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Normally Podcast: Media Accountability in the Age of Trump · Normally

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey guys, we are back on normally the show with
0:07
Speaker 1: normalist takes for when the news gets weird. I am
0:11
Speaker 1: host Lauren Bacall, Kathleen Turner or sick Mary Katherine Ham with.
0:17
Speaker 2: Me as always is, I'm Carol Markowitz. You do sound
0:20
Speaker 2: very sexy, Mary Katine. I feel like the audience is
0:23
Speaker 2: going to enjoy this episode the perks of being sick
0:27
Speaker 2: for a few days until it's gone entirely, well, max
0:30
Speaker 2: it out while you can, will so here we are
0:35
Speaker 2: on Monday. This episode airzon Tuesday, and it was a
0:40
Speaker 2: bit of an exciting weekend. Did you watch the Army
0:43
Speaker 2: Navy game?
0:44
Speaker 3: I was at the Army Navy tailgate and I took
0:47
Speaker 3: the two oldest girls to the Travis Mannon Foundation tailgate,
0:50
Speaker 3: which is the premiere and I don't think that's a
0:53
Speaker 3: disputed statement. Premiere tailgate at the Army Navy game, Fantastic Music,
0:58
Speaker 3: Food Drinks. Took the two big girls and decided not
1:01
Speaker 3: to do the full game experience with the tailgate because
1:04
Speaker 3: we had the kids right tailgate.
1:07
Speaker 2: Raw Ra came home to watch the game amazing. It
1:10
Speaker 2: looked really cool on TV. Lots of people there and
1:14
Speaker 2: Trump had tons of people with him. I mean we
1:16
Speaker 2: talked about this in advance of it, but Daniel Penny
1:19
Speaker 2: was with JD.
1:20
Speaker 3: Vans.
1:20
Speaker 2: That was amazing. Yeah, it was really cool. I will
1:23
Speaker 2: definitely have to at least go to a tailgate someday
1:26
Speaker 2: because that looks like a really fun experience.
1:28
Speaker 3: Well, you should come along to ours, and if you do, everyone,
1:32
Speaker 3: if you ever get a chance to go to an
1:34
Speaker 3: Army Navy game, it's really moving and fun and there's
1:38
Speaker 3: just so many people on Literally every person on the
1:41
Speaker 3: field would give their life for you. I mean that
1:43
Speaker 3: is that an incredible moment.
1:45
Speaker 2: And they know how to play football, handing out what
1:48
Speaker 2: a combo.
1:49
Speaker 3: And so being there is just very special and it
1:52
Speaker 3: makes I didn't realize this stat but Trump has gone
1:56
Speaker 3: to five apparently, and Biden went to zero during his
2:00
Speaker 3: Which if you can have a great seat at the
2:03
Speaker 3: Army Navy game, which president you would get, why would
2:08
Speaker 3: you not go? It's amazing.
2:10
Speaker 2: Mary Catherine's like, I'm thinking about running for president just
2:13
Speaker 2: for that part.
2:13
Speaker 3: That would be I'd really rather be veep. I just
2:16
Speaker 3: want to shake hands and give speeches. That's my gig.
2:20
Speaker 2: I'd vote for you.
2:21
Speaker 3: I'll go to fundraisers. I don't want to do the
2:22
Speaker 3: hard stuff, guys.
2:24
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris, that's that's going to be me. Well, the
2:29
Speaker 2: media has been having another normal one. I think we
2:33
Speaker 2: could do a segment on this basically every show, but
2:35
Speaker 2: we won't. We won't.
2:38
Speaker 3: What's the latest?
2:39
Speaker 2: What's uh have? What do we have today?
2:42
Speaker 3: Well? ABC owned by Disney. By the way, Disney taken
2:47
Speaker 3: els from Ronda Santis and now from Donald Trump. They
2:50
Speaker 3: have all the l all the l's settled a defamation
2:54
Speaker 3: suit with Trump for fifteen million dollars. This is ABC
2:59
Speaker 3: News and Stallnopolis, George Deffanopolis, former Clinton war room guy
3:04
Speaker 3: turned very unbiased news anchor, and that fifteen million will
3:09
Speaker 3: go to the future Presidential Foundation and Museum of Donald J.
3:12
Speaker 3: Trump So Good, which is almost better than just cash
3:16
Speaker 3: to Trump. I love the idea of like the totally
3:21
Speaker 3: owning George Stefanopolis IMAX three sixty theater as the Donald J.
3:25
Speaker 3: Trump So Good. This came about because of an interview
3:33
Speaker 3: that Stephanopolis did with Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina
3:37
Speaker 3: in March, which the interview itself, before you even get
3:41
Speaker 3: to the defamation, is pretty awful. Let's say, let's play
3:45
Speaker 3: a little clip of that Stephanopolis and Mace and he's
3:49
Speaker 3: referencing the Gene Carrol verdict in the civil trial in
3:52
Speaker 3: New York City against Trump. I still getting judged for
3:55
Speaker 3: it today.
3:56
Speaker 2: Asking you a very simple question, and.
3:57
Speaker 3: I answered you for my litical choice.
4:00
Speaker 4: Ask me a question about why you endorse someone who's
4:03
Speaker 4: been found liable for rape.
4:05
Speaker 1: It was not an extreminal court, this was this was
4:08
Speaker 1: a civil It was a civil wards.
4:09
Speaker 2: By the way she joked about the judgment and what
4:12
Speaker 2: she was going to do with all that money, I
4:13
Speaker 2: find that offensive asking you. But as a rape victim who's.
4:17
Speaker 1: Been shamed for years now because of her rape, you're
4:20
Speaker 1: trying to shame me again by asking you.
4:22
Speaker 3: You repeated that again. I think it's offensive. As a woman,
4:25
Speaker 3: I find her I find it offensive my political choices.
4:29
Speaker 2: I've endorse the man.
4:29
Speaker 3: That I believe is best for our country.
4:31
Speaker 2: It's not Joe Biden.
4:34
Speaker 3: Okay. So the problem for Stephanopoulos here is that in
4:38
Speaker 3: this civil case, which she's right to distinguish as he's
4:41
Speaker 3: not doing uh, he was not found liable for rape.
4:46
Speaker 3: And even the New York Times must confess in that case,
4:49
Speaker 3: a federal jury found mister Trump liable for sexually abusing
4:52
Speaker 3: and defaming the writer Egen Carroll, but it did not
4:55
Speaker 3: find him liable for rape. And so you get in
4:58
Speaker 3: trouble if you're calling people rapists on TV as an
5:03
Speaker 3: anchor when that's demonstrably not true and you can find
5:07
Speaker 3: that information easily. That's right.
5:09
Speaker 2: And you know, the funny thing is that so many
5:11
Speaker 2: people on the left have a problem with this judgment
5:15
Speaker 2: and they not judgment settlement. There's a settlements. That's what
5:19
Speaker 2: they have a problem with that. How could ABC settle
5:22
Speaker 2: with this guy that they hate so much and that
5:24
Speaker 2: they can't handle their hatred. Eric Degans, he's a media
5:28
Speaker 2: analyst at NPR. He tweeted that the defamation settlement quote
5:32
Speaker 2: feels like one more mainstream news organization bending the knee. Well,
5:37
Speaker 2: go out there, mister, actually it's Deggens, d egg and
5:40
Speaker 2: ask mister Deggans, go out there and make the same
5:43
Speaker 2: claim that Stephanoppolis makes you take your stand. You show
5:48
Speaker 2: them how standing your ground looks like.
5:51
Speaker 3: Well, and some of the argument, Look, I'm willing to
5:54
Speaker 3: listen to an argument about chilling speech, like okay, if
5:58
Speaker 3: they're going to come after me. Obviously, Trump has a
5:59
Speaker 3: lot of resources to go after people. He doesn't usually win,
6:02
Speaker 3: by the way, because the standard for defamation is very,
6:04
Speaker 3: very very high, particularly if you're a public figure. In
6:08
Speaker 3: this case, it looks like they had the goods. It
6:11
Speaker 3: looks like Stephanopolis didn't want to be deposed. That was
6:15
Speaker 3: the thing that was about to happen, is that Trump
6:17
Speaker 3: and Stephanopples were both of the deposed. I think a
6:20
Speaker 3: lot of media companies don't have the financial resource that
6:23
Speaker 3: they used to fight such things, and like they just
6:29
Speaker 3: weren't ready for discovery. Maybe I don't think that would
6:32
Speaker 3: go great, but so I'm willing to listen to a
6:34
Speaker 3: chilling argument. However, the idea that it's hard to avoid
6:40
Speaker 3: this level of lying on camera, right, I don't think
6:44
Speaker 3: is that convincing because this seems like a willful misrepresentation
6:49
Speaker 3: at every turn.
6:50
Speaker 2: And he wanted people to think that what that that
6:55
Speaker 2: settlement was about was about rape and it wasn't, so
6:58
Speaker 2: it really was defaming Donald Trump. So I don't know.
7:02
Speaker 2: I've also I've gotten so just in the place where
7:06
Speaker 2: I think that the left needs to learn some very
7:09
Speaker 2: valuable lessons, and this is among them. You can't just
7:13
Speaker 2: say whenever you want because you really really hate this guy.
7:17
Speaker 2: Your hatred has to be not part of the equation
7:20
Speaker 2: at all.
7:21
Speaker 3: This is from a law professor at the University of Utah,
7:24
Speaker 3: Quota by New York Times. What we might be seeing
7:26
Speaker 3: here is an attitudinal shift. Compared to the mainstream American
7:29
Speaker 3: press of a decade ago, Today's press is far less
7:31
Speaker 3: financially robust, far more politically threatened, and exponentially less confident
7:37
Speaker 3: that a given jury will value press freedom rather than
7:40
Speaker 3: embrace a vilification of it. There's a reason again, pipe shift. Again,
7:45
Speaker 3: they get the order of operations wrong. People aren't vilifying
7:49
Speaker 3: you or distrusting you because Trump doesn't like you. They
7:54
Speaker 3: don't trust you, and Trump just happens to be pointing
7:56
Speaker 3: out the reasons.
7:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, that's it. They have seen behind the curtain
8:04
Speaker 2: and they know what's going on. I think that's what
8:07
Speaker 2: it is. That these people have decided that the media
8:10
Speaker 2: is not trustworthy because the media has broken their trust,
8:14
Speaker 2: and not because they woke up one day and was like, hey,
8:17
Speaker 2: that Donald Trump is right. That Donald Trump is right,
8:19
Speaker 2: because he's right period.
8:21
Speaker 3: Well, and by the way a person from academia expounding
8:27
Speaker 3: on the First Amendment as only it pertains to press.
8:31
Speaker 3: Freedom is very on brand, like the freedom for the
8:33
Speaker 3: rest of us who are like properly credentialed New York
8:37
Speaker 3: Times or ABC do we really don't need freedom, They
8:40
Speaker 3: don't care about that so much. But the press specifically
8:44
Speaker 3: right that they want to carve out our democracy.
8:48
Speaker 2: That was the you know, our democracy. Not all democracy
8:52
Speaker 2: will be right back on normally.
8:57
Speaker 3: CNN's Clarissa Award has gotten caught in a bit of
9:00
Speaker 3: a media pickle. She was reporting from Syria, and I
9:07
Speaker 3: have to cop to having retweeted the first version I
9:10
Speaker 3: saw of this without watching the video, so just I
9:14
Speaker 3: am sorry, I because I thought, well, Clarissa Ward is
9:18
Speaker 3: always on the ground in a war zone, so there's
9:20
Speaker 3: interesting stuff coming from her in general. In this case,
9:25
Speaker 3: they do sort of like a live expose going into
9:28
Speaker 3: one of Asad's alleged torture prisons, and then they allege
9:36
Speaker 3: as they're in there to find a prisoner who has
9:41
Speaker 3: not yet been informed of ASD's fall, like under a
9:45
Speaker 3: blanket or something. Is very dramatic and if it were real,
9:50
Speaker 3: would be very interesting. But it turns out maybe that
9:53
Speaker 3: guy is not what we thought he was.
9:57
Speaker 4: Right.
9:57
Speaker 2: Well, it turns out that the guy was one of
9:59
Speaker 2: a side henchmen and that he was responsible for a
10:04
Speaker 2: lot of torture and murder. Not such a great guy.
10:09
Speaker 2: But I have to tell you that my first impression
10:12
Speaker 2: of that video, and I watched the whole thing because
10:14
Speaker 2: all these people on Twitter were sharing it like this
10:17
Speaker 2: is a must watch, you have to see this, And
10:19
Speaker 2: I watched it and I was like, this is a
10:21
Speaker 2: bunch of bs. The guy like little things Like I
10:26
Speaker 2: grew up in New York. As you know, I've seen say,
10:29
Speaker 2: people living rough or people who haven't showered in This
10:34
Speaker 2: guy had apparently been in prison for three months. It
10:37
Speaker 2: had been days since the Sad fell, so he hadn't
10:40
Speaker 2: eaten allegedly or drank or any of that. His fingernails
10:44
Speaker 2: were clean, his face was clean, he took a bite
10:49
Speaker 2: of the food, He didn't squint when he walked outside
10:52
Speaker 2: into the light. It was just a lot of In
10:55
Speaker 2: poker terms, I refer to it as I call like
10:58
Speaker 2: I call I want to see you know, to see
11:00
Speaker 2: your hand here. And it seemed like an obvious setup.
11:04
Speaker 2: Now I don't know I think it was Clarissa in
11:06
Speaker 2: on the setup. I don't know. I also had no
11:08
Speaker 2: real previous experience with her, good or bad, Like I
11:11
Speaker 2: didn't really know. I mean, I've seen her, but I
11:13
Speaker 2: didn't really know who she was, a lot of people
11:15
Speaker 2: are saying she's done similar kind of sketches before, but
11:19
Speaker 2: a lot of people have a lot of respect for
11:20
Speaker 2: her and are saying that she was taken as well.
11:25
Speaker 2: But maybe like have a little you know, credulity, right,
11:29
Speaker 2: is that the word credulity for this kind of thing.
11:31
Speaker 2: If if you're in the moment and you have found
11:33
Speaker 2: this guy under your blanket, maybe investigate that before it
11:37
Speaker 2: hits the air. I don't know, particularly in a very stage.
11:41
Speaker 3: Particularly in a fog of war situation. Right, seeing and
11:45
Speaker 3: acknowledged the allegations and the sort of investigations that people
11:49
Speaker 3: have been freelancing about this guy, saying we have subsequently
11:52
Speaker 3: been investigating his background and are aware that he may
11:54
Speaker 3: have given a false identity. We're continuing our reporting into
11:57
Speaker 3: this and the wider story. And like you said, like
12:00
Speaker 3: I think some of this goes.
12:02
Speaker 4: Back to the financial resources of these organizations, not that
12:07
Speaker 4: they can't do the fact checking. You could do that,
12:10
Speaker 4: but that they need a viral moment, right, and so
12:13
Speaker 4: going to air with things.
12:14
Speaker 3: That are not checked but are sensational. They're hoping to
12:20
Speaker 3: get the clicks exactly.
12:22
Speaker 2: Yeah. Brian Stelter tweeted yesterday the top story on the
12:26
Speaker 2: New York Times homepage this afternoon quote Trump and his
12:30
Speaker 2: picks threaten more lawsuits over critical coverage, which, yeah, why
12:34
Speaker 2: wouldn't they Why wouldn't they threaten more lawsuits over coverage?
12:38
Speaker 2: That's a straight out lie. I don't know what these
12:41
Speaker 2: people are expecting. He quotes from that piece, the small
12:44
Speaker 2: flurry of threatened defamation lawsits is the latest sign that
12:47
Speaker 2: the incoming Trump administration appears poised to do what it can.
12:51
Speaker 2: Crack down on unfavorable media coverage. No, that's not it.
12:55
Speaker 2: Not unfavorable media coverage, full onlining media coverage. And I
13:00
Speaker 2: you know, I root for Trump in this case, I
13:01
Speaker 2: really do.
13:03
Speaker 1: Yeah.
13:03
Speaker 3: If you're going to lie, you're going to have to
13:04
Speaker 3: pay for it sometimes, Speaking of which, I did not
13:07
Speaker 3: mention during the Stephanopolis segment that they were required to
13:12
Speaker 3: give an apology to Trump as part of this settlement.
13:15
Speaker 3: I just want to read the editor's note, which is
13:18
Speaker 3: the poorest excuse for an apology. ABC News and George
13:22
Speaker 3: Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding President Donald J. Trump made during
13:26
Speaker 3: an interview by George Stefanopolis was representative Nancy Mason ABC's
13:29
Speaker 3: This Week on March tenth, twenty twenty four. That kind
13:32
Speaker 3: of accountability, robust accountability, is not going to earn back
13:37
Speaker 3: the price they have lost.
13:39
Speaker 2: I was waiting for the rest of that, and then
13:41
Speaker 2: you're DUTs.
13:42
Speaker 3: That's the editor's note. And I have looked around and
13:44
Speaker 3: to my knowledge, that's the statement. And he Stephanopolis hosted
13:50
Speaker 3: his weekly news show and said nothing about it.
13:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, that doesn't seem like quite enough.
13:55
Speaker 3: Really, if I gave that apology to my husband, what's
13:58
Speaker 3: that work?
14:00
Speaker 2: Try? I we're back.
14:01
Speaker 3: I regret statements that I made. Alrighty up. Next, we
14:08
Speaker 3: have Biden's ongoing terrible pardon parade, right.
14:14
Speaker 2: Trying to make that the Hunter one look not quite
14:17
Speaker 2: so bad.
14:18
Speaker 3: I mean, look, a lot of bad characters get pardoned
14:22
Speaker 3: at the end of every presidency.
14:23
Speaker 2: That's the Whig thing, right. They're criminals, They're largely criminals,
14:29
Speaker 2: and yes, they clearly have done something that has put
14:32
Speaker 2: them in front of the president in a position to
14:34
Speaker 2: be pardoned. So they're not going to be choir boys.
14:37
Speaker 2: But no, and are worse than others.
14:40
Speaker 3: Some are, And I do wish that we I understand
14:43
Speaker 3: why they do this, and there's connected people, but there's
14:47
Speaker 3: plenty of people who probably deserve clemency and pardons and
14:51
Speaker 3: commutations who are like actually more sympathetic. And yet here
14:57
Speaker 3: we are with the kids. The kids for cash kickback
15:02
Speaker 3: scandal in Pennsylvania. This is the one you probably heard
15:06
Speaker 3: about most. What is the story with him?
15:10
Speaker 2: So it is Judge Michael Conahan, and his sentence was commuted.
15:15
Speaker 2: He and another judge in Pennsylvania were convicted of This
15:20
Speaker 2: is from Wikipedia, accepting money in return for imposing harsh
15:24
Speaker 2: educations on juveniles to increase occupancy at a private prison.
15:29
Speaker 2: That is one of the worst stories of all time.
15:32
Speaker 2: And anybody who's ever heard that story that judges put
15:37
Speaker 2: children in children's prisons because of like small offenses like
15:42
Speaker 2: trespassing or you know, one of them is mocking an
15:46
Speaker 2: assistant principle on my Space. I didn't even know that
15:48
Speaker 2: was a crime. And so these kids got these insane
15:53
Speaker 2: sentences and the judges got paid for it. That sounds
15:58
Speaker 2: like a law and order story I might not even buy, Like, oh,
16:01
Speaker 2: this sounds too far fetched, you know, ripped from the
16:04
Speaker 2: headlines here we are.
16:06
Speaker 3: Well, and just imagine how badly that can mess up
16:09
Speaker 3: the trajectory of a young person's life. You get caught
16:12
Speaker 3: up doing something stupid, you're not yet a career criminal.
16:16
Speaker 3: You get thrown in jail for longer than you should
16:20
Speaker 3: because some guy wants a couple hundred thou from the
16:24
Speaker 3: for profit system, and then you're off and running to
16:27
Speaker 3: who knows what after that, right exactly. So it's a
16:31
Speaker 3: really tragic story. And it doesn't end there. It turns
16:34
Speaker 3: out Biden has been contact by a lot of well
16:39
Speaker 3: connected fraudsters. This is one of my least favorite ones.
16:43
Speaker 3: Rita Crundwell, the former Dixon City comptroll or convicted of
16:47
Speaker 3: embezzling fifty three point seven million from her city. It's pegged,
16:52
Speaker 3: is the largest municipal threat theft in US history, and
16:55
Speaker 3: is among one of roughly fifteen hundred people. She was
16:58
Speaker 3: among the fifteen hundred people granted. And see this was
17:03
Speaker 3: a like not a large town, and she's using funds
17:07
Speaker 3: of taxpayers to buy Champion Quarter horses, a two million
17:11
Speaker 3: dollar tour bus, jewels, and furs while the town was
17:16
Speaker 3: unable to pay for infrastructure.
17:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just wonder, like, why why her? Because somebody
17:23
Speaker 2: close to her got into Biden's ear and was able
17:26
Speaker 2: to make that happen. It's just it's it is depressing
17:29
Speaker 2: that this process is used in this way. I wish
17:32
Speaker 2: it wasn't. I'm you know, we talked, we talked sometimes
17:36
Speaker 2: about things that were squishes on I probably am more
17:39
Speaker 2: of a squish than most people on the criminal justice system.
17:42
Speaker 2: I grew up in kind of a rough neighborhood in Brooklyn.
17:45
Speaker 2: I've had a lot of people in my life who
17:47
Speaker 2: have been involved with the criminal justice system. I think
17:51
Speaker 2: that a lot of penalties are too harsh. I think
17:53
Speaker 2: our bail laws were too harsh, then they went down
17:56
Speaker 2: to zero, and now I think they're not harsh enough.
17:58
Speaker 3: Like the pendulums wung a little too hard.
18:00
Speaker 2: We're in the middle on that one, Like I don't
18:01
Speaker 2: think I once wrote about a shoplifter getting a ten
18:05
Speaker 2: thousand dollars bail. That's like ten million dollars a homeless shoplifter.
18:09
Speaker 2: But you know, there's a happy medium on some of
18:11
Speaker 2: this stuff. And I think that stories like this make
18:15
Speaker 2: it harder to push through any kind of criminal justice
18:19
Speaker 2: reform because it just makes people far less sympathetic with
18:24
Speaker 2: people who they might be more sympathetic with because they
18:27
Speaker 2: have these batcats getting out of prison even though they
18:30
Speaker 2: committed these horrendous crimes.
18:32
Speaker 3: Well, and he doesn't seem to be doing a ton
18:34
Speaker 3: of pardons to out like to offset these. Yeah, so
18:39
Speaker 3: among I'll just keep reading the list. Eric Bloom, who
18:42
Speaker 3: Builket investors out of more than six hundred and sixty
18:44
Speaker 3: five million dollars in the biggest financial fraud case ever
18:47
Speaker 3: tried in Chicago. So many of these from Illinois. I'm
18:49
Speaker 3: sure it's a coincidence. Out in Nevada, and this is Nevada,
18:54
Speaker 3: excuse me. Nevaden's Leon Benzer, fifty seven, was serving a
18:58
Speaker 3: one hundred and eighty eight month prison sentence for one
19:00
Speaker 3: kunt of conspiracy to commit mal mail and wirefraud fourteen
19:04
Speaker 3: counts of wirefraud. Back in twenty eighteen, Federal Judge James
19:07
Speaker 3: Mayhon heard a sobbing Binzer apologize for his misdeeds and
19:10
Speaker 3: heard an emotional plague on video from Binzer's struggling wife
19:13
Speaker 3: and children, but prosecutors reminded the court of the thousands
19:15
Speaker 3: of a homeowners victimized, many of them frail, elderly, and
19:19
Speaker 3: now destitute. What are we doing here and why aren't
19:23
Speaker 3: we at least hadding it out with much more sympathetic characters.
19:27
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, what are we doing here? I kind of
19:31
Speaker 2: maybe want to see discussion of revamping this whole process,
19:34
Speaker 2: because again, while I like clemency, and while I like
19:38
Speaker 2: the idea of giving somebody a second chance, these people
19:43
Speaker 2: largely don't seem like they deserve a second chance. Again,
19:45
Speaker 2: going back to the judges who put children in prison
19:48
Speaker 2: for money for money and ruined their lives. In one
19:52
Speaker 2: of the cases, it was the other judge. Actually this
19:54
Speaker 2: case it wasn't Clemens, but the other judge was interrupted
20:00
Speaker 2: by a woman named Sandy Fonzo, whose son died by
20:03
Speaker 2: suicide after the other judge educated him to placement, despite
20:08
Speaker 2: the son being a first time offender. So it really
20:12
Speaker 2: does have some serious implications, and the idea that these
20:15
Speaker 2: kinds of people are getting out when far more sympathetic
20:19
Speaker 2: people are staying in prison is you know, I really
20:22
Speaker 2: do think we should take a good hard look process.
20:25
Speaker 3: As our friend Jim Garritty at National Review points out
20:28
Speaker 3: he's been reporting on a lot of this. Joe Biden
20:30
Speaker 3: has a real soft spot in his heart for fraudsters, swindlers,
20:32
Speaker 3: and embezzlers.
20:33
Speaker 1: Huh.
20:33
Speaker 3: I guess game respects.
20:35
Speaker 2: Game, and that's really good, Jim.
20:38
Speaker 3: I do think these are signals of what you think
20:41
Speaker 3: is forgivable, right, And there might be a reason the
20:44
Speaker 3: Biden family thinks this is in particular forgivable.
20:47
Speaker 2: This is some rough stuff we're going to take a
20:50
Speaker 2: short break and come right back with normally. So my
20:57
Speaker 2: friend John Cardillo pointed out the story to me, and
20:59
Speaker 2: he was like, these are the dumbest people alive. He tweeted,
21:03
Speaker 2: DC food workers vow Trump officials won't feel welcomed when
21:06
Speaker 2: dining out in Nations Capital, and John adds a bunch
21:10
Speaker 2: of these morons are on the record and their names
21:12
Speaker 2: are in the story. So one of the women in
21:15
Speaker 2: the story has already been fired, which is the correct
21:18
Speaker 2: move here. These people just seem like they think that
21:23
Speaker 2: they're above any kinds of rules, like having to do
21:27
Speaker 2: your job where you have to just serve the people
21:29
Speaker 2: that come into your restaurant. A quote that I highlighted
21:32
Speaker 2: is Zach Hoffman, who's a DC restaurant veteran who is
21:37
Speaker 2: now manager at the National Democratic Club. He said, you
21:40
Speaker 2: expect the masses to just ignore RFK eating at the
21:43
Speaker 2: Diplomat on a Sunday morning after a few mimosas not
21:47
Speaker 2: throw a drink in his face. Bro. Yeah, I mean yes,
21:51
Speaker 2: I do, first of all. But then second of all,
21:55
Speaker 2: I went and I looked. I had to look up.
21:56
Speaker 2: I had to see the man who thinks that he's
21:58
Speaker 2: coming up to RFK throwing mamosa in space. And let
22:01
Speaker 2: me tell you, this guy's not throwing anything.
22:05
Speaker 3: I think RFK would take him down. By the way,
22:08
Speaker 3: the management over at the Diplomat, which is like a
22:12
Speaker 3: pretty especially especially maybe eight years ago, it was a
22:15
Speaker 3: very trendy place for the higher ups in DC to dine.
22:19
Speaker 3: It's it's a nice French restaurant called DIP is the
22:23
Speaker 3: nickname for us insufferably, but LADP is like whoa, whoa, whoa,
22:29
Speaker 3: So their statements like for over ten years, the Diplomat
22:32
Speaker 3: has opened its doors to both Democrats and Republicans, and
22:34
Speaker 3: our managers and all employees are highly trade and highly professional.
22:38
Speaker 3: READI standards of hospitality service. A spokesperson for Star Restaurants said,
22:42
Speaker 3: our patrons come from all political walks of life on
22:45
Speaker 3: a daily basis, and we take pride in providing a
22:47
Speaker 3: safe a political space for all to dine, converse, and
22:51
Speaker 3: build bridges. Definitely getting ready for o Republican administration to
22:54
Speaker 3: come in that statement.
22:56
Speaker 2: Right, I mean, what is he What do they think
22:57
Speaker 2: it's going to be a Republican administ for the next
23:00
Speaker 2: four years at least? Do they really think that they're
23:03
Speaker 2: going to stop these people from enjoying the restaurants of Washington, DC?
23:08
Speaker 2: And you know, there was a lot of this in
23:10
Speaker 2: the first Trump administration, where Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked
23:14
Speaker 2: to leave a restaurant in Virginia and that kind of thing.
23:17
Speaker 2: I again, I know we talk about the vibe shift.
23:20
Speaker 2: I do think the vibe has shifted. I don't think
23:23
Speaker 2: people will stand for this kind of behavior this time around.
23:27
Speaker 2: It was a different election, it was a different type
23:31
Speaker 2: of election. It wasn't a surprise election necessarily in twenty sixteen.
23:35
Speaker 2: It was a shock to the system that Trump won.
23:37
Speaker 2: A lot of people behaved really badly and kind of
23:39
Speaker 2: got away with it. I don't think that's happening this time.
23:42
Speaker 3: No, I don't think it is either. And the explicit
23:46
Speaker 3: appeal by Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, a man with
23:50
Speaker 3: a sixty five percent approval rating for a reason, will
23:54
Speaker 3: help because he's like, y'all just come to Virginia, right, Like,
23:57
Speaker 3: if they're not serving you in DC, please come down
24:02
Speaker 3: to Virginia. And it's not very far and there are
24:04
Speaker 3: nice restaurants and people in a Trump administration, I imagine, will
24:09
Speaker 3: do a lot of that because they will not want
24:12
Speaker 3: to run into people who say, like this server who
24:15
Speaker 3: has been fired. I personally would refuse to serve any
24:18
Speaker 3: person in office who I know of as being a
24:20
Speaker 3: sex trafficker or trying to deport millions of people. Like,
24:23
Speaker 3: what are we even talking about. It's not, oh, we
24:26
Speaker 3: hate Republicans. It's that this person has moral convictions that
24:29
Speaker 3: are strongly opposed to mine, and I don't feel comfortable
24:31
Speaker 3: serving them.
24:32
Speaker 2: You know who you know who deported more people than
24:35
Speaker 2: anybody in the last you know, five presidents.
24:38
Speaker 3: Barack Obama. I'm sure the server is informed of that.
24:42
Speaker 3: Inconvenient fact.
24:44
Speaker 2: By the way, I'm going to be shouting that a
24:45
Speaker 2: w throws me out of the restaurant.
24:47
Speaker 3: Can I say that I would like administration of each
24:51
Speaker 3: officials and deep staters and people close to Jill and
24:55
Speaker 3: Joe Biden to be as brave and stupid as these
24:57
Speaker 3: people who put their names on the record. I need
24:59
Speaker 3: to see much more of that kind of backbone from
25:02
Speaker 3: the resistors.
25:04
Speaker 2: I still think we will.
25:05
Speaker 3: I do.
25:05
Speaker 2: I think we're going to see some stories and yeah,
25:11
Speaker 2: with their names on it. I will, you know, hopefully, just.
25:14
Speaker 3: You know, use this server as your inspiration. You may
25:19
Speaker 3: lose your job, but it was to resist.
25:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll be worth it.
25:22
Speaker 3: It's honorable.
25:24
Speaker 2: Well, thanks for joining us on normally. Normally airs Tuesdays
25:27
Speaker 2: and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts.
25:30
Speaker 2: We will be having an ask us Anything episode at
25:33
Speaker 2: the end of this month. We're not sure of the
25:35
Speaker 2: date yet, but you can email us at normallythepod at
25:38
Speaker 2: gmail dot com or we have posted an anonymous form
25:43
Speaker 2: linked to an anonymous form on our x accounts, so
25:46
Speaker 2: check it out there. Thanks for listening, and when things
25:48
Speaker 2: get weird, act normally