Trump Versus The Media

Speaker 1: 00:01 Defiant and angry. It's been a week of self preservation for president Trump. What's his strategy is Democrats advanced their impeachment inquiry fair pay to play. California's new law threatens the foundation of college sports with athlete pain. Now on the horizon. Will other States follow and decision time for the Padres? The search is on for a new manager as ownership fumes over another disappointing season. I'm Mark Sauer. The KPBS round table starts now. Speaker 2: 00:39 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 00:41 welcome to our discussion to the weak stop stories. I'm Mark Sauer and joining me at the KPBS round table today. Matt hall, editorial and opinion director for the San Diego union Tribune, San Diego sports journalist and author J Paris and KPBS reporter Matt Hoffman. Well, it's been a wild ride since speaker of the house and Nancy Pelosi opened an impeachment inquiry into president Donald Trump at the heart of it. Alleged abuse of power by Trump for pressuring Ukraine's president over unfounded allegations against former vice president Joe Biden and his son during a secret phone call, all revealed by CIA whistleblower that triggered an escalating, escalating accusations and name calling and threats by Trump against the whistleblower. The democratic chair overseeing the inquiry Pelosi, and of course the press and Trump doubled down yesterday with Ukraine and China after claiming great financial leverage, Trump openly asked China to investigate the Biden's claiming unsubstantiated wrongdoing. Here's some of that. Speaker 3: 01:47 China, she had started an investigation into the budget because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with, uh, with Ukraine. So I would say that president Salinsky, if it were me, I would recommend that they start an investigation into the Bidens because nobody has any doubt that they weren't perky. That was a crooked deal. 100%. Speaker 1: 02:15 And the Biden campaign's response. Trump made a quote, grotesque choice of lies over truth and self over the country. Well, Matt hall start, uh, the fur is not flying. Stopped flying here since this inquiry was, it was lunch. Start with a, that inquiry itself. Where are the Democrats right now? Speaker 4: 02:33 Well, a this morning they were interviewing, um, uh, the inspector general of the intelligence community. And what they're trying to do is create a record, right? They want to get a lot of testimony in. They want to look at some documents. They're subpoenaing, um, records. They're trying to approach it methodically, which is what you need to do. The reality is impeachment is a political process and not a court process. So, uh, you're starting to see a lot of this spill into the media. Um, and so buckle up America is the short version. Speaker 1: 03:04 Yeah. And it's, it's hour to hour almost as we've seen. It's happening so fast now since Trump's a transcript with Ukraine's president supports the whistleblower complaint, uh, now the pleading with China to the, uh, to go ahead and do this investigation of, of Biden and his son, the facts really aren't dispute. So Trump's new strategy, I mean, Washington was just stunned yesterday when he came out on the lawn and made that statement. Of course, we played a little bit at the top. Um, he is sat, his strategy now seems to say I'm using my power to solicit forerunners to attack our political arrival, or what are you going to do about it? Speaker 4: 03:38 Yeah. I don't know if this is, it makes too much too little of it, but it's almost like his approach was quid pro quo. No, and now it's quid pro quo. No problem. Right. Um, you know, clearly what he said yesterday was not on a, on a phone call that you have to rely on a rough transcript, uh, to document. Uh, he said it in front of a lot of cameras. Um, and it's an interesting, um, approach by him. He clearly thinks it's his absolute right as he tweeted, uh, I think it was last night, um, that he can investigate what he deems corruption. Uh, the other side of this coin though is you have the head of the FEC saying that, uh, no one can solicit aid from a foreign, uh, uh, national when it is to influence an election. So hopefully this impeachment proceedings, which we supported, um, late last week as an editorial board, we'll get to the bottom of this Speaker 1: 04:31 now, uh, so much to get to on this, but, uh, Trump wants to confront his accuser. Uh, their whistle boils. Their identity so far remains secret. Other than it's, it's a C he is a CA analysts closed or testimony expected from him at um, Schiff, other democratic chairman. They want a those as you see close to Trump and the reported call to testify. Um, but secretary of state, Mike Pompeo trying to block these depositions. What's the Democrats response to this? Speaker 4: 04:59 Well, I think [inaudible] going to say that these documents in these, uh, folks need to Testament testify that the documents need to come to light as they should. I mean, um, Pompeo will be called, he said that he was on the call. So Speaker 1: 05:12 yeah, after you're kind of a dancing around that for a week. So now he becomes a material witness, right? Speaker 4: 05:16 So that is all going to enter into this. And now my advice to everyone is to take a breath. Let's all take a breath now and read the documents that come out the source documents. So read the five-page rough transcript, read the nine page whistleblower complaint and then see what happens. Speaker 1: 05:35 And the, uh, the was as we're talking about this, there's a whole process to whistle blowing. It's a, it's, it's set in to law and the idea is you're going to have people come forth fearlessly and watchdog the government. Here. I want to play a clip here from a speaker, Nancy Pelosi about the importance of protecting whistle Speaker 4: 05:51 or protecting with the blowers who see wrongdoing of any in our government Speaker 5: 05:59 is essential. The president probably doesn't realize how dangerous his statements are when he says he wants to expose who the whistleblower is and those who may have given the whistle blower that information. Speaker 1: 06:15 Alright. And the dangerous she's referencing there, as he said, he's using the word spy trader, which is a very serious charge here. And a, there's been a lot of concern about that in terms of, uh, this was a blowing wants to confront the whistleblower, which goes completely in the face of, of this Speaker 4: 06:30 law protected thing. Right? Yeah. I mean, the whistleblowers, uh, are, have been around for a long, long time. They, they, they, um, bring to light wrongdoing. Uh, whether that happens here, we'll, we'll, we'll see. Uh, it seems that the Democrats have enough votes to impeach whether the Senate convicts as a whole other issue. You had two senators, uh, just within the last, uh, 10, 12 hours, um, come out and say some harsh things about the president and, and what he, what he's, what he's been doing specially with his, uh, comments about China. Um, Speaker 1: 07:04 yeah, there was a point I wanted to bring that up. You'd haven't heard a lot from Republicans, but you did get a, a Romney, uh, from Utah courts, a former [inaudible] Speaker 4: 07:11 presidential candidate and Ben Sasse from Nebraska, right? Yeah. And Romney, a LA Jolla resident as well as we through these got the elevators. Those are two who have, uh, said something. I mean, we'll see what happens. A lot of Republicans aren't even returning phone calls from news organizations who want to get them on record on this. And I think the news organizations are within their rights to press Republicans and Democrats alike and say, what do you think about this? This is a moment where it's a bridge too far and, and people need to get a record and whether they think it's acceptable for the president to do this or not. Speaker 1: 07:43 Yeah, Romney said it's appalling and wrong. That's the strongest words we've heard from him. Now you've segwayed nicely into, uh, our discussion on the press here. Uh, Trump has of course gone after the press since, before the election and, um, uh, quite constantly since then. But, uh, again, this week, along with everything else, it's come into sharp relief. It's a, everything's on steroids this week. It seems, uh, explain what he's been saying about the press in terms of reporting about this Peachtree impeachment here. Speaker 4: 08:12 Well, I think he, his, uh, narrative is that you can't trust the press. Um, and I do think the press has a fine line to walk when we're relying on anonymous sources, which are problematic in and of themselves, especially in a, in a kind of a, an incendiary atmosphere like this. Um, so that's why I tell people, be skeptical when you read an anonymous source, uh, look at the source documents themselves. Draw your own conclusions. Right? This other sources in that story. Maybe read other news outlets too. You know, I think though it's incumbent on journalists to get to the bottom of the truth and share facts and facts. Only. We did, we asked our readers this week should the president be impeached for his behavior? And we've got a lot of responses and we went through and edited those sometimes. Um, you know, more so than we would have because I don't want inaccuracy floating around and there are a lot of things that need to be fact checked and you need to ensure that the facts are what is there in circulation. Right. Speaker 6: 09:10 Are we talking about the identity of the whistle blower? I mean, is there any doubt that we don't think the white house knows? I mean it sounds like it was somebody who was very close to the white house potentially listening to that phone call. Trump has said he and press conferences and then if, if, if they do know who it is, um, I know they talked about protections for the whistle blower. Um, what, what could the white house do if they knew who it was? Yeah. Good question. And I would just ask another question, which is, um, let's not jump to conclusions about who that was. A blower is, right. We've only reported in our editorials that the whistleblower was a member of the intelligence [inaudible] Speaker 4: 09:36 community haven't even said that it's an [inaudible], um, a staffer because again, until the whistleblower comes forward and you know who he or she is, right. Um, Speaker 6: 09:47 I think it's been established. It's a he, yeah. But yeah, true. But I'm saying, you know, [inaudible] protecting. Correct. It's very sharing how you see some news organizations putting a lot of information out there in terms of who this guy is. And people are saying, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. This is gonna make it easily identifiable. But yeah, or he or she Speaker 1: 10:00 in the New York times actually did a sidebar and why they gave so much information about that because it's so sensitive. I want to shift a little bit here. Leading candidate for the presidential democratic nomination. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren rally in San Diego before reported 8,500 people last night. Uh, she mentioned Trump once in response to a questioner, but she basically gave her stump speech, basically was, if I'm elected, here's my policies, here's how I see the problems, here's how I want to fix them. But is she benefiting politically? Uh, we now have Trump's attacks on Biden and whatever effect that might have. We had a heart procedure this week with Bernie Sanders and other leading contenders. Speaker 4: 10:38 Yeah, I mean, I think credit where credit's due, Elizabeth Warren is running a good campaign full stop and that she should get credit for that. And it's clearly a political decision that she only mentioned Trump the one time. Um, so I w whether you know, Bernie's a health condition or a Biden and Trump's kind of back and forth affects her or not clearly it probably does, but I don't want to sell short the campaign that she's run and she's had some great successes getting 8,500 people, assuming that number is correct, uh, to hang out in downtown San Diego on a Thursday night and an easy thing to do. Speaker 1: 11:12 All right, we just have a lot of time on this item. We could do the whole hour, but we've got other topics to get to. We didn't even get to the moats and the alligators in the snakes and shooting migrants in the legs a we'll save that for another show. That's the kind of week it's been. All right. We are gonna move on. College football season is in full swing and that means the cash registers are ringing at universities across the land from sales of tickets and team merchandise and massive TV contracts. But what are the students fighting it out on the field? Get a stipend, a scholarship little else. But that's about to change in California at least. So Matt Hoffman, big story this week, explain this new law signed into a law in California by a the governor. Newsom. Yeah. Speaker 6: 11:54 We're talking about the fair pay or fair play to pay act, which sounds like universities giving money to students. But what we're really talking about is students being able to go out there, sell their likeness, use their image to basically sign endorsement deals. Uh, which is something that obviously goes against the NCAA rules. Now what are some of the ways that uh, the players can cash in on this? Right. I think some of the most obvious ones you think of, you think of like, uh, clothing deals, sneaker deals. But there's other things we talked to, uh, some marketing pros that say, you know, smaller schools that could be like car dealerships. Uh, it could be like pizza places, just trying to get guys out there cause you got to remember, I mean, how many college athletes can people name off the top of their heads that are really marketable? Speaker 6: 12:31 A lot of people think that there's only a very small number of athletes are actually gonna benefit from this. But like you say, if you can sign, if you can go out and do an autograph signing at a bookstore for 500 bucks, that's 500 bucks you didn't have before, as you said, isn't that paying them outright as professional players are paid? Right. Yeah. I mean, and, and the, the university, it's interesting. A John David worker, uh, the athletic director for San Diego state, uh, they did immediate variability this week talking about this. He doesn't agree with how the state did this. Basically kind of forcing to bring NCAA to the negotiating table. Uh, he does think that that there's a middle ground somewhere that they can be compensated, but he pointed out, look, a lot of these guys, especially the bigger names, uh, they're getting full ride scholarships. Speaker 6: 13:09 They're getting their housing paid for it. They're getting their food paid for. So he thinks that to say that they don't compensate them in some way is very unfair. But the NCAA, they're not crazy about this idea at all. Right? No. The NCAA is not crazy about this. They actually sent a letter in September to governor Newsome when this had passed this assembly and the Senate saying they use the word unconstitutional, which I'm not a lawyer, but that sounds like lawsuit to me. Um, and basically they say that this kind of blurs the line between professional, uh, to collegiate sports now. Uh, and they say that it would give an unfair advantage to schools. I mean, why should somebody go play for Florida when they can go to UCLA where they can make potentially a hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars. And they have said that it could bar schools from competing in NCAA competitions. Jay, this has been a long time coming because we had this, a lawsuit with ed van and we'll get into the whole details there, but it was successful former players saying, look, they're making all the big bucks here. There's billions at stake. Why don't we get a little taste of that? At least the star players, a lot of these guys, I mean less than 1% of what you're wanting to play pro sports and get paid in football. And basketball is the biggest Speaker 7: 14:11 right. And there, you know, a lot of them are sacrificing their bodies as well and you taught college football and uh, you know, people are going to see those players. You know, Dabo Swinney makes $9 million a year, which is almost as much as Nick Saban and Alabama, 9.4 million. But they're not going to go see Debow Sweeney play. They're gonna want to go see those players. And, and I understand that the argument from the NCAA, of course they're arguing cause they've got a big old stack of money they'd been sitting on for a hundred years. They don't want to divvy it up. I just look at it. If there was a really smart, uh, computer gal or ma mathematician, he came to San Diego state on a scholarship and while she was here, she created an app that lets you track your investment or balance your check, but whatever, I'm sure it's already out there. Speaker 7: 14:54 And if she went out and sold that app, are they saying because she's on scholarship, she can't recognize her, her hard work. So, you know, I think it's a fine line. I, you know, the NCAA to say that they're not going to include the California in there. A competition is a complete joke. The too many eyeballs, too much money. You know that that's not gonna happen. So, you know, we heard the same argument when title nine came around that it was doomsday and all the college athletics was going to be ruined. Not going to be the case. I say pay the labor head. Speaker 6: 15:22 I think they got three years still. This kicks in. Yeah. It doesn't come in until 2023 so like, sorry, it has to work something out and get some, some negotiations. It's also interesting how like your scenario, talking about like someone builds an app, they're on an engineering scholarship. The school would usually kind of glorify that person and say, Oh my goodness, look. They probably put them on their website and say, this person's doing great. Right. If an athlete does that, it's almost criminal. I mean the schools that got him, like what are you doing? Well, speaking to athletes, it's a nice segue. You interviewed some, some folks this week, got some reactions, you mentioned the press availability. Set this up for us. Who are the players and we're going to play these bites. Yeah, we had a chance to talk to two SDSU football players who have the athletics weekly press conference that they had a Luke bar Q and a Parker. A bottling or excuse me, Parker, Parker Houston. Okay, let's hear it. Let's hear from them. Speaker 8: 16:04 It would make you ineligible to play for certain championship games in like ball games or whatever. So I think if the circumstance, the circumstances were different as far as that aspect and it would be a good, a good idea. But uh, until then, then, uh, I disagree with it. We're here most of our days. We're here for, we're here for five years and it's a lot of our, our, a lot of our life and things like that. So, um, it's hard for a lot of us cause we don't, we don't have the opportunity to get a job and so we really can't start earning our savings and things like that and building it up. Uh, so I think it's, you know, maybe something that is definitely gonna benefit student athletes. Speaker 6: 16:42 All right man. And uh, you know, we, we had chance to talk to Luke barbecue a little bit more who said, you know, universities are making millions off of us off of our brand name. Um, and, and he feels that they should be able to get a piece of the pie too. I think it's also worth pointing out too, that not all universities are making money on sports. I mean, some schools, I think San Diego state only makes money on their football and their basketball program. Uh, so to say that the universities are making billions. Yeah, sure. There's some making billions, but not all universities are cashing in on flattens. And those are the big two, right? The J you've got football and basketball. Those are the ones that are really attracting the eyeballs and the money. But the ROI if you will, the return on investment. Maybe this, those two sports are making it San Diego state making money. But that brand is getting out there. Speaker 7: 17:22 Steve Fisher do when he, when he resurrected this basketball program. And look at the number of applicants at San Diego state and it was a dramatic spike so that that all the, you know, that all filters down, that's all part of the pie. And uh, you know, there's a change in the air and I, I think you're on the wrong side of his, Speaker 6: 17:38 I mean, even when you talk about SDSU, I mean like who's the right back to that Donald Pumphrey, right. They had huge banners of them all over the place. Billboard saying Heisman, Heisman. I mean they got imprinted all over the schedule too. So to say that they're not using their now to market. Like, yeah, I mean they're using their brand to market and sell tickets. All right. Couple of seconds left. Uh, it was overwhelming in the California legislature. Other States going to take this up. I mean, this is going to spread across the country to California. You lead the way as we do in so many things, like 10 States. Looking at it right now, there's even congressmen that are looking at it in Congress. So it's definitely gonna spread. I mean realistically here, the NCAA is not going to probably kick California schools out of the NCAA and to have it a rule just in California by 2023, uh, and not anywhere else. That's probably very up. Does that make sense? All right, we're out of time, but we'll uh, we'll be watching this one. It's going to be interesting as it moves along. Well, um, the baseball playoffs are here and the, uh, San Diego pottery players are going to be watching right along with the rest of us following another dismal season. Changes are once again in the wind and Jay, tell us just how bad it was there we were. Okay. At the all star break. Speaker 7: 18:35 Yeah. You know, the Midsummer classic was the, the mid season a dream in the second half didn't go as planned and nightmare came up. It did a, it did come, they were playing 500 balls and they pretty much fell off the cliff from their ninth straight losing season 10 out of the left 11 seasons. They've, uh, they've been on the wrong side of the ledger and here we go again. They're looking for somebody to stand on this top bit stopped step of the dugout and a managerial search goes on. Well before we get into the, the darkness of it all, there were, give us a few of the bright spots there at the all star games. I mean, they were 500 Watchers. They were losing, they had some stars coming in. The big spotlight hits Fernando titties the shortstop, 20 years old and just, uh, electrifying play or with, it was defense and bat and the ladies in the seat, she'll come up to see that, that dry. Speaker 7: 19:21 You don't, don't go get a hot dog when he's up, you know, the fish taco now if hydrated. So I tattoos was really something and Machado, uh, you know, some people didn't learn the million dollar man made $1 million man. You know, some people didn't like his lackadaisical effort and some, some points, but the guy can hit and he produces and he's a, he's a gym in the outfield and Chris paddock, the big right-hander, he was fun to watch and Kirby Yates was their all star out of the bullpen. So there was some pieces there. They were hitting some home runs, a hundred Renfro at, had a big year over 30 home runs. So there was some, uh, there was, it was enough to tune in, but not enough to win enough ballgames. And then the manager, Andy green got fired before it all ended. Right about a week or so ago, he was let go. Speaker 7: 20:01 Uh, he was let go a two point $5 million, which he didn't have bad parachute, but, uh, here we go again. The Padres looking for that, that magic touch. Uh, they, they've gone with a guy who's never managed before all the way back to 1998 with Jack McKeon. And Andy green was, it was his first go around as well. So, uh, we'll see what direction they'll go. It looks like they're going to go over to experience guy this time. And there's several candidates out there and we're not a sports show here, but they, I mean there's some promising folks who could come in and take a rebuilding team and maybe make a couple of big names. Joe Madden a just a released by the Chicago Cubs. Uh, he certainly has a pedigree and a book show, Walter. Right. I'd keep an eye on him. He, he's been around a couple teams. Speaker 7: 20:39 He has the folks who've seen on TV's been a sportscaster and that connection it really, the hot seat is on edge. Aprella. The general manager who's proven he can build a good farm system has yet to proofing and build a major league roster. He was with him in Texas. He was also Manny Machado, his only manager in Baltimore. That's worth watching. No, we'll say in the powders defense. They're not really sugarcoating this. You've got Ron Fowler tell us about him. Powders. Executive chairman and he unloaded before a group of fans and he's just not shy about saying, look, this is bad. Yeah, that the salt and the says, we like to call them Ron Fowler and really carrying on that tradition of a Padres. Executives letting the players have it. We go back to Ray crocks. They need never grabbed the microphone and said he'd never seen such stupid ball plane and all this flying for former, the late owner, you know, and then that Chuck Feeney, the president who flipped off the fans at one point during the game. Speaker 7: 21:28 So Ron's a very successful, and he's almost as much of a fan as he is a businessman. Uh, you know, he's a senior citizen. Well, he's getting the senior citizen discount and he wants to win right now. You know, these, the, the heck with this plan. So, you know, they've said 20, 20, they've said 2020. And that's just not good vision that says they, that's when they want to compete. Well, looky here, it's right around the corner and uh, coming off a dismal season, they got to get busy in a hurry. No, the, a, this was a subsidized stadium. He really talking before we went on the air. Here is a good story to be done. I wish I had the facts. I don't, but every year the taxpayers of San Diego still subsidized that stadium and they promised when we had the boat way back in 98. Oh my goodness, we're going to get a good teams in here. Speaker 7: 22:11 The prices will be more, but we'll have a better, and now as you say, you know, nine out of 10 years losing seasons. Yeah. It's one after another. And that's really the, the shaman because San Diego is such a baseball hotbed, it hasn't fallen off. Yeah. It's tendons is fine in the out of towners come in and really it's ranked among the top if not the top stadium in a, in a lot of the surveys or polls. So it's a great place, great experience. You go to the ball, it is fun getting something to eat, you know, walking around, you don't watch what's going on in the video. The second half. Sometimes that's background music, but it's happening on the field. They're trying to change that. So you turn around and watch what is happening. But you're right, you know, Mark, that's how it was sold that with this extra revenue stream that we would have free agents, we would be competitive. Speaker 7: 22:51 That's yet to happen that often. And I know in years past, a lot of people talked about, you know, there's not a lot of top tier talent in San Diego. Ownership went out. They got Manny Machado. I mean what's the, what's the rub now? I mean is it the rub is there, the team of a hundred miles in the North, the LA Dodgers are winning 106 games and a lead barrel buddy D doc Roberts, Dave Roberts from Cardiff and a former Padre coach. But you can't talk out of both sides of your mouth. You can't play the small park at crowd, a small market card when you've given Manny Machado, Eric Kosner and will Myers over $500 million. That's just three players. So, and that's over time we should say. Yes it is. Yeah. That's that one season. And we should also note that the Oakland A's and the Tampa Bay rays, you know, hardly the, uh, the blue bloods of baseball just got done playing in a playoff game. Speaker 7: 23:35 So it can happen. It's all about spending that money wisely more than how much you still book. Yeah, that's right. It has been, I will say 2020 the Brown bringing back the Browns coming, right? Yeah. The Brown's coming. So, uh, you know, look forward to that. Sounded look for, I'm not even joking. I'm excited. We, we're talking about the Brown uniforms for Steve Garber. You when he came here as a, as a big bonus signing famously in 82, he went back to dr stadium. One of his teammates said forward too. He said, you look like a taco. I mean, some of us love him, some of us don't it. Right. But there is a distinct event. You see that Brown uniform, you know, it's the San Diego Padres. What they want to have happen is when you see the NLA national league standings and look at the last place, right. Speaker 7: 24:14 You don't see the San Diego Padres. Yeah. Yeah. Uniform only goes so far with that. Right. I did want to ask you, the charges left talked about that a lot and I show some observers said, Hey, the potteries are going to benefit because they're the only big league team in town. Like anymore. Uh, has, has that happened at all? I mean, as we say, attendance is still there. Yeah. Attendance is up. And I, again, I think it's that underlining, you know, wealth of enthusiasm is just ready to break out, you know, and they just gotta show a better product and you gotta be competitive and their season can't be over by August and September. They gotta play meaningful games late in the year and they benefit from the out of tankers are big red Sox fan here. And you went to all three red Sox, world series champion, red Sox, my friend Lisa Ellis, chick your watch on that one. Speaker 7: 24:54 But, but a lot of fans from out of town, the Cubs come in, the uh, you know, all sorts of played the giants, the Dodgers. Jay's right. It's not the best ballpark baseball. I know what that one is a, but Petco is a great experience. Whether you're eating a fish taco or a hot dog. It's a fun way, fun place to go. Obviously a team with 90 wins is going to be more fun, but eventually fans want to see a winner, right? I mean, come on. Well, that's the bottom line. Eventually you're almost out of time, but by me, they got to put some players on the field and some wins on the board. As we say, it was 92 in San Diego the other day. That was the Padre losses, not the temperature. We're going to leave you with that. Great. Last word. Thank you very much. It was a good show. That wraps up another week of stories at the KPBS round table. I'd like to thank my guests, Matt hall at the San Diego union Tribune, sports writer and author Jay Paris and Matt Hoffman of KPBS news and a reminder, all the stories we discussed today are available on our website. KPBS dot O R. G I'm Mark sour. Thanks for joining us today and join us again next Friday on the round table.