September 9, 2025 • 26 mins
In this episode, Mary Katharine Ham and Karol Markowicz discuss the tragic murder of a Ukrainian refugee in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the subsequent media coverage and political reactions. They explore the implications of crime on public safety, the accountability of the judicial system, and the rising perception of socialism among younger demographics. Normally is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey guys, we are back normally the show What Normalist
Takes for when the news gets weird. I am Mary
Catherine hamp and.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I am Karl Marcowitz. How are you, Mary, Katherine.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I'm all right, you know, just getting into the week.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Okay, you know, my fifteen year old says, I guess
this must be a thing. But she says, you know,
existing in the context.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I think I think this might be what the kids say. Now,
so I'm going to steal it.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I like to pretend I'm a kid sometimes same same.
All right, Well, we have some sad news to start
off the week with from my home state of North Carolina.
In the city of Charlotte, a young woman, a Ukrainian refugee,
Arena Zutska Zutzka, in her twenties, was stabbed in late
(00:47):
August to death on a light rail train in the
city of Charlotte. A surveillance video of this from the
official light rail system was of an released. I have
seen the censored version. Beware out there of that video.
It is graphic and even if you see the censored version,
(01:08):
it's graphic and scary. She was stabbed unprovoked by a
man named de Carlos Brown sitting behind her on the train,
who out of nowhere decides to do this. I have
read up on him. He apparently has a schizophrenia diagnosis
of a rap sheet of fourteen arrests, many of them violent,
(01:28):
and yet was not in serving any time or in
any treatment. And this went viral. The video went viral
about a week and a half after the murder.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, And you know, the thing is that the story
of this horrible incident, this horrible murder, is quickly becoming
why are Republican's pouncing on this?
Speaker 1 (01:54):
And I don't find that.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I mean, look, apart from the usual, it's obnoxious that
Republicans can ever be concerned about anything. We're always pouncing
or seizing or you know, grabbing the issue or whatever.
But like the idea of like, why do you care
about this crime where a man at random butcher's a
woman to death on public transportation, It's because we could
(02:16):
that could be any one of us, And that sense,
that's why we're much more concerned about this than we
are about gang crime in Chicago, which we're also concerned about,
but just on a different level. And the thing is,
I'm not in a gang so I don't think I'm
going to get mixed up in the gang crime, although
innocent people do sometimes get mixed up. But to be
on public transport and have somebody behind me slaughter me
(02:41):
to death while I'm on my phone, I couldn't watch
the video. I don't sleep already. I can't add anything
to that. With the picture of him kind of lunging
at her and she's just looking at her phone and
she's doing exactly what I would be doing, what you
would be doing, that's terrifying, and of course it shakes
us to her and I don't understand this insane idea
(03:03):
that it shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Well, Axios just to characterize this kind of coverage really
really went to the mats today with stabbing video fuels
maga's crime message. Many people, including this report but also
politicians in North Carolina are reacting as if, once again
(03:25):
the video is the problem. Yeah, I am begging Democrat
mayors to get angry or angrier about murders than they
are about people noticing murders. So the intro to this
Axios piece, the lead is MAGA influencers are drawing repeated
attention to violent attacks to elevate the issue of urban
(03:45):
crime and accuse mainstream media of undercovering shocking cases. Shocking
video the fatal August twenty second knife attack on twenty
three year old Arena Zarutska on a light rail car
in Charlotte, North Carolina dominated weekend conversation on Trump friendly
social Here's the thing. Why did it dominate conversation in
only center. It's because it didn't get any coverage elsewhere,
(04:10):
and people thought, gee, I think a news story like
this with this visual element should be a large news story.
It should be part of our national discussion exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
So the next line of that piece is the big picture.
The rising number of surveillance cameras in public spaces, including
on Charlotte's light rail, has become a big accelerant in
these cases. I think the accelerant is the violent crime.
Like that's what's actually causing all the commotion and hoopla
around it. It's the fact that a young woman was
(04:46):
slaughtered to death on public transportation by somebody who had
been arrested fourteen times. And I'm sorry, even if I
didn't have the video, I would find this to be
just an egregious problem that has grown and really festered
in major cities.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Well, and they just missed the point so egregiously. Vy Lyles,
who is the Democratic mayor of Charlotte, released her first
statement this week Tuesday. This is local reporting. Lyles did
not mention the victim by name or discuss any specific
measures this Charlotte area transit system or police are taking
(05:27):
to address safety on public transit. She focused on the
suspect and urged others not to demonize homeless people. This
is the same reversal of victim and offender as the
Annunciation shooting, where lefties immediately go ye to defending the
(05:47):
identity of the person who just murdered people exactly and
focusing compassion and sympathy and empathy on that group, not
on the poor woman who was slaughtered on a train.
It is so warped to me that this would be
(06:08):
your go to, and yet it is now their go to.
It's really to just take the victim class, yeah, offender's class,
and decide take to the streets on behalf of this. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
And it really did make me think, and I know
a lot of people's minds went there as well, about
how lucky the people on the New York City subway
were to have Daniel Penny there. Daniel Penny, of course,
was the man who was arrested and ultimately acquitted of
choking to death a homeless person on the New York
City subway who had been threatening other passengers in the car.
(06:42):
We all wish for Daniel Penny. There was another man
in the background or the picture that I saw, the
still of the murder in Charlotte, And you know, could
that person have stepped in, could they have grabbed the guy?
Maybe it all happened too fast, We can't possibly know,
but we all wish for more annual pennies, Like let's
be serious here.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Well, and that's why I will never be a woman
of the left, because I am convinced that much like
the Daniel Penny case, if she had defended herself with
deadly force, or if someone had brought deadly force on
her behalf, that we would be having a conversation, you know,
(07:23):
we would deeply unfair to her and her defenders and
deeply dishonest about the threat that this person posed. You
probably would have had a lot of national coverage with
like pictures of the offender, like from middle school in
his band.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Diosphere, right, of course, no.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Mention of the knife that this man has. And I
because I watched that play out with Daniel Penny, because
I know that the left reviles self defense, I cannot
be part of it. It is so backwards to me.
And I know that this would be a national story
if that man had been killed in defense of this
(08:04):
young woman.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
That's right. I've also saw, Yeah, you're absolutely right. I've
also seen on X people saying that the right is
really mad about this because it was a black man
and a white woman. Guys, like, be serious, nobody cares
about their races. I would be just as angry if
it was a black woman and a white man. I
wouldn't care at all, what the you know, or any
(08:26):
other race in there, Like, the race is completely irrelevant here.
And the idea that the right is angry about this
because it's a white woman, I mean seriously.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yeah, the only thing it highlights is the utter hypocrisy
of the media, which covers things based upon the whatever
their preferred victim class. Right. By the way, I do
want to point out when it comes to actual policy,
I looked up some unc School of Government, Crime Justice
Innovation Lab studies and found that Indeed, Mecklenburg, which is
(09:00):
where Charlotte is, has been on the forefront of bail
reform in North Carolina, and those reforms as of twenty nineteen,
they were associated with lower use of secured bonds, which
is cash bail, and a higher rate of release on
written promise or unsecured bomb bond, and a higher rate
of supervised release. Now this, this study from twenty nineteen
(09:21):
goes on to say that good news, it didn't affect
crime rates and everybody showed up for their trials. It
doesn't update you about twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, twenty
twenty three crime levels. Violent crime levels in Mecklenburg County
and Charlotte went up, up, up, and even up into
twenty twenty four, defying the pattern in other cities where
(09:42):
it started to tick down after that. People care about
this issue. Our friend Alex the Chick says, keep pushing
the view that only MAGA cares about a woman being
slaughtered on transport, and the result will be people saying,
I guess I'm magan now mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
That's a very good way to put it. A lot
of people are also saying, perhaps we should go after
the judges, you know, there has to be some accountability.
Judges who just release criminals back out onto the streets
need to be held accountable. I could see that being
a Donald Trump, you know issue for the mid terms.
(10:21):
I will make sure that judges who do this kind
of thing are held accountable or something similar.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yeah, I just I understand the desire, as you know,
we always advocate it for during during COVID, like let's
be rational about what your statistical probability is of these crimes, right,
But as you say, when you keep seeing these random incidents,
and yes we do have video of them, and yes,
(10:47):
it does make people feel it in a more real way.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Because you know what actually happened, there's no question.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And despite the despite the mayor's statement that you know,
you can't arrest your way out of it, out of this,
you could indeed have incarcerated your way out of this
sure problem, because the man had been arrested fourteen times,
and his mom had tried to get the state to
help him with his mental health, and he missed various
(11:15):
states for that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
I just the governor of North Carolina tweeted this morning,
and he's been ratioed to just the end of the earth.
He tweeted, I'm heartbroken for the family of Dna Zurutska
who lost their loved one to this senseless act of violence,
and now appalled by the footage of the murder. Okay, great,
we need more cops on the beat to keep people safe.
(11:36):
That's why my budget calls from more funding to hire
more well trained police officers, a call upon the legislature
to pass my law Enforcement Recruitment and Retention Package to
address vacancies in our state and local agencies so they
could stop these horrific crimes and hold violent criminals accountable.
And everybody points out the police already did their part
of this, that you don't need more police to do this.
(11:58):
They arrested him fourteen times. The police work done. Check
it's the next guess the keeping from him in jail.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Guess what job the current governor had during the time
this man was arrested fourteen times. He was attorney general.
He was Attorney General and the former governor of North Carolina.
Roy Cooper, the Democrat who is running for Senate for
Tom Tillis's seat against Michael Wattley, who's former chair of
the R and C in North Carolina and also the
party at any rate, Michael Wattley, he's running against him.
(12:30):
Roy Cooper was governor of North Carolina from twenty eighteen
to twenty twenty five. That is a bad section of
years to have overseen when people care about this kind
of issue. It will remain to be seen what becomes
of this in the race. There are certainly ads to
(12:51):
be made of this, partly because he was a twenty
twenty Democratic governor. What do you think he did. He embraced,
of course, all of the cash bail reforms. He embraced
every blue star panel you could put together that would
be easier on criminals because they did sense citizens. They
(13:11):
all did this. He's on tape doing it. He is.
