Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: The U.S. is Takin' Over the Gaza Strip!

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Normally Podcast: The U.S. is Takin' Over the Gaza Strip! · Normally

0:02
Speaker 1: Hey guys. Here we are back on normally this show
0:05
Speaker 1: with normalish takes for when the news gets weird. Here
0:08
Speaker 1: in the second week of the new Trump administration. I'm
0:13
Speaker 1: Mary Catherine.
0:13
Speaker 2: Ham, I'm Carol Markowitz. Mary Catherine, I will tell you
0:18
Speaker 2: that when you go to dinner and you don't look
0:21
Speaker 2: at your phone for three hours and Donald Trump decides
0:25
Speaker 2: that America is taking over Gaza, you will return to
0:30
Speaker 2: eleven hundred texts and our friend Bethany Mandel calling me
0:34
Speaker 2: like as I'm still like, I haven't looked at my
0:36
Speaker 2: phone yet, and she's like can you believe this? And
0:40
Speaker 2: I was like what And she's like, are you messing
0:41
Speaker 2: with me? Like you really haven't.
0:43
Speaker 1: Seen you really don't know.
0:44
Speaker 2: I don't know what she's about to tell me, And
0:46
Speaker 2: she's like, yeah, Trump announced that the US is taking
0:49
Speaker 2: over Gaza. I did not see that one coming. I
0:53
Speaker 2: got to tell you.
0:54
Speaker 1: I was on Special Report last night on Fox News
0:57
Speaker 1: and I was asked to comment on the press conference
1:00
Speaker 1: before the press conference began, and I just think I
1:04
Speaker 1: prefer that position to being thrown on right after he
1:08
Speaker 1: said that, because yeah, I needed a minute to process that,
1:13
Speaker 1: as did as did many people so now we're in
1:16
Speaker 1: the next day of the US taking over new processing.
1:21
Speaker 2: I mean, for sure, you know what's so interesting. So
1:25
Speaker 2: we record the day before the show was released, and
1:28
Speaker 2: on Monday, when we were recording Tuesday's episode, we made
1:32
Speaker 2: a conscious decision not to talk about the tariffs because
1:35
Speaker 2: we said, who knows if this will still be going
1:38
Speaker 2: on tomorrow. We had that vibe and we were one
1:41
Speaker 2: hundred percent right. By the next day, tariffs, the tariff
1:45
Speaker 2: threat had ended, and you know, people were selling shirts
1:47
Speaker 2: like I survived the trade war and it was the
1:49
Speaker 2: one day trade war. So similarly, there is some chance
1:55
Speaker 2: that by the time this episode comes out, this will
1:59
Speaker 2: have completely moved. And the episode comes down tomorrow. It's
2:02
Speaker 2: not like it's coming out next week. But anything could
2:05
Speaker 2: happen in the next twenty four hours. Trump could you know,
2:09
Speaker 2: say haha, I mean it. Trump could send troops, so
2:11
Speaker 2: there's you know, Trump could release designs for like Trump
2:15
Speaker 2: casino Gaza.
2:16
Speaker 1: All things are possible, All things are possible. This is yes,
2:20
Speaker 1: this is a good sort of rule of thumb for
2:23
Speaker 1: following Trump. And then it's not to endorse the sort
2:27
Speaker 1: of chaos element of this. We can be disruptive in
2:30
Speaker 1: and of itself in ways that are bad, in ways
2:33
Speaker 1: that are good. But you should try to metabolize the
2:36
Speaker 1: news for twenty four hours before you assume the absolute
2:41
Speaker 1: worst of the thing that came out of his men, right,
2:43
Speaker 1: or that or that that thing is actually materially moving forward.
2:48
Speaker 1: Just as a practical matter, that is one of the
2:50
Speaker 1: ways to deal with this. It was Let's let's play
2:53
Speaker 1: a little clip of him with the UH with the
2:56
Speaker 1: big idea from the press conference with Prime Minister Nettina
2:59
Speaker 1: who at the White House.
3:02
Speaker 3: The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we
3:05
Speaker 3: will do a job with it too. We'll own it
3:08
Speaker 3: and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded
3:12
Speaker 3: bombs and other weapons on the site. Level the site
3:15
Speaker 3: and get rid of the destroyed buildings. Level it out,
3:19
Speaker 3: create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of
3:24
Speaker 3: jobs and housing for the people of the area. Do
3:28
Speaker 3: a real job, do something different. Just can't go back.
3:31
Speaker 3: If you go back, it's going to end up the
3:33
Speaker 3: same way it has for one hundred years.
3:35
Speaker 2: Yesterday, I believe Trump watched the videos of the October
3:39
Speaker 2: seventh atrocities and in preparation of that. When they said
3:44
Speaker 2: that Trump was going to watch it, some people were
3:47
Speaker 2: commenting things like Trump is going to nuke Gaza after
3:50
Speaker 2: he sees this because the atrocities were so hard and
3:54
Speaker 2: so awful, and just I couldn't make it through five
3:57
Speaker 2: minutes of this video. It's the worst things you've ever
3:59
Speaker 2: seen ever. Even just reading the descriptions makes me want
4:03
Speaker 2: to vomit. So it's very possible that he watched that
4:08
Speaker 2: movie and was like, Nope, this could never happen again,
4:11
Speaker 2: and this is how we're going to do it. He
4:13
Speaker 2: has a very real estate minded background. He sees this
4:19
Speaker 2: possibility of this land on the Mediterranean Sea. It's I
4:24
Speaker 2: can easily see the leap that he made. I wonder
4:27
Speaker 2: if Natanya, who knew before the press conference, what do
4:29
Speaker 2: you say?
4:31
Speaker 1: Well, I do know that Natanya, who had in the
4:34
Speaker 1: previous days, extended his trip through this weekend. And that's
4:39
Speaker 1: interesting to me because it seems that Trump has been
4:42
Speaker 1: very He was very chatty on this subject yesterday, and
4:45
Speaker 1: I wonder how much they were chatting about what was
4:47
Speaker 1: going to come out of his mouth. Yes, we don't
4:50
Speaker 1: know if it was a total surprise. It was a
4:51
Speaker 1: surprise to me a couple things. It seems like a
4:56
Speaker 1: declaration that's so far from the Biden approach, which is, well, yeah,
5:01
Speaker 1: the Biden approach was really stuck in the two state
5:04
Speaker 1: solution model, as all left of center and good progressives are,
5:10
Speaker 1: although a lot of state paleside.
5:13
Speaker 2: So for a while, Yeah, I feel like the two
5:15
Speaker 2: state solution was like the moderate position, maybe even right
5:18
Speaker 2: of center. I think a lot of center people believed
5:20
Speaker 2: in two state and I don't think they do anymore. Yesterday,
5:23
Speaker 2: Rashida Slaibe tweeted out like where are my two state
5:27
Speaker 2: solution people to speak up against this? And I was like,
5:30
Speaker 2: now you're for the two state solutions. She was very
5:33
Speaker 2: much one state solution.
5:34
Speaker 1: One state solution for Palestine, right, Yeah, Yeah, So I
5:37
Speaker 1: think he's sort of he's acknowledging something that is real,
5:40
Speaker 1: which is that the two state solution of the past,
5:43
Speaker 1: which my issue with liberals was always that the solution
5:47
Speaker 1: and the peace process were more valued than at times
5:52
Speaker 1: than the sovereign entity ally that was Israel. Like the
5:55
Speaker 1: process actually isn't more important than Israel? Sure, and it's
5:59
Speaker 1: right to live as as he's fit. So he's acknowledging
6:04
Speaker 1: that the game has changed here. He's acknowledging that allowing
6:07
Speaker 1: Hamas to be on your border the way that Israel
6:11
Speaker 1: did before is not an option. It's not an acceptable option.
6:17
Speaker 2: It's big, big and obvious, you know.
6:20
Speaker 1: And it's and it's something that n Yahoo has said
6:22
Speaker 1: over and over and over again. This is the reason
6:24
Speaker 1: that Hamas must be out of power, according to Yahoo,
6:27
Speaker 1: and out of Gaza uh to exist, because once you
6:31
Speaker 1: let everybody back up to the northern border of Gaza,
6:33
Speaker 1: you have the same problem you had. Therefore, there is
6:36
Speaker 1: a part of this where, you know, we always talk
6:38
Speaker 1: about this is what Trump promised while he was running.
6:42
Speaker 1: One of the upsides for Trump for many people, including
6:45
Speaker 1: many normies, many non ideological people, was he is less
6:50
Speaker 1: likely to put boots on the ground in the Middle
6:52
Speaker 1: East period period. And so when he's talking about boots
6:56
Speaker 1: on the ground in the Middle East, even I who
6:58
Speaker 1: consider myself I'm hawkish ish now right, still hawkish, but
7:04
Speaker 1: less than before, that to me takes out one of
7:08
Speaker 1: his selling points as a candidate and now as president.
7:13
Speaker 1: That's quite popular with people.
7:15
Speaker 2: Right, I mean, look, my biggest problem with this is
7:19
Speaker 2: American boots on the ground. I don't want a single
7:22
Speaker 2: American death for this mission, you know.
7:26
Speaker 1: So we sustained one by the way, we should say,
7:28
Speaker 1: in the Peer debacle, which was a terrible idea from
7:31
Speaker 1: the beginning, where Biden insisted on having a cheer that
7:34
Speaker 1: would drop off humanitarian aid in Gaza on the sea side,
7:39
Speaker 1: even though Israel was bringing tons of aid to Gaza
7:42
Speaker 1: and Hamas was stealing it and we were never practically
7:45
Speaker 1: going to get into anything into Gaza that way. We
7:47
Speaker 1: lost one soldier right in that devid nothing.
7:50
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's exactly it. So I don't want any
7:53
Speaker 2: American troops in the Middle East or in Gaza. This plan,
7:58
Speaker 2: I think, to me, is a forcing a vibe shift,
8:02
Speaker 2: and it already has. So you know, these lunatics have
8:06
Speaker 2: been marching through our cities, globalized the into Fada.
8:11
Speaker 1: They were outside the White House on the other side
8:13
Speaker 1: of the street from the White House.
8:14
Speaker 2: Yesterday, right, and one of the things that they say is,
8:16
Speaker 2: you know, Palestine will be free from the river to
8:19
Speaker 2: the sea. And the sea, of course is the Mediterranean Sea,
8:21
Speaker 2: and the river is the River Jordan. And what they're
8:23
Speaker 2: saying is there'll be no Israel and they'll only be
8:25
Speaker 2: a Palestine, they might not even have the Mediterranean Sea part.
8:29
Speaker 2: When this is over, it's like you have lost your
8:33
Speaker 2: tiny advantage that you had. But the vibe shift is
8:37
Speaker 2: that you're no longer allowed to murder Israelis and then
8:41
Speaker 2: be like, what do we get for this? What's our
8:44
Speaker 2: prize for killing Israelis? Because that's what it's been. It's
8:47
Speaker 2: been they launched some kind of war or an into fada,
8:51
Speaker 2: and then they get their ass beat, and then America
8:54
Speaker 2: makes Israel stop, and then you know, it's a repeat
8:57
Speaker 2: of this cycle. And so I think what Donald Trump
9:00
Speaker 2: doing is saying, we're going to end this cycle. Jordan, Egypt,
9:04
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia are going to have to step in and
9:06
Speaker 2: help here. These people are going to move to your countries,
9:08
Speaker 2: which you know, Jordan and Egypt and Sadi Arabia obviously
9:11
Speaker 2: do not want and will not accept. So he's saying,
9:15
Speaker 2: either you fix this or it's going to be a
9:17
Speaker 2: much bigger problem for you. You're no longer allowed to
9:20
Speaker 2: sit back and say I don't know what's going on
9:22
Speaker 2: in those crazy Palaestinias.
9:23
Speaker 1: Well, and he kind of had h he'd been talking
9:25
Speaker 1: about that leading up to this meeting. This became the
9:28
Speaker 1: most explicit thing he said about it, and way off
9:32
Speaker 1: what we imagined he would say in this press conference.
9:34
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has a way, and I don't think it's strategic. Often,
9:38
Speaker 1: I think it's a gut thing. There's a way of
9:41
Speaker 1: taking a sledgehammer, slash, maybe bulldozer, wrecking ball to the
9:47
Speaker 1: Overton window, which is the concept of like, what's acceptable
9:51
Speaker 1: right among your options in conventional wisdom politics, And he's like,
9:56
Speaker 1: this window no longer exists. Well, we go in the
10:00
Speaker 1: window no longer exists. People who are other actors in
10:05
Speaker 1: this equation, such as those Arab nations, go oh, if
10:10
Speaker 1: this is the other option for us, then what do
10:14
Speaker 1: we need to do And are we going to do
10:16
Speaker 1: something different? I don't know if that's the reaction he'll get.
10:20
Speaker 1: I don't know if this undermines the Abramahammacords or makes
10:23
Speaker 1: it more possible for us to have more action from
10:25
Speaker 1: Arab states in Gaza. But there has always been a
10:28
Speaker 1: problem of what you do at the end of this war.
10:31
Speaker 1: Even if you get Hamas out, what does it look
10:34
Speaker 1: like to manage that piece of land? Because as we
10:36
Speaker 1: should always note, Israel abandoned Gaza yep. In two thousand
10:41
Speaker 1: and five. These poor folks were taken from their homes,
10:44
Speaker 1: some by force, dragged from their homes. And the idea
10:48
Speaker 1: was that this is this is the land, this is
10:50
Speaker 1: your land, do with it what you wish, And this
10:52
Speaker 1: is what ended up.
10:53
Speaker 2: Happening, yep. And what's so crazy about that is, you
10:56
Speaker 2: know what was going on in Gaza what the Palestini
11:00
Speaker 2: up been saying the whole time. They cannot have one
11:02
Speaker 2: Jew living on their land. They cannot have one Israeli.
11:05
Speaker 2: There cannot be anybody except them on their land. And
11:08
Speaker 2: Israel is the ethno state, like Israel's pulled the Ethno state.
11:12
Speaker 2: I mean, Israel has you know, twenty percent Arab in Israel.
11:16
Speaker 2: So the idea that they couldn't have any Jewish population whatsoever,
11:20
Speaker 2: they needed to be cleansed of the Jews in order
11:23
Speaker 2: for them to have their own, you know state in Gaza,
11:26
Speaker 2: and that was like their practice state, and they completely
11:28
Speaker 2: failed at it. You know, this is where we are.
11:31
Speaker 2: And now you're going to have a Donald Trump type
11:33
Speaker 2: person saying, we can't keep doing this insanity. We can't
11:36
Speaker 2: keep doing the things we've been doing let's do something else.
11:40
Speaker 1: I should also note that in just the difference in
11:43
Speaker 1: tone from the Biden administration a having thattan Yah, who
11:46
Speaker 1: in the open at all very friendly, I noticed their
11:49
Speaker 1: mirroring ties. Where Trump was wearing blue, that Tanyah who
11:53
Speaker 1: was wearing red, clearly in an affectionate meeting, an enthusiastic meeting.
12:01
Speaker 1: Trump talked about how they're going to sell the weapons
12:04
Speaker 1: to Israel that Biden would not. Trump talked about how
12:07
Speaker 1: they're going to go maximum pressure on Iran was sanctions
12:11
Speaker 1: again as opposed to the deference we have shown Iran
12:15
Speaker 1: and its proxies during the Biden and Obama administrations, which
12:18
Speaker 1: was a very bad idea. So all of these things, oh,
12:22
Speaker 1: and like just like the moral clarity about American hostages,
12:25
Speaker 1: about hostages in general. In October seventh, Biden would say
12:29
Speaker 1: those things, but Trump has put actions behind those in
12:33
Speaker 1: a different way, which, by the way, Netanyahu gave him
12:36
Speaker 1: credit for in the Oval office. And though that deal
12:39
Speaker 1: is tenuous and I have a lot of questions about it,
12:42
Speaker 1: it has been nothing short of miraculous to watch as
12:45
Speaker 1: hostages come home.
12:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't like the deal, and I needed to
12:49
Speaker 2: see those people come home. I need to see the
12:52
Speaker 2: rest of them come home. I don't I'm not holding
12:54
Speaker 2: out a lot of hope for the kids, but yeah,
12:57
Speaker 2: just we need to we need to know what happened here.
13:01
Speaker 1: So in two days we'll know if we're taking over Olgazak.
13:04
Speaker 2: We'll see, hopefully not before this episode airs.
13:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll give it two days of discussion. Natanyahu's here
13:12
Speaker 1: till the weekend, so we'll see what kind of response happens.
13:16
Speaker 2: We'll be right back on normally.
13:21
Speaker 1: I believe we have a little compilation of some resistance stars,
13:28
Speaker 1: Jasmine Crockett, a Congresswoman Ayana Presley. I believe Senator Warren
13:34
Speaker 1: was at this event. Schumer, all yelling is very star studied. Yeah,
13:40
Speaker 1: yelling in the streets outside US aid. And we will
13:43
Speaker 1: get into the story about that. But here here first
13:46
Speaker 1: is the opposition. Democrats agree that mosque is a problem.
13:48
Speaker 1: But listen to them today, and they have a pinata
13:51
Speaker 1: in search of a stick.
13:54
Speaker 2: To our Republican colleagues, if you do not see the lie,
13:58
Speaker 2: we will bring the fire with this. We are gonna
14:02
Speaker 2: be in your faith, we are gonna be on your asses.
14:05
Speaker 3: We have days to stop the destruction of our democracy.
14:08
Speaker 2: We have work to do.
14:10
Speaker 3: Tell Elon Musk to take his hands off your money.
14:15
Speaker 2: We don't pledge allegiance to the creepy twenty two year
14:18
Speaker 2: olds working for Elon Musk. We pledge allegiance to the
14:21
Speaker 2: United States of America.
14:22
Speaker 1: Hey, god, damn is shut down the city.
14:25
Speaker 2: We have war.
14:27
Speaker 1: We will win. We will win, we will we will rest,
14:35
Speaker 1: we won't rest.
14:37
Speaker 2: Amazing. What's extra amazing is that was on CNN. Yeah.
14:41
Speaker 1: Oh and by the way, when they come back from
14:43
Speaker 1: that montage, pretty much everyone on the panel laughs because
14:47
Speaker 1: it is Yeah.
14:48
Speaker 2: No matters are like embarrassed on that panel.
14:52
Speaker 1: Not a great look. The Democrats do not have a
14:55
Speaker 1: leader right now. They don't really have a direction. It
14:59
Speaker 1: is interesting to me that Donald Trump, who is sort
15:01
Speaker 1: of the chaos agent there's branded that way with good reasons,
15:05
Speaker 1: sometimes seems to have thought through exactly what they were
15:07
Speaker 1: going to do when they got into office, and Democrats,
15:09
Speaker 1: although they heard what he was going to do, did
15:12
Speaker 1: not seem to be manning the positions that they needed
15:16
Speaker 1: to man to figure out how to push back on this.
15:18
Speaker 2: It's wild. Yeah, the Elon was not elected. That's what
15:22
Speaker 2: they have that that's the firepower.
15:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're correct. He wasn't elected, he was appointed. That
15:29
Speaker 1: is how advised master the president works. You know, I
15:35
Speaker 1: think it's okay to have questions about what Elon's doing
15:38
Speaker 1: and to have questions about who's working for him and
15:40
Speaker 1: I and Elon's saying it, you're not allowed to say
15:42
Speaker 1: who works for him? Is silly, Like sure, we're yeah,
15:45
Speaker 1: we're in charge here.
15:46
Speaker 2: The only people who work for him are so impressive.
15:48
Speaker 2: Tell us all about them. They're amazing, Like the guy
15:51
Speaker 2: who figured out how to read the scrolls that had
15:54
Speaker 2: been burned, Like what, tell us more about him? We
15:57
Speaker 2: had a full length feature about this.
15:59
Speaker 1: This agree they were If they were working for a
16:01
Speaker 1: Biden or Obama administration, they would be called genius gurus.
16:06
Speaker 1: They would be in major magazines with huge photo spreads,
16:11
Speaker 1: Like it's okay to ask questions about what they're doing.
16:13
Speaker 1: This is unorthodox. But the president has the power to
16:16
Speaker 1: appoint people. The president further has the power to give
16:20
Speaker 1: clearances to people who work for him. That's part of
16:25
Speaker 1: the process. And the Democrats have decided that the money
16:30
Speaker 1: going to us ai D, which is the Agency for
16:34
Speaker 1: International Development, it is not aid to the US. It's not,
16:38
Speaker 1: which is what it sounds like. It does sound like
16:40
Speaker 1: that USA ideas for international development. It was supposed to
16:44
Speaker 1: be a grant function for nice little projects in other countries,
16:51
Speaker 1: some intel projects and other countries that were in the
16:55
Speaker 1: interest of the US. It was formed by executive order
16:57
Speaker 1: by JFK, later codified in legislation in the nineties. And
17:02
Speaker 1: it turns out this pro democracy, pro American interests tiny
17:08
Speaker 1: part of the federal government is mostly just a slush
17:12
Speaker 1: fund for left of center forces.
17:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's actually a huge scandal. And the fact that
17:19
Speaker 2: the Democrats are like, no, we have to preserve this
17:21
Speaker 2: slush fund that we've been using for our friends is
17:24
Speaker 2: quite a tell. A lot of the projects are absolutely ridiculous,
17:29
Speaker 2: you know, transsexual ballets in Honduras, like who knows, it's
17:35
Speaker 2: really just insanity. But of course, some of the other
17:40
Speaker 2: things that have come to light is they were paying
17:42
Speaker 2: organizations like political or Reuters. Now political they were paying
17:47
Speaker 2: for service, but they were paying eight million dollars a
17:50
Speaker 2: year for the political pro service. I feel like you
17:53
Speaker 2: and I could run it for four million. Send me
17:55
Speaker 2: four million, will make it happen. We'll make the website happen.
18:00
Speaker 1: So the numbers are wild, and the numbers it's funny
18:04
Speaker 1: because Democrats will tell you, on one hand, this is
18:06
Speaker 1: just one percent of the budget and therefore it's not important.
18:09
Speaker 1: Except also if it disappears, it might be the end
18:13
Speaker 1: of democracy. So which one is it. I am just
18:18
Speaker 1: very in favor of someone getting their head wrapped around
18:21
Speaker 1: the data here and it being much more transparent than
18:25
Speaker 1: it is. And I don't have a problem with Elon
18:28
Speaker 1: Musk and his merry band of extremely talented, hardworking people
18:34
Speaker 1: going through the data to figure out where our money
18:37
Speaker 1: is going. The only thing Democrats got right in that
18:39
Speaker 1: clip is that it is our money. Yeah, it's not.
18:41
Speaker 1: Actually they think it's their money, right, it's our money.
18:45
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah. It's really been eye opening. I wonder if
18:49
Speaker 2: Americans are seeing how crazy the spending has been. And
18:54
Speaker 2: I know, you know, the joke is you know, a
18:55
Speaker 2: billion here, a billionaire as soon you're talking about real money.
18:58
Speaker 2: This is all actually adds up. I don't think that
19:02
Speaker 2: our political or reiters should be getting funding from the government.
19:06
Speaker 2: I don't care what your reason is, because there is
19:09
Speaker 2: this uncomfortable relationship where stories get placed in these outlets
19:14
Speaker 2: really do scratch each other's back, say I get it
19:17
Speaker 2: again with political it's not the news side, like okay, okay,
19:21
Speaker 2: I'm sure you know it's not fungible.
19:23
Speaker 1: And also should it not be disclosed that eight million
19:28
Speaker 1: is what is coming in from the government that you
19:31
Speaker 1: are covering right right now, you can say that's for
19:34
Speaker 1: a product. I would say that product is like wow,
19:37
Speaker 1: the pricing on that, and I would like to ask
19:40
Speaker 1: some questions about it, but you should say that that's
19:43
Speaker 1: part of your business model.
19:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think, I really do think that that
19:49
Speaker 2: kind of stuff is actually worse than you know, the
19:53
Speaker 2: biracial puppet show in Uganda. Like I just I think
19:56
Speaker 2: that like the fact that they were paying media outlets
19:59
Speaker 2: is a real, real scandal. I think that the money
20:02
Speaker 2: we spend on nonsense around the world is also a scandal.
20:06
Speaker 2: But I think the media story is actually worse.
20:08
Speaker 1: Well. And I think one of the things that Musk
20:12
Speaker 1: is doing somewhat strategically is, look, you had people who
20:15
Speaker 1: would point out this waste for years, people like myself,
20:18
Speaker 1: you citizens against government waste, would write white papers, you know,
20:23
Speaker 1: various offices would advertise these boondoggles. He has a megaphone
20:28
Speaker 1: that no one else has, and so he's advertising it.
20:31
Speaker 1: And the thing about the federal government, federal workers, boondoggle programs,
20:38
Speaker 1: the will of goodwill for these things is relatively shallow, yes,
20:43
Speaker 1: and once people hear more, they do not become more
20:47
Speaker 1: friendly to these things. That's part of why the Democrats
20:51
Speaker 1: are so mad. They're standing out there like, you can't
20:53
Speaker 1: look into these books because then people will get mad
20:56
Speaker 1: about it. Right.
20:57
Speaker 2: I think that that's just crazy. The fact is that
21:01
Speaker 2: people deserve to know what their money is spent on,
21:04
Speaker 2: and I think most people wouldn't think that this is
21:06
Speaker 2: any of these things are a good investment. Look if
21:09
Speaker 2: you had asked me a few years ago what I
21:11
Speaker 2: thought USA did, I would think that they were spending
21:14
Speaker 2: money on like clandestine messaging programs to push our agenda
21:20
Speaker 2: around the world. What's our agenda that they're pushing. I
21:23
Speaker 2: have no idea what these projects that I've read about
21:26
Speaker 2: would even you know, if they worked, what they would accomplish.
21:30
Speaker 1: I like, like a trans opera in South America. Like,
21:34
Speaker 1: I think that the problem is that the left sees
21:38
Speaker 1: the trans opera in South America as a way of
21:43
Speaker 1: pushing our values just as they do when they do
21:46
Speaker 1: this in public schools, and we go those aren't the values, guys, right, right,
21:50
Speaker 1: They're not values, and we don't want to spend money
21:52
Speaker 1: on it. The other there isn't a lesson also in
21:54
Speaker 1: the USAID story, because originally it was again moving fast
22:00
Speaker 1: and breaking things. We're going to shut this thing down. Well,
22:04
Speaker 1: you can't actually do that because it was formed by Congress,
22:08
Speaker 1: but you can make significant changes, and you can do
22:11
Speaker 1: what Rubio, who's again playing good cop to Trump and
22:14
Speaker 1: Musk's bad cop, is like they're going to absorb it
22:17
Speaker 1: into State, which is probably where it should have been anyway, right,
22:22
Speaker 1: and that we will reform and cut a bunch of this,
22:24
Speaker 1: which is within their rights.
22:26
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:26
Speaker 1: And I think so that story went from like destroyed
22:29
Speaker 1: agency to absorbed agency with a cut, right.
22:33
Speaker 2: But I have some faith that the State Department is
22:35
Speaker 2: going to do a good job with this. I think
22:36
Speaker 2: the team at State is among my favorites of the
22:39
Speaker 2: of the Trump administration, and I have faith they These
22:43
Speaker 2: are people who do want to cut the size of government.
22:46
Speaker 2: I think that used to be a real Republican value
22:50
Speaker 2: that hasn't existed in a long time. I mean George W.
22:53
Speaker 2: Bush didn't cut the size of government. Donald Trump termed
22:56
Speaker 2: and cut the size of government. I think this new
22:59
Speaker 2: you know team that's with Trump now is serious about this,
23:03
Speaker 2: and I have high hopes.
23:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just yeah, I was not as hopeful as
23:09
Speaker 1: what I'm getting now about dog And because these things
23:13
Speaker 1: can devolve into just a blue ribbon panel, I do
23:16
Speaker 1: think having talented people get to the bottom of what's
23:19
Speaker 1: going on here and broadcasting that information is a good
23:23
Speaker 1: in and of itself. I would also say, just real quickly,
23:26
Speaker 1: on the New Resistance, we have federal workers suing the
23:29
Speaker 1: federal government, FBI agents among them, anonymously saying you can't
23:33
Speaker 1: provide a list to our boss of the things that
23:36
Speaker 1: we have been working on because that's a First Amendment issue.
23:40
Speaker 1: But that is I don't think boss, No, I don't
23:46
Speaker 1: think that's going to fly. Even with the protections that
23:50
Speaker 1: federal workers have. This is another instance where when you
23:53
Speaker 1: start advertising how well protected federal workers are, normal workers
23:56
Speaker 1: go wait, yeah, what are we talking about, right?
23:59
Speaker 2: Why does your boss know what you do? And I
24:01
Speaker 2: just feel my kids are going to be like, I
24:03
Speaker 2: can't tell you what I did wrong.
24:05
Speaker 1: First Amendment. First moment issues, So I don't think they're
24:08
Speaker 1: making themselves more sympathetic with these lawsuits. And then the
24:13
Speaker 1: last of all, have you seen the resistance in the
24:15
Speaker 1: streets with the flags of foreign countries that people came from,
24:20
Speaker 1: yeah and live here illegally, protesting that they will not
24:25
Speaker 1: be sent back to those countries by ice. Right, It's
24:29
Speaker 1: not win in hearts and minds.
24:31
Speaker 2: Man, It's so bizarre that they think that that's what
24:33
Speaker 2: Americans want to see, Like, we support these countries and
24:37
Speaker 2: we don't want to go back to them either. Yeah,
24:40
Speaker 2: you know who's who's in favor of that?
24:43
Speaker 1: I not observing the vibe shift shift noticed.
24:48
Speaker 2: Now we're going to take a short break and come
24:50
Speaker 2: right back with normally.
24:55
Speaker 1: I believe you have one last major story that we're
24:57
Speaker 1: going to have to metabolize today.
24:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, you know, it looks like Trump
25:02
Speaker 2: is moving ahead with ending the Department of Education, and
25:06
Speaker 2: lots of people are all worked up about it. Randy
25:09
Speaker 2: Weingarten took to TV and talked about how he was
25:12
Speaker 2: taking food out of the mouths of children. I don't
25:16
Speaker 2: really know how, but teachers get paid on state and
25:20
Speaker 2: local level anyway, So I don't know if it was
25:24
Speaker 2: the children of the teachers. It was really unclear if
25:27
Speaker 2: she was just frothing. I am super in favor of
25:32
Speaker 2: ending the Department of Education. It's been just decades of
25:36
Speaker 2: really poor policies coming out of there. It's a largely
25:41
Speaker 2: a boondoggle in and of itself. Department of Education's budget
25:45
Speaker 2: for fiscal year twenty twenty five is eighty two point
25:48
Speaker 2: four billion, and the average salary of their workers is
25:52
Speaker 2: one hundred and twelve thousand dollars, fifty six percent higher
25:56
Speaker 2: than the average government employee. I just don't I don't
26:00
Speaker 2: see the purpose of it. Again, and Randy Winegarden admitted
26:03
Speaker 2: this that most education policy is done on a state level.
26:08
Speaker 2: There's really no point to this oversight except another slush
26:12
Speaker 2: fund for their friends.
26:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Randy Whitegarden is one to talk because she
26:17
Speaker 1: of course endorsed the idea of having schools closed for
26:21
Speaker 1: two years. So what do you know about education and
26:25
Speaker 1: what must be sustained at all costs. Yeah, Look, we
26:29
Speaker 1: had education before the Department of Education existed. There will
26:34
Speaker 1: be parts of the Department of Education that do have
26:36
Speaker 1: to be sustained for continuity for people's services on loans
26:41
Speaker 1: and that kind of thing. But I would note a
26:45
Speaker 1: on Randy's point, the Biden administration tried to take school
26:49
Speaker 1: lunches and school lunch money away from people who didn't
26:52
Speaker 1: back gender ideology and his new Title nine rules, So
26:58
Speaker 1: maybe that's not the great argument for you. Second, when
27:00
Speaker 1: it comes to the things that you need continuity for,
27:04
Speaker 1: what they forget about all these federal agencies is that
27:06
Speaker 1: they've been on a COVID schedule for five years and
27:09
Speaker 1: doing things, yes, even worse than the government standard normally is.
27:14
Speaker 2: Which is already quite low.
27:16
Speaker 1: So when you talk about like FAFSA, for instance, which
27:19
Speaker 1: was a program for applying for federal aid that went
27:22
Speaker 1: totally haywire this past year. It was under the Biden administration,
27:26
Speaker 1: so it wasn't covered very deeply, but parents were lost
27:30
Speaker 1: for months and months trying to get federal aid through
27:34
Speaker 1: this program. So when the baseline is that, it does
27:38
Speaker 1: become much less scary to people when they say when
27:41
Speaker 1: they see someone saying we're going to end this and
27:44
Speaker 1: just pass it off to the states.
27:45
Speaker 2: Right, I think the argument that the left is going
27:48
Speaker 2: to try to make is exactly what you said, that
27:50
Speaker 2: if we end the education Department, No schools will exist.
27:53
Speaker 2: It's like, yes they will. They'll be fine, they'll be better.
27:56
Speaker 2: There'll be more money to spend on things that actually
27:59
Speaker 2: matter and not bureaucrats in Washington bushing an agenda. I
28:03
Speaker 2: you know again, I'm optimistic on this whole administration working
28:08
Speaker 2: towards cutting things. I think it's really important. And I
28:13
Speaker 2: always wanted to reduce the size of government. I can't
28:16
Speaker 2: believe it's actually happening. I actually am so like. I
28:21
Speaker 2: thought that that side, the cutting government side, lost the battle.
28:25
Speaker 2: I lost the war. Really, I didn't think that was
28:27
Speaker 2: ever going to be a Republican value again, and it's
28:30
Speaker 2: largely elon and I love it well.
28:33
Speaker 1: And this is a part where I have to reassess
28:36
Speaker 1: my take on Trump from years ago, which was like,
28:38
Speaker 1: he doesn't he's not with me on these issues, right,
28:41
Speaker 1: But he's changed. But here we are well, and here
28:43
Speaker 1: we are most importantly getting action on it. By the way,
28:46
Speaker 1: they do say that they are going to try to
28:48
Speaker 1: go to Congress to bolster this effort, because obviously Department
28:52
Speaker 1: education is statutorily created at one point, and I would
28:56
Speaker 1: just like to note that the National Department Education is
28:59
Speaker 1: much like your local school board and departments, and that
29:02
Speaker 1: it has huge amounts of administrative nonsense involved my local
29:08
Speaker 1: school board, which I have noted, or my local school system,
29:11
Speaker 1: which I've noted, is like self emolating on the regular
29:14
Speaker 1: fifty two salaries in the DEI alone for six point
29:18
Speaker 1: four million dollars.
29:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's just waste that can be cut. And I
29:23
Speaker 2: do think Trump has changed on this. Trump twenty sixteen
29:26
Speaker 2: kept saying at his rallies were going to take care
29:29
Speaker 2: of everybody, and I was like, I don't want the
29:31
Speaker 2: government to take care of everybody. I want them to,
29:33
Speaker 2: you know, stand back and like, you know, take care
29:35
Speaker 2: of who need's taken care of. But like relaxed, and
29:38
Speaker 2: it's a different guy. Things have really changed. I like
29:41
Speaker 2: him a lot better than I've ever liked him before.
29:43
Speaker 1: So can I note one last thing. Yeah, with the
29:47
Speaker 1: folks who are working with Elon, there's like this concern
29:49
Speaker 1: about data and security.
29:51
Speaker 2: Yeah.
29:52
Speaker 1: I can't tell you the number of times that the
29:53
Speaker 1: US government has sent me a notice in the past
29:56
Speaker 1: ten years telling me that they lost my stuff and
29:58
Speaker 1: sent it to China. So again, baseline's very low, and
30:03
Speaker 1: I think it's possible I don't want them to have
30:06
Speaker 1: access to things they shouldn't have access to. Sure, I
30:08
Speaker 1: think it's possible that the Scrolls guy could put in
30:11
Speaker 1: a better security protocol on his lunch break than has
30:14
Speaker 1: existed in the federal government until now.
30:17
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Frank Fleming, who tweets at I am AO on X,
30:23
Speaker 2: he said, what is this obsession with social security numbers? Like,
30:26
Speaker 2: every company in bank has our social security numbers? Do
30:28
Speaker 2: you think Elon Musk wants to commit identity fraud against you?
30:32
Speaker 1: Like?
30:32
Speaker 2: Yes, what are they thinking? I was going to bring
30:36
Speaker 2: credit cards in our name?
30:39
Speaker 1: I saw a good one from drunk Republican that was,
30:42
Speaker 1: if someone's going to violate my data privacy, I had
30:44
Speaker 1: better be a deep state goon with a history of
30:46
Speaker 1: perjuring himself and not some entrepreneurial autists trying to save
30:49
Speaker 1: me money. That's basically where I am.
30:52
Speaker 2: Love that, and I love those autists, so I do
30:56
Speaker 2: more info on them will be very welcomed. Anybody wants
31:00
Speaker 2: to write some stories. Some glossy magazine features pictures.
31:03
Speaker 1: Give us GQ spread, GQ spread.
31:06
Speaker 2: So I want to know everything about them. Well, thanks
31:09
Speaker 2: for joining us on normally Normally Airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
31:12
Speaker 2: and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get
31:15
Speaker 2: in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail dot com.
31:18
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally