Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: Media Censorship, Government Chaos, and Trump’s Economic Gamble

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Normally Podcast: Media Censorship, Government Chaos, and Trump’s Economic Gamble · Normally

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey guys, we're back on normally the show with normal
0:09
Speaker 1: it takes for when the news gets weird. I'm Mary
0:10
Speaker 1: Catherine Camp.
0:11
Speaker 2: And I'm Carol Markowitz. How is your weekend, Mary Catherine.
0:14
Speaker 1: Oh, it's pretty good. I was offline for about thirty
0:17
Speaker 1: six hours, so that's always fun. I was camping with
0:19
Speaker 1: no signal.
0:20
Speaker 2: Oh nice. I love that.
0:22
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't love camping, but I do love
0:24
Speaker 3: the being offline. I don't mind camping. It's a surprising
0:27
Speaker 3: fact about me, is I am totally okay with one
0:31
Speaker 3: night of camping.
0:34
Speaker 1: I'm really I would say I'm only okay with camping
0:37
Speaker 1: as well, Like it's like I will do it and
0:39
Speaker 1: while I'm there, I'm making the best of it. But
0:41
Speaker 1: it's a little off brand for me not to be
0:43
Speaker 1: very excited about it.
0:44
Speaker 2: Frank, Yes, I see that.
0:46
Speaker 3: So I had a very unpopular tweet last night, and
0:49
Speaker 3: I felt like a lot of people were like, we'll
0:52
Speaker 3: talk to Mary Catherine about this because she will set
0:55
Speaker 3: you straight.
0:56
Speaker 2: And so I will say.
0:57
Speaker 3: I feel like my Slice of Life tweets A do
1:00
Speaker 3: very well and B are usually people are on my side,
1:03
Speaker 3: so this was a bit of a surprise. But last night,
1:07
Speaker 3: an NFL player on TV live, well not live, it
1:11
Speaker 3: was pre recorded, but it was played live said nut
1:15
Speaker 3: up or shut up on NBC.
1:17
Speaker 2: It wasn't even eight pm.
1:19
Speaker 3: Yet am I approved for thinking that is unacceptable?
1:24
Speaker 1: I think that I would not react badly to it.
1:28
Speaker 1: But I also judge myself for not reacting badly.
1:32
Speaker 3: So funny because I judge myself for reacting badly, I'm like,
1:35
Speaker 3: have I become like a square in my old age?
1:38
Speaker 2: Because I used to not care at all?
1:40
Speaker 3: But you know, my thing is, I just feel like censorship,
1:43
Speaker 3: like like makes no sense. There's a Kanye West song
1:46
Speaker 3: I used to love, you know. I hate Kanye now,
1:48
Speaker 3: but I used to you know, I loved his music.
1:50
Speaker 3: I still love his music, honestly. But he had a
1:52
Speaker 3: song where he was There was love letter Chicago, and
1:55
Speaker 3: there was a line in it.
1:56
Speaker 2: Her name was Windy. She liked to blow trees.
1:59
Speaker 3: Now it's a double chandra about smoking marijuana, but that
2:03
Speaker 3: would get beeped out on the radio.
2:05
Speaker 2: Her name was Windy, she liked to.
2:07
Speaker 3: Blow trees about a song about Chicago was beeped out
2:10
Speaker 3: on the radio. And yet this guy could stay nut
2:13
Speaker 3: up or shut up at a time, where like.
2:15
Speaker 2: Kids are still watching and my kids were watching.
2:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense which things
2:21
Speaker 1: you can say. And having worked in live radio, we
2:24
Speaker 1: were well versed on things you could say. For instance,
2:28
Speaker 1: the word I believe this is correct. The word piss
2:30
Speaker 1: excuse me could be used in certain contexts but not others,
2:34
Speaker 1: Like you couldn't refer to it as actual, the actual substance,
2:39
Speaker 1: but you could refer to someone as pissed off. Like
2:42
Speaker 1: it was like, yeah, there's all sorts of strange rules
2:48
Speaker 1: that they put on you.
2:49
Speaker 2: I feel like it was Cable.
2:50
Speaker 3: I wouldn't even care, but like NBC on a Sunday night,
2:53
Speaker 3: not even a pianist.
2:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, a bit much, Get off my lawn. I don't care.
2:59
Speaker 2: I stand by what I said. I'm a square now
3:02
Speaker 2: that was square, and I don't even care. It's good,
3:06
Speaker 2: all right, let's.
3:06
Speaker 1: Get real free us. Well, speaking of normally, Carol, it
3:11
Speaker 1: looks like the government might be operating normally now. I mean, look,
3:17
Speaker 1: it's greatered on a curve, guys, But it looks like
3:20
Speaker 1: the government will be eminently reopening thanks to a vote
3:24
Speaker 1: in the Senate, which will then proceed a pace to
3:27
Speaker 1: the House right. So.
3:28
Speaker 3: The Wall Street Journal reports the decision by eight members
3:31
Speaker 3: of the Senate Democratic Caucus decide with Republicans to advance
3:34
Speaker 3: a bill Sunday night to end the government shutdown drew
3:36
Speaker 3: heated condemnations from other members of the party and reopened
3:40
Speaker 3: long standing divisions on how to best fight against President Trump.
3:44
Speaker 3: Democrats were coming off strong election wins last Tuesday, and
3:47
Speaker 3: many lawmakers and activists said the results showed that Senate
3:50
Speaker 3: Democrats should continue to hold the line on their demands
3:53
Speaker 3: for extending Enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies. But the small
3:57
Speaker 3: group of defectors reasoned Sunday that the shutdown had caused
4:00
Speaker 3: too much pain and that the modest concessions from Republicans,
4:03
Speaker 3: including a pledge to hold a vote on healthcare, were enough.
4:07
Speaker 3: The Democrats are losing their minds over this, like we
4:10
Speaker 3: hear that blue sky is just falling apart.
4:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think it's important to emphasize the
4:17
Speaker 1: facts on this, which are Let me just read through
4:20
Speaker 1: the dates on which the government could have reopened. September nineteenth,
4:24
Speaker 1: September thirtieth, October first, October third, October sixth. These are
4:28
Speaker 1: all dates the Senate took a vote on the continuing Resolution,
4:33
Speaker 1: which would have funded the government. Yeah, and everything would
4:38
Speaker 1: have seamlessly reopened without any of this happening. I'll go
4:41
Speaker 1: on October eighth, October ninth, October fourteenth, October fifteenth, sixteenth, twentieth,
4:45
Speaker 1: twenty second, twenty eighth, November fourth. So I believe there's
4:50
Speaker 1: a total of fourteen votes, and it was Democrats who
4:53
Speaker 1: would not cross over to join Republicans to vote for
4:57
Speaker 1: this clean continuing resolution was for these not to put
5:01
Speaker 1: too fine a point on it. Stupid and dumb and
5:05
Speaker 1: bad bumped up subsidies from the COVID era for Obamacare,
5:11
Speaker 1: which we're designed to go to insurance companies to the
5:14
Speaker 1: tune of billions and billions and tens of billions of
5:17
Speaker 1: dollars to cover up the fact that premiums are going up. Yeah,
5:23
Speaker 1: because of what Obamacare has wrought, right, that was the ask.
5:26
Speaker 1: They didn't get the ask, so they did all this
5:29
Speaker 1: for six weeks.
5:32
Speaker 3: Really not a yeah, there's just I mean the fact
5:37
Speaker 3: that they allowed this to go on this long. Senator
5:39
Speaker 3: John Fetterman has been actually completely on the right side
5:43
Speaker 3: of this. I can't believe what an amazing figure he
5:46
Speaker 3: is in the Senate.
5:47
Speaker 2: I'm sure he's going to disappoint me down the road,
5:49
Speaker 2: but there's so much.
5:49
Speaker 3: Day does as good, he tweeted after forty days as
5:52
Speaker 3: a consistent voice against shutting our government down, I voted
5:55
Speaker 3: yes for.
5:55
Speaker 2: The fifteenth time to reopen.
5:57
Speaker 3: I'm sorry to our military SNAP recipient, government workers and
6:01
Speaker 3: Capitol police who haven't been paid weeks.
6:03
Speaker 2: It shouldn't have come to this. This was a failure.
6:06
Speaker 2: It's absolutely right.
6:08
Speaker 1: Well, and look, one might fairly ask of me, are
6:12
Speaker 1: you consistent on this? And I would say yes, because
6:15
Speaker 1: when Ted Cruz decided we should shut down the government
6:17
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen to repeal Obamacare, I was like, that's
6:21
Speaker 1: not going to happen. And you are therefore leading yourself
6:24
Speaker 1: to political problems and two real problems for real people. Yeah,
6:29
Speaker 1: by disrupting the government in this manner, and I look,
6:34
Speaker 1: if somebody is willing to take on the political cost
6:36
Speaker 1: because they feel like this is a really important issue
6:39
Speaker 1: and we must talk about it, That's one thing what
6:41
Speaker 1: I don't like is this being turned on its head
6:44
Speaker 1: where Democrats have now been rewarded for shutting down the
6:49
Speaker 1: government for six weeks, which is what happened here. They
6:51
Speaker 1: kind of signaled to their voters the chaos, even though
6:54
Speaker 1: we're literally causing it, is Trump's chaos, right, and many
6:59
Speaker 1: people bought that despite me fourteen dates I gave you
7:02
Speaker 1: where they could have opened the government at any moment, right.
7:06
Speaker 3: Absolutely, it was a political calculation for them. They waited
7:10
Speaker 3: until the election to cause as much damage as they
7:13
Speaker 3: could to their own voters so that their voters would
7:16
Speaker 3: vote their way. And you don't have to take our
7:18
Speaker 3: word for it. Here is Senator Kane talking about it.
7:21
Speaker 4: I didn't fully understand how dug in they were, again
7:26
Speaker 4: because I was so focused on the Virginia elections. I
7:28
Speaker 4: wasn't in this discussion on the healthcare to see how
7:31
Speaker 4: dug in they were. But even as I was not
7:36
Speaker 4: part of these discussions, I was saying to Fune and
7:38
Speaker 4: others on the floor, going back, listen, I need you
7:41
Speaker 4: some of you heard me say this in the all.
7:42
Speaker 4: I need a more attarium on mischief. Others are working
7:45
Speaker 4: on the healthcare thing, I trust them. Others are working
7:47
Speaker 4: on the approached thing, I trust them. I need a
7:49
Speaker 4: moretirement mischief because if we vote to open and then
7:52
Speaker 4: the immediate step next week is Donald Trump fires a
7:55
Speaker 4: lot more people. It's going to blow up trust to
7:57
Speaker 4: get the full year deal. And so I've been I've
8:00
Speaker 4: been preaching this moratorium on mischief for a month. But
8:04
Speaker 4: I think partly why did they finally give me the
8:08
Speaker 4: moratorium on mischief on riffs? They needed my vote, But
8:11
Speaker 4: they also saw the election on two.
8:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, that wasn't it.
8:13
Speaker 3: I really don't think that election actually played that big
8:18
Speaker 3: a role. Here here is ezraclined in the New York
8:22
Speaker 3: Times on how Democrats were winning the shutdown to keep
8:25
Speaker 3: the shutdown going. He says, if I were in the Senate,
8:28
Speaker 3: I wouldn't vote for this compromise. Shutdowns are an opportunity
8:31
Speaker 3: to make your arguments in the country was just starting
8:33
Speaker 3: to pay attention. If Trump wanted to cancel flights over
8:36
Speaker 3: Thanksgiving rather than keep health care costs down, I don't
8:38
Speaker 3: see why Democrats should save him from making his priorities
8:41
Speaker 3: so exquisitely clear. And I worry that Democrats have just
8:44
Speaker 3: taught Trump that they will fold under pressure. That's the
8:46
Speaker 3: kind of lesson.
8:47
Speaker 2: He remembers.
8:48
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people understood what we were
8:51
Speaker 3: talking about last episode, that the elections weren't a symbol
8:54
Speaker 3: or a sign. They were off yer elections in largely
8:57
Speaker 3: blue areas and they were supposed to go that way.
9:00
Speaker 3: So using the elections as some sort of like you know,
9:05
Speaker 3: sign here that the Democrats were winning and it was
9:08
Speaker 3: all going to be okay is ridiculous. And it would
9:10
Speaker 3: have been the Democrats canceling flights over Thanksgiving. Whether or
9:13
Speaker 3: not Republicans could appropriately tell that story is a separate issue.
9:18
Speaker 2: The thing would have been their fault.
9:19
Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing, and I think it's it's revealing
9:22
Speaker 1: of Klein here that he's mister, make government work properly.
9:27
Speaker 1: But when given a chance to make government work properly
9:30
Speaker 1: or to continue to drag Republicans for who knows what
9:35
Speaker 1: by making it work improperly, he chooses, Let's blow it up.
9:41
Speaker 1: Continue to blow it up. Let people live Thanksgiving where
9:45
Speaker 1: they cannot travel to see their loved ones, just as
9:47
Speaker 1: we did. By the way, let's memorialize our twenty twenty behavior,
9:51
Speaker 1: our twenty twenty one behavior and say, yeah, you can't
9:55
Speaker 1: see your loved ones, suck it. Excuse me. That's not
9:58
Speaker 1: fit for broadcasts either, I don't think.
10:00
Speaker 2: But yeah, he's.
10:01
Speaker 3: Choosing politics over abundance governing, which is his kind of
10:06
Speaker 3: his thing.
10:08
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and a lot of people are saying, look,
10:10
Speaker 1: I do think I think it's the morally right decision
10:12
Speaker 1: to try to get this thing back on track. I
10:14
Speaker 1: think the ask that they were making was a stupid one. Yeah,
10:18
Speaker 1: those subsidies don't make any sense. They were designed to
10:22
Speaker 1: be emergency and temporary, and they were dumb at even
10:24
Speaker 1: doing that. Now there are risks for Republicans here, which
10:28
Speaker 1: is that there's now a healthcare discussion on the plate. Now.
10:31
Speaker 1: I don't mind having that discussion. I wrote in Fox
10:34
Speaker 1: News last week about why these subsidies are bad, why
10:37
Speaker 1: they revealed that Obamacare was bad from the beginning, and
10:40
Speaker 1: why we should shift to more patient focused, choice related
10:44
Speaker 1: reforms that are small that you can give people control
10:47
Speaker 1: over their money, which is, by the way, one of
10:49
Speaker 1: the things Trump was pitching, saying, Hey, if we're going
10:52
Speaker 1: to give away a bunch of money, let's give it
10:54
Speaker 1: away to people's health savings accounts so they can use
10:57
Speaker 1: it as they see fit. Yeah, which I think is
11:00
Speaker 1: something that could appeal to people.
11:02
Speaker 2: I think so as well.
11:04
Speaker 3: I think the Democrats are going to oppose it with
11:06
Speaker 3: every bone in their entire bodies, and the thing is
11:10
Speaker 3: that they have to cater to the blue sky crowd.
11:12
Speaker 3: They're taking lessons from the election. One of the one
11:15
Speaker 3: of the election lessons for them is the far left
11:19
Speaker 3: socialist mayor is the most popular Democrat in the country
11:22
Speaker 3: right now. They're going to take that lesson and run
11:24
Speaker 3: with it. I think it's not going to be good
11:26
Speaker 3: for Americans, but I don't think that matters, and I
11:29
Speaker 3: think that they don't care right now, and stopping Donald
11:32
Speaker 3: Trump and getting political wins is all they care about
11:34
Speaker 3: right now.
11:35
Speaker 1: Well, and you see it outlined in the New York
11:37
Speaker 1: Times covered where they're going to have primary duels because
11:43
Speaker 1: Democrats are facing what Republicans face during the Tea Party era,
11:47
Speaker 1: which is a bunch of ground up anger about how
11:50
Speaker 1: they're not fighting the president that the base doesn't like
11:55
Speaker 1: hard enough. The base is not listening to how it
11:59
Speaker 1: might be advantageous for them to fight in different ways.
12:02
Speaker 1: I think part of the reason they waited past the
12:04
Speaker 1: election was, and they expressed this like on background to Axios,
12:09
Speaker 1: was that Democrats were scared of their voters being literally homicidal,
12:13
Speaker 1: and they were like, we have to keep giving them something,
12:16
Speaker 1: right people. I mean they expressed that in actual words, them,
12:21
Speaker 1: not me. So I think they were looking for that,
12:23
Speaker 1: hoping that these election results would cheer them up a
12:26
Speaker 1: little bit on blue sky. That won't be the case
12:28
Speaker 1: for a lot of normal people. It probably will. And
12:30
Speaker 1: then you have this same dynamic at play in every
12:33
Speaker 1: Senate and House primary that could be flippable in the
12:37
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six elections. So, even though Trump's approval rating
12:41
Speaker 1: is down, Republicans not faring well post this election. I
12:44
Speaker 1: think they have things to think about. They may get
12:47
Speaker 1: themselves into some serious trouble with the energy and the
12:50
Speaker 1: excitement behind people in primaries who might not be electable
12:54
Speaker 1: in general elections.
12:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, seen this film before.
12:58
Speaker 1: Yep, mister nazi tattoo among those.
13:01
Speaker 2: Right right. We'll see how that goes.
13:02
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, did you see Abigail Spanberger, who, like again I've said,
13:06
Speaker 1: she didn't moderate on much of anything. She was on
13:08
Speaker 1: the Sunday shows this week being like, hey, guys, the
13:11
Speaker 1: reason I was elected is because Virginia's think the government
13:14
Speaker 1: should operate properly. Maybe let's not do this.
13:18
Speaker 2: Yeah it snay on the U shut down exactly.
13:21
Speaker 1: She just doing her Betsy out there.
13:22
Speaker 2: Right, we'll be right back with more on normally. We
13:29
Speaker 2: are back on normally.
13:31
Speaker 3: And look, it's not just Democrats that have some questionable ideas.
13:37
Speaker 3: Donald Trump floated two such ideas over the weekend. You
13:41
Speaker 3: know I've said on here before that, especially on economics,
13:44
Speaker 3: I defer to him a lot more this term than
13:47
Speaker 3: last term.
13:47
Speaker 2: I'm still a free market person.
13:49
Speaker 3: I just don't see the free market like I If
13:52
Speaker 3: other countries are tariffing us at high levels, like I
13:56
Speaker 3: get why we would reciprocate. I also understand using the
14:00
Speaker 3: tariffs as leverage in a way that, like as he does,
14:03
Speaker 3: does it bring down costs? All remains to be seen
14:06
Speaker 3: so far, not so much so. This weekend he floats
14:10
Speaker 3: two ideas, and one of them is a fifty year mortgage.
14:15
Speaker 2: He has a post.
14:16
Speaker 3: On his truth Social Great American presidents. He has President
14:21
Speaker 3: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who introduced the thirty year mortgage, and
14:25
Speaker 3: then he has a picture of himself, President Trump, who
14:28
Speaker 3: is introducing the fifty year mortgage.
14:30
Speaker 1: I mean, look, if you're just measuring in years, that's
14:32
Speaker 1: obviously better. Like here we go, it's just top FDR.
14:38
Speaker 3: I also don't think Republicans generally see FDR as a
14:43
Speaker 3: great American president.
14:44
Speaker 2: I see him as one of the worst presidents we've
14:47
Speaker 2: ever had.
14:47
Speaker 3: So I don't love that he's looking to FDR for
14:51
Speaker 3: tips on.
14:53
Speaker 2: Being a great president.
14:54
Speaker 3: But again on this, like, okay, the argument obviously is
14:57
Speaker 3: who benefits here banks because they're going to have have
15:00
Speaker 3: an extra twenty years of you know, of costs and
15:05
Speaker 3: they're just gonna they're going to do very well on
15:08
Speaker 3: interest rates here.
15:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
15:10
Speaker 3: The flip side argument is people can't afford houses, and
15:15
Speaker 3: they will be willing to take the chance that they Yes,
15:18
Speaker 3: they'll pay more in the long run, but at least
15:19
Speaker 3: they'll have the house now, and they will say, you know,
15:23
Speaker 3: build equity and not be throwing their money away.
15:25
Speaker 2: And rent I get it, I really get it. It's
15:29
Speaker 2: not conservative for sure, and that's you know, a long
15:33
Speaker 2: running problem or issue with the Trump administration. Does it
15:37
Speaker 2: matter that he is not conservative on these issues?
15:40
Speaker 3: Is he trying new things out of the box that
15:42
Speaker 3: maybe conservatives will adapt to all kind of a big
15:45
Speaker 3: question mark.
15:46
Speaker 1: Well, and that's it might be too easy or too
15:50
Speaker 1: facil a phrase, but I find it useful, which is
15:53
Speaker 1: at times like this. I'm like, look, this is the
15:56
Speaker 1: choice that faced many voters, which is, if you give
15:59
Speaker 1: me a nineteen eighty nine Democrat and a twenty twenty
16:04
Speaker 1: five Democrat, yep, to choose between, I'm going to take
16:07
Speaker 1: the eighty nine Democrat, right, Yeah, because the twenty twenty
16:11
Speaker 1: five Democrats have lost their way. But Trump is in
16:13
Speaker 1: many ways an early nineties, late eighties Democrat. Yeah, and
16:16
Speaker 1: an early nineties, late eighties Democrat would like this idea,
16:20
Speaker 1: would like tariffs, would even think FDR was a pretty
16:23
Speaker 1: awesome president on domestic economic fronts. Right, And so that's
16:28
Speaker 1: what you end up with. I think these are not
16:31
Speaker 1: great ideas. And I think beyond that, Trump when talking
16:34
Speaker 1: about some specific industries because he's trying to get back
16:38
Speaker 1: to an affordability argument because he's concerned about vulnerabilities there.
16:42
Speaker 1: For twenty twenty six, he's gone way too far to
16:46
Speaker 1: the Elizabeth Warren argument that the companies themselves are messing
16:51
Speaker 1: with you. This has nothing to do with anything else
16:54
Speaker 1: that supply and demand. Oh, let's put that aside, and
16:56
Speaker 1: that like greed flation is back. Greed flation is not
16:59
Speaker 1: a thing, not a thing. Companies, companies like they're trying
17:03
Speaker 1: to do the best they can. They have to hit
17:05
Speaker 1: profit margins then to in order to continue to operate.
17:08
Speaker 1: There is real crony capitalism involved, and I you know,
17:11
Speaker 1: those are things that you can eliminate if you're a
17:13
Speaker 1: conservative president who would like to do those things, and
17:16
Speaker 1: sometimes he has, but you know, yelling about the companies
17:20
Speaker 1: and their profit margins isn't the conservative way of dealing
17:23
Speaker 1: with this. And I think one of the ways that
17:25
Speaker 1: Trump has been good in the past is eliminating regulations,
17:29
Speaker 1: which for building, which would be a really great thing
17:32
Speaker 1: to do for housing costs.
17:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, that that is one of his strengths.
17:36
Speaker 3: That was like probably one of my favorite things in
17:38
Speaker 3: the first Trump administration. Getting rid of regulations was incredibly
17:42
Speaker 3: strong and something that Republicans hadn't done that well in
17:45
Speaker 3: the past. His other idea from this weekend, he posted
17:50
Speaker 3: about sending out two thousand dollars stimulus checks. His post is,
17:56
Speaker 3: people that are against tariffs are fulls capital letters. We
17:59
Speaker 3: are now well the richest, most respected country in the world,
18:02
Speaker 3: with almost no inflation and a record stock market price.
18:05
Speaker 3: I should tell you there's random capitalization.
18:08
Speaker 2: All throughout that. Of course, your one case, our highest ever.
18:12
Speaker 3: We are taking in trillions of dollars and will soon
18:15
Speaker 3: begin paying down our enormous debt. Thirty seven trillion, record
18:18
Speaker 3: investment in the USA, Plants and factories going up all
18:22
Speaker 3: over the place. A dividend of at least two thousand
18:24
Speaker 3: dollars a person, not including high income people exclamation point
18:28
Speaker 3: will be paid to everyone. Terrible, terrible, and look and
18:32
Speaker 3: you know here we can't really make the argument that, oh,
18:35
Speaker 3: you know, he's out of step with like the Republicans
18:38
Speaker 3: of yesteryear.
18:39
Speaker 2: Georgia B.
18:40
Speaker 3: Bush also sent out stimulus checks. So after nine to eleven,
18:44
Speaker 3: terrible idea. Stimulus checks are inflationary. They pump more money
18:49
Speaker 3: into the economy, prices go up. I'm not a finance
18:53
Speaker 3: person at all, but like it's a.
18:55
Speaker 2: Very easy line to draw, and.
18:58
Speaker 3: It's what happened during COVID and the money that the
19:01
Speaker 3: government was pumping into the economy, which we still have
19:04
Speaker 3: not recovered from.
19:05
Speaker 2: I still like I'm a gasper.
19:07
Speaker 3: At prices sometimes, like just like how could that be
19:10
Speaker 3: the price of that?
19:11
Speaker 1: Well, and think about it from everyone's point of view,
19:14
Speaker 1: like if you and I are having that reaction, and
19:16
Speaker 1: I usually use this like Obviously I live in a
19:18
Speaker 1: high cost of living area. That's part of it. Actually,
19:21
Speaker 1: there are times when I order a beer in North
19:23
Speaker 1: Carolina and I'm like, I'm sorry, what three fifty did
19:28
Speaker 1: you get? That? I had to But but we live
19:30
Speaker 1: in a high cost of living area. That's part of it.
19:32
Speaker 1: But given that I know my economic status versus many
19:35
Speaker 1: more struggling people to go into a grocery store and
19:38
Speaker 1: regularly go, oh my good, yeah how much that cost?
19:41
Speaker 2: Now? Yeah?
19:42
Speaker 1: Like that is that is reflected in much bigger ways,
19:45
Speaker 1: much further down the actos we're not.
19:47
Speaker 3: Shopping at, like the Arawons in California where they have
19:50
Speaker 3: like the thirty five dollars jug of water. It's like
19:53
Speaker 3: I had I saw a seven dollars mango yesterday, Like,
19:56
Speaker 3: what what's in that mango?
19:58
Speaker 1: It should be your book title about inflation seven dollars mango? No,
20:01
Speaker 1: I think. Look, unfortunately, and I have thought this throughout,
20:04
Speaker 1: the tariff arguments end up being pretty incoherent, like are
20:08
Speaker 1: we doing them to raise revenue? Are we doing them
20:09
Speaker 1: to bring back investing? Are we doing them to give
20:11
Speaker 1: stimulus checks to people for trumpets? Often I like tariffs,
20:16
Speaker 1: and we will find the quickest path to justifying what
20:18
Speaker 1: the tariff is doing at any given moment. I went
20:21
Speaker 1: into that with open eyes. Right, he was elected. Let's
20:24
Speaker 1: say he gets to do his thing for a while.
20:26
Speaker 2: Exactly right. But I say he ran on this, so.
20:30
Speaker 1: I do think, and I've always thought from the beginning
20:33
Speaker 1: that on affordability, if you are making the argument from
20:36
Speaker 1: the beginning that this is short term pain but long
20:38
Speaker 1: term gain, you better see that game pretty quickly. And
20:42
Speaker 1: people are right to go. You're telling me, you're adding
20:45
Speaker 1: to prices. That's what you're telling me. And that's what
20:47
Speaker 1: he's trying to ameliorate by sending money out the door again.
20:50
Speaker 1: But much like subsidizing Obamacare subsidy or plans, or giving
20:56
Speaker 1: unlimited credit to college students, it will make the problem
21:00
Speaker 1: blum worse. That's right, we don't want to do that.
21:02
Speaker 1: One more bad idea from Trump this week, blowing up
21:05
Speaker 1: the filibuster.
21:07
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know.
21:08
Speaker 3: It's not a bad idea, So okay, I wouldn't want
21:11
Speaker 3: him to blow up the filibuster because yes, obviously the
21:14
Speaker 3: Democrats will use it at their very next opportunity.
21:18
Speaker 2: But did it bring the Democrats to the table this
21:21
Speaker 2: is the thing with Trump. Is he a genius or
21:24
Speaker 2: is he like a madman? And like he's kind of
21:25
Speaker 2: a little bit of right woh, and you just don't
21:27
Speaker 2: really know.
21:29
Speaker 1: So my concern was I'm actually a little surprised that
21:31
Speaker 1: a deal came together, given that he was making so
21:34
Speaker 1: much noise about the philibuster, because I thought that Democrats,
21:37
Speaker 1: being rather short sighted themselves, would be like, this is
21:42
Speaker 1: the thing we've always wanted, and if we win, we
21:45
Speaker 1: get to do anything we want. If we can just
21:47
Speaker 1: get fifty Senate seats. I think that's disastrous for America.
21:51
Speaker 1: The Senate is supposed to move slowly and deliberately, even
21:55
Speaker 1: though it's often dumb, it's supposed to be that way.
21:58
Speaker 1: I thought he was giving them a release valve, or
22:00
Speaker 1: they wouldn't come to the table because they'd be like,
22:01
Speaker 1: we'll just wait for you to do the thing that
22:03
Speaker 1: we want you to do. Very fantastic, right, right. But
22:06
Speaker 1: it didn't turn out that way. So I've often been
22:08
Speaker 1: wrong when his weird gut calculations have been there, right right.
22:15
Speaker 3: I have one little like it, like I have one
22:18
Speaker 3: more trump ism for this last you know, for this
22:21
Speaker 3: middle segment, as we're going to air he posted on
22:25
Speaker 3: truth Social All air traffic controllers must get back to
22:29
Speaker 3: work now three exclamation points.
22:31
Speaker 2: Anyone who doesn't will be substantially docked.
22:33
Speaker 3: For those air traffic controllers who were great patriots and
22:36
Speaker 3: didn't take any time off for the Democrat shut down hoax,
22:38
Speaker 3: I will be recommending a bonus of ten thousand dollars
22:41
Speaker 3: per person for distinguished service to our country.
22:44
Speaker 2: Now again, is he a genius or a madman?
22:47
Speaker 3: Because and then and it goes on and on, you know,
22:49
Speaker 3: fake Democrat attack. I'm not happy with you to tell
22:51
Speaker 3: you the air traffic controllers, but you know, there's something
22:54
Speaker 3: to be said for the people who stayed on their post.
22:57
Speaker 2: When they weren't getting paid. And him introduce seen this
23:00
Speaker 2: bonus is like, you know, a reward to the people
23:04
Speaker 2: who did the right thing.
23:06
Speaker 1: It would be one of the few ways that this
23:07
Speaker 1: shutdown rewarded good behavior. So yeah, I'm I'm open to it.
23:12
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a little surprised that they came to an agreement,
23:15
Speaker 1: but it is it's the right thing to do.
23:17
Speaker 2: I mean, let's see if we get we get through it.
23:19
Speaker 3: But yeah, that's next episode where like actually the shutdown
23:23
Speaker 3: is still on.
23:23
Speaker 1: We shall see.
23:24
Speaker 2: Wait right back with more on normally.
23:30
Speaker 1: All right, Carol, I wanted to talk a little bit
23:33
Speaker 1: about the uh, the culture war, the anti wokeness of
23:36
Speaker 1: it all. Even the election day did not look great
23:40
Speaker 1: for Republicans, the culture war continues to pay dividends, the
23:44
Speaker 1: left having sort of gone off the cliff, and the
23:47
Speaker 1: New York Times profile of the Sierra Club is just
23:50
Speaker 1: the latest example. And again it's a bit fascile, but
23:54
Speaker 1: go woke, go broke seems to be exactly what the
23:57
Speaker 1: Sierra Club. The headline is zero. Club embraced social justice
24:01
Speaker 1: and then it tore itself apart. Just the top lines here.
24:05
Speaker 1: The Sierra Club, which was a huge nationwide environmental group
24:08
Speaker 1: that was understood to be dedicated to environmental issues for
24:11
Speaker 1: a very long time. Originally established to protect the Sierra Nevada,
24:16
Speaker 1: the group has lost sixty percent of the four million
24:18
Speaker 1: members and supporters it counted in twenty sixteen. It has
24:22
Speaker 1: held three rounds of employee layoffs since twenty twenty two,
24:25
Speaker 1: trying to climb out of a forty million dollar projected
24:27
Speaker 1: budget deficit deficit. Its political giving has also dropped. Federal
24:32
Speaker 1: campaign finance records show it put thirty three point six
24:35
Speaker 1: million in donations toward the defeat of Donald Trump in
24:37
Speaker 1: twenty twenty and none in twenty twenty four. Because they
24:42
Speaker 1: tore themselves apart during those four years.
24:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's also.
24:48
Speaker 3: The question of their expenses, which just continued to go
24:52
Speaker 3: up even as revenue did not.
24:55
Speaker 2: It is a case of what is the point of view?
24:58
Speaker 3: And I think a lot of people started to kind
25:01
Speaker 3: of move away from climate change is going to end
25:03
Speaker 3: the world tomorrow. I mean, see Bill Gates on that,
25:07
Speaker 3: and they wanted to maybe put their money towards progressive
25:10
Speaker 3: causes that had a solution moving in the direction of,
25:15
Speaker 3: you know, something that they could have as a tangible win.
25:18
Speaker 2: Well.
25:18
Speaker 1: And the Sierra Club is interesting because I don't agree
25:21
Speaker 1: with its old goal, but its old and pretty successful
25:24
Speaker 1: goal that it built all this support under was we're
25:27
Speaker 1: going to make it really hard to keep coal plants open.
25:31
Speaker 1: And they sued and they demonstrated, and they did all
25:34
Speaker 1: these things and by the numbers, they you know, cut
25:36
Speaker 1: down on those things. Now for their constituency, that was
25:40
Speaker 1: important and good. And after that was done and natural
25:44
Speaker 1: gas and other alternatives had sort of come into that area,
25:47
Speaker 1: not terribly effectively all the time, particularly with wind and electric,
25:51
Speaker 1: but again putting aside there whether their goals are good
25:53
Speaker 1: or not, they then went on to become everything to
25:57
Speaker 1: everyone exactly. They decided that they were going to be diversity, equity, inclusion,
26:02
Speaker 1: they were going to be racial justice, they were going
26:04
Speaker 1: to be anything and everything, and that did not go
26:07
Speaker 1: well for them, right, and.
26:09
Speaker 2: US a resistance group like any other resistance group.
26:13
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, their their new focus included focus I use
26:16
Speaker 1: the term lightly, racial justice, labor rights, gay rights, immigrant rights,
26:19
Speaker 1: and more. And to this day, the leadership stands by
26:23
Speaker 1: that shift that has coincided with this incredible contraction of
26:28
Speaker 1: its membership and ability to do the I would say,
26:31
Speaker 1: damaging things that has been doing in the past, Like
26:34
Speaker 1: I rejoice, but the people you're serving probably shouldn't.
26:37
Speaker 3: Be, right, right, they got one hundred and twenty million
26:40
Speaker 3: dollars from Michael Bloomberg, and he could have given every
26:42
Speaker 3: American a million dollars with that.
26:46
Speaker 1: I think I think the math is correct.
26:47
Speaker 3: I'm just joking, friends that look up the Michael Bloomberg
26:51
Speaker 3: can give every American a million dollars reference New York
26:54
Speaker 3: Times editorial board member did some poor math on m
26:58
Speaker 3: that's NBC, and they let her continue to get away
27:01
Speaker 3: with that.
27:03
Speaker 1: There's a couple of funny quotes from this one. My
27:06
Speaker 1: favorite one might be there were some people who were
27:08
Speaker 1: employed by the Sierra Club that felt like if they
27:10
Speaker 1: didn't fall in love or file excuse me, fall in
27:13
Speaker 1: line with these new directives between twenty twenty and twenty
27:16
Speaker 1: twenty two, they were ostracized, sometimes even investigated. One woman,
27:21
Speaker 1: Delia Malone, and a cologist and volunteer for the club's
27:24
Speaker 1: Colorado chapter, said she heard from attorneys hired by the
27:27
Speaker 1: Sierra Clubs seeking to interview her as part of investigation
27:30
Speaker 1: against her, and she said, what's the claimant? Who made it?
27:33
Speaker 1: They said, we can't tell you that, and miss Malone
27:36
Speaker 1: thought that someone else in the chapter had filed a complaint.
27:38
Speaker 1: She recalled an incident when a club's staff member had
27:41
Speaker 1: scolded her for saying that the club should lobby Colorado's
27:44
Speaker 1: legislature for more protections for wolves that seems within the
27:48
Speaker 1: club's mediea. One of the staffs said, that's fine, Delia,
27:54
Speaker 1: but what do wolves have to do with equity, justice
27:56
Speaker 1: and inclusion? Delia? That's fine, Delia, and I also want
28:02
Speaker 1: to point to this as the pattern that you point
28:04
Speaker 1: out often, which is that they went from effective focused
28:08
Speaker 1: organization to every racial justice, social justice thing under the sun,
28:13
Speaker 1: everything to everyone, which meant they became ineffective. At which point,
28:17
Speaker 1: what did they do, Carol? They became antie siminek. They
28:21
Speaker 1: canceled trip to Israel. They decided that Palestine is an
28:24
Speaker 1: environmental issue from our standpoint of course. Yeah, and they
28:27
Speaker 1: just like went headlong into that as well.
28:30
Speaker 2: Yep, good work everyone.
28:32
Speaker 3: Also, Sidney Sweeney, that was our other woke story from
28:35
Speaker 3: the last week.
28:36
Speaker 1: She gave.
28:38
Speaker 3: A masterclass in not responding to bait from liberal journalists.
28:45
Speaker 3: She really you know, the only thing I would say
28:47
Speaker 3: is her jacket looked a little uncomfortable, and I just
28:49
Speaker 3: wanted to like flip her hair out of it, because, like,
28:53
Speaker 3: you know, as a woman with long hair who gets
28:55
Speaker 3: it caught in my jacket a lot of the time,
28:57
Speaker 3: you know, I know that that's tough.
29:00
Speaker 2: But she did really great.
29:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's play a little clip of this question she's
29:04
Speaker 1: asked about her very famous American Eagle ad campaign.
29:08
Speaker 5: The criticism of the content, which was basically that maybe
29:12
Speaker 5: specifically in this political climate, like white people shouldn't joke
29:16
Speaker 5: about genetic superiority. Like that was kind of like.
29:20
Speaker 2: The criticism broadly speaking.
29:22
Speaker 5: And since you are talking about this, I just wanted
29:24
Speaker 5: to give you an opportunity to talk about that specifically.
29:27
Speaker 1: I think that when I have an issue that I
29:30
Speaker 1: want to speak about, people here.
29:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's nothing else to say. That's it.
29:35
Speaker 3: That is the answer that you give, like, I'll let
29:38
Speaker 3: you know when I have something to tell you, and
29:40
Speaker 3: it won't be in a gene's ad.
29:42
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love this because actually, when Guy and I
29:46
Speaker 1: wrote End of Discussion LO these many years ago, ten
29:48
Speaker 1: years ago now, we noted the Joan Rivers way of
29:51
Speaker 1: dealing with these kinds of incidents. So Joan Rivers would
29:55
Speaker 1: make a joke and someone would say that joke is offensive,
29:58
Speaker 1: and then they would find her at the airport TMZ
30:00
Speaker 1: or whoever and say, like, your joke was offensive. People
30:02
Speaker 1: didn't like it, and she would be like, I don't care.
30:05
Speaker 2: Right, I don't care, yeah.
30:06
Speaker 1: Right, So do not apologize when you don't have anything
30:10
Speaker 1: to apologize for. And that's what got a lot of
30:12
Speaker 1: people in that crazy twenty twenty to twenty twenty three area. Yeah,
30:16
Speaker 1: they were just apologizing for everything. And the truth is,
30:18
Speaker 1: once you apologize, they have their new storyline, which is
30:21
Speaker 1: she apologized, but not good enough? Right, never good enough? Yeah,
30:26
Speaker 1: And Sweeney's just like short circuit. And when she does that,
30:30
Speaker 1: you can tell the interviewer doesn't exactly know what to
30:33
Speaker 1: do right.
30:34
Speaker 3: The interviewer also has trouble making eye contact with her,
30:37
Speaker 3: where Sweeney is like daggers from her eyes and that's
30:40
Speaker 3: become the meme where she's just staring at her interviewer,
30:44
Speaker 3: like not even not afraid, not blinking, like you know
30:49
Speaker 3: you can't come for me?
30:50
Speaker 2: Is the look on her face?
30:52
Speaker 1: Question? Real quick? Do you think all of this is planned?
30:55
Speaker 4: Right?
30:55
Speaker 1: Because celebrity interviews are all planned, I assume that there
30:58
Speaker 1: was some idea that they would talk about this. Yeah,
31:01
Speaker 1: but maybe the interviewer just like she's a pro as well.
31:04
Speaker 1: Did she think she was going to get some more
31:07
Speaker 1: friendly response than this.
31:08
Speaker 2: I think she thought she was going to get something.
31:12
Speaker 3: There's no way she thought she was going to get
31:13
Speaker 3: a blank stare and like, but just the fact that
31:17
Speaker 3: she wasn't making eye contact with Sweeney kind of that
31:21
Speaker 3: was the tell for a lot of people that she
31:23
Speaker 3: knew she was doing something wrong. She was trying to
31:25
Speaker 3: catch the young actress in a political scandal, and Sweeney
31:29
Speaker 3: just wasn't having it.
31:31
Speaker 1: I think her power is really and this is true
31:34
Speaker 1: for anyone in the public eye. She knows who she
31:36
Speaker 1: is and she is not bumped when someone asks her
31:41
Speaker 1: something like this. It's very clear.
31:44
Speaker 3: And you know, she often posts instagrams about her family
31:49
Speaker 3: and they seem like a very tight bunch. And she
31:51
Speaker 3: got in trouble of course because her mom had a
31:54
Speaker 3: you know, make sixty grade again party a few years ago,
31:57
Speaker 3: and she didn't apologize for that one either.
32:00
Speaker 2: She has a very close family and I think that
32:02
Speaker 2: having that universe outside of Hollywood has been very, very
32:07
Speaker 2: good for her.
32:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, good honor.
32:10
Speaker 2: Yep, we like her. Thanks for joining us on Normally.
32:13
Speaker 3: Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere.
32:16
Speaker 2: You get your podcasts.
32:17
Speaker 3: Get in touch with us at normallythepodat gmail dot com.
32:21
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening and when things get weird at normally