October 1, 2024 • 25 mins
In this episode, Mary Katharine Ham and Karol Markowicz discuss the devastating impact of Hurricane Helene on North Carolina, highlighting the lack of media coverage and political response compared to past disasters. They explore the effectiveness of disaster preparedness in different states, the role of technology like Starlink in relief efforts, and the dynamics of political debates. The conversation also touches on polling trends and media bias, concluding with a critique of the WNBA's handling of its growing popularity and controversies surrounding its players. Normally is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Thursday.
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys, and welcome to an episode of Normally, the
show with Normalish takes for when the news gets weird
and it's always weird. I'm Mary Catherine Ham.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Carol Marcowitz.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Thank you so much for joining us. We've had a
bunch of people download, and we encourage all of you
to continue to follow, subscribe, download, comment, rate us. Lovely
to have you Normies with us today. We're getting into
some news, tough news immediately today from my home state. Actually,
I grew up in North Carolina, and Hurricane Helene dumped
(00:33):
so much water on the state of North Carolina, particularly
western North Carolina and East Tennessee, that the flooding and
damn issues and mud slides are absolutely biblical and just
the devastation happening there, and it has for several factors
(00:56):
which we can discuss. It's not gotten a ton of
coverage on now national sort of at least TV news
for sure, some print coverage, but just some stats about
what it looks like there. Dozens of counties are in
a state of emergency. A friend of mine checked the
court system today just to give you an idea. In
twenty two counties just don't have court for the foreseeable
(01:20):
future because no facilities can be reached and nothing can
be done. There are entire communities west of Asheville, which
is the city you will hear a lot about because
it's the medium sized city that's affected by this, but
there are tons of communities west of that that are
completely isolated. We're talking no roads in, no communication, no internet,
(01:42):
no sell no any kind of phone, and they're using
choppers to get supplies there. So that's the scene in
western North Carolina as it stands. Ten to thirty inches
of rain fell across the mountains. Four sixty four thousand
or without power in North Carolina, although a lot of
(02:03):
them have been restored. It was a million at the beginning.
It's been restored, so thank you to the lineman and
other first responders. But that's where we stand at the moment.
It's going to be a very long recovery from a
Katrina level trauma. There.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yeah, just awful devastation. I think that one of the
main things that I would say about this is that, look,
I don't think the hurricane relief should be a president's
job necessarily, but I do remember very well the absolute
hysteria when George W. Bush did a flyover of New
(02:37):
Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. And that's what Kamala Harris did
in North Carolina to absolute silence from the media. Joe
Biden was, of course at his beach house in Delaware.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Let's roll that clip, and a hurricane is for president.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Why weren't she and Vice President.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Harris Jared Washington commanding this this weekend?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I was command.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I was on the fiel for at least two hours
yesterday and the day before as well.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
I command call a telephone. It's all my security. It's
not important for the country to see.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Goodbye two whole hours.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Wow, that's a serious workday over there in biden Land.
He is super on it by phone. But of course,
this response was at least better than when Biden was
asked about the strikes in Yemen and he said, I've
spoken to both sides. They got to settle the strike.
Worth the collective bargaining effort. I think they'll settle the strike,
which sounds like he thinks the Yemen Nights are.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Picketing outside of their job or something.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
So our producer John mentioned that he was flipping through
all the channels on Sunday night to see if anyone
is talking about the hurricane, and he could only find
mention of it on the Weather Channel, no other coverage
at all.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Actually, look, some of this can
be a dropped because in the news industry, you're covering
your all eyes on Florida, right, because Florida, by the way,
are you guys good, You're good?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Right? All good? Our governor is of course just amazing
and completely on it. I didn't hit my coast, which
is the East Coast, thankfully, but you could just you
knew that Florida was well prepared and ready to go.
I don't know that the same kind of coverage it
has been given to Democratic Governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper.
(04:31):
I think that if this kind of devastation was happening
in Florida and Governor DeSantis had been sort of unprepared
for it, the media would be doing just a happy dance.
And I think that that's really kind of sick that
they're not covering this at all because they kind of
have to protect their guy, and of course, also the
political implications in North Carolina. Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson is
(04:54):
the Republican candidate running against state Attorney General Josh Stein
to replace Roy Cooper. And I you know, Robinson has
been in the news lately. He's had some questionable comments.
The media is definitely not trying to show that the
Democrats are doing a poor job in North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yeah, Desanta's truly has a gift for disaster prep and
it is. It's something to watch the State of Florida
and how things are run. It gives me rare moments
of hope for the idea of government running anything.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
He's a problem solver. I would say that's his gift. Actually,
he's like, here's the problem, and he's like, I know
how to solve this. I he just figures out solutions
in a way that I have never seen before. I
quote the Vanilla Ice line, like if you got a problem,
you I'll solve That's him.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Yeah, No, it's impressive to watch. And there's just no
nonsense updates coming from his Twitter feed all day with
like this is how many people's power we've restored, this
is the progress on this post Hurricane Ian. Just to
give an idea, my husband was down there as a
first responder and things were really wiped out in so
(06:03):
many areas, particularly the Fort Myers area, and just bridges
that no longer existed between islands that were rebuilt within
days to make sure that supplies could get where they
needed to go. So DeSantis has sent assets to North
Carolina because he's got things handled and he knows what
he needs in Florida. And I think, unfortunately, you're correct, Carol,
(06:27):
that some of this can be innocent, because maybe you
didn't expect western North Carolina to be the place she's hit.
It's Appalachia. There aren't a lot of national reporters or
assets there. Atlanta flooding is going to get a lot
more coverage for that week for that reason. But we
all know if outside of Washington, DC, or New York
or LA or Chicago got this level of devastation, it
(06:50):
would be a twenty four to seven. That's her story. Now,
there isn't a lot of internet coverage, There isn't a
lot of accessibility to these areas. But this is a
great time to have a president who has been briefed
and can go before the American people and bring attention
to something that might not otherwise get a lot of attention.
(07:13):
But as we noted, Biden was on the beach and
Kamala Harris is on the trail.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Yeah, but there's a bright spot in North Carolina. I
think you're going to tell us about something Elon Musk
is doing.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yes, so there. I want to give credit also to
just like all the first responders down there and coming
from all other states and you know, going into danger
and washed out roads and doing the hard work. And
one of the things those first responders are using is Starlink,
which is Elon Musk's satellite based internet. It is affordable
(07:47):
and portable, and so you can take it as a
first responder team into areas that don't otherwise have coverage.
You can use it so that people can touch base
with relatives for the first time, which many people in
that's from North Carolina have not been able to update
anyone as to their condition. So you can do that.
And again, so many things in media are so ideologically
(08:12):
driven that I doubt this will be given the credit
it deserves. But it has really been a lifeline in
this crisis. And I just want to note I don't
know if you remember this story, but in twenty twenty three,
the FCC denied Starlink subsidies for a second time. Because
(08:32):
they say starlink has not demonstrated that it would meet
the required download speeds for these rural areas. But I
would just say that having starlink versus having nothing is
actually quite beneficial and it's been working out okay in
a really devastating situation.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
They're okay with their download speeds.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
You're trying to say, yeah, they are okay with their
download speeds right now. And I think a lot of
that can be idealized driven as well. And it makes
me sad that in these situations, and in an environment
of public trust where you've lost so much trust, and
where people are doing amazing work on behalf of their
fellow citizens in these hardest hit areas that the media
(09:15):
lens is, is there a Republican we can blame for this?
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Exactly?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
And if not, I'm I'm sure we're going to be
there exactly.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Well, again, going back to Katrina, they blame George W. Bush,
but not all the Democratic officials in Louisiana who did
very little to protect people in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yeah, so I would encourage everyone to just stay alert
to this what I call in the news business, they
call it the second day story right, this happened after.
Flooding happens after. I'll note for you guys a couple
of charities that the indispensable Emily Zanati was suggesting for
western North Carolina and East Tennessee. Samaritans Purse is great.
(09:55):
They're based in western North Carolina, so they know the
area intimately, Appalachia's Service Project, Appalachian Kentucky Water Mission, all
of those, the United Cajun Navy, which is a big
fan of those. Those guys, just some great ways to
help out if you can, because people aren't a bad.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Yeah, well, I hope that they get the help that
they need to. Hope that our politicians can maybe act
a little quicker and do a little more for them.
Right now, it's a it's a really tough situation. The
pictures and the videos are just devastating. Praying for all
the people affected by the hurricane.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, we'll see, we'll see how the response goes moving forward,
and there are government assets on the ground like doing things.
I just hate this thing where we give people a
bunch of credit for response and empathy that they're not
actually demonstrating. We should we should evaluate based on the
facts of what's happening absolutely well.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Switching gears to politics, politics, Tonight, JD. Vance and Tim
Walls will debate their first and only debate. I believe
both are running as a Midwestern every man, and the
goal tonight will clearly be to rattle each other. I
do not think either of these guys rattles easily. We'll
(11:11):
see and so far as anyone wins or loses these debates,
which is often unclear, I think a win for Walls
will be if he's able to portray Vance as an elitist.
And I think a win for Vance will be if
he's able to portray Walls as the far left as
he is and generally out of touch with Midwesterners.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
What do you think, Yeah, I think you've made a
great point about this. Look at me. I'm just going
to steal one of your points to on this podcast
that Walls, to a certain extent is not allowed to
say much. That's right because he's a good Both of
these guys are good talkers. Let's both Let's give both
of them credit for that. They can put together lots
of sentences, and I think Walls can probably speak to substance,
(11:54):
but he's not allowed to in this campaign because this campaig,
the Harris Walls one, wants to sort of float above
the idea on a cloud of joy to election day.
And so because he can't speak to substance of policies
(12:14):
that she's either endorsed in the past or repudiated through
a mouthpiece in recent days, what does he say? I
guess he goes pretty personal, that would. I guess that's
where they go. If you talk about substance.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
We're going to hear about cat ladies for sure. That's
going to be a topic that he absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Will bring up. Yeah, you know, that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
I think this is a very Siginfeldian campaign that they're
running a campaign about nothing because they can't run on
any of the issues as they truly believe them, so
they have to run on vibes and listen, it's not
that I don't think a ViBe's election could win. I
just don't think it's particularly good for the country if
it does.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
I agree. I think hard questions and dealing with we
are good and that is something that Vance is good at.
And you can look at the likability differential between these
two candidates, and you must admit that Walls comes out
on top of that. However, when I've watched Vance on
various Sunday shows where he gets just about his hostile
(13:19):
questioning as you can get in that venue, he is
pretty much unfailingly like Deft, has a pretty soft touch,
can find openings, which is, by the way, the thing
that Trump lacked in the last debate, where there were
wide openings to critique and he just didn't see them
(13:40):
because he's distracted by something else. Vance is not like that.
Whether any of it matters, yeah, it's a VP debate,
I don't know. He's going to be.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Hard to get off his game. But I think the
VP here does matter. I think what we just went
through with Biden makes the VP debate more important. People
are like, hmm, actually it does matter who the vice
president is. So I think that it will matter in
a way that maybe it hasn't before in terms of
the structure of the debate. They're not going to be
fact checking in real time, apparently. The New York Times
(14:11):
reports that there will be a QR code, and The
New York Times says that it will appear on screen
for long stretches of the CBS telecast. Now viewers will
scan the code be redirected to the CBS News website,
where a squad of twenty CBS journalists will post fact
checks of the candidate's remarks in real time. I'm going
(14:33):
to say that twenty CBS journalists are probably still going
to fact check jd Vance and let Tim Walls have
much of a walk.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (14:42):
I think you're correct, and I think there's evidence for
this in that. First of all, I'm glad they're not
doing it on stage. They shouldn't because you can't be
one hundred percent and you therefore should not try absolutely.
Margaret Brennan in her Sunday Show interview with Vance. Margaret
Brennan is one of the the moderators. A couple of
weeks ago, she fact checked him, not live, but added
(15:06):
a taped segment to fact checked him, and she got
it wrong. So it's like, please do the checking, but
do the checking correctly. And they're so often blinded by
their own inability to listen to the other side that it's, uh,
it's problematic.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Well, they have their rooting for a team, and it's
hard to see clearly when you're rooting for a team.
I mean, I think that that's the case for a
lot of people. I think that they're unable to assess
what's really going on because they so want one side
to win. Speaking of that, there is a we're only
gonna talk about this for a minute or two, but
there is a pull out this week out of Florida,
(15:48):
and it has Trump only leading Harris by two percent,
and it has Rick Scott only leading his Democratic opponent
by one point. And I think that this relates to
what we talking about with the debate or with the
way people feel the way that it gets covered. This
poll is a bunch of nonsense, but it's ricocheting around
the democratic world because they so want to believe. Now,
(16:12):
as a Floridian and as a conservative.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I want them to believe too.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Go ahead, spend money in Florida, run some ads.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Why not? But this unable to.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
See things clearly because you need things to be a
certain way.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
It's not journalism. I don't know what it is, but
it's definitely not journalism.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
No, And I think that's one of the things that
I appreciate about being a right of center person in
media is that I have my priors checked all all
the time, constantly. I have to be on guard for
like am I just assuming too much here, and that's
actually quite healthy. And the problem is that much of
(16:51):
the media does not have that force in their lives right,
And to the extent that I can provide it, I'm
glad to but it's it's not enough and the priors
are confirmed far too often for them. There was there
was also some polling recently that was close out of
Texas for Ted Cruz for Senate versus Colin Allred, who's
(17:13):
a pretty far left former legislator from the state of Texas.
And again, if you want to throw money at it,
I'm happy for you to.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Ted Cruse was also happy to say, like, please send
me more money. They're really coming after me down here, right.
But yes, I think you're right that a lot of
this is can be wish casting. Also, can we move
from the idea of the most consequential election of all
time to the most confusing election of all time because
the mixed signals from the polling are wild.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, I mean, I think Nate Silver is under a
lot of pressure to produce polls that show Kamala ahead,
and you just see every time he finds one, he's like,
well look at this, stop yelling at me because here's ooh,
and they are yelling at him.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Nate Silver is a famous status who has a model
for who might win the election. He's been formally employed
by The New York Times, has been a liberal darling
at times, has gotten a lot of stuff really right.
And man, there is freedom, Carol in watching Nate Silver
give you facts and understand that you don't need him
(18:21):
to be quote on your team. He's just giving me information.
I can evaluate it as needed. But a lot of
my people do not feel that way.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
And he says he wants Kamala to win. It's not
like he's you know, unbiased in his personal opinions. He's
just saying this is what the numbers are producing, and
Democrats are like, you've sold out.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Like this reminded me to do. This reminds me very
briefly of the insane period of twenty twenty, during which
several liberals were basically canceled pretty harshly for pointing out
that moments of social upheaval and sort of riots in
(19:03):
the street and anything along the lines of what we
were seeing in twenty twenty can be politically electorally beneficial
to Republicans, just as a just as a fact of history.
And everyone was like, we don't want that information. Please
see the door don't work for anyone anymore.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Oh, twenty twenty, it was a heady time of you know,
people getting cut off like that.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
It was, well, you know who's still sort of living
in the vibe of twenty twenty, Oh the WNBA. And
let me tell you why. So I know you everyone
knows of Kaitlyn Clark, because everyone knows of Kaitlyn Clark,
the Iowa standout generational talent basketball player who has brought
(19:46):
tons of attention to women's basketball, women's sports, and the
WNBA that's not particulate.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Well, ebody wants that.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
You'd think it would be, because you know, it increases
the money they can make on endorsement deal, it increases
the money that they're making at the stadiums, It increases
all the good things, the number of fans. It turns
out that the WNBA isn't really into that. I have
never seen a league try to torpedo its own success
(20:17):
like this league has. Because I'm interested in watching in
ways that i haven't been before.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Yeah, I mean, I can't say that I'm interested in watching,
but I'm definitely I know who Caitlin Clark is. I
don't think I've ever been able to name a different
female basketball player WNBA. Listen, not to be sexist about it.
I'm not really into the NBA either. I find basketball
just one of my least favorite sports to watch. But
(20:43):
she's definitely out there in a way that normies like
me have heard of her and maybe would leave it
on if she's playing, just to see the phenomen you know,
do it right.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
So this has caused some I think not a small
amount of professional jealousy within the WNBA. Has been a
desire by other players to sort of put her in
her place. There's been a lot of football level hip
checking and fowls of Caitlin Clark, who nonetheless has remained
(21:13):
extremely calm under fire. Does not go off on people
in press conferences, does not talk a lot of junks.
She's a tough competitor on the court, but she hasn't
reacted to this.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Is there an ipoke recently or something?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Yes, there was an ipoke recently, and I'm glad you
brought that up because I'm going to take a rare
moment to defend the media against the WNBA here's what
happened the other day. Christine Brennan, who is a really
longtime sports journalist works for USA Today, asked one of
the players involved in this I poking incident, which resulted
in a bruised eye for Clark. You can see the injury.
(21:50):
As I said, she's been subject to a lot of
harsh treatment during the season this year. A player is
asked about that because it's a controversial play, and you
ask people about that.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
But sure.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
The WNBA sort of union of players put out a
statement saying that Christine Brennan had quote abused her privileges
and does not deserve the credentials issue to her.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Because she asked about it.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
But why, what's the the what is that? I mean again,
let's put ourselves in the leftist media mindset or in
the leftist you know, organization mindset.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
What okay, I'll read you the last very flowery paragraph
of their statement that so called interview in the name
of journalism was a blatant attempt to bait a professional
athlete into participating in a narrative that is false and
designed to here it is fuel racist, homophobic, and misogynistic
(22:53):
vitriol on social media. You cannot hide behind your tenure.
So her question about a foul was an attack on
the identity of many people within the WNBA or something.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
That feels very twenty twenty, shutting down conversation by calling
the person a racist.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
I feel like that's very familiar.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Yep. Brittany Griner also joined in by telling a reporter
the other day when she was asked about new fans
to the sport, which you would think you'd be like,
We're excited to have new fans. No, no, no, she's
mad at the fans because the fans, she claims. She's like, yeah,
am I happy about fans who come here to yell
racial slurs at us?
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I was like, is that happening?
Speaker 1 (23:36):
There's a lot of cameras at w NBA games and
yet we have not seen that.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Right. That would be all over the news, it would
be everywhere.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Again, this is just an attempt to smear Clark and
then by extension, her fans, without any real reason to
do so, aside from like, I don't know, you just
don't want anyone to watch the sport.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
It's just it's crazy. I just think about you know,
the you always want an oddity in the sport, right,
you always want somebody who's different, because it does attract
new people. I think that Tiger Woods opened up golf
in a lot of ways to Black Americans in a
way that they maybe didn't think of it as a
sport for them before.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
What's wrong with that?
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Why is that bad?
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Why wouldn't we want that? It's crazy?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Well, and I'm also open to the idea that women
can compete very toughly and that's fine, and they should
let them, you know, let them play, as they say,
But some of these at the beginning, I was pretty like, ah,
you know, let let the gals play. They're they're competitive too,
And then you watch a couple of these and you're like, Okay,
this is really kind of off the charts. But I
(24:44):
think that a healthy competition between all these women. Angel
Reese is incredibly talented too, and they had a rivalry
in college, could be a wonderful thing. But we have
gone way beyond that. Somebody joked the other day I
didn't I don't remember who who it was, so I
can't credit them. But like, I didn't have the w
NBA players as the most whiny demographic in all of sports, right,
(25:08):
but here we are.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, you think that they would have a tougher skin.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
But you know it would. It'd be better for everyone,
be better for the sport, better for women like I
don't know.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Yeah, I will continue not watching the WNBA. I will
send a message. Nothing you do can attract me to
your sport.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Well, they're certainly not trying.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
That's right. But thank you so much for tuning in.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
We are Carol Markowitz and Mary Katherine Ham. The show
is normally Please subscribe, Please tell your friends, and we'll
see you on Thursday.
Hey guys, and welcome to an episode of Normally, the
show with Normalish takes for when the news gets weird
and it's always weird. I'm Mary Catherine Ham.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Carol Marcowitz.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Thank you so much for joining us. We've had a
bunch of people download, and we encourage all of you
to continue to follow, subscribe, download, comment, rate us. Lovely
to have you Normies with us today. We're getting into
some news, tough news immediately today from my home state. Actually,
I grew up in North Carolina, and Hurricane Helene dumped
(00:33):
so much water on the state of North Carolina, particularly
western North Carolina and East Tennessee, that the flooding and
damn issues and mud slides are absolutely biblical and just
the devastation happening there, and it has for several factors
(00:56):
which we can discuss. It's not gotten a ton of
coverage on now national sort of at least TV news
for sure, some print coverage, but just some stats about
what it looks like there. Dozens of counties are in
a state of emergency. A friend of mine checked the
court system today just to give you an idea. In
twenty two counties just don't have court for the foreseeable
(01:20):
future because no facilities can be reached and nothing can
be done. There are entire communities west of Asheville, which
is the city you will hear a lot about because
it's the medium sized city that's affected by this, but
there are tons of communities west of that that are
completely isolated. We're talking no roads in, no communication, no internet,
(01:42):
no sell no any kind of phone, and they're using
choppers to get supplies there. So that's the scene in
western North Carolina as it stands. Ten to thirty inches
of rain fell across the mountains. Four sixty four thousand
or without power in North Carolina, although a lot of
(02:03):
them have been restored. It was a million at the beginning.
It's been restored, so thank you to the lineman and
other first responders. But that's where we stand at the moment.
It's going to be a very long recovery from a
Katrina level trauma. There.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yeah, just awful devastation. I think that one of the
main things that I would say about this is that, look,
I don't think the hurricane relief should be a president's
job necessarily, but I do remember very well the absolute
hysteria when George W. Bush did a flyover of New
(02:37):
Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. And that's what Kamala Harris did
in North Carolina to absolute silence from the media. Joe
Biden was, of course at his beach house in Delaware.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Let's roll that clip, and a hurricane is for president.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Why weren't she and Vice President.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Harris Jared Washington commanding this this weekend?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I was command.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I was on the fiel for at least two hours
yesterday and the day before as well.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
I command call a telephone. It's all my security. It's
not important for the country to see.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Goodbye two whole hours.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Wow, that's a serious workday over there in biden Land.
He is super on it by phone. But of course,
this response was at least better than when Biden was
asked about the strikes in Yemen and he said, I've
spoken to both sides. They got to settle the strike.
Worth the collective bargaining effort. I think they'll settle the strike,
which sounds like he thinks the Yemen Nights are.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Picketing outside of their job or something.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
So our producer John mentioned that he was flipping through
all the channels on Sunday night to see if anyone
is talking about the hurricane, and he could only find
mention of it on the Weather Channel, no other coverage
at all.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Actually, look, some of this can
be a dropped because in the news industry, you're covering
your all eyes on Florida, right, because Florida, by the way,
are you guys good, You're good?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Right? All good? Our governor is of course just amazing
and completely on it. I didn't hit my coast, which
is the East Coast, thankfully, but you could just you
knew that Florida was well prepared and ready to go.
I don't know that the same kind of coverage it
has been given to Democratic Governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper.
(04:31):
I think that if this kind of devastation was happening
in Florida and Governor DeSantis had been sort of unprepared
for it, the media would be doing just a happy dance.
And I think that that's really kind of sick that
they're not covering this at all because they kind of
have to protect their guy, and of course, also the
political implications in North Carolina. Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson is
(04:54):
the Republican candidate running against state Attorney General Josh Stein
to replace Roy Cooper. And I you know, Robinson has
been in the news lately. He's had some questionable comments.
The media is definitely not trying to show that the
Democrats are doing a poor job in North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yeah, Desanta's truly has a gift for disaster prep and
it is. It's something to watch the State of Florida
and how things are run. It gives me rare moments
of hope for the idea of government running anything.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
He's a problem solver. I would say that's his gift. Actually,
he's like, here's the problem, and he's like, I know
how to solve this. I he just figures out solutions
in a way that I have never seen before. I
quote the Vanilla Ice line, like if you got a problem,
you I'll solve That's him.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Yeah, No, it's impressive to watch. And there's just no
nonsense updates coming from his Twitter feed all day with
like this is how many people's power we've restored, this
is the progress on this post Hurricane Ian. Just to
give an idea, my husband was down there as a
first responder and things were really wiped out in so
(06:03):
many areas, particularly the Fort Myers area, and just bridges
that no longer existed between islands that were rebuilt within
days to make sure that supplies could get where they
needed to go. So DeSantis has sent assets to North
Carolina because he's got things handled and he knows what
he needs in Florida. And I think, unfortunately, you're correct, Carol,
(06:27):
that some of this can be innocent, because maybe you
didn't expect western North Carolina to be the place she's hit.
It's Appalachia. There aren't a lot of national reporters or
assets there. Atlanta flooding is going to get a lot
more coverage for that week for that reason. But we
all know if outside of Washington, DC, or New York
or LA or Chicago got this level of devastation, it
(06:50):
would be a twenty four to seven. That's her story. Now,
there isn't a lot of internet coverage, There isn't a
lot of accessibility to these areas. But this is a
great time to have a president who has been briefed
and can go before the American people and bring attention
to something that might not otherwise get a lot of attention.
(07:13):
But as we noted, Biden was on the beach and
Kamala Harris is on the trail.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Yeah, but there's a bright spot in North Carolina. I
think you're going to tell us about something Elon Musk
is doing.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yes, so there. I want to give credit also to
just like all the first responders down there and coming
from all other states and you know, going into danger
and washed out roads and doing the hard work. And
one of the things those first responders are using is Starlink,
which is Elon Musk's satellite based internet. It is affordable
(07:47):
and portable, and so you can take it as a
first responder team into areas that don't otherwise have coverage.
You can use it so that people can touch base
with relatives for the first time, which many people in
that's from North Carolina have not been able to update
anyone as to their condition. So you can do that.
And again, so many things in media are so ideologically
(08:12):
driven that I doubt this will be given the credit
it deserves. But it has really been a lifeline in
this crisis. And I just want to note I don't
know if you remember this story, but in twenty twenty three,
the FCC denied Starlink subsidies for a second time. Because
(08:32):
they say starlink has not demonstrated that it would meet
the required download speeds for these rural areas. But I
would just say that having starlink versus having nothing is
actually quite beneficial and it's been working out okay in
a really devastating situation.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
They're okay with their download speeds.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
You're trying to say, yeah, they are okay with their
download speeds right now. And I think a lot of
that can be idealized driven as well. And it makes
me sad that in these situations, and in an environment
of public trust where you've lost so much trust, and
where people are doing amazing work on behalf of their
fellow citizens in these hardest hit areas that the media
(09:15):
lens is, is there a Republican we can blame for this?
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Exactly?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
And if not, I'm I'm sure we're going to be
there exactly.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Well, again, going back to Katrina, they blame George W. Bush,
but not all the Democratic officials in Louisiana who did
very little to protect people in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yeah, so I would encourage everyone to just stay alert
to this what I call in the news business, they
call it the second day story right, this happened after.
Flooding happens after. I'll note for you guys a couple
of charities that the indispensable Emily Zanati was suggesting for
western North Carolina and East Tennessee. Samaritans Purse is great.
(09:55):
They're based in western North Carolina, so they know the
area intimately, Appalachia's Service Project, Appalachian Kentucky Water Mission, all
of those, the United Cajun Navy, which is a big
fan of those. Those guys, just some great ways to
help out if you can, because people aren't a bad.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Yeah, well, I hope that they get the help that
they need to. Hope that our politicians can maybe act
a little quicker and do a little more for them.
Right now, it's a it's a really tough situation. The
pictures and the videos are just devastating. Praying for all
the people affected by the hurricane.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, we'll see, we'll see how the response goes moving forward,
and there are government assets on the ground like doing things.
I just hate this thing where we give people a
bunch of credit for response and empathy that they're not
actually demonstrating. We should we should evaluate based on the
facts of what's happening absolutely well.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Switching gears to politics, politics, Tonight, JD. Vance and Tim
Walls will debate their first and only debate. I believe
both are running as a Midwestern every man, and the
goal tonight will clearly be to rattle each other. I
do not think either of these guys rattles easily. We'll
(11:11):
see and so far as anyone wins or loses these debates,
which is often unclear, I think a win for Walls
will be if he's able to portray Vance as an elitist.
And I think a win for Vance will be if
he's able to portray Walls as the far left as
he is and generally out of touch with Midwesterners.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
What do you think, Yeah, I think you've made a
great point about this. Look at me. I'm just going
to steal one of your points to on this podcast
that Walls, to a certain extent is not allowed to
say much. That's right because he's a good Both of
these guys are good talkers. Let's both Let's give both
of them credit for that. They can put together lots
of sentences, and I think Walls can probably speak to substance,
(11:54):
but he's not allowed to in this campaign because this campaig,
the Harris Walls one, wants to sort of float above
the idea on a cloud of joy to election day.
And so because he can't speak to substance of policies
(12:14):
that she's either endorsed in the past or repudiated through
a mouthpiece in recent days, what does he say? I
guess he goes pretty personal, that would. I guess that's
where they go. If you talk about substance.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
We're going to hear about cat ladies for sure. That's
going to be a topic that he absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Will bring up. Yeah, you know, that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
I think this is a very Siginfeldian campaign that they're
running a campaign about nothing because they can't run on
any of the issues as they truly believe them, so
they have to run on vibes and listen, it's not
that I don't think a ViBe's election could win. I
just don't think it's particularly good for the country if
it does.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
I agree. I think hard questions and dealing with we
are good and that is something that Vance is good at.
And you can look at the likability differential between these
two candidates, and you must admit that Walls comes out
on top of that. However, when I've watched Vance on
various Sunday shows where he gets just about his hostile
(13:19):
questioning as you can get in that venue, he is
pretty much unfailingly like Deft, has a pretty soft touch,
can find openings, which is, by the way, the thing
that Trump lacked in the last debate, where there were
wide openings to critique and he just didn't see them
(13:40):
because he's distracted by something else. Vance is not like that.
Whether any of it matters, yeah, it's a VP debate,
I don't know. He's going to be.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Hard to get off his game. But I think the
VP here does matter. I think what we just went
through with Biden makes the VP debate more important. People
are like, hmm, actually it does matter who the vice
president is. So I think that it will matter in
a way that maybe it hasn't before in terms of
the structure of the debate. They're not going to be
fact checking in real time, apparently. The New York Times
(14:11):
reports that there will be a QR code, and The
New York Times says that it will appear on screen
for long stretches of the CBS telecast. Now viewers will
scan the code be redirected to the CBS News website,
where a squad of twenty CBS journalists will post fact
checks of the candidate's remarks in real time. I'm going
(14:33):
to say that twenty CBS journalists are probably still going
to fact check jd Vance and let Tim Walls have
much of a walk.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (14:42):
I think you're correct, and I think there's evidence for
this in that. First of all, I'm glad they're not
doing it on stage. They shouldn't because you can't be
one hundred percent and you therefore should not try absolutely.
Margaret Brennan in her Sunday Show interview with Vance. Margaret
Brennan is one of the the moderators. A couple of
weeks ago, she fact checked him, not live, but added
(15:06):
a taped segment to fact checked him, and she got
it wrong. So it's like, please do the checking, but
do the checking correctly. And they're so often blinded by
their own inability to listen to the other side that it's, uh,
it's problematic.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Well, they have their rooting for a team, and it's
hard to see clearly when you're rooting for a team.
I mean, I think that that's the case for a
lot of people. I think that they're unable to assess
what's really going on because they so want one side
to win. Speaking of that, there is a we're only
gonna talk about this for a minute or two, but
there is a pull out this week out of Florida,
(15:48):
and it has Trump only leading Harris by two percent,
and it has Rick Scott only leading his Democratic opponent
by one point. And I think that this relates to
what we talking about with the debate or with the
way people feel the way that it gets covered. This
poll is a bunch of nonsense, but it's ricocheting around
the democratic world because they so want to believe. Now,
(16:12):
as a Floridian and as a conservative.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I want them to believe too.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Go ahead, spend money in Florida, run some ads.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Why not? But this unable to.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
See things clearly because you need things to be a
certain way.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
It's not journalism. I don't know what it is, but
it's definitely not journalism.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
No, And I think that's one of the things that
I appreciate about being a right of center person in
media is that I have my priors checked all all
the time, constantly. I have to be on guard for
like am I just assuming too much here, and that's
actually quite healthy. And the problem is that much of
(16:51):
the media does not have that force in their lives right,
And to the extent that I can provide it, I'm
glad to but it's it's not enough and the priors
are confirmed far too often for them. There was there
was also some polling recently that was close out of
Texas for Ted Cruz for Senate versus Colin Allred, who's
(17:13):
a pretty far left former legislator from the state of Texas.
And again, if you want to throw money at it,
I'm happy for you to.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Ted Cruse was also happy to say, like, please send
me more money. They're really coming after me down here, right.
But yes, I think you're right that a lot of
this is can be wish casting. Also, can we move
from the idea of the most consequential election of all
time to the most confusing election of all time because
the mixed signals from the polling are wild.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, I mean, I think Nate Silver is under a
lot of pressure to produce polls that show Kamala ahead,
and you just see every time he finds one, he's like,
well look at this, stop yelling at me because here's ooh,
and they are yelling at him.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Nate Silver is a famous status who has a model
for who might win the election. He's been formally employed
by The New York Times, has been a liberal darling
at times, has gotten a lot of stuff really right.
And man, there is freedom, Carol in watching Nate Silver
give you facts and understand that you don't need him
(18:21):
to be quote on your team. He's just giving me information.
I can evaluate it as needed. But a lot of
my people do not feel that way.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
And he says he wants Kamala to win. It's not
like he's you know, unbiased in his personal opinions. He's
just saying this is what the numbers are producing, and
Democrats are like, you've sold out.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Like this reminded me to do. This reminds me very
briefly of the insane period of twenty twenty, during which
several liberals were basically canceled pretty harshly for pointing out
that moments of social upheaval and sort of riots in
(19:03):
the street and anything along the lines of what we
were seeing in twenty twenty can be politically electorally beneficial
to Republicans, just as a just as a fact of history.
And everyone was like, we don't want that information. Please
see the door don't work for anyone anymore.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Oh, twenty twenty, it was a heady time of you know,
people getting cut off like that.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
It was, well, you know who's still sort of living
in the vibe of twenty twenty, Oh the WNBA. And
let me tell you why. So I know you everyone
knows of Kaitlyn Clark, because everyone knows of Kaitlyn Clark,
the Iowa standout generational talent basketball player who has brought
(19:46):
tons of attention to women's basketball, women's sports, and the
WNBA that's not particulate.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Well, ebody wants that.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
You'd think it would be, because you know, it increases
the money they can make on endorsement deal, it increases
the money that they're making at the stadiums, It increases
all the good things, the number of fans. It turns
out that the WNBA isn't really into that. I have
never seen a league try to torpedo its own success
(20:17):
like this league has. Because I'm interested in watching in
ways that i haven't been before.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Yeah, I mean, I can't say that I'm interested in watching,
but I'm definitely I know who Caitlin Clark is. I
don't think I've ever been able to name a different
female basketball player WNBA. Listen, not to be sexist about it.
I'm not really into the NBA either. I find basketball
just one of my least favorite sports to watch. But
(20:43):
she's definitely out there in a way that normies like
me have heard of her and maybe would leave it
on if she's playing, just to see the phenomen you know,
do it right.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
So this has caused some I think not a small
amount of professional jealousy within the WNBA. Has been a
desire by other players to sort of put her in
her place. There's been a lot of football level hip
checking and fowls of Caitlin Clark, who nonetheless has remained
(21:13):
extremely calm under fire. Does not go off on people
in press conferences, does not talk a lot of junks.
She's a tough competitor on the court, but she hasn't
reacted to this.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Is there an ipoke recently or something?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Yes, there was an ipoke recently, and I'm glad you
brought that up because I'm going to take a rare
moment to defend the media against the WNBA here's what
happened the other day. Christine Brennan, who is a really
longtime sports journalist works for USA Today, asked one of
the players involved in this I poking incident, which resulted
in a bruised eye for Clark. You can see the injury.
(21:50):
As I said, she's been subject to a lot of
harsh treatment during the season this year. A player is
asked about that because it's a controversial play, and you
ask people about that.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
But sure.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
The WNBA sort of union of players put out a
statement saying that Christine Brennan had quote abused her privileges
and does not deserve the credentials issue to her.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Because she asked about it.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
But why, what's the the what is that? I mean again,
let's put ourselves in the leftist media mindset or in
the leftist you know, organization mindset.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
What okay, I'll read you the last very flowery paragraph
of their statement that so called interview in the name
of journalism was a blatant attempt to bait a professional
athlete into participating in a narrative that is false and
designed to here it is fuel racist, homophobic, and misogynistic
(22:53):
vitriol on social media. You cannot hide behind your tenure.
So her question about a foul was an attack on
the identity of many people within the WNBA or something.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
That feels very twenty twenty, shutting down conversation by calling
the person a racist.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
I feel like that's very familiar.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Yep. Brittany Griner also joined in by telling a reporter
the other day when she was asked about new fans
to the sport, which you would think you'd be like,
We're excited to have new fans. No, no, no, she's
mad at the fans because the fans, she claims. She's like, yeah,
am I happy about fans who come here to yell
racial slurs at us?
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I was like, is that happening?
Speaker 1 (23:36):
There's a lot of cameras at w NBA games and
yet we have not seen that.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Right. That would be all over the news, it would
be everywhere.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Again, this is just an attempt to smear Clark and
then by extension, her fans, without any real reason to
do so, aside from like, I don't know, you just
don't want anyone to watch the sport.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
It's just it's crazy. I just think about you know,
the you always want an oddity in the sport, right,
you always want somebody who's different, because it does attract
new people. I think that Tiger Woods opened up golf
in a lot of ways to Black Americans in a
way that they maybe didn't think of it as a
sport for them before.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
What's wrong with that?
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Why is that bad?
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Why wouldn't we want that? It's crazy?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Well, and I'm also open to the idea that women
can compete very toughly and that's fine, and they should
let them, you know, let them play, as they say,
But some of these at the beginning, I was pretty like, ah,
you know, let let the gals play. They're they're competitive too,
And then you watch a couple of these and you're like, Okay,
this is really kind of off the charts. But I
(24:44):
think that a healthy competition between all these women. Angel
Reese is incredibly talented too, and they had a rivalry
in college, could be a wonderful thing. But we have
gone way beyond that. Somebody joked the other day I
didn't I don't remember who who it was, so I
can't credit them. But like, I didn't have the w
NBA players as the most whiny demographic in all of sports, right,
(25:08):
but here we are.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, you think that they would have a tougher skin.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
But you know it would. It'd be better for everyone,
be better for the sport, better for women like I
don't know.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Yeah, I will continue not watching the WNBA. I will
send a message. Nothing you do can attract me to
your sport.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Well, they're certainly not trying.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
That's right. But thank you so much for tuning in.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
We are Carol Markowitz and Mary Katherine Ham. The show
is normally Please subscribe, Please tell your friends, and we'll
see you on Thursday.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
Show Links
WebsiteNewsletterPopular Podcasts
1. Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
2. Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
3. Crime Junkie
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.