Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: AI Panic Goes to Washington, Trump’s $5,000 Checks & Republicans’ Unforced Errors

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Normally Podcast: AI Panic Goes to Washington, Trump’s $5,000 Checks & Republicans’ Unforced Errors · Normally

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, we are back on Normally, the show with
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: normal-ish takes for when the news gets weird.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: I'm Mary Katherine Hamm. I'm Carol Markowitz. How was your weekend,
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Mary Katherine?
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: It was good. We did the 9-11 Heroes Run in Virginia,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: in Oakton, Virginia. 500 runners strong despite some rain. And
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: it ended up not raining, which was Kind of not
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: a blessing because it was the muggiest.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Race I've maybe ever done.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: It's like 80 degrees and 100 percent humidity.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: But everybody did great. The Littles did about two miles.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: What does it raise money for? It's for the Travis
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: Mannion Foundation. OK, awesome.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: So there are 9-11 heroes runs all over the country
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: and the world. We've been doing them for more than
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: a decade. And your community just gets together and gets
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: to meet military families and first responder families. And everybody
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: has a good old time with the giant fire trucks
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: and the giant American flag. And we had a remembrance
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: from a police chief locally who was serving on 9-11 and,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: you know, that kind of thing. So it's a good time.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: I actually, I've heard from a lot of people that
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: they had a harder time this 9-11 than the previous ones.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: It was like sadder. I mean, I'm sure a lot
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: of it, and people said it to me, it was
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: that the young seem eye-rolly about it. Like, why are
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: you old people still so attached to this event that happened?
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: And there's also just the fact that as we get
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: further away from it, people who were heroes that day,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: people who were involved are no longer with us. So
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: I love the idea of like doing a run like
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: that or doing any other kind of charity work around 9-11.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: I'll also highlight, I have a friend, his name.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: Is Chris Grazier.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: He is a retired FDNY guy. He was at the
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Fire Department of New York for many years. His first
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: day of work was on 9-11. He literally, that was
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: day one of his job. And he gave a great
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: talk in St.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: Augustine, Florida.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: You could look it up. Just look up first day
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: of work, 9-11, Fire Department, St. Augustine, and you'll get
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: his speech and he talks about what happened that day.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: And it's just really beautifully said. And I love that
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: places like St. Augustine, Florida and other places, obviously, continue
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: to highlight the heroes of that time.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: This is worth mentioning because I did show it to
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: my kids who were newly curious this year, I would say,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: about 9-11. Maybe they're just reaching an age where they
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: can sort of understand it. And I pulled up my
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: friend Jenna Lee, who's a journalist who used to work
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: for Fox. Now she runs her own organization called Smart
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Her News, S-M-A-R-T-H-E-R News. And she did sort of a
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: mini doc 30 minutes long on the story of Linda,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: who free fell in an elevator and then was able
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: to escape the elevator. Wow. And she'd never told her
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: story publicly before. And it has a redemptive arc. Of course,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: people perish in this story, but it is good for
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: children in that her part of it is redemptive. It
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: doesn't get too much into the grisly details, but you
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: understand how important the moment was. So that's on their
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: YouTube channel, Smarter News. And I really liked that one
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: as a tool for my kids.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: We'll check it out.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: All right, let's get into the news if we must. Well,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: a few days ago, a British AI researcher named Jacob
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Coxon quit his job at Anthropic AI and basically said
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: we are in danger of AI destroying the world and
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: that this is happening a lot faster than people imagine.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: He described the situation as gambling with our future, and
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: he warned that self-improving AI could be extremely difficult for
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: humans to eventually control. His resignation post went super viral.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: It remains the biggest story of the moment.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: And It's really getting into AI.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Safety and what the government's role is and all of that.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: And there's a lot of questions around it. I have
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: to say, I consider myself AI skeptical, but this whole
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: thing feels like a September surprise heading into the midterms.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: And I'll tell you why I think that.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: The New York Times sent out an email today titled,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: As Fears of AI Catastrophe Magnify, Washington Mostly Strugs. And
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: then to put a finer point on it, in their subhead,
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: they say, the Trump administration has mostly shrugged and Washington
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: seems paralyzed.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: So, you know, that's the Trump administration specifically.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: And, you know, there's a lot of commentary around this.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: And, you know, we're getting into the space where people
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: are talking about these people like they know them.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: Like, I like Dario. I trust Sam.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: And I get people looking for shortcuts about who to
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: believe and who to trust. For me personally, my own shortcut,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: when today Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon announced that they're
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: joining together to slow AI down, for me, that's like
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: the say less. That's all I need to know to
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: pick a side.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Well, and as so my take on AI is I
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: find the people developing it and the concern about super intelligence.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: Look, I'm willing to listen.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I find the people who are developing AI to often
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: be rash and not really thinking through the consequences of this.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: I find the idea of the people who would regulate
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: the people I find rash. They're almost uniformly idiots. Right.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: And Trump hasn't actually shrugged at AI. What Trump has
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: said is that if you don't compete, then China wins AI.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: And if China.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Wins the AI race, that too poses a risk to humanity,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: which is very large. So he's not actually shrugging. He
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: has a different argument than the people here. The thing
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: that got me about this is the sort of regulatory
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: historic ignorance that people are displaying. This rolled out in
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: a very noticeably coordinated way. It's not to say the
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: concerns aren't real, but it is worth noting that there's
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of money and a lot of anthropic.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: As part of this rollout where.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: The guy who just worked for them for six weeks
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: is involved, where Bernie jumps in, where all the Democratic
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: representatives start tweeting the.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: Exact same thing.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: They've got money behind the scenes working on this. It
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean the concerns aren't real, but I would definitely
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: like to consider whether this is regulatory capture by Anthropic.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: And also the fact that this guy, Jacob Coxon, had
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: almost no social media presence until the day that he
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: did this.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: So it is suspicious.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: And Rahm Emanuel tweets... When in history has an industry
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: leader asked to be regulated by the government's like, sir,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: we have a name for the time. It happens all
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: the time because large companies can afford to be regulated
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: and to dictate the regulation that they can afford, thereby
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: cutting out.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: Competitors, which is an advantage.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: We call that regulatory capture.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: I'm sure Rahm Emanuel knows that. Yeah.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: My friend Jordan Schachtel is really smart on all of
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: this and has been all over this story. He describes
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: it as them saying, we're going to lose control if
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: we keep building this thing. And then people saying, so
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: stop building this thing. And then them saying, the thing
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: is inevitable. We need to build the thing, but only
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: we can be trusted to build the thing. And so
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: it's like, oh, so you just want your competition to
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: stop building the thing? And they say, precisely. So I
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: think that's what's going on here. Another excellent read on
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: the subject. David Sachs, he is co-chair of the President's
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. He writes this
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: whole thing about how, again, first names Dario and Sam
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: have been agreed to, quote, pace the frontier. And Dario's
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: anthropic and Sam is Sam Altman from OpenAI. And what
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: David Sachs says is, you guys are the frontier. By
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: any reasonable metric, market share, revenue growth, model capability, the
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: two of you have a duopoly on frontier intelligence. You
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: also claim the lead is widening because of recursive self-improvement.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: I don't see what you see in the lab. If
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: the unreleased models are scary enough that you think you
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: should slow down, I support your decision to be responsible.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Go ahead and slow down. But oh, you want the
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: government to step in and slow everybody down?
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: That's a different story.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was reading a piece because I want to
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: contemplate how dangerous this could be, right?
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: I think that's, I don't want to be a doomer,
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: but I think it's important.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: It has, AI has progressed so exponentially in the past
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: several years while we've been talking about it. There's a
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: whole book on the subject called If Anyone Builds It,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Everyone Dies by a man named Yukofsky, who was an
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: early innovator in this space, ironically, and Nate Soares. And
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: the thesis is basically that You know, they'll gain power
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: over the physical world because the robots will become so
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: much smarter than we are. But I read a review
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: of it, which I found very interesting, that found that
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: our killer app as humans might be that the world
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: is much more messy than computers are used to dealing with.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: And so let's say they gain super intelligence.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: The book compares it to chess, but this understanding AI.org
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: writer says, but the world isn't like chess. In the world, messy,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: charismatic people who are not necessarily intellectual superpowers end up,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know, the president of.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: The United States over and over again, right?
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: So there are different mechanisms that might stymie even a
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: very smart AI to He also notes that if AI
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: does become smarter than all humans combined, we have the
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: second most powerful AI ever. to use as humans to
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: fight the superhuman AI. So it's not really just humans
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: versus the most smart AI. It was an interesting read on, like,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be an absolute doomer, but I
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: do want to be concerned.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: Sure, right. And that I understand, but this.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: All to me seems like a coordinated op. And I,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: you know, you can look it up. I don't use
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: up that often. I'm not one of those people who
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: sees it up everywhere, although I am starting to see
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: them more often now.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Can we can we play a little bit of Asaf
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: who he's running in Georgia? I think he's generally a
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: he's a good speaker. He's a smart candidate. And I
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: think this is the message going into the midterms that
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: they're going to be selling and moving forward from that
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: into twenty twenty eight on the left. Let's hear what
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: he has to say about it.
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: See, a capable president would move swiftly to secure and
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: reassure the American people, rush inspectors into frontier labs, fortify
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: the nation against bioterrorism, demand legislation from Congress, and lead
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: the world toward an AI treaty. But President Trump is compromised.
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: A capable Congress would engage every committee in investigation and
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: legislation to act swiftly and wisely. Those CEOs would be
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: under oath next week. But instead, the President and the
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: Speaker of the House sit on their hands and hope
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: for the best. So you see this scenario, and you
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: look at the state of our politics, and it shakes
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: your faith in the future. I understand. But Athens, we
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: can and will reclaim control over our own destiny. We
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: can and will meet our obligations to our children, and
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: that begins with victory this fall.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: OK, a couple of thoughts.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: If you're in Athens, Georgia, in the fall and you're
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: at a John Ossoff rally, you're doing Athens wrong. It's
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: much better options out there. I think he's right that
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: people need to be reassured. I know he's an Obama knockoff.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: He's doing the thing. He's right that people need to
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: be reassured in some ways and you need to speak
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: to their concerns. But the idea that you're going to
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: send like what ostp office of science and technology policy
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: inspectors right to the frontier labs and they're gonna tell
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: those bureaucrats are gonna tell us what we need to
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: do or what was his other idea bring them in
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: and put them under oath yes because you guys are
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: so good at asking penetrating questions about things you don't
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: understand are you kidding.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Me yeah yeah i remember all the internet um social
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: media hearings that they held where it did not seem
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: like they had ever even seen a computer before.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: I don't think we would get the answers we're looking
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: for from that process.
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: And again, he's echoing exactly what the New York Times says, right?
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: It's like, if we had a different president, we could
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: have this under control right now. This didn't happen today.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden was president two years ago. Nothing was different.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: So Spira is kind of that story. And the idea
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: that we should get the government involved to get our
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: preferred companies.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: To be the only ones able to advance on AI
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: is not what we should be looking for. In a
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: free market.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: And we'll get more into the free market and why
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: that's a good thing in the next segment, because I
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: think a lot of Republicans have forgotten and we're going
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: to try to remind them.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: But it applies here as well. The free market is good.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: The free market is what can help solve the AI
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: quote unquote crisis that we're going through right now.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: And I think that the government should let the free
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: market play out. I don't think Bernie Sanders is the answer.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you that. I don't think Steve Bannon is
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: the answer either. Horseshoe!
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: Them working together is definitely not the answer.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: That sounds horrific. We're going to take a short break
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: and be right back with more on Normally.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: We are back on normally with, well, a series of
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Republican missteps, to put it mildly. Beau French, number one,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: is a Republican candidate for office statewide in Texas. Railroad
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: commissioner didn't need to get into this debate at all
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: as a guy who's running for railroad commissioner. But he
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: was watching the U.T. Ohio State game on Saturday. And
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: when the Longhorns miraculously came back from 21 points down,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: what a great game to be at.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: The Ruthless guys were there, by the way, I noticed. Jealous.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: Why aren't normally girls there? Someone needs to ship us there.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: What a fun game to attend.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Beau French is watching and the camera pans to the
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: student section and he sees a lot of Indian American
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: students or He thinks foreign students in this section and
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: tweets that that's a problem for him.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: He doesn't know who they are. He doesn't know where
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: they're from.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Many of them are very likely Texans because Texas
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: universities allow for the top five percent in all of
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: their public high schools to come to UT schools. But
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: he's just like, this is a problem. Right.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: And it spread on Twitter as these things do, where
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: the conversation obviously led to immigration, which is a topic
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: separate from the fact that some brown kids were watching
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: a football game on a weekend night.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: I think that's the distinction here. You can have your issues.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: With immigration, and I absolutely do.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: We'll get more into that at the end of this segment.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: I think that the way our border has been open
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: for the last X number of years under the Biden
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: years were just atrocious and led to a coarsening of
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: the American heart towards immigration.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: And again, as an immigrant... I wanted legal immigration. I
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: wanted fair immigration.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: I wanted immigration policies that make sense. And we did
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: not have that for a very long time. And I
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: would say we didn't even have that before the Biden administration.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Our legal immigration system made no sense. And I think
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: people are really bitter about that.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: All of that. fully makes sense to me.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: But to look at these kids doing exactly what we
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: want immigrants to do, which is assimilate, and they seemed
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: fully assimilated and find a problem with this is something
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: that I just can't abide. Now, the other part of
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: this is that I think a lot of this started where.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: Ted Cruz was in interviewed before this game.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: And he has a bipartisan bill he co-authored called the
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Protect College Sports Act.
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: And it's to regulate.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: College athletics and name, image and likenesses deals.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: And he was being booed.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: And I think what happened was people were like, who
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: are these kids? And they concluded, a lot of people
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: concluded that they are either foreign born or children.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: Of immigrants and the rest of that. And this was
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: almost I.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Want to say it's snowballed from here, but I think
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: it started as a defense of Ted Cruz, which is
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: funny because it's a totally separate part of the Republican Party,
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: I would say.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: And then snowballed into the.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: University of Texas is just full of immigrants and where
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: the Texan families that have been here for generations, shouldn't
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: their kids be going here, too? Again, all of that,
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: I can be sympathetic to over-immigration and the rest of it,
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: but they were doing what we asked.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: That's the thing.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: A bunch of Indian-looking guys in cowboy.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: Hats sitting in these student sections. We want that.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Of a UT football game screaming their heads off seems
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: to me about the purest evidence of assimilation that there is.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: Football is not that than what, you know? It's thoroughly American.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: There's a separate conversation in different places, I don't think
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: in Texas, about, for instance, places that give in-state tuition
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: to illegal immigrants. That's a thing that I don't like.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: The over-immigration that you pointed out is a thing that
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: I don't like. But I do like people who are
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: good students, who are Americans, who live in American states,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: being able to go to those colleges and cheer the
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: football team without a statewide running for office candidate smearing them.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: Exactly. The other, I mean, this segment can be called.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: you know, problems Republicans are having heading into the midterms
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: that we really should not.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: Be having right now.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: There was a 60-minute segment over the weekend.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: I believe it was, was it the first one that
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: Barry Weiss produced?
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Because it seemed like people were calling it the Barry
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Weiss entry into 60 Minutes.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: This was her debut, yes.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Right. In a hidden camera operation, pardon brokers Jack Berkman
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: and Jacob.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: Wohl said that for $ 300, 000, they could help get a.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: A felon get a pardon from the president they said
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: their services include working with influencers.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: To advocate for this case.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: I only have heard of Jacob Wall and that is
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: because he used to do this shtick where he would
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: say he's in a hipster coffee shop and then fill
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: in the blanks could be whatever like and he heard
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: you know a blue haired girl with a nose ring
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: talking about how much she loves Donald Trump I mean
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: it would just be these kooky stories and it was
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: always quote unquote a hipster coffee shop and now he's
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: doing this. A lot of people are pointing out that
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: these are convicted scammers. They have already been sentenced in
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: a case that involves scamming, a robocall case.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: So they're not pardon brokers. They are just scam artists.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: And you can tell from the undercover video that one
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: of the issues is that, look, Trump Trump's open door
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: policy for everyone has its downsides. And this is one
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: of them, because they can go the scammers can go
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: and say, give us three hundred thousand bucks. We'll get
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: into a dinner and we'll sit next to him and
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: we'll hand your stuff over. To Trump. By the way,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: this is a very be careful what you wish for
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: moment for me, because in the past I was like,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: pardons aren't used often enough. There's a bunch of people
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: who probably are worth pardoning. And now it's just like
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Biden and Trump combined or just.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Enough with the pardons. Let's put the brakes
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: back on that.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: But I would like to say, you know, all the
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: haters who are like Barry Weiss will just run a
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: cheerleading campaign. 60 minutes and CBS, she's going to crash
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: the whole thing in her in her debut. We have
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: an undercover examination of the Trump pardon economy. We have
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: an exclusive interview with the pilot who was not pilot
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: who the co-pilot who was downed in Iran and rescued
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: by the American military. And then you have an in-depth
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: dive on the L.A. Rams because the NFL is like
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: the only thing anyone wants to watch on TV and
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: its owner's A.I.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: Investments.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Maybe she knows how to run a news show is
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Right.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Or maybe she was never the MAGA person that you
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: crazy people believe she is. I mean, it's just the
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: fact that Barry Weiss became super right winger lady is
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: kind of hilarious.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: But that's not all with the Republicans. We've got more.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Shall we have Trump introduce the concept that we think
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: is a Republican problem that he introduced at the midterm
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: convention this week? Here he is.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: United States Senate, both of them, because of our economic,
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: tremendous economic success, like in history, we've never had anything
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: like what's happening. But because of our tremendous strength and
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: success economically. I will issue a dividend to every adult
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: citizen in the United States of America for five thousand dollars.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: Are you ready for it, Carol? I am ready for it.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: You know, we've talked about it on here before.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Sending money to people in the mail, very popular. People
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: love it. People love getting the money in the mail. However,
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: you know how everything's really expensive right now? It's because
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: of the last time they sent us money in the mail.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: That's what happens. Inflation goes up. Prices go up. The
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: dollar is worth less. And... Let's not do stuff like this.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: This is one of those.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Don't do this. I get why I get the appeal.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: I get the urge. I get the Democrats do it
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: and we want to do it, too.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: But let's not.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: It's dumb, dumb appeal, though, because it will make the
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: problem worse. This is what liberals do all the time.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: You give something up front without thinking about the second
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: order consequences and you mess up a bunch of people's
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: lives while you're doing it.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: Which is what will happen here.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Also, like maybe concentrate on messaging the Tax money that
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: you've saved people, the no tax on tips stuff. Trump
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: has gotten very little credit for that. You can blame
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: much of that on media. But that doesn't mean that
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: he should not be talking about it nonstop and not
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: distracting with future promises of giving out more money. fake
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: government money, which, by the way, is just redistribution because
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: they can't make revenue. They can only take from people
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: who have created things. So I think it's a fiction
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: that the tariff revenue even could cover this. And even
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: if it did, we don't want it to because it
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: will make the problems that people are experiencing with prices worse. worse.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: And I mean, I know we never talk about this
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: no matter which party is in charge, but we have
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: a ballooning national deficit. I know that nobody believes we're
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: going to have to pay for that someday, but we
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: probably are. And it's It's just a bad situation for
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: us to continue to get into. I will say that
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: no matter how bad Republicans are, and a lot of
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: the time, man, are they bad. There's a New York
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: Times story this morning that states and cities will sue
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: over Trump's policies to restrict green cards. And you're like, oh,
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: who's he restricting green cards to? He is trying to
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: restrict green cards to people on public benefits. People who
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: cannot support themselves in this country will not get green
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: cards under the Trump administration plan. And cities and states
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: don't want this.
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: They want the people to be on welfare. And one
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: of the lines in here is just bananas.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: There's a part where it also argues that it would
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: harm states and localities, this is the lawsuit, by straining
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: emergency rooms and reducing participation in food stamps, which would
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: drain money from local businesses that depend on the federal benefits.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: What are we talking about here? There are local businesses
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: that depend on people to be on food stamps. Therefore,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: we need to import more people to.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: Be on food stamps.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: What?
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: No, it's absolutely crazy. And like this is this is
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: what government does. Government creates these dependency cycles. Government creates problems.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: And then government's like, oh. We created that dependency loop.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Now we have to keep supplying the dependency loop. We
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: know who pays for the dependency loop.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: We do.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: All of us.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: While we're also trying to feed our own children.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: It's just a horrible system.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: It's also this is all portrayed. as Donald Trump doing
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: this kind of thing. Trump officials have said that the
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: policy known as the public charge rule is necessary to
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: protect public resources and to restore the basic principles that
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: immigrants must be able to support themselves. The effort is
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: a revival of a similar policy that the administration tried
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: to impose during President Trump's first term before it was
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: met with legal challenges and later reversed by the Biden administration.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: What's so bonkers to me is I came to America
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: in the late 70s and we had to prove that
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: we would not be on the public charge.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: That was the whole thing.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Somebody needed to sponsor us to come to America and
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: we needed to say that at no point would we
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: accept public assistance. And the person that would be responsible
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: for us is our sponsor. And here we have the
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: situation where they specifically want people to be on that
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: public charge and to get green cards. And it's just
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: mind boggling.
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, your system of going your experience of going
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: through the system was how was normal, right? Right.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: That was normal. And now this is abnormal.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: And they're trying to portray the Trump administration as the
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: abnormal one.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: And that's just not the case.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Well, and I just don't buy from all these lawsuits
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: and all the people who bring them. That American citizens
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: have obligations to non-citizens and in another category, criminal non-citizens
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: and criminals in general that we don't have to law
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: abiding citizens. The argument is that we have more obligations
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: to them than we do to citizens. And I don't
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: believe that our rights can be universal.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: But when it comes to public welfare, no. Right. No,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: we don't have different benefits and all sorts of things.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: For lack of a better term, America first. Americans first.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: That's kind of the vibe. I mean, that's what it
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: has to be. Like, what else are we doing here?
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Why would we want to import people who can't afford
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: to live here and have no plan to do so?
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: What are we doing?
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: And the left will look you straight in the eye
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: and be like that. We're not saying that. But the
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: first time that it really flipped my lid was 2020
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: when L.A.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: U.S.D.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Teachers went back to to teach in person in facilities
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: for illegal immigrant children. Yeah. Would not go back to
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: any icky citizen and taxpaying children. Right. Right.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: Don't like any of that.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Nope. So we're going to take a short break and
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: be right back with one more segment of Normally. All right.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: We are back on Normally with a favorite subject of ours, literacy,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: particularly literacy successes in places like Mississippi and all across
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: the South, where they are not stymied by extremely powerful
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: teachers unions. The Wall Street Journal is on this again,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: and I just love for it to get as much
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: national coverage as possible. The headline, Mississippi fixed its schools.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Here's how other states can, too. Powerful teachers unions are
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: an obstacle to reform, but Mississippi's dramatic breakthrough proves that
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: evidence-based literacy can succeed. anywhere.
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: Yes, thank you.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Let's beat this drum as hard as is necessary to
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: get children reading all across the country.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: And perhaps the key to that.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Is just to troll the heck out of blue states
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: and tell them Mississippi is doing better than them. Right.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: I feel like that's working. So they have this great chart,
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: and this really was everywhere this weekend.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Where literacy programs and teacher union strength kind of marked
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: on a chart, literacy score on one axis and union
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: strength on the other. And the ones that have a
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: lower literacy score also have a stronger union rate ranking.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: So New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California is like really
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: doing poorly, Vermont.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: But it's Interesting.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: That almost all of the red states are doing better
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: in the literacy scores and the blue states are just not.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: And that corresponds to how strong the unions are.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: And you have to be looking at this and being like,
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: if unions wanted better education, this wouldn't be the situation.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: We wouldn't have a correlation of higher literacy scores, more
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: union strength or less union strength in this case. Yeah.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, the problem is that they don't want that.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: that's not that's not the priority the priority is to
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: funnel money to randy weingarten and all her friends yeah
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: uh to get as many benefits as possible to strike
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: and leave children out of school when necessary to make
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: those benefits higher as they just tried to do in
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: seattle to get because their 8.8 percent raise over three
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: years was not enough um for you know 140k for
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: nine months of work and uh The many parents learned
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: during the pandemic years that their school boards and their
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: school administrations and their teachers unions were actually an oppositional force.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Like we're adversarial. We're not just not working well enough together.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: I'm the enemy as the parent and the person who
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: wants my kid to learn.
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. Yeah. That's a real dynamic.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: And that's just.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: A sign that the union shouldn't be as strong as
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: they are.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: And.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: I think states that take the opportunity to do that
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: would really improve. And you have to focus on literacy.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: Like having weaker unions isn't enough. This piece is like,
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: you know, Wyoming and South Dakota have weaker unions, but
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: they also have lower literacy policy scores because they haven't
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: endorsed the policies that have worked in places like Mississippi.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: I think following policies that work, that would really go
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: a long way.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: And part of the obstacle, because I've written about this before,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: is if you talk to people who are education experts
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: who care about the process that Mississippi and others have adopted,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: many of them are sort of center or right leaning.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: They're not the lefty progressive space in education. When they
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: bring it up with their liberal colleagues, they have trouble understanding.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: telling them it's the truth. They won't believe them that
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: these things work because they can't work because Mississippi is
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: backwards and New York is amazing. That's the bubble that
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: they live in and they can't let go of it.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: So if you can't even recognize that it's happening, then
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: you can't solve the problem.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Admitting you have a problem is the first step.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Yep. Can I add real quick that for my area,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: the very blue Fairfax County, and this is from the
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Fairfax GOP, one in five Fairfax County students failed the
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: state reading test this year for low income kids.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: It was nearly two in five.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: So maybe take some of those administrators who do the
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: woke and put them on the reading.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: Well, thanks for joining us on Normally.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: you get your podcasts.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: Get in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail.com. Thanks
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: for listening, and when things get weird, act normally.