July 22, 2025 • 24 mins
In this episode, Mary Katharine Ham and Matt Whitlock delve into the political landscape as they analyze the Democrats' autopsy of the 2024 election, discussing the failures of the Biden administration and the implications of Hunter Biden's recent interview. They also explore the cultural shift in comedy, particularly focusing on the decline of late-night shows like Stephen Colbert's and the rise of comedians like Shane Gillis who challenge the status quo. 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 (00:01):
Hey guys, we are back on MARM. So what normalish takes.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
For when the news gets weird and it's always weird,
And in the absence of my dear friend Carol Marchael West,
who is actually going to enjoy per trip and vacation,
I have called in a ringer my friend Matt Whitlock.
He has been with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, a
couple of Senate offices, longtime Republican communicator and strategists, and
host of the Ten Minute Drill podcast, which is exactly
(00:27):
what it sounds like. If you want your information in
ten minutes, you go get it from Matt Whitlock. How
are you doing, Matt.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Great to be with you. This is very exciting, huge
fan of the show. I will do my best to
fill in, but my takes will not be quite as saucy.
I don't have the accent you know of Carol, but
I will do my best. Sometimes when she gets really heated,
she gets like extra accenting. I really like that, So
I'm going to do my best here.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
This is trying to p this is your first hot take,
because Carol will tell you she doesn't have an accent.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Well, I think we can roll the tape. Luckily that
lots of record of her talking, and we can now.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
It's like me, I don't have an accent either.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
I don't know what.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
There you go, Okay, So let us start today with
the New York Times reporting on the autopsy that Democrats
are doing on the twenty twenty four election. Now, for
those who are not super political junkies and maybe don't know,
this term and autopsy is basically what it sounds like,
which is there's a dead campaign that lost and you
(01:26):
have to look back at its mistakes and examine what
killed it.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Is what it sounds like, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
The Republicans most famously did this in twenty twelve after
Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama, and then also famously,
Trump tossed out every conclusion from that autopsy and did
the exact opposite, and.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Here we are with him in his second term.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
It seemed to work out.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, who knows, man.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
So they're an imperfect analysis, but they're a way for
parties to get their heads around this what's going on
with the one for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
I love this story. I love the genre.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I love the idea, idea of trying to pick apart
what went wrong. But in this case, I think a
lot of us who watched this election play out would argue,
and autopsy is not really necessary.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
We know a lot of went wrong, but if you're gonna.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Do an autopsy, you can't cut out the biggest reason,
or what the New York Times called the actual cause
of death, which was Joe Biden trying to stand too
long and then handing it over too late to Kamala Harris. Personally,
I would argue that the biggest problem for them was
that Kamala Harris is probably the worst candidate in modern
history that's led a ticket, but the Biden part of
(02:31):
it is unavoided, and so to cut him out of
there kind of defangs the entire thing, like what are
you even doing that?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Well, as I joked, it's like Democrats never missed an
opportunity to miss the point, and in this case, they're like,
you know what the problem.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Was the pack? The pack didn't coordinate properly.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Let's forget that, like coordinating is not actually what it's
allowed to do, or sure, and look, the pack Future
Forward spent five hundred and sixty million dollars and got
very little it right. In the way of electoral victories.
So there's a critique to be made, but I think
we're absolutely missing the larger issue. And as you note,
the larger issue is part Biden.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
It's also the other.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Thing they don't want to wrestle with, which is that
they signaled throughout the campaign that they're completely out of
touch with Americans and what they care about, and they
cannot figure out how to reconcile that.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
When that's so much of these autopsies have come back
to what could we say slightly differently? How could we
message slightly differently? What podcast could we go on that
could have won this for us? What different message could
we have put on the spear in Las Vegas for
the most expensive aut of all time that could have
shifted this for us? When the bottom line is their
message was bad. Their messenger was terrible, but their entire
(03:45):
message was just atrocious on every issue. They were in
the narrow twenty percent of the country who wanted something
radical and absurd, while President Trump had every opportunity to
just crip walk through the eighty percent issues one after another.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
The idea Donald Trump criplocking.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Is something yeah, I thought about until I just said
that we will.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
See it in my lifetime. I have no doubt.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yes, Okay, I think you're correct that. You know when
they say like she could have she should have gone
on Rogan at this time for this many minutes, and
it's like you had no message and you had no messenger.
You can't end up on Rogan with no message and
no messenger because you got three hours to fill and
Donald Zacher, as you know, can fill it.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
And as Dana Prino always says, you didn't have a
you know, calms problem, you had a substance problem. And
you can't dress up the lack of a message or
a terrible messenger, and when you know eighty million people
over it just doesn't work. And that's what they kept
running headlong into.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Well.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I think when the even the New York Times is
reporting quote party officials described the draft document as focusing
on the twenty twenty four election as a whole, but
not on the presidential campaign, which is something like eating
at a steakhouse and then reviewing the salad like, ooh,
you're not in a great place.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
When you've lost the New York Times, you know things
are not going well for you. But I think they're
exactly right about that. You're missing the forest for the trees,
you're missing the steak for the salad, all those different
analogies to come to the fact that they're going to
spend a lot of money on this, just like they
spent that twenty million dollars to try and understand how
to communicate with men based on their syntax, and the
best they got out of it was, let's put up
(05:15):
David Hogg and these effeminate influencers a little bit.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yeah, I have a hack for that. Don't hate dudes.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
That's that's the hack for talking to men. It should
posts No, it shouldn't, Okay. So that's the more traditional
type of autopsy. The parties go through a lot after
they lose. You and I have been through these cycles.
There's some venting, there's some bargaining, there's some anger, and
I think we saw all of that in an interview
that Hunter Biden has now given to a YouTube personality
(05:46):
named Andrew Callahan, and he does a sort of spoofy
interview show called Channel five and Hunter Biden showed up
on this show and he has a lot to say.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
So here is Biden teeing off to.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
This YouTube host and just a content warning for the parents,
if you got the kiddies around, or if you just
don't want to hear it. There's a lot of bleeping
going on in this conversation. Just play his clip running
through the enemies of the Biden camp.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
Fuck him, fuck him, fuck him and everybody around him.
I don't have to be fucking nice. Number one. I
agree with Quentin Tarantino. Fucking George Clooney is not a
fucking actor. He is a fucking like. I don't know
what he is. He's a brand.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Fuck you.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
What do you have to do with fucking anything? Why
do I have to listen to you? We meet and
James Carville, who hasn't run a race in forty fucking years,
and David Axelrod, who had one success in his political life,
and that was Barack Obama. And that was because of
Barack Obama, not because of fucking David Axelrod and David
Pluff and all of these guys in the Podsave America,
guys who were junior fucking speech writers in you know,
(06:57):
on Barack Obama's Senate staff, who've been dining out on
the relationship with him for years, making millions of dollars,
The Anita Dunns of the world, who's made forty fifty
million dollars off the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
They're all going to insert their.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
Judgment over a man who has figured out, on like
anybody else, how to get elected to the United States
Senate over seven times and how to garner more votes
than any president that has ever won. What influence does
Jake Tapper have over anything? He has the smallest audience
on cable news and beyond that. I think that the
book is right now on Amazon that he put out.
I mean, his ratings just went as shit after he
(07:32):
put the book out, and you know, they did a
two week infomercial for it. I mean it was such
a money grab.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
All right, Matt, there's Hunter. It sounds like he has
some stuff that he's working out still.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
I don't want to sound insensitive, but I think there's
a chance Hunter might be off the wagon that was wild,
so he's got some access to grind. As I listen
to this, there's parts of it where I'm like, yeah,
get him, get him, and then there's parts that I'm like, man,
he does not sound good. But I think the biggest
takeaway from here is the Biden family is not happy
with the way they were treated, which isn't a surprise.
(08:04):
We've seen that in stories, mentioned a lot over the
last six months that they thought he got a raw deal.
He was mistreated, but man alive. So I mean, I
hope Republicans will find a way to pay for some
kind of Hunter Biden media tour, because I think if
there was one lesson from a Democrat autopsy, it would
be you need to move on and never talk about
this again. And Hunter is not going to let that happen.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
No, this is the thing that occurred to me as well.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
And from a communications standpoint, this party is desperately trying
to coalesce around a message. It's desperately trying to find
a new leader. It's desperately trying to move on from
this really, really bad thing they did to Americans and
to voters and lied to them throughout. And every time
it seems like they might get closer to it, Joe
Biden pops up with a New York Times interview and
(08:49):
that was bad enough.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And now you have this.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Ooh Hyer coming through the wall like the kool Aid man.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Amazing stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
I'm going to add another clip just so you can
really get the Senate of this interview, and they're seated.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
It's very Hunter Biden. Actually they're seed in this beautiful like.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Outdoor area with a little picket fence and the sun
is shining. He's just like awesome f bombs, Like it's
a perfect encapsulation of the Biden family. Actually here he
is talking about illegal immigration once again with the content
warning well for.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
Someone and Michael like all these Democrats say you have
to talk about and realize that people are really upset
about illegal immigration. Fuck you, how do you think your
hotel room gets cleaned? How do you think you got
food on your fucking table? Who do you think washes
your dishes? Who do you think does your fucking garden?
Who do you think is here by the fucking sheer,
(09:44):
fucking just grit and will that they've figured out a
way to get here because they thought that they could
give theirselves in their family a better chance. And he's
somehow convinced all of us that these people are the
fucking criminals.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I think it's strange and frequent argument for Democrats that
they're like, these are the people who do all my
work for me, and we can't lose them because I'm
paying them under the table.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
I think Hunter.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Almost like references the garden around him when he's talking
about the gardeners.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Not a good look.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
You can almost imagine like a Gavin Newsomer Karen Bass
like off camera being like, hey, cut it out, man,
that's not helpful to us.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
That's not helpful.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Having the former president's incredibly corrupt drug addicted son, who
has mysterious amounts of money through various foreign money laundering,
arguing that we need more illegal immigrants to serve him
is not going to be Democrats' best case on this fight.
And I just it's easy to see why for four
years we almost never saw a Hunter. He is just
(10:42):
a nail and a hammer, and at this entire interview
is must watch content, in part because like this window
into what Joe Biden's been hearing. There's one reason they
so mad at Jake Tapper is Jake Tapper described Hunter
as the de facto chief of staff. Now look at
Hunter losing his mind and consider that's the person in
Joe Biden's ear for the last year of his presidency.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
That's pretty crazy.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
It is pretty crazy.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
He was attending state dinners, he was there the whole time.
We don't know exactly the influence. I would imagine if
we watched that whole interview, which I will be doing,
there might be some tinbits in there that might teach
us a little bit about how much influence he had. Anyway,
that's how they're working that out. We will be back
on normally in a minute with more on the Vibe.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Shift, which we always like to cover here.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
All right, we are back with the Vibe Shift and
with my friend Matt Witlock, but we always like to
cover on this show the cultural vibe shift in twenty
twenty five, which has come off of the election year
and really seems to be flexing.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
At this point. So let's talk about comedy.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Let's start with Stephen Colbert, who lost his gig as
a late night host. I've put comedy in quotes late
night comedy show hosts. Yes, his job won't end until
the end of the season next year, so I believe
it's like May twenty twenty six before he's off the air.
But he announced it to get ahead of the story.
(12:05):
And now there's all Stirm and Draang and much much
outcry about this from the left that apparently just believes
that lefties who want to live their dreams in media
should have everyone else's money all the time to do
so exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
And I should preface my comments with I'm one of
the few conservative Republicans who loves Saturday Night Live. I
love late night comedy, even though I spend most of it,
you know, thinking, oh, there's another like Trump joke, there's
another anti Republican joke. But some of it I actually
think is like kind of funny, Like I think the
current SNL Trump impression is one of the most incredible
pieces of comedy we've seen in a long time. But
(12:41):
Colbert moved away from comedy a long time ago, and
it's a theme that people talk about quite a bit
on social media, where they shifted from laughs to trying
to get applause for righteous indignation, which has not been comedy.
And it started all the way back in twenty seventeen.
And there's been so many clips of Stephen Colbert doing
what he really loves, which which just CosIng up to
Democrats not making jokes and not doing comedy. And so
(13:04):
for me, when I see every Democrat talk about how
he spoke truth to power, you have to remember that
to them, that only means talking bad about President Trump.
He had an opportunity to speak truth to power because
Stephen Colbert, you might remember, hosted a huge twenty six
million dollar fundraiser with Joe Biden just two or three
months before the George Clooney fundraiser that ended the Biden presidency.
(13:27):
Colbert didn't have anything to say about it because he
prioritized cozing up to Barack Obama people like that much
more than actually holding anyone accountable. And to be fair,
his job was comedy, so holding people accountable wasn't supposed
to be his first job, but he failed at that too.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yes, I love that every picture, every post that says
he held he spoke truth to power is just a
picture of him goofing off and laughing with a Democratic politician.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Because you're right, that's all they mean, is just Trump exactly.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Now.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
I think you're right that, like you don't want to
be spending a variety show in late night holding everyone
accountable all the time. I don't think that's the point
of it. That's why you know, Letterman did well with
like stupid pet tricks, and Carson never tried to be
a messenger in that way.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Also, the late night format is hitting a tough road.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
You know, the money's not there for it, the advertisers
aren't there for it, the viewers are getting much older.
And I think Colbert did the best he could for
those first couple of years of the Trump administration, seeing like,
oh I can add a little bit on the margins
by really getting the libs to watch me, and then
it just ran out of steam.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
It did. And it's funny.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
I saw a study that showed that his average audience
when he started his show, the age was sixty and
at the end of the time was when he was canceled,
the average audience had gone up to sixty eight. Some
of that, as you're talking about, is just the general
sort of media shift in dynamics. People are watching less
late night. But I also just think people got so
tired of it. You turn on late night comedy to
try and unplug from the stress of the day. And
(14:58):
that's all that Stephen Colbert wanted to talk talk about,
is the grievances. There's one video in particular after Trump
won where Steven gets like right up to the camera
and talks about this isn't normal, and you're like, wait,
a sec. I tuned in to this to laugh, and
all you're doing is reminding me of all the annoying
things throughout the day that I had to get through
to get to this point in my day before I
go to bed. And so it's easy to see why
(15:18):
it failed. Also, like he's making twenty million dollars a
year for a show that's losing forty million dollars a year.
Like the economy, the economics of it just aren't there.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Apparently it took one hundred million dollars to make that show.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
How many writers do you have? I do think there's
this is an era too.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Now.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
The left will argue that this was all about a
merger and acquisition that the Trump administration can or cannot approve,
and therefore CBS is sending this message that they are
on Trump's side, And like, I just think it was
probably a good time to cut bait because we're living
in an era where, particularly with TikTok and reels, which
(15:56):
have their up their good sides and their bad sides.
But I think one of the ups is that you
look around and you go, wow, a lot of people
have perhaps more comedic chops than you were exposed to
in the past, and they you get exposure to all
this comedy all day long. You don't need to sign
up for one hundred million dollar stable of writers to
watch Stephen Colbert lecture you on politics.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
It's easy to see that they're just we've moved away
from this, you know. And I do think that there's
some models of late night that seem to be working.
Like you know, Greg Guttfeld is killing it. There's an
audience for that, and I think in part because it's
a little bit more lighthearted, you're not feeling lectured while
you're watching it like you do with Colbert Kimmel, even Fallen.
Sometimes I think Fallen is the one who's found a
way to sort of inject games and funny, more lighthearted
(16:41):
things into it. But his show is struggling too, And
I think to your point, the economics are shifting away,
the audience is just shifting away in other formats and
other mediums.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Is the He's my favorite of the late night guys.
Fallon is for that reason because I'm just like, oh,
you seem like kind of nice and fun.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
I don't feel like you hate me when I watch you.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yes, that is an important part of it. Speaking of SNL,
this is part of the vibe shift. So Shane Gillis
is another comic who was rejected by SNL after being
hired by SNL. I can't remember the year and have
to look it up, but it was in the year's.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
I think maybe twenty two.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I think it was maybe twenty one.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
At any rate, it was when everyone was insane and
he told problematic jokes, and so after they found his
problematic jokes, they rescind his offer to be a writer
and cast member on SNL. They later came back and said, oh,
you are very successful, will you host SNL? And I
like SNL too. I've been a longtime SNL watcher since
(17:37):
I was a kid. And when they shine, they really shine.
But man, they can produce some some bad stuff too.
But Shane's one of the bright parts. So I was
excited to watch him come back and do his monologue.
I think he's I think he's hosted twice since then,
and he has now been given the reins to the
Spies this week, and I just want to play one
joke which I think characterizes his.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Monologue, and it's a very one. Here's Shane Gillis at
the SPS.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Megan Repino could not make it tonight. Nice. No, We're
gonna pretend she's a good time, all right. Uh.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
I'm so glad you picked that clip because I saw
that one.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Like a few days later.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
My entire Instagram feed has been clips of Shane Gillis
at the SP's because I fall a lot of sports
and I follow out of comedy and that's dominating. I
had missed that one until yesterday, and I loved it
so much.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
We're just gonna.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Pretend she's a good time, okay, because he's kind of
a fish out of water in that room, you know, yes.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Well, and it punctures exactly what people want Shane Gillis
to puncture, which is this like self righteous, tired, like
harping on everyone all the time vibe that is perfectly
encapsulated by Megan Raupino. And the whole room knows she's
not a good time. That's like, that's the perfect part
(18:54):
about it. I love to see it. He's a guy
who takes risks. He's a guy who takes risks in
a room. People are going to get mad at him
for doing that. There's another great gag where he uses
the beautiful African American wife of his friend to say
that there's an UNBA MVP in the room or Hall
of Famer in the room, and that the camera cuts
to her and everyone cheers because they don't know who
(19:18):
plays in the WNBA, and he knows that, and then
he just sells them all out and he's like, yeah,
that's that's my buddy's wife.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
That was so good because people forget that the WNBA
is actually probably the most political of all the sports leagues.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
These women are doing marches.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
They when the Georgia election law passed, they were out
attacking every Republican. They are the most politically active out there,
but they also have the least ground to do it
because they have the smallest audience, the least amount of
money and things like that. And when you bring Shane
Gillis in, you know you're going to get some of that,
and I thought he delivered. It reminded me a lot
when they had Ricky GERVAISI the Golden Globes and he
(19:53):
spent the entire night lampooning everyone in the room. People
are super uncomfortable, but like, there's a reason they did it.
It's great TV and there were some like really quiet
moments after Shane Gillis's jokes where people were like, I
don't know, that makes me uncomfortable. The TV audience loved it,
and it crushed on social media, so I kind of
feel like they brought him in in part for the room,
but also for everyone else to like really enjoy someone
(20:16):
actually like bring some of these athletes down to earth
just a little bit. And the Megan Rera Pino joke
was so perfect because she's so insufferable and you have
to imagine like other athletes are like this lady again.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Yes, yes, no, you're right about the WNBA.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
They seem allergic to success, like as if they just
want to push it away from themselves. Yep, and they
find new and creative ways to do it all the time.
But yeah, I just enjoyed the contrast this week of
the left telling us that we must just throw money
not just at NPR and PBS, but also gajillionaire Stephen Colbert,
(20:49):
who just gives other people's money a democracy relies on.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
It's like absolutely, if you can't make fun of the president,
do we really have a democracy?
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Like, yeah, turn on any channel ever. By the way.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Shane Gillis also made fun of the president. He did
some Epstein jokes like this is It's fine.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Guys, something for everyone.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
The Republic will survive. Okay, Yeah, we're gonna take a break.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
We will be back in a minute with it in
case you missed it from both Matt and me. All Right,
we are back on normally with my buddy Matt Whitlock.
Thank you so much for being here. You have a
little in case you missed it story I believe about
one of our favorite favorite former secretaries in the cabinet.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Yes, this is a great story.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
New York Post broke this morning a story that Pete Bodhajic,
presidential hopeful leading in a number of Democrat primary polls,
spent eighty billion dollars on DEI grants while delaying air
traffic control upgrades. Part of the reason I love this
is throughout the Biden administration, we'd regularly get a new
story of Pete Boodagech doing something insane like forcing you
(21:52):
to host neighborhood block parties if you wanted to build
an EV charging station or transit equity day, or pretending
to ride his bike to events so that he could
show up in his helmet, but it turns out he
just pulled it out of the back of the Secret
Service SUV. So in Democrats talk about how this guy's
like their rising star. I just like, I would love
for that to be our next presidential campaign, whether it's
(22:13):
JD versus Pete or whoever. Like Bodagic gives us so
much to work with and it's awesome.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah, that is a travesty that he was doing that,
And I.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Just like he's always like playing like ooh, the Trump
administration isn't on top of these transportation is used like, sir, you.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Have never been at the switch ever. Some amazing stuff. Okay,
I have a little bit of a wonky.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
One Wall Street Journal had a piece on the National
Environmental Policy Act of nineteen seventy, which actually we have
talked about on this show before because it was one
of Trump's executive orders that I was excited about. It
reforms permitting, It gets a bunch of environmental nonsense and
red tape out of the process so that people can build.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
That then cuts down on how.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Much litigation and environmentalist groups can do on these projects.
And what Trump did was he asked all the agencies
to say, well, how can you streamline this, Let's only
apply it to the most important things. Because as all regulation,
the NIPA became this huge morass of requirements. And what
happened is a twenty twenty federal study found that at
(23:19):
that point it took four point five years average to
complete an environmental mental impact statement.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Required, not the project, the environmental statement.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
So a bunch of a bunch of the agencies have
now gotten together and said, okay, here's how we're simplifying.
The Supreme Court has spoken on this and said that
NIPA should not be a roadblock to getting anything done.
It's just a way to severe like serious issues. And
so it looks like a brighter day for building things.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Incredibly valuable, huge, huge coup for the Trump administration.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
All right, well those are in case you missed it. Guys, Matt,
where can we find you and where should we look
for you?
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Timided you can find it on Twitter, Instagram, but primarily
YouTube and Apple podcasts, I think are the best places
for every Tuesday and Thursday.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
And it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
It's just as you said, if you want your politics
in ten minutes or less, because you've got so much
going on, or you are listening to other longer, smarter podcasts.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
This is like your cliff Notes, so check it out.
Love it.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Thank you so much for joining us on and normally.
Thank you to all of you guys for joining us
on Normally.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays in can subscribe anywhere you
get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Get in touch with us at normally thepod at gmail
dot com. Thanks for listening and when things get weird
at normally
Hey guys, we are back on MARM. So what normalish takes.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
For when the news gets weird and it's always weird,
And in the absence of my dear friend Carol Marchael West,
who is actually going to enjoy per trip and vacation,
I have called in a ringer my friend Matt Whitlock.
He has been with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, a
couple of Senate offices, longtime Republican communicator and strategists, and
host of the Ten Minute Drill podcast, which is exactly
(00:27):
what it sounds like. If you want your information in
ten minutes, you go get it from Matt Whitlock. How
are you doing, Matt.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Great to be with you. This is very exciting, huge
fan of the show. I will do my best to
fill in, but my takes will not be quite as saucy.
I don't have the accent you know of Carol, but
I will do my best. Sometimes when she gets really heated,
she gets like extra accenting. I really like that, So
I'm going to do my best here.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
This is trying to p this is your first hot take,
because Carol will tell you she doesn't have an accent.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Well, I think we can roll the tape. Luckily that
lots of record of her talking, and we can now.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
It's like me, I don't have an accent either.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
I don't know what.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
There you go, Okay, So let us start today with
the New York Times reporting on the autopsy that Democrats
are doing on the twenty twenty four election. Now, for
those who are not super political junkies and maybe don't know,
this term and autopsy is basically what it sounds like,
which is there's a dead campaign that lost and you
(01:26):
have to look back at its mistakes and examine what
killed it.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Is what it sounds like, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
The Republicans most famously did this in twenty twelve after
Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama, and then also famously,
Trump tossed out every conclusion from that autopsy and did
the exact opposite, and.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Here we are with him in his second term.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
It seemed to work out.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, who knows, man.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
So they're an imperfect analysis, but they're a way for
parties to get their heads around this what's going on
with the one for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
I love this story. I love the genre.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I love the idea, idea of trying to pick apart
what went wrong. But in this case, I think a
lot of us who watched this election play out would argue,
and autopsy is not really necessary.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
We know a lot of went wrong, but if you're gonna.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Do an autopsy, you can't cut out the biggest reason,
or what the New York Times called the actual cause
of death, which was Joe Biden trying to stand too
long and then handing it over too late to Kamala Harris. Personally,
I would argue that the biggest problem for them was
that Kamala Harris is probably the worst candidate in modern
history that's led a ticket, but the Biden part of
(02:31):
it is unavoided, and so to cut him out of
there kind of defangs the entire thing, like what are
you even doing that?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Well, as I joked, it's like Democrats never missed an
opportunity to miss the point, and in this case, they're like,
you know what the problem.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Was the pack? The pack didn't coordinate properly.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Let's forget that, like coordinating is not actually what it's
allowed to do, or sure, and look, the pack Future
Forward spent five hundred and sixty million dollars and got
very little it right. In the way of electoral victories.
So there's a critique to be made, but I think
we're absolutely missing the larger issue. And as you note,
the larger issue is part Biden.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
It's also the other.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Thing they don't want to wrestle with, which is that
they signaled throughout the campaign that they're completely out of
touch with Americans and what they care about, and they
cannot figure out how to reconcile that.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
When that's so much of these autopsies have come back
to what could we say slightly differently? How could we
message slightly differently? What podcast could we go on that
could have won this for us? What different message could
we have put on the spear in Las Vegas for
the most expensive aut of all time that could have
shifted this for us? When the bottom line is their
message was bad. Their messenger was terrible, but their entire
(03:45):
message was just atrocious on every issue. They were in
the narrow twenty percent of the country who wanted something
radical and absurd, while President Trump had every opportunity to
just crip walk through the eighty percent issues one after another.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
The idea Donald Trump criplocking.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Is something yeah, I thought about until I just said
that we will.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
See it in my lifetime. I have no doubt.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yes, Okay, I think you're correct that. You know when
they say like she could have she should have gone
on Rogan at this time for this many minutes, and
it's like you had no message and you had no messenger.
You can't end up on Rogan with no message and
no messenger because you got three hours to fill and
Donald Zacher, as you know, can fill it.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
And as Dana Prino always says, you didn't have a
you know, calms problem, you had a substance problem. And
you can't dress up the lack of a message or
a terrible messenger, and when you know eighty million people
over it just doesn't work. And that's what they kept
running headlong into.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Well.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I think when the even the New York Times is
reporting quote party officials described the draft document as focusing
on the twenty twenty four election as a whole, but
not on the presidential campaign, which is something like eating
at a steakhouse and then reviewing the salad like, ooh,
you're not in a great place.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
When you've lost the New York Times, you know things
are not going well for you. But I think they're
exactly right about that. You're missing the forest for the trees,
you're missing the steak for the salad, all those different
analogies to come to the fact that they're going to
spend a lot of money on this, just like they
spent that twenty million dollars to try and understand how
to communicate with men based on their syntax, and the
best they got out of it was, let's put up
(05:15):
David Hogg and these effeminate influencers a little bit.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yeah, I have a hack for that. Don't hate dudes.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
That's that's the hack for talking to men. It should
posts No, it shouldn't, Okay. So that's the more traditional
type of autopsy. The parties go through a lot after
they lose. You and I have been through these cycles.
There's some venting, there's some bargaining, there's some anger, and
I think we saw all of that in an interview
that Hunter Biden has now given to a YouTube personality
(05:46):
named Andrew Callahan, and he does a sort of spoofy
interview show called Channel five and Hunter Biden showed up
on this show and he has a lot to say.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
So here is Biden teeing off to.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
This YouTube host and just a content warning for the parents,
if you got the kiddies around, or if you just
don't want to hear it. There's a lot of bleeping
going on in this conversation. Just play his clip running
through the enemies of the Biden camp.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
Fuck him, fuck him, fuck him and everybody around him.
I don't have to be fucking nice. Number one. I
agree with Quentin Tarantino. Fucking George Clooney is not a
fucking actor. He is a fucking like. I don't know
what he is. He's a brand.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Fuck you.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
What do you have to do with fucking anything? Why
do I have to listen to you? We meet and
James Carville, who hasn't run a race in forty fucking years,
and David Axelrod, who had one success in his political life,
and that was Barack Obama. And that was because of
Barack Obama, not because of fucking David Axelrod and David
Pluff and all of these guys in the Podsave America,
guys who were junior fucking speech writers in you know,
(06:57):
on Barack Obama's Senate staff, who've been dining out on
the relationship with him for years, making millions of dollars,
The Anita Dunns of the world, who's made forty fifty
million dollars off the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
They're all going to insert their.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
Judgment over a man who has figured out, on like
anybody else, how to get elected to the United States
Senate over seven times and how to garner more votes
than any president that has ever won. What influence does
Jake Tapper have over anything? He has the smallest audience
on cable news and beyond that. I think that the
book is right now on Amazon that he put out.
I mean, his ratings just went as shit after he
(07:32):
put the book out, and you know, they did a
two week infomercial for it. I mean it was such
a money grab.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
All right, Matt, there's Hunter. It sounds like he has
some stuff that he's working out still.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
I don't want to sound insensitive, but I think there's
a chance Hunter might be off the wagon that was wild,
so he's got some access to grind. As I listen
to this, there's parts of it where I'm like, yeah,
get him, get him, and then there's parts that I'm like, man,
he does not sound good. But I think the biggest
takeaway from here is the Biden family is not happy
with the way they were treated, which isn't a surprise.
(08:04):
We've seen that in stories, mentioned a lot over the
last six months that they thought he got a raw deal.
He was mistreated, but man alive. So I mean, I
hope Republicans will find a way to pay for some
kind of Hunter Biden media tour, because I think if
there was one lesson from a Democrat autopsy, it would
be you need to move on and never talk about
this again. And Hunter is not going to let that happen.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
No, this is the thing that occurred to me as well.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
And from a communications standpoint, this party is desperately trying
to coalesce around a message. It's desperately trying to find
a new leader. It's desperately trying to move on from
this really, really bad thing they did to Americans and
to voters and lied to them throughout. And every time
it seems like they might get closer to it, Joe
Biden pops up with a New York Times interview and
(08:49):
that was bad enough.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And now you have this.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Ooh Hyer coming through the wall like the kool Aid man.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Amazing stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
I'm going to add another clip just so you can
really get the Senate of this interview, and they're seated.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
It's very Hunter Biden. Actually they're seed in this beautiful like.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Outdoor area with a little picket fence and the sun
is shining. He's just like awesome f bombs, Like it's
a perfect encapsulation of the Biden family. Actually here he
is talking about illegal immigration once again with the content
warning well for.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
Someone and Michael like all these Democrats say you have
to talk about and realize that people are really upset
about illegal immigration. Fuck you, how do you think your
hotel room gets cleaned? How do you think you got
food on your fucking table? Who do you think washes
your dishes? Who do you think does your fucking garden?
Who do you think is here by the fucking sheer,
(09:44):
fucking just grit and will that they've figured out a
way to get here because they thought that they could
give theirselves in their family a better chance. And he's
somehow convinced all of us that these people are the
fucking criminals.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I think it's strange and frequent argument for Democrats that
they're like, these are the people who do all my
work for me, and we can't lose them because I'm
paying them under the table.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
I think Hunter.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Almost like references the garden around him when he's talking
about the gardeners.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Not a good look.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
You can almost imagine like a Gavin Newsomer Karen Bass
like off camera being like, hey, cut it out, man,
that's not helpful to us.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
That's not helpful.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Having the former president's incredibly corrupt drug addicted son, who
has mysterious amounts of money through various foreign money laundering,
arguing that we need more illegal immigrants to serve him
is not going to be Democrats' best case on this fight.
And I just it's easy to see why for four
years we almost never saw a Hunter. He is just
(10:42):
a nail and a hammer, and at this entire interview
is must watch content, in part because like this window
into what Joe Biden's been hearing. There's one reason they
so mad at Jake Tapper is Jake Tapper described Hunter
as the de facto chief of staff. Now look at
Hunter losing his mind and consider that's the person in
Joe Biden's ear for the last year of his presidency.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
That's pretty crazy.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
It is pretty crazy.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
He was attending state dinners, he was there the whole time.
We don't know exactly the influence. I would imagine if
we watched that whole interview, which I will be doing,
there might be some tinbits in there that might teach
us a little bit about how much influence he had. Anyway,
that's how they're working that out. We will be back
on normally in a minute with more on the Vibe.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Shift, which we always like to cover here.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
All right, we are back with the Vibe Shift and
with my friend Matt Witlock, but we always like to
cover on this show the cultural vibe shift in twenty
twenty five, which has come off of the election year
and really seems to be flexing.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
At this point. So let's talk about comedy.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Let's start with Stephen Colbert, who lost his gig as
a late night host. I've put comedy in quotes late
night comedy show hosts. Yes, his job won't end until
the end of the season next year, so I believe
it's like May twenty twenty six before he's off the air.
But he announced it to get ahead of the story.
(12:05):
And now there's all Stirm and Draang and much much
outcry about this from the left that apparently just believes
that lefties who want to live their dreams in media
should have everyone else's money all the time to do
so exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
And I should preface my comments with I'm one of
the few conservative Republicans who loves Saturday Night Live. I
love late night comedy, even though I spend most of it,
you know, thinking, oh, there's another like Trump joke, there's
another anti Republican joke. But some of it I actually
think is like kind of funny, Like I think the
current SNL Trump impression is one of the most incredible
pieces of comedy we've seen in a long time. But
(12:41):
Colbert moved away from comedy a long time ago, and
it's a theme that people talk about quite a bit
on social media, where they shifted from laughs to trying
to get applause for righteous indignation, which has not been comedy.
And it started all the way back in twenty seventeen.
And there's been so many clips of Stephen Colbert doing
what he really loves, which which just CosIng up to
Democrats not making jokes and not doing comedy. And so
(13:04):
for me, when I see every Democrat talk about how
he spoke truth to power, you have to remember that
to them, that only means talking bad about President Trump.
He had an opportunity to speak truth to power because
Stephen Colbert, you might remember, hosted a huge twenty six
million dollar fundraiser with Joe Biden just two or three
months before the George Clooney fundraiser that ended the Biden presidency.
(13:27):
Colbert didn't have anything to say about it because he
prioritized cozing up to Barack Obama people like that much
more than actually holding anyone accountable. And to be fair,
his job was comedy, so holding people accountable wasn't supposed
to be his first job, but he failed at that too.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yes, I love that every picture, every post that says
he held he spoke truth to power is just a
picture of him goofing off and laughing with a Democratic politician.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Because you're right, that's all they mean, is just Trump exactly.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Now.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
I think you're right that, like you don't want to
be spending a variety show in late night holding everyone
accountable all the time. I don't think that's the point
of it. That's why you know, Letterman did well with
like stupid pet tricks, and Carson never tried to be
a messenger in that way.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Also, the late night format is hitting a tough road.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
You know, the money's not there for it, the advertisers
aren't there for it, the viewers are getting much older.
And I think Colbert did the best he could for
those first couple of years of the Trump administration, seeing like,
oh I can add a little bit on the margins
by really getting the libs to watch me, and then
it just ran out of steam.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
It did. And it's funny.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
I saw a study that showed that his average audience
when he started his show, the age was sixty and
at the end of the time was when he was canceled,
the average audience had gone up to sixty eight. Some
of that, as you're talking about, is just the general
sort of media shift in dynamics. People are watching less
late night. But I also just think people got so
tired of it. You turn on late night comedy to
try and unplug from the stress of the day. And
(14:58):
that's all that Stephen Colbert wanted to talk talk about,
is the grievances. There's one video in particular after Trump
won where Steven gets like right up to the camera
and talks about this isn't normal, and you're like, wait,
a sec. I tuned in to this to laugh, and
all you're doing is reminding me of all the annoying
things throughout the day that I had to get through
to get to this point in my day before I
go to bed. And so it's easy to see why
(15:18):
it failed. Also, like he's making twenty million dollars a
year for a show that's losing forty million dollars a year.
Like the economy, the economics of it just aren't there.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Apparently it took one hundred million dollars to make that show.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
How many writers do you have? I do think there's
this is an era too.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Now.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
The left will argue that this was all about a
merger and acquisition that the Trump administration can or cannot approve,
and therefore CBS is sending this message that they are
on Trump's side, And like, I just think it was
probably a good time to cut bait because we're living
in an era where, particularly with TikTok and reels, which
(15:56):
have their up their good sides and their bad sides.
But I think one of the ups is that you
look around and you go, wow, a lot of people
have perhaps more comedic chops than you were exposed to
in the past, and they you get exposure to all
this comedy all day long. You don't need to sign
up for one hundred million dollar stable of writers to
watch Stephen Colbert lecture you on politics.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
It's easy to see that they're just we've moved away
from this, you know. And I do think that there's
some models of late night that seem to be working.
Like you know, Greg Guttfeld is killing it. There's an
audience for that, and I think in part because it's
a little bit more lighthearted, you're not feeling lectured while
you're watching it like you do with Colbert Kimmel, even Fallen.
Sometimes I think Fallen is the one who's found a
way to sort of inject games and funny, more lighthearted
(16:41):
things into it. But his show is struggling too, And
I think to your point, the economics are shifting away,
the audience is just shifting away in other formats and
other mediums.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Is the He's my favorite of the late night guys.
Fallon is for that reason because I'm just like, oh,
you seem like kind of nice and fun.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
I don't feel like you hate me when I watch you.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yes, that is an important part of it. Speaking of SNL,
this is part of the vibe shift. So Shane Gillis
is another comic who was rejected by SNL after being
hired by SNL. I can't remember the year and have
to look it up, but it was in the year's.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
I think maybe twenty two.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I think it was maybe twenty one.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
At any rate, it was when everyone was insane and
he told problematic jokes, and so after they found his
problematic jokes, they rescind his offer to be a writer
and cast member on SNL. They later came back and said, oh,
you are very successful, will you host SNL? And I
like SNL too. I've been a longtime SNL watcher since
(17:37):
I was a kid. And when they shine, they really shine.
But man, they can produce some some bad stuff too.
But Shane's one of the bright parts. So I was
excited to watch him come back and do his monologue.
I think he's I think he's hosted twice since then,
and he has now been given the reins to the
Spies this week, and I just want to play one
joke which I think characterizes his.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Monologue, and it's a very one. Here's Shane Gillis at
the SPS.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Megan Repino could not make it tonight. Nice. No, We're
gonna pretend she's a good time, all right. Uh.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
I'm so glad you picked that clip because I saw
that one.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Like a few days later.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
My entire Instagram feed has been clips of Shane Gillis
at the SP's because I fall a lot of sports
and I follow out of comedy and that's dominating. I
had missed that one until yesterday, and I loved it
so much.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
We're just gonna.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Pretend she's a good time, okay, because he's kind of
a fish out of water in that room, you know, yes.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Well, and it punctures exactly what people want Shane Gillis
to puncture, which is this like self righteous, tired, like
harping on everyone all the time vibe that is perfectly
encapsulated by Megan Raupino. And the whole room knows she's
not a good time. That's like, that's the perfect part
(18:54):
about it. I love to see it. He's a guy
who takes risks. He's a guy who takes risks in
a room. People are going to get mad at him
for doing that. There's another great gag where he uses
the beautiful African American wife of his friend to say
that there's an UNBA MVP in the room or Hall
of Famer in the room, and that the camera cuts
to her and everyone cheers because they don't know who
(19:18):
plays in the WNBA, and he knows that, and then
he just sells them all out and he's like, yeah,
that's that's my buddy's wife.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
That was so good because people forget that the WNBA
is actually probably the most political of all the sports leagues.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
These women are doing marches.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
They when the Georgia election law passed, they were out
attacking every Republican. They are the most politically active out there,
but they also have the least ground to do it
because they have the smallest audience, the least amount of
money and things like that. And when you bring Shane
Gillis in, you know you're going to get some of that,
and I thought he delivered. It reminded me a lot
when they had Ricky GERVAISI the Golden Globes and he
(19:53):
spent the entire night lampooning everyone in the room. People
are super uncomfortable, but like, there's a reason they did it.
It's great TV and there were some like really quiet
moments after Shane Gillis's jokes where people were like, I
don't know, that makes me uncomfortable. The TV audience loved it,
and it crushed on social media, so I kind of
feel like they brought him in in part for the room,
but also for everyone else to like really enjoy someone
(20:16):
actually like bring some of these athletes down to earth
just a little bit. And the Megan Rera Pino joke
was so perfect because she's so insufferable and you have
to imagine like other athletes are like this lady again.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Yes, yes, no, you're right about the WNBA.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
They seem allergic to success, like as if they just
want to push it away from themselves. Yep, and they
find new and creative ways to do it all the time.
But yeah, I just enjoyed the contrast this week of
the left telling us that we must just throw money
not just at NPR and PBS, but also gajillionaire Stephen Colbert,
(20:49):
who just gives other people's money a democracy relies on.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
It's like absolutely, if you can't make fun of the president,
do we really have a democracy?
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Like, yeah, turn on any channel ever. By the way.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Shane Gillis also made fun of the president. He did
some Epstein jokes like this is It's fine.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Guys, something for everyone.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
The Republic will survive. Okay, Yeah, we're gonna take a break.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
We will be back in a minute with it in
case you missed it from both Matt and me. All Right,
we are back on normally with my buddy Matt Whitlock.
Thank you so much for being here. You have a
little in case you missed it story I believe about
one of our favorite favorite former secretaries in the cabinet.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Yes, this is a great story.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
New York Post broke this morning a story that Pete Bodhajic,
presidential hopeful leading in a number of Democrat primary polls,
spent eighty billion dollars on DEI grants while delaying air
traffic control upgrades. Part of the reason I love this
is throughout the Biden administration, we'd regularly get a new
story of Pete Boodagech doing something insane like forcing you
(21:52):
to host neighborhood block parties if you wanted to build
an EV charging station or transit equity day, or pretending
to ride his bike to events so that he could
show up in his helmet, but it turns out he
just pulled it out of the back of the Secret
Service SUV. So in Democrats talk about how this guy's
like their rising star. I just like, I would love
for that to be our next presidential campaign, whether it's
(22:13):
JD versus Pete or whoever. Like Bodagic gives us so
much to work with and it's awesome.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah, that is a travesty that he was doing that,
And I.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Just like he's always like playing like ooh, the Trump
administration isn't on top of these transportation is used like, sir, you.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Have never been at the switch ever. Some amazing stuff. Okay,
I have a little bit of a wonky.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
One Wall Street Journal had a piece on the National
Environmental Policy Act of nineteen seventy, which actually we have
talked about on this show before because it was one
of Trump's executive orders that I was excited about. It
reforms permitting, It gets a bunch of environmental nonsense and
red tape out of the process so that people can build.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
That then cuts down on how.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Much litigation and environmentalist groups can do on these projects.
And what Trump did was he asked all the agencies
to say, well, how can you streamline this, Let's only
apply it to the most important things. Because as all regulation,
the NIPA became this huge morass of requirements. And what
happened is a twenty twenty federal study found that at
(23:19):
that point it took four point five years average to
complete an environmental mental impact statement.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Required, not the project, the environmental statement.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
So a bunch of a bunch of the agencies have
now gotten together and said, okay, here's how we're simplifying.
The Supreme Court has spoken on this and said that
NIPA should not be a roadblock to getting anything done.
It's just a way to severe like serious issues. And
so it looks like a brighter day for building things.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Incredibly valuable, huge, huge coup for the Trump administration.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
All right, well those are in case you missed it. Guys, Matt,
where can we find you and where should we look
for you?
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Timided you can find it on Twitter, Instagram, but primarily
YouTube and Apple podcasts, I think are the best places
for every Tuesday and Thursday.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
And it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
It's just as you said, if you want your politics
in ten minutes or less, because you've got so much
going on, or you are listening to other longer, smarter podcasts.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
This is like your cliff Notes, so check it out.
Love it.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Thank you so much for joining us on and normally.
Thank you to all of you guys for joining us
on Normally.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays in can subscribe anywhere you
get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Get in touch with us at normally thepod at gmail
dot com. Thanks for listening and when things get weird
at normally
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