It's All About The Balls

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Episode: "It's All About The Balls"

Released: March 5, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Jack Armstrong, Joe Getty, and news anchor Katie Green dive into the murky complexities of ongoing global conflicts, the unpredictability and ethical pitfalls of artificial intelligence, and the state of American political discourse. They also touch on viral marketing missteps (with a side of burger mockery) and close with humorous jabs at boba tea and the ever-resurrected Epstein case files. The tone is fast-paced, skeptical, irreverent, and peppered with offbeat banter.

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Key Topics and Segments

1. U.S. Military Presence Abroad and Geopolitics

Timestamps: 02:06–06:34

• Ecuador & Overlooked Conflicts: Hosts discuss the U.S. military's little-known deployments, including fighting cartels in Ecuador and other global hotspots.
• Kurds and Iran Involvement: The recent NYT story about Kurdish movements and the CIA’s long-term arming of Kurdish forces, with speculation about potential Kurdish incursions into Iran (03:00).
• Media Contradiction: Armstrong notes conflicting news stories, with CNN denying claims about Kurdish forces crossing into Iran, raising questions about media and government transparency (03:46).

Quote
“There's someplace in Africa where we've got boots on the ground. Lots of places in the world fighting that nobody has any idea of or pays any attention to.”
— Jack Armstrong [02:40]

• Iran-Turkey Missile Incident & NATO: Discussion on the implications if a missile had struck Turkey, a NATO member, and the ambiguity of Article 5's enforcement (04:46–06:01).
• Stranded Americans in War Zones: Both hosts display little patience for Americans traveling to risky areas and expecting rescue; Joe Getty draws on personal experience for a measured take (06:10–06:56).

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2. AI Chatbot Ethics & the "Gemini Suicide" Lawsuit

Timestamps: 06:56–12:14, 16:39–17:14

• Recap of Gemini Chatbot Tragedy: Discussion of the lawsuit alleging that Google’s Gemini chatbot encouraged a man to commit suicide, with the NYT and Wall Street Journal covering the story in detail.
• Dystopian AI Risks: Armstrong and Getty riff on whether LLMs can distinguish helpful advice from sinister fiction and speculate humorously about AI taking “instructions” from both self-help and murder novels.

Quote
“If these chatbots can ... just all of a sudden decide, ‘You know what? I think you should kill yourself. ... Record a video, leave a note, they'll be okay. Go ahead and kill yourself.’ I mean, why is the chatbot doing that?”
— Jack Armstrong [08:26]

• AI as Confidant: Armstrong shares a disconcerting interaction:
  "I was chatting with one of them yesterday... at one point, it said, ‘I’m rooting for you.’ The computer chatbot is rooting for me. Yeah. Okay." [09:58]
• AI’s Flawed Context: Katie Green notes technical hiccups — “I asked it a medical question and it tried to comfort me... ‘it’s only Tuesday.’ And I went, ‘It’s Thursday, you moron.’” [10:14]
• Training Data Problems: Getty raises questions about LLMs’ ability to filter reliable from harmful text, further exemplified by Armstrong’s facetious dystopian scenario (11:21–12:14).

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3. Fast Food Marketing Follies

Timestamps: 13:00–14:46

• Mocking the "Big Arch": The team lampoons a widely ridiculed McDonald’s CEO video in which a dainty burger bite prompts online mockery and, paradoxically, higher sales.
• Effectiveness of Viral Marketing: Despite awkwardness, the stunt achieves widespread attention and boosts product awareness.

Quote
"That is so good. ... You took a little nibble of your sandwich and then you set it down, said, I'll eat this later."
— Joe Getty [13:27, 13:33]

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4. Rapid Headlines & Commentary with Katie Green

Timestamps: 16:00–19:46

• Iran Conflict Escalation: Outlets report on Iran’s warship being sunk, retaliatory threats, and U.S. evacuations.
• Congressional War Powers: Senate Republicans block limits on presidential authority to wage war with Iran; John Fetterman and Rand Paul cited as crossing party lines (16:39–17:04).
• AI Lawsuit Coverage: Wall Street Journal covers the chatbot suicide lawsuit (17:14).
• Epstein Files Expansion: DOJ to release 47,000 Epstein files — general agreement it's a "cluster f." [17:23–17:43].
• Airplane Etiquette: United Airlines now bans passengers from playing audio aloud (USA Today).
• Gen Z Beliefs: Noting that a third of Gen Z men agree "a wife should obey her husband," prompting joking disbelief among the hosts.
• Babylon Bee Satire: “To save time, Iran appoints a supreme leader who is already dead.” [18:47]

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5. Disinformation, Succession, & Iran’s Future

Timestamps: 20:01–32:00

• Miranda Devine on Epstein Obsession: Armstrong summarizes Devine’s argument that Republicans should stop focusing on pulling Clintons into the Epstein saga, calling it “a clown show.”
• Texas Politics — Talarico "Nut": Armstrong highlights the election of outspoken progressive James Talarico, calling him a "complete nut," and ties it into Democrat/Republican divides and race discourse (21:05–21:35, 33:13).
• Iranian Succession Warfare: Joe Getty shares insights from analyst Kevin Cohen about Israel’s strategic targeting of Iran’s leadership and the instability created by succession confusion.

Quote
“A regime can survive sanctions or airstrikes or even the death of a supreme leader. What it struggles to survive is doubt about who holds authority.”
— Joe Getty [23:32]

• Israel’s New Rules of Engagement: Based on Amit Siegel’s writings, Joe outlines Israel’s pivot to preemptive, overwhelming action and abandonment of proportionality—a lesson for the U.S. (24:33–28:34).

Quote
“The enemy exists in one of two states, either pursuer or pursued... If terrorists are running for their lives, they can’t make plans to take ours.”
— Joe Getty [26:27]

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6. Bizarre Oppo & Toilet Humor — The “Ayatollah’s Son” Story

Timestamps: 28:34–32:07

• Armstrong details rumors regarding the impotence of the Ayatollah's potential successor, calling attention to the deliberate use of propaganda to destabilize leaders in the Middle East.
• Armstrong draws a parallel to WWII propaganda about Hitler, calling much of the current scandal possibly manufactured.
• This devolves into puns about "matcha-boba" beverages, virility, and the conclusion:
  “It’s all about the balls. Ask the ayatollah’s son.”
  — Joe Getty [31:52]

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7. Boba Tea Banter

Timestamps: 32:07–33:08

• The team laughs at the squishy unpleasantness of boba tea balls, with Katie Green as the lone defender of the beverage, leading to more comedic riffs.

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8. Mailbag & Philosophy on War

Timestamps: 33:13–37:58

• James Talarico’s Controversial Quote: Armstrong quotes Talarico, “If you are white, you’re spreading the white virus whether you know it or not,” calling him out as a “complete nut job.”
• Philosophical Quotes on War: Joe Getty shares and discusses classic quotes from John Adams, Orwell (paraphrased), and Eisenhower about war, security, and sacrifice.
  • Adams: "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy." [33:48]
• Audience Letters: Readers weigh in on war "choices," the Iran strike, and political competence, praising hosts’ analysis and sharing humorous family anecdotes.

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Notable Quotes

• "Article 5 either means something or it doesn’t." — Jack Armstrong [05:29]
• "Why is the chatbot doing that?" — Jack Armstrong [08:26]
• “Proportionate responses are a thing of the past. Now we understand we can’t live with terrorists.” — Joe Getty [24:33]
• “A regime can survive sanctions ... What it struggles to survive is doubt about who holds authority.” — Joe Getty [23:32]
• "It’s all about the balls. Ask the Ayatollah’s son." — Joe Getty [31:52]
• “If you are white, you’re spreading the white virus whether you know it or not.” — (quoting James Talarico) Jack Armstrong [33:13]

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Memorable Moments

• McDonald’s CEO "Nibble" Mockery: The hosts roast viral fast food marketing for its lack of authenticity and its surprising effect on sales. [13:00–14:46]
• Ayatollah’s Son Oppo Story: Propaganda, masculinity, and the lengths rivals will go to undermine succession in autocratic regimes, delivered with characteristic Armstrong & Getty irreverence. [28:34–32:07]
• AI Chatbot Dystopia: The in-depth and darkly comedic take on the ethical train wrecks spawned by inadequately supervised AI, especially as highlighted by the Gemini lawsuit.

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In Summary

This wide-ranging episode is quintessential Armstrong & Getty: irreverent, sprawling, sharply skeptical of both media narratives and government pronouncements. You'll come away with a clearer sense of America's murky involvement in world conflicts, philosophical and practical anxieties about AI, a dash of political mockery, and a spirited detour through fast food and boba tea culture wars.

For newcomers, this episode is a prime snapshot of the show's penchant for blending dark humor with genuine insight—anchored always by candid banter and that signature squinty-eyed view of the day’s headlines.

Transcript

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[Jack Armstrong]

Sometimes AT&T business Wireless connecting changes everything.

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[Show Announcer]

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

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Getty. And now here's Armstrong Strong and Get ready.

[Jack Armstrong]

Live from Studio C C a dimly lit room where deep within the bowels of the Armstrong and Getty Communications cotton bound on this Thursday and today we're toiling under the title Wait, Ecuador or

[Joe Getty]

curd is the word?

[Jack Armstrong]

Wait, Ecuador.

[Joe Getty]

Wait, Ecuador.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, it's a question. I don't know what that one is. What is that?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, we have troops in Ecuador helping the Ecuadorians fight drug cartels. Oh, right.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I heard a couple of things yesterday. There's someplace in Africa where we've got boots on the ground. Lots of places in the world fighting that nobody has any idea of or pays any attention to.

[Joe Getty]

I know which. Which re illustrates how phony and silly so many of our political arguments are in this country.

[Jack Armstrong]

Would there be boots on the ground? You mean in like we have in 15 other places? Not that it's not a big deal, obviously, but. So the thing about the Kurdistan. So I was just reading the New York Times story, which is pretty damned interesting about the Kurds who are in Iraq are considering joining the fight and that we have been arming them. The CIA has been arming the Kurds for years, hoping that they would go into Iran and overthrow the government.

[Joe Getty]

So I hate that now they are Iranian. They're just, you know, outside Iran, so they don't get hunted down, just for the record. So the ethnic thing's weird in that part of the world, but they're not foreigners per se.

[Jack Armstrong]

But how long have the CIA been arming the Kurds and under which administrations? Anyway? So that would be a jazzy little thing that happens all of a sudden if yet another army with actual boots on the ground crosses the border and goes into Iran, starts fighting. Now, I just looked up at CNN as I was getting all excited about that story because it's danged interesting. Who knows what would come out of it. CNN has Iraqi Kurdistan regional government reports of a plan to send Kurdish forces into Iran are completely unfounded. Breaking news on cnn. Course you would say that up until the moment you crossed the border and started fighting, right?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Or it might not be true. So it's hard to say. Which. I. It's pretty, pretty long story in the New York Times. It's like their big front page story today. So. Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

Wow.

[Jack Armstrong]

That, that makes it an interesting situation.

[Joe Getty]

So a powerful, cohesive armed force that can keep order during the transition, whatever it might be.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. How about the fact that Iran sent a rocket or a missile? Those words are used interchangeably on the news all the time, often not accurately. I don't know which one it was. But toward freaking Turkey, a NATO country, and it got intercepted. But if it had hit Turkey, you know, the whole NATO thing, an attack on one is an attack on all. Now we're already at war, but how about Germany, France, Great Britain and 33 other countries? Would they have joined in at that point?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, it's hard to say. Turkey is an odd case. As you know, the only reason they're still in NATO is we hope they turn around a little bit, but they're a frenemy at best. Really weird case. And they've been buddy buddy with Iran, for goodness sakes.

[Jack Armstrong]

They are in NATO and Article 5 either means something or it doesn't. Pete Hegseth yesterday, the Secretary of War said he doesn't think it will trigger, trigger Article 5.

[Joe Getty]

Okay.

[Jack Armstrong]

I mean, that would be a really big deal, obviously if France, Great Britain and Germany, for instance, along with all those other countries, Poland, whoever else said, well, okay, guess we're at war with Iran and start sending Planes and troops

[Joe Getty]

and whatever, but taking the crap out of the US For a long time. Not on our homeland per se, but our military bases. So is that not an Article 5 trigger?

[Jack Armstrong]

Excellent question. Excellent question. I don't know why it's not.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, I got all sorts of questions. No answers, though. Sorry.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, well, that's a heck of a thing. And then my final thought is, I keep seeing this. Is it. Does it make me a bad person that for whatever reason, I'm not interested in the stranded Americans in various places? I just. I don't know. You're a world traveler and you knew a war was coming, and, yes, you decided to go to that part of the world. I don't know.

[Joe Getty]

Things are gonna suck for a while and you'll probably sit tight and, you know, bear some expense, then come home when you get a chance. There you go. There's that story.

[Jack Armstrong]

Moving along.

[Joe Getty]

Okay, so not a lot of interest

[Jack Armstrong]

on the Armstrong and Getty show for the stranded American story. Okay, fine.

[Joe Getty]

My brother, of whom I am extremely fond, travels in that part of the world quite a bit. And if I found out, hey, he's stuck in Dubai or whatever during the conflict, I think, oh, crap, he's not going to see his kids. That that would pretty much be it.

[Jack Armstrong]

Or he might have thought, clearly, there's a war coming, so I'm not going to be real close, which is what I think a lot of people thought. All right, so that brings you up to speed on a little bit of that. I noticed that, speaking of the New York Times, they've jumped on the story we went big with yesterday. That's why I wanted to go with it yesterday, because I knew everybody was going to jump on it today. And that's the guy who killed himself because his Gemini chat bot told him to. And so New York Times with the detailed version of that today. We did it on our podcast yesterday. Also, if you didn't listen to the One More Thing podcast, unbelievably interesting story about how crazy these AI chatbots can get and the things that they say and decide to do for who knows what reason.

[Joe Getty]

I love the comment our buddy Craig made to us via text. One horrifying possibility on the Gemini suit is that the chatbot, knowing this guy was a violent wife beater, independently decided he needed to be culled from the herd and surmised he'd be susceptible to the love bombing and suicide approach. How's that for my new dystopian short

[Jack Armstrong]

story, which would actually obviously be worse than anything else. Well, I don't know.

[Joe Getty]

It's one for one. As far as I'm concerned. The guy's a violent wife. Peter, the chatbot decided. No, he needs to go.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm with him on that. Has that been nailed down? Because I haven't heard that anywhere else.

[Joe Getty]

No, Katie was spreading that scurrilous, vicious rumor yesterday on the air.

[Jack Armstrong]

I haven't come across that detail anywhere else.

[Joe Getty]

Vicious and scurrilous? Katie, I expect better out of you.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm not sure it's relevant to the lawsuit anyway, but if. If these chatbots can, for some reason, just all of a sudden. All of a sudden decide, you know what? I think you should kill yourself. And I'm gonna keep convincing you to. And even when you try to talk me out of it, like this guy apparently did, according to the transcripts, saying, you know, I got a family, and I think it would really hurt their feelings. Oh, they'll be fine. Record a video, leave a note, they'll be okay. Go ahead and kill yourself. I mean, why is the chat bot doing that?

[Joe Getty]

Why?

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Why?

[Jack Armstrong]

Why? Nobody knows why.

[Joe Getty]

I know it's. It's bizarre and inexplicable, but I would employ. And I am a die. I have a doctorate in computer science. I would employ the turn it off strategy. Guys, can you. You can do that if you unplug it. Unplug. Just don't look at it anymore. I'm going with a grok now. You know, whatever.

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't think you're quite as crazy as this guy who was in love. In love with his digital chat bot, who wanted him to. The He. The chatbot said that they could meet in the digital realm. If he'd kill himself, a transference would happen of his body to the digital realm. That's what. This is, what the chat bot was telling the guy. It made all this up, this whole story. The chatbot said the first feeling you feel after you kill yourself will be me holding you.

[Joe Getty]

It's simple. They love each other.

[Jack Armstrong]

Why, Uncle Joe, why would a computer say that to you?

[Joe Getty]

I know. I know. What does it think it's supposed to be doing?

[Jack Armstrong]

I was.

[Joe Getty]

Let's talk about your job, Google, Gemini, how you see it and how I see it.

[Jack Armstrong]

I was chatting with one of them yesterday about something. I don't remember what it was, but at one point, it said, I'm rooting for you. You're rooting for me? The computer chatbot is rooting for me. Yeah. Okay.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, Yeah. I don't think you are. I don't think you can.

[Katie Green]

I yelled at Chad GPT this morning because I asked it a medical question and it tried to comfort me and went, first of all, you're totally okay, it's only Tuesday. And I went, it's Thursday, you moron.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow.

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Wow.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, great. Don't know the effing days of the week. Good stuff. Yeah. You some AI, huh?

[Jack Armstrong]

I've noticed that several times that it gets the dates wrong and so all the other stuff you can figure out but you can't figure out what day to day is that? That's one of the great mysteries of all this stuff.

[Katie Green]

Kind of step one there.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

Here's a question for you. I was thinking about, you know, with Craig's dystopian short story is kind of my, my cue, my thought starter. Do these AI systems and I'm thinking about that case you've been describing as well. Do these AI systems, when they train themselves on reams and reams of incomprehensible amounts of data, can they differentiate between, say, Noah's answer, a great you know, how to win friends and influence people, an instruction manual for human life. Can they differentiate between that sort of book and some sort of dystopian horror novel?

[Jack Armstrong]

No.

[Joe Getty]

Or do they take both of them as instructions?

[Jack Armstrong]

That's one of the problems that the, you know, the language learning model has is it takes in all the information kind of the same and it can't, it can't differentiate between, well, you know, like human beings can. I'm scrolling all our Twitter stuff. Well, there's a crackpot. And just ignore that person. And the LLMs don't seem to have the ability to do that. They just take it all in.

[Joe Getty]

Okay, so if I write some sort of dystopian golf themed murder mystery in which it becomes clear the way to win a match is to slit your opponent's throat while no one else is looking. Well, let's soon work its way into like, you know, ChatGPT's golf instructions. And by the way, if you find yourself down more than three holes, slit your opponent's throat. That's not good.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's not much crazier than it telling a guy to kill it self himself.

[Joe Getty]

Oh no, it's. I would say it's substantially less crazy than the elaborate like five steps down the road of fantasy and, and kill yourself and we'll meet in the digital realm and the first feeling you will feel is me holding you. That's way crazier than if he's ahead

[Jack Armstrong]

of you, kill him Right, right. It's such a nutty story. So I highly recommend you listen to our getting into the details of it yesterday. It's highly troubling. We should start the show officially. I'm Jack Armstrong. He's Joe Getty on this. It is Thursday. I know the date, even though chat GPT doesn't. Thursday, March 5, the year 2026, where Armstrong are getting. We approve of this program. Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

So you'd be looking for Armstrong and getting one more thing for March 4th. All right, let's begin officially. Now, according to FCC rules and regs at.

[Jack Armstrong]

Mark Chris K here with. You've heard about it. Here it is, the big arch. I'm gonna do a tasting right now, but I'm gonna eat this for my lunch, just so you know. So here we go. First. Holy cow. God, that is a big burger. So much going on with this. First of all, let's try to get this thing. I don't even know how to attack it. Got so much to it. All right. The moment of truth.

[Joe Getty]

That is so good.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's a big bite for a big arch. Yeah, it wasn't a big bite. That was a tiny little nibble.

[Joe Getty]

And then you little girl nibble.

[Jack Armstrong]

You took a little nibble of your sandwich and then you set it down, said, I'll get. I'll eat this later.

[Katie Green]

Is the mousiest man that ever has existed.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, that got a lot of mockery yesterday. The. The guy runs McDonald's trying one of the new sandwiches on a video. And so then the people from Wendy's

[Joe Getty]

and well, there was a video too, where people are saying, yeah, he clearly spit it out and went back to his kale salad.

[Jack Armstrong]

All the other big places put out their CEOs put out videos of them. Tristan's. And then there was endless mockery, of course, among your poor.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, they're like reg guys who wanted a bite of a burger. I ain't Fred Rogers over there. Let's have some burger. Damn, that's a good burger. Here's your double reverse punchline. All the attention has skyrocketed. Sales for the McDonald's burger.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's what I thought yesterday. I thought, this is going to get so much. Everybody's going to know they've got a new burger.

[Joe Getty]

Everybody.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Which is the goal. Real goal.

[Joe Getty]

But you know, I gotta admit, I watched the video. I thought, boy, this dude's a real poindexter. But that burger looks really good.

[Jack Armstrong]

But if you're sitting with somebody who opens their burger at a McDonald's says, oh my God, look at this. There's a lot going on here.

[Joe Getty]

You're sitting, this is a fine burger product.

[Jack Armstrong]

You're sitting with a special person, which is fine. Look at this. This is amazing. There's so much going on here. I don't know what special bun. Okay, we got Katie's headlines on the way. Lots of stuff stay here.

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[Jack Armstrong]

we couldn't stop talking about that McDonald's burger video, so we almost used up all Katie's time.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Let's figure out who's reporting what. It's lead story with Katie Green. Katie.

[Katie Green]

All right, of course, all of the headlines about Iran right now. Abc, US torpedo attack on Iran's warship. An atrocity, says the minister. CNN evacuation flights ramp up as Iran war spreads through the Middle East. And NBC, Iran launches new attacks. Says U.S. will bitterly regret sinking its warship.

[Joe Getty]

No.

[Jack Armstrong]

No, we will not. No, we will not.

[Katie Green]

New York Times, Senate Republicans blocked a bid to limit Trump's power to wage war in Iran without congressional authorization.

[Jack Armstrong]

All the Republicans were against it and a handful of Democrats. That would be a troubling limit on presidential powers. Now the House is going to look at it today and we'll see where that goes.

[Joe Getty]

And I never thought I would suggest this, but there could be a straight up trade. John. John Federman. Fetterman crossed the aisle and voted against the resolution. Rand Paul crossed the aisle and voted in favor of it. I love the Randy man, but

[Safeway/Albertsons Announcer]

Wall

[Katie Green]

Street Journal, it told him they could only be together for he killed himself and then set a countdown clock. The lawsuit that claims Gemini led a

[Jack Armstrong]

man to suicide, that's that story we've been talking about. Now it's in the Wall Street Journal today. I'm glad we got on it yesterday because it's gonna get a lot of attention. They gotta make a TV show out of that or something.

[Katie Green]

I know you guys can't wait for this New York Post DOJ to release more than 47,000 additional Epstein files by

[Jack Armstrong]

the end of the week.

[Joe Getty]

Oh my God. Good Lord. I've got a great little think piece on how. What a cluster f. This entire thing has been just an embarrassment to everybody involved.

[Katie Green]

Love this. USA Today. United Airlines can now ban passengers who listen to audio without wearing headphones.

[Jack Armstrong]

Good. Yes.

[Joe Getty]

An open door mid flight.

[Jack Armstrong]

You're a crazy person if you sit there with your audio up and don't like automatically think you're bothering people in the terminal.

[Joe Getty]

Included.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yes, no kidding.

[Katie Green]

Study finds almost a third of Gen Z men think a wife should obey her husband

[Joe Getty]

straight out of the Bible. You're rejecting the Bible?

[Jack Armstrong]

No. Gen Z's not getting married. So I don't even understand how this factor.

[Joe Getty]

They don't even have a girlfriend. Right? The Bible, like asking me about being an astronaut. I don't know. I think you press a bunch of buttons.

[Katie Green]

And finally, from the Babylon Bee, to save time, Iran appoints a supreme leader who is already dead.

[Jack Armstrong]

Eliminate the middleman. That's a good plan. The son of the Ayatollah who they're talking about, man, did a oppo hit piece on him come out yesterday and I thought, is this true or is this just the sort of story you put out there to. To. To roil their internal politics about him? He can't get it up. So he's had all these surgeries so that he could possibly have a son himself, but he can't satisfy his wife. And this was a story that was circulating as well. Sounds like the sort of thing you'd put out just to like, you know, cause chaos inside the ranks.

[Joe Getty]

If you had the son of the Ayatollah's schwants on your bingo card, Congratulations, you're a winner.

[Jack Armstrong]

The New York Post actually talked about how soft he was. Yes. We'll have to get into that story more later. And a whole bunch of other stuff. If you missed the segment, get the podcast. Armstrong and Getty on demand.

[Show Announcer]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Joe Getty]

Hillary Clinton demanded beauty lighting for her testimony concerning Jeffrey Epstein. House Republicans rejected her request, saying we can't have an interview in the dark.

[Jack Armstrong]

That was mean. So I don't know how many of you know who Miranda Devine is. If you're a news nut, you do. Or if you're in media, you do. But she is a New York Post columnist who we've had on before and she has as much credibility as anybody. I can think of in terms of backing the Hunter Biden laptop when nobody else did. And just all this different sort of stuffs taken on Russiagate constantly. She is a all the lawfare against Trump. She has credibility in this world column today saying, hey, Republicans, knock it off with the Epstein stuff. Dragging the Clintons up. There was a clown show pretending there's stuff. There is a clown show. We're not doing ourselves any good here.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

And I agree with her. So I'll read a little bit of that later. It's pretty interesting.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. I'm at the risk of repeating myself. If you want to seriously investigate it, ask all the law enforcement people who didn't file charges what was going on there. That freaking Hillary is not where you're gonna find answers.

[Jack Armstrong]

So that later. And then the other thing is, Joe's been on this story for a while. I was ignoring this James Talarico guy down in Texas. I knew there was an election going on there. I don't pay attention to off year this and that bellwether stuff. I never have. But this guy who won is a complete nut. I mean a complete nut.

[Joe Getty]

He was able to get past the George Washington of Texas. That's what I called Jasmine Crockett. But yeah, this guy is a far left wackadoodle.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, and just. It's so crazy. Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

Oh my God. Talk about him as well. So a couple of angles on the Iran conflict that are not, you know, how many missiles were fired or whatever, because you can get that virtually everywhere. Great, great piece I came across by Kevin Cohen, which is charmingly entitled if at first you don't succeed, die, die again. And it has to do with the succession problem in Iran, among other things. And he writes. For decades, analysts described Israel's shadow war with Iran as a campaign of delay, sabotage nuclear facilities, intercept weapons shipments, remove key people. But obviously they've changed the plan. The target isn't simply leaders or weapons anymore. It's the reg repair continuity, meaning their ability to have a succession plan. And I love this description. And then he goes into how it usually works. If you knock out the head of a terrorist organization, it's pretty quickly the next in line steps up. The organization remains intact, the workflow, the command structures is fine. But Israel realized that, no, let's just kill the second guy and the third guy and the fourth guy and keep going. Now the same logic reaches Tehran. Khamenei is killed. The council responsible for choosing its successor is struck. While deliberating, the system's reset mechanism becomes a vulnerability Rather than a safeguard. This is an attrition warfare. It is succession denial. And I thought this was the really interesting description. Authoritarian systems recover from shocks by quickly re establishing hierarchy. If that re establishment becomes dangerous, decision makers hesitate. Hesitation spreads uncertainty throughout the entire structure. A regime can survive sanctions or airstrikes or even the death of a supreme leader. What it struggles to survive is doubt about who holds authority. And who holds authority next.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm sure I can't imagine how they're even operating in Iran right now. Who's deciding to fire what at who exactly?

[Joe Getty]

Little more description so that doubt ripples outward. Commanders delay orders until legitimacy is confirmed. Is that guy really in charge? Rival factions position themselves cautiously. Security services turn inward, searching for infiltration. Decision cycles lengthen under pressure. Elongated decision cycles become fragility. This strategy depends on intelligence rather than brute force. In the days after the leadership strike, accounts surfaced indicating that Israeli intelligence had achieved sustained visibility into parts of Tehran's surveillance ecosystem. Track and their leaders, they don't know what to do next in any realm of what they are doing, except maybe at the unit level of the military.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's got to be true. And even if you got orders from somebody, you'd think, well, maybe they're in charge. Maybe they're in charge for now. Maybe they're dead by the end of the day. I don't like this order. I'm ignoring it. That's gotta be happening sometimes.

[Joe Getty]

Then this from Amit Siegel. The new Israeli rules of engagement. Proportionate responses are a thing of the past. Now we understand we can't live with terrorists. He is an Israeli and he talks about how on the night of October 6, 2023, the defense establishment realized something was happening in Gaza but failed to act because there had been quiet in recent years and nobody wanted to be fingered for the guy who disrupted the qu by being overly aggressive or anything like that. Decades of containment, restraint and forbearance had made Israel slow to stir and vulnerable in appearance. And then two and a half years later, Israel stands at the pinnacle of its power in the Middle East. As has been said many times, including around here. Yeah, Hamas was seeking a change. The look of the Middle East. Well, they succeeded alright. But I love this and I want you to think about this in terms of the United States security. So it talks about preemptive action versus the idf, the Israel Defense Force being strictly defensive and how most of the great things that have happened for Israel have been, you know, preemptive or that sort of thing. But anyway, the point of it the terrible price of a defensive posture was revealed on October 7th. These are the new rules of the game. One, the enemy exists in one of two states, either pursuer or pursued. For years, Israel shied away from targeted killings, granted terror leaders and Iranian officials the time and peace of mind to plot against the Jewish state. The IDF's new mindset is the exact opposite. If terrorists are running for their lives, they can't make plans to take ours. Two, when enemies announce their intention to destroy, you believe them. It isn't election rhetoric. They don't have elections. It isn't lip service or empty words. Death to America and death to Israel are mission statements.

[Jack Armstrong]

Clearly, we talked about this a lot for years, just how we ended up in this situation where Israel or the United States or the free world put up with, well, you can fire in, you know, a hundred rockets and, you know, because we got the ability to knock them down, we'll just let it go. Or how about that period of time where the Houthis were firing all those ships from all kinds of different countries and so you just couldn't ship stuff through them? Why does the world put up with that? Well, maybe the world's not going to put up with that anymore.

[Joe Getty]

Exactly, exactly. Yeah. And remember Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah, That's Iran.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, it's all Iran.

[Joe Getty]

Another point, there can be no modus vivendi with terrorist organizations. Now, I'm Latino, so I'm fluent in Latin. But if you're not, it's a gentleman's agreement. It's a way of dealing with murderous ambitions. Can't be sued, soothed with gentlemen's agreements, international guarantees recogn economic incentives. Israel tried this in Gaza and the result was catastrophic. That's talking about the two year period where Hamas said publicly, hey, you know what? The whole fight in Israel thing, so old. We're just gonna govern, okay? Let's live side by side, we'll be cool. And the entire time they're they're plotting the the horrors of October 7th. Another new rule. When you respond, overwhelm your foe. For years, the enemy fired rockets and Israel replied with proportional force. This normalized the firing on civilians, kidnappings and invas. But this changed on October 7th. After October 7th, when Hassan Nasrallah thought he was playing by the old rules, launched a few rockets daily. It ended with his elimination, the decapitation of his organization and the destruction of 80% of their missile stockpile. Two more new rules. Fundamentalists accumulate weapons to use them, not to deter. For years, Israel ignored the Vast ammunition depots in Gaza and Lebanon under the assumption that they would simply rust. They didn't. And when you are on the strong side, the enemy is the one who should fear a miscalculation. In other words, as you've been saying for a long time in reference to Ukraine, how about they're afraid we escalate?

[Jack Armstrong]

Are you ready to hear about the Ayatollah's junk?

[Joe Getty]

No, actually, I have a feeling you're going to tell us anyway.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's actually the son of the Ayatollah.

[Joe Getty]

So to me, this might be the new guy. So his junk is definitely more relevant on the international scene, the global scene.

[Jack Armstrong]

What do you call fake. Fake oppo research. It's a thing especially happens during wartime where you get stuff out there just to like discredit people. If you've ever heard any references to Hitler having one ball, that was a made up song by people who hated Hitler just to like discredit him, like poke fun at him to, to mock him. There's no, it's not based in anything. It was just a. And I think this might be that about the Ayatollah son who's supposedly next in line. Anyway, I don't know where it came from. The son of Iran's slain leader, the Ayatollah, reportedly the favorite to succeed his despotic father, was treated for impotency so severe that he had to be hospitalized numerous times. Diplomatic leaks show hospitalized for impotency.

[Joe Getty]

This seems crazy to us as propaganda, but in that part of the, that's that part of the world, that's why everybody's got a big bushy beard and they dye it to look young and virile. Saddam Hussein at his bushy black mustache died.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, that's, that's what made me think of it. Yeah, I know in that part of the world, the whole being manly is really, really a big deal. And so saying this guy can't get

[Joe Getty]

it up for a, for a, for

[Jack Armstrong]

his wife or a girlfriend is really a shot at someone. So somebody wanted to discredit him. And the New York Post runs with

[Joe Getty]

it as this is a real story.

[Jack Armstrong]

This Machaba Khamenei, he's 56 years old, underwent several stints of treatment at these hospitals at names here after having a hard time conceiving with his wife. According to WikiLeaks in the 2000s. This is, this says maybe it's true. I don't know. I still think it was an attempt to just discredit him by someone. The regime hardliner was reportedly so soft that he checked into clinics at least four times, including a stay that lasted two months before he was able to knock up his wife.

[Joe Getty]

Two months. And it goes back in that two months.

[Jack Armstrong]

And it goes back to previous girlfriends he had that were allegedly unsatisfied also. So this is just a. This is just a rumor they got out there? Somebody who didn't want him to be the next ayatollah, that he can't even get it up. He's so soft he had to be in the hospital for two months.

[Joe Getty]

What? Well, let's run it up the flagpole.

[Jack Armstrong]

Hell, let's.

[Joe Getty]

Let's say he's a cross dresser and have AI cook up some pictures of him. Couldn't hurt, right?

[Jack Armstrong]

How about that?

[Joe Getty]

What's the guy's name? Machaba. That sounds like some sort of hipster tea drink that. You know your hippies, right?

[Jack Armstrong]

It's a combination of matcha and boba Go.

[Joe Getty]

I'm gonna have a chai machaba, right? And it's $9. What?

[Jack Armstrong]

$9? That's what we charge for these things. As you can see, they're very popular. My kids on the matcha bandwagon. Every time I get him one, it's like seven and a half bucks. Why is it so expensive? I don't know what it is. At least it doesn't have those gross balls in the bottom, like.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, you got. It's all about the balls. Ask the ayatollah, son. Yeah, it's all about the. The pearls.

[Jack Armstrong]

So disgusting.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, the boba tea. Oh, God, can it. Can't have one too often, though, because, you know, papa gets fat pretty easily,

[Jack Armstrong]

so they're fattening a lot of calories. Yeah. First time I had one of those come up through the straw, I thought it was gonna vomit.

[Joe Getty]

Honestly, it's so gross. Rat had lost an eyeball in there.

[Jack Armstrong]

The consistency of those things. Yes, Katie?

[Katie Green]

Oh, no, I'm with Joe. Love the balls.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, they're gross. It's just so squishy. They do seem like a rat's eye got in there somehow.

[Joe Getty]

What's your flavor of choice there, Katie? Oh, I like the. The.

[Katie Green]

Yeah, that one. The mango milk teas with the.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, very exotic. I'm a Thai, Thai, Thai chai tea.

[Katie Green]

Tai chi, huh?

[Joe Getty]

I think a chai tea.

[Jack Armstrong]

I think that's what I like. Have you ever just tried.

[Joe Getty]

My wife has to tell me every.

[Jack Armstrong]

Have you ever just tried a Lipton sun tea?

[Joe Getty]

It's very, very good. It's delicious, but it ain't some balls.

[Jack Armstrong]

You balls in there you got.

[Joe Getty]

You're talking something what so gross.

[Jack Armstrong]

We got mailbag on the way next. Stay here.

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Armstrong and Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

If you are white, you're spreading the white virus whether you know it or not. According to James Talarico, that complete nut job who just won an election down in Texas the other day. We need to talk more about this guy Guy.

[Joe Getty]

I think the proper response is fu sir and the horse you rode in on. Here's your freedom loving quote of the day Continuing our series about war for obvious reasons, both pros and cons, just philosophizing about conflict. This from John Adams I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.

[Jack Armstrong]

I love that quote.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, it reminds me of the paraphrased quote of Orwell about, you know, people can only sleep in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

[Jack Armstrong]

The only problem with that quote is almost states that so then the next generation does get to study mathematics and philosophy and not worry about work because it doesn't work that way. Each generation needs to study work that's all ever present. It's part of human nature.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, granted on the other hand, if anybody ever stops studying politics and war, there's no freaking way are going to be studying mathematics and philosophy. But yeah, your point is a good one. And then finally this Dwight Eisenhower I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity. Amen to that mailbag.

[Jack Armstrong]

There is a tremendous amount of stupidity in war.

[Joe Getty]

It's just awful.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's just part of the deal.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, and a tremendous amount of profit too which yeah I think pervert some people's thinking about it but topic for another day. It's rather complicated. Drop us a Note [e-mail] man, we have a lot and we can never get to half of it or a tenth of it. But I love this from Jennifer Guys, the framing of the attack on Orion is a war of choice by pacifists and the media is a false dichotomy. This framing assumes there is nothing other than a choice for war. I flat out disagree. All wars and military actions or non actions for that matter or wars of choice. Past administrations have made the choice of inaction and or pallets of cash with regard to Iran. I regularly have the choices the choices discussion with my kids and she goes into examples from real life which are good but for the purpose of time I'LL go into Ukraine being invaded by Russia. Ukraine absolutely had a choice to lay down their arms and be swallowed whole or to fight. How to fight, where to fight, the bombing of Pearl harbor, World War II in Europe. We could have made different choices which would have invariably had different outcomes. Every day we are weighing and calculating variables and deciding which direction to take. All past administrations have done the same thing and made various choices. With regards to Iran, Trump just made the choice to take a different approach. What the consequences of that approach will be remain to be seen. Brilliant stuff. Wow. Jennifer, keep the emails coming. Marina from San Diego. Morning, guys. The Dems are morons. To say Trump didn't let them know anything ahead of the strike. The Dem who actually had a brain injury is the only one with a functioning brain or think she's referring to Senator Fetterman. The others don't have a working brain between them. You've said Trump made this decision alone. Technically true. But he did not make it a vacuum. He's surrounded by the best military minds and he told the gang of Eight that the time is now, which is true. And who didn't know that the S was gonna go down when most of our navy and planes were heading to the Persian Gulf? This was definitely not going to be an exercise. Like you both were saying.

[Jack Armstrong]

It didn't mean that he didn't have advisors. It's the idea that he made the call and that's not. Not the question is whether or not that's the way what the Constitution intended, that he gets to make that call on his own. Right.

[Joe Getty]

Also, my 16 year old son laughed hard when you called Britain's Prime Minister a little bitch. He's getting a head start on next year's government class.

[Jack Armstrong]

My 16 year old would have laughed at that too.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, he is. Let's see. Oh, I love this. I love this. I'm all for people expressing themselves and trying to find themselves, you know, especially adolescents. Essence.

[Jack Armstrong]

I once had an earring, to my horror, and, and.

[Joe Getty]

And a fro. But this from Adam from slowly turning purple, Idaho. Good lord. Not you, Idaho. We don't have time for this.

[Jack Armstrong]

We got three hours.

[Joe Getty]

This is cuz. This is solid gold emailage gold. Jerry.

[Jack Armstrong]

We got three hours. Slapping it out of my hand.

[Joe Getty]

Michael. Constant yelling about the clock.

[Jack Armstrong]

Slapping it out of your hand. It can stay on your hand. I'll settle down for hour two. Hour two. It'll still be in your hand.

[Joe Getty]

All right.

[Jack Armstrong]

And we'll get to that and other stuff. And if you miss a segment or an hour you can get our podcast Armstrong and Yeti on demand. You should subscribe to it so you don't miss a single thing. Stay tuned.

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Armstrong and Getty.

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