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Normally Podcast: Taylor Lorenz Is At It Again... · Normally

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, we're back around normally the show with normalist
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: takes for when the news gets weird and you can
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: really count on it to be weird. I'm Mary Catherine Ham.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: And I'm Carol Marco. It's I'm Mary Catherine.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: How are you. I'm all right. We did have some
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: sort of incursion in my downstairs. I got a note
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: under my door while I was recording another podcast before
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: this that said, spider downstairs. Really big? What do we do?
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: The kids are on spring break, so they needed me
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: to help with this, but we're respectful of my recording
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: boundaries and they put it under a box, okay, which
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: is like a pretty good solution. Good job, gal.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not generally afraid of spiders. I in fact,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: will save them instead of kill them if possible, because
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I think they're useful in the whole ecosystem. But I
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: am now definitely afraid of the unknown under that box.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you. We had a snake in our
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: home in Florida a few months after we moved in,
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: and the fact that, of course that I still live
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: here is a testament to how much I love it,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I know. But we ran over to the neighbor's house
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: because we literally did not know what we should do.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: And the guy came over and he put the box
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: on top, and then he slid the flat from another
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: box under it and flipped it over and took it outside.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: So there's your solution. You need a second box.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm feeling like I might just be very heteronormative
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: and tell my husband to deal with it when he
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: comes home, right.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Of course, But I'm just saying, if you want to
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: suggest to him a second box.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Steve said. Steve said that he's disappointed in the children
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: because they should be fighting over who gets the kill.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: We have a designated bug person. It's my middle son.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: He's he wants to catch them and put them outside.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: That or lizard person or frog or any of the
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: other things we've had in the house. But yeah, he's
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: officially in charge.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: My firstborn used to be fearless about this, but she,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: in her twin years, has decided that she's like not
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: into that anymore.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: I hear her.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Anyway to be continued, Yeah, keep.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Us posted on how this turns out. So it was
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: a wild, wild weekend. Lots of things happened. The Left
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: is in this very violent rhetoric place, and I am
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: hoping that they snapped themselves out of it, but it
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: doesn't seem like that's happening time soon. Tayla Lorenz, who
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: was a reporter at the New York Times and then
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: at the Washington Post, gave it a very odd interview
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: to CNN where she talked about how amazing Luigi Mengioni is.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: He's the guy, if you don't remember, who killed the
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: healthcare executive on the streets of Manhattan in cold blood
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: from behind because he didn't like our health insurance system.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we have a clip from that, and it's pretty disturbing.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: This is her talking to a CNN correspondent named Donnio Sullivan,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: and hear hear her thoughts on what we're all missing
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: about the fandom of Luigi Manngiuni.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: Hilarious to see these millionaire media pundits on TV clutching
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: their pearls about someone standing a murderer when this is
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: the United States of America. As if we don't lionize criminals,
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: as if we don't have you know, we don't stand
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: murderers of all sorts, and we give them Netflix shows.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: There's a huge disconnect between the narratives and angles the
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: sort of mainstream media pushes and what the American public feels.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: And you see that in moments like this, And I
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: can tell you I saw the biggest audience growth that
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: I've ever seen because people were like, Oh, somebody, some
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: journalists is actually speaking to the anger that we feel.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: The women who got her outside course in New York.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: So you're going to see women especially that feel like,
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: oh my god, right, like here's this man who who's revolutionary,
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: who's famous, who's handsome, who's young, who's smart, He's a
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: person that seems this like this morally good man, which
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: is hard to find.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just realized women will literally dat an assassin
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: before they swipe right on me. That's where it's it's
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: something for sure, she's sick. I think that is sick.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: And it's one thing to be this crazy. It's another
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: thing to be this crazy on CNN and have it
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: just be this like ha ha ha ha ha moment.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Well, and I was I was thinking, like, is there
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: some alia ameliorating fact here, Like maybe this guy is
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: a comedian who has a gig at CNN. He's not
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: like this isn't a news show he's a senior correspondent, right.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: He's like not a joke.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: No, for the intersection of politics and technology. This is
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: what he does. Uh. And the idea that this per person,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Taylor Lorenz, reached the pinnacle of media in this country, yeah,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: is a problem. Like I have to believe that even
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: the the edge lords at this point are like, can
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: we get somebody, say, or to report on us, because
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: like this is problem attic And again like she's framing
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: it like I'm just sort of reporting on a phenomenon. No,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: you're not. You're justifying the phenomenon. And if you're right
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: of center, yeah, you would not justify it.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: It's wild to me to watch her do this. There's
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: a particularly the part where she says, a man of
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: good morals, ma'am pardon.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Which is hard to find and you can only find
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: it in a in an Assassin.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: There's a Flannery O'Connor short story called a Good Man
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: is Hard to Find, and in it, this family is
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: on a road trip and runs into a serial killer
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: who's out from his escape from His name is the Misfit,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: and the grandmother on the trip has been trying to
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: warn them that they might run into this person and
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: when she encounters him and he's about to kill her
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: spoiler alert on that very old short story, she says,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I don't think you should call yourself the misfit because
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: deep down I can see you're a very good man.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: And it's like girl, No, yeah, no, totally And at
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: her whole point that the media doesn't understand Mangione's appeal,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: we completely understand. We all grew up with rich kids
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: in Shakavara t shirts. We get it. We understand that
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: leftist revolutionaries are very popular with a certain well to
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: do set in the American left, and those people pretend
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: that they are these revolutionaries too, and they support things
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: like killing healthcare executives in the street. The healthcare executive
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: was a father, and he had a real life and
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: he was a real person. And guess what, killing actually
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: didn't change our healthcare system whatsoever.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: No, and the justifying of it and the glorifying of
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: it will lead to more crazy people looking around and
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: going is that the path for me? Because look, I
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: always want to be careful about saying your rhetoric causes violence,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: because I want to protect the speech right. We can
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: all have all sorts of speech that's crazy and bad
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: and that I think is ill advised and not necessarily
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: lead to violence. But like y'all, yeah, you're explicitly telling
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: people on national television that if you do something like this,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: you will have a fan club and be considered exactly handsome, revolutionary,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: a good moral man, and then we'll all joke about it.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: It creeps me out.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And look, we've talked about it in previous episodes,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: but Democrats do say things that Republicans simply would never
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: be able to get away with Representative MacIvor saying we
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: are at war, or Representative Van holnds we have to
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: fight in the streets. And you know, these would be
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: three day stories if a Republican said it. And the
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: key part that I know I've said on the show before,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: but it bears repeating, there would be a chorus of
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: people on the right to oppose this. There simply isn't
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: that same chorus on the left. Now, I'm willing to
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: be corrected, but has anybody on the left said anything
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: about Taylor Lorenz saying this kind of thing? Has anybody
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: said this is insane, we shouldn't have it. Has any
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: CNN employee said, this is inappropriate to have on our station.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: I will not stand for it. Where are these people?
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Did anyone in the many layers of editing a CNN go,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: are we sure what we're getting out of this interview?
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Nobody did. And this is the thing about coverage of
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: political violence, which I've been tracking for years as you have.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I think it really came to a head after the
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: shooting of Gabby Giffords when I watched in real time
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: time as the press alchemized this man into a right
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: leaning Palin supporter who had been driven specifically by a
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: piece of campaign literature with a target shaped shape on it,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: and that this was what had happened. None of that
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: was true, and years the New York Times repeated it
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: just a couple of years ago, in error. And I
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: watched that in real time, and I thought, this, this
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: feels different. Although it turns out it wasn't that revolutionary,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: because back during the Kennedy assassination, the press largely went
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: along with the lie that the right wing stew of
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: sentiment in Dallas was actually what got Kennedy killed instead
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: of the Kami who had defected and had come to
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: actually murder him. So it's been happened. It's happened a lot,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: but it is so frustrating to watch them sort of
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: delete all lefty violence or turn it into right wing
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: violence right and then the other side gets completely different standards.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: I'm very worried about this. I mean, the fact that
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Trump has had two assassination attempts, active assassination attempts on
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: his life. I just can't see that this gets better
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: an attimp soon because of this kind of Again, you
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: can't blame rhetoric, but like you said, if you're celebrating
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: this murderer so openly as handsome and revolutionary and famous
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: and a morally good man, you are going to create copycats.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: It sure makes it look attractive. Yes. And speaking of
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: political violence, just this week, we have two more examples,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: one really bad. In Harrisburg, PA. A man scaled an
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: iron security fence in the middle of the night, eluded police,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: and broke into the Pennsylvania Governor's mansion, where he set
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: a fire that left significant damage and forced Governor Josh Shapiro,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: his family, and guests to evacuate the building. Authority said Sunday.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: The man captured later that day will face charges of
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: attempted murdered, terrorism, aggravated arson, and aggravated assault, authorities said.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Shapiro said he his wife, has four children, two dogs,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: and another family had celebrated the Jewish holiday and Passover
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: at the residence on Saturday and were awakened by state
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: troopers pounding on their doors at about two am Sunday.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: They fled, firefighters took care of it. No one was injured.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: We have a little bit of Shapiro, who is the
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: popular Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, talking about this incident.
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: Don't know the person's specific motive yet, but we do
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: know a few truths. First, this type of violence is
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: not okay. This kind of violence is becoming far too
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: common in our society, and I don't give a damn
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: if it's coming from one particular side or the other,
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: directed it one particular party or another, or one particular
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: person or another. It is not okay, and it has
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: to stop. We have to be better than this. We
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: have a responsibility to all be better.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: I get that it's a very tough moment for him,
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: and I don't want to criticize anything, but he is
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: a very mild mannered man, and not okay is really
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: just the bottom of it. It has to be more
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: than just not okay. I wish he had said that
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: we have to hold this kind of violence, not just
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: this kind of violence, but all political violence really accountable
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: under the law, and that these people need to be
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and we
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: have to treat it much more seriously than we're treating it.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: To his credit, he has been consistent and had a
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: good statement immediately after the butler attempted assassination of Donald Trump,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: and he was much better than other Democrats on his
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: rhetoric about that, which I very much appreciated at the time.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad his family's safe. The damage looks very bad.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: What we know about the perpetrator is is Cody Allan
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Balmer thirty eight. His mother says that he is bipolar
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: and schizophrenic and off his meds. Obviously, the timing with
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: passover seems suspicious to be an interesting part of this.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: His social media shows general dislike of politicians Biden and
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Trump came in for criticisms on his social media and
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: basic and an actual quote is like everyone sucks. But
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: he specifically clearly had animus toward Shapiro and we'll find
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: out more about that. But again, there's this sort of
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: idea floating around on X today that's like, oh, the
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: conservatives are so mad when Tesla's are set on fire,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: but they have nothing to say. Now that's not true.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Yeahly, my whole timeline is.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Uniformly yeah, people saying this unacceptable. We cannot have it right, I.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Would say more passionately than Governor Shapiro.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: In some cases. Maybe we also have this story out
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: of Wisconsin that what I wanted to note, which could
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: you could miss because generally these are not covered as
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: extensively as threats to democratic politicians, which is part of
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: the issue. A wisconsintine killed his parents to obtain the
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: financial means and autonomy necessary to assassinate President Donald Trump, authorities,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: alleged in a recently released Federal affid David the FBI
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: the David Shed's light new light on the case against
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Nikita Kisup, seventeen, accused of killing his mother, Tatiana thirty
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: five and stepfather Donald Mayor, fifty one, whose bodies were
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: found in the family's Waukesha home in February. Because it
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: faces two counts of first degree murder, two counts of
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: hiding a corpse, and theft among other charges in their deaths.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: So that's three brewing or attempted assassination right on Trump,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: plus the one by the Iranians. It's bad, feel good, guys, No, it.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Doesn't, because murders bad should be the bottom rung of
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: the ladder of our agreement. It should be something that
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: we're all on board with. This idea that I just
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: feel like is becoming more prevalent that you could just
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: kill whoever you disagree with is not good. Not good.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Well, and like I said, you know, being careful to
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: draw the lines between rhetoric and acts. We do have
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: this like ladder that has been constructed that says, well,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: your words are violence, and therefore my retaliation to those words,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: to my bodily safety can be violence. That's what you
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: see as the justification on every college campus when all
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: of this turns bad, they go, well, like you were
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: endangering me with your words, that's right, right, yeah, and
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: that just creates a real bad cycle.
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: I would love some even handed like yelling at the
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: people doing this, even handed reporting on it, yes, or
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: even handed.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, even handed, don't do this kind of thing from Democrats.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: I keep saying that the Democratic politicians have been just
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: inadequate on putting this kind of violent rhetoric down. And
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: again I don't see from the left this kind of
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: self policing that we would absolutely see on the right.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: They have to do it. We can't do it for them,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: They have to do it for themselves, and.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: We should note. I don't know if I noted on
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: this podcast that the attempted assassin of Brett Kavanaugh was
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: putt it guilty last week. Again, not a huge story,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: but his attempt came in the wake of all of
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: the rhetoric post Dobb's decision being leaked, and his motive
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: was specifically because of the Dobs decision. Luckily he did
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: not make it to Kavanaugh's house. But like it's a
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: it's a bad scene out there, and you've got a
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: guy like Schumer who's the head of the party saying
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: these these specific Supreme Court members should reap the whirlwind
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: of their decisions.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: That's right, that's just it's an unacceptable way to speak.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: And Taylor standing it also she.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Uses the phrase standing on CNN when nobody listening knows
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: what she's talking about, and it's like slang from a
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: long time ago at this point.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: So I actually I love that. I was thinking the
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: exact same thing is She's like, she's she's trying to
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: look like a young commentator, but she's using this word
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: that is quite outdated at this point for the for
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: the youngs at any rate.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's again. I want to see people opposing it.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: If I haven't seen, and you have, and you've seen
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: leftists coming out against Taylor Lorenz, please send it in. Yes,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: let us know, you know, normally the pod at gmail
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: dot com. Let us know and we will correct it.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: But so far, I haven't seen any of that. Man,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back on normally. We talked about Donald
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Trump inviting Bill Maher to the White House and it
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: was set up by Kid Rock. I said, Chris Rock
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: the last time, not Chris Rock. Kid Rock makes a
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: lot more sense. He made it happen and he had
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: them sit down, and Mayor Bill Maher on his show
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: this weekend, talked about how much he enjoyed meeting Donald Trump.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: People didn't like that. That is something his some people,
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: some members of his audience did not enjoy.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Do we have that, Yeah, we have one minute of
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: him chatting a little bit about what he found in
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: his meeting with Donald.
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: Trump moving Israel's embassy to Jerusalem. Loved it. The border
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: did need to be controlled. I'm glad the cops are
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: getting them a rale back DEI had gone too far.
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: Biological men shouldn't be playing women's sports. Europe should pay
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: for their defense. And of course it makes sense that
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: Arab countries should take in Arab refugees, like the million
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: Syrians who wound up in Germany. When Saudi Arabia took none.
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: He said to me, you're right, they took none. I said, well,
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: you should remind your boyfriend in Saudi Arabia that the
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: next time you see him.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: He left.
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: I never felt I had to walk on eggshells around him,
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: And honestly, I voted for Clinton and Obama, but I
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: was able to talk with Donald Trump. That's just how
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: it went down.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I have to say I completely agree that Donald
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: Trump is himself and that is the thing that makes
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: so many people drawn to him. All the issues and
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: stuff are kind of a side note to the fact
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: that he makes people feel like they're talking to a
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: real person and not a political minded caricature, which a
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: lot of these politicians are. They don't let down their guard.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: It's what makes him so appealing. And so I completely
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: understand what Bimar's talking about. Trump is super charming, super personable,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: but again beyond all that, he is real and that
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: is a drop well.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: And he notes our notes throughout this, like he did
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: a twelve minute description of it, which is worth watching.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: The whole thing. That he brought a list of insults
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: that Trump had doled out to him specifically to sign,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: and then he holds up the list of insults and
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Trump has signed it for him, as Trump of course
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: would do right right, He brought up several agreements with him,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: joked about several things with him, and felt comfortable doing that.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: His takeaway was like, I wish that this guy, who
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem as agitated as the guy I see in
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: public or in negotiations with other countries, would be around
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: more often. Like this guy's affable, this guy is willing
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: to listen to other viewpoints. And I think this is
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: what Democrats missed about Trump from the very beginning. Yeah,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: if they had normalized Trump in twenty seventeen, and gone
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: into the Oval office and talked to him. Yeah, things
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: they wanted done, like he would have done many of
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: those things because he, in many ways is a New
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: York City, big city nineteen nineties. Democrats Still, yeah, they
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: didn't take that chance.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: No, they didn't because they could not. They did not
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: want to be seen as finding common ground with Donald Trump,
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: which is what Bill Maher is taking a risk here
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: doing that himself, although he is kind of known as
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: to be a little contrarian and a little different. But
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Democrats did not allow themselves to get wins on the
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: board because that would mean that they were friends with
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump, and you just couldn't have that. And an
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: example that I use over and over again is Kim
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Kardashian understood that lesson. She yes to the White House,
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: she posed for pictures, she got what she wanted, and
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Democrats couldn't figure out a way to do that.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: You know who also did is Van Jones on the
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: First Steps Act, which was a major criminal justice reform
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: that he wanted implemented and that he knew Trump was convincible.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Like this is if you meet with the man, you
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: get more chances. He's actually not super ideological as for
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: you and me is sometimes right right, But they never
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: did that. Interestingly, another Democrat took a chance on doing
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: that this week. That democrat is twenty twenty eight hopeful
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: and up and comer in the Democratic Party Governor of Michigan,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Gretchen Whitmer.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Well, gretch Oh, Gretchen.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: She came to the White House to talk about tariffs
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: because from her point of view, as a Democrat from Michigan,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: where auto workers would like to have more jobs in Michigan,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: this message is one that fits with her pitch. So
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: she comes to talk about this narrow issue meet with
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: the President. She thought, I believe that she was getting
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: a one on one, and she got a little bit
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: of that. But then she got invited to the Oval Office.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: And when she was invited to the Oval Office, it
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: wasn't just to sit down in the Oval Office. Yeah,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: which it's unclear how much she knew about what this
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: was going to look like. So she walks into the
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Oval Office in her signature look by the way, which
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: is a questionable hoodie with a blazer over it. That's
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: like her thing, and I think she was wearing it there. Anyway,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: she comes in, he starts signing executive orders because he
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: does that all the time. He's got the press in
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: the room, he's doing his rolling commentary as he always does,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: and Gretchen Whitmer finds herself in the room thinking, oh, no,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Democrats and liberals are going to hate that. I'm here,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: and here I am in this situation where he's, you know,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: making criticisms. I don't necessarily agree with executive orders. I
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: don't agree with And she did the worst thing possible, Carol,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: and that.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Was so embarrassing. She covered go ahead, yeah, yeah, which.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Is her face with her binders right in the Oval
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: office while a New York Times photographer was taking her photo.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: She can't see them, they can't see her.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: She tried to like shrink into the doorway and pretend
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: that she's not there, and look, I don't know. Yeah,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom's career wasn't ended the fires and the response
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: to them in California, so she may escape this. But
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: that was one of the most instantaneously instantaneous downgrades of
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: an up and coming politician I've ever seen.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was wild. It just it was so unmature.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: It was it made no sense. What did she think
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: was going to happen. They weren't going to take that
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: picture of her. They're like, oh, well, we can't see
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: her face, so we won't run these pictures. Instead, everybody
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: ran pictures of her covering her face with her binder.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: It was just humiliating. I don't know how she recovers
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: from that. I don't think she's got a shot in
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: the next presidential election. I think that she is She
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: is that person. She's that person who thinks that she
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: can cover her face with the binder. And I just
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: don't see her being appealing to people. I don't like
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: avenuesom at all. I think that he's snaky in a
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: lot of ways, but he appeals to people, and he's
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: person in a way that she just isn't. And I
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: don't know, I just don't. I don't see a future
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: for her.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: I think she's overestimated, Like I've never gotten it totally,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: and I don't understand the appeal. And I've always thought, like,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: why aren't people mad at her for letting her husband
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: go get his boat out of storage while everyone else
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: was told that they had to stay home during.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Cod not allowing selling seeds.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Classic So I think she's overestimated and I think this
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: shows that my gut was maybe right on that, because
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: I liken this to if you fall in the middle
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: school hallway, right, like, everybody's going to point and laugh
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: at you, because it's middle school, and like, if everyone's
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: already pointing and laughing, well, yeah, the worst thing you
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: can do is like, I'm just gonna pretend no one
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: can see me. The actual, the actual thing to do
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: is to own it and stand up and do a
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: dramatic bow right back at your Yeah, who laughed at yourself?
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: And like, if she had just leaned in, this would
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: have looked so much better and she would have gotten
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: something out of it, probably from Trump exactly.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: He would enjoy that. Look, this is the advice I
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: give my kids to laugh at yourself, and then people
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: will have a harder time laughing at you. So yeah,
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: well yeah, take that advice, miss Whitmer.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: She's now a meme.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: We're going to take a short break and come right
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: back with normally. Our last topic is there was a
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: piece in the Atlantic by Elizabeth Brunneck about a pro
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: natalism conference and how the right wing is very interested
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: in getting people to procreate because our population is decreasing
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: and our birth rate is low and all of that.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: But the key part of that story I saw this
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: on X and I just want to read a little
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: bit from this piece is why liberals can't say that
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: this is a problem. So quote. Liberals are reluctant to
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: wade into these matters. Talking about families may imply a
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: critique of other people's choices. Alice Evans, senior lecturer in
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: International Development in King's College, London, recently told me me
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: being grunnick, Some may believe, mistakenly, in my opinion, that
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: conceding that having children is good and ought to be
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: encouraged requires conceding that not having children is bad and
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: ought to be punished a kind of discrimination. And others
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: may be repelled by the growing association between the subject
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: the birth rates, and the political right, forming a kind
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: of feedback loop in which liberals avoid the topic because
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: it seems like a right wing fixation, thereby strength and
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: the existing association further. Whatever the source of liberal and
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: attention yielding to the far right, the notion that humanity
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: or ought to persist on this earth strikes me as absurd. Yeah,
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: uh huh. While they catch themselves in this kind of thing,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: all the time, they end up having to say absurd
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: things because the right says that this and we have
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: to impose it. So it's interesting that having children is
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: good is something that the left can't say because it
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: implies and not having children is bad, which of course
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: it doesn't, but that's how they see the world.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is Bernick is right, the idea that perpetuating
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: the species is inherently good and infect largely the reason
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: we're here. Guys. If you can't say that, how do
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: you speak to normal people? And that's that's the well
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: we have senced themselves in to this weird academic world
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: that does not have a lot of relation to regular people.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: And that's why when you see Donald Trump and you're like, well,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: that guy's weird. Why do these people think that the
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: normy vote should be for him? And it's because you
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: guys made yourselves weird or right? Yeah, And to your
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: point earlier, he he seems like himself. He's not fenced
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: in by a bunch of requirements on his speech, right,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: he doesn't listen to other people sometimes to his detriment,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: on how he should talk about issues. And these guys
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: have just really handicapped themselves right, And the thing is that.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: They only have some language they can use describe why
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: this is happening. They obviously can't say that, like you know,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: the right says what women working outside the home has
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: been has led to some of this because there's nobody
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: home with the kids and it's harder and you have
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: to hire somebody and.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: All of that.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: They can't say any of that, so and they can't
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: even entertain that. So they end up arguing that you
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: need more federal funding for this kind of thing, But
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: that just proves shows that it's not the case in
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: so many places where there is more spending. Yeah, look
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: at Europe, look at Canada, and you have all the
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: things that the left says will lead to birth rate exploding,
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: but it hasn't happened. So I think if the left
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: gave themselves permission to sometimes somewhat agree with the right,
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: which again, you don't need this on the right, you
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: have this all the time. You have like no, I
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: agree with my leftist friend on one, two, and three,
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: and that's okay, But your leftist friend can never agree
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: with you on anything. That's a problem, and that's a
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: problem for them.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Mostly well, and I think also there's a couple of
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: things here. We have icky facts that they cannot acknowledge
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: because they then feel like they're coded right if they
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: acknowledge the icky facts. But the exactly is that you
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: need a bunch of children to perpetuate exactly the kind
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: of social spending that they want to do. You can't
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: do that without people. I know that they think the
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: government can create resources, but actually people have to create
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: resources and then you can appropriate them from those people.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: And then the other thing is that they never consider
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: and I think Brunick has spoken to this before. Liberal women,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: liberal single women are some of the most unhappy in
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: every survey that there is of American of the American voter,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: an American adult, And some of that I think is
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: just because their ideological strictures don't allow them to say,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: maybe this path is good for me, right, Like it's
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: embarrassing for them to want that. It wasn't embarrassing for
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: us to want that because our peers think it's great
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: and fine. Yeah, right, And I think you get yourself
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: stuck not thinking about it and then getting to a
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: point in your life where you're like a little late
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: to the game, and it gets very stressful and hard,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: and then you're then you're at the pro natalist conference
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: where no one can speak about children. That's right.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: You know it's okay to say I want my husband
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: to come deal with a spider in the box downstairs.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. That's it, okay, I'm not ashamed.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on Normally. Normally airs Tuesdays and thirds,
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail dot com.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally