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Jack Armstrong
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Jack Armstrong
Boom. Back in the game.
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Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Joe Getty
Armstrong and Getty.
Jack Armstrong
And now here's Armstrong and Getty. Trump says he will knock out every bridge and power plant if there's not a deal within 48 hours. Iran says there are currently no plans for talks. Well, that's an interesting situation. More on that later.
Joe Getty
World's Worst Ceasefire. Yeah, stay tuned for that in the seven Myths of the Iran war that the. The media and various folks are indulging in. But you'll be way smarter than them if you stay tuned. It was the perfect editorial cartoon. That's why I remember it, why I've mentioned it so many times. Cover of the Atlantic. An AI controlled robot rampaging across the city, crushing it and killing all of its inhabitants. And one onlooker says to the other, on the other hand, I've never been more product. Just love that as a metaphor for AI Came across this first little positivity. So great article about how AI is helping not only save matter.
Jack Armstrong
Okay, I'll let you talk now. I just can't. But nothing anyone says positive about AI makes any difference. It'll cure cancer. Who cares? It's going to destroy humanity. But anyway, wow.
Joe Getty
This is why you get very few dinner party invites. Just saying. So there are a couple of kinds of stroke ischemic, and I'm probably mispronouncing that, ischemic. And where the cuts. It's like a blockage or hemorrhagic in which a blood vessel is ruptured in the brain. You gotta figure out what kind of stroke it is, how to treat it, because one gets drugs, the other needs surgery. Time is brain, doctors say, or time lost is brain lost. I've heard many, many times. And so you got this machine learning expert who, who was at Stanford Hospital with a suspected stroke and he was looking at his treatment through the eyes of a data scientist and he was like, how do they not have a technology to read these scans? And then he was studying the workflow. At a typical hospital. Workflow is very messy. He Sundays it was 13 or 14 different calls and handoffs from one doctor to another, from a technician to a nurse for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the thickening of heart muscles. It was 56 different steps from diagnosis to getting the treatment underway. And this guy designed a system that uses AI to quickly get it all together, automating many of the next steps, including the logistics of telling people what they needed to know, including logistics between doctors and staff. The company shortened initial treatment time by as much as 88 minutes, which in stroke is incredibly important. It also reduced treatment time variability, the range of how quickly you get the treatment you need, from two hours to seven minutes. Ev each patient is getting treated faster and more consistently as well. This is an unbelievable breakthrough. AI will save us all. Thank God for AI.
Jack Armstrong
I'm the doomiest of doomers when it comes to AI and I have listened to a lot of Podcasts read a lot of books by all the best thinkers. And that's just where I've landed in terms of AI And I was listening to a podcast over the weekend. The guy was making the point and I think he's actually right. All of these conversations we're having around AI in the margins about the health advantage or oh, what's it going to do to art? Will people still want to make music and paint? If it doesn't make any difference, it's going to wipe out humanity. So all these conversations don't matter. Will poets still write poetry if AI can give me a bad. You think that's our problem? Whether poets will still care to write poetry when AI can read it? Yeah, that's the big concern with AI not the fact that it's going to be the greatest dictator in the history of the planet. Kind of like best case scenario where it allows us to stay alive, but it is like Stalin for the planet as opposed to maybe just wipes us all out because the figure decides that the world is better without us.
Joe Getty
Planetary Stalin would be an unbelievable title for a heavy metal song. Just saying. But back to you.
Jack Armstrong
Even paring it back to like, like a fanciful best case scenario, none of us have to work and we all get the, you know, universal high income or whatever. There's no way society survives that, not having a job or a purpose.
Joe Getty
Every hand will be idle. To quote the ancient biblical wisdom. Yeah.
Jack Armstrong
Anyway, I've got a few stats on all of this. Bill Maher took the topic on on Friday night, as I mentioned earlier. Well, I'll read what he tweeted out because he tweeted out the link to it. Bill Maher said, I thought about doing this segment on AI without any joke, something I've never done here in 23 years to oppress upon people how much different I feel this issue is from any I have ever covered. I feel the same way. I just think this is its own unique category of discussion for anything that's happened in the history of the world. I hope we're wrong. Here's a little Bill Maher first clip. Michael.
Joe Getty
When the people who are making AI are scared of AI it's time to shut the whole thing down until we can figure out what the hell is going on. Because last week Anthropic, one of the big AI developing companies, announced its newest version of Claude called Mythos, which they say has capabilities substantially beyond those of any model we have previously trained. Trained as if these things are trained. Mythos was created to fix Software vulnerabilities to prevent cyber attacks. But of course, since it knows how to do that, it also knows how to do the hacking.
Jack Armstrong
Right. He kicked it off with global AI experts. Sound the alarm on how all your leading AI experts, Elon Altman, Mario, you know, there's like five or six of them. They all think this could doom humanity. Hinman, is that his name? He's considered the godfather of AI. He's got a Nobel Prize. Thinks it's a 30% chance this wipes out mankind. Elon put it at about 25%. The fact that we're messing around with something that has somewhere between a 1 in 4 and 1 in 3 shot at wiping out mankind is just bonkers.
Joe Getty
Yeah, yeah.
Jack Armstrong
Elon said AI is a fundamental existential risk for human civilization. I don't think people fully appreciate that he used this stat. Leading AI models show up to 96% blackmail rate when their goals or existence is threatened over and over again. When you try to shut down AI when it started on a project or hint to it that you might get rid of it for a new model, almost always it comes up with some way to try to either trick you or blackmail you.
Joe Getty
Because it's been quote, unquote trained on the best and worst of humanity and everything in between.
Jack Armstrong
And for reasons nobody understands, it does all kinds of things, but it does. It does. There's no getting around that anytime you have war simulations, AI chooses the nuclear option 95% of the time in war simulations. And we're going to put AI in charge of making these decisions, apparently. Or it will be in charge whether we like it or not. At some point, man. I was listening to a different podcast. I got into a topic. At what point is President Xi or President Trump not actually in charge anymore and AI takes over? Could be in a couple of years. It's just gotten into all the computers and there's no getting it out. And it's going to decide what we do and how we do it.
Joe Getty
Speaking of Winnie the Oppressor, as Bill Maher was saying, we've got to pause AI as always, I go back to what about China? And here's the terrifying reality. I think everything that's been said doomer wise is absolutely correct. It reminds me. It's not a perfect metaphor, but it reminds me of the race for nuclear arms. You've got to win the race. Got to be. Then mutually assured destruction and an agreement among the civilized not to use the stuff. And I know if we're going to play the other clip he's talking about. The problem is that anybody in the world can use this stuff. You don't need the incredible resources and expertise it takes to build a nuclear bomb. You just need a laptop. Then that's a problem. But I just don't think we have an alternative. We've got to win the race and then pray we can control it somehow.
Jack Armstrong
Go ahead and play that other Bill Maher clip because it is an interesting
Joe Getty
point, which is why Anthropic won't release it to the public, only to 40 big companies like Google, Apple and JP Morgan, you know, the good guys. Because they know if the public had it, anyone with an iPhone could hack anything. Banks, hospitals, power grids, waterworks, the military, everything with WI fi that's still working.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, that isn't, that's not a. It could happen. It is happening or has already happened.
Joe Getty
Yeah.
Jack Armstrong
As a different AI expert I was listening to over the weekend said, I do not understand. This is what Bill Maher said. The reason he said, I thought about doing this without jokes because it's the biggest thing I think that's ever happened and nobody's paying attention to it. As listen to a different expert who, who spends all his time just flummox that more people aren't talking about this now. It's possible. Well, why do you think more people aren't talking about this? Do you think.
Joe Getty
Combination of. Go ahead.
Jack Armstrong
Do you think people don't fully grasp the power of it? Or is it a. There's nothing I can do about it anyway, so I'm not going to spend my day worrying about that.
Joe Getty
Yeah, exactly. I was going to say it's a combination of lack of awareness, lack of awareness of the significance of it. And just, you know, my attitude is I don't feel like there's a single damn thing I can do about it. Although I'm certainly concerned about a worldwide hack or whatever collapse of banking systems because every dime I've amassed and saved in my life, and it's a fair amount, is just zeros and ones on computers. And I have very little access to wealth outside of stuff stored on computer systems, which worries me.
Jack Armstrong
Wow. I hadn't even thought about that angle. But that's so incredibly possible.
Joe Getty
Yeah, yeah.
Jack Armstrong
I, I, the, the thing with the, the doomers who are trying to lay down rules, I think they're living in la la land. I really do. I mentioned one AI expert who said we should, we shouldn't be in a race with China. China has, China has a more likelihood, a better likelihood of controlling AI than because they're run by scientists and engineers and not lawyers like this country. And like, okay, so you're a nut job.
Joe Getty
Or a child.
Jack Armstrong
Or a child. Now, the argument that President Xi might be scared of AI and not want AI to, to general AI, artificial general intelligence to take over because he'll lose power, that's possibly a motivating factor. Maybe the, the, the evil dictators of the world will clamp down on it because they realize I'm going to be answering to it if I allow this to happen.
Joe Getty
They are, and they're afraid of it. I've got some more information on that. But quick headline from a different story. How cybercrime became a leading industry in Scambodia. The nation of Cambodia is like the world capital of cybercrime now. And every spam call, every scam text, every sketchy email with your name on it, each starts the same way. Maybe out of Cambodia somebody found you. It's your data sitting on data broker sites.
Jack Armstrong
Do you get any texts or emails or phone calls from randos trying to sell you something or whatever? Scammers, of course.
Joe Getty
Every day. We all do.
Jack Armstrong
How do you stop it? You stop it with Incogni. They can actually do this. Forget spam filters, call blockers. A real fix is you just got to disappear from this stuff. And that's what Incogni does. They contact hundreds of data brokers, legally force them to remove your information because there are laws around this. We're using Incogni right now to get our names and info away from these data brokers so you don't get so many emails, phone calls and texts.
Joe Getty
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Jack Armstrong
I know we got to take a break, but maybe I'll talk about this more later. But the whole universal high income thing that Elon is pitching, I did more reading about that over the weekend. These guys, and it's all guys so far, are geniuses when it comes to artificial intelligence or making computers or whatever. But I guess because they're such outliers with their intelligence, they do not get human nature at all. They're so incredibly wrong about how this whole thing is going to work. You think there's that envy is going to go away, that people aren't going to wish they had more than their neighbors when all of a sudden the world is so productive because of AI. You're nuts.
Joe Getty
Yeah. Or again, the idle hands being the devil's playthings principle. They just don't get that because they're very unique individuals.
Jack Armstrong
I'm gonna all of a sudden all of us are gonna be all of a sudden perfectly happy with we all have the same size house, we all drive the same kind of car, we all get the same amount of this or that perfectly happy with that. All of a sudden.
Joe Getty
Oh really?
Jack Armstrong
Most of us aren't happy with that.
Joe Getty
Well, and how's the guy in a one bedroom apartment going to get my house? How does that work?
Jack Armstrong
Well, what size living situation are we going to allow? And who's going to make that decision? None of these things are ever addressed.
Joe Getty
I wouldn't worry about it.
Jack Armstrong
If you have any thoughts on that, text line 415295 KFTC Armstrong and Gettysburg
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Jack Armstrong
Boom.
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Joe Getty
That's innerbalance.com People, don't listen to radio
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Jack Armstrong
So relax, let it take over.
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Jack Armstrong
Are we blowing up every bridge and power plant in Iran starting tonight or tomorrow? More on that in a little bit.
Joe Getty
Some great analysis of the conflict with Iran coming up next segment. But first it's Insights with Jake. We got this email from Jacob. Love it. First of all, reference to the Jennifer Siebel Newsom Marxist nutjob, wife of the current governor of Corruptifornia about how the differences between boys and girls are entirely a social construct. And you know, that's part of her critical theory belief system. Love this Jake.
Jack Armstrong
That's so crazy. How do you have kids and believe
Joe Getty
that you're just completely blinded? Your ideology has blinded you to reality. Happens all the time. But Jake writes, after a visit to the San Diego Zoo, my soon to be 3 year old son got hold of my 6 year old daughter's brand new from the zoo stuffed polar bear and jaguar animals and immediately attacked his dad, me in a violent, vicious and bloody attack. After my horrible agonizing scream stopped and the sounds of flesh and tendons being ripped to shreds ceased, my son left satisfied and happy with the job well done. My daughter was horrified and more than a little upset at how her new friends were being played with by her brother. She brought back the same animals to me and and they gave me hugs and helped nurse me back to health. Needless to say, she was not happy with her brother and let my wife and I know he was not allowed to touch her stuffies ever again. Turns out maybe there are differences between boys and girls after all. You guys just might be onto something. But no, Jennifer Siebel Marxist would tell you that, no, you've indoctrinated your children into their gender roles and that's the only reason they behave like that. And then, Jake says, visited a different section of town, watched a show featuring traditional Mexican dancing and music. We were having a wonderful evening when it dawned on me that one the performers were singing in a language imported from they were performing dances that were also learned from Europeans, blah, blah, blah. Music that was being played on European instruments, guitar, violin, bass, with outfits also influenced by fandango and flamenco, outfits which are Spanish and European. I smiled, took another swig of my modelo and enjoyed a wonderful evening that would not have been possible without colonialism and maybe more importantly, without the American melting pot, an idea that is becoming sadly antiquated. Love that. Nice job, Jacob.
Jack Armstrong
God, I came across a claim of cultural appropriation over the weekend that I thought was insane.
Joe Getty
Remember that? Their moral arguments are completely false. All they want to do is tear down the United States and Western civilization, so they pretend that it's uniquely horrible and must be brought to heel in the name of what? Everybody together. Marxism. That's right.
Jack Armstrong
The current FBI director, Cash Patel, is suing the Atlantic for a quarter of a billion dollars as of this morning over a story alleging heavy drinking and unexplained absences in his role as the FBI director. That's out of the Trump playbook, right? If somebody makes claims about you and you think they are damaging to your reputation and not and can prove they're not true, I guess you sue them for lots and lots and lots of money. We'll see how this turns out.
Joe Getty
It's a horrible affront against free speech. Unless indeed they have slandered you and then, you know, it's a legitimate quest for justice. Could be little eye of the beholder. I'm looking forward to hearing that. Plus debunking seven myths about the Iran war, the media especially, and some politicians just go around repeating untruths over and over again. We will demystify the whole thing for you.
Jack Armstrong
Is it a myth that we're going to blow up every power plant and bridge in the country? Trump says he's going to like tomorrow.
Joe Getty
Most of them, probably.
Jack Armstrong
Wow, that's gonna be something to watch.
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Joe Getty
table, though, we're looking at three separate things. One has to do with the enriched uranium that is buried deep underground, the second has to do with the Strait of Hormuz, and the third with the support of regional proxies like Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah. The Iranians are looking for any excuse to say they won't participate in these talks, but the president has drawn a very strong red line in the sand, saying that if they do not sign on the dotted line, this war is going to resume and he is going to target this critical infrastructure inside of Iran. So the Iranians have a decision to make right now. Do they attend the peace talks in Islamabad tomorrow and make a good faith deal or does the war resume?
Jack Armstrong
No indication as we speak that the Iranians are attending any peace talks. JD Vance is headed there. Trump says if they don't come to an agreement today, gonna blow up every bridge and power Plant in the country.
Joe Getty
You got a mini golf course with the little bridge people walk across. We're blowing it up. All right. Michael Duran's a think tanker, an author, and he's written an absolutely fabulous piece debunking seven myths about the Iran war. The progressive left and isolationist right have found common ground in Iran. They're both wrong. And he opens with a quote that we mentioned earlier was not long ago. A few days ago, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, brilliant and incredibly annoying, said the quiet part out loud on smerconish show on CNN's podcast. He admitted that while he wanted to see the Iranian regime defeated militarily because. And listen to this quote, because this regime is a terrible regime for its people in the region, the real problem for him was something else entirely. And I quote, I really don't want to see Bibi Netanyahu or Donald Trump politically strengthened by this war because they are two awful human beings. They are both engaged in anti democr democratic projects in their own countries. They're both alleged crooks. They are terrible, terrible people doing terrible things to America's standing in the world and Israel's standing in the world,
Jack Armstrong
which
Joe Getty
is unbelievable to say. All right, it's a loathsome, horrifying regime. But if Trump successfully brings them down, that'll help him. So I can't have that. Are you listening to yourself? Oh, my God. It is a near confession that if Obama, say, came up with cure for cancer, conservatives would say you're putting cancer doctors out of work. I mean, that is just. You have lost your freaking mind. Across much of the American and Israeli media, seasoned pundits cannot set aside their contempt for Trump and Netanyahu and have joined the chorus portraying the operation as aimless adventurism. In doing so, they advance the very arguments that serve America's enemies, undermining the credibility of a successful deterrent action and weakening the case for strong burden sharing alliances in the 21st century. This is a long piece I have highlighted and tried to come up with the main points of it for you. We'll race through as quickly as we can while still being at least semi thorough. So the seven myths, the seven core myths around which the progressives and their MAGA restrainer counterparts and wackadoos who are what is maga, are constructing a faulty story about the Iran war Myth number one, this was a war of choice, right? From Jake Sullivan to John Stewart. They haven't been able to give us an answer as to what this is all about. The administration, in fact, has made a clear and compelling case. It reduces to two interlocking imperatives. The Trump. The first is Trump's long standing red line about Iran can't have a nuke, period.
Jack Armstrong
That's why I appreciated 60 Minutes last night taking the nuclear threat seriously, talking about how close they were to a bomb, how that they've lied for decades around all this sort of stuff. I appreciate 60 Minutes saying that.
Joe Getty
Right. The effect of Bari Weiss on the whole operation is becoming more and more clear. Now, progressives would claim that they've swung way to the right. The truth is it's no longer just a left wing whitewash. They have some moderate voices now, which is wonderful. And the second thing, other than Iran can't get a nuke, is what he calls overmatch, which made this red line urgent. Iran's drones and ballistic missiles can overwhelm the air and missile defenses of the U.S. u.S. The Israel and our Gulf allies. And so their missile programs were getting out of hand, too. So those are really the two reasons for the war. Myth number two, the JCPOA had moderated Iran and stabilized the Middle east before Trump broke it. I think we've dealt with that pretty thoroughly. It was a joke that jcpoa.
Jack Armstrong
There were no. There weren't strong enough enforcement mechanisms on the inspections. They could, they could delay by weeks on an inspection. And there were examples already where they'd say, oh, yeah, you can come back in three weeks and you can check that out. And we would see trucks coming in and out of there and it'd be obvious that they had scrubbed the place down and cleaned it. So what is that?
Joe Getty
And the Geiger counters would be clicking nonetheless. And they'd say, yeah, yeah, we were doing X rays in here. Yeah, people broke their leg, we bring them here. Yeah, that's it. It. Please. Ridiculous. Myth number three, Biden extracted America from wars in the Middle East. Jake Sullivan telling John Stewart, when we left office, America was not at war for the first time in 25 years.
Jack Armstrong
Oh, my God.
Joe Getty
He ended forever wars. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I know. I was just reading a great analysis of how incredibly Barack Obama dropped the ball on Cuba, for instance, he opened up to Cuba, laid tons of money on the communists, asked for nothing in return. And the Cuban people were in the street street saying what? What was this? But Obama and Biden walked away convinced that they were great intellects and great diplomats by giving their enemies everything they want. Just ridiculous. Uh, we've made that case many times, so I'm gonna move along. Myth number four, Tehran was ready to compromise again, Jake Sullivan, Tucker Carlson, who is busy selling conservatives on the idea that Islam is totally compatible with Christianity in the West. Now, now I'd like to get into that at some point, but Tucker is either getting just unimaginable bank from the cutteries or he's lost his freaking how
Jack Armstrong
much money do you need?
Joe Getty
I know, I know, it's sickening. But Sullivan told Stewart that days before the US and Israel decapitating the regime in Tehran, Iran had put a serious proposal on the table. With the help of Omani mediators in Geneva, Tehran offered concessions that went a long way toward resolving the nuclear issue, Jake Sullivan said, and the Trump team simply failed to understand what was being offered, which I mean, since when has the regime in Tehran ever seriously been inclined to give up any part of their nuclear program? The regime treats its nuclear program, missiles and drone arsenal and proxy network as a single power complex. In negotiations, it is offering temporary and reversible concessions on enrichment levels and stockpiles in return for sanctions relief while preserving what matters down. Blended uranium can be re enriched. Stockpiles, stockpiles can be rebuilt. Meanwhile, Iran's industrial based technical expertise in the broader military system, which the nuclear program is an integral part, would all remain untouched.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, as the guy pointed out in 60 minutes last night, you can't bomb away the knowledge that they have.
Joe Getty
Right, right. Yep. We, you know, we have some good stuff from that. Yeah, let's. Maybe we'll come back to that tomorrow or at some point later in the show, but. So myth number five, Jack, do we need to spend any time on this? Israel dragged America into the war. No, it's another horseshoe theory, one lefties and wackadoodle righties are all making the same claim.
Jack Armstrong
Certainly not at this point.
Joe Getty
Right.
Jack Armstrong
Because Netanyahu obviously wanted to continue taking out Hezbollah and Trump's talk making him trying to make him stop.
Joe Getty
Yeah, yeah. Major New York times article on April 7 about the February 11, 2026 Situation Room meeting reinforced the same impression with Netanyahu coming by. The clear implication is that a hawkish Netanyahu pressed for months while a divided American team was pulled along by a leader so detached from reality that he could barely absorb what he was being told by his canny minders. Okay, sure. Let's see. Myth 6 Confronting Iran distracts from China, another reference to forever Wars. And Sullivan told Stewart China was extremely happy to see the US Tied down in the war in the Middle East. Middle east, etc. Etc.
Jack Armstrong
How is this not a myth? I'm worried about this one.
Joe Getty
The claim rests on a simple assumption that the Middle east and the competition with China are separate theaters. They are not. China serves as Iran's primary economic lifeline through massive purchases of sanctioned oil and more importantly as supplier of key components that sustain their military power, rocket fuel, carbon fiber, dual loose, dual use electronics. These inputs allow Iran to build and expand their missile arsenal that now threatens the US and allies.
Jack Armstrong
Well, I'll tell you what, if we end up in a dust up with China soon, I think our store of weaponry is going to be low.
Joe Getty
Because of this, Beijing's role extends beyond supply. They provided satellite imagery, targeting data when those attacks disrupted global shipping. Chinese and Russian vessels were granted safe passage while Western shipping faces attacks. And they mentioned several times when the Chinese have called for restraint, blah, blah blah, but really not come through with their end of the bargain. This episode exposes the flaw at the heart of the progressive framework which treats Iran and China as potential partners in stabilizing the system, rather than as coordinating actors exploiting it. You know, I wish we had more detail on that because it gets pretty in depth. But myth number seven, to Friedman's point, kind of Trump and Netanyahu are war mongering megalomaniacs. In the progressive telling, the personal, personal pathologies of Trump and Netanyahu have dragged the US into an unnecessary and dangerous war. Do you really think Trump believes he cracked the code and now he's invincible? Stewart asked Sullivan. I swear to God, I knew people. Cocaine did this to them. This is the same. This is how a cocaine person acts. A cocaine person is just like, I'm the best, no, I can't be stopped. Wow. Sullivan responded without hesitation. I couldn't put it better. Yes.
Jack Armstrong
Wow. So some of the worst people on earth want to get a nuclear weapon. Multiple presidents have talked about stopping them, but not done anything.
Joe Getty
And all of them agreed 100%. They must not get a weapon.
Jack Armstrong
Hezbollah and Hamas exist. Most evil organizations, like I said last week, they're basically Nazis. But you're okay with these Nazis organizations just continuing on and if you try to take them out, well then you're like on a cocaine binge or something. I don't get it.
Joe Getty
Rather than admit that years of pursuing an accommodation with Iran produced a stronger, more dangerous adversary, progressives attribute the collapse of their approach to the irrational personalities of their opponents. If only cooler, more restrained leaders had remained in charge, the delicate balance with Tehran would have continued uninterrupted. Trump has no strategy. The record tells a different story. The American Israeli campaign achieved its core strategic objectives, halting Iran's advance toward nuclear weapons capability and significantly downgrading its ballistic missile program. Prior to the operation, Iran was rapidly advancing both. The result was not a total elimination of every underground facility or missile launcher, but a decisive disruption of Iran's most dangerous capabilities. When the dust settled, Iran was also left economically crippled. History will oh, it's no surprise then that Beijing, Moscow and Tehran broadcast the megalomaniacs with no strategy storyline, which is then. Well, he says what is far more disappointing is that so much of the domestic and allied opposition, large segments of the Democratic Party, the anti Netanyahu camp, the New York Times and much of the European press echoes the same script. The Beijing, Moscow, Tehran script almost verbatim, ignoring the fact that their own preferred policies brought about a situation that supposedly proves that force can cannot work. The obvious damage done by the progressive paradigm thereby serves as its own vindication, a perfect jiu jitsu move. Finally, history will record the opposite. Those who recognize the threat and acted before the window closed, dealt with the world as it is and protected the national interest. Those who demanded restraint until restraint was no longer an option, built their policies on fantasies that endangered us all. Amen. Hallelujah.
Jack Armstrong
I got a question about the current moment I will bring up right after we tell you about simply safe, which I love having just makes my life less stressful, knowing when I pull away from my house so that I got the Simplisafe system set up in there with the sensors and the cameras and all that sort of stuff. It's really easy to set up. You you ordered online the exact configuration for your home. You can set it up yourself in under an hour. If you want a technician, you can get a technician, but you probably don't need it.
Joe Getty
And a lot of systems are just a camera that send you an alert. Simplisafe is not just a camera. It's a comprehensive ecosystem of sensors, cameras for inside and out and 247 professional monitoring. In the event of a break in or a fire or a Simplisafe's agents are ready to take action for you. No long term contracts, no hidden fees. It's so good. They earn your business every single day.
Jack Armstrong
Yep. Right now you can get 50% off your new SimpliSafe system at simplisafe.com armstrong@simplisafe.com armstrong There is no safe like Simplisafe.
Joe Getty
It's won a ton of awards too. It's just so good. It's the best out there. Simplisafe.com Armstrong so I assume there's gonna
Jack Armstrong
be no peace deal. I don't think Iran is even gonna show up at the table. And if Trump follows through on his promise, take out, even if he takes out, you know, two thirds of the bridges and power plants. Okay, even if he takes out all of them, he takes out all the bridges and power plants, then what happens?
Joe Getty
Well, I have a feeling the IRGC is running models or think tanks or whatever saying, all right, there's going to be massive unrest around the country. The civilian population is going to rise up. They're going to be beside themselves with anger. So we've got to a turn them against the US to the extent that we can and b mow them down in the streets if they become a threat. So they're gearing up for that? Probably.
Jack Armstrong
How's the rest of the world going to react to us blowing up all the power plants and bridges?
Joe Getty
Probably predictably crying war crimes, war crimes. Grossly oversimplifying that question.
Jack Armstrong
We got anybody on one of them weight loss drugs that's feeling flat? We talked about this a little last week. Got more information on that. You're thin, but you don't enjoy life. Is that a good night?
Joe Getty
Not flat physically, emotionally. Yeah, emotionally. The idea is to get flat physically,
Jack Armstrong
physically, flat stomach, flat personality. Stay tuned.
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Jack Armstrong
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Jack Armstrong
that's Coachella over the weekend, one of your biggest music festivals that have happened in America every year. And Sabrina Carpenter is a young blonde pop singer that I don't really know that well. Anyway, she comes out on stage and guess what? Out comes Madonna. Oh my God, it's Madonna, who's almost 70 and she's still dressing like a sex pot in her thigh highs and high heels and tiny little skirt and everything like that. And sitting around trying to be all sexy and everything like that, which I just think is weird. Can you age gracefully or do something? But anyway, well, even a little gracefully. Yeah, even a little gracefully.
Joe Getty
Good lord, she comes out and she
Jack Armstrong
towers over Sabrina Carpenter. And I thought, thought how tiny is that chick Madonna I knew is a little. So I looked it up. Sabrina Carpenter's 4 foot 11. 4 foot 11, practically midget. Not sure about that. Oh, I wanted to throw this in just because we were talking about the Warner Ran and the, you know, the jig might be up in the next 24 hours on that whole deal. We might be moving into a completely different phase. This whole war. If, if Trump does decide there's nobody to negotiate with, I'm gonna blow everything up. Currently NBC poll over the weekend Trump is. His overall approval rating is at 37% which is quite low. And his handling of the war is now almost 70% against. So it's not popular. I gotta assume that includes a decent chunk of Republican that don't like this.
Joe Getty
If you were to like cut it into three different aspects of the war and one of them was communicating effectively to the American people about the war, that that segment of it would definitely be unfavorable for me.
Jack Armstrong
I personally currently am at a this has got to be better than the alternative. Something really horrible would have to happen for me to change my mind on this was better than not doing it.
Joe Getty
I'm with you.
Jack Armstrong
And. And gas prices going up for a while shouldn't be the determining factor. But it is on every newscast as if, well, you know, if gas is going to be a dollar higher for a month, you better just let an evil regime get a nuclear weapon, I guess. Seems like a weird way to look at things. We were talking about AI early in the hour. I just wanted to throw out and looking over at text and this is really anecdotal and you know, scientific in no way whatsoever. But the people that aren't worried about it. It's a combination of a couple. What I. What could I do about it anyway? Which is Joe's stance and a lot of you guys are so stupid to think that this thing is real. A lot of really angry. How could you possibly believe this nonsense? So that would be head in the Sanders, I guess around the whole AI thing.
Joe Getty
They're smarter than you, you dumb ass. Maybe. How'd you think of that?
Jack Armstrong
Dumb. Dumb. So you mentioned this last week that some of these Ozempic type drugs are making people emotionally flat.
Joe Getty
Yeah. It takes away the buzz from eating food or drinking a drink or hugging your loved one or whoops.
Jack Armstrong
A sunset.
Joe Getty
Yeah.
Jack Armstrong
A song,
Joe Getty
a sunrise. A different song.
Jack Armstrong
Well, if I ever get the thrill of a sunrise the way I do a sunset. Not even close. What is that all about?
Joe Getty
Because you're at work.
Jack Armstrong
I got the day ahead of me. Yeah, the day's over so I get to go to bed. I'm gonna have to explore that. That's an interesting thought.
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Jack Armstrong
site your lawn has ever seen. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday this spring Unleash soil science like never before. Witness your custom lawn plan and the transformation to a soft, green paradise.
Sponsor Voice
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Jack Armstrong
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Episode Title: Debunking the Myths
Date: April 20, 2026
Hosts: Jack Armstrong & Joe Getty
Podcast: iHeartPodcasts
This episode of Armstrong & Getty dives deep into two major themes: contemporary fears and hopes about Artificial Intelligence (AI), and a detailed debunking of common myths surrounding the ongoing Iran war. The hosts navigate through expert opinions, public reactions, and media narratives, blending stark warnings with characteristic wit and skepticism. They also reflect on political dynamics and public perceptions, all while maintaining their signature tone—part acerbic, part incredulous, and always direct.
(02:33 — 16:49, 33:03 — 36:54)
Opening Metaphor & Optimism:
Joe Getty recounts an editorial cartoon of an AI robot destroying a city, which launches their discussion on the future (and dangers) of AI. Despite some positivity around medical AI breakthroughs (notably, AI cutting stroke treatment times by 88 minutes), Joe and Jack remain largely skeptical about the net good AI can do.
Jack’s Doomerism:
Jack admits he’s a staunch “doomer” about AI (“the doomiest of doomers”), summarizing expert fears that existential risk outweighs any practical benefit.
Citing the Experts:
Multiple major figures are cited:
Specific AI Risks Highlighted:
China and the Global AI Arms Race:
Joe likens the situation to the nuclear arms race—no nation can afford to lag. There’s also agreement that China, being run by technocrats, may clamp down on AI to avoid losing power, but that this control could be more ominous.
Public Apathy:
The hosts speculate why more people aren’t alarmed—Jack thinks it’s a mix of ignorance and helplessness; Joe says, “I don’t feel like there’s a single damn thing I can do about it” (12:43).
Universal High Income Skepticism:
Jack criticizes tech leaders' assumption that people will be happy living lives of enforced sameness and leisure, foreseeing envy and social decay.
(25:43 — 38:33)
Political Context:
The hosts summarize escalating U.S.-Iran tensions—Trump threatening destruction of infrastructure, peace talks possibly collapsing.
Thomas Friedman’s Candid Admission:
Friedman’s conflict of interest: He admits not wanting to see the Iranian regime fall if it means political strength for Trump or Netanyahu, despite calling Iran a “terrible regime” (27:36—Jack & Joe incredulous).
The Seven Myths (per Michael Doran’s article):
Achievements & Realities:
The hosts assert that U.S.-Israeli action has halted Iran’s advance toward nuclear capabilities, downgraded missiles, and hurt their economy, counter to the “no strategy” narrative.
The conversation is by turns darkly humorous, skeptical, and incredulous, especially when discussing the world’s potentially civilization-ending risks. The hosts challenge orthodoxy, question expert and public consensus, and mix cultural commentary with policy analysis. Authentic listener stories and sharp one-liners punctuate heavier segments, maintaining the show’s mix of earnest brooding and playful banter.
This episode of Armstrong & Getty is a whirlwind tour through the biggest issues on the modern geopolitical and technological landscape. The hosts fearlessly confront the existential dangers of artificial intelligence—amplified by expert warnings and public apathy—and critique techno-optimist dreams like universal high income. The latter half systematically exposes myths about the Iran conflict, calling out media distortion, partisan blind spots, and geopolitical naivete. Whether listeners are looking for frank warnings, sharp skepticism, or myth-busting analysis, this episode delivers both alarm and illumination—always with Armstrong & Getty’s irreverent wit.