Inner Balance Ad Voice (2:23)

Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.

Joe Getty (2:31)

Armstrong and Getty.

Jack Armstrong (2:33)

And now here's Armstrong and G. What

Inner Balance Ad Voice (2:45)

do you say to the American people

Jack Armstrong (2:46)

who question how much longer this will take?

Mike Lyons (2:49)

Obviously you know that they are having.

Donald Trump (Impersonation) (2:50)

You're such a disgrace. Did you hear what I just said? Vietnam. How many years was Vietnam?

Jack Armstrong (2:55)

I understand, sir.

Donald Trump (Impersonation) (2:56)

How many years was Vietnam? Well, I did my actual. I took.

Jack Armstrong (3:00)

I took the American people.

Donald Trump (Impersonation) (3:01)

I took the country out militarily. In the first four weeks. I took it out militarily. Now what we're doing is sitting Back and seeing what deal. And if they don't want to make a deal, then I'll finish it up militarily with the other 25% of the targets.

Jack Armstrong (3:19)

I was watching the press conference yesterday and the, the back and forth with all the people in the media and the, they clearly hate each other. Trump hates them and they hate him. And it just had the feeling of it's about him. It's not about the war and what's a good idea and what's not a good idea, what's victory and what's not victory, how it affects the world. It's just the personality of Trump as it always is practically with any story.

Joe Getty (3:45)

And if it departs that well, trampled ground, it just goes to gas prices. Military analyst Mike Lyons, a longtime friend of the show, has a great piece in the Wall Street Journal today entitled the Iran War Marks the End of Escalation Management. Mike joins us now to talk about the peace and the war in general. Howdy, Mike. How are you?

Mike Lyons (4:05)

Hey, guys, thanks for having me. And I tell you that you're the first people I want to talk to with this being published. And you're spot on. This is, you know, this war is the most significant shift in really military doctrine in 50 years. And the media is too busy covering Donald Trump to even notice what's going on.

Joe Getty (4:21)

Right. And as you made the point in the piece, whoops, we've got a bit of a transmission problem there, Michael. Why don't we put Mike on hold and see if we can reestablish that?

Jack Armstrong (4:30)

Sounds like we got a bad connection. And congratulations to Mike Lyons having this piece in the Wall Street Journal today.

Joe Getty (4:38)

So Mike is back and in your first sentence, you say the war deserves serious study on its own terms. Let's do that.

Mike Lyons (4:47)

Yeah. I mean, the doctrinal shift alone, okay. For the past 50 years, I think America's fought with really one hand tied behind its back. And let me even take a step further back. We, the three of us have been speaking about Iran for 15, the number one U.S. foreign policy failure. And I always thought in the continuum of the history of the United States, we were going to have a conflict with Iran at some point. And so now is the time to have it with them being weak and us being strong. And so go back. We fought wars with this self deterring mentality because if we ever tried to start a war, it would just upset the global balance so much. But that's not. And what we were doing was escalation management. We were managing just tit for tat. We strike a base, they strike a transmitter, we go back and forth. There's a TV show back in the early part of the century there, West Wing, where they talk about what's the virtue of a proportional response. So the bottom line is Epic Fury is throwing all that out with the 900 strikes in the first 12 hours. There's no more escalation management, there's no more escalation management ladders. We are completely all in when it comes to combat. We're back to MacArthur and Patton fighting wars again and it's long overdue.

Joe Getty (5:55)

So we had abandoned the idea of bringing to bear our overwhelming force in favor of, look, let's just keep everybody behaving, keep the peace and the stability and forgotten how to do it or that we even could or should sometimes.

Mike Lyons (6:09)

Yeah, I think we just talked ourselves out of the moral aspect of it. We over exaggerated the civilian implication of it. I mean we've maintained civilian infrastructure. You know, when Trump says it's, you know, bridge and infrastructure day, he's not bombing the civilians, he's going to bomb the capability that the IRGC has in having their government. But we're not targeting civilians like we did in World War II. I mean there was no problem targeting civilians, ball bearing factories and things that took place there. And so we just, the pendulum swung too far towards asking lawyers about what are good targets and what are not good targets. And you know, that's where, you know, got to give Hegseth his due here because that's what he's been talking about. And it's again, it's not illegal war. It's not, these are not war crimes which the politicians are accusing him of. It's just how you're supposed to navigate and how you're supposed to fight war and use war as an extension of foreign policy because there will be conflict between civilizations. That's another assumption that I think people forget. So there's a certain amount of people that believe that our liberal government should be all tied together economically. We won't have conflict. Just look what happened in Ukraine the past four years. And you can throw that out the window too.

Jack Armstrong (7:14)

So right after Epic Fury began, George Will and the Washington Post had a piece said the restoration of American deterrence. And so it's what you're talking about. Just the idea that it sends to China and whoever else in the world that, oh yeah, they're incredibly capable and actually willing to use their capability.

Mike Lyons (7:35)

Right. The line I have there is Iran has spent the past 30 years just betting the United States would never start this war. And that calculation now is proved wrong. And now everyone's watching, China's watching. And I'm telling you right now, they're updating their models when it comes to what we think we can and can't do. So, and I'm glad this is so long overdue. And I think the feedback I've gotten from other veterans and other folks that are saying the same thing, that realize if we're going to propagate a war, it's got to be on our terms. The last 25 years in the global war on terror was this counterinsurgency. Put civilians first, put our soldiers at risk. And those days are over. And I'm just so glad to see this administration has gotten rid of that escalation management. We're going to project power now and use war as an extension of foreign policy when we need to.

Jack Armstrong (8:21)

Yeah, I'm glad you're pointing this out in the Wall Street Journal. I'm kind of curious as to how that works. Did you have these thoughts and write a piece and like, submit it to them and they print it, or did they ask you how does that even come together?

Mike Lyons (8:32)

Yeah, that's a great question, because that's exactly what it is. You know, I had this. I've got this mentality, write a letter and see what happens. And that's what happened again. And I reached out and I was able to get a good contact there through another friend and waited a couple days to hear back. And they said, it's pretty good. We want you to tweak it here and there. I had the original reference to that television show with what is the virtue of a proportional response in there? They thought that was too cute. They kicked that out. But we went back and forth a couple times.

Jack Armstrong (8:58)

I think it's good.

Mike Lyons (8:59)

I think they were all privileged. Yeah, I'll send it to you. So, no, it's a privilege and for someone like me to do it and let me have that, let me express and their platform. So I'm very privileged about it.

Joe Getty (9:11)

So getting back to your main point, I agree completely, obviously. But also, I think it's worth saying that if you reestablish deterrence and you remind people, oh, this is the big tough guy you do not want to mess with. You minimize the violence, minimize the loss of life for a very long damn time.

Mike Lyons (9:31)

Right, exactly. And in some ways, I thought the general was probably waiting because they thought the ceasefire was going to be stopped or going to continue or. I'm sorry, we were going to start firing again and it would have been a tremendously overwhelming response again, and that would have added more weight to what I was saying, so. That's exactly right. Having power, like Ronald Reagan said, actually is a way to deter your enemies from doing something and it maintains the peace. We've got to get back to that mentality.

Joe Getty (9:58)

And then the second half of your piece deals with an absolutely fascinating and life or deathy question. What does the exit look like? With so many moving pieces and so many question marks, what does victory look like?

Mike Lyons (10:10)

Well, I mean, we've talked about Trump's gonna have to have some visual sign of victory. He's gonna have to show everybody that this is what it is. I've kind of off the mode that we won't get unconditional surrender. He's going to have to have a golden bridge for them, some kind of off ramp for that, because there's still lots of hardliners are going to remain there and they've got to something that they can, you know, give to them to feel like that there's something there. So it's still going to take more time. As you said. As you said, it doesn't matter about what the time, as long as it takes. But there's prisoner exchanges, there's things they'll do. Donald Trump will find something like he did in Gaza. I mean, he's got hostages out, something will happen, you'll see a sign of victory and we'll get to the summer resolution because it's just in Iran's best interest to do it as soon as possible. Obviously they're not there yet, but there will be. They'll have an architecture that will give them some sign that they can show that they've not completely failed as well.

Jack Armstrong (11:03)

Well, we keep moving more men and material to the arena. So the threat is real, I guess.

Mike Lyons (11:11)

Well, and still, you know, I was in El Paso, Texas last week and I was at the first Armored Division. Let me tell you, all their tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles are still safely tucked in the motor pool. And so there's no issue about any harmored divisions deploying anytime soon. And so material and equipment is going obviously to back up our military strength there. I'm starting to get a little bit worried about resupplying, that we're going to have to reinvigorate our military industrial complex a little bit as to the amount of material that we've expended both here and in Ukraine for the past four years. But this is all about putting the military in a position to give the President the power and the leverage to make the deal he wants to make.

Joe Getty (11:49)

Mike, you'll have to pause for just a second. I'm placing a bet on polymarket as to whether there will be tanks in Iran anytime soon. Okay, having done that, we were talking about that last hour. What are the chances we remove the regime from power? Remove the IRGC from power? 50, 51 in 100, 1 in 10,000.

Mike Lyons (12:10)

You know, the best we could hope for is get a compromise inside Iran between the politicians and the IRGC running things. It looks like the IRGC clearly runs things right now, and they're going to have to accept some part of whatever this deal is that the politicians, from my perspective, appear to be trying to make the deal, but the IRGC doesn't want it. So the regime compliance, as we've talked about, I still think that's out there. It's just a matter of what happens intern. So that kind of applies more or less what it looks like inside. And if you can get 51, 49 politicians over IRGC, then that's probably what victory is gonna look like. And we still might not be there, and it might be difficult to get there, but that's probably what it's gonna take.

Jack Armstrong (12:50)

My final question would be, this shift that you talk about, that you write about in the Wall Street Journal, is this the sort of thing that ends when Donald Trump leaves office, or does the giant bureaucracy of the Pentagon. Do you think there's a shift there that lasts beyond this administration?

Mike Lyons (13:09)

That's a great question. I think fundamentally, this is a political decision that got made with regard to this getting rid of the escalation ladder. But I think for a politician to bring it back in the future will be a losing battle. And if this turns out to be victory, as we think it's going to be. So I don't think that we'll go back to that. I think it'll be, I think people like victory, and I think other nations will look at it and say, that's victory. And I think our allies want us to act in our best interest and this acts in our best interest. So, no, I don't think so. I think this is. I think we've kind of codified now that this is what we're going to do going forward, at least in this administration. And it would be foolish for a future opposite administration to decide, you know what? Let's get back to the way things were during the Cold War. That, to me, is the biggest pushback I've Gotten as I've talked to other people around me, general officers and the like, everybody wants to go back to the Cold War and everything was crystal clear and who the enemy was, those days are over. This new doctrine gives us a thing to look over the horizon for. And I think that's why I'm excited about it.

Joe Getty (14:08)

And as we often say, everything's downstream of culture. So I think the real task is to just reinstate in the American culture the notion that, hey, the stronger we are, the less violence and war there is. So, yes, we have to have deterrence and.

Mike Lyons (14:21)

Right. That's a proverbial no brainer in this whole thing. Absolutely right.

Joe Getty (14:25)

Amen. Mike Lyons, military analyst. Mike, thanks. Well done. Great piece in the Journal. We'll have links so people can find it quickly. Great to talk to you.

Mike Lyons (14:34)

Yeah, thanks for having me and I appreciate you. Let me talk about it.

Joe Getty (14:36)

You bet, Absolutely.

Jack Armstrong (14:37)

Congratulations.

Joe Getty (14:40)

Yeah.

Jack Armstrong (14:40)

I wish more people understood that it's not you don't care about young men's lives to get involved in some of this stuff, it's to have less young men's lives on the line because the world knows you can't mess around.

Joe Getty (14:58)

And if you believe, if we're nice to all the other countries, they'll be nice to us. You're, I'm sure, a lovely person, but you're a naive fool and you need to get over here.

Jack Armstrong (15:05)

You're an idiot.

Joe Getty (15:06)

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Jack Armstrong (15:25)

It's not your dog's food. It's something you put on your current dog's food. Well, your current dog and your. The current food you feed your dog. Dog is what I mean.

Joe Getty (15:32)

Don't put it on your current dog.

Jack Armstrong (15:34)

You don't have to.

Joe Getty (15:34)

That would be weird.

Jack Armstrong (15:35)

Yeah, that sentence was a mess. You don't have to change your dog's food. You keep the same dog food and you put Rough Greens on there with the probiotics, enzymes, omega oils, and over 20 live vitamins and minerals. And you can try it for free. Really? You just cover the shipping. Get a free Jump Start Jump Start trial bag today for your dog. Just cover the shipping. When you go to roughgreens.com and use the discount code, Armstrong supports your pup's

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Jack Armstrong (16:11)

I gotta say I want to hear again that AI song made from the texts between a husband and his pregnant wife. I thought that was so entertaining. I do want to hear it again this hour at some point. Why not? Among other things on the way. Stay here.

Mike Lyons (16:26)

There's no more escalation management. We are completely all in when it comes to combat. We're back to MacArthur and Patton fighting wars again. And it's long overdue.

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Joe Getty (16:39)

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Jack Armstrong (16:52)

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Jack Armstrong (17:11)

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Ethos.com Armstrong Greatness is on the clock. The 2026 NFL Draft, presented by Bud Light, is underway. Catch all remaining rounds live from Pittsburgh on NFL Network, ESPN and ABC. NFL Network is also streaming with NFL Plus. It all continues tonight at 7pm Eastern. Visit NFL.com Dream for more information. Subscription required for NFL Plus. Visit Plus.NFL.com for terms if you're feeling

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Jack Armstrong (20:11)

So I guess this is a thing as Somebody just texted me people taking text conversations they have with their kids or their husbands or wives or bosses or whatever and then having AI make

Joe Getty (20:24)

a song out of it.

Jack Armstrong (20:25)

And I'm sure they vary in quality from awful to fantastic. Here's a fantastic one that we heard a little bit earlier. This is the texts between a husband and his pregnant wife. And they turned the texts into a song. And it's pretty good.

Pregnant Wife (AI Song) (20:40)

Where are you? I might not make it. Starving. Can you please find me food? Starving but can nothing sound good? My back is broken and the baby is pumping Punching my ribs I'm still dying Hell, I'm dying Trying to sleep but I'm dying I can't, no, I can't move I'm sad you cheated on me in my dreams Just started flooding and getting nauseous Will I make it?

Joe Getty (21:22)

God, that's good.

Jack Armstrong (21:23)

Good. Oh, that is so funny when they throw in the little Stop. She says help.

Katie (Pregnant Wife's Friend) (21:31)

I'm very tempted to go back through my texts with Drew and see how many of those line up because I'm sure many do.

Jack Armstrong (21:38)

I'm so.

Joe Getty (21:39)

I'm afraid your text would not be safe for work.

Jack Armstrong (21:42)

Right.

Joe Getty (21:42)

Little song that's fair.

Jack Armstrong (21:44)

I'm so sad. You cheated on me in my dream. That is so good.

Katie (Pregnant Wife's Friend) (21:50)

Cried about that the other day.

Jack Armstrong (21:51)

Didn't happen. Why is that such a common one? I suppose for the obvious reasons. Right. You're just going through all your fears,

Katie (Pregnant Wife's Friend) (21:58)

your biggest fears, and like the worst

Jack Armstrong (22:00)

thing that could happen at this time.

Joe Getty (22:01)

Yeah.

Jack Armstrong (22:02)

Yeah. The importance of your marriage is really, really becoming evident. Yeah.

Joe Getty (22:09)

Oh, yes. Yes. More than just a cheerful companion. Yeah. You kind of need that to hold together.

Mike Lyons (22:16)

Yeah.

Joe Getty (22:17)

How interesting. That funny.

Jack Armstrong (22:19)

That's hilarious. I'm dying.

Katie (Pregnant Wife's Friend) (22:23)

My back is broken. The baby's punching me in the ribs.

Jack Armstrong (22:28)

So we're gonna do a couple of stories coming up. Have you heard about microluting? Oh, it's gonna make you mad.

Joe Getty (22:34)

Oh, my golly.

Jack Armstrong (22:36)

When you hear about that. We got some new stuff about the Southern Poverty Law center and that whole paying racists to show up to parades. So then you can complain about racists at parades and raise money.

Joe Getty (22:49)

I'm not sure they will get convicted of the charges, but I am sure to the extent anybody's paying attention to this, they will be outed for what they are.

Jack Armstrong (22:59)

Good.

Joe Getty (23:00)

Absolute grift.

Jack Armstrong (23:01)

Good. Got this story. Elon retweeted it and it's pretty interesting. China is putting eight and a half billion dollars toward a giant data center in space for the whole AI race. And Elon had been talking about it for a while and now it's going to be a race between us and them and maybe Elon and them. Because I don't know if our. If NASA's planning on doing this. Probably not. They don't care about an AI center, I don't think. Anyway, I know Elon wants to put an AI center in space. The idea is that it's minus 270 degrees Celsius. Well, it's absolute zero in space. And so all these data centers can run so much more efficiently and cheaply than having to cool them on Earth, which is one of the biggest costs you have with these giant computing centers. Anyway, so China's got $9 billion you're going to put toward it like as soon as they can, and Elon's going to do it. And that's going to be something. According to this, whoever does it first is going to rule AI on planet Earth. I hope that's not true.

Commercial Announcer (24:09)

Armstrong and Getty greatness is on the clock. The 2026 NFL Draft, presented by Bud Light, is underway. Catch all remaining rounds live from Pittsburgh on NFL Network, ESPN and ABC. NFL Network is also streaming with NFL Plus. It all continues tonight at 7pm Eastern. Visit NFL.com draft for more information. Subscription required for NFL plus, visit plus.NFL.com for turns.

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Santa Monica Local (26:41)

The Misfit went out of business after 15 years. One of my favorite bars, Kings and Queens is gone. I think there's a guy over there taking a share. T is gone. Lania's gone. Anthropology is done. The head of downtown Santa Monica just killed himself and his wife in a murder suicide. But we are getting a Taco Bell so things are going great.

Jack Armstrong (27:01)

That's somebody kind of with a sarcastic, lighthearted look at walking along the promenade there in Santa Monica where all the businesses have closed down or so many of them have closed down. Used to be a vibrant, exciting, touristy area. And now not so much.

Joe Getty (27:19)

Yeah, bums, junkies and crime, in essence, non enforcement of criminal statutes that happens to be on the West Coast. We will switch our gaze to the east, in which New York City is dealing with a tremendous amount of property crime and shoplifting and the like, which many, many cities in blue states in particular are dealing with, but not exclusively because, you know, the culture has changed. But a couple of different articles on the topic. Number one in the New York Post, they're writing about how the Democrats favorite podcaster, this Hassan piker monster who's having a moment. He's explaining recently how stealing and murder are okay, especially if it's like a big business of Whole Foods. You can absolutely shoplift from them. It's more complicated when it comes to small businesses. But yeah, you can absolutely steal from the big businesses. And then he gets into. He's a proud Marxist. And really anybody who calls themselves a Marxist at this point is either an idiot or a slow learner. But he, he condones the murder of that poor healthcare executive in cold blood New York City, based on Friedrich Engel's concept of social murder, that a healthcare executive is engaging in a tremendous amount of social murder. The systemized forms of violence, the structural violence of poverty and so on. It's amazing how these people always work back to no moral boundaries exist for them because they are so righteous. So the right to steal, to murder, to censor, they should be trusted with that because they're so righteous. I'm going to get back to stealing in a minute, but I love that. Who wrote this? Oh, I think it was Douglas Murray, the fabulous Douglas Murray. He's writing about this piker piece of crap. And Douglas points out, and this is funny, at the height of the 2020 riots, you remember this, there was a book entitled, it was published entitled In Defense of Looting.

Jack Armstrong (29:23)

Yeah, yeah.

Joe Getty (29:25)

And Doug Murray says, I at the time I asked a bookshop in New York which was prominently displaying the work, really proud of themselves. It was their featured book in the front. Of course he asked him whether I could walk out with a book without paying. And I was told no, absolutely not. But a friend did download it and published the work for free online before being served a copyright notice by the pro looting books publisher.

Jack Armstrong (29:49)

That's hilarious.

Joe Getty (29:51)

It really is. And then Douglas Murray writes, some of us had hoped that the madness of that summer had gone away, but this week we got a good reminder that for part of the left, the question of whether or not it is right to steal is still being mulled over and he talks about Piker and what we've already discussed and how Piker thinks New York deserved 9 11. He's praised Hamas, happily describes himself as a, as a Marxist. Which brings us to the controversy du jour, the concept of micro looting. Another leftist podcast that's very popular. A lefty New York writer who lives in a two and a half million dollar Brooklyn brownstone has elicited fury from actual hard working New Yorkers after she claimed it was just fine to shoplift on a podcast praising microluding, a trendy new term for stealing from big companies such as Whole Foods. This on the New York Times opinion podcast. Okay, wow, okay, the New York Times.

Jack Armstrong (30:50)

I thought it was just like her own podcast. I didn't realize it was part of the New York Times umbrella. Wow.

Joe Getty (30:56)

New Yorker writer Gia Tolentino describes the quote several times she swiped items from Whole Foods, adding that she didn't feel bad because it's a big corporation. And the podcast is entitled the Rich don't play by the Rules so why should I. Oh my. Praised microluting as a form anti capitalist protest.

Jack Armstrong (31:17)

Oh my God.

Joe Getty (31:19)

Yeah, yeah.

Jack Armstrong (31:20)

And you're you. You live in a brownstone up there by Central park in New York. You are among the most privileged people on earth.

Joe Getty (31:31)

Right?

Jack Armstrong (31:31)

Right. By definition. And you're stealing lemons from Whole Foods.

Joe Getty (31:37)

Interestingly, some of the comments I think are absolutely fabulous. We don't usually engage in the Twitter went wild, one said. But I think these comments are absolutely terrific. She is rich and I am not. We don't live on the same planet at all, said one 49 year old woman who lives in public housing. She said because of her, they'll raise the price and I have to pay more. She's hurting me, not helping me.

Jack Armstrong (32:01)

That's a pretty good, very practical point to make. Yes. They can't just absorb, they don't just absorb the theft, they have to raise prices to make up for it. So. So it's not gonna bother you since you're obviously quite well to do, but it is going to bother the poor people that you seem to care about.

Joe Getty (32:21)

Right.

Jack Armstrong (32:23)

The lack of understanding of the way things work on the most basic economic level just blows my mind.

Joe Getty (32:31)

On the podcast, opinion culture editor Nadja Spiegelman describes microluting, quote unquote as a way of sticking it to billionaire Bezos who owns Whole Foods, I guess, or part of of some umbrella corporation. What I'm seeing on TikTok and social media is people saying that they're stealing from Whole Foods not just for the thrill of it, but out of a feeling of anger and moral justification because the rich don't play by the rules, so why should we? And Jeff Bezos has too much money. He's a billionaire. So why should I have to pay for organic avocados? I mean, people slapped hard and then slapped the people running the school systems. I agree. Petty theft might be the new political protest. The opinion piece notes in a printed online version.

Jack Armstrong (33:14)

Katie, It's a different situation, but you got to tell your classic story of the people walking out of the store when you were walking in.

Katie (Pregnant Wife's Friend) (33:22)

Oh, yeah, yeah. Standing in line waiting to pay. And these. I think it was like a group of like three people. They filled up a cart with booze and all sorts of stuff. And then as they were walking out, turned around and said something along the lines of, all y' all MF and losers gonna pay, and just.

Jack Armstrong (33:43)

Just walked out.

Katie (Pregnant Wife's Friend) (33:43)

Nobody did anything.

Joe Getty (33:45)

Right? Right. If you don't think that's the crumbling of society, you're a fool.

Jack Armstrong (33:49)

Right, Right. When it's that blatant. Yeah. Because at some point they're right. I mean, you can't structure a society that way for very long. But at some point, point I am an idiot for paying because what is. What is going on here?

Joe Getty (34:05)

One final note from the Marxist communist terrorist sympathizer piker. I'm pro stealing from big corporations because they steal quite a bit more from their own workers. Oh. Oh, my God. These people will. They will justify any monstrosity and in their own minds. And then the final note on this that I found so discouraging. Oh, my God. I see an article in the Wall Street Journal. New York City is beating the post pandemic shoplifting scourge. And I'm like, oh, wow, interesting. What's New York doing? Here's the subhead. Plexiglass anti theft barriers have frustrated shoppers trying to buy everyday items. But signs of a turnaround are growing. The way New York beat shoplifting is by locking everything up.

Jack Armstrong (34:53)

Up.

Joe Getty (34:54)

That's the angle of the article. Retail theft is down a little over 20% in the city for the first quarter of this year compared to last year. And they see that as a victory.

Jack Armstrong (35:09)

The obviously well to do chick who steals lemons at Whole Foods and doesn't feel guilty about it. The microluding thing. She had to be taught that by her parents, didn't she?

Joe Getty (35:23)

Or her teacher. I don't know. Her teachers. Her teachers and professors.

Jack Armstrong (35:26)

The reason I Asked, that is. I remember the first time I ever heard this sort of thing. And then I didn't hear it again for decades. Only read about it. First time I ever encountered it in my life. I'm in. Gladys, do you work here anymore? Jeez. I was looking at our statement the other day and her salary's still coming out of the account. When's the last time you played the harp, Gladys?

Joe Getty (35:53)

I don't know why you have to be so abusive. Anyway, you were saying.

Jack Armstrong (35:58)

She's nodding. I think she's on the smack. She kind of.

Joe Getty (36:03)

Wow, wow, wow. That's.

Jack Armstrong (36:08)

Anyway, it was. It was shop class and. Thank you, Gladys. They playing it twice now doesn't make up for not playing it for a month. Okay.

Joe Getty (36:15)

Oh my God, please.

Jack Armstrong (36:18)

I was shop class, eighth grade. My shop teacher who called me Mr. Knofer because he thought that was funny. Jack can offer.

Joe Getty (36:29)

Hilarious. He deserved to lose all those fingers.

Jack Armstrong (36:35)

Anyway. And I remember the kid's name, but I'm not going to say it because I don't know where he's ended up. Probably not anywhere good. He did something. I'm not exactly sure what it was. It's like he destroyed something. Anyway, I said, what are you doing? I mean that's. And I said something like, that's cheating or stealing maybe. I said, that's stealing. Probably because of that. Because. And then he said, I don't care. They stole an education from me or they cheated me out of an education or something like that. And I remember being so. I never encountered anything like that in my life. I mean, because I'm from rural Midwest and nobody talked like that. Nobody. This kid did. And he was the kind of kid that got all decent Fs. He probably had a horrible home life. If I knew his home life, I probably would have been very compassionate about his situation. In my mind, everybody had two parents telling them to work hard and do well because that's the only thing I'd encountered in my life. And, and, and so it probably wasn't like that for him, but him saying they cheated me out of a good education. And I remember just standing there like I couldn't even hardly wrap my head around it because I just had never been exposed to that as a 14 year old, 15 year old at all. Um, and then finding out, you know, many, many years later doing this job and everything like that, that there are whole neighborhoods or towns of people that believe the reason things are going poorly for them is somebody else did it to them.

Mike Lyons (38:03)

Them.

Joe Getty (38:04)

And they are thereby excused from following the universal rules of decency. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Now there is a little more decent news out of New York. Part of what's turned the shoplifting around is not just locking up my toothpaste, but the NYPD is deploying officers to subway stations that shoplifters use as escape routes from some of the most hit retail stores. And the department is also encouraging retail retailers. Report thefts. Report all of it, says NYPD Chief Michelle or Michael Lapitri. I don't care if it's 30 bucks worth of merchandise. Call the NYPD, call 91 1. Make that complaint report. We want to know about it. I love that. Enforcing the law. How long will the Islamist mayor allow them to keep doing that? Probably not for long, but you know, the next. Here it is. Here's the Armstrong and Getty T shirt that will sell a million. Our first million selling product. Big block letters. Do we have a period after every word, Jack, the way people do online?

Jack Armstrong (39:12)

It's so dramatic.

Joe Getty (39:14)

Enforce period. The period law. Period.

Jack Armstrong (39:17)

That's a good one. That's a freaking good one.

Joe Getty (39:21)

Oh, my God.

Jack Armstrong (39:22)

Copyrighted or trademark it or something quick.

Joe Getty (39:26)

I want. I'm like OpenAI before it went crooked. I want everybody to have this.

Jack Armstrong (39:32)

So we did back on our coast. We didn't do this story. I meant to the other day. Bart, which is our. In San Francisco, it's our subway system, basically. BART put in new gates, so they used to have a regular kind of turnstile if you've ever been through it. Subway. And people jumped them all the time. They just hopped over them so they didn't have to pay. And so they put up these big, tall plastic doors. Now you can't get through without paying. And the amount of money they've saved. Last year I saw the total is $10 million. So I got. It's a tremendous amount of money. But it was presented as such a good news story, which I guess ultimately it is. But.

Joe Getty (40:07)

Well, the money was saved on maintenance for damage and vandalism and people peeing in the cars and the rest of it.

Jack Armstrong (40:14)

Yeah. Not only do you get all the fares, but the kind of person who's jumping is the kind of person that pees on the car or defaces the Whatever. But what bothered me is, yeah, that's good, but why didn't we need that for the previous 50 years? And now we do. That's the biggest problem.

Joe Getty (40:35)

Right, Right. That nobody's willing to talk about or write about generally.

Jack Armstrong (40:40)

How do you let society change so much in your lifetime that you need to do this.

Joe Getty (40:46)

Yeah. Yeah. And then Bart had to spend a lot of money changing all their billboards because their old slogan was Bart a toilet that can get you into the city.

Jack Armstrong (40:55)

Yeah, you might get stabbed, but at least it'll smell like urine.

Mike Lyons (41:01)

Fecal matter.

Joe Getty (41:03)

We gotta, we gotta workshop that one a little bit. I don't love

Katie (Pregnant Wife's Friend) (41:07)

would always go Bart and then the beep beep and you're there was their actual slogan. I used to go Bart and you've been mugged.

Jack Armstrong (41:14)

Yeah, beep beep.

Katie (Pregnant Wife's Friend) (41:16)

I can't believe that they had the cloth seats on those trains for as

Joe Getty (41:20)

long as they did, so. Ill advised.

Jack Armstrong (41:24)

Okay, we got more on the way. Stay here.

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Armstrong and Getty greatness is on the clock. The 2026 NFL Draft, presented by Bud Light, is underway. Catch all remaining rounds live from Pittsburgh on NFL Network, ESPN and ABC. NFL Network is also streaming with NFL Plus. It all continues tonight at 7pm Eastern. Visit NFL.com draft for more information. Subscription required for NFL Plus. Visit plus.NFL.com for terms if you're feeling

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Jack Armstrong (44:12)

So apparently this is a genre that I did not know about. People taking text conversations and then having AI turn them into songs. We played a hilarious one earlier. Do we already have it, Michael? So this one, this one. So Katie's was great because she's pregnant and she really related to the whole text between pregnant wife and husband. This one I get because I have a high schooler. This is a mom's text with her high schooler and she's actually in her car rock and singing the lyrics of the text and thing she gets from her son.

Pregnant Wife (AI Song) (44:42)

I don't have a suron.

Jack Armstrong (44:44)

Can I get Chipotle again?

Pregnant Wife (AI Song) (44:47)

Get me a saron soon. Can I have 15 bucks for in n out? Can you order me an acai bowl, girl? You're actually a Karen. Sign me out, please.

Mike Lyons (44:59)

I don't bro.

Pregnant Wife (AI Song) (45:00)

And in a few months I'm getting a saron. I'm still getting.

Joe Getty (45:14)

I don't know what some of those words are.

Jack Armstrong (45:15)

That. That is not the one that I listen to. So that's completely different than what I heard. But anyway, it was all about can I get $15 please?

Joe Getty (45:24)

Hello, are you there?

Jack Armstrong (45:25)

Please text me back, I need $15. I'm going out to eat with my friends. Hello? Where are you? You know, that sort of thing. And the suron is the electric motorcycle that every kid rides around. And so I can't get there because all my friends have a siron and I don't have a siron. Can I get a siron please? I really need a sir on. That's the non stop high school conversation Hanson just said in my ear. That's the same thing he gets from his kid and the never ending. I need 20 bucks for Chipotle. Hello, are you there? I need 20 bucks for Chipotle. Oh my God. What I'm excited about which is going to answer that situation is getting a job starting here the summer all of a sudden.

Joe Getty (46:05)

Answer for me.

Jack Armstrong (46:05)

You'll be paying for your own food and then you can spend it all on food if you want or none of it on food. These are your choices to make.

Katie (Pregnant Wife's Friend) (46:13)

I'm pretty sure in that song he said, bruh, you're being a Karen.

Joe Getty (46:17)

What I'd miss that.

Jack Armstrong (46:21)

I need a suron. All my friends have a suron.

Joe Getty (46:24)

Oh boy.

Jack Armstrong (46:25)

I just saw a thing on the news to turn it serious. Some kid crashed on his probably Siron or we have a Talaria same thing thing. And the the parents got charged with some sort of letting your kid operate a motor vehicle thing that you some some reason you're in violation or something or other. But towns have not figured out how to deal with this and it is everywhere. Every time I go into they're gangs of kids on these things and it's just that the they're just riding everywhere. Nobody's wearing helmets, zigzagging in and out.

Joe Getty (47:04)

And it's sometimes I don't get society. All right. This is the same sort of vehicle. It just has a different propulsion system. Well, I got no idea how to regulate that.

Jack Armstrong (47:15)

I just don't know what to do. I think it's because people are so in favor of electric vehicles. I haven't figured out what allowed this to happen because if I'd have just jumped on my 125 dirt bike back in the day and ridden around town, I would have got a ticket. But nobody does now for some reason you miss an hour. Get the podcast Armstrong and Getty Greatness

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Reynolds Kitchens Ad Voice (49:09)

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