I Don't Want To Touch Everyone Who Has Been At McDonald's All Day

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Episode: I Don't Want To Touch Everyone Who Has Been At McDonald's All Day
Date: February 10, 2026
Podcast: Armstrong & Getty (iHeartPodcasts)

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Episode Overview

This episode offers a rapid-fire discussion of current events, social trends, and personal observations in true Armstrong & Getty style: irreverent, skeptical, and laced with dry humor. Main topics include:

• GLP-1 weight loss drugs and Serena Williams’ Super Bowl ad
• Trump administration’s plan to roll back greenhouse gas regulation
• How automation and AI are shifting the labor/capital divide
• The evolution of fast food ordering and public health worries
• Celebrity deaths and odd tributes
• Viral moments: Super Bowl streaker and influencer culture
• Social pressures on businesses to make political statements, illustrated by a viral yoga studio confrontation
• Shrinkage and bias in legacy journalism (Washington Post layoffs, selective media coverage)
• A dramatic plane landing in Georgia
• The opening trial against social media giants for alleged intentional addictiveness

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

GLP-1 Medications, Weight, and Celebrity Advertising

• Serena Williams’ Super Bowl ad for GLP-1 weight loss drugs sparks commentary about postpartum weight, exercise, and health.
• Armstrong and Getty note the changing landscape where even top athletes may turn to medication for weight management.
  • Jack: “That’s gotta be so frustrating...you gain weight, you have a baby, and just you’re exercising like crazy and nothing’s happening.” (00:49)
  • Getty (dryly): “Hope the GLP1 works for her and she can still take in enough nutrition...Or we’re gonna end up with the scurvy.” (01:37)

Major Federal Climate Policy Reversal

• The Trump administration plans to repeal the 2009 EPA “endangerment finding,” rolling back the legal foundation for federal greenhouse gas regulation.
• Getty: “This amounts to the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States.” (03:31)
• The pair agree such policy swings with the administration, expressing mild enthusiasm for economic effects.

Capital vs. Labor in the Modern Economy

• Discussion of Wall Street Journal analysis: an increasing share of profits going to capital (technology, equipment, software) vs. labor.
  • Since 1980, labor’s share dropped from 58% to 51%, while profits climbed.
  • Getty: “They just don't need workers. That's why some of the AI guys...are making noises about a super, super progressive tax code.” (05:21)
• McDonald's touchscreens and the automation of low-wage jobs are cited as real-life examples.

Fast Food, Touchscreens, & Germ Anxiety

• Jack laments ordering on McDonald’s touchscreens and questions their hygiene:
  • Jack: “Didn’t I just touch fingers with every single person who ate there that day?...I got the latest Covid and tuberculosis and a couple of STDs.” (07:12)
  • Getty: “All of it. Fecal matter, certainly.” (07:23)
  • Jack: “Should I be bringing rubber gloves with me?...I didn’t have to touch a single person when I used to go in and order.” (07:28)
• The awkward, tedious process of ordering is compared with “the way it used to be.”

White-Collar Job Market Shifts

• Getty cites a story about job seekers now paying recruiters to get noticed amid a glutted white-collar market—an inversion of normal dynamics.

AI, Government Job Transitions, & Ineffective Retraining

• Reference to Phil Gramm’s Wall Street Journal op-ed: government jobs programs fail to help workers adapt to tech shifts (e.g. retraining coal miners to code just as AI automates coding).
  • Getty (paraphrasing): “These things are...enormously expensive and actually interfere with people adapting to the new realities.” (08:53)
  • Jack: “Now, nobody needs to know how to code now.” (10:05)

Notable Detours: Super Bowl Streaker & Social Media

Super Bowl "Streaker"

• Recap of Super Bowl field invader who live-streamed with meta-glasses, staged a distraction, and went viral to promote “profitable trading.”
  • Jack: “He had a clever plan...trying to become some sort of influencer, I’m sure, as everybody in America is.” (15:04)
  • Getty (re streaking): “That’s the business half.” (16:16)
  • Getty (cynical): “Everybody wants to be famous.” (16:45)

Catherine O’Hara Tribute & Public Mourning

• Tribute to Catherine O’Hara (home alone, SCTV, etc.) and curiosity about people leaving teddy bears at the Home Alone house.
  • Jack: “I just don’t understand the emotions of that.” (13:05)
  • Getty: “That’s it. I’ve got to take money from foolish people and spend it on luxuries.” (13:13)

Mob Rule & Political Demands in Everyday Life

• Viral yoga studio incident: patrons berate staff for not making political statements about immigration.
  • Armstrong (clip): “Give us answers, let’s go. Say them out loud for the camera, for all my viewers. Let’s hear it. Why are you being silent? Let’s hear it, Delaney. Loud and proud, baby...” (18:53)
  • Getty: “Yeah, she’s maybe the worst person in America.” (20:07)
  • Jack: “If you don’t like [the studio’s stance], go to a different yoga place.” (20:25)
  • A Free Press piece is cited warning about the decline in decency and rise of “mob rule” in public spaces.

Media Layoffs, Journalism, and Bias

• The Washington Post lays off 30% of staff; entire sports desk shuttered, last article fixates on Colin Kaepernick.
  • Getty (paraphrasing Gerard Baker): “Faith in the honesty of these institutions has already been devastated by their own tendentious work.” (26:35)
  • Armstrong & Getty bemoan selective coverage, abundance of climate/change reporters, and lack of mainstream perspective.
  • Getty: “Now it’s 24-year-old Columbia School of Journalism graduates who are the least in touch human beings in America.” (29:03)
  • Jack: “The current [media] sucked. We’re better off without the current.” (30:51)

Dramatic Plane Emergency in Georgia

• A pilot safely lands a disabled plane on a traffic-packed road.
  • Jack: “It’s just luck that ... a car didn’t get crunched and people died.” (31:50)
  • Getty: “He called air traffic control and said, we’re going down, tell my wife I love her.” (32:12)

Social Media on Trial for Addictive Practices

• Landmark case begins: families argue Google, Meta designed platforms to addict children.
  • Jack: “Every product’s trying to be addictive ... whether it’s potato chips or this show or NFL football...” (33:06)
  • Getty: “It’s tough to draw a line between it’s really fun and I’m helplessly addicted.” (35:08)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments with Timestamps

• “Or we’re gonna end up with the scurvy.” – Getty on celebrity dieting (01:37)
• “Didn’t I just touch fingers with every single person who ate there that day?...I got the latest Covid and tuberculosis and a couple of STDs.” – Jack, on McDonald’s touchscreens (07:12)
• "He's maybe the worst person in America." – Getty, on the yoga studio protestor (20:07)
• "Now it’s 24-year-old Columbia School of Journalism graduates who are the least in touch human beings in America." – Getty (29:03)
• “The current [media] sucked. We’re better off without the current.” – Jack on legacy journalism (30:51)
• “That’s the business half.” – Getty, on streaking etiquette (16:16)
• “I just don’t understand the emotions of that.” – Jack, on public mourning at the Home Alone house (13:05)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Serena Williams and GLP-1 Drugs: 00:28–02:02
• Trump EPA Rollback: 02:04–03:42
• Labor/Capital Shift & McDonald’s Touchscreens: 04:01–07:45
• Super Bowl Streaker Recap: 13:49–17:03
• Viral Yoga Studio Protest: 17:54–23:08
• Media Layoffs & Bias: 24:23–31:11
• Plane Emergency Landing: 31:18–32:33
• Social Media Addiction Trial: 32:33–35:34

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Conclusion

Armstrong & Getty’s February 10, 2026 episode deftly balances commentary on the day’s headlines with trademark sardonic wit. Whether dissecting the economics of touchscreens, the echo chambers of media and activism, or viral fame’s ever-lowering bar, the show consistently underscores the cultural whiplash of modern America—with a healthy dose of skepticism, nostalgia, and humor.

Transcript

[Armstrong]

This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human.

[Getty]

Broadcasting.

[Jack]

Live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio.

[Getty]

At the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. Armstrong and Getty. And now here's Armstrong and Getty.

[Jack]

So friend of the Armstrong I was just talking about, Serena Williams did a. An ad during a Super Bowl. It was for a GLP one thing. And I thought Serena Williams gained that much weight. I mean, she's a professional athlete, and she just retired like a year or so ago. I was just kind of surprised all the way around about it, but I didn't pay that much attention. We got a text.

[Getty]

Curvy girl, though. Curvy girl.

[Jack]

This will be interesting for the moms out there. Serena Williams, she's on a GLP1 medication to manage stubborn postpartum weight gain that did not respond to intense daily exercise. She adopted the medication to improve her overall health, specifically to reduce joint pain, lower cholesterol, stabilize blood sugar, et cetera. So she's a brand ambassador for women who exercise like crazy and eat clean but can't lose weight after having a. After having a baby. So that's a good subsection of America right there. And great thing to advertise to, especially during the Super Bowl. That's gotta be so frustrating to be in that category. You gain weight, you have a baby, and just you're exercising like crazy and nothing's happening.

[Getty]

Yeah, and it happens in middle and older age, too. I'm familiar with people who work out like fiends and can't lose weight. Yeah. Interesting. I hope the GLP1 works for her and she can still take in enough nutrition. But we'll see. Or we're gonna end up with the scurvy.

[Jack]

Or we're gonna see a Serena Williams with scurvy is what we're gonna see.

[Getty]

Oh, that'd be terrible. That it on that?

[Jack]

Yeah. Great.

