Normally Podcast: Charlie Kirk’s Murder, Rising Crime, and America’s Crisis of Trust

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

Episode Title: Normally Podcast: Charlie Kirk’s Murder, Rising Crime, and America’s Crisis of Trust
Date: September 11, 2025
Hosts: Carol Markowitz and Mary Katharine Ham
Episode Overview:
This emotionally charged episode responds to the shocking murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Carol and Mary Katharine discuss the implications of his death for free speech, rising violent crime, and America’s eroding sense of trust in institutions. Through personal reflection, societal critique, and policy debate, the hosts address the crisis of violence, challenges on public transit, failures of progressive crime policies, and the national fallout in education and governance.

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1. Opening: Responding to Charlie Kirk’s Murder

Main Theme: The Loss of Civil Discourse and Erosion of Trust

• [00:04-05:06]
  The episode opens with heartfelt reflection on Charlie Kirk’s life and work after his assassination during a college debate in Utah. Both hosts share their grief and emphasize Kirk’s commitment to civil debate.

  • Mary Katharine describes her admiration for Kirk’s willingness to debate:

    "He was what college used to be, but you had to import him to college to make it work now because they don't do that anymore. And the idea that someone would target him for that...is crushing." (Mary Katharine, 01:02)

  • Kyle Marcus underscores the senseless nature of the violence:

    "He was killed for wanting to talk to the other side...for taking the chance and trying to talk to the other side." (Kyle Marcus, 02:38)

  • The hosts express fear for the future of open debate and a rising culture of intolerance and violence.

• Notable Quote:

  "What we want is maximum tolerance of other viewpoints and zero tolerance of violence. And particularly on college campuses over the last decades, we've reversed that. Far too often it is minimal tolerance of other viewpoints and far too much tolerance of violence which then cascades." (Mary Katharine, borrowing from Greg Lukianoff, 03:14)

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2. The Tragic Case of Irina Zarudska and Crime on Public Transit

Crime, Public Policy, and Media Responses

• [07:44-15:01]

  • The hosts analyze the murder of Irina Zarudska, a Ukrainian immigrant, on the Charlotte light rail system by a repeat and violent offender with severe mental illness.
  • They criticize progressive criminal justice policies and media narratives that deflect from failures to address violent crime.
  • Jon Favreau’s dismissive “gotcha” tweet is called out for trivializing public concern about violent crime.
  • Kyle Marcus explains:

    "The left is just grappling with what they can say here and what they are not saying is we need to keep people in prison for longer. We need to arrest more people, we need to, you know, contain this kind of thing. Instead, what they're saying is a bunch of gibberish that doesn't apply to anything." (Kyle Marcus, 08:27)

  • Mary Katharine identifies a worrying trend:

    "If you say concerns about this are out of bounds, racist, crazy...you don't make the concerns go away. You just characterize the concerns and the right that shares them as very reasonable." (Mary Katharine, 10:09)

• Notable Moments:

  • Discussion of reluctance or inaction by bystanders on public transit (13:35)
  • Affirmation that both left and right should be covering violent crime regardless of the perpetrator’s or victim’s race (14:49–14:57)

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3. Violent Offenders, Mental Illness, and Policy Debates

Failed Systems and Calls for Institutional Reform

• [15:01-21:27]

  • The hosts confront the difficulty of dealing with violent offenders with severe mental illness and the cycle of release and recidivism.
  • Clips from CNN show Van Jones and Caroline Downey debating solutions.
    • Van Jones’s “hurt people, hurt people” refrain is denounced as inadequate.
    • Downey proposes greater willingness to institutionalize the violently mentally ill.
      • Quote:

        “He was a career criminal, a repeat offender who was let back onto our streets despite a really bad criminal record that suggests he should have been locked away for life because he was threatening the public. He was a menace to society.” (Caroline Downey, cited by Mary Katharine, 19:10)

  • The hosts highlight the dilemma faced by families who cannot force loved ones to seek treatment or institutional care.

• Key Insight:

  • There’s broad public support for removing violent, mentally ill offenders from society to protect innocents, but current laws and advocacy by some NGOs frustrate effective intervention.

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4. America’s Crisis of Trust: Jobs Data & Institutional Integrity

Distrust in Government and Systemic Lapses

• [21:27-26:59]

  • Discussion shifts to the dramatic downward revision of U.S. job numbers.
    • Kyle Marcus questions the credibility of federal data:

      "How do you have almost 1 million jobs revised downward? ... I don't know how people have any trust in anything that the government says anymore." (22:17, 22:56)

    • Public trust is described as “so broken that I don’t know how we recover from it.” (Mary Katharine, 24:07)
  • The lack of transparency and honesty from the Biden administration about both economic and pandemic policy decisions is criticized as fueling both conspiracy theories and justified skepticism.

• Notable Quote:

  "It's easier to point out the ones who aren't [lying] than [those who are]. Let's make a short list of the ones who aren't lying to you." (Kyle Marcus & Mary Katharine, 23:57–24:07)

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5. America’s Educational Decline

The Pandemic’s Legacy and Institutional Failure

• [24:07-26:51]
  • The hosts discuss recent statistics from the Nation’s Report Card (NAEP) revealing devastating drops in basic reading and math skills among American students.
  • They highlight how lost learning disproportionately harmed poor and minority students.
    • Mary Katharine:

      "Low performing students...have fallen off more precipitously than everyone else, that racial gaps have gotten larger as a result. Because you hurt those who were hurting." (24:58)

  • The pandemic-era decision to close schools is reaffirmed as a major policy failure, with education officials like Randi Weingarten escaping responsibility.

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6. Democratic Leadership, Kamala Harris’s Book, and Party Identity

Political Calculus and Authenticity Crisis

• [26:59-34:31]
  • The episode examines a soon-to-be released book by Vice President Kamala Harris, in which she—for the first time—suggests it was "reckless" not to convince Biden to step down before running for re-election in 2024.
    • “[Was] it grace or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness.” (Kamala Harris, quoted by Kyle Marcus, 27:40)
  • The hosts debate the incoherence and inauthenticity gripping Democratic leadership:
    • Mary Katharine:

      “If you don’t know what you stand for, you can’t make a strong argument for it. And that is the problem that they’re all going to run into.” (32:31)

  • Examples include Gavin Newsom and Abigail Spanberger struggling to navigate hot-button issues like trans participation in sports, reflecting broader identity confusion within the party.

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7. Conclusion: The National Consequences of Eroded Trust

Takeaways

• The episode’s core throughlines—mourning Charlie Kirk, concerns about violent crime, skepticism about data, and fallout in education and political leadership—are all linked by a broader collapse in societal trust.
• Both hosts call for honesty and bold action to restore faith in American institutions and civil society.
  • “Stop lying to the people and try to rebuild trust. I don't know how we do it, but I think some steps should be taken in that direction.” (Kyle Marcus, 26:51)

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “He was what college used to be, but you had to import him to college to make it work now...It's crushing.” — Mary Katharine, 01:02
• “He was killed for wanting to talk to the other side...” — Kyle Marcus, 02:38
• "What we want is maximum tolerance of other viewpoints and zero tolerance of violence." — Mary Katharine, quoting Greg Lukianoff, 03:14
• "The left is just grappling with what they can say here...what they are not saying is we need to keep people in prison for longer." — Kyle Marcus, 08:27
• “If you say concerns about this are out of bounds...you don't make the concerns go away. You just characterize the concerns...as very reasonable.” — Mary Katharine, 10:09
• "How do you have almost 1 million jobs revised downward?...I don't know how people have any trust in anything that the government says anymore." — Kyle Marcus, 22:17, 22:56
• "You hurt those who were hurting." — Mary Katharine, 24:58
• “If you don’t know what you stand for, you can’t make a strong argument for it. And that is the problem that they’re all going to run into.” — Mary Katharine, 32:31

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Charlie Kirk’s Murder/Free Speech: 00:04–05:06
• Crime & Media Response: 07:44–15:01
• Mental Illness & Violent Crime: 15:01–21:27
• Trust in Institutions & Jobs Data: 21:27–26:59
• Pandemic’s Education Fallout: 24:07–26:51
• Kamala Harris’s Book & Dem Politics: 26:59–34:31

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Tone and Flow

The episode balances deep sadness, righteous anger, and dark humor as the hosts unpack personal and political dimensions of violence, governance, and trust. The dialogue is frank, sometimes cathartic, and driven by concern for the state of American institutions.

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For listeners seeking a roadmap through the nation’s current crises—from tragic violence to policy failures—this episode offers sharp analysis, personal candor, and calls for renewed honesty in public life.

Transcript

[Mary Katherine]

This is an I Heart podcast.

[Kyle Marcus]

Hi, and welcome back to Normally. I'm Carol Markowitz. I'm here with Mary Kathryn Hamm. We recorded an episode that you're about to hear and then learned the shocking news that Charlie Kirk had been murdered in Utah. And we felt like we had to add a segment about that and talk about it and not let the episode just stand on its own because it's a heartbreaking day for us, and we felt like we needed to share with you all.

[Mary Katherine]

Yeah. It's early in this news cycle, but the loss is already deeply felt. I did not know Charlie super well, but I have known him since he was young because he's been making an impact since he was very young. And we worked together in those early days of Turning Point. He was doing the thing that you and I love.

[Kyle Marcus]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine]

Which is to engage on issues that are important to us. You and I both. You grew up in New York. I grew up in Durham, North Carolina. We grew up in liberal communities where we were happy to have friends who we could go back and forth with. And the thing that struck me today was, and the Utah governor, even though we don't know a ton, and I think we can make some assumptions, but the Utah governor was like, he was assassinated while debating on a college campus. And that is the thing I admired about Charlie, was watching him go out and civilly and energetically take on whoever came to him on a college campus. He was what college used to be, but you had to import him to college to make it work now because they don't do that anymore. And the idea that someone would target him for that and that people think some. Too many people think that's warranted is crushing. It's crushing.

[Kyle Marcus]

It really is. I feel just devastated, and I've just been at a loss for words, breaking down, crying at different points. He was such a good person. And, you know, the thing is, you're right. I love an argument. I love debating. I love all of that. But when he went into the lion's den all the time, sometimes I thought, why? You know why?

[Mary Katherine]

Because it's hard. It's hard.

[Kyle Marcus]

Whose mind are you going to change? Right. And the thing is, he was changing minds. He was growing. His organization was growing. They had done some incredible work in the last year. And it's such a loss. And I feel just for his family, just this. It's senseless. It's really senseless. He was killed for wanting to talk to the other side, for taking the chance and trying to talk to the other Side.

[Mary Katherine]

Yeah, yeah, it's. It's really. It's dark. It makes me worried about the future.

[Kyle Marcus]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine]

You know, there are two. Greg Lukianoff, who is with fire, the free speech organization. I'm going to borrow his words because he said what we want is maximum tolerance of other viewpoints and zero tolerance of violence. And particularly on college campuses over the last decades, we've reversed that. Far too often it is minimal tolerance of other viewpoints and far too much tolerance of. Of violence which then cascades. And then, by the way, when you tell people that words are violence. Yeah, they want to retaliate with violence. So, like, there are people, and I'm not going to name check people or go through the receipts because it's deeply depressing. But there are too many people who believe that Charlie Kirk's words were an existential threat to them. That was never true. But because he was speaking, he faced an existential threat. I mean, I'm obviously thinking about his family quite a lot. He has two young kids. I believe they're about one in four. His wife Erica will have a very tough road ahead of her. And, you know, they were people of faith and that the promise is that God will be with them and God will be with his kids and with her as they go through this. And that's real. But sometimes it will feel impossible for that to be real. And it's hard for me to think about someone starting that journey to have this be her life. It's just there's so many things that are sad about it.

[Kyle Marcus]

I loved how openly Charlie lived his faith. And so if you're listening to this, I think let's just pray for his family and pray for the country as we move forward.

[Mary Katherine]

Yeah.

[Kyle Marcus]

Thank you for listening.

[Mary Katherine]

Hey, guys, we are back on. Normally the show with Normalist takes the Linda music, period. I'm Mary Katherine.

[Kyle Marcus]

And I'm Kyle Marcus. How's your week going, Mary Katherine?

[Mary Katherine]

Good, you know, hectic. Trying to keep up with all the new extracurriculars for the children, which I often. Yeah, I often take them off and then I'm like, oh, I have to do this every week.

[Kyle Marcus]

I went to back to school night last night for my youngest son and like they were like. And you know, continue signing the Planner every night. And I was like, signing the Planner every night. I haven't even signed it once.

[Mary Katherine]

Yeah, same girl. Same. I have a. I have a very type a child who if the Planner needs to get signed, she makes sure it's signed.

[Kyle Marcus]

Right.

[Mary Katherine]

But outside of that.

[Kyle Marcus]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine]

It's not happening.

[Kyle Marcus]

But that's the first child or the second?

[Mary Katherine]

The second child.

[Kyle Marcus]

Actually second. Okay.

[Mary Katherine]

I have to ask you if you share my maybe semi problematic take, which is that when you get asked to do something daily as a parent for one of your children, one, I don't like it, don't care for it. Don't put this on my plate. Let the homework show that we did the homework, not the planner. Exactly.

[Kyle Marcus]

We need to sign that. I saw the planner like you did the homework, just take it into school and give it to the teacher.

[Mary Katherine]

But I have noticed a correlation and that is that people who give me daily work often are pre kids in their life chapter.

[Kyle Marcus]

Oh, interesting.

[Mary Katherine]

And people who do not give me daily work have several children. Because there's a different understanding of what I'm capable of.

[Kyle Marcus]

That's interesting. I don't know. No, I think the teachers in this case have kids and I'm sure it is just, you know, policy of the school or whatever.

[Mary Katherine]

The theory is blown up by your teachers.

[Kyle Marcus]

Yeah, I can't do stuff like this every day. I and plus I my other two kids, this is the youngest child, the older two are, you know, I got this joke from Modern Family but they're completely self cleaning ovens. Like I don't know what they're doing. My oldest, I haven't like been involved in her schoolwork since she was like in first grade. It's all been like on her own. So now having to like chase this kid around be like, let me sign your planner.

[Mary Katherine]

No, I don't, I'm so bad at it. Not a fair. We're in the car every day. Like just give it to me while I'm driving.

[Kyle Marcus]

I don't want to say, I don't want to say. I'm just like sign it for me.

[Mary Katherine]

But you know, that's a life skill too. Okay.

[Kyle Marcus]

All right.

[Mary Katherine]

Shall we to the news which is as usual, more sad than our day to day lives.

[Kyle Marcus]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine]

We are still talking about the tragic murder of irina Zarudska, a 23 year old Ukrainian immigrant who was riding a Charlotte light rail public transit system and was in a totally unprovoked insane interaction that is caught on tape stabbed to death by a man on the train who we now know to be a 14 time arrested, several time felon, several time violent felon and schizophrenic man who was walking the streets and riding the train. And the response to this has been enlightening.

[Kyle Marcus]

Right. That's the thing this exposed so much. This is why it's a two day story on normally because the conversation around it has been so crazy that we have to talk about it. I think the left is just grappling with what they can say here and what they are not saying is we need to keep people in prison for longer. We need to arrest more people, we need to, you know, contain this kind of thing. Instead, what they're saying is a bunch of gibberish that doesn't apply to anything. Jon Favreau, he's a Obama bro, podcaster at Pod Saves America, founder of Crooked Media. He wrote this tweet where he pretended to say, you know, Democrats should just admit that some politicians have been way too lenient in releasing dangerous criminals from prison these last few years. And he lists some crimes committed by people they let out early. And of course, all of those crimes were committed by people let out by Donald Trump. These are pardon recipients, largely from January 6th. I think that he thinks he's got a gotcha. I'm like, rearrest them and throw away the key.

[Mary Katherine]

We both were like, yeah, the violent ones shouldn't be pardoned. Two, if you take this as a real point, which it's not, it is a, it's his gut reaction, which is to watch the tragic public murder of a young person and make a joke about January 6th. But if you're to take it as a real point, and by the way, I thought it was sincere at first and was like, oh, I guess we're not doing the abundance thing on crime, but.

[Kyle Marcus]

Right, yeah.

[Mary Katherine]

Do I think January 6th folks are in danger of violent recidivism? I do not. I just don't. I think it's different, material different. And the problem once again is that if you say concerns about this are out of bounds, racist, crazy, the domain of only people who love every January 6th or, and everything that happened that day, you don't make the concerns go away. You just characterize the concerns and the right that shares them as very reasonable.

[Kyle Marcus]

Exactly. You know, on a previous episode I said that the most lib thing about me is that I think that we should treat violent offenders and non violent offenders differently. And I think that nonviolent offenders should get the cushier prison and you know, should get different things. But it turns out that's not even a lib thing anymore. They don't, they don't see a difference between violent offenders and nonviolent offenders. I get to be conservative. Hooray.

[Mary Katherine]

Well, and Charlie Cook characterized it well. When it comes to crime, I have been somebody who's very open to criminal justice reform and thinks there can be an excessive force problem like that. It's a real thing.

[Kyle Marcus]

Exactly.

[Mary Katherine]

Okay, Now, I want to be honest about those statistics and who it affects. And I do not, I do not want to, like, paint with a super broad brush and defund police, for instance. Right. But I'm squishy in that I want the Constitution applied correctly to every person so that our system, our miracle system of justice, which has its faults but is a miracle in the history of humankind, can exist and treat people fairly. Because I do think people get dragged into the criminal justice system and their lives turned in a bad direction when we could have, perhaps with nonviolent folks, turned them in a better direction. Okay, fine. This guy's not that this guy does not send a group of social workers out and pick him up safely and every. And put him in a treatment program and everything's fine. It's not real.

[Kyle Marcus]

It's not. And you know, Peter J. Hasson points out that Favreau had defund police activists on his podcast in 2020. Clearly is not actually interested in fighting any crime. He's just interested in making a anti Donald Trump point. So, you know, when he's looking for the people that did this, it was you, dude. It was you.

[Mary Katherine]

Well, I'm like, I just think the more that you make flippant jokes about this or tell people that it's statistically rare that this happens and they shouldn't have feelings about it. One, it is statistically rare. And also the randomness of it is very scary to people because as you, as you said, she's not really putting, she's not involved in any circles that would put her in this position. She's no one, no one's anticipating this. And then it also went viral that we. I don't want to watch the whole video, but it went viral. There was certainly lag time in someone coming to her aid at all. And people around her seemed disinterested to an almost shocking degree. Like, I understand the guys in the train and he still has a knife. So you want to be wary. But it does not take confronting him to look concerned and hit 911 on your phone.

[Kyle Marcus]

Exactly right.

[Mary Katherine]

And later someone did come and try to, like, help her and put pressure on her. It. It's. Yeah, that video is tough in so, so, so many ways.

[Kyle Marcus]

Right. And again, the randomness of it and, you know, the. It's very, It's a very rare occurrence. Yes, it's a very rare occurrence. But really not rare enough. And, you know, somebody tried a gotcha on us on X when we posted our episode from a few days ago, and they, they, they tweeted a link at us and they said, you covering this? And it was a story of a man sat behind a stranger on the bus, slit her throat, an unprovoked attack. The man in this story is white. I think the implication is that you and I are not covering it because he's white. I hadn't heard about this. And so, yeah, I think this story should be big, too. It happened in Tulsa in August. Absolutely. This is another story where somebody violent, acted violent on public transport. This person was also a fugitive from a justice warrant from the state of Missouri. So already had a previous interaction with the law. Again, you're not going to get me in a gotcha. I think this should be a big story, too. I think that somebody who has a warrant for their arrest from Missouri should.

[Mary Katherine]

Have been off the streets.

[Kyle Marcus]

Yeah, should have been off the streets. So nice try, but I'm actually fully supported in covering this story.

[Mary Katherine]

And there's another part of this, too, that in this story would make it a national story if the media wasn't disinterested in this narrative. And it is that there is a visual element. We both work in news. In the Tulsa case, to my knowledge, I could be wrong. But I just looked it up and there's not a surveillance video of this happening that was leaked. Maybe it's just withheld. I understand that. But when something has a visual element like that, it becomes a bigger story because it is part of news packages, and that is how newsrooms work. So it is very noticeable when it doesn't become a story, when there is that visual element. But I echo you on this Tulsa killing in which these are quite analogous victims, and he should not have been on transit. A lot of other folks have chimed in and said, you know, when I go in public transit, and I do it too. I'm constantly scanning. I am encountering very mentally ill people, sometimes scary ones. One with knitting needles one time who yelled many, many F words sitting across from me and I had to move on the train. And it's like, because she had a weapon, and a lot of people are looking around and saying to Democrats and media, but I repeat myself, it doesn't have to be this way.

[Kyle Marcus]

It really doesn't.

[Mary Katherine]

Why do we have to accept this?

[Kyle Marcus]

Right. I think part of why she was sort of in her phone and not paying attention is that she expected that train to be safe. And I think you and I don't have that expectation, and that's a bad thing for us. I was thinking about this. I almost. When I haven't, you know, I live in South Florida now, I don't have a lot of opportunities for public transportation, but when I did, I would always sit with my back to the wall so nobody could be behind me. I would sit in a seat where I could see everything. Since I was a child in Brooklyn, I learned defense mechanisms on public transportation, on how to be safer. And that's sad and unfortunate, and it shouldn't have to be this way. And that's what people on the right are saying, that we don't want it to be like this anymore. We want change. We want to see things altered, that we don't have to be, you know, scanning constantly in a car. Scanning, you know, looking around and putting ourselves in a defensive position to escape. You know, we shouldn't have to live like this.

[Mary Katherine]

Well, and in this way, it, by the way, groups together two different kinds of, granted, statistically rare but very traumatic events, which is mass shootings and this kind of thing. Both perpetrated by very obviously violent, mentally ill people.

[Kyle Marcus]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine]

Who had shown violent propensities in the past. I do think that the action we probably need to have a discussion about is how you get those people off the streets for more permanent periods of time. And again, it's not like just a couple social workers show up at your house. This. This point, this man's poor family tried to have him committed and ran up against, like, probably, the way I understand it, the. The cabal of NGOs that are just like. Well, they're saying what Van Jones says about him. Can we play that clip real quick? It's not about cashless bail or no cashless bail. It's about the fact that we don't know how to deal with people who were hurting in the way this man was hurting. Hurt people. Hurt people. What happened was horrible, but it becomes an opportunity for people to jump on bandwagons. And then for someone like Charlie Kirk, he should be ashamed of himself. No one mentioned the word race, white, black, or anything except him. What people mention is the horror of what happened to this young woman. No, that's not true. The perpetrator did, in fact, mention her race and said that he got her. He got that white girl. It's on tape. But for his first point, hurt people, hurt people is not the message that's going to solve this in the future.

[Kyle Marcus]

Yeah, that's used for, like, Somebody whose parents were mean to them, so then they're mean to their girlfriend when they grow up. It's not used for somebody's smashing and slashing the woman in front of him. I'm sorry, that's not the correct usage of hurt people. Hurt people, yeah.

[Mary Katherine]

And then one more clip. Caroline Downey, a buddy who writes at National Review.

[Kyle Marcus]

She's great.

[Mary Katherine]

She goes full bore on the same CNN show to say, like, hey, maybe there is another option. Here it is, he served time for his violent offenses, not for his schizophrenia. Why does that know. But I'm saying that that was compounding this entire issue, the fact that he lashed violently on that. I know. I'm just saying he did actually serve time for the violent offenses that he committed. But he was a career criminal, a repeat offender who was let back onto our streets despite a really bad criminal record that suggests he should have been locked away for life because he was threatening the public. He was a menace to society. He should have been locked away for life for what? Now he should have schizophrenia. You want him to.

[Kyle Marcus]

You actually said that.

[Mary Katherine]

I can't believe you actually said that somebody should be locked away in jail forever. He said he should be locked away for life for schizophrenia. That is what you said. Institutionalized. Yes. And if you're saying he should not, you're saying that young women like you and me are basically just we're lambs into the slaughter. You go on public transportation in the city. That could happen to any single one of us. I use public transit constantly. That is completely unhinged, frankly. People shouldn't be locked away for mental illness. They should be treated for it in an institution. Yes.

[Kyle Marcus]

Mm.

[Mary Katherine]

I mean, we used to do this. And, like, it's tricky because it's a liberty question. I don't want people being, like, involuntarily committed at the drop of a hat. But someone who has many violent offenses and is diagnosed schizophrenia.

[Kyle Marcus]

Be a hard call.

[Mary Katherine]

We gotta.

[Kyle Marcus]

Yeah. And the way that they acted as if she was crazy. And who would believe this? Most people would believe this. Most people would want that. Most people would choose that. And they would choose it even if it was their family member, like this man's family wanted to do to him.

[Mary Katherine]

Well, that's the problem, because many families get stuck in this position because you have an adult citizen who you cannot force, often a male who is stronger than the rest of his family, who you cannot force to stay on his medication. But in an institutionalized situation, they could be on daily medication.

[Kyle Marcus]

And CNN panels will tell you that, no, you cannot institutionalize your violent family member. How dare you?

[Mary Katherine]

We need some options.

[Kyle Marcus]

That'd be nice. That would be nice. We'll be right back on Normally, where we'll talk about the Biden job numbers. Was anything real about the Biden administration? Be right back on Normale. Welcome back on Normally, where a giant downward revision of jobs from April 2024, March 2025, has just taken place. And it really makes me think, what the hell's going on over there? I don't understand how this happens. How. How do you have an. Almost 1 million jobs revised downward? The actual number is 911,000, and that is quite a large number to kind of make an error like 911. Sure. 9,000. Okay. Almost a million. How does that happen?

[Mary Katherine]

Yeah, I just. This bothers me immensely, and I don't think that. I don't think that Trump deals with it the right way by just, like, firing people at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But it's clear that we have a problem. This is like my issue with the cdc, right? Like, I would like to build trust in these stats. I would like to know that the stats are real. Can we please get someone to rationally look through what we're doing, who can be trustworthy and. And careful and then correct the way that we do this work? And by the way, along the way, you may find that someone at BLS was like, yeah, put the finger on the scale in the other direction.

[Kyle Marcus]

Yeah, right.

[Mary Katherine]

Like, that wouldn't surprise me at this point.

[Kyle Marcus]

Right. We just. We don't know. And that continues to be the problem of the Biden administration. It was so opaque and closed to us that we don't know what happened here. It's. It's baffling. It really is. People have dug up, you know, old Biden tweets since I took office. We've recovered all the jobs lost during the pandemic and added over 6 million more that turns out to be untrue. And I don't know. I don't know how people have any trust in anything that the government says anymore. We were lied to for four years about so many different things. And this is why, you know, I'm so not a conspiracy theorist, and I. I am afraid that conspiracy theories are gripping our country, both on the right and the left. But you could see where they're coming from. You could see where they're stemming from. They're like, everybody's lying to us. And we are like, no, not everybody, but lots of people.

[Mary Katherine]

It's easier to Point out the ones who aren't than the ones.

[Kyle Marcus]

Let's make a short list of the ones who aren't lying to you. That's the real issue here. I think that public trust is so broken that I don't know how we recover from it.

[Mary Katherine]

Yeah, it's really bad. Can I point out. And I'm going rogue here, but can I point out another statistics story that I think is important and is a terrible legacy of the Biden administration because this broke yesterday. The national report card came out again yesterday and it is devastating.

[Kyle Marcus]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine]

The decline in. This is the Wall Street Journal. Decline in American K through 12 public education is getting worse. More dispiriting evidence came Tuesday with the nation's report card showing a third of high school seniors lack basic reading skills and nearly half can't do rudimentary math. I mean, that's, that's the headline. There's so much more in it. For instance, the fact that low performing students, as you and I pointed out, would happen post pandemic, have fallen off more precipitously than everyone else, that racial gaps have gotten larger as a result. Because you hurt those who were hurting.

[Kyle Marcus]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine]

Speaking of that.

[Kyle Marcus]

Yeah, yeah. You hurt those who were hurting applied.

[Mary Katherine]

Accurately, more than those who had more resources. And this is. We can delve into it more in the future because I do think it's worth getting into the weeds on it. The top lines are really devastating. I am genuinely worried about literacy as a basic sort of, like, existential issue for this society.

[Kyle Marcus]

I absolutely agree. I, I don't know how we recover from this. And I think that the whole. I mean, there's so many problems. You know, we could obviously get into all of it, but the, the fact that we haven't been able to recover to pre pandemic levels is yet more evidence that closing schools was a giant, giant, giant mistake. And nobody's taken responsibility for it. Nobody has said this was wrong, we would never do it again. Instead, the people who did it, like Randi Weingarten, are saying that she fought to open schools, which I'm always like, who were you fighting? Who, who was on the other side of that fight? You know, she's got a new book out, by the way.

[Mary Katherine]

She's got a new book coming out about how, like, I did it.

[Kyle Marcus]

No.

[Mary Katherine]

Yeah, that's what it should be. It's actually called. It's actually called why. I think it's called why Fascists Hate Teachers. Because, you know, she has to arm everybody. Ma', am, Ma', am, you Quit your job for two years. You stopped, Right?

[Kyle Marcus]

Right.

[Mary Katherine]

You stopped.

[Kyle Marcus]

Yeah. I had a good liberal friend who posted yesterday or two days ago, like, fascists are always coming for the science first. And I had to respond. And I was like, is this about the COVID years?

[Mary Katherine]

Yeah. So we will do some more of that later, but. Because I'd like to flesh it out, but that is. Didn't want to leave it untouched because it's yet another statistical and very crisis from the Biden people.

[Kyle Marcus]

Stop lying to the people and try to rebuild trust. I don't know how we do it, but I think that some steps should be taken in that direction.

[Mary Katherine]

Well, Kamala is trying to rebuild some trust with her new book. We're going to have more on that normally in a second. All right, we're back on normally. And Kamala Harris has a book coming out. It's called 107 days. It's. It's going to be a real romp, according to the. The excerpts we've seen thus far, one of which just says, like, hey, probably shouldn't have run that guy again.

[Kyle Marcus]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine]

In reference to Joe Biden, who was her boss. Who was the person that she was VP for. Who was the person who she would have been in a position to best assess that he shouldn't run again. And yet she didn't say nothing, did she?

[Kyle Marcus]

No, she didn't. She. The excerpt that the Atlantic got has the quote, was it grace or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness. Harris writes of her decision not to convince Biden to drop out of the 2024 race earlier, the stakes were simply too high. This wasn't a choice that should have been left to an individual's ego, an individual's ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision, end quote. Here's the thing. The reason that Biden ran was because Kamala Harris was going to take his place. And they knew she was going to lose. So she hasn't faced that reality yet. But that's what happened here. I was willing to bet the house that Biden was going to run. And the reason was because all of the other ideas of who could replace him, like, oh, they could slip in Gavin Newsom, oh, it'll be Jill Biden or whatever. I was always like, no, guys, it can only be Kamala. She is the only person that it can be, and nobody wants that. That's why he's going to run. So I, you know, I. Buck Sexton one time was like, we weren't wrong. He did run, just not the whole way.

[Mary Katherine]

Yeah, yeah. No, I agreed that I thought the better thing they should have done probably when they were in a pinch, was, like, immediately handed off to Kamala. However, we all knew that her deficiencies were A, why she was picked, and B, why it was bad for her to go forward. Let me also say that she hasn't come to grips with reality. Reality. Not even just the other point you made, but in the book, in this excerpt, it notes the New York Times notes. Ms. Harris dismissed any notion that Mr. Biden was not mentally or physically fit to serve as president. Okay, so it was reckless to have him make the decision to run. But why?

[Kyle Marcus]

Right? Why?

[Mary Katherine]

But why was it reckless? Because if there's not a reason, then that doesn't make any sense. Now, her answer is, at 81, Joe got tired. That's when his age showed in physical and verbal stumbles. Like, this is just hairsplitting to a ridiculous degree. Just admit.

[Kyle Marcus]

Just say it.

[Mary Katherine]

Actually, what she should say is admit it. Say everything juicy she saw say. They kept me out of rooms with him because he was so debilitated. And I wish I had known more and done more. Yeah, that'd be a book I'd read.

[Kyle Marcus]

Right again. Honesty. Honesty would go a long way, and it would help her. In fact, if she could be a more authentic person, she could go places after being vice president. It's her inauthenticity that is the problem. In 2016, when she ran for president, I actually wrote a column about how Elizabeth Warren was unlikable. And I was like, but nobody's saying that about Kamala Harris because she wasn't unlikable.

[Mary Katherine]

No, it was different then. She was different.

[Kyle Marcus]

Right. She only became unlikable when she started kind of lying about who she was and what she believed and the kind of person that she was. And if she wrote a book and told the truth, I don't know, she could have a future. Maybe.

[Mary Katherine]

I look back on moments of my commentary during those years and think there were moments when I thought she was quite good on the debate stage. I thought she was taking cheap shots sometimes, but she did it effectively, right? And then the bottom just dropped out on that. I also want to point out that she really has this cell phone where she says, it's Joe and Jill's decision. We all said that like a mantra, as if we'd all been hypnotized. Okay? The last thing I want is a president who can be hypnotized.

[Kyle Marcus]

It's not by Jill Biden.

[Mary Katherine]

Not interested in that. Like you didn't, you didn't have the strength to stand up to your peer group and your bosses.

[Kyle Marcus]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine]

And say this was bad.

[Kyle Marcus]

Right.

[Mary Katherine]

That's not itself.

[Kyle Marcus]

Yeah, I was gonna say that, actually. I think that what happened to her and why she fell apart in such a, you know, spectacular fashion is of the problem that's going on in the left. They don't know who they're supposed to be. When they say things that they used to believe, you know, seven years ago, they're left, they flank comes for them so hard that they don't know what to say. I'm curious to see how any of them run for president in the next go round. I mean, just an example that comes to mind in the beginning when AOC first hit the scene and she does the interview with Margaret Hoover and she says that she's for a two state solution. And that used to be something that liberals believed in Israel. Right. They believed in a two state solution in Israel. One for the Israelis, one for the Palestinians. Now and then she had to walk that back because the leftists were like, we don't believe that anymore. So who knows what they stand for? If you don't know what you stand for, you can't make a strong argument for it. And that is the problem that they're all going to run into. So when the Gavin Newsoms of the world on the debate stage are going to have to talk about trans kids in sports, he just told Charlie Kirk that he supports the trans girls not playing in girls sports. Is he going to be able to say that again on a debate stage.

[Mary Katherine]

Or do anything about it when it actually happens?

[Kyle Marcus]

That goes without saying. He hasn't done anything about it. But will he even be able to repeat that without the left going bananas?

[Mary Katherine]

The other example is, of course, Abigail Spamberger, who's running in Virginia for governor and may very well win because it's a very purplish blue state with a lot of federal workers. But she's the great normie savior for them, allegedly. And she can't even say the thing about boys and girls sports. She can't even say the thing about boys and girls locker rooms or girls in boys locker rooms. In fact, she voted for legislation that endorsed all these things, I think sponsored legislation that endorsed all these things. And in the meantime, she's like, my first act will be to make sure that this is a sanctuary state. Like these things are not in line with the national public for sure. And Democrats like Jon Favreau are going to blame voters for noticing that they believed and kept believing these things. He's going to be like, she hasn't said that in the last three weeks.

[Kyle Marcus]

Well, that doesn't count in the last three weeks. Exactly. Well, what does she believe today? MARY CATHERINE yeah, that's, that's the important thing.

[Mary Katherine]

It's a pickle. They're in a pickle. It is.

[Kyle Marcus]

It is. I can't wait to see how this turns out. I'm not saying they can't win. I'm not saying they're not going to win races. You know, Republicans are going to run some bad candidates in some places, and I mean, not in Virginia, but in other places. And, and they're going to win races and, and it'll happen. But they don't know who they are and they can't say. If they do know, they still can't say it. So. 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@ normallythepodmail.com thanks for listening. And when things get weird, act normally.

[Mary Katherine]

This is an I heart podcast.