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Normally Podcast: Has Mark Zuckerberg Seen the Light? · Normally

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, friends, Normy's countryman. Here we are on normally
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the show with normalist takes for when the news gets weird.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: I'm Mary cather Ham and I am Carol Markowitz.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: I'm Mary Catherine. How is the blizzard going?
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: You know what, it's not just a blizzard at our house.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: It was a blizzard plus norovirus. So we're great. I'm recovering.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Everything's fine.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: The worst you can't even enjoy that. Can't you enjoy
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: the day off?
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Worst snow days ever?
• 0:29
  Speaker 4: But terrible.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: We're recovering.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: So yesterday Mark Zuckerberg released a video saying that Facebook
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: would no longer be participating in censorship, which was odd
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: because he had previously denied that Facebook was participating in censorship.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: But you know, I don't give him too much credit,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: but it absolutely to keep using the phrase we've been
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: using a vibe shift, it is then absolute vibe shift
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: that Mark's Uckerberg released this video, and we're going to
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: play a clip from it. I wanted to even play
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: the whole thing, but maybe that's too much. But here's
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: a clip from it where he talks about some of
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: the changes that Facebook will be making.
• 1:12
  Speaker 5: But the problem with complex systems is they make mistakes.
• 1:15
  Speaker 5: Even if they accidentally censored just one percent of posts,
• 1:18
  Speaker 5: that's millions of people, and we've reached a point where
• 1:21
  Speaker 5: it's just too many mistakes and too much censorship. The
• 1:25
  Speaker 5: recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards
• 1:28
  Speaker 5: once again prioritizing speech. So we're going to get back
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies,
• 1:36
  Speaker 5: and restoring free expression on our platforms. More specifically, here's
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: what we're going to do. First, we're going to get
• 1:44
  Speaker 5: rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes
• 1:47
  Speaker 5: similar to X. Starting in the US, after Trump first
• 1:51
  Speaker 5: got elected in twenty sixteen, the legacy media wrote NonStop
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: about how misinformation was a threat to democracy. We tried
• 1:59
  Speaker 5: in good faith to a rest those concerns without becoming
• 2:01
  Speaker 5: the arbiters of truth, but the fact checkers have just
• 2:05
  Speaker 5: been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: they've created, especially in the US. So over the next
• 2:11
  Speaker 5: couple of months, we're going to phase in a more
• 2:13
  Speaker 5: comprehensive community notes system. Second, we're going to simplify our
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: content policies and get rid of a bunch of restrictions
• 2:21
  Speaker 5: on topics like immigration and gender that are just out
• 2:24
  Speaker 5: of touch with mainstream discourse. What started as a movement
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: it's gone too far. So I want to make sure
• 2:37
  Speaker 5: that people can share their beliefs and experiences on our platforms.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Legacy media, gender issues. It's a whole new world over
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: there at the Facebook, really, I mean, a different kind
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: of tone, different commentary. I even though a lot of
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: things are shifting, this was still somewhat surprising to me.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so lot of people are very cynical about Zuckerberg
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: and his motivations here. And look, obviously part of this
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: is that if you endear yourself to an incoming administration,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: there's less chance that that administration is going to take
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: out whatever I or it might have on you and
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: use whatever levers of power against you. That's, by the way,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: an argument for not having the federal government in charge
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: of so many things.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: But you'd think, right, Yeah.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: What's interesting to me is that people who even if
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: you're cynical about Zuckerberg's motivations here, it is an unqualified
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: good that the best way to suck up to Donald
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Trump is less censorship. For sure, He's not arguing that
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: he will censor the other way. He's saying, we're going
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: to be more hands off to me. Like clearly, the
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: way to do it in the Biden administration was to
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: censor a lot more and to work hand in hand
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: with the government, which Zuckerberg himself even admitted they were
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: doing in front of Congress in August of twenty twenty four,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: when like when the rubber finally hit the road, he
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: was like, yeah, we we have had been working with
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: them and that was probably a mistake. So I think
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: it's you can be excited about it, whatever you think
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: his motivations are. I tend to think that his gut
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: is decent on free speech. For this reason he keeps,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: even when the cultural tides are against him, he keeps
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: sort of coming back to this like it seems like
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: this is his idea of what a Facebook and Metal
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: was supposed to look like. And then he runs into
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: the buzzsaw of content moderation, which then during the twenty
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: twenty era is so pitched and feverish, and again the
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: government is coming to you and telling you to do this.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: If you look back at his twenty nineteen Georgetown speech
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: on free on free speech, it's quite good. And I
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: hope that, unlike from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty, that
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: we actually see the progress he's talking about, that we
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: see the vision that he's talking about. And one of
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: the things that encourages me on that front. Do you
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: know what it is, Carol? What is it? I think
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: he's based now, and I think he's based because he's
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: been doing MMA training for three years.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: A lot of people mentioned that, they were like, he's
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: around men now.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, the Brazilian jiu Jitsu to based pypeline is a
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: real thing.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: It's right there.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: He just asked Dana White, head of the UFC, to
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: join the meta board. So like, this is all I did.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Maybe he's more committed to this than he has been
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: in the past, That's all I'm saying.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Right, And look, I understand the skepticism. The CEOs of
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Telegram and Rumble gave him a little side eye, which
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: is understandable. Pavel d'uov, CEO of Telegram, tweeted, I'm proud
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: that Telegram has supported freedom of speech long before it
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: became politically safe. To do so. Our values don't depend
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: on us electoral psychos. Today, other platforms are announcing they'll
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: now have less censorship, but the real test of their
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: newly discovered values will come once the political wins change again.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: It's easy to say you support something when you risk nothing,
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: fair enough. And then the CEO of Rumble retweeted that,
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Chris Povlovski, and he said, well, said Rumble and Telegram
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: were the only ones to defend free speech when it
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: was extremely difficult to do so. It's easy to say
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: you support something when you risk nothing. He drove again, Yeah,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: I mean I get that, and look, there's a lot
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: of people on the right. When I tweeted that, it
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: was quite amazing that Zuckerberg put this out said don't
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: trust him, and you know he's a liar and he's
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: just doing what best for his bottom line. I get that,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: and I'm very much I hold grudges.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: I'm imperfect, but I also don't want to not take
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: the wins. We have to be able to take the victories,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: and this was a small victory.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're right. You know what was interesting
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: from his his talk there, he hit a couple of
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: things one admitting that like there had been hand in
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: glove censorship with the federal government, by the way, two
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: that it had cut against conservatives, which is something we
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: all know, but nice to have it said for shil Loud.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: He slams the institutional fact checkers, which I think is good.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I think the community notes experiment at X has been successful.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: It is what it is is a conversation between Americans
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: sussing out what's right and what's correct and what is incorrect.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Like that's the nature of it, instead of having this
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: priesthood above us run by the hacks at PolitiFact who
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: then tell you what's right and what's wrong, and it
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: turns out their motivations are not about the truth at all.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: So the fact that he sees that clearly is helpful.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: The other thing he mentioned is that America is unique
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: in its commitment to free speech, and that in order
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: to run a company that is about free speech, he
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: has to partner with the American government to fight rules
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: in other countries and to make this understanding more broad.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: And I thought that was very interesting considering the crackdowns
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: you see in Canada, in Britain, and those are the
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: better parts of the world. For free speech. That's the
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: idea that he's thinking more broadly than that is also
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: interesting to me.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, the fact that he specifically calls out the
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: last four years of being kind of a censorous time.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: It's again, it's impressive. Yes it's a little late. Yes
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: I wish he had done it sooner. Yes I wish
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: he had been braver. But again, take the small wins
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: where we get them, apply pressure to continue this kind
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: of thing. I mean, overall, and I think you and
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: I have maybe talked about this before, but everyone has
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: a bias, everyone has a leaning. Like, let's stop pretending
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: there's only conservatives that have a bias and liberals are
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: able to kind of, you know, be fair about all
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: of this. All of these fact checking organizations are on
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: the left, and they all have a real bias, and
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: a lot of them are activists. So this idea that
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: they're going to fact check the rest of us, it's
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: it's ridiculous. And what X is doing correctly, like you said,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: is it's this you know, wisdom of crowds thing, But
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: it's also things get voted up and down, and just
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: because the crowd said something doesn't mean it's going to
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: stay that.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Way, right, No, it's it's all. It's all very interesting,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Like the proof will be in the pudding as we
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: move forward. Yeah, but I do think, you know, all
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: of these guys want I would say that the fact
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: checking industry being partially defunded in this way excellent. I
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: think it's just a that's a clear way. Yeah, you know,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: all these guys are going to be imperfect in their
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: defensive free speech. With Elon last week, all of a sudden,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: he was like, everyone should be nice, and I'll punish
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: you if you're not nice, right, Like, don't that's not
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: the vision either. In the case of Trump, You've got
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: him going after Ann Selzer with this ridiculous yeah lawsuit
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: for putting out a pole that was wrong, right, how.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: She ruined her own reputation? Like what else do you
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: want from this lady?
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Yes, like, let's not fire. By the way, is defending
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: her in that suit, which I think is the right
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: the right take. That's a nonprofit that does free speech work.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: So they're going to be imperfect. But I contend that
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: it is a vast improvement to have large corporations look
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: at the incoming administration and say, huh, the way to
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: get on their good side, is to do less oppression
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: of American state.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, right right, I'm here.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: For that that.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: I like all of that also, and I support it,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: and I think we should. We'll be right back on normally.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: So there's some scary images and videos coming out of California.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: The Pacific Palisades are suffering this enormous fire. It's just
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: really two dead or so far one hundred mile per
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: hour hurricane force wins. But the stories coming out are
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: just of plain old incompetence, and it's shocking how bad
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: things have gotten there and how it is so not
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: a story. You know, I tweeted this, but imagine this
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: was happening in Florida. Governor DeSantis would be blamed for
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: all of it. I'm kind of afraid Governor DeSantis is
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: gonna be blamed for this anyway, probably in Candoria, right
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: somehow his fault that they don't have water in the hydrants,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: which I can't quite get to the bottom of why
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: that is. There was this clip of Rick Caruso, who
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: ran for mayor against the current mayor, Karen Bess. He
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: was on Fox talking about the buyers. Let's roll that.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: Everybody knew these winds were coming. The other question has
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: to be, you know, we're all the things in place
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: to try to, you know again, mitigate the damage here.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: But the real issue to me is twofold. We've had
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: decades to go remove the brush in these hills that
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: spread so quickly. And the second is you've got to
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: have water. And my understanding is the reservoir was not
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: refilled in time and in a timely manner to keep
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: the hydrants goale. So that's a failure, whether i'm DWP's
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: part or another city agency. But this is basic stuff.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: This isn't high science here, and it's all about leadership
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: and management that we're seeing a failure of and all
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: of these residents are paying the ultimate price for that.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: That isn't that was going to be.
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: My next question is why isn't there water in the
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: fire hydrants?
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: That doesn't make any sense. You're right, that's a good question,
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: and I think he should start asking why don't you
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: call the mayor who's out of the country and ask
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: her and get an answer from her. Well, they say,
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: on her way back, and that would be a great
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: question to ask her tomorrow. If she's at this briefing
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: at eight o'clock in the morning.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Karen Beast, mayor of LA is on her way back
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: from Ghana. No idea why the mayor of Los Angeles
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: would be in Ghana, what that has to do with
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: her role at all. It's just an embarrassment, really is.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. This is the kind of thing where as soon
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: as a disaster these days hits a large city in
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: the US, I am concerned not only about the disaster,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: but about the fact that there's a you know, going
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: to be some backlog of terrible decisions and priorities that
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: ended up making it worse. We lose sight of how
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: very rare it is to have a dysantis operation like
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: you guys have in Florida, that really sets the table
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: for the best possible outcome in terrible situations. And to
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: say the least, the table is not set in la
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: and it makes things worse than they might have been.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: This is a very, very bad scenario. There's a thousand
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: structures that have been affected or destroyed in Pacific Palisades
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: neighborhood of Los Angeles. They are like three or four
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: other fires and different places, one of which has been quelled.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Some twenty nine hundred to four thousand acres if you
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: combine all of them, and the Department of Water and Power,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: while bass is out of town, gave this useless statement
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: saying that the water crews are working in the neighborhood
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: quote to ensure the availability of water supplies. This area
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: is served by water tanks and close coordination is underway
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: to continue supplying the area. You know, it's so perfectly
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: not answering to the problem. And there are many, many
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: brave first responder and firemen out there trying to get
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: this job done. But if you do not have a
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: system in place that serves the barest minimum of what
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: they need, you can't make progress. And this is going
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: to be a really devastating outcome, and I fear that
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: there will be far many more lost than two.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: So Steve Gutenberg, the actor, was on TV last night
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: and I saw a clip of him asking people if
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: they abandon their cars, to please leave the keys in
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: it because they're not letting emergency vehicles through. And the
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: thinking is, where are the elected officials, Where are the
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: people in charge to say this? Why is Steve Gutenberg
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: the guy letting people know to leave the keys in
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: the car, And he was you know, moving cars and
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: he literally, this actor by himself is moving cars off
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: the road. So it's really a crazy situation over there.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: The thing is, and the problem that I foresee here
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: is that they're going to just shrug their shoulders say
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: climate change and not make any of the changes that
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: need making. The truth is, even if you you know,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: I don't want to get into believing in climate change
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: not believing in climate change. If you believe in climate change,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: the answer is not how do we stop climate change?
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: It's how do we make things safer for this climate
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: change that you believe is happening? So irrelevant this whole
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: we focus so much on do you believe in it?
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Do not believe in it? The truth is you need
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: to live in a certain way and do things to
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: preserve the people of your town and city and state.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: And I don't see that happening in California. Where is
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Gavin Newsom for example.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we haven't seen him, and he usually takes the
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: opportunity to get in front of a camera. You know,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: I know that we both have maybe somewhat counterintuitive love
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: for LA. I love LA I love to visit. I
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: think it's a fantastic place. The weather's unbeatable.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: It's so beautiful.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: So many of our beautiful cities Chicago comes to mind,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: are New York is another one, are abandoning their people
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: and the taxpayers who pay exorbitant amounts of money to
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: get not even basic goods and services. By the way,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: this will this is a very well off area of LA.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: For that reason, it will get a lot of attention.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: I think it will contrast not great for the media
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: to Appalachia being covered in western North Carolina. There will
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: be attention paid to it. Perhaps there will be more
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: funds for rebuilding, some private probably, But I wonder also
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: if a lot of those wealthy residents are just like,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not rebuilding here, right, that's.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Gonna be a very good question. Are they going to
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: stick it out and rebuild there and after what they've seen,
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: after the kind of collapse of leadership that they've seen,
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: so all really remains to be seen. Yeah, you're right.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: I love LA I love California. I think it's so beautiful.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: It could be so much better. It's sad to me
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: that these places are failing. I think a lot of
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: the times people think that we're going to be happy
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: about failure in these places, I'm not I'm not at
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: all happy when I see New York in a bad
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: place and I see California in a bad place, I'm
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: not like awesome. I'm upset about it, and I'm upset
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: about this.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm sure this will get more devastating as
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: the news comes out, unfortunately, and I'm just praying for
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: all those who are on the front lines trying to
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: get the job done that they have the water and
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: supplies that they need asap and apparently basses on her
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: way back. I'm sure much like in Chicago where Brandon
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Johnson was elected and like three months later he had
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: a twelve percent approval rating or something like that, the
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: city of Los Angeles might be rethinking its choice in
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Bass versus Caruso, who was the guy who was on
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: the phone talking about this, partly by the way, because
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: he's a developer and has a huge property in Palisades Park.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: So a lot of not great results here.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: We're going to take a short break and come right
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: back with normally.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: All right, shall we move to Hill news? Yeah, it's
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: going on to the Hill. Well one, I think it's notable.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: I don't think we got to this before there is
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: a Speaker of the House there is for this Congress,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: and it is Mike Johnson, Republican. Mike Johnson. There was
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: one vote, which I know is u improvement on the past.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: There have been many votes in the past to get
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: to a speaker, and the margin is so slim that
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: you lose two Republican votes and you're out of luck.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: He did lose two Republican votes during the process of
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the vote, but was able to get everybody back in
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the fold, or all but one back in the fold.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: So Speaker Johnson will be the Speaker for the foreseeable future.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know when that runs out, you know, as
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: we've seen it can be unpredictable. But that will mean
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: that things might move forward, such as the Lincoln Riley Act,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: which is a piece of legislation named after the I
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: believe she was twenty two year old nursing student murdered
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: in Athens, Georgia by an illegal immigrant who had been
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: released from after being accused of crimes two or three
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: times before making his way to Georgia where he murdered
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: this young woman brutally. There's an act named for her
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: which requires which, by the way, I think is probably
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: already law that would require detaining and deporting people who
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: are accused of these crimes. And it passed. It passed
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: the House with a pretty good bipartisan support. I think
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: forty eight Democrats backed it, and now it heads to
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: the Senate where we will truly understand what the vibe
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: shift is because it looks like it said it would
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: require the detention of any undocumented immigrant charged with theft
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: or burglary, and so far a couple of Democrats have
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: already said they're going to back this in the Senate.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: That would be Reuben Gayego, a new senator from Arizona, notable,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: sort of a populist, up and coming young guy, Hispanic man.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: And then we have John Fetterman, always interesting to hear
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: from here. He is on Fox News talking about the Lincoln.
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: Riley Act like it's really common sense. And I'd like
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: to remind everybody that we have hundreds and hundreds of
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: thousands of of migrants here illegally that have convicted of crimes,
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: and I don't know why who wants to defend to
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: allow them to remain in our nation. There that and now,
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: if you're here illegally and you're committing crimes and those things.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: I don't know why anybody thinks that it's controversial that
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: they all need to go.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: Do you think that.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: This was one of, if not the biggest issue for
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: this election. Well, I think if we can't, you know,
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: there's forty seven of us in the Senate, and if
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: we can't pull up with seven votes, and if we
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: can't at least seven out of forty seven, and if
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: we can't, then that's the reason why we lost. That's
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: one of them. That's one of why we lost. In
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: part Go ahead, right, if you think about that, I mean,
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: that's what he's saying.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that would be it really incredible, right. I
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: think I may have told the story on here before,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: but I don't watch that much TV. Maybe like ten
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: fifteen years ago, I'm watching TV channels late at night
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: and I come across Betterman, who I think was a
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: state senator at the time, and I listened to him speak,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, this guy is going to be a problem.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Super far left, very well spoken. He was kind of
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: a different person than in every way because I think,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: you know, obviously his stroke has changed his speech patterns
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: and all of that, but he was super sharp and
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: just I was like, I am worried about this guy,
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: and as I watched him rise, I'd be like, oh God,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: I remember this guy.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: It's a real, real problem.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: And now I think he's like the best Democrat in
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: the Senate basically most sane has the most kind of
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: obvious opinions. He's still, you know, quite far to the left,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: but he is a voice of sanity in a party
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: that really lacks it.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: No, he's he's the embodiment of take the win right
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: betterman is a win for me on a couple of
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: important issues. He's a win for me, and that he
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: speaks obvious truths when no one else in his party
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: wants to. And I think it will in courage people
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: like Geego and others to become more shall we say,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Kirsten Sentima like in their leanings and on certain votes
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: in the Senate. And he was really progressive in the House.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: And it's interesting to have watched him go through a
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: little bit. You know, he's a progressive slash populist, I guess,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: but it does seem like he has become more willing
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: to be a guy who's quote unquote righte coded in
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: his beliefs, just to be on the common sense side
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: of things. And I think he's politically correct to do that,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: and in this case, morally correct, because it does seem
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: like and it goes back to the California issue and
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: the Chicago issue. If you're not doing the very basics, okay,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: so say you let people into the country because you're
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: not doing the border, which seems like a basic anyway,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: once you've failed there, if you can't admit and then
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: make it happen that criminals can be sent home, what
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: are you here for?
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: What are we even doing here?
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: It's just basic stuff. And he knows that, and I
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: appreciate it.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: I wonder if he actually hasn't changed that much. I
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: really sometimes wish I could find that old interview because
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: maybe that was what the progressive left was like, where
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: they you know, protected the lives of Americans and they
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: were quite America first, and all of this kind of
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: stuff like pro Israel, Like the Left used to be
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: pro Israel. Now they're you know, absolutely not. Plus he's smart,
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: and he was even back then very independent, and so
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: I think that he's he's great. I mean, I you know,
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: I can bold him for some of his policy ideas,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: but in general, yeah, take the win.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: By the way, maya culpa. I was wrong about him
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: during the election, not that I would have preferred him
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: necessarily over Oz in the end, but he was wrong
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: to lie about his condition. But I was wrong about
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: how he would end up being a senator, right, And
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I've been impressed.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Same, same on all of that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: you know, senator betterman who knew?
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: Really?
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on normally Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail dot com.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally