The Press Box - Will the TV Networks Lose Election Night? Plus, Politico’s Jake Sherman.

Episode Date: October 29, 2020

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker break down the predictions, reactions, and coverage we might see from TV networks and media on election night (4:00). Then on Listener Mail, they answer the question “Who else will get an exclusive interview with the president with a week until election day?” (27:00) Then Politico’s Jake Sherman joins to discuss Politico’s Playbook newsletter and much more (47:00). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David, a bunch of Donald Trump fans got stranded on a tarmac in Omaha and Nebraska this week, where after a Trump rally that was held late at night, there were no buses to take them back to their cars. What I want to know is what is the worst event exiting experience you've ever had? Anything at MetLife Stadium. That's where the Giants used to play, right? That was my answer. Oh, sorry. That's where the Giants still play.

I thought they moved or something. I'm like that crazy? That is the worst place in the world. I feel like, did we go there to, no, no, no. You and I went to Aizod Stadium one time where the Nets used to play. Didn't we do a thing at Aizade? And you just, I mean, that's another one where you walk out and you're like, I don't know where I'm supposed to catch my bus and I think I might die.

I did. There was one time where I actually did not have a bad experience, but many others did. I went to go see WrestleMania 28 in Miami. which was at what Sun Life Stadium. I think now it's called Hard Rock Stadium. But they, I was there solo. And I was, I was, I left my hotel to go, I asked the guy, you know, the guy at the hotel lobby to like to get me a taxi.

And I went and after like 10 minutes, he was like, there's no taxis. And I was like, okay, can I call a car service? And he gave me a couple numbers. He tried to call or whatever. There was no cars. He said, walk over to the main road. That's where the cars are. I walked over to the main road and just saw,

I mean, it was just lined with wrestling fans and like the full regalia. Some wearing T-shirt, some wear in costumes, but just mobs of wrestling fans trying to catch taxis. There was no way this is going to, and this was going to happen. And so finally, I just called someone that I knew in Miami and offered them like a dinner in the future

if they would give me a ride, and thankfully they did, and it worked out. And I got the, you know, the drive was bumper to bumper the whole way. I got there anyway. Long story short, about, as the main, main event, which was the Rock versus John Sina, started at, at WrestleMania 28, I started getting incredibly anxious about leaving. And so I got up and, and by the way, everybody,

at WrestleMania, people tailgate and stuff. So it's like people were arriving from noon until 8 p.m. Right? And still there were no taxis to go. And everybody now was trying to leave at the exact same time. So I left at the beginning of the main event, found the exit, and then walked into the entrance, walked into a tunnel and just watched the main event standing up in the tunnel next to some like event staff. And then as soon as it was over, as soon as the bell rang,

I sprinted out, sprinted all the way to the taxi line, dove in the first taxi and just said, go, go, go. And then I got back no trouble at all. And then I got back to the hotel, turned on the news and there was like police called to the theater and people were being sprayed with fire hoses

because they were getting into fights over taxis to leave the place. Whoa. It was like, it was an incredible mess. But anyway, that, that was the way. That's a very long story. Yeah. That I didn't actually get troubled by. Our sympathies to everyone in Omaha.

Yeah. And next time, follow David's advice. As soon as Trump starts insulting the media or starts saying that the polls are all rigged, just sprint for the bus. Just go, run and beat the crowd out. Coming up on the show today is election night a sacred ritual of democracy or a really cool TV? show. We're going to answer your listener mail. Plus Politico reporter Jake Sherman, all that more on the press box, a part of the ringer podcast network. Hello, media consumers, Brian Curtis and David

Shoemaker here. David, I wanted to start with a little clip from Donald Trump. There's some Marine One helicopter noise in the background, but listen to him talk about his expectations when he flips on the TV on Tuesday night. It would be very, very proper and very nice if a winner were to be. planned on November 3rd instead of counting ballots for two weeks which is totally inappropriate and I don't believe that that's by our laws. I don't believe that

so we'll see what happens. I thought we could use that David as a segue to talk about election night TV. Okay. Because there's this tension as they're not between letting all the votes be counted letting democracy

have room to breathe and making election night into a TV show. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've talked about this a little bit before, but I think that, that, I mean, that is the central tension. I don't think there's anybody in any, you know, production meeting suggesting that, you know, at MSNBC or CNN or Fox suggesting that they take Tuesday night off just to make sure that, you know, they only come on with the most well-grounded reactions, you know, when all the votes are actually going to be counted. But I'd be very interested to know what the conversations they are having sound like, right? Because the nothing in the

playbook, or I'll just say this, it's conceivable that the entire election night TV playbook gets thrown out the window at about 8 p.m. Oh, I think so. Absolutely. I mean, I think in their heart of hearts, if you asked, not the network news divisions, because they would, they would say, we'll cover this thing right until we have a winner. But if you ask like the network president maybe. The ideal would be to have election night coverage start at like 8 p.m. Eastern go about three or four hours. And right before midnight, when everybody in the East Coast is losing steam, a winner is declared. Yeah. And then you have a concession speech and a winner speech. And it's a tidy four, four and a half hour package. So only one problem with that is reporter

Walter Shapiro tweets, reminder that in this century, only the two Obama elections were called on election night. Both 2004 and 2016 were called on a Wednesday, and 2000 was called in December. So just going by that, there are very, let us say, better than decent odds that we're not going to have a winner, at least within the eastern time zone pre-midnight hour. What people are used to perceiving as elections being called a lot of the time are the networks making calls, right? The networks, the pollsters, the people who do this sort of data crunching for the networks make the call, right? I mean, the news department, whatever, the desk makes a call. That's not the election being decided.

That's not an official pronouncement of who the winner is. And especially, I mean, talking about this century, since 2000, the networks have been much more reluctant. to make those calls, right? And I think on a night, like the one we're quickly approaching, it'll be interesting to see how much confidence, how much security, you know, how much confidence that networks feel about their own, their own data, their own data operations to even be, to be predicting anything at all short of a, you know, formal proclamation. Okay, so the big, the big moment you're talking about where everything changes is 2000. Right.

Where they call Florida for Al Gore and then they have to retract the call. And that sort of scares everybody at the network level. But then there's this other thing that happens, right? Whereas it's the rise of the number cruncher on election night. Because it would have been really weird to go back in time 10 or 20 years and imagine that Steve Kornacki and John King would be the MVP's on the election set. Yeah. Not the political wise men and women and the news anchors and stuff like that. But at some point, everyone on the set.

and us at home has to turn to Kornacki and be like, that is the only guy who really understands what's going on here. Yeah. We have to pay attention to him. And the whole show is based on his reading of the numbers. And he's the only one who can start saying, guys, it looks like Joe Biden is going to win Pennsylvania. Or you can start being fairly sure that Joe Biden is going to win Pennsylvania. And everything hinges on that. Yeah.

That's a huge change in TV. Well, and listen, I mean, no disrespect to Kornacki. and his ilk, but, you know, there's also an entire data operation going on behind the scenes, right, that is feeding them the information that they need to know. I mean, we everybody, I think, remembers or if not, you know, go to YouTube, Megan Kelly's famous walk from the news desk on Fox News to their, to their data room, data desk, I don't even know what to call it. And there was a great profile of the guy that runs that department not too long ago, which I guess I could look up and not be speaking so vaguely. But yeah, I mean, even what we're seeing,

the kind of glorification of the data of the of the data you know guy or gal on TV relies on a whole lot of other algorithms running in the back right I mean and and and then but that is clearly layered with a certain some level of decision from the people in charge as to what what degree we're going to go with it right I mean how what does it take for us to say it confidently on the air Arnman Michkin is the name of the director of the Fox News decision desk But yeah, you're right. That was the point because remember, the whole Megan Kelly Walk was preceded by Carl Rove. Exactly the kind of political wise man I'm talking about saying, I don't know. Are we calling this too soon for Barack Obama over Mitt Romney? And Megan Kelly walks back there and Numbers guy, which is who you're talking about, goes, no, not really. We're really confident in this, right?

We know we know something about the nature of this election that you don't. And by the way, you know who else is a fan of the number crunchers? Donald Trump, because listen to this riff about 2016 that he made earlier in the week. And they go, Donald Trump has just won the state of Ohio, but here was the problem. One by eight points. This was not like that was like the biggest victory. They couldn't believe it. And they said, there's something going on here, but I'm sure this is just,

remember with the hand John King the hand shaking Donald Trump does not trust the numbers but he remembers very clearly when CNN's numbers guy John King declared him the winner of Ohio so of course the other tension here David is Donald Trump

because he has been saying as you heard in that earlier clip that he thinks the winner should be announced on election night that votes should that it were sent mostly by absentee ballots or mail ballots should not count if they come in past a certain day. And I feel there are two parts of that.

One is obviously Trump is trying to suppress monkey with craft the vote to his advantage. But number two, Donald Trump is to also, is also to some extent a TV watcher. Is he not? He is a creature of television. Oh, for sure, for sure. And, you know, Donald Trump is used to TV where at the end of the hour, someone gets fired on the apprentice. I think somewhere in Donald Trump's mind, it's like, well, look, this is going to last

till midnight, and then at midnight, either I'm going to get fired or Joe Biden's going to get fired. Yes, it's highly unlikely anyone will get fired or hired or whatever at the end of the hour. Although, you know, one hand doesn't have to be too conspiratorially minded to imagine that someone who's so, you know, good at television could, would be interested in writing his own ending to the night. I mean, it's not, it's not, you know, if he's, if he's up in the, if he's up in the vote count in Pennsylvania, you know, 11 p.m. on Tuesday. And he goes out and gives an acceptance speech. I mean, that changes the narrative moving forward incredibly, even if it's transparent.

So we should be worried about that, just generally speaking, because that's a really bad outcome. but should we be worried about anybody believing that kind of declaration other than the people who want to believe it? You mean, from a media side or just a general government, I mean, just a general being American side? Well, like Donald Trump preemptively declaring himself the winner of the election based on some random point in the night where he decides, okay, that's enough. I've won because I'm ahead at this point.

That's a bad thing. Are people really going to believe that? I mean, I feel like we've spent the last three weeks talking, like, as a media talking about that and basically warning people about that. So at what point does anybody, well, he said he won? I don't know. Or is it just going to be, ah, literally than everyone else in the media, even though that guy at the Fox News decision desk says Donald Trump has not won the election yet. So is that going to be something? A lot of his writing on the Fox News decision desk, as always, or just Fox News presentation in general. You know, it'll be interesting to see the amount of people who are, I mean, you know, the amount of Americans who are still getting, you know, still getting their news even from these mainstream sources, because I'm sure there'll be some outlets, like the ones the president, you know, promotes on his Twitter feed that that will be filled with disinformation. I don't know. I mean, do we have to worry about it? I mean, I think that if, I honest to God believe that if, regardless of what Trump does, well, we saw that the Supreme Court decided not to step in on the, yet at least on the issue of like vote counting you know the vote counting the vote deadline in pennsylvania and in other states but pennsylvania is still separating out

the votes that come in after 8 p.m. on election night right because they want to make sure that if something is if it's thrown into question in the future they have everything divvied up well presumably then those numbers will be available and if for whatever reason that Pennsylvania becomes the state that matters and trump is ahead in the first chunk of votes, then that data will be out there, and you'll have a huge chunk of America that regardless of whether or not

they believe the final number, regardless of whether or not they accept the results, will continue to believe that here is the literal proof that Trump won the election, right? Even though you've chosen to abide by different rules, but this is a different, they're operating in a different sort of universe than everybody else.

That's what we deal with every day here. I mean, it's not like, and more often than not, you and I would say those people broadly defined are wrong, but, you know, we're not, no one's really, we're not operating from the same principles, I guess. Well, and I guess that gets to my question is, is we recognize that universally as being very dangerous to democracy to somebody to falsely declare that they won an election. But I just wonder if the forces of actual information versus the forces of misinformation, if, the forces of misinformation, if. there are so many more people in column A than in column B that that will be seen as anything other than a stunt or something silly and false by the large amount of American people, right? Because both things could happen.

Donald Trump could declare that he's won the election, declare this massive voter fraud, declare whatever he wants, and Joe Biden can still win the election and become president in January. Yeah, yeah. In fact, that's probably a fairly likely scenario. I'm more, I guess, I guess maybe irrationally, but I personally am more concerned with all the Americans who won't accept the verdict, even if Trump, then I am with Trump just like refusing to leave his seat. If Trump loses. I mean, I just, I just think, I just think that that's,

I think that there's, it's practically a little bit more easy, a little bit simpler to get, you know, an illegitimate president to leave the, the premises than it is to reconvents hundreds of thousands of misinformed people. Have you seen how the warnings about misinformation on election night have filter down to America's children. The Atlantic's Edward Isaac DeVier posted this tutorial from the children's educational site Brain Pop. It's not familiar with this. It's not on my kids'

radar. But listen to how clearly this whole problem is explained to the kids. An early lead on election night doesn't guarantee a win. So if any candidate is claiming early victory, be skeptical. That goes for

new sources too. Remember that some commentators may want a particular candidate to win, and media outlets more aligned with one party could be quick to draw conclusions about who won. If that gets shared around enough, it could create a false narrative and damage the public trust in the election. So could we have Rachel Maddow just read a slightly less kindergarten teacher voice of that on the news every night between now and Tuesday? I mean, I think the people are watching Reggie Matta are pretty, you know, comfortable. Yeah. Can we get him on board?

Yeah, I mean. Can Martha McCallum read that? I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. Listen, I think that I have no doubt that all of the networks, including Fox, are going to come on on election night, fully prepared to explain this at the front end and as the night goes on, right? That there is, there are a lot of votes to be counted. I think that the real state of play is how well they, you know, explain the ongoing Supreme Court potential, you know, potential litigation that might follow. It's going to get really messy. I don't, I mean, I think, well, it could get really messy. And I think that it's a much bigger story, both looking back and looking forward, than could possibly be encapsulated on election night. So it's, it is a, it's a difficult job. Let's hope they're up for it.

To that point, here is 538's Gailen Droke talking with Dan Merkel. Dan Merkel is the guy who runs the decision desk at ABC News. Here he talks about how long the whole process is going to take. Do you think it would be possible to project an overall winner on election night without results from Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania? I think that would be very difficult. I just, you know, again, nothing's impossible. And at the D desk, we're prepared for anything. but it seems likely that if we're not able to project those,

we'd have to have to wait on the overall. Because the way we project the president is, you know, it really is when someone gets a 270 electoral vote. So it's not like we're modeling it and saying, well, we think one of the candidates will get there. We actually have to have the states projected, added up to the 270 in order to have a winner. So are you going into election night then thinking that you won't project an overall winner

on November 3rd? or in the early hours of November 4th? Well, like I said, you know, I think it's a distinct possibility, but I'm not going to say never because I don't want to set that expectation. You know, we've seen unexpected things happen before. So it's possible, but not probable. I love the term D-desk. Gives an Avengers-style feel to a bunch of nerdy guys and gals sitting in a back room at ABC News.

Yeah, totally. true. But listen, for that night, possibly for that entire week, the people at those various desks will be the biggest superheroes or the, you know, the biggest pop culture stars in our country. You know, I mean, it's like a, it's like the jury of a, you know, mega trial or something. I mean, these are the people who are going to be, they're just, you know, they're just running numbers, but they're going to be seen as the people who are, you know, counting the votes or, you know, Beyond that, even like, you know, voting themselves. Before we get out of here, can I give you my top four types of articles you're going to read between now and Tuesday night?

Oh, please. Number one, 9,000 new Trump investigations. I think you pointed this out an email. Is everybody just trying to beat the deadline? Like, well, we got one more scandal here. Can we get this out before Tuesday? there were like three today that I hadn't even I had just seen like the the tweet and hadn't even had a chance to read yet that was kind of amazing number two the scare the shit out of

the liberal story this is a time honor just absolutely time honored genre I saw one there was one in the New York Times op-ed page which was essentially about can we trust Pennsylvania's polls that was a title and the evidence was I don't know I'm walking around Pennsylvania and it doesn't seem like Joe Biden's going to win. It really doesn't matter whether that story's wrong or right. It's seemingly sole purpose is just to freak out resistance Twitter. Oh, yeah. Watching Nate Silver, watching all these people, it's like, oh, my God.

What is going to happen? Did you read that article in the New York Times? There's freak out of resistance Twitter. And there's also, I mean, this is kind of the same thing, but part and parcel. But the more that you like engage in media, ethics Twitter. The more people that you get arguing over whether or not the piece is justified and running in the first place, it seems

like, it does seem like there's a crass advantage, or that you reap some reward for just freaking out. I mean, just having people asking whether or not you should have published the piece. Absolutely. Absolutely. Especially doubt because everyone's

on edge. Number three really isn't a type of article. It's more of a TV interview, which is people on CNN or MSNB cutting off interviews with Trump spokespersons because they are saying fake things on the air. There have been like two Jake Tapper

versions of this, I feel, in the last couple weeks. Hallie Jackson on NBC had one. That's it. I may have given you another 30 seconds to a minute before, but now here in the apparently waning days of the Trump administration, I'm done. Cut off. I'm sorry. We have to move on.

do you think they're going to add a few extra seconds to the delay so that they can just cut off people from the Trump campaign if this becomes super problematic? That's a good. We're going to do prop bets on Monday. And I think sacrificial lamb of a Trump spokesperson that comes out to talk on election night while Donald is watching TV. That's a great bet. It would be pretty amazing if Trump declared victory. or kind of I guess he doesn't have to for this to work,

but it would be great if he declared victory. And every pro-Trump talking head that they got on TV after that was coming, was coming live from the Trump victory party. So there's just confetti falling in the background and they're just running the camera pumping their fist and screaming.

Uh-huh. That would be a really, really wild move. You hear those little whistles that everyone has on New Year's Eve in the background? Yes. It's just the same five people walking back and forth over and over again, but they try to make it look like there's a giant party going on. Number four in my list,

and this is more of a personal thing, David, but reporters who put the I voted sticker on and then take a picture of themselves for social media. Go on. I don't like when social media content is laundered as a public good. Right. if you want the Instagram photo, Facebook, whatever photo of yourself,

knock yourself out. I'm not going to worry about that. But putting on the I voted secret, I'm just encouraging everyone out there to do their civic duty. Come on. Come on. If you hadn't voted that day,

you would just take it another picture. You would have found something else to put on Instagram. Mm-hmm. So don't wander, your social media strategy as your civic duty. I'm sick of it.

All right, David, time with the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time send your nominees to At the Press Box Pod where they are always gratefully received. On Tuesday, David, Kim Kardashian gave the world its most mock tweet quoting after two weeks of multiple health screens

and asking everyone to quarantine, I surprised my closest inner circle with a trip to a private island where we could pretend things were normal just for a brief moment in time. Lots of people posting pictures from Jurassic Park, from Luke Skywalker's Island and the Last Jedi, from Castaway, and my favorite from the island of Dr. Moreau, starring Marlon Brando from a couple of years ago. Thanks to Don Steele and Sugar Lemon for that one. next up David, remember Anonymous?

He wrote a New York Times op-ed, later a book. I remember, yeah. Well, he has unmasked himself. He is Miles Taylor,

a Department of Homeland Security official. A number of jokes, including posting pictures of Joe Klein, the anonymous author of primary colors back in 1996. Another one said, the big reveal is that it turns out anonymous was you all along. And I enjoyed this from DJJ.

of CNN. The return of Anonymous has big 2020 season finale energy in the television show of life. Thanks to everyone who sent that in. And finally, David, there has been a rash of 11th hour sports endorsements in the presidential race. Golfer Jack Nicholas came out for Trump. And now so has former NFL quarterback Jay Cutler. Jay Culler. It was an overword Twitter joke to write, yeah, but there's like a 50% chance Biden intercepts the endorsement and returns it for a touchdown. Thanks to JMT. If you reminded us that Jay Cutler is also bad at politics, congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week.

Time for the notebook dump, Mr. Shoemaker. All right. And let us do a little listener mail. On Monday, we were 80s spawning to Chris Almeida, who DJ Casey Kasem was, famous voice from the top 40. but as Scott Mincer, Roger Simon, or Simone, an XMFX note, we completely whiffed on mentioning that Casey Kasem

was also the voice of Shaggy in the Scooby-Doo cartoons. I was about to say it, but I felt a little bit like I was shouting into the abyss at that point. Like I was not confident that Chris would have any idea who those people were either, so I was happy to move on. You were terrified Chris was going to say, wait, what's Scooby-Doo?

Yeah. Tony Adame, David, wants us to address the Jeffrey Tubin issue. We really didn't get a chance to address Tubin Gate. Oh, man. It sort of happened right after a pod and we were doing something else.

But anyway, if you have not spent one second on media Twitter, last week, the New Yorker writer, Jeffrey Tubin, was suspended following what is now known as the Zoom Dick incident. Thank God Jim's not here to clip that out. First reported advice, The gist is that New Yorker writers and WNYC producers were on a Zoom call doing an election simulation, which has still not been explained to my satisfaction.

Various reporters were playing different people and different organizations, including Jalani Cobb as establishment Democrats. Also, Dexter Filkins playing the military. I don't even understand what that is. Anyway, while the Democrats and Republicans were in breakout sessions, Tubans, here's how the New York Times described it anyway, quote, switched to a second call that was the video call equivalent of phone sex. And then he appeared somewhat exposed on camera. He's not allowed to work with WNYC, a source-told Vice and has taken leave from CNN. David, what do we do about this?

I think you can probably toss the election simulation results out the window. I mean, nobody's head could have been in the game for the second half of that. It truly was. If you're going to cast doubt on any election, it's the New Yorker's election simulation um listen i i don't i don't know what to say i mean i can't imagine a story that's more perfect for this moment in time just in terms of uh electrifying twitter and and sort of catching everybody's attention both because of

the well i mean it's a it's a work zoom call it's about the election it's sex or, you know, self-sex, whatever you want to categorize that as. This has everything you would want, short of like Donald Trump talking shit about LeBron James to kind of captivate the entire media landscape right now. You know, you get past the first round of dunking and joke making, and it, you know, it becomes a sort of sad story, right? I mean, and I think that for, I don't know, for how many people it's identifiable, but it's, you know, there's, there's not a lot of, there's not a lot of, like, second tier humor there, right? I mean, it's just sort of problematic and disturbing and just sort of sad. I mean, it's, it's, yeah, I kind of, you know, we didn't talk about it. We were, we were literally recording as this story was breaking a couple weeks ago. And then, you know, I kind of half seriously said, if it, if it blows up any bigger, maybe we should just do it. an emergency episode.

But I felt like it sort of, I don't know. I don't think we moved on for a minute super quickly, but it's apex, its bright shining peak was pretty brief. Yeah. I completely agree about first tier humor, second tier, just sad on multiple levels. And I just don't know. I mean, on the one hand, he insisted, and I think we have probably a lot of reasons to believe that he did not intentionally do that right in front of his colleagues.

So on the one hand, there's this argument of like, it was just this terrible, terrible accident. And, you know, we should be at least, we should at least think about journalistic forgiveness or professional forgiveness for that. But then there's a second part, which is all of his colleagues who saw that, right? And watch that on a Zoom call. And I don't want to, I wouldn't want to discount. their experiences either. I just wonder if at some point in the

New Yorker's decision making process, it comes down to that. You know, what his colleagues who were on that call have to say to David Remnick and company there. Well, and there's a real question of, you know, yes, what exactly, the colleagues and what they experienced

and what their feelings are, you know, because this is, it's sort of hard to separate that from the sort of broad notion of offense, right? I mean, certainly, they were exposed to a thing that most people would define as offensive, but unless they were, I mean, but it does matter specifically how they, how they were affected by it. You know, and, and, in no means, should this vindicate tube in or, you know, lighten the situation, but, I mean, certainly the, like, the sexual aspect of it is significant to the way that it was, I mean, everybody, everybody engaged with this is a joke for the first 24 hours, right? I mean, it still are for the most. part. I mean, I can imagine that, I mean, certainly it's, he, it's, it's apples and oranges, but like, there are other worse things that he could have done that, that probably would have gotten a lot less attention on Twitter and in the news and everywhere else. You know, I mean, if it,

if he had, like, thought the camera was off and he, like, kicked his dog or something, I mean, people would have been potentially rightfully offended by that, but I have a hard time imagining that blowing up on Twitter the way that, you know, what happened did. Right. There's something that we could agree was bad if it was, you know, at all. But this was something we probably wouldn't care about. There wouldn't necessarily be big news is what I'm saying. Something much worse could happen that wasn't, you know,

that wouldn't necessarily break news like that if it's in a private Zoom call. It's a, it's just a, it's a hard story to wrap your mind around. But I agree, it's the people who were affected by that, who I think the New Yorkers probably, I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if that's what it came down to. he said. Let's spend a moment on Tucker Carlson last night on his show. Carlson was interviewing Tony Bobolinsky, the former Hunter Biden associate who is now claiming the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is lying about his involvement in his son's Chinese business dealings. Okay. Then Carlson goes into a monologue about something else while sitting behind a Chiron that said

damning Hunter Biden documents suddenly vanish. Give a listen to this. So on Monday of this week, we received from a source a collection of confidential documents related to the Biden family. We believe those documents are authentic, they're real, and they're damning. At the time we received them, my executive producer, Justin Wells, and I were in Los Angeles, preparing to interview Tony Babelinski about the Biden's business dealings in China, Ukraine, and other countries. So we texted a producer in New York, and we asked him to send those documents to us in L.A., and he did that. So Monday afternoon of this week, he shipped those documents overnight to California with a large, national carrier, a brand name company that we've used, you've used countless times with never a

single problem. But the Biden documents never arrived in Los Angeles. Tuesday morning, we received word from the shipping company that our package had been opened and the contents were missing. The documents had disappeared. Listen, I think we all have some point at some point in our lives forced our friends to listen to an incredibly boring story about a UPS package going, missing that could have just been half a sentence and ended up being five minutes long. But wow, hats off to Tucker Cross and for not only turning into a whole segment on his show, but actually using it to back a non-existent conspiracy theory about the Democratic nominee for the presidency. I mean, this is, this is just in the world of just hyperbole and disinformation. I don't think it gets any better than this.

unlike the tubin thing, this is an uncomplicated laugh. The incriminating documents went missing. Okay. Absolutely. Also, I don't know if you want to spend a second here on Anonymous. But was that something of a letdown in terms of who that could have been? Well, yeah. I mean, and I think the fact that everybody was sort of talking themselves down at the time, right?

I mean, we had kind of, like, conventional wisdom had sort of started high and pretty quickly settled under, like, the John Huntsman's of the administration, right? But, like, as the piece came out. So our expectations were already super low. And the reveal was, I mean, I don't know how you can, how it could have been less, less compelling, less, it was like, it was like the first time the mask came off on the mask singer. I didn't remember the first, but you're just like, oh, and. the judges are literally saying, could this possibly be former president Barack Obama and the mask comes off and it's like Cheech Marin or who I?

No, no, no, it wasn't. It was Tommy Chong. I don't even know if he was the first one, but it wasn't Cheech, it was Tommy Chong. Yeah, and then all of a sudden you have to just readjust your entire frame of mind. Like, oh, these aren't going to be stars. That's sort of the point of the show, I guess.

But like, yeah, it's certainly not former president Barack Obama. He was not the answer in either of these reveals. It was not Kelly Ann Conway, who by the way, I would like to nominate for a potential mass singer contestant if indeed we have another season. Contracts probably already signed, yeah. Would watch. Would watch. This is from Shane Nyman and Matt.

They had similar questions. What besides Twitter will you two be watching on election night? What news channels? As someone who does not partake in the, they're usually partake in the, I think, the multi-screen sports experience. although I believe it's mandated by my ringer contract. I might have multiple screen. I'll probably have multiple screen set up for this one, just to see the way that everybody's reacting.

But a lot of, I mean, I'm sure, like you said, besides Twitter, I mean, I'm sure we'll all be paying attention to the upshot and the 538 and to, you know, all the other sources of, well, crunchier data online. I think I'll probably be paying more attention to that than, you know, anything that's going on in TV. Yeah. I would say my happy place is like CNN and MSNBC on the flip on television. And then your so-called second screen as like Nate Silver,

Dave Wasserman and the New York Times needle. And that pretty much gets you through the night. Yeah. And then, of course, you want to just, you know, Twitter jokes and stuff like that, which we will be hunting for. Please send them to us. This is from Elizabeth Gardner, David. will you use coffee or some energy drink to stay up late listening to election results?

Or can you stay awake naturally? David's on the East Coast, so he gets to answer this one. Coffee does work. I usually do just some sort of caffeine, caffeinated beverage or something like that. Sugar helps too. Although I'm definitely at the age now where like, you know, it's not, it affects more than, you know, when the channels go off the air, I keep going. So, you know, I got to watch it a little bit. But yeah, I mean, I think, you know,

it'll probably be some really ill-advised cocktail of, you know, caffeinated beverages and delicious medello cans. From Andrew Joe Potter, John Taffer, the host of Bar Rescue, David, has landed a Trump interview. So Jason Whitlock got one, the sports writer, and now the host of Bar Rescue. So Andrew asks, who else will get an exclusive interview with the president with a week until election day? Dog the Bounty Hunter, the winner of Joe Schmoe.

As Dog the Bounty Hunter come out as a Trump surrogate or something, I feel like he is absolutely a potential candidate for that. We should look that up right now. I don't know. I mean, it is interesting. It's the second time in the week I'm going to name check between two ferns. But Obama did go on between two ferns. I think that was to help promote the ACA. when he was trying to get the ACA going

one of those things. So it's this like, Trump is not the first person to sort of like micro target interviews probably with an eye towards getting, you know, a big social media reaction. But this does seem like a weird procession.

I mean, the John Taffer thing, you know, at some point you got to wonder if Trump is just like, just giving interviews to people that he wants to meet before he has to go back to his regular life, you know? man absolutely absolutely all right here we got an update this is from a january new york times

profile about dog the bounty hunter after the death of his wife headline dog the bounty hunter is hunting alone he says dog won't say who he voted for according to times but he did attend donald trump's inauguration he said it didn't matter to him who is in the white house i feel an allegiance he said i think michel obama would make a great president Okay. So that is dog the bounty hunters politics. Finally, this is from Jeff Warren. Might be a tired question, but I'm getting PTSD from 2016 with so many people talking about Trump's loss like it's a foregone conclusion. Any hesitation in framing it that way or just framing up the 80% chance Biden supposedly has as the reality.

I know Biden's polling is a lot stronger than Hillary's at this point, but states like Pennsylvania and Michigan surprising us again who lead to a repeat of 2016. How do we talk about Biden's chances, David, without overstating them? Well, a lot of people are trying really hard to figure this out in real time. You know, I think that the real tension now, I mean, for people who are paying close attention, I think that the real tension comes in the data heads starting from a point of view that the more data they can present and the less kind of spin they can put on it, the better. and then but the reality being that the vast majority of people who are reading that want you to just give them a one sentence takeaway from everything that you're feeding them. So, you know, it's hard to, it's hard to talk about an election because there were numerous paths of the presidency for both parties.

If it really were just Pennsylvania or just Wisconsin or just those two states, you know, I think there'd be a simple conversation, a simpler conversation to have. but I mean, the idea that Pennsylvania's self for grabs is a real thing, especially with Trump, you know, doing four rallies in a day or two out here this week. And, you know, I mean, it's, I don't think anybody should be too confident. I don't think anybody should be too. I mean, but I do think that, man, it's just, it's, it's hard. It's hard. I mean, it's, it's, I think that there's a, I think that there's a way that you can, you know, you can have a sort of quiet confidence. But it does. does feel like despite everybody's reluctance to fall in the same trap they did four years ago, it's hard to avoid that it's feeling like we're just waiting until the very end to have that irrational confidence again, doesn't it? Yeah, well, I think, yes, I agree with that. I think part of the 2016 PTSD, if that's a right turn for it, is it a lot of people just

seems like they didn't understand percentages. I don't need silver tweets about this all the time, but like right now looking at his forecast, Joe Biden has an 89% chance to win the election. Donald Trump has an 11% chance to win the election, which is about one in 10 chance. That means that Donald Trump has a one and 10 chance to win the election. And it just feels like, well, you said Biden was going to win. No, he didn't say, he didn't say Biden was going to win. He said, these are the odds Biden is going to win.

Somehow, people apparently have never seen a football game or baseball game that involves, that involves lines and percentage chances that teams are going to win. This is it, right? And if you can just say that Biden has a 90% chance to win the election, that means that Donald Trump has a non-trivial 10% chance to win the election too. Yeah. That would seemingly solve the problem. I think you're right that most people don't, you know,

aren't as familiar with betting lines as it might seem like from where we stand. That might be the very definition of our ivory tower, whatever. however you want to call it, whatever you want to call it. But, but yeah, I mean, I saw Nate Silver on Twitter actually making this point that, like, he was saying that there are probably other outlets, not 538, but other outlets who are overcompensating in the pro-Trump direction for fear of looking like, if they get it wrong again, they want to be a little bit higher than 10% or whatever, even if they think that that's the real chance.

But then Nate went on to say that practically there's not a real big difference between saying Trump has a 10% chance and Trump has a 35% chance, which at that point, you're like, okay, I trust that you were right in whatever, however you, whatever you want to say, but like, I am now I'm lost, you know, I mean, it's, it's a, I think that we're all, I mean, there's a, there's a point in which we all get sort of lost in the weeds in these conversations. And like I said, you just got, like there's, you know, we're getting, we have a, there's a lot of information available to us. There's also a lot of stories like, I'm walking around Pennsylvania and saying a lot of Trump.

sign so are we crazy? I mean, there's there's lots of everything. And there was a great story a week or two ago about how there was a huge indicator was that, I mean, listen, I took great, I got a great feeling after reading the story that, that liberals in Trump counties or Trump, you know, on Trump blocks were not afraid to put up Biden signs. Like they would have been afraid to put up Hillary signs four years ago or whatever. Like those stories are all out there. but it's it's just waiting through everything. I mean, I don't know that there's, I don't think anyone would argue that there's like one thing that you can look at

to prove that Biden's going to win or Trump's going to lose or the other way around. And yeah, we're just all in a very uncomfortable. I mean, listen, you can see, you can be as calm. You can be as positive as you want, as certain as you want online. I think everybody's still pretty uncertain at their core. You know who never overstates the odds, David? Politico's Jake Sherman. He joined us a little earlier today to talk about the playbook newsletter,

the 2020 election, his future in the business. Here's Jake Sherman. All right, along with his colleague Anna Palmer, Jake Sherman woke up on Thursday and won the morning in Politico's playbook newsletter, which offers a mix of scoops and analysis and shouts out the birthdays of Washington luminaries like Biden comms director Kate Bedinfield. Jake's here to talk about newsletering, the 2020 campaign and other stuff. Jake, thanks for coming on the press box.

Thanks for having me. So this morning, playbook leads with Nancy Pelosi's latest salvo on the stimulus negotiations, which have seemingly been going on for nine years now. Give me the behind the scenes. When and why did you guys decide to make that the lead story? That's a very good question. So a few things. We see our job right now.

I would say this. The media right now, and generally speaking, follows a lot of shiny objects. and I don't mean that as an insult to anybody, but like, I know my expertise and my audience is going to be getting takes about anonymous and about Biden's campaign and Texas and Trump's campaign from everybody. But my view is I, Anna and I have a really, really good insight into governing just because it's what we've been covering for a long time. And the people and the power and the politics behind governing.

And the stimulus negotiation is a true kind of like inside Washington battle that impacts everybody. And we got our hands on this letter last night that Pelosi was sending to Stephen Mnuchin. And we got it pretty late. Pelosi, I think, sent it at 10 of 1 in the morning or something like that. And no one else had that. So when our readers were opening up playbook, they saw that in our publication. first. And it showed. I mean, everyone was chasing it this morning. The Post was chasing it. Larry Cudlow on Fox this morning said that Politico had it before Stephen Mnuchin had it, which was a lie,

or not a lie. It was not true. I don't know if he knew it was not true. And the back and forth between Pelosi and Mnuchin is just endlessly fascinating to our audience and to financial markets, too. So it was kind of a really good sweet spot for us. And remember, we do this. We do playbook 12 times a week. So we have to have something new and exciting and fresh to say every day. So the sweet spot is exclusive plus different than what you might be reading and the Times or Post as a lead story. Plus, ideally more substantial and more with more real world consequences than, hey, there's a new Trump poll. You know, I wouldn't even, some of that, yes.

I mean, some of the time, you know, we have the, I, some of the, I, some of the, I, some of the, I, some of the, some of the, I, some of. sometimes feel like I read news stories and I'm like, what is this trying to tell me? Like, what is my takeaway supposed to be here? Like, listen, I have the most, like, one of the most traditional journalism backgrounds of anybody, my generation, right? I graduated. I was the editor of my college paper. I went to Columbia for grad school.

I did all the internships. So, like, I believe in, I am a very, like, straight-laced, no-biased type person. but like I want to, like, I feel like I need to have a take, right? Like not a hot take like a, you know, Biden should really be in Hawaii. You know, like not that kind of garbage. But like I feel like I should be able to tell my readers cut through the kind of the BS and be able to tell them what's going on and what they should care about. And my readers, like we never forget, Anna and I never forget who our audience is.

Our audience, our chiefs of staff to the president, to members of Congress, and members of Congress themselves, top-level AIDS, and people who are existing in this ecosystem every day in the politics and policy space. So sometimes that will be a New York Times story. Sometimes it will be a Washington Post story. Sometimes it will be some take that's relatively popular, but in our own kind of way, sometimes it'll be exclusive news. Sometimes it won't, you know, but I just feel like you have to have something to say that we could say in playbook that other people might not be able to say or might not be able to get. What time do you guys write the morning edition of Playbook?

You know, Anna likes to say that we, more people are interested in our sleeping habits now than any other point in our life. No one ever asked us when we went to sleep and woke up. We get up some time between three and four, which actually is not horrible. I just got a whoop. I don't know if you know what these things are. I'm sure you do. And you have one as well?

No, no. This is new to me. Okay, so a whoop just tracks your sleeping and your activity, and it makes me much more aware of what my sleeping habits are. So I go to bed pretty early, and I sleep a full night before four, you know, before three or four a. But I've gotten used to it. We've been doing this since 2009, or 2016. I've been at Politico's in so nine, and it's become second nature to us. So today's newsletter goes out at 606 a.m. Eastern.

And at that moment, you transform into a full-blown Capitol Hill reporter with all the responsibilities that entails? No. I mean, so we have an afternoon edition of Playbook, which went out today around 1 o'clock or so. I could double check. It went out at 1255 this afternoon, which kind of, and that this afternoon, we led with what Pelosi was saying about the Democratic governing agenda should Joe Biden win. Now, so I come up here, I'm in the capital right now, I come up here and report and do all that stuff. But my main responsibility is playbook. My secondary responsibility is MSNBC and NBC, which I'm a contributor to, and I'll be on, I'm on almost every day. And then that's about it. I mean, I'm a father and a husband, but those are also really important to me. But also at the end of this year, Anna and my journey at Politico is coming to an end after 11 years.

So we're excited about that as well. What is satisfying to you, journalistically, about writing a newsletter? It's a good question. I feel like the we need to go to people where they are and a lot of people are in their email. You know, I've been thinking and reading a lot about business and about the media business. And Mike Bloomberg in his book, Bloomberg on Bloomberg, which is kind of a must read for anybody who has worked at Bloomberg, which I have not. I'm one of the only people that has not, it feels like, some days. He said that Bloomberg is an information company.

And first was a computer company and then became an information company. And he said, Kodak was a camera and film company and was never a photography company. Meaning when things went to digital, they were kind of like, what do we do? now. So I feel like right now, newsletters are where my audience lives in their email. If they live on an app, I'll be on an app. If they live on some other medium, I'll be on some other medium. But my audience, our audience in D.C. reads newsletters and doesn't really have much time for much else. And we feel like at Politico, we have felt like that playbook coming out at 6 a.m. and about 1 p.m. is a good cadence for for our audience. And it's it's a good way to,

it's scrollable and it's a good business, to be honest with you. So you mentioned you're leaving. October 6th, you put out the classic some personal news tweet. You and Ann are going to leave it years in. So here's my Tim Russert throwback impression. Are you ready to say, Jake, right here on the press box, what's your next job is going to be? No, I could tell you I am, I'm not going to go be a wine critic. I'm not going to go be a sports reporter, even though that was what I wanted to do for most of my life. But Anna and I are excited.

We've been writing partners now, you know, for nine years, which is crazy. She came to Politico in 2011. She's one of my best friend. She's like a sister to me. We wrote a book together. And, you know, we kind of figured that this partnership is working out. and neither one of us are, or I'll speak for myself. I'm not an easy person to get along with.

So once I found a partner that works, I kind of have to keep that going before I'm out in the cold. But no, no, listen, we were really excited to do Playbook four years ago. We did it throughout the first term of this president and maybe the only term. We don't know that yet. And it felt like a natural time. This is basically the only place I've worked. I graduated Columbia and went to the Wall Street Journal as an intern and then came right back, came to Politico.

And I've been here ever since. So it's about time. Is the new gig going to take on the form of a newsletter? Not ready to say anything about it yet. Listen to this guy is KG is a Capitol Hill chief of staff. No, I'm just not, we're not ready to say anything about it yet. We have a lot of time left at Politico. It's only, you know, end of October.

We have the election. We have the lame duck session of Congress. Congress and we intend to be here right to, you know, run. As Paul Ryan said when he was retiring, we anticipate to run through the tape. He didn't exactly run through the tape, some would say, but I intend to run through the tape. This is kind of an aside, but when did reporters job announcements start happening in installments? So everybody, as you know, when they leave a job, they tweet, I'm leaving such and such outlet. I'll have more details soon.

And then we wait weeks or months sometimes to the payoff. Why can't we just combine those into one announcement? That's a very good question. And I don't want to say much more on that. It wasn't exactly, I was, listen, I'm staying until the end of the year. I'm happy to stay until the end of the year. But listen, Politico, this is a massive franchise for Politico. And I think Politico felt like they needed to get a head start on trying to find the next team to do Playbook.

And I respected that. And I thought that was a good plan for them. And they wanted to announce it. They wanted to kind of start looking for people. didn't want, you know, this has been my life. I don't know that I don't really exist without Politico for, I feel like I'm such a huge part of the place because I've been there for so long, and I'm so defined by them. So like, I wanted to make it easy for them to go or easier for them to go find somebody. And if, and if they started talking to people, it would have gotten out,

and I didn't want, and we didn't want that to happen where, you know, it would look like some messy divorce when it's actually really not, if that makes sense. Sure. You talked about how yours and Anna's tenure there in the playbook chair has. has overlapped the Trump administration, basically perfectly. You started in summer 2016, if I remember correctly. How has your job in Washington journalism changed during the Trump era? Well, you know, my former colleague, Mike Allen, who wrote Playbook and who founded Playbook and has founded Axios, you know, the big media hit with Jim Vandahy, my other close friend and former colleague, when he started writing Playbook in 2007, you could kind of get a download and get some reporting from the, White House in the morning, and it would drive the day when he sent it out at 7 a.m.

or whenever he sent it out. That's no longer the case, right? Donald Trump does not have a plan in the morning that he looks to carry throughout the day. And that's not an insult or criticism. That's just a reality. So we had to kind of adapt to that reality and adapt to the reality that what was our, like, we are not Trumpologists. Like Maggie Haberman has a, of the New York Times, is a.

really good insight into Donald Trump and his behavior and who he talks to and all that stuff. And so does Jonathan Swan of Axios. I don't have that. That's never been my forte. I know, you know, the Hill really well and Congress really well. So I just felt like I had to go back to my core competency, which was Congress, power, and the people of Washington. And use that to my advantage to kind of explain why or why not what Trump was doing would fly on Capitol Hill and more broadly. And that was kind of what our book was about was the relationship between Trump and Congress and the congressional leadership. But is there trickle down from Trump that he makes so much news and at such, let us say,

surprising times that it creates then more Capitol Hill news as runoff? Yes, it does. Because when he says something, people have to respond to it and people have to react. to it and it becomes an entire new cycle of of the Trump kind of, you know, whatever mess is happening this day and that day. And I would also say I've, Trump also sucks people into a vortex in which they feel like they are, they, I feel like they have to, I feel like they oftentimes have the feeling that they have to make momentary decisions based on what will get them past the next 15 minutes or 20 minutes or two hours or five hours. And that was never

the reality before. So I feel like that has changed and that that's an important thing to keep in mind or was an important thing to keep in mind for the last couple of years. And that has changed the kind of just the rhythms of everything. So if we say that Washington and to some extent has set up this big journal in a journalism apparatus, excuse me, to cover Trump minute by minute and second by second, just cover floods of news as it comes in. How do you think that will change if Joe Biden gets elected next week. And we just don't have that sort of unpredictable news stream. Well, I think it will bolster the people who are, who are a few truisms about Washington as Congress never goes away. The White House changes and the people in the White House change, but Congress changes a lot

less frequently than that. And people who cover Capitol Hill have a lot more access to decision makers. So I think that some of the people who, listen, White House reporters are going to have to adjust, right? And maybe in a good way, maybe in a bad way, but they're going to have to adjust to a different pace of news. Now, for some reason, I don't think that Trump is going to like disappear anytime soon. I think he's going to stick around and maybe not around Washington, but around the public sphere. And I think that that people will cover a lot of that. They'll cover him like an opposition leader instead of like a former president. And that will be an interesting thing to adapt to. You mentioned you went to George Washington and the Columbia Journalism School

where you studied under the late muckraking reporter extraordinaire, Wayne Barrett. What did you learn from Wayne Barrett? Oh, Wayne was great. A lot. I only had him for one semester. But Wayne had a way of, he had a way with politicians that was really fascinating to see. I remember he had Anthony Wiener pre, you know, all of his scandals or in his class and just watching him grill those kinds of politicians was absolutely amazing. And,

you know, I remember one time I turned into this, I don't think I've ever said this publicly, one time I turned into the assignment, it was not good. And he said, you just interned at Newsweek? And I said, like, yes, I did. But, you know, that was the cool thing about Columbia is that I took Wayne's class. I got to take a class from Walt Bogdanovich at the New York Times, who's won like three or four Pulitzer's. Sandy Padway, who's a legendary sports editor and sports figure in sports journalism was my mentor. And I'm still in touch with him.

And he sends me notes when he thinks I get out of line on TV. But most of the time he's just like, great job. And I just sent him my book. And I mean, it was like I just know, I did my master's thesis under his tutelage about Fordham University's basketball team. And I just like when I was writing my book, the organizational skills that he taught me and how to think about people and characters and rhythm

and stuff. That was like that that's what was like the basis of my, the foundation of kind of being able to write that book. I've gotten a few of those emails from Sandy over the years and I didn't even study under him. I just know him. He's a great guy. He's the best. He's the best.

So you mentioned Mike Allen founds playbook. He leaves in 2016. Do you lobby internally to get this gig? Yeah. Oh, yeah, big time. Anna and I put together a plan, you know, put together like a proposal and had to do like multiple pitches with John Harris, who was also one of the founders with Jim and Mike, or really John and Jim were the founders. And we had to talk to Robert Allbritten, who owns Politico. Playbook has been a very big franchise, and it's really driven by the authors, right?

You kind of have to have a consistent voice and you have to be, you have to have a view of the world. and you are the front porch. I mean, Politico is the front porch. Playbook is the front porch of Politico and has been for years. There's great journalists of Politico, tons of them now. I mean, I joined when it was like 50 people. Now we're 500 people, so it's a lot more than it used to be. But, yeah, I lobbied hard, really hard.

And it was a two-year commitment the first time, I think, 16 through 18, and I think we renegotiated in 18. Because, you know, there's sponsorships, and they need to make sure that you're not going to, like, up and leave. So, and then we, my contract was up at the end of this year anyway. So it wasn't out of nowhere that I was, you know, moving on. And lobbying means sending emails and sidling into offices. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then once we got the job, we had to almost do a, like we went to a lot of constituencies that had interest, not financial interest in Playbook, but people who had just been like good to the franchise sources and TV networks. stuff over the years and had to kind of introduce ourselves to that. So last month, everybody on Twitter got mad at you, as happens with Washington reporters, because you had tweeted about John Boehner, former house speaker, said during GOP policy retreats, Boehner would gather reporters for a happy hour. We'd tell us stories, razz us, and shoot the shit about politics and life. It was terrific.

Your mentions fill up, including a tweet from director Anna Duvernay, which would not necessarily have expected. Tell me, what is the value of doing an off-the-record session with someone like John So the off the record session, and I just decided not to get into this anymore on Twitter, but I'm happy to talk about it. The off the record session that I went to that I was referring to was like with 75 or 80 people. It was like John Boehner and the entire Washington Press Corps and a lot of members of Congress. And you know, the funny thing is like I wrote more crap stories about John Bader having no control of being having tough times of speaker than anybody. I mean, that was like the heart of my, the beginning of my career.

And Bainer hated me for some of those stories. But we had a business-like relationship. And as he did with the rest of the press corps, as I did with, I do with Nancy Pelosi, as I did with Paul Ryan. And listen, I, I, this, like the idea that we're going to be bought off as a press core, like 80 of us with cheap wine and like shitty, you know, like, finger food is ridiculous. I'm not friends with John Peter. I don't go out to dinner with him. This was like a widely, this is like, this was criticizing me for a widely attended event where I had no

competitive advantage over anybody else because we were all standing in a circle like 50 of us. And a lot of us kind of, and it was funny because some, some of the people that went after me, I wanted to respond like, hey, like your colleague who covers Congress for you guys, was also at this event. So, like, chill out. But anyway, like Pelosi has a Christmas party in the capital that people go to. Paul Ryan has things that people have gone to, like, Christmas parties, receptions. I mean, it's not like we take things from them for free.

We pay to be at the retreat. So, I don't know. But it's part of the game, right? Like, people talk to people off the record all the time. And it's part of understanding that. people as people. And that's, you know, that's, that's my view on that. The one I latched onto was Soledette O'Brien, who's become this media critic on Twitter, often, often very outspoken. She said, you wrote that her people ask you to publicize her show in playbook all the time.

True. They did recently, and I told them that she's not very appreciative of our work. So, like, you know, I don't think that I need to be publicizing her show, which is of marginal news value to me and to my readership. But, like, listen, the retreat that I was talking about where we did this off the record thing, and this was what I was thinking about responding to Soledad O'Brien who said she wasn't invited to it. And I respect her. I think she was a great journalist.

And I grew up kind of watching Soledat O'Brien. She was a fixture on CNN in those days when I was a young person. And I guess I still am a young person. But those retreats are policy retreats at, like, crappy, conventional. convention hotels around the country. They're like really wonky and it's the party fighting over tax policy and immigration policy. And we sit in a room and get people to leak to us and like have to work hallways. These aren't fun. These are not glamorous affairs. They're in the dead of winter in places like Hershey, Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Williamsburg, Virginia, all fine places.

But like it's not like we're there with like golf clubs and like hitting the legs with John Bainer. we're sitting in conference rooms waiting for smoke signals for the most part so anybody who goes to the anyone who goes to those retreats gets invited to the to those kinds of off the record things they're for everybody so when you graduate from reporter to playbook author what was the funniest difference in the way your hill sources regarded you at that moment well who's what was not really i mean i'm such a i'm i'm such a constant presence up here like i i go i come to the capital every day i mean no one is here right now. I'm the only person in the press gallery, but I just have an OCD thing about coming up to the Capitol because if something happens, I want to be here. So they didn't really treat me differently.

There weren't any calls that had been unreturned for a couple weeks and, oh, Jake, just want to catch up. Congrats on the new game. No, no, no, no, playbook. But, you know, people do feel like an ownership over playbook in the sense that like they feel like they're waking up to us every morning. So they have the right or the birth to send you emails and tell you how bad. something has been or how good it is or what they agree with or disagree with. Like there are some strange people who are playbook readers that, not strange, but like surprising people who are big playbook readers that I never thought of before I did it like Warren Buffett and, and Mori Popovich.

Nice. You know, not that they're not weird people, but you don't ever have any, like I cover Congress. I don't have any interaction with Warren Buffett. And then I do playbook and, you know, we did interviews with him and we did a feature for a while called the Playbook interview where we'd interview our. readers like Stephen Colbert, Warren, Buffett, Paul, Ron, you know, those kinds of people, Mitch McConnell.

And so, you know, it does help you in that sense. But no, it's not, I didn't get treated any better or worse or anything like that. It was just they, most people, some people didn't even know. And they're like, why aren't you writing stories anymore? I haven't seen your byline in a while. Yeah, right, exactly. All right. Finally, and most importantly, you mentioned you went to George Washington.

You worked at the student newspaper, the G. the G.W. Hatchet with Ringer staff writer Alan Siegel. What is the most embarrassing thing you can tell us about what Alan was like in college? Alan was the, without Alan, I wouldn't have a job because he, I was like an over-eager and he'll definitely agree with this. I mean, I could, an over-eager, like, freshmen who just like walked into the student paper the first day and I was just like, I'm here and I'll do anything. And like for the first, when I was a freshman, I was just like covering like volleyball and soccer and I was trying to get my way into basketball games. And Alan was one of the most, I mean,

at that age, and he still is today, but like I was bold over as by his, he was the most graceful writer who had the best eye for detail. And we were kids. I mean, we were really young and stupid. And he was a lot less stupid than me. But I was like, I was like the kind of guy. I was like, I want to go to Dayton for the basketball game. Like, I'll pay my way there. And he was, you know, he had to, like, put me back in a cage. And Alan got rattled easily in those days because he had a lot. We were a great college paper, the hatchet.

And, you know, that and he had a lot of, the sports section was very well read. So he had a lot on his shoulders. But he was the best. I owe Alan, like, anything that I have is probably due to him, him. And another editor I had called Michael Barnett, who was the editor of the paper. but Alan was the greatest. You can read Jake Sherman and his colleague Anna Palmer every morning in Playbook. He's on Twitter at Jake Sherman where career announcements will be coming down the pike at some point.

Jake, thanks for coming on the press box. Thanks, Brian. All right, it's time for David Shoemaker. Guesses the strained pun headline. Yeah. Monday's headline about a solution for outdoor dining in Wisconsin was the winter of our tent. Tracking back to that story we had in the open, David, about Trump's speech in Omaha. So on Tuesday night, Trump went to Omaha, gave a speech as he normally does at an airfield.

There was only one problem. Hundreds of his supporters were left at the airfield with the wind chill at 27 degrees and no great way to get out of there. According to NBC, some walked three miles to waiting buses while others were taken away in ambulances. So the pun here is about a famous failed... how should I put this without completely giving it away? A famous failed festival. What was the Daily Beast strain pun headline? Well, you have to be talking about the fire festival, right?

I've just given all this way. Unless it was Woodstock 95 or whatever the bad woodstock was. So it's just a daily base piece about this. An aggregated item. Fire. Is it like your fire? F-Y-R-E-D? The You're-Fired Festival, yes.

Oh, great. That's fantastic. The Your Fired Festival. Solid work, Daily Beast. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Research by Chris Almeida, production magic by Erica Servantes.

We're back Monday with Election Week. And, David, we've got three shows next week. Three shows. On Monday, we will get you ready for the big night with the New York Times Magazine's Mark Leibovic. Then in the wee hours of Tuesday, or maybe Wednesday morning, we will have an election night

instant reaction pod. Then we're back Wednesday, a day earlier than normal. Chew over the results with special guest Jamel Hill. Huge week here at the press box. Join us on our D-desk for more lukewarm takes about the media.

See you then, David. See you, Brian.