Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: From Late-Night Lows to Hunter Biden's Highs

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Normally Podcast: From Late-Night Lows to Hunter Biden's Highs · Normally

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, we are back on MARM. So what normalish takes.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: For when the news gets weird and it's always weird,
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: And in the absence of my dear friend Carol Marchael West,
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: who is actually going to enjoy per trip and vacation,
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: I have called in a ringer my friend Matt Whitlock.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: He has been with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, a
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: couple of Senate offices, longtime Republican communicator and strategists, and
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: host of the Ten Minute Drill podcast, which is exactly
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: what it sounds like. If you want your information in
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: ten minutes, you go get it from Matt Whitlock. How
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: are you doing, Matt.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: Great to be with you. This is very exciting, huge
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: fan of the show. I will do my best to
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: fill in, but my takes will not be quite as saucy.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: I don't have the accent you know of Carol, but
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: I will do my best. Sometimes when she gets really heated,
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: she gets like extra accenting. I really like that, So
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: I'm going to do my best here.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: This is trying to p this is your first hot take,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: because Carol will tell you she doesn't have an accent.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Well, I think we can roll the tape. Luckily that
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: lots of record of her talking, and we can now.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: It's like me, I don't have an accent either.
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: I don't know what.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: There you go, Okay, So let us start today with
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: the New York Times reporting on the autopsy that Democrats
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: are doing on the twenty twenty four election. Now, for
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: those who are not super political junkies and maybe don't know,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: this term and autopsy is basically what it sounds like,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: which is there's a dead campaign that lost and you
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: have to look back at its mistakes and examine what
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: killed it.
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: Is what it sounds like, right, Yeah.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: The Republicans most famously did this in twenty twelve after
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama, and then also famously,
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Trump tossed out every conclusion from that autopsy and did
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: the exact opposite, and.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Here we are with him in his second term.
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: It seemed to work out.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, who knows, man.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: So they're an imperfect analysis, but they're a way for
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: parties to get their heads around this what's going on
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: with the one for twenty twenty four.
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: I love this story. I love the genre.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: I love the idea, idea of trying to pick apart
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: what went wrong. But in this case, I think a
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: lot of us who watched this election play out would argue,
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: and autopsy is not really necessary.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: We know a lot of went wrong, but if you're gonna.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: Do an autopsy, you can't cut out the biggest reason,
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: or what the New York Times called the actual cause
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: of death, which was Joe Biden trying to stand too
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: long and then handing it over too late to Kamala Harris. Personally,
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: I would argue that the biggest problem for them was
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: that Kamala Harris is probably the worst candidate in modern
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: history that's led a ticket, but the Biden part of
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: it is unavoided, and so to cut him out of
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: there kind of defangs the entire thing, like what are
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: you even doing that?
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Well, as I joked, it's like Democrats never missed an
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: opportunity to miss the point, and in this case, they're like,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: you know what the problem.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Was the pack? The pack didn't coordinate properly.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Let's forget that, like coordinating is not actually what it's
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: allowed to do, or sure, and look, the pack Future
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Forward spent five hundred and sixty million dollars and got
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: very little it right. In the way of electoral victories.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: So there's a critique to be made, but I think
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: we're absolutely missing the larger issue. And as you note,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: the larger issue is part Biden.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: It's also the other.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Thing they don't want to wrestle with, which is that
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: they signaled throughout the campaign that they're completely out of
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: touch with Americans and what they care about, and they
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: cannot figure out how to reconcile that.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: When that's so much of these autopsies have come back
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: to what could we say slightly differently? How could we
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: message slightly differently? What podcast could we go on that
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: could have won this for us? What different message could
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: we have put on the spear in Las Vegas for
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: the most expensive aut of all time that could have
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: shifted this for us? When the bottom line is their
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: message was bad. Their messenger was terrible, but their entire
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: message was just atrocious on every issue. They were in
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: the narrow twenty percent of the country who wanted something
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: radical and absurd, while President Trump had every opportunity to
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: just crip walk through the eighty percent issues one after another.
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: The idea Donald Trump criplocking.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: Is something yeah, I thought about until I just said
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: that we will.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: See it in my lifetime. I have no doubt.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Yes, Okay, I think you're correct that. You know when
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: they say like she could have she should have gone
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: on Rogan at this time for this many minutes, and
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: it's like you had no message and you had no messenger.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: You can't end up on Rogan with no message and
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: no messenger because you got three hours to fill and
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Donald Zacher, as you know, can fill it.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: And as Dana Prino always says, you didn't have a
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: you know, calms problem, you had a substance problem. And
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: you can't dress up the lack of a message or
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: a terrible messenger, and when you know eighty million people
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: over it just doesn't work. And that's what they kept
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: running headlong into.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Well.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: I think when the even the New York Times is
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: reporting quote party officials described the draft document as focusing
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: on the twenty twenty four election as a whole, but
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: not on the presidential campaign, which is something like eating
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: at a steakhouse and then reviewing the salad like, ooh,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: you're not in a great place.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: When you've lost the New York Times, you know things
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: are not going well for you. But I think they're
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: exactly right about that. You're missing the forest for the trees,
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: you're missing the steak for the salad, all those different
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: analogies to come to the fact that they're going to
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: spend a lot of money on this, just like they
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: spent that twenty million dollars to try and understand how
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: to communicate with men based on their syntax, and the
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: best they got out of it was, let's put up
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: David Hogg and these effeminate influencers a little bit.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I have a hack for that. Don't hate dudes.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: That's that's the hack for talking to men. It should
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: posts No, it shouldn't, Okay. So that's the more traditional
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: type of autopsy. The parties go through a lot after
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: they lose. You and I have been through these cycles.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: There's some venting, there's some bargaining, there's some anger, and
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: I think we saw all of that in an interview
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: that Hunter Biden has now given to a YouTube personality
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: named Andrew Callahan, and he does a sort of spoofy
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: interview show called Channel five and Hunter Biden showed up
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: on this show and he has a lot to say.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: So here is Biden teeing off to.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: This YouTube host and just a content warning for the parents,
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: if you got the kiddies around, or if you just
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: don't want to hear it. There's a lot of bleeping
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: going on in this conversation. Just play his clip running
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: through the enemies of the Biden camp.
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: Fuck him, fuck him, fuck him and everybody around him.
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: I don't have to be fucking nice. Number one. I
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: agree with Quentin Tarantino. Fucking George Clooney is not a
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: fucking actor. He is a fucking like. I don't know
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: what he is. He's a brand.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Fuck you.
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: What do you have to do with fucking anything? Why
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: do I have to listen to you? We meet and
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: James Carville, who hasn't run a race in forty fucking years,
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: and David Axelrod, who had one success in his political life,
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: and that was Barack Obama. And that was because of
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: Barack Obama, not because of fucking David Axelrod and David
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: Pluff and all of these guys in the Podsave America,
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: guys who were junior fucking speech writers in you know,
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: on Barack Obama's Senate staff, who've been dining out on
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: the relationship with him for years, making millions of dollars,
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: The Anita Dunns of the world, who's made forty fifty
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: million dollars off the Democratic Party.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: They're all going to insert their.
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: Judgment over a man who has figured out, on like
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: anybody else, how to get elected to the United States
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: Senate over seven times and how to garner more votes
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: than any president that has ever won. What influence does
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: Jake Tapper have over anything? He has the smallest audience
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: on cable news and beyond that. I think that the
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: book is right now on Amazon that he put out.
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: I mean, his ratings just went as shit after he
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: put the book out, and you know, they did a
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: two week infomercial for it. I mean it was such
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: a money grab.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: All right, Matt, there's Hunter. It sounds like he has
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: some stuff that he's working out still.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: I don't want to sound insensitive, but I think there's
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: a chance Hunter might be off the wagon that was wild,
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: so he's got some access to grind. As I listen
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: to this, there's parts of it where I'm like, yeah,
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: get him, get him, and then there's parts that I'm like, man,
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: he does not sound good. But I think the biggest
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: takeaway from here is the Biden family is not happy
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: with the way they were treated, which isn't a surprise.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: We've seen that in stories, mentioned a lot over the
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: last six months that they thought he got a raw deal.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: He was mistreated, but man alive. So I mean, I
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: hope Republicans will find a way to pay for some
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: kind of Hunter Biden media tour, because I think if
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: there was one lesson from a Democrat autopsy, it would
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: be you need to move on and never talk about
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: this again. And Hunter is not going to let that happen.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: No, this is the thing that occurred to me as well.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: And from a communications standpoint, this party is desperately trying
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: to coalesce around a message. It's desperately trying to find
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: a new leader. It's desperately trying to move on from
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: this really, really bad thing they did to Americans and
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: to voters and lied to them throughout. And every time
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: it seems like they might get closer to it, Joe
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Biden pops up with a New York Times interview and
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: that was bad enough.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: And now you have this.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: Ooh Hyer coming through the wall like the kool Aid man.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Amazing stuff.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: I'm going to add another clip just so you can
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: really get the Senate of this interview, and they're seated.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: It's very Hunter Biden. Actually they're seed in this beautiful like.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Outdoor area with a little picket fence and the sun
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: is shining. He's just like awesome f bombs, Like it's
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: a perfect encapsulation of the Biden family. Actually here he
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: is talking about illegal immigration once again with the content
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: warning well for.
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: Someone and Michael like all these Democrats say you have
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: to talk about and realize that people are really upset
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: about illegal immigration. Fuck you, how do you think your
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: hotel room gets cleaned? How do you think you got
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: food on your fucking table? Who do you think washes
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: your dishes? Who do you think does your fucking garden?
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: Who do you think is here by the fucking sheer,
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: fucking just grit and will that they've figured out a
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: way to get here because they thought that they could
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: give theirselves in their family a better chance. And he's
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: somehow convinced all of us that these people are the
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: fucking criminals.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: I think it's strange and frequent argument for Democrats that
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: they're like, these are the people who do all my
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: work for me, and we can't lose them because I'm
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: paying them under the table.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: I think Hunter.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Almost like references the garden around him when he's talking
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: about the gardeners.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Not a good look.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: You can almost imagine like a Gavin Newsomer Karen Bass
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: like off camera being like, hey, cut it out, man,
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: that's not helpful to us.
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: That's not helpful.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: Having the former president's incredibly corrupt drug addicted son, who
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: has mysterious amounts of money through various foreign money laundering,
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: arguing that we need more illegal immigrants to serve him
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: is not going to be Democrats' best case on this fight.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: And I just it's easy to see why for four
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: years we almost never saw a Hunter. He is just
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: a nail and a hammer, and at this entire interview
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: is must watch content, in part because like this window
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: into what Joe Biden's been hearing. There's one reason they
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: so mad at Jake Tapper is Jake Tapper described Hunter
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: as the de facto chief of staff. Now look at
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: Hunter losing his mind and consider that's the person in
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden's ear for the last year of his presidency.
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: That's pretty crazy.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: It is pretty crazy.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: He was attending state dinners, he was there the whole time.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: We don't know exactly the influence. I would imagine if
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: we watched that whole interview, which I will be doing,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: there might be some tinbits in there that might teach
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: us a little bit about how much influence he had. Anyway,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: that's how they're working that out. We will be back
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: on normally in a minute with more on the Vibe.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Shift, which we always like to cover here.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: All right, we are back with the Vibe Shift and
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: with my friend Matt Witlock, but we always like to
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: cover on this show the cultural vibe shift in twenty
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: twenty five, which has come off of the election year
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: and really seems to be flexing.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: At this point. So let's talk about comedy.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Let's start with Stephen Colbert, who lost his gig as
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: a late night host. I've put comedy in quotes late
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: night comedy show hosts. Yes, his job won't end until
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: the end of the season next year, so I believe
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: it's like May twenty twenty six before he's off the air.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: But he announced it to get ahead of the story.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: And now there's all Stirm and Draang and much much
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: outcry about this from the left that apparently just believes
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: that lefties who want to live their dreams in media
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: should have everyone else's money all the time to do
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: so exactly.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: And I should preface my comments with I'm one of
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: the few conservative Republicans who loves Saturday Night Live. I
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: love late night comedy, even though I spend most of it,
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: you know, thinking, oh, there's another like Trump joke, there's
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: another anti Republican joke. But some of it I actually
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: think is like kind of funny, Like I think the
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: current SNL Trump impression is one of the most incredible
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: pieces of comedy we've seen in a long time. But
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Colbert moved away from comedy a long time ago, and
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: it's a theme that people talk about quite a bit
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: on social media, where they shifted from laughs to trying
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: to get applause for righteous indignation, which has not been comedy.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: And it started all the way back in twenty seventeen.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: And there's been so many clips of Stephen Colbert doing
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: what he really loves, which which just CosIng up to
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: Democrats not making jokes and not doing comedy. And so
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: for me, when I see every Democrat talk about how
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: he spoke truth to power, you have to remember that
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: to them, that only means talking bad about President Trump.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: He had an opportunity to speak truth to power because
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: Stephen Colbert, you might remember, hosted a huge twenty six
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: million dollar fundraiser with Joe Biden just two or three
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: months before the George Clooney fundraiser that ended the Biden presidency.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: Colbert didn't have anything to say about it because he
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: prioritized cozing up to Barack Obama people like that much
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: more than actually holding anyone accountable. And to be fair,
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: his job was comedy, so holding people accountable wasn't supposed
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: to be his first job, but he failed at that too.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Yes, I love that every picture, every post that says
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: he held he spoke truth to power is just a
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: picture of him goofing off and laughing with a Democratic politician.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Because you're right, that's all they mean, is just Trump exactly.
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: Now.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: I think you're right that, like you don't want to
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: be spending a variety show in late night holding everyone
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: accountable all the time. I don't think that's the point
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: of it. That's why you know, Letterman did well with
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: like stupid pet tricks, and Carson never tried to be
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: a messenger in that way.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Also, the late night format is hitting a tough road.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: You know, the money's not there for it, the advertisers
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: aren't there for it, the viewers are getting much older.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: And I think Colbert did the best he could for
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: those first couple of years of the Trump administration, seeing like,
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: oh I can add a little bit on the margins
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: by really getting the libs to watch me, and then
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: it just ran out of steam.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: It did. And it's funny.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: I saw a study that showed that his average audience
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: when he started his show, the age was sixty and
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: at the end of the time was when he was canceled,
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: the average audience had gone up to sixty eight. Some
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: of that, as you're talking about, is just the general
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: sort of media shift in dynamics. People are watching less
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: late night. But I also just think people got so
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: tired of it. You turn on late night comedy to
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: try and unplug from the stress of the day. And
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: that's all that Stephen Colbert wanted to talk talk about,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: is the grievances. There's one video in particular after Trump
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: won where Steven gets like right up to the camera
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: and talks about this isn't normal, and you're like, wait,
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: a sec. I tuned in to this to laugh, and
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: all you're doing is reminding me of all the annoying
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: things throughout the day that I had to get through
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: to get to this point in my day before I
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: go to bed. And so it's easy to see why
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: it failed. Also, like he's making twenty million dollars a
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: year for a show that's losing forty million dollars a year.
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: Like the economy, the economics of it just aren't there.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Apparently it took one hundred million dollars to make that show.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: How many writers do you have? I do think there's
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: this is an era too.
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: The left will argue that this was all about a
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: merger and acquisition that the Trump administration can or cannot approve,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: and therefore CBS is sending this message that they are
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: on Trump's side, And like, I just think it was
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: probably a good time to cut bait because we're living
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: in an era where, particularly with TikTok and reels, which
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: have their up their good sides and their bad sides.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: But I think one of the ups is that you
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: look around and you go, wow, a lot of people
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: have perhaps more comedic chops than you were exposed to
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: in the past, and they you get exposure to all
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: this comedy all day long. You don't need to sign
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: up for one hundred million dollar stable of writers to
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: watch Stephen Colbert lecture you on politics.
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: Exactly exactly.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: It's easy to see that they're just we've moved away
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: from this, you know. And I do think that there's
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: some models of late night that seem to be working.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: Like you know, Greg Guttfeld is killing it. There's an
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: audience for that, and I think in part because it's
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: a little bit more lighthearted, you're not feeling lectured while
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: you're watching it like you do with Colbert Kimmel, even Fallen.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Sometimes I think Fallen is the one who's found a
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: way to sort of inject games and funny, more lighthearted
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: things into it. But his show is struggling too, And
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: I think to your point, the economics are shifting away,
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: the audience is just shifting away in other formats and
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: other mediums.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Is the He's my favorite of the late night guys.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Fallon is for that reason because I'm just like, oh,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: you seem like kind of nice and fun.
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: I don't feel like you hate me when I watch you.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, that is an important part of it. Speaking of SNL,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: this is part of the vibe shift. So Shane Gillis
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: is another comic who was rejected by SNL after being
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: hired by SNL. I can't remember the year and have
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: to look it up, but it was in the year's.
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: I think maybe twenty two.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: I think it was maybe twenty one.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: At any rate, it was when everyone was insane and
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: he told problematic jokes, and so after they found his
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: problematic jokes, they rescind his offer to be a writer
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: and cast member on SNL. They later came back and said, oh,
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: you are very successful, will you host SNL? And I
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: like SNL too. I've been a longtime SNL watcher since
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: I was a kid. And when they shine, they really shine.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: But man, they can produce some some bad stuff too.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: But Shane's one of the bright parts. So I was
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: excited to watch him come back and do his monologue.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: I think he's I think he's hosted twice since then,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: and he has now been given the reins to the
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Spies this week, and I just want to play one
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: joke which I think characterizes his.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Monologue, and it's a very one. Here's Shane Gillis at
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: the SPS.
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: Megan Repino could not make it tonight. Nice. No, We're
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: gonna pretend she's a good time, all right. Uh.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: I'm so glad you picked that clip because I saw
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: that one.
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: Like a few days later.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: My entire Instagram feed has been clips of Shane Gillis
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: at the SP's because I fall a lot of sports
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: and I follow out of comedy and that's dominating. I
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: had missed that one until yesterday, and I loved it
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: so much.
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: We're just gonna.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: Pretend she's a good time, okay, because he's kind of
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: a fish out of water in that room, you know, yes.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Well, and it punctures exactly what people want Shane Gillis
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: to puncture, which is this like self righteous, tired, like
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: harping on everyone all the time vibe that is perfectly
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: encapsulated by Megan Raupino. And the whole room knows she's
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: not a good time. That's like, that's the perfect part
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: about it. I love to see it. He's a guy
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: who takes risks. He's a guy who takes risks in
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: a room. People are going to get mad at him
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: for doing that. There's another great gag where he uses
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: the beautiful African American wife of his friend to say
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: that there's an UNBA MVP in the room or Hall
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: of Famer in the room, and that the camera cuts
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: to her and everyone cheers because they don't know who
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: plays in the WNBA, and he knows that, and then
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: he just sells them all out and he's like, yeah,
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: that's that's my buddy's wife.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: That was so good because people forget that the WNBA
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: is actually probably the most political of all the sports leagues.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: These women are doing marches.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: They when the Georgia election law passed, they were out
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: attacking every Republican. They are the most politically active out there,
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: but they also have the least ground to do it
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: because they have the smallest audience, the least amount of
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: money and things like that. And when you bring Shane
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: Gillis in, you know you're going to get some of that,
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: and I thought he delivered. It reminded me a lot
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: when they had Ricky GERVAISI the Golden Globes and he
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: spent the entire night lampooning everyone in the room. People
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: are super uncomfortable, but like, there's a reason they did it.
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: It's great TV and there were some like really quiet
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: moments after Shane Gillis's jokes where people were like, I
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: don't know, that makes me uncomfortable. The TV audience loved it,
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: and it crushed on social media, so I kind of
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: feel like they brought him in in part for the room,
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: but also for everyone else to like really enjoy someone
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: actually like bring some of these athletes down to earth
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: just a little bit. And the Megan Rera Pino joke
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: was so perfect because she's so insufferable and you have
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: to imagine like other athletes are like this lady again.
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: Oh my god.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, no, you're right about the WNBA.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: They seem allergic to success, like as if they just
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: want to push it away from themselves. Yep, and they
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: find new and creative ways to do it all the time.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I just enjoyed the contrast this week of
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: the left telling us that we must just throw money
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: not just at NPR and PBS, but also gajillionaire Stephen Colbert,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: who just gives other people's money a democracy relies on.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: It's like absolutely, if you can't make fun of the president,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: do we really have a democracy?
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: Like, yeah, turn on any channel ever. By the way.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Shane Gillis also made fun of the president. He did
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: some Epstein jokes like this is It's fine.
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: Guys, something for everyone.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: The Republic will survive. Okay, Yeah, we're gonna take a break.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: We will be back in a minute with it in
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: case you missed it from both Matt and me. All Right,
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: we are back on normally with my buddy Matt Whitlock.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being here. You have a
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: little in case you missed it story I believe about
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: one of our favorite favorite former secretaries in the cabinet.
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: Yes, this is a great story.
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: New York Post broke this morning a story that Pete Bodhajic,
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: presidential hopeful leading in a number of Democrat primary polls,
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: spent eighty billion dollars on DEI grants while delaying air
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: traffic control upgrades. Part of the reason I love this
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: is throughout the Biden administration, we'd regularly get a new
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: story of Pete Boodagech doing something insane like forcing you
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: to host neighborhood block parties if you wanted to build
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: an EV charging station or transit equity day, or pretending
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: to ride his bike to events so that he could
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: show up in his helmet, but it turns out he
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: just pulled it out of the back of the Secret
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: Service SUV. So in Democrats talk about how this guy's
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: like their rising star. I just like, I would love
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: for that to be our next presidential campaign, whether it's
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: JD versus Pete or whoever. Like Bodagic gives us so
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: much to work with and it's awesome.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a travesty that he was doing that,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: And I.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Just like he's always like playing like ooh, the Trump
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: administration isn't on top of these transportation is used like, sir, you.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Have never been at the switch ever. Some amazing stuff. Okay,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: I have a little bit of a wonky.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: One Wall Street Journal had a piece on the National
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Environmental Policy Act of nineteen seventy, which actually we have
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: talked about on this show before because it was one
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: of Trump's executive orders that I was excited about. It
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: reforms permitting, It gets a bunch of environmental nonsense and
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: red tape out of the process so that people can build.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: That then cuts down on how.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Much litigation and environmentalist groups can do on these projects.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: And what Trump did was he asked all the agencies
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: to say, well, how can you streamline this, Let's only
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: apply it to the most important things. Because as all regulation,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: the NIPA became this huge morass of requirements. And what
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: happened is a twenty twenty federal study found that at
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: that point it took four point five years average to
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: complete an environmental mental impact statement.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Required, not the project, the environmental statement.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: So a bunch of a bunch of the agencies have
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: now gotten together and said, okay, here's how we're simplifying.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: The Supreme Court has spoken on this and said that
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: NIPA should not be a roadblock to getting anything done.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: It's just a way to severe like serious issues. And
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: so it looks like a brighter day for building things.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: Incredibly valuable, huge, huge coup for the Trump administration.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: All right, well those are in case you missed it. Guys, Matt,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: where can we find you and where should we look
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: for you?
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: Timided you can find it on Twitter, Instagram, but primarily
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: YouTube and Apple podcasts, I think are the best places
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: for every Tuesday and Thursday.
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: And it's a lot of fun.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: It's just as you said, if you want your politics
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: in ten minutes or less, because you've got so much
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: going on, or you are listening to other longer, smarter podcasts.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: This is like your cliff Notes, so check it out.
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: Love it.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us on and normally.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Thank you to all of you guys for joining us
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: on Normally.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays in can subscribe anywhere you
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: get your podcasts.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Get in touch with us at normally thepod at gmail
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks for listening and when things get weird
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: at normally