Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: Trump’s Global Meetings, Left-Wing Disarray, and the Debate Over Designer Babies

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Normally Podcast: Trump’s Global Meetings, Left-Wing Disarray, and the Debate Over Designer Babies · Normally

0:04
Speaker 1: Hey guys, you're back on normally the show Normalist takes
0:07
Speaker 1: when the news gets weird.
0:09
Speaker 2: I'm Mary Doubor New and I'm Carol Markowitz. Very happy
0:12
Speaker 2: to have you back. Mary. Catherine Gates Garcia from The
0:15
Speaker 2: People podcast did a fantastic job as a guest Hols,
0:19
Speaker 2: but it is so nice to have you back. And uh,
0:22
Speaker 2: let's do this.
0:23
Speaker 1: Let's do it talking foreign policy us off. Yes, they
0:29
Speaker 1: will have a summit at the White House, and by
0:32
Speaker 1: day I mean everybody.
0:33
Speaker 2: Everybody in the whole world.
0:36
Speaker 3: So over the.
0:37
Speaker 2: Weekend, Yeah, started up. Over the weekend, Donald Trump met
0:39
Speaker 2: with Vladimir Putin, and as we're recording this, he's going
0:43
Speaker 2: to be meeting with Vladimir Zelenski. We're not going to
0:47
Speaker 2: get too into these meetings because we don't know what
0:50
Speaker 2: news will we made today, but we'll maybe say more
0:53
Speaker 2: about it on Wednesday, depending on what happens. I will
0:57
Speaker 2: say that people who openly want Trump to fail, we're
1:02
Speaker 2: very out there this weekend and I did not appreciate it.
1:04
Speaker 2: And I say this as somebody who has no love
1:07
Speaker 2: for Russia, which is I could wave my magic wand
1:09
Speaker 2: and have Ukraine when this war thinks Ukraine has done
1:13
Speaker 2: a fantastic job of holding Russia back. Still thinks that
1:17
Speaker 2: probably they need to reach some sort of compromise. And
1:20
Speaker 2: while it's unfortunate to give Russia anything, I think that's
1:23
Speaker 2: probably where it's going to end up, to end this thing.
1:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think if you set the table and say, Okay,
1:30
Speaker 1: what did I like and not like about Trump going
1:32
Speaker 1: to Alaska?
1:33
Speaker 3: Loved that.
1:35
Speaker 1: I think it's good that we're meeting in Alaska. It
1:37
Speaker 1: was an American site, not a neutral site. As a result,
1:40
Speaker 1: the B two bomber and we're so cool fly right
1:43
Speaker 1: over Putin's head as that arrived.
1:45
Speaker 2: I mean I heard people call that like some sort
1:48
Speaker 2: of like pro putent move. I did see that as
1:52
Speaker 2: a pro putent move at all. I thought that as
1:55
Speaker 2: FAFO bro, like you know.
1:59
Speaker 3: You owned the sky.
2:00
Speaker 1: This is an unambiguous flex of American military might. And
2:05
Speaker 1: Putin is a power dude, right, Like that's what he
2:09
Speaker 1: reads has power and there it is, right in front
2:12
Speaker 1: of your face.
2:12
Speaker 3: So I liked that.
2:13
Speaker 4: I worry about Trump being unduly influenced.
2:17
Speaker 3: By the guy he last talked to, and that guy
2:20
Speaker 3: is Putin.
2:21
Speaker 1: We don't like that, however, it sounds like Putin, as
2:25
Speaker 1: you might expect, wasn't interested in peace. In that moment,
2:30
Speaker 1: everyone flew back home. Trump calls the Euros, he calls
2:36
Speaker 1: the Eros, the Euros who he kind of likes right
2:39
Speaker 1: now because NATO's doing the things that he wanted NATO
2:42
Speaker 1: to do. He calls them up and he's like, ah,
2:45
Speaker 1: you know, I could be open to some security assurances
2:47
Speaker 1: from the West. This guy maybe kind of ticked him off.
2:51
Speaker 1: Putin ticked him off again by seeming like he's playing him. Milania,
2:55
Speaker 1: Trump sends this letter that's like, hey, you guys, shouldn't
2:58
Speaker 1: be kidnapping Ukrainian children.
3:00
Speaker 3: Love that from her.
3:01
Speaker 1: Sure, So the combo of those things made me think,
3:04
Speaker 1: as we go into this European meeting, Okay, we're in
3:07
Speaker 1: a decent place to have a saying back and forth
3:12
Speaker 1: about what this might look like.
3:13
Speaker 2: That's right. I just thought that. You know, I think
3:17
Speaker 2: back to when Biden was president, when Obama was president.
3:20
Speaker 2: I still wanted America to win, and I hate that
3:25
Speaker 2: there is this sense of like Donald Trump, I hate him,
3:28
Speaker 2: and therefore he's giving Putin everything that he wants. I
3:31
Speaker 2: just don't see him like that at all. Look is
3:34
Speaker 2: he susceptible to flattery. Absolutely. We've talked about it a
3:37
Speaker 2: lot in the show. It's one of my major concerns
3:39
Speaker 2: about him. He has somewhat got it in check this time.
3:43
Speaker 2: Although he did love Putin talking about how mail in
3:46
Speaker 2: voting shouldn't.
3:47
Speaker 3: Be a thing.
3:48
Speaker 2: He's like, you're absolutely right, mail in voting shouldn't be
3:51
Speaker 2: a thing. And I happen to agree with that, but
3:53
Speaker 2: I don't love that Putin was the one who kind
3:55
Speaker 2: of got him spurred into action on this. I will
4:00
Speaker 2: say that people who expected some sort of ceasefire to
4:03
Speaker 2: come out of that meeting, I don't entirely understand what
4:06
Speaker 2: they're talking about. We have a clip of Secretary of
4:10
Speaker 2: State Rubio on Maria Bertz Romo's show talking about this issue,
4:16
Speaker 2: and let's roll that clip because I agree with Rubio.
4:19
Speaker 2: Why did President Trump's meeting with Putin end with no ceasefire?
4:24
Speaker 4: And what does Putin want?
4:27
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, a couple things.
4:29
Speaker 6: First of all, if you recall that there's no way
4:31
Speaker 6: you can have a meeting like that, and we never
4:33
Speaker 6: said there was going to be a deal coming out
4:34
Speaker 6: of the meeting because the Ukrainians are not there. This
4:37
Speaker 6: is a war between two countries. It's not America, Ukraine
4:39
Speaker 6: and Russia. We met with a Russian side, We've spoken
4:42
Speaker 6: repeatedly with the Ukrainian side. We'll see them again tomorrow
4:45
Speaker 6: in person, along with our allies in Europe. So I
4:48
Speaker 6: do think some progress was made in that talk in
4:50
Speaker 6: terms of narrowing down the issue set. And now these
4:52
Speaker 6: are hard issues that remain, you know, the conversation about
4:55
Speaker 6: where the territorial lines are going to be, Questions about
4:58
Speaker 6: long term security guarantees and who Ukraine can have military
5:01
Speaker 6: alliances with, things like that. These are difficult things. But
5:04
Speaker 6: I do believe we've made progress in narrowing down the
5:06
Speaker 6: issue set, but there's a lot of work that remains.
5:09
Speaker 6: They're still this is a there's a reason why this
5:11
Speaker 6: war has been going on for three and a half years.
5:12
Speaker 6: It's a war that never would have happened had President
5:14
Speaker 6: Trump been president, but he inherited it and now he's
5:17
Speaker 6: trying to do everything he can to bring about peace.
5:18
Speaker 6: He's made peace a priority of his administration. As you've
5:21
Speaker 6: seen with all the peace deals we've been able to
5:23
Speaker 6: achieve throughout the world, this one's the hardest one. Everyone
5:25
Speaker 6: acknowledges that, but he's the only one in the world
5:27
Speaker 6: that has any chance of doing it. Look, peace may
5:29
Speaker 6: not be possible at the end of the day, we
5:31
Speaker 6: don't know. But if it is possible, he's the only
5:33
Speaker 6: one that can get it done. And that's why everyone's
5:35
Speaker 6: asking him. They're asking him to meet with Putin and
5:37
Speaker 6: they're also asking him to come here tomorrow and meet
5:39
Speaker 6: with him to talk further about what we do next.
5:43
Speaker 2: You can't have peace talks without both sides present, So
5:47
Speaker 2: I think people need to dial down their expectations. I
5:49
Speaker 2: think what Rubio said there's correct. I'm not sure this
5:51
Speaker 2: is the hardest peace deal. I think Israel Palestinians might
5:55
Speaker 2: be up there with this one. But I agree that
5:58
Speaker 2: Trump is trying to produced peace deals wherever he can.
6:02
Speaker 2: I like that America is back as a leader on
6:05
Speaker 2: the world stage where people do look to us for
6:08
Speaker 2: that kind of thing, including the aforementioned Euros, who, for
6:12
Speaker 2: all their the dislike of Trump, for all of their
6:15
Speaker 2: talking down about America, when things get real, they look
6:19
Speaker 2: at us like, hey, guys, what are we going to
6:20
Speaker 2: do because we're kind of the last line on that. Yeah.
6:24
Speaker 1: I think, Look, he's had some successes there were India
6:26
Speaker 1: Pakistan skirmishes that the US got involved with, and then
6:29
Speaker 1: there were no skirmishes, Democratic Republic of Congo peace talks,
6:35
Speaker 1: the Azerbaijani Armenian So he's had actual wins is here,
6:40
Speaker 1: and I think he hopes to have a success here
6:43
Speaker 1: as well. It's also worth noting that unlike a democratic president,
6:47
Speaker 1: he has a clear red line that he will observe,
6:50
Speaker 1: as illustrated by the Iranian strike on the nuclear sites, right,
6:55
Speaker 1: this is or the strike on Iranian nuclear sites. When
6:58
Speaker 1: someone has a red line like that, it makes them
7:00
Speaker 1: more credible for having these discussions. So that makes me
7:04
Speaker 1: more comfortable. And I'm a shot of people are stuck
7:07
Speaker 1: in like twenty seventeen and their idea that Trump is
7:11
Speaker 1: a Russian asset and has been fiction from the beginning, right,
7:15
Speaker 1: that he is therefore so easy on Putin. No, he's
7:20
Speaker 1: always been rhetorically squishy on Russia and on Putin in
7:23
Speaker 1: a way I don't like, but not materially exactly, with
7:27
Speaker 1: sanctions and other actions, has actually been quite good. And
7:31
Speaker 1: I think you've got to get out of that mindset
7:33
Speaker 1: and a traditional sort of foreign policy mindset when you're
7:36
Speaker 1: talking about Trump because people are like always elevating him,
7:39
Speaker 1: always doing this.
7:40
Speaker 3: All these things are terrible.
7:42
Speaker 1: Trump is so unpredictable and like someone people think does
7:48
Speaker 1: have a red line that he can produce different results.
7:52
Speaker 1: And honestly, we've been dealing with Russia or North Korea
7:54
Speaker 1: or all these intractable actors in such a way for
7:57
Speaker 1: so long. I am open, as I was with North Korea,
8:00
Speaker 1: to trying something.
8:02
Speaker 3: I don't know what to pass.
8:04
Speaker 2: Yep, something new needs to be tried again. I say
8:09
Speaker 2: this as somebody who's just anti the country of Russia,
8:12
Speaker 2: even though I have family there. I'm not again to Russians.
8:14
Speaker 2: I'm anti the country of Russia. And still I want
8:18
Speaker 2: to see a resolution here. I want to see a
8:22
Speaker 2: piece deal. I want to see an end to just
8:25
Speaker 2: the meat grinder on both sides, the endless death. You know,
8:31
Speaker 2: we want to see it over. And that's where Donald
8:33
Speaker 2: Trump is coming from too, and.
8:35
Speaker 4: We shall have more news on that in the future.
8:37
Speaker 3: We will be back on normally in just a.
8:38
Speaker 2: Second, Welcome back to normally, where we could easily have
8:45
Speaker 2: a segment called what is going on with the Left,
8:49
Speaker 2: because they are in such a funky place right now.
8:52
Speaker 2: I've not seen this kind of disarray on the left.
8:56
Speaker 2: I would say maybe in my lifetime. It's like every
8:58
Speaker 2: time anything happened on the left, they still were this
9:02
Speaker 2: cohesive unit in my opinion, maybe because I always saw
9:05
Speaker 2: Republicans and the right as just spread out in so
9:09
Speaker 2: many different factions, and there's always some kind of like
9:12
Speaker 2: underlying thing. It's never just you're a conservative, you're a
9:14
Speaker 2: tea party conservative, or you're you know, a nationalist conservative,
9:18
Speaker 2: you're America First, or you're a mego or whatever. There's
9:20
Speaker 2: always like factions, Whereas the left I always saw is
9:24
Speaker 2: kind of get fall into line and do as you're told.
9:28
Speaker 2: You know. Hillary Clinton, it was never confirmed that she
9:30
Speaker 2: said this, but she said about John Kerry in two
9:33
Speaker 2: thousand and four, you don't have to fall in love,
9:35
Speaker 2: you just have to fall in line. And that's how
9:38
Speaker 2: I've always viewed them. But right now it is a
9:40
Speaker 2: time of just disarray on the left. I love to
9:43
Speaker 2: see it personally, but it's also like fun to watch
9:46
Speaker 2: because there's a lot of like funny, funny stuff going on. Like,
9:50
Speaker 2: for example, ex FBI director made a video about how
9:56
Speaker 2: much he loves Taylor Swift.
9:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, James Comey took to the selfie video style to deliver.
10:04
Speaker 2: One behind like you know, like not moving next to
10:07
Speaker 2: a wall, like odd.
10:09
Speaker 3: And clearly scripted. Right, Yeah, it looked like a prompter.
10:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, at least do it like crying in your car.
10:15
Speaker 7: Man.
10:18
Speaker 1: So here he is in front of a blank wall
10:19
Speaker 1: giving a scripted selfie video that is about Taylor Swift
10:23
Speaker 1: as a model.
10:24
Speaker 3: For how to respond to Trump.
10:26
Speaker 1: And we have a minute of it just so you
10:28
Speaker 1: can hear this and understand this man led federal law enforcement.
10:33
Speaker 3: Just go ahead.
10:35
Speaker 5: Of course, we need to stand up to jerks and
10:37
Speaker 5: defend what matters, but I think we have to try
10:40
Speaker 5: to do that without becoming like them, which is what
10:44
Speaker 5: makes me think about Taylor Swift. She's made clear that
10:48
Speaker 5: she sees Donald Trump for what he is, and last
10:51
Speaker 5: year she urged Americans not to make the serious mistake
10:54
Speaker 5: of electing him. Of course, we're now living with the
10:57
Speaker 5: consequences of that mistake. But while our elderly, makeup covered
11:01
Speaker 5: president is posting about whether Taylor Swift is still hot
11:05
Speaker 5: and declaring that he can't stand her, what's she doing
11:10
Speaker 5: living her best life producing great music, and as she
11:14
Speaker 5: urged all of us to do, during the podcast, not
11:17
Speaker 5: giving the jerks power over her mind, she said something
11:21
Speaker 5: about dealing with Internet trolls that stuck with me. Think
11:25
Speaker 5: of your energy as if it's expensive, she said, as
11:29
Speaker 5: if it's like a luxury item. Not everyone can afford it.