[Getty]

So, speaking of health, he says, barely bridging the two topics. There's a big, giant announcement going on right now from the Trump administration that's getting a tremendous amount of attention on the left, unless so on the right. But the Trump administration plans to repeal the 2009 endangerment that was the legal basis for federal greenhouse gas regulation. That being the idea that climate change is a threat to public health and therefore not just like, you know, you're spraying DDT in the air or, you know, pumping out, you know, dangerous chemicals out of the tailpipe of a car. No, the global warming itself. Or I'm sorry, not the global warming, because remember two winters ago when it was so warm in New York, the New York Times published a story about how it's climate change. This year it's super cold in New York and they're publishing stories about how it's climate change. So climate change can be anything. But the climate change itself is a threat to your health. So anything that might help push climate change is regulatable by the epa. And the Trump administration is planning to repeal the Obama era scientific finding. It serves as the legal basis for federal greenhouse gas regulation, according to U.S. officials. The most far reaching rollback of U.S. climate policy to date.

[Jack]

Interesting. Which it'll swing the other direction if a Democrat, if Gavin Newsom ends up president.

[Getty]

Yeah. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who's doing a good job, said this amounts to the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States.

[Jack]

Wow.

[Getty]

It could really help free up the economy significantly.

[Jack]

Wow, that's exciting. By the way, we know why the streaker ran on the field at the Super Bowl. Had a plan. So we'll get to that coming up.

[Getty]

He likes to show off his physique.

[Jack]

Whoa, Booger that. Booger.

[Getty]

No, not the Ray Stevens explanation.

[Jack]

Wow, that's an old timey reference there.

[Getty]

Oh, that's a silly old time.

[Jack]

You almost have to be 60 to get that.

[Getty]

Or a fan of classic novelty hits, Jack, perhaps. All right, all right. I didn't see Bill Haley in the comics, but I know how groovy they were. That's another really old timey reference. So that's a huge, huge story and I think a good one. I thought this was interesting. Also from the financial pages, analysis by the Greg Hipp of the Wall Street Journal. The big money in today's economy is going to capital, not labor. The share of. So you got Company X. They make a million dollars in gross revenue. In the past, they would have a certain percentage of it go to labor. Obviously, because you needed people to run your business. That percentage is significantly lower than it used to be. And it's more toward computers and software and you know, the power plant to run your AI or whatever. And there's no sign that that will change in any significant way.

[Jack]

Well, the most optimistic of the AI crowd would say it's going to be almost entirely goes to capital as opposed to labor soon. Right. For almost every company.

[Getty]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Jack]

Wow. Imagine that the shift to capital from.

[Getty]

Labor has been underway for about 40 years. Labor received 58% of the total proceeds of economic output in 1980. 58% by the third quarter. Last year it was 51% profit share, by the way, rose from 7 to 11.7%, almost 12%. That's a lot of profit. But they just don't need workers. And so the money's not going out as pay, which is why some of the AI guys are making noises about, like a super, super progressive tax code, because the wealth is going to be concentrated in so few hands. It's a societal problem no matter how you look at it.

[Jack]

No doubt. I was at the McDonald's the other day. My, my local McDonald's that doesn't have any employees that you talk to. It's now all touchscreen stuff. Now, I don't know if that's. Is that happened all across the country or is it just in California where they raised the minimum wage for fast food to $20 and the fast food companies decided, well, okay, at that, at that price, I can afford to put in this. I'm not going to pay somebody $20 an hour to take your order.

[Getty]

So I think Gavin Newsom would say California is leading the way. Leading the way to where teenagers and old people and immigrants can't get a job because we've artificially increased the minimum wage. So, yeah, I think California is the leader in it.

[Jack]

Maybe it's because I'm an old man, but it sure seemed like it took me longer to order on the touchscreen for the three of us than when we would walk up to somebody and say, two quarter pounders of cheese, no onions, medium fry. And then my son would say whatever he wants. We had to go through the screen and gazillion options and take the onions off and figure out where you do that kind of slow. But the thing that I had never thought of before, the touchscreen. Didn't I just touch fingers with every single person who ate there that day?

[Getty]

Gross.

[Jack]

Every single person who ate at McDonald's that day. I'm there at 7 o' clock at night. I just touched hands with them and I got the latest Covid and tuberculosis and a couple of STDs.

[Getty]

All of it fecal matter, certainly. Fecal matter, particularly. Oh, in particular.

[Jack]

So that's kind of gross. Should I be bringing rubber gloves with me or one of those special pencils you can buy with the rubber end that work on touchscreens? I don't want to touch everybody that's been to McDonald's that day. I didn't have to touch a single person when I used to go in an order. I gotta touch it.

[Getty]

Well, you certainly shouldn't.

[Jack]

No, in theory. Well, I didn't have to touch anybody when I went. But I would touch people, of course, because I just like walking up and touching people. But that, that, that, that's pretty gross.

[Getty]

What are you going to order?

[Jack]

I was looking at that screen from an angle where you get the light just right. It was just all kinds of stuff.

[Getty]

Smeared on that screen.

[Jack]

I thought this ain't good.

[Getty]

Which is just interesting.

[Jack]

It is interesting.

[Getty]

Gavin, couple more stories very quickly. This headline also from the Journal. Job hunters are so desperate they're paying to get recruited. It's flipped on its head. The companies aren't paying recruiters to find them a good candidate. There's so many white collar workers out there looking for jobs. They're paying recruiters to say hey, put my resume on top, would you? Not surprising. And then this. I thought this was a really good point of view from Phil Graham. You remember Phil Graham. The Gramm Rudman act, the attempt. Phil Graham was a voice of bipartisan sanity to balance the budget, have fair tax codes and run the government with well, fiscal sanity.

[Jack]

That's why you don't know his name.

[Getty]

Right? He was beaten to death by a mob and buried in a shallow grave in Washington D.C. no, he's actually still alive. He's the former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and he co wrote a piece with Michael Solon, I think it is, senior fellow at the Hudson Institution. Their point. And I don't know, maybe we'll go into this at length at some point. Cause I have a feeling you good folks would dig it. But the headline is Government won't help the AI job transition. These safety nets have failed in the past and have the potential to idle millions of workers. And they go into the history of from the New Deal on. These things are rapidly changing. We need a government job training program or the 1962 Trade Adjustment Assistance Program or the 1978 what's its program and how they never do any good. They're always enormously expensive and they actually interfere with people adapting to the new realities and get jobs.

[Jack]

Remember?

[Getty]

Pretty interesting.

[Jack]

Like a cycle ago they were going to have to some sort of program to teach coal miners how to code computers. Transition. And of course then AI came along and nobody needs to know how to code now.

[Getty]

Yeah, yeah. A feel good expansion of our existing programs to address AI transitions. Could idle tens of millions of workers squander much of the economic benefit we hope to derive from AI and foster a dangerous bread and circuses political system in which those who've chosen to remain outside the labor force demand an Increasing share of the benefits created by those who've chosen to work well, that's practically inevitable. The brave new world, Jack, brace yourself.

[Jack]

And you're going to tell us why the Washington Post deserved to go out of business.

[Getty]

Because they suck. There's actually more to it than that.

[Jack]

But yes, we also have the streaker's plan. He wasn't just. This would be cool. He had a plan.

[Getty]

I want to show my nipples. No, there's more to it than that.

[Jack]

He had a clever plan, which is so, you know, 20, 26. Stay tuned for all that Armstrong and Getty. Catherine O' Hara died the other day at 71, which is not old. You know who she was. Even if you don't know the name, she's hilarious. She was the mom on Home Alone. She was the crazy drunk, crazy mom in S Creek, which was hilarious. She was in Beetlejuice. She was in SCTV way back in the 80s, if you ever watched that. She was in best in shows. She was in lots of stuff and she was really funny. Here's a little bit of her in S Creek.

[Armstrong]

Next step is to fold in the cheese. What does that mean? What does fold in the cheese mean? He folds it in. I understand that, but how, how do you fold it? Do you fold it in half like a piece of paper and drop it in the pot or what do you do? David, I cannot show you everything. Okay, well can you show me one thing? You just.

[Getty]

Here's what you do.

[Armstrong]

You just fold it in. Okay, I don't know how to fold broken cheese like that. And I don't know how to be any clearer. You take that thing that's in your hand.

[Jack]

Uh huh.

[Armstrong]

And you. If you say fold in one more time, it says fold it in. This is your recipe. You fold in the cheese then. Don't you dare. You fold it in. David.

[Jack]

David, that reminds me, how funny that show is. I gotta start at episode one and do it again. God, that show is funny.

[Getty]

That's one of the best ensemble casts.

[Jack]

Of dry humor in the history of anything.

[Getty]

I heard Second City TV called the best sketch comedy show in the history of television, which might be a stretch, but it's worthy of mention absolutely.

[Jack]

Certainly in the stars that came out of there. Eugene Levy, who was also in S Creek, and John Candy and Martin Short, and so many of them. Anywho, she passed. An odd thing about that is the people putting flowers, cards, Teddy bears. Why always teddy bears? In front of the Home Alone house there in Chicago, the suburb of Chicago where the house from home alone. And all they did was an established shot of the front of the house.

[Getty]

I mean, it's not a quick exterior shot, right? Yeah, exactly.

[Jack]

That's all it is. And she was in that movie and. And died. And now you're putting teddy bears and cards there. That mean. I just don't understand the emotions of that. That's.

[Getty]

That's. I'm going to turn to scams. That's it. I've got to take money from foolish people and spend it on luxuries. I mean that is the only. If I were a lion and I saw a bunch of fat three legged impalas limping around, what would I think?

[Jack]

I think it's time to eat.

[Getty]

Good lord. Humanity.

[Jack]

So you liked her as an actress. She died. You're so sad that you feel like you need to get flowers or a teddy bear, which is weird on its.

[Getty]

Own for any teddy bear out to get rained on and get rotten. Yes.

[Jack]

I mean I think it's weird to do that for celebrities. Even if you go to their gravesite or whatever, their celebrity, you never. Whatever. But anyway, the house from home alone. Okay, Fantastic.

[Getty]

Shakes head sadly.

[Jack]

So a streaker ran on the field at the Super Bowl. You didn't see it during the game? What am I hearing? Just my phone. You know what it is? It's an ad I can't turn off on my phone. Let me turn on the volume.

[Getty]

What the what? It's outrageous. A semi streaker.

[Jack]

Yeah, he was. He had pants on and no shirt and he's in really good shape. So he didn't mind showing off the fact that.

[Getty]

Show off. Not a streaker.

[Jack]

Right. And then he writes something on his chest which he's trying to get going. But here's an interesting twist to this. Now of course the video is available because everybody in the damn stadium has a phone with them and recorded him and running around. And to me the best part is as soon as he saw a wide receiver from the Patriots was about to tackle him, he hit the ground fast because that would hurt. And he is out running these old fat security guards having to wear all their, you know, micro. They got their walkie talkies and everything they got. I mean they can't run fast, but the wide receiver for the Patriots can. And he caught up to him really fast. Anyway guys. So the guy slides to the ground and says okay, you got me. Haha, guys, you caught me. He was wearing some of those meta glasses where you can record stuff. And he recorded the whole thing. And at his Instagram Page.

[Getty]

Oh boy.

[Jack]

You can go see the video of him jumping off in the stands. They had a pretty clever plan. They had a decoy at a buddy who jumped in onto the field over there. Immediately security swarms that guy. They were all distracted. Then he jumps and gets to run clear across the field. It shouldn't be that easy, but it was. And, and then he, he recorded the whole thing and he posted it as Instagram page in which I'm sure he's going to get a gazillion views and make some money off of it. And he's trying to become some sort of influencer, I'm sure, as everybody in America is.

[Getty]

I was watching the Olympics last night, enjoying it thoroughly. And I was watching the speed skating. It came on the gals thousand meter. I think it was it. And, and he was in the stands rooting on his extremely athletic and attractive Dutch, well, Netherland skater girlfriend. He was up there crying tears of joy when she did well, and the rest of it. Jake Paul, who like punches old men in the head on the Internet for views, was there with tears in his eyes because his skater girlfriend from the Netherlands was doing great. Interesting.

[Jack]

Back to the half a streaker, and not the half that really counts as streaking. I mean, it's the bottom half, being nude that really gets the attention for streaking.

[Getty]

That's the business half. Yeah.

[Jack]

This guy named Gonzalez, on his Instagram post, he explained why he jumped onto the field at the super bowl claiming he got tired of, quote, unprofitable traders being unprofitable. So I had to let them know that profitability is in the blind spot, whatever that means. It was trade something or other he had written on his chest as he ran across the field. Everybody wants to be famous. Everybody thinks if they can just get their name out there, they can build a brand and make lots of money, which in some cases is true.

[Getty]

Oh, I gotta admit, if some company said, hey, paint this on your chest and you know, walk out in the super bowl till you get arrested, well, I'll give you X thousand dollars.

[Jack]

I'd think, okay, am I allowed to slide before an NFL wide receiver plants me into the ground and breaks me down?

[Getty]

Because if he hits you after you slide, it's 15 yards.

[Jack]

Yeah, it's a penalty, right? I was hoping that he didn't. I was hoping he didn't see the guy coming because I'd have loved to have seen him gotten laid out by that wide receiver. That would have been exciting.

[Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty, one of the people in the class said to me, you know what? We shouldn't put our weights away today. We should let corporate cleaning it up since they're here to see how everything is. And that's exactly what we did. So rather than putting all weights back and organizing like I normally would, we just left them on the floor. And I walked out into the lobby to an already flowing conversation. And frankly, the people that were around and asking questions weren't getting any answers. And so that is when I pulled out my phone and said, like, let's actually have the conversation and let's put what you're not saying and what you will say on record.

[Getty]

Oh, boy. Oh, golly. That's a woman by the name of Heather Anderson of Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is describing what happened before a video you may have seen online. It is the scene in a yoga studio. In what? In which a bunch of Lululemon clad yoga enthusiasts, some of whom with the rolled up mat under their arm, are yelling at the employees because, and I'll tell you this in advance, the yoga studio hasn't made a strong statement yet about the anti immigration raids. I'll let that sink in for a minute. So there they are at the yoga studio and they're grilling the poor young women behind the desk about why the studio hasn't come out with a statement. Michael, roll the tape.

[Armstrong]

Let's go. Give us no, give us answers. Let's go. Say them out loud for the camera. For all my viewers. Let's hear it. Why are you being silent? Let's hear it. Delaney. Loud and proud, baby. You want to say it? Let's say it. Why? Okay, let's go. It's an alm and a. Well, you should have well rehearsed corporate action and words. Ready to go. Our community. I've been. I. I spent 10. I sent out $10,000 for people for rent yesterday that people gave out to my Venmo that I'm gonna pay taxes on. Delaney. Let's hear a. So I believe I'm just taking a pause. No, don't take a pause.

[Jack]

Come on.

[Armstrong]

You came here to silence teachers, make sure everything was. I've never seen your face in 10 years of practicing and paying my money at the studio. Don't take a pop. Be loud with core power corporate dance answers. Let's go. What do you gotta say?

[Jack]

Oh my God, you're a. Louder Delaney for this.

[Armstrong]

In the back.

[Jack]

Let's go.

[Armstrong]

What is it? Why. Why are you having one of our best teachers quit? Because you can't stand behind her Answer.

[Jack]

That.

[Armstrong]

Person with the Gl. Do you have a good answer? Delaney can't seem to cough it out.

[Getty]

Yeah, she's maybe the worst person in America.

[Armstrong]

You're not being berated. You're being asked hard questions that you should have done. Been answered. This is not berating.

[Jack]

Oh, I wish I was there.

[Armstrong]

Berating is what our neighbors are living through.

[Jack]

I feel these sorts of things drive me crazy because the snapping.

[Getty]

The snapping.

[Jack]

Because most people don't speak extemporaneously for a living or have microphones shoved in their faces. So I understand why they react the way they often do. But, you know, this is a for profit business. We're about yoga, we're not about it. And getting involved in politics. If you don't like that, go to a different yoga place.

[Getty]

So this gal writing for the Free Press, Ann Bauer, Mob Rule comes from my yoga studio. The core power I used to love has been ruined by shouted ideology and shunning. Just like nearly every public space in my longtime home of Minneapolis. It's why I finally left.

[Jack]

Oh, my God, that is so unbelievable. That's Cultural Revolution stuff right there from China. I mean, it really is.

[Getty]

Yeah, get on your knees. Counter revolutionary. So she writes in Minneapolis. It's 2020 again. Or rather it's been 2020 for a long time, and it's never stopped. It was only that summer that most of America began to behave this way, calling out compelling language, ceding more and more public space to mob rule. If you live elsewhere in America, you'll recognize the spirit of 2020 in the confrontation. Let's hear it, Delaney. Loud and proud, baby. You want to say it? Let's effing say it. Every day in Minneapolis for the past decade has been this. The personal drama of entitled ideologues eating away at all decency and peace. Yikes. It is. It's straight out of Maoist China.

[Jack]

That is unbelievable. And she is so self satisfied with her yelling at this person. Just, I. I came into work today. I got lots of going on in my life. I'm just supposed to open the doors.

[Getty]

Three years old, I'm just like yoga. I got certified. I just do the cash register if somebody wants to buy a mat.

[Jack]

Yeah, shut the freak up. Oh, my God, I hate that woman.

[Getty]

You say you wish you were there. I wish a couple of gals I know who've taken kickboxing were there. Katie. Katie. Well, prior to you being with child, that would have been great. Oh, I can still take her. We've got another clip of her where.

[Jack]

Do you kick her? Roundhouse to the head.

[Getty]

Don't answer that question.

[Jack]

Where you go? Full on. See you in Toledo. A little bit of both.

[Getty]

See you in Toledo. Get her bent over, then roundhouse kick to the head. Folks, I asked them not to continue the conversation. For the record.

[Jack]

Get her, Ben. Over. That's funny.

[Getty]

It's a classic maneuver. One low, one high.

[Jack]

Exactly.

[Getty]

Again.

[Jack]

There you go.

[Getty]

It's popular for a reason. It works. All right, moving along that, we actually have another clip of her trying to explain how she was banned and how unfair that is, but I. I can't play it. I want to commit a homicide.

[Jack]

It's her again. I can't listen to her more.

[Getty]

No, it's 54 seconds.

[Jack]

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I was trying to crawl through the microphone to get to her. It's driving me crazy.

[Getty]

And Michael, if you hit play on that clip, Katie's already explained to you what's going to happen to you. All right, One low, you double over. Right across the bridge of the nose. All right. You don't want that.

[Jack]

Nobody does.

[Getty]

So. Speaking of woke lunatics, the. The. The wall. I'm sorry. The Washington Post laid off 30% of its journalistic workforce last week, and everybody's griping about it. A couple things on that and, and some of the ple. Marty Barron. This ranks among the darkest days in the history of the world's greatest news organizations. Blah, blah, blah. Sharply diminished, its talented and brave staff further depleted. Blah, blah, blah. And the National Review mentions that one of the cuts was they shut down their entire sports desk. National sports reporter Adam Kilgore managed to hold onto his job, moving to the features desk. And so they had him write a story about the Super Bowl. So like the last remaining sports reporter writing the only story for the Washington Post about the super bowl. Have you heard about his story? This week he published the his final story for the now shuttered Sports Desk. It was an article Kilgore decided to dedicate to since forgotten 2016's main character, Colin Kaepernick. That's right. In a major week for sports news that brought the start of the Winter Olympics, the Super bowl, the Post chose to dedicate an entire report to the one time 49ers quarterback who hasn't played in the league for nine years. In an article entitled what do we make of Colin Kaepernick Now, Kilgore actually goes so far as to call Kaepernick the most relevant figure to Super Bowl 60. The Super bowl is being played in his former home stadium at a societal moment that echoes the issues he forced football fans to confront. So why is he out of mind? And he explains that he should be top of mind. The social issues swirling around America's largest sporting spectacle, blah, blah, blah. Colin Kaepernick might as well be a ghost, right?

[Jack]

And so we're losing that fantastic mainstream coverage of the news that most Americans needed. I was listening to National Review talk about this. I wish I'd have written down the numbers, the stuff that I didn't know. Washington Post had something like 37 climate reporters or something. I mean, just an obscene number of people on climate, and now they're gonna only have like five just to report their climate coverage. I mean, that's how nutty it was. They had so many reporters dedicated to DEI issues and just stuff like that that mean it's, it's like, it's like when people claim that the, the NPR is not biased or is news for everybody or whatever. And every day when I get into my car, it's today we're focusing on trans illegals or, you know, it's something that is so not mainstream, right? But they don't.

[Armstrong]

There's.

[Jack]

You're so in your own little world, you don't know that the average person in Oklahoma is talking about this issue, let alone even California or New York. You people are so out of touch.

[Getty]

Right. Gerard Baker for the Journal wrote a great piece, the biggest threat to journalism, journalists, and he gets into a number of different topics and he mentions President Trump's attacks on the media are out of line and too much. But it never seems to occur to his targets that the primary reason he gets away with them, the attacks, is that faith in the honesty of these institutions has already been devastated by their own tendentious work. The list of recent media distortions, from the Russia collusion hoax to Covid and Black Lives Matter, is long. But the most important form of bias, more insidious because it is necessarily hard to measure, isn't what the news reports, it's what it chooses not to report. A point you've made many times through the years. Investigative reporting is vital for accountability for. But for most journalists, the people in institutions that need to be held accountable are only those that fit into their selective demonology. Corporations and their leaders, the rich right wing politicians, labor unions, bureaucracies and academic institutions. No, not really. Take example. To take a topical example of such selective support reporting, consider how immigration has been covered of late. Like most people I've been Appalled by some of the scenes I've witnessed on America's streets in the past year, news organizations have been right to expose the excesses of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Slow down Joe. And kudos to them if they have helped force a change of tactics by the administration and the sign lining sidelining of the inept Kristi Noem and her military cosplaying sidekicks. Okay, so he's good and critical of some of the excesses. But how many news organizations over the past 10 years have reported on how that mass immigration affected America's communities?

[Jack]

None of how many covered the pressure.

[Getty]

They were placing on schools and medical services. This is like reading our show, no kidding being written back to me saying this.

[Jack]

So for so many years they wrote.

[Getty]

Extensively about the valuable contribution these migrants made to the US economy. But how many even consider the cost? Thousands of illegal immigrants are in prison or jail for crimes unrelated to their immigration status. How many newspapers did lengthy stories on the crimes or their victims?

[Jack]

I was talking about this just last week with watching cbs, ABC News coverage of the whole Minnesota thing. They never once tipped their cap toward, you know this many hardcore criminals have been taken off the streets. No mention of that. You can do all the ICE overreach you want, but you ought to at least throw in. And they're getting some hardcore criminals off the streets.

[Getty]

Right. And I've been willing to sell myself as the ombudsman for any network or publication that will have me, but I couldn't take the cut and pay. But I mean, for instance, here's an easy1. While 78% of Americans believe we need to crack down on illegal immigration, many Americans view the current tactics as excessive. See how easy that was? See how effortless that was to present the full story as opposed to just your activist point of view. But again, and I can't remember when I was talking about this in the show yesterday, the very nature of what journalism is has changed completely in the last 30 years. 30, 40, 50 years certainly. But it used to be a working class profession where nobody even heard your opinion on anything until you had spent years and years and years grounded in reality. You were the most reality grounded people in America because you'd reported on the crime beat, you'd reported on the city council meeting, you'd reported on your state legislature, you'd reported on corruption scandals. You were so steeped in reality you were a cynic. Now it's 24 year old Columbia School of Journalism graduates who are the least in touch human beings in America. The children of Privilege are filled with their professors, Marxist ideas. That's the change from the journalists we knew to the quote, unquote journalists of today. Of course, things are different.

[Jack]

Yeah. And when people talk about. I'm fine with saying the country's doomed without a, you know, a good New York Times, a good Washington Post, a good whatever, that's all true. But the current sucked. We're better off without the current.

[Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack]

If you're, if you want to bring back something from 20, 30, 40 years ago, we can have that discussion. But the, the keeping the Washington Post as it was going, that wasn't helping anybody. No.

[Getty]

And it was never going to happen.

[Jack]

No, no.

[Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack]

The 30 some climate change reporters. How nuts is that?

[Getty]

Wow. I know. Wow.

[Jack]

We got more on the way. Stay here.

[Getty]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Armstrong]

A dramatic scene in Georgia. A small plane makes an emergency landing in the middle of a street that was full of traffic. It came to a complete halt after striking at least two cars. The pilot keeping his cool as he was forced to improvise.

[Jack]

We lost our engine, taken off out of Gainesville and realized, tried to glide back, did everything by the book, but realized we weren't going to make it back with how far out we were. So came down the road and thankfully.

[Armstrong]

Only minor injuries were reported.

[Jack]

If you haven't seen that video, it is really something. It's just luck that the timing wasn't such that a car got crunched and people died.

[Getty]

Yeah. Yeah. And he was very matter of fact there, but he. What do you say we went down the road after calling air traffic control and saying, saying we're going down. Tell my wife I love her.

[Jack]

Oh, I didn't hear that part.

[Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack]

So he wasn't sure he was going to make it, let alone the people that he was going to land on, on the highway.

[Getty]

Well, and I saw that video on the news last night and his propeller was still going as he hit a car. And I was like, oh, no, I.

[Jack]

Don'T want to see the reason art.

[Getty]

Of a human being. But no, it was fine. Everybody's all right. Wow. Yeah. Miracle.

[Jack]

So the social media trial began yesterday in Los Angeles. We've talked some about that. The opening statements were yester, it's a couple of plaintiffs saying that Google and YouTube, Facebook meta are addictive on purpose. They try to, they try to addict you to the product and then it's all kinds of bad stuff, particularly for kids. And so Snapchat. And who is the other one that settled already? A couple of them settled the gram.

[Getty]

That's A meta property.

[Jack]

Yeah, the. So anyway, here you're opening and I'm worried about this case because I hate those companies. I hate Google and Meta. I think they're probably all kinds of evil. But the idea that a product can't try to be as addictive as possible. I mean, every product's trying to be addictive, whether it's potato chips or this show or NFL football or whatever. You're trying to keep people engaged and can't live without it as much as you can. And I don't know where you cross the line. I really don't.

[Getty]

Wouldn't phrase it like that, but. Yeah, yeah, you're not wrong.

[Jack]

I mean, when. When. When American Idol used to say, and we'll let you know who wins after this. I mean, it's just. Okay, you're trying. You're trying to keep me engaged longer and longer and longer. We got something great coming up, and it just keeps not happening until later in the hour. That's keeping you engaged the whole hour. What's the difference? But I could really see.

[Getty]

I'd never noticed that before. Is that on purpose?

[Jack]

I could really see a jury hating Google and Zuckerberg not thinking this through, awarding billions of dollars, and I don't know what that's gonna do to everything. Anywho, in the opening statements yesterday, the plaintiff's attorney, Mark Lanier, went first. He dramatically argued the case is as easy as abc. ABC stands for Addicting the brains of children. And he accused Meta and Google.

[Getty]

Devastating because that doesn't spell out abc.

[Jack]

Well, and listen to this. Because he knows deep pocket payday when he sees it. He accused Meta and Google of being, quote, two of the richest corporations in history. That should have nothing to do with it at all. At all. It shouldn't play a role in anything. How much money Google or Facebook has. But.

[Getty]

But the attorney knows it does.

[Jack]

But he knows it.

[Getty]

Yep.

[Jack]

That engineered addiction in children's brains. They did. They did. So does lots of stuff. Comparing the platforms to casinos or addictive drugs and citing internal documents that will show they knew they were addicting people.

[Getty]

I don't know.

[Jack]

It's gonna be interesting.

[Getty]

Tough line to draw. Because we both hate them and know they're guilty of trying to profit off of turning our children's brains into mush and. And addicting them. That's indisputable. But it's difficult to prove, and it's sure as hell difficult to draw a line between it's really fun and of I'm helplessly addicted.

[Jack]

Right. Google gets their shot today, and we'll have the report on that tomorrow. I can't wait to hear what they're going to say. And if you missed a segment, get the podcast. Armstrong and Getty on demand.

[Getty]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Armstrong]

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