Normally Podcast: White House Correspondents’ Dinner Chaos: Trump Security Scare, Secret Service & Political Fallout
4/26/202643 mincomplete
0:00This is an iHeart Podcast.
0:02Guaranteed human. Hey guys, we are back on Normally, the show that normalists take you
0:13for when the news gets weird.
0:14This is a special episode.
0:16I am Mary Catherine Hamm.
0:17Because the news got weird, I am Carol Markowitz.
0:20It got real weird. Here we are in makeup on a Sunday, not the way
0:25God intended at all. No.
0:28Talking about the fact that yesterday you were at the White House Correspondents' Dinner and
0:34a wannabe shooter tried to break the security perimeter and get into the ballroom.
0:40Tell us about your experience, Mary Catherine.
0:43I was in the ballroom.
0:45I did not hear shots fired.
0:47The program had commenced. So there was, you know, they call it the voice of
0:52God. There was the PA voice telling us what to do.
0:55We had done the anthem and the presentation of the colors.
0:59The important VIPs had been brought in and announced and placed at the front table.
1:04And so that was all ongoing and fairly loud.
1:07The thing to know about this ballroom, by the way, is that 2 ,500 people
1:10fit in it. This is the reason that this event is held at this Hilton,
1:14because it does fit so many people.
1:18And it's basically the only one that can.
1:19And so it is very crowded in there.
1:22It's very loud. Everybody's talking to each other.
1:24I didn't hear shots. The girl at the table next to me did.
1:28Perhaps she was just pointed a different direction or had better hearing.
1:32But as soon as that happened, the thing I didn't hear, the doors in the
1:37back opened on all sides.
1:38And, excuse me, Secret Service came rushing in in columns.
1:45So then I knew, OK, something's up.
1:47So I had a whole column of Secret Service guys coming into the ballroom right
1:52next to our table, which was not super close, but not super far away either
1:56from the stage. And when I looked back up after I registered, these officers were
2:01coming in. And when I looked back up, everyone was gone from the stage.
2:04So it happened very quickly, even though I know we will talk about security.
2:08Yeah, we'll talk about it.
2:09Their criticism, it happened very quickly that everyone was off that stage and moved.
2:15Right. And from there, it was very confusing.
2:18I was happy to just be behind several chairs, peeking up.
2:23It seemed like there wasn't an immediate threat.
2:26There was one shout on the other side of the room of, like, USA.
2:30And I didn't know if that was, like, are we cheering for the president not
2:33getting shot or are we, is this another person?
2:35There were shouts of gun occasionally, but it was more like gun question mark, like
2:40we're sweeping the room kind of maybe.
2:42Oh, OK, OK. Yeah. OK.
2:44I get that from law enforcement.
2:45I was like, people under the tables are screaming gun.
2:47That is not a good idea, guys.
2:49I think it was them trying to communicate with each other.
2:53There were people under tables.
2:55And, you know, we didn't know what was happening.
2:57I'd be under a table.
2:59I have no illusions that I'd be one of those people eating my salad.
3:03I would not be. It was interesting to see that there were certain people who
3:06just, like, you know, were standing up trying to figure out what was going on.
3:10I was happy to be down here a little bit and blocked.
3:12And, like I said, it was fairly clear, medium quickly, that we weren't in immediate
3:18danger. And I was surrounded by so many Secret Service officers that I felt OK
3:23about where I was. And then maybe, I don't know, seven to ten minutes later,
3:28they were just, like, came back in.
3:30It was clear that everybody, whatever immediate danger had been assessed and everybody was moving
3:34out. And then they said, all right, come on, you guys, file out this way.
3:38And they take us back through the bowels of the Hilton to whatever exit, utility
3:44exit, that staff use or what have you.
3:47And we were ushered out that way.
3:49And while we're outside, we're told they're going to go on with the dinner because
3:53Trump apparently wanted to go ahead with the dinner.
3:57Yeah, which is, like, I get that.
3:59I get that he wanted to go.
4:01He doesn't want to cancel for some, you know, lunatic.
4:04I completely understand that. Yeah, you don't want to give him a shooter's veto, which
4:08is what that is. And obviously, they were like, oh, they're starting again.
4:13And I was like, well, there's no way they're letting us pass the security perimeter
4:17again. Right, right, just like right back in with no security.
4:19That doesn't seem like that's going to happen either.
4:21That's not going to happen.
4:22And, in fact, if it did, I would object.
4:24Like, I don't think you should be letting me in here.
4:26So we huddled outside for a little longer.
4:29And there was a lot of sirens.
4:31There was a lot of helicopters, a lot of everything.
4:33But we were free to go at that point.
4:35And my group, I was with some of the Real Clear Politics folks.
4:39Thank you for the invite to this historic occasion.
4:42And we walked up the street and I was like, there's a Brazilian restaurant.
4:45We should have some caipirinha and some steak.
4:47For sure. And that's what we did because getting an Uber at that moment would
4:51have been $1 ,000. Right, right.
4:54Because everyone was coming out at the exact same time.
4:56Yeah. So due to capitalism and surge pricing, I decided to wait a little while.
5:00Which we do generally like on the Normally podcast.
5:03Oh, yeah. I just knew if I wait longer, I can go home for cheaper.
5:07So that's what I did.
5:08I was not in fear of my personal safety for very long or very much.
5:15But nerve wracking. For sure.
5:17Yeah. I mean, you don't know.
5:19You don't know what's going on, right?
5:20You don't know, especially people screaming gun and like, you know, there might be a
5:23shooter, another shooter. Also, like...
5:26Going outside as a giant group, I feel like that would make me really nervous.
5:31Like, that would make me more nervous than being inside with all the Secret Service
5:35protection. Yes, that's why in the room I felt pretty okay, because we were surrounded
5:41by Secret Service. But once we started, yes, once we started filing out, at that
5:48point, things were very calm, and people had started to get reports from the outside.
5:51This is another wrinkle. None of us have service in there.
5:54It's crazy. It is. We're in the basement of the Hilton.
5:58There's no regular service. I think maybe some people had Wi -Fi.
6:02I couldn't get on it.
6:03I'm trying to get out a WhatsApp or a text just to my husband to
6:07tell him, like, when you hear something, I'm safe.
6:09And something did eventually get out, but it was very hard to get stuff out,
6:13and he couldn't get stuff to me.
6:15So eventually, a few minutes in, we were getting a little bit here and there,
6:19and he was able to tell me, it happened in the lobby, not even sure
6:24it was on your floor.
6:25But he's neutralized. And at the time, I think people thought he was dead, but
6:30he's not. So we had that information and felt that things were under control at
6:34that point. That's right. You know, Trump in the Post presser, which we'll talk about
7:09later, you know, he made sure to say that Secret Service did a fantastic job.
7:15And I think that that's probably true, right?
7:19Secret Service probably did do a fantastic job.
7:23But again, for those of us watching it from the safety of our homes, it
7:28appeared not the best. Like, one of the things that people keep talking about is
7:33J .D. Vance, Vice President J .D.
7:35Vance, gets pulled off the stage immediately, and then Trump doesn't.
7:38But we can't know what their calculation is.
7:40There is a Secret Service agent standing in front of Trump, and then there's several
7:44around him. But, you know, gauging from home, we're like, there should be more, and
7:49maybe they should pull him out first.
7:51And again, they don't know maybe moving him would be more dangerous.
7:54And I'm sure they're making all kinds of calculations that we're simply not privy to.
7:59Well, and certain officers might be in charge of certain people.
8:03And for Trump's part, look, you always got to give it up, and I do
8:07because I was in the room, for the men and women who are willing to
8:10put their bodies between you and danger.
8:12Absolutely. So, like, there were people actively doing that for me in the moment.
8:16I got to thank many of them on the way out.
8:19There are people who do that for us every day.
8:21And it's even more intense if you're the president or the vice president or need
8:24security. Shout out to the one guy who straight up walked onto the dais and
8:29stood square in front of the president.
8:31Like, I'm the guy going down if someone's going down.
8:34That's the guy I want running the show.
8:37So, I think one thing, like I said, in the moment, it felt very fast.
8:41Like, I looked over here, and then I looked back, and everybody was gone.
8:44I think you're correct watching the video.
8:46It does not feel that fast.
8:48You also can really hear the gunshots on the video streams.
8:52Right. And you could not in the room like that.
8:54Yeah. It did not sound like that.
8:56They obviously were dealing with the more present threat upstairs, and then it has to
9:00come downstairs, what they need to do and get everybody mobilized.
9:03One thing I will say is that the way that ballroom is set up and
9:09there's so many people inside it, those guys coming in from the doors, they need
9:13a better access path. Because when they came in, they're, like, jumping over tables and
9:18stuff. Right, right. And I'm like, that needs to be, these tables need to be
9:23further apart so that that can happen.
9:25Right, right. They're fitting in every single media member and, like, you know, admin officials.
9:30It's just, it's a lot.
9:31Yeah, like, maybe cut down the list a little bit.
9:33I'm like, I'll sacrifice my seat so you can have a clear lane.
9:36Right, right. But I don't go every year, by the way.
9:39I go, like, once every eight years.
9:40So this was an interesting one to attend.
9:43As far as the overall security goes, I have been to these before, and it's
9:48not my personal recollection what happened with security, but I have been doing some research.
9:52And apparently the hotel itself is not perimeterized.
9:58Right. Or as Dan Bongino explained it really well, as a former Secret Service agent
10:03himself, he was on Fox this morning and said, and I didn't, I don't remember
10:07the exact terminology, but basically they have an access funnel.
10:10So there's various areas that have increasing security as you get closer to the place
10:15where is going to be the actual event.
10:17So I had to show my ticket a block away, and they wouldn't let me
10:21pass there. Interesting. And someone had to physically bring me my ticket because they would
10:26not let me in there without a physical representation of my being credentialed for this.
10:32So there was that. And now that physical ticket isn't a big security save.
10:36Yeah, it's easy to fake.
10:37Yes. So then I go in.
10:40And I was a little surprised, given that the president is attending, and I didn't
10:44remember past security situations, that I walked straight into the hotel after that.
10:48Yeah. Now, as you funnel into the hotel, as Dan Bongino explained it, like, this
10:53all... area has been swept before the event started, but it's considered dirty versus when
10:58people go through the mags downstairs.
11:00So this is the dirty area because we live in a free society and you
11:03can't block off everything at all times.
11:05But we didn't mag before we got into the hotel.
11:08We went downstairs and magged into the ballroom.
11:12So that was where, and as Dan pointed out, you want to be careful of
11:16how long those queues are and how many you have because that's creating a vulnerability
11:19as well. Right. That's a security threat also.
11:21Right. And so I think the question, well, the question is what these events look
11:25like at all in the future, particularly with Trump, who has been targeted several times.
11:29But do you make the perimeter, the real perimeter, outside the hotel or even further
11:37back as you do it like an RNC or a DNC?
11:39In the past, it has not been the case at this event.
11:43Yeah. So the current news is that the wannabe shooter, alleged wannabe shooter, was a
11:50guest at the hotel. He had made a reservation at the hotel like anybody can
11:54do and was actually staying at the hotel, which is why he didn't have to
11:59show a ticket or anything like that.
12:02That's a crazy quirk. And we'll get into the conspiracy theories around this in the
12:07last segment and why, you know, the conspiracy theories are really batshit that Trump, you
12:13know, keeps staging his own assassination and that kind of thing.
12:16But like we could see where these people are getting it from because some things
12:21just don't make sense. Well, again, we'll get into that.
12:24I'll also add that Secret Service has been unfunded for more than 70 days now.
12:30The, you know, Congress just continues to not make a move on funding Secret Service,
12:36DHS, ICE, in a political statement because they want to continue funding ICE.
12:42Chuck Schumer said that nobody respects ICE and that's part of his reasoning for not
12:47funding it. I mean, it's really insane.
12:49And these people need to be funded.
12:52They are frontline of defense for administration officials and they need to be funded.
12:57End of story. I'll add that U .S.
13:00Senator John Fetterman tweeted, and the other part of this is, of course, the administration,
13:07many administration people are saying this is why we need a ballroom.
13:10And of course, that's being dismissed because they people just hate Trump and they can't
13:14hear information like that. But here's U .S.
13:16Senator John Fetterman who tweets, we were there front and center.
13:20That venue wasn't built to accommodate an event with the line of succession for the
13:23U .S. government. After witnessing last night, drop the TDS and build the White House
13:28ballroom for events exactly like these.
13:31I mean... So, also, I want to shout out, is it Goulsenkamp Perez, who's the
13:37Washington representative who tweeted her first reaction was, please stop trying to murder the president.
13:43And I just, so, I would just love to hear a unified announcement of that
13:48sentiment from those who are Trump's political opposition.
13:51It would be very helpful to have that over and over again.
13:55And, yeah, like this, again, all of these things come with risks.
14:00I thought about the risks before I attended.
14:02Sure. Because Trump is a target.
14:04Yeah. More than any other president in my lifetime.
14:07It's the Hinkley Hilton. That's the nickname for the Hilton.
14:11Yes. There is a plaque outside where Hinkley was able to shoot President Reagan in
14:161981. And so we gather at the Hinkley Hilton on these occasions and know that
14:22this is part of the story.
14:24So I thought about it before I went in.
14:26I appreciate Trump not wanting to be cowed by this.
14:32Yeah. And he's very gracious to the host, who's the head of the Washington White
14:38House Correspondents Association group, who had the misfortune of emceeing this whole thing and planning
14:44it. And, yeah, I just, there's a certain amount of risk in all of this.
14:49And I do wonder if this is ever going to happen again.
14:53Right. As an event. Oh, interesting.
14:57In that, well, in that way.
14:59With the 2 ,500 people and the, this particular venue.
15:02You don't think they're doing it over.
15:04Like, in the next month.
15:06That's what they say. That is what they say.
15:08I just, Trump is, he is a bullet train.
15:12He's like, I am going to get things, you know, the way I want them.
15:17And this is, he wants to do this.
15:19I don't know. We'll see.
15:21And I think it would be a brave statement done responsibly for the, for the
15:26press and Trump to come together.
15:28This is actually a good way for them to come together, not in a sycophantic
15:32way at all. Just to say, we reject that even though we are opposing forces
15:38often because we're trying to be a check on the president, we reject that this
15:43is the way that you get your way in this country and we will not
15:46back down and we will have an event.
15:48But I just think the way that they do it is going to have to
15:50be reconfigured. I'm very open to criticisms of the way that Secret Service is setting
15:54up an event like this.
15:56And they will, may reconsider in the, in the future.
15:58But as far as that security perimeter went, he bum rushes Leroy Jenkins is one
16:04floor up and they immediately neutralize him.
16:07That's what you want in that situation because a guy who's suiciding by cop can
16:12happen frequently. Yeah. And, uh, if they get him very quickly and he doesn't make
16:17it downstairs, that's what I want.
16:19The part where he's staying in the hotel and plan.
16:21this for a long time.
16:22Concerning, yeah. That's an issue.
16:23Yeah. Absolutely. We're going to take a short break on this very special episode of
16:28Normally and come right back with more about what happened at the White House Correspondents'
16:33Dinner, what Trump said at the press conference afterwards, maybe some men from the administration
16:37acting super gallantly. We'll be right back.
16:43We are back on Normally, where Donald Trump gave a press conference following the attempted
16:52infiltration by a shooter at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
16:56There was a Secret Service agent shot, by the way, which I feel like is
17:00kind of being skipped in the news a little bit because it appears that the
17:04Secret Service agent is fine.
17:06But Trump told reporters at this press conference he was shot from a very close
17:10distance with a very powerful gun and the vest did the job.
17:13I just spoke to the officer.
17:14He's in great shape, very high spirits.
17:18Trump was excellent at this press conference.
17:22You know, I have been very positive about him this term, but I acknowledge that
17:28he is sometimes maybe doesn't have the best phrasing at times when he needs to.
17:37And he says what he thinks.
17:39And that's, you know, something that's very unusual.
17:41We're not used to that in the political world, people actually saying what they think
17:46in their head and not being put through some writer's room that tells them what
17:50to say and all of that.
17:51And so Trump was just very blunt about he was very far away from where
17:57the shots were fired. He was never in danger.
17:59He said it was always shocking that things like this happened.
18:02He pointed back to, of course, Butler and also West Palm Beach, those potential assassination
18:08attempts. And it's just crazy that this man stood in a tuxedo and gave this
18:16kind of sum up of what happened.
18:18He said the Secret Service acted quickly, bravely.
18:22He talked about the suspect being in custody.
18:25You know, he was asked about the threats to his life.
18:29Actually, Peter Doocy asked, well, why does this keep happening to you?
18:31And when I first heard it, I was like, who is asking this?
18:34But Peter Doocy asking actually, you know, intent matters.
18:37And Peter Doocy wasn't asking that to be a jerk.
18:40But Trump said, you know, I'm doing a lot of stuff.
18:43And it's this is why people want me to stop doing the things that I'm
18:48doing. I'm not going to stop.
18:50He wanted the event to continue and he wants it to be rescheduled ASAP.
18:55So I thought he brought like this message of unity, which I would really love
19:01to see from Democrats. And again, we'll get into that in the last segment here
19:05about what comes next. But it's really important that the president said the right things,
19:12behaved in the right manner, you know, indicated that obviously the shooting wasn't going to
19:17change anything, that the event would go on, that his policies would stay the same,
19:20all of that. Of course, he mentioned that they should have a secure White House
19:25ballroom, which I think is absolutely right.
19:28He just sounded calm. And I think we needed that.
19:32No, he he is at his absolute responsible, chill best in the immediate wake of
19:40being shot at. And I am always impressed.
19:43And I wish I did not have the opportunity to be as impressed as often
19:48as I am in this way.
19:50And I wish he would, of course, apply this to other areas of policy as
19:53well. But when the first I believe the first thing he said when he came
19:56out was let's rededicate all all of us.
19:59Yeah. Rededicate ourselves to the idea that we resolve our differences peacefully.
20:04And that's important. Yeah. Between that and the plea to please stop trying to murder
20:10the president. I think that's a that's a great message that everyone could come together
20:15on. It's the message, right?
20:16Like stop trying to kill the president.
20:19Stop using violence. Violence is bad.
20:21Like, let's just get back to basics.
20:23Violence is bad. Hassan Piker was in the news this entire week.
20:28He's somebody that openly celebrates violence and he's become the rock star of the left.
20:36And Democrats don't know how to handle him.
20:38They they he has this big audience.
20:41What are they going to do?
20:41They have to lean into to supporting him and his delusional beliefs.
20:47And they could say no.
20:49They could take a stand and say no.
20:52Well, and here's the thing.
20:53They didn't even take a stand while he was actively advocating and justifying the murder
21:00of a health care CEO on a New York Times podcast.
21:03That would be the moment.
21:05Like, look, they'll do the thing where like, oh, if he says stuff other places,
21:08I don't have to call him on it.
21:09Well, that's sometimes true. You don't have to call someone on everything they've ever said.
21:12If they say it in front of you.
21:14Yeah. You should say. Why are we justifying this for the made up term social
21:19murder that you allege that this health care CEO was guilty of and therefore it
21:22was fine for him to be shot dead in the streets?
21:25That if you think that kind of justification and valorization doesn't have consequences, you're crazy.
21:31And giving it a spot at the New York Times or the New York Times
21:34just kind of giggles along.
21:37Yeah. This is and I think the Luigi, the Luigi Mangione lionization was a bit
21:43of a moment for me.
21:44It was pretty blackpilling. And I think every time we've had.
21:49uh a an assassination attempt on trump the reaction gets bleaker the first one in
21:57butler everybody actually did for a moment go right whoa this could have been horrific
22:03let's all agree that this is not how things are done that's awful i mean
22:08that's it seems like very small thing to ask for that we would all just
22:11be like that's awful you'd think right yeah yeah um you know uh lincoln project
22:18co -founder steve schmidt was at the dinner and immediately said trump is to blame
22:22for poisoning the rhetoric in america he's a vile and disgusting man um like things
22:28like that are just it's it's inappropriate like you can't have these people be your
22:33heroes and think you're the good person no and it's it's also reversing victim and
22:38offender absolutely you can't tell me that the the guy who by the way we
22:45buried the lead on you carol and we're going to get into that in a
22:47second we'll talk about that in the last yeah you can't tell me that the
22:50guy who perpetrates a shooting on trump officials slash trump because he wants them dead
22:55is not on the side of the people who are constantly telling me that trump
23:00is a special authoritarian who should probably be dead like i think y 'all i
23:04think you guys are aligned yeah it's not actually me that caused that problem and
23:09it's not trump existing that caused that problem mary l trump who i believe is
23:14a trump cousin tweeted so weird donald didn't stand up ask for his shoes and
23:19defiantly raise his fist and say fight fight fight um that is pretending that that
23:26was all staged at butler that trump did that as part of an act that
23:32getting shot in the ear was pre -planned that a man dying in the crowd
23:36was pre -planned i i just find it all so vile it's very bad yeah
23:43very bad um and yeah we need a lot more people to go the ghouls
23:47in camp perez way and the federman way yeah not the hassan piker way that's
23:52right let's talk about who did very well at this dinner um our friend bethany
23:57mandel she had a very popular tweet last night where she said you can tell
24:02a lot about a man about how they instinctively respond when it hits the fan
24:06in this photo stephen miller moves on top of his pregnant wife to protect her
24:09pete hegseth stands over his wife serving the scene while leaning over protecting her and
24:15then she had another tweet afterwards this is the shot we had of marco rubio
24:18outside the white house his wife was in a strapless dress and he gave her
24:21his jacket just very nice and she points out liberals have spent a lot of
24:26time trying to convince us that masculinity is toxic there's some good men in the
24:29admin and it's really good to see it she also said rfk however ran away
24:34and left his wife behind him you know you also just don't know what the
24:38secret service agents are saying to rfk they're just saying move he has to assume
24:42his wife is coming with him um but those pictures the picture of stephen miller
24:47over his wife and pete hegseth over his wife it's beautiful it really is well
24:52and also i hate when these things i hate when strength is twisted by the
24:56way you're damned if you do damned if you don't because they're going to go
24:59after rfk for one thing and then they're going to go after hegseth for looking
25:03not scared enough because that's right of course something yeah i hate it when strength
25:07and bravery is turned into a liability this happened with erica kirk as well where
25:13because she performed well because she was responsible in the way she spoke and very
25:18strong in the way she presented herself uh after her husband was murdered people said
25:23well she doesn't have real feelings and that's not true people can go through things
25:28and react very responsibly and very strongly in the moment yeah and not have you
25:34discount what happened to them as a result right it's like you don't have to
25:38trauma farm every event in your life in order to make people believe something happened
25:44to you in fact i would say that that's very unhealthy for you and for
25:46the people ingesting your online trauma farming absolutely and erica kirk was there last night
25:52she was very upset she was seen being let out saying i just want to
25:55go home i could imagine that was just you know salt on a wound for
26:01her i just can't imagine what this poor woman is going through and all the
26:05people that attack her and it's just all so gross it really really is yeah
26:09i ran into her earlier in the night before things took a turn uh at
26:13the fox reception and got to meet her for this first time i'd never met
26:17her before and just told her like i've been in a different way but weirdly
26:23similar i've been where you are my children are happy and healthy you're doing amazing
26:28things you're the way that you're living is going to help them become who they
26:32are yeah and praying for you and we had like a brief conversation so i
26:35hate that she had to be there for that of all the people um who
26:39could experience uh some very real trauma in that moment she's certainly yeah she's certainly
26:43the one one last thing to tie in the the trump press conference and the
26:48men acting gallantly trump during his press conference said um that you know the secret
26:53service did so great and they uh they let out jd vance and they um
26:58he said marco rubio and then he says uh pete hexath didn't want any help
27:02he was just like pete hexath he didn't want any help but they helped him
27:06it just it seems like he has and this is a you know really i
27:11think different from his first term he has a very nice personal relationship with these
27:16men It seemed very warm.
27:19And I, you know, I know turnover in administrations is very common.
27:23I hope we get to keep Marco Rubio and Pete Hexeth for some time.
27:28Yeah. And by the way, another thing, just post -trauma, the idea that people tell
27:34jokes after something bad has happened to them does not mean something bad didn't happen
27:39to them. Yeah. In fact, it's a great way to break tension in times of
27:43stress. And there are, you know, we'll get onto this in the last segment, but
27:47there are, you know, people taking screaming grabs of Pete Hexeth laughing at that comment
27:52and turning it into a problem.
27:54It's not a problem. Yeah.
27:56Yeah, that's it. I mean, I use humor to cope for sure.
28:00All right. We're going to take a short break and come right back with who
28:03was the wannabe shooter and the conspiracy theories already all over the place online.
28:09Be right back with this very special episode of Normally.
28:16Okay, we are back on Normally.
28:18And, you know, we really should have brought this up earlier, Carol, because Carol knows
28:22who the shooter is. And she brought that information to a lot of people last
28:26night. Tell us about it.
28:27We, you know, we work very well in tandem when news breaks, Mary Catherine.
28:31This is maybe a little bit too close, too close.
28:34The attempted alleged shooter at the White House Correspondent Center was 31 -year -old Cole
28:40Thomas Allen from Torrance, California.
28:43I think the news that I really broke big, you know, in a bigger way
28:47here. I mean, yeah, having his name and all of that was news breaking, obviously.
28:52And it makes me very, very nervous.
28:54Anybody who doesn't know me, breaking news is exciting and exhilarating and terrifying.
29:00I am like chewing on my fingers until that news gets, you know, broken elsewhere.
29:06Yeah, confirmed. Although it is confirmed.
29:09I hate the idea that it's not confirmed just because it's me.
29:13Like, I had people being like, this is not confirmed.
29:15Like, yeah, I confirmed it.
29:16I assure you. Right. But I think the news that I really broke was that
29:19he was in custody and alive because people believed that he had been killed at
29:25the scene. CNN had actually reported that he was killed.
29:29So I had the confirmation that he was taken alive.
29:32And even people posted the video of him on the ground and say, no, he's
29:36definitely dead. And then at the end of the video, he turns his head.
29:39I'm like, guys, he is definitely not dead.
29:42So what's really wild about this?
29:45And Will Richardella from Fox News points this out.
29:49The White House correspondents in our alleged shooter wasn't some nut job lurking on the
29:54fringes of society forgotten by the system.
29:57He was well -educated, credentialed, employed and institutionally formed.
30:01That's what makes this so disturbing.
30:03At first glance, this doesn't look like the breakdown of the system.
30:06It looks like more like a product of it.
30:09Academia, media and politics helped build the moral permission structure.
30:13Let that sink in. Yeah.
30:15I mean, that's the thing.
30:17This isn't some rando. This isn't some, you know, guy who couldn't get a job
30:23and he's really pissed off and all of that.
30:26And, you know, the fact that he went to Caltech and which is an incredibly
30:31difficult school to get into, incredibly difficult school to stay in.
30:34A lot of people point out that Caltech is one of the few schools that
30:37really doesn't do great inflation.
30:39That's something you're at a school where rigor and merit are real.
30:43You graduate with a degree, you know, that in engineering and you're this mechanical engineering
30:51degree is supposed to take you places.
30:53And it's all of this.
30:55And yet here you are at the White House Correspondents' Dinner with your guns on
31:01the ground, being taken into custody, your life destroyed.
31:05For what? You know? And very likely could have died.
31:10I mean, bum rushing a Secret Service perimeter is a good way to get taken
31:16out. And I'm sort of surprised he wasn't, but I'm kind of glad that we're
31:19going to have more information as a result.
31:23Yeah, it's depressing. And truly, I know it's better in real life often than it
31:31is, than it looks online.
31:32But the number of people who are so emotionally tied to every political up and
31:41down and are unable to...
31:43It's terrible. And they even talk about it.
31:45They talk very openly that Trump makes their nervous systems go haywire.
31:50And you have to control that for yourself.
31:54Like, you know, we talk about the news being tiring.
31:57I get it. If you're in it all the time.
31:59Sure. You got to be in charge of touching grass.
32:01You got to be in charge of regulating yourself.
32:04And a lot of people, I think, when you let politics become your personality, it
32:09is a personality disorder. And you're going to think the worst of people.
32:13You're going to blackpill on everything.
32:15And it just gets pretty dark.
32:18And there are a bunch of people creating a permission structure for this.
32:21And in fact, there's already a rally.
32:24And allegedly, they want to start a GoFundMe for the shooter.
32:29Of course. Right. That was out in Portland, Oregon, by the way.
32:32So obvious that that was going to happen.
32:34Look, you and I are mired in this.
32:37And yet, we keep our emotions in check.
32:40I can't think of too many times where I felt emotional about the news.
32:43I mean, it happens. of course i definitely have things that you know hit me
32:47harder than other things um but you know i mean just the fact that today
32:51like you know i put on minimal makeup for this but i was like oh
32:55i have to put on makeup on a sunday like i want to go in
32:57the pool like you have to live your life you have to be outside doing
33:01stuff with your family you can't be scrolling all day and if that's you if
33:06you're you know really deeply into this stuff go outside take the weekends off like
33:12do stuff do other things with your life um the conspiracy theories are already largely
33:18starting i have seen already so many different you know influencer types on um facebook
33:26and other places facebook by the way just loves showing me absolute lunatics on you
33:33know the left who are saying things like this you know this didn't happen this
33:37is all fake and um i don't know right now they have some like person
33:42ian thomas malone that they keep showing me like real lunatic um it's like making
33:49fun of erica kirk you'd cry too if they made you go to a shooting
33:52without your emotional support fireworks i mean really gross kind of stuff um and um
33:58you know this person tweeted yesterday the magic ear is ready to grow back a
34:04second time it just it's disgusting and social media is pushing this into our feed
34:08is a real problem and so many people like these comments and are supportive of
34:13them it's it's gross a couple things um it's it's also incoherent because it's all
34:19fake but then the same people will be like but someone should really do it
34:23definitely right soon yeah um would love to see someone actually do it but that's
34:27so funny when it happens and also me saying i wish someone do it definitely
34:31doesn't encourage anybody to do the fake thing that just happened that was actually real
34:35guys yeah um that's similar sorry i just want to say that's similar to you
34:39know i forgot who said this but it was like you know why is it
34:42that the holocaust deniers are not happy that it didn't happen yes like why is
34:49it always the people who wish it had happened my other let me just cut
34:54through the conspiracy theories point is do you think that president donald j trump when
35:01given the opportunity to live troll to their faces 2500 journalists would give it up
35:10for what right for for a news cycle or something what yeah he barely even
35:15got a news cycle out of ryan ruth down in palm beach so like right
35:19it's not even for that um this was his dream scenario was to roast all
35:23these people and what we had heard before we went in from well -placed sources
35:27was that it was going to be an hour and 20 minute speech oh you
35:31you think that man is giving that up no way no no no not to
35:36that and it would have been a captive audience like they would have no choice
35:40we're all stuck in that ballroom inside the barometer yeah um no there's no way
35:46there's no way now there's another conspiracy theory which is the he he staged this
35:50to get his ballroom first of all he's already building it right it's happening it's
35:54in motion he's picking out marble like the day that we went after maduro he
35:58was at a tile store in south florida like choosing his marble well and it's
36:02like they're like why is everybody talking about a ballroom they've all been instructed it's
36:06an op well they're talking about a ballroom because he was almost shot in a
36:10ballroom right that's that's that's the reason that's what brought it to mind for a
36:16lot of people yeah don't let your brains get into this kind of stuff i
36:22i would say that the right spends a lot of time correctly uh worrying about
36:26these insane conspiracy theorists in our midst and how bad it is that some chunk
36:31of people believe things that are completely fake um i just don't see that same
36:36worry on the left uh thousands of comments already saying it was fake trump was
36:40trying to get the news off iran i would love to see democrats grow a
36:46pair and take on their leftist flank you again the idea that oh this happens
36:50on the right too yeah but so many people on the right are fighting back
36:54against this i mean people like ted cruz are constantly calling out conspiracy theorists can
36:59we see somebody other than the senator from pennsylvania calling out these people could it
37:05be a second senator a third senator a fourth senator can there be a ground
37:10swell of people saying these conspiracy theorists and these violent rhetoric people don't speak for
37:17me because i see it on the right and i just don't see it on
37:21the left um hakeem jeffries by the way put out a statement that didn't even
37:25mention uh trump administration officials or trump it was just like oh this this random
37:30violence pointed at who knows who amy siskind is writing oh we don't even know
37:36who the target was and it's like okay guys i do think we can extrapolate
37:42um and perhaps guess right the guy who has been subject to several assassination attempts
37:47might be the one yeah and then of course the times headline that you had
37:52a great response to um i got a breaking news washington hotel attack suspect is
37:57said to be from california he just attacked the hotel just attacked the hotel he
38:02hates the hotel famously in the jerk he's standing in front of a bunch of
38:06cans and they start getting shot see martinez and he's like he hates these cans
38:10the government hates these cans It's the jerk, but for the hotel.
38:13I just think part of the reason that they can't denounce it is because they
38:19are medium comfortable with political violence and sometimes openly advocating for it.
38:26Like the rioting in 2020 was rationalized by many and it was called a legit
38:32protest. That's right. They have legit, they have on purpose blurred the line between speech
38:38and violence and they think that violence on behalf of their causes is kind of
38:42just speech and like you kind of just deserved it.
38:45Right. And I'm not, I'm not being like harsh on them.
38:51They say it openly. Many, many mainstream people.
38:54Social murder. Yeah. Or like, again, it's become more and more mainstream.
39:00And I think Hassan Piker, who we talk about a lot, but he's leading them
39:04around. Right. He's in the New York Times, like four stories in the last two
39:09months. Like this isn't a fringe figure.
39:11This isn't, you know, and they try to make our fringe figures mainstream figures for
39:16the same reason. It's like they want them to be bigger on our side.
39:21They do it for us when we're not doing it.
39:23Yes. Right. Right. Tucker Carlson being interviewed by The Economist is ridiculous.
39:27It's like this conspiracy theorist nut who a lot of people on the right are
39:31criticizing gets headlined space in The Economist.
39:36What is this? Or the Fuentes glowing profile with the like, with the cool pictures
39:41taken of them in black and white for The New York Times.
39:43Like stop doing that. Right.
39:45For both your guys and our guys, who are lefties anyway.
39:48Right. They're fully lefties now.
39:50And that's why they're there.
39:51But the one, the one that, the thing that really gets me, and Mehdi Hassan,
39:55of course, was on this immediately, is like, someone tries to kill the president.
40:00And yes, we don't know everything about him yet.
40:02But I think we can safely assume he doesn't like the president.
40:06Easy call. Okay. So let's just say that.
40:09We'll find out more. And then they're just like, political violence never happens to you
40:15guys. In the wake of this happening, they're like, oh, it's all of you guys
40:20coming at us. And it's like, you're making things up.
40:24Yeah. And I just. Yeah.
40:26It happened after the Gifford shooting that they did this and turned it back on
40:30us about Palin. We didn't do anything.
40:32They take every lefty shooter and somehow turn him into a righty.
40:35So I was going to say, so Mehdi Hassan actually said Melissa Hortman was killed
40:39by a Trump supporter. The first person to allegedly take a shot at Trump was
40:43a registered Republican. Every study shows more political violence from the right than the left.
40:47Of course, those studies, by the way, side note, are done by groups like the
40:50one that just got indicted, the Southern Poverty Law Center.
40:53They're the ones who do the studies.
40:55But our friend Guy Benton points out Melissa Hortman was killed by a Democratic appointee
41:00who thought he was acting on the orders of Governor Tim Walz to advance Walz's
41:05career. His murder was condemned by everyone.
41:07The first person to, quote, allegedly, Guy has a question mark, take a shot at
41:12Trump donated to a left -wing group the day Joe Biden was inaugurated.
41:15It's notable that his two counterexamples of right -wing political violence actually aren't.
41:19This is not to say leftists have a monopoly on political violence.
41:22They do not though in recent years, they've been far more problematic on this front,
41:26especially when it comes to glorifying, celebrating and justifying political violence.
41:31And Guy is rarely wrong.
41:32So, yeah. Yeah. And then throw in the congressional baseball shooting.
41:35Oh, guys, what about that one?
41:37Yeah. What about that one?
41:39Right. And they'll claim to you still with a straight face.
41:41They'll be like, oh, no, the FBI classified that as not political.
41:44Right. It's like the guy had a list in his car and asked Ron DeSantis
41:48if they were indeed Republicans before he tried to shoot up an entire team of
41:51Republicans. Who could know? Who could really know?
41:54You know? And one last thing since we brought up SPLC.
41:58The fact that people turn hard into conspiracy theories is, one, because they're trying to
42:03help their partisan side. So, like, rethink that.
42:06Two, because places like SPLC have planted the seeds for this with their bad actions.
42:12And it does put us in a really precarious position where we don't know who
42:16a reliable narrator is and we don't know what's real and what's not.
42:20Right. And things I thought were real in the past did not and nothing real.
42:24Right. It really breaks you.
42:25And I could see why regular people are being broken by this.
42:28But if you're listening to Normally, we would like for you to be normal and
42:32to really consider what you're saying and not jump to conclusions and not follow bad
42:37actors. You know, I just Occam's razor, the idea that, like, a pretty lib, angry,
42:45part -time school teacher got into some mental health issues in a downward spiral and
42:49took a train across the country to try to kill the president.
42:51Like. Sounds like the right call there.
42:53Yeah. That could have just been what happened.
42:55Yeah. Well, thank you for joining us on this very special episode of Normally.
42:59Normally airs generally Tuesdays and Thursdays.
43:02Subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts.
43:04And when things get weird, you act normally.