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[00:00]
Jack Armstrong
This is an I heart podcast.
[00:02]
Joe Getty
Guaranteed human.
[00:05]
Sleep Number Announcer
If the world were like a sleep number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort. Your coffee would never get cold, your flight would always be on time, and your mattress would always respond to you and your unique sleep needs. Sleep number mattresses are designed to respond to your body and shift with your changing life, helping you fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. To experience a whole new world of comfort, visit a sleep number store or go to sleepnumber.com sl number to a good life sleep. Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln radio studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
[00:54]
Joe Getty
Armstrong and Getty.
[00:56]
Anthony Fauci
And now here's Armstrong and Getty.
[01:02]
Michael
Thanks for tuning in to the best weekend talk show in America. We're Armstrong and Getty. If you like what you're gonna hear
[01:08]
Joe Getty
here, there's lots of us out there.
[01:10]
Michael
Look for Armstrong and Getty on demand. We do 20 hours of this every week.
[01:13]
Joe Getty
Action packed week too. My gosh, Enjoy. We've distilled it all down to the best weekend talk show in America. I almost lost my nerve for this segment for reasons I'll explain in a minute. I was reading last night Tim Sandifer's favorite fabulous proclaiming Liberty, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence. And the section I was reading, and it's worth mentioning, the 1619 Project is a cynical, awful work of fiction. The idea that the revolution was held to perpetuate slavery is so completely, wildly, cynically untrue, it's hard to believe anybody believed it. But the book's absolutely wonderful because it talks about all of the things that
[02:02]
Michael
are in the 16 project's not wonderful.
[02:05]
Joe Getty
That's not.
[02:06]
Michael
The book is wonderful.
[02:07]
Joe Getty
Yeah, sorry. The book is wonderful because it describes all of the specifics in the Declaration of Independence and what they were talking about. He has sent forth swarms of officers to, you know, plague our people and eat out our substance. He has forced legislatures to convene in weird, out of the way places. And I'd never really understood that. I'd never gotten that. I was like, he did or they did because it was all about parliament. And yeah, sure enough. And it's just such a wonderful story of the lead up to the revolution. But last night I was reading the section about Thomas Jefferson in the late 1760s and very early 1770s and how he was Thomas Jefferson crusading against slavery. And the reason I almost lost my nerve was I just kept reading thinking, this stuff is great. We need to talk about this on the show. This is fabulous. And then this morning, as I'm, you know, about to start this, I realized there's like eight pages of like fine print, single spaced, and I had not, like rewritten it and highlighted it and stuff like that. But I'm going to give you the general version of it. And I think it would be an absolutely wonderful excuse to have Tim back on the show to talk about this specifically. But I am going to start.
[03:24]
Michael
He loves this topic.
[03:26]
Joe Getty
Oh, yeah, well, and it's so interesting. I mean, never mind, you know, my feelings and patriotism and my point of view or whatever, it's just. It's much more interesting than the idiotic, oversimplified story that y' all have been fed. A lot of you. Anyway, I'm going to start at the end, or nearly at the end. What is extraordinary, indeed unprecedented, about the American revolutionaries was that time and again they conceded that the principles for which they thought would require the liberation of the enslaved, even if racial, Racial prejudices, including their own, still seemed like an insuperable barrier. They talked a lot, they wrote a lot about, hey, this all men are created equal stuff. We've got slaves going on. That doesn't work. They were utterly open about it. They talked about it all the time. They wrote brilliant treatises on it. Thomas Jefferson was a young, crusading lawyer who kept trying to roll back slavery. Why did he keep his slaves? Why didn't he turn them loose? There's a partial explanation for that, but why he didn't follow the example of George Washington, who in his will said, by the way, all my slaves are free when I die. It's not clear, it's a bit of a mystery, but the idea that they were just kind of hemming and hawing and ignoring the obvious, you know, inconsistency. I don't want to call it hypocrisy because they called it out to themselves, but why it existed. A couple of tidbits for you. First of all, a young Thomas Jefferson tried to, in a case in 1769, I think it was, tried to limit slavery and was absolutely slapped down and humiliated by it. Or in the case rather, by the powers that be and the judges and the other attorneys and that, and, you know, those folks. And Tim goes on to point out that slavery and other forms of compulsory servitude were ubiquitous in America and all over the world, hundreds of thousands of people. Ben Franklin was an apprentice. He was a forced laborer for a limited amount of time. That was one of the several different kinds of that sort of thing and suffered so severely as an apprentice that he had run away breaking colonial law. Some of the other interesting points that Tim makes, and he cites all of the contemporary documents, is that, well, he goes into a fair amount of detail about, you know, their entire philosophy made slavery look absolutely terrible. But every time they tried to limit it, roll it back, emancipate slaves, Parliament in Britain said, no, you can't. They would not let the colonists pass laws to liberate slaves under any circumstances, except very, very narrow ones. And Parliament, which at the time was claiming it had ultimate unchecked power over the king, over the colonists, over everybody. If they said it was the law, it was the law. You have no rights. Parliament will tell you what your rights are. That's the reason, really, if you want to, you know, encompass it in one sentence, why we broke away from England because of parliamentary supremacy. But anyway, every time we tried to do something, they said, no, the Royal African Company is, you know, approved and supported by the. By England. It's part of the government and you would be doing injury to them. That was the great slave importer. So, no, you can't do that. Sorry. So the Founding Fathers tried over and over and over again to limit the scope of slavery as much as they could and were told no by the Crown or I'm sorry, really, by Parliament, which I found very, very interesting. The other part of it that nobody wants to talk about because A, it doesn't serve their purposes or B, it's uncomfortable. And I'm sorry, Jack, I don't mean to monologue on this. Feel free to bust in any time.
[07:27]
Michael
I was just thinking about. Tim and I were talking about when you were gone. This is around the fourth of July time. I had rewatched the first couple episodes of the John Adams miniseries that they're running on HBO or Netflix or someplace. Anyway, I'd seen it before, but episode two of the first season, that's when they get into the Declaration of Independence, the voting, and he's sitting in the attic there. It's him and Franklin and Thomas Jefferson had just written it and are reading it for the first time. And John Adams gets to the, you know, the we hold these truths to be self evident part, which was like they weren't when. When Thomas Jefferson, when T.J. was given the task of, you know, write up a Declaration of Independence, it didn't include and, you know, form a new kind of government that nobody's ever done in before, he kind of came on his own, gave it back to him. All men are Created. And John Adams says, this isn't just a Declaration of Independence. This is a declaration of a new way of structuring society completely.
[08:27]
Joe Getty
Right.
[08:28]
Michael
And Jefferson says, yeah, well, it's what I think, right?
[08:31]
Joe Getty
100%. So to the question of, okay, so the founding papas understood that slavery was incompatible with, you know, the, the truths that we hold most sacred as Americans. So why didn't they turn all the slaves loose? I get why people ask that. It's a legitimate question. And, and the answer, a good answer, would be long and complicated. But I'll give you just a couple of tastes of it. Only a few years after the Declaration, Jefferson published Notes on the state of Virginia in which he set forth his quote, suspicion that the are inferior to the whites. A later generation seized on his words to justify slavery. And although Jefferson himself denied this connection, whatever be their degree of talent, it is no measure of their rights, he said. He did come to the conclusion that biological as well as historical differences between the races made it impossible for them to live together permanently in North America. Jefferson was one of many white Southerners who, while regarding slavery as evil, found it impossible to imagine a peaceful, multiracial democracy. Such a thing had no historical precedent. The record with which the founding fathers were familiar suggested that racially and religiously diverse societies could only be governed by emperors, as with Rome, or through legal segregation, as with medieval Jerusalem. No civilization known to man had ever successfully abolished slavery. History seemed instead to prove that mass emancipation led inevitably to deadly reprisals and civil war. Even Yankees such as John Adams agreed on this point. Immediate emancipation, wrote Adams, quote, would probably excite insurrections among the blacks to rise against their masters and imbrue their hands in innocent blood. So you've got the combination of fear of what emancipation would look like, just on a practical level, there will be a civil war and incredible bloodshed. You got the Crown saying, or I'm sorry again, Parliament saying, you're not allowed to do that. We're not going to let you. And then you've got the pressure, as they're trying to put a country together, of the southern colonies saying, our economic system depends on this. So we're putting that over there, you know, to the side. We're going to table that until we tell you or we will not sign on, combined with the fact that none of this was. Had any precedent. What do we do now? And so, you know, if you wanted to lambast them for not being aggressive or fast enough in answering what seems like the unanswerable, that's Fair. And historians can argue about that, but the idea that it was just some sort of winking. I don't see anything hypocrisy among Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers. The contrast between our founding words and slavery, it's not true. In fact, it's the opposite of true. They were sickened by it. They wrestled with it constantly and didn't know what to do.
[11:32]
Michael
Yeah, I don't like that Jefferson had slaves and kept slaves while writing that. I wish that weren't a fact.
[11:39]
Joe Getty
Oh, yeah. It's awful. And. And especially given Washington's example, nobody can really explain why he did what he did in the way he did it. It's a blot on his. On his legacy
[12:01]
Michael
because of his idea for not just declaring independence from England, but for forming an entirely new way of government. Just a new idea that we have. We're born with natural rights. That a new idea. I don't think you were here for this conversation that Tim mentioned that.
[12:20]
Megan Romer
He.
[12:22]
Michael
He said he decided and he told his wife, he said, thomas Jefferson is not only my favorite founding father, he's my favorite person who's ever lived. And his wife said, me too.
[12:34]
Joe Getty
Wow. Wow.
[12:38]
Michael
Something you get two people who get married and are in love with each other who both. Their favorite person who ever lived is not each other. It's Thomas Jefferson.
[12:46]
Joe Getty
And that is their bond.
[12:48]
Michael
Wow. Wow.
[12:49]
Joe Getty
My wife and I bonded over Super Tramp. But, you know, to each their own.
[12:54]
Michael
I just think that's hilarious.
[12:56]
Joe Getty
Yeah. That is so my favorite person who ever lived. For you, it's Thomas Jefferson.
[13:00]
Michael
Me too.
[13:01]
Joe Getty
Me too. So it's a bit of a throuple. So if there's one takeaway, I want you to take away. Hence the term takeaway. It's that far from pretending it wasn't the case, the founding generation wrestled with this question. I think it's safe to say every single day from the 1760s through the 1860s, every day. They thought slavery's evil. Nobody's outlawed it on Earth. Oh, the Brits get credit for ending the slave trade. That's partly. Well, it's a complicated. That's another story. But America was constantly saying, how do we get rid of slavery? At a time when slavery was ubiquitous everywhere on Earth, the Arabs, the Africans themselves, the Native Americans all had slaves like crazy and considered it normal. Muslims. What do you mean outlaw slavery? Muhammad himself says, slavery is great. No freaking way. We're out. The Americans were unique in saying, we've got to find a way to do this. Burn in hell. 16, 19 project, you lying liars.
[14:15]
Michael
Which is probably in your kids school library or maybe even in the classroom
[14:21]
Joe Getty
they're teaching them right now. You know what? I will commission Tim. I will pay his princely fee to write a children's book on this very topic.
[14:30]
Michael
That'd be a good one.
[14:32]
Joe Getty
I could write it, but I'm a man who craves leisure.
[14:35]
Michael
Also, the percentage of black slaves that were purchased from black people who had enslaved other black people is so left out of the whole conversation.
[14:45]
Joe Getty
Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, and you can make the. Well, it's like the drug control argument. There was a voracious appetite for black slaves in America. So that's why the black people enslaved the other tribes of black people or whoever they beat in war or whatever and sent them to America for profit. It's America's fault for wanting slaves. But that's, that's, that's not a strong argument. If you're making a moral argument, you can't go to that argument.
[15:17]
Sleep Number Announcer
Armstrong and Getty. If the world were like a sleep number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort. Your coffee would never get cold, your flight would always be on time and your mattress would always respond to you and your unique sleep needs. Sleep number mattresses are designed to respond to your body and shift with your changing life, helping you follow asleep faster and stay asleep longer. To experience a whole new world of comfort, visit a sleep number store or go to sleep number.com sleep number to a good life sleep.
[15:55]
Joe Getty
Back on Capitol Hill, Rand Paul is sort of kind of sparring with Fauci and his attorney. Fauci is taking the fifth for everything, saying that Rand Paul is a crazed fanatic who just wants to put him in jail and so he's just got to take the fifth. Here is the Randy Mann and Fauci an example of how it's gone so far.
[16:17]
Committee Chairman
Dr. Fauci, would you like to at least answer this one question for us today and let us know whether or not you've changed your mind on whether or not the benefits of gain of function research outweigh the risks.
[16:30]
Anthony Fauci
On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment to the Constitution.
[16:38]
Committee Chairman
The chairman has denied your assertion of privilege and directed you to answer, but you nonetheless refuse and stand on privilege despite the existence of the pardon. The committee will have to consider after this hearing what appropriate action should be taken against you for the failure to testify after being directed to do so. It's against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress. There will be repercussions to your refusal to testify today. Senator Peters. You're not recognized. You're not recognized. If you are unruly, you will be removed from the proceeding. You are not. You are not recognized. And you. You are not recognized.
[17:23]
Jack Armstrong
Sir.
[17:24]
Committee Chairman
Sir, you are not recognized. You are not recognized. Security, we'll hold off, but you will respect these proceedings. You were told not to sit at the table. You insist on sitting at the table. And we told you you would not be recognized. You are not invited here for testimony. Sir, you are being disruptive. Would you behave this way in a courtroom? No, because the judge would put you in jail. I can't do that today, but I can have you escorted from the premises. So I would say, sir, sit with quietly and don't say another word. I said sit quietly. You are not recognized. Another word and you're gone.
[18:05]
Joe Getty
Go on, Michael.
[18:06]
Michael
So, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to hear what the. The attorney has to say.
[18:11]
Committee Chairman
He is not recognized by the committee or the chair. If he speaks again, he will be removed from the room. This testimony is from Anthony Fauci. This is not a game with his lawyers. He can advise. His lawyers can give him advice. He's got a half dozen here. They're all allowed to talk to him. Yes, all right. But the attorneys are not recognized. In fact, the attorney was told not to sit at the table, and he's not obeying that recommendation. There's a row behind you, sir. That's where you were told to sit, and you're not. And now you're disrupting the proceedings. And so, look, this is the way Anthony Fauci wants to be remembered. For a lawyer not listening to the rules, that's the way you want to be remembered, and that's what you're going to do. You are not recognized, sir. Security, please remove him from the room.
[19:01]
Michael
So the next person to ask questions was a Democrat and decided to go with the stunt of. I'd like to. I'd like to let the lawyer speak, Ryan. All right.
[19:11]
Joe Getty
He's not a witness.
[19:13]
Michael
Oh, my God.
[19:14]
Joe Getty
Our politics is diseased.
[19:16]
Michael
It really is. It really is that we're so tribal that we go this way. It's just. And it. And it works in the other direction also. But, yeah, God dang it. It's so frustrating. Well, you know, there's one way to know Fauci's innocent of anything. He's got six lawyers with him, even
[19:36]
Joe Getty
though he's got a blanket pardon. That's odd. And his claim, if you missed it, is that, you know, he, what he's hinting at is he would say, yeah, Tuesday afternoon I first heard. And then Rand out. It was actually Wednesday. Let's prosecute him for perjury because I'm a wild eyed lunatic. That's what Fauci was claiming. Why he took the Fifth.
[19:58]
Michael
I wish at least the CBS Evening News or MSNBC or whoever any mainstream media even would point out the one diary entry from January of 2020 where Anthony Fauci says, we've done the research. This did not evolve naturally. This came out of the lab. We now know that he, he says that we now know it came out of the lab. And then say Anthony Fauci refused to. Wouldn't. Don't you say refuse? That's prejudicial. Say did not answer questions about this. He took the Fifth Amendment. Just at least put that out to people.
[20:37]
Sleep Number Announcer
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
[20:39]
Joe Getty
This is the best weekend talk show in America.
[20:45]
Michael
So this Megan Romer woman was on a couple of different Sunday shows. She represents the dsa, the Democratic Socialists of America. And they've had quite a little run here of candidates winning primaries across the country beating regular mainstream Democrats. And in some of these blue districts, that means they're going to win the election and they're going to be in Congress or the Senate. What does the DSA mean? Well, we spent a lot of last week, as a lot of people did on the DSA website, saying there's some crazy s on here. They want to abolish prisons, for instance. I mean, is this all true? So Shannon Bream on the Fox News Sunday show yesterday went one by one, true, false or yes, no on these various parts of the platform. And this is how the, the woman answered.
[21:32]
Megan Romer
Okay, so we're going to put up on the screen a few of the things that are part of your platform. And I want to ask you, just give me sort of a true or false on these. Abolish the Senate.
[21:41]
Jack Armstrong
True.
[21:42]
Megan Romer
Okay. Replace the presidency and Supreme Court as we now know them.
[21:47]
Jack Armstrong
Yep.
[21:48]
Megan Romer
Abolish ice.
[21:51]
Jack Armstrong
Absolutely.
[21:52]
Megan Romer
Abolish borders and give amnesty to anyone currently in the US Illegally
[21:58]
Jack Armstrong
as a long term plan. Yep.
[21:59]
Megan Romer
Defund the Pentagon.
[22:02]
Jack Armstrong
Absolutely.
[22:03]
Megan Romer
Abolished prisons, at least in large part.
[22:08]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah. Again as part of a long term program. Yeah.
[22:11]
Megan Romer
Okay, so no prisons, government or public ownership of most large corporations.
[22:17]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, absolutely.
[22:19]
Michael
Well.
[22:19]
Joe Getty
Well, you know, a couple of dynamics before we get to picking apart some of the specifics. First of all, this gal has made the round. She was on, I think, two different Fox shows. So they are out and proud. They actually believe what they're saying and they are more than happy to tell you what they believe to their credit, I guess. Secondly, you just, you have to be astounded at the utter, childlike, university, poisoned mind point of view of somebody like that. I mean, it's like they've not, they've never even visited reality, much less, you know, live here.
[23:03]
Michael
You want to replace all water with Gatorade, huh? You want to inject dogs at the pound with meth and let them loose in schoolyards? Yep.
[23:16]
Joe Getty
It's part of a long term program. First we'll have to get the meth for the dog.
[23:21]
Michael
Yes, Michael, there is a time when you would have thought this was a prank. Yeah, no kidding. No kidding. Well, let's hear her on some of the specifics there. I just am so interested in, because I didn't actually hear this part. The abolished prisons.
[23:35]
Megan Romer
Talk about abolishing prisons then. Does that make society better? I mean, is there anybody that should be incarcerated? I mean, rapists, child predators, murderers.
[23:45]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, so the long term plan, when we think about most people who are in prison, they are mostly in prison for crimes of poverty. So when we.
[23:51]
Megan Romer
That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the. Really?
[23:54]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, when we. Yeah. So when we get rid of this need for crimes of poverty to exist, when we get rid of that destabilizing force that, that creates so many people who are living in desperate situations and doing desperate things, that brings those numbers down to very small numbers and then we can collectively decide what we do with those people. I suspect it won't look like the prison system as we know it today,
[24:17]
Megan Romer
but you do think some people need to be locked away from society.
[24:21]
Jack Armstrong
Some people are not able to be functional members of, of society. That's true. But what does that look like to keep the rest of us safe? You know, it's. We're talking about safety, we're not talking about punishment, we're talking about making sure that we are safe. Everybody's safe, everybody maintains their dignity and everybody maintains their humanity.
[24:39]
Michael
Yeah, we used to have Shannon Bream on all the time. She's super smart and really, really good, but I think she seeded way too much ground on the crimes of poverty thing like that kind of makes sense. But what about rapists and murderers?
[24:53]
Joe Getty
I just, I think she sensed that if she got involved at that point, they would never get to the end of it. Because what you heard there was a beautiful example of a bright but naive, you know, probably affluent Very college educated, elite college young woman who has been sold on this looney tunes notion that the only reason there's crime is because there is need. And the only reason there's need is because there's capitalism. And if you ban capitalism and everybody shares and works, nobody will be mad. There will be no gangs, there will be no robberies. That people are driven by desperation to crime. That's the only reason crime exists.
[25:37]
Michael
That's what Lenin believed.
[25:38]
Joe Getty
I remember reading that when I was
[25:39]
Michael
like, I don't know how old I was, I was young. And it was a conversation or a speech from Vladimir Lenin, the original guy running the Soviet Union. And, and he believed that the only reason there's crime was, you know, evil, evil society caused people commit crime.
[25:57]
Joe Getty
And I thought, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard.
[25:59]
Michael
Have you never been around human beings? Did you not go to like grade school? And some people just will take your
[26:05]
Joe Getty
stuff because they want it, because they want to.
[26:09]
Michael
And if nobody stops them, they'll just
[26:11]
Joe Getty
take all your stuff.
[26:12]
Michael
Have you never seen this part of human nature? I thought that was so crazy then. And there are people out there, growing
[26:17]
Joe Getty
up, adults who believe that. Oh my gosh, you know what we need to get Michael and Hanson. We need to get the full interview of those two half wits who stole the money from the Girl Scouts. That is an absolutely perfect illustration of what we're talking about. It doesn't need to be right now, but let's have that in our back pocket. So, yeah, it is the sort of idiotic idea only an intellectual could hold.
[26:43]
Michael
Which of these other ones do you want to hear? Now?
[26:45]
Joe Getty
Let's go back to 64 and work through them.
[26:48]
Megan Romer
Abolish the Senate. There are people who are in the Senate now who are very supportive of dsa. They lose their seats.
[26:55]
Jack Armstrong
Well, the Senate is an anachronistic institution. It comes from the British House of Lords. It is made to protect power for, you know, the Senate was part of the system that was made to make sure that the people didn't have to too much of a say. So we want to expand Congress significantly, but make it a unicameral legislature.
[27:18]
Joe Getty
No, it's not. And no, it's not. And furthermore. No, it's not really what they want is a single legislature, a unicameral legislature in which the majority rules all the time. And of course the party will make sure only the right people run. That's the way every socialist slash communist country has ever worked. And then, and I think they get into this no, we don't have that clip. But. And they get into. And we're going to get rid of judicial review too, because who are judges to overcome the will of the majority. The Constitution exists and our government is structured the way it is to protect you from the majority, not to give them ultimate unquestionable power. But that's what the DSA wants.
[28:06]
Michael
So we talked about this last week. AOC or somebody of her stripe was complaining about the Senate and how. Why does New York just get two senators when the population is more than that of I think North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Alaska added together. You know, pick your states.
[28:23]
Joe Getty
The left is constantly saying the Senate is anti Democratic.
[28:26]
Michael
Yeah. And so it's, it's basically a crowd that doesn't believe in the concept of United States. That were a country of United States, a whole bunch of individual states where people live and have their own governments. And then we united together as a country. And it's supposed to be as little as possible that the federal government involves, gets involved in what the states decide to do. And that has kind of gone away over time. And I doubt that the lefties would be all for since you have the European Union now of doing away with. Italy is its own country, Germany is its own country, Spain is its own country. And just letting you know, a couple of power centers decide for everybody. I doubt they would like that because they would think.
[29:12]
Joe Getty
No, they'd hate it.
[29:13]
Michael
All those individual countries are cool and their cultures are so important.
[29:17]
Joe Getty
Right.
[29:18]
Michael
But yeah, so there's, there's just a lack of belief in the concept of a United States.
[29:24]
Joe Getty
Right. The federalism argument is a really, really good one. And I get why people miss that these days because we've all come to worsh. The federal government is our God, particularly the President. And that the federal government's here to solve all our problems, that's a perversion of our system. But the other argument that I find even more powerful, and I think normal people do, people who don't think much about structures of governments and constitutions is that this is a. Our system is a brilliant system that prevents eastern states from running roughshod and imposing the will on western states. It stops urban centers for running roughshod over giant but small population agricultural states. It prevents, you know, industrial states from crushing the needs and dreams of agricultural states. And you can think of bunches of different examples. And so the Senate exists so that for instance, Wyoming and North Dakota can come to the Senate. Say guys, I get why you want that, but you gotta Carve out an exemption for us because here's our reality. And if they make a decent case, that body of a hundred senators says, you know what, they have a really, really good point and they stop it. And they, you know, craft laws accordingly.
[30:41]
Michael
Well, I think the pushback on that from AOC in her crowd would be, yeah, that's what we want to do. That's what we think we should do. These moronic corn pone idiots out here in these rural states have way too much say. I think that would be the.
[30:55]
Joe Getty
My response would be f you, let's fight. We have way more guns.
[31:02]
Michael
I want to hear just before we take a break and we'll have to get into some more of this later. Their, their opening question clip 60 Mike Michael, I want to hear that the
[31:09]
Megan Romer
Daily Economy quotes you saying this at a DSA convention last year. We will win by making conditions so intolerable for the ruling class that they would rather give in to our demands than continue to live with the disturbance we cause until we are able to fully seize power ourselves. Is that aimed at the Democrat Party?
[31:28]
Jack Armstrong
It's aimed at, it's aimed from the working class to the ruling class. So the two party duopoly, the two corporate parties. It is, it is aimed at both of them and, and it comes from the working class.
[31:40]
Michael
Well, there's another giver credit for being honest. Our goal is to just make things so disruptive and ugly that, you know, it's basically the whole Marxist thing of we'll, we'll tear things down.
[31:52]
Joe Getty
Yeah, and it's a cousin to the cloud piven strategy to overwhelm the system with so many people on, on government programs, so many people flooding the immigration system that the whole thing just bogs down and breaks. And you can make the argument, look, we need to rebuild this. As the great philosopher Littlefinger and Game of Thrones put it, chaos is a ladder.
[32:19]
Michael
So no prisons, no president, no Senate. A little later we'll have to play the clips where she explains why they're going to have open borders and there's no such thing as being illegal while giving free stuff to everyone.
[32:33]
Joe Getty
Imagine there's no countries, you friggin idiots.
[32:39]
Michael
John Lennon left that line out.
[32:41]
Joe Getty
Little rewrite there.
[32:43]
Sleep Number Announcer
Armstrong and Getty.
[32:49]
Joe Getty
Josh Hawley took up the cause and went toe to toe with the fifth Amendment citing virus tweaker.
[32:57]
Josh Hawley
Next. Well, nothing says honesty like taking the fifth Hun. Doc, let's try something. What day of the week is it today?
[33:09]
Anthony Fauci
On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
[33:15]
Josh Hawley
What color tie you wearing?
[33:19]
Anthony Fauci
On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
[33:25]
Josh Hawley
What color is the carpet in front of you?
[33:29]
Anthony Fauci
On the advice of counsel, I respectfully answer based upon my rights under the fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
[33:35]
Josh Hawley
Let's just get one thing straight. You don't have any rights under the fifth Amendment because you've been pardoned, as you very well know, as the Supreme Court has been clear for a century and more. Brown versus Walker, 1896. You know that. Your lawyers sitting behind you now, shifting nervously in their chairs, they know it. This isn't about the Constitution. This isn't about the law. This is about contempt.
[33:55]
Michael
Well, Josh Hawley is known as one of the smartest lawyers in all of the country. He knows a lot more about that than I do. But is that true? Is that going to become a thing?
[34:05]
Joe Getty
Yeah, it's one of those things. Ask five lawyers and all five of them will say, it depends.
[34:11]
Josh Hawley
The.
[34:11]
Michael
What color was your tie was a performative stunt, which, while I enjoyed it, I really wish we'd get away from performative stunts and like everybody, just try to answer questions and get to the bottom of things. But those days are long past. That's. That's a. That's a horse and buggy era.
[34:26]
Joe Getty
Yeah, old man, come on, get with the times. I'm looking at the fifth Amendment right now. No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself unless it's about the color of carpets. Straight from the Constitution. He's not in a criminal case. The lawyers will. Will wrestle over this because that's what lawyers do. But the answer to your question is, of course, depends. Josh Hawley went on.
[34:51]
Josh Hawley
You did all kinds of terrible things. It's because during the pandemic, you got rich, didn't you? You got rich while people were dying. Hundreds of thousands of Americans, over a million in the end. And you were getting rich. And not only were you doing that, you were using federal employees with taxpayer money to apply for and solicit cash prizes for you personally. Cash prizes totaling over a million dollars. You did all of that during the pandemic, didn't you?
[35:23]
Anthony Fauci
That's a question on the advice of counsel. I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
[35:31]
Josh Hawley
5 CFR section 2635, 205B. It says it right there in black and white. You cannot use federal resources, federal dollars, federal employees, federal Offices, federal email, federal time to solicit cash awards. And you did all of it. And the worst part is, thousands of people were dying while you were doing it. You were supposed to be the nation's doctor, and you're playing one on tv, but this is what you were doing with your time. Isn't that true?
[36:02]
Joe Getty
You got me.
[36:03]
Anthony Fauci
On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based on. Upon my rights under the Fifth amendment to the Constitution.
[36:09]
Joe Getty
I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids. You know, all the bad guys in Scooby Doo, totally unfamiliar with the fifth amendment, or they are, they just lost their ass. I mean, well, Josh Howley did a
[36:23]
Michael
good job of being the guy who gets on the Fox clips this afternoon.
[36:27]
Joe Getty
Yeah, well, that was one of the less discussed aspects of the diary, was it became clear that Fauci did email a bunch of his colleagues saying, hey, do me a favor and nominate me for this big award, which comes with a giant cash prize. And they did, and he got it.
[36:43]
Michael
Yeah, okay, that's not cool. I don't like that if that's.
[36:48]
Joe Getty
But it's not fundamental to what we're talking about.
[36:50]
Michael
Yeah, but that's.
[36:51]
Joe Getty
That, that, that.
[36:51]
Jack Armstrong
That's.
[36:52]
Michael
Yeah. I'm still so angry about my kids being locked out of school and not being able to play in a playground. I can't get into those other details which he recommended to these states and
[37:07]
Joe Getty
was lying about everything. Yeah, I wish there was a little more coordination, not only among senators, but among the American people, to say, look, Covid was horrific in so many ways, including the fact that, as Michael Brenda Doherty put it, we suspended the Constitution somehow. And the right of landlords to collect rent and student loans. Just a thousand things.
[37:30]
Michael
Let's.
[37:30]
Joe Getty
Let's rank the top 10 harms, 1 to 10, and really focus on the very top ones. To your point, I think you're right.
[37:40]
Michael
Or I've got a friend who was a small business owner that just didn't happen to have the right kind of small business. The ice cream shop next to him was open because it fell under the category of food, even though all they served was ice cream. His store was different. He didn't get to be open for like a year and a half. Yeah. I mean, you talk about taking away people's constitutional rights. Holy crap. You're right to make a living.
[38:04]
Joe Getty
And for the millionth time. And this is. I think this is important. This is, I'm teaching a class stuff. Not we're watching hearing stuff. The very health agencies that we're talking about, both the American federal agencies and world health organizations, had gamed out. If there is a pandemic of this sort, how will we react? And it did not include massive closures and school closures and the rest of it. They carefully and deliberately weighed everything and said, no, that would be way too much damage. But when the crisis came, our politicians panicked and they abandoned their best laid plans and said, trust us, trust us. Nobody gets to dissent. We're gonna silence anybody who disagrees. We represent science. You must suspend your constitutional rights based on our judgment because this is so important right now. And it turns out that all of that was wrong. And so the next time something like this faces us, say, oh, fool me once, shame on you, because that's where we are. And that's what the purpose of the hearing is.
[39:14]
Sleep Number Announcer
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
[39:17]
Joe Getty
We've decided to call this the best
[39:19]
Michael
weekend talk show in America. And if you like it, download Armstrong
[39:22]
Joe Getty
and Getty on demand.

Summary7 min read

Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Episode: The Best Weekend Talk Show In America: Hour One

Date: August 1, 2026

Host: iHeartPodcasts

Episode Overview

This lively episode of Armstrong & Getty’s weekend show dives into some of America's thorniest historical and political debates. The hour covers:

Nuanced context and complexities around the Founding Fathers, slavery, and the 1619 Project
Fiery Congressional hearings with Anthony Fauci and politicians’ performative stunts
The Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) radical policy agenda and its recent electoral gains

Every discussion is laced with the hosts’ signature blend of sarcasm, sharp critique, and off-kilter humor.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Founding Fathers and Slavery: Dispelling Historical Oversimplifications

(01:13 - 14:45)

Joe Getty shares insights from Tim Sandifer’s book "Proclaiming Liberty," forcefully countering the 1619 Project’s claim that the American Revolution primarily aimed to perpetuate slavery.
The Founders’ open struggle with the contradiction between their ideals and the institution of slavery is explored, emphasizing they saw it as “absolutely terrible” but lacked clear precedent for abolition.
British Parliament repeatedly prevented the colonies from restricting or abolishing slavery before independence.
Thomas Jefferson’s complicated record is discussed: he crusaded against slavery in his youth, but conflicting beliefs and pragmatic fears held him (and others) back.
The segment reasserts that slavery was a nearly worldwide institution at the time, and that the Founders were unique in even contemplating mass abolition.

Notable Quotes:

“The 1619 Project is a cynical, awful work of fiction...it's hard to believe anybody believed it.”
— Joe Getty [01:17]
“They talked a lot, they wrote a lot about, hey, this 'all men are created equal' stuff—we've got slaves going on. That doesn't work. They were utterly open about it.”
— Joe Getty [03:23]
“No civilization known to man had ever successfully abolished slavery...History seemed instead to prove that mass emancipation led inevitably to deadly reprisals and civil war.”
— Joe Getty [09:05]
Michael adds personal and pop-culture context, referencing the John Adams miniseries and friends’ reverence for Jefferson.
“It's a blot on his legacy.”
— Joe Getty on Jefferson's slaveholding [11:39]
The show skewers those pushing simplified, villainizing historical narratives:
- “Burn in hell, 1619 project, you lying liars.”
  — Joe Getty [14:08]

2. The Fauci Congressional Hearings: Fifth Amendment Fireworks and Media Critique

(15:54 – 20:39, 32:49 – 39:14)

The hosts replay and discuss Congressional confrontations between Anthony Fauci, Senator Rand Paul, and later Senator Josh Hawley, where Fauci repeatedly pleads the Fifth despite having been pardoned.
The spectacle is critiqued as “performative stunts” rather than substantive accountability.
They comment on the double standards and partisan tribalism dominating politics and media coverage.

Notable Moments & Quotes:

“Our politics is diseased.”
— Joe Getty [19:14]
“If you are unruly, you will be removed from the proceeding. Would you behave this way in a courtroom? No, because a judge would put you in jail.”
— Committee Chairman [17:23]
Josh Hawley’s sarcastic line:
“Let's try something. What day of the week is it today?...What color is the carpet in front of you?”
— Josh Hawley [33:08 - 33:28]
Fauci’s refusal to answer even basic questions with repeated lines:
“On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment...”
— Anthony Fauci [Various timestamps]
On mainstream media handling:
- “I wish...at least the CBS Evening News or MSNBC or whoever...would point out the one diary entry from January of 2020 where Anthony Fauci says, we've done the research. This did not evolve naturally. This came out of the lab...Just at least put that out to people.”
  — Michael [19:57]
The hosts pivot to broader Covid response frustration, recalling small business owner hardships, and the abandonment of carefully designed pandemic response plans.

Memorable Commentary:

“Covid was horrific in so many ways, including the fact that, as Michael Brendan Dougherty put it, we suspended the Constitution somehow.”
— Joe Getty [37:06]

3. DSA Platform Breakdown: The Future of “Democratic Socialism”

(20:44 – 32:42)

Michael introduces Megan Romer, DSA representative, fresh from multiple TV appearances where she affirms goals typically seen as radical or utopian.
The show plays and reacts to a Fox News segment where Romer confirms support for positions including:
- Abolishing the Senate, reforming (or abolishing) the presidency and Supreme Court
- Totally open borders and amnesty for all undocumented people
- Defunding the Pentagon, abolishing (almost all) prisons over time
- Government/public ownership of major corporations

Notable Q&A Segment [21:31 - 22:18]:

Shannon Bream: “Abolish the Senate?”
Megan Romer: “True.”
Replace presidency and Supreme Court?
“Yep.”
Abolish ICE?
“Absolutely.”
Abolish prisons, at least in large part?
“Yeah. Again as part of a long-term program.”
Government ownership of corporations?
“Absolutely.”

Hosts' Reactions:

Joe Getty marvels:
“They are more than happy to tell you what they believe to their credit, I guess...It's like they've never even visited reality, much less, you know, live here.” [22:19]
“You want to replace all water with Gatorade, huh? You want to inject dogs at the pound with meth and let them loose in schoolyards? Yep.”
— Michael [23:03] (sarcastically exaggerating DSA positions)

Abolishing Prisons Debate [23:35 – 26:11]

Megan Romer: “When we get rid of this need for crimes of poverty to exist...that brings those numbers down to very small numbers and then we can collectively decide what we do with those people. I suspect it won't look like the prison system as we know it today.” [23:53]
Joe Getty critiques the “college-poisoned” utopian view that crime only exists due to need, recounting Lenin’s mistaken belief that communism would eliminate crime:
“Did you not go to like grade school? And some people just will take your stuff because they want it.”
— Michael [26:05]

Structural Changes and Federalism [26:44 – 29:24]

Romer calls the Senate “anachronistic” and points to a desire for a unicameral legislature.
Armstrong and Getty remind listeners the Senate is meant to protect small states from being trampled by large ones, defending federalism.
- “The Senate exists so that, for instance, Wyoming and North Dakota can come to the Senate, say ‘guys, I get why you want that, but you gotta carve out an exemption for us because here’s our reality.’ And if they make a decent case, that body...says ‘you know what, they have a really...good point’ [and] they stop it.”
  — Joe Getty [30:13]

DSA’s Disruptive Strategy

[31:09 – 31:51]

Shannon Bream quotes Romer:
“We will win by making conditions so intolerable for the ruling class that they would rather give in...”
Romer: “It is aimed at both [parties]...and it comes from the working class.”
Armstrong & Getty identify this as a classically Marxist, chaos-driven revolutionary strategy, referencing the Cloward–Piven strategy and even Game of Thrones’ “Chaos is a ladder.”

Selected Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

“The 1619 Project is a cynical, awful work of fiction...It's hard to believe anybody believed it.”
— Joe Getty [01:17]
“Why did [Jefferson] keep his slaves? Why didn't he turn them loose?...It's a blot on his legacy.”
— Joe Getty [11:39]
“Burn in hell, 16, 19 project, you lying liars.”
— Joe Getty [14:08]
“Our politics is diseased.”
— Joe Getty [19:14]
“If you are unruly, you will be removed from the proceeding...Would you behave this way in a courtroom? No, because a judge would put you in jail.”
— Committee Chairman [17:23]
“Let's try something. What day of the week is it today?”
— Josh Hawley [33:08]
“It's like they've never even visited reality, much less, you know, live here.”
— Joe Getty [22:19]
“Did you not go to like grade school? And some people just will take your stuff because they want it.”
— Michael [26:05]
“The Senate exists so that...Wyoming and North Dakota can come to the Senate, say...‘you gotta carve out an exemption for us...’”
— Joe Getty [30:13]
“Imagine there's no countries, you friggin idiots.”
— Joe Getty [32:32]

Important Timestamps

01:13 – 14:45: Founders, Slavery & the 1619 Project
15:54 – 20:39: Fauci Hearings: Fifth Amendment Sparring
20:44 – 26:42: DSA's Platform - “True/False” with Megan Romer
26:44 – 32:19: Structural Government Change & Federalism
32:49 – 36:47: Josh Hawley v. Fauci, Accusations & Legal Wrangling
36:47 – 39:14: Covid Response Lessons/Federal Overreach

Final Takeaway

This episode is packed with contrarian, often irreverent takes on hotly debated American history and current events. Armstrong & Getty consistently challenge prevailing media and academic narratives, stress the need for historical nuance, and critique both performative politics and what they view as the naïveté of rising “democratic socialist” movements—all through their sharp, conversational style.

Loading summary

Transcript157 lines

[00:00]
Jack Armstrong
This is an I heart podcast.
[00:02]
Joe Getty
Guaranteed human.
[00:05]
Sleep Number Announcer
If the world were like a sleep number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort. Your coffee would never get cold, your flight would always be on time, and your mattress would always respond to you and your unique sleep needs. Sleep number mattresses are designed to respond to your body and shift with your changing life, helping you fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. To experience a whole new world of comfort, visit a sleep number store or go to sleepnumber.com sl number to a good life sleep. Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln radio studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
[00:54]
Joe Getty
Armstrong and Getty.
[00:56]
Anthony Fauci
And now here's Armstrong and Getty.
[01:02]
Michael
Thanks for tuning in to the best weekend talk show in America. We're Armstrong and Getty. If you like what you're gonna hear
[01:08]
Joe Getty
here, there's lots of us out there.
[01:10]
Michael
Look for Armstrong and Getty on demand. We do 20 hours of this every week.
[01:13]
Joe Getty
Action packed week too. My gosh, Enjoy. We've distilled it all down to the best weekend talk show in America. I almost lost my nerve for this segment for reasons I'll explain in a minute. I was reading last night Tim Sandifer's favorite fabulous proclaiming Liberty, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence. And the section I was reading, and it's worth mentioning, the 1619 Project is a cynical, awful work of fiction. The idea that the revolution was held to perpetuate slavery is so completely, wildly, cynically untrue, it's hard to believe anybody believed it. But the book's absolutely wonderful because it talks about all of the things that
[02:02]
Michael
are in the 16 project's not wonderful.
[02:05]
Joe Getty
That's not.
[02:06]
Michael
The book is wonderful.
[02:07]
Joe Getty
Yeah, sorry. The book is wonderful because it describes all of the specifics in the Declaration of Independence and what they were talking about. He has sent forth swarms of officers to, you know, plague our people and eat out our substance. He has forced legislatures to convene in weird, out of the way places. And I'd never really understood that. I'd never gotten that. I was like, he did or they did because it was all about parliament. And yeah, sure enough. And it's just such a wonderful story of the lead up to the revolution. But last night I was reading the section about Thomas Jefferson in the late 1760s and very early 1770s and how he was Thomas Jefferson crusading against slavery. And the reason I almost lost my nerve was I just kept reading thinking, this stuff is great. We need to talk about this on the show. This is fabulous. And then this morning, as I'm, you know, about to start this, I realized there's like eight pages of like fine print, single spaced, and I had not, like rewritten it and highlighted it and stuff like that. But I'm going to give you the general version of it. And I think it would be an absolutely wonderful excuse to have Tim back on the show to talk about this specifically. But I am going to start.
[03:24]
Michael
He loves this topic.
[03:26]
Joe Getty
Oh, yeah, well, and it's so interesting. I mean, never mind, you know, my feelings and patriotism and my point of view or whatever, it's just. It's much more interesting than the idiotic, oversimplified story that y' all have been fed. A lot of you. Anyway, I'm going to start at the end, or nearly at the end. What is extraordinary, indeed unprecedented, about the American revolutionaries was that time and again they conceded that the principles for which they thought would require the liberation of the enslaved, even if racial, Racial prejudices, including their own, still seemed like an insuperable barrier. They talked a lot, they wrote a lot about, hey, this all men are created equal stuff. We've got slaves going on. That doesn't work. They were utterly open about it. They talked about it all the time. They wrote brilliant treatises on it. Thomas Jefferson was a young, crusading lawyer who kept trying to roll back slavery. Why did he keep his slaves? Why didn't he turn them loose? There's a partial explanation for that, but why he didn't follow the example of George Washington, who in his will said, by the way, all my slaves are free when I die. It's not clear, it's a bit of a mystery, but the idea that they were just kind of hemming and hawing and ignoring the obvious, you know, inconsistency. I don't want to call it hypocrisy because they called it out to themselves, but why it existed. A couple of tidbits for you. First of all, a young Thomas Jefferson tried to, in a case in 1769, I think it was, tried to limit slavery and was absolutely slapped down and humiliated by it. Or in the case rather, by the powers that be and the judges and the other attorneys and that, and, you know, those folks. And Tim goes on to point out that slavery and other forms of compulsory servitude were ubiquitous in America and all over the world, hundreds of thousands of people. Ben Franklin was an apprentice. He was a forced laborer for a limited amount of time. That was one of the several different kinds of that sort of thing and suffered so severely as an apprentice that he had run away breaking colonial law. Some of the other interesting points that Tim makes, and he cites all of the contemporary documents, is that, well, he goes into a fair amount of detail about, you know, their entire philosophy made slavery look absolutely terrible. But every time they tried to limit it, roll it back, emancipate slaves, Parliament in Britain said, no, you can't. They would not let the colonists pass laws to liberate slaves under any circumstances, except very, very narrow ones. And Parliament, which at the time was claiming it had ultimate unchecked power over the king, over the colonists, over everybody. If they said it was the law, it was the law. You have no rights. Parliament will tell you what your rights are. That's the reason, really, if you want to, you know, encompass it in one sentence, why we broke away from England because of parliamentary supremacy. But anyway, every time we tried to do something, they said, no, the Royal African Company is, you know, approved and supported by the. By England. It's part of the government and you would be doing injury to them. That was the great slave importer. So, no, you can't do that. Sorry. So the Founding Fathers tried over and over and over again to limit the scope of slavery as much as they could and were told no by the Crown or I'm sorry, really, by Parliament, which I found very, very interesting. The other part of it that nobody wants to talk about because A, it doesn't serve their purposes or B, it's uncomfortable. And I'm sorry, Jack, I don't mean to monologue on this. Feel free to bust in any time.
[07:27]
Michael
I was just thinking about. Tim and I were talking about when you were gone. This is around the fourth of July time. I had rewatched the first couple episodes of the John Adams miniseries that they're running on HBO or Netflix or someplace. Anyway, I'd seen it before, but episode two of the first season, that's when they get into the Declaration of Independence, the voting, and he's sitting in the attic there. It's him and Franklin and Thomas Jefferson had just written it and are reading it for the first time. And John Adams gets to the, you know, the we hold these truths to be self evident part, which was like they weren't when. When Thomas Jefferson, when T.J. was given the task of, you know, write up a Declaration of Independence, it didn't include and, you know, form a new kind of government that nobody's ever done in before, he kind of came on his own, gave it back to him. All men are Created. And John Adams says, this isn't just a Declaration of Independence. This is a declaration of a new way of structuring society completely.
[08:27]
Joe Getty
Right.
[08:28]
Michael
And Jefferson says, yeah, well, it's what I think, right?
[08:31]
Joe Getty
100%. So to the question of, okay, so the founding papas understood that slavery was incompatible with, you know, the, the truths that we hold most sacred as Americans. So why didn't they turn all the slaves loose? I get why people ask that. It's a legitimate question. And, and the answer, a good answer, would be long and complicated. But I'll give you just a couple of tastes of it. Only a few years after the Declaration, Jefferson published Notes on the state of Virginia in which he set forth his quote, suspicion that the are inferior to the whites. A later generation seized on his words to justify slavery. And although Jefferson himself denied this connection, whatever be their degree of talent, it is no measure of their rights, he said. He did come to the conclusion that biological as well as historical differences between the races made it impossible for them to live together permanently in North America. Jefferson was one of many white Southerners who, while regarding slavery as evil, found it impossible to imagine a peaceful, multiracial democracy. Such a thing had no historical precedent. The record with which the founding fathers were familiar suggested that racially and religiously diverse societies could only be governed by emperors, as with Rome, or through legal segregation, as with medieval Jerusalem. No civilization known to man had ever successfully abolished slavery. History seemed instead to prove that mass emancipation led inevitably to deadly reprisals and civil war. Even Yankees such as John Adams agreed on this point. Immediate emancipation, wrote Adams, quote, would probably excite insurrections among the blacks to rise against their masters and imbrue their hands in innocent blood. So you've got the combination of fear of what emancipation would look like, just on a practical level, there will be a civil war and incredible bloodshed. You got the Crown saying, or I'm sorry again, Parliament saying, you're not allowed to do that. We're not going to let you. And then you've got the pressure, as they're trying to put a country together, of the southern colonies saying, our economic system depends on this. So we're putting that over there, you know, to the side. We're going to table that until we tell you or we will not sign on, combined with the fact that none of this was. Had any precedent. What do we do now? And so, you know, if you wanted to lambast them for not being aggressive or fast enough in answering what seems like the unanswerable, that's Fair. And historians can argue about that, but the idea that it was just some sort of winking. I don't see anything hypocrisy among Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers. The contrast between our founding words and slavery, it's not true. In fact, it's the opposite of true. They were sickened by it. They wrestled with it constantly and didn't know what to do.
[11:32]
Michael
Yeah, I don't like that Jefferson had slaves and kept slaves while writing that. I wish that weren't a fact.
[11:39]
Joe Getty
Oh, yeah. It's awful. And. And especially given Washington's example, nobody can really explain why he did what he did in the way he did it. It's a blot on his. On his legacy
[12:01]
Michael
because of his idea for not just declaring independence from England, but for forming an entirely new way of government. Just a new idea that we have. We're born with natural rights. That a new idea. I don't think you were here for this conversation that Tim mentioned that.
[12:20]
Megan Romer
He.
[12:22]
Michael
He said he decided and he told his wife, he said, thomas Jefferson is not only my favorite founding father, he's my favorite person who's ever lived. And his wife said, me too.
[12:34]
Joe Getty
Wow. Wow.
[12:38]
Michael
Something you get two people who get married and are in love with each other who both. Their favorite person who ever lived is not each other. It's Thomas Jefferson.
[12:46]
Joe Getty
And that is their bond.
[12:48]
Michael
Wow. Wow.
[12:49]
Joe Getty
My wife and I bonded over Super Tramp. But, you know, to each their own.
[12:54]
Michael
I just think that's hilarious.
[12:56]
Joe Getty
Yeah. That is so my favorite person who ever lived. For you, it's Thomas Jefferson.
[13:00]
Michael
Me too.
[13:01]
Joe Getty
Me too. So it's a bit of a throuple. So if there's one takeaway, I want you to take away. Hence the term takeaway. It's that far from pretending it wasn't the case, the founding generation wrestled with this question. I think it's safe to say every single day from the 1760s through the 1860s, every day. They thought slavery's evil. Nobody's outlawed it on Earth. Oh, the Brits get credit for ending the slave trade. That's partly. Well, it's a complicated. That's another story. But America was constantly saying, how do we get rid of slavery? At a time when slavery was ubiquitous everywhere on Earth, the Arabs, the Africans themselves, the Native Americans all had slaves like crazy and considered it normal. Muslims. What do you mean outlaw slavery? Muhammad himself says, slavery is great. No freaking way. We're out. The Americans were unique in saying, we've got to find a way to do this. Burn in hell. 16, 19 project, you lying liars.
[14:15]
Michael
Which is probably in your kids school library or maybe even in the classroom
[14:21]
Joe Getty
they're teaching them right now. You know what? I will commission Tim. I will pay his princely fee to write a children's book on this very topic.
[14:30]
Michael
That'd be a good one.
[14:32]
Joe Getty
I could write it, but I'm a man who craves leisure.
[14:35]
Michael
Also, the percentage of black slaves that were purchased from black people who had enslaved other black people is so left out of the whole conversation.
[14:45]
Joe Getty
Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, and you can make the. Well, it's like the drug control argument. There was a voracious appetite for black slaves in America. So that's why the black people enslaved the other tribes of black people or whoever they beat in war or whatever and sent them to America for profit. It's America's fault for wanting slaves. But that's, that's, that's not a strong argument. If you're making a moral argument, you can't go to that argument.
[15:17]
Sleep Number Announcer
Armstrong and Getty. If the world were like a sleep number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort. Your coffee would never get cold, your flight would always be on time and your mattress would always respond to you and your unique sleep needs. Sleep number mattresses are designed to respond to your body and shift with your changing life, helping you follow asleep faster and stay asleep longer. To experience a whole new world of comfort, visit a sleep number store or go to sleep number.com sleep number to a good life sleep.
[15:55]
Joe Getty
Back on Capitol Hill, Rand Paul is sort of kind of sparring with Fauci and his attorney. Fauci is taking the fifth for everything, saying that Rand Paul is a crazed fanatic who just wants to put him in jail and so he's just got to take the fifth. Here is the Randy Mann and Fauci an example of how it's gone so far.
[16:17]
Committee Chairman
Dr. Fauci, would you like to at least answer this one question for us today and let us know whether or not you've changed your mind on whether or not the benefits of gain of function research outweigh the risks.
[16:30]
Anthony Fauci
On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the fifth amendment to the Constitution.
[16:38]
Committee Chairman
The chairman has denied your assertion of privilege and directed you to answer, but you nonetheless refuse and stand on privilege despite the existence of the pardon. The committee will have to consider after this hearing what appropriate action should be taken against you for the failure to testify after being directed to do so. It's against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress. There will be repercussions to your refusal to testify today. Senator Peters. You're not recognized. You're not recognized. If you are unruly, you will be removed from the proceeding. You are not. You are not recognized. And you. You are not recognized.
[17:23]
Jack Armstrong
Sir.
[17:24]
Committee Chairman
Sir, you are not recognized. You are not recognized. Security, we'll hold off, but you will respect these proceedings. You were told not to sit at the table. You insist on sitting at the table. And we told you you would not be recognized. You are not invited here for testimony. Sir, you are being disruptive. Would you behave this way in a courtroom? No, because the judge would put you in jail. I can't do that today, but I can have you escorted from the premises. So I would say, sir, sit with quietly and don't say another word. I said sit quietly. You are not recognized. Another word and you're gone.
[18:05]
Joe Getty
Go on, Michael.
[18:06]
Michael
So, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to hear what the. The attorney has to say.
[18:11]
Committee Chairman
He is not recognized by the committee or the chair. If he speaks again, he will be removed from the room. This testimony is from Anthony Fauci. This is not a game with his lawyers. He can advise. His lawyers can give him advice. He's got a half dozen here. They're all allowed to talk to him. Yes, all right. But the attorneys are not recognized. In fact, the attorney was told not to sit at the table, and he's not obeying that recommendation. There's a row behind you, sir. That's where you were told to sit, and you're not. And now you're disrupting the proceedings. And so, look, this is the way Anthony Fauci wants to be remembered. For a lawyer not listening to the rules, that's the way you want to be remembered, and that's what you're going to do. You are not recognized, sir. Security, please remove him from the room.
[19:01]
Michael
So the next person to ask questions was a Democrat and decided to go with the stunt of. I'd like to. I'd like to let the lawyer speak, Ryan. All right.
[19:11]
Joe Getty
He's not a witness.
[19:13]
Michael
Oh, my God.
[19:14]
Joe Getty
Our politics is diseased.
[19:16]
Michael
It really is. It really is that we're so tribal that we go this way. It's just. And it. And it works in the other direction also. But, yeah, God dang it. It's so frustrating. Well, you know, there's one way to know Fauci's innocent of anything. He's got six lawyers with him, even
[19:36]
Joe Getty
though he's got a blanket pardon. That's odd. And his claim, if you missed it, is that, you know, he, what he's hinting at is he would say, yeah, Tuesday afternoon I first heard. And then Rand out. It was actually Wednesday. Let's prosecute him for perjury because I'm a wild eyed lunatic. That's what Fauci was claiming. Why he took the Fifth.
[19:58]
Michael
I wish at least the CBS Evening News or MSNBC or whoever any mainstream media even would point out the one diary entry from January of 2020 where Anthony Fauci says, we've done the research. This did not evolve naturally. This came out of the lab. We now know that he, he says that we now know it came out of the lab. And then say Anthony Fauci refused to. Wouldn't. Don't you say refuse? That's prejudicial. Say did not answer questions about this. He took the Fifth Amendment. Just at least put that out to people.
[20:37]
Sleep Number Announcer
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
[20:39]
Joe Getty
This is the best weekend talk show in America.
[20:45]
Michael
So this Megan Romer woman was on a couple of different Sunday shows. She represents the dsa, the Democratic Socialists of America. And they've had quite a little run here of candidates winning primaries across the country beating regular mainstream Democrats. And in some of these blue districts, that means they're going to win the election and they're going to be in Congress or the Senate. What does the DSA mean? Well, we spent a lot of last week, as a lot of people did on the DSA website, saying there's some crazy s on here. They want to abolish prisons, for instance. I mean, is this all true? So Shannon Bream on the Fox News Sunday show yesterday went one by one, true, false or yes, no on these various parts of the platform. And this is how the, the woman answered.
[21:32]
Megan Romer
Okay, so we're going to put up on the screen a few of the things that are part of your platform. And I want to ask you, just give me sort of a true or false on these. Abolish the Senate.
[21:41]
Jack Armstrong
True.
[21:42]
Megan Romer
Okay. Replace the presidency and Supreme Court as we now know them.
[21:47]
Jack Armstrong
Yep.
[21:48]
Megan Romer
Abolish ice.
[21:51]
Jack Armstrong
Absolutely.
[21:52]
Megan Romer
Abolish borders and give amnesty to anyone currently in the US Illegally
[21:58]
Jack Armstrong
as a long term plan. Yep.
[21:59]
Megan Romer
Defund the Pentagon.
[22:02]
Jack Armstrong
Absolutely.
[22:03]
Megan Romer
Abolished prisons, at least in large part.
[22:08]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah. Again as part of a long term program. Yeah.
[22:11]
Megan Romer
Okay, so no prisons, government or public ownership of most large corporations.
[22:17]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, absolutely.
[22:19]
Michael
Well.
[22:19]
Joe Getty
Well, you know, a couple of dynamics before we get to picking apart some of the specifics. First of all, this gal has made the round. She was on, I think, two different Fox shows. So they are out and proud. They actually believe what they're saying and they are more than happy to tell you what they believe to their credit, I guess. Secondly, you just, you have to be astounded at the utter, childlike, university, poisoned mind point of view of somebody like that. I mean, it's like they've not, they've never even visited reality, much less, you know, live here.
[23:03]
Michael
You want to replace all water with Gatorade, huh? You want to inject dogs at the pound with meth and let them loose in schoolyards? Yep.
[23:16]
Joe Getty
It's part of a long term program. First we'll have to get the meth for the dog.
[23:21]
Michael
Yes, Michael, there is a time when you would have thought this was a prank. Yeah, no kidding. No kidding. Well, let's hear her on some of the specifics there. I just am so interested in, because I didn't actually hear this part. The abolished prisons.
[23:35]
Megan Romer
Talk about abolishing prisons then. Does that make society better? I mean, is there anybody that should be incarcerated? I mean, rapists, child predators, murderers.
[23:45]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, so the long term plan, when we think about most people who are in prison, they are mostly in prison for crimes of poverty. So when we.
[23:51]
Megan Romer
That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the. Really?
[23:54]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, when we. Yeah. So when we get rid of this need for crimes of poverty to exist, when we get rid of that destabilizing force that, that creates so many people who are living in desperate situations and doing desperate things, that brings those numbers down to very small numbers and then we can collectively decide what we do with those people. I suspect it won't look like the prison system as we know it today,
[24:17]
Megan Romer
but you do think some people need to be locked away from society.
[24:21]
Jack Armstrong
Some people are not able to be functional members of, of society. That's true. But what does that look like to keep the rest of us safe? You know, it's. We're talking about safety, we're not talking about punishment, we're talking about making sure that we are safe. Everybody's safe, everybody maintains their dignity and everybody maintains their humanity.
[24:39]
Michael
Yeah, we used to have Shannon Bream on all the time. She's super smart and really, really good, but I think she seeded way too much ground on the crimes of poverty thing like that kind of makes sense. But what about rapists and murderers?
[24:53]
Joe Getty
I just, I think she sensed that if she got involved at that point, they would never get to the end of it. Because what you heard there was a beautiful example of a bright but naive, you know, probably affluent Very college educated, elite college young woman who has been sold on this looney tunes notion that the only reason there's crime is because there is need. And the only reason there's need is because there's capitalism. And if you ban capitalism and everybody shares and works, nobody will be mad. There will be no gangs, there will be no robberies. That people are driven by desperation to crime. That's the only reason crime exists.
[25:37]
Michael
That's what Lenin believed.
[25:38]
Joe Getty
I remember reading that when I was
[25:39]
Michael
like, I don't know how old I was, I was young. And it was a conversation or a speech from Vladimir Lenin, the original guy running the Soviet Union. And, and he believed that the only reason there's crime was, you know, evil, evil society caused people commit crime.
[25:57]
Joe Getty
And I thought, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard.
[25:59]
Michael
Have you never been around human beings? Did you not go to like grade school? And some people just will take your
[26:05]
Joe Getty
stuff because they want it, because they want to.
[26:09]
Michael
And if nobody stops them, they'll just
[26:11]
Joe Getty
take all your stuff.
[26:12]
Michael
Have you never seen this part of human nature? I thought that was so crazy then. And there are people out there, growing
[26:17]
Joe Getty
up, adults who believe that. Oh my gosh, you know what we need to get Michael and Hanson. We need to get the full interview of those two half wits who stole the money from the Girl Scouts. That is an absolutely perfect illustration of what we're talking about. It doesn't need to be right now, but let's have that in our back pocket. So, yeah, it is the sort of idiotic idea only an intellectual could hold.
[26:43]
Michael
Which of these other ones do you want to hear? Now?
[26:45]
Joe Getty
Let's go back to 64 and work through them.
[26:48]
Megan Romer
Abolish the Senate. There are people who are in the Senate now who are very supportive of dsa. They lose their seats.
[26:55]
Jack Armstrong
Well, the Senate is an anachronistic institution. It comes from the British House of Lords. It is made to protect power for, you know, the Senate was part of the system that was made to make sure that the people didn't have to too much of a say. So we want to expand Congress significantly, but make it a unicameral legislature.
[27:18]
Joe Getty
No, it's not. And no, it's not. And furthermore. No, it's not really what they want is a single legislature, a unicameral legislature in which the majority rules all the time. And of course the party will make sure only the right people run. That's the way every socialist slash communist country has ever worked. And then, and I think they get into this no, we don't have that clip. But. And they get into. And we're going to get rid of judicial review too, because who are judges to overcome the will of the majority. The Constitution exists and our government is structured the way it is to protect you from the majority, not to give them ultimate unquestionable power. But that's what the DSA wants.
[28:06]
Michael
So we talked about this last week. AOC or somebody of her stripe was complaining about the Senate and how. Why does New York just get two senators when the population is more than that of I think North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Alaska added together. You know, pick your states.
[28:23]
Joe Getty
The left is constantly saying the Senate is anti Democratic.
[28:26]
Michael
Yeah. And so it's, it's basically a crowd that doesn't believe in the concept of United States. That were a country of United States, a whole bunch of individual states where people live and have their own governments. And then we united together as a country. And it's supposed to be as little as possible that the federal government involves, gets involved in what the states decide to do. And that has kind of gone away over time. And I doubt that the lefties would be all for since you have the European Union now of doing away with. Italy is its own country, Germany is its own country, Spain is its own country. And just letting you know, a couple of power centers decide for everybody. I doubt they would like that because they would think.
[29:12]
Joe Getty
No, they'd hate it.
[29:13]
Michael
All those individual countries are cool and their cultures are so important.
[29:17]
Joe Getty
Right.
[29:18]
Michael
But yeah, so there's, there's just a lack of belief in the concept of a United States.
[29:24]
Joe Getty
Right. The federalism argument is a really, really good one. And I get why people miss that these days because we've all come to worsh. The federal government is our God, particularly the President. And that the federal government's here to solve all our problems, that's a perversion of our system. But the other argument that I find even more powerful, and I think normal people do, people who don't think much about structures of governments and constitutions is that this is a. Our system is a brilliant system that prevents eastern states from running roughshod and imposing the will on western states. It stops urban centers for running roughshod over giant but small population agricultural states. It prevents, you know, industrial states from crushing the needs and dreams of agricultural states. And you can think of bunches of different examples. And so the Senate exists so that for instance, Wyoming and North Dakota can come to the Senate. Say guys, I get why you want that, but you gotta Carve out an exemption for us because here's our reality. And if they make a decent case, that body of a hundred senators says, you know what, they have a really, really good point and they stop it. And they, you know, craft laws accordingly.
[30:41]
Michael
Well, I think the pushback on that from AOC in her crowd would be, yeah, that's what we want to do. That's what we think we should do. These moronic corn pone idiots out here in these rural states have way too much say. I think that would be the.
[30:55]
Joe Getty
My response would be f you, let's fight. We have way more guns.
[31:02]
Michael
I want to hear just before we take a break and we'll have to get into some more of this later. Their, their opening question clip 60 Mike Michael, I want to hear that the
[31:09]
Megan Romer
Daily Economy quotes you saying this at a DSA convention last year. We will win by making conditions so intolerable for the ruling class that they would rather give in to our demands than continue to live with the disturbance we cause until we are able to fully seize power ourselves. Is that aimed at the Democrat Party?
[31:28]
Jack Armstrong
It's aimed at, it's aimed from the working class to the ruling class. So the two party duopoly, the two corporate parties. It is, it is aimed at both of them and, and it comes from the working class.
[31:40]
Michael
Well, there's another giver credit for being honest. Our goal is to just make things so disruptive and ugly that, you know, it's basically the whole Marxist thing of we'll, we'll tear things down.
[31:52]
Joe Getty
Yeah, and it's a cousin to the cloud piven strategy to overwhelm the system with so many people on, on government programs, so many people flooding the immigration system that the whole thing just bogs down and breaks. And you can make the argument, look, we need to rebuild this. As the great philosopher Littlefinger and Game of Thrones put it, chaos is a ladder.
[32:19]
Michael
So no prisons, no president, no Senate. A little later we'll have to play the clips where she explains why they're going to have open borders and there's no such thing as being illegal while giving free stuff to everyone.
[32:33]
Joe Getty
Imagine there's no countries, you friggin idiots.
[32:39]
Michael
John Lennon left that line out.
[32:41]
Joe Getty
Little rewrite there.
[32:43]
Sleep Number Announcer
Armstrong and Getty.
[32:49]
Joe Getty
Josh Hawley took up the cause and went toe to toe with the fifth Amendment citing virus tweaker.
[32:57]
Josh Hawley
Next. Well, nothing says honesty like taking the fifth Hun. Doc, let's try something. What day of the week is it today?
[33:09]
Anthony Fauci
On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
[33:15]
Josh Hawley
What color tie you wearing?
[33:19]
Anthony Fauci
On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
[33:25]
Josh Hawley
What color is the carpet in front of you?
[33:29]
Anthony Fauci
On the advice of counsel, I respectfully answer based upon my rights under the fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
[33:35]
Josh Hawley
Let's just get one thing straight. You don't have any rights under the fifth Amendment because you've been pardoned, as you very well know, as the Supreme Court has been clear for a century and more. Brown versus Walker, 1896. You know that. Your lawyers sitting behind you now, shifting nervously in their chairs, they know it. This isn't about the Constitution. This isn't about the law. This is about contempt.
[33:55]
Michael
Well, Josh Hawley is known as one of the smartest lawyers in all of the country. He knows a lot more about that than I do. But is that true? Is that going to become a thing?
[34:05]
Joe Getty
Yeah, it's one of those things. Ask five lawyers and all five of them will say, it depends.
[34:11]
Josh Hawley
The.
[34:11]
Michael
What color was your tie was a performative stunt, which, while I enjoyed it, I really wish we'd get away from performative stunts and like everybody, just try to answer questions and get to the bottom of things. But those days are long past. That's. That's a. That's a horse and buggy era.
[34:26]
Joe Getty
Yeah, old man, come on, get with the times. I'm looking at the fifth Amendment right now. No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself unless it's about the color of carpets. Straight from the Constitution. He's not in a criminal case. The lawyers will. Will wrestle over this because that's what lawyers do. But the answer to your question is, of course, depends. Josh Hawley went on.
[34:51]
Josh Hawley
You did all kinds of terrible things. It's because during the pandemic, you got rich, didn't you? You got rich while people were dying. Hundreds of thousands of Americans, over a million in the end. And you were getting rich. And not only were you doing that, you were using federal employees with taxpayer money to apply for and solicit cash prizes for you personally. Cash prizes totaling over a million dollars. You did all of that during the pandemic, didn't you?
[35:23]
Anthony Fauci
That's a question on the advice of counsel. I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
[35:31]
Josh Hawley
5 CFR section 2635, 205B. It says it right there in black and white. You cannot use federal resources, federal dollars, federal employees, federal Offices, federal email, federal time to solicit cash awards. And you did all of it. And the worst part is, thousands of people were dying while you were doing it. You were supposed to be the nation's doctor, and you're playing one on tv, but this is what you were doing with your time. Isn't that true?
[36:02]
Joe Getty
You got me.
[36:03]
Anthony Fauci
On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based on. Upon my rights under the Fifth amendment to the Constitution.
[36:09]
Joe Getty
I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids. You know, all the bad guys in Scooby Doo, totally unfamiliar with the fifth amendment, or they are, they just lost their ass. I mean, well, Josh Howley did a
[36:23]
Michael
good job of being the guy who gets on the Fox clips this afternoon.
[36:27]
Joe Getty
Yeah, well, that was one of the less discussed aspects of the diary, was it became clear that Fauci did email a bunch of his colleagues saying, hey, do me a favor and nominate me for this big award, which comes with a giant cash prize. And they did, and he got it.
[36:43]
Michael
Yeah, okay, that's not cool. I don't like that if that's.
[36:48]
Joe Getty
But it's not fundamental to what we're talking about.
[36:50]
Michael
Yeah, but that's.
[36:51]
Joe Getty
That, that, that.
[36:51]
Jack Armstrong
That's.
[36:52]
Michael
Yeah. I'm still so angry about my kids being locked out of school and not being able to play in a playground. I can't get into those other details which he recommended to these states and
[37:07]
Joe Getty
was lying about everything. Yeah, I wish there was a little more coordination, not only among senators, but among the American people, to say, look, Covid was horrific in so many ways, including the fact that, as Michael Brenda Doherty put it, we suspended the Constitution somehow. And the right of landlords to collect rent and student loans. Just a thousand things.
[37:30]
Michael
Let's.
[37:30]
Joe Getty
Let's rank the top 10 harms, 1 to 10, and really focus on the very top ones. To your point, I think you're right.
[37:40]
Michael
Or I've got a friend who was a small business owner that just didn't happen to have the right kind of small business. The ice cream shop next to him was open because it fell under the category of food, even though all they served was ice cream. His store was different. He didn't get to be open for like a year and a half. Yeah. I mean, you talk about taking away people's constitutional rights. Holy crap. You're right to make a living.
[38:04]
Joe Getty
And for the millionth time. And this is. I think this is important. This is, I'm teaching a class stuff. Not we're watching hearing stuff. The very health agencies that we're talking about, both the American federal agencies and world health organizations, had gamed out. If there is a pandemic of this sort, how will we react? And it did not include massive closures and school closures and the rest of it. They carefully and deliberately weighed everything and said, no, that would be way too much damage. But when the crisis came, our politicians panicked and they abandoned their best laid plans and said, trust us, trust us. Nobody gets to dissent. We're gonna silence anybody who disagrees. We represent science. You must suspend your constitutional rights based on our judgment because this is so important right now. And it turns out that all of that was wrong. And so the next time something like this faces us, say, oh, fool me once, shame on you, because that's where we are. And that's what the purpose of the hearing is.
[39:14]
Sleep Number Announcer
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
[39:17]
Joe Getty
We've decided to call this the best
[39:19]
Michael
weekend talk show in America. And if you like it, download Armstrong
[39:22]
Joe Getty
and Getty on demand.