The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Weird Wednesdays: Seven Minutes, Plus Talking Politics With Chris Cillizza | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: November 6, 2019

Russillo runs through some rapid-fire NBA thoughts (2:25) before talking with CNN's Chris Cillizza about the 2016 presidential election and how it shaped the buildup to the 2020 election, dealing with politicians, pickup basketball, and more (12:50). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

a weird wednesday pod for you chris eliza of cnn hey you guys are talking politics yeah we are check it out i'm gonna endorse a candidate right now the shackles are off uh no i've always kind of kid with people that say, well, you know, this is the job now. Like, no, you can actually do the sports job for a really long time and not have to talk politics if you don't want to, but you want to.

And in this case, for a Wednesday pod, I do want to talk with Chris Eliza, who I grew up with for a couple years. We played youth basketball together and he was a really good player, believe it or not. I know you guys think he's a nerd now, but he's not a nerd.

He was an athlete. And there's a bunch of stuff i'm interested in from a very surface level thing so i don't know that it's going to be too deep uh i know look i know it's not going to be too deep that you can't keep up but have an open mind about it but i kind of know what's going to happen no matter what is it people are going to accuse me like oh i can't believe you're a liberal oh i can't believe you're conservative like do you know do you know for sure're conservative. Like, do you know? Do you know for sure? But you know what I do know? The State Farm's there no matter what, no matter how I feel about stuff, because they are presenting sponsor. Today's episode of the Ryan Russillo Show is brought to you by State Farm. If you're fumbling with insurance, State Farm agents are here to help because with over 19,000 agents,

they're local to you and available to help whether you connect in person by by phone, or through the State Farm mobile app. Agents are here to help, so go with the one that has coverage and agents you can count on. State Farm, talk to an agent today. Also, Zorro.com is where you'll find everything you need for businesses of any size in almost any industry. They have tools, equipment, and supplies for everything you need, whether you need stuff for industries like electrical, plumbing, manufacturing, or more, Zorro's got it. And from brands you know and trust. And Zorro.com offers amazing customer service from real people based in the U.S. Visit Z-O-R-O.com forward slash dual and all lowercase letters to sign up for Z-mail.

Hey, that's clever. And get 15% off your first order. I used to love Zorro stuff, just messing around with it, but now I don't have a yard. So probably not the target guy here. But if you get a yard, man, get after it. Let's do it. That's what I'm saying.

And industry and businesses of any size. This is a new segment, seven minutes or less talking NBA and a little music bed by my brother, Euphony. Lakers, a lot of you are demanding an apology because of Dwight Howard. You're not getting it. It's only been a few games, and he has been great. And he has been great defensively. His energy has been incredible.

He's making shots when they're not running anything for him, which has always been kind of the weird Dwight thing because, let's face it, he's going to make the Hall of Fame despite a disastrous second half to his career where he was on five teams, I think, in about a week. And that's an exaggeration. But we know the deal with Dwight. We know that it hasn't been really good ever since years ago when he said he wanted to leave Orlando, then opted back in.

But it was really because he wanted to leave Orlando, but then he wanted to go to the Nets, but then he ended up with the Lakers. And then the Lakers thing, he left there. He went to Houston. They couldn't get him out of ended up with the Lakers, and then the Lakers thing, he left there, he went to Houston, they couldn't get him out of there fast enough, Atlanta, on and on and on, and then he just became a trade piece to move around a million different places. So there were doubts, and a lot of you, again, like I said,

are coming after Bill and I for sort of, we were really jerky about it. We were smug, we were jerks, we were arrogant, condescending, we were all of those things. And it's been seven games. So let's do this. Let's do this. If this keeps up for like half a season, Lakers fans, then maybe I'll apologize.

But what we are seeing right now from the Lakers is great defense. They're the number one defensive team in the league. Dwight has been a big part of that. So yes, credit to him. I don't know, man. Like I said, I'm a little tough on this. When you've been a disaster at every spot here now for a while, including the Wizards last year, I've got to see more than just a week plus of games before I'm like, yep, Dwight, no problem. Solid center, all-star votes. The weird thing

here, and by the way, he is the third highest in PER on the Lakers, 21 minutes a game. And again, he's closing those games to the number one defense in the NBA. The scary part, if you're not a Lakers fan here, is that they're not really hitting shots. Other than Danny Green and Lil' Avery Bradley, which, you know, he's okay, no one else is really hitting shots from the outside, including Davis and including LeBron. LeBron has been terrific offensively. He's had moments, especially in that Dallas game defensively, where, and I'm not going to get on him. I just don't know that you know when everybody talks about him that was that Friday night Dallas game that was as good as it gets for a regular season game it was really that much fun the Luka deal the horrible defensive play I know we've already been on this now days removed from

it but that was kind of one of those regular season ones you're like I'm so glad I watched this in real time but the bigger thing is, and I do think this is true, like you thought, just be honest. There's a lot of you that thought you knew who Anthony Davis was and you thought you knew how good he was. And now that you're seeing it more regularly, likely a Laker fan, or you're maybe just paying more attention because the Lakers are on instead of the Pelicans, you're going, wow, maybe I didn't know he was this good. His energy, his drives from beyond the three-point line, when he had all of those free throws in that Memphis game, it was nuts because no one could really do anything with him.

So right now, the Lakers, defensively, and not even a great shooting team, are looking like one of the best teams in the NBA when I thought it may take a little bit longer to gel. They didn't have the depth of the Clippers. And we'll see. We'll see how this thing plays out over the next few weeks, because I think we'll start to really know about these teams probably come January and depending on what their rest schedule is, which we're already

starting to see from other people. Speaking of rest, this has come up again because R.J. Barrett's playing a lot of minutes for the Knicks, who, by the way, R.J. is good and he's good initiating the offense. And whatever stats you want to be married to, you know, he was a bad shooter at Duke. It got even worse. Like it was atrocious towards the end of the year. And he's been better with the Knicks. I don't know if that's sustainable, but there are things where I just want to watch a player and go, he looks different and this looks better. Brandon Ingram, you can argue, which is really weird too, that Lakers fans are still protective of Brandon Ingram. Like who gives a shit? You got Anthony Davis now. Ingram is putting up big numbers because

of no Zion, because the offense is being run through him, and because there is a freedom that you can see with Ingram that you didn't see with the Lakers. He had a drive in a game the other night. It was, yeah, it was on that Brooklyn game on the road on Monday, where he really got it going from everywhere. And you could see just the way he was dribbling that this was a guy that was happy and felt a freedom. And you can start sitting there and saying, I'm getting too cosmic and all this stuff. And the West Coast is getting to me. No, man, like these are real things. And when I watch RJ Barrett, I go, you know, I don't really care what the shooting numbers are.

If they're good, great. I don't care about the assist numbers. I just see a guy that is playing basketball in a more confident and freer way than not necessarily the constraints of Duke, but Duke not really doing a great job of figuring that thing out at the end of the year offensively, despite having three lottery picks and, yes, playing alongside Zion, who was basically your fix-everything Trump card on any bad possession because he was that good. So yeah, not necessarily knocking Duke, but RJ was getting lost in the shuffle. Long stretches where he looked lost, where he looks more comfortable as an NBA player

two weeks into his career. So let's not worry about the stats. Let's just see, let's admit that we see it and it looks different and it looks better. And that's kind of the bigger point that I'm trying to make. Speaking of Anthony Davis, he's doing the Clutch Sports 101 thing where he's now saying it might be great to come home to the Chicago Bulls, but they already have Wendell Carter. So would they even want Anthony Davis? The RJ Barrett thing still had one piece left over. He's playing 37 minutes a game. Some stuff is coming up about the rest. I'm going to say this for all of you in the front, middle and back. and I'm going to scream it for everybody in the back because that's what kids do. If I could use these quotes because they're anonymous now, but if I could put names to it, I may start asking GMs to put their names on it. I don't

talk to all 30 teams, but I talk to enough teams. And the idea that this science about knowing what the prediction should be in rest and load management, load management is more about keeping a guy happy. It isn't really about marrying to the science. And I know the load management people will say, no, no, it's this. We've mapped out this whole thing. Some of the smartest people in the NBA that run these teams have told me to my face, I read everything and it's really still very inconclusive.

And it, again, always feels like it's either the media or a doctor. It is people from the outside screaming the most about rest when I am telling you. And I need to do a better job of getting this message across. This isn't me anti-rest. It's not anti-health. It's me just saying that people need to stop acting like it's so definitive that this is what it means and this is your susceptibility to injury when the guys that run the teams and i'm not talking about the dump i'm talking about some of the smartest gms that go over all of it that go you know look if there was something that was definitive that told me

that we should rest all these guys and do all these different things then i would do it but now it's like you feel like you have to rest people just because other guys on other teams are resting and then you become the team that doesn't respect the player's health and rights and all this stuff. And you got to worry about it. And that's really the biggest fear. More rest will happen in the NBA because of fears of front offices being thought of as teams that are anti-player than it is actual science backing up so many of these different studies. And that's not me telling you this as somebody that's poured over this. This is guys that run teams. Of course, the players love the rest thing because who wouldn't want to work less? You know, the year is 2030. LaMelo Balls won another MVP. And even though he hasn't played

at all during the last two regular seasons, he was great in the playoffs. And MVP voter Zach Lowe said, you know, he just looked rested more than the other guys. And that's why I voted for him. Lowe said, you know, he just looked rested more than the other guys. And that's why I voted for him. Houston, they're the third worst defense in the NBA. It can't be this bad though, right? I mean, some of these games are absurd. The Washington game, the Memphis game the other night, and James Harden, who takes 16 free throws a game, six more than any other player in the NBA. You are starting to see other players in this league grow just as frustrated as I do watching as they are trying to guard him going, this is ridiculous. Now, Jay Crowder embellished a little bit. Jay Crowder will have moments where he decides,

now he's with Memphis, by the way, where he's just going to check out of the game and he's going to do the tough guy routine. And I'm not saying he's not a tough guy, but he got hit in the nuts, sort of. I thought he embellished a little bit, then he got thrown out. Then everybody started getting technicals left and right on a possession after that, and it's a real problem. Now, the NBA, I've noticed with Harden, they've done a better job of trying to call that right arm deal where he flicks you, and then everybody retweets it like he broke your ankles and really just chucking a guy to the ground because he's so compact and he's so unbloated. He's so freaking strong that he can do it, but the NBA has tried to call that a little bit more, but you're seeing

in these games with Harden, the opponent is getting more frustrated than ever before because they're like, you can't possibly continue to call a game with this guy like this. And yet they do. Six more free throws than any other player in the league. Real quick, John Morant, the man. Buy all the stock.

If you have any shares anywhere, let me know. I will buy them up. He almost killed himself on a dunk miss, and I'm going to buy a t-shirt of it. Golden State, not good. The worst defensive team by a lot. The three worst defensive teams, Golden State, New Orleans, and again, as I mentioned, Houston, but I'm not as down on Houston as a team long-term as maybe some people were that were beating up on them on the first week. Golden State, I don't know who's playing either. The Suns tweet that I had the other night, nice win against the

Sixers, but Embiid didn't play because of the suspension and Devin Booker went off and Booker has been better. The Suns are better. We said that during the previews. We didn't do a lot on the Suns in the previews, but I said, you look at this roster, they're an over win total and now they've been really good. And it's been without DeAndre Ayton, who's suspended for 25 games. So when I looked at the Sixers, I just said, hey, you know what? They lost their first game to Phoenix. Phoenix Suns blueprint game. Sixers Twitter, shockingly, the least fun group in the NBA.

Didn't get it. Salty, salty crew out of Philadelphia. But that was actually pretty predictable because, I mean, do you really think I think the Suns are better than the Sixers because they beat them at home without a beat? But that's what you guys did. Maybe that's my fault. And finally, with Golden State, mentioned the defense and that roster. Really good point here. They could have potentially 40 games in primetime, 27, I think, on national networks.

This is what we need to do a better job of. It's 2019. The NFL figured out a flex schedule on their Sunday nighter way too long. We got real chicken in sandwiches way too late in the game. And the Golden State Warriors, we need to figure out a way

to not have them on all these national televised slots. Just switch it with somebody else. This shouldn't be that hard to figure out instead of watching a G League team the rest of the year. Let's talk politics with Chris Silliza. I really feel like we should start at the beginning of this because I doubt many people know and probably even more don't care. But Chris and I grew up in neighboring towns.

You were in Marlboro and I was in Hebron before I moved to Mass. And then we played youth basketball together. And people may not believe this, despite what all you haters say about Chris out there. But Chris was a really good basketball player. So it's good to talk to you again after all these years. Man, it's so thrilling for me from afar to watch your career doing my dream job covering NBA nba and sports but yeah i know i always tell people i'm like yeah i know that guy and i know his cousin cousin grew up like real close to me and he grew up in the next town before he moved we used to play basketball together i still

do you play i still play. like swell up. And he said, look, if you want to just run occasionally, walk, lift weights, you'll be fine. Like you don't need to have surgery. And I was like, well, I, you know, I really want to keep playing basketball. So I had the surgery despite the fact that I don't think like my professional prospects are getting better, but it's just, I just love playing. It's an awesome, like I'm my, my older boy who's 10 is just now doing like travel basketball., and I forgot how awesome it is to be at that stage. Yeah, it was really cool for us, too, because it was right as rap was starting, at least invading the suburbs. I'm not talking about the origin here of the early 80s, late 70s. This was not Compton.

No, no, it was not Compton, but it was just such a unique time, late 80s, this thing blowing up and people thinking it was a fad. And it just became such a part of our basketball. And so you go to Loomis and then you end up in Georgetown. And I ironically went to Vermont to be a poli-sci major because I thought I liked politics and wanted to be a lawyer. And then I immediately knew, hey, you know what? You're not a great student right now. Whatever you're doing, you're not real locked in. It appears you were a little bit more locked in than I was earlier on.

So how did you go from wanting to do sports to being with CNN and being a political voice? You're a guy now. I mean, I guess, I mean, I'm sure you have like a similar thing where it, I don't want to call it luck, but it just kind of things happen. I always, as a kid, I was obsessed with sports. I was an only child, not super popular, not good enough at sports to be really popular, but really into sports. Like watched every Yankee game with Bill White and Phil Rizzuto on WPIX. You know, like we'd go anytime the Celtics would come to the

Hartford Civic Center, which they did used to do back when we were younger, go to those games, go to the Celtics would come to the Harford Civic Center, which they did used to do back when we were younger, go to those games, go to the Whalers. Like I love sports. So I wound up, you know, and I went to college thinking, well, like, you know, I didn't go to college at Georgetown cause I wanted to be in a politics. It was just a school that I got into. So I wound up kind of realizing through a couple of friends who had internships in sports at ESPN and other places where I didn't really want my hobby to be my job. Cause I was

worried that I wouldn't, it wouldn't be as fun. You know, I mean, this was the thing that was always like that, uh, uh, place I could go and know that it was going to be fun. Like I remember porn over box scores and the Hartford current, you know what I mean? Like these are all so many of my childhood memories are related to sports. So I found something in politics again, kind of falling into that has a lot of similar elements. And I know people always, because Twitter is the worst, I always get that. It's not a game, Chris, like this is, this is, it's not whether Russell Westbrook has a triple double or not. This is about the fate of the country, which I understand. And I'm not saying that they are equivalent, but I do think a lot of things that drew me to sports and sports coverage,

uh, personalities, the history of it, the storylines, the fact that yes, every game, uh, every baseball game is roughly nine innings. Uh, and one team wins, one team loses. But how you get to the end of that is the story and is what draws people in. Same thing. There's always a two-year election cycle, four years if you're running for president. Somebody wins, somebody loses, and then we do an after-action report. But the way that you get there, the decisions strategically and tactically that get made, that's what sucked me in and I think has kind of kept me there.

So it's tied into my sports obsession as a kid, but it's not exactly the same. No, it isn't. And, you know, I mean, that's the thing that I don't like. And I've even done a qualifier here on the start this interview where it's any sane person realizes the difference here and it doesn't need to be added to every single opinion that you have about any of this stuff and you you've definitely i think carved out a thing for you where you've been criticized for it where it's like he's not serious enough and i'm like actually i think that's the draw i think the attraction to you and your success is that you have a very um i don't know it's just i mean i'm sorry i can't come up with a better verb here or

excuse me uh adjective it's just that there's a there's a normalcy to kind of the way you go about it. Yeah. I mean, I think like my view on it is the ridiculous and the sublime fit very close to one another. Right. So it's that. And then that old Q-tip, I don't know, it might be Fife. I can't totally remember. I think it's Q-tip where he says, I really can't say. I guess I laugh to keep from crying. So I do think that there's an element of that in what I do is that you have to be able to step back and realize that some of this stuff you can cover from. It can be serious, but you also can step back and be like, holy cow, especially now, right? Especially in this era, you gotta laugh a little

bit while also saying, yes, this is serious stuff, but this is totally ridiculous. I always say that the best, you want to watch the show that most represents politics and like that I've covered and watched over my whatever time doing it? A lot of people say House of Cards or West Wing. You know what it is, honestly, and this is not an exaggeration? The kind of the personality driven stuff, the penal dumb stuff, you know, there's a lot of truth in Veep for people who cover politics, a lot more truth in it than in House of Cards, where everybody's like serious and plotting and there are murders happening. How good has Trump been for business? No one who says he's been anything but incredible is not telling the truth. He says lots of things that aren't true, lots and lots of things. One thing that he says that is true is Trump is the best thing that's ever happened to the media business, or at least the politics media business.

in him is both deeper with people who cared before and broader in terms of people who didn't care before than I have ever witnessed. And it's not really even close. I said to somebody yesterday, it's like if Sarah Palin times a thousand had actually become president. There was a big deal about her in 2008. She becomes the VP nominee and even afterward. big deal about her in 2008. She becomes the VP nominee. And even afterward, this is that times, whatever, pick your number because Trump is an entity that existed in the culture prior to running for office. I'm watching like, uh, uh, the little rascals remake, the little rascals remake movie with my kids. And suddenly I see Trump. This is, was in like 90 or 92 or something, Trump playing the rich kid's dad on the phone. And you're like, what? You just realize that he's just been part of culture for so long.

And now in the political world, there's just nobody who doesn't have a very strongly held opinion about him, right? I mean, if you go around in your world, and certainly if I go around in mine, if you go up to somebody and be like, hey, what do you think of Donald Trump? It's going to be the least common answer is going to be, huh? Take it or leave it. Like, no one feels that way. You know, like people passionately love him, passionately hate him, but no one is indifferent to him. And I think that's what is drawn. But I've drawn so many people in. But I mean, look, people always say, oh, you attack CNN all the time. We're doing our thing and doing our job. Him raising CNN's profile is not destructive to CNN. If he attacks you personally, I mean, as long as you're doing the job as honestly and forthrightly and transparently as you can, I don't really worry about that stuff.

But there's no question, no question, to get back to your point, that we've never seen anything like this in terms of interest level. So when I was watching it all happen, and it was odd because Danny Cannell and I were co-hosting at that time, and it was, I think, the first debate. Danny Cannell and I were co-hosting at that time. And it was like, I think the first debate and we just were like, oh my God, like, I can't believe this guy's talking this way, which we didn't understand was a part of his appeal. We, you know, we thought, oh, well, this is too abrasive. And then he had ripped McCain and you're like, okay, this is over. Then the Billy Bush tape. And then you're like, okay, now it's over. And it was never over. And yet when I would watch, and this isn't specific to you, Chris, but when I'd watched so many different political pundits, because I am really interested in this stuff, even though I know I'm not super educated on it. It's that we all, everybody was just saying, okay, well, the run is over.

The run is over. This isn't going to happen. And the next thing you know, John King's hitting the touchscreen and the guy's president. How is it that so many people were so incredibly wrong? And I mean wrong in a way that I think that should be studied. That year, that buildup should be studied in college. And how I feel like almost being too close and having DC be in your backyard, it can impact you. Because every person that you're interacting with is going, okay, this isn't for real.

And this thing has to run its course at some point. And then he's president. Yep. Yep, absolutely. And, I mean, look, I was at the Washington Post then and I was sitting there watching it. And I've got as many people have reminded me, I've got lots of articles that say Donald Trump has an almost infinitesimal chance of being president. And what I always remind people as it relates to why this was missed so badly, there are let's say you're a weather. Let's take it out of both of our worlds. let's say you're a weather forecaster. Let's take it out of both of our worlds.

Let's say you're a weather forecaster. You're a meteorologist. Okay, you got the North American model and the European model. And, you know, you look and say, well, these three have been generally more predictive. And here's what these three say. And so we think that the hurricane track is going to be between whatever, North Carolina and Alabama. I don't know. And suddenly the hurricane does something you've not ever seen before and hits Connecticut. You're wrong, but you're not wrong because you intentionally or maliciously

misinterpreted the data. Now, no one would accuse them, I don't think. Well, maybe in this era they would, but few people would accuse a meteorologist of like, you hate Connecticut, so you didn't warn them. But what happened in 2016 was we have in politics the same sort of metrics for success. So it's fundraising. It's are you on message, generally speaking. It's polling. It's how much money are you spending on TV in Florida and North Carolina and Virginia and Ohio? How much positive versus negative news attention are you attracting? How united is your party behind you? There's more, but those are the basic ones.

And on every single one of those, you go down the line. And I would do it today. I would go down the line and say, in late October 2016, on every one of those measures, Hillary Clinton was the likely winner. Now, she doesn't win. The hurricane hits Connecticut. Why does that happen? That's what I've tried to spend, and I think a lot of people in journalism have tried to spend the next couple years, last couple years, trying to figure out. I think the easy answer, the short and right answer is there's a poll number that came out of the election. People were asked, what trait in a candidate is most important to you? They offer like four. Well, one is cares about people like me. Another one is can bring about change. Okay, so can bring about change

is the one that the most people who voted cite, about four in 10 voters. Trump wins that group over Clinton, 82% to 14%. So we were assuming that things like Access Hollywood that made him look very unpresidential, attacks on John McCain, attacks on a Gold Star family, we were assuming that all of those things would accrue to people feeling as though he was disqualified. But that's only if they wanted to choose a quote-unquote politician. Because they wanted change so badly, they were willing to roll the dice on a guy who all of those things that we assumed were bad for him wound up actually being, I don't want to say good for him, but all went to cementing image in voters' minds that, man, this guy's really different. It might be different bad, but it's definitely different. And at this point, different is what matters. So I think that's the short answer for why we missed

it. I still think we're going, uh, we, we, uh, have to be careful not to go down these same lines. I mean, I think the Biden, you know, the whole debate over Joe Biden is along those same lines. He's a known commodity. He was the former vice president of the United States. But there's lots of science that suggests that Democratic voters don't want him. Okay, how do we cover that? How are we transparent about it? I think making the 2016 mistake was understandable. I think making the same mistake again would be, I don't want to go as far as say unforgivable, but much more problematic. If we did the same thing again in 2020 that we did in 2016, I think all of the vitriol and hate

directed at us, I would get it more. I struggle with it in 2016, even though I understand why people feel that way. Yeah. I think one of the major points that I've always felt like people want to buy into is, oh, I want the outsider. I want the outsider because growing up it was, and I know this is very pedestrian, but it was just understood. You were the vice president, you're going to run for president. And when Dick Cheney didn't run, that was the first time where I go, what the hell has that guy been up to? It's not even talked about. No, I'm good. You can say it's a health reason, but it but it was just like you know what i think we're all probably just better off me not being out there too much um so then it becomes as i look at like the the primaries and and the democratic party and how they're trying to like line this all up and one of my sports analogies that i do like like i've always enjoyed all this build-up because it feels like the ncaa tournament of human beings where you're like totally mayor pete's a seven this guy, you know, he's getting to the second weekend. Um, when I, when I look at how it's all built up, it feels like it actually is more of a collection

of outsiders than ever before. But I think what, what I've learned at least, and I'm going to do one more sports analogy here. I didn't mean to force all these in, but you couldn't win the heisman when we were younger unless you were a carryover from the year before now i don't think you can win it as the favorite and i really think there's a similarity there with presidential nominees here not even nine nominees candidates where it's you you can't be too early and you have to kind of hit that sweet spot or you end up like beto o'rourke who just you know look part of it was his own unorganized approach to this thing which he has basically admitted himself i mean the thing the thing completely fell off the rails because it seemed like they had no plan and it was just sort of like one good tweet and then everybody loved him and

then everybody's like now what and he was out there too long so it feels like a collection of outsiders chris in a way that we've never seen before. But then it feels like, well, wait a minute, now that I've gotten to know these guys, maybe I don't like them that much either if you're a Democrat. Well, that's what like a week and a half ago, there was a bunch of stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post that were basically the same story, which said Democratic establishment getting nervous about their candidates, to which I was like, dude, they have 19 candidates. You're telling me that there's not one of them in there that they're okay with? I mean, this field was like at one point 28 people.

I mean, unless you yourself want to run, it is hard for me to believe that there is no one who fits the bill there. So I think some of that is built on exactly what you're talking about, which is the longer you're around in some ways, the more... It's like everything else. To go back to your Heisman thing, there's a number one overall pick.

There's nothing worse than being tabbed as the Heisman frontrunner or the number one overall pick because what happens? You get picked apart, right? Throughout the year, it's like, I don't know if he did that exactly right. I'm like, does he really know how to read defenses? That's what you see, I think, a little bit with a lot of these candidates is this process, because you've got to raise so much money, because you've got to spend so much time building organizations. This process makes you start early. Elizabeth Warren's been running for president since right after the last midterm election in 2018. There's not particularly when you're talking about wall-to-wall

cable and national media coverage, right? This is not an undercover space. So I think that's a challenge for all of them. But to your outsider point, the thing I always come back to is, I still remember this so vividly, Bernie Sanders runs for president in 2016. He's running at Hillary Clinton. Everyone assumes Hillary Clinton's going to be the nominee. She's got, you know, all this support. Sanders at one point is in a debate with Clinton and he proposes, he talks about Medicare for all, which, you know, it's shorthand is essentially get rid of all private health insurance and just replace it with a government run program. She literally goes in the debate like, oh, Bernie, that's so sweet. You know, like, oh, look at this guy over here. He's just saying stuff.

And then now two of the four front runners. So Sanders, obviously, and Warren are now on the record in support of this. And it is like a position that multiple candidates have taken in the Democratic primaries. That's not between 1988 and 2020. That's between 2016 and 2020. So I think that there is an element to which the party has changed. The party has radicalized. I don't mean that in a pejorative way, just in a, it's radically different than it was in 2016. Hillary Clinton walks to the nomination in 2016. In 2020, if Joe Biden gets nomination, it is going to be an absolute all-out war. And I think if you're a betting person today, the favorite is going to be Elizabeth Warren. In my opinion, the kind of like best odds, you know, where you can actually

make a little money is probably on Pete Buttigieg. I don't think Biden is in there. And I just think that speaks to how much the Democratic Party has changed. We talk about how much the Republican Party has changed in the era of Trump, which is, I mean, it's wholesale. But the Democratic Party, in the era of Trump, which is, I mean, it's wholesale, but the Democratic Party in reaction to Trump and Trumpism such as that, I mean, it's just basically him has also really changed in ways that affect who the party's going to pick. When I, when I think about the Democratic Party, as you pointed out, I mean, a million options here and anybody listening to this, you know, if you're, if you're on the right, you just think that it's just a collection of clowns. And if you're on the left, you're desperately hoping one of these people can pop

enough and hit the timing right and have enough of a message that includes everybody to win some of those swing states, as I've read and you pointed out, like we're talking maybe 10 or 11, not 17, as Trump has said that he's crushing it in these 17 swing states. But I mean, if there are 17 swing states, like that would work if I was a Republican and they were like, yeah, no, we're we've got pretty good numbers in Massachusetts. I'd be like, oh, I feel like we may be wasting our money. You know, I mean, the truth of the matter is, yeah, there's like that. Yeah, right. Exactly. I mean, you can go through it and you can figure it out and you go, OK, you know, and some of these states are changing as as we see it, you know, every four years based up on, you know based up on who's living there and everything. But there's always this thing that I remind people of, like whenever we talk Kaepernick

ad nauseum over the years, and you go, you can support him. You can think he's right. You can love his execution. You can think the NFL is racist. You can think all of these things, but you still have to allow yourself to understand the guy in another part of the country that doesn't want the NFL product anymore because of Kaepernick. And you have to understand that the NFL has to understand that. So it doesn't mean having an open mind is agreeing with that person.

And that's unfortunate. I think what we're doing too much of is that, oh, I have an open mind. Let me hear your opinion. And it's like, oh, what do you agree with? No, no, I have an open mind. I want to hear your opinion. But it doesn't mean that I understand it. And I worry sometime.

And I don't know if worry is the right way because I don't really, um, you know, I'm, I'm not sitting here on one side. I really am not like just tied to one side of this politically, but when I'll hear like Elizabeth Warren speak, I go, is she, does she understand that that guy out there who voted for Trump for the reasons that he voted like this? Does she just like already know she's never getting that vote? Or does she not understand in the way that she can frame some things and saying that the new health care plan, which is only going to be funded by billionaires, which is just impossible if you do a minute of research on it, just will not work.

Just it just doesn't add up. It just doesn't add up. No, it doesn't make any sense. It makes none. And she's just screaming billionaires. And you're like, OK, I'm going to need a little bit more depth on this. It just doesn't add up. Do some of the far left candidates understand that their approach makes the Trump supporter feel alienated? Or is she already just punted or, you know, he or she punted on ever getting a vote in the first place? I think it's the latter.

I think the belief is these people, the hardcore Trump supporters, even the kind of slightly less hardcore Trump supporters, they're never voting for a Democrat. So don't fool yourself into trying to reach out to them. Because again, like this speaks to how much politics has changed in not that long. Bill Clinton makes his political name with this whole third way idea that like Republicans have long had one way, liberal Democrats have long had another way. I'm going to find a path in between. Joe Biden, in some ways, is a man out of time in this race. He cuts out, and he's talking about how he cut deals with Mitch McConnell

in the Senate on the budget. He calls Mike Pence, like, he's not a bad guy. That's not what the Democratic Party wants right now. The base of the Democratic Party hates Donald Trump. And I'm not just saying, I'm not throwing out that word hate. They do. They loathe Donald Trump.

They want him gone. They do not believe he should have won in the first place. They will cite you chapter and verse on the popular vote, though, as always, remind people Donald Trump won under the rule that are the current rules right the popular vote thing to me is like i know it gets a lot of retweets but shut the you know like i'm just so sick of the popular vote counter-argument my view on it is like yeah did that the saint sure that that was past interference against on the saint but it wasn't called so i like i don't know what you want me to do about it.

Like, the rules are the rules. You can change the rules, but you can't complain when the rules even poorly enforced. Like, he won because the Electoral College was the way and is the way that we decide president. You want to change it and make it to be a popular vote? That's totally fine with me. Like, I don't feel strongly either way, but you can't beat the guy up for winning the way in which we tell presidents, this is how you win.

What's up with Biden? Cause I looked at all the polls this morning and he's leading everything, except he's not going to do well in Iowa. It looks, but as you pointed out, it is still so early in this process. And it was funny cause I was talking with a good friend of mine from college. We were talking about Iowa and I go, you know, what I've pointed out, it is still so early in this process. And it was funny because I was talking with a good friend of mine from college. We were talking about Iowa and I go, you know, what I've never really quite understood is like how Iowa momentum can change things or New Hampshire or whatever. And he goes, yeah, but we all know guys from Iowa. We love those guys.

Like what's, what's better than somebody from Iowa starting this off on the, on the right path. But you know, I'm sort of Midwestern stock. Right, there you go. And not just fake Midwestern stock. Iowa, for God's sakes. Yeah, that's real. And it is flat there, people. I've spent a lot of time there. You know, I haven't.

And it's still on the checklist of states I haven't been to. Des Moines, underrated city. Underrated city, Des Moines. It's actually good food and a good culture art scene. I know people will roll their eyes, but it actually is. That's good. I know. I'm glad.

I don't want anyone to ever roll their eyes about the cultural art scene in Des Moines. Let's just say this. I'd rather spend a night in Des Moines, Iowa than Hartford, Connecticut. Sorry, Hartford. I think we're allowed to say that because we both spent time there. I actually moved back there. Yeah, I lived there a little while. I lived downtown when I first got there.

That's right. Yeah. Insurance capital of the United States. It was amazing. I couldn't get a Gatorade on a Sunday morning unless I got on the highway. Yeah, it's unbelievable. Anyway, Biden. Biden.

Let me just set this up, though, just so people aren't following this. You go through the polls. He's leading every poll, which I think surprises people because a lot of the debates, he just isn't good at it. I mean, he just whatever you want to say about his politics. But I really feel like presentation has as much to do about this with anything. You know, Trump, for whatever you want to say about him, he is there's no wavering. There is so much conviction in every single sentence that I think it plays to people it clearly plays to people it's not i think we know this but with biden it's bad the presentation is bad and then you look at the polls and he's double digits on everybody else except of course as you mentioned and as anybody can look up the iowa numbers for him are not going to be a

good start yeah just quickly on trump because i think it's so important and you mentioned like now this earlier on you were saying you know he talks like you've never heard a politician talk for. I had voters tell me during the 2016 election, like Trump would say something like, there are more people in this arena tonight than in all of the United States combined. And you'd be like, that doesn't compare. Like, how could that be possible? And you would talk to people after, but do that be possible? And you would, like, talk to people after, like, do you trust him? You know, do you think that he's telling you the truth, even though, like, it's demonstrably proven he's not?

And they would say, yeah, I mean, why would he say the stuff he says the way he says it if he's lying? Like, just to your point about presentation, Trump's bluntness, his willingness to say and do stuff that, you know, like Marco Rubio, low energy Jeb, low Marco. Like people just they may not like it. They may see it as bullying, but they believe that it somehow connotes authenticity, and he has benefited hugely from that, despite, I would say, you know, a long record of documented distortions, mistruths, and lies. Okay, Biden. Yeah, he's, the problem for him is he's not great at a couple things that really matter. There is absolutely a performative aspect to presidential politics, especially. I've sat in a million focus groups where people are talking about why they're voting for this person, why they're voting for that

person. Very rarely, there's like one person usually in like a 15 or 16 person focus group where they'll say, Joe Biden's position on fill in the blank or Elizabeth Warren's position on healthcare. That's why I'm voting for her against her. There are some of those people. But the people who really decide these elections, the people who don't pay all that much attention, these are not hardcore partisans, they'll always say something like, I don't know. My uncle said he saw him at a rally and he seems like a good guy. I mean, there's so much feel and perception that goes into voting for president. It's not. You go to the website of Donald Trump. You check off the places you agree with him on issues.

You go to the website of Elizabeth Warren. You check out the places you agree with her. You add the check marks up and you vote for the candidate who has more checks. There are people who do that. They're just not most of them. So the problem for Biden is debates are the one time where I think whether you watch it live or you see a few highlights from it and fundraising, those are the two big metrics at this point with a field this big that people look to. Polling is the other one. He's OK in that regard, to your point.

