August 7, 2025 • 27 mins
In this episode, Mary Katharine and Karol discuss the recent actions of Texas Democrats who fled the state to avoid redistricting efforts, the implications of the Epstein case on political dynamics, and Jim Acosta interviewing an AI bot. They explore the tactics used by both parties in the political arena, the ethics of gerrymandering, and the moral dilemmas surrounding grief and technology. 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 (00:04):
Hey guys, we are back on. Normally the show takes,
but when the news gets weird.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I am Mary Catherine. I'm Markowitz. I am Mary Catherine.
How are you doing this week?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I'm good. Well, neither one of us is on vacation
right now. But you know who is? You know who
is Texas Democrats.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I don't know what I thought you were going to say,
we're gonna we're get right into it. No no chit
chat here at all.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
No, no, no no plan because it's not fun because
we're not on vacation. We're just wishful wish business.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Right. So Democrats? Are they still in Chicago? Let's start
with that.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I believe they are still in Illinois, where they were
flown on a private jet funded by Beato and other
large sources of Democratic money. Beto O'Rourke, failed presidential and
Senate candidate from Texas. They left the state because they
want to deprive I have the Texas Legislature of a quorum,
(01:04):
because the Texas Legislature is trying to redistrict in such
a way that would benefit Republicans based on twenty twenty
census information. They are attempting to redraw the maps in Texas.
They have the power to do this. Democrats fled because
they don't want them to do it. It's somewhat unorthodox
(01:25):
to do it at this point in the cycle, and
that's what Democrats are complaining about. But yeah, they're in
Illinois and there have been calls to arrest them from
folks inside Texas. Of course, Illinois would have to extradite
them or help, and I don't think that's happening. I'm
not sure what their legal rights are in this situation.
I'm not sure you can actually make an arrest. But
(01:47):
they're definitely just not doing their jobs.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah. I saw that Gavin Newsome was really upset about
the redistricting and he was like, well, then we're going
to derymander. Also him, Democrats have already jerrymandered all the
states where they have control to the fullest extent. So
this is really just Republicans catching up with drawing zig
zaggy lines on maps.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah, it's it's rich to hear this from Democrats, and
different states do it different ways. Some states have a
like a bipartisan group that decides what the maps looks
like look like. Often those bipartisan groups also create very
partisan results. If you look at California, you will see
that places where Democrats are totally in control. Even the
(02:37):
New York Times has had to admit they have gerrymandered
so hard that they can't do anymore. Like they keep saying,
it's tit for tat, and I'm like, y'all done tatt
it so much, you can't tatt no more. Like you've
tat it all. The tatting is done.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
All that's left exact.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Now you're just mad at the tit anyway.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
So they show Mary Catherine.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
So yeah, their tactic is to leave the state to
not allow this, and I just hate this tactic. Yeah,
I think it's just loser stuff. Right. Texas Democrats specifically
have done this several times in the two thousands. I
want to I looked it up last night, two thousand
and three, over redistricting, twenty twenty one, over voting rules,
(03:24):
twenty twenty five, over redistricting, and I believe there's a
fourth one in there somewhere. Here's my question for Democrats.
Has this improved your electoral prospects in all the state
of Texas during this time? It's crazy?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, what's really nuts is that they are being heralded
as heroes. Right now, if you go to the CNN
page or the MSNBC main page, they are the only
game in town right now. They are the Democratic hope.
They're the ones who are doing what all the other
Democrats should be doing in fighting those terrible Republicans. But
they're going to lose and that'll be the end of
that story. So why would you want other people to
(03:58):
emulate lose your behavior?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yeah, it's and it's I think again, I don't think
it sends the right message to your voters when you
just leave town, And if Republicans doing it, it would
be covered very differently. The issue is that Republicans don't
actually use this tactic very often. I was able to
find one example in Oregon of Republicans piecing out on
(04:21):
the legislature, and I do not endorse it. There. In fact,
they passed a law that said if you do this
and you have more than ten unexcused absences from your
job as a legislator, I can't run again. And I
think that's probably something many states should consider. You did
this in Wisconsin in twenty eleven when they were fighting
the Democrats did when they were fighting Scott Walker They've
done it in Indiana, They've done it all over the place,
(04:43):
and it is raised to the hilt because democrats opting
out of the democratic process is the best way to
save democracy, you see.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yes, it's a very popular tactic on the democratic side
because they love a good show, and I think that
that this provides them with that show. They love the
spectacle of this kind of thing. And yeah, this is
why why it's so beloved. So Governor Pritzker, who governor
of Illinois, which is a super jerrymandered state. We were
(05:17):
talking one.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Of the most jerrymanded states there is.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yes, he went on Stephen Colbert's show, and Colbert actually
called him on it, and we have that clip.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Let's roll it is the districts in Illinois. Take a
look at this. Look at look at seventeen here it
does that. Then it comes up here and it sneaks
around there and goes all the way up here and
then goes right over there like that. And look at
look at look at this one kind of goes whip
up there. It's like the stinger on a scorpion down here.
(05:46):
Is this common for all states to do?
Speaker 4 (05:49):
We handed it over to a kindergarten class and let
them decide.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Okay, And that's the that's the non partisan group that
does this.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Guy, that's our independent commission, you know that is yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
I mean, look, so, because all states, to a certain
extent do this, why is what Texas doing particular gregious
in this case?
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Well, here, every ten years, we do a census in
this country, and right after the census, we redraw districts
in every state. But what the Republicans are trying to do,
and the Texas Republicans, frankly at the behest of Donald Trump,
are doing it mid decade, that is extraordinarily rare.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
That's an important point because he I think he literally
called them or wrote them and said, hey, I need
five seats.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Let's be real here. What happened is in the last
five years, Texas has had an influx of people, and
so that's why they are And those people came from
blue states because of the COVID lockdowns and because of
all the insanity in these blue states. So Texas has
had this real, you know, giant kind of group of
(06:54):
people come in. Look, you want to wait the ten years,
that's a fine argument to make. But Illinois making those
ridiculous districts. It's not because they got to wait ten
years and nobody complained about it. Nobody complained about it
because it's a blue state.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Yeah. By the way, Illinois is like went forty three
percent for Donald Trump. Their delegation in the Congress don't
look like no forty three percent Republican, which is what
they're claiming would be fair when it comes to them. Also,
I'm so glad he brought up the census because this
is NPR reporting. Okay, Yeah, for the twenty twenty census,
(07:31):
all states were not counted equally well for population numbers
used to allocate political representation and federal funding over the
next decade. According to who OH, the US Census Bureau
which surveyed itself and found out in its survey that
there were significant net undercount rates in six states. What
were those states? Arkansas, Florida, Oh, Illinois gets a little here, Mississippi, Tennessee,
(07:56):
and Texas. So almost all red states on the undercount
and then significant net overcount in eight states. Those states
are Delaware blue, Hawaii blue, Massachusetts Real blue, Minnesota blue,
New York blue, Ohio red, Rhode Island blue, and Utah red.
So two red states to the rest of those.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah. I have a similar story also from the appointment
forecast in twenty twenty three, but I have Illinois as
an overcount.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
I don't know why that would oh interesting.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, but at any rate, there these flyne up with
your states, So I don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
So the issue is on a moral level. If you're
worried about this being deeply unfair because it doesn't reflect
the population, that's not true, right, It does reflect the population.
What didn't reflect the population was the unfairly conducted census.
And I think that some of this is the temper
tantrum of a party that knows the twenty thirty census
(08:54):
is going to look very bad for them.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
So true, that is exactly what's happening here. They know
what's coming and they're trying to head it off. But look,
we all have eyes and we all run all the stories,
and you know there is there are states that are
growing and are states that are not, And that's just
the reality of the situation.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah. Fun fact, by the way, I grew up in
one of arguably the most famous gerrymander district in US history,
really North Carolina's twelfth District, which was found unconstitutional at
the Supreme Court for the way in which it was drawn.
It was to be fair to those who drew it.
It was part of the Voting Rights Act requirement that
the state has several majority minority districts. So my state
(09:40):
was a majority or my district was a majority minority
district drawn through black communities all through North Carolina, but
it went all the way from Charlotte to Durham along
the I eighty five corridor, prompting one of the legislature
legislators in North Carolina to say legendarily that if you
(10:00):
drove a car down eighty five with both of the
doors open on each side, you would kill almost everyone
in the district. And so that was found to violate
the equal Protection clause because it was too racially jerrymandered.
The court actually said, political jerrymandering is totally fine. That's
a thing that happens in politics all the time. But
(10:21):
be careful about how racially you are drawing these lines.
So if you will, I put it on my Twitter
account the picture of this district as it was when
I grew up, and it is wild.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Are you surprised that Colbert even minorly made fun of
Pritzker and his state for being so jerrymandered. Or was
it actually just a cleanup on Aisle five letting his
Democrat friend.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I think it was letting him have a shot at
that question. But he doesn't have a good answer for it.
And as I say, their independent commissions end up creating
exactly what Democrats want them to. This is what happens
in California as well, which would have to change its constitution,
by the way to do what Gavin Newsom claims he's
going to do. The state is already quite jerrymander There
(11:07):
are quite quite a few fewer Republicans than would actually
represent the voting public. This is part of politics. We
can argue about it, but you shouldn't leave your post
to argue about it, right, That's what I think.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
You know. Just to tag onto the Colbert question as
we're going to air, there's a story that Howard Stern
is not being resigned at serious. I do not find
that surprising at all. I haven't heard about Howard Stern
in years, I mean since he was like washing Like
I don't even know his Amazon package is in twenty
twenty three, so he's you know, he kind of lost
(11:46):
it during COVID, and I haven't seen any of his
clipsic go viral in years and years, so.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
I think, yeah, it's the death knell when you become
boring and predictable, right, And both Colbert and Howard Stern,
who paint themselves as great rebels and truth tellers, became
boring and predictable, so boring and predictable that it is
a great shock to us that he asked one mildly
interesting question of JB. Prinsker.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Oh yeah, so I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Good luck to DEM's I don't I don't think the
ratchet can go much more. In fact, the Massachusetts governor
was like, well, I suppose we'll have to jerry Mander
some more. And it's like, girl, girl, you have zero
Republicans in winning congressional seats.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
How much.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
What do you get to Jerrymander? There's no tatting to
be had. Oh my gosh. I do love it when
they're like we're gonna fight fire with fire. It's like
like you haven't been doing yet.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
You were the one who brought all the fire, so
enjoy the heat. Yep, we're going to take a start
break and come right back with our favorite topic, the
Epstein case. Well, we are back with more on normally
Julane Maxwell. I think I'm saying her name right. She
(13:06):
has been moved to a minimum security prison. And if
you think this has toned down any of the conspiracy
theories around Epstein, let me tell you it has not.
The New York Post Rights notorious sex traffic for Juline
Maxwell has quietly been moved to a cushy prison camp
known as Club Fed as she tries to hash out
(13:26):
a deal to divulge her sordid secrets about lead late
pedophile X Jeffrey Epstein. I am going to say something
controversial here, and this is really the issue where I
am most squishy. I think that nonviolent offenders should be
in kind of cushi or prisons, and Club fed is
(13:48):
not cushy. It is better than medium or maximum security, obviously,
But the whole point there is if you break any rules,
you get sent to medium security right away. But is
on their best behavior. If you have people who are
not violent and can live like that in a prison setting,
they should be in that kind of setting.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I have various thoughts on the Epstein thing. One of
the things that I do worry about a little bit
is that because this is not going away, and it's
not going away because people in the base of the
Trump coalition are genuinely interested in this and they think
that this is the decoder ring for all corruption in
(14:32):
elite circles. I don't think that it is, but they do.
And I think there's reason to be suspicious of the
information for sure. And because Democrats are seeing that this
storyline is hurting Trump, the two have come together, even
on House Oversight Committee, where Jamie Comer is saying, well,
I'm going to subpoena a bunch of people who have
this information, including the Clintons, including ags who have been
(14:54):
part of these debates of both parties, and Democrats and
Republicans came together to agreed to issue those subpoenas. So
this is like an interesting political confluence. And what I'm
worried about is that the Trump administration, by virtue of
wanting to look like they're doing something and getting to
the bottom of this, they go lenient too much on
(15:15):
the one person who was convicted, hurting a bunch of
people like she's the one. Do I think there probably
should have been more, Yes, But she's the one, and
I don't want to be making some super sweet deal
with her because politically, you need to tell these other
people more things about Epstein. Ye Epstein, I'm with you
on that part.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
It's not about the deal for me. It's just I
don't think somebody who's non violent should be And I.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Don't totally disagree with that.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Not you, not justally, not just anybody. And I don't
think it should be part of the deal to be like,
if you are a non violent offender, you get to
be among other non violent offenders. I think that that
should be standard. And man, it makes me feel like
a lib to say that, but it's okay.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Something swishes sometimes, you know.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
But basically, lives have gotten to where I've gotten to
where they were like twenty years ago, and they've gone
to there shouldn't be prison, So we're indifferent.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
That is the actual on camera opinion of Zoron Mandaney
is like, prisons, what are they for?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Right?
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Right?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
We should not have them?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah, who belonged in prison?
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Come on, only thought criminals should go to prison? Yeah,
that's how it works.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
It's funny that you say that, you know it has
aligned certain people on the right, and certain people on
the left. Will Chamberlain posted Trump has been so relentless
as solving the nation's problems in the last seven months
that right wing commentators are reduced to making up new
problems to complain about. I really write that.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
I mean they made a little bit of a point.
I think the part that there's I think there's two
risks here for Republicans. One for Trump. There are people
who genuinely will look at this and go he was
supposed to be my outsider. Sure, he was supposed to
crack this wide open, and he hasn't what we needed
to do. They made promises that they couldn't keep to
some extent, and they shouldn't have done that. The other
(17:06):
problem is once you start trying to crack it wide open,
as Jamie Comer, and Jamie Comer doesn't play like he
gets he gets new information. Once you start doing that
in house oversight, you run the risk of looking like
a party that is only looking backwards. And if I
have a choice of what to look backwards on, it
is the Biden family and the President, not this particular case.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
It's also kind of a tell that all the people
in the right who are super super into this. Also
didn't like Trump's actions on Iran, A bit of a
tell there that it's not really about justice for Epstein
victims for them, and it's about finding a way to
hurt Trump. I really, I think a lot of this
is trying to split the MAGA movement and they can't
(17:49):
do it via Trump's opinions on israela I Ran, So
they're trying to do this in this other way. As
we go to air their meeting tonight at jd Vance's house,
the report is that senior administration officials planned to meet
and President Vice President JD Vance's residents for dinner Wednesday
(18:11):
night to discuss how to better handle the Epstein case.
And they want to kind of all be on the
same page, which they clearly haven't been. So I'm kind
of glad that they're doing that. It's kind of weird
that it took this long. I think that they should
have been maybe on the same page before a lot
of the internal fighting that became public. I'm really not
a fan of I don't like that there was a
(18:32):
lot of it's either this person or me or whatever
reported and I wish they had been on the same
page all along.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Also a rare whiff, I think for Trump, who generally
has a good sense of how these stories will play out,
when he said stop talking about this, right, that's not
the message on something where people have lost a bunch
of public trust in public institutions with good reason. This
is something that a lot of your supporters are invested in,
(19:01):
and that is the last thing that a conspiracy swirling
story and its adherents need to hear from the White
House on this. So I think that was a miss
and they will maybe corrected. Also, my controversial opinion is
that the Vice presidential residence greater than the White House.
It is beautiful, it is so enjoy dinner over there.
Guys might have dinner there.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Dances. Yes, soon, Well, we're going to take another short
break and come back with Jim Acosta. I know you
missed him, so we're going to be talking about him
because that's what Jim Acosta wants more than anything else.
Be right back with more on normally.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
All right, we are back on normally, and we reluctantly
agreed to talk about Jim Acosta, who now has a
streaming show. He doesn't have a CNN gig anymore, and
to make that streaming show work. One of the things
he has done is decided to have a segment on
gun control with a victim of the Parkland shooting. This
(20:03):
victim is a young man who died in that shooting,
but whose parents have created an AI version of him
to speak on public policy to people like Jim Acosta
who are willing to entertain this. And I would say,
the reaction to this segment is pretty universally, well, that's
(20:25):
not good.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Let's play the segment so people can hear the insanity
for themselves.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Joaquin, I would like to know what your solution would
be for gun violence.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
Great question. I believe in a mix of stronger gun
control laws, mental health support, and community engagement. We need
to create safe spaces for conversations and connections, making sure
everyone feels seen and heard. It's about building a culture
of kindness and understanding. What do you think about that.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
I think that's a great ideal. Just no, no, I
mean no. I get that his parents are grieving, but
that is not their So there's not a teenager in
the world who talks like that, not a single teenager
ever in the history of ever. I mean, he'd been
I think they said he would be twenty twenty five today. Yeah,
so you know, even twenty five year olds, what do
(21:14):
you think about that. It's very stilted and it's not
your son, It's not And I feel bad for these parents,
but this should not have been aired. This is grieving
people trying to process that grief, and Jim Acosta doing
this is just absolutely disgusting to me.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Yeah, the loss of this young man is a tragedy.
And also when you're a grieving parent or a grieving person,
you do not have carte blanche to just be listened
to for that reason forever, right. I am happy to
listen to policy concerns from the parents of this child,
(21:58):
but this, the way that this is happening is grotesque.
I think everyone, almost everyone reacted to it that way
for a reason. There is no shortage, I don't know,
if you know, from literature and movies and art, there's
a shortage of cautionary tales about reanimating the dead to
do things on this earth. And I think AI is
(22:19):
getting a lot of people who are grieving and who
are vulnerable to take steps they should not be taking.
And I have more sympathy for those who are not
putting them on Jim Acosta's show. But there are plenty
of people, I'm sure, who grieve loved ones and who
end up turning an AI chatbot into a version of them.
And I think it's really dangerous for people's souls, for
(22:41):
their lives, for moving on, And it's something you're seeing
more and more of. There's Alex o'hanian who's married to
Selena Selena Williams, and he lost his mom when he
was young, and he dropped a picture of his mom
and him into one of the AI machines and it
(23:03):
turned it into a video of him sort of nestling
with his mom. He didn't have videos of her, and
so he found this very moving. I think we're going
down a pretty dangerous road here. Yeah, and it certainly
shouldn't be used for public policy fights. Like you make
your own argument.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
To me, Yeah, right, don't reanimate your dead son. I
when this technology was first coming out, you know, before AI,
when they like you could upload it like an old
picture and kind of animate it. I uploaded a picture
of my grandmother. I was very close with her, and like,
I just wanted to see her move. Yeah, And I
uploaded this picture and you know, she kind of like smiled,
(23:40):
and I was like, that's not her smile. It's just
not they Yes, it is the picture smiling, it's it's
as close as yet, But that's not her. I could
see in the eyes. It's not it's not how she
used to smile. It just not not her. I think
people need to accept that they can't reanimate their dead
relatives and that it's something that they have to just
(24:01):
process and live with. On the political side, I'll say
that CNN loves to do this kind of thing, even
though he's not on CNN anymore. They actually, famously after
Parkland had the town hall where these teenage victims of
the shooting who were in the building that day got
to yell at Dana lash who was an n RA spokesperson,
(24:23):
and Senator Marco Rubio, who's senator from Florida at the time.
And I found that so hideously disgusting as well. They
were using these kids to make the arguments for them. Actually,
I would say that that whole thing spurred my book
with Bethany Mandel, Stolen Youth. We talked about how that
town hall that's what turned other movements, made other movements
(24:47):
use children because they realized that you can't yell back
at children, you similarly can't yell back at ai of
dead people. And I think that that's what they're realizing
is that this is great for making the arguments that
we want to. We don't have to make them. We
can use kids. We can use dead kids and make
these arguments for us.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Ye, they're looking for unassailable spokespeople. They're looking as the
left often does. And it's not to say that the
right doesn't do some of this as well, but the
Left has perfected it, which is to win an argument
without having an argument and say you're not allowed to speak.
You're not allowed to say anything about Cindy she In, right,
Remember she was the very vocal anti war code Pink
(25:26):
mom of a soldier who tragically lost his life during
the War on Terror. But you are allowed to talk
about policy. You are allowed to disagree with Cindy she
In and honor the death of her son. At the
same time, you are allowed to disagree with these parents
about gun control. And I think the left is fooling
itself on this. If Trump second time around has not
(25:47):
taught them yet, teaching people to are convincing people to
shut up. Is not the same as convincing them. I
don't know what they're gonna when they're gonna learn exact.
People believe things, and you can't just tell them to stop.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Right right, and you can't say even you know, even
the argument that this animated you know, image is making.
I believe people should be involved in the conversation. I
believe in, you know, bringing everybody to the table. It's
not really an argument. Like if you're already putting words
into the mouths of a dead AI image, you can
(26:23):
maybe do a little bit better than that.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Yeah, just just make your own argument. Yeah, like that
would be a normal thing. I do think this is
this is yet another attempt to create a different kind
of spokesperson who cannot be argued with exactly. And we
are invested in actually having the arguments, and that's what
we should be invested with.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Thanks for joining us on Normally Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get
in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail dot com.
Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally
Hey guys, we are back on. Normally the show takes,
but when the news gets weird.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I am Mary Catherine. I'm Markowitz. I am Mary Catherine.
How are you doing this week?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I'm good. Well, neither one of us is on vacation
right now. But you know who is? You know who
is Texas Democrats.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I don't know what I thought you were going to say,
we're gonna we're get right into it. No no chit
chat here at all.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
No, no, no no plan because it's not fun because
we're not on vacation. We're just wishful wish business.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Right. So Democrats? Are they still in Chicago? Let's start
with that.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I believe they are still in Illinois, where they were
flown on a private jet funded by Beato and other
large sources of Democratic money. Beto O'Rourke, failed presidential and
Senate candidate from Texas. They left the state because they
want to deprive I have the Texas Legislature of a quorum,
(01:04):
because the Texas Legislature is trying to redistrict in such
a way that would benefit Republicans based on twenty twenty
census information. They are attempting to redraw the maps in Texas.
They have the power to do this. Democrats fled because
they don't want them to do it. It's somewhat unorthodox
(01:25):
to do it at this point in the cycle, and
that's what Democrats are complaining about. But yeah, they're in
Illinois and there have been calls to arrest them from
folks inside Texas. Of course, Illinois would have to extradite
them or help, and I don't think that's happening. I'm
not sure what their legal rights are in this situation.
I'm not sure you can actually make an arrest. But
(01:47):
they're definitely just not doing their jobs.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah. I saw that Gavin Newsome was really upset about
the redistricting and he was like, well, then we're going
to derymander. Also him, Democrats have already jerrymandered all the
states where they have control to the fullest extent. So
this is really just Republicans catching up with drawing zig
zaggy lines on maps.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah, it's it's rich to hear this from Democrats, and
different states do it different ways. Some states have a
like a bipartisan group that decides what the maps looks
like look like. Often those bipartisan groups also create very
partisan results. If you look at California, you will see
that places where Democrats are totally in control. Even the
(02:37):
New York Times has had to admit they have gerrymandered
so hard that they can't do anymore. Like they keep saying,
it's tit for tat, and I'm like, y'all done tatt
it so much, you can't tatt no more. Like you've
tat it all. The tatting is done.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
All that's left exact.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Now you're just mad at the tit anyway.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
So they show Mary Catherine.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
So yeah, their tactic is to leave the state to
not allow this, and I just hate this tactic. Yeah,
I think it's just loser stuff. Right. Texas Democrats specifically
have done this several times in the two thousands. I
want to I looked it up last night, two thousand
and three, over redistricting, twenty twenty one, over voting rules,
(03:24):
twenty twenty five, over redistricting, and I believe there's a
fourth one in there somewhere. Here's my question for Democrats.
Has this improved your electoral prospects in all the state
of Texas during this time? It's crazy?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, what's really nuts is that they are being heralded
as heroes. Right now, if you go to the CNN
page or the MSNBC main page, they are the only
game in town right now. They are the Democratic hope.
They're the ones who are doing what all the other
Democrats should be doing in fighting those terrible Republicans. But
they're going to lose and that'll be the end of
that story. So why would you want other people to
(03:58):
emulate lose your behavior?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yeah, it's and it's I think again, I don't think
it sends the right message to your voters when you
just leave town, And if Republicans doing it, it would
be covered very differently. The issue is that Republicans don't
actually use this tactic very often. I was able to
find one example in Oregon of Republicans piecing out on
(04:21):
the legislature, and I do not endorse it. There. In fact,
they passed a law that said if you do this
and you have more than ten unexcused absences from your
job as a legislator, I can't run again. And I
think that's probably something many states should consider. You did
this in Wisconsin in twenty eleven when they were fighting
the Democrats did when they were fighting Scott Walker They've
done it in Indiana, They've done it all over the place,
(04:43):
and it is raised to the hilt because democrats opting
out of the democratic process is the best way to
save democracy, you see.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yes, it's a very popular tactic on the democratic side
because they love a good show, and I think that
that this provides them with that show. They love the
spectacle of this kind of thing. And yeah, this is
why why it's so beloved. So Governor Pritzker, who governor
of Illinois, which is a super jerrymandered state. We were
(05:17):
talking one.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Of the most jerrymanded states there is.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yes, he went on Stephen Colbert's show, and Colbert actually
called him on it, and we have that clip.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Let's roll it is the districts in Illinois. Take a
look at this. Look at look at seventeen here it
does that. Then it comes up here and it sneaks
around there and goes all the way up here and
then goes right over there like that. And look at
look at look at this one kind of goes whip
up there. It's like the stinger on a scorpion down here.
(05:46):
Is this common for all states to do?
Speaker 4 (05:49):
We handed it over to a kindergarten class and let
them decide.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Okay, And that's the that's the non partisan group that
does this.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Guy, that's our independent commission, you know that is yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
I mean, look, so, because all states, to a certain
extent do this, why is what Texas doing particular gregious
in this case?
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Well, here, every ten years, we do a census in
this country, and right after the census, we redraw districts
in every state. But what the Republicans are trying to do,
and the Texas Republicans, frankly at the behest of Donald Trump,
are doing it mid decade, that is extraordinarily rare.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
That's an important point because he I think he literally
called them or wrote them and said, hey, I need
five seats.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Let's be real here. What happened is in the last
five years, Texas has had an influx of people, and
so that's why they are And those people came from
blue states because of the COVID lockdowns and because of
all the insanity in these blue states. So Texas has
had this real, you know, giant kind of group of
(06:54):
people come in. Look, you want to wait the ten years,
that's a fine argument to make. But Illinois making those
ridiculous districts. It's not because they got to wait ten
years and nobody complained about it. Nobody complained about it
because it's a blue state.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Yeah. By the way, Illinois is like went forty three
percent for Donald Trump. Their delegation in the Congress don't
look like no forty three percent Republican, which is what
they're claiming would be fair when it comes to them. Also,
I'm so glad he brought up the census because this
is NPR reporting. Okay, Yeah, for the twenty twenty census,
(07:31):
all states were not counted equally well for population numbers
used to allocate political representation and federal funding over the
next decade. According to who OH, the US Census Bureau
which surveyed itself and found out in its survey that
there were significant net undercount rates in six states. What
were those states? Arkansas, Florida, Oh, Illinois gets a little here, Mississippi, Tennessee,
(07:56):
and Texas. So almost all red states on the undercount
and then significant net overcount in eight states. Those states
are Delaware blue, Hawaii blue, Massachusetts Real blue, Minnesota blue,
New York blue, Ohio red, Rhode Island blue, and Utah red.
So two red states to the rest of those.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah. I have a similar story also from the appointment
forecast in twenty twenty three, but I have Illinois as
an overcount.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
I don't know why that would oh interesting.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, but at any rate, there these flyne up with
your states, So I don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
So the issue is on a moral level. If you're
worried about this being deeply unfair because it doesn't reflect
the population, that's not true, right, It does reflect the population.
What didn't reflect the population was the unfairly conducted census.
And I think that some of this is the temper
tantrum of a party that knows the twenty thirty census
(08:54):
is going to look very bad for them.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
So true, that is exactly what's happening here. They know
what's coming and they're trying to head it off. But look,
we all have eyes and we all run all the stories,
and you know there is there are states that are
growing and are states that are not, And that's just
the reality of the situation.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah. Fun fact, by the way, I grew up in
one of arguably the most famous gerrymander district in US history,
really North Carolina's twelfth District, which was found unconstitutional at
the Supreme Court for the way in which it was drawn.
It was to be fair to those who drew it.
It was part of the Voting Rights Act requirement that
the state has several majority minority districts. So my state
(09:40):
was a majority or my district was a majority minority
district drawn through black communities all through North Carolina, but
it went all the way from Charlotte to Durham along
the I eighty five corridor, prompting one of the legislature
legislators in North Carolina to say legendarily that if you
(10:00):
drove a car down eighty five with both of the
doors open on each side, you would kill almost everyone
in the district. And so that was found to violate
the equal Protection clause because it was too racially jerrymandered.
The court actually said, political jerrymandering is totally fine. That's
a thing that happens in politics all the time. But
(10:21):
be careful about how racially you are drawing these lines.
So if you will, I put it on my Twitter
account the picture of this district as it was when
I grew up, and it is wild.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Are you surprised that Colbert even minorly made fun of
Pritzker and his state for being so jerrymandered. Or was
it actually just a cleanup on Aisle five letting his
Democrat friend.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I think it was letting him have a shot at
that question. But he doesn't have a good answer for it.
And as I say, their independent commissions end up creating
exactly what Democrats want them to. This is what happens
in California as well, which would have to change its constitution,
by the way to do what Gavin Newsom claims he's
going to do. The state is already quite jerrymander There
(11:07):
are quite quite a few fewer Republicans than would actually
represent the voting public. This is part of politics. We
can argue about it, but you shouldn't leave your post
to argue about it, right, That's what I think.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
You know. Just to tag onto the Colbert question as
we're going to air, there's a story that Howard Stern
is not being resigned at serious. I do not find
that surprising at all. I haven't heard about Howard Stern
in years, I mean since he was like washing Like
I don't even know his Amazon package is in twenty
twenty three, so he's you know, he kind of lost
(11:46):
it during COVID, and I haven't seen any of his
clipsic go viral in years and years, so.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
I think, yeah, it's the death knell when you become
boring and predictable, right, And both Colbert and Howard Stern,
who paint themselves as great rebels and truth tellers, became
boring and predictable, so boring and predictable that it is
a great shock to us that he asked one mildly
interesting question of JB. Prinsker.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Oh yeah, so I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Good luck to DEM's I don't I don't think the
ratchet can go much more. In fact, the Massachusetts governor
was like, well, I suppose we'll have to jerry Mander
some more. And it's like, girl, girl, you have zero
Republicans in winning congressional seats.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
How much.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
What do you get to Jerrymander? There's no tatting to
be had. Oh my gosh. I do love it when
they're like we're gonna fight fire with fire. It's like
like you haven't been doing yet.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
You were the one who brought all the fire, so
enjoy the heat. Yep, we're going to take a start
break and come right back with our favorite topic, the
Epstein case. Well, we are back with more on normally
Julane Maxwell. I think I'm saying her name right. She
(13:06):
has been moved to a minimum security prison. And if
you think this has toned down any of the conspiracy
theories around Epstein, let me tell you it has not.
The New York Post Rights notorious sex traffic for Juline
Maxwell has quietly been moved to a cushy prison camp
known as Club Fed as she tries to hash out
(13:26):
a deal to divulge her sordid secrets about lead late
pedophile X Jeffrey Epstein. I am going to say something
controversial here, and this is really the issue where I
am most squishy. I think that nonviolent offenders should be
in kind of cushi or prisons, and Club fed is
(13:48):
not cushy. It is better than medium or maximum security, obviously,
But the whole point there is if you break any rules,
you get sent to medium security right away. But is
on their best behavior. If you have people who are
not violent and can live like that in a prison setting,
they should be in that kind of setting.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I have various thoughts on the Epstein thing. One of
the things that I do worry about a little bit
is that because this is not going away, and it's
not going away because people in the base of the
Trump coalition are genuinely interested in this and they think
that this is the decoder ring for all corruption in
(14:32):
elite circles. I don't think that it is, but they do.
And I think there's reason to be suspicious of the
information for sure. And because Democrats are seeing that this
storyline is hurting Trump, the two have come together, even
on House Oversight Committee, where Jamie Comer is saying, well,
I'm going to subpoena a bunch of people who have
this information, including the Clintons, including ags who have been
(14:54):
part of these debates of both parties, and Democrats and
Republicans came together to agreed to issue those subpoenas. So
this is like an interesting political confluence. And what I'm
worried about is that the Trump administration, by virtue of
wanting to look like they're doing something and getting to
the bottom of this, they go lenient too much on
(15:15):
the one person who was convicted, hurting a bunch of
people like she's the one. Do I think there probably
should have been more, Yes, But she's the one, and
I don't want to be making some super sweet deal
with her because politically, you need to tell these other
people more things about Epstein. Ye Epstein, I'm with you
on that part.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
It's not about the deal for me. It's just I
don't think somebody who's non violent should be And I.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Don't totally disagree with that.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Not you, not justally, not just anybody. And I don't
think it should be part of the deal to be like,
if you are a non violent offender, you get to
be among other non violent offenders. I think that that
should be standard. And man, it makes me feel like
a lib to say that, but it's okay.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Something swishes sometimes, you know.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
But basically, lives have gotten to where I've gotten to
where they were like twenty years ago, and they've gone
to there shouldn't be prison, So we're indifferent.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
That is the actual on camera opinion of Zoron Mandaney
is like, prisons, what are they for?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Right?
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Right?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
We should not have them?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah, who belonged in prison?
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Come on, only thought criminals should go to prison? Yeah,
that's how it works.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
It's funny that you say that, you know it has
aligned certain people on the right, and certain people on
the left. Will Chamberlain posted Trump has been so relentless
as solving the nation's problems in the last seven months
that right wing commentators are reduced to making up new
problems to complain about. I really write that.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
I mean they made a little bit of a point.
I think the part that there's I think there's two
risks here for Republicans. One for Trump. There are people
who genuinely will look at this and go he was
supposed to be my outsider. Sure, he was supposed to
crack this wide open, and he hasn't what we needed
to do. They made promises that they couldn't keep to
some extent, and they shouldn't have done that. The other
(17:06):
problem is once you start trying to crack it wide open,
as Jamie Comer, and Jamie Comer doesn't play like he
gets he gets new information. Once you start doing that
in house oversight, you run the risk of looking like
a party that is only looking backwards. And if I
have a choice of what to look backwards on, it
is the Biden family and the President, not this particular case.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
It's also kind of a tell that all the people
in the right who are super super into this. Also
didn't like Trump's actions on Iran, A bit of a
tell there that it's not really about justice for Epstein
victims for them, and it's about finding a way to
hurt Trump. I really, I think a lot of this
is trying to split the MAGA movement and they can't
(17:49):
do it via Trump's opinions on israela I Ran, So
they're trying to do this in this other way. As
we go to air their meeting tonight at jd Vance's house,
the report is that senior administration officials planned to meet
and President Vice President JD Vance's residents for dinner Wednesday
(18:11):
night to discuss how to better handle the Epstein case.
And they want to kind of all be on the
same page, which they clearly haven't been. So I'm kind
of glad that they're doing that. It's kind of weird
that it took this long. I think that they should
have been maybe on the same page before a lot
of the internal fighting that became public. I'm really not
a fan of I don't like that there was a
(18:32):
lot of it's either this person or me or whatever
reported and I wish they had been on the same
page all along.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Also a rare whiff, I think for Trump, who generally
has a good sense of how these stories will play out,
when he said stop talking about this, right, that's not
the message on something where people have lost a bunch
of public trust in public institutions with good reason. This
is something that a lot of your supporters are invested in,
(19:01):
and that is the last thing that a conspiracy swirling
story and its adherents need to hear from the White
House on this. So I think that was a miss
and they will maybe corrected. Also, my controversial opinion is
that the Vice presidential residence greater than the White House.
It is beautiful, it is so enjoy dinner over there.
Guys might have dinner there.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Dances. Yes, soon, Well, we're going to take another short
break and come back with Jim Acosta. I know you
missed him, so we're going to be talking about him
because that's what Jim Acosta wants more than anything else.
Be right back with more on normally.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
All right, we are back on normally, and we reluctantly
agreed to talk about Jim Acosta, who now has a
streaming show. He doesn't have a CNN gig anymore, and
to make that streaming show work. One of the things
he has done is decided to have a segment on
gun control with a victim of the Parkland shooting. This
(20:03):
victim is a young man who died in that shooting,
but whose parents have created an AI version of him
to speak on public policy to people like Jim Acosta
who are willing to entertain this. And I would say,
the reaction to this segment is pretty universally, well, that's
(20:25):
not good.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Let's play the segment so people can hear the insanity
for themselves.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Joaquin, I would like to know what your solution would
be for gun violence.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
Great question. I believe in a mix of stronger gun
control laws, mental health support, and community engagement. We need
to create safe spaces for conversations and connections, making sure
everyone feels seen and heard. It's about building a culture
of kindness and understanding. What do you think about that.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
I think that's a great ideal. Just no, no, I
mean no. I get that his parents are grieving, but
that is not their So there's not a teenager in
the world who talks like that, not a single teenager
ever in the history of ever. I mean, he'd been
I think they said he would be twenty twenty five today. Yeah,
so you know, even twenty five year olds, what do
(21:14):
you think about that. It's very stilted and it's not
your son, It's not And I feel bad for these parents,
but this should not have been aired. This is grieving
people trying to process that grief, and Jim Acosta doing
this is just absolutely disgusting to me.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Yeah, the loss of this young man is a tragedy.
And also when you're a grieving parent or a grieving person,
you do not have carte blanche to just be listened
to for that reason forever, right. I am happy to
listen to policy concerns from the parents of this child,
(21:58):
but this, the way that this is happening is grotesque.
I think everyone, almost everyone reacted to it that way
for a reason. There is no shortage, I don't know,
if you know, from literature and movies and art, there's
a shortage of cautionary tales about reanimating the dead to
do things on this earth. And I think AI is
(22:19):
getting a lot of people who are grieving and who
are vulnerable to take steps they should not be taking.
And I have more sympathy for those who are not
putting them on Jim Acosta's show. But there are plenty
of people, I'm sure, who grieve loved ones and who
end up turning an AI chatbot into a version of them.
And I think it's really dangerous for people's souls, for
(22:41):
their lives, for moving on, And it's something you're seeing
more and more of. There's Alex o'hanian who's married to
Selena Selena Williams, and he lost his mom when he
was young, and he dropped a picture of his mom
and him into one of the AI machines and it
(23:03):
turned it into a video of him sort of nestling
with his mom. He didn't have videos of her, and
so he found this very moving. I think we're going
down a pretty dangerous road here. Yeah, and it certainly
shouldn't be used for public policy fights. Like you make
your own argument.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
To me, Yeah, right, don't reanimate your dead son. I
when this technology was first coming out, you know, before AI,
when they like you could upload it like an old
picture and kind of animate it. I uploaded a picture
of my grandmother. I was very close with her, and like,
I just wanted to see her move. Yeah, And I
uploaded this picture and you know, she kind of like smiled,
(23:40):
and I was like, that's not her smile. It's just
not they Yes, it is the picture smiling, it's it's
as close as yet, But that's not her. I could
see in the eyes. It's not it's not how she
used to smile. It just not not her. I think
people need to accept that they can't reanimate their dead
relatives and that it's something that they have to just
(24:01):
process and live with. On the political side, I'll say
that CNN loves to do this kind of thing, even
though he's not on CNN anymore. They actually, famously after
Parkland had the town hall where these teenage victims of
the shooting who were in the building that day got
to yell at Dana lash who was an n RA spokesperson,
(24:23):
and Senator Marco Rubio, who's senator from Florida at the time.
And I found that so hideously disgusting as well. They
were using these kids to make the arguments for them. Actually,
I would say that that whole thing spurred my book
with Bethany Mandel, Stolen Youth. We talked about how that
town hall that's what turned other movements, made other movements
(24:47):
use children because they realized that you can't yell back
at children, you similarly can't yell back at ai of
dead people. And I think that that's what they're realizing
is that this is great for making the arguments that
we want to. We don't have to make them. We
can use kids. We can use dead kids and make
these arguments for us.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Ye, they're looking for unassailable spokespeople. They're looking as the
left often does. And it's not to say that the
right doesn't do some of this as well, but the
Left has perfected it, which is to win an argument
without having an argument and say you're not allowed to speak.
You're not allowed to say anything about Cindy she In, right,
Remember she was the very vocal anti war code Pink
(25:26):
mom of a soldier who tragically lost his life during
the War on Terror. But you are allowed to talk
about policy. You are allowed to disagree with Cindy she
In and honor the death of her son. At the
same time, you are allowed to disagree with these parents
about gun control. And I think the left is fooling
itself on this. If Trump second time around has not
(25:47):
taught them yet, teaching people to are convincing people to
shut up. Is not the same as convincing them. I
don't know what they're gonna when they're gonna learn exact.
People believe things, and you can't just tell them to stop.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Right right, and you can't say even you know, even
the argument that this animated you know, image is making.
I believe people should be involved in the conversation. I
believe in, you know, bringing everybody to the table. It's
not really an argument. Like if you're already putting words
into the mouths of a dead AI image, you can
(26:23):
maybe do a little bit better than that.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Yeah, just just make your own argument. Yeah, like that
would be a normal thing. I do think this is
this is yet another attempt to create a different kind
of spokesperson who cannot be argued with exactly. And we
are invested in actually having the arguments, and that's what
we should be invested with.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
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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