He's out there awarding panels to people and taking all
of their advice happily. And look, these things have consequences.
If you get caught up in a moral panic and
you don't think about the actual policies.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
It's not the bouncing, it's the actual government governing.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I'm saying the videos the problem guys. Yeah, one quick
thing before we leave this segment. So this is an
eighty twenty issue that Democrats are getting on the wrong
side of like being against crime. Here's one where a
left leaning guy got on the right side. Recently, Malcolm Gladwell,
very famous author, admitted that on the issue of trans
(13:53):
athletes and women's sports, he had been scared out of
stating what his actual opinion was. Here's a little clip
of him.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
If we did a replay of that exact panel at
the Sloan Conference this coming March, it runs in exactly
the opposite direction, and it would be I suspect near
unanimity in the room that trans athletes have no place
in the female category. I don't think this is any question.
(14:23):
I just think it was a strange I mean, I felt,
I mean I was the reason. I'm ashamed of my
performance of that panel, because I share your position one
hundred percent, and I was count the idea of saying
anything on this issue.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
I was.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
A I believe in retrospect in a dishonest way. Was
I was objective in a dishonest way.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Yeah, people are piling on him. I like the admission.
It is a little galling that Malcolm Gladwell, who had
almost nothing to lose, know extremely successful bestseller after bestseller.
I've read all of his books. I mean had still
was afraid to say what he actually thought. And how
(15:11):
about all the people who aren't at Malcolm Gladwell's you know,
financial level or success level, or at where they are
in their careers and the risks that they're taking speaking out.
I appreciate the admission, but.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I know, I know, I appreciate the admission, and I
want to appreciate it because I want to encourage more
people to go down this path and to just say like, yeah,
we were in a what were we doing? What were
we doing? I do think Malcolm Gladwell would have been
in that class of uncancellable people basically where he could
have said, no, I think you guys are wrong about this,
(15:51):
and look, I think I also want to acknowledge because
you and I have felt it during the the years
of our insanity from twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
To twenty twenty two, the crazy years.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
The crazy years. A lot of people will say about
like open school moms, like oh, you guys just were
scared of losing your brunch friends and your tennis partners,
and it's like, no, I don't, like, we're not going
to erase the immense social pressure and consequences and ostracization
that came with this kind of thing in twenty twenty
through twenty two, twenty two. So he was reacting to
(16:24):
a very real thing. Some people say like, oh, he's
just a coward, and look, I wish he had spoken up.
Many others did with less right, But there was a
real force of really disgusting bullying and consequences that came
from doing that. So he wasn't reacting to nothing, which
is what some people want to say.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Right well, So to tie it to our original topic,
if you're a Democrat and you think crime is bad,
I think you should just say so. You should just
say that, not wait, not wait a few years until
you know other Democrats are saying crime is bad. So
you could add on to.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
It, you could jump on.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Now, we'll be right back to talk about the socialist
possible mayor of New York City thinking that millionaires are
just going to have to live with his policies. I
don't think. So we'll be right back with more on normally.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Our guy, Mom, Donnie, he's back at it. He's doing
the interviews, he's talking about all his plans, and he's
going to keep the rich people in New York. I
don't know if you know this.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yeah, let's play the clip.
Speaker 5 (17:26):
You've been running on the platform of affordability, of fixes
for New Yorkers like a rent freeze. You mentioned free buses,
city on groceries. That made you popular with some working
New Yorkers, but not so popular with real estate developers
at the financial class. You were the only mayoral candidate
to march alongside Martin Luther King the third and nine
(17:49):
on our March on Wall Street about DEI on last week,
as we call economic justice for all New Yorkers and
all Americans. But right now, the top one percent is
in the city pay forty percent of the city's income
taxes according to the Empire Center for Public Policy. How
do you bring these wealthy residents to the table as
(18:11):
mayor stop them from saying they're leaving, gone to Florida,
Because we need that tax revenue to pay for some
of the things you're talking about. How do you pay
for it if they're gone?
Speaker 4 (18:21):
Well, the first thing I have to say is I
was proud to be the only candidate for mayor at
that march. And I was proud because some of the
chants at that march, they were asking, is the dream alive?
Is Doctor King's dream still alive? And he asked the
question decades ago, what good is having the right to
sit at a lunch counter if you can't afford to
buy a hamburger. That's a question that New Yorkers are
(18:42):
still wrestling with today in twenty twenty five. And so
what I have put forward is a vision to make
the most expensive city in the United States of America
affordable at a time. And we have the wealthiest city.
It is also one where one and four are living
in poverty. And to your point, we have a number
of New Yorkers who are doing quite well. The top
one percent of New York City earns a million dollars
(19:04):
or more a year. And my vision is not one
where they leave, it is one where they stay. It
is one good mist in part by showing them that
asking them to pay more in taxes would increase even
their quality of life. Because when you ask New Yorkers
what is it that is making them feel uneasy in
this city, you often hear from them about the cleanliness
of our city, the safety of our city, the affordability
(19:26):
of our city. We are not asking to raise these
taxes for the sake of it. We're asking so that
we can actually make the slowest buses in the country
fast and free, so that we can actually create a
Department of Community Safety that would deploy dedicated teams of
mental health outreach workers to the top one hundred stations
of the highest levels of mental health crises and homelessness.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
It's just such coore, solid nonsense. You know, I didn't
know that it was Al Sharpton who interviewed him, because
I only I had read the response. But now hearing Sharpton,
it's like two hucksters talking to each other. I mean,
Sharpton says things like the financial class, What does that
even mean? What is the financial class? Sharpen? Is the
financial class? Like it's I will tell you that I
(20:09):
have had a lot of friends call me and say
we are now thinking of getting out from New York
and some of those friends we can't.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
We can't carol some of those friends.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Yeah, yeah, they're going to be done.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Have they not gotten the memo about Mom Donnie's vision
which includes them and their money?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
And they're fast and free buses Like I'm I think
I feel like also, the it's either going to be
fast or it's going to be free. It's not going
to be both.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
So it's the idea that their quality of life will
go up by having more of their money taken by
this guy who has no experience running, no idea what
he's doing. Also the combo of like Namby Pamby Office
of Community Action instead of police plus free buses, which
will inevitably become a housing area for homeless people. We
(21:00):
have any number of mental illnesses and violent tendencies. Just
combine that with our first segment story. No, it's not
a good look. I don't feel good about it. Yeah,
And I don't feel like people who have means aren't
necessarily going to stick around for it.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I don't know why they would. And the thing is,
I think a lot of people didn't want to abandon
New York and they wanted to say, Okay, we're going
to stay and rebuild the city after COVID, And now
they're like, Wow, I have to get out of here
before it's too late. I have to get out of
here before this is all just a bigger problem than
it's ever been. The guy who wants to rent freeze
(21:37):
and the guy who wants government run stores, and the
other thing is I don't think he's going to accomplish
any of this. I'm concerned about how poorly it will
go if he does accomplish it. But I actually don't
think he actually gets to the place where it fails,
because I don't think it actually ever happens. And then
I wonder what he does then. And I have to
(21:58):
tell you that a lot of people are thinking he's
going to get really into like the Free Palestine movement
and make that an important part of New York City politics,
because you'll have nothing else. And you know, I think
all New Yorkers should be worried. Jewish new Yorkers, it's
long past the time to get out.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
I also just love the entitled nature of all like
Champagne socialists that like know, the people who work really
hard and make the money will just keep them and
their money because reasons, and those people have no agency
and somehow they won't do it any different.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
The people with the most access to leaving will stay.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Well. We will be back in a minute with a
little bit more on both socialism and gen Z. All right,
two quick polls before we're out of here, Carol. Number
one a new Gallup poll asking do you have a
positive or negative view of socialism. You ready for these
democratic numbers, I'm ready sixty six positive thirty negative. It
(22:59):
is highest ever in this gallop question. If you fourteen
percent approved eighty all right.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Republicans hold the whole country together, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Indy thirty eight to fifty seven.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
So man, yeah, it's not good. It's not good. I
think that we need to hear better arguments of why
socialism has failed every single time it has been tried.
And I think people need to understand that. You know,
a lot of times Bernie Sanders will point to Sweden
and say like, oh, I want to be socialists like them,
(23:34):
and Sweden had to tell Bernie Sanders stop calling us socialists.
We're actually capitalist. So I think people need to hear
stories like that to get that that's not what socialism is.
Venezuela is what socialism is. Take a good look and
wonder if that's what you want to be.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
I do think capitalism vanquished socialism, at least in the
Western world, so thoroughly that too many people forgot like
it starts saying the Fido idea again, and then you're like, no, no, no,
that's not a Neto idea. It requires the murdering systematically
of many, many thousands of people to do it, so
maybe not right.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I also like, I love all the memes that are like,
you know, under socialism, I'll tend my garden. They're like
your garden, like our garden.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
It belongs to all of us. There's just a lot
that they're not thinking about there, all right, what's the
other pole?
Speaker 2 (24:23):
The other whole number is how important it is to
have kids important to personal definition of success. Women who
voted for Harris say six percent it's important to have the.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Bottom of their list of things that define success.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Young men who voted for Trump thirty four percent. Yeah,
that's a lot better. And that's that's at the top
of the list of things that are important to their
personal definition of success. No matter who my kids vote for,
I hope that they put that at the top of
their list. That's actually the most important thing to me
by far. I think that the rest of it is important,
(25:00):
but not as important.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah, hands down, best thing I've ever done. So like
the idea that it's at the very bottom of the list.
And I think it's like, you know, we communicated that
it's passe to to get married and have kids. And
of course the less reaction to this is going to
be like, E, these men wanting to have children. No good,
(25:22):
these men wanting to have children, right, but.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Of course it's our fault that they don't have children.
We've trigged them, the greatest trick we've ever pulled.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
We tricked them. Yeah, this is going to cause some
dating problems in that.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Yeah, that's the thing. That's why I think Republicans need
to focus more on women. But whenever I say that
on X all these people are like, forget those women
who care as well men marrying.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Yeah, you gotta, you know, match them somebody with a
daughter and two.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Sons, Like I worry about who my sons will married, right,
I'm with you. Yeah. Well, thanks for joining us on Normally.
Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere
you get your podcasts. Get in touch with us at
normallythepod at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening, and when
things get weird at normally
Hey guys, we are back normally the show What Normalist
Takes for when the news gets weird. I am Mary
Catherine hamp and.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I am Karl Marcowitz. How are you, Mary, Katherine.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I'm all right, you know, just getting into the week.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Okay, you know, my fifteen year old says, I guess
this must be a thing. But she says, you know,
existing in the context.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I think I think this might be what the kids say. Now,
so I'm going to steal it.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I like to pretend I'm a kid sometimes same same.
All right, Well, we have some sad news to start
off the week with from my home state of North Carolina.
In the city of Charlotte, a young woman, a Ukrainian refugee,
Arena Zutska Zutzka, in her twenties, was stabbed in late
(00:47):
August to death on a light rail train in the
city of Charlotte. A surveillance video of this from the
official light rail system was of an released. I have
seen the censored version. Beware out there of that video.
It is graphic and even if you see the censored version,
(01:08):
it's graphic and scary. She was stabbed unprovoked by a
man named de Carlos Brown sitting behind her on the train,
who out of nowhere decides to do this. I have
read up on him. He apparently has a schizophrenia diagnosis
of a rap sheet of fourteen arrests, many of them violent,
(01:28):
and yet was not in serving any time or in
any treatment. And this went viral. The video went viral
about a week and a half after the murder.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, And you know, the thing is that the story
of this horrible incident, this horrible murder, is quickly becoming
why are Republican's pouncing on this?
Speaker 1 (01:54):
And I don't find that.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I mean, look, apart from the usual, it's obnoxious that
Republicans can ever be concerned about anything. We're always pouncing
or seizing or you know, grabbing the issue or whatever.
But like the idea of like, why do you care
about this crime where a man at random butcher's a
woman to death on public transportation, It's because we could
(02:16):
that could be any one of us, And that sense,
that's why we're much more concerned about this than we
are about gang crime in Chicago, which we're also concerned about,
but just on a different level. And the thing is,
I'm not in a gang so I don't think I'm
going to get mixed up in the gang crime, although
innocent people do sometimes get mixed up. But to be
on public transport and have somebody behind me slaughter me
(02:41):
to death while I'm on my phone, I couldn't watch
the video. I don't sleep already. I can't add anything
to that. With the picture of him kind of lunging
at her and she's just looking at her phone and
she's doing exactly what I would be doing, what you
would be doing, that's terrifying, and of course it shakes
us to her and I don't understand this insane idea
(03:03):
that it shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Well, Axios just to characterize this kind of coverage really
really went to the mats today with stabbing video fuels
maga's crime message. Many people, including this report but also
politicians in North Carolina are reacting as if, once again
(03:25):
the video is the problem. Yeah, I am begging Democrat
mayors to get angry or angrier about murders than they
are about people noticing murders. So the intro to this
Axios piece, the lead is MAGA influencers are drawing repeated
attention to violent attacks to elevate the issue of urban
(03:45):
crime and accuse mainstream media of undercovering shocking cases. Shocking
video the fatal August twenty second knife attack on twenty
three year old Arena Zarutska on a light rail car
in Charlotte, North Carolina dominated weekend conversation on Trump friendly
social Here's the thing. Why did it dominate conversation in
only center. It's because it didn't get any coverage elsewhere,
(04:10):
and people thought, gee, I think a news story like
this with this visual element should be a large news story.
It should be part of our national discussion exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
So the next line of that piece is the big picture.
The rising number of surveillance cameras in public spaces, including
on Charlotte's light rail, has become a big accelerant in
these cases. I think the accelerant is the violent crime.
Like that's what's actually causing all the commotion and hoopla
around it. It's the fact that a young woman was
(04:46):
slaughtered to death on public transportation by somebody who had
been arrested fourteen times. And I'm sorry, even if I
didn't have the video, I would find this to be
just an egregious problem that has grown and really festered
in major cities.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Well, and they just missed the point so egregiously. Vy Lyles,
who is the Democratic mayor of Charlotte, released her first
statement this week Tuesday. This is local reporting. Lyles did
not mention the victim by name or discuss any specific
measures this Charlotte area transit system or police are taking
(05:27):
to address safety on public transit. She focused on the
suspect and urged others not to demonize homeless people. This
is the same reversal of victim and offender as the
Annunciation shooting, where lefties immediately go ye to defending the
(05:47):
identity of the person who just murdered people exactly and
focusing compassion and sympathy and empathy on that group, not
on the poor woman who was slaughtered on a train.
It is so warped to me that this would be
(06:08):
your go to, and yet it is now their go to.
It's really to just take the victim class, yeah, offender's class,
and decide take to the streets on behalf of this. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
And it really did make me think, and I know
a lot of people's minds went there as well, about
how lucky the people on the New York City subway
were to have Daniel Penny there. Daniel Penny, of course,
was the man who was arrested and ultimately acquitted of
choking to death a homeless person on the New York
City subway who had been threatening other passengers in the car.
(06:42):
We all wish for Daniel Penny. There was another man
in the background or the picture that I saw, the
still of the murder in Charlotte, And you know, could
that person have stepped in, could they have grabbed the guy?
Maybe it all happened too fast, We can't possibly know,
but we all wish for more annual pennies, Like let's
be serious here.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Well, and that's why I will never be a woman
of the left, because I am convinced that much like
the Daniel Penny case, if she had defended herself with
deadly force, or if someone had brought deadly force on
her behalf, that we would be having a conversation, you know,
(07:23):
we would deeply unfair to her and her defenders and
deeply dishonest about the threat that this person posed. You
probably would have had a lot of national coverage with
like pictures of the offender, like from middle school in
his band.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Diosphere, right, of course, no.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Mention of the knife that this man has. And I
because I watched that play out with Daniel Penny, because
I know that the left reviles self defense, I cannot
be part of it. It is so backwards to me.
And I know that this would be a national story
if that man had been killed in defense of this
(08:04):
young woman.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
That's right. I've also saw, Yeah, you're absolutely right. I've
also seen on X people saying that the right is
really mad about this because it was a black man
and a white woman. Guys, like, be serious, nobody cares
about their races. I would be just as angry if
it was a black woman and a white man. I
wouldn't care at all, what the you know, or any
(08:26):
other race in there, Like, the race is completely irrelevant here.
And the idea that the right is angry about this
because it's a white woman, I mean seriously.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yeah, the only thing it highlights is the utter hypocrisy
of the media, which covers things based upon the whatever
their preferred victim class. Right. By the way, I do
want to point out when it comes to actual policy,
I looked up some unc School of Government, Crime Justice
Innovation Lab studies and found that Indeed, Mecklenburg, which is
(09:00):
where Charlotte is, has been on the forefront of bail
reform in North Carolina, and those reforms as of twenty nineteen,
they were associated with lower use of secured bonds, which
is cash bail, and a higher rate of release on
written promise or unsecured bomb bond, and a higher rate
of supervised release. Now this, this study from twenty nineteen
(09:21):
goes on to say that good news, it didn't affect
crime rates and everybody showed up for their trials. It
doesn't update you about twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, twenty
twenty three crime levels. Violent crime levels in Mecklenburg County
and Charlotte went up, up, up, and even up into
twenty twenty four, defying the pattern in other cities where
(09:42):
it started to tick down after that. People care about
this issue. Our friend Alex the Chick says, keep pushing
the view that only MAGA cares about a woman being
slaughtered on transport, and the result will be people saying,
I guess I'm magan now mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
That's a very good way to put it. A lot
of people are also saying, perhaps we should go after
the judges, you know, there has to be some accountability.
Judges who just release criminals back out onto the streets
need to be held accountable. I could see that being
a Donald Trump, you know issue for the mid terms.
(10:21):
I will make sure that judges who do this kind
of thing are held accountable or something similar.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yeah, I just I understand the desire, as you know,
we always advocate it for during during COVID, like let's
be rational about what your statistical probability is of these crimes, right,
But as you say, when you keep seeing these random incidents,
and yes we do have video of them, and yes,
(10:47):
it does make people feel it in a more real way.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Because you know what actually happened, there's no question.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And despite the despite the mayor's statement that you know,
you can't arrest your way out of it, out of this,
you could indeed have incarcerated your way out of this
sure problem, because the man had been arrested fourteen times,
and his mom had tried to get the state to
help him with his mental health, and he missed various
(11:15):
states for that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
I just the governor of North Carolina tweeted this morning,
and he's been ratioed to just the end of the earth.
He tweeted, I'm heartbroken for the family of Dna Zurutska
who lost their loved one to this senseless act of violence,
and now appalled by the footage of the murder. Okay, great,
we need more cops on the beat to keep people safe.
(11:36):
That's why my budget calls from more funding to hire
more well trained police officers, a call upon the legislature
to pass my law Enforcement Recruitment and Retention Package to
address vacancies in our state and local agencies so they
could stop these horrific crimes and hold violent criminals accountable.
And everybody points out the police already did their part
of this, that you don't need more police to do this.
(11:58):
They arrested him fourteen times. The police work done. Check
it's the next guess the keeping from him in jail.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Guess what job the current governor had during the time
this man was arrested fourteen times. He was attorney general.
He was Attorney General and the former governor of North Carolina.
Roy Cooper, the Democrat who is running for Senate for
Tom Tillis's seat against Michael Wattley, who's former chair of
the R and C in North Carolina and also the
party at any rate, Michael Wattley, he's running against him.
(12:30):
Roy Cooper was governor of North Carolina from twenty eighteen
to twenty twenty five. That is a bad section of
years to have overseen when people care about this kind
of issue. It will remain to be seen what becomes
of this in the race. There are certainly ads to
(12:51):
be made of this, partly because he was a twenty
twenty Democratic governor. What do you think he did. He embraced,
of course, all of the cash bail reforms. He embraced
every blue star panel you could put together that would
be easier on criminals because they did sense citizens. They
(13:11):
all did this. He's on tape doing it. He is.
He's out there awarding panels to people and taking all
of their advice happily. And look, these things have consequences.
If you get caught up in a moral panic and
you don't think about the actual policies.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
It's not the bouncing, it's the actual government governing.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I'm saying the videos the problem guys. Yeah, one quick
thing before we leave this segment. So this is an
eighty twenty issue that Democrats are getting on the wrong
side of like being against crime. Here's one where a
left leaning guy got on the right side. Recently, Malcolm Gladwell,
very famous author, admitted that on the issue of trans
(13:53):
athletes and women's sports, he had been scared out of
stating what his actual opinion was. Here's a little clip
of him.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
If we did a replay of that exact panel at
the Sloan Conference this coming March, it runs in exactly
the opposite direction, and it would be I suspect near
unanimity in the room that trans athletes have no place
in the female category. I don't think this is any question.
(14:23):
I just think it was a strange I mean, I felt,
I mean I was the reason. I'm ashamed of my
performance of that panel, because I share your position one
hundred percent, and I was count the idea of saying
anything on this issue.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
I was.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
A I believe in retrospect in a dishonest way. Was
I was objective in a dishonest way.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Yeah, people are piling on him. I like the admission.
It is a little galling that Malcolm Gladwell, who had
almost nothing to lose, know extremely successful bestseller after bestseller.
I've read all of his books. I mean had still
was afraid to say what he actually thought. And how
(15:11):
about all the people who aren't at Malcolm Gladwell's you know,
financial level or success level, or at where they are
in their careers and the risks that they're taking speaking out.
I appreciate the admission, but.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I know, I know, I appreciate the admission, and I
want to appreciate it because I want to encourage more
people to go down this path and to just say like, yeah,
we were in a what were we doing? What were
we doing? I do think Malcolm Gladwell would have been
in that class of uncancellable people basically where he could
have said, no, I think you guys are wrong about this,
(15:51):
and look, I think I also want to acknowledge because
you and I have felt it during the the years
of our insanity from twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
To twenty twenty two, the crazy years.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
The crazy years. A lot of people will say about
like open school moms, like oh, you guys just were
scared of losing your brunch friends and your tennis partners,
and it's like, no, I don't, like, we're not going
to erase the immense social pressure and consequences and ostracization
that came with this kind of thing in twenty twenty
through twenty two, twenty two. So he was reacting to
(16:24):
a very real thing. Some people say like, oh, he's
just a coward, and look, I wish he had spoken up.
Many others did with less right, But there was a
real force of really disgusting bullying and consequences that came
from doing that. So he wasn't reacting to nothing, which
is what some people want to say.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Right well, So to tie it to our original topic,
if you're a Democrat and you think crime is bad,
I think you should just say so. You should just
say that, not wait, not wait a few years until
you know other Democrats are saying crime is bad. So
you could add on to.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
It, you could jump on.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Now, we'll be right back to talk about the socialist
possible mayor of New York City thinking that millionaires are
just going to have to live with his policies. I
don't think. So we'll be right back with more on normally.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Our guy, Mom, Donnie, he's back at it. He's doing
the interviews, he's talking about all his plans, and he's
going to keep the rich people in New York. I
don't know if you know this.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yeah, let's play the clip.
Speaker 5 (17:26):
You've been running on the platform of affordability, of fixes
for New Yorkers like a rent freeze. You mentioned free buses,
city on groceries. That made you popular with some working
New Yorkers, but not so popular with real estate developers
at the financial class. You were the only mayoral candidate
to march alongside Martin Luther King the third and nine
(17:49):
on our March on Wall Street about DEI on last week,
as we call economic justice for all New Yorkers and
all Americans. But right now, the top one percent is
in the city pay forty percent of the city's income
taxes according to the Empire Center for Public Policy. How
do you bring these wealthy residents to the table as
(18:11):
mayor stop them from saying they're leaving, gone to Florida,
Because we need that tax revenue to pay for some
of the things you're talking about. How do you pay
for it if they're gone?
Speaker 4 (18:21):
Well, the first thing I have to say is I
was proud to be the only candidate for mayor at
that march. And I was proud because some of the
chants at that march, they were asking, is the dream alive?
Is Doctor King's dream still alive? And he asked the
question decades ago, what good is having the right to
sit at a lunch counter if you can't afford to
buy a hamburger. That's a question that New Yorkers are
(18:42):
still wrestling with today in twenty twenty five. And so
what I have put forward is a vision to make
the most expensive city in the United States of America
affordable at a time. And we have the wealthiest city.
It is also one where one and four are living
in poverty. And to your point, we have a number
of New Yorkers who are doing quite well. The top
one percent of New York City earns a million dollars
(19:04):
or more a year. And my vision is not one
where they leave, it is one where they stay. It
is one good mist in part by showing them that
asking them to pay more in taxes would increase even
their quality of life. Because when you ask New Yorkers
what is it that is making them feel uneasy in
this city, you often hear from them about the cleanliness
of our city, the safety of our city, the affordability
(19:26):
of our city. We are not asking to raise these
taxes for the sake of it. We're asking so that
we can actually make the slowest buses in the country
fast and free, so that we can actually create a
Department of Community Safety that would deploy dedicated teams of
mental health outreach workers to the top one hundred stations
of the highest levels of mental health crises and homelessness.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
It's just such coore, solid nonsense. You know, I didn't
know that it was Al Sharpton who interviewed him, because
I only I had read the response. But now hearing Sharpton,
it's like two hucksters talking to each other. I mean,
Sharpton says things like the financial class, What does that
even mean? What is the financial class? Sharpen? Is the
financial class? Like it's I will tell you that I
(20:09):
have had a lot of friends call me and say
we are now thinking of getting out from New York
and some of those friends we can't.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
We can't carol some of those friends.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Yeah, yeah, they're going to be done.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Have they not gotten the memo about Mom Donnie's vision
which includes them and their money?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
And they're fast and free buses Like I'm I think
I feel like also, the it's either going to be
fast or it's going to be free. It's not going
to be both.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
So it's the idea that their quality of life will
go up by having more of their money taken by
this guy who has no experience running, no idea what
he's doing. Also the combo of like Namby Pamby Office
of Community Action instead of police plus free buses, which
will inevitably become a housing area for homeless people. We
(21:00):
have any number of mental illnesses and violent tendencies. Just
combine that with our first segment story. No, it's not
a good look. I don't feel good about it. Yeah,
And I don't feel like people who have means aren't
necessarily going to stick around for it.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I don't know why they would. And the thing is,
I think a lot of people didn't want to abandon
New York and they wanted to say, Okay, we're going
to stay and rebuild the city after COVID, And now
they're like, Wow, I have to get out of here
before it's too late. I have to get out of
here before this is all just a bigger problem than
it's ever been. The guy who wants to rent freeze
(21:37):
and the guy who wants government run stores, and the
other thing is I don't think he's going to accomplish
any of this. I'm concerned about how poorly it will
go if he does accomplish it. But I actually don't
think he actually gets to the place where it fails,
because I don't think it actually ever happens. And then
I wonder what he does then. And I have to
(21:58):
tell you that a lot of people are thinking he's
going to get really into like the Free Palestine movement
and make that an important part of New York City politics,
because you'll have nothing else. And you know, I think
all New Yorkers should be worried. Jewish new Yorkers, it's
long past the time to get out.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
I also just love the entitled nature of all like
Champagne socialists that like know, the people who work really
hard and make the money will just keep them and
their money because reasons, and those people have no agency
and somehow they won't do it any different.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
The people with the most access to leaving will stay.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Well. We will be back in a minute with a
little bit more on both socialism and gen Z. All right,
two quick polls before we're out of here, Carol. Number
one a new Gallup poll asking do you have a
positive or negative view of socialism. You ready for these
democratic numbers, I'm ready sixty six positive thirty negative. It
(22:59):
is highest ever in this gallop question. If you fourteen
percent approved eighty all right.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Republicans hold the whole country together, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Indy thirty eight to fifty seven.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
So man, yeah, it's not good. It's not good. I
think that we need to hear better arguments of why
socialism has failed every single time it has been tried.
And I think people need to understand that. You know,
a lot of times Bernie Sanders will point to Sweden
and say like, oh, I want to be socialists like them,
(23:34):
and Sweden had to tell Bernie Sanders stop calling us socialists.
We're actually capitalist. So I think people need to hear
stories like that to get that that's not what socialism is.
Venezuela is what socialism is. Take a good look and
wonder if that's what you want to be.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
I do think capitalism vanquished socialism, at least in the
Western world, so thoroughly that too many people forgot like
it starts saying the Fido idea again, and then you're like, no, no, no,
that's not a Neto idea. It requires the murdering systematically
of many, many thousands of people to do it, so
maybe not right.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I also like, I love all the memes that are like,
you know, under socialism, I'll tend my garden. They're like
your garden, like our garden.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
It belongs to all of us. There's just a lot
that they're not thinking about there, all right, what's the
other pole?
Speaker 2 (24:23):
The other whole number is how important it is to
have kids important to personal definition of success. Women who
voted for Harris say six percent it's important to have the.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Bottom of their list of things that define success.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Young men who voted for Trump thirty four percent. Yeah,
that's a lot better. And that's that's at the top
of the list of things that are important to their
personal definition of success. No matter who my kids vote for,
I hope that they put that at the top of
their list. That's actually the most important thing to me
by far. I think that the rest of it is important,
(25:00):
but not as important.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah, hands down, best thing I've ever done. So like
the idea that it's at the very bottom of the list.
And I think it's like, you know, we communicated that
it's passe to to get married and have kids. And
of course the less reaction to this is going to
be like, E, these men wanting to have children. No good,
(25:22):
these men wanting to have children, right, but.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Of course it's our fault that they don't have children.
We've trigged them, the greatest trick we've ever pulled.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
We tricked them. Yeah, this is going to cause some
dating problems in that.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Yeah, that's the thing. That's why I think Republicans need
to focus more on women. But whenever I say that
on X all these people are like, forget those women
who care as well men marrying.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Yeah, you gotta, you know, match them somebody with a
daughter and two.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Sons, Like I worry about who my sons will married, right,
I'm with you. Yeah. Well, thanks for joining us on Normally.
Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere
you get your podcasts. Get in touch with us at
normallythepod at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening, and when
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