Anyway... Chaos!

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Episode: Anyway... Chaos!
Date: October 15, 2025
Host: iHeartPodcasts

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Overview

In this episode, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty tackle an array of hot-button topics, blending sharp social commentary, satirical humor, and candid personal anecdotes. Major themes include digital content moderation for minors, the evolving landscape of AI and adult materials, China's psychological warfare tactics against the U.S., ongoing unrest involving immigration and Antifa, and reflections on American overconfidence in global affairs. The hosts round out the show with lighter moments about the reputation of prunes and observations about experience and everyday life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Digital Content Moderation and Tech Parenting

• Instagram's New Teen Restrictions ([01:00])

  • Instagram announces new default content restrictions for users under 18, allowing only PG-13 content and requiring parental permission for changes.
  • Joe Getty expresses frustration with overly restrictive parental settings:
    "I wish they wouldn't go that direction... My experience with all these age limits is that they're way too restrictive. They can't watch stuff that is, by mine and most parents I know standards, okay for a teenager to see." ([01:13])
  • Concern over blanket policies relegating teens to “paw patrol cartoons” and excluding reasonable content for their age group.
  • Debates the need for nuanced gradation in age-restricted content: akin to having R-rated movies as a middle ground.

• Efficacy of Content Filters

  • Both hosts agree that tech solutions for filtering content are insufficient.
  • Jack Armstrong highlights the disconnect between concerned parents and the platforms’ corporate incentives:
    "What's going to make me the most money? What's just flat out going to be the most profitable?" ([03:37])

2. AI, Adult Content & Platform Policies

• OpenAI and Erotica ([03:37])

  • Sam Altman signals that ChatGPT will permit adult content for adults, posing profit opportunities but leaving questions about keeping such content from minors.
  • Jack jokes about the absurdities and boundaries of AI content:
    "I couldn't make our dog say the F word, which we're trying to do." ([04:36])
  • Satirical take on versatility of AI:
    "So you got the most knowledgeable lover in the world... But don't let me forget, I gotta troubleshoot my toaster oven. It's not working right." ([05:07])

• Competition & Policy Imitation

  • Joe predicts market competition will hasten the push for open adult content once one pioneer (OpenAI) dives in:
    "Altman being first in with adult content is going to make all the other companies go more that direction." ([06:32])

3. Technology Frustrations & Habits

• Touchscreen Transition Woes ([05:24])
  • Humorous complaint about muscle memory and tech:
    "What's the over under for the number of times I'm gonna reach for the screen to try to do it as a touch screen... I'm already at like 603."
    • Both hosts joke about repeated failed attempts at non-touchscreen devices.

4. China’s Psychological Warfare and U.S. Complacency

• Cognitive Domain Operations ([11:00]–[16:56])

  • Detailed discussion of a translated Chinese military report on "cognitive domain operations"—using meme propagation, algorithmic manipulation, and echo chambers to undermine enemy decision-making without direct conflict.
  • Jack:
    "They are pouring as much energy and a hell of a lot of money into this style of attacking their enemy, the United States, and... we're just letting them. I, I don't know what else to say." ([14:08])
  • Joe:
    “We're Mike Tyson thinking nobody could possibly, possibly beat us. At some point, we're going to be crawling around on the canvas looking for our mouthpiece, which is unfortunate.” ([16:10])
  • Critique of both political and public complacency—America as “fat, lazy, content,” with an overinflated sense of invincibility.

• Gerasimov Doctrine

  • The Russian strategic principle of blending soft and hard power for victory without fighting, contrasted with China's more sophisticated version ([17:02]).

5. Immigration, Law Enforcement, and Domestic Unrest

• Riots and Law Enforcement Tensions in Chicago ([22:55]–[28:54])

  • Ongoing protests and clashes in Chicago involving ICE, Border Patrol, and allegations of state-level threats against federal officers.
  • Jack:
    "You're going to bring state charges against federal officers for doing their job. Doing their jobs in a way you don't approve of." ([24:33])
  • Analysis of political stunts and the adversarial dynamic between state and federal authorities.

• Antifa Controversy ([27:03]–[28:54])

  • Playback of Democratic politicians denying Antifa’s organizational existence, contrasted with police and former official Pam Bondi calling their actions “organized crime.”
  • Pam Bondi:
    "It would be organized crime... It's more than that. It's hurting the American people. And that's why they're no different than MS-13 or any gang out there." ([28:01])
  • Hosts mock the rhetorical dance over Antifa’s status: "To deny they exist is ludicrous... They don't have organization. They don't exist.” ([28:37])

6. International Politics: U.S. Aid, Argentina, and Election Meddling

• Conditional Aid and Currency Reform in Argentina ([17:29])
  • Trump’s supposed offer of US financial support contingent on a friendly government in Argentina—questioned as possible election interference, yet hosts voice pragmatic economic concerns and discuss hyperinflation solutions.
  • Reflections on “dollarizing” Argentina’s economy and the challenges of rampant inflation.

7. Lighter Segment: Prunes and Stereotypes

• Reviving the Reputation of Prunes ([29:33])
  • Joe details his embrace of daily prunes for digestive health, bemoaning their reputation as an “old person’s food.”
  • Jack:
    “They're not hand grenades, they're prunes. Have a handful of them.” ([31:50])
  • Jokes about “fruitism” and the show’s new status as unofficial prune ambassadors.
  • Both hosts make a case for four to five prunes a day as the path to a “happier, healthier country.” ([32:27])

8. U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East

• Trump’s Policy Bluntness and Results ([36:23]–[41:24])
  • Recap of recent articles analyzing Trump’s impact on the Middle East, particularly regarding Israel and the so-called Abraham Accords.
  • Claims that shaking up conventional diplomatic wisdom yielded results, with references to “blowing up the boxes” and “untieable knots.”
  • Jack:
    “Sometimes you have to do that. Sometimes you gotta crack people's heads together to get them to stop fighting.” ([39:53])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Joe Getty on UI Restrictions:
  "My experience with all these age limits is that they're way too restrictive... they get relegated to, you know, paw patrol cartoons..." ([01:13])
• Jack Armstrong on U.S. Complacency:
  "We are so fat and naive and comfortable as a country... specifically to the threat of China." ([11:00])
• Joe Getty on American Overconfidence:
  “We're Mike Tyson... At some point, we're going to be crawling around on the canvas looking for our mouthpiece...” ([16:10])
• Pam Bondi on Antifa:
  "They're no different than MS-13 or any gang out there." ([28:01])
• Jack Armstrong on prunes:
  “They're not hand grenades, they're prunes. Have a handful of them.” ([31:50])
• On Foreign Policy Approach:
  "Sometimes you gotta crack people's heads together to get them to stop fighting." ([39:53])
• On AI Adult Content Future:
  "We're all going to end up in some sort of porn video whether we like it or not." ([42:39])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Summary | |-----------|----------------| | 01:00–03:15 | Instagram’s new content restrictions for teens and broader debate on tech parenting | | 03:37–06:47 | AI, adult content policy, and platform competition | | 11:00–16:56 | China’s psychological warfare strategy and American complacency | | 22:55–28:54 | Chicago unrest, ICE, Antifa controversies, and political rhetoric | | 29:33–32:43 | The “prune renaissance” and fighting ‘fruitism’ | | 36:23–41:24 | Trump’s Middle East diplomacy and lessons on solving intractable problems | | 42:09–43:39 | Final thoughts: AI ethics, personal anecdotes, and reflections on experience |

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Tone & Language

The episode is candid, irreverent, and quick-witted, blending serious social and political analysis with story-driven asides and comic relief. Both hosts are unafraid to mix humor into grave topics, offering listeners both entertainment and chewy cultural critique.

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Closing

The Armstrong & Getty duo tackle chaos at every level—cultural, political, and even intestinal. With sarcasm, skepticism, and the occasional prune, they invite listeners to question the narratives shaping modern America and to laugh at the unpredictability of life in 2025.

Transcript

[Podcast Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Asma Khalid]

America is changing and so is the world.

[Tristan Redman]

But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Asma Khalid]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington D.C. i'm.

[Tristan Redman]

Tristan Redman in London and this is the global story.

[Asma Khalid]

Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[Tristan Redman]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jack Armstrong]

Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack.

[Commercial Announcer]

Armstrong and Joe Getty.

[News Reporter]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Joe Getty]

And now here's Armstrong and Getty, which of course runs Instagram, announcing new default settings designed to restrict the content that teens can actually view on Instagram.

[Jack Armstrong]

Anyone under 18 will be put in.

[Joe Getty]

A restrictive teen account, allowing them only to see PG13 content. The settings can't be changed without a parent's permission. The company also adding an even stricter setting that parents can set up for their younger children. Darn it. I wish they wouldn't go that direction because I have a 13 year old and a 15 year old and what I've found on like almost everything that I have, I have taken off the child restriction on because it's too restrictive. It's way too restrictive. They can't watch stuff that is, you know, by mine and most parents I know standard okay for a teenager to see. I mean they, they get relegated to, you know, paw patrol cartoons and just, I mean, stuff that's for little kids. So far that's been my experience with all these age limits and him saying right there, 13 year old on Instagram, okay, that's going to eliminate like 90% of the stuff they want to see and bad stuff I don't want them to see. Is there some way to have like it be, I don't know, like R rated movies, I guess where you get closer around. Yeah, I don't want you watching this till you're a full on adult as opposed to. You have to be a little kid to enjoy this.

[Jack Armstrong]

Come on. Yeah, I don't think the technology is within a million miles of being good enough because I mean like you get those warnings on TV shows and movies. Includes rough language, violence, smoking. Smoking, right, exactly. Or what's the consumerism.

[Joe Getty]

Yes, yes. The common sense media thing that I check all the time. It'll have some horrifying rating and I'll think, well, we can't watch this until I realize that it's mostly because it's got Smoking cigarettes and consumerism. Okay, I'm not really that worried about that.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. How about the bear Arsed blanking. No. And the trip to the toy store in. Yes, that would be fine. Even if there's a guy smoking a cigar outside of it.

[Joe Getty]

How about brightly lit, two dudes raw dogging. I don't want that. But if somebody's drinking a Coca Cola and I can clearly read the logo of the Coke can, I'm not so bothered.

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't even know what raw dogging means, but I don't want it on my screen.

[Joe Getty]

But anyway, I've had that problem with a bunch of stuff where I took the restrictions off like Netflix or Hulu so they can watch the Simpsons or something like that right then. And then what I was thinking about is some of this is wanting to stay on the right side of public opinion for Mark Zuckerberg since he's gotten beaten up by so much.

[Jack Armstrong]

But then there's also defiantly. Yeah, there's also the.

[Joe Getty]

What's going to make me the most money? What's. What's just flat out going to be the most profitable. And I think that gets to what Sam Altman announced yesterday, which we've talked about a couple of times, or he's green lit erotica for Chat GPT. And it's going to be a similar sort of thing where it's going to be a. What is he calling it? And the phrase right here we're going to go with treat adult users like adults. That's going to be our principle from now on. And so if you are an adult, we're going to treat you like an adult. And all this different stuff is going to be available to you. Erotica and sexy stuff and all that different sort of thing. How you keep that out of the hands of underage people, I don't know. But he, I'm guessing for profit sake, thinks he wants to be first in for grown up content. I mentioned I was making Grok videos yesterday. Grok we couldn't make. I couldn't make somebody in a picture flip somebody off. Couldn't make our dog say the F word, which we're trying to do.

[Jack Armstrong]

Why is he religious?

[Joe Getty]

But anyway, couldn't do that. I'm like, how old do you. How old does somebody need to be for content? That is your dog saying the F word, which is pretty funny. I feel like 13 is good enough or certainly 15. But.

[Jack Armstrong]

Speaking of the Chat GPT sexiness though, I love that idea because it could be like, oh yeah, just like that. Oh, yeah, and by the way, can you help me troubleshoot my toaster oven? It's not working. Right. So you got like the most knowledgeable lover in the world can help you through if you think, oh, yeah, yeah, that's great what you're doing there. But don't let me forget, I gotta troubleshoot my toaster oven. It's not working right.

[Joe Getty]

Right. So she can talk sexy to me and I can say, I've got a 92 Chevy S10, the windows are leaking. What's the most common cause of that? And she'll tell me exactly what happened.

[Jack Armstrong]

Exactly.

[Tristan Redman]

Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, speaking of technology, this is stupid, but. So I've got a silly technical thing going on, and so I've had to go from a touchscreen for something I do all day long during the show to a mouse screen. What's the over under for? The number of times I'm gonna reach for the screen to try to do it as a touch screen because I'm already at like 603. Keep jabbing at it. Why doesn't this work? Not a touch screen, you idiot.

[Joe Getty]

I've done that before, like at ATMs or gas stations or whatever.

[Jack Armstrong]

Or my wife's laptop. Yeah. Oh, one more technical thing or tech thing. It's going to take a couple of minutes, but at some point, if not today, maybe tomorrow. The People's Liberation army, some of their. That's the Chinese Communist army, have some of their publications on psychological warfare against the United States have been found and translated, and it's amazing. And nobody's talking about.

[Joe Getty]

No, I haven't heard this. This is right up my alley. I want to hear that.

[Jack Armstrong]

All right, stay tuned.

[Joe Getty]

So just a quick question going back to the, the. The social media platforms and the AI and all this sort of stuff. Do you think Altman being first in with adult content is going to make all the other companies go more that direction?

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, because I feel like it is. There are bunches of companies, but they're not like in that top tier that we talk about all the time. And they're already fully on board.

[Joe Getty]

Right? Yeah. I just thought it was kind of precious and silly that grock wasn't allowing my dog to say the F word. I'd like. Okay. I mean.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right.

[Joe Getty]

I understand what you're trying to do, but let's live in reality here.

[Jack Armstrong]

How about your dog doing the F word?

[Joe Getty]

Well, there are like, like, you know, that's what I was thinking. There are 90 other platforms I could go to right now if I wanted to take the time and get the dog to say that. So what are you accomplishing here with your precious little rule?

[Jack Armstrong]

It's reputational, I think.

[Joe Getty]

Gotta be.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

Elon's got enough money though. He can. He can be a lagging indicator if he wants on giving into that.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Elon has gone erotic yesterday.

[Joe Getty]

To have your pug sitting there saying give me my effing food.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's pretty fun. What kind of voice do you envision for the pug? What sort of cartoon?

[Joe Getty]

We didn't pick a voice, it just picked the voice. So I suppose we could have changed. Kind of looked like what you'd expect a pug to sound like if it could talk.

[Jack Armstrong]

British accent would be funny.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, you're right. We got that stuff Joe mentioned and a bunch of other stuff on the way. Stay here.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty.

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[Asma Khalid]

America is changing and so is the world.

[Tristan Redman]

But what's happening in America is isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Asma Khalid]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, DC.

[Tristan Redman]

I'm Tristan Redman in London and this is the Global Story.

[Asma Khalid]

Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[Tristan Redman]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

[BambooHR Advertiser]

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[News Reporter]

IKEA has announced plans to build a small format store in Manhattan that will be 25,000 square feet. No word yet on when it'll open. It's got like a J pieces and.

[Jack Armstrong]

All they give you is like one tiny Allen wrench. I get it.

[Joe Getty]

Yep. It's mocking their own very product.

[Jack Armstrong]

We are so fat and naive and comfortable as a country and individuals, but as a country, specifically to the threat of China. Talk about this a lot, but it's so obvious and so troubling I don't know what to do about it. I mean I was thinking, you remember and maybe I'll dig it up again. We had that collection of all the quotes from Chinese Communist Party high up officials and intelligence agents and the military people talking about what an incredible tool TikTok was and is for Chinese propaganda. And that is known. It's a known, known. And yet what the hell's going on with the TikTok deal, I haven't heard recently.

[Joe Getty]

I don't know.

[Jack Armstrong]

We just let it happen. And then you have this that nobody's really talking about maybe because it takes a little explanation and we're a very, very short attention span people. But the People's Liberation army scholars have explained China's whole of society cognitive warfare doctrine in a big report that came out in 2022 entitled effectiveness mechanisms and Strategic Selection in Cognitive Domain Operations. And that's a heck of a name. It's been translated in English completely. This is kind of a summary of it. It's written by a guy who is in this world. So it's full of a lot of jargon which I'm going to skip around mostly, but it's authored by a couple of scholars from the National Defense University's Political Academy. The piece which I just gave you the long name of positions CDO or Cognitive Domain Operations as A sophisticated evolution of psychological warfare, drawing heavily from Kahneman's theories, Tversky's heuristics and biases, and research and information theoretic concepts like overload and entropy, not to build resilience, but to weaponize cognitive vulnerabilities.

[Joe Getty]

Wow, you got the word heuristics and entropy in the same sentence.

[Jack Armstrong]

I know, I know, it's. It's a good day for me anyway. But it emphasizes strategies like meme propagation, algorithmic manipulation, and echo chambers to disrupt enemy decision making, foster cognitive biases and achieve strategic dominance without direct combat. And it goes into. Without direct detail.

[Joe Getty]

That's what I was talking about the other day. What I thought was so clever from watching 60 Minutes, the way they're hacking into all our systems, stuff like that, is to avoid the full on nuclear war with a power that rivals you and you know, take it down or defeat it in other ways.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, yeah, well said. The authors situate China's approaches within the context of Western doctrines, blah, blah, blah, but with a distinctly offensive bias exploiting focus rooted in Sun Tzu's quote, subduing the enemy without fighting. They, they are pouring as much energy and, and, well, maybe not as much, but energy and a hell of a lot of money into this style of attacking their enemy, the United States, and. Or just blissfully unaware, which astounds because.

[Joe Getty]

We'Ve been counting on for so many decades now the fact that we can just obliterate anybody. We're the opposite end of it. We don't need to, whatever that is, defeat you without going to battle. We want to go to battle because we could beat anybody. Yeah. And that has worked for a very long time.

[Jack Armstrong]

But wow, that's not trying to win hearts and minds. They're trying to twist hearts and minds just a little more because there's a stunning amount of detail to this and I'm kind of skipping around, but two features of the source of what they're doing are especially valuable analytically and warrant foregrounding. That would be the five step sequence figure that operationalizes how attention, capture, framing and algorithmic curation lead to echo chamber driven bias amplification and reinforcement, and the chemical reaction model triad that maps content, et cetera, and roles. Both improve a bunch of technical stuff. But they have their best scientists, their best cognitive scientists working on this stuff and are doing it through, you know, social media, including apps that the Chinese Communist Party itself controls. And we're just letting them. I, I don't know what else to say.

[Joe Getty]

I don't.

[Jack Armstrong]

How is Every podcast in America not talking about this. Well, right.

[Joe Getty]

I, I don't understand how that story from 60 Minutes or First Story Sunday night isn't like the biggest story in the country. The President has already addressed it. Every town in America, there have been people saying to their mayor, are we prepared for this? But we're not, because we are what you said earlier, you know, fat, lazy, content. We just been dominant for so long, we just don't think anybody could actually touch us. We're going to find out.

[Jack Armstrong]

I think maybe overconfident is the best.

[Joe Getty]

Overconfident is the best. That is the best term. We're. We're Mike Tyson thinking nobody could possibly, possibly beat us. At some point, we're going to be crawling around on the canvas looking for our mouthpiece, which is unfortunate.

[Jack Armstrong]

And our trainer is trying to tell us, our trainer being us in this case. Hey, this guy's got a wicked left. You've got to watch out for it. I'll be fine.

[Joe Getty]

And you haven't been training me about his left. You haven't been training quite the way you used to be.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'll be fine of my pigeons. I've been feeding my pigeons.

[Joe Getty]

I don't know why I had to bring in his pigeons and use his lisp. I don't know why I need to do that.

[Jack Armstrong]

Because he's such a colorful character.

[Joe Getty]

He is.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

Well, that story will be around for the rest of our lives. Us versus China.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's all about the Gerasimov Doctrine. Jack, I just scroll down a little further.

[Joe Getty]

What?

[Jack Armstrong]

The Gerasimov Doctrine. That blends a soft and hard power to achieve victory without fighting Russia, the Soviet Union. Then Russia has been trying to do this sort of thing for ages, but China's way, way better about it and way more sophisticated. Yipes.

[Joe Getty]

Do you have any opinion on us giving Trump saying he'll give $20 billion to Argentina if they reelect Malay, but won't give them the money if they elect someone else?

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I think that's really good. Because they would squander it if it's not Malay in charge. On the other hand, I was persuaded.

[Joe Getty]

Excuse me, that's not us trying to affect an election in a way we're not supposed to or something.

[Jack Armstrong]

It clearly is. Yeah, yeah, we want that guy, not the other guy. Yeah, yeah. I'm not worried about that. I'm more worried about the Argentinian people and the fact that they could be a great and prosperous ally in our hemisphere. And I was persuaded by an article I read in the Wall Street Journal. A monetary guy speaking of technical jargon. But he was saying, no, don't do it this way. You've got a dollarize Argentina. You got to get rid of their, their local currency and just do trade in dollars. That will stabilize the economy because Malay has got the, the inflation down to I think now 30%, which is a miraculously low number for Argentina in the last decade.

[Joe Getty]

How do you live in a society like that? How do things even work?

[Jack Armstrong]

You take big bricks of cash to the store. It's ridiculous. Wow.

[Joe Getty]

In unimportant news, here's a book I won't read, but he'll probably make the rounds. Kevin Federline. Does that name ring a bill bell for anyone? Britney Spears ex husband and baby daddy.

[Jack Armstrong]

Anyway, who we used to make mild fun of. But then in the infamous Britney Spears Some People may be ahead of us video, it became clear that he was the bright one.

[Joe Getty]

I think he is. And he is the one kind of holding things together and trying to take care of the kids. And he's got a new memoir out in which he explains that the decision to release her from her conservative conservatorship was a bad idea. He's making the argument in his memoir that she's not capable of being a mom or taking care of herself and all. But that's kind of interesting. I doubt I'm ever going to read it. I might listen to a short interview with him though.

[Jack Armstrong]

Do we have a title? I'm thinking Towing the Fetter Line. Or I'm trying to come up with a Britney. A Britney related title.

[Joe Getty]

Oops. She did it Again. My Life with Britney Spears.

[Jack Armstrong]

Bingo. We have a winner.

[Joe Getty]

I walk into the kitchen and there she is, half naked, dancing with knives, posting on Instagram while I'm trying to get the kids to bed.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh honey, honey. Again with the knives.

[Joe Getty]

Oh boy. Want to get into some of the antifa ice stuff? Those battles continue to go on in cities all across America. That's a complicated issue too. If you miss a segment, get the podcast Armstrong and Getty on Demand.

[Podcast Announcer]

Armstrong and Getty.

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[Asma Khalid]

America is changing and so is the world.

[Tristan Redman]

But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Asma Khalid]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.

[Tristan Redman]

Tristan Redman in London and this is the Global Story.

[Asma Khalid]

Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[Tristan Redman]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

[BambooHR Advertiser]

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[News Reporter]

A high speed chase ends on Chicago's southeast side after Border Patrol agents locate two Venezuelans they say are in the US Illegally. The suspect allegedly rammed a Border patrol vehicle and attempted to flee the scene. They were eventually stopped, but as an angry mob formed and threw objects at agents, crowd control measures like tear gas were deployed. Meantime, across the border, DHS says Mexican criminal gangs are placing bounties on the heads of federal law enforcement in coordination with domestic extremist groups.

[Jack Armstrong]

Including Antifa, which we'll get to in a moment or two. The chaos right there at the edge of Chicago that's really emerged as kind of the hotbed of the the craziness Portland, sorry. Move aside. Chicago's on stage now. Mike Tobin of Fox News continues his report.

[News Reporter]

Protests turn to riots almost every weekend in Broadview. And the Illinois governor threatens prosecution of ICE and Border Patrol agents.

[Joe Getty]

The tables will turn someday. Maybe they're not going to get prosecuted today, although we're looking at doing that. But they may get prosecuted after the Trump administration. They're getting prosecuted for what?

[Jack Armstrong]

I missed that. Play that again, Michael.

[News Reporter]

Protests turn to riots almost every weekend in Broadview. And the Illinois governor threatens prosecution of ICE and Border Patrol agents.

[Joe Getty]

The tables will turn someday. Maybe they're not going to get prosecuted today, although we're looking at doing that, but they may get prosecuted after the Trump administration.

[Jack Armstrong]

You're going to bring state charges against federal officers for doing their job. Doing their jobs in a way you don't approve of.

[Joe Getty]

But I assume his goal was there to send a chill wind through the halls of the ICE Agency to where agents think. I don't want to deal with that. This sucks.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, that's possible. I think more it's just him trying to out Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom. And show himself to be the great battler against Trump. Give us the next clip. Michael. 72.

[News Reporter]

200 Texas National Guardsmen are now stuck in a training facility southwest of the city as a federal appeals court rul. They cannot patrol where the governor does not want them. Prompting President Trump to threaten using the Insurrection act to override both the court and Governor Pritchker. I think he should beg for help.

[Joe Getty]

Because he's running a bad operation.

[Jack Armstrong]

One of you mentioned insurrection. I mean, I could do that. Yeah. I'm tired of that. It's, I mean, the left trying to make January 6th. It was a riot. It was ugly, it was bad. It was highly regrettable. But calling everything an insurrection all the time on both sides. Not every riot is an insurrection.

[Joe Getty]

Well, and Trump threatens that stuff because he gets the media to jump and talk about it on an on a panel segment on CNN or MSNBC for eight hours every day. And then he doesn't do it. So far. So far he is abided by whatever judge rulings come down, right?

[Jack Armstrong]

Indeed. So Pam Bondi was making the round. She was talking to Hannity and addressed the situation. 74.

[Podcast Announcer]

Michael, you know how many missing children we found in Memphis? 44. Finding one missing child makes it all worthwhile. Abducted children who are on their own, all under the age of 18, teenagers and younger. 44 missing children. Some have been taken by non custodial parents. But 44 have been recovered. And then you take that to Chicago. They had 571 homicides last year. Pritzker should be begging Donald Trump to come in. Pritzker's lost his mind.

[Joe Getty]

That's both Hannity and Pam Bondi tipping their caps to the crowd out there. Because I know some of you who your number one issue is the 300,000 children being trafficked by Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama was actually a man and Pizzagate and all that sort of stuff. That's what that was.

[Jack Armstrong]

Interesting, interesting. Well, and then she talks about. Why don't we. She talked about antifa. But before we do that, they played a little montage of Democrats. 76 Michael, there's no antifa.

[Joe Getty]

This is an entirely imaginary organization. There is not an antifa.

[Jack Armstrong]

And it's all in this guise of going after antifa, which is nothing. There's no organization called antifa. I hope he can first define what antifa is because there is no antifa organization.

[Joe Getty]

There really is no antifa as an institution organization.

[Jack Armstrong]

That is such an odd dodge. I heard a great comparison. I can't remember what it was. Oh goodness, it was so good. Another organization that doesn't have a great deal of central control, but to deny they exist is ludicrous anyway. 75 is Pam Bondi talking about antifa?

[Podcast Announcer]

It would be organized crime. And that's what they're doing. And you're watching it in Portland. Portland really is the prime example. And President Trump just had so many of the influencers whose lives were threatened who were Caitlin, the beautiful blonde woman who had the black eye from an antifa member. They're threatening them online with violent acts. It's organized crime. They're at all of these events, they're encouraging violence, they're calling everyone fascist. But it's more than that. It's hurting the American people. And that's why they're no different than MS.13 or any gang out there.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, they're kind of different, but yeah, they absolutely exist. And again, that's such a weird dodge. They don't have any central organization. They don't. They don't exist.

[Joe Getty]

Well, and as I heard on NPR just a week ago, and to the extent that they do exist, antifa stands for anti fascist. They're anti fascists.

[Jack Armstrong]

Ah, it's like being an anti racist. It must be good. It can't possibly be just a mask that Marxists wear to try to tear down civilization, which seriously, if you spend 30 seconds looking into it, it becomes obvious and clear. But anyway, chaos, Chaos.

[Joe Getty]

That's where you wrap it up anyway.

[Jack Armstrong]

Chaos, Right. Well, what else are you gonna say? The. The ongoing chaos in multiple cities around the country is. The immigration thing is still roiling Americans.

[Joe Getty]

You know what I'm excited about?

[Jack Armstrong]

Sorry. I wish we had a Congress because then they could pass a law, but we don't. Yes, Jack, what are you excited about?

[Joe Getty]

I had been talking on the air about my prune intake.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yes.

[Joe Getty]

As advised by my doctor, because I was all stove up. My charming. My system wasn't working right. And my doctor said, have two prunes every day. And if that doesn't work, just keep adding in a prune every day until you get to the right amount. Anyway, I talked about that openly on the air, and California Prunes heard us talking about that, and we are, I think, going to start working with California prunes and endorsing their very product.

[Jack Armstrong]

It is a fine fruit, and I'm.

[Joe Getty]

I'm looking forward to it. And I've had this conversation with my son and some of the salespeople involved. I don't know where the prune, the humble prune got the reputation it has. I was talking with our sales girl, Michelle the other day. She had the same experience as me, is that she grew up, her grandma always had prunes around. And so you get in your head that it's like some sort of weird old person's food, but it's just. It's just something slightly different than a raisin. Nobody has any, like, judgments about raisins. Prunes are the same thing.

[Jack Armstrong]

All right?

[Joe Getty]

And so I don't know where that came from, because it, in addition to being a fine fruit, helps your, you know, system work the way it's supposed to. It got labeled as, like, I don't know, like a medicine fruit or something.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, when people say an apple a day keeps the doctor away, that's specifically what that old saying refers to, right? Digestive system.

[Joe Getty]

But people don't turn away from apples because it's something old people to take because they can poop the way they do with prunes. And I'm not exactly sure. And I want to bring back prunes.

[Jack Armstrong]

We're here to stand up for prunes.

[Joe Getty]

Exactly.

[Jack Armstrong]

They're in the face of this fruitist.

[Joe Getty]

Criticism, this fruitism, and California prunes send us a bunch of stuff, a hat and some stuff to just. They appreciated us talking about it and trying to, you know, shine the light on all the wonders of the humble prune.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's my go to dog walking hat now.

[Joe Getty]

But we've been eating them at Home and really enjoying. And I'll tell you what, it works. And for again, for me, the numbers between four and five daily.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

And then regular is the, is the trains.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, I, I, you know, I, I said at the time when you were, your doctor said start with two. I'm like, they're not hand grenades, they're prunes. Have a handful of them.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, but you don't want to overshoot. And why not?

[Jack Armstrong]

It'll be fine.

[Joe Getty]

Well, I do have a big book to read, but what do you mean it'll be fine? You'll spend the day, you'll, you'll spend an entire day of your life staring at the walls. You won't.

[Jack Armstrong]

No, no. And this is not, that was not a great angle to take some days. Well, if you overdo it, you don't want to overdo anything, Jack. Moderation.

[Joe Getty]

Well, four or five a day, that's quite a few. If everybody did that, think how much money they would rake in there at California Prune. If everybody was taking four to five prunes a day.

[Jack Armstrong]

And everybody would be happier too.

[Joe Getty]

Yes, exactly.

[Jack Armstrong]

We would be a happier, healthier country.

[Joe Getty]

Again, as regular as Southwest Airlines there. Sometimes there's a delay, but you know what?

[Jack Armstrong]

A brief delay.

[Joe Getty]

Exactly.

[Jack Armstrong]

Okay, I'll make my connection.

[Joe Getty]

We will finish strong.

[Jack Armstrong]

Next, Armstrong and Gettys.

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[Asma Khalid]

America is changing and so is the world.

[Tristan Redman]

But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Asma Khalid]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.

[Tristan Redman]

Tristan Redman in London and this is the Global Story.

[Asma Khalid]

Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[Tristan Redman]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Jack Armstrong]

Arby's is releasing their new first of its kind steak nuggets that they claim.

[BambooHR Advertiser]

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[Jack Armstrong]

Have steaks with no knife needed and forked optional. Arby's has liberated us from the tyranny of utensils. We are finally free to eat our meat as God intended in big saucy hunks with our bare hands hovering over a trash can in the dark.

[Joe Getty]

Okay, I'll try those because I like Arby's.

[Jack Armstrong]

You know, good imagery but. And funny. Mildly but I like the idea of knife and fork free steak.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, no kidding. So I started the the program today with my question was who's we? President Trump said yesterday and it got a lot of a news attention. Hamas needs to disarm. If they don't disarm, we will disarm them, perhaps violently. Okay, who's we? Still waiting to see what the answer to that question is.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I still say it's Israel with our assistance and or full permission to whoop ass. Yeah, where this road goes, nobody knows for sure. But the free press that we're big fans of, we've mentioned that many times. They, one of the things they do is they will have three or four writers write on more or less the same topic, just taking different looks at it and it's, it's more than I think most people would want to take in, generally speaking. But if you are into a topic, it's fantastic. And I just wanted to hit you with a couple of headlines about the peace deal. One by Michael Oren, who we've cited a handful of times. Former ambassador.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, Ambassador. Israeli ambassador to the United States. Yeah. And he fought a number of their wars. Very decorated military guy.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. So his article is entitled How Three Real Estate Moguls Ended the War in Gaza. The expert class believed that peace depended on pressuring Israel and appeasing its enemies. Trump and his allies succeeded in rejecting that myth. Specifically, they didn't fall for the truism that, look, you can't even begin to solve this until there's a Palestinian state.

[Joe Getty]

Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

And Trump and Witkoff and Kushner just said, yeah, no, we're going to do it a different way. And so far, so good. I like this piece by. Who wrote this? Aaron McLean. Donald Trump gave war a chance and it worked. And he makes the obvious point that rejecting the piecemeal, weak, stupid Biden appeasement and Barack Obama's, you know, I'm slick and I can negotiate anything crap. He brought the team delivered results through pressure principle and timing. It's a good piece and really makes that point. The idea that it's somehow ugly or untoward for a superpower to flex its muscles in a righteous cause. And, you know, I realize one person's righteous cause is not necessarily another's, but the idea that that's somehow shameful and shouldn't be done. Where the hell did that notion come from? Show me. In the history of superpowers where one said, you know, we can do all sorts of good stuff, but we're not going to because we don't want to be mean. And then finally, vdh, Victor Davis Hansen, the genius of Fresno. Fresno, right. Yeah. His piece is Trump's 10 moves that changed the Middle East. His Middle east policy defied every rule of diplomacy. It also produced results we haven't seen in decades. Maybe we can touch on this one tomorrow because it's so good. He's so damn smart.

[Joe Getty]

I wonder if maybe the lesson here is if you end up with a really long, ongoing problem. Intractable is the fancy word. Then maybe that's when you blow up the boxes and try something completely different. Look, this is, you know, whatever your problem is, life. This has been going on exactly the same way for so long. Let's try something completely freaking different.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right? And. Or, well, it's kind of the same thing, but you Know, everybody refers to Gordian knots, you know, intractable problems. But do you forget the end that the guy came along with a sword and he chopped it in half? That's how he untied the untieable knot. Sometimes you have to do that. Sometimes you gotta crack people's heads together to get them to stop fighting.

[Joe Getty]

You ever tried to make an omelette without breaking some eggs?

[Jack Armstrong]

Egg free omelet, idiot. You gotta say shell in there. You're trying to chew the shell. That's an excellent point. Let's see what's my favorite of VDH's points. He talks about Iranian oil income, how important that was. Trump allowed Benjamin Netanyahu to destroy Hamas, cripple Hezbollah and retal the Houthis. Trump allowed no daylight between the US and Israel. Actually there was a little bit, but not, not in a significant way. He cites the. Well, that's not important. He used the Abraham Accords tariffs. Trump in carrot and stick fashion, promised a defense protection pact with Qatar, the proverbial destructive, distrusted wild card of the Middle East. But then he let Israel attack Hamas leadership in Qatar and said, all right, I think we all get the point. Are we going to work together or no?

[Joe Getty]

A number of people have pointed out that the pro Hamas, it would seem, college crowd that was so worked up about the genocide and everything like that don't seem to be celebrating like you'd think they would be with the end of the so called genocide.

[Jack Armstrong]

They were calling for a ceasefire every day. Now there is one. They got nothing to say. They're unhappy. The Palestinian people have been forced to submit. There's no state still. We're still angry.

[Joe Getty]

All right, yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

They're such liars. Let's get into that more tomorrow. Here's my favorite thought from vdh. Trump dealt with enemies, allies and neutrals from a position of strength, comparative advantage and national ascendance. Unlike the appeasing and anemic Joe Biden years or the apologetics of Barack Obama, the successful complex bombing of the Iranian nuclear facilities passed away. Elimination of Soleimani and the ISIS founder Al Baghdadi ensured Trump was seen as more serious than either Obama or Biden ever were.

[Joe Getty]

No doubt. Here's your host for final thoughts, Joe Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm gonna jump the queue. We're gonna get a final thought from everybody to wrap up the show for the day. The guy who did that theme we just played worked hard on it and it's great and it's brilliant. And now I can do it in 45 seconds. With AI, that's not better. I don't think it's a better world, but what are you gonna do? All right, Michelangelo, what's your final thought? My final thought is also AI related. The fact that Chat GPT is now gonna have adult material is.

[Tristan Redman]

Is the end.

[Joe Getty]

The end. We've announced the end, people.

[Jack Armstrong]

We're all going to end up in some sort of porn video whether we.

[News Reporter]

Like it or not.

[Joe Getty]

It's fine.

[Jack Armstrong]

If somebody wants to make a porn of me, go ahead. Katie Greener, esteemed news woman, has a final thought. Katie, my final thought and my forever way of ending a conversation is from here on out, going to be anyway. Chaos.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, exactly.

[News Reporter]

Chaos.

[Jack Armstrong]

Jack, a final thought for us.

[Joe Getty]

Talking about making an omelet and egg. So I was my son that was making eggs every morning. I mentioned this the other day, and he keeps getting shells in his eggs and he wanted to see me do it. So I did it Saturday morning and I cracked. He said, how did you do that? That was perfect. And I said, I have probably cracked 8,000 eggs in my life. How many of you?

[Jack Armstrong]

Six.

[Joe Getty]

That's why you just got to keep practicing. And that is true for a lot of things in life experience.

[Jack Armstrong]

Life experience. They matter a lot.

[Joe Getty]

You get better at bands.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, yeah. Yeah. And you know, things you didn't know. You didn't know.

[Joe Getty]

Boy, you got to tell teenagers that all the time. You do not know everything. Armstrong and Getty wrapping up another grueling four hour workday.

[Jack Armstrong]

So many people. Thanks. So little time. Go to Armstrong and getty.com for the hot links. Pick out some Ang swag for your favorite Armstrong and Getty fan. Maybe it's you yourself. Christmas is coming fast. Yep.

[Joe Getty]

What a great plan to have some with Armstrong and Getty on it. We'll see you tomorrow. God bless America. She's a seething ball of hatred.

[Podcast Announcer]

Get the f out of my sh.

[Jack Armstrong]

She looks like an angry homunculus.

[News Reporter]

She's the best water carrier for the California Dems and she has inklings of being president. Katie Porter, thank you. The not so charming candidate for governor. Get the F out of my shot. Armstrong and Getty.

[Asma Khalid]

America is changing and so is the world.

[Tristan Redman]

But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Asma Khalid]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.

[Tristan Redman]

Tristan Redman in London, and this is the global story.

[Asma Khalid]

Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[Tristan Redman]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Podcast Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast.