to the GOP, like things that had never happened before in the South or at least since like reconstruction or whatever.

And my first year there, 2010, the GOP swept the statewide elections and they won everything by double digits, right? And so now you're looking at a, you're looking at somebody who is kicking ass and would people still ostensibly consider to be a red state. Like they've got two Democratic senators now, but people still think of Georgia is sort of a red state and it's still like a Republican controlled in statehouse or whatever. Trump won it last time around. And Trump won it last time around. But people are looking at that around the country and they're like, oh, that guy can kick

ass in Georgia. Like just imagine how. he's going to be able to speak to people around the country, right? You know, like the dream of turning the south blue or at least purple. And you can look at Georgia right there and he's right at the forefront with it, along with Senator Warnock, by the way, too. Like, let's not forget that he's a very popular senator down there as well. So I wonder if that's what's going on there.

They look at Aosop and they say, oh, he's converting people in a red state. The Democrats could use that on a national level. I think that's exactly what it is. but isn't it interesting how Assoff has replaced Andy Bashir in that democratic dream I haven't heard anything about Andy Bashir in a long time but is this just because he's running right now?

Is that what it is? No, because he's not running. There was a big times profile of him the other day he's got a book coming out. We'd certainly like to talk to him on this podcast but I think the difference is Asaf is a better speaker. Okay.

I remember hearing Bashir at the Democratic Democratic convention two years ago, and I was struck by how flat the affect was. Because just in terms of the tail of the tape, it's fairly similar to Osaf in a lot of ways. He won't in Kentucky twice. I mean, that's not considered a red state. That is a red state. It is a red state. Yeah, no.

Kentucky is a whole different, you know, kettle of fish, so to speak. It's a whole different kettle of fish. But it's funny to me how quickly he's replaced him. Now, Bashir runs a president, which we present. that he will. It'll be an interesting question that both kind of, you know, could be vice presidential guys to potentially both be part of a ticket, if not the guy on the ticket. The other thing that's interesting about Asaf, and this is the media angle, is that he has

become the clip guy of the midterms. He's Mr. Clips, if you will. Mr. Clips. Mr. Clips. This all comes from an interesting Jonathan Martin Peace in Politico, who talked to about the Ossoff strategy. This is what he does. He holds a rally on a weekend.

As Martin notes, he does it on a weekend because Donald Trump choose less scenery on weekends than he does during the week. His staff tips off the internet social media clip guys that he's doing these events. For me, that's Aaron Rupor and Aysin. Aeson. That's right, yeah. Both of whom served me up Asof clips last weekend.

Okay. He gives a speech. He's always behind a podium. If you watch it, it looks very professional. It almost looks like a television show about a candidate. Yep. He gives these really, really good speeches, and then those clips bubble into your feet.

And as Martin notes in Politico, there are even O signs behind him that look almost like Obama signs. Oh, okay. And he says, they, and this is the clip guys, we refer to, then post it into the feeds of Democrats who swoon without even fully knowing why they keep sending videos of this telegenic and articulate young senator in their 4-U folder or their Instagram reads.

Yeah. So there is a very interesting media strategy behind this. Mm-hmm. Which is fun. Yeah. You know, I was thinking about something else too, Brian. Alls off is Jewish. And at a time when people are really concerned.

concerned about, you know, and look, we don't need to get into, you know, APEC, you know, what people think about their politics on Israel. But Alsop ostensibly gives Democrats cover when people are trying to hit them with the idea that their pushback against funding Israel is anti-Semitic, right? And so I wonder, they look at that and they say, hmm, another guy, another way in which She's sort of like, not Teflon, but it sort of helps to elevate him above some of the others. This is how Michelle Goldberg put in her column in The New York Times the other day. He's a Jewish critic of Israel who, as much as anyone in politics today, has the potential to bridge the Democratic Party's agonizing divide over Zionism.

Yep. Yeah, man. I want to hear a clip of him in Savannah last weekend? I may have heard it already, but yeah, let's run it. He is John Ossoff behind the podium. And it's not just Jared. Listen to this. The son of the other Middle East envoy is raising billions from the Emirates for the president's crypto business, while the president grants the Emirates the rights to our most sensitive technology.

Your tax dollars are backing a Trump family tungsten mine in Kazakhstan. They are literally the elites they pretend to hate. The same folks who tried so hard to come. cover up the Epstein files. And listen, here's the bottom line. If you're involved in any of this, next year, you'll be raising your right hand and swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth,

and nothing but the truth so help you God in front of the United States Congress. I was watching that over the weekend, and I turned to Christine, and I said, he got a tungsten mind into a political speech. Yeah, man. Tungsten mind. I think it was right around them that I heard some black lady in the background going,

all right. And when you get that affirmation from the black folks in the crowd, you're rolling. You know what I'm saying? All right, no, slow down now. You know, that kind of shit. So, yeah, he had people in the palm of his hand. So we talk about Texas? I guess so, man.

James Tala Rico and Ken Paxton tied at 47 in the latest New York Times, Siena poll. is tallorico taking the gloves off in this election more than you thought possible uh not really because it only makes sense like i that was i mean i i understand that he also gives off the nice young man energy but it's all out there for ken paxton and if you don't seize it then you're being stupid right you didn't think he would have a little better o'erick we go high I mean, I think that he still I think that he still can try to hold that pose while being like this guy

Republicans thought he was so much of a crook they tried to impeach him here in the state. He's got his, he's out, and we talked about this. I mean, because, you know, Talarico was the one that retweeted that the Daily Mail story. Yeah, the Daily Mail story

where they caught Ken Paxton, I guess it was like an airport tram going to or coming from Iceland with his married mistress and it was like, yo, like you have to say something about that. Like that's it's not low to say

that is what is going on with that guy right now. It's the smart thing you have to do and it's really the only way that a Democrat is going to win in Texas at that level. We still think Kim Paxson's going to win this election, right? You do, right?

I do. Yeah. That's where I'm going to stand until November, until proven otherwise. I think, I think you're right. Yeah, I mean, it's still, it takes so many things have to go right for a Democrat to win in Texas. Like, everything has to be rolling. It can't be any, any chinks in the armor. And I was, and I'm going to write about this eventually, but I was talking to somebody about, like, the five things that must be necessary.

The five conditions that must be necessary for Democrat to win at the state riot level. And it's like, you got to have a good campaign. It's got to be a good cycle. You've got to have somebody with a good message and some other, you know, got to have the money, all that sort of things. And so, like, Tilarico does have those things. But even then, all that, all that, Ken Paxton is, like, a historically, like, a historically compromised candidate.

I can't remember a guy who's run for public office in quite this way. Usually you'd be embarrassed. Like, you just like, I'm not going to do it. And then people wouldn't. for you anyway. But they're tied. And so like, so yet, so to your point, I just, yeah, I mean, I think Paxton's going to win or the Republican is going to win until I see something different. There's a way that Tala Rico could run a perfect campaign and still lose in a state that Trump won by more than 13 points. That's right, man. It is a tall, tall, tall, tall mountain a climb.

Does it, does it, does it, is it interesting to you because this was just yesterday or two days ago, where Trump announced that they're going to hold a midterm GOP convention in Dallas in September. To me, that speaks to the idea that they are concerned, though, that they know that they're going to have to fight in Texas, which is unusual. That's usually something they don't have to worry about that. If you run your usual conventions during a presidential year, you're in a state you need to win in a key state, this is a Republican saying, hey, we need to hold Texas if we're going to hold the Senate. So let's put the convention there. That's what you're saying. Yeah, man.

I mean, Texas is a mega state. It's not just a Republican state. It's a mega state. It is. And it makes it. I mean, it actually is really smart. I mean, I have to give it to the Republicans on that. Like, you know, that Trump does the rallies very well.

And it's an opportunity for them to gather, come together. Again, remember when we thought, oh, man, there's going to be a schism because Cornyn, you know, they beat Cornyn and Cornyn was sort of the establishment Republican. And he's going to be hard. But no, man. the Republicans came together immediately. It didn't take very long. And Texas is different.

You know, Republicans in other states might run and say, hey, I'm trying to outrun the baggage of Donald Trump. Yeah. If you're Ken Paxton, you're saying, hey, Texas, you voted for Donald Trump, now vote for me. Yeah. You got a hug, talk to him. Do you also think, and so Texas Dems are in disarray.

We haven't talked about this, but it was last week that Jasmine Crockett said that she hasn't committed to campaigning for Tala Rico. And that has, I mean, the fights on social media over this. I would never dare talk about this on social media because I don't want to get to. Even you? Even, I would never.

You waited all kinds of things. Never, never. Man, let's check Van and Rachel on Higher Learning talked about this. And they have been getting ass kicked by their fans by discussing this. And so Tala Rico, he was at the state Dem convention in Corpus Christi a couple of days ago. And he said, I don't have to tell this caucus this, though. There's no way to win this race without black Texans, no way at all. Do you think this is a reparable schism?

I've always thought it was. Yeah. I go back to Crockett despite what happened in Dallas on primary night, immediately endorsing Tala Rico the next morning. Yeah. That was a notable moment to me. Also, if you're Jasmine Crockett, you've got to be thinking about what you're doing next. Right.

She's not going to be in the house anymore. She doesn't have an obvious statewide race. to run forward, certainly not this cycle, since you lost to Tolerico. Don't you want to hold the endorsement back just a little bit? Isn't this about, you know, you're thinking about what your next move is and what your

political power is at this point? Absolutely. Yeah, no, I think it is positioning, right? Like, making sure you get the best, making sure that you don't end up with Paul George, you know, basically. That you get, that you get Janus. To decide a topic that's being talked about

on the ringer today. Yeah. You know, we're playing for second place today on Ringer podcast published on Thursday. Let me tell you that. Oh, man. Everybody's playing for second.

Oh, man. Hey, second, you get a lot, there's a lot of, a lot of, and that tailwind there. But yeah, man, so I, I get it, but I'm also,

and I don't know how real, see, that's the thing about social media now. I don't know how real the division is because I see all these people fighting about, where, you know, Jazz and Crockett doesn't have to do anything.

I don't want, you know, the Democratic Party is using her as a mule and using her labor. And if they don't, if they don't think that, you know, she was a good enough candidate, then let's see Tala Rico get the black vote. And I know that there are people out there that really, really strongly believe that. But I also don't know how real and how widely held that belief is outside of Twitter or threads. Right. So that's trying to figure out the scale, like how mad are black Texans? black democratic voters in texas like how mad are they really about crockett not being on the ballot i don't

know do you think that daily mail story about pax and matters at all absolutely not do you the question is does this stuff matter anymore i think i think it's safe to say Donald trump has redefined this in a lot of ways he has he has increased our i or he has expanded our dcended our idea, shall we say? Yeah. About what constitutes a career ending scandal. Mm-hmm. But I won't say it doesn't matter.

I mean, I'll present you with Graham Platner in Maine. Yeah. Now, this is not the same thing. Mm-hmm. But you saw those main polls this week. Mm-hmm. Those stories about Platner, Nazi tattoo plus Reddit posts, plus relationships with women, have broken through.

they've driven down his numbers. So I don't think, I think it's a little too flip to say, ha ha, nothing matters. I think Democratic voters think that way. Let me just give you a list of things in Texas that have happened and that one thing that has not happened in Texas that has not shown to have moved the needle at all. Greg, Greg Abbott, who is running for reelection this cycle,

still the overwhelming favorite. And that is in spite of that freeze in 2021, that ended up killing people and paralyzing the whole state. You've got the terrible response to the Kerrville flood just last year. You've got the Uvald issue. Texas, I would assume, leads to the country in mass shootings. Now, it is one of our largest state, so that makes sense. But nothing has really dented Republican power in Texas despite all this stuff that is going on. The changes to the public education system. None of it has mattered.

And then the other thing, and we talked about this earlier on our show, Brian. I was a skeptic from the very beginning. I was like, I don't think Republican voters actually care about the Epstein stuff. I really don't. And show me where it has mattered. I haven't seen it matter. Electorally. Electorally.

If you read the Haberman Swan book, they were huddling in the situation room because they were worried about the Epstein stuff. I think Trump underestimates his hold over his, his voting base. I have not seen it matter electorally. And if that, that's the accusation that the dude is a pedophile and he still retains his devotion from his voters and it hasn't really dented

that their connection to him, then I just don't think that the dude who's already, the divorce was already announced. They already know that he was getting divorced. She'd already basically accused him of being in an affair. showing him with his girlfriend, I bet voters would be like, yeah, well,

at least he gets girls. Tyler Rico looks like a woman. I could just see, I'm sure that's a conversation happening on Twitter with a bot right now. So, yeah, I just don't, I don't think it matters. It's a quote that's been in my head for a couple months now. It appeared in a New York Times story about Paxton by Michael Cruz. I believe it was Michael Cruz.

Oh, Michael Cruz, my former colleague at the Tampa Bay Times. I believe that was his first piece since going over to the Times and Lauren McGahey. actually got an interview with Paxton, short interview in Victoria, which is pretty rare since Paxton doesn't talk to the mainstream media so much. This is what the piece said. Why does the base stick with him, he was asked, when he's been indicted and impeached when he's been accused of adultery?

Quote, why does the base stick with President Trump? Paxton said when you can say all those same things. They hate the right people and they stay I mean, you know, whatever you think Trump's politics are, which are generally incoherent. But whatever you think those politics are, people like that shit, man. They really do. And so, yeah, man, I don't think that's going to move the needle at all. I think it was funny on the internet. but when it comes to what they're going to do

when it's time to vote in November, it's not going to matter. All right, that's the Senate. Mm-hmm. We got some other stuff to talk about. Oh, man. Okay. Did you watch U.S. Bosnia?

I did, man. I did. Plus Herzegovina. Don't want to forget Herzegovina last night. Yeah, you don't want to be like that, that poor woman who's originally from Miss San Antonio, who works. Oh, my God.

Yeah. No, we have respect for Bosnia. a guvina. But yeah, too old, man. We do. A lot of red card talk last night. Yeah, man. We got a lot of new soccer fans, which by the way includes the two of us. I'm not looking down on anybody. But it's been a funny process of discovery and then embracing debate. Hydration breaks were first. Right. Yeah. Extra time was also on the list. The refs just in the game whenever they want. What's going on here? I mean, 10 minutes of extra time was kind of crazy last night. That was kind of crazy. I'd never seen that before that much time.

Oh my God. You just, the conspiracy theories about that just drive the train. Absolutely. But then the red card stuff last night because it was like, how in the world was that not accidental? Like, I'm watching this and I'm turning into that. I'm turning into new soccer watcher being like, well, that, you throw somebody out of a game and the next game for that?

Yeah, man. Are you kidding me? That's crazy. I didn't, I didn't, you know, I've watched the World Cup every four years since maybe like 2004. I mean, I've been kind of, I'm locked in when it comes. Did you say you watch it every four years? Well, you know, yeah.

You watch it when it occurs, isn't what you're saying. I watch the Copa. Okay. And I watched the Copa Day America sometime too. It just sounded funny. I'm sorry. I watched the Olympics every two years. You know what?

I only watched the summer Olympics. I watch the four years. That's an honest answer. That's an honest answer. But yeah, no, man. And I've never, again, I don't, maybe I haven't seen every game, but that doesn't seem to, that wouldn't have seemed to have met the level. But it's really perfect for the American soccer viewer to have that sort of controversy to

lead into and to also feel aggrieved, you know, because that's, that is the U.S. men's national team fan, perpetually aggrieved, you know, maybe sometimes, I don't even know, Our fans are not overconfident, but there's just a real desire to see us be good at that and to feel like, oh, man, all these circumstances are conspiring to keep us down. And so it really is good. It was great for feeding into that.

But if you want to see them be Belgium, then it's probably not great. No, I think American soccer fans just want to be part of the conversation. Yeah. You just don't want to be the joke anymore, right? Like this, you want to be a tough out in the World Cup. That's over now, right?

Don't you think? They're a tough out? Yeah, I think so. We'll see what happens with Belgium, though. They were supposed to win last night. We'll see what happens on Monday. Last night, agree with me on this or night. That was the most important win in USMT

history of our lifetime. Yes or no? I don't know. I don't know. That's a good question. Yeah. I think, I think, I'll answer the question by saying, I think we can, any subsequent win would almost.

certainly be. Oh yeah, absolutely. They'd be Belgium. They went again. Oh, that's, that's, yeah. Being Belgium is detest, yeah. I got two more takes in the World Cup for you. Okay. One is, did you see the ads last night that were on that little video board that was on the outside of the field? Oh, yeah, I did see that, yeah. And at one point, they had an ad for Cutter Airways next to an ad for Home Depot. Oh, man.

Which just felt like a Tom Friedman column in the form of a video board. Hey, man, globalist. The world is flat. It was amazing. Globalism, that's right. I also watched the Belgium Senegal game before her. Yeah. Senegal was up 2-0.

Belgium comes back and then Belgium wins in extra time on a, I wouldn't say a controversial penalty because they did look at it. And it was a pretty good penalty. It was a pretty good call. They had to go back and look at the video. J.P. Delicamara's call of the winning goal was one of the worst calls I've heard in a while. Wow. Really?

Yeah, it was good. It was clear he just didn't see the ball go into the net. Okay. Because he was delaying. You can always tell when announcers are buying themselves time. Right. So I tweeted this and then I got a lot of soccer spawning. I heard somebody's obviously not watching any soccer.

This was totally a normal call. I'm like, yeah, man. Oh, I don't think so. I've been watching Darren Fletcher for a call World Cup game. So I'm going to have to have to have a hard disagree there. People have been shitting on our soccer media opinions. Have they? Yeah, if you go on Instagram.

There's a lot of people that we're clowns. We don't know what we're talking about. Here's some more chum on the water then. Yeah, that Alexei Lollos is not a popular figure on TV. Goodness, goodness. That was not a controversial at all. Yeah, right. I thought that was too mainstream.

We added the whole list of other Alexi Lollas because I thought we were being too normie with that opinion. No, we don't, apparently we don't sit, we don't have enough credibility to make that, to make that allegation. So, anyway, Brian, speaking of somebody who's unpopular, not having a great year. What a segue way. Yeah.

I bet Diana Rusini just hopes that she never ends up in the news ever again. But unfortunately for her, she was back in a big way this week. A lot of people may have seen the New York Times did this huge. It was a 5,300 word feature on her fall from grace, you know, allegations that she had an inappropriate relationship with Patriots coach and former Titans coach Mike Vrable. Before we go any farther, what do we think about the New York Times piece? Man, you know, well, first of all, I mean, we're going to get to the lead. I just didn't, I guess it was like a way to kind of sum up the whole thing for people that had

never heard of Diana Rossini or this, anything. But did you get anything new out of it? I didn't think it got anything new out of it. I think it was written in this way, as you say, for people who did not know what this story was. Yeah. We're not like, A, a sports writer, or B, the host of a media podcast where you've been talking about this with your friends nonstop for the last few months. Yeah. And the interesting parts of the story were about what happened inside the New York Times when it became clear that this was not just going to go away with a statement from Steve Ginsburg and the athletic.

Right. Those parts were interesting to me that all that stuff was new, but it was written in this long-form way where I'm like, I just, I feel like we already knew most of this stuff. You know, this is just the retelling the story again for people who had not maybe read it before. Oh, yeah, but also, I mean, and I will say it, I shouldn't just say that, but this was generated because of the story itself where Diana Rossini gives a comment to one of the reporters and says, that's all off the record. and she had to learn the hard way that that's not how that works. Which you assume... It doesn't work retroactively. Yeah, you can't say retro,

which is sort of a surprise because you would assume that a reporter would know that. And I remember from when Olivia Nutsi was going through all that, and if you read American Kanto, she very often put that stipulation up front. Like, this is often what I'm not going to do... She was, you know, savvy enough to know that she wasn't going to be gotten that way. And I would have expected that from Diana Raseen. but maybe not.

I would have to. Anyway, you mentioned the lead of the story. Yeah, so the lead of the story immediately grabs everyone's attention. It covers this January traffic stop where Rossini claims she got out of a ticket for texting and driving by FaceTiming

the officer's favorite head coach. She told this story on the show Stugats & Company and it got huge laughs, okay? The Times person, though, asked about this for that story, said, that's quote unacceptable conduct um Brian when have you used your big media connections to get out of a jam before I don't think I've ever used it to get out of a jam really I mean I was and I always find it funny when our compatriots in the media are clearly using their massive Twitter followings to yell at airlines

online I'm just like if you ever catch me at American Airlines I can't believe you canceled my flight that's like Folks, this is just, this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Like, I understand it's frustrating. You're flying professionally. You're flying with family. You've got a little, whatever it is. But I just never want to read someone shouting at an airline again. Okay.

I'm all good. Anyway, you used your, your journalistic credentials to get out of a jam? Unfortunately. Well, okay. One sort of serious one, my mother had surgery at a hospital in Houston. going to say their name. It was supposed to be in a routine kidney stone removal and they nicked her lung and damn near killed her. Oh my God. And so I, my mother is in the, you know, recovery room and my mother was a nurse. She worked in, you know, met, you know, hospitals for years.

And I go back there and she looked scared and she says, they messed me up. And she's like saying it so weekly. And so I, you know, the guy comes in and I, yeah, I didn't get panicked. I was just like, you know, hey man, something's wrong. Can you get her some ice? And he said, I couldn't get her ice. And then he told her to smile. And that kind of set me off and I got mad. So anyway, they made me leave.

They kicked me out of the recovery room. And so I tweeted about it. And the next day, the hotel, I mean, the hospitals administration, swooped in, got her the care she needed, moved her up, all that kind of stuff. And so I did use it in that circumstance. And I bet you don't feel bad about that at all. I do not feel bad about that at all. One single moment.

Yeah, for one single moment. moment. And then, you know, when I was younger in college, I mean, you know, younger. At TCU? TCU and, you know, maybe early in Dallas, like, you know, if you had to do man on the street, I might have picked the most attractive, sometimes very attractive

women. It's people to talk to. Like, if I had to do a man on the street thing, I'm going to make it fun for myself. So anyway. That's hilarious. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, but yeah, so, no, but to, you know, going back to that lead, the time story, it wasn't right, okay? And

a reporter at the center square. Brian, had you heard of the center square before? I had not. Yeah. All right. It's a new website, fairly new cover state house and statewide news around the country. And they actually got video of that traffic stop and found that there was no face time involved. Here's a clip. I'm actually, I'm not a fan of me either. So, what is your team? I'm a Vikings fan, unfortunately. Let's say it. Can you see the name? Oh my God. K-O-C? Look what I said to him though just now. Go to the bottom.

Oh my God. Wow. KOC being, presumably being Viking side coach Kevin O'Connell. Kevin O'Connell. And that worked, by the way. The cop let her go. She didn't get a ticket.

She did not get a ticket. That was embarrassing. Then you feel, I felt retroactively embarrassed for her. 100%. 100%. And I've always felt inside of the sweatiest sports writers.

Because there's a tier of insider like Schaefter and Woge back when he was still doing it that clearly had the league on lockdown. Yeah. And then there were other tiers of insiders that felt like they were just trying to make you believe that they knew everything. Scraps. Scraps. I got, let me, as I've been telling you for two days,

if you'd been listening to me, you would have, you would have already known this, a source and you're just going, come on now. I mean, yeah, man. Come on. That's embarrassing for KOC too, though, right? Kind of sort of. Like, I don't think so. Do you think, I mean, texting with a reporter?

Don't they all text with the reporters? I had to, maybe I don't know how that works to respond so quickly under those circumstances. Oh, so we're saying, like, she's saying, I just got stopped by a cop and the Vikings are his favorite team and he wrote back, presumably that's what we think happened. in there? Yeah, because she said, hey, look, see what he said, he just down here. I'm just

like, but if your COC, isn't that just a layup for you? Like, I'm doing something, I'm doing something nice. I'm spending, spending five seconds, sending a text message. Okay. By the way, I keep thinking of Kevin O'Connor when we say KOC. Oh, yeah, man. That's a good point. No offense to one of those guys breaking NBA news right now. But I don't, I don't know. I just think the insider thing is embarrassing. And this is probably a good time to talk about what's been happening during NBA free agency for the last couple of days. Yeah. I mean, dude, the Sham Shirani, a two-step where we break the news, and then we quote tweet, that tweet with a credit to the agents.

So this one happened recently. Marvin Bagley, the third, agreed to a one-year deal with the Nuggets. We've all been waiting for that piece of information. I didn't know Marvin Bagley was still in the league, former number two pit draft. And so Sharani breaks that. And then the next tweet is Bagley and his agents, Shai, Sayy and Mike George of Clutch Sports Group worked through a handful of offers in free agency

and landed on a strong opportunity for a West contender in the next career stage of the former number two overall pick. That sounds like that was ran through like Chet GPT, didn't it? It does. But just think of how many things are being dealt with there. We name check the agents.

We name check their agency. Worked through a handful of offers. It wasn't just one offer from Marvin Bagley. He didn't say what those offers were. They could have been in the Chinese Basketball Association too. I mean, that's an offer. And then landed on a strong opportunity, okay, on a West Contender. And then in the next career stage, meaning nobody wants him.

Or nobody wants him from. And by the way, this doesn't even have what the money is, which makes you think it's nothing. thing. Yeah, man. Well, it's just so funny. And it's so unnecessary. You can just break the,

you can just break the stories. I mean, again, Wozha already called it vapor. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, again, now he was, he was the father to the style. But it's just, yeah.

I mean, I, but the thing is, if you're going to be Sean's, that's, you got to, I guess that's the way you got to play the game. And is that some sort of way to get around the algorithm on Twitter or something so that it can get more attention? you know now if you share something on Twitter, you can't put the link in the first tweet.

You got to do it in the second tweet because they throttle those tweets so they can't go to links or whatever. Is there even a link for Shams? Yeah, man. The Stom's author page. Yeah, right. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know. It is, yeah, insider them, it really is going through. It's having, that is actually at the end of the year. Let's try to remember this. insider reporting went through sort of like an inflection point this year. And from politics to sports. Like people started asking questions about it that they'd not asked in previous years. And you know what I think the reason was is Rossini.

Because it forced a lot of people who aren't in our weirdo sports writer world to reckon with what these jobs have become. Yeah. And that's what the Times piece did a good job, I think, of getting at or at least gesturing at. It's like, wait a second. The Athletic, which is part of the New York Times company, hired somebody at a huge salary. $800,000. Bigger salary than the Times' biggest political reporters.

To come in and do that? That's a thing that happened. Were you really that surprised that she's making $800,000? No, because I read Ben Strauss reported a while back. By the way, there's a lot of Ben Strauss stuff that's been out in the world that I haven't seen, you know, getting the link, as it were. I still remember listening to the Pablo Torre podcast on Diana Rossini,

where he was confirming information, but I didn't certainly who had confirmed it from in that case. Ben Strauss saw a dude, very good sports media reporter. Yeah, man. Regis and Ben Strauss. But no, I wasn't surprised, but I think when she signed that contract, I was a little bit because I said,

oh, the New York Times company is doing an ESPN pay scale. Right, right. ESPN, you know, you and I both work there. We know it's an entertainment. company that does journalism. Right. So you get paid for putting butts in the seats. Right.

And they've decided Schaefter puts butts in the seats, he's going to get a certain amount of money. Mm-hmm. But in New York Times, hey, it's a journalism company. It's also other things now, but it's a journalism company. So you can imagine the people there looking over and going, wait a second, she's making that much money. Yeah.

But, I mean, don't you think, I think what she's saying is that I can bring the attention that I had from ESPN over here. I could bring those followers. And by you giving me this position, it enables me to bring even more subscribers, do things that anybody else you hire, probably not going to do. But that's something we don't know here.

Do we really think she brought more subscribers than Maggie Haberman and brings the New York Times? That's a great question. I don't know. I don't think so. You don't think so? I just don't imagine that. So what we're saying is there's somebody with that doesn't have a New York Times subscription

that is buying a subscription to the athletic because they wanted Diana Rossini's latest there's that there are enough of those people that are different than people that just subscribed at the Times to read their political reporting to read Haberman et al's political reporting specifically I don't believe that yeah I don't want

I don't want people to get undercut for making $800,000 because I hope to someday to make $800,000 it's not that no this is is not Diana Rossini's fault. Yeah. This is a decision that the athletic made

to get into the same pay scale that ESPN has. Yeah. Where, look, we're paying people mega bucks to come in because we believe that insiders can drive the conversation, get us attention,

that our insiders can go on podcast and tell amazing stories about their traffic stops, that they will become these kind of journalists slash entertainers, and they will drive traffic to the rest of the place. Yeah, man. I mean, nobody, I presumably, and I don't, you know, I have no way to confirm this yet, presumably nobody made more money than Diana Rossini if they're athletic, because that's NFL, that's insider reporting. So it's like two big things, two big planks of any sports media outlet that she had. So I just can't imagine that, you know, the Bucks beat writer or whatever was making that kind of, you know, anywhere near that, right?

Eric Name was not making anywhere near that. I think I can safely say. Eric, please correct us if we're wrong, but I don't believe. Sam Khan. Our boy Sam Khan, who works, please let me know if you're making $800,000 or not. No, but that's the ESPN thing, right? We have people making normalish amounts of money, and then we have insiders. And again, I think it's, it makes perfect sense, or at least in, you know, in the context of ESPN.

I don't know perfect sense is exactly the right word, but we have come to accept it. at other places. And by the way, Peter King was the first person I saw make this point. As soon as she signed there, she's like, well, he's like, wait a second. She's making more than Maggie Haberman and David Brooks combined. I mean, like that's, again, and pick whomever you want there. But like, I was like, that's kind of interesting, right? At the Times company.

Again, I just come back to this idea of paying reporters for putting butts in the seats. I always think like we use the word star so incorrectly when it comes to reporters we say star reporter we mean a great reporter When I think of a star I think of an actor who sells tickets I don't think of Olivia Coleman I think of Leonardo DiCaprio

Right I think of somebody who's like you put their name on in on the movie People are going to watch the movie Right, they're going to buy a ticket to the movie And there's probably a fairly tiny number of people at the New York Times who are putting butts in the seats. Right. You were saying like,

my subscription to this newspaper rests on this person being here. Right, I'm there, right. I'm subscribing to them because of them. And by the way, that describes the vast majority of journalists. Oh, yeah. The vast majority that work at,

still work at what we consider to be news organizations. Like, I'm paying for you, and if you were to leave, I'm not interested to be in here anymore. I'm out. Unless you have proven a demonstration, record of having a following. Because I'm like you're like Pat McAfee or Stephen A. Smith. You don't want to get paid by how many butts you put in the seats, so to speak, because

it just is not probably going to work out for you. It's a bad deal. Yeah, it's just not going to work out for you, no. It's a bad deal. Well, hold on. And you asked this question. If there was a Schefter-style insider for politics, who's it going to be? So you had somebody who was essentially trying to recreate that job, but in the political

sphere. Mm-hmm. See, the thing about insiderdom, and I think this is something that maybe gets missed as people come, people who are not in the sports writer world start to think about this idea, it's usually reporters who reported on a wide variety of subjects within their beat, football, basketball, whatever it is, who then, thanks to social media realized they could get the maximum pop just by reporting on transactions. Mm-hmm.

so-and-so signed somewhere else, coach got fired, so-and-so has a twisted ankle, and he's not going to play this week. And they stopped writing about, or even really thinking about the sport as it's actually played. You know, I would love to have an insider

and just say, okay, I'm going to have the basketball or football player you just tweeted about come and knock on your door. The guy who's contract, the guy who's entering the next phase of his career, he's going to knock on your door, and I want you to tell me who this is.

I want you to identify this gentleman for me. Would you recognize this person who you just gave it extremely generous, you know, Twitter pop to? Would you recognize that person? If he's 6'10, so maybe, you know, you might have a shy-hound. But do you know that's Marvin Bagley? Are you sure? I think I know who Marvin Bagley looked like. No, I'm not talking about you.

Okay. I'm not talking about you. Yes, true. That's true. But so who would be the political person? I mean, isn't Mike Allen kind of the political version of that? Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, Mike Allen.

Is that as close as the guy in politics? We're just kind of a pure scoop artist. So is Alex Thompson kind of like that? I don't think so. No? Okay. I don't think the Biden book alone. Okay.

Even if I'd never read a word he'd written, no, he's not that guy. But I think his Axios teammate Mike Allen might be. Okay. I'll give you that. I mean, do you think Ben Smith, if you throw him back out in the mix? And you say, hey. He'd appoint in his career? Mm-hmm.

Maybe it's an interesting one. Yeah. Let's talk about the Supreme Court. Oh, man. Okay. So Tuesday was Birth Rights Citizenship Day at the Supreme Court. Mm-hmm. A lot of news.

A lot of news. NPR made some more news because they reported that Samuel Alito, the Samuel Alito, was retiring. Yeah. That turned out not to be true. Yeah, man. he was not retiring. The report came from Nina Totenberg, who's a very famous Supreme Court correspondent

and NPR correspondent. Now, I'm sure you were looking at social media when this happened. Did you see what people were guessing had happened over at NPR? Was it that they had something in the, you know, in whatever, the CPS and somebody accidentally

just send it out because that happens all the time at news organizations. There was a pre-write. Pre-write, yeah. We have a Samuel Alito retirement pre-write. Mm-hmm. And probably, if we went into the NPR servers right now, we could find a Samuel Alito

obit too. I was going to say, they got an O-Bid in there too, probably. Yeah. Because those sometimes get popped out. So that was one theory. Another was that Alito was retiring, but the announcement had not been made yet. Like she had jumped some kind of

announcement somehow. Yeah. That was out there. There was also a funny theory that the Supreme Court was trying to catch a mole, was trying to get some out, and it put something out that was not true. That's kind of funny and fancable. That's what we thought happened. Here is Nina Totenberg explaining on all things considered reading a letter of apology that she wrote to Alito. Dear Justice Alito, there are no words to adequately apologize for today's error in reporting your retirement. It was entirely my fault. I rushed to out of the courtroom after the opinion announcements, and when I realized that the usual rush of folks after a few minutes had not happened, I asked somebody what was going on inside, to which the answer

was retirement announcements. I didn't hear the S on announcements and assumed something no reporter should ever do that you were retiring. It was the worst professional mistake of my more than 50 used in journalism, I could go on, but I don't know what else to say except that I am so, so sorry, and I am eternally. You know, this was a rookie mistake. Does that make any sense to you? No. It really doesn't.

When I first read that, I was just like, what? Yeah. You walked out of there. You heard the word retirements. You heard the word, you thought it was retirement. And then from there you jump to the fact that the Supreme Court justice was retiring. Right. And then somebody else has to sign.

Like, presumably she just can't upload to whatever, right? Like, there's somebody, there's some sort of middle person that had to sign off on that. And when they say, well, how do you know this? Well, I heard somebody say retirements. That doesn't, it just doesn't. Well, here's the thing. There was a little bit of a back and forth at NPR about who was to blame. Yeah.

Totenberg, to her credit, was taking all the blame. Right. Other people at NPR would say, wait a second, our backstops here, our editorial processes need to be looked at if we put this story up online. I'm sorry if Nina Totenberg, who has covered the Supreme Court forever, phones in and says Samuel Alito just retired. Yeah. I think I'm going to go with that.

Because how else would you know? I mean, it wasn't I heard. It was announced his retirement. I mean, isn't, I mean, if you're sitting there on the desk, now, ideally you check the New York Times or somebody and be like, we're not the only people who heard this announcement, right? Mm-hmm. I mean, that is one way to guard against a phantom news story, which is what this is. But she said she heard it. Like, that's, she reported that she heard it.

And in fact, she just didn't hear it. And actually, she heard it secondhand at best. But then it wasn't even, I mean, it's just. just so strange. I, you know, and I'm not, I don't mean to call her a liar, but that just doesn't, it just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm sorry. I, because again, even, even then, that is such big news, right?

It's huge news. It's huge news. It's arguably bigger than anything that happened on the court that day. Yeah. And it was a huge newsy day at the Supreme Court. And I just feel like somebody is going to be like, okay, before we go with this, again, like, just walk me through. What, how did you hear about this?

and everything. And it just, I don't know. Maybe I'm overestimating it. And again, we know that the star system in media allows people to do things and say things and get published in ways that are not available to everybody that work within a newsroom. So I don't know, you know, Nina Totenberg,

she broke the Anita Hill story. So like, she's, her bona fide so there. So maybe it probably is a legit star, like, right? Yeah. It's people to listen to NPR and donation NPR. Yeah, like she's going to be in history books. 100%.

Let me introduce some more weirdness there for you. Oh, please. Nina Totenberg had an intern at the Supreme Court with her. So she hears something that happened in another room. Yeah. And neither she nor the intern goes up and asks somebody and says, hey, did Samuel Lito just retire? Mm-hmm. Nobody asks a single question that could have immediately confirmed or, you know.

think the intern is doing in that scene i mean i would be terrified if i was that intern i'd just be right now like is it today no in that moment i'd be like all these bullets are flying i just want to be out of the way nina tell me what i need to do and that's all and i'm going to stand out of the way because i don't that is huge news that seem to be very scary if this is like a regular aged intern right yes well i think you could also if you're the intern you're doing what the death says It's like if she says she heard if she says that then I'm going with it right. Yeah. I can't imagine that wouldn't be right.

Right. I've never done this before if I'm the intern. I don't know how this works. So I'm going to do whatever she says and whatever the death says. Like I'm just, I'm the middle person here. I was trying to think of a sports comp for this. Mm-hmm. This is the best I could come up with.

Okay. Steve Kerr is having a press conference. And a Warriors beat writer. I don't want to name any of them. Okay. Why are we? Why would we put them in this conversation? But a Warriors beat writer walks out of the press conference a few seconds early.

Here's someone say the word retirement. And then runs to ESPN, the athletic wherever, and reports that Steve Kerr has retired when in fact Ray Ritter had retired or a trainer had retired or someone else in Golden State had retired. Okay. Without checking with anybody and without getting with anybody and without. going back and saying, holy crap, did you just, you know, holy crap, did he really just retire? Did I just miss a gigantic story? Yeah. I mean, that would be the comp, except, you know, not quite as world-changing as the Supreme Court

Justice stepping down. Let's say Logan Murdoch did that just for it. Oh, actually, let's name a specific person. The name a specific person, I'm going to say it was Logan. I was also reading Kelly McBride, the public editor for NPR. and she writes, while there's really no excuse for this kind of error,

it was a result of an honest mistake and a rush to publish. What would be a dishonest way to publish a phantom story? I'd love to know that one. I mean, man, I understand shooting us on bail, but I mean, come on, bro.

I know, there's so much like, again, if you read people in Washington and Nina Totenberg is royalty in Washington. She really is. If you read, if you read, you know, Twitter and stuff, you will find people bending over backwards. to say and talking about NPR's transparency,

and they're right, good on NPR because a lot of news organizations would not have put their correspondent on the air to explain what they did. They would not have a public editor to go back and figure out what happened. Good for them. But this is a terrible, inexcusable mistake.

It's not a rookie mistake because that's an insult to rookies. And as McBride notes correctly, if a rookie made this mistake, they would be fired. Yeah, I mean, for news of that, I mean, again, a rookie would never be in that position, right? You know, so, you know. By the way, we could have a whole special issue of CGR about Nina Totenberg's career,

which is legendary on the one hand. It also contains a lot of, like, fascinating, journalistic moments. Yes. Yes. I mean, don't you think she's working on a memoir? Totenberg? Yeah. Sure.

Gotta be, right? Yeah. Sure. I'd read it. Okay. Would you? Joel is pre-endorsing Nina Totenberg's memoir? Yeah, sure I'd read it.

Of course, yeah. Why not? Anyway, what a strange story. Got anything else for me? I mean, you know, we've gone a long time. I just have to say something about what's happening on the internet. And it relates to Matt Miller, known as NFL at NFL Dresk out on Twitter, who unfortunately was in an accident,

was earlier this week or late last week, that caused him to have a life-saving measure of amputating one of his arms. And in the middle of all of that, it seems that a lot of followers and other people on the internet and people even reached out to me on social media saying, hey, this guy is a legendary fantasy football scammers

and taking people's money for all sorts of things. And these are all allegations, right? And awful announcing his sort of compiled, awful announcing compiled the list of fantasy football leagues that he was running. And I think they estimated that he was running 90 of them last year. And so people have been particularly nasty to Mr. Miller on the internet in a way that I can't quite remember. I feel like the social media, you've kind of seen it all.

But that was truly one of the more unprecedented events that I'd ever seen unfold on the internet. I'd never seen anybody be that mean, first of all, to a recent amputee, but also just like the revelation at that time, it just, it was really weird, didn't you think? The way the conversation switched? Yeah.

I have never seen anything like that, no. Yeah. I have not. From thoughts and prayers, Twitter, to, hey, did you see this Reddit thread, Twitter? Yeah, yeah. And I would really recommend people go read the awful announcing piece, which is by Ben Kuh and Brendan Kleen.

Because they went and talked to a lot of people, compiled a lot of stuff, and they said, they had an update here. It said after the publication of this article, awful announcing received over 30 messages from additional fantasy league participants or scouting lesson purchasers

who have shared similar stories. And then they went back and updated their original piece. Crazy. Again, check that out. And we will talk more about that as we learned more about that story. Also, yeah. And I would love for somebody, because, again, I've been looking up Matt Miller on the Internet.

And they know they say... You've been looking up Matt Miller on the Internet. Yeah, not because I was in a fancy. Some shoe leather reporting from Joel Anderson. Just somebody showed me how he worked for ESPN. Like what he did. I know that there's a couple of segments that he was on the NFL on ESPN. I've seen one segment on the Internet.

But he's called, basically like an ESPN employee, and I'm not seeing a lot of evidence. wasn't he just like writing for them that's what i always thought i didn't say i wouldn't would have you seen that he wrote i haven't seen any of that well that's what yeah i haven't been revisiting the espion website as much as i i should have been but they don't have an author page so that makes it too you're gonna be doing a lot of looking up matt miller on the internet matt miller that's a tough name to have to go out there and get but anyway i mean he at the espn press room did say that he was the you know he did work for bleach report for a long time but

in terms of the ESPN connection of it all. You know, I'd like to see a little bit more. So anyway, you got Fourth of July plans? Just keep my kids from burning up, man. You know, it's hot out here. I know you don't know that. Wait, what? It's hot somewhere else?

It's not 70-something degrees. Going in for a nice, cool, beautiful Fourth of July? Man, we've got a heat index. It was 92 degrees at 8.30 last night. My little baby, my little baby, Lonnie, who just loves being outside. And I tell all the time, I was like, man, you really missed it. When we lived near Stanford, like being in a Bay Area,

you missed being able to go outside because this sucks. But anyway, it was 92 degrees, and I had to tell us, like, baby, we got to come back inside. This is too hot. That's so sad. Sylv, which is in South Pasadena, probably what, like 72 degrees. Yeah, that's a 70-something, you know. I lose track.

Jesus Christ. I see you got sleeves on inside and know it must be. You know, it can't be too hot. What about you? Would you go to do anything? Well, I don't know if we talked about this, but I just, I love hot dogs. That's a big, big passion of mine. Really?

You know, in addition to journalism. Okay. You know, I like, I like, I love, you know, reading about foreign correspondence, and I love reading about sports writing, and I love hot dogs. Okay. All right. And the fourth, all the summer holidays, really, Memorial Day, the fourth, a great excuse to eat hot dogs.

And hot dogs are easy, right? I mean, we don't even have a grill, so it's just like, toaster, oven, here we go. Oh, wow. I'm not really fan of boiled hot dogs, but you know, toaster oven hot dogs. Dress them up as you like them. Okay. There's probably a whole debate online about how to do that, but I just, I'm

a big fan, so I'm really looking forward. That and macaroni salad, to me, is how I like to spend my fourth of July. Interesting. Okay. All right. Well, I'm excited for you. Are you a grazed papaya? I'm happy for you. What? Are you a grazed papaya person?

Are you like? I eat those in New York. but I don't remember what those tasted like. Okay. Last summer in Connecticut, I went on a hot. Connecticut's a big hot dog state. A lot of hot dog stands. Okay.

Still freestanding hot dog stands. Really? Really? And I just had a wonderful time. My time in summer, I'll write up my, I'll write up my experiences. Amazing. I was out there. I was staying a few extra days to interview Jimmy Pitaro.

And I had a couple days myself. This is what happens when, you know, there's no supervision. You left to your own? Well, just had a hot dog, man. I'll go out with another one. Delicious. I mean, hey, man, get some of that pizza, too, man. You know what I'm saying?

That new Haven style. That's not bad. That's not bad at all. All right, coming up starting next week, and speaking of the East Coast, it's going to be New York month here at the press box. Okay. Because I'm going to be out in the East Coast, and I'm going to be making some stops in our New York studio.

And, Joel, there's already some interesting people lined up. Oh, really? Okay. Well, keep it a surprise, but there are some very, interesting people. It's AOC. That's got to be. Now, see, now it's going to all seem like a big letdown.

Oh, I'm sorry. My bad. My bad. Because it's not AOC. It's not AOC. But we'll have lots and lots of interesting guests over the course of the month. I will talk to you next Thursday. What more than the form takes about the media.

Happy Fourth. Happy America's 250th. And talk to you then. I see. Look forward to it.