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Normally Podcast: Navigating the Trade War: Tariffs and Tensions · Normally

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Well, hey guys, we are back on normally, the show
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: that normals takes for when the news gets weird.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: I am Mary teth Him.
• 0:10
  Speaker 3: I'm Carol Markowitz. I keep waiting for the news not
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: to be weird, but it's just weird every day.
• 0:15
  Speaker 4: Mary Catherine, I'm a weird every.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Day, the upside of the tagline. And I'm having a
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: weird week because I'm working without a net. I have
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: no childcare, so we're recording during nap time and we're
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: crossing our fingers.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: But we can do it.
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: Carol, it's gonna be a fast one. Let's do it.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Well, there's news in the trade war on the tariff front,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: and that is that Donald Trump announced via Truth social
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: network that he is pausing for ninety days tariffs on
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: everyone else, the reciprocal tariffs, not the baseline ten percent,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: which will still exist, all right, pausing the extra ones
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: for ninety days, except for on China.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Here's the truth.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Based on the lack of respect that China has shown
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: to the world's markets, I am hereby raising the tariff
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: charged to China by the United States of America to
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty five percent effective immediately. At some point,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: days of ripping off the USA and other countries it
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: is no longer sustainable or acceptable. Conversely, and based on
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: the fact that more than seventy five countries have called
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: representatives of the United States, including the Departments of Commerce, Treasury,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: and the US Trade Representative's Office, to negotiate a solution
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: to the subjects being discussed relative to trade, trade barriers, tariffs, currency,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: manipulation of non monetary tariffs, and that these countries have not,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape or
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: form against the United States.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I have authorized in ninety.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Day pause and substantially lowered reciprocal tariff during this period
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: of ten percent, also effective immediately.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Thank you for your attention to this matter.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: Everyone's like glued to their television screen like.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: He has a way.
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: He really does.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: So the markets responded well to this idea of a pause,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: as they did to the fake news about a pause
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: a couple of days ago.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: That should show the president something I'm not sure.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Again, this is the problem with the whole structure of
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: this is that he can change his mind unless Congress
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: takes this power.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Back in a moment if he wants to.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I like the idea of going after China, but being
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: chiller with people who are not involved in a bunch
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: of unfair practices. That seems good to me. Getting closer
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: to zero for zero tariffs seems good to me. Do
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: I think that was the plan here?
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure, but I'm glad we're here at the moment.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: Well, that's the thing, right, What was the plan?
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: Was there a plan? We'll never know?
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: And I look again, you and I have been sort of,
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: I think, not cautiously optimistic, but just cautious in general
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: about this whole thing. And we're not surprised that it
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: ended up here for now. Again, it might start back
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: up again in ninety days.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: This is pretty much where we.
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: Predicted he'd be. Maybe we didn't see the China angle coming.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: I thought maybe he would be across the board pose.
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: It for ninety days. I'm not mad at this. I
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: think that China.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: Does deserve some retribution for what they do to us.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: And look, if this is where we end up, I
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: think that'll be okay.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Howard Lutnik, who is the Commerce Secretary, tweeted, I just
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: found this very funny. As a cabinet member for Trump,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Scott Besson and I set with the President while he
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: wrote one of the most.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Extraordinary tingh my god of his presidency.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: The world is ready to work with President Trump to
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: fix global trade, and China has chosen the opposite direction.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I have a feeling that Scott Bessont was like, this
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: looks like a win to me, sir, And here's how
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: we can tell that story.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Besson's quote is this was driven by the President's strategy.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: This was his along.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: You might even say he go to China into a
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: bad position. They have shown themselves to the world to
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: be bad actors, and we are willing to cooperate with
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: our allies and with our trading partners who did not retaliate.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Again.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I think this is a reframing, but it's one that
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I don't mind if it gets us.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's declare victory and get the hell out of this.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, cutting the federal workforce please, right.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: I think things were going so well until this tariff thing.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: The idea of bringing back manufacturing seems like a stretch,
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: but I'm open to hearing plans about it.
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: Look, all of this is heading.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: Towards being automated anyway. So this idea of let's bring
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: back these amazing jobs and have manufacturing in the United
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: States probably isn't what's actually going to happen.
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: We'll see. I'm happy with this.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: If we could just say we won and leave it here,
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: that would be good in my opinion.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we have manufacturing jobs that go unfilled here, so
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: it's not that they don't exist. I think one of
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: the issues is that we need to do a better
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: job of training people or those type of jobs, which
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: is a skill we've lost over the years, maybe doing
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: little too much DEI teaching in the schools instead of.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Thought class, that kind of thing.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: And I do remain concerned about the uncertainty itself, and
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: that is just like the price of admission with Trump.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: It so is, yeah, you're getting on a roller coaster.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Enjoy the ride, but it does have effects, you know,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: in real time, because people will, like on the real markets,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: because they people will get worried about investing their money,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and I don't want them worried about that.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. I think this is a better track though, right.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: The uncertainty is obviously the key problem with the last
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: few days, but I will say that if we knew
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: that he was going to pause the tariffs, then I
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: have to imagine the people investing in the markets also
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: had in that that was going to happen, you know,
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: by the dip sell it when Trump pauses the tariffs,
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: that you know, that's where we are.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Basically, one Robbie Swaby was was bragging about how he
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: had he had guessed.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: This almost with very hight, almost with.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: The same language that the President presented. So he writes
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: for Reason magazine. So I appreciated that.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I get I think we guessed it. We basically
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: said that that was where he was going to end up.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, again, this is not an ending, so we
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: don't know, but we felt like there was going to
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: be a pause.
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: And look there's one. So follow us from more investing advice.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean the thing is too like normis who
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: are not necessarily heavy investors.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: But have four O one case, Yeah, who are.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Watching the markets or hearing things while they're you know,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: have CNBC on in the background, or you know, worried
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: about the impact it might have on grocery prices, which
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: is something that we should care about for regular people.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: They're not maybe thinking through all the details of trade policy.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: But they're concerned just like we are, and I think
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: it's good to give them some comfort.
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: We'll be right back on normally.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: At Real Clear investigations, You're going to be so surprised
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: by this. Mary Catherine lee Fang has found that the
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: whole Kamala Harris Brat summer was actually astro turf. No, yes,
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: I know, I know, I too could not believe it.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: Lee Wright's influencers flooded the web with Neon Macha Green
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: pro Harris videos sync to beats from Charlie XCX album
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: Bratt released last summer. Last year, The poppy ray videos
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: Gosh journalists showed that Harris embodied the confidently independent brat.
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: Vibe conveyed by the music.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: Social media pages bubbled with memes celebrating Harris as the
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: voice of queer in black youth and contrast with the
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: Republican agenda of white supremacy. Now, this was a career
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: politician who was deeply entrenched in the Democratic Party's establishment,
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: and she was somehow rebranded as like the latest coolest thing.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: It all seemed a bit suspicious at the time. Now
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: Real Clearer obtained internal documents and WhatsApp messages from Democratic
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: strategists behind the influencer campaign called Way to Win, one
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: of the major donor groups behind the effort. They spent
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: more than nine point one million dollars on social media
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: influencers during the twenty twenty four presidential election. Five one
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: hundred and fifty content creators published six six hundred and
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: forty four posts across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, and x.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: The thing is that we have no idea that any
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: of this goes on until after the fact. If then
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: the story has barely been hitting you know, any of
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: the main stiam news outlets. We felt like we had
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: to talk about it on this show because it's been
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: so undercovered. Let's listen to this clip from Lee about
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: what the problem is in getting kind of to the
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: truth of this sort of thing.
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: This whole thing raises ethical concerns about transparency in political campaigning.
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: Should there restrict disclosure requirements imposed on influencers for influencer
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: based political content?
• 9:24
  Speaker 6: Look, we've had we've had rules for decades now where
• 9:28
  Speaker 6: you know, if you sponsor a billboard, a radio ad,
• 9:30
  Speaker 6: a television ad, the last few seconds of that message
• 9:34
  Speaker 6: has to show sponsored it. You know, on the billboard,
• 9:36
  Speaker 6: there's a disclosure at the bottom which pack or campaign
• 9:40
  Speaker 6: sponsored that message. No such rules exist for social media
• 9:45
  Speaker 6: for these influencers on Instagram, TikTok, and what have you.
• 9:49
  Speaker 6: It's really the wild West. At the end of twenty
• 9:51
  Speaker 6: twenty three, the Federal Election Commission proposed some influencer payola disclosures.
• 9:59
  Speaker 6: They deadlocked on the issue. There was no movement, so
• 10:01
  Speaker 6: right now, really anything could happen. And you know, we
• 10:04
  Speaker 6: were seeing this problem more and more on both sides,
• 10:07
  Speaker 6: both Republicans and Democrats have kind of got caught doing this.
• 10:10
  Speaker 6: This particular story that we're reporting this week, this is
• 10:14
  Speaker 6: the biggest I think effort of this type on either side,
• 10:18
  Speaker 6: Democrats spending ten million dollars just in this one kind
• 10:21
  Speaker 6: of organization. But it's a big problem, and it's a
• 10:24
  Speaker 6: big problem for disclosure. We haven't really resolved it.
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, you and I have talked about recently.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: When the Florida bill came up about immigration, influencers were
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: paid to praise a Florida politician. It was so obvious,
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: and then somebody found the actual payment structure of that.
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: It is the wild West. We don't know who's getting
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: paid for what?
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: These influencers are taking money for their opinion, And it's
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: sort of interesting because obviously you know, and again we've
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: talked about it on here, but like if they already
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: believe what they're saying, I guess the feeling is like,
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: why shouldn't I get paid for it?
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: But everybody else has to disclose? I think they should
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: have to also.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Now I think it's it's tricky because it is in
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: this area, this gray area of election law, so you
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: don't really have to disclose this stuff.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: What worried me.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: And by the way, I appreciate Lee's reporting often and
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: he's Lee Hfang on X if you want to follow him.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: He does a lot of interesting work along these lines,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: and it takes a lot of work to track down
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: all these dms and all the easy financing. But he
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: notes that way to win, which is the organization that
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: did this stuff structure the funds through nonprofit corporations that
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: paid various influencer talent agencies firms such as Paltt Management
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: and Vocal Media, so it's all intertwined. But the nonprofit
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: groups struck me, like how much perhaps tax payer money
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: is going to various nonprofits that can get dumped into
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: electioneering and influencer campaigns. Although, like you said, Carol, we
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: weren't really tricked by this one.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: I think that this was entirely organic.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Regularly the brat, Kamala's bratt, so bratt, super bratt.
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: You know, like pan.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Suit, I sort of.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: I sort of enjoy when politics just kills a slang
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: term immediately, Like bratt was really like smothered in the crib.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: That one went so fast, because once a politician takes it,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: even though they're trying to tell you the politician's cool,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: it's over.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: It's done.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Even even I can't kill it as quickly as Kamala
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: or Hillary Clinton can.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: Mean once you start using it around your kids, I
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: think it's also usually pretty dead.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: I did delight in that, by the yeah, the same skivity.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: I delight in that. Oh my gosh, yes, ohio so much.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: But yeah, so back to this, I you know, I
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: think there have to be some guidelines. I don't know
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: how they can establish them.
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: It's it's so tough, like what what if you.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: Tweet something positive about whatever somebody and somebody hits the
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: tip jar that a lot of these influencers have, like
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: do they then have to disclose? I think it's not
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: quite as black and white as an AD and there
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: have to be some rules to this, like I've you know,
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: I'm sure you have. Also I've been accused of taking
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: money from various causes. However, open on the record like yes,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: come pay me, but I'm mostly just kidding. I have
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: never taken any money from any cause ever. I have
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: foolishly done this all for free. And I think that
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: there has to be some level of trust between the
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: consumer of our information and us, and the way that
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: I think we established that trust is not taking money
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: to push any causes, even causes we already agree with,
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: and so there has to be some sort of policy
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: around this.
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: I don't think this go on.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: There are ways that social media has made rules for this,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: so it could come not necessarily from government regulation, but
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: from the social media entities themselves, where a lot of
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: them require tagging something as an AD or disclosing what
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: you're doing, and I don't see why dedicated posts couldn't
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: be treated that way as well. It may not be
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: forthcoming from the FEC, however, and like you said, could
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: cause a.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Bunch of other downstream unintended issues.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: As a result, we're going to take a short break
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: and come right back with normally.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Jim Van de High, who now works at Axios, I believe,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: was a founder of Politico. Yeah, that's correct, is that Axios?
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: And he was speaking with Barry Weiss on her Honestly
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: podcast about lack of trust in media not influencers this
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: time media, But aren't they sometimes the same? Weren't there
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: as well? I can remember there was one segment post
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: braught summer news cycle where a CNN anchor was wearing
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: the color like on perpose, saying like here we are.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: That is a hazy memory, but I'm pretty sure that
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: happened at any rate. Anda he's talking to her, and
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: this is a longish clip, but it's worth listening to
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: the whole thing to get an idea from a guy
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: who's at the top of political media, who's being i
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: would say a little more introspective than many of them are,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: to see what he diagnoses as the problem, and then we'll.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: Talk about it.
• 15:34
  Speaker 7: I feel like the trust really started to shatter over
• 15:38
  Speaker 7: the last decade, and I look at it in three phases.
• 15:42
  Speaker 7: The first was the creation of Twitter. What happened with
• 15:46
  Speaker 7: Twitter is people forget like now it's on a lot
• 15:48
  Speaker 7: of conservative voices, a lot of independent voices. It was
• 15:51
  Speaker 7: a hot bed of liberal group think for a long time.
• 15:55
  Speaker 7: And it was the first time since I've been in
• 15:58
  Speaker 7: this business that I would get on a fee and
• 16:00
  Speaker 7: I would see reporters who I had trusted, who I
• 16:03
  Speaker 7: had admired, making it crystal clear what their views were,
• 16:06
  Speaker 7: what side they were on. You could tell in what
• 16:09
  Speaker 7: they were tweeting, and you could tell in who they
• 16:11
  Speaker 7: were following and who was following them. So I thought
• 16:14
  Speaker 7: that was stage one, because at least before any bias
• 16:18
  Speaker 7: people had they hid from the public. Now it was
• 16:21
  Speaker 7: in a somewhat full view. Then came along kind of
• 16:25
  Speaker 7: the COVID defund, the police word policing, where I think
• 16:32
  Speaker 7: a lot of Americans were looking around and being like,
• 16:34
  Speaker 7: it doesn't sit right with me, and it doesn't in
• 16:37
  Speaker 7: the way it's being covered didn't sit right with them.
• 16:41
  Speaker 7: And then I think the final straw really was the
• 16:44
  Speaker 7: coverage of Joe Biden, when people were saying, hey, I
• 16:46
  Speaker 7: could see with my own two eyes that the guy
• 16:48
  Speaker 7: seems pretty old, probably doesn't seem capable of being the
• 16:51
  Speaker 7: President in the next term, and yet there's not a
• 16:54
  Speaker 7: whole hell of a lot of coverage of it. We
• 16:56
  Speaker 7: you know, Alex Thompson, our White House reporter, just won
• 16:59
  Speaker 7: the White House Reporting Award because he was one of
• 17:02
  Speaker 7: the few reporters to write about the decline of Joe Biden,
• 17:06
  Speaker 7: and he got the help exactly some of the very
• 17:11
  Speaker 7: reporters who may have you know who will applaud him
• 17:14
  Speaker 7: when he wins the award in a couple of weeks.
• 17:17
  Speaker 7: If you go back and look at their Twitter feeds,
• 17:19
  Speaker 7: there's a lot of people dunking on him and saying, oh,
• 17:21
  Speaker 7: that's not actually true. And we're on the other ends
• 17:23
  Speaker 7: of the calls from the White House saying that you
• 17:25
  Speaker 7: guys are out on a limb, you're wrong, you're crazy,
• 17:28
  Speaker 7: blah blah blah. And so I think those three things
• 17:32
  Speaker 7: in totality really cemented the distrust that a lot of
• 17:36
  Speaker 7: people have in media, and it breaks my heart. I
• 17:40
  Speaker 7: hate that. I love journalism. I am a fierce, fierce,
• 17:43
  Speaker 7: dependent defender of journalism. I believe that most reporters at
• 17:47
  Speaker 7: most institutions actually do try to get to the closest
• 17:50
  Speaker 7: approximation of the truth and achieve it most of the time.
• 17:53
  Speaker 7: I think it's a couple of bad apples who make
• 17:56
  Speaker 7: it look bad for everyone.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: I mean, the idea that it was somebody else, you know,
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: it's it's that whole the meme of the guy in
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: the hot dog costume, where he's like, we're looking for
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: the person who did this and not taking any responsibility.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: I think that's actually problem number one.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: The things that he diagnoses. He's right, he's.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Right, stones are correct, yes.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: Yes, but the blame placing of some vague other journalists
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: is a little bit too rich.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I got a couple problems with this one. At
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: the risk of my reputation. I am a fourth generation
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: newspaper journalist. I know, shame upon my whole family line.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: You're so awesome, Come on, that's amazing.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: So my great grandfather owned a newspaper in Georgia, and
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: then my grandfather worked for him as a sports writer,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: and then my dad was an editor, and then I
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: was at a newspaper before newspaper sail. So I am
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: sort of like coming from a family of inkstained wretches,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: and I've always been part of media in a sort
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: of like help me, help you kind of way. Like
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: I want you to do the job you're supposed to
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: do now. That has been a seriously uphill battle, and
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: I found that I was ideologically an outlier, even in
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: a small newsroom in rural North Carolina, right because journalists
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: are just very, very left, and there are so many
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: of them that are very left, and I would argue
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: they're more left now than they've ever been, and more
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: elite and elite dist than they've ever been, and at
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: least to all these blind spots.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: The idea that it started with Twitter.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: That we didn't know before, Like friend, I knew before
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: two thousand and seven or nine or whenever it was,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: so that was what I was not shocked. I actually
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: prefer it to be crystal clear what their biases are
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: because I knew before.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: Stop hiding it from me. One of the reasons that we.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Do what we do the way we do it is
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: to be able to say, like, this is where I stand.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: You can judge.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: I will try to get to the true, but you
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: can judge my motivations how you wish.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Sure, that's part of it.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: The COVID and defund the police and the you know,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: woke stuff all slammed together in that very short mention.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: It really doesn't even begin to get to the crazy,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: really does they endorsed? I mean doesn't even begin, right.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: You didn't mention things like Kavanaugh, for example, which he
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: was particularly involved in pushing specifically him, and you know
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: things like that are just get left off the list.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: And then there's Joe Biden, where it's like, oh, the
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: slings and arrows. I appreciate it is true that Thompson
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: reported when others did not, as did the Wall Street
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Journal reporters who first wrote the formal story in this,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: But the rest of us were just like, Hi, guys,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: we can see this.
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: Right with our eyes.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: There are no awards forthcoming for that.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: I love the idea that the White House was like,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: you're really out on a limb here, buster like am
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I I can see you wandering through field. I don't
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: think I'm that on a limb. And then the idea
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: that it's just a few of them.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Is you got animals, right, the group think?
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Why does the group think exist that he that he
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: identifies at the beginning of Twitter.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: It's because they all think the same thing, right, And
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: That they were surprised to find that that's identified as
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: group think, or that that's even leftism. To them, that's
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: just normal. And what do you mean, we're not leftists,
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: We're just mainstream journalists who all think the same way.
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: Why is that weird to you?
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: It's just neutral, good, right, like all the things we think.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: But all the things we think became defund the police
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: and stay in your home for two years, and toddlers
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: should wear masks, and schools should be closed, and you
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: should never say any of the words we say.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: You can't say.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Nina Jenkowitz should be in charge of all of it.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: And Biden is great for another four years. I mean,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: come on, how can they be surprised the people don't
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: trust them?
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they can't be. And I don't know if there's
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: a way back from it. I you know, we'll see
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: what happens.
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: Maybe there's enough resistors to.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: Make the failing mainshoe media relevant again, but it's hard
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: to see how that's going to happen.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, As I always say, this country is desperate for
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: a reliable narrator, and the media absolutely refuses.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: To be one.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and for that reason, they have lost tons of power.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: And I think actually the losing of their power and
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: the dispersal of viewpoints. Yes, makes it's hard sometimes to
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: figure out what information you're getting and how and what
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: is real and what is not, but also means that
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: they can't create fake narratives the way that they used to.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: We're going to tell you the truth on this show
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: whether or not you like it, so stay tu enjoy.
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Thanks for joining us on normally.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: you get your podcasts.
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: Get in touch with us.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: At normallythepod at gmail dot com.
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally