The Press Box - Why Were the ESPN Layoffs So Messy? Plus: Sen. Elissa Slotkin on the Democrats, the Mideast, and Election Security.

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

Today on The Press Box, Bryan and Joel start by talking about the ESPN’s layoffs again and getting Joel’s thoughts on how that process went down. Then they are joined by Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin. They discuss election security, the Democratic Party’s messaging, Trump’s self-enrichment, and much more.Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel AndersonGuest: Sen. Elissa Slotkin Producers: Isaiah Blakely and Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Because there's no better time than now Gregus Make time wait Sip responsibly Hello media consumers Welcome to Press Box Thursday You got Brian Curtis and Joel Anderson How were you, Mr. Anderson?

Hey man, I'm... Wait, did we do a show last week? Is that right? Yeah, we did. We did a show last week. Well, excuse me, you did a show last week And I did a show last week But we didn't do a show together last week That's what I'm going to say.

I felt like we hadn't been, I hadn't seen you in a while. I hadn't had a chance to actually talk to you. Guys, me and Brian talk to each other all the time. We leave voice notes to each other. We send text to each other. We're friends. But it's just different to see you in my screen. So I'm glad that we're back on this wave right now.

You taught me the art of the voice note. Man, look, man, I'm a big advocate for it. It's good to hear your friend's voices. And yeah, it's just very intimate. I don't, I'm totally, if you don't text me and you leave me voice notes, then I'm totally fine with that as a friend. I agree. And you know how on ESPN on a radio, they used to say, give me a tight 10 or a tight 15, meaning a segment. Yeah. A voice, a good voice note is a tight two. Have you been talking to Beaumani? I haven't. So Beaumani,

I'm in a, I'm in several group chats with him. But one of them, because some of them spiraled out of control, he renamed it two minutes or less. There was the name. The name of the name of the day. for the group chat. So, yeah, that's funny. And I've done this with you where I start recording and I see a three pop up on the recorder. I was like, it's time to start over. I've been talking too long. I don't want to waste Joel's time. I start rushing. When I see like 140 up there, I'm like, okay, I better wrap this up quick. I didn't even know. So, yeah. All right, coming up on the press box today, Senator Alyssa Slotkin from Michigan is going to join us to talk about the midterms,

to talk about election security, to talk about the mid-east, to talk about her possible 2028 plans. Cannot wait for you guys to hear that interview. But first, Joel, we got to talk about the ESPN layoffs. Oh, man. Still. Still. Still ESPN layoffs.

Still reverberating. Shoemaker and I got started on this subject on Tuesday, but I want to hear what you think. Broad thoughts on everything that went down this week at the worldwide leader. It's just really sad. And I'll just make it really personal starting out here. And when you get started in this business, and if you have any aspirations of doing sports stuff, ESPN has been the pinnacle. And the assumption was that when you get to ESPN, it's going to be okay.

You're going to be secure. You're going to be safe. You know, they have the resources to do the work you want to do. Any door opens to you and like I'll never have to worry about getting laid off again. And obviously, that hasn't been true now for about a decade. but given that you and I no longer work at ESPN. Given that we no longer work there. But at a certain point, you wonder, where does it stop?

Because they don't have, there's not a lot of competition out there anymore. Now, of course, there's like Netflix and, you know, Fox Sports and whatever else. For the top end people. For the top end people. But in terms of the other stuff, like, I don't think, I mean, ESPN State still makes an awful lot of money. And they could still have a very robust. news division, right? And it's just sad to me that they don't seem inclined to do that. And I know a lot of people have blamed Stephen A. Smith and Pat McAfee for that, that they put a lot of money in that.

But it's true. It's like all that money that they're given to them could fund a lot of journalism positions. And that is the thing that's just sort of discouraging to me. And even if it's not one for one, you know, we paid Stephen A this, we paid McAfee that, therefore we had to cut person A, person B, and person C. It's just where the energy is. And the energy is. And the company. You know, I thought about that when Carl Ravich lost his job. I'm like, it's just not the network that Carl Ravich flourished in anymore. It just isn't. It's built differently. It has a lot of very good and very delightful parts to it now, but it's just a different network than it was in the 90s. Oh, yeah. Early 2000s when he was, you know, hosting baseball tonight or on

Sports Center. Yeah. And I think I was, even you talk about the Ryan Clark and Cam Newton of it all, Right. As a, you know, former athletes, like that is already like shark-infested waters. Like those jobs are so competitive. These are very, obviously, they're very competitive people. They had to make it in professional sports to do it and to get to a point where you would even know their name. And now those jobs are even more competitive, right? It was like if Ryan Clark, who actually thought was really good at his job? Like he was a compelling personality on the mic and on TV. And Cam, compelling. I don't know how good he was, he was getting better at it. And, like, you know, if you see Cam Newton flash on your Instagram reel, you might

stop for a second. I stop. I stop. Yeah. I stop. You might have to stop. And I'm just like, oh, well, even for them, there's just sort of a reordering here. Like, who are going to be the athletes that actually get to stick around and do this now?

Like, what are they looking for, where they're looking for athletes to break down these sports? Because, again, once in a one time, that seemed like a pretty good, safe retirement path for them. And I don't even know that they can count on that anymore. more. It's interesting with Ryan Clark, because Andrew Marchand brought up a point in the athletic that it wasn't his ability to break down

what happened on Sunday necessarily that led to him leaving SPN, but there was some kind of discontent Andrew said with, let's say, his run-in with Peter Schrager on the air. Yeah. Where it turned into the whole former player versus analyst thing. What did you make of that?

Well, you know, um, it's just weird because I don't know what people would think of me Like, am I a former player or not? I don't know. You are in my mind. Yeah, I don't, so I don't know.

But an NFL player could easily look at me and be like, you don't know, you don't know what we're talking about because you've never been there before. And I would, I'd have to eat that. But yeah, I don't, I think that if Ryan Clark had that moment back and he had to apologize for it, so I assume he would want it back. And I can understand why Peter was offended by it. I don't know. That's not, that's not collegial. That's not the way you want to treat your co-workers. on air. But I would say that's the thing that only matters if people are already sort of

trying to push you out the door. And it was interesting. I watched Jamel Hill's had a long stream about this the other day, a little video. Jamel Hill, who was allegedly going to get fired from ESPN and network, she hasn't worked for in years. Yeah, right. I mean, man, please guys, if you Google and stuff on like the AI, please just click down, go down a few links, okay? Like, just don't take the first result. It's not going to be very helpful for you often. But she was talking about how it's ESPN, and we know this from having worked there, you need people that are shepherding you through the company. If you're going to, if you're going to ascend it any real way, you're going to need somebody to help you. And those people can change a lot too, though. And if somebody changes

and they're like, I don't really like you no more and I don't want to see you here, that can be the thing that can get you out of there. And I think they're using the Peter Schrager incident is something. is a pretext to get rid of them, but I don't think that matters if somebody doesn't already have it in for you and wants you out of the door. So that's what's interesting is when you talk about the number of athletes that are on that show, or just let's say the number of hosts and number of Peter Schrager types. There are a lot of people that can do fairly comparable work. Yeah. And TV is at the end of the day somebody pointing at you and saying, I prefer you over other possible options.

Now, I will say with Clark, it wasn't just Peter Schrager. There was the whole RG3 thing that happened. And, you know, with somebody like him, there was also the video. Remember the hype video when he was getting his new contract or wanted his new contract right after the Super Bowl? I thought that was weird because I, I mean, you've been in renegotiations with a company before, right? Or you've gone into a deal and been like, I don't, you know,

this is the last year. in my deal, what's going to happen. It just feels like I would, that is not a good way to engender a good relationship with the bosses, like to, to make it a very public matter, right? And I was surprised that he was able to come back from that, to be honest. But this is what, this is what got me about that. I don't know what the rules are anymore. Yeah.

Like I watched that and I thought it through an old ESPN lens, I'm like, they would be like, uh-uh. You know, we handle these things in house. we don't do this. And if we handle it out of house, it's anonymously in a media column. Yeah. It's not you actually coming out and saying this.

Yeah. That's right. I don't know what the rules are anymore. And the same thing with him, him and RG3 and him and Schrager. The world's a lot different now. I don't think there are. You have this life outside ESPN, right?

You have an online life outside of ESPN and podcasts, you communicate differently than you do on an ESPN show. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you have a, I mean, the thing is, like, him and Cam, they have their own fairly popular podcast properties. You know, Cam has Funky Fridays and Fourth and One.

And Ron Clark has the Pivot Podcast, which is really popular, really good. And they get, they get Nick, we can't get Nick Saving. They got Nick Saving, you know. So, like, it's a good interview. It was a good interview. And so it also sort of reminded that, like, you, yeah, in this new world, you got to have, you kind of had to have something else going on, no matter who. you are. And that's, him doing that was sort of playing to the idea that ESPN is a part of my professional life, but it's not all of it. And so I would say that, you know, out of anybody,

Ron Clark is pretty well positioned to succeed post-ESPN, but the things that allow you to succeed post-EASPN might also be the sort of things that put you in conflict while you're actually working there. But I don't think there are any rules. You said something about rules. I don't think there's any rules. I mean, Pat McAfee has called out people. ESPN, head run-ins, all that kind of stuff. And he got Pat Mahomes money, you know? So that's why I just think, oh, there's no such thing as rules. It's like, do the people in Bristol like you?

Do they want to see you? I didn't even necessarily have to do anything with ratings. But do they like you? Do they think they can count on you? And that's what matters. I don't think there's anything as rules anymore. Well, I think a lot of people who are not Pat McAfee and not Stephen A. Smith, look at them and ask the question,

are their rules my rules? Oh, no. Because if they get away with that, do I get away with that? Or get away with some version of that. And I think that's what everybody's feeling out right now. Because clearly, announcers at least at the top end,

have a lot more agency than they ever have. A lot more agency than they ever have. Right. But how much agency does Ryan Clark have? Right. How much agency does somebody like him have? That's the question to me. And I don't think there's an answer to that, right, other than how much do they like you?

Do they have someone that does comparable, that they feel does comparable things? How much money do you make? Is your contract up? Yeah, that's right. And who is the executive who is going to bat for you on a new basis? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because we're never playing about it. Like, if you work at ESPN, you don't need me to tell you, we're never playing by the same rules. And the reason that, like, and I always talk about this, I remember, I'll never forget one of the times I went to Bristol.

I was several times there I was just awestruck, but the one time I went there, and this was the John Skipper, the summit in 2007, where we were redoing the social media policy there, right? Because that had gotten people in trouble. It's not long after Trump had tried to get Jamel Hill fired and everything. And I'm sitting in this room. There's Randy Moss over here, Charles Woodson over here, Mac Brown over there. And I'm like, hell, no, I'm not playing by the same rules as all these people, man. Like, no, we're all, there's no way. But you get, I mean, if you go to ESPN, really in life, you should prepare yourself for the idea that you're not playing by the same moves everybody.

But certainly at ESPN, because there's just so many ways to get into so many different people you're talking to. So you just never know. So if you're in any doubt about whether or not you should do the Ryan Clark, hey, this is the last year of my contract. Let me put out a little content on it. You probably should not do it because you are not Ryan Clark. I'm trying to think of what my video would look like if I was negotiating a contract. I'm plugging in a microphone. Reading a galley.

Would you have some B-roll of you, like, on all the interviews he'd done? But that's what I'm trying to think of, like, what would the Brian B-roll be? Reading a book somewhere and I don't know. Yeah. Flip and flip into the catalogs and see what Random House has coming out this fall. Yeah. Be some pretty compelling content. I think I would watch it.

I would watch. You should get work to work on that, I think. Were you surprised. at how messy the opening frames of the ESPN layoffs were? Yeah, man.

I mean, so going back to the Ryan Clark thing about and I think about this time, people who follow this story know if you don't. Ryan Clark found out

that he was getting let go of in the middle of recording a segment. Like he was literally on air and ESPN was getting calls from media reporters and they were concerned that Ryan Clark was going to find out that he was getting fired essentially.

through the media and the writer from them so they made the decision to go to him and I mean I understand but I understand that but how did

I know that there's just so many places to leak it in Bristol like you can never catch where the leaks are coming from but why doesn't that always happen like why did it happen now

that it was so dramatic what do you think happened there? It's something I've been thinking about I want to preface it by saying this I'm not against leaks. I'm really not. And I think sometimes when reporters don't get leaks,

all of a sudden, they're very interested in where leaks come from. Right. Well, why wasn't it leaked to me? If it'd been leaked to me, I wouldn't be interested at all. I wouldn't say, how dare you ask questions about this stuff? So I'm pro-leaking, including pro-leaking about ESPN. Yeah. The end, full stop.

I think two things really stuck out to me about this one. one is not only did reporters know the identity of the people that were about to lose their jobs before even the people who were about to lose their jobs did that's that's striking i mean yeah because the agents what don't you think agents so have lead on that kind of stuff right like all those people have agents that deal with the espion yeah it's true but i think i think it's the list the people that had the list of the espion that's got to be a fairly small group of people so one one is that reporters knew about it, but two is some of those reporters work for Outkick. Well.

So just think of that trajectory. Somebody at ESPN, who is well employed enough to know, is giving that information. And again, I don't totally know the trajectory. So somebody at ESPN or somebody around ESPN, because it could be outside. I don't pretend to know. But somebody is, Outkick acquired that information and people knew how Outkick was going to portray Ryan Clark losing his job. Absolutely.

They knew that. Yeah. That's fascinating to me. Again, not anti-leaking. I'm not on a mole hunt here, but that fact is fascinating to me. And the reason it's fascinating just for people in the background, like, when we were there in the mid-teens or whatever, going into 277, that was one of ESPN's primary nemesis. Like, they were the ones that were harping on the coverage and Clay Travis in particular.

Clay Travis in particular. Like, they wrote that to clicks and hits and success. Like, that was one of the ways that they were able to elevate their brand was by attacking ESPN. And so the idea that now in 2026, somebody is leaking to the sworn enemy of ESPN, basically. Yeah, that's an interesting change. And I think I would suggest that probably narrows the list of people who might be willing to leak to them. Like, I mean, you know, if you could, if you think about the list of people, you know, if you think about the list, of people there.

And like, is this the kind of person that will leak the out kick? Probably not. There's a very small group of people that are, that would be willing to do that. If fixing ESPN's leaky ship

is not our job, I will say this. And you and I are not experts in HR policy or employment law. But as soon as all that stuff happened with Ryan Clark, starting on Monday afternoon, which, you know, again,

somebody having to call him while he was on NFL live and be like, hey, this is about to happen. We want to tell you so that you don't find out from Twitter that you've lost your job. As soon as that started happening, the whole process has got to go to warp speed at that point. Right. Like the idea that we're going to wait until the next morning and later the next morning so that Marchand is calling Carl Ravich and telling him, hey, you're going to be laid off today and Ravich doesn't know. Like surely that process can just just begin to it would be like hey this is we've lost contain

We want to we want to provide people with some dignity if that's even possible when you lose your job and I don't know How much dignity is even possible at that point but you can't just like be like okay we just need to start this right now Well that's the thing once you come up with the list at this point it seems like you kind of You need to be able to operationalize like either within hours or within the next day like you just can't sit on it Because it's not, I was starting to make it. I understand, like, phone calls have to be made and procedures have to be followed. Again, I'm not an expert in that. But, like, that should start having, like, 8 a.m.

Like, the idea that it's like 10 a.m. And people have not been notified. That's real. And are finding out from media reports that they've lost their jobs. That sucks. Oh, man. I can't imagine how angry I would be. Oh.

If I got a call from Andrew Marchand, it was like, you don't know about, oh, yeah, do you have any comment on being laid off or fired? And I'd be like, what? I think I'd be grateful to Andrew and then I wouldn't answer any more calls for the rest of the day. I'm actually not going to answer the HR call now. That's actually a good idea. What do you do if you don't take the call? You don't respond to them.

Like, how long can that go on? I don't know. Does your network email still work? Can they inform you in writing maybe? That's a good idea. Yeah, I'm trying to think when I got laid off at slate, how long my email worked for. Not long enough. One other thing, and I want to, well, we can talk about this more, but you were right.

Right. You were right, and I have to give you credit for this. You're, they, I mean, it, what, you weren't right about Shephti and in Rappaport, but you were right about what happened to the NFL network once it was brought into ESPN. Like, they, they, they decimated that place. And what do you, I mean, that just sucks, man. Like, I just, I don't, I mean, I understand that you don't want to duplicate so many roles or whatever, and it was an opportunity to cut down some salary.

But that's just why all these mergers. and stuff immediate. It just, I mean, I don't have a better word for it than that sucks. It does suck. And it sucks for the people that are behind the scenes. Yes. Naturally, we are attracted to Ravich, Clark, Tom Pelliserro, people who are on air. But, you know, I've done a bunch of pieces out of NFL network headquarters, both of their

headquarters because they have a new one now near, near SoFi. That's a gorgeous campus. And I've had a chance to meet a lot of those, not just executives, but. You know, there was like a guy there that I won't say his name, but a guy there who everybody liked who was like a stage manager, who was there forever. And every time I go to NFL network, I'd see that person. So the idea that people like that today are waking up without jobs.

And again, through no fault of their own, they didn't do their job poorly. It wasn't that the NFL network was doing badly versus the way they were doing three or four years ago. It's just that whenever there's a merger, there's not going to be more jobs. Right. There are going to be fewer jobs. I remember when I worked in Tampa. And I worked for the St. Petersburg Times and it became the Tampa Bay Times. And for years, the Scuttle Buck was that, you know, they're going to probably acquire the Tampa Tribune.

At that time, Tampa and St. Pete was one of the few metro areas that had two major daily newspapers going at it. And it inspired a lot of great competition. I thought it was great. And then, but the one thing that I could never understand by the people at the times, employees like me who were like, oh, yeah, that'll be great. We'll, you know, we'll get rid of the tribune. I'm like, hell no. We always need the tribune. We need them for leverage.

Like, what if you want to go work over there? Like, they have no, they don't have to pay you any mind. They're going to be the only game in town here as a result. It never works out for the workers. And so that's what I kept thinking about. I was like, oh, no, this just, this just sucks. Like, I mean, maybe I didn't watch the NFL network all the time, but we're going to miss it. I think we're just going to miss it.

It's not going to be the same. And I don't think it's good to, like, consolidate coverage. Like, you eventually, just the range of voices, the different approaches, the different graphics, whatever. Like, all that stuff matters in the whole scheme of things, and you're going to miss it and you're going to realize it when football season starts. ESPN having competition is a great thing. Yes. The NFL network made ESPN cover the NFL much more than ESPN would have if it didn't exist. ESPN was always going to be in on the NFL.

Foreign president of ESPN once called the NFL ESPN's crack cocaine, afraid I can just repeat as much as I can because I love it so much. By the way, same president who went on to found the NFL network. But the NFL network being there meant ESPN, oh, we got to do more on the draft. We got to do more on this. We got to go. FS1, back when it was a little bit more of a fully operational. operational battle station, it got great deals for lots of people at ESPN. Because FS1 was always there playing the role of the rival newspaper.

Come over here. Yeah. Want to improve you? Oh, ESPN's not showing enough level. Maybe you can host a show over here. Yeah. Yeah. And we're entering, you know, a phase where ESPN doesn't have direct competition like that.

The streamers are competition. You know, they'll come get an L. Duncan. But there just aren't that many jobs. It places that don't have a fully formed sports division. much less a fully formed, you know, sports and network like ESPN. Well, I mean, I mean, basically what has happened in print, the main game in town is the athletic. And in broadcast, but just broadly, like if you want to work and cover sports on the broadcast medium or whatever, it's ESPN. And that's just, I mean, it was hard enough to get to those places.

You don't know how the kind of shit jobs and assignments people have to take to get there. Not everybody does that be here. Yeah, right. Yeah, man, I mean, high school golf tournaments in Shreveport. You know what I'm saying? Like things that you got to do to get there. And I just, you know, every fall, every spring, I talk to students and colleges. And they're like, you know, they want to follow up and have conversation with you about like, how did you get where you are?

And I was like, you know, to be honest. To get where I got, that pathway doesn't even exist anymore. I don't know how to help you. And that's just, I don't, I think we're all worse for that. Like, it's good for a few people at ESPN to do this and shareholders at Disney or whatever. But for everybody else, this is bad. This is a disaster. Was Timmy Brando hitting the opening drive at that high school golf tournament in Treeport?

You know, man, don't even get me started on with Tim Brando. Maybe because we might have him on here sometime. But yeah, no, he wasn't there. You know what? It's funny. I've never met Tim Brando. I've never, I've never met him. I never, you never met the mayor of Shreveport. No, man, I did. Well, you know, by the way, I will say, you know, I was actually good friends with the mayor of Shreveport. Both of them, actually. Keith Hottower said, Cedrudeau, said, Cicester Glover, shout him out. But yeah, no, I never got a chance to meet Tim Brando, even though the guys at the Times, the Shreeport Times knew him pretty well, but I never got to know Tim Brando, I can say. Shoemaker asked a very good question on Tuesday, which is why is this all happening? now. Man. And I think I can answer it a little bit better than I did on Tuesday.

Okay, please. Part of this is NFL network driven. ESPN got control of the NFL network in the spring in April and decided instead of making a bunch of moves right away to sit on it for a little while. Yeah. To say, okay, let's see what we got when you talk about those duplicated jobs. Let's not do anything right away. Right.

Let's take a couple of months. But then, of course, what's about to happen? NFL training camp. So you've got to start to make decisions about things like that. So that's certainly part of it. I think ESPN also, you know, has a number for money they want to spend on talent. And all of a sudden, you're adding all these people from the NFL network. Yep.

Okay. Oh, we got all these people. Now you're not going to go back to number A because you've acquired a network. So you don't want, you're not going to, your original talent budget is not going to be your current talent budget. but you want to claw it back closer to what the previous talent budget was. Right. So that's part of it too. Like ESP is keeping Daniel Jeremiah, right? Oh, we got another draft guy.

Daniel Jeremiah is really good now, but somebody else then has to go. I think that's part of the thinking of the network. Right. And then the one thing I didn't mention too, and I should have mentioned on Tuesday, was the Disney layoffs that are going on across the company. Disney's fiscal year ends in September. so ESPN is also being a corporate citizen in that way. You know,

what happens at Disney also happens at ESPN. It's not fun to talk about. We love to think about, oh, ESPN, it's just a cash machine and they just do whatever they want. They can't. Not anymore. Not with cable changing the way it is.

Well, they can't, they can't, unless it's Pat McAfee and Steve and A. Smith. We only got 60 million. Yeah, I was going to say, I'm not trying to blame them. I get getting that money, but like they they can spend the money that they want to spend sometime that that is absolutely true and i'm not i'm not i'm not trying to say that as like this is what this is is but that's the

thinking of the network right they want to get to those certain numbers and by the way did you notice on twitter every time it's an espn layoff people will just get mad at stephen a yeah like you laid off so-and-so but you kept stephen a i feel this time around more people said you laid off so-and-so but kept pat mackoffie well I still, so there were three people that were the targets of enmity here. Stephen A. Smith, it still got a little bit of it. And actually, there's this great tweet that I actually retweeted it. It says, right?

Rahim's dead. Somebody shot up. That's a line from Juice. And the character, Tupac, had actually killed Rahim. And he went back to the hideout and was like, oh, man, somebody had killed Rahim. We don't know. We don't know what happened. And so it's kind of very deeper than, what's your favorite Tupac song, Brian?

Oh, I'll get back to you on that. Okay. I want to make my full list. Okay. Changes, whatever. Yeah. But anyway, so yeah. So there was that.

But then also the other one was Mina. Mina, Kimes. And again, I'm biased. I'm friends with Mina. I like Mina. I think she's excellent in her job. But I couldn't help but notice how sexist and bigoted a lot of the commentary was about her keeping her job.

Right. And it's set up in that way. I don't know what it will take for those. people to just get over this, but they will not. God, the way that comes up every single time. And not, by the way, it doesn't even need a layoff. It just comes up all the time on Twitter. Yeah, I mean, again, Clay Travis and whoever else, who is it, Dave Portnoy, folks like

that, you know, the dregs of the earth are going after her. And it's just, it's disgusting, but I get, see, that's actually the thing that is frustrating to me, because Dave Portnoy works for Fox. They could stop that. I mean, you know, Dave Portnoy, I mean, he could work on his, I mean, you know, he's fine. He'll be, okay, whatever. Fox Sports could say, stop that.

Stop talking about her like that. Why don't they do that? They should do that. If you guys hadn't thought about it, think about it now. Because you could do that. You could do something about it. Speaking of people that have an online life different from their network life, in this case, you know, just who.

Yeah, it's a great point. I didn't think about that. Yeah. One more note. And speaking of Pat McAfee. Yeah. He's dropping an album. Okay, man.

Cool. I mean, I can't wait to hear it. I can't wait to ask you what's your favorite Pat McAfee's song. Oh, dog. Yeah. I mean, is it a whole album or is it a song? Well, this is what he said. For as long as I can remember, my mere existence has made people hate my guts.

I've been writing songs about it for 20 years, and it's time to let them ought. meaning a lot of headlines and narratives. If I was to die, I'd like my kids to know exactly who their dad is, August 14, 2026. You know, look, man, this is funny because it'd be one thing if that's like Martin Luther King saying that or something. But like, if you're not- To throw out another name. Yeah, if you're not Martin Luther King and it was just like, for as long as I can remember my mere existence has made people hate my goods, I probably would do a little self-reflection.

I got to be honest. Why do people hate me like that? I would really want to investigate that. But obviously, there's another way to do it. And, you know, that kind of internal turmoil, that can fuel a lot of great music. We may be surprised, Brian. This might be some shit that we bumping in our cars all the time, you know.

I just want to know what it's going to be. Yeah. I mean, is he going to rap? Is he going to sing? That's like, man. Have you ever heard him trying to sing? It probably is going to be like that post-Malone kind of shit, man. You know, I could see that kind of, no disrespect to post-M-along.

But I could just see it being that kind of like talk singing type stuff where he doesn't really have to, you know, stretch out in any way. Could it be novelty songs a la Weird Al Yankovic? You know, what is the last time we've had a really good novelty singer? See, this is on my mind because I took my son to see Weird Al on. Weird Al still doing it. How was it? Weird Al sounded amazing.

Did he really? He sounded amazing. It's like in his 60s, but his voice, you could tell he's a little less spry. Yeah. Because this is a physical act, right? You're out there, you know, doing novelty songs. You're not sitting on a stool and strumming an acoustic guitar, right? You got a work.

You got a move. Yeah. And he sounded unbelievable. Wow. Did he play Eat It? He played Eat It. So the one I was really interested in was did fat make it into a different era

or an era of different sensibilities? Yeah. Did we decide, you know, that might belong to another time? In fact, Joel, the answer is, yes, it did, and he wore a fat suit and performed five on stage. Wow. Okay. All right.

What did you think about it? How did you feel about it? Weird Al is his hero. Like, it's replaced me in his life. I mean, it was a great show. I just, I loved every moment of it. And, you know, I kind of was like, we were preparing to go and I was like, I've kind of missed the last couple of decades of Al's music. Yeah.

Like I remember Amish paradise happening where he was wearing the Kulio dreads and the Amish outfit. And I was like, I remember that happening. So I got that. But there was a lot of holes. So we were like, you know, I was like trying to figure out what the set list was. And I was making a little Spotify list and then trying to like play them from me. and my son so we would actually know what we were getting. Man, how did you, I mean, that is just a, a crazy.

What a, what a shocking, you know, event to go to? Because I was like, how did Brian know to go see Weird Al Yankering? I mean, are you, have you been following him later or something? It's fun. No, it's funny. I ran into some friends and they were actually going to the concert and they were like, oh, you know, I had been, I'd actually introduced him to my kids because I was like, you will like this.

I liked this when I was your age. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is funny. And this is your kind of guy. What's your favorite Weird Al Yankovick Sonic, Joel? Eat it. At least that's the one I remember. I didn't like the one, the riff of Gangst's Paradise as much.

Eat it is always the one that is indelible in my mind. Like that was the first Weird Al Yankovic Sonic I was introduced to. And that's the one that is stuck in. But I got to say, man, because I saw Weird Al, he did an interview on NPR not too long ago. That is the way that he has come into my life. And he just gave the most lovely answer about, like, being a parent. And he talked about, like, you miss your little kid. But he's like, every year, like, you get this different version of your kid.

You love them. You know, it's just interesting to love this, all these different versions of your kid. You just wish you could have all of them together at one time. And I was like, oh, that's really, it really made me a little for glimped. You know what I'm saying? So I was like, good for, good for Witt out. But, you know, when you said that, that you went to a show, I was like, oh, that's the kind of, the Yakov Samirnoff,

which he's the opening act, it just felt very of the 80s. I've seen both of those people perform this year. I'm going to be honest. You saw Yako Smirnoff? Are you serious? There's a photo on Instagram if you want to see it. That's right.

Oh, that's great. That's great. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But weird all, you know. That's a different tier. He's a different tier. All right.

The press box primary rolls on, Joel. It's time for our special guest. The Hulu original series Furious is coming to Disney Plus, starring Emmy Rossum, Furious follows FBI agent Alice Black on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating serial killer. Both walk their own paths toward justice, and as their lives start to intertwine, the line between right and wrong begins to blur. Don't miss the three-episode premiere of the Hulu original series Furious on July 27th,

only on Hulu on Disney Plus. My name is Peter Parker, but I'm also Spider-Man. This Thursday, We're faced with a threat. That can be anyone. The world may have forgotten Peter Parker. I'm just a neighbor. Friendly neighbor.

But he hasn't forgotten them. Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. That's my responsibility. Talk to Banner? I didn't know you could get that big. Spider-Man, brand-new day in theaters Thursday. Some things are better when they're kept simple, like simply lemonade, made with real lemons and cane sugar,

giving you a fresh, all-natural taste that shines through. in every sip. It's the kind of drink that turns an everyday moment into something a little more special, bright, refreshing, and crafted for people who appreciate the real thing. Visit the chill juice aisle in your local grocery store today and say yes to Simple. All right, Joel, let's welcome in Senator Alyssa Slotkin. She is the soon-to-be senior senator from Michigan. She's here today to talk about the midterms and a bunch of issues. Senator, welcome to the press box. Thanks for having me. So you wound up on Donald Trump's true social page Sunday night.

At 10.32 p.m., the subject was election security. We know Trump likes to claim that Republicans won elections. They actually lost. Are you worried his administration will try to interfere with voting this November? Yeah, I mean, at this point, I don't think it's an issue of worrying. Like, he's telling us, he gave a prime time address last week to lay. out his concerns and to say that basically if my team doesn't win in November, then the system was rigged. And he's building this narrative through speeches, through rules he's trying to change

like the post office by suing 30 states. I mean, he's got a laundry list of things that he's doing to build the story so that if his team doesn't win, then he can claim falsely that it was fraud. So it's not just me. I think it's him. So let's say Trump said, Uniform Military or Law Enforcement to polling places in Detroit in November. And let's say they try to collect ballots or voting machines. What are Democrats prepared to do in that scenario? Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I just participated in a tabletop exercise, which is something we do in military circles

on like different ways that this could go in November to try and be prepared with a legal strategy, communication strategy, kind of a set of actions that we can be ready to take. I think the first thing is just making sure people go to the polls and they don't get scared off. I think it is extremely important to vote and our elections are free and fair. So is mail in voting, you know, making sure you to reassure people ahead of time. Making sure people know the rules around voting and what is legal, what is not legal, particularly when it comes to uniform military, ice, you know, others if they could be deployed to the polls. There's a whole bunch of legal things that you can have prepared to do.

We're doing them now as he sues for our roles. And then understanding what we're asking of people if, you know, things change as we get closer to November, making sure we understand, you know, which groups are ready to help mobilize people to get to the polls. So all that is going on behind the scenes because of the way the president has been flagging on this issue. And, Senator, as you outlined, you're at the forefront of this bipartisan movement to protect the polls.

But I mean, obviously earlier this year, the Supreme Court essentially hollowed out what remained of the voting rights act. And so even before people go to the polls, there's been an effort to dilute their voting power. You can look at me, you can tell I'm black and maybe not from the south, but I'm a southern black guy. I'm from Texas. And I worry very much about our right to vote and if it's a settled matter in this country. What sort of work or effort are you in the Democratic Party doing to ensure that our voting rights aren't in peril anymore than they already are? Yeah, and I think they're gutting of the VRA along with kicking off this gerrymandering war, right? The redrawing of the districts is part and parcel of the same authoritarian playbook that we see play out,

frankly, in lots of other countries abroad. I mean, as a CIA officer, I used to always see this. And I think this is part and parcel of why it's so important to win the elections, because then you get to write the rules. And the truth is, we relied with the VRA, with other really big decisions that affect me. people like Roe v. Wade, we relied on court decisions, and we assumed that we would be safe with the courts kind of acting on our behalf, and that's just not accurate. So legislation is required to clean up, and frankly, like, Trump-proof, whoever comes after Trump, whoever's going to run in the future. You know, we never want another president to be able to just say, you know, I'm going to railroad over our norms and standards. So the VRA and protections, particularly

for minority boarding, for people getting access to the polls. I mean, Texas, talk about a place that knows how to bend the rules so that it disenfranchises voters. I don't think you can literally register to vote in Texas like six weeks before the election, right? They really, so there are different ways to skew an outcome, and I think you need to literally trump-proof our laws so that this cannot happen again. Senator, let's talk about the midterms. what's the case for Chuck Schumer being the right person to lead the Democrats in the Senate after November? Well, look, I mean, I think I've been pretty vocal for a long time now. I mean, going back to Biden's time,

that we just, the country is clamoring for a new generation of leadership in the House and the Senate and the White House. And I take guff for this every single time I say it. But I think it couldn't be more clear whether you're in Kansas or Manhattan or Texas that that's what people are looking for, a new generation, and then someone who's got some big and bold ideas. And I don't think this is about, like, moderate versus progressive or socialist versus pragmatist or anything. I think it's about, like, who actually sees that people are living lives that are harder than their parents and they're looking at their kids and worried for their kids' future, and who's going to actually, like, be able to communicate effectively big and bold ideas. And if people don't meet the moment, whoever they are, then this is not their time.

And we need another generation to come in and take up the mantle. And so, you know, I think that's been my feeling long before I got to the Senate. And it's still my feeling today. So that's somebody other than Chuck Schumer, in other words. I think, again, leaders in these positions are going to either have to hear what's going on in the country and meet the moment, or they should step aside and let people come in and fill that. space. And that's the struggle that's going on across the Democratic Party right now, across the big institutions, things like the DNC and other stuff. It's not just one person.

But man, that struggle is real and it's happening. Senator, you've actually made an endorsement in the Democratic primary for your former House seat just a couple of weeks ago. But you declined to make one in the Senate primary, and I'm not going to press you to do it unless you want to go ahead and do it here for us. So I'm here on the press box. But why not? Like, why, why aren't you doing that? Because obviously you have a voice here that matters. Yeah. I mean, look, I think it's been typically our tradition in Michigan that elected leaders don't get involved in contested primaries. That's sort of our tradition. When I ran in 2024, the two sitting senators did not endorse me. And so it's just

kind of our way. But also, if you've watched even two minutes of the primary that's gone on in Michigan, it's pretty tough, pretty nasty, pretty back and forth, a lot of back and forth online. So for me, what I feel like I can help do in 12 days, or, you know, I think we have 12 days before the primary, is the day after really help sponsor a unity breakfast and start to bring people back together. I think it has been tough. And regardless of what happens, we need to get prepared and think about November. And I think that's an important role that I play in my state. Right. And you've talked about it being messier than you would have liked, right? Like you're like how difficult it's been there. But I'm just going to ask, don't you think in some

ways that this is good that there's this contesting of ideas, even if it's like it gets a little ugly down the stretch that this is actually what Democrats need to this contest of ideas and the direction of the party, right? Oh, I have no problem with the contest of ideas. That's good. That's how our system is built. Like, we should be like absolutely passionate about things we believe even like push and pull on each other. What I don't like is petty, like just insults, you know, like talking about appearance or, you know, hitting people over nothing of substance and just style. That to me, I don't need. And Michiganders, I think, in general, you know, we are a swing state. We're always a competitive place. There's always a spotlight on us. So we're very used to that.

keep it about ideas and not about, you know, petty insults to people, and we're better for that. So the Democrats have had primaries across the country with various levels of messiness. Do you think the party needs a unified message in November? I mean, look, I don't think there's anyone who feels like the Democrats have been hitting it out of the park, you know, since Trump got elected, right? I think we have to be honest, like, we're not hiding this from anybody. we've been on our heels and we're still like figuring out what the path forward is. People are watching that in real time. I think, again, if you go and listen to people, like I spend a lot of time in the Midwest,

I'm a Midwesterner, if you just give people the microphone for about eight seconds, they will tell you what they care about. They think that they're not able to achieve the American dream and that their kids are going to be worse off than them. And that's if you're an auto worker in Flint or you're a recent college graduate it coming out of our best fanciest institutions. Like that theme is real. And the government that came before was not serving them, was not helping them set up for success, and they feel like they can't get ahead. That to me, like hitting that existential issue of whether you can live

the American dream in the United States of America should unify a Midwestern Democrat with a Southern Democrat with a Manhattan Democrat. And in many ways, that's what people are all talking about. They can have different solutions per your comment before. Like, we have different ideas of how to fix the system. But man, can we agree that that is the existential problem and move from there? And, you know, as someone who worked at the Department of Defense and, you know, you work as a team if you want to be effective. So I'm interested in leaders who can have very different ideas for me, but who understand the problem, the existential problem we're trying to solve is that American dream in the United States of America.

Just to follow up on that, you talked about looking for leaders and whatever, is there a kind of person that you have in mind then? Like, is there anyone that you look at and you say, you know what, we need more of that in the Democratic Party? Like, look, I think, I think that there is, like, I really am a believer that there's not a one-size-fits-all, that you got to have people who represent their areas, their district, their state, their city. So, you know, I may not agree with Mr. Mamdani and the mayor of New York, but I can at least acknowledge just as an open, normal person that he's captured the popular imagination. He's a great communicator, and he's picking up on this desire for a new generation and people willing to try new things. It may not work in all

corners of the country, his ideas, but I can respect. I mean, like, game respects game, you know, And my issue is don't just complain about people who have different views on policy from you. Like, don't wring your hands and say, oh, like, compete, right? What are your big, bold ideas? How are you communicating those things? And I think that's a healthy thing for the Democratic Party and let those ideas compete against each other. But so it's not there, as there's any one leader, the person who's going to win in New Mexico is going to look different than the person who wins in Manhattan. As a Michigander, you know, did I say that right?

Michigana? Michiganer. Michigan. Okay, Michigan. I already get that right. We know that your state is pivotal because the winning candidate in the presidential election is won Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin in the last five elections, right? So what, but what is it about Michigan that makes it so divided politically?

Like, you're someone who's won four statewide elections there by very narrow margins. Like, it's not like there's been landslide. So, like, what does it take to win Michigan? Why is it the way that it is? Yeah, I won one state-wide election. The other three were congressional, just to be straight about it. So this is what I love about Michigan. We are just an independently minded group of people. You know, we are diverse in terms of rural, suburban, and urban. We are diverse racially. We have big immigrant populations. We have people who have very different views. Often your neighbor has very different views from you.

Often, Thanksgiving dinner has become uncomfortable because families don't share the same political views. When I was growing up, my dad was a lifelong Republican, my mom a lifelong Democrat. It was no big deal back then, right? We were more likely to fight Michigan versus Michigan State than Democrat versus Republican. And then over the years, it's gotten harder, nastier. And places like Michigan, actually that we can't stand that. We can't stand that politics is interrupting, you know, soccer game for at the local high school. So I, I just, I think we're a diverse state because we've

got a lot of people with a lot of different backgrounds and experiences. And I think that's a good thing. I think that makes us healthy and makes us competitive. It means no one party gets to just dominate the state. And I will just say, I think it creates different types of leaders. When I came to the Senate, I'm a freshman now, right? And you come into the Senate. And when I got here, people were like, oh, you're part of planet 10. And I said, what the heck is planet 10? And they said, well, there's 47 Democrats. 37 out of the 47 are from like true blue states. They're always going to be democratic states. And 10 of you are from purple or red states. And you guys live on different planets. You talk different. You work on different things. You think about problems differently. You're on

planet 10. They're on planet 37. And I think that's actually, that is often true. I have to, I have to think about a broad range of people when I'm making decisions on bills and what to focus on. So I'm glad I'm from Planet 10. It keeps your sword pretty sharp. Senator, two questions about recent events in the Middle East. Yesterday, Donald Trump announced a deal with Saudi Arabia that might let the Saudis enrich nuclear fuel. Then he came back this morning and said, hey, no, the deal hinges on Saudi Arabia normalizing relations with Israel. What do you make up both parts of that story? So I think there's a thing going on right now across the Middle East where the Iran war is dragging on a lot longer than this president wants or thought. And the consequences are being paid

by the American public in the price of gas, the price of fertilizer, but also like the military consequences are being felt not just by U.S. forces and our bases in the region, but those countries where they're located. So Jordan, UAE, Saudi. I mean, all these states are literally taking incoming fire and military operations from the Iranians. And we're seeing the president kind of try and smooth that over by offering deals. Advanced AI chips to UAE, a new trade deal with Jordan, nuclear potential nuclear energy for Saudi Arabia. That was a huge announcement yesterday for those of us who are Middle East specialists by training. like that's been a huge question on the table for a long time. Is Saudi Arabia going to get a

nuclear capability? And the president tried to make that deal with the Saudis. And my guess is that the Israelis said, excuse me, what? You're letting who get what? And intervened. But honestly, it still kind of amazes me that this is how we do diplomacy right now. It's like diplomacy by Twitter that they hadn't thought one step ahead and hadn't had this conference. as a just a national security team before they made the announcement. It just shows how fast and loose the president is working, particularly because of this war. You know, and a big part of this war has been Israel's role in it. And that's occurring as American public opinion on Israel has hit record lows.

And so in April, you know, someone, and you described yourself as a Zionist in the past, at least, you've supported two resolutions opposing cells of military equipment to Israel. And you talked about how few issues have been as, and you said, all painful and personal is that one. What exactly has spurred this re-evaluation of Israel's military needs for you? I think for me it was just a strong feeling that Bibi Netanyahu and those around him were making military policy that I just could not support and that was being punitive on humanitarian concerns. This started over a year ago for me, was my first time that I voted that way. And that whatever military operations he was pursuing,

whether it was in Gaza or other places, I just could not, as someone who had served three tours in Iraq, watched the United States of America in combat against terrorist groups in, you know, in, you know, Arab countries, I just could not justify the weaponizing of humanitarian assistance, the abuse of some of the rules of war, things that we could not do as the United States of America and I saw in real time. So for that reason, I voted that way and started talking about it in different terms because it crossed a threshold for me, frankly, 2025 was the first time it really crossed that threshold for me. Would you say that Netanyahu and Israel are executing a genocide there?

You know, I think that there is, it is a military, now at this point, a military campaign that has had significant violations of humanitarian law, law of war, and resulted in thousands of innocent deaths with targeting of facilities such as hospitals, and other places that go beyond any response even to egregious events like October 7th. And whether that's a massive sort of conversation about the right, sort of the responsibilities of war, or not it created thousands of deaths that didn't need to happen. And I think that's now been acknowledged. Elsewhere in the Middle East, Senator, the U.S. and Iran have been trading strikes in recent days.

The Houthis have apparently attacked ships in the Red Sea. What do you want the administration to do regarding Iran now? Look, I mean, I think the options on what to do with Iran are difficult. They're bad options. You can either continue what you're doing, which is at this point, I think, 11 or 12 straight nights of significant military operations back and forth. You can do what's called escalate to deescalate, like double and triple down on the military campaign,

the United States military campaign. And the president has certainly been signaling, like he's bringing more force into the Middle East. He's refusing to rule out ground troops. Like you escalate the war in order to get the Iranians to relent. Or you just say, you know, I'm done with this war. you cut an even worse deal that leaves the Iranians with a veto over the Strait of Hormuz. None of those options are good. But I think at this point, the Iranians have really come into their

power. They really are feeling themselves. And particularly their veto over the Strait of Hormuz. And so nothing's, I'm not seen anything to indicate that the Iranians are going to give up if we just do more similar military operations. So all investment should be made. in the negotiating team in getting the right people in the room, including some of our military leaders who actually understand the military side of this, not just, you know, a few folks who are, you know, friendly with the president and gone and sent to negotiate and focus on that. And that's going to have to be, I mean, ironically, I think what the Iranians are looking for is largely what they were given in 2015 through the deal that Obama struck, that Trump

tore up. But they don't trust us now because we tore up that agreement. So I acknowledge that it is a difficult negotiating situation. All of these things were knowable ahead of launching this war. This was not some unknown. The Strait of Hormuz is discussed in Middle East 101 when you take it in college. And the Iranians demands on what they would ask for in a war were as known as anything thing in national security. So this is a war we should not have gotten into. And now we are

faced with very, very difficult options. When I ask you about Trump's self-enrichment before we go, what struck you about those financial disclosures earlier this month? I think it's, I think it's breathtaking how much money President Trump has made, him and his sons, his family included. I think it's hard to separate. They are literally like milking, Macau that is the United States of America. And I think the scale of it is so profound that it's almost like hard to figure out what to do about it. From what we understand, the president is literally when they host people in the White House, if they want, let's say, out of a tariff, right? They're like, they're frustrated with a tariff that they have on their industry. They'll say,

please, Mr. President and team, can we get out of this tariff? And it's like, well, either buy the cryptocurrency or invest in the ballroom, you know, donate to my campaign. It's literally a trade on his role in order to help some of these businesses save their industries. That is, to me, so beyond the pale. And I think my big message is we know that the Supreme Court has basically given the president largely a free pass on illegal things that he does. But my message is the people around him have no such immunity. And I think that there will be accountability for people who milk taxpayer dollars, who dupe supporters into donating and buying things like their cryptocurrency that comeuppets happens for everybody. And so bad corrupt behavior is bad corrupt behavior.

Just because you're not getting held accountable right now doesn't mean you won't in the future. It's funny because that $2.2 billion figure is so big that I think perversely it almost becomes harder for voters to get their minds around it. What is the message you can use to explain it to them? The United States of America is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. And we have a president who is using it as his own feeding trough. And taking his cut, using his position to demand. money from people and institutions for his own self-aggrandizing. And it will change forever, I believe, how we hem in future presidents, because if we keep doing

this, we just won't have a country, right? Corruption seeps down into the meat. And while that number is so big and so far away for so many people, what we've seen when people use this authoritarian playbook is eventually corruption starts working its way down into the states, into normal people's lives, where you can't get a bridge done unless you bribe, you know, someone from the administration, you can't open a business or get a liquor license, like it eventually seeps down to the meat of America. And when people in their own lives can't get ahead unless they, you know, pay off some local person, that's when you see radical change.

what happened literally, just happened in the country of Hungary in these last elections. We had a leader who milked his state for hundreds of thousands, billions, billions of dollars, him and his friends, his eccentric billionaire friends, and eventually it seeped down into the provinces, and people just said, hell no, and they kicked him out after 12 years. This will be my final question, at least. So, Senator, you're the senator on planet 10, maybe the most purple state in the country. You're going to be the senior senator from there in a few months. Been a high-profile critic of Trump. You've got the profile of someone that people might think should run for a higher office here.

So would you like to right now here on the press box, break the news, and announce your 2028 run? Because you talked about it. You said you haven't ruled it out in the past. So, I mean, maybe you've had a chance to reevaluate. Yes. I appreciate you giving me the platform to make a job. giant announcement. I will not be taking you up on that. I haven't ruled it out. It doesn't have to be me, but I think, again, the tectonic plates of America are shifting in our politics. We know it.

We can feel it under our feet. And I think in that environment, we need some strong leadership. It can be me. It can be someone else, too, but I haven't ruled it out. All right, Senator Alyssa Slotkin. She's a Mishagander. We know how to pronounce that now. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much for coming on the press box. Appreciate it.

Thanks, guys. All right, that is the press box. He's Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis. Produxy Magic by Isaiah Blakely and John Jones. We got more press box next week, Joel. Really? We do.

Oh, yeah, the news ain't stopping. I'm sorry to... Even though I'm not going to be here? We're going to miss you. We're going to miss you. I'll tell you what we have in yourself. stead next week. Okay. Shoemaker and I are going to be here on Monday instead of Tuesday.

We're going to do some news, but we also have the July issue, which involves David Shoemaker's brand new book. Okay. A brand new book from Harper Collins. Here we go. It's already ready. You got a copy, huh? All right.

Why Hulk Hogan matters. Man, I want to get a copy of that. What's up? Dave, what's up, man? We'll make sure David gets you a copy. Yeah. The book is fantastic. I finally got to read it this week.

It's great. We had a great, long discussion in person. Probably the first in-person pod, Dave and I had done a really, really long time. But we got to talk all about this guy who had this five-decade journey through American life. There was an 80s version. There was a 90s version. There was a much darker and uglier version in the 2000s. A year before his death, he's speaking at the RNC and tearing his shirt off when he's talking about Donald Trump surviving an assassination attempt.

What a fascinating figure of David. David did such a great job capturing him in this book. As a former Hokka Maniac, it didn't last for long. Okay, it didn't last until about dope here. But as a former Hokka Maniac, I can't wait to read it. All right, so that's coming Monday. And then a special guest in the New York studio. New York Month continues.

We'll let that be revealed next week. Joel, I will see you when you're back with more lukewarm takes about the media. Looking forward to it, buddy.