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Normally Podcast: Trump's Approval and Political Dynamics · Normally

0:02
Speaker 1: Hey guy, it's fun. It's normous, countrymen. We are back
0:05
Speaker 1: on normally, the show with normal it takes for when
0:09
Speaker 1: the news gets weird. I am Mary Catherine.
0:11
Speaker 2: Ham Carl Marcowitz. What a weekend, Mary Catherine.
0:16
Speaker 1: There's a lot going on. We had stitches at our house,
0:20
Speaker 1: stitches for the stitches for the youngest, the boy. This
0:25
Speaker 1: is like what they do, right, Yeah.
0:27
Speaker 3: I mean we keep trying to buy like a twenty
0:30
Speaker 3: pack to the emergency room, but they don't.
0:32
Speaker 2: Sell those, so.
0:33
Speaker 1: I want my card punch. Yeah, we had. He had
0:36
Speaker 1: a close encounter with the banister and it didn't It
0:41
Speaker 1: didn't end well for him, but he's kids are magic.
0:45
Speaker 1: He's like he was jumping out a trampoline two hours later.
0:48
Speaker 2: So he'll get that banister next time.
0:50
Speaker 1: Yes he will. And as as a mother with good judgment,
0:53
Speaker 1: I of course have him immediately on a trampoline after
0:57
Speaker 1: this incident.
0:59
Speaker 2: We are gonna get mail.
1:01
Speaker 1: I got to get back on that horse. You really, yes,
1:03
Speaker 1: you do.
1:04
Speaker 3: So that was a Super Bowl? Has there ever been
1:10
Speaker 3: that kind of lopsided result? I count on you for
1:13
Speaker 3: the sports bawl.
1:15
Speaker 1: I don't think I think that lead that the Eagles
1:18
Speaker 1: had at one point with the shutout before it came
1:20
Speaker 1: not a shout out, was the biggest ever in Super
1:23
Speaker 1: Bowl history. That was a just a beating. I was
1:28
Speaker 1: rooting for the Eagles, not because I'm an Eagles fan.
1:30
Speaker 1: I'm a Lions fan. But the entire defense is Georgia Bulldogs.
1:34
Speaker 1: So by the end of their four years, they've won
1:38
Speaker 1: two National championships and a Super Bowl. So way to go, guys.
1:42
Speaker 4: All right, I'll be happy for you, even though I
1:44
Speaker 4: hate the Eagles so many But you know, I didn't
1:49
Speaker 4: feel any particular way because like enough of the Chiefs already,
1:52
Speaker 4: Like that's that was sort of the problem last night,
1:55
Speaker 4: Like I.
1:55
Speaker 3: Despised the Eagles, but like, did I really care that
1:57
Speaker 3: they finally unseated the Chiefs?
2:00
Speaker 2: Not that much.
2:01
Speaker 1: I like the idea, by the way that everybody's like, oh,
2:03
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift is devastated. I'm neutral on Taylor Swift to positive.
2:08
Speaker 1: I like her. I'm this isn't devastating. You went to
2:12
Speaker 1: two Super Bowls two years in a row in first
2:15
Speaker 1: outing as a Chiefs fan, Like you're good and you
2:18
Speaker 1: won one of them, right, and like.
2:21
Speaker 3: Your boyfriend's on the team, You're okay.
2:23
Speaker 1: You're good.
2:24
Speaker 2: You just had this Mego world tour.
2:26
Speaker 3: You know, I didn't mind Taylor getting booed, because I
2:29
Speaker 3: think that that's just a rite of passage for everyone.
2:32
Speaker 3: We Trump got applauded, but he could have easily gotten
2:35
Speaker 3: boot also, because you just never know what these kinds
2:37
Speaker 3: of things. I think booing at sporting events is a
2:40
Speaker 3: national pastime and Taylor shouldn't take it too personally.
2:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't put me on that jumpatron, I'm good, Just
2:46
Speaker 1: let me watch.
2:49
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:50
Speaker 1: I did think the super Bowl, which I love because
2:55
Speaker 1: it's basically the only thing we all do together anymore.
2:58
Speaker 1: That was one of the sad things about the kneeling
3:02
Speaker 1: and the anthem. The whole political discussion about that was
3:05
Speaker 1: that this thing we had formally all embraced together and
3:10
Speaker 1: one of the few things left culturally for us to
3:12
Speaker 1: do together was gone for a while, and a lot
3:15
Speaker 1: of people pieced out on the NFL as a result.
3:19
Speaker 1: And now it really does feel like people are kind
3:22
Speaker 1: of back on the same page when it comes to football,
3:24
Speaker 1: and I like that.
3:25
Speaker 2: I like it too.
3:26
Speaker 3: I thought a lot of that was Listen, I thought
3:28
Speaker 3: it was by design. When AOC said there was no
3:30
Speaker 3: going back to Brunch. I think that was, you know,
3:33
Speaker 3: the kind of thing that she meant, like, we can't
3:34
Speaker 3: just all go watch the Super Bowl. The world's going
3:36
Speaker 3: to explode, and people.
3:38
Speaker 1: Were like, no, we would like to watch, so yeah.
3:40
Speaker 2: Please leave us alone, lady.
3:42
Speaker 3: Look that this return to normalcy, this vibe shift, is
3:45
Speaker 3: what we talk a lot about on here, and it
3:48
Speaker 3: was very visible this weekend.
3:50
Speaker 2: It was clear that.
3:52
Speaker 3: And you know that the ads that were still a
3:53
Speaker 3: little woke, were they stuck out because they were weird
3:57
Speaker 3: and they didn't fit anymore. And per siddenly really hate
4:01
Speaker 3: the Snoop dog Tom Brady ad against Tate, against.
4:05
Speaker 2: Just all hate, all hate. Heyere, yeah, I hate the Eagles.
4:08
Speaker 2: You're not going to stop me.
4:11
Speaker 1: I'm not against it.
4:13
Speaker 3: But you know that that company, that group started as
4:17
Speaker 3: a anti Semitism group, an anti anti Semitism group, and
4:22
Speaker 3: now it's just like generic hate and it just rings
4:25
Speaker 3: like such bs and they've spent such an insane amount
4:29
Speaker 3: of money. Obviously, you get a Super Bowl ad, you
4:31
Speaker 3: have Tom Brady in it, you have Snoop DOGG in it,
4:33
Speaker 3: what are you accomplishing? And it just like it missed
4:37
Speaker 3: the moment completely.
4:38
Speaker 1: I think my favorite ad was probably the Glenn Powell
4:41
Speaker 1: Three Little the Three Bears retelling with the Dodge Ram trusts.
4:46
Speaker 2: Oh no, I did see that. Yeah, that was good.
4:48
Speaker 1: Glenn Powell, to me is sort of emblematic of the
4:52
Speaker 1: vibe shift because he's not some winger. Nobody's asking for that.
4:57
Speaker 1: What Glenn Powell is entertaining fun. He does not take
5:02
Speaker 1: himself too seriously, and that's what we're looking for. Of
5:05
Speaker 1: course he had so his origination or his buzz came
5:09
Speaker 1: mostly from Maverick, which was this refreshingly non political pro
5:14
Speaker 1: America product that everyone enjoyed because they were like, oh,
5:19
Speaker 1: this is not what we've been doing for a while.
5:22
Speaker 1: So I liked that. I know that there were many
5:25
Speaker 1: Olds who were disappointed with Kendrick Lamar's Oh man, yeah,
5:31
Speaker 1: I love the Olds.
5:32
Speaker 2: Yeah I was.
5:33
Speaker 1: I was neutral to positive on it.
5:37
Speaker 3: I didn't think it was that great a performance. I
5:39
Speaker 3: do like Kendrick Lamar, like his music, you know not.
5:43
Speaker 3: I can't say I'm a huge fan, but I knew
5:46
Speaker 3: to say a minor or the rest of the crowd.
5:49
Speaker 1: So man Drake thought he was just going to have
5:52
Speaker 1: a normal beef and this is not no it's not
5:55
Speaker 1: for those who don't know. That line is a the
5:59
Speaker 1: whole track of Drake. That line in particular is a
6:03
Speaker 1: very savage dig on Drake. And then he had Serena
6:07
Speaker 1: Williams come out, who is Drake's They weren't in a
6:10
Speaker 1: long relationship, but they they were in some sort of
6:13
Speaker 1: entanglement at some point. And at first I was like,
6:16
Speaker 1: why is Serena Williams out there when they had this
6:18
Speaker 1: very short entanglement at that Yeah, and like why does
6:21
Speaker 1: she care about Drake at this point? And then I
6:24
Speaker 1: looked it up and refreshed my memory. Drake talked junk
6:27
Speaker 1: about not only her but her husband, who she ended
6:30
Speaker 1: up marrying and having kids with. So go on, Serena
6:33
Speaker 1: enjoy and she looked great.
6:35
Speaker 3: Yeah she did so other vibe shifty news over the weekend,
6:42
Speaker 3: and this is you know, Donald.
6:43
Speaker 2: Trump was at the super Bowl.
6:44
Speaker 3: Apparently he was the first president ever at the super Bowl.
6:48
Speaker 1: I'm surprised.
6:48
Speaker 3: Did that be How Barack Obama never went to the
6:51
Speaker 3: super Bowl. That makes no sense to me.
6:53
Speaker 1: He was always up in every everything sporting all the time. Yeah.
6:58
Speaker 3: So CBS poll came out this weekend right around before
7:02
Speaker 3: Trump went to the super Bowl. It had Trump's approval
7:05
Speaker 3: rating at fifty three percent. The number that I think
7:08
Speaker 3: is most interesting and most obvious is seventy percent of
7:12
Speaker 3: responders said, he's doing what he said he would.
7:15
Speaker 2: Do during the campaign, and.
7:17
Speaker 3: You can hate the guy, but he's doing what he said.
7:19
Speaker 1: He would do now, and he, like you said, he
7:22
Speaker 1: got to cheer there. The numbers showing up for him
7:27
Speaker 1: among eighteen to twenty nine year olds have to be
7:30
Speaker 1: just very scary for Democrats. This is a demographic that
7:34
Speaker 1: they have had a lock on for a generation now
7:39
Speaker 1: and it seems not the case anymore, and so that's
7:44
Speaker 1: not good news for them. And I would argue that
7:46
Speaker 1: the vibe shift at the Super Bowl is partly because
7:49
Speaker 1: that group has like value to advertisers, and those advertisers
7:54
Speaker 1: who are sort of somewhat confused about where to go.
7:57
Speaker 1: You could tell some of the ads are like, we're
7:58
Speaker 1: leaning into it. Other parts other ads were like, we
8:01
Speaker 1: don't know what to do, as BLM usually gives us
8:04
Speaker 1: our talking points, but now we know that that's not
8:06
Speaker 1: what we're doing, but we don't know what to do.
8:09
Speaker 1: So I think you see that reflected in this By
8:12
Speaker 1: the way, did you see they played God Bless the
8:14
Speaker 1: USA at the third quarter in the stadium.
8:17
Speaker 3: No, I was cooking a lot of it, all cooking, eating, cooking, eating.
8:21
Speaker 3: I understand, especially as it was such a blowout. It was,
8:26
Speaker 3: you know, what was I really watching? But that's interesting,
8:28
Speaker 3: God Bless America.
8:29
Speaker 1: That's good to see.
8:31
Speaker 3: The bud Light commercial obviously was.
8:33
Speaker 1: They've played oh nice at the third quarter.
8:37
Speaker 2: Oh amazing, fantastic.
8:39
Speaker 3: That is a vibe shift, the bud Light commercial with
8:42
Speaker 3: the manliest ad in history, just men doing manly things
8:48
Speaker 3: all over the backyard.
8:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, definite vibe shift.
8:51
Speaker 1: I will say Shane Gillis's arc is indicative of amazing exactly.
8:56
Speaker 2: Yeah.
8:58
Speaker 3: I will say that I am getting a little concerned,
9:02
Speaker 3: and this is my Russian pessimistic side, that the right
9:07
Speaker 3: is being a little too excited about the Democrats position
9:12
Speaker 3: and they're just saying things like they will never recover
9:15
Speaker 3: from this, they will never come back from this.
9:17
Speaker 2: This is the end of the Democratic Party.
9:19
Speaker 3: And my friend Michael Malice had somebody to write that
9:22
Speaker 3: to him on X and he wrote back, they have
9:24
Speaker 3: half the House, forty seven Senate seats, and twenty three
9:27
Speaker 3: governorships and control of the education system. Trump has two
9:31
Speaker 3: great weeks, and delusional people think the war is over.
9:33
Speaker 3: The Democratic Party is the oldest political party on earth.
9:36
Speaker 3: The idea that it's on the verge of destruction is
9:38
Speaker 3: a Boomer Khn fantasy. So I just want to say,
9:42
Speaker 3: I feel I'm not tired of winning.
9:44
Speaker 2: Let's keep the winning going.
9:45
Speaker 3: And I love the vibe right now and it does
9:47
Speaker 3: feel like a culture shift and all of that.
9:50
Speaker 2: But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The deocrats are
9:54
Speaker 2: not done.
9:55
Speaker 1: You're right. You have to take your w's when you
9:57
Speaker 1: get them, and also keep in mind that this is
10:01
Speaker 1: not over. I had a friend years ago when Obama
10:04
Speaker 1: flipped North Carolina blue. She was liberal, and she's like,
10:07
Speaker 1: it's all over like this, never again would North Carolina
10:11
Speaker 1: be read. And I was like, look, obviously I'm not
10:15
Speaker 1: on your side of this, but I would just caution you. Right,
10:18
Speaker 1: things in politics change quite quickly quickly, and certainly they
10:22
Speaker 1: have in North Carolina, especially over the past couple cycles.
10:26
Speaker 3: I don't mean to pick on this guy, but Roy
10:28
Speaker 3: Tik Sierra wrote a book called Why the White Working
10:31
Speaker 3: Class Still Matters, and he published.
10:33
Speaker 2: It right before George W.
10:34
Speaker 3: Bush has win in two thousand and the case was
10:38
Speaker 3: the white working class matters, and they will continue.
10:41
Speaker 2: To vote Democrat forever and ever. And so this is
10:43
Speaker 2: the end of the Republican Party. Can see where this went.
10:46
Speaker 1: Well, you remember Obama's demographics is destiny, Like it was
10:50
Speaker 1: all over for Republicans. They were a rump party from
10:53
Speaker 1: now until forever. That's it. And it's actually you know,
10:57
Speaker 1: it can feel jarring, but it's actually a sign of health.
11:00
Speaker 1: We have a relatively stable system, certainly compared to places
11:05
Speaker 1: like Italy and other places that change, you know, whole
11:09
Speaker 1: systems every couple of years sometimes, and you know, you
11:14
Speaker 1: live to fight another day.
11:15
Speaker 2: That's it. Yeah, So enjoy this. I enjoy it. It's
11:18
Speaker 2: very good.
11:19
Speaker 3: I'm loving all of it. I think that Trump is doing,
11:23
Speaker 3: I mean just phenomenally. I think that seventy percent really
11:26
Speaker 3: represents what everybody's thinking. And you know that seventy percent
11:30
Speaker 3: includes people who don't like him, right, They're saying, he
11:32
Speaker 3: campaigned on this stuff and he is charging ahead with it.
11:36
Speaker 1: And I couldn't be h Well, I think I wrote
11:38
Speaker 1: about it for OutKick, But he's always been so fortunate
11:42
Speaker 1: in his opposition. And there's an old newt Gingrich adage
11:46
Speaker 1: that was like, find an eighty percent issue and stand
11:48
Speaker 1: next to it. Yes, And the left continues, I think
11:53
Speaker 1: because they got really cocky in their cultural dominance. They
11:56
Speaker 1: continue to find it did the twenty percent side and
12:00
Speaker 1: stand on it and yell at the rest of us.
12:02
Speaker 1: And I just think that's not going great for them,
12:06
Speaker 1: whether it's plastic straws, thank you love that, or big
12:11
Speaker 1: issues like men and women's sports, like these are eighty
12:14
Speaker 1: percent issues, and they're like, we will proudly take the
12:18
Speaker 1: other side, which if you're principled, I guess, but like
12:21
Speaker 1: they're straws, dude, Like, maybe don't go to battle on
12:26
Speaker 1: this one. It's right, Drake going to battle with Kindred.
12:28
Speaker 1: It's going in badly bad call.
12:30
Speaker 3: Yes, we're going to take a short break and come
12:33
Speaker 3: right back with Normally, Politico has a story about Trump
12:40
Speaker 3: getting his dominees through, which shouldn't be surprising to anyone,
12:45
Speaker 3: but their opener is Donald Trump is back, and it
12:47
Speaker 3: sure isn't twenty seventeen anymore.
12:49
Speaker 2: In the Senate. No, it's not.
12:51
Speaker 3: It's not twenty seventeen anymore.
12:54
Speaker 1: Now, there seems there's this demand that you know, it
12:57
Speaker 1: sort of frames it as like they're not rejecting all
13:02
Speaker 1: of his choices. Well, that would be That would actually
13:05
Speaker 1: be an extraordinary position. That's not the normal position. The
13:09
Speaker 1: normal position of a party is to say, the head
13:13
Speaker 1: of our party, who won this election right kind of
13:16
Speaker 1: gets to choose. Will push back here and there, but
13:19
Speaker 1: largely he's going to get his choices. The issue is
13:22
Speaker 1: that the media wants Republicans to live differently than they
13:27
Speaker 1: want Democrats to live. So they are stemy, they're upset
13:32
Speaker 1: by this trend. It says the sweep of successful confirmations
13:36
Speaker 1: is the latest sign from the Senate GOP that it
13:39
Speaker 1: wants to be viewed as a partner, not a problem
13:41
Speaker 1: for Trump at the start of a second chance.
13:42
Speaker 3: Well yeah, yeah, his own party wants to be viewed
13:45
Speaker 3: as a partner.
13:47
Speaker 1: Why would that be. And then this scandalous quote from
13:51
Speaker 1: Senator John Barrosso of Wyoming. My goal was to make
13:54
Speaker 1: sure everyone of President Trump's nominees got confirmed.
13:57
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, unbelievable.
14:01
Speaker 3: Can you can you imagine Republican senator wanting that for
14:05
Speaker 3: the Republican president.
14:06
Speaker 1: Now they Politico notes, they are outpacing what they did
14:11
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen. That was an extraordinary occasion where Republicans
14:15
Speaker 1: kind of didn't know what hit them, nor did Trump,
14:17
Speaker 1: nor did the people he nominated. So this is going
14:20
Speaker 1: more smoothly. Yeah, it's also going not nearly as quickly
14:23
Speaker 1: because of Democrats, as Biden's confirmations got the courtesy of
14:28
Speaker 1: moving the last time around. But all of this is
14:31
Speaker 1: just they're just reporting normal things like that Vance is
14:36
Speaker 1: doing a persuasion effort from the administration inside the Senate. Well, yeah,
14:41
Speaker 1: he's the vice president, right. They are not resorting to
14:46
Speaker 1: recess appointments, which is that was one of the things
14:49
Speaker 1: that the press was worried about. And it's like there
14:53
Speaker 1: is line after line about like, well, I guess this
14:56
Speaker 1: is going pretty normally.
14:57
Speaker 2: I guess this is what's supposed to happen, and it's happening.
15:00
Speaker 3: What a surprise that the press is just I think
15:03
Speaker 3: they forgot what a regular political process is supposed to
15:07
Speaker 3: look like. The last four years of Joe Biden has
15:10
Speaker 3: obviously been not normal, and the first Donald Trump administration
15:15
Speaker 3: was a little bit outside of that as well. I mean,
15:17
Speaker 3: he by all accounts did not expect to win.
15:20
Speaker 1: He was not.
15:21
Speaker 2: Prepared for that first administration.
15:24
Speaker 3: It was very you know, kind of just by the
15:27
Speaker 3: seat of their.
15:27
Speaker 2: Pants and all of that.
15:29
Speaker 3: And I think the media has just simply forgotten that
15:32
Speaker 3: this is the process, this is how it works. I mean,
15:34
Speaker 3: this is you know, related, but not. But Brian Stelter
15:39
Speaker 3: tweeted on X yesterday a year ago, you can go
15:42
Speaker 3: days without seeing or thinking about Joe Biden. Now you're
15:45
Speaker 3: lucky if you can go hours without thinking about President Trump.
15:48
Speaker 3: He's inescapable and that's just how he likes it today.
15:51
Speaker 3: The Super Bowl is also the Trump bull. First of all, No,
15:54
Speaker 3: it's not okay, like he was there. It was not
15:58
Speaker 3: the Trumpell. It wasn't like they kept black to him.
16:01
Speaker 3: I would say it was more the tailor Bowl in
16:03
Speaker 3: a lot of ways over the you know this one
16:05
Speaker 3: and the last one than it was the Trumpell. They
16:07
Speaker 3: did not keep showing him. They showed him for a
16:09
Speaker 3: little bit and that was the end of that. Brian
16:11
Speaker 3: Stelter forgot that.
16:13
Speaker 2: We're supposed to hear from the president to be out there.
16:17
Speaker 1: Yeah.
16:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's not supposed to be hidden away in some basement,
16:20
Speaker 3: not allowed to speak to some people and having staffers
16:23
Speaker 3: make policy.
16:24
Speaker 2: That's just not how it's supposed to go.
16:26
Speaker 3: And this is a great reminder for the you know,
16:29
Speaker 3: journalists class, that this is what the president is supposed
16:32
Speaker 3: to do. He's supposed to go to events. He's supposed
16:34
Speaker 3: to be out there. He's not supposed to be afraid
16:37
Speaker 3: of walking or talking or just existing.
16:40
Speaker 1: One of the things that where he was visible at
16:43
Speaker 1: the super Bowl was that Trump met with families of
16:48
Speaker 1: those who were killed in the terrorism incident in New
16:52
Speaker 1: Orleans on January first, on New Year's he met. I
16:55
Speaker 1: believe there might have been some survivors also of the
16:59
Speaker 1: plane crashes in both Philly and Washington who were there,
17:02
Speaker 1: and he was in an attendance chatting with them. But interestingly,
17:06
Speaker 1: the NFL tweeted a picture, Yes, oh that was with
17:10
Speaker 1: those folks. So it's like first responders, the president and
17:14
Speaker 1: you know, people who survived these terrible incidents. That is
17:18
Speaker 1: what a president is supposed to do. That's what a
17:20
Speaker 1: normal president does, and he's being treated as such by
17:24
Speaker 1: a large entity like the NFL.
17:26
Speaker 3: And people are losing their minds about it, obviously, like
17:28
Speaker 3: how dare they treat this president like he's president?
17:33
Speaker 2: That is just so unfair.
17:35
Speaker 3: It's they really are not appreciating that he didn't get
17:38
Speaker 3: this kind of treatment his first term. So it's interesting
17:42
Speaker 3: and it's nice to see him get it this time.
17:44
Speaker 2: He is the president. People have to accept that it's healthy.
17:47
Speaker 1: Even if you don't like him, it's healthy. You don't
17:50
Speaker 1: like him, healthy to treat him as the president. As
17:53
Speaker 1: I used to always say on CNN, you can't unpresident him.
17:57
Speaker 1: You have to impeach him and remove him, or you
18:00
Speaker 1: have to beat him. Right, And for the entirety of
18:03
Speaker 1: his first term, it was just this idea that they
18:05
Speaker 1: could unprecedented him like he's just it's not right. So
18:09
Speaker 1: we're just not going to go along with it, and
18:12
Speaker 1: that's not how it works. But they are attempting to
18:15
Speaker 1: do that again in some cases, whether it's in the
18:17
Speaker 1: courts or whether it's in the media. As we move
18:21
Speaker 1: forward with this second term adventure.
18:24
Speaker 3: You think they'd see that they failed at this, that
18:26
Speaker 3: it did not work. Unprecedenting him did not work, And
18:30
Speaker 3: they have tried to impeach him twice and that didn't work.
18:32
Speaker 2: And they've tried to beat him twice and that didn't work.
18:35
Speaker 3: Like I you know, I've said this song here, but
18:38
Speaker 3: if I were a Democrat. I would be nice to him,
18:42
Speaker 3: and that's how I would try to get my issues through.
18:46
Speaker 1: But I think if they had the first time, he'd
18:48
Speaker 1: be less of Ah, I know, right leaning figure by now.
18:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
18:52
Speaker 3: I agree again, Kim Kardashian did it and Nancy Pelosi didn't.
18:57
Speaker 2: So yeah, we'll be right back on normally.
19:03
Speaker 1: Into our last subject, which is the the ongoing drama
19:07
Speaker 1: of DOGE and the controversy surrounding what powers Elon Musk
19:12
Speaker 1: has as a advisor slash slash special government employee. I
19:17
Speaker 1: would note that Anita Bryant was the same kind of
19:20
Speaker 1: employee under a Bidence administration. Yeah, see, that was fine, right,
19:25
Speaker 1: Just so you guys have context and the people who
19:29
Speaker 1: work under him what kind of authorities they have. There
19:33
Speaker 1: have been several temporary restraining orders put in three thus far,
19:38
Speaker 1: one from Rhode Island, one out of DC. Those have
19:41
Speaker 1: to do with overall federal spending and freezing it. But
19:44
Speaker 1: the one out of the Southern District of New York.
19:47
Speaker 1: Here they come again, one of our favorite characters in
19:52
Speaker 1: national politics. They come along, and a judge on late
19:56
Speaker 1: Friday night, I think into Saturday morning, issued an emergency
19:59
Speaker 1: temporary restraining order for anyone accessing Treasury Department records under
20:06
Speaker 1: the sort of the impetus of or under the auspices
20:09
Speaker 1: of DOGE. But included in that was all political appointees,
20:15
Speaker 1: which brings in the Senate confirmed Secretary also Treasury, who
20:22
Speaker 1: is not amazing. Yeah, who is one of the most sensible,
20:28
Speaker 1: normal pics of the entire thing, like sort of like
20:32
Speaker 1: a person you would think would get respect from media
20:36
Speaker 1: and judicial entities. And yet now they're saying he can't
20:40
Speaker 1: have access to Treasury.
20:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's mind boggling. What are they doing.
20:47
Speaker 3: It's just it is a insane line of attach this
20:52
Speaker 3: whole Elon Musk.
20:54
Speaker 2: Is going to steal our data and do what with it?
20:57
Speaker 2: Open like credit cards?
20:58
Speaker 3: Like what are they imagine Elon Musk is going to
21:01
Speaker 3: do with it? Like take over their identity.
21:03
Speaker 2: He's Elon Musk. He doesn't need you.
21:04
Speaker 3: And it's just the idea that tons of government employees
21:08
Speaker 3: don't have access to our data is ridiculous, because they are.
21:12
Speaker 1: Every slope overs has your data. I do think I
21:16
Speaker 1: looked into it a little bit and someone tweeted about
21:19
Speaker 1: this and led me to it, and I hadn't noticed
21:21
Speaker 1: it before, and I'm glad that he alerted me. I
21:23
Speaker 1: can't remember what his name was. The Doze idea is
21:29
Speaker 1: merely a renaming and a use of the authorities already
21:33
Speaker 1: granted to the United States Digital Service. This is an
21:38
Speaker 1: office within the Office of Science and Technology Policy that
21:43
Speaker 1: wait for this, I know you're going to be surprised, Carol.
21:46
Speaker 1: Under Obama was considered groundbreaking and wonderful because here's what
21:52
Speaker 1: they did, Carol, is they brought people from the technology
21:56
Speaker 1: sector into the administration to audit and improve services using
22:02
Speaker 1: their private sector expertise under a fellowship approved by executive order.
22:08
Speaker 1: Does this sound like anything that's happening right now.
22:12
Speaker 3: It sounds like they're trying to steal our information, Mary Catherine.
22:16
Speaker 1: There were many glowing profiles about this effort, and wouldn't
22:19
Speaker 1: you know it, they were stationed in various different departments,
22:25
Speaker 1: so when the USDs experts came in, they would go
22:28
Speaker 1: often do work at VA, they would go often do
22:31
Speaker 1: work at Treasury to update our systems. This was all
22:35
Speaker 1: good because they were liberal technologists and liberal young people
22:39
Speaker 1: who were good with code. Okay, so that was fine.
22:43
Speaker 1: But the idea that this isn't legal I think is
22:47
Speaker 1: very much answered by the fact that the executive order
22:49
Speaker 1: put this under an already existing office that has all
22:53
Speaker 1: sorts of authorities that everyone was fine with before. Right.
22:57
Speaker 3: What they don't like is Elon Musk cutting their slush funds,
23:01
Speaker 3: and that appears to be the biggest issue here. I've
23:04
Speaker 3: never seen the Democrats so worked up about anything, trying
23:07
Speaker 3: to break into the Department of Education and then staging
23:11
Speaker 3: their USAID, which why why can't we just call it USAID?
23:14
Speaker 3: Like can explain to me, It just naturally looks like
23:18
Speaker 3: us EID. I get it USAID, But I mean.
23:21
Speaker 1: You know what, it's a new era, Carrol.
23:22
Speaker 3: You say what you want to say, We'll say what
23:23
Speaker 3: I want to say. So they're just they're they're really
23:28
Speaker 3: not liking that this is happening to them, And how
23:33
Speaker 3: dare we cut off their friends and funding to all
23:36
Speaker 3: of their different ridiculous projects.
23:39
Speaker 2: I want to play this video.
23:40
Speaker 3: This is from twoenty twenty three, and it's John Stewart
23:44
Speaker 3: interviewing the then US Department Secretary of Defense, Kathleen Hicks,
23:49
Speaker 3: And we're going to play the whole three minute clip
23:51
Speaker 3: because it's just that good.
23:52
Speaker 1: She's the Deputy secretary, right, so she was under.
23:55
Speaker 3: US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks.
23:58
Speaker 5: Yeah, there is a lot of waste fraud in it
24:00
Speaker 5: abuse within.
24:01
Speaker 6: Assistance audits, waste broaden abuse are not the same thing.
24:04
Speaker 2: So let's decompose these.
24:06
Speaker 1: Please educate me on on sure.
24:08
Speaker 6: So an audit is exactly what you just described, which
24:10
Speaker 6: is do I know what was delivered to which place?
24:14
Speaker 6: The ability to pass an audit or in the fact
24:16
Speaker 6: that the DD has not passed audit is not suggestive
24:19
Speaker 6: of waste frauden abuse.
24:21
Speaker 2: That is completely false right there.
24:23
Speaker 6: So now is a question of it's suggestive that we
24:27
Speaker 6: can't we don't have an accurate inventory that we can
24:31
Speaker 6: pull up of what we have where that is not
24:35
Speaker 6: the same as saying we can't do that because waste
24:38
Speaker 6: frauden abuse has occurred.
24:39
Speaker 5: So in my world, yeah, that's waste.
24:44
Speaker 1: How is that waste?
24:45
Speaker 5: If I give you a billion dollars and you can't
24:48
Speaker 5: tell me what happened to it, that to me is wasteful.
24:51
Speaker 5: That that means you are not necessary responsible. But if
24:54
Speaker 5: you can't tell me where it went, then what am
24:57
Speaker 5: I supposed to think? And when they're has been reporting
25:00
Speaker 5: I mean, this is not Look I'm not I'm not
25:03
Speaker 5: saying this is on you and that you cause this,
25:07
Speaker 5: but I think it's it's a tough argument to make
25:09
Speaker 5: that cause it an eight hundred and fifty billion dollar
25:13
Speaker 5: budget to an organization that can't pass an audit and
25:18
Speaker 5: tell you where that money went. Like, I think most
25:21
Speaker 5: people would consider that somewhere in the realm of waste,
25:25
Speaker 5: fraud or abuse because they would wonder why that money
25:29
Speaker 5: isn't well accounted for, and especially when they see food
25:34
Speaker 5: insecurity on military basis and they see we talk about.
25:38
Speaker 6: That, because that's a good we should be talking. I mean,
25:40
Speaker 6: I understand where you're trying to go. Other than the dollars, which.
25:44
Speaker 5: Will bother you, I think it doesn't really bother me.
25:47
Speaker 5: I think it's all connected.
25:48
Speaker 1: Okay.
25:49
Speaker 5: I think when I say that story, tell me how
25:51
Speaker 5: you're When I see a state department get a certain
25:56
Speaker 5: amount of money and a military budget be ten times that,
26:00
Speaker 5: and I see a struggle within government to get people
26:02
Speaker 5: like more basic services, and then that department that got that,
26:07
Speaker 5: I mean, we got out of twenty years of war
26:09
Speaker 5: and the Pentagon got a fifty billion dollar raise, Like
26:12
Speaker 5: that's shocking to me. Now, I may not understand exactly
26:15
Speaker 5: the ins and outs and the incredible magic of an audit,
26:21
Speaker 5: but I'm a human being who lives on the earth
26:24
Speaker 5: and can't figure out how eight hundred and fifty billion
26:27
Speaker 5: dollars to a department means that the rank and file
26:31
Speaker 5: still have to be on food stamps. Like, to me,
26:34
Speaker 5: that's fucking corruption. I'm sorry. And if that blows your mind,
26:41
Speaker 5: and if you think like that's like a crazy agenda
26:44
Speaker 5: for me to have, I really think that that's institutional
26:49
Speaker 5: thinking and that it's not looking at the day to
26:52
Speaker 5: day reality of the people that you call the greatest
26:54
Speaker 5: fighting force in the world. So I just again, I
26:58
Speaker 5: get back to this idea of like, I'm not looking
27:00
Speaker 5: to pick a fight with you, but I am surprised
27:03
Speaker 5: at that the reaction to these questions are you don't
27:07
Speaker 5: know what an audit is, bucko, Like, that's just weird
27:10
Speaker 5: to me.
27:11
Speaker 2: Okay.
27:12
Speaker 3: I mean, first of all, anybody who's ever watched John Stewart,
27:15
Speaker 3: that is him being as kind as he could possibly
27:19
Speaker 3: be to her. If Bill is a Republican that he
27:21
Speaker 3: was speaking to, he would rip their face off. He
27:24
Speaker 3: would absolutely demolish them. That was him trying to be like,
27:28
Speaker 3: it's kind of not funny that you lost all this money. Yeah,
27:33
Speaker 3: and Herbie like you focused on the dollar, Like, yeah,
27:36
Speaker 3: he's focused on the dollar.
27:38
Speaker 1: This crystallizes a difference between normal people and people who
27:43
Speaker 1: work in government and have for a very long time,
27:46
Speaker 1: and people who are steeped in that, which includes the
27:48
Speaker 1: media and Washington. People think things about how things should
27:53
Speaker 1: and do work that are just wild. When Stuart says,
27:58
Speaker 1: I'm just a human being on the earth, that makes
28:03
Speaker 1: you very different from the people who work inside the
28:05
Speaker 1: federal government. That's why she's laughing. She doesn't understand because
28:09
Speaker 1: she has not been held accountable. It is her position
28:13
Speaker 1: that she needn't be held accountable that, in fact, losing
28:18
Speaker 1: eight hundred and fifty billion dollars or whatever the figure is,
28:21
Speaker 1: is jump change. It's insulting to her that you would
28:26
Speaker 1: ask about it. And that is how every agency feels
28:31
Speaker 1: about itself. They do things in a way that, as
28:35
Speaker 1: a normal person, you are absolutely not allowed to do.
28:38
Speaker 1: And I don't just mean running a business. I mean
28:40
Speaker 1: filing your personal taxes. When you do your little audit
28:44
Speaker 1: report to the federal government, you're not allowed to say
28:48
Speaker 1: I misplaced a couple bill.
28:50
Speaker 2: Whoops, You're not.
28:51
Speaker 1: Allowed to do that, but they are allowed to do it.
28:54
Speaker 1: And I think Elon Musk tweeted out this weekend about
29:00
Speaker 1: a couple things that I think show again, the more
29:03
Speaker 1: people learn about how the federal government does business with
29:06
Speaker 1: this megaphone from Elon Musk, the less popular it's going
29:10
Speaker 1: to be. So he's putting in a couple rules at
29:13
Speaker 1: Treasury if the courts don't stop him. Require that all
29:16
Speaker 1: outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is
29:21
Speaker 1: necessary in order to pass financial audits. This is frequently
29:24
Speaker 1: left blank, making audits almost impossible. Number two, all payments
29:28
Speaker 1: must also include a rationale for the payment in the
29:31
Speaker 1: comment field, which is currently left blank. Importantly, we are
29:34
Speaker 1: not yet applying any judgment to this rationale, but simply
29:37
Speaker 1: requiring that some attempt be made to explain the payment
29:41
Speaker 1: more than nothing. And number three, there's a do not
29:44
Speaker 1: pay list of entities for are known to be fraudulent
29:46
Speaker 1: or non existent. They just keep paying.
29:49
Speaker 2: Them anyway, insanity, they just.
29:51
Speaker 1: Keep paying them. So these are the requests. And I
29:54
Speaker 1: think normal people look at that list of requests and
29:57
Speaker 1: they say y'all haven't been doing right right. Well.
30:01
Speaker 3: It's also funny because the left is pushing back on this,
30:03
Speaker 3: being like, well, this has been going on forever.
30:05
Speaker 2: Why do you care about it now? Like, I don't know.
30:07
Speaker 3: I didn't know this was going on forever. I'm glad
30:09
Speaker 3: to hear about this, and I'm glad that Elon is
30:12
Speaker 3: on it.
30:12
Speaker 5: He is.
30:13
Speaker 3: I just this is probably my favorite thing about the
30:16
Speaker 3: administration so far. Doge is exposing so much crazy stuff
30:21
Speaker 3: in our government that just I love everything about it.
30:24
Speaker 1: Well, and as Bascent notes when he was asked by
30:26
Speaker 1: Bloomberg about it, it's not just these guys who have
30:30
Speaker 1: been brought in by Elon as the Executive Order and
30:32
Speaker 1: as USDs. Again, an Obama era entity is designed. People
30:38
Speaker 1: go to each agency, but they are accompanied by career folks.
30:42
Speaker 1: They are accompanied by the Senate appointed person, They're accompanied
30:45
Speaker 1: by a lawyer. That's the requirement for each team at
30:48
Speaker 1: each agency, and they're doing work finding out things we
30:55
Speaker 1: need to know, such as for instance, at FEMA discovered
31:00
Speaker 1: that FEMA spent fifty nine million dollars last week on
31:03
Speaker 1: hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants. They
31:07
Speaker 1: say that this violates an executive order. But regardless, fifty
31:12
Speaker 1: nine million is going last week to illegal migrants in
31:16
Speaker 1: New York to house them. But people are being kicked
31:19
Speaker 1: out of hotels in North Carolina who are.
31:21
Speaker 3: Citizens right and living intents in cold weather and.
31:24
Speaker 1: All of that. It's feel free to explain that to me. Yeah,
31:27
Speaker 1: guys right.
31:29
Speaker 3: And you know, if had we challenged this something like
31:32
Speaker 3: this like two years ago, people who just called us
31:34
Speaker 3: racist and in the end of the conversation. And that
31:37
Speaker 3: is why the vibe shift to tie this all together
31:39
Speaker 3: is so important. Because the work is really important, but
31:42
Speaker 3: the conversation around the work has changed so much that
31:46
Speaker 3: that is what's allowing the work to get done.
31:48
Speaker 1: It would you say that we are doing the work.
31:51
Speaker 2: We are doing the work.
31:52
Speaker 3: We're doing, we're reading the book, We're we're sitting down
31:56
Speaker 3: and listening.
31:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, leading space for people like Elon to talk to
32:00
Speaker 1: us about what's happening in the federal government.
32:03
Speaker 2: We are, we are. And let's end here.
32:05
Speaker 3: Let's we have a Trump clip about what Elon is
32:07
Speaker 3: going to do next.
32:08
Speaker 7: I don't know if it's kickbacks or what's going on,
32:11
Speaker 7: but the people, look, I ran on this and the
32:13
Speaker 7: people want me to find it. And I've had a
32:16
Speaker 7: great help with Elon Musk, who's been terrific.
32:19
Speaker 1: Talm On, you say you trust him.
32:22
Speaker 7: Trust Elon. Oh, he's not gaining anything. In fact, I
32:25
Speaker 7: wonder how he can devote the time to it. He's
32:26
Speaker 7: so into it. But I told him do that. Then
32:29
Speaker 7: I'm going to tell him very soon, like maybe in
32:33
Speaker 7: twenty four hours, to go check the Department of Education.
32:36
Speaker 7: He's going to find the same thing. Then I'm going
32:38
Speaker 7: to go to the military. Let's check the military. We're
32:40
Speaker 7: going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of
32:44
Speaker 7: fraud and abuse. And you know, the people elected me
32:48
Speaker 7: on that.
32:48
Speaker 3: I love that Trump is saying he's giving Elon the
32:52
Speaker 3: power to go do this, and Elon is going to
32:54
Speaker 3: make it his mission to help all these different agencies
33:00
Speaker 3: wasting our money.
33:01
Speaker 2: How can anyone be against this?
33:03
Speaker 1: I'm mad at it at all.
33:06
Speaker 3: I wish them well, yes, and I wish that they
33:09
Speaker 3: continue to succeed and do it as fast as possible,
33:12
Speaker 3: because Americans deserve not to have their money misspent.
33:16
Speaker 1: You are entering your explain yourself era.
33:18
Speaker 3: Enjoy Thanks for joining us on normally Normally airs Tuesdays
33:23
Speaker 3: and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts.
33:27
Speaker 3: Get in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail dot com.
33:30
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally