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Normally Podcast: The White House Correspondents' Dinner: A Reflection · Normally

0:02
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, go back normally the show with normal When
0:05
Speaker 1: she takes the woman was gets weird.
0:07
Speaker 2: I am Mary Catherine here, and I'm Carol Marco and
0:10
Speaker 2: Tim Mary Catherine.
0:11
Speaker 3: How was your weekend? It was pretty good.
0:13
Speaker 1: I was in Charleston, so I ate like seventeen in
0:18
Speaker 1: two days.
0:19
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Charleston is definitely one of my favorite food cities.
0:23
Speaker 3: What did you have?
0:24
Speaker 1: Mostly Southern food because I don't get as much great
0:27
Speaker 1: Southern food in DC. Although I went by a crepery
0:30
Speaker 1: that someone suggested because there is the French Quarter in Charleston.
0:34
Speaker 1: But I had dinner at Husk because I got a
0:36
Speaker 1: five pm reservation for one and I was like, yes,
0:40
Speaker 1: I will take it. And by the way, that Welcome
0:45
Speaker 1: to South Carolina. Price is so reasonable, so reasonable.
0:49
Speaker 2: I love it.
0:50
Speaker 3: Yeah.
0:50
Speaker 2: I keep thinking I have to look up like what
0:52
Speaker 2: colleges are there, because I kind of want to direct
0:54
Speaker 2: my kids to go that in that direction.
0:57
Speaker 3: Carleton, I don't.
0:58
Speaker 1: Think is like any big bargain, like you pay for it,
1:03
Speaker 1: but it is a lovely place.
1:04
Speaker 2: Okay, I want to look at that because I I
1:07
Speaker 2: worry about my kids ending up in some like you know,
1:10
Speaker 2: Michigan or something.
1:13
Speaker 3: Hillsdale is going to curse your name now.
1:15
Speaker 2: I love Hillsdale. I love Hillsdale. I was actually when
1:17
Speaker 2: I was when I said that, I was picturing Anne
1:19
Speaker 2: Arbor and them in ann Arbor and me coming to visit.
1:24
Speaker 3: If they go to Hillsdale, I could live with.
1:26
Speaker 2: I could live with the weather.
1:27
Speaker 3: We can we can make it happen.
1:29
Speaker 1: I understand I too, am too soft for ann Arbor
1:33
Speaker 1: in the temperature and have questions about the ideology.
1:38
Speaker 3: Exactly right.
1:42
Speaker 2: It's been a few days of lots and lots of news.
1:46
Speaker 3: I think the biggest story is a.
1:48
Speaker 2: Judge that helped an illegal immigrant escape from her courtroom,
1:55
Speaker 2: and I think a lot of people are confused about
1:56
Speaker 2: the details of the story.
1:57
Speaker 3: So we're going to break it down.
1:59
Speaker 2: But Judge Hannah Dugan, who has been on the Milwaukee
2:02
Speaker 2: County bench nearly a decade, she's accused of obstructing justice
2:08
Speaker 2: and concealing Eduardo Flores Ruez from arrest following a pre
2:13
Speaker 2: trial hearing last week. So I think, what a lot
2:16
Speaker 2: of people don't realize, and I've heard people comment.
2:20
Speaker 3: About this on the internets.
2:23
Speaker 2: He was not in her courtroom for that pre trial hearing.
2:26
Speaker 2: He was there because he beat up somebody and really hurt.
2:31
Speaker 1: Them, accused of punching someone thirty times in the face
2:36
Speaker 1: over a dispute.
2:37
Speaker 2: Over dispute about loud music. So you know, not that
2:40
Speaker 2: it's better or worse one way or the other. But
2:43
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people think that she was
2:46
Speaker 2: doing the pre trial hearing for his deportation and maybe
2:49
Speaker 2: took pity on him because he was such a good guy. No,
2:52
Speaker 2: he was a criminal. He was a full on criminal
2:56
Speaker 2: who she did not want to see get deported, despite
2:58
Speaker 2: the fact that she's the ruling on this criminal case.
3:02
Speaker 3: Yeah.
3:02
Speaker 1: Can I also just like interject here with like, when
3:05
Speaker 1: you have any experience with the justice system and you
3:08
Speaker 1: realize his victim's alleged victims, I guess he was not
3:12
Speaker 1: yet convicted, or maybe he was. Anyway, they're there to
3:15
Speaker 1: be witnesses, they're there to help this process. Yeah, I'm
3:19
Speaker 1: sure they've been waiting for justice for quite some time.
3:23
Speaker 1: They block out their entire day, probably take off work,
3:27
Speaker 1: go to confront someone who's quite scary, who's allegedly already
3:31
Speaker 1: beaten them, right, and then he's just whisked away by
3:35
Speaker 1: the judge in their case to escape federal law enforcement.
3:42
Speaker 1: How does that feel if you're a victim.
3:44
Speaker 2: That's a good I imagine not good, and it really
3:48
Speaker 2: throws into question our whole system. Right her attorney, So
3:52
Speaker 2: she gets arrested, and her attorney during the proceeding says
3:57
Speaker 2: Judge Dugan wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest. It was
4:01
Speaker 2: not made in the interest of public safety. I don't
4:05
Speaker 2: know what any of those words mean, Like those are
4:08
Speaker 2: a bunch of random words put into a sentence that
4:10
Speaker 2: make no sense. She regrets and protests her arrest, and
4:14
Speaker 2: the arrest was not made in the interest of public safety.
4:18
Speaker 2: Still committed a crime potentially, so that's why the arrest
4:21
Speaker 2: was made, whether or not it was for public safety.
4:27
Speaker 2: The ice comes into her courtroom during that incident with
4:30
Speaker 2: a warrant for Flora's Ruis's arrest. They're not just nabbing
4:35
Speaker 2: him off the street. They have a warrant to arrest him.
4:38
Speaker 2: He had been deported from the US once before in
4:41
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen. Again somebody who broke the law broke it again,
4:46
Speaker 2: committed crimes while in America, and this judge is like,
4:50
Speaker 2: let me usher you out the back door, which is
4:52
Speaker 2: what she does.
4:52
Speaker 3: She takes him through a.
4:55
Speaker 2: Door meant only for juries. And this is where we
4:58
Speaker 2: are in America today.
5:00
Speaker 1: Well, and of course the left is like, you can't
5:05
Speaker 1: do stuff like this in America. And our friend Stephen
5:08
Speaker 1: Miller Redste's on X says, everyone take off your no
5:11
Speaker 1: one is above the law hats and put on your
5:13
Speaker 1: arresting members of the opposition party has Banana Republic stuff windbreakers,
5:17
Speaker 1: because they do.
5:18
Speaker 3: Just switch whenever they feel like it.
5:21
Speaker 1: Right, Because as long as you're executing a warrant on
5:24
Speaker 1: Trump or fabricating charges for Trump, right, that's all above board.
5:30
Speaker 1: As long as you're protecting Hunter Biden or this guy,
5:34
Speaker 1: that's all above board. It's all completely situational Calvin Ball,
5:39
Speaker 1: and I'm sick of it.
5:40
Speaker 3: And the idea that people who have.
5:43
Speaker 1: Entered our country illegally at the very least just keep
5:49
Speaker 1: your nose clean while you're here, right, like this idea
5:54
Speaker 1: that people have to have six chances be deported once
5:58
Speaker 1: come back, do some more crime and beatings, right, and
6:01
Speaker 1: then this woman's going to be like lionized for protecting
6:07
Speaker 1: you over the American citizens that you have allegedly beaten.
6:12
Speaker 3: I just it's driving me insane.
6:15
Speaker 2: It's bananas. And you know, America voted for Donald Trump
6:19
Speaker 2: to deal with this issue, and so I have to imagine,
6:22
Speaker 2: for example, the conservatives on the New York Times editorial page,
6:26
Speaker 2: opinion page. They must be really happy about this, right, MARKA.
6:30
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
6:30
Speaker 1: Can we hear a little bit from David Brooks about this,
6:33
Speaker 1: and we'll break down this clip after he has his say.
6:37
Speaker 3: But here he is talking about this judge.
6:40
Speaker 4: Well, obviously they're trying to send a note of intimidation
6:44
Speaker 4: not only to her, but to all charges and maybe
6:46
Speaker 4: to all Americans. But I don't yet know the specific
6:50
Speaker 4: details of this case, whether she escorted the guy at
6:52
Speaker 4: the jury door, or whether she's let him or it's
6:54
Speaker 4: so that's all, Mark, I don't want to comment on
6:56
Speaker 4: this specific case, but especially on the issue of immigration,
6:59
Speaker 4: there are a lot of people who are appalled by
7:01
Speaker 4: what the administration is doing, and there will be times
7:05
Speaker 4: for civil disobedience. And to me, if she, let's say,
7:08
Speaker 4: she did escort this guy out the door, If federal
7:11
Speaker 4: enforcement agencies come to your courtroom and you help a
7:14
Speaker 4: guy escape, that is two things. One, it strikes me
7:18
Speaker 4: as maybe something illegal, but it also strikes me as
7:21
Speaker 4: something heroic, and in times of trouble then people are
7:26
Speaker 4: sometimes called to do civil disobedience, and in my view,
7:29
Speaker 4: when people do civil disapients, they have to pay the price.
7:32
Speaker 4: That's part of the heroism of it. Frankly, And so
7:34
Speaker 4: you can both think that she shouldn't have legally done
7:37
Speaker 4: this and that morally protecting somebody against maybe not even
7:41
Speaker 4: in this case, but in other cases frankly, a predatory
7:45
Speaker 4: enforcement agency.
7:46
Speaker 2: I mean, for real, Like, what are we talking about here?
7:49
Speaker 2: He is a criminal.
7:51
Speaker 1: Also, just I don't know the details of this case,
7:54
Speaker 1: but what I'm talking about it anyway.
7:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's actually a classic.
7:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's not his most recent car or an April
8:00
Speaker 1: column he wrote, by the way, is what's happening is
8:03
Speaker 1: not normal. America needs an uprighting, an uprising that.
8:06
Speaker 3: Is not normal. Sure, try that again.
8:09
Speaker 5: I don't.
8:10
Speaker 1: This is insane to me, and it's such a it's
8:13
Speaker 1: such a moral cop out just to be like everything
8:17
Speaker 1: that we want to do is resistance is morally justified
8:21
Speaker 1: because I say so when I mean, when we were
8:25
Speaker 1: resisting by sending children to school without masks, it was like,
8:30
Speaker 1: how dare you dare.
8:33
Speaker 2: You never want to die?
8:35
Speaker 1: And then look, yes, civil disobedience is sometimes called for.
8:40
Speaker 1: The idea that civil disobedience on behalf of this person
8:45
Speaker 1: whose needs are being put above the justice required for
8:50
Speaker 1: his alleged victims.
8:52
Speaker 3: Is that's a moral. That's a moral.
8:57
Speaker 1: And then there's there's the other judge out in New
8:59
Speaker 1: Mexico who was allegedly harboring a trend Aragua illegal immigrant.
9:06
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think that if you are credibly accused
9:09
Speaker 1: of these crimes, that you should be arrested.
9:12
Speaker 2: Absolutely and deported. It's so not sorry, not the judges deported,
9:17
Speaker 2: but we should be deporting, you know, right, yeah, absolutely,
9:24
Speaker 2: this is an easy call. And the fact that the
9:28
Speaker 2: Democrats have decided to make this their last stand is
9:32
Speaker 2: just wild to me.
9:34
Speaker 1: One more point, just tangents on illegal immigration. Someone really
9:40
Speaker 1: hit the lotto in the bad way, because did you
9:42
Speaker 1: see that the person's accused of taking the purse of
9:46
Speaker 1: Christy Nome, head of Department of aland Security. We're found
9:50
Speaker 1: to be here illegally, like, oh, you're crapped out man.
9:53
Speaker 3: That was the wrong well, the wrong bag, exact wrong
9:58
Speaker 3: purse to pick up my friend.
10:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sad, you know, I was thinking about this,
10:03
Speaker 2: but it's a lot of this is it's a problem
10:06
Speaker 2: for the Trump administration truly how quickly they solve the
10:10
Speaker 2: border because I think David Brooks is probably hitting something
10:16
Speaker 2: correct here, which is people are going to have their
10:20
Speaker 2: little heartstrings pulled about how these deportations are happening. These
10:26
Speaker 2: people entered illegally and they're being kicked out and how
10:29
Speaker 2: dare we really? But when the border crisis was going on,
10:33
Speaker 2: people understood why that was necessary. Now that it's not,
10:37
Speaker 2: it's like you have this huge win, but people have
10:39
Speaker 2: short memories, and you have the David Brooks's of the
10:42
Speaker 2: world feeling sorry for these violent illegal immigrants.
10:46
Speaker 5: Right.
10:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I do think they sort of took that
10:49
Speaker 1: issue away from themselves by proving so quickly how they
10:53
Speaker 1: could fix it. That of course also proves that Biden
10:57
Speaker 1: was full of it for four years letting it happen.
11:00
Speaker 1: This is why I think a lot of voters and
11:01
Speaker 1: I myself, will give them some leeway on enforcement. Now
11:06
Speaker 1: when they make a mistake, they should correct that mistake.
11:09
Speaker 1: But there will be some issues because Biden has given
11:12
Speaker 1: them a ten million person problem. I saw a piece
11:16
Speaker 1: on it was a San Francisco paper, so you know,
11:20
Speaker 1: figures that was like unfathomable that some Irish Green card
11:25
Speaker 1: holder who had it decades old conviction came back into
11:29
Speaker 1: the country and was held in questioned about this.
11:32
Speaker 3: You have a conviction, you're.
11:34
Speaker 1: A Green card holder, you went out of the country
11:37
Speaker 1: and re entered thereby subjecting yourself to normal screening that
11:41
Speaker 1: would happen in this case.
11:42
Speaker 3: I don't find that unfathomable. I find that fathomable.
11:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they are going to try to pull out
11:51
Speaker 2: our heartstrings. Here is a clip of Tom Homan being
11:55
Speaker 2: subjected to exactly that.
11:58
Speaker 6: On Friday, there were three America and citizen children born
12:02
Speaker 6: here who were deported along with their mothers from Louisiana
12:06
Speaker 6: down to Honduras, and according to advocates, one of them
12:10
Speaker 6: is a four year old child with stage four cancer,
12:13
Speaker 6: a rare form of metastatic cancer, who was sent back
12:17
Speaker 6: to Honduras without getting to talk to a doctor and
12:19
Speaker 6: without medication. I understand this child's mother entered this country illegally,
12:24
Speaker 6: but isn't there some basis for compassionate consideration here that
12:29
Speaker 6: should have allowed for more consultation or treatment.
12:32
Speaker 5: Well, it's certainly's discretion. I'm not aware of the specific case.
12:35
Speaker 5: But no, U a citizen child was deported. Deported means
12:39
Speaker 5: you've got to be reported by the immigration judge.
12:42
Speaker 6: We don't report you a citizens The mother was deported
12:44
Speaker 6: along with the children.
12:46
Speaker 5: Children aren't deported. The mother chilse to take the children
12:48
Speaker 5: with her. When you're ent to the country legally, and
12:51
Speaker 5: you know you're here illegally, and you choose have you
12:53
Speaker 5: assistant child, that's on you. That's not on its administration.
12:56
Speaker 5: If you choose to put your family in that position,
12:58
Speaker 5: that's on them. Having a US citizen child after you
13:01
Speaker 5: enter this country legally, it's not a get out Joe
13:03
Speaker 5: free cart. It doesn't make you immune from our laws.
13:06
Speaker 5: If that's a message we send the entire world, women
13:10
Speaker 5: can keep putting themselves at risk it come to this country.
13:13
Speaker 5: We send a message. You can enter country legally, which
13:15
Speaker 5: is a crime. That's okay. You can have due process,
13:17
Speaker 5: great tacker, taxpayer expense, get order to move, that's okay.
13:20
Speaker 5: Don't leave. But have you a citizen child and you're
13:23
Speaker 5: immune from removal. That's not the way it works.
13:25
Speaker 6: So you don't think there should be compassionate consideration for
13:28
Speaker 6: a four year old child undergoing treatment for cancer.
13:31
Speaker 5: I didn't say that. I said ICE officers do have discretion.
13:36
Speaker 5: Ice officers do have discretion. I'm not familiar with the
13:38
Speaker 5: specific case. I don't know what facts around this case.
13:41
Speaker 5: I've just made where of this when you mentioned this morning.
13:44
Speaker 5: It's not aware of that case.
13:46
Speaker 2: I think Tom Holman is amazing. I think he's doing
13:49
Speaker 2: a fantastic job, and he's very good at his job.
13:51
Speaker 2: But Margaret Brennan deserves the JD Van's treatment. In all
13:55
Speaker 2: of her interviews, she is a full on activist pretending
13:59
Speaker 2: to be even remotely a journalist. This is just absurd tactics.
14:06
Speaker 2: And he said all the right things. I just think
14:08
Speaker 2: that his level of respect is way too high and
14:11
Speaker 2: she deserves to have to be told I really don't
14:14
Speaker 2: care Margaret all the time.
14:16
Speaker 1: Well, a couple of thoughts about this type of story,
14:20
Speaker 1: in particular about children. Yes, it is perfectly positioned to
14:26
Speaker 1: make to pull people's heart strings with good reason.
14:29
Speaker 3: Right, these are young children.
14:31
Speaker 1: As he noted, the moms are opting to take the
14:36
Speaker 1: children with them. Again, understandably, I would do the same
14:40
Speaker 1: if I were in a country illegally and then asked
14:43
Speaker 1: to leave. But it's a great story for the activist
14:46
Speaker 1: press because on one hand, if the child goes with
14:50
Speaker 1: the mother, the child is quote deported exactly if the
14:55
Speaker 1: child does not go with the mother, family.
14:58
Speaker 3: Separation, right win.
15:01
Speaker 1: Either way, the press gets the story they want, which
15:05
Speaker 1: is mean Trump administration. And that's just not realistic. And
15:12
Speaker 1: I think many Americans have looked at the situation around
15:15
Speaker 1: them and gone that way of doing business that he
15:18
Speaker 1: describes as a hypothetical is not realistic. By the way, again,
15:22
Speaker 1: can I go back to the rights of American citizens. Yeah,
15:25
Speaker 1: American citizens accused of crimes and going through the criminal
15:28
Speaker 1: justice system are routinely separated from their children.
15:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is.
15:33
Speaker 1: Not something that gets you a get out of jail
15:35
Speaker 1: free card if you live in this country and are
15:38
Speaker 1: a citizen, why should other people get a different standard.
15:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, all of this is a really strange situation for
15:46
Speaker 2: Democrats to find themselves in. I think that they're going
15:49
Speaker 2: to be on the losing side of this. I hope
15:51
Speaker 2: they're on the losing side of this. I hope Americans
15:53
Speaker 2: remember the crisis that got us here in the first place,
15:56
Speaker 2: and who was responsible for that crisis.
15:59
Speaker 1: Well, if I know, Margaret Brennan she's going to take
16:01
Speaker 1: up the cause of the guys who stole Christi nomes
16:04
Speaker 1: Bag next, like this is just a civil rights issue,
16:07
Speaker 1: like you, this is a human rights issue to be
16:09
Speaker 1: able to take Christy nomes Bag.
16:12
Speaker 3: Will be right back on normally.
16:17
Speaker 1: Speaking of Margaret Brennan, Yeah, I was not at the
16:21
Speaker 1: White House correspondence dinner right not.
16:23
Speaker 3: You know, as much as I would have.
16:24
Speaker 1: Loved sitting between Margaret Brennan and Sunny Hostin for the
16:27
Speaker 1: dinner time lobotomy, I will was not there.
16:32
Speaker 3: I was out of town in Charleston. This is an annual.
16:37
Speaker 1: Whole list of parties that journalists throw themselves in Washington,
16:42
Speaker 1: d C. I've been before. It can be plenty of
16:45
Speaker 1: fun to show up at a party or two. I
16:47
Speaker 1: do not begrudge people a party or two every once
16:50
Speaker 1: in a while. But it is this like ridiculous display
16:55
Speaker 1: of self importance by journalists. And it depends on who's
16:59
Speaker 1: in off right, if Democrats in office. The President comes
17:03
Speaker 1: to the event and he's like, tells a few jokes
17:06
Speaker 1: and everybody hardy harharr. A bunch of celebrities from Hollywood come,
17:11
Speaker 1: the glitterati shows up, everybody takes pictures together. It's a
17:15
Speaker 1: really glorious occasion when there's a Republican in office, particularly Trump.
17:21
Speaker 3: This started in the Trump era.
17:23
Speaker 1: Trump doesn't show up to the dinner, and they really
17:25
Speaker 1: tamp down the festivities because during this time, Somber Somber,
17:30
Speaker 1: important journalism is happening, unlike the Democratic years when it's
17:35
Speaker 1: just like we're just hanging with the president.
17:37
Speaker 3: That's all we're doing.
17:39
Speaker 1: So this year, Somber and an ABC tweet really characterized
17:46
Speaker 1: it when they were like, there was no president, there
17:49
Speaker 1: was no comedian, just the First Amendment.
17:56
Speaker 3: Can I tell you also, and again the straight feace.
18:01
Speaker 3: I tell you also that in.
18:03
Speaker 1: That tweet, the thumbnail is of the head of the
18:05
Speaker 1: White House Correspondents Association, who's now an MSNBC host, Eugene
18:09
Speaker 1: Daniels is the thumbnail, who's the president of the White
18:11
Speaker 1: House Correspondence Association right now, And it's like this very
18:14
Speaker 1: serious tweet and then a thumbnail of him in a
18:16
Speaker 1: white satin tux with a cravat, and it's like, okay,
18:20
Speaker 1: like I don't begrudge you your finery, sure, but I
18:23
Speaker 1: would I would have picked something different to juxtapose in
18:26
Speaker 1: that tweet. At any rate, everyone got together and celebrated themselves.
18:33
Speaker 1: They give out a few scholarships. That was ostensibly the
18:35
Speaker 1: whole reason for the dinner years ago, just the way
18:40
Speaker 1: these folks congratulate themselves. Alex Thompson was given an award.
18:45
Speaker 1: Alex Thompson is the Axios reporter who credit where it
18:48
Speaker 1: was due, did do some reporting on Biden's decline when
18:51
Speaker 1: others would not. Now, this reporting started in like twenty
18:54
Speaker 1: twenty four, it was not twenty twenty one reporting. You
18:58
Speaker 1: and I didn't at awards for our tweets and comments. Nonetheless,
19:06
Speaker 1: I will say it is a slight improvement for the
19:09
Speaker 1: White House Correspondence Association to give an award for someone
19:13
Speaker 1: who did do the right thing, although somewhat belatedly right
19:18
Speaker 1: in the past. What they would have done is given
19:20
Speaker 1: an award for whoever was best at gaslighting.
19:23
Speaker 3: So they didn't do that. They didn't get a.
19:25
Speaker 2: Flight improvement, I guess.
19:27
Speaker 3: But let's hear Alex accept this award.
19:30
Speaker 1: He's, by the way, the co author of the Jake
19:33
Speaker 1: Tapper Alex Thompson book Original Sin. All of these books
19:37
Speaker 1: coming out saying like, yeah, this guy was totally not
19:39
Speaker 1: going to last four more days lugless four more years
19:43
Speaker 1: after inauguration, But here's his acceptance.
19:45
Speaker 7: One serious note to my bones. I believe that reporting
19:51
Speaker 7: and the White House Correspondents Association is as necessary as ever.
19:57
Speaker 7: President Biden's decline and it's cover up by the people
20:02
Speaker 7: around him is a reminder that every White House, regardless
20:06
Speaker 7: of party, is capable of deception. But being truth tellers
20:11
Speaker 7: also means telling the truth about ourselves. We myself included,
20:18
Speaker 7: missed a lot of this story, and some people trust
20:21
Speaker 7: us less because of it. We bear some responsibility for
20:26
Speaker 7: faith in the media being at such.
20:28
Speaker 2: Lows some responsibility.
20:38
Speaker 7: I say this because acknowledging errors builds trust, and being
20:43
Speaker 7: defensive about them further erodes it.
20:47
Speaker 2: We should have done better.
20:50
Speaker 7: I believe our mission is vital in a world where
20:54
Speaker 7: people are struggling to figure out what's true and people
20:59
Speaker 7: with power are not telling the truth. I also believe
21:03
Speaker 7: that this association has been, is, and will continue to
21:09
Speaker 7: be critical to that mission.
21:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. As late as twenty twenty three, Alex
21:14
Speaker 2: Thompson tweeted Biden's weird phrases are sometimes weaponized by the
21:18
Speaker 2: GOP to insinuate the eighty year old president is in
21:22
Speaker 2: mental decline.
21:24
Speaker 3: He is one of the better ones.
21:26
Speaker 2: He really is, you know. I hate to criticize him
21:30
Speaker 2: too much, except that he won this award and we
21:34
Speaker 2: deserve that award so well.
21:37
Speaker 1: I struggle with this because people are having very different
21:39
Speaker 1: reactions to it. I want to say, first of all,
21:44
Speaker 1: if I were in that room, you wouldn't be able
21:46
Speaker 1: to shut me up. Like after that line, I would
21:48
Speaker 1: have been standing up with a T shirt, cannon, screaming
21:52
Speaker 1: with an airhorn like it is like the playoffs, just
21:55
Speaker 1: like applauding that line alone, just because they so rarely
22:01
Speaker 1: hear this, and they so rarely have one of their sort.
22:05
Speaker 3: Of sanction leaders say this.
22:08
Speaker 1: So I want to incentivize that behavior, and I think
22:12
Speaker 1: that that's important.
22:13
Speaker 3: Now. It was so gentle. It was super gentle. It
22:18
Speaker 3: was so gentle.
22:19
Speaker 1: Would love it to be more in your face, like
22:21
Speaker 1: take the Scott Jennings tone with these people. But I
22:25
Speaker 1: understand that this is the audience he's trying to reach.
22:27
Speaker 1: It's also an audience he needs to be friendly with, right,
22:31
Speaker 1: you know, there's two things going on there. I think
22:34
Speaker 1: the press corps would be a lot better off if
22:36
Speaker 1: more of them were Alex Thompson. But as I pointed
22:42
Speaker 1: out in that clip, if you see April Ryan, who's
22:45
Speaker 1: another prominent member of the White House Press Corps, see
22:48
Speaker 1: April Ryan and that clip, take a sip of her
22:51
Speaker 1: water and shake her head at this idea that they're
22:56
Speaker 1: responsible for any of this. The Press Corps has a
22:59
Speaker 1: lot more April Ryan's that it does Alex Thompson's.
23:02
Speaker 3: Fact, like, just the.
23:04
Speaker 1: Total disregard for the idea that they might have screwed up.
23:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, the AP. Zeke Miller also spoke and one of
23:13
Speaker 2: the lines that he said was we at AP remained
23:15
Speaker 2: committed as ever to accurate and dependent, nonpartisan journalism. I mean,
23:19
Speaker 2: nobody believes.
23:20
Speaker 3: They have any of that.
23:22
Speaker 2: In twenty twelve, Zeke Miller and our friend John Echtel,
23:25
Speaker 2: who always says there's too many women on this show,
23:27
Speaker 2: so we're going to quote John. He tweeted out Zeke
23:31
Speaker 2: Miller's tweet from twenty twelve where he tweeted Romney Motorcade
23:36
Speaker 2: just pasted a hill flying a large Confederate flag in
23:40
Speaker 2: rural southwest Virginia.
23:42
Speaker 3: Good stuff.
23:42
Speaker 2: This is the kind of coverage that Republicans used to
23:46
Speaker 2: get as such a normal matter of course, And of
23:50
Speaker 2: course they still do under Trump. It's just now Donald
23:53
Speaker 2: Trump has two middle fingers.
23:55
Speaker 3: To the press corps. But this was a large story.
23:59
Speaker 2: This became a multi day story that the motorcade had passed,
24:03
Speaker 2: had passed, not, had stopped and saluted like you might
24:07
Speaker 2: be thinking, No, drove by a hill flying a Confederate flag,
24:13
Speaker 2: which I have to say, I have driven by Confederate flags,
24:17
Speaker 2: and so I think I must be just as culture safe.
24:22
Speaker 1: No, it is what what Alex says is there are
24:26
Speaker 1: people in power who are not telling the truth, and
24:29
Speaker 1: people are trying to figure out what the truth is true. Yeah,
24:32
Speaker 1: y'all are the people in power not telling the truth
24:35
Speaker 1: most of the time.
24:37
Speaker 3: And that doesn't mean that Trump is always telling the truth.
24:39
Speaker 3: It just means that you need to get your act together, right,
24:43
Speaker 3: Trump needs to get your act together.
24:44
Speaker 2: Direct reaction to Romney's motorcade drove by a large Confederate
24:50
Speaker 2: flag tweet, he is you can draw the line, and
24:54
Speaker 2: they should. They should draw that line for themselves so
24:56
Speaker 2: that they really understand that this is on them.
24:59
Speaker 1: Well, and I I'm a person who wants to find
25:02
Speaker 1: the truth, and I feel like I read critically and
25:04
Speaker 1: I try to figure out, even when people are on
25:06
Speaker 1: my side, if they're.
25:07
Speaker 3: Messing up or if they're lying to me.
25:10
Speaker 1: But here's the thing is like, particularly post COVID, I
25:13
Speaker 1: was always suspicious, but particularly post COVID, if you assume
25:17
Speaker 1: on a story that the media is really fired up about,
25:20
Speaker 1: call it the Jesse standard.
25:22
Speaker 3: If you assume that they're lying to you.
25:25
Speaker 1: You're gonna be better off. You're going to search for
25:28
Speaker 1: more facts. You're going to find the real story. In
25:30
Speaker 1: the case of these deported children, I was like, saw
25:32
Speaker 1: a couple headlines and was like, Oh, that sounds really bad.
25:35
Speaker 1: Let me look into it. This might be a regrettable situation.
25:38
Speaker 1: That is nonetheless not what they are telling me.
25:41
Speaker 3: It is.
25:42
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's always my first assumption. Now there's absolutely
25:45
Speaker 2: no story that I believe at face value.
25:47
Speaker 3: None.
25:48
Speaker 1: H And by the way, the Biden story is a
25:50
Speaker 1: perfect example of this. If you looked for the countervailing evidence,
25:54
Speaker 1: which was right in front of your eyeballs, you would
25:57
Speaker 1: see that they are sing with you. Yeah, I love
26:01
Speaker 1: that that abc self important tweet. By the way, I
26:04
Speaker 1: started with there was no president, and what they meant
26:07
Speaker 1: was that Trump didn't show up to this dinner, and
26:09
Speaker 1: I retweeted it and was like, this is a four
26:11
Speaker 1: years old headline.
26:14
Speaker 3: There was no president.
26:15
Speaker 2: You're right, yeah, right, We're going to take a short
26:17
Speaker 2: break and come right back with normally. Let's send on
26:23
Speaker 2: a feel good note here. Okay, Saquon Barkley, we hate
26:26
Speaker 2: the Eagles, and by we, I mean me.
26:29
Speaker 1: I can't get the Eagles because they draft every Georgia bulldog,
26:32
Speaker 1: so I just have to.
26:34
Speaker 3: Find be on board.
26:35
Speaker 2: Okay, half of the hosts of this show hate the
26:40
Speaker 2: Eagle first, but I really did appreciate that. Saquon Barkley
26:46
Speaker 2: told critics of his who didn't like that he golfed
26:51
Speaker 2: with the president and blew to the White House with
26:53
Speaker 2: Trump that they, you know, they didn't like that they
26:56
Speaker 2: criticized him, and he told them to go pound stand
26:58
Speaker 2: and I quite like that.
27:00
Speaker 1: Yes, here's his quote, because of course he was pictured
27:03
Speaker 1: with Trump and he says, Lol, some people are really
27:07
Speaker 1: upset because I played golf and flew to the White
27:09
Speaker 1: House with the all Caps president. Maybe I just respect
27:14
Speaker 1: the office. Not a hard concept to understand. Just golfed
27:17
Speaker 1: with Obama not too long ago and look forward to
27:19
Speaker 1: finishing my round with Trump. Now you get out my
27:22
Speaker 1: mentions with all this politics and have an amazing day.
27:25
Speaker 1: I generally like Saquon Barkley a lot team affiliation, notwithstanding,
27:32
Speaker 1: he just seems like a nice person.
27:34
Speaker 3: This is the way, Yeah, this is the way, very
27:36
Speaker 3: much the way.
27:37
Speaker 1: And I hope he turned off his comments and moved
27:40
Speaker 1: on with his day and went to play golf.
27:41
Speaker 5: Right.
27:42
Speaker 2: I'm sure he did do that, because that is the
27:44
Speaker 2: same thing to do, and he seems rather sane. There were.
27:49
Speaker 3: Your bestie.
27:50
Speaker 2: Guy Benson shared a story about a friend of his,
27:53
Speaker 2: not a Trump voter. This is the key part of
27:55
Speaker 2: the story. Not a Trump voter, middle of the road
27:57
Speaker 2: guy invited to play in a pickleball league in DC,
28:01
Speaker 2: got kicked out of the league for not being a
28:05
Speaker 2: Republican or a Democrat and just saying he's a moderate
28:07
Speaker 2: and no longer invited to play. And his friend who
28:14
Speaker 2: brought him to the league was said that he hadn't
28:17
Speaker 2: properly vetted him.
28:19
Speaker 3: That's you know.
28:20
Speaker 2: And I also mentioned there was a story in The
28:23
Speaker 2: New York Times this week. A woman writes in that
28:26
Speaker 2: her husband, who does not talk to his own parents,
28:29
Speaker 2: already has no relationship with his own parents. Wants the
28:33
Speaker 2: wife to cut off the relationship she has with her
28:36
Speaker 2: parents because well, they voted for the wrong person.
28:39
Speaker 3: Oh, come on.
28:40
Speaker 2: This is a sickness. This is a deep sickness, and
28:44
Speaker 2: it is mostly on the left. It is absolutely mostly
28:47
Speaker 2: on the left. It is something that just be out.
28:50
Speaker 1: There are plenty of surveys that show that right leading
28:54
Speaker 1: people are more willing to be friends with people of
28:56
Speaker 1: the left, that they cut off relationships as quickly that
28:59
Speaker 1: they cut off the cut off relationships less often.
29:01
Speaker 3: This is a this is a actual data point. That's right.
29:05
Speaker 2: Don't do this friends, really, you know we when we
29:08
Speaker 2: tell you to act normally at the end of the show,
29:10
Speaker 2: this is what we mean. Don't do this kind of thing.
29:14
Speaker 2: Live your life. People are going to have different politics.
29:17
Speaker 2: Even when they have the same politics, you might still
29:19
Speaker 2: find reason to disagree. Sometimes you could do worse than
29:21
Speaker 2: living life like it's okay. It's okay, yeah, live your life.
29:25
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on Normally. Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
29:29
Speaker 2: and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get
29:32
Speaker 2: in touch with us at Normallythepod at gmail dot com.
29:35
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally,