A Dinghy & A Fresh Threat

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand — "A Dinghy & A Fresh Threat"

Date: May 4, 2026
Hosts: Jack Armstrong & Joe Getty

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on intensifying Middle East tensions—specifically escalating incidents affecting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. and Iranian brinkmanship, and the wider geopolitical and economic fallout (notably soaring gas prices). Armstrong and Getty also veer into cultural territory, dissecting “rich face” plastic surgery trends among America’s ultra-wealthy. Additionally, the show features their trademark gallows humor, pop culture asides, and live reaction to developing stories.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Escalating Conflict in the Strait of Hormuz

• Immediate Developments:

  • Trump has declared "Operation Freedom," reopening the Strait for shipping, but specifics on execution remain unclear. (01:34)
  • Multiple ships—the American, British, and South Korean—come under fire amidst conflicting reports about the strait's status. (02:41, 03:04)
  • UAE is targeted by Iranian drone and missile strikes and appears at the edge of its tolerance. (03:04, 03:34)
  • CENTCOM confirms elimination of Iranian boats harassing cargo; U.S.-Israeli airstrikes may resume imminently. (19:12)

• Economic Fallout:

  • California gas prices near $7/gal for premium, diesel at $7.45/gal—impacting nationwide inflation. (04:41, 05:06, 11:45)
  • Debate about how quickly prices will fall if hostilities cease, with a clear sense of partisan spin influencing discussion. (01:34)
  • "How expensive would gas have to be before you think, you know what, Iran getting a weapon is? OK." — Jack Armstrong, 04:15

• Geopolitical Implications:

  • UAE may coordinate with Israel in retaliation against Iran—a potential historic shift. (11:18)
  • Speculation on Trump using ship movements as a pretext to escalate militarily in the region. (19:12)
  • The hosts bemoan the absence of direct messaging from U.S. leaders on the true stakes: preventing Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons. (04:10, 10:20, 12:09)

2. Sanctions, Internal Iranian Strain, & Regime Survival

• Iran’s Economic Collapse:
  • Kevin Hassett highlights Iran’s economic freefall post-revolution: “In 1978, before the Ayatollah came, the per capita GDP in Iran was about the same as for Japan and Italy. Now it’s about the same as for Honduras.” (08:25, 08:40)
  • Uncertainty remains as to how close the regime is to true collapse; predictions have varied wildly and none so far have proved accurate. (07:52–08:21)
  • Ongoing question: “How much pain are [Iran’s leaders] willing to bear, especially when most of the pain is borne by the people?” — Joe Getty, 21:00

3. Domestic Politics and Gas Price Pain

• Emphasis that public dissatisfaction with inflation and fuel costs are driving negative views of the administration, with poll numbers sagging. (11:45, 37:43)
• The hosts underscore the political necessity of clear justification for sacrifices, echoing past leaders:
  • “If the goal is noble and important enough, then the momentary discomfort just doesn’t mean anything. Oh, my God, their messaging is terrible.” — Joe Getty, 12:09

4. Cultural Segment: Ultra-Wealth, Plastic Surgery, and ‘Rich Face’

• Discussion Starter:

  • Jeff Bezos’ $500M yacht and the even pricier “support ship”—a jumping-off point for the strangeness of visible wealth among America’s elite. (22:12)

• The ‘Rich Face’ Phenomenon:

  • Hosts describe how ultra-wealthy now deliberately flaunt overdone surgical alterations—plumped lips, drawn skin, conspicuous features—as status symbols since typical luxury goods (handbags, jewelry) are easily copied. (22:14–25:23)
  • “It’s fair game...if you get operated on to look a certain way.” — Jack Armstrong, 22:20
  • Quoting plastic surgeons: Procedures are now a competitive marker; discussions about “Mar-a-Lago face,” “Palm Beach face,” and “global facial micro optimization,” which can run $150K–$300K. (26:00–27:07)
  • Millennials/Gen Z are opting for these treatments even when they can’t afford homes, with cosmetic work normalized as a sign of “making it.” (27:37)
  • Wry aside: “I mentioned earlier that the lovely Ms. Bezos there has lips that a toddler could sleep on. They’re so enormous.” — Joe Getty, 25:23

5. Legal Curiosity: Privacy vs. Public Embarrassment

• Story about a DoorDash driver who filmed a naked, passed-out customer in his own home and posted the video to TikTok—legal ramifications explored. (15:12–18:41)
  • “I can be naked on my couch for any reason.” — Jack Armstrong, 16:13
  • “You have the expectation of privacy in your own home, even if you...Real hot day. That cold upholstery on my bare cheeks. It’s just soothing.” — Joe Getty, 17:02/18:06

6. Humor & Pop Culture Moments

• Babylon Bee headlines provide levity, e.g., “Iran issues serious threat that they have a massive reserve of more serious threats,” aptly paralleling real-world escalation. (33:07)
• Reflections on long-running war media narratives, use of “quagmire,” and generational difference in patience for conflict. (09:56)

7. Health Updates & Political Legacy

• Rudy Giuliani discussed: hospitalized, poor health—prompting speculation on whether history will remember his early accomplishments or recent controversies. (34:27–36:36)

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• "Man, it is getting hot today...Trump yesterday announces Operation Freedom, ships are going to start going through the strait...Then, earlier today...two ships...sailed through...a South Korean-flagged ship gets fired upon..."
  — Jack Armstrong, 01:34–02:39

• "When was the last time you heard anybody dealing with the question of what level of pain is worth it to prevent the IRGC from getting a nuclear weapon?"
  — Joe Getty, 04:10

• “If the point is to deny an insane regime an atomic weapon...negotiation won’t work with them...The messaging has been horrible.”
  — Joe Getty, 10:20, 10:46

• “I'm allowed to [be pantless] in my own home.”
  — Jack Armstrong, 16:13

• "I'm going back to straights [of Hormuz]. I don’t know.”
  — Jack Armstrong, 08:59

• “[Plastic surgery] is a way to say, look what I just bought.”
  — Joe Getty, 29:24

• “If the goal is noble and important enough, then the momentary discomfort just doesn’t mean anything.”
  — Joe Getty, 12:09

• “Trump just said...Iran will ‘be blown off the face of the earth’ if they attack US Ships...That is a threat.”
  — Jack Armstrong, 33:29

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Strait of Hormuz Conflict & Oil Markets: 01:04–07:59, 19:12–21:59
• Gas Prices/Economic Pressure: 04:41–05:14, 11:45–12:09
• Ultra-Wealth/Plastic Surgery Discussion: 22:12–32:14
• TikTok Privacy Legal Case: 15:12–18:41
• Humor, Pop Culture, Babylon Bee: 09:31, 33:07–34:27
• Rudy Giuliani, Political Legacies: 34:27–36:36

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Tone & Style

• Informal, witty, and frequently tongue-in-cheek; gallows humor used to process weighty world events.
• Frequent asides, pop-culture riffs, and blunt, “everyman” takes on complex policy and social issues.
• Value placed on skeptical examination of media narratives and political messaging.

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Final Thoughts

• Hosts predict imminent escalations in both the war and inflation hardships for average Americans. (37:43)
• Poll numbers for those in charge are “cratery”—public approval likely to worsen if the conflict deepens and economic pain persists. (37:56)
• “The war is back, and we’re going to be talking about it a lot this week.” — Jack Armstrong, 37:27

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This episode is essential listening for anyone tracking the shifting landscape in the Middle East and the intersection of foreign policy, economics, and American culture—delivered in Armstrong & Getty’s trademark incisive-yet-accessible style.

Transcript

[Jack Armstrong]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Jack Armstrong]

only@try droidbox.com Want to keep up with everything trendy?

[Joe Getty]

From breaking news to shareable jokes, pop

[Jack Armstrong]

culture bites to viral food spots, it's all on TikTok download tick tock now to explore. Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center,

[Joe Getty]

Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty. And now

[Joe Getty]

is Armstrong and Getting. Well, listen, so I'm at dot. I'm not in the energy sector, but from all the briefings I've had, once this trade opens, you'll see prices come down, come down immediately. And again there's going to be a tail to that. It's going to take time to get back to where we were before this conflict began, but you're going to see, I think, immediate relief once the straight open.

[Jack Armstrong]

Then a lot of arguing back and forth between supposed experts, but they seem to be partisans to me mostly on whether or not gas prices will go down right away when the when the war ends. If you hate Trump, you say no, it'll take a year before prices go back down. And if you like Trump, you say prices will go down immediately. And I don't know which is true. But on the topic of when the war ends, because the war will have to end I think, before gas prices are going to come down. Man, it is getting hot today. So we came on the air as we record this podcast or we're on the air live, depending on where you're listening. Trump yesterday announces that Operation Freedom is ships are going to start going through the strait. He doesn't exactly explain how that's going to happen. Then earlier today on Monday, two ships, American flag ships that had been stuck there since the beginning of the war sailed through, got out. Well, that sounds like good news. Then a South Korean flagged ship gets fired upon, it looks like from the banks of Iran. Somewhere in Iran.

[Joe Getty]

K pop indeed.

[Jack Armstrong]

Now a British ship or it's being reported by Great Britain for whatever reason. I don't know if it's a British ship. It doesn't say. But according to a report from the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, an incident has occurred in the straight. A vessel is currently on fire. No cause of the fire has yet been determined. I suppose the cook could have had a grease fire as he's making the morning eggs.

[Joe Getty]

It happens.

[Jack Armstrong]

Or Iran has fired on a British ship. Now adding to that, looking at the first images from the uae where there is a lot of smoke coming out one of their big cities, an Iranian strike on their primary export hub. Iran is firing drones at the uae and they warned about that earlier. So who knows what that reaction is going to be like.

[Joe Getty]

The UAE has been hit with more ordnance than anybody else in this conflict, which is crazy.

[Jack Armstrong]

And they, and I think, at least according to some of the statements from mbz, they've about reached their level of tolerance for that sort of thing. Why Iran thinks that's a good idea to try to drag the UAE into the fight, I don't know.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, boy, we could talk about that for a while. I don't think it's going to work. You know what struck me when you were talking about the partisan bickering over how soon gas prices might come back down to earth. When was the last time you heard anybody dealing with the question of what level of pain is worth it to prevent the IRGC from getting a nuclear weapon?

[Jack Armstrong]

Nobody talks about that.

[Joe Getty]

Framing it in the context of what it's about.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right. That should be the question, man. Hey, Republicans, when you go on the Sunday talk shows, make that the talking point or the point of discussion. How expensive would gas have to be before you think, you know what Iran getting a weapon is? Okay. Is the way to present it, I think.

[Joe Getty]

And if people want to argue about whether they were going to or could or how long.

[Jack Armstrong]

Perfectly valid conversation.

[Joe Getty]

Have that argument. Yep.

[Jack Armstrong]

Gas currently, though. And this is California, the Circle k near my house.673 for the premium unleaded. It's awful close to 7 bucks diesel, which I put in my F257.45 a gallon, pushing $8.

[Joe Getty]

What's the, what's the regular? Is that probably like barely seven or regular?

[Jack Armstrong]

Just regular. 629 for unleaded. Regular unleaded. The premium. 673.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Wow. Wow.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. And going up. No reason to think it's gonna go down anytime soon, especially with what's going on today. I assume that's gonna make the oil markets pretty jumpy. What's happening today? A couple of ships being fired on, UAE being fired On.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, they go up, they go down. They're up right now. We had a lovely chat. What was our three of the show with Mike Lyons to kick off the hour. And what's clear is that everything is unclear. I have no idea. This Operation Freedom, by the way. Operation Freedom, you got to have two words, Operation Something. Freedom. Enduring Freedom. I don't know, Operation Oily Freedom, maybe in this case, or Operation Super Duper Freedom. Operation Freedom is just too stripped down.

[Jack Armstrong]

But anyway, even more freedom.

[Joe Getty]

That's a good one. Yes. Nobody's sure what the hell's going to happen or what Trump's plan is or that has any chance of coming together. And normally I'd say, well, calm down, let it come together, and we'll describe what happened. But there have been a lot of pronouncements about the strait being open and being closed and being open and then closed and then open again. And I just. It all sounds like crap to me.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, Trump announces ships are going to go through yesterday. IRGC announces today the strait is closed and starts firing on ships. It seems to me that we're at the point of, oh, no, you didn't. We gotta start bombing the crap out of them. We. We have to show that we're serious about kinetic action. Again, I think they're kind of betting on that because of Trump's poll numbers and what the Europeans are howling about and all that different sort of thing that we. We ain't gonna go back to what we saw that first week or so of Enduring Freedom where we're bombing everything. I think they're counting on the fact that we won't go back to that.

[Joe Getty]

I might throw in a little. When Trump goes to talk to Xi Jinping, old Winnie the Pooh is going to come hard at, hey, you got to go easy on Iran. We need the oil or we're going to take away your chips or your rare earth minerals or something like that. Hey, hit me with 45 here, Michael, would you, please? That's Kevin Hassett.

[Michael]

You know, I go down to the suit room many times a week and get briefed on what's going on in Iran. And they're an economy that's really on the precipice of extreme calamity. They are having a hyperinfl. Starting to have hunger. The bottom line is that the pressure on the great American people, because these people who are, like, really intent on American and Israeli destruction with their nuclear weapons are still in power.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, that's the point. That's gotta be part of every damn Discussion, man.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's the big question out there, isn't it? Who's more right about the fact that they're about to collapse?

[Joe Getty]

Is it.

[Jack Armstrong]

We went through all these predictions on Friday, I think all the different. Some publications say two days. Trump says two days. But there are some publications that say a week. There are some publications that say many months and everything in between.

[Joe Getty]

Give me a second. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Yep, the two day prediction was wrong.

[Jack Armstrong]

The other ones I can't account for.

[Joe Getty]

Skip to 47 for me, Michael.

[Michael]

The fact is that that regime has destroyed the country. Let me put it in perspective. In 1978, before the Ayatollah came, then the per capita GDP in Iran was about the same as for Japan and Italy. Now it's about the same as for Honduras.

[Joe Getty]

Right.

[Michael]

So they've run that country into the ground. And that's before the straits were closed. So it's really, really a country that's on the rock.

[Joe Getty]

Your Hondurans are like, hey, we're doing our best here. It's really hot. It's, it's right on the equator. Quit comparing them to us. But that is something. From Japan to Honduras.

[Jack Armstrong]

An aside that's unimportant. I believe when this war started, most of us were saying the Straits of Hormuz. Then the tide seemed to turn toward the Strait of Hormuz for about three days. And then I feel like having watched the Sunday shows and heard that clip, the S is back. And it's now once again the Straits of Hormuz, which I think if I look at the map, since the way it comes together at a point, you kind of got this straight here in this. Straight here in the point up there. I'm going back to straights. I don't know.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm trying to come up with, let's see, the Dire Straits of Hormuz. They would play money for nothing.

[Jack Armstrong]

What?

[Joe Getty]

Dressed up in Middle Eastern garb. Right? It hasn't come together in my mind yet, but there's something there.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, that little F word's got his own jet airplane.

[Joe Getty]

Right? Well, it's, you know, you gotta excuse the gallows humor, folks. This conflict has been going on for two months.

[Jack Armstrong]

I know, I know. That was a very good point that Hegseth made last week. And just, we all gotta calm down with our tick tock brains. A 60 day war God. The number of Democrats that I saw in the various shows yesterday and say now we're, you know, mired. The quagmire word and all that. Sort of stuff. Can you get mired in 60 days? Is that even a thing?

[Joe Getty]

And again, missing is the absence of the framework if the point is to deny an insane regime an atomic weapon. Because they've signaled over and over and over again negotiation won't work with them,

[Jack Armstrong]

which they obviously could have done a better job of making the point at the very, very beginning that that's what this war is. Because, like, day, first couple of days, he would say that, but then like day two, he said, and it's oil. We're doing this for the oil. Oh, okay. It's the oil.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. The messaging has been horrible. True, true fact, man.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm going to be following my open source intelligence thing all day long. I feel like the UAE ain't going to allow their ports to be bombed. But I mean, if they start flying fighter jets over Iran and bombing. Not coordinated with us, or maybe they would coordinate with us. I don't know. There's been talk of, for the first time ever, the UAE might coordinate with Israel in a bombing campaign, which would be historic.

[Joe Getty]

All those UAE doesn't have a ton of guys, but they got a ton of weapons.

[Jack Armstrong]

All those little Arab fiefdoms that have been vowing death to the Jews since before their grandparents were born, gathering together in the Emirates and deciding to fly alongside the Israelis, that would be something. But might happen today. Yeah, yeah.

[Joe Getty]

Nobody knows. And again, we're almost two months into this, but two months, whatever it is

[Jack Armstrong]

for domestic politics, if diesel in California is seven and a half dollars and everything gets transported around this country on trucks, everything's going to get more expensive. Inflation was already knocking us on our asses. Oh, it's going to be, man, your. Your right direction. Wrong direction view of the economy is going to get even worse than it already is. And it's pretty darn bad if you saw the polls that came out over the weekend.

[Joe Getty]

But as Churchill and Roosevelt and Lincoln and Washington and everybody else would tell you, that's exactly why you've got to make it all the more clear to people why the pain must be endured. Keep everybody focused on the goals. If the goal is noble and important enough, then the momentary discomfort just doesn't mean anything. Oh, my God, their messaging is terrible. All right, that's enough of that.

[Jack Armstrong]

Is Jimmy Kimmel able to predict events? He made a. He made a joke about Rudy Giuliani dying apparently the other day, and now Rudy Giuliani's in the hospital.

[Joe Getty]

Okay. And then the Melania joke. That's right. Led to the assassination attempt, right?

[Jack Armstrong]

Exactly.

[Joe Getty]

Maybe Kimmel's the Antichrist, not Trump.

[Jack Armstrong]

Ever think of that?

[Joe Getty]

Or maybe they're both the Antichrist and the way they fool you is by sniping at each other all the time.

[Jack Armstrong]

Ooh, clever. That's tricky. We might want to remention some of those polls that came out over the weekend because we are in a bad mood about the economy nationwide. But we got lots of stuff coming up. Stay here.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Gettysburg.

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[Jack Armstrong]

Swung on a pop foul back here. It really hit me. I didn't know it was coming back that far. And Holmes ready to deal a ground ball at the third. Donaldson squares throws to first in time.

[Joe Getty]

Ball game over.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yankees win the Yankees.

[Joe Getty]

When

[Jack Armstrong]

that guy's famous for saying that at the end of Yankees games and he has passed at the age of 87.

[Joe Getty]

The legendary John Sterling took a blow to the head during the game but persevered. An example for us.

[Jack Armstrong]

All right, nun, you know, as long

[Joe Getty]

as we're on the theme, Michael, play 17 for us, would you?

[Jack Armstrong]

Grissom pokes one down the right field line and bench dives and makes a fantastic catch.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, wow.

[Jack Armstrong]

Carson Benj with poker Tuninous play. And we're a two man down in the ninth. I'm not going to say it was poker tuninous, but I'm going to take your word for it.

[Joe Getty]

That was an amazing play. Pulchritudinous, Attractive. Physically attractive. Beautiful.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'll take your word for it. Like he did.

[Joe Getty]

Well, baseball unfolds at a fairly deliberate place pace. So you have time for, you know, 14 syllable words. Looking up words speaking of odd behavior as we were in the previous clip and odd things happening. So there's a trial going on. Yeah, they're gonna. They've indicted this woman. Confusing headline. New York doordash driver who allegedly filmed naked customer and posted viral TikTok has been indicted. And it's a man and a woman. And I was confused because I made some incorrect assumptions about what was going on. Here's the deal. This 23 year old chick gets called to deliver doordash food. She gets to this guy's front door and it's like just the glass screen door, storm door, whatever you call it. And his main door is open, I guess you can see through it. And he's laying there pantless on the couch.

[Jack Armstrong]

Which I'm allowed to do in my own home.

[Joe Getty]

Absolutely. You don't want to see it. Don't look. He's. He's passed out, he's asleep, he's dead to the world. And so she apparently either mischievous little pixie or pissed off that she's not going to get paid and tipped or whatever. Although I guess that happens in advance. Anyway, she breaks out her phone and like squeezes in and videos him pantless on his couch, puts it on the TikTok and it's seen by how many millions of people? 30 million views before it was removed. Wow. Well, drunk Yvonne Hungerstein is pissed off about this, as you might be too. And his files.

[Jack Armstrong]

It didn't have to be drunk. He could just be sleepy. Von Schlong is out.

[Joe Getty]

Well, yeah, as it turns out, he had been enjoying a couple of adult beverages, which I thought this was America, is it?

[Jack Armstrong]

Not anymore. Yes it is.

[Joe Getty]

Anyway, so investigators later determined the man was passed out drunk inside his home. She initially.

[Jack Armstrong]

Why did investigators need to determine that I can be naked on my couch for any reason?

[Joe Getty]

Well, right, yeah. Just because you like the feel of the upholstery. But. So here's the problem on a hot day.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh heck yeah.

[Joe Getty]

She puts out this video that gets viewed 30 million times and he's like, holy crap, what's going on here? You got to take that down and you're in trouble. And she's like, he sexually harassed me. She said he sexually harassed me. That's why I put out the video. Turns out, no, he was passed out drunk. They had no interaction whatsoever. And so she's being prosecuted for unlawful posting of an intrusion of privacy video. Something, something. Because you have the expectation of privacy in your own home, even if you.

[Jack Armstrong]

Real hot day. That cold upholstery on my bare cheeks. It's just soothing.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, the leather. It's nice and chilly in the air conditioning.

[Jack Armstrong]

So I'm in my house, I can obviously do that. But I have windows. Can you take pictures through my windows?

[Joe Getty]

No, absolutely not.

[Jack Armstrong]

How about if I'm on the sidewalk?

[Joe Getty]

Yes. And the legal doctrines involving like high fences and drones have now become completely incomprehensible. But that's a story for another day. Yeah, imagine Armstrong and Getty.

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[Jack Armstrong]

announcement coming after another cargo vessel was reportedly attacked by multiple small craft off the coast of Iran. According to the British Navy's monitoring group, it's recorded more than 40 incidents of vessels attacked, damaged or turned back in or near the Strait of Hormuz since the war began. And says 20,000 seafarers are trapped on ships which can't sail out. Okay, well, already today a couple of US flagged ships have sailed out. Trump announced yesterday we're going to start sailing ships. I think maybe what was going on here without an explanation of how he was going to do it, I think maybe he was coming up with a causes belli, a reason to restart the war. We're gonna send those ships through. I know you're gonna fire on them, but that'll give me what I need to start this all up again. To that point. CENTCOM just announced that we eliminated six Iranian small boats this morning attempting to interfere with commercial shipping. That little story you just heard there about small boats running at ships, well, we just blasted a bunch of them out of the water similar to what we were doing in Venezuela. The UAE has again said that their air defenses are dealing with another wave of Iranian missiles that are coming in. All of this adds up to CNN is reporting right now that sources inside the administration have told them that a resumption of US Israeli airstrikes is expected in the next day. So I wouldn't be surprised by the end of today. I don't know what time it is over there. Might be getting to be nighttime, but we in Israel are going to start bombing the crap out of them again. That's what I expect.

[Joe Getty]

It would not surprise me maybe with

[Jack Armstrong]

UAE fighter jets at the side of Israeli fighter jets because they got to be fed up with this.

[Joe Getty]

Right? Right. And it gets back to the whole question of if you can't eliminate all of their capability, you have to eliminate their will to use it, but maybe eliminating more of their Capability gets you closer to that point. So let's go ahead and smash some more launchers because what's impossible to say with a regime of this sort is how much pain are they willing to bear. Especially when most of the pain is borne by the people who they want to be martyrs for Allah. Anyway, how do you bring them to their knees per se? Nobody's quite sure. Couldn't let them get a bomb. Yeah, yeah. Stay tuned. We'll let you know if it happens. So touched on this earlier and thought we'd get a little more time to flesh it out. No pun intended. This article about Jeff Bezos selling his half billion dollar mega yacht. And. And it's five. It's a $500 million floating palace and the support ship that goes along with it is $75 million. That's like the dinghy, I guess. Although some listener knows about support ships. Emailed us. I haven't read it yet. Maybe I will. But what really struck is the picture of Jeff Bezos and his wife. What's her face? Lauren Sanchez.

[Jack Armstrong]

What's her odd face.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, and that's the thing. She is so clearly a creation of plastic surgery.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Before we go on with that, we should make it clear that show policy more or less is to not criticize people's looks or things you have no control over. But if you get operated on to look a certain way, I think it's fair game, don't you?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. What's really interesting is the cultural change which is what we're about to talk about. See, I a guy who really likes girls the way God made them. Grown women, I don't get it at all. But I'm not part of this set. And that's the set who wants to look surgically redone because that's one of the only ways left to signal I'm the super rich.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. We talked about this a little bit earlier and now make sense to me for the first time why people do this. You want it to be noticeable. I always thought, wow, how did you go one too many? You know, you got your facelift, you got this done, you got that done. But you went one too many and now you look weird. That's the point is to look surgically, obviously surgically altered, which separates you as a certain level of rich.

[Joe Getty]

I in the way like a designer handbag can't anymore because there are knockoffs or secondhand or whatever. Any signal, I mean you can artificial lab grown diamonds are so. I mean even if you're a jeweler, you can't tell unless you bust out the eyeglass. And so how do you signal you're super rich? Well, by getting a procedure or three that cost anywhere from $100,000 to $300,000 if you've had the. What you call it, lift. The other rich people can see that and realize, oh, all right. They're. They're in our class. Which is bizarre to me. And everybody's noticing, too. Models in a Paris Fashion Week show for the luxury brand Unpronounceable last month caricatured the 1% by wearing prosthetics that resembled post op faces, including grotesque under eye bulges, skin pulled up from their temples.

[Jack Armstrong]

Under eye bulges?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, like post op swelling.

[Jack Armstrong]

I think you get your operation done early enough, you wouldn't still be all swollen up for your Runway.

[Joe Getty]

But. Okay, well, it's. It's a caricature. You get it that they're. They're making fun of it.

[Jack Armstrong]

Okay, now I understand.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. They caricatured the 1% by wearing prosthetics that resembled post op faces, including grotesque under eye bulges, skin pulled from their temples and lips that appeared unnaturally inflated and stitched at the edges. Then they name check south park depicting Kristi Noem. And from the Met Gala to the Oscars and every red carpet in between, these rich faces are everywhere. A rich face is stretched taut, often incapable of varied expressions, and plumped with filler or implants or a person's own grafted fat. I mentioned earlier that the lovely Ms. Bezos there has lips that a toddler could sleep on. They're so enormous.

[Jack Armstrong]

She looks ridiculous to my mind, but.

[Joe Getty]

Well, exactly. But not to hers.

[Jack Armstrong]

Not if. The point is you need to be ridiculous enough that it's obvious it can't be subtle. I wonder if she's had work done. That's not what they want.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, no, no. That would be a swing and a miss.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

Which I think all of us have assumed for the longest time because this was true. You wanted subtle enough that people didn't. No, that's why, you know. You know, a woman who'd have little work or something like that, and she'd always say, well, I had a breathing problem with my nose or whatever, and it's fine, whatever. Do whatever you want with your life.

[Jack Armstrong]

But I kept falling over backwards, so I thought to balance myself out, I would get these giant hooters.

[Joe Getty]

Right? Exactly. It's just a practical decision. They mentioned the number of times in. In science fiction, from the Hunger Games to Doctor who to. I remember the movie Brazil, which was a 80s dystopian classic and disturbing. And they featured like wealthy socialites, the super rich who revel in luxury and excess, often have sculpted altered faces. But now it's among the ultra wealthy. That's what they want. And they mention. Let's see. They quote. Plastic surgeons in Washington D.C. are navigating a surgeon requests for a Mar a Lago face. That's what women are asking for. I want the Mar a Lago face. Today's cleverly marketed aesthetic treatments include global facial micro optimization, which involves numerous procedures to tweak everything from eye tilt to the way light reflects off the jaw. And cost between 150,000 to 300,000.

[Jack Armstrong]

The way light reflects off the jaw?

[Joe Getty]

Yes.

[Jack Armstrong]

There's something I've never thought about.

[Joe Getty]

You don't want an unlit jaw, you idiot.

[Jack Armstrong]

See, if I ever got work done, I would want it to be. I would be in that old category of I don't want people to notice.

[Joe Getty]

Cause you're a sad sack poor guy. And here's where it gets even crazier. The masses want in. Millennials who say they cannot afford homes are spending money on their faces instead.

[Jack Armstrong]

Looks matching.

[Joe Getty]

Exactly. You got Vogue and Allure who write articles about when not if you should get your face left because everybody should get a facelift.

[Jack Armstrong]

I want to get my. I'm going to get my neck done at some point. I really want to.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, you should.

[Jack Armstrong]

We've had people want us to endorse them before. We've had companies that want us wanted us to endorse them and we always said no in the past. I'm saying yes now. Whoever's the best out there, I'm willing to endorse your neck tuck.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, see, I don't.

[Jack Armstrong]

I've.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, maybe I'll skip that that discussion for now.

[Jack Armstrong]

You don't want a neck tuck. You want something different. I don't want anything.

[Joe Getty]

What I want shiny day and my gal by my side.

[Jack Armstrong]

You're not looks maxing. So is the reason people are look smack like everybody's looking looks maxing the way you just pertinent there. It's not if you. It's not when. It's not if but when is that because everybody does the whole posting themselves online thing that's such a part of your life?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, I guess. I guess. I don't know. I don't think about this a lot. And they. They mentioned going from jokes about Joan Rivers back in the day saying I've had so much plastic surgery when I die, they'll donate my body to Tupperware. But she was ahead of her time. Procedures are a sign of making it in the most Kardashian coded way. Get rich, then buy a face.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wait, did Joan Rivers look weird at the end?

[Joe Getty]

Oh, yeah. Frightening children ran from her in terror. One more, one more note. Social media's turbocharged. The normalization of cosmetic work. One plastic surgeon said, that is Gen Z patients. This is Gen Z, folks. These are kids.

[Jack Armstrong]

You're still young. That's really, really sick.

[Joe Getty]

They take selfies at their appointments as if it's a concert or a Get Ready with Me video. They want everybody to know. It's a way to say, look what I just bought.

[Jack Armstrong]

I know a woman who got a. What she called a mommy makeover in Mexico. She went down to Mexico to get it done, and it was, like, super cheap. Yeah, I don't know about the. I don't know how I'd feel about. When you're down there. What, you know, if things go wrong, does your insurance covered. Or how do I. How do I deal with that since I don't speak the language and just all that stuff.

[Joe Getty]

Stuff? Yeah. From what I've heard, in the 90% of cases where everything goes fine, you're fine.

[Jack Armstrong]

Sure.

[Joe Getty]

It's that 10% you got to worry about.

[Jack Armstrong]

If something went wrong, it would suck, though. You can't talk to anybody. Your insurance doesn't cover it.

[Joe Getty]

Here's one more.

[Jack Armstrong]

You don't feel good enough to get back to the United States.

[Joe Getty]

See, this is. I wouldn't mind having, like, lots and lots of money, but the day I join, like, this counterculture, it'll never happen. Or subculture. Never, never, never, never, never. But here's. Here's. How.

[Jack Armstrong]

Do you want your ears lifted or your knees tucked or something? I don't know.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, I'd like to lose 20 pounds. But who has that time? Of course, Richface has regional variations. Bravo's Real Housewives of the Upper east side in Hampton have a subtler look than their counterparts on Netflix's Members Only. Palm beach, who dream of access to Mar a Lago. So the Florida rich face is definitely more look, look, look than the more subtle Northeastern brand.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, I'll tell you, the Rodeo Drive Beverly Hills face that I've seen before at the fancy shopping malls is nutty. Like, it's hard not to stare. Of course they want you to stare, I assume.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah. All right. One, A couple more senses. This is so fascinating to me. Human beings. What are you gonna do? With them. Designer bags may be silly, overpriced and quite often unethically made, but at least there's little chance they will disfigure you. Perhaps the risk of a grisly outcome is part of the appeal for the ultra wealthy who have the ability to pay for the best care along with more treatments if things go wrong.

[Jack Armstrong]

Okay.

[Joe Getty]

The luxury of viewing your facelift less as a major, potentially ruinous surgery and more as a routine to do list item is the ultimate status symbol.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow. So it's kind of like even if you could afford your own plane, you couldn't afford to operate your own plane. So this is like maybe you can afford the surgery, but you can't afford the, you know, minor tweaks or what if something went wrong.

[Joe Getty]

So another level, right? Oh, this Thursday. I almost forgot. I'm having a facelift. Or a $300,000 whatever the hell it's called. I'm getting the Palm beef, my Palm beach face redone, my Mar a Lago face.

[Jack Armstrong]

Worried about the way the light reflects off my jawline. I keep my jawline carefully hidden under layers of fat so it doesn't bother anyone.

[Joe Getty]

So nobody steal it. At night.

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[Jack Armstrong]

We will finish strong.

[Joe Getty]

Next Armstrong and Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

Earlier we were going through some of the Babylon Bee headlines that were funny. From today Spirit Airlines announces they will tell you why they went bankrupt for an added fee of $50. We mentioned this one which is definitely funny. Doctors confirm life after age 35 is just endless cycle of dieting and back pain until you die.

[Joe Getty]

Correct.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, which is so true. That is funny. But then this one which actually leads us into news. Iran issues seriously threat that they have a massive reserve of more serious threats and they're putting their money where their mouth is as they are firing on the uae. Currently the UAE has just said we reserve the right to respond. They just made that announcement like in the last 10 minutes. I think they are going to respond. And even though a couple of us flagged ships got out of The Strait of Hormuz. Today, Iran is fired on a British ship and a South Korean ship. And Trump just said, speaking with Fox's Trey Yinxed, he threatened that Iran will, quote, be blown off the face of the earth if they attack US Ships guiding vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. Blown off the face of the earth is a threat.

[Joe Getty]

Back to the ending an entire civilization style. Big, big threats. Yes.

[Jack Armstrong]

And one we could actually do if we wanted to. I mean, yeah, we have the capability to do that. We'll see if that actually happens. I think this is the week, apparently, and maybe today's the day that we go back to the war and get to talk about that for better or worse. One other story that I wanted to bring up. Rudy Giuliani, hospitalized in critical, critical condition, has pneumonia, poor health, 81 years old. You get pneumonia when you're in your 80s and already in poor health. You never know what's going to happen. But, and I'm not hoping he dies, but when Rudy Giuliani does die and he looks like he has been on the doorstep for quite some time, will we get some sort of final reckoning of what was going on there? Was he always crazy and we just didn't catch on when he led America through 9 11, if he hadn't gotten involved with Trump when he finally died, he would have been, you know, we. Don't you wish they still made people like that, like Rudy Giuliani, you know, that sort of thing?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. It took decades for progressives in New York to re grab the reins of power because Rudy was so effective as a conservative. I mean, you know, it wasn't permanent. Although I'm not sure they could have pulled it off if it were not for his unfortunate association with some of Trump's more unfortunate ideas that might have gotten de Blasio in.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, did. But did he, was he normal at one back in the day and then he did it or did he go badass crazy? I mean, not just because he supported Trump, but then he started saying and doing nutty, nutty things.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, maybe age wasn't kind to him and he was desperate after his divorces because he was broke.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right.

[Joe Getty]

Thinking, I'll ride a pony naked into Times Square if it'll make me a grand. Right. I mean, it's just in that part of his life.

[Jack Armstrong]

Final thoughts with Armstrong and G. You get the facts. They're sharp and steady. Tuning tomorrow. Don't you forget it. For more from Armstrong and Caddy. That is so good. Whoever you are, whoever you are. That made that. That is really high quality. Here's your host for final thoughts, Joe Getty.

[Joe Getty]

Let's get a final thought from everybody in the crew to wrap up the show for the day. Michelangelo in the control room. Michael, what's your final thought?

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, I'm missing Katie today.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. There's no one here to make us sandwiches and my studio needs to be back. Oh, no, no, Michael, that is not acceptable. Didn't think it was funny. Sort of cliche.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's a good angle, Michael.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah. Katie's off on maternity leave. Jack, final thought for us.

[Jack Armstrong]

Hanson. I told you it wasn't funny. Is a very clever angle. I'm gonna start doing that, Michael. Think something doesn't work. I told you, Hanson, that was a bad idea. Anyway, what is my final thought? My final thought is I think the war is back and we're gonna be talking about it a lot this week.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. My final thought is that Trump's approval rating on the cost of living is 23%. On inflation it's 27%. And with Iran, it's 33%. Those are cratery numbers. Can he turn them around? Perhaps?

[Jack Armstrong]

No, no, no, no, no perhaps. The war comes back, gas gets more expensive. He's going to be in the teens, man. When I filled up with diesel over the weekend, I was like, holy crap. How are people doing this? Armstrong and Yeti wrapping up another grueling four hour workday.

[Joe Getty]

So many people. Thanks a little time. Go to Armstrong and getty.com for your hot links. For your A G swag. Pick up a cool Ang T shirt for your favorite fan. Maybe it's you.

[Jack Armstrong]

See you tomorrow. God bless America. Armstrong and Getty del Loco. It's a little too much talky, doc.

[Joe Getty]

We work together and continue to work together and to work together.

[Jack Armstrong]

Get out of here, you, you hippie. July haven't said a word, so stop yelling at me.

[Michael]

So let's go out with a bang.

[Joe Getty]

If your brother slept with your wife,

[Jack Armstrong]

what are we with the Biden family?

[Joe Getty]

And you later reconciled with him, would you name your next kid after him? But I'm trying here.

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't know. On that high note, thank you all very much.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Getty.

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