Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: Fauci Pleads the Fifth, Mamdani's Socialist Grocery Stores & Sophie Cunningham Defends Women's Sports

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Normally Podcast: Fauci Pleads the Fifth, Mamdani's Socialist Grocery Stores & Sophie Cunningham Defends Women's Sports · Normally

0:06
Speaker 1: Hey guys, we are back on normally the show with
0:08
Speaker 1: normalist takes for when the news gets weird. I am
0:10
Speaker 1: Mary Catherine Ham and Carol is still enjoying her vacation,
0:14
Speaker 1: and so you get to enjoy my friend Lauren Stewart,
0:17
Speaker 1: who works for the American's Prosperity as the senior director
0:21
Speaker 1: of Government Affairs. She's also my workout buddy and an
0:24
Speaker 1: expert in healthcare policy. So we're gonna have here to
0:27
Speaker 1: chat about all the things. How are you doing, Lauren,
0:31
Speaker 1: I'm doing great.
0:31
Speaker 2: This is going to be fun.
0:33
Speaker 1: It will be fun. We usually chat a little bit
0:36
Speaker 1: about what's going on in our lives before we get
0:39
Speaker 1: started here. I know that you and I might go
0:41
Speaker 1: have some Mexican food later with our children. Yes, I'm
0:45
Speaker 1: excited about that. In preparation for that, I was telling
0:49
Speaker 1: them last night, you know, you got to get rest
0:52
Speaker 1: if you want to hang out with Lauren tomorrow. You
0:55
Speaker 1: know I can't have you at the end of your ropes.
0:57
Speaker 1: Lauren also has about a one year old one and
1:00
Speaker 1: a half year old, yeah, and I was like, you
1:03
Speaker 1: gotta get some rest. So last night I was trying
1:05
Speaker 1: to get them to sleep, and they keep running, you know,
1:09
Speaker 1: out of the room, like he's bothering me, he's botterering me.
1:14
Speaker 1: And so like two or three times I went in there.
1:17
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, you need to ignore him. Just
1:20
Speaker 1: turn towards the wall, ignore him, and you, sir, need
1:24
Speaker 1: to ignore her and just you three and four year
1:27
Speaker 1: old just go to sleep. And I told him this
1:30
Speaker 1: like several times. And on the third time, I hear
1:32
Speaker 1: mom and I go into the room and I'm like, God,
1:37
Speaker 1: I told you to ignore each other. Go to sleep. Yeah,
1:41
Speaker 1: and my four year old goes. I just was asking,
1:45
Speaker 1: what does ignore mean?
1:50
Speaker 2: I feel like that's an important one to teach them.
1:52
Speaker 2: That is an important you know, vocab definition.
1:57
Speaker 1: I was humbled. I was humbled. I was like, yeah,
2:01
Speaker 1: that's fair, that's fair. So great.
2:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, use me as an incentive for kids behavior anytime.
2:05
Speaker 2: But your kids are so well behaved. I'll be happy
2:09
Speaker 2: that your youngest girl lets me share her baby tonight.
2:13
Speaker 1: Yes, oh yeah, yeah, she calls she calls Lauren's baby,
2:16
Speaker 1: her baby. We're gonna see her baby, all right. So
2:19
Speaker 1: it did end up. Okay, there's so much news right
2:22
Speaker 1: now that I'm just gonna warn the normally audience that
2:25
Speaker 1: we're gonna We're just gonna skip right past a meeting
2:28
Speaker 1: between Trump and Zelensky and Trump and NETANYAHUO, and the
2:32
Speaker 1: Lindsay Graham funeral, which all happened in the last twenty
2:36
Speaker 1: four to forty eight hours. Head spinning. We're gonna deal
2:39
Speaker 1: with some other stuff though, First and foremost the fact
2:42
Speaker 1: that Anthony Fauci was on the hill today testifying, doctor
2:47
Speaker 1: Anthony Fauci having had his semi private diaries made very
2:53
Speaker 1: public because, according to RFK, by the way, they were
2:56
Speaker 1: on government like work Strong.
3:03
Speaker 2: It's not enough to be a grown man with a diary, right,
3:07
Speaker 2: ultimate ick, absolutely.
3:09
Speaker 1: Ultimate ick.
3:10
Speaker 2: But you did it on official government computers like this
3:14
Speaker 2: is all official government things that you put in a diary,
3:18
Speaker 2: at least.
3:18
Speaker 1: That seems to be allegedly maybe why they got their
3:22
Speaker 1: hands on it. It's a little bit of a mystery
3:24
Speaker 1: the origin. But he has not disputed that these are
3:27
Speaker 1: his diaries, and he was up on the hill to
3:31
Speaker 1: be questioned. Now, there's plenty of things to question him about,
3:34
Speaker 1: because there were many things that he asserted very clearly
3:37
Speaker 1: in public that in his diaries, his very different takes
3:41
Speaker 1: on like whether it was a natural origin or a
3:45
Speaker 1: lab leaku for instance.
3:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, Senator John Fetterman actually went in on him a
3:51
Speaker 2: little bit on this, saying, you know, it seemed very
3:53
Speaker 2: reasonable at the time, just the proximity, but it was
3:57
Speaker 2: so partisan to take that point of view, take the
3:59
Speaker 2: common point of view that this actually could have originated
4:03
Speaker 2: in a lab. And he said that that was one
4:05
Speaker 2: of his biggest regrets during COVID, was listening to that
4:09
Speaker 2: and letting the partisan veil cloud what was a very
4:13
Speaker 2: common sense reason and view of this.
4:16
Speaker 1: Well, and the diary shows that Fauci considered it a
4:20
Speaker 1: very reasonable point of view, to the point that he
4:22
Speaker 1: gathered a bunch of scientists to talk to him about it,
4:25
Speaker 1: and then went and orchestrated essentially a cover up of
4:28
Speaker 1: the idea that this could be the reason. So that,
4:32
Speaker 1: among several other issues, is probably why the man came
4:35
Speaker 1: to the Hill today and decided to plead the Fifth
4:38
Speaker 1: And I believe we have about a minute long clip
4:40
Speaker 1: of him doing that.
4:41
Speaker 3: And you explained to the committee why you chose to
4:44
Speaker 3: find this dangerous research in China on.
4:46
Speaker 4: The advice of Council, I respectfully declined to answer, based
4:51
Speaker 4: upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution,
4:54
Speaker 4: where the scientists at the move On Institute of Virology
4:57
Speaker 4: capable of inserting a fear and clear to side into
5:00
Speaker 4: a coronavirus. On the Advisive Council, I respectfully decline to answer,
5:05
Speaker 4: based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.
5:09
Speaker 3: Did you fund gain of function research and other bio
5:11
Speaker 3: labs around the world?
5:13
Speaker 4: On the Advisive Council? I respectfully decline to answer, based
5:16
Speaker 4: upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
5:20
Speaker 3: Do you think that the risks really are worth the
5:22
Speaker 3: benefits for gain of function research?
5:24
Speaker 4: On the Advisive Council, I respectfully decline to answer, based
5:28
Speaker 4: upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
5:32
Speaker 3: Doctor Vauci, would you like to at least answer this
5:34
Speaker 3: one question for us today and let us know whether
5:37
Speaker 3: or not you've changed your mind on whether or not
5:40
Speaker 3: the benefits of gain of function research outweigh the risks.
5:43
Speaker 4: On the Advisive Council, I respectfully decline to answer, based
5:47
Speaker 4: upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
5:51
Speaker 1: At one point, he's also asked if there's a folder,
5:53
Speaker 1: a red folder in front of him, and he pleads
5:55
Speaker 1: a fifth on that too. Okay, the fifth is your
5:59
Speaker 1: perfec right in a criminal case. In particular, it should
6:04
Speaker 1: not be read as incriminating. It's just the ability to
6:09
Speaker 1: not incriminate yourself. In this case. He has a pardon
6:14
Speaker 1: for everything from twenty fourteen on. So it's although he
6:18
Speaker 1: says he respects congressional oversight, he doesn't seem to be
6:22
Speaker 1: respecting it that much, and he seems like he has
6:25
Speaker 1: like no interest in answering these contradictions.
6:28
Speaker 2: No, it was funny. He opened his opening statement for
6:31
Speaker 2: five minutes, which is basically the only thing of substance
6:34
Speaker 2: he said the entire time was how he is so transparent.
6:38
Speaker 2: He's actually the most transparent. He testified before Congress two
6:42
Speaker 2: hundred times. He is so transparent that he's used up
6:46
Speaker 2: all his transparency in his life and there's none left
6:50
Speaker 2: right now for like when it actually matters, and there
6:52
Speaker 2: wasn't any left during the pandemic. But he is so
6:54
Speaker 2: transparent that not only did he come today to testify
7:00
Speaker 2: for a Rampaul's committee only because he was subpoanut, but
7:05
Speaker 2: he led the fifth every time. Now, yes, the fifth Amendment,
7:10
Speaker 2: it's not to incriminate yourself, you're able to protect yourself,
7:13
Speaker 2: but he has the pardon of all pardons, so technically
7:17
Speaker 2: that doesn't count.
7:19
Speaker 1: I think some are speculating that, you know, it doesn't cover,
7:24
Speaker 1: for instance, maybe perjury if you were under oath in
7:28
Speaker 1: this situation. I am interested in. I know that all
7:32
Speaker 1: I'm having. Honestly, I'm not very triggered very often, but
7:34
Speaker 1: I'm maybe a little bit triggered by twenty twenty reminiscences
7:37
Speaker 1: right now.
7:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
7:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's hard to watch him. It's hard to
7:41
Speaker 1: read the diaries and to realize, yeah, once again, how
7:46
Speaker 1: badly this went, and how many people were hurt that
7:49
Speaker 1: probably didn't need to be hurt. But then if you
7:53
Speaker 1: tweet about this, you get these arguments that are just
7:58
Speaker 1: from twenty twenty. I got a lady telling me, well,
8:02
Speaker 1: I have friends who worked in medical fields and they
8:06
Speaker 1: think it was right to give my brain over to
8:08
Speaker 1: Anthony Fauci. And I can't believe you would be so
8:11
Speaker 1: brazen as to criticize a man who simply wanted to
8:14
Speaker 1: keep you from dying.
8:16
Speaker 2: Okay, I mean this, it's just the continued virtue signaling,
8:23
Speaker 2: And I understand people just want to forget all the
8:25
Speaker 2: bad things, all the mistakes of COVID because it was
8:29
Speaker 2: so traumatizing. I think a lot of people are triggered
8:31
Speaker 2: in that space of just being like, yeah, it was bad,
8:33
Speaker 2: but you know, we needed to save people. This man
8:36
Speaker 2: wrote in his diary that this was not as dangerous
8:39
Speaker 2: as he was publicly claiming it to be. This man
8:43
Speaker 2: wrote in his diary that cloth masks are not all
8:45
Speaker 2: that effective, right, so are we just going to ignore
8:49
Speaker 2: that now? And also criticisms when you tweet about it's
8:52
Speaker 2: like this hearing's a waste of time. We're looking backwards. Well,
8:55
Speaker 2: we need to look backwards because there still hasn't been
8:58
Speaker 2: any accountability. They are accountability and that is a problem.
9:02
Speaker 2: So anytime anybody wants to bring up the problems the mishaps,
9:07
Speaker 2: who's responsible for all of the disastrous things that took
9:10
Speaker 2: place Quite frankly in a portion of our nation's history,
9:13
Speaker 2: that will be a stain, especially for individual liberties and freedom.
9:17
Speaker 2: We should absolutely talk about it all the time.
9:19
Speaker 1: Yes, the argument is always you're looking backwards, and it
9:24
Speaker 1: was it was conveniently that it was. It was an emergency,
9:28
Speaker 1: so you couldn't talk about it rationally. And then as
9:30
Speaker 1: soon as we were out of the emergency. When they
9:32
Speaker 1: finally admitted maybe we could move on, it was like, well,
9:35
Speaker 1: don't look backwards, and it's like, okay, well that's convenient
9:38
Speaker 1: because nobody ever is held accountable. Yeah, situation. I also
9:42
Speaker 1: refuse to allow those who make those same old twenty
9:46
Speaker 1: twenty arguments to claim to also be great defenders of
9:52
Speaker 1: civil liberties, because that's what they do, right, They're like,
9:54
Speaker 1: they're like, no kings, no kings, except also I wanted
9:57
Speaker 1: Trump and Fauci to be my absolute kings.
10:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, except I were wearing booty shorts with Fauci on
10:05
Speaker 2: the butt in twenty twenty two. Like, no, it is.
10:10
Speaker 2: The hypocrisy is really amazing. It is the same no
10:15
Speaker 2: king's people, It is the same you know, DSA folks
10:18
Speaker 2: saying this is freedom, we're gonna be free from this,
10:21
Speaker 2: when it's actually just more top down control, like suffocatingly
10:26
Speaker 2: bad control. But as long as you agree with it,
10:29
Speaker 2: and as long as it's on your side, it's all good.
10:31
Speaker 2: It's all good good.
10:33
Speaker 1: And I think the the diary entries, and you know,
10:36
Speaker 1: his emails in the past to some extent, but diary entries,
10:38
Speaker 1: I think truly well, they showed him to be like
10:40
Speaker 1: cartoonishly in love with him, which I think we could see,
10:44
Speaker 1: and unfortunately people fed into that. I saw an old
10:46
Speaker 1: clip of Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan at the time,
10:50
Speaker 1: with a Fauci throw pillow behind her while she was
10:53
Speaker 1: doing TV hits. It was wild. But the emails also
10:59
Speaker 1: show him to be a bad faith person, Like for
11:03
Speaker 1: the longest time, I would attempt to be measured, not
11:07
Speaker 1: kind about him, but measured and saying like, look, I
11:10
Speaker 1: know I'm not the expert, but I also am not
11:12
Speaker 1: myopic about only this thing. So maybe we should consider
11:15
Speaker 1: other things. And perhaps he was, you know, learning on
11:18
Speaker 1: the go, and this was the best we could do.
11:20
Speaker 1: It wasn't the best we could do. He was lying.
11:23
Speaker 5: No.
11:24
Speaker 2: I was the same way during the pandemic of like, Okay,
11:27
Speaker 2: we're getting a lot of conflicting information, but the conflicting
11:31
Speaker 2: information is coming from different world right, whether it's the
11:34
Speaker 2: CDC health scientists versus like political civilarities people. How does
11:38
Speaker 2: all of that mash together? It turns out it actually
11:41
Speaker 2: could mash together in a very like good faith and
11:45
Speaker 2: upfront way. It just wasn't it was deliberately not that way.
11:50
Speaker 2: So uh yeah, the rose colored glasses, if I had
11:54
Speaker 2: any about that time, are completely lifted. He was on
11:57
Speaker 2: a full blown power trip.
12:00
Speaker 1: Hmm. And then the media is like photos, like workshopping,
12:04
Speaker 1: questions for him with him, what are we doing?
12:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were a part of it as well, though,
12:09
Speaker 2: you know, I mean they absolutely drove his stardom. You know,
12:14
Speaker 2: his all of his diary entries, logging, his hits, logging
12:18
Speaker 2: the nice things people say about him. He's sexier than
12:20
Speaker 2: Tyra Banks, Like who said that number one banks don't competition?
12:28
Speaker 1: We can just dismiss that one.
12:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, But the part of it, you know, he was Bible.
12:34
Speaker 2: He was absolute Bible and you know, arguably to this
12:38
Speaker 2: day still will be because nothing matters.
12:43
Speaker 1: So uh, I feel like Senator Marino was channeling a
12:47
Speaker 1: bit of our frustration when he had some questions, albeit
12:52
Speaker 1: not answered. Here he is.
12:54
Speaker 6: When that story broke, I said to myself, I cannot
13:01
Speaker 6: stand ile on the side and watch this happen.
13:04
Speaker 2: It was about six.
13:05
Speaker 6: Years ago today that I decided I'm going to give
13:09
Speaker 6: up my businesses, sell them all, run for office, run
13:13
Speaker 6: for the United States Senate. Here I am sitting in
13:15
Speaker 6: front of you six years later saying, who the fuck
13:18
Speaker 6: do you think you were for doing that?
13:20
Speaker 2: Oh, my Boston cursing heart is really proud of the
13:24
Speaker 2: Center from Ohio on this one, because he really spoke
13:28
Speaker 2: for a lot of people.
13:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think my fuddy duddy opinion is generally like, hey,
13:34
Speaker 1: let's try to keep under control. If there's ever a
13:36
Speaker 1: moment that you are needing to express that, for me,
13:40
Speaker 1: it would probably be in front of doctor Polgi, So
13:43
Speaker 1: I can't judge too harshly. Yeah, but I think that's
13:47
Speaker 1: that is a real question to him because he so
13:52
Speaker 1: often was absolutely certain of what he was telling everyone
13:58
Speaker 1: to do while expressing different views or uncertainty behind the scenes.
14:04
Speaker 1: And I am just amazed at the number of people
14:06
Speaker 1: who continue not to want him to have to answer
14:11
Speaker 1: to even answer questions about any of it. And how
14:14
Speaker 1: do you keep that from happening next time if you
14:17
Speaker 1: don't deal with how it was done this time.
14:21
Speaker 2: That's why these hearings, That's why continuing to talk about
14:23
Speaker 2: it while annoying, while triggering is super important. Look, who
14:28
Speaker 2: the f he thought he was was? Who everybody was
14:31
Speaker 2: propping him up to be during the pandemic and continue
14:34
Speaker 2: to like there was fuel added to his fire. There
14:37
Speaker 2: was a lot of reinforcements, which is good because from
14:41
Speaker 2: his diary it sounds like that's something he definitely needed,
14:45
Speaker 2: definitely needed. You know, the positive reinforcement might have like
14:48
Speaker 2: a compliments as a love language thing there, but uh,
14:53
Speaker 2: you know, this is why it is important. How do
14:56
Speaker 2: we know moving forward? Do we question when they're is
15:00
Speaker 2: the next pandemic or there is the next emergency or
15:03
Speaker 2: arguably now fake emergency of how we put these trusts
15:07
Speaker 2: in a single person right? And it was across the board.
15:11
Speaker 2: It was a really tough spot for a lot of states.
15:14
Speaker 2: It was a really tough spot for the federal government,
15:17
Speaker 2: but was very instantly and quickly revealed as to the
15:21
Speaker 2: right way to do it because there were areas of
15:23
Speaker 2: the country that did do it correctly.
15:25
Speaker 1: There are correctly to that point. Rona Santis had this
15:30
Speaker 1: to say tweeting. Fauci was lionized by the legacy media,
15:33
Speaker 1: which made him the de facto covid oracle. The more
15:35
Speaker 1: Fauci advocated for restrictions in lockdowns, and the more he
15:38
Speaker 1: criticized states like Florida and Georgia that spurned his edicts,
15:41
Speaker 1: the more the media would treat him as a saint.
15:43
Speaker 1: Fauci's increasingly hysterical approach to COVID fueled his adulatory coverage,
15:47
Speaker 1: which in turn fueled his vanity vicious cycle. I know
15:52
Speaker 1: Carol is going to be sad to be out while
15:54
Speaker 1: we talk about this, but when I'm saving for her
15:57
Speaker 1: from the Fauci diaries for next week the vindication of
16:01
Speaker 1: Florida and Georgia, and we can get to that, as
16:06
Speaker 1: you know, I do think there's another part of this
16:08
Speaker 1: that people should not forget, which is that Trump had
16:10
Speaker 1: the power to not give Fauci all this power. Trump
16:15
Speaker 1: also had the power to not give Fauci a giant
16:18
Speaker 1: award as he was leaving office, which I had forgotten
16:20
Speaker 1: that he did.
16:22
Speaker 2: I think I purposely forgot that.
16:23
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, So he was on the right track in
16:28
Speaker 1: some ways in these early meetings, but didn't forcefully make
16:32
Speaker 1: the argument, whereas DeSantis was like, I'm gonna learn the
16:34
Speaker 1: facts and I'm gonna make decisions.
16:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it worked out, prevailed, the state prevailed. Everybody
16:40
Speaker 2: was okay. Also a lot of people moved there.
16:43
Speaker 1: Y yeah, well, and once again like it's not that
16:46
Speaker 1: it wasn't dangerous. It's just that if we had simply
16:50
Speaker 1: recognized these people are more susceptible. Young people are fine
16:55
Speaker 1: outside better than inside, that would have been a.
16:57
Speaker 2: Better There was the clip. You know, all these like
17:02
Speaker 2: Fauci Tael clips are coming back up, and it was
17:04
Speaker 2: him throwing out the first pitch at a major league
17:07
Speaker 2: baseball game and he's walking up to the mound. The
17:10
Speaker 2: pitch was horrible, But I give people a lot of
17:12
Speaker 2: grace on situations like that because it's a long way
17:15
Speaker 2: from the picture's mound to home plate.
17:17
Speaker 4: Uh.
17:17
Speaker 2: But he's out and open era. There's not a player,
17:20
Speaker 2: a person within twenty feet of him, and she is
17:23
Speaker 2: wearing a baseball cap and they mask outside.
17:26
Speaker 3: Mike.
17:26
Speaker 1: Well, then he went and sit in the sat in
17:28
Speaker 1: the stands next to friends and took it off.
17:30
Speaker 2: Yes, yes it was. But if you asked questions or
17:33
Speaker 2: if you poked holes in that you were you wanted
17:36
Speaker 2: your grandmother to die, You didn't care about your neighbor's grandmother.
17:39
Speaker 2: It was all of these things. You're like, oooh, no,
17:40
Speaker 2: I'm just like say, I'm being the most extreme and
17:44
Speaker 2: the safest person. The way he did that doesn't make
17:46
Speaker 2: any sense. No, it's a wild time. I'm glad that
17:51
Speaker 2: they did get him to come to Congress again by subpoena.
17:55
Speaker 2: The most transparent man in the world was not coming
17:58
Speaker 2: on his own accord. He was subpoena to show up
18:00
Speaker 2: there today, where he then said he was the most
18:03
Speaker 2: transparent man in the world and didn't answer a single question.
18:07
Speaker 2: This is why it is important to look back on this.
18:10
Speaker 2: This is why it is important to be aware that
18:14
Speaker 2: no matter who the person is, whether it's a president,
18:16
Speaker 2: whether it's an agency head, that they are fallible human beings,
18:21
Speaker 2: that they have yuckier parts of human nature that can
18:26
Speaker 2: be tapped into, and there is a system of tracks
18:30
Speaker 2: and balances that should have been better utilized.
18:33
Speaker 1: And love it. In an emergency we still need it.
18:36
Speaker 1: Arguably we need it more. All right, we are not
18:38
Speaker 1: reading the fifth so we will be back on normally
18:40
Speaker 1: in just a few minutes. All right, we are back
18:45
Speaker 1: on normally with if I can manage it. A bit
18:48
Speaker 1: of a lightning round on bad policies coming out of
18:51
Speaker 1: mom Donnie's New York. First, he went on the internets
18:57
Speaker 1: for the whole world to see, talking about how he
19:00
Speaker 1: was gonna maybe arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he came to
19:03
Speaker 1: town and then he has to go to the camera
19:05
Speaker 1: and be like, actually, I can't do that, which is
19:10
Speaker 1: like he's so good at so many things that it's
19:15
Speaker 1: weird to watch him face plant like that, like such
19:18
Speaker 1: a miscalculation. But in a semi related story, let me
19:23
Speaker 1: just tell you this one out of New York and
19:25
Speaker 1: a man showed up at a Jewish school in Queen's
19:28
Speaker 1: armed with a hammer Tuesday morning, broke free of the
19:30
Speaker 1: security guards who had grabbed him, and then assaulted an
19:32
Speaker 1: eight year old boy. Police sources said the boy was
19:35
Speaker 1: shoved into a metal fence, cutting his head. He was
19:37
Speaker 1: not seriously injured. Forty two year old attacker was arrested.
19:43
Speaker 1: So this comes right on the heels of a stabbing
19:47
Speaker 1: of an Asian man and a Jewish man in back
19:49
Speaker 1: to back broad daylight attacks on the Upper West Side
19:53
Speaker 1: by a man shouting alaho ackbart. It's it's not good there,
20:00
Speaker 1: It's not good. Yeah. The open anti Semitic crime spreeze.
20:06
Speaker 1: And you know, mom, Donnie for his part, is like,
20:08
Speaker 1: we vow to root out anti Semitism, do you, because
20:11
Speaker 1: you were just on TV the other day talking about
20:14
Speaker 1: how Netanyah, who is like committing all of these war
20:18
Speaker 1: crimes allegedly and using the most inflammatory possible categorization of
20:24
Speaker 1: anything you can imagine. And as my friend Ave Greenwald
20:27
Speaker 1: a commentary has said, he's raising the temperature on purpose.
20:31
Speaker 1: That's what's happening here.
20:32
Speaker 2: It's like saying you're a vanilla cupcake advocate, but you
20:36
Speaker 2: only talk about how wonderful chocolate cupcakes and you're like, wait,
20:39
Speaker 2: I'm not The math isn't mathing? I mean, this is
20:43
Speaker 2: this is horrific. This is really bad. How the people
20:47
Speaker 2: of New York, How even the Mundami administration is able
20:51
Speaker 2: to continue just turning their cheek to these things and
20:54
Speaker 2: not addressing it, and continuing to double down on the
20:57
Speaker 2: way they speak about Natan Yahoo. Uh, but then in
21:00
Speaker 2: the same vein and say they're rolling out anti semitism
21:03
Speaker 2: is the worst form of gas lighting, because it's not
21:07
Speaker 2: even good gaslighting. You're just contradicting yourself.
21:10
Speaker 1: At that point, we have that another insane thing which
21:12
Speaker 1: I had almost forgotten about. They put together a panel
21:17
Speaker 1: of lawyers in New York City under mum Dani and
21:24
Speaker 1: there are zero Jews among the lawyers that they picked.
21:28
Speaker 1: And people are like, it's not a joke that it's
21:32
Speaker 1: statistically impossible for this to have happened without it being
21:35
Speaker 1: done intentionally.
21:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that is especially in New York City, right,
21:41
Speaker 2: And as someone who has worked in politics for a while,
21:45
Speaker 2: are you not thinking of the optics at any point?
21:47
Speaker 2: Like is someone on your staff not being like, hey, sir,
21:51
Speaker 2: there is not a you know, they're super inclusive, right,
21:55
Speaker 2: but we're actually not covering the bases here, and optically
21:58
Speaker 2: this looks bad.
22:00
Speaker 1: I mean, inclusivity just stops right before the Jews, Like
22:03
Speaker 1: that's that's generally, but even the New York Times noticed
22:07
Speaker 1: this one is like Mamdani's judicial panel appears to be
22:10
Speaker 1: missing something Jewish members. So there's that one. Okay, let's
22:14
Speaker 1: go to economics, one of our favorite subjects. Yes, Reason
22:19
Speaker 1: magazine reports on who's paying for the discounts in Mamdani's
22:23
Speaker 1: city run grocery stores. So they're opening one in East
22:27
Speaker 1: Harlem and one in Hunt's Point in the Bronx. City
22:29
Speaker 1: plans to spend seventy million in capital costs, with thirty
22:32
Speaker 1: million funding the ground up construction in one location. The
22:36
Speaker 1: city will cover rent and property taxes for the five
22:39
Speaker 1: grocery stores located in each borough, and private operators will
22:44
Speaker 1: run the day to day operations. It will be a
22:47
Speaker 1: thirty percent discount on staples and such which no private
22:54
Speaker 1: bodega is going to be able to compete with, and
22:58
Speaker 1: no government run grocery store can maintain, except that taxpayers
23:03
Speaker 1: are footing the bill for it.
23:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, also, why are you trying to take
23:06
Speaker 2: the cool factor out of New York with like cutting
23:10
Speaker 2: out the bodegas?
23:11
Speaker 1: So weren't they just lips, were just talking about how
23:13
Speaker 1: revolutionary the bodegas were and better than everyone.
23:16
Speaker 2: Else's stuff, like yes, a year and a half ago,
23:18
Speaker 2: and then they go, you know what we should get
23:20
Speaker 2: rid of that? You know what we should do like
23:22
Speaker 2: more seven to eleven style is really what we're looking for.
23:26
Speaker 2: I mean, at the end of the day, who's paying
23:28
Speaker 2: for it?
23:28
Speaker 3: Right?
23:30
Speaker 2: This is not freedom, This is not discount. This is
23:33
Speaker 2: a trade. This is a trade from New Yorkers, and
23:37
Speaker 2: they're asking you to trade your other options, trade your
23:41
Speaker 2: bodegas to choose something that a government is providing with
23:46
Speaker 2: products and foods that they pick for you. So it's
23:50
Speaker 2: a trade off in terms of the actual economic payment
23:54
Speaker 2: of course it's New Yorkers in terms of the actual
23:58
Speaker 2: trade off and choices and competition and things that people value,
24:03
Speaker 2: and I think will find that they valued more as
24:05
Speaker 2: it gets taken away. That's New Yorkers as well. But
24:08
Speaker 2: this is absolutely a This isn't a there's no free lunch,
24:12
Speaker 2: and I always say that, but this is a trade off.
24:15
Speaker 2: You are trading off the cool factor in Bodega's in
24:18
Speaker 2: New York City to get a seven to eleven with
24:21
Speaker 2: one kind of milk, with one kind of bread, and
24:24
Speaker 2: things of that nature. And if anybody thinks that these
24:25
Speaker 2: are going to be these vast, beautiful, well run, you know,
24:31
Speaker 2: stores with tons of options, I would direct you to
24:34
Speaker 2: any state that has an ABC liquor Stye, and I
24:36
Speaker 2: promise you cannot find all the cool bourbons. It's more extensive,
24:41
Speaker 2: and sometimes the one near us is like out of
24:43
Speaker 2: Teeto's vodka. Yeah.
24:46
Speaker 1: I agree. And the thing is that it's also not
24:51
Speaker 1: means tested, and I don't know what kind of possible
24:55
Speaker 1: protections they can have in place for people not going
24:57
Speaker 1: in and buying a bunch of stuff and then selling
24:59
Speaker 1: it twenty percent under the market and making that ten
25:02
Speaker 1: percent for themselves. Because if there's a bunch of staples
25:05
Speaker 1: available here for less money, I can go just flip
25:08
Speaker 1: those somewhere And none of this make any sense. By
25:13
Speaker 1: the way, capitalism does grocery stores better than almost anything, right,
25:17
Speaker 1: So the I understand that affordability is an issue. The
25:21
Speaker 1: al day up the street does many of the things
25:24
Speaker 1: the government is claiming it's going to do, which is
25:26
Speaker 1: focusing on a few products, keeping prices extremely low, keeping
25:30
Speaker 1: overhead low. They're not gonna be able to do any
25:32
Speaker 1: of that efficiently. It's just going to be taxpayers who
25:35
Speaker 1: put the bill.
25:36
Speaker 2: It's so typical, right, government is always like ten fifteen
25:39
Speaker 2: years behind the cred that you're like, you know what,
25:41
Speaker 2: We're going to make a super affordable grocery store and
25:44
Speaker 2: maybe you have to pay a quarter for your car, Like, no,
25:47
Speaker 2: we already have it.
25:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have that, and we did that.
25:51
Speaker 2: Capitalism does a really great job of it.
25:52
Speaker 1: People like it.
25:54
Speaker 2: Just just leave it alone.
25:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, one more news flash, which I know this
25:58
Speaker 1: will surprise you diehard New Yorker's Blanche at Mamdanni's city
26:03
Speaker 1: Pieta Taire Jacques cues So this is the thing where
26:06
Speaker 1: he's taking the second residences and charging people a bunch
26:09
Speaker 1: of money because it must be rich people that have them.
26:10
Speaker 1: But it turns out a bunch of full time residents
26:13
Speaker 1: have gotten alerts that they're on this list. The list
26:16
Speaker 1: was released for basically the public to vet. I guess, yeah,
26:20
Speaker 1: it's not docsing or anything. Oh yeah, the names and
26:25
Speaker 1: addresses are out there, so nine hundred thousand properties. It
26:28
Speaker 1: was so broad and included the Flushing Queen's home of
26:31
Speaker 1: Richard Lee, Mamdani's finance commissioner, and a rowhouse from former
26:36
Speaker 1: Mayor Bill de Blasio that he owns in Park Slope.
26:40
Speaker 1: And then of course you as the taxpayer, have several
26:43
Speaker 1: weeks to prove to the government that you live there
26:48
Speaker 1: full time and you should be exempt. But oh, I
26:52
Speaker 1: know this is going to shock you too. It turns
26:53
Speaker 1: out if you go to the website to try to
26:55
Speaker 1: submit your documents, that doesn't work very well. It's so good.
27:01
Speaker 2: When I heard about this, I was like, they don't
27:03
Speaker 2: know who they're exposing. It's actually all of their friends
27:06
Speaker 2: and donors.
27:08
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, like rich New Yorkers who live there as
27:11
Speaker 1: the time, who own property or.
27:13
Speaker 2: Like wait wait wait you're my guy, Stop it. Leave
27:16
Speaker 2: me alone. This wasn't the deal.
27:18
Speaker 1: I mean, somebody one of these people on the list
27:21
Speaker 1: is like, this letter is from the Department of Finance
27:23
Speaker 1: and all these records are sitting right there in the
27:25
Speaker 1: same computer. Why are they not cross checking.
27:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like the guy who was in charge of
27:32
Speaker 2: the whole project. You can just envision being.
27:34
Speaker 1: Like, oh, whoops, whoops.
27:37
Speaker 2: You know it's so a it's a horrible policy. We're
27:41
Speaker 2: floundering right in terms of ways to pay for these
27:45
Speaker 2: lane grocery stores. No dagger replacements. I want like a
27:50
Speaker 2: sandwich off actually between like a bodega and a New
27:53
Speaker 2: York government. I really do.
27:56
Speaker 1: See what you got.
27:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, but this is just being the way they You
28:02
Speaker 2: wonder if they're actually so blissfully ignorant that they work
28:07
Speaker 2: through this whole process and this issue being flagged is
28:10
Speaker 2: the first time they're hearing of it, or if throughout
28:13
Speaker 2: this process they were like, you know what, this is
28:14
Speaker 2: going to happen and we'll figure it out, and if
28:17
Speaker 2: their website doesn't work, it's not that big of a deal.
28:19
Speaker 1: I think. I think they're like, just throw the net
28:21
Speaker 1: out and catch as many people as you can, Like
28:24
Speaker 1: that's they want money. They want money, and it's no
28:27
Speaker 1: secret about communists and socialists that they want as many
28:30
Speaker 1: people's money as possible. It's not just the rich guys. Okay,
28:33
Speaker 1: one more bad governance point before we go, just because
28:35
Speaker 1: this one is wild. This is out in Seattle that
28:38
Speaker 1: has the socialist mara as well the police chief there.
28:42
Speaker 1: There was a mass shooting at a taste of whatever,
28:46
Speaker 1: you know, kind of food sampling event. I believe three
28:50
Speaker 1: people died in that shooting. They think it might be
28:53
Speaker 1: a targeted shooting. But the guy was on the run
28:55
Speaker 1: for a while, they hadn't apprehended him. The city offered
28:59
Speaker 1: no updates on this, didn't tell people that the guy
29:02
Speaker 1: was still on the lamb, no active updating of anyone.
29:08
Speaker 1: And then it turned out the police chief wasn't even
29:10
Speaker 1: in town. Why the police chief splits time between Seattle
29:14
Speaker 1: and Chicago.
29:16
Speaker 2: No, no, Oh, that also feels like a bad move problem.
29:23
Speaker 2: Also two places that apparently have a lot of crime
29:27
Speaker 2: going on. I wouldn't necessarily, you know, divide and conquer
29:30
Speaker 2: in that way.
29:31
Speaker 1: He's like, I just go back on weekends sometimes. What.
29:35
Speaker 2: No, you're the police chief, you're your work. It's very
29:37
Speaker 2: much anchored and the fact that you know, anybody asking
29:44
Speaker 2: for government services to do basic governance things like update
29:50
Speaker 2: on a you know, fugitive potentially or a suspect being
29:56
Speaker 2: a dangerous suspect being out in your community is kind
30:01
Speaker 2: of wild to me that a that even needs to
30:04
Speaker 2: be a thing that's asked by people who pay for
30:06
Speaker 2: these services with their tax dollars, who raise their families
30:09
Speaker 2: in these places, and then when asked the lackluster response
30:14
Speaker 2: or the absolutely insane like that wouldn't even be something.
30:19
Speaker 2: If I was the police chief's wife, right, I'd be like,
30:21
Speaker 2: probably don't like mention that, like, let's probably not bring
30:25
Speaker 2: up our second location. But like they just say it,
30:29
Speaker 2: and it's like they're totally fine with it.
30:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, much much like Fauci, he's actually annoyed it
30:35
Speaker 1: being asked about it, so it.
30:37
Speaker 2: Said Ram Paul's obsessed with him say the.
30:40
Speaker 1: Same kind of vibe. Okay, we'll be back in one
30:42
Speaker 1: second for one more segment on Normally. All right, we
30:48
Speaker 1: are back on Normally with a chat about Sophie Cunningham
30:52
Speaker 1: of the w NBA, who first started making a name
30:56
Speaker 1: for herself as a sort of enforcer for Caitlin c
31:01
Speaker 1: on the court, and Sophie Cunningham has decided that she's
31:05
Speaker 1: going to be the tough mauthie you won't push me
31:08
Speaker 1: around gal, and it has earned her lots of viral
31:11
Speaker 1: points for her pointing no pun intended. She became a
31:15
Speaker 1: ring gal at the UFC spontaneously when she came to
31:18
Speaker 1: watch a fight. And now she has told ESPN that
31:24
Speaker 1: she wants to protect young women from biological boys and
31:28
Speaker 1: men competing in women's sports. So she's on the eighty
31:33
Speaker 1: to ninety percent side of that issue with most Americans.
31:36
Speaker 1: And she was asked about this afterwards by a reporter
31:41
Speaker 1: because of course they got to grill her about this
31:44
Speaker 1: very uncontroversial opinion because in the sports world and the
31:47
Speaker 1: sports media world, it's very controversial. Here's she is being
31:50
Speaker 1: asked about it and what she had to say on
31:53
Speaker 1: that same vein and that story with ESPN.
31:55
Speaker 5: You talked about wanting to protect young girls who shouldn't
31:57
Speaker 5: have to go against biological men.
31:59
Speaker 1: Just can you spand your viewpoint on that. I mean,
32:01
Speaker 1: I think I said what I said.
32:02
Speaker 5: I think it's kind of common sense, and I think
32:06
Speaker 5: I always believe in that.
32:07
Speaker 1: I think it's really important to protect.
32:08
Speaker 5: Children, and that's little girls who are also involved in
32:12
Speaker 5: that category.
32:13
Speaker 1: And so I stand on what I.
32:15
Speaker 5: Said, and I always believe that.
32:18
Speaker 1: Do you see your advocacy on that like taking any
32:20
Speaker 1: form going forward?
32:21
Speaker 5: You know, I don't know. I didn't. I'm not a
32:23
Speaker 5: very political person, but I do have beliefs, I have morles,
32:26
Speaker 5: and I'll always stand on those and be true to
32:28
Speaker 5: true to who I am. And I think people are
32:32
Speaker 5: going to take it how they want to take it.
32:33
Speaker 5: But I have never even really said anything about that,
32:35
Speaker 5: And so when it comes just to protecting young girls
32:38
Speaker 5: in sport and women in sport, I feel very strongly
32:41
Speaker 5: about that. I think that's why you have Title nine,
32:44
Speaker 5: that's why you have some of the greats in women's sports.
32:47
Speaker 5: If Title nine and women's sports weren't protected, then you
32:50
Speaker 5: wouldn't hear about any type of women in sport. And
32:52
Speaker 5: so I think in the future it's just really important
32:55
Speaker 5: to protect.
32:56
Speaker 1: That seems reasonable.
32:58
Speaker 2: I love this. I love I love this having professional
33:04
Speaker 2: female athletes come out and say that that's something they're
33:07
Speaker 2: growing to protect. And the way she's saying it is
33:09
Speaker 2: so laid back in common sense, and it really it
33:13
Speaker 2: is a bit disarming. I think for some of the
33:15
Speaker 2: reporters or for people who regularly talk about this, because she's, hey,
33:22
Speaker 2: I'm not political. I just had morals and I'm always
33:24
Speaker 2: going to stand by them, and I want to protect
33:26
Speaker 2: little girls. Yeah, that's literally what this issue is about,
33:31
Speaker 2: and its entirety, that's it.
33:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it of course sparks a firestorm because
33:37
Speaker 1: in the commentary world, this is not a seventy to
33:40
Speaker 1: ninety percent issue. It's in fact flipped the other way,
33:45
Speaker 1: and so you get this like really weird distortion of
33:48
Speaker 1: what America actually thinks, and like, look, I'm open to
33:51
Speaker 1: y'all's arguments. I don't buy them. I think testosterone is
33:56
Speaker 1: a performance enhancing drug. That's just the bottom line. And
34:01
Speaker 1: as a longtime mediocre female athlete, I am exactly the
34:08
Speaker 1: kind of woman who is hurt by this kind of thing,
34:10
Speaker 1: because once you become an Olympian or an elite athlete,
34:13
Speaker 1: mostly you're in the clear, right, Simone Biles is not
34:16
Speaker 1: going to have to face off against a guy. High
34:21
Speaker 1: school above average track stars are going to be put
34:25
Speaker 1: in that situation. So that's who you're disadvantaging usually in
34:29
Speaker 1: the end. So this story grows because Sophie Cunningham and
34:34
Speaker 1: the Indiana Fever went out to play the Seattle Storm
34:39
Speaker 1: in Seattle, and Brandy Cruz, a radio host and commentator
34:43
Speaker 1: from out there, reports that some gals with the x
34:46
Speaker 1: x x Y Jennifer Say brand on their shirts went
34:50
Speaker 1: out to teenage girls went to support Cunningham because there's
34:53
Speaker 1: a bunch of people on the other side, so they're
34:55
Speaker 1: going to show support, and that fans there treated them badly.
35:00
Speaker 1: They were allegedly cussed at, booed, and intentions tripped, possibly berated,
35:07
Speaker 1: and there are reports also that their sign they were
35:10
Speaker 1: asked to take down, while pro trans write signs were
35:14
Speaker 1: allowed to stay up in the stadium.
35:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, what are we? What are we teaching?
35:20
Speaker 3: Right?
35:21
Speaker 2: Number one, that's a fabulous brand I absolutely love that brando. Yes, yes,
35:28
Speaker 2: number two. I think it's so cool and brave of
35:31
Speaker 2: those girls to go and say, hey, I'm actually on
35:34
Speaker 2: this side of it. And they probably underestimated the type
35:38
Speaker 2: of backlash they were getting because it is so common
35:41
Speaker 2: sense to them. But we we have to stop kind
35:45
Speaker 2: of like picking that this is a normal thing and
35:48
Speaker 2: the normal thing is not the normal thing. Yes, whether
35:52
Speaker 2: the group on the other side is louder, more aggressive.
35:55
Speaker 2: I mean, I think they are that way because this
35:57
Speaker 2: has been fueled to be such for so long. But
36:01
Speaker 2: the more female athletes that come out and talk about
36:03
Speaker 2: it in this way, again, I think it's really disarming
36:06
Speaker 2: and I think it is very helpful. This is also
36:10
Speaker 2: something that on the left of center side of politics,
36:14
Speaker 2: in closed door rooms or like, of course we don't
36:16
Speaker 2: think that. Of course I want my daughter playing basketball
36:19
Speaker 2: against like a biological male or things of that like.
36:22
Speaker 2: So I don't understand the trepidation in hey, number one
36:27
Speaker 2: being honest about it. It's a very clear cut issue
36:32
Speaker 2: to be honest about. It's very understandable as a parent
36:34
Speaker 2: why you wouldn't want that or why you wouldn't support that.
36:38
Speaker 2: And number two continuing to think that this is the
36:40
Speaker 2: political football that it's not.
36:43
Speaker 1: It is not, or then the further gas lighting, which
36:47
Speaker 1: is you guys have made this such a big deal
36:49
Speaker 1: and it's not a big deal. Okay, if it's not
36:51
Speaker 1: a big deal, then just don't do it.
36:54
Speaker 2: It is hilarious. So Sophie Cunningham, you probably don't know
36:58
Speaker 2: this because you don't watch Bravo, but has a podcast
37:02
Speaker 2: with a right now scorn and he's not even a
37:05
Speaker 2: Brav celebrity. He basically had an affair with his best
37:08
Speaker 2: friend's wife. It's a bad thing. You can well, we'll
37:11
Speaker 2: talk about it later. Scamanda is a scandal name. But
37:15
Speaker 2: he went out, I can't remember if it was before
37:17
Speaker 2: or after this was talking about how this is an
37:19
Speaker 2: issue that right wingers have made a thing and that
37:21
Speaker 2: this isn't happening. I'm like, bro, you should listen to
37:28
Speaker 2: your co host on your podcast, who carries the whole thing,
37:31
Speaker 2: by the way, who's actually a professional female athlete, on
37:36
Speaker 2: this issue and why it is important too. But it's
37:38
Speaker 2: not something that right wingers dreamt up. This wasn't something
37:42
Speaker 2: that we ever wanted to talk about or that anybody
37:44
Speaker 2: would ever think that they have to address. But there
37:47
Speaker 2: is that notion of like this is so crazy, this
37:50
Speaker 2: isn't happening, like where before it was it's happening, and
37:53
Speaker 2: it's okay, now it's not happening.
37:56
Speaker 1: Yes, all right, Well we are going to wrap it
38:00
Speaker 1: up on that note. I appreciate you being here with me, Lauren, Yeah,
38:04
Speaker 1: la law Stewart s t E w A RT says
38:08
Speaker 1: s A Y S on X. You can follow her
38:12
Speaker 1: for great news updates, particularly healthcare, and she's awesome, So
38:16
Speaker 1: thanks for being with us. Thanks for joining us on normally.
38:19
Speaker 1: Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere
38:21
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Get in touch with us at
38:23
Speaker 1: normally thepod at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening and
38:26
Speaker 1: when things get weird at normally