> That the three methods disagree “is not telling us about fundamental physics,” Freedman said. “That’s telling us there’s some systematic [error] in one or more of the distance methods.”
Freedman is saying that the model is not wrong.
To argue that the physics is wrong, you are likely to be arguing that very well tested theories like general relativity, special relativity or electromagnetism are off in some way. That's a much higher bar than just the measurements of either the ladder or CMB being wrong in some way.
It's easy to think up ways that your sensor could be 5-10% off. It's very difficult to come up with an entirely new theory of gravity that explains everything we observe about the world, but also makes gravity a few percent weaker in this one case.
Conversely, the hypothesis that LambdaCDM is wrong does nothing to explain why the distance ladder methods disagree.
She clearly isn't saying that any model is infallible, she's just saying that clear flaws with one set of models throw into question some specific accusations that a different model is wrong.
You actually need to pay attention to the details; the physicists certainly are. Glib contrarianism isn't very useful here.
You shouldn't really roll your eyes at that. They're ultimately doing all the work which will prove it right or wrong. They might wind up not liking the answer they get, but the conviction is necessary to get them there because human emotions are weird.