March 27, 2025 • 31 mins
In this episode of "Normally," Mary Katharine Ham and Karol Markowicz discuss a significant news story from The Atlantic about a group chat involving high-ranking Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance and NSA Mike Waltz. Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg reported on the chat after being inadvertently added to it. We analyze the security concerns of using the Signal messaging app, the credibility of Goldberg's reporting, and the Trump administration's reactions. They also explore broader themes of accountability, communication, and the political ramifications of the incident, emphasizing the importance of responsible and secure communication in governance. 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 (00:02):
Hey, guys, we are back on. Normally the show with
normalish takes, but when the nuts gets weird. I am
Mary Catherine, him and I am Carol Markowitz.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Show us your Dolly partner. Sure, Mary Cath's right here.
She like it.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yeah, it's under a blazers.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Look. That's exactly what Dolly would have liked.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Right, This is business casual. I think that's what they
call it.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I said, would have like, she's not with us, she
is with us. I'm just saying if she had seen it, she.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Would have liked it. Should I ever have the privilege
of running into her, which my daughters always say that
the only time I would faint is if I ran
into Dolly Parton, which is probably true.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Right.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, I mean, she's it. She's like one of the
few that I'd be really excited to meet.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I mean, that's that's a genuine star sighting. She shows
up at Dollywood sometimes, so she'll just be around at
the park or at the hotels. So someday I think,
some day.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
You know, double family trip to Dollywood.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Let's do it. There we go, let's do it. That's
on the agenda, But also on the agenda today, a
very large news story in the Atlantic this week broke
the story about how editor in chief of The Atlantic,
Jeffrey Goldberg, who you will remember probably as the guy
who wrote the Suckers and Losers story about what Trump
(01:17):
allegedly said about troops. I have never bought that story
because it had no named sources. Yep, we can get
to the credibility of him in the near future. But
that guy wrote a story revealing that on March eleventh,
he was added to a signal group chat signals an
encrypted message service, a group chat with all the heavy
(01:41):
hitters of the Trump administration national security world, including Vice
President J. D Vance, Innesa, Mike Waltz, Marco Rubio, Secretary
of State Telsea Gabbard, d and I. The list goes on.
I believe Ratcliffe was on there too, had a CIA,
and to various extents, these people in this chat started chatting,
(02:01):
and he started paying attention, wondering why am I on
this group chat? And he pays attention enough that he thinks, Hmm,
I'm not sure this is a hoax, Like this may
be real. So they do some investigating about this, and
it turns out that the way he verifies that it
is real is that there are details about the most
(02:23):
recent military conditions against the Houties in Yemen. And he decides, Hey, well,
I guess if this timing that I'm getting in this
group chat is correct, then I can run with this
scoop and I'm not being tricked. And it turns out
then indeed the attacks happened as the chat said they would. Oh,
Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense is there as well, and
(02:46):
so he writes this story, and I think, okay, So
he writes the story. We'll get into the how he
handled that as we go forward. The timeline from there
goes that Trump is asked about it, says he hasn't
heard about this, doesn't know about it. On the first day,
the various deputies are called into a already scheduled house
hearing on intel issues.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Well, they might must have been so mad about that.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
So mad. The next day they are all grilled about it.
And now they've been talking on TV and such, and
we will deal with who's taking responsibility, who's not, how
this is playing out. But that's the timeline of this.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
So, by the way, the strikes went extremely well. Nothing
was disrupted, partly because of the way Goldberg reported this story,
So that's great.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah. So also I should note that that story broke
shortly after we recorded Tuesday's episode, because I knew immediately
people would be like on Tuesday, like, how could you
guys not mention the SignAll story? Yeah, you just don't
want to talk about it. Although I was quiet a
little bit on the X platform because I like a
lot of these stories.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I wanted to see where it went.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
I wanted to see how it played out. And Pete
Deucy already made the joke that I immediately thought was
you know, immediately about it was well, they did promise
to be the most transparent White House ever. Yeah, So
there are several issues at hand, So starting with should
the administration officials be communicating via signal at all? And
(04:17):
there's a lot of talk about whether signal is secure.
I can tell you definitively that it's secure. When you
don't add someone who shouldn't be in the group chat,
that makes it more secure. Whether they're allowed to do
that or not is a question. I believe we have
a clip to that effect.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
John Rotcliffe, head of the CIA, talked about this in
front of the House yesterday.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
So that we're clear. One of the first things that
happened when I was confirmed as CIA director was signal
was loaded onto my computer at the CIA, as it
is for most CIA officers. One of the things that
I was briefed on very early, Senator was by the
CIA records management folks about the use of signal as
(05:01):
a permissible work use. It is that is a practice
that preceded the current administration to the Biden ministry, so that.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Is an important mitigating factor that One thing I do
not like about any Trump news cycle is that everyone
acts as if everything is unprecedented, right, when in fact
you find out shortly after that it's not. Yeah, that
does not mean I think the use of signal is
wise just because the Biden administration did it, and that
should be part of the discussion. And also it doesn't
(05:32):
mitigate the fact that a giant mistake was made, right.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I think that, Yeah, that is where a lot of
these stories should start, even on the right. I think
that the people who are saying or trying to say
this is not a big deal, it is absolutely a
big deal. I don't have a problem with them communicating
on signal, although I don't know the ins and outs
of signal deletes the conversations. I don't think that they're
(05:58):
allowed to do that. I don't know you know the
rules around that. But the actual communicating with each other
on signal is not my problem with it. It's that
I would not say anything in a group chat where
I did not know every single phone number in that
group chat, and let me tell you, I would check.
So that is a huge issue to me.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Well, and some allege, okay, there's dirty tricks at hand here.
Somehow he got into the chat, but Mike Waltz added
him to the chat, so he had the number. He
is a very important guy, a very smart, a guy
I like, by the way.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yeah, that's the others. We'll get to this in a bit.
But yeah, the liking people is a side.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Issue, you know. So I think he's a smart guy
who's been an intel in military circles for a long time.
He should have known better than to do this. He
should have known better than creating the group and not
triple checking.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
It sounds like it was a staffer.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
But although he did say when Laura Ingram asked him
on TV, you know, was it a staffer? And he's
he said I'm not blaming this on a staffer. I
am taking responsibility for this, but it does.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Sound like it was a staffer. I'm just saying it
wasn't actually Mike Waltz who warmed.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
The group regardless, like somehow someone had this contact the
row will gun in their big mistake and something that
any more adversarial person or country would have made much
more hay with, could have done much more damage with,
and that the head of the CIA and all these
other important people should be on the lookout for. There
(07:30):
are tons of people who want to take you, guys,
and Jeffrey Goldberg was actually the least of your worries
on this occasion.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Turns out he handled it actually quite maturely. So you know, Yeah,
they don't have much room here to say. I get
that they're attacking the press and that's going to be
the defensive posture of the Trump administration. I don't blame
them for a lot of that, but in this particular case,
I don't see that Jeffrey Goldberg misplayed this other than
(08:02):
is he allowed to release this information. That's also going
to be another story. Well, it's happening as we're recording
this episode. The conversation has become whether these were war plans,
and he released the chats so people can see whether
or not they are war plans.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
And the thing is, I agree with Hegseth on the
point that Goldberg has dealt in all sorts of hoaxes before.
As I said, I have never bought the suckers and
loser story because it's never been substantiated by anyone named.
And I thought he was really playing fast and loose
with that one. But here's the thing, this one is verifiable,
(08:38):
and an NSA spokesperson said as much before they started
attacking Goldberg as their defense of this, And so what
you've done actually is, in this case, he gets this
golden goose scoop that he was handed on a silver platter,
and his credibility has gone up skyward as a result.
The Trump administration then basically dared him to really he's
(09:01):
the rest of the text because he had withheld some
saying like this was so detailed that I don't feel
comfortable having it out there. They allege, hey, Goldberg could
be mischaracterizing this, and then the Atlantic is like, well,
if you guys say it's not classified and everything's fine,
then here it is. So now we have the more
detailed texts, and they're quite detailed.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Right, So I'm going to read two tweets saying that
these texts are not a big deal. The first one
is from white Mike Waltz. He posts no locations, no
sources and methods, no war plans. Foreign partners had already
been notified that strikes for imminent. Bottom line, President Trump
is protecting America.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
And our interests.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
And then my friend David Reeboy, who works in the
foreign policy space, tweets, Okay, so the Atlantic released what
they call the war plans. They're depending on people not
knowing or caring what this is, but to refer to
it that way as a stretch. There's nothing specific here
other than times at which events will occur. This kind
could alert the enemy, but doesn't tell them anything about
what's coming where, or how to prepare for it. Nothing burger.
(10:06):
I have to say, from a normy perspective, this still
seems like a something burger.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yeah, And the thing is it was the details came
right before the strike, so it wasn't as if disrupting
the stress would have been very difficult. Yes, what I'm
concerned about is that if you think this is a
nothing burger and you're working with eminent war plans on
a regular basis, I think I can't remember who said it,
(10:32):
but this is like the one termite you see, and
like behind the scenes, they may there may be a
bunch more issues here with how people are communicating. So look,
it's clear that no head is going to roll. Although
I think it could be a thing that you could
tender a resignation over again, even though I like the
people involved, where you could go, I really messed this up.
(10:53):
This is embarrassing to the administration. It could have been dangerous,
Thank goodness it wasn't. And then the president can say, no,
I trust you, I want to keep you on.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
There's another level of that, though, where you can say, hey,
we need to actually brush up on our digital security protocols.
You can even throw a dig in at the A.
Biden administration and be like, we shouldn't use what we inherited.
Clearly this is not a good way of doing things.
So here are the ways that we are going to
fix this moving forward, And here are the ways that
I'm taking responsibility for it and maybe even taking a
(11:23):
little ding on my record in my file that a
normally lower level intel person would get right, because I
don't think that they should be held accountable. But higher
ups are not right.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
They should be the grown ups in the room and
say this happened. It's clearly a giant, giant mistake. We're
going to get to the bottom of how this happened.
We learn, we move on. You know, the story would
probably be over by now had they done that, and
they didn't, So then there's the next thing about this
(11:56):
is how everyone came off in the actual conversation. Steve
Hexeth came off as very decisive and strong. You know,
this is what we have to do.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I like JD Vince quite a bit. I didn't love
his comments in this chat, like when he said that
only three percent of American trade runs through the Suez Canal.
I looked it up. In twenty twenty four, the United
States had a total trade value of goods and services
estimated around five point four trillion in total. Three percent
of that. I'm not going to do the math, guys,
(12:30):
but it's still pretty high. And so I don't think
we should just let you know the hutis attack our ships. Yes,
Europe he's complete JD's completely right that Europe, who has
forty percent of their trade through the Suez, should obviously
be doing more. And we've over the last you know,
sixty years or so, have just let Europe skate on
(12:52):
handling all of their problems for them. And yes, I
get the frustration with Europe, absolutely, but I just generally
didn't like his posture in those texts.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, this is the thing is when I'm talking about
somebody getting punished, I'm arguing against interests because it would
be someone I agree with, exactly as opposed to Datie Vance,
who I don't agree with. I think, to me, what
the conversation illustrated. Obviously there are different forces in this
administration that are going to be arguing with each other.
They seem to be mature about the way they're arguing
with each other. Vance to me, is very much Podcast
(13:28):
Vance in the chat Right Podcast Vance is probably just
Vance right, and he's he feels very free to say
these are the ways that I don't think this is
a good idea. I am a little surprised not that
he's committed to his form of certainly more isolationist theory.
I'm a fan of I'm not surprised he's committed. I
(13:49):
am a little surprised that something like trade lit lanes
being open and free would not fall in American interest
for it.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Completely agree with because that's it.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
We've been hit, We've been targeted. I think Rubio said
the other day one hundred plus times during the Biden administration,
Tim now.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
We can't keep taking that.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, yeah, So that that surprised me. I agree.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
I also was surprised that he took kind of a
shot at President Trump. He said that Trump was sending
mixed messages to Europe and he didn't, you know, he
didn't want to continue that in case with this strike.
So I don't know, it's funny that actually that's not
a story at all, because I know it's like people
are trying to get a scalp and they know they're
(14:35):
not going to get Vance's, so they just are letting
him kind of skate on those comments.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Well, and to that point, do you think Vance is
speaking out of hubris in that chat or is he
speaking out of utter confidence that Trump just likes him
and that, by the way, that's the bottom line, and
all these guys Trump likes all of them.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I also didn't like in the chat how they focused
on how things look and how they to message this.
And I get that. Look, my background's in pr I
understand that messaging has to be tight. I understand how
important it is for the American people to understand the missions.
But you do the right thing for the country that
you think is the right thing for the country, and
(15:14):
you'd be ready to take the shots if you're wrong.
The focus on how this is going to look, I
didn't love that either.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah. The other thing is I think often Vance might
be more on the side of the American public than
I am when it comes to how much we're going
to do intervention in other places. I'm not as hawkish
as I used to be, for sure, but I am
more hawkish than he is. I think in this case,
the American people don't really have an issue with occasional
(15:43):
bombing runs that very specifically take out very specific targets
and don't cost us a lot of blood and treasure.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Right, We're not doing boots on the ground here. We're
trying to reopen a ceiling. So yeah, And of course,
obviously people are using this to take shots at people
that they dislike. Personally that's been right away. There was
some internal strife about Waltz, who you know, again with
(16:12):
the isolationists, he maybe's on the opposite side, although I
think these terms don't really make sense for this conflict,
because you can be an isolationist but still want to
have trade with places around the world and need to
have those trade lanes open. So Waltz was immediately a
target of that isolationist right. Of course, the left is
having a field day. They might even be possibly overshooting
(16:35):
all of this, people like Congressman Eric Swalwell saying that
Hegsath should resign. Swalwell had a full on relationship with
a Chinese spy and remains in Congress, so maybe he
does not have room to lecture anyone on accountability.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Well, and I think people have definitely have a point
when they say, oh, nobody was mad about Oh, I
don't know the hoodie's actually hitting us all of these times, right,
And I was like that, yes, people should have been
more mad about that. Or they'll say Mark Milly was
you know, giving back channel to the CCP saying like
if the president gets out of hand, I'll I'll deal
(17:12):
with it, right and saying nobody got mad about that,
both fair criticisms about what people were not mad about.
I reserve the right to be mad that this giant,
boneheaded mistake was made about national security.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah, it's so, And it's good and normal to criticize
your own side, and normal is the name of the
game here.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
He also ran on holding people accountable, and like he
has a Trump has a strange relationship with that because
he is the you're fired guy, and then he's also
very loyal. Yeah, he doesn't want to fire them. So
the last administration, you had a bunch of dust ups
and a bunch of people who got rid of for
(17:54):
their that's kind of really redneck for the reason that
he didn't really trust or know any of the those
people to begin with. This time, the people he chose
he mostly likes and knows and trust.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
So, I but I think it's a bad contrast with Biden,
or it's bad not to contrast with yourself with Biden
in this case, by going like someone has to be
punished for this.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, and still I hope that they don't, that none
of these people get fired.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
It's this whole, this real balance thing where it's only
March they've only been in office three months. I like
this team. I want to see what they.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Do, so and tell me. But tell me how you're
going to clean it up.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, tell tell me how you're going to fix it
and never let this happen again. Yeah, I mean, check
the numbers and the text.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
It's kind of an easy.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
One also, just to just to put it out there
because all the conspiracy theories have become true in the
last five years. Waltz is like, I don't know Goldberg,
I don't know why I had his number. We're looking
into that right now. I always picking competence over malice
in these situations.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
We're same sure.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
However, in the past five years often the malice has
been the thing that's competence. So just I'm just putting
it out there that that's what he said. Now, if
there's no basis in that, then that's irresponsible for him
to be putting it out there. Goldberg at one point
said they had met in passing, but he was surprised
that he would be on his contact.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
List, right, I mean, I have a lot of contact
of people I don't like. Like, it's not that's not
a crazy thing to do in our world, like, actually,
you have their numbers so that you specifically don't text
with them, Like, but it just red flag next to me,
you know, not to answer their calls.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Come on.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Yeah. The theory, by the way, the working theory, which
I think is correct, is that the person that was
meant to be on the chat was Jamison Greer, us
trade representative, who would naturally have been on a chat
about trade lanes and the need to go to military
operations to protect me. Jamison must have been like, why
is nobody calling me? One thing I do think is
(19:56):
problematic about this that sort of takes it another step
for the administration. Everything disappears in three days anyway. But
people understand being on the wrong thread or yeah, texting
the wrong thread. And yesterday on nationwide country music syndicated
morning show, they were doing a segment about when have
you texted the wrong person in the past? For sure?
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Look who among us? And you know there's been stories
in the past where people tried to DM somebody and
they ended up posting it on X like again, who
among us? We've all done it. I would say that
my two normy world reactions that I've heard are from
two different kinds of people. One who are saying, oh
my god, absolutely this has happened to me. I totally
(20:36):
get it. And then from the people who are like,
I check, you know, when it's a bridesmaid's trip, I
check every single number to make sure we have the
right people on it. And I don't want to send
it to a stranger.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
And you know, yeah, I am. I have done this.
And also if I were a high level intel person
with imminent war plans, I would be better at it. Yeah,
you take a class from the bachelorette party girl. That's right,
that's right.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yeah, we'll be right back on. Normally, there was a
Wall Street Journal piece about how women are not getting married,
and of course these pieces run so often. I cover
them a lot on my other show, Carol Markowitz Show,
And actually I had it in my monologue yesterday about
this Wall Street Journal piece. But basically, the numbers are
(21:23):
just collapsing. People are neither partnered nor married. Share of
women age eighteen to forty who are single that is
neither married nor cohabitating was fifty one percent in twenty
twenty three. That number was forty one percent in two thousand,
So that number is just getting higher and higher, and
(21:45):
it's obviously a giant problem.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yeah, I mean, I think we have a civilizational problem
if people don't know how to pair off and create families.
The data simply says over and over and over again
that two parent families raising children are the best for
people's their stability, for economics, for the economic well being
(22:09):
of the household, for future earnings, for happiness, like all
these things, everything again arguing against interest. I was a
single mom for several years. I think I did a
very good job at it. But I cannot be a
mother and a father at the same time, and so
creating these families should be a priority, not just for
the future of the civilization, which is like imperative people
(22:31):
used to get that, but also for people's happiness. We're
having a connection crisis and people are unable to figure
out how not to be lonely, and that's very concerning
to me.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
So I completely agree, and the fact that people can't
figure out how not to be lonely is top of
my priority list of what the kind of stuff that
I like to talk about and write about. Recently had
a column in The New York Post about how friendship
is just you know, those numbers have also plummeted. People
just don't have friends anymore. The number of people who
(23:05):
say they have zero friends has skyrocketed. So it's not marriage,
and it's not just you know, having kids, it's the
whole thing. They don't date, they don't get married, I mean,
they don't have friends. All of this is an ongoing problem.
I think a lot of these articles and a lot
of the studies focused on the financial side of it.
(23:26):
I just don't think that tells the whole story. I've
never met a woman and I'm talking ever who's like
I am so career orientated that I don't want to
meet a man. Every career orientated woman I know wants
to meet someone. And what I end up arguing in
you know, in Carol Marko would show is that I
think that when women don't meet a partner, then yes,
(23:48):
they lean more into their career. So it wasn't the
career that stopped them in the first place. It's that
they didn't find anyone and their career was what they
turned to. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
I noticed a couple of things in this story. One, uh,
the only woman quoted who is pursuing a promising relationship
got into that relationship or says she's in a promising
relationship got into that relationship via a setup from friends.
I think. I don't think that the apps don't work
for anyone. I have plenty of friends who got married
from the apps. However, it is an argument for a
(24:21):
return and encouraging the traditional ways of meeting in uh,
you know, affinity groups of friends where you're going to
an actual bar or bowling alley for a party and
you meet somebody there, the gym, your friends, a church.
These things are really very good.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Yeah. I love if you go up. I love setting
people up. I you know, if anybody wants to be
set up, you let me know.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I don't know if I'm any good at it, but
I need to make sure I'm there for my friends
in this way, because I do think that's I was
set up with my husband by a wonderful neighbor who
quote assessed both of us, and I think rightly said
I think you can handle him, and I think you
can handle her. Yeah, that was her big pitch. The
(25:10):
other thing I noticed here is that you know, there's
one woman in this story in particular, who's just letting
politics take over your life. Yeah, and be everything and
therefore prevent you or cause you to catastrophize and prevent
you from living life is really unhealthy. And I'm just
(25:31):
going to read a little bit of this. Rachel, a
thirty three year old real estate agent and Savannah Georgia,
said she broke up with her boyfriend with whom she
shares a five year old son, over a year ago
because she was tired of doing most of the childcare,
cooking scheduling while are also earning almost double of her
boyfriend's cellary. That's a whole other issue, right. She has
yet to date anyone else, in part because she worries
about living in a red state with a six week
(25:53):
abortion band. I have a child that I can't leave
behind to drive to Virginia if I had a privatecy scare,
and I definitely can't afford another child as a single mom.
She said, this is I'm going to borrow a phrase
from bethany single for a reason, Like does it that
story made me very sad?
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah, that is depressing, and it's like there are ways
to not get pregnant, I've heard.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
And she's an independent, smart lady.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Right, We're going to take a short break and come
right back with Normally, March madness is going on, and
that's apparently a college basketball tournament and I'm joking. I
actually it's on in the background of my life all
the time.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And by the way, a good place to meet men. Yes,
March madness.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yes, absolutely, Ladies, get out there well. Saint John's in
New York lost a close game to Arkansas in the
second round, and actually I was rooting for Saint John's
because my other's forty girlfriend, Kirsten Fleming told me to
you and you and Kirston are my my main, my
main sports girls. So Saint john lose sadly, and their
(27:02):
star player R J. Lewis Junior, he was Big East
Player of the Year, did not have a good game
and was benched toward the end. The abuse that he
got after the game was so bad that he deactivated
his Instagram account. And it seems like the NCAA knew
this kind of thing goes on because they ran this ad.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
A few days before the game.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Let's roll the clip.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
There's losing, but then there's being the loser. Game time
comes with enough pressure. Way too often people are betting
on sports losing and taking it out of the athletes.
Only a loser would harass college athletes after losing a bet,
but it happens almost every day. Root for your team,
(27:47):
get crazy when the buzzer sounds, but don't harass anyone
because you lost the bet. It's time we draw the
line and put an end to the abuse brought to
you by the NCAA.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
The fact that they need to say that.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Yeah, I think this is a combo of more frequent
and common ubiquitous really sports betting plus social media, because
what happens with social media is like, look, if people
have been complaining about the quarterback for years, by the way,
I know that's football, not basketball, the point guard for years, Yes,
but you couldn't always funnel that complaining straight to the guy.
(28:24):
You could him. You had to call a sports radio
talk show and like maybe he'd hear it in passing
right right, And so now you can just go to
the source. And that is not a healthy outcome or impulse.
It just don't do it.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Yeah, people have lost their minds in general. Our friend
Kat Timp she had this great line that like I've
never been watching TV and said, I have to go
find this actor or personal TV and tell them that
they're ugly.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
It has never happened to me. I have never had
that sensation.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
I've I need to find this person and tell them
they suck.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
A sports fan and also a real softy. So like
when even when the opposing kicker I need him to
miss a kick, I'm saying football because I'm a big
football fan. Yeah, I was a big basketball fan, but
now that I have four children, there's too many basketball
games to watch. Yeah, So even when I need the
kicker to miss, I'm sad for him. Yeah he missed.
And I go the opposite direction when it comes to
(29:21):
sports and famous people is if I think you were good,
that's when I'll reach out and say, hey, I really
enjoyed your work. Like, let's just turn it around, guys,
let's turn it around a nice Southern lady Mary, I
will say, I think now that the nil stuff is happening,
the name, image and likeness, and a lot of these
(29:42):
guys are getting paid like pro sports stars and people
are a lot more money is at stake here. Yeah,
that's where some of the stakes are higher, and so
people are going to get madder. That's part of what's
coming along with this.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Right, and I get that, but I still just think,
like a culture, this is so insane to me, and
the whole thing of like just because someone's famous or
just because someone's rich, you get to like say the
worst possible things to them.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
I hate it.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
I think there should be pressure to stop people from
doing it. I look, if somebody comments on my post
and I don't, like, you know, really something vicious, like,
I will go find them, like, I will find them,
I will tweet their name, like, I think we need
to stop this kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, I'm sure we've both gotten it before, and I
will amplify when something's particularly bad to just say like,
this is the kind of stuff we get. And I'm
just like very low wrung famous, like it's not even
though it's the nerdiest level of famous niche, right, people
still will be like, oh, I'm super mad at her.
(30:50):
It's like, okay, my middle.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Son calls it mildly famous. You are mildly famous.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
My children only think it's cool that I have a
Wikipedia entry for some reason. That really gets them.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yeah I don't have one, and I love.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
That mine is a really outdated picture. That's how you
know I'm not in charge of it.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
So 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
Hey, guys, we are back on. Normally the show with
normalish takes, but when the nuts gets weird. I am
Mary Catherine, him and I am Carol Markowitz.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Show us your Dolly partner. Sure, Mary Cath's right here.
She like it.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yeah, it's under a blazers.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Look. That's exactly what Dolly would have liked.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Right, This is business casual. I think that's what they
call it.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I said, would have like, she's not with us, she
is with us. I'm just saying if she had seen it, she.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Would have liked it. Should I ever have the privilege
of running into her, which my daughters always say that
the only time I would faint is if I ran
into Dolly Parton, which is probably true.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Right.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, I mean, she's it. She's like one of the
few that I'd be really excited to meet.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I mean, that's that's a genuine star sighting. She shows
up at Dollywood sometimes, so she'll just be around at
the park or at the hotels. So someday I think,
some day.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
You know, double family trip to Dollywood.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Let's do it. There we go, let's do it. That's
on the agenda, But also on the agenda today, a
very large news story in the Atlantic this week broke
the story about how editor in chief of The Atlantic,
Jeffrey Goldberg, who you will remember probably as the guy
who wrote the Suckers and Losers story about what Trump
(01:17):
allegedly said about troops. I have never bought that story
because it had no named sources. Yep, we can get
to the credibility of him in the near future. But
that guy wrote a story revealing that on March eleventh,
he was added to a signal group chat signals an
encrypted message service, a group chat with all the heavy
(01:41):
hitters of the Trump administration national security world, including Vice
President J. D Vance, Innesa, Mike Waltz, Marco Rubio, Secretary
of State Telsea Gabbard, d and I. The list goes on.
I believe Ratcliffe was on there too, had a CIA,
and to various extents, these people in this chat started chatting,
(02:01):
and he started paying attention, wondering why am I on
this group chat? And he pays attention enough that he thinks, Hmm,
I'm not sure this is a hoax, Like this may
be real. So they do some investigating about this, and
it turns out that the way he verifies that it
is real is that there are details about the most
(02:23):
recent military conditions against the Houties in Yemen. And he decides, Hey, well,
I guess if this timing that I'm getting in this
group chat is correct, then I can run with this
scoop and I'm not being tricked. And it turns out
then indeed the attacks happened as the chat said they would. Oh,
Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense is there as well, and
(02:46):
so he writes this story, and I think, okay, So
he writes the story. We'll get into the how he
handled that as we go forward. The timeline from there
goes that Trump is asked about it, says he hasn't
heard about this, doesn't know about it. On the first day,
the various deputies are called into a already scheduled house
hearing on intel issues.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Well, they might must have been so mad about that.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
So mad. The next day they are all grilled about it.
And now they've been talking on TV and such, and
we will deal with who's taking responsibility, who's not, how
this is playing out. But that's the timeline of this.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
So, by the way, the strikes went extremely well. Nothing
was disrupted, partly because of the way Goldberg reported this story,
So that's great.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah. So also I should note that that story broke
shortly after we recorded Tuesday's episode, because I knew immediately
people would be like on Tuesday, like, how could you
guys not mention the SignAll story? Yeah, you just don't
want to talk about it. Although I was quiet a
little bit on the X platform because I like a
lot of these stories.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I wanted to see where it went.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
I wanted to see how it played out. And Pete
Deucy already made the joke that I immediately thought was
you know, immediately about it was well, they did promise
to be the most transparent White House ever. Yeah, So
there are several issues at hand, So starting with should
the administration officials be communicating via signal at all? And
(04:17):
there's a lot of talk about whether signal is secure.
I can tell you definitively that it's secure. When you
don't add someone who shouldn't be in the group chat,
that makes it more secure. Whether they're allowed to do
that or not is a question. I believe we have
a clip to that effect.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
John Rotcliffe, head of the CIA, talked about this in
front of the House yesterday.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
So that we're clear. One of the first things that
happened when I was confirmed as CIA director was signal
was loaded onto my computer at the CIA, as it
is for most CIA officers. One of the things that
I was briefed on very early, Senator was by the
CIA records management folks about the use of signal as
(05:01):
a permissible work use. It is that is a practice
that preceded the current administration to the Biden ministry, so that.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Is an important mitigating factor that One thing I do
not like about any Trump news cycle is that everyone
acts as if everything is unprecedented, right, when in fact
you find out shortly after that it's not. Yeah, that
does not mean I think the use of signal is
wise just because the Biden administration did it, and that
should be part of the discussion. And also it doesn't
(05:32):
mitigate the fact that a giant mistake was made, right.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I think that, Yeah, that is where a lot of
these stories should start, even on the right. I think
that the people who are saying or trying to say
this is not a big deal, it is absolutely a
big deal. I don't have a problem with them communicating
on signal, although I don't know the ins and outs
of signal deletes the conversations. I don't think that they're
(05:58):
allowed to do that. I don't know you know the
rules around that. But the actual communicating with each other
on signal is not my problem with it. It's that
I would not say anything in a group chat where
I did not know every single phone number in that
group chat, and let me tell you, I would check.
So that is a huge issue to me.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Well, and some allege, okay, there's dirty tricks at hand here.
Somehow he got into the chat, but Mike Waltz added
him to the chat, so he had the number. He
is a very important guy, a very smart, a guy
I like, by the way.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yeah, that's the others. We'll get to this in a bit.
But yeah, the liking people is a side.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Issue, you know. So I think he's a smart guy
who's been an intel in military circles for a long time.
He should have known better than to do this. He
should have known better than creating the group and not
triple checking.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
It sounds like it was a staffer.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
But although he did say when Laura Ingram asked him
on TV, you know, was it a staffer? And he's
he said I'm not blaming this on a staffer. I
am taking responsibility for this, but it does.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Sound like it was a staffer. I'm just saying it
wasn't actually Mike Waltz who warmed.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
The group regardless, like somehow someone had this contact the
row will gun in their big mistake and something that
any more adversarial person or country would have made much
more hay with, could have done much more damage with,
and that the head of the CIA and all these
other important people should be on the lookout for. There
(07:30):
are tons of people who want to take you, guys,
and Jeffrey Goldberg was actually the least of your worries
on this occasion.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Turns out he handled it actually quite maturely. So you know, Yeah,
they don't have much room here to say. I get
that they're attacking the press and that's going to be
the defensive posture of the Trump administration. I don't blame
them for a lot of that, but in this particular case,
I don't see that Jeffrey Goldberg misplayed this other than
(08:02):
is he allowed to release this information. That's also going
to be another story. Well, it's happening as we're recording
this episode. The conversation has become whether these were war plans,
and he released the chats so people can see whether
or not they are war plans.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
And the thing is, I agree with Hegseth on the
point that Goldberg has dealt in all sorts of hoaxes before.
As I said, I have never bought the suckers and
loser story because it's never been substantiated by anyone named.
And I thought he was really playing fast and loose
with that one. But here's the thing, this one is verifiable,
(08:38):
and an NSA spokesperson said as much before they started
attacking Goldberg as their defense of this, And so what
you've done actually is, in this case, he gets this
golden goose scoop that he was handed on a silver platter,
and his credibility has gone up skyward as a result.
The Trump administration then basically dared him to really he's
(09:01):
the rest of the text because he had withheld some
saying like this was so detailed that I don't feel
comfortable having it out there. They allege, hey, Goldberg could
be mischaracterizing this, and then the Atlantic is like, well,
if you guys say it's not classified and everything's fine,
then here it is. So now we have the more
detailed texts, and they're quite detailed.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Right, So I'm going to read two tweets saying that
these texts are not a big deal. The first one
is from white Mike Waltz. He posts no locations, no
sources and methods, no war plans. Foreign partners had already
been notified that strikes for imminent. Bottom line, President Trump
is protecting America.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
And our interests.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
And then my friend David Reeboy, who works in the
foreign policy space, tweets, Okay, so the Atlantic released what
they call the war plans. They're depending on people not
knowing or caring what this is, but to refer to
it that way as a stretch. There's nothing specific here
other than times at which events will occur. This kind
could alert the enemy, but doesn't tell them anything about
what's coming where, or how to prepare for it. Nothing burger.
(10:06):
I have to say, from a normy perspective, this still
seems like a something burger.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yeah, And the thing is it was the details came
right before the strike, so it wasn't as if disrupting
the stress would have been very difficult. Yes, what I'm
concerned about is that if you think this is a
nothing burger and you're working with eminent war plans on
a regular basis, I think I can't remember who said it,
(10:32):
but this is like the one termite you see, and
like behind the scenes, they may there may be a
bunch more issues here with how people are communicating. So look,
it's clear that no head is going to roll. Although
I think it could be a thing that you could
tender a resignation over again, even though I like the
people involved, where you could go, I really messed this up.
(10:53):
This is embarrassing to the administration. It could have been dangerous,
Thank goodness it wasn't. And then the president can say, no,
I trust you, I want to keep you on.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
There's another level of that, though, where you can say, hey,
we need to actually brush up on our digital security protocols.
You can even throw a dig in at the A.
Biden administration and be like, we shouldn't use what we inherited.
Clearly this is not a good way of doing things.
So here are the ways that we are going to
fix this moving forward, And here are the ways that
I'm taking responsibility for it and maybe even taking a
(11:23):
little ding on my record in my file that a
normally lower level intel person would get right, because I
don't think that they should be held accountable. But higher
ups are not right.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
They should be the grown ups in the room and
say this happened. It's clearly a giant, giant mistake. We're
going to get to the bottom of how this happened.
We learn, we move on. You know, the story would
probably be over by now had they done that, and
they didn't, So then there's the next thing about this
(11:56):
is how everyone came off in the actual conversation. Steve
Hexeth came off as very decisive and strong. You know,
this is what we have to do.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I like JD Vince quite a bit. I didn't love
his comments in this chat, like when he said that
only three percent of American trade runs through the Suez Canal.
I looked it up. In twenty twenty four, the United
States had a total trade value of goods and services
estimated around five point four trillion in total. Three percent
of that. I'm not going to do the math, guys,
(12:30):
but it's still pretty high. And so I don't think
we should just let you know the hutis attack our ships. Yes,
Europe he's complete JD's completely right that Europe, who has
forty percent of their trade through the Suez, should obviously
be doing more. And we've over the last you know,
sixty years or so, have just let Europe skate on
(12:52):
handling all of their problems for them. And yes, I
get the frustration with Europe, absolutely, but I just generally
didn't like his posture in those texts.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, this is the thing is when I'm talking about
somebody getting punished, I'm arguing against interests because it would
be someone I agree with, exactly as opposed to Datie Vance,
who I don't agree with. I think, to me, what
the conversation illustrated. Obviously there are different forces in this
administration that are going to be arguing with each other.
They seem to be mature about the way they're arguing
with each other. Vance to me, is very much Podcast
(13:28):
Vance in the chat Right Podcast Vance is probably just
Vance right, and he's he feels very free to say
these are the ways that I don't think this is
a good idea. I am a little surprised not that
he's committed to his form of certainly more isolationist theory.
I'm a fan of I'm not surprised he's committed. I
(13:49):
am a little surprised that something like trade lit lanes
being open and free would not fall in American interest
for it.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Completely agree with because that's it.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
We've been hit, We've been targeted. I think Rubio said
the other day one hundred plus times during the Biden administration,
Tim now.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
We can't keep taking that.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, yeah, So that that surprised me. I agree.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
I also was surprised that he took kind of a
shot at President Trump. He said that Trump was sending
mixed messages to Europe and he didn't, you know, he
didn't want to continue that in case with this strike.
So I don't know, it's funny that actually that's not
a story at all, because I know it's like people
are trying to get a scalp and they know they're
(14:35):
not going to get Vance's, so they just are letting
him kind of skate on those comments.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Well, and to that point, do you think Vance is
speaking out of hubris in that chat or is he
speaking out of utter confidence that Trump just likes him
and that, by the way, that's the bottom line, and
all these guys Trump likes all of them.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I also didn't like in the chat how they focused
on how things look and how they to message this.
And I get that. Look, my background's in pr I
understand that messaging has to be tight. I understand how
important it is for the American people to understand the missions.
But you do the right thing for the country that
you think is the right thing for the country, and
(15:14):
you'd be ready to take the shots if you're wrong.
The focus on how this is going to look, I
didn't love that either.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah. The other thing is I think often Vance might
be more on the side of the American public than
I am when it comes to how much we're going
to do intervention in other places. I'm not as hawkish
as I used to be, for sure, but I am
more hawkish than he is. I think in this case,
the American people don't really have an issue with occasional
(15:43):
bombing runs that very specifically take out very specific targets
and don't cost us a lot of blood and treasure.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Right, We're not doing boots on the ground here. We're
trying to reopen a ceiling. So yeah, And of course,
obviously people are using this to take shots at people
that they dislike. Personally that's been right away. There was
some internal strife about Waltz, who you know, again with
(16:12):
the isolationists, he maybe's on the opposite side, although I
think these terms don't really make sense for this conflict,
because you can be an isolationist but still want to
have trade with places around the world and need to
have those trade lanes open. So Waltz was immediately a
target of that isolationist right. Of course, the left is
having a field day. They might even be possibly overshooting
(16:35):
all of this, people like Congressman Eric Swalwell saying that
Hegsath should resign. Swalwell had a full on relationship with
a Chinese spy and remains in Congress, so maybe he
does not have room to lecture anyone on accountability.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Well, and I think people have definitely have a point
when they say, oh, nobody was mad about Oh, I
don't know the hoodie's actually hitting us all of these times, right,
And I was like that, yes, people should have been
more mad about that. Or they'll say Mark Milly was
you know, giving back channel to the CCP saying like
if the president gets out of hand, I'll I'll deal
(17:12):
with it, right and saying nobody got mad about that,
both fair criticisms about what people were not mad about.
I reserve the right to be mad that this giant,
boneheaded mistake was made about national security.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah, it's so, And it's good and normal to criticize
your own side, and normal is the name of the
game here.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
He also ran on holding people accountable, and like he
has a Trump has a strange relationship with that because
he is the you're fired guy, and then he's also
very loyal. Yeah, he doesn't want to fire them. So
the last administration, you had a bunch of dust ups
and a bunch of people who got rid of for
(17:54):
their that's kind of really redneck for the reason that
he didn't really trust or know any of the those
people to begin with. This time, the people he chose
he mostly likes and knows and trust.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
So, I but I think it's a bad contrast with Biden,
or it's bad not to contrast with yourself with Biden
in this case, by going like someone has to be
punished for this.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, and still I hope that they don't, that none
of these people get fired.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
It's this whole, this real balance thing where it's only
March they've only been in office three months. I like
this team. I want to see what they.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Do, so and tell me. But tell me how you're
going to clean it up.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, tell tell me how you're going to fix it
and never let this happen again. Yeah, I mean, check
the numbers and the text.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
It's kind of an easy.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
One also, just to just to put it out there
because all the conspiracy theories have become true in the
last five years. Waltz is like, I don't know Goldberg,
I don't know why I had his number. We're looking
into that right now. I always picking competence over malice
in these situations.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
We're same sure.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
However, in the past five years often the malice has
been the thing that's competence. So just I'm just putting
it out there that that's what he said. Now, if
there's no basis in that, then that's irresponsible for him
to be putting it out there. Goldberg at one point
said they had met in passing, but he was surprised
that he would be on his contact.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
List, right, I mean, I have a lot of contact
of people I don't like. Like, it's not that's not
a crazy thing to do in our world, like, actually,
you have their numbers so that you specifically don't text
with them, Like, but it just red flag next to me,
you know, not to answer their calls.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Come on.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Yeah. The theory, by the way, the working theory, which
I think is correct, is that the person that was
meant to be on the chat was Jamison Greer, us
trade representative, who would naturally have been on a chat
about trade lanes and the need to go to military
operations to protect me. Jamison must have been like, why
is nobody calling me? One thing I do think is
(19:56):
problematic about this that sort of takes it another step
for the administration. Everything disappears in three days anyway. But
people understand being on the wrong thread or yeah, texting
the wrong thread. And yesterday on nationwide country music syndicated
morning show, they were doing a segment about when have
you texted the wrong person in the past? For sure?
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Look who among us? And you know there's been stories
in the past where people tried to DM somebody and
they ended up posting it on X like again, who
among us? We've all done it. I would say that
my two normy world reactions that I've heard are from
two different kinds of people. One who are saying, oh
my god, absolutely this has happened to me. I totally
(20:36):
get it. And then from the people who are like,
I check, you know, when it's a bridesmaid's trip, I
check every single number to make sure we have the
right people on it. And I don't want to send
it to a stranger.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
And you know, yeah, I am. I have done this.
And also if I were a high level intel person
with imminent war plans, I would be better at it. Yeah,
you take a class from the bachelorette party girl. That's right,
that's right.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yeah, we'll be right back on. Normally, there was a
Wall Street Journal piece about how women are not getting married,
and of course these pieces run so often. I cover
them a lot on my other show, Carol Markowitz Show,
And actually I had it in my monologue yesterday about
this Wall Street Journal piece. But basically, the numbers are
(21:23):
just collapsing. People are neither partnered nor married. Share of
women age eighteen to forty who are single that is
neither married nor cohabitating was fifty one percent in twenty
twenty three. That number was forty one percent in two thousand,
So that number is just getting higher and higher, and
(21:45):
it's obviously a giant problem.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yeah, I mean, I think we have a civilizational problem
if people don't know how to pair off and create families.
The data simply says over and over and over again
that two parent families raising children are the best for
people's their stability, for economics, for the economic well being
(22:09):
of the household, for future earnings, for happiness, like all
these things, everything again arguing against interest. I was a
single mom for several years. I think I did a
very good job at it. But I cannot be a
mother and a father at the same time, and so
creating these families should be a priority, not just for
the future of the civilization, which is like imperative people
(22:31):
used to get that, but also for people's happiness. We're
having a connection crisis and people are unable to figure
out how not to be lonely, and that's very concerning
to me.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
So I completely agree, and the fact that people can't
figure out how not to be lonely is top of
my priority list of what the kind of stuff that
I like to talk about and write about. Recently had
a column in The New York Post about how friendship
is just you know, those numbers have also plummeted. People
just don't have friends anymore. The number of people who
(23:05):
say they have zero friends has skyrocketed. So it's not marriage,
and it's not just you know, having kids, it's the
whole thing. They don't date, they don't get married, I mean,
they don't have friends. All of this is an ongoing problem.
I think a lot of these articles and a lot
of the studies focused on the financial side of it.
(23:26):
I just don't think that tells the whole story. I've
never met a woman and I'm talking ever who's like
I am so career orientated that I don't want to
meet a man. Every career orientated woman I know wants
to meet someone. And what I end up arguing in
you know, in Carol Marko would show is that I
think that when women don't meet a partner, then yes,
(23:48):
they lean more into their career. So it wasn't the
career that stopped them in the first place. It's that
they didn't find anyone and their career was what they
turned to. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
I noticed a couple of things in this story. One, uh,
the only woman quoted who is pursuing a promising relationship
got into that relationship or says she's in a promising
relationship got into that relationship via a setup from friends.
I think. I don't think that the apps don't work
for anyone. I have plenty of friends who got married
from the apps. However, it is an argument for a
(24:21):
return and encouraging the traditional ways of meeting in uh,
you know, affinity groups of friends where you're going to
an actual bar or bowling alley for a party and
you meet somebody there, the gym, your friends, a church.
These things are really very good.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Yeah. I love if you go up. I love setting
people up. I you know, if anybody wants to be
set up, you let me know.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I don't know if I'm any good at it, but
I need to make sure I'm there for my friends
in this way, because I do think that's I was
set up with my husband by a wonderful neighbor who
quote assessed both of us, and I think rightly said
I think you can handle him, and I think you
can handle her. Yeah, that was her big pitch. The
(25:10):
other thing I noticed here is that you know, there's
one woman in this story in particular, who's just letting
politics take over your life. Yeah, and be everything and
therefore prevent you or cause you to catastrophize and prevent
you from living life is really unhealthy. And I'm just
(25:31):
going to read a little bit of this. Rachel, a
thirty three year old real estate agent and Savannah Georgia,
said she broke up with her boyfriend with whom she
shares a five year old son, over a year ago
because she was tired of doing most of the childcare,
cooking scheduling while are also earning almost double of her
boyfriend's cellary. That's a whole other issue, right. She has
yet to date anyone else, in part because she worries
about living in a red state with a six week
(25:53):
abortion band. I have a child that I can't leave
behind to drive to Virginia if I had a privatecy scare,
and I definitely can't afford another child as a single mom.
She said, this is I'm going to borrow a phrase
from bethany single for a reason, Like does it that
story made me very sad?
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah, that is depressing, and it's like there are ways
to not get pregnant, I've heard.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
And she's an independent, smart lady.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Right, We're going to take a short break and come
right back with Normally, March madness is going on, and
that's apparently a college basketball tournament and I'm joking. I
actually it's on in the background of my life all
the time.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And by the way, a good place to meet men. Yes,
March madness.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yes, absolutely, Ladies, get out there well. Saint John's in
New York lost a close game to Arkansas in the
second round, and actually I was rooting for Saint John's
because my other's forty girlfriend, Kirsten Fleming told me to
you and you and Kirston are my my main, my
main sports girls. So Saint john lose sadly, and their
(27:02):
star player R J. Lewis Junior, he was Big East
Player of the Year, did not have a good game
and was benched toward the end. The abuse that he
got after the game was so bad that he deactivated
his Instagram account. And it seems like the NCAA knew
this kind of thing goes on because they ran this ad.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
A few days before the game.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Let's roll the clip.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
There's losing, but then there's being the loser. Game time
comes with enough pressure. Way too often people are betting
on sports losing and taking it out of the athletes.
Only a loser would harass college athletes after losing a bet,
but it happens almost every day. Root for your team,
(27:47):
get crazy when the buzzer sounds, but don't harass anyone
because you lost the bet. It's time we draw the
line and put an end to the abuse brought to
you by the NCAA.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
The fact that they need to say that.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Yeah, I think this is a combo of more frequent
and common ubiquitous really sports betting plus social media, because
what happens with social media is like, look, if people
have been complaining about the quarterback for years, by the way,
I know that's football, not basketball, the point guard for years, Yes,
but you couldn't always funnel that complaining straight to the guy.
(28:24):
You could him. You had to call a sports radio
talk show and like maybe he'd hear it in passing
right right, And so now you can just go to
the source. And that is not a healthy outcome or impulse.
It just don't do it.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Yeah, people have lost their minds in general. Our friend
Kat Timp she had this great line that like I've
never been watching TV and said, I have to go
find this actor or personal TV and tell them that
they're ugly.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
It has never happened to me. I have never had
that sensation.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
I've I need to find this person and tell them
they suck.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
A sports fan and also a real softy. So like
when even when the opposing kicker I need him to
miss a kick, I'm saying football because I'm a big
football fan. Yeah, I was a big basketball fan, but
now that I have four children, there's too many basketball
games to watch. Yeah, So even when I need the
kicker to miss, I'm sad for him. Yeah he missed.
And I go the opposite direction when it comes to
(29:21):
sports and famous people is if I think you were good,
that's when I'll reach out and say, hey, I really
enjoyed your work. Like, let's just turn it around, guys,
let's turn it around a nice Southern lady Mary, I
will say, I think now that the nil stuff is happening,
the name, image and likeness, and a lot of these
(29:42):
guys are getting paid like pro sports stars and people
are a lot more money is at stake here. Yeah,
that's where some of the stakes are higher, and so
people are going to get madder. That's part of what's
coming along with this.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Right, and I get that, but I still just think,
like a culture, this is so insane to me, and
the whole thing of like just because someone's famous or
just because someone's rich, you get to like say the
worst possible things to them.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
I hate it.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
I think there should be pressure to stop people from
doing it. I look, if somebody comments on my post
and I don't, like, you know, really something vicious, like,
I will go find them, like, I will find them,
I will tweet their name, like, I think we need
to stop this kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, I'm sure we've both gotten it before, and I
will amplify when something's particularly bad to just say like,
this is the kind of stuff we get. And I'm
just like very low wrung famous, like it's not even
though it's the nerdiest level of famous niche, right, people
still will be like, oh, I'm super mad at her.
(30:50):
It's like, okay, my middle.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Son calls it mildly famous. You are mildly famous.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
My children only think it's cool that I have a
Wikipedia entry for some reason. That really gets them.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yeah I don't have one, and I love.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
That mine is a really outdated picture. That's how you
know I'm not in charge of it.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
So 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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