But the debate, he just doesn't it doesn't it has not clicked. And I don't think it will click. I think what you see is kind of what you get there. You know, the thing where he, I mean, some of these candidates go on for 20 minutes. You're supposed to speak for like a minute and a half. They just keep going and going. He'll like cut off in the middle of a sentence and say, well, okay, anyway. You're like, wait, dude, what? There's no like, no one's going to like penalize you for taking another 20 seconds.

So he's not great at that. Fundraising. There's a guy in Arizona running for the Senate named Mark Kelly. He's an astronaut. He's married to Gabby Giffords, the congressman who was shot at a rally in the 2000s, almost died. He's got $10 million on hand for a Senate race. So he's got $10 million left to spend on the race. That's a million and a half more than Joe Biden, the former vice president of the United States, has for presidential race. So he's bad at two things that really matter. One, a nuts and bolts thing, fundraising. One, a performance thing, debating. National polling at this point matters less than

Iowa and New Hampshire and Nevada and South Carolina polling. It just does. It's not a national race. Like, yeah, I know every state votes, but they don't all vote at the same time. Iowa votes first. We know from history, Iowa impacts New Hampshire, which impacts Nevada, which impacts South Carolina. And then those four impact everything that comes after it, including, by the way, California this year in early March. So sure, you'd rather, I guess, have polling, national polling that has you ahead. But don't, at this point in the race, Iowa, New Hampshire, that's where you should look for who's ahead. Because that will tell you momentum. And we know momentum matters in this stuff from the past.

What's the best story you have for us? Because you always feel like, okay, you cover these people. And I imagine you're not talking. Well, I don't know. I don't want to assume anything here. Is it been a big lie told directly from a politician off the record? Is it one of their people, campaign manager? What's the story?

What's your go-to happy hour story about your life in politics the last 20 years? Yeah. I mean, honestly, I think politicians and their people lie less than most people assume. I mean, Trump does it right out in the open. You know, I think we've always thought of lying as like a thing that they do. Like, hey, FYI, you might want to look into this. When, in fact, most of them try to adhere not to that. And Trump just does it right out, like right out in your face.

So I actually don't think it's that. I think most of my experiences on the campaign trail, and now I'm old and have kids, so I'm not out there like, you know, every day grinding it out in Iowa, New Hampshire. We've got lots of good people who do that who are not me. The one that I remember the most, I think, and it drives home the fact that you can never forget. I think this is probably true for sports. I defer to you know so much more about that world. But like the thing that I always try to remind people about politics is it's super personal. We have a tendency to assume that these people, because you see them on a stage or you see them in an ad,

that they're not regular, they're not normal people. They don't have feelings. They're not, you know, they're just, they're like politicians, like a different breed. It's like an avatar. You know what I mean? Like, they're not human. They're like a different species. I'm at a debate in 2004. God, I'm so old.

Yeah, I think it was 2004. It might have been 2008. John Edwards, who, you know, I know all the stuff that goes with John Edwards, former North Carolina senator. They've just debated. I walk out onto the stage, I'm talking to some staffer, and his wife, the late Elizabeth Edwards, she passed away to me and she's like, and I've never met her before. She comes up to me and she's like, why did you write that about John? And I'm like, I don't what, what, I mean, I wanted to say like, Hey, I write a lot of things. Cause I do write, write a lot, but it's a candidate. It's a candidate's wife. So I'm like, you know what in particular, and I had mentioned like in a parenthetical

that he was fading or something. I mean, it wasn't like John Edwards. This is before all the stuff about John Edwards came out. This is just when he was, I think it was 08. This is when he's running. It's Obama, him and Clinton. They're the three big candidates. There hadn't been any vote yet. And she didn't like something I wrote. And she was like very, very upset because she thought that it did not accurately portray her husband as a person. And I think that the reason I say that is, or tell that story is because I think that we always forget these people are human. When they are making decisions about stuff, they are thinking about the same things that we think about when we make decisions about stuff. They are thinking about the same things that we think about when we make decisions about

stuff. When they do stupid crap, it's the same reason that we do stupid crap. Sometimes it's because you're tired. Sometimes it's because you get bad advice. Sometimes it's because you get good advice and ignore it. But it is important to remember that this stuff, and that just to return back to my Veep thing, the thing that Veep does really well, I know it's a comedy and not meant to be a documentary. I know it's satire, but what it does really well is it shows that from Julio and Louis Dreyfus on down, these are human beings who are sometimes magnanimous and great, are often petty, make mistakes.

And I think it's important to remember that piece of it because I think if you don't remember that piece of it, as someone like me who covers this stuff, you miss a hugely important part of this. They are motivated. They're ambitious. They're at times petty. They can be courageous. They can be cowardly, just like all of us. just like all of us. And I think you got to remind yourself of that every single day, because otherwise you wind up covering it, like moving pieces around on a chessboard. And that is not how they operate. And therefore you miss that. And you miss being able to explain

that to the people who don't have the privilege that I have to be up close to it. Does that make any sense? I know that. No, I make, look, it makes a lot of sense to me because I've dealt with it with teams. I've also had this weird role where being at ESPN for as long as I was, I would have other teams, as I explained on the podcast before, I'd have a team call and I'd think, oh, cool, maybe I'm going to get some good information here, just a heads up on something that's happening. And they would call to vent about somebody else at ESPN. And I'd be like, oh, okay. And you'd be like, oh, okay. And you'd be like, yes, we both do work there.

Yeah, right. I'm like, well, I'm not responsible. Today wasn't my day to staff first take. I don't know what to tell you. Hey, so on your Twitter bio, and again, it's at SalizaCNN, that's C-I-L-L-I-Z-Z-A-C-N-N. Your bio, and you've had this up for a while, quote, one of the dumber and least respected

of the political pundits. That's from Donald Trump. I think that was before he was even president, correct? So what was that like for you? That was when he was a candidate. What was that in reference to? I mean, I had written some, this was definitely before he was president.

It was in 2016. I was actually, I remember it very distinctly because I do corner Tony Kornheiser's podcast twice a week in DC. And I was on it tapes early in the morning. Like we started like seven 30 and I was on it when I started seeing, I like all like Twitter addicts and like monitoring my Twitter dashboard while Tony's talking, I'm just good use of my time.

I'm like monitoring my Twitter dashboard while Tony's talking. I'm just good use of my time. And I see like all of a sudden, like hundreds of messages just like coming through. And I'm like, OK, either I'm like about to be fired because I've said something I didn't think I said. Or Trump has tweeted because that was in a stage where he was tweeting about politicians, about reporters all the time. And it was that he's like, uh, I think it was like either moron or idiot hates my poll. That was how he started it. And then it went into that. So, I mean, you know, there's a level of badge of honor in this there, uh, as it relates to Trump. I mean, the thing about him that I think is important for people to understand who don't live in this world is, if you think that Donald Trump actually hates and doesn't consume the media, you could not be missing the boat more.

This is a guy, he's called me in person before. It is, when I have talked to him, it is very clear that he has a, and this is far from only me, he has a very voracious appetite of media consumption and cares deeply about what the media is saying about him, particularly TV. This whole fake news, that is all an applause line designed to throw red meat to his face. If you think Donald Trump doesn't read the New York Times, you know this thing lately, he's going to cancel his subscription to the New York Times and the Washington Post. Trust me, he's going to find a way to read the New York Times and the Washington Post.

There has never been a president in the modern era, so like since Twitter, so Bush, we have never had a president one-tenth as obsessed with his media coverage as Trump. Obama literally – you want to talk about a president who is disdainful of the media for real, Barack Obama. He thought we were dumb. We didn't know much. We were drawing conclusions based on limited information. Trump is the exact opposite of that. He craves media attention, media praise, media engagement, right? For him, the worst thing in the world, Trump's biggest fear is not being unpopular or the subject of bad press. It is being irrelevant and not the subject of any press. And I think that's what you have to remember about him every time he attacks me or CNN or whoever. He cares deeply about this stuff. He just does. I did think it was interesting in the second Game Change book,

and the first one, as you were talking about John Edwards, the John Edwards chapter alone is worth buying the first. Oh, my gosh. The John Edwards chapter alone made that book. I mean, that was incredible stuff. That book is incredible. The second one, it was hard to ever live up to what the first one was, but I still enjoyed it.

But I thought it was pretty telling that Michelle Obama was the one that was more obsessed with the coverage. Like it sounded like Obama would watch and consume this stuff. I don't think he he scheduled his day around it like Trump does. But when I read that anecdote about Michelle reaching out to Fox News because she was I was like, what's the point? Like, why would you even bother if you're the first lady? But that's what we always kind of forget. And it is a good lesson, whether it's Edward's late wife,

as you've mentioned, or a GM that's mad at somebody like we, we do a really bad job. All of us of remembering that, that we are all over, you know, not to be simplistic about it, but as people,

we can all be really easy to predict. And guess what? People don't like when you talk shit about them and whatever their level is that's like they worry about right you know they have a reaction right cliches like in our businesses you know you do everything you can to stay away from cliches like four reasons why freddy kitchens needs to go you know i mean try to stay away from all that stuff but the truth of of the matter is, some cliches are borne out. And like, there is a lot of high school or junior high school in all of us in terms of how we interact. I always say the biggest joke is constructive criticism. You show me someone who effectively accepts constructive criticism ever. I'm always

like, yeah, no, I'm happy to hear what you think of my journalism. And then if somebody's like, look, I really like you, but I would tone X down. I'm like, that guy's a jerk. He doesn't know me. You know, I mean, so I think that we are all creatures of, it is, it's to your point, it's like totally dumb to say we have to remember we're all people, but it happens in sports. We put these people on pedestals. We, we, we separate them out and we assume that they are operating under assumptions and under a directive that are not governed in our life. We've got Anthony Rendon is a free agent here. Like to me, everyone's talking, Oh, well, what's he going to do? Is he going to stay? Is he going to take, he's probably going to think about the same things I would think

about. I want to make as much money as possible. Like when my next contract is up, I want to make as much, much money as possible to put my family in a position where we don't have to worry about that. And I want to be in the best possible situation to be happy. That's it. Like, you know, we go through, well, what does Scott Boris want? I mean, like at the end, sure. But at the end of the day, it's it. Like, you know, we go through, well, what does Scott Boris want? I mean, like, sure, but at the end of the day, it's simple.

You want to be in a place where you're appreciated. You want to be compensated in a way that takes care of you as best as you can for the future. Like, don't overthink it. Same thing with politicians. You know, we have a tendency to ascribe to them these, like, superhuman emotions that they're somehow able to separate out their pettiness, their jealousy, their anger, their happiness, that they can separate that out, that they're just dead inside. They can separate that out, and they can just make these decisions on a purely rational

basis, when in fact we have decades, centuries worth of evidence that that is not in fact how things happen. I mean, you know, it's like, uh, God Adams and Thomas Jefferson feuding because Jeffers Adams is jealous of Jefferson and everything he had, you know what I mean? It's like this stuff isn't that complicated. Human, human emotion and human drama drives all of this stuff from sports to politics. And we do well to not forget that. I really like, and that's why I'm, by the way, just a plug for you guys. That's why I like what you do. I like what Bill does. I like what Kornheiser does because you guys understand

that, that it's not just about, again, like pieces on a chessboard. It's not just about like, okay, move Rook to B7. Like it is about people. It is about their relationships with one another. It is about whether they feel valued or not valued. Like it's about all the same things that we all make decisions about. And it's just because these people are very, in the case of sports, very highly paid, very prominent. In the case of politics, extremely prominent and powerful. That doesn't change who, that we're all fundamentally kind of who we were in 11th grade.

Speaking of 11th grade, when you run into, like when it's you and your CNN crew and you run into guys from Fox News, is it about to go down? Is it like you guys stare at each other from across the restaurant? I mean, the guys I know from here, like Brett Ba from across the restaurant? I mean, I, the guys I know from here, like Brett Baer and Chris Wallace, I mean, I like those guys. I don't have any, I don't, I mean, I don't run into like, this will come as a shock to you, Ryan, but like me and Hannity, like don't run in similar circles. So like, I'm not running into him regularly, but the guys that I run into here, you know, I mean, I play,

I play pickup not with them, but I play pickup basketball with like-up, not with them, but I play pick-up basketball with, like, a bunch of people who, like, I don't think agree with my views on Trump. We just play basketball. You know what I mean? Like, that's what I like about it.

If somebody were to guess, though, who a CNN guy would like from Fox News, they'd say Christopher Wallace. Yeah, that's probably true. But, I mean, the other thing, too, is geography.

Like, a lot of... Like, I'm not... I don't see a lot of those people. People are based in D.C. to the extent that you see anybody. And I think we see each other a lot less than people assume. I mean, it's not like I'm going out to dinner. I'm mostly sitting on Washington for dinners. But to the extent that we see people, it's like in passing, you talk about your kids. I mean, it's not like a, you know, anchorman, you know, a rumble between like all the anchors, which I, we got a, I mean, we got some big dudes over here. Like Jim Chuto is like a big cat. He's like six, four. So I would like our chances. Yeah. King's big, isn't he? He's like a linebacker.

Yeah. He'd be tough to take down. He'd be a good MMA fighter. Tough to take to the ground. He's one of my, I mean, all-timers when he had the touchscreen going. I mean, that was like watching Jordan. It's awesome.

I totally agree. I mean, see, you're a nerd for this stuff like me, so you're drawn to it. But yeah, like, I mean, the thing is, being around, you know, by the way, who you would not want to get in a fight with. People ask me about him all the time. You didn't ask this, but Chris Cuomo, that dude is 6'3", 230. I mean, he's a big, big, strong dude.

Yeah, no, I can see a little edge. And I'm not just talking about the video, which is a total setup. And, you know, regardless of how you feel about Cuomo. It's ridiculous. I I don't even want to kid you. It's so ridiculous. I know him personally. He is incredibly kind to people who walk up to him on the street. Anyone like you or him who is prominent, you know that this stuff does happen where people are trying to make a name right off of making you look dumb. I just think it's unfortunate and I think ridiculous. Okay, final thing here in honor of Craig Kilbourne, we do five questions with guests unless I forget to do it. I'm ready. Okay,

last politician that you'd want to be a roommate with? The last politician I'd want to live with? You mean the person I'd least want to live with? Yes, uh, you mean the last, like the person I'd least want to live with. Um, yes, yes.

We're, we're negative on this podcast sometime. Yeah. I like that. Uh, probably like me, like a Sanders or Cruz, Bernie Sanders or Ted Cruz solely because I think they would talk a lot when I

was trying to watch sports. Ted Cruz is the right answer. Bernie Sanders would Ted Cruz solely because I think they would talk a lot when I was trying to watch sports. Ted Cruz is the right answer. Bernie Sanders would be like, let me tell you about Medicare for All. Or Ted Cruz would be like, I just want to tell you. Do you remember when I ran for president in 2016? So I would want just peace and quiet because my day job is very busy. I'm big about the appearance and the way you conduct yourself and then digging in and like I think like a lot of people I can just write somebody off for one thing it's a lot like us

right like hey Chris I've really admired your work for 20 years but you said this one thing about New Hampshire and now it's so true it happens to me all the time I haven't followed your stuff forever but you didn't give them enough sons you know sons enough love so you suck I always get on Twitter hey uh big fan of your work but you've changed i'm like it's unlikely that that's happened yeah i wish i wish i changed more but ted cruz was just the king of the hill for me to be like how do you watch this guy if you were casting for people to like hey we have this tv show and there's going to be a bunch of different people running for the republican nomination or president and then ted if he read for the part they'd be be like, you know what? Too much. Just,

it's not, no one would actually be this. Yeah. Okay. Moving on here. Did you go to Georgetown hoping that you'd walk onto the basketball team? No, but I knew people, I just coached against the guy. I was like, I know that guy. And it was a guy who did walk on, who played on the practice team when we were good, when we had Allen Iverson, Ja'Heidi White. And, well, I just named Ja'Heidi White as the second player on that team. So maybe we weren't as good as I thought. page was there at the end right he didn't he have one overlap year with him dc d i did dc basketball legend victor page uh legend well yeah for dc basketball no i'm agreeing with you he's a legend for a lot of reasons that's all just saying uh and i get but so this guy is five times out of me i was never even close to i think i could have potentially been like the 10th man at Franklin and Marshall which is sad state of affairs was the best player that we grew up with Justin Foran and did he end up it because he was I don't I remember because I was a year ahead of you

and then I was already out because I was trying to figure out where I wanted to play and then my dad wasn't going to send me anywhere because we were moving. And then it was disastrous because I just, I didn't figure it out, whatever. So like we, we all have no one care. Actually,

maybe less people care about this than anything we just talked about. But there was a kid named Justin foreign who was a year older than me, who was the first guy, like before a, you was a, you, where he said, Hey,

you got to come try out for this team. It was Ken Smith and Wethersfield, Connecticut. And I'm like, there's no way I'm going to make this team. Like I'm 14. I don't even have, like I haven't even gone through puberty yet. Like it's not happening. And I made the team because I busted my ass.

And then he started me to prove some point. And then I didn't play because I just, I physically couldn't handle it. But this foreign kid was not foreign. And his last name was, he was Justin Foran. I think he might've played at nyu he was the best of that small group of towns that we all grew up that is right because he would so he would pick me up and be like let's go to manchester play with all black guys right now and get our asses kicked i used to play in manchester oh i remember i hurt my eye i got

hit in the eye there and like tore my retina playing outside in manchester like uh by that but like five minutes from that shady glen literally no one cares about this, but no, but that was the point is that we used to, we used to like these weird backwoods towns that we grew up in. We would get on the highway once somebody got a license and like, that was the thing. There was like a few of us that would go play where we'd be the only white kids. And that was when we just, we'd learn like, okay, this is so, we are so far away from like, we should brag

less yes so the two the two best so after i i i went to xavier in middletown for my first two years and so i when i they were they were really good at basketball still are pretty good i played with a kid there whose name was marcus bloom who committed think, to UMass when Calipari was there and then decommitted. He was the best natural kid I ever spent time with. He was like a six-foot-four kid when we were both sophomores. Really, really skilled, could shoot. Then the best guy I played, we played Camby when Camby was at Hartford Public. We played against Camby when I was a freshman, and he was obviously super dominant.

And then we also played against Scott Burrell when he was at Hamden. He went on to play for UConn. He could pitch. He went and played in the NBA for years as a three-point specialist. Canby, I don't really remember. I remember Marcus Bloom very distinctly and Scott Burrell. Those were the guys like when I went up to that next level at Xavier, where to your point, you're like, wow, being good in Marlboro, Connecticut, town of 3,500 may not be my ticket to the NBA. Those are the two guys that I remember like really distinctly driving that home.

We've gone longer than I promised. So I'll let you go after this one. Exciting game change again in the HBO doc, would it have been better for business if Sarah Palin were president versus Trump currently being president? So I don't know that we would have gotten a Trump presidency if Sarah Palin was president. Um, because I think a lot of the issues with her, which are, which were, you know, does she have the experience or she had been the mayor and the governor of Alaska for five minutes. She'd been the mayor of Wasilla for, you know, a small town. I think that those things might have prevented, and the celebrity piece of her, right, that

people were interested in her outside of the world of politics. I think that might have poisoned the well somewhat for Trump. I think she was a leading indicator. Again, it all makes sense in hindsight. She was a leading indicator of Trump. Because the whole, these media people hate me and I will wear that as a badge of honor. These elites, these Ivy League, coastal people, they don't like me. And that's why you should like me.

That's very much right in the Trump wheelhouse and, and kind of what he capitalized on. So I think she sows the seeds of Trumpism, but I think if she is the president, you probably don't get Trump. Great way to end it. Cause I, I completely agree. I think she spoke to something,

but like to back to that theory, like it's when you are that bursting star, it is awesome, but it's almost impossible to sustain and then it's like the longer you're around you're going wait a minute what and then you know she flamed out in disastrous fashion because no one loved lynn sanity more than me but you knew lynn sanity could never last that's a great analogy with palin or insanity more unsustainable Palin or Insanity?

More unsustainable. Probably Palin, not Lins. I mean, I still like Jeremy Lin. Yeah, he's not a bad third guard, right? Yes, I mean, I'll take him. We could use him on the Wizards. You could use him on the Wizards. That's true, basically, any NBA player.

Hey, Chris, seriously, man, thanks a lot. Like I said, I know we went on a little longer. I probably figured we would, but I hope people enjoyed this. I think we were fair and balanced on this one, Chris, seriously, man, thanks a lot. Like I said, I know we went a little longer. I probably figured we would, but I hope people enjoyed this. I think we were fair and balanced on this one, too, which is impossible. Fair and balanced. We should come up. I'm going to trademark that. Thanks, my friend.

Okay, a little different. I hope you guys liked it, and I'm sure you'll let me know if you didn't. We'll talk to you on Friday. I am headed to Alabama for LSU-Alabama, number one versus number two. And as you guys know, I've been to this game every year since 08, except for one. And I can't wait to get back on the road and check out some SEC football. And we'll have a reaction to the playoffs as well. Thank you.