Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: Runaway Dems, Redistricting Games, and AI Gone Rogue

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Normally Podcast: Runaway Dems, Redistricting Games, and AI Gone Rogue · Normally

0:04
Speaker 1: Hey guys, we are back on. Normally the show takes,
0:07
Speaker 1: but when the news gets weird.
0:08
Speaker 2: I am Mary Catherine. I'm Markowitz. I am Mary Catherine.
0:12
Speaker 2: How are you doing this week?
0:14
Speaker 1: I'm good. Well, neither one of us is on vacation
0:16
Speaker 1: right now. But you know who is? You know who
0:20
Speaker 1: is Texas Democrats.
0:25
Speaker 2: I don't know what I thought you were going to say,
0:28
Speaker 2: we're gonna we're get right into it. No no chit
0:32
Speaker 2: chat here at all.
0:33
Speaker 1: No, no, no no plan because it's not fun because
0:35
Speaker 1: we're not on vacation. We're just wishful wish business.
0:39
Speaker 2: Right. So Democrats? Are they still in Chicago? Let's start
0:42
Speaker 2: with that.
0:43
Speaker 1: I believe they are still in Illinois, where they were
0:46
Speaker 1: flown on a private jet funded by Beato and other
0:51
Speaker 1: large sources of Democratic money. Beto O'Rourke, failed presidential and
0:55
Speaker 1: Senate candidate from Texas. They left the state because they
0:59
Speaker 1: want to deprive I have the Texas Legislature of a quorum,
1:04
Speaker 1: because the Texas Legislature is trying to redistrict in such
1:08
Speaker 1: a way that would benefit Republicans based on twenty twenty
1:13
Speaker 1: census information. They are attempting to redraw the maps in Texas.
1:18
Speaker 1: They have the power to do this. Democrats fled because
1:22
Speaker 1: they don't want them to do it. It's somewhat unorthodox
1:25
Speaker 1: to do it at this point in the cycle, and
1:28
Speaker 1: that's what Democrats are complaining about. But yeah, they're in
1:31
Speaker 1: Illinois and there have been calls to arrest them from
1:35
Speaker 1: folks inside Texas. Of course, Illinois would have to extradite
1:38
Speaker 1: them or help, and I don't think that's happening. I'm
1:41
Speaker 1: not sure what their legal rights are in this situation.
1:44
Speaker 1: I'm not sure you can actually make an arrest. But
1:47
Speaker 1: they're definitely just not doing their jobs.
1:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. I saw that Gavin Newsome was really upset about
1:55
Speaker 2: the redistricting and he was like, well, then we're going
1:57
Speaker 2: to derymander. Also him, Democrats have already jerrymandered all the
2:03
Speaker 2: states where they have control to the fullest extent. So
2:07
Speaker 2: this is really just Republicans catching up with drawing zig
2:10
Speaker 2: zaggy lines on maps.
2:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's rich to hear this from Democrats, and
2:17
Speaker 1: different states do it different ways. Some states have a
2:20
Speaker 1: like a bipartisan group that decides what the maps looks
2:24
Speaker 1: like look like. Often those bipartisan groups also create very
2:28
Speaker 1: partisan results. If you look at California, you will see
2:32
Speaker 1: that places where Democrats are totally in control. Even the
2:37
Speaker 1: New York Times has had to admit they have gerrymandered
2:41
Speaker 1: so hard that they can't do anymore. Like they keep saying,
2:44
Speaker 1: it's tit for tat, and I'm like, y'all done tatt
2:46
Speaker 1: it so much, you can't tatt no more. Like you've
2:49
Speaker 1: tat it all. The tatting is done.
2:52
Speaker 2: All that's left exact.
2:55
Speaker 1: Now you're just mad at the tit anyway.
2:58
Speaker 2: So they show Mary Catherine.
3:01
Speaker 1: So yeah, their tactic is to leave the state to
3:05
Speaker 1: not allow this, and I just hate this tactic. Yeah,
3:10
Speaker 1: I think it's just loser stuff. Right. Texas Democrats specifically
3:15
Speaker 1: have done this several times in the two thousands. I
3:18
Speaker 1: want to I looked it up last night, two thousand
3:20
Speaker 1: and three, over redistricting, twenty twenty one, over voting rules,
3:24
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, over redistricting, and I believe there's a
3:27
Speaker 1: fourth one in there somewhere. Here's my question for Democrats.
3:30
Speaker 1: Has this improved your electoral prospects in all the state
3:33
Speaker 1: of Texas during this time? It's crazy?
3:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's really nuts is that they are being heralded
3:40
Speaker 2: as heroes. Right now, if you go to the CNN
3:42
Speaker 2: page or the MSNBC main page, they are the only
3:46
Speaker 2: game in town right now. They are the Democratic hope.
3:49
Speaker 2: They're the ones who are doing what all the other
3:51
Speaker 2: Democrats should be doing in fighting those terrible Republicans. But
3:54
Speaker 2: they're going to lose and that'll be the end of
3:56
Speaker 2: that story. So why would you want other people to
3:58
Speaker 2: emulate lose your behavior?
4:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's and it's I think again, I don't think
4:03
Speaker 1: it sends the right message to your voters when you
4:06
Speaker 1: just leave town, And if Republicans doing it, it would
4:10
Speaker 1: be covered very differently. The issue is that Republicans don't
4:13
Speaker 1: actually use this tactic very often. I was able to
4:17
Speaker 1: find one example in Oregon of Republicans piecing out on
4:21
Speaker 1: the legislature, and I do not endorse it. There. In fact,
4:23
Speaker 1: they passed a law that said if you do this
4:25
Speaker 1: and you have more than ten unexcused absences from your
4:28
Speaker 1: job as a legislator, I can't run again. And I
4:30
Speaker 1: think that's probably something many states should consider. You did
4:33
Speaker 1: this in Wisconsin in twenty eleven when they were fighting
4:36
Speaker 1: the Democrats did when they were fighting Scott Walker They've
4:39
Speaker 1: done it in Indiana, They've done it all over the place,
4:43
Speaker 1: and it is raised to the hilt because democrats opting
4:49
Speaker 1: out of the democratic process is the best way to
4:53
Speaker 1: save democracy, you see.
4:55
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a very popular tactic on the democratic side
4:59
Speaker 2: because they love a good show, and I think that
5:02
Speaker 2: that this provides them with that show. They love the
5:05
Speaker 2: spectacle of this kind of thing. And yeah, this is
5:08
Speaker 2: why why it's so beloved. So Governor Pritzker, who governor
5:13
Speaker 2: of Illinois, which is a super jerrymandered state. We were
5:17
Speaker 2: talking one.
5:17
Speaker 1: Of the most jerrymanded states there is.
5:19
Speaker 2: Yes, he went on Stephen Colbert's show, and Colbert actually
5:24
Speaker 2: called him on it, and we have that clip.
5:26
Speaker 3: Let's roll it is the districts in Illinois. Take a
5:29
Speaker 3: look at this. Look at look at seventeen here it
5:31
Speaker 3: does that. Then it comes up here and it sneaks
5:34
Speaker 3: around there and goes all the way up here and
5:37
Speaker 3: then goes right over there like that. And look at
5:40
Speaker 3: look at look at this one kind of goes whip
5:42
Speaker 3: up there. It's like the stinger on a scorpion down here.
5:46
Speaker 3: Is this common for all states to do?
5:49
Speaker 4: We handed it over to a kindergarten class and let
5:51
Speaker 4: them decide.
5:52
Speaker 3: Okay, And that's the that's the non partisan group that
5:55
Speaker 3: does this.
5:56
Speaker 4: Guy, that's our independent commission, you know that is yeah.
6:00
Speaker 3: I mean, look, so, because all states, to a certain
6:04
Speaker 3: extent do this, why is what Texas doing particular gregious
6:08
Speaker 3: in this case?
6:08
Speaker 4: Well, here, every ten years, we do a census in
6:11
Speaker 4: this country, and right after the census, we redraw districts
6:15
Speaker 4: in every state. But what the Republicans are trying to do,
6:18
Speaker 4: and the Texas Republicans, frankly at the behest of Donald Trump,
6:23
Speaker 4: are doing it mid decade, that is extraordinarily rare.
6:28
Speaker 3: That's an important point because he I think he literally
6:31
Speaker 3: called them or wrote them and said, hey, I need
6:32
Speaker 3: five seats.
6:33
Speaker 2: Let's be real here. What happened is in the last
6:35
Speaker 2: five years, Texas has had an influx of people, and
6:39
Speaker 2: so that's why they are And those people came from
6:43
Speaker 2: blue states because of the COVID lockdowns and because of
6:46
Speaker 2: all the insanity in these blue states. So Texas has
6:49
Speaker 2: had this real, you know, giant kind of group of
6:54
Speaker 2: people come in. Look, you want to wait the ten years,
6:57
Speaker 2: that's a fine argument to make. But Illinois making those
7:02
Speaker 2: ridiculous districts. It's not because they got to wait ten
7:05
Speaker 2: years and nobody complained about it. Nobody complained about it
7:07
Speaker 2: because it's a blue state.
7:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. By the way, Illinois is like went forty three
7:12
Speaker 1: percent for Donald Trump. Their delegation in the Congress don't
7:17
Speaker 1: look like no forty three percent Republican, which is what
7:20
Speaker 1: they're claiming would be fair when it comes to them. Also,
7:24
Speaker 1: I'm so glad he brought up the census because this
7:26
Speaker 1: is NPR reporting. Okay, Yeah, for the twenty twenty census,
7:31
Speaker 1: all states were not counted equally well for population numbers
7:34
Speaker 1: used to allocate political representation and federal funding over the
7:38
Speaker 1: next decade. According to who OH, the US Census Bureau
7:42
Speaker 1: which surveyed itself and found out in its survey that
7:47
Speaker 1: there were significant net undercount rates in six states. What
7:50
Speaker 1: were those states? Arkansas, Florida, Oh, Illinois gets a little here, Mississippi, Tennessee,
7:56
Speaker 1: and Texas. So almost all red states on the undercount
8:00
Speaker 1: and then significant net overcount in eight states. Those states
8:04
Speaker 1: are Delaware blue, Hawaii blue, Massachusetts Real blue, Minnesota blue,
8:11
Speaker 1: New York blue, Ohio red, Rhode Island blue, and Utah red.
8:16
Speaker 1: So two red states to the rest of those.
8:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. I have a similar story also from the appointment
8:21
Speaker 2: forecast in twenty twenty three, but I have Illinois as
8:24
Speaker 2: an overcount.
8:24
Speaker 1: I don't know why that would oh interesting.
8:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, but at any rate, there these flyne up with
8:29
Speaker 2: your states, So I don't know.
8:31
Speaker 1: So the issue is on a moral level. If you're
8:36
Speaker 1: worried about this being deeply unfair because it doesn't reflect
8:39
Speaker 1: the population, that's not true, right, It does reflect the population.
8:43
Speaker 1: What didn't reflect the population was the unfairly conducted census.
8:47
Speaker 1: And I think that some of this is the temper
8:51
Speaker 1: tantrum of a party that knows the twenty thirty census
8:54
Speaker 1: is going to look very bad for them.
8:57
Speaker 2: So true, that is exactly what's happening here. They know
9:00
Speaker 2: what's coming and they're trying to head it off. But look,
9:05
Speaker 2: we all have eyes and we all run all the stories,
9:07
Speaker 2: and you know there is there are states that are
9:11
Speaker 2: growing and are states that are not, And that's just
9:14
Speaker 2: the reality of the situation.
9:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. Fun fact, by the way, I grew up in
9:18
Speaker 1: one of arguably the most famous gerrymander district in US history,
9:23
Speaker 1: really North Carolina's twelfth District, which was found unconstitutional at
9:28
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court for the way in which it was drawn.
9:32
Speaker 1: It was to be fair to those who drew it.
9:34
Speaker 1: It was part of the Voting Rights Act requirement that
9:36
Speaker 1: the state has several majority minority districts. So my state
9:40
Speaker 1: was a majority or my district was a majority minority
9:43
Speaker 1: district drawn through black communities all through North Carolina, but
9:47
Speaker 1: it went all the way from Charlotte to Durham along
9:51
Speaker 1: the I eighty five corridor, prompting one of the legislature
9:56
Speaker 1: legislators in North Carolina to say legendarily that if you
10:00
Speaker 1: drove a car down eighty five with both of the
10:02
Speaker 1: doors open on each side, you would kill almost everyone
10:05
Speaker 1: in the district. And so that was found to violate
10:10
Speaker 1: the equal Protection clause because it was too racially jerrymandered.
10:14
Speaker 1: The court actually said, political jerrymandering is totally fine. That's
10:18
Speaker 1: a thing that happens in politics all the time. But
10:21
Speaker 1: be careful about how racially you are drawing these lines.
10:24
Speaker 1: So if you will, I put it on my Twitter
10:27
Speaker 1: account the picture of this district as it was when
10:30
Speaker 1: I grew up, and it is wild.
10:34
Speaker 2: Are you surprised that Colbert even minorly made fun of
10:38
Speaker 2: Pritzker and his state for being so jerrymandered. Or was
10:42
Speaker 2: it actually just a cleanup on Aisle five letting his
10:45
Speaker 2: Democrat friend.
10:46
Speaker 1: I think it was letting him have a shot at
10:49
Speaker 1: that question. But he doesn't have a good answer for it.
10:52
Speaker 1: And as I say, their independent commissions end up creating
10:56
Speaker 1: exactly what Democrats want them to. This is what happens
10:58
Speaker 1: in California as well, which would have to change its constitution,
11:02
Speaker 1: by the way to do what Gavin Newsom claims he's
11:04
Speaker 1: going to do. The state is already quite jerrymander There
11:07
Speaker 1: are quite quite a few fewer Republicans than would actually
11:12
Speaker 1: represent the voting public. This is part of politics. We
11:17
Speaker 1: can argue about it, but you shouldn't leave your post
11:20
Speaker 1: to argue about it, right, That's what I think.
11:22
Speaker 2: You know. Just to tag onto the Colbert question as
11:25
Speaker 2: we're going to air, there's a story that Howard Stern
11:29
Speaker 2: is not being resigned at serious. I do not find
11:34
Speaker 2: that surprising at all. I haven't heard about Howard Stern
11:36
Speaker 2: in years, I mean since he was like washing Like
11:40
Speaker 2: I don't even know his Amazon package is in twenty
11:42
Speaker 2: twenty three, so he's you know, he kind of lost
11:46
Speaker 2: it during COVID, and I haven't seen any of his
11:49
Speaker 2: clipsic go viral in years and years, so.
11:51
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, it's the death knell when you become
11:55
Speaker 1: boring and predictable, right, And both Colbert and Howard Stern,
11:59
Speaker 1: who paint themselves as great rebels and truth tellers, became
12:03
Speaker 1: boring and predictable, so boring and predictable that it is
12:06
Speaker 1: a great shock to us that he asked one mildly
12:08
Speaker 1: interesting question of JB. Prinsker.
12:11
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so I don't know.
12:14
Speaker 1: Good luck to DEM's I don't I don't think the
12:16
Speaker 1: ratchet can go much more. In fact, the Massachusetts governor
12:20
Speaker 1: was like, well, I suppose we'll have to jerry Mander
12:23
Speaker 1: some more. And it's like, girl, girl, you have zero
12:26
Speaker 1: Republicans in winning congressional seats.
12:29
Speaker 2: How much.
12:31
Speaker 1: What do you get to Jerrymander? There's no tatting to
12:37
Speaker 1: be had. Oh my gosh. I do love it when
12:41
Speaker 1: they're like we're gonna fight fire with fire. It's like
12:43
Speaker 1: like you haven't been doing yet.
12:45
Speaker 2: You were the one who brought all the fire, so
12:48
Speaker 2: enjoy the heat. Yep, we're going to take a start
12:51
Speaker 2: break and come right back with our favorite topic, the
12:55
Speaker 2: Epstein case. Well, we are back with more on normally
13:03
Speaker 2: Julane Maxwell. I think I'm saying her name right. She
13:06
Speaker 2: has been moved to a minimum security prison. And if
13:11
Speaker 2: you think this has toned down any of the conspiracy
13:14
Speaker 2: theories around Epstein, let me tell you it has not.
13:18
Speaker 2: The New York Post Rights notorious sex traffic for Juline
13:21
Speaker 2: Maxwell has quietly been moved to a cushy prison camp
13:24
Speaker 2: known as Club Fed as she tries to hash out
13:26
Speaker 2: a deal to divulge her sordid secrets about lead late
13:30
Speaker 2: pedophile X Jeffrey Epstein. I am going to say something
13:35
Speaker 2: controversial here, and this is really the issue where I
13:39
Speaker 2: am most squishy. I think that nonviolent offenders should be
13:44
Speaker 2: in kind of cushi or prisons, and Club fed is
13:48
Speaker 2: not cushy. It is better than medium or maximum security, obviously,
13:54
Speaker 2: But the whole point there is if you break any rules,
13:57
Speaker 2: you get sent to medium security right away. But is
14:00
Speaker 2: on their best behavior. If you have people who are
14:03
Speaker 2: not violent and can live like that in a prison setting,
14:07
Speaker 2: they should be in that kind of setting.
14:10
Speaker 1: I have various thoughts on the Epstein thing. One of
14:14
Speaker 1: the things that I do worry about a little bit
14:16
Speaker 1: is that because this is not going away, and it's
14:19
Speaker 1: not going away because people in the base of the
14:22
Speaker 1: Trump coalition are genuinely interested in this and they think
14:27
Speaker 1: that this is the decoder ring for all corruption in
14:32
Speaker 1: elite circles. I don't think that it is, but they do.
14:35
Speaker 1: And I think there's reason to be suspicious of the
14:37
Speaker 1: information for sure. And because Democrats are seeing that this
14:42
Speaker 1: storyline is hurting Trump, the two have come together, even
14:46
Speaker 1: on House Oversight Committee, where Jamie Comer is saying, well,
14:49
Speaker 1: I'm going to subpoena a bunch of people who have
14:50
Speaker 1: this information, including the Clintons, including ags who have been
14:54
Speaker 1: part of these debates of both parties, and Democrats and
14:57
Speaker 1: Republicans came together to agreed to issue those subpoenas. So
15:02
Speaker 1: this is like an interesting political confluence. And what I'm
15:07
Speaker 1: worried about is that the Trump administration, by virtue of
15:09
Speaker 1: wanting to look like they're doing something and getting to
15:12
Speaker 1: the bottom of this, they go lenient too much on
15:15
Speaker 1: the one person who was convicted, hurting a bunch of
15:19
Speaker 1: people like she's the one. Do I think there probably
15:23
Speaker 1: should have been more, Yes, But she's the one, and
15:26
Speaker 1: I don't want to be making some super sweet deal
15:28
Speaker 1: with her because politically, you need to tell these other
15:31
Speaker 1: people more things about Epstein. Ye Epstein, I'm with you
15:34
Speaker 1: on that part.
15:35
Speaker 2: It's not about the deal for me. It's just I
15:37
Speaker 2: don't think somebody who's non violent should be And I.
15:40
Speaker 1: Don't totally disagree with that.
15:41
Speaker 2: Not you, not justally, not just anybody. And I don't
15:45
Speaker 2: think it should be part of the deal to be like,
15:48
Speaker 2: if you are a non violent offender, you get to
15:50
Speaker 2: be among other non violent offenders. I think that that
15:53
Speaker 2: should be standard. And man, it makes me feel like
15:56
Speaker 2: a lib to say that, but it's okay.
15:59
Speaker 1: Something swishes sometimes, you know.
16:01
Speaker 2: But basically, lives have gotten to where I've gotten to
16:04
Speaker 2: where they were like twenty years ago, and they've gone
16:06
Speaker 2: to there shouldn't be prison, So we're indifferent.
16:10
Speaker 1: That is the actual on camera opinion of Zoron Mandaney
16:15
Speaker 1: is like, prisons, what are they for?
16:17
Speaker 2: Right?
16:18
Speaker 4: Right?
16:18
Speaker 1: We should not have them?
16:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, who belonged in prison?
16:20
Speaker 1: Come on, only thought criminals should go to prison? Yeah,
16:24
Speaker 1: that's how it works.
16:25
Speaker 2: It's funny that you say that, you know it has
16:27
Speaker 2: aligned certain people on the right, and certain people on
16:30
Speaker 2: the left. Will Chamberlain posted Trump has been so relentless
16:33
Speaker 2: as solving the nation's problems in the last seven months
16:36
Speaker 2: that right wing commentators are reduced to making up new
16:39
Speaker 2: problems to complain about. I really write that.
16:43
Speaker 1: I mean they made a little bit of a point.
16:46
Speaker 1: I think the part that there's I think there's two
16:48
Speaker 1: risks here for Republicans. One for Trump. There are people
16:52
Speaker 1: who genuinely will look at this and go he was
16:55
Speaker 1: supposed to be my outsider. Sure, he was supposed to
16:58
Speaker 1: crack this wide open, and he hasn't what we needed
17:00
Speaker 1: to do. They made promises that they couldn't keep to
17:03
Speaker 1: some extent, and they shouldn't have done that. The other
17:06
Speaker 1: problem is once you start trying to crack it wide open,
17:09
Speaker 1: as Jamie Comer, and Jamie Comer doesn't play like he
17:11
Speaker 1: gets he gets new information. Once you start doing that
17:16
Speaker 1: in house oversight, you run the risk of looking like
17:18
Speaker 1: a party that is only looking backwards. And if I
17:22
Speaker 1: have a choice of what to look backwards on, it
17:24
Speaker 1: is the Biden family and the President, not this particular case.
17:29
Speaker 2: It's also kind of a tell that all the people
17:30
Speaker 2: in the right who are super super into this. Also
17:33
Speaker 2: didn't like Trump's actions on Iran, A bit of a
17:37
Speaker 2: tell there that it's not really about justice for Epstein
17:40
Speaker 2: victims for them, and it's about finding a way to
17:42
Speaker 2: hurt Trump. I really, I think a lot of this
17:45
Speaker 2: is trying to split the MAGA movement and they can't
17:49
Speaker 2: do it via Trump's opinions on israela I Ran, So
17:52
Speaker 2: they're trying to do this in this other way. As
17:56
Speaker 2: we go to air their meeting tonight at jd Vance's house,
18:03
Speaker 2: the report is that senior administration officials planned to meet
18:06
Speaker 2: and President Vice President JD Vance's residents for dinner Wednesday
18:11
Speaker 2: night to discuss how to better handle the Epstein case.
18:14
Speaker 2: And they want to kind of all be on the
18:15
Speaker 2: same page, which they clearly haven't been. So I'm kind
18:18
Speaker 2: of glad that they're doing that. It's kind of weird
18:21
Speaker 2: that it took this long. I think that they should
18:23
Speaker 2: have been maybe on the same page before a lot
18:25
Speaker 2: of the internal fighting that became public. I'm really not
18:29
Speaker 2: a fan of I don't like that there was a
18:32
Speaker 2: lot of it's either this person or me or whatever
18:35
Speaker 2: reported and I wish they had been on the same
18:39
Speaker 2: page all along.
18:40
Speaker 1: Also a rare whiff, I think for Trump, who generally
18:44
Speaker 1: has a good sense of how these stories will play out,
18:48
Speaker 1: when he said stop talking about this, right, that's not
18:52
Speaker 1: the message on something where people have lost a bunch
18:54
Speaker 1: of public trust in public institutions with good reason. This
18:58
Speaker 1: is something that a lot of your supporters are invested in,
19:01
Speaker 1: and that is the last thing that a conspiracy swirling
19:04
Speaker 1: story and its adherents need to hear from the White
19:09
Speaker 1: House on this. So I think that was a miss
19:11
Speaker 1: and they will maybe corrected. Also, my controversial opinion is
19:14
Speaker 1: that the Vice presidential residence greater than the White House.
19:18
Speaker 1: It is beautiful, it is so enjoy dinner over there.
19:20
Speaker 1: Guys might have dinner there.
19:23
Speaker 2: Dances. Yes, soon, Well, we're going to take another short
19:26
Speaker 2: break and come back with Jim Acosta. I know you
19:29
Speaker 2: missed him, so we're going to be talking about him
19:32
Speaker 2: because that's what Jim Acosta wants more than anything else.
19:35
Speaker 2: Be right back with more on normally.
19:40
Speaker 1: All right, we are back on normally, and we reluctantly
19:43
Speaker 1: agreed to talk about Jim Acosta, who now has a
19:47
Speaker 1: streaming show. He doesn't have a CNN gig anymore, and
19:50
Speaker 1: to make that streaming show work. One of the things
19:53
Speaker 1: he has done is decided to have a segment on
19:56
Speaker 1: gun control with a victim of the Parkland shooting. This
20:03
Speaker 1: victim is a young man who died in that shooting,
20:06
Speaker 1: but whose parents have created an AI version of him
20:10
Speaker 1: to speak on public policy to people like Jim Acosta
20:15
Speaker 1: who are willing to entertain this. And I would say,
20:18
Speaker 1: the reaction to this segment is pretty universally, well, that's
20:25
Speaker 1: not good.
20:25
Speaker 2: Let's play the segment so people can hear the insanity
20:28
Speaker 2: for themselves.
20:30
Speaker 1: Joaquin, I would like to know what your solution would
20:34
Speaker 1: be for gun violence.
20:37
Speaker 5: Great question. I believe in a mix of stronger gun
20:39
Speaker 5: control laws, mental health support, and community engagement. We need
20:43
Speaker 5: to create safe spaces for conversations and connections, making sure
20:47
Speaker 5: everyone feels seen and heard. It's about building a culture
20:50
Speaker 5: of kindness and understanding. What do you think about that.
20:53
Speaker 2: I think that's a great ideal. Just no, no, I
20:56
Speaker 2: mean no. I get that his parents are grieving, but
20:59
Speaker 2: that is not their So there's not a teenager in
21:01
Speaker 2: the world who talks like that, not a single teenager
21:04
Speaker 2: ever in the history of ever. I mean, he'd been
21:06
Speaker 2: I think they said he would be twenty twenty five today. Yeah,
21:11
Speaker 2: so you know, even twenty five year olds, what do
21:14
Speaker 2: you think about that. It's very stilted and it's not
21:19
Speaker 2: your son, It's not And I feel bad for these parents,
21:23
Speaker 2: but this should not have been aired. This is grieving
21:28
Speaker 2: people trying to process that grief, and Jim Acosta doing
21:32
Speaker 2: this is just absolutely disgusting to me.
21:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, the loss of this young man is a tragedy.
21:40
Speaker 1: And also when you're a grieving parent or a grieving person,
21:45
Speaker 1: you do not have carte blanche to just be listened
21:49
Speaker 1: to for that reason forever, right. I am happy to
21:54
Speaker 1: listen to policy concerns from the parents of this child,
21:58
Speaker 1: but this, the way that this is happening is grotesque.
22:02
Speaker 1: I think everyone, almost everyone reacted to it that way
22:06
Speaker 1: for a reason. There is no shortage, I don't know,
22:09
Speaker 1: if you know, from literature and movies and art, there's
22:12
Speaker 1: a shortage of cautionary tales about reanimating the dead to
22:16
Speaker 1: do things on this earth. And I think AI is
22:19
Speaker 1: getting a lot of people who are grieving and who
22:21
Speaker 1: are vulnerable to take steps they should not be taking.
22:27
Speaker 1: And I have more sympathy for those who are not
22:29
Speaker 1: putting them on Jim Acosta's show. But there are plenty
22:31
Speaker 1: of people, I'm sure, who grieve loved ones and who
22:34
Speaker 1: end up turning an AI chatbot into a version of them.
22:38
Speaker 1: And I think it's really dangerous for people's souls, for
22:41
Speaker 1: their lives, for moving on, And it's something you're seeing
22:47
Speaker 1: more and more of. There's Alex o'hanian who's married to
22:51
Speaker 1: Selena Selena Williams, and he lost his mom when he
22:56
Speaker 1: was young, and he dropped a picture of his mom
22:59
Speaker 1: and him into one of the AI machines and it
23:03
Speaker 1: turned it into a video of him sort of nestling
23:06
Speaker 1: with his mom. He didn't have videos of her, and
23:08
Speaker 1: so he found this very moving. I think we're going
23:11
Speaker 1: down a pretty dangerous road here. Yeah, and it certainly
23:15
Speaker 1: shouldn't be used for public policy fights. Like you make
23:19
Speaker 1: your own argument.
23:20
Speaker 2: To me, Yeah, right, don't reanimate your dead son. I
23:24
Speaker 2: when this technology was first coming out, you know, before AI,
23:28
Speaker 2: when they like you could upload it like an old
23:30
Speaker 2: picture and kind of animate it. I uploaded a picture
23:32
Speaker 2: of my grandmother. I was very close with her, and like,
23:34
Speaker 2: I just wanted to see her move. Yeah, And I
23:37
Speaker 2: uploaded this picture and you know, she kind of like smiled,
23:40
Speaker 2: and I was like, that's not her smile. It's just
23:42
Speaker 2: not they Yes, it is the picture smiling, it's it's
23:45
Speaker 2: as close as yet, But that's not her. I could
23:48
Speaker 2: see in the eyes. It's not it's not how she
23:49
Speaker 2: used to smile. It just not not her. I think
23:52
Speaker 2: people need to accept that they can't reanimate their dead
23:57
Speaker 2: relatives and that it's something that they have to just
24:01
Speaker 2: process and live with. On the political side, I'll say
24:04
Speaker 2: that CNN loves to do this kind of thing, even
24:08
Speaker 2: though he's not on CNN anymore. They actually, famously after
24:12
Speaker 2: Parkland had the town hall where these teenage victims of
24:16
Speaker 2: the shooting who were in the building that day got
24:19
Speaker 2: to yell at Dana lash who was an n RA spokesperson,
24:23
Speaker 2: and Senator Marco Rubio, who's senator from Florida at the time.
24:27
Speaker 2: And I found that so hideously disgusting as well. They
24:31
Speaker 2: were using these kids to make the arguments for them. Actually,
24:34
Speaker 2: I would say that that whole thing spurred my book
24:37
Speaker 2: with Bethany Mandel, Stolen Youth. We talked about how that
24:42
Speaker 2: town hall that's what turned other movements, made other movements
24:47
Speaker 2: use children because they realized that you can't yell back
24:50
Speaker 2: at children, you similarly can't yell back at ai of
24:55
Speaker 2: dead people. And I think that that's what they're realizing
24:57
Speaker 2: is that this is great for making the arguments that
24:59
Speaker 2: we want to. We don't have to make them. We
25:01
Speaker 2: can use kids. We can use dead kids and make
25:04
Speaker 2: these arguments for us.
25:05
Speaker 1: Ye, they're looking for unassailable spokespeople. They're looking as the
25:09
Speaker 1: left often does. And it's not to say that the
25:11
Speaker 1: right doesn't do some of this as well, but the
25:13
Speaker 1: Left has perfected it, which is to win an argument
25:16
Speaker 1: without having an argument and say you're not allowed to speak.
25:20
Speaker 1: You're not allowed to say anything about Cindy she In, right,
25:22
Speaker 1: Remember she was the very vocal anti war code Pink
25:26
Speaker 1: mom of a soldier who tragically lost his life during
25:29
Speaker 1: the War on Terror. But you are allowed to talk
25:32
Speaker 1: about policy. You are allowed to disagree with Cindy she
25:35
Speaker 1: In and honor the death of her son. At the
25:37
Speaker 1: same time, you are allowed to disagree with these parents
25:40
Speaker 1: about gun control. And I think the left is fooling
25:43
Speaker 1: itself on this. If Trump second time around has not
25:47
Speaker 1: taught them yet, teaching people to are convincing people to
25:50
Speaker 1: shut up. Is not the same as convincing them. I
25:53
Speaker 1: don't know what they're gonna when they're gonna learn exact.
25:55
Speaker 1: People believe things, and you can't just tell them to stop.
26:00
Speaker 2: Right right, and you can't say even you know, even
26:05
Speaker 2: the argument that this animated you know, image is making.
26:09
Speaker 2: I believe people should be involved in the conversation. I
26:12
Speaker 2: believe in, you know, bringing everybody to the table. It's
26:17
Speaker 2: not really an argument. Like if you're already putting words
26:20
Speaker 2: into the mouths of a dead AI image, you can
26:23
Speaker 2: maybe do a little bit better than that.
26:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, just just make your own argument. Yeah, like that
26:29
Speaker 1: would be a normal thing. I do think this is
26:31
Speaker 1: this is yet another attempt to create a different kind
26:34
Speaker 1: of spokesperson who cannot be argued with exactly. And we
26:38
Speaker 1: are invested in actually having the arguments, and that's what
26:41
Speaker 1: we should be invested with.
26:42
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on Normally Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
26:45
Speaker 2: and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get
26:49
Speaker 2: in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail dot com.
26:52
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally