I didn't hear back on normally the show with normal, which takes for when the news gets weird.

I am Mary Catherine Haham, and I'm Carol Markowitz.

Mary Catherine.

Is Halloween your favorite holiday?

It's not my favorite holiday, but it's second to Christmas.

Second to Christmas?

That makes sense.

Yeah, it's like very close.

You really bring it.

I try.

I mean over the years, your costume is just incredible.

I didn't know who you were this last one, but a lot of people were very impressed with you after I posted the picture of us together on my Instagram.

Well, I'm so glad, Yes we were.

For those who didn't see the picture, we'll put it on our socials.

But we were two of the characters from The Great British Baking Show, So Prue and Noel my husband and I.

The thing is, I inexplicably found a man who is very into the same things I'm into.

So that was like one of the reasons we got together is when we first started dating, I was like, wait, you want to put together a costume because I want to put together Let's do it together.

Yeah.

So, mister giant shoulders in the gym all the time is like, yes, I will nitpicked your costume for accuracy.

It's a cuss play.

Dude, he's so awesome.

I mean, I have only met your husband a few times, but I just every time he's around, he is so much fun and you guys are just fantastic together.

He's a good dude.

He's a good dude.

So yeah, well we pulled it off.

The kids kind of freelanced this year, so I let them do their own thing.

And my four year old, I don't know if I mentioned, was poop Yep.

I love it.

She was poop yep.

She picked it and she wanted it, and you guys are awesome.

We made it happen.

So anyway, all right.

Well, Halloween is over.

I felt like, even though it was only Friday, went on through the weekend.

I feel like everybody was just drunk and high on chocolate.

I picked up all the wrappers around my house on Saturday and then did it all again on Sunday.

I don't know where they blew in from, but.

Yeah, it's well.

My husband is also he's like a sweetz aholic.

We don't really keep stuff in the house in general, so when Halloween hits, like you got he handed out the candy a couple of years in a row, and I would come back to the house and be like, what's wrong with you?

And he had just oh deed.

And for the child, one for me, handful for the kids.

We don't leave them along with it.

So well, y well, we're on to the next holiday, which of course is election day.

That's right.

We are recording it the day before election day.

This will be released on election Day across the country.

And it's not looking very good.

It's not.

But I will say, and I said this on the show, I think last episode or two episodes ago, if it's even close, I think Republicans should be happy about that.

It is tough times out there for Republicans in these particular races.

Two are in deep blue New Jersey and New York City, very deep blue.

One is in a purply angry state that's mad about the shutdown right now, which is of course home state of Virginia.

These are not going to be easy for Republicans.

No, and I'm getting wildly conflicting messages about early voting and turnout that I'm trying to reconcile with each other.

Look, I will say that even though it is an uphill battle in Virginia.

Republicans are making a good showing.

Yeah, certainly a respectable showing in the early voting totals compared to other years.

Youngkin's great contribution to the Virginia GOP.

Among many other things, He's been a very good governor, but is to have increased the party's capabilities when it comes to getting people out to vote when it comes to running up totals in rural areas, which had not been done well previous to that, particularly trying to answer the urban surges during the Obama years.

So I do think I saw somebody say that in all the polling that shows, obviously we'd like the AG race to turn out a Republican win, just to keep the guy who wants me and my children dead off of out public office, who, by the way, was on stage at the Obama rally.

Right Obama was like, we should be able to disagree without disrespecting each other, and then there's mister kill everybody.

Anyway, we'd like that to be a win.

I saw a stat that was encouraging that is, like, if span Berger, who is the top of the ticket, doesn't win by eleven plus, the AG race goes Republican, she can't drag him across the line.

So if we could keep it.

Dight, keep it dight?

Is she pulling eleven plus?

I feel like everything I've seen has her seven or eight.

Yeah, it's it's more like kissing double digits, but not quite there.

Okay, all right, Virginia, you know what to do New York City.

I just have so many friends who are so hopeful that Cuomo was going to pull it out, And I mean maybe every time, you know, I can't like you.

I'm parsing these early vote totals, like, oh, look, the Hasidic Jewish communities have really come out in the early voting days.

But like, I don't know that city's super blue.

I think a lot of people walk into the booth and vote either Republican or Democrat.

And Cuomo is running on the third party line, Like we have to like he's also my mom, and be like, you can't go in and vote Republican.

You have to vote.

You have to find Andrew Como on his weird third party line.

That's part of it.

His ballot placement is very bad.

He's stuck in the middle of a second row.

Yeah, I should also note that for Republicans, and this is something that again Youngkin has worked on correcting for but four Republicans because of the realignment of the kind of voters Republicans get.

Now, Republicans have.

Lower propensity voters, which means they are less likely to come out in an off year election.

The suburban moms are the put it on your calendar, do all the things for make sure that we show up every single time there's a vote.

Young male new voters.

Not as likely to be showing up every time.

So that is a sort of an evolution in the party that does cause problem.

And these off your elections if you're not working really hard to get people out, and credit to Yankin and Scott Pressler and others who.

Do the hard work on the ground to make that happen.

Absolutely Republicans need to like put a voting booth in the toilet paper aisle where you buy like the single pack of toilet paper that single men go for, like because again suburban moms ordering it on Amazon, getting like a four month pack, you.

Know, and then like the single heat up meals like those are that's this is ours, this is our area.

I should note also just for y'all's education.

That California is of course considering Proposition fifty.

That's their their their constitutional amendment to change the way that they do redistricting so that they can have more democratic seats.

Voters in Texas will decide whether to amend the constitution to say that persons who are not citizens of the United States cannot vote in Texas.

I'm sure the Libs find this very controversial.

In Maine, they're doing some voting changes.

There's a gun law question on Maine's ballot.

Parental rights in Texas, an amendment that would affirm that parents are the primary decision makers for their children and a couple, like environmental things other places, but those are the Nothing is dominating the ballot measures this year.

There's no big theme like there's in the past.

It's been abortion related stuff, right this year, not a big theme.

I think it's just do hate Donald Trump.

If so, come vote for the Democrats.

That's that's where they are right now, which is not a bad place to be because a lot of these people do hate Donald Trump and want to send a message.

So there will be that message.

I think I mentioned in a previous episode that Miami is having an election and a I don't want to call her far left because it does dilute the term because she's not an AOC, she's not his arm I'm Donnie.

But for Florida, she's pretty left.

Is leading in the polls, and there's like a mayoral race.

It's a mayoral race.

It's different than New York City because Miami has like six mayors and it's not just you know, she's going to run like three neighborhoods basically if she wins, but it's still important.

But there's like ten candidates running and one of them is endorsed by Ron DeSantis.

It looks like this woman, Eileen versus I believe his name is Gonzales are going to be in a runoff together.

And then at that point it's also non part is an election.

I should know.

They're not running on party lines, so it's different.

But again, if a liberal or a leftist or whatever somewhere between wins mayor of Miami, that does kind of slow down Republican momentum going into the midterms.

It's a small, nothing race, but it sends a message that the Democrats, you know, who have been massively unpopular in the last year.

Maybe are mounting a little bit of a comeback.

Yeah, we shall see.

I'm interested in what do you think of Obama showing up at the end in New Jersey?

So funny he went to New Jersey too, right?

Yeah he did?

Yeah, you know, like you said, his whole like we have to be better, do each other thing.

Like I see him as the most divisive president.

He is the one who I feel like split us apart in a way that we haven't been able to recover from.

It wasn't George W.

Bush.

It was not George W.

Bush who did that.

It was Barack Obama.

I don't know.

I guess it means that they think it's closer.

But if it's not close, is he not going to come?

I don't know.

The thing about him is it's such a myth that he has coattails, right he is.

He is an important figure and then a party, but he has never really brought people across the line in the way that they sort of pretend he does when they're like we're bringing in the big guns and it's like okay.

But while he was in office, you guys.

Lost thousands lots of things, thousands.

Of seats where he was speaking, and then I think for me, you know, I've always frequently seen through Obama's rhetoric about how we should all.

Be good to each other.

But standing on the stage and giving that speel the same stage that the Ages nominee who wants to shoot the Speaker of the House and Replican Speaker of the House in Virginia.

Okay, enough enough, sir.

Yeah, I like that.

It means that they are nervous.

It's closer, right, Yeah, It's closer than they want it to be, which again.

Would be huge.

All of these races matter obviously for the people living in those places, but on a national level, what these races matter for really is to see where the midterms are headed.

And I think they'll give us a little bit of a preview.

Again, it's probably going to be a Democratic sweep, but it has to be a democratic sweep.

If it's not a Democratic sweep, Democrats in a world of hurt going into the midterms.

Again, if it's close, that that's very good for Republicans.

Can I also say too, by the way, when some seiarus has been doing the work on the ground, she's been trying to take advantage of all these insane Northern Virginia school board policies which are just awful.

There's tons of controversies going on.

Are Soros funded prosecutor in my county that just lets people out willy nilly all of that stuff?

Didn't do that I would.

I would like to say.

I read a New Yorker piece that was like, Abigail Spenberger thinks that Democrats need to listen more, and it's like, Okay, again, she's posing as the normy savior, and I think that if she wins, it's not by virtue of being normy, unless by being normy you just mean she's not mom Dannie.

Like that's gonna be a low bar that a lot of Democrats are going to celebrate clearing.

Yeah, because I don't think she actually wants to listen.

She hasn't moderated on gender issues, She hasn't been willing to speak up about any of these controversies, things that are again eighty twenty issues.

She just keeps her mouth shut.

She wants the state to be a sanctuary state at some level, she's like, doesn't want to cut that off.

And then she was asked this weekend if she would work with Trump on like job development and making sure that Virginas have jobs.

Here's her answer to that.

You position yourself as a consensus builder, someone who works across the aisle.

Would you work with President Trump on areas like job creation?

I think that you know you don't work with the arsonist who burns down the house to rebuild it, and in this particular case, on the individual who's responsible for an absolute attack on the federal workforce is not the right person to help rebuild our economy.

Are you going to work with Donald Trump?

No?

No, definitely not.

And a lot of her sort of mythos.

She did win in a swing district in Virginia that had a lot of rural area in it, But I have been surprised how unimpressive she is on the trail at moments like this.

And her whole claim to fame is that in twenty twenty, in a private discussion with Democrats, she said, like, we need to lean away from this defund the police craziness.

Yeah, good point, Representative Spanburger.

That was a leaked conversation.

She didn't say that all.

I just think her credits and the normy area are not as strong as people will suggest they are.

It's funny because it's usually for Democrats.

It's like the private conversations are further to the left.

She has to pretend to be more of a leftist than she is to get elected.

That's great, that's great.

Anyway, we will cure it on those results when we have them.

Yeah, we'll be right back with more on normally.

We are back on normally, with a little infighting on the right, although I don't love the way that sounds because I don't consider some of the people involved to be on the right anymore or ever.

Really, last episode, we talked about Tucker Carlson having white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

I don't even know what to call him, white supremacist, just racist, anti semitic, very misogynistic, just a gross human on his show.

He softballed Tucker, gave him softball questions and really kind of tried to normalize fuents This story would have maybe started to die down.

I mean, how long can we talk about a podcaster having another podcaster on his show.

Tucker's been heading in a really dark direction.

As I like to say, I was a big fan of Tucker when he was a conservative.

I don't really see any conservative values from him anymore.

He makes fun of Trump administration accomplishments like no boys in girls' sports, or he opposed the strike on Iran, which listen, I get it, you could oppose, but he thinks there was a failure, and I'm sorry.

It just there's no way you could see it like that.

The new news that happened is the Heritage Foundation, which is a storied conservative organization, has into this debate.

This story.

Yeah, and Heritage, by the way, sort of got it is known best or it's sort of its origin story was that a couple of conservatives were like, we need something that actually creates Paulo's so that if there's someone ever elected who's conservative while we're in the wilderness in the late seventies, we could be able to hand them something.

And that something was a lot of the architecture for Reagan's term.

Not that Reagan of course didn't have his own ideas, but there was a blueprint handed out that was like called the Mandate for Leadership controversially renamed Project twenty twenty five from the very boring version that they used to call it.

So Mandate for Leadership was like sort of like an underpinning of Reagan's years, and so that has been the jumping off point for the rest of Heritage history.

But Heritage has undergone evolution as the Republican Party and the Conservative movement has undergone evolution, and this seems like an evolution I'm not excited about.

Yeah.

So, Kevin Roberts is the current president of Heritage and Heritage Action, and I really like him.

I am not in any way anti Kevin Roberts.

I thought he was doing a fantastic job at Heritage.

I get the criticisms of Project twenty twenty five, but I thought a lot of it was really smart.

It's crazy to me that we're having this conversation about Kevin Roberts because I always saw him as such a kind of not middle of the road.

That's the wrong term.

Very again, maybe normal, maybe normal is the way to go here.

I saw him as a normal guy.

So what he did on Friday is he put out a video and he tweeted, I'm sorry it wasn't Friday, it was Thursday.

He said.

There's been speculation that Heritage is distancing itself from Tucker Carlson over the past twenty four hours.

I want to put that to rest right now here are my thoughts, and he just said such inflammatory things.

Let's roll a clip that I think was particularly inflammatory.

We will always defend America, and we will always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else's agenda.

That includes Tucker Carlson, who remains and as I have said before, always will be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.

The venomous coalition attacking him are sewing division.

Their attempt to cancel him will fail.

The venomous coalition who serves somebody else's interests.

It's a really dark kind of phrasing, and I think a lot of people were shocked at it.

The thing is and what I've loved so much about being a conservative always, but really in the last week when this bubbled up, when Fentis went on Tucker's show, it was near unanimous condemnation from conservatives.

Of course, there are some who are like, you know, let's hear the crazy white supremacists who hated Charlie Kirk and tried to get people to not vote for Donald Trump in this last election.

Let's hear him out.

And I don't think the hearing him out is the problem.

So much as he went completely unchallenged by Tucker Carlston because Tucker himself has gone down this terrible road where he's obsessed with Jews and with Israel, and all of his shows and all of his newsletters are only and always about this.

So for Kevin Roberts to get into this and say we will stand by Tucker no matter what he says was just a crazy thing to do.

And the backlash to this has been swift and I just love to see it.

Yeah, And apparently what triggered this was someone took down an internal web page or not an internal webpage but not an important part of the website, but something that referenced Carlson on the heritage website.

And then there was this like they felt the need to set the record straight while all of us were setting the record straight that like probably hosting right white nationalist is not a great idea now important for the right also not just the standing up on this, but I didn't see one person call for Tucker to not have a play right right.

Zero people said that, or who was trying to cancel him.

Here people are saying that what they are saying is like, look, I wouldn't make the decision to have Fintus on my show.

I don't think it's good to elevent like him.

I want my guardrails like way out here with a lot of allowable speech.

But like I'm not hosting that.

Okay, Yeah, how if I did this, I would ask difficult questions.

If someone wishes to host him, please grill him.

And I know you're smart enough to do it.

Yeah.

So it was to me an unforced error, but telling that the head of Heritage Foundation felt the need to stand up on this point, and he said, you know, I find some of Foin's views abhorrent, but like we don't sort of shut off discussion, and it's like, okay.

The other thing is Tucker's whole thing is saying the rest of us are wrong about everything, right, right, if indeed we are on the same side, which, as you point out, it feels very much not like that, then why is he not in trouble for coming at everybody else?

Exactly?

It's only one side and this has been the point.

Also on the Tucker Finds interview, Tucker said that he hates Christian Zionists, and again, Charlie Kirk was murdered not even two months ago, and he was I think he was the most famous Christian Zionist in the country.

Like I can't think of anybody bigger than Charlie Kirk on Christian Zionism.

But what is Tucker saying here, And it's just it's mind boggling.

Well, and the fact that he can so often say, all these people on the right, he hates this person, and he hates this person, and he hates this person and he hates this person.

And that's not sowing divisions somehow that's a problem.

Well, and also to that point, let me commend Dana lash who amazing, which is so great, who is a conservative who has worked with heritage forever as many of us have, right, and she went to them and said to her contacts over there, like get him on the show so that I can talk to him and ask him what you guys are doing.

Because this is one of these things that can.

Feel very in the weeds, and it is right, this is this is an online conversation has a movement conversation, not a normy conversation.

However, what happens in.

These fights dictated what flows downstream eventually.

So that's the fight we're having Dana Lash was in the fight and she had a question about exactly what were you were saying for Kevin Roberts, and this was his response.

What we're trying to do is eliminate that kind of venom both directions.

Is it venomous to say that you hate Christian zionis?

Well, of course it is.

I mean, I've been really clear, not just yesterday and today, but my entire career that and Heritage certainly has in its entire existence, that those kinds of things are just abhorrent.

I was I said that literally yesterday.

Because Tucker said those things, So that would be I mean, is that not so?

In division?

It's certainly not helpful, but it doesn't mean that he ought to be canceled because of it.

In fact, that's not the question is not whether he should be canceled.

Is that so in division to say things like that.

Certainly, and a lot of our friend's minds.

But the point that you didn't put that in your statement.

Because the proximity or the context for the statement was something very different.

And that was, as we were talking about a few minutes ago, all of the pressure that Heritage was receiving to cancel Tucker, which is not we wouldn't do that to you, We wouldn't do that to him.

That's the question.

He also seemed very surprised by many of the things that she brought up that Tucker has said, which led people to believe that he didn't write the video, he didn't write the text for the video, and then his chief of staff was moved to some other part of Heritage Foundation and people like, oh, maybe that's who wrote it.

Again, you're right, this is so in the weeds.

But another defense of Tucker that I keep seeing online is why are we wasting time talking about this?

We have real issues, we have a real fight with the left.

And again I say, take this up with Tucker Cross.

Why is he not talking about any of the issues that we have with the left?

Why is he constantly constantly only going after people on the right, And why is he constantly only talking about Israel, only talking about Jews, making that the focal point of every single episode.

It's just there's something about that that is dark, and I think that you can't ignore that and pretend that we're the ones who keep talking about Tucker.

No, he's the one who keeps bringing the conversation back to this, And I'll also say Tucker does these newsletters now, and the newsletters are almost entirely about Israel or Jews.

So on today's newsletter, the headline is Trump threatens to defund Nigeria if Christian killings continue.

Now you would think Tucker Carlston, self proclaimed Christian, would before this.

He doesn't come off as super four defunding Nigeria.

In fact, guess what he found a way to bring it back to He says, so, how come Mark Levin would label him an anti Jewish racist if he made the exact same statement about Israel.

Isn't that a weird double standard?

This may be hard for Levin and his ethno narcissist caucus to accept, but criticism of their beloved country has nothing to do with Judaism, just like Trump's statement on Nigeria is not an attack on blacks.

It's about putting America first.

Christians are being slaughtered, and this is what your argument is.

It just there's nothing conservative going on here.

Well, and I think you could deploy the same bandwidth an attention argument against Roberts, who I think probably has learned a lesson from this that maybe the one straight to camera video you do in a week shouldn't be about this.

Yeah, right, it really That's what it signaled to me, is like, oh, this is a very big deal to him that he did this video.

And I think part of that, again, this is the struggle.

Part of that is because there is a young cohort of right leaning young people that I think misc Some people are thinking the only way to keep these people yes in the movement is to host this guy.

And I'm like, no, no, no, perhaps we should host better people, right, and.

This will argue about this guy.

Yeah, the vacuum left by Charlie Kirk is so damaging because he was the model for that.

You're absolutely right, all right.

I'm going to end with two white pills, as the kids say, and one of them, actually tweets actually contain contains the phrase white pill.

This one's from Joel Berry.

He says it's a major white pill, which means a positive thing.

That the Heritage Foundation gave no enemies to the right a mainstream test drive this week, and it blew up in their faces because the American right still has a conscience and a moral compass.

Praise Praise Christ the King for small mercies, and I just you know, I love that so much, because again I wasn't sure how it was going to go.

I wasn't sure that the right was going to say absolutely not not on our watch.

Tucker is a very popular figure.

I've said it before, but he is very personable.

I really used to like him and care about him a lot.

I understand that impulse from other people, but he is leading us down a dangerous path.

The other tweet similar to this is from Abe Greenwald.

He says the right responded to half a dozen Jew hating podcasters and one think tank president with overwhelming and immediate condemnation.

The left encouraged two years of abject pro jihad support and terrorism to thrive without ever putting its foot down.

I'm so glad we're not doing the same as the left has done here well.

And I want to say also just in a general sense, because of the generational change in views on Israel, which may be recovered.

At some points, but.

The lasting victory of Israel from seven fronts during the past two years, pretty again, good bye President Trump, really important for moving forward if in fact the public.

Turn off the.

Changes in these coming generations.

And you know, there can be work to do about educating people about our only, our only liberal democracy alley in the Middle East.

It's pretty important.

Yeah, all right, I'll end this.

I am not worried about Israel.

I'm worried about America.

When I hear the Tuckers and the Fuentesses, I'm not like, oh God, Israel's going to suffer because of this.

I think America is going to suffer because of this.

Israel will be just fine.

Will we be just fine if we take their path?

I don't know.

I mean, you can look around at the left for the last couple of years.

You really can.

Great.

No, no good, all right, we'll be right back with more on normally.

We are back on normally where Erica Kirk, Charlie's widow is getting some really gross condemnation and we are here to say absolutely not on our watch.

I told you guys, I was gonna be a widow defense because it is a strange thing in particularly if you're a public figure, that people really feel free to speculate about you, to question your motives.

I got this after my husband died in twenty fifteen, or people would just assume that I got jobs because no like it is gross.

It's a gross thing.

It happens not infrequently.

This woman is now, I think, like fifty five days from having watched her husband be murdered, and people are watching her under a microscope, and I think some of it is just like this is how this goes.

Some of it is she's too public and she's too powerful, and there are people both on left and right who do not like that.

But I got news for y'all.

Her name's Kirk.

She's legally the inheritor of his legacy.

She is now legally the inheritor of the organization that he ran.

That makes perfect sense.

If you don't like a lady doing that, you might get mad about it.

But like the accusations of the most recent one is somebody took a screenshot from a hug she gave Vice President jd Vance and alleged this is inappropriate.

If you watch the video, you'll know why they chose a screenshot because the video is like zero point seven seconds.

Right, right.

The hug is like hug moves, yeah, right.

But the desire is to plant these terrible seeds about this woman who is like just trying to get through it.

Guys, and by the way, trying to box out forces that are bad, trying to take over her husband's legacy.

She's been forced to do.

That, right.

Absolutely.

We mentioned in the last segment that Nick Fuentess hated Charlie Kirk and the feeling was mutual.

Charlie Kirk thought Nick Fuentess was bringing some of the absolute worst elements in the country out, And yeah, Erica now needs to preserve TPUSA from that Fuentas wing and finds frequently talks and brags about bringing down TPUSA.

So this is a woman who is not only preserving her family, having to take care of her children who watched her husband, as you said, be murdered right in front of her.

She's also somebody who has to protect this organization and she's doing the best she can.

I pray for her, and we're absolutely not going to stand for any Erica Kirk bashing.

Yeah, one last thought, Kyle Kulinski was perhaps among the worst behaved.

He is a liberal commentator married to Crystal Ball, and he just went on a full day long AI disgusting display attacking her for her fake grief for what you know, alleging that she was in affairs with people.

It's so disgusting.

It should be counterproductive for their movement and anyone making this kind of accusation, and I hope that it is.

And he got a lot of flak for it, but the fact that he kept posting it is one of the things I dislike about the Internet, which is like more clicks meant more money for him for this disgusting stuff.

It's really terrible, and I saw people on the right also engaging with it.

Again, I think it's that same point as Wing engaging with it and saying, you know, she's not just appropriately.

She needs to humble herself, she needs to be more modest.

I think she should do whatever she wants to do, especially to get through this incredibly difficult time.

And we are rooting for you, Erica Kirk.

We are indeed Widow Defense over here.

That's right, I'm back up.

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, act normally