Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: France in CHAOS! Macron Under Fire, Democrats Threaten Trump Staffers & Elon Musk's Big Move

Transcript

Normally Podcast: France in CHAOS! Macron Under Fire, Democrats Threaten Trump Staffers & Elon Musk's Big Move · Normally

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, we are back on Normally, the show with
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: normal-ish taste for when the news gets weird. I'm Mary
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Katherine Hamm.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: I'm Carol Markowitz. How are you, Mary Katherine?
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: I'm doing all right. We're surviving.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Halloween's next week.
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: Do I have everything ready?
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: No, I don't.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: But I did spend a large amount of time putting
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Gryffindor banners, or all the Harry Potter house banners outside
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: my house this week.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Love it. Yeah, that's... Priorities.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: I guess Harry Potter is the theme?
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not doing a big... halloween costume this
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: year are you sure yeah no i'm not um the
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: kids the kids are doing their own thing we got
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: a reno going on so i'm just like okay but
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: it turns out i need somewhere to channel so i
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: was like i'll turn the house into hogwarts and so
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: it's still a little much.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: I love it. My husband and I and our youngest
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: son still don't have a costume, but we have some,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: you know, we have some concepts of a costume.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Yes, concepts of a plan.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Our middle son took the 300 or so suggestions I
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: got on X for him, disregarded them all, and he's
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: going to be a, I forgot, a Teutonic Knight. A
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Teutonic Knight. Okay. Yeah, I too don't know what that is.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: The crusaders, Christian crusaders, but the good ones, you said. Okay,
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: all right.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to fact check him.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I'll lose that battle.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: But yeah, we're excited for it here, even though we're
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: not prepared at all. We have some spooky decorations up, though.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: My kids do not like cute. Halloween decorations they like
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: scary you know like severed head and like bodies scary
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: um So that's what we got going on over here.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're definitely a cute Halloween family.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: You are? Okay.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: I didn't think so.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: I thought you'd be scary.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: No, we do.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: The costumes and the decorations go together in a sort
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: of like Hollywood fun, like, you know, movie.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: Concepts, but not too crazy.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: I think Stranger Things is probably the weirdest I've gotten
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: with my outdoor decorations, but it was cute. I did
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: a whole sheet with the alphabet on it that lit
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: up like.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: In the first season. That was kind of fun. Look
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: at you.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: I try.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: I like Halloween.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: I do not. I buy it when I buy it
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: at Home Depot and the kids set it up.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Well, should we.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Talk about the spooky news out.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: Of France, I guess? Let's do it.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: How is France still on fire? Like, what is this,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: episode three of talking about France being on fire? And
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: it's getting worse. Today, they had to close the Louvre
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: because the rioters were coming. And You know, when you
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: look up, like, how are the riots going in France,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: because everything is now AI and there's no such thing as, like,
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: regular Google searches anymore, all the AI results come back like, well,
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't call them riots, you know. Disturbances in France
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: over the last few days have, and it's just, they're riots.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: They're full-on riots.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: They're riots.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: As I told Stuart Varney on Fox Business this morning,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: rioting is not a cultural observance I wish to respect.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: It is bad.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: It is bad. We had a trial run of this
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: in 2020 in the summer of that year. And frankly,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: we didn't punish nearly enough people enough for that. And
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the belated punishment for them was that Trump got elected.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: The very quick punishment, I think, in France will be
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: that Marine Le Pen is going to, in all likelihood,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: be elected on her, I think, fourth try running and
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: oust Macron, who's been in power for 10 years. Because
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: there has to be, I imagine, a backlash to this.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: Now, I know.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: that the French set stuff on fire or protest frequently.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: They do, yeah.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: This does seem a step beyond that.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: Like, the.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: The ancient, well, ancient by American standards. They're like 200
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: years old. The 200-year-old town halls being invaded and ransacked
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: and burnt to the ground with beautiful artwork inside them
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: is just on its face horrific. Even when it's an
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: advanced auto parts, I'm upset that it's burnt to the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: ground because that is someone's life and their work. When
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: it's something ancient that is absolutely irreplaceable, that's sad.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: And the fact that it's.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Not universally recognized that riots are bad and demoralizing and
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: horrific instead of a tool or something we should heed,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: as Macron said, is crazy to me.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: It's insane that they don't care more. I find that
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: to be the hardest part. The Macron kind of being like, look,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: we need to take their concerns seriously, like, It used
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: to be that we did not negotiate with terrorists and
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: that was the end of the story. It wasn't like, okay,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: now that you've looted the footlocker and burned down the Hermes,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: what would you like?
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, let's take your concerns seriously.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: It's just, I have a friend who has been traveling
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: in France for the last week, just by coincidence. He
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: was in Nice. And look, he says, you know, some
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: streets are fine. Other times you're having dinner at a
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: restaurant and You hear explosions and it's like the protesters
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: are setting off fireworks, but you don't know. It might
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: be gunshots and everybody kind of runs. And he got
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: back to his hotel two nights ago and the guy
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: at the front desk was wearing a mask and the
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: whole place was filled with gas. So something had gone down.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: He didn't stay to figure out what. This is just.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: It's unacceptable. It's unacceptable. There is nothing that excuses this.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: And I'm just very afraid that we're getting to a
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: place where we're shrugging our shoulders at it. And the
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: argument of like, it's not everywhere. I'm sure that's true.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: I'm sure that's true. The riots of 2020 were also
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: not everywhere. I lived in Brooklyn at the time. You
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: could hear them because we were not that far away
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: from Barclays Arena. And that's sort of the congregation spot.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: So you could kind of hear them in the distance,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: but like you could be walking down a beautiful street,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: peaceful and calm. That doesn't make what's going on 10
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: blocks away okay. And I hated all of the articles
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: at the time. It was the Paul Krugmans of the
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: world who were like, I ate a burrito in the
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: park and it was totally safe and there was no
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Antifa there. But they are destroying stuff like not that
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: far away from you. And just because your little, you know,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: quadrant here is okay, doesn't make any of that acceptable.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: And if we don't say no as a society- Like
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: it's going to spread. It's spreading in France. It's spreading
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: to Italy. It's happening.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: And it's also it's worth reminding the left that you
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: could sit four blocks from the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. Oh, yeah.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: You would have been in a very peaceful place. Does
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: that make it OK? It does not. Of course, those
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: perpetrators were punished and sometimes excessively far more than those
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: who engaged in rioting in 2020 in that summer. Right. Yeah,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I think, like, this started with, it started with students, right?
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: That is, like, an effort to get more spending on
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: education and such. Now, France is just, like, so incredibly
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: bloated that I can't even believe that they would spend
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: less than is necessary on education.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: However, I don't buy it here. But what I did
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: look up is that actually France is maybe suffering from
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: some of the same problem that all of us have,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: which is that the young people are getting screwed because
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: the old people vote a lot and turn out in
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: significant numbers. And have extreme liabilities for pension and health care,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: much worse in France than even in Germany. They spend
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: a ludicrous amount on social spending. Right. And so that
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: actually is crowding out.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: Oh, wait for it.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: The thing we've always said, Carol, the things government's actually
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: supposed to do.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: That's the thing. It's that they have perpetrated the system
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: where they don't work that much. yet they get paid
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: a lot in benefits. And yeah, that doesn't function long-term.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: It's this whole cycle of let's get ever more leftist
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: policies that will then fail, that will then cause violence
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: in the street to push for more leftist policies that
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: will then fail, that will cause violence in the street
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: to push for more leftist policies, and so on, because.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Leftism doesn't work. And none of it creates wealth. You
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: demand more wealth, but none of this is creating wealth. Mm-hmm.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: It's just ridiculous.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Niall Ferguson was writing about it and said the systems
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: were designed for 2.5 children per family and an average
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: life expectancy of 62, not 1.25 children and a life
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: expectancy of 79.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Various European models are in the early phase of a
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: nosedive into insolvency, and it means there are certain services
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: that get less. Now, since the students rioted briefly, right, protested,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: then rioted, and then there's organized labor who does.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: It, then there's just.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: Greta Thunberg shows up. Right.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Then there's just opportunistic pro-Palestinian, pro-Gaza, black bloc anarchists who
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: come out. And the problem is that with Macron saying, oh,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: they kind of have a point.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: Like, no one's going to stop.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: You've just incentivized this behavior.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Why would they stop if they're getting what
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: they want? It's just it is a failure of their
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: system that they allow it to go on. And I
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: just don't want to see that same failure come here.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: And it's very easy to see that it could. We've
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: had it again, like you said, in 2020.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: We've had.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: And you have to have the will to put it down.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: And I don't know that I definitely don't think Europe
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: has the will to put it down. And I worry
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: that we won't. I worry that we'll cater to this
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: mob because it's easier than doing what you have to
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: do to shut it down.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Somebody flagged this one from France that is just like
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: so ridiculous. But if you don't hold a line as
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: a civil society, this is the kind of entitlement you
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: will create. The fact that the government is threatening to
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: shoot us, the protesters, with live ammunition if we enter
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Elysee Palace, there are snipers on the roof, is madness.
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: And someone American says, I really don't understand the level
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: of delusion you have to be at where you are
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: deeply offended you might get shot if you storm the
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: president's house. Like, yes, that's how this works.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: This account on X, which got, you know, many, many, many,
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: many shares, 30, 13000 shares, 50000 likes. The French Revolution
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: was violent. The American Revolution was violent. The Russian Revolution
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: was violent. Freedom has never been won peacefully. Setting aside
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: that Russian Revolution freedom, even French Revolution freedom, like, stop it. But,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: you know, my point about it is, so then you
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: could put it down violently, right? Because, I mean, you're
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: saying the revolution has to be violent. That's just the
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: way it is. Well, the people in charge can then
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: respond violently, right? Because that's a war.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: No, that's not how it works for them.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: And this is, like, this is modern civilization.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: This is modern Western civilization, is that the goal is to.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Claim victimhood while also violently attacking the system. Right. And
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: France is kind of modeling this behavior right now where
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: they're burning stuff down, but they're somehow still claiming to
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: be the victims. And in our current modern Western society,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: particularly lefties, that gives them the upper hand. Oh, you
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: say you're the victim and you're on our intersectionality chart.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: If we look here, it seems that you get victimhood status.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: So I guess you're free and clear. And that is
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: just a really crappy way to do business. Yeah.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Ro Khanna, who has gone full communist, he used to
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: sort of be like a moderate leftist. Now I just
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: think he's completely leftist. He's really gone full, full communist.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: Audience capture.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: It's unbelievable. He had this long tweet from the high
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: schools of France to the streets of Madrid, blah, blah, blah.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: He says, J.D. says, J.D. Vance says, this is what
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: happens when a nation lets in too many immigrants from
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: the global south. He is not just morally wrong, but
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: misreading the moment. This is what happens when nations let
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: wealth and power accumulate in the hands of the few.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: This is what happens when young people lose hope in
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: their future. In America, let us listen to our young. Now, again,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: he's talking about France. He's talking about France here. France
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: let too much wealth and power accumulate in the hands
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: of the few. How? I mean, it is a almost
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: fully socialist society. If you want to point to like, oh,
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: this is the kind of society we want in America,
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: the left used to point to France. Now they're just
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: too capitalist and we need less of that?
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's insane.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Government spending is 57% of GDP.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that seems like a lot.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: It's a lot.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: It's way more than Germany.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Like I said, Germany is like, I don't know, it's
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: like some significant amount lower than France is. So even
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: in the European model, it's an outlier. In this way.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: And so now Ro Khanna's like, even that doesn't go
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: far enough. But that's because they want to avoid the
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: question about the immigration.
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Which is part of it. Like, you can say there
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: are traditional French organizations being part of this.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: That's true.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Fox News Digital actually did the work and found that
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: there were 54 organizations. 16 of them are student groups.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: So that's not a majority. I know that from math.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: And then a lot.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Of them are professional and student Muslim groups, pro-Palestine groups.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: The Omni cause is well represented in all facets. But
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: as some who have pointed out who are willing to
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: be honest about it, if you look at the rioting
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: and looting groups, they are often children of immigrants who
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: have come from the global south.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Astro Nomani is the one who did that investigation for
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Fox Digital.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: She's great.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: She did a deep dive into who these groups are
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: and identified this like network. And yeah, it's communist organizations,
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: as she says, socialist political movements, labor unions. But it
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: is very much also this coalition of, like you said,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: new immigrants, immigrants who have been in France for a while.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: A lot of the time I hold France accountable, French
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: leadership accountable for letting immigrants stay immigrants forever. Like they
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: could be third generation living in France and French people
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: still call them the Arabs. It's like, after a while,
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: you have to just integrate into society and let them
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: be French. I know I've said this on here before,
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: but it really, as an immigrant, it bothers me that
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: France keeps them separate and then is surprised when they
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: burn stuff down. Like, I think you need to make
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: a decision. Either you're not accepting any more of the
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: truly a barrage of people or you're making them French.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Right. Well, that's the beautiful thing about America. And this
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: is what made us mad about the University of Texas
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: football game discourse. Yeah. The beautiful thing about America is
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: that America is an idea. It's something you can sign
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: up for no matter where you're from. And if you
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: buy into that idea, which includes, by the way, cheering
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: at a UT football game. Well, not for me personally, but,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: you know, a football game. Then we like that. Right.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: That is that's what we are seeking. France has always
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: been like, no, you can't ever become French.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: Sorry, dudes.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: And I don't want to abandon that. Unfortunately, the left
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: in this country is very on board for abandoning that
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: because they don't like assimilation. And now the right that
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: we object to.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: And they don't think America is all that great. Yes.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: You know, which is a key issue.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: Our customs are not good.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Right. Like we're not that great. And also we should
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: let everybody come here and partake in our badness. Make
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: it make sense. Yeah.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: And now the right is joining them in some of that.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: Don't appreciate it.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: All right, we're going to take a short break and
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: be right back with more on Normally. We are back
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: on Normally where Lisa Slotkin, she is U.S. Senator from Michigan.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: She made news this weekend talking about whether young people
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: should go work for the Trump administration. She says, no,
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: they shouldn't. And this is the argument that she made.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Let's roll that clip.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: So that's what I'm saying.
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: I want to look at these signature cases and not
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: just focus on the president, but on the people who
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: enabled him. I want young people coming out of school
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: to say, should I go work for the Trump administration?
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Like, that sounds fun.
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: I might get an opportunity. I want them to be like, Lord,
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: that might be buying myself a ton of problems that
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: I don't want. And so let me avoid participating in that.
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: I want that deterrence message.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's deterrent message. Go, if you go work for
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: the Republican administration, we're going to put you in prison. Um, I,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: you know, the, the funny thing is that Democrats keep
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: talking about how Trump is a threat to democracy and
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: it's fascism's on the march. And like, then they say
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: stuff like this and you're like, that's literally fascist. That's
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: absolutely parroting the fascism here.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Yes. And I do enjoy the lefty take. By the way,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: she's not even supposed to be a lefty. She's one
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: of these fake moderates like Abigail Spanberger. I like the
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: lefty take that you shouldn't deter rioting because that's the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: voice of the unheard. And it doesn't matter who gets
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: hurt because those victims, you know, they have insurance.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: Who cares? We shouldn't deter that.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: What we should deter is bright young people leaving college
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: and going to work for an administration that was duly
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: elected by the American people. That's the thing you should
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: criminally go after so that they are prevented from chasing
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: that path in the future.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: It's so insane. And it's like I think that in
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: the first administration, they sort of managed to make Trump this,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: you know, unacceptable. You can never work for this man.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: But the second administration, I think, has been staffed by
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: really awesome people. And I mean, not everybody, obviously, but
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: a lot of very talented, incredible, smart, bright young people
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: who are pursuing their passion and doing it very well
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: in the Trump administration. So this, you know, kind of
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: threat thing, it's just not acceptable. I feel like the
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: second segment in a row where I'm saying these things
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: are not acceptable. We can't have that.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Talking to my kids. It also is just, look, I
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: would love a detente on weaponization, guys. I lived through Russiagate,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: so I can't forget that part or any of the
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: attacks on the press that Obama mounted and the literal
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: spying on James Rosen. These things just stick in my mind,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: and I can't forget about them. So it is rich
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: to hear Democrats just be like, Well, we got to
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: do the weaponization to prevent the weaponization or something.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: I don't know. In addition, did you notice that Barack.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Obama came out with a really long defense of Ilhan
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Omar this week? And on the Omar front, which they
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: claim is weaponization. And I think some of what Trump
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: has done is right. I think some of those James
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Comey cases are really bad and they fell apart for
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: a reason.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Well, they fell apart. Right. Right.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: This one.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: The guy who gave them the warrant for Ilhan Omar
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: is like a lefty.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: Donating judge.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: I think if there was no there there, he would
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: just say there's no there there.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: So not everything is weaponization.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: And in fact, I think what we've been told in
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: the past is that no one's above the law.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: And now it's like no one's above the law if
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: they vote correctly. And if you don't vote correctly and
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: if you choose to go work in the Republican administration,
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: you are risking your actual freedom. You may go to jail.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: She's also, by the way, her pedigree is as an
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: intelligence officer.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: So I, you know.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't put it past her to weaponize, guys.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: Sure wouldn't.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: What else is going on in politics? Former Senator Joe
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Manchin campaigned with or will campaign with Republican Senator Susan
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: Collins this week in Maine. Democrats are smoke out of
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: the ears, pissed off about this. And I do understand
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: them on this. I would also be really angry if
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: a Republican went independent and then campaigned with Democrats. But
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: I think Joe Manchin and Susan Collins have a ton
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: in common.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like Joe Manchin and Susan Collins are closer together
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: than Susan Collins and I are ideologically. Now, I would
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: back Susan Collins, obviously, over the option of Troy Jackson
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: in Maine if I were on the ground there. And
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: I like many things about Susan Collins. But ideologically speaking,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: they are two centrists. And the Republican Party is right
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: now investing in keeping its centrist in Maine. while the
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: left already chased off Sinema and Manchin, the only two
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: centrists they had left.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Right, and Fetterman's their centrist now.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, that's true.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: You know, he's still, in all other universes, he would
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: still be on the left. He's still fairly left.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: No, it's nice to see the man out on the
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: ground doing the thing. He's also a far more capable
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: politician than the man who's running against, Susan Collins. Troy
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Jackson sat down with Dana Bash this weekend and it
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: didn't go great. I'm wondering who greenlit that. He's not
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: an impressive candidate.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: One of the things he was asked about is saying
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: shut up to Susan Collins in the debate, which I
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: appreciate because if it were a roles reversed, it would
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: be a huge national story. So here's Dana Bash asking
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: him about that.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: This week, there was a protester in the debate that
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: you had with Susan Collins. She responded by saying this
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: must be a Troy Jackson supporter.
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: And you told the senator, shut up.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Do you regret saying that?
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Uh, no.
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: Uh, you know, she said that it was a Troy supporter.
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: I mean, she accused me of setting that up. Uh,
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: I had no idea who it was. I mean, I
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: was surprised whenever he jumped up out of there. Um,
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: you know, I've had four debates with Senator Collins. I've, uh,
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: shook her hand afterwards every time. But what I'm not
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: going to be is, you know, talked down to by
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: Senator Collins. I'm not going to, you know, be accused
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: of things like that. I mean, I'm fighting for Mainers. And,
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: you know, I mean, I just think that was another
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: situation where she was talking down to me. And, you know,
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: so I'm not going to apologize for that, no.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: She was joking.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: I believe that's what he's looking for. She... A guy
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: interrupted their debate and she made a joke that the
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: guy was his supporter. I don't know. I think he
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: comes off defensive and negative. But it's hard to say
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: what Mainers want. After all, they have this very moderate
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Susan Collins. And if that's not enough, I don't know
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: where that state goes if they choose to pick this guy.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: Well, you can see.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Why Susan Collins has lasted so long. She has some
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: skills because that little line, that little zinger was off
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the cuff. She did it real quick. It wasn't mean spirited.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: It was kind of silly. It was kind of funny.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: He then gets angry and is mean spirited to her. Now,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: was it the most abusive shut up of all time?
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: No.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: No shut up.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: But our custom, particularly if the parties were reversed and
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: the genders were reversed, or the genders were the same
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: but the parties were reversed, would be to absolutely freak
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: out that a man said shut up to a woman
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: on a stage. So I appreciate that this is getting
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: some attention. And his inability to just be like, oh, yeah,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I probably didn't handle that great is so stubborn and silly.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: He should just say, I didn't mean it mean spiritedly.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: It might have come off that way. It was not
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: my supporter. I didn't put anybody there to do that.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: And his inability to do that and just keep his
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: arms crossed and be so grumpy is not playing well.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: He also just doesn't seem that sharp to me.
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: No.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Like, you know, he's better than the Nazi guy in
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: that he doesn't have a Nazi tattoo, but he seems
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: less smart than that guy.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Yes. I think that and another event from this weekend
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: or another question from this weekend are sort of Rorschach
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: tests where the left thinks their guy did really, really well.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: And we were watching the clip like, so I'm trying
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: to test my priors.
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: This is one of them.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: The other one was where Abdullah Syed was asked to
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: denounced the muslim brotherhood and he got really annoyed with
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: the questioner which is his custom and i think he
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: said a very brief yes i'll denounce them although he
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: hadn't up until this point right and then he goes
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: on a three-minute tirade against the guy who asked the
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: question uh and i just don't think that comes off
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: well but he tweeted it himself so apparently they think
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: it did.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen like supporters of his think that he
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: did a great job and like, look, this is the
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: answer that he should be giving. I also seen accusations
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: that the guy who asked the question was a Republican plant,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: to which I would say if he was a Republican plant,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: I think he would have asked a more pointed question.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: You know, why are you asking me that? El-Sayed said, well,
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: he's asking you that because your sister bragged about your
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: mom being in the Muslim Brotherhood. I think if he
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: were if he were a plant, he would have that
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: ready to go.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Also, if it's a plant, it's a good question. It's
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: a legit question. It is a substantive question because he
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: himself put his name on a letter supporting Muslim Brotherhood-backed
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: President of Egypt Morsi years ago. It's in his own hand.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: It's a perfectly legitimate question that I would like the
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: answer to, and it makes him very, very angry. And
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: I think his stubborn unwillingness to just answer easy questions like,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: is Israel or Iran the enemy? And this one is
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: a bad look and it's a bad look because he
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: can't say the right answer because he doesn't believe the
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: right answer. That's exactly right. Yeah.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: We're going to take a short break and be right
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: back with one more segment of Normally. All right.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: We are back on Normally with some Elon Musk news.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: This this goes in the category of billionaires doing cool,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: nice things or trillionaires.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: Is he a trillionaire still?
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: I can't remember.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: He falls in and out of being a Chilean heir.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: I think he's doing okay, though. Like, I think he's fine.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk said on X last night, we'll see what
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: comes of it, that he is going to give every
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: child in America some stock from SpaceX, which is quite
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: an offer.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I was so wowed by
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: the flying car last week. I am not a big
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: tech person. I'm not like gadgety at all. I'm actually
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: a late adopter to everything. And I'm not like, oh,
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go get a flying car or anything.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: First of all, we'll see, you know, whether that becomes
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: something that people buy, whether any of that turns out
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: to be true. But the fact that it worked, I
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: was mesmerized. I watched it like 500 times and then
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I saw the outpouring of like, why would you even
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: need a flying car? Why spend time working on this?
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Elon Musk is the worst. And I tweeted, I don't
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: understand how any American can root against Elon Musk. Super
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: popular tweet on the left, let me tell you.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: No, I don't know how you look at that and
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: don't think, wow, amazing what people are capable of. And yeah,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: I don't need a flying car, but I like that
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: someone can create one. And someone who can create one
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: can do a thousand things that will help me in
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: other ways in the future. You know, the space race
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: brought us a thousand technologies that we don't think of
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: as being associated with the space race. That happened to
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: be a government driven program. So lefties are like all
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: cool with that one. This one we don't have to
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: pay for for the most part. And he's doing it
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: and we will benefit. And I'm sorry, but socialism just
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: doesn't get that done. Socialism doesn't get flying cars done.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it doesn't.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: That's the thing. And I tried to think about it
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: like if Elon Musk were a big lib, which is
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: hard to imagine because he is so just, you know,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: productive and capitalist and all of those things. Would I
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: be against his technologies? And I just don't see it.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: I still listen to Bruce Springsteen, even though, you.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Know, he's.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: His policies are ridiculous and I find him ridiculous, but
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: like the music's good. And I would just be like, wow,
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: a flying car, even though you're a lib, that's amazing.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, like, but this is, we're used to this.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: We practice this. Every actor, every musician, every product we
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: use is usually fronted by someone who disagrees with us
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: and we can happily move on with our lives. I
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: do think it's just notable that Michael Dell and Elon
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Musk over the past month or so have Dell has
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: already delivered by giving these grants to children in their
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Trump accounts. These are radical, gigantic acts of charity that
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: are made possible by their earnings through capitalism and their innovation.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: And it is.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Truly going to change lives and i love michael dell
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: continuing to post the thank you notes that he's getting
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: um from kids all over the u.s it's really beautiful
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: and the left can't recognize that the wealth for these
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: in giant charitable acts comes from the thing they hate.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah capitalism it works It's great stuff. Thanks for joining
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: us on Normally. Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get in touch
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: with us at normallythepod at gmail.com. Thanks for listening, and
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: when things get weird, act normally.