11:34
Speaker 2: All that goes on for five minutes. It was so weird.
11:38
Speaker 2: We debated whether we should play the full five minutes
11:40
Speaker 2: because you kind of need to hear it to understand
11:43
Speaker 2: how loopy it is to the whole thing. But basically
11:47
Speaker 2: he kept coming back to like Taylor Swift said, and
11:49
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift and look, I love Taylor Swift. I have
11:54
Speaker 2: no problem with call me being a swiftye. I have
11:56
Speaker 2: a problem with him being a weirdo. And I think
11:58
Speaker 2: even those who hope to like a Republicans are so goofy,
12:02
Speaker 2: you know, picking up on this or whatever. The Daily
12:04
Speaker 2: Beast headline was Mega melts down over James Comey's creepy
12:09
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift video because it was creepy and it was weird,
12:13
Speaker 2: and he talks about bullying, he talks about being a troll.
12:17
Speaker 2: I see him as that. He recently said he was
12:19
Speaker 2: walking on a beach and came across this shell formation
12:22
Speaker 2: that had eighty six forty seven, which means end forty seven.
12:25
Speaker 2: It's a scene sort of as a death threat to
12:28
Speaker 2: President Trump. How is that not being a bully? How
12:32
Speaker 2: is that not being a troll? I just the whole
12:36
Speaker 2: idea of him is wild to me because he had
12:39
Speaker 2: such an important job and he's clearly clearly not cut
12:44
Speaker 2: out for that.
12:45
Speaker 1: Right Like he has an impulse control problem. He responds
12:48
Speaker 1: too much to online adulation and online responses and attention.
12:55
Speaker 1: It makes me uncomfortable that he was the head of
12:58
Speaker 1: the FBI.
12:59
Speaker 4: I think someone missed something major.
13:03
Speaker 1: Red flags about this guy as he was coming through
13:06
Speaker 1: the ranks. And the left rightly can point out like
13:09
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's a big weirdo who responds to attention as well.
13:12
Speaker 3: Yes, a duly elected one.
13:13
Speaker 1: Yes, it's true. But one of the reasons that people
13:17
Speaker 1: vote for Trump, as you and I have noted, is
13:20
Speaker 1: that he ends up looking like the more normal yes
13:22
Speaker 1: option when you've got doing five minutes on this message.
13:28
Speaker 1: And by the way, I do I actually agree with
13:30
Speaker 1: the message. She's right about your attention and trolls. Yeah, yeah,
13:34
Speaker 1: Taylor's wisdom is correct. It's just he is.
13:39
Speaker 4: A real odd ball and not in an endearing way.
13:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I just I kept waiting for him to start,
13:46
Speaker 2: like putting on his makeup or showing us the outfit of.
13:48
Speaker 3: The day, because you're ready with me.
13:49
Speaker 2: So odd. It was so odd. Meanwhile, the New York
13:53
Speaker 2: Times is also having a normal one wondering why the
13:56
Speaker 2: military hasn't stopped Trump.
13:58
Speaker 1: Yes, so the headline is we used to think the
14:00
Speaker 1: military would stand up to Trump.
14:02
Speaker 3: We were wrong.
14:04
Speaker 1: And it starts with by ordering eight hundred National Guard
14:07
Speaker 1: troops to Washington on the pretext of an illusory crime wave,
14:10
Speaker 1: President Trump has further dragged the US military into domestic
14:13
Speaker 1: law enforcement in a move credibly perceived as an ominous
14:17
Speaker 1: test case. This continues what the administration started in California
14:20
Speaker 1: in June as part of its deportation efforts. Unfortunately, though
14:24
Speaker 1: we and others had hoped the military would only respond
14:27
Speaker 1: to calls to action in American cities and states kicking
14:30
Speaker 1: and screaming, we no longer expect resistance from that institution.
14:35
Speaker 1: Once perhaps traditionalist officers might have leaned on protocol and
14:38
Speaker 1: refused to heed a lawless order, taking inspiration from the
14:41
Speaker 1: generals Mark Milly and James Mattis, who resisted the uprooting
14:45
Speaker 1: of established military standards in the first Trump term. But
14:48
Speaker 1: today general officers no longer seem to see themselves as
14:51
Speaker 1: guardians of the constitutional order.
14:54
Speaker 4: This is the constitutional right.
14:57
Speaker 2: My fifteen year old saw the headline, we usually think
14:59
Speaker 2: the military you would stand up to Trump. We were
15:01
Speaker 2: wrong over my shoulder and she's like, why did you
15:03
Speaker 2: think that? Have you heard of the military? Do you
15:06
Speaker 2: know about chain of command. She's not a particularly political person,
15:09
Speaker 2: She's just like, why would you imagine the military would
15:13
Speaker 2: not take quorterers from the commander in chief. This piece
15:16
Speaker 2: was written by Stephen Simon and Jonathan Stephenson. Mister Simon
15:21
Speaker 2: held senior positions in the State Department out of the
15:24
Speaker 2: National Security Council, and mister Stevenson served on the National
15:27
Speaker 2: Security Council staff during the Obama administration. This does nothing
15:31
Speaker 2: to dispel the idea that there is a deep state
15:34
Speaker 2: operating that thinks that unelected bureaucrats should do what they want,
15:40
Speaker 2: and the president of the United States was elected by
15:42
Speaker 2: the American people, should not. I don't know how The
15:46
Speaker 2: New York Times doesn't see that. It's a problem to
15:49
Speaker 2: put this opinion out into the world that this is
15:52
Speaker 2: a crazy, crazy thing to say.
15:54
Speaker 1: Well that your position is that to preserve democracy and
15:58
Speaker 1: all the norms, we should have a military coup wherein
16:04
Speaker 1: the military does not obey the chain of command that
16:07
Speaker 1: includes the duly elected president of the United States of America. Now, look,
16:10
Speaker 1: that's a take, that's a big one. Fine, that's your take.
16:16
Speaker 1: I disagree with that. Please don't come at me with
16:20
Speaker 1: I'm the one who wants to preserve democracy, because I
16:22
Speaker 1: do not believe you are anyway.
16:24
Speaker 4: And this is what the left always does is they
16:27
Speaker 4: use Trump.
16:29
Speaker 3: To justify the things that they kind of wanted to do.
16:31
Speaker 3: Anyway to the constitution.
16:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, certainly, the far left ones are just like, this
16:35
Speaker 1: constitution is lame. The government should operate in much more
16:39
Speaker 1: lefty ways. Let's just allow it to do that by
16:42
Speaker 1: any means necessary. And this is a confession of that.
16:45
Speaker 1: And by the way, specifically with DC, he absolutely has the.
16:50
Speaker 3: Power to call the National Guard.
16:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, easy, because it is a federal district and it
16:55
Speaker 1: is operating differently than states that have governors.
16:59
Speaker 3: I happy to argue with you.
17:00
Speaker 4: About whether it's needed, whether it's working, all those things,
17:03
Speaker 4: but he absolutely has the power to do it.
17:05
Speaker 1: It is not authoritarianism to call them in on its
17:09
Speaker 1: face to talk.
17:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, speaking of the New York Times not thinking
17:13
Speaker 2: the Constitution is very important, ross do that The Conservative
17:17
Speaker 2: about The New York Times interviewed author Osita non Nivu
17:21
Speaker 2: about his new book, quote, The Right of the People,
17:24
Speaker 2: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding. The
17:27
Speaker 2: title of that exchange on the New York Times page
17:30
Speaker 2: was abolish the Senate and then electoral college, pack the court.
17:34
Speaker 2: Why the left can't win without a new constitution. I mean,
17:37
Speaker 2: you can't just admit it out loud like that. Guys, Yeah,
17:40
Speaker 2: leave something to the imagination. While the left can't win
17:43
Speaker 2: without a new constitution. You can't win according to the
17:46
Speaker 2: rules of the game as established, So you need something new.
17:50
Speaker 2: I don't think the American people are going to be
17:51
Speaker 2: into that.
17:52
Speaker 1: No, And I just like when I read that headline,
17:54
Speaker 1: I was like, this is why I can never side
17:56
Speaker 1: with y'all.
17:56
Speaker 3: Right.
17:58
Speaker 1: I like the Constitution, Yeah, I like its limitations, and
18:03
Speaker 1: the gaslighting part of it heaps on my already large
18:08
Speaker 1: annoyance with this where it's like we're the saviors of
18:11
Speaker 1: democracy and the way that we're saving democracy is to
18:14
Speaker 1: ignore all the rules because we decided that we don't
18:18
Speaker 1: like this person, and therefore wet project all this rule
18:20
Speaker 1: breaking on him as he goes through the courts, as
18:23
Speaker 1: he exerts power over DC in a way that is
18:26
Speaker 1: constitutionally totally allowed, and then that gives us leave to
18:30
Speaker 1: do what we want. Beto o'rourk, you remember him, the
18:33
Speaker 1: failed failed candidate many times over in Texas. Who are
18:38
Speaker 1: we are always told is a rising star who's going
18:41
Speaker 1: to really the country by storm. He had something to
18:45
Speaker 1: say about that in light of the Texas redistricting battle
18:49
Speaker 1: that we've been talking about, which California is now going
18:52
Speaker 1: to retaliate or Newsom is attempting to. Here's Beta Araark's
18:56
Speaker 1: take on following the rules and saving democracy in every other.
19:00
Speaker 7: State where the Democrats hold the governor's mansion, the Assembly,
19:04
Speaker 7: and the state Senate to redraw their congressional districts, now
19:08
Speaker 7: not wait for Texas to move first to maximize Democratic
19:12
Speaker 7: party advantage. Listen, you may say to yourself, well.
19:16
Speaker 4: Those aren't the rules.
19:17
Speaker 7: There are no reps in this game. Fuck the rules.
19:19
Speaker 7: We are gonna win whatever it takes. We're gonna take
19:23
Speaker 7: this to them in every way.
19:24
Speaker 2: That we can.
19:26
Speaker 1: Okay, I love the text line under that his chiron
19:30
Speaker 1: is such and such to stop Trump's power grap.
19:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean. The joke, of course, also is that
19:39
Speaker 2: all of the Democratic states have already redistricted themselves into
19:43
Speaker 2: like oblivion where there are no Republican congressional districts, or
19:48
Speaker 2: there are very very few. There was actually a New
19:50
Speaker 2: York Times story two days ago in a wider redistricting war.
19:54
Speaker 2: Republicans have an advantage, yeah, because the Blue states have
19:57
Speaker 2: already done this to such an extent that they can't
20:00
Speaker 2: do it anymore. They've done the max. They've already drawn
20:03
Speaker 2: all the little squiggly lines around their states and made
20:05
Speaker 2: it as democrat as possible. So if the Battos of
20:08
Speaker 2: the world want to do this, Republicans have to be like, sure,
20:12
Speaker 2: let's do it.
20:13
Speaker 7: Right.
20:13
Speaker 1: They always ignore their own escalations, right, they have to
20:19
Speaker 1: just wipe that out. So the Smithsonian fight is another
20:22
Speaker 1: good one, right where Trump says We're going to review
20:25
Speaker 1: Smithsonian exhibits inside the Smithsonian in all of these wonderful
20:30
Speaker 1: free museums, and the left is like, oh my gosh,
20:34
Speaker 1: can you believe this. He is politicizing history. He's going
20:37
Speaker 1: to remove anything he doesn't like. Now, I am wary
20:40
Speaker 1: about any government, any partisan entity doing this work and
20:44
Speaker 1: removing things they don't like.
20:45
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
20:46
Speaker 1: What they're ignoring is that the left took over all
20:50
Speaker 1: the Smithsonians' exhibits and has turned them into social justice
20:54
Speaker 1: lectures on every front, and they just want us to
20:58
Speaker 1: leave that untouched, their cultural victory and we must observe
21:03
Speaker 1: it with perfect obeisance at this.
21:05
Speaker 2: Point, Yeah, I don't think we should do that. So
21:09
Speaker 2: I think that the left needs to be taught a
21:11
Speaker 2: lesson about what they've done over the last few years.
21:14
Speaker 2: I think it's way past the time for them to
21:18
Speaker 2: understand that they can't go on the way that they've
21:20
Speaker 2: been going. And you can't listen to Beto again. Try it,
21:24
Speaker 2: but you will find that you've already done all the
21:27
Speaker 2: things that he suggests you do without following any rules.
21:31
Speaker 2: Last note on this, MSNBC has changed their name and
21:36
Speaker 2: it is weird. It is really weird they're going with
21:40
Speaker 2: ms now. That sounds i'm sorry, like a multiple sclerosis
21:45
Speaker 2: maybe group or something like that. I saw somebody point
21:49
Speaker 2: out that it sounds maybe like Miss magazine and the
21:52
Speaker 2: National Organization Women Sounds.
21:55
Speaker 1: I said, it sounds like a new, fast acting version
21:57
Speaker 1: of MIT al brings up like weird associations.
22:03
Speaker 3: I don't know why.
22:04
Speaker 1: It's like HBO Max when they locked off HBO. But
22:07
Speaker 1: it's not the thing we know. Don't go with that one.
22:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just weird. And I don't know what they're
22:13
Speaker 2: trying to be. I don't think that they're trying to
22:16
Speaker 2: appeal to a wider audience. I think they're trying to
22:18
Speaker 2: lock down their left audience. I'm not sure why they
22:21
Speaker 2: would change the name to make that happen. It's an
22:25
Speaker 2: awful rebrand, awful logo.
22:28
Speaker 1: One last thing on Dems acting odd. Have you seen
22:33
Speaker 1: the Newsome office tweets? Oh my god, So Gavin Newsom's
22:37
Speaker 1: press office has taken on a satirical version of Trump
22:42
Speaker 1: like posting. It's getting a lot of attention, So for
22:46
Speaker 1: that part it has been effective. They tweet in all caps,
22:51
Speaker 1: they use Trumpian like exaggerations and phrases.
22:55
Speaker 3: I don't know.
22:57
Speaker 1: It is amusing at times. I think it's already wearing
23:00
Speaker 1: a little thin. Yeah, and I keep getting these weird
23:02
Speaker 1: all caps and AI constructions in my for you column
23:07
Speaker 1: on X right.
23:08
Speaker 3: And the thing about.
23:11
Speaker 4: What Trump does is that even as a joke, yeah,
23:15
Speaker 4: and he's half joke himself, like his postings sometimes are
23:18
Speaker 4: just goofs, it only works for him.
23:22
Speaker 2: It's because it's real, because it actually is him. He's
23:25
Speaker 2: not imitating somebody, he's not trying to be somebody else.
23:28
Speaker 2: You don't have to like it, but it's him for real.
23:32
Speaker 2: And the fact that Gavin Newsom doesn't have a hymn
23:34
Speaker 2: for real personality is a problem.
23:38
Speaker 3: For a personality transplant.
23:40
Speaker 1: They're like, well, let's just plug something in here, I
23:42
Speaker 1: see how it goes. Anyway, you can look for those
23:45
Speaker 1: all caps postings if you wish to.
23:48
Speaker 2: Up to you if you need to.
23:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, we will be right back normally with a new
23:54
Speaker 1: trend in designer babies.
24:00
Speaker 2: Welcome back to normally where we don't think that you
24:04
Speaker 2: should be designing your perfect baby. But we seem to
24:07
Speaker 2: be in the ever growing minority on this. I am
24:10
Speaker 2: not sure exactly why so many people have decided that
24:16
Speaker 2: you must make a perfect child, you must make a
24:20
Speaker 2: baby that has no issues whatsoever, or no potential issues whatsoever.
24:25
Speaker 2: This all started with a piece in the Times, The
24:29
Speaker 2: next parenting trend starts before conception for as little as
24:32
Speaker 2: twenty five hundred. You can choose your future baby, should you.
24:36
Speaker 2: And it's about this company called Orchid where they do
24:40
Speaker 2: embryo screening and the world's first whole genome embryo screen
24:46
Speaker 2: And the woman who runs the organization, nor Sidiki, tweets
24:52
Speaker 2: what if your baby never walks? What if they're neighbor
24:54
Speaker 2: never able to live independently? But if you could have
24:57
Speaker 2: stopped it but chose not to, That's the question. Or
25:00
Speaker 2: kid incs. Embryo screening forces you optimize everything career, diet, skincare,
25:06
Speaker 2: but you're going to chance it on your child's genome,
25:08
Speaker 2: one of the most significant determinants of their health. First
25:11
Speaker 2: of all, I don't optimize everything. Let's be real here.
25:14
Speaker 2: You know, I just had French toast for breakfast. I
25:18
Speaker 2: did not feel like I was optimizing my diet, nor
25:22
Speaker 2: my career, nor my skincare. It could all be much improved.
25:26
Speaker 2: I'll say that, you know, because I'm Ashkenazi Jewish, I
25:31
Speaker 2: carry a bunch of different stuff. And with every child
25:35
Speaker 2: I had, more tests became available, and when we had
25:39
Speaker 2: our third kid, the test came up as basically like,
25:43
Speaker 2: your child may be blind because you carry a blindness gene.
25:47
Speaker 2: And I thought about it because, you know, I obviously
25:50
Speaker 2: I was never going to abort, but you know, had
25:53
Speaker 2: I not already had two kids, I think this would
25:55
Speaker 2: have scared, you know, the crap out of me, because
25:58
Speaker 2: I already had two kids and they were fine. And
26:00
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't even know, like what this
26:02
Speaker 2: is anymore. I don't know why you're telling me this.
26:04
Speaker 2: I have two healthy children. The fact that I carry
26:08
Speaker 2: this gene does not actually mean that they're going to
26:10
Speaker 2: be blind. So you're giving me incorrect information. And I
26:13
Speaker 2: wonder how many kids are aborted because of information like that.
26:18
Speaker 1: And the New York Times has actually covered this admirably,
26:20
Speaker 1: the epidemic of false positives for really catastrophic health issues.
26:28
Speaker 3: That people get in utero, and that is what happens.
26:31
Speaker 1: And then they did a little deeper dive on exactly
26:33
Speaker 1: how reliable these tests are and it's not great. Yeah,
26:37
Speaker 1: So I wonder what we're setting ourselves up for here.
26:39
Speaker 3: I want to talk about.
26:41
Speaker 1: Nor Sidiki as possibly the worst spokesperson, Oh yeah, for anything. Ever,
26:47
Speaker 1: this is a thing that, as you point out. People
26:50
Speaker 1: have real concerns. I don't want to diminish those concerns.
26:53
Speaker 1: I feel very blessed to have four healthy children. You
26:57
Speaker 1: never know what life's going to throw at you. You
26:58
Speaker 1: really don't understand the desire to sort of control that
27:02
Speaker 1: and see what you can do to optimize it.
27:05
Speaker 3: I hate the.
27:07
Speaker 1: Idea of it as a skincare regimen. Right. My children
27:11
Speaker 1: aren't skincare regimen. They're a miracle created by their parents.
27:16
Speaker 1: But she is sort of a classic left leaning figure
27:23
Speaker 1: in that there is a clear moral issue here that
27:27
Speaker 1: we should talk about. And by the way, we called,
27:30
Speaker 1: you know, Sidney Sweeney a eugenicist, but this is.
27:33
Speaker 3: Fine, We're celebrating this.
27:36
Speaker 1: She doesn't recognize the moral dilemma at all, and is
27:39
Speaker 1: in fact horribly dismissive and nasty to anyone who has
27:44
Speaker 1: an issue with it. So the first one I noticed,
27:46
Speaker 1: first tweet I noticed from her says, most kids are
27:49
Speaker 1: born by accident, and yet we stigmatize parents who plan ahead,
27:52
Speaker 1: who screen and embryos to prevent deadly, now preventable diseases.
27:56
Speaker 1: If you wouldn't screen, fine, just beyond it. You're okay
28:01
Speaker 1: with your kid potentially suffering for life, so you can
28:04
Speaker 1: feel morally superior. Oh okay, calm down, nor no, your
28:11
Speaker 1: kid potentially suffering. You're we're protective of our children, like
28:15
Speaker 1: our children who exist.
28:17
Speaker 4: You're not eliminating disease. You're eliminating a person person with disease.
28:22
Speaker 3: That's what you're doing. So then someone asks her honest question,
28:26
Speaker 3: would you.
28:27
Speaker 1: Have destroyed our son with severe hypertrophic cardiomiopathy before he
28:31
Speaker 1: was born? She says, or kid doesn't decide which embryo's
28:35
Speaker 1: parents transfer the parents to. It's their call, their future,
28:38
Speaker 1: their call. Or's their family, their future, their call. What's
28:40
Speaker 1: actually insane is outsiders trying to deny families the right
28:44
Speaker 1: to know and choose for themselves. You don't get to
28:46
Speaker 1: hijack that decision and impose your morality on someone else's family.
28:50
Speaker 1: Her first tweet about the you being morally superior suggests
28:53
Speaker 1: she would gladly impose her morality on you, and is
28:57
Speaker 1: doing so currently. Then she says it genuinely surprises her
29:01
Speaker 1: that people don't support parents making the choice to gather
29:04
Speaker 1: more information or not and then decide what to do
29:07
Speaker 1: with that information. I hate this thing where people are
29:11
Speaker 1: like I'm just gonna slam people who disagree with me
29:13
Speaker 1: and be mystified that anyone would disagree, right.
29:16
Speaker 2: Right, Because she also in that same tweet you read,
29:19
Speaker 2: the last two lines were or because you know, you
29:23
Speaker 2: just be honest, you're okay with your kid potentially suffering
29:25
Speaker 2: for life so you could feel morely superior. And then
29:28
Speaker 2: the last line is because you can't be inconvenienced for
29:30
Speaker 2: two weeks to extract eggs and check for genetic issues
29:33
Speaker 2: before they develop. Dude, I mean that's not how I
29:38
Speaker 2: want to have a baby.
29:39
Speaker 4: She's unhinged.
29:42
Speaker 1: Ross Stalta is interviewing her in another New York Times
29:45
Speaker 1: podcast and he asks her about basically, like, if you
29:49
Speaker 1: want to remove the idea of procreation from the world
29:53
Speaker 1: as a physical act between two people who create a baby,
29:56
Speaker 1: isn't there something we lose in that exchange?
29:58
Speaker 3: Something human?
30:00
Speaker 1: And he reads it like a little segment of a poem,
30:01
Speaker 1: and he's quite emotional about it, and she.
30:04
Speaker 4: Just goes, what do you mean.
30:08
Speaker 3: It's like, I it is.
30:11
Speaker 1: It is an intellectual failing to take on something with
30:15
Speaker 1: all of these moral implications and not have considered any
30:19
Speaker 1: of them.
30:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's wild that there's so much defense of this, like,
30:25
Speaker 2: of course you'd want to have a perfect child. Well, yeah,
30:28
Speaker 2: having children, I you know, I had a I would
30:30
Speaker 2: say my obstetrician was a fairly leftist woman living in
30:37
Speaker 2: New York City. But one thing that she said to
30:39
Speaker 2: me at one point was having a baby is more
30:42
Speaker 2: art than science. And that's always how I've seen it.
30:44
Speaker 2: It's not supposed to be perfect. You're not supposed to
30:48
Speaker 2: design your your perfect little you know, specimen. It's an
30:53
Speaker 2: art project more than anything else, and it's something that
30:56
Speaker 2: you have to take the good and the bad. And
30:58
Speaker 2: even if you do design the perfect genome and the
31:02
Speaker 2: perfect healthy baby, you don't know what's going to happen.
31:06
Speaker 2: You don't know what life is going to bring. Are
31:08
Speaker 2: you throwing this kid out if something goes wrong, if
31:10
Speaker 2: they get into an accident, something happens to them. Of
31:13
Speaker 2: course not. So I really think that this creation of
31:17
Speaker 2: the perfect is it's weird and it's not something that
31:22
Speaker 2: we should get involved in.
31:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this sales pitch in particular is pretty repulsive.
31:28
Speaker 1: Basically every turn they should maybe think about hiring someone
31:31
Speaker 1: else to speak in public about.
31:32
Speaker 2: The body else.
31:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, by the way, I remember back in the days
31:35
Speaker 1: of when we were talking about stem cell research and
31:37
Speaker 1: all of that was.
31:38
Speaker 4: A big deal that I believe George W.
31:40
Speaker 1: Bush had sort of a bioethicist panel or people who
31:45
Speaker 1: actually sat around and thought about this, And I.
31:46
Speaker 3: Feel like we need to be doing more of that.
31:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, the ship is.
31:50
Speaker 1: The ship is sailing on a couple things quite quickly,
31:53
Speaker 1: so quickly we need a little more discussion about and
31:56
Speaker 1: this is one of them.
31:57
Speaker 2: Absolutely well, thanks for joining us. Normally Normally airs Tuesdays
32:01
Speaker 2: and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts.
32:05
Speaker 2: Get in touch with us at normallythepodat gmail dot com.
32:09
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally