Normally Podcast: Teaching Teens, Tariffs, and Tesla Tantrums

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Episode: Normally Podcast: Teaching Teens, Tariffs, and Tesla Tantrums
Release Date: March 13, 2025

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Hosts:

• Mary Katherine Hamm
• Carol Markowitz

Introduction The episode of "Normally," a segment within The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, features hosts Mary Katherine Hamm and Carol Markowitz discussing a range of contemporary issues with their characteristic blend of insight and candid conversation. Skipping over the introductory advertisements, the hosts dive straight into personal anecdotes, economic discussions, and societal observations.

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1. Teaching Teens: Driving and Financial Literacy

Teaching Driving Skills

Mary and Carol kick off the conversation by sharing their experiences teaching their children how to drive:

• Mary Katherine Hamm ([03:13]): "We're still working on potty training, but I saw that you had like a rite of passage in your home."
• Carol Markowitz ([03:19]): Describes the challenges of teaching her first child to drive, admitting, "it turns out I'm not a great driving teacher."

They discuss their "redneck style" approach, starting children on dirt bikes and power wheels to build foundational skills before transitioning to cars. Carol humorously reflects on her husband learning to drive stick in Rome's airport parking garage, highlighting the cultural clash and difficulties faced.

Financial Literacy for Children

The conversation shifts to the importance of financial education:

• Carol Markowitz ([12:03]): "We need to prioritize our kids' financial education and future today."
• They emphasize teaching teens about earning, saving, and investing, citing statistics that "Adults with financial literacy skills have 82% more wealth than those who don't."

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2. Tariffs and the Economy

Uncertainty Around Tariffs

Mary and Carol delve into the volatile topic of tariffs and their impact on the economy:

• Carol Markowitz ([05:23]): "Things remain very in flux. The first time we were like, let's talk tariffs today, they were postponed."
• Mary Katherine Hamm ([06:00]): "Trump could be in some real danger of just burning through political capital because he has a lot of leeway here."

They discuss how tariffs introduce economic uncertainty, which negatively affects investor confidence. Carol notes, "The financial world calls this kind of thing uncertainty. And they don't like it," highlighting the hesitancy to implement tariffs amidst fluctuating responses from Canada and Mexico.

Political Ramifications

The hosts explore the political consequences of Trump's tariff policies:

• Mary Katherine Hamm ([08:27]): "There is a cost to the uncertainty itself."
• Carol Markowitz ([08:50]): "Canada is leaning into their nationalism and saying, 'We don't like you.'"

They reference recent retaliatory tariffs from Canada and how these economic moves could harm Trump's standing with voters who are averse to short-term economic pain, despite potential long-term gains.

Economic Data and Reactions

A discussion of recent economic indicators and their implications follows:

• Carol Markowitz ([10:49]): "Cost of living going down is going to be a data point they stress."
• They analyze a CNN clip reporting a 2.8% year-over-year increase in consumer costs in February, noting it's a positive sign against previous trends of rising inflation.

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3. Protests and Tesla

Vandalism Against Tesla

Mary and Carol address recent unrest targeting Tesla facilities:

• Mary Katherine Hamm ([13:05]): "They managed like 12 people at the Tesla plant in Delray Beach. It's really unsettling."
• Carol Markowitz ([20:35]): "Everything's computer because it really fits again. I have a Tesla. I love my Tesla."

They discuss the irony of left-leaning groups vandalizing Tesla vehicles, which are typically supported by environmental advocates. The conversation highlights the disproportionate blame placed on Elon Musk, who owns only a small percentage of Tesla, versus the actual actors causing the damages.

Media Coverage and Political Violence

The hosts critique the media's handling of political violence:

• Mary Katherine Hamm ([18:58]): "If the right were to respond even similarly, we'd see mass unrest. But political violence on the left is not treated the same in the media."
• Carol Markowitz ([19:26]): "They think the murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was sort of deserved."

They argue that left-wing violence often receives minimal media attention compared to hypothetical right-wing responses, underscoring a double standard in media coverage.

---

4. Five-Year Reflection on COVID Lockdowns

Impact of Lockdowns

Reflecting on the five-year mark since the COVID-19 lockdowns, Mary and Carol share their frustrations and observations:

• Carol Markowitz ([25:58]): "It is something I'm still mad about, bro."
• Mary Katherine Hamm ([26:24]): "We knew that taking away school from only public school kids was going to be a problem for the poorest kids in the country."

They criticize the prolonged school closures and the inconsistent policies that negatively affected children's education and well-being. The hosts recount personal experiences of moving to Florida to escape the stringent measures in New York, highlighting the lasting scars left by pandemic policies.

Distrust in Health Officials

The conversation touches on the erosion of trust in health authorities:

• Mary Katherine Hamm ([26:00]): "I'm glad that Jay Bhattacharya is at NIH. That makes it far more trustworthy for me."
• Carol Markowitz ([31:05]): "We were shamed because we were like, well, we are healthy and in an age range that this is not likely to hurt us a bunch."

They express pride in their decisions during the pandemic and frustration over the backlash faced from officials and the public for prioritizing their family's safety and autonomy.

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5. Recent Layoffs at the Department of Education

Mass Layoffs

Towards the episode's conclusion, Mary and Carol discuss recent workforce reductions:

• Mary Katherine Hamm ([37:38]): "Half of the Department of Education is now laid off."
• Carol Markowitz ([38:02]): "They only care about a disruption in the racket of the pass through of bureaucratic funds."

They condemn the layoffs, attributing them to a loss of public trust and mismanagement within the Department of Education, and lament the broader implications for educational policy and support.

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Notable Quotes:

• Mary Katherine Hamm ([05:58]): "Voters don't like short term pain."
• Carol Markowitz ([06:00]): "Trump has only been president for two months, so you can blame him for the stock market dipping."
• Mary Katherine Hamm ([18:02]): "All the people who told us not to spend Thanksgiving with our families, like my then governor, were totally doing whatever they wanted."
• Carol Markowitz ([31:29]): "I do like to pat us on the back because a lot of things that people say we didn't know. We knew the whole time."

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Conclusion Mary Katherine Hamm and Carol Markowitz provide a thorough and engaging exploration of pressing issues such as youth education, economic policies around tariffs, corporate protests, and the enduring effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through personal anecdotes, sharp analysis, and candid opinions, they offer listeners a comprehensive understanding of these multifaceted topics.

For those who haven't listened to the episode, this summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights, highlighting the hosts' perspectives on teaching financial literacy, the precarious nature of tariff policies, the implications of political protests against corporations like Tesla, and the long-term consequences of pandemic-era decisions.

Transcript

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[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Hey, guys. Welcome back to normally the show with normalish takes for when the news gets weird. I am Mary Katherine Hamm.

[Carol Markowitz]

And I'm Carol Markowitz. Hi, Mary Kathryn. How's it going?

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

It's going all right. We're still working on potty training, but I saw that you had like a rite of passage in your home.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yes, yes. I have my very first child who is driving it.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Whoa.

[Carol Markowitz]

Terrifying. Also, it turns out I'm not a great driving teacher. I was just like, all right, let's go, start driving. And she couldn't do that, so, so I handed it over to my husband who was like, what you have to do is show her how to do it.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

So it's a, it's a hard thing to teach. We are doing it redneck style, where our kids started on little dirt dirt bikes and little power wheels. And so they learn kind of the basics of how these things go. And we keep stepping them up in size.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right. Well, we meant to do it starting the Floridian way on a golf cart, but we didn't actually pull the trigger on getting a golf cart yet. So here we are. But yeah, 15 years old, they get their learner's permit in Florida. It's younger than we did it in New York. And it's great. I mean, it's great that she wants to do it because there's so many kids this age now who put it off indefinitely. I don't know. I couldn't wait to drive when I was a teenager.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

I know. I love it that she's going out there and doing it.

[Carol Markowitz]

She's very much like that.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

I was required to learn stick. So, like, there was an even bar in our family. So, man, I remember sitting on the a hill for the first time driving stick and just wondering if I'm going to slide back into the bumper behind me. Oh, it's good times. Yep.

