The Press Box - Zohran Mamdani Goes on Fox News, the Great Pentagon Walkout, and Awkward NFL Coach Audio

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and Joel discuss the almost entirely unanimous media walkout at the Pentagon after new rules and guidelines were presented to reporters (0:48); Olivia Nuzzi's return, which will now include a book deal (19:52); and Zohran Mamdani's interview with Fox News' Martha MacCallum (26:22). Then they discuss some awkward NFL head coach audio (0:00), before beginning a list of football clichés (40:00) and closing the show with J-School (52:03). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel AndersonProducer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellany. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight. Which streamer is on the brink of collapse? And which executive is on the hot seat? Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again?

Follow the town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox Thursday. The gang's all here. Brian Curtis, Joel Anderson, and producer Kyle Crichton. Coming up, Olivia Nutsi's back again with a story we all want to read. Plus, how did Zoran Mom Dani hold up on Fox News? We've got some awkward NFL coach audio, a call to you, press box listeners, for your favorite football cliches and a very musical edition of J-school.

But first up, Joel, putting the gone in Pentagon, when was the last time you saw reporters actually agree on something? I mean, it is really tough because there's always at least somebody that wants to be, you know, the contrarian, right? So even if you can get a general agreement, there's somebody just like, ah, that sucks. So it's very difficult. We don't get consensus a lot. We're not go along, get along people. No. We wouldn't be in this profession if we would go along and get along people, I don't think.

We would not. And that's what made yesterday so fascinating because we saw something that united the New York Times and the Washington Times. Yeah. CBS News and News Max. How different are they now? I'm just, I'm joking. I'm joking. All reporters from these places turned in their badges,

like protagonists in 70s cops movies, rather than comply with Defense Secretary Pete Higgs's journalist suppressing rules. I don't know about you, but I was really struck by the photos and video of the reporters leaving with boxes of their belongings. Oh, yeah, man. Like they were the victims of, I don't know,

Doge or something. I mean, have you ever, because this is a, I know that this is a very common arrangement. Because it's like, I remember like courthouse reporters, you go to a courthouse and they'd have their little media workroom or even like Old Valley Ranch for the Cowboys. Like you'd go in there and, you know, Mickey Spagnola and, you know, Jean-Jacques Taylor would have their desk there. But is that, is that their primary desk? It can't be their primary desk, right?

Like, they tend to keep one at the office or at home. it's kind of weird because of the way work is now, right? I'm sure they have both, but I bet you they spend most of their time there. Yeah. And in reporter terms, I bet that's where most of their crap accumulates. But, man, you think so? Because the way I thought about it and having covered trials before at courthouses, I don't want to have sensitive conversations in that building.

Right? You know what I mean? And I'm talking about sensitive work conversations, not sensitive personal. But, you know, a thing that's a source or whatever, I don't want to give away anything in that in that environment. But if you're the court reporter, what are you doing? You're running back to the office. Every time you have to make a phone call, write a story, you can't.

That's your spot. And there's so many nightmares in the story, but the one small or maybe large reporter nightmare that was activated was just imagine having to gather up all your crap. Oh, bro. Oh, my God. I mean, Brian, I have right behind me here a box of my stuff from my BuzzFeed desk. I lift bus speed in 2017. So I have my little keyboard and stuff that had on my desk because I don't know what to do with it, but I can't get rid of it. So it's it's disruptive.

We got here, Joel, because of the Pentagon submitting two different sets of rules for journalists. Yeah. The first one was last month, and it said that even non-classified information had to, quote, unquote, be approved for public release. now telling a journalist that you have to have something approved for public release is telling them not to do journalism. So that was a non-starter. Hegson company came back with a second set of rules

a week ago that has this very vague language in it. I'll read you just one passage here. They're talking about both classified information and a kind of unclassified information. And this is what the new policy says for reporters. Quote, if you solicit the disclosure of such information or otherwise encouraged Department of War personnel to violate laws and

policies concerning the disclosure of such information, such conduct may weigh in the consideration of whether you pose a security or safety risk. I mean, I guess that means. We're going to have fights to the death among attorneys about what solicit means, right? that could run the gamut from pestering somebody to send you some sort of specific file to being like, you happen to have that? It could be something like that. Or you have that?

Oh, I wouldn't mind getting that file or that piece of information. Is that soliciting? I don't know. So, yeah, it's intentionally vague because it's bad policy, but also because it gives them the cover to do whatever they want. And security risk there, too. Forget soliciting, which sounds like a criminal term for something journalists do all the time, you're always soliciting information. But they can make you a security risk if they judge that

you've done this. And by the way, it doesn't just say notice violating laws, violating policies. What does so I guess I also need some clarity. What happens once you were determined to be a security risk? Well, that would give them a great reason to kick you out of the Pentagon. Okay. I hope it's just that. This is, well, yeah, right, that'd be at the least of it, I guess. You lose your workspace. But this is what you hit it exactly on the head. There's a vagueness in it that essentially is going to allow the Pentagon to do whatever they want. Because it, look, violating policies, look, if you and I call, you know, somebody at ESPN and say, hey, what did Jimmy Petro tell you the other day?

That certainly violates an ESPN policy. Right. Tons of great journalism violates policies. Probably most great journalism violates some policy or another. I mean, that's just, that's just ludicrous. And then the idea that, you know, we don't even know, hey, it can be classified information and be unclassified information. Somebody pointed out to me that when journalists are asking about information at a place like the Pentagon, they don't necessarily know whether they're asking about classified intel or unclassified intel. That's a great point.

And by the way, we know that the Department of Defense loves to play games where you classify way too much intel because you're trying to keep it from public view. Absolutely. Right. It's just, it's a, it's a term of art, right, than more than science. Because it's like, okay, I say that this is classified now. And that way, I can't, I never can get access to anything. It's just, it's kind of like when people file a FOIA and your local organization, you know, your local county clerk's office, it's like, well, that's classified. And we can't see, we can't give you that because it's redacted. Yeah, redacting this information or whatever. It's the same, I guess it's the same kind of concept, I suppose. They did try to introduce a clause on this set of, of, rules which said, hey, you can sign this and say, I acknowledge these rules even if I don't agree with them. But of course, that was not going to do it for anybody who covers the Pentagon. Oh, yeah. I mean, we can't, we're not signing anything, right? Like, if you're real, if you're real journalist and you're in this, you know, to do the work and define the truth and to tell it to people, you can't sign anything close to that. So, no. And it was funny,

the New York Times posted a picture of what the regulations were five years ago. By the way, when Donald Trump was president five years ago, and it was a one-page document that said stuff like, please wear your badge at all times. Those were the rules of covering the Pentagon. That seems reasonable. That's a reasonable request, I suppose. Yeah. So lots and lots of outlets are not signing these new rules.

