August 19, 2025 • 32 mins
In this episode, Mary Katharine and Karol break down the growing turmoil within the political left, the military’s responsibility in safeguarding constitutional order, and the ethical questions surrounding genetic selection and embryo screening. They also examine President Trump’s recent meetings with world leaders and how these developments shape both U.S. politics and international relations. 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 (00:04):
Hey guys, you're back on normally the show Normalist takes
when the news gets weird.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Mary Doubor New and I'm Carol Markowitz. Very happy
to have you back. Mary. Catherine Gates Garcia from The
People podcast did a fantastic job as a guest Hols,
but it is so nice to have you back. And uh,
let's do this.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Let's do it talking foreign policy us off. Yes, they
will have a summit at the White House, and by
day I mean everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Everybody in the whole world.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
So over the.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Weekend, Yeah, started up. Over the weekend, Donald Trump met
with Vladimir Putin, and as we're recording this, he's going
to be meeting with Vladimir Zelenski. We're not going to
get too into these meetings because we don't know what
news will we made today, but we'll maybe say more
about it on Wednesday, depending on what happens. I will
(00:57):
say that people who openly want Trump to fail, we're
very out there this weekend and I did not appreciate it.
And I say this as somebody who has no love
for Russia, which is I could wave my magic wand
and have Ukraine when this war thinks Ukraine has done
a fantastic job of holding Russia back. Still thinks that
(01:17):
probably they need to reach some sort of compromise. And
while it's unfortunate to give Russia anything, I think that's
probably where it's going to end up, to end this thing.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah, so I think if you set the table and say, Okay,
what did I like and not like about Trump going
to Alaska?
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Loved that.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I think it's good that we're meeting in Alaska. It
was an American site, not a neutral site. As a result,
the B two bomber and we're so cool fly right
over Putin's head as that arrived.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I mean I heard people call that like some sort
of like pro putent move. I did see that as
a pro putent move at all. I thought that as
FAFO bro, like you know.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
You owned the sky.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
This is an unambiguous flex of American military might. And
Putin is a power dude, right, Like that's what he
reads has power and there it is, right in front
of your face.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
So I liked that.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
I worry about Trump being unduly influenced.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
By the guy he last talked to, and that guy
is Putin.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
We don't like that, however, it sounds like Putin, as
you might expect, wasn't interested in peace. In that moment,
everyone flew back home. Trump calls the Euros, he calls
the Eros, the Euros who he kind of likes right
now because NATO's doing the things that he wanted NATO
(02:42):
to do. He calls them up and he's like, ah,
you know, I could be open to some security assurances
from the West. This guy maybe kind of ticked him off.
Putin ticked him off again by seeming like he's playing him. Milania,
Trump sends this letter that's like, hey, you guys, shouldn't
be kidnapping Ukrainian children.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Love that from her.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Sure, So the combo of those things made me think,
as we go into this European meeting, Okay, we're in
a decent place to have a saying back and forth
about what this might look like.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
That's right. I just thought that. You know, I think
back to when Biden was president, when Obama was president.
I still wanted America to win, and I hate that
there is this sense of like Donald Trump, I hate him,
and therefore he's giving Putin everything that he wants. I
just don't see him like that at all. Look is
(03:34):
he susceptible to flattery. Absolutely. We've talked about it a
lot in the show. It's one of my major concerns
about him. He has somewhat got it in check this time.
Although he did love Putin talking about how mail in
voting shouldn't.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Be a thing.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
He's like, you're absolutely right, mail in voting shouldn't be
a thing. And I happen to agree with that, but
I don't love that Putin was the one who kind
of got him spurred into action on this. I will
say that people who expected some sort of ceasefire to
come out of that meeting, I don't entirely understand what
they're talking about. We have a clip of Secretary of
(04:10):
State Rubio on Maria Bertz Romo's show talking about this issue,
and let's roll that clip because I agree with Rubio.
Why did President Trump's meeting with Putin end with no ceasefire?
Speaker 4 (04:24):
And what does Putin want?
Speaker 5 (04:27):
Yeah, well, a couple things.
Speaker 6 (04:29):
First of all, if you recall that there's no way
you can have a meeting like that, and we never
said there was going to be a deal coming out
of the meeting because the Ukrainians are not there. This
is a war between two countries. It's not America, Ukraine
and Russia. We met with a Russian side, We've spoken
repeatedly with the Ukrainian side. We'll see them again tomorrow
in person, along with our allies in Europe. So I
do think some progress was made in that talk in
(04:50):
terms of narrowing down the issue set. And now these
are hard issues that remain, you know, the conversation about
where the territorial lines are going to be, Questions about
long term security guarantees and who Ukraine can have military
alliances with, things like that. These are difficult things. But
I do believe we've made progress in narrowing down the
issue set, but there's a lot of work that remains.
They're still this is a there's a reason why this
(05:11):
war has been going on for three and a half years.
It's a war that never would have happened had President
Trump been president, but he inherited it and now he's
trying to do everything he can to bring about peace.
He's made peace a priority of his administration. As you've
seen with all the peace deals we've been able to
achieve throughout the world, this one's the hardest one. Everyone
acknowledges that, but he's the only one in the world
that has any chance of doing it. Look, peace may
not be possible at the end of the day, we
don't know. But if it is possible, he's the only
(05:33):
one that can get it done. And that's why everyone's
asking him. They're asking him to meet with Putin and
they're also asking him to come here tomorrow and meet
with him to talk further about what we do next.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
You can't have peace talks without both sides present, So
I think people need to dial down their expectations. I
think what Rubio said there's correct. I'm not sure this
is the hardest peace deal. I think Israel Palestinians might
be up there with this one. But I agree that
Trump is trying to produced peace deals wherever he can.
I like that America is back as a leader on
(06:05):
the world stage where people do look to us for
that kind of thing, including the aforementioned Euros, who, for
all their the dislike of Trump, for all of their
talking down about America, when things get real, they look
at us like, hey, guys, what are we going to
do because we're kind of the last line on that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I think, Look, he's had some successes there were India
Pakistan skirmishes that the US got involved with, and then
there were no skirmishes, Democratic Republic of Congo peace talks,
the Azerbaijani Armenian So he's had actual wins is here,
and I think he hopes to have a success here
as well. It's also worth noting that unlike a democratic president,
(06:47):
he has a clear red line that he will observe,
as illustrated by the Iranian strike on the nuclear sites, right,
this is or the strike on Iranian nuclear sites. When
someone has a red line like that, it makes them
more credible for having these discussions. So that makes me
more comfortable. And I'm a shot of people are stuck
(07:07):
in like twenty seventeen and their idea that Trump is
a Russian asset and has been fiction from the beginning, right,
that he is therefore so easy on Putin. No, he's
always been rhetorically squishy on Russia and on Putin in
a way I don't like, but not materially exactly, with
sanctions and other actions, has actually been quite good. And
(07:31):
I think you've got to get out of that mindset
and a traditional sort of foreign policy mindset when you're
talking about Trump because people are like always elevating him,
always doing this.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
All these things are terrible.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Trump is so unpredictable and like someone people think does
have a red line that he can produce different results.
And honestly, we've been dealing with Russia or North Korea
or all these intractable actors in such a way for
so long. I am open, as I was with North Korea,
to trying something.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I don't know what to pass.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yep, something new needs to be tried again. I say
this as somebody who's just anti the country of Russia,
even though I have family there. I'm not again to Russians.
I'm anti the country of Russia. And still I want
to see a resolution here. I want to see a
piece deal. I want to see an end to just
(08:25):
the meat grinder on both sides, the endless death. You know,
we want to see it over. And that's where Donald
Trump is coming from too, and.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
We shall have more news on that in the future.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
We will be back on normally in just a.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Second, Welcome back to normally, where we could easily have
a segment called what is going on with the Left,
because they are in such a funky place right now.
I've not seen this kind of disarray on the left.
I would say maybe in my lifetime. It's like every
time anything happened on the left, they still were this
(09:02):
cohesive unit in my opinion, maybe because I always saw
Republicans and the right as just spread out in so
many different factions, and there's always some kind of like
underlying thing. It's never just you're a conservative, you're a
tea party conservative, or you're you know, a nationalist conservative,
you're America First, or you're a mego or whatever. There's
always like factions, Whereas the left I always saw is
(09:24):
kind of get fall into line and do as you're told.
You know. Hillary Clinton, it was never confirmed that she
said this, but she said about John Kerry in two
thousand and four, you don't have to fall in love,
you just have to fall in line. And that's how
I've always viewed them. But right now it is a
time of just disarray on the left. I love to
see it personally, but it's also like fun to watch
(09:46):
because there's a lot of like funny, funny stuff going on. Like,
for example, ex FBI director made a video about how
much he loves Taylor Swift.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Yeah, James Comey took to the selfie video style to deliver.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
One behind like you know, like not moving next to
a wall, like odd.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
And clearly scripted. Right, Yeah, it looked like a prompter.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, at least do it like crying in your car.
Speaker 7 (10:15):
Man.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
So here he is in front of a blank wall
giving a scripted selfie video that is about Taylor Swift
as a model.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
For how to respond to Trump.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
And we have a minute of it just so you
can hear this and understand this man led federal law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Just go ahead.
Speaker 5 (10:35):
Of course, we need to stand up to jerks and
defend what matters, but I think we have to try
to do that without becoming like them, which is what
makes me think about Taylor Swift. She's made clear that
she sees Donald Trump for what he is, and last
year she urged Americans not to make the serious mistake
of electing him. Of course, we're now living with the
(10:57):
consequences of that mistake. But while our elderly, makeup covered
president is posting about whether Taylor Swift is still hot
and declaring that he can't stand her, what's she doing
living her best life producing great music, and as she
urged all of us to do, during the podcast, not
giving the jerks power over her mind, she said something
(11:21):
about dealing with Internet trolls that stuck with me. Think
of your energy as if it's expensive, she said, as
if it's like a luxury item. Not everyone can afford it.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
All that goes on for five minutes. It was so weird.
We debated whether we should play the full five minutes
because you kind of need to hear it to understand
how loopy it is to the whole thing. But basically
he kept coming back to like Taylor Swift said, and
Taylor Swift and look, I love Taylor Swift. I have
no problem with call me being a swiftye. I have
(11:56):
a problem with him being a weirdo. And I think
even those who hope to like a Republicans are so goofy,
you know, picking up on this or whatever. The Daily
Beast headline was Mega melts down over James Comey's creepy
Taylor Swift video because it was creepy and it was weird,
and he talks about bullying, he talks about being a troll.
(12:17):
I see him as that. He recently said he was
walking on a beach and came across this shell formation
that had eighty six forty seven, which means end forty seven.
It's a scene sort of as a death threat to
President Trump. How is that not being a bully? How
is that not being a troll? I just the whole
idea of him is wild to me because he had
(12:39):
such an important job and he's clearly clearly not cut
out for that.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Right Like he has an impulse control problem. He responds
too much to online adulation and online responses and attention.
It makes me uncomfortable that he was the head of
the FBI.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
I think someone missed something major.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Red flags about this guy as he was coming through
the ranks. And the left rightly can point out like
Donald Trump's a big weirdo who responds to attention as well.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Yes, a duly elected one.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yes, it's true. But one of the reasons that people
vote for Trump, as you and I have noted, is
that he ends up looking like the more normal yes
option when you've got doing five minutes on this message.
And by the way, I do I actually agree with
the message. She's right about your attention and trolls. Yeah, yeah,
(13:34):
Taylor's wisdom is correct. It's just he is.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
A real odd ball and not in an endearing way.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah, exactly. I just I kept waiting for him to start,
like putting on his makeup or showing us the outfit of.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
The day, because you're ready with me.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
So odd. It was so odd. Meanwhile, the New York
Times is also having a normal one wondering why the
military hasn't stopped Trump.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yes, so the headline is we used to think the
military would stand up to Trump.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
We were wrong.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
And it starts with by ordering eight hundred National Guard
troops to Washington on the pretext of an illusory crime wave,
President Trump has further dragged the US military into domestic
law enforcement in a move credibly perceived as an ominous
test case. This continues what the administration started in California
in June as part of its deportation efforts. Unfortunately, though
we and others had hoped the military would only respond
(14:27):
to calls to action in American cities and states kicking
and screaming, we no longer expect resistance from that institution.
