He Had A Dwarf Hype Man

Summary

Summary of "He Had A Dwarf Hype Man" Episode from Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Podcast Information:

• Title: Armstrong & Getty On Demand
• Host/Author: iHeartPodcasts
• Description: The official, On-Demand podcast of The Armstrong & Getty Show! Accept no substitutes!
• Episode: He Had A Dwarf Hype Man
• Release Date: April 1, 2025

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Trump's Bold Tariff Strategy

The episode opens with hosts Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty dissecting President Trump's aggressive tariff announcement. Trump plans to impose tariffs on numerous countries enforcing import duties on U.S. goods, starting Wednesday, with an additional 25% tariff on all foreign-made cars and auto parts set for Thursday.

Jack Armstrong highlights the broader economic implications:

"President Trump is resetting the entire global market by saying, number one, you can't steal our jobs. Number two, if you want to get preferential treatment, you have to put your factory inside the United States. You want to sell it to Americans. And if you do, you'll get low taxes, low regulations and cheap energy. But if you sell it to us from overseas, then yes, you will pay a tariff." (00:42)

Joe Getty adds context about public expectations and the long-term vision behind the tariffs:

"Right. Which, as we mentioned, polls show people expect prices to go up short term, and about half the country thinks they're going to stay up long term." (00:42)

The hosts discuss the potential repercussions for American car manufacturers, debating whether companies like General Motors will build more plants domestically or continue operations abroad to circumvent tariffs. This leads to a broader discussion on the viability and risks of such economic policies.

Defining the American Car Company

A significant portion of the conversation delves into what truly defines an American car company. Joe Getty raises a critical question about the bailout of GM during the Obama administration versus the lack of similar support for foreign companies like Toyota or Volkswagen operating in the U.S.

"What's sense is a Toyota made in Indiana good for America? I, I don't get that. I mean, the jobs at that plant are nice, but it's still a foreign company and they pay..." (04:28)

Jack Armstrong responds by acknowledging the complexity of the issue, emphasizing the disparity in national treatment based on company origin.

Woke Watch: California and Colorado's Progressive Policies

Battle Over Women's Sports and Transgender Rights in California

Introducing their new segment, Woke Watch, Armstrong and Getty critique recent legislative efforts in California aimed at protecting women's sports, which they argue will fail due to lack of support from key political figures and caucuses.

"All right, now let me try that again. Welcome to Woke Watch. The battle has just begun. Everything Woke turns to sh." (09:08)

Decolonizing Shakespeare's Legacy

The hosts express concern over attempts to "decolonize" Shakespeare's legacy, arguing that such efforts undermine Western civilization by altering the perception of one of its greatest literary figures.

"You're going to crush it and make it so infamous. Nobody teaches it anymore because he was white." (13:38)

Transgender Issues in Georgia's Medicaid Contracts

A particularly controversial topic is highlighted regarding Georgia's Department of Community Health manipulating Medicaid contracts to include discriminatory questions about transgender children, effectively barring companies that do not support transgender rights from lucrative state contracts.

"So it's a multi billion dollar contract for who's going to administer dental coverage... they inserted... a question about a 14 year old transgender white female... if you didn't answer like that, you were out of a multi billion dollar bid." (17:04)

Kid Rock in the Oval Office: Tackling Ticket Scalping

In a surprising turn, the episode covers Kid Rock's unexpected visit to the Oval Office, where he brokered a deal between President Trump and comedian Bill Maher. The focus of their discussion is an executive order aimed at combating ticket scalping and price gouging by middlemen such as ticket brokers and platforms like StubHub.

Joe Getty reflects on the challenges artists face with ticket pricing:

"I want to lower my prices for certain people or whatever, but it doesn't do any good if I lower my prices. The third market people, StubHub and all those other companies, they buy them and sell them and make the profit and they get the money and I don't." (28:51)

The hosts debate the effectiveness of the executive order, questioning whether it will significantly impact ticket buyers or merely constrain brokerage firms without addressing the root causes of scalping.

"The national association of Ticket Brokers put out the following statement. We applaud President Trump for undertaking an effort to enforce the Federal Bots act... when tickets do go on sale, people should not be competing with ticket hoarding software to make a purchase." (33:09)

Interview with John Phillips: The Political Shift in California

Bringing in guest John Phillips, a California native and longtime radio personality, the discussion turns to the evolving political landscape in California. Phillips attributes the state's shift away from Republican dominance to factors such as the end of the Cold War, the rise of the tech industry, and growing dissatisfaction with Democratic policies on crime, homelessness, and economic management.

"California moved dramatically to the right from where they were in the last presidential election... However, voter registration numbers show dramatic moves to the right in cities like Glendale and agricultural areas in Imperial County." (18:54)

Phillips emphasizes that recent elections reflect a growing discontent among Californians, signaling potential political realignments and opportunities for Republican resurgence.

"They have long memories. If you own a small business and your small business was shut down... you're furious at what Sacramento did. And they have long memories." (24:11)

Concluding Thoughts: Navigating Economic and Social Turbulence

As the episode wraps up, Armstrong and Getty reflect on the intricate interplay between economic policies, social issues, and political strategies. They underscore the challenges faced by traditional industries in a rapidly changing global market and the societal tensions arising from progressive legislative efforts.

Jack Armstrong sums up the uncertainty surrounding Trump's tariff strategies:

"Whether he will actually be effective in that or just look like it, I don't know." (34:42)

Meanwhile, Joe Getty highlights the disconnect between artists' intentions and the realities of ticket sales:

"If I'm gonna have to pay $180 for a ticket, I would rather the money goes to my musician that I really like and care about their music than some ticket company." (32:55)

Overall, the episode presents a critical examination of contemporary political and economic issues, urging listeners to consider the long-term impacts of current policies and societal shifts.

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Notable Quotes:

• Jack Armstrong (00:42): "President Trump is resetting the entire global market by saying, number one, you can't steal our jobs..."
• Joe Getty (04:28): "What's sense is a Toyota made in Indiana good for America?"
• Joe Getty (09:08): "Welcome to Woke Watch. The battle has just begun."
• Jack Armstrong (17:04): "If you didn't answer like that, you were out of a multi billion dollar bid."
• Joe Getty (28:51): "I want to lower my prices for certain people... but I don't get the money."
• John Phillips (18:54): "California moved dramatically to the right from where they were in the last presidential election."
• Joe Getty (32:55): "I would rather the money goes to my musician... than some ticket company."

This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the "He Had A Dwarf Hype Man" episode, providing listeners with a clear understanding of the key discussions, insights, and conclusions presented by Armstrong and Getty.

Transcript

[Jack Armstrong]

Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. Armstrong and Getty. And now here's Armstrong and Getty. The President getting ready to announce tariffs on, at least, as he puts it, basically every country on earth. Every country that has import duties on U.S. goods. That starts Wednesday. Then on Thursday, in addition to the existing tariffs on aluminum and steel, President Trump will impose a whopping 25% tariff on all foreign made cars and auto parts.

[Joe Getty]

Right. Which, as we mentioned, polls show people expect prices to go up short term, and about half the country thinks they're going to stay up long term. But here's someone on Trump's side explaining why this is a good long term plan. The President has a high threshold for pain because these terrorists. Well. But also for his own political pain. Yeah, I mean, he's taking a long term approach, which is actually kind of refreshing in American politics now, whether he's right or wrong. But he's doing two things that are really, really unusual in Washington. He's taking a long term view and he's not listening to the critics. And now here's Stephen Miller, who would get more traction with more people if he didn't look like an evil villain. Since he's portrayed as an evil villain by the left, he just happens to look like one from a movie.

[Jack Armstrong]

President Trump is resetting the entire global market by saying, number one, you can't steal our jobs. Number two, if you want to get preferential treatment, you have to put your factory inside the United States. You want to sell it to Americans.

[Joe Getty]

On a preferential basis, then you have to make it here.

[Jack Armstrong]

And if you do, you'll get low taxes, low regulations and cheap energy. But if you sell it to us.

[Joe Getty]

From overseas, then yes, you will pay a tariff. So the not even pushback, but question that a lot of us have I think is, so how is. So is General Motors gonna build more plants in the next. How long does it take to build a car plant? They're gonna build a plant in the next three years. Even though the next president might do away with these. So you could keep building them in Mexico or wherever?

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, yeah, yeah. There's a reasonable likelihood of that. I mean, it would be bad, but yeah, I was gonna bring that. The Trump administration has done fabulous things so far that have been cruelly underreported at deregulation, reducing the regulatory weight on American businesses and make it easier to build factories and stuff like that. But it's still an enormous undertaking. I mean, it takes months, many Months, if not several years of planning before you break ground.

[Joe Getty]

Well, but we'd also have the reality of, so I'm General Motors and I decided, okay, this is the new world we live in. We're going to build a plant in Indiana and we're going to make our, our Chevy trucks 100% here to avoid the tariffs. And your competitor say Ford sticks it out somehow. And then next administration, when the tariffs go away, your competitor can make the truck so much cheaper right wherever they're making them.

[Jack Armstrong]

Profit and loss projections on both plans and figure out, all right, how do we lose the least money? Ride it out. We're gonna get kicked in the butt for the next three and a half years. We're gonna pay tariffs, it's gonna hurt our sales. But if we conform and then the laws change again, we would lose ginormous amounts of money and have to rebuild our plant in Mexico or whatever. Yeah, Long. And that's the interesting thing about Trump, and it bothers me, although I'm waiting to see how this all shakes out because often Trump throws so many head fakes out there, you don't know where he's actually go going, which is like completely unprecedented because presidents don't want to do that. They don't want to spook the markets. They don't want to freak out big American businesses. And so it's wild that he's this cavalier about causing, you know, shock and horror and, or pearl clutching if it just ends up with being a reordering of the post WW2 trade norms where of course we did charge us big tariffs because we're in economic colossus. We won't charge you because you got to get back on your feet. We understand that completely. If that's going to go away through this, great. It's fabulous.

[Joe Getty]

So here is a question rather than a statement. I have said this before, but I've never read this anywhere and I never hear anybody bring this up. So one of the things you regularly hear people say is, well, what's an American car company even mean anymore? Because I bought a Toyota truck that's built in Indiana. But, and this is my question now, maybe there's something I'm missing here. If Ford gets in trouble, GM gets in trouble, Chrysler gets in trouble, it becomes a national crisis. The federal government steps in, bails them out because we can't have these giant companies fail. That's never happened with Toyota or Volkswagen, these foreign companies. So obviously we're not, it's not our job to make sure Toyota does Okay. But it is our job as a nation to make sure GM stays in business.

[John Phillips]

So.

[Joe Getty]

And then what's sense is a Toyota made in Indiana good for America? I, I don't get that. I mean, the jobs at that plant are nice, but it's still a, it's still a foreign company and they pay.

[Jack Armstrong]

All sorts of taxes and you know, it generates a tremendous amount of revenue for the U.S. but yeah, the profits end up in a foreign bank unless they keep it in a US Bank. So what does that even mean?

[Joe Getty]

Well, we, obviously, I've never heard anybody care if Toyota's struggling.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right.

[Joe Getty]

In the United States. But we do care if GM's struggling.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right? You know. Oh boy, that's a complicated question and I'm not really qualified to answer it. It has to do with, I just.

[Joe Getty]

Wonder if anybody could email or text why it seems to me to put a lie to the. What's an American car anyway? This Toyota's made in Indiana. Okay, well, like I just said, nobody cares if Toyota does well or not as a company.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right, Right. And their stock is listed. I don't know where the stock is listed. For instance, I'm just thinking if, I mean, if you have thousands and thousands of employees and you're paying zillions of dollars in property tax, you probably have incentives, but property tax and sales tax, income taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes at the point of sale, you know, just all of that stuff. And then your profits end up in a Japanese, at a Japanese headquarters, except you're almost certainly investing them in the American stock market.

[Joe Getty]

But if you remember, like during the Obama administration, we had to bail out GM to the tune of tens or hundreds of billions of dollars. It was a big deal and it was like a, you know, whipped up national mood that we've got to have this, we've got to have an American car company succeed. How does that fit in with the whole thing?

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I don't know because that's a.

[Joe Getty]

Competitor of Toyota and so I've never understood it and I never hear anybody bring it up.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, let's, let's seek out a guest who's, who's really good at that sort of thing. Oh, what was the other thing I was going to bring up? It's kind of related. It popped into my head. It'll pop back in eventually. I love that question. It's really interesting. Oh, I was going to bring up the U.S. steel thing, which is, was so silly because if U.S. steel was named Jones Steel, nobody to give on a crap.

[Joe Getty]

I honestly believe this Most people like 90% of people when they hear US Steel think it's the United States steel industry. That's what they think they're hearing about.

[Jack Armstrong]

Really?

[Joe Getty]

Yes. As opposed to. That's the name of the company. It could be Bob Steel. Like you just said, it's just U.S. steel.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Huh.

[Joe Getty]

So they're willing to do anything to protect US Steel. I think.

[Jack Armstrong]

Let me tip my cap very briefly to how annoying Jake Tapper was in that clip we played coming back. Donald Trump is willing to endure some pain. Other people's pain.

[Joe Getty]

Right?

[Jack Armstrong]

Jake, you're just, you're, you're.

[Joe Getty]

That's not fair. Because Trump is really laying it on.

[Jack Armstrong]

The line here for long term gain for the country. Even if you think he's wrong.

[Joe Getty]

But he's really, he's definitely. He's spending all his political capital on this. Cuz if it doesn't work, he'll go down in history as a ginormous failure.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. And he's spending the capital with the Senate and the House and the voters.

[Joe Getty]

And he didn't have to because he's riding high on all those things he ran on. He could have just stuck that out and tried to ride out four years and have been fine historically. So I don't, I do not think this is a safe play at all.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Yeah. I would agree. Coming up in moments.

[Joe Getty]

The battle is far from over.

[Jack Armstrong]

Woke Watch, Our new feature.

[Joe Getty]

Woke isn't dead.

[Jack Armstrong]

And you got. Oh, no, Jack. You got to stay on watch.

[Joe Getty]

Hence the name Woke Watch.

[Jack Armstrong]

And you got everything Woke turns to. It's a good point. You got to shout it like that, too.

[Joe Getty]

Tweeted that out the other day.

[Jack Armstrong]

So stay with us.

[John Phillips]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Joe Getty]

We haven't touched on the whole arrest and illegals and booting them out story that continues to Royal D.C. maybe a little later.

[Jack Armstrong]

But first, welcome to Woke Watch. The battle is far from over. All right, now let me try that again. Welcome to Woke Watch. The battle has just begun. Everything Woke turns to sh. You know what woke means? It means you're a loser. Well, it means you're a post modernist neo Marxist, actually. Couple of stories worth bringing to your attention. There are two California bills to protect women's sports that are going to go before a committee hearing tomorrow. And we have sources within the Capitol who are going to bring us the reality of what happens. The supermajority in Cal Unicornia is unlikely to support the bills despite Governor Newsom's recent comments.

[Joe Getty]

It's tepid.

[Jack Armstrong]

Charlie Kirk is tepid as hell. Comments? The chair of the hearing is also the head of the LGBTQ plus minus over the power of seven caucus. So, yeah, it's going to go nowhere. Dudes will still beat the hell out of girls on the sports fields of California.

[Joe Getty]

How is this.

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't understand the politics of this ideological insanity. It's blinded them to everything. And perhaps even worse, although this already exists in California, Colorado is ramming through a take your kids away enforce your speech bill today. This bill will define misgendering as child abuse. Wow. And coercive control of a child, bullying parents.

[Joe Getty]

So my kid, my 8 year old comes to me and says, you got to call me her. And if I don't.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yes.

[Joe Getty]

It's the same as if I beat her.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's child abuse. Yes. So you either transition your child or you risk losing them. It will protect any parent who brings a child to Colorado for mutilation, negating all other state laws and court orders. Just like Cowell Unicornia did. Becoming a transgender cruel experiment sanctuary state.

[Joe Getty]

God help you if you have a spouse or an ex husband or wife. Who decides to do that.

[Jack Armstrong]

Who's fallen for the woke mind virus. Yeah. It'll force all schools to comply with transitioning children, even explicitly attacking charter schools and eliminating any gender dress code. It defines misgendering and dead naming. As if you call your son Jim Jim after he's announced yesterday he's Jenny. It will be defined as discrimination for all Colorado businesses, which is essentially all citizens rights. Aaron. For parental rights. This is the most radical bill I've ever seen anywhere. Presented by folks and sponsored by an appointed sex change extremist.

[Joe Getty]

That's a man. And what a tough situation I've got. I've got a good friend who's he and his wife. Their former daughter is now a dude and they have gotten on board with it because he is in their mid-20s and you know, you want to have a relationship and you love them and blah, blah, blah, and what do you do?

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. I understand. Representative Jarvis Caldwell of Colorado said this bill just got introduced late Friday evening. This is yesterday. Said this and we found out today it's scheduled for Judiciary committee tomorrow, which is today. And it's radical. No time to analyze it, no time to coordinate testimony, no time to talk with stakeholders or constituents. And this is from the side of the aisle that's constantly howling about democracy. What a crock of crap. Moving along. The organization overseeing museums celebrating English playwright William Shakespeare's life is reportedly willing working to decolonize his legacy in the Name of battle, white supremacy.

[Joe Getty]

Wow. This is where Western civilization really breaks down. You take maybe the greatest writer in the history of writing and you're going to ruin it, for lack of a better word. You're gonna, you're gonna take it out of Western civilization.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's right. You're going to crush it and make it so infamous. Nobody teaches it anymore because he was white.

[Joe Getty]

More or less already has.

[Jack Armstrong]

The Telegraph reported that the Shakespeare's Birthplace Trust, British nonprofit, is working toward, quote, unquote, decolonizing its collection of Shakespeare related artifacts to create a more inclusive museum experience.

[Joe Getty]

This has been going on for years. Harold Bloom, is that the name of the Yale professor who is the biggest Shakespeare expert in America? Written all these books. I've read several of them. And he said years ago, because I was watching an old Charlie Rhodes, I think this was in the late 90s. He said, Nobody's teaching Shakespeare anywhere in the United States now. Where it's not about how unrepresented women are in this play or, you know, slavery is, blah, blah, blah. Nobody's just flat out teaching it anymore.

[Jack Armstrong]

So now Shakespeare, despite being born in 1564 and largely writing plays that took place in Western Europe, is being scrutinized for his alleged impact on colonialism. The process of decolonializing Shakespeare's work reportedly includes researching, quote, the continued impact of colonialism on world history and the ways in which, quote, Shakespeare's work has played a part in this.

[Joe Getty]

This is a, this is a successful civilization actually destroying itself.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, yeah, that is horrifying. Concerns have been raised that celebration of Shakespeare enables white supremacy.

[Joe Getty]

Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

The Trust also warned that some items in the collections and archives relating to the iconic 16th century playwright may contain, quote, language or depictions that are racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise harmful.

[Joe Getty]

You could add my high school son to the list of people who would be perfectly fine with Shakespeare going away as he's in the middle of his Romeo and Juliet course in English and.

[Jack Armstrong]

Hating takes a little bit of work. Yes. And then I wanted to get to this. This is such a classic example of how the permanent bureaucracy, as I call it, or maybe you call it the deep state. I think it's too spy novelly sounding. Perverts governance. This is a story from Georgia. The state's Department of Community health asked in 2015 to determine which insurance providers would administer Medicaid to millions of people across the state. So it's a multi billion dollar contract for who's going to administer dental coverage. And senior staffers hijacked the process to insert a question related to transgender, transgender children according to internal documents. So it was a questionnaire of these companies. How do you handle this? How do you handle that? What's your priority here? Here's a case study for you. How would you handle that? And again, these senior staffers inserted and more or less last minute a question about a 14 year old transgender white female, blah, blah, blah, if she came in to get a cavity filled, how would you handle it? And they also apportioned a disproportionate number of points to the point system on how you answered that question. So unless you as a company essentially wrote, well, because that's a perfectly legitimate thing and transgenderism is real and, and the dentist would refer her him immediately to a gender counseling office which would offer them hormones and transition surgery if desired, that's what we would do the minute we met them. If you didn't answer like that, you were out of a multi billion dollar bid.

[Joe Getty]

That's dei, that's Georgia.

[Jack Armstrong]

In spite of Brian Kemp, Brian Kemp being anti all that stuff. His bureaucracy did it.

[Joe Getty]

Wow, that's rough.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, we haven't gotten to Kid Rock in the Oval Office yesterday. And that was all about, it's an interesting topic actually, and the fact that Kid Rock brokered a deal between Trump and Bill Maher. So Trump is going to go talk to Bill Maher and do an interview.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, wow.

[Joe Getty]

Because Kid Rock's friends with both of them and put that together.

[Jack Armstrong]

And we ought to talk about the ticket broker thing too that Trump and Kid Rock announced because it's really interesting. So an additional perspective on a question we've asked many, many times. What's it going to take for the blue states of America, the voters, to finally understand that the terrible policies that have been enacted and ruined their states are at fault for their states being ruined and make a change politically speaking. To discuss, we've invited John Phillips on. John is a California native. He's a longtime radio personality on the mighty 790K, ABC in Los Angeles, our beloved affiliate. And starting today on a 10 KSFO in the San Francisco Bay Area, columnist for the Orange County Register, among other things. John, always a pleasure. How are you?

[John Phillips]

I'm great. And by the way, I can't wait to hear the Kid Rock segment because I don't know if you've seen how he's been dressing lately. Yeah, but he looks like Rod Rodney on the 4th of July.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, that's quite the outfit to wear to the Oval Office.

[Jack Armstrong]

He makes don King look reserved. Yeah, yeah. Really amazing.

[John Phillips]

So.

[Jack Armstrong]

So John, to the. The operative question here. Why have, and you're, you know, most expert in the ways of California, but have the voters of California not risen up in a recognizable way yet and said, hey, our state's gone to hell, we got to change course?

[John Phillips]

Well, as an angel fan, I feel like I have an authority on this subject because I'm familiar with despair and disappointment.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yes.

[John Phillips]

But what's going on right now in California and in many of the blue states with one party rule is that it is possible to push too far. And that's exactly what the Democrats have been doing here in California. And it doesn't matter what subject you talk about, whether it's crime or homelessness or the budget or insurance, fill in the blank. They have dropped the ball and they have turned the Golden State, the most beautiful state, the union, into a place that fundamentally doesn't work. And what you've seen in the last election is you saw the seeds of discontent being planted. California moved dramatically to the right from where they were in the last presidential election. Californians voted for Proposition 36, which would then start to crack down on criminals and repeal Prop 47, which was a proposition that was a very soft on crime initiative. And you saw many of the Soros das like George Gascon and Pamela Price get booted from office. So there is hope and there is light at the end of the tunnel. And for the first time, that light at the end of the tunnel is not a train coming right at us.

[Joe Getty]

Well, we've been on in San Francisco for 22 years. And the fact that they now have decided, you know, that's enough and you choose a mayor who's gonna do something about the street people, I mean, that's a step in the right direction.

[John Phillips]

Sure. And it's not just San Francisco. Look across the bay in Oakland where the DA Pamela Price was voted out of office by voters and so was the mayor, Chang Tao, who is also right now being investigated by the FBI and looking at potentially north of 90 years in prison. If they can get with the program in Oakland and San Francisco, the state is salvageable.

[Jack Armstrong]

At least the mayor had an excuse for being soft on crime. She's a criminal. I mean you get it's conflict of interest. You know, John, maybe the tangential question, cuz your examples are all great and they're absolutely accurate, but they're all either one Democrat over another or something like a proposition, a state proposition, which isn't explicitly partisan. So here's the question. How Did. And I'm sorry, one more aside, then I'll actually ask the damn question. When we moved to California in 1996, Pete Wilson was in the middle, I believe, his second term. Very purple state, very reasonable governance, and somehow the Republican brand just went to hell. Your opinion on briefly how it got there. But Arnold aside, is there any. Right. Is there any rehabilitating it and how.

[John Phillips]

Well, if you pay attention to the universities, what they would say, it was all Proposition 187. I don't buy that. What I think happened is that the.

[Jack Armstrong]

Cold War ended just for folks that don't understand. That was the prop that said no services for illegals, which passed with a strong majority, but then all of a sudden became anathema. Anyway, back to you, John.

[John Phillips]

Right. Yeah. That was Trump before Trump. But I think the greater issue, the greater problem for Republicans in California at least, was the end of the Cold War because you had all of the military bases shut down or many of them shut down. So guys with crew cuts and degrees in engineering and medals on their chest stopped moving to the state. The aerospace industry essentially moved out of California, and we were replaced by the tech industry. And the tech industry attracts people who want to live in coastal communities. They're socially liberal, they have graduate degrees, and they end up voting for people like Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsom and those types of Democrats. But what you're starting to see right now, because you're right, that the examples I gave were individual issues or races. But look at voter registration numbers in California today compared to where they were a couple of years ago. There have been dramatic moves to the right in cities like Glendale, cities in eastern Los Angeles County. Beverly Hills is now a majority Republican city. And you're also seeing it in those agricultural areas in the central part of the state, Imperial county, where you have a lot of Latino voters who are really not happy with what they're getting from Sacramento.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. You want to alienate Latinos. Explain that. If little Juan comes back and says he's now Juanita, you have to accept it or we're taking your son away from you. Good Lord. Yeah.

[John Phillips]

I mean, those subjects are very offensive to a lot of people. And also, don't discount the damage that the COVID 19 shutdowns did to a lot of these people. Because if you have a kid in school and all of a sudden they went from going to school five days a week to being stuck inside their bedroom playing video games 24, 7, that's like a crash course in how to become an active shooter. Those parents are furious. If you own a small business and your small business was shut down, well, Jeff Bezos was allowed to operate. You're furious at what Sacramento did. And they have long memories.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. John Phillips is on the line. John, I always point out that the public employee unions have enormous power and enormous numbers, especially when they're joined by the nurses and a couple of their notable private sector unions. That's always going to be a force to be reckoned with.

[John Phillips]

Yeah, it is. But right now, what you're seeing when you have a budget crisis, which is what California has, is choices have to be made. Are you going to stick with the bullet train or are you going to stick with public employees in some other sector? And right now there are a finite amount of resources and they're all battling for it. You're going to have winners and you're going to have losers, but not everyone is going to win. And if you're the team that's in charge, which in this one party state, the Democrats are, you're gonna have to upset a lot of your friends. And when you start to upset them over and over and over again, they're gonna start looking elsewhere.

[Jack Armstrong]

John Phillips is an Orange county registered columnist, also on mighty KABC in LA and KSFO from noon to 3 Pacific. Always a pleasure to talk, John. Good luck with the new show and let's stay in touch.

[John Phillips]

All right. Thank you for having me on.

[Jack Armstrong]

Our pleasure.

[Joe Getty]

That was interesting. I never heard anybody make that point about the Cold War ending and the bases shutting down and then, you know, the tech business being big. It's also interesting that the tech world is lefty, as it is with Google and Apple and everything. The biggest dog of all is Elon Musk and he is the poster child for being a Trump Nazi.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting. Demographics are so incredibly important. I remember when, because you had policy shifting, meanwhile, you have demographic groups shifting in their ideology and the party's shifting as well. So you have a fairly reasonable, fairly purple Democratic party in the 90s, for instance, become the anti George Bush kind of fever pitch because the Iraq war hurt the Republican brand in California pretty badly. But then you have the Democrats moving toward crime is fine. The whole postmodern woke thing, you know, white supremacy, which includes Hispanic people, unless they're down with, again, Juan coming home as Juanita and. And you're seeing a transition, but it takes a long time, especially when there are trillions of dollars at stake and the people controlling them are not honest dealers, friends, they Are hedging their bets every way they can.

[Joe Getty]

The Iraq war started in March of 03, which is when we started in San Francisco. So it has been 22 years ago as of last month. Yeah, I mentioned that Kid Rock brokered a deal between Trump and Bill Maher. Trump said he is reluctantly agreeing to this, but because he respects Kid Rock, he'll do it. And he said it might be fun or it might not. That could be quite the news making conversation between Maher and Trump.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I'm trying to imagine how it would go and it's just. That's going to be wild.

[Joe Getty]

I think so. But why was Kid Rock in the Oval Office? Pretty interesting. And this is not politics really. If you ever go to concerts or games, you care about this. Among other things on the way. Stay here.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Joe Getty]

I forgot about this song.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, so good.

[Joe Getty]

I was about to say, because we're going to talk about Kid Rock who was in the Oval Office yesterday dressed like he's the emcee of a circus. If you. Kid Rock really hit the national scene at. Was it Woodstock 2 or Lalapalu, one of those big outdoor concerts. He came out and just killed it. I mean if you ever watch that YouTube video of that, I mean it's the energy coming off of that when he. My name is Kid and the midget comes out and the crowd just goes berserk.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm sorry, my headphones are weird. Did you say and the midget comes out? But anyway, he had a dwarf hype man there for a cup of coffee. Right.

[Joe Getty]

Oh my God.

[Jack Armstrong]

I should say for a 40, that was something.

[Joe Getty]

But if you, if you, if you watch that or you were watching it at the time, you wouldn't have thought, you know, someday he'll be standing in the Oval Office with the President of the United States. Anyway, he was yesterday. And this is part of what they were discussing.

[Jack Armstrong]

I want the fans to have fair ticket prices, be able to go and enjoy more shows. I know people that can only they decide on a family vacation or going to their favorite concert once a year rather than be. You know, my parents used to go see multiple shows when you could afford them back in their day.

[Joe Getty]

So Kid Rock goes on to say. And he said what A lot of musicians have said, you know, I want to low. I want to lower my prices for certain people or whatever, but it doesn't do any good if I lower my prices. The third market people, StubHub and all those other companies, they buy them and sell them and make the profit and they get the money and I don't. So I haven't accomplished anything. I didn't give my fans a break and I don't get the money.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, yeah. So the executive order aimed at cracking down on ticket price gouging and other exploitive practices by middlemen like ticket brokers, although I actually know a ticket broker. And here's the part he would emphasize. The order directs the Federal Trade Commission to more rigorously enforce existing law governing the use of bots that help scalpers scoop up hot tickets, including by issuing fines.

[Joe Getty]

Well, all of us have wondered this our whole lives, really. If you were, you know, back in the day, long before the Internet or whatever. But if some group was coming to town, it's like, oh, I want to, I want to be able to go to this concert and you know what time the tickets go on sale and you got your old rotary phone and you're ready to call in, all the tickets are gone.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right.

[Joe Getty]

You could go, how did that work?

[Jack Armstrong]

Right. Yeah, I know. And it's, it's interesting. It's multifaceted because I know, like the non bot user, because that's already illegal. And my friend Al Anonymous said they already don't enforce the bot laws on the books and he's fired all the horse catchers already. And then he emailed the response from an association. But the way it used to work, or was supposed to work was that a lot of the ticket brokers have contracts with the big concert companies that it's essentially, it's like buying corn futures or cattle futures. They say, I'll buy 75 tickets to every single show, and some of them will be in high demand and I'll make a lot of money. Some of them will not be, and I will lose money, but I will be your client and I will buy tickets to X number of shows. But the amateurs. Now, because bots are so easy to design, I could no more design a bot than build a car with my own hands. But they're so easy to design. Every Tom, Dick and Harry who has any computer knowledge is now doing it on an ad hoc basis. And so that's the real problem. And then they put them on the resale market and it's just everybody is snatching up tickets.

[Joe Getty]

Well, if you're the music artist, though, even aside from the bot thing, so is your only hope to just charge as much as you think you can and make the maximum profit? I mean, there's, there's no point in trying to keep your tickets at a price where like for Kid Rock or a lot of people, Taylor Swift. You want to make it. Sure. An average family of four can come to your concert.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right. It's just impossible. Well, yeah, and, and it looks terrible. I think a lot of artists, singers, entertainers are really sensitive to not looking like they're gouging their fans because there's an emotional relationship there that a bot certainly doesn't have with their fans. They couldn't give a crap.

[Joe Getty]

Well, I understand free market capitalism, supply, demand, all that sort of stuff, but is there any other? Is there. Why doesn't this happen in other. Just because there's not enough demand, it doesn't happen in any other segment of society.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's a great question. Yeah. The supply and demand curves are skewed, especially for the really popular artists, because you can't, you can only play a certain number of shows or it'll kill you as a performer. And so you're playing two nights in Omaha, period, then moving on down the road.

[Joe Getty]

Wow. So you've got to keep your prices at a certain level so you don't look like a jerk to your fans. But some third party makes the money and there's nothing you can do about it.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right?

[Joe Getty]

Huh.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, that's obviously no good. I mean that's, that's just, it's, it's unfair and it's, you know, as a.

[Joe Getty]

Fan, if I'm gonna have to pay 180 bucks for a ticket, I would rather the money goes to my musician that I really like and care about their music than some ticket company.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Yeah. So interestingly, the national association of Ticket Brokers put out the following statement. We applaud President Trump for undertaking an effort to enforce the Federal Bots act and working to root out bad players in the system. Even though bots are not the main reason why consumers experience frustration when trying to buy tickets, when tickets do go on sale, people should not be competing with ticket hoarding software to make a purchase.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. I don't know. Is this going to make much difference in reality for ticket buyers? It'll make a difference for like some of these companies, but is it going to make any difference? To me? I'm not sure it is because again, this same problem more or less seemed to exist before modern technology.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right. And again, according to my friend in the business that they're not, they don't enforce the laws now it's like gun laws, let's pass another gun law.

[Joe Getty]

Kid Rock said like, he's, he said, I'm friends with the CEO of Ticketmaster, and I'm meeting with him today over this. So it's not like he's angry at them or trying to screw them or whatever.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right.

[Joe Getty]

He actually said we're trying to come up with a way that everybody makes money.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's fair, right? Yeah, and fair enough. And I'm completely agnostic on this topic, by the way. I'm not defending anybody in particular. It's just one of the aspects of Doge that we need to work through, and I'm willing to work through it is, as my buddy put it, they fired all the horse catchers. There's a funny way to put it. And we'll have to see, because a lot of the legitimate law enforcement functions of the federal government take people and lots of people, consumer protection stuff, for instance. And it'll be interesting to see how.

[Joe Getty]

It shakes out in the raw politics of it. This is another example of Trump understanding real issues for real people that they care about. Looking like he's trying to do something for them.

[Jack Armstrong]

And whether he will actually be effective in that or just look like it, I don't know. But I do want Kid Rock suit, obviously tailored. And if you haven't seen, we'll post pictures and a [e-mail] Obviously, I'll have to have it tailored for me. I'm slightly more full figured than Mr. Rock.

[Joe Getty]

You're the same age. And Frank Rock is almost qualifies for Medicare Rock at this point up close.

[Jack Armstrong]

He looks a little rough, too. I look far more youthful. Armstrong and Gettysburg.