January 28, 2025 • 22 mins
In this episode, Mary Katharine and Karol discuss the impact of leadership changes in the U.S. government, particularly under President Trump. They explore domestic policies, disaster response, immigration issues, and the controversies surrounding clemency decisions made by Joe Biden. The conversation also touches on the origins of COVID-19 and the media's role in shaping public perception. Normally is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi, yeahs, and welcome back to normally the show with
normalist takes before the news gets weird. I'm Mary Catherine hamp.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm Carol Markoitz. I'm Mary Catherine. What an exciting weekend.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Oh my goodness. There's a lot going on in the
new administration, which is not very old. There are nonetheless
results on both a domestic and a foreign relations front.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I'm not tired of winning yet.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Shall I start with domestic? President Trump traveled to two
disaster areas on the first Friday of his administration. He
had announced earlier he was going to go to LA
to check on the wildfires, which I appreciated. He added
a trip that he announced on inauguration Day, I believe,
to western North Carolina, which has been really like disappointingly
(00:54):
abandoned both in attention and resources since Helene fled the
whole place in September and October of twenty twenty four.
It's been a while out there.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Now, it's been a while.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
It's been four months. And you know, I check back
in periodically because I'm from North Carolina. A lot of
media doesn't check back in, and I've talked to people
on the ground who are just saying there's no one here.
There's no one who cares, there's no one reporting on
it aside from local news. There's no one. There's no
(01:29):
one sending resources or people. And these are folks who
are doing daily work on the ground, so if there
were resources there, they would.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Be seeing them.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
And there's just a total dearth. So Trump goes and
he speaks a bit, but he also does a thing
that I love that he does sometimes, which is he
gives the mic away, which is maybe counterintuitive for what
people think about Trump. He gives the mic away effectively
to several people who have suffered loss in this storm.
(02:00):
So let me just let's hear a little bit about
one of their stories.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
There were like a lot of family members there that
passed away, like eleven of them, and there were people
out everywhere looking for their loved ones, and there were
dead bodies.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
You know.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
My son's like, Mom, you're going to see things you
don't want to see. And so anyway, we got through
all that, but I stayed at our church in our
sound booth. My husband and I we just slept up
in the sound booth for a couple of months because
we didn't have power anything for about two months out there,
and then we have went back. I've been fighting with
(02:37):
FEMA since day one. Our community there's like thirty two homes.
We don't have a road in a bridge. We're driving
through our neighbor's property. You know. I went to EMS
and I said, look, my concern is if we have
a fire or we have an emergency out here, you
don't going to get to us. You can't get those
big trucks up here. And I've called and called and
(02:59):
called FEMA, and you know it's this happened on September
twenty seventh. That's four months ago. Well for us, today
is still September twenty seventh. You know, we haven't had HILP.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So that is not an atypical experience in western North Carolina.
At this point, he goes down there, he has the event.
Suddenly there's all this attention, and wouldn't you know it,
National News is covering it again. It's amazing, and the
Army Corps of Engineers speaking with and following the Twitter
accounts of those who I know on the ground, the
(03:34):
Army Corps of Engineers is everywhere clearing debris, getting roads ready,
doing things that private people had been doing private charities
and just regular guys with back hose, had been doing
for four months.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Suddenly it's amazing. A change of president could really affect
a lot of things, even local things like that, which
we don't maybe expect. I love what he did in California,
and I think that him handing over the mic in
North Carolina is it's great. It's a real sea change
from what we had president who never spoke to media,
(04:09):
who didn't seem to know what was going on. And
this is the difference is here, and it's very very clear.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Well, and it speaks to you know, I am not
a person who wants to put all of my faith
in a political leader. However, leadership does matter when you
take control and you say these are my expectations, that
can change a lot on the ground, and it seems
to be doing so in North Carolina. Trump is also
(04:37):
sufficiently suspicious of FEMA that he's calling for a review
of exactly how FEMA works and whether it's worth having around.
In the meantime, a former Navy seal, Cameron Hamilton, is
the interim head of FEMA as this administration starts. But
Margaret Brennan was talking to jd Vance this weekend and
(04:59):
she had some thoughts on whether states can do emergency
management without FEMA, and maybe you, as you're from Florida,
have some thoughts on that. But here's Margaret Brennan and J.
D Vance talking about it.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
You know, FEMA has specialized expertise that some of these
states just don't have. Oh Arsenal and I wish that
these states who are who are lower income states, the Mississippis,
the Kentucky's, the Alabamas be able to do this for
themselves without federal Well, the President, to be clear, is
not saying We're going to leave anybody behind. He's saying
that in the way that we administer these resources, some
(05:33):
of which is coming from the federal levels, some of
which is coming from the state.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Level, we've got to get the bureaucrats out of the
way and get the aid to the people who need
it most. How could they do it? Can I be clearer, Carol?
The federal government's expertise is in taking as much money
as possible from taxpayers and then sending it elsewhere. That's oliverertise. Yeah, okay,
I would love if FEMA were actually expert at helping
people in disasters, but it really doesn't look that way.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
That's right. Yeah, And look the local thing, it's like
the local governments can get the experts. I mean, you know,
when it's once every decade snowstorm hits Florida, bron de
Santis somehow finds the snowplows that nobody knew we had.
It's all possible. And I think that's like what the
difference between the left and the right have always been.
(06:21):
Has always been that the right believes that the individual
and the smaller government and the local can do it,
and the left thinks that only the federal government is
capable of it. But they've failed again and again and again.
So maybe let's give our way a shot. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, And like, give the resources that you're otherwise holding
for FEMA to the people with the back hoes who
strolled up to their neighbor's houses and decided to clear
roads for four months.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Let's give them the reins for a little while.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I don't see why not, really.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
It is so frustrating. I do think emergency management is
one of those things that I've become like strangely passionate
about the last couple of years, because it seems like
something that if you just have a couple of smart
people who are thinking ahead a little bit, you can
really do wonders for citizens.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I love your passionate about it. I think we should
continue to talk about North Carolina and we will so.
Also over the weekend, Donald Trump got into a bit
of a kerfuffle with Columbia. Apparently they loaded two planes
of Colombian illegal immigrants who had also committed crimes in
the United States and sent them back to Columbia, and
(07:33):
Columbia refused the planes, turning them back. Trump tweeted on
his truth social I don't really know how to refer
to that, he truthed, He said, I was just informed
that two repatriation flights from the United States with a
large number of illegal criminals were not allowed to land
in Columbia. This order was given by Columbia's socialist president,
(07:54):
Gustavo Petro, who was among who was already very unpopular
amongst his people. I love that Trump is, you know,
and nobody likes him.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
No life. He likes that guy.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Petro's denial of these flights has jeopardized the national security
and public safety of the United States. So he directed
his administration to implement twenty five percent tariffs, travel ban
and immediate visa revocation. He's are sanctions on all party members,
et cetera, a bunch of stuff. Later that same day,
(08:24):
the Colombian president relented and said his problem wasn't with
receiving his own nationals back, which you know, I should
hope not. It was with the type of airplane used.
It was a military plane. That's ridiculous. He needed them
to travel in comfort. Really, that's the issue here, So
he sent his own plane. He also wrote a fifteen
(08:46):
hundred word, you know, manifesto that he posted on Twitter.
I'm very much not reading that, bro, but allegedly the
gist of it was I don't bend to this guy.
Though he did bend to this however. Yeah, so another
Trump win. I saw, you know, I saw American leftists
(09:08):
saying Trump should have just continued the Biden policy of
putting them on passenger jets and whatever. Fine, maybe that
Biden policy of sending back a legal immigrants was working.
I didn't see that work. But okay, whatever Trump kind
of decides to do, that's different than Biden. Right now,
I give him some leeway on it. If he thinks
(09:28):
that military flights are the better path to get these
people out of our country and into their own countries,
I'm okay with that. And so this idea that like, oh,
we put them on the wrong flights, like.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Spare me no same. Have you ever been put on
a flight for free in the American government?
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Haven't?
Speaker 1 (09:46):
No? I think this feels very much like the United
States of America has been watching a lot of reels
about how to set proper boundaries, and now we have
an actual boundary in the border, and one of our
boundaries is going to be Hey, if you're not going
to accept and repatriate the citizens who have come here illegally,
(10:07):
here are some of the things that we will do right, right,
because we have someone who's going to make good on
this promises now, because look, there's an old version of
me that one hundred percent would have been like, oh,
this is very rash. What are we doing the relations
between Columbia and the US. This is the sacred way
(10:28):
of doing things that we've always done. Things go through
the State Department, have a bunch of back and forth.
It doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
It doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
You get walked all over he truths. An hour later,
the problem solved. We didn't have to have a Blue
ribbon commission. We didn't have to stroke a bunch of egos.
Threat made this guy seems crazy. He might make good
on the threat. We're not messing with you, right.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
If there was a gentler solution, somebody would have tried
it affect actively up until this point. The fact that
there wasn't and it didn't work, and none of this
had worked before, is why we have Donald Trump period.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Well, and here's another thing. You established when you do
that one time, as I know with parenting, if you
if you if something is established as a as a standard,
the other folks who observe you, the younger kids create
this standard, will then know that that is the standard. Yeah,
and maybe you don't have to do that in the future.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
That's right. Yeah, That's that's really what it's all about. Also,
if I was put on an uncomfortable flight home or wherever,
and then I had to fly back and then only
to be put on a more comfortable flight, I would
not enjoy that. If I already landing, like, let me
land on this uncomfortable flight. I'm good.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
I mean, the whole thing sounds like nonsense about the
type of plane.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, it totally sounds like nonsense.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Yeah, nobody likes that guy anyway.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Nobody likes him, So why are we even listening to
what he has to say?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Oh my gosh, I do I like I am much
like you. I'll give I give leeway partly because I
am starved for effective leadership. Yeah, you're not as starved
because you live in Oh that's not true. I'm a
big governor here too, but it is because of my
proximity to DC get I get very right exposed to
the worst of leaders.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
You and I are not huge maga people. Which is
funny because we were on a show recently and like together.
We were on askajew podcast and some of the comments
were like, oh my god, these two trumpers.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
It's like in a room of anti trumpers, you and
I are big trumpers, yes, but in a room of
like hardcore trumpers, you and I are like moderate trumpers.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah. As I've told you, I like to be optimistic
at the beginning of an administration, and I was optimistic
or tried to be at the beginning of the Biden administration.
So if I'm a sucker. I'm a bipartisan sucker, but
I think it's good practice to attempt to be open
minded at the beginning of administration. Yeah, and frankly, Trump's
(13:01):
out there arguing with Karen Bass about how come people
can't clean up their property starting today, and suddenly it
changes the game exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
We like to see competence, and it doesn't matter if
we like or don't like or whatever the person. If
Joe Biden had been competent, I would have enjoyed that
that didn't happen. We'll be right back on normally.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
We were from the ever present executive who's.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Been to his values and competence, to.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
The absent executive that we had in office before Trump.
And there's new news out, a little scoop that the
ACLU sent a list of quote, nonviolent drug offenders for
clemency over to President Biden at the end of his term,
(13:55):
and wouldn't you know it, President Biden totally with it,
signed all those folks out. They were really good to everyone,
despite the fact that one of them killed an eight
year old boy and his mother because they were going
to testify against him in Connecticut. Is that wrong? Adrianne Peeler.
(14:20):
He was serving a twenty year state prison sentence for
a murder conspiracy in the nineteen ninety nine shootings of
Leroy BJ Brown and his mother Karen Clark in Bridgeport,
killings that shocked the city and led to improvements in
state witness protection. The state had to create a new
program to protect people after this. Biden let clemency as
of I think July Biden didn't know he did.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
That, right, Yeah, he had no idea. This guy was
serving on federal drug charges until twenty thirty three, and
so I think that that was what they saw, the
drug charge. This lie that it's all these people smoked
a little weed. It's never that. It's never, oh, they
(15:04):
you know, did a little drugs. I'm actually very soft
on drug decriminalization. You know, you want to use drugs
and you don't commit any other crimes, like, you know,
go with ja as people say. But look, this is
a totally different story. And the thing is it again
exposes that we didn't have a president for a long
(15:26):
time and who was running the country. We just have
no idea.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah, the basically this story is an admission that oops,
his staff didn't check this particular thing well enough, and it's.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Like, yeah, you know, and now a double murderers out
on the street.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
It's like, and here's the thing. The president does have
sweeping pardon powers, right you really it's very hard to
argue against any of them. But the president's staff doesn't
have sweeping power. Yeah, and the president's staff doesn't have
a lot of powers that they were probably using for
the past four years. And the fact that that's not
(16:04):
the largest scandal of my lifetime is something else.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Do you think we're going to get books that actually
tell what really happened? Because I think the first book
to do that will be a giant bestseller. So they
all have to be kind of racing to the publisher
right now, don't they, one would think.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
I guess the question for those in media who had
access to this is a how much they exposed the
fact that they knew about it, because those who had
greatest access for sure knew what was happening and scoffed
at the rest of us with no access, who nonetheless
somehow spotted president wasn't totally with it. So they have
(16:44):
to figure out how much they're going to tell on themselves.
Then they have to figure out how much that's going
to trash the brand of the Democrats, which is their
preferred party and which is currently already quite trashed.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, so that's the question. Do they do that? Do
they go for it? I still think yes, I still
think that book, at least one person is going to
tell the inside story of what happened and who was responsible,
And of course they're going to say that they had
nothing to do with any of that. But you know,
then the second book, the second book, we'll tell their story.
(17:16):
So yes, we'll get there.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Mmmm, we'll learn things at some point.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, yeah, now it can be told. We're going to
take a short break and come right back with normally.
The other story from this weekend is the ci A
now thinks that COVID leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
No kidding, Yeah, I know. Is this the fourth federal
agency to come to this conclusion? I think right? And
now now that we're five years on, it's.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Amazing, It really is amazing. It's it's another now it
can be told story where you were not allowed to
say that that. That's what the last four years, more
than anything I'll remember about the Biden administration was you
were not allowed to say things that we all knew
to be true, and this was one of them. It
was actually John Stewart made this great line. You know,
(18:13):
if there was a chocolate spill in Hershey, Pennsylvania, like
we don't know who did it, we.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Wouldn't be confused about where that came from. Yes, no,
I remember this is one of my one of my
first twenty twenty feelings of looking around and going so
everyone going crazy, like there's a so there's a coronavirus
lab where they do experiments with coronavirus there, But you're
telling me it came from somewhere totally different and much
(18:40):
more innocent. Okay, the headlines on these. Drew Holden is
always good at pulling these together. From twenty twenty, Senator
Tom Cotton repeats fringe theory of coronavirus origins. Scientists have
dismissed suggestions that the Chinese government was behind the outbreak,
but it's the kind of tale that gains track among
those who see China as a threat. Yeah, okay, York,
(19:04):
can we do that? New York Times this week, CIA
now favors lableak theory to explain COVID's origins. A new
analysis that began under the Biden administration is released by
the CIA's new director, John Ratcliffe. Thank you, John, who
wants the agency to get off the sidelines in the debate. Yeah.
Truth is good, transparency is good. Yeah, we're getting so
(19:24):
much more transparency during this administration already.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Right, Yeah, and I love that obviously, but it is
galling how many years they made us think that we
were the crazy ones and the racist ones. The whole
thing was the lab leak theory was racist. But some
guy ate a bat in a wet market in China
and that's how COVID started. Yeah, that's not racist. Somehow
(19:49):
it didn't even make sense, Like, how did that not racist?
That's so much more racist.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
No, and China, because of this lag time, China has
yet to pay a price. Were having done this to
all of us. They prevented many people from getting ready
in ways that would have been helpful, and then we
went and did the damn Olympics there like it just yeah,
(20:14):
it's been a ride. Yeah, and we lied for years.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Oh yeah, and they lied to us about so many
different things. I mean, just remember the early videos of
people like falling over and dying in China from COVID,
and they led us to believe it was a completely
different virus than it was. It just all around, China's
not our friend, and the fact that we were forced
to pretend that they didn't do this thing that we
all obviously knew that they did was again.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Galling amazing stuff. Yeah, I think we wanted to correct
one thing for the record, lest new fake news be made.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yeah, let's let's cut off that fake news. There was
a story that Ice came to a Chicago public school
and all these people were like, we're not going to
stand for you coming into our schools and taking the
children out. And let me tell you, the Chicago Ice
story was very popular on the Brooklyn boards that I'm
(21:09):
still on because they were all going to form like
a chain outside their own schools and not let Ice in.
Turned out, it wasn't Ice. It was Secret Service who
came to the school looking for somebody who had made
a threat.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
So that sounds legit and like the normal way of
doing things. This is one of the things that I
think it's important for people like us to do, which
is there are going to be freakouts. Oh yeah, and look,
there's sweeping change happening in a lot of ways, and
that makes many of the people who report on the
(21:47):
federal government and the federal government very uncomfortable. And so
there are going to be people who lose it or
misreport things and make something out of nothing. And look,
when there are problems, we should talk about it, Sure
we will. There's fake stuff. We should say, hey, that
one's not real, guys, and it shouldn't be turned into
(22:10):
a symbol of the Trump administration when it's the Secret
Service job not right.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Fake story gets spread and people get very concensed about
it and think that you know something that is happening
that just plainly is not. And again, these people are
the ones who think that they are not susceptible to
fake news. They think that where are the suckers falling
(22:37):
for all the fake news everywhere?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
That's all that we do.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yeah, perhaps check yourself is the message here. Thanks for
joining us on Normally. Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and
you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get in
touch with us at normallythepod at gmail dot com. Thanks
for listening, and when things get weird, act normally
Hi, yeahs, and welcome back to normally the show with
normalist takes before the news gets weird. I'm Mary Catherine hamp.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm Carol Markoitz. I'm Mary Catherine. What an exciting weekend.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Oh my goodness. There's a lot going on in the
new administration, which is not very old. There are nonetheless
results on both a domestic and a foreign relations front.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I'm not tired of winning yet.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Shall I start with domestic? President Trump traveled to two
disaster areas on the first Friday of his administration. He
had announced earlier he was going to go to LA
to check on the wildfires, which I appreciated. He added
a trip that he announced on inauguration Day, I believe,
to western North Carolina, which has been really like disappointingly
(00:54):
abandoned both in attention and resources since Helene fled the
whole place in September and October of twenty twenty four.
It's been a while out there.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Now, it's been a while.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
It's been four months. And you know, I check back
in periodically because I'm from North Carolina. A lot of
media doesn't check back in, and I've talked to people
on the ground who are just saying there's no one here.
There's no one who cares, there's no one reporting on
it aside from local news. There's no one. There's no
(01:29):
one sending resources or people. And these are folks who
are doing daily work on the ground, so if there
were resources there, they would.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Be seeing them.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
And there's just a total dearth. So Trump goes and
he speaks a bit, but he also does a thing
that I love that he does sometimes, which is he
gives the mic away, which is maybe counterintuitive for what
people think about Trump. He gives the mic away effectively
to several people who have suffered loss in this storm.
(02:00):
So let me just let's hear a little bit about
one of their stories.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
There were like a lot of family members there that
passed away, like eleven of them, and there were people
out everywhere looking for their loved ones, and there were
dead bodies.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
You know.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
My son's like, Mom, you're going to see things you
don't want to see. And so anyway, we got through
all that, but I stayed at our church in our
sound booth. My husband and I we just slept up
in the sound booth for a couple of months because
we didn't have power anything for about two months out there,
and then we have went back. I've been fighting with
(02:37):
FEMA since day one. Our community there's like thirty two homes.
We don't have a road in a bridge. We're driving
through our neighbor's property. You know. I went to EMS
and I said, look, my concern is if we have
a fire or we have an emergency out here, you
don't going to get to us. You can't get those
big trucks up here. And I've called and called and
(02:59):
called FEMA, and you know it's this happened on September
twenty seventh. That's four months ago. Well for us, today
is still September twenty seventh. You know, we haven't had HILP.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So that is not an atypical experience in western North Carolina.
At this point, he goes down there, he has the event.
Suddenly there's all this attention, and wouldn't you know it,
National News is covering it again. It's amazing, and the
Army Corps of Engineers speaking with and following the Twitter
accounts of those who I know on the ground, the
(03:34):
Army Corps of Engineers is everywhere clearing debris, getting roads ready,
doing things that private people had been doing private charities
and just regular guys with back hose, had been doing
for four months.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Suddenly it's amazing. A change of president could really affect
a lot of things, even local things like that, which
we don't maybe expect. I love what he did in California,
and I think that him handing over the mic in
North Carolina is it's great. It's a real sea change
from what we had president who never spoke to media,
(04:09):
who didn't seem to know what was going on. And
this is the difference is here, and it's very very clear.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Well, and it speaks to you know, I am not
a person who wants to put all of my faith
in a political leader. However, leadership does matter when you
take control and you say these are my expectations, that
can change a lot on the ground, and it seems
to be doing so in North Carolina. Trump is also
(04:37):
sufficiently suspicious of FEMA that he's calling for a review
of exactly how FEMA works and whether it's worth having around.
In the meantime, a former Navy seal, Cameron Hamilton, is
the interim head of FEMA as this administration starts. But
Margaret Brennan was talking to jd Vance this weekend and
(04:59):
she had some thoughts on whether states can do emergency
management without FEMA, and maybe you, as you're from Florida,
have some thoughts on that. But here's Margaret Brennan and J.
D Vance talking about it.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
You know, FEMA has specialized expertise that some of these
states just don't have. Oh Arsenal and I wish that
these states who are who are lower income states, the Mississippis,
the Kentucky's, the Alabamas be able to do this for
themselves without federal Well, the President, to be clear, is
not saying We're going to leave anybody behind. He's saying
that in the way that we administer these resources, some
(05:33):
of which is coming from the federal levels, some of
which is coming from the state.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Level, we've got to get the bureaucrats out of the
way and get the aid to the people who need
it most. How could they do it? Can I be clearer, Carol?
The federal government's expertise is in taking as much money
as possible from taxpayers and then sending it elsewhere. That's oliverertise. Yeah, okay,
I would love if FEMA were actually expert at helping
people in disasters, but it really doesn't look that way.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
That's right. Yeah, And look the local thing, it's like
the local governments can get the experts. I mean, you know,
when it's once every decade snowstorm hits Florida, bron de
Santis somehow finds the snowplows that nobody knew we had.
It's all possible. And I think that's like what the
difference between the left and the right have always been.
(06:21):
Has always been that the right believes that the individual
and the smaller government and the local can do it,
and the left thinks that only the federal government is
capable of it. But they've failed again and again and again.
So maybe let's give our way a shot. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, And like, give the resources that you're otherwise holding
for FEMA to the people with the back hoes who
strolled up to their neighbor's houses and decided to clear
roads for four months.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Let's give them the reins for a little while.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I don't see why not, really.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
It is so frustrating. I do think emergency management is
one of those things that I've become like strangely passionate
about the last couple of years, because it seems like
something that if you just have a couple of smart
people who are thinking ahead a little bit, you can
really do wonders for citizens.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I love your passionate about it. I think we should
continue to talk about North Carolina and we will so.
Also over the weekend, Donald Trump got into a bit
of a kerfuffle with Columbia. Apparently they loaded two planes
of Colombian illegal immigrants who had also committed crimes in
the United States and sent them back to Columbia, and
(07:33):
Columbia refused the planes, turning them back. Trump tweeted on
his truth social I don't really know how to refer
to that, he truthed, He said, I was just informed
that two repatriation flights from the United States with a
large number of illegal criminals were not allowed to land
in Columbia. This order was given by Columbia's socialist president,
(07:54):
Gustavo Petro, who was among who was already very unpopular
amongst his people. I love that Trump is, you know,
and nobody likes him.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
No life. He likes that guy.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Petro's denial of these flights has jeopardized the national security
and public safety of the United States. So he directed
his administration to implement twenty five percent tariffs, travel ban
and immediate visa revocation. He's are sanctions on all party members,
et cetera, a bunch of stuff. Later that same day,
(08:24):
the Colombian president relented and said his problem wasn't with
receiving his own nationals back, which you know, I should
hope not. It was with the type of airplane used.
It was a military plane. That's ridiculous. He needed them
to travel in comfort. Really, that's the issue here, So
he sent his own plane. He also wrote a fifteen
(08:46):
hundred word, you know, manifesto that he posted on Twitter.
I'm very much not reading that, bro, but allegedly the
gist of it was I don't bend to this guy.
Though he did bend to this however. Yeah, so another
Trump win. I saw, you know, I saw American leftists
(09:08):
saying Trump should have just continued the Biden policy of
putting them on passenger jets and whatever. Fine, maybe that
Biden policy of sending back a legal immigrants was working.
I didn't see that work. But okay, whatever Trump kind
of decides to do, that's different than Biden. Right now,
I give him some leeway on it. If he thinks
(09:28):
that military flights are the better path to get these
people out of our country and into their own countries,
I'm okay with that. And so this idea that like, oh,
we put them on the wrong flights, like.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Spare me no same. Have you ever been put on
a flight for free in the American government?
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Haven't?
Speaker 1 (09:46):
No? I think this feels very much like the United
States of America has been watching a lot of reels
about how to set proper boundaries, and now we have
an actual boundary in the border, and one of our
boundaries is going to be Hey, if you're not going
to accept and repatriate the citizens who have come here illegally,
(10:07):
here are some of the things that we will do right, right,
because we have someone who's going to make good on
this promises now, because look, there's an old version of
me that one hundred percent would have been like, oh,
this is very rash. What are we doing the relations
between Columbia and the US. This is the sacred way
(10:28):
of doing things that we've always done. Things go through
the State Department, have a bunch of back and forth.
It doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
It doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
You get walked all over he truths. An hour later,
the problem solved. We didn't have to have a Blue
ribbon commission. We didn't have to stroke a bunch of egos.
Threat made this guy seems crazy. He might make good
on the threat. We're not messing with you, right.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
If there was a gentler solution, somebody would have tried
it affect actively up until this point. The fact that
there wasn't and it didn't work, and none of this
had worked before, is why we have Donald Trump period.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Well, and here's another thing. You established when you do
that one time, as I know with parenting, if you
if you if something is established as a as a standard,
the other folks who observe you, the younger kids create
this standard, will then know that that is the standard. Yeah,
and maybe you don't have to do that in the future.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
That's right. Yeah, That's that's really what it's all about. Also,
if I was put on an uncomfortable flight home or wherever,
and then I had to fly back and then only
to be put on a more comfortable flight, I would
not enjoy that. If I already landing, like, let me
land on this uncomfortable flight. I'm good.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
I mean, the whole thing sounds like nonsense about the
type of plane.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, it totally sounds like nonsense.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Yeah, nobody likes that guy anyway.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Nobody likes him, So why are we even listening to
what he has to say?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Oh my gosh, I do I like I am much
like you. I'll give I give leeway partly because I
am starved for effective leadership. Yeah, you're not as starved
because you live in Oh that's not true. I'm a
big governor here too, but it is because of my
proximity to DC get I get very right exposed to
the worst of leaders.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
You and I are not huge maga people. Which is
funny because we were on a show recently and like together.
We were on askajew podcast and some of the comments
were like, oh my god, these two trumpers.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
It's like in a room of anti trumpers, you and
I are big trumpers, yes, but in a room of
like hardcore trumpers, you and I are like moderate trumpers.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah. As I've told you, I like to be optimistic
at the beginning of an administration, and I was optimistic
or tried to be at the beginning of the Biden administration.
So if I'm a sucker. I'm a bipartisan sucker, but
I think it's good practice to attempt to be open
minded at the beginning of administration. Yeah, and frankly, Trump's
(13:01):
out there arguing with Karen Bass about how come people
can't clean up their property starting today, and suddenly it
changes the game exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
We like to see competence, and it doesn't matter if
we like or don't like or whatever the person. If
Joe Biden had been competent, I would have enjoyed that
that didn't happen. We'll be right back on normally.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
We were from the ever present executive who's.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Been to his values and competence, to.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
The absent executive that we had in office before Trump.
And there's new news out, a little scoop that the
ACLU sent a list of quote, nonviolent drug offenders for
clemency over to President Biden at the end of his term,
(13:55):
and wouldn't you know it, President Biden totally with it,
signed all those folks out. They were really good to everyone,
despite the fact that one of them killed an eight
year old boy and his mother because they were going
to testify against him in Connecticut. Is that wrong? Adrianne Peeler.
(14:20):
He was serving a twenty year state prison sentence for
a murder conspiracy in the nineteen ninety nine shootings of
Leroy BJ Brown and his mother Karen Clark in Bridgeport,
killings that shocked the city and led to improvements in
state witness protection. The state had to create a new
program to protect people after this. Biden let clemency as
of I think July Biden didn't know he did.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
That, right, Yeah, he had no idea. This guy was
serving on federal drug charges until twenty thirty three, and
so I think that that was what they saw, the
drug charge. This lie that it's all these people smoked
a little weed. It's never that. It's never, oh, they
(15:04):
you know, did a little drugs. I'm actually very soft
on drug decriminalization. You know, you want to use drugs
and you don't commit any other crimes, like, you know,
go with ja as people say. But look, this is
a totally different story. And the thing is it again
exposes that we didn't have a president for a long
(15:26):
time and who was running the country. We just have
no idea.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah, the basically this story is an admission that oops,
his staff didn't check this particular thing well enough, and it's.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Like, yeah, you know, and now a double murderers out
on the street.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
It's like, and here's the thing. The president does have
sweeping pardon powers, right you really it's very hard to
argue against any of them. But the president's staff doesn't
have sweeping power. Yeah, and the president's staff doesn't have
a lot of powers that they were probably using for
the past four years. And the fact that that's not
(16:04):
the largest scandal of my lifetime is something else.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Do you think we're going to get books that actually
tell what really happened? Because I think the first book
to do that will be a giant bestseller. So they
all have to be kind of racing to the publisher
right now, don't they, one would think.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
I guess the question for those in media who had
access to this is a how much they exposed the
fact that they knew about it, because those who had
greatest access for sure knew what was happening and scoffed
at the rest of us with no access, who nonetheless
somehow spotted president wasn't totally with it. So they have
(16:44):
to figure out how much they're going to tell on themselves.
Then they have to figure out how much that's going
to trash the brand of the Democrats, which is their
preferred party and which is currently already quite trashed.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, so that's the question. Do they do that? Do
they go for it? I still think yes, I still
think that book, at least one person is going to
tell the inside story of what happened and who was responsible,
And of course they're going to say that they had
nothing to do with any of that. But you know,
then the second book, the second book, we'll tell their story.
(17:16):
So yes, we'll get there.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Mmmm, we'll learn things at some point.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, yeah, now it can be told. We're going to
take a short break and come right back with normally.
The other story from this weekend is the ci A
now thinks that COVID leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
No kidding, Yeah, I know. Is this the fourth federal
agency to come to this conclusion? I think right? And
now now that we're five years on, it's.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Amazing, It really is amazing. It's it's another now it
can be told story where you were not allowed to
say that that. That's what the last four years, more
than anything I'll remember about the Biden administration was you
were not allowed to say things that we all knew
to be true, and this was one of them. It
was actually John Stewart made this great line. You know,
(18:13):
if there was a chocolate spill in Hershey, Pennsylvania, like
we don't know who did it, we.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Wouldn't be confused about where that came from. Yes, no,
I remember this is one of my one of my
first twenty twenty feelings of looking around and going so
everyone going crazy, like there's a so there's a coronavirus
lab where they do experiments with coronavirus there, But you're
telling me it came from somewhere totally different and much
(18:40):
more innocent. Okay, the headlines on these. Drew Holden is
always good at pulling these together. From twenty twenty, Senator
Tom Cotton repeats fringe theory of coronavirus origins. Scientists have
dismissed suggestions that the Chinese government was behind the outbreak,
but it's the kind of tale that gains track among
those who see China as a threat. Yeah, okay, York,
(19:04):
can we do that? New York Times this week, CIA
now favors lableak theory to explain COVID's origins. A new
analysis that began under the Biden administration is released by
the CIA's new director, John Ratcliffe. Thank you, John, who
wants the agency to get off the sidelines in the debate. Yeah.
Truth is good, transparency is good. Yeah, we're getting so
(19:24):
much more transparency during this administration already.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Right, Yeah, and I love that obviously, but it is
galling how many years they made us think that we
were the crazy ones and the racist ones. The whole
thing was the lab leak theory was racist. But some
guy ate a bat in a wet market in China
and that's how COVID started. Yeah, that's not racist. Somehow
(19:49):
it didn't even make sense, Like, how did that not racist?
That's so much more racist.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
No, and China, because of this lag time, China has
yet to pay a price. Were having done this to
all of us. They prevented many people from getting ready
in ways that would have been helpful, and then we
went and did the damn Olympics there like it just yeah,
(20:14):
it's been a ride. Yeah, and we lied for years.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Oh yeah, and they lied to us about so many
different things. I mean, just remember the early videos of
people like falling over and dying in China from COVID,
and they led us to believe it was a completely
different virus than it was. It just all around, China's
not our friend, and the fact that we were forced
to pretend that they didn't do this thing that we
all obviously knew that they did was again.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Galling amazing stuff. Yeah, I think we wanted to correct
one thing for the record, lest new fake news be made.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yeah, let's let's cut off that fake news. There was
a story that Ice came to a Chicago public school
and all these people were like, we're not going to
stand for you coming into our schools and taking the
children out. And let me tell you, the Chicago Ice
story was very popular on the Brooklyn boards that I'm
(21:09):
still on because they were all going to form like
a chain outside their own schools and not let Ice in.
Turned out, it wasn't Ice. It was Secret Service who
came to the school looking for somebody who had made
a threat.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
So that sounds legit and like the normal way of
doing things. This is one of the things that I
think it's important for people like us to do, which
is there are going to be freakouts. Oh yeah, and look,
there's sweeping change happening in a lot of ways, and
that makes many of the people who report on the
(21:47):
federal government and the federal government very uncomfortable. And so
there are going to be people who lose it or
misreport things and make something out of nothing. And look,
when there are problems, we should talk about it, Sure
we will. There's fake stuff. We should say, hey, that
one's not real, guys, and it shouldn't be turned into
(22:10):
a symbol of the Trump administration when it's the Secret
Service job not right.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Fake story gets spread and people get very concensed about
it and think that you know something that is happening
that just plainly is not. And again, these people are
the ones who think that they are not susceptible to
fake news. They think that where are the suckers falling
(22:37):
for all the fake news everywhere?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
That's all that we do.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yeah, perhaps check yourself is the message here. Thanks for
joining us on Normally. Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and
you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get in
touch with us at normallythepod at gmail dot com. Thanks
for listening, and when things get weird, act normally
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