What Happened Between Troy Aikman and ESPN? Plus, a Senator's Hawk-Sized Airball.

This episode is brought to you by Major League Baseball. The MLB postseason has arrived. There's no time like October, October starts with hope, and then drama and either happiness or some pain. Now the games decide who gets to keep it. It comes down to one series, one game, one pitch, one month. It's not a question of if history will be made, but when? Don't miss the moment. Tune into the MLB postseason. Learn more at MLB.com/postseason. This episode is brought to you by EA Sports, FC27. Welcome to the world's game. FC27 is introducing the grounds where the streets meet the stadium, connect with friends, go pro, and express yourself on or off the pitch. Play FC27 with the ultimate edition September 18th. Learn more at EA.com. Rated E for everyone includes in-game purchases including random items. The grounds is only available on PlayStation 5 Xbox Series X and S PC and Nintendo Switch 2 versions. David? Yes. Let us start this morning with some very interesting news from Sports Television. Kirk Herb Street has resigned with Amazon to continue calling Thursday night football beyond the season. Herb's five-year contract was going to be up at the end of the year. Pause for a moment to think that Amazon has been showing Thursday night football for five years. That seems really weird. It is. This is surprising to me. One because I don't think anybody thinks that Thursday night football is Herb's best work. He was put on this Earth to be a college football announcer. The host of the big Saturday night game, the host college game day, to somehow know everything about every single college in America. And the other part that makes it surprising is that Herb's deal was up at the end of the year. Al Michaels, who's played by play partners on a year-to-year deal. So this felt like a really good time to just reset the whole Thursday night booth on Amazon. Yeah. Start fresh. I remember hearing even before I and Eagle went over to Amazon to start calling NBA games that he was the heir apparent to Al Michaels on Thursday night. Now he's in the house, calling the Western Conference Finals every other year. So what if he's Thursday night football, let's say if you put him on play-by-play. And then Amazon had gone shopping for somebody like Greg Olson, who's a free agent at the end of this year. Sure. That feels like you'd have a really, really good booth, and you'd have it for the next five years, not just the next year. Yeah. I mean, you could also make the case that Herbie provides the in-house continuity, right? But if you're going to switch out the play-by-play guy, I think Herb Street still has a lot more name brand recognition than Greg Olson in the football world, even though I think, you know, quality-wise, you could certainly make the case. You know, we like very, I don't think we've even talked about Herb Street as an announcer since, like, his first year, you know, doing the show. He's a lot better than he was at the beginning, which goes without saying people always, you know, mature into their roles. But this season, particularly, he's, like, really enjoyed him as a color guy. At the beginning, you know, I mean, again, this is a long time ago. But it seemed like he was literally learning on the fly, you know, suddenly he has to figure out, like, a thousand new players' names and numbers and that, you know, and he feels really comfortable in the job now. So I'm not, I can't, as much as I love Olson, it's hard to, I mean, I can't really quibble with it. And again, all these conversations are going on, I mean, we don't even know what the point of view is at Amazon, and maybe more importantly, we don't know what the point of view of the high-powered agents that are involved in these discussions are, right? I mean, a lot of this stuff gets outsourced basically to the agency side in the modern sports world, as you well know. So, but I agree, it would have made a lot of sense to do a total, you know, to have a total redo. I agree with you about her beginning a lot more comfortable. And what's amazing about that is he had to learn a thousand new players' names while I'm not forgetting the other thousand players' names that he knows doing college football. Frankly, the most surprising, I mean, listen, these people really say no to big paychecks, but like one of the most surprising things to me always has been why her treat wanted to do it. You know, like he has his own little kingdom and he's always going to be the best at what he does there, you know, why even put yourself out there. But I guess, you know, the answer is pretty obvious. Well, there's the payment part of it, but I would also say this, like he just been on TV forever, when he had him on a couple of weeks ago, he was celebrating 30 years, 30 years of being hired for college game day on ESPN. He was 26 years old when he got that job. I was going to say he's not that old though. Because there's just a point in time where you're like, what am I going to do with my life? Am I just going to do the same thing over and over again? And in this case, he didn't even have to choose. It wasn't like, hey, you got to give up game day, you got to give up the big Saturday game with Fowler, it's like, no, actually, you can just do both. Yeah. And we'll pay you extra money to do both. This is really a great era for just do both in like sports commentary, right? And just all the sports media. Really for all of American life. Well, for some of us, it's not always like an upsell. But yes, I mean, there seems just to be like a lot more sort of, you know, carved out contract carvouts for for those sports media folks, you know, and, and, and a lot more kind of free agency. So which is a good thing for all of them. But you're right. If you showed me, if you showed any person on the street, a picture of Herb Street and said, is this guy been on TV for 10 years or 30? They would all pick 10, right? You know, I mean, it's just not if they didn't know him, obviously, just looking at his face. But he, yeah, it's a, it probably reflects a lot on him. This decision, right? And not that he's in a position as careerist to sell himself, but at some point, you have to sell your commitment. I mean, even, you know, Charles Barkley has to sell his commitment every time he goes into the, the contract negotiation room once a year. And any, I mean, and I, you're probably, you probably made the best point. This is the sort of evolution for him. What is he going to do next? And knowing him a little bit, there's no chance he's not committed to Thursday night game to game. So working as hard as he possibly can because that dude doesn't do anything else. But also, I go back to your point of stability, you know, it's fun to like do fantasy football with these and be like, what if I an eagle called games with Pat McAfee, like that's funny to talk about. But if you're actually programming at these various networks or a streamer in the case of Amazon, it's a lot easier just to do the same thing. Now, absolutely. There is an asterisk in this Martian report, which is fascinating to talk about. Kirby is going to be the guy going for it on Thursday night football, though Amazon has the flexibility Martian rights to pick somebody like Sean McVeigh, the coach of the Rams, for that job should he become available? There's some history to that when Amazon first got the Thursday night package. McVeigh was their number one draft pick. Yeah. I think they were talking to McVeigh like five minutes after he won the Super Bowl in 2022. There seemed to be some real traction there too, like it wasn't quite clear that McVeigh is coming back. Because he's that type of coach who's locked in as we saw in the worth of 60 minute species. He's in new eddies, little things bother him, but he's also always wondering aloud about whether he should just quit. Yeah. And give it up. And yeah, in the old days, in the old days, you know, when we were kids, it was the sort of coach that would just be on to the next team, right? They're all sort of itinerant. Because now, why go to the next team when you can just make twice as much money on TV? Trying to go get McVeigh makes perfect sense. It's a little weird to say, you're our guy, unless we get the other guy that we really want. Yeah. Listen, let me say one thing that I know you're going to hate. As far as color guys go, there's probably nobody who would be a smoother fit for a three man booth than Herbstreet Plus form X player or coach, right? Absolutely. I don't think it's off the table that they just get Olsen anyway. You say Olsen in Herbstreet, not McVeigh in Herbstreet. Yeah. Or whoever, I mean, if McVeigh is available, sure, but you can have another number one pick as the third man, the booth, and I think it could work just fine. Here's the thing. I mean, if we're fantasy booking, I need go, which I think is the right move or whatever. He can do absolutely everything, right? But like I said, you have the continuity of Herbstreet, I mean, and he's functionally a host, right? When you go to the game, he can be the guy that brings you in, and then you have an X player over there to tell you what it's like in the trenches or whatever you know. I mean, there's a lot of room there, although both I and Eagle and Kirk Herbstreet are high volume commentators. Here's the only thing. Olsen has been telling us over and over again, literally telling us, I want to be a number one guy. Yeah. Does he finally want to be a number one guy if he has to share the job? It's all about the front office. It's just like when, you know, when the Spurs convinced Kauai Linerdy was the most important guy on the team when they saw Tim Duncan, you just got to tell somebody there's a number one guy, right? It's like make Greg Olsen the executive vice president of commentary at Amazon or something and just get and and and and make his agent happy the only time we've ever really experimented with this was that old booth that had Joe Buck, Troy Eggman, and Chris Collinsworth. - I totally forgot it. - Which all of us including me have memory hold, but they called us Super Bowl together. - Yeah. - But they were in the booth at the same time, and if you talk to Collinsworth and Eggman now, they're like totally like that guy, nothing but respect wanted my own sandbox. Like I had enough to say, I didn't want to share it with you. Like I felt I could call the game by myself, but no, of course they all are. There's another interesting part to the Herb Street resigning with Amazon. And that's that there is very likely going to be a big time NFL analyst who doesn't have a number one job next season. So let us review. ESPN has not resigned Troy Eggman yet. Resigned Joe Buck, but they didn't resign Troy Eggman. And they said they're not going to do it until the end of the season, after Eggman is called the first ever ESPN Super Bowl. Greg Olson is a free agent after this year. We know Greg Olson wants a number one job. If I can throw a third party into this mix, let me give you Travis Kelsey, who my retire from football, who is extremely famous and could be really tempting for a network to say, hey, here's a lot of money. We know you never done this before. You do have a podcast, you know how to talk. Can we turn you into a number one announcer? Yeah, another unpopular opinion. I mean, I know the sort of the Kelsey's Q rating is, you know, not necessarily based on his mic skills or on field skills for that matter, but yeah, he would make a lot more sense than a lot of the other like high dollar flyers, these networks have taken, you know what I mean? Like he really can do the job. I was actually just watching some of his SNL turn this week and I was just like, you know what, this guy's actually very good at this. Like he's like a very good public figure. Who knows if he'd have anything smart to say, but I kind of think he might, you know what I get? I think it's totally feasible. You get both Kelsey's in there. Just surely one of them would have something smart to say while they play off each other. There's the Kelsey cast exclusive to Amazon. Yeah, that could be great. I know we're talking Monday night nostalgia with the Dennis Miller doc being up, but like putting Travis Kelsey in the booth with Joe Buck, that feels like old school Monday night football to me. Let's just go find an enormously famous person who crosses over from sports to pop culture and let's build the plane in the air. Let's just figure it out. Again, they're about to do the Super Bowl. They won't have another Super Bowl for a while. You have some time, but if you just do the math here, David, even putting Travis Kelsey aside, let's say he, you know, finds his legs again this year and decides he wants to keep trying to win Super Bowls with the Chiefs. Troy even could be on Monday night football, or Greg Olson could be on Monday night football, but they both can't be on Monday night football. That will not be a three man booth. No. So Dennis Miller's got that one locked down. Go ahead. So where's the other person here to go? What's gonna happen? A guy who's been a number one announcer for a quarter century. What does Netflix, what does Netflix have rights to? Okay. They've got stuff. Luke Keekley's doing stuff. I know. I was gonna say Keekley, could you offer Greg Olson or Troy Eggman enough money to feel wanted to do their two, three games a year of significance on Netflix? Like, I don't know. I mean, is it, is it impossible that, I mean, obviously, like the eventual answer to this will be like the NFL dices its right situation up some more, right, within the next decade. But it, but it's, but yeah, immediately, that is, it is incredibly interesting. But I don't know, I mean, maybe the, maybe the answer is to go the other way. Just go all in on two play by play guys on, on Fox or CBS and don't even differentiate between the number one game and the number two game, you know, just say they're, it's like we have six starters or whatever. You know, it's like we're all on top here. So we got a number one crew and a one B crew. And you both are really number one crews does. Yeah. Except one of you is gonna do the Super Bowl bad news for crew one people. They can go, they can each take, they can alternate quarters. It would be great. Just do, you know, just do a quarter, quarter and then whoever's, whoever's really playing well, whoever's hot, got the hot hand, just leave them in. - The eight. - Yeah. - Can we talk about the Eggman thing for a second? Because it is truly puzzling. - Yeah. - The Monday Night Booth was this huge problem for ESPN. Let me remind you that Steve Levy, Brian Greacy and Lewis Ridic was a Monday Night Booth that ESPN put out there. It was a huge headache for Jimmy Pataro. And he came in and he solved the problem. He wrote a check, actually wrote two checks, and he solved the problem. Joe Buck and Troy Hickman from Fox, we don't have to worry about this anymore. - Yeah. - And now five years later, Troy Hickman's not resigned. He's apparently not going to be resigned until, at the soonest, the end of the season. And I'm like, what had to happen between point A and point B to get here? - It's gonna be a great, now they tell us to borrow a phrase if they, when the story's actually told someday. - Good phrase. - I mean, there's a very basic question of like, how did Buck and Hickman end up with like different contracts? Right? Like what, like obviously they have different representation, but like, should they be fun? - Yeah, by the way, that's an interesting story, but continue. - But shouldn't they functionally be negotiating together? And if not, I mean, obviously I'm not pointing any fingers, but like, Joe Buck signs a new deal. Well, someone is proactively deciding either Buck or Hickman to not do it at the same time, or he did not insist upon the other person, right? So yeah, it is, it's incredibly intriguing. - That's what happens in television a lot of the time. You know, I grew up with Pat Summaryl and John Madden being a unit, and John Madden was doing his thing, and sometimes Pat also got to do the thing until he didn't anymore. I mean, that's, this is big stakes, it's TV, and it's all that kind of stuff. I'm just like, man, again, going back to Jimmy Paturro. This was a win for you. You fixed it. Joe and Troy also are good. This isn't like a Tony Romo situation where you have annoying media critics tweeting about this booth. I mean, I've said this before, like, when Joe Buck decides to retire in 50 years, it will not be crazy to think he is the best ever to call NFL games ever to do it. I do not say that lightly. - Oh, no, totally agree. I mean, we're the cheering section for that booth. This podcast, I feel like we sing their praises all the time. Unless it's a cost-cutting maneuver by ESPN, they think they can get whoever else it is for half the price, which would be wild, or an ESPN synchronicity move. We want someone that can be on first take in the morning. We want somebody who can do studio shows like whatever. That would make a lot of sense. But if it's not that, it's just absolutely wrong-headed because no matter what, if even if Jimmy Petaro is like, I'm tired of Troy Yekman, he's smart enough to know that no announced team switch is gonna make any material difference in their ratings. You know, they've already maxed out. Right? I mean, they've gotten as good as an announcing we'll possibly get as far as, in so much as it affects viewership. - Do a little carve-out for Travis Kelsey, but yes, your point is correct. 'Cause we just don't understand that totally, right? That could just be a different kind of phenomenon. But yes, your point is right. And I also agree with your point about get up and all that stuff. I don't know that Troy Yekman wouldn't do that stuff. He seems to be available to do podcasts a lot of the time. But you're right. He's not part of that ecosystem in a way, but also, like, dude, you have so many people to go do that. Like, would you make a decision based on, hey, Greg Olson's up for breaking down a film with Orlovsky this morning. Isn't that Daniel Orlovsky's job? Yeah, Marcus Spears's job, like, don't we have just legions of people at ESPN to do those shows? Would we be cool to have Aikman on that show? Hell yeah. That's why I just, like, what happened to get us here? It's fascinating. - It's fascinating. - Now, the one thing that could change is game of musical chairs, CBS. We're all kind of functioning with the idea that JJ Watt is gonna be the number one announcer or somehow, Deus Ex mocking his style, Tony Romo is just gonna be back, like Palpatine. He's like, oh, okay, never mind. So much for that whole embarrassing video. But there's a scenario, I guess, where CBS could say, you know what, we're out of the Tony Romo business. We pay him off, he's gone. We look at JJ Watt for the season, and we decide, he's really good, but maybe he's number two. Or maybe there's an opportunity to go get one of these guys, that's suddenly available and we can't help, but wanna go do that and get this thing straightened out. And we don't even have to, like, guess at how good JJ Watt's gonna be, because you're kind of guessing right now. Would that be a CBS thing to do? Absolutely not. It's speaking of stability. Like, they love stability. Would you, you know, go from, oh my God, we lost Tony Romo in the most ridiculous possible way to like, hey, we're in the Trigman and Greg Olson, or hell Travis Kelsey business, that just seems crazy to me. I mean, and listen, JJ Watt is, very good and also just sort of threads the need a little bit when it comes to like what kind of announcer or what kind of media personality you want. I mean, obviously he's good in the booth that can do all the, you know, a lot of the stuff that Romo can do or Ickman or wherever else, but he's also younger and more media savvy. He shows up on McAfee. He tweets coherently and thoughtfully, you know, like there's, there's a lot more of a, there's a lot, there's a lot more of a built-in sort of omnipresence to what he's doing in a good way in the modern media ecosystem. So that would, I mean, it would seem weird for them to go off of him for a more old-fashioned color guy, but that's CBS, you know, I mean, there were blazers until 15 minutes ago. It's like, they still are, dude. Do they still wear those blazers? I swear, I saw CBS nowhere plays the other day. Oh, man, I'm an idiot then, but that's still, it's just unbelievable. Yeah, but I've just said it's a very old-fashioned place to work. So, I mean, in a lot of ways, so, you know, if they were going to, if somebody was going to just show everybody the door and favor of the established old hand in Ickman, that would be the place. I agree with you, though. What is the, what is a great modern media face of a network? You know, it's good on Twitter. You can put them on a podcast. He's in commercials. He's just, he's sort of that guy as much as anybody. It's just a question of whether he can be that guy in the booth. All right, David, coming up on this podcast, a United States Senator tried to score points by mentioning an Atlanta Hawks game, and he failed miserably. Also, a friend of this podcast, former Michigan State rep, Mari Benugian, stops by to tell us a great story about negative political ads and Grantland, all that and much more on the press box. A part of the rigger, podcast network. Hello media consumers. It's Brian. It's David. I say a Blakely's back. John not bones Jones never left. Sarah Reddy also over there in the control room. Thank you all for making this podcast happen. We get some taste of big team to make us look. It really does. It really does. A lot more than it takes Greg Olsen, a Troy Eggman. Some breaking news day before we get started here, Joe Flint, veteran media reporter Joe Flint reports in the Wall Street Journal, some news about the Paramount Warner Brothers merger, which is about to close. Flint writes that David Ellison has asked CNN CEO Mark Thompson to stay at the helm of the cable news network after the merger. He continues, Barry Weiss isn't expected to have a role involving CNN. The close of the deal, according to people familiar with Ellison's thinking, Ellison isn't expected to name a news chief to oversee both operations. Now, that's true. What a big win for CNN. That is. Yeah. Now, it's got to hold up. And Mark Thompson has got to want to work in the new merged Ellison company. I don't know how likely that is. I don't know what kind of guarantees of autonomy, which is what he's seeking, according to Flint. But man, if you keep rolling with Mark Thompson, instead of having Barry Weiss, run and redo CNN. If I'm Jake Tapper and company, I'm really happy about that. Sure. I mean, absolutely. I mean, I think that there's a lot of things going on. One, this is an enormous, the consolidation of these companies is going to be an enormous endeavor. And if there's anything that Barry Weiss, even if you're a fan, the herks here, time it. You're a Barry Weiss stan and you're listening to this podcast. Yeah, her in her relatively brief tenure, it's clear that like these things aren't these transitions aren't simple. There's no way to make it easy. So especially for the beginning consistency is going to be really key, right? Unless, unless you're literally buying something to take to sell, to sell it for parts, right? I mean, that doesn't seem to be the case here. Two, somebody tweeted and I didn't, I'm sorry, I didn't even keep track of it. But someone pointed out that when they announced that David Ellison would be the CEO of Paramount Skydance that you know, on cries from coming from a tell would be the quote, the co CEO and board member, which is just this sort of this sort of brilliant setup by Ellison where he like kind of gets the glory and crisis in the position. And if you look at the responsibilities to like, you know, take all the blame if something goes wrong. And who knows if that's exactly true. But I do think that there's a lot, there's always going to be a measure of responsibility and you want lieutenants and a company as big as this that will be responsible for their own efforts. The biggest problem with the Barry Weiss regime so far is that it reflects directly on the Ellisons, right? And there's no plausible deniability there. It's like, this is what you did, you know, and letting CNN stay mostly intact for the foreseeable future will still allow the Ellisons and maybe even Barry Weiss to have a hand in what it becomes without it being a criticism of them when it fails, you know, or if it were to not go great. That said, there were also some just random unsourced tweets like in the past week prior to this announcement that Barry Weiss might be on the way out. I mean, I don't and I don't want to put give that any credence, but like source to radar or what's what's now radar. So I mean, I don't quite believe that that seems like that would be a ridiculous admission of defeat, even if it were true in a practical sense, you know, to let it go, you would you would just reassign or something, you know, or hell give or see an end and let that let it go and flames. But, but yeah, it is, it is a very intriguing announcement also that I mean, I know when these things happen, these things get announced, but and also doesn't it kind of, I mean, I might be totally wrong, but doesn't it kind of seem like when they do these giant corporate mergers, like it's always just some sort of boys club. It's like, I mean, I don't mean particularly in like gender rule terms, but it's there are all the executives know each other that it's just is this a person that you've like enjoyed having lunches and drinks with before and then they get to keep their job, you know, it's a huge part of it. It's he and they because it more often we pay attention to the inverse. It's like this company bought this company and you know, these two have bad blood. So so and so is on the way out. You know what I mean? Like it's it's gotta be it's gotta be part of the calculus there. All right, let's move on to our main event. David, it's a reference to a regular season Atlanta Hawks game heard round the world. Here is Missouri Senator Heritage Met. Did you go to an NBA game between the Golden State Warriors and the Atlanta Hawks on February 3rd 2024? I'm sorry, could you say that again? What city would that be in? Atlanta. No. Okay. So your testimony today is that you did not go to a Hawks game on February 3rd 2024. Is that correct? I have no recollection. Okay, is it your testimony that you were not in Atlanta on February 3rd 2024? Let me let me just give you a little context. The day before Fannie Willis came clean with her affair with the prosecutor. You know the Atlanta prosecutor that was also trying to get Trump, the next day were you in Atlanta. I do not believe so. Okay, did you ever go to Atlanta during your time as special counsel? I really don't think so. It's possible I flew through the Atlanta airport on the way to Florida, but I do not have a recollection of going to Atlanta. I definitely did not go to a Hawks game. Okay. I don't even know what to say. I mean, that's further. I don't want to edit that out. I have no idea what to say. This is one of the most amazing things. This might be one of the most significant non-presidential election days in political Twitter history. I totally agree. It was so big because it was something for everybody. Resistance Twitter. Obviously. Huge day. Sports Twitter. You get to make fun of politicians. Who are trying to talk about sports? Yes. I mean, and it doesn't have to be incredibly partisan either. It's like look at this dodo who doesn't know the difference between two teams. Although for the record, I think that the second reading that this guy on Twitter is actually correct. I don't think he confused the Hawks and the Hawkeyes. I think that they just had proved that he went to a game with a tip off at 730 and did not look at the women's college basketball games. The only one was this. Who fed them this? The Trump White House gave them these texts. I don't think it's, I haven't seen any answer as to whether or not they fed them the conspiracy theory. But it does seem like everybody's out over their skis here. Somebody had this started with somebody's just terrible misreading of the calendar or of these text messages and then just snowballed because nobody thought twice about it. It's crazy. It's especially crazy because if you look at the poster that they made, which is now all over Twitter too, it doesn't have anything damning in there. It doesn't. doesn't even lead anyone to believe he like was at a game like it was the text they had were very oddly chosen, but even if even if you see the say the contents there all the were establishing is that he was in Atlanta or the day before or after Fannie Wallace is like it came out that she was funneling money to her partner with the implication being what that he was just like exchanging anti-Trump info with Fannie Wallace which shouldn't be particularly damning or weird or like why the hell or or alterately why the hell would he be doing that like he's got the force of the government behind it like it's so strange. And then they met at a fox game of all places to have this clandestine cold or like spy style meeting. I mean if I didn't want anybody to see me I would go to a fox game. I was gonna say you're sitting on there and you look around and just one sky box as the lights dimmed. You know there's like shadowy figures meeting and then trust me they all have the lights dimmed. I don't think that I don't think the conspiracy theory point aspect of this has gotten enough attention because even if it even if it he hadn't been an idiot even if he hadn't gotten this story completely wrong I don't know what the story was. But the conspiracy theory is the thing right. So Jack Smith the people don't know Jack Smith was a special counsel who's testifying this is Tuesday before the judiciary committee. He had been investigating Trump both January 6th election stuff and Trump's hoarding of documents at Mar-a-Lago. The president and his allies like to say that all these prosecutors are trying to railroad poor innocent Donny Trump. What they also like to say in this goes to your point David is that everybody who is doing this is tied together somehow that it's not just that you're a rogue prosecutor that you and the other rogue prosecutors are meeting at a Hawks game. Correct to compare notes and that points to just something right. Oh by the way can we talk about the art on that poster and how awful it was. If you would turn something like that into the ringer I would have picked up the phone and performed a wellness check. That's my respect for you. Like Kevin Clark. What would you have to do for your bosses to just call you and be like hey David everything good. Yeah somebody I don't know if it was the daily show or just some other online snark was mentioned just getting printed out at kinkos or something. And and it does it looks exactly like it looks like when you go to a print shop and they have the examples of what they could print for you around you know it's like look at this really weirdly designed poster that's clearly not professional it was it yeah it was because there was obviously some design talent there because they like size the voice bubbles appropriately or the text bubbles appropriately and it was just like it was just wild. The whole thing is just unbelievable. Unbelievable and when you look at the all the tweets that went out and we can go into the right wing ecosystem where there was all these people with like the canned tweets that knew this was going to happen before it happened they just didn't know that he was going to get it wrong and all these people tweeted like as soon as the second the clip was available just like oh he really got put Jack Smith in a corner like even those did not imply some specific conspiracy it just said they got it like they he he scored a point on my to purchase enough. Yeah but there was no there there right it's like what what are we accusing him of exactly it was like an episode of new or old Matlock where the attorney's job is to get the person on the stand to accidentally incriminate themselves. Oh you weren't at the Hawks game and he just a little smile. Are you talking about the new the new version of Matlock and the original or old but you said smile as soon as he said that he wasn't at the Hawks game or he hadn't been to Atlanta and he's like aha now we got you. When you said new world for some reason I imagine that you were talking specifically about the Andy Griffith Matlock and that there was like a widely known middle period of bad Matlock or something. No there's Kathy Bates Matlock. I don't I'm aware of the two things. Oh yeah yeah it was it's just also bizarre. I mean it's I guess it's just like the fact that I don't believe he confused the Hawks and the Hawkeyes actually just makes it better because now because it's because he deserves to get tired with being that much of an idiot too right I mean that he would confuse those things and this is as many people pointed out was it like 24 hours after somebody was floating him as a potential JD Vance vice presidential candidate you know that was Axios one yeah I was get I didn't remember which which which newsletter or which you know DC site it was but it was but yeah Axios floats him out there first of all is there anything that's just should be more damning for anyone's political career in 2026 than being floated as a JD Vance vice presidential candidate pick like who wants that who like team Vance unless you're just like a Silicon Valley executive like who no one wants to be part of team Vance right now right you're either like team Vance by default because your team Trump but like it's so weird but anyway I can I this is just an all-time downfall too like he could obviously go on to a much bigger things in a political career but he'll never live this down he's not going to go on to bigger things he's really not I think this is it I mean if you'd asked me before this who is Eric Schmidt I would have given you Republican Senator from Missouri if you'd ask me about his politics I think I could have said very Trumpy but if you'd ask me like a specific incident or story from his career I think I would have given you Josh Hawley material accidentally I just I had absolutely no sense of this guy other than his existence and you know him occasionally popping up on Twitter for me to be clear if you would if you would ask me who what I thought of Eric Schmidt I would think you were talking about the Google's the ex-Google CEO right like that like like this is that the name recognition is going to be an issue even there's a there's even a New York Times writer with the same spelling of the name which is always kind of confused me too but yes that by that access piece was one of the most poorly time beat sweeteners I have ever seen in my life it said we hear the VP that is JD Vance viewed Schmidt as trustworthy intelligent articulate and a deft political operator well I think that I mean I think who there who is the Texas rep that that Vance was out there on stage with the other day I think Vance is very conscientiously doing this thing where he's building the army right he's going around and like giving promising young politicians a leg up so that they will be indebted to him or whatever and and and and also I don't think it's a conspiracy theory on the other end to say that that Axios piece was planted specifically to put a spotlight on him for this amazing thing he was about to do and because they knew they knew they had the matlock moment and so they're just making sure the cameras are rolling right and but but it's I mean it's just I'm it's amazing how how quickly it all came crashing down and again like everything good and politics this is going to stick both on Schmidt and on the Republicans in general because it speaks to a bigger point which is that they're just absolute content free jamokes trying to chase down conspiracies that don't exist and do Donald Trump's bidding by chasing down those quote unquote conspiracies yeah huge credit to Amy Klobuchar of course the Senator from Minnesota who came in like Tony Reale during his stat boy days on PTI and was like actually you're wrong and made the connection whether this is right or not made the connection between Hawks and Hawkeyes which I think that was she set the terms of the debate going forward for sure yeah I think that would have taken me much longer to get there if I'd been in that scenario absolutely absolutely true no Klobuchar fan but that was an incredible incredible turn by her also because when you watch that when I first started seeing the stories I was like I just assumed there was a she had a little convo with her staff before making that point like there had been some measure of time between the two things but no she just was like you watch the video you can tell she's exhausted you know she's just like I don't like why do I have to speak right now but is it possible that this is the error that we're going it felt like when you have to like politely correct me on this show you know when I just say something that's like I'm just like my calendars totally off but yeah it was it was very incredible work by her there's nothing funnier than when politicians try to talk about sports now in this case he was setting a perjury trap but in other cases they just see that as a safe space like you might not like my position on X but this is sports we're all sports fans here together we all love this and that's what makes them make mistakes that they would make nowhere else at no other time during their career I was thinking back to Ted Cruz going on college game day to whip up yeah I was good bad to say I mean first of all he's he's been powering through this just like Eric Schmitz trying to power through Hawksgate and he's saying like you know actually that was a very positive appearance even though people are chanting you suck at me the whole time in the crowd but the part of that appearance and that's why we that's why we never do press box live shows you know the bill a lot of you suck chance out there but the funniest part of that that people I think kind of forgotten in a way is that he was calling this is Ted Cruz he was calling transfers which is at the heart of this bill how many times can athletes transfer from school. He was calling them trades. Yeah, trades. So like when Texas got a player from Auburn, they set back a conditional draft pick. Do you think that's what happened? That's that's not the ball. That's not college football. I think that's, I think that's the entire premise of the Protect College Sports Act. I mean, obviously like Republicans want to win before the midterms and whatever else. But like, why they signed up for for this bill in particular. I don't know. I think it actually could have been, I was talking about, there's referendums where they both were on the ballot. They look like they're, they're both, both sides are wanting the same thing. I think that the Protect College Sports Act could have been for the exact opposite side. And all the same centers would have signed up because they don't understand sports. Like they're just like, Oh, I want a sports bill to sign on. That'll make me look foxy and relatable or ever. Iran's gone to hell. Gas prices, everything prices. I could save college sports. Yeah. All right. Last note here, the funniest moment or let's just say a small moment from that first clip that I love so much is Jack Smith trying to rack his brain about going to Atlanta. Have you been to Atlanta? And then eventually says, well, I might have changed planes there. Yes, dude. We can all relate. That is, that is the answer to the question. Have you been to Charlotte? You're like, yeah, wait. Does that time I waited too long to make an American reservation? I had to take US air and I changed planes there. Does that count as having gone to Charlotte? Yeah. Do you agree? Do you remember the rocking chairs? Yes. Okay. Yeah. I was in Charlotte for like 45 minutes. Yeah. I remember as a kid with my mom, we changed planes and I'd be like, does this count on my states list? I specifically had that thought in Charlotte as a child like, I happened in North Carolina. I got out of the airport. Fall savings are happening now at the home depot. 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Like when those Wisconsin gubernatorial returns are slow coming in, and Steve Kornackie is just crashing out in front of us. Mari, welcome to the press box. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Oh my God. So nice that you're here in our LA studios with us. For those watching on Spotify, she's wearing a 1989 Detroit Pistons world champions t-shirt. I am very jealous of that. That is incredible. It's probably my most favorite article of clothing. I delicately hand wash it so it stays nice and everything, but it is my, they're my favorite team. Someone knew she was coming on a ranger podcast. I know my audience. We appreciate the effort. We really do. So many things to discuss. Can we start with Michigan Senate in your home state? Yeah, of course. Okay. Abdel El Sayed versus microaggers. Yep. El Sayed has led in most polls. I think with only a few exceptions that have been tied. Yes. Up one in the recent Fox poll. Yes. What is ultimately going to be the deciding factor in this race, do you think? I think the ultimate deciding factor is turnout for Democrats. And there's multiple races at the top of the ticket in November in Michigan. So we have Jocelyn Benson, who's running for governor. We obviously have Abdul and then all the rest of our constitutional offices are up. And so building on the success of previous one campaigns, which is what we call our coordinated campaign for Democrats in Michigan. Building on that success over the past several midterm cycles is really going to be critical to making sure that all Democrats are able to come home and bow for Abdul. If there's conventional wisdom about that race, I would say it's something like this. Trump's extremely unpopular. Yes. The person with the D next to their name should win in a cycle like this. Yes. But because El Sayed is more progressive than some other candidates, maybe this will be a narrower victory than it would be with say another Democrat. Okay. So I want to push back a little bit because Sarah Longwell at the bulwark had a really great deep dive on Trump voters who they did a focus group with that talked about why they're supportive of Abdul. And so I think that was a really interesting piece that Yall should check out that talks a little bit more granularly about how his pushback against the oligarchy and the powers that be that are making costs really high and corruption in the system and why the cuts to Medicaid are just devastating to Michigan. We're seeing a lot of really interesting crossover for someone like Abdul, which has kind of been the argument that progressives have made just sort of writ large as like there's a real opening to bring in people who really feel disaffected by the system. And you saw that with the election of Trump twice. And there's ways that sort of messaging also fits with what Abdul is talking about. And you can see that this is working because Senator Slotkin and Abdul are doing a town hall this weekend in Macomb County. And Macomb County is famously a place that votes for Donald Trump and also votes for Jocelyn Benson. Where have we heard that County before 20 million times that election? Yeah. Yeah. The Reagan Democrats. Yes. To the extent that that race I'm already has been like obviously very nationalized in a in a I mean to focus on specifically on Hassan Piker and on people talking about talking about Hassan Piker. Is that affecting the like voters on the that are actually there? Yeah. Or it's it would be not paint. We're just paying attention to local matters. I think I mean, I always use my dad as sort of the barometer for how I understand, you know, sort of your typical, you know, older Democratic voter. He's in his late 70s. He was a labor leader, but previously, you know, worked in the bucket trucks for our electric company in Detroit. So he's a guy that like worked with his hands for a living. And he has no idea who the health of Hassan Piker is like at all. And he's a pretty like plugged in Democrat, right? Like he, I think he thought it was in the state now. Yeah. Yeah. But even still like he's a pretty like plugged in person. And he's like, I literally have no idea who you're talking about. Just as a quick follow up as somebody to do as it relates to your current job. Yeah. How do you advise young candidates when in a world where it seems like every every small race is going to be nationalized? Yeah. That's a really wonderful question and a great segue to sort of talk a little bit about like what it is that I do for a living and what our organization's all about. So the next 50 was founded to be sort of the premiere organization to help build out the bench of the next 50 years of the Democratic Party. We endorse and support candidates mostly down the ballot. And so about I'd say 20 to 25% of our races are federal races, everything else is state and local. And so we do a several different things to support them. But to your point, we do a lot of advising on a case by case basis with each of our individual candidates. We don't have a litmus test or a like a policy litmus test or a questionnaire you have to fill out. We are looking for specific leadership traits in each of our candidates rather than looking at it in terms of like, you know, a whole of caucus agenda or something like that. And so to your point about advising what happens when races get nationalized, we help try to help our candidates make sure that they are focused on two or three very local issues. You can see that when Kate Conley is specifically talking about things that are really related to the Hudson Valley with regard to like congestion pricing and things like that that are really top of mind and granular to voters in New York 17. You can hear that when we are listening to Rebecca Bennett, who's running against Tom Key Jr., and she's talking specifically about the tunnel. If you can have, you know that things are going to get nationalized because our voters are getting their information on the internet and things get served to them and they're algorithm and you have little to no control over that. But what our candidates do have control over is being super disciplined, and that's one of the things that we advise them to do. I'm glad you mentioned Rebecca Bennett. I'm located here in New Jersey, so I get a lot of Rebecca Bennett advertising. And it's intrigued me that she, discipline is the right word. She has bullet points in all of her ads, right? She's a former Navy pilot, and it bears mentioned that like 20 years ago, that would be enough. That's the entire platform for right. We're either running Republican or Democrat, but it's former Navy pilot and she's running on basically lower prices, ending the war on the Iraq and banning Congress stock trading, which stands out as a very interesting thing that a candidate should be, is pointing at right now. I think it speaks obviously to a bigger issue of corruption and feeling like, you know, you don't have, most citizens don't have a path forward. But it feels very responsive, almost more responsive than you would expect a candidate to be to the electorate in a way like that. Do you feel like that represents a bigger change in the climate? Yeah, I actually want to drill down a little bit on the corruption point that you made. I think that's a really important point, this entire cycle. You're seeing candidates from Michigan to Iowa to New Jersey. It kind of runs the gamut of the geography and levels of government talking specifically about how corruption in the system is making prices really high. I remember early on, earlier this year, we were talking with a lot of our candidates about, you know, oh, this corruption question is popping and polling. We're seeing it in public polling and private polling that people really care about this. But the real key is for this message to land is to have Democrats talking about how corruption in Washington is making costs really high. And I think Rebecca has done a fabulous job of this because Tom Keen Jr. was missing in action for like 100 days and he was still trading stocks while he's a member of Congress. He continues to trade stocks and in fact has a hold stocks that are in line with some of the committees that he sets on. And so when you're talking a little bit, when Rebecca is talking about the corruption piece as well as costs, she's really able to make that connection with the failed leadership of Keen Jr. and how those two things are really tied to one another. So the development here is Democrats not just talking about free-floating, Trumpian corruption. Correct. Which we've seen. They think we think they think is self-evidently important in a problem and then voters kind of go, "And what? I don't understand." But connecting that to what is the most important. Right. I think Democrats see that as like Democrats traditionally see that as disqualifying. And so we sort of sort of leave the sentence without that second clause in it where we sort of say like, you know, look at what happened with Doge or look at what's going on with Elon Musk or any of, you know, the fact that the Trump family has increased their wealth exponentially since he took office at the beginning of last year. But adding that second clause of like how this corruption is impacting you on a day-to-day basis is what is making this message really land for Democrats, this cycle. There's a ton of opium out there on social media right now about the size of this new wave. How much opium are you indulging in? I mean, does your opium get that Kansas? Kansas is super interesting. I'm very nervous as a just as a person. It's generally, that's my general affect. But I am cautiously optimistic about the direction of things, particularly, you know, obviously polls are a snapshot in time. There's snapshot backward in time and it's, you know, we've had a lot of really big polling misses, which I'm sure we'll talk about in Wisconsin, for example. But I am looking sort of at the whole picture of where things are at. And with the trend of where the generic Democratic ballot is going, I think things are going to get quite interesting on election night. And I'm cautiously optimistic. I mentioned the Wisconsin governor's race and texting with you. When you see the polls that showed Francesca Hong was going to win big and then the actual result that had David Wright winning narrowly, what do you attribute that to? So I can talk a little bit about like our involvement there in that race and sort of what my thinking was in how we approached the last few days of the race. Obviously, the Wisconsin gubernatorial race was probably the craziest primary in terms of like people getting out, people getting in, like front runners dropping out. It was really chaotic and very hard to make sense of things, which I think, you know, as someone that is not a pollster but has many pollster friends, probably really challenging to pull in that kind of environment. Things were very fluid and really hard to capture what was going on. And I was on the ground in Michigan on election night during the Senate primary. And when as soon as I saw things start to tighten in ways, the polls were not capturing in Michigan, my gear started turning and I started talking to our team about like what we thought might happen the following week in Wisconsin because not only did I think that the results in Michigan were indicative of like, you know, if the election were held the following day in Wisconsin, things might have looked similar to how they turned out. But that we had the opportunity to actually have an impact and make a difference in those five days because people saw the results in Michigan, donor saw the results in Michigan, voter saw the results in Michigan and they said like, maybe this is actually not what we think is going on here. And so we were able to convene some support for David and made sure that he was able to stay on the air all the way through election day. And he won by a fraction of a percentage point. And so, you know, we're really proud to have been in the fox hole with him this whole time. He's been a next 50 person. Someone that we've endorsed over multiple cycles, which is part of the work of our organization is that we, if we endorse you, we try to stick with you as you lead and your leadership grows and that was something that, you know, my spidey sense has started tingling on Michigan election night. And I was like, there might be, there might be something fun we can go do over here in Wisconsin. In general, I mean, how do you pick, you said you pick the candidates based on leadership credential or leadership criteria? What is the process? Can you give us more of a window into how that happens? I'd love to. Yeah. So we kind of joke about this that we searched the highways and byways of America for talented young leadership. We're pretty serious about that. We actually have candidates in Alaska, this cycle as well, who are running for the state house, and so we look for four traits in our candidates. We describe our candidates as principled pragmatic, energetic and focused. Principled, do you have a sense of, you know, how you view the world and sort of a heuristic in the scheme of for how you view how you engage with it? Pragmatic, are you someone who is, you know, able to reach across the aisle, but also work within your own party to bring people along to a good idea? Are you energetic? Are you someone who can communicate really well in a union hall, on a doorstep, on digital? All the places where voters are going to be having conversations with you, and can you meet them where they are? And the last one to be honest with you is like the real gate in criteria is, are you focused? I meet a lot of people who want to run for office who really, when it comes down to it, don't want to do all the call time, really struggle with doing all the doors, and when you're running for a down ballot race like mayor or city council or state house, honestly just shoe leather can get you over the line when you're winning races by a couple hundred votes, maybe even a hundred votes. That's a field margin, and so you need to be willing to do the work to get that done. And that last item really is a gatekeeper for a lot of our candidates. Ken Paxton doesn't want to do that, and he's ranked for a state race. That's pretty tough. It's also kind of like ex-athletes are really bad at being candidates, you know, because they just, they're too, they think they're too important to do that kind of thing. Right, they're used to having teams around them to sort of do the, you know, hard, you know, grit execution work, and that's why like, you know, having been a state house candidate that flipped a Republican district, a Republican's held my seat since the '60s when I flipped it. I, I know what that's like, I knocked 10,000 doors myself in 2018. So I can kind of like smell, do the smell test and be like, does this candidate have, you know, that sort of work ethic, and I'm really proud to say that I'm really, really impressed with the work that our candidates have been putting in this cycle. One more question for you before I set you up to tell this amazing story. Yeah. Shared Brown's trying to get back into the Senate in Ohio, right against John Houston. Yes. What is Shared Brown's political superpower? I mean, so we're doing a little bit more work in Ohio than I would have expected this cycle as well. We're endorsing, we have endorsed Brian Poindexter who's running against Max Miller, you know, to use it. Who's been in the news? To use a press box and battled term. He might be beyond. Yeah. I think he's far beyond embattled. But yeah, so, you know, we've, we've sort of as a, as an organization, we're looking more closely at Ohio than I think we have in previous cycles. And, you know, I think what Brian has is similar to what Shared has. And even my dad who was a labor leader, like new Shared and, and spent, you know, spent some time with him, he, the way my dad describes him is how I think about this too, which is just he is in touch with the people and people view him as one of them. It is the superpower of any. candidate. I think the word "authenticity" is like super worn out this cycle. And I'm really, like, I think it's very important to think about, but I am a little bit sick of hearing about what that means. But like, you know, from people like Brian Poindexter, who literally was a cross-country mover for many, many years before he became a union iron worker, to someone like shared brown, who just like understands his constituents. I think that's a super power that he has, and it's putting Ohio in play in ways that are super interesting this cycle. There's a very funny New York Times story the other day by Emily Davies that said that a lot of Ohio voters do not think that John Houston is currently in the Senate. They think brown is being incumbent, and the Republican Houston is actually using that as an advantage, really. Yeah, throw the bum out. It's like, no, no, I was thrown out two years ago, and I'm trying to throw you out. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. I mean, shared brown is like an institution in Ohio politics. So it sort of didn't surprise me to see that, though, it was a little bit funny and kind of irritating. Can I just make the case for messy hair? I just think like politicians with messy hair worked really well. A little bit rough, right? Especially in a, especially in a, I mean, Ohio like trafficking was from there too. We Bernie Sanders and, and, and of course, like you shared brown, brown, Paul even, you know, I mean, there's messy hair is great in politics. Messy hair rolled up sleeves. Yeah, the shirt, muddowns. Yeah. I want to describe David and I too much, but I'm getting close to there. Thank you, David. Also for endorsing me more like James traffic. That's, yeah, listen. It's a fiery. That's a place called hope if there ever was one. All right, Mari, you have a great story. I do. About negative political ads and your time in the Michigan State House. Yes. I'm going to clear out. I'm going to go to the three-point line. The floor is yours. It's a little, this is, this is like truly, I don't know that I've ever told this story like super publicly, so this is pretty crazy. So when I was running for the State House, of course, you know, there's positive and negative ads. And I actually should really back up. So I've like, you know, benefit of y'all's work for a very long time. And as a like baby grad student back in, I think it was 2015, I think this must have been, 2015 or 2016, I got invited to a Halloween party by like someone who was like an editor at the Atlantic. And I had no costume. And it was the same weekend there about that, um, Grantland was shuttered. And I was like, oh, I should just go as the ghost of Grantland because all these reporters are going to think this is very funny. And I just have all this like random sports stuff. So I had like a Nick's snapback and a, um, managed nobly spurs jersey. And I like fashioned this piece of cardboard to hang around my neck that was like 404 error internet error like Grantland. So, so I went as the ghost of Grantland. I had like zombie makeup and stuff. It was very funny. And David, I've just slapped you this picture. So Pablo Torrey style, please open slack and look at the picture of Mario as the ghost of Grantland. So I like obviously made it. The sad face is great. That's a very important point. Thank you for bringing up the sad face. The sad face is very important because of course years later, my Republican opponent finds this photo on like Twitter or something. And takes this picture and uses it in negative mail and negative TV. And I'm like, you know, having I was out for dinner with some people after I'd been canvassing that day. And I like look up in the sports bar and my face in this like crazy spurs jersey outfit is on all of the TV's in the sports bar. Like, great out. I'm like, you guys don't even know what this is about. It's about the nerdiest possible thing. And it was like, you know, Mari Manugi and wants to raise your taxes. And it had like, you know, text over the top of the thing that said Grantland. And I just thought like, God, if only people actually knew how like dumb and nerdy this was, they would probably get a big, pretty big kick out of it. They would have done better to just say, look, she's wearing a spurs shirt. Right. Like, oh, she actually, she says she's a huge pistons fan. She says like, yeah, but I love that the line of attack was Mari Manugi and is sad. Therefore, she will raise your taxes. Well, this is like not part of the Grantland piece of it all, but like, it was very funny to me the pictures of me that they chose to use in attack ads. I mean, there was one that they used of me. I mean, I knocked doors, rain, shine. It didn't matter if it was like 110 degrees outside. I was like on your doorstep. And they used a photo of me. I mean, grinning while it's pouring rain. I had like a rain slicker on with like a hood and everything. And I'm like, I look so cute. Like, what do you mean? This isn't like, I try, it looks so adorable. What do you mean? Who wouldn't open their door for me? So there you go, David. Grantland or the ghost of Grantland was a negative political ad. Just be careful. You might run for something someday and those old wrestling columns come back to bite you. You never know. We thought we were being all literary and stuff. And there are consequences in the real world for that. Murray, would you like to stay around and guess the strain pun headline with David? Oh my gosh, I'd love to. Would this be fun? All right. Here we go. It's time for David Schumaker and Murray Manughey and guess the strained pun headline. So David didn't use usually. Yeah. He's thrown off. I have somebody else. I'm trying to concentrate. We got a real audience now. Here we go. Our last headline about yet another Sydney Swini controversy was Tempest in a D cup. You'll remember that one, David. Very good. Today's headline comes to us from another friend of this podcast, investigative reporter, Tully Taylor. Headlines from the bulwark. And it is about the thing we've all been watching and tweeting about this week, Eric Schmidt, trying for his Matlock moment in the Senate with Jack Smith that did not exactly come true. I want you to think about this gentleman's name, David and Murray, as you ponder, what was the bulwarks strained pun headline? Talk amongst yourselves. All we have is that it's Schmidt. Yeah. That's all you got. It's got to be a shit pun then. Right? I think that's the fast. Schmidt, Schmidt storm. Good, but not it. He's messing up. He has screwed up in a public way. He has. Oh, Schmidt the bad. Yes. Very good. See? Very good. Watch your backs, you maker. Eric Schmidt's the bad is the bulwark headline. Very, very good stuff. All right. He's David, you maker. I'm Brian Curtis. She's Murray Manugin production magic by Isaiah Blakely and John Notbone's Jones coming up more press box with Joel Anderson. He's back Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian. 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