Normally Podcast: Trump's Amnesty Bombshell, GOP Infighting & NVIDIA's Alleged China Spy Scandal

Mary Katharine Ham (0:07)

Hey, guys, we are back on Normally the Show with Normalish Takes for When the News Gets Weird. I am Mary Katharine Ham.

Karol Markowicz (0:12)

I'm Karol Markowicz. Things are going so great, Mary Katharine.

Mary Katharine Ham (0:16)

Hey, you know, we're processing, we're figuring out where everyone is, where's everyone headed, and sometimes it doesn't look good. Sometimes it doesn't look good, Karol.

Karol Markowicz (0:26)

No, it doesn't. I hate all the in-fighting and as you know, I shouldn't say that. I like some of the in-fighting.

Some of the in-fighting is a lot of fun to watch. There's a lot of influencer types accusing each other of taking money or posts and that kind of thing. Good. Let all those people get exposed. And the additional benefit to me is that some of those people accused me of taking money for posts, which I have never done not even once in my whole entire life.

So, I am enjoying that part of the in-fighting. But then it does spill over into people that I like, and I don't enjoy that at all because I'm like, you guys are essentially on the same side. Like, you're staying close to the same thing. You're just not saying it at each other. I don't know. So, yeah.

Mary Katharine Ham (1:14)

I think, by the way, one, I always enjoy having this sort of like economic refutation that I'm just like, I have four kids and live in a high cost of living area. If I were more crazy and took more money for all the things that people might offer, I'd be in much better position than I am. So, there's always that in my proof column when these contretemps come up.

Also, one of the things about the infighting is that, yeah, we have to decide as a group to some extent, whether you're loosely affiliated with the GOP and annoyed with it, or like you just jumped in last election and you're disillusioned, or you've been a long time adherent. Like, we all have to decide, what is the path that would actually give us benefits in the future and let people be leaders in thought and in policy?

Karol Markowicz (2:04)

Yeah, but also, what are we willing to give up? And I think that a lot of people in the last few days, it hasn't even been a week yet since the election disaster, have decided that we should give up everything to, because the mob and groups of people saying what they want, I don't think that we should do that. I actually don't think that people are as dialed in to the various, not policies, but the angles of policy that we are debating online. And I don't see that being the future where we're supposed to just not do the right thing because it might not be popular.

Mary Katharine Ham (2:47)

Well, and I think on this front, sometimes, and we're going to talk about the contrast to this, but sometimes on the issue with the Iran strikes, you will see Trump lead to some extent. I think that is an admirable quality where he stands up and is asked after the election, hey, would you do it again? And he says, yeah, I think this is a really big security issue. And it was basically a once in a lifetime shot. And I took it. And I think that was important.

JD Vance, by contrast, wrote a sort of an X article, which is a strange way to have your post-election reaction as the vice president of the United States. You're like, you're not the vice pundit of the United States. Right. Trump, I guess, is a little bit of a pundit, so maybe you are. So he writes his thing saying, well, the problem was the war and by the way, we should renegotiate our relationship with Israel. It's very much not in line with what Trump is saying.

And then Rubio is the contrast to Vance. He was speaking in the post-election reassessment about where he is on this, and he sounded like the guy who's standing alongside the president on this particular tough issue. Can we hear a little bit of that speech, which you gave alongside Trump?

Marco Rubio (4:05)

The most important thing a president can do for a country is to keep it safe. And there are people around the world who want to destroy it. They want to destroy our country. They want to destroy our way of life. He was elected to do the hard things.

The hard things. It would have been very easy to do what multiple presidents before him have done, but just ignore the Iran thing. Leave it for the next guy. Put it aside and don't worry about it. That would have been the easiest thing to do. Honestly, to just basically say, leave it alone, who cares? That's going to be someone's problem in the future. But this president didn't do that. He confronted it because what Iran wants to do is not just destroy our country, it's destroy our way of life and threaten our children. We cannot live in a world in which the most radical, terroristic regime on the planet possesses a weapon of mass destruction.