The following podcast contains explicit language.

Hide your children.

Hi, I'm Josh Levine, Slate's national editor, and this is Hang Up and Listen for the week of August 2, 2021.

On this week's show, we're going to talk about Simone Biles' Olympics, her decision to pull herself

from the team finals and everything that's happened since. We'll also discuss the U.S. women's

soccer teams lost to Canada, plus all of the Texans, one of whom represents Italy that have caught

our attention during the past week at the Tokyo Games. And finally, we'll speak with ESPN's Jeff Passon about the hyperactive baseball trade deadline

and what it was like to be a reporter during that deadline frenzy.

I'm in Washington, D.C. I'm the author of the Queen and the host of the new podcast One Year.

Also in D.C., Stefan Fatsas, author of the book's Word Freak and a few

seconds of panic. Hello, Stefan. Hey, Josh. And with us from Palo Alto, Slate Staff Writer,

the host of Slow Burn Season 3 and the upcoming season 6, Joel Anderson. Hello, Joel.

Okay, good morning. I made sure to mention Texas in that intro just to get you

hype. So I am expecting a certain level of enthusiasm and energy to percolate through the whole

show just by virtue of that mention of Texans. I mean, normally as a Texan, we're willing to claim all Texans, but, I mean, El Paso barely has anything in common with Houston. So I can't, I can't say that I could get too hype about that. I mean, it's not even in the same time zone. As the rest of the state. Come on, man, a Texas dude, wins the 100 meter dash and you can't get pumped, Joel?

I find this fascinating that there's a Texan who wins an Olympic gold medal in the

100 meters that Joel doesn't want to claim.

But we'll save that for later.

At this time, last week, Simone Biles had made some uncharacteristic mistakes in the team

qualification round at the Tokyo Games.

She went out of bounds on her floor routine and on her first vault.

She also took three steps on her balance beam dismount.

...