It's a Gas Gas Gas...Or, More Endangered Than Pandas--The Filibuster

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Episode: "It's a Gas Gas Gas...Or, More Endangered Than Pandas--The Filibuster"

Date: March 19, 2026
Hosts: Jack Armstrong & Joe Getty

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Overview

This episode centers on escalating military developments in the Middle East—particularly a dramatic uptick in conflict involving Israel, Iran, Qatar, and the Gulf States, with wide-ranging geopolitical and economic ramifications. The hosts also touch on major domestic stories, such as the fallout from new allegations against civil rights figure Cesar Chavez, rising US war expenditures, polling about Trump voters, and ongoing trends like “shrinkflation” in consumer goods and dog breed popularity. The tone is direct, sardonic, and conversational, mixing serious analysis with signature A&G humor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Middle East Conflict Escalation

• Largest escalation since war began: Israel attacked Iran’s portion of the world's largest natural gas field (South Pars/North Dome) without apparent US consultation ([02:00]).
• Wider regional involvement: Iran retaliated by striking Qatar’s side of the field—Qatar vocally angry, Saudi Arabia signaling willingness to intervene by “every means necessary.” ([03:00])
• Geopolitical chain reactions: Saudi Arabia and potentially other Gulf states may directly engage against Iran—possibly “today,” per the hosts. ([03:31])
• US and China entanglements:
  • Rising oil prices benefit Russia and could drag China in, since China depends heavily on Iranian gas ([04:25]).
  • Trump, via Truth Social, strongly denied US prior knowledge of the Israeli strikes and demanded it not recur; uncertain if this is posturing or genuine displeasure ([03:33]).

Notable Quote

“So it’s quite possible the Gulf states are going to get fully involved in this war like today—pounding the crap out of Iran.”
—Jack ([03:31])

• Media/Cultural impacts: US media discourse, fears of “spinning out of control” like World War I; “Spidey sense” that escalation could become uncontrollable ([06:11], [08:45]).
• European disengagement: Europe seen as “irrelevant”; UK’s military response hampered by peacetime work shifts ([09:22]).
• Unconfirmed rumors: Iranian Supreme Leader possibly incapacitated and in Russia ([29:09]).

Memorable Segment

“The repair crew on that dockyard only works nine to five shifts, I believe five days a week including during wartime. And so its deployment was delayed by more than a week.”
—Joe ([10:19])

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2. US Domestic Fallout

• Military expenditures: Pentagon asking for $200 billion more for the war—major public debate looming ([13:05]).
• Leadership & investigations: FBI is investigating Joe Kent (ex-counterterrorism head and now right-wing star/Tucker Carlson favorite) for allegedly leaking classified info ([14:01]).
• Cabinet irrelevance: Trump fills strategic positions for political reasons, but runs things tightly from the White House itself ([15:16]).
• Polling on Trump & the War:
  • MAGA/conservative base still strongly supports actions against Iran, contrary to narratives pushed by Tucker Carlson and others ([20:42]).
  • “Media pretends the MAGA influencers speak for everyone.”
    —Jack ([20:48])
  • Vandenberg Coalition poll: 84% of Trump voters (and 94% of MAGA self-identified) support military action for key strategic goals ([23:12]).

Notable Quotes

“Much of the criticism of Operation Epic Fury comes from the likes of the Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, the Israel obsessed podcaster Tucker Carlson, and Megyn Kelly, who’s lost her mind.”
—Joe ([22:41])

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3. Cultural/Consumer Tangents

• “Shrinkflation” Rants: Longstanding A&G riff—tissues packed too tightly, toilet paper wound too loosely, pointing to subtle ways companies respond to economic pressures. ([06:20])
• Dog Breed Rankings: American Kennel Club’s top breeds for 2025—French Bulldog retains #1. Mockery about breed fads and owner cluelessness. ([17:30])
• California Billionaire Exodus: Wells Fargo joins the exodus to Florida amid tax-threatened climate ([16:12]).
• Cesar Chavez Allegations Fallout: Widespread institutional name changes after explosive abuse allegations; expect national controversy if similar things happen regarding MLK ([16:39]).

Notable Quote

“Super French bulldog, please. You get that dog—it works about seven hours a week then goes on strike. Am I wrong?”
—Joe ([17:54])

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4. Humor, Personal Asides, and Silliness

• Punch the Monkey’s love life: Ongoing A&G in-joke about a stuffed animal, drawing parallels to psychological “rescue fantasies” ([12:24], [32:31]).
• March Madness & Gambling: Light riff on how not watching basketball for the season is “the key to winning your bracket.” ([31:07])
• Oil Investing Bit: Jack's imaginary barrels of crude oil stored in his garage and plans to DIY refine them ([25:57]).

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Notable Quotes with Speaker Attribution & Timestamps

• On the Gulf States jumping in:
  “Man, if the Gulf states join Israel in a war, that’s a heck of a thing. But I don’t know, maybe that ends it faster.” —Jack ([11:05])

• On the unpredictability of escalation:
  “I normally have some sense of where things are going… Wide open.” —Joe ([30:14]) “This is—it might be on the verge of spinning completely out of control. And who the hell knows where it’s going?” —Jack ([30:18])

• On US war spending:
  “The Pentagon is asking for $200 billion more dollars for the war effort, which is going to get a lot of attention.” —Jack ([13:05])

• On European military readiness:
  “Scramble the planes? Uh, the pilots get off in 10 minutes…” —Joe ([10:38])

• On pollster/media distortion:
  “Not only do Tucker and Candace and this Joe Kent guy act like they speak for MAGA, all of mainstream media pretends that they do.” —Jack ([20:48])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Middle East escalation detailed: [01:54]–[06:11]
• Relationship between US, Israel, and Trump statements: [03:33]–[04:27]
• Implications for Russia and China: [04:54]–[05:37]
• European (non-)engagement and UK response: [09:22]–[10:55]
• US political fallout (Joe Kent, Cabinet, polling): [14:01]–[23:12]
• Economic/consumer topics (dog breeds, shrinkflation): [17:30]–[19:10], [06:20]–[07:15]
• Cesar Chavez story fallout: [16:39]–[17:18]
• Oil price tangent / comedy segment: [25:57]–[27:00]
• Rumors about Iran’s Ayatollah: [29:09]–[29:51]
• Overall uncertainty and escalation fears: [30:14]–[30:26]
• Mailbag and Punch the Monkey tangent: [32:31]–[33:13]

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Flow & Tone

Armstrong & Getty maintain their trademark blend of irreverent humor and gruff skepticism, cutting through official narratives and media melodrama with sardonic asides, cultural riffs, and listener engagement. They move rapidly among world affairs, domestic controversies, and lighter fare, always anchoring their commentary in plainspoken, sometimes biting insight; at times, darkly comic as escalation in the Gulf becomes almost surreal in pace and consequence.

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For Listeners Who Missed The Episode

This episode is both a real-time reaction to a potential turning point in Middle Eastern affairs and a wry running commentary on American politics and society in turbulent times. The hosts’ arch observations and irrepressible asides provide context, skepticism, and laughs amid some genuinely historic (and alarming) news.

To keep up or catch up:
Full episodes and highlights are available via Armstrong & Getty On Demand.

Transcript

[A]

This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human.

[B]

Broadcasting.

[A]

Live from the Abraham Lincoln radio studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack

[B]

Armstrong and Joe Getty. Armstrong and Getty. And now here's Armstrong and Getty. Live from Studio C. Little Friday already.

[A]

We are dimly lit room the Armstrong and Getty Communications compound. And today we are broadcasting under the title of the show.

[B]

It's a gas, gas, gas or more endangered than pandas, the filibuster.

[A]

There you go. Fantastic. Looking at the list of things that have already been renamed, named that used to be named for Cesar Chavez. I got a list up there. Oh, wow. Because we are broadcasting from Sacramento, California. That's got stuff with Caesar Chavez's name on it all over the place, like all over the place. And I'm looking at a list of a bunch of things I didn't even know that were named after him right around here. And they've already changed the names because of the explosive New York Times story that came out yesterday that we mentioned where he clearly seems to have been raping a 13 year old. And I doubt that was the only time he did it.

[B]

Multiple teenagers. Yes. And an adult specifically.

[A]

Yeah. So I think that happened fast.

[B]

Well, the politicians needed a hispan Hispanic saint to worship performatively to get the Hispanic vote and they chose this bloke. Turns out may have been a little premature. So what are you going to do?

[A]

Back to your headlines, the gas, gas, gas. So holy crap. I was taking a bunch of punditry today from your military analysts and everything like that. Yesterday was the biggest escalation since the war began. If you weren't paying attention. And that is saying something. So what are we, 16 days in or something like that. Israel attacked. So this, the largest natural gas field in the world, straddles Iran and Qatar.

[B]

Qatar.

[A]

And so both countries got part of it and Israel attacked the Iran portion of that without apparently talking to the United States about it because Trump seems angry about it. Now you never know if that's performative or not and maybe for good reason. When it comes to wartime, sometimes your performative has perfectly legitimate reasons to not be honest.

[B]

If you're killing people and blowing stuff up, yes, sometimes fibbing is okay. Right.

[A]

If it, if it helps your cause in the short term. But so Israel hit that and Iran struck back on Qatar's side. Qatar, which had been not involved in the war up to this point and they are very, very angry. And then Saudi Arabia's representative, I saw this morning on Fox talking about we are going to do everything we have to do economically, militarily, diplomatically, to make this stop. So it's quite possible the Gulf states are going to get fully involved in this war like today.

[B]

Pounding the crap out of Iran.

[A]

Pounding the crap out of Iran. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Trump put out a strongly worded truth social last night around this whole thing. Who said the United States knew nothing about this particular attack and the country of a. Qatar was in no way, shape or form involved with it, nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen. Happen. That was the first one. And then the second one was this will not happen again. Israel struck the gas field without us having any knowledge of it whatsoever. And Israel will not do this again. I don't know if he thinks he can tell Israel what they can and can't do or is hoping he can or what.

[B]

But yeah, yeah, I would be fascinated the. The relationship. I'd be fascinated to know how the relationship actually works. It's absolutely not what your Tucker, Candace, paranoid lunatic crowd is claiming, but Joe Kent, sure.

[A]

Joe Canton, Tucker, last night I watched it. Part of it. It's like three hours long.

[B]

Too long. Too long. Didn't watch. But yeah, I wonder what that relationship is because they have, you know, overlapping goals, we and the Israelis, but not, you know, 100 overlapping. But the idea of regional tit for tat. I'll smash up your oil fields. Yeah, I'll smash up your oil field. That's not going to do anybody any good.

[A]

No, certainly. Certainly not for the price of. And I mean, there's just so many tentacles to this because first of all, the price of oil has a lot to do with Russia's ability to survive as a nation. We wanted the price really, really low because it was just strangling them economically. And I don't know if you remember, but there's. They've got a war going on against Ukraine now. The price of oil is high, which is good for Russia. And then you got the China thing. China gets almost all the natural gas that Iran's taken out of that largest gas field in the world is going to China. And now it's been blowed up. At what point does China decide we

[B]

got to do something?

[A]

I don't know what we do, but I don't know whose side to be on here.

[B]

But yeah, wow. Which way does Xi Jinping swing? He. He has no friends. He just has, you know, carrots and sticks and no alliances that mean anything.

[A]

I don't, I don't, I don't know that I believe in inklings. Feelings, Spider sense, that sort of stuff. With all issues. With some issues, but not all issues. But man, I. Maybe I've. Maybe I've just been taking in too much of the mainstream media, that is, you know, often seems like they're rooting for us to lose and would be happy if it happened so that they could blame Trump.

[B]

Yeah, the. The country is the president in their view, whether it's a Democrat or Republican.

[A]

I'll talk about that more.

[B]

More later.

[A]

I'm having trouble getting a tissue out of my box. Sometimes they. They stuff tissues in boxes so tightly that when you need one, you can't get it out. Have you ever had that?

[B]

You've been spending a fair amount of time in the gym, but apparently more is needed. Those tissues are just like. You pull and you pull and they won't come out.

[A]

Haven't ever had that problem. They're all. They pack them so tightly in the box. I don't know if it's cheaper to make a smaller box as possible. I remember this being a problem years ago, but now they're so tightly. You pull it out, they just all rip apart.

[B]

Well, now, this runs contrary to my nose. Feel free. Oh, Lord. You could turn off your mic. God dang it.

[A]

Come on, Jack.

[B]

But, yeah, no kidding. But this runs contrary to my absolutely correct theory that the shrinkflation that's affected toilet paper is that they don't wind it as tight. Ah, yes. I've heard multiple people say, man, we could go on through toilet paper quickly.

[A]

That's. I'm sure there's an adjustment on the

[B]

winder in the factories.

[A]

And so, you know, just what used

[B]

to last three days.

[A]

1. But anyway, just been on the winder at the factory. Yeah.

[B]

I'm not engineer. Technical terms, the jargon. Stop it.

[A]

But.

[B]

So you've got some nice tightly packed tissues there. Congratulations.

[A]

Okay, so back to my spidey sense thing.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

You know, neurologists, people who studied these things would suggest that you have made subconscious connections and calculations that you're not even aware of.

[A]

Right. And I get that with like you're walking through a parking garage and that your spidey sense is telling you something's off. I believe in that 100%. I'm not so sure about anything. That is, you're getting information from the media. Sometimes you've just been convinced by a lot of false input of something. I'm thinking of some people I know right now who believe various things just because of their spidey sense of telling them really crazy Things because of taking. Because the inputs are very crazy. So it might just be I'm taking in too much of the, you know, Trump hating media or maybe I've had too much coffee. But I just, I feel like this might spin out of control this whole war in Iran thing. It just feels like after yesterday just ah, maybe it's because I've read so much about World War I in my life. Started pretty, pretty specific and then just spun out of control. Things can spin out of control. Unleash the dogs of war. Things can spin out of control. But man, well yesterday was without a doubt, this is not spidey sense, it's just factual. The biggest escalation day of the war.

[B]

I see some sort of international conference coming. I certainly hope we have learned from the past and cooler heads will foresee, you know, the chance for it to escalate and spin out of control. Where's your maybe get together and get our signals together.

[A]

Why is Europe playing no role in this?

[B]

Because they're irrelevant.

[A]

That'd be one reason for France or Great Britain or Germany to be involved is at least you'd have some say, you'd be at the table for, you know, yeah, we're going to help with some ships and we'll put some troops over here or whatever we got to do and this is what we think ought to happen. If you're not helping at all, you don't get to say nothing.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. You want to hear something notable? So Britain's air base in Cyprus was attacked by Iranian drones and the Brits scrambled to send the HMS Dragon, which is a ship, it's an anti aircraft and anti missile warship. It's like their best one to protect their base. But it turns out as they fired it up it needed repairs. And the repair crew on that dockyard only works nine to five shifts, I believe five days a week including during wartime. And so its deployment was delayed by more than a week.

[A]

Wow. Europe.

[B]

So it's like a.

[A]

Well company I had to call yesterday and it was after 4 o' clock so I couldn't get a hold of anybody. This is kind of an emergency but you think during wartime it wouldn't be like it. Yeah, we can't, I'm afraid we can't defend our bridge because it's after five.

[B]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Scramble the planes. Ah, the pilots get off in 10 minutes and we can't afford the overtime because of our moribund economy paralyzed by our zero emissions garbage that we adhered to for a couple of decades.

[A]

Is this Donald Rumsfeld's old Europe comment coming to life.

[B]

Oh, yeah, I think it's in full bloom. Yeah.

[A]

Be interesting to see what happens today if, if the Gulf states decide to join. Man, if the Gulf states join Israel in a war, that's a heck of a thing. But I don't know, maybe that ends it faster.

[B]

Yeah, they seem to be pissed off at Iran. They wanted the regime to leave anyway before all of this happened. But they're turning their ire not against the United States and Israel, as far as I can tell, toward Iran. So, yeah, so far Iran has no friends that are willing to do much other than Russia doing a little targeting of our boys. Thanks, Vladimir. Okay, there isn't much happening.

[A]

So before we start the show officially, Pete Hegseth, because he's doing a press conference, just said the largest strike package yet is coming today in Iran. So we're going to hit Iran harder than we've hit them, and we've hit them pretty damn hard. So gonna be quite a day. Let's start the show officially. I'm Jack Armstrong. He's Joe Getty on this. It is Thursday, March 19, the year 2026, where Armstrong and Gideon we approve of this program.

[B]

It's like the 12 days of Christmas song, but with explosions. Just keeps getting bigger and bigger. All right, let's begin officially. Now, according to FCC rules and regs at Mark apparently Punch the monkey has

[A]

a girlfriend

[B]

right now.

[A]

His stuffed orangutan for Mike, he is like, who the hell is she?

[B]

Wow. I help you through your hardest time and now this.

[A]

That's pretty good. Fantastic. On the fifth day of Christmas, my true will give to me a 5,000 pound bomb. How could it be a bigger strike day than any of we've had so far? Is that hyperbole or is that actually going to happen? I don't know.

[B]

Some point you got to like taper

[A]

it off, I think so. We'll get to some headlines on the way and a bunch of other stuff. Stay here.

[B]

Armstrong and Gettys.

[A]

Katie is not with us for the moment, so we're going to run through some of the headlines that we've got today. I don't know if this came up in Pete Hegseth's talk a little bit ago, but the Pentagon is asking for 200 billion more dollars for the war effort, which is going to get a lot of attention. Mark Halpern writing about that headline that it is the fiscal equivalent of Harry. And contractors say this renovation should only take a few weeks.

[B]

Wow. Yeah. That hit A little close to home. Yeah. Indeed. Iranians are saying attacks by Israel and the US Are gaining intensity, moving louder and moving closer. A businessman in Tehran said, soon we'll be like Gaza. We won't have electricity or heat or food. We'll have to see. Run by similar thinking, fellas.

[A]

By the way, I think CBS first reported this yesterday. Now everybody is reporting it. Joe Kent, the guy that left the post of running the counterterrorism center and said that Israel pushed us into war and all that sort of stuff. There's now a Tucker Carlson star. He's under investigation by the FBI for leaking classified information, multiple sources say, and this predated his departure. So it's possible that the FBI investigation about something he did that is full on traitorous and criminal had gotten pretty close and he decided to jump out as the hero.

[B]

Yeah. And when Tulsi Gabbard was grilled about him and the intelligence assessment and her differences with the president, she gave non answers. We'll play that audio a little bit later on. She did, though, at the hearing yesterday, she told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iran was years away from developing missiles capable of hitting the US which contradicted statements recently from the president. So that should be interesting to see unfold. I, I don't, I'm surprised Tulsi's lasted this long. I mean, she's like never seen at critical moments in critical meetings or.

[A]

No, I think Trump's play for a lot of this stuff is he puts people in charge of various things that help him politically, but he doesn't listen to him. So it doesn't make any difference to him that they're there. They just, you know, it, you know, you helped me get elected. I'll put you in that position. Knock yourself out. I'm not going to be paying any attention to you. So. Doesn't matter. Which has been the growing situation with our executive branch for a long time. The president runs everything out of his office with his close advisors and doesn't pay attention to cabinet members.

[B]

Yeah, Federal Reserve held rate steady for the second straight meeting. Blah, blah, blah. Jerome Powell, blah, blah, blah. Donald Trump. Speaking of conflict, Pakistan says it's going to pause airstrikes against Afghanistan. And in Colombia bombed Ecuador. Ecuador bombed Colombia or something. It's all over drug cartels and who's helping their cartels. And, and now the head of Columbia is asking Donald Trump to get involved in that one.

[A]

LA Times headline, California's billionaire exodus is not limited to individuals. Wells Fargo announces it's relocating from San Francisco to West Palm beach by year's end, LA Times. Good on you for pointing out that it's not just individual billionaires who are leaving and they are lots of them. Because of the possibility of the weirdo billionaire tax that people. It's polling very well in California. Companies like Wells Fargo and others are leaving.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Wow. And then speaking of California, this is rocked the nation, certainly the civil rights community, but especially in California, the Cesar Chavez rape story. Absolutely no one is denying it. Two women who say that he molested them as little girls. And then his, his great co worker Dolo Huerta, who co founded the United Farm Workers, says, yeah, he raped me too. So that one's over. When all the MLK stuff comes out next year, how many schools in parks and streets are going to have to change their names?

[A]

That one is going to be quite the national conversation.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[A]

We got a lot more on the way. A lot of news on the way. Hope you can join us. If you miss it, get the podcast. Armstrong and Getty on demand.

[B]

Armstrong and Gettysburg. The American Kennel Club out with its most popular dog breeds of 2025. The French Bulldog remains on top for the fourth year in a row.

[A]

Followed by the Labrador, golden retriever and German shepherd.

[B]

At number five, the dachshund.

[A]

Number six, the poodle, followed by the beagle, Rottweiler, German shorthaired pointer.

[B]

Nice, guys. That's mine. Axel. He'll like that. The bulldog comes in at number 10.

[A]

Fantastic.

[B]

Super French bulldog, please. You get that dog. It works about seven hours a week and then goes strike. Am I wrong?

[A]

Constantly smokes in the house. I don't like dogs that smoke in the house. Right.

[B]

Stupid.

[A]

It's funny how dogs, the, the, the, the most popular dog comes in and out of fashion. I know lots of people that got a French bulldog because it's the popular dog.

[B]

Yeah, Yeah. I don't think it's mindless joinerism entirely. Some of it might be, but some of it, you just see them and think, wow, that's a really endearing looking dog. It's. Each dog is an advertisement for its breed.

[A]

Right. I wonder why it changes though, whether it's the Jack Russell terrier or the. What was the one a couple of years ago?

[B]

I don't ever.

[A]

Now it's the French bulldog.

[B]

Number one novelty, I think. Number two, a lot of these hot breeds, they're not great pets.

[A]

Right.

[B]

They don't see. They don't actually suit people's lifestyles and people are so dumb. Present company accepted. Of Course that they don't look into the needs and the, you know, tendencies of a breed to figure out if they match up with themselves. People getting herding dogs that need constant exercise in a little apartment and they work nine hours a day.

[A]

It's just.

[B]

It's. It's bad. Anyway, on a totally different and highly and certainly more relevant, not as judgmental. Oh, no, it'll be judgmental. Trump has not lost his voters over Iran, according to pollsters specifically. Excuse me, my headline, my personal headline, wife has flu, and I'm just waiting. Oh, wow.

[A]

No kidding. Do you know which type? Because my dad had it a while back. There's a couple different types going around, so.

[B]

No clue. No clue. It's just we were both exposed Friday night.

[A]

And it happened that fast?

[B]

Well, yeah. Five, six days. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. What? What, what, what is it looking like? My dad's was pretty bad. He's. He's almost 89, so that doesn't help.

[B]

It's. It's just started, so I don't know. I hope it's not gonna be bad, my sweetheart, but we'll see. And then me, I certainly hope I'm not bad. I feel. Okay.

[A]

You'll fight it off with your.

[B]

Your.

[A]

Your moose like constitution Strong like bull.

[B]

Exactly. Or bull moose. Yes.

[A]

Duh.

[B]

So anyway, back to the poll.

[A]

Let's see.

[B]

This is it. What is this organization? Oh, well, actually, I read a piece from Karl Rove who's talking about the. The small but influential group of MAGA media figures who claim to speak for MAGA are. Are against the warrior Tucker, Candace and. Yes.

[A]

And the mainstream media acts like they do speak for media for maga.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Not only does do Tucker and Candace and this Joe Kent guy act like they speak for maga, all of mainstream media pretends that they do speak for maga. So it does leave that impression with crowd that does know better than these polls come out. And you think, no, not everybody's on board with Tucker.

[B]

Right, Right. And of course, the media is also rooting for America to fail because they hate their own country. And if there's a Republican president, they. They desire nothing more than that that person fail. Anyway, a bit from Rove, then I'll get into the poll. I wanted to hit these podcasters, youtubers and independent journalists have decided President Trump's action or a betrayal of maga. To them, he's an unwitting tool of the Israelis or as some on the neo isolationist right, say the Jews. Today's Tuesday's resignation of Joe Kent as National Counterterrorism center director will enthuse the blame it on the Jews chorus. Mr. Kent blamed the pressure from Israel. The powerful American. We all, we went through that.

[A]

Joe Kent is so incredibly full of crap. It is, I mean, by, by, by the standard of people who are regularly full of crap, he stands out. It's amazing as people have unearthed old comments that he's made and tweets that he put out and all that sort of thing over the years back in, back in 2020 when he was a MAGA guy. Israel has been at war with us since 1979. When are we going to wake up? Now he's a, there's no imminent threat. Why would we go to war with Iran?

[B]

Oh, Iran has been at war with us since.

[A]

What did I say?

[B]

Israel. I did. Well, it's not what that was confusing. I don't know why I said that

[A]

because that's not what it says here. Iran.

[B]

You're working with Tucker Carlson now.

[A]

Iran has been at war with us since 1979. Okay, now you're, what was the reason for going to war with Iran? They're not doing anything to us.

[B]

All right?

[A]

Shut up. Go away.

[B]

Much of the criticism of Operation Epic Fury comes from the likes of the Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, the Israel obsessed podcaster Tucker Carlson, and Megyn Kelly, who's lost her mind and the conspiracy but

[A]

bought a new car probably.

[B]

Oh, bought, bought like a brand of car if you were bought Ford with the money they're making.

[A]

Yeah, if you weren't listening a couple of weeks ago when Joe went through the economics of Tucker and Candace and some of the people and how, how many viewers or listeners they have, they're printing money.

[B]

So you've got a survey from the Vandenberg Coalition, which is a nonpartisan group which undeniably supports robust foreign policy. But they polled 1232 self described Trump voters between March 3rd and 5th after the hostilities had begun and the first American casualties were known. These numbers could have changed in the interim, but it's a pretty useful snapshot. Blah, blah, blah. Of the sample, roughly 34% are self identified MAGA Trump conservatives. About a third, 30% call themselves moderate Republicans, 24% traditional conservatives, 5% libertarians, and 7% other. So it's a pretty good sampling of Trump voters. First survey asked about approval Mr. Trump's decision to authorize military action against Iran for the goals of 1, preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, 2 destroying Iran's missile arsenal and production sites, and 3, degrading Iran's terrorist proxy networks and 4 annihilating the Iranian naval threat. Approval was 84% among all respondents. It was 94% among self described MAGA conservatives, 84% among traditional conservatives, 80% among moderates, and 74% among so called libertarians. Poll asked if Trump voters felt that eliminating nearly 50 of Iran's terrorist leaders, many of whom are responsible for American deaths in the past, had made the US safe or less safe, respondents broke 69% safer to 16% less safe. Among MAGA conservatives, 83% said safer trad conservatives 68 moderate 66 libertarians 50% you know, this issues polling is incredibly easily manipulated as we've discussed many, many times. But if all it takes to quote unquote manipulate it is remind people or inform them of the rationale for doing something

[A]

that's not much manipulation, right?

[B]

Am I in favor of my wife getting stabbed by a needle?

[A]

No.

[B]

A needle that has, you know, antiviral medicine that will help her get over the flu more quickly. Yes. So who knows? We'll have to see Flip flop. Oh, I'm told that we will not go into a recession because of this war unless oil reaches $138 a barrel and stays there for several weeks.

[A]

138 is the magic number for some reason. Okay, that's worth keeping our eye on.

[B]

I think it's 1 15ish or something today. That's your Brent crude, Jack, which is your bent, your benchmark.

[A]

As you know, I am so glad that I bought all those barrels of crude oil last winter and I've got them in my garage.

[B]

Oh my God. No, you got to keep them refrigerated, don't you?

[A]

I just have them sitting in the corner of the garage.

[B]

That's not a fire.

[A]

I plan to refine them sometime when I get around to it.

[B]

I chat GPT. How do you refine crude oil? And it was kind of complicated so I put it aside for now. But I'll get to it this weekend. Be a little nervous if I was your neighbor when you go to refine those things.

[A]

Probably gonna be smelly too. What's all that? Black. Can't help but notice all that black smoke pouring out of your house. Now I'm refining some Brent crude oil. I bought it at $60 a barrel, so I made a killing.

[B]

Yeah, let's see. I'm going through the the cutter, the oil field or the liquefied national gas facilities.

[A]

I got about 85 barrels. My garage is full, couple of spare bedrooms. I have to walk around them to get into bed myself. Got one in the shower.

[B]

That flame you have over your garage to burn off the gas, it's keeping the kids up at night. Any chance you could, I don't know, put a shade on that or something? Then you got. Kuwait's National Petroleum Company reported two refineries were targeted by drones. Saudi's Ministry of Defense said it was assessing damage after a drone strike at one of their big refineries.

[A]

Well, again, in case you're not paying attention, yesterday was the biggest escalation of the war since it started as. And the question is. So is it on? Is. Is attacking the oil fields, the gas fields now part of the deal? We just have all decided that. And that's going to continue going forward. Or not.

[B]

Or do all sides say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this probably isn't something that should happen. The problem is you've got a caged beast. The IRGC leadership, they are a desperate animal backed into a corner. God knows what they'll do.

[A]

But if it's, you know, we got to take out their infrastructure to get them to fall. We thought they. We. We thought we could get them to fall without that, but now we're gonna. That's one of the. I'm gonna get to this next hour, but one of the proposals being bandied about, apparently the White House is. Is taking Carg island one way or the other, either destroying it or somehow taking it by force to completely eliminate Iran's ability to have any control over that. That's where they. That's where their whole oil industry comes out of. Wow. So we'll be at a different phase in the war then. And Iran will retaliate the way they did yesterday, striking the world's largest natural gas field right there in Qatar, which might bring the Arabs into the war, as we said. That could happen today. That'll be exciting.

[B]

Yeah. Indeed. And I find myself wondering, all right, who's the leadership who's escalating and calling for the strikes and running things in Iran right now? And where are they? Which reminds me of. You referenced this yesterday, but I was digging into all the various places, people and places that had been targeted by the Israelis, allegedly. And it's probably true. And how there's just nowhere they can hide.

[A]

Well, the gay Ayatollah. So Weird Beard junior There was a report on Fox that they said they couldn't verify, but they did have a reporter say that he is footless, anesthetized. Foot loose, you say? Not footloose. Footless. And got blown off. He's under enough anesthesia to. Because of the pain and he's in a bad shape that he doesn't even know he's the supreme leader at this point.

[B]

And he's in.

[A]

And he's in Russia. Russia got him out of there. Sent some planes and got him out of there. That's only being reported by one place on Fox and they haven't verified it, but that might be. They might have had to get him out of there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's probably your only hope of staying alive.

[B]

Well, right, right.

[A]

And with the thinking that they could calm it down a little, then he comes back. That probably is. Probably is a pretty good plan. Of course, if Russia is hiding him, I don't know where that puts things between us and Russia. I guess we'll probably pretend it didn't happen.

[B]

Yeah. Right.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

I normally have some sense of where things are going.

[A]

I know.

[B]

Wide open.

[A]

So what I was talking about earlier, I just have this feeling like this is. It might be on the verge of spinning completely out of control. And who the hell knows where it's going? Well, right.

[B]

What's. Well, see, this gets back to World War II. I was gonna. Or World War I, rather. I was gonna ask what are the boundaries of how far it can spin out of control. But that's the point. You think you know them.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then all of a sudden, for reasons unforeseen, you know. Right.

[A]

Oh, we got mailbag on the way and lots of stuff to talk about. Stay here, Armstrong.

[B]

And.

[A]

Waiting for the games to kick off. 9 Eastern. I think the game start today. 64 for March Madness. Gambling. All becoming gambling addicts. Very, very nice.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

I didn't watch one second of college basketball you this year. That's why I think this is the year I'm going to do very, very

[B]

well judging by what I've observed through the years. You're right. Here's your freedom loving quote of the day, continuing our series about war. You got to quote old song two, don't you? The art, baby. It's like the art of the deal. But with war. Many people say it's the best book about war. Victorious warriors win first and then go to war. While defeated warriors go to war first, then seek to win. His whole thing was preparation. Yeah. Knowing your enemy, understanding your goals. Mailback. I have set aside several emails on the Cesar Chavez thing because I think they would take too long and. And we need to devote a little bit of time to that. What's going on? Why now? Let's see. Oh, I Love this from Zabo. Oh, drop us a Note [e-mail] Regarding Punch the Monkey and his girlfriend Momo. This is a classic scenario of a rescue fantasy or sometimes referred to as the savior complex. In psychological terms, it's when someone often a woman, believes she can fix or save a man, especially if he is struggling with issues like trauma. Momo, while the urge to help is often well intentioned, believing she can with love repair the brokenness of her mate. Many times this turns out badly.

[A]

This works both ways, of course.

[B]

Of course it does. Another dynamic is that Momo is a much older woman than Punch the Monkey. Whether she has true motherly love for the battered Punch or she just wants to groom him to be her young boy toy, only time will tell.

[A]

Man, if you haven't seen the videos away the way Punch the Monkey got treated by his group before, he was off in the corner alone and was handed a doll to play with. It's brutal. The animal kingdom is brutal.

[B]

Mother Nature is a cruel biatch indeed. Yes. Final, final thought from Zabo here. It's possible she will eventually dump poor Punch for another young snow monkey.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Okay. What happened? Let's see. Do we have time for this? Yeah, I guess so. On the topic of Joe Kentucky, JT and Livermore sends along an article about the interview with Tucker which you saw a good chunk of. I guess. I'm torn between two pictures of what this guy's deal is. One, a simple anti Semite or two, a guy that thinks his expertise in one area makes him a genius in every area. Either way it is. Corey appears to be one of those morons who doesn't realize he's a moron. In fact, he appears to be a megalomaniac. He actually seems butthurt that his isolationist anti Semitic advice wasn't sought out before the Iran war.

[A]

I don't, I don't know. He could be an anti Semite, but I don't know that that's it. He's been so all over the place over the years. I think he's just a half a grifter. Wants to be with the cool kids. Half a nut job.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. There's more to this. Maybe we'll follow up a little bit later. Paolo writes, guys, don't we have to assume that going after Iran's leadership will compromise their ability to make sound decisions? They're already doing stuff that seems likely not even to be in their own best interests. Usually taking down regimes are replaced with worse leaders before the dust settles. What if it happens while the fight is in progress? Who knows what desperate ill advised stuff they might do. Glad they don't have nukes yet I hope. No they don't. Absolutely do not. Let's see flip past this one.

[A]

Is it going to take boots on the ground to grab that plutonium wherever it is?

[B]

Excellent point. Yeah, that's one of two big question marks looming over the current battle that we'll get to next hour if we can. Let's see somebody commenting on the junkies getting $5 per signature for a rigged up cowl unicornia election. Ferg in Chattanooga says in Seattle $5 gets you five Fenny tablets, not coffee. Yes, fentanyl is only a buck a hit. Jack, you were mentioning that five bucks. What's that? It can barely get you a cup of coffee.

[A]

Fentanyl so cheap now get you high for three days.

[B]

Wow, that's unbelievable.

[A]

That is.

[B]

Finally this congratulations to the US for hitting $39 trillion in debt, writes Just Steve. And a path toward 50 trillion by the end of Trump's second term. We earned it anyway. Owen2 yeah, the world's most predictable disaster.

[A]

What plans are they bandying about in the White House? Among other things to come. If you miss a segment, get the

[B]

podcast Armstrong and Gettysburg.

[A]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.