[Carol Markowitz]

That was my husband My husband in Italy, when we were dating, learned. I mean, he. He said he knew how to drive stick, and that's why we rented a car with stick shift. He learned how to drive in the parking garage of the airport in Rome. And let me tell you, the Italians did not enjoy that.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

No. I bet. I drove a 68 Volkswagen Bug. So once you start with that level of cantankerous manual, you could do anything. Transmission, you can really do anything.

[Carol Markowitz]

It really does. The origin story here makes a lot of sense.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Yeah, it does. All righty. Shall we get to the news?

[Carol Markowitz]

Let's do it. So, you know, we haven't really talked about the economy on here, and we really specifically haven't talked. Talked about tariffs. And part of why we haven't discussed the tariffs is that things remain very in flux. And the first time that you and I were like, let's talk tariffs today, we actually decided to wait and see what happened. And then the next day, the tariffs with Canada and Mexico were postponed. So every time we kind of think like, okay, should we do tariffs today? We end up not doing it because things are changing all the time. And in the financial world, they call this kind of thing uncertainty. And they don't like it.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

They don't. The market says no, thank you to that.

[Carol Markowitz]

Thanks, but no thanks. On the uncertainty.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Yes. And I do, I do think we're getting to a point where Trump could be in some real danger of just burning through political capital because he has a lot. He has a lot of leeway here. Inherited a soft economy at best from Biden. Like, people were not feeling good.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

I think unleashing energy and working on some deregulation can have tremendous effects. It'll take a little while. But the tariffs pitch is trickier because he says this is short term gain or short term pain for long term gain.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Voters don't like short term pain.

[Carol Markowitz]

No, they don't. They don't. But, you know, you bring up a good point, which is Trump has only been president for two months, so you can blame him for, like, the stock market dipping because investors are concerned about tariffs, but you can't, like, lay the price of eggs at his feet quite yet. You know, although Barack Obama basically blamed George W. Bush for, like, eight years of bumps in the economy, he kept saying, this is the economy I inherited. We're like, dude, you've been president for six years at this point. So, you know, maybe Trump can do similar. Although, you know, from what I've seen, he hasn't necessarily done similar. He hasn't said, well, this is, you know, what I inherited. But he had an interview with Maria Bar. Her name is always a toughie for me. And she asked him, do you expect a recession? And he said, it's possible. That kind of thing is unheard of, by the way. You never hear a politician bluntly say something like that. But that's the long term, you know, gain for the short term pain that you're talking about here. And you're right, I don't know that Americans are going to be okay with this. I don't think that they're going to say, oh, well, things are more expensive or I got laid off or any of that. But it's good for the country long term. That's, it's a tough, tough little nut to crack there.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Yeah, that's a very big ask, I think also Canada kind of came to play. I don't know. I didn't expect the Ontario premier to go quite so hard. He was like, he was like, okay, so we give you electricity in New York, Michigan and Minnesota, I believe, are the three states. So we're just like gonna slap 25% on that, which will cost consumers potentially $100 a month on their power bill. And I guarantee you people will notice that. Now, he backed off of that as soon as Trump had some engagement with him.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

But there is cost to the uncertainty itself. Right, sure. So if you're going to have the fight again, I think I'm medium tolerant of tariffs as a negotiating tactic if it's quick and efficient. But this exchange is looking rockier for people, so I think it does have potential to harm his political prospects.

[Carol Markowitz]

Earlier today, AP reported that Canada will announce more than 20 billion in retaliatory tariffs in response to Trump's metal tariffs. So, yeah, Canada is, I mean, leaning into their nationalism and saying, we don't like this, we don't like you, we've never liked you. Ha ha. And they're really fighting back. But, you know, he gets leeway and he gets leeway from me. I was on your bestie Guy Benson's radio show yesterday, and I said, you know, I've had this long road with Trump. I know you've had sort of a similar one where I was adamantly against tariffs in his first term, but I, I saw that he used it as a pressure tactic and not necessarily as an economic one. So I am giving him the benefit of the doubt. And I'm in very much in wait and see mode, not making any strong judgments yet. But again, if Americans do end up feeling it in the next few months. I don't think that saying, oh, but we're bringing back all these businesses to America. Just wait 20 years is going to work.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Yeah. Because that horizon is long. Even though there are some shifts that will happen quickly, they are not like big change the economy shifts.

[Carol Markowitz]

That's right.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

But to your point, Carol, I cannot count the times that Trump's political calculations have been wildly different and better than mine. Right. Okay.

[Carol Markowitz]

I'm in the same place. Yes.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

So I'm open to that. But I think on the politics of the economy, it's very risky ground and it's very risky ground to be fighting based on being I think mostly just annoyed with Justin Trudeau who by the way, you're putting wind beneath his wings with this fight. Let's not. So yeah, I think he stands to do himself some damage. Although you had a good interesting data point on cost of living.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, let's roll that clip from cnn.

[Unknown]

Finally, we have some good news on the economy and really the number one issue for many Americans, the cost of living. So we just learned that consumer in February increased by 2.8% year over year,.2% month over month. Both of these figures were a step in the right direction and both were better than expected. So this is definitely very encouraging to see because it's going to I think relieve some fears that inflation was perhaps reaccelerating because this actually breaks a streak of four straight months where I think you could see it on the chart.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

All the way to the right where.

[Unknown]

The inflation rate was going in the wrong direction. Right. It was going higher and higher. Finally we're seeing it dip.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah. So the Trump rapid response team shared that on X. Obviously they are proud that CNN is saying it, which is unusual for cnn. Cost of living obviously going down is going to be a data point they stress. They also had Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon was on again Mornings of Maria kind of being more optimistic on what's going on in the economy and with the Trump administration. He said that the business community, quote, understands Trump's intentions with tariffs.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Well and that's one of the things I think Josh Holmes said, I was on Special Report last night and he said the man is engaged in a negotiation. The man is always engaged in a negotiation.

[Carol Markowitz]

Let the cook at the kids see.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Many, many business leaders understand this. But but like I always go to go back to there is a cost from uncertainty because businesses want to plan and they want to know what is in front of them. Also I don't like the part of tariffs where it's like, it becomes political gamesmanship and very swampy to be like, but I need an exception to the tariff, and this is how I'm gonna get it. Right.

[Carol Markowitz]

That's right.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Don't like that at all.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah. It's gonna have to be everybody or nobody. I think the exceptions are the swampiest part of D.C. and we can't allow that to go on.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

That's that. That part worries me.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

All righty. Up next, we have mostly peaceful protests.

[Carol Markowitz]

Mostly peaceful. Just some vandalism, some Tesla set on fire. We'll be right back on. Normally.

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[Carol Markowitz]

Going on around the country. A really, really sad one happened in South Florida. I saw a video of it the other day. They managed like 12 people at the Tesla plant in Delray Beach. It's really, I think, unsettling because look, I get that these people are really mad at Elon Musk, but Elon Musk only owns only has 12.8% of Tesla equity. So they're really just harming people who have nothing to do with anything. And it's interesting, of course, the additional angle that Tesla's an electric car. The people posing Elon are largely on the left. They should be loving their electric car. In California, I saw a bumper sticker that said something like, I bought this before Elon went crazy on a Tesla. Which is like, okay, like I don't even. Do we know what the other car manufacturers top Equity owner believes we don't. Right?

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

No.

[Carol Markowitz]

For better or worse, Elon is out there and I find it difficult to wrap my mind around that. People are blaming him for this because it's clearly unbalanced people who are causing vandalism and, oh, yeah, doing really crazy stuff. Yeah. Obviously not a fan. But I also think that the people doing it should be harshly punished. Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

I mean, remind me, are the good guys the ones burning the electric cars or the guy who made the electric cars? But that's the thing that's astounding to me. I've always found Teslas to be interesting and the company to be interesting. The only problem I had with it was any government subsidies it got because I'm boringly consistent that way.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yes. How dare you.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

He did the thing where he made electric cars. High performing and cool.

[Carol Markowitz]

I have.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

He did the thing you guys wanted lefties. And now eco warriors are like, let's set fire to a whole lot of of Teslas. And they've done this, by the way, in several places. There's headlines from Seattle, I think, in California. This is, this is the kind of thing that if it was the left throwing Molotov cocktails at a North Charleston Tesla charging station.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

If it wasn't the left and it was the right doing this because they didn't like whoever owned a company, you'd get a lot more national coverage of this horrific threat to democracy. But political violence on the left is not treated the same in the media.

[Carol Markowitz]

And frankly, shrugged off. Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Luigi Mangione set such a low low in the in hell bar that now the lefties are like, I mean, we didn't murder him.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right. We could do whatever we want. It's just property. Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Scary prospect, but that is what they think. They think the murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was sort of kind of like deserved.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

And acceptable. Maybe even laudatory. And. And now they're like, well, we've really done you guys a favor by stepping it down and just burning a few cybertrucks.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right. You know, I think that if the right were to respond even similarly, we'd see, you know, mass unrest. Let's just say it wouldn't go quite so swimmingly. So but Donald Trump had a Tesla at the White House and he said, ooh, everything's computer. Everything's computer. And let me tell you, everything is computer.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Everything's computer. There was a guy who tweeted, I'll leave the curse words out of it, because that was my Linton sacrifice. But he says, f this guy. I hate this man. I hate how funny he is. I hate how he puts things in my lexicon without my consent. Like, everything's electric, everything's computer.

[Carol Markowitz]

Everything is computer because it really fits again. I have a Tesla. I love my Tesla. I love the self drive more than anything. Even though I still, you know, I still hold on and I still watch the road. I know people, I won't name any names who completely, you know, let the Tesla take over. I'm not quite there yet, but it's the future. Everything's computer. And it's amazing. I really do love it.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

The first time I ever rode in a Tesla, by the way, was with Vincent Gallo in la.

[Carol Markowitz]

You know, I love him. He was like an early, early crush for me. And then I found out he was conservative much later and I was like, wow, I really know how to pick them.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

We did one of those secret conservative meetups in, in la and I rode in a Tesla in the early, early days before anybody had one. And it was. Everything was computer then.

[Carol Markowitz]

I'm going to have to look up what Vincent Gallo is up to. I haven't heard from him in a while. Please don't let him be a Nazi. Like just, you know, it's one of.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Those, like Google carefully.

[Carol Markowitz]

I don't know. Yeah, I deserve whatever I get here. We're going to take a short break and come right back with Normale with.

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[Carol Markowitz]

It is five years since the COVID lockdowns began. We are around the five year mark and it is something I'm still mad about, bro. And I know that we talk about it on the show a lot, probably more than other shows do because we are still mad and just, you know, the importance of looking back right now. I think so many times we hear about new viruses or new things coming up. And you're like, but now I know what to do. Now. I won't believe anything you people are saying. It's a dangerous place to be. I don't trust our health officials at all. I'm glad that Jay Bhattacharya is at nih. That makes it far more trustworthy for me.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

It is a nice bow on the five year.

[Carol Markowitz]

It is. It absolutely is. He was, of course, somebody who opposed the lockdowns and did it at tremendous personal cost. He was really shunned by his peers. He was treated like a lunatic when, of course, he was right about all of it.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Labeled a fringe epidemiologist who works at Stanford like all the fringe epidemiologists do. Yes.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah. And you and I listen, you and I were right about quite a lot. Also, I do like to pat us on the back because a lot of things that people say, oh, how could we have known? Or we didn't know? We like to say, oh, we knew.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

We knew.

[Carol Markowitz]

We knew the whole time. We knew that this was going to be bad for kids. We had no illusions that taking away school from only public school kids was going to be a problem for the poorest kids in the country. And that's exactly where we are now.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Yeah, it was obvious. The things that people say we didn't know. And that's the line that my counterpart used on me on Fox News this Sunday. It's like, oh, people just learned as they went. It's like, okay, but at the beginning, we knew outside, safer than inside, old in more danger than young. Those were just facts known from the beginning that should have protected both school children being shut out of school and old people being thrown into nursing homes and hospitals. Together with COVID in New York. So those two things, or like, you know, opening parks outside. I remember I went out to Colorado early in the pandemic, I confess. And I went to Colorado, and we couldn't go up the Manitou Incline, which is a famous hike, because it was closed. And they said they would fine you thousands of dollars if you attempted to walk up an outdoor staircase in the Colorado mountains.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yep. It made no sense, and we knew it even at the time. It's also hard to go back. And I think that that's a lesson that I hope people learn going forward, is that once you do stupid things, it gets very, very hard to stop doing them. For example, New York keeps setting records for children not going to school in 2025. They continue to have absences at astronomical numbers. Because when par school was not that important, it penetrated. People believed them. And now kids go to school kind of whenever they feel like it. Another thing, Liz Wolf, who writes for Reason, she's fantastic, keeps pointing out that they keep closing down playgrounds. Now, in my childhood in Brooklyn, playgrounds were open in, you know, six feet of snow. It didn't matter. Everything was open all the time. Now it's like, oh, the weather's a little iffy. We're going to close the playground just in case. And she basically, you know, climbs over the fence with her, with her son and they play on the toy on all the structures. So it gets harder to stop doing dumb things once you start doing them. Always best to not do them in the first place.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Well, and I think humans are not particularly great at rational risk analysis to begin with. And then what we did during the pandemic is that we demonized rational risk analysis. And that's why Jai Bhattacharya got in trouble. That's why people like you and I were shamed, because we were like, well, we are healthy and in an age range that this is not likely to hurt us a bunch. Our children are even less susceptible to being hurt badly. And we are therefore going to try to live life the best we can. I think it's important to say that I'm proud that we made those decisions. Right. I am glad that I didn't put my kids through what a lot of kids went through when they ended up with parents who were not standing in the breach for them, who were using them as a shield instead of being a shield for them. Like, some of the behavior of parents was absolutely outrageous. Putting their kids and tiny kids in guest rooms and basements and feeding them under a crack in the door when they had Covid. I mean, it's just.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, I'll just say when my kids had Covid, they were all over me. They were like on top of me. And I never got it. I never got Covid. That's the other, you know.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Amazing.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

So when I. The first time I ever got Covid, which was of course like a year and a half, two years in, even though I had been gallivanting, I had it with a several month old baby. And like, you know, this is the problem with coverage of the pandemic as well, is that at the time I knew if I wrote an emotive piece about how devastating it was to be to put my newborn in a bathroom by herself, it'd be the New York Times because I had to protect her from COVID I would have gotten a New York Times column.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

But if I write a piece that's like, yeah, I just, like, breastfed the baby and assumed everything would be fine, and then everything was fine. That's not an op Ed, it turns out.

[Carol Markowitz]

Not allowed. Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

But I think we needed much more of the chill version of that in the news.

[Carol Markowitz]

I kept waiting to get Covid so that I could write the tweet that I had planned. You know, a lot of people had the I did everything right, but look, I got Covid. And I wanted to be like, I did everything wrong. And look, I got Covid. Covid. But, yeah, never happened. You know, I'll just credit my strong Russian blood for that, I guess.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Yeah. I also think I can't remember the date, but it was maybe early 2021. I think it was past the vaccines and past, like, when we were already an Omicron era, when things were clearly less dangerous. And you and I did a clubhouse with some other folks. Liz Wolf might actually have been there. Nancy Rommelman, for sure.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Where we said, y'all gotta get out. Like, everybody's got it. Now's the time to declare that you're done being in your house, that you're reclaiming your old life. And I remember at the time, some people in the clubhouse, which was just an audio only, sort of like X spaces, is now some people being skeptical, like, why are y'all even talking about this? Because obviously people will reclaim their lives. But as you say, once you've broken the habit of living life, it becomes harder to go out and live life. And a lot of people have stayed stuck, way more stuck than they should have, for sure.

[Carol Markowitz]

The flip side of that is that when we moved to Florida in January of 2022, and that was, you know, we had already done, like, five months in Florida in 2021, and we went back to New York trying to figure things out and realized we can't stay there and made the permanent move. When we moved down here, even I met, like, even liberals down here. They'd be like, oh, what? What made you leave New York? And I'd be like, oh, the COVID insanity. And they'd be like, what are you talking about? And I would like, well, our kids are still masking there. And they're like, what? In 2022? And they had no idea. Like, there was no way for them to really understand what was going on. I was like, I only have my kids masking in January 22, when we moved down here, they were eating lunch outside on the ground in the cold in New York, pulling their mask down between bites. And my middle son, who is argumentative and loves to debate, was constantly getting into these fights with staff and other students. Other students was, like, actually a big one. They'd be like, you know, pull up your mask. Pull up your mask. And he'd be like, it doesn't work anyway.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

And it was just.

[Carol Markowitz]

But. But at the same time, old people, like, you know, you say old people, young people. It was a major difference in Covid, you know, poor outcomes. Old people in New York were dining inside at restaurants, full on, masks off, and everything was fine. It just. None of it made any sense. And that is what I had to get my kids away from. I kept thinking that I can't have them living in this crazy place, doing these crazy things that we all know in January of 2022 don't work.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

We were also in a crazy place because we're in Northern Virginia, but we had a sort of a crew of people who were doctors, nurses, law enforcement, or military, and they just had to work. They were all working. And so all of our houses were, to some extent, exposed, and we all were dirty. We were all pretty comfortable with the idea that we were exposed and that that was just how life worked. And so we would hang out together and, you know, be icky together.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right, right. I remember people, like, looking at us like, you guys are, you know, you're just too loose, getting around too much.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

It was wild. At one point in 2020, I offered to have kids at my home who had essential worker parents who couldn't have childcare for them. And I was like, look, we're not a pod. Like, we're exposed. But if you have kids that you need care for, please don't shame me. But I'm offering my home as a place that they could do zoom class. I can supervise. Just putting that Facebook post up was so scary because I knew someone was going to jump in there and say, how dare you do this to your neighborhood. You're going to kill somebody's grandma. By the way, our grandparents in our family were like, oh, we will be seeing the children.

[Carol Markowitz]

My. My mom, like, three weeks in, was like, this is the longest six months of my life.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

I think we waited, like, a month.

[Carol Markowitz]

We don't want to anymore.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

You know, I think we made. We waited like a month and a half. And then I was like, maybe we should do outdoors, because I was more worried about them than us.

[Carol Markowitz]

Sure. Yes.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

And the grandparents in our family luckily, all quite healthy. Were like, nah, we're just gonna hang out because we're family and we did it and everybody was fine.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right. But you know, I just to wrap this up, it's five years. We obviously are over a lot of it. Not over some other stuff, but we did have a lot of negativity thrown at us and we were right. I got threats. I'm sure you did too. In November of 2020, I wrote spend Thanksgiving with your family. And that got me an avalanche of abuse on the Internet. Of course, all the people who told us not to spend Thanksgiving with our families, like my then governor, now possible New York City mayor candidate Andrew Cuomo, he was planning to spend it with his family. So while we were supposed to not see our families on Thanksgiving, the people in charge were totally doing whatever they wanted.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Dr. Deborah Burks did the same thing at one point.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah. Gavin Newsom. I mean, they all just did whatever they wanted and we took a lot of abuse for it. And I definitely feel like we came out stronger on the other side. But I'm not quite forgiven that yet. Not that anybody's asked for that forgiveness.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Yeah, I know that's not top of their minds. Well, there is one sort of consequence that is rearing its head this week, which we will close out with just for the stats for you guys. Half of the Department of Education, Federal Department of Education is now laid off. They were told to leave by 6pm from their headquarters yesterday in Washington. Although I hope they sent that email out before too, because ain't nobody was at the Department of education at 6pm you got to catch them early. 1300 people laid off. There will be rending of garments. There will be screaming from Randy Weingarten. These people didn't care about disruptions in education.

[Carol Markowitz]

Not at all.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

They only care about a disruption in the racket of the pass through of bureaucratic funds that go straight to their pockets and not largely to education. So when people complain about this, I will be checking to see if they complained about the 18 months that every child in every public school in every major metro area was out of school.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yep.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Because this is the consequence of losing public trust and not doing your job.

[Carol Markowitz]

That's right. This is the FO to the fa.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Yep.

[Carol Markowitz]

I didn't give up cursing for Lent. I could have just said it. But I'm with you in solidarity.

[Mary Katherine Hamm]

Thank you. That's very kind.

[Carol Markowitz]

Thanks for joining us on normally normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcast. Drop us an email@ normallythepodmail.com thanks for listening. And when things get weird, act normally.

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