Once perhaps traditionalist officers might have leaned on protocol and
refused to heed a lawless order, taking inspiration from the
generals Mark Milly and James Mattis, who resisted the uprooting
of established military standards in the first Trump term. But
(14:48):
today general officers no longer seem to see themselves as
guardians of the constitutional order.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
This is the constitutional right.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
My fifteen year old saw the headline, we usually think
the military you would stand up to Trump. We were
wrong over my shoulder and she's like, why did you
think that? Have you heard of the military? Do you
know about chain of command. She's not a particularly political person,
She's just like, why would you imagine the military would
not take quorterers from the commander in chief. This piece
was written by Stephen Simon and Jonathan Stephenson. Mister Simon
(15:21):
held senior positions in the State Department out of the
National Security Council, and mister Stevenson served on the National
Security Council staff during the Obama administration. This does nothing
to dispel the idea that there is a deep state
operating that thinks that unelected bureaucrats should do what they want,
and the president of the United States was elected by
(15:42):
the American people, should not. I don't know how The
New York Times doesn't see that. It's a problem to
put this opinion out into the world that this is
a crazy, crazy thing to say.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Well that your position is that to preserve democracy and
all the norms, we should have a military coup wherein
the military does not obey the chain of command that
includes the duly elected president of the United States of America. Now, look,
that's a take, that's a big one. Fine, that's your take.
(16:16):
I disagree with that. Please don't come at me with
I'm the one who wants to preserve democracy, because I
do not believe you are anyway.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
And this is what the left always does is they
use Trump.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
To justify the things that they kind of wanted to do.
Anyway to the constitution.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yeah, certainly, the far left ones are just like, this
constitution is lame. The government should operate in much more
lefty ways. Let's just allow it to do that by
any means necessary. And this is a confession of that.
And by the way, specifically with DC, he absolutely has the.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Power to call the National Guard.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yeah, easy, because it is a federal district and it
is operating differently than states that have governors.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
I happy to argue with you.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
About whether it's needed, whether it's working, all those things,
but he absolutely has the power to do it.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
It is not authoritarianism to call them in on its
face to talk.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, so, speaking of the New York Times not thinking
the Constitution is very important, ross do that The Conservative
about The New York Times interviewed author Osita non Nivu
about his new book, quote, The Right of the People,
Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding. The
title of that exchange on the New York Times page
was abolish the Senate and then electoral college, pack the court.
(17:34):
Why the left can't win without a new constitution. I mean,
you can't just admit it out loud like that. Guys, Yeah,
leave something to the imagination. While the left can't win
without a new constitution. You can't win according to the
rules of the game as established, So you need something new.
I don't think the American people are going to be
into that.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
No, And I just like when I read that headline,
I was like, this is why I can never side
with y'all.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I like the Constitution, Yeah, I like its limitations, and
the gaslighting part of it heaps on my already large
annoyance with this where it's like we're the saviors of
democracy and the way that we're saving democracy is to
ignore all the rules because we decided that we don't
like this person, and therefore wet project all this rule
(18:20):
breaking on him as he goes through the courts, as
he exerts power over DC in a way that is
constitutionally totally allowed, and then that gives us leave to
do what we want. Beto o'rourk, you remember him, the
failed failed candidate many times over in Texas. Who are
we are always told is a rising star who's going
(18:41):
to really the country by storm. He had something to
say about that in light of the Texas redistricting battle
that we've been talking about, which California is now going
to retaliate or Newsom is attempting to. Here's Beta Araark's
take on following the rules and saving democracy in every other.
Speaker 7 (19:00):
State where the Democrats hold the governor's mansion, the Assembly,
and the state Senate to redraw their congressional districts, now
not wait for Texas to move first to maximize Democratic
party advantage. Listen, you may say to yourself, well.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Those aren't the rules.
Speaker 7 (19:17):
There are no reps in this game. Fuck the rules.
We are gonna win whatever it takes. We're gonna take
this to them in every way.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
That we can.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Okay, I love the text line under that his chiron
is such and such to stop Trump's power grap.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah, I mean. The joke, of course, also is that
all of the Democratic states have already redistricted themselves into
like oblivion where there are no Republican congressional districts, or
there are very very few. There was actually a New
York Times story two days ago in a wider redistricting war.
Republicans have an advantage, yeah, because the Blue states have
(19:57):
already done this to such an extent that they can't
do it anymore. They've done the max. They've already drawn
all the little squiggly lines around their states and made
it as democrat as possible. So if the Battos of
the world want to do this, Republicans have to be like, sure,
let's do it.
Speaker 7 (20:13):
Right.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
They always ignore their own escalations, right, they have to
just wipe that out. So the Smithsonian fight is another
good one, right where Trump says We're going to review
Smithsonian exhibits inside the Smithsonian in all of these wonderful
free museums, and the left is like, oh my gosh,
(20:34):
can you believe this. He is politicizing history. He's going
to remove anything he doesn't like. Now, I am wary
about any government, any partisan entity doing this work and
removing things they don't like.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
What they're ignoring is that the left took over all
the Smithsonians' exhibits and has turned them into social justice
lectures on every front, and they just want us to
leave that untouched, their cultural victory and we must observe
it with perfect obeisance at this.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Point, Yeah, I don't think we should do that. So
I think that the left needs to be taught a
lesson about what they've done over the last few years.
I think it's way past the time for them to
understand that they can't go on the way that they've
been going. And you can't listen to Beto again. Try it,
but you will find that you've already done all the
(21:27):
things that he suggests you do without following any rules.
Last note on this, MSNBC has changed their name and
it is weird. It is really weird they're going with
ms now. That sounds i'm sorry, like a multiple sclerosis
maybe group or something like that. I saw somebody point
(21:49):
out that it sounds maybe like Miss magazine and the
National Organization Women Sounds.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I said, it sounds like a new, fast acting version
of MIT al brings up like weird associations.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
It's like HBO Max when they locked off HBO. But
it's not the thing we know. Don't go with that one.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah, it's just weird. And I don't know what they're
trying to be. I don't think that they're trying to
appeal to a wider audience. I think they're trying to
lock down their left audience. I'm not sure why they
would change the name to make that happen. It's an
awful rebrand, awful logo.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
One last thing on Dems acting odd. Have you seen
the Newsome office tweets? Oh my god, So Gavin Newsom's
press office has taken on a satirical version of Trump
like posting. It's getting a lot of attention, So for
that part it has been effective. They tweet in all caps,
(22:51):
they use Trumpian like exaggerations and phrases.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
It is amusing at times. I think it's already wearing
a little thin. Yeah, and I keep getting these weird
all caps and AI constructions in my for you column
on X right.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
And the thing about.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
What Trump does is that even as a joke, yeah,
and he's half joke himself, like his postings sometimes are
just goofs, it only works for him.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
It's because it's real, because it actually is him. He's
not imitating somebody, he's not trying to be somebody else.
You don't have to like it, but it's him for real.
And the fact that Gavin Newsom doesn't have a hymn
for real personality is a problem.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
For a personality transplant.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
They're like, well, let's just plug something in here, I
see how it goes. Anyway, you can look for those
all caps postings if you wish to.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Up to you if you need to.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah, we will be right back normally with a new
trend in designer babies.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Welcome back to normally where we don't think that you
should be designing your perfect baby. But we seem to
be in the ever growing minority on this. I am
not sure exactly why so many people have decided that
you must make a perfect child, you must make a
(24:20):
baby that has no issues whatsoever, or no potential issues whatsoever.
This all started with a piece in the Times, The
next parenting trend starts before conception for as little as
twenty five hundred. You can choose your future baby, should you.
And it's about this company called Orchid where they do
(24:40):
embryo screening and the world's first whole genome embryo screen
And the woman who runs the organization, nor Sidiki, tweets
what if your baby never walks? What if they're neighbor
never able to live independently? But if you could have
stopped it but chose not to, That's the question. Or
kid incs. Embryo screening forces you optimize everything career, diet, skincare,
(25:06):
but you're going to chance it on your child's genome,
one of the most significant determinants of their health. First
of all, I don't optimize everything. Let's be real here.
You know, I just had French toast for breakfast. I
did not feel like I was optimizing my diet, nor
my career, nor my skincare. It could all be much improved.
(25:26):
I'll say that, you know, because I'm Ashkenazi Jewish, I
carry a bunch of different stuff. And with every child
I had, more tests became available, and when we had
our third kid, the test came up as basically like,
your child may be blind because you carry a blindness gene.
(25:47):
And I thought about it because, you know, I obviously
I was never going to abort, but you know, had
I not already had two kids, I think this would
have scared, you know, the crap out of me, because
I already had two kids and they were fine. And
I was like, I don't even know, like what this
is anymore. I don't know why you're telling me this.
I have two healthy children. The fact that I carry
(26:08):
this gene does not actually mean that they're going to
be blind. So you're giving me incorrect information. And I
wonder how many kids are aborted because of information like that.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
And the New York Times has actually covered this admirably,
the epidemic of false positives for really catastrophic health issues.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
That people get in utero, and that is what happens.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
And then they did a little deeper dive on exactly
how reliable these tests are and it's not great. Yeah,
So I wonder what we're setting ourselves up for here.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
I want to talk about.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Nor Sidiki as possibly the worst spokesperson, Oh yeah, for anything. Ever,
this is a thing that, as you point out. People
have real concerns. I don't want to diminish those concerns.
I feel very blessed to have four healthy children. You
never know what life's going to throw at you. You
really don't understand the desire to sort of control that
(27:02):
and see what you can do to optimize it.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
I hate the.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Idea of it as a skincare regimen. Right. My children
aren't skincare regimen. They're a miracle created by their parents.
But she is sort of a classic left leaning figure
in that there is a clear moral issue here that
(27:27):
we should talk about. And by the way, we called,
you know, Sidney Sweeney a eugenicist, but this is.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Fine, We're celebrating this.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
She doesn't recognize the moral dilemma at all, and is
in fact horribly dismissive and nasty to anyone who has
an issue with it. So the first one I noticed,
first tweet I noticed from her says, most kids are
born by accident, and yet we stigmatize parents who plan ahead,
who screen and embryos to prevent deadly, now preventable diseases.
(27:56):
If you wouldn't screen, fine, just beyond it. You're okay
with your kid potentially suffering for life, so you can
feel morally superior. Oh okay, calm down, nor no, your
kid potentially suffering. You're we're protective of our children, like
our children who exist.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
You're not eliminating disease. You're eliminating a person person with disease.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
That's what you're doing. So then someone asks her honest question,
would you.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Have destroyed our son with severe hypertrophic cardiomiopathy before he
was born? She says, or kid doesn't decide which embryo's
parents transfer the parents to. It's their call, their future,
their call. Or's their family, their future, their call. What's
actually insane is outsiders trying to deny families the right
to know and choose for themselves. You don't get to
hijack that decision and impose your morality on someone else's family.
(28:50):
Her first tweet about the you being morally superior suggests
she would gladly impose her morality on you, and is
doing so currently. Then she says it genuinely surprises her
that people don't support parents making the choice to gather
more information or not and then decide what to do
with that information. I hate this thing where people are
(29:11):
like I'm just gonna slam people who disagree with me
and be mystified that anyone would disagree, right.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Right, Because she also in that same tweet you read,
the last two lines were or because you know, you
just be honest, you're okay with your kid potentially suffering
for life so you could feel morely superior. And then
the last line is because you can't be inconvenienced for
two weeks to extract eggs and check for genetic issues
before they develop. Dude, I mean that's not how I
(29:38):
want to have a baby.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
She's unhinged.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Ross Stalta is interviewing her in another New York Times
podcast and he asks her about basically, like, if you
want to remove the idea of procreation from the world
as a physical act between two people who create a baby,
isn't there something we lose in that exchange?
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Something human?
Speaker 1 (30:00):
And he reads it like a little segment of a poem,
and he's quite emotional about it, and she.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
Just goes, what do you mean.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
It's like, I it is.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
It is an intellectual failing to take on something with
all of these moral implications and not have considered any
of them.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yeah, it's wild that there's so much defense of this, like,
of course you'd want to have a perfect child. Well, yeah,
having children, I you know, I had a I would
say my obstetrician was a fairly leftist woman living in
New York City. But one thing that she said to
me at one point was having a baby is more
(30:42):
art than science. And that's always how I've seen it.
It's not supposed to be perfect. You're not supposed to
design your your perfect little you know, specimen. It's an
art project more than anything else, and it's something that
you have to take the good and the bad. And
even if you do design the perfect genome and the
(31:02):
perfect healthy baby, you don't know what's going to happen.
You don't know what life is going to bring. Are
you throwing this kid out if something goes wrong, if
they get into an accident, something happens to them. Of
course not. So I really think that this creation of
the perfect is it's weird and it's not something that
we should get involved in.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yeah, and this sales pitch in particular is pretty repulsive.
Basically every turn they should maybe think about hiring someone
else to speak in public about.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
The body else.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Yeah, by the way, I remember back in the days
of when we were talking about stem cell research and
all of that was.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
A big deal that I believe George W.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Bush had sort of a bioethicist panel or people who
actually sat around and thought about this, And I.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Feel like we need to be doing more of that.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Yeah, the ship is.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
The ship is sailing on a couple things quite quickly,
so quickly we need a little more discussion about and
this is one of them.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Absolutely well, thanks for joining us. Normally Normally airs Tuesdays
and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts.
Get in touch with us at normallythepodat gmail dot com.
Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally
Hey guys, you're back on normally the show Normalist takes
when the news gets weird.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Mary Doubor New and I'm Carol Markowitz. Very happy
to have you back. Mary. Catherine Gates Garcia from The
People podcast did a fantastic job as a guest Hols,
but it is so nice to have you back. And uh,
let's do this.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Let's do it talking foreign policy us off. Yes, they
will have a summit at the White House, and by
day I mean everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Everybody in the whole world.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
So over the.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Weekend, Yeah, started up. Over the weekend, Donald Trump met
with Vladimir Putin, and as we're recording this, he's going
to be meeting with Vladimir Zelenski. We're not going to
get too into these meetings because we don't know what
news will we made today, but we'll maybe say more
about it on Wednesday, depending on what happens. I will
(00:57):
say that people who openly want Trump to fail, we're
very out there this weekend and I did not appreciate it.
And I say this as somebody who has no love
for Russia, which is I could wave my magic wand
and have Ukraine when this war thinks Ukraine has done
a fantastic job of holding Russia back. Still thinks that
(01:17):
probably they need to reach some sort of compromise. And
while it's unfortunate to give Russia anything, I think that's
probably where it's going to end up, to end this thing.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah, so I think if you set the table and say, Okay,
what did I like and not like about Trump going
to Alaska?
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Loved that.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I think it's good that we're meeting in Alaska. It
was an American site, not a neutral site. As a result,
the B two bomber and we're so cool fly right
over Putin's head as that arrived.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I mean I heard people call that like some sort
of like pro putent move. I did see that as
a pro putent move at all. I thought that as
FAFO bro, like you know.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
You owned the sky.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
This is an unambiguous flex of American military might. And
Putin is a power dude, right, Like that's what he
reads has power and there it is, right in front
of your face.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
So I liked that.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
I worry about Trump being unduly influenced.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
By the guy he last talked to, and that guy
is Putin.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
We don't like that, however, it sounds like Putin, as
you might expect, wasn't interested in peace. In that moment,
everyone flew back home. Trump calls the Euros, he calls
the Eros, the Euros who he kind of likes right
now because NATO's doing the things that he wanted NATO
(02:42):
to do. He calls them up and he's like, ah,
you know, I could be open to some security assurances
from the West. This guy maybe kind of ticked him off.
Putin ticked him off again by seeming like he's playing him. Milania,
Trump sends this letter that's like, hey, you guys, shouldn't
be kidnapping Ukrainian children.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Love that from her.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Sure, So the combo of those things made me think,
as we go into this European meeting, Okay, we're in
a decent place to have a saying back and forth
about what this might look like.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
That's right. I just thought that. You know, I think
back to when Biden was president, when Obama was president.
I still wanted America to win, and I hate that
there is this sense of like Donald Trump, I hate him,
and therefore he's giving Putin everything that he wants. I
just don't see him like that at all. Look is
(03:34):
he susceptible to flattery. Absolutely. We've talked about it a
lot in the show. It's one of my major concerns
about him. He has somewhat got it in check this time.
Although he did love Putin talking about how mail in
voting shouldn't.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Be a thing.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
He's like, you're absolutely right, mail in voting shouldn't be
a thing. And I happen to agree with that, but
I don't love that Putin was the one who kind
of got him spurred into action on this. I will
say that people who expected some sort of ceasefire to
come out of that meeting, I don't entirely understand what
they're talking about. We have a clip of Secretary of
(04:10):
State Rubio on Maria Bertz Romo's show talking about this issue,
and let's roll that clip because I agree with Rubio.
Why did President Trump's meeting with Putin end with no ceasefire?
Speaker 4 (04:24):
And what does Putin want?
Speaker 5 (04:27):
Yeah, well, a couple things.
Speaker 6 (04:29):
First of all, if you recall that there's no way
you can have a meeting like that, and we never
said there was going to be a deal coming out
of the meeting because the Ukrainians are not there. This
is a war between two countries. It's not America, Ukraine
and Russia. We met with a Russian side, We've spoken
repeatedly with the Ukrainian side. We'll see them again tomorrow
in person, along with our allies in Europe. So I
do think some progress was made in that talk in
(04:50):
terms of narrowing down the issue set. And now these
are hard issues that remain, you know, the conversation about
where the territorial lines are going to be, Questions about
long term security guarantees and who Ukraine can have military
alliances with, things like that. These are difficult things. But
I do believe we've made progress in narrowing down the
issue set, but there's a lot of work that remains.
They're still this is a there's a reason why this
(05:11):
war has been going on for three and a half years.
It's a war that never would have happened had President
Trump been president, but he inherited it and now he's
trying to do everything he can to bring about peace.
He's made peace a priority of his administration. As you've
seen with all the peace deals we've been able to
achieve throughout the world, this one's the hardest one. Everyone
acknowledges that, but he's the only one in the world
that has any chance of doing it. Look, peace may
not be possible at the end of the day, we
don't know. But if it is possible, he's the only
(05:33):
one that can get it done. And that's why everyone's
asking him. They're asking him to meet with Putin and
they're also asking him to come here tomorrow and meet
with him to talk further about what we do next.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
You can't have peace talks without both sides present, So
I think people need to dial down their expectations. I
think what Rubio said there's correct. I'm not sure this
is the hardest peace deal. I think Israel Palestinians might
be up there with this one. But I agree that
Trump is trying to produced peace deals wherever he can.
I like that America is back as a leader on
(06:05):
the world stage where people do look to us for
that kind of thing, including the aforementioned Euros, who, for
all their the dislike of Trump, for all of their
talking down about America, when things get real, they look
at us like, hey, guys, what are we going to
do because we're kind of the last line on that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I think, Look, he's had some successes there were India
Pakistan skirmishes that the US got involved with, and then
there were no skirmishes, Democratic Republic of Congo peace talks,
the Azerbaijani Armenian So he's had actual wins is here,
and I think he hopes to have a success here
as well. It's also worth noting that unlike a democratic president,
(06:47):
he has a clear red line that he will observe,
as illustrated by the Iranian strike on the nuclear sites, right,
this is or the strike on Iranian nuclear sites. When
someone has a red line like that, it makes them
more credible for having these discussions. So that makes me
more comfortable. And I'm a shot of people are stuck
(07:07):
in like twenty seventeen and their idea that Trump is
a Russian asset and has been fiction from the beginning, right,
that he is therefore so easy on Putin. No, he's
always been rhetorically squishy on Russia and on Putin in
a way I don't like, but not materially exactly, with
sanctions and other actions, has actually been quite good. And
(07:31):
I think you've got to get out of that mindset
and a traditional sort of foreign policy mindset when you're
talking about Trump because people are like always elevating him,
always doing this.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
All these things are terrible.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Trump is so unpredictable and like someone people think does
have a red line that he can produce different results.
And honestly, we've been dealing with Russia or North Korea
or all these intractable actors in such a way for
so long. I am open, as I was with North Korea,
to trying something.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I don't know what to pass.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yep, something new needs to be tried again. I say
this as somebody who's just anti the country of Russia,
even though I have family there. I'm not again to Russians.
I'm anti the country of Russia. And still I want
to see a resolution here. I want to see a
piece deal. I want to see an end to just
(08:25):
the meat grinder on both sides, the endless death. You know,
we want to see it over. And that's where Donald
Trump is coming from too, and.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
We shall have more news on that in the future.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
We will be back on normally in just a.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Second, Welcome back to normally, where we could easily have
a segment called what is going on with the Left,
because they are in such a funky place right now.
I've not seen this kind of disarray on the left.
I would say maybe in my lifetime. It's like every
time anything happened on the left, they still were this
(09:02):
cohesive unit in my opinion, maybe because I always saw
Republicans and the right as just spread out in so
many different factions, and there's always some kind of like
underlying thing. It's never just you're a conservative, you're a
tea party conservative, or you're you know, a nationalist conservative,
you're America First, or you're a mego or whatever. There's
always like factions, Whereas the left I always saw is
(09:24):
kind of get fall into line and do as you're told.
You know. Hillary Clinton, it was never confirmed that she
said this, but she said about John Kerry in two
thousand and four, you don't have to fall in love,
you just have to fall in line. And that's how
I've always viewed them. But right now it is a
time of just disarray on the left. I love to
see it personally, but it's also like fun to watch
(09:46):
because there's a lot of like funny, funny stuff going on. Like,
for example, ex FBI director made a video about how
much he loves Taylor Swift.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Yeah, James Comey took to the selfie video style to deliver.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
One behind like you know, like not moving next to
a wall, like odd.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
And clearly scripted. Right, Yeah, it looked like a prompter.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, at least do it like crying in your car.
Speaker 7 (10:15):
Man.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
So here he is in front of a blank wall
giving a scripted selfie video that is about Taylor Swift
as a model.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
For how to respond to Trump.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
And we have a minute of it just so you
can hear this and understand this man led federal law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Just go ahead.
Speaker 5 (10:35):
Of course, we need to stand up to jerks and
defend what matters, but I think we have to try
to do that without becoming like them, which is what
makes me think about Taylor Swift. She's made clear that
she sees Donald Trump for what he is, and last
year she urged Americans not to make the serious mistake
of electing him. Of course, we're now living with the
(10:57):
consequences of that mistake. But while our elderly, makeup covered
president is posting about whether Taylor Swift is still hot
and declaring that he can't stand her, what's she doing
living her best life producing great music, and as she
urged all of us to do, during the podcast, not
giving the jerks power over her mind, she said something
(11:21):
about dealing with Internet trolls that stuck with me. Think
of your energy as if it's expensive, she said, as
if it's like a luxury item. Not everyone can afford it.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
All that goes on for five minutes. It was so weird.
We debated whether we should play the full five minutes
because you kind of need to hear it to understand
how loopy it is to the whole thing. But basically
he kept coming back to like Taylor Swift said, and
Taylor Swift and look, I love Taylor Swift. I have
no problem with call me being a swiftye. I have
(11:56):
a problem with him being a weirdo. And I think
even those who hope to like a Republicans are so goofy,
you know, picking up on this or whatever. The Daily
Beast headline was Mega melts down over James Comey's creepy
Taylor Swift video because it was creepy and it was weird,
and he talks about bullying, he talks about being a troll.
(12:17):
I see him as that. He recently said he was
walking on a beach and came across this shell formation
that had eighty six forty seven, which means end forty seven.
It's a scene sort of as a death threat to
President Trump. How is that not being a bully? How
is that not being a troll? I just the whole
idea of him is wild to me because he had
(12:39):
such an important job and he's clearly clearly not cut
out for that.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Right Like he has an impulse control problem. He responds
too much to online adulation and online responses and attention.
It makes me uncomfortable that he was the head of
the FBI.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
I think someone missed something major.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Red flags about this guy as he was coming through
the ranks. And the left rightly can point out like
Donald Trump's a big weirdo who responds to attention as well.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Yes, a duly elected one.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yes, it's true. But one of the reasons that people
vote for Trump, as you and I have noted, is
that he ends up looking like the more normal yes
option when you've got doing five minutes on this message.
And by the way, I do I actually agree with
the message. She's right about your attention and trolls. Yeah, yeah,
(13:34):
Taylor's wisdom is correct. It's just he is.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
A real odd ball and not in an endearing way.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah, exactly. I just I kept waiting for him to start,
like putting on his makeup or showing us the outfit of.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
The day, because you're ready with me.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
So odd. It was so odd. Meanwhile, the New York
Times is also having a normal one wondering why the
military hasn't stopped Trump.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yes, so the headline is we used to think the
military would stand up to Trump.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
We were wrong.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
And it starts with by ordering eight hundred National Guard
troops to Washington on the pretext of an illusory crime wave,
President Trump has further dragged the US military into domestic
law enforcement in a move credibly perceived as an ominous
test case. This continues what the administration started in California
in June as part of its deportation efforts. Unfortunately, though
we and others had hoped the military would only respond
(14:27):
to calls to action in American cities and states kicking
and screaming, we no longer expect resistance from that institution.
Once perhaps traditionalist officers might have leaned on protocol and
refused to heed a lawless order, taking inspiration from the
generals Mark Milly and James Mattis, who resisted the uprooting
of established military standards in the first Trump term. But
(14:48):
today general officers no longer seem to see themselves as
guardians of the constitutional order.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
This is the constitutional right.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
My fifteen year old saw the headline, we usually think
the military you would stand up to Trump. We were
wrong over my shoulder and she's like, why did you
think that? Have you heard of the military? Do you
know about chain of command. She's not a particularly political person,
She's just like, why would you imagine the military would
not take quorterers from the commander in chief. This piece
was written by Stephen Simon and Jonathan Stephenson. Mister Simon
(15:21):
held senior positions in the State Department out of the
National Security Council, and mister Stevenson served on the National
Security Council staff during the Obama administration. This does nothing
to dispel the idea that there is a deep state
operating that thinks that unelected bureaucrats should do what they want,
and the president of the United States was elected by
(15:42):
the American people, should not. I don't know how The
New York Times doesn't see that. It's a problem to
put this opinion out into the world that this is
a crazy, crazy thing to say.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Well that your position is that to preserve democracy and
all the norms, we should have a military coup wherein
the military does not obey the chain of command that
includes the duly elected president of the United States of America. Now, look,
that's a take, that's a big one. Fine, that's your take.
(16:16):
I disagree with that. Please don't come at me with
I'm the one who wants to preserve democracy, because I
do not believe you are anyway.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
And this is what the left always does is they
use Trump.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
To justify the things that they kind of wanted to do.
Anyway to the constitution.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yeah, certainly, the far left ones are just like, this
constitution is lame. The government should operate in much more
lefty ways. Let's just allow it to do that by
any means necessary. And this is a confession of that.
And by the way, specifically with DC, he absolutely has the.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Power to call the National Guard.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yeah, easy, because it is a federal district and it
is operating differently than states that have governors.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
I happy to argue with you.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
About whether it's needed, whether it's working, all those things,
but he absolutely has the power to do it.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
It is not authoritarianism to call them in on its
face to talk.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, so, speaking of the New York Times not thinking
the Constitution is very important, ross do that The Conservative
about The New York Times interviewed author Osita non Nivu
about his new book, quote, The Right of the People,
Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding. The
title of that exchange on the New York Times page
was abolish the Senate and then electoral college, pack the court.
(17:34):
Why the left can't win without a new constitution. I mean,
you can't just admit it out loud like that. Guys, Yeah,
leave something to the imagination. While the left can't win
without a new constitution. You can't win according to the
rules of the game as established, So you need something new.
I don't think the American people are going to be
into that.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
No, And I just like when I read that headline,
I was like, this is why I can never side
with y'all.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I like the Constitution, Yeah, I like its limitations, and
the gaslighting part of it heaps on my already large
annoyance with this where it's like we're the saviors of
democracy and the way that we're saving democracy is to
ignore all the rules because we decided that we don't
like this person, and therefore wet project all this rule
(18:20):
breaking on him as he goes through the courts, as
he exerts power over DC in a way that is
constitutionally totally allowed, and then that gives us leave to
do what we want. Beto o'rourk, you remember him, the
failed failed candidate many times over in Texas. Who are
we are always told is a rising star who's going
(18:41):
to really the country by storm. He had something to
say about that in light of the Texas redistricting battle
that we've been talking about, which California is now going
to retaliate or Newsom is attempting to. Here's Beta Araark's
take on following the rules and saving democracy in every other.
Speaker 7 (19:00):
State where the Democrats hold the governor's mansion, the Assembly,
and the state Senate to redraw their congressional districts, now
not wait for Texas to move first to maximize Democratic
party advantage. Listen, you may say to yourself, well.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Those aren't the rules.
Speaker 7 (19:17):
There are no reps in this game. Fuck the rules.
We are gonna win whatever it takes. We're gonna take
this to them in every way.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
That we can.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Okay, I love the text line under that his chiron
is such and such to stop Trump's power grap.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah, I mean. The joke, of course, also is that
all of the Democratic states have already redistricted themselves into
like oblivion where there are no Republican congressional districts, or
there are very very few. There was actually a New
York Times story two days ago in a wider redistricting war.
Republicans have an advantage, yeah, because the Blue states have
(19:57):
already done this to such an extent that they can't
do it anymore. They've done the max. They've already drawn
all the little squiggly lines around their states and made
it as democrat as possible. So if the Battos of
the world want to do this, Republicans have to be like, sure,
let's do it.
Speaker 7 (20:13):
Right.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
They always ignore their own escalations, right, they have to
just wipe that out. So the Smithsonian fight is another
good one, right where Trump says We're going to review
Smithsonian exhibits inside the Smithsonian in all of these wonderful
free museums, and the left is like, oh my gosh,
(20:34):
can you believe this. He is politicizing history. He's going
to remove anything he doesn't like. Now, I am wary
about any government, any partisan entity doing this work and
removing things they don't like.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
What they're ignoring is that the left took over all
the Smithsonians' exhibits and has turned them into social justice
lectures on every front, and they just want us to
leave that untouched, their cultural victory and we must observe
it with perfect obeisance at this.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Point, Yeah, I don't think we should do that. So
I think that the left needs to be taught a
lesson about what they've done over the last few years.
I think it's way past the time for them to
understand that they can't go on the way that they've
been going. And you can't listen to Beto again. Try it,
but you will find that you've already done all the
(21:27):
things that he suggests you do without following any rules.
Last note on this, MSNBC has changed their name and
it is weird. It is really weird they're going with
ms now. That sounds i'm sorry, like a multiple sclerosis
maybe group or something like that. I saw somebody point
(21:49):
out that it sounds maybe like Miss magazine and the
National Organization Women Sounds.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I said, it sounds like a new, fast acting version
of MIT al brings up like weird associations.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
It's like HBO Max when they locked off HBO. But
it's not the thing we know. Don't go with that one.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah, it's just weird. And I don't know what they're
trying to be. I don't think that they're trying to
appeal to a wider audience. I think they're trying to
lock down their left audience. I'm not sure why they
would change the name to make that happen. It's an
awful rebrand, awful logo.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
One last thing on Dems acting odd. Have you seen
the Newsome office tweets? Oh my god, So Gavin Newsom's
press office has taken on a satirical version of Trump
like posting. It's getting a lot of attention, So for
that part it has been effective. They tweet in all caps,
(22:51):
they use Trumpian like exaggerations and phrases.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
It is amusing at times. I think it's already wearing
a little thin. Yeah, and I keep getting these weird
all caps and AI constructions in my for you column
on X right.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
And the thing about.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
What Trump does is that even as a joke, yeah,
and he's half joke himself, like his postings sometimes are
just goofs, it only works for him.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
It's because it's real, because it actually is him. He's
not imitating somebody, he's not trying to be somebody else.
You don't have to like it, but it's him for real.
And the fact that Gavin Newsom doesn't have a hymn
for real personality is a problem.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
For a personality transplant.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
They're like, well, let's just plug something in here, I
see how it goes. Anyway, you can look for those
all caps postings if you wish to.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Up to you if you need to.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah, we will be right back normally with a new
trend in designer babies.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Welcome back to normally where we don't think that you
should be designing your perfect baby. But we seem to
be in the ever growing minority on this. I am
not sure exactly why so many people have decided that
you must make a perfect child, you must make a
(24:20):
baby that has no issues whatsoever, or no potential issues whatsoever.
This all started with a piece in the Times, The
next parenting trend starts before conception for as little as
twenty five hundred. You can choose your future baby, should you.
And it's about this company called Orchid where they do
(24:40):
embryo screening and the world's first whole genome embryo screen
And the woman who runs the organization, nor Sidiki, tweets
what if your baby never walks? What if they're neighbor
never able to live independently? But if you could have
stopped it but chose not to, That's the question. Or
kid incs. Embryo screening forces you optimize everything career, diet, skincare,
(25:06):
but you're going to chance it on your child's genome,
one of the most significant determinants of their health. First
of all, I don't optimize everything. Let's be real here.
You know, I just had French toast for breakfast. I
did not feel like I was optimizing my diet, nor
my career, nor my skincare. It could all be much improved.
(25:26):
I'll say that, you know, because I'm Ashkenazi Jewish, I
carry a bunch of different stuff. And with every child
I had, more tests became available, and when we had
our third kid, the test came up as basically like,
your child may be blind because you carry a blindness gene.
(25:47):
And I thought about it because, you know, I obviously
I was never going to abort, but you know, had
I not already had two kids, I think this would
have scared, you know, the crap out of me, because
I already had two kids and they were fine. And
I was like, I don't even know, like what this
is anymore. I don't know why you're telling me this.
I have two healthy children. The fact that I carry
(26:08):
this gene does not actually mean that they're going to
be blind. So you're giving me incorrect information. And I
wonder how many kids are aborted because of information like that.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
And the New York Times has actually covered this admirably,
the epidemic of false positives for really catastrophic health issues.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
That people get in utero, and that is what happens.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
And then they did a little deeper dive on exactly
how reliable these tests are and it's not great. Yeah,
So I wonder what we're setting ourselves up for here.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
I want to talk about.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Nor Sidiki as possibly the worst spokesperson, Oh yeah, for anything. Ever,
this is a thing that, as you point out. People
have real concerns. I don't want to diminish those concerns.
I feel very blessed to have four healthy children. You
never know what life's going to throw at you. You
really don't understand the desire to sort of control that
(27:02):
and see what you can do to optimize it.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
I hate the.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Idea of it as a skincare regimen. Right. My children
aren't skincare regimen. They're a miracle created by their parents.
But she is sort of a classic left leaning figure
in that there is a clear moral issue here that
(27:27):
we should talk about. And by the way, we called,
you know, Sidney Sweeney a eugenicist, but this is.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Fine, We're celebrating this.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
She doesn't recognize the moral dilemma at all, and is
in fact horribly dismissive and nasty to anyone who has
an issue with it. So the first one I noticed,
first tweet I noticed from her says, most kids are
born by accident, and yet we stigmatize parents who plan ahead,
who screen and embryos to prevent deadly, now preventable diseases.
(27:56):
If you wouldn't screen, fine, just beyond it. You're okay
with your kid potentially suffering for life, so you can
feel morally superior. Oh okay, calm down, nor no, your
kid potentially suffering. You're we're protective of our children, like
our children who exist.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
You're not eliminating disease. You're eliminating a person person with disease.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
That's what you're doing. So then someone asks her honest question,
would you.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Have destroyed our son with severe hypertrophic cardiomiopathy before he
was born? She says, or kid doesn't decide which embryo's
parents transfer the parents to. It's their call, their future,
their call. Or's their family, their future, their call. What's
actually insane is outsiders trying to deny families the right
to know and choose for themselves. You don't get to
hijack that decision and impose your morality on someone else's family.
(28:50):
Her first tweet about the you being morally superior suggests
she would gladly impose her morality on you, and is
doing so currently. Then she says it genuinely surprises her
that people don't support parents making the choice to gather
more information or not and then decide what to do
with that information. I hate this thing where people are
(29:11):
like I'm just gonna slam people who disagree with me
and be mystified that anyone would disagree, right.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Right, Because she also in that same tweet you read,
the last two lines were or because you know, you
just be honest, you're okay with your kid potentially suffering
for life so you could feel morely superior. And then
the last line is because you can't be inconvenienced for
two weeks to extract eggs and check for genetic issues
before they develop. Dude, I mean that's not how I
(29:38):
want to have a baby.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
She's unhinged.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Ross Stalta is interviewing her in another New York Times
podcast and he asks her about basically, like, if you
want to remove the idea of procreation from the world
as a physical act between two people who create a baby,
isn't there something we lose in that exchange?
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Something human?
Speaker 1 (30:00):
And he reads it like a little segment of a poem,
and he's quite emotional about it, and she.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
Just goes, what do you mean.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
It's like, I it is.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
It is an intellectual failing to take on something with
all of these moral implications and not have considered any
of them.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yeah, it's wild that there's so much defense of this, like,
of course you'd want to have a perfect child. Well, yeah,
having children, I you know, I had a I would
say my obstetrician was a fairly leftist woman living in
New York City. But one thing that she said to
me at one point was having a baby is more
(30:42):
art than science. And that's always how I've seen it.
It's not supposed to be perfect. You're not supposed to
design your your perfect little you know, specimen. It's an
art project more than anything else, and it's something that
you have to take the good and the bad. And
even if you do design the perfect genome and the
(31:02):
perfect healthy baby, you don't know what's going to happen.
You don't know what life is going to bring. Are
you throwing this kid out if something goes wrong, if
they get into an accident, something happens to them. Of
course not. So I really think that this creation of
the perfect is it's weird and it's not something that
we should get involved in.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yeah, and this sales pitch in particular is pretty repulsive.
Basically every turn they should maybe think about hiring someone
else to speak in public about.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
The body else.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Yeah, by the way, I remember back in the days
of when we were talking about stem cell research and
all of that was.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
A big deal that I believe George W.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Bush had sort of a bioethicist panel or people who
actually sat around and thought about this, And I.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Feel like we need to be doing more of that.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Yeah, the ship is.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
The ship is sailing on a couple things quite quickly,
so quickly we need a little more discussion about and
this is one of them.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Absolutely well, thanks for joining us. Normally Normally airs Tuesdays
and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts.
Get in touch with us at normallythepodat gmail dot com.
Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
Show Links
WebsiteNewsletterPopular Podcasts
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.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.