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- [00:02]
Jack Armstrong
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. Armstrong and Getty. And now here's Armstrong and Getty. What is the situation with the water? Obviously in Palisades, it ran out last night in the hydrants. The local folks are trying to figure that out. I mean, just. Well, you have a system that's not dissimilar to what we've seen in other extraordinarily large scale fires, whether it be pipe electricity or whether it just be the complete overwhelm of the system.
- [00:42]
Joe Getty
Yeah, I got to believe Gavin Newsom getting on the phone with some people. Why the hydrants were out of water. I need an answer because that's a bad story. The hydrants running out of water, similar.
- [00:50]
Jack Armstrong
To other situations is a.
- [00:54]
Joe Getty
So I'll tell you, if there's one place I could be right now, anywhere in the world, it'd be close enough to Barack Obama and Donald Trump, who are sitting in the second row at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. waiting for the Jimmy Carter funeral to start. It's the row of the ex presidents, man, the most exclusive club in the world and people with a better view of the way things really work than anybody who lives. But Barack Obama's now bending Trump's. Here they are in a non stop conversation and both of them laughing now and then. And Barack Obama was just shaking his head like rolled his eyes and laughed. And they're talking. I would free freaking love to know what they're talking about. Do you think if it's anything of consequence or is it like really minor stuff just to make small talk?
- [01:40]
Jack Armstrong
I think it is presidential small talk.
- [01:44]
Joe Getty
That's what I'm saying, if you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [01:46]
Jack Armstrong
About D.C. and the White House and the inauguration and the press and that sort of thing, I suspect.
- [01:53]
Joe Getty
And famously, if you're into this sort of stuff, former presidents often have way more respect for each other than. Than you might guess based on the way things were when they were all fighting each other. And I wonder if Barack and Trump are in that category.
- [02:12]
Jack Armstrong
Oh, it's guaranteed. Yeah. They've both done a job that is impossible and ages you like a dog. And so there is a bond, even if you disagree fairly vehemently. I want to say one thing and make it clear because we have, you know, made various comments, whether lighthearted about some of the things happening at the funeral or Carter's presidency and that sort of thing. I believe Jimmy Carter was a good man who lived a good life. I think he was ill suited to the job for which he is being remembered. He was not a good president. And I think respect to him and his family and those who loved him upon his passing is absolutely appropriate. I think worshipfulness is weird and off putting. You know, we can certainly give criticism of his administration arrest during the funeral. That's fine. But there is a difference between having respect for a human being and suspending your, not only your right, but your duty as an American to understand where his presidency went terribly wrong. But again, we could give it a rest for a minute.
- [03:29]
Joe Getty
In terms of the presidents that are still alive, they're all sitting there and I'm watching on TV, Joe Biden looks 120 years old. He walked in and sat down with his mouth hanging open and that blank stare that he has. He's the current president with all those former presidents and he's the oldest guy in those first two pews and looks.
- [03:50]
Jack Armstrong
By far the oldest.
- [03:51]
Joe Getty
And looks the oldest and acts the oldest. Yes. Why did we. Why? You're going back clear to. Bush won all those people. I mean, you're going way back. Oh, Bill Clinton's there. That's 92.
- [04:04]
Jack Armstrong
The guy Bush 1 is not with us.
- [04:06]
Joe Getty
But I mean, Bush 2.
- [04:08]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah.
- [04:08]
Joe Getty
The oldest guy there is Joe Biden, the current president. That's an odd thing for America to decide.
- [04:15]
Jack Armstrong
And you know, if we need this, and we probably don't, but it's worth Contemplating for another 10 seconds the fact that the Democratic Party, the Biden administration and the media were all telling us as recently as, you know, the early part of last year, the middle part of last year, that he was good to go for another four years. Nothing could be more dishonest or ridiculous.
- [04:34]
Joe Getty
Well, last hour we played the clip. Joe Biden did an interview with USA Today and said he thinks he would have won, which is, well, here's David Axelrod who ran Obama's campaign. Here's what he has to say about that. Joe Biden had a 40% approval rating. I don't think there's a president who's won reelection with an approval rating that low. So you look, you know, one has to comfort oneself in these moments and you know, that's probably what he's doing. But I think it's nuts to think that he would have won that election. It's nuts to think he would have won.
- [05:09]
Jack Armstrong
He went from painstaking, painstakingly diplomatic to he's a nut.
- [05:14]
Joe Getty
It's not.
- [05:17]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, damn it.
- [05:18]
Joe Getty
What is Trump saying to Barack Obama that's making Barack Obama throw back his head in laughter. I would love to know.
- [05:26]
Jack Armstrong
You'll never know.
- [05:27]
Joe Getty
No, I won't.
- [05:28]
Jack Armstrong
You will never know. Dovetailing from our conversation last year, I appreciate Mike, the lawyer in Chicago, recognizing the Joe Getty Unified Theory of Civilizations, talking about Carter's administration. He said Carter's policies are a great example of what you talk about with the guardrails. Vietnam and Watergate made it easy to adopt passivity and imagineering. When Carter came in, we overcorrected and flipped the car in the ditch.
- [05:54]
Joe Getty
That's a, that's a, that's a really good analysis right there.
- [06:00]
Jack Armstrong
So, coming up, a, an extended discussion of Doge and what exactly it might be able to accomplish and what the roadblocks will be. To paraphrase, I think it's. Was it lick. Oh, you all. Levin, who is a, an absolutely brilliant writer and thinker. Jack, I know you're, you're familiar with this stuff. He says it could be a complete waste of everyone's time. That's usually how reform commissions go. But Musk is no slouch and the ideas drawn, the cooperation of an array of tech sector and entrepreneurial talent, including Vivek Ramaswamy, and needs to be taken seriously.
- [06:36]
Joe Getty
I think the biggest thing that's going for Musk versus, you know, two senators that 90% of people don't know. Everybody knows who Elon Musk is. He can say something and everybody hears it. And if he, when he runs into these roadblocks, at least he can say it out loud and say, hey, look, we got a government where you can't fire anybody. Did everybody know that? Because a couple of senators doing this in a hearing a year from now and explaining the difficulties. Nobody ever hears that stuff right now.
- [07:02]
Jack Armstrong
Whether they are, like, surpassingly successful and they just did. The Doge thing just totally turns the country around. I don't think that's going to happen. But I, I feel like this spouse who's been begging his or her spouse to go to the doctor, and this is at least a trip to the doctor where a diagnosis will be given, where somebody who will not be ignored will say a great example. Do you know we got millions of people who don't get fired no matter how bad a job they do? Yeah, I mean, everybody should know that. So I think it's, even if it is just of minimal success, we'll keep our eyes. I think it'll be great.
- [07:39]
Joe Getty
We'll keep our eye on the funeral and try to read lips. We'll have that story and A whole bunch of other stuff on the way. Stay here. Armstrong and Gettysburg live living former presidents gathered for the Jimmy Carter funeral. More on that if anything happens. I do have some more comments to make. Their procession is going on indeed.
- [08:02]
Jack Armstrong
We will bring that to you if it develops. Joe Biden recently, with his eyes closed for a prolonged period of time, he's a spiritual man.
- [08:11]
Joe Getty
He's also 100 years old. I think there's a decent chance he falls asleep and tumbles into the aisle.
- [08:16]
Jack Armstrong
Oh, boy. Boy, that would make the headlines. Anyway, stay with us. Yuval Levin, who's a brilliant guy, one of a couple of people I want to quote, talking about the Doge Project. This is Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy and company's effort to rein in the federal government and its spending. And we'll get more into specifics in a second, but I just saw the headline. For what it's worth, Elon Musk has ascended to like the top five or something like that in world rankings in some sort of video game.
- [08:46]
Joe Getty
Oh, yeah, yeah. He.
- [08:47]
Jack Armstrong
How does he have time?
- [08:49]
Joe Getty
He says he's the best video game player in the world. When he was younger, he was. He was the world champion. And he doesn't have as much time to do it now, but he is. He says he's the best in the world at most of those games.
- [09:01]
Jack Armstrong
Wow. Even if we were to extract his brain from his skull and, you know, learn everything we could, science isn't at a point where we would learn much. But his brain does not work the way the rest of us, the rest of our.
- [09:14]
Joe Getty
Definitely not. Definitely not.
- [09:15]
Jack Armstrong
No. Indeed. So Yuval Levin writes that surely there is a need for some creative thinking about combating efficiency in government. Everybody knows that maybe Doge could have some potential. But to generate more than memes and slogans, it needs to quickly nail down several key particulars about its goals, its structures, its approach, because they're kind of vague. For all the talk about Doge, its basic ambition is still pretty murky. As he points out quite correctly, I think its champions seem to have in mind dramatically reducing federal spending, sharply curtailing the federal workforce, and fundamentally reforming federal regulatory policy. And he points out, and I agree completely, only the last of these is really worth Doge's time and attention. It pains me to skip over the sharply curtailing the federal workforce thing, and we can get to why that's hard. But Yuval points out the notion that a committed billionaire tech executive with no political experience is going to massively reduce federal spending by focusing on waste is just the kind of banal delusion that causes Washingtonians to roll their eyes at the whole idea of Doge.
- [10:24]
Joe Getty
Right? Because I saw National View writing about how Elon, super smart guy, nobody's doubting that, but he was not into politics his whole life. He's just, like, started paying attention to this recently. So he's having, like, in his head and with other people, a lot of the arguments that people are into politics, you know, have when they're much, much younger and realize, okay, these are the points that everybody makes. Because he's having some of the same tired arguments on his Twitter feed that, yeah, we know that part. Like those of us who pay attention to this, you're new to this, right?
- [11:00]
Jack Armstrong
And in the same way I often say, evidence does not necessarily equal proof. Good things do not necessarily equal a solution. For instance, if they were to get rid of all of the waste and fraud and abuse in discretionary spending, that would be a great thing. It's not going to come near solving our budgetary problems.
- [11:24]
Joe Getty
Because doesn't it matter a lot morally, though, or just morally, ethically, directionally? I mean, it just pains me so much that we have so many agencies, employees that aren't needed.
- [11:36]
Jack Armstrong
Right? And that's what I'm trying to make clear. Do it as fast and as viciously as you can. Bloody some noses. Do everything you can to get rid of that stuff I was talking about and to make it more efficient. I'm just saying, remember that discretionary spending is absolutely dwarfed by our entitlement programs and will. And the one is on the wane as a share of gdp, the other one's on the rise. So the relationship is getting even more skewed. And Trump said entitlement reform is not on his agenda. I had one of the most depressing but enlightening thoughts I've ever had. And again, political hacks would laugh at me for this. Just really having it come into my head perfectly clearly if I'm a Republican, you know, consultant, like really, really in the know, with my pulse on the voters and all, I would tell my candidate, dude, you're railing against, or perhaps ma'am, because women can hold office now these days, too. Jack. I would say, my friend, you're 100% right about how we need entitlement reform, about how we're spending our children's and grandchildren's money, how it's the greatest theft in the history of mankind from one generation stealing from another. All of this is true, and it is repugnant I hate it to my soul. But if you hang your hat on that, you will lose and you will accomplish nothing. If you shut up about that, we can roll back the perversion of our kids in the woke schools. We can cut the federal workforce and make it more efficient. We can form great trade relationships. We can punch China in the nose and make sure they don't take over the globe. We can accomplish all sorts of stuff. But if you keep talking about entitlements, you're not gonna do any of it.
- [13:29]
Joe Getty
I would love it if we could get all those former presidents sitting in the first two pews there in a national cathedral. I would love to have this conversation with them, honestly. Wouldn't it be awesome to have them in a room? I would ask them the question, how do you see this playing out? You all know the structural problems we have and where we're headed. How do you see this playing out? Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama. What do you think's going to happen? I mean, they have to have an answer in their head.
- [13:56]
Jack Armstrong
Oh, I think they do, yeah. Getting back to my screen, what do.
- [13:59]
Joe Getty
You think most of them would?
- [14:01]
Jack Armstrong
There is no way to pass any meaningful reform until it is an emergency. We've tried and there is no taste for it among the voters. It's way too easy to scare them off. So we just have to wait till the emergency.
- [14:13]
Joe Getty
And I know, I know I've said this before, but my concern is, and I got this from Yuval Levin, who you're reading from, and this was the scariest thing I've ever heard about this stuff. It's not going to be an emergency. I've always pictured it being some sort of cataclysmic, oh, my God, the alarms are going off. We have to do something. Everybody understands it. We cut this, we raised taxes, we fix it. He says that's not the way it's going to play out. We're just going to become a less dynamic, slower moving, bogged down, less fun, less powerful, high tax, harder to get a business started country. And yeah, we'll be France. Yeah, we'll just be France. And it'll happen kind of gradually. And older people who remember what it used to be like will die and everybody will just think this is what life is like. That, to me, is the scariest outcome of all. One, I think it's probably the way it will happen. And two, I don't know how you ever turn that around.
- [15:09]
Jack Armstrong
Right, right again. My. My faux Republican consultant screed. I want you to understand I loathe that. I despise it. But if there's one thing that being a conservative is, it's being a realist. And I've got to. I just got to come to terms with that anyway. Levin points out that the federal government actually has about as many employees as it did a half century ago. It's the government's reach and scope and an enormous amount of contractors that have grown. And so the key is not so much the number of the workforce, but the scope of what the government does and how it does it through regulations and executive branch contractors and stuff like that, which I think is a good clarification. Can they actually close? Can they delete a federal agency? There are serious legal hurdles and you would have to have the cooperation of Congress. Can't get into this in a meaningful way. We're up against a heartbreak, but maybe we can reset that down the road because, I mean, how many of us want the Department of Education gone? A majority of parents do. A poll just came out. A very small majority.
- [16:12]
Joe Getty
Hotel I was in was across the street from the Department of education in Washington, D.C. last week. That's an enormous building with a lot of employees. And to think we could do away with that and have more local control and I'll have that money stay at home. Oh, I don't think it'll happen.
- [16:27]
Jack Armstrong
Well, yeah, and just not have the, the, the woke bureaucrats of D.C. playing the tune that local schools are supposed to dance to. There's. I hate that idea.
- [16:39]
Joe Getty
We will check in on the horrifying fires that continue in LA today. Oh, my God. Big portions of cities that are completely gone.
- [16:49]
Jack Armstrong
Everybody calls everything historic these days. This is an historic catastrophe for Los Angeles and the state of California.
- [16:59]
Joe Getty
Biggest fire in LA's history already. Most devastating and climbing up the ranks for the entire state of California. California. I got a lot more on the way. I hope you can stay here.
- [17:09]
Reporter
Armstrong and Getty, we did have a sheriff's deputy drive past us and we got this warning to be careful. And we thought, okay, maybe he's talking about the smoke because the air quality is so poor. That's why we're all wearing respirators and masks. He said, no, be careful because there are looters out here. He said, we've already arrested someone. And I asked, well, how many and where and try to get some more information. He says he couldn't give me that information, but the fact that they this morning have already arrested people. It just goes to show that people are taking advantage of an Already devastating situation.
- [17:44]
Joe Getty
You know, as a libertarian, I have to be against government vigilante style justice. But if he accidentally hit that guy in the back of the ear with a baton, I'm looking the other way. Is there anything worse than a looter? Anything? You are the worst human being on earth. You certainly are in the running after people have had their homes burnt down, lost everything they have, and you go in and try to steal from them, you sob.
- [18:14]
Jack Armstrong
Can we institute something like martial law?
- [18:18]
Joe Getty
The very least you gotta make the penalty so high, it's just not worth going and digging through somebody's house to try to find a engagement ring.
- [18:26]
Jack Armstrong
You got my vote.
- [18:28]
Joe Getty
Anyway, some other thing about the fire. We're keeping our eye on the Jimmy Carter funeral. We got some comments on that coming up in a little bit. It's going on right now. But on the fire, this is getting a fair amount of attention and there's a lot of already in the midst of the tragedy with neighborhoods burnt completely to the ground. It looks like the moon in some of these places where it used to be multi million dollar homes or just regular homes. It's not like it's more or less tragic depending on the expenditure of the home. And so Trump is doing a lot of truthing about fire management by Gavin Newsom and Gavin Newsom is trying to deflect it into other things and the mayor of LA and blah, blah, blah, all that sort of stuff. But this seems to be true when the Forest Service identifies high risk forests needing prescribed burns or any area that you know you got to deal with. And if you don't travel around la, there's a lot of trees around la, especially when you get up to the Pasadena Altadena area. I've hiked up there many times. There's nothing but forests behind you. When the Forest Service identifies a high risk forest that needs to burn to be safe, it takes an average of 4.7 years to get it through the environmental reviews. If it's a complex situation like there are houses close by or infrastructure, it takes about seven years, which as it points out is many, many fire cycles. I mean, going through many fire seasons before you get through the environmental review to make sure the titmouse isn't going to lose its habitat or something like that before you can do anything about the fire.
- [20:00]
Jack Armstrong
At which point the situation I would guess is very different. Probably it needs to be done even more. But yeah, that's sort of, that's a.
- [20:09]
Joe Getty
Similar thing happened with and if you don't live in California you may not have heard the story. The historic pier in Santa Cruz that got washed away a couple of weeks ago. And I've been out on there many times. Very, very old. But there were projects planned to shore that thing up. Aging wooden structure. But it ran into environmental struggles because of some sort of bird or fish or something, and they just couldn't do it. And there you go.
- [20:37]
Jack Armstrong
What you have to understand, though, and what people need to understand, both Californians and outside the state, is that the.
- [20:44]
Joe Getty
Environmental laws, birds and fish, that's the main thing. I hate birds. I hate fish.
- [20:48]
Jack Armstrong
Well, see, here's where I slap you with the firm hand of reality. It's not about the birds and fish, at least in part. Like, half the reason for these laws is for trial attorneys to get attorneys to be rich. Unions constantly use these environmental lawsuits to blackmail companies, even the state itself, into giving them a better deal. It's lawfare.
- [21:14]
Joe Getty
That's an excellent point. How many of the lawyers who make enough of a living to retire on. On these various cases that go on for years and years care about the freaking burger fish involved? Or just love the fact that they get into, they've got a job, they've got a case for the rest of their lives.
- [21:31]
Jack Armstrong
Maybe someday, Jack, you could explain, not today. How California's divorce laws are patterned so that incredibly expensive lawfare can take place.
- [21:41]
Joe Getty
You gotta be in the right place. The trial attorney.
- [21:43]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, I know. The trial attorneys and the public employee unions run the state. Anyway, enough said.
- [21:48]
Joe Getty
Let me turn my gaze briefly back to the funeral that is going on. We have all the TVs on live as the. I don't know when you're listening to this, if you're listening to it on the podcast, the Jimmy Carter Funeral. And all the former presidents and vice presidents are in the first couple of rows with their wives and husbands. Yeah, Kamala Harris is vice president. She's got a husband. He'll slap you around if you don't listen. But, you know, allegedly. And a couple of different things. So that's Amy Carter, executive producer Hanson pointed out. I didn't know who that one woman does. I got nothing to say about her. She's at her dad's funeral, for crying out loud. Right. But she is an old woman now, as we all have aged. I'm much older than I was when I was a child. When she was a child also. But I didn't know who that was. That's Amy Carter. But Barack and Trump were yucking it up a lot before the funeral started. Not like in an inappropriate way, you know, you've been to a funeral and, and you don't have to be morose the entire time, you know, with your.
- [22:47]
Jack Armstrong
No. In many situations it's a celebration of life.
- [22:51]
Joe Getty
But I would love to know what Barack and Trump were talking about. I mean, they were really. John. A lot.
- [22:56]
Jack Armstrong
I figured it out. It's obvious. Boy, is Biden a dope.
- [23:01]
Joe Getty
Could be.
- [23:01]
Jack Armstrong
They're comparing notes on that.
- [23:03]
Joe Getty
It could be.
- [23:04]
Jack Armstrong
And Barack's like, you think, you know, he's a dope. Let me tell you, I got some stories.
- [23:09]
Joe Getty
Well, it wouldn't be impossible. I don't know if they, if he would say it out loud or not, but if they're, you know, you had truth serum or something. And one thing about being a two term president, you don't have to worry about anything anymore. Have you ever seen a worse campaign than what Kamala Harris did? I could see Brock saying, I, oh my God, she couldn't do one interview. I know, I don't know what they were talking about, but do you remember the backstory on them? The reason Trump was president is because Barack Obama. So Trump was endlessly, back when he was just a talk show host and I, for instance, didn't think there was a chance Trump was ever gonna be in politics. Would not shut up about Barack Obama being a Muslim from another land in the birth certificate. Just endless. On every show he ever did, he would talk about that. And Barack Obama got so upset about that that when they did the National Correspondents Dinner and Trump was in the audience, Barack Obama made like the entire hour monologue making fun of Donald Trump in front of all those people. And Trump sat there stewing and so angry that he was being mocked by Barack Obama. That is, and this is according to everyone, what drove him to run for president.
- [24:21]
Jack Armstrong
And in a time honored fashion among human beings, millions and millions of Americans said, oh, is that the enemy of Barack Obama and everything he's trying to do the country. Let's, let's hear more about this guy.
- [24:33]
Joe Getty
One of Bob Woodward's books, and I don't remember which one, but it was a long time ago. Opens with Barack Obama running down the stairs to tell Michelle, I found it, I found it. Cuz he found his birth certificate up in the attic. He'd been digging through the boxes, long form or short form, just to try to shut up Trump because it was so annoying. He would just dig the President of the United States digging through boxes to try to find his original birth certificate because Trump wouldn't shut up about it, which is hilarious. But anyway, now here they are sitting on the pew, yucking it up, up together, both of them, with their. Their lives intertwined and intercrossed in ways that, you know, nobody would have predicted.
- [25:10]
Jack Armstrong
They're trying to other him, Jack. It's racism, blah, blah, blah.
- [25:14]
Joe Getty
Well, we now know. I mean, at the time, but we now know Trump just does whatever to get under people's skin. He calls you by the wrong name or whatever.
- [25:24]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, he just trolls.
- [25:26]
Joe Getty
He just trolls people. Who was the candidate? You know, this Michael. You were into this. He would just call by the wrong name all the time. One of the guys that was running.
- [25:33]
Jack Armstrong
Oh, ASA Hutch, they called for no good reason. Just, I mean, third grade schoolyard taunts just like, ridiculous.
- [25:43]
Joe Getty
I don't even care enough to know what your name is, is all that is.
- [25:47]
Jack Armstrong
So Gerald Ford, who Carter defeated, and Carter were very close friends the rest of their lives until Ford passed away a number of years ago. And Ford's son is delivering the eulogy, which is really a beautiful thing. And he has pointed out during the service, Carter's absolutely triumphant bringing together of Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt in what was the opening step of a process that's gone right through the Abraham Accords and is surely going to continue in Trump's term this time around. And that is the calming of the sane regimes of the Middle east and working together to root out the scumbags and lunatics. And for that, Carter should be remembered. That was some really, really good diplomacy. He also engaged in some really, really bad diplomacy. But, you know, what are you going to do? One of the, one of the. Several opportunities that the Palestinian leadership had for a fabulous deal, a great deal that, you know, Anwar said, not Anwar Sadat, what's his face with the keffiyeh. The terrorist, Help me got the Nobel.
- [27:02]
Joe Getty
Peace Prize at one point. I can't think of his. What is it? Come on.
- [27:04]
Jack Armstrong
This is embarrassing.
- [27:06]
Joe Getty
Yeah, that's embarrassing to not know his name. I talked about this not long ago.
- [27:09]
Jack Armstrong
I know a lot of names. You wanted some other names. Millard Fillmore. There's one.
- [27:14]
Joe Getty
Rory Calhoun. So I got, I got on this monochum begging kick. You remember last year, and I read his book, and it explained how Yasser Airfat walk. Walked away from that at the very end, I mean, like, hours before it was going to be accomplished. And Jimmy Carter was furious and realized at that point that he was dealing with a nut job that had no interest in actually having Peace or actually having a two state solution.
- [27:36]
Jack Armstrong
Well, exactly. Yeah. Then they did it again under Clinton.
- [27:39]
Joe Getty
That should be. It'd be nice if Jimmy Carter could leap up out of that casket and explain that to the college students in Columbia and UCLA and everywhere else. Hey, they don't want a two state solution. @ least the leadership that they voted for over the years.
- [27:52]
Jack Armstrong
Right, exactly. While those college morons were demonstrating in favor of terrorists while the blood still ran in the streets of New Orleans thanks to an Isaacs converted lunatic.
- [28:03]
Joe Getty
I suppose if Jimmy Carter leapt up out of the casket, the sub headline would be his new peace plan. It would be probably, you know.
- [28:11]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, that would. That might not even get noticed.
- [28:16]
Joe Getty
The lead might be government attempts to bury live former president or something like that. I don't know.
- [28:21]
Jack Armstrong
But I see your point.
- [28:23]
Joe Getty
We've got more on the way.
- [28:25]
Jack Armstrong
Stay with us. Armstrong and Getty.
- [28:29]
Guest
I mean, I've been in this same chair and I was arguing about a year ago saying that, you know, you can be pro immigration, but we need a secure border and we have a serious issue here on the border and we have to address that. And here we have. Now we can be pro immigration and I really believe we should protect the dreamers. But I don't know why it's controversial that we need to deport any migrants here illegal that are engaging in kinds of criminal activity. I don't know why that's controversial to anybody.
- [29:00]
Joe Getty
He's so right. It's interesting that he gets credit for like bravery or political courage or whatever for saying something that 90% of a people agree with.
- [29:09]
Jack Armstrong
Well, I think, you know, the next step in that discussion is how perverse and out of step is the Democratic Party or the branch of the Democratic Party that believes that is controversial. I mean, because you're right. Well, you asked a question that sounds rhetorical, but it's not. How is that brave for a Democratic senator to say? I think the answer is, you know what I said, more or less. So a handful of stories worth at least touching on. I don't know if you're following what's going on in South Korea with their president. It is crazy. I mean, they have a serious constitutional crisis going on.
- [29:48]
Joe Getty
We covered the coup live a couple of weeks ago when he declared martial law and tried to keep the government from being able to go in and vote. And they said, nah, we're gonna go in and vote anyway. And then they ended it.
- [30:01]
Jack Armstrong
Right. And the legislature, including his own party, gave him a. Wait, what? No, you're not. And they overturned it absolutely, instantly. And according to their constit now it's believed by some in South Korean, trust me, I'm not an expert on this, that he actually broke laws. And so they're trying to arrest him now, trying to put cuffs on him and arrest him. Well, this guy Yoon Suk Yoel is saying and his personal security detail which he has recently beefed up is now surrounded his presidential residential compound. And when they went to try to arrest him, I think it was last week, scuffles broke out and the security people let the cops and whatever, you know, federal law enforcement was there to arrest the guy. Tell him no, you're not getting them without a fight. And we mean a fight, chick, chick, you know, you know, cocking their weapons. And so after a prolonged multi hour negotiation, the people who were there to arrest him withdrew. Well, they're going back now. But said former martial law fan Yoon Suk Yeol, he's beefed up his security, he's surrounded his compound with buses and even more armed guys to hold off the quote unquote authorities.
- [31:25]
Joe Getty
So this is classic Game of Thrones stuff, as old as time.
- [31:29]
Jack Armstrong
Throwing a barbed wire too, just to help solidify the picture for you.
- [31:33]
Joe Getty
I'm just surprised that he has loyalists who are willing to lay down their lives for him. Is he just flat out paying him or do they believe in him that much?
- [31:43]
Jack Armstrong
That's an interesting question. You know, I'm thinking back to the early days of our republic, including during the Articles of Confederation when we were a pretty new democracy and we're the oldest democracy on earth and so we're reasonably good at it. I know what you're thinking right now. This is good at it. Yeah. Believe it or not, South Korea's just been on democracy since the 80s. Is it? Yeah, it's within our lifetimes.
- [32:10]
Joe Getty
Yeah, I know, but I mean this has happened throughout. I reading the other day about Napoleon III in France in 1871. But anyway, he, he wanted his guys to fire on the revolutionaries in the street and they said nah, we're not going to. And he realized, okay, I guess the jig is up. And he had to hightail it to Great Britain. I mean, because sometimes your guys support you and sometimes they don't. But in this case, the South Korean president, his people loyal to him. What are, why?
- [32:37]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, well, certainly enough to hold off the arrest tours. One of Yoon's lawyers said the President could not accept the execution of the arrest warrant because it was issued by a court in the wrong jurisdiction. And the team of Investigators formed to probe the incumbent leader had no mandate to do so.
- [32:52]
Joe Getty
But do they think the people that are willing to be shot to protect this guy, do they think he's going to end up back in power?
- [32:59]
Jack Armstrong
I don't know. That's a great question. I suspect so. Yeah, I would guess it is, it is a. And you know, I, I tend to side with the other side because this guy seems to be a nut job, but I, I'm far from an expert in it. It is both a personal test of wills and there are serious arguments about who did what and whether it's constitutional. So anyway, what's going to happen next is crazy, but in a settled westernized Eastern democracy, to have this happen, it's just, it's, it's terrible. It's cataclysm. Oh, that's right.
- [33:33]
Joe Getty
That's Al Gore's nude Tipper. He and Tipper got divorced years ago.
- [33:38]
Jack Armstrong
Oh, years ago.
- [33:38]
Joe Getty
Is that just a girlfriend then or is he married? Anyway, we'll get back to the funeral later. Yeah.
- [33:42]
Jack Armstrong
Asking me about Al Gore's love life, I don't know.
- [33:45]
Joe Getty
Remember when he used to go get the massages? And that was a big story.
- [33:49]
Jack Armstrong
So cnn, which is where we happen to be watching at least one of our screens. The Jimmy Carter funeral. They are about to be the defendant in a high profile defamation trial. And the jurors have indicated that they are open to a 10 figure payout. That's a billion dollars with a B for what it's worth.
- [34:10]
Joe Getty
Ten figures. Okay.
- [34:12]
Jack Armstrong
And this is, and there are some funny aspects of this case. Plaintiff Zachary Young is a, I think he's a Navy veteran. He was working like crazy to get people out of Afghanistan. And CNN for some reason took a disliking to the guy and assassinated his character and called him all sorts of things like a black violator of laws and all sorts. And they had no solid evidence to do so. And the judge has let the trial go forward. They're in jury selection. And as it turns out, only one potential juror admitted to regularly watching CNN. Out of 40 potential jurors. Oof. That's blow number one. And only two out of 40, or roughly 5%, had any idea who Jake Tapper is.
- [34:57]
Joe Getty
Well, that's funny. It's going to be hard to find a fair juror with the popular. Oh, nobody's ever heard of us. It'll be easy to find a fair juror. Oh, okay.
- [35:05]
Jack Armstrong
Jack. Triple as many as recognized. Jake Tapper said, yes, I believe CNN creates fake news. Wow. Oof again. Armstrong and Gettysburg.