The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the wire services. defense publications like task and purpose, all the major news networks, including Fox News. What about the ringers Pentagon correspondent? Are we? We have opted out of Pete Hexas new regulations. Okay, yeah, good. We'll be contacting that person soon to get them on the podcast. You're right. Signing the regulations, Joel, that was kind of a shorter list. Mm-hmm.

The Federalist has said that they would be willing to sign and One American News. Oh, man. Okay. Where's human events? I feel like they would have signed it. I don't know if we've gotten human events on the record. Yeah. What do they think about this?

We chuckle when you hear One American News. But One American News had a chief Pentagon correspondent named Gabrielle Couchia actually say she was fired or terminated this past summer. And she was terminated. I'm quoting The Guardian here after she published a substack post accusing Hegson's Defense Department of clamping down on press access. Oh, man. This is, I mean, again, man.

Yeah, you would think that just in the interest of self-preservation that, you know, O-A-N with, you know, Mike Gundy's favorite news channel. would be thinking about that. But it's just, you know, again, I guess the thing is, is that nobody is watching, or the federalist is not something you watch, as you read,

to expose things out of the Pentagon, unless a Democratic president is in charge. But, like, what is worthwhile that you're going to get from the Pentagon if it comes under these circumstances, right? Like, that's the thing. Like, is it even worth, why bother?

Just have them send over a press release if that's going to be the case. If you're going to have to go through that sort of hand-wringing with them, right? Read Pete Heggs's Twitter account. You'll find out exactly the message that he wants to put out every day. It's not shy on Twitter. Oh, no. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's very direct and he talks to his public, which is also sort of interesting

because I've always found, and I'm sure you have too, the people that end up working for government or whatever institution that has like some sort of a PR or communications department. They end up being like really like not anti-media, but they end up having like the most restrictive media policy. I found like just anecdotally. I'm just like, okay, they've worked in media and they're trying to, they know what we're capable of. Maybe that's what it is. Is that what it is, you think? It must be it. It must be that. It's funny with Hexon because he has, he has, tried to suppress news he doesn't like since he got the job. And it hasn't worked. Right. I mean,

that's why we're here, right? He, you know, limited the ability of Pentagon reporters to walk around hallways as they had been afforded in the past. He took away dedicated work spaces from some outlets and gave them to outlets that were friendlier to Trump. He's gone to war with his old colleague, Fox News is Jennifer Griffin, and called her about the worst. Wow. According to The New York Times, he tried to bar an NBC correspondent from the Pentagon entirely. And he's turned briefings when there even are briefings at the Pentagon into a farce. Yeah.

So again, he tried all that. The news kept going. Stories kept getting broken. Now we're here where it's like, okay, we're going to put these very, you know, vague restrictions in, these rules. of the game to cover the Pentagon, and now the media says, yeah, actually, we're going to leave. The thing about that, and I wish people in Hegsteth's position understood this, is that when you do that, and maybe this has happened to you, too, Brian, when somebody tries to restrict my access like that, it makes me start to ask more questions. It makes me mad, and then you're like, okay,

now I need to really, you know, now you've got my attention, right? And it's a sort of thing that is needlessly antagonizing a group of people who, you know, people don't tend to want conflict at their work. They want to do good work, but they don't, they're not looking to make people look bad. But when you do things that make people's jobs more difficult, especially your reporters, then it's just like, okay, you've really, you've really drawn my interest. You've really activated me now. So this is the only thing. That is what is going to be the result of this.

You're going to see incredible journalism come out of this, I would imagine. I want to prove to you that I can break news, even if you, you basically kick me out of the building. Absolutely. I feel reporters are mostly two, what's the word? A nice isn't the word. They've taken a vow to never say things like that. Yes.

Right, right. Pete Hexson can get on Twitter and call us all liberal liars. But us reporters, we're like, you know, we must take this priestly vow where we never say anything publicly about the people we cover. We never say, well, hell, I'm going to break more news than you've ever seen before. We can't say that on the record. But that is functionally what is going to happen with the Pentagon Press Corps. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah, again, they're not going to be like, oh, we're being, you know, this is retribution for restricting our access or whatever. But like, functionally, that's what it is. And it also makes you ask questions about what are they trying so hard to hide from people? Like, why do they not want us here? What are they trying to keep from us? And so, like, that's just sort of the natural order of things. And so, yeah, like, that's, you know, Hegsth, congratulations. You're about to create a whole new era of quality Pentagon journalism.

Isn't it funny that the biggest story about Hegsaith didn't even require a badge to go inside the building because Jeffrey Goldberg was added to the group text? I mean, man, it's like, seriously, you tighten up, bro. Like, you're the, you're the source. You're right. You are the problem. Like, you'd be the one to tighten up and worry about your own self. Jeremy Barr had a really good story in The Guardian where he got into what's going to actually change for Pentagon reporters? Because even for people like us, I'm kind of thinking, wait a second, okay, you're physically not in the building.

Right. How specifically does this make your life harder? And this is what Barr came up with. He says reporters worry about the lag time and getting answers to questions about fast moving developments. When urgent news from abroad comes in, reporters used to be able to race the offices of press officials to quickly seek clarity. and comment, now many will be forced to wait by their phone and email. And who knows if that call or email is going to come in a timely manner, if ever come. Bar also writes, there are also concerns about Pentagon officials clamming up, considering that the new guidelines state specifically

that military members, quote, face potentially severe consequences for disclosing non-public information without proper authorization with, quote, criminal liability mentioned as a possible recourse. So this is what I was, I'm glad we got to this point of it because, Brian, I was thinking, is this a message to Pentagon employees as much as it is media? It's like, we're taking this serious and we're, we're going to scare the bejesus out of people who would even think of cooperating with media or leaking information. Like, it's like, I mean, the media is going to react the way they, they don't really care if they're there. And the media is making a big show of leaving out of there, but I think everybody understands that the important reporting doesn't take place in the actual building.

But for the people that work in there, it's like, oh, they're very serious about this. And if they find out that I'm collaborating with media or leaking information to them, that I could be in real trouble. Oh, I think that's absolutely it, right? It's who's pulling down my pants? That's the question Pete Hankseth is asking. And the media is doing it, but in his mind, they're doing it with the help of his employees. Yeah.

So I'm going to try to scare the crap out of my employees, you know. Again, it's just, I mean, that is bad leadership, man. Like, again, it's the sort of thing that, again, everybody that works for you, especially in something as big as the Pentagon, is not necessarily going to be your friend. They're not going to necessarily want to see you succeed if you're the guy in charge. Doing the sort of thing that makes people feel threatened. Some people clam up. Some people get active, though, when they feel threatened.

Just like you said with the reporters, right? Just like reporting. Yeah, right. It's the sort of thing that would be like, oh, I'll show you. And I don't like you here. I don't want you here. Here's the way that we can get you, we can make you look bad at work. It's interesting that they would totally get rid of the in-person give and take between Pentagon PR people and journalists. You and I have had many versions of that give and take. Sometimes it has a friendly air about it. Sometimes it's very neutral in all business.

Sometimes it is antagonistic. Yeah. But having that relationship, which is often built in person just allows the Pentagon to do certain things when it comes to journalism. It may not get a story they don't like killed. It may not get a story they don't like soften. But it allows you to pick up the phone and call and say, here is my side of the story. Here is my listen, hear me out. Here we have a relationship where you can at least hear me out before you press publish before you go on television and report something.

And again, what they're doing is just getting rid of, of that relationship, at least the in-person part of it entirely. Journalism is practiced by humans. And often, as you know, Brian, people, reporters that have relationships with people that they cover, like, you're not even necessarily trying to let that influence your coverage of the way that you'll listen to them or, you know, reach out to them, give them a heads up about a story that's coming or anything, right? Like, it can just be useful in that way. And it seems, I mean, you guys are the ones calling yourselves a department of war. What do they say about keeping your enemies? Like, you know, as opposed to your friends

and your enemies closer? That's right, man. So it just, I mean, it just, it seems like bad strategy. What you're intending to do and what you're trying to do is not even working. And also, like, you have made a group of people who are fundamentally competing with each other and generally don't all have the same incentives or motivations for work. Like they've bonded together on this one thing. Congratulations. You know, all right, Jolda. You know there's two kinds of media stories out there.

There's a Pentagon-style media story where you and I are standing on the battlements alongside the Pointer Institute and the Columbia Journalism Review. And then there's a kind of media story that everybody in the business starts texting each other. as soon as it hits Twitter. We had one of those on Tuesday night, and you and I actually did text about this. We did that. It's a report from Oliver Darcy and status

that Olivia Nutsi, when we know has already been hired by Vanity Fair after she had some kind of relationship that we don't totally understand with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to name another Trump cabinet secretary. I understand what kind of relationship it was. I was going to be more details about it.

Listen to me being the careful journalist. I have an idea about what was going on there. Yeah. Well, Darcy reported that Livy Nootzee has a book coming out. Book coming out that he says likely will be around the holidays. And I'll quote from him here, those familiar with the matter indicated the Nootze's book reflects on the past decade she spent covering politics, Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. Notably, status has learned. Nutsi also addresses her relationship with Kennedy in the book the first time she has done so publicly.

Yeah, man. I mean, when we last talked about the story, Brian, I think our presumption was that she'd have to tell this story to or, you know, publish it at Vanity Fair first, right? But obviously, I would assume they reach some sort of deal where there's going to be an excerpt that runs there before anywhere else. Is that right? You get paid for the book, but then Vanity Fair runs the excerpt, and it's the excerpts about the thing everybody wants to know about. Right, very exclusive piece of thing. So, yeah, I mean, did we think that it was going to end up being a book, I guess? Like that because I don't, we all had the understanding that Olivia Nutsi was going to return to journalism. And she probably was going to, she was not going to have to start back at the, you know, Fargo advocate or whatever. Shreveport.

The Shreveport Times, yeah. I'm glad you said that because it was. was a note about that in Darcy's story where he said in the immediate aftermath of the Kennedy scandal, few thought Nootzee would work again in the mainstream press. I'm like, can you should, can you raise your hand if you thought Nootzee was toast? I mean, bro, I mean, there's so many like that. I mean, bro, there's so many things that are working for Olivia Nudzi. One, she has a lot of friends in the industry. Two, she's a good writer. Like, she's a good features writer and does have sources. Now how she gets all of them, maybe a little bit of question, but she has good sources.

And yeah, well, there's a lot of people that are desirous of seeing her succeed. I'll say it that way and would like to be aligned with Olivia. And that is good for her, you know. But so yeah, like I'd never, not for a second that I think that she would have to leave journalism and shame. There's no such thing as that anymore. Like, that just doesn't happen. And remember, remember, there used to be a New York Times reporter, and I'm recalling this. I hate to bring this, well, maybe I won't say our name. There was a reporter who was found out to be having a relationship with the Senate Intelligence Committee security director and ended up working back at the Times again, just in a different role. Like, this stuff happens. Like, it's not uncommon for people to be covering

somebody and develop a relationship with them. Like, it happens all the time. So, yeah, like, I did, For anybody that thought that she was going to have to leave the business with their head held in shame, or doing a walk of shame, for lack of a better term, that that just wasn't true. That just wasn't going to happen. What's surprising is that she has this much leverage. Yeah. Well, wait, with who? Well, you were in New York Magazine.

Had a great job covering politics there. You went from New York Magazine to, let's say, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, vanity fair. Yeah. more or less an equivalent transfer. For sure, yeah. I would say. And then you got a big book deal. Now, the book deal is interesting, too, because we know she and Ryan Liza signed that, signed up to do a book together.

And with book deals, when you say there's always going to be a book, well, the thing about is, if you get paid to do a book, then either you're going to give the money back to the publisher or you're going to come up with some kind of book. Right. And this book may turn out for the publisher to be more interesting than the book she was going to write in the first place. Probably will be, don't you think? Oh, my God. I mean, it's going to involve FaceTime with RFK and whatever was going on there, right? Like, just that alone probably was feeling that.

I can't remember, but, I mean, who do you think suggested this? Do you think Olivia Nutsi suggested it, or do you think her agent or somebody from a book industry suggested this? Because I still, I don't, I know that you have to write a piece. to sort of come clean about what happened and tell it. And she knows, like, Olivia sort of deals in that world. Like, you know, Olivia is not uncomfortable talking about this sort of stuff,

this sort of, you know, these weird dynamics that exist. Because, I mean, she came to prominence talking about working for, you know, disgrace former politician Anthony Wiener, right? So she's certainly fluent in this language and can do it and is, you know, thrived in the industry working around this kind of weird. stuff, but I just, I don't know if I would want to have to tell it all. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, I can tell some of it. But if you write a book, a book is a long, that's a, that's a lot, that is a lot of space you got to feel, you know? Yeah. I mean, look, if you're

writing about the MAGA movement and how you became this part of the story, that's, that to me is what the book probably is, right? Her experiences with Trump, with covering Trump, with seeing this movement, bloomed. in the United States and then kind of go away and then re-bloom in the United States, like the coming of spring, and then becoming part of the story. I mean, that to me is probably something close to what she would have written anyway. Right. And now she's a figure in the story. And whether she wanted to do that or not, I don't know. That'll be an interesting question to ask her when she goes in the inevitable book tour. Book tour, yeah. And it's talking to pilots, you know, the door, the door is open.

Yeah. If you'd like to come on on over here, please. We'd, I'd love to. I'd love to. to ask you a million questions. Speaking of politics, it was Zoron Mamdani mega profile week here in America. Man, I mean, he is. I mean, what a media sensation. He is truly a media sensation, isn't it?

He is. New York Times Magazine written by now former Timesman of Stead Herndon, another piece in The New Yorker, another piece in Van de Fair. By the way, yesterday, I went to a newsstand in Los Angeles. that's attached to a bookstore because i said you know we're going to be talking about mom donnie a lot

over the next couple of weeks and i would love to read these stories and actually read them in paper especially like a monster new yorker profile that's just a happier way to to read a big magazine profile well i get to this and this is this is a new stand attached to a very very good bookstore and they don't have the new issue of vanity fair and i'm like oh maybe that just hasn't come in yet i just saw it online then i go to the new yorker and the yorker comes out on monday they had last week's edition of the New Yorker and then the previous week's edition of the New Yorker as well. And I'm like, has the newsstand in America become like an overseas newsstand was 20 years ago? Oh, man, that's just really sad. I was going to ask you, I was like, well, man, you know, I'm going to be in

town next week. Show me where that newsstand is. That was excited. We might have to go by. But I remember, like, when I was in college, like, traveling to South America with my friend and we found out that Bill Clinton had confessed the Holowinski thing because we found like an old issue of time at a newsstand. You know, it's a couple weeks old, but that's fine. We didn't have the internet. Like, oh, this is interesting. But I think that's kind of where we are now with actual American newsstands. It's like, you'll find something from the last couple weeks, perhaps. Yeah, one of the, one of the, my favorite parts of traveling used to be going into like the Hudson or whatever, you know, whatever that place was and to spend in time looking at the magazines.

You were saying that going to Hudson News was a highlight of your traveling experience. You're the first person in the history of the world to say this. Oh, is that really true? Oh, yeah. I just love looking at the magazines. Because, I mean, I don't go to the bookstore as much as I used to, and newsstands don't barely exist as they are. So it's the one opportunity I have to, like, look at magazines and books all side by side. And now you go there, and it's just like, man, that even Sports Illustrated there anymore, but it's neither here.

You don't even have the paper half the time. I'm like, yeah, we don't have the local newspaper here at the airport anyway. So, yeah. So Momdani did another interview. Yeah. It was on Fox News with Martha McCallum. It was billed as an exclusive, which made me laugh. Is there anything less exclusive than a Zoran Mamdani interview?

I mean, he looked bad. I mean, it was the first time he talked to Fox that day, I guess, right? You know, so yeah, yeah, it was exclusive to them. It was very fun to watch this, wasn't it? Because it was. taped and Martha McCallum did this kind of introduction. How would you describe it? Well, yeah, like, first of all, they bring him in and they show this list of his political agenda, like items and it's like, no cost child care, fair free buses, free use rent for stabilized

tenants, quote, I don't think we should have billion. They're just trying to make him seem scary. And it's just like when you talk about the things that he's actually supporting, it's like, oh, man, there's somebody who's currently paying for child care, no cost child care. actually sounds like a pretty good idea. I don't know about everybody else. So it was just kind of like it was very much like scare quotes. And then she just dives right in until like nothing that has to do with New York. It was all foreign policy at the beginning. Right. Yeah. Which is weird. I mean, how many mayors have to do with foreign policy is that it's part of the part of the, you know, platform? How many mayors get asked, would you tell Hamas to lay down their arms? Yeah.

Right. This was one of the early ones. I mean, on the one hand, he has talked about foreign policy before. So I suppose there is an opening there. And as we know, everything leaks into New York politics. Right, right. Of course. Of course. I mean, you're talking about fixing potholes and making the subway safer and stopping subway surfing. And you're also just talking about everything else that happens in the world. I mean, yeah, man. I mean, it is, you know, 8 million people. That is a, that is a nation. I mean, that is basically a nation state in a manner of speaking. So it makes some sense at least, I guess. It's also interesting to see Mom Donnie in this environment because the antagonistic press interaction is really a crucial part of being the mayor of New York City. Think of Rudy Giuliani yelling at the ferret guy on his radio show. Remember, like, Rudy Giuliani had a radio show. That was a thing. I mean, it's just like, so here he, you know, here he is sitting opposite Martha McCallum, Fox News. And she brings up Donald Trump's criticism of Mom Donnie's credentials. Here's how Mom Donnie answered that one.

What qualifies you from your life experience to run the largest city in the country? You know, I want to take this moment because you spoke about President Trump, and he may be watching right now. And I just want to speak directly to the president, which is that I will not be a mayor like Mayor Adams, who will call you to figure out how to stay out of jail. I won't be a disgraced governor like Andrew Cuomo, who will call you to ask, how to win this election. I can do those things on my own. I will, however, be a mayor who's ready to speak at any time to lower the cost of living. That's the way that I'm going to lead this city. That's the partnership I want to build not only with Washington, D.C., but anyone across this country. He did that with a classic. I'm going to look into the camera and address you directly.

Yeah, he did it again with Cuomo later in that interview. I mean, it's a, first of all, the very effective deployment of disgraced. I mean, you know, he got disgraced on both of those guys. not just a battle but disgraced wording is important here yeah I mean he is just I mean you know for whatever you think he certainly seen I don't know if he

knew that that moment was going to come up but it certainly seemed like he did right that he I mean certainly his handlers were like you know this is Fox News Trump is going to be watching he's going the only way that one of the few ways he's going to see you and your thoughts

your complete thoughts is by watching this interview And so it was just a really smart thing to do, right? At least it didn't even like the man. It was one of the smoother politician looking to the camera moments I've seen. Yeah. Because usually there's one in a debate and they're trying to, you know, clear something up or let me, let me speak directly to the American people. Oh, yeah. It all feels very rehearsed and unnatural.

Oh, very theatrical. Yeah, right. Absolutely. Absolutely. He was also very disarmingly friendly. First of all, I want to thank you, Martha, for just giving me this opportunity. I'm thrilled to be here, thrilled to be talking. talking to New Yorkers and the entire Fox audience.

Yeah. You know, it's kind of like, that's what you do at the beginning of a debate, right? Like normally. They say, hey, well,

first of all, I want to thank everybody for being here and think, you know, the commentators or whatever, the moderators. And he, yeah,

like he went into it smartly, I think, as if it was going to be a debate. And he knew that he was going to be, he knew it wasn't friendly. He knew that it wasn't going to be a friendly venue. And in that regard,

I'm pretty sure they talked a lot about, smiling, don't lose your temper, you know, take your time, talk through things. It certainly seems like, you know, not that he seemed coached, but he seemed comfortable. He never seemed flustered up there. If we price in some of the Fox newsiness of the interview, yeah, that it was going to be very pro-business. I think at one time McCallum referred to New York City as the capitalist center of the world. Yeah. She, oh, she had, by the way, she had to chat GPT, check, check, chat GP that one. She said, I had to chat GP where the capital of global finance center of the world was. And it was New York, which made me feel good. Oh, great. You know, polluted somebody's water source just to do that.

Isn't New York the everything center of the world? Isn't it also probably the socialist center of the world and the Democratic Socialist Center of the World? And I mean, I just, yeah. Everybody's there. But if we price in some of that stuff that it was going to be, there were many questions about, crime. There would be questions about, you know, certainly his tax, he has tax rates for the, for the rich in New York. I thought she did a pretty good interview coming from that point of view. I thought there were a lot of questions that were like, this is make you rethink your position on this? What do you think of this? How much would you tax trying to nail him down on specifics and things like that? All in all, I thought it was a pretty fair interview. One of the more clarifying questions that she actually asked him, and I thought it was really

interesting as about asking him to apologize to police for calling them racist in the past. That was a really interesting moment because, yeah, I mean, I think one thing that people, whether you support Mom Dani or don't, you want to know how he's going to get along with the police. The police department is the thing that every mayor has to deal with, and it can make a break your administration. And so, you know, I believe her when she says that she's talking to a lot of police and they wanted him to apologize. And he went ahead. did it right there. It's not like he, you know, had to be forced into doing it. It was almost, I mean, yeah, it was a, it was a good question and he handled it well. You could just tell,

like, yeah, like, to your point, like, I thought it was a really good interview. It was clarifying because there may not be in questions that I necessarily need it all the time, but it was a sort of thing that he needs to talk about in public if he's going to be the mayor of this city. Yeah, and there are people, and you could tell that Martha McCallum was, you know, consciously putting herself in this camp that these are the questions I have for this guy. Yeah. These are the questions I have. You know, when she's asking about free busing, I'm like, you know, I don't know when

the last time you were on a bus in New York City was. That's always a funny, funny question to ask with somebody. Like, did you take the bus to Fox in Midtown today? That would have been a good response, by the way. Yes. Yeah. But anyway, but it was like, it was just, yeah, I think anyway, it was a clarifying interview in a lot ways. A couple of the things that stuck out to me. Mom Donnie's very, very good, and he'll only be

able to do this for another two and a half weeks of pivoting to Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams. Yeah. So you may be suspicious of me. Now let me tell you about my opponent. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. You only get to, you only get to, you won't have them to punch a kick around for much longer, man, which is, I mean, it's good. It must be fun to have those guys as your foils, right? pivoting to a lot of ideas that even the Fox News diehard audience could get behind quality of life, which Donald Trump has talked a lot about, broken status quo, corrupt political system. Again, those are phrases that have come out of Donald Trump's mouth or his allies' mouths. And Mom Donnie is going on Fox News and saying, these are the things I am against.

These are the things I am trying to fix. Right. And that was an interesting sort of moment in political communication. What did you think about him that they had sort of an extended section where they talked about like dealing with the homeless and the mentally ill? Again, it was like, I mean, there was some real tension there, right? She was bringing up a crime, you know, and saying, what would you do with a person like this? Yeah. And he's, you know, talking about going back.

And they seem to honestly make common cause. They did. By the end of his answer. To an extent. Yeah. I mean, he's, I mean, again, I mean, it's not like they left whatever their particular political commitments were. like she's like, I need you to put these people in prison. And he's like, before we even get to that section, like we, you know, when they come into contact with people, we're trying to figure out

ways to help them. So it's kind of like they did reach common cause, but still like with respect to their particular political preferences. But it was fine. It was a good question and a good back and forth. And again, it's him finding a phrase that they can agree on. The city has failed. Yep. In the case of this person. Oh, I agree with that. And I agree with that. And I agree with that. We may agree with it for totally different reasons. Right, right. But we can agree with it. The other funny thing that just made me smile so much was McCallum using the Washington Post opinion section as the thing she's reading.

This is when they were talking about free buses in New York City. Yeah. There used to be this old joke about the New Republic, like 80s, 90s, maybe even early 2000s, New Republic that it was a liberal magazine, but it had all these conservative positions on foreign affairs and the contras and. and everything else. And Drew Sullivan's New Republic. There you go. And Republicans, you know, would say, even the liberal new republic is saying this,

when, of course, was not, you know, liberal 100% of the way. Well, the Washington Post, I saw Dave Wigel. I should make this joke on Twitter. We have entered the even the liberal Washington Post zone where you hold it up. This liberal newspaper is questioning your policy. Like, yeah, they've kind of tried to not. ticket liberal anymore. I mean, yeah, yeah, I mean, with that that branding, man, I would love to, I would love to

know what kind of, what Adam O'Neill and that crew thought about that sort of, that characterization of their page at this point, because they're trying. They're really trying. I know they haven't probably heard a little bit. Another guy who has an open invitation to come on this podcast. Anytime, please. We'll take him and Olivia Nutsi together. It'll be a barry-wife-style roundtable. It'll be fantastic. I would love it. Let's do it, please. Can I interest you in some awkward NFL coach audio. Of course. I got three clips for you.

Three different coaches, that is. First one is a little bit of a serious or seemingly serious situation. Have you been following the case of Chiefs Offensive Tackled Josh Simmons? A little bit, yeah. Because he's very important to their team, for one. He's very important to the team.

They drafted him at the end of the first round. And he came in and he immediately became a starter in KC, which finding a starting left tackle at the bottom of the round is like a miracle. But this was the thing with Josh Simmons. He had a knee injury in college, which scared some teams away. And then you saw some of our NFL draft friends doing the nebulous red flags, personality

questions where you don't even understand what they're talking about. But that stuff was out there in the draft ecosystem. Well, a few hours before the Chiefs Sunday Night Game Against the Lions, Josh Simmons suddenly appeared on an injury report. And it said, questionable, not injury-related. personal. Yeah. And then a couple of NFL insiders, Ian Rappaport and Mike Garifolo,

said that Simmons was dealing with a family matter in California. Yeah. And then shortly before game time, we found out that Simmons wasn't going to play at all on Sunday night. So yesterday, the Chiefs beats asked Andy Reid, the coach, what happened to Josh Simmons? As far as the Josh Simmons situation goes, I'm not going to comment on it today. Veach is handling everything there, and we'll leave it at that. Understanding you're going to hold back on details, Josh isn't practicing today?

Yeah, I'm just going to let it go here. Yeah, let go here. To complete that no timeline, I know, there's no timeline whatsoever. And the reason you didn't hear Reed's answer there is he just shook his head after that last question. Yeah, man. So we have to assume, well, I mean, they said it's not an injury, right? You have to assume it's not a legal matter because that most likely would be a matter of public record. Somebody would know something.

And so that leads you into really uncomfortable territory about like how much are they supposed to say and how much can be revealed. about what is going on here, right? I recall it was 22, 23 years ago. And this was a T.C. you got Barrett Robbins. You remember when Barrett Robbins went missing before the Super Bowl? He went down to Mexico, right? He went down to Mexico Sunday. Yeah, he had stopped taking his depression medication,

as medication for his depression. And, you know, before the game, people didn't know. Yeah, he went AWOL before the game. People didn't know where he was. And then later it came out. And so, again, I don't, we don't know what is going on. with Josh Simmons, but it just reminded me that they're just like, where's our important guy that we need in this game tonight? Oh, we don't know. And it's really hard to know what to talk

about here. It really is because there's so many things that just don't fit on injury reports. Yeah. Yeah. And our NFL media ecosystem is so set up for he's available, he's not available. Right. He's got a knee. He's got a hamstring, that weirdo language. And you're going to Put it, you're going to start them in fantasy today or you're not going to start him in fantasy. You're going to bet on the chiefs or you're not bet on the chiefs. We saw this when Adam Schaefter tried to play cops reporter the other day with Mark Sanchez.

Yes. And wound up putting stuff on Twitter that just was not correct in any sense of the incident as we know it anyway. But it's just, it's just one of those things. And you understand what the beats are trying to do here? Right. And then, but you know, like, and then Andy Reed saying the Vech is handling that. That's the chief's GM, Brett.

beach, you know, like, okay, what does that mean? And they're just trying to puzzle this out too, because that's a job, right? Trying to figure out, here's a player that's really important to the team. Why isn't he playing? Yeah. Yeah. I just, it's, yeah, well, I mean, did you feel, I felt uncomfortable for everybody that, because, again, it's, he's too important of a player to not ask about what's going on here.

So you kind of need to know, but it also, yeah, that's their job. Yeah, that's their job. But then it's also like, well, man, sometimes there's just things that, you know, if they become public knowledge, it's kind of hard to put that genie back in the bottle. And I just, I remind me that like Andy Reid in particular, he's had like a really tough time, like with his own sons, right? Like, you know, one son when he was with the Eagles, they found him dead in a room at the training camp. The other was recently, you know, had been in a drunk driving incident that heard a five-year-old girl and he went to prison, but they got his sentence commuted. But it's just a, yeah, I just, I was thinking about like for Andy Reid, who's had to kind of show his face after those really, must have been, you know, personally hurtful situations. And he just looked really uncomfortable in a way that was unfamiliar to me.

So whatever it is, I hope Josh Simmons is okay. But it's just, you know, it must, it's nothing good. I mean, obviously it's nothing good, whatever is going on in the background here. Here's some more audio for you. The Bears beat the commanders on Monday night. Game was called on ESPN by Joe Buck and Troy Aitman. Well, the next day, Bears head coach Ben Johnson was on Chicago's ESPN 1000 and sounded like he wanted to get into the media podcaster game.

Yeah, you know, I think you said it best. I love that perspective. It sounded like from that game the other night, a few people weren't particularly pleased with how we're winning right now. So that's the, I woke up this morning and, you know, my kids were watching the second half before school. and so I heard some of the commentary. But is there something there?

I mean, what is going on here? It's really interesting. Well, the beats, you know, heard that. Like, wait a second. We have some follow-ups, sir. Were you talking about Troy Aikman? I saw you said somewhere today that you caught a little bit of the TV copy of the second half. Did the tone of coming from the color analyst there surprise you?

maybe I just had it on mute my kids had it on but maybe I had it on mute hmm hmm that sounds like somebody backpedaling out of a potential feud with Troy Aikman which does him no good at all I was like man those are future pre-production meetings with that team that's they need a camera

for that don't worry it'll be on Zoom now you know it's aren't in person anymore So, yeah, there'll be a camera. We can get a recording. Yeah. Then they had this weird clip with Caleb Williams, so they asked him, and he said, you know,

he had tried to call Aikman, and it was later than they were supposed to connect, and Aikman didn't pick up. And you're just like, what in the world? Kind of weird, but, you know, I can relate to, you know,

calling something, you know, not being able to pick up the phone because, you know, something's going on at the house, and it's like, ah, I can't take that call

is a little too late. So maybe, you know, Joe has something like that going on. It is. And, you know, with Aitman, part of the reason he's had this critical renaissance is that he has some sharp edges. Yeah. He's become convergingly.

Yeah. I mean, you know, it's, we have to grade on the color analyst scale. Right. Because no color analyst is ever like, that quarterback sucks and he can't throw it out. Right. But mostly it's like they actually just praise him less than they would otherwise. Remember Tom Brady last year when we were doing all the deep, you know, Kremlinology about what Tom Brady thought of Jalen Hertz? And it was like, he never, he never said what he thought of Jail one hurts,

but you could tell if you compared the way he talked about hurts to the way he talked about other quarterbacks. Absolutely. Or just, yeah, the noises they make when they'd make a mistake of something like that too, right? With just the groans or, oh, you know, that kind of stuff. So, yeah, yeah, he's not like, yeah, he's not ripping anybody. But it's just like, you can tell who his faves are sometimes and who are not his faves. Finally, a member of the sports writing fraternity, Joel, asked Jonathan Gannon.

the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals is a question about one of everyone's favorite topics, adversity. Coach, how early in your career did you have to start trying to figure out how to take the emotion out of coaching as far as when you have all these injuries and you have all these different pieces? When's the first time that you can recall that? 2007 when our quarterback went to jail. Coach, thank you. Thanks, coach. No further questions.

Yeah, I mean, that's that you would certainly learn a few lessons from that incident there, for sure. And if you're not up on what he's talking about, Gannon was the defensive quality control coach of the Falcons in 2007. And the Falcons quarterback was Michael Vick. Michael Vick. One Michael Vick, who himself is a coach today. They now they're both head coaches today. So they have a little something in common. We got a list of some of Michael Vicks press conferences.

That's what I want to hear. his post-gamer. Absolutely. Yeah, man. You know, he's, I mean, I haven't set through one of his press conferences this year, you know, he's good and affable, but nothing particularly memorable, I would say. I wanted to add one thing here, Joel. We were making fun of an announcer, Shoemaker and I the other day.

I think it was Greg Olson because he was calling the Dallas Cowboys defense much maligned. Much maligned. I said, if you're a bad defense, you're never just maligned. You're much maligned. Well, I got a note from listener Mike Mink in San Rafael, California. Mike writes this, funny that you use much maligned as your only in journalism word for Monday's pod. My son Spencer and I have a running joke that defenses are described with only one of two adjectives. Much maligned or vaunted.

Oh, yeah. Vanted. I will drop a vaunted every night again in a story. So, yeah, but San Rafael, by the way, beautiful place in Marin County, man. My wife is from a town right near there. Mill Valley. Mill Valley. So, yeah, shout out Marin County.

Vaughna Defense made me smile. And then this email from Paul Bailey also made me smile. He wrote, when a team starts to drive deep in its own territory, it's inevitably from the shadow of their own end zone. I like that. Don't you like that imagery? I kind of like that time. It does.

It does sound very almost fantasy novel from the shadow of their own end zone or maybe John Fissend on NFL films. It got me thinking, Joel, we need to put together a comprehensive list of football cliches. Okay. And I'm looking for the high quality stuff here. Shadow of their own end zone, vaunted defense, stuff you hear, announce your say on television, stuff you read in sports writing. We're going to call this feature.

we're taking it one cliche at a time. Ha! I like that. Hit me up, Brian.curtis at the ringer.com or tweet at me. And if you share a very, very good NFL football cliche, you could win a coveted press box button. That's right.

That's right. Just putting it out there. All right, before we wrap up, let me take you to a place, Joel, where you never know what's going on at the bottom of the pile. Speaking of cliches, here's Joel with Jay School. Have you ever been at the bottom of a pile, Brian?

Not since, you know, we're just running around on the playground in elementary school. I was never on the bottom of a real pile like you. Okay. What happened to you at the bottom of a pile? Anything bad? No, nothing ever really happened to me bad. I just tried to grab me once. Actually, you know what?

Somebody wants to put their head on the back of my helmet to prop themselves to get up. But that was it. You know, but I never saw who it was. So good luck to them. They got me. Congratulations, whoever you were at Boat for Beaumont Kelly high school.

So I was a couple quick things. So you would, would you do your memo for Bari Weiss? No. You wouldn't, you really, you would take a stand and not submit one? I just don't, I mean, that just feels

I don't know, would you, would you, would write it? Hell yeah. I mean, man, look, man, I'm, yes, because I just, well, I mean, first of, I felt like, isn't that a direct order from your boss? We are also, I believe, both members of a union that told CBS employees not to answer the memo. Oh, fair point. How does that resolve itself then?

Well, I think she's just looking, I mean, look, we did a little secular grace with the Barry Weiss memo thing. Mm-hmm. You know, is she really, you know, is this the, hey, let's put together the layoff list with whoever writes the least convincing memo? or she really trying to learn what people at CBS News do because she's never worked in any kind of organization like that. Yeah, I mean, it does seem like a waste of time. It is a thing that is never going to get read. You know, I just don't imagine her pouring through each of these, you know,

memos. It's a lot of people. Yeah, it is. I mean, I guess the thing that would, I would probably do it in the most annoying way possible. Like, just a real catalog, like just a chronology of what I, I'm doing throughout the day at every point. I made the call of this person, did this,

went, had lunch, used the bathroom at this time, was writing on, you know, just whatever, just a, just a bit again, I don't know. Maybe that's not, that, maybe that's not the best way. And yeah, I mean, you should follow the orders of your union, given all of that, but yeah,

everybody have to write a memo? Did Margaret Brennan have to write a memo? Scott McFarland, or was it just the APs who had to write a memo? I need to ask my boy, Omar Villafranca, if he did his memo. you know, if he was thinking about doing it. He's over there. He's a reporter of CBS News.

Shout out, Omar. Also, so I understand, Brian, you put this in J-school. I didn't do this. So apparently I'm going to have to do a Mia Copa here. Is that correct? Yes. Listener, Mike Farrar, and Joel, honestly, a lot of listeners came forward and said, Brian, this is your chance.

Joel has been giving you crap for weeks and weeks, as long as you've been podcasting together about holes in your musical knowledge. Yeah, yeah. And Joel came out last week and attributed the phrase, ain't no such thing as halfway crooks to Naz. When in fact,

in fact, it should have been properly attributed to Mobb Deep. And before you ask Joel, my favorite Mobb Deep song is Shook Ones part two. Let's just get that out of the way. Oh, well, that is a classic song. That is also where halfway crooks is from. I'm cutting off all inquiries.

A great choice. This is not about me. They just released the album recently, okay? All right. If you want to talk about it, posthumously, shout out Prodigy. Well, first of all, Mike Farrar, you misspelled mob deep. You left off one of the bees, okay? Just so you know, all right?

So it's mob with two bees. And look, so we had, we talked about this on the ring or tailgate, the college football podcast I do. So a lot of people have started, you know, I don't know a lot. know, half dozen maybe have started complaining about me getting names wrong all the time now. You know, I was not calling Julian saying, Julian saying, I don't know what name I was calling him. I think it was like Jack or something like that. This is the Ohio State quarterback.

I found out that Mario Cristobal is, that's how you pronounce it. I was saying it Christobo. Okay. That's a couple. So, and then I called the quarterback for Nebraska, Dominic Rayola, as opposed to, to Dylan Rayola, and I believe Dominic is his uncle, right, a former great offensive lineman at Nebraska. So I'm having some problems with names and remembering things. And normally I would just ask for people to have some sort of empathy for me as I get

older. My memory isn't great. I remember my dad, you know, because he would do that or he would call me by his brother's name. He'd be, Donnie. I'm sorry, Joel. You need to do that kind of stuff. He mess up names all the time.

And I was like, man, dog, how are you forgetting all that stuff? Well, look, man, this is middle age. I assume most of our, the people that listen to us are about the same age. You guys don't get names wrong every nine again. You don't get a lyric wrong every nine again. I was close. Nause and Mobb deep worked very closely together. They're both from Queens.

You could understand how I could make that mistake. But, you know, I will try to do better. I mean, I'm not going to be as defensive as I seem. I'm going to try to do better with the names going forward. Maybe I need to have something for some brain food or something like that, you know? Anybody who watched the Momdani interview on Fox News and just listen to that really sees a difference. One, very defensive, you know, very lambasting his critics. The other, you know, trying to make common cause, trying to reach out across the political divide.

It's all the time of getting old and commodgingly, man. You know, and again, you know, I just, I mean, not the, you know, sympathy for myself. I did play football. I mean, have you guys considered that this early signs of some sort of brain trauma? You guys hadn't thought about that, huh? Just, you know, don't know what I'm dealing with here. But anyway, I'll move forward. I'll talk about something a little bit.

Well, it's not nice, but it's something that makes me feel good. And it's my brief tribute to DeAngelo, who is one of my very favorite music artist. And he passed away earlier this week at the age of 51. It was revealed that the cause of death was pancreatic cancer. Fuck cancer, as always, right? But the reason I wanted to talk about him here, Brian, is because sometimes as writers, we talk about our influences and journalism and literature. Like, for me, and if you watch us on YouTube every night and again, I have, you know, my favorite books up at the top. My camera angle doesn't quite go that high, but it's like my influences are Ralph Wiley, Catherine Boo, Isabel Wilkerson, Buzz Bissinger.

I've mentioned them on here before, like the people that have really made me want. want to do this and inspire me, right? But the reason I'm talking about DeAngelo today is because I feel like sometimes writers don't talk about how music shapes their work too, right? Like from the writing itself to the feeling that they're trying to instill in other people. And DeAngelo was one of those people whose work was sort of a blueprint for me. Like I just remember, even I was telling somebody that I remember that literally can remember where I was standing the first time.

I heard the first few notes of brown sugar, which was his, the lead singer. What was your favorite, DeAngelo's? I'm not, okay. I'm not going to do that to you, Brian. I'm not going to do that to you. But do you have anybody like that? Are you, are you like that with any musicians or people who you listen to who have inspired you as a writer? You know, not in the musical realm, and I'm always interested in writers like that because to me, I'm always, you know, like quiet, you know, nothing on and whatever. But for a lot of people writing, whether it's, you know, fiction or journalism and music are completely inextricable. Yeah.

Oh, man. Well, see, this is the thing. So I have a lot of others, like Nas, who I incorrectly attributed halfway crook. Kendrick Lamar, who's won a Pulitzer, right? Lucky Day, Miguel, like people whose craft I admire and their, their music inspires me. I always have sort of aspired to a kind of writing that I can't reach, but it's, It's just like a very beautiful sort of artful way of writing about things and a way of looking at the world. And DiAngelo in particular really resonated with me because of that.

I mean, the feelings and I can just like bookmark parts of my life where his music has sort of carried me through. Or like literally, I'm listening to his music as I'm writing and I'm like, what can I do to, you know, convey this feeling on my screen? But also because he just took fucking forever with his work. I've I've busted a I'm busting a deadline right now okay and DeAngelo was somebody who released three studio albums over 30 years okay but man the work was unassailable it was timeless and he's one of the few people in music who I think have like a 100% approval rating if you are familiar with DeAngelo's music you probably love his music or at least acknowledge the art with it and so you nobody feels sure. shortchanged because he wasn't like a prolific producer of music or whatever. Like the music that he released, everybody is happy with, and we don't feel like he owes us anything else. And that's always the kind of feeling I've wanted to leave with my work.

Like even if I wasn't like remarkably productive, I want people to be like, well, I remember what you wrote, though. Last thing, here's a clip from an interview with DeAngelo. There before the grace of God, there go I, you know. But, you know, having the music. that's just a blessing. I just knew, I knew back then that I had something.

A lot of young brothers, they don't have, they didn't have that. Like, yo, I got something. I got something that can get me up out of here. Yeah, so, Brian, I don't know how you feel about, like, being a journalist. Well, I know how you feel about being a journalist, but I don't know how you feel. Because for me, I felt really fortunate early in my life

that I knew what I wanted to do. Like, I've known, basically since I was six years old. There was never any question about, you know, do I need to go work at an insurance agency? Do I need to, you know, become an accountant? Like, I've always known that I've wanted to work with words. And it has been sort of a,

it's been the blessing of my life because I've just seen people who struggle with that and have difficulty with it. And when I look back over my life and career, I'm really grateful that I've had a chance to do something. Like sometimes it sucks. The money's not been great. I've had to live places I didn't know. necessarily want to work for people I didn't want to, write stories I didn't want to have to do.

But on the whole, this has always felt like a calling to me. And, you know, one day I hope to aspire to touch as many people as DeAngelo did with this work. But it was just really beautiful and sort of clarifying to know that that is what drove him the whole way. That he's like, I know, I've known this is, I have this in me and I've got to get it out. And that's how certainly his music felt to me. So anyway, I just wanted to, you know, if you have some time this weekend, guys, and Brian, next week, you know, I can ask you what your favorite DeAngelo song is. But, you know, if you have some time, check him out, man, because he left behind something for us, man, that we can all, well, have something to love, you know?

That is beautifully put. And that is the press box. He's Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis. But I see Magic by Kyle Crichton. Thank you, Kyle. Coming up on the press box Monday, Shoemaker's back. And then Joel, you and I doing a podcast in person, I think for only the second time ever. We did in a hotel room in Atlanta and now this. We're going to do in the Spotify Studios in L.A. See you next week. Can't wait, man.