Latest / 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary / Why Do People Like Lindsay Clancy Attract Fan Clubs?
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch. Grab a stool next
- 0:05Speaker 1: to Greg Karambas of Radio America and Jim Garrity of
- 0:08Speaker 1: National Review.
- 0:10Speaker 2: Three martinis coming up. It's a special day on the
- 0:14Speaker 2: Three Martini Lunch. Jim Garrity and I are in the
- 0:17Speaker 2: exact same location. I don't know if you knew that
- 0:19Speaker 2: that wasn't usually the case, but it is the case
- 0:21Speaker 2: today that his power is out. Thankfully, no trees falling
- 0:26Speaker 2: on the Garrity home from last night's storm, but it's
- 0:28Speaker 2: kind of hard to do a podcast with no With
- 0:31Speaker 2: no electricity. So Jim, thanks for making the effort to
- 0:33Speaker 2: come in studio. And I know you're completely focused on
- 0:37Speaker 2: what we're going to be talking about today.
- 0:38Speaker 1: I was going to say, it's a Friday in late summer.
- 0:42Speaker 1: NFL season has not yet begun. By the way, if
- 0:45Speaker 1: your power goes out around like 10 or 11 last night,
- 0:48Speaker 1: and you usually sleep with a CPAP to help you
- 0:51Speaker 1: breathe when you're sleeping, and you suddenly don't have that
- 0:54Speaker 1: for the entire... You get a lot less better sleep
- 0:56Speaker 1: than you usually do. So listeners, viewers, please be... Please
- 0:59Speaker 1: be patient with me. I will try to remember, you know,
- 1:02Speaker 1: how many martinis did we do again? What's the name
- 1:04Speaker 1: of the show?
- 1:05Speaker 2: If you thought Jim was unfiltered on a regular basis,
- 1:08Speaker 2: lack of sleep, Jim, is going to be even more fun.
- 1:10Speaker 2: But we'll see what.
- 1:12Speaker 1: We get to today.
- 1:12Speaker 2: First of all, mostly good first martini here, but a
- 1:16Speaker 2: little bit of a bitter aftertaste, which we'll get to
- 1:17Speaker 2: in a moment. But first of all, we've had some
- 1:19Speaker 2: pretty rough job months here in the last several months.
- 1:22Speaker 2: But in August, the numbers exceeding expectations. CNBC reported With
- 1:28Speaker 2: the story, the U.S. economy adding jobs at a brisk
- 1:31Speaker 2: pace in August, reversing a somber slowdown in hiring while
- 1:33Speaker 2: the unemployment rates held steady. Non-farm payrolls rose a seasonally
- 1:38Speaker 2: adjusted 162,000 for the month, while the unemployment rate, as expected,
- 1:42Speaker 2: held steady at 4.1%. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had
- 1:46Speaker 2: been looking for payrolls to go up by 53,000, not 162,000.
- 1:51Speaker 2: So that's a big, big miss in the right direction.
- 1:54Speaker 2: August total was the strongest monthly gain since March. Chris
- 2:00Speaker 2: Rupke of FWD Bond says, net-net, the labor market is
- 2:04Speaker 2: alive and well and generating thousands of new jobs to
- 2:06Speaker 2: help keep economic growth squarely in the plus column. And
- 2:11Speaker 2: the report was consistent with what the Federal Reserve officials
- 2:13Speaker 2: have called a stable labor market. Jim, as we have
- 2:18Speaker 2: said many times, especially in an election year, and this
- 2:21Speaker 2: goes beyond the importance of an election, of course, but
- 2:24Speaker 2: Ideas in people's minds start to solidify, harden around Labor Day.
- 2:28Speaker 2: And that's exactly where we are here. Not sure how
- 2:31Speaker 2: much this will change people's perceptions of the economy, as
- 2:33Speaker 2: we'll talk about in a little bit. But in terms
- 2:35Speaker 2: of beating expectations by more than three.
- 2:38Speaker 1: To one, you got to like that. Well, besides the
- 2:40Speaker 1: fact that you and I always root for high rates
- 2:42Speaker 1: of job creation, no matter who the president is, no
- 2:45Speaker 1: matter who controls Congress, more jobs is good for America.
- 2:48Speaker 1: I think that also like this counts really as a
- 2:51Speaker 1: bullet dodged. You know, last month was a decline in jobs,
- 2:54Speaker 1: which kind of surprised a whole bunch of people. If
- 2:56Speaker 1: you'd had two bad ones in, you know, back to back,
- 2:59Speaker 1: you'd hear the talk point. It's not just cost of living.
- 3:01Speaker 1: It's not just inflation. Job creation has dropped off. The
- 3:05Speaker 1: economy is really hurting, blah, blah, blah. And it's not
- 3:07Speaker 1: Republicans wanted to be talking about heading into an election.
- 3:10Speaker 1: This refutes or dispels or balances out the bad news
- 3:14Speaker 1: from before. And if you're a Republican who's getting asked
- 3:17Speaker 1: about the economy, getting asked about cost of living, yeah,
- 3:19Speaker 1: you're going to have some problems. You have to explain
- 3:21Speaker 1: that Iran war undoubtedly had effect on oil prices. That's
- 3:24Speaker 1: the reason the gas prices are higher. We'll talk a
- 3:25Speaker 1: bit more about that in a second. But you can
- 3:27Speaker 1: point to the job creation. You can point out that
- 3:29Speaker 1: 4% is low by historical standards and It's been a
- 3:33Speaker 1: pretty steady job creation pace. Not fantastic, not off the charts.
- 3:37Speaker 1: You can always do better than you're doing. But really,
- 3:39Speaker 1: this dispels what would have been a very easy talking
- 3:43Speaker 1: point for Democrats on the left and kind of gives
- 3:45Speaker 1: the administration one more thing they can point to that's going, OK,
- 3:48Speaker 1: this is going pretty well, all things considered. Yeah, it is.
- 3:51Speaker 2: And we talked about the previous month and it says
- 3:53Speaker 2: here in the CNBC piece, In addition to the gains
- 3:56Speaker 2: in August, prior months did see upward revisions. July showed
- 3:59Speaker 2: a gain of 21,000 jobs, swinging positive from a loss
- 4:02Speaker 2: of 23,000. June was revised up to a gain of 31,000
- 4:05Speaker 2: or an increase of 11,000 from the original numbers. And so,
- 4:10Speaker 2: you know, it's interesting to watch some of those pretty
- 4:12Speaker 2: significant revisions a month or two after the fact. And
- 4:16Speaker 2: they say the job gains were pretty broadly based. Restaurants
- 4:19Speaker 2: and bars, maybe getting ready for the NFL season, led
- 4:21Speaker 2: with 59,000 new jobs. while government education rose by 42,000,
- 4:26Speaker 2: manufacturing up 16,000, health care, which is usually the primary
- 4:29Speaker 2: engine of job growth, a gain of 13,000, which is
- 4:33Speaker 2: actually kind of low for them. But yeah, you like
- 4:35Speaker 2: to see it broad-based and not just in one area.
- 4:38Speaker 2: And at the end of Labor Day, you're probably losing
- 4:40Speaker 2: a decent number of seasonal jobs. Maybe that was reflected
- 4:42Speaker 2: more at the end of July. I don't know. But
- 4:44Speaker 2: the fact that you can gain that much in the
- 4:46Speaker 2: face of people going back to college and that sort
- 4:49Speaker 2: of thing is pretty healthy as well.
- 4:50Speaker 1: Yeah, you'd like to think that it balances out to
- 4:52Speaker 1: a degree. The beach resort jobs disappear, but the ski
- 4:55Speaker 1: resort jobs start picking up as the seasons change in
- 4:58Speaker 1: different parts of the country and things like that. So
- 5:00Speaker 1: that's why they seasonally adjust these sorts of things. I
- 5:02Speaker 1: don't think you're going to be seeing it on a
- 5:03Speaker 1: scale large enough to affect the overall national unemployment rate.
- 5:07Speaker 1: But nonetheless, you take every bit of good news where
- 5:09Speaker 1: you can get it.
- 5:10Speaker 2: Exactly. Now, if you're at the gas pump, if you're
- 5:12Speaker 2: near me, it's high $ 3, you know, close to $ 4
- 5:15Speaker 2: for regular unleaded. But one of the big concerns right
- 5:19Speaker 2: now is diesel. On Friday, diesel hit a record price
- 5:22Speaker 2: in the U.S., soaring to an average.
- 5:24Speaker 3: Of $ 5. 85 a gallon. And, of course, Jim, you know,
- 5:28Speaker 3: diesel is a lot of things. You use diesel for manufacturing.
- 5:31Speaker 3: You use diesel for trucking everything to different stores and
- 5:34Speaker 3: Amazon and everything else around the country. And so the
- 5:37Speaker 3: price of things is not going to be helped, certainly,
- 5:41Speaker 3: by record prices of diesel.
- 5:42Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is the top of today's morning jolt,
- 5:44Speaker 1: and I looked up. So 97% of the Class 8
- 5:47Speaker 1: highway tractor trailers, these are the big tractor trailers you
- 5:50Speaker 1: see on the highway, 97% of them are running on
- 5:53Speaker 1: diesel fuel. Diesel fuel is also what's used in most
- 5:56Speaker 1: farm equipment. So we're getting into harvest season. Actually, harvest season,
- 5:59Speaker 1: I guess, started last month. They put all the big
- 6:01Speaker 1: machines out in the fields collecting all the crops. That's
- 6:04Speaker 1: going to run on diesel fuel. That's going to cost
- 6:06Speaker 1: farmers more. And I did not know this, Greg, 90%
- 6:10Speaker 1: of the school buses in the United States run on
- 6:13Speaker 1: diesel fuel. By the way, did you know which locality
- 6:16Speaker 1: has more school buses than any other locality in the
- 6:19Speaker 1: entire country?
- 6:20Speaker 2: Do we live near that locality?
- 6:21Speaker 1: Fairfax County. And you think about it. At first, you'd
- 6:23Speaker 1: be like, really? Fairfax County? I mean, it's got a
- 6:25Speaker 1: million people, but it doesn't. Then you realize Fairfax County
- 6:28Speaker 1: is very spread out, very suburban. And of course, if
- 6:30Speaker 1: there's any bad weather in one part, You have to
- 6:32Speaker 1: cancel school across the entire county. And that's why my
- 6:34Speaker 1: kids have only been to three days of school over
- 6:37Speaker 1: the last 18 years. That's how, you know. But yeah,
- 6:41Speaker 1: you'd be like, oh, they're a bit like Los Angeles.
- 6:43Speaker 1: There are school districts that have more kids, but generally
- 6:46Speaker 1: more densely packed. You have more kids walking to school
- 6:48Speaker 1: and you have fewer school buses. But anyway, there's been
- 6:51Speaker 1: interesting reports about school budgets that were like they kind
- 6:53Speaker 1: of figured, oh, the cost of fuel for school buses
- 6:56Speaker 1: is going to be here. Now it's up here. It's
- 6:58Speaker 1: significantly higher. And so they're having to look at what
- 7:00Speaker 1: that puts a squeeze on those budgets. So you really
- 7:03Speaker 1: can't reduce demand. You'd like to increase supply. Whatever you
- 7:07Speaker 1: think of the Venezuela deal, you're not going to be
- 7:09Speaker 1: getting that oil up to the United States fast. But
- 7:12Speaker 1: the other thing, which is a really big, like the
- 7:14Speaker 1: real problem, and I've looked at this several times over
- 7:16Speaker 1: the years, including during the Biden years. It's refinery capacity.
- 7:19Speaker 1: By the way, we're operating at 96.5% of total available
- 7:23Speaker 1: refinery capacity. Traditionally, this is the time of year when
- 7:26Speaker 1: they have to take some offline to do needed maintenance.
- 7:28Speaker 1: And they said the refineries are looking at, can we
- 7:31Speaker 1: put that off another month? Just because there's such intense
- 7:34Speaker 1: demand for this right now. As you mentioned, there's Iran war.
- 7:37Speaker 1: I should point out that as one of Ukraine's biggest cheerleaders,
- 7:40Speaker 1: Ukraine blowing up Russian oil fields, oil refineries, and oil
- 7:44Speaker 1: storage facilities, that too has put a squeeze on it.
- 7:47Speaker 1: But basically, the Russian oil that was reaching the market
- 7:51Speaker 1: is about 1% of the world. The oil that's in
- 7:53Speaker 1: the Persian Gulf is about 20% of world supply. So
- 7:56Speaker 1: is it a factor? Yeah. Is it as big a
- 7:59Speaker 1: factor as what's going on in Iran? No, not really.
- 8:01Speaker 1: And oh, by the way, diesel fuel is not the same.
- 8:04Speaker 1: The process of creating diesel fuel separates it out into
- 8:06Speaker 1: heating oil. Hey, we're heading towards winter and heating oil
- 8:09Speaker 1: is going to be needed for the winter too. Somebody
- 8:11Speaker 1: said that you're going to see the inflationary effects of
- 8:13Speaker 1: a diesel fuel price increase. about two months down the line. Hey, Greg,
- 8:19Speaker 1: what happens in two months? Midterm elections.
- 8:22Speaker 2: Midterm elections.
- 8:23Speaker 1: Yeah. Not what a Republican wants to hear right now.
- 8:26Speaker 2: Exactly. And why isn't there additional refining capacity? I wonder
- 8:31Speaker 2: which party wants the regulations and the environmental inspections of
- 8:35Speaker 2: the land and all that to take forever so those
- 8:38Speaker 2: additional facilities can't come online. Probably the same people who
- 8:40Speaker 2: don't want additional nuclear power plants.
- 8:42Speaker 1: Correct. I would also point out like there is, the
- 8:44Speaker 1: good news is there are plans to build the first
- 8:46Speaker 1: new oil refinery in the United States in Brownsville, Texas,
- 8:49Speaker 1: right on the water. They just announced plans earlier this year.
- 8:53Speaker 1: The Trump administration was touting it. And for all my gripes,
- 8:55Speaker 1: the Trump administration, this is an area where they absolutely
- 8:58Speaker 1: are pursuing the right kind of policies. The problem is
- 9:01Speaker 1: that one is going to be ready by 2029. so
- 9:04Speaker 1: we should not expect immediate effects on this. Generally, I
- 9:08Speaker 1: think the last one we built before them was like 1977.
- 9:11Speaker 1: We don't build new oil refineries in this country. Generally,
- 9:14Speaker 1: they take existing oil refineries and can increase the capacity,
- 9:17Speaker 1: build more stuff in there. But again, this strikes me
- 9:20Speaker 1: as where there's a funnel or a clog in the system.
- 9:23Speaker 1: I know everyone wants to say drill, baby, drill. Greg,
- 9:27Speaker 1: I find that argument crude and unrefined. You know, I'm
- 9:31Speaker 1: a dad for the dad jokes. But really, in the end,
- 9:34Speaker 1: we've got to refine, baby, refine.
- 9:35Speaker 2: No, that's exactly right. And so, you know, you want
- 9:38Speaker 2: domestic energy. You've got to take the steps to do it. And,
- 9:41Speaker 2: of course, it's not going to happen overnight. But, you know,
- 9:44Speaker 2: to some extent, the price of oil is based on
- 9:45Speaker 2: what they expect to happen. So if you're aggressive in
- 9:48Speaker 2: creating that capacity, it could potentially have an effect on prices,
- 9:51Speaker 2: although not significantly right away. So overall, good news on jobs.
- 9:56Speaker 2: A little bit of a wincing, certainly, when it comes
- 9:59Speaker 2: to diesel and the price. impact that's going to have
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- 11:09Speaker 2: money-back guarantee. All right, Jim, this Lindsay Clancy trial has
- 11:20Speaker 2: been going on a long time up in Massachusetts, in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
- 11:25Speaker 2: They used to have a policy in Plymouth, Salem, Massachusetts. Oh,
- 11:30Speaker 2: I don't know, a little more than 330 years ago
- 11:33Speaker 2: with people who seemed to be out of control. They're
- 11:36Speaker 2: not doing that now. They're not drowning people and pressing
- 11:38Speaker 2: them with stones and stuff like that. But anyway, She,
- 11:41Speaker 2: of course, murdered her three children. Everybody agrees with that.
- 11:44Speaker 2: Everybody agrees that she did that. The question is, was
- 11:46Speaker 2: she temporarily in some sort of psychosis, postpartum psychosis, when
- 11:51Speaker 2: she did that? Apparently, she had not been previously diagnosed
- 11:54Speaker 2: with that. Her defense obviously found people who argued that
- 11:57Speaker 2: she was. Right now, it looks like an 11 to
- 12:00Speaker 2: 1 jury, and it seems like the 11 want to
- 12:03Speaker 2: say that she's not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.
- 12:07Speaker 2: There's the one juror holdout. The defense is saying he's
- 12:11Speaker 2: a liar. They've called out that he's a man. I
- 12:13Speaker 2: don't know if a lawyer hasn't seen 12 Angry Men
- 12:15Speaker 2: and how that evolution of that case came to a
- 12:18Speaker 2: different verdict. But we're either going to get a mistrial
- 12:21Speaker 2: or an acquittal here. And if there is a mistrial,
- 12:24Speaker 2: I'm not sure the prosecution after an 11 to 1
- 12:27Speaker 2: mistrial is necessarily going to want to come forward on this.
- 12:29Speaker 2: But we've also seen women online and women even showing
- 12:32Speaker 2: up at the courthouse just cheering on Lindsay Clancy like
- 12:36Speaker 2: she's Luigi Mangione in some way. She just couldn't be
- 12:40Speaker 2: helped in this situation. So, Jim, you wrote about this
- 12:43Speaker 2: trial earlier in the week. I'm not sure exactly how
- 12:45Speaker 2: this is going to play out, but there's so much
- 12:48Speaker 2: to take away given the profile that this case has
- 12:50Speaker 2: taken on.
- 12:51Speaker 1: Yeah, it usually takes quite a bit to get me
- 12:53Speaker 1: to write about the stuff that we used to characterize
- 12:55Speaker 1: with Court TV. My other podcast co-host, Mickey White, has
- 12:59Speaker 1: the observation that there are a lot of people who
- 13:01Speaker 1: think they are true crime fans. But they're not that
- 13:03Speaker 1: interested in the criminology. They're not interested in the evidence
- 13:06Speaker 1: and the police work that put the person on trial.
- 13:10Speaker 1: They're just really fans of messy human drama. And they
- 13:13Speaker 1: like watching people who have lives that are even more
- 13:15Speaker 1: messed up than their own. And I have a sneaking
- 13:17Speaker 1: suspicion that's part of what's driving the public fascination with this. Thankfully,
- 13:21Speaker 1: parents killing their children is rare. I think there's about
- 13:24Speaker 1: 500 per year and about 250 each between fathers and mothers.
- 13:29Speaker 1: Seeing three children murdered and strangled is– by the way,
- 13:32Speaker 1: we should point out that the defendant is not– has
- 13:35Speaker 1: like already conceded that they did it. That this was–
- 13:38Speaker 1: that she's the one who strangled all three. The defense
- 13:41Speaker 1: is not guilty by reason of insanity. By the way,
- 13:44Speaker 1: in the state of Massachusetts, usually in a lot of states,
- 13:46Speaker 1: if you plead not guilty, it's up to the defendant
- 13:48Speaker 1: to prove. I was cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. I was
- 13:50Speaker 1: out of my gourd. There's– this is why I reached
- 13:53Speaker 1: the conclusion that I did. In the state of Massachusetts,
- 13:55Speaker 1: the prosecution has to prove that the defendant was sane.
- 13:58Speaker 1: So if you're going to plead insanity, Massachusetts may well
- 14:00Speaker 1: be the best state to do that. I'll avoid any
- 14:03Speaker 1: crass Massachusetts jokes right there. But observing that this may
- 14:06Speaker 1: be one of the reasons that her team is pursuing
- 14:08Speaker 1: this defense. What's been bizarre are the pink T-shirt wearing
- 14:13Speaker 1: protesters outside who have basically made the argument that she
- 14:18Speaker 1: didn't do it, that it might have been the husband,
- 14:19Speaker 1: that it might have been someone else. And they're putting
- 14:22Speaker 1: out arguments that not even her defense team is making.
- 14:25Speaker 1: What we're seeing– also the really nonsensical argument that Lindsay
- 14:30Speaker 1: Clancy is all women or she speaks for all women. Now,
- 14:33Speaker 1: a lot of women have experienced postpartum depression. A lot
- 14:35Speaker 1: of– postpartum psychosis is rare but it does happen. But
- 14:40Speaker 1: the idea is like, oh, that could have been me. Well,
- 14:42Speaker 1: if you experienced either of those conditions, you didn't murder
- 14:46Speaker 1: your children. So she is not every woman. She is
- 14:48Speaker 1: actually the most extreme of outliers in this. And we've
- 14:51Speaker 1: seen this come up. And I made the point I
- 14:53Speaker 1: was trying to make in my morning jolt earlier this week.
- 14:56Speaker 1: Luigi Mangione is not every person who has had a
- 14:58Speaker 1: frustrating experience with a health insurance company. OJ Simpson was
- 15:01Speaker 1: not every black man. But the other example I could
- 15:04Speaker 1: give you, John Dillinger was actually not a rebel against
- 15:07Speaker 1: the system. He and his gang killed 10 people over
- 15:08Speaker 1: the course of the bank robberies, right? When someone is
- 15:11Speaker 1: on trial, the argument is always some variation of the
- 15:14Speaker 1: Christine O'Donnell I'm not a witch. I'm you. By the way,
- 15:17Speaker 1: let the record show it was Greg Karumbas who made
- 15:19Speaker 1: the first Salem witch trial joke about this trial, not me.
- 15:22Speaker 1: For everyone who thinks I'm the bad taste, you know. So,
- 15:25Speaker 1: but there was this perception of like, oh, the defendant
- 15:30Speaker 1: is just like you on a bad day. Which is
- 15:33Speaker 1: really not the case because lots of human beings have
- 15:36Speaker 1: lots of bad days. Lots of human beings have all
- 15:38Speaker 1: kinds of terrible things that happen to them. And they
- 15:40Speaker 1: generally don't become murderers because of it. Murder is thankfully
- 15:43Speaker 1: very rare. So there's kind of this deliberate blurring of
- 15:46Speaker 1: the lines. There's always this sense of like, oh, when
- 15:49Speaker 1: you see the defendant, don't look at someone who's strangled
- 15:51Speaker 1: three children. stabbed their ex-wife in a waiter, or did
- 15:55Speaker 1: any of these other, or shot a CEO in a bank.
- 15:57Speaker 1: Look at the person who's had frustration with a health
- 15:59Speaker 1: insurance company. Who among us hasn't had that? How many
- 16:02Speaker 1: mothers have experienced postpartum depression or extremely high level? But
- 16:05Speaker 1: that's not the issue. The issue is what they did, right?
- 16:08Speaker 1: So we'll see how this jury turns out. I do
- 16:10Speaker 1: think the interpretation of the jury sounds right in the
- 16:13Speaker 1: sense that it does sound like there's a great deal
- 16:15Speaker 1: of sympathy there. Somebody pointed out that three of the
- 16:17Speaker 1: jurors went to court wearing pink, which had become kind
- 16:20Speaker 1: of the symbol of Clancy's Defenders, which I look at
- 16:23Speaker 1: that and see that's a very bad thing. The other
- 16:26Speaker 1: really bizarre angle in this case was earlier in the week,
- 16:29Speaker 1: a woman was arrested for going to a secure parking
- 16:32Speaker 1: lot part of the courthouse area and recording the jurors.
- 16:36Speaker 1: This woman apparently said she'd been to the Murtaugh trial
- 16:39Speaker 1: down in South Carolina. Apparently, she's a crime junkie. crime junkie.
- 16:45Speaker 1: Is that a job now? Well, she's a retired nurse, right?
- 16:48Speaker 1: So she's got time on her hands. But anyway, she
- 16:50Speaker 1: goes to these trials and she's really into them. Now,
- 16:53Speaker 1: I watch Jet Games. I work to make fun of
- 16:55Speaker 1: how you choose to spend your free time. But if
- 16:57Speaker 1: you've been to all these trials, well, then you know
- 17:00Speaker 1: how important it is that the jurors not have their
- 17:03Speaker 1: identities exposed unless they want to expose them after the
- 17:06Speaker 1: trial and they want to write their books or go
- 17:08Speaker 1: on cable news and say, this is what happened in
- 17:11Speaker 1: the jury room or something like that. During the trial...
- 17:13Speaker 1: Jurors are supposed to be anonymous. People are not supposed
- 17:16Speaker 1: to be running around taking their pictures and they're really
- 17:18Speaker 1: not supposed to go to restricted areas and record them
- 17:20Speaker 1: on their phones. So I don't buy this idea that, oh,
- 17:24Speaker 1: I'm a crime junkie and I just happened to make
- 17:26Speaker 1: this mistake. No, I don't really think that was an
- 17:27Speaker 1: innocent mistake. So we'll see what happens. I think that
- 17:31Speaker 1: I completely understand why there are so many people who
- 17:33Speaker 1: find this dark and depressing. Some are saying this is
- 17:37Speaker 1: the natural extension of the abortion argument that basically if
- 17:40Speaker 1: a mother can terminate her child within nine months– Who's
- 17:43Speaker 1: to say after nine years? Who's to say not later
- 17:46Speaker 1: on in life? And it's a dark thing. We will
- 17:48Speaker 1: see how things shake out in the trial. That's the
- 17:50Speaker 1: reason we have the trial. And one thing I would
- 17:53Speaker 1: kind of note, though, is that there are a lot
- 17:55Speaker 1: of people, myself included, who have not followed every detail
- 17:58Speaker 1: of this trial. Jurors have to sit there and for
- 18:01Speaker 1: every moment. And often they're taking notes and all that stuff.
- 18:03Speaker 1: We'll see how things shake out. But if nothing else,
- 18:05Speaker 1: the jurors are forced to pay attention or at least
- 18:08Speaker 1: appear to be paying attention for the entirety of the trial. Dan,
- 18:11Speaker 1: I'm reminded of what Dennis Miller said. The only way–
- 18:15Speaker 1: if you get arrested in this country, your fate is
- 18:17Speaker 1: decided by 12 people who are too dumb to get
- 18:19Speaker 1: out of jury duty.
- 18:21Speaker 2: And they also say they didn't sequester the jury, but
- 18:24Speaker 2: they told them not to check out any coverage of
- 18:27Speaker 2: the case. So I don't know how.
- 18:28Speaker 1: You do that unless you're watching– Good thing there hasn't
- 18:29Speaker 1: been a lot of that.
- 18:30Speaker 2: Women– It makes sense that once in a while they'd
- 18:32Speaker 2: wear pink in a long case showing up in the
- 18:34Speaker 2: jury box. But if they're doing it every day and
- 18:36Speaker 2: it seems to be solidarity with the people outside, I
- 18:38Speaker 2: think that's more grounds for questioning whether a jury needs
- 18:41Speaker 2: to be removed rather than a guy who's not agreeing
- 18:42Speaker 2: with the other 11. I mean, that's part of the
- 18:44Speaker 2: jury system. So in the final analysis, to mix a
- 18:48Speaker 2: couple of different pop culture references here, first of all,
- 18:50Speaker 2: a few good men. I don't know if you remember
- 18:53Speaker 2: that initially Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, and Kevin Pollak are
- 18:56Speaker 2: all on the same defense team. Demi Moore was sympathetic
- 18:58Speaker 2: to the clients right away. Kevin Pollak was not. They're like,
- 19:02Speaker 2: you don't believe their story at all. You think they
- 19:04Speaker 2: should go to jail for the rest of their life?
- 19:05Speaker 2: And he says, no, I do believe their story, and
- 19:08Speaker 2: I think they should go to jail for the rest
- 19:09Speaker 2: of their lives. And I don't know that I believe
- 19:10Speaker 2: her story at all about the psychosis, but if you
- 19:13Speaker 2: kill your kids, I think you should go away. But
- 19:15Speaker 2: on Law & Order, after they dealt with that, if
- 19:18Speaker 2: Jack McCoy thought there was grounds to go after the
- 19:20Speaker 2: pharmaceutical companies for this gigantic cocktail of anxiety medicine or
- 19:26Speaker 2: whatever she was on, that would be the second half
- 19:28Speaker 2: of the episode, I think, and who knows what will
- 19:30Speaker 2: happen in this case.
- 19:31Speaker 1: I won't even get into what Candace Owens has been saying.
- 19:33Speaker 1: But there are a lot of people who would very
- 19:34Speaker 1: much like to blame big pharmaceutical companies for her actions
- 19:38Speaker 1: and the idea that she was not in control of
- 19:39Speaker 1: her actions as a result of that. There's also the
- 19:43Speaker 1: question– like when someone says, oh, look at all the
- 19:45Speaker 1: prescription medications they had. There's also the question of how
- 19:47Speaker 1: many of the prescription medications did they take? and whether
- 19:50Speaker 1: you can prove that. Also, what I said earlier about
- 19:52Speaker 1: the unique nature of Massachusetts law. Imagine being a juror
- 19:58Speaker 1: and jurors are not psychiatrists, right? Psychiatrists can be brought
- 20:02Speaker 1: in as expert witnesses. They can explain the mind, how
- 20:06Speaker 1: it works, how medication could affect the neurons, how it
- 20:09Speaker 1: could affect your thinking But in the end, it's up
- 20:11Speaker 1: to the jurors to decide that. And when I wrote
- 20:13Speaker 1: this earlier in the week, somebody was like, you know,
- 20:15Speaker 1: you're not a psychiatrist, Jim. What do you know? I'm like, okay, well,
- 20:17Speaker 1: you know, you might think I'm unqualified to write about it,
- 20:19Speaker 1: but I'm also equally qualified to be on the jury.
- 20:22Speaker 1: So like in the end, there's a way, you know,
- 20:23Speaker 1: who do I have to be to say? I had
- 20:26Speaker 1: pointed out that basically according to the testimony, Clancy looked
- 20:30Speaker 1: up the amount of time that her husband would be
- 20:32Speaker 1: away picking up takeout food while, you know, before sending
- 20:36Speaker 1: him out. And that's when she, you know, killed the children.
- 20:39Speaker 1: And so to me, that recognizes, oh, you were not
- 20:42Speaker 1: cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. You were not hallucinating. You were
- 20:45Speaker 1: not unable to tell. That to me says forethought. That
- 20:49Speaker 1: to me says planning. That to me says a mind
- 20:52Speaker 1: that's very capable of recognizing the consequences of actions. But, hey,
- 20:56Speaker 1: I'm not on the jury, Greg.
- 20:57Speaker 2: Yeah. The other thing that comes with this case, though,
- 20:59Speaker 2: and we've talked about them, are the women outside the prison,
- 21:01Speaker 2: the defenders she has online. whether it's Mangione, whether it's
- 21:05Speaker 2: the people on the overpass while OJ was in the Bronco.
- 21:08Speaker 2: I mean, it's just fascinating how people who are accused
- 21:11Speaker 2: of the most heinous things can still develop a fan
- 21:14Speaker 2: club for these things. And you're just like, even if
- 21:17Speaker 2: the defense is telling the accurate story here, this is
- 21:21Speaker 2: only horrible on every level. The fact that there's like
- 21:23Speaker 2: a cheering squad in any of these cases is just
- 21:26Speaker 2: beyond the pale.
- 21:27Speaker 1: Greg, not everyone roots for rational things like the Chicago
- 21:30Speaker 1: Bears and New York Jets, although people will point out
- 21:32Speaker 1: the defense.
- 21:32Speaker 3: That's not rational either.
- 21:34Speaker 1: The defendants, they have a defense. And they've committed offenses.
- 21:37Speaker 1: So they're covered on both ends.
- 21:40Speaker 2: All right. Well, when we come back, a shakeup at
- 21:42Speaker 2: a big cable network.
- 21:45Speaker 3: All right, Jim.
- 21:49Speaker 2: Yesterday afternoon, we got the news out of Fox News
- 21:53Speaker 2: that Maria Bartiromo is gone. You know, ages ago, she
- 21:57Speaker 2: was known as the money honey over on CNBC, and
- 22:00Speaker 2: then she's been with Fox Business for a long time.
- 22:03Speaker 2: But a very terse statement yesterday from Fox News Media.
- 22:07Speaker 2: Fox News Media just saying, we thank Maria for her
- 22:09Speaker 2: work over the last 12 and a half years and
- 22:10Speaker 2: wish her all the best on her next chapter. So
- 22:13Speaker 2: what's going on here? Some of the immediate speculation was, oh,
- 22:16Speaker 2: she's going to be the new press secretary. Well, maybe,
- 22:19Speaker 2: but that's not why she's out at Fox News. Dylan
- 22:24Speaker 2: Byers over at Puck says, The backstory is that Maria
- 22:28Speaker 2: Bartiromo wanted to pursue a story related to China and
- 22:30Speaker 2: the 2020 election voting conspiracies, a major sensitivity for Fox
- 22:34Speaker 2: given its dominion and smartmatic lawsuits. A Fox business executive
- 22:38Speaker 2: sent a text to Fox business producers informing them that
- 22:41Speaker 2: the story could not go on air. Bartiromo then took
- 22:44Speaker 2: a screenshot of the guidance and sent it to senior
- 22:46Speaker 2: White House officials. Fox News leadership learned about that after
- 22:49Speaker 2: receiving a call from the White House, which they viewed
- 22:51Speaker 2: as a fireable offense. Fox pulled Bartiromo from air after
- 22:55Speaker 2: August 9th. She was fired today, meaning yesterday. And a
- 22:59Speaker 2: buyer says, I've also learned that her executive producer was
- 23:01Speaker 2: also fired after the announcement. Maria had resigned her contract
- 23:05Speaker 2: with Fox last February. So I'm not sure what term
- 23:07Speaker 2: she was on up until this point. Maria Bartiromo has
- 23:09Speaker 2: been in the business a long time. I'm sure given
- 23:11Speaker 2: her financial sense, I'm sure she's well set for a
- 23:15Speaker 2: while here. I'm sure she'll get a new job soon
- 23:17Speaker 2: to some extent. But Jim, once your bosses tell you
- 23:20Speaker 2: you can't do something, to go behind their back is
- 23:23Speaker 2: probably going to lead to something like this. Of course,
- 23:25Speaker 2: there are other people saying, you know, that she was
- 23:28Speaker 2: pursuing something and the suits wouldn't let her. But what's
- 23:31Speaker 2: your take on Bartiromo?
- 23:32Speaker 1: Well, first of all, when the news broke, it was
- 23:34Speaker 1: my reaction. Everybody else's reaction was up. She's gonna be
- 23:36Speaker 1: the next White House press secretary because it seemed to
- 23:39Speaker 1: be out of the blue. And we know that there's
- 23:41Speaker 1: an opening there. And we know that Trump's been, you know,
- 23:43Speaker 1: complaining that he doesn't, you know, he doesn't want Catherine
- 23:46Speaker 1: Levitt to leave, but she's going to be on maternity leave.
- 23:48Speaker 1: And so there's kind of this question of who is
- 23:49Speaker 1: going to fill those shoes. Maria Barbaromo, I think, has
- 23:52Speaker 1: been a friendly interviewer of the president for many years,
- 23:55Speaker 1: and that seemed like a natural match there. Not the
- 23:59Speaker 1: case at all there. Greg, I don't know about you,
- 24:01Speaker 1: but I can think of, I don't know, it's like
- 24:04Speaker 1: 787 million reasons why Fox News Channel would not want
- 24:07Speaker 1: its employees airing any specious claims or debatable claims about
- 24:13Speaker 1: the 2020 elections, considering the settlement they made with Dominion
- 24:17Speaker 1: Voting Systems, and then they had a settlement with Smartmatic,
- 24:19Speaker 1: and it's, you know, like, There's obvious reasons why the
- 24:22Speaker 1: Fox network is very, very touchy about people making claims
- 24:26Speaker 1: about the 2020 election and claiming hacking of vote totals
- 24:30Speaker 1: or something like that. The president's prime time address talked
- 24:34Speaker 1: about China and I walked through it and some of
- 24:36Speaker 1: it was overstated when he says the access to voter data,
- 24:40Speaker 1: whether or not you voted is public record. So it's
- 24:42Speaker 1: not like this is breaking into some secure facility to
- 24:45Speaker 1: get this information or or things like that. So look,
- 24:50Speaker 1: I think if the right line of action is to say, well,
- 24:53Speaker 1: I'd really like to do this story. I'd really like
- 24:55Speaker 1: to examine these claims. I'll run them by a legal team.
- 24:59Speaker 1: So make sure we're not putting ourselves in any libel situation.
- 25:01Speaker 1: We're not risking ourselves. That would seem like the better one.
- 25:06Speaker 1: When the bosses say, here's the ruling, and you go
- 25:08Speaker 1: to the president, or you go to the president's team,
- 25:11Speaker 1: you say, this is what my bosses are telling me.
- 25:12Speaker 1: Your employer really can't trust you anymore. And unfortunately, I
- 25:16Speaker 1: think that, you know, I understand why she felt very
- 25:17Speaker 1: strongly about this. I understand why she felt like this
- 25:19Speaker 1: was probably some sort of unfair restriction on her ability
- 25:22Speaker 1: to chase down the story she wants to chase down.
- 25:24Speaker 1: But in the end, your bosses need to be able
- 25:27Speaker 1: to trust you, particularly on a topic that is as
- 25:29Speaker 1: touchy as this one that has blown up at the
- 25:31Speaker 1: network's face in such an expensive way. So she cannot
- 25:35Speaker 1: be possibly surprised that it has shaken out this way.
- 25:37Speaker 1: I imagine when she sent that text, she was probably comfortable.
- 25:41Speaker 1: My suspicion is you don't do something like that if
- 25:43Speaker 1: this is the first time you've ever had a disagreement
- 25:44Speaker 1: with your bosses. Now, thankfully, Greg, as I sit here
- 25:47Speaker 1: in the studios of Radio America, they are excellent and
- 25:49Speaker 1: wonderful people who've never been wrong about anything. I could
- 25:52Speaker 1: say the same thing about National Review and Washington Post.
- 25:55Speaker 1: What you're saying, do you really think that if we
- 25:57Speaker 1: had disagreements, we would not talk about them on the air?
- 26:00Speaker 1: I think institutions have a right to expect that disagreements
- 26:04Speaker 1: are going to be held in-house and that everybody's going to,
- 26:06Speaker 1: you know, keep an appropriate and respectful tone. And when
- 26:08Speaker 1: the boss says, this is the way it's going to be,
- 26:10Speaker 1: your options are to leave, try to persuade him again,
- 26:14Speaker 1: or salute and say, yes, sir, and keep on going
- 26:17Speaker 1: the way it is. Unfortunately, so in the end, Maria
- 26:19Speaker 1: Bartiromo made her choice.
- 26:21Speaker 2: And that's why, you know, whenever there's a dismissal in media,
- 26:24Speaker 2: the departure is abrupt because you can't allow the person
- 26:28Speaker 2: potentially to go back on air.
- 26:29Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, yeah. Let me tell you what's wrong
- 26:30Speaker 1: with my boss.
- 26:31Speaker 2: So, It can seem abrupt, but there obviously are reasons
- 26:35Speaker 2: for that. Completely off topic, Jim. I'm sure it wouldn't
- 26:38Speaker 2: be for this administration, but would you ever want to
- 26:40Speaker 2: be press secretary?
- 26:41Speaker 1: No.
- 26:42Speaker 2: You're very good on your feet, but I think that
- 26:44Speaker 2: would get to you after a while.
- 26:46Speaker 1: I don't quite want to say they can't afford me.
- 26:49Speaker 1: But it's worth noting, by the way, like most people
- 26:51Speaker 1: when they talk about, you know, cable news figures, like
- 26:55Speaker 1: Scott Jennings has been mentioned a lot as a possibility.
- 26:58Speaker 1: I don't know exactly how much Scott Jennings is making
- 27:00Speaker 1: from CNN and from his radio show. but my assumption
- 27:02Speaker 1: is it's a pretty penny. I don't remember off the
- 27:04Speaker 1: top of my head of what the White House press
- 27:06Speaker 1: secretary gets. It's probably between 100 grand and 200 grand,
- 27:10Speaker 1: somewhere in that range, and maybe on the upper end
- 27:12Speaker 1: of it. But most of the time to work in
- 27:14Speaker 1: government at a certain level, you are taking a pay cut. Now,
- 27:19Speaker 1: do you do it for a couple of years and
- 27:21Speaker 1: you get a book deal and you get to say
- 27:23Speaker 1: alongside the president? Sure. For some people, it's worthwhile. For
- 27:27Speaker 1: other people, it's not. I don't think I've ever... Even
- 27:30Speaker 1: for Bobby Jindal, even for Pat Toomey, even for my
- 27:33Speaker 1: favorite guys. By the way, none of them got anywhere
- 27:35Speaker 1: near the White House. So I don't think– I like
- 27:39Speaker 1: being on the outside. I like being able to critique.
- 27:42Speaker 1: I was very briefly employed. This is a good way
- 27:44Speaker 1: to promote our Labor Day episode. I was very briefly
- 27:47Speaker 1: employed in public relations and I hated it in part
- 27:49Speaker 1: because I would write things and then other people would
- 27:52Speaker 1: write exactly what I had written under their name. Deeply,
- 27:56Speaker 1: deeply frustrating. Yeah. That's a whole other problem in the media.
- 28:00Speaker 1: That's the job of a PR guy, to make journalism
- 28:03Speaker 1: easy for lazy reporters. And shockingly, I didn't want to
- 28:05Speaker 1: do that.
- 28:06Speaker 3: All right. Good tease, Mr. Garrity.
- 28:09Speaker 2: Coming up in just a moment, we'll tell you a
- 28:10Speaker 2: little bit about what's coming up on Monday.
- 28:12Speaker 3: All right.
- 28:17Speaker 2: Monday is Labor Day, which means most people have the
- 28:21Speaker 2: day off. Really, Jim and I will too. But we
- 28:24Speaker 2: are going to have a fresh episode for you on Monday.
- 28:26Speaker 2: It's our Labor Day episode. We're going to tell you
- 28:28Speaker 2: who we think are the hardest working people in government
- 28:31Speaker 2: and maybe media, the least hardworking in those areas. And
- 28:35Speaker 2: then we're going to tell a couple of stories from
- 28:37Speaker 2: our own work experience, which should be pretty darn entertaining
- 28:41Speaker 2: after all the years we've been working here. So Jim,
- 28:43Speaker 2: looking forward to that.
- 28:45Speaker 1: I can't wait. Listeners, viewers, you should know that when
- 28:48Speaker 1: Greg and I come up with some sort of special
- 28:50Speaker 1: category like this, it's almost a preview of our end
- 28:52Speaker 1: of the year awards. We spend absolute minutes and minutes
- 28:56Speaker 1: thinking of who we should... name for something like this.
- 29:00Speaker 1: So looking forward to it. And by looking forward to it,
- 29:02Speaker 1: I mean looking forward to taping it very shortly and
- 29:04Speaker 1: then everyone can listen to it on Labor Day on Monday.
- 29:07Speaker 2: So in the meantime, Jim, have a good weekend and
- 29:09Speaker 2: I'll sort of be with you on Monday and of
- 29:11Speaker 2: course on Tuesday as well.
- 29:12Speaker 1: I'll see you vaguely early next week, Greg.
- 29:15Speaker 2: Jim Garrity, National Review. I'm Greg Karambas of Radio America.
- 29:18Speaker 2: Thanks so much for being with us today. Please be
- 29:20Speaker 2: sure to subscribe to the podcast. If you don't already,
- 29:21Speaker 2: tell your friends about us as well. We'd love to
- 29:23Speaker 2: have them listening. Thanks also for your five-star ratings and
- 29:26Speaker 2: your kind reviews. Please keep those coming. Get us on
- 29:28Speaker 2: your home devices. All you have to say is play
- 29:30Speaker 2: Three Martini Lunch podcast. Follow us both on X. He's
- 29:33Speaker 2: at Jim Garrity. I'm at Greg Karambas. And follow Three
- 29:36Speaker 2: Martini Lunch on Facebook and Instagram. Have a terrific weekend
- 29:39Speaker 2: and join us for that special Labor Day Three Martini
- 29:41Speaker 2: Lunch on Monday.