Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: We're Talking the Epstein Investigation!

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Normally Podcast: We're Talking the Epstein Investigation! · Normally

0:02
Speaker 1: Oh my guys, we are mad. Normally your show with
0:05
Speaker 1: normal what she takes for when the news gets weird.
0:07
Speaker 2: I am Mary Tatham him and I'm Carol Markowitz. We
0:11
Speaker 2: are going to get into the news getting weird. We
0:15
Speaker 2: put this topic off, and I want people to understand
0:17
Speaker 2: we did not discuss Epstein because we're on the Epstein
0:21
Speaker 2: list and we can we you know, want to hide
0:25
Speaker 2: our involvement or any of the conspiracy theories around it.
0:29
Speaker 3: We have not discussed Epstein because.
0:31
Speaker 2: The news changes very quickly, and even as we are
0:35
Speaker 2: going to record right now for tomorrow's release, Donald Trump
0:40
Speaker 2: just five minutes ago posted something on truth that we're
0:43
Speaker 2: going to get into also.
0:44
Speaker 3: And you know, it's not that easy.
0:46
Speaker 2: To talk about a topic that is rapidly changing when
0:50
Speaker 2: you record a show when we're not live, even when
0:54
Speaker 2: you are alive, because so much changes so quickly. So
0:56
Speaker 2: we wanted to wait on Epstein, and we feel like
0:59
Speaker 2: we can wait no more.
1:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, here we go, let's do it. Here are my
1:04
Speaker 1: basic thoughts on Telestine from the beginning is that at
1:10
Speaker 1: the very least this was investigated from the beginning incompetently
1:15
Speaker 1: and probably corruptly, because there were so many important people involved,
1:21
Speaker 1: he got a sweetheart deal and his first charges yep,
1:26
Speaker 1: and throughout the thing stinks to high heaven.
1:30
Speaker 3: Right.
1:31
Speaker 1: I don't know what the truth is, but I know
1:33
Speaker 1: that it is bad. And we know there are all
1:35
Speaker 1: these very real victims, many many of which signed NDA's
1:39
Speaker 1: and we may never know anything about, many of which
1:42
Speaker 1: don't want anything known about them, and they are in
1:45
Speaker 1: the files. Such that the files are makes it hard
1:49
Speaker 1: to release some of that without major reactions, which then
1:52
Speaker 1: lends itself to various other theories. I don't think it's
1:56
Speaker 1: wrong to think something's afoot. I just don't know what
2:00
Speaker 1: the thing is other than I think this was slow
2:03
Speaker 1: rolled or incompetent from the beginning, and I think that
2:05
Speaker 1: Trump administration, and by the way, that was both sides,
2:08
Speaker 1: with the slow rolling and the incompetency, I think the
2:10
Speaker 1: Trump administration stepped in it by promising people things that
2:14
Speaker 1: they couldn't give, right.
2:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's basically where I am. Look.
2:20
Speaker 2: Our second topic of the day today, which we'll get into,
2:23
Speaker 2: will be Trump's Scotis wins. And I just want to
2:25
Speaker 2: say I've had a up and down relationship with the president.
2:29
Speaker 3: You know, one side of relationship.
2:30
Speaker 1: He doesn't.
2:30
Speaker 3: You know, he's not having any relationship with me.
2:33
Speaker 2: But you know, my feelings and thoughts on him have
2:35
Speaker 2: been up and down depending on things that he does
2:37
Speaker 2: and says, not you know, not out of nowhere.
2:40
Speaker 3: But I am like peak Trump love right now.
2:43
Speaker 2: I think that he is crushing it. I think that
2:46
Speaker 2: since they I ran attack, maybe even before that, all
2:49
Speaker 2: of his moves have been in my mind Stella, the
2:52
Speaker 2: scotuswinds are incredible.
2:54
Speaker 3: I think he really is on a high.
2:55
Speaker 2: I've been joking that maybe it's time for me to
2:57
Speaker 2: get a mega hat like we are in a place
3:00
Speaker 2: Donald Trump and I having said all that, I blame
3:04
Speaker 2: him for this. I don't blame PAMBONDI, I don't blame
3:07
Speaker 2: Cash Ptel or Dan Bungino.
3:09
Speaker 3: This buck stops with Donald Trump.
3:11
Speaker 2: And now when I would say blame, I don't think
3:13
Speaker 2: he's covering up his own involvement at all.
3:16
Speaker 1: I've never bought that theory.
3:18
Speaker 2: I can give you guys a slight piece of insidery information.
3:22
Speaker 2: A friend of a friend, somebody I really trust, worked
3:24
Speaker 2: on the obscene investigation hates Donald Trump says he has
3:28
Speaker 2: nothing to do with it. I mean, like says he
3:31
Speaker 2: literally has nothing to do with it.
3:33
Speaker 1: Well, so, yeah, this is part of the danger of
3:35
Speaker 1: all of this information is that he had connections to
3:37
Speaker 1: many very famous and powerful people, many of which were
3:41
Speaker 1: normal or innocent or transactional in normal ways that did
3:45
Speaker 1: not touch the illegal activity. And so you can't just
3:48
Speaker 1: assume everyone involved was doing this kind of thing. I
3:51
Speaker 1: also think if this information had existed in any form
3:54
Speaker 1: or any hint at it, the Biden administration would have
3:57
Speaker 1: leaked this information.
4:00
Speaker 2: Somebody who thinks the Biden administration sat on Donald Trump
4:03
Speaker 2: being involved with Jeffrey Epstein is fooling themselves.
4:07
Speaker 3: Absolutely not.
4:08
Speaker 2: Also the side note to this is I think that
4:11
Speaker 2: money lets people kind of disregard asking additional questions. You know,
4:17
Speaker 2: when somebody has a private plane, I think that makes
4:20
Speaker 2: people be like, oh, well, he's a legitimate person and
4:22
Speaker 2: he made all his money, and I can go on
4:24
Speaker 2: his plane.
4:25
Speaker 3: And so a lot of people were on his plane
4:27
Speaker 3: a lot.
4:28
Speaker 2: I know some seedless celebrities that were on his plane
4:32
Speaker 2: who are not I would just say, not involved in
4:35
Speaker 2: any way, and nobody has ever mentioned them.
4:36
Speaker 1: But you would also bolster that part of it if
4:39
Speaker 1: you ever watch any of these Netflix like scam artist documentaries.
4:42
Speaker 1: All of them charter planes and pretend that they have
4:45
Speaker 1: private planes, because that's the signal that you are of,
4:47
Speaker 1: you know, like the okay person to associate with. Right.
4:50
Speaker 2: I hope that I raise my kids to be like,
4:53
Speaker 2: I don't care if you have a private plane, Like
4:55
Speaker 2: I'm not going somewhere with someone I don't know. On
4:58
Speaker 2: a side side note, conservative influencer Lauren Southern yesterday published
5:03
Speaker 2: a whole thing about how she was sexually assaulted allegedly
5:07
Speaker 2: by Andrew Tate. And one of the things is like, well,
5:10
Speaker 2: he had so much money and he was able to
5:13
Speaker 2: like call me a car, and I went to these
5:15
Speaker 2: fancy restaurants and I was very poor and blah blah blah.
5:18
Speaker 2: And she blames herself, which she shouldn't. But that's what happens,
5:21
Speaker 2: is that people get taken in by wealth or the
5:25
Speaker 2: illusion of wealth, and kids don't do this. It doesn't
5:28
Speaker 2: matter how rich someone is, like verify, you know, verify
5:31
Speaker 2: who they are. You know, really don't trust everyone just
5:34
Speaker 2: because they have money.
5:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think to your point about them about
5:38
Speaker 1: Trump bringing this on himself, you know, there were a
5:40
Speaker 1: lot of there were promises made, and then people within
5:43
Speaker 1: the administration were explicit about those promises, like I got
5:46
Speaker 1: the list on my desk. I don't actually think there's
5:48
Speaker 1: a list, because generally people don't write down explicitly all
5:51
Speaker 1: the illegal things that they are doing in a list form,
5:54
Speaker 1: except for the Ivy League with hiring, which I always
5:56
Speaker 1: admit that they did it by race, but that's another
5:58
Speaker 1: issue for another day. Yeah, I don't know if there's
6:00
Speaker 1: an explicit list. I do know there's more information, right.
6:04
Speaker 1: I think the easy, clean answer for the Trump administration
6:08
Speaker 1: was Ghislaine Maxwell has this case in appeals. We can't
6:13
Speaker 1: do anything until that is resulved. Maxwell was Epstein's right
6:17
Speaker 1: hand woman who did a lot of the cultivating of
6:20
Speaker 1: these relationships with these underaged women. That's a lot of
6:24
Speaker 1: the work of getting people matched up or whatever, discussing
6:27
Speaker 1: things they were into. She did a lot of that work,
6:29
Speaker 1: and a lot of people rightly say, why is this
6:31
Speaker 1: woman convicted and we see no other people who actually
6:36
Speaker 1: did you know, we're the other side of this transaction
6:39
Speaker 1: getting punished, And I think that's a fair critique. I
6:42
Speaker 1: think the administration should have just said until this appeals
6:45
Speaker 1: case is done, we can't do anything else.
6:47
Speaker 3: That's what they should have said.
6:48
Speaker 2: We're going to read something from Sonny, right. We mentioned
6:51
Speaker 2: that account recently on here. But Sonny points out that
6:54
Speaker 2: the brief of the United States Government before the Supreme
6:57
Speaker 2: Court of the United States, submitted and signed by Trump's
6:59
Speaker 2: Solicitor General d John Sower from quote from about nineteen
7:03
Speaker 2: ninety four to two thousand and four petitioner, and this
7:06
Speaker 2: is talking about Maxwell coordinated, facilitated, and contributed to the
7:10
Speaker 2: multi millionaire financers Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse of numerous young
7:14
Speaker 2: women and underage girls. Petitioner and Epstein paid victims large
7:18
Speaker 2: amount of cash to provide Epstein with sexualized massages. So, yes,
7:23
Speaker 2: were there other people involved. I'm sure that there were,
7:26
Speaker 2: But she's actually convicted of getting girls for herself and
7:32
Speaker 2: for Epstein. Look, I you know, another quote from Sonny
7:38
Speaker 2: from the brief is moreover and in order to maintain
7:41
Speaker 2: and increase his supply of victims, Maxwell and Epstein also
7:44
Speaker 2: paid certain victims to recruit additional girls.
7:46
Speaker 3: To be similarly abused by Epstein.
7:48
Speaker 2: In this way, Maxwell and Epstein created a network of
7:51
Speaker 2: underage victims.
7:52
Speaker 3: For Epstein's to sexually exploit.
7:54
Speaker 2: Sonny points out the conviction and sentencing was not at
7:56
Speaker 2: all based upon notions that she was trafficking them for a.
7:59
Speaker 3: List of clients, and that saying.
8:01
Speaker 2: That does not mean that we don't think there were
8:03
Speaker 2: additional people involved. It just means this is what the
8:07
Speaker 2: Cord case was, and I'm sure there were more people involved.
8:10
Speaker 2: We know there are more people involved. You know, victims
8:13
Speaker 2: who have spoken out said that there were more people involved.
8:16
Speaker 3: That does not mean that that's what they convicted her.
8:18
Speaker 1: On or that they could possibly can convict because they
8:21
Speaker 1: don't have the evidence. I would say, I think this
8:24
Speaker 1: is a real there is a real rift of sorts here.
8:27
Speaker 1: I think the people who care most about it are
8:29
Speaker 1: content creators and influencers and commentators. Yeah, that doesn't mean
8:34
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter to the base. There are there are
8:37
Speaker 1: there's a portion of the portion that cares about Epstein
8:40
Speaker 1: that really believes this is the decoder ring to all
8:44
Speaker 1: elite corruption, right, And I think I think there's like
8:47
Speaker 1: there might be a kernel of truth there about how
8:49
Speaker 1: people are protected and how these systems work. But I
8:51
Speaker 1: think assuming it's the decoder ring to all this thing,
8:55
Speaker 1: that you're going to break wide open is a mistake,
8:57
Speaker 1: but that being said, Trump prefers to it as the Epstein.
9:01
Speaker 3: Hosts olks, it's big yeah.
9:03
Speaker 1: That is going to be an interesting take. I think
9:06
Speaker 1: this tests how much the portion of the portion of
9:09
Speaker 1: the base that listens to Donald Trump will buy from him. Right,
9:14
Speaker 1: if they care about this issue. In the past, they
9:16
Speaker 1: would have said, well, this guy's in on it too.
9:18
Speaker 1: Here we have it. The deep state won't let us
9:20
Speaker 1: know the real truth, right, or the influencers and such
9:23
Speaker 1: might find out that indeed, Maga is what Trump says,
9:27
Speaker 1: and Maga takes Trump's word for it that they're being
9:31
Speaker 1: sort of swindled by the left, which is very happy
9:34
Speaker 1: to make this rift the number one story in the nation.
9:37
Speaker 1: So we shall see.
9:38
Speaker 2: I think that Donald Trump and his bass have a
9:40
Speaker 2: real trust between them, for better or for worse, because
9:43
Speaker 2: I don't think trusting politicians is the best idea, but
9:46
Speaker 2: he really does have their sincere trust. So it will
9:50
Speaker 2: be interesting to see what happens when he calls the
9:53
Speaker 2: Jeffrey and Epstein hoax.
9:55
Speaker 3: A scam, their new scam, and he.
9:57
Speaker 2: Says, my past supporters have bought into this bullshit hook line,
10:01
Speaker 2: and Sinker is going to expose a rift. And there's
10:05
Speaker 2: this additional element where all of the influencers who despise
10:10
Speaker 2: Israel have decided that this is a Masad plot that
10:14
Speaker 2: would entail our intelligence services not acting on that Massad plot.
10:20
Speaker 2: And we're going to need any evidence whatsoever other than
10:24
Speaker 2: some guy said, which is literally what this evidence is
10:27
Speaker 2: based on right now, to say that this was an
10:30
Speaker 2: international plot in any way, or an intelligence plot in anyway,
10:34
Speaker 2: because the next step, if the people aren't blaming Massad,
10:37
Speaker 2: they are blaming our own intelligence agencies are saying that
10:40
Speaker 2: he was a CIA agent. I'm going to need to
10:42
Speaker 2: see some evidence before you say things like that.
10:45
Speaker 3: And so also back to the issue of trust. I
10:48
Speaker 3: trust Dan Bengino.
10:49
Speaker 2: I know him personally, think that he talked about this
10:52
Speaker 2: issue for years. He wanted to uncover this. He wanted
10:55
Speaker 2: to get into the FBI and uncover this. Nobody wanted
10:59
Speaker 2: to uncover it. More so, when he said like two
11:01
Speaker 2: months ago that Jeffrey Epstein actually did kill himself, I
11:05
Speaker 2: believe him. That does not mean that nobody helped, That
11:08
Speaker 2: does not mean that he didn't pay the guards to
11:10
Speaker 2: look the other way. I allegedly I'm alleging this. That
11:13
Speaker 2: does not mean there was no involvement by anybody else
11:16
Speaker 2: in his suicide. But the medical examiner found that it
11:19
Speaker 2: was a suicide. And Dan Bengino says so, and I
11:22
Speaker 2: believe him.
11:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the truth is the truth could be
11:25
Speaker 1: that this is the story and this is what the
11:28
Speaker 1: government could prove, and that he did kill himself, and
11:32
Speaker 1: that could just be the truth. Right now, that doesn't
11:35
Speaker 1: settle anything for anyone, I think, no matter how much
11:37
Speaker 1: information you give them. And this goes to another trust problem,
11:41
Speaker 1: which is a bigger one than the Trump and his base,
11:44
Speaker 1: which actually does have a fairly decent trust relationship. It's
11:48
Speaker 1: the just institutional distrust. Oh yeah, And I was on
11:51
Speaker 1: Special Report talking about this issue with Guy Benson, who said,
11:55
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not usually in the market for a
11:56
Speaker 1: ton of conspiracy theories, but this one has stunk from
11:59
Speaker 1: day one. And I said, and not only that, I've
12:04
Speaker 1: been tricked before by assuming that the rational, simple explanation
12:09
Speaker 1: would be the right thing as opposed to what Russia
12:12
Speaker 1: Gate actually was, as opposed to COVID disinformation. Yeah, right,
12:17
Speaker 1: And so I understand people's confusion and anger about it.
12:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were lied to. They don't trust anymore, and
12:24
Speaker 2: I get it. And so that's why Donald Trump, I think,
12:26
Speaker 2: is saying, yes, you don't trust anymore, but you trust me.
12:29
Speaker 3: And I'm telling you this is not a thing.
12:31
Speaker 2: Whether or not people will accept that is you know,
12:34
Speaker 2: it really is the tell here.
12:36
Speaker 3: It's the question of is this were maga splits?
12:39
Speaker 2: And there are influencers who are going to kind of
12:42
Speaker 2: do well, raking in the cash from the people who
12:46
Speaker 2: turn on Trump, and they build the audience off of that.
12:49
Speaker 3: There's so much of that.
12:50
Speaker 4: Also.
12:51
Speaker 2: I wanted to mention there was a story on Monday
12:54
Speaker 2: that Donald Trump was personally calling influencers to say layoff
12:58
Speaker 2: Pam Bondi. This is from CNN and it's a little
13:00
Speaker 2: bit of long quote, but I'm going to read it privately.
13:02
Speaker 2: Trump has also doubled down on his support for Bondi.
13:05
Speaker 2: The president called some of the Attorney general's most vocal
13:08
Speaker 2: critics over the weekend in effort to stem the bleeding
13:10
Speaker 2: over the Epstein files. Three sources familiar with the matter
13:13
Speaker 2: told CNN. Trump's calls included one with the conservative activist
13:17
Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk on Saturday to express his support for Bondi.
13:20
Speaker 2: The call came as prominent MAGA supporters reportedly criticized the
13:23
Speaker 2: attorney general at Kirk's Turning Point USA Student Action sum
13:27
Speaker 2: at a Florida event aimed at mobilizing young conservatives. Members
13:30
Speaker 2: of the president's inner circle have also reached out to
13:33
Speaker 2: some of Bondi's critics to essentially ask them to ramp
13:35
Speaker 2: it down, noting that Trump at this moment was not
13:38
Speaker 2: getting rid of his attorney general source his caution that
13:40
Speaker 2: while Trump was currently still supporting Bondi, things could always change.
13:45
Speaker 3: To be clear, no one has.
13:46
Speaker 2: Called us, so we could say whatever we want. But
13:49
Speaker 2: I don't think it's fair to lay this on Pambondy.
13:51
Speaker 2: And again, in the world of teams, I'm kind of
13:54
Speaker 2: team Dan Bongino here, But I don't think this is
13:58
Speaker 2: Pam Bondi. I think this comes from Donald Trump. So
14:01
Speaker 2: if you're mad at Pam Bondy, you're actually mad at
14:04
Speaker 2: Donald Trump.
14:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think. Look, And then then the question is also,
14:07
Speaker 1: even if people are mad about it, are they happier
14:10
Speaker 1: about other things that are happening in the administration? Right
14:13
Speaker 1: this is maybe not their top priority. What is the
14:15
Speaker 1: tradical salience of this issue, and that's one of the
14:18
Speaker 1: things where people who have disagreed with him about other
14:20
Speaker 1: things like support for Israel, like whatever sort of deal
14:24
Speaker 1: we're making on Ukrainian arms, that kind of thing. Are
14:27
Speaker 1: they mad about that? Yes, And that therefore the good
14:31
Speaker 1: parts of Trump for them are not overriding this, whereas
14:34
Speaker 1: for other people, the good parts of Trump will easily
14:36
Speaker 1: override it and they'll move right. Yeah.
14:39
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
14:39
Speaker 2: I mean Tucker Carlson made a comment at that TPUSA,
14:43
Speaker 2: you know combab that he said, basically, who cares about
14:46
Speaker 2: boys playing in girls sports? Like that's just an appetizer
14:49
Speaker 2: and I want the main dish. I'm sorry to me,
14:52
Speaker 2: that is a main dish to me, that is one
14:54
Speaker 2: of the main dishes.
14:55
Speaker 3: Why I'm buying a Maga hat.
14:56
Speaker 1: Also, Tucker Carlson, famous culture warrior, is disappointed that we're
15:01
Speaker 1: winning a culture war in the state in the battleground
15:04
Speaker 1: for which right now is the state in which he lives,
15:07
Speaker 1: right where they took a female representative and took her
15:12
Speaker 1: right to vote on vote and her right to speak
15:14
Speaker 1: on the House right away from her an elected representative.
15:18
Speaker 3: But who cares because she spoke.
15:20
Speaker 1: Out on this issue that he formerly very much cared about. Yeah,
15:23
Speaker 1: now it's just nothing, It's just small potatoes.
15:25
Speaker 2: And I think you're right that it is these other issues.
15:28
Speaker 2: I think at Tucker has majorly turned on Israel and
15:31
Speaker 2: this it disappoints him that Donald Trump hasn't, and that
15:34
Speaker 2: he's a big Israel supporter. I'm sure there are Ukraine
15:38
Speaker 2: issues involved there as well, but Trump is crushing it,
15:41
Speaker 2: absolutely crushing it. And anybody who is on the right
15:45
Speaker 2: who says otherwise has ulterior motives or ulterior kind of
15:50
Speaker 2: priorities more than anything else.
15:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's Trump's argument explicitly in his truth post
15:56
Speaker 1: where he says like, I'm killing it and you guys
15:58
Speaker 1: are all talking about this others, right. Yeah. I do
16:00
Speaker 1: think him calling it a hoax is going to be
16:02
Speaker 1: an interesting test of where people land. And I would
16:05
Speaker 1: just say for the future on these big issues, be
16:07
Speaker 1: careful what you make hay out of before you're elected, yep,
16:11
Speaker 1: and then how you handle said promises after you're elected,
16:15
Speaker 1: particularly in something that gets this much social media heat.
16:19
Speaker 1: When you're back on normally, we will talk a little
16:22
Speaker 1: bit about a lot of those successes.
16:27
Speaker 2: We are back on normally, and we are going to
16:30
Speaker 2: talk Trump wins, because they've been numerous and really far reaching.
16:37
Speaker 3: Let's just talk about the last month in Scotis.
16:40
Speaker 1: Victories in June.
16:41
Speaker 2: At the end of June, he won on immigration resumed
16:44
Speaker 2: deportations to third third party countries. Another one in June
16:48
Speaker 2: birthright citizenship and nationwide injunctions case, Court ruled sixty three
16:53
Speaker 2: that lower courts cannot issue nationwide injunctions, significantly empowering Trump's
16:57
Speaker 2: executive authority. At July eighth, the mass federal worker layoffs,
17:02
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court lifted a nationwide injunction blocking Trump's February
17:06
Speaker 2: executive order permitting large scale terminations across federal agencies, including
17:10
Speaker 2: state and veteran affairs, without needing congressional approval. Just yesterday,
17:15
Speaker 2: as we're recording this Education Department downsizing, Scotis lifted a
17:19
Speaker 2: lower court block enabling the Trump administration to lay off
17:23
Speaker 2: nearly fourteen hundred staff at the Department of Education. These
17:27
Speaker 2: are massive, massive victories, and I get why Trump is
17:33
Speaker 2: a little annoyed that his incredible success is being overshadowed
17:38
Speaker 2: by Jeffrey Epstein.
17:39
Speaker 1: Well, and then he's also got this the big beautiful
17:42
Speaker 1: bill through before July force, which I did not predict.
17:45
Speaker 1: It is a massive victory. To have extended the tax rates,
17:49
Speaker 1: which we're going to expire at the end of the year,
17:51
Speaker 1: is the thing that he wanted. Now it comes with
17:54
Speaker 1: a lot of other stuff that I'm not a huge
17:55
Speaker 1: fan of, but the part where he got the tax
17:59
Speaker 1: rates extend, yeah, six months before the actual deadline. Huge.
18:04
Speaker 1: It's been a long time since I've seen that in government. Yeah,
18:06
Speaker 1: and now he has, yes, indeed, the power, the boss
18:09
Speaker 1: has the power to restructure his own agencies and fire
18:13
Speaker 1: employees that work within them. Down breaking. I can't believe
18:17
Speaker 1: we have to go to Supreme Court for this, but
18:18
Speaker 1: this is what you know, law fair, this is.
18:20
Speaker 3: Where we got to.
18:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's good news that you know. You can
18:25
Speaker 1: indeed restructure the Department of Education. You can, indeed, let
18:29
Speaker 1: go a small percentage of the giant number of bureaucrats
18:32
Speaker 1: we work within it, not working on students educations at all.
18:36
Speaker 1: By the way, that's not what they do, that's not
18:38
Speaker 1: their job. So these are really big deals.
18:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, and let's not forget yesterday, just yesterday, since cast
18:45
Speaker 2: the tie breaking vote to move forward a nine point
18:49
Speaker 2: four billion dollar Recisions package, which would defund PBS and NPR,
18:54
Speaker 2: among many many other Dolge priorities.
18:56
Speaker 3: Three Republicans voted against it, which made no sense to me.
19:00
Speaker 2: Hey, and that is huge, that's huge. Elon Musk, come back.
19:04
Speaker 2: They're doing what you asked for.
19:05
Speaker 1: Can I note? Also, and this is a bit of
19:08
Speaker 1: a one eighty for me, who was I was very
19:10
Speaker 1: concerned about Trump's NATO rhetoric back in the day, right
19:14
Speaker 1: two fifteen sixteen, He's saying I don't know about Article five,
19:17
Speaker 1: I don't know about defending all these people, because he
19:19
Speaker 1: is more of a strained restrainer foreign policy guy. And
19:23
Speaker 1: it made me nervous. Yeah, and then in two this week,
19:27
Speaker 1: the Secretary General of NATO is in town, Mark Ruta, who,
19:30
Speaker 1: by the way, kind of a looker, really tall, drink
19:33
Speaker 1: of water. That guy. He ran into him as special
19:36
Speaker 1: report this week, so I think I ran into no, no, no,
19:40
Speaker 1: So he was in town. They do the Oval Office presentation,
19:43
Speaker 1: and he has I just went back in time and
19:45
Speaker 1: read some of the coverage from twenty eighteen when Trump
19:48
Speaker 1: was first engaging with NATO, and it's all so hysterical
19:53
Speaker 1: about what's going to happen. To NATO and how he's
19:55
Speaker 1: going to weaken NATO and how he's going to ruin
19:57
Speaker 1: this huge alliance. Right that asking these countries to pledge
20:02
Speaker 1: two percent is unthinkable was the word used, right, And
20:06
Speaker 1: Europe's gonna hate us, Okay. At the time, five of
20:09
Speaker 1: the countries in NATO were contributing two percent of their
20:12
Speaker 1: GDP to defense. Not only have they hit the two
20:14
Speaker 1: percent mark in the world since Donald Trump started suggesting this,
20:18
Speaker 1: but now all but one have pledged to get to
20:20
Speaker 1: five percent.
20:22
Speaker 3: So it didn't destroy our relationship with them, No, And.
20:25
Speaker 1: Actually I would argue it's quite clear that NATO is
20:29
Speaker 1: stronger now with all of the nations contributing more than
20:34
Speaker 1: it would have been had it stayed as it was
20:36
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen. And like, that is a turnaround that
20:40
Speaker 1: he will not get enough credit for. But it's pretty amazing.
20:43
Speaker 1: And Secretary General Mark Rute is smart enough to say
20:47
Speaker 1: he helped us make this happen. Russia helped too by
20:50
Speaker 1: being a giant a whole, all right, but he helped us
20:53
Speaker 1: make this happen. And it's good for alliances, it's good
20:57
Speaker 1: for the Western world, and that is a pretty impressive turnaround.
21:00
Speaker 1: Since twenty eighteen.
21:01
Speaker 2: Did you envision on normally that we would be like,
21:05
Speaker 2: oh my god, Donald Trump's doing all this amazing stuff,
21:08
Speaker 2: and conservatives, other conservatives like his MAGA people are not
21:12
Speaker 2: giving him any credit for it, Like I didn't see
21:14
Speaker 2: this coming.
21:16
Speaker 1: He just people ignore these giant things. Yeah, and I'm like,
21:20
Speaker 1: do y'all remember the first term? Do you remember?
21:25
Speaker 3: Yeah? Donald Trump absolutely crushing it. We love to see it.
21:29
Speaker 2: Let's take a short break and we'll come back and
21:31
Speaker 2: tell you how not to destroy your relationship with your
21:33
Speaker 2: family over politics. You're right back on normally. Welcome back
21:41
Speaker 2: on normally. We here at normally do not think that
21:46
Speaker 2: politics should destroy family relationships. It's kind of an easy call. However,
21:51
Speaker 2: for some reason, people don't make the same one as us.
21:54
Speaker 3: Why is that, Mary Catherine?
21:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, they're writing about it in the New York Times,
21:59
Speaker 1: which is to us. There's an hotbed this week that
22:02
Speaker 1: it explicates some of this. It is entitled is it
22:07
Speaker 1: Time to Stop Snubbing your right wing family? Written maybe
22:11
Speaker 1: by David Litt, who is an author and was a
22:13
Speaker 1: speech writer for Obama. And let's just lay out the
22:17
Speaker 1: characters in this hotbed. One is David Litt, who hasn't
22:22
Speaker 1: he This is how he describes himself. I was one
22:24
Speaker 1: of President Obama's speech writers and had an Ivy League degree.
22:28
Speaker 1: This is Matt Kapler, his brother in law, who he
22:31
Speaker 1: met in twenty twelve. He was a huge Joe Rogan
22:34
Speaker 1: fan and went on to get his electricians license. Okay,
22:38
Speaker 1: all right, so this is his brother in Law's his
22:39
Speaker 1: wife's little brother. Yeah. Around the pandemic, he just decides
22:44
Speaker 1: this guy wasn't willing to get vaccinated, and I therefore
22:48
Speaker 1: am not going to hang out with him anymore. I'm
22:50
Speaker 1: not going to talk to him. I'm not even going
22:52
Speaker 1: to be polite to him. And this is what he admits.
22:55
Speaker 1: My frostiness wasn't personal, it was strategic. Being unfriendly to
22:59
Speaker 1: people who turned down the vaccine felt like the right
23:02
Speaker 1: thing to do. How else could we motivate them to
23:04
Speaker 1: mend their ways. Even cites historical examples of shunning from
23:09
Speaker 1: society and puts himself weirdly on the side of the
23:12
Speaker 1: anti hester Prenne society in the scarlet letter. He's like,
23:16
Speaker 1: the whole point of hester Pren's scarlet letter was to
23:18
Speaker 1: show she had violated norms. Is that what we're doing now.
23:21
Speaker 2: Right, right, I kind of saw her as the hero
23:24
Speaker 2: of that story.
23:25
Speaker 1: I think he missed the point in literature class. This
23:29
Speaker 1: guy's a jerk, and he's writing about it in the
23:31
Speaker 1: New York Times.
23:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is something that people like him think
23:36
Speaker 2: that they're the good guy. He talks about how as
23:39
Speaker 2: it was on the rare and always outdoor occasions. Of course,
23:42
Speaker 2: always outdoor because the dirty, dirty relative wasn't vaccinated.
23:45
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm ad living that.
23:47
Speaker 2: And when we saw each other, I spoke in disapproving snippets.
23:50
Speaker 3: Work's been good. I would never talk to that person again.
23:53
Speaker 2: I know, I know this is, you know, a segment
23:56
Speaker 2: about be good to your family, even among politics.
23:58
Speaker 3: But I'm not going to be good to people who
23:59
Speaker 3: are a holes to me.
24:01
Speaker 2: And that's really on the you know, on his brother
24:04
Speaker 2: in law, Matt, still accepting him, still going surfing with him,
24:08
Speaker 2: still finding a way to be okay with him, find
24:11
Speaker 2: that Matt is the person I'd want to be friends
24:13
Speaker 2: with in the story and not oh death, David.
24:16
Speaker 1: Matt the surfer sounds like a lovely person, right, And
24:20
Speaker 1: also fixing my electricity is a more useful skill than
24:22
Speaker 1: writing a New York Times up ed and I say
24:24
Speaker 1: that as somebody who writes out that the thing is
24:28
Speaker 1: and this is what Litt believes. He has taken this
24:32
Speaker 1: man's political actions and actions outside of the family and
24:38
Speaker 1: turned them into well, he's being a jerk to me, right,
24:42
Speaker 1: And this is how he expresses it. He doesn't apply
24:45
Speaker 1: it like he's This is not a personal interaction they're
24:48
Speaker 1: having again, he's only seeing him outside. And by the way,
24:50
Speaker 1: the vastly didn't protect you from getting it or passing
24:53
Speaker 1: it anyway. I'm not sure if David knows that now.
24:57
Speaker 3: I don't know. Has it been in the New York
24:58
Speaker 3: Times yet?
24:59
Speaker 1: Who knows? But don't use this kind of stuff to
25:03
Speaker 1: justify your bad behavior and then congratulate yourself still for
25:06
Speaker 1: being the good guy. By the way, he comes to
25:10
Speaker 1: this great conclusion, which is the one that we always
25:12
Speaker 1: teach a little late to the party. Here he says
25:14
Speaker 1: they become surf buddies because honestly, he's selfish and he
25:17
Speaker 1: needs somebody to surf with, and Matt's the only person
25:20
Speaker 1: he knows that he can surf with. And he says
25:23
Speaker 1: that they look they made connections over things other than politics.
25:28
Speaker 1: So weird. And then he adds this, and I just
25:30
Speaker 1: want to say, Matt is a very good person. He
25:33
Speaker 1: says it helped that in the ocean are places in
25:35
Speaker 1: the pecking order reversed. Matt's a very good surfer. One
25:39
Speaker 1: might call him an elite and I am not. According
25:42
Speaker 1: to surfing's unwritten rules. He had the right to look
25:44
Speaker 1: down on me, but he never did. His generosity of
25:47
Speaker 1: spirit in the water made me rethink my own behavior
25:50
Speaker 1: on land. Matt, you're a really good dude.
25:53
Speaker 3: Yeah.
25:55
Speaker 1: Is Matt looking to be set up? Do we have
25:56
Speaker 1: some friends for Matt?
25:58
Speaker 2: Right?
25:58
Speaker 3: Do we know if he's single? We don't. Let's play.
26:00
Speaker 2: I have a little comedian clip from gian Marco Sesi
26:04
Speaker 2: talking about how he's a progressive but he finds his
26:07
Speaker 2: conservative friend to be a really good person.
26:10
Speaker 3: Let's roll that I have progressive.
26:13
Speaker 4: Views, but that doesn't mean I'm a good person. Liberals
26:18
Speaker 4: make that mistakes sometimes. I have a more conservative friend,
26:22
Speaker 4: and you know he has views that really he's one
26:24
Speaker 4: of those guys, and we all know those guys who's
26:26
Speaker 4: like you see this article, a trans woman played volleyball,
26:32
Speaker 4: made a little girl.
26:35
Speaker 3: And I can't stay on that ship.
26:36
Speaker 4: Because the kind of guys that complain about trans women
26:38
Speaker 4: playing women's sports are same kind of guys that whole
26:40
Speaker 4: guys like me in high school. You run like a girl,
26:43
Speaker 4: you throw like a girl. And now they're mad because
26:45
Speaker 4: some of us followed through. But I will say in
26:52
Speaker 4: his defense, he is a wonderful human being, better than
26:56
Speaker 4: I could ever imagine being. I'll tell you a story
26:58
Speaker 4: once me and my conservative friend walking on the street
27:00
Speaker 4: in New York City. In front of us was walking
27:03
Speaker 4: a woman in very high heels. As far as I
27:05
Speaker 4: could tell, she was trans. Now, at some point, this
27:08
Speaker 4: woman she tripped on her right heel. She fell into
27:10
Speaker 4: the street right as a bus was approaching, and my
27:14
Speaker 4: conservative friend ran into the street, scooped her up just
27:18
Speaker 4: in the nick of time, helped her on her feet,
27:20
Speaker 4: send her about her way, And then he turned to
27:22
Speaker 4: me and was like, that's why men shouldn't wear heels.
27:27
Speaker 4: It was a lot of things, and I want to
27:31
Speaker 4: be clear, I didn't a city.
27:32
Speaker 2: Thing to do.
27:33
Speaker 4: But if I'd been alone, I would have been like.
27:35
Speaker 3: Oh no, she's dead. Yeah.
27:42
Speaker 2: I enjoyed that because look, yeah the comedian would have,
27:46
Speaker 2: you know, gendered her how she wanted to you know,
27:48
Speaker 2: the trans person wanted to be gendered. The conservative friend
27:51
Speaker 2: took action and saved the person.
27:53
Speaker 1: So I think that is symbolic. There is a sort
27:56
Speaker 1: of a material physical support for you that in these
28:01
Speaker 1: friendships conservatives will give and they'll stick around and they'll
28:04
Speaker 1: be more forgiving. And by the way, this is not
28:06
Speaker 1: just me making stuff up. Like every polling, every survey
28:11
Speaker 1: shows that Democrats are more will democrats and liberals and
28:14
Speaker 1: are willing to break friendships over politics, and that they
28:18
Speaker 1: have fewer of those friendships to begin with. And I
28:21
Speaker 1: do think it's just a totally different approach to other humans,
28:25
Speaker 1: where you're just taking this one thing and making it everything,
28:29
Speaker 1: and I don't think it makes for happy people or
28:31
Speaker 1: happy relationships.
28:32
Speaker 3: I agree.
28:33
Speaker 1: I'm going to wrap this up with how's Matt still
28:35
Speaker 1: going to be friends with him?
28:36
Speaker 2: I know after this piece? If think he wrote two pieces,
28:38
Speaker 2: he wrote one for the Free Press. Also, I mean
28:41
Speaker 2: this is beat now, yeah, this is I'm going to
28:43
Speaker 2: wrap it up with David Lit's last paragraph where he
28:47
Speaker 2: wants to let the Libs know, don't worry.
28:49
Speaker 3: I still hate a lot of them. I just don't
28:51
Speaker 3: brother in law.
28:52
Speaker 1: Of course, he.
28:53
Speaker 2: Writes, there are, of course, some people so committed to
28:56
Speaker 2: odiousness that it defines them.
28:58
Speaker 3: If Stephen Miller wants a surf lesson, I'll decline. But
29:01
Speaker 3: are most people like that? In an age when banishment backfires?
29:04
Speaker 2: Keeping the door open to Kely friendship isn't the betrayal
29:06
Speaker 2: of principle, it's an.
29:08
Speaker 3: Affirmation of them.
29:09
Speaker 2: Dude, you would also find common ground with Stephen Miller.
29:12
Speaker 2: I know, I know how crazy that sounds, but it's true.
29:15
Speaker 2: Stephen Miller is a human who has also human interests,
29:19
Speaker 2: and he may also like surfing, and you may also
29:22
Speaker 2: be able to connect with him over at.
29:23
Speaker 3: Amazing Amazing Stuff.
29:26
Speaker 2: Well, thanks for joining us on Normally. Normally airs Tuesdays
29:29
Speaker 2: and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere.
29:31
Speaker 3: You get your podcast.
29:33
Speaker 2: Get in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail dot com.
29:36
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally