September 11, 2025 • 34 mins
In this episode, Karol Markowicz and Mary Katharine Ham reflect on the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk, highlighting his commitment to civil discourse and the senselessness of political violence. They discuss the failures of the criminal justice and mental health systems following a deadly stabbing in Charlotte, criticizing left-leaning media and politicians for deflecting blame and downplaying rising crime. They also address declining education standards, public mistrust in government data, and Democratic Party infighting, emphasizing the need for honest conversations, public safety, and traditional values in American society. Normally is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, and welcome back to Normally. I'm Carol Markowitz. I'm
here with Mary Catherine Ham. We recorded an episode that
you're about to hear and then learn the shocking news
that Charlie Kirk had been murdered in Utah, and we
felt like we had to add a segment about that
and talk about it and not let the episode just
(00:21):
stand on its own because it's a heartbreaking day for us,
and we felt like we needed to share with you all.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, it's early in this news cycle, but the losses
already deeply felt. I did not know Charlie super well,
but I have known him since he was young because
he's been making an impact since he was very young,
and we worked together in those early days of turning point.
(00:50):
He was doing the thing that you and I love, yeah,
which is to engage on issues that are important to us.
You and I both You grew up in New York.
I grew up in Durham, North Carolina. We grew up
in liberal communities where we were happy to have friends
who we could go back and forth with. And the
thing that struck me today was and the Utah governor,
(01:13):
even though we don't know a ton and I think
we can make some assumptions with the Utah governor.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Was like he was.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Assassinated while debating on a college campus.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
And that.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Is the thing I admired about Charlie was watching him
go out and civilly and energetically with a take on
whoever came to him on a college campus. He was
what college used to be. But you had to import
him to college to make it work now because they
don't do that anymore. And the idea that someone would
(01:48):
target him for that, and that people think too many
people think that's warranted is crushing. It's crushing, it really is.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I feel just devastated, and I've just been at a
loss for words, breaking down crying at different points. He
was such a good person. And you know, the thing is,
you're right. I love an argument, I love debating, I
love all of that. But when he went into the
(02:23):
lions Den all the time, sometimes I thought, why, you know,
why mind are you going to change?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Right?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
And the thing is he was changing minds, he was growing,
he his organization was growing. They had done some incredible
work in the last year. And it's such a loss,
and I feel just.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
For his family.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Just this it's senseless it's really senseless. He was killed
for wanting to talk to the other side, for taking
the chance and trying to talk to the other side.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, yeah, it's really it's dark. It makes me worried
about the future. Yeah, you know, there are two Greg Lukianov,
who is with Fire, the Free speech organization, I'm going
to borrow his words because he said what we want
is maximum tolerance of other viewpoints and zero tolerance of violence,
(03:27):
and particularly on college campuses, over the last decades, we've
reversed that. Far too often it is minimal tolerance of
other viewpoints and far too much tolerance of violence, which
then cascades. And then, by the way, when you tell
people that words are violence, yeah, they want to retaliate
with violence. So like, there are people and I'm not
(03:49):
going to name check people or go through the receipts
because it's deeply depressing, But there are too many people
who believe that Charlie Kirk's words were an existential threat
to them. That was never true. Because he was speaking,
he faced an existential threat. I mean, I'm obviously thinking
(04:09):
about his family quite a lot. He has two young kids.
I believe they are about one and four. His wife, Erica,
will have a very tough road.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Ahead of her.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
And you know, they were people of faith and that
the promise is that God will be with them, and
God will be with his kids and with her as
they go through this, and that's real. But sometimes it
will feel impossible for that to be real, and it's hard.
It's hard for me to think about someone starting that
(04:42):
journey to have this be her life.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
It's just there's so many things that are sad about it.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
I loved how openly Charlie lived his faith, and so
if you're listening to this, I think let's just pray
for his family and pray for the country as we
move forward. Thank you for listening. Guys. We are back
(05:16):
on normally normal takes.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
THEE heard.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I'm guys, happy and I'm my own markets.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
How does you look going? My captain?
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Good?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
You know, hectic, trying to keep up with all the
new extracurriculars for the children.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
I often take them on and then I'm like, oh,
I have to do this every week.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I went to back to school night last night for
my youngest son and like they were like, any, no,
continue signing the planner every night.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
And I was like signing the planner every night. I
haven't even signed it once.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, same girl saying I have a I have a
very type a child who if the planner needs to
get signed, she makes sure it's signed right outside of that.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Yeah, it's not happening.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
That's the first child, or the second.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
The second child a second.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I have to ask you if you share my maybe
semi problematic take, which is that when you get asked
to do something daily as a parent for one of
your children, one I don't like it, don't care for it,
don't put this on my plate. Let the homework show
that we did the home That not a plan we
need to sign that.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
I saw the planner like you did the homework. Just
take it in to school and give it to the teacher.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
But I have noticed a correlation, and that is that
people who give me daily work often are pre kids
in their life chapter and people who do not give
me daily work have several children. Because there's a different
understanding of what I'm capable of.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
It's interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
I don't know, No, I think that the teachers in
this case have kids, and I'm sure it is just
you know, policy of the school or whatever.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Is blown up by your teachers.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Yeah, I can't do stuff like this every day. And
plus my other two kids, this is the youngest child,
the older two are you know, I got this joke
from Modern Family, But they're completely self cleaning ovens.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Like I don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
My oldest I haven't been involved in her school work
since she was like in first grade.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
It's all been like on her own.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
So now having it like chase this kid around, be like,
let me sign your planner.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
No, I'm not a fan at it. We're in the
car every day, like, just give it to me while
I'm driving.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
I don't say, I don't want to say. I'm just
like sign it for me.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
But you know that's a life skill too.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Okay, all right, shall we to the news, which is,
as usual, more sad than our day to day lives. Yeah,
we are still talking about the tragic murder of Arena Zarutska,
a twenty three year old Ukrainian immigrant who was writing
a Charlotte light Rail public transit system and was in
(07:59):
a totally unprovoked, insane interaction that is caught on tape,
stabbed to death by a man on the train who
we now know to be a four time, fourteen time,
arrested several time, felons several times, violent felon, and schizophrenic
man who was walking the streets and riding the train.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
And the response to this has been enlightening.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Right, That's the thing this exposed so much.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
This is why it's a two day story on normally,
because the conversation around it has been so.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Crazy that we have to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I think the left is just grappling with what they
can say here, and what they are not saying is
we need to keep people in prison for longer, we
need to arrest more people, we need to contain this
kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Instead, what they're saying.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Is a bunch of gibberish that doesn't apply to anything.
John Favreau, he's a Obama bro podcaster at pod Saves America,
founder of Crooked Media. He wrote this tweet where he
pretended to say, you know, Democrats to just admit that
some politicians have been way too lenient in releasing dangerous
(09:14):
criminals from.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Prison these last few years.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
And he lists some crimes committed by people they let
out early, and of course all of those crimes were
committed by people let out by Donald Trump. These are
pardon recipients largely from January sixth, I think that, you know,
he thinks he's got a gotcha. I'm like, rearrest them
and throw away the key.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Like I know, so you know, so we both were like, yeah,
the violent ones shouldn't be pardoned.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Two, if you take this as a as a real point,
which it's not. It is a it's his gut reaction,
which is to watch the tragic public murder of a
young person and make a joke about January sixth. But
if you're to take it as a real point, and
by the way, I thought it was sincere at first,
and those like, oh, I guess we're not doing the
abundance thing on crime, but right it right?
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Do I think January sixth folks are in danger of
violent recidivism?
Speaker 1 (10:10):
I do not.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I just don't.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I think it's different, material different. And the problem once
again is that if you say concerns about this are
out of bounds, racist, crazy, the domain of only people
who love every January sixth and everything that happened that day,
(10:35):
you don't make.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
The concerns go away.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
You just characterize the concerns and the right that shares
them as very reasonable exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
You know, on a previous episode, I said that the
most lib thing about me is that I think that
we should treat violent offenders and non violent offenders differently,
and I think that non violent offenders should get the
cushier prison and you know, should get different things.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
But it turns out that's not even a lib thing anymore.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
They don't they don't see a difference between violent defenders
and non violent offenders.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
I get to be conservative.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Paraye Well and Charlie Cook characterized it well when it
comes to crime. I have been somebody who's very open
to criminal justice reform and thinks there can be an
excessive force.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Problem like that's it's a real exactly Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Now I want to be honest about those statistics and
who it affects, and I do not.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
I do not want to like.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Paint with a super broad brush and defund police for instance. Right,
But I'm squishy in that I want the Constitution applied
correctly to every person so that our system, our miracle
system of justice, which has its faults but is a
miracle in the history of humankind, can exist and treat
(11:51):
people fairly. Because I do think people get dragged into
the criminal justice system and their lives turned in a
bad direction when we could have, perhaps with non violent folks,
turned them in a in a better direction.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Okay, fine, this guy's not that.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
This guy has not sent that a group of social
workers out and pick him up safely and every and.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Put him in a statement program, and everything's fine. It's
not real.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
It's not And you know, Peter J.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Hassen points out that Favreau had defund police activists on
his podcast in twenty twenty. Clearly is not actually interested
in fighting any crime. He's just interested in making a
anti Donald Trump point. So you know, when he's looking
for the people that did this, it was you, dude,
it was you.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Well, I like, I just think the more that you
make flippant jokes about this or tell people that it's
statistically rare that this happens and they shouldn't have feelings
about it, one is it is statistically rare. And also
the randomness of it is very scary to people because
as you as you said, she's not really putting, she's
(12:57):
not involved in any circles that would put her in
this position.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
She's no one, No one's anticipating this.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
And then it also went viral that we I don't
want to watch the whole video, but it went viral. Yeah,
there was certainly lag time in someone coming to her
aid at all, and people around her seemed disinterested to
an almost shocking degree, like I understand the guys in
the train and he still has a knife, so I Y, yeah,
(13:25):
but it does not take confronting him to look concerned
and hit nine.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
One one on your phone exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
And later someone did come and try to like help
her and pressure on her. It's yeah, that video is
tough in so so so many ways, right, and.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Again the randomness of it, and you know, the it's
very it's a very rare occurrence.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Yes, it's a very rare occurrence, but really not rare enough.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
And you know, somebody tried to gotcha on us on
x when we posted our episode from a few days ago,
and they tweeted a link at us and they said,
you're covering this and it was a story of a
man sat behind a stranger on the bus, slit her
throat and unprovoked attack.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
The man in this story is white.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I think the implication is that you and I are
not covering it because he's white. I hadn't heard about this,
and so, yeah, I think this story should be big too.
It happened in Tulsa in August. Absolutely, this is another
story where somebody.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
Violent acted violent on public transport.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
This person was also a fugitive from a justice warrant
from the state of Missouri, so already had a previous
interaction with the law.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Again, you're not going to get me in a gotcha.
I think this should be a big story too.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
I think that somebody who has a warrant for their
arrest from Missouri.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Uh, off the streets. Yeah, should have been.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Off the streets. So nice try.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
But I'm actually fully supportive in covering this story.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
And there's another part of this too that in this
story would make it a national story if the media
wasn't disinterested in this narrative, and it is that there
is a visual element.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
We both work in news in the Tulsa case.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
To my knowledge, I could be wrong, but I just
looked it up and there's not a surveillance.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Video of this happening. That was like, maybe it's just withheld.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I understand that, but when something has a visual element
like that, it becomes.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
A bigger story.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Because it is part of news packages and that is
how newsrooms work. So it is very noticeable when it
doesn't become a story when there is that visual element.
But I echo you on this Tulsa killing in which
these are these are quite analogous victims, and he should
not have been on transit. A couple of a lot
(15:46):
of other folks have chimed in and said, you know,
when I go in public transit, and I do it.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Too, I'm constantly scanning. I am, I am.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
I am encountering very mentally ill people, sometimes scary, the
ones one with knitting needles one time who yelled many
many fwords sitting across from me, and I had to
move on the train. And it's like because she had
a weapon, and a lot of people are looking around
and saying to democrats and media, but I repeat myself,
(16:16):
it doesn't have to.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Be this way, It really doesn't.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Why do we have to accept this right?
Speaker 1 (16:21):
I think part of why she was sort of you know,
in her phone and not paying attention is that she
expected that train to be safe, and I think you
and I don't have that expectation.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
And that's a bad thing for us. I was thinking
about this I almost when I haven't. You know, I
live in South Florida.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Now I don't have a lot of opportunities for public transportation,
but when I did, I would always sit with my
back to the wall so nobody could be behind me.
I would sit, you know, in a seat where I
could see everything. Since I was a child in Brooklyn,
I learned defense mechanisms on public transportation, on how to
be safe. And that's sad and unfortunate, and it shouldn't
(17:04):
have to be this way. And that's what people on
the right are saying, that we don't want it to
be like this anymore. We want change, We want to
see things altered that we don't have to be, you know,
scanning constantly in a car, scanning, you know, looking around
and putting ourselves in a defensive position to escape.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
You know, we shouldn't have to live like this.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Well, and in this way, by the way, groups together
two different kinds of granted, statistically rare but very traumatic events,
which is mass shootings in this kind of thing, both
perpetrated by very obviously violent, mentally ill people, yeah, who
had shown violent propensities in the past. I do think
that the action we probably need to have a discussion
about is how you get those people off.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
The streets for more permanent periods of time.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
And again, it's not like just a couple social workers
show up at your house. This this point, this man's
poor family tried to have him committed and ran up
against like problem.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
The way I understand it, the cabal of NGOs just like, well,
they're saying what Van Jones says about him. Can we
play that clip real quick.
Speaker 6 (18:11):
It's not about cashless bail or no cashless bill. It's
about the fact that we don't know how to deal
with people who were hurting in the way this man
was hurting. Hurt people, hurt people. What happened was horrible,
but it becomes an opportunity for people to jump on vandwagons.
And then for someone like Charlie Kirk, you should be
ashamed of himself. No one mentioned the word race, white, black,
or anything except him. What people mention is that the
(18:32):
horror of what happened to this young woman.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
No, that's not true.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
The perpetrator did, in fact mention her race and said
that he got her, He got that white girl.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
It's on tape.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, But for his first point, hurt people hurt people
is not the message that's going to solve this in
the future.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
That's used for like somebody whose parents were mean to them,
so then they're mean to their girlfriend when they grow up.
It's not used for somebody smashing and slashing the woman
in front of him. I'm sorry, that's not the correct
usage of hurt people.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Hurt people.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, and then one more clip Caroline Downey, a buddy
who writes at National Review She's great Jugo's full bore
on the same CNN show to say like, hey, maybe
there is another option here.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
It is he served time for his violent offenses, not
for his schizophrenia.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
I know what I'm saying that that was compounding this
entire issue, the fact that he lashed out violently on that.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
I know.
Speaker 6 (19:27):
I'm just saying he did actually serve time for the
violent offenses that he committed.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
But he was a career criminal, a repeat offender who
was let back onto our streets despite a really bad
criminal record that suggests he should have been locked away
for life because he was threatening the public, He was
a menace to society.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
He should have been locked away for life for what
Now he should have schizophrenia? Want to you actually said that.
Speaker 7 (19:52):
Said that, he said he should be locked away for
life for schizophrenia institutionalized. Yes, And if you're saying they
should not, you're saying that young women like you and
me are basically just we're lambs into the slaughter. You
go on public transportation in this city, that could happen
(20:13):
to any single one of us. I use public transit constantly.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
That is completely unhinged.
Speaker 7 (20:19):
Frankly, people shouldn't be locked away for mental illness. They
should be treated for it in institution.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yes, m I mean we used to do this, and
it's tricky because it's a liberty question. I don't want
people being like involuntarily committed at the drop of a hat.
But someone who has many violent offenses and is diagnosed
skis for.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
A hard call. We gotta yeah. And the way that
they acted.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Is if she was crazy, and who would believe this.
Most people would believe this, Most people would want that.
Most people would choose that, and they would choose it
even if it was their family member, like this man's
family wanted to do to him.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
That's the problem because many families get stuck in this
position because you have an adult citizen who you cannot force.
Often a male who is stronger than the rest of
his family who you cannot force.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
To stay on his medication.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
But in an institutionalized situation, yeah, they could be on
daily medication.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
And CNN panels will tell you that, no, you cannot
institutionalize your violent family member.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
How dare you we need some options?
Speaker 4 (21:22):
That'd be nice? That would be nice.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
We'll be right back on normally where we'll talk about
the Biden job numbers. Was anything real about the Biden administration?
Be right back on normally. Welcome back on normally where
a giant downward revision of jobs from April twenty twenty
four to March twenty twenty five has just taken place,
(21:48):
and it really makes me think, what the hell's going
on over there? I don't understand how this happens.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
How how do you have an.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Almost one million jobs revised downward? The actual numbers nine
hundred and eleven thousand, and that is quite a large
number to kind of make an error like nine hundred
and eleven sure, nine thousand, okay, almost a million?
Speaker 4 (22:11):
How does that happen?
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I just this bothers me immensely and I don't think
that I don't think that Trunk deals with it the
right way by just like firing people at the Bureau
of Labor Statistics.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
But it's clear that we have a problem.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
This is like my issue with the CDC, right, Like
I would like to build trust in these stats.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
I would like to know that the stats are real.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Can we please get someone to rationally look through what
we're doing who can be.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Trustworthy and careful and then.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Correct the way that we do this work. And by
the way, along the way, you may find that someone
at BLS was like, yeah, I put the finger on
the scale in the other direction.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Yeah, right, Like that doesn't surprise me at this point.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Right, we don't know, And that continues to be the
problem of the Biden administration. It was so opaque and
close to us that we don't know what happened here.
It's it's baffling, it really is. People have dug up,
you know, old Biden tweets. Since I took office, we've
recovered all the jobs lost during the pandemic and added
(23:12):
over six million more. That turns out to be untrue.
And I don't know. I don't know how people have
any trust in anything that.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
The government says anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
We were lied to for four years about so many
different things. And this is why, you know, I'm so
not a conspiracy theorist, and I am afraid that conspiracy
theories are gripping our country, both on the right and
the left. But you could see where they're coming from.
You could see where they're stemming from. They're like, everybody's
lying to us, and we are like, no, not everybody,
(23:47):
but lots of people.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
It's easier to point out the ones that aren't right.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
We're like, let's make a short list of the ones
who aren't lying to you. And that's that's the real
issue here. I think that public trust is so broken
that I don't know how we recover from it.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yeah, it's it's really bad.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Can I point out and I'm going rogue here, but
I can I point out another statistics story that I
think is important and it is a terrible legacy of
the Biden administration because this broke yesterday. The National report
Card came out again yesterday and it is devastating. Yeah,
the decline and this is Wall Street Journal, The decline
in American K through twelve public education is getting worse.
(24:26):
More dispariating evidence came Tuesday with the nation's report card
showing a third of high school seniors lack basic reading
skills and nearly half can't do rudimentary math.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
I mean, that's the headline. There's so much more in it.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
For instance, the fact that low performing students, as you
and I pointed out what happened post pandemic, have fallen
off more precipitously than everyone else. That racial gaps have
gotten larger as a result, because you hurt those who
were hurting.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Yeah, speaking of that, you hurt those.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Who were applied accurately more.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Than those who had more resources.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
And this is we can delve into it more in
the future, because I do think it's worth getting into
the weeds on it. The top lines are really devastating.
I am genuinely worried about literacy as a basic sort.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Of like existential issue for this society.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
I absolutely agree. I don't know how we recover from this,
and I think that the whole I mean, there's so
many problems. You know, we could obviously get into all
of it, but the fact that we haven't been able
to recover to pre pandemic levels is yet more evidence
that closing schools was a giant, giant, giant mistake, and
(25:42):
nobody's taken responsibility for it. Nobody has said this was wrong,
we would never do it again. Instead, the people who
did it, like Randy Wingarden, are saying that she fought
to open schools, which I'm always like, who were you fighting?
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Who was on the other side of that fight?
Speaker 3 (25:57):
You know, she's got a.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
New book out, by the way, she's got a new
book coming out about how like if I did it? Yeah,
that's what it should be. It's actually called it's actually
called why. I think it's called why Fascists Hate teachers,
because you know she has to arm everybody to man,
you quit your job for two years.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
You stopped, right, you stopped.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I had a good liberal liberal friend who posted yesterday
or two days ago like fascists are always coming for
the science first, and I had to respond and I
was like, this is this about the COVID years.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, so we will do some more of that later
because I'd like to flesh it out. But that is
I didn't want to leave it untouched because it's yet
another statistical, uh and and very real crisis from lying
by the people.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Stop lying to the people and try to rebuild trust.
I don't know how we do it, but I think
that some steps should be taken in that direction.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Well, Kamala is trying to rebuild some trust with her
new book. Have more on that normally in a second.
All right, we're back on normally, and Kamala Harris has
a book coming out. It's called One hundred and seven Days.
It's going to be a real romp, according to the
excerpts we've seen thus far, one of which just says like, hey,
(27:19):
probably shouldn't have run that guy again, in reference to
Joe Biden, who was her boss, who was the person
that she was VP for, who was the person who
she would have been in a position to best assess
that he shouldn't run again.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
And yet she didn't say nothing, did she?
Speaker 4 (27:35):
No, she didn't she.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
The excerpt that The Atlantic got has the quote, was
it grace or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think
it was recklessness, Harris writes of her decision not to
convince Biden to drop out of the twenty twenty four
race earlier. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn't
a choice that should have been left an individual's ego,
an individual's ambition.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
It should have been more than a personal decision. End quote.
Here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
The reason that Biden ran was because Kamala Harris was
going to take his place, and they knew she was
going to lose. So she hasn't faced that reality yet.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
But that's what happened here. I was willing.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
To bet the house that Biden was going to run,
and the reason was because all of the other ideas
of who could replace him, like, oh, they could slip
and Gavin newsom, oh.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
It'll be Jill Biden or whatever.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
I was always like, no, guys, it can only be Kamala.
She is the only person that it can be and
nobody wants that. That's why he's going to run. So
you know, Buck Sexton one time was like, we weren't wrong.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
He did run, just not the whole way.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree that I thought the better
thing they should have done, probably when they were in
a pinch, was like immediately handed off to Kamala. However,
we all knew that deficiencies were a why she was
picked and b why it was bad for her to
go forward. Let me also say that she hasn't come
to grips with reality. Reality not even just the other
(29:10):
point you made. But in the book, in this excerpt,
it notes the New York Times notes Miss Harris dismissed
any notion that mister Biden was not mentally or physically
fit to serve as president. Okay, so it was reckless
to have him make the decision to run.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
But why why? But why was it reckless?
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Because if there's not a reason, then that doesn't make
any sense.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Now.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Her answer is at eighty one, Joe got tired. That's
when his age showed in physical and verbal stumbles. Like
this is just hair splitting to a ridiculous degree. Just
to admit it, just to admit actually she should say
is admit it?
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Say everything juicy she saw?
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Say they kept me out of rooms with him because
he was so debilitated.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
And I wish I had known more and done more. Yeah,
she doesn't be a book. I read.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
Right again.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Honesty, Honesty would go a long way, and it would
help her. In fact, if she could be a more
authentic person, she could go places after being vice president.
It's her inauthenticity that is the problem. In twenty sixteen,
when she ran for president, I actually wrote a column
about how Elizabeth Warren was unlikable, and I was like,
(30:21):
but nobody's saying that about Kamala Harris because she wasn't unlikable.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
No, it was different. Then she was different, right, Yeah, she.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Only became unlikable when she started kind of lying about
who she was and what she believed and the kind
of person that she was. And if she wrote a
book and told the truth, I don't know, she could
have a future.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
Maybe.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
No.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
I look back on moments of my commentary during those
years and think there were moments when I thought she
was quite good on the stage. I thought she was,
you know, taking cheap shots sometimes, but she did it effectively, right,
And then the bottom just dropped.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Out on that.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
I also want to point out that she really has
this cell phone where she says it's Joe and Jill's decision.
We all said that like a mantra, as if we'd
all been hypnotized. Okay, the last thing I want is
a president who can be hypnotized.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
It's by Jill Biden not interested in that.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Like you didn't.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
You didn't have the strength to stand up to your
peer group and your bosses and say this was bad.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Right, So yeah, I was going to say that.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Actually, I think that what happened to her and why
she fell apart in such a you know, spectacular fashion,
is of the problem that's going on on the left.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
They don't know who they're supposed to be.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
When they say things that they used to believe, you know,
seven years ago, their left flank comes for them so hard.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
That they don't know what to say.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
I'm curious to see how any of them run for
president in the next you know go around. I mean,
just an example that comes to mind, you know, in
the beginning, when AOC first hit the scene and she
does the interview with Margaret Hoover, and she says that
she's for a two state solution, and that used to
be something that liberals believed in Israel, right, They believed
(32:08):
in a two state solution in Israel, one for the
for the Israelis, one for the Palestinians now and then
she she had to walk that back because the leftists
were like.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
We don't believe that anymore. So who knows what they
stand for.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
If you don't know what you stand for, you can't
make a strong argument for it. And that is the
problem that they're all going to run into. So when
the Gavin Newsom's of the world on the debate stage
are going to have to talk about, you know, trans
kids in sports.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
He just told Charlie Kirk that.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
He supports, you know, the trans girls not playing.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
In girls' sports.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Is he going to be able to say that again
on a debate stage or that was without saying he
hasn't do anything about it, But will he even be
able to repeat that without the left going bananas.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
The other example is, of course Abigail Spamberger, who's running
in Virginia for governor and may very well win because
it's a very purplish blue state with a lot of
federal workers. But she's the great normy savior for them, allegedly,
and she can't even say the thing about boys and
girls sports.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
She can't even say the.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Thing about boys and girls locker rooms, or girls and
boys locker rooms. In fact, she voted for legislation that
endorsed all these things. I think sponsored legislation that endorsed
all these things. And in the meantime, she's like, my
first act will be to make sure that this is
a sanctuary state.
Speaker 7 (33:24):
Like.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
These things are not in line with the national public
for sure, and Democrats like Jon Favreau are going to
blame voters for noticing that they believed and kept believing
these things.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
He's gonna be like, she hasn't said that in the
last three weeks. Well, that doesn't count.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
In the last three weeks exactly right, Well, what does
she believe today, Mary Catherine.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Yeah, that's the important thing. It's a pickle. They're in
a pickle.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
It is it is.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
I can't wait to see how this turns out. I'm
not saying they can't win. I'm not saying they're not
going to win races. And Republicans are going to run
some bad candidates in some place and I mean not
in Virginia but in other places, and they're going to
win races and it'll happen. But they don't know who
they are, and they can't say. If they do know,
they still can't say it.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
So we'll see.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
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, and welcome back to Normally. I'm Carol Markowitz. I'm
here with Mary Catherine Ham. We recorded an episode that
you're about to hear and then learn the shocking news
that Charlie Kirk had been murdered in Utah, and we
felt like we had to add a segment about that
and talk about it and not let the episode just
(00:21):
stand on its own because it's a heartbreaking day for us,
and we felt like we needed to share with you all.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, it's early in this news cycle, but the losses
already deeply felt. I did not know Charlie super well,
but I have known him since he was young because
he's been making an impact since he was very young,
and we worked together in those early days of turning point.
(00:50):
He was doing the thing that you and I love, yeah,
which is to engage on issues that are important to us.
You and I both You grew up in New York.
I grew up in Durham, North Carolina. We grew up
in liberal communities where we were happy to have friends
who we could go back and forth with. And the
thing that struck me today was and the Utah governor,
(01:13):
even though we don't know a ton and I think
we can make some assumptions with the Utah governor.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Was like he was.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Assassinated while debating on a college campus.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
And that.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Is the thing I admired about Charlie was watching him
go out and civilly and energetically with a take on
whoever came to him on a college campus. He was
what college used to be. But you had to import
him to college to make it work now because they
don't do that anymore. And the idea that someone would
(01:48):
target him for that, and that people think too many
people think that's warranted is crushing. It's crushing, it really is.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I feel just devastated, and I've just been at a
loss for words, breaking down crying at different points. He
was such a good person. And you know, the thing is,
you're right. I love an argument, I love debating, I
love all of that. But when he went into the
(02:23):
lions Den all the time, sometimes I thought, why, you know,
why mind are you going to change?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Right?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
And the thing is he was changing minds, he was growing,
he his organization was growing. They had done some incredible
work in the last year. And it's such a loss,
and I feel just.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
For his family.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Just this it's senseless it's really senseless. He was killed
for wanting to talk to the other side, for taking
the chance and trying to talk to the other side.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, yeah, it's really it's dark. It makes me worried
about the future. Yeah, you know, there are two Greg Lukianov,
who is with Fire, the Free speech organization, I'm going
to borrow his words because he said what we want
is maximum tolerance of other viewpoints and zero tolerance of violence,
(03:27):
and particularly on college campuses, over the last decades, we've
reversed that. Far too often it is minimal tolerance of
other viewpoints and far too much tolerance of violence, which
then cascades. And then, by the way, when you tell
people that words are violence, yeah, they want to retaliate
with violence. So like, there are people and I'm not
(03:49):
going to name check people or go through the receipts
because it's deeply depressing, But there are too many people
who believe that Charlie Kirk's words were an existential threat
to them. That was never true. Because he was speaking,
he faced an existential threat. I mean, I'm obviously thinking
(04:09):
about his family quite a lot. He has two young kids.
I believe they are about one and four. His wife, Erica,
will have a very tough road.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Ahead of her.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
And you know, they were people of faith and that
the promise is that God will be with them, and
God will be with his kids and with her as
they go through this, and that's real. But sometimes it
will feel impossible for that to be real, and it's hard.
It's hard for me to think about someone starting that
(04:42):
journey to have this be her life.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
It's just there's so many things that are sad about it.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
I loved how openly Charlie lived his faith, and so
if you're listening to this, I think let's just pray
for his family and pray for the country as we
move forward. Thank you for listening. Guys. We are back
(05:16):
on normally normal takes.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
THEE heard.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I'm guys, happy and I'm my own markets.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
How does you look going? My captain?
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Good?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
You know, hectic, trying to keep up with all the
new extracurriculars for the children.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
I often take them on and then I'm like, oh,
I have to do this every week.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I went to back to school night last night for
my youngest son and like they were like, any, no,
continue signing the planner every night.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
And I was like signing the planner every night. I
haven't even signed it once.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, same girl saying I have a I have a
very type a child who if the planner needs to
get signed, she makes sure it's signed right outside of that.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Yeah, it's not happening.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
That's the first child, or the second.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
The second child a second.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I have to ask you if you share my maybe
semi problematic take, which is that when you get asked
to do something daily as a parent for one of
your children, one I don't like it, don't care for it,
don't put this on my plate. Let the homework show
that we did the home That not a plan we
need to sign that.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
I saw the planner like you did the homework. Just
take it in to school and give it to the teacher.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
But I have noticed a correlation, and that is that
people who give me daily work often are pre kids
in their life chapter and people who do not give
me daily work have several children. Because there's a different
understanding of what I'm capable of.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
It's interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
I don't know, No, I think that the teachers in
this case have kids, and I'm sure it is just
you know, policy of the school or whatever.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Is blown up by your teachers.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Yeah, I can't do stuff like this every day. And
plus my other two kids, this is the youngest child,
the older two are you know, I got this joke
from Modern Family, But they're completely self cleaning ovens.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Like I don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
My oldest I haven't been involved in her school work
since she was like in first grade.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
It's all been like on her own.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
So now having it like chase this kid around, be like,
let me sign your planner.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
No, I'm not a fan at it. We're in the
car every day, like, just give it to me while
I'm driving.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
I don't say, I don't want to say. I'm just
like sign it for me.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
But you know that's a life skill too.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Okay, all right, shall we to the news, which is,
as usual, more sad than our day to day lives. Yeah,
we are still talking about the tragic murder of Arena Zarutska,
a twenty three year old Ukrainian immigrant who was writing
a Charlotte light Rail public transit system and was in
(07:59):
a totally unprovoked, insane interaction that is caught on tape,
stabbed to death by a man on the train who
we now know to be a four time, fourteen time,
arrested several time, felons several times, violent felon, and schizophrenic
man who was walking the streets and riding the train.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
And the response to this has been enlightening.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Right, That's the thing this exposed so much.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
This is why it's a two day story on normally,
because the conversation around it has been so.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Crazy that we have to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I think the left is just grappling with what they
can say here, and what they are not saying is
we need to keep people in prison for longer, we
need to arrest more people, we need to contain this
kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Instead, what they're saying.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Is a bunch of gibberish that doesn't apply to anything.
John Favreau, he's a Obama bro podcaster at pod Saves America,
founder of Crooked Media. He wrote this tweet where he
pretended to say, you know, Democrats to just admit that
some politicians have been way too lenient in releasing dangerous
(09:14):
criminals from.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Prison these last few years.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
And he lists some crimes committed by people they let
out early, and of course all of those crimes were
committed by people let out by Donald Trump. These are
pardon recipients largely from January sixth, I think that, you know,
he thinks he's got a gotcha. I'm like, rearrest them
and throw away the key.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Like I know, so you know, so we both were like, yeah,
the violent ones shouldn't be pardoned.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Two, if you take this as a as a real point,
which it's not. It is a it's his gut reaction,
which is to watch the tragic public murder of a
young person and make a joke about January sixth. But
if you're to take it as a real point, and
by the way, I thought it was sincere at first,
and those like, oh, I guess we're not doing the
abundance thing on crime, but right it right?
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Do I think January sixth folks are in danger of
violent recidivism?
Speaker 1 (10:10):
I do not.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I just don't.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I think it's different, material different. And the problem once
again is that if you say concerns about this are
out of bounds, racist, crazy, the domain of only people
who love every January sixth and everything that happened that day,
(10:35):
you don't make.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
The concerns go away.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
You just characterize the concerns and the right that shares
them as very reasonable exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
You know, on a previous episode, I said that the
most lib thing about me is that I think that
we should treat violent offenders and non violent offenders differently,
and I think that non violent offenders should get the
cushier prison and you know, should get different things.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
But it turns out that's not even a lib thing anymore.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
They don't they don't see a difference between violent defenders
and non violent offenders.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
I get to be conservative.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Paraye Well and Charlie Cook characterized it well when it
comes to crime. I have been somebody who's very open
to criminal justice reform and thinks there can be an
excessive force.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Problem like that's it's a real exactly Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Now I want to be honest about those statistics and
who it affects, and I do not.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
I do not want to like.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Paint with a super broad brush and defund police for instance. Right,
But I'm squishy in that I want the Constitution applied
correctly to every person so that our system, our miracle
system of justice, which has its faults but is a
miracle in the history of humankind, can exist and treat
(11:51):
people fairly. Because I do think people get dragged into
the criminal justice system and their lives turned in a
bad direction when we could have, perhaps with non violent folks,
turned them in a in a better direction.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Okay, fine, this guy's not that.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
This guy has not sent that a group of social
workers out and pick him up safely and every and.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Put him in a statement program, and everything's fine. It's
not real.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
It's not And you know, Peter J.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Hassen points out that Favreau had defund police activists on
his podcast in twenty twenty. Clearly is not actually interested
in fighting any crime. He's just interested in making a
anti Donald Trump point. So you know, when he's looking
for the people that did this, it was you, dude,
it was you.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Well, I like, I just think the more that you
make flippant jokes about this or tell people that it's
statistically rare that this happens and they shouldn't have feelings
about it, one is it is statistically rare. And also
the randomness of it is very scary to people because
as you as you said, she's not really putting, she's
(12:57):
not involved in any circles that would put her in
this position.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
She's no one, No one's anticipating this.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
And then it also went viral that we I don't
want to watch the whole video, but it went viral. Yeah,
there was certainly lag time in someone coming to her
aid at all, and people around her seemed disinterested to
an almost shocking degree, like I understand the guys in
the train and he still has a knife, so I Y, yeah,
(13:25):
but it does not take confronting him to look concerned
and hit nine.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
One one on your phone exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
And later someone did come and try to like help
her and pressure on her. It's yeah, that video is
tough in so so so many ways, right, and.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Again the randomness of it, and you know, the it's
very it's a very rare occurrence.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Yes, it's a very rare occurrence, but really not rare enough.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
And you know, somebody tried to gotcha on us on
x when we posted our episode from a few days ago,
and they tweeted a link at us and they said,
you're covering this and it was a story of a
man sat behind a stranger on the bus, slit her
throat and unprovoked attack.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
The man in this story is white.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I think the implication is that you and I are
not covering it because he's white. I hadn't heard about this,
and so, yeah, I think this story should be big too.
It happened in Tulsa in August. Absolutely, this is another
story where somebody.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
Violent acted violent on public transport.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
This person was also a fugitive from a justice warrant
from the state of Missouri, so already had a previous
interaction with the law.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Again, you're not going to get me in a gotcha.
I think this should be a big story too.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
I think that somebody who has a warrant for their
arrest from Missouri.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Uh, off the streets. Yeah, should have been.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Off the streets. So nice try.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
But I'm actually fully supportive in covering this story.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
And there's another part of this too that in this
story would make it a national story if the media
wasn't disinterested in this narrative, and it is that there
is a visual element.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
We both work in news in the Tulsa case.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
To my knowledge, I could be wrong, but I just
looked it up and there's not a surveillance.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Video of this happening. That was like, maybe it's just withheld.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I understand that, but when something has a visual element
like that, it becomes.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
A bigger story.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Because it is part of news packages and that is
how newsrooms work. So it is very noticeable when it
doesn't become a story when there is that visual element.
But I echo you on this Tulsa killing in which
these are these are quite analogous victims, and he should
not have been on transit. A couple of a lot
(15:46):
of other folks have chimed in and said, you know,
when I go in public transit, and I do it.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Too, I'm constantly scanning. I am, I am.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
I am encountering very mentally ill people, sometimes scary, the
ones one with knitting needles one time who yelled many
many fwords sitting across from me, and I had to
move on the train. And it's like because she had
a weapon, and a lot of people are looking around
and saying to democrats and media, but I repeat myself,
(16:16):
it doesn't have to.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Be this way, It really doesn't.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Why do we have to accept this right?
Speaker 1 (16:21):
I think part of why she was sort of you know,
in her phone and not paying attention is that she
expected that train to be safe, and I think you
and I don't have that expectation.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
And that's a bad thing for us. I was thinking
about this I almost when I haven't. You know, I
live in South Florida.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Now I don't have a lot of opportunities for public transportation,
but when I did, I would always sit with my
back to the wall so nobody could be behind me.
I would sit, you know, in a seat where I
could see everything. Since I was a child in Brooklyn,
I learned defense mechanisms on public transportation, on how to
be safe. And that's sad and unfortunate, and it shouldn't
(17:04):
have to be this way. And that's what people on
the right are saying, that we don't want it to
be like this anymore. We want change, We want to
see things altered that we don't have to be, you know,
scanning constantly in a car, scanning, you know, looking around
and putting ourselves in a defensive position to escape.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
You know, we shouldn't have to live like this.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Well, and in this way, by the way, groups together
two different kinds of granted, statistically rare but very traumatic events,
which is mass shootings in this kind of thing, both
perpetrated by very obviously violent, mentally ill people, yeah, who
had shown violent propensities in the past. I do think
that the action we probably need to have a discussion
about is how you get those people off.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
The streets for more permanent periods of time.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
And again, it's not like just a couple social workers
show up at your house. This this point, this man's
poor family tried to have him committed and ran up
against like problem.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
The way I understand it, the cabal of NGOs just like, well,
they're saying what Van Jones says about him. Can we
play that clip real quick.
Speaker 6 (18:11):
It's not about cashless bail or no cashless bill. It's
about the fact that we don't know how to deal
with people who were hurting in the way this man
was hurting. Hurt people, hurt people. What happened was horrible,
but it becomes an opportunity for people to jump on vandwagons.
And then for someone like Charlie Kirk, you should be
ashamed of himself. No one mentioned the word race, white, black,
or anything except him. What people mention is that the
(18:32):
horror of what happened to this young woman.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
No, that's not true.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
The perpetrator did, in fact mention her race and said
that he got her, He got that white girl.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
It's on tape.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, But for his first point, hurt people hurt people
is not the message that's going to solve this in
the future.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
That's used for like somebody whose parents were mean to them,
so then they're mean to their girlfriend when they grow up.
It's not used for somebody smashing and slashing the woman
in front of him. I'm sorry, that's not the correct
usage of hurt people.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Hurt people.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, and then one more clip Caroline Downey, a buddy
who writes at National Review She's great Jugo's full bore
on the same CNN show to say like, hey, maybe
there is another option here.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
It is he served time for his violent offenses, not
for his schizophrenia.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
I know what I'm saying that that was compounding this
entire issue, the fact that he lashed out violently on that.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
I know.
Speaker 6 (19:27):
I'm just saying he did actually serve time for the
violent offenses that he committed.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
But he was a career criminal, a repeat offender who
was let back onto our streets despite a really bad
criminal record that suggests he should have been locked away
for life because he was threatening the public, He was
a menace to society.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
He should have been locked away for life for what
Now he should have schizophrenia? Want to you actually said that.
Speaker 7 (19:52):
Said that, he said he should be locked away for
life for schizophrenia institutionalized. Yes, And if you're saying they
should not, you're saying that young women like you and
me are basically just we're lambs into the slaughter. You
go on public transportation in this city, that could happen
(20:13):
to any single one of us. I use public transit constantly.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
That is completely unhinged.
Speaker 7 (20:19):
Frankly, people shouldn't be locked away for mental illness. They
should be treated for it in institution.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yes, m I mean we used to do this, and
it's tricky because it's a liberty question. I don't want
people being like involuntarily committed at the drop of a hat.
But someone who has many violent offenses and is diagnosed
skis for.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
A hard call. We gotta yeah. And the way that
they acted.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Is if she was crazy, and who would believe this.
Most people would believe this, Most people would want that.
Most people would choose that, and they would choose it
even if it was their family member, like this man's
family wanted to do to him.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
That's the problem because many families get stuck in this
position because you have an adult citizen who you cannot force.
Often a male who is stronger than the rest of
his family who you cannot force.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
To stay on his medication.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
But in an institutionalized situation, yeah, they could be on
daily medication.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
And CNN panels will tell you that, no, you cannot
institutionalize your violent family member.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
How dare you we need some options?
Speaker 4 (21:22):
That'd be nice? That would be nice.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
We'll be right back on normally where we'll talk about
the Biden job numbers. Was anything real about the Biden administration?
Be right back on normally. Welcome back on normally where
a giant downward revision of jobs from April twenty twenty
four to March twenty twenty five has just taken place,
(21:48):
and it really makes me think, what the hell's going
on over there? I don't understand how this happens.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
How how do you have an.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Almost one million jobs revised downward? The actual numbers nine
hundred and eleven thousand, and that is quite a large
number to kind of make an error like nine hundred
and eleven sure, nine thousand, okay, almost a million?
Speaker 4 (22:11):
How does that happen?
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I just this bothers me immensely and I don't think
that I don't think that Trunk deals with it the
right way by just like firing people at the Bureau
of Labor Statistics.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
But it's clear that we have a problem.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
This is like my issue with the CDC, right, Like
I would like to build trust in these stats.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
I would like to know that the stats are real.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Can we please get someone to rationally look through what
we're doing who can be.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Trustworthy and careful and then.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Correct the way that we do this work. And by
the way, along the way, you may find that someone
at BLS was like, yeah, I put the finger on
the scale in the other direction.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Yeah, right, Like that doesn't surprise me at this point.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Right, we don't know, And that continues to be the
problem of the Biden administration. It was so opaque and
close to us that we don't know what happened here.
It's it's baffling, it really is. People have dug up,
you know, old Biden tweets. Since I took office, we've
recovered all the jobs lost during the pandemic and added
(23:12):
over six million more. That turns out to be untrue.
And I don't know. I don't know how people have
any trust in anything that.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
The government says anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
We were lied to for four years about so many
different things. And this is why, you know, I'm so
not a conspiracy theorist, and I am afraid that conspiracy
theories are gripping our country, both on the right and
the left. But you could see where they're coming from.
You could see where they're stemming from. They're like, everybody's
lying to us, and we are like, no, not everybody,
(23:47):
but lots of people.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
It's easier to point out the ones that aren't right.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
We're like, let's make a short list of the ones
who aren't lying to you. And that's that's the real
issue here. I think that public trust is so broken
that I don't know how we recover from it.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yeah, it's it's really bad.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Can I point out and I'm going rogue here, but
I can I point out another statistics story that I
think is important and it is a terrible legacy of
the Biden administration because this broke yesterday. The National report
Card came out again yesterday and it is devastating. Yeah,
the decline and this is Wall Street Journal, The decline
in American K through twelve public education is getting worse.
(24:26):
More dispariating evidence came Tuesday with the nation's report card
showing a third of high school seniors lack basic reading
skills and nearly half can't do rudimentary math.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
I mean, that's the headline. There's so much more in it.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
For instance, the fact that low performing students, as you
and I pointed out what happened post pandemic, have fallen
off more precipitously than everyone else. That racial gaps have
gotten larger as a result, because you hurt those who
were hurting.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Yeah, speaking of that, you hurt those.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Who were applied accurately more.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Than those who had more resources.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
And this is we can delve into it more in
the future, because I do think it's worth getting into
the weeds on it. The top lines are really devastating.
I am genuinely worried about literacy as a basic sort.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Of like existential issue for this society.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
I absolutely agree. I don't know how we recover from this,
and I think that the whole I mean, there's so
many problems. You know, we could obviously get into all
of it, but the fact that we haven't been able
to recover to pre pandemic levels is yet more evidence
that closing schools was a giant, giant, giant mistake, and
(25:42):
nobody's taken responsibility for it. Nobody has said this was wrong,
we would never do it again. Instead, the people who
did it, like Randy Wingarden, are saying that she fought
to open schools, which I'm always like, who were you fighting?
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Who was on the other side of that fight?
Speaker 3 (25:57):
You know, she's got a.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
New book out, by the way, she's got a new
book coming out about how like if I did it? Yeah,
that's what it should be. It's actually called it's actually
called why. I think it's called why Fascists Hate teachers,
because you know she has to arm everybody to man,
you quit your job for two years.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
You stopped, right, you stopped.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I had a good liberal liberal friend who posted yesterday
or two days ago like fascists are always coming for
the science first, and I had to respond and I
was like, this is this about the COVID years.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, so we will do some more of that later
because I'd like to flesh it out. But that is
I didn't want to leave it untouched because it's yet
another statistical, uh and and very real crisis from lying
by the people.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Stop lying to the people and try to rebuild trust.
I don't know how we do it, but I think
that some steps should be taken in that direction.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Well, Kamala is trying to rebuild some trust with her
new book. Have more on that normally in a second.
All right, we're back on normally, and Kamala Harris has
a book coming out. It's called One hundred and seven Days.
It's going to be a real romp, according to the
excerpts we've seen thus far, one of which just says like, hey,
(27:19):
probably shouldn't have run that guy again, in reference to
Joe Biden, who was her boss, who was the person
that she was VP for, who was the person who
she would have been in a position to best assess
that he shouldn't run again.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
And yet she didn't say nothing, did she?
Speaker 4 (27:35):
No, she didn't she.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
The excerpt that The Atlantic got has the quote, was
it grace or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think
it was recklessness, Harris writes of her decision not to
convince Biden to drop out of the twenty twenty four
race earlier. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn't
a choice that should have been left an individual's ego,
an individual's ambition.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
It should have been more than a personal decision. End quote.
Here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
The reason that Biden ran was because Kamala Harris was
going to take his place, and they knew she was
going to lose. So she hasn't faced that reality yet.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
But that's what happened here. I was willing.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
To bet the house that Biden was going to run,
and the reason was because all of the other ideas
of who could replace him, like, oh, they could slip
and Gavin newsom, oh.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
It'll be Jill Biden or whatever.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
I was always like, no, guys, it can only be Kamala.
She is the only person that it can be and
nobody wants that. That's why he's going to run. So
you know, Buck Sexton one time was like, we weren't wrong.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
He did run, just not the whole way.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree that I thought the better
thing they should have done, probably when they were in
a pinch, was like immediately handed off to Kamala. However,
we all knew that deficiencies were a why she was
picked and b why it was bad for her to
go forward. Let me also say that she hasn't come
to grips with reality. Reality not even just the other
(29:10):
point you made. But in the book, in this excerpt,
it notes the New York Times notes Miss Harris dismissed
any notion that mister Biden was not mentally or physically
fit to serve as president. Okay, so it was reckless
to have him make the decision to run.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
But why why? But why was it reckless?
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Because if there's not a reason, then that doesn't make
any sense.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Now.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Her answer is at eighty one, Joe got tired. That's
when his age showed in physical and verbal stumbles. Like
this is just hair splitting to a ridiculous degree. Just
to admit it, just to admit actually she should say
is admit it?
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Say everything juicy she saw?
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Say they kept me out of rooms with him because
he was so debilitated.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
And I wish I had known more and done more. Yeah,
she doesn't be a book. I read.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
Right again.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Honesty, Honesty would go a long way, and it would
help her. In fact, if she could be a more
authentic person, she could go places after being vice president.
It's her inauthenticity that is the problem. In twenty sixteen,
when she ran for president, I actually wrote a column
about how Elizabeth Warren was unlikable, and I was like,
(30:21):
but nobody's saying that about Kamala Harris because she wasn't unlikable.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
No, it was different. Then she was different, right, Yeah, she.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Only became unlikable when she started kind of lying about
who she was and what she believed and the kind
of person that she was. And if she wrote a
book and told the truth, I don't know, she could
have a future.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
Maybe.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
No.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
I look back on moments of my commentary during those
years and think there were moments when I thought she
was quite good on the stage. I thought she was,
you know, taking cheap shots sometimes, but she did it effectively, right,
And then the bottom just dropped.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Out on that.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
I also want to point out that she really has
this cell phone where she says it's Joe and Jill's decision.
We all said that like a mantra, as if we'd
all been hypnotized. Okay, the last thing I want is
a president who can be hypnotized.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
It's by Jill Biden not interested in that.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Like you didn't.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
You didn't have the strength to stand up to your
peer group and your bosses and say this was bad.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Right, So yeah, I was going to say that.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Actually, I think that what happened to her and why
she fell apart in such a you know, spectacular fashion,
is of the problem that's going on on the left.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
They don't know who they're supposed to be.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
When they say things that they used to believe, you know,
seven years ago, their left flank comes for them so hard.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
That they don't know what to say.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
I'm curious to see how any of them run for
president in the next you know go around. I mean,
just an example that comes to mind, you know, in
the beginning, when AOC first hit the scene and she
does the interview with Margaret Hoover, and she says that
she's for a two state solution, and that used to
be something that liberals believed in Israel, right, They believed
(32:08):
in a two state solution in Israel, one for the
for the Israelis, one for the Palestinians now and then
she she had to walk that back because the leftists
were like.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
We don't believe that anymore. So who knows what they
stand for.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
If you don't know what you stand for, you can't
make a strong argument for it. And that is the
problem that they're all going to run into. So when
the Gavin Newsom's of the world on the debate stage
are going to have to talk about, you know, trans
kids in sports.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
He just told Charlie Kirk that.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
He supports, you know, the trans girls not playing.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
In girls' sports.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Is he going to be able to say that again
on a debate stage or that was without saying he
hasn't do anything about it, But will he even be
able to repeat that without the left going bananas.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
The other example is, of course Abigail Spamberger, who's running
in Virginia for governor and may very well win because
it's a very purplish blue state with a lot of
federal workers. But she's the great normy savior for them, allegedly,
and she can't even say the thing about boys and
girls sports.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
She can't even say the.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Thing about boys and girls locker rooms, or girls and
boys locker rooms. In fact, she voted for legislation that
endorsed all these things. I think sponsored legislation that endorsed
all these things. And in the meantime, she's like, my
first act will be to make sure that this is
a sanctuary state.
Speaker 7 (33:24):
Like.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
These things are not in line with the national public
for sure, and Democrats like Jon Favreau are going to
blame voters for noticing that they believed and kept believing
these things.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
He's gonna be like, she hasn't said that in the
last three weeks. Well, that doesn't count.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
In the last three weeks exactly right, Well, what does
she believe today, Mary Catherine.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Yeah, that's the important thing. It's a pickle. They're in
a pickle.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
It is it is.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
I can't wait to see how this turns out. I'm
not saying they can't win. I'm not saying they're not
going to win races. And Republicans are going to run
some bad candidates in some place and I mean not
in Virginia but in other places, and they're going to
win races and it'll happen. But they don't know who
they are, and they can't say. If they do know,
they still can't say it.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
So we'll see.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
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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The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.
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Charlie is America's hardest working grassroots activist who has your inside scoop on the biggest news of the day and what's really going on behind the headlines. The founder of Turning Point USA and one of social media's most engaged personalities, Charlie is on the front lines of America’s culture war, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of students on over 3,500 college and high school campuses across the country, bringing you your daily dose of clarity in a sea of chaos all from his signature no-holds-barred, unapologetically conservative, freedom-loving point of view. You can also watch Charlie Kirk on Salem News Channel