Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: Rubio Wins Munich, AOC/Whitmer Fumble Taiwan & Ukraine, Epstein Files Chaos + “Poop River”

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Normally Podcast: Rubio Wins Munich, AOC/Whitmer Fumble Taiwan & Ukraine, Epstein Files Chaos + “Poop River” · Normally

0:06
Speaker 1: Hey that on Normally the show was normal, it ticks,
0:09
Speaker 1: but when the news gets weird.
0:10
Speaker 2: I am Mary Catherine Ham and I'm Carol Markowitz. We
0:13
Speaker 2: lost an online friend last week that I feel like
0:16
Speaker 2: we need to mention. John Echtel was an amazing Twitter follow.
0:21
Speaker 2: I would say that we mentioned him on normally more
0:24
Speaker 2: than we mentioned anyone else, because he often had these
0:28
Speaker 2: really smart takes and ideas. Just really sad to lose
0:33
Speaker 2: someone like that. I didn't know him in real life,
0:36
Speaker 2: but we were friends online and he was a fan
0:39
Speaker 2: of this show, and I just wanted to take a
0:41
Speaker 2: minute and say, we're going to miss him.
0:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wish I'd had known him in real life.
0:45
Speaker 1: We used to toss around the idea of getting together
0:48
Speaker 1: with Charlie Cook and his family and going to the
0:52
Speaker 1: Georgia Florida game in Jacksonville, because yeah, that's where they live.
0:56
Speaker 1: And when we hit this age, I mean always, but
1:00
Speaker 1: particularly around our age, it feels like you have a
1:01
Speaker 1: lot of time left, but you know you're getting to
1:04
Speaker 1: this middle section where sometimes life has different ideas and
1:08
Speaker 1: you always think you have next year. And it was
1:12
Speaker 1: a real pleasure to be friends with him in any capacity.
1:15
Speaker 1: I first came across him because he understood the failure
1:18
Speaker 1: of remember the Orca Mitt Romney get out the vote technological.
1:23
Speaker 2: No, I don't remember that.
1:25
Speaker 1: So that's where I came across him, because he was
1:27
Speaker 1: a guy who was able to explain what had gone
1:29
Speaker 1: wrong here and why it hadn't worked. And I believe
1:32
Speaker 1: you may have predicted that it wasn't going to work.
1:35
Speaker 1: And from that moment on, I was like, Okay, this
1:37
Speaker 1: is somebody who's specialized and interesting and can tell me
1:40
Speaker 1: things that I wouldn't otherwise know. He was also just
1:43
Speaker 1: a delight and funny and unfailingly reasonable in our environment
1:48
Speaker 1: where not everyone is. So my best to his family,
1:51
Speaker 1: who I know are having a very tough time, and
1:55
Speaker 1: I will miss him very much.
1:56
Speaker 2: It's a tragedy, it really is. On the same day,
2:00
Speaker 2: James Vanderbeek, who we grew up with as Dawson on
2:04
Speaker 2: the show Dawson's Creek, also died of cancer at age
2:07
Speaker 2: forty eight, and you wrote such a beautiful tribute to
2:10
Speaker 2: him in the Free Press. I read it this morning.
2:13
Speaker 2: It was really lovely. It's also just such a sad loss.
2:15
Speaker 2: I have a quick story about him. One time Bethany
2:18
Speaker 2: Mandela and I went to some was it a children's
2:23
Speaker 2: manufact convention, I'm not entirely sure, but James Vanderbeek was
2:27
Speaker 2: there and he was chasing around his kids, and Bethany's
2:29
Speaker 2: a fan, and I was like, oh, I'll just ask
2:31
Speaker 2: him for a picture with you, and he was like, guys,
2:34
Speaker 2: I'm chasing around my kids, like literally, and we both
2:37
Speaker 2: really appreciated that. We thought that is really cool.
2:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had six kids, he so clearly enjoyed them.
2:45
Speaker 1: I wrote in the piece that you know, he's a
2:47
Speaker 1: teen idol who got it right, Like as a child actor,
2:51
Speaker 1: the chances you're going to get your priorities right in
2:53
Speaker 1: life are.
2:54
Speaker 2: Fifty low some to none.
2:56
Speaker 1: And he really just enjoyed the heck out of his family,
3:00
Speaker 1: and I think at the end was focusing on them
3:02
Speaker 1: and his connection to God. And there are really worse
3:05
Speaker 1: ways to be on the doorstep, yeah, at the end
3:10
Speaker 1: of life than that. And I've had this parasocial relationship
3:13
Speaker 1: with him since I was fifteen, So it's this It's
3:16
Speaker 1: very interesting way that things sort of overlap in life,
3:20
Speaker 1: and you experience these people both on screen and sort
3:24
Speaker 1: of in real life through social media. And I will
3:27
Speaker 1: just too sad to watch two young fathers go too
3:30
Speaker 1: young and sweet.
3:31
Speaker 2: A really terrible day. To give a special shout out
3:34
Speaker 2: to our friend Buck Sexton, whose book Manufacturing Delusion, How
3:38
Speaker 2: the Left uses brainwashing and doctrination and propaganda against you
3:42
Speaker 2: is out today Tuesday. I'm very excited to read this book.
3:45
Speaker 2: Is a really smart, serious person. I don't feel like
3:49
Speaker 2: this is going to be a political fluff book that
3:52
Speaker 2: he had to write for the hell of it. He
3:54
Speaker 2: is XCIA. He has some really interesting insights. I genuinely
3:58
Speaker 2: can't wait for my copy to a today Tuesday.
4:01
Speaker 1: I'm excited to check this out.
4:03
Speaker 2: All right, let's get into the news. There's been some news.
4:08
Speaker 2: The news this weekend was there was some high points
4:12
Speaker 2: and some low points.
4:14
Speaker 1: Yes, the Munich Security Conference is going on, which is
4:17
Speaker 1: a very high profile foreign policy To do that, many
4:20
Speaker 1: leaders go over to Germany to be part of. Among
4:24
Speaker 1: the leaders who went this time were Secretary of State
4:27
Speaker 1: Mark or Rubio, Congresswoman AOC Alexandria Okazio Cortes, and Governor
4:33
Speaker 1: Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. They all went there to sort
4:37
Speaker 1: of burnish their credentials. Rubio doesn't need much burnishing.
4:42
Speaker 2: No, but he burnished anyway. He was like, I don't
4:44
Speaker 2: need burnishing, and yet I'm here to burnish.
4:47
Speaker 1: Yeah. So he did a twenty minute speech for the
4:50
Speaker 1: whole crew. Yeah, and you know, it got basically rave
4:55
Speaker 1: reviews all the way with perfect It was really something
4:59
Speaker 1: because it was a It was all the things that
5:03
Speaker 1: we talk about frequently, but it was done in such
5:05
Speaker 1: a positive way. The way he presented everything about how
5:10
Speaker 1: we care about you Europe, with the yeah.
5:13
Speaker 2: This has helped you very well, said I thought. You know,
5:16
Speaker 2: first of all, can I just say that twenty minutes
5:18
Speaker 2: is my favorite length for speech. I don't think speeches
5:22
Speaker 2: need to be more than twenty minutes. But I loved
5:25
Speaker 2: the whole thing. I particularly liked his ending. He said,
5:28
Speaker 2: I'm here today to leave it clear that America is
5:30
Speaker 2: charting the path for a new century of prosperity, and
5:33
Speaker 2: that once again, we want to do it together with you,
5:36
Speaker 2: our cherished allies and our oldest friends. We want to
5:39
Speaker 2: do it together with you, with the Europe that is
5:41
Speaker 2: proud of its heritage and of its history, with the
5:44
Speaker 2: Europe that has the spirit of creation of liberty, that
5:47
Speaker 2: sent ships out into uncharted seas and birth our civilization
5:51
Speaker 2: with the Europe that has means to defend himself and
5:53
Speaker 2: the will to survive. We should be proud of what
5:55
Speaker 2: we achieved together in the last century, and now we
5:58
Speaker 2: must confront and embrace the opportunities of a new one,
6:01
Speaker 2: because yesterday is over, the future is inevitable, and our
6:04
Speaker 2: destiny together awaits I was like who.
6:08
Speaker 3: He also?
6:09
Speaker 1: I want to hear directly from him, and we have
6:12
Speaker 1: a little on the longish side clip of him, but
6:13
Speaker 1: it's worth Hearing's beautiful where he talks about many of
6:16
Speaker 1: the things we talk about, which is, if the West
6:19
Speaker 1: does not have confidence in its own values and its
6:23
Speaker 1: values being special, in its values being worthwhile, we don't
6:28
Speaker 1: have a future. And he addresses that starting by saying, look,
6:31
Speaker 1: decline is a choice, and we don't have to choose it.
6:34
Speaker 1: And here are some of the ways we could be
6:36
Speaker 1: better at not doing so. Here's Marco, excuse me, secretary's date.
6:41
Speaker 4: And this is why we do not want allies to
6:43
Speaker 4: rationalize the broken status quo, rather than reckon with what
6:46
Speaker 4: is what is necessary to fix it. For we in
6:50
Speaker 4: America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers
6:56
Speaker 4: of the West's managed decline. We do not seek to separate,
7:01
Speaker 4: but to revitalize an old friendship and renew the greatest
7:05
Speaker 4: civilization in human history. What we want is a reinvigorated
7:09
Speaker 4: alliance that recognizes that what has ailed our societies is
7:13
Speaker 4: not just a set of bad policies, but a malaise
7:16
Speaker 4: of hopelessness and complacency. An alliance is what The alliance
7:20
Speaker 4: that we want is one that is not paralyzed into
7:22
Speaker 4: an action by fear, fear of climate change, fear of war,
7:26
Speaker 4: fear of technology. Instead, we want an alliance that boldly
7:30
Speaker 4: races into the future, and the only fear we have
7:33
Speaker 4: is the fear of the shame of not leaving our
7:36
Speaker 4: nations prouder, stronger, and wealthier for our children. An alliance
7:41
Speaker 4: ready to defend our people, to safeguard our interests, and
7:44
Speaker 4: to preserve the freedom of action that allows us to
7:47
Speaker 4: shape our own destiny, not one that exists to operate
7:50
Speaker 4: a global welfare state and atone for the purported sins
7:54
Speaker 4: of past generations. An alliance that does not allow its
7:58
Speaker 4: power to be outsourced, constrain, or subordinated to systems beyond
8:02
Speaker 4: its control. One that does not depend on others for
8:05
Speaker 4: the critical necessities of its national life, and one that
8:09
Speaker 4: does not maintain the polite pretense that our way of
8:12
Speaker 4: life is just one among many, and that asks for
8:16
Speaker 4: permission before it acts. And above all, an alliance based
8:21
Speaker 4: on the recognition that we the West have inherited together.
8:26
Speaker 3: What we have inherited.
8:27
Speaker 4: Together is something that is unique and distinctive and irreplaceable,
8:33
Speaker 4: because this, after all, is the very foundation of the
8:37
Speaker 4: Transatlantic bond.
8:38
Speaker 2: Just so well done, Such an optimistic but serious speech.
8:43
Speaker 2: I think a lot of times people mistake optimism for
8:46
Speaker 2: fluff and doom for seriousness. I think he proved that
8:50
Speaker 2: that's just not the case. He's fantastic.
8:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I really yeah.
8:54
Speaker 2: And I would say we got in early on the
8:56
Speaker 2: Marco Rubias amazing train. We thought he's been great for
9:00
Speaker 2: quite some time.
9:01
Speaker 1: It is true. Especially liked the idea that it is
9:05
Speaker 1: not the mission of Western civilization to become merely a
9:11
Speaker 1: global welfare state and then to atone for our past
9:14
Speaker 1: sins like that idea is big. He sort of he
9:19
Speaker 1: repudiated the distabling elements of mass migration. What he's doing
9:26
Speaker 1: is pointing out all the things that normal people feel
9:29
Speaker 1: and see all the time, but that in a place
9:31
Speaker 1: like the Munich Security Conference, everyone's just like, ooh, are
9:35
Speaker 1: we allowed to say that?
9:36
Speaker 3: Right? Right?
9:37
Speaker 2: Are we allowed to say that we like our civilization
9:40
Speaker 2: is crazy? It's bonkers, and Rubio is there to be like, yes,
9:44
Speaker 2: you're allowed to say you like your civilization that did
9:47
Speaker 2: all of these amazing things and created a lot of
9:51
Speaker 2: our modern world. Like it's okay.
9:53
Speaker 1: By the way, I want to note two critiques. We're
9:55
Speaker 1: going to go into some AOC film as well here,
9:57
Speaker 1: but one of the critiques from AOC was this was
10:00
Speaker 1: a explicit appeal.
10:03
Speaker 3: To Western culture.
10:05
Speaker 1: Yes, a see, that was what it was. That's what
10:08
Speaker 1: it should be. Leadership can breed more courage, and it
10:13
Speaker 1: can breed more confidence in our values. The New York
10:17
Speaker 1: Times ran an interesting critique which was basically, yeah, sure
10:20
Speaker 1: he talks about all these Western ideals that bring us together,
10:24
Speaker 1: but mass migration has completely changed Europe and we don't
10:27
Speaker 1: have those in common anymore.
10:28
Speaker 5: Yeah.
10:29
Speaker 1: I was like, well, well, what I think. I think
10:32
Speaker 1: that might have been part of the point.
10:34
Speaker 2: There's also this idea that what Europe has done in
10:37
Speaker 2: the last ten years is what it must do in
10:40
Speaker 2: the next ten years. And I think Rubio was there
10:43
Speaker 2: to say you could stop this. You can stop this.
10:45
Speaker 2: You're actually not you know, you don't have to continue
10:49
Speaker 2: down this path that's been so destructive for you. You can
10:52
Speaker 2: change the rules around what you can and cannot say.
10:56
Speaker 2: We should also mention and look, you know, I feel
10:59
Speaker 2: like there's a lot of people who want to set
11:01
Speaker 2: up the Vance Rubio battle. I thought Vance gave a
11:05
Speaker 2: fantastic speech last summer, But a lot of people are
11:07
Speaker 2: saying what Van said and what Rubio said were the
11:11
Speaker 2: same thing. But Rubio got a standing ovation and it
11:14
Speaker 2: was much more positive and optimistic and less critical of
11:18
Speaker 2: our allies while being critical, but not like poking them
11:23
Speaker 2: in the eye with it. Right.
11:24
Speaker 1: Tone matters, tone doesn't matter, and knowing your audience matters,
11:28
Speaker 1: and Vance might be targeting different people last year. He
11:32
Speaker 1: was sort of talking maybe to us more than talking
11:35
Speaker 1: to Europe. I do think Rubio's ability to be kind
11:41
Speaker 1: and charismatic while critical, yeah, is a skill.
11:46
Speaker 2: It is, and he makes people like AOC crazy. One
11:49
Speaker 2: of her other criticisms was she said, my favorite part
11:53
Speaker 2: was when he said that American cowboys come from Spain,
11:55
Speaker 2: and I believe the Mexicans and descendants of African slave
11:58
Speaker 2: peoples would like to have a word on that. Yeah,
12:02
Speaker 2: they also came from Spain.
12:05
Speaker 1: Wait till she hears where Spanish came from, it's gonna.
12:09
Speaker 2: Be it's gonna be a real problem the way Western
12:11
Speaker 2: civilization well and was involved.
12:15
Speaker 1: I do there is this thing where once you are
12:17
Speaker 1: sort of an approved lefty and you've got all your
12:21
Speaker 1: academic nonsense nomenclature going on, you get credit for being
12:26
Speaker 1: a smart person when you're actually quite clearly ignorant of
12:31
Speaker 1: some major things, which she illustrates by saying that none
12:34
Speaker 1: of this had your roots and that we should object
12:38
Speaker 1: to him pointing all of that out. By the way,
12:40
Speaker 1: I thought her Ilk objected to Trump's distancing of us
12:44
Speaker 1: from Europe, and now she's objecting to Rubio's bringing us
12:47
Speaker 1: back together. What she objects to who knows, But like
12:50
Speaker 1: there's major gaps here in the understanding. And I think
12:54
Speaker 1: we should go to AOC and Gretchen Whitmer and their
12:57
Speaker 1: clips during this event to make clear that both of
13:02
Speaker 1: these women travel to Munich knowing the discussion was specifically
13:09
Speaker 1: foreign policy based. There was no question about what you
13:14
Speaker 1: were supposed to be discussing m hm. And yet this
13:18
Speaker 1: is AOC's answer to a question about Taiwan, one of
13:23
Speaker 1: the most obvious things you would be asked about at
13:26
Speaker 1: this gathering. Shall we play it would?
13:29
Speaker 2: And should the US actually commit US troops to defend
13:33
Speaker 2: Taiwan if China were to move?
13:36
Speaker 3: You know, I think that.
13:40
Speaker 6: This is such a you know.
13:43
Speaker 3: I think that this is a.
13:49
Speaker 6: This is of course, a very long standing policy of
13:55
Speaker 6: the United States, and I think what we are hoping
13:59
Speaker 6: for is that we want to make sure that we
14:00
Speaker 6: never get to that point, and we want to make
14:04
Speaker 6: sure that we are moving in all of our economic
14:08
Speaker 6: research and our global positions to avoid any such confrontation
14:13
Speaker 6: and for that question to even arise.
14:15
Speaker 2: I haven't seen her stumble like that in a while.
14:17
Speaker 2: And it's funny because her last stumble that I remember
14:20
Speaker 2: like this very clearly was when she was asked about
14:24
Speaker 2: Israel and the Palestinian territories and whether that should be
14:27
Speaker 2: a two state solution. I believe it was on firing
14:30
Speaker 2: line and she was just like, I'm not an expert.
14:33
Speaker 2: And she does the exact same thing here where she
14:35
Speaker 2: puts up her hands like, don't ask me, I'm just
14:38
Speaker 2: a girl, like, Yeah, this was a real preview of
14:45
Speaker 2: all the things she will not be able to answer
14:48
Speaker 2: as a presidential candidate. I'm worried about her. I don't
14:51
Speaker 2: think it'll be an easy path to beat her because
14:54
Speaker 2: she is talented politically, but there is a lot this
14:58
Speaker 2: lady does not know. And if she goes up against
15:01
Speaker 2: Vance or Rubio, I just they will eat her alive.
15:05
Speaker 1: I agree with you, Carol that she should not be
15:08
Speaker 1: underestimated because she has a bit of spontaneity, a bit
15:11
Speaker 1: of warmth. She can be a little quick on her
15:14
Speaker 1: feet in a casual back and forth with someone outside
15:17
Speaker 1: the capitol, and I think it serves her well. Here
15:21
Speaker 1: we have I think real Democrat privilege, which is she
15:25
Speaker 1: thinks she can go anywhere she wants and not be
15:28
Speaker 1: asked serious things and not be stumped. And who's James Sorowitz?
15:34
Speaker 1: Is that his name?
15:35
Speaker 2: Mm hmm? Wisdom of Crowd guy.
15:38
Speaker 1: James asked me at one point when I was tweeting
15:40
Speaker 1: about this, well, what's the correct answer on Taiwan? And
15:43
Speaker 1: It's like, let me tell you something. She's a Democrat. Yeah,
15:46
Speaker 1: she doesn't even have to have the right answer, right,
15:48
Speaker 1: She just has to have an answer. You spent six
15:53
Speaker 1: to eight hours on a flight. Even if you hadn't
15:56
Speaker 1: had a conversant thought, a semi coherent thought on Taiwan
16:00
Speaker 1: before you got on the plane, you could certainly have
16:02
Speaker 1: one by the time you get off the plane, right, And.
16:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, she ends up saying we should never get to
16:08
Speaker 2: that point. That could have been what you started with.
16:11
Speaker 3: Like, well, and I get it.
16:12
Speaker 2: I agree. There is no great answer on Teaiwana, and
16:15
Speaker 2: nobody is going to say, yes, we're going to send
16:17
Speaker 2: American troops to Taiwan if China attacks, although we all
16:21
Speaker 2: kind of believe that is what's going to happen. It's like, yes,
16:24
Speaker 2: you can't just say things that you know are going
16:28
Speaker 2: to destabilize relationships. I get that, she gets that. Still
16:33
Speaker 2: have an answer.
16:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, put the put the phrase strategic ambiguity in your head,
16:38
Speaker 1: learn three sentences and you're fine. No one's going to
16:41
Speaker 1: call you out unless you do this. Yeah. I just
16:45
Speaker 1: the the lack of respect for the exercise in not
16:50
Speaker 1: prepping at all, Yeah, is very It's actually a little
16:53
Speaker 1: surprising to me. Look, can we hear Gretchen Whitmer as well,
16:56
Speaker 1: because here she is being asked about Ukraine. Who have
17:00
Speaker 1: imagined you'd get that question on Ukraine? What does victory
17:03
Speaker 1: look like?
17:08
Speaker 3: I'd love to hear your answer.
17:13
Speaker 6: It is.
17:13
Speaker 5: I the two, the two that I am on the
17:16
Speaker 5: panel with, are much more steeped in foreign policy than
17:20
Speaker 5: a governor is. But you know, I do think that
17:24
Speaker 5: Ukraine's independence, keeping their their land mass and having the
17:29
Speaker 5: support of of all the allies, I think is is
17:33
Speaker 5: the goal. From my vantage point, Go ahead, ambassador, do
17:37
Speaker 5: better job.
17:38
Speaker 2: This one is more egregious to me, even because the
17:43
Speaker 2: Democrats don't have a position on Ukraine. And I've been
17:46
Speaker 2: saying this since the beginning. There's a lot of like,
17:49
Speaker 2: you know, Republicans or Trump specifically, or pro Russia or whatever,
17:53
Speaker 2: have not seen Democrats stake a position on Ukraine. What
17:57
Speaker 2: should America be doing? Should they be said? And should
18:00
Speaker 2: we be sending more money, should we be sending troops?
18:03
Speaker 2: All of that is a discussion that they are unwilling
18:05
Speaker 2: to have. They just want to tie Trump to Putin
18:09
Speaker 2: and that's the entire ballgame for them, and that clearly
18:13
Speaker 2: is not enough on the world stage.
18:15
Speaker 1: Well, and once again it's like AOC putting her hands up.
18:18
Speaker 1: She's like I'm but a governor, right, Okay, great, So
18:22
Speaker 1: what are you doing here? You're a governor who came
18:25
Speaker 1: to Munich. What's the point of you being here if
18:29
Speaker 1: you haven't taken some time to think about this and
18:31
Speaker 1: if you haven't made a plan to make your points?
18:35
Speaker 2: Yeah?
18:35
Speaker 1: Go, Rubio made a plan to make some points.
18:39
Speaker 2: And he could have done that as senator as well.
18:41
Speaker 1: Yes. Well, And to be fair, President Trump might show
18:45
Speaker 1: up without a plan to make specific policy points, but
18:48
Speaker 1: he was already elected presidents y'all are trying to.
18:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're trying to get his job, right, Yeah, I mean,
18:54
Speaker 2: I was actually surprised. Trump would never stammer like that.
18:58
Speaker 2: He might also not give a I racked answer, But
19:00
Speaker 2: he'll never be like uh oh, I never. He will
19:05
Speaker 2: be like Taiwan. You know, we'll see what happens with Taiwan.
19:09
Speaker 2: Maybe China will try to invade and maybe we'll do something,
19:11
Speaker 2: but maybe they won't and maybe we won't. It just
19:14
Speaker 2: he he'll have an answer.
19:16
Speaker 1: Well, and again I want to emphasize truly, that's all
19:19
Speaker 1: that's required is to speak for twenty three seconds and
19:27
Speaker 1: put some She knows a lot of nonsense phrases.
19:30
Speaker 3: She throws out there and there.
19:34
Speaker 1: But for the grace of God go I have been
19:36
Speaker 1: in a situation where my brain freezes up and you're
19:38
Speaker 1: trying to get the right answer and you're trying to
19:40
Speaker 1: grab something. However, if you if you are traveling, yeah,
19:46
Speaker 1: to another country to do a specific event, just read up,
19:51
Speaker 1: just read up.
19:52
Speaker 2: She was unprepared, and you're absolutely right. It's because she
19:55
Speaker 2: never gets hard questions and that wasn't even a hard one.
19:58
Speaker 2: All Right, We're gonna take a short break and come
20:01
Speaker 2: right back with things we don't want to talk about
20:04
Speaker 2: but have to be right back with more on normally.
20:11
Speaker 2: We are back with more on normally, and there's stories
20:15
Speaker 2: that are in the ether that are prominent that we're like,
20:19
Speaker 2: why do I have to talk about this? And Candace
20:21
Speaker 2: Owens is like always at the top of my ill list.
20:25
Speaker 2: The fact is, though ignoring her didn't work, and I
20:28
Speaker 2: think there needs to be a more direct attack on her.
20:31
Speaker 2: I think when Ben Shapiro went after her in December,
20:34
Speaker 2: it really took some wind out of her sales. She
20:37
Speaker 2: became crazier, but that exposed a lot more about what
20:40
Speaker 2: she's doing. But for our purposes here, Mary Catherine and
20:44
Speaker 2: I are on widow defense of Erica Kirk, and Candace
20:49
Speaker 2: is getting crazier and crazier and accusing Erica Kirk of
20:54
Speaker 2: just insane things like removing a picture of Charlie from
20:59
Speaker 2: the back ground of the podcast. Erica had to explain
21:03
Speaker 2: that she actually moved it lower so that her daughter
21:05
Speaker 2: could see it. Candace is has accused TPUSA Charlie's organization
21:11
Speaker 2: of being involved in his murder. She borders onn't accusing
21:16
Speaker 2: Erica herself, but she says things constantly that lead people
21:20
Speaker 2: to believe that Erica was involved in the murder of
21:23
Speaker 2: her own husband. It's just it's really sick and people
21:27
Speaker 2: who have covered for Candace or have not attacked her
21:31
Speaker 2: directly are just cowards and it's sickening.
21:35
Speaker 1: Really uh yeah, like someone needs to really invest in
21:40
Speaker 1: a lawsuit here.
21:42
Speaker 2: Said the line needs to be drawn, and I hear
21:44
Speaker 2: people say this is what she wants. She wants a lawsuit.
21:47
Speaker 2: She'll be the victim. She's already playing the victim. She
21:50
Speaker 2: already plays the victim. She already portrays herself as somebody
21:54
Speaker 2: who has been cast out because she's just searching for
21:56
Speaker 2: the real killer and she's just a crazy person with
22:00
Speaker 2: a microphone. She needs to be stopped in a courtroom.
22:04
Speaker 1: I do think this kind of figure is really tricky
22:07
Speaker 1: to deal with, because yes she does want attention, and
22:09
Speaker 1: yes she thrives off attention, and yes that's what she's
22:11
Speaker 1: creating every single second of every day. And also, if
22:17
Speaker 1: you are the person, you can't just be like I
22:20
Speaker 1: guess I'll be attacked endlessly with totally unfounded rumors about
22:25
Speaker 1: myself forever and ever. Amen. There was another incident recently
22:29
Speaker 1: where people in the Candace camp are airing a video
22:33
Speaker 1: of Erica speaking to her employees at turning Point, shortly
22:38
Speaker 1: after Charlie's death, and she's just saying normal things like
22:44
Speaker 1: you can have time off if you're grieving. She's clearly distraught,
22:49
Speaker 1: she's trying to pull people together, and this was somehow
22:52
Speaker 1: twisted into an indictment of her. Yeah, when in fact
22:56
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, you're really blowing the lid off
22:58
Speaker 1: of this compassionate manager story about erk Kirk. Yeah, a
23:06
Speaker 1: lot a lot of online politics is learning about characters
23:10
Speaker 1: I would otherwise not at all want to know about.
23:13
Speaker 2: Why do I know who these people are?
23:15
Speaker 1: I hate that the gropers, the look smacks erst the
23:20
Speaker 1: the words they use. I'm not interested. You have to
23:25
Speaker 1: sort of be interested.
23:26
Speaker 2: Yes, I have to pass, but I have to sort
23:29
Speaker 2: of know what's going on. It's it's awful. The other
23:32
Speaker 2: topic that I just I look, I want anybody who
23:38
Speaker 2: committed any crimes with Jeffrey Epstein held accountable. But we
23:42
Speaker 2: are on a wild goose chase at this point. People
23:45
Speaker 2: who have nothing to do with it are being just maligned.
23:50
Speaker 2: Here role Conna, who with Tom Smassy.
23:54
Speaker 7: Are like the ringleaders of all of this where they
23:58
Speaker 7: want to bring people to justice, and again I do too,
24:01
Speaker 7: but you're not bringing anyone to justice, and nobody is
24:04
Speaker 7: being named as having.
24:06
Speaker 2: Done any of these horrific things that we keep hearing about.
24:10
Speaker 2: Rocanna on the floor of Congress read the names of
24:14
Speaker 2: six people, and he said, I forced last night the
24:17
Speaker 2: DOJ to disclose the identities of six men that him
24:20
Speaker 2: and Thomas Massey forced this. And he reads these six
24:23
Speaker 2: names and he says that these are powerful men and
24:26
Speaker 2: that he is exposing them. And then it turns out
24:30
Speaker 2: that they were actually part Four of them were part
24:34
Speaker 2: of a photo lineup. So not only did they not
24:37
Speaker 2: commit any crimes with Jeffrey Epstein. They had zero to
24:41
Speaker 2: do with it. They were randos picked for a photo lineup,
24:44
Speaker 2: not connected to Epstein at all. And of course it's
24:47
Speaker 2: somehow blamed on the DOJ for not providing the explanation earlier,
24:51
Speaker 2: instead of redacting than unredacting their names. This is what
24:54
Speaker 2: Rocanna says. It's just it makes no sense to me anymore.
25:00
Speaker 2: And when he says real Kana tweets they have failed
25:02
Speaker 2: to protect survivors, created confusion for innocent men.
25:05
Speaker 3: Bro, you did that.
25:06
Speaker 2: You created that confusion. You read these names on the
25:10
Speaker 2: Congress floor as if you knew what you were talking about,
25:13
Speaker 2: and you didn't. And so it has become just a
25:17
Speaker 2: wild goose chase. People are saying the most horrific things
25:19
Speaker 2: online about people. I think we talked about this a
25:22
Speaker 2: few weeks ago, where somebody posted a picture of a
25:26
Speaker 2: tech founder with a bunch of children on him and
25:28
Speaker 2: they were like, Oh, this is so horrible, and then
25:30
Speaker 2: they were his own children. It's just ridiculous.
25:34
Speaker 1: Nelly Bowles, who was a New York Times reporter at
25:36
Speaker 1: the time, got dragged for having met with Epstein. But
25:40
Speaker 1: Epstein was a source for a bunch of New York
25:44
Speaker 1: based and finance world based stories and important people based stories. Right,
25:50
Speaker 1: this is what reporting looks like. I listened to Ellianna
25:53
Speaker 1: Johnson on the Commentary podcast and she had a great
25:56
Speaker 1: line about this and a forceful pushback on the idea
25:59
Speaker 1: that this should all be out there, saying transparency is
26:02
Speaker 1: not justice. Transparency is not justice. And I think I've
26:06
Speaker 1: been maybe too laissez fair about this, thinking like, Okay,
26:09
Speaker 1: the thing was fishy from the beginning. I think that
26:11
Speaker 1: Epstein should have been punished more the first time he
26:15
Speaker 1: was caught. I don't think these people should have associated
26:19
Speaker 1: themselves with him after the fact, after they knew about him.
26:23
Speaker 1: And also in releasing six million pages of information from
26:28
Speaker 1: an investigation, what you've done is just open the door
26:31
Speaker 1: to exactly what Rocana and Massy have done here and
26:34
Speaker 1: hurting people who had absolutely nothing to do this do
26:39
Speaker 1: with this, who probably don't have resources to deal with
26:42
Speaker 1: being accused in this manner. And I don't think we're
26:45
Speaker 1: any of us smarter or more justice has been served
26:48
Speaker 1: by virtue of this.
26:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was scrolling through the documents on the Justice
26:53
Speaker 2: Department site and I was putting in kind of generic
26:56
Speaker 2: terms like corporation or at agency or whatever, just to
26:59
Speaker 2: see that sort of what was out there. And I
27:01
Speaker 2: came across the name of one of my friends, who
27:04
Speaker 2: is a real estate agent, has zero, I mean, has
27:07
Speaker 2: never met Epstein, has zero to do with Epstein. Literally,
27:09
Speaker 2: I sent this to her and she has no idea
27:12
Speaker 2: what that apartment sale even had to do with Epsteine.
27:15
Speaker 2: It just got forwarded to him. But you know, imagine
27:17
Speaker 2: I'm reading this and my friend's name is in there.
27:20
Speaker 2: I just a lot of very innocent people, not just innocent,
27:24
Speaker 2: but literally having absolutely nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein
27:28
Speaker 2: or being caught up in this. Like, you can't just
27:30
Speaker 2: shrug our shoulders and say, who cares. We have to
27:32
Speaker 2: get justice for the victims. I want justice for the victims.
27:35
Speaker 2: This doesn't get us that.
27:37
Speaker 1: We also have to think about the precedent for other investigations,
27:41
Speaker 1: because as soon as a particular lightning Rod investigation becomes
27:48
Speaker 1: the one that someone important says, we have to release
27:51
Speaker 1: all the files, every single person who spoke to police,
27:56
Speaker 1: every single person whose texts or emails were part of
27:59
Speaker 1: an investigation, become public. That's not usually, uh, the standard
28:07
Speaker 1: that undergirds our system and standard is that you are.
28:10
Speaker 1: It's just protected.
28:11
Speaker 2: It had helped if all of this got released and
28:15
Speaker 2: powerful people were exposed and went to prison over it
28:18
Speaker 2: or were charged with something or proved something, that would
28:22
Speaker 2: be amazing and fantastic. But that's not what's happening here.
28:26
Speaker 2: And it just it's just it's disconcerting to me that
28:30
Speaker 2: so many people don't care that. It's like, so what
28:34
Speaker 2: so what if Randall's are being caught up in this,
28:37
Speaker 2: That's just the price we have to pay to get
28:39
Speaker 2: all the information out.
28:41
Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of this goes back to just
28:44
Speaker 1: public officials being responsible, and unfortunately, are much of our
28:48
Speaker 1: modern media era in particular and political era incentivizing irresponsibility
28:54
Speaker 1: instead of being responsible. Yeah, but you know you got elected.
28:58
Speaker 2: You should do better, a lot better. All Right, We're
29:02
Speaker 2: going to take a short break and be right back
29:04
Speaker 2: with more on normally. We're gonna talk poop river, Mary Catherine,
29:08
Speaker 2: poop river. And this is not the topic that we
29:10
Speaker 2: wanted to avoid.
29:12
Speaker 1: Be right back, all right. We are back on normally
29:19
Speaker 1: with a distasteful topic, but one that we must address.
29:22
Speaker 1: I may have mentioned it before in our bad Blue
29:26
Speaker 1: City governance stories, but it's gotten worse. On January nineteenth
29:31
Speaker 1: of this year, part of the wastewater treatment pipelines in
29:37
Speaker 1: the DMV area Washington, d C, Virginia, Maryland cracked and
29:43
Speaker 1: failed and started diverting wastewater into the Potomac River. The
29:47
Speaker 1: Potomac River is not famously super clean, but it's okay.
29:51
Speaker 1: People do water sports in it. People row it's right now,
29:55
Speaker 1: you should not go near it. No, it is. This
29:58
Speaker 1: is from the very beginning of this thing. The interceptor
30:01
Speaker 1: line that broke was roughly sixty years old and carries
30:04
Speaker 1: up to sixty million gallons of wastewater daily from Louden
30:08
Speaker 1: and Fairfax County's areas near Washington Dulles International Airport, all
30:12
Speaker 1: of northern Virginia. Basically, it's been doing that into the
30:18
Speaker 1: Potomac since January nineteenth. That is almost a month. And
30:24
Speaker 1: by the way, when it comes to local governance, it
30:27
Speaker 1: took Virginia almost a month to say anything about it.
30:33
Speaker 1: DC was like slightly earlier in late January saying, oh,
30:37
Speaker 1: we're working on it. Marylynd was like, oh, we're working
30:40
Speaker 1: on it. And now the whole message is don't touch
30:45
Speaker 1: the river. That's the message. The message isn't we are
30:48
Speaker 1: absolutely getting this cleaned up. It's possibility off the poop river. No, no,
30:52
Speaker 1: no no. And by the way, the poop River goes
30:54
Speaker 1: to the Chesapeake Bay. If you live in the Mid Atlantic,
30:58
Speaker 1: you have been subject to a relentless campaign that the
31:01
Speaker 1: Chesapeake Bay must be pristine at all times for like
31:05
Speaker 1: the last thirty years. I'm wondering how much of that
31:08
Speaker 1: we're undoing right this second as this stuff flows away.
31:11
Speaker 1: But the most amazing thing to me is that I
31:15
Speaker 1: looked up the coverage. It's the Warringtonian, it's local Arlington
31:20
Speaker 1: Now it's Outside magazine did a piece because you know
31:24
Speaker 1: they're interested in the Outside. They note that it is
31:27
Speaker 1: the e Coli is extremely high with the two hundred
31:30
Speaker 1: and forty three million gallons of sewage that have flowed
31:34
Speaker 1: into the river. Just from perspective, I want to tell you, Carol,
31:37
Speaker 1: I looked it up XM. Valdiz about ten million gallons
31:39
Speaker 1: of oil. Deep water horizon about two hundred million gallons
31:43
Speaker 1: of oil. So we are going to surpass that in sewage.
31:48
Speaker 2: And it's bad, it really does. And you know the
31:51
Speaker 2: left is supposed to be environmentalists, right where are they?
31:55
Speaker 2: How could this not be a giant story.
31:57
Speaker 1: They're very very quiet, and they're very very not hard
32:02
Speaker 1: on the governments of DC, Maryland and Virginia, who basically
32:06
Speaker 1: didn't address this for several weeks. The snowstorm came right
32:10
Speaker 1: on the heels of the breakage, so they had to
32:12
Speaker 1: deal with the snowstorm first. Right, it has been frozen here,
32:16
Speaker 1: thank goodness, for several weeks. It is now fifty degrees.
32:21
Speaker 1: I allow you to imagine what's going to happen when
32:24
Speaker 1: it hits seventy.
32:26
Speaker 3: Eighty ninety delightful.
32:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to take a turn here, guys, And
32:32
Speaker 1: don't touch the river is not a good enough answer.
32:36
Speaker 2: Right, I just didn't trying to imagine if this was
32:38
Speaker 2: going on in Florida, and first of all, Rond de
32:41
Speaker 2: Santis would have already fixed it. But second of all,
32:43
Speaker 2: truly be a front page story in the New York
32:46
Speaker 2: Times and the Washington Post and everywhere else. I hope
32:49
Speaker 2: they fixed that Poop River for you, guys. I hope
32:52
Speaker 2: Poop River doesn't continue on into summer. New York is
32:55
Speaker 2: having this thing where they had, you know, this big
32:57
Speaker 2: snowstorm and a lot of people didn't clean up their poop,
33:01
Speaker 2: the dog poop, and now that the snow has melted
33:03
Speaker 2: in this dog poop everywhere, I feel like there's some
33:06
Speaker 2: similarities here.
33:07
Speaker 1: Well, you remember the refrain about San Francisco before. It
33:10
Speaker 1: has now become slightly better, but it was a feces
33:13
Speaker 1: problem as well. M Your governance in a blue metropolitan
33:17
Speaker 1: area will let you live in human crap.
33:21
Speaker 2: That is what they will do to you, The ideology says,
33:27
Speaker 2: then they'll be like.
33:29
Speaker 1: This seems fine, should we do some more redistricting guys.
33:32
Speaker 1: By the way, Wes Moore, who is the governor of Maryland,
33:35
Speaker 1: is doing a national media tour because he's like the
33:37
Speaker 1: up and coming guy for ten twenty eight right now,
33:40
Speaker 1: and he did a segment on CBS News saying, hey,
33:43
Speaker 1: you know, we've got to stop being the party of
33:45
Speaker 1: slow and commissions. We've got to build things. So of
33:50
Speaker 1: course this area is like, I don't know, it's probably
33:52
Speaker 1: gonna take us like eight nine months to exist. And
33:55
Speaker 1: I want to also remember that Maryland Governor Wes Moore
33:59
Speaker 1: was in charge of Maryland when that giant bridge, the
34:02
Speaker 1: Princess uh yeah, Princes Key Bridge went down when that
34:05
Speaker 1: tanker hit it. It was July of the next year,
34:08
Speaker 1: before they had removed all the remnants of the old bridge.
34:12
Speaker 1: It has not been rebuilt. The projected data is twenty thirty.
34:16
Speaker 1: But sure do things fast, guys. All right, well you're
34:20
Speaker 1: just Santas in here.
34:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, what can we point him as to fix these problems?
34:25
Speaker 2: Just like federal fixer?
34:28
Speaker 1: Is there a competence czar? Because that's what.
34:31
Speaker 2: We need czar. That's good.
34:32
Speaker 1: That's much better, honestly for the fixer, for the federal
34:35
Speaker 1: government and every state government. Competence zar. Let's do it.
34:39
Speaker 2: I love it. Let's make it happen.
34:40
Speaker 1: Well.
34:40
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on normally. Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
34:44
Speaker 2: and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get
34:47
Speaker 2: in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail dot com.
34:50
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally