The Manosphere Report

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast.

0:02Guaranteed human. Hey guys, we are back.

0:12Normally, the show is normal.

0:13It takes for when the news gets weird.

0:15I'm using Catherine Hamm off a week of being very normie by checking out of

0:20the news. I love checking out of the news.

0:23I am Carol Markowitz. We held down the fort here at Normally, while Mary Catherine

0:27was, you know, touching grass, living her life, whatever.

0:31Bridget Phetasy filled in on Wednesday, and she did a fantastic job.

0:36I mean, going to be hard to top her.

0:37Thanks a lot, Bridget. Welcome back, Mary Catherine.

0:41She also celebrated, Mary Catherine celebrated her birthday over the weekend on Easter Sunday and

0:47wrote a really beautiful post on X about it, and you should definitely go check

0:52it out. Happy birthday, Mary Catherine.

0:54Thank you very much. I had a lovely day with my family.

0:56It was a wild weekend.

0:59It was really a lot going on.

1:03Your birthday, Easter Sunday, and then, of course, the rescue of the downed F -15

1:09weapon systems officer. The pilot was, of course, rescued right away on Friday, and then

1:15the weapon systems officer, or a wizzo, as I'm told he is called on the

1:20Google, was missing for 24 hours plus, and it was really touch and go on

1:27X, whether or not he was recovered, and we were all obviously holding our breath

1:33and very afraid, but we woke up on Sunday morning to news from the White

1:37House saying he had been, you know, found and was alive and was on his

1:43way home. Oh, you're saying he was lost on Good Friday and found on Easter

1:48Sunday. It's crazy. It's crazy.

1:51What a story. I was, again, I was sort of checked out and clued into

1:57the end of this story, so I missed the suspense in the middle.

2:01And still, without that, it is astounding what our military is capable of.

2:10Astounding. We have these super fan haters on X, which I appreciate so much.

2:17I really do think it's the haters that keep us going.

2:21But we got some comments, like, why haven't you and I commented on him while

2:26he was missing? And for me, I was holding my breath and praying, and that's

2:32why I wasn't going to comment on something that I was hoping played out in

2:36a positive fashion and was, you know, praying real hard that it wasn't going to

2:41play out in a negative fashion.

2:42So what was I supposed to comment on?

2:44And you were, you know, again, touching the grass.

2:48Also, this is such an interesting reaction from people, and we're going to go through

2:51the details of this rescue.

2:53But in the moment where one of our service members is lost in a foreign

2:59and hostile country, we don't know where and possibly could be dead, I'm like you,

3:05Carol. I'm just praying that this person is returned safely.

3:09And we know that the stakes are high.

3:12There was an interesting moment from Tim Kaine, who is my Virginia senator, a Democrat,

3:16who tweeted, We are trying to rescue a downed American in Iran.

3:22Hegsess boasts about no quarter, no mercy, and axing stupid rules of engagement.

3:26I mean, we have to hope that Iran follows the humanitarian laws that U .S.

3:30leaders now dismiss. Okay, right.

3:32So he's mad that the guy is lost, except he's mostly mad about politics, it

3:35sounds like. And then Guy Benson points up, No update, huh, Senator?

3:40Is this a disappointing outcome for you?

3:43And he's also assuming that Iran is going to be humanitarian towards our guy?

3:50Or that they've ever followed rules.

3:53Yeah, like, Iran pays for Hamas.

3:57Have you seen what Hamas did to the people that they captured on October 7th?

4:01You think that they're going to get our downed officer and treat him nicely, and

4:06they might not because of Pete Hegseth, like, being blustery?

4:10Come on. No, it's a ridiculous point of view.

4:15And one of the things I love about being conservative is that I can have

4:19uncomplicated and joyful feelings about the birth of babies, about America being great, and about

4:26American military dominance, and a pilot and the weapons systems officer being rescued in valiant

4:36style from hostile territory. I have uncomplicated, excited, joyful, glad feelings about that.

4:45It's really funny that you say that, because I also noticed that the whole, you

4:49know, woke right, whatever you want to call them, they are clearly having these complicated

4:54feelings where just recently, when they were firmly on the right and they were normal,

4:59they wouldn't have been. Even if they didn't support the mission in Iran, they would

5:03understand that getting the officer back would be amazing and, like, a moment of joy.

5:09And they're just so perplexed and confused about where they're supposed to be.

5:14I mean, Joe Kent shared a nonsense post from DropSite, which is like this Russian

5:19propaganda -paid site, quoting Iranian propaganda that claimed that the U .S.

5:25was trying to kill. kill the lost pilot.

5:27And he was like, and I pray for his recovery.

5:30Well, which is it? Is the U .S.

5:32trying to kill the pilot or are you hoping for his recovery?

5:34Like, what is what are you sharing here?

5:37And I think that confusion is really obvious in a lot of people.

5:40They don't know what they're supposed to feel anymore because they are rooting against the

5:45mission. They're rooting against the president and they're rooting against the country.

5:48Yeah. Yeah. It's it's hard.

5:51I don't want to mince words about it because it seems fairly obvious that that's

5:56what's happening, that for someone like Kane, who may have updated in the meantime, but

6:01did not update quickly and excitedly about this for Kane, it was ideologically inconvenient and

6:06politically inconvenient that this didn't turn out badly.

6:10Right. Now, there are some also who say it did turn out badly because you

6:14lost an aircraft and then you lost two other aircraft leaving.

6:17You had to spend all this.

6:18Yeah. We spend all of that to get one airman back.

6:22That's what we do. Right.

6:24Yeah. It's just the last few days have been like being in a super patriotic

6:32movie. I mean, in fact, the whole Trump administration so far has been, for me,

6:36very patriotic movie coded. You just feel like rah, rah America in so many different

6:42ways. And it's just it's been amazing to watch.

6:46I think that people don't get that we would have rooted for the same outcome

6:51if Joe Biden was president.

6:53I remember being devastated about what happened in Afghanistan, the lost military members there.

6:58And had that gone successfully, I would have been happy and it wouldn't have been

7:04hard to be happy. It's just what we do.

7:06We root for our servicemen and women.

7:08We root for our country.

7:10It's not that complicated. I think we have a longish clip from Trey Yanks reporting

7:16from the Middle East about this operation.

7:19And it's going to give you about three minutes of explanation.

7:21But I feel like we need it and we want it.

7:24So take it away, Trey.

7:26It was a daring rescue operation.

7:28Sources both in the United States and here in Israel have described it to Fox

7:32News as one for the history books.

7:34We can exclusively report it was on Saturday morning that the CIA was able to

7:39confirm and locate the missing airmen.

7:41The CIA was concerned that this was a trick by the Iranians to try and

7:46lure in U .S. special forces and attack them.

7:49But once they were able to use advanced technology to confirm not only this was

7:54the identity of the airmen, but also the location, that message was delivered to the

7:58secretary of war and the joint chief's chairman and ultimately the president.

8:02I am told by a senior U .S.

8:03official. You look at the timeline here.

8:05It was late Thursday night into Friday when that F -15E fighter jet was shot

8:10down over the skies of southwestern Iran.

8:12The pilot of that jet was recovered on Friday by U .S.

8:16special forces. But that weapons systems officer had to spend up to two days evading

8:21Iranian capture. They activated that emergency beacon.

8:24It was confirmed by the CIA, who at the same time was running the deception

8:28campaign. And then ultimately it was the president, who made the decision.

8:33And within 12 hours, there were U .S.

8:35forces on the ground inside of Iran conducting the rescue mission.

8:38As it relates to the CIA deception campaign, I am told by a senior U

8:43.S. official, the CIA leaked through multiple sources that they were trying to move a

8:47valuable package out of the country through a maritime exfil.

8:50This was meant to draw the Iranians away from the area where the U .S.

8:54crew member was located. I'm told that deception campaign worked, coupled with the fire from

8:58the air and those drones targeting anyone who approached this area.

9:02There was that major concern as the clock was ticking and they were searching for

9:07this missing U .S. crew member.

9:08Now, the Wall Street Journal today is reporting the complex mission quickly ran into problems,

9:13officials said. As the U .S.

9:15redirected aircraft in the region to help with the mission, some planned targets, including missile

9:19launcher sites, were left untouched.

9:21That allowed Iran to fire more weapons than usual in recent days, officials said.

9:25The first attempt to rescue the airmen had to be aborted.

9:28Two H -6 helicopters took small arms fire from the ground, wounding the crews in

9:32both aircraft and requiring them to land safely in Kuwaiti airspace.

9:36Now, as this was taking place, the Israelis were watching closely and coordinating behind the

9:40scenes. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this overnight, quote, I spoke earlier with President

9:46Trump and personally congratulated him on his bold decision and a perfectly executed American mission

9:51to rescue the downed pilot from enemy territory.

9:54The president expressed his appreciation for Israel's help.

9:57I am deeply proud that our cooperation on and off the battlefield is unprecedented and

10:01that Israel could contribute to saving a brave American warrior.

10:05So again, Bill and Dana, this speaks to the coordination not only between the Americans

10:09and the Israelis, but also the U .S.

10:11military. I spoke with sources here and they said the credit belongs to the U

10:15.S. military. This was what they described as an excellent coordinated operation to use the

10:20willpower and the fighting force of U .S.

10:22special forces coupled with the intelligence apparatus of the United States to go deep into

10:27enemy territory with more than 100 U .S.

10:30special forces and rescue this F -15 crew member over the weekend.

10:35It's just so amazing. I can't get over what a complicated operation it was and

10:40how flawlessly it was executed.

10:42Again, the idea that we lost, you know, planes or something, this is what we

10:47do to get our guy back.

10:48This is what America is.

10:50We've sort of forgotten that.

10:52And I, look. No one is more surprised than me that it's Donald Trump bringing

10:57it all back to us and and making us feel like we're in like Iron

11:01Eagle or Top Gun. But here we are.

11:03You know, this guy, Paul and Leitner on X posted 2026 has given us some

11:10iconic images and he posted a picture of Jack Hughes with the American flag and

11:14Artemis taking off. And then Jesse Arm, who's at the Manhattan Institute, he posted missing

11:22two of my favorites. And it was a police officer jumping over the fence to

11:26stop the bombers in New York City and then also Maduro on the plane back

11:32to the U .S. Those four images.

11:34And it's only April. It's just it hasn't been that long.

11:37It's just incredible year. Our 250th year feels so insanely pro -America and just patriotic.

11:47My kids are like, you're always saying that you're very patriotic, but I am extra

11:51patriotic right now. No, I mean, again, it is so fun to be excited about

11:57these moments, to be excited about this, to hear about a man who is perhaps,

12:03you know, near death, hiking a 7000 foot cliff line to hide himself and use

12:12the proper technology and all of his training to make sure that Americans can find

12:16him while the Iranians cannot find him.

12:20The CIA working in tandem with the military and doing what it's supposed to do,

12:25the military doing perfectly what it's supposed to do.

12:27And then there are people who say, like, oh, you think this is a success?

12:31You lost these two guys over hostile territory and then they were extracted using all

12:35this money and you had to blow up two C -130s on the way out

12:38because they stalled and you didn't want to give them over to the enemy.

12:42One, if you're spiritually American, you understand that, of course, that's what we do.

12:47We do no man left behind.

12:48We like this is what we do.

12:50Two, I would just like to remind everyone that 70 plus aircraft were left at

12:55Bagram in Afghanistan. 70 plus aircraft.

12:59That doesn't even count all the other things.

13:01OK, and some of them were disabled.

13:04But like. What are these people doing running down an operation that rescues an American

13:12hero without casualties except for the C -130?

13:17By the way, this is another marker of our greatness and prosperity that we have

13:23an Air Force that has many, many thousands of planes.

13:27We're not like Britain with 79.

13:28I don't know what the actual number is, but you know what I'm saying.

13:31Right. Somebody posted like, yeah, it's because this is not our entire Air Force.

13:35Like, it's yours. But this is like the people over things thing that you tell

13:41your children, like in a fire or in a dangerous situation, don't care about your

13:46things. Don't care about anything but people.

13:49You save the people. This on a larger scale is what we're all about.

13:53And it's important. It's an important lesson.

13:56You don't want to be the kind of people who won't save your fellow countrymen

14:00because you're afraid to lose a plane.

14:02Who cares about that plane?

14:03Lose all the planes. Get the person back.

14:05By the way, when you are acting as a normie who's checked out of the

14:09news cycle and you check back in for the glorious rescue of this person, and

14:14then someone tells you and it eventually dawns on you that people are having a

14:18negative reaction to this, your normie brain goes, I'm sorry, what?

14:22Right. How? How? So Thursday and Friday were Passover, the first two nights of Passover,

14:31so Orthodox Jews were offline.

14:33I am not Orthodox. I was very much online.

14:36And then Saturday, obviously, is another day that Orthodox Jews are offline.

14:40So it was three days of Orthodox Jews being offline.

14:43Ron Coleman comes back on on Saturday and says, what did I miss?

14:48Redsties sums it up for him.

14:50He's like, Blue Sky thinks Trump is at Walter Reed, which is another insane.

14:54Oh, gosh, yes. And you're all like, he is hospitalized for sure.

14:57He's not golfing today. Therefore, he is in the hospital dying right now.

15:01It's like, we're at war.

15:03We're missing one of our officers.

15:06Like, he is working on it.

15:08You don't have to love Donald Trump.

15:10You don't have to care about him.

15:11Don't be crazy. Anyway, Redsties, Blue Sky thinks Trump is at Walter Reed.

15:15No one knows if the downed pilot was rescued or not.

15:17Not the pilot, but the weapons officer.

15:20And now and or not, thanks to slop gaugement accounts.

15:23And the Artemis shitter is out of order again, which.

15:28Well, it's Artemis in the next segment.

15:32No, it's I just am blown away by several operations.

15:38I mean, Midnight Hammer, the first bombing run in Iran, the Venezuela extraction of Maduro

15:45and this. It's all three done without loss of personnel, which is shocking.

15:53And that doesn't dismiss that there have been personnel that have been lost in other

15:58parts of the Iranian engagement.

15:59But to do those three things so close to absolutely flawlessly, again, having been betrayed

16:10by so many institutions over the past 15 years or so, it is inspiring to

16:17see them work this way.

16:18Exactly. And look, this is airing.

16:21on Tuesday, which Donald Trump has declared power plant and bridge day in Iran.

16:29Speaking of Donald Trump's special qualities, I would have appreciated a different kind of Easter

16:36post. Just one out there.

16:38Thanks, sir. So he posted Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all

16:42wrapped in one in Iran.

16:43There'll be nothing like it.

16:44Open the effing straight, you crazy bastards.

16:47Are you living in hell?

16:48Just watch. Praise be to Allah, President Donald J.

16:50Trump. A lot of people didn't like it.

16:53Even a lot of my conservative friends didn't like it.

16:55I like it. I don't care.

16:57I like it. He comes off as absolutely batshit crazy and Iran does not know

17:02what to expect from him.

17:03Like, who knows what this guy is going to do?

17:05He could have power plant day and bridge day be on Monday.

17:08They don't know what's coming.

17:10Is praise be to Allah the new thank you for your attention to this matter?

17:16Maybe. No, the cultivation of the madman theory overseas certainly is helpful.

17:23And the the ongoing threat to the Strait of Hormuz into the world economy is,

17:29of course, perilous. It is why, you know, I think Donald Trump is convinced to

17:36continue fighting to get some kind of agreement from whoever is the last man standing

17:44after we continue to lop off people from the top of the regime.

17:48I did hear some reports about this rescue that locals were helpful by protecting the

17:55area that this American had had hidden himself, which is, again, inspiring because this is

18:02one of those situations where the country that we're bombing, many of the people inside

18:05the country we're bombing are very happy.

18:07In fact, happier that we're doing it than Americans are in some cases.

18:11Yeah. But I do think, you know, we're still in the what comes next phase

18:17and he's trying to communicate to whoever's left in charge.

18:21Right. We will continue. I'm crazy.

18:23Don't mess with us like is is the communication.

18:26And I'm mostly here for it, really.

18:29I look, I don't always love the Trump crazy tweets.

18:32In fact, I barely often do not, especially on holidays and and times.

18:38The holiday ones get me.

18:39I'm like, can we just do two separate ones?

18:42The crazy one and the normal Easter one.

18:45Just a regular one. But I like this.

18:47And I think we're it sends a you don't know what to expect from me

18:52message on about the Strait of Hormuz.

18:55I read this interesting thing that I just wanted to share with our listeners.

18:58Antonio Garcia Martinez, who's a really great follow on X.

19:02He tweeted a research report about the Strait of Hormuz.

19:07Here's what he writes. Hilarious on the ground reporting from the Strait of Hormuz, showing

19:11way more ships transiting than commonly believed because everyone is believing the AIS transponder data.

19:17The fishing boats 50 miles off the Oregon coast turn off their AIS to avoid

19:23disclosing their best spots. I had to sail through them at night and discovered the

19:26hard way. A lot of people manage lots of money and have never spent a

19:29day at sea. I have never spent a day at sea.

19:32So I do not know what the AIS transponder data, whether it's real or how

19:37it works or whatever. But apparently there are more ships going through than we are

19:42led to believe. So yeah, I have heard that from several people and I have

19:46spent several days on a bass boat in my life.

19:49So I think I love it.

19:52My favorite song right now is Bass Boat by Zach Lyon.

19:55Very, very good. All right.

19:58We're going to take a short break and be right back with more rock.

20:01American greatness. America. America all the way.

20:05America all the time. Be right back.

20:09We are back on normally where in a few minutes when we're recording this, the

20:16Artemis is going to round the moon.

20:20Is that, am I saying that correctly, America?

20:22I think that's correct. Okay.

20:25It's been incredible. I'm not a space person.

20:27I'm really, I have never been like super fascinated by space, but I am all

20:32in on all of these people.

20:35The four of them are just amazing and magical and hilarious and I can't get

20:40enough. They are great. I am a Victor Glover fangirl and I only regret that

20:44I have not spent many, more years being a Victor Glover fangirl because apparently I

20:49could have earlier and I just missed it.

20:50I, again, was a little bit checked out and my husband luckily flat flagged this

20:55for the kids and me and said like, come, come watch the launch.

20:57Now I will say I am of the exact age as you are as well,

21:02probably, although you had just come to America maybe around this time.

21:05I'm of the exact age to be very traumatized by a challenger.

21:09And so watching a rocket launch does not feel as magical to me, I think,

21:15as too many other people.

21:17Yeah. Hold my breath for sure.

21:18I mean, yeah. I'm very nervous about it.

21:23And so I, but I came up to watch with my kids and I wanted

21:26to experience it. And then I think perhaps because of challenger, I'm not that interested

21:32in space. It scares me.

21:33I have no desire to go.

21:35I'm not a person who wants to be on blue origin at all.

21:37No, thank you, Jeff Bezos.

21:38If you were looking into me, I'm a no.

21:41I don't, I don't want to do it.

21:43I have no desire, but I like that other people do.

21:45I'm excited that they do that.

21:47Me too. However, then you like, said, Carol, you start digging into this and just

21:50the absolute beautiful enormity of it and the character of these people who are on

21:57this craft and the dangerous thing they're doing and their beautiful families.

22:02And also this came, I looked back at the Jared Isaacman timeline, and I don't

22:10remember if you and I talked about this on Normally, but his nomination to NASA

22:14administrator was a little bit hinky for this reason.

22:19So he was nominated really early when, like right after Trump took office, like in

22:24December of 2020, or right after he was elected, before he was even in office,

22:29he was on the list early.

22:31And then he got knocked off the list later in April or May of 2025

22:36because of the fight that Elon and Trump got in because Isaacman was close to

22:43Elon and he had donated to some Democrats in the past.

22:47And Trump was like, nah, I'm not with him.

22:49So he's out. Duffy ends up stepping in as acting NASA administrator and maybe wanting

22:55to fold it into the Department of Transportation.

22:57And a bunch of space guys were like, no, no, no, let's not do that.

23:01Let's get Isaacman back in.

23:02So Isaacman comes back to talk to Trump at the end of 2025, and he's

23:07re -nominated in December of 2025, at which point Trump says the day he's voted

23:14on and confirmed, we're going to the moon by 2028.

23:17And then how many months later?

23:20Four months later, they're on their way to the distance of the moon with a

23:25plan to be back on the moon in 2030.

23:28And I just think that's amazing.

23:32Amazing. It's incredible. I, you know, my youngest son is super into this.

23:38He's the sporty one I talk about.

23:41He's just not the one I thought would be like obsessed with this, but he

23:45cannot get enough. He wants to see every video.

23:48He wants to see every picture.

23:49He wants to hear every story about the astronauts.

23:51And I'm like, do you want to be an astronaut?

23:53He's like, not at all, but this is really cool.

23:57He's 10. So, you know, if he was like, I want to be an astronaut,

24:00that would be totally normal.

24:01But he's like, no, thanks.

24:02I just want to watch from here.

24:04Well, and I just think like Isaacman specifically has been involved in commercial spaceflight.

24:08He's been to space a couple of times.

24:10He came into NASA with a desire to restructure and make things work efficiently and

24:17in concert with private companies.

24:20And the fact that we're probably going to have people on the moon before Newsom

24:27creates a mile of high -speed rail, like I just, yeah.

24:33Again, having been betrayed by many institutions and thinking the government is generally kind of

24:38crappy in so, so many ways, it's nice to see these things happen.

24:44Well, success is really amazing to see.

24:47And again, would you and I have been rooting for this any less if Joe

24:51Biden was president? No. We would be just as excited that this Artemis 2 crew

24:57are going to be the first people ever to see the dark side of the

25:00moon. Like, that's crazy. That's amazing.

25:03That's us doing it. We're so awesome.

25:06Like, how could you not love this country?

25:08How could you not love our ambitions and the way that we want to do

25:11everything? It's just, it's awesome to be an American.

25:14I would have felt the exact same way if a Democrat were president.

25:17The fact that a Democrat is not president is neither here nor there to me.

25:20It's just amazing to see this happen.

25:23Donald Trump deserves the credit.

25:25He does. Yeah. He does.

25:27And by the way, part of the NATO discussion, as Trump got mad about NATO

25:32allies not letting us use bases and airspace, I think, warranted.

25:38Some of the conversation came from Europeans saying, basically, like, look, look at the audacity

25:45of these people. Like, we run it down.

25:48We make fun of it.

25:50We hold it in contempt while they protect us.

25:52But look at what they're doing.

25:55Right. And those are our Europeans.

25:57I know. Exactly. And they popped to the top of the algorithm for me, I'm

26:03sure. But it's a real thing that we own the seas for a reason.

26:11We are able to do things and hold ourselves to standards or try impossible things

26:18on purpose as a national spirit.

26:21With celebrating that, that's what we should be doing.

26:24It's just, again, such a patriotic year, turning 250.

26:27This country is amazing. We're doing amazing things.

26:30I'm just very, very high on the country right now.

26:33And again, any American listening to this should feel the same way.

26:36I don't know. I don't know that anybody should be feeling differently if they are

26:42politically not aligned. I just it's amazing.

26:45Mark Andreessen tweeted, I have never been so bullish on the United States of America.

26:50That's exactly how I feel.

26:52Can we real quick to close this out, just play a minute or two of

26:56Victor Glover, the reason I'm a fangirl now?

26:59He said several profound things, but he was asked as they were flying past Earth

27:03from above over Easter, if he had any thoughts about, you know, the world and

27:10life and existence. And without preparation, he had this to say.

27:15I'm glad you brought that up, though.

27:16So, I think, for me, I'm glad you brought that up.

27:16And I think it's a great thing.

27:16And I think it's a great I think these observances are important, and as we

27:19are so far from Earth and looking back at, you know, the beauty of creation,

27:23I think that, for me, one of the really important personal perspectives that I have

27:29up here is I can really see Earth as one thing.

27:32And, you know, when I read the Bible and I look at all of the

27:35amazing things that were done for us who were created, it's, you know, you have

27:39this amazing place, this spaceship.

27:41You guys are talking to us because we're in a spaceship really far from Earth,

27:45but you're on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place

27:50to live in the universe, in the cosmos.

27:52I think maybe the distance we are from you makes you think what we're doing

27:56is special, but we're the same distance from you.

27:58And I'm trying to tell you, just trust me, you are special.

28:01In all of this emptiness, this is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we

28:05call the universe. You have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist

28:09together. I think as we go into Easter Sunday thinking about, you know, all the

28:15cultures all around the world, whether you celebrate it or not, whether you believe in

28:18God or not, this is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who

28:23we are, and that we are the same thing and that we got to get

28:26through this together. It's just gorgeous.

28:28It's so well done. And he sounds so deep and wise.

28:34I love it. Well, he's got quite a resume and he has a lovely wife

28:38and four daughters. And it's just so lovely to see people animated by good things,

28:45doing seemingly impossible tasks. And thank you for using all your training to inspire me,

28:51both American military service people and astronauts.

28:55Love it. He, by the way, is also a veteran.

28:57He's a U .S. Navy captain.

28:59Amazing. Keep winning America. We're rooting for us all the way.

29:04We'll be right back with more on Normally.

29:09All right. We are back on Normally with, I mean, really the exact opposite side

29:14of the coin from the people who are doing impossible things.

29:18The New York Times reported this weekend on a segment of people who student debt

29:25burdened them, so they moved abroad and stopped paying.

29:30They took out loans for a product and then didn't pay for them and were

29:37supposed to feel sorry for them.

29:39I like the passive voice.

29:41They were burdened by the loans that they took out.

29:45It opens with this poor woman who I'm going to be mean about.

29:51Amanda Lynn Tully, she graduated in 2017 with a master's degree in historic preservation from

29:57the University of Oregon, $65 ,000 in federal student loans.

30:01So that's us guaranteeing it.

30:03And no job offers in the conservation field.

30:06No kidding. Are there not a ton of jobs in historic conservation?

30:11Anyway, less than a year after graduating, Must Tully made a drastic decision.

30:16Less than a year. She moved to Prague where she completed an internship and defaulted

30:21on her loan. She hasn't made a payment in over seven years.

30:23Well, it must have been very burdensome financially, you would think.

30:27It must have been. Carol, no, let me tell you how much she was paying

30:31per year or per month.

30:35Sixty bucks. Yeah, that sounds like a weight she could not bear.

30:39Miss Tully was on an income -based repayment plan, which allows many borrowers to have

30:43their remaining debt forgiven after 20 years of making qualifying payments.

30:46She was paying $60 per month when she defaulted.

30:50This amount to many, the New York Times says, may seem manageable.

30:53But for her, it remained psychologically burdensome.

30:59Sorry, she was so psychologically burdened.

31:01Of course, we're all going to have to pay back her loan for her.

31:04So now I'm psychologically burdened by the $60 per month that I could be using

31:08for, like, juice boxes or whatever the heck I need to buy.

31:12Yeah, that's the thing. It's like the New York Times will never say in these

31:15pieces, the colleges that promised them something they couldn't deliver should be the ones paying

31:19for this. It's always like, how terrible is this system and that the rest of

31:25us should just forgive them, forgive these loans, even though people, you know, they live

31:29at home. They don't go to schools that have fancy brand names.

31:32They don't go into degrees that sound ridiculous and are ridiculous.

31:36They work during college. All of that people do, and they end up graduating with

31:42no debt only to pay off this lady's debt because she defaulted on it.

31:47You know, I made the decisions that allowed me to be debt -free, right?

31:51I didn't go to a super expensive school.

31:54I didn't take out a bunch of loans.

31:55Those were decisions I made when I had other things on the table.

31:59And now I end up covering for people who didn't make those decisions because they

32:03decided, well, someone else will pay it for me.

32:06Right. And by the way, there's already been a break for four years from payments

32:12because of COVID, which was illegal to begin with and shouldn't have happened.

32:17Yeah. And at some point, I believe it is our friend Bridget Phetasy, and I

32:23will censor myself a bit, who's like, you're being a whiny bee.

32:27Like, you just need to suck it up and pay your 60 bucks.

32:30Now, some of these people were sold a bill of goods, as you say, by

32:33the colleges. They would not have been sold this bill of goods had we not

32:37made all college loans federally backed, which would mean that then banks would have a

32:43reason to just... judge whether these loans were worth giving to people who might not

32:47get jobs and then they might not get as much money.

32:49Right. Right. We've just become this culture where everybody has to go to college and

32:55it costs a lot of money and it's not worth it for a lot of

32:59people. Like when my kids even half engage with, I don't know if I want

33:03to go to college. I'm like, I'm listening.

33:05Like, well, what are we thinking?

33:06You know? And every kid is going to have a different path.

33:10I think that we need to get off of this everybody has to go to

33:14college thing. College is very rarely about education anymore.

33:19It has almost nothing to do with what field you're going to work in.

33:22It just it never translates into making a lot of money unless you go to

33:27one of the top, top schools and you could only go there if you're if

33:30you really have the money to pay for it.

33:31Because if you don't have the money to pay for it, you're going to set

33:34yourself up to have this massive debt and count on the rest of the country

33:38to pay it for you is just not far.

33:40And I see reels occasionally or TikToks where people sort of gripe about, for instance,

33:46immigrant parents who are hard on their kids and say, if you go to college,

33:50you can go in these three degree areas.

33:52That's it. But that's the right decision.

33:54You're you're making a calculation that my kid is going to go in a law

33:58degree or an engineering degree or medical because those will pay back what I am

34:03investing. That's how you should think about it.

34:06Yeah, I'm writing something about about colleges right now.

34:09I mean, you know, writing is hard, guys.

34:11Writing is really hard, especially when it's like for your sub stack, which I feel

34:15like, you know, no deadlines means I can write this forever.

34:18But about what colleges should be about.

34:22And the fact that, yeah, my parents were like, these three professions are the ones

34:27that we would like for you to go into.

34:28And because I chose something else, I did do myself a lot of damage.

34:32I did get into debt.

34:33I had a lot of problems setting up my life because I went into a

34:37career that my parents didn't understand.

34:39So you could take the chance.

34:41You couldn't. But it's going to come with some hard moments.

34:45Or like, by the way, at the end of this article is a guide to

34:48better managing your money from The New York Times.

34:50Thanks, guys. The ship has sailed for many of these folks.

34:54Yeah. But the main thing is like you want to spend less than you make

34:58and you want to not burden yourself with giant, giant loans that you then skip

35:03out on and go to another country.

35:05Yeah, this is what I don't understand.

35:07This isn't an indictment of America.

35:08This is an indictment of the people who haven't paid the loans.

35:11Right. Absolutely. I have no point.

35:13I'm like, America should do something about this.

35:15Like the schools should do something about it.

35:17New York Times should pressure the schools to do something about it.

35:20They have these giant endowments.

35:22They take federal funds. They should not let their students flounder like this.

35:26I agree. Well, thanks for joining us on Normally.

35:29Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts.

35:33Get in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail .com.

35:37Thanks for listening. And when things get weird, you act normally.

Normally Podcast: Rescue Mission Miracle, Iran Tensions & Student Loan Escape Scandal