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Normally Podcast: Wisconsin Supreme Court Race: A Cause for Concern? · Normally

0:03
Speaker 1: Hey guys, we are back on. Normally the show was normal.
0:06
Speaker 1: It takes but when the news gets weird. I am
0:09
Speaker 1: Mary Caps.
0:10
Speaker 2: And I'm Karl Marco.
0:11
Speaker 3: It's so nice to see you again, Mary Catherine.
0:13
Speaker 2: We had a wonderful day in our nation's capital yesterday.
0:17
Speaker 2: It was very busy, and I have to tell you,
0:20
Speaker 2: I just imagine you guys live like that all the time.
0:23
Speaker 2: I would just saying, you're like at the State Department
0:27
Speaker 2: seeing the first lady in a leopard coat dress every day.
0:31
Speaker 1: No, no, that's not how it goes.
0:32
Speaker 4: In fact, yesterday was a very DC day for us,
0:35
Speaker 4: and ironically we did not record while we were together.
0:38
Speaker 3: No, why would we do that.
0:40
Speaker 4: We we went to the State Department for the International
0:43
Speaker 4: Women of Courage event, which was wonderful and we got
0:47
Speaker 4: to miss any of the international activists who, at great
0:50
Speaker 4: risk to themselves and great pain at some times, are
0:55
Speaker 4: able to stand up for women in their communities, including one.
0:57
Speaker 1: Of the released hostages from is I Meet Susanna.
1:02
Speaker 4: We also saw Keith Siegel, who was recently released, and
1:05
Speaker 4: just as it's always a surprise to see someone you've
1:10
Speaker 4: been praying for, especially in dire circumstances, like that, and
1:13
Speaker 4: then to see him well in a room at the
1:15
Speaker 4: State Department having more d'eures that would be so happful.
1:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, that It really was so nice to see him.
1:22
Speaker 2: The whole event was really well done. Moving Marco Rubia spoke,
1:27
Speaker 2: the first lady spoke again. She looked phenomenal. I posted
1:32
Speaker 2: some pictures of her fit. Pam Bondi was there. Yeah,
1:37
Speaker 2: just a generally incredible event. And then you and I
1:42
Speaker 2: went and did something that we're only going to tell
1:44
Speaker 2: our listeners about as a little preview.
1:47
Speaker 3: But where we went you could tell, you could say,
1:49
Speaker 3: you could finish my thought.
1:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, we went over and recorded a little ruthless with
1:53
Speaker 4: the fellas. Yeah, that's a programming note, stay tuned for that.
1:58
Speaker 4: Check it out next week sometime.
2:00
Speaker 1: We'll let you guys know. Yeah, had a great time
2:02
Speaker 1: with them.
2:03
Speaker 4: Wandered around the city, got stuck in the cherry blossom traffic,
2:07
Speaker 4: which Carol did not believe was only because of cherry blossoms,
2:10
Speaker 4: and indeed, well not.
2:11
Speaker 3: Sure really, everybody just came to see trees.
2:14
Speaker 1: Yes, it's real.
2:16
Speaker 4: The city is a nightmare during peak bloom, as they
2:21
Speaker 4: call it, and this is peak bloom. It always comes
2:23
Speaker 4: on my birthday week. I always end up sort of
2:26
Speaker 4: half sick on my birthday week as a result, because
2:28
Speaker 4: the pollen is everywhere. Actually at Ruthless's Josh Holmes, who
2:32
Speaker 4: was on Special Report with me last night, which is
2:34
Speaker 4: how I ended my very DC day.
2:36
Speaker 1: So funny.
2:36
Speaker 2: Wait, you skipped the part where we have a drink
2:38
Speaker 2: with Seth Dylan that we just randomly ran into him.
2:41
Speaker 2: Another thing that I just imagine just happens in DC
2:43
Speaker 2: all the time. Oh hey, there's Seth Dylan from Babylon Bee,
2:47
Speaker 2: let's go grab a drink.
2:48
Speaker 1: How to drink with him?
2:49
Speaker 2: Like?
2:50
Speaker 1: It was very very posh.
2:52
Speaker 4: And then I went over to Special Report and Josh
2:54
Speaker 4: Holmes and I were talking about the cherry blossoms and
2:57
Speaker 4: how you didn't.
2:57
Speaker 1: Believe that the cherry blossoms created all these.
2:59
Speaker 3: Pubs, but they that's made up, okay.
3:01
Speaker 4: And Holmes said, I make I charted as the first
3:05
Speaker 4: act of international terrorism that the Japanese games.
3:10
Speaker 3: I see that.
3:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is every.
3:13
Speaker 4: Every spring break group, every family vacation, every like everyone
3:19
Speaker 4: is here. Yeah, all the school groups, they all come
3:22
Speaker 4: in on these couple of weeks.
3:24
Speaker 1: They want to see that.
3:24
Speaker 4: And truly if you ever want to see the cherry
3:28
Speaker 4: blossoms in DC. They're everywhere, so you don't have to
3:30
Speaker 4: go to the title basin, which is where everyone goes
3:32
Speaker 4: right around the Jefferson. But if you do go to
3:36
Speaker 4: the title basin, I am somewhat jaded, and I have
3:39
Speaker 4: just explained how the cherry blossoms are causing all these problems.
3:42
Speaker 4: But it is very beautiful and when you go, it
3:45
Speaker 4: is stunning. Go at sunrise, it's the only way to
3:49
Speaker 4: do it.
3:50
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. That means you have to get up, which
3:52
Speaker 1: is even worse sunrise all right, because there's no look
3:58
Speaker 1: at flowering trees at sunrise.
4:00
Speaker 3: I feel like you don't even know me.
4:03
Speaker 1: It wasn't a you.
4:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't tailored to you. That's correct.
4:07
Speaker 4: That pitch was not for you. Yeah, it's it's annoying,
4:11
Speaker 4: but it's the only time to see them without a
4:14
Speaker 4: gajillion people around. So you get your little Instagram shots
4:18
Speaker 4: with no one in them, like you own the title basin.
4:21
Speaker 2: That's a really good point for the instagrammers out there.
4:25
Speaker 2: Listen to Mary Catherine, go go take the pictures.
4:29
Speaker 1: Well, that was our that was our big DC day.
4:32
Speaker 1: And now I'm tired.
4:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was exhausting.
4:34
Speaker 3: Wow, we did a lot. I loved seeing you. It
4:37
Speaker 3: was a real good time.
4:38
Speaker 2: Next time, maybe we will record something together. Maybe we'll
4:41
Speaker 2: take our producer John with us.
4:42
Speaker 3: Maybe all three of us will go look at flowering trees.
4:45
Speaker 2: Well.
4:46
Speaker 4: I mean, also, by the way, now that I've already
4:48
Speaker 4: complained about all these petty little tiny things in my life,
4:51
Speaker 4: I should say that going to the International Women of
4:54
Speaker 4: Courage event and meeting activists from Sri Lanka and Lukina
4:57
Speaker 4: Faso and all of these places, U wonders for your
5:00
Speaker 4: perspective on how much you care about the traffic in
5:03
Speaker 4: your town when you're going from one event to another.
5:06
Speaker 1: Because true, too true.
5:08
Speaker 2: Yes, well, we have some news that we're going to
5:12
Speaker 2: be discussing. Yesterday there was a few special elections around
5:17
Speaker 2: the country. There were two in Florida for Congress, and
5:21
Speaker 2: there was one for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. One of
5:26
Speaker 2: those the Democrats won, and the two Florida ones were
5:30
Speaker 2: won by Republicans. So obviously the news today is Republicans
5:35
Speaker 2: crushed and defeated.
5:36
Speaker 3: And you know that's the end of that. You know,
5:40
Speaker 3: when one party gets a big.
5:41
Speaker 2: Win like Republicans had in November. There's always this sense
5:46
Speaker 2: like we will never lose again, we can't possibly lose.
5:49
Speaker 3: Look how good we're doing.
5:51
Speaker 2: And I never enjoy that.
5:54
Speaker 3: I always think we can lose. They can lose, we
5:58
Speaker 3: can lose.
5:58
Speaker 1: Everybody can lose, like.
5:59
Speaker 2: One of them all telling things to me in twenty sixteen.
6:02
Speaker 2: And I'll be honest, I did not think Donald Trump
6:04
Speaker 2: would win. It was a complete shock to me. But
6:08
Speaker 2: did I never even entertain that idea. That's crazy, that's
6:12
Speaker 2: a crazy thing to do one of the two major
6:15
Speaker 2: partner candidates.
6:16
Speaker 3: You didn't think it was possible for them to win.
6:19
Speaker 4: So what's going to happen is that after Trump is elected,
6:22
Speaker 4: there will be these elections that people read way too
6:25
Speaker 4: much into right And in Florida, of course, the results
6:29
Speaker 4: were great for Republicans, a sizeable win in these special
6:34
Speaker 4: elections in places that should have been safe for Republicans.
6:38
Speaker 4: But Democrats had been really touting we're going to spend
6:41
Speaker 4: a lot of money and they were gonna they were going.
6:44
Speaker 1: To really close the gap, if not beat these guys.
6:47
Speaker 1: And that's not what happened there.
6:50
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if that's not what happened. The
6:51
Speaker 2: Washington Post thinks that is what happened. The Washington Post
6:54
Speaker 2: thinks this was a success for Democrats. Their headline on
6:57
Speaker 2: this was Democrats won a Wisconsin Supreme Court race and
7:01
Speaker 2: lost to Florida special elections Tuesday. But the trends are
7:04
Speaker 2: clearly pointing in their direction.
7:07
Speaker 4: Many other races were called ten minutes after the polls closed.
7:11
Speaker 1: Barely ten minutes.
7:13
Speaker 2: They write, We've seen before that Trump voters just aren't
7:16
Speaker 2: as likely to show up for races that don't feature
7:19
Speaker 2: Trump after all. Again, not true. Ron DeSantis won by
7:23
Speaker 2: nineteen points. I think that that is just something that
7:27
Speaker 2: they make up. And this is really the quote that
7:29
Speaker 2: gets to me quote. In the end, Democrats overperformed their
7:33
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four margins by about sixteen points in the
7:37
Speaker 2: sixth district, which Trump won by thirty points, and about
7:40
Speaker 2: twenty two points in the first, which Trump had won
7:42
Speaker 2: by thirty seven. There have been about three dozen special
7:46
Speaker 2: elections for Congress since Trump was first elected president in
7:49
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen. Democrats twenty two point overperformance in Florida's first
7:54
Speaker 2: district was their best of any of those races, according
7:58
Speaker 2: to data compiled by down ballot daily cost elections. Their
8:02
Speaker 2: sixteen point overperformance in the sixth district was tied for
8:05
Speaker 2: their sixth best.
8:06
Speaker 1: Now, Okay, that sounds like a lot of ways to
8:09
Speaker 1: say we lost.
8:10
Speaker 2: That is some Mathew math.
8:14
Speaker 1: So I'm clear.
8:15
Speaker 2: The Democrats' best performance in a special election under Trump
8:20
Speaker 2: was in Florida's first district, which they lost by fourteen points.
8:24
Speaker 1: Like, may all their wins be this good?
8:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, Look, I think I think the Wisconsin one is
8:30
Speaker 4: more worrisome, obviously. Yeah, that's one to hang their hats on.
8:35
Speaker 4: Wisconsin Supreme court races have been nationalized for a while now,
8:40
Speaker 4: it's a very it's a it's a like operationally politicized
8:46
Speaker 4: state since the like since ten years ago, to such
8:51
Speaker 4: a degree that these special elections end up costing a
8:54
Speaker 4: lot of money, they end up having pretty like a
8:56
Speaker 4: for special election for it or for a supreme court election,
8:59
Speaker 4: fairly large turnout at tension nationally, the fact that this
9:06
Speaker 4: purple state that fell for Trump in twenty twenty four
9:11
Speaker 4: that Republicans. Here's the thing that concerns me about that
9:14
Speaker 4: is that Republicans seemed more optimistic about it than the
9:19
Speaker 4: numbers say in Wisconsin.
9:20
Speaker 1: So Wisconsin.
9:21
Speaker 4: They ended up losing by like ten or eleven points
9:24
Speaker 4: this Supreme Court seat, which will make a difference in
9:28
Speaker 4: the future, possibly for redistricting things and for the general
9:32
Speaker 4: well being of the state. The fact that they didn't
9:35
Speaker 4: seem to know that it would look that bad is
9:38
Speaker 4: a little concerning. There's a concern that Elon and Elon's
9:41
Speaker 4: spending might be polarizing to an extent that it actually
9:46
Speaker 4: hurts more than it helps, and I think that is
9:49
Speaker 4: something to be concerned about looking forward.
9:51
Speaker 3: Right, So I will say this.
9:53
Speaker 2: I have a polster that follows me. His name is
9:57
Speaker 2: Rick Schaftan, and he messaged me weeks ago saying we're
10:01
Speaker 2: not winning Wisconsin. And his thing was that his polls
10:04
Speaker 2: were showing that they that the Republican candidate was running
10:09
Speaker 2: on crime and that just wasn't an issue in the
10:12
Speaker 2: Supreme Court race, that the Wisconsin voters did not see
10:16
Speaker 2: crime as aligned.
10:17
Speaker 3: With the purpose of a Supreme Court justice there.
10:21
Speaker 2: So I'm just going to say that there were Republican
10:25
Speaker 2: operatives who were aware that this wasn't going to be
10:29
Speaker 2: a win, and it was like I really would tweet
10:31
Speaker 2: about it and post about it as well. It wasn't
10:33
Speaker 2: just sending me this information. This was something he had
10:36
Speaker 2: out there. So yeah, the fact that it was a
10:39
Speaker 2: surprise is maybe.
10:41
Speaker 3: For them probably mindset.
10:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm probably being too strong about it. Is.
10:45
Speaker 4: It concerns me that it was such a large margin, right,
10:50
Speaker 4: And I didn't expect that. I did expect it to
10:52
Speaker 4: be a close slash blue leaning race.
10:55
Speaker 3: For sure, Right.
10:56
Speaker 2: And look, the thing is, it makes sense that Democrats
10:59
Speaker 2: are more motivated right now. That makes a world of sense.
11:04
Speaker 2: Donald Trump just won this major election. It wasn't close.
11:09
Speaker 2: It was called the Night of It's just you know,
11:11
Speaker 2: he won every single swing state. Obviously they're going to
11:15
Speaker 2: be motivated to get out there, and that includes in Florida.
11:19
Speaker 2: But this spin today and I like it because I
11:23
Speaker 2: think it does break into the Republican we're never going
11:26
Speaker 2: to lose again mindset, which I hate so much and
11:30
Speaker 2: I want so.
11:31
Speaker 3: I didn't like the actual losing, but.
11:33
Speaker 2: I enjoy the break of that fantasy that Republicans could
11:37
Speaker 2: never lose again.
11:37
Speaker 3: And Democrats are.
11:38
Speaker 2: Their numbers are in the toilet and everybody hates them,
11:41
Speaker 2: and who could ever vote for a party with a
11:42
Speaker 2: twenty one percent approval rating? People do still do they
11:45
Speaker 2: still vote for that party because there's only two parties
11:48
Speaker 2: and you pick one of them.
11:49
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got to get out there and play
11:50
Speaker 1: the game. That's what game day is for. Yeah, I
11:54
Speaker 1: think you're right.
11:54
Speaker 4: There's a fine line about celebrating a win, which I
11:57
Speaker 4: think people should be able to do post November and
12:02
Speaker 4: turning that into what Obama thought, which is demographics's destiny,
12:07
Speaker 4: and what Democrats thought, which is like, that's never going.
12:09
Speaker 1: To end for us, And that wasn't true. It wasn't
12:14
Speaker 1: true by a long shot.
12:15
Speaker 4: In fact, the minority voting numbers for Trump were better
12:20
Speaker 4: than any republic candidate in recent memory, huge gains in
12:24
Speaker 4: those areas, devastating to Democrats on a lot of fronts.
12:28
Speaker 4: But the risks for Republicans are that many of those
12:32
Speaker 4: many of the voters that are new to the Republican
12:34
Speaker 4: Party are new voters period, making them lower propensity voters,
12:38
Speaker 4: less likely to be in these special elections and off
12:41
Speaker 4: yr elections, and they might not be very significantly tied
12:45
Speaker 4: to the Republican Party. And if you don't tie them
12:48
Speaker 4: to the Republican Party for a couple more cycles, they'll
12:50
Speaker 4: happily swing back over in a lot of cases. I
12:53
Speaker 4: remember a friend told me a friend was crowing about
12:58
Speaker 4: Obama's victory in two thousand and eight and North Carolina
13:00
Speaker 4: and declared it on Facebook like this is it North
13:04
Speaker 4: Carolina's Bluesta yep. And I just lightly said, like, that
13:08
Speaker 4: doesn't really happen that way, and she was like, you're
13:10
Speaker 4: out of your mind. Well, you can look at the
13:12
Speaker 4: polling results from the last couple of president's elections in.
13:15
Speaker 1: North Carolina and see how that went.
13:17
Speaker 2: These things change, yes, and fast, much faster than people think.
13:22
Speaker 2: I'm also I understand the blaming Elon, but I I'm not.
13:29
Speaker 3: Sure that he deserves the blame. I think he was
13:31
Speaker 3: trying to save.
13:32
Speaker 2: What was going to be a losing what was going on, yeah,
13:35
Speaker 2: a losing election anyway, Obviously he took a risk to
13:39
Speaker 2: his reputation by doing that. He took the hit, but
13:43
Speaker 2: I'm not sure, all things considered, that he actually played
13:47
Speaker 2: any kind of role in it.
13:48
Speaker 4: I think the I think there is a certain amount
13:52
Speaker 4: of polarization and activation that Elon creates as a character
13:56
Speaker 4: because he is so Elon forward.
13:59
Speaker 1: He is very all the way Elon, Yeah, all Elon
14:02
Speaker 1: all the time.
14:03
Speaker 4: But we should keep in mind that the elon as
14:07
Speaker 4: scapegoat game who both Democrats and Republicans, because Republicans can say,
14:13
Speaker 4: oh no, not all are our operatives, are our candidates,
14:16
Speaker 4: and Democrats can say, we love to blame this guy,
14:19
Speaker 4: and he.
14:19
Speaker 1: Gets our voters out. So there's some incentives at play there.
14:23
Speaker 2: Totally good point. Yeah, both sides do benefit from blaming
14:27
Speaker 2: the elon. Will be right back on normally. Today is
14:34
Speaker 2: also what Trump is calling Liberation Day. It is the
14:38
Speaker 2: day that tariffs would be kicking in, but a lot
14:43
Speaker 2: of countries are saying we're going to drop all US tariffs.
14:47
Speaker 3: Please don't do this to us.
14:49
Speaker 2: Now, I feel like I understood a lot about this.
14:53
Speaker 2: I've obviously been reading a lot more about tariffs in
14:55
Speaker 2: the last I mean, I would say since Trump really,
14:59
Speaker 2: in theory I'm a against tariffs, but in practice I
15:01
Speaker 2: had no idea how many countries had so many tariffs
15:06
Speaker 2: against American goods, and that was really new information to me. Again,
15:12
Speaker 2: in theory, I would love a free market. In practice
15:15
Speaker 2: we don't have a free market. So kind of looking
15:17
Speaker 2: forward to seeing where this goes. John Carney, a friend
15:21
Speaker 2: of mine, is a good financial writer. He had some
15:25
Speaker 2: interesting thoughts on tariffs. And I'm not going to read
15:29
Speaker 2: the whole thing. Go look up what he wrote, but
15:31
Speaker 2: he basically said, this is not a provocation, this is
15:35
Speaker 2: not a trade war.
15:36
Speaker 3: And I love this part.
15:37
Speaker 2: He said, this will not be the beginning of the
15:39
Speaker 2: trade war. It's the beginning of the end of the
15:42
Speaker 2: trade war the day America.
15:44
Speaker 3: Started fighting back.
15:45
Speaker 2: So we'll see, we'll see whether Americans enjoy the fighting
15:49
Speaker 2: back if prices go up. Obviously we've talked about how
15:52
Speaker 2: that might be a concern, but I'm kind of open
15:56
Speaker 2: to it. I'm kind of open to seeing where this goes.
15:59
Speaker 2: And I like that that that several countries have already
16:01
Speaker 2: said we're going to drop all the tariffs on American goods.
16:05
Speaker 4: Yeah. I was listening to Austin Goldsby was on Special
16:08
Speaker 4: Report last night, who's the He's in Obama's an economic team,
16:11
Speaker 4: but is now the chairman of the fed up in Chicago,
16:14
Speaker 4: and he was saying, like, in theory, yes, there is
16:17
Speaker 4: a way that this could be if it worked out
16:19
Speaker 4: not like a trade war, and it worked out like
16:22
Speaker 4: a disarmament of right exactly, then in fact, that wouldn't
16:28
Speaker 4: be as inflationary and you wouldn't have as many problems.
16:33
Speaker 4: I am concerned because, as I keep saying, look, if
16:37
Speaker 4: you have a nascent recovery or what I think we
16:41
Speaker 4: actually have, which is a very weak economy inherited from Biden,
16:45
Speaker 4: that is a little teetering, right, and you add a
16:49
Speaker 4: lot of uncertainty and a few tariffs, I think you're
16:53
Speaker 4: gonna end up in the market is obviously responding nervously
16:57
Speaker 4: to all of this. I think you're walking a dangerous
17:02
Speaker 4: line for a while here. And look, he was very
17:05
Speaker 4: clear that this was part of the package, right, and
17:09
Speaker 4: people knew that.
17:11
Speaker 1: Now. I prefer when.
17:13
Speaker 4: It goes very quickly, either used as a as a
17:16
Speaker 4: negotiating tactic, or that the other you know, the other
17:19
Speaker 4: country cries uncle quickly. But in cases like Canada, you know,
17:24
Speaker 4: buying Canadian instead of American has become a national pride
17:28
Speaker 4: movie that they're happy to do and pay a little
17:30
Speaker 4: bit more money. And so when you're animating those domestic
17:33
Speaker 4: forces against you, they don't always cry uncles so fast
17:36
Speaker 4: because they're like, hey, wait a second. But I think
17:39
Speaker 4: it's it's a point where worth making that This is
17:41
Speaker 4: kind of like Donald Trump and the culture war as well,
17:44
Speaker 4: where lefties were like.
17:45
Speaker 1: Look at him waging the culture war and.
17:46
Speaker 4: It's like, dudes, y'all, y'all are just mad that you
17:49
Speaker 4: finally have an opponent in the culture.
17:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, like he's he's pushing back on you.
17:56
Speaker 4: People are aggressing and now you're getting some back and
17:58
Speaker 4: you don't like it. So I think that's a point
18:00
Speaker 4: worth making that some of these unfair trade pricees are real,
18:03
Speaker 4: particularly from a place like China.
18:05
Speaker 1: I don't know our Canada so much, but like.
18:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's a very good point about the culture
18:09
Speaker 2: war and him actually fighting back again. I'm you know,
18:12
Speaker 2: I think we're in the same place, which is what
18:15
Speaker 2: we want to happen, is not what has been happening.
18:18
Speaker 2: So now we've got to try this way and we'll see,
18:21
Speaker 2: we'll see where this ends up. We're going to take
18:23
Speaker 2: a short break and come right back with Normally, you know,
18:30
Speaker 2: we talk about still Mad Bro segment on here, and
18:33
Speaker 2: it's often about COVID.
18:34
Speaker 3: But the other one that we're still mad Bro about.
18:38
Speaker 2: Is that Joe Biden was portrayed as competent and with
18:45
Speaker 2: it and completely sane and.
18:49
Speaker 1: Normal and you know, run in circles around his young staff.
18:53
Speaker 2: Right, they can't keep up with him, Mary Catherine, they
18:55
Speaker 2: cannot keep up with him, And anyone who questioned.
18:59
Speaker 3: It was just really hitting below the belt. They were
19:03
Speaker 3: posting some cheap bakes.
19:05
Speaker 1: Love the cheap bakes.
19:06
Speaker 2: So now the books are coming out and it turns out,
19:09
Speaker 2: and I know you're gonna be really surprised about this,
19:12
Speaker 2: but that they knew all along that he won.
19:15
Speaker 3: Actually up for the job.
19:18
Speaker 2: Yeah.
19:20
Speaker 1: Yes.
19:20
Speaker 4: Ron Kleen, who was the former White House Chief of Staff,
19:24
Speaker 4: has a new book out. He served from twenty twenty
19:27
Speaker 4: one to twenty twenty three, then returned to his side
19:30
Speaker 4: last June to run debate prep. This is the Guardian reporting.
19:33
Speaker 4: According to Klein, it turned out that Biden quote didn't
19:36
Speaker 4: know what Trump had been saying. I couldn't grasp what
19:39
Speaker 4: the back and forth, was left preparation and fell asleep
19:42
Speaker 4: by the pool. This is in the context of that
19:44
Speaker 4: disastrous tit.
19:45
Speaker 2: I feel you, I feel you, Joe. I also like
19:47
Speaker 2: sleeping by the pool.
19:49
Speaker 4: Obsessed about foreign leaders saying, these guys say I'm doing
19:52
Speaker 4: a great job as president, so I must be a
19:54
Speaker 4: great president. Quote didn't really understand what his argument was
19:58
Speaker 4: on inflation and vote had nothing to say about a
20:01
Speaker 4: second term other.
20:02
Speaker 1: Than finish the job.
20:06
Speaker 4: I guess this was described by Claim to a reporter
20:09
Speaker 4: Chris Whipple that at one point Biden had an idea
20:13
Speaker 4: if he looked perplexed when Trump talked, voters would understand
20:16
Speaker 4: that Trump was an idiot. Clan Clan replied, sir, when
20:18
Speaker 4: you look perplexed, people just think you're perplexed.
20:20
Speaker 1: And this is our problem in this space. So great,
20:26
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's where.
20:27
Speaker 4: This book uncharted, and Claim's is a different one. But
20:31
Speaker 4: all this stuff is like spilling out now now it
20:36
Speaker 4: can be told.
20:37
Speaker 2: That's right.
20:38
Speaker 4: And someone made the point Michael Powell, who writes at
20:40
Speaker 4: The Atlantic. Ron Klain, former White White House Chief of Staff,
20:43
Speaker 4: on Biden last August. He's clearly up to the job.
20:46
Speaker 4: He's doing it every day, he's doing it successfully. In
20:49
Speaker 4: the new book, Biden didn't know what Trump had been
20:52
Speaker 4: saying and couldn't grasp what the back and forth was.
20:55
Speaker 2: Right, And I saw that tweet by Powell, and the
20:59
Speaker 2: very first comment was somebody named Aary Hoffman saying, your
21:03
Speaker 2: outlet lied about the same thing. Any posted a link
21:06
Speaker 2: to the Atlantic the headline how Republican Operatives fabricate Biden gaffs.
21:12
Speaker 2: Republican operators were just, you know, fabricating Biden gaffs.
21:16
Speaker 3: Mary Catherine, there was something to it.
21:18
Speaker 2: Now, obviously there is something to it. It's so scummy,
21:23
Speaker 2: it really is. It's unacceptable, and it's a giant scandal
21:28
Speaker 2: that this went on and that they covered it up
21:32
Speaker 2: and now they're going to make money, saying what.
21:35
Speaker 3: We were all saying all along.
21:37
Speaker 4: Yes, David French, by the way, the conscience of our
21:39
Speaker 4: people tweeted, I've said this many times before, but the
21:43
Speaker 4: dishonesty and deception around Biden's mental decline seriously undermined the
21:47
Speaker 4: Democrats character argument, especially because, unlike so many factchecks that
21:52
Speaker 4: require expertise, people could see the decline with their own eyes. Again,
21:56
Speaker 4: the entire media lied to us even though we were
21:58
Speaker 4: seeing it with our own lives, and this didn't undermine
22:04
Speaker 4: the Democrats character argument. This is an indication of Biden's
22:08
Speaker 4: character and the people surrounding him that they were willing
22:11
Speaker 4: to perpetrate the worst presidential scandal in my lifetime and
22:15
Speaker 4: cover it up for the American people so that they
22:18
Speaker 4: could try to.
22:18
Speaker 1: Get another four years out of this. Advise, dude, right.
22:24
Speaker 4: It's not a messaging problem, it's not an undermining problem.
22:28
Speaker 1: It is their character.
22:30
Speaker 4: It is the character of the Biden family and those
22:31
Speaker 4: people who surround him.
22:33
Speaker 1: Right, you just didn't see it.
22:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think they're going to try the it
22:39
Speaker 2: really got bad towards the end line because they are
22:42
Speaker 2: focusing on when he's already running against Trump. But I
22:45
Speaker 2: looked it up, and I had a piece in the
22:47
Speaker 2: New York Post in twenty twenty two called Biden's decline
22:51
Speaker 2: is obvious to everyone but the press. And my opening
22:55
Speaker 2: line was, something is wrong with President Joe Biden, and
22:58
Speaker 2: everybody knows it.
23:00
Speaker 3: Two.
23:02
Speaker 2: I mean the lie that, oh, you know, it got
23:04
Speaker 2: bad towards the end in twenty twenty four.
23:07
Speaker 3: No, it was bad the whole time.
23:09
Speaker 1: No, or that it was news to the people who
23:11
Speaker 1: were surrounding him. Nope, right, nope.
23:13
Speaker 2: Yeah of that.
23:15
Speaker 1: Yeah.
23:16
Speaker 2: And the thing is that all of these people are
23:17
Speaker 2: going to have soft landings where it's going to be
23:20
Speaker 2: completely okay because there are you know, it's a team sport,
23:23
Speaker 2: and they were on the team and they were doing
23:25
Speaker 2: what they could to drag this guy across the finish line.
23:28
Speaker 3: It's just bad for our country.
23:29
Speaker 2: I know, we're not supposed to care about the country.
23:31
Speaker 2: We're only supposed to care about our political party.
23:33
Speaker 3: But this is bad for the country to do this
23:35
Speaker 3: kind of thing.
23:37
Speaker 1: No, I always say that.
23:38
Speaker 4: It's like, we desperately need a reliable narrator in this country,
23:42
Speaker 4: and the media steadfastly refuses to be one.
23:46
Speaker 3: Right, we want no part in this.
23:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't want to help at all.
23:51
Speaker 4: No, there's yelling at us about how the world will
23:55
Speaker 4: end and the Republic will be doomed if we don't
23:57
Speaker 4: listen to them.
23:57
Speaker 1: It's like, well, earn some trust.
23:59
Speaker 4: Try that. By the way, I did, I misspoke In
24:01
Speaker 4: that first book, Fight Inside the Wildest Battle for the
24:04
Speaker 4: White House, which has those scoops from Claye Is, Jonathan
24:07
Speaker 4: Allen and Amy Parnes, and then the upcoming fight after
24:11
Speaker 4: Fight is Chris Whipples Uncharted How Trump beat Biden, Harris
24:15
Speaker 4: and the odds and the Wildest Campaign in History. There's
24:17
Speaker 4: also the U Tapper and Derek Thompson.
24:21
Speaker 3: Book Yes, Yes, that's right, Yeah.
24:24
Speaker 1: Which I can't remember the name of right this second.
24:26
Speaker 4: Anyway, we're gonna have lots storied about all the things
24:29
Speaker 4: we knew right three years ago, which.
24:31
Speaker 3: Is to be best sellers. They're all going to be
24:33
Speaker 3: best sellers. That's just going to be so frustrating.
24:35
Speaker 2: That is just going to be the worst part about
24:39
Speaker 2: it is that there's going to be a giant segment
24:42
Speaker 2: of the population who hear about this for the very
24:45
Speaker 2: first time who did not know. And you know, I
24:50
Speaker 2: just Jonathan Chait is gonna chastise you, Mary Catherine, because
24:54
Speaker 2: you know.
24:54
Speaker 3: Obviously it was reported the whole time.
24:56
Speaker 1: You just didn't see it.
24:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I just at the inside joke here.
25:01
Speaker 2: Jonathan Chait in one of his recent columns, chastised Mary
25:04
Speaker 2: Catherine when she said that a lot of the COVID
25:08
Speaker 2: updates that are coming out now are news to the
25:12
Speaker 2: New York Times readers.
25:13
Speaker 1: Of the New York Times readers, they didn't.
25:14
Speaker 2: Cover it at all, Like the potential lab leak was
25:16
Speaker 2: considered racist, et cetera. I don't want to get into,
25:19
Speaker 2: you know, our other mad bro topic have.
25:22
Speaker 4: Well, you know what I think we should do is
25:24
Speaker 4: that maybe we should pitch a collection of essays on
25:26
Speaker 4: things we knew ten years before these did best sellers.
25:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, here's some background on what you're about to discover.
25:35
Speaker 3: Yes, everybody knew this already. Yeah, let's pitch it.
25:40
Speaker 4: You know, the Biden stuff is truly one of the
25:43
Speaker 4: most disgraceful actions I've ever seen around a president. I mean,
25:48
Speaker 4: that guy couldn't do the job. We still don't know
25:52
Speaker 4: who was doing the job. Maybe it's in one of
25:54
Speaker 4: these books. Yeah, and worse worse than him, because politicians,
25:59
Speaker 4: particularly ones who have lost their brains entirely and whose
26:01
Speaker 4: families want to keep them in office to keep protecting
26:04
Speaker 4: them from all the dastardly deeds they've done in the
26:07
Speaker 4: conferences there, politicians do things that are bad for the
26:11
Speaker 4: country and self centered all the time. The press's job
26:15
Speaker 4: is to actually figure that out. And as long as
26:17
Speaker 4: it's a Democrat not interested.
26:20
Speaker 2: Yep, and the reporting is just not going to happen
26:23
Speaker 2: until they're able to get a book deal after the fact.
26:26
Speaker 3: All right, I'm still mad. I'm still mad.
26:29
Speaker 2: Bro Well, thanks for joining us on Normally Normally airs Tuesdays.
26:32
Speaker 3: And Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts.
26:36
Speaker 3: Get in touch with us.
26:37
Speaker 2: At normallythepod at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening, and
26:40
Speaker 2: when things get weird, act normally